Can you put a price on the lesson of never getting a room next to another FTer if you want an un-interrupted shower?

I can't even begin to come up with a number. There's things I am doing because of FT I never would be able to do (Rome for $250 in Feb for example) so while that's a huge savings, it's also something I wouldn't do without the savings, so it's not real money to me as in money made.

But money aside, the value is totally in the people and knowledge, which can't be quantified (nor explained to outsiders).

I think I was upside down financially until I went to New Zealand with my family business class for $4500 in airfares for 3. Wait, I spent $4500 so I didn't save anythig, did I? It's not how much you spend, but how much you save, right?

Yeah, baby, yeah!

Other than meeting new folks and making new friends, which I don't put a dollar value on, I'd figure I've saved probably $15,000 from being on FT and learning about being a frequent flier.

Resulting in?

(fine, we'll leave this for chat)

Oh no, I'll share proudly about our love child.

Before Flyertalk I earned 30,000 mi/yr and was unaware of status benefits
Began lurking on Flyertalk in 1999 and eventually earned 420,000 mi/yr
After SEA DO IX, I now earn 1,000,000+ mi/yr

Thanks to Flyertalk I can make trips in first class that used to be dream trips
in coach

Wow. How many of those are BIS miles?

0 BIS miles. When AA changed upgrade policy in 2004 and added co pay, I decided to take a break. I was looking forward to business class to Europe and retaining AA platinum. Now I don't even buy coach tickets.

I choose award travel carefully because any day the easy accumulation could end.

An interesting question! It may seem to some that the addiction has it's costs but I view it as a pre-exisiting adddiction so being on FT has only enhanced it. Yeah, maybe I had no firm AKL plans and me spending $1500 wasn't in my budget at that moment, but c'mon, given that misprice was 10% of it's normal price that trip and many others, like the BA $20 WT+ special, have literally saved me tens of thousands on travel. I'm detailed oriented but not to the extent that I could come anshwere close to putting even an approximate dollar figure on how much I've saved during the years on FT.

Beyond the immediate dollar figure however is the intangible advice and information garnered from my time here and as others have said that is priceless.

Hmm.... hundreds of thousands of miles, a few special trips through "wrinkles" I'd never have otherwise known about, and the conveniences of being able to keep up to date with the latest travel and airport information prior to travelling.

As the years go by, it is that last that is most important to me... being jaded with business travel, always good to know the easiest and most convenient way to navigate airports to make those trips go more easily.

I have met a number of cool people over my 1.5 years at FlyerTalk. In terms of what I have made monetarily, FT is a net loss dollar wise but the experiences I have had through all of the travels are what's worth while. For example, I wouldn't have gone to Europe 3 times this year, but for $1200 for 3 trips the experience is worth it and because of FlyerTalk I learned how to do it all while earning 60k miles. The 60k miles in turn got me about $4500 worth of tickets so one could say I made a profit of $3300, but for me I never would have traveled in Business Class around Asia so I would say that these tickets were an even break with the $1200 spent flying to Europe.

I look at FlyerTalk as the $120k my undergrad degree cost me in terms of what i have earned. It's expensive up front, but that degree sure yields some nice dividends in the long run and will take me places I may have never dreamed of going to 2 years of going to. one last thing i am grateful to FlyerTalk for is the fact that my passport is completely loaded within 2 years of getting it, to me that's an accomplishment at the very least.

Getting better fare suggestions (i.e. routings, techniques, etc) through fellow members have been my ticket to saving more $$$ on my trips.

How'd you calculate this?