Frequent Miler on the Air - 10 tricks for spending fewer points for flights & hotels (game show edition) | Ep217 | 8-26-23

Episode Date: August 26, 2023

Get your pen and paper and get ready to play along and see if you can beat the blogger as Nick tries to score at least 75,000 points revealing 10 tricks for spending fewer points on your flight and hotel awards. 00:00 Intro 01:52 Giant Mailbag 04:05 Card Talk: Amex Platinum card changes 10:51 Mattress running the numbers: Stand Up to Cancer and earn 50x https://frequentmiler.com/american-airlines-earn-up-to-50x-aadvantage-miles-with-cancer-research-donation/ 14:15 Award Talk 14:20 IHG suite upgrades now apply on award stays 16:41 Finnair is joining Avios https://frequentmiler.com/finnair-to-start-using-avios-in-early-2024/ 19:49 Main Event: 10 tricks for spending fewer points for flights and hotels (gameshow edition) 21:19 How can a person get 1.5 cpp for travel booked directly with travel providers? https://frequentmiler.com/us-bank-real-time-mobile-rewards-what-works-where/ 23:52 How can you get 2 cents per point buying flights with Amex Membership Rewards points? 26:29 Describe two tricks that guarantee lower award prices by flying farther https://frequentmiler.com/avianca-lifemiles-awesome-mixed-cabin-award-pricing-first-class-for-less/ https://frequentmiler.com/cathay-pacific-asia-miles-mixed-cabin-award-pricing-first-class-for-less/ 28:59 Name three ways to incur lower surcharges when flying BA https://frequentmiler.com/british-airways-adds-option-to-use-more-avios-less-money/ https://frequentmiler.com/business-class-to-london-for-less-with-this-asia-miles-hack/ 33:59 How is it possible to fly within Europe for as few as 4,000 points one-way?  https://frequentmiler.com/air-france-klm-across-europe-for-less-sweet-spot-spotlight/ 36:32 How can fly business class across the Atlantic Ocean for 55k United miles? 40:38 Name three ways to pay for a regular room award stay but confirm a suite instead https://frequentmiler.com/incredible-hyatt-suites-bookable-with-points/ 43:31 What type of lodging would cost me 67,500 points per night? https://frequentmiler.com/wyndham-vacasa/ 45:43 How could one pay avg of only 67.5 pct of the original award cost for a hotel? (32.5% off) 50:11 How could one pay 55% fewer points for a hotel award? 54:49 Bonus: What are Delta miles worth in SkyClub for premium drinks? 56:42 Question of the Week: What if any are the best ways to book Airbnbs or 2 hotel rooms with points at a reasonable rate? Music credit: Annie Yoder

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did City do this week? It's time for Mattress Running the Numbers. Ready for the main event? The main event. Frequent Liler on the air starts now. Today's main event, 10 tricks for spending fewer points for flights and hotels. And this is the game show edition.

Ooh. and hotels. And this is the game show edition. Today, Nick has no idea what we're doing. I basically came up with 10 tricks for spending fewer points and miles for hotels and airfare. And I put them together as questions to see if Nick can figure out what are these tricks and can he identify. Sometimes I try to get kind of tricky here. So I don't think he's going to have an easy time with this one. But we'll see. I'm still on my first cup of coffee, Greg. So I'm a little concerned about how this one's going to go. I'm sorry to hear that, but it's like 10 at night here. So I don't understand why you're just on your first cup of coffee, Nick. Because I'm all the way on the other side of the world.

We're like totally separate right now because we're both traveling, right? So you're somewhere in Europe. I am. I am. Yeah, I'm in Denmark. Ah, there you go. All right. So I was there just recently. Nice place. Great. But you just got there. I think so. Beautiful. Yeah, just got here. Yeah. So if I fall asleep in the middle of the show, you know, you should forgive me for that. And I'm in Alaska where the sun set at like 11 p.m. last night. So I didn't go to bed particularly early. And so it's not actually that early in the morning right now, but it feels it to me anyway. All right. Enough chitchat.

Let's get to the giant mailbag. Today's giant mail comes from who does it come from, Nick? You've got the giant mail in your in your hands. I do. It comes from Aaron Heard of Nerd Wallet, who wrote a message to talk about the United Gateway card. So a couple of weeks ago, we talked about must have chase cards. And one of the cards that we mentioned was the United Gateway card, because we said that when you have that card, it's got no annual fee and you get access to expanded award availability and United Airlines flights. And we fact check that, so to

speak, by going through team members and the Frequent Mylar team to make sure we found that there was somebody in one of our families who had no elite status and had the Gateway card and still saw the expanded award availability. So we took that to mean that anybody with the Gateway card would see that expanded award availability. But Erin at NerdWallet had dug into this quite a bit because she had run into the same situation, but still some data points of people who weren't able to see the expanded award availability. And so what she had found finally was that if you have a United Gateway card that has been downgraded from an annual fee card, which is the technique that we talked about to get the gateway

card and probably the only way any of us have ever considered getting the gateway card, then you will see expanded award availability. However, if the card starts out as a United Gateway card, so that is to say, if you applied for the United Gateway card outright, then it does not see expanded award availability. So I already would say that there was not a good reason to apply for the United Gateway card outright rather than applying for, for example, the United Mileage Plus Explorer card and then later downgrading it or the Quest card and then later downgrading it. I would always suggest doing that for a better welcome bonus. But now you have another reason not to apply for the United Gateway card, because if your card starts out as the

Gateway, it apparently will not see the expanded award availability. So thank you to Aaron for pointing that out for us. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you to Aaron for pointing that out for us. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Aaron. And that's just crazy. So I think that's going to take our crazy segment for this week, because why would they do that to us? Dang it, United. Come on. Why are you going to try to make things hard? So, all right. So that's our giant mailbag. So that so that means i guess the next thing up we've got today is card talk right so what are we talking about in terms of card talk this week greg yeah this week's card talk is a little different we're not introducing a card overall we're not going to review a card overall but rather talk about some changes to a card or a set of cards the american express platinum cards, underwent a few changes recently.

