From humble beginnings in the back of a Kombi van, to a thriving business with various locations across Australia, Lets Go Surfing (LGS) co-founders Brenda and Craig have worked tirelessly to “change lives one wave at a time”.
In 1995 Brenda Miley, a PE teacher at the time, set out to empower more women to get out on the waves. So she enlisted the help of her then-boyfriend-now-husband, Craig ‘Wacca’ Wachholz – a working musician and manager at Bondi Surf n Ski – and his PR prowess to turn her idea into a successful business.
Together, they’ve created a business that started out as “accidental” and is now booming.
The key to their success? Lots of hard work, some seriously savvy spending and joining a loyalty program designed for Australian small businesses.
Smarter spending means better saving
For nearly 10 years Brenda and Craig have been members of Qantas Business Rewards – a loyalty program which enables them to earn Qantas Points on their everyday business expenses.
Brenda shares “As the Qantas Business Rewards program has developed over time, it’s become a bigger part of our spending strategy”.
By choosing suppliers that they can earn Qantas Points through and utilising a points earning credit card, they are able to earn points on their everyday business expenses like supplier payments, utilities, and because they have a few different business locations – travel.
In a single business trip, Lets Go Surfing is able to earn Qantas Points on flights and enjoy flight savings with Qantas; earn points on their accommodation with Qantas Hotels and even earn points on Avis car hire – and this is in addition to what they earn as Frequent Flyer members. To top it all off, they pay for it all with their American Express® Qantas Business Rewards Card to earn even more Qantas Points.
“It means that you’re doing things the smarter way,” Brenda says. “You’re still spending your money, but you’re also gaining points to be used on rewards that translates into savings on cash outlay for our business.”
Turning Qantas Points into rewards
By being savvier about what they ‘have’ to spend on, they’re able to bank the points to use on things they ‘like’ to spend on – like seat upgrades or transferring points to their Qantas Frequent Flyer account to reward their team with gifts from Qantas Wine or the Qantas Rewards Store.
“There’s lots of things that we use our Qantas Points for, we love them!”
And those rewards are not all business. With all the points they earn, they’re also able to transfer them to their personal Qantas Frequent Flyer account and treat themselves to a personal holiday every now and then, but the next thing they’re saving their Qantas Points for is a business trip to Morocco, a popular surf destination.
A rewards program that’s made for business
It’s easy to join Qantas Business Rewards. All you need is an active ABN to start earning Qantas Points on your everyday business expenses. Plus, it works alongside any Qantas Frequent Flyer account if you’re already a member and earning Qantas Points personally.
As Brenda says, “The biggest difference between Qantas Business Rewards and Qantas Frequent Flyer, is that I earn points for my business and my staff do too when flying for work on top of the points they already earn as a Frequent Flyer. It’s like earning double.”
Don’t wait, join Qantas Business Rewards free today and start making business better every day.
