Frequent Miler on the Air - Amex Platinum vs Sapphire Reserve

Episode Date: March 7, 2020

Nick takes issue with Greg's comparison between the Amex Platinum and Sapphire Reserve cards. Does he have a point? We also discuss Hyatt Prive, Coronavirus, and more. Unfortunately Squadcast crapped out on us during recording and so we had to convert the much lower quality video sound to audio for this podcast.

Okay, we're recording video. Now I'll set up the podcast. Behind the scenes, the extra couple of seconds that you get if you're a video watcher. All right. Now, you know what? You have to stop talking because I have to hit record, and as soon as I hit record, that's what the podcast people are going to hear. Yes. You can't hear this. This is the secret part. That's right. All right. So be quiet. Shh. Okay.

Hey, Nick. Welcome to Frequent Miler on the air. Thank you very much. It's great to be here, actually, on the air with Frequent Miler. We're together, even though it almost looks like there's a line between us. It does kind of look that way. But that's just the wall, to be honest. No, we're really here. We're really here so for for those on the podcast we are actually sitting in one room together which is unusual usually we do this over the internet now it's uh the old-fashioned way

live face to face here we are in dc getting ready for the travel and adventure show which is tomorrow and ftu dc as well so should be fun yeah good times we'll get a chance to see some people we already ran into some people in the lounge here in our hotel so always nice to see other folks who write and other folks who read so so it's already been a nice little uh start to the weekend and i'm sure that we'll have a lot of fun connecting with readers that are here so if you're going to be around please come say. Let us know that you listened to the podcast and wanted to come say hello. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, they probably won't hear this before the show. You never know. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. We'll see. So anyway, it is your favorite time of the show, isn't it?

It is my favorite time. That's right. It's reader feedback time, except I'm not going to do it this time. Oh, man. Here I thought we finally had it. We've kind of forgotten where to put it in the last couple of times, and where your feedback has kind of ended up in the middle of somewhere. Right.

Now we finally remember to put it at the beginning, we're not going to have it what's up with that well we're going to have your second favorite thing which may even be your favorite okay oh i i know where this is going yeah this is going to be great confession it is it is great confession time you ever have points that just kind of go away and you didn't manage them correctly no no that's never happened to you okay so now wait before you even go any farther i remember you wrote a story a while back about some chase points that like you closed the card that they were connected to and so you lost a bunch and had to get them back or something right so this isn't like an isolated thing that's true that's true that's true and and uh i'm impressed

that you remember that that's that was quite a while ago but that story was where yeah we closed my wife's ink card i think it was before moving the points over to another card and lost all those points but but they let us just reopen it it was not a big deal at all and reopen it and the points over to another card and lost all those points but but they let us just reopen it it was not a big deal at all and reopen it and points were there fine not a problem this is not like that oh that's a rough start okay this goes back a ways though okay so Okay. As most expiring points do. As most points do. So, Hertz. Okay. Uh-huh. Hertz, a while ago, I wrote about how I saved my points from expiring by moving them to my wife's Hertz account. Okay. And so here's the deal. The Hertz points expire a certain number of months from your last Hertz rental activity.

And we just don't rent often from Hertz. We've been renting a lot from National. And other times, even when it was Hertz, it was like through a third party and didn't connect up to our account or whatever. I don't know. Anyway, so my wife had activity more recently than I did, and mine were about to expire. And so I moved them for free, and that kept them from expiring. So that was great. Mm-hmm. Then I was able to, I guess I had some activity in my account at some point and I moved

the points back from her account to mine and that was all good. Going smoothly so far. Right. So now I got to where my points were about to expire again and I moved them to my wife's account and they completely disappeared. And the reason I believe that happened is that because she hadn't had activity. And so it's like they became expired. Just as soon as you moved them over.

By moving them over. So I contacted Hertz support. Luckily, they let you do support through online chat. So I did that, and they were able to just reverse that whole thing which was good except that i still had points expiring in about a month and so i you know i looked for all these different ways to use it i i thought i had a rental where i could actually use them as points for the rental. That didn't work out. And so then it was like there's about a week left. So I was like, I'm going to just transfer them to airline miles.

It's not a great use of Hertz points, but it's a better use. It's a better use than letting them expire. Southwest has the best ratio. I don't remember exactly what it is, but you get more Southwest miles than others. So fine. I'll move them to Southwest. Side note, when was the last time you flew Southwest? It's been a while.

Just curious. I don't want them to expire on you. Moving them from one expiring entity to another. I can't remember the last time I heard you talk about it. Yeah. But Southwest, it's so easy to keep those fresh just by any activity. expiring to another that but but southwest last time i heard you talk about yeah but southwest it's so easy to keep those fresh just by any activity so you know it's not like hertz tax it actually has to be rental activity not other activity doesn't do it they actually want you to

be loyal to the company to keep their points loyal it's weird keep your loyalty points so strange yeah yeah foreign concept for us so So anyway, I initiated the transfer, and then it said in it something like, the transfer can take six to eight weeks. I don't remember the exact number, but so I said, okay. I didn't know what would happen. Because they expired during that six to eight weeks, right? Yeah. So they expired, and now as far as I know, they're just gone.

Now, I'm still planning to contact hertz and say hey what happened to my southwest points and see if they can do something for me yeah i don't know maybe i i don't have good experience with hertz support in just about any way except the fact that they can move points through online chat which is actually nice that's like my least favorite company to run from i i never have a good experience it always seems to be something not positive happens every time i run from hearts so every time that's probably why i don't have any rental activity with them it's like oh man that's a really good deal i'm gonna go ahead and book it and then i book it and i remember yeah that's why i don't usually book those great right although i have to say my last two experiences were really good so just this past week i was in california as you know yes and i had booked a national car

rental and and auto slash found much better rate for hertz and i you know i was able to pick up because of my status with her it's i guess we talked about this you know i was able to pick up because of my status with hertz i guess we talked about this last week i was able to pick up a like incredible suv and and it was beautiful and everything worked out fine so and it was 180 bucks for a whole week with with that uh infinity suv yeah i mean i mean come on hard to beat that yeah yeah yeah well i mean that's good so so good that you enjoyed the hertz rental but then right so you had a hertz rental but it was already too late at that point yeah yeah this is well past yeah it just kind of reminded me of this whole thing that this had actually happened a couple months ago or about a month ago i guess all right yeah kept it kept it secret kept it on

the download i wasn't ready to confess just yet still too fresh too soon yeah exactly exactly well you know that's funny because you mentioned that it said that it could take six to eight weeks and so i wrote a post i don't know a few weeks ago about um maybe a month or two ago about moving points from um hilton to heinan airlines and and that you could get is that how you pronounce it i don't know i don't know i'm not sure i think it's heinan i probably i I don't know. I'm not sure. I think it's Hainan. Probably. I don't know. In my mind, it's Hainan or something.

Okay, so that airline that begins with an H that's based somewhere in China there. Yeah. So I moved the 25,000 Hilton points to become 10,000 miles, and somebody had commented to say that it took like three months for their transfer to go through. Luckily, mine didn't take that long. It took weeks, but they did transfer through. But of course, if you've been paying attention to the news at all lately, those miles might disappear altogether along with the airline any minute now.

So I don't know as though I'm going to get a chance to use them before that airline collapses. So I might be in a similar-ish boat. They might expire the same way. They might expire, but different kind of expire but different and do they not have any partners that that are still flying no they do and my intention is to use them for an alaska airlines flight but right now my travel plans are kind of up in the air so i'm not ready to book something yet especially something that i know i'm probably not going to be able to change or adjust later on although maybe i'm better off doing that than letting them just become nothing,

as they may become soon enough. So I guess I should get on the phone and try to put them to use. Yeah, or hold the story for the next confessional. We'll see. Or I can confess that I knew I should have used them before the airline went out of business. Right, you should have known about this thing coming up. What were you thinking? All right, so speaking of the things that we should know,

you wrote a post this week about the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the MX Platinum. I did. You know, you started that with, I wrote a post this week, which was very literal. I wrote a post this week, which was very literal. I wrote a post this week because I was on vacation. Yeah, which was good. You got a chance to get out and check out some sunshine and some nice places. I did.

