Still have first FF statement?
 

I have never thrown away any so I still have my first AA statement as well as those of other programs that I joined later.

My first AA statement, from April 1987, shows a 3000 mile enrollment bonus, and mileage posting from KLM LAX/AMS/LAX (5579 miles plus 1395 C class bonus each way) for a total of 16948 miles. Now no enrollment bonus, and no miles from KLM for AA.

Also, in Sep. 1987, I received a PSA enrollment bonus of 3000 miles. Can't remember now what happened to PSA miles.

Many FT'ers must have even older statements. What's do you see thats changed?

A few things, though you note the most drastic change and that is the lack of an "enrollment bonus" from programs. I think the number one thing that has changed in looking over the original statements is the partner list. My how that has changed.

I don't have the statement, but I distinctly remember taking a flight on American in 1992, and an older, wiser friend ensured that I enrolled in AAdvantage. My initial reaction was something like "Why? It's not like I'll ever fly twenty-five thousand miles. That's, like, around the world or something."

Of course, I enrolled and the collection of miles quickly displaced drinking beer, playing craps, and smoking cigars as my strongest addiction.

Pass the Kellogg's breakfast bars, please.

i've still got my very first one...i was all of 14 and it's a bonus-filled EWR-PDX trip on Continental.

Back when you had to change planes in Houston, and during the seminal days of Continental's greatness...1994.

then again, the funniest thing about all this is the 5000 mile "special" enrollment bonus. i enrolled in AAdvantage last year and got a 0 mile enrollment bonus. so randy's right about the bonus thing...funny how things have changed, even since 1994!

Does anyone else remember the triple-miles mania during the early days of frequent flyer programs?

*laugh*

i hate to live vicariously, but i was helping my mother with something and i found an old FFB statement for her (i'm getting all misty about TWA...) with something like 20000 TripleCombo Bonus Miles.

Needless to say, i had mileage bonus envy. i've gotten triple miles maybe once.

So this was commonplace? Learn something new every day! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I thought the same thing and let 6,000 UA miles slip by. I'm not one of the billion milers like some on this board, but now I get meaningful credit on any airline (enough to almost reach or go over 20,000 mi.) and 6 figures on a few airlines. I earn miles the hard way, by flights.

Yep, it was 1986 or 1987 as I recall. (If it's important, I could dig out my old statements and check.) Most of the programs offered triple miles that year.

This brings memories of the Eastern Airlines Weekender Club. For $100/year, they sent you deals on 3-4 destinations each week for your home airport.

I used to fly PBI(or FLL) to CHS for $59 and receive triple miles with 1,000 miles minimum per segment. Ahhh, sweet memories!

This was when a FC award ticket to Australia on CO was 70K miles.

[This message has been edited by BillMorrow (edited 05-19-2001).]

Silicon Engineer: Your PSA miles were absorbed by USAir when the latter ate up our favorite airline, took all the planes back east, and practically abandoned the west. This process took about 3 years.

Almost instantly, the great 15,000 mi trips to Cabo disappeared as an award; the write-your-own-ticket ticket stock was invalidated, making us return once again to the travel agent, rather than tear off a ticket and fly (receiving a bill later), and the innovative frequent flyer program which allowed you to have your favorite seats in the profile, and really worked to sit you there, disappeared.

I was at BUR airport twice in the week USAir took over. Changed signage, but long LONG lines, late flights, and nobody really knew what the new procedures were. A few months later, we were all flying on triple miles bonuses, racking up huge amounts----- but then the disengagement from California began. No more service to Concord, Long Beach, or PSP. Then no more SJC. Then, the west coast north-south routes started to disappear; finally, in came Southwest, and you were left (here in SFO) with BWI, CLT, PHL and PIT. And the PA routes were scheduled either bone-chillingly early or late.

Finally, by about 1995, it seemed USAir had managed to take the best and largest airline in the nation's most populous state, and reduced it to a 8-flights-a-day, 2 gate carrier at LAX and SFO. Hope they got taken care of back East, cause we shed a few tears out here, which we've never quite gotten over.......... WN and UA Sh!ttle just can never replicate those days....

Love this commercial aviation nostalgia! (From an old hand who remembers the Pacific Northern Airlines Connies and the Braniff Electras!)

Does anyone have any of those little cards you had to fill out for UA Mileage Plus - the ones with your FF acct # printed on them and then you filled in city pairs and flight #'s? As I recall you turned them in a check-in. That's really dating me - I can't remember when the cards were eliminated.

Wow does this bring back memories. JerryFF, yes I do remember those UA MP cards, but had forgotten them until you brought this up.

I'm a pack rat by nature and recently had a fit of cleaning frenzy and threw out all my old statements. Alas, nostalgia gave way to neatness.

SST,
Thanks for that info. I was wondering recently how I got those USAir miles as I was thinking of combining them with AA for an award.

Just goes to show that never hurts to join a FF program even though back then I flew maybe just once or twice a year.

Yes, and remember the "partner" stickers you'd add to the UA flight cards to get a 10% (or was it 20%?) bonus?

It was 1988. I started a long-term project in 1987, but the bulk of the travel occurred in 1988. Because of that year, I still have 372,000+ of the original non-expiring American miles left!



[This message has been edited by Chetney (edited 05-19-2001).]

My memory is hazy on this one, but does anyone remember the free flight coupons that major carriers handed out for a short period in, I believe, Summer 1979? I collected a few and then received a memo from my company ordering me to turn them in to my corporate travel department. These coupons, which were transferrable, traded vigorously on the secondary market for a few months.

maybe its the auditor in me, I keep everything too. I have my first from DL, AA, NW, Eastern as well as the hilton and marriott all from the late 80's early 90's

Sitting here looking at my United 100,000 mile club luggage tag. All you had to do was send in a list of all the airline miles you ever flew on any airline. Free entrance to Red Carpet Club.

