I just had a conversation with a co-worker. He started here a month or so ago.

We started talking about travel. Turns out, he has made eight trips to Singapore this year alone, and several trips to Europe. He was complaining about always being cramped in Coach on these long-haul flights.

He's a member of WorldPerks, but he has no idea of how many miles he has, has never worked a promotion (or even heard of them), didn't know you could upgrade with miles, was completely unaware of any hotel programs, and so on.

I started to explain a bit, but I got the familiar "eye-glaze", so I let it go.

oh you gotta take the time to help him, man!
you never know what perks this could give you (even without that being the main intent going in) when you hook someone up with your knowldge!

example: I told my brother to join United after having a long conversation about a promo with him, and he has so many miles with them now that he has given me free awards left and right! SPG stays too! He's already platinum from a few trips overseas...He has been away many times and he now must fly Singapore Airlines many times in the coming months to Jakarta for lengthy stays. He said I should come and may get us tickets because I helped him get perks!

I also work as a recruiter. Got to know one candidate who likes baseball and needed a certain job. He said I was nice about things in my approach as well as trying to help him get a certain job too. For this, he has utilized connections he actually has in the sport and has just offered my playoff tickets should the Red Sox make it yet again in Octobah!!!

It's alllllll networking and the big wheel comes back around to ya!

MM

well said on the networking, like it or not it's the way to make it most of the time (speaking of which, I should start doing some of that...)

my take on these "clueless people" is, quite frankly, let them do as they do. if they want to pay more, not use rewards cards, or become savvy consumers, let them. then all the more fun and profit to be had for us who know what we're doing. I'll make exceptions for family and friends, because I can't stand to see reckless spending, but unless someone specifically seeks advice, why go out of your way? if they're not interested in your tip on how to save 5% on gas, move on and be glad you know these things.

Well said. I educated a co-worker on hotel points and found out she is now using them to pay for nights on business related travel. This is not good and could lead to me looking selfish by not doing the same. I say leave well enough alone. If they are not a kindred FT spirit, turn them to FT and let nature take it's course. If they want to remain clueless after that, so be it.

Yep, when the promotion is doled out, guess who gets it? Or, more importantly, when the company is not doing to well, who's going to be asked to stay around? If she a cool person, she should send you a thank you note afterward for enlightening her.

I'm not in any hotel loyalty programs because unlike air travel, I don't have much control over the hotel booking.

I travel on business as a group, with a racing team, and I can never predict where we'll stay... one trip, a Hampton Inn, the next a local place not part of any chain, the next an AmeriHost, the week after that a Best Western.

Conversely, I can nearly always cajole our travel booker into putting me on the airline of my choice.

You can't cajole the travel booker into putting everybody into a hotel chain or chains where free nights can be earned?

Let's make that a "clueless travel booker".

join them all man! you never know where you will be or what it will offer years from now!
MM

Points do add up after a while, even if you stay once or twice a year, and it doesn't cost anything.

Corporate travel agents are always amazed at how many programs I have in my profile

Staying at a Radisson tonight, first time in a year.

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Just noticed: my 100th post!

...should see what some of us do when it comes to miles/points. My "spreadsheet" is a small database to track points earned, spent, etc. Okay some of us are a little insane, but as some others have mentioned if less people participate that leaves a little more value in the pot for me, so I'm not a missionary about it, but I'll help friends and family sign up. My wife didn't even know she had an HP account until she was sitting in FC last week on her own elite upgrade (I nominated her )

She is almost to gold as we are saving miles for Hawaii and won't be using them on our shorter flights she has earned a fair amount of miles, but I do all the FF# entering etc.

She's thanked me for letting her drive the Avis rental car around Bristol Motor Speedway right before Christmas when we were there on business, but the problem is she's not a greedy pig like me, so she doesn't ever want a promotion...no worries there. Actually no worries at all, since I'm looking for a new job. Any offers anyone? PM me if you need bio Many of my current job road warrior co-workers I know are like her with the points...they don't have the travel "bug", so getting their big screen TV sooner from Holiday Inn Points is about the only motivation where they might listen to me. Yeah, saving up for the 1080p! It's clueless by choice!

My experience is that it takes the public at large several years to catch on to developing trends and purchasing patterns. As for the aversion to credit cards, I think it goes back to the fact that approximately 50% of people carry balances on their credit cards - they don't pay the balance in full each month. I guess they figure they don't need another credit card because they already can't pay off the charges they have incurred previously.

It absolutely does pay off. We travel only a little, and already I have received "freebies" from AC, AS, Delta Hotels, SPG, Avis, FC lounge passes (Amenity promo), Fairmont coupons and many discounted car rentals. Mostly thanks to tips from wonderful FTers.

There are other issues too. I often attend events at particular hotels. Whether it be a professional conference or a science fiction convention, I much prefer to be at the main con hotel. This means I'll stay at many different hotel chains. ... However I can fly *A to any of them. This makes airline schemes much easier.

Airline programmes are also more useful because of the way hotels give out elite status in many ways. I've been gold level with Hilton and Starwood for around 5-8 years each, but never ever had even 20% of the required stays to earn it.

In the past, I used to simply put all my hotel stays in any chain towards Qantas. At 1000-1500 points per stay (and most of my stays were short) this was worth more than the hotel points anyhow! With the massive devaluation of the Qantas FF programme in the last 2 years, accompanied by reductions in the hotel points credited through it, I've changed to earning points with Starwood and Hilton, but it's only been worth it this last couple of years.