[INTERVIEW] Who is Frugal Flyer?
Today, we are happy to feature the founder, Reed Sutton and Senior Editor, Hugh Campbell, of Frugal Flyer, one of the fastest growing travel blogs in Canada. Thank you Hugh and Reed for taking the time out of your busy schedules to answer our questions. Keep up the great work and looking forward to watching you guys grow even more!
1) Please tell us about yourself and your role with Frugal Flyer.
Reed Sutton
I founded and developed Frugal Flyer in January 2020. Travel and travel hacking is something that I’ve been passionate about since 2017-2018 when I decided I needed to find a way to travel for less. It’s something I quickly realized I have a knack for and the blog was a way to connect with the larger community and share my passion.
Frugal Flyer is currently a side venture but the blog has gained significant traction and is showing continued growth, which is very exciting. This is in large part thanks to Hugh who came on board in late 2021 and has contributed significantly to increasing our content output and SEO work.
Outside of Frugal Flyer I am a PhD researcher at the University of Alberta focusing on medical technology (I’ve completed an MSc in Health Informatics). My current research focuses on the use of artificial intelligence to improve diagnosis and management of an inflammatory condition called Crohn’s disease.
Hugh Campbell
I’ve been churning credit cards since 2017 but only seriously got into the hobby (now a passion) in 2019 when I met Reed. That would be when the hobby became serious and I was able to accelerate my point earning capabilities significantly.
When it comes to Frugal Flyer, I am equal parts content writer and SEO specialist. Similar to Reed, I love that Frugal Flyer has given us the opportunity to share our specialized knowledge with the broader community.
When it comes to my personal life, I prefer to keep it in the shadows. Perhaps if you make it to Edmonton for a beer we can chat sometime 😉
2) What is Frugal Flyer about? What would you like readers to get most from your site?
Frugal Flyer is about making travel more affordable and accessible to the average Canadian. Our content primarily focuses on the rewards programs of airlines, hotels, and financial institutions. By leveraging these programs, Canadians can subsidize or completely cover the cost of many aspects of travel for minimal investment. Much of this industry is rather esoteric and so we try to distill the information into actionable and achievable steps that the average person can follow.
As our slogan implies – “Travel more, pay less” – we hope that readers use the information from Frugal Flyer on an ongoing basis to reach their travel goals faster and cheaper than they ever thought possible.
3) What can we look forward to?
In addition to continuing to publish useful written content, one focus of Frugal Flyer that we’re planning to build on is the creation of tools and applications that the community can find value in. Currently we have a Credit Card Comparison Tool (self explanatory), and we just launched a Rebate Comparison Tool that simply aggregates current credit card rebate offers from the main providers in Canada (ourselves, Great Canadian Rebates, and creditcardGenius).
We have lots more planned!
4) Any closing thoughts?
We are so excited to be part of the churning community in Canada and look forward to continuing to connect with our readers and other bloggers. There are so many great miles and points blogs in Canada and we hope to be part of your daily reading, so check out FrugalFlyer.ca!
See also: Be Featured in our Interview Series