I did. I'm very excited about the Ventana Big Sur. Wait for the review. We'll talk about it more after after i published that but sounds good awesome good awesome looks like a good option for a if you're looking for a domestic trip you'll find out more i guess soon so yes so all right so you got a chance to do that you got a chance to relax enjoy a little bit of vacation but you did you did put in that one post at the beginning of the week and and we were talking about things you should know

and i feel like you should know that you were wrong in that post i was wrong did i did i say just like one thing and that thing was wrong there were many things so everything i said was wrong not quite every actually there was something in there that was something right so i reserved does earn three points for dining and travel guys so that was accurate i'm feeling a debate coming up are we gonna argue about about what i said in that post which was you know i really actually didn't write it this week i published it this week i wrote it like about two weeks ago almost so i don't remember what i said so you'll have to remind me well let me refresh your memory okay because one of the things you you said in the subjective kind of uh you know determination of things between the two yeah so we were talking about the value of rewards

or i shouldn't say we you were talking about the value of rewards yeah and you said chase for the win all the rewards points for the win over membership rewards i did say that and i was like so why don't you try and defend that statement for me? Why? Why in any kind of reasonable explanation would you say that Chase points for the win in terms of the value of rewards over membership rewards points? Yeah. It doesn't make sense to me. How do you justify that? Well, first of all, why not?

Tell me first why that's not the case. Okay, because I have to go with what your argument is going to be in order to prove you wrong. Because the only argument that there could possibly be for Chase Points being more value in terms of the rewards, more valuable reward structure, is because of the fact that they have Hyatt as a partner. And Hyatt hotels are great.

There's some great uses of Hyatt points. Greg said he's going to have a post coming about a couple of Hyatt places he's visited in the last week that were great uses of Hyatt points. But Hyatt's got a tiny little footprint comparatively, and they're not always useful. And really, if hotel points are your aim in this game, you should be earning cash back and buying the points when you can get them on sale. I don't think that that should be the determining factor,

especially because Amex has much better airline transfer partners. Much better airline transfer partners where you can get a lot more value and a huge variety of transfer partners. Chase has got like, what, eight airlines or something? Just a few. And Amex has a ton of them that give you great opportunities. And they have a lot that overlap also. And so you might say, oh, well, Chase is almost as good because they have overlapping partners. Except the difference there is that Amex often offers transfer bonuses. We see transfer

bonuses now and then. We've seen 40% to Avios a couple of times in the last few years. We've seen 25 or 30 percent to Virgin Atlantic. So we see transfer bonuses to Air France, Flying Blue. So those are partners they share in common, but they're not really equal, in my opinion. Amex has got an advantage there, a clear advantage because of the transfer bonuses, which rely on you needing to be able to use them at the time that you get the transfer bonus. But the fact is you've got an opportunity to get more miles right right right right right so well so they have better partners yeah so so there's this blog i really like where what they did was each of three authors took different points currencies to see who could go the furthest with 40 000 points that sounds like a really and yeah one of them had chase ultimate

awards one had membership awards one had city thank you points and so one one sort of just very objective way of answering which points are more valuable to say which contestant won that challenge right and say therefore those points are more valuable and and you know the chase ultimate awards won so i mean they are definitely therefore that's a great point if Right. And say, therefore, those points are more valuable. And, you know, the Chase Ultimate Rewards won. Yeah, I mean, they are definitely. Therefore. That's a great point. If you are looking to couch surf and sleep on a concrete slab somewhere.

Hey, I didn't sleep on a concrete slab anywhere. I slept very nicely, thank you. Membership rewards person, Stephen, is who slept on slabs nine times out of ten. We're exaggerating, Stephen. Sorry. Okay. Okay. I'll give you that, that there are some uses of ultimate reward points that are perhaps

good. I'm not going to wave the white flag and say better. But, I mean, come on, though. Seriously. All right. So let me tell you the more serious answer, is that I think that the majority of the audience for that post, people who are looking for a high level, which is better, Sapphire Reserve versus Amex Platinum, are not the people who know the ins and outs of the rewards programs and are going to be necessarily doing that a lot versus using the points to pay for travel. And Chase Sapphire Reserve lets you pay for travel at 1.5 cents per point, full stop.

Amex, you need to do crazy things. I mean, you have to have other cards uh or because i was doing the the consumer uh platinum not the business platinum business platinum you can get 1.5 but only for certain flights right right so so it has a just a very concrete better value if you're going to use your points to pay for travel okay agree with that piece yes if you're using points to pay for travel all right so so my thinking was that that's the majority of the use of the points for the for the audience of that post and that and that they they also have very valuable transfer partners though I agree if you're only comparing based on transfer partners, it would be Amex for the win.

And I'm going to argue that if you're considering spending $400 or $550 a year for the credit card and you're not interested in learning about the transfer partners, I don't know. I can't imagine that the majority of people in our readership are looking for that. Maybe you're right, but I imagine that people paying $550 a year or $450 a year want to be able to find the best possible value for their points. And at the end of the day, if you're looking to use points to pay for travel, churn some Discover cards and get 3% cash back forever. And you're coming pretty close, especially on everyday spend. You wrote that post from the perspective of which of these two cards is better. If you're going to have one of those cards and that's it,

then you've got so many purchases that you're going to make on that Sapphire Reserve card at one point per dollar that you're going to get one and a half cents per point, like a one and a half percent cash back card. That's a crappy value. It's the same thing with Amex in that case. But either way, if that's your main use of points, I think you should be focusing on a cash back strategy with 2.625% cash back with the Bank of America premium rewards. If you got platinum honors, I think that that is a much better long-term strategy unless you spend a lot of money on dining and travel. And if you're spending that much money on dining and travel,

then I would tell you there's a great blog called Frequent Miler that you ought to be reading more often so you learn how to leverage those points and miles and be able to not pay so much for your travel. Am I right or am I wrong here? Come on. You're right-ish, but I still can't get over the Hyatt issue.

So, yes, you say, well, Hilton, blah, blah, blah. But – Well, Hilton, blah, blah, blah. That's basically what you said. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well, no, you know, Hilton, blah, blah, blah. It's true. In terms of Hilton, yes.

Because if you want Hilton points, I would give you the same advice. Get yourself 3% cash back and buy the points at half a cent a piece, and you're earning six points per dollar on your card everywhere, right? Right. But Hyatt's just awesome. And the ability to transfer to Hyatt is so valuable. And it's easy. You don't have to know a lot about how to do this stuff to get great value by transferring your points to hyatt well that's true as long as there's a hyatt that you want to stay in in the place you want to go to for the price point that you're looking to pay then yeah absolutely but i feel like that particular niche just isn't always true it's not always true but but but they've been

making great strides towards especially towards the the high end, which is where I think where using points is the most exciting. True. And so you want to stay at a place that's usually well over $1,000 a night. If you had been earning that cash back, you just probably wouldn't consider that and uh but if you've been earning your chase points you know you can transfer to hyatt and and book that place for 30 000 points a night maybe you would and you also know you're not gonna pay a resort fee because you're booking with points and things like that but here's here's my question on that and i'm gonna gravitate away from Hyatt in a second.

But on the Hyatt topic, how much does Hyatt sell their points for on a regular basis? I don't remember. I'm not sure either. I don't think it's that cheap. No, it's not that cheap, but I've seen them go on sale under $0.02 a point before. And so if that's the case,

if you're using that 3% cash back, you keep your eye out for a high at sale, then you're talking about you're earning one and a half points per dollar with your cash back card. If you're buying them at two cents each, you're earning 3% cash back, right? But you could do that by adding the Freedom Unlimited to your collection. Well, right. And my fourth or fifth point as to why you're wrong is going to be that you shouldn't be examining these cards in a vacuum because that's not a realistic environment. If you're going to open one of these cards, you should not only have one credit card.

