Who: i do presales work for an enterprise software firm, one of the big ones. it involves a lot of hops for one hour meetings. i like scotch. the two are not related.
...most of the time.
When: i'm at 93K right now, have my christmas trip to ohio planned and will be flying to ICN right before the year, so i'll just squeak by at around 102K.
How: i'd say about 75% of it was for work. i was a pmco person and typically just made plat on work alone. my SO lives in asia and family members are getting older, so i'm having a huge uptick in personal international travel, which is a change for me. i did dabble about 10K in AA travel this year as i experimented with the EXP match. i'm not going to lie, it was really nice. problem was AA relied too heavily on partners for asia so i ended up staying with UA (3x segments to ICN and PVG? nothx) and had to find an MR as i was about 3000 short for 1K (did ZFV-EWR-SAN-EWR-ZFV and ran into a fellow person doing that same MR), first time i've ever done an MR. i don't know how i'll plan for the next couple of years as AA added DFW-ICN and that's a huge boon for me... but i digress.
Where: um... a lot of places. my sig has most of it, but i guess that'll change with the new year.
PVG ICN NRT EWR JFK CLT MSY ORD LGA DTW PHL SFO YUL HKG BOS DEN DCA LAS CVG ORD LAX AUS IAH BOS MCO TPA GRR MSP SAN FRA TXL IAD CDG
i'm sure i'm missing a few more (60+ PQS should be out of more i figure) but i can't remember. on a side note if anyone knows whether we can still get a purge print, that'd be good to know.
Why: achieving status is important to me because of GPU's. with my increase in personal travel to asia, the last thing i want to do after all my domestic runs for work is have to sit in a seat in Y for a 15H flight to PVG, especially if it's a return trip from asia and work has me scheduled for a customer meeting literally the next day after i land. i'm sure anyone who flies 100K+ a year can relate. it's just not worth it without them. also despite the horror stories, i've only missed one GPU upgrade so they're still huge for me, a big portion cleared at booking and i've been a happy camper with them.
as for RDM's... my parents are retiring soon and i'm saving up all my miles (and hotel points) to plan an RTW trip for them in F. they love travel and have never really flown in F internationally so i figure this would be a good gift. i haven't redeemed a point/mile in years (well... i redeemed points once for a hotel stay but that's about it) so i can save up for them. they've put up with my crap all these years, thought it's a decent way to say thanks.
also going forward trying to save for a similar trip for me and my SO in 4-5 years or so. for that i still need to figure out if i want to invest in *A or OW.
What: i guess still run for 1K. for my parents trip to happen (they're retiring next year and planning this to fly in 2014) i think i'm too heavily invested now in *A and switching to OW would throw a wrench into my plans. i do feel the tug of AA though. so for my 2013 flying, i don't think much will change, and i would venture to guess that most people, regardless of what they chose, will not change in 2013.
my prediction is that everyone will keep their eyes out for the US/AA merger and whether or not UA can clean up its act customer service-wise. people who have jumped i think have jumped in 2012 for the most part, 2013 seems like a "wait and see" year for most. unless the merger goes through which may cause a shift from the AA ranks, much like we've seen with the UA ranks this year. but that's just pure-speculation on my part. where UA ends up rolling out the 787, given all its electronic gremlins, and what AA ends up doing with the 773ER both in 2013 i think will be really interesting to see. and, of course, what kind of moves doug parker will make should a merged AA emerge. or, likewise, what parker and horton would do should AA emerge standalone.
and whether DL picks up VX.
and how leisure travelers will react to WN's new fees.
and so on and so forth.
i think for 2013 the industry should get pretty interesting with all the changes. get the popcorn ready.
hah, thanks for all this. despite all the merger headaches, this was a fun flying year for me personally. felt good to look back.