So where did you get your start?
 

Ok so consider this...

You are into miles and points now, but you started somewhere, right? Like, what were you like as a kid, what did your friends or your family say about your ways? Does you current girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife know that you think a certain way and understands part of where you might get it from?

What was the thing or things you can mainly remember going back many moons in your existence that, when you do your mile dealings today, makes sense as the point where it all began?

For me, I can recall a few instances in my childhood...

One was when I got into magic tricks at around 8 years old or so. I had seen something on TV or in a magazine and I actually MADE a 3 1/2 of clubs on a playing card.

Then I taught myself how to do this card trick and would 'force' people to pick the 7 of clubs. With them not knowing anything, I would say, "OK, I will produce half your card" and then they'd think they got me!

Then I would whip out the real-looking fun card and everyone would have a laugh.

Another was when I was in 7th grade and we were learning all about Greece. I really wanted to go there and I asked my parents a lot but we couldn't afford it. (and miles were not yet in existence in those days lol)

So I went to the town copy center and, after cutting out the little letters on a bunch of Chinese restaurant fortune cookies, I created a line of text in the same block font they used to use that read, "You will go to Athens" with a bunch of Chinese characters under it. I had this photocopied in Red, which, in 1978 was a pretty cool thing (and it cost me $1.50) so it would match the ones found in the cookies.

We used to go to this same Chinese place all the time and I asked the waiter we often had to please try to stuff this new fake message into a cookie and make sure my mom got that one. She did, and she saw the message.

Wouldn't you know it, I would one day go to Greece!
A lot later in life, but the fact is, I did eventually make it there with my now wife.

the point of this is, these were the kinds of things that were in me, that shaped me, that made me that kind of person who thinks a certain way and wants to do what we do here now with miles and points and deals and such.

I am now curious what you all had once done... I am sure this thread will generate some fun stories. And aside from actually earning miles or talking travel, fun is what this stuff is all about, right?

So let's hear it!

:)MM

Early 1980's Holiday Inn, Priority Club
 

It was early 1980s , and I was a sales rep with a territory I covered by car. Sometimes I would spend a night on the road, but mostly made it home in the evening. So I checked into a Holiday Inn in Charleston West Virginia, and there was a Promotion Advertised on the front desk. " Stay so many nights , and travel any where in the world". The Holiday Inn was about $25 or less back then. I don't remember how many nights were required, but I did the math and how ever many nights were very doable. ( number of nights X $25 = way less than the cost of a trip). And my company would pay for the nights. I hit that Holiday Inn every monday night for as long as it took to earn Two Tickets on TWA to Hong Kong, and 5 nights at the Holiday Inn Harbor View.
I think that predates "FlyerTalk" , and the internet.
We had a great time. Nice room on an upper floor with harbor view.
I was a pioneer and didn't know it.

It all started when...
 

Always was a bright child and did alot of domestic travel when young. Remember reading many books about ancient civilizations and wanted to be an Indiana Jones before there was an Indiana Jones to be.:cool:

I got that Holiday INN for $25 via priceline a few months ago.:D
I don't think there have been many updates since you stayed there, but it does have a cool view.

I always loved traveling, from my first trip to Italy as a 14 or 15 year old. My love for points and miles really kicked in in college. I was living in Massachusetts, and my girlfriend was living in Battle Creek at home for the summer.

I discovered I could make more of a living being bumped off two different airline's flights every single Friday from Detroit to Boston than I could at the work study and part time job I had at the time, and I was hooked, I literally made my living for two summers being bumped off the same group of flights every Friday.

When the frequent flyer programs started coming along and hotel points and the rest it was a total no brainer to join them. I was lucky in that I had moved on to a job that required travel to totally unknown places to me until the day before I was called to go for two or three weeks at a time. It just made sense to collect whatever benefits I could from it and use the free trips as often as I could.

My wife, who lots of people here have met, was never overly into it (obviously before you guys met her). One day we were staying in the Waldrof in New York, I had to work late that night and it was the cheapest room in the Hilton chain in the city, and it was a blizzard.