And they're worth mentioning. For some people who already have the Platinum card and are using it to give authorized user cards to their family so they can get into lounges, the cost to do that has gone way, up it was it was what 175 for three people yeah um yeah three people cost you almost 600 bucks right yeah 195 each i believe and so yeah that's ouch i mean wow ouchie wow. Right. Yeah. Such a big increase. So that's that's a real shame. If you're hoping to get, you know, a lot of your family members into in the lounges. I mean, you can still do it, but it's just gotten so much more expensive.

That's when you when you pair it with the fact that the lounges now don't have any guests either. Right. And when you pair it with the fact that the lounges now don't have any guests either, right? So, like, now you're paying $50 a person for additional people to get into the lounge with you. So, even if you have some authorized users that used to count on that as a way to get in their spouse or, you know, kids or whatever, they can't even do that anymore. So, it's going to cost more to get them an authorized user card. And then, you know, if you want to get into the Centurion Lounge, this is what I'm talking about there. There's a fee. So, yeah, it's ugly.

It really is. Yeah. Another ugly-ish one, depending on where you are with your welcome bonus collection of MX cards, is the fact that they've added language. It used to be that anyone could sign up for the regular consumer Platinum card and the Platinum card from Schwab and the Platinum card from Morgan Stanley and get welcome bonuses for all three. The business Platinum continues to be separate,

so you can still get a separate welcome bonus for that. But now what they have is language. If you're trying to sign up for the platinum card and you've already had the Morgan Stanley version or the Schwab version, you won't be able to get the welcome bonus for that. Same thing with the Schwab card. We haven't yet seen language like that on the Morgan Stanley card. So there might be possibility for a double dip, but it doesn't seem to be possibility for a triple dip as things stand now. That's really disappointing because I've never had the Schwab Platinum and I was kind of

waiting it out to see, oh, are they ever going to offer another one of these good, you know, 100K plus 10X type situations on it? Maybe I'll consider getting it then. So I've been holding out and it seems like I missed my window on the Schwab Platinum, but maybe I'll have to consider the Morgan Stanley. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The last thing, this is the one thing that I think of as an improvement. So in Amex's crazy world in the past, you could add authorized users to your platinum card that don't have any special privileges like lounge access or whatever and and adding those authorized users

was free and and it's still free um but the problem was they would call those authorized users user cards those authorized user cards were called gold cards and that was just so confusing because the amex gold card has all kinds of you know particular benefits that this platinum card authorized user gold card didn't have so do you remember what they're calling the new one yeah what they're yeah they clarified it the companion platinum card now greg yeah it's a companion platinum which on the one, I can appreciate the fact that they tried to disambiguiify it, so to speak. It's not a gold card anymore. But does this really make it clear?

Well, I think it adds a new problem, right? The new problem is someone shows up at a lounge saying, I've got I've got my platinum card and my companion has their companion platinum card. So let us both in. And and that's going to win just because I feel like it was just so confusing before. And they made a similar change on the on the business platinum side. So now when you add a free authorized user, there used to be business green card, which conflicted with the name of another business green card. Now it's another like business companion platinum card or something. Yeah. Yeah. And I see what you mean. It definitely makes it a little clearer and removes the common question that we get. Oh, if I'm a business green authorized user, can I still get the welcome bonus on the business green card, for instance, or, you know, that type of question?

Of course you can. But so it does help to clarify a little bit, but I can't help but think that it's even more confusing if you have like actual platinum authorized users and people that aren't platinum authorized users. And like, so what do you call it? Right, right, right. Additional platinum versus the companion platinum. That distinction, I think, becomes another confusing thing for me. I agree. That's that's my crazy. They should have called these something like useless authorized user platinum card or something like that. Useless card.

They couldn't get it. I could see why for branding reasons they wouldn't want that. Oh my goodness. So yeah, that's mostly a bummer. The one, I guess there was one change that I'm not going to call it positive, but there's a change in terms of what you could use the digital entertainment credit on. Right. So you'll no longer be able to use it for Audible. I forgot about that one. But now you'll be able to use it for Wall Street Journal, which just depends on which of those two things you prefer. If you're a Wall Street Journal person, I guess you'll be happy. And if you are an Audible person, you'll person you'll be unhappy so yeah i fall in the unhappy crowd with that one but uh that's okay yeah yeah yeah i think i'm more likely to use it for the wall street journal than i was for audible because

i don't usually listen to audiobooks but more likely in terms of like just slightly more likely and mostly likely to just continue to not use my digital entertainment credit as i have right yeah yeah all right well i think that brings us to mattress running the numbers right so this week's mattress running the numbers you can stand up to cancer and earn a whole bunch of points yes yes american airlines uh will let you earn 25 miles per dollar when you donate to stand up for cancer or 50 points per dollar. If you do that donation with your American airlines card. So that sounds fantastic, right? I mean, 50 miles per dollar and you donate to charity and get, uh, and get your charity and get your charitable tax credit or rebate, whatever it's called. Why is this not great? No, it's not fantastic. I mean, I'm not going to say it's bad. If you wanted to donate to

Stand Up To Cancer, then hey, great, you get some miles along with it. But no, it's not fantastic for a few reasons. So number one is that you're paying essentially, if you just look at it as buying the miles, you're paying just under two cents a mile is the way it works out with the 50X. So you'll end up paying a little bit less than two cents per mile because you have to do this with your American Airlines MasterCard. So you'll also earn points on that spend. So that's how I'm coming to the conclusion of just under two cents per mile, which is a price where I'm not really a buyer of American Airlines miles. That's not cheap enough to entice me. No, no. So there's that, especially since

especially since it doesn't include loyalty points. So except for the amount you spend on your card itself, that one X earns loyalty points. But yeah, the rest does not. So that's meh. Yeah, that's the biggest thing, I think, that I say, oh, I'm not even going to earn elite status out of that. So that interests me far less. And then if you were looking at this and saying, oh, well, I can donate to a good cause and get a tax deduction. Well, not necessarily either, because it says for charitable purposes, each mile is being valued at three cents per mile, which means that, for instance, if you donated a thousand dollars, then you're basically going to be marked as receiving fifteen hundred dollars in value. You're going to owe taxes, right? You're going to owe your taxes.

