Frequent Miler on the Air - How do you travel with young kids? | Ask Us Anything Ep68 | 7-3-24

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

In addition to our regular weekly podcast, we also host an Ask Us Anything Live on YouTube once a month where the Frequent Miler team answers listener questions about points, miles, rewards cards, and whatever else comes to mind.  (01:25) - How do I know how much my points and miles are worth (and are all points and miles worth the same?) (06:04) - I switched an upcoming trip to take a better flight the next day, which means I have to change Hilton/Hertz reservations. Both of them will re-price to higher costs than before. Any way to avoid? ​​ (08:07) - What’s your prediction for the next points devaluation? (10:33) - Thoughts on new turkish card? (12:22) - ​​question for Nick I am product changing from my Marriott Boundless to Ritz carlton card. I receive my fna on August 3rd each year. when is the best time to product change? Hoping to get both certs. (15:45) - If I rent a car with VentureX annual credit (at C1 portal), do I get the VX primary rental insurance on this rental? (16:03) - When is good time to upgrade Hilton Surpass into Aspire in order to receive FNC from Surpass and then from Aspire? ​​(18:40) - Hi FM Team, which recent miles and points devaluation (Virgin Atlantic, Choice, etc.) has been the most disappointing for you? Happy Fourth of July! (25:25) - ​​Are there any Hotel programs that combine Personal & Credit Card Nights together to get you Elite Status? (28:05) - ​​Re: the new Schwab rule of only 1 million points cashed out at 1.1 and then .08 after. Are there good strategies for those who have high Rakuten spend turned into AmEx? (30:36) - Most banks have been declining my credit card applications, mostly citing too many hard pulls on the credit report. What should my next move be to maximize points earnings? (35:02) - how is Wells Fargo household sharing works? can I share between P2 cashback to P1 Autograph points? (37:37) - How would you guys book business class award tickets from the US to Vietnam, I am on the east cost but happy to go to the west coast. (40:50) - ​​a while back on the podcast a mailbag e-mail asked about a resource/deep dive on downgrading paths for cards. Any update on when that might be coming?? (42:08) - ​​I have Southwest companion pass and 170k points. Can you guys recommend me any good destination(s)? (47:08) - ​​Nick, any tips for enjoying traveling with young kids? Our kids are 3 years and 3 months, and we feel like all travel outside family visits is on hold for at least a few years. (52:37) - have you guys ever take a chance of ANA waitlist? (54:02) - Flying Blue: can you reprice your flights if they go down in price due to promo rewards? can you add a free stopover on KLM operated flights as well? (55:44) - ​​Any thoughts on the new Attune card from WF? There are some interesting categories, such as bookstores (Amazon), Sporting good stores (gun stores, ammo, shooting ranges), Barbers, nail salons, Ski... (58:12) - Any recs for backpacks/luggage? Appreciate your tips and credit card advice!!

This is not your usual Frequent Miler on the Air episode. This is our Ask Us Anything live session, recorded and brought to you in podcast format. Once a month, the Frequent Miler team gets together live on YouTube to answer your questions. Ask us questions about points, miles, credit cards, airline and hotel loyalty programs. We don't know what's coming next and neither do you. Enjoy. I like it. This is our monthly live brought to you not live on a podcast live stream the meeting oh it says it's live is it does it because i still see a little load bar

this meeting is being live streamed so anything you say can and will be used against you in the future interesting it it does say greg dav Davis King's personal meeting room on YouTube. Oh, I should have renamed it. Wait, you're broadcasting Greg Davis King's personal meeting room? Yes. I have the keys to the kingdom. I was going to say. Greg Davis King is not here.

I was going to say the irony of that is. If anybody was wondering what happened personal meeting room well now you know i think i'm fixing it i don't know but we've taken it over it's a takeover oh so i there you go it's all good can one of you guys read out the question i put in the chat while i sort out some beckoned sure but but before we do we should address the elephant that's not in the room uh because because we are we are in greg's meeting room but but we are greg list today so this frequent miler ask us anything has four of the party of five. Greg is on vacation this week, so you're going to hear

and Stephen, Carrie and I. So if you're listening in podcast form, that's why you don't hear Greg. He's not just refusing to answer. He's actually not here. So anyway, that out of the way. So the question that we have to start us out here is from a beginner beginner question that asked, how do I know how much my points and miles are worth and all worth the same? This is a really common question I get from people all the time. Like which, how do I know how much is good? How much are they? You know, capital one points worth the same amount as my MX points. So Tim, steven any ideas

steven thanks for starting that off yep okay um so yeah they can um vary depending on what kind of points you're looking at in particular that's where you'll get a larger variation for the most part than the value of airline miles. So things like IHG and Hilton, they're generally worth about half a cent each, maybe a little bit more depending on how you're actually redeeming them. Whereas with Hyatt, you're looking at trying to get about one and a half to two cents per point of value.

We have a resource on the website that we updated recently called Reasonables that give you a much better idea as to the kind of value you can try and get when redeeming your points of miles. So that can give you a much better idea because if you're looking at earning say three IHG points versus two higher points or something like that. It might initially seem like earning three IHG points would make more sense because that's more points. So surely that's a better thing. But two higher points are worth far more than three IHG points. So each of these currencies are worth can help you make better choices. Thank you. And Tim, am I remembering this

correctly that the project of kind of investigating our RV updates led you to something surprising about Sonesta? Did I hear that podcast correctly yesterday? I don't know if you heard the podcast correctly but i can tell you based on uh very good authority that you shouldn't take a siesta on senesta that's what i've heard somewhere i've heard that a very wise wise man wise man in arrive at the conclusion rise people yeah we hadn't uh we have been um we've been in the process of revamping the reasonable redemption values which the short explanation of how we do that is we go through for hotels is we actually have kind of a basket of American cities that are meant to represent various sections of the country, as well as some vacation destinations. And we pick a weekend, a weekday and a holiday weekend. And so we're taking six total days and we're averaging properties prices on those six days and then hopefully coming together with something that

has kind of a scientific ish or a more objective ish value for these things and we hadn't ever done senesta before a while back greg de freepenmiler was in western uh the western united states and there was a breeze blowing and he wet his finger and he put it up into the wind and he said i think senesta points are worth 0.75 it was actually a bit more than that it was sort of like it was just a rough and tumble version of that but so we decided to dig deep into it this time and we found out that senesta points are actually based on what we found are worth an average of a little over a penny each which is actually make which makes them one of the more valuable hotel currencies which is pretty cool um as well as finding out some other fun things that you you can listen to the coffee

