Frequent Miler on the Air - Is hotel elite status obsolete? | Ask Us Anything Ep77 | 7-2-25

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

This Ask Us Anything, Live first aired on July 2nd, 2025 (00:51) - From Ryan - Nick you probably know Turkish airline rewards redemptions better than anyone else in the world. Would you recommend to your loyal readers (like me!) to do the Turkish 1MM Challenge? (04:17) - If you find yourself points and miles bankrupt, at 5/24, and in Amex pop-up jail what can one do to get enough points to take a nice trip? (06:08) - What’s the FM team’s thoughts on buying groups to hit massive spending limits for sign up bonuses? (09:05) - ​I have the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card and Capital One Spark Miles Select Business Credit Card. I'm canceling my Venture X. Do I have to move points to the Spark Miles Select before canceling to retain the points? (09:57) - OK, still confused about the Chase Sapphire Reserve if I got the Chase Sapphire Preferred with 100K 2 months ago do I still qualify for the "new" bonus if I haven’t hit the bonus yet? (13:22) - Are you surprised that the multipliers on the refreshed Chase Sapphire Reserve card didn't change more substantially? Particularly the dining staying the same compared to 4x on American Express® Gold Card and 5x on Citi Prestige. (14:42) - For the JetBlue 25 for 25, you can't do multi city points bookings on one PNR. Will sequential one ways be protected if you follow the multi-city ticket between one-ways? (17:54) -​​With all the funny business that Hertz is starting to pull on phantom damage being charged by AI, are you/would you still rent from them? (23:25) - Have we heard any updates or ETA on the new Alaska Premium card? (24:12) - ​Is booking Mr & Mrs Smith via Hyatt more expensive than booking direct? A property hinted they prefer guests to book direct than 3rd parties, including Hyatt. Suggesting that Hyatt is a 3rd party. (26:17) - Would love to know from the team, what's the best first class product you each have ever flown?  (33:06) - With the changes to Southwest, how does using a flight credit to pay the taxes and fees on a points booking affect its flexibility? (34:52) - With half of the year gone by, what’s on track so far to win the bonvoyed award of the year? (38:24) - You all say Chase Ultimate rewards points are great for Hyatts. What are each of your top 3 Hyatt Properties in Asia and Europe (42:13) - Booked a flight from Lisbon to Atlanta on Delta. KLM was the carrier even though it was ticketed on Delta. I can't get them to give me my SkyMiles. Any ideal how to get these posted? (44:43) - ​​Has Nick set up a professional mic on arm inside a car?? (46:20) - Does The Edit by Chase Travel℠ and Amex FHR make hotel elite status obsolete?Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “swappin’ back n’ forth” by up @ night

This is a VoyEscape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the FrequentMiler team answers your questions live. FrequentMiler's Ask Us Anything starts now. All right. Welcome, everyone. So don't forget, wherever you're watching or listening to this, don't forget to like the video, give us a thumbs up, leave us a review or your feedback. We always love to hear from you.

And speaking of hearing from you, you can join our FrequentMiler Insiders Facebook group to ask and answer questions anytime you want, or go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. And then again, follow us on all the various social media so you never miss out on a post in your email inbox on our website when we go live all that fun stuff all right tonight we've got a couple of questions already queued up so i think stephen is going to kick us off with a couple of questions to start out before our regular moderator kary jumps in after him so go go ahead, Stephen, take it over.

So this first one's from Ryan who commented on our Ask Us Anything post on the blog. So he said, Nick, you probably know Turkish Airlines rewards Redemption's better than anyone else in the world. Would you recommend to your loyal readers like me to do the Turkish Airlines one million mile challenge? I get a sense from your post that finding Redemptions can be a bit of a needle in a haystack. He mostly flies to Asia and South America with some domestic flights sprinkled in. He'd hate to have the million miles and struggle to use them. He doesn't mind grinding a bit to find flights but his quick peek at Seats.Aero shows almost no availability to Asia from North America at a saver level.

He'd hate to burn his million miles on just three overpriced business class seats because there's nothing to get. So should he do it? Okay, so if you have to ask this question, the answer is probably no. And I'm going to say that as thank you for the compliment saying that I know more about booking Turkish than many other people. Believe it or not, that's still not very much because Turkish is notoriously difficult to work with.

And so, you know, if you find the award you want available on their website, great, then it's relatively simple. So long as their website doesn't break and the button to submit payment doesn't disappear Which has happened for like months and months at a time before in the past We got a comment from someone the other day that they aren't able to find any Star Alliance awards through the Turkish website I haven't yet had a chance to double-check on that I should so I don't know if they're showing any Star Alliance Availability or not on the website and if they're not Then you're gonna have to call assuming you want to fly a Star Alliance carrier, you're gonna have to call Turkish over the phone and that is really

a crap shoot. Very unlikely you're gonna find an agent that knows how to book a Star Alliance award. You might, if you do, great. You've won the lottery. You know, pat yourself on the back. Otherwise, you're gonna have to call and call again and maybe you'll find someone, maybe you won't. You can try emailing all the various ticket offices.

If you Google it, you can find email addresses for all the different ticket offices around the world. And so what I have sometimes done is just sent the same email copy and paste to like a dozen different ticket offices all over the place, not just in the United States, because I figure worst case scenario, if two or three of them get back to me, only one of them is probably going to be able to put the award on hold. And even if more than one does, they just won't call back and paid a ticket and eventually the hold will fall off. So at any rate, all of those things are things that you'll get to know as you get to using

Turkish miles and smiles. But if you're not at that point yet, then I would really, really caution you to think twice about doing this promotion because it can be quite a struggle to use. If you've got a lot of flights to Hawaii from where you live, you might be able to get tons of great value out of this. And in some cases, it's a good value to fly Turkish airlines. But it's a real struggle if ultimately you want to fly on Star Alliance carriers. So I would say, is it worth it?

