Frequent Miler on the Air - How far can you go with 3 credit card bonuses? | Ep170 | 10-1-22

Episode Date: October 1, 2022

How far can you really travel on just 3 credit card welcome bonuses? It turns out you can check multiple items off of a bucket list without breaking a sweat. This week, we discuss our favorite highlights from the three 3 cards, 3 continents trips.  03:40 What crazy things . . . has Marriott done this week? 24:02 Pop quiz for Nick 27:25 Main Event 28:46 What was our strategy with our cards? 29:00 Nick's cards 30:59 Greg's cards 36:11 Favorite moments of each others' trips 36:54 Stephen's favorite moments 40:51 Nick's favorite moments 49:35 Greg's favorite moments 1:02:56 Question of the Week: What would Greg change for future challenges?

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did City do this week? It's time for Mattress Running the Numbers. Ready for the main event? The main event. Frequent Liler on the air starts now. How far can you go with three credit card signup bonuses? That's what we're going to get into on today's show, because we just finished our Three Cards, Three Continents challenge, where the three of us, me, Nick, and Steven, all had exactly that to do to figure out how big of a trip could we build with three credit card signup bonuses. And I think we decisively answered pretty big, like pretty far, right? Yeah, absolutely. And instead of the giant mailbag, we're going to just take a little step back to kind of shine the light on that. It is pretty incredible what can be done with just three credit card signup bonuses. I mean, we'll get into some details later on the show, but the fact is all three of us built trips that a lot of people would never do

in their whole lifetime. And we were able to do, each one of us were able to do these incredible trips with just three credit card signup bonuses, which makes me so grateful to be in this hobby. The points and miles stuff is just so great. And that's why we do what we do. And it gives us the ability to earn points easily because of, a lot of it is because of these credit card companies want us to sign up. So they basically bribe us to sign up by giving us huge amounts of points. And then the other side of the hobby is where we learn how to make the most out of those points. And, you know, if you know what you're doing, you can go really, really far and do some incredible things. So, you know, and I think the thing that like, for instance, and we'll get more into more

detail later, but my trip was really fast paced and I went to a lot of places for a short time. But part of the thing that makes that acceptable to me is the knowledge that I can go back to all of those places, because we did this with just three credit cards. And there's so many out there that I know that at any given time, I can easily put the points together to go to any one of those places that I want to again. And, and that's something that wouldn't be accessible for me otherwise. And I think for most people, I think most people would be like, okay, the pyramids of Egypt, maybe I'll do that once in my life. Whereas I know that if I decide I want to go back and do that again, I could do that one time, any given year with just a little bit of strategy. And so I think that's what kind of made these trips so exciting that we did some wild and

crazy stuff and showed what you can do with very little. I mean, three cards is not an extreme amount of cards or points. So it just makes the whole world accessible. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm very proud of all three of our trips. And by the time this show drops, we will have announced the winner. We let our readers and viewers vote for who they thought had the best trip. And so we'll know then that if early polling is correct, that Nick took away the championship this time. We'll see, but you can check the blog

because the results should be on the blog about when this publishes. So if you're listening, I'm sure you'll find it. Yep, yep. Okay, we're going to move into some regular segments now. First is What Crazy Thing, which is brought to you this week entirely by Marriott. We've got a double header things has marriott done crazy things so first of all uh marriott introduced two new cards the bevy and bountiful and we've made fun of their

b naming convention before so yeah that's not the crazy thing, although it is crazy. But why don't you tell us why this is so crazy that they introduced these two new cards? It just makes absolutely no sense to me. And so the two new cards are mid-tier cards. And by that, I mean, they have a $250 annual fee, which places them squarely between the longstanding $95-ish cards that exist in the market with all the various co-brands or the old Marriott cards, for instance, and the luxury sort of cards. The previous luxury card annual fee was $450. Now that's gone up to $650. But at any rate, so this $250 annual fee puts them in the middle somewhere, right? So you might think that they've got sort of a middle tier set of benefits. But when you look at them,

it doesn't feel that way by any stretch of the imagination. Whereas the $95 a year card, the base level cards from, well, the base level card from Chase, and there's still an Amex one for those who've downgraded to it. Those cards come with an annual free night certificate, but these new $250 cards that cost $155 a year more don't come with an annual free night certificate, which just boggles the mind. That's a pretty standard benefit on hotel credit cards. So that's not- So you have to spend, what is it? $15,000, I cards. So that's, so you have to spend, you have to spend, what is it? $15,000, I think. Is that right? Right. $15,000. Yep. Yeah. To earn a 50K free night. So, you know, anyway, we'll get into whether that's worth doing the, the, the next,

the next crazy thing is, is a good thing for those of us who have the old Ritz-Carlton credit card. What happened there? Well, so the Ritz card really bumped up in value big time because the Ritz card is now getting, it used to get an annual free night certificate worth up to 50,000 points. You get a single night of up to 50,000 points, but they've increased that. So now your next annual free night certificate will be valid for a property up to 85,000 points, which really brings into the fold tons of great Marriott properties that would ordinarily cost a lot of money. And the thing is, they did not increase the annual fee at all.

So for the same price you've been paying for your Ritz card that presumably you already found worthwhile for the 50K free night certificate and the card's other associated benefits, you're now going to get a much better 85K free night certificate. So that card's value just skyrocketed for anybody who already had it. You have to be delighted, right, that you're getting more for the same price. And for anybody who was ever thinking about getting the card, I feel like it's become a no-brainer. And I say getting the card, but you can't get it new. You can't apply for it.

