I just want to say, please don't bankrupt yourself in this Odyssey.
You say you have the planned or budgeted or forseen or real income, but it's too easy to go into hock.
This flying thing is very Addictive as you can tell.
I'm not offended or angry, I don't think anyone is talking down to me or making fun of me but I think you might be underestimating my capabilities when it comes to working with systems on limited resources.
I'm a disabled person but I'm also a techie with better hardware than virtually all of you and if any of you do have better hardware, I can virtually garuntee you didn't buy it on under 13k per year while studying with long periods of confinement to hospitals or your bedroom in between waits in government medical or welfare offices trying to get treatment for a chronic illness.
I've lost 10kg in the past year using my VR for light to moderate cardio 30-90 mins(@ 2k per eye, 90fps solid) and stopped myself blowing up into a blob even when I had long periods where I couldn't leave the house for anything other than medical treatment without having to diet at all(i was eating krispy kreme 3 times per week for about 15 bucks for 3 big packs of donuts to share with the household using discount codes until I found out my cholesterol was killing me but it was what I did instead of buying two bottles of whiskey/gin/vodka/good wine a week to share with friends/family) and improved my cardiovascular health and mental health at the same time.
I have a Vive Pro(business class VR HMD), a Samsung 55" 2018 model 4K QLED, 3 1070ti and a 1080ti along with a gaming rig paid for by a 760x2 + 8350fx traded up to a 1080 traded up to a 1700x + 1080ti AND an i7 6600k + 3x 1070ti while using the Nvidia "Token Rebate" Program. My computer is in the top 1% of steam users and I did all of that with the Nvidia rebate program and interest-free loans + saving for lump sums pre-payments by the fortnight and spending the rest on repayments, it allowed me to rapidly pay off interest free loans with my regular fixed income + the Nvidia rebates to buy upgrades and start building up flippable resources I use for liquidity when needed to ensure I don't end up paying the 6.50 fee monthly fee longer than I need to.
I'm paying my phone/tablet bill with a lump sum in advance and using the six months off paying bills to take out an interest free loan for a 2080ti which I will pay off while I save for Japan using Nvidia Rebate Tokens + the minimum repayment from my pension each month onto of what my carer will be paying back from the lump sum I pay off one of their bills.
If I had've put all of those purchases through the QP program, I'd have a free trip + accommodation already. I've got 6 nights accommodation worth of points sitting there already and I've yet to pay a bill with their debit card which I've applied for, also considered loading the cash I'd put onto that debit card onto a Qantas CC card in my carer's name(with their permission, they said yes already) to use to get extra points. I fixed their credit rating with the cough I've been doing by structuring my purchases in such a way they ended up with all of their bills paid on time and I ended up with parts, effectively acting as a two way interest free loan for 6.50 per month for me + minimum repayment per month for both of us each.
If I save 500 dollars, pay it off a bill, have them take out an interest free loan for 1000 dollars, pay the minimum back on it until the 500 is paid off while I also pay it off with my pension whenever I have spare money at the end of a fortnight + rebate tokens, the principal is gone before I ever see interest and usually in under 3 to 6 months. It's how I bought all my cough off one interest free money card they had for Harvey Norman before they stopped working full-time, the constant buying/repaying actually let her increase the credit limit.
Over the last year and a half, I went from a coughbox computer to flying a girl in a similiar situation to me over from the States, I met in VR for a 3 month long internal holiday travelling up and down the great ocean road and sightseeing within victoria in between sessions gaming in VR together on better hardware than most employed people, I went back to school for the first time in years midyear and I had a better PCs than the 3D art college I attended, you would've needed four of them to match the performance of my both my primary VR/Entertainment rig(27" 3D monitor, 55" Samsung QLED 2018 model, Sony Trinitron CRT 55" connected to Xbox OG, Wii, PS2, Saturn, Dreamcast, PS1 and 64 via VCR+DVD+Roku(actually an off market Raspberry PI in a case I bought but ey) with Logitech(affordable and cheap) + CH products (durable as cough and repairable) wheel, sticks, pedals and throttles for VR racing and flight simulation in my bedroom and my render farm/second VR rig in the spare/storage room for local multiplayer.