Also my Braniff International Council luggage tag. Free entrance to Braniff clubs. Don't recall the requirements, but they couldn't have been extravagent.

PAM AM Club too.

I wonder if those luggage tags are kept in anyone's data base for finding their way to me if lost?

[This message has been edited by mmthomas44 (edited 05-24-2001).]

I still have my temporary membership card from Alaska Airline and a statement dated 2/1/94-4/30/94. The statement shows a beginning balance of 5780 miles, but no explanation of where they came from. The next time I earned miles was June of 95. By the end of 95 I was up to 26,000 miles and I was starting to get the mile bug. '96 saw me at 34K, 97 I was up to 60K, 98 was 80K, 99 121K. 2000 I became an official addict and earned about 70K additional. So far in 2001 I have earned over 50K.

Sadly the rest of the year I won't earn many more miles. I'm finally going to use some of them. I leave June 15th for Africa and will be traveling for 12 months on a mileage ticket.

Found my first UA FF statement from 11/82. At that time the top quarter of the statement was the "Award Notification". It indicated what award level you had just earned. In this case it was a "Holiday 7 Special". The center half of the statement was "Account Activity" and the bottom quarter was the "Award Request" which was preprinted with the award level you had earned. This form was pre-laser printer and was two copys, one for your records. The UA FF number began with an A and was followed by 6 digits. I do not believe that the statements were mailed every month since my first FF flight on UA in 7/82 along with flights in 8/82 and 11/82 showed up up on the 11/82 statement.
At that time you needed to present a FF coupon (about 2" x 3") with your FF number either preprinted or hand written to earn miles. If there were any special bonus earning opportunities UA would send special FF coupons with the valid dates and the bonus mileage listed on the coupon. This would replace the regular FF coupon to be turned in with your ticket at boarding.

My first statement from AA 12/83 --

Enrollment Bonus 3,000
Activation Bonus 2,000
AA 581 EWR ORD 719
AA 185 ORD LAX 1,745
AA 404 LAX DFW 1,235
AA 150 DFW EWR 1,372

TOTAL MILEAGE POSTED 10,071

Remember when you could earn TWA miles on (now defunct) Eastern Airlines and Eastern miles on TWA? It was the mid- to late-1980's, I believe.

You were only supposed to collect for one airline or the other, not both. For TWA miles you stuck a sticker on the ticket with your account number on it. For Eastern miles you handed in a piece of paper with your Eastern account number and flight number on it. Bottom line: If you had an ignorant or cooperative gate attendant, you could hand in the piece of paper AND a sticker, and illegally get mileage on both airlines for the same flight. This petty larceny used to give me a lot of pleasure, particularly because of the passenger abuse Eastern dished out.

Remember when you could earn TWA miles on (now defunct) Eastern Airlines and Eastern miles on TWA? It was the mid- to late-1980's, I believe.

You were only supposed to collect for one airline or the other, not both. For TWA miles you stuck a sticker on the ticket with your account number on it. For Eastern miles you handed in a piece of paper with your Eastern account number and flight number on it. Bottom line: If you had an ignorant or cooperative gate attendant, you could hand in the piece of paper AND a sticker, and illegally get mileage on both airlines for the same flight. This petty larceny used to give me a lot of pleasure, particularly because of the passenger abuse Eastern dished out.

I had a few flights during the triple miles time period, including a UAL flight from Philly to Tokyo, that was sure sweet. I remember getting a few free tickets on the UAL fly eight segments get a conus ticket offer.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Jay

Wow, what a walk down memory lane...While in college in Las Vegas I would work NY Eve at the 'old' MGM Grand in the Ballroom, take my wad of tips down to McCarran and fly PSA to LAX on the early AM flight (this was when PSA was in their own 'little' terminal with AeroMexico). My friend would pick me up, we'd catch the Rose Parade, go to the Rose Bowl football game (always found cheap tix) and end the day by closing down Disneyland...

Remember when the minimum mileage was 1,000 miles per segment? Was it Delta who started the change to 500?

Used to have all of the statements, but eventually built a database and log everything in and cross-check monthly. Another example where the computer has truly halved the mountain of paper most of us accumulate!

How about those partner coupons you had to fill out with Delta and then hope the partner airline would actually turn them in!

And what about when you redeemed miles that dropped you below the 3,000 mile level and most airlines would credit you with the miles to bring you back to 3,000 without having any activity.

But, thank God, Delta didn't dismantle the old Western routes the way US Scareways has butchered PSA. Of course, US is good at screwing up anything good. Remember when Piedmont was THE airline in the Southeast? Jesse Helms doesn't, or else he wouldn't be pushing the merger. As a UA shareholder I shudder at the thought of acquiring all the US debt and labor problems.

Speaking of Shareholder, you should see his collection of every Canadian Airways FF card from Day One! I still have the brown vinyl ticket holder folder that Delta gave you when you enrolled in the old FF program.

Could go on forever.

Delta's FF program was still giving 1000 mile minimum miles in Feb. of 1995 along with the extra 1000 when you upgraded to F. The hotels in Delta's program still gave 1000 miles at that time too.
USAir in November 1990 was crediting 750 miles minimum. The first 500 minimum I could find in my old FF statements was UAL which began their downgrade to a 500 mile minimum on Jan. 1 1989.