Frequent Miler on the Air - How to find rooms for 4 in Europe and when is Bilt worth it? | Ask Us Anything Ep74 | 4-2-25

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

How can you find rooms for 4 in Scotland? Is Bilt worth it if your rent's only $1500? We answered these questions and more on the Ask Us Anything hosted live on YouTube on April 2nd, 2025. (03:29) -�� ​​If you guys could only have cards from one issuer, which would you choose? (11:09) -  ​​What's your thought on how long the us bank 4% card could stay alive? (12:04) -  Do you guys have a comprehensive list of when each type of point expires? For example United Travel Bank expires 5 years after purchasing, Hyatt points i think expire 2 years if no activity etc. Read our post on "How to keep points and miles alive" here: https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-keep-points-and-miles-alive/ (12:34) - ​​Do you think Aeroplan is going to lose value bc of too mamy tiers of pricing for different partners? A big chunk of the value is mixing partners, that's hard if there's so much variance. (17:02) -  ​​Going to Europe for the first time from lax in 1 year. How do I get started figuring out how to use my many Amex mile Read our "Best ways to get to Europe with miles or money" post here: https://frequentmiler.com/best-ways-to-get-to-europe-with-miles-or-money/ You can find our "Which award search tool is best" post here: https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/ (21:05) - Opinions everyone - Will Hyatt ever revamp their personal credit card? (21:56) -  In the US, you can have multiple people in a hotel room yet in Europe it seems impossible to put 4 people in a hotel room. Is there a way to do that in Scotland? Read Nick's post about booking Cottages.com with Wyndham here: https://frequentmiler.com/booking-cottages-com-via-wyndham-rewards/ (29:33) -  ​​When looking for points/miles redemptions, at what point in time before the flight do you consider paying with cash? (31:33) -  You guys stress opening up new cards for Sign up bonuses and using Categories multipliers. How many New Cards do you open for SUB each year and how often apart do you open them? (35:30) - ​​How many credit cards do you typically open in a calendar year and what’s the split with the amount of new business versus personal cards? Read the complete guide to credit card application rules by bank here: https://frequentmiler.com/complete-guide-to-credit-card-application-rules-by-bank/ (40:56) - JW Masai Mara will charge you $4,950 PER NIGHT if you booked on points and you cancel less than 90 days out. CSR won’t cover it because nothing has been charged on the card in advance. Thoughts? (46:37) - Hi, is it possible I can get a FREE Carnival cruise if I submit just a MGM gold status + Wynn Platinum? Trying to avoid making a trip to Atlantic City for more statuse (49:08) - ​​If my rent is $1500 a month is Bilt card worth a 5/24 spot? Music Credit – “swappin’ back n’ forth” by up @ night

Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the frequent Mylar team answers your questions live. We are live. Tim, you're in Tokyo? I am. That's why it's significantly more light here than it is where all of you are. Really? Tokyo has more light than the United States does. Well, barely. I mean, it's actually been terrible weather in Tokyo. It's just starting to clear up. It was unseasonably cold and rainy, which if anybody's ever been to Tokyo and it's unseasonably cold and rainy,

it's not a pleasant place to be. But yeah, no, it's been marvelous. We've been going and seeing Team Labs, which all of us, I don't even know, what do you guys describe, Aaron and I were talking about this yesterday, what do you describe Team Labs as? Because digital art museum doesn't have- An immersive art experience.

Immersive, experiential, or trippy kind of art experience. Yeah, all that. Okay, so Team Labs, Steven, what was that? An immersive, trippyppy experiential art experience? Something like that. I think that's accurate. So we all went to, they have one installation called Planets that we all went to during Party of Five a couple of years ago, and their main installation in Tokyo, Borderless, was closed at that time. Since then, they've moved that Borderless installation to a different location and it's now reopened And so my wife and I are going to and it's also peak cherry blossom season in Tokyo right now

So we're alternating between team labs cherry trees food team labs cherry trees food and it's a marvelous experience so far Which is the best like if you had to just do one of those things, would it be food? Would it be team labs? Or cherry trees? I would say if I only had to do one of those things, I would be very angry at whoever's making me only do one of those things.

So right now that's you, Greg, the frequent my. No, you know, honestly, I think to me, it's hard to over, it's hard to oversell cherry blossom or sakura season in peak time in Japan. There are always, and last night we just had, but we had an exam. There are always time constraints everywhere. I'm just, we just, you just encounter this,

this milieu, this landscape, this thing that you're in that is completely transcendental. I mean, it's crazy to me. We were just, I mean, chills, everybody giggling. There's beauty here that I haven't during cherry blossom season that I just haven't encountered elsewhere. So I would say I'm a firm proponent that everybody needs to add to their bucket list to experience at least once in their life

cherry blossom season in Japan. And not just season, but like a place where it's at peak bloom and it's just magical. So if I had to do one, the food would be tough. It would be tough to say, okay, I'm going to go to Japan and not eat because that's one of the great joys of Japan. But I would probably say that if I had to do one and I could only do one, it would be cherry blossom. Yeah. Nice. In the spirit of if you could only choose one, we're going to start with an if you could only choose one type question. And this is going to be for everyone. But we're going to start with Greg. If you could

only have cards from one issuer, which would you choose? Oh, wow. That is tough. This is this is only choose one day where anything that exists ever you can only choose one. Yeah. Anything that exists ever, you can always choose one of. Yeah. Would it be part of it? It's not that tough, is it? It's not your turn yet. I'm just trying to apply a little pressure. I think it would have to be Hyatt.

