This was actually an entry for the Gold Coast contest on one of the other blogs (and I need to search to remember which one). This has also been discussed on Flyertalk when a jetsetting family member dies.

The way the airlines have it set up frequent flyer miles belong to the person on the account and in the case of death those miles technically go bye-bye. The thing is that airlines don’t know that someone died so the real limiting factor is that no living person knows the password to that account. For someone with a serious mileage balance part of the will should include user logins and passwords for frequent flyer accounts so surviving members can use remaining miles. Airlines like United require the redeemer to go to an airport in person to present ID for a reward flight booked over the phone in certain situations, but other airlines have different rules. Usually if the last name on the ticket is the same as the account holder there is less of an issue.

Just announced on Flyertalk today:

IFast Ways to Free Stays

Earn double points for each stay or one free night certificate after 10 nights within the promotion dates of April 6 – June 30.

HHonors members must register for the promo.

Hotels are opted in by default.

There is also a pile of airline promos coming out which hotels have to opt -in to.

This will be a tough one.  It took me almost 2 months to get 10 nights for 1 free stay this quarter, but I mainly stay in hotels that cost less than $150/night so double points doesn’t mean much with that.  If the free night can be used for higher level properties then I know 1 free night is worth over 30,000 points and it is unlikely I can do better than that with many stays.

I’m bound and determined to finally tip over the edge to be a 1K with United.  Since this time of the year is typically cheaper than many other parts I figured now is the time to try to get some extra miles under my belt.

I’ve finally RSS’d the Mileage Run Deals forum of Flyertalk and I saw a United mileage run that included CLT.  It was originating in ATL and ending in BUR so I played around a little and found out the fare was valid originating in CLT also. I tried last night and couldn’t get the trip to ticket.  I decided to look again today and finally got a routing to work so I managed to get almost 7,000 miles for just over $250.00.  I didn’t check for the fare on the following weekend because I’m not mean enough to mileage run on Valentine’s day, but I did check the next weekend and the fare for the same trip was $450.00 so I’ll wait a bit.

It’s odd though, yesterday I was having problems with the ticket actually pricing out when I tried to purchase it.  Today cheapfares.com kept telling me my credit card wasn’t valid.  I try to purchase all my airfare on my Citi Premier Pass because I get Thank You Points for the miles I fly also.  With 2 tickets to MEL on that card coming up in March and then adding this ticket I was going to have tons of Thank You Points, but I booked with my Hilton American Express instead.

So now I will hopefully be around 40,000 miles by April.  I keep hoping for a Double Elite Qualifying Miles promotion so I can actually take advantage of it.

I don’t think I still have any of my original followers, but this blog originated over a year ago as a means for me to track my attempts to stay healthy on the road.  I realized I liked talking about travel more than eating right and working out so I reformatted, but the dietitian in me keeps finding ways to try to maintain enough fitness to walk from the T concourse to the E concourse in ATL without taking the tram (that’s over a mile according to the distance markers).  Even though I haven’t adjusted the items in my carry on it seems to get more and more difficult to put in the overhead so it’s time to make a concerted effort at fitness again.  Many frequent flyers, including me, believe that you should be able to put your own bag in the overhead bin.  If you can’t lift it, check it.  I need to do my part to get my bag into the overhead in record time.

I’ve tried using hotel gyms.  They are just so hit-or-miss.  I like treadmills, but I’ve tried to run on too many old hotel treadmills that have what I call “freeze points” where if you step in the wrong spot it freezes the belt and I feel like I’m going to die.  Last time I tried to use the treadmill it just simply didn’t work so I knew I needed a better solution.

I have some friends who did a program called P90X.  I finally looked into it and it’s a DVD bootcamp series with 90 days of progressive exercise.  Each day it rotates through different muscle groups.  There are 3 different flavors and the routines have a different rotation based on the flavor you choose.  I am trying the Lean routine with more cardio.  Today was day 3 which was arms and abs.  I missed yesterday because I met up with flyertalkers, but I knew I couldn’t quit already.

The work out routines mainly just need resistance bands.  Free weights are the usual way, but the DVD today had someone showing every exercise with bands so that made me happy.  I can bring resistance bands on the road with me, I can’t bring a rack of free weights.  There are other substitutes for a typical dumbbell also, but the bands work for me.  I had a band I bought when I first started blogging, but it was a little heavy for certain arm motions so  I needed to buy some more thicknesses.  I headed over to Target and I could have purchased several different bands or a yoga kit, but the product pictured on the left seemed to balance form and function.  I have more variety for resistance with this system than with purchasing individual bands.  The old Reebok band I have has hard plastic handles and they hurt.  This has nice and soft handles.

