I'm probably more hooked on travel than on miles...one led to the other. Quit a corporate job to do travel for 1 year at 33 (sort of a "gap year" I never got when younger) but have stretched it to six, even on very thin funding (just above stay-in-hostels level). That's probably addiction.

Peoples' eyes glaze over if I get too much into the mechanics of mileage maximization. Flying up front most of the time seems to get more of the muted "wows" than talking about earning 20,000 miles on a trip that your average person would earn 4,000 on. But most people will quickly figure that it takes more travel than they'd see themselves doing (at lowest fares and on their own dime) to get the thing to work.