You'd have to have another Chase Consumer Marriott card that's been open for at least a year. And then you should be able to call Chase and product change to it, which at this point is a great deal for $450 a year. You get $300 in travel credits and airline incidental credits that can be used for a wide range of things. And that's a whole nother discussion for another day. But $300 in travel credits and an annual 85K free night certificate for $450 is just like a total bargain. It totally is. That's just fantastic. So I'm excited about that. And I think all of us are glancing around at our families saying,

do we have any Chase consumer Marriott cards that ought to be upgraded? And also part of it though, is it also worth the headache to get more of them? Because, uh, there is the issue of like to get full value, you know, you want to try to use up those $300 in airline incidental fee credits. And you also need to make sure you're really staying at a nice property each year to use those, those free night certificates. But if those two things line up for you it, it's just, I think it's one of the best deals in credit cards today. It is, you know, and I think we've, I've long said that the Hilton Aspire card is the best deal in consumer cards out there. And this now I think rivals it because it's very easy to use an 85K free night certificate for excellent value, certainly more than whatever you figure the net cost is if you're able to use the full $300 in credits. And that's to say nothing of the Ritz's other benefits like priority pass with unlimited guests, and you can add authorized users to get their own priority pass, and that doesn't

cost anything, and the best in class travel protections. I mean, there's a whole bunch of other reasons to like the card, but I think between the $300 annual travel credit and the 85 K free night certificate, it would almost be hard not to get better value than the, than the cost of the annual fee, unless you just don't try to use the $300 in credits and you, you know, you blow your 85 K free night certificate on a really low end hotel, you'd almost have to work at it to get that bad of a deal. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a terrific card. Meanwhile, just to sort of round out the changes here, the Bonvoy Brilliant, as Nick mentioned earlier, did go up in annual fee from $450 to $650, but they threw in some really sweet perks. Like you get automatic platinum status, which, which means you get free breakfast at places like Ritz hotels. But you also, I meant, I meant St.

Regis. Yeah, right. That's not at Ritz specifically, not at Ritz. And that's why I was going to say is unfortunately with Marriott, the platinum elite status, Ritz, specifically not at Ritz. And that's why I say it's unfortunately with Marriott, the platinum elite status, it's very hard to predict what benefits you're going to get at different

Marriott hotels. You need a whole chart to figure out what you're supposed to get based on the brand. And then there's a whole nother thing of like, well, what is the individual hotel actually delivering? So you may or may not get great value from that, but still at some places like St. Regis, I'll say it correctly this time, you can get really amazing value from platinum status alone. They upped the free night certificate to 85K. They are now giving you 25 elite nights per year instead of 15, which since you're getting automatic platinum status won't actually matter to a lot of people. But for those who are trying to get a higher level status or trying to get, I don't know, a lifetime status, it might matter. And maybe that's it. But anyway, so whether or not it makes sense to pay $200 more is going to totally depend on each individual. But for some people, I think it's going to be totally worth it. For a lot of people,

I think not actually. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I kind of sit on the fence on that one because it comes with 25 nights of elite credit, which if you also get a Marriott business card, then between those two cards, you'd be at 40 elite nights a year. You don't really need to be given platinum status probably at that point, because if you're not staying at least 10 nights a year in Marriott properties, which is what you would need to do to earn platinum status at that point. If you're not staying at least 10 nights a year, then what does platinum status mean to you? Probably, it's probably not very meaningful. So yeah, I feel like the automatic platinum status sounds nice on the surface. And I guess it is if you're not going to also get the business card or stay 25 nights a year. But I think it's not quite as

strong as it sounds on the surface, since you're also getting those 25 elite nights. And then, you know, beyond that, I the free night certificate increasing in value is great. But the card used to come with a $300 Marriott credit each year. And now that's changed to a $25 monthly dining credit. And some people like that, I guess. But again, I feel like if you don't spend at least $300 a year in Marriott's, I'm not really sure why you would want a 450 or $650 card anyway. So I think it was, in my opinion, for most people who would consider the card easier to use the annual $300 credit when it was a Marriott credit than it as a dining credit that is out, you know, given out in drips and drabs you know we're

recording this near the end of september and i just i just had a little panic of like oh i didn't use the september dining credit yet i've gotta i've gotta go do that before the end of the month and i don't i don't need that kind of headache right so nobody does nobody does i know some people are like oh yeah but i'll use it you, breezy. And yes, you can. There are plenty of ways to do it. It's just, to me, less valuable than it was. So anyway, I'm not a huge fan of the changes to the brilliant. It'll make sense for some folks, but not for plenty of others. But it's not quite as crazy as those $250 cards, the Bevy and the Bountiful, that I think are kind of nuts.

And so that kind of segues us into, I think, Mattress Running the Numbers, right? Because the question then becomes, if you're going to get the Bevy or the Bountiful, is it Bevy or Bountiful? The $250 cards, then you have to consider, well, should I spend for a free night certificate? Because now you can earn a free night certificate each year,

but it requires $15,000 spend on that card. So you have to put $15,000 a year on the card and spend. The card does have some 4X categories. So the question becomes, if you get the Bevy or the Bountiful, should you spend your way to a free night certificate? What say you, Greg, the Frequent Miler? Yeah. So I mean, the free night night certificates they're worth um you can use them for hotels up to 50 000 points or really up to 65 000 if you add 15 000 points of your own to the to the night um so you know i don't value free night certificates as much as the equivalent number of points like i don't value the certificate at 50,000 points because it's so

much less flexible than points are, and it expires after a year. Yes, you can get it extended for another year by calling, but then that's the most. You can't get extended twice. But let's just, for the sake of argument, say a 50,000 points certificate is worth about the same as 40,000 points. In that case, you spend 15,000 points. I mean, $15,000 on the card. You earn two points per dollar for all spend, but there's also some bonus categories. But let's just say you only get two points per dollar for that $15,000 spend. So that's what, 30,000 points plus the value of the cert, that's 70,000 points. You're getting more than

