When I was 6 I started stealing things from stores. Little trinkets, pennies from the take one dish, anything I could get away with. As I got older I started stealing more, from the kids at school and the teachers, from my parents, anything I could get away with. I felt a rush at getting things for free, it gratified me, it justified all the financial mistakes I made out of ignorance and sometimes stupidity. These traits never left me, now that i am an adult I manipulate and justify abusing every program I can find that has a gray area but I go no further because I am scared of getting caught. My biggest prize is the direct ship dollar coin program. I bask in the glory of abusing this program. The rules are clearly spelled out but I break them with impunity and brag to everyone that will listen. My low self esteem makes me think that i am smarter than everyone else when in reality I am just scummier than everyone else. That is why I keep myself surrounded by like individuals here at FT where even the mods try to justify abusing this program. I am a sociopath to some, to others I am just a POS, but hey, I can fly for free and pickpocket the other passengers.

Haha, wow! :rolleyes: Someone is really steamed about the mint program. It's doubly perplexing because you can get the feeling that s/he is well educated and has a good handle on tongue-in-cheek commentary... you'd think that their righteous indignation would be better off decrying global warming or the US shadow banking regime...

My father used to work for SNECMA (SAFRAN group), so since i was a kid i was surrounded by planes and engines posters, stickers...i was also a regular visitor of the Bourget Air Show.
However my familly and i never flew anywhere, except once after my father passed away.
I had to wait until 10 years old to be able to board an airplane, which was a pretty small one, something like a Cessna and i was even able to pilot it for a couple of minutes !!! ^
My first commmercial flight was in 1989 from France to Spain,
Then i started flying alone (without my familly, but with others youngsters) once a year abroad every summer, but still i did not get any clue about mileage, FFP’s...

I first enrolled to a FFP when i applied to an Amex card (back in 2000) and was aiming to redeem my miles for a Concorde flight, but unfortunately Concorde stopped flying shortly after.
I finally managed to redeem most of my miles to get Mrs Mud and I in first class from Paris to LAX last year.
I discovered Flyer Talk back in 2005 and now am totally addicted...

more I recall
 

I do recall back in the late 80's (88-89?) I had an AMEX card that got miles or points and for some reason my brother could not get AMEX. He was living and working in Russia at the time, and they accepted that card. We signed him on as a joint card holder and he earned a TON of miles on the account because everything he did was an expense that his company paid for.

Well, shall I say, I earned the miles. And he said, You can have them. Just get me back someday. I did, with tickets to something somewhere a bunch of years later.

lol hey thats me!

great stories guys....keep them coming....

You guys are going to laugh at me. June marks my 10-year FT anniversary, but you'll all get a kick out of my post when you pay attention to my time lines.

I never traveled by air as a kid. We would camp and visit my grandparents via a 9-hour car ride, and that was it. I decided that college was a time to get away from the house and explore life, and for that reason, at the very last minute, I opted to attend school in DC as opposed to the state university.

I think my first two trips by air I didn't even bother with an FF account, 'cause no way would I ever get enough miles for a free ticket. Somehow, I managed to score enough miles for a domestic F upgrade, and upgraded DCA-MSP-MKE. At the time (circa 1998) NW would run a DC10 on the MSP-MKE run. I thought that would be a sweet upgrade, despite the shortness of the flight. It was.

Later in college, I worked as a baggage handler for a UAX carrier at IAD. Despite flying for free, I never left the country. (Even when the flights are free, you still gotta spend money when you get there, and on my $10/hr ramp salary, I didn't have that kind of cash. I also worked a lot of overtime, so vacation = missed overtime.) I do recall flying in UA's F suite domestically, I think about 8 times. The first time, I flew with my dad from ORD to SFO just for the heck of it. I had been visiting him, and we were debating what to do. He said that he's always wanted to fly on the 747, and never had the chance. I looked at the flight schedules, and realized we could catch a same-day return from ORD-SFO. So the next day, we did. We flew out in J, and sat in the hump. Dad liked it. (I still reflect back on that as pretty good product -- this was 2001 or so.) But on the return, the agent said we could sit in J together or separately in the suites. I didn't even ask dad what he wanted, I just said he'd enjoy the suite. He said to me "J was nice, what's the big deal with F?" I told him to wait and see, and he really did enjoy his experience.

In college, I learned to fly airplanes. Part of the reason I worked for the airline was to get an in as a pilot. But I also learned a lot about the industry, and one of those things is that a pilot's career sucks. Too much instability, furloughs, or what not. So I decided to become an air traffic controller, and moved out to LA to attend a civilian program.