Getting into the nitty gritty of the "Nvidia Rebate Token" program actually helped improve my health because it gave me something constructive to think about, goals to work at and improve on and it paid off in a big way for me. I think status running as a hobby would be similarly enjoyable for me and it would help improve my health by giving me another constructive, rewarding thing to work on when I'm confined to the house or have time to waste when I'm well enough to attend school.
I have no worries whatsoever about my health being a factor because if I pay for insurance, it's not my problem if I get hurt, injured or sick and I'll get better treatment than I received from the government for like 350 bucks a year for a friend and I that would be valid whenever I have a ticket on me. In the worst case scenario, should I die on the plane, at my destination or at an airport, everything is paid for and there is 3 million liability insurance to cover any problems caused by my passing and I will have seen more of the world than I ever would otherwise.
I had a life before my illness and I want some of it back, I think status running could be a great hobby for a person who would otherwise be restricted from travelling regularly to destinations they've never been to in a level of luxury that they haven't experienced since before they got sick. I can live on ramen(i can take a break from clean living on holiday!!!) and katsu bowls(yum) in Japan, 7/11 sells better sushi than I can afford to buy in Australia on a regular basis for less than I pay here even taking into account the exchange rate and I can eat the rest of my meals in business class seats and first class lounges while I check out other places for day and a night between legs of trips.
I mean, damn, I saw one company does 600 dollar yearly passes with unlimited access or complimentary meal coupons that is valid with dirt cheap flights in regions that have those lounges would be more than worth it for me. What is stopping me from spending 100-150 bucks a fortnight on cheap as hell flights to other cities in Australia and using that to eat high quality food in beautiful surroundings while I do my homework/course work remotely, racking up QP and SC every god-damned(^_^) payweek?
It would cost me more money to eat those meals in my own city and stay at a hotel than it would to pay for a flight once a fortnight and stay overnight in another city with either a yearly pass or a gold/plat status. I did half of my coursework from home in my last certificate, I see no reason I can't study online while doing this nor any reason why I can't do my usual online volunteer work from a computer in a QP bought hotel room vs my bedroom. I'm designing a molle rig for an NUC and a EGPU with integrated PSU so I can take a 1070(trading a 1070ti for the EGPU) and Skull Canyon NUC(buying second hand through ebay for QP) on the road so I can do pretty hardcore 3D rendering/VR work from business lounges and hotel rooms anywhere in Australia.
I don't owe any money and I don't have any outstanding debts, everything I possess is mine and in the clear so I can trade/sell it for liquidity when I need it. I don't go out spending heaps on fancy food or booze or smokes, I don't take drugs and I don't have any regular of expenses beyond food, clothing and contributing toward utility bills, I can get to class fairly cheaply(i pack/make my own lunches using materials bought from the stores that supply sushi sushi, tea i brew myself + get lifts from a mate on his way afternoon shift/PT home when I'm well enough and study from home whenever I'm capable when I'm not well enough) and my main hobbies are all digital thus as cheap as I want them to be or even slightly above self-sustainable without further inputs of funds in the sense that I've paid far under market rate for my hardware and usually sell it for more than what I paid because of patience and having nothing better to do than wait in queues for medical treatment in small rooms checking gumtree or spending time in a small room(my bedroom or the spare room) refurbishing cough I've bought second-hand while I'm confined to the house during flareups.
The same patience I applied to learning how to refurb g-cards and retro consoles can be applied to learning how these systems work to exploit them for maximum value(subjective), spending my down time working with old consoles and PCs has resulted in having all of my entertainment needs met for free, I have every console and handheld(and every game ever made for them including beta and unreleased titles) I ever wanted as a child and one of the best VR rigs on the planet with a limited income, I view all my content for free at the highest possible resolution and quality whether it be 2D, 3D or VR with a chronic disability and extremely limited finances(under 13k per year, 1/3rd of which is reserves for living expenses) through careful budgeting, buying, spending, trading and doing maintenance + repair myself.
