Frequent Miler on the Air - American Airlines Loyalty Game Hidden Treasures | Ep179 | 12-3-22

Episode Date: December 3, 2022

Get JetBlue Mosaic-like benefits or Alaska elite-like benefits without ever setting foot on a plane with the American Airlines Loyalty Point game. This week Greg and Nick discuss some reasons you may be missing that might make it worth playing the game. 1:11 Giant Mailbag 2:29 What crazy thing....did Capital One Shopping do this week? 5:35 Mattress running the numbers: Should you do the American Airlines elite status fast track if you have Hyatt elite status? https://frequentmiler.com/american-airlines-launches-a-fast-track-to-status-for-hyatt-elite-members/ 15:50 Awards we booked this week: Hyatt Regency MCO 17:51 American Airlines Loyalty Games Hidden Treasures https://frequentmiler.com/aas-loyalty-point-pursuit-game-earn-status-w-out-flying/ https://frequentmiler.com/aa-status-win-complimentary-extra-legroom-seating-on-jetblue/ 44:59 Question of the Week: What is the best card for unbonused spend? https://frequentmiler.com/best-everywhere-else-rewards-cards/ 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 miler on the air starts now. Today's main event, American Airlines loyalty game, Hidden Treasures. I like Hidden Treasure. I want to find some treasure.

Well, who doesn't, right? American Airlines has this cool new way of earning elite status, which you can do from home just by playing the loyalty game. That's what we call it anyway. And we'll get into that a little bit, but more the point here is we're going to be talking about special things you get with American Airlines elite status that you wouldn't have necessarily thought of when you first did this. So neither of us, I think, fly American Airlines all that often, but we've been playing the loyalty game kind of for fun. And this week, Nick found that he got some benefits out of it

that he wasn't even expecting. And so we'll talk about that and much more when we get to the main event. Yeah, absolutely. First now, the giant mailbag. So today's giant mail comes from Apple Podcast Reviews. And this one's from Authenticity Always. And this person says the subject heading is one podcast to rule them all. And they say, I have followed Frequent Miler from one card to rule them all up to three cards, three continents. Thank you for the great content. If you want to improve in the hobby of maximizing credit card spend and miles and points, this podcast is a must listen.

Thank you. I appreciate that. That's great to hear. And I agree with you. It is a must listen. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's great to hear. And I agree with you. It is a must listen. Yeah. And for those who haven't been following Frequent Miler since the very beginning, one of the earliest most read posts on the Frequent Miler blog was called One Card to Rule Them All. And that's where this reviewer came up with the review title, One Podcast to Rule Them All. So thank you very much. Really enjoyed that review. Yeah, because clearly that's somebody who's been listening for a long time.

That's right. Or watching. And reading. Reading. Doing all of the stuff you do. The following. Should we put it that way? Fully into the Frequent Miler universe. Very good. Very good. All right. So I think that brings us to what crazy thing did Capital One Shopping do this week? You know, we're fans of Capital One Shopping these days because if you install the toolbar extension and click around on various sites. They'll send you emails with incredible offers for huge amounts of cash back.

And so we've been really digging that. Today, I got one that I thought was kind of funny. It was for DoorDash. And at the top, it said, get $30 back with Capital One Shopping. Wait. Oh, you get $30 back. Okay. All right. $30 back. That's great. Get $30 back with Capital One Shopping. Wait. Oh, you get $30 back. Okay. All right.

$30 back. That's great. Get $30 back with Capital One Shopping. And then just below that, just a little bit lower down, it said maximum $10 value. I mean, you're ordering through DoorDash, so maybe they're saying you can't order from any good restaurants. Maximum $10 in value. Maybe that's it. Get $30 back, max $10. Now in the background, Stephen pointed out that this email also separately had like a coupon code to get like 25% off your order. And so he said probably the max $10 value relates to that coupon code. But the funny thing is how it's all organized in the email. It doesn't look like that at all. Like that coupon code's in a separate section of the email entirely. And the $30 and $10 limit are closer together.

So anyway, that was just kind of a funny little crazy thing by Capital One Shopping. Yeah, I mean, but seriously, the crazy thing Capital One Shopping has been doing is these targeted offers that are just nuts. I got another one just yesterday for a site I haven't even been to, Bergdorf Goodman, 30% cash back, which I mean, I'm not one to shop many of the things that Bergdorf Goodman has, but for example, I know that Craig's wife will be happy to hear this.

They have to me bags. So 30% back on a to me bag. I mean, that's a huge amount of cash back. So, I mean, we've seen similar offers at other places. So, So totally worth it. If you still have not, somehow you've been listening to us and you have not gone to install the Capital One Toolbar yet and played with that a little bit, then you should go back and listen to the previous week's podcast, the Extreme Stacking one, because totally worth it. Okay. Yeah, I agree. But I have to say, you mentioned to me, we've fallen out of love with Tumi.

Oh, uh-oh. you mentioned to me, we've fallen out of love with, yeah. So, so a roller bag that we got about four years ago when I was in Toronto, the handle broke and you know, when you're traveling, how incredibly awkward that is if your suitcase handle breaks. So I couldn't roll it behind me. I was basically carrying this luggage down the street. It was a mess. And I sent it in to me. They made me pay for my own postage to send it in. I thought these had lifetime warranties, but it turned out it cost me $90 to fix it. Yeah, it was crazy.

I ended up paying it because I couldn't get a bag like this, you know, for anywhere near 90 bucks. But, yeah, totally. That leaves a lot of taste. Yeah. Sorry to me. So no 30% back for Greg. Okay. Well, that brings us next to then Mattress Running the Numbers.