So I'll tell you, on this topic of the points are more valuable, I have to say this is – my memory of writing that post is this is the one that I had the hardest time settling. You knew it was weak. I did. Well, you know, I look at it and I say, okay, so with Amex membership rewards points. But everything else in that post was right. Sorry, go ahead. You could transfer to ANA and you could fly round-trip business class to Japan for 75,000 points. You'll get yourself one way, basically, with Chase Altamira awards for that number of points.

Or 150K round-the-world in business class. I put one together as an example that was in the post today that included New York to Amsterdam to Istanbul. No, sorry, to Amsterdam to Athens to Istanbul to the Maldives to Sri Lanka to Bangkok to Beijing and back to New York with stops in all of those places for 115,000 points. I mean, you would spend hundreds of thousands of chase points to be able to replicate the same kind of trip. Well, but with my chase points, I just wouldn't do that trip

and then I wouldn't be stuck with this flight into beijing that's actually not going right and so you know i'm saying if you're the one you're the one you know who has to deal with this this big problem going on so we can agree that greg is wrong here so he's reaching he's grasping for strides here so oh sorry about that we'll agree that that Nick has a point about that particular point. Okay, so let's move on to the second point then. You said that the Platinum card has far superior lounge access. Well, obviously it does. Yeah, that doesn't even need debate.

Well, why do you say far superior? Well, so first of all you know i said lounge access so the fact that it has a crappier priority pass than chase because it doesn't allow restaurants does not factor in to the lounge access piece of it right because going to a restaurant is not lounge access well it's not lounge access but it's definitely a piece of the lounge access benefit. No, that's another benefit. Okay, so then I missed the part where you said that the Chase Sapphire Reserve is much better for restaurant access. Yes, you missed that.

It was a very tiny print. I didn't think it was that. It's that bullet point. Okay. Should have read more closely. Right. So it has Priority Pass, which is the only lounge access Chase has. Right.

And then it's got all kinds of other things. It has the Escape Lounges, which are my favorite lounges in the U.S. I don't know if you've been to Escape Lounges, but they're terrific. They have great food. I have. I've been to two. Okay. Because there's only like eight of them or ten of them.

Yeah, but still. I mean, when you're somewhere where there is one, it's an awesome benefit. It is. Same with the airspace lounge or whatever it's called. There's only one of those. And I've been to it. And side note, so that's the San Diego one, right? Right.

Exactly. And side note, so that's the San Diego one, right? Right, exactly. Right. So they had a shelf with all their glasses all lined up, but they weren't touching each other. And so there was a little gap between them. So they were ahead of their time in this whole coronavirus thing. No. They were good at setting up dominoes. Oh. And I brushed against one. Oh, no. And you became up dominoes. Oh. And I brushed against one. Oh, no.

And you became the domino champion. It was quite a... So I'm not allowed in that lounge anymore, but... Reader confession time already happened. Or Greg confession time, rather, already happened here. And then, of course, there's the Centurion lounges. Okay, wait, wait, wait. Let's back up to airspace for a second.

I flew out of San Diego last year. Right. I didn't go to the airspace lounge. Oh, i flew out of san diego last year right i didn't go to the airspace lounge oh sorry to hear that you want to know why i didn't go to the airspace lounge why did you not you would know where it is like it's right after security unless you happen to to know san diego airport because you're based in san diego or something you wouldn't know that you have access to well but but that's that's part of the point that people who people who are going to value this lounge access the most are the people who are at airports where they're going to get into the lounges because they have the card. And I totally agree. If you're based in San Diego, for instance, or you're based in an airport that has a Centurion lounge, then absolutely the Platinum card has far superior access. Well, and don't forget so the one i haven't mentioned yet all many many of our viewers listeners readers live near an airport with a delta club sky club

and fly delta occasionally right now true that's the one lounge access where they don't give you guest privileges. So it's only for you, but still. I have to think that the majority, I don't know if the majority, but I think it's probably close to the majority of Americans live near, that the airport that they use most either has one of those lounges because sky clubs are so prevalent, and then you have a smattering of priority pass and the other ones yeah yeah and i'm my argument on this is not that chase has superior lounge access i'm not going to say that so it's the word far it's the word far that threw me i was like you know okay maybe

maybe nx is superior and it definitely is superior if you live near an airport that has one of those things in my shoes and i know that my shoes are a minority of readers and listeners probably but in my shoes my airport has no delta sky club and i've flown delta like twice in the last 10 years three times maybe or something like that right and i've been to some centurion lounges and they are nice but it's not something that i do regularly the escape lounges like i said i've been to two i was at a third airport last year that had one but i didn't realize they had one because unlike the priority pass app there isn't just an easy app or maybe escape does have one and mx just hasn't told me i don't know but the only way i know lounge buddy yeah lounge buddy

you know i don't i don't always look it up sometimes i do okay and i should and okay that's my fault but i but i feel like mx doesn't have an easy solution to finding the lounge access that you have access to. That's probably why they bought LoungeBuddy. Perhaps, perhaps. So I'll give you that it's maybe better. But on the flip side, if you happen to be located near somewhere that has one of those restaurant benefits, that pretty awesome being able to get a full meal before your flight i mean i've used that a handful of times i i agree i i hate i hate that the amex card does not allow the restaurant credit yeah but being able to bring a couple of guests to the restaurants i actually i like a lounge

don't get me wrong i enjoy having a a nice, quiet, kind of relaxing space. But a lot of times, because especially I don't have TSA pre-check or clear or anything like that, so I'm usually getting to the airport quite a bit earlier than my flight. So I usually have a lot of time at the airport. So for me, having a restaurant is great because I get a full meal and I have plenty of time to eat one. Right, right, right. Whereas for my wife and I, we often get to the airport very soon before boarding, and we'll be hungry, and we rush into the club,

and because they just have it out buffet style, you just gobble down some food. Pick up all the germs right there. Pick up all the germs, exactly. Yep, yep. They also have hand sanitizers in the club. Good call. All right, so I'll give you the Platinum card has maybe better access for a lot of people far superior i felt like was a stretch i'm not giving you that one okay all right all right so so we'll call this one to one one to one one okay so then

my last point then is that i i think the overall problem with the argument of comparing these two cards and you kind of already admitted to this is that looking at either of these cards in a vacuum i think is not a good way to look at it because you should not be opening just these cards i've always said and i think you've probably said the same thing before that you get an ultra premium card for the benefits and then you get other cards to spend on now the the sapphire reserve is actually somewhat of an anomaly in that regard because it does earn the three points per dollar in travel and dining. Well, I feel like the Sapphire Reserve changed that dynamic. It used to be absolutely true what you said.

None of the ultra-premium cards back when, before Sapphire Reserve, had good earning power. But then Sapphire Reserve came in and said 3x travel and dining. Everyone was like, whoa, finally. It was weird before that the ultra premiums were so weak. Yeah, yeah. But now here was one that did, that rewarded you for spend. And then Platinum started adding their 5X for flights and other things.

And Prestige, of course, went to the 5x categories and a couple 3x categories i guess yeah so um i think that part's changed but but yes you you you ought to always round out your ultra premium with at least one good solid everywhere else card or or one or two other cards that aren't good category bonuses and that's where i feel like it's hard for me to to give a hands-down win to chase over amex because amex has the blue business plus where you can earn 2x everywhere on up to fifty thousand dollars in purchases that's going to cover most people for an everywhere else card and you're going to earn points that in my opinion are more valuable than chase ultimatewards because of those transfer partners that I already said Greg was wrong about. Yeah.

So I'll tell you what. When I was writing this post, I started adding in – in the part where I talked about earning power. I started adding in the stuff about Amex having a 2x everywhere add-on and Chase only having a 1.5x ever add-on but then i was like i'm gonna talk about that i ought to be talking about the 5x office supply and whatnot yeah and and suddenly it was like it was like blowing up and and i had to get it done so i just took out exactly i had to go on vacation. I just took out, exactly. I had to get on vacation. It's a nice highest to check out. So I had to take that out and just leave it simpler. It's hard.

