Frequent Miler on the Air - Is the Grand Hyatt Kauai worth 45K? | Ask Us Anything Ep78 | 8-12-25

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Is the Grand Hyatt Kauai worth 45K? We answered this and many other questions on the Ask Us Anything hosted live on YouTube on August 6th, 2025.(00:42) - How do you typically like to get around a city that you’re visiting, especially internationally? Are you more likely to take a taxi or Uber to get to places, take public transit, or do you prefer to just walk everywhere?(05:43) - To circumvent Hilton’s minimum length of award stay requirements (e.g., WA Pedregal) — has anyone tried booking more nights than needed, then asking Hilton to remove nights from the stay?(07:18) - What is a question that you would ask someone who is interviewing for a job at Frequent Miler?(16:22) - You can find each of our origin stories here:https://frequentmiler.com/about-frequent-miler/)(16:44) - ​​Give us a peek behind the curtain: What is a typical day/week for the Frequent Miler team?(23:42) - Do you think the custom cash will survive having ThankYou points transfers?(25:34) - Now that Citi transfers to AA, where does Citi rank among the transferable points programs?(28:06) - For the JetBlue 25 for 25, does anyone have datapoints on how fast you get the 150k point after 15 destinations?(29:52) - How would you re-evaluate the value of your Chase/Bilt if you were able to get a family & friends discount on Hyatt cash stays?(31:54) - Hi team! What card are you recommending to people who aren’t really in the game but got the CSR years ago and now want a different card?(37:50) - Head-to-head match-up, Citi Strata Elite or the new Alaska Premium card?(39:17) - ​​Any thoughts on Kenya Airways' new program and the Status Match opportunity that was announced earlier this week?(41:40) - ​​When Frequent Miler finds a unicorn fare or incredible deal, what is the quickest way that Frequent Miler gets that information to those who follow you so we can book it?(45:46) - ​​Grand Hyatt Kauai is now 45k for the basic room with 2 adults and 2 kids. I have a guest of honor available to me. Is the property worth that rate for 4 nights???(50:44) - Which card is better to downgrade, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, both of which have a $95 AF?

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 Frequent Myler team answers your questions live. All right, welcome to this week's or this month's Frequent Myler Ask Us Anything Live, where we answer questions live on YouTube. Of course, if you're listening to this in podcast, form, then it's no longer live, but we took the questions live. So it kind of counts anyway. You're hearing my voice this week, Nick, instead of Greg's, because Greg is off on

vacation. But when the cats away, the mice will play. And so the rest of us are here to answer your questions this week. So we've got Kerry and Stephen and Tim, as usual. So I guess we're going to kick things off. Stephen, can you kick us off with a question or two? Yes. So this question isn't one that's quite live. It's one that someone who had asked us on our Ask Us Anything blog post and it's how do you typically like to get around a city that you're visiting especially internationally are you more likely to take a taxi or uber to get to places take public transport or do you prefer to just walk everywhere so i feel like that's a good like all comers question so like just in case we all have like different ways of doing it how do you do it neck well so i'm usually

traveling with two kids and so we tend to probably uber more than i would if it was just me or just my wife and I. When it was just my wife and I, we really always kind of enjoyed getting to know the public transport system, the trains or buses or subways or whatever. With the kids, it's a little bit more difficult. So we tend to opt for the path of lease resistance, which is usually an Uber. But I do really enjoy walking around too. And in the years where I was young and in shape, I used to love to run in a place that we would visit. Like in the morning, my wife and I years ago went to Rome and we went for a run at like 6 o'clock in the morning and the Spanish steps were empty and the Piazza Navona was empty. And so we got to see

everything without all the tourists and also kind of get a lay of the land as to where the hotel was versus all the stuff we were going to see. And I really enjoyed that. I don't do that anymore because now I'm old and out of shape. So I don't take that approach anymore. Usually Uber's though. What about you, Tim? Depends a lot on the city as well or on other places as well. normally plan a would be walking slash public transit plan b i mean there's some places i'm thinking of like um especially place like massive asian cities where sometimes it's just it can take forever to get somewhere via public transit so i may do it and uber is really cheap so i might do that and if i want and if you know for like a lot times if we're in a place you know coming up we're visiting one of

or soon we're visiting one of stevens favorite countries in the world rwanda and we want to be able to see some of the countryside, so we're going to be, we're actually going to have a car and be driving around Rwanda because there's a limit to what you can access via public transit. So it's kind of, it's sort of based on logistically what's the easiest. But within the city, I would tend to to kind of default towards public transit and walking. But then again, I don't have any kids in tow or a stroller or anything of that, any of that sort of stuff. So it makes it easier. Kerry? We kind of similar. I always say that like, you know, in your 20s, you have more, time and energy

than funds and then at some point in your adulthood it flips and he's just run out of energy and so you know we used to I think in Kusko I think or Lema or Kusko I can't remember which we literally walked from the airport

to the like district where the hotels were not always the safest choices but we would walk or take a bus we would hitchhike you know we don't do those things anymore it's been a long time since I've hitched now we take ubers or uh the train you know local local transport how about you step

yeah again like with tim it completely depends on the city so if it's a kind of eminently walkable city so london's a very walkable place so a lot of the time we'll just end up walking there like we might end up taking the tube and stuff it depends on kind of quite how far you need to go just because in london sometimes it's actually cheaper to just walk straight from a to b rather than getting a tube just because you've got to like get down into the tube and then you've got to like find which platform and then you've got to wait around for a train and then you take it and then you've got to still walk five minutes on the other end so usually you can have gotten there even faster but in other cities yet that isn't always realistic so we might take

like metro might take a bus or something but we do also sometimes do electric scooters if they're there just because that can be a really good in-between kind of thing where it's a bit too far you to want to walk, but it's a much quicker way of getting around than I'm taking public transport. It can be a little bit more expensive, but it has that kind of convenience factor if that's an option. And then another good way of getting around is hop-on, hop-off bus tours. So if you're like in a city where there's just a whole ton of things to see, like if you want to see London or see Paris or something like that, where there's all these different kind of sites, rather than just walking around to each one, you can just get a ticket for

hop-on, hop-off bus tour for one or two days. and then you can see all the sites initially, and then you can just decide, okay, well, I'd want to go back there and spend a bit more time, so you could just stay on the bus until it goes back around again and do it that way. And so that's not necessarily the cheapest way of doing things, but if you were otherwise going to be getting an Uber from like A to B to C to D, then it can potentially actually save you money doing things that way too.

