Frequent Miler on the Air - Does it make sense to manufacture Delta elite status?

Episode Date: June 19, 2019

Nick and Greg debate: Marriott gift cards When cash is better than points Platinum card devaluation (with Priority Pass restriction) The benefits of using Qantas to book AA flights Does it make sense to manufacture Delta elite status? And more.

Kind of an interesting autograph collection property that's oddly located, but really cheap on the AAA rate for some reason. Oh, nice. So we just had daily getaways for Marriott gift cards, 20% off. I jumped on there to try to buy some and clicked, you know, buy like right away as soon as it was live. And it said they were unavailable did you try i did i did i struck out too i i mean i was sitting there hitting refresh refresh refresh i think maybe it's because i was in switzerland it was too slow but it takes longer to get across the pond well i'm here in amherst i don't know where the where daily getaways is headquartered but i guess it must be on the maybe on the east coast since i know people on the east coast i've always scored them in the past i've never had trouble with it in the past

and that's you know logging in from new york usually so maybe that's what it is i know the reports people that got them and i i was jealous i was like oh man i would love 20 off all the time you can stack with turtles i mean it's no brainer let me ask you, why do you care? You've got the magic, you have the magic venture card, venture one or something, right? That has that deal where you get Marriott or Fairmont gift cards at a huge discount. Why do you even care if you get Marriott gift cards? Well, I mean, that's a good question.

But at the end of the day, you know, I'm not going to infinitely, I mean, I suppose I could, but I probably won't infinitely manufacture the Capital One points for the gift card. So if I can save 20%, that's still pretty good. With the Capital One card right now, I have the ability to redeem, I think it's like 62,450 reward miles, venture miles for a $900 gift card, which is great, but I'll go through that. I have a stay planned at the St. Regis Bora Bora this year. And so I imagine that eating there for a couple of days, we'll eat through a $900 gift card. I'm glad though, that they accept gift

cards now, at least I think they do. It says that St. Regis and the different Starwood brands will accept them. Have you tried out one of the Marriott gift cards in any of the Starwood properties yet? No, I haven't. But trying it out in Bora Bora, that'll be a good test. Yeah, well, last fall, I tried to use one in an SPG, an old SPG property, and they told me they weren't taking them yet. So but I saw in the Daily Getaway's terms that it said it works at, you know, all the various starwood brands now so um so hopefully but yeah so 20 off still to me is a good discount i know i'll eventually be in a spot where i don't have one of those gift cards because that's the thing with the capital one gift cards

you have to wait for a physical one to come in the mail it takes a couple of weeks so that means i have to actually like go through the steps in advance and plan it out. So if I've got some gift cards on hand, that's always a good thing. Right. Okay. So this week you wrote about flying Southwest to Hawaii. You've been all over the place, but it sounds like you liked it. You like flying Southwest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I did. I mean, it's, you know, it's the same Southwest experience you get anywhere.

So it's not really any different, which I'm sure seems obvious to people who take a few seconds to think about it. But on the flip side, really, you know, five hours to me is not a big deal in economy class. And most people, millions of people are flying economy class only out of the, you know, build, generate these miles that I would even consider flying in business class. So, so, you know, really, it's the same as everybody else's economy class seats. Just in the last month or two, I've flown most of the major legacy carriers. And I mean, it's the same kind of seat, basically. And actually, it was a little bit bigger. A reader commented just today, actually, to mention, I think it was just today, to mention that the seats are a little bit wider and there's just like a little bit more legroom on the planes that they're flying to Hawaii, which, again, I noticed it definitely did seem pretty spacious and comfortable. And then when we flew after that, within the United States, it's not quite as comfortable. But yeah, I don't know. When was the last time you flew Southwest? It's been probably five years maybe since I've flown them. So I don't know. Do they have in-flight entertainment? Well, it's only via the app, via the Wi-Fi.

So you have to connect to the Wi-Fi, but it's free. They have movies and TV. Actually, the last time we flew Southwest here to Hawaii, I logged into Google Play and I saw I had a 99- cent movie rental. So I was like, oh, great. I'll rent a movie. I rented A Star is Born. I got on the flight in Southwest and they had A Star is Born for free with the in-flight entertainment. So my mistake, I guess, on that, I didn't even think about the movies they would have. But yeah, live TV and movies, basically, again, the same as everybody else except for spirit. And they have power, so you don't TV and movies. Basically again, the same as everybody else, except for spirit.

When they have power. So you don't, you don't run out of power on the way. They did on those flights to Hawaii. They don't run most of their planes, but they did have power there. I always bring a battery pack anyway. So I don't usually rely on having an outlet at my seat, unless I'm flying a business class anyway. But would you, would you do it?

Would you fly Southwest to Hawaii? They flew, right? No, I mean, maybe if I had to. I mean, you know, you said it's what a five, five and a half hour flight, something like that. I would spend like 10. I mean, just knowing me, I would spend 10 or 15 hours online trying to find a first class flight. You know, from Detroit, OK, because you can fly flatbeds to Honolulu from Detroit. Okay. Cause you can fly flatbeds to Honolulu from Detroit, but for most of the places around the country, you're getting a slightly bigger recliner seat. I don't know. It doesn't excite me to be miles for a recliner seat.