So this week's Mattress Running the Numbers is the American Airlines Fast Track. So they came out with a promotion this week. What's going on with the promotion? Yeah. So it's sort of a two-way promotion. They have a partnership. American Airlines and Hyatt have a partnership. And this is a two-way promotion where if you have Hyatt elite status, you can fast track to American Airlines status. And if you have American Airlines status, you can fast track to Hyatt elite. And if you have American Airlines status, you can fast track to Hyatt Elite status. For Matchless Running the Numbers, we're going to talk briefly about the first one, which is if you have Hyatt Elite status.

Sorry, let me go the other way. No, that's right. If you have Hyatt Elite status, then how you can fast track to American Airlines status. OK, so if you have Hyatt Explorist status, which is their mid tier, you can get for free just by you have to just link your accounts in your American Airlines account, link your Hyatt account there by December 12th. And then you have to register for this there by December 12th. And then you have to register for this promotion by December 28th. And if you have Explorer status, you get four months of American Airlines Platinum status, which is kind of a mid-tier elite status with American. If you have Hyatt Global status, which is Hyatt's top tier, you get Platinum Pro elite status, which is upper middle tier American elite status.

And if you meet the earning goals of how many American Airlines loyalty points you are required for the next four months after enrolling, you can keep that level of status for another four months and then you have to do it again, get another four months. So it's really like this hamster wheel of status getting. But the one sort of cool thing is with either status level, if you earn 67,000 loyalty points in four months, you jump up to top-ish tier American Airlines executive platinum status again for the next four months though. So it's a little bit, I shouldn't even

say a little bit, it's a lot of bit confusing, this whole promotion, how it works and how you keep status. It's not like most status matches where you meet a challenge and then you get status for a whole year. it's not like that. This one, it keeps you on this four-month by four-month little hamster wheel. So the question here for matches running the numbers is, should you do it? There's no cost to it. If you have Hyatt Elite status and if this would give you a higher level American Airlines Elite status than you already have, should you do it? What do you think?

Well, so the first piece to consider is that I think I read in our post about it or in a post about it. I can't recall which, but hopefully you'll be able to tell me whether it was our post about it. I think I read that you can only do this once every couple of years or something, right? 24 months. 24 months. So that means if you do this one, you're not going to be able to do it for another 24 months. So if you're not going to be flying American at all, the first part of next year, then this probably wouldn't make a lot of sense. You probably wouldn't want to burn a chance to do that. You'd probably want to hang out and wait for another promotion in the future when you think you're going to fly american enough for it to matter right yeah yeah so i have a flight coming up in january i currently have platinum status with american um if i did this match thing I'd have Platinum Pro. And so I would earn a 80% bump on my mileage earnings instead of a 60% bump if I did this. So is it worth it given that? I mean, probably not. I guess it depends on how

many miles you're earning, but since you can earn so many through the shopping portal, I doubt that, I mean, unless you're on a really, really expensive fare, which I also doubt, then it's not going to make like any difference. It's like throwing a rock in a pond, you know, you're going to make a little ripple and it's going to be gone. It's going to be a small amount.

That's exactly what I was thinking, that it's small difference. I mean, the flip side could be an argument saying, well, I'm probably not going to need to do the status match in the next two years. So why not get a little bump now? I don't think it hurts. I don't think it derails my regular earnings and plans for getting elite status with American. I think it's just sort of on top of that as a side thing. Well, yeah. And I think that maybe if you intend to parlay that with a status match to somebody else, then that could certainly make sense. So even if you're not flying American, but you think, oh, well, maybe I can status match this to Delta or to United or somewhere else, some other foreign program that you want to, well, then there might be some wisdom in that. So, you know, that would be a reason to do it. Now, in my case, here's where I want to, well, then there might be some wisdom in that. So, you know, that would be a reason to do it. Now, in my case, here's, here's what I want. I want to talk this out. Cause I, I mentioned this in our conversation about it behind the scenes, but I didn't actually follow up with the rest of

the conversation on it. So here's my situation. I'm about 40,000 loyalty points short of qualifying for platinum pro right now. I have platinum about 40,000 away from platinum pro. So if I register for this and I, then I would need in order to, to keep platinum pro from the, the, the whole challenge here, I'd need to earn 42,000 points, which I basically, if I earn that many in the next two months, I'm going to be platinum pro anyway. So this fast track isn't going to make big difference to me. But if I continue spending from there and I hit the executive platinum, I'll have executive platinum for four months. And when the trial runs out, I'll still have platinum pro, right? So it seems to me like I should probably do the additional 27K or whatever beyond what I already need anyway in order to get to the executive

platinum trial, right? I see. I see. Cause you're yeah. So I already have to earn 40,000 if I, if I want platinum pro and I, and I do, that was the goal. Right. So I already need 40. So why wouldn't I go to 65 or whatever, 67, whatever it is for the executive platinum. I'm so close and I have two more months to hit it. I see what you're saying. I didn't understand when, when you wrote it in your message. Yeah. So the difference is if you were going to try to get all the way to executive platinum from Platinum Pro, that's an additional 75,000 loyalty points you would need. Whereas this gives you an opportunity

to get there for 20 some thousand, but only for four months. Only for four months. Yeah. So, well, it's eight months, right? Because you'll get the trial for four months. Only for four months. Yeah. So, well, it's eight months, right? Because you'll get the trial for four months and then you'll extend it for four months, right? So you don't really end up with it for a total of potentially up to eight months, I guess, or no, not potentially for a full eight months. So it seems to me in my situation, like it's probably worth going for executive platinum. Here's a related question though, for somebody who's not in the same situation as me, which is probably more people. So if you go for the executive platinum, let's say, then, well, you know what? That's a bad example. If you go for platinum pro, because that requires you'll get platinum pro status

