Frequent Miler on the Air - Million Mile Madness' home stretch. It's all over but the voting | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep282 | 11-22-24

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Greg, Nick, and Stephen are spent the last two weeks competing to satisfy the SAS EuroBonus Millionaire promo with the most style, affordability, and speed. If you've been following along by reading their journal posts, you know that this was a much harder task than they bargained for and they relied on reader input along the way. We've got some cool prizes planned for the reader who was most helpful including certificates to cover five free Hilton hotel nights and more! But to determine that winner, we need your help deciding which traveler achieved the goal with the most SAS! Cast your vote here! (00:22) - SAS offering 1 million miles to anyone who registers and flies 15 qualifying SkyTeam airlines (01:00) - FM turned it into a team challenge: (02:50) - During the challenge the team met live on Youtube a couple of times. There we recapped what we'd achieved to-date and the judges awarded us interim scores. (03:30) - Catch up on the live check-in recordings during the Million Mile Madness challenge Cast your vote here! (1:21:00) - Wrap up of Nick's final travel days after the last live check-in (1:24:38) - We will host a final livestream on Tuesday November 26th PM ET where final scores will be announced. Subscribe and Follow Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media. Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did City do this week? It's time for Mattress Running the Numbers. Ready for the main event? The main event. Frequent Miler on the air starts now. Today's main event, Million Mile Madness' home stretch. It's all over but the voting.

Scandinavian Airlines, or SAS as I'll call them from now on, is offering a million miles to anyone who first registers for this promotion and then flies 15 qualifying SkyTeam airlines. Now, we have to not just fly them, but earn SAS miles on those flights. So they have to be paid flights and earn SAS miles on those flights. So they have to be paid flights and earn SAS miles for those flights. You could alternatively use SAS miles to book the flights, but none of us have SAS miles. So that's not in the running for us.

Anyway, that's the SAS promotion. And the Frequent Miler team turned that into a team challenge that we call Million Mile Madness. In this challenge, Nick, Stephen, and I have been competing to complete the SAS Euro Bonus Millionaire promotion with the most SAS, the most speed, affordability, and style. Tim and Kerry are the judges. They're awarding points for each of those criteria, speed, affordability, and style. And they're also awarding us bonus points for a number of different things. Listeners, viewers, readers are going to have the ability to weigh in by voting for who had the best trip overall for completing the SAS promotion. And that's going to amount to about one fourth of our total score. So it will be

most likely the deciding vote, if you will, on who wins this challenge on our team. And I was looking back at what we've done so far. And interestingly, all three of us, Nick, Stephen, and I focused on two of the three criteria to maximize our trips. So, for example, Nick focused on affordability and style, but he forgot all about speed. He's still in the air as I record this. Stephen focused on speed and affordability, and I focused on speed and style. So, you know, it's just really fascinating how we all took different approaches to these three things. Anyway, during the challenge, the team met live on YouTube a couple times. There we recapped what we were up

to, to date, and the judges awarded us interim scores. There was lots of entertaining banter there. We will now, for this podcast, play the recordings from those live streams. At the end, I'm going to give you a quick update to what has gone on since then. Specifically, what has Nick been up to since then? And in case you don't make it through the whole show, please, please, please, please stop by our blog, frequentmiler.com, to cast your vote as to who you think deserves to win this challenge. You'll see the opportunity to vote there. There will be a post that has summaries of our trips and a little paragraph from each of us saying why we deserve to win. And now, without further ado, the No Longer Live livestream recordings.

First things first, welcome to the second live check-in during the Million Mile Madness. Greg, Nick, and Steven are all going mad trying to fly 15 different SkyTeam carriers. Succeeded. Not in the 15, but in going mad. Yes, succeeded at going mad. Trying to do it all in a two-week span. We are about halfway, almost halfway through that two-week span. They're at various stages of that journey.

So in this check-in, we're going to find out what stage they're at. Yeah. So let's start with doing recaps with the two of you that are here. We'll start with Greg and then go on to Steven. Just as a reminder, let us know where you are. But so Greg, last we saw you, last we saw both of you, you were in the Hilton Charles de Gaulle Airport on different floors. So what's happened since then? Wow. Okay. So much has happened since then. But my brain is so fried. Forgive me if I forget like half of it.

So I was in Paris and I jumped on a Etihad First Apartments flight to Abu Dhabi and had an incredible flight. Um, anyone for anyone watching or listening that isn't familiar with Etihad first apartments, it's one of the, uh, highest luxury things you can, you can do in the sky with points. I booked with American Airline miles for 62,500 miles. So it's international first class, but plus plus, because you're not just getting a seat or a little like hot area. You're getting, it's essentially a room. You've got a long bench along one side

and a big captain's chair and the service and food and everything on board is just phenomenal. So I just love that. That was like the highlight. I was looking forward to that for a week since I, well, for a week, I don't know, since I booked it. I don't know how long ago that was now. Anyway, that was a quick question about your flight, your apartment flight. I heard that you had eight glasses of wine and a shot of whiskey in the course of a what four or five hour flight. It's closer to a seven hour flight.hour flight. I did not finish every glass of wine. I was doing tastings, and so I only finished the few that I really liked a lot. The Riesling and the...

But I very much enjoyed that experience, too, and chatting with the flight attendant about the wines. She's really into Austrian wines, and so we talked about that for a while. Nice. And I had a great nap on that. Man, they turn it into a real bed with sheets and everything. And it's just so comfortable. Anyway, moving on. So that same booking for the same 62,500 miles, took me onward. Oh, well, yeah, took me onward from Abu Dhabi to

Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. But first, I stopped at the First Class Lounge in Abu Dhabi. They have a brand new business in First Class Lounge because there's a new terminal there in Abu Dhabi. So that so that was very nice but um not as nice as traveling on eddie hud first apartment so um but uh let's see so then i yeah so then i took a business class flight on um eddie hud to jetta and then i had an hour connected connection to my saudi flight to riyadh. And I got in the immigration line because it was a domestic flight. So I couldn't just stay like airside. I had to get in the immigration line. I had a visa ready to go. And the time was counting down. It was taking a really long time to get through. Finally, I started asking people politely, could I possibly step in front of you?

I started doing that when I got a text from the airline saying they're going to close the boarding doors 20 minutes before departure. It was getting really close to that. So I started asking, and most people were really nice about that and i got through and i figured gate a2 would be like really close to the you know once you're past security but no it's it's uh only a1 was further away from security um so i literally ran the half mile or so, um, with my roller board next to me. And, uh, there's no humidity there, right? This time of year, like it's not humid at all.

It doesn't, it's not humid at all this time of year. So you probably didn't sweat much. Well, it's, it's not that humid in the airport, but I still sweat a lot. I was, I was sweating buckets. It was terrible. And, oh, yeah. And, of course, that ruined the nice shower I had in the sky on the Etihad first water bus. Anyway, on the – so then I got onto the Saudi flight.

And for some reason, I was put in what looked like premium economy rather than regular economy. I almost walked right past my seat. And then I was like, did a double take, said, oh, my number's back there. Oh, look who's joined us. This is what happened last time, too. Halfway through Greg's story, Nick showed up. You're starting to make a habit of this, Nick. Today we're all guys.