I think P90X is a little too intense for me, but so far I’m OK.  This blog will not revert to being a travel fitness blog, but I will periodically post my progress through my 90 days.

I consult to an industry that does not have very many non-local vendors.  That means many of my clients are fascinated by the thought of traveling for work.  I seem to get asked the same questions over and over so here are my answers.

1. You fly a lot so that means you accrue a lot of frequent flyer miles.  Do you get to keep them?

Yes.  in the US the way the plans are structured the miles belong to the person flying regardless of who purchased the ticket.  I hear rumors of some exceptions such as WalMart employees, but to my knowledge the majority of business travelers get to keep airline miles.  Hotels can be different depending on the chain.  Direct billed rooms may not accrue points for the stayer.

2. You obviously don’t have kids, do you?

I’ve noticed this is a big double standard in the business world.  Since I’m not home during the week there is no way I could be a good mother (in the minds of some people out there), but I doubt the same question would be posed to a male traveler.  I don’t have kids, I don’t want kids, and I’d stop traveling if I did have a kid, but that doesn’t mean a woman can’t be a good mother and travel.

3. How much do you travel?

I’m technically 80% which means that every week  I should be going somewhere, but I manage my own projects instead of being told where to go so sometimes it turns out that I’m home for a whole week.

4. Do you like your job or do you see yourself doing this long term?

Sometimes those questions go hand-in-hand, sometimes I only get one.  Now it mainly stops after the “do you like your job” part because I now just prempt the second question.  Do I like my job?  Yes, absolutely.  I like being on site with my clients, I have friends all over due to our mobile society and I’ve been able to keep in good touch with friends I probably wouldn’t have seen as much without travel.  I like the company I work for and the product I represent.  I don’t, however, like the headaches of dealing with TSA, airline delays, driving in snow, or traveling to cold climates during the winter.  This is stuff that isn’t directly related to my job, but still affects how I feel about it.  So my usual response to “do you like your job” is “I love my job, but I’d like it more if I didn’t have to deal with the hassles of TSA and travel in general.

5. Are you allowed to get in early and explore the towns you visit?

You’re paying the bill, are you giving me permission for next time?  This question always fascinates me because I go to mostly middle-of-nowhere 1 hour away from the closest thing to an airport type places.  Many on FlyerTalk proudly proclaim they have never flown on a regional jet…my first year of business travel I didn’t see anything but them!  It seems the good places like museums close around 5 pm and since I work until at least 4:30 on site it is difficult to make it to anything.  Sometimes I can get on an early flight and get to a city before noon, but not always.  If i’m in a middle-of-nowhere place and I get asked this question I usually say “Is there anything in particular I should see while I’m here?  90% of the time they say no.  Departing Tucson one time I saw a bunch of planes.   I knew planes “go to the desert” but I never really paid attention to this desert.  I looked it up and discovered this is the largest collection of military aircraft for storage and recycling called Davis-Monathan Air Force Base and a tour is possible through the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson.  It took a couple trips to get in early enough to visit, but eventually I did so I toured the museum and the bone yard.  It was great.  I forgot to bring my good camera so I was only able to take phone pictures, but oh well. I’m not really a tourist anyway.

6. How often to you get to [insert city of company headquarters]?

once a year.  With technology like conference lines and  WebEx we can have montly department meetings and never see eachother.  I can honestly say that I’ve met everyone in my department and I see my boss regularly because I have a client in her city, but I have no real business in the city of the HQ because no one in my department really lives there.

7. What’s your favorite city?

If they specify for work to me this is like picking a favorite kid.  I’m not going to say who my favorite client is, i’m not that tacky.  If they don’t put that modifier on I simply say Charlotte.  I live there for a reason and there’s no place like home.

