Delta’s SiteSeer site features an online travel contest where five teams are competing to win one million Delta miles and 400,000 Hilton HHonors points. We recently spoke with Joel Levinson of The Awesomest Brothers team (Joel is pictured to the left, with his brother Stephen).
InsideFlyer
So you’re living in Los Angeles and your brother Stephen is in Brooklyn. How did you get together to do the entry video?
Joel Levinson
He spent a whole month out here. I was just flipping around because I’m kind of a frequent flyer addict and I was on Delta’s Web site and saw the entry and said, Stephen, we could totally do this, let’s enter and win.
IF
So you are a frequent flyer?
Levinson
I used to travel around and perform Jewish educational music with high school kids. I spent a year and a half living out of my car driving to different gigs around the country. After that I decided I was ready to own a bed again so I moved in with Stephen in New York and just started flying to all the gigs on the weekends.
IF
So what do you do right now?
Levinson
Unemployed! It’s wonderful. I’ve been unemployed for a couple of months now and it’s been great. I’ve been living off some savings from when I used to do the music for kids. I’m a musician so I’ll still play around here, but nothing too serious and I’ve just been kind of enjoying myself. And with the Delta thing, as long as I don’t have to get work, I’m just going to ride this thing out and see where it goes.
IF
How was the trip to Budapest?
Levinson
It was pretty cool. They sent us around with a translator, a driver, camera crew and a producer and filmed 24 hours of footage of us which has to be boiled down to a two-minute video clip. Delta does the editing so you have to give them as much good stuff as you can and trust that they are going to make you look good.
IF
Did you decide where you would go?
Levinson
No, they decided and they didn’t even tell us until two days before. For this next round, the voting starts on Monday, runs through Wednesday at 8:00. At 9:00, they’ll call us to tell us whether we’re in or out, where the next city is and Thursday morning we’re on a flight to go to wherever. Isn’t that crazy? It’s hard to explain to people who ask, “So what are you doing next weekend?” Well, either nothing or I guess I’ll be in Dubai, or Johannesburg or Tokyo. It’s crazy. There’s a list of 14 cities we might go to. I think it’s more exciting not to know where we’re going.
IF
And why the overalls?
Levinson
Because we have matching overalls, which is pretty cool. There was one year where my brother and I put on a sketch for Purim and we both put on overalls and sang a little hoedown of stuff that I wrote. We look different enough that people aren’t sure whether we’re brothers or a gay couple, but I’m convinced that it becomes clear that we wouldn’t be a gay couple, because no gay couple would have such bad fashion sense as to go out in matching overalls.
IF
How’s the contest going so far?
Levinson
Great! I feel really confident about it. I feel like even if I lose, I already won. I got a free ticket to Budapest and I got to see it
like a rock star for a couple of days, which was so awesome. And I’m the center-of-attention brother, Stephen is a little more reserved. There was a moment when we were standing there being filmed and I’m like, Stephen, check it out, there’s a castle behind us and he’s like, Joel, look at this, there’s a castle behind us, and there’s a camera in front of us looking at you, you’re in heaven, aren’t you? And it was totally true — it’s about as close as you can get to my dream on Earth. Beautiful foreign city, really nice people, we didn’t have to worry about any of the arrangements, you just have to worry about getting to these interesting places and having a good time while you’re there. Fine! I’m on board.
IF
If you win, what will be your first award redemption?
Levinson
For a long time, my number one place that I’ve wanted to visit has been Alaska during March for aurora borealis. But that wouldn’t be for another six months after the contest ends. There’s no way I would be able to wait that long. Like I said, I’m unemployed so not a ton of money. I want to go take a vacation where the ticket is expensive but the living is cheap. So Vietnam is really high on my list. And I really want to see Angkor Wat. My list traditionally was aurora borealis, Machu Picchu and the Pyramids. I go to places for food and famous stuff. I love famous stuff. I really want to see the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China. But I’m such a fan of food, so I think Vietnam would be number one so I could eat and be on beautiful beaches and live like a king for a week and a half and use it as a vacation. It’s a big world that we live in.