Yeah, that's a good tip. I like that. I do have some listener questions coming in now. So I think we'll jump to those. All right, so this person says, and I'm going to assign this to Nick, to circumvent Hilton's minimum length of awards stay requirements, example, Waldorf Astoria Pedregal, has anyone tried booking more nights than needed, then asking Hilton to remove nights from the stay?

And if so, did the shortened reservation stick? First of all, I just want to recognize the fact that Carrie picked up on the W.A. abbreviation for Walter Astoria. Well done. I was hoping someone would notice that. I did. I like it. And to answer the question, I have not done that with Hilton. I've done that with Hyatt before, but I haven't done it with Hilton, so I can't speak

specifically to Hilton on that. I was hoping that maybe Tim would be able to have you. I've never done it. No. Okay. I never done. I have heard reports of it working, but I wouldn't. And I don't necessarily know why it wouldn't because the people, you know, is like, is the rep and the, like,

on the flip side, like if the property imposed. poses the minimum stay restriction and is the rep that you talk to at Hilton going to be aware of that and are they going to, so my tendency would be to say it work, but I don't necessarily have any recent data points. I've seen it work in the past, but I, you know, that's a while ago. I would think the same thing. What are the chances that the phone rep has any idea that the Waldorf, the story of Pedrigal imposes a minimum reservation length for rooms. I don't know, Steven, have you ever tried this with Hilton? I've never had to give it to try. I'm not sure. Sorry, we couldn't be more help on that.

that yeah that's the best we can come up with here in the brain trust um all right so next question is in everyone but i'm going to start with stephen and give a little bit of preface for this so this person says um what is a question that you would ask someone who is interviewing for job at frequent myler um perhaps this person has not seen that we have been featuring our origin stories for each teammate um and i think you know in those various conversations we've talked about the interview questions we've had. So I wanted to see if each of you can remember an interview question you had when you were applying to work for Frequent Myler.

That's, I think, how I'll reshape this question. Apologies to the asker. Stephen, do you remember? Well, I guess my interview question was, would I like to like some pathetic? You had an exceptional situation. That's a brutal. How did you answer, Stephen? Well, I did almost answer no, that's the thing.

Yeah. One question to answer, Stephen Pepper. One question. And I am so glad that I didn't answer no, just because, yeah, it's been amazing working for a week of my life. I'm glad also. I did really luck out with that. In terms of otherwise, just what would I ask? I don't know.

I feel like Greg had put together a good set of questions before when Tim was being interviewed. So what was your favorite question, Tim, that you were asked? Oh, geez, you know, it's funny. And I think I probably, I think I'm the only one that actually had to fill out that whole questionnaire, right? Nick had to interview also, I think. Yeah. And it was a whole question. It was a different questionnaire, but same idea.

Same idea. Okay. So Stephen and Kerry were the ones that had to. Right. We're special. You and I had to go through the grind. Back at Nick's day, he had to look for Miles deals while walking. uphill both ways in the snow it was a very similar to that tough situation in the snow i i felt really bad because recently gregg actually has somewhere in a file at least he has the results of

my interview questions from that round and he sent it out to everybody because i had said something about what i had said in that interview question and i was incorrect kind of and so he was And I was just looking in my Gmail to see if I could find it so I could actually see what one of those questions were, but I don't remember any of them, honestly. The one that I do remember kind of is there was effectively a question about how would you respond to somebody who says, hey, thanks for not or thanks for posting that deal killing blogger, you just ruin this for everybody. How would you respond?

And it wasn't, that wasn't the actual, you know, word for word question. but it was something about that like how would you respond to a reader who's accusing you of being a deal killer I remember and I don't even remember what I what I answered to it and it might be different now that I'm on the flip side of it but I remember that the answer was good I do remember that because I remember that question and you answer it well that that's the only one I remember I remember I mean honestly to me I think that one thing that Greg places and this is kind of circumventing the question a little bit, but that Greg, the one of the things I think makes Frequent Myler very special, and it's from Greg down, is he puts a ton of emphasis on team dynamics and really wanting to emphasize

those and protect those. And so that was, to me, the biggest thing of that whole process was very quickly it became, like for me, when I was interviewing everybody, except for Stephen Pepper, I think. It became very natural, or felt very natural very quickly, and I think that was one of the most important things for Greg as well. But I wish I could remember, I mean, one of the actual questions outside of the vague deal-killing blogger question. Okay, so I've just got up the sheet that has had no answers. Of course, of course, Stephen Pepper. I don't have it. He would find it. So one of them was, please explain the 524 rule in as few words as possible. Another, these were the like the essay test questions, essentially, the interview questions, right?

Yeah, there was the one that you mentioned about being an evil deal-killing blogger. I want to fly in luxury from Chicago to Australia. What's my best option? And just like, yeah, just a few other, like, examples and stuff like that relating to travel, just to get an idea of, like, how you do award searches and things like that. Nick, do you remember any of your interview questions? Because you were another person who had to actually interview. Yeah.

