Who currently travels or has traveled as a part of their job? I am among those who are required to do a fair amount of travel for my job. While I have been fortunate recently to have received many local or west-coast opportunities, it is not uncommon to hop on the plane to fly to the east-coast or another country on a weekly basis.
As frequent traveler, there are only a few benefits of this lifestyle, the most important being the point accumulation for hotels, airfare, and car rentals. As frequent travelers you should never, ever have to pay for your vacations. Of course, like many the last thing you want to do is head to the airport for your vacation. I am more than willing to make the exception for some place tropical or European.
You are rewarded for your frequent travels by obtaining different elite levels, each one granting you more privileges and opportunities than the previous. With programs like Platinum-members, Premier-Executives, 1K members, MVP-elite, and so on. . .it is easy to start to look down upon those poor individuals who are holding a “group 4″ boarding pass or get to stay on the second floor when you are offered the 47th floor with concierge service. One needs to remember that at the start of our traveling, we too had the opportunity to guard the lavatory back in row 36. I guess it is easy to look back simply because the rewards appear to diminish as you climb the ranks. Sure there are plenty of perks, but they become less significant. Does the 47th floor really offer a better view than the 45th floor?
It hit me the other day that I have been overlooking an aspect of traveling elite-ness. As I boarded a flight to Atlanta, I noticed that I recognized one of the crew members. I had seen Jim and the rest of the crew for this flight on a few other previous flights. Now this got me thinking, what type of status do you acquire when you get on a first-name basis with TSA members? The airport coffee shop staff?
I think that this should serve as a reality check, if you know too many people (especially those that are not from your home airport), you may be traveling too much! 