break um about that greg and nick uh dug into the program a little bit um and there is some fun stuff out there with sinesta well and you also have a post right yes tim's being modest we dug into it and by dug into it he means we regurgitated what tim wrote in his post on a coffee break so if you like to listen to podcasts you can listen to us talk about what tim wrote about if you'd rather read and then you should definitely check out his complete guide to sanesta because it was an excellent guide and it's a really interesting program i shouldn't say really it's an interesting program more interesting than you expected quite interesting yes there you go it's a surprisingly interesting program that's a better way to put it uh i do have some uh viewer questions we can jump into now so thanks everybody for that um this person says and this one's gonna be for

so we started with steven i'm gonna go to nick who's down there for me i don't know where he is for everybody else over here to this um this said, I switched an upcoming trip to take a better flight the next day, which means I have to change Hilton and Hertz reservations. Both of them will reprice to higher costs than before. Is there any way to avoid this? Go at a different time? No. Is there a way to keep the price from because it sounds like it changed trips so different days or whatever it may be so yeah

no the prices are going to be different i don't think that i can give you a way to change that but but when it comes to the car if you're not using auto slash i would be checking out auto slash and wherever you've booked it already i would go to auto slash and track the rental price and pop in whatever it is you're paying and the details because auto slash will continue to look for better prices. And frequently, in my experience, they do find a better price at some point. So I would certainly be doing that with your with with your car reservation, with your hotel reservation.

I think auto slash also there's hotel slash, right? So I have not used that as much. So I don't know how reliable that is in terms of finding a better deal, but maybe you can check out hotel slash also. And yeah, I think those are the things that come to my mind. Does somebody else have a better idea? Going once, going twice. Well, I mean, with Hilton, it might be worth calling the hotel.

Just because if you're trying to it's going to reprice automatically um I guess it also depends on if you're booking an award stay or paid stay but um yeah if you call the hotel and just say is it possible to like shift my dates along one or if you're like shortening the length of your stay is it possible just to drop that first night and then see if they're willing to do that and just because it might be possible on their end to change the reservation so you still keep the same rate but it just gets adjusted like you're looking for right hey that's a good tip all right um tim what's your prediction for the next points devaluation? We love making predictions. For the next points devaluation.

That's good. I mean, the popular one is American. People have been predicting that American points are going to drop in value for about the last year and a half or so. I think there's a lot of wisdom to that.

So I can see that that i would have said the virgin there was a there used to be until very recently there was a virgin sweet spot for using virgin atlantic points where you could get delta for um delta one trans transatlantic for 50 000 points and that was terrific even though it really rarely existed but um in terms of availability but they just killed that yesterday or two days ago. I think Stephen wrote about it. So I would probably now have to go with American, I'm thinking, unless there's something. Does anybody else have an obvious candidate they're thinking of?

I think, I mean, I would imagine that Marriott's just going to gradually adjust down rather than a big devaluation um they already seem to have done that over um recent months where um values have gone down and higher in what night by eight months or so they normally um announce their category adjustments in March and I wouldn't be surprised, just with the way things have been going, if we see a big revaluation. Every time I tilt my head, it means that Stephen blinked out. Stephen is so scared of the upcoming Hyatt devaluation

that he's serious. Right. He wouldn't even say it. He wouldn't speak about it. He couldn't even get it out of his out of his mouth but it may be coming yeah i think regarding american the i think the the specific piece to mention there is i think what we expect and probably what tim was mostly referring to is the partner award chart you know that because obviously they can charge whatever they want

in their own flights since they get rid of the award chart there. So I think what everybody's worried about is the American Airlines Partner Award chart, because as other programs have devalued, that award chart has looked better and better over time. So I think that's where we're most concerned. And that seems the most likely candidate. I agree with Tim. All right. I have a question for everyone now. We'll start with Stephen and quick thoughts from everyone on the new Turkish card. Stephen, some quick thoughts?

Not particularly exciting. Probably only makes sense if you are finding it hard to get any kind of Citi or Capital One or Bilt cards, just because those all transfer to Turkish. And so you'd likely get better value applying for one of those cards and transferring to Turkish rather than getting the Turkish card. Nick, your thoughts? I would say if you're having a hard time getting City or Capital One or Built points, your problems are much bigger than Turkish miles. So yeah, I mean, that's already more thought than I think the card deserves. It's, uh, it's just, there's nothing interesting about the card or the earnings or the welcome

bonus. Even it's just not, it's a different issuer. I guess that's the most interesting thing impact or something. I don't even know. Do they issue anything else or not impact? It was something else. So something again, with an eye first, first I've seen from whatever that issuer is. Anything to add, Tim? Imprint. Oh, imprint.

Imprint, there you go. Which also does business cards. Oh, no, that's what is the, there's a business card, there's an online business card company that's like for imprint or for something. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about? For imprint, for certain. I would say, yes, yes, exactly.

Everything works. Except there was some uncertainty about that there just a second ago it was more because i was trying to decide whether to um say it in the tone of their jingle to sing it well no no no what's the tone of their jingle i'm curious now what is that i'm sorry i'm cutting out right now i see that's convenient. Yeah, so I think we've already thought too much about the Turkish card. All right, nothing more to add.

Then I have a question for Nick. I am product changing from my Marriott Boundless to Ritz Carlton card. I received my FNA, Free Night something? Free Night Award, I guess. Free night award on August 3rd each year. When is the best time to product change? Hoping to get both certs. I mean, I have just two personal data points on this, but both of my personal data points, I product changed seven calendar days before the day that I've gotten my certificate. So whatever seven calendar days before August 3rd is, don't make me do the math on that. That's what July 27th, I think. If I did it

right, I'm not sure. So I or maybe I think so. Anyway, yeah, so seven calendar days before that annual free night award gets issued. That's when I've been able to product change. Now, the one thing I missed when I was listening to the question was whether it was a new card or because if it's a card that's less than a year old, I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. But if it's a card that's more than a year old, seven days before, I've gotten both free night certificates of two for two on that on the upgrades. So so that's what I would recommend going with. Speaking of product changing, though, I'm going to sneak in one other thing. And as somebody reported in Frequent Miler Insiders the other day that the Capital One Saver One card was available for a product change for them, which is something that has not been available for most

people for a very long time. So this has nothing to do with the Ritz card. But I'll mention that I was able to product change a card to the Saver One card, and I was super excited about that. A product changed an old card that I had that was a venture card. Yeah, it was a venture card, but yeah, it was a venture card that I was keeping around for no good reason because it has a $95 annual fee and my wife has the venture X. So it was really no good reason to have it. I've just been hoping to be able to product change it one of these days and

