Flow State Business

Start Flying Business Class: Tips and Strategies from The Points Whisperer, Steve Hui

August 13, 2024 • Ruby Lee

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Are you ready to take your business travels to the next level? In this episode, I had a fascinating chat with Steve Hui, also known as The Points Whisperer. We dove deep into the world of travel rewards and how you can maximize your points to fly in style—without breaking the bank.


Steve shared some incredible insights on how to turn everyday business expenses into luxury travel experiences. Whether you’re dreaming of flying business class on your next trip or just want to make your travels more efficient and enjoyable, this episode is packed with practical tips.


I even learned a few things myself—like what I could have done differently on my last business flight to London! If you’re all about smarter, more rewarding travel, you won’t want to miss this.


Where to find Steve Hui:


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  • Follow XORL here


00:00:00 Intro
00:03:13 The Points Whisperer on LinkedIn
00:05:15 How Steve became The Points Whisperer
00:09:13 Frequent flyer points strategy.
00:11:54 Unclaimed travel rewards and points.
00:20:28 Credit cards and points.
00:29:15 Flying Business Class




Ruby Lee:
Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode, a guest episode. Today we have Stephen Hui, who is also known as The Points Whisperer. This is a very niche subject. I'm not even going to try and make it for everybody because it is not, but who it is going to be for are those of us who are definite travelers. We love seeing the world. We want our businesses to create the abundance and the overflow so that we're not just traveling the world for holidays, but you know, going on business trips, being flown overseas for speaking opportunities. doing a book tour and you know that there's quite a bit of travel on the cards for you in the next year, in the next five years. And you want to learn how to do this in a really financially smart and savvy way. Now, I met Stephen years ago on LinkedIn, of course, we actually started around the same time, personal branding on the LinkedIn platform. And we got talking at one point and he's just always been on my LinkedIn top of my network list. And I'm just so thrilled to be able to bring Stephen on today. We are definitely going to be talking a lot about how you can master the world of travel rewards and loyalty programs. Steve has absolutely transformed the way people earn. and use points. He's got huge, huge, huge focus on the media. And I guess, you know, when I asked him, like, how do you get all the media attention? He's like, a lot of people want to learn how to fly business class and how to fly it without having to pay thousands and thousands of dollars out of pocket. So I'm so excited. I've actually had a lot of this discussion with my girlfriends, those of us that have traveled a lot. We're always talking about how we're using points and what business seats and how to upgrade to first class. There is an art to it. There's a science behind it. But the way that Steve explains on the inside is just so practical and he breaks it down in such an easy way as to how to maximize your rewards. How you can turn the spending in your business. A lot of us here are constantly spending on the business, whether it be, you know, system upgrades or coaches or ads and how you can use your cards effectively so that you're experiencing extraordinary travel experiences and financial benefits. I'm so ready for you guys to listen to this episode. I actually left this episode. Feeling like I was bouncing out with so much clarity, he actually even called me out on one of my not so great strategies on my business flight to London quite recently and what I could have done differently, which was a huge learning and so beneficial. So if you're a business owner and you want to have more productive travel experiences, if you want to arrive at your destination feeling So clear and even well-rested and you want an improved work-life balance whilst you're traveling. And of course, with a touch of indulgence that fuels both the personal and professional success measures that we hold on ourselves. I think you're really going to love this episode. Let's welcome Steve to the podcast, The Points Whisperer. Let's go. Hi Steve, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I am thrilled to have you here.

Steve Hui: Thank you very much. I'm really excited to talk to you. I've known you somehow for so long.

Ruby Lee: Yeah, well, exactly. So for the listeners, I was saying to Stephen off there, I'm like, I feel like we've known each other forever. And that really is the power of LinkedIn. I actually think we might've started building personal brands on LinkedIn around the same time.

Steve Hui: Yeah.

Ruby Lee: Yeah. Yeah. And then we got connected and you are the points whisperer. Which is, by the way, such a baller name and it's such a cool, it's like you've coined it. Did you come up with it or did someone else deem it?

