Frequent Miler on the Air - How would you rank premium economy cabins? | Ask Us Anything | Ep89 | 8-5-26

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Starting point is 00:00:47 to get 15% off your first purchase. Details are in the show notes. This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at boyescape.com. Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the frequent miler team answers your questions live. Hi, everyone.

Starting point is 00:01:14 Welcome to Frequent Milers Ask Us Anything, where you can literally ask us anything. And wherever you're watching and listening, don't forget to give us a like, a thumbs up. We appreciate that, subscribe and enable notifications. We appreciate that. But it's great to have you here. As always, Nick, you just heard Greg.

Starting point is 00:01:31 And we've got Tim and Kerry on with us tonight as well to round out as much of the team as we've got for tonight, and we're ready to take some of your questions, I think, so I assume that Carrie probably has a question to kick us off. Yes, we have a question that came in from the blog post that we're going to start with to give me time to set things up in the back end. All right, I'm going to make this an all-play, and we're starting with Greg. How do you handle travel when you are traveling with friends who don't play the game?

Starting point is 00:02:00 Do you adjust your plans to cheaper options to make it more affordable for them? Do you cover any portion of their travel with your points? What have you guys done? What I've done a number of times is use my own points for my friends and then either do some kind of quid pro quo like, you know, they get the rental car and I'm getting the hotel or whatever, or charge them basically a reasonable rate for the points. And what I mean by reasonable rate is like, norm, often it would be. based on the reasonable redemption value that we offer.

Starting point is 00:02:38 But sometimes it might be like, oh, well, like, let's say IHG points where the reasonable redemption value is a little bit higher than the cost to buy points. In that case, when they're on sale, in that case, I'll just charge them the price to buy points. And that way, you know, I try to err in favor of my friend. I don't want them to get the short end of the stick. Yeah, that's basically what I do. And I think it works out well for everyone because, you know, they get to the benefit of my expertise with how to book awards and things. They get the benefit of my elite status if and when that's and, you know, a help to things and that sort of thing. All right. Tim, how about you? Have you done any kind of traveling with non-points people? I do the exact same thing. I use Greg's points to bookrooms for my friends. And I think then we get the benefit of Greg's points and we all get to go to the same place.

Starting point is 00:03:37 It's terrific. Nice, nice. That it was party of five, basically. Yeah. Essentially the same thing as with Greg saying, I will either normally use my points for other people, depending on what it is. Or I will book some like they can give me some sort of cursory amount for a room or for a flight or whatever. And then I can use my points, unless it's better deal for them just to book with cash. But so essentially the same thing is what Greg said.

Starting point is 00:04:09 All right. And Nick, how about you? Anything different? Yeah. No, similar. I don't do a lot of traveling with friends, but with family members that aren't points people, we do. And we just have them pay like a super good rate for the hotel.

Starting point is 00:04:24 I don't even worry about getting reasonable redemption value necessarily for the points, just something that's way below whatever it would have caused. them to go somewhere and that's good for me because, you know, we're often traveling with family and those family members do plenty of things for me. So it's sort of like my way of paying everybody back is making these trips as affordable as possible for everyone. So let me do a quick asterisk. Let me do a follow-up question for Greg and or Nick whoever wants to take it or both. So if you didn't have enough points to cover your friends, because we all have, we do this for a living, we have a lot of points. We have a lot of points.

Starting point is 00:05:00 Normally, we have plenty to cover friends or family that are traveling with us. But if you didn't actually have enough points, what would you do then? Would you modify where you stayed so that your friends didn't have to pay the cash rates to stay with you? Probably. I'm not sure. You know, I haven't had that situation, but I can't imagine traveling with friends and going, you know, well, I'm going to stay at the park Hyatt because it's cheap for me on points. So, you know, you get to pay $2,000 a night.

Starting point is 00:05:28 I wouldn't do that. Yeah. Yeah, I can think of one time in recent years where we were going somewhere and another family member came to meet us. And she just asked where we were staying and stayed somewhere else. But that was, I think, more her choice. I mean, we had pointed out we could book a room and she didn't take us up on that. So, so yeah, I wouldn't make anybody pay the cash rate at the park high either, like Greg said. I think more likely I just look for a really good deal of some sort and look to stack things to get a great portal raid or something of that sort on a place that was sort of an agreeable range for everybody and hopefully a really good deal and or buy points. I mean, when points are on sale, that particular situation just came to mind. It was a choice privileges property. And so I also pointed out that if she wanted to stay at the same place, she could just buy the points.

Starting point is 00:06:19 And here's how you can do it and book the same place. So, you know, things like that, I think are good opportunities to kind of get introduced people to the points of miles world. But if they're not interested, they're not interested and we'll work something else out. All right. Okay, Tim, this is a question that I thought came up and it asked us anything, but I realized it came up in our team Slack, I think. This is a question I asked, but now someone else is asking it. Excluding automobile coverage, must one use a specific credit card to get a non-automobile insurance coverage? For example, which credit cards can you get travel coverage just by having the card?

Starting point is 00:06:57 that's a that's a that's a there's both and but i'm going to actually kick this over greg recently redid i think it was great you just redid that post right but yeah like a month or a couple months ago i want to say right um i mean the only if i'm understanding the question right the the only situation i can think of where you get some kind of coverage for having just for having a card and not using it for to pay for travel is is the amex platinum card and and other high-end amex cards like the Delta Reserve and Bonvoy Brilliant, where you get emergency evacuation and transportation coverage, just covered just for being a card holder.