bam, it finally came up this week. So if you have an older Capital One card, you've been looking to product change to a saver one it's worth checking again to see if you have the ability to do that yeah quick explain why that would be why that would be why that's exciting like yeah yeah so the saver one card has no annual fee but it earns three percent back on grocery dining and entertainment and the nice thing about Capital One is that if you have a card that earns miles, you can convert the cash back to miles at one cent equals one mile. So essentially, for me, it's like a three miles per dollar card, grocery, dining, and entertainment

uncapped. So I've been using the Amex Gold card for grocery and dining for a long time for 4X, but that card has a $250 annual fee. This card has no annual fee, and it only earns one fewer point. And Capital One has pretty good transfer partners, almost as good, I would say, as Amex. So I think I'm probably going to lean towards getting rid of the Amex Gold card because 3X dining and grocery with no annual fee is awesome. Now, why didn't I just apply for that card outright if I was so interested in it? The welcome bonus is usually really weak, so it's not usually worth going after for the welcome bonus, or at least doesn't feel that way. And Capital One is really hard on approvals for people that have a lot of credit cards already.

So I have not had success in my last several attempts with Capital One. So I'm not confident that I would get it. It would add towards 524. I'm just happy to get the 3X dining and grocery, good transferable points with no annual fee. Nice. Speaking of VentureX somewhat, Tim, if I rent a car with VentureX annual credit at C1 Portal, do I get the VentureX primary rental insurance on this rental? You do. All right. Nice and easy. Thanks. Thank you.

All right. Stephen, when is a good time to upgrade Hilton Surpass into Aspire in order to receive free night cert from Surpass and then from Aspire? Well, you would need to make sure that you have spent the 15 000 on the surpass card first ideally um you would do it in the first half of the year um because that's what um did with both my um surpass card and my wife's surpass card um spent the 15 000 on each of them and then upgraded to an Aspire in June. So that way we had an opportunity to use the twice resort credits on the Aspire cards. So that meant that we got $200 to be able to use on each of those cards before June 30th was up.

And then we have another $200 after. So in an ideal world, that's kind of what you do or looking at this year potentially doing it towards the end of the year um now that we've just passed um july 1st but yeah the biggest um factor here is a when you have met your 15 000 spend on the surpass card but actually be able to make use of the umpire credits as well, just because if you're not going to be able to do that, and if you're not necessarily going to be able to use the three night certificate, then it doesn't seem worth upgrading early just to pay a higher annual fee for a longer amount of time for benefits that you're not going to be using for a little while.

All right. Thank you. Let me add one more thing to that. There are some people who would be so ambitious as to try and get both quarter or both half of the years of the resort credit on the Aspire, as well as the anniversary free night, plus the 15K free night from the Surpass, plus the 30K free night from the surpass, plus the 30K free night from the Aspire. If you're one of those enterprising people, you ideally want to have an Aspire anniversary date that's in the second half of the year, and then you want to use that resort credit right away at the beginning of the year in January, downgrade to the surpass, do your 15K spend, and then go back up to the Aspire afterwards. Thus far, I haven't heard of anybody having issues with Amex in terms of doing that, as long as the car is more than a year old. However, that doesn't mean that you won't continue to have that, or that you could do that over and over and over again without having any issue from Amex.

But I do see that some people are doing that successfully. All right. Thank you. I think we're at Nick. But this is an everybody question. So we'll start with Nick and then go around the table. Hi, FM team. Which recent miles and points devaluation,

Virgin, Atlantic, choice, et cetera, has been the most disappointing for you? Starting with Nick. I, you know, I don't know as though one of them, like the Virgin Atlantic Delta one to me was almost like a nothing burger because it was almost impossible to find. And I say that as somebody who booked it a few times, but it was just so hard. You had to be as flexible as one of us as, you know, with a job where you could take off at any moment because you could find the availability. It just wasn't useful for a lot of people anyway. So it's disappointing that it's not an option anymore, but it's not like devastating to me because I, you know, it's hard, hard to be able to use it. So I don't think that one was such a big deal. You know, choice, you mentioned choice and, and that stinks because it was like Virgin

unannounced. And so it just happened overnight. Didn't give you any opportunity to book anything. You know, like I had some choice points that I probably would have locked up in a reservation or two if I had realized before, for instance, they increased the price on preferred hotels. And I haven't stayed at any preferred hotels yet, but I was sort of eyeing a couple of them. And I would have loved to have known a little bit in advance that they were going to do that before they did. So it's disappointing for me because I hate to see that. And Virgin did the same thing with Delta. I hate to see a program devalue an award without giving any advance warning. I mean, like, how much do they really stand to lose by giving a couple of months of warning to tell people, hey, listen, we're going to be changing

the prices. So smoke them if you got them or, you know, you're going to just have to pay more later. And at least it gives you the option. you know, you're going to just have to pay more later. And at least it gives you the option. How many people are really going to burn off tons and tons of points? I think that's really poor form when a loyalty program does that, because then it gives me less confidence in the future. Like, is choice going to do that again? And when? I have no idea. At least I know I know that, but that's not really comforting to me. So I guess I'm going to say choice because they did something like what Virgin Atlantic likes to do.

A no notice evaluation. And that's actually, it seems like, it seems like it's getting more and more common for things to be. And I think as more and more programs see that more and more programs are doing it and not, and there's really no repercussion outside of people being mildly irritated for a time, you know, more of the role um i would say that for mine and it isn't really it hasn't really been talked about as a devaluation but for me and my travel patterns it's a massive one um i would say hyatt losing slh and then adding mr and mrs smith but then completely tanking the uh their points value at mr and mrs smith um i do a lot so slh

was a small luxury hotels for those who aren't aware it was a it's like a marketing consortium for independent boutique properties that hyatt used to partner with and you got elite like benefits uh they fit into hyatt's award charts so they all had set award levels just like within peak and off peak but like but but effectively set award levels just like high award chart terrific away array of properties especially in europe where hyatt is really weak in terms of footprint um and i had some terrific stay and oftentimes a really good value. And it, it, and it's unclear to me if that was on the rocks, which is why Hyatt bought Mr. And Mrs.

Smith or Hyatt bought Mr. And Mrs. Smith. And then it was on the rocks, but Hyatt bought Mr. And Mrs. Smith, which is another independent marketing consortium or marketing consortium for independent properties.