I mean, Chase, because of. Before you slip. Because Chase gives me access to Hyatt, plus most other airline programs that I care about. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And yeah, so I guess if I had to do just one, it would be that. And I know Bilt also has Hyatt, but since they only

have the one card, I wouldn't want to limit to just one card. OK, we're going to have to find out what Nick was thinking. So Nick, you're next. Oh, I mean, it's clearly Amex. I don't know why Craig is on over there. It's clearly Amex because there's so many cards that you can earn welcome bonuses from. So you could stack up tons of points from welcome bonuses.

You could stack up points from referral bonuses from referring somebody else in your life. You could stack up points from category bonuses, spending bonuses, they have authorized user bonuses, from referring somebody else in your life. You can stack up points from category bonuses, spending bonuses. They have authorized user bonuses a bunch of the time. There's just so many more opportunities to stack up huge amounts of points. Now, I would miss Hyatt if I didn't have Chase, but I could afford to book a hotel wherever it is I go. I can probably find a hotel I can pay for that I'll be happy enough with. I probably am not going gonna pay for business class flights

with cash, but with Amex, I could easily earn enough points each year to take a trip where I could fly there comfortably. And then I could transfer my points to Hilton when there's a good transfer bonus and stay in SLH properties. So, to me, it's hands down Amex, it's not even close. If I had to pick one, that'd be my one.

All right, hot ticks, Stephen. I was initially hands down Amex. It's not even close. If I had to pick one, that'd be my one. All right. Hot ticks. Steven. I was initially thinking about Amex just because it's so much easier to rack up points with them, but I think I am going to have to go with Chase just because I think I'd miss Hyatt's days too much and I think of the like five of us. Well, I guess out of the four of us guys, I'd probably be the one who'd be like more content with flying economy. So I'd much rather like stay in Hyatt and things like that and be able to take advantage of globalist benefits and if necessary fly economy.

But even then, like I still have access to Aeroplan and United and things like that. So it's not like I'd be completely closed off from being able to take premium flights. So that's my choice. You can still stay at a Hyatt and get your globalist benefits. You don't need to chase carts for that part. Then you've got to like pay for all of those. But you can cash out the multitude of Amex points so you can pay for your Hyatt states. All right. Well, maybe Tim will be on your side.

Let's find out. Tim, Amex chase or something else? So I think there's I think there there's, let me, let me hedge this. I'm going to do a triple hedge and my triple hedge is going to be that I agree with both Steven and Nick or Greg that so I, and I, I, I agree with Nick, Carrie, Steven and Greg that the cherry blossoms are so great. Yeah, I know. You're all going cherry blossom. What I find myself most in need of right now is lodging points.

Points to give me some sort of lodging. And I find that I have a multitude of ways to get airline points. Points to give me some sort of lodging. And I find that I have a multitude of ways to get airline points, but I use those in less situations and less frequently than I do lodging points. And so in terms of, and so that's why to me, Amex would be really tough. I agree with Nick, if it was just about earning, like if we're not changing anything else and it's just about earning, it would be Amex hands down. Amex is by far the easiest way to earn a ton of points and for your family, their lodging options are not great. They do have Helton, but the lodging options aren't great.

And honestly, like, okay, you maybe you maybe you use 60,000 aeroplan points to get to Europe twice, four times a year. Well then in Europe, you have 14 nights of hotels that you need to book. And if there aren't high, it's in most of those places anyway. So if I'm using 60,000, if I'm using 50,000 Hilton point or MX points to transfer to Hilton to redeem them to Hilton for 14 nights, I'm going to be burning through a ton of MX points. So I agree with Nick on the earnings side, it would be Amex. But in terms of partners, assuming the earning was all equal, it would probably have to be built just simply because if I were earning built points

the same clip as I was earning anything else, it would be great. And keep in mind, I don't have the built credit card. I don't engage with built at all as a program because it's almost useless to me. However, I'm confused. The rain was all equal. It was a good ways to earn. He's saying, okay, for him. So all that to say, but in terms of what I would pick between those two, I don't know. I mean, it's like, it's like Sakura versus, uh, Japanese food. Like how do you,

how do you, but I would say that that would be my limitation with Japanese food. Like how do you, but I would say that that would be my limitation with Amex. Like yeah, if you're earning a bunch of points, but gosh, it's just tough to, outside of Hilton, there's no good lodging options. And Hilton is not. I find it interesting that you say that because outside of Hyatt,

there's no good lodging options with your chase points, right? It's like you say the same thing. I'm not saying necessarily chase. About chase, right? Yeah. And well, but I think that chase A, it's easier. To me, the chase-hiyat combo is that it's the easiest

combination of earning good value points lodging, because you're earning points in a reasonable clip, and those points are actually worth something. Whereas, Amex, you're earning points at a reasonable clip, and your best shot is maybe they're worth 1.3 cents each if you get it on a 30% transfer bonus and compared to buying those points to use for lodging. So it's just such a low ceiling to use them for lodging.

However, I do hear your point that it's way easier to earn than any other thing. So that would probably carry me in the end if I had to pick one. I agree with you. If I could earn built plants as quickly as I earn MX plants, then hands down, it would be built. Wow.

Greg and Stephen, you feel the same way? Yeah, probably, although I'm hesitating a little bit because there's some things that you can do with different cards, like spend your way to elite status that you could do with a Chase Hyatt card that you can't do with the Bilt card, for example. And so Bilt, I think the only reason I would say Bilt is because of the transfers to Alaska, as far as over the others.