for four months, right? So if you're a high globalist, you do the platinum pro challenge, then you would get platinum pro for four months and you need to earn, what is it? 42,000 loyalty points in order to keep it. So what if you don't hit the 42,000, do you go back to zero status? Do you, can you still qualify for platinum out of that? How does that work? I don't, I don't know exactly how they do that. I assume it would, you would go to whatever status you've qualified for from the number of points you have earned over the whole year, not over the four months. Yeah. So I wonder what that looks like for someone who has zero loyalty points. Someone

starting at the beginning just has high elite status. And so you try for the platinum fast track, but you don't meet it. Do you go back to zero American Airlines elite status? I guess that's probably what happens. There's no soft landing here. I would assume that's true. Yeah. But you can hit the... So now if you're a globalist and you register for the platinum trial, if you earn enough for platinum pro, you'll get that because that's higher, right? And you'd get that. What about, so if you only earn enough for a lower tier, is there a gold challenge in this? There's not a gold challenge. No, it doesn't say what happens if you qualify for less than what the advertised amount is. I don't know whether you would get to keep, you know, that lower level or not.

Yeah. Yeah. So, but okay. So there's some interesting stuff going on there anyway. So yeah, because if you're a globalist, the fast track is the platinum pro. If you're an explorist, the fast track is platinum. So I guess my question there was wondering if you're a globalist, you get this platinum pro, but you only hit the 25 K that an explorist would need to have to keep platinum would you get to keep platinum or are you going to go back to nothing

i would hope so but it's yeah at least the stuff i read did not say on that question yeah so so anyway i will talk more about status and all that stuff today but i think it's interesting anyway i think it's nice to see something i would have loved to have seen the gift of executive platinum status again that they gave a couple of years ago, but this isn't quite that good. But because I was already playing the loyalty points game and needed to earn X number anyway, this is going to fit in relatively well, I think, for me. Yeah, yeah. And for anyone who has high elite status now and is going to be flying American airlines or

even Alaska or JetBlue, uh, quite a bit in the next four months, it's probably worth getting the temporary status and, and enjoy the, the benefits you get from that. And then if you're, you know, whether or not to try to meet the challenge. So you keep the status another four months that would be based on your circumstances, whether it makes sense or not. Yes. So, all right. All right. Awards we booked this week, just very quickly. I'm going to mention, I booked again, another stay right now. I'm at the Hyatt Regency Orlando airport, which is one that if you follow miles and points circles, you've probably seen before, but if you're not particularly familiar with Hyatt or with this, it's so convenient. My goodness. it's right in the airport. I don't know if I mentioned last

week that I had booked a stay here, but booked a return stay here this week. And it's just a fantastically convenient option because the hotel is inside the airport. Literally the TSA lines are at the bottom of the elevator. So it couldn't be a simpler solution. So great place to be. So if you need to go to Orlando and you've got to fly out early or you're getting in late, uh, just a terrific place to stay for that purpose. I love that airport. We, we actually, uh, my wife and I stayed there, um, on our way to Necker Island, uh, back, uh, gosh, six years ago, something like that now.

And, uh, you know, we had to stay over cause our flight out to, I think it was to Puerto Rico before flying to the next Island was early in the morning the next day. And I loved it. We got upgraded to a huge suite and it was, yeah. As far as convenience, you're right. You just cannot beat that hotel. It's great. And we, so we were on a cruise this week and we drove back from Port Canaveral this morning with a rental car. We did a one-way national car from Port Canaveral to here, and I'm going to return it at the airport, but I figured maybe we'll go out for dinner or something. And since I'm a globalist and we're on an awards day, parking is free. So I just was able to drive right into the airport parking lot that said it was full and explain we're staying at the high

and they let us in and of course it wasn't full. we found a place to park and and so yeah it's just the convenience factor is super high so if you're going in or out of orlando great place to stay so and it's a category four so if you have a category one to four free night certificate it's a great use of that and we did use two of those last week and this week i used points i think rather than a free night i can't recall which it was for sure but at any rate great place to stay with that also because cash rates can sometimes be quite high. All right. So that brings us, I think, to the main event and this week's main event is. Yeah. Yeah. It's American Airlines loyalty game, hidden treasures. So what is the American Airlines loyalty game? Let's explain that really quickly.

This past year, American Airlines changed the way you get elite status. So it used to be like every other airline that you earned it through flying and how many miles you flew. And then just like most other airlines, they added a spend requirement to it. So it used to be until this year, you had to both fly a certain distance with American and spend a certain amount with American to get elite status. But that's all gone. Now, it's all based on things called loyalty points, which whenever you do something that earns American Airlines miles, almost whenever, you earn both the miles that are redeemable. That means you can use them for award flights and you earn loyalty points,

which gets you to elite status. And so they just made up a chart that said you need this many loyalty points for bottom tier status, this many for the next year and this many for the next year and so on. And so- Now you can earn an elite status with American Airlines without ever stepping foot on a plane. You don't need to go to an airport. That's right. Because there's the shopping portal, the American Airlines shopping portal, which all the points you earn through there that aren't for a seasonal promotion, those count as loyalty points. You can connect your card up with something called Simply Miles. And if you earn points through spend that's connected to Simply Miles, you earn more loyalty points that way. Just the options go on and on. And the ability to do things like sign up for free trials through the portal and earn loyalty points, you know, buy like really cheap.

