Evening all,
I'm a student at a university in central Oklahoma (go Sooners!). I'm working on a computer engineering major with possible minors in Russian and math. Also hoping to get my private pilot's license before the year is out. I've been lucky enough to get some travel in as a military dependent--I've lived in Japan and Germany. Hoping to fly for the Air Force once I'm done with school.

Loving FT!

It Was 20 Years Ago Today...
 

Recently I noticed that everyone in my family joined the AAdvantage program on July 5, 1990...twenty years ago today. I don't recall what led to our registering, but probably we had just returned from visiting the grandparents in California.

Eleven years later I saw a reference to FT in a newspaper and immediately signed up. I remember telling my wife that there were actually people crazy enough to fly to a faraway destination and then turn right around and fly back...they called it "a mileage run."

From that beginning, and with the help and encouragement of FTers all over the world, we have accumulated status and zillions of points/miles in various programs. We have taken, and continue to take, countless trips that never would have happened if we had had to pay the airfare.

With deepest apologies to Lennon and McCartney:
It was 20 years ago today,
That we learned about miles on AA.
Getting silver, plat and gold,
Having status never gets old....

Hi,
Such an interesting forum.

I'm Chris and I live in Miami, FL. I travel for fun and am an avid timeshare user and frequent the TS forums. Now I have to learn how to get to those TS's cheaper.

I'm a nurse by career and also sell on ebay/online in my own little store.

I'm looking forward to picking everyones brains. I mostly fly on AA since they seem to dominate my city. Hoping to learn how to make the most of AA.
Fascinated by these mileage runs.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, chriskre.

You are smart to focus upon one airline program at the beginning. You may want to pick up some easy AAdvantage miles by applying for the Citi personal and business cards...there is usually a thread or two about it in MilesBuzz.

Hi
 

Hi, my name is Nishant. Been here for a while now, but have recently stopped travelling. Still have my miles, and hotel points that I can cash in on though :-D.

Hi
 

Hey Nishant, sounds good, and good luck with the biz!

Me - well I just hit the big three oh lol. Im a star alliance and hilton fan, work as a lawyer here in London, and travel a lot for pleasure and little for work which is the way I like it lol. Right Im off to sit in the garden and enjoy this gorgeous weather we have at the moment!

Just started reading this board. I regularly post to tripadvisor with hotel reviews under the same moniker. Based in Southern CA, I have elite status on both UA and CO so very interested in what happens with the merger. I would be platinum on CO this year if all my miles had been on CO, but I tend to fly a lot more UA since they have a hub at LAX. Ditto *A carriers e.g. Lufthansa, Air NZ, etc.

Looking for advice on working towards UA 1K (currently PE and slated to get pretty close to 1K this year) and any hotel/car advice. Also on the way to National Exec. and currently Hilton Silver VIP.

Mid Dec 2009 I took a business trip on AA LAX-MIA RT in 1st (paid ticket) and somehow my whole side of the first class section started talking about elite programs. Turns out almost everyone there was doing something akin to a mileage run - maybe they wanted to go anyway but there was definitely some sort of mileage run deal with many of them. Turns out I had just taken advantage of some special UA deals in Nov to bump up to PE so we were trading stories back and forth about this. People were standing up in their seats talking over the seats about AA mileage runs. I was probably the only one in first who was not elite with AA. They were egging me on to use my UA elite status to ask the other carriers for elite status for the year. Have not done it but someone did offer me Alaska elite status for the year if I tried to maintain it. Not much need for me to fly Alaska so I did not follow up.

I'm Jacob. A swedish Engineer with a soft spot for exotic locales, luxury hotels and fine dining. Since I'm also a bit of a penny pincher a place like flyertalk will do me a lot of good.

I usually frequent Tripadvisor but now I'm hoping to complement that resource with the advice from the very well travelled crowd here at FT. I've travelled to all kinds of places in the world but hold a special place in my heart for New York City and Barcelona. My lovely girlfriend will ocassionaly chime in form my account as well. Having worked as a model she has experienced just as many exciting places and can tell you all about international shopping if that's your fancy. She's also one of the lucky few who got to experience the Concorde transatlantic.

Hello all,
I have been reading and getting tips from Flyertalk for a while and, as an avid traveler hopefully I can chime in on some topics to help others out. I travel for both work and pleasure and have been known to post to, and frequent other travel boards. I spend most of my time between Toronto, New York and Budapest. These are also the three places closest to me, as well as London, as I have lived in all 4 cities for several years at a time.

The best way to experience a destination is to do as the locals do.

coming out of the dark....
 

hi gang!
My name's Madinat, I joined ages ago when i had to fly every few months to get back and forth from college. i have since graduated (from college, AND med school!) and no longer fly with the same frequency i used to. i did however get bitten by the travel bug when in thailand this past spring and now need to figure out how to maximize my miles again!

up until thailand i had been only flying to accumulate miles (mostly USAir and Delta since i lived in atlanta) but now that i have that travel itch, i'm finding i need other means of accruing mileage. gotta give mad shouts out to clark howard for putting me onto this site before he went all big time =)

Hey guys,
I'm a hotelier from SAL currently based of GVA but travel a lot to the US, UK and back home.

I mostly fly CO and other *A

Hi all!
I'm new here too, so I'll formally introduce myself here!

My name is Melissa-- 25 years old. I got my BS in Chem at Univ. of FL (Gators!) and am working on my PhD in Chem (3 years in) at Texas A&M Univ.

looking forward to joining the FT community... my boyfriend has been reading the forums (he is not a member) for a while, his brother even longer. This year I have been traveling a good amount, so I decided to join. I'll be at the Ann Arbor DO next weekend (thanks to the suggestion of fti!), so maybe I'll meet some of you out there.

Hello there!

I'm Anthony, I'm 25, a graduate student attending the University of Oklahoma (though my heart and home are in central PA, so I'm more of a Nittany Lion than a Sooner at heart).

Been lurking for a couple months, and even though I don't travel frequently (a couple times a year), I love FT: 1) because it tells me of things, places, airplanes, and statuses that I'm probably not going to see in my lifetime, and 2) provides me with great information on where to sit on airplanes to make my trips more enjoyable!

(A special thanks to those who recommended row 6 on United's A319/A320 aircraft--loved the cutouts and all that legroom!)

While I've never done a mileage run, and tend to prefer to get where I want to go quickly, I am collecting miles with United, and while not flying with them at the moment am also a part of Delta SkyMiles (though UA will likely be my airline of choice for some time).

Looking forward to learning more and interacting with such a great community!

hi everybody

I'm tavia 23 years old and I'm a student living in the netherlands. I like to travel a lot and found out about this site by change.

Thanks for the tip.

I've been using hotel cards since I get more "mileage" out of those and find the airfares cheap enough not to want to redeem miles.

Recently got an Amex with Worldpoints but still too new to that one to know if it's worth it to me.

My favorite so far has been Marriott Rewards since I've been pretty brand loyal to them, but I'm excited to see what else is out there.