4X on your spend for that first 15,000. So from that point of view, I actually think that's pretty good. Like if you're stuck with the card, you might as well go ahead and do that spend, I think. But where it gets a little depressing to me is when you compare it to other things. So for example, the Hilton $95 card, with the same $15,000 spend, you get a free night that's can be used at a top of line Hilton. There's no, there's no cap on that one. And, and you get an annual free night certificate on top of that, right? No, no, I'm sorry. You don't get an annual free night on that card. I apologize. No, I misspoke. Yeah. So you, so comparing it to that is actually, I think, a solid comparison

because that one, like you said, can be used at basically any Hilton property in the world. There's a couple of exceptions, but they're like vacation club type condo properties that are a couple of exceptions. And there's like, I don't know, maybe a dozen of them. It's not very many places. Most of the really high end Hiltons in the world, you can use your free night certificate. So I agree that free night certificate is potentially more valuable though, at the same time in normal times, it's limited to weekend night use, whereas the Marriott certificate can be used any night of the week. My problem with the Marriott certificate and spending towards it is this. Now I think that Greg's logic there actually makes a lot of sense, picking a number of points that you

kind of value the certificate at. I think that's a logical, reasonable way to look at it. However, I also look at it this way. So you've done a couple of studies now as to how much those 50k free night certificates are worth based on where you can use them. And Greg's done as much of a scientific method as one can do on this in terms of picking a number of cities and the higher rated properties and they cost the right number of points to be able to use your certificate. And so what did you find the 50K free night charts were worth? Like around 300 bucks, if I remember correctly? Yeah, that sounds about right. But that was before you could top them off. And I think with the ability to top off with points,

that increases the value. So let me explain. So it was also back when they had award charts. So what was happening was the best properties were peak priced. And so the properties that standardly would be 50,000 were being priced at 60,000, I think it was. So I couldn't, you know, in my, in my sort of experiments and figuring out how much these things are worth, they couldn't be applied to the best properties. So instead, they were applied to the best properties that would normally cost 35,000 points, but we're costing 40,000. But now that you could use them for 60,000 point properties by throwing in points, I think the value goes up higher than 300 is my expectation. I think you could probably expect to get around 400 on average.

That wouldn't be a stretch at all, is my guess. Yeah. And it's tough because hotel rates are particularly high right now. So that's easier to believe now probably than at any time in the past, even because prices are so high. But I look at it like a 50K freelance certificate is not quite as flexible as I want. Just this year, I've been in like looking for rooms, excuse me, rather in London and Paris and Rome. And I've had a hard time finding places where I could use those. And so I'm going to have to cough again. Hold on. Excuse me.

Then the likeliness increases that you'll use it for a subpar redemption. And I think paying $250 a year and having to work at getting value out of the cert makes it more questionable. That's the problem. I totally agree. That's why I was like, if you're stuck with it for some reason, then go ahead and do the spend. So for example, maybe you signed up just for the welcome bonus and you're planning on product changing it after a year. Great. Get the welcome bonus, do the spend, get another 50K cert. Not another, get a 50K cert. And then after a year, product change,

see if you could product change to the Ritz if you got the Chase version of this. And if you didn't, if you got the Amex version, you probably could product change down to the $95 card, but we don't know yet what the product change options will be because this is too new. All right. The next question we have is with the Brilliant card.

This is the now $650 card. It automatically gives you a $85K free night every year upon your anniversary, so upon renewing the card. But it also gives you the ability to get a second one with $60,000 spend. So what do you think? Should you spend 60K on this card? Oh man, I would have a hard time dedicating that much spend at a poor return. Because you have to look at what it costs you to put that spend on this card, right? Because you could be using a card that earns 2% cashback, or presumably, if you've got the ability to spend $60,000 a year on a card, I'm going to bet you probably could move assets to Bank of America and qualify for Platinum Honors and be able to get 2.625% cashback on that card. If you've got capacity for that much spend, you probably have

assets where you would be able to do that. And so look at it and say, well, that $60,000 spend could get you a significant chunk of cash. And instead you're trading that for two Marriott points per dollar. And that's a poor trade. So it's costing you something to put spend on that card in the first place. Now, if you're going to use your 85K free night cert at the St. Regis Bora Bora because you find availability where you can use the cert and top it off with points or something, it might certainly come out to be a good trade. But again, it really relies on finding a great use for the certificate. And I think the thing that we haven't mentioned about these free night certificates is that starting next year, the gloves are off in terms of Marriott's, you know, no longer exist in award chart. Whereas this year, properties still had to

remain within the bands that they historically had been priced at for the most part. Most Marriott properties had to be within a certain number of points of their, their previous award chart spots. Only some were able to increase by more starting next year though. I think properties will more or less be able to charge whatever they want for awards. And so it's, I think it's less certain that you'll get to be able to book those types of St. Regis Bora Bora type properties with your 85k cert. You may not have an opportunity to do that. Now you'll still probably be able to get very good value, but again, you have to know that you're the type of person that's going to stay at those types of properties or seek them out to make it worth it. Yeah. I totally agree with you.

And another way to think about it, even if you love your merit points, wouldn't you agree that 60,000 points is worth more than an 85K certificate because of how much more flexible it is? Okay. So if you agree with that, then think about this, $60,000 spend on this card gets you sort of two bunches of 60,000 points just from the spend, and then a certificate that's worth less than 60,000 points. You could alternatively, as you said before, if you had the Bank of America relationship to get 2.62% cash back, Merit regularly has sales on their points where they sell them for 0.9 cents each. I'm not going to try to do the math in my head right now, but I think that spending 60,000 on a 2.62% cash back card would give you enough or close to enough to buy 60,000 times three, basically. So you're getting more value.

You're getting points that don't have to be spent within a year. It's not limited to the way certificates are limited. And it doesn't have to be points that could be cash or you could end up using that cash on something else. You just use it in many other ways if the points are worth it. Yeah. But my point is like, you know, even if you're, if you're, if you're all merit all the time, it, I don't think it makes sense. Yeah. So yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot to, and with no other benefits for big spend, right. You know, that's it. Um, it doesn't get you closer to a higher level of status. There's no spend your way to titanium. Right. So, uh, so I, I don't, I don't feel like, uh, there's anything there worthwhile. I wouldn't do it. Yeah. We were expecting a, like spend your way to titanium. And then I think I would have maybe

had a different argument. We'll see. Well, we'll never say we'll never see. All right. We're, we've got a, another new segment this week, week, just for this week, a special segment, which is a pop quiz for Nick. Woo, pop quiz. And Nick has no idea what the quiz is about. But I'm going to give you sort of two mini quizzes here. The first one, I expect you to ace no problem at all. But it's sort of to give you an understanding of what the second one means. So quiz number one, rank the following words from least to most premium. Okay. I have some words

that I've put in alphabetical order. I have an idea. Diamond, gold, platinum, silver. All right. Now rank them from least to most premium. Oh my goodness. So silver would be the least. Gold is probably the next. Now, diamond and platinum is where it gets a little confusing, right? Because platinum is going to be higher than silver and gold. But which is higher, diamond or platinum?

