I like Kiwi's mini-Asia/Pacific idea. Start in SEA or YVY, end in SIN or AKL. Option #1 SEA-NRT-SIN...Option #2 YVR-NRT-SIN. I think BKK might be logistically tough to include.

If we do Asia, including SQ is a must, including YVR gets AC involved. How about a tour of Boeing, then charter out of Everett to SFO or YVR. Personally I'd love to fly on SQ and NZ across the Pacific, and of course try to include an A380 segment somewhere in the trip.

No way I'd get away long enough to do RTW, and Mrs would not be to pleased either. But if Boeing Everett's on the list I'd love to show up since I'm 15 miles away.

And fly to PAE if you get a charter.

The cost and experience were great this year, and time wise - very good. Just enough to get you that great "dead tired fun" feeling. ^

I'm sorry to hear that it will be in the U.S., as some may know getting a visa to the U.S. these days (for those of us not American) is sometimes impossible without surrendering your passport for long time periods for processing.. simply impossible for me. But since most members are in the U.S. it makes perfect sense.

danny

- How was the value for the money paid in 2009
Overall, with the discounted C tix on LH405 and return, Sheraton FRA discount, and the cost of the charter (any class), I think the total sum I paid out for DO/1 was well worth the experience and the company of fellow FT'ers.

If I had to point to any downside, I have to say that the Airbus tour was a tad underwhelming but was certainly better than not being there at all. The hosting by CO, LH, and SK was always beyond my expectations and I do thank them for all they did for our group.

- How many days can you be away to participate in a DO
As an American white collar worker, I'm afforded only a meager stipend of paid time off. Therefor I would have to put it at 1 week, bracketing weekends inclusive (leave home, saturday and return home sunday)

- How much money will you be willing to spend
$4,000US would be my absolute upper limit and includes any fare needed to get to and from the DO start and end points. Beyond that amount, I could spend a week in one or two very, very nice places or go somewhere quite exotic and off the beaten path for a while and would be obliged to do so.

Constructive(?) Comments
I'll leave DO/1 where it is and think about DO/2.

Personally, I've never been to Asia before, so I've been thinking it would be nice to start, say, in SEA (Boeing) and take a UA flight to SFO (UA tour there), then strike out on one of CA, SQ, NH, or NZ to see their respective digs... however I think the big question with Asia is how do you maximize your time once you're over there? Would we longhaul it across the Pacific just to tour one airline and its hub city and then return? The place is so big and the *A carrier bases so geographically dispersed that our day-long jaunt around Europe was truly a milk run. I think something as cool as a charter would be not feasible as well. If anything there would have to be at least 2 days in each city just so that we can actually be there and not just be airside or jogging the tarmac the entire time.

So what to do... some have mentioned a mediterranean-centric itinerary perhaps on D-ABON again... cool but as others have mentioned these would be small carriers and we'd probably want to balance that with actual sightseeing outside the airport... which introduces additional hotels and expenses.

Hmmm.

/dale

2009 MegaDO: was a great value. In general, I feel that I can't put a $ value on an experience that's unique and memories that are ... well... memorable!

2010 MegaDO: I'm there. Mr 999 will be there too. I don't care what it costs, like some others said, it's almost like something money can't buy.

I can and will take off two weeks (one week for the DO, one week to recover? ). Mr 999 is almost certainly going to be limited to one week from work so I can just send him back to work while I vacation for another week (wherever we end up).

RTW: ^^^
Circle the Pacific: ^^^
Just about anything else except US-only: ^^^

Name the time and place. We'll be there.

^I joined in Oslo and paticipated until Saturday after the Seehaim bash. Value for money was great, the highlights for me being Lufthansa and TLS go-around

I'd be willing to spend a week, 5 working days plus a weekend on either side.

I realise me joining in Europe kept my costs down a lot last time, if going longhaul this year my budget would be about $2k.


In the end, whatever the masses and organizers decide, I will probably join as I know what a crazy and fun crowd goes along with this kind of thing. ^

Happy new year to all,

Value for money in 2009: very good and just about the right level, both holds true for the actual charter flight and do costs and the associated flights by LH.

How many days? Depends really on the programme, if there are enough activities in the do any thing between 3 to 6 days. However a RTW component would require a bit more time but could be worth it if the price (and the miles) are right. Even us blessed with annual leave Europeans would need early notification about the number of days so I can keep enough in reserve.

