How a Points Specialist Left His Old Host Agency and Scaled Fast at Fora

Sam Selig has been playing the points-and-miles game since he got his first credit card in high school. For nearly 20 years, alongside a full-time career in institutional asset management, he consulted high-net-worth clients and small businesses on credit card strategy. He helped them decide which cards to open and how to spend to get the most out of their points. Eventually his clients started asking: Could he just book the whole vacation for them, in cash?

He joined a small agency run by a friend he’d met in one of his points Facebook groups and built a solid client base over two years there. But as he grew, he felt that the tech was limiting his potential. “We were using Sabre GDS,” Sam said. “Learning the codes, typing them in, having to have my laptop with me at all times…was brutal.” Then he spoke to the Fora team.

Transitioning to a tech-forward platform

What sold Sam on Fora was how much simpler the day-to-day could be. “Once I saw how I can log on from anywhere, have all my contacts, and in a couple clicks I’m booked, that was a leg up for me,” he said.

The move itself was straightforward. He let his agency know that he was moving on, handed off the trips already on his books, and walked away on good terms. “It was a clean break, no hard feelings,” Sam said. The transition mostly involved bringing over his contact list and sending an update to his clients. Sam brought 25–30 clients over from his old agency, and today books for around 80.

Since joining in 2025, Sam has booked more than $430,000 in travel, and he credits Fora’s technology for helping him move faster. The built-in AI chat assistant, Sidekick, can pull details on demand, so he isn’t stuck waiting on email replies. Itineraries and proposals help him quickly assemble and present the complicated trips his clients want—private helicopters, transfers, and fast-track airport service—pulled together in a professional proposal.

Sam uses Fora’s tech to manage bookings quickly, from anywhere

With the mobile-friendly Portal, Itineraries & Proposals, and Sidekick AI assistant, Fora helps advisors automate admin work so they can focus on supporting their clients.

Using points expertise as a differentiator

With nearly two decades of knowledge at the ready, Sam’s points experience gives him an edge. When clients come to him with a big credit card points balance, he knows to direct those points toward flights rather than hotel nights, where the value is highest, and how to get them the most out of each transfer. 

“I’ll get you the $5,000–$10,000 business flights on points, and then we book the hotels in cash,” he said. He charges a consulting fee ranging from $350–$1,250 depending on the complexity of the trip, and clients rarely push back on the fee, because he can show them how much they benefit from his help: “If I’m not getting a client 2.5 or 3x cents per value on points, it’s not worth it,” Sam said. “And I can prove that."

Relationship skills that make the difference

The points math helped launch Sam’s travel business, but the relationship management at the center of his finance career is what’s helped him stand out and nearly triple his client list since joining Fora. “The relationship management aspect of my job really translates well,” he said. The same skill he uses to negotiate with current and prospective clients on his firm’s behalf helps him build trust with each new client quickly and work closely with travel suppliers.

On one recent trip, he booked a client and their family at the Rosewood Mayakoba in Mexico on a “pay for four” rate, then went to work on an important detail: the room was capped at four guests, and the family of four was traveling with a nanny. But Sam knew that the resort is a Fora Reserve partner, and early September is the slow season. He made the case that an extra guest just meant more on-property spending and got the nanny’s stay comped, saving the client an estimated $10,000 to $15,000. 

For a bachelorette weekend in Rhode Island, he managed to secure roughly a third of the rooms at a small five-star hotel over a peak summer weekend. Sam worked directly with the general sales manager to sort room configurations, secure perks, and negotiate the rate down.

“It always helps when they’re a Fora Reserve client,” he said of Fora’s in-house preferred partner program. “Fora has already built the relationship on the back end.”

It always helps when they’re a Fora Reserve client. Fora has already built the relationship on the back end.

Sam Selig

joined March 2025

Sam’s story is worth sitting with if you’re an experienced advisor weighing a move but not unhappy where you are. He was content at his previous agency, but suspected that he was capable of much more. Joining Fora gave him an opportunity to find out just how much he can accomplish.