The big news this week is TSA’s change on thier rules for what you can carry on a plane, specifically small knives.   I heard on the Pointshoarder podcast, that with the current rules, TSA had confiscated over 70 knives a day at LAX alone! I can understand why the TSA wants to get away from patrolling for small knives and focus on the more dangerous items.  The new TSA rules can be found here. This is actually a pretty useful guide as it has clear illustrations rather than the typical narrative style of military regulations.  Knives are allowed as long as the blade is no more than 2.36″ (which equals 60mm in case you were wondering why such a weird number) and no more than 1/2″ wide.  This is supposed to comply with similar European standards.  This is actually a lot smaller than you would think.  Here is a photo of my Swiss Army Knife and it would not pass the test.

The knives also cannot have locking blades, molded grips, or be a fixed blade. Note that you measure the blade from the hilt, not just the sharp edge according to my reading of the regs.   All steps in my opinion that make what you can carry on pretty useless for fighting.  Personally, I would have no hestiation fighting a guy who was holding a little pen knife.  He can cut you, but it wouldn’t be bad.  I think that anyone with even Level 1 Combatives training could take someone down if all they had was a little knife.

However, you would not guess that from all the uproar from the Flight Attendents, Federal Air Marshalls and Congress.  They all treat this like the TSA is handling out boarding passes to terrorists.  The widow of one of the 9/11 pilots was on television quoting that is only takes 3-5 seconds to break into the cockpit and 2 seconds to take control of the plane.  Really?  Has someone actually tested this in an experiment?  Those reinforced cockpit doors are that flimsy?  I don’t think so.

The rules change also allows souvenir bats (less than 24″ and 24 ounces) and some sporting equipment such as hockey sticks and golf clubs.  I have even seen people commenting that now terrorist will take over the cockpit with a nine iron.  Yeah, I would like to see someone try swinging that for effect given the cramped conditions of all the planes that I have ever been on.  Well the civilian ones anyway.  The hysteria over this is incredible and not helped by the media who are fanning the flames.

I know people do not often have a lot of confidence in TSA, but I really think they are making the right call here.  Remember when nail clippers were banned?  Can you imagine hijacking a plane with nail clippers?  We need to let the TSA focus on the kind of things that will bring down a plane such as binary liquid explosives, not pen knives.  That’s the reason for not bringing toothpaste or your bottle of Coke on a plane.  For full disclosure, I have a Sapper Tab (Google it) and know a lot of ways to make improvised explosives so am commenting with some authority.  I think that the TSA needs to spend thier energy in that type of search rather than worrying about a handy, but useless in fighting, tool.  What is your opinion?

One of the most dreaded things to hear while you are deployed in the military is “you’ve got a Red Cross message”. We know that means somehting bad has happened back home and need to return ASAP. The Red Cross is also there to help our families in a natural disaster when we may not be around to help them.  While it may be associated with bad news, I think we are all grateful that the Red Cross is there to help our families when an emergency does occur. So along with the USO and Fisher House’s Hero Miles, here is another great way to donoate to a cause that could help you and your family someday.

We all end up with thousands of miles on programs where we flew the airline once or twice, but never accumlated enough miles for a free ticket.  If we all donate together, those miles form millions, which the Red Cross can use to fly emergency responders and conduct training.  The method of donating your miles to the Red Cross varies by airline and is summarized here.  Note that the site is a little dated and still includes Continental.  The United link is the better one to follow.  Here is a summary below:

Delta Air Lines

Delta Air Lines supports the Red Cross by allowing its customers to donate their frequent flyer miles. While the Red Cross is not specifically mentioned by name on their web site,  Delta customers can donate miles by phone, fax, e-mail or regular mail.

 To make a donation through SkyMiles OneSource Automated Telephone System, call 1-800-325-3999. Have your SkyMiles account number and PIN available when calling.

 To donate miles by mail, e-mail or fax, please prepare your request in writing making sure to include the following information:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Your SkyMiles account number, the number of miles you want to donate,   and the name of the organization you want to receive your donation

By e-mail: delta.bids@delta-air.com

By fax: 404-773-1945

By mail:
Delta Air Lines, Inc.,
SkyMiles Service Center, Dept. 745
P.O. Box 20532
Atlanta, GA 30320-2532

Whether you donate by phone or in writing, the donated mileage will be automatically deducted from your account and reflected on your next mileage summary.