I'm going to go with diamond. I think that by weight, diamond is worth more. So diamond at the top. There you go. All right. Yeah. So that's a common categorization for elite levels, for example. And Nick has that right. All right. Now, another collection of words. This is the second part of the quiz. Ready? Yes. Pay attention. Bevy, bold, boundless, bountiful, brilliant. Now rank those from least to most premium. Nobody knows. It's a mystery. But there is a right answer here because we're using Marriott's annual fees as the definition of premiumness. So it's Boundless at the bottom and then Bevy and Bountiful in the middle. I'm sorry.

It's not Boundless. Bold at the bottom. Bold is at the bottom. I forgot about the bold card. Bold, Boundless, Bevy, Bountiful. Brilliant all the way at the top, which is not brilliant at all. Very good. And just as a side, Bevy and Bountiful, Brilliant all the way at the top, which is not brilliant at all. Very good. And just as a side, Bevy and Bountiful are equal. They're both $250, but very good. All right. I don't get it. And the thing I didn't mention earlier that really confused me about

those mid-tier cards is I feel like they're totally missing their target market. I feel like the target market for the $250 cards is people that were okay with spending $95 on a card and might be willing to spend more, but weren't already willing to spend 450, right? That's why they came out with a $250 card and bumped up the $450 card to get some more money out of the folks who are already willing to pay for that. So those people who were willing to pay 95, but also have enough money to pay more, but not quite 450. Are those people really going to want to spend an extra $155 and not get an annual free night certificate? I just don't get who they thought they were getting there or the business traveler that doesn't really follow these things. And it's just going to get a Marriott card. Cause Hey, I stayed at a bunch of Marriotts again. You tell them, okay, well, there's a $95 card that comes with an annual free

night certificate or a $250 card that you have to spend $15,000 on and work to use the free night certificate. I just don't get who they're marketing to or why they thought that was. Yeah. I totally agree. Totally agree. It's befuddling. Befuddling. All right. All right. So that brings us, I think, to the main event, right? Main event time. Absolutely.

So we are going to sort of do a recap in a way of our Three Cards, Three Continents challenge, except that really, if you want to learn about what our trips were like, you need to go over to the blog, go to frequentmiler.com. Look at the, we each did a recap post where we talked about our, all of our travels, go there, read through that because it's pretty amazing. And there's just no way we can do justice to it here, but also go over to Instagram and go to frequentmiler on Instagram, go to our profile. And there's little cartoon pictures of each of us on that profile. If you click it, you'll see all the stories that were pinned all along that sort of do a video version of our travels in a way. And it's a lot of fun

watching those as well. So what I want to do rather than recap exactly what we did on our travels, I want to talk about how we used our credit cards that we got the signup bonuses for those. And Nick and I are going to talk about, what was our strategy with each of our cards, basically? Yeah. Yeah. So we'll go over all three cards. Is that what you're saying in the strategy? So the three cards that I chose were the Schwab Platinum card, the Capital One Venture card, and the Barclays Aviator Business card. And so I picked those three cards for pretty specific reasons. I knew that both Amex and Capital One would transfer to Air Canada Aeroplan, which was going to be part of my strategy. Now, originally, I thought I might use some of the Capital One points differently. I may have picked a different second card, if not for the fact that I had some other ideas in mind. But in the end,

Aeroplan ended up being a big part of my strategy. So I picked two cards that do transfer to Aeroplan. And I picked the Barclays Aviator card because I wanted to take advantage of one specific American Airlines sweet spot. And that's flying between the Middle East and Asia and business class for 40,000 points. And then later on, it just happened to work out that I found other things to do with American Airlines miles that really enhanced my trip. So I was pretty excited to have those three cards and their associated bonuses. Great. And I imagine you used some of your, was it your Schwab points that you used for cash back as well? That's true. So yeah, because the Schwab version of the platinum card enables you to cash out points at a value of 1.1 cent each. That's part of the reason I selected that card because

it would give me the ability to turn some of those points into cash at an even better rate than what I could do with Capital One points. And the advantage there is, so Capital One's miles, you can transfer to partners or you can use them to cover travel charges at a value of one cent each, but only whatever they consider travel charges. The nice thing with the Schwab card is you can turn it into cash at a value of 1.1 cents each. And so then the cash you can use for anything, it doesn't have to be only travel expenses or only things that will code as travel expenses. You don't have to worry about whether or not it will, and you get even more value. So that was a big part of the reason why I took that

card because I knew I would need some more cash in my budget. Yeah. Yeah. That totally makes sense. So for me, I had the Amex gold card with a 90,000 point bonus. I had the Marriott Bonvoy card that at the time had five free nights as its bonus. And I had the Citi Premier card with an 80,000 point bonus, which is still going on as we speak. The Amex Gold card was my treasure trove for being able to book the ANA Round the World Award. So I was able to transfer, I knew I could transfer those points to ANA, which is what I did. And ANA, we've talked a million times about how great of a award chart it has for Round the World Business Class awards for booking Star Alliance carriers. So that's what I did with that one. And the Marriott card,

I had picked that specifically because I knew I wanted a luxury trip. I wanted to be not just flying in business class, but staying in nice hotels and really just kind of enjoying a trip the way I think of as like a great international trip would be, which to me, I like some luxury. So I did that and got six free nights in hotels out of that because it also earned points as well. My third card, the premier card, that was my jack of all trades. So I used that to transfer to Avios, which were used to plug holes in my round the world itinerary. And I used it to choice, uh, Nordic choice, uh, hotel nights when I was in Norway. Um, and because those points transfer one to two to choice. So that was an incredible deal.

