In 2016, I submitted a “MeetUp” session to the organizers of South by Southwest (SXSW), the weeks long conference held yearly in Austin, Texas – focused around interactive, film, and music tracks. They were intrigued and accepted the session. It was a smash hit, with the room reaching capacity and staying 30 minutes past the end of the session.
As an aside, when I hosted that MeetUp, there was no “MilesTalk” yet. In fact, it was the prodding of the folks that I met that year that convinced me to build up a community online. That is what you now know as MilesTalk. I had previously written about miles and points and credit cards on a previous project (HotelMagician.com – an online travel agency) but had shut that down and wasn’t sure I’d ever dip my toe back into the business of online travel. But thanks to the cajoling of the attendees that year, here I am in 2019 with tens of thousands of monthly visitors to MilesTalk and a growing community of almost 2,000 Facebook group members.
In 2017, SXSW asked me to come back and host a Miles and Points “Workshop.” I asked Richard Kerr of Award Travel 101 to co-host the session with me and we had another smash hit of a session – this time with a sizable presentation on the basics of miles and points followed by lots of great Q&A.
This coming year, on Saturday March 9th, I’m heading back again - hosting an Advanced Miles and Points workshop. Award travel wizard Spencer Howard, who you may know from his role at 10x Travel, writing for One Mile at a Time, or his amazing Award Alerts at Straight To The Points, has graciously agreed to co-host with me. He knows his stuff like nobody else and I’m very excited to host this session with him.
It’s going to be a heck of a workshop. As always, to attend this SXSW workshop, you will need either an Interactive or Platinum badge for the SXSW conference. As always, it’s space limited. I believe there will be room to 80-100 attendees. The session in 2016 did wind up full with a waitlist, so I do suggest registering as soon as the SXSW system allows.
We are also looking into a non-SXSW MeetUp somewhere local in Austin on Sunday March 10th. Please let me know if you can attend the MeetUp and if you have suggestions on a location. It won’t be an easy task finding space during SXSW.