Sometimes we can buy really cheap phone SIM cards and earn thousands of loyalty points that way. And so, you know, even though American Airlines doesn't call it a game, we call it a game. You know, it's one of those things where the scoreboard is how many loyalty points you've earned. The prize is elite status and bragging rights. And it turns out that the prize goes beyond sort of direct American Airlines elite status benefits. So what I mean by that is if you get on American Airlines website, you could look up what the benefits are of elite status, which is things like getting a preferred seating

when you're flying American, getting a first class upgrade if available for domestic flights and, and things like that. And if you're anything like me, all those things probably aren't all that meaningful because if you're like me, you don't fly American airlines enough for it to, to matter much to have all those benefits. Um, but there are plenty of benefits you can get from American airlines, elite status that are not, um, things that happen when you fly American Airlines. So that's the point of today's main event. Absolutely. And I just recently ran into some of those myself just a week ago because we flew JetBlue from Albany, New York to Orlando. And I had remembered at some point in the days before the flight that there was a connection between American and JetBlue and there are some reciprocal elite benefits. And so sure enough, thanks to my loyalty point games, you know, shenanigans, I have American Airlines platinum status. And so that was enough

to give me some decently tangible benefits on Jet Blue. I got priority check in at the airport. So I got to go through the Mosaic line, which is obviously top tier, the only level of status, but the top tier status for JetBlue. So that helped me avoid the entire line to drop off bags when we were checking them. And then I also got preferred seating. I mentioned this, I think last week, I got the extra or even more space seating is what JetBlue calls it, which is very spacious for economy class. And so I was able to get that not only for me, but for six passengers on my reservation. I couldn't believe that. Like, I don't know how it works with Delta and other airlines, but I think

generally speaking, your elite benefits usually only apply to you and like maybe one or two companions, but. Yeah. It depends on what benefit you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. But, but I think you're right. I think most of them are just for, that's right. Yeah, yeah. But I think you're right. I think most of them are just for one person. Yeah, yeah. So I was really surprised when I was able to move all six of us to the even more legroom seats, which would have been about 50 bucks a piece if we were paying for them. So that was $300 worth of upgraded seating.

So that was a terrific benefit. And two free checked bags, which, of course, checked bags on JetBlue would have otherwise cost me $30 for the first bag and 40 for the second. So getting two free check bags was a nice deal. That benefit only applied to me, or at least I think it only applied to me. Everybody else paid for their checked bags. But still, tangible benefits that saved me money because I would have spent at least $60 anyway, checking those bags. If we did, you know, one bag each for two different passengers. So, uh, so that was really nice. And so that's something you get on jet blue, uh, with platinum pro, I think you also get free same day standby. So if you want to stand by for an earlier flight,

you can do that. So, um, again, all of those things are nice because I don't fly jet blue all that much, but I'm sure there are people out there that do, but don't earn Mosaic status. And instead, you could play the American Airlines loyalty points game and earn American Airlines elite status and get those benefits that are pretty similar to JetBlue Mosaic, you know, without ever stepping foot on a plane or spending much money on a JetBlue credit card. I thought that was so cool when I read your post about how you made out so well with your American Airlines status on JetBlue. I don't know that if I had flown JetBlue recently before reading that, I don't know that I would have even remembered to connect my American Airlines account. I think by default, I would have just used my JetBlue number in the reservation and been done with it, probably paid with points.

Can you pay with points and connect your American Airlines account? That's exactly what I did. Yeah. I booked the flights were award flights. So I paid 9,600 miles a person and $5 and 60 cents. And during the booking process, I put in my American Airlines loyalty point number, give you the option to set the loyalty program for each traveler. And I was able to choose American Airlines and put in my American Airlines number. And then I wasn't sure how it was going to work because when I looked at checking bags in advance, you would have to pay for them if I were checking them in advance. And so I was wondering how the free bags work. Did I have to wait until I got to the airport to add those or what? Because within 24 hours,

they become more expensive. So I chatted with JetBlue online and eventually discovered that they said, no, it'll automatically be linked because your American Airlines advantage number is on the reservation. It'll automatically recognize you get the free check bags at check-in. So when you go to check-in, the bags will be free and the extra legroom seats will be free. So, and sure enough, that was absolutely correct. I was looking at adding check bags five minutes before check-in and it would cost $30 a person. But then as soon as check-in opened, I was able to add two bags for

free. And to be clear, you're talking about check-in like on the mobile app or on the web browser. So 24 hours ahead. Nice. And when we said you booked this with points, it was with JetBlue points that you booked it, right? Because it's also possible, I guess, to book these with American Airlines. Not only I guess, but I might fly them tomorrow using American Airlines miles. Yes, because I'm looking at changing because I have a very early morning flight looking to change to something else. And there are only three seats and I need four. By the time you guys hear this, either I will have booked it or go ahead and have them if you want. But the JetBlue is charging 24,000 points one way and American Airlines has three seats on the same flight for 12,500 miles. So I'm hoping anyway,

I get that fourth seat. We'll see. Wow. That's great. That's great. All right. So of course, JetBlue isn't American Airlines only domestic partner, right? You could be flying, you could be flying Alaska airlines and have very similar situation. Um, all the same things that Nick mentioned that are, that are free, uh, or better with JetBlue are true with Alaska as well. Um, but Alaska also adds in some things like you're flying internationally. There's, there's lounge access. If you have Platinum Pro status, so that's American sort of top tier status, you can upgrade to first class. You can be on the upgrade list for first class. So Alaska, in some ways, there's even more opportunities there for American Airlines elite. So that's pretty cool too. Yeah, for sure. Yeah,

that's great. I mean, the ability to potentially get an upgrade to first class, that's awesome because you wouldn't get that with JetBlue. So getting out of Alaska is really nice. And it's nice because between Alaska and JetBlue, that covers a decent number of people. You know, there are a lot of folks that live in cities that are well-served by one or both of those airlines. So even if you don't like flying American Airlines, it could certainly be worth getting American Airlines elite status. So if you thought, oh, that Hyatt Fast Track isn't for me, maybe it is. Right, right. And for people traveling internationally, what you have is one world

alliance. And so having American Airlines status gives you one world status and that gives you a benefit. So even American Airlines lowest level gold elite status gives you a one world Ruby, which gives you like priority check-in and priority standby preferred seating, depending on the, on the airline that you're flying rules, uh, and free check bags. So, you know, that's valuable right there. Once you get to American Airlines Platinum status, you have Sapphire One World status, and that gives you priority boarding and security and business class lounge access. So if you're flying economy on a One World carrier, you could still get into the business class lounge.

