I'm sorry that this is so overdue. I have been meaning to do this for quite awhile, but kept hoping for a quiet moment that I now suspect will never arrive. Sooo...
I'm female, of what the French would call a cetain age, an attorney. I work for a large publishing and information company, and primarily in the areas of litigation, antitrust, libel and copyright.
For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to travel, and have loved doing so since I began. My other great passion has been the ballet, and I've had wonderful times combining the two. (The destinations, except perhaps for Detroit, have generally been well-selected.)
When FF programs came along, I thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread, and was a relatively early member of Pan Am's and TWA's. (I later branched out, though I now concentrate most of my flying on UA. ) I've had some wonderful trips courtesy of those miles, though now that hardly anyone's expiring miles, I tend to hoard rather than use them.
My significant other lives in Denver, and we both like to escape somewhere else on weekends, so we do a lot of 2= and 3=day trips to new places.
I don't often travel internationally on business, but I have had a fair amount of West Coast travel for work over the last few years. A couple of years ago, I realized that I was close enough to 1K on United that I could make it if I planned properly. So I took one extra trip to SFO and turned down a cheaper EWR flight in favor of a JFK one and hit the 100,000 mark. Requalifying has been easier.
Because a fine hotel is often for me part of the destination, I don't stay that frequently in chains with frequent guest programs except on business travel. (I am, however, Starwood gold.)
Aside from travel and the ballet, I like the theatre, movies, finding new restaurants, finding new wines--plus eating at and drinking old favorites== beaches and good fiction.
I estimate that I have earned 40,000-50,000 FF miles in various programs purely as a result of Flyer Talk. The wisdom I've gained from Flyer Talk cannot be measured. I'm grateful to so many of you, and hope to meet a lot of you soon.