I sat in a row 5 aisle from CLE-DAY, and I would say to go further back. I'd rather see the flaps than the prop. ETA: there's really no good seat, IMO.

Having just spent a week in Ireland (Dublin, Galway and Killarney) I will say that it's getting harder and harder to hear that Irish accent in Ireland.

I would think you're lucky to hear any Irish accents in Killarney at all. I wouldn't be surprised if Americans outnumbered the locals there. Sure seemed that way last time I was there 7yrs ago. Can't imagine it's gotten much better.

Hehehe... I miss George..

You're right, although we didn't see too many Americans. The only Irish that we saw or heard were at the soccer fields. I wandered down a side street and ran into the Polish area, complete with a Polish grocery store.

I think I'm gonna make a memorial iTunes purchase tonight...the new album should be in the store.

Flight time today on SIN-EWR nonstop 18h 30 mins
Im ready for golf tomorrow :D

I am trying to figure out if I will be able to make Gold by the end of the year...

I have 20,492 miles and 22 segments so far. The trips I am looking at are IAH-LAS for a conference, IAH-PDX-SEA-IAH for vacation, and possibly a IAH-DEN run for work.

Been looking at runs and it seems that intra-Texas runs are the most cost effective in August. AUS-DFW-SAT-ELP-AUS for $311. I just don't think it's possible unless I fly a BF route to Europe.

Im in the same boat but thinking about Plat. With my current eqm's 50,050 plus all the trips I already have booked through 2008 I will have ~66,000 eqm's. I also have a friend that will have 23,000 eqms by next week w/ no travel planned for the rest of the year. I think if I can convince him to run down to PTY for a weekend with me and Ill add on another trip home and go for it.

EDIT TO ADD: BTY, What are you currently?

What kills me about my job is the sporadic and unpredictable nature of the travel. Right now, all I have is a trip to SAN in Oct., which leaves me well short of Plat.

Last time I made a statement about having no travel booked I got sucked into a 30k mile whirlwind. I can say, with about 95% confidence, I'll hit Plat this year. If I was shooting for the usual 1:rolleyes::rolleyes:k for US1 I might be looking at flying home via IAH for Christmas (NY-SAV) ...

In other news, I'm apparently leaving in 2 weeks for a 2 week vacation in Spain. And, with the exception of dumping points for the Sheraton in FUE I have nothing booked.

I'm thinking 2 days in BCN (where we're flying into) which leaves me with about 5 days to plan. Any ideas or tips? Also open to recommendations for BCN.

I speak very minimal Espanol (just what I picked up working in restaurants :o) and the Canuck can't order 3 tacos to save her life. :rolleyes:

I am currently a Silver. My aim is to get Gold before possibly going out on my own and focusing on my own business.

I'll definitely renew my Platinum status for this year, although it will be the latest in the year it's ever been. The last two years I've achieved Platinum around the first week of August; this year I just hit Gold last week. I've had a lot of travel this year, but the distances have been shorter than in 2006-2007, and I've had more weeks where I didn't travel. Also, the move out of Houston has made it harder to avoid 50% EQM fares. On my intra-Texas trips I used to be able to just book a refundable fare into U, O, or N. But since moving, refundable fares on roundtrips like ATL-IAH-LBB are usually over $1,200, and I've paid as much as $650 for non-refundable fares that include one or more segments in a 50% EQM fare class. This year I'd probably be somewhere around 60,000 EQMs at the moment, as opposed to about 52,000 EQMs, had I not had the number of 50% EQM tickets I've had.

Next year I'm worried about getting any status with CO, due to where I'll be traveling most of next year.

I may just barely requal Silver this year. :(

Why don't you book on Co.com? Company mandates a travel agency? I would think that with the move to *A not happening until late next year, you should still have a good chance of racking up enough for status, unless most of your travel ends up being short, 50% EQM DL hops.

I requaled gold back in June, but I don't think I am going to make plat. Right now I am sitting at around 54k EQMs and I don't see where the extra 20k is going to come from other than some sort of Asian MR.

With TATL to South Africa, South America, and Sydney coming up one month after the other, I am just not seeing the need to do much more traveling. That is unless there is some insane CO MR at which point all bets are off.