The Points Guy: Airlines Make More Money Selling Miles Than Flying Planes

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
When demand slowed for Hydrojug, Amazon ads rising star Hayden Wadsworth pivoted. When our bank account hit near zero, my brother Jake and I had one last shot to save Hydrojug. So we engineered The Traveler, a leak-proof, cup holder-friendly tumbler.
Amazon ads enables a business to be able to expand their product shelf because of the visibility and the reach you can get.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:21)
Each week, our new-to-brand customers make up about 95% of all of our sales.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:25)
Watch Hydrojug's story at advertising.amazon.com/rising-stars.

**Brian Kelly** (0:30)
We're living in the platinum age of travel. It's like all about loyalty. Loyalty is what these airlines make more money, the big airlines make more money selling miles to credit cards and they do flying airplanes. I want everyone to let that sink in. The airlines make more money from their loyalty programs.

**Neal Freyman** (0:46)
Good Morning Brew Daily show. I'm Neal Freyman.

**Toby Howell** (0:49)
And I'm Toby Howell.

**Neal Freyman** (0:50)
Today we're talking points, credit cards and travel with The Points Guy.

**Toby Howell** (0:54)
You're gonna want to hold off on booking that August vacation until you listen to this. It's Thursday, July 2nd. Let's ride.

**Neal Freyman** (1:05)
Good Morning. No standard news show today since the office is closed ahead of July 4th. But we may have something even more useful for you. An interview with The Points Guy. Brian Kelly, aka The Points Guy, reinvented the conversation around credit cards, helping millions of people save money and travel smarter by accruing points. So we talked to Brian about points because that's interesting as heck, but also about the latest in the travel industry because this guy is pretty much always on an airplane or in a hotel.

**Toby Howell** (1:35)
We also got into a philosophical debate about what being a window or an aisle person says about your character and whether you should dress up when going to the airport. It is a fun conversation, but first a word from our sponsor, Ultra Running.

**Neal Freyman** (1:50)
As some of you may know, I'm running the New York City Marathon this year.

**Toby Howell** (1:54)
Copycat.

**Neal Freyman** (1:55)
What was that?

**Toby Howell** (1:56)
Oh, nothing. You just want to be me so bad. I mean, I run the marathon. Now you're running the marathon. Everybody sees it.

**Neal Freyman** (2:03)
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**Toby Howell** (2:11)
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**Neal Freyman** (2:26)
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**Toby Howell** (2:38)
Now here's The Points Guy. Brian, thanks so much for joining us.

**Brian Kelly** (2:41)
Thanks for having me.

**Toby Howell** (2:43)
All right. First question. How did you become The Points Guy?

**Brian Kelly** (2:47)
Well, it started in 2010 I was working at Morgan Stanley.
I was there. 2007, I got a job there doing recruiting. So I was in college recruiting for technology. Of course, it was like six months after I started, the bottom blew out of the entire financial industry. And so I spent years working there. I actually was getting promoted. But if you're an HR during the great recession, like you're nobody. And I think I remember my managing director would look at me and laugh and be like, your bonus this year is not getting laid off. Come back again next year. So I'm in my 20s, New York City, just trying to get ahead. I've always been really good at points. I started doing it with my dad in the 90s. So really before the Points Guy, I was the points kid.
He was a road warrior. I figured out when I was 12 how to use his points. So that's like the shortened version of, I had been doing points in the 90s, figured out in college when I was student body president, traveling that there was like this whole under world of travelers. So pre-Reddit, there's still around called Flyer Talk. So I discovered Flyer Talk in 2004 and like, holy crap, this stuff that I've been doing with my dad, there's like people around the world that do this. So I was into the points game. Then I get a job at Morgan Stanley where I'm traveling nonstop. And mind you, 2008, 2009, even though it was a crisis, this is when Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, they are competing for top tech talent. So even at Morgan Stanley, my job was to convince the top grads. And so they basically gave me a corporate AMEX with no limit and was like, do whatever you need to do. So not only am I traveling, I'm spending tons of money on my corporate AMEX. Learned that I could pay 100 bucks a year to get those points. So I was broke but points rich. And I was traveling the world, jet setting. And finally in 2010, after another year of no increase in wages or whatever, I started the Points Guy as a side hustle. So it was not a blog at first. It was just a, I was a travel agent for points. I charge you, I was helping people all the time, book trips and save them thousands of dollars.