Starting point is 00:07:40 And so that's a great feature. But as far as, you know, things like trip cancellation and trip delay and all those things, I can't think of any situation where you just get that automatically. I don't think that exists. Yeah, that was the only thing I was thinking, you know, was that exact the emergency evacuation stuff. All right, good to know. Nick, which credit cards have certificates or award clawbacks if you have a merchandise return credit to your card? Hotel credits? What about other cards? You know, the truth is I don't really know the answer to that for sure in all situations because I never play it that close. I don't typically spend towards like a welcome bonus or a certificate on the types of purchases that I'm like.

Starting point is 00:08:27 to return. I'll give you an example. I just got a retention offer on one of our Bank of America cards. It was 175 back after I think $1,500 spend in the next three months. And so I used that to like pay for show tickets. We just saw a show in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. And like that's, I wasn't going to return that. There was no risk. And so that, and I was buying for multiple people that paid me back. And so like that type of purchase is the type of purchase that I look to use where I'm like, I'm not going to probably earn a category bonus anyway. I'm not likely to return this. So I try to avoid that situation, which I know is not the answer you want. I'm not aware of any issuer that is particularly, I don't know, foaming at the mouth to claw back your stuff if you

Starting point is 00:09:10 return things. But I think like if you did a $20,000 purchase in order to earn something and then returned it and you like make a pattern of that kind of thing, I think probably eventually you're going to draw the ire of the issuer. Will it happen the first? time you do it. I don't know, but I don't do that kind of thing. So I don't have a great answer to somebody else here. Have a like a clearer answer as to what you might ask. If I understand the question, it's like specifically about certificates and awards. And if it's like the slash and the question makes me think that it's like sort of like Hyatt Milestone Awards and things like that or like those sorts of things that you might get like a certificate, like a one through four certificate or something like

Starting point is 00:09:49 that. And to my knowledge, like those sorts of things, like when it actually goes to your account, I've never, I've never heard of an award getting taken from somebody's account and given back to the credit card company. Now, that doesn't mean it hasn't happened, but I've never heard of it before. Now, I agree with Nick. I don't know that you should make a rule of trying to do, try to like do that intentionally as a way of creating spend because eventually your issue will probably not like you. But I've never heard of that before. All right. I think we're ready to move on then. Greg, how far out does your card strategy for new sign-up bonuses typically go into the future? And do you stray if a shining big bonus appears on one you did not plan for? Yeah, I'm a bad person to answer this one because I haven't really pre-planned card applications in a long time.

Starting point is 00:10:43 And I've, for quite a while, I've just been, you know, hitting the exciting new offers when they come out, you know, if I can. The most I've really done to plan anytime recently was probably a couple years ago now when I wanted to get, I don't even remember which card it was, a new chase card. And so I was careful about getting under 524 in order to get that. But, yeah, you know, I think when you're in the first few years of signing up for cards and really into it, it makes a lot of sense to plan carefully. But once you're like further along and already have like lots and more points than you know what to do with, I think at that point, like just waiting for those really good opportunities and jumping, jumping in on them when you can is is how I do it. Tim and Nick, do you guys do it any differently? Well, I have a follow-up question real quick for Greg. I know Greg that you also do spending for milestone rewards and for various cards and programs as well.

Starting point is 00:11:51 But do you always try to have at least one sign-up bonus that you are spending towards? Like, if you don't have any sign-up bonuses, would you go out and then look for a card to get so that you have one? or would you just kind of move that spending towards regular milestone rewards or things like that you're doing until you find a bonus that is attractive to you? Yeah, the latter. I just don't worry about the fact that I don't have a new card that I'm spending on because I do have various cards that I want to hit various big spend thresholds in order to get the perks from. And yeah, it's not that critical. When you've got balances of millions points in some cases, you know, it's just not that critical to make sure you're always getting, optimizing everything. Now, that's said, I mean, I think it's a great strategy to always have one that you're working on.

Starting point is 00:12:55 I mean, that's a great way to optimize your spend, absolutely. But that's not something I personally do. And Nick? I think it's, at least for me, I think in large part because I do this job, that, and that's, I'm trying to speculate as to why I'm similar to Greg. But I think that my answer would be, you know, I want to know what the elite benefits of Hyatt are like so I can report on, you know, if you're a globalist and you stay at this property, this is what it's like. or so you know so to to me spending towards some towards high at status or milestones like that's valuable because then I can also be able to speak from experience as to what it's like using that or if I get a companion certificate last year I was able to write about the American Airlines companion certificate on an aviator card because I spent my way to it so for me like some of those things are valuable that may not be valuable enough if you're not writing about this stuff then you may say well you know I'd rather be spending towards a new welcome bonus. And like Greg said, that's a great strategy. It's a very good one.

Starting point is 00:13:59 It's just not one, I think, that you'll find most of us constantly pursuing. All right. Fair enough. Tim, what is your break-even point if it's only 15,000 economy but 75,000 business? And they don't specify what kind of points? Would you go economy for 60,000 savings? And why did you choose that answer? I'm going to check if they had a two-parter to specify.

Starting point is 00:14:23 So I'm going to qualify this in a couple different. ways. It depends on what the flight is, where it's going, how long it is, is it overnight, like things like that. I'm not aware of any, I guess I am aware. Like there are some places where you would have a 15K economy seat and a 75K that's a non-saber award or something like that. But normally, business, save business saver rewards are about double saver economy awards. Now, if it was overseas, what I would be doing, is not necessarily comparing business to economy. I'd be pairing different business class awards.