I mean, it certainly could be. But for the cost that you're going to have to put into it and the hassle of redeeming the miles, I don't feel like there's enough return on investment unless you just want to travel to the six continents because it's kind of fun. And that's okay. It is kind of fun and it's fun to do these challenges. And so if you're into that, great. Otherwise, I would probably say I don't think it's right for most people. Right. Thank you. And thanks, Stephen, for feeding a pre-prepared question for us. Here's another one that we got on the blog ahead of time.

If you find yourself points and miles bankrupt at 524 and an Amex pop-up jail, what can one do to get enough points to take a nice trip? Let's bump this question to Greg. OK. Yeah. So if you're if you find yourself unable to get approved for new Amex cards, well first of all, just because you find you get the pop-up saying you're not eligible for a welcome bonus for a particular card does not mean you'll get it for all cards. They tend to, at a big level, treat consumer cards separately from business cards. So if you've been trying consumer cards, it might be worth trying business cards and see how things

look there. But also, even within consumer, within business, it varies between cards what happens. So you're not necessarily down and out with Amex, just because you get in pop-up prison for some things. Of course, there are other card issuers too. So obviously there's Chase, but look also to, you know, less obvious ones that also have transferable currencies. You've got Capital One Miles, you have Citi Thank You points with the Strata Premier card, you've got Wells Fargo now. So there's actually quite a few Wells Fargo cards that as long as you have one card that

has the ability to transfer points, you could get other cards that earn cash back, for example, and move those rewards to the card that has transferable points and get more transferable points that way. So yeah, so all those ways are still on the table, even if you're in pop-up prison. I always forget about Wells Fargo. All right, Steven, on to you. What's the FM team's thoughts on buying groups

to hit massive spending limits for sign-up bonuses? They can potentially be a very good option for kind of I guess regular buying groups where you're buying like physical products and either having them sent to you or you're having them sent to some other like warehouse or something like that. Those ones can be a little bit more risky because it's involving like physical goods that in many cases you won't ever actually see or touch. There is risk that packages can go missing along the way, packages can go missing when they're being delivered to the warehouses. Quite often it seems like a lot of the deals will be below cost. That's where you're going to be Paying more than in theory you'll get back

Cash wise but that can still be worth it for the bonus that you'll earn on your credit card I'm more familiar with the gift card side of it. And so that can also be a pretty good way that comes with its own risks as well But I'd recommend reading a post that Tim had written which is all about buying groups because that kind of goes into a lot more details and provide some information about the various different buying groups, a lot of the risks involved. Are there any of you who have not used buying groups? I think all of you have or no? Yeah. All right. So I mean the short answer is

That they feel okay enough to do it themselves Yeah, so yeah, like yes, so long as you're kind of aware of the risks and It's best not to dive in too deeply now it's probably a good time of the year to get started because you can start getting a bit more familiar with it because it's Usually in like Q4 from October to December where you'll see a lot more buying opportunities because of all the Black Friday sales and things like that. Whether you're doing physical goods or gift cards or whatever, then you'll find a lot more deals in the last few months of the year. So getting used to how things work right now, getting a procedure in place,

getting tracking spreadsheets set up so that way you know what you've bought, what you're expecting reimbursement for and things like that. Yeah, this is a great time to start. Yeah, I think if the question is coming from a place of concern about the issuer not liking it, like that's not an issue at all. I wouldn't be concerned at all about the issuer having a problem with you using your card. So I don't think that buying things for a buying group is a problem in terms of like, is it gonna be a red flag for a shutdown from your card? Sure, probably not in most cases,

depending on I guess if you're buying lots of gift cards, but products probably not. The place that I'd be concerned more about is the risk. Like don't overextend yourself and buy $100,000 worth of stuff if you don't have $100,000 to pay the credit card bill with. Buy an amount that you're comfortable with that you know you can float if it takes a little while to get your money back or if something goes wrong.

All right. Great. Thank you. All right. So this next one is for you, Tim. I have the Capital One Venture X and Business Spark Miles Select. I'm canceling my Venture X. Do I have to move points to the Spark miles select before canceling to retain the points? As far as I know, yes, you still

do. If you cancel a card, they don't automatically transfer over. And I don't know about, I'm not familiar if there's any special stuff around the Spark miles select, but in general, if you cancel a Capital One card, you do need to move the miles before you cancel, otherwise you're gonna forfeit the miles. All right. Unless you're a New York resident, in which case I think you'll still get 90 days, right? Unless you're a New York resident.

So New York on the one hand, Nick doesn't get car rental insurance, but he does get 90 days to move his canceled Capital One points, so. But Tim's right, move them first. All right, thank you. Now we're going to go back to Greg. This person says, okay, still confused about the Sapphire. If I got the Sapphire with 100k two months ago, do I still qualify for the new bonus if I haven't hit the bonus yet? Greg.

Chase's rules about whether you're, excuse me, whether you're eligible for a bonus Have nothing to do with Whether you've well, let me say it a different way If you recently applied for the Sapphire which it sounds like you did and you're talking about getting a Isomis after prefer Sapphire preserve rather than. Yeah, let's be clear. So they soon signed for the Sapphire preferred and now they want the Sapphire reserve.

