Frequent Miler on the Air - Making lemonade: Should we seek status this year? COVID-19 updates, triple feedback, and more.

Episode Date: March 14, 2020

Greg and Nick discuss the fallout from last week's F-bomb. Greg introduces THREE feedback segments AND offers up a bonus update about Hotel Slash. Nick discusses customer friendly updates from the major hotel chains. Should we take advantage of these changes to seek elite status this year? Timestamps courtesy of Screaming Lincolns on YouTube: 2:51 1st Feedback - SW points DON'T expire 4:33 2nd Feedback - Greg's Hertz points 5:43 3rd Feedback - Timestamps 8:20 Thanks a lot Jerry! 9:20 Hotel Slash Update - no points or elite nights :( 11:35 Toilet Paper Panic 13:18 Travel Company Cancellation Policy Updates 15:31 Hyatt Loyalty Discussion 17:35 Marriott Loyalty Discussion 23:40 Lower Elite Hotel Status Requirements? 32:01 IHG Free Night Certs 34:15 Manufacturing Spend for Hyatt Elite Status? 35:41 Greg's Travel Plans 37:14 Nick's Travel Plans 38:15 Meow 40:23 Points/Miles vs Cashback Discussion 42:44 Better Credit Card Bonuses coming? 43:00 Meow (2) 48:38 Covid's effect on MS 51:19 Simon Mall VGC Stock 53:30 No F-Bomb :(

Welcome to Frequent Miler on the air. This week, well actually this week, we have to get the elephant in the room out of the way right from the get-go. You know what I'm talking about? We do, yeah. We need to figure out whatever you need to confess this week and let everybody know about. We need to just get that out of the way right away. You're close. You're very close. The elephant in the room, I expected you to say the coronavirus. Right. But no, the elephant in the room, I expected you to say the coronavirus. Right.

But no, the elephant in the room is the F-bomb that I dropped last week. Whoops. We had our podcast recording software squad cast just crapped out on us all together. And I dropped the F-bomb not once but twice and we ended up because we had so much content instead of redoing it all we just published the uh both the audio and the video as is with with the f-bombs included i'm going to do my best not to drop any f-bombs this week so that sounds good that sounds very very highly professional of you. Oh, thank you. Your job is to count them. You know, if I get over, if I get more, if I do more than last week, then

just let me know. Thank goodness we're on tape delay. So I guess we could theoretically do something about that. If it happens again. That's true. We could have our sound team edit those out. Right. So that should be good. But, but actually, I mean, our audience, at least those that gave any feedback seem to love it. So,

I mean, it was a rare opportunity to hear something that they probably haven't heard before and likely won't hear soon. So I feel like it was one of those things that you got to hold them back as, as like a special Easter egg type of thing for special occasions. Only those people who are going to timestamp them in the, in us. Thank you, Screamin' Lincolns. That's right. That's right. So guess what? So everybody's kind of bummed out about the coronavirus. Right, right. And since your favorite segment of the show is feedback time. It is. You know how much I love it.

You love it. So that's why today we're going to do triple feedback. Triple feedback. Wow. Triple feedback. Three feedbacks. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I got to strap in and get ready here. You're excited, aren't you? Yeah, we're going on a wild ride here. So I'm curious. I have no idea what to expect. All right.

I have to feel like maybe I should be somewhat worried about this, but. No, no, no. We're trying to inject a dose of normalcy in this weird world we're in right now. Very good. All right. So first feedback, Greg R. I'm going to call him Gregor. It's not me.

It's Gregor. Gregor. Gregor said, did I hear you? This was, I don't think last episode, but maybe the one before that, or maybe even the one before that. Did I hear you say early on frequent miler on the air that Southwest points expire? Didn't Southwest change their policy starting this year so that they never expire they mentioned that we were we were talking about me moving my hertz points to southwest and saying you know you were saying wait isn't it the case you hardly ever fly southwest right and i said well it's easy to keep them alive with any activity but yes gregor's right we don't need to do anything they just don't expire anymore so good catch gregor nice job nice

you know that's something i would have forgotten about because i do tend to earn southwest points every now and then through a shopping portal and that kind of thing but totally forgot great point forgot. Great point. Yes. And so, feedback two is not feedback, but confession one. Confession one. I love confessions. So, this is actually a confession confession. Confession confession. Uh-oh, do I need to get a professional in here? A professional professional could listen to the confession confession. I don't know if I'm qualified for this. Let me explain. What a confession confession is, it means that during a confession, I said something wrong. Ooh.

Or I did something wrong or whatever. So anyway. Do wrongs make a right? In this case, they do. Okay. All right. Let's see. So I confess something about letting the hurts points expire. And I said that I had

initiated a Southwest transfer that said it would be six weeks. And then about a week later, two weeks later, whatever my hurts points expired. And so I lost them. Right. I recall this. So you would think somebody like me before doing a confession like that would have checked his Southwest balance to see if those Hertz points had in fact transferred over to Southwest before that episode. One might have assumed that you had already done that. One might make that reasonable assumption. You'd be wrong. So actually the points are there. I didn't lose anything except the few Hertz points that did not round up to the amount that are transferable.

So, all was good. We wasted a whole confession. So, that's why we had to do a confession confession. Confession confession. Well, I'm glad that we got that cleared up. Yeah, that is good news. It's not a big deal. And I'm happy to know, thanks to Gregor, that I don't have to worry about those points now.