I'm hustling right now. I'm trying to get to a taxi, get to the airport in time. So you guys just talk. I'm going to keep telling the story. So I arrive in Riyadh and go to the lounge. And guess who was there? Our one and only Nicholas Reyes was sitting in that lounge. And it turned out that we were on the exact same flight

on Qatar to Doha from there. And we had both booked the Sweet Spot Award, American Airlines, 40,000 points for business class from Middle East to Asia. So we both had this short hop to Doha and then we went onward to Asia. I went one way, he went another. So that was really fun. on Qatar to Jakarta and had a really nice overnight stay in Jakarta. And then, let's see, I flew Garuda in the morning to Bangkok. And guess who was in Bangkok?

There was Nick again. Nick is everywhere except the live stream. Just kidding. He's in the live stream now. He's here. It's been not so much. Nick and I have overlapped. It's been really fun.

But anyway, there were a ton of people in Bangkok because everybody was waiting to take the Kenya Airways flight to Guangzhou, China, because they're only flying that now three times a week. So the chance of some of us actually running into each other on that flight was actually pretty good, given that we started out around the same time and there's only so many of those flights so um so it's not that surprising but it was kind of fun because there was a crowd of you know i don't know 12 to 15 people that were all doing the sass thing and um i had bid on an upgrade on that flight um on um the kenya airways flight i'd i'd done the minimum bid which is 195 and i had gotten the upgrade to business class and it was really nice because this was a wide body jet and it was full lay flat seat they even had a very thick like padding which I've never seen an airline do padding, provide like extra padding for a two hour flight. But they did. So I took a nice southern flight from Guangzhou to Hanoi, Vietnam. And I go to the transfer desk in China to see about transferring without actually getting a visa

into China. And they had no problem with that concept but the problem that came up there was actually two problems that came up one um all right so i have to back up a little bit my my visa to vietnam didn't come in until a few days ago and so i hastily printed it out at a um airport hotel or something i can't actually remember it might have been a lounge and i had printed the wrong one i'd printed the one from the three cards three continents trip that i took where i got to vietnam in that trip so at first at the at the transfer dash she's, this doesn't make sense. So I pulled up the new one on my phone. And she's like, well, you can't go.

And I'm like, why not? Well, my visa. So the new visa was wrong. It was supposed to be for yesterday and today, but it was for the day before to yesterday. So I had it off by one day. And I don't know whether I had made the mistake or they had, but regardless, I had the wrong visa. But the point was that I had just till the end of that night, last night, to get to Vietnam to be allowed in. And the first person I talked to had done the date calculation wrong because she didn't realize that Hanoi is an hour earlier. So the flight would have arrived

after midnight in, you know, Juan Joe's time, but before midnight in vietnam's time so finally a supervisor figured that out and okay you can go wow and and all this time so i'm like standing they put me in like a little timeout area and they have my phone because it has the visa on it and they've got my passport and I'm standing there with or from them and like oh I'm in trouble but um but that all worked out and and I flew China Southern which is not a qualifying flight um to Hanoi and I got and that flight was delayed um long story short I get to the front of the immigration line around 10 minutes till wow and the guys the guy's like no you can't come in uh and uh he i don't know maybe i'd look sad enough that he called over a supervisor to ask about it and the supervisor went into like

hyperkinetic mode trying to it took me a while to figure out what was going on because we were running around to different places showing my phone and my passport and everything to different people and it turns out what he was trying to do was get it cleared in time before midnight so it had to be done before midnight so so like he was literally like cutting me in front of people who were just about to get their immigration you'd be like nope and um not so bad for them but uh i got in about two minutes till midnight and uh did you get his uh name and email so he can win. He couldn't speak English. So we, you know, we kind of grunted at each other. And then I've been worried about,

could I leave today? And so I got to the airport really early. I was going to do this live stream from the hotel, but I got, instead I got to the airport really early and went to the visa desk and they were actually really nice and just stamped it right away. So I believe I'm good to go. Nice.

Well, I'm waiting for the airport express train in Hong Kong right now. It was supposed to be here three minutes ago. So I don't know if I might lose service while I'm on the train. I was trying to get a taxi. And then the taxi, the first taxi, the taxis here in hong kong apparently don't take a credit card i don't remember that but uh it'll take alipay or wechat but those aren't working on my phone for some reason so i had to go and get cash and i got out enough cash for what the taxi driver told me i came back and of course it was a different taxi driver and he wanted far more

than i had taken out so yeah somebody else approached me and was like hey i'll take you to the airport and so like he just walked me all over the station way too long. And by the time, like, I don't even know where his car was, if he had a car even. But he finally walked me past the Airport Express and I realized it was supposed to leave in a minute. And I said, well, at this point, walking to the car isn't any faster than the Airport Express. So it's going to be a little tight when I get to the airport. We'll see. But yeah, so that's where i am right now all right well nick give us give us like a three or four minute recap of the highlights of what's happened we know it's been a uh a uh

a show getting from uh shenzhen to uh hong kong airport today yeah yeah so since that's our last live stream give us this kind of a four or five three or four minute highlight of your what's happened yeah so i last night i took the train from guangzhou to shenzhen which is just outside of hong kong and i did that specifically because there's a york cove property york cove whatever however they say it uh that would give me a brand explorer for hyatt and it was literally right by the cruise port in Shenzhen, which I found that there's a ferry that runs from there to Hong Kong airport

and drops you in the secure, you can actually do airport check-in, I guess, in Shenzhen. So I thought that would be pretty cool, be a different mode of transportation. So I wanted to do that. And it opens at 6 a.m. in the morning, the port. And the hotel had advised me I could take the 845 ferry and really only needed to show up an hour early. But despite them telling me that, I still got up in order to be there at 6 this morning.

And it's good I did because the ferries were canceled because of a typhoon. So I couldn't do the ferry. So then I had to take a train. And the short version of the story there is that you need to get there well ahead of the train. So I ended up having to wait at the train station for like 40 minutes, even though there was a train going where I needed to go. Because I just wasn't there early enough to buy the ticket for that one, even though I was there before the train. So I ended up taking a later train than I would have liked into Hong Kong. And when I got here and tried to take a taxi taxi and didn't have the cash to pay the taxi. So I had to maybe cash out, like I said.

And then the price went up because of the typhoon. So now I'm waiting in the airport express. So it's pulling in right now. It's supposed to be about 25 minutes to the airport from here. And so that would put me at the airport now probably about 9.45 for an 11 a.m. departure. So, I mean, it's not awful, an hour and 15 minutes, I guess. I already checked in and have a boarding pass, so I should still make this flight. I hope I do. Right. Well, if you're boarding this tram, it might be perfect timing for us to switch to Stephen,

who has to get going in 15 minutes i think so steven okay so last we left off i was in paris so from there i flew air france to amsterdam and then klm to bugues stayed at the intercontinental way using a three-night certificate that was exactly 40 000 points so i didn't have to use any other points um that was a really nice stay there um club lounge that i had access to because i've got a lounge pass um complimentary breakfast as i have diamond status so um that just ended up being a lovely stay um i was going to do a walking tour but it was like raining and snowing outside so i ended up giving up on that idea and just um hung out at the hotel until it was time to go to the airport.

