Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking at and attending the Charlotte Milemadness event with Amol. It was created to help people who manufacture spend meet up and discuss different topics. There were over 100 people and the event itself was a huge success!
The day kicked off with Frequent Miler opening the conference and announcing the winners of the Milemadness contest.
1st place went to The Miles Professor who managed to rack up close to $4,800 worth of “profit”.
2nd place went to your truly and I managed to rack up $3,500 worth of “profit”.
3rd place went to Big Habitat who made just a little under $3,000.
Ultimately, everyone in the competition did amazing and I feel like the only reason I even placed was because of the time I had on my hands. At the end of the month, I was able to accumulate:
- 165,000 Ultimate Rewards Points
- 40,000 US Airways Miles
- 60,000 Alaska Airlines Miles
- A bunch of other smaller points
The day then kicked off with The Miles Professor giving a presentation about how to maximize efficiency while working with limited time. It was an interesting and eye opening presentation as we got to see how someone who lives in New York was able to MS and eventually win 1st place! Kudos to her for such a great presentation!
Marathon Man continued onwards and gave what was probably the best speech i’ve ever heard on being a good steward to MS. He spoke of ways to take care of MS and see that everyone get a fair chance to partake in this hobby. There was talk about different levels of MS and only doing as much as you need. He then went onto talk about his own mistakes that he made and how he learned from them. Overall, it was a great speech and I wish some people recorded it so we could watch it again.
Lunch continued afterwards and we mingled with some of the other attendees. It was all a casual atmosphere and no one was fangirling over anyone, except maybe George!
Amol and I presented after lunch and spoke about Chase 5x and different ways of making the most out of 1X cards. It seemed as though it was well received.
After our presentation, Phil from Milesabound spoke about a more local and community involved way to MS. It was actually really cool to see how MS was helping out his community while earning a ton of points.
Trevor from Quick City Visits spoke about buying/reselling products to earn points. It was an interesting take on a pretty popular way to make some money and points!
Next up was FreeQuent Flyer who spoke about the ethical boundaries from white hat and black hat hacks. I had to make a phone call so I couldn’t stay for his presentation but from what I heard, it was good.
To finish things up, Matt from Saverocity spoke about different overall opportunities for MS and the process and reason behind the CLT seminars. I have to give him a ton of credit as this event went off without a hitch. Everyone seemed to be pleased and loved being there.
To end things for the night, I hosted a BBQ/party in my suite. I do not know how but I managed to snag a Jewel Suite at the hotel which featured an enormous patio/balcony. At one point, we had close to 30 people on our balcony eating BBQ that we ordered from Queen City Q. We even got some gracious attendees to help bring in cocktail tables to the patio. It was an awesome way to end the night and meet a bunch of new people. The party ended sometime around 11 but I don’t know for sure because some of us actually left to buy some vanilla reloads from a certain location.
The hotel itself was a gem. I had never stayed at a Hyatt House before but this one was gorgeous. IT had the most modern amenities, suites and furniture. They even had some really comfortable beds. Kudos to them for making such a great hotel!
Overall, this was the best event that I have ever been to. I don’t have anything bad to say about other events but this was definitely smaller and everyone here was approachable. Everyone genuinely wanted to be there unlike the impression I got at other events where some people speak and just leave.
I just want to thank everyone who helped put this together because they really did do a stellar job!
If you missed this event, Matt has asked me to join their planning group for the next event! I’ll hope to see you there!
-BMG
