Hear Hear ^^

Cool video ;)

Too late for me and now +1 too :D

gotta love the opportunity to have breakfast in NYC, lunch in Chicago and a cheese steak for dinner in Philly before heading back to NYC for a night cap, lol


or perhaps breakfast in Madrid, light snack in Zurich, lunch in Milan and dinner in Stockholm for our European members... lol


gotta love FT!

Why just European members :p?

I signed up here because of what I saw on CNN too. I was really amazed and I love to travel myself. I don't travel too often because it's so expensive and I'm just a poor student. The lawyer woman said that you don't have to be rich to do this though. I've been reading through the forums all day and I signed up for Miles&More at Lufthansa as well. Still I have no idea how to earn a lot of miles, travel a lot etc. without spending too much money. Anybody care to help a newbie out? :)

Thanks for the video link. Its great to put a face to Randy!

Well I'm a newbie too, and not quite as "professional" as the others yet. But the other day I signed up to Qantas Frequent flyer, and even if it takes a long time, a free flight within the next 6 years after adding all the points together will be worth it! :D
Also, when you search for flights, try and be as flexible as you can with dates, months, layovers, different airports and so on so that you can try and find the best possible rock-bottom price. This is great: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

Enough for now, because this is the wrong thread ;)

The CNN story was just on again this morning. Some people find it hard to belieive some people just fly for fun to get miles. With all the security issues and we still do it. It was easier to do this when I started flying as a kid in the 1960's, but it is still fun once you get by security.
A few years back I wanted to fly on a 777, the only Boeing aircraft I never had been on and I had a weekend to kill. Using a weekend special on CO I got a CLE-EWR-IAH-EWR-CLE fare for $240.00, I got upgraded both directions on the 777 plus got alot of miles on this routing.

That lawyer woman, Barb, is my friend, and yes, I can attest that what she says is 100% correct. :)

I spend less per year on this "addiction" than most people spend on their hobbies or even their home entertainment expenses (HDTV, cable TV, Internet, etc.), yet I'll be racking up over 200,000 Alaska Airlines miles--enough for 8 free U.S. domestic coach tickets (a $5,000 value) or, even better, a first class ticket on Cathay Pacific valued at $26,000 with enough miles left over for three domestic coach tickets (a $1,800 value).

It's not a free hobby, but the value you get for your money--as long as you are willing to put some time into it and be flexible--can't be beat. You can travel like you're a millionaire on the budget of a college student. I know that, because I did, and I know several others here who do, too.

That said, there are tons of promos out there that can get you many miles for little to no cost. You can spend hours and hours learning about them here on FlyerTalk, but a good starting point is http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com. It's a little U.S.-centric, but you might find some good starting ideas there.

For a newbie, I'd recommend following along in the Mileage Run Deals forum and the associated Mileage Run Discussion forum. Not only will you be able to see any potential good fares you can potentially use, you'll gradually pick up on some of the tips and tricks many here use to find those fares and maximize their mileage-earning potential. If you find a too-good-to-be-true fare you can use, book it immediately, since fares posted there disappear quickly.

I'd also, of course, recommend following the airline mileage program forum(s) associated with the program(s) you are affiliated with--in your case, the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles-more-lufthansa-austrian-swiss-other-partners-495/ forum. Read threads and ask questions there, and you'll learn the tips and tricks to cheaply earn status, which accelerates your mileage-earning rate and makes travel FAR more pleasurable.