It almost seems like that. I don't know how that would shake out. I kind of doubt it. I don't think you have to pay more taxes, but you're certainly not going to get your tax deductions. And deduction, that's the word I was trying to think of earlier, and it just wouldn't come to me. As I said, I'm tired.

Right. I just got to Europe today and didn't sleep all that much overnight. OK. But he's still here. He's still here with us. So, yeah, so that's not a deal to do for just the miles. And I didn't know. I learned from Tim's post that Stand Up to Cancer is a division of the Entertainment Industry Foundation.

And I don't know anything about the entertainment industry foundation, but I, I guess I would want to do more research and know more about that also. So there's just a lot of reasons that this isn't necessarily a fantastic deal, unless you already wanted to donate money to that organization specifically then, then obviously, you know, great. Get some miles along with it. and we're not saying don't donate

we're just saying don't donate if all you wanted was the miles because it's probably not worth it it's not a great way of earning miles yeah if that's all you want yep all right all right let's do a word talk what's up in a word talk this week greg yeah we've got a couple things going on um ihg you'll remember that when they revamped their elite program a while back, they made it possible to get suite upgrades. And the nice thing there is like IHG, you could get a suite upgrade with as few as 20 nights stayed at IHG hotels within a year, which is way fewer than, you know, Marriott and Hyatt's suite upgrade options. So that's great.

But until now, you couldn't apply those on awards days. And the great news is now you can. They said from the beginning that they were working on it and it would be available eventually. And now it is. So I really have to say, I think IHG has done a really terrific job of rolling out this new program. I mean, and I say that from the point of view of we've been through these kind of like program overhauls in the past and they usually do not go well. Usually there's a lot of problems and I'm sure there have been some but overall they they they did such a gigantic overhaul of their elite program and to pull it off as well as they did is really really tremendous

well and to meet the promises they've made you know along the way when they've said that something is going to happen it's happened uh so that's that's been really nice because it doesn't always happen that way or a lot of times it'll go a lot more slowly than you expect. And then obviously the availability to use these sweet upgrades on awards days or the ability to do that rather, it was a little slower than we might like, but they didn't promise it to happen quickly. They just promised they were working on it. And sure enough,

you know, it's come true. So I, I give credit to IHG. I mean, they've, they've certainly become a player in this entire game in a way that they just weren't two or three years ago. I mean,

they were kind of an afterthought. It was great if your employer is spending all the money on your hotel stays and you just want to earn a lot of points and IHG made sense. But now IHG makes sense not only for that, but also if you want good elite benefits. I mean, it's a, I think it's a great program for somebody who doesn't stay a ton of nights because what do you need 20 nights to get the suite upgrades the first suite upgrade award so i believe that's it yeah yeah yeah so and then you could get another one i think it was at 40 nights so yeah yeah um good program there yep okay um so i believe finnair had some news as well. What's going on with them? Finnair is joining Avios.

So we've got another program under the Avios umbrella all of a sudden. So they will join British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia and Qatar Airways. Now we've got Finnair as well going to use the Avios program. So I don't know what British Airways is doing, what IAG is doing to sell everybody on their award program. So I don't know what British Airways is doing, what IAG is doing to sell everybody on their award program. But apparently, Finnair has decided that that's going to be the best for them moving forward. So I mean, that is mildly good news on its own, because Finnair's program didn't really seem to have many sweet spots in terms of, you know, award booking. So there wasn't a lot to do there, even though you could transfer to them from some card programs. But so that'll improve a little bit. The bigger news here is that they've committed to make a number of award seats available on their own flights. I think, what was it, eight seats in business class or something like that? It was, or maybe that was a kind of, I don't know. I don't

know. But it was quite a few, maybe it was four in business and eight in economy, but it was quite a bit of availability. It'd be a huge change over the current Finnair award availability scheme, because right now it can be really hard to find award seats on Finnair. Maybe you'll get one or two here and there, but it sounds like they're committing to release a bunch of seats on every flight. Yeah, I think this is really good news. I mean, for most of us, people who were already into Finnair and earning elite status and stuff, I think there were some downsides to all of this. But for most of us who get our points usually by transferring from transferable points currencies, now you'll be able to transfer from any of the big transferable points currencies to, for example, British Airways and then to Finnair. So it just opens up all kinds of possibilities that we didn't have before. That's good news. And, you know, maybe we will see, hopefully we will, a lot more award availability. And that's always great.

You know, so I take that back on the numbers that I said. So it's four, at least four economy, two premium economy, and at least two business class seats available on the flights between Europe and North America and their other long haul of Asia and Dubai. But I still that's that's a huge improvement over where they've been. And that's something that I think carries over from the other obvious programs, right? Because British Airways at some point had committed to making X number of seats available on every flight. And so it's great to see that expand. So like you said,

I think for most people listening to this show, that's going to be a net win. You know, there obviously will be some people that it won't be, but the vast majority of us, that's a win. So I like it. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Do you happen to remember when that happens? Yes, early 2024. So do I know exactly when? like it yeah yeah for sure do you happen to remember when that happens or early 20 nope yep early 2024 so do i know exactly when no but sometime in the first i would assume maybe the first quarter of 2024 i wouldn't be surprised if it happens shortly after the new year begins or whenever the award program year begins with uh british airways and i don't know what day that is, but I would not be surprised if it coincides. All right, cool. Well, are you ready for the main event? I don't know. I'm not sure. Don't get to phone a friend. And we will, if needed, give you some opportunities to ask for clues. So the main event today, 10 tricks for spending fewer points for

flights and hotels. And this main event this week is in the form of a game show where Nick is going to try to earn enough points to win the game. Now here's how it works. There are 10 questions. Each question is worth 10,000 points. Nick has to win a total of 75,000 points or more to win this game. That's a lot out of that. When I need eight, I need eight. You could nail eight totally, or you could get some partials. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Pressure is on here.

I will mention that there is a bonus question at the end that might give you a chance to get a few more points, just in case. I'll try not to rely on that, but no guarantees. Nick just wiped the sweat from his brow for you listeners out there. I'll try not to rely on that, but no guarantees. Nick just wiped the sweat from his brow for you listeners out there. That was that sound of the splat. All right.

