So this was my first FTU ever in life which I guess isn't odd considering I just started paying attention to the whole miles and points thing. I have to tell you I'm glad I came for a lot of reasons. I would say I networked my ass off but that would be lying since I am inherently shy and really don't like talking to too many new people at once. My friends laugh and asked me if my brain was on the verge of exploding because of all the people. Now that I think about it I don't know why they are my friends, they are just lucky that I'm too shy to want to make new ones! That being said, my fellow miles and points nerds are awesome! I really like that there are so many people that are getting into this hobby. I really like travelling and have always enjoyed going to new places and seeing new sites but most of all meeting really nice people. Ok I know that sentence sounded like the direct opposite of how I started this paragraph so let me explain. I don't mind meeting new people but I'm awful at small talk, if I meet them in the context of a shared interest (i.e. miles and points) then we have something to talk about but to start off with no common area is foreign to me. Hopefully that makes sense and I sound less crazy than I intended.
Back to FTU, anyone who wants to start learning about the travel hobby should really start reading the blogs like Million Mile Secrets, Loyalty Lobby, Mommy Points, Pizza in Motion, Frequent Miler....I could go on but if you start with any of those you should be off to a great start. I met a mix of people who either thought these get together's were great to those that have gone to a few and found them redundant. Since this was my first, I can't say either way but I do know I want to go to another one next year because they had so much great information but I couldn't go to every talk since some overlapped in regards to time, so my strategy is to go to the ones I missed on subsequent seminars. But let's face it, there is so much information and since unlike the serious bloggers, this isn't my "job" so I don't devote nearly as much time to the hobby. As I mentioned earlier, I've only started doing this earlier this year and my focus is on hotels at this time. I'm giving myself a year before I start on the airline stuff.
Speaking of the airline stuff, I sat in on a talk given by the Miles Professor and I was totally lost! She was talking about off peak European travel and how to save 10,000 miles by doing an open jaw going this way and that way, my head started spinning! Whew! She's really a professor and a mathematician and I felt like I was in the advanced class but I also knew that since I haven't done anything but join the different airline clubs, it would make sense that I had no idea what she was talking about. That's why I'm not concerning myself with that right now, it isn't my first goal or priority. The one take away I got from every presenter I heard was-Set a Goal. So my goal for the next year is to get some status going without credit card assistance because I have 3 boys in varying stages of education which require parent loans so I can't really take a chance on playing with my credit scores nor can I take expensive flights or take extended time off from work so right now it's strictly being a weekend hotel geek grabbing as many nights/stays as I can to rack up my points and elite status. I'm not biting off more than I can chew, I'm taking human bites! So what about you? What are your travel goals for the next 12 months????
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