And I also used it for cash back. So, so that was my, uh, yeah, just jack of all trades, single credit card there, uh, which, which brings me. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Yep. Right. Well, I was i was gonna say the next question that we had in the outline is what was your mvp card like the most valuable player card and and you know so technically from the amount of like travel i got uh probably the gold card with the a and a around the world but but the marriott card was a close second but but as far as like what I actually turned to, you know, I, I felt like I could not have built the trip without the premier card. It,

it was, you know, it's like having a baseball player who can pitch and hit and, and play shortstop, you know, it's right. It did everything for me. Yeah. I mean, that's, I think, I think that's worth hammering for a second because I, again, so Greg booked flights, hotel, and got cash back all in one bonus with the premier card. And when we say he booked flights, it wasn't exactly short flights either, right? I mean, he flew quite a ways in Qatar Airways business class and you stayed at like a, a, a relatively expensive and maybe not incredibly expensive, but a decently pricey anyway, choice privileges property, right? In Norway.

Yeah. Yeah. Stay two nights for only 12,000 city points because they transfer one to two to choice. So it cost me for two nights, 24,000 choice points, but only 12,000 city points. Yeah. So that was amazing. Yeah. Hotels in, in, you know, in Norway and Scandinavia in general are very expensive. So, I mean, when you look at the value you got out of that, that's pretty incredible flight hotel and still had some left to get cash back. Uh, I think that's really interesting on a card that we don't really talk about all that much, right. It doesn't get all

that much attention, but yeah, I, you know, much, right? It doesn't get all that much attention. But yeah, I, you know, it really did. It made me really high on the card. The flexibility of what you can do with it is really astounding. Yeah. For me, you know, it's hard because my trip was accounted for, you know, ways to use all the points that I had. But I think really, if you look at it, that the Amex Platinum card would, in ordinary circumstances, be the standout MVP,

because just on that one bonus, I could have booked that entire Aeroplan one way. I did a six-country, five-airline, one-way award over the course of five days via Air Canada Aeroplan that cost me 105,000 points. And the bonus, of course, the welcome bonus on the Schwab Platinum is 100,000 points, but it requires $6,000 in spend. So after doing the minimum spend requirement, you'd have 106,000 points. So that one single bonus could have booked that entire five-day business class itinerary where I visited six different countries. So I feel like that is the MVP in the sense that it could have booked the most valuable part of my trip on its own. It didn't in the way I accounted for things in order to use all of the points that I had to

maximum advantage. I cashed out points from the Schwab card, so I didn't exactly use it that way. But when I look at which piece of my puzzle could have created the most value, I think that's it. That totally makes sense. All right. Very good. Now we're going to move into what our favorite moments from the challenge were, but we're going to do it in a different way, which is we're going to talk about what were our favorite moments of each other's trips before talking about our own? And here are the rules. Each of us get to pick up to four favorite moments for each of our challengers' trips, but can only pick one favorite moment from our own trip. And we got Stephen's answers to

these in advance. So why don't we start with Stephen's answers and then we'll roll into ours. Okay. Good call. All right. So Stephen starts with Nick's trip. His favorite parts of Nick's were seeing how much Nick enjoyed the pyramids. He was surprised when he went last year, like how much he loves seeing the pyramids in Egypt. And so he really enjoyed seeing you also fall in love with them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really cool and interesting and funny because, you know, I think he didn't

expect to enjoy them that much, it sounds like. And, you know, it's interesting how those things happen to you when you travel a lot, right? You, there are places that you don't expect to really wow you that do, or even, I mean, you mentioned with Niagara falls that it's a place you'd been to before, but you know, it's still kind of smacked you and said, wow, you know, this is really gorgeous. And I think that that happens sometimes when you travel, even the places you don't expect turn out to be. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and his other favorites from your trip were, um, Northern lights, uh, and swimming with whale sharks. You kind of did it all. You crowd pleasers. Those are crowd pleaser stops, right? I mean, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad he

enjoyed them cause I certainly did too. So they were, they were amazing. Um, all right. And then for my trip, he picked Norway. Uh, he said, everything I've seen from there looks so beautiful. And yes, Steven, it was absolutely spectacular. Um, then the other thing he picked for my trip was eating a live worm. He said, I don't think I could bring myself to do that. As an aside, I know people listening to this might not know about that. There was a bar. Greg hopes that you didn't know about that when you went to vote. That's what he's hoping. And one of the things on the special menu were these, were these coconut worms, which, um, you could do these worm shots with them and you can eat them different ways. Usually they're cooked, but, but I did the advanced version. Um, you know, I was a few drinks in and it looked like fun and a, and a good, uh, Instagram opportunity. And, and it tasted like it sincerely, these are coconut, they live in coconuts. It sincerely tasted like coconut. So his other favorite from- Apart from the part where it moved in your mouth, that part was probably a little bit different.

It was dead by the time I bit into it. His other favorite from my trip was being able to book Qatar Airways for 6,000 points. So what that's about is I had found this incredible deal, which was the ability to fly from Doha to Sofia, Bulgaria in business class for only 6,000 avios, which is just, I mean, you can't fly economy anywhere near that cheap on that route. So it seems like it was some kind of mistake that I stumbled onto, but Stephen points that out as one of his favorites. And it was one of my favorite things too, when I was booking it, believe me. Yeah, that was an amazing, amazing deal. Incredible, incredible find. I mean, it's nice. It's exciting when you find those types of things, right? Oh my gosh. It's so exciting.

