Hi! I'm new here!
 

Name: obvious!

Location: Maryland now, eventually Pennsylvania

Occupation: education field for 34 years, retired 1 year and now back working to earn travel $$$$$

Other relevant facts: married, one grown son

Hobbies: travel, camping, hiking, whitewater rafting, scrapbooking

Places traveled: camped in 47 states and Canada, "deluxed" it in England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Bahamas (TOO FEW!)

I am currently in the process on planning our trip to Washington state for August 2009.

hi guys
 

hop to meet cool people on flyertalk. :)

Welcome to FT ^

Look in this forum and there are dinner and events in almost all parts of the world throughout the year where FTers meet and chat.

+1 & welcome. Also you may want to introduce yourself.

Welcome to Flyertalk, digilstar!

We hope to see you in the various FT forumsin the future.

In the meanwhile, we're going to move this thread to our official meet and greet thread in this forum.

__________________________

Cholula
CommunityBuzz! Co-Moderator

New to Flyertalk
 

I've been reading posts, trying to gain enough insight / "courage" to post my first post (this is it!) I'm not exactly new to flying, I took my first flight on a commercial plane at the age of 5, my older brother seated off somewhere else in the cabin and my father flying the plane. My younger brother had been born just a few days before and had come home from the hospital the day before my Dad took the two of us to Los Angeles. Disneyland. I remember the FAs taking me to the "stewardess" lounge area on the plane to make me up, dress me up, and keeping me entertained. But, that was definitely more than a few years ago and things were very different then.

These days I fly frequently for work, mostly domestic, occasionally international, although not frequently enough. Last year I made it to 1K for the first time, and am trying to take advantage of UA DEQM promo to get the max benefit. Last weekend I took my first "mini" MR (SFO-DEN-BOS-ORD-SFO) and am contemplating DME this w/e.

This is a great, and very helpful site!!

bit about me
 

52 year old mum of 2, wife of 1, so maybe that should say mum of 3,
travel to the uk from perth Australia. every year to visit family.
Spend alot of time on our boat a 42 foot flybridge cruiser, small compared to most on our waterways at the moment, what recession?

Anyway the boys are 13 and 10, and we have a good time together, they are great travellers, the eldest gets on plays games, sleeps, gets off, wont eat incase he has to use the toilets, the other one is up and down and all over the plane, loves, it chats to anyone and really enjoys the whole process.

Weve travelled over the yaers on BA, Qantas,( served him brocoli for greakfast so thats them out:td:) Singapore, Thai, malaysian and Emirates:D fantastic times to leave and arrive and connecting flights, all just brilliant, lovelly food too.

So now we are skywards members, gone from silver back to blue unfotunately, but manage to upgrade using points the london - dubai leg each time, which is excellent, hate going further down the plane when we get back on to do the dubai - Perth bit, (the longest bit too).

Have a great life, all very happy, stopping in Dubai on th eway over in June, staying at Atlkantis Hotel just for the 2 nights, but will be a nice break, we are spoilt me thinks....

Welcome to all of the new members.

Wow so much to say and so little time to say it, but here goes-

My name is Clint, I'm a 25yr old aspiring entrepreneur from Chicago and one of my driving factors for success is to the passion for travel. With my fiance, it is our goal to see all 7 continents and possibly run a marathon on every one(I ran the Chicago Marathon last year after witnessing the Zurich Marathon in Zurich, Switzerland in '07).

As far as where I've been, I am a "road-warrior", mostly did family road-trips as a kid to the East Coast, but also traveled to Phoenix and LA when I was very young(~3-5yrs/old) and since I didn't remember much, embarked on a wonderful 14 day, 6200 mile trek from Chicago to PHX to LA and everywhere in-between in Jan '07. This was the longest of about 20 road-trips I've done in my lifetime, but as I want to get out more and until my entrepreneurial endeavors take off I will only have 2 weeks/yr to quench my thirst for travel, unless long weekends count which means more flying, something I'm not too fond of due to the costs involved(i.e. flying x2 means costs x2 instead of driving where cost is divided by 2 ;)) and of course the hassles of airport security and costs for checked luggage :(

Have flown a few times and have been to Europe twice- both times involved planes, trains and automobiles with train being my favorite or of course Sky Europe for those cheap, no-frills flights :cool:

Anyways, looking forward to learning more about making travel dreams a reality and coming soon(once we find the cheapest time to fly) is a weekend trip to Phoenix to look for a new home(much cheaper and a lot lower cost of living than here) and a 10 day trip to Bulgaria to see relatives(with hopefully a 1-2 day "layover" in Venice).