I know that's true. But at the same time, like, I don't know, I like the experience, even, even regular first class. I like the experience of being served meals and something about it makes, it just makes the time go quicker. And I do far prefer having the seat back entertainment console instead of having a problem with my laptop. And then when they come with the meal, if you have your laptop propped up, you have to put it away. Yeah, that's kind of a pain. That's true. That's true. But I mean, Delta is basically the only carrier that's still got the CPAC entertainment, I think, on all the planes, right? I mean, I haven't had CPAC entertainment on any of my flights with United or American this year. Is that right?

Or Alaska, I don't think. Yeah, I don't think so. I knew American was pulling them. I'm not sure about United. Yeah, no, I don't think I've had CPAC entertainment on any of my flights. So it's like that to me is kind of a thing of the past for the most part anyway unless you're flying internationally again you get it on delta because i did fly delta just a you know a week ago or whatever and um and that was pretty good but i thought southwest was good and if you're

going to go to hawaii if you can connect through oakland there's an escape lounge there so if you've got a platinum card you can you know grab some snacks and drinks and stuff before you get on the plane and uh you know and then it was pretty easy and the number of points that it requires is just i mean it's the deal so it seems to me like uh it's great it's great for the inner island flights too because you're going to save a whole bunch of money on checked bags you know that to me was it's just a huge savings i i think i showed in the post like you're gonna save a hundred bucks over what you'd pay flying Hawaiian, or what I paid flying Hawaiian

just a couple of months ago on the inner island flight. So I think that's pretty cool. But my wife would always prefer the flatbed seat. So she would rather be flying in a flatbed, I'm sure. But I'm fine with economy. But speaking of wives, I know you said that this week, you're gonna now have your wife using just the Bank of America premium rewards card, right? 2.62% everywhere.

That's it. So how's that going so far? You think that's a good decision? I mean, I'm questioning your logic a little. I'm not going to lie. But what do you think? Yeah, no, I think it was a great decision. As you know, we're getting 2.62% cash back everywhere with that card and a little bit more for travel and dining and it's it's great because it's a no-brainer it's like she doesn't have to ask me for every type of purchase which card do I use I know we're're going to get good, solid rewards regardless. I mean, we won't get, in every case, the best we possibly could get,

but it's close enough. If I think about, like, let's say she spends $1,000 across the course of the year using that card instead of a card that might earn four or five x uh transferable points um then we're talking about if we think about the the um uh bank of america points as being similar in value um uh we're talking about like a couple thousand points difference in how much we'd earn. And it's not worth the difference to me to make her life more complicated with all that. That's, I think, maybe the best point on that topic. Because when I look at it at first, I think, well, I mean, you're giving up,

you get 2x with the Blue Business Plus. And so the 2x everywhere you can cash out, if you have the Schwab Platinum card you can cash them out for 1.25 cents each so the Blue Business Plus is like a you know floor level two and a half percent cash back card right and then you can obviously do a lot better if you use membership rewards points well then you can do a lot better but the point you're making here I think is the key point in all this if you're only talking about a difference of a couple thousand a year a couple thousand miles or a couple thousand membership rewards points aren't going to make probably that big of a difference in the bottom line. So I guess it does make sense to have an

everywhere else card, although I still like transferable currencies because at least you have the possibility of getting a lot more return out of that. Whereas the thousand dollars in purchases at 2.62%, there's only so much you're going to do with your $26. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't recommend this approach overall to someone who hasn't amassed a lot of transferable points. But right now I'm in the position where my wife and I have a lot of membership rewards points. But right now I'm in the position where my wife and I have a lot of membership rewards points. We're still earning them pretty rapidly thanks to Ebates. And we have literally millions of ultimate rewards and probably close to a million thank you points.

So at this point, when it comes to transferable points, I'm not a buyer, it doesn't make sense for me to press, like, choose points over over cash, if the if it's more than with membership rewards, if it's going to cost me more than 1.25 cents each. So that's my basic thinking on that. Yeah, I mean, I think that's an interesting point. You know, when do you get to that point where the cost of points is too much? And I made that argument with a post last year about how we're all buying our miles and points

because we're all giving up the chance to earn cash back. So, you know, if I'm earning two points per dollar on the blue business plus, for instance, and I, I could have been earning 2.62% back. So those points are really costing me 1.3 cents each, right? I mean, I'm buying them at a pretty high rate. So then is it worth earning points at all? Should you go to the travel rewards card then too? What's that?

Oh, did I move it? Yeah. Have you moved your everyday spend to that card too? And if not, why not? I have moved my non-bonus spend to that card. I have. Yeah. to spend to that card i have yeah the the so so i've i've decided yeah exactly that i don't want to buy membership rewards for more than 1.25 cents each so since this card gets slightly more than

two and a half cents per uh per dollar of spend uh it's like by it would be using the uh uh blue business plus would be like buying points at just a little bit above the point where I'm willing to buy them at. So, um, so that's my decision there. I did this week though, run into one downside to that, which is, um, I used to always have the blue business plus with me, um'd go because that was my everywhere else card. And for that reason, whenever I see an Amex offer that I like that I might use, but I'm not really sure, I'd load it onto that Blue Business Plus card. So it's always with me. So I was at the mall earlier this week, which is somewhere I don't usually go.