So the actual interview questions, oddly enough, I don't remember as well as some of the assay questions. And even then, it's a little bit foggy as to exactly what they were. But here's the thing. The question that Stephen just highlighted from the last application is a perfect example of the type of questions that Greg has always designed. Like, you want to fly to Australia and luxury, what's the best way to do it? It's a fantastic question because there's not a right answer. And so, and the idea, so, you know, years ago, I attended this leadership conference Hobie and designed by Hugh O'Brien, who was an actor, some of the older crowd out there might remember him as white herp. And when I say older, you know, I'm being kind. If you remember

you O'Brien is Wyatt Earp. So anyway, Hugh had set up this series of leadership conferences and I got a chance to meet him and go to one. And his big thing was that they were teaching young people, not what to think, but how to think. And so the conferences were all designed around creating conversations and making people think about questions creatively. And I think that that's exactly what Greg's questions have always done. And that to me is the brilliance of it. And so if I were to design the perfect question for somebody, it would be that type of question because, well, if you want to fly in Australia to luxury, in luxury, what's the best way? Well, it depends. Do you want to get there the fastest. Do you want to get there in the most blingy way? Do you want to spend the

fewest number of miles? There's a bunch of different right answers there. And the idea there was more so to see, okay, how do you think about solving this type of problem? Do you come up with some right answers? Because believe it or not, there were some people that answered with things that were clearly they had Googled and looked at some old post with some outdated information that wasn't actually correct. And so you'd see who knew their stuff in terms of, you know, which award chart sweet spots were still good and who thought about it maybe for more than one angle too in order to answer it. Some people gave two answers, two options or something like that. And it was similar in my original application. There was a question like you want to buy a laptop

from Best Buy. How would you stack the best deal? You know, back then there were lots of different ways to buy gift cards and earn miles by going through a portal and you buy the gift card and then going through a portal and using a card linked offer and whatever else. And so again, the purpose wasn't to have the best or the most correct answer about how to stack a deal. It was more what do you know about stacking deals? Like what things come to your mind? Do you think of city merchant offers and MX offers? And do you think about other card-linked programs that you might be able to, like, simply miles, you might be able to stack with and whatnot? So, so those are the things that I remember because I had to think about all the questions. The essay portion, I mean,

I think Tim would agree, took a while to do. It was like a time-intensive thing. Yeah. yeah yeah and nick both you and i if i remember correctly both you and i almost didn't apply yeah and we saw the length of it and it was our spouses that were like no no no you have to do you have to do it you'll regret this if you because i i know i remember looking at that at that essay list and being like this is going to take me forever i don't even have a shot at this like i'm not even gonna and i think sam had a you and sam had it similar guys oh yeah well i just i wasn't even sure whether I could do the job and do it well. And yeah, it was going to take a while to do the application and whatnot. So, uh, but, but to me, those are the, the good questions. And that's

what helped determine somebody who was thinking about things in the right way. And I also loved that Greg asked a question when we interviewed you, Tim about, I can't remember the exact details, but essentially it was something like there's, uh, you know, like a bank tells us they don't want us to write something about credit card and, you know, what's the right answer here? And what do we do? And And so, like, kind of making sure that somebody understands that our focus is readers primarily. And, like, creating the best reader experience was really important. And so I thought that type of question was also a good one to make sure that the people were focused on what's best for the people reading the blog, because that tends to be our focus. And, you know, even in situations where that's difficult and we have to come up with a solution, that's always the focal point in figuring out the best angle.

So I think that's pretty important, too. Yeah. So if anyone wants to kind of recap the full story from everybody on our About Us page, there's, we each have a link to our origin story there in our little about section. So go to our About Us page, navigate to the origin story. There's a question that I just can't help myself. I have to ask it now, even though I wasn't going to ask it until later on because it relates to this kind of, ooh, the boss is gone. So let's, let's talk about how the sausage is made a little bit. This question, give us a peek behind the curtain. What is a typical day week for the frequent miler team? So this time, Tim, we'll start with you. What does your day look like and describe some of your responsibilities and what your workday looks like for Frequent Miler?

Oh, geez, that's a, that's a big question because it changes a lot. And I think by nature, you know, one thing. Well, well, so like, in general, Most of the days, so each of us have a day of the week that we are responsible for being what's called the daily author. So those people who are reading a lot or who are paying attention to the blog regularly might notice that there's some days that Nick has more posts than Stephen. And there's some day, Stephen has more posts than everybody else and I have more posts. And that's because each of us sort of has a day that we're the daily author where quick posts that news that's coming out were sort of responsible for facilitating. that. Then each of us also has one or multiple days where we have to do like there's a post that goes

out in the morning in the newsletter. So we each of us has that are usually longer posts that require more research and stuff like that. So we'll be doing that. Each of us has like a different day. Nick and Greg have two of those, Stephen and I have one. And then we also have, the thing that I think is to me is always sort of astounding is just the amount of behind the same stuff that constantly leanings done. And it doesn't really like, there's sort of the writing posts for the blog and doing research for the blog. But then all of us are sort of keeping older posts updated and making sure that it's still accurate, putting out, putting out of guides again. Like stuff changes constantly and things go out of date so quickly. Compliance with different banks and different credit card

companies. There's all these ridiculous, I shouldn't say that out loud, there's all these understandably inane things that all of these issuers require of us, that we're constantly interact just to make sure that how we're listing a credit card is correct according to their legal requirements, looking at the things that we might have written in past posts that are no longer accurate that we now have to redo. That's a huge thing. Even looking at, you know, setting up new credit cards, all this sort of stuff behind the scenes, that takes a lot of time as well. And I mean, honestly, when my first started, Greg was sort of like, well, you know, there's always stuff to do. Like, is it really? And it's like, no, they're really. I mean,

