The Birthplace of the Mile Junkie Takes A Victory Lap

It’s called the House of Miles. It’s located on Frequent Flyer Point in Colorado Springs. And, it’s home to the original mile junkie, Randy Petersen.

Randy announced his retirement from InsideFlyer magazine yesterday, and subsequently also retired the magazine itself, ending a 29-year publication run.

I come to this news a bit conflicted. First and foremost, it’s an incredible legacy in the world of miles and points. Randy essentially created this niche, and with it thousands and thousands of followers. As Randy notes in his article, Flyer Talk, Boarding Area and Milepoint were all birthed from InsideFlyer along with the ubiquitous Freddie Awards.

I was actually handed a copy of InsideFlyer by a colleague quite a number of years ago (more than 10, less than 15).  It didn’t “click” with me, even though I was already a collector of miles and points.  Fast forward to 2003 and FlyerTalk was my enry into the miles and points world.  Through FlyerTalk I met Randy, became a moderator on FlyerTalk, and would later be a co-founder of Milepoint and one of the organizers of the annual Freddie Awards.  Having watched all of these children grow up, I’m tremendously happy for Randy’s accomplishments, and what InsideFlyer has meant for each of these areas.

But, as I said, I’m conflicted.  I don’t mind change, though sometimes I don’t find myself as willing to come to it as I should be.  But, I’ve truly loved reading InsideFlyer over the years.  I’m one of those people who loves a fresh newspaper or that unread magazine that shows up in the mail.  I used to take InsideFlyer with me on trips and read it on an airplane ride.  It sparked many a conversation with my fellow frequent traveler.  “There’s a magazine dedicated to miles and points?”  “How could anyone write a monthly magazine just about miles?”

The questions came frequently, all because of an idea Randy had almost 3 decades ago.

One of my favorite stories that InsideFlyer created over it’s run was the Concorde tickets.  Gary Leff details it best:

The ‘Concorde’ deal was that Inside Flyer ran a signup promotion offering Starwood Starpoints, and chose not to limit it to first-time subscribers or even ‘one per customer’. Starpoints back then transferred one to two into Qantas (and thus with double the transfer bonus) so 40,000 Starpoints was sufficient for 100,000 Qantas miles.

• Inside Flyer cost $59.95 per year.
• The magazine offered 2500 Starpoints per subscription
• 21 subscriptions yield 52,500 Starpoints, which transferred to 125,000 Qantas points.
• That was enough for a roundtrip ticket on the British Airways Concorde, New York – London, back then (though some folks chose to travel one direction in first class instead).

The Qantas award chart was so much better than… And many lounges and libraries received donated subscriptions to a frequent flyer magazine. I’m sure some were even donated to charitable entities for a tax deduction which reduced the cost basis of the Concorde award below the $1259 cost of the points.

I missed that deal, and so many others.  But, I got more than my fair share from the pages of InsideFlyer.  And, I continue to learn from the branches of Randy’s empire, built on Frequent Flyer Point.  Heck, I’m writing this on Boarding Area, where Randy welcomed me last year to see this blog continue to grow.

Even if you hadn’t heard about InsideFlyer before today, if you’re reading this and you’ve ever gotten value out of my blog then you’re a small part of that world Randy helped create.

I’ll miss the magazine showing up each month in my mailbox.  But, as Randy said of InsideFlyer, “It’s time.”  There’s only one thing left to ask.

What’s next?

The post The Birthplace of the Mile Junkie Takes A Victory Laps was published first on Pizza In Motion.

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