How much money? For the do, about � 600. Feeder flights obviously extra but should be rock bottom, especially in C or F Generous bonus miles will have an impact. The miles/� ratio will determine value. Let's try to make sure people don't get priced out of the market for the do. Let's not make it a LH HON do

Now other considerations, flammable underpants obviously make it even more difficult for anything fun in north America but not impossible. Visit to Mojave Desert could be fun though the airlines might not be too impressed by showing off their retired aircraft. Boeing yes but a bit more access (and pictures) than Airbus, generous supply of airline goodies. Have some time with the airlines to constructively discuss products/routes/service (without the usual FT whining).

It would be great to hear some suggestions from *A and *A carriers about their ideas early on. Let them bid for the honour to host

Miles: Clarity early on which programmes will contribute miles, and from a purely selfish point of view consider as a once off status match to participating carriers even from fellow *A carriers, ok maybe just for us BD customers jumping ship before it's all over.

Payment: Consider early part payment to secure place, ensure at least one non paypal option.

Good luck with it and kudos for embarking on the challenge to eclipse the 2009 do ^

- How was the value for the money paid in 2009
As it was a "money can't buy" experience, it was fine for me.LH did a great job showing us their mainbase and the charter was great fun! I only took the charter and did not have to buy any positioning flights, so the costs were really OK for 3 days of unique experiences.

- How many days can you be away to participate in a DO
1 week, as work and family have to be considered what might be a issue for 90% here.

- How much money will you be willing to spend
That is depending of the offered programme. It should of course be something you couldn't do even if you were willing to spend tons of money - something really special. I would not go for SEA-ORD-DEN-whatever just to see Boeing and fly through the US.

Let me add some points:
- I think if it should be a Flyertalk DO it should be open to most flyertalkers considering time and money. If 5 days to one week is the limit for most people here, a 10 days RTW (plus positioning flights!) might be something too special.

-A unique experience: I think the spirit of SMDI should be kept: extraordinary things you can't buy for money. If I want to go to ATH or CAI to see the Akropolis or the Pyramids, I can just buy a ticket everywhere. Same for flying SEA-ORD-whatever. But if we are doing a charter, we can go everywhere we want, just limited by the range of the aircraft and an available runway.
So why not find places or routes where no airline goes? Somebody mentioned an "airplane graveyard" ^ what would be fun in my eyes, but of course they don't have lounges there.

Let's say we would have an aircraft for 3 days. If we want to keep the costs low and not only sit in the aircraft, the destinations should be not too far away from each other. Let's think further and say we want to visit several *A-Hubs. That could lead us to some regions in the world where we would have a big number of *A-Airlines together:
Europe (mediterranean sea roundtrip) with LX,OS,TK,JK,TP,MS....
Aisa with TG, CA, NH, OZ, SQ, maybe AI....
US with UA,CO, AC, US....

If I now imagine picking maybe 3 HUBs and adding 1 or 2 real special destinations you normally can't go with any airline, that might be the SMDII....


Whatever will be the result of all these thoughts here, a big "Thank you" to Tommy and Oliver and whoever is involved in planning another DO!!

As I am going to need some miles to complete my SEN status, I am really looking forward to read about (and put it into my calculation) the miles we are going to earn from whatever SMDII will be then.

I would like to see it on a weekend as well and better possibilities to only participate on some activities not all or nothing like 2009.

I think the Brits seem to be supporting GoldCircle... I'd agree with his comments too... think a RTW would be too much, but, a couple of days in Asia and a trip there/back would be fun

Value of #1:
Wasn't too bad but I didn't think the value on the charter was so great for C - I'd probably prefer a few less expensive bottles of booze and better food (for both C and Y) which means more to me and I think that the dream of the best catering ever got lost in the first do (not that I'm complaining as appreciate the organiser's position/issues) - in hindsight next time I think if the earning rate was the same I'd probably go for Y rather than C as I thought the Y prices were good value considering the program, but less sure about C. I'd be willing to pay about the same for a charter, wouldn't mind paying the business price for a Y seat if the number of miles earned increased, it was a widebody and the program was over 2 days.