She checked in hours before I got there, and all I remember is her and a friend calling me to tell me about the massive suite they upgraded her to. It was obviously reserved for somebody else (the name on the card with the chocolate covered strawberries and bottle of wine) who couldn't make it because of the storm.

She never ever complained about points or miles since then.

We have matured in the collection of it all, hotel points don't mean that much at all to us anymore. Once the value of status dropped it opened an entire world of smaller bed and breakfasts, home rentals, cottages, boutique hotels, etc for our personal travel. If I need a night at an airport before a trip now I'll priceline it and save, in the case of this weekend for example, well over a hundred dollars for the night. That adds up pretty fast.

Airline status however still matters. Free bags, no lines, boarding first, etc and now that she travels on and off for work she goes for every mile she can.

for as long as i can remember i flew long haul with my parents between india & the us atleast twice a year....we used to fly ai initially & then at some point switched to ba....

my father opened up a ff account for me on both airlines but i had no clue how many miles i had....when i was going off to college he gave me my account details & ever since then i was hooked....when i started working i had a decent amount of travel which has only increased as the years went by....

now i'm on the road at least 15 days in a month & have been racking up miles from even before i was aware such a thing existed....

cool stories so far. Love it.

Another one that got me on this kick had to do with the way promos go, or, shall I say, things like "if you do X, we will give you Y" and how at the end of the day, many companies fail to deliver.

I was maybe 12 and we all used to take a group bus trip to a place by the beach in MA called Paragon Park. It had this wild old roller coaster and of course all the olde tyme rides and attractions that would have been around such places in the 70s.

I was standing at this booth where you had to put a nickle on a colored block on a table and when the guy spun the wheel, if your color came up he would give you the prize.

I quickly realized that the value of said prizes was far greater than the 10 nickles that I could spread across the board. I mean, hey, it said NOTHING about NOT being able to do that!

I did it twice til the guy was like, Ok kid, geddoudda heah!

Darn scammer! he should have (like so many mile and point related entities we all often fight with and report about in here) designed a better program and more clearly stated his rules!

I did walk with two big stuffed animal somethings. :p

While there’s a strong history of travel in my extended family, my own upbringing was in a situation where food on the table was a more pressing need than taking trips. I grew up living vicariously thru the adventures of extended family with hopes that someday I could follow in their footsteps.

After college I ended up in a field that was rewarding in every way except financially. A big trip for me was leaving the state via car. As time went on, I still lived off the stories of family (Cousins living in Brussels, Singapore, Paris, an Uncle traveling for Chevron, another for Honeywell, Grandparents vacationing all over the place, etc) and I slowly got myself involved in other pursuits that ate up what little spare cash I had.

Then I met the woman who was to become my wife. She’d traveled around the world and wanted to do more, as did I. We took our 1st trip together to Central America and before going, I suggested we sign up for FF accounts and the companion credit cards. At the time, I was overjoyed to see 30,000 miles – I thought this was the best thing ever! I started to scheme – how could we get enough points to take a trip to CA to visit family? Could we use it to go to her parents place in FL? (I was thinking small).

We planned our next trip, added a few more miles, and got engaged. As we started to plan the honeymoon, I spent some time looking for deals and whatnot. I came across the WSJ article on the coins, and then found the forums and the rest is history. I’m nowhere near the level of many of you but in the past year I’ve generated enough miles to cover our trip overseas next summer, so I‘m pretty happy with the results. Within a cpl months, I’ll have enough for our next trip after that. My wife is onboard with it now and we’re both on the lookout for the next great miles opportunity

At first she though it was a waste of time, or at best, a silly pastime of mine, but now she see it differently – we view it as my part time job – in the real world, we're both on salary, we can’t make overtime, and neither of us want to change employers or careers. Unless I take another job, this is what I make, period, and there’s no way in hell I’m working more hours than I do. So the various promos, scheme, etc are that part time job. And for the amount of actual time I spend on them vs. the returns (the value of the flights & rooms), I’m probably making more per hour on this then I do at my real job

First started reading Hemingway when I was young and wanting to go to Africa on a safari, Cuba to fish for Marlin and Italy to see the mountains and countryside. Those books gave me a desire for many things, including seeing the world.