8. Do you get to use those lounges in the airports?

For US programs anyone can use the standard lounge, it’s simply a membership or admission fee based system.  There is no requirement to fly a certain amount and for the most part most frequent flyers don’t have free access to lounges for domestic travel.  Delta is giving lounge membership to Diamond (125,000 mile/year flyers).  Certain levels of frequent flyers get to use lounges when flying internationally, but I don’t cross any borders from Charlotte to Cedar Rapids.  My company pays for 1 club membership so I’m a Delta Sky Club member.  If I want to go into any other lounges it’s on my own dime since I don’t travel on flights that would qualify me for United Red Carpet Club access enough, but in March I’m headed to Melbourne, Aus so I’ll do my part to visit Star Gold lounges.

There seems to be a trend in airport bathrooms and that is to make everything automatic. In ORD one only needs to wave a hand to get a fresh toilet seat cover. Soap, water, and even paper towels all come with just the wave of a hand. The only one that really annoys me is the water because most of them in airports have no temperature control which means the water is slightly colder than I’d usually like. Some hospitals do have temperature controls on automatic sinks, but not always in the public areas.

All this automation is great unless the sensor doesn’t work or, as this sign from Cincinnati Northern Kentucky (CVG) indicates, your clothing doesn’t register with the sensor. Of course this means you get soap but no water or paper towel. Those are always fun days…

On Flyertalk one of the signs on being a frequent flyer is being home and holding hands under the sink waiting for the water to start.

As many of you are aware, we have limited locations (ATLAtlanta, GA E for example) that offer pre-flight appetizers, which offer an increased level of food service. These select clubs are primarily aligned to support Delta’s international departures. We know that you also frequently comment on the overall selection and availability of snacks as we continue to harmonize the offerings of the pre-merger Delta and pre-merger Northwest locations. The change we are making will address both of these issues.

Starting on January 16, we will no longer offer pre-flight appetizers at the clubs where they are currently served in favor of providing a more consistent product across the entire Delta Sky Club network for longer periods of time throughout the day. We are very pleased that this will allow us to have a snack offering throughout the entire day a Delta Sky Club is open. Right now, for example, we serve an expanded snack offering from 4 – 7 pm but if you come to the clubs outside of those times, snacks are not available. (After breakfast, we are currently only offering pretzel mix, dried fruit, Biscoff cookies and Nutella). Therefore, beginning February 1, the expanded snack service will be offered from breakfast until the club closes all across the Delta Sky Club network.

We feel that working toward greater product consistency adds to the value of your membership for all of our members and is the right thing to do. We hope you enjoy the upcoming changes and yes, we will continue to listen to your feedback.”

Flyertalk

Now I mainly use the Sky Club for a quiet place with an outlet. As long as they stay quiet and they keep the outlets I’m still OK for right now. I was looking forward to trying the snacks at the ATL East club (not the one right across from McDonalds, the one down the concourse from that).

This thread over at Flyertalk got me thinking about where I want to go and have I been there. As a kid I’d watch Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on PBS. I never had the opportunity to go on the show, but just in case I ever did I determined Montana would be the state I chose. I don’t really know why, it just seemed like a good place to go. Now that I have more frequent flyer miles than many people accumulate in their life I have still never been to Montana. I have been to at least 40 states, but never Montana. I just need to bite the bullet and make a trip there to see all the national parks and drive the vast stretches of interstate.

Another goal of mine has been to visit all the Disney parks. I guess being born near a Disney park and having a Disney obsessed family probably shaped some of that goal. I have been to the most Disney parks in my family. I have been to Disney World (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, MGM Studios), Disneyland Paris, Disneyland (main park and California Adventure), so that just leaves Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, and eventually the Shanghai Disneyland. I also need to go back to Disney World and visit Animal Kingdom. It was open last time I went to DW, but the group I went with didn’t want to waste time at a brand new park .

I’ve always been an avid fan of the Olympics. I’m one of those people who gets overly obsessed and patriotic seeing those 5 rings. I’d love to attend the games at one point in my life, but as a whole I really hate crowds and I’d probably be very uncomfortable attending. It would still be awesome. My Brazilian visa expires before the games there so I’d have to renew it to attend those, but in the grand scheme of attending the Olympics paying for a new visa is chump change.

People wonder why I try to avoid going back to a place I’ve already been, but it’s because there are a many places I’ve never been to and it would be a shame to not see as many places as I can while I am still able.

Of places I’ve wanted to visit and actually have: I can’t really remember making a list of places to go. I think Australia was probably on any list and I’ve been there. I may have added London after my parents went, so mark that off too. Paris seems to be a place many romanticize. Another check.