But I remembered there was an offer I wanted to take advantage of. Card wasn't with me, so I couldn't do it. Now I probably could and should load it into Apple Pay or something so that I can, or Samsung. I don't know. I don't think you can load business cards. Oh, right. I'm not sure. Can you do that with Apple Pay? I don't know. Yeah, that's Oh, right. I'm not sure. Can you do that with Apple Pay?

I don't know. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm not sure. Yeah, that'd be an interesting one. Well, you know, one thing that stuck out at me, though, you said you're going to go for this travel rewards card for the 2.62, or I'm sorry, the premium rewards card from Bank of America for 2.62%. But you said not the zero card, which you could earn 3% on.

So you're giving up a little bit there too by not going for the zero card. So, I mean, don't you think it'd be worth a little bit of zero card action if you can pull in the 3%? Yeah, probably if I hadn't already signed up for the premium rewards card, I probably would have said yes to zero. So, you know, the zero card, for those who didn't read my post about it, it'll let you earn 3% cash back everywhere if you either spend $100,000 on the card every year or you refer four friends a year. And because I could post referral links on the blog, it would be pretty easy, I think, to get four referrals a year. So I easily could have a 3% cashback card. And the truth is, I just don't, I like the simplicity of just having my one everywhere card, and I don't want to add additional things like so zero card will add the requirement to get those four referrals a year. So

even though I could do it easily, it's just another thing I have to worry about in addition to because it's more of a hybrid card, it's sort of like a bank account and credit card, I have to worry about in addition to because it's more of a hybrid card it's sort of like a bank account and credit card you have to make sure the bank account part of it has enough money for your charges it just seems like multiple things I'd have to worry about that I don't really want to deal with but what about you I mean I mean, it is an attractive card for that reason. Well, it is. It is. Yeah. And there's definitely part of me that's considered it. I mean, we've talked about doing the Bank of America card also, but it would require the complications, so to speak, of moving assets over to Bank america in order to be able to get it this

alleviates that need so it's kind of attractive on on you know that side because then i don't have to change anything major i just have to you know use the card and then like you said i guess from a blogging standpoint it'd be really easy to get the four referrals i actually have some family members who are like of the no credit um you know, kind of perspective where they would not prefer not to use credit cards at all. So I think it actually would be easy for me even to pick up four referrals within my own family for the zero card. And probably then easy for them to pick up other folks that are on the, you know, no credit bandwagon to pick up their referrals. But, you know, on the flip side, I look at it and I have two major concerns with zero card.

Number one, two major concerns and one non-concern. My non-concern is you brought up, is it any good for manufactured spending? And of course, you showed from the terms, it sounds like they're going to clamp down on any kind of manufactured spending and not let that fly. On the flip side, I wonder, well, yeah, like Alliant did, exactly, with giving 0% on Simon purchases and things like that. But on the flip side, then I wonder, one of the options to get 3% back is to spend 100 grand a year.

Who's spending 100 grand a year on anything other than business expenses or manufactured spending? I mean, very few people. So I can't imagine that, you know, Kim Kardashian is lining up for the zero card for 3% back. So, so it would seem to me like their target market of people who don't want a credit card. I mean, the only people that are going to spend enough are manufacturer spenders. So I don't know, maybe they will be hard on manufacturer spenders, or maybe not on moderate manufacturer spenders you know so it might not be um terrible so that's kind of my non-concern but my bigger concerns are i don't

know much about zero card it's taken forever to get this open and then i got to give them a bunch of my money you know to sit in an account i'm a little bit uncomfortable with that and of course all of us who travel are uncomfortable with using debit cards all the time because they're you know obviously not as secure as a credit card you You could have somebody wipe out your account. And so zero card, it looks to me like you're just funding a bank account and then you can only spend up to what you have in the account. Concerns me if somebody gets a hold of the card, what protections they'll be. Right. I'm pretty sure I remember from the documentation that it's actually a credit card, so it should have the exact same protections.

But I would double check that before signing up. Well, and somebody can take cash out of the ATM, right? So I guess I don't know whether they work that like it's a cash advance or like it's an ATM withdrawal. I don't know. There's too many of those questions that I feel like I have to answer that I'm not ready to jump in on it anyway. Maybe I would consider it, but I'm not sold. I think I'd want to see it continue to be proven for a little while before I'd get in on the zero card.

Right, right. What about the ups and downs with Amex this week? So we had what I think of as a major hit with their priority pass. So their priority pass used to be really bad, if I'm remembering right, in that it didn't allow guests or something. And then a couple of years ago, they added two guests. So they, and they put it on par with most other priority pass memberships. And then now this week, we learned that in August, you won't be able to use their priority pest from Amex to pay for priority pest restaurants.

