Karen2

Fast Track to Gold in 2000/2001 with Hilton enabled my whole family to enjoy a free stay at Hilton Waikoloa in Ocean Tower, with lounge access - 6 rooms worth. We transferred points from all sorts of airlines to get the points for the 100,000 point VIP awards. Plus flew free...Those were good old days. None of those goodies are left.

Missed the Iceland trip - my greatest regret - because my husband was asleep when I woke him to tell me about it at midnight. He refused to consider the issue and would not listen when I assured him it would be too late in the morning. He still kicks himself - when I am not kicking him!!

I really do appreciate all the help from Flyertalk and its spinoffs. I save a bunch all the time, thanks to www.biddingfortravel.com and www.betterbidding.com. Our travel is the envy of our friends.

PLUS - right now!!! Had I not read it on Flyertalk, I am not sure I would have gotten in the UA double equity miles promo in time to get all the cheap fares. Thanks, all! Check my profile June 15: 1K again!!

Anglo Large Clawed Otter

The AZ Mistake Fare to Cyprus was excellent, as was the UA NZ Fare (though it was significantly more expensive). The DL EZE-JFK J fare that Jaimito Cartero found was also golden ^. I look forward to OSL-SVO-HKG in J in two weeks.

Getting Comped to HHonors Gold from EK Gold (which I don't have) was also a nice touch, as was my utterly pointless Comp to Air Astana Gold from BD Gold (though I got a nifty card and some luggage tags out of it)

gardener

First of all, GOM stood for "Get Out More". And yes, today I find it hard to believe that over on the UA board people are getting so excited about double EQM - when US was giving out something like 13x miles that counted for both EQM and RDM!

The bonanza of exchanging the old paper US Airways 500 mile upgrade coupons for 4x that many miles was only announced on FT AFAIK - the web site offered only 3x.

The Delta "Dash to the Gate" deal where I earned 10,000 RDM's for each of my 4 family members by taking a 2 minute quiz online was terrific.

My US Airways DM Visa gave out convenience checks that earned points and had no service fees or interest - I got them in the mail but never would have noticed without a heads up from FT - I hit that one four times for my credit line of $25K one summer and earned 100K miles plus $300 in pretax interest just by making a few trips to my credit union (an elevator ride from my office).

The UA error fare ATL-HNL for like $135 all-in was sweet.

chexfan

Thanks gardener. That's definitely it. No wonder I couldn't search and locate a thread!

But I think that was only part of the deal. I hope geo1004/5 or Beckles or someone else can remember... but wasn't there like a 2-Step process for the first folks converting to their EUpgrade Bank?

Something like 3E-upgrades for one 800-mile paper cert trade offer. And then the EUpgrade to miles conversion?

So one 800 mile paper cert -> 3 500 mile upgrades -> 6000 miles.

Jailer

LatinPass and ValueMags were sheer mileage gluttony. Yet, in terms of long term and highest benefit, being convinced by a FlyerTalker to switch to a Starwood Amex has likely had the greatest benefit on my travel life.

baglady

The Mexicana mistake fare was the first FT experience MR Baglady had - we took it a week after we got married (it was our mini hooneymoon) and the mileage was pretty decent. The CO mistake fare in 06 got Baglady Jr. to gold. FT has given me invaluable experience I could have never gotten on my own. I would have never thought to do a mattress run without FT

Kagehitokiri

i almost booked an $800 EY OW F (JFK-AUH-AMM)

ive learned the most from the luxury hotels forum. 2nd would be starwood forum.

i hope to catch some mistake F/J sometime.

MRKEY

The Fiji Mistake Fare ($61 incl tax) and the ValueMags deal were some of the best deals I have participated in..and don't forget the Baht Run thanks to tvl4free ( his baby!) with encouragement's from Randy & my buddy ozstamps ^. Many thanks to SanDiego1K for her sage advice & friendship over the years.

chexfan

I was flying AKL-LAX when this one was happening. This is the one I'm sad I missed.

magiciansampras

Can you do it again?

EuropeanPete

Well, this is a perspective from a newbie. In the last 3 months:
- 30K miles bonus on BA for doing nothing (flying business around Europe as normal but clicking a link)
- 3K BA miles per night at Marriotts with free Gold (so about 50K so far..)

All are major helps to pay for my planned London-Tokyo trip for 2 in First & Club World with (if only I can find availability again!) 6 nights at the Conrad Tokyo. Retail value of I reckon roughly $25K.

RichardInSF

For me, like many others, it was the AKL mistake fare, which we upgraded with miles to F. What a great deal!!!

Punki

We really loved our Concorde flight which we were able to book by trading in 100,000 Starwood points which converted to 250,000 Qantas miles, which was enough for two Concorde tickets. many thanks to Ozstamps for that one.

Oh, yeah, we also really enjoyed our two trips to AKL in first class as a bargain coach rate. ^^

It's funny, but when I saw the $20 BA fares I decided that I really wasn't interested in flying to coach across the pond, so I declined. We are just way too spoiled, thanks to FlyerTalk.

I think it is time for another great mistake fare.

RichLond

the list is so long.... My top 4 are:

1. Flying a RTW in first class for under 4000USD and getting close to 400,000 AA miles and the equivalent of 24 VIPOWs. Stayed in Starwood hotels and got the 50K bonus points for 4 stays in Asia Pacific.

2. The Gold Points/Value Mags/Orvitz Deal. Ended up with almost a million AA miles at less then .25 cents per mile from all my purchases. And ended up with a bunch of fabulous furniture for free.

3. Ebay Anything Points deal. JohnNYC and I did close to 40,000 dollars of ping pong purchases and ended up with nearly a million or so CX miles!

4. Latin Pass. Ended up getting more than 400,000 AA points and 250,000 Marriott points.


Each of the above is only part of the story of course. I think any of the active FTers from the 1999 time frame has some amazing stories that will probably never be spoken about online.

rich

tcook052

It wasn't BA coach, World Traveller, it was World Traveller Plus. My biggest regret about that deal was only buying one, which incidentally was still one more than the OP who found that deal, another Edmontonian FTer named Altaflyer.