No, he’s not. But I thought the headline might make you read this post. Last October I decided to follow the lead of several other Boarding Area Bloggers (I used to blog over there) and attend The Chicago Seminars. I’m not much of a conference person, I’m really not into mileage runs, I don’t really care about credit card churns or gift cards, so I wasn’t quite sure what I would get out of the conference.
Turns out I got a lot out of the conference without attending a single session. I volunteered to help at registration and met Howie aka The Frugal Travel Geek. If you don’t know, Howie’s the man behind the curtain when it comes to the Chicago Seminars. We hit it off and kept in touch. When Howie visited Bangkok in January with his wife, I was in town and we all hung out. It was fun.
Now, I’m in New York and discovered Howie and his wife are here too! We had a great dinner (with Jason of Food Wine & Miles). Low and behold, it turns out that Howie and his wife are flying to London tomorrow – so am I. They invited me to join them on a tour.
Who knew that by attending The Chicago Seminars and sitting at registration for hours days I’d make such a great connection.
It’s pretty funny that we’ve both in been in the same places around the world at the same time, but it’s worked out nicely that we get to connect in cool places.
I also met Carol, Southern Travel Girl, during The Chicago Seminars Tornado event. I’m glad I got to meet her and eventually ask her to join F2B. Same goes for John – Plush Adventures. We had been tweeting before Chicago, but got to meet there. He’s turned out to be a great friend.
So, even if you’re not into mile runs, or credit card churning or the other crazy points and miles things that go along with a points/miles conference, you still can get a lot out of them.
PS – if you’re trying to convince your spouse to go and they’re into shopping, you can tell them that I’ll be at the Nordstrom Rack and other amazing stores during the hard core points/miles sessions!