They will never expire. They'll be there forever for you to never ever use them and continue to look at them for all of posterity. So that's really cool. All right. Third feedback time. This one has a part A and B. A and B. Wow.

This is going on forever and ever. We're going to wait out the virus. The virus is going to be gone by the time we finish this. Just by the time we get done with the opening segment. That's right. It sounds good to me. Let's keep that going. First part, I'm going to put you on the spot because you told me about some feedback you got in person about the timestamps, about why they're useful.

Yes, I did. Can you remind us? So just as background, when people suggested that we had timestamps to our podcasts and our videos, we joked like, why would anyone want that? Don't they want to listen to every word of our blabbering? And we went on with our day thinking, they probably do. So we have no idea why they really want these timestamps. But you heard something else. What did you hear? I did.

I did. So, I mean, it logically makes sense that some people want to skip around and skip the things that aren't relevant to them. But I didn't think of a particularly good reason why many people might be interested in the timestamps. Not that I guess whatever your reason is, is not good. But we were at the Travel and Adventure show last weekend, and a listener came up to let us know that he'd been listening to the podcast. And we really appreciate that. It was great getting good feedback from people. But he mentioned that the timestamps are particularly good for him for listen backs. He said that, you know, when he, he listens to the podcast, initially, he might hear something and then a few days later think, Oh, you know, when he he listens to the podcast initially, he might hear something. And then a few days later, think, oh, you know, I want to go back and listen to that again.

And having the timestamps makes it really easy to go back and find exactly what you're looking for when you're like, oh, how did that work again? Oh, I know Greg and Nick talked about that. If I can find that podcast, where is it? Rather than having to listen to the entire hour plus show over again, you can find exactly what you're looking for. Thanks to now having the timestamps in there. So so so that's a really good reason for us to have. Right. And so you told me that that same weekend, you told me about that. And I was relieved to know that our audience does like to hear all of our blabbering on. And not only that, they want to go back and listen to it again, pieces of our blabbering, which I could totally understand.

I get that. I mean, as long as you've heard the entire not every joke is funny i wouldn't go there but you know sometimes you just don't want to hear the same joke again anyway um okay so that's part a so that's good so then wednesday night miles and points meet up in ann arbor we have them the second wednesday of every month and jerry uh came up to tell me how much he enjoys our podcast so that was very nice and then he said he said he loves that we've been adding the time stamps because sometimes he's just not interested in a topic and likes to jump to whatever topic he's interested in so jerry proved to me there are some people that enjoy the podcast,

but don't like listening to all our blabbering even once. So thanks a lot, Jerry. Thanks a lot, Jerry. Yeah. You know who you are, Jerry. You know who you are. We appreciate how you just went right now. Go right past our babbling.

No, he's not listening, Jerry, because the timestamp's in there. He skipped this part. He's not even going to hear it. Maybe we need a timestamp that says Jerry's feedback, something like that. Okay. Thanks for that, Screamin' Lincoln. Before we move on to the main topic, which, surprise, is going to be about coronavirus before we move on to that a little note about one thing we've talked about before hotel slash we talked about hotel slash and now

i had used it to watch a reservation uh it turns out now that entire trip to england is canceled so that it doesn't really matter for me personally anymore but in the course of using it i did get a couple emails saying they found better price but there's two butts there the better price they found was just the same prepaid rate that i could have booked initially uh so yes it was cheaper same hotel date, but I already knew that. The other but is we thought that this was probably true, but we weren't sure that you won't be able to book directly with Marriott if you go through their links. And that's true. It takes you to a third party, you know, booking through them, which books it as a third party, so you won't earn points.

I even just asked them about it to double check. And they said, well, you could add your, you could, you know, go to the hotel and add your, sorry, your Marriott number to the reservation, and you may or may not get, you know, elite benefits. That's true. That does sometimes happen on third party bookings that you could get elite benefits. I don't know of any cases where you'd earn points though in that situation, certainly won't earn elite nights. So that's kind of a bummer, but just wanted to update the audience about that. Thank you for the update on that. Yeah, that's too bad. I hope that I hope they take a look at that and see if they can find a way to make it work with booking direct, if they can find a way to earn a commission and and make that happen and or a paid service because i'd definitely be interested in supporting them but yeah bummer to hear that they have to do it that

way right right so anyway just uh closing the loop on that uh now i don't know you you live in a small town maybe you haven't noticed anything's different around you. But I went to Target today. And for the most part, everything was normal. Most of the aisles were normal. The customers seemed like normal amount of customers. But the toilet paper aisle completely cleared out. I mean, not a shred, not one square of toilet paper aisle completely cleared out yeah i mean not a shred not one square of toilet paper anywhere to be seen so so we now know america's greatest fear being stuck in the bathroom without toilet paper out of each other paper right we're so far behind

the times on that, aren't we? We are. I mean, the French had this licked years ago with their bidets, right? Right. And then the Japanese perfected them. And so what are we doing with this huge run on toilet paper? No, I mean, you mentioned living in a rural area and you're right. Living in a rural area means there is less of that craziness than in other places.