And I don't know, is that enough reason to pick that? Good point. Good point with the ancillary cards. I was really only thinking membership rewards points with AmEx too. But, you know, of course, when you got the Hilton Aspire and the Hilton Surpass, I'm going to argue that that's potentially a pretty good combo too. But anyway, tough. Yeah. Great question. And I'm teasing a little bit because it's a good question. I knew that. Yeah.

And there's no right answer here. We just know that whatever Nick says is wrong. Generally, yeah. Right. There's an answer key for the test that is that. Don't worry. I'll save you from this side of banter, Nick, and we'll move along to the next question.

Very good. Although this one is assigned to you. What's your thought on how long the US Bank 4% card could stay alive? Not long. Is it still alive? I mean, I don't even know. Can you still apply for it right now? It sounds like I saw Dr. Credit posted, I think yesterday and then again today, that

there's a bunch of rumored changes coming like soon in a couple of weeks where you're going to be limited and you're not going to be able to earn the bonus now on taxes I think and educational stuff and of course gift cards is going to be potentially excluded. I think there's actually a limit as to how much you can earn per statement cycle. I think in a couple of weeks here it sounds like it's going to be more or less completely nerfed. So if you've got it and you're still earning 4% with it, enjoy the next 10 minutes because

it's ending soon. I think it's probably true. It seems all signs point to that being the case. Sad. All right. This next question I'm going to answer because somebody already answered it in our little internal chat. Do you guys have a comprehensive list of when each type of points expire? For example, United Travel Bank expires five years after purchasing Hyatt points, I think expire two years if no activity, et cetera.

So I will paste this post in that chat. There's a post called how to keep points and miles alive. And while I do that, then Steven, I'm going to give you this next question. Do you think Aeroplan is going to lose value because of too many tiers of pricing for different partners? A big chunk of the value is mixing partners. That's hard if there's so much variance. What are your thoughts on that? It's tricky just because I think we're going to kind of have to wait to see how everything shakes out.

Like Nick did some investigation the other day into like the award pricing and things and so he can probably speak on this topic like a bit more unknowledgeably, but it could certainly have an impact, but because it's such early days and who knows if they're going to make further changes and some of this is going to be priced dynamically and so at that point how much of it's quite how dynamic is it going to be? Is it going to be extortionate amounts or is it going to be somewhat reasonable but where you can get much more worn availability. So yeah, there's like too many factors that at the moment have kind of really known given that these changes have only just kind of come into play.

I haven't actually had a chance to do any aeroplan searches yet since that happens. So how about you, Nick? What are your thoughts? It's hard to say, like you said, because so far, if you read the post I published today or last night or wherever a day ago, I found that mixing two partners on an award dropped the dynamic pricing from United to regular award chart pricing in all the instances I found. But the new award chart for United and the other select partners has no cap. So there's no guarantee that it's going to

stay that way. That'll be that way tomorrow. I mean, who knows when it might change. And my fear with this from the beginning was how long before another partner says, oh, well, we want you to pay us more for our awards too. You know, if Lufthansa group moves all of their airlines to the select partners chart that's dynamically priced, then you're gonna lose like four more airlines

or whatever it is. And so I don't like the precedent that sets at all in terms of telling all of the rest of their 41 or 42 or however many airline partners that we're willing to negotiate and charge more for your awards. I don't like that for Aeroplanet at all. So I mean, I think that they're, yeah, it's likely that they'll lose value over time. So far, we're not seeing that from the United Awards, at least when you're mixing partners. The non-stop awards are more expensive, but if you're mixing United with another partner,

so far it hasn't hurt the value, but you know, I always say you gotta take advantage while you can't strike while the iron is hot. I would be looking to redeem sooner rather than later probably. Although, you know, at this point, I don't think we'll see a change soon. I can't imagine we'll see another change in the next couple of months. He probably got a while before anything becomes really bad. I just saw the headline. I haven't had a chance to read your whole post yet. When

you were looking at mixed partner awards and United, was that across all mixed partner awards or just those that involved Air Canada? No. To Europe, for instance, a non-stop from Newark to Frankfurt was pricing at 80,000 on United or a non-stop from Newark to London was 80,000 on United. But if you flew United from Newark to London and then Lufthansa from London to Frankfurt, then it was 60,000 on United. But if you flew United from Newark to London and then Lufthansa from London to Frankfurt, then it was 60,000. And you could do a stopover in London.

And I found the same exact thing going from Houston to Sao Paulo in South America and then continuing on. You got a whole bunch of options there because they partner with Avianca, they partner with Azul. Turkish runs a couple of routes from there. So does I think Ethiopian maybe. There's quite a few different options from Sao Paulo. it went from a hundred thousand for the non-stop Houston to Sao Paulo to sixty thousand

if you add another leg and another partner and then Asia was a similar story and again you could book it with a stopover and you know we'll notice if you miss your second part of that you know one time probably nobody's ever going to notice and you're just going to save yourself some miles so um so anyway you know or you just see two places for less than what they're gonna charge on the non-stops. Now, again, that could change like while we're recording this for all I know, that's the problem with a dynamically priced chart that has no cap. It just has a starting here and this is what the median price is and that's all true right now. But in a few months that could be very different.

But at least for now, if you're mixing United with at least one other partner, it seems that all of the awards I found that mixed United with at least one other partner were pricing according to the old chart. But maybe you'll find something different. So it's worth doing some investigation though. Yeah.