Well, living in LA, the miles thing really kicked in. I moved there in 2004, and for about four years, I was an elite on NW with all of the flying back and forth. My first and last years were silver, and the two in between were platinum. During those years, my focus was earning and maintaining elite status. I cared about the miles, just not spending them.

I first left North American in 2006, traveling to Germany to see an eye doctor. I paid for my ticket, and dad came as my baby sitter. I got him a Y ticket on miles. I was able to get row 10 on the A330 (my favorite) and had plenty of leg room. I remember thinking that as long as I could get row 10, I wouldn't bother with J for an 8 hour flight. (I still feel that way.) While I was out in LA, I was able to take advantage of an NW mistake fare. They were selling air+land packages from LA with $400 off. Well, one week I spent a night there for $80. The next week, I got my parents two FF tickets and they flew out with me. It was fun, 'cause we took the same flight from LAX (they came from MKE) so we got to have lunch and see the lounge. The T2 NW lounge sucked, but my parents don't know the difference.

Well, all good things must come to an end. As I mentioned above, I have eye problems, and was unable to become an ATC'er. I left LA in 2007 to start grad school, desiring to study applied math and mix it with my aviation background. That worked as planned -- I now do operations research for a company who does contract work for the FAA. And they give me plenty of vacation ;)

When I started grad school (2007, hah!), I looked down at my statement balance and saw that I had 380,000 frequent flyer miles. I remember thinking, hey, I could actually go somewhere with these! It took me awhile to figure out what to do, cause I didn't have a lot of money. When I found out you could get a decent hostel room in Bangkok for $20/night, and when I found that I could actually get J tickets to BKK for 120k r/t, I figured what the heck. Unfortunately, I couldn't get availability in J on the way home. But I flew LAX-NRT-BKK in J, flew to SIN on Jetstar, burnt some SPG points at the LM SIN, and then flew SIN-NRT-SEA-LAX in coach. I got row ten again and broke up the trip with a 30 hour layover in Tokyo. It was a lot of fun.

In grad school, I went to China for spring break. Again, lots of miles, not much cash. Flew J the whole way. I had a Saturday class in the spring, and talked to the prof about the exam conflict with my trip. He said, "What you want to go to MCO or something?" But when I explained it, he told me that anybody who was crazy enough to go to China for spring break, he'd accommodate. I will always appreciate him for that -- small gesture on his part, but it meant a lot to me.

Later in 2008 when I was done with school and had gotten done with a contract gig, I burned the rest of my miles and went to KTM for three weeks. I took my time getting there -- overnight in CDG, long layover in LHR, overnight in DEL (at that point I was tired and just went to bed when I got in.) On the return, I had a 10-hour layover in DEL, with another 8 in AMS.

I started dating the woman who is now my wife three weeks before that trip. She was enamored by my stories, and on our first date, I made it clear that one of my goals in life is to see as much of the world as possible -- and she told me she wanted to come too ;) For Memorial Day 2009, we ended up going to London on a paid trip (BA had a really cheap special -- we paid $1100 for two roundtrip tickets and three nights in a hotel). Neither of us were particularly impressed. But the important thing is we didn't kill each, and really had a great time together.

Later that year, we started talking about a trip to SE Asia. She's always wanted to see Ko Phi Phi ever since she saw the movie, "The Beach." I started looking at *W C&P availability, and was able to get rooms at every property we wanted to stay at. What luck! I don't (er, didn't) have a ton of miles any more, so the airfare would be out of pocket. Being the resourceful guy that I am, I was able to buy 200k points from Alaska -- enough for two CX J tickets out of JFK -- for $4600, after all taxes and fees. We leave next month for a five-week trip through the region. I've promised her a good time (We're traveling through BKK, Chiang Mai, Krabi Beach, Ko Phi Phi, Kuala Lumpur, and three different regions of Bali) so I hope I don't disappoint.

Oodles of credit card bonuses later (and some reasonably cheap cash rates that I canceled some C&P stays for) we're sitting on 70k SPG points, 50k UA miles, and soon 220k AA miles. Desire to see something new will compete for the reasonably good value that can be had in Thailand, Malaysia, and Bali. (Granted, there will be plenty of those countries and SE Asia as a whole that we haven't seen that will still be new when we go back.) Desire to buy a house (and save for a down payment) will make travel in the near future a bit difficult.

