Just curious how/why many of you fly as much as you do (as evidenced by membership on such a message board as this). I suppose most of it is for business purposes, but I'm sure there are some other creative reasons, too.

I'm going to be graduating from college in the fall (majoring in Comp. Sci. / Pol. Sci.) and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I'm pretty sure I don't want to sit in an office all day, though. I love travel (see my passport visas and FF memberships, especially for my age) and would like to travel as part of a career, even more so since I'm not tied down by family or any other restrictions. Any recommendations?

Otherwise, let's hear your stories. How did you get that enormous balance with <insert fav. airline here>?

I agree that there are many members who soley fly for a hobby purpose. I for one don't. I have business operations in L.A., Vancouver, and HK; therefore, I must attend to the operations in all 3 places. As a result, I commute between this triangle multiple times annually by means of flying. I also happen to be a travel enthusiast which makes up 35% of my flying schedule annually.

Combination of business and pleasure. However, I am doing more business on the web so total miles have dropped and pleasure miles have increased to about 50%. Last year I did 35,000 miles and am a million mile flyer with United.

I fly so much for work that I rarely fly for leisure. Mr. Kgsd can never understand why I don't want to use my miles to take trips on vacation. Actually, I end up giving much of my miles/tickets away.

My first travel job was for a telecom company - I travelled to client sites for new installations as project manager and to train the client's staff on our system. Most of our clients were hotels, which meant that since I usually stayed at the client hotel for free (as part of my company's contract with the hotel) I didn't get any frequent guest points. Although they were usually very nice hotels.

My current job is in the employee benefits/actuarial field, and I visit (existing) clients to explain things to employees, on-site administrators, and board members.

My g/f currently lives 5000 miles away.

I also travel a lot of work, but this is the first time I've made Platinum...
(and ok, it took a MR to LAS in Dec to round it out too, but I'll sure use those systemwide upgrades)

We'll be moving together soon, so I'm not sure I'll keep it up, but I can't say that I'll exactly get misty-eyed thinking about those lost BIS miles.

virtually all my relatives and the majority of my friends live in SKG...so I visit at least 3 times a year...the rest of it is travelling because I love to! And I am a segment-based elite which means my mileage balance isn't that huge.

You have to go where the clients are, and where the field work is. It's not by choice. Whenever I've been grounded for awhile and start thinking a business trip might be nice, the next actual trip brings me to my senses.

I fly to see birds. So, yes, I fly to pursue a hobby.

Boy, that really sounds odd when you put it in cold black and white like that!

My employer is a vendor for Dell Computers...

I fly for business, weekly. With my schedule it's pretty difficult to plan a vacation.

Oh well

I fly mostly for hobby - I love the FF points too! I'm planning on another trip to the US this year and do some internal flying to maintain Gold in the bmi diamond club (part of Star Alliance, based UK) - benefit of US flying is you get full points on most fares unlike in the UK where we have ridiculous multiples such as '0.25x points on base bucket fares'.

Being a student I pay for more or less all my trips myself. I flew more when I was living in Sweden, and my GF in Finland. Pretty much all my money earned goes to travelling.

My boyfriend starting becoming very very interesting in flying in 2003 and was soon silver then gold status at USAirways. All for pleasure. I try to be the "if it interests you, it interests me" kinda girlfriend, so I began doing quick day trips (PHL-LAX, PHL-BOS, etc) with him and realized that I enjoyed flying just as much as he did, plus I enjoyed being around when he was so happy doing something he loved. With his status, I will usually get upgraded to FC (hence, airdiva), but pay for everything else myself. I have my own dividend miles account now and hopefully will try to gain silver status if US can pull through (no jabs at US plz!!!). Hopefully can save enough miles for a really awesome trip on the other side of the world...

I never flew until I was in my thirties. Got married, divorced and then remarried. That was when I first started traveling. I always travel for pleasure but only use the most convenient airline for any given trip. Thus I am a member of ff programs on three airlines I fly on (AA, DL, HP) and on United only because of the great milage promotions I was able to get without flying. I am not elite on any airline as I do fly several different airlines depending on destination and price. I Have flown first class many times due to either operational upgrades or using miles on long trips. I can live with coach as long as I can keep flying and hope to keep increasing the frequency of my trips.
I got into the collection of miles many years ago when British Airways had an offer for 10,000 miles if you got their credit card. Due to a misunderstanding, We opened two separate accounts thinking we could transfer the miles to AA. When we found out we couldn't, I wrote a letter and they taught us about a family account. That was the beginning of a obsession with miles which has been very successful considering I only do leisure travel.