Frequent Miler on the Air - No such thing as a free upgrade | Ep82 | 1-23-21

Episode Date: January 23, 2021

00:36 Giant Mailbag / What crazy thing did Chase do this week? 8:49 Mattress running the numbers: Is the Wyndham nights + points + coupon deal worth mattress running? https://frequentmiler.com/wyndham-timeshare-offer-199-for-3-night-stay-15000-points-100-coupon/ https://frequentmiler.com/wyndham-timeshare-presentation-survival-guide-get-your-no-face-on/ 14:51 Main Event: No such thing as a free upgrade: Passing the GUC https://frequentmiler.com/passing-the-guc-greg-gives-global-upgrades-to-nick-with-a-catch/ Resource mentioned: https://frequentmiler.com/delta-global-upgrade-certificates-partner-airlines/ 40:00 Post Roast: Greg wrote abut a "perfect" non-mattress run, but was it even a mattress run? https://frequentmiler.com/the-perfect-hyatt-mattress-run/ 43:41 Post Roast: Greg roasts other bloggers for being excited about the new Free Spirit. Nick defends Spirit. https://frequentmiler.com/spirit-goes-revenue-based-makes-elite-status-easier-with-new-free-spirit-program/ 54:25 Question of the Week (#1): Will mobile check-in work for a no-contact Hyatt mattress run? 56:03 Question of the Week (#2):Is an Amex referral shutdown forever? 1:01:49 Question of the Week (#3): How do I keep my Membership Rewards points alive? https://frequentmiler.com/keep-points-alive/ Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave us a comment! Join our email list at https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ Music credit: Annie Yoder

frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event passing the guck what i am what does that mean i am giving nick i'm giving you my global upgrade certificates but but there is a catch whoa i don't like but there't like butt there. I was about to say thank you very much. Yeah, don't thank me yet. Don't thank me yet until you hear the details. Coming up in the main event, first we have the giant mailbag, which even though I am away from home,

I brought the giant mailbag with me. Good, I am glad to see it. You never know where the mail might come in. I mean, clearly, the mailman knows that we're mobile. The mailman can find us anywhere. And the mailman found us with a piece of mail that is both. It covers two of our regular segments. Not only is it a giant mailbag segment,

but it's the crazy thing segment as well. You'll see why in a second. Let me read the mail, and then we'll talk about how this belongs under crazy thing. All right, let's see. All right. Mail says, When I product changed from IHG Rewards Club Premier

to IHG Rewards Club Traveler, which is, by the way, this is my own parentheses. The Traveler card is the one we know of as the no fee IHG card. On October 1st, 2020, I understood there was no annual fee, yet I was charged a $29 annual fee on December 1st, 2020 for the new card. The rep said it is a standard annual fee when one product changes into Traveler, but that there was a promotion at some point, which offered the card to new folks with no annual fee. Okay. So what's going on there? Um, we have heard questions about this quite a bit where people, usually it's the other way around. People call Chase about product changing and are told then that there will be a $29 annual fee and that the $0 annual fee only applies if you apply new for that traveler card, but not a few product change to it.

And I don't know. Until now, I thought, okay, these are just Chase reps that don't understand because, yes, that traveler card used to have an annual fee. And so I figured there was something in the system that made them think there was still an annual fee for product changes. But now that someone says that they actually saw the annual fee on a statement, I don't know what to think. And this is just chase craziness. What's going on? It's bizarre.

It doesn't make any sense at all. It's not like the card today has a waived fee for the first year and is then $29. In that case, yeah, I would expect you'd get charged 29 bucks for the annual fee because you're not a brand new cardholder. You don't get the brand new cardholder bonus, but that's not the case. The card is fee-free these days. It's not like a short-term bonus. It's not a limited time offer. It's not like they're going to change it back to 29 bucks. They launched it with a $29 annual fee for a hot 10 minutes. And then the card was gone. It like disappeared for a while.

And then it kind of quietly came back and had no annual fee. You know, it was like, right. Like they clearly realized that there was no market for it at $29. And so they decided to change it. I've never heard of chase doing something like this. Like if they change something about the card and it's beneficial to you, you get that, right? Right. That's always been the way. Here's what I'm kind of guessing might be happening is sometimes this happens, or not this, but sometimes what happens is Chase retires a card

from availability. You know, you can't sign up new for that card anymore. And, but you can still product change to it. And so I'm guessing that the IHD Traveler card, when they took it away briefly, it got into that state of being, you know, it's coded in their computer system somewhere, the $29 card as like something you can product change to and it's still there even though i don't think it should be right i mean right it doesn't make any sense for it to be but it's it appears like it's still there so uh this will be interesting um my son sometimes sometime in the next three or four months i think is going to get his first annual fee on his ihg traveler card at which point he will try to he will try to product change i'm sorry the premier

card yeah uh he'll try to product change to the no fee card and we'll see what happens and um find out from there anyone listening if you've had success product changing to the no fee card and it's really stayed no fee, just let us know. Trying to figure out what's going on. So there's some possibilities that came to mind. And let me know if the reader who wrote in about this i wonder if they had the premiere card the ihg premiere card if they opened that back when the traveler still had the 29 annual fee is like does that have something to do with when you open the card like oh that would be downgrade to the one that was there when you opened it or something and