Yeah, that's what it sounds like. So the initial information we got made it sound like that might be possible. But most people's experience it seems like is that if you have a Sapphire Preferred card open They're not going to approve you for a Sapphire Reserve card So I don't think you have a chance of getting the Sapphire Reserve Consumer card bonus you're you can apply for the separate reserve business card though That has nothing to do with whether or not you have a Sapphire Preferred Personal card right. Thank you. As a quick asterisk onto that, assuming that my microphone is actually working, I believe that most, there have been a few people that we've seen that, and I don't know about the

recent one, that's a pretty recent, but that's a pretty recent approval and welcome offer in terms of having actually been approved for and gotten the welcome offer for the Sapphire Preferred within the last few months. There are definitely people that have the Preferred Open that have been approved for the reserve. Greg's exactly right though, it's not necessarily the rule or common, even though Chase kind of made it seem like it wasn't going to be a factor going forward. However, it seems like overall Chase has kind of started this new AmEx like pop up that is supposed to advise you whether or not you're eligible for a for the welcome offer on a new card. Now, the pop up seems to be working for most people in

regards to the sapphire stuff. The problem is you may get rejected with a hard poll before you get to the top of so there is some you know, there is a little bit of a roll the dice I personally probably would would steer away from it and go for the business right now like Greg recommended but there is there is some positive experience with both getting worn before you submit the application that you're not eligible and also getting approved with the preferred. Although the other part of that is that you've gotten it very, very recently. So that probably will work against you in terms of the infinite

chase wheel of destiny. Pre-pop-up poll? You might be a pre-pop-up pop-up person. Or pre-pop-up person. Purgatory? Yeah, pre-pop-up purgatory person. So I guess the summary is it's theoretically possible, but it's very unlikely. Yes. That's a good-

If you very recently got the Sapphire Preferred like that with 100k offer, I don't think I've seen any data points of somebody that got it that recently and also got the reserve, I don't think. Greg is good at concisifying for us. Thank you. All right, Greg, back to you. Or wait. Yes, I'll go back to you because I can't remember where we were at. Are you surprised that the multipliers on the refreshed CSR didn't change more substantially, particularly the dining staying the same compared to the 4X on Amex Gold and 5X on City Prestige? No, I'm not surprised about that because I believe that Chase was trying to basically save money with the changes they made. I mean, they increased a couple of categories to Forex, but they made those categories much more narrow

than they were before. And so I think they're hoping that they're going to have less spend at high multiples than before, and that it's going to save them money. So I'm not surprised that they're not competing on the dining thing, especially, I mean, the prestige card isn't even available now and hasn't been for a long time. So the only one they'd be comparing to for that, I think, is the, well, the MX Gold and some more minor players.

And yeah, doesn't surprise me. All right yeah okay Nick this one belongs to you I think. For the JetBlue 25 for 25 you can't do multi city points bookings on one PNR. Will sequential one-ways be protected if you follow the MCT between one-ways? Yeah so the minimum connection time between the one-ways be protected if you follow the MCT between one-ways? Yeah, so the minimum connection time between the one-ways? I have no idea. It's a good question. So what this person's wondering is if they book a bunch of one-way flights on the same

day, so ignoring whether or not these routes exist for sure, Let's say they booked something like Hartford, Connecticut to LaGuardia to Orlando to wherever they go. No, rather Hartford to LaGuardia to Fort Lauderdale to Nassau, Bahamas as all separate one ways. If their flight from LaGuardia to Fort Lauderdale gets delayed, are they going to protect them on a later connecting flight to the Bahamas if those were booked separately as separate tickets? And I have no idea. I don't know whether they will or not. I'm not sure how JetBlue handles that.

So that's a very good question to ask. I just don't know the answer. Yeah. Maybe you'll find out. Maybe. Yeah. You know, I don't, I didn't have any plans to book separate one ways on the same day. I don't think, I don't think I lined any of that up.

So go ahead. You know, you have some insight here, Tim. No, I don't have any insight. I have I have less insight actually that I was going to ask a question out of. So JetBlue doesn't allow you to make multi-city bookings where you can actually. There's no. Yeah, it's just round trip or one way or the two different options on the website. So, you know, it's interesting because it's interesting you ask that because JetBlue doesn't have

the option on their website to do that. They'll show some flights with one connection and some with two connections when it's like JFK and Boston, but not very many multi-connection routes. But I found that through Google Flights, I saw some itineraries that I didn't find through the JetBlue website that were through like third-party OTAs. And so I assume that behind the scenes, those third-party OTAs are either somehow able to put it together or they're booking separate tickets and I don't know how they're combining things, but I did find things that weren't available on JetBlue.com

on other sites. Whether or not it's safe to book those, I just don't know. That's a very good question. I probably won't push it that close because I got a family of four, so I'm probably not going to push anything close enough for that to be relevant for me, but that's a really good question. If anybody listening has insight, please write something in the chat box. Go to Freak with My Learn Insiders and ask this question there because I can almost guarantee

there's got to be someone there that's familiar enough with JetBlue to know exactly how they handle it. Yeah. And I did just look up and just another asterisk to the question. I did just look up jetblue.com does seem to have a multi-city tool. Does it? Now? Yeah. So I don't know if that doesn't, if that's new or if it does. Like I said, I have no, I've never tried to book any sort of stuff with JetBlue but anyway still go to FMI would love to know if somebody else that seems weird that you couldn't do multi-city itineraries on one but yeah I don't know there you go there you have it maybe you can all right Steven and like this video just just do it don't make me ask you twice um all right, with all this funny business that Hertz is starting to pull on Phantom Damage

being charged by AI, are you or would you still rent from them, Stephen? What do you think? If the price was right, I would probably still risk it, but it does make me a little bit more nervous. Because everyone knows all the horror stories about um hurts having people arrested and things like that um because of like mismanagement in their own records that someone hasn't returned their vehicle even when

they have um so that already gives people pause to um book with them i'd still potentially be okay with booking with them but yeah, reading those articles, it does make me wonder like quite how strict they're going to be with that. Like you would want to be doing a very clear walk around and taking videos and everything like that just to make sure that your vehicle is cleared beforehand. I'm also not sure quite how widespread that is at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if they have it at like maybe some big airports or something like that but for your local airports and things like that I've no idea if they're actually rolling it out that fast. So yeah if you're renting from JFK maybe be a bit more cautious if they got AI there. If you're like renting from like Norfolk,