We're going to start relatively easy. First up, we know that those people who have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card can get 1.5 cents per point value by booking travel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. How could people who are into points get 1.5 cents per point value for travel booked directly with travel providers as opposed to through a portal well better not uh compromise in any uh um copywritten material here but oh oh i was i was trying to do something for the video folks here and be like what is the No, I can't even do it on my watch here. What is the altitude reserve card from U.S. Bank? You can use their real-time mobile rewards. Now, that's not going to work with every travel provider on Earth, but with U.S.-based ones anyway,

you can pay with your altitude reserve card, and then if you have enough points to cover the charge, you'll receive a text message. If it meets the thresholds for what you can, minimum amounts of spend, then you'll receive a text message that tells you that you can redeem or ask you if you'd like to redeem your points for that. Now, I'm a relatively new Altitude Reserve cardholder. So I have to ask you a question, Greg, do you have to enroll in that? Or does that just automatically happen? You do have to enroll in it. Yes. Somewhere deep

in the bowels of the U.S. bank website, there's an option to enroll in real time mobile rewards. So do that. Right. OK, good. That's that's been exciting, though. In fact, we were at a restaurant yesterday in Alaska and I went to pay and they actually brought the credit card reader over like they do in Europe. And so I had a card out because I assumed I was going to have to give it to them. They were going to take it away. And then she brought the card reader over and I was like, oh, no, hang on a second. Let me pull out my watch because I want to use the altitude reserve. And of course, my wife popped in and she said, I have my gold card. Wouldn't that be better? And I said, well, yeah, but we got a lot of MX membership rewards points. So I'm pretty happy now with the altitude reserve because I'll use these points for car rentals and things like that in the future.

Right, right. And because you're getting three points per dollar for mobile payments, you're getting in total four and a half percent back towards travel because of the ability to use points for 1.5 cents. That's a point value each. So nice deal. So I got 10,000 points. All right. You've got 10,000 points. That was a correct answer. Okay. Moving on to the next question. How can a person get two cents per

point value when buying flights with American Express membership rewards points. How can they get two cents per point value? Two cents per point value. Two cents per point value? Yeah. Nick might be stumped here. So if you're using your Amex membership rewards points and two cents, what are we talking about here? Two cents. So I'm confused because i'm

thinking of course first of the business platinum card and the 35 rebate that you can get when you use points for your chosen airline or any airline in business or first class but that only works out to be just over one and a half cents per point so that's not what we're talking about here um so you've stumped me i think i'm question two wow do i need do you want it do you want it do i get a lifeline here do you want to uh do you want to get a a a uh tip i'll take a tip i'll take a hint do you want to take a hint yes so so the hint will reduce the the value of the of the uh this question to 5k that's i mean if i give you a tip you gotta do what you gotta do i mean right now it's worth zero okay all right um here's a tip there is you were on the right track with the business platinum card but there is a more expensive card

in amex's portfolio than the business platinum card this is a centurion card a black card uh perk apparently so you just need to pay the initiation fee of what is it twenty five hundred dollars or something or seventy i don't even know what it is anymore so you have to get invited to get the mx centurion card then you have to pay the initiation fee and then then maybe you can get yourself two cents per point apparently who would have known? So there you go. So that's all correct, except it has to be the, my understanding, it has to be the business version of the Centurion black card.

Oh my goodness, I can't even get 5,000 points for that, can I? The business version. Who knows about the Centurion card? Come on, Greg. How about you just break out your Centurion card and show everybody right now? Right, yeah, I don't have such a thing. I'm going to give you two and a half K points for that one, just for getting really close after the thing. So sorry. Sorry there, Nick.

Moving on. Can you describe two tricks that guarantee lower award flight prices by flying further? Okay, two tricks to get a lower price by flying further. This one I can probably handle. So one is to book through Avianca LifeMiles and to have a mixed cabin award. So that's actually both of them are going to be mixed cabin awards. But first up, Avianca Life Miles. If you book an award that is, for instance, mostly in business class, but then also has an economy class leg, it will cost less than if you had just a business class flight.

So, for instance, if you wanted to fly from New York to Paris in business class on United, it would cost 63,000 miles one way. But if you flew New York to Paris and then on to Istanbul from Paris to Istanbul in economy class, then you would pay less than 63,000 miles, quite a bit less probably because Paris to Istanbul is quite a long distance. Avianca calculates the price essentially based on the percentage of the flight that is flown in each cabin based on the price to fly from the origin to destination in that cabin. So you'll pay if you were just keep it simple. If it was 50 50, if New York to Paris was half the distance and Paris to Istanbul was half the distance of the overall award, you'd pay 50 percent of the business class price and 50

percent of the economy class price, which works out to be less than the business class price. So that's one way. That is correct. That's one way. And the other program that does that is Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, where you'll also run into that situation where if you have a connecting flight in a lower cabin, you'll pay something less than the cost of flying at all in the higher cabin. So again, if you can add on a long economy class leg at the end, you'll pay less than the business or first class price. Yeah. I think we do need a condition there, which remember that Cathay has a distance-based award chart. So you need to stay underneath the distance band is what greg is getting at so adding a flight that keeps you within the distance band uh that doesn't break

into the next distance band will reduce the price and that's of course for their own flights also right i don't think that that is valid for partner flights. I don't think. Yeah, I can't remember. Okay, good, good, good. That ought to give me some bonus points. I'll give you the 10 question. All right. All right. All right. Let's see. Okay. So we know that British Airways tends to offer a lot of award availability but they also offer very high surcharges when flying British Airways. All right. So three ways to get lower surcharges. Number one with British Airways

is to use Cathay Pacific Asia miles because they charge fewer in awards or charges than British Airways does or other one world programs do. So you'll pay quite a bit less if you book through Cathay Pacific Asia miles. So that's number one. And oftentimes the price is reasonable, too. I mean, a lot of Europe is 60,000, 61,000 miles to the East Coast. So it's a reasonable award cost and many fewer dollars added on. So that's number one. Number two would be to originate in Europe somewhere other than London. And when you connect through London, I just recently wrote about doing this Brussels to London to Vancouver, then the surcharges are significantly less. So rather than the, I don't know, $800 in surcharges you'd pay if you started that award. I just mentioned in London from Brussels, it was only $340 in surcharges and taxes. So, and probably at least a hundred of that was taxes anyway. So probably 250 ish in surcharges, which is not awful.