Starting point is 00:15:01 So I would be looking at, so here's this 75K business. And this is just frankly, this is whatever. I'm fortunate enough to have enough points to be able to do this. But I would be saying, you know, what's the cheapest business class award I can get that gets me where I want to go in the style that I want to do it? I don't really even look for business class, for economy awards, for going over oceans. part of the reason for that is because I'm big and I can't sleep on planes very well. And so, like, if, like, I, man, I, I, I've been on plane rides with Stephen Pepper a couple different times.

Starting point is 00:15:37 And literally, like, the plane takes off. And I mean, so Steve, and he's already asleep. And if I had that kind of mastery of my own sleep cycles, it might be different. But as it is, I have enough, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have enough points. So I wouldn't even be comparing the economy price to the business. class prize, I would be comparing different business class awards to each other. You just need two kids. Now when it comes to domestic, that's a whole different ballgame because like, or even not even

Starting point is 00:16:04 domestic, but like a short international flight. Like if I have an inter-Europe flight, especially because a lot of times when you're flying in Europe, like you effectively get the same seat. The only difference is that when business class, business class seats, they have the middle seat blocked off. And it's like, okay, I'm not going to spend anything extra for that, really, like anything extra unless I need benefits or something like that, that, you know, like the, whatever the other award is income with free check bags or something like that. Or domestically, you know, if it's a,

Starting point is 00:16:35 if I'm going to L.A. and the business class award is 30,000 points and the economy award is seven and a half thousand points. I'm going to take the seven and a half thousand point ticket, because it's a two hour flight and I'm just going to be just flying an economy for two and a half for two hours. So that's kind of how I think about it. As opposed to, to necessarily that there's like this one point that I always use as like the break even point between economy awards and business awards. Let me ask you a question. Let me follow up then for you, Tim.

Starting point is 00:17:04 So, I mean, when I look at that price difference, I think of a flying blue promo award from the East Coast to Europe. You know, it would be like 18 and change. And so with a transfer bonus, maybe you'd be paying 15,000. And 75K is a relatively typical business class price from the U.S. to Europe. So if you were on the East Coast, because I know you hate. flying from the East Coast to Europe. If you were on the East Coast, would you take the economy flight for 15 or would you be spending something more like the 75? I would move to the

Starting point is 00:17:32 West Coast and then book a flight to the West Coast from the West Coast. Okay. All right. Which is exactly what I did. No, you know, honestly, like that would be so and that would be that. So as an example, on our last challenge, the 100K vacate, I took a daytime flight from in economy that sort of got upgraded. You can look at that challenge in the post-skimper details about it. But it was effectively just a normal economy seat. But it was a daytime flight that left New York, I want to say it, like 8 a.m. and got into London at like 6 p.m. or something like that.

Starting point is 00:18:10 And I was perfectly fine to be an economy for that. And in some cases, I might think about choosing that flight in economy over a business class flight that was a red eye, but that's still only a six and a half hour flight or six hour flight. So I'm going to go over there and my sleep's going to, you know, I'm going to get like three hours of sleep anyway because the flight's so short. So, but if it was an over, but in terms of just like your parameters, I would probably still pick the business class flight just because I know I would be miserable. I would not sleep at all. I would be up all night and I'd be miserable for, and I'm too old to be miserable. I'm miserable enough just because I'm old, you know.

Starting point is 00:18:48 So that, that's sort of, that, that's right. That's right. That's how. I would deal with it. But that's to say, like, I really, I love that daytime flight to Europe. I just thought that was awesome. I loved it. I wish more carriers had that because I've actually, I was specifically looking for that this summer when I had to change plans. And it just wasn't inexpensive.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Like the couple of daytime flights to London weren't inexpensive for the dates that I needed. And nobody else really seems to operate them other than a few carriers, basically East Coast to London. And so I wish there were more. If you're listening out there, Air France and Lufthansa and everybody else, add some of those. That's what we want. All right.

Starting point is 00:19:31 I think we're at Nick. With the changes in the Chase Inc. Train and Chase being more flexible with accepting applications after 524, I've gotten two. Is it time to rethink the 524 strategy? How do you navigate being over it? That's a good question. I mean, I'm not familiar with a lot of people getting approved over 524. lately. Maybe if Tim or Greg knows more about that, they can speak to that. In terms of how do I navigate

Starting point is 00:19:57 being over 524, I just am. And I don't really worry a lot about it. I have not been overly focused on being under a 524 when I got close. And I realized, okay, well, there were a couple of chase cards I wanted and I was close. Then I did make an effort for the, what may be a year to get under whatever amount of time it was, to get under so that I could get the last couple of chase cards that I really cared about. And now I'm not particularly focused on being under 524. Again, there's just too many great bonuses out there for me to worry about the Chase ones. And Chase just isn't all that to me anymore, you know, especially with the changes in the transfer ratio to Hyatt. And I've been racking up a lot of built points that transfer to Hyatt as well. I'm less invested in caring, really, about Chase.

Starting point is 00:20:43 And if they don't want to approve me over 524, so be it. There's plenty of other issuers out there. So I haven't been terribly concerned. Does somebody out here know a lot more about approvals over 524 for ink cards lately? Is that like catch something in there that I don't know? You do? I haven't. Yeah. But I would agree with you.

Starting point is 00:21:03 I think that you hit on to me what would be it's it's not just the ink train. It's also the high at transfer ratio change. Like that that significantly, to me, puts a significant ding in the appeal of just automatically getting and going for all these ultimate rewards if you don't have a clear plan to have one of the premium cards, the super premium cards.