Then, I was 17 and I saw a FT yellow tag on a roller in MCO coming back from spring break. Looked up the site and the dreams are coming more and more into reach as the years pass.

My firends think I am crazy the things I do, MRs, coins, cc churning. . . Oh well. I just smile and take it in stride.

Great idea for a thread and some good stories.

I had always been interested in the game since I was a little kid. My father was a Senator card holder (before HON which he would have been) and I tried to learn all the tricks of the trade from him when I was younger, tagging along on many of his business trips. Certain things that he did would probably be considered bordering on the legal line, but as a kid I was fascinated at how he was able to work the system. I can still remember him telling me to wait at the edge of the airport at about 12 years old while he convinced the UA ticket agent that 1 of 2 tickets in his name (1 of which had expired) was actually supposed to be mine and getting me on a paid *A RTW First Class trip...I still have no idea how he managed to convince them that it should not be expired (or if I just misunderstood), but didn't care as I was sitting in UA, TG, and LH F traveling to places I'd never been before.

Unfortunately, my father passed away when I was in my mid-teens and, as a result, the amount of travel dropped significantly. I was limited to a trip (2 if I was lucky) to Europe per year on the cheapest possible ticket. I continued to try the old "dress-to-impress," asking for an upgrade at every possible desk, etc. tricks. To my surprise, a bunch still worked (as Gretzky said, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take). My brother and I were upgraded once LH EWR-DUS from Y to J simply because I spoke to a stewardess for a while then asked if it'd be possible. She, of course, said no, but a few minutes later came back and asked my brother and I to follow her towards the front. Another time, I had just had knee surgery and really shouldn't have been flying as I was in a full (adjustable, yet at the time, rigid) cast and asked if I could be moved to a larger seat on a JFK-LHR BA flight. I went from Y to Y+ by asking the gate agent and once on the plane asked if there was any space in J and was bumped up again. I loved every attempt.

As time went on, even these became rarer and every upgrade was "yes for xx,xxx miles and $xxx" or "way more than a college student or recent grad could afford." The recession came and flights became scarcer leading to more filled cabins and amenities became few and far between.

Just over 1 year ago I found FT and asked a question about a US Airways domestic F reward ticket I had from NYC to LAS. I thought I had gotten a great deal as there were options for a seat in Y for 25k miles each way and a seat in F for 25k miles each way...obviously, I opted for the F. I took the advice I got here, used it, tried a few things, and had a great flight (and time in Vegas, of course).

After a good 6+ month hiatus, I didn't really visit the site at all but had just booked a trip to Germany on CO and was looking for advice on an upgrade. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. Tips, tricks, ins & outs...the stuff I had grown up loving. I questioned my "great deal" of 50k for a domestic F with a stop...I wish I knew then what I know now. I signed up for the SPG Amex cards, Citi AA cards, did the h/s/j, and grand slam promos, and learned a great deal. I've even started some of my own ventures off of what I've learned and have helped out friends, families, and coworkers. I still had to fly in CO Y on that flight (with one of the flights on a BHX-EWR 1 aisle, completely full flight), but with all the information I had, was hoping I never would have to again. About 45-60 days later, I was able to book 2 F and 1 J ticket on the same flight for my family all for less than the price of the 3 Y tickets we flew this year.

When all is said and done, I started this year with around 10-20k miles and now have 450k (plus the 125k I just spent on a *A First Class reward for myself) spread over various FF programs and don't expect to slow down anytime soon.

Thank you all for your contributions...now where's that mint link.

I feel like a Johnny come-lately. Maybe my childhood was dull.

My story is pretty simple. Once upon a time, I had just enough AA miles (from Citicards and a Marriott travel package) to get my wife and I into business class on a USA to Europe flight.

The following year we took an organized tour to Australia and New Zealand. Air arrangements were made by the tour group (in coach) on Air Tahiti Nui. 18 hours from LAX to Sydney (including a stopover in Tahiti) in coach. Brutal.