To me, that was a major blow. What about you? Do you think that hurts the Amex? My first thought on it was it's not a big deal. And I know that Mark Osterman at Miles to Memories wrote a post this week on why he thought it wasn't a big deal. I saw the headline, but I haven't actually read the post, so I'm not sure what his argument was. But I tell you, my argument as to why initially, anyway, I looked at it and I said, this is really a non-issue it's an issue to me because i don't ever use the priority pass that comes with my platinum card um because in the past they charged 27 a person for your guests and so even though they changed that and they allow like the two guests now my mind is so set

in the 27 realm there uh that but i just don't even bother using that one a and b they had the same deal i think with the hilton card for a long time too. Now you get, I think in the Ascend, what is it? 10 passes for family and friends or something like that. I think so. Yeah.

So, I mean, that it hurts. It does hurt. There's no doubt about it. I mean, there are enough restaurants and it's a good value when you can put it to use. But I honestly just don't ever use my Amex priority pass. Yeah. So here's where, here's where it kills me is, is there are a few friends that I've recommended get the platinum card because they, you know, they fly Delta a lot so they can get in the sky club or, you know, there's various reasons why some people, the

platinum card is the right thing for them. And that really bugs me that, you know, and these would be people that won't have the other cards that have priority pass. So it bugs me that, you know, now that when they sign up for priority pass with a platinum card, they're going to get a more restricted version of it. Well, and it makes it a confusing benefit, you know, when they have one kind of priority pass and Chase and city handle it differently it makes it a confusing benefit and confusing benefits aren't good for consumers in my opinion so um you know then they don't they start to feel like they're not actually benefits at all uh even though it'll get you into lounges if you have to wonder why your friend bob has a priority pass select also and he can eat at the timberline grill or whatever and you know the

airport and you can't I think that's just too confusing for the average consumer to make it a good benefit. It also concerns me if Chase and Citi do the same thing. That really stinks because to me, the value of Priority Pass right now is mostly in the restaurants because within the United States, there just aren't very many places with lounges you can use. And even internationally, the lounges are by and large so-so. Some of them are pretty good. Some of them are not that good. It's nice if you don't have any other access to a lounge.

But I think that the restaurant benefit is a killer benefit. Yeah, yeah. And it's possible, despite Chase and Citi telling some people otherwise that they just haven't announced the change yet. You know, it almost seems like it almost seems likely to me that this is being driven from the priority past side of things that, you know, they're telling all the banks, you know. This is going to be the new rules with with this type of membership or something like that. And then it'll sweep across all of them. I hope not. I sure hope not.

Maybe. That's not necessarily a bad theory because right now I don't know how Priority Pass could even fathom marketing their service to somebody to buy it that doesn't have a credit card because, I mean, you'd have to use it so much to be able to come out even or ahead to pay for the actual cash price of a priority pass. But if you add some benefits like these restaurant credits that the credit card priority passes don't get, then I don't know, maybe that gives them a vehicle to try to sell coupon memberships. I mean, that's not necessarily a bad theory. I would hate to see that happen because I think the restaurant trend has been really positive. And I think that that's a big kick from Amex. And it's unfortunate

because I feel like in the last few years with Amex, um, there've just been a number of, of negative hits. I'd like to see them, uh, you know, have some, uh, some positives that come out too, but between the, uh, the pop-up that doesn't always work and telling people that they're not going to qualify for the bonuses um and the you know this priority pass deval i think there's just been some some things that have stung lately yeah yeah no i agree um on the other hand you know i still think they have the best lounge benefit of any card because they've got the Centurion lounges, which are great. They have the escape lounges, which I love. Delta, they have, you know, Delta Sky Clubs.

If you're flying Delta, in that case, you're not allowed to bring in guests or at least not for free, but it's still a great benefit. So, you know, as far as domestic um lounge access i mean platinum cards are still i think way ahead of any other uh cards but um yeah but this is a blow um yeah but on the flip side positive news saw today that they just added quantus as a transfer partner are you interested in that do you think that enhances the value of membership rewards are you ready to come over to the membership reward side from the chase ultimate reward side because i know you're more of an ultimate rewards guy probably right no actually i i wouldn't say that i actually think uh i prefer membership if i had to pick one i'd i'd pick

membership rewards but uh i do love the hyatt transfer of Chase. So that would be really, really hard to give up. Yeah, no, this is great. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw it is, oh, wow, I think Nick's written some posts about how American Airlines flights are cheaper with Qantas under certain circumstances. And, and, um, so I tried to jump on to test to see what I remember from one of your posts. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong is you said, uh, it's great cause it's cheaper, but, um, it took something like two days to transfer from city. Uh, and, and so you don't know if your award will still be available by the time that the points transfer. So I jumped on my Amex account and tried to link my account,

my membership rewards account to Qantas in order to test to see how fast it moves. But it gave me an error just trying to link the account. So I wasn't able to complete that, that test before this, before our Facebook thing here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great addition because Qantas is great for flying American Airlines, especially, you know, now, I guess the British Airways devaluation, thankfully, didn't hurt American Airlines flights within the United States. They left that one alone. So that's good. But Qantas can be great for other short itineraries where you have to connect because that's my thing. I live near an

