carolene: welcome to FlyerTalk. I fly US Airways out of the DC area and remember thinking about 10 years ago, gee I'll never fly enough to accumulate a free ticket... my goodness, 25,000 miles is a lot! Wrong, you will be suprised at how quickly they can add up with just a little bit of monitoring on your part. Free trips to Australia, Europe and the west coast have proven this to me.

Credit cards (sign up for the bonus miles, wait for the miles to post and then cancel the card, find a new offer and repeat the process), fly promotions (US Airways is giving double miles on all paid flights between now and 5/15... and the miles count towards Preferred status as well), the possibilities are endless and this board is a great way to hear about them!!!

My recent favorite: Sign up for a Diners Club card, pay $80 annual fee, get 20,000 Diners Club points. Convert 17,000 of the Diners Club points for a $100 gift certificate to a favorite restaurant (Ruths Chris Staekhouse, in my case). Looks like I'm ahead by $20 right? Enjoy your dinner. Then convert the remaining Diners Club points to US Airways miles at the 2 for 1 ratio and add 1,500 miles to my Dividend Miles account. Get the picture...

Just don't attend any FlyerTalk gatherings or you'll be hooked