But the toilet paper is out of the grocery store in my little town of a thousand people, too. So, yeah, it's kind of crazy, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, not only do you get an idea of how much practice helps them because it just wasn't funny, most of it, but it was just weird and eerie watching that watching the show and that's just one of the dozens many many examples of how we're it's almost like a post-apocalyptic time but mixed in with going about our daily lives just like we were before and you know it's a combination but uh yeah it's it's just it's just crazy but but for us it, it's having some effects on loyalty programs. And so, you've written a few posts about what Hyatt's doing, what IHG is doing, what Marriott's doing.

Do you want to sort of give us an overview of what that is and how that's affecting us? And then we'll talk about the ramifications. Sure. Yeah. In fact, we posted this week an entire resource post of the coronavirus cancellation policies of various travel companies. So there's one resource that I'm continuously updating. I've updated it several times today, the day that we're taping this, as things have continued

to change. So I have cruise company cancellation policies and hotels and airlines and even StubHub and Viter for people who have booked tours and tickets and whatnot. So there are a lot of different things to consider if you've got travel plans that are kind of up in the air. But in the last 24 hours before we've recorded this, there have been some significant updates. So IHG has updated their elite status qualification requirements for the year, slashing them by, in some cases, about 25% in terms of the number of nights or points you need to earn in order to get IHG elite status

for next year. Then better yet, Hyatt announced that they are going to hold off on introducing peak and off-peak pricing until 2021. That was scheduled to go into effect March 22nd, 2020. So just about 10, 9, 10, 8 days, something like another week or so from now, it was supposed to go into effect, but- That's a big deal. Yeah. They've decided to pause that until 2021. That's a huge deal. Not only did they decide to delay the introduction of peak and off-peak pricing, they also decided to only have five properties change category this year. So as opposed to the hundred and something that they were originally announced to be changing category, only five properties are changing category.

And I think I just just based on the names without actually knowing all the locations, I think like three of those five are in China. So I think that probably for most US-based members, it's not going to be a big deal in terms of those five that are changing. And they're not even all going up. The Park Hyatt Majorca is decreasing in category. So some good news there. Right. So just a couple of things about that that struck me odd.

One was like why they thought it was necessary to do those five at all you know it just seems like a strange decision like what was going on in their back offices that they said well we're going to waive all the changes except for these five especially since a few of them are in china and went up when the prices for those hotels if they're even bookable at all, have to have gone down, if anything. I was very surprised. I figured that the ownership groups of those hotels must have really lobbied hard for a bigger piece of revenue from Hyatt. They must not have been happy or must have been willing to leave if they weren't able to get some sort of better compensation for award nights.

Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. That's really odd. The other thing that occurred to me is it sounds like they're being nice to us to delay the peak and off-peak, but probably the truth is that we would have almost a year of off-peak bookings had they actually gone forward with it. And so, maybe it's actually a customer unfriendly move in a way. That's true.

That's a good point. Yeah, I definitely assume that the delay of that was because of the huge decrease in demand. But that's a great point that the huge decrease in demand may have led to opportunity for us to book lots of off-peak nights. So that's a good point. Although I'll be happy that's a good point. Although, I'll be happy that the places that are in demand, especially if and when this coronavirus situation kind of gets under control and passes by us, I'll be happy that there is not peak pricing on some of those more desirable properties, at least for a little while. So, I think it's a net win,

especially if you're going to look to book's a net win, especially if you're going to look to book travel late in 2021, because if they're not going to introduce peak and off peak until 2021, that means this December, you'll be able to book stuff for December 2021, which- That's true. Very good point. Being able to book that at standard rates, I think will be a win for people looking to travel, especially- Right. In the meantime, you could be looking at i doubt it will have taken effect yet because marriott evaluates their peak and off peak monthly

supposedly but probably by next month you could look to your late summer and fall plans and probably see and winter plans maybe even over christmas and see uh the most desirable hotels maybe will be off peak iak. I don't know. Maybe. It's a little hard to predict at this point, although I have to imagine, you know, we said last week and we said at the Travel and Adventure Show and people asked us that I imagine that we're going to see a huge spike in cases of coronavirus in the United States once the kit becomes widely available. And when that happens, I can't think that there's going to be more toilet paper on the shelves at Target. So I just imagine there's going to be a greater panic and that probably will not lead to greater bookings. So in turn, I think what you're saying

is absolutely correct. I think we'll see more and more deals, cheap rates and off-peak pricing as time goes on. And along with that, Marriott announced today that they are improving their cancellation policies. So for existing bookings for arrival through April 30th, they are updating the cancellation policy to 24 hours in advance. And that's true even if you have an advance purchase prepaid rate. So if you have a vacation that you booked and prepaid for next month, it's booked on the schedule for sometime in april 2020 you can now cancel that up to 24 hours in advance so that's a very that that really weirdly makes me wish that i had that i had booked that prepaid rate that cheaper you know night that when we were talking about hotel slash um just so that i could now cancel it because i'm not doing

my job like there's no point in that at all but but I don't know. It's like, I want to take advantage of that new cancellation policy. Man, I wish I had a several thousand dollar booking. I could cancel 24 hours in advance. And additionally, not only is it for existing reservations, but also now if you make a new reservation by April 30th, you'll be able to cancel it up to 24 hours in advance too. And that is presumably for all reservations through the end of the schedule based on the way it's worded. So it's not entirely clear to me whether that new policy will also apply to advanced purchase rates. Although, again, the way it's written, I think you could certainly take it to mean that it counts

for all rates booked before April 30th. So as long as you make your booking before April 30th, you should be able to travel at any time and cancel up to 24 hours in advance. There was no stipulation in terms of geography for your reservation. So I took it to mean that it should be applicable for properties worldwide, even those properties that typically have pretty restrictive cancellation policies. So that's also a nice benefit in terms of giving you peace of mind to make new reservations. It sure is. I mean, maybe we should just be booking every possible combination of dates and hotels that exist.