And then when it actually booked successfully, you know, I was afraid that it wouldn't really ticket and, but it did and we flew it. So yeah, it worked. Um, and his, his favorite moment from his own trip was getting to fly the world's shortest flight in both directions. So he flew, he flew a flight that took about 90 seconds. And so he had his, uh, theme for his, his trip was, was, uh, world records. And so he did the world's shortest flight and also later followed up with the world's longest flight. So there you go from, from, uh, from Steven. Very good. Okay. Do you want to? Yeah. Yeah. I'll go next. Do your, do your list next. Yeah. Okay. So my favorite moment from Greg's trip was the one where he went over budget. Um, which I did. I totally did. I'm just kidding. Not my favorite favorite but a good opportunity for comedy uh no you know so i

i liked obviously norway was gorgeous uh but to me i actually was really intrigued i'm gonna tell you with your istanbul stop i think was really intriguing not so much while it was happening but the reels i saw afterwards from specifically from Maisie because Maisie put together some fantastic footage of your time in Istanbul. And I've watched some of those like multiple times because it just looks really cool. It looks like you guys had a lot of fun and ate a lot of interesting stuff and the footage from the markets and things I thought looked really intriguing. And I felt like I had stopped in Istanbul. My stop was very

short. Your stop was obviously longer. And I think you took more advantage of it than I did in my stop. And I saw a bunch of that footage and said, wow, I really need to get back to Istanbul and see more of it because it seemed like you guys had a great time there. Yeah. I mean, Istanbul was a ton of fun and absolutely delicious. So we had two nights there. So yeah, we, we really were able to, um, see quite a lot in that time. Um, which, you know, for those listening, you might not think two nights is very much when you're traveling internationally, but on these trips, two nights was a luxury. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. You know, and another thing that I really enjoyed, uh, and, and this is silly and it's small, but it was something I really enjoyed was your video. You're really, you did about the

slippers. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you gotta go to frequent miler and go through the reels because it was comedy gold and very entertaining. And I think that a big piece of doing a trip like this was coming up with some stuff that was kind of entertaining about travel. And if you haven't seen the clip, I won't ruin the whole thing for you. But I think that if you travel a lot, you'll kind of relate in some way, whether the slippers thing is your thing or something else, there'll be some way you'll relate to it. And I felt like the way you delivered it was just so funny.

I thought it was fantastic. Thanks a lot. That was really fun doing that too. I watched that one multiple times too, I've got to admit, and I laughed out loud multiple times while watching it. That was a lot of fun too. I mean, your whole trip was really good. And so there were a lot of different highlights I could, I could pick out. I mentioned on our ask us anything this week that I was really intrigued with this trip because I have wanted to go to the places he went to for a long time and haven't spent much time in most of them. So, uh, so that, you know, right off the bat

made me intrigued because I didn't expect you were going to go to the places you did. And I, even after your trip started, I was like texting my family with what I thought you were going to do next. And I was wrong almost every time. So, uh, so, so I think that, you know, there was a lot of surprise there and that made it a lot of fun too. So, so those are some highlights from Greg, from Steven, and I'm going to steal one that I know Greg probably wanted to use, but the real that Steven did about, about relaxing the one where he kind of roasted us because we were both kind of go, go, go in the beginning. And he took some time to just kick back and relax and enjoy. And he said, you know, Greg and Nick,

you can on a dream trip, you can relax some too. And when he put the cucumbers on his eyes and he kicked back, like look at his face when he delivered the line, I was like, oh my goodness, that is just so classic. I don't know. I had this classic British comedy in my mind where I was like, oh my goodness, that was so well delivered. So it really was. I absolutely loved that moment. And I watched that one a lot of number of times too. It was so much fun and what a great way to, you know, poke at us and ingest and, and, uh, really enjoy himself. So that was, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that competitiveness and, you know, like a little poke here and there back and forth, uh, I think made the trip more fun too, because I was, I was constantly looking for updates

from you guys, uh, you know, in the very early days, maybe not as much as when some of that stuff started happening, then I was just constantly looking to see, okay, well, what are they going to do next? And, you know, and in which way might they call me out and what do I need to do in response? And so I think that was, uh, that was a fun aspect of the trip that they got played up. So I thought he played into that quite well. So I enjoyed that very much. Uh, I also really enjoyed the fact that he took maximum advantage of the things to do at the Singapore airport. And I said on our Ask Us Anything this week that I have often heard that Singapore has the world's best airport and there's so many things to do in the airport and blah, blah,

blah. And so I've been aware that there are things to do, but because I usually use airline miles, I'm usually flying business or first class. So I've spent a good deal of time in the Singapore airport over the years, but all of it has been in lounges. Basically, I've seen very little of Singapore airport because I've usually been in a lounge somewhere. And so Stephen's coverage there and his videos from that really, really intrigued me because I said, I got to get out of these lounges some and see some of these things. And of course, because I travel with kids now, a lot of the stuff he did,

I thought, oh, that'd be a blast with my kids. So I really enjoyed that he did those things. He got there early enough to make sure that he could do them before they closed and talk about how they work and whatnot. So, and I also love the fact that he gave up the secret to solving mazes, not because I read it. I actually skipped it. He had a spoiler alert in his post. Cause he said, there's a secret to getting your way out of a maze. And I skipped it. I didn't read it, but the reason I appreciate it is because my wife did read it and she is relieved now that if she's ever in a maze and feels lost, she knows how to get out. So I thought that was a fantastic tip. So thank you very much for that, Steven Pepper. All right, very good. So now, now we're up to what was the one you can

only pick one favorite moment of your own trip? You know, I think that people will probably not expect me to pick this one. Maybe some will. But I think the highlight for me was, was snorkeling. I think snorkeling in Oman, because it was so surprising to me. I never in a million years even had in my mind that you could snorkel or would want to snorkel anywhere in the Middle East, because I just don't picture snorkeling. And it's silly that I didn't, because there's a lot of water there. And so I don't know why it didn't occur to me. There are probably some tropical fish living in the warm, you know, shallow waters around that area, uh, and, and various things to see, but it just didn't dawn

on me because it's not something I associate with that region. So I think my favorite thing was being surprised by that and getting in the water. And there's just something I love about snorkeling. It's very peaceful activity. You don't hear anything except your own breathing basically. And you can watch these sea creatures. And so, you know, obviously the whale sharks were amazing. They were huge. They passed right by us. And, you know, when we first saw them going by the boats, it was really exciting because they were right at the surface. And so you could see them really well. And we went to get in the water and the guide said, all right, we're going to get in the water, but don't

swim towards them. You don't need to trust me. They'll swim towards you. And, and I didn't know if I really believed that up front, because I've known people who've snorkeled with whale sharks and the pictures and video I've seen boys been pretty far away unless they were scuba diving. And I was, so I was amazed when these things just kept coming right by us. And they told us to keep three meters distance from them. And, you know, at some point one came up behind me, you can see in the videos on Instagram and I didn't realize it was there. And when I turned, when I, you know, heard somebody say something or sensed it or whatever, and I turned my leg actually hit it. That's how close the whale shark came to me. Uh, you know, so I, I, like, I didn't expect that at all. When I, even when I booked Oman as a stop,