it's, even after adding me full time, after Stephen taking on more time, there's always stuff that's on the back burner that we're having to do. And then we also have a weekly team meeting where we get together and kind of talk through stuff that we need to talk about in person. And then we also have a team Slack channel that we that is sort of the majority we have a team Slack channel and a team WhatsApp message and it's sort of the WhatsApp is I think less business appropriate stuff or not business appropriate but business specific stuff whereas the Slack is more based on different stuff yeah and so that's kind of where most of the communication throughout the week comes from but that's sort of a general week I think of how everybody goes there yeah that was well

outlined. Stephen and Nick, do you have something else to add for how your day differs or to add to how that all works? I mean, not too much. Like for me, my two main days for being like the daily author and doing the quick deals and stuff is Tuesday and Wednesday. What I'll normally do is I'll start scheduling posts the night before both of those days. So that that way, if anything comes up during the day where say like hire decides to devalue a award chart or American Airlines completely redos its loyalty program or something like that, then it means that I've got kind of like time during the day to be able to research that. Just because those are the kind of things that become a lot more time consuming, quick deals for the most part don't end up taking a huge

amount of time to research. But when there's some kind of big change, then that can end up being a several hours long job just because you're trying to like identify all the different quirks and all the nuances of everything. So yeah, being able to get a head start on all of the blog posts for the following day the night before is much more handy especially being in the UK now as well then I have a five hour head start on the US as well

which makes things even more useful now so really I probably don't actually need to start working the night before because I can still get up late in the morning if I want and still manage to get everything done in time but yeah scheduling things beforehand just means that I can clear my workday the next day to be able to focus on other stuff

Nick, anything to add from your side? The only thing I'll add is that every now and then, I have to remind people to like this video or podcast wherever it is. You're listening or watching. So make sure you give a thumbs up to that or leave us a review. Leave us a comment, all those things. We appreciate all that stuff. So in addition to the stuff that they talked about,

the only other thing I'll add is that Greg and I record a couple of podcast episodes every week. So we record those, I'm going to say the same day every week, but then, of course, as we start traveling, it gets a little more complicated in trying to reschedule things. But normally we record our coffee breaks on Mondays, and those go out on Tuesdays, and we record the full-length podcast on Thursdays, and those go out on Fridays. But then, like I said, sometimes our schedules just mean that we have to try to work together to find other times to do those. And then we also occasionally publish how-to videos. Those usually come out on Saturdays, and we typically record those on Mondays if we're going to record them. So that adds just a little bit more

and not necessarily more, a little other stuff, the other responsibilities for me. But yeah, and I do the week in review also. But day to day, I think the thing that's interesting about this job is, like Tim said, there's always stuff to do. I never go to sleep feeling like everything is done because there's always more stuff to do. But at the same time, we enjoy a lot of flexibility, right? I mean, apart from the days when you're the daily author, you've got a lot of flexibility as to how you're going to use your day, when you're going to do which things.

And so that's really nice. I mean, that's awesome. I can't, you know, I can't under or overstate how nice that kind of flexibility is. Yeah, for sure. And my main difference is everything is different for me. That's true. But probably of less interest to this audience a little bit. But basically I'm editing all of that.

So when a podcast comes out, I'm editing it. And when we record the JetBlue promotion, for instance, that Nick is doing right now, then I turn that into content that's. digestible and anyway yeah we've all got something to do and graphic design and making the blog look good and creating yeah the package properly i package i package all the good meat and potatoes that these guys are cooking up so all right let's jump into some points and miles questions here 25 minutes into the ask us anything this one i'll assign to stephen do you think the custom cash will survive having thank you points transfers

I guess I'm not entirely sure what that's asking. Because it offers 5x and now you can transfer to AA, so will they kill that card because it's too generous? Okay. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm not leaning towards them killing it because I feel like it's still a fairly new card. And I'm sure when they were like sorting all this out,

but they were thinking about this. And the fact that they're offering six X on dining on, I mean, fair enough, only during certain hours. on the elite card and things like that. That, yeah, and it's also kept. It's like 5X, but only on $500 a month. And so the most that you can earn to be able to transfer to American each month is 2,500 miles. In the grand scheme of things, that's going to be a drop in the bucket.

So I can't imagine them axing that. Then again, it's city. Who knows if they'll just take, because they do abruptly take cards down from time to time. But if they do, I can't imagine it will be in response to people just earning at 5. on such a small amount for American transfers. All right. That seems to be the kind of take that you guys had on the podcast too. So now I'm going to read a comment from somebody.

This is not a question. This person says, I met Stephen in London at a hotel breakfast in June. I could not believe he was in the room eating before a flight. He could not have been nicer and even took a picture with me. It was good to me either. It was funny because that was the, oh, wait, no, that was a holiday in express. Yeah, I think that was a holiday and express.

but they were about to go stay in a premier in somewhere else in the UK and it was done off the back of one of my posts where I'd recommend. Very nice. That was fun. That must have felt trippy for them to be going to a hotel that they learned of from you and see you on their way. Cool. Love when that happens.

All right. Tim, now that city transfers to American Airlines, where does city rank among the transferable points programs? Has it changed in ranking for you? Yeah, I mean, I don't think it can't not change in ranking just because, because AA is such a massive transfer partner. You know, I would, I've been banging the drum for thank you points for a long time now. That's part of the reason why I chose them for this year's challenge before they actually had AA.