All right, Tim, this question's for you. This person is going to Europe for the first time from LAX in one year. How do I get started figuring out how to use my many Amex miles? That's a good question. First, I would move from LAX. Move somewhere else first.

No, and we're just joking because we all had to last year as part of the flying by the seat of our points challenge we had to book. We were all in LA and Stephen and Kerry made us book close in travel or business class travel to Europe and Nick still hasn't actually gotten to Europe. He's still... We did not require it to be business class. That was your choice. He's still in a lounge somewhere and somewhere. Trying to find availability. So there's three ways to go about it and I'm going to defer one part to Greg.

To ask Greg because Greg's been doing a ton of work on seat. Or on different award tools that would be very helpful in your quest. But part of it is saying you're going to Europe. I'm not exactly sure where, but a good place to start. We have a post called, I don't remember the exact name of it, but if you just look Google Frequent Miler, best ways to get to Europe with points and miles. That will have a very comprehensive list

of some of the best ways to fly there. And then each one of those options will show transfer partners. And in this case, you could just go and look at where your transfer, which of those programs or which of those awards are bookable via transfer with membership rewards points. Because most likely, you're going to be transferring, in order for your flights, you're going to be transferring to one of Amex's flight transfer partners, and then using those points in that partner's reward

program to book your award travel. So that'll give you an idea of some of the sweet spots that you can use with American Express. And we also have a best use as a membership rewards points, but that's a little less direct in terms of talking about your actual trip to Europe. But then I would say, Greg, what would you so and let's say for your free tool, let's say without having to pay money just as a, you know, and there's pro tools you can get, what would you say at a year out would be the best way to start looking for availability given that

you have Mamex points? Yeah. So there's a free tool called Pointia that is pretty darn capable even in the free version and it has a capability of, you know, if you knew exactly where you wanted to go, you could put, you know, say I want to go from this airport to that airport during this time frame, but it also lets you just explore available flights with much broader searches. So you could say from my home airport, show me, you know, all the flights to Europe during this broad time window. And it, no tool could possibly have every possible flight in there, but it has a lot of them. And it'll show you how many miles it would

take to book different ones. And that could give you some idea of where to start. But take a look at our post on which award search tool is best to look at the different options in there because there's different ones that might be better suited for different things. For example, if you're brand new to transferring points

to a foreign airline and if that worries you at all, you might actually prefer to use a tool like PointMe because that gives step-by-step instructions how to do that. Yeah. So that post again is which award search tools are best. I think that's what it's called. I'll see if I can find it and put it in the chat. Greg, this question is for you. Will Hyatt ever revamp their personal credit card? Yes. You know that for sure.

You get this guarantee. I'm just giving an answer. Yeah, I mean, I think they will. It's been pretty set for a while now. And, you know, unfortunately, I think that chase has discovered the joys of of couponizing cards through their united co brand and. uh, gonna soon come nipping on their heels and say, Hey, we want to couponize too. We want to get in on some of that higher annual fee action and exchange for hard to use coupons, but hopefully some good stuff will come with that too. We'll see.

Yeah. Um, all right. Uh, Nick, um, in the U S you can have multiple people in a hotel room, yet in Europe, it seems impossible to put four people in a hotel room. Is there a way to do that in Scotland? And then I'm going to say in general, also, I'm going to add. Sure. So a couple of different thoughts here. First of all, in Scotland, very specifically, we stayed at the W Edinburgh last

year. And one of their standard room types was based out of can't remember exactly what they call it, but it was basically two double beds. And some nights, it, but it was basically two double beds. And some nights it would allow you to put two adults and two kids in that room, and it would price as a standard award. And other nights, if you put in two adults and two kids, it wouldn't price as a standard award.

And I don't know why, but we were able to book it for the nights that we needed anyway with two adults and two kids. So, and the same room was available another night and we couldn't, I don't know why, but at any rate, so there are some hotels. My point is that will allow two adults and two kids. It's not common though. You're right.

For the most part, when we're traveling to Europe now, now I'm looking at just having to get two rooms and and or to compare that against the cost of like an Airbnb vacation rental type place. Sometimes suites will accommodate more people, but that does vary because sometimes suites will only accommodate three. You have to kind of look and see if the suite will accommodate four people and the standard room does not. I have not yet run into a problem with booking a standard room for two people or three people using an upgrade award to upgrade to the suite and then contacting the hotel or my concierge to add an extra person to the reservation.

And so that's another strategy to use there. Sometimes the extended stay type brands, if you can find them in Europe, will offer the chance to put four people in a room I know there's like a couple of residents ends I think in France that I've seen that do allow four people in a room I mean we found it in places, but really it's more of a luck of the draw kind of thing So more often than that we're just having to budget for two rooms now Which stinks but that's just the way that it has been for me. So far, does anybody else

have a better suggestion for four people in a room? I've got a few things. So one of the reasons why it's so hard to do that is that property in Europe is generally a lot smaller just because a lot of it's kind of more historic properties that were built 100, 200 years ago, where they didn't need as much space. And so the rooms are smaller. and so you just physically can't fit enough beds in there safely and so that's why you'll often find that in properties certainly in the UK and like elsewhere in Europe. In terms of solutions, one option is if you have Wyndham points is to book through colleges.com because you can use your points for that. And we've actually booked a really amazing looking three-bedroom cottage on the Isle of Skye

for later this month for us and a couple of our friends. And so that's a three-bedroom one. And so unfortunately it means it's 15,000 points a night or per 15,000 points per night per room. And so we're having to redeem 45,000 points, but we get a 10% discount with a Wyndham card. And so that's one option is that depending on the setup of the house, you might just be able to book a one bedroom house. If they've got like a sofa bed or something like that, you'd be able to fit four people in there.