So that's technique number two. Technique number three is to just not buy an award ticket, buy a cash ticket, and then you won't pay any surcharges at all it's just it's all rolled in there it's i am not going to accept that answer because because i i said three three ways that for for booking award that have lower surcharges okay uh so so those were two the third one i know two more we're talking about booking through cutter airways uh so that you well the but i think they made that the same didn't they so that's not true either um i mean does i booking iberia through iberia account no because that's not a british airways award so that's not reducing the british airways uh fees so i know i need to phone a friend again i can't think of a third way those are the two ways i would reduce the taxes and fees what am i missing greg all right well so rather than give you a hint

here i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you um three ways that that i can think of um one is british airways now let you pay more avios to have lower surcharges. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Number two, the British Airways credit card from Chase will give you a rebate once a year or twice a year, depending on him. Number three,

you could fly British Airways economy and the surcharges are much, much less than business class. Still flying British Airways. All right. All right. True, true, true. No, those are all good. And the more obvious thing is potentially a pretty good deal if you hit a good transfer bonus, maybe, you know, because I think what East Coast to, so for instance, New York to London, I think is what, $57,500 or something like that, plus lots of surcharges or $80,000

with no surcharges, really just the taxes. So it's not necessarily a bad deal, save you quite a bit of money. So I think it's actually probably a better deal in a lot of cases. That's in off peak times, I think. I can't recall the off peak versus peak, but you can do pretty well. So yeah, that was a good technique that I should have remembered. And the credit card is one that certainly counts, but I never came to mind because I've never considered the card seriously, but that is definitely one of the benefits

and one that could make sense for you. Yeah, yeah. How many points do you think you deserve for getting two out of three? I mean, two out of three ain't bad. I learned that from Meatloaf years ago. So I think I should get at least 7,200 points. No?

7,200? Well, I don't know. I'm just making numbers up here. All right. I'm going to give you 7K points for that. I should have gone for like 77 so you'd round up. Well, I thought you'd do seven seven five so that the two five you earned earlier would round up to 100 yeah to 10k you could have done um

yeah i could have but no no i guess i wasn't feeling generous enough um all right so we're very close you're very close anyway to to having to being like on track with sort of as you're you're four questions down and you have sort of the very close to the equivalent of three right answers okay all right all right so moving on all right i think you're gonna get this one how is it possible to fly within Europe for as few as 4,000 points one way? 4,000 points. My goodness. What would it be?

No. Yeah. See, Greg is right. If you use Virgin Atlantic to fly on Air France or KLM, you can fly for as few as 4,000 points one way. And also they have a partnership with ITA. I'm not sure if ITA is as low as 4,000 or not, but you'd have to take a look and see. It's going to be a semi-distance-based chart. And I say semi because it's a little weird.

Greg wrote quite a bit about how that works in terms of if the distance between your origin and destination city is pretty short. Even if your connection makes it longer, you'll still pay less. So I'll leave a link in the description. By the way, everything we've been talking about, I'll leave links in the description to give you more information. I should have said that before because booking with Iberia and I'm rather, I'm sorry, booking with Avianca Life Miles to pay less. So we say mixed cabin awards, first class for less. We have a post about that. We have a post about using Asia miles to again, fly first class for

last so there'll be posts linked in the description to these things that greg is quizzing me on and so and i say that not knowing what's coming next but i'm pretty sure we probably have a post written about whatever these tricks are so uh so you'll have a link to this one also there but i think i get the points for that you you do you do You get full points for this one. Plus, I'm going to give you an opportunity to get 2,500 bonus points. If you could tell me... When you use

Virgin Miles to book KLM or Air France, it'll cost 4,000 points in standard season when it's under a certain number of miles. How many miles does that flight have to be under oh i don't know i'm gonna have to make up a number here and hope aren't i uh i'm gonna say it has to be under 600 miles oh my goodness that's exactly oh yes

all right you got a bonus 2500 i'll take it i'll take it nice very nice good job i imagine that number like being in the post you wrote about it but i i hey i'll take you know it's funny when i was writing this question out i was thinking in my head it was 500 miles because some other programs use 500 as a threshold for these short hops. But yeah, looked it up. It was 600. Well done. Well played. All right.

Now I've got probably maybe the hardest one of all. I don't think we've written about this one. Uh-oh. There's no link. So I'm going to give you 20,000 points if you get this one right. But I don't think you're going to. I'm hopeful though. So you know that United recently raised their business class award prices to go to Europe, especially on partners. How can you fly business class across the Atlantic Ocean for 55,000 United miles? And you can do that today. Okay. So this question is interesting because they raised their

business class prices. And so now a partner award costs something like 88,000 miles. A United Award on its own metal used to cost 60. And so now you're telling me 55. So there's got to be something there that I didn't know about before. I mean, the only thing that comes to mind initially would be interesting. The only thing that initially came to my mind would be web special type things that United sometimes charges less. But I don't think that you would put in a question about the fact that United might sometimes you get lucky and they charge a little bit less. So I don't think that's it. So my other thing that just popped into my mind is, is that a price to upgrade an economy ticket somehow? I never look at upgrades. So I'm wondering if that's an upgrade price. So that would be clever but but that's not it. I will give you a hint and reduce the value of this to 10K. OK. Think about flying not across the Atlantic and that did seem oddly specific to me. So I guess you must be talking about not from North America. That's interesting. From South America to Africa is what we're talking about across the Atlantic. That doesn't make any sense. 55K United miles. Is that really what they charge for that? So that's what I'm seeing from Sao Paulo to uh johannesburg for example or to cape town

and you could even fly onward to like adas um 55k 55k interesting and so is that flying on their partners also or only on united metal um it is no none of it's United Metal. It's all partners. I mean, I don't know that United has a flight. Well, they don't. Well, is there, is there, so who flies? So, uh, South African Airways, I guess, still flies that. Yeah. Interesting. Very interesting. Or at least, or at least United's still willing to, to book it. To sell you that ticket, right.

