Aussie saved $50k on business flights after earning points through business expenses
An Aussie woman has flown business class nine times in just one year after discovering she can earn points on expenses such as taxes and payroll.
Aussie business owner Nerissa Chaux had no idea she was sitting on almost half a million points, let alone that her $260,000 tax bill translated to hundreds of thousands of points.
Like many business owners, Nerissa, who runs outsourcing company Filta with her husband Efren, is strapped with time and the last thing on her mind is working out the points system.
It wasn’t until the duo met Steve Hui from iFlyFlat that they quickly learned what they were missing out on.
“When I first met Nerissa, she didn’t even know she had 300,000 points until I asked her about her balance,” the Aussie points guru told news.com.au.
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Steve founded iFlyFlat – Australia’s leading points authority – back in 2012 to help people fly business class using their points. But now, together with travel entrepreneur Steve Pirie-Nally, they’ve launched a new venture called The Flight Club. It’s been in operation for around two years but has been relaunched this week.
Simply put, it helps business owners who turnover around $1-10 million annually, transform business expenses such as tax payments, supplier invoices and payroll, into reward points and business class reward seat bookings.
“Most people have no idea what their points balance is because they don’t know how valuable they are – so they aren’t interested until we show them that points are awesome,” Steve said.
He revealed Aussie business owners are missing out on $40,000 worth of points annually.
“The market has changed. Now you can earn points on everything from wages, paying the ATO, paying Australian and foreign supplies,” he added.
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Since joining the program, The Flights Club has helped Nerissa and Efren accumulate 1.5 million points, allowing them to fly on nine business class seats in total, in the past year.
“My husband would always try and work out the points system but it’s just too hard and we don’t have the time,” Nerissa told news.com.au.
“When we got introduced to Steve a year ago it was the first time we started using points.
“They do up a program with you and go through all the bills you currently pay, so for us it was understanding how to earn points from things we were already paying like ATO payments.”
Nerissa said their latest ATO bill was $260,000 which earned them 260,000 points.
“Holy sh*t that was amazing,” she laughed. “Getting points to pay the government – that’s great.”
“One thing we had zero idea about besides the ATO was getting points for paid marketing like Google and LinkedIn ads – and there’s no additional fees.”
She said another surprise was earning points for foreign exchange payments.
“We have three entities in three countries and clients in nine, so imagine getting points for paying international transfer fees.”
Nerissa, who helps businesses build full-time teams in Colombia and the Philippines including recruitment, legal employment, HR and engagement strategies, travels four to six months of the year.
“They have to do a fair amount of travel and one of the first flights we booked for them was to New York – we had already saved them $20,000 on business class flights on Qatar Airways using points,” Steve said.
“You just have to get your numbers right. A lot of people think they’re good at points but they don’t think of the cost vs. benefit. There’s transaction fees involved in earning these points but if you do it right you can turn 2 cents of fees into 4 cents of business class value.
“If you do it wrong you could be turning 2 cents into 1 cent if you are using your points for economy.”
He said the “maths is simple”.
“When savvy businesses pay around 2 per cent in payment fees, we can help them extract 4 per cent plus back in value through points. A business with $1 million in annual expenses is sitting on roughly $40,000 worth of business class flights, they just need the right approach to unlock it.”
Nerissa said she pays $1750 a year for her American Express Platinum business card, but said it’s “totally worth it”, adding The Flight Club has helped her save around $50,000 in business class flights after being educated in how to earn points and its value.
“When we went to the US recent, we did six weeks straight of conferences. We landed in the US at 1am and my first meeting was at 9am and I remember feeling fantastic,” Nerissa said. “It sounds crazy but it’s true. I had a sleep, a proper meal and was able to hit the ground running.”
She said being able to fly business class for work has been a massive shift, adding she barely gets jet lag anymore, and is more effective with the time she has overseas for work because of it.
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Nerissa has travelled to the US, Columbia, Chile, Japan and Hong Kong using points.
“We put a plan in place to help them generate over 2 million points every year. Their business spends can generate even more points if they want to (but they don’t need it, so it’s about the right balance),” Steve said.
With the Reserve Bank of Australia’s proposed reform to surcharges and interchange fees potentially reshaping the rewards credit card ecosystem, Steve said The Flights Club is providing business owners with the experience and guidance they need to continue extracting value from their spend.