That's what Marriott would like you to do. They just don't want you to cancel them. They're going to let you cancel them. They don't want you to. And then in addition to that, if you have free night certificates from your credit cards or you have travel package certificates or you have free night certificates from the choice benefit, if you hit 75 nights and you picked a free 40K night, those types of certificates are all getting extended until

January 31st of 2021. That is, if they were set to expire during 2020, they will now expire January 31st of 2021. And if you have sweet night award upgrades, those sweet night upgrades that you can select as a 50 night benefit or a 75 night benefit with Marriott. If you have any of those that are scheduled to expire at the end of 2020, they will now be valid until December 31st of 2021. So you're going to get a whole nother year to use those suite upgrades. So I think that was actually maybe my favorite piece of that. Yeah. I mean, the extension of the free night certificates isn't necessarily a huge deal because they were already letting people call up and extend them. But if people had already extended a certificate, it's often much harder than to get them to do it again.

And so that's a situation where I think people will be celebrating. And then I'm certainly happy. I was kind of regretting that I had picked 10 suite upgrade awards. And now the fact that it'll extend a whole nother year is actually really awesome for me. I mean, because I would have been really reaching to figure out how to use them as is, even without the coronavirus making me cancel a lot of trips. But yeah, now getting a whole nother year. That's awesome. Yeah, that is. And I think it's particularly good for people who did take 10, who took five at 50 nights

and five more at 75 nights, because I think, like you said, A, it's somewhat difficult to use those because they don't work like the Hyatt Upgrade Awards. If you're not familiar with the Marriott ones, they only start searching for availability on those five days in advance. So if you book something right now for August, they aren't even going to start looking for upgrade availability until five days before you check in in August. And then if they don't find any, then you've still got your five nights and they expire at the end of the year. So it makes it kind of hard to justify applying far in advance.

And then you can't always use them. They don't always clear. Also, there's certain hotels that they just don't work on at all. They don't work on any Ritz properties, for example. But then there's also some individual properties that say the suite upgrades don't apply here. And so, yeah, it's... So they can be challenging to use. So getting a whole nother year, that's good news. That's great news. Yes.

Yeah, that's great news. And for people who are still going to end up traveling this year and do end up earning more than you may have enough for a longer awards day next year. I only took five of those suite nights last year, and that's probably enough for a longer award stay next year. I only took five of those sweet nights last year. And that's probably enough for me. But I have also thought if I wanted to stay seven nights somewhere, of course, I can't use five of those for a seven night stay, you have to have enough to cover every night of your stay. Whereas now if I were to earn five more this year, I could use them on a longer stay. So that's true, potentially appealing for next year.

We'll see. I mean, I don't necessarily think that I will earn any, but I guess it depends on what Marriott does with elite status qualifications. And we haven't seen anything from them yet. So Hilton and Hyatt have both said that they intend to probably, not even probably, I think that they intend to adjust elite status qualification requirements, but they say it's too early to know exactly what that adjustment will be, which I think is completely fair. It is kind of early to figure out what that's going to look like. I find this kind of exciting.

So, you know, I already have 20 some nights with Hyatt this year. You need 60 to get to Globalist which is the target i mean it's not even it it's not even worth going for hyatt elite status i think unless you're going to get to globalist and that's a long way but if they drop it down to i don't know what do you think 40 maybe that that is likely uh uh you know we'll see what they do. Yeah, it really depends on how long this ends up lasting. Because, you know, if corporate travel bans continue for two months, three months, it'll start to get kind of dicey in terms of, you know, and then so if your company bans travel for the next two or three months, and then they start to allow travel again, they're probably not going to just open the floodgates and have everybody travel all the time. So I feel like in order to get people to stay enough, they really are going to have to slash it quite a bit. And the longer they wait, obviously, I think the more they're going to need to slash it. So I think 40 seems reasonable. I don't know. We'll see it. It could be even less.

Yeah, we'll see. And then on the Marriott side, what I'm hoping, since I have titanium status now, I'm hoping that they will basically say, we're extending your status another year. Do you think they'll do that? Whatever your current status is. I have no idea if they'll do it. I'm just saying what I'm hoping. What you're hoping. You're hoping you don't have to spend any nights in Marriott. You can just get the top tier status. And just keep the status. And that titanium will keep me in United Silver as well. Right.

