Just a reminder that all these posts can be found in one compilation at:

http://members.shaw.ca/deercroft/wwaa.xls

(700 Meg Excel spreadsheet). A lot of information is out of date now but it is an interesting collection of folks! ^

I've been a member of flyertalk for a while, but I must admit I follow along more than posting.

I'm an electrical engineer in the Washington DC area, and I travel both for business and pleasure.

I've been a UA flyer forever, but now I've started to fly to South America a lot so I'm building miles on AA and DL. Too bad UA lost some good routes when they went in bankruptcy, but it's understandable.

700k :) not 700 MB :P

I guess it's time ....
 

.... that I introduce myself.

I'm currently a grad student at UC Berkeley, and I've been at FTer for about a year. I'm originally from SAN, but I've lived in WAS and NYC as well as PIT. I really enjoy flying, traveling, etc. a LOT and I have since I was a small child. I've a big US travel buff, and I've been to 48 states (sorry Kansas and North Dakota), but internationally I've only been to Canada, Mexico, and Israel. Actually, I *say* I've been to Canada and Mexico but in reality I've been to Niagara Falls and Tijuana. :D

I went to college in Pittsburgh, PA, so all of my miles and status are still with US Airways. Now that I'm in the Bay Area I fly United a lot, but still credit all my flights to my US account. We'll see if that's a mistake or not quite soon I bet .... I'm one of those strange people that enjoys to fly and actually flies for the sake of flying. Hence the reason I love flyertalk. Aside from flying, I enjoy going out, reading, movies, and cheesy reality television.

After I finish my master's degree I hope to begin a career in the airline industry. I'm in the IT field, and I'd love to be able to affect the performance and efficiency of airlines by improving their IT infrastructure. I think a lot can be studied in this area, and I'm looking forward to being part of it. I'm in the job searching process right now.

"700k not 700 MB"

That WOULD be quite a large download :D

A friendly reminder to whoever is compiling Talk Mail... there are lots of very interesting and very LONG-STANDING FlyerTalk members who have their bio posts very early on in this thread who have never been featured in Talk Mail.

I think it is very cool that you guys are profiling folks ^ :cool: ... I just hate that it is only the most recent posters who get the spotlight. :td: :confused:

I am Phil, a third year doctoral graduate student here at Johns Hopkins University-Bloomberg School of Public Health. I have been on flyertalk.com for about two years. Thanks for all the folks here, I learned a lot about air travel during these two years.

Since I have family and friends in China, I travel once or twice to China every year. That is where UA vs NW comes from. Before I moved to Baltimore, I flew a lot on United and ORD is always an exciting place for me since United did not serve CMI(Urbana-Champaign University of Illinois Willard Airport). Until now I still don't understand why no United service at CMI. Ever since I came to Baltimore, I solely fly on the skyteam alliance due to higher fare and less miles when traveling on United--I am still a poor student. Sorry, United--but I have always help my friends book their China trip on you. (I have helped them book 5 trips on United this winter).

Before I came to flyertalk.com, elite status for me is just a dream. However, after I came here, I found that it is not that hard to achieve it with one US-China trip every year. Last year, after a BWI-DTW-LAX-NRT-HKG-NRT-LAX-DTW-BWI trip, I finally became NW silver. Again thanks a lot for the Bump experts here, I collected $1200 DL voucher during last Thanksgiving bump and used those voucher to earn Gold elite by this year. Delta, please bump me again this Thanksgiving.

Just as Jumpgate says about him/herself, I also belong to those strange people group who just enjoy flying for the sake of flying. That is why I always make as much as possible connections when traveling, for which my friends always make jokes about me.

In the future, I am planning to visit every US state (I have been to 37 of them) plus Australia (next year), Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand,UK, Turkey and Africa during the remaing two and a half years in graduate school. Happy to meet all the great flyers here.

