The Factors Man formally turns 15 years previous Saturday, June 7. What initially began as the private weblog of our founder, Brian Kelly, has developed into a robust model within the journey media panorama, with hundreds of thousands of readers and followers throughout our web site and social media and video platforms.
We love listening to how factors and miles have helped our readers journey the world, however for our anniversary, we needed to make a journey down reminiscence lane with our personal staffers. In any case, Brian’s personal factors and miles journey started with an epic household journey to the Cayman Islands again in 1996.
So, we posed a easy query to a few of our longest-tenured TPGers: What redemption actually kick-started your ardour for factors and miles?
Here is what they needed to say.
Nick Ewen
I began studying TPG in 2010, and on the time, I used to be a street warrior, racking up a ton of Delta SkyMiles and Hilton HHonors factors (sure, there was a double “H” within the identify). In truth, Hilton was the topic of my very first article as a contributor, which printed in Could 2012. However though I used to be already a part of the factors and miles world, I wasn’t maximizing it, since I used to be targeted virtually completely on these two applications.
Then, in early 2011, Brian wrote in regards to the skill to get two 75,000-mile welcome provides on American Airways bank cards (that are not out there). I jumped on it, and so did my spouse — and later that 12 months, we every booked Cathay Pacific first-class to Bali, Indonesia, and again, together with a six-night keep utilizing Hilton factors on the Conrad Bali. I ate caviar and drank fancy Champagne … whereas carrying airline-provided pajamas … on a aircraft … as I sat throughout from my spouse in one in every of our seats — sure, it was that huge.
This opened my eyes to the unimaginable alternatives that come from leveraging each bank card welcome bonuses and accomplice flight redemptions — and lit the fireplace that began as a pastime, grew to become a aspect hustle and finally developed right into a profession.
Summer season Hull
As a child, I grew up taking the normal one or two household holidays per 12 months — all the time by automobile, regardless of the space.
As I hit my early 20s, the household street journeys had been over, however what I had seen within the U.S. as a child planted the seed to wish to discover much more as an grownup. Nevertheless, I had a math drawback. I had an entry-level social work wage, plenty of New York College scholar mortgage debt and massive journey goals.
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When my first huge award journey got here round in 2005, I had no additional money, however I did have a stash of frequent flyer miles piled up from attending faculty in New York and visiting family and friends again in Texas.
As a grad faculty current to myself, I cashed in some United MileagePlus miles I had earned on these flights again residence for a visit for 2 to Hawaii earlier than beginning my job.
Certain, we booked the most cost effective lodge, barely left Waikiki and went to timeshare displays (simply to get a free breakfast and free luau tickets). However my toes had been on Hawaiian sand, and I used to be swimming within the attractive Pacific Ocean. My thirst for journey — and my appreciation for the position factors and miles might play in that journey — was born.
I actually might see the world, go farther than the household automobile might take us and do it with a “forex” that was distinctly completely different from the one that will pay my payments.
Eric Rosen
Though my TPG colleagues rib me about my fondness for first-class flights nowadays, again within the early 2000s, I might solely journey on a shoestring finances. So the journey that opened my eyes to the chances of factors and miles was a backpacking journey to South America.
My financial system ticket — from Los Angeles to New York, on to Buenos Aires after which getting back from Santiago — would have value me almost $1,100 had I been paying money, which was nicely out of my attain on the time. Nevertheless, I redeemed simply 40,000 AAdvantage miles plus $52 in taxes and costs. This was a visit I would been dreaming about taking for years, and airline miles had been the one motive I used to be lastly in a position to take action.
That was additionally the purpose at which I noticed that factors and miles might open up your complete world to me … and, certainly, they’ve finished so since then, enabling me to do all the things from swimming with whale sharks in Western Australia and seeing wildlife on safari in Botswana to celebrating household weddings in France and traipsing the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
And whereas it is true that I do choose to fly in enterprise or first-class, I am going to nonetheless bounce at a reasonable financial system award to a far nook of the globe, so that you would possibly simply see me in your subsequent flight.