From there, I flew to Athens and then from Athens, I flew to Athens on Tauam and then on Aegean to Jeddah using aeroplan miles because I needed a position for a Saudi flight. The flight that I booked was Jeddah to Jakarta via Medina and so I flew to Medina and then while I was in Medina I realized that my next flight onto Jakarta was about 10 hours and I hadn't actually realized that when booking everything because Saudi was my flight where everything had gone pear-shaped when I was in the middle of booking everything and so I was just like hustling at the time trying to get something but so that I could piece together all the other flights that I'd um wanted at the time and so I booked that so yeah sitting in the lounge I was like oh man 10 hours in economy um does not sound good because I'm like

trying to fend off a cold at the moment and um and yeah not having um much sleep over the previous like 24 36 hours and then I'm not having much over the next few days so I was like screw this I'm gonna like take a look to see what you can't do in business class super lucky that at an almost identical time to my flight there was business class award availability on Garuda for 56,000 flying blue miles plus 28 bucks. And so that was great value for like a 10 hour flight, just like 56,000 miles and very little in taxes and fees. And so Garuda business class, pretty good overall. The entertainment wasn't great. There was maybe like two dozen western movies and stuff like that but

I don't generally care about that kind of thing the most important thing was that they had tasty food which they did and that they kept the cabin a reasonable temperature so I could actually get some sleep and they did it was the perfect temperature and like I was like Goldilocks underneath my blanket and the blanket was perfect as well it It was nice and plush, but without being too hot. So I managed to get several hours of sleep on the flight. And so I felt much more rested after that. Got to Jakarta, all kinds of visa issues trying to get in. So I'm transiting to a flight to Singapore after this. And so in theory, I just needed a transit visa. So I went to the transfer

desk, spoke to someone for 20 or 30 minutes who seemed to know nothing about transit visas, even though he's on the transit visa area. And so then he told me, just go to the immigration gates and they'll let you through. They didn't. They told me to go back to the transfer desk, went back to the transfer desk. He then told me to go get a visa on arrival so I had to get in a long line for that um once I finally got to the visa desk um they said no you're transiting you can't get a visa here you have to go to the immigration desk explain what's um that you just are transiting and staying in the airport they'll let you through sure enough they didn't let me through they told me to go back to the transfer desk um or go get a visa so i went back to go get a visa thankfully the line

was much shorter by that point and so i eventually got someone who just let me get a visa for like 30 bucks or something like that but like that whole process took a good like hour hour and a half or something and i was the very first person to fly it as well because i was right at the front in business class so it's like the on foot version of hang up and call again yes yes so I was just grateful that I hadn't booked any kind of shorter layover here so I still have like in theory plenty of time to get through but given all of the other hassles I've had I just want to be able to make sure I can get through security just so that there's no delay in getting to my next flight. So that's where I'm at.

So I have a question for you, Stephen. And this is so, because we had this question, I think somebody commented on this. Are you at all concerned that because you skipped the second leg of your Saudi flight that you won't actually get credit

for it through SAS? I was a little bit concerned about that so i figured worst comes to the worst i have aeromexico as a backup provided nothing else goes wrong on this but because i did complete one leg and it was different fare classes for the two legs i'm feeling fairly confident that i will get credit for the first flight even though i didn't get credit for the second one so i'm hoping that that wasn't um an expensive mistake to correct um but we shall see man things just got way more interesting oh i know it's all you can feel you can feel the tension in the humid air where you guys are at.

So currently, Greg has flown 16 flights. Five of them have been in business. One of them has been a premium and he's completed 10 qualifying carriers. So he's two thirds of the way to his SAS million mile reward. Nick has flown eight flights. One of them has been in business and he's completed six qualifying carriers. Stephen is sort of in between. He's flown 12 flights. Three of them have been in business. One of them was in premium and he's completed seven qualifying carriers. Stephen will be about to go over the halfway point, assuming he can actually get through security and his visa wasn't counterfeit. Welcome to the final live check-in for Million Mile Madness.

So, gentlemen, you're all here. We are. That's an accomplishment in itself, isn't it? Yeah, is that a first time, perhaps? Steven, where are you at now? I am currently at LAX, about to take my very final flight back to Las Vegas. So that's in a couple of hours time. So I'm looking forward to that being my final economy flight for like two weeks. Home stretch.

Greg, how about you? Where are you at? I'm at home. At home. I've been at home for the last five hours or so. Wow. Sounds like this is practically over. Nick, where are you at? I am at 12 airlines down and three to go. All right. But where in the world are you? That's a great question. So you're going to have to keep an eye on Instagram to find out exactly where, because I'm going to have some stuff coming out

hopefully in the next few hours. So I'm not going to reveal exactly where because i'm gonna have some stuff coming out uh hopefully in the next next few hours so i'm not gonna reveal exactly where i am but here's what i'll tell you i'll tell you that where i am it is six o'clock in the morning and i finished typing my update at 3 15 so uh so i went to sleep around 3 45 got up around 5 45 for this and uh and i've got plans afterwards so afterwards we gotta we gotta go go go go go okay so time crunch no i don't really have a time limit but but but whenever we finish this then uh you know i'll be on to the next thing so um but but here's what i will say i yesterday we'll go back over what we've done but yesterday i i went to a unesco world heritage site and today i'm gonna hit another okay from

hanoi i flew to hong kong on vietnam airlines and i think i same day yeah same day i i just connected onward on china eastern to um hang hang hang jow hang joe uh hang joe I always forget how to pronounce that one, China, where I got the 24-hour transit visa. And that took me like hours at the airport to get that right because- It took you 24 hours to get the 24 hours they they sent me at first to um fill out a standard um entry form and that the uh and the guard at the immigration did not like that at all so sent me back to do a different one that was more intended for transit. And that one got me through, but not without waiting in lines multiple times. I stayed in Westlake, which is a beautiful area. And I stayed in a really cool canopy by Hilton Hotel, which it's really hard to describe this place but you walk into the lobby that so coming in the doors

like automatically swish open as you're walking in and then there are lights like different colored lights going and circling and and just colors different clashing colors everywhere uh a bar like in the middle of the lobby it's kind of um like a party and uh so i was a little concerned about what my room would be like but i went up there and it was it was actually very nice elegant uh nice room so i really enjoyed that stay uh despite my initial concern a little bit when I came in. I got out a little bit in Westlake. First, I went out to try to go to the night market, but it turns out it's more of an evening market,

not a night when Greg gets out at 11 p.m. market. Not like Bucharest. Not like Bucharest. And the next morning, I went out to see the beautiful renowned West Lake and it was kind of fogged over

so it was okay then back to the airport for me and that's where I took Shaman to Taipei in business class. And that was very nice. Pretty amazing service on a short flight there. And in Taipei, I didn't leave the airport because my next flight out was later that same day on China Airlines to Seoul. And in Seoul, I also didn't leave the airport because I had another flight coming up.

Whereas I flew on to Tokyo on Korean Air. And that marked my final of the 15 carriers. I was done as of Friday night. So you completed all 15 carriers in under a week? Yes. Not the whole trip, but in terms of actually fulfilling the SAS challenge, you did that in under a week. Am I doing the math right on that? Yes, thanks to time zones.

If you go just by the date when I finished, you'd say it was exactly a week, but because it was actually Saturday in Tokyo when I started and I ended in Friday. Yes, I think you're right. It gets very confusing. It is very confusing. So, yeah, so then I treated myself to stay at the Conrad Tokyo, which was wonderful. And for the first time in the whole trip, I didn't have to set an alarm for the next morning. I was able to just sleep in, slept till 8 o'clock, loved it, and then went downstairs for the free breakfast at the Conrad, had a great breakfast overlooking Tokyo Bay, and then headed over to the fish market

where I had signed up for sushi making. And so I did a sushi making class where I surprised myself by actually making good looking sushi, which if you ever saw me at any other cooking class of any sort, you know, normally whatever I make ends up looking kind of like a mess. I don't know how I just a pile of blah. But but these these came out really nice and they they were delicious um next stop now i i have a quick question about the sushi making was the person leading that particularly renowned was that like a very well-known according to according to the uh according to the ad for the for the sushi making uh thing i mean he he what he master. He wasn't known to you beforehand? A master sushi chef.