It's very similar to small luxury hotels or SLH. And we all thought, Oh, this is going to be great. They own it. So the value is going to be great. They own it. So the value is going to be terrific. But the value overall stinks. You rarely get much more than one cent a point at these properties. And there's a lot of great properties around that actually be really cool to take advantage of.

But the value is just terrible. Most of the time, occasionally you can get up to like one and a half cents, maybe, which is still below what you can get with Hyatt's normal award chart. So in terms of my travel patterns, as a guy who has earns and burns a lot of Hyatt points, it really sucks. And to me, what it does is it actually severely limits Hyatt's international footprint in a usable way. That has been thus far this year been my least favorite quote unquote devaluation, even though it really wasn't officially devaluation. Stephen, how about you?

Mine's also kind of an unofficial devaluation. It's more just anecdotal at the moment. And so I don't know how widespread this is, but I'm going to go for ihg um just because of over the last couple of years we've gotten tremendous value from it and a lot of the time i'm finding that the points values have been used um just if you can buy the points at half a cent per point um but recently that hasn't been the case and so previously it always made sense to book with points especially if you can do the fourth night free or get 10% back with the IHG select card or both. Now, we can still get decent enough value by doing the fourth night free and 10% back, but it's not the no-brainer that it had been. And I've been noticing that more and more with upcoming stays I've been looking to book.

So I'm hoping they have this kind of stealth devaluation that is really hard to find out. And judging by people's smirks on their faces, I'm guessing that I've been cutting in and out. So I'll just be a little bit IHG anecdotally. Stephen is up in Alaska right now. So that's, we'll blame

the distance. I'm actually laughing. I think it's fun to watch Kerry watching Stephen. I'll see if he's talking. so if you're not watching on youtube you should just to see the head going back windham by the way is honorable mention in the vicasa partnership because i was really disappointed about that uh but but they did tell us in advance, at least on that one, you know, unlike choice. So I can only be, but so upset that I didn't make an opportunity to use more Wyndham points

at the old value. But the flip side of that is that the new system isn't terrible though, either. So you're still getting pretty good value for Wyndham points. It's disappointing that it's not what it was, but not terrible. So it's just an honorable mention. If you're going to screw Nick over, you better warn him about it. That's right. Let me know.

I got to get prepared. Just give him advance warning. All right. Tim, this question is for you. Are there any hotel programs that combine personal and credit card nights together to get you elite status? I don't really even know what that means. So I'm hoping you do. Yeah, I'm not. So a lot of several, there's several credit cards, the high credit card, the personal high credit card, there's several Marriott cards that give an automatic, like just every year as a benefit

of holding the card card you get a certain amount a base amount of elite knights that count towards elite status um i'm not aware of any program that doesn't allow you to combine those two unless i'm not thinking of something right off the bat no i'm like i'm like they all if they're i'm just wondering if they're thinking in terms of say like i status but it doesn't give it in the form of elite knights so if you have platinum you can't earn the number between platinum and diamond in order to be i'm guessing that might be what it is but oh no that would be good yeah yeah i can understand that yeah and in that case i don't i'm not, I mean, no, not in the way that you're,

if that's the question in the way that you're talking about, there is a, there is a degree. So if you have the Marriott, no, and that's really, I was going to say that the thing I'm thinking is if you have the Marriott Envoy Brilliant card, as well as a Marriott business card, you would get 40 elite nights per year and you'd have platinum status and you would only need to make the difference between 40 and 35. But that's not really, that wouldn't be really what that question would be about. No, there's no, there's no card that I'm aware of anyway, where if it gives you an automatic elite status, you only have to make the difference up between that and the next level with your personal nights. You're effectively

starting from zero or starting from whatever that starting amount of bonus elite nights is um before we move on from tim uh your very clever uh personalized zoom title is getting cut off on youtube so you you're going to have to read it for everyone. What does it say? I can't tell. It's a 2024 FrequentMiler annual challenge champion. Oh, that's sweet. Greg must have done that before he left. What a guy.

What a sweetheart. Greg the FrequentMiler, thank you very much. Tim just won our annual challenge I guess a few weeks ago now. That was so much fun. All right. Steven. Thanks, Greg.

Next question for Steven. New Schwab rule of only 1 million points cash out at 1.1 and then 0.08 after. Are there good strategies for those who have high Rakuten spend turned into Amex? Well, if you're hitting 1 million points through Rakuten, then you're doing pretty well, especially if you're earning multiple millions through Rakuten. So for this year, I think that this change comes in from October 1st so cash out as much as you can before October 1st if you're wanting to then you can cash out another million from September 31st and then from January 1st that's when like you're kind of properly limited on an ongoing basis then to 1 million there's the Amex business checking account that

lets you cash out at one cent per point on up to a million points a year. There's also the Morgan Stanley card that lets you do something similar. I don't think Morgan Stanley has a limit. So that would probably be your best bet going forward if you're wanting to just cash out in that. Well, that's all he said. Well, I think that got the main point of it. Oh, no. Am I freezing also? No.

Okay. Good. So actually, one other thing, like if you're into gift card reselling, sometimes Amex um reduce the redemption rates on certain gift cards and so you can actually make a little bit of a profit on that um about the possible option to look into just because i think like coach gift cards were on sale for 20 off recently and you can do better um reselling those so that's another way.

All right. So you're talking about if that broke up, he's talking about redeeming your Amex points for gift cards that you can resell for 1.1 cent per point or better essentially, because if you're getting enough of a discount on buying the gift cards from Amex, you may be able to sell them for an amount that effectively turns your points into cash at a rate of 1.1 or better. And then that would not be capped because you can redeem for as many gift

cards as you want. Theoretically, I don't know. In actual world, if you're really somebody who's redeeming millions and millions of points every year for gift cards, sure, there's probably some risk in that with Amex, but I don't know where that line is. All right. Nick, you can hold the mic. Most banks have been declining my credit card applications, mostly citing too many hard pulls on their credit report. What should my next move be to maximize points earnings? Well, OK, so kind of a two pronged answer here. The first prong is that usually I tell people that to just ignore whatever it is to one reason why your application was declined,

generally speaking, then Equifax and Experian and TransUnion would have nothing to sell. I mean, they make a lot of money selling their algorithm to banks for approvals and obviously not approvals, declines. I don't know what's the noun form there. I'm not sure. But at any rate, if it were so simple to boil down into one thing, then they wouldn't have a product to sell. So it's much more complicated than whatever one or two reasons you see on your letter. And oftentimes we find that those reasons can be nonsensical. So we had someone at some point report that they got declined for a card for too many new accounts and they hadn't opened a single account in the past 24 months. So I don't put a lot of stock in whatever the letter says in general. However,