From San Marino, Europe
 

Hi, I'm Mauro, 53, living in Republic of San Marino, in Europe. Love travelling, I visited most european countries, NYC, Niagara. I lived in Detroit when I was 1 to 8 years old, my parents were imigrants. I work as a legal expert in public health.

Hi to all the members of Flyertalk!
 

I'm Dama Smith. Saying sweet hello to all the members.

I'm from Latvia.

New
 

I am a FA with AA and love this site. I would add more, but there is not too much to tell.

Hi, I am from the Seattle area. We fly quite often to Germany since my wife's family is in Dresden and I have family in the Saar region. We have our miles with UA and try to use other Star Alliance members (SAS and LH) for our travel needs. Unfortunately, SAS is dropping their SEA-CPH route in a couple of months so we are now limited to LH or UA. I am retired and my wife is a consultant. We want to move to Germany for a year to see if we want to live there permanently. Hopefully Flyertalk will provide us with interesting and fun flight ideas.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, lucyinthesky7!

I think you should start posting in the Hilton forum and become friends with those who have top elite Hilton HHonors status. That way, you could then become lucyinthesky7 with Diamonds.

Formal Intro
 

Name: Harrisburg International Airport

Location: Middletown, PA (Hence FAA code: MDT)

Occupation: Airport

Hobbies: all things aviation related

Relevant Facts: Currently served by 6 major airlines to 13 nonstop destinations with 100s of connections.

I realized today that it has been nearly five years since I posted who I am and my life has changed quite a bit in that time period so here we go again.

My name is Charles and I do not go by any diminutives of it. My handle comes from my initials and my birth month of October plus my childhood love of the DC-10. I'm 23 (which sometimes depresses me) and entering my 6th year of living in Tempe, Arizona. I grew up in Rye, NY (just north of New York City) and attended Arizona State University. I graduated in 2006 with a degree in US History and English Literature. Naturally this led to some pretty narrow job openings and after stints in healthcare, the Management Training program at Enterprise Rent-a-Car, an office management position with a fly by night internet mortgage company, I finally found a job I'm proud of. I work in Inside Sales with Consolidated Electrical Distributors (CED) in Scottsdale, AZ. I'm lucky that every six to eight weeks I get to travel for my job. While my trips will only be domestic ones, I don't think I otherwise ever would have visited Tupelo, MS. Apparently I'm the only person in my 106 person training program who chooses his own flights and asks the travel agent for them.

Besides work I enjoy baseball very much. I travel the country visiting different stadiums and am always trying to get a new one. Last year I saw games in seven cities, I'm at three so far this year with one more booked. Beyond that I read a book a week, do travel photography, play poker at a mildly competitive level, try to keep close with my seven siblings (once of whom was just married) and am always on the look out for a good new restaurant. Oh and somehow I managed to get a girlfriend...my Father is still baffled on that one.

Thank you for reading.

Hope this is helpful.
 

My name is Erik and I was born in Miami in '71. I was an "airline brat". My mom is retired Delta, 35yrs+ seniority. My first flight was aged 6wks and I flew continuously(often in first or business but a fair bit in econ) on standby until I became an "Adult". I loved to fly!
But I became fearful, for a variety of reasons about 14yrs ago. Suffice to say I knew more than I wanted to know in regards to commercial flight with a number of friends and relations in both aviation and security.
Consequently I only flew (in emergency family situations) twice from '97-2002, the final flight bringing me back to London where I went to school.(airline brats get transferred too)!
Now my attitude is changed. I flew with my girlfriend to MIA to visit my Mom and Uncle and do A LOT of fishing! With a bit of help from my GP I travelled on BA in WT+ and all was as I remembered. Calm and professional. Thanks doc!
Now I've got the bug again! Thanks to FT I can pre-plan to ensure a relaxed trip and enjoy the experience. Our next trip is back to MIA on the 8th july in club world and Ill try to put together a report on the whole shebang.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I'm a newbie.
Thanks,
Erokkss

Welcome to FT, stetchworth!

You should check out this thread about the very successful 6th annual FT "OzFest" that took place about ten days ago in Cairns. The seventh will be somewhere well away from the east coast, as you'll see from the discussion that begins in earnest at post #1118. At this point Perth seems to be in third place behind Darwin and Adelaide (too close to call), but things are far from settled. Wherever it ends up next year, you might enjoy this opportunity to meet a lot of friendly FTers in person!

Hi all,

I could not recall if I have made a self-introduction.

Anyway, I believe some of the members do know who I am, and have met me personally.

My name is Thyetus and I am from Singapore.

Hobbies:

Music: I have over thousands of CDs at home. Mostly in Chinese. I am also a freelance writer, usually reviewing CDs(which explains why I have so many of them).

Movies: Also due to the nature of my freelance work, I get to attend a lot of movie previews, though I do not have time to review every single one of them.