They do have a set thing that you have to accomplish to become a sushi master and he is that. I don't know whether he's... So the reason I ask is because I meant to tell you, the same day you did it, you're not going to be able to see this very well, but

I took this screenshot on my phone because this is you in the class and this up here was an anthony bourdain no reservations ad where he was talking about this was the best sushi in tokyo and it is the guy that you were learning that's wild you should text me that picture so i can put it on yeah that that wasn't totally intentional on my part to go to the world-renowned sushi chef. That's why you're shocked. One of the cool things about how they did it is that he doesn't speak English very well, but they had a person who speaks English perfectly kind of leading the class and giving an overview. And then he would do his thing and she would interpret for him.

And so I thought that was fantastic how, how well they did that. Are you now, Greg, are you a sushi miner? And you're probably not a sushi master, but are you like, what, what, what are you like a sushi eater? I don't know. I do have a, I do have a diploma from the sushi class. I'm not sure what it, I'm not sure what it says, what, you know, what belt of sushi I have. How was your sushi when you ate it?

It was fantastic. It was so good. They also had... Best in Tokyo from what I hear. What did you say? Yeah, according to Anthony Bourdain. Oh, right. Yeah. Anyway. Anthony Bourdain. Oh, right. Yeah. So, yeah.

So after the sushi experience, I went to a hedgehog cafe where I got the, I hope I got the points for cuddling with something furry, even though I'm not really sure you could call them furry or cuddly. I furry even though i'm not really sure you could call them furry or find out it was a broad definition but we'll see we'll see what carrie ends up deciding because she's the final arbiter uh making friends with fido now there was there was something fluffy uh that i was trying to understand what the person was telling me that i could pet this fluffy thing that had its head head hiding and it turned out to be a meerkat. My favorite. And it turned its head like, what is he saying?

It turned its head. I was like, oh, that's what you've been saying. Oh, man, it was great. Meerkat. Might be my favorite clip from the whole thing so far. Anyway. So, okay, to finish up my journey. So I was supposed to fly home Saturday night, business class on ANA to Seattle and then onward on Delta to Detroit. But a late breaking tip told me that JAL first class had opened up from Tokyo to Chicago. Now, I had been watching for either ANA first class or JAL first class to open up to America for Saturday or Sunday.

That was my plan all along, that I wanted either one of them to open up um because that it's the only way to buy the a certain 100th anniversary blend of hibiki whiskey is to be on board first class and one of those two carriers on uh one of these international first-class flights. Explain what a Hibiki is. And so Hibiki is a fantastic whiskey, which our whole team first experienced two years ago when we all flew ANA first class. We called that the Party of Five Challenge.

And we all flew ANA first class, and we did a whiskey tasting in the sky it was such a great experience uh we all and we all loved the hibiki whiskey um and um most most didn't think too much of the other ones that were uh available there um and so to me, it was like such a, it's such a great, memorable, fun experience what we did two years ago that when I saw that this Hibiki like, you know, was available just under this situation, I was like, oh, I have got to do that. And I knew we have a team meeting in-person team meeting coming up in january i was like i've got to bring that bottle of hibiki to our in-person meeting to share with the whole team and we'll do it we'll do a tasting of one we'll just let's say one wants to bring something

else pretty good um so that's gonna be fun regardless of whether i win or not yeah that is cool so how did you but how did you get because the hibiki bean whiskey is liquid so how did you manage to get the hibiki to your abode yeah so so um yeah it's that's a great question So I knew this would be a problem because when you arrive in the I realized I have to bring that small roller bag because I need a way of checking my suitcase at the end. Oh, I remember you saying. I was just like, I have to be able to check something at the end of this.

Wow. So I had my little bag on board and I bought the Hibiki on the JAL flight and I took out a bunch of like clothes you know dirty clothes put the Hibiki in put as many dirty clothes as I could all around it to cushion it and then all the remaining dirty clothes I opened up my little I have that little to-go backpack that's inside my regular backpack just like the one Nick has shown off I opened that up and stuffed all the extra clothes in there that couldn't fit in wow my carry this is dirty clothes cured 100 anniversary Hibiki

nicely cured yeah we're gonna drink out of that bottle this is like special from Greg's pouring that's all I'm saying Greg is pouring Nicely carried, yeah. You're going to drink out of that bottle? This is like special from somebody else. Greg's pouring, that's all I'm saying. Greg is pouring. And so, unfortunately, I had scheduled a very tight connection in Chicago to fly to Detroit onward. And I would have made that connection if it wasn't for the fact I had to check this bag. Luckily, I knew there was another flight just about an hour and a half later,

and that's the one I got on. So it wasn't a big deal to miss the earlier one, but I was hoping to make it home in time for brunch with my family. I missed that. Poor guy. Now you're going to lose a bunch of style points from me. I was just about to say

you shouldn't have said that part. You shouldn't have said that part. And I assume that Habiki survived and the dirty clothing was sufficient for the... It was. Habiki is not leaking. It's not a leaky Habiki? It's a really good sign.

Leaky Habiki. That would be a problem, a leaky hibiki that would be a problem leaky hibiki that was an awesome recap it made me miss party of five when I saw that footage come through I think that was two years ago when he said that

for some reason it feels like it was in the last year yeah all this time zone changing Steven steven i think we're ready for your recap from jakarta i flew to singapore on garuda airlines that was a nice short flight um hung out at the airport for a while went to the um butterfly garden and stuff i was going to go watch a movie but um the one time that the movie theater is closed ever um happened to be like the four or five hour period that i was there so it was fine um there was a priority pass lounge right next door to it so i just hung out there for a while and got some work done and stuff um and then

from there i flew vietnam airlines from singapore to ho chi minh. And then that was a pretty short connection there. And then I flew on to Seoul. In Seoul, that was another fairly tight connection. And I flew on Korean Airlines from there to Guangzhou. Is it Guangzhou? Guangzhou? Guangzhou? Guangzhou, I believe. Guangzhou. And so I got there and then I had a longer layover there. Thankfully, I managed to get my 144-hour transit visa without any issues there. Then flew Kenya Airways' Fifth Freedom Route to Bangkok that evening. And then I had another tight connection in Bangkok in order to make my flight for Charmanere.

I did thankfully have enough time to get some some time at the airport and there was like a little video on Instagram for that because I've been really looking forward to the opportunity to do that if I had enough time and I didn't think I was going to have time like racing through the airport to do that because I had to go through immigration and then like back through the airport to do that because I had to um go through um immigration and then like back through security because um Charmanair is pretty much the only airline at Bangkok airport it seems that doesn't have a transfer desk where you can um get transferred so you have to like go out and um back in again um but yeah thankfully had enough time to do that then from Bangkok flew to Charman um on business class on Xiamen Air and then that was

another fairly short um connection there and then I flew China Eastern to Can Minh and then um China Eastern again back to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and I'd made a little bit of a mistake it turns out with my visa situation with vietnam because um there's um someone who'd um commented on the blog um i think it's tony i i don't know how um their name's pronounced uh oh it is tony okay um and they had mentioned that because i have a british passport that i don't need to get a vietnamese visa because I can enter the country for 45 days without needing a visa. And they'd mentioned that I think like earlier on in the planning stage. And so it was like, okay, sweet. So I just kind of put that part of it out of my mind as to,

okay, I don't need to sort out a visa. Completely forgot that was the rule. So, and at some point Greg had mentioned getting a visa for Vietnam. Oh crap. I haven't gotten a visa for vietnam yet and i thought like i just made like some kind of big mistake overlooking that fact and so i applied for a visa online um got it through plenty of time and had it downloaded on my phone but then when i was trying to go through um immigration they there was an issue with um the date where i put in that i was arriving i think it was on the 16th and leaving on the 17th. For whatever reason, it showed up that I was arriving on the 15th and leaving on the 16th.

