Here's how the 12 Days of Christmas contest is going to work:

On Dec. 11 at 12 p.m. (noon) MT we will post the member name of the first potential daily winner right here at the top of this thread. That person will then have exactly 24 hours to send a private message (PM) to the 12 Days user account to claim their 1,000-mile Day 1 prize. If he or she fails to claim the prize within 24 hours the miles will "play forward" and will be added to the next day's prize total. So, the FlyerTalker whose member name is posted on Dec. 12 at 12 p.m. could have the opportunity to win 3,000 miles (1,000-mile Day 1 prize + 2,000-mile Day 2 prize), and so on, and so on.

And these aren't just any miles, they are magic holiday miles. They can be added into any account you wish -- if you wish hard enough (all right, this is starting to sound more like a Peter Pan promotion than a holiday promotion, but you get the idea). Just tell us the program you want to add them into and we will figure out a way to get them there (that's sort of our specialty ).

Because you are all expert mileage mathematicians, you are no doubt wondering, 'Why did they say they are giving away nearly 100,000 bonus miles when the daily mileage prizes only add up to 78,000 miles?'

Good, um, wonderment

On four days of the contest -- days 3, 6, 9 and 12 -- a 5,000-mile bonus prize will be offered. But to be eligible to receive the bonus prizes you have to EAT 12 HARD BOILED EGGS IN UNDER TWO MINUTES! ... Oops, sorry, wrong task -- that was from another contest we were considering, FT Fear Factor, which was mercifully voted down in a recent meeting.

No, actually all you have to do is complete some simple FlyerTalk tasks, as follows:

• To be eligible for the Day 3 bonus, you must be a FlyerTalk Premium member (Don't worry, this is the only one of the bonus tasks that has an associated cost). Your Premium membership could be three months old or three days old – it doesn’t matter just as long as your Premium membership is activated prior to your name appearing in this thread. You can go here to sign up for FlyerTalk Premium access. See this milepost for more information about FlyerTalk Premium.

• To be eligible for the Day 6 bonus, you must have participated in the FlyerTalk Chat room sometime between Dec. 8 and the time your name was posted in this thread. By participate, we mean you have to log in to the chat (which you can do from this page) and type something … anything. It could be as simple as typing the word “Hello” or as involved as joining a discussion about the pros and cons of the Star Alliance. Our hope, of course, is that those of you who have yet to discover this handy feature of FlyerTalk will come to learn why so many other members spend their evenings shooting the breeze with fellow road warriors. Also, you’ll want to keep your eye on the FlyerTalk chat room long after this contest is over, as from time to time we host guest speakers from various programs up there and many have been known to give away EVEN MORE than 100,000 miles to chat guests.

(Here’s an interesting factoid to break up the monotony of reading through these rules: Though the FlyerTalk chat sees a good amount of activity most evenings, it received it’s highest usage to date immediately following the events of 9/11, as FlyerTalkers from around the world used the room to check in on their fellow members. And when did the chat room notch it’s second highest period of activity? When we switched to the upgraded vBulletin bulletin board and had to take the forums down for a couple of days to get everything set up.)

• To be eligible for the Day 9 bonus, you must edit or add information to the FlyerTalk Wiki (see this milepost to find out what the heck the FlyerTalk Wiki is and why you should care) sometime between Dec. 8 and the time your name was posted to this thread. If you are new to Wikis, editing a page that already exists is simpler than creating an entirely new page. And, if you are REALLY new to Wikis, this page is setup specifically to practice on – and edits to this page WILL count for the bonus. There are also a couple of important stipulations to this bonus:

1. Your Wiki edit/addition must be made under your FT username. For assorted technical reasons that we won't get into here the FT Forum username database and the Wiki username database are not linked, which means you will need to register your FT username in the Wiki system (you can register here).
2. If you discover that your FT username has already been registered by someone else in the FlyerTalk Wiki, you must register a different username and send a private message to 12 Days telling us what your Wiki username is prior to your name being posted in this thread. You only need to send us a private message IF you are unable to register your FlyerTalk username in the Wiki system.
3. When claiming your prize, you must also include a link to the edit/addition you made to the Wiki.

• To be eligible for the Day 12 bonus, you must post a review to the FlyerTalk Reviews database sometime between Dec. 8 and the time your name was posted to this thread. Tell us about your favorite restaurant, review the hotel you just stayed at (or are currently staying at), or join the hundreds who just saw King Kong at the theater and can’t wait to vent/rave about it. What you review is up to you, but remember, please make it a worthwhile read for other members. When claiming your prize, you must also include a link to the review you entered.

And there's more exciting news. If a daily winner isn't eligible for the bonus prize, it will play forward completely independent of the daily prize. For example, if the Day 3 winner claims the daily prize but is not a FlyerTalk Premium member, the Day 3 bonus will remain unclaimed and upcoming winners will still have a shot at it.

That should be everything ... oh, except for one other thing -- What happens if no one claims the prize on Day 12?

If the Day 12 mileage prize is unclaimed it will be awarded to the latest winner and any unclaimed bonus prizes will be awarded to the latest eligible winner(s).

For example, if there were a Day 11 winner he/she would be awarded the 12,000-mile Day 12 prize. If the Day 11 winner entered a Review into the system, he/she would also win the Reviews bonus prize. However, if the Day 11 winner had not written a review and the Day 10 winner had, the Day 10 winner would be awarded the Reviews bonus (the Day 11 winner would still receive the 12,000-mile award). If none of the winners had posted a review to the system during the contest, the Reviews bonus would go unclaimed. The same logic applies to any other unclaimed bonus prizes. In this situation, prizes will be awarded automatically and members will not be required to send a private message claim.

That's a lot to take in, but don't worry, we'll keep everyone up to date as the contest rolls along.