Virginia or something like that where where it's much smaller. I'd be surprised if it's been rolled out that far, but I don't know, maybe they've had a big person that like sending it out to all of their major locations. Has anyone rented from Hertz anytime recently? Yeah, a couple of weeks ago, but they didn't have it where I was. Were you renting from Albany?

I rented one from Albany and one from JFK. Oh, JFK didn't have it? Okay. Not yet at that point. Though, but here's my question for everybody here. Maybe Tim's the best person to answer this since I think you've probably made more rental damage claims than the rest of us, is my guess. Probably.

Are you concerned about this? Because if they found damage, couldn't you just file a claim through your card and let your card pay for it? Yeah. I have that same question. I thought about that same thing because my first response, but my first response when I read about that is, wow, this is terrible. Like I read, for instance, I read one story about a guy who went through the AI thing and he came back and there was supposedly like about a one inch scuff on the wheel hub that the AI found and it was immediately before he left immediate billing it was $250 for the charge another $150

administration fee another so the total for this little scuff was like between four and $500 and then he was starting to argue with them and then they were like well you can get I think it was like a 30 or 40 discount if you pay it right now. Right. Wait a minute. So this is like for a for a for negotiation. Like, what is this stuff? And I think he actually ended up kind of arguing against it.

But that's that's the sort of stuff that makes me really nervous about it. And so there is something to your point that my second thought was exactly what Nick said was like, well, just turn the claim in as long as you're using a card that has primary rental car insurance. Now, to be clear, I've used Chase's several times. I've never used Capital Ones or any of the other people that offer primary. So I can't vouch for that, but I know Chase is very straightforward. However, that said, it is still a process. And so I don't know, like, I would say that in the early,

like to me, if this starts being deployed right widely by Hertz and other cars aren't using or other companies aren't using them, and especially in the early stages of it being deployed, I would probably it would make me more hesitant. Yeah, not that I necessarily wouldn't. But if there's a bunch of little, you know, if there's a bunch of car companies that are all within the same price, it would probably make me more hesitant. Not that I necessarily wouldn't, but if there's a bunch of car companies that are all within the same price, it would probably make me go away from Hertz, as opposed to just say, oh, well, if AI gives me something, I can always bill it to Chase. But I think it's a good point that thus far I've never had any damage. When there has been claims I've never had, they've all been completely reimbursed by chase So it's not like I've ever been left holding the you know, the AI bag so to speak

Yeah for me like it's just the hassle that would be involved. Yeah more putting than anything Yeah, we always just use like venture X For that coverage and so in theory there's no like issues in terms of being out of pocket But yeah Just having the additional hassle of having to make the claims and also just kind of like the bad taste that your mouth as well, especially if you're like pretty sure that you didn't cause that damage, then knowing that they're bilking money, like even though it's not coming out of your pocket, just knowing that they're basically scamming for that kind of thing. It just, yeah, just

not a big fan of supporting that kind of thing. Yeah, just not a big fan of supporting that kind of thing. LS. Especially when like, you know, that was the reason to go with Hertz before, in my mind was like, I just want to book with the person I know I'm not going to have like shenanigans with. Okay, welcome shenanigans. CB. And I'm also not like entirely trustworthy of how reliable AI will be for this. Like for some things like AI can be really good and really efficient and things, but as we've seen with all the JetBlue routings and stuff like that that GPD's been pumping out, it's not always great and so I'm wondering quite how quickly Hertz is rolling this out and how much testing has been involved as to how reliable

the AI functionality is. So I guess we'll wait and see further data points when people report it. More artificial than intelligent, I fear. Anyway, Tim, have we heard any updates or ETA on the new Alaska premium card? No, not yet. Actively what they've, I mean. I think it was originally like, said it was going to be mid 2025 and then they've now

said summer of 2025. So if you say that that's more narrow, I don't know. But they're still saying sometime during the summer, as far as I'm aware of, and we haven't heard anything more about it. It's technically not summer yet, right? No, it is. No, wait, it technically is. It is, but we're only like 10 days in, so I mean.

That's true. We have time. Winter is coming. If you live in New York or Michigan. Yeah, next week if you live in New York. Yeah, winter's coming for you guys. All right, Greg, is booking Mr. and Mrs. Smith via Hyatt more expensive than booking direct? A property hinted they prefer guests to book direct than third parties, including Hyatt,

suggesting that Hyatt is a third party. Yeah, actually, this situation is complicated. So Mr. and Mrs. Smith is also a third party. So Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a collection of hotels around the world that, yeah, if you book through Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or through Hyatt, which goes through Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you get some minor perks, like a welcome bottle of wine or something.