Starting point is 00:21:29 So I think that, to me, that almost is more important than the ink train slowing down, you know? Nick, we're going to send this one to you also. So still on you. Looking to spoil my wife in three teens with a business class long flight. I'll fly anywhere,

Starting point is 00:21:48 From anywhere to anywhere, I simply want five business class seats on one long flight. Where would you look? Well, you know, I think that you got a few different options there. Being northeast-based, I often have to find at least four seats to Europe. And we've had my mother-in-law joining us on more and more trips. So I've had to do five, six, seven, even eight, actually, with some additional family members last year both ways. And the places where I tend to find that kind of availability are Air France. Now, not every single flight, not all the time, but from New York and Boston, it's easier to find well-priced flights from those cities to Europe on Air France, KLM, through Flying Blue, typically.

Starting point is 00:22:32 That's where I'm finding that. Lufthansa often releases five or more seats. I've found plenty of situations. And in fact, I'm flying Lufthansa both ways to and from Europe, five passengers this summer. and one of those flights, I had to change a bunch of plans around to accommodate something. And I booked it just like a month in advance maybe. And I didn't have a lot of difficulty finding five seats on the exact day I wanted on Lufthansa. So that tends to be one where I find a lot of availability. Again, particularly from the northeast of the U.S., Boston and New York,

Starting point is 00:23:08 but you'll find some from Chicago and other cities as well. Use an award search tool like award tool or points yet. You can set up alerts to find. find those. The other one where I've sometimes found five is Condor through Alaska. They tend to sometimes have that many seats available in business class. Now, all of that was to and from Europe. If you're looking to get to and from Asia, I don't have a lot of good suggestions for you because finding five seats to and from Asia is just hard these days. You might get lucky if you set up some alerts, but I don't have a silver bullet for that. And when I say Europe, keep in mind that Air France and Lufthansa and a lot of the European carriers and Condor too fly beyond Europe to other places.

Starting point is 00:23:52 And the hard leg to find is the one to Europe. Often the one from their hub in Europe to somewhere else is easier to find. And keep in mind with stopovers, that might ease your burden a little bit more. Like Alaska Atlas allows a free stopover on a one way. Canada Aeroplane allows a stopover for 5,000 additional miles. So maybe you can't find both legs on the day you want, but you can find one leg one day, and the second leg a day or two or three later and do a stop over in Europe on the way. But those would be the programs I think where you're most likely to find multiple seats,

Starting point is 00:24:24 sometimes also Brussels, Brussels Airlines through Air Canada. I've seen quite a bit on the JFK to Brussels route available in recent memory. I've seen those five seats a number of times on that route specifically connecting onward in Europe, maybe not on the nonstop. But if you put a connecting point, you go somewhere else in Europe, then you typically will find those five seats. Anybody else got additional? Yeah, I just want to mention that if you're really flexible,

Starting point is 00:24:53 use the tool like Pointsia Daydream Explorer to just put in that you want to go from your home airport or from the U.S. or from West Coast, U.S., or wherever you are, to anywhere, to Asia, to Europe, whatever, whatever, and you could pick a long span of time. and it will show you all kinds of flights that have been available recently. And I'm saying it that way because a lot of the data that it's searching through is pre-cached and some of that availability is probably gone by the time you look at it, but not all of it. It can just be a really great way to see both what is available right now

Starting point is 00:25:34 because when you find stuff, you can click through to do a live search to make sure it's still available. but also to see patterns like you might see on certain routes. There's often five business class seats to fly to, you know, X, Y, Z. And so then you could start targeting your searches for that route and see if any pop up, like during the time that you're actually able to fly it. I should have mentioned, too, Philippine Airlines is now available via Alaska. And they, I saw five or more seats on a number of, you know, even New York to New York to I found five seats on the first day I checked.

Starting point is 00:26:12 I was shocked at that. Of course, I didn't find it on many other days after that. But, but, you know, from the West Coast, pretty wide open, I think, or at least it was recently. And also, I mentioned Alaska Atlas. Atlas. I should have mentioned American Airlines more. I shouldn't say often, but somewhat often has five seats available via Alaska Atlas for reasonable rates from the East Coast.

Starting point is 00:26:34 All right. That is plenty there then. Okay. Greg, should I apply for Robin Hood Gold? I got an invite via credit karma. So for those that don't know, Robin Hood Gold card gives you 3% back on all your spend. You do have to pay the $60 a year. I think it is for Robin Hood service, but that's not much to pay for a card that offers that big of reward for all your spend. Whether you should do it, I mean, it's so hard to answer because it depends.

Starting point is 00:27:13 Do you spend a lot in non-bonous categories? And in other words, in categories that wouldn't get 3x or more from other cards. And if you do, then this could be a very rewarding way in cash, you know, to get cash rewards. But you're not getting transferable points and that kind of thing. I think that earning more transferable points for people when they're newer in the game can be a more valuable way to go. Like, suppose you could get 2x or more transferable points instead of 3% cash back. That might be worth it to you. But later on, when you have a big pile of transferable points available,

Starting point is 00:27:59 choosing to get two transferable points per dollar versus 3% cash back, that's like paying 1.5 cents per point. point. And that's something that is probably a win when you're when you're just building up your balances. But when you have a lot, it's silly to pay that much for new points. And so getting 3% back is a really good deal. So yeah, you have to decide for yourself whether it's something that is right for you. All right. I'm actually going to take this next question for the new challenge announcement on today's coffee break. Where do we submit listener ideas? So on the blog, if you don't know that we have a blog, frequent myler.com, you should visit that blog.