then maybe if you open the premiere last year then you know maybe you get the new zero dollar right right i don't know i mean it like it sounds ridiculous but so does charging 29 for a card that has no no fee card so uh yeah no that's weird it's weird and you said a few people have reached out it's true we've heard this from a couple of people just like in the last month month and a half all of a sudden like people like people are on the downgrade train ready to get rid of the premiere. And and for good reason, because, you know, the traveler has most of the better benefits of the premiere anyway. So, right. I mean, it doesn't have the the annual free night certificate, but it has the fourth night free on awards days, which is it can be a very valuable benefit. And so it's a great card to have as if it's really knowing your fee i'm not sure you'd have to know you're using it that benefit

every year to for it to be worth the uh even 29 well right and if you're going to pay 29 then i mean am i not right about this then you you should keep the Premier, right? Because then you're talking, what, another $60 for a $40K cert? Yeah, I mean, I think so. You know, the Premier is pretty close to a keeper as it is, at least especially right now. Since IHD went sort of variable pricing, that's actually been surprisingly good for those who get the annual free night because almost any IHG hotel worldwide, you can find at least some nights that are

available for 40K points. Whereas the old way, there were very few good hotels at that level. So at least for now, I like the $89 card if you're pretty sure you can use that cert each year. So if we find out there's really a fee for the product change version, then I don't see it as a viable path anymore. I wouldn't recommend it. It wouldn't make much sense. I mean, unless you really don't think you can use that $40,000 cert, then. It wouldn't make much sense. I mean, unless you really don't think you can use that 40k cert, then it just wouldn't make much sense. It's gonna cost you $60 more for the premier. And if you can't get better than $60 value out of the 40k certificate, then what are you doing with an IHG credit card at all? Like, this is just not your program. If

that's the case, you can't do better than 60 bucks on a 40k cert. I mean, you ought to at least be able to use that for a hundred dollar night somewhere over the course right right of course everybody who has the old uh club card that uh is 49 of course a year is saying yeah you can do better well right you have to go back in time and sign up for that card that's no longer twenty dollars more than that for the difference you know you know anyway yeah so crazy crazy crazy crazy my craziness chase get your ass together subcharging 29 bucks for this right great like and chase do you really want to be on the what crazy thing each week i mean i think you've been on a couple times recently and it's time to

time to let city get back in right this is this is not the way you want to compete with city bank okay you don't need this spotlight all right so so that's a crazy thing out of the way you want to compete with Citibank. Okay. Right. You don't need this spotlight. All right. So that's a crazy thing out of the way. Let's talk about mattress running the numbers because this week, Steven Pepper wrote about an interesting promotion from Wyndham.

It's a Wyndham timeshare deal. And you may remember that Steven Pepper wrote like, you know, the authority piece on Wyndham timeshares. He did. So he knows a thing or two about this. So what's going on with the Wyndham timeshare getting your dead so he knows a thing or two about this so what's going on with the Wyndham timeshare deal right so uh let's see if I remember right the deal is that you um I think you get like three nights is it for uh for $199 am I remembering this right which sounds decent on the surface right three? Three nights for $199. Yeah, I mean, that alone isn't a bad deal at all.

And I assume you stay in a timeshare unit. It's probably like an apartment-like thing. Kitchen, make your own meals, make it easier for social distancing, all that stuff. But that's not all. You also get 15,000 Wyndham points and a $100 rebate on a future stay booked through. There's terms and conditions on that. So you get all that.

Of course, there is a catch, and the catch is that you have to sit through a 120-minute timeshare presentation. Yeah, get your no-bays on. So there's been inflation here. Yeah. I mean, it's not long ago there's been inflation here. Yeah. I mean, it's not long ago that timeshare presentations were advertised at 90 minutes. Yeah. Now they, I think they tended to go over that. Right. Right. That's the case. So I don't know, is it real inflation or are they being more honest? It's hard to say. I haven't gone to one in a while, so it's hard to say, but yeah, I mean, they're going to force you to say no for two hours instead of for an

hour and a half, I guess. Right. It was like you said, it was already kind of that way. So now maybe they'll push it out to two and a half hours, figuring they can really grind you down. But yeah, so yeah, you got to sit through the timeshare presentation. So I don't know, whatever your two hours are worth, you have to, I guess, figure that into and see what you think your time's worth there.

But what do you think? I mean, 15,000 points, we typically value Wyndham points, I don't know, around a penny a piece, right? I mean, that's a pretty good ballpark figure. So you're talking about about $150 worth of points and $100 coupon for a future stay. Is it worth booking as a pure mattress run? If you don't even intend to use the thing, is it worth it just for the points and the coupon? Would I spend?

No. First of all, the coupon, I think we have to discount. Let's just say it's worth nothing. If you're lucky enough for it to work, because you have to book through their channels, and God knows if the prices are even competitive at all nobody knows let's let's just give that no value at all so it's really you're asking is it worth booking is it worth paying 199 dollars and two hours of your time and the risk of you accidentally saying yes to a timeshare

which hopefully is low if you're listening hopefully that's low. Is it worth all that to get 15,000 Wyndham points? No. All right, Greg. All right. All right. Let me up the ante. All right. How about if I offered you 30,000 Wyndham points and a $175 coupon?