So that's one good option. Another option is Premier Inn. That's a UK based hotel chain. They do have a few properties elsewhere in the world but they're mostly in the UK and they do have quite a lot of properties around Scotland and so we're going to be staying at one up in Scotland in Falkirk. Not all of them take four people, but I know that there certainly are some, like the Premier in London County Hall definitely has rooms for four people because our friends booked a room for them and their kids when we stayed there a couple of years ago, and I imagine that there's some in Scotland where you could do that. Worst comes to the worst, you just book two rooms. The rooms are normally very reasonably priced, like the hotel that we booked was something like 60 bucks for the night or something like that.

So even if you're booking two rooms, that's 120 bucks for the night, still probably much cheaper than you're going to get for a hotel with space for four people just in one room. So that's another good option as well. And discovered recently that you can actually book Premier Inn properties through the Chase, Capital One and City travel portals. And so that's another way that you can actually use points on those stays. And so you can't book it through the Amex travel portal for some reason, it doesn't show up there. But yeah, that's another option. They don't appear on any other online travel agencies like hotels.com. But the credit card like issued travel portals, then you can book through there. So colleges.com and Premier Inn, I think will be some of your better chances of finding properties that take four people. I'm glad you said colleges.com because that was in my mind when I first started talking. I forgot by the time I got to where I should have put that in.

One other thing, elsewhere in Europe, not just this won't probably help you in Scotland, but Hyatt in some places offers what they call the family rate. And the property has to be participating in it. So you're going to have to call Hyatt and find out whether or not the property participates in the family rate. If they do, you can get a second room for 50% off the cash rate. And when I wrote about this years ago, if memory serves correct, that was true. Even if you used points for the first room,

you can still get half off of the cash rate for the second room at properties that participate in that. I don't know how many in Europe do, but that's another thing to keep in mind, the high family rate. The other thing you could do if the problem is that, um, the hotel you want to stay at at has rooms that are big enough for four, but they're not available to book with points. One thing that you can do is book a cancelable room with points and then contact the hotel and say, hey, I made this booking, but we really want to have four people in it.

Can I pay extra to be bumped up to a family room. And a lot of places will do that for you at a rate that's much cheaper than, you know, paying for two rooms. And so one other final quick thought as well is, I don't know if you're checking the direct website. So I don't know if you're going on like hire.com and itch.com. Check out the various different online travel agencies like hotels.com as well, just because there's other European based and UK based hotel chains like Millennium, like Acor, even though they're all around the world, they do have a much better presence in Europe than they do in the US.

And so you might be able to find all kinds of other options for people that you wouldn't necessarily find if you're just kind of sticking with your more commonly, like stayed up in the US brands. Wow, I had no idea we would have so many tips for that. I know. All right. Awesome. Really quickly, I'm just gonna quick put on an asterisk that Nick wrote a terrific post about booking cottages.com reward properties using Windham rewards.

I know that it's up to date because I just used that to book one about a month ago. So we'll put that in the show notes and it's a, and it's good too. It's a great program and it's worth checking out if you want to do travel primarily in the British Isles, but Europe as well, but primarily in the British Isles. Nice. All right, Stephen, your turn. Despite the fact that you did answer a lot of that for Nick. Appreciate the save. Yes.

When looking for points and miles redemptions, at what point in time before the flight do you consider just paying with cash? I don't know if I do. Like usually I would often go into something either assuming that I'd be using miles or that I'd be using cash. Like if I was planning a round trip to like between the US and Europe in economy or something like that, I'd probably be more likely just to be looking at cash ones from the outset,

just because it's probably not going to be worth redeeming miles on top of whatever associated taxes and fees there are going to be for that. If I was looking at booking a business class flight, I'm not going to be looking at cash. And so I'm just going to be assuming that I'm going to find some kind of point of miles option. For the most part, like my wife and I have a fair good amount of flexibility. And so I've never kind of encountered a situation where things are cutting so fine that it's like, okay, maybe I'm going to have to pay cash for this flight. I don't know about the other guys, but yeah, that's just not something that I personally

encountered. Plus, you'll often, I mean, depending on how much you really want to risk it and how essential this travel is, you'll often find certain programs opening up award availability in the last week or the last few days before your travel dates. And so even if you spent the last like nine months or something like that searching for award availability and you've been striking out, you might suddenly find, oh, well, like, there's all this, all these kind of other options right at the last minute, whether or not that's in your risk tolerance to do that kind of thing. And if you have a partner or family or something like that, whether or not they'd be happy enough to go along with that kind of uncertainty too. But yeah, usually it's like all kind of situation rather than either or between like miles or cash.

Yeah. All right, Tim, two-parter, you guys stress opening up new cards for signup bonuses and using category multipliers. How many new cards do you open up for signup bonus each year? And how often apart do you open them? How far apart do you open up for signup bonus each year? And how often apart do you open them? How far apart do you open them?

So the that's a that's a that's a two part question. It's actually it is a two part question I see. So the there's a couple ways to look at it. First of all, in terms of how far apart they are, each bank has slightly different what we would refer to as velocity rules, meaning how quickly you can apply for cards, for new cards through them after you've either applied for the same card or other cards in the sphere of the credit card universe. So Chase, for instance, has probably the most famous velocity limit called the 524 rule, where if you've applied for famous velocity limit called the 524 rule, where if you've applied for five or more personal cards

from any bank within the last rolling 24 months, there's a lot of cards that they're likely to not approve you for. We have a post called the Complete Guide to Credit Card Application Rules by Bank that we'll throw in the show notes. And that goes through all of those different velocity rules for banks. And it's a lot of them. And unfortunately, there's no way to just succinctly say this three months, because some of them are just fine with some you can do multiple in a day.