Is there anyone here who can help a person like me learn the ropes so I can spend less time in small rooms and more time out in the world where I belong? This is probably the only way I can afford to have a life like a normal person, all I ever do is wait, repair and study, I wanna wait, repair and study on the way to somewhere I've never been before and I think this can make it happen.
I got 200gb of mobile data for my tablet p/m and 80gb for my phone and smartwatch, I should be able to study quite easily on the go in business class lounges + on planes + in QP hotel rooms when I pair that with wifi rather than studying at home or spending time taking trains to classes. Looking at the numbers, it would cost me less money to live in QP hotel rooms while, study and do repairs on g-cards/consoles out of business class lounges and their meeting rooms and eat complimentary food while studying online and constantly mile running than it would for a room or a place of my own closer to my university each month when you take food, transport, fixed internet connection, utility and rent costs into consideration as my entertainment costs are self-sustaining and extremely high-end luxury level already.
I used to work for Telstra and when I left after I got ill I knew their internal rules so well that I am able to get them to virtually pay me for having a phonebill or recieving devices from them by lodging the right complaints in the right way whenever I have service disruptions or anything that is legitimately a concern/complaint under their internal rules, I've given them less than 100 dollars (after refunds, bill credits for complaining about outages/disruptions/bugs on their apps) a year since I became medically unfit to work and they've given me 6 phones and a tablet and as much data(I use my phone for quick downloads and get them to remove the charges with complaints later down the track whenever I have a valid reason to complain) as I could justify using so far.
You'd be surprised what an expired C-number, knowledge of where call centers are located and whether they work direct or are a third party and a friendly demeanor can accomplish if you know the rules. Call center workers actually have discretion for customer service purposes and if you tick all the right boxes in their procedural checklist and make them feel good/helpful/laugh, they can more or less make certain bills nearly free over time without breaking the law or lying or even violating company police or working against their KPIs, you just have to know how to use lump sum payments, bill extensions, customer service experience/account saving rules and billshock rules to make it look like you're paying when long-term they are refunding almost or more than what you gave them across the entire life of the contract each year.
If you only want the data/calls of a plan and don't want the device or the accessories or free junk you get with a plan, you can even hock it and use the money for a lump sum payment then use the complaint refund strategy to stretch that money out as long as possible like I have been doing for years. I've made money back for my bills selling the bloody boxes, accessories and materials separately that you don't have to return under Australian law if your phone is damaged while insured and replaced or repaired.
I've done the same thing for friends and family before but that is a little riskier because you're relying on them not to cough up too badly while on the phone if they ever call in if you sell them the sim + device and handle the bill for them. You get bundle discounts that further make this sort of cough more affordable month to month and further reduce your total outlay when refunds/replacements are taken into consideration.
There is absolutely no reason you can't buy say three devices on 3 plans, bundle them for discounts + extra welcome accessories + welcome credits, sell two of them + all accessories + boxes + bonus cough, keep one and hand the sims off to your family and use the lump sum to pay your bills off in advance with the valid complaint/billshock strategies I use, I've done it three times.
I want to apply this legal and legitimate optimization of customer service rules while taking advantage of bundles and stacked rewards with the airlines and hotel systems, QP and SC like I do with goods and services sold by utility companies, can anyone help? So far all my entertainment and communication needs are self-sustaining or nearly free over the long-term, surely I can stack this with QP and SC to get hotels and experiences for free?
Helps when you used to be a systems trainer for billing, level 2 tech support and outbound sales after working in all of those departments and are able to guide them through the process and were able to directly link them to intranet-only Telstra wiki articles(they changed it not too long ago! coughs) I'd saved the addresses for on the internal wiki on my work phone for easy reference in a note to speed up systems access as well as directly dial into departments bypassing the IVR using a ream of direct numbers I had on printer paper for doing warm transfers when I was on the phones.
Travelling like that would also mean I'd constantly be covered by their multi-pass travel insurance and I could go for a cheaper monthly insurance plan and still get all the chiro, physio, dental, renal treatments I need because if I get sick, hurt or injured or killed while in possession of a ticket I would be covered by the 360 dollar yearly plan with my elite level comprehensive extras costing 100 dollar monthly with the disability insurance scheme/pensioner's card for excess/regular/backup access to hospital system.