 Get more details here.

United Airlines

Mileage Plus members can make donations to the American Red Cross through United Airline’s Mileage Plus charity program. The minimum mileage requirement for a donation is 1,000 miles. All donations should be made by visiting the Mileage Plus Service Center or by calling 1-800-421-4655.

US Airways

I did a post last February where I simply asked my readers to tee up whatever questions they might have regarding frequent flying, military discounts, TSA, etc. I received pretty good responses so I am now making it an official Frebruary tradition and again soliciting your questions on basically anything. So fire away and I will try to give you quick responses although I am glad to research a topic for you.

This seemed a good topic for this week as I watch us go driving over the fiscal cliff next week and not even leaving skid marks at the top. It will be a very quiet year if Congress doesn’t act soon…

So everyone has heard the news of American and US Airways merging, but how does that affect you personally?  From the view of a DoD/ Government traveler, I see both plusses and minuses to the merger and specifically to those of you who are part of either carrier’s frequent flyer programs.  As far as the GSA Program, I expect you will see both carriers again bid routes for FY 14, but be combined after that.  What may surprise you is that in FY 14, your flight is supposed to be on US, but you end up boarding an AA plane and vice-versa as the carriers combine.

Most of what I am speculating on is based upon the previous merger of UA and CO and I expect this will be very similar.  If you want to compare the differences in the programs for yourself, I suggest you go to Randy Peterson’s Web Flyer page. The Aadvantage program will be the program going forward, but the management team will be from US.  So look for the program to be initially like AA, but slowly morph to be much like US.  This is exactly what happened with CO/UA.  Don’t be surprised if some of the changes they make cause an uproar and they backpedal if enough elites object.  Your voice does matter!

Here is my analysis of the changes:

- AA has three levels of elite with bonus miles shown in parentheses 25k(25%), 50k(100%), and 100k(100%).  US has four 25k(25%), 50k(50%), 75k(75%), and 100k(100%).  My prediction is that they will make AA four levels and match the bonus miles to US’ program.  This means a loss for the 50k level if your were in AA, but by gaining a 75k level, you may get upgraded before the 50k level.

- Domestic upgrades.  This is the major difference between the programs.  Most FF programs have gone to the method of upgrading all elites based upon their elite level if first class is available.  AA is the last holdout here and only upgrades their top tier elites for free.  I predict a major bonus for current US elites will be the adoption of US’ policy of upgrading all elites.  I have seen some commenters say that this is a major loss for the top tier of AA, but I don’t agree as they will still be upgraded first.  They will just have to live with the fact that they may be sitting in First Class next to a “mere Gold”.  Oh the horror!

- International upgrades.  This is where AA really shines.  Top tier AA get eight Systemwide Upgrades (called e-VIPs) that they can use to upgrade any flight domestic or international much like UA’s program (but UA only gives six).  US does not fly very many international routes so that may explain why they lag far behind and only give four upgrades to be used for flights to Europe or Hawaii.  I am predicting that Doug Parker will keep the higher AA amount, otherwise they may lose a lot of their top tier flyers who could defect to UA and receive about the same thing.  If true, then top tier US flyers stand to gain a great deal.

These are the major differences that I see.  Another aspect that may affect you is that US will leave the Star Alliance and effectively be One World.  So if you live in a US hub, like Philly, and were racking up miles on both US and UA to get status, you may have a problem.  I expect that by early summer you will be informed that Star Alliance miles will no longer count for status on US.  It’s still early in the year so go ahead and start steering your miles to both US and AA and they will likely combine those totals at year end to determine your status for 2014.  At least that is what happened with UA/CO.  One last thing that I consider good.  I have both US and AA miles left over from long ago.  They were too low to use for anything, but I kept them active by occassionally crediting a car rental to each of them.  When they combine the programs, the miles will actually add up to a free ticket!

Anyone else see other big discrepancies between the programs?  Let me know how you think this will affect you personally.