Some you can only do once every 90 days. So it really does depend by card. But in terms of two things that I would say, I'm always working on a welcome offer for a card. Oftentimes, too. I don't a welcome offer for a card. Oftentimes two, I don't ever not have a new card. So what I would say limits my overall velocity is less a given time period, but more the amount of spend,

what's my spend capacity? So if I can only spend $5,000 a month, I don't want to put myself in a situation where I need to spend $30,000 in three months in order to get two welcome offers. So I want the pace of my welcome offers to match the spend that I'm doing on those welcome offers. Also, my probably about 80 to 90 percent of the cards that I sign up for now are business cards. Part of the reason why I do that is because business cards generally are easier to get. They're easier to get welcome bonuses on multiple times. They're easier to get approved for and they don't affect your Chase standing, your 524 standing,

because most business cards, Chase doesn't consider part of that 524 rule. So when there is a new personal card that comes up that I might wanna get from Chase, even though I've been getting business cards nonstop, it still looks like to Chase that, oh, you've only gotten three new cards in the last 24 months. The other thing that's nice for me is that business cards don't report their credit utilization

to your personal credit card, most of them, your credit utilization. If I have a, say, $15,000 limit on a credit card and I put $12,000 on it to do a welcome offer, that doesn't get reported as though I'm using $12,000 of my $15,000 credit utilization up there, on there. So it allows me to be able to get multiple, to do higher spend on those cards without having a yo-yo in my credit rating because of credit utilization. That's a little more complex, but it's something to think about as you get further into kind of the game.

But I would say that in summation, what governs my velocity is the amount of spend that I'm willing to do, and as well as welcome offers on business cards that are good, because I'm much more likely to go for a business card welcome offer that's good than a personal card in general. All right, we're going to make this question more actually somebody already made the question more specific for us. So I'm going to go to that version of the question and then we're going to all answer it.

How many credit cards do you open in a calendar year and what's the split with the amount of business versus personal cards? So Tim, in your best estimate, how many cards did you sign up for last year? And how many of them were business cards? I'm going to ballpark it and I'm just going to ballpark it and say, right, right, right. Who could possibly know such things specifically? Honestly, it's tricky. Well, last year was tricky, too, because there was a bunch of good opportunities for Amex

cards. So I went hard on new Amex business cards last year. Greg's pulling up his spreadsheet now. Probably without looking at Greg's spreadsheet to try to one of them. I'm going to say, I'm going to guess somewhere between 15 and 20. So I'll say 15 just to make it make it sound not quite as bad, but probably around 15. I would in general probably around at least one a month ish. But all of those are business or no.

Last year I signed up for one personal card. Okay. All right. Greg, is your spreadsheet open? Greg, you're on mute. He's examining or he's on mute. Not sure which Greg. Greg.

Greg. Oh, I saw an oops. He's examining or he's on mute. Not sure which. Greg is on mute. Greg is on mute. Uh oh. I saw an oops. There we go. There we go. There it is. I wasn't listening to you guys. I was just talking away. So there you go.

That's it. As far as to it really, yeah. I was opening my spreadsheet just as Kerry predicted. And it doesn't tell me at a glance because the spreadsheet has both ones that were not approved as well as ones that were. So I'm guessing of the cards listed there, I probably did 18 last year.

And how many of them were business, do you know? You don't have a column for that? I do, but then I have to. What kind of spreadsheet is that? You have to unfilter, you have to. It looks like about 12 maybe, so majority were business, I think. So similar to Tim's rate. Okay. Nick.

I would be guessing because I don't have the spreadsheet here. You just have all the tabs still open. Mentals. Yeah, exactly. Very jokes because she knows it's true. Yeah, I would guess at least 10, maybe a dozen, probably not 20, probably fewer than Tim and Greg, but at least 10 between my wife and I anyway. And the split on business and personal was probably, I'd say 75% business, 25% consumer cards.

And again, I'm guesstimating. That's kind of, I would think that's a ballpark year for us in general. Like Tim said, I totally agree that the spend that I'm, like my capacity for spend is what determines my velocity for opening new cards. Apart from the bank specific rules that he mentioned, I don't really think about how long in between applications. Like if I'm talking about two different banks and setting aside the 524 rule, I don't think about like, did I open one last week or yesterday or five minutes ago? If I have the capacity for the spend, I don't worry about that. Like that doesn't come into play. All right. Stephen, I'm betting you have a spreadsheet as well. I do have a spreadsheet and it's actually few like far fewer cards than I was anticipating.