And I don't know that, like we were actually just talking about this the other day because we were talking about should we change the reasonable redemption value for city now that it has AA transfers in terms of, so we do these values for each transferable point currency. And actually for airline and hotel currencies as well, where we sort of say, what's this kind of, what's the median value that this could have? Or you could expect to have a reasonably good chance of redeeming this currency for that amount. And we're saying should be raised city. And as part of that discussion, it was sort of like, well, it's really hard to say that city is now better or worse than Chase or better or worse than Amex. But there's sort of these three top tier programs, Chase, Amex and City, that are kind of. of all a toss-up now. And they each have their strengths and they each have their weaknesses. But I do think that city has gone from being more of a niche program with AA has gone from

being more of a niche program that was probably a slot, a clear slot below Chase and Amex to now being in the conversation with the one caveat being that it's much easier to earn still Amex and Chase points that it is for city. So a lot of people that do points in miles are still have more activity with Chase and Amex and the Will City. But in terms of their just their portfolio of transferable programs, I think you easily make a case that city certainly, and for certain use cases for certain people, city might be the best fit. Yeah. Any vetoes from Stephen and Nick? No. Like nowadays, it feels like it's the best all in one program in terms of like hotels

and things. So like ultimate rewards, a lot of us just use it mostly for hire. But American Express membership rewards generally better for flights and things like that. Whereas City now, you have a good choice in both kind of programs. So if you only wanted to focus on one program, City thank you would probably be the most optimal in that respect. Nice. All right. We'll have a question pertaining to that Chase Hyatt point later. But first, Nick, for the JetBlue 25 for 25, does anyone have data points on how fast you get the 150,000?

point bonus after 15 destinations I don't yet but if somebody in the comments does please let us know I'd love to hear about it I am not at 15 yet I'm what today was number 10 technically 11 for me I think in 10 for the rest of my family if I remember correctly a few days I'll be at 15 the terms say two to three weeks so I don't yet know I'm curious to find out unfortunately for me I'm going to more destinations after that. So I won't know how long it was from the 15th one exactly. But I should know how long it is from 20 because we'll hit 20 in August and then I won't hit the last few until later this year. So I'll have an idea at some point after that, but that won't be for several more weeks. So if somebody else has hit 15 and can let us know

on the comments how long it took, that'd be awesome. I'd love to know also because I'd really like to know. The reason I want to know is because I have some awards books. through Atihad, and there's some doubt as to whether those are going to count or not. I mean, JetBlue's been adamant with us that they should, but there's some doubt anyway. And so the way that I'll know is whether or not I get all of the points when I get to 20 destinations. My 15th destination will be one of those Attejad flights, but I'm assuming that the points won't post until I've already flown to a couple more destinations. So I won't know which one triggered it. but I should know on the 20th, which one triggered.

So we'll see, or whether that triggered it or not, I guess. Don't worry. I will remind Nick to post something on social media about that when he finds out as well. So you guys can I'll see. Stephen, how would you reevaluate the value of your chase and built points if you were able to get a family and friends discount on Hyatt cash stays? Would that change how you value chase or built? That's tricky. So built, I don't have the built card. I'm generally not collecting points other than when I've been picking up three points here and there over time. With Chase, that would be a really tough one because I do mostly transfer my ultimate rewards to World of Hyatt. I guess part of it would depend on what the family and friends raid is like. Is it a truly superb raid or is it not? So my wife, before we set off on our road trip several years ago, she was just kind of temping with the local Hilton in the catering kind of team just to get a

little bit of extra money. And she was eligible for Hilton family and friends rates there. And that was actually some really decent prices. So I feel like they had kind of like two or three different tiers, depending on the quality of the property. But no matter what, you could end up getting some decent rates. So I wouldn't be surprised if Hyatt was the same. One of my biggest questions would be, can you earn elite night credits on a family and friends rate? Because if you can't, then that would mean that they wouldn't be eligible towards earning globalist status, in which case that makes them a little bit less appealing. However, if you can get a decent rate, especially if you can book suites or something like that or rooms with club access with the family

and friends rate and get a decent price, that could still potentially be tempting. But yeah, I just don't know enough about those particular rates to be able to make a firm decision. But if you could get a decent rate on those, I feel like, yeah, I would probably just end up having to find some other use for my ultimate rewards, which isn't necessarily a bad problem to have. But it also depends on how much cash you want to outlay on stays as well. So, yeah, a lot of unknowns, but definitely has potential. Yeah.

All right. So, Tim, what card are you recommending to people who aren't really in the game but got the Chase Safari Reserve? years ago and now went a different card? Well, that's a tough one, partially because I don't, I guess based, I'm a little confused about the question because I don't really know what it means to not really be in the game and why you want a different card than the Sapphire Reserve now.

What I would say, so if you're not in the, if not in the game means that you are not getting, you know, even three to four different welcome offers a year for new credit cards, that would change the recommendation a lot. Like if you're just looking for a premium card with good benefits that you can have and hold, that changes it a lot versus if you're looking for something new because you're looking for points, etc. In terms of, so I'll answer the B part first.