I mean, that would be very nice. I won't disagree with you. Do you think there's any chance that United and Marriott will do something different? Do you think, for example, there's any chance that United will extend your status even if Marriott doesn't? That's possible. That's definitely possible. Yeah. You know, United's on severe cost-cutting mode, but I don't think extending status, you know,

is particularly cost them much of anything. So I think that's, you know, theoretically possible. Sure. Yeah. I think it's more likely that we'll see that from airlines than from hotel programs. I don't know what to expect. I think the hotel programs obviously will reduce the requirements. They want to encourage people to stay. But I think that you made a great point there in saying that I don't think that elite status costs the airline

very much. They're going to only upgrade you to a seat that was going to be empty. They're not going to upgrade you into a seat that somebody was going to buy, generally speaking. So, upgrades aren't really a big deal for them. They're just filling a seat that's going to get filled one way or another and trying to make a loyal customer happy. And there aren't very many benefits in terms of priority check-in and things like that. They don't have a very measurable expense for the airline, but they add some measurable positive experience for a person flying. Whereas with hotels, it's a little different. The loyalty program is a little bit more expensive for them, I imagine, in providing breakfast at some of these nice places and lounge access and whatnot

that must cost something, obviously more, I would assume anyway, than the elite benefits for airlines. And I also think, I've heard a lot of people saying that they hope that the same thing that you do, I mean, same thing that we all do, I'm sure, that Marriott will just extend status through the end of next year or Hyatt will extend everybody's status. Well, yeah, to be clear, because I don't have the Hyatt status yet, I'm hoping they lower the requirements. I don't care whether they extend it for existing leads. But for Marriott, where I already have it, yeah, I want to. That's your hobby, right. Yeah, just to be clear.

Everybody's in that boat. Well, you know, and before I even make my point, another good related point there is that if and when Hyatt does reduce status, that's awesome for credit card enthusiasts, right? Because that's just going to make it easier to spend your way to status too. So even if you're not going to complete the, let's say drop it to 40 nights, even if you're not going to complete 40 nights, you are definitely going to do 15k spend on that card. So you were definitely going to get six nights of credit on the card right from the get go plus the free night certificate. Use that, you get seven nights. Well, plus you get five nights automatically just for having the card. So you're at 12 right there. Plus you've already

done 20 or 30 something. I mean, really easy to spend the rest just for having the card. So you're at 12 right there, plus you've already done 20 or 30 something. I mean, really easy to spend the rest of the way to status. Oh, definitely. So I think that that's hopefully going to be exciting news for people with a higher credit card anyway. But in terms of any chain, just extending elite status for another year, it sounds really nice in theory. But at the same time, they need to do something to encourage people to stay in those hotels this year. So if they just extend everybody's status for free, that's totally against the point for them, right? I mean, the whole purpose for them is to stay in business,

to stay afloat, to keep these hotels in business. Yeah, but I don't want you arguing against what I want to happen here. I mean, it's a nice dream. I share your dream. I want my status extended to Marriott. If you're listening, extend my titanium status. Thank you. Well, so Marriott is known for offering soft landings. So if you have titanium and you don't re-up it next year, you'll have platinum, even if you didn't stay with Marriott at all during the year.

So I don't think it's no it's not written in stone it's not written in stone but i don't know of any cases where they haven't done that but um no i just mean usually in years past they've done it next year they probably will so it feels to me like more likely with marriott than than hyatt for example who doesn't do those soft landings just because it's sort of like a softer landing. That's reasonable. It's reasonable. I feel like it would be hard for them to announce it in advance because as soon as one of these chains announces that they're just going to extend everybody's status, then there's no reason for you to have to stay in that chain anymore.

So it's like the total opposite of the purpose of the loyalty program. The whole purpose of the loyalty program is to make you choose their hotels. But as soon as they tell everybody, oh, we're extending your status, then you've got no reason to choose them, except for the benefits, of course. But you don't feel any pressure to book any trips with them this year. And that's obviously not their end goal, especially as they need to keep people employed and hotels open. That's a good depressing point you made um so if we hear anything it'll be at the end of the year most likely i think yeah if they're going to extend people like for free so to speak i can't imagine them announcing that anytime soon

if i could see them i'm not even here by the end of the year might hear like in 2021 right when you know that i stopped wait my status didn't drop. And they're like, yeah, okay, you know, lucky you, kind of a thing. Yeah, I think it's more likely that we would see it that way if they're going to do that. And I think that there likely

will be a reduced status quo. Unless they just want a big goodwill gesture. I don't... You know how Marriott is. Right, right, right, right. Let's imagine that they weren't how I know they are. Let's imagine they wanted the goodwill gesture. Still, their owners don't want that goodwill of

a gesture, that good of a gesture. Hotel owners, while, you know, surely many of them have made handsome profits over the years, many of the smaller ones I'm sure are hurting right now. So, oh, no doubt. No doubt. And so what we haven't seen yet, but I'm sure are hurting right now so oh no doubt no doubt um and so what we haven't seen yet but i'm sure we will is is those big bonuses and things incentives for staying at hotels i think that's inevitable but it's too soon they they need time to figure out how bad is this before they develop a marketing campaign and so i think I think they're just hunkering down right now, reacting. It's going to be a while, probably months maybe before they are proactive about trying to get people back in the doors.

Yeah. Well, and you made a good point in saying that it's too soon. And this actually came up a couple of times in the last few days. And then I just saw somebody mention something in Frequent Miler Insiders a little while ago that was relevant. So I've had quite a few people who've asked me, has IHG extended their free night certificates yet? If you have a credit card free night certificate expiring, have they extended that yet? And we haven't heard anything about that yet.