Steve Hui: Someone else did. Yeah, so like a journalist did. When they wrote an article about me on Sydney Morning Herald one year, he called me the frequent flyer points whisperer. And I had never, well, obviously you've heard about horse whisperer, the most famous term, but I had never thought about the points whisperer. So as soon as I heard that term, I went out and trademarked it. So I owned that trademark.

Ruby Lee: Thank you, said journalist. That is amazing. Because I know your business is called iFlyFlat, which is actually such a cool name also, but I always refer to you as the points whisperer. I've had many a friend say, hey, Rufus, like I'm traveling and do you know anything about points because you've traveled so much? I'm like, I do not. I'm not the person to go to, but you need to go and check out the points whisperer. And here you are. So I'm so happy.

Steve Hui: So good.

Ruby Lee: your work with everyone. Okay. So we're going to get stuck into how we can accumulate points, how we can fly business class. You've had some amazing advice on how to fly business class for like 600 bucks and how we can do things like that. So we will get stuck into that, but we love to learn here more about the story of how you became the Points Whisperer and just that like decision to start the business. Can you take us way, way back?

Steve Hui: Yeah, definitely. This is about 12 years ago. Actually, a little bit about my background. I'm a numbers guy. I did a Bachelor of Commerce at uni and then I did an accounting degree and I'm a CPA accountant. Basically, in my mind, it's all about numbers. Normally, generally, accountants and Asian guys like me, we love value. There's nothing better than getting a good deal, right? So I worked in Macquarie Bank for 11 years, so doing accounting and finance, and a part of that work in India. So I flew back and forth to India to start a team for my then employer, Macquarie Bank, and they flew me business class for the first time. And I really thought, wow, this is the way to fly. And I came across the invoice for that ticket. It was like $7,500. And at the time I remember, I thought, who pays this much money? So at that time, I had no idea about points. I only flew economy. I never knew how much business class was. But there I was, courtesy of work, I was flying business class, and I was loving it. They take your jacket, they know your name, they give you great food, and you sort of think that, wow, this is the way to travel. I can understand why people are here. They're so relaxed. What that meant was, as I flew back and forth, I started accumulating frequent flyer points. So before then, I hardly had any interest because when you don't fly business class or when you don't spend much money, you just don't earn many points. So if you don't earn many points, you wouldn't be interested in what points can do. Only during that time did I start earning enough points and I discovered I had enough points to fly my own business class flight to Singapore that was worth about $4,000. So I thought, wow, I just accumulated $4,000 of value just for doing work. I did nothing. So that was what the very first penny dropped in my mind. It's like, hey, these points have value, and I've got these ones for free. How do I maximize this? How do I get more of these freaking flyer points? Because the more points you've got, the more free flights you've got. So I sort of did that as a hobby, just doing it on the side because I was continuing to work. But then I got I put my hand up for voluntary redundancy, and they gave it to me. And they said I was the happiest guy to skip out that office that day, because after 11 years, got voluntary redundancy, like, no, I had time to take off. So I took six months off. And in a way, that's when the origin story starts, because I had never planned to start iFlyFlat after taking the time off. I had planned to do it, take another job. But during the London Olympics 2012, So they had the Tour de France and I was into bike riding at the time. They had Tour de France and then they had the London Olympics. I thought, this is my time to go to that region and go to both events. So I flew.

Ruby Lee: Nice. Nice.

Steve Hui: Uber. First class. I flew to Tour de France and London Olympics. And actually it was enabled because my wife said, why don't you go? Like, well, you've gone to all these other trips. So why don't you go to this trip? And I didn't have any tickets to the Olympics, so I just thought, hell, I'll just go anyway. So I booked these points flights, and at that moment, that's when I thought, I'm flying first class to the Olympics for under $5,000. It costs me that time. And I figured out, these are like $25,000 tickets. If I could do the same for other people, there must be a business in this.

Ruby Lee: And nobody else, I can't believe nobody else saw that gap, like of all the travel agencies and everyone else, you were it. So how did you even know where to start, where to begin?