And at the next level, one-world Emerald status, which you get with Platinum Pro American Airlines status or higher, you get first-class lounge access when flying a one-world carrier. So that's pretty terrific benefits. I could definitely imagine situations where I don't often fly economy internationally, but I definitely fly business class quite a bit. So being able to get into the first class lounge just because I have American Airlines elite status would be pretty sweet. Well, I think the other use case where it's particularly interesting is people that go to Europe. If you travel to more than one country in Europe, there's a good chance you might be flying economy because what difference does it make within Europe for the most part, right? I mean, economy versus business is usually the same thing, just a blocked middle seat. So it's not usually worth paying more for business class for intra-European flights. So this is a great little benefit. You're flying a cheap economy class fare between two European airlines or countries rather

a great go enjoy lounge access. So I think that it's probably an underappreciated benefit because I felt the same as Greg. I was like, well, I'm usually flying business class internationally. So business class lounge access isn't all that exciting, but within Europe, it could certainly be useful. Yeah. No, good point. Good point. One thing though, some airports have their longer distance international flights with the better lounges separated off from the little regional flights. So you might not really have access in practice, but it just depends on the airport. So- Good point.

Okay. Whole another category of things. So we talked about how elite status with American gets you a bunch of elite benefits, not just on American Airlines, but on a lot of airlines, actually. But a whole nother thing. How about getting elite benefits for other airlines that are not partners in any way? And even hotels and car rental companies and stuff like that. And all of that's possible through status matches. So first, before we get into some examples, I want to talk about two websites, which are confusingly similarly named. There is statusmatcher.com and that one's been around forever and ever. What it is basically, it sort of invites people to report their experience when they try to match status from, let's say American Airlines to Delta or American Airlines to United, whatever,

how successful they are, what level of status they got based on what level of status with the other airline they had. And it makes all of that information available to you. So if you're curious what your level of status will get you in a status match, you could go to statusmatcher.com and look it up and find where you could potentially go from American Airlines and you could get all kinds of status matches that way. Then you have statusmatch.com. No er.

No er. And that site is designed to help you do the status matches. So the idea is it collects your information. You tell it which status match you want, and it does the work of applying for your status match with the relevant parties involved. My understanding, although I haven't done this, is that some status matches cost money when you do it that way. And that's how they make money, I think. But some are probably free. And so, yeah, it's just kind of interesting. From there, I saw that they will help you match your American Airlines status to Emirates elite status, to Frontier status, to Best Western, to Choice, to Radisson, to Avis, to Hertz, and to Sixth

Rental Car. So quite a few that statusmatch.com would help you get. I imagine if you go directly to any of those players as well and said, I have American Airlines status, will you match me? That they would have an option to do that directly as well. Of those, ironically, the one I find sort of a bit interesting is Frontier, because if I was going to fly Frontier, which I've done like once in my life, but if I was going to do it again, I'd want to have status so that I could avoid the fees that are necessary for bringing on bags and whatnot. And I think that could be a quick way to get that is just by doing a little status match. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that elite status, and I don't know, maybe this is another conversation for another day, but it's almost more beneficial on the low cost carriers in many ways, because

a lot of the benefits like free check bags, for instance, if you're flying American, you could just get the American Airlines credit card and have free check bags, seat selection, you know, won't cost you anything for at least some of the seats on the plane, you bring a carry on if you book a regular economy fare anyway. So those are all things that are relatively easy to have on the low cost carriers, the whole business model is that they charge less for the seat and more for all of those add-ons. So if you've got status and you can avoid paying for the add-ons, you can save quite a bit of money and fly a lot cheaper. So I agree with you. I think Frontier is potentially the most

interesting of the ones you just listed anyway. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a really good observation about the low cost carriers status being important. I mean, you're not going to get, you know, upgraded first class, but you're going to avoid a lot of fees. I mean, how often do we hear people say, complaining about how they never get upgraded anyway, when they have status with a, you know, with a, with a major airline. So, so I don't know how much difference it makes. It depends on obviously where you're flying from and how often and how much, and you know, which days of the week blah blah but uh but upgrades are not always easy to come by on the major airlines anyway so yeah it could save you more money anyway if you're willing to put up with the shortcomings of flying

on low-cost carriers which you know can't be many depending on the situation so i haven't flown frontier much either once i think also in my life and it was like more than a decade ago so i don't have much frontier experience but i think they get there there, right? They get from point A to point B. So as far as I know, so, so speaking of, of upgrades of not getting upgrades on the major carriers, um, did you know, this is just kind of a little aside that American airlines will not upgrade you as an elite if you're on an award ticket unless you have executive platinum status or higher.

And I was kind of blown away by that. I knew that way back in time, but I've forgotten about it. United has something like that, but as long as you have like a United credit card, you can get upgraded on award tickets. But American doesn't have that exception that having a credit card doesn't bypass that ridiculousness. Yeah, I don't get it.