But in response to it a couple of times, I said, let's be patient because obviously they've already made some changes to elite status qualification requirements. I think it's likely that they'll do something with the free night certificates too. You just might have to give them 10 minutes to make a decision as to what to do and figure out a technological implementation for that. And there's a lot of steps along the way. And in fact, somebody commented in Frequent Miler Insiders, totally unrelated situation with AA, where they were trying to cancel a booking that fits within the latest updated requirements for canceling with AA. But the thing is, AA has changed those requirements. I mean, all the airlines have a few times in the last week. So of course, when they got through to an agent, the agent didn't think that the booking qualified because

they were thinking about the requirements from like two days ago. And so it required getting a supervisor and extra time and blah, blah, blah. And it's a good reminder that it's hard to A, make the right decisions, then B, implement how those decisions happen, and then C, try to train hundreds or thousands of customer service employees on whatever today's decision is. So we do have to have a little bit of patience, I think, in terms of you know the companies coming out with those solutions because i think they will i think like you said there are going to be big changes and things announced and already we've seen some we're going to see more

but we got to be a little bit patient with it right right but uh before we get off the top of ihg and while we have their ear because they they're listening, I assume. Listening, IHG. Obviously. You know, in addition to extending it. They don't use the timestamps. They listen to the whole thing. Once you're mucking around extending the expiration dates on these certificates, also take off that 40K cap. You know, just this one time. Just one time. That's a goodwill gesture.

That's right. Just take away that cap. Think of the goodwill. If you didn't used to have that cap, just take it away this one time. You don't really need it. Thank you you think of the good press you'll get you get all sorts of great mentions on frequent miler we we promise we will we will talk about how great your program is for uh poster at least four or five okay that would be very nice that'd be very so what other opportunities are there going to be you know we mentioned just now the potential for there to be an opportunity in terms of

manufacturing Hyatt Elite status if they reduce the requirements at some point. Yeah, I think I think, you know, I think everybody needs to be watching for that. So even if if Hyatt top tier elite status wasn't on your radar before, I think assuming they drop the requirements significantly, which we don't know yet if they will, but if they do, you know, I think people should be looking at that because you can then get status this year that lasts all of next year. And then if you're lucky, they'll continue to do that thing that they did at the end of 2019, where they gave people with top tier Hyatt status, they gave them top tier American airline, well, not top tier, but a executive platinum status,

which is an awesome status that has all kinds of great benefits, including global upgrade certificates, you can book a cheap coach ticket to Asia, and have it upgraded to business class. And so, you know, I do think, I think this is one time where there may be some great opportunity, even if you weren't planning on seeking status, this might be the year for doing it. And we'll see. We'll see how that plays out. Right. Well, so now you say this might be the year for doing it. And we'll see. We'll see how that plays out. Right. Well, so now you say this might be the year for doing it and you sound excited about that. So, I mean, is this coronavirus thing not affecting your travel plans at all? Have you? Oh my gosh. It's absolutely affecting my travel plans. Yeah. So, what are you thinking about? And are you planning any future travel? And if yes, when?

Well, so most things are on hold so i had a trip to england uh scheduled for a couple weeks from now that got canceled um we have a whole lot of travel that we hadn't booked yet for may and june um which we are sort of putting on hold and booking anything. There's actually one trip, though, end of May, beginning of June, that is booked. And that we're just going to have to kind of wait and see where things go with that. I mean, that's to Europe. And so we'll see. We'll see how things are. And hopefully it's all easily cancelable when the time comes, if the time comes.

But that's kind of where we're at. We're not actively looking for travel right now. And part of it's not really being scared of it as much as being responsible citizens. So, we don't want to be, you know, vectors for transmitting it. And so, you know, the less we go about, you know, traveling, the less we'll be part of the problem, I think. So, how about you? Yeah, I mean, it definitely is. I'm in a position where I haven't got anything booked. I don't have any flights booked at all. It's weird, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. It's really weird. I can't remember a time in years where I haven't had a single speculative trip of some sort booked. So I just don't. I guess I have a couple of hotel reservations that I made long, long ago that weren't for trips that I necessarily intended to take. Uh, but they were, I doubt I'll take any of them. Um, but in terms of flights, none at all and none initially planned, although I am starting to look at January, February travel of 2021. So I'd like to go somewhere warmer in the wintertime. And I expect that things will have

changed by then. And if not, then hopefully that, you know, we'll be in the position to be able to change or cancel if, if, uh, if by some crazy chance, this thing continues that far. Uh, but I did start to take a look and try to find places that I might be able to travel to. And specifically, I was looking at places where in January, perhaps I could use suite night upgrades for Marriott. So I was actually just looking at that before they announced that they're going to extend those suite night upgrades. So now maybe I'll hold off on traveling until February or March-ish of next year. But yeah, I don't have any immediate plans. I mean, that's not to say that I won't travel anywhere. I may travel someplace

over the next few months, but I don't have any immediate plans to do it. Though, on the flip side, I'm happy to collect points and pad my balances in the meantime. So now that I've said that, now that I put that out there, I have to ask you then, is it time to forget about points? Should we all just be hoarding cash back? I mean, I don't know if you have any investments, but my goodness, every time I go to look at my investments right before lunch, I am on a great diet because I am not in the mood to eat after the last few days. So, as far as investments go, I try not to look. I believe in the invest for the long term. I just put everything in different types of index funds, ETFs, or money markets and just let it go.