Because some readers are getting that. Steven updated the post to show that some readers are getting a better offer. 30,000 points and a coupon good for 175 bucks. Now we said the a hundred dollar coupon wasn't worth anything because who knows, maybe the prices are inflated. Maybe there's extra terms, but when you get to 175, that's got to get you some discount. It's got to be worth something.

If you're going to go stay at a share at some point. So now you're getting to a dollar figure where, you know, the prices aren't going to be that inflated necessarily. So, so you get some value on the coupon plus 30,000 points for 200 bucks. I mean, that's, that's, that's pretty attractive. I, you know, personally, I wouldn't go way out of my way for that. But if I was, if I looked at the timeshare and said, I know that's not a pure mattress run, but if I said, oh, I would actually enjoy spending the three nights there. I think I would do it. Yeah.

Yeah, you're right. It's not a pure mattress. It's like the Greg, the Greg Davis Keen perfect mattress run version of a mattress run. So we'll get back to that later on today. But, but yeah, so if you're going to use it, then yeah, absolutely. I mean, how can you lose here? You're paying like 60 bucks a night, right? $70 and less than $70 a night.

So it's a cheap stay. You do have to put up with the timeshare thingy, but that's a lot of points. That's decent. I think that's fair. I can go for that. That's fair. I can go for it, especially in these times when timeshare type rentals are fairly desirable. I'd say that's a decent little deal. I'd give it a go. Now, if you don't actually want or need the stay itself, you may also consider if you do go back

and read, I was joking about it, but I'm also half serious. If you go back and read Steven's older post, if you just go to frequent miler and you type in like Wyndham timeshare survival guide, I think that's the title of it. Get your no face on and you read it. He actually went to a presentation. He was in Myrtle Beach and saw the person, I don't know, at the mall or Broadway at the beach or something like that. And I think he paid something like 150 bucks and he got at the time 45,000 points plus

a certificate for a one week stay. I went and tried to do the same thing that he did. And I couldn't get that deal. Best I could do is 99 bucks to go sit through a presentation and get 30,000 points. And I was like, I'm not going to sit through two hours and pay you to do it for the 30,000. I wanted 45. I couldn't get it. But bottom line is, you might be able to do all that if you don't actually want the stay and get the points. So that's worth considering if, you know, if you're not looking for it, but I think with the stay, this is a decent deal. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good. Two thumbs up. All right. Mattress ran for the, for the, for the enhanced version, the enhanced version, the 30 K version, the 15 K

version, I guess, if you want the stay, it's still not a bad deal. I mean, you're getting decent amount of points, but it's not like super exciting exactly okay exactly pretty good okay so windham's out of the way let's get to the main event main event let's talk about passing the guck what is going on first of all what is it got you know like i've never heard of this thing before right right so delta delta's global upgrade certificates we we like to refer to as gucks g-u-c and uh we who likes to refer to that as a gut well that's a word it's like it's a gucky word anyway uh that's that's what you know that's what we do okay so um i wrote about this a few weeks ago that I have these choice benefits that I have to pick because my Delta Diamond says I have to pick by the end of this month, by the end of January 2021. I have to pick my 2020 choice benefits.

I can pick one of the three choice benefits I can pick. I'm allowed to pick these four global upgrade certificates. I wrote, though, previously that I wasn't going to do that, that this year, if you pick them, they're super valuable. They can be used to upgrade any international economy-level paid flight to my flat business class, but they expire a year after you re you get them. And I, I'm not sure at all that I would use it. You, uh, you in turn said, what?

Why don't you give them to me? Right. Exactly. I mean, come on, like be a giving guy here, Greg. You know, I could, I could put those to good use i could flex those global upgrade certificates for some sort of trip in the next year i hope and and my initial reaction was well you know sorry nick but with delta i can't give them to you we have to be flying on the same flight for me to use global upgrade on your flight and And so we talked about that in the show a week or two ago, and a reader wrote in, a longtime reader that we've talked to many times, who said, I've got an idea. Why don't you just take the Gux and you and Nick travel somewhere

and make some kind of game out of it, basically. And so that's what we're going to do. Right, right. And the good thing is, because I'm the guck holder, I'm the guck bequeather, I get to make all the rules. Oh, man, come on now. I was looking for a gift here. This is sounding less and less like

a gift to the farther we go along. Just you wait. Last time I asked Greg for a little handout. Never again. Here's how it's going to work. What's going to happen? All right. So here's how it's going to work. I'm going to wait till January 30th day before the last day to do this. Cause I just don't want to wait till the last day, wait till January 30th to, to, to take my gucks. And then we'll have until January 30th of the year after that to to use them. And that means actually flying. It's not enough to book by then. So we'll have four GUCs. Each one can be used for one direction on international travel. So that includes, that can include multiple legs. So for example, if we flew to South Africa through Amsterdam, let's say, you could theoretically use one GUC for both the flight from the U.S. to Amsterdam and for the flight from Amsterdam to Africa. Okay. And so here's the deal.