I have blogged a couple of times on the TSA’s Pre-Check which is like a Pre-9/11 standard of going thorugh security for certain people.  I actually have four ways to qualify to go through the special TSA lane.

o  Global Entry Card, used for getting through Customs, but also good for TSA Pre-Check (This card is normally $100, but free for United 1K)

0 United 1K

0 Alaskan MVP Gold

0 DoD CAC Card (All DoD members were enrolled six months ago)

I recently found an important difference between these different methods.  Normally, you go to the Pre-Check lane and the TSA agent will swipe the boarding pass across the red laser and wait.  If the machine beeps three times, then you go through Pre-Check and keep you shoes and belt on, but if it only beeps once, you must go through the usual TSA line.  The machine will also display “LLL” if you are good to go and “CLR” if you fail and need to go through a regular check.  When I went through recently in HNL, I used my CAC Card and the agent received a double pass.  He remarked that this is the first time that he had seen that, but it resulted due to my using my CAC card at the reader, but the boarding pass had also been coded by United to pass me through.  The agent told me that it always better for me to use the CAC card, because the pass rate was 100% for CAC cards versus on 70% for any other method.  That’s right, all those elite frequent flyers have a 30% chance of being required to go through the regular check in order to “keep them honest”, but you military members hold a special position of trust (rightly so) and will always pass through.

Why is this important?  Often, the Pre-Check line is away from the regular TSA security lines and I have seen many posters on FT and Milepoint complain about shlepping all that way only to have to go through the regular line.  Now you know you can quickly move through security so show up at the airport closer to flight time.  Also, you can wear your stuff knowing that you will not have to take it off except you’ll still have to watch the metal content so leave your boots with shanks at home.

Going through the metal detector, I was surprised by a beep about a second after I had cleared the machine.  The agent told me that I had been selected for additional screening.  This was simply a wipe pad drawn across my hands which, of course, came back negative.  He told me that the machine was set to select between the xx and xx person who passed through the metal detector.  He told me the actual numbers, but I do not feel comfortable in disclosing them here.

Another thing that I have noted at every Pre-Check line is that they are usually empty except for me.  I discussed this with the agents and they said they are targeting the military to use it.  While you have to be an elite FF to be qualified for the majoity of the population, every serving Soldier, Sailor, Ariman, and Marine is enrolled and allowed to use it on every flight.  So get the word out to your brother and sisters in arms to got through security the easy way – TSA Pre-Check!

The information below was shamelessly stolen from the UA Forum, FriendlySkies’ Flyertalk post.

Airports with Pre-Check Lanes

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI)

• The Pre-Check lane is located at Checkpoint D in the Main Terminal

Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)

• Pre-Check access is located in Terminal A (PMCO departures)
• The Pre-Check & Elite Line share the same entrance, which means that if you aren’t an elite, you’ll have to inform the agent at the front of the line that you are a Global Entry, etc, member

Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)

• Pre-Check access is located at the security checkpoint closest to the United ticket counters (Main Terminal, Checkpoint B)

Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD)

• The Pre-Check lane is on the far left wall of the Premier Access Checkpint in Terminal 1
• An airport employee at the front of the lane will scan your boarding pass to detemine if you are eligible for Pre-Check access
• Pre-Check closes at 6:00pm

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG)

• Pre-Check is located at the Main Checkpoint in Terminal 3

Denver International Airport (DEN)

• Open from 4:30am-8:00pm, daily
• South Checkpoint ONLY, next to the CLEAR kiosks

George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)

• The Pre-Check lane is located at the Premier Access South Checkpoint – Terminal C only

Honolulu International Airport (HNL)

• Pre-Check lane is located at Checkpoint 3, adjacent to the US Airways lobby (a short walk from UA and Checkpoint 5; the UA gates can be reached if you clear at Checkpoint 3)
• Pre-Check is moving to Checkpoint 5 on February 14th

John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)

• Was rumored to open in T7 at the end of 2012. So far, there has been no construction/addition of a Pre-Check lane.