Steve Hui: So I think basically it's actually all a numbers game. It's all about numbers because points and numbers, how much does it cost you to get the points? That's like the cost price. And then what you're going to swap those points for is the value that you create. So I use terms like price arbitrage or other things like alchemy. You know how the whole story about turning tin into gold. This is literally the same type of feeling where you turn these frequent flyer coins that you got for not much effort and not much money, but you swap them for a high price item. So basically swapping frequent flyer points that I, in that time I bought the points for about $5,000 and I swapped it for equivalent to a $25,000 ticket. So basically I made money out of nothing.

Ruby Lee: Wow. That is amazing. And honestly, I think the way you explain it, that's just your genius. We were talking about this is your first language because you have a way of seeing how all the data plays out as opposed to it being, I've got to save up for a $25,000 flight. How long is that going to take? Or worse still, people put on credit cards and then have to pay it forever. You've just seen the opportunity of like, how can we turn the narrative around? So who was your first client? Do you remember?

Steve Hui: Oh, I have, I remember who my first, yes, I do remember my first client. She was in marketing. So somehow I carried her across and she worked for a marketing firm. That's where my, as an accountant, you're not very good at marketing. And that's my journey into marketing began.

Ruby Lee: Wow. That is awesome. Okay. You saw the numbers, you saw the gap in the market, you saw the opportunity. From that perspective, actually tapping into a market of people, like knowing who would need this and who would want this, it feels like you've really landed working with, you know, businesses. You've worked with like a corporates, for example, obviously, because you realize like how many individuals within corporate fly and have all of these points. I myself was one of them. My company would fly me everywhere and I would have all these points. I actually really cringe at the thought of how many points I let expire. As you said, you don't value it because it's somebody else paying for it. It goes on these frequent flying numbers and you're like, whatever. They ask you, what's your Qantas number? I'm like, here it is, whatever. Didn't even think about it. Now I go back and I literally feel like I've left so much money on the table and so many flights on the table as well. Oh, doesn't that just hurt?

Steve Hui: But that is one of the most common things that occur today. Because one of the best ways I describe it is like you go into Harrods and there's no price tag. You go, well, how much does it cost to go somewhere? How much does this shirt cost? Well, it could cost $10 or it could cost $10,000. No price tag, you don't know. So what you had is you had points, but you didn't know how many points would get you where. And if you don't have the two connected, then you could have enough points to fly, but you didn't even know. Yes. So therefore you let it go.

Ruby Lee: Yes, exactly. Okay. So we want to know how do we actually get, it's kind of even like the question is how do we get more aware of it? Doesn't it start with awareness of, honestly, like, I think there's some people listening in going, wait, I don't even know how many points I have. How do I check? Do I need to go to each flight provider to find that out? Like give us a little step through. If you were literally sitting down with someone who's like, where do I begin? Where do we begin?

Steve Hui: Yeah, cool. So I think there's two things to one. One is you hit it exactly right. You need to know how many points you've got. It's like money. If you want to just buy something, first you've got to find out how much money you've got. So points is money. So you've got to find out how many corners points you've got, how many version points you've got, how many points you've got in your credit card. So look up that. Because once you know how many points you've got, then next comes the question is, how many points does it cost to go somewhere? Because you may have enough points, or you might be close to, or you might be really far away from home. So the two ends of it is, do you have the resources? And how much does it cost? So how much it costs is actually really easy. All the airlines have a points calculator where you can just say, if you want to find a Google points calculator, just Google, Google points calculator. Or if you've got velocity points, you can Google velocity points calculator. It'll take you to a page where you can just input where you want to fly from, where you want to fly to. what class you want to fly, it'll calculate and it'll tell you how many points that trip will cost. So let's just say you want to go to Los Angeles. It's only 95,500 velocity points to fly one-way business class. So 95,500 points to someone who doesn't know what points is could be really high or could be really low. What does 95,000 points mean? Well, it all comes down to how many points you've got. If you've got 200,000 points, then 95,000 points each way means that you've got a business class flight return to Los Angeles. That's what you've got. Nice. And you go, well, is that good value? Yeah, that's a $10,000 ticket. You've got $10,000 worth of travel sitting in your account, and that's how you realize whether your points can take you somewhere.