Some people want to know the simple answer, which is better, and I did my best to try to answer that. I think it's a hard undertaking because I think that when you look at it, it's hard to compare those two cards in a vacuum because you do know all of those other things. And so all of those things, even if you didn't include them in the post, are somewhat playing into your mind when you're thinking about the value of these things. Because when we talk about Hyatt being a great transfer partner from Chase, I mean, honestly, I'm sure that both of us feel that way because a lot of our ultimate rewards are earned at 5X. And so when you're earning them at 5X, then it feels pretty good to use them on Chase.

And it also feels like it's not a bad use to get one and a half cents per point out of them because if you're earning them at 5x, that's, I mean, 7.5% cash back is not a bad deal. Right, right. Using them towards travel that way. So it's hard to look at it in the vacuum. Yeah.

When you look at it that way, then you start to say, well, maybe Chase does have an advantage. But then, I don't know, you look at the fact that amex has 2x everywhere no annual fee on up to 50k in purchases then you got the grocery card with the gold or turn 4x on uh on your grocery purchases up to 25k per year and 4x on dining i feel like again i i have to give the nod to amex overall when I look at creating a portfolio. Not only that, but more cards to earn welcome bonuses through overall, right?

I don't know if there's more points. I should have looked that up. Probably more points. More points from sign-up bonuses? Yeah, I think so. Because there's so many different cards. Right, right. And then so many points you can earn from referring people because you can

refer to any card. Although chase seems to be expanding that somewhat, at least within the brands. I just got an email. Was it yesterday about the Marriott cards? Now you can refer to any Marriott card with a Marriott card. Oh, I missed that.

Yeah. Just so I haven't actually posted it yet, but the email came in. So, so the chase does seem to be kind of gravitating in that direction, which is good. I like to see that. If you have any friends under 524, you could get some referral credits. You've got to get out there and start meeting people in the lounges or whatever.

When you're sitting at your restaurant with your priority pass and you can treat some random stranger to lunch because you have the one that gets you restaurant access. Side note about Ameex and hilton okay all right so i was at big sir enjoying the fact that i was staying at this incredible hyatt property for 30k points per night when i think it was summer hall summer hall had a post about the transfer bonus. Not many points for those who don't know. Yeah, sorry. Anyway, the point is, so there's a current transfer bonus, 50% from membership rewards, right?

Right. So that gives you three Hilton for one Amex. Correct. So Hilton, most of their top-end properties, $95K a night. So it's not much more than $30K membership rewards. Especially if you're booking a five-night stay and you get the fifth night free and then it's like $78K per night. So by three, it's $20-something. Right, right, right, right.

Except you wouldn't want to do that because you can buy the points for half a cent each yeah right i mean right so never mind what i was about to say go ahead go ahead no i was just i was just thinking that here was an example where where the amex to hilton thing was giving me or is giving people as much value as the Chase to Hyatt transfer, but only during the transfer bonus. Yeah, I've tried to wrap my mind around that a few times before, because if you're earning, let's say, 4X at the grocery store with your MX Gold card,

and then you transfer that with one of those kinds of bonuses where it's like basically you're earning 12 Hilton points per dollar if you're transferring over to Hilton, right? so that kind of seems pretty good on the one hand on the other hand if you're earning if you get a card that earns i don't know five percent cash back i don't know if there's one that has a five percent category for grocery stores i guess the blue cash plus got six percent but it's yeah but it's capped at six yeah yeah i think three percent might be the biggest uncapped for grocery so at any rate or if you find another category bonus where you're getting five percent like let's say you get the

ducks unlimited you're getting five percent of gas stations yeah then uh then you know essentially you're kind of earning 10 hilton points per dollar at gas stations all the time so uh so then the 12 doesn't sound quite as sexy as it did when you're you know thinking that it was a huge increase so so i don't know i always have a hard time justifying that because yeah sometimes i look at it and i say well it's pretty equal between hyatt and hilton because when you're able to take advantage of one of those transfer bonuses it's pretty close in the top end and also i should note while we're talking about that that at the bottom end if you're not somebody who wants to stay at the top end places the bottom end is insane you're not somebody who wants to stay at the top end places. The bottom end is insane. Yeah. Because you have obviously very few points, Amex points, that are required to stay at Hilton's.

But also Marriott's bottom end now. Off-peak category one is 5,000 points per night. Same as Hyatt. And both the brands will give you fifth night free. That's right. So you can pay a little bit less. Of course, Hyatt is going to be going to peak and off-peak soon. So there will be times when you could spend only 3,500 Hyatt points perhaps for a category one.ategory 1, but Hyatt doesn't do the fifth night free, so it'll be pretty comparable still.

So there are some opportunities to use Amex points for hotels. The problem that I have with that is that those points, the Marriott points and Hilton points, go on sale so cheaply so often that I kind of feel like I'm selling my rewards short by making that transfer, which is why I told you that I can't get on board with Chase being more valuable because the same could be said for Hyatt. All right. We should move on. We should move on. I'm happy that I at least clearly won that debate,

and we can just move on from there. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'll let him think that. He's the boss. So since we talked about Hyatt, let's talk just for a quick second anyway about Hyatt Prive.

Yeah. Because I wrote a post this week about Hyatt Prive. Cool stuff. Yeah. Pretty cool, huh? And you didn't use it on your most recent trip. I didn't. And we were emailing about the Prive privileges before I went on the trip but i had already locked in like

there was a two-week cancellation like no cancellations within two weeks of the trip is how i booked it through amex fine hotels and resorts because especially when you told me that sometimes you don't get charged a resort fee, whereas I was getting charged a resort fee. Yeah. I would have loved to have rebooked it as a Privé rate. Yeah, yeah. So I was really excited. I had seen One Mile at a Time write about Hyatt Privé before, and I kind of, to be honest, I kind of just figured that they were writing about it because it was a business thing for them.

So I just didn't really put much thought into it. I didn't necessarily think that it returned a lot of value i assumed it would probably only be on an inflated rate or at properties that i wasn't going to want to stay at anyway and when i got googling it and i looked and one mile at a time had a list of all the different properties where it worked i happened to be going to new york city and i was like wow most of the hyatt properties in new york city not the hyatt places and not the hyatt in harold square for instance but but a number like six i think six of the Hyatt properties in New York City, not the Hyatt places and not the Hyatt in Herald Square, for instance, but a number, like six, I think,

six of the Hyatt properties in New York City are on their purvey list, and some of them are pretty cheap. Like last weekend, I was looking at rates, and at one of them, the rates dropped down to like $104 a night. Is that normal or is that coronavirus? I'm sure it's a combination of being the winter and coronavirus. Although I stayed at the Grand Hyatt, and I wrote about that in New york and i often see that place available for 125 to 150 bucks a night during the winter so yeah that's not really well probably because they have so many rooms they just yeah

yeah so yeah so it would be only half clean half of them so well you could excuse them because they have so many rooms i mean you can't expect them to clean all of them. That would be crazy. Definitely not. Definitely not. So they half clean half of them. So you're going to hope to get one of those at least. They clean the $200 rooms, not the $120. But the nice thing with Hyatt Prevay, I'm glad you mentioned that.