And so far, that's served me well. It's a great strategy. It's going to continue to serve you well as long as you don't look in the next few weeks. So should we be concentrating on more cash back? Yeah, well, let me tell you first before I answer that, that my intended investment plan over the next while is to buy into more stocks on probably a weekly basis. My thinking is we don't know when the stock market's going to hit the bottom, but by buying in weekly for a while, I'm likely to have at least bought some at or near the bottom. And then when it goes back up, I think it will, then I'll be sitting pretty with those investments. That's my kind of high-level plan with my cash reserves. Not all of my cash reserves. I'll definitely keep some as cash. But yeah, no, I think this is the time to reevaluate whether investing in points and miles is the right way to go. I'm still pretty bullish about you know where our points and miles can take us

although I certainly wouldn't be investing in like Norwegian rewards right now you know any program where you think there's even a chance that they'll go under those all those points will be gone and so you know you gotta

think about that but but for the most part you know I think especially when we're talking about transferable points currencies, I don't think Chase is going anywhere. I don't think Amex is going anywhere, Citi. So in those cases, I think it's perfectly legitimate to keep earning those rewards. But keep in mind, those rewards are best used for travel. And if you're thinking, I just don't want to, you know, I'm not excited about travel, I'm not interested in thinking about travel, maybe you should be thinking about cashback

or rewards that are equally valuable for merchandise or for gas or what have you, so that you can then be earning things that actually are meaningful to you. Right? I mean, Maybe. I can certainly see the argument to be made there. I don't think I'm going to take that approach because for me, I look at it and I say, well, part of the reason I haven't planned any travel for this year, I've said to people as they've asked me about it is, you know, Paris will still be there in 2021. I said the other day that I don't think the Pacific Islands are going under the ocean anytime soon. I'm going to be there in the future at some point. I know I'm going to travel. And even if it doesn't end up being next year, even if by some crazy chance,

this coronavirus thing sticks around for a long time, for a year, for two years, and becomes a huge pandemic that continues for a while, I know eventually there'll come a time where I'll travel again. So I'm willing to collect points for that future time. But I certainly can see some people who are going to be a little bit more nervous and rightfully so in some regards and perhaps more cautious in terms of international travel. And I think that for many of us, we should be looking at cashback also anyway. That should be part of your points earning strategy. So maybe this is a good encouragement to go after some of those cashback bonuses, to go after some of those cards that earn good amounts of cashback. But, but, and here's a big but, and it's a question that I have for you. hold off on that for like another month or two here because as a recession hits i don't know do you think we're going to see bigger welcome bonuses or or or do you think that's bad advice do you think people should go after what they can now what do you think yeah so my guess and

you know this is just a guess, is that I think that most of the sign-up bonuses are already pretty high. And I don't think we're going to be seeing a lot of change on that front. What I think we'll see are travel, not credit card necessarily but travel related promotions that offer lots of points that's where i think the big bonuses will be i think you know um

stay in um three different brands and get 30 000 points or those kind of things uh i think that's the kind of bonus to expect at least in the next few months. That's my guess that I just don't see the bank. So I don't see the bank spending a lot more to acquire customers in this environment. But again, just my guess. Well, I mean, and it certainly may be a good guess. I didn't necessarily have a basis for

mine apart from the fact that I, and I wasn't playing the game at that point, but I get the impression that after the 2008 recession, that eventually there came a time where we started to see more generous bonuses. That's the impression I have. But again, I don't have historical data because I wasn't actually playing the points and miles game at that point in time. So I don't know, maybe you remember better than I do in terms of whether that led to an increase in offers from banks or not, and maybe it didn't. So. You know, I don't remember that far back. I got into this game in a big way in 2011, about midway in 2011. And what I know from that point on is that i think that the on average signup bonuses have gotten better on average like we did back then see the occasional 100k offer but it was

it was a real big surprise when we saw that kind of thing. These days, it's not that unusual to see them. And having airline cards offering 70K or 75Ks, we've become used to that. Whereas my understanding is that, so when I started, 50K was very common. But my understanding is that five years before that, 25K was the norm. And so I, it's been creeping up all this time. Well, in part, because we've seen devaluations over time, those points have become less valuable. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Part of that's just inflation, I think. But, but part of it could be you're right, we could be reaching the limits as to the generosity of the banks in terms of what they're willing to offer or what they think they

need to offer in order to encourage people to, up. Because really, that's what it comes down to, what they think they need to offer to encourage people to sign up for more cards. And I don't know. I don't know if they'll have to increase that or not, because I guess I'm just not sure what to expect long term in terms of recession. Like you, I share that point of view that eventually things will turn around. And though I made the joke about investments, I have bought several different stocks this week because I have the same kind of thought that you do, that I'd like to get in at least when things are somewhere near the bottom in that vicinity rather than by the top. And surely I bought some stuff at the top. So I've got to average things out here a little bit. So I do have faith that things will

turn around, that this won't last forever in terms of the economic impact. But at the same time, we're seeing some pretty unprecedented economic impacts already in short term. So I'm curious to see how that all play out over the next few months. I guess it's hard for anybody to predict. It is, it is. But, you know, and as far as whether to go for cashback mostly or keep also earning points and miles, I think, you know, I'm in the same camp as you that I know I'm going to be traveling again. And so, continuing to earn the points and miles is still a thing for me. And so but, and so it doesn't change the fact that I decided years ago that in programs where I already have, uh, a huge stash of points, I should be, uh, you know, erring towards earning cash back instead, uh, because the incremental