Ruby Lee: So don't spend points on this small domestic flights. Is that what you're saying also?

Steve Hui: Well, you're going to get so much more excitement for a long flight, business class and a short flight.

Ruby Lee: Yeah, actually, this is really cool because me and my family, we've traveled a lot and we've just hopped and skipped around the world and we actually had to sit down and go, wait, wait, how many points have we actually accumulated? And we flew many different flight providers like Australian ones, US ones, so they were kind of all over the shop. But as much as we could, we tried to fly the same provider just so that the points would accumulate. Anyway, last year an opportunity came up for me to go to London, and then I had this light bulb, like, ding! I should check how many points I had.

Steve Hui: Yes.

Ruby Lee: Literally what you described about doing the London Olympics happened to me, where I was like, what? How is it that I could get this seat return, Qantas business class return for, it was like four grand that I was paying out of pocket, three and a half, four grand. And I was like, this is unbelievable. And it's crazy, but I don't actually even know how I bagged that seat because there's this whole other dynamic isn't there around what member gets what seats and how many points, like there's a whole world behind that, like layers and layers of it.

Steve Hui: It's true, it's quite complicated, but I would say it's not complicated because you can forget about these layers that happen in the background because you just can only see what you can see. So, for example, of course, if you're a platinum member, you get more access. If you're a gold member, you get more access than if you're silver. But if you're bronze, There's no need to worry about, oh, well, platinum gets more, well, but you're bronze. Stick with what you can get. You get access to what you can get access to. And there are flights for everyone. So it's not like only platinum members get flights and bronze don't get any flights. Actually, there's frequent flyer points seats available. to everyone. So let's just concentrate on, well, you are bronze. Well, you're not going to get the platinum. So forget about what platinum can get. Focus on what you can get and book the flights that are available to you. And then you move on. Because otherwise, no, you'd just be stuck. But I've got a question for you. You said you saved $4,000. How many points did you use?

Ruby Lee: Oh, gosh. I really wish I remembered, but it would have been in the hundreds of thousands of points, I think.

Steve Hui: Like, for sure, just like given that- I think you, based on my calculator, I reckon you spent probably about half a million points.

Ruby Lee: It could have been, like, it was a lot there to use. And honestly, like, I remember seeing the number and going, how do I have these many points? And it's like, oh, yeah, of course, we've been traveling back and forth. And mind you, we're traveling as a family. I wasn't, we weren't traveling business class. We were traveling premium economy at best, you know, around everywhere because tickets were just, and still are, crazy expensive. But, you know, it was just, amazing to see that number that was just like, I love the way you describe it. It's just money in the bank almost with what you can get for the points that you're accumulating.

Steve Hui: I'll take this as an alerting point here because actually there's two ways of using points. There's one way you basically can convert your points into like a flight credit, which is what it sounds like what you did. So you convert your points into a discount off the current price of a ticket. There's another way where you can actually fly for a fixed number of points where the points are governed based on distance and not on the price of the ticket. Because, for example, I'm going to blow your mind here that if you were to book that same ticket potentially flying business class to London using Qantas points under their distant price. It would have only been 300,000 points return business class per ticket.

Ruby Lee: This is why I should have picked up the phone and called you. Oh my gosh, do you see like this is, I think this is the kind of knowledge that is just not heavily circulated. Like the flight providers, they don't want you to know this obviously, right? Or do they? And we just don't see it.

Steve Hui: Well, they share information. So actually, they're quite generous in sharing information. But they basically say, well, we've got two ways. You pick the way that suits you. They don't say, oh, this way is more expensive and this way is cheaper. They say, well, you choose. You're the user. And I think that's where people trip over because, well, if both options are presented to me, And ultimately, there is not that many flights available, so you have to sort of jump through the hoops and find them. But if you know what you're looking for, and more importantly, if you know what price you're looking for in terms of points, then if you see another price, you go, well, that's not right. This is the type of seats I'm looking for. And so that's why I wanted, when you mentioned it, I thought this is a great opportunity to talk about that exact moment, because it's very easy to get wrong. Yes. Because if you don't know, how are you supposed to know?