in this case, that's why I have to have a second prong. It says most banks have been declining your card applications, citing too many hard pulls. So it seems to me like there is something that most banks don't like. Now, is it really the hard pulls? I don't know. Maybe you've got so, so many that lots of banks think it's a problem. I would be more inclined to think that there's something else that banks are seeing that they don't like also, whether that's your utilization percentage or other things on your credit report. I'm not sure which, but I would bet that there's more things. So probably I would chill out for a little bit. I would focus on getting utilization down to near zero. And that's something worth

knowing about. So most banks report your utilization, the percentage of your credit limit that you're using when the statement cuts. So the strategy is to pay it off in full before the statement cuts. Now, that strategy varies a little from bank to bank. So you're gonna have to do a little bit of research because like US Bank reports your your balance on the 31st of the month, not your statement balance. And some banks will report your balance in the middle of the month if you pay it down to zero. Like I think Chase usually does that. So there's some variance in how that all works, but I would be focusing probably on that. Now, a next level strategy could be if everybody's pulling the same report, like maybe they're all pulling Experian and you've got a million hard pulls on Experian, a strategy you could try is freezing that one report that's got a whole bunch of inquiries on it. And many banks, if one is frozen, will either automatically try pulling another or you'll be able to call in and maybe request that they pull a different one. Now, whether or not they're going to do that, agree to do that, or they're going to insist on seeing the one they wanted to pull is going to

also vary by bank. But that is a strategy you might pursue if you have one particular credit report that's got a lot of pulls on it, then you could freeze that. So you just go to Experian.com and there's somewhere you'll see a button for freeze my credit report. And I say Experian, that's true at each of the major credit bureaus. So consider that. I think that's my final answer. All right. Very good. Anything else to add from anybody else? I mean, I would just say that like Amex doesn't do like if you already have Amex cards, they don't. You get a new card.

And so if it is purely hard pulls that are the issue, I'm focusing more on Amex might be worth it, especially business cards, because then those won't even show up on your credit report as well. So the part that Steven cut out on was the kind of the most important piece. And that's that Amex usually does not pull. If you're an existing cardholder, they usually don't put a hard inquiry in your report now that's not guaranteed but i don't know anybody who's had one uh who's an existing card holder in years so yeah good chance that they won't pull so if you're an existing amex card holder focus on those oh my freezing too nick no both of you combined make a complete Stephen. Yeah, he's the translator. All right.

I think we're at Tim, maybe. How is Wells Fargo household? I think it's Wells Fargo. Household sharing. How does that work? Can I share between player two cashback to player one autograph points? Yep. So this is actually a really good question and it brings up something that we've been thinking of. We need to get a Wells Fargo awards guide out for just these sorts of questions. And I'm actually not certain about this one so

wells fargo recently uh introduced this they're starting to call they they insert they made their points that they earned transferable on a couple of cards um to uh travel partners so to um uh hotel and airline partners um they uh they Wells Fargo Rewards. And Wells Fargo Rewards, just like Capital One points, can be shared across, or Capital One miles, I should say, can be shared across cardholders. What I don't know, so there's also a quirk to this program, kind of like Capital One, like Nick was was talking earlier where cards that officially earn cash back those they are actually earning Wells Fargo reward points and if you have one of the cards that allows you to transfer to partners you can combine those rewards together and then transfer what you're earning on the cash back card to partners, just like Capital One cash back cards

work. What I'm not sure about and what this question is, yes, you can share Wells Fargo reward points and officially things like the active cash and the Signify and the, what's the new card, the Attune, they officially earn Wells Fargo rewards. So my assumption, which is just that it's an assumption, would be that even if you don't have a transferable card in your personal portfolio, that you could still transfer those to player one because they're Wells Far't have any personal data points that I've seen where somebody has successfully done that. So I would say to you, give it a try with a small amount of points and let us know how it works, because then we can include that into the guide and let everybody else know that that's possible. We have somebody, I forget if I pasted in here. So actually, I'm going to wait till I get to it. Okay. Thanks. Um, Stephen, suspense. Yes. Um, how would you go about booking a business class award ticket from the US to Asia, the Eastern US to Asia? In this case, it's Vietnam. This person says I'm on the East Coast, but happy to position to the West Coast. Do you have to position or are there strategies from the East Coast?

You don't have to position, but it might be easier finding availability, positioning to somewhere like LAX or Seattle or something. There's been so many devaluations the last year. I'm keeping track, and especially to Asia, it seems like there's been a lot of changes with like Alaska and Cathay and ANA and Virgin and things like that. But I think ANA round trip would still probably be

the best value in terms of the number of miles you need to redeem you'd have to redeem round trip um but i think that i can't think what it would be from the east coast but i think it's about a hundred thousand round trip from the west coast uh um another option depending on what kind of trip you want to put together would be to do a one-way ticket booked with aeroplan uh miles like because nick ended up there on three cards three continents he actually got all the way to vietnam with what five or six stops along the way um and so that would be another like if you want to put together like uh like jam-packed kind of trip like that that's another option it's not the cheapest one but you would be able to see um a fair bit a fair bit more i think i think turkish has like a good rate going

to um vietnam as well um anyone else got any others i would say your best strategy is to use something like award tool or points yeah uh one One of the award search tools or a seat start arrow, all of which have different strengths and pluses and minuses. And we have a post that compares the various award search tools. If you just Google frequent miler, which award search tool is best. Those are probably going to be most helpful in terms of determining what's actually available during the time period when you are free to travel, but I'm sorry, Tim, I didn't mean to step on you.

Did you have a- No, I was going to say the same thing. I mean, the one thing that popped out that Stephen didn't mention in terms of programs is I believe Americans still has one price from East Coast, West Coast, doesn't matter on all the partners. 60K in business. I think it would be 70,000. Oh, 70, you're right.

70, you're right. 70,000 in business, regardless of where you're right 70 you're right 70 70 000 in business regardless of where you're living from from the united states um and so in addition to the ones that steven mentioned but i was actually going to say what you said that like really for those sorts of things it might be more based on what's available you know like to earn a bunch of american miles and pay 70 000 when and there's another program that actually has the dates that you want for 85,000 right you're probably the extra 15,000 miles and you may not notice so finding the availability these award tools are terrific right now um they're not they're not the end-all be-all but they're pretty close to it yeah good tip um all right this is a nick question a while back on the podcast a mailbag email asked about a

resource deep dive on downgrading paths for cards any update on when that might be coming um is that on our radar you know thank you very much for the reminder because i had forgotten all about that but the plan has been downgraded. The plan got downgraded. Got downgraded to the no annual fee version. And so, no, yeah, that's a very good suggestion. And one that somebody had come up with and I thought was a great idea and I just totally forgot about it. So thank you for the reminder.

