There’s a plane at JFK,
to fly you back from far away,
all those dark and frantic trans-atlantic miles
— Home and Dry, Pet Shop Boys (Now Printing).
I’m a member of several different Air Miles[0] schemes by this point. It’s a source of annoyance too, considering that I’ve already flown well over 20,000 miles so far this year – but the highest that accounts on a single membership is the 10K or so on my virgin flights to/from LAX. The whole system is, of course, cunningly designed and I’ll admit it does affect who I will book with. For example, this benefits airlines on short haul flights – if I get a choice of options with only a few pounds of difference in the price, then I’ll be bound to book with the Star Alliance member. So that’s a real benefit for airlines – you use the long haul to get roped in on the short routes.
After flying over to Canada and the US next, I should have ~23,000 miles on my Air Canada account and qualify for their entry level rewards programme (free upgrades – hopefully good for next year’s flight over to OLS). If I do somehow end up taking another 9K of flights before the end of the year (I do have to go to India in October too), then I can get access to those airport lounges too. Not too infeasible also as I’ve just been asked whether I can go to LinuxWorld in San Francisco – a week after I get back from being over there anyway. Meh. “If it fits in with doing some other work” 
Jon.
P.S. Belkin sell an ipod battery pack which runs off regular AA type batteries – in addition to an LiON/LiMH charge one – so I should be able to keep the tunes playing for a few days at a time. Now all I need is a portable nuclear fusion plant to do the same for my laptop.
[0] Probably a trade mark. Anyway, in Europe, shouldn’t there be some pointlessly pedantic law on it being “Air Kilometres”?