Starting point is 00:28:43 And one of the featured posts today, all of our podcast episodes have a companion blog post, so you can comment on that blog post with any ideas. Or better yet, this Friday, we're posting an official request for listener or reader feedback. This is specifically for our obstacle decks, but you can share whatever ideas you want. Does somebody want to summarize the idea of the challenge just in case anyone missed it? Maybe I should. I will. I think you should.

Starting point is 00:29:16 Yeah. So if you missed the podcast episode today, we have announced our challenge and it is Wild Card Challenge. So the basic idea here is that our contestants present, Nick, Tim, and Greg, are all going to see if they can create an impressive trip from randomly selected. variables. So that includes their destination. They're going to have to choose from a card deck to choose two destinations, and then they'll be assigned a final destination. Then they're going to have to choose which credit cards they can resource for their different points, budgets, and perks, benefits, things like that. And then they're going to have to pick obstacles. And we want these obstacles to kind of emulate the challenges that you guys experience in your own award book

Starting point is 00:30:08 or travels. So we've already got some great suggestions. My favorite one, somebody said that you should travel with a stroller, which is just awesome. I really want to use that card. But anyway, so we want you to submit your ideas for obstacles that represent your own challenges as your booking travel. And then we're also going to give them a chance to pick a power up card in case we've made everything too hard. So that's the basic gist. feel free to let us know. If you have more questions about that, we'd love to take questions about that. But until then, we're going to move on to Tim. This is an inside joke, I assume, which I'm hoping you can explain or understand. Who spent too much time at Costco today?

Starting point is 00:30:53 Well, not me. I'll tell you that. And I'll tell you why in just a second. But first of all, just as a quick tag on to what Carrie just said, having been, so Carrie and Stephen are the judges for this challenge and having been judged by Kerry and judged by Stephen before, let me tell you that they don't need any help being mean. They look, they look very, they look very friendly, they look kind, but then they get on their little private chats and they develop all of these devious ways to make things difficult and so forth. Oh, she's trying to use the dog to look friendly.

Starting point is 00:31:32 Everything is HR approved, right? It's all good. So in any event, just remember that Nick, Greg, and I, on the other hand, are kind, unassuming. Very, you know, we're old, we're elderly men. So just be careful. When you submit ideas, just keep that in mind. In terms of Costco, so this refers to Costco gold, Costco sells gold. They're now the world's biggest gold retailer.

Starting point is 00:32:00 And Costco, effectively, the price in the last couple of years, the price for gold goes up. up and down so quickly that Costco can't reprice quickly enough to adequately capture all of the ups and downs. So if it's, especially if it's been going down and then goes back up suddenly, it can be a very good, it can be a very good deal to buy gold from Costco and then resell it.

Starting point is 00:32:27 And in the process, use it for credit card spend or just make money on it, whatever you might be doing with it. I used to do a lot of that. unfortunately and today it was a good day to buy Costco Gold. That's why this question came in. I used to do a lot of that.

Starting point is 00:32:45 Unfortunately, as of January 1st, 2006, the state of Washington decided to extend sales tax to gold. And so the only time that I get to buy gold and resell it anymore is when I'm traveling outside of the state of Washington.

Starting point is 00:33:02 So the nice thing is... And you never do that. Yeah, and I never do that. So anyway, all that to say, I did not spend too much time in Costco today because Costco is effectively off limits in my home state. We just have to leave your home state. Okay, so this one might end up getting kicked back to you, but we'll send it to Greg first. I don't see you guys talking much about sweet spots to South America. More specifically, Brazil.

Starting point is 00:33:26 I'm struggling to find good routes with reasonable amount of points. Yeah. We get comments like that fairly often. I think the people on the team just don't tend to travel to South America that often for no good reason other than I think for some reason we happen to be all ones that travel a lot to Europe and occasionally to Asia, but less often to South America. So we don't have personal experience and that's why we don't talk much about it, which also goes to the next point, which is I'm not going to now. list sweet spots to Brazil because I don't know them. I saw Nick make a face as though he has something to add. No?

Starting point is 00:34:15 Well, I mean, I'll tell you why Nick's making a face is because if only two of Greg's employees had taken him on a wondrous journey to South America as part of the challenge in lie flat business class with helicopter rides and nighttime home meals and like. Right. Maybe he'd be familiar. So do you want to talk about what's the best way to book Latam to Brazil? So, yeah, what I'm going to say, and first of all, one thing that I do want to point out, and that I always, and it feel, and it's unfair, but it's unfair is at some point,

Starting point is 00:34:55 just take a look at the amount of daily flights that there are from the United States to South America and then look at the amount to Europe and to Asia. And it's not just that. that there really aren't, comparatively, there are way more flights going east and west than there are flights going south. And that's part of the deal. And there's more carriers, and there's more selection, and there's more all of that. So we actually have a full post called, conveniently enough, best ways to get to South

Starting point is 00:35:22 America in 2006, that I would say use that because there's, or reference that, as opposed to me going through all of them right now. check that post out because it's going to go through about 20 or 25 different sweet spots for various programs that have good awards or that have good value on awards to South America. I'm adding that to the chat now as we speak or the YouTube chat. It's South America using points. You know, like Tim said, I think that, well, like both great and Tim said, most of us just don't travel to South America much and there aren't very many opportunities. And so if you're not finding very much in terms of, you know, great routes with reasonable uses of points, I'm going to say it's probably because there aren't a lot of options.