Bodybuilding: This comes as a surprise to many but I have been bitten by the bug since 9 years ago. Competed once. It is a totally different kind of lifestyle I must admit. So I welcome any member who is also a bodybuilder to write to me or drop me a friendly note.

That's all.

Happy FTing.

Hello from long time lurker in Boston
 

I've been using this site for a couple years now since my AA Platinum challenge (met with one trip to NRT to visit a friend). I've managed many upgrades, have earned an absurd amount of miles for not much cpm, and have rationalized many more fun trips than I would have otherwise.

I'm a 30 year old avid outdoorsman (whitewater kayaking, cycling, winter hiking, backpacking, etc) and I'm happy to combine trips/mileage runs with some of these fun activities. Feel free to PM me if you have any of these interests... especially if you travel from BOS (I fly AA mostly, some DL/NW).

I'm not sure how much I'll add to most of these forums, but I am a researcher in systems analysis (BS: Math/CS, MS: Operations Research) and love the mile/$/route optimization problems so maybe with some more practice...

Hi,
This is my first time in a travel forum... I normally hang out in UK political ones... and, no, I'm not sad!
My need for interaction here is based on my return to frequent flying and the best way to regain my Star Alliance Gold status, last held in 2001.
I've already got 11k miles in the bag this year, am about to do another 12k to Hong Kong but would really really like to make it up as fast as possible to Gold without having to do all the miles in what's left of this year! It's quite possible I would make it anyway with at least one more trip to HK pretty much guaranteed.
So any suggestions on this would be much appreciated.
My membership is with United who have told me this morning that there are no challenges available... should I believe that or wait until tomorrow to try someone else?

Ooh, never did get around to posting in this thread. I've been on this site for a while now. I'm an expat from Hawai`i living in the DC area, although do I get to go home once a year. My most common business trip these days is a drive from DC to New Jersey and back. Although I do fly to LAX a fair bit. I'm a contractor at the Navy Yard in DC doing strategic planning for the Navy's combat systems ship integration and test group. My office is a block from the Nationals' ballpark; unfortunately, they stink and we won't get decent bars nearby until that changes. Fortunately, it means tickets are easy to get when the Dodgers or Braves come to town.

The name's Larry, though my friends have invented innumerable variations.

Welcome to all the new people :).

Baggycat - there are no challenges with UA right now, AFAIK, however there is a great DEQM (Double Elite Qualifying Miles) promo on right now. You will need to hurry as it ends very soon. Basically you book a flight and fly before June 15th and you will get double elite miles for that flight.....these are the ones that help you get your status back. So if you fly
something basic like LAX-JFK you will get over 10K elite miles to count towards your status, with the planned HK trip and your 11K in the bag, you will easily make elite status with UA.

For UA you will need 25,000 Elite qualifying miles to gain the lowest level of status; Premier, with UA. I suggest you head over to the United Airlines Forum....all the good info is there :D.

Good luck.

Hi, DUG, thanks for your reply, much appreciated.
The two trips, LHR to LAX and LHR to HKG don't quite get me to Premier, it leaves me about 1500 miles short, which is why I was hoping there was a challenge. And I can't fly before the current promo runs out... and United don't fly to HK from Europe, only from the US going the long way round!
I have emailed [email protected] to see if they were prepared to help, but I've not had a response yet... probably won't get one, although I did say that I have a number of options as I have FF accounts with Virgin and AA as well to try and give them a little encouragement!
The biggest reason I wanted to get it quickly is because I need to be bringing samples back from Hong Kong/China and could really do with the extra luggage allowance. From the UK we only get 1 bag at a max of 20kg on ANZ, but as a Premier Exec/Gold I get two bags at 20kg, thereby saving me a fortune in either shipping or excess baggage.
I should be doing at least one more flight to HK this year, hopefully two but that will still leave me about 2000 miles short of Prem Exec... so I might have to fly to Barcelona for a weekend or something to notch up the extra!
In the meantime I'll find the united forum and see what else I can find out.

Hi,

I'm from the SFO area and work for an entertainment internet site. I usually don't travel much as I am very low on the totem pole so all my travel is leisure and my family is all here in the area.

I found out about this site awhile ago actually during the whole foreign exchange fee topic over from Fatwallet. Bookmarked it and popped in once in a blue moon.

Since this year I have a lot (for me 3 is) of leisure travel planned, I signed up. I've just come back from ORD and have San Diego booked (for Comic Con). I hope to get to the UK sometime later in the Fall. I've already found tons of information for my overseas trip. :)

Since I don't travel much most of my FF programs have very low/0 totals. I only have Southwest and United active.

Hi
 

Hi, i am quinny, traveling around the world is one of my ultimate dreams :), i am an engineer...