You plan everything. Of course. Of course, that's the way it would be. So the only work I have to do is once you've identified the flights, I'll call Delta or KLM or Air France, whoever it is that I have to call, make sure that there is upgrade space available. And then I'll call Delta to actually apply the upgrades.

Other than that, the only thing I've got to do is go with you. And of course, pay for my share. I'll pay for my share, right? I'll pay for my coach ticket. If any activities are doing, I'll pay for my half, i'll pay for my coach ticket if we're any activities we're doing uh you know i'll pay for my my half of course um and you've got one more responsibility sort of oh wait wait i'm not sure whether i gotta plan the thing i gotta find the flights now you're gonna add something else to the plate here yeah okay yeah yeah what else your goal your goal is to earn lots and lots of bonus points

okay okay i like so i like you come up with points or i've i thought you would i've come up with a number of ways you can earn lots of bonus points the the first thing and this this is almost like the the bare minimum needed to play at all is you have to somehow find a way to book a trip that will actually happen. Like we don't know right now what countries are going to allow us in. We don't know when we're going to be vaccinated, you know, all that kind of stuff. So there should be some big bonus points there, Craig, because yeah,

I don't know about you, but my crystal ball has been on the fritz for a while here. So if I'm able to predict something we can actually do in the next year, I mean, if I know much, it's that I got no idea what's happening tomorrow. Forget about like, you know. Yeah. Well, I mean, you don't have to. We don't have to book this thing like tomorrow, though. You know, you could spend you could spend months planning this thing. Well, I'm going to have to because I have no idea about these gucks.

I don't know how to figure out what I can use a guck on and what's a legal routing for a guck. Luckily, FrequentMiler has a post that kind of outlines per Delta partner what you can do. So it's pretty good. With Delta itself, you could do anything. I really put my foot in my mouth with this one, didn't I? Normally, I just avoid the Delta stuff like the plague, not because I have anything against Delta, but I figure, you know, Greg knows his Delta stuff.

So that's something that I don't have to know. I can focus on the other stuff because Delta, Greg has got that mastered. But now you're telling me that I'm going to have to learn the Delta stuff that you have laid out there that you've generously taught to the master. For planning the flights, you will. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to have to.

I'm going to have to learn. I'm going to have to find the stuff. I'm going to have to plan the trip. I'm going to have to book everything. And you're going to sit back and have a vacation. I am. I am I am but you know before I talk about the other bonus point opportunities let me point out

that I'm taking a huge risk here you are if we look back if we look back to the 40k and far away trip oh no just oh no just you you had an incredible trip. You got really, really far away. But I remember a few little events along the way from your trip. I mean, yeah, all sorts of great stuff that happened. All kinds of great stuff, such as literally running to make your very first connection. Sprinted through. Barely made it. Yeah, barely.

Barely. That was like the third to last person on the plane or something it was like yeah trying but failing to hike up a mountain you know i got most of the way up before the rain started pouring down on me and you know i only slipped a few times on the way back down all by myself i believe you fell asleep on your bus and missed your bus stop. I didn't get robbed though. Ended up sleeping on a slab outside the airport. True, true. That wasn't my most comfortable stay, but you know, I was on a different budget. It was a different time.

Then you had a nice long 13 or so hour layover in Bangkok with all kinds of plans for what you were going to do, but weren't allowed out of the airport. Delicious, delicious Thai food and free 10 minute shoulder massage in the Plaza Premium Lounge during that. You made the best of it. Yeah. You had plans to take a ferry to a little island and miss that ferry. I was so close. I saw the thing pulling away. I was like huffing and puffing right there. And somehow the part that bothered me the most of the whole thing

was when you were hungry and saw a pizza place and just couldn't get to it because it was on the other side of the highway. I was so hungry. It was eat something and it was like six lanes of traffic to get there.

Right. So I'm just really hoping that your planning is a little better. Well, I mean, clearly I've had some practice now. So I mean, you can only get better, right? All right. Let's talk bonus points. Okay. Here's some things.

I get a lot of bonus points. As long as we don't spend any nights on a slab. We eat pizza when we're hungry. That's right. And we don't fall asleep on any bus. I mean, I could probably handle that. All right. Lots more bonus points if you earn some kind of elite status from this flight. All right.

So that could be something like you signing up for a, you know, a Delta elite challenge where you have to fly a certain amount in order to get status. Or it could be, you know, I know like Virgin Atlantic has pretty easy rules for silver status, whatever, you know, whatever you find, you know, ideally you'd get more bonus points, the higher level of status you managed to eke out of this thing. Okay. A little fun extra goal for you there. I like that.

I don't usually chase airline elite status. There's another layer that I got to pull back on this thing now to figure out how I can get that. Something else that comes to mind is Air France could be part of this, right? Is that possible? Because they're an Alaska partner. So might be able to pull in some Alaska miles for at least. The wheels are spinning already. Wheels are spinning already.

Okay. Elite status. I'm intrigued. That would be fascinating if you could somehow figure out. One world status out of our Delta. Wow. I'll give you double bonus points if you get status outside of Delta's partners. Yeah, that would be really cool. I like it.