Ruby Lee: Yes, exactly. That is a definite learning point. And now I'm going to look for both options because this is the thing where, where there's more awareness, you can make better choices. I want to pick your brain on credit cards and points. And this is a very interesting topic, right? Because it's like, how much do we use the card, you know, and how do we use it wisely? Where do we start with that? Is it actually worth getting a credit card specifically, you know, those deals where it's like sign up with us and then you'll get automatically all of these points. Is that a gimmick or does it actually work?

Steve Hui: No, it actually works but you've got to be good with credit cards. I've always been good with credit cards so I don't understand how you could not be good with credit cards but I do understand there are lots of people out there that are not good with credit cards. I'll give you a couple of tips on how to be good. For me, I see credit cards as just spending your own money. It's just that you don't have to pay that bill until 30 or 50 days later. So I don't see it as someone else's money. I see it as my money. It's just that it's not coming out of my bank account straight away. But I don't really use it for the cash flow. I use it for the points because spending money on a credit card is the only way you can earn large volumes of points on a very dependable, reliable basis. So you talk about earning points by flying. Well, that's true, but you can't really decide exactly all. You don't know how many flights you're going to take in one year because you probably decide where you want to go. I'm going to go to Fiji for holidays, or maybe next time I go to Los Angeles. Depending on where you want to fly, you're going to earn different points, and depending on what class of travel. So you can't really design a plan to earn X number of points by flying, which is very ad hoc. But you know how much money you're going to spend, roughly. You know how much money you're going to spend on groceries or shopping. So basically, you can go, well, OK, if I spend, say, $50,000 a year or $100,000 a year, every single dollar you paid on that credit card can earn you points. And you can earn points at a very reliable rate because credit cards offer $1 earns you half a point, $1 equals one point. So therefore, you can rely on, I'm probably going to earn 100,000 points this year from my spending, X number of points from my travel. So therefore, maybe it might take you one or two or three years to earn enough points to fund that entire trip on points. So the thing about that, that's the way I see a credit card. It's really just a mechanism to earn points very cheaply. And then the sign-on bonuses are very attractive, so they give you 100,000 points to sign on, sometimes 200,000 points to sign on. Well, they are attractive because if you didn't get those bonus points, to get 100,000 points, you would have to spend $100,000.

Ruby Lee: Yes, that's right.

Steve Hui: How long is it going to take you to spend $100,000? So that's why the bonuses are very attractive.

Ruby Lee: Hey guys, I am going to briefly interrupt this episode which I hope you are absolutely loving and let you know that I have a free resource to help you connect deeper to the energy of impossible success. This is an EFT tapping emotional freedom technique, one of my favorite ways in order to help connect the body at a cellular level to my bigger desires and goals in business. You are going to love it. If you've never done it before, it's going to be a whole new incredible experience. Link is in my show notes. So go ahead and grab that for you right now, which you can listen to after this episode. Okay, let's head back. Do you do the whole thing where you hop and skip different credit card companies? Like you shut one down, you open another one because there's better points over there?

Steve Hui: I don't do it because my business can generate a lot of points. So I think it all comes down to thinking Well, what is your point earning capability? So, if you're running a business, you've got lots of business expenses, then it's actually better just to pick the right credit card that earns you high points and then pay a lot of your business expenses for it. But then you've got the ability to generate a lot of points just on a repeat basis. But if you don't have a business, you don't have high expenses. then jumping around is the only option you've got because otherwise there's no way you can generate the points. So I think that's a type of thinking and that's why we tend to work with business owners because they easily spend $50,000, $100,000, half a million dollars a month. A month. I was going to say a month. that can generate so many points that even I'm jealous. Like someone's generating over half a million points a month. It's like, wow, I want your business.