Starting point is 00:36:08 You know, not a lot exists. I mean, we do have them in the post, but we can't make up sweet spot content about sweet spots that aren't there. And also, like Tim said earlier, oftentimes the most appealing use of miles and points is flying in business class or first class in terms of like, I think especially when flying really far because miles buy you something that you couldn't and wouldn't buy on your own when you're flying really far. And so I think there does tend to be a heavy focus on business class international travel. And that's perhaps a weakness that, you know, maybe we do need

Starting point is 00:36:44 more economy class coverage in general. But that said, with that being the focus, there aren't that many flatbed options to get to and from South America. You get very few carriers that fly some sort of flatbed. And when it's economy, it's basic, I mean, economy is almost the same. No matter which airline you're flying, there are obviously some small differences. But for the most part, it's all kind of the same. So whatever, whoever's charging the few has points is the one I would pick most of the time, whereas business class, there's a little bit more differentiation. So I think maybe that's also a part of the reason why you don't see as much coverage there, because there are very few routes where you can get that overall,

Starting point is 00:37:22 comparatively. All right. Thanks for speaking to that. So, boy, you each going to answered that. So now I can't remember whose that was. Tim, I think, I think it's your, you're up now. How would you rank the premium economy cabins you have used? Who has the best upgrade from regular economy and why? Which have the closest to business class experience. Ooh, I want to know this too. Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a really good question that I am unfortunately not terribly, I just don't flag premium economy. a lot. I keep sending the questions to the wrong people here. Well, no, I mean, it's just like, you know, like, and part of that is that traditionally, and it's, and it's changing now,

Starting point is 00:38:08 but traditionally when, like for international flights, you would get either economy or business class. There weren't a lot, a lot of carriers just didn't offer premium economy awards, even if they had premium economy cabins. And so when you're traveling primarily on points, or historically when we've been traveling primarily on points, There's just not a lot of opportunity. There hasn't been traditionally a lot of opportunity to travel, to use points in book premium economy. And that's changing now, more and more people are offering it.

Starting point is 00:38:38 That said, I'm trying to think, I remember, so the thing that I can go back to is back when I used to work selling wine internationally, I could buy premium economy tickets, but I couldn't buy business class tickets. So I would often, that's when I would use the, I would try to figure out which premium economy class tickets had a good upgrade policy. Problem is this was like 10 years ago. So it's not the most updated information. But I do remember that I really liked Americans, 7-8-7s, their bulkhead row and premium economy, because they had a pretty good recline on the seat and it did have a footrest. And so you could kind of, like I could kind of sort of, it was almost like a little bit of like

Starting point is 00:39:25 angled lie flat if you didn't open your eyes. And I did actually, at that point, you could, the upgrade rules of all, I'm not even going to talk about it. The upgrade rules of all changed then. The other one, and this is a weird one, but I flew premium economy several times in Condor, using Condor, which Nick brought up earlier. And their premium economy is terrible, or at least it was terrible at the time. I mean, it was, the food's bad.

Starting point is 00:39:54 The seats aren't great. This is not a good experience. However, I very quick, I had to go to Germany a lot, which is why I flew Condor for a amount. And one time this person, the front gate at the front, the, the front at the, when you checked in, just said, oh, would you like to upgrade to business class? Well, how much is that? And they were like, 300 bucks. Like, really?

Starting point is 00:40:21 Why, yes. Yes, I would. would like to upgrade a business class. And then I started asking after that, like, hey, so do you have any? And it was always 300 bucks. And that was from Seattle to Frankfurt, which is like, yeah, you know, and I wasn't paying for it anyway. So it was like, yeah, but I mean, for $300 for a 10-hour flight, you know, that was pretty.

Starting point is 00:40:39 So I have no idea if they still do that. It won't need more pretty soon if they did. It's worth asking, I guess. It's worth asking for Condor. But does anybody else, does anybody else have any good options? I mean, I've flown three premium economies, I think. Lufthansa, through no fault of my own, because they forcibly downgraded me from business class. Delta, I've flown their premium economy a couple times.

Starting point is 00:41:07 And Virgin Atlantic, I flew with Kerry from London to New York. I'm hoping you'd mention that one. I'll just rank them. Virgin Atlantic was definitely the best of those three. They had very nice seats. I thought the catering and service was almost indistinguishable from, well, it was indistinguishable from business class. Like if I had received the exact same catering and service and business class, I would have still said that was a nice flight. So I was very impressed with that.

Starting point is 00:41:37 Delta, the seats were, they were fine, like maybe almost as good as Virgin Atlantics. But at least at the time when I did it, the catering, was like economy catering. And I think they've changed that since then, but I'm not sure. So I was disappointed with that. And then Lufthansa's premium economy, I thought was just awful. It seemed like economy, but with more leg room, like all around. Like, didn't seem like better food or service or anything. But maybe I was just really grumpy about the downgrade. I wasn't going to give it a good review. That would make me grumpy. Nick, is your background real?

Starting point is 00:42:21 Just saw cars passing by. Let's see. You have no green screen here. Yeah, I'm not at home, as you can probably guess, by the fact that I'm outside and it's dark, although I guess it'd be dark at home too. Anyway, yeah, I'm in Pigeon Forge area, Pigeon Forge area, Tennessee,

Starting point is 00:42:38 the Club Windham Smoky Mountains as we record this, which I didn't say initially. And the first thing that popped into my head was there's this guy have been seeing on social media a lot lately called Jose Monkey. If you haven't seen him, you should look it up because he does these videos where people say, find me, Jose Monkey.