And a similar thing, I think, happened with Greg. Exactly the same. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if it's just a weirdly worded visa application where they perhaps ask the date that you leave and how many days you are going to be there and they backtrack from there or if it's because we were applying from the US and it was a different time zone and it got messed up somehow but um either way yeah they weren't they were going to deny me entry into the country um until another one of the um immigration agents came over and said well you've got a British passport just just forget that piece of the you applied for and you could just enter for free um for 45 days so it's like okay sweet um so i should have done that british passport trick i didn't i didn't think of it

come in handy like that um and then yeah i got to my hotel only to find out that um they didn't have room for me because like she made she gave some kind of explanation i'm not entirely sure what it was um i don't think it was that they had sold out the rooms or anything i think there was a problem at the hotel because it sounded like they were having to move everyone to a different one um but then the one that they were going to send me to had like a six and a half out of ten rating on google reviews and stuff and it was one that i'd seen on hotels.com and i was like no i'm not gonna go for that one and so um she gave me a refund and then i just went to a different hotel for the night um it was a bit of a shame

because the one that i was going to be out was an apartment hotel where it was a one bedroom suite with a kitchen and a washing machine and things so I figured okay I could do some laundry while I'm here um that didn't work out but the airport hotel that I went to and it's called the airport hotel was um like 32 bucks or something like that um it was perfectly nice hotel um had everything that I needed for the night and like quiet comfortable clean and everything um and it was pretty much next door to the place i got walked from so it meant that i didn't have to traipse all over the place um while i was there went and got a nice massage for less than 20 bucks went and got for with a beer for less than three bucks or about three bucks or something so i have to say first time in vietnam i'm impressed

so like definitely gonna have to go back yeah a lot of bang for your buck there. And then from Ho Chi Minh, I flew China Airlines to Taipei. And then I just landed on a China Airlines flight from Taipei to Los Angeles, which was an 11 and a quarter hour flight in economy, where I got the worst sausage feed ever. So yeah, I'm now coming in Delta Sky Club, ready to take my Delta flight back to Las Vegas shortly. Nice. 11 hours.

When was the last time that you took an 11 hour plus flight in economy? Or when was the last time that you had sausage feed at that? Okay, well, that's the thing. I you had sausage feed okay well well that that's the thing like i never get sausage feet and like this time i did i'm not too sure um quite what caused it this time but my the last time i had a flight that long i think cathay pacific and we flew on their longest route in economy which was washington dc to hong kong which i think is like 15 hours or something wow um i've also also done i've also done like to earn from australia and economy before um and so that i want to say that was like 13 or 14 hours that time as well so

i mean it's been several years since um i've done that and so yeah it's not something i would necessarily look to do again but it's achievable for a million miles the sacrifices we make all right uh nick i think that makes it your turn oh i did get to the airport i think like maybe as we were on that live stream and got through, no problem. I was amazed. In fact, from the moment I stepped off the train in Hong Kong at the airport to the moment I was done with airport security and passport control was 10 minutes on the dot. That was just incredible.

I mean, including the fact that I had to walk in, right? You know, like you step off the train and I was in line already. I had to walk in and find it and all the rest of that. So yeah, 10 minutes, incredible efficiency. And so yeah, from there, I flew to Taipei. And in Taipei, I was excited because when we decided, first of all, just when this trip came together, and I knew I was going to have to fly China Airlines at some point, I figured I would try to meet up with friends in Taipei. And our friend Sharon in particular is someone we worked with. My wife still does. And I did for about a decade. And so we've gotten to know Sharon well over the years. And we've been to Taiwan a couple of times. And Sharon always takes us out for delicious food. like she always is the

master of ordering exactly what i want to eat so um so i was excited to be able to get a chance to go out and and have uh some dinner with sharon and she was able to help teach me how to order in chinese my chinese is horrible my pronunciation is bad but she was uh she was a good sport about helping with that so i took the mrt from the airport in to meet her, and then the MRT back to the airport. Less than five bucks each way. Super efficient. Didn't have a ton of time, but enough time to eat anyway. Then from there, I flew to Seoul, Korea on Korean air.

So I guess I should back up. Hong Kong to Taipei was China Airlines. So that was one of the qualifying airlines. Then Taipei to Korea, I flew Korean. And so I got to Seoul really late about 11pm. And my flight out was at 8am. So I stayed in an airport hotel, the Itis Styles, which was pretty cheap, and actually pretty nice. It's in a core property, a core live limitless. And interestingly, I ended up staying two nights in this trip at a core properties and i didn't book either of them directly through a core and this is like my i've developed a new

love-hate relationship with a core because both of the ibis properties i say that were quite nice actually for like an airport hotel for the situation i was looking for it wasn't luxury but it was like it would be in my mind if I were choosing just on, you know, like the property, I'd pick that over Hilton Garden Inn, maybe, you know, or I mean, I guess maybe that'd be close. I'd pick it over a Hyatt place, no doubt, and pick it over a Hyatt place or a Hyatt house. Probably. I just I liked it.

I thought it was nice. It was clean. It was convenient that a 24 hour convenience store in the lobby that you could access with a credit card. And it was a full convenience store, even though there was nobody working, you can self check out. So I was very happy with it. But but there's like the program, they need some more pizzazz going on with it. Because what I could earn with points was less than what I could earn using Capital One Shopping Cashback, and clicking through and booking with

Priceline, or booking with, you know, hotels.com or something like that. So, so I ended up booking it through Priceline both times. I think I booked through Priceline for Capital One shopping cash back because it was worth more than what I would earn in a quarrel of limitless points. So anyway, stayed at the Ibis and that was close to the airport. And then from there, from Seoul, I flew to, let's see, I flew Air Asia from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur. That was a really cheap flight, $82 for a six and a half hour flight. I added their FastPass, which I just barely noticed during the booking process.

And I was glad I did because it only cost $19 more. And it came with additional carry on allotment or whatever allowance, which I knew I would probably need because I figured they would weigh my bag and my bag would be more than the seven kilograms that it could be. So the additional carry-on allowance was perfect. It gave me enough weight to be able to bring my stuff. And also it gave me a fast track on immigration, on arrival at Kuala Lumpur. And that was really nice. So it was super convenient. And I didn't have any weight at all to go through immigration when I got to Kuala Lumpur. So those are both great things. I picked a good seat on that flight. And then from Kuala Lumpur, I flew that was not a

qualifying flight AirAsia. And then from Kuala Lumpur, I flew Garuda Indonesia to Indonesia, I flew that one in business class, I booked an economy ticket for 135 bucks ish, something like that. And I did the bid up to business class when they sent the email saying, would you like to bid for business class, I noticed that the range for the bid was like 53 to $59. That was like the entire bottom end to the top end of the range for it to bid for business class. And so like, obviously, you should just bid the 59 in that case so that nobody can outbid you, right? I mean, it's $6 difference,

which I don't know why I bid 56. I have no idea why I saved myself the $3 over the manual. I saved Frequent Miler $3 over the maximum bid there. So I bid 56. And sure enough, it was successful days before the flight.