And that can be absolutely, that can be more expensive than going directly to the property itself to book the stay. But we don't have any way to systematically look property by property to see how often there's a price difference and what it is. But the good news is that when Hyatt took over Mr. and Mrs. Smith, at least initially when we did look at it, they weren't charging more than Mr. and Mrs. Smith was charging. So you were getting the same price either way, whether going through

Mr. and Mrs. Smith or through Hyatt. But as I said, you may have been able to get a better deal by going around both of them directly to the property. You won't earn any Hyatt points or elite status that way, but yes, it could be cheaper. I feel like Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a little bit of a tongue twister. Wonder if they thought of that when they named it.

One thing that's a little bit unfortunate is that Hyatt's best rate guarantee doesn't work for Mr. and Mrs. Smith properties. And so it's not a case that you could book with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, like get some kind of refundable rate, then go to Hyatt and then like have them match that if the individual property does end up charging less. Just because, yeah, the best rate guarantee policy doesn't apply to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. That's a good point. All right. This is for everyone, but we're going to start with Steven.

We'd love to know from the team, what's the best first-class product you each have ever flown? Starting with Steven. I mean, I feel like I've only flown first-class twice. And so it's basically between ANA and Emirates and and I'd probably have to give it to Emirates. We ended up booking it last minute, like a couple of hours before the flight, and so it was just my wife and I in the cabin,

and so we just had it all to ourselves. So yeah, it was a fantastic experience, but when we did Party of Five and we all got to travel on ANA together, that was pretty fantastic too. So as usual, Steven refuses to choose. Oh no, I'm saying, I'm just giving an honorable mention to it. All right.

All right, Nick, how about you? It's so tough because when you say favorite first class, it's like, well, I mean, it depends because there's first class service, first class food, first. I mean, just, I guess you said first class product. And so, uh, you know, I guess that's tough. I think ANA was maybe the best overall product in the sense that, you know, great, awesome big screen TV, cool amenity kit, very wide comfy seats. So I really am great service and I enjoyed that. And that was particularly special because like Stephen said, it was

the five of us flying it. And when do you get a chance to fly first class with four of your friends? I mean that's just not something that happens often so that was probably my favorite first class memory though I will always love Singapore first class and I remember a particular flight from Sydney to Singapore and Singapore sweets the old Singapore sweets and I just loved it service was great they kept bringing around wine I didn't need any more wine. And they said no. And the flight attendant said, no, you have to try this. You can only get this usually in Australia. And it goes perfectly with what you ordered for dinner. And it was amazing. It was just so good. So, but you know, Emirates is so blingy. It's hard to pick. It's really honestly

hard to pick. So I'm kind of hedging like Stephen did, but if I have to pick one of them, I guess I'm gonna pick ANA. Oh man, but that's Salon Champagne and Japan Airlines. And Nick, yeah. And Nick, you didn't mention either Eddie Had First Apartments or Spirits Big Front Seat. Right, right. I'm surprised by the lack of mention of both of those.

Or this amazing first-class product you appear to be in right now. I mean, it's, yes, right. It's called a Chrysler Pacifica. Air Pacifica right here is what I'm applying today. No, but I mean, it's kind of a ridiculous thing to consider too. Like which first class is best? I mean, don't get me wrong.

It's a smart question to ask if you're using your points, but you're like splitting hairs over really incredible experiences for the most part. So Nick kind of says A&A. So how about you, Tim? You know, that's a good question. I was gonna, what would the opposite of concisify, complexify? I was gonna complexify it by breaking it down into like favorite food and service and everything else. But I mean, so often I think it depends on the experience of the specific flight that you're on. Like I would rather have like when you're in, so okay, without hedging, I'm just going to say probably my best overall experience.

Because of having the team around, it was probably ANA. Solo, it was probably Cathay Pacific. And that was years and years ago. And they don't necessarily have the bed, the best seat, but the food was incredible. The service was incredible. The beverages were incredible. And I really love like their seat. It's like for a guy that's my size, there's just so much room to spread out and like go angular and do so. I mean, it was without having to necessarily leave and jump onto a different seat.

So I just, I really loved that flight. And that was too, that was on a flight from Hong Kong. So it was like 13 or 14 hours. It was a really long flight and it just was sensational from beginning to end. Nice. Greg, how about you? Yeah, you know, I'm having just as hard of a time

deciding as Nick did because there are so many great experiences. And when you think of one, then you think, well, yeah, but this other one had this aspect to it that was great. So I'm gonna mention two because they weren't mentioned by the other guys. One was Eddie had first apartments, which I thought was just incredible.

And I've talked a lot about it, so I won't say more about that right now. But the other one was the old Singapore Suites. And that one was so special because it was a first time I had flown, not just first class, I had flown some mediocre first class products before that. But to get into like a world's best type of first-class, it was just a whole different ball game.

And it was such an amazing experience because I just didn't know, I didn't expect it to be as great as it was. And so the first time was, and had it been a different carrier, I'm sure that I'd have a different answer. Yeah, it's hard to beat that first first-class flight. I have a similar, like Steven,

I'm pretty sure I've only flown first class twice. I could be misremembering this, I'd have to ask Drew, but I think just Cathay first and ANA. And on the one hand, Cathay was like my first first-class flying experience. So it's hard to beat that like, you know, everything's novel and the flight attendants are commenting like, you don't do this often. We're like, no, we're taking pictures of everything. Jared Sussman Carrey was like, finally a seat big enough for me.

Danielle Pletka Exactly. To practice cartwheels in. But then A&A was like, I mean, just totally unbeatable. Not only just to be hanging out all together, obviously that was super fun, but I mean, the actual product is amazing too. I almost slept too well. It was so much like a real bed that I didn't get to wake up in the middle of the night and be like, Oh, look at where I slept too soundly and almost entered like normal mundane dreaming world. But anyway, I so I think I'm going to say NA. All right. So we should really quickly as a reminder, we should there's one of my favorite photos

in the media library for frequent milers. We have this photo of Carrie in the cafe first class seat. Yeah. And the relative proportions are absolutely hilarious. I know, I love it. Let's make sure that we put that photo into the post for this. So that even went to Kerry, I pictured that.