Andrea Rotondo
TPG’s early years opened my eyes to what was potential when it comes to seeing the world with out deep pockets. What I hadn’t anticipated, although, was how this pastime would coax me to stretch my boundaries, go to faraway locations and join with the individuals who reside there.
My first huge redemption was to South Africa. I transferred American Specific Membership Rewards factors to my Delta SkyMiles account (financial system on the way in which — ouch — and blissful enterprise class on the return).
I explored Timbavati and Sabi Sands nature reserves on recreation drives the place I noticed elephants, giraffes, Cape buffaloes, leopards, lions and a lot extra. I even did just a few strolling safaris. Regardless of my preliminary hesitation (concern), they had been magical experiences, as I realized what life was like on this place so removed from the streets of Boston, the place I grew up.
Earlier than I knew it, I booked extra redemptions to locations like Bali, Borneo and Vietnam — journeys that pushed my bodily and emotional boundaries. I realized a lot from the folks (and animals) I met alongside the way in which.
Factors and miles haven’t solely enriched my life but in addition taught me to be extra spontaneous and take possibilities. It is an sudden reward that I treasure.
Becca Manheimer
Factors and miles have modified my life and have allowed me to take journeys and create reminiscences that would not have been potential in any other case. In my 9 years at TPG, my magnum opus was my honeymoon, an 18-day journey with eight flights (together with a seaplane) booked solely on factors and miles. This journey took eight months of meticulous planning, just a few bank card sign-ups and assist from my fellow TPG consultants, however it ceaselessly modified the way in which I journey.
A few of our redemptions on this journey included:
As TPG’s longest-tenured full-time worker (apart from The Factors Man himself!), the bar was set very excessive. Rising up, I all the time dreamed of an incredible honeymoon, however the journey I deliberate utilizing the information we preach day by day at TPG exceeded even my wildest goals of what was potential.
Clint Henderson
I used to be comparatively late to find factors and miles, solely beginning to use them often in my 30s. Whereas I all the time liked to journey and have had an American Airways AAdvantage quantity since 1997, I by no means actually linked the dots. However after seeing my buddies fly in first-class and being tremendous jealous of them, I used to be decided to determine how I might do the identical.
On the time, I used to be working as an govt producer in TV information and reserving folks like Brian Kelly and Summer season Hull to come back on and speak journey.
I realized loads from these skilled relationships.
However my first huge redemption is what actually locked me in ceaselessly. I booked Japan Airways first-class to Tokyo throughout cherry blossom season utilizing my American Airways miles. To prime it off, I used World of Hyatt factors to remain on the legendary Park Hyatt Tokyo.
That redemption ceaselessly unlocked in my thoughts the facility of bank card welcome bonuses and factors and miles.
I feel it led on to me making journey my profession just some years later, too. I’ve by no means appeared again.
Katie Genter
I first fell in love with worldwide journey in 2011 throughout a two-week journey to Turkey (which occurred to be my first time stepping exterior North America). However till a 2015 journey to Hefei, China, for the annual RoboCup robotic soccer competitors, my husband and I traveled inside our finances by reserving cheap flight offers and staying at cheap accommodations and hostels.
However three redemptions for our 2015 journey to China made me understand the worth of factors and miles, at the same time as a finances traveler. This realization led me to go all in on studying about award journey forward of what I anticipated to be a niche 12 months in 2017. (Spoiler alert: I by no means took the hole 12 months however as an alternative have lived as a full-time digital nomad for nearly eight years.)
What had been the redemptions? First, my husband transferred a Chase Ink Enterprise card welcome bonus to United Airways to cowl his around-the-world flights to China (together with two flights he reviewed for TPG). Second, I redeemed on-line journey company rewards to e-book a practice from Shanghai to Guilin, China. And third, my husband transferred factors to British Airways to e-book me a brief Cathay Pacific business-class flight from Guilin to Hong Kong.
Though not extravagant, these redemptions made the worth of factors and miles click on for me. Better of all, they led me to dive into award charts and grow to be enthusiastic about award journey, which led me to begin freelancing for TPG in late 2015 and settle for a full-time position in 2019. So, in some ways, these redemptions modified the course of my life and led me to pursue a full-time profession writing about factors, miles and journey.