I got an email saying that I was upgraded to business class. And I think I'm going to earn miles with SAS based on it being in business class, because in the SAS app, that flight updated to be in J class. So I assume I'm going to earn like 10 extra miles or whatever it is on a very short flight. So flew Garuda Indonesia to Indonesia. And that was great doing that in business class, because again, that gave me access to a dedicated like sort of fast lane for immigration. And I know Stephen had gotten really tripped up in Jakarta and it took a long time to get it figured out with like transiting and all that.

And so I decided I'm not even going to try and explain that I'm transiting. I just I put that down on the visa application. I did a visa on arrival application that morning that I was flying out. I was trying to do it the night before laying in bed. And the third time that the phone hit me in the face because I fell asleep while trying to do any questions. And I went through immigration, entered the country, and then checked in for my flight. And so that was easy breezy. From Jakarta, I flew back to Kuala Lumpur on KLM. That was a cheap flight, $54 one way. And during the check-in process, I noticed they were selling the emergency exit row for $8. So for $8, I got an emergency exit row seat and I was the only person in the entire emergency exit row, actually. So plenty of room to spread out and be comfortable on a couple hours back to Kuala Lumpur. Then I arrived in Kuala Lumpur pretty late, about 11 o'clock at night. This is where I got another idea to stay in and left at eight o'clock in the morning to fly Shaman Air to Shaman. So I flew that yesterday morning and got to shaman. And in shaman, I

went to what's called Gulangyu Island. So a lot of people refer to it as the piano island because they apparently have the most pianos per capita of anywhere in China. And it's produced some of China's most famous classical musicians. And it's a pedestrian island. So there's no cars, there's no bicycles. They have these like electric golf carts for tourists, but only a few of them, I didn't actually see one. I saw one just at the port at the entrance the whole time I was there, I didn't actually see one on a road or anything. So I'm not sure if they have a dedicated route for those. But anyway, so yeah, it's just walking, essentially quiet, small, very pretty, interesting history. So mixed architecture,

but cool gardens and stuff. And it attracts like 10 million visitors a year. And it's a place that I assume most Americans probably aren't familiar with, even though it attracts 10 million people a year. So I thought it'd be kind of cool to feature something like that that's super popular in China, and maybe not as well known for American tourists. So I'd heard of it before from teaching English to people in that part of the world. So I'd heard of it before, but I assumed that probably a lot of people hadn't. So anyway, that was the UNESCO World Heritage Site that I visited there. So I took a ferry. So I got a new mode of transportation. I noted on Instagram that I have taken planes. I have taken a ferry. So I got a new mode of transportation. I noted on Instagram

that I have taken planes. I have taken a train, which I wasn't sure whether Greg or Steven has taken a train outside of the airport or not. But I've taken trains and taken public bus, obviously, of course, taxi and ride share. And now I have taken a boat because I took the ferry over there and back. So I've taken multiple modes of transport on this trip. I'm pretty excited about the fact that I've tried out different different stuff like that to figure out where I'm going from place to place. So that was yesterday. It was cool. You should check out Instagram and see a little bit of the highlights of that.

And then I last night flew from Shannon to where I am today. And then today and eventually this afternoon, I'm going to be flying out of here. So I'm only here for a short stay, I got to my hotel very late, my flight landed, it got delayed, landed at like 1230. And I got to the hotel at about 130. And I was excited about this hotel for a number of reasons. And because I got here so late, kind of like Greg was mentioning, you know, night market was really an evening market kind of a situation. And so I didn't get to see at night what I had hoped to hear last night because I just got in too late. But the hotel is cool and funky.

And so I'll share some of that when, you know, when I get a chance here on Instagram today and then where I'm going and what I'm doing today. And then I still have three airlines to go. So if you've been following along, there's four total airlines that I could fly. I mentioned that I flew China Eastern on the blog. So you'll know that that's now done. And so the ones I still have to go are Air Europa, Air France, Delta and or Aeromexico. It's four. I have to fly three three of those so that's just a little sneak preview as to what might be coming next let's go over some rankings um so we're going to start with the speediest um of our million mile madnessers all right so and just a reminder we are calculating this in a per segment

format. So the time I'm reading is not the total time spent traveling, but the time per segment, Greg's time per segment. And this is now his official time per segment since he's done, uh, was 13 hours, 37 minutes and 28 seconds. And that is like you could have shaved that 28 seconds off, Greg, with just a little more That was the checked bag. Yeah, sorry. That was me lollygagging around. Couldn't get the pilot to just give it a little

extra gas. So Greg is thus far our fastest and, I mean, no one will be faster. I think I'm also going to be fastest to guess Nick's next stop. I think it's Mallorca. Mallorca. Okay.

His next stop, not where he's at currently. Interesting. Okay. So second speediest so far. And can't imagine that this changes. Pretty much officially. It would have to get pretty disastrous. Right.

Knock on something. Everybody like this video to give Stephen good luck. I think he had this locked up. So his time per segment has been 16 hours, 21 minutes, and 52 seconds. So not that much more than Greg's. And then Nick is not that far behind Stephen, actually. Though, that's about to drastically change, obviously.

We're solving that wound, alright. It's about to change. It doesn't have to be drastic. It's not the only metric we're measuring, but he has spent 17 hours, 52 minutes, and 30 seconds per segment with some segments left to go.

That is our speed summary. Nick, if you somehow, if your next stop is a time machine, you may be able to unsate either Stephen or Greg in the number one or number two spot. Otherwise, I think you may be able to unsate either Steven or Greg in the number one or number two spot.

Otherwise, I think you may be. Seems unlikely. You may be in the third place finish. It's looking that way. Yes. But to your credit, you never called yourself Nick the Speedy Reyes. I didn't. Greg mentioned some people thinking that I was going to do this really fast.

And I'm sure they certainly did. I thought I was going pretty quick. But I think I was also in a hurry to try to do stuff while I was traveling. To fit in time to go see some different things along the way. I was not as aggressive as these guys. These guys were brave in terms of their connection times. So I was really, really surprised at how aggressive they were in terms of the connection times and impressed. Well done. Hats off to you guys, because I was not brave enough to intentionally plan something with like an

hour and a half layover. I just wouldn't have expected that that was going to work out repeatedly. Although, I don't know why I wouldn't because I often say they're called irregular operations because they happen irregularly. And I often tell people I don't plan why I wouldn't, because I often say they're called irregular operations because they happen irregularly. And I often tell people I don't plan much around the chance of something irregular happening. This was an exception because there were so many domino pieces that might fall. But you guys proved that it was doable that way. Well done. Thank you.

So we'll go to affordability next. Greg is done. And Stephen, we know what his final tally is going to be unless he misses his flight and then gets into a nasty accident and then has an unplanned hospital stay. Oh, my God. Now everyone has to look at this. Wow, this is getting me crazy. We're going to throw that out to the universe, too. We pretty much know where he's going to end. Or unless he just goes crazy at the gift shop in LAX.

One of the two. There's two different things that we're tracking here. We're tracking what would be considered out-of-pocket spend or the actual amount of total dollars that were spent. But what we're considering the total cost is the sum of that number, the amount of actual cash, as well as the total value of points and credits and gift certificates as we deem them by our first year values and reasonable redemption values. So that makes it quite a bit higher once you combine those two things together. But so let's go from third to first in terms of cost. So to no one's surprise, Greg is number three. His trip is clocked in at a total cost of $8,265.

The reason, but a good chunk of that. Better use those million miles well, Mr. Frequent Miler. Greg used a lot of points and miles on this. A lot of points and miles. He used $170. He's getting it back, Mr. Frequent Miler. Greg used a lot of points and miles on this. A lot of points and miles. He used $170. He's getting it back, basically. A $50 Hyatt rebate. A $60 Hyatt rebate.