John Wayne Airport (SNA)

• Pre-Check is located in Terminal A

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

• The Pre-Check lane is located in Terminal 7
• Enter from the Elite Check-In Lobby in Terminal 6, then walk to the checkpoint between Terminals 6 & 7.
• Pre-Check lane is on the far right side

Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU)

• The Pre-Check lane is located in the Main Terminal at Checkpoint 4

McCarran Las Vegas Airport (LAS)

• Pre-Check access is located next to the Premier Access/First Class lane at Terminal 1
• Airport employee at the entrance will scan your boarding pass to determine if you are eligible for access

Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP)

• The Pre-Check lane is located at Checkpoint 4, near Door 3
• If you’re facing the UA ticket counter, it’s the first checkpoint to the left

Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)

• Will be located at the C3 checkpoint
• Lanes from left to right are: Pre-Check, GS, 1K/F/C, everybody else
• Nude-O-Scopes have been removed
• Pre-Check closes at 7pm

Orlando International Airport (MCO)

• Pre-Check is now live for AA/UA/US passengers at the Gates 1-59 checkpoint
• The lane opens daily at 4:30am, and is located on the left side of the checkpoint, next to the CLEAR kiosks.

Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT)

• The Pre-Check lane is located at the main checkpoint

Portland International Airport (PDX)

• The Pre-Check lane is located on the far left of the ABC Checkpoint
• Lane shared with the First Class/Premier line
• After clearing security head to right towards C terminal. The concourse connector is before gate C2 on the right. It will bring you to the D/E side where UA is.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)

• United travelers can access the Pre-Check lane in Terminal C (South Pier). The entrance is located on the far right of the checkpoint.

San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

• The Pre-Check lane for UA is located at the elite checkpoint in T3, along the far left wall of the checkpoint.
• Pre-Check closes at 6pm, along with the rest of the elite checkpoint

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)

• The Pre-Check lane is located at Checkpoint 3 (Center)

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)

• The Pre-Check lane is located at the South Checkpoint

Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)

• Pre-Check is located in the center of the departures level in the main terminal (near Harry’s Tap Room)
• If you do not get the three beeps for Pre-Check, you can still utilize the screening lanes adjacent to the Pre-Check lane. They are currently WTMD only.

Airports Scheduled to Come Online in 2013

Note: Some of these airlines are already online, though they are not setup at the checkpoints for UA gates.

• Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)
• Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL)
• Indianapolis International Airport (IND)
• John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
• LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
• Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL)
• Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
• Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)
• Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
• Tampa International Airport (TPA)

So the daughter and I were sitting around watching Comedy Central.  Along comes a one hour special of a guy named Kyle Kinane who proceeds to spend most of that hour hilariously talking about his adventures on a plane.  For the record he does mention being a Delta Gold so he obviously does his share of flying to different venues.  Check out this sample audio on Youtube.  It is even better with the video, but you’ll have to look for it on Comedy Central or buy it.  Trust me it is a lot funnier with the video especially the TSA part.  After listening to this you will have an irresistable urge to bring a bag of pancakes on your next flight!

One of my readers, Harry, wrote me to say that he loved using the ”Salute to Heroes” and other military discounts near Walt Disney World, but had a hard time finding them all in one place.

I previously wrote about these discounts last year.  Steve from www.militarydisneytips.com has researched and compiled all of the various discounts from Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Busch Gardens.  He also has links for many, but I expect not all, hotel discounts in the area.  This is a great time of year to start planning those Spring Break and summer trips with the family to Orlando.

Steve has also come up with a great graphic to simplify the eligibility questions that people often ask.  I have included it here below, but suggest you go to this page on Steve’s site for more details.  You can click on the image below to get a full view.

Here I sit in the United Club in Honolulu.  I arrived from a weeklong senior leader seminar in rural West Virginia at noon and leave for a mileage run to Newark (EWR) in nine hours.  Trying to get in all the miles I can before fares go up later in the year.  No sense leaving the airport, I might as well sit here and tell you of my latest adventurers and how they may affect you.

I spent a great week attending an Army War College seminar meant for senior strategic thinkers which included lectures from GEN Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army, and other key leaders.  Obviously, the key topic was what will happen with the coming sequestration talks which were delayed by two months.  I was glad they were delayed otherwise I would likely not be attending this key training!  Anyway, the basic message was that the Army, and by extention the other services, do not know how much they will have to cut in thier budgets, but expect to take some cuts in addition to the $457 billion already agreed to.