If you reminded us of that, what, like last two weeks ago, I think Stephen had added that on our list of things to do. Maybe. And I still miss it. Because I've been catching up on podcast episodes, so I'd probably listen to exactly the same one. That's right. That's right. All right.

Soon. Soon is the update. If you're grateful for the reminder, like this video, please. Yes. We forgot to ask you to do that. And if you're not grateful for the reminder, like it too. Don't like the video please yes um we forgot to ask you to do that and if you're not grateful for the reminder like it too like the video that's right just doing our house you don't like the video reminding you to like the video and you're reminding us to write posts that are

valuable so okay we will do that um all right uh tim uh this person has the Southwest Companion Pass and 170,000 points to burn, and they're looking for recommendations on good Southwest destinations. Where should they go with their companion? I'm going to default this to Nick, because Nick is the only one of us that actually has and uses a Southwest companion pass. Oh, do you have one, Sam? Yeah, I've got one just this year. Well, then, you guys, because I'm just going to start

spitting out places that Southwest serves that are fun, so why don't you guys actually say what you think would be good. I'm going to say Stephen should answer, because Stephen has probably seen more of the United States than either of us, right, Tim? I mean, like, I don't know, I know you've traveled a lot, Tim, but Stephen's been on an eight-year 50-state

road trip, so I feel like he's uniquely qualified to tell you where to go on Southwest. Although that got downgraded to a seven-year 50-state road trip. Seven-year. Seven-year, sorry. That was close. Yeah, no, it was going to be eight, and then I just basically couldn't take an eighth year of moving in.

A long time. And so it did literally get downgraded to a seven-year trip after being upgraded from a five year trip. Yes. Yeah. In terms of like my favorite places, New Mexico has been my favorite state so far. So I'm going to Albuquerque and then touring around from there. I can highly recommend Washington State's been one of my favorites.

So Tim and everyone else who lives there has been keeping it quiet as to how amazing it is so um really enjoyed spokane really enjoyed leavenworth really enjoyed um seattle and port angeles so i can highly recommend um any of those um i guess hawaii um saint louis is a surprisingly cool city and absolutely love the arch way more than I would have anticipated. And there's a fantastic Category 2 Hyatt that's right next to the arch. So if you have any Hyatt points, then that's another great spot. What about you, Nick? You know, I saw the question and I was like, well, like good destinations.

Like, what do you like to do? Because, you know, like it's hard to like if you like the beach. I mean, you go somewhere in the Caribbean. But if you hate the beach, then, you know, maybe you should go to Denver or somewhere else. It's really hard to give you a recommendation. What I would do is just go to the Southwest route map and take a look because, you know, really it's going to come down to what interests you the most. I enjoy getting to places that are kind of off the beaten path,

even though most of the places I've been over the last few years have not been necessarily so off the beaten path. And Southwest does fly to some of the smaller cities in the United States where I'd be interested in just seeing what's there. So you've got a lot of points. I would just take a look at what it is that interests you. So it's hard for me to tell you what should interest you. And I don't have a better answer than stevens oh and shout out to my sort of former hometown um of norfolk

virginia um just because southwest does fly there and nearby you've got virginia beach um you've got portsmouth um which has um like a lot of history there um you're near jamestown and williamsburg if you want to um drive up there that that's probably less than a 30-minute drive. And so that's another possible option for something that you wouldn't necessarily normally think of. Does anyone remember offhand the international destinations that Southwest has? They have a bunch. Mexico, Costa Rica, Costa Rica, Costa Rica, Jamaica, I think Puerto Rico. have a bunch uh mexico costa rica jamaica i think puerto rico uh do they fly to turks and caicos do they really i didn't i didn't even realize that we had to stop there on a cruise

and my goodness one of the nicest beaches i've seen in in the caribbean that would be i've always wanted to go to turks and caicos so that would be my recommendation but that's just because i've always wanted to go to turks and caicos and they now fly there so I think it might be seasonal I'm not sure but yeah look according to flightconnections.com which is what I always use to look at route maps they fly from Tampa and Baltimore perfect good to know and I think email flightconnections.com because that's where I got the information

in Mexico I think they only go to Cancun right or am I misremembering that no yeah I flew to Los Cabos years ago that's right and Puerto Vallarta yeah cool so tons of ideas and southwest and Puerto Vallarta yeah cool

so tons of ideas oh and one other final honorable mention fly to Rochester New York drive an hour southeast to the Finger Lakes region area beautiful lakes beautiful hiking Watkins Glen State Park amazing

and loads of wineries. So, yes. Nice. Good tips. We need the Stephen Pepper Almanac one of these days. Oh, the Pepper Almanac. All right. I think we're at Nick.

Right? Yeah. Any tips for enjoying traveling with young kids kids i like the phrasing of this question our kids are three years and three months and we feel like all travel outside family visits is on hold for at least a few years any tips i mean i don't know we we really enjoy traveling with our kids i mean don't get me wrong there's's different. It's not the same. We traveled much differently before we had kids than we do since we had kids in the sense that it's a museum or it's we're going to the beach or we're like whatever it is that we want to do for the day, whatever the main goal is for the day. We try to just set one. And, you know, in the past, we'd go and dart to 18 different things in a day and it'd be no big deal. It's not easy to do that with young kids. So you really do just have to pick the one thing each day.

And and I think that miles and points makes that way easier than it was before we traveled with miles and points. Because if I was using cash on everything, I would feel like, oh my goodness, I'm in Paris. I have to see everything because I don't know if I'll ever get back here again. But with miles and points, I don't feel that way. So I feel like as a family traveler with miles and points, it takes a lot of that pressure off. I say, well, if I don't see everything in Paris this time, I can come back another time someday. So, you know, obviously time isn't unlimited, but I have the possibility anyway of coming back. It doesn't seem daunting. So yeah, I mean, we really enjoy traveling with our kids. More space helps in the hotel. So using Hyatt points to book a suite, for instance,

because you can book a suite when standard suites are available with points anyway. With Hyatt, that's nice because the extra space is really helpful with kids if for nothing else so they can run around the room and get a little bit of energy out. And we always try to build in like a playground. We'll look up a playground anywhere we go. And maybe that's not the most exciting destination of the day for us, but it often is for the kids.