airport where I don't fly direct anywhere, really. I have to connect no matter where I go. And so word charts like Iberia and Qantas are much better for me because I get the ability to connect. And while they have a mileage-based award chart, it's cumulative. So if I fly from Albany to Charlotte to Dallas, they add up the segments instead of charging each segment separately, which is what British Airways does and causes me to have to pay at least 15,000 miles one way within the United States when I book through British Airways, whereas I could get flights as cheaply as 8,000 miles with Qantas or 12,000 in that mid-tier one way. So that's an attractive option to me for close-in bookings because then you avoid the $75 fee and you can easily add your American Airlines elite number to it. So very simple to be able to check bags with your, if you

have a free check bag, benefit on one of your American Airlines cards. Right. Do the points expire? Do you know anything about that? That's a good question. I don't, you know, and I, people often ask about when points expire. And to be honest, I don't, I rarely look at when points expire with programs because I just don't transfer in more points than I'm going to use. I transfer them in when I'm going to use them. And if I have to cancel, I figure I'll usually find another use within a year. So I don't usually worry very much about when the points transfer, but I should look, or excuse me, when the points expire, but I should check and make sure it's not something like Singapore

where they expire after three years, whether you use them or not. But I'm usually only transferring in little chunks at a time. I don't know. What about you? Do you transfer in more miles than you need? Do you worry about expiration? Well, the reason I worry about it is because I often, it's happened to me a couple of times where I've transferred points in for a specific award, but then had to cancel that award.

So that happened recently with ANA. I didn't have to cancel the award, but I did. And they have that nice thing where you could cancel an award. It costs you 3,000 points. And that's nice, except just like Singapore, ANA, Miles, that's very distracting. Well, you were breaking up a little bit so i felt like i had to move a little so i could actually hear you it is now i need a chair so it's going to be distracting for another minute here and then we're gonna get back to you know yeah yeah when you're live you

know sometimes you know um ana miles expire after about three years and there's nothing you can do about it so i now i need to you know the clock's ticking for me to find a good use for those a and a miles and it's not that it's gonna be that hard to do it but you know I don't like having that sort of hanging over my head but the reason I thought about it as I'm talking to Qantas is if it does take two days to transfer to them, people who fly domestically might like to transfer prospectively, just have a bunch of points in there just in case. And yeah, so for them, it will matter for sure if they expire without any way to keep them alive. That's a really good point, you know, because transferring prospectively, in my opinion, doesn't make sense in a lot of situations, but it would make sense, like you said, with Qantas, I'm just going to stand, we're going to keep it over here. So I was going to try

to reset this up, but we're just going to keep it as simple as we can. So anyway, what I was going to say is I usually don't worry too much about when they expire. But like you said, if you want to prospectively move them over because it takes a couple of days and you want to be positioned to move, that makes sense, I suppose. But generally speaking, I would only transfer over when I'm ready. I hope that Qantas ends up being an instant transfer partner. That would be really good, but otherwise, I normally don't try to amass too many miles in one program like that, just because they also devalue is another problem, but speaking of devaluing and amassing miles in programs, I was really surprised today when I saw

your post this morning that said that you should base, well, the conclusion of the post anyway, was that you would probably, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you would probably credit your paid Delta flights to Delta over Virgin Atlantic. Yes. So now wouldn't you rather have Virgin Atlantic miles? I mean, you can't get to Necker Island with your Delta miles. You can with your Virgin miles. I mean, you can't get to Necker Island with your Delta miles. You can with your Virgin miles. I mean, you need Virgin Silver status now. Am I right? You need Virgin Silver status to redeem for a week on Necker Island. For those who aren't familiar, Greg spent a week at Richard Branson's private island, Necker Island. You should look up that

whole series. Take a look at Greg's series where he wrote about that experience. But you need those points in order to go to Necker Island. You're going to take Delta SkyPesos over the ability to earn Virgin Atlantic? Yeah. Yeah. Good question. First, I mean, I don't have a lot of paid Delta flights. I usually book awards and sometimes I use Delta Miles to book them, sometimes Virgin Atlantic, sometimes Air France. It just depends which one has the best deal on the flight I'm taking. But the silver status with Virgin, I do have silver status. And the reason I do is I set up my Virgin Atlantic credit card to automatically deposit to Kiva $2,500 a month. And that sort of maximizes the earning benefits of the Virgin Atlantic card,

as I wrote about in my post yesterday. And it gives me enough tier points to get and keep silver status. So I'm all set there. And as far as if I need more Virgin Atlantic miles than I already have, I'm sitting on a little over a million right now. You're positioned almost. I mean, with all the transferable points you have, you're positioned to get to Necker Island. So when's the next trip? Yeah, I'm really close. We, well, so I don't know. My wife's teaching schedule often comes in conflict when we could go to Necker Island. But also our desire to see so many other places

in the world conflict with it as well. So when we have a week free, the decision of whether to go to Necker Island or go to South Africa or New Zealand or something like that, it's tough to to pick a place we've already been to, even as magical as Necker Island was. But we probably will. That is hard. That is a tough thing. The whole decision between going back to a place you've been and enjoy or going to a new place. How do you usually pick your travel destinations?