182,500 AA miles. 2,804,000 Marriott points. $110 in Hilton credits. 95,000 Hilton points. 25,000 Delta Sky miles, which are000 Delta SkyMiles, which are actually worth a negative value these days, and 25,000 Hyatt points. And the reason why I want to contrast these two next. So Stephen right now is in number two.

Stephen has spent $5,051 on his trip. And Steven has also spent or used 21,500 a miles, IHG and IHG fixed 40k certificate 12,500 aeroplan points, and 5 56,000 flying blue miles as well. And so Steven is currently in second place with a five thousand with at $5,051 total. And that will pretty much be his final number. Nick is in first place for affordability. Nick has used as for points, he's used 40,000 a miles so far in an Amex airline fee credit. And all together, he has spent $3,843 in cash and cash and points equivalents. So just to kind of do the math quickly, Nick home for $1,200 or under, Nick will win first place in affordability.

However, if Nick uses $1,200 in cash and points and miles equivalents, Stephen will take the crown for most affordable. I'm really worried that I host myself now by booking that business class flight from Saudi Arabia. 56,000 miles. That cost you, buddy. Yeah, because that was like 700, 750. If I hadn't done that, I would have locked in first for sure. I think you got style points for it though. True. Yeah, that's true.

True. His stomach's turning now. He's like, oh. You wanted the affordability. You wanted that one. Well, it's still, I mean, you know, Nick has to get back. It's not over. You know, it's not over.

Yeah, and getting across the Atlantic from Europe isn't cheap. Like getting a one-way flight from the US to Europe, you can find some good fares. Trying to do it in the other direction, usually it's cheaper to book a round-trip flight than it is to do a one-way flight. So I'm curious what he's going to end up with. I think it's going to end up being super close.

I have a feeling Nick already kind of knows how much he's due to be spending and everything but um yeah well assuming he makes all this yeah and i guess you've got some accommodation along the way too maybe um right right so yeah this is going to be really fascinating the next few days to see what happens currently steven is in second place second place for speed affordability nick is in first in affordability and third in speed greg has wrapped up first in speed and he was wrapped up last in affordability i'm pretty sure at nick's unless unless nick really goes baller for the next four days right three days two days whatever it is um so they're all at 40 points so we're tied now

but now it comes to style. It's the style ranking. Now this is where Carrie and I, this is our one moment. All right, style. So we're talking about anything that happened between last check-in and now. Greg's style came from a stay at the Conrad Tokyo. A sushi lesson with, now we know, a famous sushi master. A hedgehog shop where he saw some adorable hedgehogs and pet them. And then a JAL first class lounge and flight that came with exclusive access to the 100th anniversary

Hibiki that commemorates our party of five whiskey tasting from two years ago. So are we ready to score this? A, I think Greg got some really nice accommodations. He probably wins the nice accommodations on the second half, both with his stays, his two Marriott stays. And I think it was Jakarta and Hanoi, if I remember correctly. That's right. And then the two Tokyo hotels. I've heard wonderful things about the Conrad Tokyo, so I look forward to reading and review on it.

And also the one thing that I wanted to point out is that where I think Greg, so Greg got some style because from my point of view, thinking a week ahead of time to pack a roller bag on the off chance that he could bring a bottle of Hibiki back for the team. That's not only stylish, that's altruistic. Which is very stylish. Might be the most stylish. Way to bribe the judges here.

Way to bribe the judges. You knew exactly what to go for. And the hedgehog just... It was very well done. Alright, so next summary up will do Nick. So, Nick

also did some creative um styling um he met up with a local friend in taipei for local language lessons and a little food tour um and then a 56 upgrade bid that worked for business class um and then the gulan u island off of uh shaman um so we had a nice blend of trying to fancify your trip but also doing lots of local things yeah and the other thing that i would say that i that i'm gonna that i would give nick a bit of style too is the back-to-back getting the upgrade for paying $56 for an upgrade on Garuda after $19 for the AirAsia that got him double fast track and fast track immigration and the private bus and all that other stuff. I thought that was for a total of $75 out of pocket or something.

I thought that was pretty good. And the $8 AirAsia exit row. And the $8 exit row. Yes. Yeah, that yes yeah yeah that's like ray is a hot streak class ish some of my favorite travel experiences have been visiting locals i just think there's no better way to do that especially if it's someone you know a friend you get to hang out with a friend and you get to see just the everyday life stuff um i think that's really neat and it's someone you actually did know you didn't book it through airbnb although that would have been cool too um so you get you get some you get a nod for that i think that's neat all right well thank you so we're gonna go on to steven we're gonna go

on to steven i saw some style in your clever planning. So, for Stephen, I want to highlight that he, even though he was rushing through an airport and had to leave and come back and did not get a transfer, he still made sure to get his favorite dish in Thailand while he was there, som tom. And he got to share a story about that on Instagram, which I appreciate. I appreciate the video elements, so I am giving a nod to that. And then also, he stopped at a pho

shop that also came with a cat. So he got his petting an animal, which is wonderful. We always love to see that. Love local pho as well. And then he got a hot stone massage in Vietnam too. always love to see that. Love local spa as well. And then he got a hot stone massage in Vietnam too. So

love to see that. Anything that you think we should add to Stephen's styling? There was like the business class flight on Charmin Air but other than that there hasn't been much opportunity for much style over the last couple of days. Or last few days because it's been pretty much

Also the 15 priority pass lounges The 15 priority pass lounges I do think that deserves a nod especially since you kind of creatively you know one of those lounges you visited because something else didn't pan out and so you spun it into like a new goal. So

full disclosure it was 15 visits to priority pass lounges. Unfortunately it was only 14 different lounges. Oh, no. That changes it. Although, I feel like the dishonesty should get some style points. No, because I realized when I showed up at the one Ho Chi Minh, I went there and I was like,

they've got this like grassy like sign with their thing. And I was like, that looks really familiar. So maybe it's a little bit like Plaza. I realized I'd had my stopover in Ho Chi Minh a couple of days prior. And so I'd been to that one. So yeah, I did make sure that like I rushed all around um the airport in Taipei trying to find um one of the priority pass lounges there so that I could get my 15th visit on the trip um I'm pretty sure that it was 14 I need to go back

through and double check okay I definitely had at least 15 visits pretty sure it's 14 lounges it might possibly be 15 um it's been pretty hard not only did steven go out and adventure in an uh amazing place to do so but steven filmed way more selfies than i know he's comfortable with we got way more selfies out of out of steven than we have from past challenges. And I appreciate that. I think it's more than I've ever filmed in my entire life. You've been doing a great job with them, Stephen. Yeah, really well done. Really enjoyed watching this.

Even selfies when he didn't feel like it, like when he was sprayed with water from the water bottle pressure. Oh, yeah. Yes. All right. I think that gives us the – so what's the tally there's uh well let's go through we need to quick go through uh extra credit uh there are five extra credit opportunities uh one of them is to stay in a hilton head to the hilton all of you have done

that you've all earned two points uh the another category is reyes Business Class. Show us a trick to enhance your economy enjoyment. And you have all had various ways of getting either a first row, a full row to yourself in economy or an exit row or first class. Or Nick actually got his own bus across the airport. So that's pretty blingy. So you've all gotten two points for that. You have all, let me look here. the airport so that's pretty blingy so you've all gotten two points for that uh you have uh

all let me look here oh learning furrow from a local uh greg got obviously one got two points for learning for a local because he learned how to make sushi from the best sushi master in japan according to anthony bourdain uh nick got learning for a local because he learned how to order bubble tea and Tim Ho Wan or no, you went to Din Tai Fung Din Tai Fung, yeah. So he learned how to but regardless learned how to order dim sum in Chinese.