Digging around in the basement I found the letter welcoming me to AAdvantage on March 17, 1992 when I was six years old. My Father signed me up.

As a child I traveled a few times a year with my family but in 2002, I got my start, I call it everything after it "The Frequent Flyer Era". I joined Flyertalk that year, and learned of the AA Gold Challenge. As I was looking at colleges in Colorado and Arizona, I managed to select flights that would get me enough miles to make status. I don't think my Dad really liked flying LAX-DEN-PHX with me, but he was nice enough to put up with it. I reached AA Gold on September 22, 2002, a month before my 17th birthday. For said birthday, I went to California to see a friend of mine and took my first flight with status (JFK-SJC) on October 25, 2002.

After that, I was hooked. I signed up for every program I could, began mileage running, joined promos, got the America West BofA Debit Card when I went to college and UA/AA credit cards after I graduated. Everyone in college thought I was crazy, and my family and friends still do now, but I've really enjoyed this 8 year ride and I'm excited to see where it goes.

What a great thread.

I got started after buying a SFO-ZRH rt on DL last year for $365 during DL's crazy Europe summer sale. I'd been registered here for a while but never visited. I was randomly visiting one day when I saw the sale posted in the MR forum and bought two tickets for a friend and me the next day. After that, I started paying more attention to this place. Went big on the Expedia $200 off 3-night IHG promo and took a family vacation to AZ and FL. Then did the US TIB promo for $5k and the BA 100k miles...done a bunch of credit/debit cards offer this year (UA 50k, SPG 40k, CO 50k, etc.). Got a few vouchers from the AA QF mistake and 600 EUR off a LH bump. I love the game - I get to go to places which I've only dreamed of visiting at a fraction of the cost and in luxury I can't otherwise afford. It's a very rewarding game.

Our family has always been diligent about collecting and redeeming miles (I've been traveling frequently since I was 5) so I've always known the value, but we only got big on the credit card and bumps game sometime last year. Back in the 90s, we used to fly internationally a lot in Asia and Europe but loads were typically light and flying coach was not a big deal esp. since we were flying 7-8 hour flights and getting the middle seater in coach to stretch out on was pretty common. Now that I fly long-haul, and with the deterioration in service standards and higher loads, flying up front is definitely worth it.

I think there is some link between frequent flyer programs and refunding. My mother is an avid refunder and, due to that, I was always exposed to the sort of mindset that will find a good sale, use double coupons and a refund offer, and actually make a slight profit on, say, toothpaste or shampoo. Throw in my father having been an early and enthusiastic participant in AAdvantage and I'm reasonably sure I signed up for mileage programs as they came along.

But it was a period of fairly regularly business travel in the late 1980's that cemented my obsessiveness. When you and several of your colleagues are traveling nearly every week, there tends to be a lot of talk of how to maximize the benefit. I remember once having dinner with a colleague and a (non-flying) friend in Colorado Springs. My other friend was amazed as we explained that we chose the Doubletree due to Hilton's giving points plus miles and that we flew the puddlehopper down from Denver instead of driving to get the extra miles and so on.

In the summer of 1992, as a sophomore in high school, I went to Germany for our school trip. Aside from being a great 3-4 weeks, my German teacher insisted that we each sign up for Northwest FF miles accounts. I'm pretty sure I've still got that card filed away...

I didn't travel much before and didn't travel much immediately after but I definitely wanted to and held on to that card. Upon turning 18, I got an apartment and had to select a long-distance carrier and get my first credit card. It didn't take long to realize that Sprint and another carrier (perhaps MCI) would routinely give me Northwest miles for signing up for LD. I probably switched 5-6 times... I also started taking US Bank up on their CC offers, canceling after a year or so.

Somehow I ended up generally keeping 60-100k worldperks points in the bank. I'd only redeem at a comparable ticket value of $400=25k ($.016/mile) or better. Oddly, I NEVER looked around online for other like minded people.

Along the way, I did some things with miles that I just wouldn't have done otherwise including a cheap trip to London with a friend that had never left the country, taking a girlfriend to San Francisco at the last minute, a miles+points fare to Montreal with my eventual wife, doing a great miles+points fare to Bangkok for my honeymoon.

It's amazing to me how savvy I was elsewhere in my financial life, how much I recognized the value of those points, how much I wanted to travel more, and yet just never, ever looked online.