Right now, and not to keep on the city bandwagon, but I love this 100,000 point offer from the Stratta Elite right now. If you're just going to, from the city strata elite, their new premium card, the card is 600 bucks a year. but you get 100,000 points after $4,000 in spend. And for that first year, you're going to have $600 in hotel credits and $400 in credits for either Best Buy or American Airlines or Live Nation, which I think are probably going to be the big three out of those credits, in terms of the options for those credits. So, like, as a first year card, but not to mention like the normal stuff like priority pass

and access to a luxury hotel booking program. American Airlines Admiral's Club passes so there's a lot to like as a one-year card. Now if you're looking at something to have and hold for forever or you know for years and years because you like the benefits

you know that might not be and you know and that's kind of what I'm curious why you wouldn't want the Chase Sapphire Reserve if you've had it before it's more expensive now but it also has more credits so my question I guess my question would be does do the credits not work for you

now because you do have terrific travel insurance. You do have still some decent opportunity for outsized value in terms of redeeming points for hotels and flights and things like that. Let me try and read the mind. Let me try and read the mind. My guess is somebody that's not really in the game, we got the CSR years ago,

probably enjoyed the simplicity of one and a half cents per point in redemption, just redeeming through the Chase travel portal. That'd be my guess. So if I'm reading a mind, I would think they're saying, this was really easy I just earned points and I used them at one and a half cents now there's all these points boosts

and different values and blah blah so what would you recommend as like the more simple because I think that's what the CSR was right it was easy solution 3x all travel 3x dining easy one and a half cents redemption

that was going to be my next thing if you're just looking for ease that's all you are I would say the VentureX X capital one VentreX because you're going to have a card you're going to be able to use it you're going to have but

you're going to earn 2x everywhere. You don't have to worry about all the different categories and stuff. You're going to, it's going to effectively pay for itself in terms of a fairly easy to use travel credit and an anniversary bonus of points. And you can redeem those points very easily for travel charges. It's not going to have the outsized value that the Sapphire Reserve did, but you're going to get a lot of the same sort of bonuses at only $395 a year. And my assumption would be that the reason why you're thinking of changing to the Sapphire Reserve is because it's too expensive. So if you're looking to actually, you know, go down in value, but get a lot of those same benefits in terms

of priority pass, easy redeeming for points. You don't have to think about it. You can just use it and have it, and it kind of pays for itself. I still think that's probably the easiest one if you're just looking for a one card premium solution. It's not ideal, but I don't know that there really is an ideal card anymore after the 1.5 cents got taken away. In terms of that, that sort of paradigm of Nick's set up. What would you say? Those are some good points. You know, I think that was a fantastic recommendation. It wasn't what I would have said would have been probably the city premiere because there's so many useful everyday 3X categories.

Dining, grocery, gas are things that most people spend money on and then 3X on a lot of different travel stuff, flights, hotels, travel agencies. So it would seem like that would cover a lot of spend at 3X. And then you could just redeem them at one cent each and you're earning 3% on all those different categories, which is decent. So that might have been my recommendation, but I think the Venture X makes more sense because if you were attracted to the Sapphire Reserve, not only by the ease of redemption, but also the benefits, like priority pass and stuff like that, then you are going to need some sort of ultra premium card. And the Venturex has priority passed. It gives you Hertz president's circle status.

So it's got some of those great travel protections. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that was a smart recommendation that didn't come to my mind first, but I think that was actually probably the best recommendation. So, well done. See, that's why Tim's here. Nice. I agree with that recommendation. Along like Nick's lines that if it's less about the benefits and more about the everyday spend,

I feel like the MX Gold is another good option just because then you can earn 4X on groceries, 4X on dining, which for some people might end up being like a fairly sizable portion of their everyday spend, especially if they liked the 3X on the Sapphire Reserve before, getting 4X membership rewards might be a good replacement. But if you want one card to like mainly use everywhere, it can't be an Amex, right? I mean, because there's too many places that don't take an Amex and especially if you're going to travel overseas at all, then it's hit or miss. So if you're looking for one card, Amex probably isn't it? Yeah, it is a pain over here in the UK because it's much less widely accepted than B's from MasterCard. Well, sticking to the theme of this credit card comparison topic, Stephen, head-to-head matchup, city strata elite,

or the new Alaska premium card? This one's tough just because we don't know enough details about the Alaska premium card yet. I have been very tempted by the Alaska premium card just because it's going to have 3x on all foreign transactions. And because I'm over in the UK now, then earning 3x on all spend is quite tempting. That said, a lot of our expenditure could go on a city premier card because that earns like 3X on diamond.

and groceries, which is probably what we spend most on from day to day, and that's valid worldwide as well. In terms of the strata elite and the Alaska premium card, that's tough, because they both have their own use cases. I feel like the strata elite for the first year is the best option, longer term, probably the Alaska premium card. But again, it depends on how much use you're going to get out of that and how much you want one world staff. as well, because that's going to be one of the kind of, like, key features of that is the fact that you'll be able to spend your way to MVP status with Alaska on that card. If you can't make use of that, then, yeah, it's not going to make as much sense. I love forcing Stephen to come up with a single, single answer and remove all his optionality.

I just can't choose. You just can't do it. All right. Okay, so next up, Tim. Any thoughts on Kenya Airways new program and the status matter? opportunity that was announced earlier this week. So I have actually very, very little information on this. And I can tell you, and rightfully or not, I can tell you how much we think about it.

We keep a list of potential posts that we're trying to get out. And this isn't on there. Didn't make it. I know I saw it yesterday. I assumed maybe you guys did too, right? I didn't add it. And I looked at it and I just completely glossed over it. And part of it was I know that it, and I know that you can match from.

airlines hotels and i think there's some credit card status matches too i don't remember exactly what what the what the details were but that it's for sky team it's effectively trying to get sky team status and the silver status regardless of what you match to if i'm remembering correctly costs ninety nine dollars and the gold status costs two hundred ninety nine dollars and so a lot of times those paid matches have to be pretty good for us to kind of get into them and i don't know that anybody got into it when we were looking at it but all that but why not why not for me personally like sky sky team like i i've never been impressed with the sky team benefits as a u.s-based traveler and so for sky team elite status when i see

anything that's like oh it will match you but you have to pay for it it's like well you know there's probably great wrinkles in that for people that are traveling internationally a lot or for people that are based internationally. But for a U.S. audience, it just immediately kind of strikes me as being not terribly interesting. That said, I completely leave it open to that there might be, you know, facets to this that I'm not aware of. So, but that's, that's, I mean, just trying to say that in terms of what we think about it, that's good context. Yeah, that's good context. It's not really on our, it's not really on our radar to even publish anything about it.

