I had the same challenges when I ran a Japanese office of a US-based company. Most mid and senior staff would fly to the US once a quarter, and couldn't be bothered to sign up with CO or UA because they just didn't get it. So I had the office manager sign everyone up for both programs and made sure the travel agency had these. Less than a year later, they were all qualifying for Gold or Platinum or 1P left and right, typically finding out about this when they checked in and were given lounge privileges and in one case an OpUp. Now they're enjoying free vacations and the other perks we all take for granted.

Sometimes you have to force people to help themselves :-)

*GASP!*
Please do not ever again say something like that ! I am too young to have a heart attack.

That's what I say. I'm always willing to help a person who wants knowledge, but people that put up a fuss a and think it's too much work or too complicated for them I just leave be.

This person is sick.

The woman who cuts my hair (she's not a "stylist") only travels 3-4 times a year to visit her grandchildren to stay at a motel near their home that has a pool and waterslide that the kids like. I told her to sign up for any airline or hotel program she could, and she whipped out her Choice credit card and told me how wonderful it was and how many free nights she'd earned and that I should get one right away. She really gets it even though her travel is extremely limited.

You know what? Most people out there are blind. And I guess those of use who know how to work the system just see the mitigating waste and shake our head. However, if everyone played the system like we did, you'd never be able to redeem a reward, since the plane would be full of mileage runners.

Exactly right Jaimito Cartero.

I saved a co-worker about �500 on a Christmas trip to South Africa, another is off on a discounted maxjet ticket to from London to Las Vegas for just �599each - his first trip in business with his new wife - and it gives me great pleasure to do these things.

But I find I try only to engage if they show interest and patience to learn - as you can come across a little weird if you hit them full on with the whole FF thing. A softly softly approach works best.

I would never explain the ins and outs of how to use priceline for instance as most people think you are quite mad (though this alone has saved me thousands over the years).

I have learned a great deal on here - have nearly a million miles across various programmes (having spent nearly 500k the previous two years), I am firmly of the school of diversify your portfolio to mitigate against airline failure and devaluation.

I try and give back by alerting others to deals where possible, both online here and in real life, but I never preach as frankly those without the intelligence to see the positives do not deserve to be excessively helped.

I view FT as enhancing my income such that I consume an additional $10,000-$15,000 per annum of travel perks, all for free. That's an amazing return on only an investment of time, with no downside risk.

Some people just don't get it. Duh!

At my old job, our travel agent was very loyal to American and always booked us on AA -- in fact, that's how I first made elite level and started to play this frequent flier game -- but he never made an effort to book us into the same hotel chain. He didn't care about hotel points at all, and to this day I blame him for it....

What about those of us who hate chain hotels and, in fact, have given up on hotels when we travel abroad. In our last three trips to France we only stayed three nights in a hotel and that was in Sete.

I look at chain hotels the same way I view big box retailers, souless.

Uh, ... OK.

For those of us who don't have summer homes in Provence or lots of friends with homes all over Europe, just where do you stay over there?

Some people need to come around to the fact that they should need and use miles.

I usually get this as an aswer to the miles& points sign up thing when talking to friends who are not in the know:

"oh yeah? Cool. I gotta do that some day"

They ask you like 3 months later about it again and you have to go find the old email you already excitingly sent them once before but if you use Yahoo or Hotmail, you cannot like sending them something with >>>>> all of the text of it!

you are correct as well, and I have had to stop myself several times when trying to explain about how a certain program can work or what you can do to enhance this or that, but still, I go crazy when someone I know is NOT earning miles.

There is a risk and a cost for us though, and sometimes I even wonder what's worth it:

Sitting on the phone for 1.5hrs with Bank of America, for example, to set up my Alaska Airlines card and having to deal with some of the stupidest, slowest CSRs on the planet who toss me from person to person definitely has a cost. It could be a 5 minute process but it's just not. Sure, as with many things, once built, it runs nicely. But to go thru that was not cool. And then I finally DID convince one friend of mine to do the same thing and at minute 45 in his own horror show of CSR connections, they dropped the call!

AGHRGHRGR!!!!!

Well, we were sitting in the airport together waiting for a plane so setting up a mileage gig over the phone was worth the time in that case. After all, airlines get US back by taking our TIME from us. TIME is worth money.

we only WIN when it all works out too.
MM

Count me as a recent convert. My wife and I travel 4-5 times per year. We finally got sick of flying coach with the masses and are determined to accumulate enough miles any way we can to earn more upgrades. This site has also taught me how to get cheap hotel rates too which has saved my over $2,000 in the last few months.

Of course, she thinks I've gone off the deep end when I talk about Mileage Runs, but that's why I love coming here!

I'm here to learn...and thank you all for your great dedication and insight.