It was November 2019 when it all started.....

I have always done some travel every year, a bit for work and a bit for play, but 2019 was the first year I achieved gold status with AA. I realize NOW this is nothing special, but at this point in my traveling life I had never worried/cared/chased/thought about elite status ever before. My flight to TPA in Nov of 2019 got me Gold, and my 500-mile upgrade cleared on my very next flight back to DFW. I liked that a lot.

It was at this time that I coincidentally was getting deep down the credit card points rabbit hole, and i had an Amex that credited back the fee of purchasing 500-mile upgrade stickers. TPA-DFW started me on a journey that i cannot now get off.

It was at this point that i really started to investigate the whole world of points/status, as i learned that i much preferred F to Y......... Being DFW based, i decided that i would become an AA loyalist and just see how this goes.

While researching some specific AA questions i had, i stumbled upon this goldmine of literally everything travel (...FT) and little did i know that was just the beginning. I will admit i was a massive lurker at first, just absorbing all i could in the AAdvantage forums. Just seeing all of the incredibly detailed responses from strangers who were answering other strangers questions was so heartening. I really enjoyed piecing together all of the acronyms and fare bucket lingo, and now i catch myself using it when talking to AA representatives who become a lot easier to deal with when you BOTH know what you're talking about. (ps, with all of the aggregated info here on FT, I'm hard pressed to ever find a reason to ever call an airline ever again...). I was getting to the point that my friends would ask me for AA/credit card points info and i actually had answers for them.

Then COVID

That was tough, as i have family in YVR that i could not visit and vice versa. But, finally, in July of this year, as the world opened a bit, i was able to visit a few times for various reasons.
But my biggest FT success was this past September. I went to Ireland, and was going via a paid, relatively inexpensive J ticket through LHR, and had the choice of booking through AA or BA. Armed with my nearly 2 years of knowledge, I knew to book on BA and credit to AA. But, the real success was learning, through the BA forums, about the "A-up" or Airport Upgrade from J to F. I was excited to try this as i was flying on their new 787-10 that had a first cabin. So, with a keen eye on ExpertFlyer, i know there were a few seats available on F on the day of my flight. I casually asked the check-in agent about the A-Up and was offered it for $279USD. This was my first long-haul F experience, and i owe it purely to FT. FT also helped me set an alert for Award F availability on the way home, and, on the second-last day of the trip, i got the alert and was able to transfer 20k chase points to BA to upgrade. This let me experience the Concord Room in LHR. I realize this is not the ultimate long-haul F experience (and i hope to eventually experience those), but it was my first and i owe it all to FT.

So, now I'm hooked. So hooked, that i never even knew this section of the forum existed, and now feel compelled to share my story.
I even my first ever mileage run this Saturday DFW-LGA-CLT-DFW while the wife is out of town. (she thinks I'm a nutcase with all of this, until the upgrades clear...)

Thank you to all that post/reply, and take satisfaction that you are truly helping more than just the ones asking the questions.