So between my wife and I last year, it looks like we only got about nine or 10 different cards between us. Um, which I would have thought like it was more, but part of that is that we've had a hard time at times getting approved for new cards, um, especially from Chase just because of our living situation. And so, um, there were like some banks where we had our, because we've been, just as a background for everyone else, we've been on a like non-stop road trip. And so we've had a mail forwarding service in Florida, which does count as our

official domicile, but there are quite a few banks that don't accept that. And so we've had to use quite a few banks that don't accept that. And so we've had to use my wife's parents address in Virginia for some banks as well. And so even then, like we've just been declined at times just due to like them not being able to verify our address or we've not been able to send them things like a lease or a utility bill or something like that, that they want in order to be able to verify that. And so for the last few years, we haven't been able to get any Chase business cards. And my wife just finally managed to get approved for an ink cash card the other day. And so that was nice finally being able to get one of those. So yeah, that's kind of what our situation has been. And most of

them have been business cards, a few of them being personal. So I'm still just over 524, but in about six months, I think I should be able to apply for more chase cards again. I think this was illuminating. Like this video if you are surprised at how many of those applications were business cards. And then like the video if you were not surprised. You really liked the video. Um, all right. I kind of can't remember where we left off, but I think this will be best

assigned to Tim because I think you're going here. JW Massimara will charge you $4,950 per night. If you booked on points and you cancel less than 90 days out, Shea Sapphire reserve won't cover it because nothing has been charged on the card in advance. What are your thoughts? That's interesting. I know that they have a they have and they have a tough cancellation policy I didn't realize that it was four thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars per night If you cancel less than 90 days out I'm not so part of it. I think depends, I would say there's two different things that you

can do. My understanding is if you booked that with your Chase Sapphire Reserve, I believe and somebody correct me if I'm wrong that points bookings if you, well wait a minute, I guess it depends on what you actually had to, because what would you have booked in the beginning to have that on there? There's no copay when you book it. That's the problem.

So it works with flights if you're paying. Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to use that. And so what I would do, and depending on why you need accounts on how far out it is, and you may have already done this already, but contact Marriott and the property directly. A lot of these properties that have ridiculously onerous terminology about cancellation fees

will actually either waive or relent on those cancellation fees. They effectively do it to try to keep people from making spurious hypothetical reservations that they don't intend or probably don't intend to just hold space in case they are able to take a trip there. So what I would do is call both Marriott, and if you're a Marriott elite member, that would be even better. Call your elite line, but call Marriott. Don't end and call the hotel directly, speak to a manager and ask what can be done for this, explain that you have a good reason why that, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I would be very surprised if let's say you had a five-night reservation and they're trying to

charge you $25,000 because you canceled that reservation. I'd be very, very, very surprised. I don't know that I've ever heard of that data point anywhere and you'd think that would be pretty common if it was. So to me, that would be the first course before going further. And I certainly wouldn't just cancel it and have a charge and then try to punch it through Chase because of that non-advanced charge issue. I guess it also depends, have you actually made this booking already and you're asking this because I guess it also depends, have you actually made this booking already and you're asking this because you're in this situation where you now need to cancel? Or is this that you want to make a booking but you're concerned about this option because

you'll see that that's what they will charge if you do end up canceling? Because if it's the latter, another option would be to look into some kind of travel insurance policy where if this is a situation where you're kind of kind of definitely going to go unless something super bad happens where like you get sick and so you can't travel or something like that, look into traveling a proper travel insurance policy rather than just what's associated on a credit card and then pay the hundred dollars or whatever it is for that travel policy, make sure that they would cover the kind of scenarios that you're concerned about. And then that way you can have some peace of mind doing a booking like this, where if the worst comes to the worst

and you do have to end up cancelling, then your policy will cover you in that event, if this is all just purely hypothetical at the moment. Is there a policy you've gotten before, Stephen, that you could recommend? We've used, I think it was GeoBlue travel insurance a few times in the past. That was before we kind of had cards where we were happy enough with the coverage that we were putting on there and we've never had to make any claims on those on travel insurance policy. So I have no idea if that would be suitable for this particular kind of need, you would really need to look into the into the full terms and conditions

of their policy, because it might be that even if they do allow you to cancel in the event of sickness, they might have some kind of cap on how much they'll pay out for accommodation. So it might be that there's an upper limit of like two and a half thousand dollars or something like that for a hotel stay rather than $25,000 for a hotel stay if it was a five night stay. So yeah, you would really need to be careful. And I recommend actually calling the travel insurance company and speaking to someone who can just clarify if there are any potential gotchas or things like that as to what you would and wouldn't be covered for if that's the kind of thing that you're asking about. One more thing

before you move on, if this isn't a hypothetical and you're just in this situation, another thing to check and see is if you can change the dates of the reservation. Because I have numerous times before forgotten to cancel a reservation I made and then realized after the cancellation deadline has passed and just gone into the app, and this has worked for me with Marriott specifically, and changed the date of the reservation,

and I was able to do that in the app on my own to a date far in the future, and then I went ahead and canceled it because I was beyond to do that in the app on my own to a date far in the future and Then I went ahead and cancel it because I was Yeah, even if you can't do it yourself in the app for whatever reason, you know talking to the hotel and Hey, I can't go during this time, but I want to go, you know a year later wherever whenever it is You know, that's a much easier sell than just yeah Yeah, can I have all my points back and not depenalize? Right. Right. That's good. Then if you happen to cancel later on and not make it for the States, you're okay.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, Nick, I'm going to give this one to you because it's cruise related. Is it possible I can get a free Carnival cruise if I submit just an MGM gold status plus win platinum, trying to avoid making a trip to Atlantic City for more statuses? These days I'm not sure. I think these days it's a lot tougher. I think with Carnival that you've got a shot, but I think in general the cruises have tightened up a bit on this and many of them now are asking for proof of some sort of a land-based casino offer or an offer from another cruise line. And so I think you might have a harder time.