I wrote about it this week, and if you missed the post, then the key thing about booking through Hyatt Prevay is you have to book it through an agent. It was a Hyatt Prevay agent. But it's like doing a direct booking with Hyatt. So you still earn points and elite credit and you get your elite benefits and all that. But the nice thing is with Hyatt Prevay, you have a two-night minimum at most brands, one-night minimum at Park Hyatt and Andes, two-night minimum at most. But if you book two nights, then you get free breakfast for two in the restaurant. You get $100 property credit that you can use. Depends on the property, I'm sure. But it seems to work at restaurants,

I think at most properties anyway. Unlike sometimes through FHR, it's the spa credit through Preve so far, it seems that it's a restaurant credit. And then like Greg said, I was staying at a New York City property where they have a destination fee of $40 per night, and I found out that that does not apply to the higher purvey rate. So $40 a night plus tax, I'm not having to pay that. You're still leaving out the most exciting thing in my mind. Well, I don't know if we're thinking the same thing. When you said they only cleaned the $200 rooms, the next thing I thought was, the really cool thing is that you get a one category room upgrade

like at the time of time of booking that's that's the thing i mean that that to me is the killer because it and it doesn't have to be a non-refundable rate no right no so you so even if you you know if if you need an upgrade right Like you know that the next level – well, you pointed out in your post that you could probably – you should be able to book the cheapest room – book the room that's just below the one you actually want and actually get confirmed into that. Yeah. Yeah, confirmed in advance, like a couple of days after you book. And presumably if you're a globalist, you'd still get an upgrade from there, or you'd be likely to check in, right? But at least that way you're confirmed, and that way, sometimes plans depend on that.

Right. You might be going with a child, and you need that extra space, or whatever it is. And so this is a way of paying the regular bedroom rate, but maybe you're paying for one with a view or something instead of the base room. But still, that's probably not a huge price increase. In your example, it was only a little bit more, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you're getting guaranteed... Yeah, much better. Yeah, getting it guaranteed in advance is a big difference in fact i didn't put this in the post but one of the properties in in manhattan i can't remember which one it was to be honest off the top of my head but one of them there was a suite it

was like the the lowest level suite was 169 a night and the next suite category up from that was like 450 a night nice so if you look at169 suite and you get confirmed in that $450 suite in advance, I mean, that's just a terrific, terrific benefit. And Greg mentioned traveling with a child. And so I made my next reservation at the Park Hyatt in D.C. And so it was $199 for a regular room at the Park Hyatt. And I got upgraded to the junior suite. Again, like confirmed in advance. So I would know in advance that I'm going to have the junior suite, which there looks advance so i would know in advance that i'm

gonna have the junior suite which there looks like kind of like a hyatt place it's got plenty of space for a pack and play and that sort of thing so plus the hundred dollar credit and the breakfast for two and all those extra you know side benefits so i'm i'm thrilled with hyatt purvey and it's definitely something i'm going to look at more because it's even better than being a globalist you get even better than globalist benefits uh and if you are a globalist great you get those benefits still too and earn the right right now now to be fair you're not getting free parking well which globalists only get an award stays right oh right right right right right yeah so this is the paid stay program so yeah i i left that out because specifically

right that's the difference there so so the differences from fine hotels and resorts, one, which is really, really important, is the fact that it's available for many more properties. Many more. Many Hyatts that are not on fine hotels and resorts or those other similar programs are available through this. Right. Because they're Hyatts, and this is a Hyatt program. Then the upgrade shortly after booking, as opposed to the day before you check in and then oh and the chance not all of them will be this way the chance of not having to pay a resort fee those are some significant significant advantages they really are you know you look at it if you're

staying four or five days and you don't have to pay the resort fee that can be a really huge savings yeah and actually i should point out too and I mentioned this in the post, but probably some people may have even glanced over this. But in my case, I typically book the AAA rates, because that's usually a little bit better than the standard rate or the member rate. And in fact, in the situation I pointed to in my post, I was booking, you have to book the standard rate, the high approval rate is the standard rate. So in my case, the standard rate was $129. There was a member rate that was a couple of dollars cheaper than that. And the AAA rate was $117. So I felt like I was overpaying by $12 in order to be able to get this $100 credit and the other benefits, which seemed like a good enough deal to me for the two nights.

But what I realized in the end was, actually, I got a better deal because had I booked that AAA rate, I would have had to have paid the $40 resort fee. And I didn't with the $129 rate that I paid. So it really can work out to be a pretty significant savings that I think is well worth it. And I'm going to be looking more and more at those because I found a lot of hotels that look decently nice but not very expensive. So my question for you is why you didn't look into this more before I booked my stay. You know they say that necessity is the mother of invention, right? I needed a hotel.

They were cheap. And I was like, you know, I had a Marriott book that I wasn't very excited about. And so I just kept looking. And I was like, man, these Hyatt's are so cheap. I've read about that Preve thing. What's that all about? I just happened to Google it and stumble into it. So random question. This isn't really related to hyatt pre-pay but rather what what you said before

that free free parking is a is a globalist benefit on awards days another benefit to not non-globalist on awards days is not having to pay resort fees right so they give you unlike most chains they give you some advantages to booking award stay as opposed to it being somehow lesser like you know uh anyway so here's my question is is a points and cash stay a cash stay or a point stay from that point of view oh in terms of how those benefits work points and in cash is more like a cash stay. You still pay the resort fee. All right. I ran into that actually in Hawaii a couple years ago when I was a globalist

and staying at I think the Andaz or something like that. I had to pay the resort fee and the parking each day. Ouch. So that added up. Yeah. Yeah. So points in cash, even though they're supposedly going to be adjusting it a little bit to make it a little better, I still think it has no place.

I can't think of a good scenario for using it the way they've changed it. The only scenario you would consider it in is if you don't have enough points to pay for the stay, I guess. And you're just looking to be able to defray some of the cash cost of your trip. Otherwise, yeah, no, it's not a particularly good value anymore. They unfortunately decimated that. But even before they hurt the value of it, it still wasn't as good because you had to pay those fees. Right, right.

So it took away from it. Although, you know, it used to be, now I'm remembering, it used to be that you didn't earn elite nights on points days. Now you do. But back then, at least the points and cash, you did earn those elite nights. So there was a point to it then. And I think maybe that was why I had booked the points in cash in the first place.

Because I thought I needed the elite knights. All right. So, okay. That's that. Hyatt Prevay. You should definitely take a look at that. I feel like if you're booking paid Hyatt stays, you've got to be looking at that. But then, also interesting this week, U.S. Bank.

There's some big rumors about big changes coming with the U.S. Bank lineup. So the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve, arguably the king of everywhere else cards. If you're making most of your purchases in person, you can use a mobile wallet. The card earns three points per dollar. Use those at one and a half cents each for real-time mobile rewards. Basically earning four and a half percent cash back towards travel with with that card on your your mobile wallet purchases right but interestingly this week the rumors are that the flex perks cards which right now are in points that you can transfer over to the altitude reserve

those flex perks cards are going to be discontinued for new applications in a few days it seems right and then they're going to be replaced and there are going to be some new altitude cards the altitude go and altitude select with a new set of bonus categories so what do you make of this greg is this like us banks big play to become a major player in the the points game here or is it exciting news is it bad news yeah well i'm finding kind of exciting so so they have the the no fee card that's that earns 4x restaurants and takeout am i remembering that right so yeah which i found weird like is there a takeout that's not a restaurant i don't know but anyway uh that's how they have it labeled according to doctor of credit right right um so 4x if i don't know does like like Grubhub or Uber then, is that takeout? I don't...

Does that... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Anyway, Doctor of Credit. Sorry. Who cares?

Let's just think of it as Forex dining. Forex dining, yep. Right? So it seems to me extremely likely, I'd be very surprised if you can't move those points to your altitude reserve and then you can redeem them at one and a half so you're getting six percent back for dining towards travel which is that's a no fee card yeah i mean there's the the only thing, I mean, the prestige, I guess, is close to that in that you could get 5x dining and then redeem those points. If you also have the Premier, you could redeem them for travel through the crappy travel portal and get a total of, help me here 6.25 a little bit more but anyway so this is closer to cash back it's you know there's easy ways to sort of get that one and a half back as cash yeah don't tell

anybody but um so so creative yeah so six percent back for dining and no annual fee? That's crazy. That's insane, yeah. And so, yeah. You might convince yourself that Chase points are worth two cents each and that you're getting 6% on the Sapphire Reserve, but it's not really 6% in your pocket, and that's like a really you're playing the game convincing yourself, you know, something that isn't.