Okay. The next one is purely for the sound of it. Bonus points for using the duck to get a duck. And love the rhyme and so um the idea here is is you know maybe we'll end up staying in a hotel where where like a rubber ducky is one of the things that they give you maybe we'll go to um some place where we're feeding ducks maybe uh there really could be anything but we'll have an experience that involves ducks but not harming any, because that would be minus bonus points for harming. Harming any creatures, actually. Does it count if I spend the night on a slab and my back is killing me in the morning?

Because nobody was talking about points for not doing that last time. Points for staying cheap. As long as I'm not on the slab, you can. Okay. All right. Self-harm is okay. I just can't harm anybody else. I got it. That's right. That's right. All right. So you can okay all right self-harm is okay I just can't harm anybody else I got that's right that's right all right so it's all right so bonus points for elite status bonus

points for us surviving the trip bonus points you know for collecting duckies along the way right any other opportunities oh yeah oh yeah yeah we're not done. Oh, okay. All right. Sweet, sweet guck time. So can you get us in a suite on the plane? So the most likely opportunity there is if you find a Delta 1 suite that we can upgrade to. I'm not aware of, you know, suites on other partners of Deltas that we're likely to get on, but I don't know. I guess you could call the new Virgin Atlantic seats. Call those suites, maybe. Swedish.

I would take that, though. I would love to fly in the new Virgin Atlantic business class. I would count that as a suite, even though it's not technically a suite yeah all right good all right okay so sweet all right it's not you see when you said a suite i was like oh easy breezy i'm a hyatt globalist now you're a hyatt globalist we could pull together a suite somewhere i'm sure but uh but you know okay now it's going to be on the plane i'm talking about airplanes yeah airplane okay yeah yeah sorry if you could figure out a way to use our hyatt suite upgrades Okay, now it's going to be on the plane. I'm talking about airplanes, yeah. Airplane, okay. Yeah, sorry. If you could figure out a way to use our Hyatt suite upgrades on the airplane.

Extra bonus points for that. Extra bonus points. Okay, next bonus opportunity is if we can collect those KLM Delft blue houses, those little blue houses that they give out in business class. That would be really sweet. I've never flown KLM business. I haven't either. I've wanted one of those. I've seen those things before. A bunch of times pictures, you know, people post them online and I've been like, Oh, that's, that's a cool little, you know, thing. I don't know.

Like what a little gimmick that is just one of those things that would make me want to collect it, except apparently it didn't work because I haven't flown KLM business class either. So I guess it wasn't enough to force me to use more points to fly KLM, but okay, now if it's part of the challenge, I'd love to have one of those houses,

if not for the fact that this week, KLM like basically shut down their entire long haul network, right? Right, right. It's a little bit more difficult to get that now. Yeah, I mean, your work's going to involve restarting their route network. Okay, that's all I've got to do, make a few calls? I have faith in you there.

You can do it. Come on, KLM. If you're listening, hello, KLM. Let's get that going, all right? All right. When you push long hauls back. Another one, I mean, I think this one could be pretty easy if the direction we end up going

meets the requirements here. But Air France has a really cool looking business class lounge at Charles de Gaulle Airport. And I've seen pictures. I haven't actually been to this one before, because I have only flown Air France business class first time was between Los Angeles and French Polynesia. So I have not flown them to from Europe. So how do you get access to the business class lounge? I mean, you're a Delta elite. Can we just get in? Can we just walk in like we own the place?

I think as long as we're flying, Air France or one of its partners, including Delta, I think because of my status and you flying with me, we will have access to it. But also, as long as we're flying business class, we will have access to it as well. So, you know, I think the only scenario going through that airport where we probably don't have access to it is if we just arrive in Paris and that's our stop. I think then there's a departures lounge we probably have access to, but I don't think we'd get access to this one. So try to work out getting that into there, ideally. And now we're going to get into some non-airplane related ones. Okay. Okay, non-airplane related. Totally okay non-airplane related totally separate although

this yeah this one's slightly related in that i wrote a post a year or two ago during the 40k to far away challenge where i listed all the best like stopover perks i could find these are things where yeah these are things where you know you through, let's say, Istanbul and you get a free tour or some places you get a free hotel room if you're transiting through that airport. Some of these perks are offered by the city to promote tourism. Some are offered by particular airlines. Some are offered by particular airports. So there's all kinds of things like that. So if you could work in some free or cheap stopover benefits like that, that would be really cool. So wait, now I need to plan a trip that is actually likely to somehow happen and not have canceled flights and also transits through a place where

we can get a stopover tour that's going to allow us to enter their borders and have the stopover tour going on well yeah i mean you don't have to right there's a reason these are called bonus bonus points bonus points right great i just want to frame it so that we know how many points I get if that happens. That's I'm just trying to set expectations here. You have to think of it as extra credit. I mean, getting a flight where we actually end up flying it, that's like the main thing, right? That's your goal.

All this other stuff is extra credit. And I know you, I know you're competitive. So you're going to try to get as much of this extra credit as And I know you, I know you're competitive. So you're going to try to get as much of this extra credit as you can. And hopefully we're all going to learn a bit along the way as you discover ways of making these things happen. Okay, moving on. We're going to have to sleep somewhere, assuming we're not just flying somewhere and flying back same day. And so I'm hoping you find a way to get huge outsized value from our hotel points. Fair enough. Me too. I like to get huge outsized value out of hotel points. So I mean, I did my time on that concrete slab outside of the Honolulu airport. That was like a one and done.