Here's what you could try though. I had learned this from other members of our Facebook group. Margaritaville at Sea is a cruise line that they only have like two ships I think. They cruise out of a couple of ports in Florida but they're pretty generous with matching statuses and you know or giving you an offer if you show status so I think that there is a decent-ish shot if you just look for an email address for their players club I can't remember what the email address is off the top of my head but if you google margaritaville at sea players club, I'm sure you can probably find the email address and send them

pictures of your statuses and ask if they have any offers available. There's a pretty good chance that you'll get an offer for a free cruise from them. Then submit your MGM gold and your wind platinum to carnival along with the offer for a free margaritaville at Sea Cruise and I think that will greatly increase your odds of getting an offer for a free cruise with them. That worked for me with Princess. We didn't end up booking the Princess one. There were too many fees that were getting tacked on there. But anyway, that's probably what my next course of action would be for you.

It's not impossible that you'll get a free cruise offer, but I think Carnival also, a lot of people have just been saying it's taken forever to actually get an offer for a free cruise now after submitting stuff. And I think that's just a sign of the times. I think these matches have maybe not run their course, but certainly the golden age is probably beyond us in terms of the casino matching stuff. So for cruises specifically. So those would be your best bets, I think. That's sad news. All right, we're going to circle back to Greg for this last question. Perhaps viewers have noticed that sometimes our videos get cut off. So we're experimenting

with the theory that we get cut off at after an hour. So this is gonna be our last question for Greg. If my rent is $1,500 a month, is built card worth a 524 spot? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, it's a, you're gonna be getting what? 1,500 points a month for free. That's not a ton, but it is free points.

That's the year every year. I feel like. For as long as you rent. Yeah. You guys were just talking about how great these built points are. So I think it is, yeah. I had previously thought that if I was renting here in the US, that a

bill card would kind of be a no brainer, but actually think about it. I'm not convinced that it would be because 1500 a month is 18,000 points a year. And if it, if you weren't concerned at all about 524, absolutely get it. It's an absolute no brainer. If you're concerned about 524, 18,000 points a year isn't very many points to be giving up some other kind of chase card that you could be getting. So if you're going for like a chasing card or something that has a 90,000 point bonus, then that's almost five years worth of rent payments that you can get just with one sign up bonus from Chase.

And so I probably wouldn't use it for a 524 spot, especially because of all the associated hassles of having to have like the five transactions per month, because otherwise you don't end up earning anything. Plus the fact that you can use bill to pay your rent using other credit cards. It's not like that you only options. So maybe something like an Alaska card where you're earning three X miles, you are paying a what, 3% fee or something like that. So it's not free, but there are other options out there

where if you're using, because you could use an Alaska business card if you don't already have one and then that wouldn't add to your 524 count and then if you're also getting a welcome offer on that Alaska Business Card then yeah that will easily outshine anything that you'll get from BILD just because BILD doesn't have any kind of welcome offer other than maybe you'll get 5x for your first five days and even that's capped I think. How, just one quick question, I believe that the Alaska Business Card is not eligible for the 3X earnings for paying for it. Oh, is it? I think it's just a personal card. But just a minor detail. Yeah, but even then, if I have the choice between a built card or an Alaska Personal Card, I'd probably choose a new Alaska Personal Card if I'm

going to choose something that's going to take up a 524 spot because that is going to be much more rewarding than getting a bill card will be. I don't believe you. You're not paying like 3% fee you're going to pay every month to earn the Alaska miles. I don't believe you, Steven Pepper. I don't think you're going to pay one cent a mile. Well no, I don't think you mean that you would actually. Maybe for the first year, especially if it's like, but for the first three months if I just put that on the card for

the welcome offer or something like that, beyond that maybe, maybe not, but I'd still, if I had the choice between an Alaska card or a bill card, I'd still choose the Alaska card regardless. Even if I'm not using it on an ongoing basis, then I'd still choose that or the kind of cards overbuilt one if I'm concerned about 524. If that's not a concern, it built is a no-brainer in that instance. So how expensive would rent have to be for you to be like, Oh yeah, built definitely worth it. That's a good question for Stephen. What's the cap on earnings each month?

I think a hundred thousand a year. A hundred thousand a year. A hundred thousand a year, yeah. So yeah, if you're, cause that's what eight thousand and something per month. Yeah, around there, yeah. Eight thousand, is it one twenty? Eight thousand three thirty three. If I was paying extortionate amounts for a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, then absolutely do it. But at that point, if I'm earning that much money, I don't know if I'll be all that concerned about earning that many bill points just because

I'd be making bank anyway. And so I can probably afford business class cash flights all around the world. I don't know. I think if you're paying three or $4,000 a month in rent, which isn't uncommon in a city like New York, you know, I would assume LA, Chicago, at that point, I don't know, 12 months at 4,000, 48,000 points a year that you're going to continue to earn in perpetuity. I feel like I would probably take the 524 hit there. The 1500 a month, it's questionable. I don't, I'm not disagreeing with you on that. I was disagreeing that paying a penny a mile seemed too expensive for Steven Pepper. In my opinion, I thought you were on sale.

I don't think you'd buy them for that price. I don't think I could be wrong. I could be wrong. No, I think you're completely right. This person should just get a second apartment and then you know, they're getting a little closer there. Yeah, that's right. They need to move up to a there you go.

Just pay more! Then they can justify that 524 spot easily. You need to move somewhere more expensive. This is our financial advice for the day. All right I think let's wrap up early to make sure we don't get cut off by YouTube. That's all for now but don't forget you can join our Ask Us Anything Lives the first Wednesday of every month at 9 p.m. Eastern time.