I'm sure the rest of you guys did. I wanna see if I could find it. You guys always remember that picture, but for me, that's like me sitting on any chair. So not novel. I'm literally on a child's chair right now so that my feet could touch the ground. All right.

So Nick, with the changes to Southwest, how does using a flight credit to pay the taxes and fees on points booking affect its flexibility? Well, the flexibility of the points booking is like that. That's unaffected. So you can always cancel and get your points back up to like 10 minutes beforehand and your points aren't subject to any kind of expiration or anything. The flight credit part of it for like the taxes, that is going to be subject to whatever the original expiration policy of the flight credit was. So, you know, domestically this is $5.60. So probably if your

$5.60 expires, it's not going to be the end of the world. But if you were on an international flight where your taxes were 50 or 60 or 100 or whatever it might be, then it might be more of a concern. And so yeah, if you use a flight credit that expires in August and you book your flight and then you cancel it, you book a flight for some time after that, I guess, I don't know, then cancel it. I assume it's going to be subject to the original expiration is what I'm trying to say to concisify it as Tim would have said. So anyway, it'll be subject to that expiration policy. Your points will go back into your account.

So there's Kerry finally in a seat big enough for her. I think you could literally fit four or five of me. And Kerry, you were what, eight years old at this time? I think I was like 25 or six or something like that. Yeah. That's awesome. I look like it's my first apartment. For those of you listening in podcast form,

Greg did indeed find the picture of me in Cathay Pacific. All right, so Greg, with half of the year, right Greg? No, Tim. With half of the year gone by, what's on track so far with the Bonvoid Award of the year? And I want you to answer this, you and Stephen to answer this because I know Greg and Nick will get to

when they're doing their podcast, I'm sure they'll do a Bonvoid segment at the end of the year. So Tim and Stephen, what do you think is Bonvoid of the year so far? Starting with Tim. I think the Bonvoid of the year was that

Stephen moved to the UK. We all got screwed when that happens. Our whole country got screwed when Stephen moved back to the UK. What? But here I am at like 2.40 a.m. I know, I was gonna say the same. Yeah, so right.

We have a more overlapping time zone now than we did when he was in the States. For me, there is, to me, there's one clear answer and that's Southwest and just everything. Southwest, it's not just one thing. It's just the way that Southwest is just completely, from my mind, taking an ax to everything that makes Southwest Southwest. And I've never seen something like that happen so quickly. And there's a lot of other good ones.

Like I was thinking Hilton raising their, their maximum redemptions and, but se- first place would be Steven moving to the UK, second place would just be Southwest and all of their myriad downward, spot the myriad downward spiral that they have been involved in. On Southwesting. Yeah. How about you, Steven? I mean, I would have assumed that Southwest would have had this wrapped up like fairly

early on in the year, but it feels like Chase is coming back into the Chase. And they're like I wrote just in a post earlier today that it feels like they're really trying hard to wrap up Bomb void of the year. I'm just because the relaunch of the Sapphire Reserve card hasn't been amazing. They've increased the annual fee, changed it from 3x on all travel to 4x on only flight and hotels, they've coupon bookified it, they've changed the 1.5 cent redemptions, they said one thing about whether or not you'd be able to get the card if you have a preferred card and it seems to mostly be the opposite. And there's like a whole bunch of other things like they've been opening cards for people who had like asked them to like not open the cards for them and just all kinds of other stuff. And it's just all been like a big old mess. So if I think on balance Southwest

probably will still win it, but Chase still has another six months of the year to be able to pull it out of the bag and the way things have been going, I'm starting to have faith in them. So we'll see by the end of the year. At what point do we change the word Bonvoy and instead say like word Bonvoy and instead say like the really Southwest. Southwest. Or like, you know. I feel like maybe it still like manages that consistent level of voidness that it still deserves. Oh they do.

Special place. Having the award names after it. There's actually an urban dictionary entry for Bonvoyed now. Yeah, it's like Bonvoyed is effectively getting screwed. No way. Really? There should be. That's good. Did we invent that term or do I just think that because I hear the segment every week on the podcast? So I think someone else came up with it ages ago. Yeah, I don't think we coined it. Darn it. All right. Someone ended up registering like bonvoid.com

like pretty soon after they launched it. So that they can like, people's complaints. So yeah, it wasn't us, but we still get to make good use of it. And sometimes I love the internet. All right. Greg, speaking of chase, you all say chase points are great for Hyatt's. What are each of your top three Hyatt properties in Asia and Europe?

So Greg, I'm gonna leave this question to you just so we can get to more questions instead of everybody. I mean, so I don't have a top three properties in Asia and Europe with Hyatt. How about top three Hyatt's? Yeah, I mean, it's hard, because what I love about Hyatt, it's not necessarily that there are specific properties that I love, I mean, it's hard because I mean, what I love about Hyatt, it's not necessarily that there are specific properties that I love.

I mean, there are some like I love the Lille Ventana Big Sur. I loved it's been many, many years since I was there, but staying at the Park Hyatt in Paris and also the one in Zurich was amazing. But you know, when we go on and on about it, it's about the consistency of the great value you can get from the points, the consistency of the great elite benefits they give you if you have top tier elite status, things like that, as opposed to zeroing in on specific properties in general. Okay, so it's not so much about the destination property kind of experience so much as like just a consistently good experience whenever you do get to a Hyatt property and the value.

Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say all Hyatt properties, but much more consistent than other brands. Yeah. Any of the rest of you have one specific Hyatt property that sticks out in your mind in your Upper Asia? If not, we'll move on to... Well, I was just, there was one that I, and I haven't actually written the review for yet, but there's a Hyatt, Hyatt Regency in Okinawa called the Hyatt Regency Saragaki Island.

That it's not even a, it's not like a high category Hyatt. It's not something that's a destination thing, but man, I was just, I love that place. It's on its own island that's separated by a bridge from the mainland, so you're completely surrounded by black rocks. The suite there was one of the just most marvelous views and experiences I've ever had from a suite. The design is beautiful, the food is incredible, the people are great.

So the design of the pools and the hotels is really unique. I think it's a category five, if I remember correctly, so it's not necessarily. But that was just a recent one that I was blown away by. If it were anywhere but Okinawa, if it was somewhere that was easier to get to, it would be a destination property, I think, for people. Yeah. That's really cool to hear. I've looked at that place a couple of times and been interested, to get to, it would be a destination property, I think, for people. Yeah. That's really cool to hear. I've looked at that place a couple of times and been interested, but we haven't made a

trip to Okinawa work yet. So that's good to know for the future. The Hyatt Regency, Hakone, which is near Mount Fuji, is often referred to as like a hidden park Hyatt because it has more of a park Hyatt feel, even though it's branded as a Hyatt Regency. And I really liked that one because again, it did have that higher end, doesn't feel anything like a Regency, beautiful views, good service. But I was only there for a short time, a couple of nights

I think, and that was several years back. So that's not a recent review. Park Hyatt Vienna in Europe is probably my favorite out of the current Hyatt's that I've been to in Europe, but I don't have a huge long list like Greg said. So I'm going to add one into the hat. The park at Shanghai is in the Jin Mao tower, which used to be at one point the tallest tower in I forget Asia or the world, but I mean, it isn't anymore, but it's from the 79th to 93rd floor and you just get a view of the tallest buildings in the world from a tallest building of the world and it's like you

know an incredible hotel anyway I'm gonna add that into the mix all right unless there's anything else to add I will move on to a question for Stephen anything else all right Stephen this person booked a flight from Lisbon to Atlanta on Delta. KLM was the carrier, even though it was ticketed on Delta. I can't get them to give me my sky miles. Any idea how to get these posted? I mean, I'm assuming that they've tried claiming their missing miles through

delta.com, so that would obviously be the first place to go if they've tried doing that and that's when they're saying that they can't get the sky miles then that seems a little bit weird. Only things I can think is either A, it was a type of fare that wasn't eligible for earning miles. Another thing might be that if one of your other loyalty program numbers got attached to the reservation like if you somehow ended up with a KLM Flying Blue account number registered against that then it might have already posted to that account in which case I think you're gonna be out of luck so I've not heard of people being able to get stuff like that reversed and then credited to

a different option. Anyone else have any thoughts on other reasons? Because it seems weird that they would be denied for a legitimate transaction for SkyMiles. So it feels like there would be something. I've heard in the past of people, if you bring up your booking while you're logged in at KLM or Air France, that sometimes it messes with it and it associates your flying blue number with it. But I don't have direct experience about myself and like something else that could potentially have happened before I had this With the United flight where I'd done and I think it was an a and a state

Status match and so I'd flown on United and then but then to be able to get into a lounge. I had shown my a and a status and When doing that they ended up moving over my ANA number to that reservation even though it wasn't on there before in order to get into the lounge and so it ended up crediting to my ANA account rather than my United Mileage Plus account so like that's again a very niche situation where I can't imagine that would have happened in this circumstance, but you never know that. Yeah. Other like minor kind of reasons like that could be why it's happened. And if you have a niche thing like that, maybe FMI is another good place to ask something

like that. The frequent Mylar insiders, um, join that if you haven't already and like this video. Um, all right. And it's on Facebook, by the way. Like, I'll go and meet you again or, or is this everyone again? Oh, that one, that one was just for you. This one is for Nick only. Has Nick set up a professional mic on Arm inside of his car? That's right. Well, I'll try and get the picture. Well, I said the picture, so I'll try and get the picture out on social media. Yeah.. So we made it. We're very kind of up in the air as to what we were doing for Fourth of July weekend here and made a very late in the day decision today to drive somewhere and got to the hotel and checked in. And then after we

checked in and ordered dinner via Uber Eats, I was like, oh yeah, that's right. The reason we weren't leaving today originally is because we have asked us anything tonight And so then I didn't have a space for it because the kids are of course asleep in the hotel So I said, you know what? I bet I can rig this up to work in the minivan So yeah, I've got we've got TV screens in our minivan and so the camera is like sitting on top of the TV screen I've got a light on a stand here I have yes, the arm is on the like arm rest of the TV screen. I've got a light on a stand here. I have the, yes, the arm is on the arm rest of the seat next to me in the van,

barely hanging in there. I'm concerned if I touch it, it's gonna fall off of that. And the laptop is on an Amazon box, actually, kinda like sorta down and in front of me. So yeah, I mean, I've got this whole setup here. It kind of looks professional, right? What do you think? These guys frequently will text me pictures of how they're filming the podcast. This is by far the craziest one. So Nicky definitely- Luckily the front seat moves forward

really far in the minivan because this has these stone go seats that go down in the, so like I could create the space necessary. This worked, I think, right? It's a bit of a where's Waldo of like, can you find all the pieces that make this work for Nick? All right. Let's try to fit in one last question. I'm going to say this is a free for all, but we're going to start with Tim. Does chase the edit and Amex FHR make hotel elite status obsolete? So my short answer is no. The reason, so the kind of the framing for this question is that both the edit and FHR are meant to provide elite like benefits for booking through their respective platforms. So in the case of Fine Hotels and Resorts or FHR, that's Amex. In the case of the Edit, which is the worst name for a luxury hotel program in the world. Anyway, without going down that, I have AV Edit booking, by the way.