Didn't land on our radar. All right. There's a reason it should be. Send us a message. Yeah. Send us an email and let us know why we should be writing about it because we would love to learn why we should care about it. Yeah, without us having to pay for it.

That would be great. Somebody else pay for the status match. Okay, Nick, this is my favorite abbreviation of Frequent Miler I've ever seen. When FMR for FMER, when FMER finds a unicorn fair or incredible deal, What is the quickest way that Frequent Myler gets that information to those who follow you so we could book it? What do you think? You know, I think that so our aim when we find that kind of unicorn thing is to pop a message in our Frequent Myler Insider's Facebook group. You're like, hey, this great deal is out there.

I'm writing a post about it. Just to kind of get it out there so people know. So if you're not in our Facebook group yet, you might want to join that. That said, there aren't a lot of those unicorn deals that that happens with. So don't join it expecting unicorn deals because I don't think any of us regularly hunt unicorns. So I'm not usually out there looking for mistake fairs. It's just not at the top of my bucket list. Not that it's not at the top of my bucket list to fly a fantastic mistake fair.

But so many mistake fairs aren't honored these days that I don't get all that like excited about a really big mistake fair. I might try to book it, but I never expect it to stick these days. So unicorn deals do happen. And so then, I mean, the next thing we do is write a post about it. I mean, and I've written a post from all sorts of places. I remember years ago when the A&A had that incredible business class for our sale from Vancouver. It was like $750 round trip to Japan or Australia. I can't remember what it was.

But I was literally walking around an aquarium with my family writing the post on my phone because I was like, oh, this has to go out right now. Like, this is just such a good deal. We've got to get it out there. So, I mean, I think that we try to get it up on the blog as soon as we can. you know that said sometimes it's easier than others so it just depends on the day and if it's something that i think i might not be able to publish before it dies then i usually go to frequent myler insiders and try to pop it in there first to make sure that some of our readers can take advantage

of it even if i don't get the post finish before it dies that's also speaks to the question of what does a day in your work life look like just depends just to throw in uh throwing in a little asteris because we do have a daily, an instant email subscription that for some folks that like the quickest way to actually see something to be alerted to something that we might have written about, not to comment anything about Nick said, is to actually subscribe to the instant email. Because I will say that as much as we do try to throw something into FM to frequentiler insiders, oftentimes if something is there, like my first impulse, good or not, is to like, oh, I need to get this written up quick for the blog before it dies. Yeah. True. And so instant, the quickest way to find something that's published on the blog would be instant emails. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't subscribe to it. Or you shouldn't join Freakle Myler Insiders. It's a marvelous Facebook group that doesn't cost you a penny. Yeah. Then again, neither does the newsletter. Yeah, but great point because some people, I think, subscribe to the daily, not realizing or like not reading the descriptions to realize that we have an instant email newsletter. So a fantastic point, Tim, because if you go to our subscribe page, you can choose the. daily emails, then you'll get one email each day. It comes in the morning and it features all the

stuff that we've published since the last one went out, so about 24 hours prior. And some of that stuff inevitably will be deals that died before the daily comes out because they won't have lasted long enough to still be there. So if you're one of those people that wants to hunt all of those unicorn deals and know about them right away, then you definitely want to subscribe to the instant email list, then you'll get an email and it's not quite instant. It takes like 30 minutes or so, 40 minutes, sometimes 50 minutes for the email to go out. 15 to 30 minutes actually. 15 to 30, okay.

Well, we don't have control over that. That's like the email thing that, you know, it automatically happens, but it's not something that like we don't manually push out the email. It just comes out when it comes out. So, um, so instant emails are very good.

Also following us on social media makes sense because I think most of the posts go to at least some of the social media instantly. Right. So. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, great tips. So, Tim, I'm going to kick this one to you. Grand Hyatt Kauai is now 45,000 points for the basic room with two adults and two kids. I have a guest of honor available to me.

Is the property worth that rate for four nights? Thoughts? So I'm going to quickly kick that off to Stephen Pepper because he was the last person of the three of us to stay in the Grand Hyatt Kauai. Then I think Nick should follow it up because he's the only one of us that stayed in the Grand Hyac-Kauai with two children. With two kids. And I am going to say that my only thing that I'll throw in there is that if you have access to Wyndham points, take a look at the Bacasa vacation rentals

that are available right around the Grand Hyatt Kawhi in that area because there's some pretty fun ones that you can have for very competitive prices. So with that, I'll kick it off to Stephen. Yeah, that's a tough one. I mean, I'm a little bit of a cheap skate, and it pained me to even redeem 25,000 points a night because we managed to get it for standard pricing in December last year before it went up a category this year.