Stephen, unfortunately unless we missed it on the video I don't think I have. Did that cat not teach you anything? Love. So then making friends with Fido. Carrie, does Greg's hedgehog exceed your cat experience?

Okay, so that counts. Absolutely. He pet them as much as they would have consented to be pet. Does Steven's experience with mustaches the cat? Oh, absolutely. Does Nick's experience with... A dog fighting a white man? No.

Sorry, Nick. Nick doesn't have making friends with Fido yet. The last opportunity for extra credit is Savoir Flair. Use your know-how to show us a cool trick to make your travel easier. Greg did it by using his heretofore unused Equinox credits to get a free massage in New York. Stephen got it by visiting what we thought was 15 priority pass lounges. We actually found out that Stephen clickbaited us on instagram but actually the real thing the thing that i that we were really impressed by was that steven was steven's trick of warming up his economy class butter for his

economy class role on his economy class hot i'd never never thought about that before. And all the hours and all the crappy economy class meals I've ever thought. I'm always like, God, this butter just tears up this thing. Never thought about it before. So Steven gets himself off there. And I would like to share that flair with my wife because it was her who first introduced me to that concept. I missed I missed that video. How do you miss it? So you know how you get the little packets of butter and they're always rock hard. By spreading it on your thing and yeah, it just tears apart your roll.

You just stick it on your little economy meal because it's warm. Just leave it on there for a minute or two and then that's great. Yeah, perfect. Somebody improved upon your tip on Instagram and said put it under the tray if it's having a hard time melting on top. Somebody else said that you actually put it under your seatmate. So we're sitting next to you.

Just put it underneath them. Nick got Savoir Flair for his $75 double upgrade, double fast track trick through AirAsia and Garuda, and for getting a whole bus across the airport on his lonesome. That's pretty fun. Some people might just take a car. Nick takes a whole bus. Whole bus. So extra credit points.

Greg got all 10. Steven got eight of 10. Nick is sitting at eight and still has time to make friends with a great friend. We'll see what happens. Lastly, there's personal missions. Or I guess not lastly, but almost lastly. Personal missions.

Each one of you had a mission that you bragged about that you were confident you would succeed in beforehand. And if you successfully did it, we're going to give you three points. I didn't even remember what this was. Greg felt like he was going to give you three points i didn't remember what this was fastest to 15 carriers and he was by a significant margin so greg gets three points nick um nick it was not enough for him to have one he wanted two things for which to have his personal mission uh be dependent on one was visiting the most cities outside the airport i think it's pretty safe to say that he's probably going to get there um the other was that he has to win the audience choice at the end of this so assuming

that you do get the cities you have if you get audience choice you get your three points so you think about you better think about however right ever you got left to make it right right steven felt like he was going to uh fly around the world faster than a speeding greg and he thought he said he was going to beat greg home by two days or beat the fat, the second fastest person home by two days and the slowest person home by four days, which he still may. We'll see how we're in.

Uh, he unfortunately did not beat. Yeah. I, I really thought Greg was going to stop and smell the roses and, um, and enjoy some time in each of these places and really live it up in luxury. And sadly for me, that did not happen. Yeah. Only roses I took time to smell were Tokyo roses.

And the roses on all of his business and first class flights. And so the last points that we have to award are for keeping up with your journals and your Instagrams. Stephen, you are about home. I think that it's safe to say that you're going to win your five-point bonus. Nick, thus far, you have put an update out every day and you've done an Instagram video every day. You get a five-point bonus. Greg?

Too busy living in luxury. Unfortunately, you get that business class job. Did you get that business class campaign a little too hard? Was it all the wine tasting or was it like, I got this? I missed one day. It was a day that I had back-to-back flights that had no Wi-Fi. I will say, I'm surprised at how few of the airlines that we flew in Asia had Wi-Fi on their planes. Yeah, very few.

Interesting. China Airlines on my way back did. And so I connected to them and they had really decent Wi-Fi. But pretty much, I think that there may have been like one other airline that had Wi-Fi. All the others didn't. I think maybe Korea had it, but it was exorbitantly expensive or something. I took a screenshot, I remember, because I was like, wow, that's incredible.

But I don't remember necessarily. But you're right, yeah, not much Wi-Fi. So as it stands now, and keep in mind, these aren't the final standings. Nick still has to finish his trip. We still have to do the audience choice award. And then there's going to be a bunch of best of, the challenge awards that we're going to give at the end. So there's still points out there to be had. But as it stands right now, Stephen is in third place with 68 points. Nick is in

second place with 73 points. Greg is in first place with 1,520 points. I think you're exaggerating a little bit, Tim. Okay, no, no. You forgot to subtract the five. You did it. I'm sorry, I did the math wrong. It's actually only 78. So five points separate each of you.

Wow. What will happen? So be the choice. Be sconfuge with me. Yes. At the end of the last live stream, will happen what will happen so be the choice these come through for me at the end of the last live stream i was already home and steven was one flight away from finishing his final flight completed without a hitch and he even managed to complete his 15th different priority pass lounge visit at the las vegas. So bravo to that. I love that he did that despite, I'm sure he was dead tired, exhausted, but he made it into that 15th one.

Meanwhile, Nick still had plenty of traveling yet to do. So here's a recap of what he has done since that last live stream. First of all, he recorded that live stream from Xi'an, China, where you may know the famous Terracotta Army is in Xi'an, and that's what he visited next. So from there, he flew China Eastern to the Middle East, where he then got on Etihad First Apartments to Paris. If you've been following along, you may remember that I flew Etihad First Apartments from Paris to Abu Dhabi. He did the opposite. He got more time in the first class lounge in Abu Dhabi than I did and more of those kind of ground services like the express security and things like that.

But as he noted in his posts about this, he had less on board catering because his was an overnight flight, whereas mine was a daytime flight. So that was a difference between our flights. But otherwise, we both booked with 62,500 American Airlines miles for that incredible flight. Nick's next stop, now that he was in Europe, was to visit the Christmas markets in Vienna. Apparently, this is the reason that Nick decided to arrange his whole trip so that he would return to Europe because he really wanted to revisit the Christmas markets in Vienna, which he has

gone to before. Finally, he stopped in Barcelona, where he visited a local market, which turned out to be not much. But then he went to a recommended local tapas place, and he said that was fantastic. And I am jealous seeing what he ate and drank there. It looks amazing. Finally, he knocked off his final required air europa and air france flights and ended with a delta flight from uh paris to new york um to um complete his 15th sky team flight so that's what that's what he's up to right now he As I'm recording this, he is in the sky flying Delta home. So that's a summary of what's going on since the last live stream. Not a live stream, hopefully.

However, we will host a final, final live stream on Tuesday, November 26 at 9 p.m. Eastern time. There, the final, final live stream on Tuesday, November 26th at 9 p.m. Eastern time. There, the final, final scores will be announced. And now that's going to be based on, in large part, on voting, on audience voting. So please stop by the blog, stop by our blog, frequentmiler.com, to cast your vote. Who do you think had the best trip? Vote for me, Stephen, or Nick, and that will be counted as a big part of our score. So please, please do that. Do that before Tuesday's live stream. And we hope you'll have a chance to tune in on YouTube to see us live there.

Bye, everybody.