Whether or not. It's actually being operated. They'll sell you the ticket. I don't know. That seems a little suspect to me because I felt like South African Airways, you know, it didn't shut down, but it almost shut down. Right. So I'm, I find it surprising if they're still operating a flight on that route, but Hey, apparently United thinks they are. So yeah, interesting. All right. I think since I had to handhold you so far in that one, I'm just going to give you 5K points.

All right. All right. I'm surprised I got that many. I'll take that. I'll take that. But as I started out, I knew it was very unlikely. Very unlikely. All right. As I started out, I knew it was very unlikely. Very unlikely.

All right. Now, we were all talking about flights from before. Now we're going to talk lodging. Okay. This has got to be easier, right? Yes. Well, some. All right. First question.

Name three ways to pay for a regular room award, but confirm a suite instead. All right. Three ways to pay for a regular room award, but confirm a suite instead. So number one, we talked about during our award talk segment on this week's show, we talked about the fact that IHG now allows you to apply their suite upgrade awards on awards days. Now, I think they only confirm the suite 14 days in advance, so it's not the best ever, but it's a way that you could get yourself a suite paying for a regular room. So there's one. Two would be Marriott. If you've got if you earn 50 elite nights in a year, then you get a choice benefit and one of your choice benefits could

be suite night awards. And so you'd get five suite night awards. So again, you can pay for a regular award and apply a suite night award. Now those are a little bit more limited because you need to have one for every night of your stay. So if you had three suite night awards in your account and a four night stay, you're not going to be able to apply three to three of the nights. So it's kind of a pain and they don't confirm those until five days in advance of arrival at most. And anybody who's ever tried to use them knows that that doesn't always happen either. So they're very hit or miss. But that's another way you could potentially anyway. And I have. Absolutely. Still counts. Yep. And then third

would be Hyatt. If you hit 50 elite nights with Hyatt in a year, you get two suite upgrade awards. Those are awesome because you can apply those at the time of booking. So as long as there's a standard suite available, you book a regular room and apply one of those suite upgrade awards at the time of booking for a stay of up to seven nights. So you get two of those at 50 elite nights and two more at 60 elite nights. So that's a fantastic benefit because it could save you a ton of points and get you an awesome suite in some places. All right. Very good. You get 10K points for that one.

And now I had a fourth one in mind, which is not an upgrade, not using an upgrade instrument or anything like that. How else? This will be a bonus 2,500 points if you can get this. Well, the other way then would be booking Hyatt Premium Suite or suite awards directly through Hyatt with points. So Hyatt offers their suites with points. Is that that? No, you're thinking something else. No award for a regular you're paying for a standard you're paying the price for a standard room okay i see i see i see i so you're talking about choice privileges then because choice privileges offers often times any room for the cost of a standard room i shouldn't even say often times many times in many places you can pay the same price for a

regular room or a suite in terms of the number of points. But you can only book 100 days in advance with choice privileges. So that's a bummer. Yeah, I predict they will change that soon. But we'll see. I don't have any inside knowledge. I'm just thinking that, you know, we can help. It's such a crazy rule.

It is. We can hope. Yeah, I'm just being hopeful. Okay. Ready for a really crazy one? I am. All right. What type of lodging would cost me 67,500 points per night?

67,500 points per night. A, no, I was going to say a Hilton property that, uh, cause they're dynamically priced, but they wouldn't, uh, they wouldn't do that. And I know what you're going to say, but I, the other thing that came to mind initially that I know isn't it either, uh, is that, uh, uh, well, no, wait, that just totally went out of my mind. So I think what you're talking about is the Vacasa vacation rental and how many bedrooms would it have to be? 13, five, four, five. I don't know how many bedrooms that have to be five bedrooms. I'm 13, five, 15. Yeah. Five bedrooms, right? A five bedroom Vicasa vacation rental would cost 67,500 points per night. And that's if under what condition? Okay. There you

are. I'm getting there. Slow down. You are, you are. I know my Vacasa. So if, so, okay, let's back up a little bit for somebody who's absolutely new. So Wyndham Rewards has a partnership with Vacasa Vacation Rentals where you can pay 15,000 points per bedroom per night for Vacasa Vacation Rentals. And there are some limits there. We think of up to $500 or we're pretty sure up to $500 per bedroom per night, all included with all the fees and all the rest of that. So by and large, most of the cost of properties, anyway, you'd be able to book at 15,000 points per bedroom per night. But if

you've got a Wyndham credit card, one of the Wyndham earner credit cards, so the Wyndham business card, for instance, then you get a 10% discount on awards days, including these Vacasa vacation rentals. And it's nice because it's not a rebate, but rather a discount. So you don't need to have the extra points initially and get some rebate back. You just get a 10% discount right off the bat. So instead of paying 75,000 points for a five bedroom property, you'd pay 67,500 points. You nailed that one. Good job. That was great. I

thought that would be hard because it seemed like such a random number out of nowhere. Well, it helps that I'm recording this episode from a four-bedroom Vacasa vacation rental. That made it a little bit easier for me. That's awesome. All right. So I had this 67.5 number stuck in my head. So I'm going to ask you another question about that number. How could one pay on average 67.5% of the original award price for hotel lodging? On average, 60. So you're talking about on average getting 22.5%. No, I'm sorry. Boy, that was horrible math. 32.5% back. So I pay an average cost. Read me the question one more time. I mean, you're on the right track. It was a weird way of saying, how can you get 32.5% off the award price of hotel lodging? Of hotel lodging. How can you get 32.5% off of the award price of hotel lodging? You buy points on sale, transfer bonus.

I don't know where we're going with this. I am totally lost, Greg the Frequent Miler. I need to phone a friend here. All right. We're going to drop the value to 5K. Okay. You need two credit cards to make this happen. Yeah, okay.