Right. And if you really want points, think of it as being like 12x Hilton for dining. Yeah. Or 12x IHG. Or IHG. Yeah. For dining. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. So that's crazy. I'm hoping that it won't have a foreign transaction fee. Then it would be really sweet. Obviously, then you could use it for dining internationally. And then the next one up, $95, 4X, help me travel and something. Oh, and gas. Gas, that's right, yes.

So it's kind of like the Premier, which offers 3X for travel and gas. But this is earning 4X, and those 4X, again, become like six percent cash back in a way yeah yeah i mean that's pretty crazy if it works that way i'm less confident than you are that it's going to work that way really yeah and so so here's why now it seems logical like your perspective and it seems logical that yeah they're going to launch a line of altitude cards of course the rewards have to be transferable between the different altitude cards it just makes sense that it would be that way. And so I think that you're probably right that they will be able to be moved, but I'm nervous about whether or not you're going to be able to use those for one and a half cent each value because this past week, no notice, Flex Perks cards, which had been getting one and a half cents each in value when redeeming through real-time mobile rewards, suddenly stopped getting that value.

And they started at points suddenly were only worth one cent each towards travel with no notice. Nobody finding out. Somebody called in a customer service and they said, supposedly this was as of March 1st and it'll be communicated soon whatever that means uh that suddenly you've lost a bunch of value in terms of how you redeem your points which stinks by the way if you just redeemed 40 000 or 50 000 points that's terrible yeah but but the altitude reserve as far as we know is continuing to earn 1.5 or get 1.5 value it is right now i think that when they they launch these cards they're earning 4x yeah boy i'm nervous about whether or not that's going to remain. If they no notice took that away from the FlexPers cards, then I have to wonder if something similar might happen with the Altitude Reserve if the value will be changed in some way.

Now, I hope not because I feel like real-time mobile rewards is a huge competitive advantage that U.S. Bank is not marketing very well. I feel like I don't see enough about it because I think the real-time mobile rewards thing is really a huge, huge, huge value add because you can book your hotel or flight or whatever the way you want to book it through whatever portal or whatever means you want and then redeem the points back for the charges. Now there's some ins and outs there in terms of minimums and that kind of thing. It's the ins and outs that I think are the problem for them. It's a customer service nightmare because

if you happen to be booking with a company that's registered not in the United States, whether you know that or not, it's not going to work. If you happen to be paying less than the minimum for that category, it's not going work like hotels have to be 500 or more rental cars 250 or more you know and so they have weird things that make it less customer friendly much less customer friendly and confusing i i think even i think that's the worst part is like people just won't understand why things are happening the way they are and so i so that makes me nervous then because that seems like i don't know are they going to keep it up the way that they've they've done it because you may be right it might be a customer service nightmare of sorts for them and

an easy solution to that might be just to make the points worth one cent each and well lo and behold that's exactly what they did to flex perks cards this week so i don't know i don't know if i feel as confident now even if they're only worth one cent each four percent back in those categories especially in the no fee card is certainly not a bad deal so right i mean you know uber had to give that up they were they were giving that that benefit four percent cash back for dining and no fee but they changed their structure dude well and i and I don't think that it's feasible for that to remain. If it really worked the way you're saying at the 6%, it just can't last because the bank isn't going to be able to support that long term.

They're not making 6% on their swipe fees. So there's no way that they're going to be able to maintain that forever. Forget about MSing on these cards. I imagine that they'll shut that down pretty quickly and and then even if you aren't msing i still can't imagine that they're going to be able to support six percent back in those categories for it it does seem it does seem unlikely although you know to do it so my assumption is that if you have just that no fee or 95 card you won't get the 1.5.

Right. You get just the one. The one. Okay. Which, as you said, is still pretty good. It is, yeah. So there's a question of how many people will understand that they need to have both the Altitude Reserve and this other one and move their points over. You know what it feels like?

It feels a lot like Chase Ink Cards and the Sapphire Reserve. True. Sapphire Reserve came out. I think we were a little nervous what was going to happen with our 5Xs and stuff. Now that it meant you can get basically 7.5% travel by moving it to the Sapphire Reserve. And so far, so good. But they do have a speed limit there so they do you got a maximum amount that you can earn that 5x on right and i haven't heard anything about that

with the u.s bank cards yet now it's certainly possible that they'll have caps and if they have caps then maybe the it'll be something that lasts for a while uh and i think it's an interesting kind of exciting opportunity if it really does come true the way that it's kind of being rumored so far, I think it'll put U.S. Bank on the map. Now, do you think they'll make them transferable? Do you think that U.S. Bank will add transferable points? I would love for them to. I think that would be really exciting, but I don't think it's likely.

I don't think it's likely. I don't think it's likely either. I'd like to see it happen too. I feel like it might be time for them to get into that. Yeah. But I don't think it's likely either. I think it's weird that they have had this altitude reserve that they require you to have a relationship with the bank in order to open.

You have to have some other U.S. bank credit card or checking account or that kind of thing. Right. They didn't really have the altitude reserve tied into any of the other credit cards so this makes a lot of sense to me from the perspective that okay now it'll be tied in with some other cards that you want to have right and it makes sense to pair them together so i think that transferring the points is almost a definite that you'll be able to move the points between the two cards i just my question is how much they're actually going to be worth are they going to maintain that one and a half cents each or are they going to change the ratio or have different ratios in terms of what it's worth when you're redeeming towards rewards it'd be nice to see it simplified

and make a minimum redemption across the board if that's the way they're going to run that that aspect of it so yeah what if it if it works the way we're thinking, or at least I'm thinking it will work, will you get those cards? I mean, boy, yeah. I think I've not gotten the Altitude Reserve longer. I should have already had the Altitude Reserve by now. Seriously. And if you add those, yeah, I mean, I feel like how do you not? You almost have to.

Especially, you know, I've been talking, preaching here for the last little while about how instead of earning hotel points earn cash back and buy the points i mean hello this is the strategy for that so so yeah i feel like if it does work that way then i have to get those cards because it would be silly not to if i were still spending on other cards and earning much less return yeah i'm justifying that so so all right so the the no fee one pairing that with the altitude reserve that's kind of a no-brainer i mean yeah if if you've if you made the leap to where you have the altar altitude reserve you know yes it's one more you know adds to your 524 and whatnot but there's no other good reason not to get the free one i think right what about the 95 one so so travel and gas we both probably have multiple cards that offer good bonuses in those

categories maybe not six percent definitely not six percent you know i think it depends then an ms from an ms angle and so so here's the thing about the altitude reserve and and it would seem on the one hand that i definitely should have had it by now one of the reasons that i don't have it yet is because i just i realized over time that apart from ms i don't spend that much money in person i just don't go to stores where i spend money face to face right all that often when do, it's usually the grocery store. And I've got cards that earn good category bonuses at the grocery store. So I don't spend all that much money,

especially because I live in a rural area where there's no place to go and spend money. So when you're surrounded by the trees, it's a very cheap way to live. So that's why I like to travel. So when you say it'll depend on the MS, you're talking about gas stations. Yeah, if I can MS at gas stations. But the problem has been that the Altitude Reserve is known, or I should say U.S. Bank is known to shut down people who try to MS with the mobile wallet payment 3x benefits so it seems likely the second they see people making big charges at gas stations of like 500 and 500 yeah right right 695 or 505 95 whatever it is yeah that they're going to shut you down pretty quickly it's my guess maybe and you know you mentioned the u.s bank thing and

so i don't know do you have recent data points on that? I know in the beginning. No, no, that's a good point. Yeah. In the beginning, they shut down people very quickly for buying like one or two gift cards with the mobile wallet. And that put the fear of God in anybody who had the card, I think, because they didn't want to lose that great benefit. And so anybody I know that has the card doesn't do any ms on it because they're afraid of getting shut down or if they are they're not going to tell anybody about it because

you know they're going to yeah themselves well so there's an experiment you could do you could see how quickly they get shut down you know the thing is with us bank so i've been using the club carlson card at simon malls a bunch i've been doing the right three 10k spends for the well certificates so even even even closer to home where home is the altitude reserve the flex perks car i i've known many people who ms with it at grocery stores because it had that grocery 2x or whatever um so you know it it does seem like at least as you said initially when the card came out they were focusing only on that card. And all I'm saying is, yeah, you're right.