Moreso when I think back to a friend of mine telling me about a deal in the late 90's early 2000's where you signed up for LOTS of Inside Flyer mags. He redeemed for 2 tickets on the Concorde. He told me about it and I just thought it was too good to be true and didn't go in with him on it. When he pulled it off, I was sure it was a one-off and I missed it. Bummer. In retrospect, that was flyertalk related. I don't think I ever looked...

When I got married, we immediately signed my wife up for one of the last Northwest CC offers, an AA visa, and a Delta Amex. I was pretty excited about those offers I received in the mail.

Then we moved to New Orleans and away from family. I know my wife (better than she does sometimes I think and probably vice versa) and know the only way she'd be sustainably happy was the ability to travel home. A lot.

As I watched our FF balance dwindle from ~250k to ~130k and our budget remained tight, I started to get a bit nervous.

I still can't remember how, but last January I stumbled onto FrugalTravelGuy.com and the expired BA deal. I was bummed. But it came back and we got in on the 2nd to last round of 100k BA deals. Both of us. And so it started.

As of 1/2010, I had ~135k miles left. Today, if all our pending miles were counted, we'll end the year at ~1.4m hotel, FF, and Amex MR points (or equivalent value) with another 150k or so scheduled for early next year ($10k AA cards for 100k take a while to finish). We've also redeemed ~250-300k this year. Needless to say, I'm hooked.

A greatly increased amount of business travel helped but honestly, this was mostly by working programs found on this site. One person earlier in this thread called this his 2nd job. Next year, I'm looking to scale back a bit but that's an apt description.

My wife remained skeptical until late this year. This past weekend, we were talking about whether it would be good to gift her Delta FO (silver) when I hit Platinum or take another gift. I noted that I wanted to do something special for her but that frankly, silver wouldn't get her upgrades since she flys almost all awards, it wouldn't get her security line access, she's small and so doesn't really care about exit row seating, and she already gets free luggage by her Delta Amex. I'd like to do something for her but gifting silver just doesn't do much... She replied, in a distinctly different tone than before about FF, that she was just really happy to be able to travel for free. It used to be one-offs for her. This year, we paid for 1.5 RT's and got 5 free for her. The 1.5 were just too inexpensive to use the miles for (E.g. $109 one-way from MSY to MSP).

She still thinks what I do is nutty but has moved from skeptical to appreciative.

I'm really not sure when to say I started... Was it with my trip to German? Those phone sign ups? Those trips and my early calculations of value of miles? Of signing up for those BA cards? Or the flurry of activity in May-August this year?

Thanks to everyone in the community and especially Rick @ FrugalTravelGuy.com.

when I was a kid, I got really excited every time I flew with my family. The check in counter, the safety video(believe it or not I still watch it for the zillionth time), the cheap plastic cup, etc. that was a old good time:)

I love beating the system. It is in my blood. I want to get the big bangs for my bucks. I started having long haul distance flight since 15. I got disappointed with US domestic flights quality so I was with the EVA airlines at first( they have one of the best truly premium economy class!). Later when I discovered flyertalk 4 months ago, I found how to maximize the value of points.

I had my very first MR on September, continue with 2 MRs last week. I have 2 more at the end of the year. Being in college and doing MRs at the same time is tough though. lack of money and time are always the problems.

I'm my way to my OZ Diamond *G at the end of the year (for lounge access) and I'm shooting for CO Platinum next year. Not bad for 4 months of being a newbie I guess:)

I have a long, long way to go...

Happy flying!

Travelling and angles
 

I first got the travel bug when I was about 10. I was an avid public library patron and had read through all the fictional titles in our local branch (those available to 10 yr olds). It would be a while til I got an adult card & I found out there were no such restrictions on numbered books. I found the travel section and the book on which the movie "Anna and the King of Siam" was based.

I was transported by the descriptions of the people and the places. At that time I lived in a one bedroom apartment with 4 other members of my family. The apartment was on a busy city street; places to play were far away. Imagination was the vehicle to wider horizons.

Our family vacations were few and only long car trips. Once we went to Miami Beach for a few days and twice to the Catskill Mountains for a week. As a young adult, I still didn't have much disposable income and tried to use every angle available to me. There was a phone booth at college which never required the 2nd coin, I paid my tolls one coin at a time--what a delight when I needed one less.

I got to see people off at boats and planes until I was 25 and my husband and I took our first flight a $99 midnight special JFK-San Juan on Eastern Airlines, complete with crying babies, fragrant food products and guitars. I loved it.

