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1. Frequent Flyer
1 month ago
[NEW: Frequent Flyer now has a fan page on facebook--please become a fan if you enjoyed the film!]

"Frequent Flyer" is a 20-minute documentary about frequent flyer miles, the people who collect them, and the world of airports and airplanes that they inhabit. Fittingly, I traveled around 35,000 miles in the making of it, from Osaka, Japan to Punta del Este, Uruguay.

The result is a look at the world of miles and some of its most enthusiastic participants, examining how miles and points have become an important world currency and, in turn, an obsession for those who have figured out ways to earn them in the millions.

Credits

29 Likes

  • John Galt 1 month ago
    I saw this film a couple times prior to its finalization and, as good as it was then, it's much better now. Very professionally done in my opinion.
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  • Benjamin Guez 1 month ago
    Just finished watching.....brilliant! Beautifully done, everything was perfect; for such a dull subject (for the uninitiated layman like me) it was actually made into something tremendously potent in a very pure and not ironic way.
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  • mark sandelson 1 month ago
    Really smart. I found myself LOL as the guy talked about his experience in Thailand. This is really smart but never mind the status how does anyone without your smarts and experience cash in miles. Plus I wanna start 2010 by doing a mileage run with you. Somewhere totally sick!
    Seriously this is really well made and there is hardly a person alive who isnt enrolled on one program somewhere.
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  • Benjamin Hanau 1 month ago
    That's outstanding! Very interesting, and as a FTer, I'm finally gonna be able to explain what I do to my friends. Beside, perfectly released a few weeks before "Up in the air" hits theaters.
    What camera(s) did you use? EX?
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  • David DAngelo plus 1 month ago
    Nice work! Worrisome that I relate a little too well. . .

    One note, which I'm sure you realized after the fact - be careful with the .6 soft grad - can be funky on tilts.

    good luck with the film
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  • j c 1 month ago
    Great documentary. As a fellow FT'er (Easy Victor), it was nice to see names and faces of those that we communicate with online in the video.

    Not that I didn't know it already, but I'm truly a lightweight compared to some that you interviewed!
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  • Gabriel Leigh 30 days ago
    Thanks for all the comments so far! Benjamin, we used the Panasonic HVX170 and the HPX500.
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  • Alba Mora 30 days ago
    I love your film!
    it's craaaazy
    btw, I started collecting miles last week ;-)
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  • Stefania Rousselle 30 days ago
    This doc, Gabriel, is just so perfect. I love it! I want the whole world to know about it!
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  • Matt Larson 29 days ago
    Very, very nicely done Gabriel! Great story and good use of statistics. I like the animation in there also, definitely two thumbs up. I travel a lot myself and I do visit the FlyerTalk forums from time to time. Also I've tried tracking my rewards using different programs like points.com and mileport and recently discovered AwardWallet.com which is definitely by far the best solution out there to track all your frequent flier miles. They tell you when you points are going to expire and how to prevent that form happening. Pretty cool stuff.
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  • Spike4169 28 days ago
    Recently LA Times wrote an article discussing the different services out there to manage miles. Looks like the reporter actually used each service and took time to do a real review. here is a link to the article...
    LA Times Article: tinyurl.com/yarn6uv
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  • Spike4169 28 days ago
    Gabriel, also wanted to mention what a good job you did on this. Great work!! Enjoyed it thoroughly.
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  • Michael Todd 28 days ago
    Interesting and well-done. I do think, however, that it really glossed over the psychology aspects. Some people are maniacal (as a trip over to FlyerTalk will prove) about their miles, and it's moved from a 'want' to a desperate 'need' .. why do they 'need' this status so much? What void in their lives is it filling? There's little commonly-accepted logic in spending a week of your life flyng all over creation to get a 'free' ticket to Europe as in the South America example in this film.. unless of course your time itself is worth nothing to you (not to mention the cost of the tickets across North America, down to South America and back).

    A very interesting start, no less - would be interesting if you dug deeper into the psychology and picked some of the rabid frequent fliers to interview, not just the hobbyists.
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  • yazeejay 28 days ago
    "the planes would fly anyway, with or without the mileage runners" - really? why is this offered then?

    nice documentary but the carbon emissions issue is not something you sum up in one sentence.

    sum up you miles and check how much damage you personally have done to this planet. you can calculate here: sasems.port.se/EmissionCalc.cfm
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  • yazeejay 27 days ago
    The Frequent Flyer offer > the more you fly, the more you fly for free. I don't mean to offend your documentary, like I said, it's very well done but in my opinion flying for fun, or even worse flying in order to fly some more is stupid.
    Let me ask you this: you know this is just a marketing scheme, you know you're polluting the air but you decide to fly some more in order to do a documentary about frequent flying in order to fly some more?
  • fletch f fletch 27 days ago
    The percentage of flyers that are MR's is so small that I seriously doubt they affect an airline's decision to keep a certain route and its frequency. That is decided by revenue, and people doing a MR or on a free ticket are most likely, a) a negligible percentage of the airline traffic on that flight and, b) not exactly generating revenue for the most part.
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  • Carl Haynes 24 days ago
    Nice Video, I gave up mileage running a few years ago when my daughter was born...now I'm itching to start up again!
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  • Joe Stowell 22 days ago
    Love the video, as a fellow FT'r I can relate. Fun to watch.
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  • William Chu 22 days ago
    Hi, I love your video a lot!!! I added the link on my travel report website. pigx5.com/1KHOMEWORK09/
    If you don't mind....if you do mind, let me know and I will take it off. Thanks again for the great video.
  • Joe Stowell 22 days ago
    Hey pigx5, your website has some incredible photos! I saw it on FT. Cool.
  • Gabriel Leigh 19 days ago
    Thanks so much William, and yes of course you can link to my video on your site. The more links the better!
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  • Mark Peacock 21 days ago
    Nice documentary. A listener to my frequent traveler podcast -- TravelCommons -- posted a link to your page in his comment (bit.ly/LLsea). Perhaps we can get together for interview for a future TravelCommons podcast...
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  • Marc Labitzky 11 days ago
    I have one question. How can you collect miles by letting other people fly back and forth 4 times a day? Don't you have to be flying yourself? How does this work?
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