With all my years of being a Delta lead, Delta doesn't discriminate between whether you're booked with miles or cash, partly because you probably paid a billion miles for your tickets. Well, yeah, I mean, you would think that your loyal customers, you want to treat them well, and when they get an award, you want to make it feel valuable, right? So why would you exclude that? It just doesn't make any sense. You're just encouraging them to book with somebody else, I guess, rather than use their

miles. Like, that just doesn't make any sense to me. Anyway, yeah. It's kind of insane. It's too bad. But yeah, so no, they won't upgrade you there. So you may as well match to Frontier and fly Frontier is the moral of the story.

Right, right. All right. Another great match that's available right now. We talked about the reverse side of this earlier with American Airlines and Hyatt. So if you have American Airlines status, because you've been playing the loyalty game, the interesting part here is that if you have executive platinum status,

you can match to a free globalist trial, which means you'll have Hyatt globalists, that's their top tier, for 90 days. But even if you have Platinum Pro status, while you'll only get Explorist for 90 days, with either of these, if you stay 20 nights at Hyatt's during that time, get 20 qualifying nights with Hyatt, you will meet the challenge and keep elite status for a whole year. So it's not that four-month little treadmill that you have when you match the other direction. This is actually a legitimate old style challenge where you've got 90 days to meet the challenge, and then you can keep that top tier status. So this is a great way to get to Hyatt globalist status, which is, we've talked about a million times is a great status. I'm giggling because you mentioned that it's the legitimate path, because now I want

to ask about the illegitimate way, I guess, to get there. So here's the question. Well, I was kind of belittling the opposite of how the challenge of going from Hyatt status to American airline status only gives you status for, even if you meet the challenge, you only get it for four more months. I mean, that's the illegitimate part of it to me. No, no, I agree with you there. I don't think it's fair. No, but okay. So here's where my brain is going with this. So I have high globalist status right now,

but I'm not going to requalify. I have it because they did that whole double nights thing last year. So a whole bunch of us got high globalist status for this year, but it's going to run out here in a couple of months. Have it now though. So my question, Greg, is,

could I do the match to American Airlines and get myself executive platinum or platinum pro with American Airlines with this match now? And then while I have that for the next four months, or if I get it extended for four months, could I do this fast track back to globalist status with Hyatt and get Hyatt globalist status with just 29th next year? It seems possible. The deal as they've advertised it right now ends, like you have to register by the end of December, December 28th or something like that. I see. But it seems likely that they would extend this next year as well. Well, so then, okay. So this is still the same question. So I have a high global status now. So I will get a match for four months to Platinum Pro with American Airlines. So I wonder if I could take that Platinum Pro and do a globalist faster. I mean,

I guess I couldn't do it because I already have globalist status, maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure. I would guess that they won't let you, but that's a good question. Don't know. Don't know the answer. So maybe we can match back and forth. We can hope for the best i'd be worried that you you would waste that match and not get anything out of it at all yeah yeah that's true i wouldn't want that to happen anyway yeah we'll see we'll see so okay so that but that's i that's a i think a cool tie-in and by the way don't forget that when you have your american airlines and hyatt accounts linked you're going to earn american airlines miles when you're spending money at hyatt. I forget about that all the time. And then every now and then, you know, I had a dining charge from from this place. Hyatt Regency in Orlando at the airport just last week, we did a dinner in the restaurant or something like that.

And so I had a charge for that. I saw that my American Airlines loyalty points jumped up a little bit. And I was like, oh, what happened there? Where did that come from? And I looked through and I was like, oh, yeah, it's from Hyatt because I earned them, you know, one mile per dollar on the spend at the, you know, at the restaurant at the Hyatt. Yeah. Yeah. So if you spent, if you just like, forget about all these challenges and stuff, spent $200,000 at the Hyatt restaurant, you would earn enough loyalty points for executive platinum for a whole year. So do that next time. Well, I mean, but that does, I mean, actually that makes me think, I wonder about what about a wedding?

What if you had a wedding at a Hyatt? I don't know. Lots of questions. So anyway. I don't know whether that would work or not. Maybe. I think so in the topic of status matching from American Airlines elite status to others, I think it's useful to call out to airlines in particular Delta and United that if you want status with either of them, having American Airlines status, and then do a match slash challenge to Delta or United. And the way they both work is American Airlines gold status gets you Delta or United silver.

American Airlines platinum status gets you Delta or United gold. And American Airlines Platinum Pro or higher gets you Delta or United Platinum status. And the reason it seems like you're getting less than what American Airlines name for the status is American Airlines status names are inflated. So their lowest level elite tier is called Gold, whereas everyone else's lowest is Silver. Everyone else So their lowest level elite tier is called gold, whereas everyone else's lowest is silver. Everyone else, their next level after silver is gold and American's next level is platinum. So that's why it seems off like that. Here's a cool little factoid though. Delta will give you status for three months and then you have a challenge to meet to keep that for a year. United will give you the status for 120 days. So yeah, so that's three 40-day months if I did my math right.