Phil

Except that for many of us the posts are rather obsolete. Of course, we probably should post again, but that would be too easy.
;)

I’ve been around for quite a while, and really have no excuse why I haven’t posted here yet, but I guess there’s a time for everything :)

I’m Kai, 21 years old, and a slightly different version of FlyerTalker. I’m more of the “I’m here to help” type of FlyerTalker, yet I do have a passion (boy do I ever) for travelling. I live in Petaluma, CA (45 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge sans traffic) and actually trek to SFO a couple times a week to work for SkyWest Airlines in San Francisco for our United Express operations as what I like to term “Airline Gate Nazi” (No seat for you! ;)), or CS Agent for the uninitiated.

I’ve grown up flying, from the time I was but 9 months old or so I’ve been making regular trips to Finland to visit family and such. I’ve always been a bit of a plane nut, and love getting on a plane, knowing it’s going to take me somewhere fun (usually). My job satisfies me in the way that I help other people do the same exact thing. If you ask me to assist in planning a trip I just light up! So come see me :) I was always a bit of a oneworld nut, until I started working for SkyWest and converted to Star (and SkyTeam I guess). I’m the proud owner of a SPG Amex card too :)

I was hired just days before September 11, 2001, but thankfully was not laid off. Nay, I’ve prospered and kept very busy. I’m part of an internal ground agent team that travel the country assisting on an as-needed basis in stations wherever our aircraft are handled, whether by SkyWest or a contracted carrier (which includes mainline United and Delta in some locales). I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working in Redding, CA (RDD), Pasco, WA (PSC) and Allentown, PA (ABE) thus far.

I’m currently also doubling as your typical frenzied college student carrying 14 units. I’ve received my AA thus far, shooting eventually for a BA in International Studies with an Aviation emphasis. That is subject to change, I’m sure :)

In my travels, through my travel privileges, I’ve visited Taiwan, Sydney (twice) & Cairns, London, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm, Berlin, Munich, Boston, New York, Dallas, Toronto, Seattle, Los Angeles (more times than I can count), San Diego, Salt Lake City, St. George UT, and Washington DC. More to come? Duh! :)

I have two younger brothers and two wonderful parents who I bum off of while I’m schooling. I love them all to pieces, and they mean the world to me. Also many of my friends, both from FT and off. I’ve attended the Do In Exile and met a lot of wonderful Fters (including the wonderful SanDiego1K, as well as a “mini-Do” in ATL many moons ago where I met cigarman and the legendary techgirl. We’ll see where life takes me, but travel will never be far from me.

Happy Travels! :)
Kai
--------------------
SkyWest Airlines - your friendly regional carrier and largest United Express carrier!

Any opinions expressed by myself are mine alone and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer, SkyWest Airlines, or those of our major partners, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Continental Airlines, respectively.

And Kai is the king of impromptu DOs. In fact, we had one a couple of weeks ago when I stepped off a plane in SFO thinking "gosh, I haven't seen Kai in AGES" and wham! I look up, and there he is right in front of me - on his day off. I thought I was hallucinating! Anyone going through SFO should look him up... he is an angel!

Well, as techgirl pointed out, a lot of stuff happens in four years. Four years??? Anyway, here's the revised version:

As you can probably guess, my name is Nick, and my FT name is a cautionary tale - think through the selection. I thought I'd post a couple of times and that would be it... doh. I don't live in Elmhurst (IL), anymore, I live in a different suburb of Chicago. I work in downtown Chicago. I'm a Principal at a boutique managment consulting firm that specializes in government transportation policy, analysis, and software. Before that, I spent nine years at Northwestern University's Transportation Center as both a doctoral candidate and then after that an Assistant Professor. I'm 40 now, which isn't as bad as I had thought it would be.

I don't travel as much as I used to when I first joined FT. I no longer have responsibility of day-to-day management of projects, so the work travel frequency is about half of what it was at my peak but concentrated on running design sessions and relationship management activities. I travel primarily to whatever state capitals where we have projects (these days, mostly IND and ALB) and to our company's four other offices. I've lived most of my life in Chicago, with the exception of a three year stretch at our company's Boston headquarters.

