Everyone has their own motivation for collecting frequent flyer points. For many, it’s the allure of free upgrades and Business Class flights.

As a child, I never imagined I’d be able to fly all over the world in Business Class. In fact, one of my earliest memories is boarding a Qantas Boeing 747 at Sydney Airport. I was around five years old and flying to Auckland with my parents. As we boarded, the staircase leading to the upper deck caught my attention and I wanted to climb it. One of my parents stopped me and told me that we would never sit up there because that part of the plane was only for rich people.

I now know that frequent flyer points make premium cabin travel possible for a fraction of the cost. And thanks to points, I finally got to fly on the upper deck of a Qantas 747 in 2019. That pre-departure champagne after I boarded in Santiago was one of the most satisfying drinks of my life!

I’m very grateful that I’ve been able to use my points to fly all over the world in the pointy end. But that’s not actually why I originally got into the frequent flyer points game at all!

This week happens to mark 10 years since I began working for Australian Frequent Flyer. To mark the occasion, I thought I’d share the story of how and why I first started collecting frequent flyer points – and how that hobby turned into both a passion and a career.

I caught the travel bug as a teenager

I’ve always been interested in travel and planes. This “artwork” from all the way back in my preschool days attests to that…

But I really caught the travel bug on a high school trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. I found it so fascinating learning about two cultures so different to ours. That and a later high school exchange trip to Germany cemented my love of travel.

When I was in high school, I dreamed of going on a trip around the world after I graduated. I wanted to see as much of the world as I could. So I made it happen. I worked for several years as a teenager saving up for what I thought would be a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

I also started taking flying lessons as a teenager because I was very seriously considering a career as a commercial pilot. Fortuitously, I met a flying instructor who owned his own plane and offered to teach me for free – I just had to pay for the fuel. Ultimately though, learning to fly is so expensive that I still couldn’t really afford to pursue this career path further – although I did very much enjoy learning how to fly a plane.

My first round-the-world trip

Two weeks after I turned 18, having just finished high school, I took a gap year and set off on a four-month trip around the world visiting Southeast Asia, Europe, the USA and South America. I used up almost my entire savings from high school to pay for that trip.

While in Europe, I especially enjoyed my time in Berlin. I loved it so much that I wanted to live there.

I mentioned this to some Australians who I was drinking with at a hostel in Poland later on that trip, and one of them told me about this thing called a working holiday visa. That conversation planted a seed in my mind. For the first time, I realised that this dream was actually possible.

When I returned to Australia, all I wanted to do was move to Berlin. I still had a year before I’d start university and could get a German working holiday visa. There was just one problem: I had almost no money left. So, I got a job at McDonald’s in Australia and started counting down the days until I had enough money to apply for my visa.

This is when I seriously started collecting points

It was around this time that I seriously started counting my frequent flyer points – and looking for every possible way to earn more.

I’d already built up a modest balance of Qantas points from the trips I’d taken over the previous few years. In fact, as an 18-year-old I’d already earned Qantas Gold status. And it turned out that I just had enough Qantas points to book a round-the-world trip.

I genuinely could not have afforded to buy return flights to Europe at that point of my life. Yet, thanks to my Qantas points, I now had another round-the-world ticket with stops in China, Europe, Brazil and North America. All it cost me was a paltry amount of taxes.

That trip was all in Economy Class, but I didn’t care one bit. I was absolutely thrilled just to be able to travel so affordably.

Points also got me to Sydney for my visa appointment with the German consulate, as I couldn’t afford the pricey last-minute Qantas airfare.

I lived in Berlin for almost a year before returning to Australia and starting university. While I was there, I got another part-time job at McDonald’s. It didn’t pay much, but it was a great experience and working there gave me the opportunity to learn fluent German. That alone was worth more than the salary I received. But the pay wasn’t really enough to live comfortably, while also funding the travel I wanted to do on my days off.

How I started working for AFF

In August 2014, while I was living in Berlin, I came across an advertisement for a writing job with Australian Frequent Flyer. I’d already been an AFF forum member for several years and the job intrigued me. Frankly, I also needed a bit of extra cash at the time.

I applied but didn’t really think much of it. The idea of getting paid to write from anywhere about stuff that interested me seemed far too good to be true. So you can imagine my surprise when I was selected for the role among more than a hundred applicants.

I originally started writing eBooks for the “AFF Knowledge Centre”, which no longer exists. My responsibilities grew from there and I continued working for AFF throughout university while studying commerce and aviation. I’m proud to today be the website’s editor.

During that first round-the-world trip after high school, I started writing a small blog about my travels. I was really enjoying the travel, I loved writing about it and I was getting a lot of positive feedback. I imagined how great it would be to find a job that would let me keep travelling while also getting paid. Now, as AFF’s editor, I love that I get to help other Australians achieve their own travel goals, dreams and aspirations as well.

Collecting points is highly addictive

During that gap year, I started teaching myself about the different ways to earn and maximise frequent flyer points. I couldn’t yet qualify for a credit card, but I did lots of research on different point-hacking methods. (If they had’ve existed then, I could have saved myself a lot of time by reading AFF’s Frequent Flyer Training courses – which I later went on to write!)

I’ve since been able to put many of those strategies to good use.

I used those points to help fund lots of side trips during my gap year, including a fascinating visit to Morocco where the photo at the top of this article was taken.

After returning to Australia, I never really stopped earning and burning points. Since then, I’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to visit over 80 countries (and counting), meet (and learn from) friends from all sorts of diverse backgrounds, and experience countless things I could only have dreamed of as a child. It’s all thanks to frequent flyer points.

It turns out that getting such great deals on flights can be highly addictive. A decade later, I’m still completely hooked.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 80 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.