It should now be very obvious how I got heavily into the points/miles game. It has become a necessity.

Moral to the story: NEVER allow your wife to sit in J on a long-haul flight unless you understand that you will never sit in coach again on an international flight.

Thanks to my German mom's commitment to visiting her parents every other year, I started doing TATLs in 1962, at the age of 2.

Always loved being on a plane, loved people watching at airports, and going to new places.

I think it was in 2003, maybe 2004 I saw Quest on Business and he was doing a piece on MRs, following a couple of guys around the skies of Texas as they chased a miles bonus for completed a series of segs on AA. My DW thought they were nuts, but I fully understood what they were doing.

Fast forward to 2007, I scored a TATL op-up to J on LH and decided that was the only way to fly. ( no kidding, right?) But I just can't afford to pay it and my employer, the US government, won't pay for it. (no complaint, just a fact)

In early 2008 I did a TATL on AA, and in November I realized I would be doing 2 TATLs in December and for 2009 I anticipated 2, maybe 3 more. I scoured the internet looking for advice on how to score upgrades and stumbled across FT. I learned about the AA PLT Challenge and completed one with my 1st TATL. On my second TATL I scored an OP-UP on the outbound leg. Then I had a family emergency and had to do my 3rd TATL in 4 weeks. OP-UPed on both segs. I realized I figured "it" out.

Did a 30k mile MR to score with the BOS3x and DEQMs that helped me get to EXP.

Anyway, I am hooked!:) DW thinks I am nuts. but she now loves flying in premium cabins and thanks me for being nuts.

Now, it is late and I have an 0830 from LGA-CLT in the morning, so I need to get to bed. Oh, the upgrade cleared at 100 hours!^

For many years I dabbled in FFP. I had a few credit cards and earned a few free domestic (US) flights. Then a year ago (actually may have been exactly a year ago today) my brother's nephew posted something on Facebook about the BA 100,000 mile deal. The link he provided took me to View From the Wing Blog, which I started reading occasionally. At some point, I started exploring other blogs and websites, found FlyerTalk in March and quickly got hooked on the "game".
So, now I am happily accumulating miles and points. The funny thing is that I have flown only once this year. But that flight was on miles (as was my previous flight in late 2009). I have also used my miles this year to give a friend a flight to see her Dad just before he passed over, and I've been able to cash in my skypesos for some useful gift cards.

I can look back to my childhood and see where seeds were planted that have lead me here. I have always enjoyed playing and working with numbers. My parents were generous people and I have always find it easy to receive and give gifts. And I have traveled a fair amount and my family travels a lot.
I don't know where I am flying to next, but I do know that I am much better prepared for my next trip and it will probably be very inexpensive.

My parents didn't have jobs that allowed them to travel for work, but travel was always a huge part of our family growing up. We took at least one "big" trip a year, and several small weekend trips. They signed us kids up for all the FF accounts, and thus I still have my old TWA cards! I remember staying at the Ritz Carlton in St. Louis one year for a dance competition, and it was by far the nicest hotel we ever stayed in. My mom had gotten a great AAA deal, so we lived like kings for the week. They did the timeshare presos for *wood, Marriott, etc. and we got free weeks at Disney. In my teens, I began to realize that a discount can be found if you look for it.

In college I was gifted EXP status on AA by a close friend, since I was doing a lot of transcon flights. I moved to Atlanta for my first job, which required travel almost every week. And then the Delta obsession started. So far it's been 3 years of M-R travel every week, and I've slowly moved from FO, to GM, to DM this year. I haven't paid for a vacation in that time, and have seen some fabulous things. I've been able to send my parents on a last minute Super Bowl trip, to spring training, and a family trip to Disney with my 5 yo niece. I generally don't go out of my way to earn more miles/points, but I will maximize what I can. No MR's, etc. - I spend way too much time on the road as it is, and I haven't had a problem earning top tier with my normal travel patterns. However, there's always the "I just need a few more points for x trip!"

Mine started right here on FT, and for that I am eternally grateful... :)