As a result, the SEC ARMY issued a letter with specific required cuts unless the various commands can justify the expenditure.  So what does this have to do with military frequent flyers?  Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) – expect much less travel for the remainder of the FY.  Conferences?  Good luck with that.  Your unit is going to the National Training Center (NTC)?  Yeah, plan on getting miles to go to Ontario, CA.  Staff Assistance Visits and other trips that we (the Army) can take a risk on not performing are very likely to get cut or severely curtailed.  Should be the same for the other services and the other government agencies.  I get it, we all need to feel the pain and be good sheperds of the taxpayers’ dollars.  However, we frequent flyers may all need to reassess our goals for the year and figure on less paid flights to add to our FF accounts.  If you are a Government contractor, you are likely even more vulnerable to these cuts.

What can you do?  Well, first justify your trips to your Commander, but do that on the basis of mission readiness, not getting miles.  However, you can still look into getting in a quick mileage run or vacation while rates are still low in the first quarter of the calendar year.  I outlined several ways to boost your Elite Qualifying Miles or EQM (goes by different names on some airlines) in my recent posts, but there are fewer than there used to be.  Several credit cards help, but only add up if you have money to spend so are not the right answer for everyone.  You just may have to be more realistic on your goals this year and scale back on the status that you will try to achieve.  If you thought you could get to the 75,000 level, but now it only looks like you will make 62,000, make the decision now on whether the benefits will be worth spending money to make up the deficit or save your money and settle for a good, but lower status.  Try not to get caught in between levels; you get no extra credit for trying.  If you think you will be real close and the airline will give it to you, experience has shown they almost never do that.

If the flying public really cuts back on thier flying, and that may occur with full sequestrain cuts, then we can hold out the hope that airlines will offer a double EQM period.  The airlines hold their frequent flying programs to the Goldilocks theory.  They don’t want too high of a percentage of flyers or it won’t seem special.  They also don’t want too low of a percentage of flyers or not enough customers will talk well about thier program and may steer their business to another airline.  They are looking for ”just right”.

I just returned from a trip to DC where I got lucky and the Army put me on a Y fare so I got 50% bonus EQM for a total of ~14,000 and will fly to EWR and back on a mileage run for another 10,000 that only cost me $417 (including the 5% discount on UA for the Veterans Advantage Card) and found out Friday that I need to go back to DC later this month.  So I will be looking good by the end of Jan., but haven’t got a good feeling about the rest of the year.  As we were told over and over again at the seminar, DoD is entering a period of uncertainty.  Do the best you can as early as you can with your flying!

Chime in and let me know if you think all of this will affect your amount of flying…

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago - like two years ago - there existed a fun mileage running tool on Farecompare.com.  It allowed you to plug in a starting city and define regions of the world that you were interested in flying to, then display a long list of flights in order of cpm (cents per mile).  This was perfect for the mileage runner who was looking for a fare from thier home city to wherever as long as it was cheap.  This site disappeared over a year ago with a promise that it would return, but ”soon” has stretched into an eternity.  I missed spending free time plugging in my home city and seeing what the possibilities were.  To be fair, there were a lot of ”false positives”, that is, there were fares advertised which you could then never find on an airlines or other booking site.

Now, finally there is a sort-of replacement.  I was tipped off to www.skyscanner.com by Scott McCartney who writes the Middle Seat column for the Wall Street Journal.  You can go stright to the site to use it or download an App that has most of the features.  The great thing about this App is that allows you to plug in your departing city and then leave the destination as “Everywhere”.

This then lists a list of the chaepest fares they could find to various continental destinations.  Click on the continent/ country and it will further list cheapest fares for different cities.  Be warned that you will need to have passed high school geography and even then may need some help in recognizing cities in thier native tongue.  It will also make you smack your forehead sometimes.  I live in Honolulu and started there.  I was excited to see a low fare to the U.S. for $115, only to find out the fare was to Molokai!  Fair enough, dumb old me.

Find something interesting and then boil it down to a specific month.  In this case I chose Aruba in JAN/ FEB

I admit the days which show a little down arrow are annoying.  Click on that date and Skyscanner will show you details of fares for that date, but I don’t get why some dates show the fares and other do not.  Maybe they will improve this in the future.