Starting point is 00:42:55 And they show him a little like 10, 15, 30 second video. It's amazing to see how you can find somebody and like narrow it down with clues that you catch from the background. So I hesitated for a second just thinking of that. Because he shows exactly which balcony you're on. Anyway, anyway,

Starting point is 00:43:14 so here I am in this one. monkeys. Don't be creepy, everyone. Right, right, right. Don't send this to Jose Monkey just yet. But yes, it's real. Yes, cool. Okay, this is an all play, but starting with, we'll start with you, Nick.

Starting point is 00:43:31 Do you all ever get tired? Do you all ever get credit card fatigue? Been turning on and off for a couple years, wanting to just sit tight for a bit. Okay. By the way, one other thing I should have mentioned is you see the cars, but maybe you haven't heard them. I guess you haven't because I asked everybody else on the team early on. There was one.

Starting point is 00:43:46 The noise cancelling in Zoom is pretty good. Yeah, there was one that was really loud. I thought probably you heard that one. I hear the cars just for the record, but the noise canceling in Zoom is pretty good. So, yeah, you often don't hear those things. Anyway, so do I get credit card fatigue? No, this is something I enjoy. So I don't constantly apply for new cards, like Greg said.

Starting point is 00:44:10 So I guess if you want to call that fatigue, maybe that counts as fatigue. I don't really think of it as fatigue, though. I'm not constantly hunting for the next bonus, but that's because I'm maximizing enough other things and I will jump on an exciting bonus when I see one that fits my needs. So I don't know. I still find it really exciting. I find it really interesting. Sometimes people will say, oh, but it's not like it used to be.

Starting point is 00:44:35 And, you know, that's why Bruce Springsteen had a hit with glory days. You know, like that feeling has been around for a long time that the glory days are behind us and things used to be better, this and that. And I don't feel that way about this hobby. I still enjoy it all the time because I'm constantly going, plus and doing things that just wouldn't be in my wheelhouse, were it not for this hobby. And so I'm not, no, I'm not tired of it at all.

Starting point is 00:45:01 And if you do, if you are tired of it, by all means, then, yeah, lay back. I mean, and I would say that you don't need to feel bad if you're not as excited about it as I am. You know, there are plenty of things, interests that I've had over the years that I was super interested in for a while and then lost interest and then came back to and and that's i think very natural so there's nothing wrong with with saying hey i want to spend my time not thinking about which card to use when i pay for dinner tonight i just want to you know focus on having dinner with the people i'm here with there's nothing wrong with that at all so don't feel bad if if you do feel some of that

Starting point is 00:45:37 fatigue but personally i'm still pretty excited all right gregg how about you yeah i mean i have a pretty similar answer. I don't think I can add really anything interesting to that. And Tim. So I experienced some credit card fatigue at the beginning of this year when I had the turn January 1st. And just because of sign up opportunities and upgrade opportunities last year, I had like 12 American Express Platinum cards and two Citrae Elite cards and a Chase Sapphire. And I looked at the just sheer volume of credits that I had to use. And I was like, oh, my, and that, that was,

Starting point is 00:46:17 yeah, oh, it was fatigue. It was fatigue. It was fatigue. And it was a fatigue that I, that I, and I have since whittled down my, my platinum cards significantly. So, I mean, yeah, and that, that to me is where I get. It's like, it's, it's, it's with the, with the credits because, and partially just because

Starting point is 00:46:35 we, we, we, we have a lot of cards and we get a lot of cards. And so I have, I had a lot of cards. But two, the other thing that I would say is just, you, you know, remember that we may not have this, that credit card fatigue, but we also do this for a living. Like, essentially what we do for a living is we research credit cards. We research how to maximize them. We go on trips. We research programs.

Starting point is 00:46:58 Like, this is what we do. We don't have another full-time job while we're doing this stuff. And so, like, I think that's always, like, don't get FOMO from people if you're missing out for those who are uninitiated. don't get FOMO from people that are, that do this for a living because we're just going to be doing it a lot more because we have time. We literally spend all day doing this. And so I think that's part of the reason why is I'm not working a 10-hour shift or a nine-hour shift and then getting off work and going back and feeding the kids. And then I have two hours at night with which to either, you know, spend time with my wife or, you know, try to maximize my 12 platinum cards, you know. So, I mean, I think that the, and that's, I just want to echo what Nick said, because I think that like, it's really important that this be fun and it do what, and it, it's not about keeping up with anybody else.

Starting point is 00:47:50 It's about using it to add value and enjoyment to your life. And if it's not adding value and enjoyment to your life and enjoyment being the key thing, by all means, sit tight. You know, give yourself a break. It's a, you know, don't, you don't have to keep up with Nick and his 72 free cruises per year. Well, and you're right. certainly a lot of fatigue with the credits. Like, I have experienced that, like burnout on trying to figure out which credit to use and happen to look up a bunch of different things to make sure I don't forget to use them.

Starting point is 00:48:19 There is some fatigue there, but that is largely driven by the fact, like Tim said, we're doing this for a living and we have a lot of cards, more cards than I would have if I didn't do this. Now, I stumbled upon a good way to get rid of fatigue with regards to Citibank cards. Yes, you did. Well done. someone asked what's the prediction on what bank is going to shut you down next but let's not even joke about that let's not even joke about that but for those who don't know the history city bank shut down my accounts several months ago and that's why that's why I joked about that

Starting point is 00:48:52 capital one did a few years ago through no fault of greggs actually like every that's what I think is really funny everybody thinks that like you were doing something on your capital one car like no you were just being a normal card holder exactly exactly but I now have For the moment, a capital one card, thanks to my Discover 8 card, getting transitioned over. So I want to know what the over-under is on that staying alive for, I don't know, a month. Yeah, keep us updated. This next question is from my twin sister who watches all of these. Thinking of having to fly with a stroller for the challenge,

Starting point is 00:49:31 what was the weirdest most cumbersome thing you had to fly with? This is an all play. We're going to start with Tim, and I have a prediction for what Nick is going to say. There's so many options for Nick, because he does not make. Well, you know, so I would say mine, and again, like this goes back to having to sell wine

Starting point is 00:49:52 for a living for quite a few years internationally. And it probably, and it's a boring answer, but it probably come down to wine. And I would, and the reason why is it's not, and you'd say, well, you just check wine, whatever. But like, so for instance, one time I had to, I had to fly from the U.S. to South Africa with a layover in Doha with three cases of wine. And three cases of wine now when you pack them for a plane, they're in a big box. And it's awkward. And I had three of them.