And they get to meet kids from whatever country it is we're in and play. And even though they don't necessarily understand each other, they get to enjoy the universal language of laughter. And oftentimes, of course, the kids speak some English. And so it's interesting seeing those interactions and then talking with our kids afterwards about, did you notice they counted down from 10 in English and that's not their first language. And so we get to have some of those conversations with them. So we lean into what they're interested in. I guess that's the last thing. I was really amazed. I think I made this comment on a podcast, maybe not ours recently, where I was reading something to my three-year-old about dinosaurs, and the word flooding was in it.

I said, do you know what flooding means? And he said, oh, yeah. I remember we saw a video. My three-year-old said this this summer. We saw a video about flooding at the Dinosaur Museum. And I had to stop and think about it. And I remembered exactly the video he was talking about. I said, yeah, that was last year. A year ago, he was two. And so it was last year.

And I was in Belgium in a city called Brussels. He's like, yeah. And we went to the Smurf Museum. And so he was. And sure enough, there is a museum because the Smurfs are from Belgium. And we went there one day off of the museum. If you go to the Natural Science Museum in Brussels, oh, my goodness, it's got all sorts of dinosaur fossils and skeletons. It's an amazing, awesome museum.

A hotel manager gave us the tip to take the kids there. And so anyway, we went to those two things a day apart when he was two years old and he remembered it a year later. So kids do enjoy and remember those things. So you lean into what they're interested in. My kids love dinosaurs right now. So, yeah, sure. We'll go check out a year later. So kids do enjoy and remember those things. So you lean into what they're interested in. My kids love dinosaurs right now. So yeah, sure. We'll go check out a dinosaur exhibit. So I guess those would be my tips for traveling with young kids and just accept that it's

going to be a little bit different, but it can still be a lot of fun. Cruises also. Cruises are great with kids. And asking hotel managers, apparently. Hotel staff. It helps. It helps. Yeah, I like that. And aside, I was going to ask you if there were any like recent wins, but it sounds like Brussels.

That's a win. Well, yeah, but cruising really all of the free cruising stuff. We had no interest in cruising until this whole free cruise train came up. And we've written, if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, just Google frequent miler, how to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches. And so we've done tons. We've done like, I think seven in the last 18 or 19 months, we got one booked this summer and we've got two more booked already for next year. And it's not that we ever saw ourselves as cruisers, but with kids, it's awesome because you don't have to think about, okay, who's going to eat this or that. And where can we go that we

can get food that everybody's going to eat? You got breakfast and dinner figured out. You just got to go find lunch somewhere and you can find something cool for lunch when you're out in port for the day. And you can see six or seven or eight different places without having to pack up all the clothes and the diapers and the wipes and all the rest of that. It's all in one place and it moves with you from place to place. So cruising really has been awesome with young kids. So that is, you know, I guess my other tip beyond just, you know, get out there and do it. It's very doable.

It doesn't have to be on hold, you know, at all. I think my six-year-old, by the time he was two, he had already been to a couple dozen different countries and more than 100 flights. So it doesn't have to get put on hold. You can do it. I think you should do a coffee break episode about that sometime. I was going to say, as long as you're liking this video, if you think Nick should spend a coffee break episode about that sometime. As long as you're liking this video, if you think Nick should spend a whole 40 minutes talking about this, leave a comment to this post and say,

Nick, more family traveling tips, please. And if you don't want me to talk about it at all, just like this video. That's right. We don't want to hear about that. All right. Okay, Tim, or everyone, but we'll start with Tim. Has anyone ever taken a chance on the ANA waitlist? I don't know what that is. So enlighten me. No, and I never would. Why wouldn't you? The reason why is ANA is already a pain in the butt to transfer and book with.

And their miles have a hard expiration date. So once you transfer, it's what, 36 months, I think, from transfer date? I think so, yeah, 36 months. 36 months. And so if you were to, A, I mean't i don't like the waitlist idea in general because i just want to have a flight and then if i'm going to book something else i want to book something else and cancel that flight i don't want to like be waiting around and hoping that the flight becomes available um and um so that's that's my my thing i don't have all but with ana specifically

if that flight doesn't become available like let's say you transfer 88 000 miles for a or 88 000 points for two miles for a um for an award and that award doesn't come through even if you book something else now you have those parked in a and a and they're going to expire in 36 months regardless of whether or not you have a need for those miles through a and a so yeah i would never i wouldn't i would never do it personally um if steven i'd love to hear why same cosine never tried it no all right that's a resounding no um okay we have time for just a few more questions steven flying blue can you reprice your flights if they go down in price due to promo awards uh can you add a free stopover on KLM operated flights as well?

KLM, you can. In terms of repricing your flights? I can't not do it. So KLM, reprice. I don't think you can reprice unless you were to cancel and rebook, but then you have whatever the associated fees are. So I'll let anyone expand on that.

70 euro, I think. 50 bucks a person. 50 euro, 50 euro. So 50, 50, $3 a person. So it's not terrible. If it's a big difference, it would be totally worth canceling and rebooking. For those listening to the podcast

version, every time Stephen freezes, I tilt my head and we have to come up with things to say. Stephen is certainly leaving Carrie on the edge of her seat every time. So have you picked up that tick for Maxwell?

I swear I think I have the same personality as a dog like maxwell and i share so many habits it's i think i was just a dog in a former life um all right and maxwell is carrie's new dog just in case anyone who's listening doesn't know he is the sweetest little boy um and if you follow Carrie on Instagram, or if you don't, don't follow Carrie on Instagram. You'll see a lot of adorable Maxwell cavorting about the West Virginia hills.

He is adorbs. But I don't want to get too far off topic. Was there anything else anyone had to add to the Flying Blue KLM question? All right. Then Nick, any thoughts on the new Attune card from Wells Fargo?

There's some interesting categories such as bookstores, Amazon. Remember that used to be a bookstore? Sporting goods stores, gun stores, ammo, shooting ranges, barbers, nail salons, etc. I almost want to punt this to Stephenven just to watch carrie's head go back and forth a couple more times but uh do you have a squeaky toy in there somewhere too

you'll see a lot but uh no yeah i think this is like the sleeper card of 2024 i think that this is one that if you didn't read much about it and you only looked at the you know you went to the card page and just looked at the bonus categories, you might be like, oh, it doesn't look very interesting. How much do I spend in those? But if you dig into it a little bit, I think this is perhaps the most exciting new card of 2024, especially if you have another Wells Fargo card that has the ability to transfer to partners because you can move the cash back, you know, here the rewards aren't here to your autograph card and onward to partners. So and like you said, there are a number of things that might be interesting.

