Steve Hui, the 179th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, has a nickname to die for – the Points Whisperer.

It all happened through a mix of intelligence, diligence and luck.

A decade ago, Steve was a corporate accountant who did a lot of international travel as part of his job. That exposed him to two things – the pleasure of flying business class and the perk of collecting frequent flyer points.

After taking a voluntary redundancy, Steve went on a long, long holiday. Thanks to his points and number-crunching skills, Steve was able to get free flights and upgrades.

That gave Steve an idea – why not start a business that showed people how to earn and redeem rewards points?

And so, in 2012, iFLYflat was born.

Soon after, Steve had the bright idea to print a brochure that looked like a plane ticket. One of these brochures fell into the hands of a news.com.au journalist. The result was a media article that turbocharged his business.

A few months later, Steve was profiled by the Sydney Morning Herald, which dubbed him the Points Whisperer. 

The nickname stuck, and has been helping Steve get valuable publicity ever since.