On a separate note - the hotel was a great deal for that specific (expensive/good location) hotel as I couldn't use points. However it was wasted due to the time spent there, and pretty expensive overall - would be happy to be at a cheaper hotel away from the airport and be bussed around to save cash - the bar bill from the hotel almost equaled the cost of my room and I don't feel I bought that many drinks...

Days:
Weekends are much better, appreciate that it causes problems for a program but something that took advantage of a weekend would be good to reduce the number of days off work. Alternatively a weekend in a nice city somewhere for some sightseeing would be nice. I like the idea of splitting the charter over 2 days, if there was a charter, as I think the charter day was such a long one last time that we missed out on spreading out the fun. 10 days for a do would be too much, last time felt about right if it had been extended on Saturday and perhaps Sunday too.

Pricing
I'm pretty price inelastic... if I believe there is value then I don't mind too much about the cost. However for more money I'd expect more miles (and BMI miles! :P). For a better charter aircraft/experience I'd pay more but I suspect that making it much more expensive than the last one would reduce turnout.

Suggestions:

• Offering the US or Asia would be nice so that I could get on the longhaul (going to the US just to come back to Europe didn't sound like much fun) - if going to Asia definitely come the long (Europe) way around... so something like JFK-FRA-ICN rather than JFK-ICN.
• Definitely we have to avoid a 5am start next time (8am start is just fine without being too tiring, ties in with the 2 day program mentioned earlier)...
• Hotel - lets go Hilton or Marriott next time, I'm not such a Starwood fan
• If the do was a RTW that would be great and very tempting but that is a huge job for organisers.... 10+ days is a heck of a lot of programs to arrange, if something like this happened I'd like a 2 day gap in the middle without a program so that we could relax and catch up on some sleep somewhere, however such a long period away from work/family for a do... not sure if that would be feasible - I don't really need that many status/destination miles... plus I prefer to see countries not just airports.
• However, if there was a RTW starting in the US then for most in Europe it would involve a round trip across the atlantic, that's a significant time/cash commitment even before starting the RTW. A trip around the USA would be nice, apart from all of the security strip searches etc... a real turn-off but probably wouldn't change my willingness to participate.
• A key point, and I suspect it was a lesson learned, is that the program should be published much further in advance to allow for better planning for everyone, if events have a limited number of participants you should be able to sign up for it and then have a guaranteed slot to allow for better pre-do planning of flights (I almost didn't get to go to the welcome event... but that was after booking flights and taking a day off work etc, which wouldn't have been nice)
• The idea of welcoming Air India is appealing... primarily as I really love visiting the country - however for many people who haven't been there before it could be a bit of a shock so I don't think its such a great idea!
• Off the wall: IST to SDA (Baghdad).... but just for an airport trip and passport stamp... not to properly stay :P
• A deposit idea is a good one to reduce the risk to the organisers.
• If there is an F option I think it should be filled by lottery, perhaps from the C passengers for a token payment, as the 8 seats most aircraft have in F would fill up too easily if they were good value.

Again, thanks for a spectacular DO. For me and Mrs, it was definitely worth the money, and will be hard to top. As everyone can probably notice from how smoothly everything went, this was not the first DO Tommy777 arranged - not even close.

For the next DO, I believe that a duration of one week (+weekends) would be about the maximum for us. I believe that this time constraint makes it impractical to do a RTW. Our budget would obviously depend on the programme itself.

In my opinion, we have Europe and North America already pretty well covered during SMDI and the previous DOs. It would also be a good idea to postpone visits to Boeing until they have the 787 in full production - maybe in 2011. We haven't, however, covered Asia at all yet.

I believe that a circle trip of visiting NRT and SIN, with possibly ICN and/or BKK added in, would be a great way to involve the most important Asian *A members. It would be nice to see, how the cabin attendant training of SQ compares with what we saw at LH, for example. Any of those airports could be the starting point, since they can both be easily reached from any part of the world. Good connecting fares would, of course, be very valuable. As always, everything depends entirely on the willingness of the airlines to participate. Australia, NZ and Americas are a bit too far to be part of the same DO, IMHO.

As far as the flights go... I don't think that we absolutely need to do a charter flight, at least when flying between the major hubs. After all, we only need the forward cabin(s) for the Flyertalk class.

Tommy, Oliver, Reb, thank you.
Your quick recovery time is impressive.
I'm guessing that all stress aside, this means that you enjoyed it as much as I did. Am sure I speak for most of the StarMegaDo participants that that's a good thing to know, considering how knackered you were by the end of it.