Intro
 

Home airport - YUL (Montreal)
Occupation - IT exec fixer/cleaner (i.e. I am brought in to clean up after IT execs who have been fired, or sometimes help with the actual firing)
Age - Old enough to make funny old man noises
Airline - Air Canada, Elite status; not my favourite, but good enough as long as I fly Executive First
Destinations - All over, but lately Europe and SE Asia
Next trip - Leaving in 36 hours on an 8-day tour of SE Asia, YUL-YVR-HKG-TPE-MNL-SIN-HKG-YVR-YUL ... whew
Favourite plane - 777 (until I fly in an A380 ;)
Favourite TV show - Mayday (seriously)
Favourite cities - Montreal (of course), London (UK), Vancouver ...
Interests - Computers/IT, plane-spotting, grilling on the Primo, Ducati, (big) guns, single-malt scotch, salmon fishing (West Coast) ...
Who do I really care about - Wife, 3 kids, the malamute with an attitude

My name is Sean Moran
I am 21 years old
I currently Work in Customer Service for Old Navy
I am trying to get into the airline/ airport industry
I currently attend Mt. San Antonio College in Los Angeles working towards a transfer to Cal State LA for a Bachelors Degree in Aviation Administration.

Howdy!
 

I've been lurking on the boards for a few weeks and finally decided to become a more active member. I figured it would be appropriate for this to be my first post. So.....

Home Airport - ORD (Chicago)

Occupation - Program Analyst for the US Department of Labor

Age - hitting 28 in 1.5 months

Airline - Trying to focus on American Airlines because it's the contract carrier for work, but since I'm just starting to stick my toes in the loyalty program waters I'm mulling things over. Also enrolled in UA (ORD - duh) and DL. Have about 12,000 miles in each program to date.

Destinations - Mostly Midwest destinations for work, but I make the occasional ocean crossing to Asia or Europe.

Next trip - Domestically I'll be flying to DCA on 7/3 to celebrate the 4th in the capital. Internationally I'm heading to Athens, Greece on DL due to the "Sale of the Decade" fiasco a few days ago on 10/13.

Favourite airline - JAL, but that was almost 10 years ago so my memory is foggy at best!

Favourite cities - Chicago, Tokyo, and Washington DC

Interests - Travel, history, politics, and volleyball.

Hi...
 

Hi everyone and greetings from the rainy Hudson Valley.

After reading occasionally (and in secret) for a long time, it was overdue for me to sign up... not sure if I will be able to catch up with those of you who have 10.000+ posts, but I'll try :cool:

Name: Christoph
Profession: Finance Compliance (Sarbanes Oxley) in a Fortune 50 Company
DOB somewhen approx. 30 yrs ago
Home City: currently somewhere north of NYC , prior to that LAX, WUX and NUE
Birth City: NUE

Where you find me in the plane: far away in the back :-( Thanks to the current economy, the rule is "Cheapest Flight - for everyone"...
Favorite Airlines ^ : 9W, LX, LH, UA
Least favorite Airlines :td:: AF, DL

rgds
SOX-Guy

I'm new here. I am an online freelancer and I love to travel.

New Here Too
 

Hi, I commute on a weekly basis between the UK and ROI, working in Dublin. Have done so for the last year, and am a frequent browser of FT - just thought I'd jump in and contribute.

New too ! I have been on another forum for a couple of years and thought I would give this one a try. I live in Durban, South Africa and fly frequently to the US, Europe and Australia to visit my extended family. ( and friends, of course ! ) I hope I can catch up with some of these posts !

Hello all,

Just signed up the other day. Got a burgeoning interest in travel and people's holiday habits, as that's the kind of thing I enjoy reading about and researching.

But I also love going away myself, of course!

Looking forward to posting with you all.

Welcome to you all - hope you learn lots and share lots and have fun doing so :)

whats up
 

hello i just joined looking forward to chating im flying next week

Hello!
 

Thought it about time I introduced myself, I have been lurking for rather too long.

My name is Simon and I live in Bristol UK. I am an Auditor and have my own business, specialising in the profitability of Restaurants, Hotels and Public Houses. Regrettably my profession does not entail much business travel, so any mileage I do is for leisure purposes, generally in the back of the aircraft.

I look forward to making a further contribution once I have found my feet.

Hello
 

Hi everyone.
I have used your forum as a guest for a couple of years but today I can't seem to find what I am looking for. Yes you guessed it "discount codes". I actually run my own forum which is an international forum for cigars.
So I hope to meet some good people and have a little fun as I post and share.

Hi everyone!!!

Name: DMITRY
Profession: Student
Home City: BUE and MOW
Birth City: MOW

Favorite Airlines : LX, LH