When I saw bookstores in the list for one of the categories, Amazon was the first thing that came to mind. They did give a list of example stores that would fit into their categories, and they didn't list Amazon, which didn't tell me that Amazon doesn't count, just that they weren't advertising it. But I don't know yet. So yeah, there are tons and tons and tons of things. And if you see my post about the Wells Fargo tune card, you'll see I listed in that post a whole bunch of things that I think a lot of people spend a good deal of money on that that are not normally bonus categories. And there were things like boat leases and marina fees. You got a boat.

My goodness, you could earn a bonus category and pay your marina fees. A boatload of points. Boatload of points. Well done, Tim. Well done. Well played. So yeah, I think it's a great card

and you should check out the post that I wrote about it because it explains some of the reasons why. Anybody got more to add to that? No, I think that's a great card and you should check out the post that I wrote about it because it explains some of the reasons why anybody got more to add to that. No, I think that's sufficient. All right. I just wanted to see if this works with Cammy. Is this squeaky toy?

Yes. I wasn't seeing the head go. It certainly caught my attention. All right. Last question. And we're, I'm going to ask it to all of us so we'll just quickly anybody have a favorite backpack or piece of luggage that you would recommend we'll start with steven um we've just been using the same luggage for many years and so we probably need to replace it at some point um i'm more of a like kind of cheap and functional kind

of person so i don't have any like briggs and riley or anything like that so whatever you can get your hands on steven says he's been using it for years i have personally drugged steven's carry on and this thing is like it's like trying to take a cat on a walk like whenever you pull it it's like jumping to the side and going in weird directions. Like a sack of potatoes. He's still using it. Yes, I am.

He's not exaggerating. The wheels are still attached, and so I have a hard time giving up. It's going to rocket until the wheels fall off, folks. You heard it straight from Stephen. That's a bumper sticker. Alright, Tim, how about you um i have uh two pieces of advice and one is like steven um i'm not i may be i'm not quite as uh maybe quite as savings oriented as the as the sultan of savings but

that being mr pepper but um i do have i don I don't, I don't like to spend a lot of money on luggage. I just like it to be functional. It is the functionality that I need for as cheap as possible. So I would say two things. I don't like checking in luggage. So everything, every piece of luggage that I own is carry on a board. I have two pieces of carry on luggage. One is good for all us airlines. One is good for all US airlines. One is good for all international airlines. And you need a, oftentimes you'll need a smaller carry-on to be able to carry on in European

and in some Asian airlines. So like for instance, on the recent challenge, I actually took a smaller one and that saved me from having to check in on I think three different flights. So I would say think about that in terms of where your destination is before you and if it would be better to have carry-on stuff. And the other thing is look at your bag at the end of your trip. And if you haven't used anything that's in your bag, maybe think that you could pack a little

lighter. I oftentimes, for years, I would pack all this stuff that i didn't need and i was taking a bigger bag than i needed then i get back and like half of the clothes that i had in there i never even used on the entire trip so just be aware of what you're doing because i i tend to like i said at the get-go the smallest thing possible is kind of what i tend to go for all right nick i feel personally attacked by tim's point about bringing too much in your bag i wondered nick needs a carry-on just for his electronics i mean you know you don't know what you're gonna need Tim at some point you needed a charger or something I think Tim uh no uh anyway I so no my point my or not my point there's not a point there I my thought here is that I agree

with what Tim and Steven has said in terms of value I have owned some more expensive pieces of luggage and things I really do like my Tumi backpack very much, or I liked the one that I used to have and the replacement that I got for it. I like well enough anyway. But in terms of like my carry-on bags and our checked bags, I really like Muji, which is like, it's a Japanese brand that's not particularly well-known or popular. It's not a luggage only brand. In fact, it's generally speaking like a, I don't know, I'm going to say lower price, more value type product store that has been spreading some in the United States.

So you'll see some more of them now than you did years ago. We just stumbled on them in Japan because we needed a new bag when a wheel broke and have really kind of fallen in love with them because the wheels lock. And so that's super nice, especially when we're traveling with kids and we got a bunch of bags and strollers and everything else. We get on a train in an airport, being able to lock the wheels so the bag won't roll away is just really nice. I don't know why everybody doesn't offer that on their bags. So I love that.

And I love the fact that I can zip one side of the carry on if we want to close things up in there. Whereas like I have a Ramoa bag that I got from a promotional thing and I don't, you can't do that. You can't like separate stuff. And that drives me kind of crazy in that bag. So, so I'm a big fan of Muji because it's, it's pretty value priced. The carry-ons are like 150, 180 bucks, something like that, which compared to like a Tumi or Briggs and Riley or whatever, anyway, is significantly more value priced. So I like that.

And there was another thought I had when Tim was talking, and now I totally forgot it. So that's all you get is Muji, and I do like my Tumi backpack. And how about you, Carrie? I am recently trying to one-up the carry-on only club and go personal item only. So you know these discount airliners? They say you can't even have a carry-on. It has to be like

it has to fit under the seat. So I'm trying to pack the bags. Cali has to be able to. Yes. My Harry's carry-on has to fit under the seat. And I have never like Stephen,

I'll one-up Stephen also. I have never bought any of the bags that I have. I've gotten them inherited from people who are done with them, et cetera, something like that. So I'm waiting to hopefully inherit one day my sister's Cotopaxi bag, which just looks awesome. But she just bought it, so it'll be a long time before I inherit that. But it does look, it's really nice it has the like zip around so you can fold it outward uh so just packs really smart but it does fit under the uh it's the cotopaxi del dia i think uh is the specific one that she had that i have bag envy for so anyway that's that in the meantime it's it's whatever school backpack I inherited from her last time.

I'm impressed at how well you guys can pack in such little stuff. I do overpack some and my family always checks luggage. Well, Annie's more like you. So her Cotopaxi is one of like seven bags that she brings. Thank you, Annie.

You're making me feel better. I appreciate that. And she's always very smug when we have to borrow things from her. She's like, you needed this after all, huh? See? See? I know what that feels like. Yeah.

I have borrowed some things from you traveling with you, Nick. So I think you did save my butt on a few things. All right. That brings us to the end of our hour. Thanks so much for watching everybody and for your questions like this, if you haven't already and join us next time. Oh, I better figure out how to like end the live. How to make us.

Maybe a two hour. I'm just kidding.