That's the hint. You need two credit cards to make this happen. Yeah, okay. That's the hint. You need two credit cards to make this happen. So you need two credit cards to save 32.5% on awards. Okay, I see. It took me longer than it should have there. So what Greg is talking about is that if you have the current IHG Premier card, then you get the fourth night free on award stays. So that would drop your award cost by 25%. So you would pay 25% on average with four nights. That's why I use that expression because it really depends on how much that costs. Right, right, right. And then if you also have the old IHG card that you can't get anymore,

and if you have that old IHG card, now you can't get the IHG Traveler. If you don't already have both, then you'd have to drop your old one. I think I don't think you can get the new one. So you'd have to be in a situation where you already have those two cards. And if you are in that situation, then you also get a 10% rebate on your award stays with the old IHG card. Because the way the math would work out on the 10%, it doesn't add. It's not additive to the 25. It turns out to be like 32 and a half. So I should have gotten that.

Very, very good. All right. We're coming into our 10th question. So let me, before we get to it, add up how many points you have. Tally it up. I haven't paid attention. All right. So let's see.

One, two, three, four, five. You got five 10K answers. Okay. That's 50K off the bat right there. Two thirds of the way there you got you've got two 5ks okay so we're at what 60k total right yeah um you've got three 2.5ks so we're now at what 67.5k yeahK? Yeah. And then you got 17K. Uh-oh.

So now we're at 74.5? Oh, my goodness. Did I add that right? Wow, that would be just short. Just short with one question to go. So that puts a lot of pressure on this question. Oh, my gosh, that 0.5 really hurts, doesn't it? Right, if I had only asked for 7.5.

Now remember, there is a bonus question afterwards. So there will be a chance. Okay. You will have a chance. So we're already predicting that there's no chance of me getting this one right, apparently. Well, no, because don't you need over 10K? No, you said I needed 75K to win. Oh, you're right. You're right.

You just need to get this right. How old is this? You're right. I was thinking 85K. Right. No, you're right. Okay. But it takes away.

All right. It takes an exam. It's not my fault you didn't know where the points are. I thought you had to nail this one plus get the points, but that's not the case. Nick just has to get this one right, and then he can go home and retire for the rest of the night. All right, let's see. I'm ready for the mic drop. All right.

How could one pay 55% fewer points than advertised for a hotel award cost? 55% fewer. Greg, with all this math first thing in the morning I said I had one cup of coffee it was 55% fewer wait say it again one more time

alright so given that a hotel award price has a price of course and it has a price in And it has a price in points. You want to pay 55% fewer points than that amount.

How can you do that? Stay at a different hotel. Not what I'm going for here. All right. Go at a different time if it's a Marriott. So you want to pay 55% fewer points than the advertised price so you you would like to pay 45 of the advertised price then uh you would need to i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna throw in a little hint, I think. Well, no.

Do you want to? Yeah. I mean, you only need like 500 points. I know. So I could drop it. Yeah. We could drop it to a 5K. We could drop it to a 5K.

Let's do it. Let's do it. I'll take the hint. I can't think of it. I'm stumped. All right. It doesn't have to be the original points. So you could be using fewer could be using fewer of points to get there.

All right. OK, so I was on the wrong track. Totally. So so what Greg is talking about here, then, I assume, is finding a property like, for instance, through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal, where you can use points at one and a half cents per point to book. So you may find a hotel, for instance, that costs, I don't know, let's try and keep the math simple, that costs 20,000 points per night as an award, but you look it up and you find, oh, wow, it's only $100 a night for that hotel. So I only need to use 7,500 points per night to book it through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. Is that what you're talking about? No, no, no. Because this is straight up, man, this is predictable. Predictable, 55%. Oh, okay. All right. Predictable. So it doesn't have

to be the same type of points. You can use fewer points to stay in that same type of lodging. Do you want another hint to drop the value of this question down to 1K? Oh my goodness. I guess I need another one. Yes. All right. All right. To make this one work, you need two credit cards. And it's not the two we talked about before. Yes, right. Of course it's not. So you need two credit cards and they play together somehow to save you points on the stay net overall but they're not necessarily the same sets of points uh so you're talking about some sort of lodging building cards i can't think how those would really help uh the uh we talked about a bunch of other things already i you know i'm i i'm gonna have to like punt to the bonus question here oh my goodness i i don't know i'm i'm stuck all right so uh the answer is

you have your city premiere card you transfer one to two to choice okay and you also have a rewards plus card which gives you a 10 rebate and so you you start off with 50 and then the 10 rebate and you end up with paying uh 45 percent oh that's a that is a great technique so 45 percent for clarity talking about paying uh uh 45 of the award cost in terms of the number of city points that you need to book the awards right because's right. Because you get double the points when you transfer over to choice privileges. So how did I miss that? Right, right. Oh, my goodness.

I don't know. It's so obvious. Let me hide here in my hoodie. Shame. For those of you listening, you can't see me pulling my hoodie down. It's one of those like sort of extreme ninja tricks. Oh, my God. How could you expect anyone to know that?

But unfortunately. Well, you can expect the guy that you pay to could you expect anyone to know that but uh unfortunately well you can expect the guy that you pay to know about these things to know about them but it was i know it was tough all right okay final bonus round all right this one is worth i don't know it's worth i guess i'm gonna call it a thousand points. A thousand points. I better not need to phone a friend. What are Delta miles worth if you use them in a Delta Sky Club to pay for a premium drink? Oh, I was thinking they're worth one cent per point. I think it used to be more, but I think it's now one cent per point. I go with one cent per.

I think it used to be more, but I think it's now one cent per point. No, no, no. They used to be two cents per point. They're now one point five point five. Oh, man. Oh, I lost the game. Oh, there it goes. Oh, man. Well, all right.

So, Nick, Nick did not win. And the grand prize, I didn't even tell him, was that he was going to be able to get a dream job where he can talk and write about whatever hobby he's most passionate about. But I'm afraid we can't award that to him. Oh, my goodness. You know, I hope I and it's funny because my two yearold son yesterday was unhappy with me and he told me I'm fired. And I said, I'm going to have to look for a new job then. You're fired in the dad job. Oh, man.

Yes, yes, yes. I got fired from the dad job. No, no, we are not firing Nick. No, not at all. But I hope anyone who is playing along at home is jumping around, dancing around because they won, you know, and but don't have any proof, unfortunately. Sorry about that. But I think I still think Nick did a tremendous job and got some really, really hard questions. Right. Tremendous might be a stretch, but OK. All right. I can't believe it came down to five.

