This brings up the idea of a travel IRA (which bothers some people who jump on the devaluation wagon). Not only do I want to have enough cash to be comfortable, I don't want to have to spend any of it on travel (at least for a very long time) - and my wife and I plan to do a lot of traveling.

singlemalt writes:

I think we have that covered with our Fly-RA. :D

:D

is it a no-load fund?

there was a guy 2 years ago who _lived_ on air canada planesl for 2 solid months because at the time Air Canada was dumb enough to give out STATUS miles for flying on their passes.

it was a $7,000 pass good for unlimited travel within Canada for 2 months.

he would do stuff like fly short haul an hour or two during the day then take a long haul cross canada flight to sleep. and shower in the maple leaf lounges.

he ended up with just over 1 million aeroplan miles.

st7860: Yeah, yeah. It's always, "There was a guy..."!

You know that until you accept who you are, like Marathon Man in #12, above, you're no good to yourself or to the rest of us..... :D

OK, I'm not much better. In fact, I'm gonna make a reservation - er - resOLUTION, today, just because I will have so much fun breaking it.

My name is Firewind, and ---

Ooooookay, I know...

My name is Rick, and I'm a Travel-holic.

Happy New Year to all my "Fellow Travelers"! :D

i'm not sure what you mean. I thought everyone knew that story. The guy in question is/was even a pilot(for a different airline)


http://gcmr2005.blogspot.com/

Until I read this over on MileBuzz a few months ago I though we were all a fairly sane bunch:

Another sign that you're an addict:

- Your company books you into a Ritz-Carlton on a business trip and you're deeply disappointed because you can't collect any miles or points.

When you seriously consider buying small, yet expensive items, on your miles earning credit card for slightly less than retail...with the intention of selling them on ebay for just enough money to recoup your expenses.

The true addict would pay for a stay at the hotel of their choice around the corner.

Nice story.

yes. and if you read it carefully, you will notice that, while nearly living on airplanes for 2 months, he still had time for his part time job(right seat on a 747 cargo from North America to Europe one a week)

Count me in for this too. I actually started an ebay business just to get miles.

rgds,
drew

For the last couple of years, I sold fuel for corporate business jet charters. One of my clients would pay for his fuel with an AA Citibank Visa card. A flight from the west coast to Europe was an easy $15k charge, and he did that regularly. He would then use the AA points to move his crews around when he had to -- the pilots did not keep the miles.

Does anybody know if there are limits on the amount of points he could earn in a year? (As an aside, one of the pilots told me they had to pay off the balance multiple times per month to keep up with the charges they were making.)

If he has status on AA there is no limit to the number of points he can earn annually. If not, it is determined by the particular Citi card, and could range from 60k to 150k for the annual mileage cap.