So I was sacrificing for the greater entertainment value for the masses. But yeah, now we're going to stay someplace comfortable. That's I mean, no problem there. I'll be happy to find someplace super nice for us to stay that's reasonable on points, at least I hope because it also has to be in a place served by one of the partners that has availability for the upgrades in a country or place that's going to let us in the borders and places in between they're going to let us transit the airport to get to the place that's going to let us in the borders to get to the hotel that's going to hopefully give us the awesome sweet upgrade and all the extra you know did i mention that there's a catch to this whole giving you the global upgrades upgrades thing. Uh-oh. A little catch.

No, this is the catch, right? This is the catch, right. Yeah, right, right. There's all of these things. Yes. So this is not, for the record, this is not what I anticipated when I recommended that Greg consider who he could give the global upgrades to. That's exactly what I had in mind.

This wasn't in your head? No, no, not exactly. I'm surprised by that. Right. Well, you know that's all right last one i have but but i'm expecting that readers and listeners are going to contribute their own bonus point ideas so this is not the end of them but uh the last one i have is um an activity let's use points to do some kind of activity a tour a you know some kind of uh dining thing uh i don't know you know a class some kind of a cooking class who knows but find a way to get good value from our points by booking that activity

that's the challenge because often like all these, all these, uh, like airline miles and stuff, let you book activities, but usually terrible value. I want to get good value. Good value. So we've got to find something that's a decent value. I mean, that sounds fun and interesting. And again, another layer of challenge and finding something that will be available and open and, you know, and all of that fun stuff. But I like the idea. I've looked at activities through the Chase portal before, places like that. And I've looked at them a bunch of times, but I don't think I've actually ever booked any of those activities. And I've heard stories from readers now and then that have said, oh, I did this great activity here

or this awesome thing there. I really enjoyed with points and it was a good value. So I'm interested in looking into that and actually doing one of those things because I didn't do it before. And now that I have two kids, it seems like kind of daunting to try to, you know, squeeze in a cooking class or something like that most of the time when I'm traveling. So this seems like a fun challenge, something that I'll enjoy finding something cool that I probably wouldn't get a chance to do on a family trip anytime soon. So we'll find something fun to do. That sounds like a good idea. I can't wait.

All right. And we should probably mention, we should probably back up like 30 minutes and mention that we're not looking to plan this like tomorrow or next week or next month. Greg and I, neither one of us are ready to get on an airplane today or tomorrow or next month you know greg and i neither one of us are ready to get on an airplane today or tomorrow or next week right so you know we're we're hopeful that this is going to happen but

part of the parameters i suppose is that you know we both have to feel comfortable and okay with the trap exactly not gonna drag greg kicking and screaming to a place that he doesn't think he should go to so hopefully not the other way around. At least I'm throwing it out there so he doesn't drag me. Well, how am I going to? You're planning it. Right, I'm planning it. Exactly, exactly. So hopefully we'll figure out something fun. I mean, this seems like a fun idea to me.

I feel like this is much better than 25,000 Delta points. Is it not, Greg? Yes, exactly, exactly. I'm really excited about it. So, you know, in fact, so much that it's like, it's hard for me to wait till January 30th to pick that choice benefit. Cause it's sort of like when, when you have this fear, like when there's a test coming up or something, you have this fear that you're going to sleep through the alarm and not make it to class in time. It's kind of like that. Am I going to forget on January 30th and 31st to pick the choice benefit? And then they're all gone. That would be sad.

Hopefully not. Hopefully not. And if you do, then everybody listening to this podcast is going to be angry at you. They will. They will. So yeah. So the pressure's on. I mean, it's not like it's that hard. I did put a, I did put a reminder in my calendar. Good, good, smart man. It'll be pretty hard for me to mess it up, but hopefully I won't be like without internet for two days.

Well, right, that's true. Well, you know, the good thing is that we have some time because I need the time because the Delta Global Upgrade certificates are totally out of my wheelhouse. So this is definitely something I would normally ask you about, but of course I'm not gonna ask you about. But of course, I'm not going to ask you about it

because I'm going to embrace the challenge here and read and learn and figure it out and impress you with how much I learned or something like that. We'll see by the time this is all done. So yeah, I'm kind of excited about the challenge. I think this is going to be something kind of interesting. It's, you know, we did the about the challenge. I think this is going to be something kind of interesting.

It's, you know, we did the 40K challenge. We did the stay K to far away challenge. I'm sure we will do something of that ilk. So this is something that just came out of nowhere, really came out of the, an off the cuff remark that I made roasting Greg and just, you know, great idea from a reader. So that's right.

That's right. Fun to do. And to be clear, we're not saying we're going to do this instead of the next 40K to far away type of challenge. It's but we love doing this kind of thing. So every time we have an idea like this, you know, let's do it. Let's do it.

