I received this email this morning and thought I would pass it on to anyone interested. You can see other productions that this company has done at www.magneticproductions.com.
A Major Cable Network is looking for “Travel Hackers” who are outgoing, spontaneous, and are good at what they do! Is your current bankroll of points and miles one to brag about? Do you consider yourself a mileage junkie? Do you drive from store to store in order to purchase multiple gift cards? We want to hear from you! Send a picture and a paragraph telling us about yourself, your love of travel hacking and what sets you apart from others!
For anyone who is interested, the first step is to send me an email (hmanners@magneticproductions.com) with your background information-full name, age, location, how long you have been travel hacking and the unique things you do to earn points. We have been speaking to a lot of hackers, so we want to hear about your different mileage runs, the different ways you earn and burn and the ways travel hacking has changed your everyday life.
The next step is to send us a short video- two to five minutes long! We want to take a peek into your world of travel hacking! I want to see your outgoing and fun personality, along with your strategy of finding the best deals and getting the most points. I want to know what sets you apart from other travel hackers. I want to see what lengths you will go to earn the most points! Show me all the credit cards you own, or any souvenirs you have picked up along the way. If you are going on a mileage run, take the camerawith you! Anything that will help me see how dedicated and enthusiastic you are about Travel Hacking!
Once you are done making an AWESOME video please upload to youtube.com and email me your private link! We are on a very short turn around and we don’t want you to miss out! All videos must be submitted by Friday, Dec 14th.
I completely agree with Jason. So many people are fascinated with what we do in this hobby but it really is work and I believe the majority of people won’t be willing to do the work required to actually travel the world for free. I also have many family & friends who would love to travel but when you should them the tools and process they are overwhelmed and usually do nothing with the information you’ve given them. It takes strategy, planning and intelligence to be in our hobby. I don’t believe any reality show would take our hobby down. My husband loves the show “Storage Wars”. He watches it faithfully but would he ever go out and start doing what they do – No! I give much credit to our community. We are very intelligent and resourceful individuals with so many creative ideas.
I received three such requests including this one, right after the piece ran last weekend on the Today show and NBC Nightly News. In all, I’ve probably seen and spoken to 12-15 production companies. Nobody is buying the concept YET, but who knows when we will become reality?
@Rick – interesting!
Thanks for sharing this, Jason. Like others said, it’s another step towards travel hacking going mainstream. From the way things are going, every sub-culture will eventually get a reality TV show.
I imagine the show will play up the luxury aspect: first-class cabins, five star hotels, and so on. Watching someone log in to AwardWallet wouldn’t be as thrilling, ha ha.
Probably sorta like Extreme Couponing. A scripted reality show where you all can get in fights and do drama “How dare he!” “Oh no he didn’t!” But yeah, it would kill this stuff just like Extreme Couponing killed it’s subject. Critical mass.
Well, stars in the sense that the people on Preppers or Swamp People are stars. I received the message too, I just wish they at least gave us until the weekend to work on the video.
FTU/ChicagoSeminars/MegaDOs sold out way in advance or minutes. Gazillion of blogs w/ billions of aff cc links. Nightline/NBC/WallStreetJournal articles. If you told me 10 years ago all these would happen I would immediately think you are a lunatic. Mileage Update: The cat is out of the bag. The game has changed. We were perceived as this quirky group of introverts (for the most part). Now we are being looked upon as “stars”. Just wait ’till you see my entourage at the next FTU, lol.
Or bodyguards!!!
@travelbloggerbuzz – fair enough, perhaps FTG will come in with his posse ala Billy from King of Kong!
George, if it hasn’t yet, it will by the time this thing goes main stream!
I hate to be negative, but this is a terrible idea. The backlash from this will be bad for mile collectors.
@mileageupdate – the number of these pilots that make it are minuscule my opinion is that this applies to such a minor portion of the population – it won’t fly
I can’t get friends and family to even sign up for award wallet much less run around town looking for vanilla! 😉
Very interesting request! I am going to feature this tomorrow in my blog as it answers the question whether this hobby has reached a critical mass posed by the Frugal Travel Guy raised in his blog yesterday. Thank you!