We don't know that that's still happening. Maybe it would, but I don't know anybody who's willing to be the guinea pig on that. If you are, then let us know. You know what, though? Even if it has stopped, they might start it up for these new cards, right? They might have to lay low for a while. They're not dumb. They're like 4X. We need to make sure people aren't abusing the 4x right i mean right well and and when you ask is the 95 card worth it i said only if you're able to ms on it because i don't spend that much

on gas either so right same it's not a super exciting category bonus for me so i think the no fee card and the altitude reserve together are like a no-brainer the 95 card you know so you're still getting 4x travel would you i don't spend that much money yeah travel you know again i and when you whenever you bring it up with the sapphire reserve about 3x on travel and dining i always kind of go like i don't spend that much money on travel i mean i do spend more money maybe than than some people do on travel but but i don't i don't spend that much money on travel. I mean, I do spend more money maybe than some people do on travel, but I don't spend nearly as much on travel as I am at. So the little bit that I earn from my paid travel

falls in comparison to the points I earn from other methods. Which is actually a good point in general, that if you MS, probably worrying about optimizing every real dollar of spend where you're not manufacturing spend is probably not, like, that important to do. It's true, yeah. And that actually was my justification for going with the Bank of America premium rewards for my wife and just saying, just use that for everything. Like, it's getting good enough returns for everything. And so I could just keep it enough returns for everything.

And so I could just keep it really simple for her. Right, right. So it'll be interesting to see then, I guess, when this comes out. I'll definitely be interested at some point in trying to buy a Visa gift card with it. But I'm not sure that that's going to work. So maybe I'll leave the middle card for a while until we see what's going on with it and start with the no-fee card and the altitude reserve together because I think that is a good combination. I think it's a valuable thing to have.

I think more of us ought to be focusing on having some of those cashback-y type opportunities to take advantage of things like this Hyatt Prevay benefit that we're talking about booking because it was a better deal than awards days on the last couple of times when I've used it, better deal to pay, and certainly would have been even better if I were able to max that out or to pair that up rather with the altitude reserve. Now, you know, I've talked before. I spend a lot on dining.

That's a big category for me. That's probably my biggest category. So that was one of the things that made it really hard for me to think about giving up the prestige 5x but now if i can get 4x with this race yeah yeah i i at the very least what it does is it makes me even less likely to re-up the prestige next time the annual fee comes due it's tough i'm gonna have such a hard time getting rid of that because the 5x especially when i'm with your turkish thing boy i really don't want to give up access to the turkish miles but uh but definitely i can see where you're they're gonna start calling you like Nicholas Turkish Reyes or something like that.

So, okay. So we talked about U.S. Bank. We talked about Hyatt. Well, I want to get to my favorite segment of the week. Yes, yes. Maybe it's Greg's favorite segment of the week. It's certainly up there. So it's the question of the week for those who are not familiar with the format.

The question of the week. So this week we have a question that comes in sort of in the form of a statement but it tags the question in there all right and it's a question that's kind of come up in conversation quite a bit lately it's from jb in san diego who i have to give a shout out to because i love the fact that he calls you greggy i have no idea why he calls you jb what's with that you know i guess it's okay i don't know it's just kind of odd it's kind of it is but jb is you know a unique character unique individual yeah yeah whoever jb may be so jb writes he says he or she says with the covet 19 the coronavirus um uh he was saying

that the food didn't look appealing in my post by this weekend there's okay there's maybe no more flights and empty hotels. The craziness is occurring in leaps and bounds such that it changes by the minute, not by the weeks or months. Nikki is Greggy going to cover this historic COVID-19 events soon. So the question is, are you going to write something about coronavirus?

Is it something that you're thinking about in terms of your travel? Is it something we should be talking about? terms of your travel? Is it something we should be talking about? And if we should, is it on your mind? Is it affecting the way you're planning your travel? What do you think about it? Yeah, well, of course, it's on my mind. I mean, I think it's on everybody's mind. Even if you're exasperated by people worrying about it, it's on your mind, right? One way or another, it's affecting the world. And so it's very much on my mind. There's the personal travel aspect where, as we talked about,

my travel got completely upended. I was supposed to be in Singapore, ended up going to California instead. We have a trip to England coming up in a few weeks, and I don't expect there'll be any problems with that, but it's just one of those things that it hit Italy so bad. What if it hits England really bad between that time or while we're there and get in a quarantine situation? That won't be fun. But personally, what I think about more is is trying to avoid spreading or getting the virus and so you know what i think about like i i try and i've been doing this for a few years now

try to practice um avoiding touching things that i know other people have touched, and especially in an eating situation. What she says is, I have my hand on the table. Right. Move my hands over the table. Well, at least we're not eating right now. True, true. But I got really sick when I was in Italy. We had been eating in a buffet every day,

and I just got convinced, no proof of this, but convinced that someone with a bad cold or whatever it was had been handling those ladles that you use to plop the food on your plate and a lot of the food was finger food that you pick up with your hands and then you're touching your mouth and everything and and so it'd be very easy to contract, I assume, a virus that way. So since then, I've just tried very hard. If I have to touch one of those shared ladles, I then hopefully will be eating with a fork and knife instead of using my hands. If there's hand sanitizer there, make sure I use that before I eat,

after I've touched the shared utensils, or go to the bathroom, wash my hands, those kind of things. Just in general, trying to avoid those kind of situations where you're touching things or other people, and then as soon as you do, I kind of imagine there's something on there, and I've got to get it off before I touch my face in any way. So anyway, so that's on my mind a lot. And I was kind of debating whether I should write about that. But yeah, I'm kind of curious. So what do you mean? Should you write about it? Why haven't you written about it? Is it something you consider writing about? And I thought that was actually kind of an interesting piece of it. When he asked, are you going to cover this? Because

when things like this happen oftentimes a lot of other blogs will write about it and i'll see a lot of other blogs cover things like this or you know you go back a few a year or two or three ago whenever it was the the whole incident on united with dr dao and getting dragged off the the flight and that was something that almost every other blog under the sun covered but i didn't see something about it at frequent miler right so so i'm curious what's your take on that is it something that that you're interested in writing about or think you should write about or you want to write about and why or why not so yeah so so the united stuff there were there were several united incidents if i remember right but

those united incidents were so far outside of the mission of the blog, of earn miles without flying and what to do with the miles once you get them, that I didn't see any point in covering it. But you could counter-argue that that's my blog. If I'm interested in it, why not write about it, right? But I don't know. That's been my sort of general approach all along has been is it points and miles related? Is it a topic that relates to the blog?

And general travel stories is not really what the blog's about, right? Right. And so why wouldn't I be writing about the oscar awards or something you know it almost feels that separated to me but the uh this situation feels different because it's affecting all of us who have whether we've booked travel paid travel or award travel it's affecting us one way or another so it's it's it's, I think, than the United stuff was to being relevant to the blog. So I'm certainly not against writing about it. And I wouldn't be against you writing about it if you have thoughts about it.

So yeah, I might. I very well might write about that. The other thing that's been on my mind that I think people might be interested in is how it will affect our blog. Yeah. Okay, so people presumably are interested in the blog because they're interested in travel. Presumably. And will this virus cause people to be less interested in travel and therefore less interest in the blog? And so, you know, I'm not seeing any downtick in readership or anything like that.

But, oh, fuck. All right, so for the video, we just lost our... Oh, I don't think we're on video either. Oh, yeah, we would be. This is recorded locally. We just lost our internet connection. So... Rejoin session.

