Segment is the way to go if trying to determine one is "frequent" flyer. I think I'm by no means frequent flyer. I fly every other month or so from NYC to Asia. That makes me 100~120K miles flyer, but 6 flights / year is by no means frequent :p

Put my wife and me down as "above average" frequent flyers - though I think my wife is "super"! :D

12 r/t's HNL-LAS and about 20 inter-island r/t's within Hawai'i each and every year puts us at >70,000 BIS miles anually. We're HA pualani platinum elites; G/As, F/As and TSA agents know us and greet us personally at our stations and on-board; we get free or discounted u/g's to F on all HA flights.......

We're not in Kiwi Flyer's league.....but what the heck: put us down as "super" anyway! ;)

For about four months (Nov 06-Feb07) I had top tier on two airlines (DL and AZ) based on 79k BIS miles and 47 segments. That makes me just a standard FF, but a SFTF (Super Flyer Talk Flyer), since, as you see if you crunch my numbers, I milked the system hard using tricks and tips picked up here. (after Feb. I dropped to mid tier on DL, but still have top tier on AZ).

:D

I would consider a frequent flyer as someone who flies monthly. A very frequent flyer would be weekly. A super frequent flyer would be more than 1 round trip per week most weeks of the year.

Only if that person is not hub-based, or if they fly long haul. If it's short haul, that's just 24 segments a year; often that won't even get bottom tier on one airline.

Well my definition is more time based. Frequent as in time interval and not distance or segment.

Interesting point. Why don't we just consider anyone a Frequent flyer who is a member of the lowest tier off a program, and leave it at that. Of course, we can exclude the GLD Lites. :)

[QUOTE=Gargoyle;8342693]For about four months (Nov 06-Feb07) I had top tier on two airlines (DL and AZ) based on 79k BIS miles and 47 segments. That makes me just a standard FF, but a SFTF (Super Flyer Talk Flyer), since, as you see if you crunch my numbers, I milked the system hard using tricks and tips picked up here. (after Feb. I dropped to mid tier on DL, but still have top tier on AZ).

:D[/QUOTE

The key word I used was earned. I'm not counting the MQMs DL gives with the having an AMEX card or the challenges for AA status or the multitude of 'match' status deals, just plain 'ol BIS earned status. IMHO, if you earn top status on at least two airlines with just BIS credit, you are a SFF or as Mrs. Outoftown would say, someone who needs to get a life.

I rack up 60,000 to 70,000 miles on JAL but thats 4 leisure trips a year so I think I hardly count as frequent flyer but I do enjoy the perks JAL gives me.

I do however drive 125,000 miles a year. :)

If we are looking at it from the point of view of the airlines, I feel like LH has established the benchmark for us with the HON status, which requires (on average) 300,000 miles per year.

If we are looking at it from the point of view of comparing it to the general public, I am inclined to agree with gj83. Many people take two flights a year, at most, when they go on vacation. With that asw a standard, oncee a month seems pretty frequent, once a week seems very frequent, and more than once a week seems pretty significant.

How would you compare accumulating miles through international travel or domestic travel not living in a hub.

My feeling is the domestic would be a lot my demanding on the individual with the connections or inevitable delays / cancellations.

I'd vote for total time spent in airplanes, plus say 1hour per checkin. :)

Frequent flyer, minimum 50 hours/year
Very frequent flyer, minimum 200 hours/year
Super frequent flyer, minimum 800 hours/year

I'd barely qualify as a frequent flyer (mostly medium to long haul).

Well, I'm just starting out. My job has me heading to one coast or the other every other week for a week at a time. I live in Dallas, and we fly AA, so I'm a hub city. Miles flown is arounf 3500/month, give or take.

But, I'm on here to learn how to milk it. :) I feel like I'm a VFF, but I'm sure I'm realistically just a FF.

When Aloha (AQ) was still operating, I flew 1012 flight segments in a year which earned me 506,000 flight miles plus my status bonus of 506,000. When they went under in '04 though, I lost almost 2M miles. At least I used some. Oh well...

My wife is really super and she flies frequently. Does that make her a super frequent flyer? :D