My leisure travel has been split rather evenly between the US and Europe. I'm thinking about a long HKG/SIN/SYD/AKL award trip in 2006 when I'll have saved up six weeks of vacation time, and I may go to South America next year.

I've hit the phase of the FT lifecycle where I only get involved in the really hot-button threads in the program forums (such as AA deciding to remove LRTC and charge for international upgrades within a few weeks). Most of my time on FT these days is spent in FT Community, usually in the role of the snarky cynic in the Chicago FT Community Lunch Carousel - coming soon to a restaurant near you. Even though I rarely travel to an out of town event, I've met a number of incredible people through FT that have affected my life in ways that I would never have imagined from just another web site...

Hello from beautiful downtown Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas! This is my very first post on Flyertalk. I thought that introducing myself would be a nice way to start.

I am 29 years old, married with no kids. We have a beastly 80lb English bulldog named Lord Byron Maxwell (sometimes new people at the vet's office call him "Lord" and I find that hilarious!) and a rescue cat named Dakota who likes to bat around treasures from the trash on our bed at night.

I have worked in our family's insurance brokerage business since graduating from Hendrix College in 1997. I majored in Business with an emphasis in Economics and minored in Religion. I really hated every moment of Economics and lived for my religion classes!

I have been traveling since I was very small. I'm an only child and my parents most always took me wherever they went. I am currently trying to learn personal fiscal responsibility and my travels have been limited to driving distances only. However, I have become increasingly restless and must hit the air soon! Thanks to all of you, I'm learning so much about everything and now I'm starting to utilize your advice. I'm earning miles without currently flying!

My current dream travels are a Windjammer cruise to anywhere, a week in an eco tent in Maho Bay-St. John, hiking Ireland and a Costa Rican jeep vacation!

I also like to read, cook, run (although lately I've been a lazy slob about it), dance, hike, backpack, canoe and pretend to garden. We are moving back to Little Rock soon...Hooray! I like a good Merlot and a nice homebrew.

My nickname of Nymph was given to me by my best friend who said that I was little and mysterious like a wood nymph.

I look forward to getting to know everyone and being here for a very long time.

Mahalo!

Welcome to FT!


Sam


Please join us in Dallas at Chuy’s Thursday 10/28 6:30pm for an FT Happy Hour.

Hi everyone!
When introducing myself in public situations I usually say that I don't like when people tie small plastic bags, because they can be so hard to open again. Nowadays however, I've started doing it myself...

I'm a Swedish male of the age of 24. An interesting FT-fact about me could be that I didn't join any FFP until september 2002! I had always enjoyed flying even before that but mostly flew domestic Sweden. Around that time however it was time to fly intercontinental which I hadn't done in a couple of years, and my flying-nerves got all active again. I started following the forum at Airliners and occasionally there was a reference to FT there. I looked at FT but thought it looked boring and didn't click on this site for another few months. Luckily, after many more references to FT I decided to look closer at this board. What I saw was deals such as BA WT+ for 20$ and ARN-JNB for SEK 960. Apart from that there seemed to be tons of information in this board (and indeed there is!). I registered and have been following this board mostly daily since then.

I'm studying human resources at Lund university in Sweden. Hoping to get a job involving travel, my career choice might not be the optimal one :) . I've spent a year in Bregenz, Austria as an exchange student in high school and have ever since been active as a volunteer for the organization I went with (http://www.afs.org). Through that organization I met my girlfriend from Finland. Although those who know me said part of my love came from having to fly to Helsinki all the time, that is not true. As things go, I have now moved to Helsinki for the autumn, studying at the university here. For the spring I'm planning to return to my Austria, studying in Graz. Then hopefully I'll be back in Sweden.

