Award Travel Meetup
Meetups are an invaluable resource in award travel. There are countless tips and tricks that folks just don't share in online forums but instead are discussed live during these in-person gatherings. So why would you leave your home for the weekend to hang out with strangers and talk about award travel? You can ask any of the 300+ members who attend our meetups every year. In the meantime, below I share some reflections about attending an award travel meetup.
What Are Meetups
Generally, meetups are weekend-long gatherings of points and miles enthusiasts who get together to talk about award travel. You may notice that not everyone in your family or social circles wants to talk about credit cards or award redemptions. Meetups are a fantastic opportunity to chat with those who are just as excited as you are about this stuff.
Every meetup is different and folks host different kinds of meetups. You can usually expect some time spent in a seminar setting. This is where presenters talk about credit card strategies, tips for award redemptions, or something else related to award travel.
The Travel on Point(s) meetups usually include two days of seminars on Saturday and Sunday mornings and a social activity on Saturday evening. All of us on the ToP team make ourselves available to chat over the course of the weekend.
Why Do Meetups Happen
Award travel makes the world smaller, with travel being easier and cheaper than it ever was for many of us. This makes traveling much more affordable and easier. We can afford to take more vacations and to take more weekend trips.
These benefits make traveling halfway across the country for a weekend a much easier endeavor. With our award travel skills, we can attend meetups almost for free, save for any consumption costs and the price of an admission ticket.
Also, there are a lot of tips and tricks that folks learn over the years that aren't shared online for various reasons. So meetups have become a helpful way to share these valuable tidbits in person.
What Can You Get Out of Attending a Meetup
This is where the rubber meets the road. As with most things in life, you get as much as you put in. If you attend award travel meetup and head right back to your hotel room after every seminar session, you won't get as much as someone who hangs out with other attendees in between or after each session.
I have seen lifelong friendships blossom at every meetup I have attended (and I have discovered my fair share of those friendships). Our Facebook group has lots of stories of members hanging out with each other in their home towns or running into each other in far flung destinations after meeting each other at a meetup.
These relationships yield incredible results beyond the friendships themselves. You can meet someone from your home airport that knows some tricks to find award availability out of that airport. Or you can meet someone who just took the same trip you were planning to take next year. You never know what you can learn from another attendee, in addition to the seminars themselves.
Personal Reflections about Award Travel Meetup
Several times at every ToP meetup I catch myself taking a step back and just watching. Taking it all in. I watch a beginner's excitement as they learn a helpful trick from a more experienced participant. Old friends seeing each other for the first time in months. I watch a once-reluctant Player 2 who came along with their spouse/friend/relative embracing the idea of opening credit cards to travel the world. You see a graduate student talking with a retiree, both sharing that same burning desire to travel the world. It's simply amazing to witness all of these interactions.
And what makes these exchanges particularly special is the diversity in backgrounds in the room. People from all walks of life, from every corner of the country, with different upbringings, faiths, education, and financial means. Without award travel, the vast majority of people in the room would never have met each other.
And if you'll indulge me in one last moment of sap. Each of us in the ToP Admin team met each other at different meetups years before Derrick and Sarah founded Travel on Point(s). And I will be forever grateful that we each attended all of these different meetups.
Award Travel Meetup: ToP Thoughts
Leaving town for a weekend to hang out with a bunch of strangers you haven't met can sound a bit daunting. But the opportunity to meet and learn from other award travelers is incomparable. Beginners stand to be introduced to a whole new aspect of award travel. And veterans keep coming back to see old friends and to continue to learn. After all, the only constant in award travel is change. There is always a new tip, trick, or play that came about because a bank, hotel, or airline made a recent change to their program.
And if you're still unsure about a attending a meetup, consider checking out one of our City Socials. These are informal events where we gather at a brewery or bar for a couple of hours and talk points & miles with no set agenda.
