
At the time my brother was in a leadership program at the company he works for. As a part of the program, every six months, for two years, he rotated to a different area of the organization. This company has an office in Singapore which is in Southeast Asia. When my brother found out about the Singapore office he told me all about it. I encouraged him to show interest in rotating there for six months. He did. They agreed. And he moved. We later found out that the company would pay for the flight of a family member to visit him while he was there. I was that family member!
To say it was a trip of a lifetime would be an understatement. I spent 7 days in Singapore and the casual mention of Indonesia by my brother's coworker led us to book a last minute trip to Bali. Little did I know this was only the beginning. The flier miles that I accumulated from the trip to Asia combined with the flier miles I accumulated from traveling for work gave me the ability to buy another flight for a highly discounted price. Six months after my trip to Asia I traveled to Durban, South Africa!
Impressed with my success in traveling with frequent flier miles I got the idea to start paying very close attention to airline promotions that let you buy miles. I quickly realized that I could buy miles during the double miles promotion deals and it would cost less than actually outright buying a ticket for a flight. And that is what I did. Six months after that, I traveled to Paris, France!
I'm from a very small town in Alabama, so small that there are no traffic lights and no stores. I do not know anyone who has traveled like this. I am truly grateful for the opportunity. In my case I think it was good that I was generic with my request. I could have never picked the locations that I had the opportunity to visit.
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