Ruby Lee: Yeah. It's so it's like bonus flights and bonus trips. And one of the things that thank you for explaining that with credit card land, because it really does actually feel. a lot more grounded doing it that way as well. And just even your perspective of it's an extension of the money you have. It's not like you're loaning it from the banks, which is where it can get very tricky and messy. And, you know, we don't want to go there with it, but to see it as an extra mechanism that really hit home. So thank you for explaining that. When it comes to looking at points overall as a business owner, this is what your company does. Can you share with us, how does it work, working with your business and how you partner with others? I would just love to learn the model behind it and the benefits behind working with someone like you and your company.

Steve Hui: Yeah. The overall methodology is like a budget. It's like a financial plan. What I mean by that, when you run a business, it's basically cost versus benefit. Everything you do is cost versus benefit. If you're hiring a staff, you go, well, how much is the staff going to cost? How much benefit or value am I going to get out of that? If you're, say, a shop You've got to make sure that you buy your items for cheaper than you sell it for, because then how else are you going to make a margin? This is the same idea with points, because when you move away from, say, a personal perspective of earning points where you've just got groceries to buy anyway, but when you're running a business, you have an option how you pay your bills. Businesses have all types of bills, rent, suppliers, FX, even paying the ATO. Every single dollar you pay in your business, you have an option to either pay by EFT, which is what nearly everyone does. But when you pay by EFT, it costs you no fees, but you also get no points. Or you get an option to choose to pay by credit card. And when you pay by credit card, sometimes you might get points for free if your supplier charges you a 0% surcharge. But often they'll charge you something. They'll charge you a 1% surcharge or 2% surcharge. And at this point, that's when effectively you're buying points. That's one way to think of it. Because now you're paying a fee to earn points, whereas by EFT it costs you nothing. So now you're effectively buying points. Well, if you're buying points, on a conscious purpose level, you've got to think about, am I buying these points at a good price or am I buying them at a bad price? But that question only needs to be answered at a second half, is how are you using your points and what value are you using your points? Because if you're using your points to fly a business class, you can effectively fly a business class at half price forever. because your business is generating these points that cost you half the value of what you're going to use it for. So basically, then you do that on repeat. And that's basically what we do for companies. We work out exactly how much money they spend on payroll. Actually, every single dollar you spend on your business can generate points at a certain cost. And then we look at, well, where do they want to go? So if you want to go fly business class to Los Angeles, business class here and there, then we can design a structure where you earn your points at half the price of the business class flight that you're flying. And the key question is, is business class at half price a good price or a bad price? Because if it's a good price, then you go ahead and go all for it. But if business class at half price is still too expensive, then don't do it because that's what the outcome is going to be.

Ruby Lee: Yeah. Okay. That is awesome. I, you know what, this is the, this is the tagline, how to buy business class, how to be in business class forever, you know, and this is the thing. I really love the way you talk about it. I've heard you on all the interviews. You've been in so much media, which I really admire.

Steve Hui: You've been on like every single channel. Everyone wants to fly business class.

Ruby Lee: Everyone wants to fly. It's such a hot, sexy topic, right? Because everyone wants it. Okay. So when it comes to that, like when you're talking about this idea of business class, what you talk about, which I really, this also was a big light bulb moment, is of course we want the luxurious experience. We want to have the champagne and all of that, right? But it's almost like when I fly business, I know that I'm getting to the other side well rested. And I, you know, as every entrepreneur and business owner, the main thing that we trade off is time and energy, right? Like money is great, but honestly, it's like if it saves me time, if it means that I'm not sleeping off jet lag for six hours on the other side of it and I'm getting there fresh and I'm getting there like completely mentally on and sharp. That's also what I'm buying. You know, it's so great for me. I actually, this was actually a bit psycho of me, but I misread one of the landing times, of course. And I landed in London and had a two-hour turnaround to get out of Heathrow, get checked into my hotel, get showered and changed. And then I was in a workshop. I was like, bloody hell, like what on earth? And I could not move this workshop. It was like a set thing. I was so scared that there were going to be flight delays. You know, all the things were anyway. Landed there and I was fresh as a daisy and then kept kicking on. We had like dinner that night. And I honestly feel it's because I slept solid. I flew flat. I slept solid. Like I was like, don't even wake me up if I'm asleep. I'm asleep. You know how there's that option? It was so good. And that's your message, right? Like, it's really about, well, save your energy and, you know, it does so much more than just like the luxury component, so to speak.

