Mercy !!!!!!!!! YES It is fun to watch the miles pile up

Gulfstream G5 for me.

I would buy my own 787 Dreamliner when it comes out... not overly huge so you wouldn't want to take it domestically, but with enough range to make it to international destinations.

Of course, if I was in a real hurry, then I'd use the MiG I got as surplus

Except the statistics don't hold up -- per pax/mile, you have a higher risk of being hit while crossing the street to the postbox. The difference being, you don't hear about those --

Most airline incidents aren't newsworthy after 24 hours, unless there's something REALLY spectacular (Lockerbie, Potomic, Sioux City, Everglades... ), but 60% of the general population couldn't begin to tell you about even those.

OTOH, lots of folks would have NO trouble identifying the Clear Lake, IA, crash of 1959... (fill in 3 names)

Major contributing factor in celebrity private/gen-av fatalities: "Get-There-Itis" Gives gen-av an undeserved bad rap.

/.

You are so right, Bowman, money is always (or at least should always be) a consideration. People who consider money get rich.

I know some pretty wealthy folks with amazing homes in Chicago and Florida who always fly coach on AirTran. Go figure.

paid first class for me...'cause it would likely still be cheaper than having my own plane, and money is always an object. (and i would definitely have a ff program, 'cause it's just fun to get something for nothing, no matter how much money you have.)

that said, if it really, really, really didn't matter...jet, private pilot and car and driver at my disposal.

ahhh. that's a nice image, thanks for livening up my sunday

A good friend routinely travels via chartered jet LAX/PBI. This is an all-frills deal with FA, great food and over-stuffed chairs. My jaw drops every time she describes the experience. The most luxurious thing of all is bypassing LAX and departing from Santa Monica Airport. Do you think, for a nano-second that she is thinking about FF miles?

This is a lot like www.Marquisjet.com. They have pilots on the ready for you. You prepay for 25 hrs ( i think it s 100k-150k). But those hours count wheels up to wheels down. No large airports, most airports like Santa Monica or Scottsdale have close parking and of course no security screening etc etc.

Seems to me if you have cash and arent a high powered exec. this would be your mode of transportation

Ken in Phx

If you have read "The Millionaire Next Door" you would find that the average millionaire is quite frugal and the people blowing their money on extravagent things are often in serious debt.

I suppose the answers to the questions would depend on how much travel I was doing. If I traveled the same route regularly then I would probably be a member of a FFP, request status and buy either guaranteed upgrade coach tickets or first if the upgrade was not available. I would definately always fly up front. I am a big guy so the back really sucks. My miles could then be used for getting others tickets or donations to charity.

If I was flying different places or on a tight schedule all the time I might have to consider the business jet idea. Especially if it involved going to out of the way places that required mulitiple stops or if I flew out of an area far from a major airport.

I'm not sure which airline I would fly. Currently I use AS as a catch all bucket since I can get almost anywhere on an AS partner, I rarely fly AS though. I suppose I would pick one of the majors and stick with it. Right now I just fly the cheapest of AA, NW or DL (or CO if I am desperate no EQM).

Fractional with Netjets would work for me. No hassle as already mentioned and size of plane depending on where I wanted to go is no problem. No BBJ to certain airports due to size and noise restrictions.

Great Reason ^

I actually enjoy public air travel so no private jets for me

An FF program, no matter how annoying, stressful and stingy, is still fun to be in

There is no existing FF network that covers the places I'd want to fly. Many of the places aren't even served by commercial air, so it's private planes all the way for me.

Deleted

MarquisJet doesn't own any aircraft in the traditional and they're not owned by Berkshire Hathaway/Warren Buffet. What they do is resell flight time in the planes they own through the fractional ownership company NetJets (this company is actually owned by BH/WB).

If you dealt directly with NetJets, you would own a share of an aircraft and pay monthly maintenance fees and hourly usage fees. By going through Marquis, you don't own any aircraft shares but you also don't pay anything beyond your hourly usage rates.

As far as convenience goes, not only is parking "close by," at a lot of places they will valet park your car as you pull it up five feet from the airplane door.

You would be supprised how many rich people still sit in the back. I know a few clients who fly in coach and they are rich..were talking millions. To be honest some people just don't care. I'll never forget the day when I was flying with a client worth millions while sitting in 24D on an ATA flight to PHX, he seemed to enjoy it.