With the water restored at the Sheraton Gateway LAX, day two was off to a better start. The first session, entitled “Secrets and Lies,†was an off-the-record summary of several tips and tricks not published on forums or blogs. The reason for the secrecy? While nothing discussed is illegal, each tip or trick helps save up to hundreds of dollars on airfares or hotel stays. If they were broadcast (more) publicly, the deals would die faster and/or policies would change preventing people from taking advantage of the loopholes.
Shhh! The Secret Session
Gary, Ben, Seth and Daraius did a fantastic job presenting each, answering questions as they went along, and swore the room to silence. Combined (and even individually), the tricks save hundreds more than the cost of attendance to the seminars. If you’re on the fence about attending FTU or a similar event in the future because of the cost, don’t be – it’ll pay dividends.
Next up was either an intro to award booking tools by airline alliance from Ben and Gary, or how to add a free one-way trip to award tickets presented by MileValue, thereby getting multiple vacations out of one ticket.
Ben and Gary
MileValue
Prior to lunch, the raffle prizes were distributed – MilePoint racked up $11,000 in donations over the weekend. The two top prizes were an iPad and United 1K status for 2013.
It's raffle time!
After lunch, the two session choices were either a walk-through of online travel tools with Seth, or how to earn 3 million points instead of 3,000 with Steve Belkin.
Travel tools with Seth
Millions of miles and points with Steve
The final two sessions provided detail as to which credit cards are best by spend type (category) with Million Mile Secrets and FrequentMiler, and why it’s better to dump your elite status (Christopher Elliott, anyone?) and stock up on cheap miles through other means with Steve Belkin.
Credit card category strategies with Daraius and FrequentMiler
As is the case with FTU and the Chicago Seminars, meeting other like-minded people is the highlight of attending. I was thrilled at how many people came up to me to introduce themselves and feel flattered at their feedback about my blog. I honestly pale in comparison to the big guns, but hope to expand Frequently Flying in the future – stay tuned!
Related posts:
I’m in the boat with dumping your status and stocking up on cheap miles using other methods.
How do the people running these seminars know that there are not “spies” from the airlines in the room, taking notes and making sure these deals vanish ASAP?
@scooternva: They don’t, and I’m sure at times there are employees of airlines and hotels attending.
“If they were broadcast (more) publicly, the deals would die faster and/or policies would change preventing people from taking advantage of the loopholes.”
It’s funny the bloggers have no problems broadcasting any info that will pad their pockets (ie, Vanilla Reloads, “sign up for the Ink Bold everybody using my affiliate links”, yet something that won’t pad their pockets and they take advantage of, they don’t share………………….unless of course they charge $99 to a bunch of suckers to come to a seminar to learn things……….so basically their pockets are being padded nonstop by anything that these bloggers do.
It was very nice to meet you in person … this FTULAX was a great event. Hope the next one will be just as good.
@Kalboz: You, as well!
Quick question: Do you censor blog comments or are you just slow to approve them?
@gregorygrady: I’m definitely guilty of the latter, particularly for those comments that get held for moderation (mostly first-time commentors)
@Darren: Thx. And thx for the writeup. Always interesting to hear what was discussed at FTU.