My husband traveled some for work and got to Gold Status on Delta for one year. We took a trip a year to the Caribbean on AA and signed up for their FFP and a Citibank Credit Card. I bought the cheapest fares I could find and joined the FFP of the new airline. I was a Freddie Laker flyer to London and there I found BA.

Years later I retired and now my dream of long distance travel (Siam, anyone) was a possibility & I started to seriously collect miles. The Jaquar test drive 10k promotion from BA gave me a jump start. The Hair Club for Men promotion was just missed. I found MileMaven and then joined e-rewards and e-miles. Then I found Starwood. Travel and my "angle" side were joined.

Awards were redeemed for flights to Australia, Thailand, and Europe. On the long distance flights business suddenly looked awfully good to my posterior. Free flights but the hotel costs were daunting. First we found hostels were not just for young backpackers and then the true budget saver was the discovery of Hospitality Exchange sites. There are many, my favorites are Hospitalityclub, globalfreeloaders, couchsurfers. It's like having cousins all over the world. Bring a house gift, get to meet great people & have them visit you & get to be inside the local culture.

Right at this time I found frugaltravelguy and started to really follow flyertalk. Lots of credit card churning and the usmint as well as charging everything (.50 is not too low for me) has left me with 1.5 million miles with 200k pending. This is in spite of four Economy flights to London for our daughter's wedding, 2 more London flights en route to Cairo-Mumbai-Calcutta.

So now I've experienced business class on long distance flights and thanks to miles I never have to go back to coach.

Now the hard part where do we go this Winter? So many choices.

I've had the travel bug since the early 80's when I first started backpacking all over the world. I would work a few months, save money (living for free with parents or boyfriend), then take off travelling every few years for as long as I could get the money to last. In the mid 80's I joined UA MP and because my flights were long, I got free trips every couple years. I got some bonuses but my miles were all BIS back then. I also was in Pan Am's program and barely redeemed a ticket to Europe after the Gulf War and before they went bankrupt.

I stuck with UA for many years or its partners while I lived in the Middle East during the 90's and after I got married and moved to Australia. I joined AA when I planned a RTW trip that got us almost to PLT, we hit the target with a trip we did just before they started charging to do a PLT challenge with a trip to the USA. Around this time, UA raised the price of an Australia-Pacific Island award from 20k to 35k in Y and we jumped ship to the more generous US and SQ. Last year, we did the Grand Slam (well actually I do it for both our accounts) and the 250% bonus and got heaps of miles.

I'm a dual citizen Australia/USA so can do programs in both countries. In 2008, Amex in Australia had a ridiculously generous bonus for everyday purchases so I did my grocery shopping in bits and pieces in lots of different stores and came out with almost 300k Amex points which transfer to SQ, PC and SPG and more recently I joined Velocity because I got a Visa card which dumps into DJ. I try not to spend money on anything unless I am getting points/miles somewhere and use Amex or Visa for everything.

As a dual citizen with a SSN, I can also get USA credit cards and control paying them online so I am just getting into that. Up to last year, I was churning Club Bing for both me and my husband but now they enforce the one redemption per account but we did get about 80k before it stopped. I have enough miles now to pay for all our projected trips through 2015 but now I am going for doing all those trips in J, getting too old to travel in Y!!

All our trips are leisure on our own dime and we are low income workers so people are amazed how we manage to travel so much. It really just comes down to smart shopping on the right credit cards, paying them off each month so we don't get in trouble and doing every promo and survey we can.

When I was around 12, My Mom, who worked in financial accounting for the school board, would work on Saturday since the big bookkeeping machine was free (pre computer days). I always tagged along so I could explore downtown. There was a travel agency a few blocks away that always left big travel brochures outside in a rack and I always snagged a few and dreamed about places to go. We were not in a position in those days to do all the wonderful trips, it was pile into the camper and drive for 2 weeks then. When we finally did the big trip in 1985 to Hawaii, Mom, Dad and myself enrolled in United's mileage program, thinking we would never go anywhere, but what the heck!

Since then, we have flown free back to Hawaii and stayed at the Waikloa Hilton on points, flown 1st class to OZ, Flown Business to NZ, and Europe multiple times. FT has been a godsend with all the info I would have never known about and gained so many miles from promos from the wisdom of other members. Now with over 2 million more miles (but a sick mom) I can't wait to still travel with Ned T. Bear, my teddy (who is insured with Lloyds of London) to more of those places that I remember seeing in those brochures when I was 12.............

JudyJFLA