Please put my name on the list for attending SMDII.

How thrilling to be right into planning it. Only yesterday I was telling someone (yet again) about the StarMegaDo. Whenever I feel a bit stressed, I watch our Toulouse attempted landing again. Works every time. I start hooting & hollering right along with it.

Value for money 2009.
I flew in from Australia in Y, & did SFO - EWR redeye in Y. A night in EWR to start the Do there. J on LH405. Charter in Y. In FRA stayed at Sheraton. Went to Seehiem dinner, then share cab back to FRA. Then LH FRA LAX in J. Then on back to Australia, in Y.

So, the extra costs were my positioning flights, meals in EWR the night before we started, and in Seehiem. Other cost was the share cab ride back to FRA - only ?12 Euro. Over 10 days. Oh, and a couple of drinks in the bar at the Sheraton.

It was overall, great value for the money for me, for an amazing experience, right inside the working parts of airlines & airports. And with a bunch of interesting people (hello to all I hung out with & sat with / near). Doesn't get a lot better than that.

Days away.
5-10 days is fine.
Given that anyone from this part of the world has to do some positioning before the Do starts, and get home after, I would be looking at 10/ 12/ 14 days away. That's fine.

How much willing to spend for 2010?About the same again, with prorata increase for longer event / more flights / more functions.

Couple of other thoughts:
+ Can we "reward" our key sponsors (LH) by involving them again, if this was worthwhile for them? They did heaps of things for us. Other sponsors (thank you all) may have seemed to do less, but it may have been a proportional amount of $'s out of their marketing budget.

+ Thinking about timing, most of the participants were from the US. So, maybe avoid the last few weeks before US Thanksgiving, but still take advantage of a relatively low season for fares.

Sat 23 October to Sun 31 October gets the Do done, a few weeks' of work in, and then the Holiday season starts. The weather in the Northern hemisphere isn't too bad by then. The Southern hemisphere is in late spring, and the weather is great. IIRC equatorial areas are not in typhoon, hurricane / cyclone season. Airlines & hotels are more likely to do deals. Also airlines & airports are more likely to be able to give us the private tours & functions, and be able to regain their poise before the holiday season starts.

Maybe extras on the Sat & Sun, then the main part of the Do during M-F when there is more resource availability for the airlines / airports, as Tommy said.

+ I liked the concept that the Do going to eg SEA or where ever, is not a holiday to the Seattle area & beautiful Pacific northwest, but is why SEA / PAE would be of interest to us, as a flyer community

+ D-ABON was a fun ride. Maybe some time again, same plane, same crew.
Please include a charter again. It does give us more possibilities. The idea of going places / seeing things that we simply wouldn't be able to normally do really holds appeal.

+ The airplane graveyard sounds great, as do the Boeing in SEA (or BNE) visits. Inner workings of airplanes, airlines, airports, lounges. I could enjoy seeing & hearing some of the same things again. Some I didn't get to hear about - how cargo is done, checked bags, the other stuff that happens in the background. I didn't do the Chelsea tour, & everyone who did loved it.

+ It will no doubt take many StarMegaDo's to cover all the possibilities of places, RTW's, Circle Pacifics. We all have that to look forward to, one year at a time. Also, I see that there are talks afoot to have a big OneWorld Do. Maybe they'll intersect with a StarMegaDO in some city one day! Sort of a MegaFlyerTalkerDo for the couple of days they intersect!

+ A deposit for the place on the Do works for me.

+ Tommy & Oliver, the majority LOVED what you put together for 2009. Whatever you settle on for 2010 will be a great Do to do. Your experience & early planning & these questions you are asking us will sort out most of the bumps from 2009.

Happy New Year to you all & see you at the SMDII.

^^^

Throw in a segment on the A380 (SYD-SIN for example) and I think we have a winner.

My point was that a RTW costing thousands of dollars and lasting 14 days might keep a majority of people away from participating.
Of course, SMDI was open to everybody as well as SMDII will be. I just wanted to express that most people have to consider work and family when planning to spent some time abroad and some money.

I was not referring to a *A / OW issue.

- How was the value for the money paid in 2009
Excellent.
- How many days can you be away to participate in a DO
3 (better if on a weekend)
- How much money will you be willing to spend
Really depends on the experience