And like 25,000 points is more than we would normally redeem for a high ad anyway, but it was worth it for a week-long stay. At 45,000 points a night, that for me that's a tough ask just because that's 180,000 points. But I guess it also depends how many. higher points and how many ultimate rewards points you have like if you have a million ultimate rewards points 180,000 points isn't all that bad for a property that is absolutely amazing it was definitely one of our like favor hotel stays last year so at 45,000

yeah I would struggle with that but at the same time if you've got guest of honor you've got two adults and two kids that would give you access to the club lounge and it would mean you wouldn't have any resort fees that will save you a fair bit of money if you're going to actually make use of the club lounge if you're not going to make you use of the club lounge and you're planning on just like being out and about all day and eating out and things like that, you'll get less use for that. So if all you're doing is kind of like sleeping there and touring Kauai, otherwise probably not worth that pricing and yet check out the Vacassar properties that next mentioned, that Tim mentioned. Otherwise, if you're just

basically just going to be locating yourself at the resort and just take advantage of everything the resort has to offer, I'd say like it could definitely still have some. good value because the resort does have all kinds of other activities that you can do that are included with the resort fee. And because you wouldn't even be paying that, then yeah, you could get some decent value. Nick, thoughts as a dad? You know, I love the Grand High at Kauai. And it's a huge property. It's like a convention hotel. It's massive. And probably your instinct when you see the place and walk around it is that it's this huge, massive, very impersonal kind of a conference hotel. Yet somehow the same.

staff manages to still be so warm and friendly that I love it. And so I really enjoy the hotel. The grounds are beautiful. Forty-five thousand points per night is a price that has priced me out of all of the category eight highets. So like the park high at New York, I loved it when I stayed there years ago at 45,000 points. There's just too many other places to stay in New York for me to consider paying 45K. It's just like it would have to like my feet would have to be massaged as I walk in the door. And even then, I don't really like fub massages. So I don't know that, you know, like a 45K. Yeah, well, if it's fish, then no. So anyway, so I have a really hard time parting with that many points for a single night. So as much as I love the Grand

High Choir when I saw that it went up to 45K, I like, I felt a little sad. And I told my wife, we're probably never going to stay there again. And she's like, oh, why not? And I was like, at 45,000 points, there's just too many other options in the world to spend that much. per night, in my opinion. So, uh, especially with the Vicasa options like Tim said and the ease of earning windham points like eight X gas stations on the windham card, it would be really hard for me to justify. Now that said, like Steven said, if you got a million chase points, it's not a bad value. The place is very frequently more than a thousand bucks a night, especially for club rooms, but the club isn't incredible. Like, it's got food and the people are

really nice, but it's not like a super extensive spread for breakfast or for dinner. It's, You know, make it like a light dinner, but if you really want to eat, you're still going to have to eat somewhere. So I don't think that's the place I would spend 45,000 points a night as my answer. Even though I like it, I would hesitate. All right. Sad. All right. Sad to see you go.

Hyatt, Kauai. I'll miss you. I'll miss you, Grant Hyatt, Hyatt, Kauai. But let us know if you add foot massages because Nick hates those, but wants them for some reason. All right. You got to offer something at 45,000 points. It's just a principle. on principle.

On principle, okay. On principle. On principle, I should set the door. Last question here, which I think we'll do kind of a free-for-all, starting with Stephen, if we have time. Which card is better to downgrade the chase-saf, to downgrade? Chase-Safe or Chase-Inck business prefer? What's the P? Yep.

Okay. Both are $95 annual fee, so which one is better to downgrade? I assume I mean downgrade two. Yeah, I mean, part of it would depend on what. spending categories you want or need. So if you are wanting a 3x travel card, then the ink business preferred might be a good option. However, I'd be much more inclined to downgrade the ink business preferred because then you can

download it to say like an ink cash card and then that way that's got no annual fee, but you can get 5x capacity at office supply stores. Sapphire preferred. You get the $50 hotel credit that you can use that can help offset some of that $95 and I'm assuming this question is because they want to keep a card open so they can transfer to travel partners in case anyone hasn't like understood why that why this question is probably being asked but yeah I think I'd probably keep the sapphire preferred plus I mean I don't have a ink preferred card so I'm not quite sure what the chase offers are like but certainly on the

sapphire preferred card they seem to get some superior offers compared to some of my other cards And so that would be another reason I'd be interested in keeping that just because you might get some better spending offers that way. All right. Anything else to add, Tim? Well, so I would say two things. First of all, if you're saying what's better to downgrade two, the card that you're starting off, downgrading from may determine some of that in terms of if you can downgrade because the Chase Sapphire preferred is a personal card, whereas the Inc. Business preferred is a business card. So you won't necessarily, if you're downgrading, if you're downgrading to them, your downgraded options will be limited by what lane you're in. You can only downgrade a business to a business.

Correct. Yeah. If you're looking for a card to sign up for now and later downgrade, I would totally agree with Stephen for all the reasons he said, and in addition, because a sign up for an ink business preferred, I think, believe has a better offer right now. and it also doesn't count towards a Chase 524 status. So I think for all the reasons that Stephen said, in terms of like having down,

being able to downgrade to the in-cash and stuff like that, I would probably lean towards that just because it has the better offer. But to me, the question makes it sound like you're wanting to downgrade from a card to one of those. Yeah. And those aren't necessarily going to be either or options that you're going to be presented

depending on which card you're starting with, if that's what the question meant. I guess I was assuming that they have both of those cards at the moment and they've come up for renewal and now they're trying to decide which annual fee they want to pay. Oh, that's how I interpreted it. But it could also be that they have those choices for a new card. And so what you were saying about the Ink Preferred would make sense

in that it's got a better welcome of us. No, that's a good point. Any other third angles to look at this from Nick in 30 seconds or less? No, so I don't know if anybody mentioned the rumored annual fee increases on both of those cards, but that's something to consider. But I think the rumors are probably that they're both going to go up about the same amount. Yeah. So I don't know that that maybe it wouldn't matter, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Remains to be seen. All right. Well, that's, we're out of time for this week. Thanks so much for joining us. and you can catch us again the first Wednesday of every month

for our Ask Us Anything Live here on YouTube. We will podcastify this shortly and don't forget to like this video. Thanks for joining and everyone, have a good night. If you love travel, you'll love Winging It Travel podcast. Every Monday I share stories from 75 countries from backpacking tips, epic adventures and plenty of travel inspiration. Alongside that,

I host guest interviews every two weeks. Check it out at voyscape.com.