That's just unbelievable. You know, after the show, I'm going to re-add these up just to make sure. And then maybe next week we can come on and say if that was really the answer. Okay. All right. So unfortunately, that concludes today's main event. But fortunately, that brings us to this week's question of the week. And so our question of the week this week should be a layup for Greg. It's a layup, Greg.

So you gave me all these hard questions. But you're giving me an easy one. Great. I'm glad to hear it. All right. So it's a question about hotels slash Airbnb for families. We get a question like this quite often. And Josh in Seattle wrote in this week and said, I haven't seen this covered much. So I thought I'd ask here. I now find myself traveling with my wife and two

young kids, one and two and a half, and sometimes are a pair. This has made hotels much less appealing and Airbnb much more. So the main issue is that I don't have a good way of booking Airbnbs with points. What, if any, are the best ways to do so? Not talking about buying Amazon slash Airbnb gift cards with the ink card at 5x, etc. More interested in not feeling like I'm paying a ton of money to stay somewhere. On the flip side, how would you effectively book two rooms at a reasonable rate? I've done it with Hyatt occasionally, but it still adds up and I don't have Globalist anymore. Sorry for the long one. So thanks in advance, Josh. Josh wants to know how he can save on lodging for four or five people. So I can't believe Josh hasn't heard us talk about a cost of vacation rentals. But I mean,

that's the obvious answer is get some Wyndham points. And there's lots of ways of getting them, including being able to transfer from city or capital one to Wyndham one-to-one, buy them for slightly under one cent per point when they're on sale, get the Wyndham business earner card and get all kinds of great benefits with that card and plus the welcome bonus. And then you can book a Vacasa vacation rental for 15,000 points per night, per bedroom. And you get a 10% discount if you have that Wyndham earner card as well. And there are some terrific properties. Now, that doesn't fully, fully answer Josh's question because vacasa is plentiful in certain places, right? So if you want to, if you want to spend time in Hawaii, it's great.

Certain places in like Tennessee and North Carolina and California, it's great, but it's just not everywhere. Um, but that's the best answer I have for, for what he's talking about. I think that I can think of. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's that, I think that's the best answer I have for what he's talking about, I think, that I can think of. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think that's the best answer is Vacasa. But it's not a great answer because if you want to go to Europe, for instance, that's not going to do you any good. Although Wyndham does have a partnership with Cottages.com, but that's only going to be in the UK. So there's limited availability there, too.

So same kind of thing, 15,000 points per bedroom per night, which is great if you'd like to go to the UK and you find a place on cottages.com, but otherwise kind of a limited use there. So the other thing, so here's a question for you, and I don't know the answer and I should have looked it up, but I didn't. So I'm going to hope that you just know it off the top of your head. U.S. Bank mobile, real-time mobile rewards. Can those be used for Airbnb? I don't remember off the top of my head. Okay. So you have to check. I'll link to the U.S. Bank real-time mobile rewards data points in terms of what works. So my question there is, can you pay for an Airbnb with your altitude reserve

card and then apply points at one and a half cents per point? I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head, so I'm not sure, but that's something that would come to mind to make it feel more free in terms of using your points for vacation. I'm going to bring up a few other things that occur to me. So, you know, there's a number of points that you can use to book things that are like timeshare condos. So there you'll get multiple bedrooms and everything. And so you can use Hyatt points to book like destination residences. You can use Wyndham points to book various timeshare like properties. You can use choice points for, what is it called? Something green. I can't remember what it's called. Blue green. Blue green.

Blue green. And then you could use Marriott points, but not to good value to book Marriott homes and villas. So those are just some things that pop in my mind as well. Yeah, well, and sometimes Marriott Vacation Club properties are available with your Marriott points. And sometimes those are condo-like. I stayed in a really nice two-bedroom in near Disney Paris, actually, last year, that was a great property, actually, potentially good use of free night certificates if you have them. So so those come to mind as ways that you could save in terms of vacation rentals and making them feel free. Sort of a cheating answer that I think Josh isn't going to like, but one that I'll

throw out there anyway, is that I like to look at things like new checking account bonuses as a slush fund for stuff like this. Now, it's money, so you're still going to feel like you're spending money, but you open a couple of new checking accounts and pay for the vacation rental. With that, it can feel a little bit less like it's digging into your pocket if you can separate in your mind the money that you earned from those checking account bonuses. So that's a potential way. Now, the other thing worth mentioning here is you said, how could you effectively book two rooms at a reasonable rate with various award programs? So there's a few different options that come to mind when you say that, and they're not all the same. One is that we mentioned before, Choice Privileges often has properties where you can book a suite for the same

number of points as a regular room. And I think Steven even found a couple of places with two bedroom suites that you could book or even three bedroom, I think, for the same number of points as a standard room along those same lines. Hyatt, you can use points to book a suite or a premium suite. And in some cases, those suites and premium suites can be like two rooms that are connected, or at least they'll have enough space for a family quite easily. And I frequently use that technique because I like to have a suite. So that's another one that comes to mind. Hyatt also has what they call the family rate. And now this isn't a way to use points. You'd have to be using that, I guess,

checking account bonus money or points that you cashed out to make it feel free to yourself. But they have the family rate where in some cases you can book a standard room and then get half off for an additional room. Now, that's only available at some properties. They don't all have the family rate. But what I did find was that I think anyway, when I checked on this a few years ago and I wrote a post about it, you could book an award room for the first room and then pay half the cash rate for the second room. So it's not free, but you could potentially get a more reasonable deal on two rooms that way. So you'd have to call Hyatt and ask if the family rate's available. I don't know of a code you can search on the website for that. I think you just have to call Hyatt and ask if the

particular property you're interested in has a family rate. So those are some things that come to mind. I think that gives you a few options anyway, right, Josh? I think that, yeah, I think that does a good job of giving some options to start digging into. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much. We enjoyed this week's episode. We hope you did too. And if you enjoyed it, listening to it this week, and you'd like to get more of this stuff in your email inbox each day or each week, you want to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe. Again, that's frequentmiler.com slash subscribe, you can join our email list, follow us on all the various social media, we're on Instagram, we have our frequent miler insiders

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