My turn I guess...as most of you know onefreeman & I were recently married-we have
6 kids-2 grandkids & 1 on the way, grandkid that is! (we work fast) Born & raised in
San Diego now live in AZ. I graduated from
Mundus Institute of Travel & Tourism this
past January and dabble in that. Love the
beach (see you in Hawaii in Nov.) or going to
the cabin up north, sit on the porch with a
glass of wine and listen to Rifkin. That's
about it for me. Laid back & easy goin'.

auh20: I love your choice of user names. One question: Why in the world did you ever move out of California? (I was born and raised in the Bay Area. Nothing south of Santa Barbara is in California.)

Geez I'd better get this done now that I see my wife, who normally lurks (not posts!), has seen fit to contribute...

Hi I'm Marty and I'm a quasi Mileage-aholic...

Oops -- wrong forum...

I'm 36, married to raeban (the greatest woman on the planet). Raeban failed to mention our other four children -- four doggies -- 3 min pins (Names: Lady Prancer, Bailey PITA, and Nikki) and one wire-haired red step-dog we inherited (Sam).

Grew up in the San Diego arean of SoCal -- if it's north of Orange County it's a separate country!

Graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (BBA in Travel Industry Management). I have a MA in International Relations from the University of Southern California (thank you Miami for beating dreaded UCLA so they won't invade us for the Fiesta Bowl!)

Owned and operated several retail travel agencies. Also did lots of mgmt consulting in the retail travel industry.

Moved on to the computer business and the internet. Currently at work for a service and maintenance firm.

Special interests include golf, cigars, resorts and the burning desire to retire as soon as possible...

filferet, yu knot lik arturo nam? mebe i try TiPl.

I suppose it is my turn.

I graduated from Stanford and from University of California @ Davis Law School. I worked for a bank in San Francisco until earlier this year. Now I work for an investment bank in Hong Kong.

As a result of my the numerous reound trips to the states which accompanied my relocation I will be a 1K on United this year. However, starting in '99 most of my travel will be intra-Asia so I will probably be switching to Cathay Pacific and oneworld.

David James

Hi all

I am 33 and I work for the Australian Taxation Office in Melbourne Australia as a Tax Auditor in their Large Business & International area dealing with service industries including air transport.

I hold a Bachelor of Business degree from Monash University Gippsland, Graduate Diploma of Taxation and Masters degree in Taxation from the University of New South Wales. I hope to be studying for my Doctorate in Philosophy in tax at the University of New South Wales shortly.

I am a member of more frequent flyer programs that I can count on both hands but do not fly all that much although I may be called upon to do some interstate travel in the future. My interest is in the area of getting free miles by signing people up to frequent flyer schemes, taking advantage of special bonuses and filling out surveys that give you free frequent flyer miles.

I slao run a website devoted to the hunt for ultra cheap airfares. You can find this at http://www.tbsa.com.au/~ferrett/deepspace.html I get around 400-500 hits per day to my site which is pretty good for an Australian site.

My other interests are ten pin bowling, ballroom dancing, amateur radio, south park the odd live concert and overseas travel where I can get it cheap. I have been married for 4 years to my lovely wife Nicole. We have no kids as yet but I do have 2 fluffy Bichon Frise x Maltese dogs called Skye and Penny.

cheers Peter

As you can see from my profile, I'm from Hong Kong. I'm now 24 (in fact I'm pretty surprised too that I'm not the youngest on the board and there're so many young frequent flyers out there these days). I went to the States 6 years ago, spent 4 years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (upstate New York) for my undergrad and 2 years at MIT for grad.

That's why I have had a chance to fly United pretty often these years, mostly when I went back to HK to visit my family and friends. 6 years ago I knew nothing about frequent flyer programs and joined Mileage Plus before my first flight to the States just because my family told me to do so. It was not until in 1994, when I received my first Premier card, that I started to know something about the different elite levels in the program.

Since then I've been a Premier/Premier Executive with United until now (or, at least until Feb 2000). So I have had a chance to experience all those elite stuff since I was 20, relatively young I think. And, similar to other student flyers on this board, so far all my travel on United have all been on deeply discounted economy tickets, although probably the amount of travel I did was slightly above an average student (about 30 domestic and 10 international roundtrips in these 6 years). On domestic flights now I almost always upgrade with the complimentary upgrade certificates. On international flights I had the chance to travel in International First or Connoisseur/Business only because of complimentary upgrades and award tickets.

In fact, for international travelers (or members based in Asia), I think usually it is relatively cost effective to maintain their Premier/Premier Executive/1K status (e.g. sometimes as cheap as ~$650 for a roundtrip economy BOS-LAX-HKG ticket, actual miles about 19500, almost enough for Premier, and with Premier Exec 100% bonus - total almost 40000 miles, good enough for 2 roundtrip economy HKG-NRT award tickets already, so $650 for 3 international trips, not bad at all !!).