I didn't expect that. And did these, did these sharks know that you were not food? Well, yes. I mean, my, my kids were very concerned about that, but, uh, but then my wife educated them that whale sharks eat plankton. They don't eat people. So, uh, you know, they're basically plant eaters. So they, you know, they're not, uh, they're filter feeders. So they don't, they don't, they don't chew on people. You know, there's a coconut worm whose parents told it that people don't eat worms. And they were wrong. Right. Good point. Good point. But they didn't seem interested in eating me, especially that one, because it did come up right behind me and go right past me. And the other people that were,

there was another couple on my snorkeling tour and they said it was, you know, it was amazing because it was coming right at me. And then like at the last minute they said it turned and just kind of went around me like, you know, I was in the way, went around me. All right. Well, I have to now jump in with, so I'm going to start with your, your trip. I'm because that was one of the first things I saw from your trip. And I was like instantly jealous because I love snorkeling with sea creatures. I've never snorkeled with anything like a whale or a shark, let alone a whale shark or shark whale or whatever these things are. So I was super jealous of that.

And of course, the sea turtles, I have snorkeled around sea turtles, but I love that experience. So, so I was, I was insanely jealous about that. And, and it, it kind of hurt too, because Oman was one of the places I had actually seriously looked at going to on this trip, not because I knew anything really about Oman, but because I had researched all of the best Marriott hotels where I could spend these 50K free night certificates and the Ritz and Oman just look spectacular. I get great reviews. So I was going to try to get to there almost, almost solely because of that hotel. Um, and, uh, when I saw that video, I was like, Oh man, I should have done that. And, you know, like it pained me so much not to be able to stay there because it was only like

40,000 points during the day that I was there. And, uh, and it was on fine hotels and resorts for $300 plus tax. So it came into $378 or $368, I think. And it is in a former palace. I mean, it looks amazing. So it pained me not to be able to stay at that property. If I go back, I definitely have to try that one out. But yeah, I mean, I was really shocked at how clear the water was. I mean, it was just the visibility was amazing there.

So I look forward to going back. Yeah. So jealous of that one. The other thing that another favorite moment of mine is not one you'd predict, which is actively not looked at Egypt Air as an option when I was looking at flights because everything I had read in the past was very negative about them. And, you know, the seats didn't look very comfortable and, you know, just all kinds of reasons. But, you know, I know your review. It wasn't like it was a glowing, like a great experience, but the seats were very nice. And, you know, um, I, I totally would do it if I could get on, uh, you know, on, on one of those, uh, airplanes, I can't remember it was seven, 87. Yeah. Yeah. Seven. Yeah. I mean, I had this image in my mind cause I'd read,

you know, reviews of people smoking on the flights and the service being horrible. And like, that wasn't at all the experience I had. And like you said, the seats were much nicer than what I imagined. moment uh overall of of nick's trip was when he went to the north pole sort of that was so much fun and use my own words uh sort of against me where in one of these shows i i said you know we're not going to define continents like you know we're not going to be sticklers we're gonna if if someone goes to the to the north pole and sees s, you know, we're not going to be sticklers. We're going to, if, if someone goes to the, to the North pole and see Santa, you know, totally give them credit for, for that continent. And so of course, Nick had to make it a mission to go do exactly that. So love that. Um, and, and your whole little video of making a letter to me from the North Pole. It was gold, absolute gold. It was so much fun doing that. And so I had a little difficulty because I changed plans a

couple of times. And at some point I had an award booked there and then I switched it to book it a different way. And the short version of the story is I was struggling for a little bit to connect some dots that I wanted to on the trip. And at some point, my wife was like, well, why don't you just cut out the North Pole? And I was like, no, absolutely not. That has to be my last stop. So there's no way I'm cutting it out. It's just a matter of figuring out which way I'm going to do it.

Because I was trying to really figure out how I was going to get back home. That was really the big piece that I had to resolve was how I'm going to get back home because there are a variety of different ways to do it. But I was having trouble finding the availability that I needed. And so that's why I ended up switching things around the way. But at any rate, there was no way that stop was going to not be there because I was so excited about that. I love that. And up to that point, I mean, actually including that point, I was still thinking my trip was just as good in many ways as far as the types of things I saw and did, but more luxurious and more fine dining. You got in some, which was really nice. And then, that gets me to my final one for next favorite moment.

Then he goes and takes pictures of the Northern Lights and him standing there with the incredible Northern Lights behind him. And that's when I just like gave up. It's just like, Oh man, he did it. I don't have a chance anymore. It was very lucky. It was very, very lucky because you know, you can't see him every night of the week necessarily, or every night of the year. So, and I knew that going in and, and I, I, you know, initially nobody else was booked

on the tour. There were a whole bunch of things that could have gone wrong. And then when they picked me up, so I mean, I landed at the airport and, and actually it was, I went later that day that I arrived. And so so, you know, I had just been there for a few hours. And so when we got in the van to go and check this out the other people in the van all were commenting on how great the sunset was. And they said, this is so clear. We haven't been able to see the sunset for the last like three, four or five days. They said it just been raining and cloudy. And so they couldn't see anything.

So there was no way to go out and see the Northern Lights because it was too overcast. So they were like, this is the first night like all week that they've been able to actually go out and do it. And that is so lucky, lucky that that was there in the night I picked to do it. So, so yeah, it was very, very fortunate that it all came together and happened and worked. Fantastic. So, okay.