Steve Hui: Yeah, that's right. So actually, most of the time, I don't re-advertise the luxury component because like you said, I very much agree with you. Because especially when you have a busy lifestyle, there's so much things going on mentally. You've got to think about this. You're thinking about this workshop that you would have been fully prepared for, but you've still got to turn up and deliver it in a shape that you're going to provide at your best, because people are coming to see you. So you've got to be at your best. And I always think, now that we've post-COVID know you can have video conferencing, if you're going to turn up somewhere in person, then that event must be important, or that trip must be important. Otherwise, you just would have done it by phone call or video conference. So the fact that you're going to turn up, and you're going to turn up like little bit dazed. If you want to do that, why don't you just stay at home and do it? You're not actually giving your 100%. If you want to turn up, you want to be at your best because you must feel that this meeting or this event is so important, I need to physically turn up, whereas nowadays you can just attend everything virtually. So if you choose that option, you're going to arrive in your very best shape possible. So that's not just a sleeping day. So I know that airlines advertise all about the bed, but I've flown plenty of times and I believe it's not the bed. It's just, it's one component. It's the mental part of before your flight. If you know you're flying business class or first class, the week before, the day before, you're like, it makes no difference. I'm just getting on. I'm basically sitting on my couch for 10 hours. Whereas if you're sitting in an economy, you are sitting in a tight seat, but it's not the seat. It's an environment that you cannot control. So you're sitting in one seat. You can't control who sits next to you or who sits in front or behind you. So your entire flight is governed by what everyone else does to you. Because you've got your space. And the thing about economy is, someone's going to walk past you to go to the toilet, so you can't even decide when you want to go sleep. But when you fly business first, that space is yours. No one is cutting across your space. So that entire cabin You can sense that no one is going to intrude and you have that mental space. And I think that is probably the most important fact, is that no one can kick your seat because your seat's too far. So the sleeping part is important, but that whole space where you know no one can stuff up your journey is the absolute.

Ruby Lee: You have hit the nail on the head. It's that controlled environment aspect. Absolutely. There's this fear in economy where it's like, oh no, not the screaming baby or not the toddler who's kicking the back of your seat the whole flight.

Steve Hui: Anything could happen.

Ruby Lee: Anything, right? And it's just all the snoring man next to you, you know, it's just all the things. But it's so true because I actually do a lot of work on flights. Do you do the same? I don't do any work.

Steve Hui: I just look out the window. I think about what a dream.

Ruby Lee: Well, I don't know. There's something about being on a flight. I think I just feel so inspired and excited and I have to channel it somewhere. I'm just like, all right. I have the laptop out and I have my headphones on. I'm watching a movie. It's still light work, but it just feels so good. I can't do that in economy as much because it's just, you're literally like this, the laptop's in your face.

Steve Hui: You're interrupted. There's people doing stuff all the time. All the shenanigans happens in the economy. All the entertainment happens in the economy. Not the entertainment on the screen, the entertainment from your seat mat.

Ruby Lee: Exactly. Okay, before we wrap up, I need to know from you, what is the best flight you've ever been on and why?