What is it that inspires you to pick one? I know sometimes I'll find a new hotel or a flight that's available during the times when I need. And so sometimes that actually helps to decide where I'll go next. What about you? How do you decide where you're going to go? Yeah, same thing. I mean, sometimes it is driven by something like a great deal at a hotel or a great airfare that just says, you know, or a great award booking opportunity that sends us somewhere new and interesting. Sometimes it's from reading blog posts from you or others that talk about destinations that sound great. So all kinds of reasons. I mean, I don't think we have one particular way. In reality, most of our international travel has been driven by

where my wife has conferences or meetings to attend and I'll go along and we'll make a little trip out of it so we do a lot of that too yeah yeah that's that's nice when you can kind of combine the two you know and uh find a way to be able to do that um so yeah interesting i was just curious you know i'm gonna go back to it again but we talked just a minute ago we talked about this whole credit to delta credit to virgin atlantic and i'll tell, when I read your post today, I thought I would still credit to Virgin Atlantic, even though at the end of your post, the conclusion you showed that basically, of course, it's going to vary a little bit person to person. But for most people, it seems like you would probably earn more sky miles than you would Virgin Atlantic miles by crediting to Delta over Virgin Atlantic. So I think you showed something like, based on the example you

gave, you would earn about 28,000 Delta sky miles if you followed the parameters that you laid out, or about 16,000 Virgin Atlantic miles if you follow the parameters you laid out. I would choose 16,000 Virgin Atlantic miles over 28,000 Delta miles like every day of the week though. And the main reason for that is because of how easy it is to book Delta Saver availability via Virgin Atlantic I feel like I find flights within the United States for twelve thousand five hundred miles one way that Delta is charging Thirty or forty thousand literally thirty or forty thousand sky miles For those flights and then obviously other great sweet spots

Like I just flew the Delta One suites from Detroit to Minneapolis recently for 60,000 Virgin Atlantic miles. We often see 50,000 to Europe from the United States, again, using Virgin Atlantic miles to fly Delta. So, you know, is it worth it to choose Delta Sky miles over Virgin Atlantic miles, even if you're earning more Delta Sky miles? To me, I don even if you're earning more Delta SkyMiles? To me, I don't think it is. I mean, yeah, it's a great question. You know, talking to Drew at Travel is Free, he's now like, in love with Delta SkyMiles all of a sudden, because he did, he created his Delta SkyMiles calculator and found that despite all the negative press about Delta, they have some amazing bargains like all the time.

And it doesn't seem to be tied at all to their so-called sales, their award sales. It just seems to be, this is what they do. They have destinations that cost as little as, you know, 5,000 miles one way. And if from your hometown to one of these places, you know, is like that, has those kind of low, low fares, then it's great. Now, in my case, that's not driving. Of course, it's more that Delta miles. So crediting to Delta, um, the, the paid flights for me personally, it's more about,

um, one, I want my Delta sky miles number on the reservation so that I get the upgrades and everything else that I should get as a Delta diamond. Um, that's probably the number one thing the number two thing is uh earning the mqms from the flight to uh help me get uh status ongoing now that's not a big deal for me because of the way i manufacture um delta elite status but every little bit is is uh potentially potentially helpful. So it is worth something. And then the miles, we do use them. We do go through them. So even though, yeah. I'm sure you do because it costs like 80,000 miles to, you know, fly an hour flight. I mean, yeah, I have no doubt that you can go through all of the Delta SkyMiles you can possibly earn. It's whether or not you can get good value out of them. Where do you find the best value? Like you said, you don't,

Drew created a great, you know, a great look at how you can maximize your Delta miles. I mean, you're absolutely right. It's really interesting where you can find some of those great Delta values, but you said you're not finding those out of Detroit. So we're not applying to you. So what are you using your SkyMiles on?

Yeah, so picture this. You have a trip that you know you SkyMiles on? Yeah. So picture this. You have a trip that you know you're definitely going on. The dates are fixed. You look up the awards. There's nothing available to partners at all. Delta is the only one that flies direct, and you don't want to be flying all around the place. So, yeah. So I might pay $30,000. In fact, I just did this the other day.

I paid about $30,000 miles for a round trip that would have cost, I don't know, off the top of my head, let's say about $400 cash. So it looks like I'm getting pretty low value per point. But I am also I am getting a fully refundable ticket because of my elite status. And that's something that I value as well, because sometimes, you know, plans aren't set in stone. And so I love the flexibility to be able to change my, you know, change my mind about the travel for free at any time. I mean, technically, it's up to 72 hours in advance. But even that, when you call up as a diamond or even platinum member that are usually really easy about waiving that requirement. So it's okay, let me make sure that I've got this straight. So you're, you're, you're, and I,

