Christmas Travel Memories

Merry Christmas and Feliz Navidad to everyone.

Many of my favorite Christmas memories are travel related. Growing up, I could count on a ticket to the Aloha Bowl in my stocking, and we would go as a family to watch a little college football on Christmas Day. I've spent Christmas in Hawaii, Virginia, California, and Florida. And from 2007-2009, I spent three consecutive Christmases abroad.

In 2007, I flew Spirit from Washington DC to Lima, Peru (DCA-FLL-LIM) on Christmas Eve.

LAX FTU Presentation Slides

I created a slide show for my LAX Frequent Traveler University presentation that I promised I would share with those who attended.

My presentation was called "Three Vacations on Two Awards: Free Oneways."

The only difference between the presentation and the show below is that I deleted the videos in the original presentation, which had no audio, and replaced them with videos with audio.

I've uploaded the presentation online RIGHT HERE.

MileValue Award Booking Service Price Increase

Two month ago Tahsir joined the MileValue Award Booking Service team. His joining brought much appreciated expertise and capacity. But even with him, we are overworked. The next step may be to train and bring in more help, but we don't want to rush into that because maintaining the quality of our work is our paramount concern.

As Tahsir says, we enjoy award bookings because everyone we help is so excited afterward. They've just booked a dream vacation.

Bill’s Frequent Traveler University Report Card–First Timer Perspective

First, and most importantly, it was great to attend Frequent Traveler University hear all of the positive feedback about the blog. Scott has really created excitement over his creative oneway awards and expert routing knowlege. It's a lot of fun to part of something special like this. I just hope to contribute a small fraction to MileValue now and in the future.

As I posted early Saturday morning, I didn't really know what to expect in attending Frequent Traveler University.

Los Angeles Frequent Traveler University Recap

This weekend I spoke at the Los Angeles Frequent Traveler University at the Sheraton Gateway LAX.

I drove the 25 minutes to the airport on Friday afternoon, getting in an hour before the cocktail party started.

My First Frequent Traveler University!

I have to say, the journey to Frequent Traveler University has been a long strange one. I first “discovered” this hobby about five years ago. A small finance blog (now long defunct) casually mentioned the Starwood Preferred Guest credit card as a great addition to anyone’s wallet, and the ball rolled from there. I then accidentally tripped over FlyerTalk and was initially overwhelmed by the sheer amount of knowledge and expertise it contained.

After perusing FlyerTalk, I started following one travel blog (incidentally, the Frugal Travel Guy).

LAX FTU Meet Ups

I am speaking at the Los Angeles Frequent Traveler University (LAX FTU) this weekend.

I’m Moving to Argentina

On February 19, 2013, I am moving to Argentina. This will not negatively impact the blog.

In July, my law school buddy called me while I was in Hawaii. He told me that when his Judge Advocate General (JAG) commitment ended at the end of the year, he was moving to Buenos Aires.

That sounded like a heck of a plan. For the last nine years--since I first left North America--I've wanted to live abroad at some point.

New Writer at MileValue

I'm excited to announce a new writer has joined the MileValue team: Bill Wilkes.

Bill at the Armory and Napoleon’s tomb in Paris

Bill was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. The son of an American Airlines pilot, he grew up with airplanes being his home away from home. He currently works for the baseball team in Baltimore, MD assisting with Major League rules interpretation and administration. Some of his favorite destinations to travel (with miles, of course) are Spain, Argentina, and Hawaii.

New Site Design and Functionality

I was the original hater of the logo: "Underneath these headings is the ugliest logo in the world." The logo will be changed within two weeks, hopefully within two days.

Yesterday the site was in flux as my designer made some changes that will hopefully make the site more aesthetically pleasing and more functional! I'll walk you through the changes, so you know how to get the information you want to access. Let's start at the top:

The old MileValue had a growing list of Pages on top of every page with titles like Start Here and Meet Up.