So that was my picks for Nick's trip. Yeah. Your trip. Oh no, Stephen's trip. Well, no, I mean, soven's trip um i i have to give him props for the flying norse atlantic airways i'd never even heard of that it's a new low-cost carrier and so i thought that was cool right out of the gate and then following that with another thing i'd never heard of the world's shortest flight that 90 second thing that sort of one-two

punch i thought was awesome. And then my third thing from Steven's trip, same one you mentioned when he kicked back in Cairo, kicking it back in Cairo and basically trolling us with, hey guys, you can relax. A great trip Trip can include relaxation. I love that. Yeah. My favorite, my single favorite moment from my entire trip was, this was really hard to pick because there's so many great moments. There were a lot of great moments. But was rolling into Bergen, Norway. No idea what to expect. I just thought of it as a place where I could go from there to the fjords, which was really my goal. And I just fell in love. It's like love at first sight. Absolutely loved everything about that town. It's beautiful. It's super friendly. If you're into outdoor stuff, you can hike up a mountain right next to town.

It just had it all and it has fantastic food. I'm in love with the town and I'm already working to book another visit to bring my wife back. So that was my, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was a great, great moment in a place that I had once been on a train going to and turned around and went back because the weather was so bad. Uh, and I regretted it after I saw everything you did there. I thought, Oh man, I wish I had at least tried because, uh, I mean the scenery, if you, if you haven't seen the Instagram reels yet, you really have to go and check out Greg's story and all the reels on the frequent miler page. Um, because it's breathtakingly beautiful. I mean, I think that, yeah, I come from a place of having seen a few beautiful places in

my time and it's wow. Kind of beautiful. So you really have to take a look at that because it is, it's, it's incredible scenery. And I knew Steven had already picked that as a favorite moment. That's why I didn't repeat it. Uh, and when I was picking mine from your trip. But that absolutely was an amazing, amazing thing. When you were at the top of that, whatever it was, you said it wasn, and, uh, but yeah, it's, it was absolutely breathtaking views from up there. I didn't expect it. You know, you're going up a funicular that doesn't seem like it's going that far, but, um, and, and, and that you could get to the funicular, like it was like two blocks away from the hotel. It's right in town. It's, it's, it's just amazing. Um, you know, all right all right well let me hop into one other thing that i should have mentioned before and that's that i think one of my other favorite

things about your trip was the fact that you had maizey with you the culinary concierge and and i think that uh that was obviously good for the obviously for the food stuff that she brought to the table no pun intended. Because obviously she had the knowledge and the connections to make the food end of it happen. And I think that's very appealing to a lot of people. But I think for me, what made it most interesting was the knowledge that Maisie probably wasn't really into miles and points before. And so watching her reactions to the trip and also that one time where you kind of interviewed her and asked her about how it all unfolded in the email that she got from you explaining it. And just thinking

about what that must've been like as someone who is kind of new to this world. I think that brought something really interesting to the trip and was one of my favorite pieces. I think that idea of bringing someone who's not familiar with our world of miles and points on a crazy miles and points trip. There's, there's a level of excitement to that, that I think anybody who's into miles and points could enjoy regardless of the food scene part of it. And the food scene part of it obviously added, you know, tremendously. Yeah. And in addition to what you just said about the benefits of bringing her

and how it gave a fresh perspective. Another part that's sort of fresh to me is, you know, I'm so used to being able to travel the world with at any time I want kind of thing that that when we were talking about things like Doha, you know, in my mind, I'm just like, oh, let's just stay in the great lounge. We're only there for, I don't know, eight hours or whatever it is. But she's like, no, we're in a part of the world I never seen before and probably never will again. So we have to get out and do stuff. And so that influence,

she really pushed me to do things that I wouldn't have done. And it was all for the better. I mean, we had great experiences thanks to that. And I hope that I'll retain some of that when I'm not traveling with her, just kind of remember that, that these, all these things are special. And, and if you're not, you know, it can, it's fine to relax sometimes, absolutely. But, but, you know, to remember that, that there are amazing things just about everywhere. But, but, you know, to remember that, that there are amazing things just about everywhere. And, and so it's worth getting out of the, getting out of your, your sort of comfort zone and seeking them out. Yep. Absolutely. Agreed. All right. Yeah. I mean, I think that, that, that gives at least somewhat of an overview, right. Of, of the, the incredible

things that you can look for. And there's so much more. So like Greg said, you want to get to the blog and take a look and into the Instagram. I feel like Instagram, you know, is a fun way to actually watch the trip. And so the blog will give you a sense of what happened and how much we spent and how it all worked. If you're interested in the numbers and getting a full summary of it. But I feel like Instagram is the more entertaining way to watch it because you kind of feel like you're on the track. I felt like I was on the trip with you while I was watching the Instagram footage. And so I think that that's an exciting way to go about looking at this. Totally, totally agree.

So, all right. So we had a discussion question that I think you skipped over here. So I want to just ask you real quick. No, no, you're going to skip over. Well, I was wanting to wrap it up, but if you want to get it, do it really quick. Yeah. And I don't have an answer for it. So if you do, then hopefully that'll be good. So what would you change for future challenges? I thought that that was a good question. What would you change in a future challenge from what we did this time around? Yeah. So you mentioned earlier how much fun it was when we did some back and forth during the travels, like where, where we kind of like teased each other and everything. And, and so I would love for future

challenges to include explicitly include more interaction between us. Like let's bake that in to the challenge from the get-go that, that we somehow interact during our travels and, and give us more opportunity to do that. Not just over Instagram, but hopefully in person. Face to face. I agree. I agree. I think that'd be a lot of fun.

Very good. All right. Well, unfortunately we are out of time for this week. So if you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to get more of our posts in your email inbox, you want to go to frequent miler.com slash subscribe. Again, that's frequent miler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. You can follow us on Twitter, certainly on Instagram, where you can see all this great footage that we've been talking about.

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