Steve Hui: Oh, I have to say, well, I must say a little bit about what's the difference between first class and business class? Everyone knows economy, right? But I've got this way I describe it is it's in elements of time. So we talked about how I see flying flat and all that stuff is awesome. Element time. So if you fly economy, you're looking at your clock and going, when is this over? Even before you take off, it's like, oh my God, how come we're not moving? When you fly in business class, you're like, yeah, it's cool. No, I got my glass of champagne. I'm relaxed. The plane will take off when it takes off. If it's late, it's late. You're like, none the wiser. You don't really care. When you're flying first class and the captain announces that we're about to land, you're like, oh, what? We've got to keep this plane flying. This is such a good time. The flight is so short. Did they fly faster this time? It's the time perception of each class. One is, you can't wait to get off. One is, business is just right. And first is, I wish this couldn't go on. So, in a way, the best flight is the one where you feel like, it was such a good flight. I did a bit of this, I did a bit of sleeping, I did a bit of watching the movies, I did a bit of eating, I did a bit of that, did a bit of journaling or work, and then you feel like, yeah, it's actually perfect. I'm ready to land. and do whatever I'm going to do. That's the best flight. So it's not actually any particular airline, any particular, it's all about everything is going smoothly that you had expected it to go that way and it actually went that way. And that happens in business at first more often than the economy.

Ruby Lee: I really enjoyed that interpretation of it because I noticed he didn't go, oh, it was where they served the best food and da, da, da, you know, and I had a shower like, and it was amazing. You know, it's just, it really is. It comes back down to, yeah, like that time perception. It's so beautiful. I remember I've only flown first class a handful of times, mostly business, but first class only a handful. And the best one that I had was so short, and it actually was a short flight. It was just from Australia to New Zealand. It was Emirates. It was stunning.

Steve Hui: Christchurch?

Ruby Lee: Yes.

Steve Hui: Yes. Oh, my God. You can do that again.

Ruby Lee: That landing is crazy. The Christchurch landing is nuts. Anyway, but I was just like, exactly when you were speaking, that was the feeling. It literally felt like we had just taken off and landed. Like, what? Like a one-hour flight almost. It was unbelievable. Oh, my gosh.

Steve Hui: I think that's the most important thing. The luxury element is very important, but that just helps you feel the time and the energy piece of it. The magic is, once you've got enough points, you can fly first class heaps of times. You can fly business class heaps of times. Each moment is not that special, but it's all about the fact that you're special because you get to fly in the front, not the back.

Ruby Lee: I love that. I love that. Have you flown business with the family? Like, have you done the, you know what I see? I think it's Singapore Airlines and they have like the quad, you know, in the middle.

Steve Hui: I haven't done that. I tend to pick window seats. So when I fly with my wife, we actually don't sit in the middle. We sit on the side and we each have a seat with our window. So, because then, you know, you get to do your own stuff as well, but you can just walk up and say, hello, what are you doing? That's true. I love looking out the window.

Ruby Lee: I don't know if this is like the Asian side of me, but I would love to take my mom and dad, you know, just like have me and my husband, my mom and dad in like this. I would just love to have that experience, you know, just take them there and treat them and, you know, all of that. That is definitely on my vision board. You know, I'm going to do that.

Steve Hui: Oh, for sure. I did that with my parents and my sister a few years ago, probably about five years ago. I caught my mum sleeping, and I go, Mum, you can make this a flat bed. She's like, no, no, no. And I'm thinking, no, no, no, this bed has to go flat. This is the whole reason why we're here. We've got to make this bed flat so you can enjoy flying on a plane. Yes, that's right. My mum's like, no, no, no, no, no, sorry. If you're flying business class, you have to fly flat. But of course, when she made it flat, she was like, oh my God, this is even better.

Ruby Lee: Don't they say once you board a plane, once you go left, you never go back. It's like you have to turn left on the plane every time.

Steve Hui: Yes.

Ruby Lee: Yeah. That's so great. Thank you so much, Steve. I really love this chat. How do we get plugged into your world? Like where do you mostly hang out and where can we, you know, connecting with your business as well?

Steve Hui: Yeah, mostly on LinkedIn, so under Steve Huey, H-U-E-Y. I'm also a bit on Instagram, so at iFlyFlat, and of course my website, iFlyFlat.com.au.

Ruby Lee: Fantastic. Thank you so much. That was the best fun. And yeah, I can't wait to get more savvy with my points. This has definitely inspired me to do just that. And I really appreciate that learning lesson in between. Thanks so much, Steve.

Steve Hui: Thank you, thank you very much.