Hopefully that's going to continue on. Otherwise, the YouTube watchers may have the advantage this week. That's right. We'll just alternate each week as to who gets the content. Do you think we should bleep out what I said when we saw the network go down?

I don't know. Is the FCC watching? I don't think so. So we're literally getting nothing here. Oh, what? It's just got the wrong camera there. Oh, okay. Alright. Hopefully it's going to join the right. So if I switch back and then back in my work, whoops.

Alright, so let me just see if we're still recording. Okay. Alright, let's see what happens. I'll rejoin the session again. Yeah. Well. No, that's...

Why is that not moving? Because it's not working. I guess I'll press stop and then start again? I guess. I don't know guess are you worried about what will happen we'll see we're experiencing technical difficulty please stand by can you put up a graphic of the that's a good one all right so let so those i think will stay there. Oh, only seven seconds. Oh, fucking hell. Oh, shoot. I didn't just say that.

That might get us a complaint. Didn't you stop that? No, we're still recording the video, yeah. So we could, theoretically, if the video recording has good sound, we could do it the old-fashioned way and get the sound off of this. Hopefully, because this sort of has to be. This does not look good and yeah when i all right with steven pepper in it all right so let's forget about the squadcast

debacle and we'll just lean in and finish this up all right so as you were saying the uh that you'd be curious how this will affect the blog with the coronavirus because people are presumably interested in travel are they going to be less interested in travel and how is that going to affect what we write about and exactly industry in general right right and so we're already seeing some of how it affects the travel industry right i mean we're seeing lots of american airlines economy web specials coming up and even some business class i think i saw yesterday there was 87k round trip to london in business class using american airlines miles which is i mean that's super rare i've never seen right now

it's it's hard to say that that's due to this i mean i think it's it's a it's a logical supposition but the the start the those incredible fares to uh australia happened before that's true the coronavirus right so you know but regardless of that whether that's because of it or not we do expect as planes are flying half empty there's gonna be deals and as hotels aren't filling up there's going to be deals hopefully there will be you know not just individual like one by one deals but hopefully we'll see some big program-wide things that are exciting right well like you know what keeps coming to my mind is it's been so long since we've seen anything like this but it was like when the radisson

rewards which was club carlson at the time said we'll give you 50 000 points for checking in for one night any of our properties and you know maybe yeah i don't think we'll see that again but but we might see things on that scale yeah similar scale i mean i've wondered the same thing in terms of seeing programs that we've we've seen some some things about programs being more lenient on members who often book travel to Asia or who are based in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of earning elite status. I think it's not far-fetched at all that we might see some promos with, like, double elite night credits or extra elite night credit, that sort of thing, in order to encourage people to stay 75 nights this year, for instance, for Marriott titanium status or 60 nights for Hyatt globalist status, because their companies just might not be allowing as much travel. They might not be doing as much personal travel.

So I could see companies, lodging companies, hotel companies, doing something to incentivize people to come in the door. Oh, for sure. I mean, they have to, right? I would think. I mean, there's's gonna be a lot of hotels and airlines going out of business if they don't find a way to fill up and i flew southwest today and i don't think there was a group c boarding i was near the end of group

b because i didn't check in uh online until pretty late in the game yeah and when i was online i didn't see anybody sitting down still right i don't think there was a group C at all. Right. So we have, you know, I mean, it's terrible that the virus is spreading and everything. And once the kit is widely available in the U.S., we're going to see a huge spike in the incident rates in the U.S., not because suddenly people are getting it, because suddenly we'll know people have it, which we don't know today um and so that's going to probably just exasperate this like there'll be even more fear of flying it's going to get worse before it gets better it's going to get worse right so uh so that's so so that's

unfortunate for all the all the businesses and the and the service personnel who's probably going to be a lot of people out of work i mean that's terrible but you know but there is this kind of like i hate to call it a bright side given that it does mean people's lives i mean really bad things but um but you know for people who are interested and and travel and and looking for great deals either cash deals or points and miles types of things going on, either for getting the points and miles or being able to use them at great value. Both of those things are very likely to happen. We're going to be seeing some really neat promos, I think. And we'll definitely be writing about those promos. I guarantee that.

And my guess, we talked about this actually just a little while ago while we were eating dinner. My guess is that we may see more of an increase in interest in domestic travels. Because I imagine that there are a lot of people who are going to be sticking closer to home this year at least anyway than in future years. And I would say from my perspective, I'm happy to collect points for a little while too. And I don't think people are going to stop collecting points. Even if some people are going to change their travel plans this year, you're still going to want to earn points for future years' travel when this isn't a problem.

So I don't think there's going to be less of an interest in the blog and in an earning standpoint. But I imagine that there must be some shift in where people's interest is in terms of being able to use the points and miles and leverage them for good value. Maybe more interest in cash back, too. Maybe, maybe. And certainly I think that there's going to be a lot more availability. Oh, definitely.

It's a lot easier to find whatever kind of award it is you're looking for. Exactly, exactly. So I'm feeling a little bit silly now remember i i jumped on that deal where first class jal was available japan airlines was available through to australia um i'm betting now i'm not gonna have any like if i if i wanted to book it now or or at least a week from now or whatever, I bet you it's very easy to do. And I'll say that I think a potential, again, it's hard to call it a bright side when you consider the ramifications for the people that are really affected by this. But from an award travel standpoint, I would say that I think a potential thing to consider for people is, again, even for people who are nervous about traveling now and not wanting to travel now, I think that we'll see the deals continue quite a ways out into the future. And you probably will be able to book awards for next year that are normally untouchable and difficult to find, I think are going to be much easier to find in the coming months here. I think

especially as it expands in the United States, and I do think things are going to get worse before they get better. And when that happens, I think things are going to get worse before they get better. And when that happens, I think you're going to see just such an increase of availability that whatever it is you've been looking to book and hoping to book for 2021, I think there are going to be some great opportunities for award travel. Yeah. Paid travel, too, though. Paid travel, too.

Absolutely paid travel, too. Yeah. And I think some of the luxury products that you've been wanting to try out are going to be quite affordable at times. They probably won't just change the rate altogether, but they'll have sales. And if you could jump on them, you'll get some great deals. Yeah, that's a great point too. So those are some bright spots, I guess, to look out for. If you're looking for value in your trips.

I think there are going to be some possibilities for that over the coming months and year. Yeah. No, exactly. Especially with cruises. Oh, man. I just can't imagine. We've talked about it so many times in my household because my wife gets claustrophobic to begin with. We've only taken a cruise once, and we were younger and looking to save as much

money as we could on it so we booked an interior cabin and and she made it through that week but we have talked about how man if we booked an interior cabin on that ship and and we're traveling with our two-year-old son yeah oh my goodness i just can't imagine what that must have been see i'm just picturing now like the ads you know for coronavirus cruises you know two weeks for three hundred dollars and with an extra five weeks possible at the end well there was a meme i don't know you see the meme on social media my wife showed me it was something about you know cruise ships and coronavirus and somebody making a face like you know oh and then and then the second side of the split screen it was seven night cruise for forty dollars a night and the person like

so so yeah i think we're gonna see certainly some big changes in the cruise industry in particular yeah yeah i have no interest in a cruise anytime soon right yeah that that that's that's really unfortunate because i don't know how the the industry is going to recover from that. Because I don't know who would sign up for a cruise. I mean, you might not be scared of the coronavirus, but if you're not scared of getting quarantined. Yeah, on a ship with other people who are sick for weeks. Yeah, yeah. Not pleasant.

Yeah. All right. Well, on that happy note yeah if people want more virus news or points and miles where can they go where can they go that's a good question i think maybe a good place to start would be thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe because that's where you can subscribe to our email list, podcast, and all that other fun stuff and figure out where you can connect and how you can connect and choose how much connecting

you'd like to do. So, thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe. That's where you can go to find out more about all this stuff we've been talking about. Yes, you can.

So, I am now going to turn off the video recording. Bye, everyone. Bye-bye.