value of getting more points in one program is not as good as the value in getting that, you know, the first amount that you need to get that first class flight to wherever you're going. Right, right. So, and I think if you're in, at the opposite end of the spectrum, if you're not in Greg's shoes, if you're in a place where you don't have the number of points where you could basically more or less book whatever flight or first class kind of experience you want to, I think it does potentially open up a great opportunity now to earn points, whether that be through welcome bonuses or category spend, or hopefully, like Greg said,

hopefully we'll see some great promotions where you'll get a chance to help yourself meet spending bonuses and earn more points. Maybe we'll even see some short-term increases in terms of what you can earn with various cards along the way. I don't know that we'll see that, but you never know. So I think there'll be some opportunities in terms of earning those points and miles and earning them well for the people that need to build up their balances. So that's fairly exciting. Though on the flip side, is this going to change manufactured spending? Are people going to be afraid to go out and buy their Visa gift cards and buy their money orders? Is that going to be a concern for people? I don't know.

Is it going to change your manufactured spending routines? Well, you know that I personally do most of the stuff for my home, so it certainly doesn't change things for me. But, you know, I think in a way for people who are hurting financially, they might actually be better off doing more manufactured spending because you're earning you could be earning really good way to, you know, reduce the pain if you're not getting the work that you're used to getting because of the current situation. But for those of us who are still plugging away at whatever we're doing, like us, I don't see how this really changes things. I'm not scared to go to the mall, for example, to buy gift cards. I guess I'd be surprised if too many people are because, you know, just bring hand sanitizer with you and make sure you use it after you touch anything or anybody. All right. So now I'm going to go on the flip side of that and say that I didn't break the flipping with that because I'm pretty sure that the doctors who've gotten it and died had some hand sanitizer. So I don't think it's died had some hand sanitizers.

So, I don't think it's necessarily quite as simple as that. So, I think, you know. yeah, but they were probably also much closer

to patients who are infected than we are to the Simon Mall gift card person. Well, I'm not necessarily worried

about the Simon Mall gift card person, but obviously, there's a lot of different surfaces there. This thing's been pretty highly transmissible. So, you know, true, true, true. And I don't know.

I mean, I'm not sure right now. It's not changed my routine much in terms of still going to the store. I probably will still go to the mall to pick up gift cards if need be. I'll still get packages at home, but it certainly is in my mind all of this. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, people can still order from giftcardmall.com and giftcards.com and, you know, make sure you click through a portal and get your 1% cash back or even better, click through the Rakuten portal with your setting to earn membership rewards. And that way you're earning one point per dollar on top of your

credit card rewards. And that's a pretty good deal. And then it just comes to your house. And so you could do that. Now liquidating them, that's another story. Right. Because that requires typically for most of us anyway. For most people, yeah. You have to go somewhere to use them up. Right. Yeah. So that's going to be something that people are going to have to consider. Also, you know,

this week we reported on the blog that Simon mall in some locations has been running out of stock. And so we'd received a report from somebody in frequent miler insiders and then a report from somebody at the travel and adventure show last weekend, Aaron over at award travel one Oh one that, that, that some malls are running out of stock and, and aren't expected to receive stock again for a while. So we reached out to our contacts at Simon Corporate who confirmed that indeed some malls are out of stock or perhaps some are nearly out of stock.

Not all malls, of course. There are plenty of malls that have enough stock, too. So I don't want to create a run in the bank here and scare anybody. But some malls are out of stock of the $1,000 visa gift cards, that is to say, and will be until presumably late April, early May. They hope to have that restocked by early May at the latest. So more cards are going to be coming. And there was a question, somebody asked, oh, are they sourced in China? And Simon Mall already said that that's not the case. So hopefully those will come back. But in the meantime, in the short term, some people may have some trouble manufactured

spending from that angle in terms of receiving supply. And now that I say that out loud, I don't know where the finite supply might end for other things. I mean, like we've said, toilet paper is gone everywhere and I don't really understand why. So at some point, might people run out of stock and visa gift cards? I't know so that could also be an issue that that comes into play and you know i'm not saying go out there and buy every visa gift card you see but uh but you know may you may want to buy sooner rather than later i guess so so you know talking about the toilet paper in conjunction with the gift cards reminded me of a April Fool's post I did years ago where it was a virtual credit card, I think it was, where each square was like your one-time use card. So you'd pull it off the toilet paper roll and use it.

Oh, right, right, right. I don't know. I need to dig that thing up so you know those cards are also in short supply good to know good to know all right so we hit most of the major topics i think right is it well yes yes indeed we did hit most of the major topics this week which would ordinarily bring us to the final segment of the podcast, the question of the week. But unfortunately, we had a technical snafu and became disconnected. And unfortunately, therefore, our conversation ended a little bit prematurely.

But fear not, we'll have a question of the week coming up next week on our frequent miler on the air podcast in the meantime if you want to check out more about what we've been talking about today you want to read a little bit more and find out how you can subscribe to find out about all of the new content we post each week head to the frequent miler.com forward slash subscribe that's the frequent miler.com forward slash subscribe and you can get our emails and join our Facebook group and find out every time we post a new video or podcast. Thank you guys very much for listening. And we look forward to seeing you again next week.