invisible

Two pages of self-admiring....

dalehill

Lost

I've done this more than once. I fly WN and AA pretty evenly and if I book a short haul more than a few weeks out I'll forget which airline I booked on

kb9522

Long Train Runnin

Yeah, I think this whole world is a lot smaller then we like to think here on the site. I have had my Flyertalk tag on my bag now for over 500k miles of flying in over 50 countries I have transited every major global and domestic hub with the exception of DXB and ATL in that time. I am a consultant so I am regularly flying out Monday morning back Thursday afternoon connecting in places like ORD,MIA,IAH home base is EWR. I have had one chance encounter and it was actually another Flyertalker I had already met. I also have one friend who works for a regional airline doing flights for UA/AA/DL I was stunned when he had no concept of how any of the loyalty programs worked on the airlines.

Another friend of mine got a job that saw her traveling every week all over the country. After a year she was like hey I know you travel a lot and know about miles and points I need to figure all this out can you help me. After flying 100+ segments she got her first Frequent Flier account after talking to me.

Its the same thing with all of coworkers none of them can be bothered to look into this stuff. Then they fly with me to a conference or something and see me getting upgraded, or guested into the lounge and they are like wait why do you get all of this stuff? My company will even cover a paid lounge membership and they don't even take advantage of that.

Its like so many other things people want everything but don't take the 5 minutes to put in the work.

Of course this thread is ironic because how many posts are there here of people complaining about how bloggers have ruined everything and there are too many people taking advantage of these programs and they wish there weren't blogs about all of it.

txflyer77

Let's be frank about it: we're a bunch of dorks.

The UA forum has a thread on seating on just *one* 777 variant that now goes on for 34 pages. The trip report forum contains thousands of photos of airplane bathrooms. Endless debates about wheeled vs. non-wheeled baggage—which I have gleefully participated in.

And let's not even talk about how this place gets during airline or hotel mergers. Insanely vicious fighting about logos and carpet colors and which shiny metal name sounds most prestigious for a mid-tier status level.

I started reading this forum about eight years ago. I've spent a LOT of time here and I've certainly learned a lot. Pretty sure I could best just about any quiz on IATA airport codes at this point. I am fully on-board with the level of nerdery we enjoy here.

But at the end of the day, we're just debating crazy staws.



https://xkcd.com/1095/

KDS777

As a footnote to my original post, I worked for an IT company where 25-50 of the 175 people were on the road every week, and the rest did so once per quarter.

About 1/2 the people in my department of 15 staff didn't track points for hotels, car rentals, or FF miles. None at all..........amazing.

darthbimmer

The odd thing to me, as a footnote to my earlier post, is that the frequent-traveler colleagues I've recommended FT to do care about miles, status, etc. yet still are not interested in joining the forum.

frobozzelectric

it worked fine.

frobozzelectric

same thing with grocery store points cards, so many people can't be bothered.


not everyone likes to read thru t&cs and go for points i guess.

EuropeanPete

Not so much any more. Even the Bain, McKinsey and BCG's of this world are increasingly subject to short-haul Economy only tickets. Of course, the most frequent flyers in those companies will be AA Concierge Key equivalents and not have to worry about flying in the back all that often when in the US.

Zeeb

Yeah. If all your travel is international business class (or higher) and all your domestic legs are first class then, well, other than having FF accounts so the points pile up there really isn't all that much for you to do. All status does is help you gain access to a subset of the benefits that you purchase when you buy a business/first ticket.

EuropeanPete

When you have all those points you need to figure out how to spend them. Definitely not as easy as one might think it should be. That's what originally brought me on here when I was one of the types mentioned in the OP.

dulciusexasperis

Umm, well there are several ways to look a this obviously. I have heard of Flyertalk (I'm here aren't I) but have no interest in 'interlining' or 'points'. I am only interested in FT as a travel related forum.

I leave it to my wife to enjoy the 'fun' of collecting loyalty points from whatever company we happen to do business with. She gets a kick out of it when she gets 10,000 bonus points from the supermarket chain we shop at. Worth a whole $10. She gets even more of a kick from it when she can use her Supermarket affiliated credit card to pay (and get points) while using her drugstore chain loyalty card to get points as well, thus 'double dipping.' I see it as akin to 'coupon clippers'. And just like coupon clippers, some people take things to the extreme. Let's be honest here, some people who post in FT probably spend more time figuring out how to 'interline', do 'mileage runs' etc. to 'game the system' than they probably do figuring out how to be the best there is at the job they are being paid to do and ultimately perhaps not need to worry about the nickel and dime stuff anymore. Perhaps the two people you refer to are more interested in figuring out how to retire by age 40 or become CEO of the company rather than how to get 'points' from an airline.

Perhaps they don't need to get 'status' in order to fly Business or First every time they fly. That's why you concern yourself with it right? Because you can't afford (or your employer) to just buy the tickets you want whenever you want.

Perhaps after lunch, they talked to someone about the weird guy who went on about how many airline 'points' he collected and what 'status' he had and how many 'upgrades' he got, as if it meant something. When you are in a group of like minded people (most FTers) who think those things are all important, you tend to think the same way. Not everyone thinks airline 'points' are a factor worth considering in life however. That may come as a shock to some people I suppose.

The reality is that airline points, status, etc. are all about how to get something you can't afford to pay for. Nothing wrong with that per se but if you can afford to pay without even noticing the price, then points etc. have no real value to you. As the saying goes, 'if you have to look at the price, you can't afford it.'

Fabo.sk

When I started in my current job, I talked to a colleague who was very happy about being demoted to a lower level of FB. Becuase it meant he didn't spend half his week in airports.

I only really understood him when I've done 10 segments in little over a week. That was, incidentally, also the time I found myself for the first time pondering about paying extra for a direct flight (or at least the first time when time was not a factor)

The same colleague only found out that he has free checkin bag a couple of months later when he proclaimed himself an idiot for forgetting to add a bag to a booking he has just made. I pointed it out when he asked if anybody knew how to get in touch with our TA to add it to the ticket.
Booking fares with bags in them is standard for us, even though most everyone from the travelling consultants has status. Well I guess at least as the FFPs move to revenue based models, we will get extra miles.

Indeed - these colleagues are not interested particularly in the technicalities of the FFP, they aren't disinterested violently either. It's just something that is, and gives them some benefit; usually the one most appreciated is priority security and priority boarding. Other than that, it's water under the bridge. Most of us like the fact that we get to travel on someone elses dime, even though the romance of going to Cyprus is often lost on one when one is going there for the 10th time in as many months, and it's always Nicosia, not even the coast.
But as always, some people like to travel, but still view the airplane only as a means to get them there quick enough, not much more.