this is good, because I was going to ask you about manufacturing Delta elite status, because I've said in the past that airline elite status just doesn't really appeal to me because normally when I'm flying internationally, I'm using miles to book a business class flight. So I've already got lounge access and I've already got priority, uh, you know, uh, check-in and boarding and all the rest of that. Uh, so I don't see a ton of benefits in having elite status. So actually, before I try to argue with you, let me ask you, what are the most valuable perks? Like, why bother? I know that you spend, what, $250,000 a year across Delta cards in order to manufacture this diamond status, right? I mean, that seems absolutely insane to me,

especially when I'm going to then have to use like 400,000 miles that I earned from that spend to, you know, get my round trip ticket to, you know, Fort Lauderdale or something. What are the key benefits of having elite status? Why is it worth being loyal at all? Well, I mean, it's not the same kind of loyalty when I'm spending on the credit card rather than flying as the amount required. But yeah, I mean, so keep in mind a few things. I live by a Delta hub. I highly value nonstop flights. I highly value actually Delta because they're, in my experience experience so much better to fly than

the other domestic competition so I want to be flying Delta anyway where I live what the routes are and everything and by having the lead status I have a really good chance of flying first class even when I've booked economy. If I'm not in first class, I'm at least in comfort plus, which does give you more leg room and some extra snacks. I mean, it's not a huge leap over economy, but it's still something. And then there are upgrade certificates. So at Platinum, you get regional upgrade certificates. So that helps your chances of flying in first class when it's most important to you.

So if I'm flying, you know, a four hour flight, I'm definitely gonna apply my regional upgrade certificates. And then at Diamond, apply my regional upgrade certificates. Uh, and then, uh, at diamond you get global upgrade certificates and those are just crazy valuable because as you know, you can buy any, um, the cheapest Delta, uh, economy flight, international flight, and apply the certificates, um, to get upgraded to a business class. And, um, that's that's, that to me is crazy valuable. I'm going to argue with you on that. I'm going to say it's not valuable. I'm going to say it's not valuable because, all right, so you have to buy the cheapest Delta fare, right? So let's,

let's take Europe as an example, because that's a popular destination, right? So your cheapest round trip economy class fare to Europe is going to be what? Let's say you get a smoking deal at maybe $350 round trip. Probably it's going to be more than that, right? Right. So let's, let's, probably much more than that, but let's, let's say 350. Okay. Because that's a good number for me. So 350, and then you're going to apply your, your upgrade certificate. So you'll end up getting business class for 350. On the flip side, you could manufacture spend at the grocery store, at US supermarkets with a card that earns four membership rewards points per dollar at the grocery store. And so you would need to earn 50,000 Virgin Atlantic points, which is a transfer partner from Amex membership rewards, often there are

transfer bonuses. But even if you don't have a transfer bonus, you're talking about manufacturing $12,500 worth of spend in order to get that same business class experience, right? So I mean, you're talking about a cost of every 10,000 figure, maybe your cost is, you know, what, like 100 ish dollars in manufactured spending costs. So you're absolutely right. If I could always fly on saver level awards, then it wouldn't be worth it. The truth is, so, you know, I mentioned earlier that I'm often traveling with my wife, who's flying for business, very specific dates uh we're going in and out of specific uh destinations and um so what i do each time that i go with her

is i do look first to see can i get an award you know if yes if i can book a round trip to Europe with Virgin Atlantic for 95,000, 100,000, whatever it is, miles, I do that. And I have done that. If, if not, then I look at the cash price. And if the cash price is low, I'm going to buy the cash ticket. Often I'll use ultimate rewards to pay for it at 1.5 cents value and then apply my global upgrade and get to fly business. So that's a smart way to do it. I mean, that makes sense

because then if you're using your ultimate rewards at one and a half cents each or membership rewards, you could be getting almost that much, too, with the rebate on the business platinum card, the 35 percent rebate on points. Then you could basically be getting one and a half cents each. So then even if your flight is, you know, $750, you're talking about spending about the same 50,000 miles and then using your miles, 50,000 transferable currency points and using your upgrade certificates. It's a good strategy. I guess I argued a little bit on the other side and I feel like I still am not motivated to pursue elite status because I don't live in a hub like you do. And I don't have that situation where I have locked in dates where I

have to fly on those specific dates. I never have been in that situation, but I know many people are. So I can see where that certainly might make sense for some folks. The problem, though, on my side is that my wife would never agree to booking a flight where she's booked in business class and I'm hoping that an upgrade clears so I can sit next to her. That just wouldn't happen in my household. I don't know. I'd have to come up with a plan where we're going to have to connect then

so that we can fly sitting together and not fly direct. So I guess we have different values on that. Well, actually, I mean, if I'm paying cash, my wife's trip is almost always paying for a coach and using the upgrades to get into business because it's the coach fair that's reimbursable for us. That makes sense.