Starting point is 00:50:28 and in Doha, they don't actually allow you to the wine can't enter the country of Qatar, at least at that point it couldn't because it was, you had to have a special permit to bring alcohol in the country. So I had to like physically be walking these three cases of wine to the checkout, to the desk, to the customs, they pull them out, they had to set them aside. I had to be there the next day. It was an overnight flight. I had to be there, come get them, signed out, get an escort up to the new check-in counter with my three cases of wine. No one would help me with the three cases of wine because they didn't want to be touching the wine.

Starting point is 00:51:08 And then in South Africa, I had to pull it back out and had, and I mean, like these three cases of wine, literally, they're up to my shoulder. I'm a pretty tall guy. And they're just constantly falling over and tipping over. And the more they're handled, the more janky they get. And the more they're constantly falling over. And it was just, it was terrible. So it's, and I have like stories like that.

Starting point is 00:51:29 So it's probably something like that. We wanted to actually try when we did the, when we all traveled as a team for the party of five challenge, we wanted to see if we could actually fit carry in a carry on. It's possible to like to actually make for like to avoid having to pay for one seat. So that could have been awkward, I suppose. But probably not as awkward as the three cases of one. Nick, how about you? I have so many else. I know, I know what you're thinking.

Starting point is 00:51:55 I'll come back to it. The stroller, specifically, for any parents out there that are sick of having to gate check a stroller, our solution for that was to get a very collapsible stroller. The G.B. Pocket stroller. There are others like it, the yo-yo. Everybody internationally knows the yo-yo. Those fold up so small that I just got a backpack that it fit into. And so it would be in the backpack. So we never had to worry about gate-checking a stroller once our kids were old enough to sit up on their own and sit in one of those strollers. So simple solutions. there. In terms of the most cumbersome thing, I know what Carrie's picturing, I think. You're picturing all of those hats on top of my head coming back from Brazil. Which is actually not cumbersome, but it is awkward. Well, it only is when somebody reminds you that you're wearing six or seven hats because you forget after a while. It was like the kid's book, the kid's book of the guy with all the hats. I wear a lot of hats. I wear a lot of hats. So if you don't know what we're talking about, you can look up frequent miles. party of five and if you look at the final summary I'm sure that there is a picture of that in there

Starting point is 00:53:01 somewhere I've used it for a number of things I think yes yes and I know I saw it in a post you did a while ago so yes I've seen it a few times Greg how about you well I think the the most cumbersome thing I've had to travel with is Tim in a jeepney in also in the party of five challenge trying to stuff him into into that little vehicle. Extremely cumbersome. I don't have a good flight. He doesn't fit enough. Let me tell you.

Starting point is 00:53:34 I am one of the most cumbersome things that I have to fly with as well. So I agree with you. Carrie must have a story here, though, right? I mean, you've traveled a lot. I don't know that I have a story, but I have two things. When I first started traveling, I thought this would be really fun and clever and efficient. to travel with my banjo. And I was just going to, like, pack stuff around it and make my banjo case like an extra suitcase.

Starting point is 00:54:03 But the banjo is really heavy. I mean, on its own, it's not really, really heavy, but you add a bunch of stuff. And then it's really, really, really heavy. So I made it to Chicago. I made it literally one flight, I think. And I was like, I need to, like, mail this home or something. Didn't work. And then also flying with, you know, back in the day,

Starting point is 00:54:25 You used to store files on external hard drives, like before computers had such, like, you know, good storage and stuff. And I used to travel with multiple, I had a, I can't remember now the capacities, but I had, I had like, you know, a few the size of this. And then one really big one that I would just bubble wrap and try to keep all safe. And sure enough, in the overwater bungalow in Bora Bora, I accidentally just like nicked it off the coffee table. and lost two terabytes of travel footage. Wow. So years, literally years of travel pictures, just like gone. But they were two large files to back up into cloud back in those days and whatever.

Starting point is 00:55:10 Anyway, much better solutions now. Unfortunately, we are now out, and I guess Stephen's most cumbersome, I mean, he traveled with like a kitchen in his car, so. That's true. Yeah, totally. Yeah, he had a bunch of stuff. of that on YouTube. Yes, actually.

Starting point is 00:55:27 Stay-K, right? Yeah, it's from Stakee. I think that's the Stakee. See, challenges coming up all over the place. All right, that is all the time we have. Thanks so much for joining us. If you love travel, but don't always have time to plan, we've got a podcast for you.

Starting point is 00:55:48 It's called Travel in 10, and in every episode, in about 10 minutes, we give you a smart, practical overview of destinations all around the world. We cover what to see, where to stay, where to eat, what actually matters when you're planning out a truck? It's designed for real life. Listen on the way to the airport, in the car,

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Frequent Miler on the Air - How would you rank premium economy cabins? | Ask Us Anything | Ep89 | 8-5-26

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