That sounds so classy, Tim. Isn't that great? You really will find luxury at the Edit. Because that's what you want, an edited hotel for your experiences. If you like the original, you should catch the edit. Because that's you want an edited hotel for your experiences. If you like the original, you should catch the edit. But the so just as an example, I could say so like I'm a high globalist and the edit has a lot of high properties. So and I was actually just going through this the other day, because I was trying to burn my my first half of the year edit credit from my new Sapphire

Reserve before the 30th. So I was trying to use it and it's really, it was difficult. But so I actually was looking at a lot of these properties. And so for instance, like going to LA, there was, there's only probably, I don't know, I'm going to guess maybe three Hyatt properties out of the 40 that are available, that are on the edit. So first of all, if I'm just going for the edit for my lead benefits, now I'm narrowed down to three properties as opposed to 40.

So right there. All of them were more expensive in points than it would be to book it directly through Hyatt. Now that isn't always the case. There are places, there are times, and I have found stuff where it's actually cheaper. I was actually just looking at Miami Beach today as well on the edit and every single one was probably double the points price that it was that I could book on Hyatt directly. So the edit price was double. But then, and I hadn't even thought about this, it's like, so when I book through Hyatt, I'm guaranteed free parking, not so with the Edit. So that immediately on all three of those properties in LA, because we were going to

have a car with us, amounted to about a $150 surcharge for a weekend to use the Edit as opposed to Hyatt. Now the Hyatt guarantees me a 4 p.. So I know that for my 6 PM flight, I can just go and do the 4 PM checkout. The edit's based on availability. Now I have no idea how much they give you that based on, fine hotels and resorts is very consistent, but fine hotels and resorts also doesn't provide

near the value of booking for points that the edit does because the edit you get two cents per point, whereas fine hotels and resorts, if you're using points, you're only getting one cent per point for the most part. Then early check-in, the same thing, it's based on availability. I think that these, the things are like these, both of them provide really cool opportunities in some ways to maximize, especially if you have these credits. And I think what makes the edit a little more compelling as a reasonable, consistent alternative is that it actually provides more value when you're using points because you're getting

two cents per point on effectively all of the bookings. And that can actually make it competitive with Hyatt oftentimes. However, the benefits in my mind, they're not necessarily exactly the same. However, there's times that it actually could be a good replacement, but an overall replacement, I don't think so. Not for you anyway. Now, if we do have a post getting the luxury experience

or the elite experience without elite status that compares a whole bunch of the different programs, but now that this has come up, I realize I need to edit to add the edit. Add the edit. No. The edit doesn't need to edit to add the edit then I probably need to add capra one's version of it don't forget it who knows how many others there are yeah yeah I don't know what's in there what's not

now but there are a bunch of those out there yeah so to me that to me the big picture is is that they're asking, do these programs that guarantee benefits like free breakfast and other stuff, you know, replace the idea of chasing elite status because you can just book through these platforms and get those elite like perks. And you know, Tim's answer was a good way of saying, well saying well no it's not as good as what you get through Hyatt's top tier elite but Hyatt's kind of an exception and what kind of benefits it provides at the top tier if you're looking at just booking hotels in general and getting benefits that are like what you would get if you had IHG top status or like what you'd get if you had Marriott high level status

and happened to be at a Marriott that actually gives you the benefits you're supposed to get. That combination is rare. But there's also tons of properties that aren't on there. Like, you know, I was at the Marriott and Ithaca last week. It's so limited. You can get those benefits. Oh yeah, no, absolutely.

But I mean, that's also true if you're just stuck within a particular. That's true. Hotel program. Like so if you're like, well, I have a lead status with Hyatt, then you're stuck with just Hyatt's and Hyatt's are not everywhere. So so this is like I bet you you could find nice hotels and a lot more locations around the world than you could if you just stick within one hotel chain. Yeah, by going through these programs.

That would be good. That would be a good. Let's let's that would be a fun post. I was just going to say all of that said, all that said, within one hotel chain by going through these programs. That would be a fun post. I was just gonna say it. All of that said, I still think the answer is no, it doesn't replace elite status because what elite status gives us, what we like to do is get great value for our points. And yes, the edit gives us an opportunity

to sometimes get great value for our points, but not always and Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts never does. So what we like to do with Marriott, with Hyatt, with IHD, whatever, we like to get great value for our points and then when you're getting that great value, if you have elite status, you get a better experience, you get free parking, you get whatever the program allows because of your status, those are on top of each other. And that combination is what we really dig. All that said, I mean, I do think there's value for,

people are willing to pay for hotel stays, don't wanna bother with trying to get great value for your points and all that. There's a lot of value in these programs, I think. All right. I'm going to have to cut us off there before YouTube does. And any other thoughts that we had left on that? Well, let's save it for a coffee break.

Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you the first Wednesday of every month. Ask us anything. You can ask us anything here as we've demonstrated. So we'll see you next time. Bye, all. You can ask us anything here as we've demonstrated so we'll see you next time Bye all I've heard some crazy travel stories, and I got a few of my own Travel tales with Mike Siegel, that's me is full of funny inspiring and wild adventures listen now at voyascape.com