Gary Leff, author of ViewFromTheWing.com joins Dave and I on the podcast this week. There are two notable things about Gary.
1) He was basically the first miles and points blogger, and began in 2002! As I discuss, much of the style of many miles/points blogs have been adapted from him.
2) I find that when I meet up with Gary, and share some crazy secret deal I just found out about, he’s known about it for a year.
As we discuss, Gary has a large range of experiences that help give his writing expert-understanding and credibility. On one hard, Gary is a CFO in his “real job” (or one of them) and can understand industry financials…
On the other hand, he started an award booking service over a decade ago. Meaning, he’s called into the various airlines countless times. He’s seen things come and go, understands the space, and greatly understands the details of miles and points.
How To Listen
Available on:
- travelisfree.com/podcast – just listen below
- Apple Podcast
- Google Play
- Google Podcast
- Spotify
What We Discussed:
- Starting a travel blog in 2002
- Sometimes blogging means speaking your mind… Which can make airline reps mad.
- When to blog a deal, and when to keep it a secret.
- Funding checking accounts,
- Crazy deals of old, like “LatinPass”
- Schemes vs Scams.
- Damaging your IFE to get compensation, supreme court, and airlines banning customers.
- “People tend to undervalue peak experiences”
- Using miles to woo his wife.
- Earning hundreds of thousands of miles from the float on a BankDirect
- Gary talks about his friend Steve flying Thai farmers around Thailand for the miles.
Transcript
Coming soon
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Thanks for these interviews Drew. I’m relatively new to the points and miles world and have no experience with a lot of these blogs prior to their current Boarding Area states. With all the trolling and general antagonistic attitudes abound in any comments section, I feel like these interviews have helped me change some of my preconceived notions of the more successful bloggers that I have absorbed.
“He was basically the first miles and points blogger.” Actually, I started my website, FreeFrequentMiles.com, before the word blog existed. Many bloggers use it for reference. I remember Gary’s start at travel writing through his posts on Flyertalk. This grew into a very useful blog. I read it daily.
Gary Steiger please divulge if you have written for View From The Wing. In the past you have been very critical of it on your blog, why the change of heart? This is a legitimate question, please do not sensor it Drew.
I do not write for View from the Wing, or for anyone else except me, for that matter. Yes, I have been critical of that website for certain issues, like not posting the best but not commissionable offers for some credit cards, and like Gary’s criticism of the TSA. But I post my comments on his website, and he allows the posts, which simply promotes healthy discussion, and makes his blog more valuable and interesting. I read it daily because of the frequent very valuable and interesting content. Gary has also told me he reads my site. I think a log of bloggers do and first find the offers they list there.
Thanks for your comments Gary!
Although, just to clarify, are you saying that Gary’s criticism of TSA is an “issue”? as in a negative thing? If so, I’d be interested in what the possible positive view of an overfunded, bloated, inefficient, TSA that spends there time throwing away H2O and finger nail clippers would be… 😀
VFTW is one of many shill-crazy blogs pumping affiliate links. Gary is also a King of Clickbait these days. I always enjoyed this site for your unique perspective, Drew – the podcasts of other blogs is of no interest to me so far. If you’re going to do them, though, highlight the lesser-known but high-quality folks out there – not the cookie-cutter commercialized blogs like VFTW…that approach would actually be of value.
Well, you don’t have to listen to the podcast…
But I can’t imagine more than 5 blogs that aren’t “cookie-cutter” if Gary’s is. As I discuss, Gary was blogging in 2002, that is long long long before anyone else was. And it seems to me that if Gary has the same format as someone else, it’s probably because they stole his format.
I discuss how this happens and how nearly all blogs are copying Gary’s format. He started the format, I can’t understand how that’s cookie cutter. Plus, 99% of the bloggers out there know 1% of what Gary knows.
So if I understand you correctly… You’d rather I’d interview people who know a fraction as much as Gary, because they have copied his style that he’s been doing a decade before anyone else.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I’ll stick to interviewing people who know far more than me.
I agree with other commenters. I know you have a very inclusive attitude which I appreciate but VFTW has a very long history of promoting lesser value credit cards for commissions. I am very surprised you would promote his website especially for newbies who don’t know any better. What was once a valuable website is nothing more than paid advertisement now. I have nothing against making money but I do expect honestly in return. I unsubscribed from him long ago.
I respect your opinion, however, I personally read Gary’s blog because it is one of the few that is truly expert quality information. I read it because he knows far far more than me about a lot of things.
Personally, I’ve no interest in reading people who know less than me, when I could read and interview people who know far more than me.
I don’t let the keyboard warriors who seem to know nothing about the miles space dictate my reading and I’d recommend reading the comments of the critics a little more skeptically. It’s easy to be persuaded and agree with one side when you only hear the info from one side.
@Drew Macomber: Gary never mentions any possibility that the mere existence of TSA screening deters terrorists. He mentions the large number of weapons confiscated by the TSA, but does not wonder what those passengers were planning to do with them. Personally, I much prefer being on a plane with no weapons in the passenger compartment. How about you?
Perhaps you would like to bring this up in your interview?
I actually have thought that before – that saying “TSA has never caught a terrorist” is misleading, as security is largely deterring.
On the other hand, taking off shoes to put them in another medal detector, dumping water, etc… There is lots of indication that it’s not helpful at all. But TSA is incentived as a company to create as much fear as possible to get as much funding as possible.
I’m in the middle, in that I believe security is needed. But further towards Gary, in that there’s a lot of evidence that 99% of it is wasteful.
In the end though, I don’t find people’s views of TSA interesting enough to interview, but that’s just me personally.