That's why we need them both clear. I think they'll usually do that. Do they clear a good amount? I'm thinking about the status. What do you think? We've done mostly

the, I guess, less valuable of the upgrades, meaning we're going from Detroit to Europe most of the time as opposed to going to Asia or South Africa or something like that. But they have cleared 100% of the time for us. Usually, often they clear at booking, but one time, one of my wife's upgrades cleared at the gate, but it's usually before that. On our flight to Japan, ours didn't clear. We got on the airplane and then some people missed their connection and then they cleared. So the flight attendant actually stopped us on our way back to our seat in economy, in premium economy. And then we got to go up into first but uh that was that was more of a um quirky situation than than what you can expect so my understanding is that um upgrades don't clear as as often on flights to asia and uh certainly not to uh as often and to you know on the uh

flights to australia or south af that are really, really hard to get. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm if I'm an Alaska Airlines member then. So because right now we wrote a post this week about how Delta is matching Alaska mileage plan members to higher levels of elite status than normal. Yeah. If you match soon, if you match, what is it by June 22nd, I think it was, then you, uh, an MVP gold member from Alaska could match to Delta platinum. Is that like a no brainer? Is it a good decision? Bad decision? What do you think? Oh yeah. If you're going to be flying, um, Delta at all, um, and you have that MVP gold status, um, I think it's think it's definitely worth doing. Platinum is a very good status to have, and it'll let you book awards on Delta and make changes or redeposits for free.

You know, the upgrade chances are much higher than obviously than having gold or silver status with Delta. So yeah, I think. The timing is a little rough though, right? Cause I mean, if you're able to wait until July 1st, then great. You'd end up with Delta status for a lot longer. So you could, if you're an MVP gold member, I guess after June 22nd, you'll only get Delta gold status instead of Delta platinum. But if you wait until July 1st, you'll keep it until january of 2021 so you know with that is the bump for platinum worth enough to give up an extra year of gold ah that's a great question um maybe not i mean so yeah i didn't really realize that we had that

trade-off um yeah i mean to to wait wait until July and get a year and a half of status, I guess it depends what, you know, how much Delta flying or award booking you're going to do before the end of January, I guess, is when it would expire. That's the end of the early year. Or whether you would meet the challenge right isn't there a challenge associated with it there is a challenge yeah yeah of course so yeah if you're not going to meet the challenge then i don't think it's probably well i don't know if you're not going to meet the challenge anyway then maybe now you might as well if you if you if you have some flying to do or award booking or whatever it is that you'll benefit from having the status

maybe it's worth taking it now so that you get a higher level of status you get platinum instead of gold but otherwise yeah i mean if you're not going to meet the challenge then i guess i'd wait until july 1st and then hopefully you can meet the challenge for gold and keep that for a year and a half i think i'd rather do that than have three months of platinum i gotcha okay well i wonder that's a't realize that even until January, that's after meeting the challenge. So if you don't meet the challenge, how long does it last? Three months. So if you were to match today, you'd get platinum status. If you're an MVP gold member, you'd get platinum status for three months. If you're only an MVP member, you're only going to

get Delta gold. If you wait until after June 22nd, then you'd really want to wait until July 1st because status matches from July 1st on are good through January of 2021. So you would get a year and a half. The difference is going to be if you're an MVP member, you could get Platinum today. But if you wait until July 1st, you'll only get Delta Gold. Which, of course, also means that your challenge is going to be less. You know, you're less of a challenge to meet. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a tough decision. I don't know. Maybe meeting, I don't remember what the challenge requirements are, but maybe meeting them would get you darn close to gold status anyway for the next year? If you're thinking of doing the challenge of whether do you think you would do you think you would earn enough to get to qualify for gold for 2020 and then if so then yeah you might as well do the platinum challenge. Otherwise, yeah, the gold one does sound better if it's going to last longer. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in my case, I think I wouldn't do it anyway. I wouldn't do it

either way because that would mean I'd have to credit Delta flights to Delta, which is not something that I really want to do. I'd rather put them on Virgin Atlantic. Of course, I don't fly a lot of paid flights either. My other issue is Alaska's got a great program. I'd much rather be earning Alaska miles. The only way I'd remotely consider it is if I had a bunch of Delta trips coming up, like you said, then I'd probably consider it. The flexibility with award bookings is nice, and I can see why it's a valued benefit of status, but there's so many programs out there that have cheap or low fees to change or cancel that I usually look at award tickets as something that's inherently flexible because I only book usually with programs that have flexible change and cancellation policies unless I know my plans are set in stone. I usually avoid booking with most of the American carriers because they do have such terrible change in cancellation policies. The value to me in having a transferable currency is I can pick and choose those airlines that have, you know, really good change or

cancellation policies. I just had to change one on ANA. It was a month ago or so, last month. Yeah. My son was a little sick. And so I wanted an extra day for him to kind of get a little bit better before we took the flight. And literally like 24 hours and 30 minutes before I was scheduled to take off, I got through to an right. That's something we should actually think about putting together a guide to change fees. Because I think that's crucially important. That's something I think about when, when booking things when my plans aren't set in stone is how can I book this in a way that it won't cost me an arm and leg if I have to change it. And so, yeah, that's one of the, to me, that's one of the primary reasons I I'm interested in transferable currencies is because I want that flexibility. So if plans change, we can change it. I mean,

that to me is a really little. Oh, I just lost you. You're coming in and out. You know what? Let's let's call it a day. I hope you have fun with the rest of your trip in Switzerland and wherever you're going beyond there. I'm going to sign off. I hope everyone enjoyed our first Facebook live broadcast.