Or four 30-day ones, either way. Depends on what calendar you follow, I suppose. So that's pretty generous, I think, on United's side to do that. And then you could read their websites to get the details of what you need to do to keep status longer once you match. But pretty cool way to jump ahead of the pack to get meaningful status with one of American Airlines competitors. There you go. So I think that's a good reason to potentially do this. I know at the beginning I said, well, if you're not going to fly American Airlines very much in the next few months, maybe it's not worth doing the match. But again, if you want to leverage it into status with somebody else, it certainly could be worth it. And remember, it's not only the U.S.-based programs that you could potentially match to. You may be able to match to some foreign programs, and that can be useful. I mean, we both matched various airline statuses to ANA several months

back in order to get ANA Platinum status, which gives you Star Alliance Gold status, which I think we've probably both used at some point to get into, I think we both did it, right, to get into a United Club Lounge. So I got into a couple of United Club Lounges this fall, thanks to my ANA Platinum status, which I got thanks to a match like this. So having high-level American Airlines elite status could certainly be something you can leverage into others. And that's not the only one. Of course, obviously, if you have Delta high-level elite status or United high-level elite status, you can play this game as well.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And because of the multiple challenges that are available, I think it should be possible if you have just Hyatt Globalist status and you want Delta United, you should be able to match from Hyatt to American and then from American to Delta United. So that's kind of a fun way to go as well. It is. So do you want to do them all right at once? Like there's all these available. So you want to do all of them right now?

Get status with everybody. In general, each airline or program has their own rules about how often you could do these. Usually the rule is like once every five years. So if you're going to match to Delta, for example, I don't think you can do that match again for five years. So make sure if you do it, you do it when it counts. Like, so when you, you know, do it when you know, you're going to be flying enough to meet the challenge. So you keep status for a year or when you're going to be

flying enough to where it's like meaningful to have that status before the temporary status goes away. Either, either way can make sense to do. Yeah. Or were you going to match it onto something else that's even more valuable, I guess? Or that. Yeah. So yeah. So pace yourself, I guess, is the moral of the story. If you've got no reason to want elite status at all for whatever purpose, then maybe think twice about doing it because you don't want to waste your chance. But certainly if you've got a plan in mind, it can be worth doing some of these. I wouldn't waste all of them at once because you'll need something else next year.

So good to pace yourself. All right. So I think that covers the main event, right? So that's the main event. So that should bring us into this week's question of the week. So this week's question of the week came into the mailbag and it is a question that we've probably addressed here and there in conversation, but not in a while, I don't think anyway, and not in a direct way. You'll see what I mean. So the question is,

what is the best card for unbonused spend? I know you're going to have a quick answer to this, but maybe we can explore it a little bit more. The question came in from Eli and he said, hey, what are the best options in unbonused spend cards? I know you can do 2% back with an Amex Business Plus, I think he means the Blue Business Plus, or a Capital One Venture X. But are there any chase cards that are great options? What do you do for your spend? Thanks. So two-part question there. A, what's the best card or what are the best cards for unbonused spend? Thanks. So two-part question there. A, what's the best card or what are the best cards

for unbonused spend? And B, what do you actually use? Because those answers are sometimes different for me. For sure. For sure. Yeah. So first a definition, what we're talking about for unbonused spend means when you're, you know, there are lots of cards that give bonuses when you're paying at a restaurant or a grocery store or a gas station, they give you more points per dollar, for example, in those special places, those are category bonuses. And so the question here is really, what do you use everywhere else where you're not going to earn a category bonus? And we do have a page that's dedicated to answering that. It's best cards for everyday

spend, I think it's what it's called. And it basically just sorts the cards by how much value are you going to get from your unbonus spend. So how would somebody find that page? They would look in the liner notes of this podcast and you're going to have a link there, right? That will be way number one. Yeah. Way number two, when you're thinking about this six months from now and you're like, which podcast episode was it that answered that question? What you'll hopefully remember is if you just go to frequentmiler.com or any page on frequentmiler.com, there's a link to best offers up at the top. If you go to the best offers page on that page, if you just read through, you'll see that there's a link to the best cards for everyday spend. Now, you could also just Google frequent miler best cards for everyday spend, and you'll probably

find the page that way too. But if all else fails, you'll find a link to it from the best offers page. And from that best offers page, which we talk about now and then, but maybe not enough, there are a number of different things you can look at. Top airline cards, top hotel cards. You can sort things in different ways as far as that goes. I shouldn't say sort because it's not necessarily sort like you're choosing parameters, but there are a number of links to look at those things that you'll find on the best offers page. So that's a good place to start because we do have that best cards for everywhere else. Great point. That's sometimes how I get to those pages as well. Because yeah, very close to the top, you're going to find links to the best cards for everyday spend

and also which card to use at different places like at grocery stores, gas stations, and so on. So check those out. The best one, so as the reader mentioned, there are cards that offer two points per dollar that are transferable points, which are our favorite kind of points. So he mentioned the American Express Blue Business Plus card that earns two American Express points per dollar, everywhere up to $50,000 spend per year. Then there's a few Capital One cards that are into miles in quotes per dollar for all spend. There's also the Amex cash version of the Blue Business Plus, right? The Amix Blue Business Cash or something. And that earns actually 2%. Right. And the reason I don't love that is because those aren't transferable. All you

could do is cash that out. And another transferable one that earns two points per dollar everywhere with no cap, like Capital One, is the Citi Double Cash, which earns thank you points. And if you have a Citi Premier or Prestige card and you combine your thank you accounts, you can then move those points earned on the Double Cash to various airline and hotel programs. So that's another really valuable one for everyday spend. It's tough. So it's tough saying which is best because so those three are all fantastic options. And then there's like options for best cash back everywhere, which if you have Bank of America cards, there's various ones, but the Premier Rewards card, for example,

earns only 1.5% back at the base level. But if you have like 100K in savings or investments with Bank of America and Merrill Edge, you get a 75% bonus on all the earnings from cards like that one so you average 2.62 cash back for all your spend um and a little better on their bonus categories so that's a great one for everyday spend if you're not trying to get more transferable points um for me that that has been my go-to everywhere else card for a while. Lately, I've switched up between that, the double cash, because I've been liking my thank you points a lot lately for the ability to transfer one to two to choice primarily has been an awesome benefit. And also I have the X1

card, which whenever someone signs up through my refer a friend link, I get four points per dollar everywhere for a week is basically what's been happening with that card. And so when it's earning four points per dollar, that becomes my everyday, like everywhere else card. Yeah, yeah, all sorts of good options there. And of course, that one, those points, you can only redeem with certain merchants, but you basically can redeem them for 4%, the equivalent of 4% at a number of merchants

that are useful enough for you, right? Yeah, including like major airline carriers. So if you spend with Delta, you could race those charges at a value of penny per point. So it's like getting 4% back for spend within that list of merchants. Right. And that's, of course, if you're referring people. If you're not, though, and you spend 15K in the course of a year, then you'll earn three points per dollar, which is still pretty good.