Now that I'm back to HK and working as a consultant, I am doing much more business travel, usually almost every week, but mostly within Asia so far. I have been traveling mostly on Cathay Pacific these days and I'm even wondering if I'd be able to keep my Premier Executive status next year. So I am in particular interested in hearing about experiences of switching from Star Alliance (especially UA) to oneworld alliance (especially CX). For example, whether it's possible to get a complimentary elite status with CX (membership of The Marco Polo Club) to start with without flying all those miles again. Anyone has experience with that ??

Wow! I'm really impressed with all those credentials out there in FF Land. For all claiming to be the "youngest" - maybe I'm the "oldest" out there? Name - Renee Moss -C.C.N.Y Class of '55 - Still happily married after 45 yrs, now retired to Florida -Mother of 4 (all married) & grandmother of 7. Retired Antiques Dealer & Certified Appraiser. We enjoy sitting "up front" with frequent flyer mileage, and rarely PURCHASE a ticket. Probably one of the most avid collectors of miles without flying for them. I haven't been elite anything since the old Pan Am went out - but that doesn't stop me from enjoying free (mostly business class) seats. I don't use my mileage domestically, but save the mileage for comfort on long haul flights for my "old" bones. Out of the 309 Official Countries listed in the Traveler's Century Club, we have visited 105 since 1985. I love this board, it has been such a help to me - so Thank you to all - and have a really great and joyous holiday!

Even though I rarely respond to these posts I do read through them often. I enjoy reading about all the activity out there. I am a consultant for one of the major Hardware Co-ops. I flew over 160,000 miles in 1998 (all domestic) and have reached Executive Platinum level on AA. I acquired Million Miler status on the same flight that gave me Executive Platinum status. Keep up the enjoyment for those of us that like to read through posts.

The name is Jeff, but most people call me Boomer. It's a reference to one of the all-time great hockey players, and I've had the nickname since I was 4. Which was 32 years ago.

I'm a freelance computer trainer, based in
New York, Single, no kids(that I know about)

I travel approximately 100,000 air miles a year, and another 2000 or so via Subway(no upgrades, no miles, no meals, but no baggage delays either).

We have New jersey well represented and now New York city (NEW YORK CITY>??!!??) Welcome
aboard Boomer and don't be afraid to share your travel stories or any suggestions you have.

It's true, no miles or points on the many times Overcrowded subways (they are getting better a little bit) But at least with my monthly Path card I can get 40 miles a month
with U-A... charge it on my Mileage Plus Visa.

Now The NYC Transit Authority should allow us
to buy our Metrocards with Credit cards and we can get a few miles out of the deal.

OMNI posting... since there are so many bios
here... maybe we should get a mini yearbook
together of the FlyerTalk contributors with photo and bios (No, maybe that's too silly.) But you all have interesting lives. CATMAN

I don't usually post personal info to public boards, but I guess I'll keep it simple. I'm one of the minority of females on this board. My real name is Sylvia and I'm a Canadian living in Honolulu. Undergrad at the University of British Columbia and grad school at Sarah Lawrence College.

Unlike Boomer, I'm married. Like him, I don't have any children (that I know of).<g> I work as the Hawaii state genetics coordinator at the Dept of Health. Before you ask, I don't clone people. If I did, I'd clone myself first so someone could handle the office work while I'm on the road. I do regulate genetic services, write legislation, administer grants, provide genetic education, etc. I fly about 85,000 miles/year attending meetings, conferences, and when I'm ordered to D.C. to beg for more money.

When I'm on the road, I search for good food, great margaritas and even better chocolate. At home, I love to cook, bake (killer brownies are my specialty) and rubber stamp (yes, it's a hobby).

Quasi-OMNI (oh no another qualifying level!):

Thanx Baobab for starting this thread. I know you only wanted to prod folks into updating their profiles but the responses here are neat. For me it has added some depth to the folks we talk to regularly...

Catman -- I like your idea of a type of "family album". Am working on something in my "spare" holiday time (geez I haven't even begun shopping for Raeban yet). Will let you know...

Thanx again Baobab and all who have posted in this thread...

Quazi OMNI posting #2 (you started a nice elite level OneFreeman:) Like booking frequent flyer and hotel travel, the Cat's tip for shopping for the holidays is DO IT AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE>

I started in January of htis year (NO joke!)
What I do is when I see something that oen of my friends wants, I grab it, and hide it.
Then the weekend before Christmas I wrap like
an assembly line, checking names off a list
like Santa Claws.

Of course, most of your schedules make this
impossible. But it's helped me finish the shopping end by the day before Thanksgiving!

I don't care for malls unless I'm in the mood. So most shopping is catalog and lately
on-line. But this is just my method of madness! CATMAN

I think that was a full-blown OMNI posting, Catman!

Onefreeman was vaguely on-topic for this thread, but you were waaaay off!!

It does feel strange to correct the Cat-Cop!