I somehow have this need to sum it all up and hear the wise words of others in this forum.

Say it's 2005 or 2006... or 2026 and frequent flier programs as we know it are gone--or if they are not gone, you have decided to cash in what you have now and are kinda done with them yourself by then anyway for whatever reason (less on the mind, perhaps?)...

Not that I've ever been good at small writings, but how, in like 1-2 short statements or paragraphs, would you describe to someone else who is NOT "in the know" what they were to you ...back in the day?

For starters;

"Well, lemme tell ya son, frequent flier programs meant this or did this for me/others:...

MM

Well grandson, back in the day, we had these things called planes that got a person from point a to b where alot of people were crammed together and folks were always fighting to get on the plane first. People thought they were better than others if they could sit in front of the plane.

Some of the crazy people would make an extra stop or 2 before they got to their destination so it would take longer. Alot of people made trips on these planes for no reason at all. They would go somewhere and come right back. People stayed away from home for days on business trips. They also left home for days to go on this thing called vacation. They stayed in hotels where they charged you an arm and a leg for these little drinks and snacks they had in a small refrigerator. People even switched from one hotel to another every night so they could move their stuff. These people were crazy.
They even spent most of the time awake at this website called....let me think here....flyertalk.com....you know the site that eventually became teleporter.com.

But grandpa, didn't they have cosmic teleporters back then?

"You probably don't remember the days when flying cars weren't allowed to go supersonic, but back then...."