But that's kind of an obscure one. I think the more mainstream options are the things that Greg mentioned. Now, the big debate for most people is going to come between, OK, do I want to focus on cashback or on transferable points? And so, for instance, in my household, we've got the Bank of America Premium Rewards card and we have the Platinum Honors status with American Airlines. So it's 2.625% cashback. Bank of America, you mean? Oh, did I say something else? I'm sorry. I meant Bank of America. You said with American. Oh, with Bank of America. Thank you. Sorry, American Airlines on the line today. With Bank of America. Yes, that's correct. So we get the 2.6% cash back. So I try to make that my wife's everywhere else card because in fact,

I try to make it generally her everywhere card because if not, she ends up using a card now and then that earns one point per dollar and it makes me cringe. So I try to make her use that one everywhere. And we haven't added me as an authorized user on it. So it's not in my wallet. So in my wallet, I've been using the VentureX and everywhere else because I like my Capital One points. The transfer partners are great. I can erase charges. I rented a car, as I mentioned, to get between Port Canaveral and Orlando. And I used my VentureX card because it's got the rental car insurance on it and I can erase the charge at one cent per point. So it wasn't going to cost very many points. In fact, not much more than if I had booked it through the Chase

portal, even at one and a half cents each, because I was able to book it directly and get the best price. So that's a whole other topic for another day. But so I use the VentureX quite a bit now as an everywhere else card, even though the premium rewards return is also very good and kind of hard to argue with. It's almost difficult to justify not using that, except that I do get some good uses out of the Capital One Miles. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, good. And of course, Capital One Miles also can sometimes be used for like great seats at baseball games, some sort of weird little redemptions like that, that are pretty awesome. Yeah. I like having them on hand. And I've talked before about my weird old, if you have a really old capital one card, it's worth looking to see if you've got the ability to buy Marriott gift cards more cheaply. That's something very rare, but if you have it, that's also another good use and something else that I use them for. So anyway, that's the answer for me. VentureX probably for my everywhere else or Bank of America premium

rewards. But that could vary by person. All of those other cards that Greg talked about could be a good choice for an everywhere else card. I think the moral of the story is you want to be earning at least two transferable points per dollar. And so the reader had asked about what about Chase? And Chase has the freedom unlimited. So you'd earn one and a half points per dollar. And those points, obviously Chase points are valuable. Greg and I both love our Hyatt points, but it's just not been an everywhere else card for me for a long time now, because there's so many options for two points. Yeah. Yeah. I do like that option for people who are just kind of getting started and want and like the chase ecosystem, which there's a lot to like there, especially if you're kind of new to the game.

And so I think the Freedom Unlimited or the Inc. Business Unlimited, either one will earn one and a half points per dollar everywhere. And, you know, they both, when combined with the Sapphire Reserve card, you can move your points to Sapphire Reserve, get one and a half cents value.

So you're getting 2.25% rebate on your spend basically, which is not the best possible return, but it's pretty good. And it's actually beating what you're getting when you're using your VentureX if you're going to be just erasing statement charges because then you're only getting 2% back. Great point. Great point. Very good. So that's the option if you want Chase, if you want that to be your everywhere else. And then what we didn't mention, and I think because it seems like it goes without saying for us, but I think is worth a mention, is the very best card for everywhere else spend is the one

that you're working on a signup bonus on. And so, you know, if you're going to sign up for a card or two or three per year, then you don't really care so much about this whole unbonus spend thing, because every dollar you're spending is probably earning the equivalent of like, you know, 10 miles per dollar or whatever, depending on the welcome offer. So, you know, that's the fastest route to more miles and points. Great point. Great point. And then when people get really into the other tricks, like buying gift cards at office supply stores, you're going to earn five points per dollar with your ink cash card, buy a Visa gift card and use that for your unbonus spend. That's another way to sort of indirectly be getting five points per dollar for your unbonus spend, that's another way to sort of indirectly be getting five points per

dollar for your unbonus spend. So you could take it to all kinds of levels. I don't actually, even though I'm calling that sort of the advanced level, I don't do that because I find it such a pain to keep track of the gift cards. So I find other ways of just using them all up at once rather than trying to use them as amount shopping because I find that kind of miserable. Yeah, I don't like to do them for that. What I've done with them sometimes is there are certain bills that I have to pay, like an insurance bill that will take multiple payments via Visa gift card. It's no problem.

So I will use those in a situation like that where I'm going to, okay, I'm going to pay the bill and here they're on sale fee free. So it's kind of like earning five X on that specific thing, but yeah, I don't like to carry them around. Some people will do that and meticulously track the remaining balances, but that's not me. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like it for, yeah. Big bills for charity donations for things like that. Yep. Good. Good point. All right. All right. That brings us to the end of this week's episode. If you've enjoyed what we've been talking about and you want to get more of our stuff

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