Yeah. Because you never know what you're going to find along the way. Hopefully, you know, that's part of the fun with adding these challenges. Please, if you're listening, give us more challenges. Like make this more difficult for me or add something else that I'm going to be like, oh, I've got to find a way to do that too because that's going to be what leads to finding something interesting, we hope. Right, right. So I'm hoping to see posts come out of this like how to find upgradable space on Delta flights.

Maybe you'll find some more, uh, stopover. You were going to publish that post next week for me. You know, maybe you'll find more like stopover opportunities. Maybe, you know, there's all kinds of things that could come out of this, that just like the 40 K to far away, we, we published like dozens of posts about things that we discovered because we were uh investigating how to how to do this you know i think uh i'm hopeful that this will do the same uh for you so yeah i'm excited i am too i'm gonna be a lot of

fun gonna be a good time yeah so it's hopefully a lot of fun i mean we're looking forward to it and i'm thinking it's likely to be late in the year you know fall or winter it's hopefully a lot of fun. I mean, we're looking forward to it. And I'm thinking it's likely to be late in the year, you know, fall or winter. It's going to be a ways away. So this isn't going to be like right around the corner. We're going to put some time and thought into it and see how things progress and develop over the next few months.

So we'll plan it later on. But I think kind of fun to get it out there and let everybody know that this is what we're cooking up. Right, right, right. All right. And we, as in you, could start researching whenever you're ready. Don't have to wait. And I won't because I'm not going to wait until the last minute.

I'm excited. I'm excited about this. All right. Good, good, good. All right. I think that brings us to post-roast time. Yeah. It does. And so I'm going to post-roast time. Yeah, it does. And so I'm going to jump right in here and say, go for it.

Greg wrote a piece this week about mattress running that had nothing to do with mattress running, right? It did. It's true. You said the perfect mattress run. And like the first few readers that mentioned anything about this were like, wait, I thought a mattress run is where you book a place and you check in and you don't stay.

And that's not at all what you're doing. Because right now, while we record this, you're staying in the place that you're mattress running. So tell us what's going on with that. Because I mean, that was just totally, it was clickbait. That was a clickbait headline, Greg. You could call it that.

I defined it in the beginning of the post, which is I said, yes, a mattress run is where you book a hotel stay not to stay there, but to earn points or status. But a perfect mattress run is one where you actually want to stay there. So you're getting not just the points and status, but you're getting a great stay out of it. And that's, that's what I'm doing here. And so I made up a new term, perfect mattress, perfect mattress. Made up a new term. That's right. I made up a new term. And hey, alternative facts right here on Frequent Miler. There you go. I feel like I'm allowed to like I'm allowed to make up terms. Why not? Why not? Why not? You can do that.

Okay. Well, I had to roast that because a few readers wrote in and they were like, what? This doesn't make any sense. This is not a bad just run. You just found a good deal. And you did find a good deal. Darn it. I mean, I looked at that place and I said, wow, that looks pretty terrific.

It is. Yeah. You know, it's a great deal. I mean, it's a great deal even without any of the Hyatt benefits kicking in, but with all the Hyatt benefits, it's, it's it's really special. I mean, getting, you know, almost 40% back in terms of Hyatt points because I'm earning 4X points and getting double elite credits and all that. It's really terrific. It's a great deal.

I don't know about a mattress run, but it's a great, great deal. It's worth reading the post. So very similar to what we said at the beginning of this show, as you pointed out, that the Wyndham thing, we kind of think of as like it's a good it qualifies as like a good uh perfect mattress run but not really it's not really as a straight up mattress run right if you're not actually I mean it's a perfect mattress run if you're defining it in Greg's world you know then the Wyndham thing could be a perfect mattress run but in a in the in an imperfect world

it's it's a great deal you got a great deal and I think that you laid out how to look for that a little bit and and you know the different things that you're able to stack because really I mean that is a fantastic opportunity if you're looking to get away right now and find a place and have like a vacation rental style thing that looks like the stars are aligning really nicely it's fantastic uh i just wish we had more time we do have to get back uh home eventually and so you know we only booked six nights and i'm really enjoying it so i would have loved to have stayed longer but we might come back next month who knows yeah there you go um i mean i looked at the thermometer this morning and it was like zero degrees when I got up and like by the time it hit like 11, Google told me it felt like it was three or something. So I was thinking of you this morning. Yeah. Well, thanks. Yeah. So, you know, this, this place is in South Carolina.

It's not, it's not like Florida warm, but it's in the fifties, which when the sun is out is, is very, very comfortable. Yeah, I'd take that. Yeah, for sure. You can go outside and enjoy that. Okay, so all right. You got a post roast for me, Greg? I have a post roast, but not for you today.

Oh, sweet. I'm going kind of off the board. Oh, wow. To roast two other bloggers. Two other bloggers. Oh, sweet. I like it. I'm excited. I didn't really read their posts,

to be honest. I'm roasting their post titles. Post titles. So today, as we record this, the new Spirit Airlines loyalty program called Free Spirit has come out officially. So it's all new Spirit program. And you've posted about it before you said it looks pretty good i agreed with that it looks pretty good but i have a really hard time being excited about it we got a little more information the other day my opinion didn't change but one mile at a time said it's kind of awesome. And it's kind of awesome. And live and let's fly says it's really,

really good. So it's not enough for just one. Really, really, really good. I don't see it. So, yeah, I mean,

compared to the old program. Yes, it's awesome. And really, really good because their old program was terrible. Like the old program, yes, it's awesome and really, really good because their old program was terrible. The old program points expired in three months or something. That was horrible. There was no way to avoid award redemption fees, I think.