Ben Smithson
Working as a lawyer in Australia 12 years in the past, I used to be determined to discover a method to fly in these “cozy seats up entrance,” so I spent hours of my free time scouring boards like FlyerTalk and blogs like TPG to study the ideas and methods.
Enter the legendary U.S. Airways Dividend Miles program (RIP) with its wise award chart, beneficiant routing guidelines and the power to easily purchase tons of of hundreds of miles for 1 cent apiece throughout its countless promotions with out ever setting foot on its planes.
Eager to make the leap on a flight from Australia to Europe, my accomplice, who did not actually perceive how any of this labored, challenged me to e-book flights to the farthest level in Europe I might, so I managed an epic business-class redemption in 2013 from Melbourne, Australia, to Bangkok to Istanbul to Oslo, Norway, to Reykjavik for simply 60,000 miles every leg flying Thai Airways, Turkish Airways and Scandinavian Airways. This epic journey of just about 12,000 flown miles was the primary time the Dividend Miles agent who booked it had ever heard of Iceland, and it opened my eyes to the facility of factors and miles.
I’ve flown between Australia and Europe numerous instances since and can by no means sit in financial system once more now that I understand how to get an upgraded seat for much less.
Madison Blancaflor
Rising up, journey meant street journeys to softball tournaments and the occasional journey to Disney World. Bank cards had been one thing to keep away from on the behest of David Ramsey books handed out at church. The primary time I ever even stepped on a aircraft was my junior 12 months of school.
Then, I bought a job at Purple Ventures, the guardian firm of TPG. I used to be launched to the concept that bank cards might truly be a savvy monetary instrument, and I signed up for my first journey rewards card, the Chase Sapphire Most well-liked® Card (see charges and costs).
After hitting the welcome bonus, I used the factors at 1.25 cents a chunk through the Chase Journey℠ portal for round-trip tickets on Air Canada to Croatia for a visit with my greatest buddy — one thing my 23-year-old self would by no means have been in a position to afford with money. It was my first time ever leaving the U.S. and my first factors redemption.
Although it was removed from a groundbreaking redemption when it comes to financial worth, that journey modified all the things for me. It widened my world view, solidified a love for exploring the world and set me on my present profession path. To not be a whole sap about it, however I fairly actually wouldn’t be the place or who I’m at present with out that journey and the love of factors and miles that shortly adopted.
Zach Griff
My obsession with factors and miles began on a tragic word. My great-grandmother had out of the blue handed away in Israel, and my mother actually needed to make it to the funeral on the final minute.
Paid tickets from the U.S. to Tel Aviv had been astronomically priced, however I occurred to have a few thousand Delta SkyMiles left in my account. On the time, greater than 20 years in the past, SkyMiles nonetheless had some improbable last-minute redemption charges, and I managed to snag my mother a business-class seat on a nonstop flight from New York to Tel Aviv to make it to the funeral on time.
Quick ahead greater than 20 years, and plenty has modified on the planet of loyalty, however it was that redemption that bought me hooked and in addition modified my life (on the time, I had no thought I would spend my profession within the journey trade).
Since then, a few of my prime redemptions have included first-class flights on Lufthansa and All Nippon Airways, 5 nights at varied top-tier Marriott Bonvoy properties all over the world (take a look at Cosme, a Luxurious Assortment Resort, Paros in Greece) and, sure, even some last-minute home journeys that will in any other case be unaffordable.
Backside line
In some methods, it is unhappy to mirror again on what was potential with factors and miles, however regardless of ongoing unfavorable adjustments to loyalty applications, there’s nonetheless a ton of worth available. Within the final month alone, we have used rewards to e-book our staffers in Emirates first-class and Japan Airways enterprise class and at a Hyatt all-inclusive resort within the Caribbean, amongst different redemptions.
Our greatest recommendation? Concentrate on incomes transferable rewards out of your on a regular basis spending. By changing rewards from bank card applications to airline and lodge companions, you unlock immense flexibility to journey the world in fashion, similar to our staffers have finished — and can proceed to do for TPG’s subsequent 15 years.