One of the things I really like is that you can do all of the above on your iPhone (and presumably other smart phones although I am not going to attempt this on my commander’s BB) and spend idle time looking for good fares wherever you happen to be.  On the iPhone app it even has a cool little globe which turns and reveals low fares around the planet although I could not get many of the countries to display a price unless I clicked on thier down arrow symbol.  Try this free app and have fun with it.

One last note is back to the original to and the ”false positives” that I got on FareCompare.  With this app, you can proceed directly to the booking site that Sky Scanner got the fare from.  Many times this will be from a flight aggregator site.  To explain further, flight aggregators are companies that go out and buy, say 20, seats on a flight from an airline and then try to resell them at a higher price to you or me.  Deals can be had when the aggregator cannot sell all their tickets and then dump them at a discount price to the public.  What this results in is that the fare displayed on the Sky Scanner site may not match the same flight as shown on your airline’s site.  I have found the fares to be both higher and lower than the airline’s site.  The warning I have about buying from the aggregator’s site, as opposed to the airline’s, is that you have less recourse should you need to change the flight or encounter other difficulties that require a refund.  You also will miss out on some bonuses such as using a United CC on the United.com site where they will give you bonus EQMs equal to the purchase price.  Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) if using these sites.  But get this app and let me know what you think.  It is far from perfect, but does give us a tool to use.  One of the things that I like most is that it will often come up with a destination that you never even thought of flying to.  Lots of interesting destinations out there if you just think of them!

OK, gang, here are the other half of my tips for maximizing your frequent flyer benefits for 2013.  Make the most of as many of them as you can.  Some people seem to spend their every waking moment working on the best FF deal they can find.  I presume most of my readers are not in that category, so use the tips that you have the time for.  And above all, have fun doing it!

6.  Fly as much as you can in the first quarter of the year.  After the holidays and before spring, everyone tends to hunker down.  This is the least traveled period of the year.  Fares are cheapest from about the second week of January to the start of Spring Break in March.  Mileage runs are easiest during this period, plus it is a great time to go get some winter sun by turning your mileage run into a weekend vacation.  Look for flights that are 4 cents per mile or lower.  That is the holy grail of the FF mileage run. This will be very hard to find during the summer or holiday travel periods.

7.    Subscribe to http://theflightdeal.com.  I really like this service that daily sends you lists of flights that price out at 6 cents per mile or less.  These can give you great tips for a mileage run or a quick vacation. Just remember to pull the trigger quick as the deals can disappear very quickly.  Even if you cannot take advantage of a specific deal, they may make you aware of a fun run to try at another time.  Then you can keep an eye on that route through checking www.ITA.com or your own airlines website.

8.  Get the Veterans Advantage Card if you fly United.  If you spend more than $1200 on UA in a year (and qualify), get this card.  The 5% savings on any UA fare can’t be beat. The card has a whole bunch of other discounts and savings which are useful, but the UA discount alone is reason enough to sign up for the card.  It beats any CC discount/ rebate out there.

9.  Read everything you can.  Read all the Boarding Area blogs that interest you.  Visit Milepoint and Flyertalk forums and lurk on the boards that pertain to your airlines/ hotel chains.  Don’t be afraid to post your own questions or ideas (Milepoint is more tolerant of beginners than FT).  Keep an eye on the Mileage Run boards to jump on a cheap fare, just make sure you pull the trigger quickly as they disappear fast.  For those beginner FF, I strongly suggest the legendary Randy Peterson’s book The Official Frequent Flyer Guidebook which you give you all the basics on FF.  Plus, this gives you something to read on your flight!

10.  Socialize. I can’t stress this last tip enough.  Attend a DO or just make a FF buddy (yes, this can include your spouse like I have done).  The exchange of ideas with a like-minded (and possibly more experienced) FF enthusiast is not only educational, but a lot of fun.  Even if you just exchange war stories of great flights or exotic places you visited, you will learn and have a great time.  You will find that these discussions inspire you to copy great trips others have taken or take advantage of credit card deals that you were not aware of.  There are so many aspects to this hobby and an ever changing array of details since airlines and credit card companies offer something new on a daily basis.  I have made a lot of great friends in this hobby and look forward to making many more.