Win Schaeffer, who together with Rick, The Frugal Travel Guy, is organizing the Chicago seminar reminded me that the last date for registrations is this Friday – October 15 14, 2011. Yes, that’s 2 days away!
There is lots more information about the seminars on the FlyerTalk thread.
There is a Halloween party on Saturday night, so you may be able to see Mommy Points as a pirate rock star, Frugal Travel Guy, the great sport that he is, will wear the infamous Verizon headphones, and One Mile at at Time and yours truly will be dressed as themselves!
Here’s what I said about the Chicago seminars earlier:
The Chicago Seminars are a nice way for beginners to learn more about the miles and points game, and how to earn and redeem miles and points.
“You also get to meet some of the bloggers and other famous names including Pudding Guy (who earned millions of miles by buying, ummm, lots of pudding), Mr Pickles who ordered millions of coins from the mint, and Beaubo who was interrogated by the Drug Enforcement Administration for flying farmers back and forth the Golden Triangle. Randy Petersen who started this obsession will also be there!
Rick, the Frugal Travel Guy, is organizing the event, and Gary from View From The Wing, Brian, The Points Guy, and Ben from One Mile at a Time will be speaking.”
If you still haven’t booked your ticket and are using miles for your ticket you may be able to save the late ticketing fee which American Airlines and United charge for last minute award tickets.
I’m looking forward to meeting you there!
Full Disclosure: I’m one of the sponsors of the Chicago seminars.
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I have earned and redeemed millions of airline miles and hotel points to travel the world for free. Now I'm blogging to help more people do the same! 
Hi Daraius
As I just posted on Mommypoints, absolutely concur the ORD DO is a supercharged event.
Last year at the first ORD DO, enjoyed hearing from GLeff, Rick, Ric Garrido, and Mr. Pickles. Wonderful comraderie…our endstate–we earned at least 1M miles/points following the DO and using techniques I learned. Booked the HI and event first day of registration this year, but in early August got a super deal to spend two weeks traveling to Europe and back to US in next week thru early Nov–naturally used miles fly BA next Tues (FC to Lisbon) and points for hotel stay. Was able to recruite to brand new folks to our miles/point loving hobby and transfer my HI room to them. If you meet Joselyn and Julio pls welcome them. Seriously, ORD DO attendees will supercharge their miles/points accounts following their attendance at this year’s DO–plus, you will get to meet and socialize with wonderful travel loving folks.
the registration actually closes the evening of the 14th.
Rick
While I cannot attend, I did want to point out a Groupon hotel room deal in Chicago. While it will not earn you points, it does look like a pretty cool historic boutique hotel: http://www.groupon.com/deals/ga-a-the-whitehall-hotel?p=0
@Wes - Great advice, and I’ll look out for Joselyn and Julio. I really liked being able to see the bloggers I read in person! Enjoy your Europe trip!
@Rick ingersoll -Duh! I fixed it.
@Deals We Like – Maybe we’ll see you next year!
Thanks Daraius. How much of the material covered in the seminar will be different from what is on the blogs?
I can’t come up with a compelling reason to attend. Nothing against any of the presenters – seems geared to noobs.
Jenny:
Enough to make it worthwhile. Bloggers don’t disclose publicly all they know. And there are lots of folks who don’t blog who are top experts as well.
The contacts you make are worth more than the Seminar material in my opinion.
@Jenny – I agree with Win – the contacts and networking were the highlight for me.
@HikerT – It does take money and time to attend, so don’t worry if you can’t make it…though it would have been nice to connect in person!
I can’t see coming all that way if I am unable to attend the presentations of Gary and Ben which I understand are sold out. I tried to find out if there is a chance of taking the place of a no show, but did not receive a reply to my email.
Hi Daraius, I am the Joselyn that Wes mentioned. He has been a blessing to us and has given us very good advise that us as rookies have really need it. Looking forward to learn many tricks at the Do and to meet you there!
Ahh!, by the way, I am the same one that sent you that E-mail in Spanish by mistake
@JA - Those are among the most popular sessions so they got full early. There’s always next year!
@LatinGirl - Wes is great isn’t he? He’s shared a lot of his experiences on the blog which has helped others! Looking forward to seeing you!
JA:
I apologize that you did not get a response to your inquiry. I have answered hundreds of emails and PMs and posts and I guess yours slipped through.
We are not maintaining a waitlist, either for the event as a whole or for individual sessions. This was announced in the very first post. We tried to do so informally last year and it was way too much work. As we are all volunteers, it is not feasible.
That said, if, say, Gary’s session starts and 40 people don’t show up for it, and there are 30 wanting to get in, I can’t imagine we would not allow that.
I think it is still highly worthwhile, even if you can’t get into everything you want.
Ok, apology accepted. Based on your advice, I’m going to come. Found a couple of reasonable one way flights. I’m going to fly in Saturday morning, arriving ORD at 9:15 and head straight to the hotel. Hopefully I can snag a “no show” seat. Look forward to meeting y’all.