Some tools I use are the following sites:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ -- Finding a low fare by searching is kind of a shot in the dark (though it can be done, especially using the 30-day search), but this site is extremely useful for taking a low fare you've found elsewhere and figuring out how to eke out the best routing. There is an extremely flexible but super-geeky extension language that can be used on this site; some help is available on the site itself but there's a FlyerTalk thread with even more info.
http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html -- not perfect, but a great list of published airfares from a given airport to other airports in selectable regions. It doesn't check to see if seats are available, but it's a good starting point. (It won't find unpublished fares, though; for that, see the next entry.) FareCompare's fare alerts are awesome; be sure to sign up for as many as you can handle.
http://www.airfarewatchdog.com -- loved and hated (mostly hated) by FlyerTalkers because they're responsible for spoiling an oft-exploited trick, but they do dig up some great airfare deals (including unpublished fares you won't find too many other places). Sign up for their email fare alerts, too.
http://www.travelocity.com -- mostly useful for domestic U.S. trips, their flexible dates feature is a great way to quickly find the lowest fares between a given domestic U.S. city pair, but it doesn't work for international city pairs due to an arcane USDOT rule regarding advertising prices including fuel surcharges. Zuji.com.sg, Travelocity's Singaporean affiliate, used to work similarly for international trips, but that appears to have been pulled. I haven't followed up on the news about Zuji in a couple of years. Travelocity's fare alerts are decent, too.
http://www.expertflyer.com -- A pay site with direct access to fare rules (hard to find elsewhere), availability in various fare buckets, and customizable alerts for when seat buckets open up (such as upgradeable premium class so you can be the first one to call in and snag the upgrade). Useful once you get a bit more advanced--I wouldn't pay for it as a newbie until you understand more of how fares and buckets and routings and all that works.
http://www.kayak.com -- my favorite search engine because it's pretty much the most comprehensive. Don't rely 100% on it, but if you need to find the best fares between a given city pair on a somewhat inflexible date, it's an excellent starting point. It also usually takes you directly to the airline's site to book, which I almost always advocate doing. Kayak's Buzz is also a nice supplement to the FareCompare page mentioned above; it's far less comprehensive but could occasionally pick up a deal missed by FareCompare.

Those are my go-to tools, but it's far from a comprehensive list. For one, I'm FAR from an expert here, and there are TONS of tools I probably haven't even heard about. Plus, that particular mix of tools works for me because of my location and the limited airlines serving my hometown, but other tools may be much more useful for people with access to a broader array of airlines and routes. Of course, you being in Europe may also negate the utility of some of the above-listed tools, but you'll need to confer with your fellow European travel experts in the Lufthansa forum and other forums to figure out what will work best for you.

All that said, this probably isn't the thread in which to discuss this, but it does seem like this thread is getting exposure to newbies, and I at least wanted to answer your question. Responses, though, are probably best directed to the specific forum that your question may belong in. If you're just overwhelmed with FlyerTalk and don't know where to post your question, post it somewhere and a moderator will likely move it to its home. (That's my recommended course of action in the absence of a dedicated "newbie lounge forum," which might not be a bad thing to create, now that I think about it.)

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

who wouldnt do a short trip when youre flying in an F suite (with doors) or say US/AA domestic flagship. although its kind of odd/ironic that there is no F within europe..

I like how the Delta image came up right when they said "devalued"

I am not a newbie. I found you post the most succinct and well explained version of what to do for the best deals that I have seen. I use Kayak and ExpertFlyer for almost all flights, but I should be more systematic.

Thanks very much for your fulsome intelligent and useful information

Thanks!
 

^Thanks! :)

Thank you so much for explaining me how stuff works. Sorry if I offended you by saying lawyer woman, I didn't know her name.

I'll try some of the websites and see if I get a clue. I will likely be flying from Amsterdam most of the time. Or actuall, I won't be flying for a while I think given the fact that I'm 18 years old and just a poor student. I'm studying International business so I hope to fly a lot in the future for my job :) I signed up for the flying blue program as well. Last year I flew well over 15.000 miles I think. I lived a year in the USA and made a lot of trips throughout the country. The only flights I did this year was from COS to ORD and from ORD to AMS. Again, thanks for your time and explanation!

Completely agree. ^

This has to be the most useful, informative post I have ever seen on FlyerTalk. Its a virtual tutorial for a newbie, and should be a must read for any persective FT member before they start posting. Well done, Jackal. Well done.

Oh, no offense taken at all! I got a chuckle when I saw you call her that. :D