From the Tray Table founder Zach Griff
Zach Griff
When Zach Griff joined The Points Guy after college in 2019, he actually started out as something radically different from the high-profile travel journalist he’d come to be known as.
His first role was as an analyst, focused on helping maximize the company’s own points for travel. A points guy behind The Points Guy, if you will. Eventually, he asked if he could take a stab at article-writing—that hadn’t been the plan at first, but after one story led to another, the analyst role he’d been hired for soon enough turned into a launchpad for one of TPG’s most recognizable bylines.
But now, after almost seven years, Griff has turned the page on TPG and stepped out on his own.
He’s joined the growing number of journalists walking away from stable newsroom gigs to build independent homes for their work, a shift increasingly driven by factors like vanishing Google search traffic and busted business models. Not to mention, the sense that one of the only sure bets left in journalism anymore might just be the one where you take a chance on yourself.
In a way, Griff had already been heading in that direction before he’d realized it. His reviews and videos on social media helped earn him, for one thing, a 252,000-strong Instagram following. It’s an audience that watched Griff drop a subtle travel influencer flex just last week: A short video with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in which Griff walks through a handful of travel hacks.
A marathon, a new baby, and a big decision
As for Griff’s post-TPG era, it’s built around his newly launched From the Tray Table, which includes both a newsletter as well as a site offering reporting, analysis, and much more.
“It took me a while to muster the courage to go out on my own,” Griff told me. “Everyone warned me it could be scary and lonely.”
He continued: “It wasn’t until I was running the New York City marathon, my first marathon ever, that I told myself I should do this.” Some of his mentors had even compared going independent to running a marathon like that one.
A turning point arrived after the birth of his first child, in late 2024. That’s when he took a closer look at his career. He didn’t want to walk away or pursue some sort of radical pivot, but at the same time: “I wanted more from my work.”
Leaving The Points Guy
The Points Guy was founded by Brian Kelly in 2010, and it evolved from a blog focused on points-and-miles into an influential travel and personal finance media brand. When Griff first started writing there, along with posting on Instagram and TikTok, his reporting found its own audience.
By the time he enrolled in Wharton’s full-time MBA program in 2023, he’d struck an arrangement that let him keep reporting between classes. The bigger his following got, however, the more he found himself thinking about what editorial freedom might look like. And about eventually taking that leap, maybe even sooner than later.
Zach Griff, on one of the first-class flights he regularly reviews for his audience.
Zach Griff
Building From The Tray Table
From the Tray Table is Griff’s next act. It’s where he’ll cover everything from airlines to loyalty programs, hotels, points strategy, and travel industry trends. Already, he’s pushed out an A320 repair story, rounded up some Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, and shared a quick note about a Delta mishap he experienced. He hasn’t missed a beat, in other words. It’s just that he’s doing this all now under his own banner.
He also has his eye on filling a particular gap.
“Right now, there’s a big split in travel journalism,” Griff said. “You have traditional journalists at established publications, and then you have creators and influencers who share their experiences online. What you don’t really have is someone who sits between the two—someone with deep industry connections and journalistic integrity, who also knows how to tell accurate, well-researched stories to the next generation of travelers.”
In terms of building a From the Tray Table community, he’s thinking about AMAs, livestreams, and maybe even Discord or WhatsApp groups. That’s because he knows the space well enough to understand that readers want an authentic human voice they can trust. As he put it to me: “No matter how good AI gets, it’ll never be able to say ‘I’ve been there, and here’s why I think you’ll like it.,”
Day-to-day, he figures his routine won’t look all that different from his TPG life. He’ll still mostly travel, film, and write—with, it probably goes without saying, a lot more freedom now. A traveler, and a newly independent journalist, with miles to go.
“I genuinely love travel,” he said. “Every day, I feel grateful that I get to work in the industry I love most.”