I work extra as an night-portier in a major chain and use almost all my money on travelling (read flying). Getting this job was good as I can now stay very cheap all around the world with my staff discount. I pay for almost all my trips myself, and thanks to FT, I managed to get my SAS silver-card this year. However right after that SAS announced reduced earnings on their discounted eco-tickets. Discounted eco-tickets being my main way of travelling and points-earning one of the main deciding factors on which airline to choose, I have more or less decided to jump ship to KLM/Skyteam.

This spring I bought an LH-voucher and didn't know what to do with it. Eventually, it led to my proudest moment relating to FT :D This was a trip I booked with LH in C including one night at 4* Marriott for SEK 2200 (310$). Thanks to FT I had learnt about Expedia's fare list. There I saw that LH was matching SK's saturday shopping run (travelling both out and in on the same saturday) in business. Thanks to FT I had learned to read routing and saw which connections were available. Thanks to FT I had learned about ITA and started looking at availible options. Thanks to FT I had learned that a 24h connection is not a stop over and so I transformed my one-day trip to one day in LON, overnight in MUC and one day in MUC. Thanks to FT I had learned about Priceline and found a 4* hotelroom in MUC for 60$. So instead of flying SK GOT-LHR direct on the same day, I got to a good weekend trip and more flying! Thank you FT!

I'm very interested in music, and listen mostly to soul and reaggae from the 60s & 70s. I know my way around in the world of beers and have learnt a little wine as well. Reading is also something I'm fond of and so I've studied modern literature as well. Ehm, dogs are much more appreciated than cats. Mostly my friends call me Gnopps, and I don't remember why I registered with another username here. Favourite tv-show is still Seinfeld. I eat more icecream than most people. I've had a lot of different occupations: postman, firefighter, working at the icecream company and so on. I've introduced FT to my older brother as well. We both love flying and our parents believe they'll loose their only sons in a planecrash (well, almost).

That'll be that for now. I've got my yellow luggage tags so I maybe I'll see you around!'

Bye for now!

Ps. Yes, you guessed it. I should be writing an university-paper right now, that is why there are all those links in the text. ;)

I'm Spiff from Louisville, KY.

I'm a Professional Engineer and a college Professor. I travel a bit for work but more for leisure these days. I'm hoping to get more business travel in by doing consulting, possibly overseas. My work schedule permits long weekend travel and I can usually take my work with me if I have to, so it's rare for me to pass up a terrific sale, especially to Europe or Asia.

I have three sweet (but often naughty!) cats who love it when I'm home, which doesn't seem to happen very much these days. They are all named after professional ice hockey players, which is the sport that I also play (not professionally, though!). I usually play forward, occasionally play defense and never goalie - that position is for crazy people!

I took my first solo commercial flight when I was 6, flying from Honolulu to New York for Christmas. I was amazed at how big the seats were, since I was able to crawl under them! Now I've become quite a bit taller and do my best to sit in business or first class whenever possible, or in an exit row when doomed to coach.

My favorite destinations are Frankfurt, Tokyo and London. I have recently discovered a new favorite, Hong Kong, which I visited this year over Labor Day Weekend at the Fourth Annual AAAsia Run. I sincerely hope that our tradition continues with a Fifth Annual AAAsia Run next year. Australia and Ireland are at the top of my future destinations list - if only the fares on AA or oneworld carriers would go down... Speaking of AA, that's my favorite domestic airline hands down. Even with some of the recent reductions, I still think it's the most generous FF program and have the most enjoyable domestic flights with AA.
I've had the great fortune to meet hundreds of FlyerTalkers all over the globe and hope to increase that number. FlyerTalk Dos are always a blast. Annual events not to be missed include the Annual AAAsia Run, Weekend at Bernie's in Dusseldorf, SeaDo, and the Oregon Brewers' Festival, which was my very first FT event 3 years ago. I attended the Freddies for the first time this year and met even more great FlyerTalkers including Randy Petersen and several members of the Webflyer staff. It's wonderful to have people to talk with who share my addiction for travel. After all, it's really all about the miles and points, isn't it? :)