Maybe if you have a credit card. I don't know. No, not really. But now it's like everybody can avoid award redemption fees if you book far enough in advance and or if you have a credit card and points don't expire except that they do unless you have the credit card so um i don't you know what i'm gonna just i'm gonna play devil's advocate i'm gonna disagree with you please i did i did not read the one mile at a time or live and

let's fly post so I'll put that caveat in there that I'm not defending either of those posts because I have no idea the tone they took overall. But I can say that I thought that this new spirit program, when I saw it at first, had a lot of potential. And now that I've had a chance to play and look at the point redemption values a little bit, my biggest problem with it is that the values are super, super variable. And not only are they super variable today, but that means there wasn't much of a pattern to anything. So who knows what they're gonna be worth tomorrow?

Like, I mean, they can flip a switch tomorrow and they can be worth something totally different in the day after that, could be something else. So it's all over the map. It's not even like a, it's usually about a penny a point. The worst I found was a little over nine tenths of a cent. And the best I found was 1.8 cents per point. So, you know, I don't know.

I wouldn't necessarily put it in the middle, but I think a penny a point is probably a decent valuation. Now, the reason I think it's actually pretty good though, is because look at what you're earning. As a person with no status, you're earning six points per dollar on fares and 12 points per dollar on incidentals, which we all know the bag fees and the seat selection, all that is the majority of what you're spending on spirit. And if you have a platinum card or Ritz card, or one of the many cards with airline incidental

benefits, you can erase all of that bag fare extra stuff with your airline fee credit and earn 12X spirit points, more than 12% back on that. That's not necessarily a bad deal. I think as far as domestic airline programs go, this is actually really good. I mean, when you talk about earning basically a floor level of about 6% back on the fair and 12% back on the incidentals, depending on how much each of those is, you're going to probably get at least like 80% overall, depending on what you're paying for back. Now, if you have elite status, it gets even sort of better. You get 10X if you have the top tier status on the fair and 20X on all the incidentals.

Now, of course, that's kind of stupid though that's the dumbest part of the program because if you have gold status you don't have to pay for the incidentals so i don't know if they're giving you 20x on because you don't pay for your bag and you don't pay for the seat selection but but if you have silver status anyway in the middle then it could be worthwhile because there are some of those things you have to pay for so anyway it's a decent rebate versus other airlines. If you have no status, you're talking about like what, five United miles per dollar on the fare and that's it. You know?

Yeah, but if you value regular airline miles around one and a half cents each, so you're getting five points per dollar, that translates to about seven and a half percent back. I mean, that's not out of the range of what you're talking about. Well, no, but it's not necessarily better than what I'm talking about. And maybe you have the chance to get a little bit better value out of those traditional airlines. But if you're primarily

a domestic traveler, primarily a domestic leisure traveler, you're not going to put together enough points in those other programs without credit cards and without shopping portals and everything else to have anything meaningful. Whereas Spirit's giving you a chance to earn enough points in those other programs without credit cards and without shopping portals and everything else to have anything meaningful. Whereas Spirit's giving you a chance to earn enough points to use on a flight with just a round trip or two, because the redemptions are starting at 2,500 points. And again, that's going to be on your cheapest fares, like your $40 fares. But hey, I mean, that's what Spirit's got. So if you're earning six points per dollar on your fare and 12 points per dollar on your incidentals, that 2,500-point free flight isn't all that far off. So I feel like it's a more useful program for leisure travelers.

Now, that's if you're primarily a leisure traveler, if Spirit Airlines serves your airport, and if Spirit serves the airport you want to go to, and if you want to risk the fact that Spirit's got like one flight a day. And so if it gets cancelled you're out of luck for another day or two or three there's a lot of ifs but I think it's interesting I think it's like so you agree with Lucky that it's kind of awesome yeah kind of

awesome and you agree with you agree with Live and Let's Fly that it's really really good well I don't know about two reallys that might be one really too with Live and Let's Fly that it's really, really good. Well, I don't know about two reallys. That might be one really too. The other interesting thing is you can get elite status from spend. So, I mean, hey.

All right. So, we're going to – I think where we come down on this is we take out one of the reallys. We take out one of the reallys. It's really good and we we uh accent the the when we say it's kind of awesome we don't mean it like it's kind of awesome like excited we mean kind of kind of awesome exactly which is not i don't think is how lucky meant it but i'll take it that way maybe not i'll take it that way it's kind of awesome maybe sort of kind of it could be i you know it's it's better than i expected on the one hand and not as good

as i expected on the other because when spirit first reached out and told us that they were doing something they made it sound like this was going to be the next big thing and going to be totally revamped and totally it's not as different as i kind of hoped it would be. But it's decently valuable. It's not a bad, it's a decently rewarding program. I would say it's more rewarding than the Southwest Rapid Rewards Program, generally speaking. Obviously not more rewarding than the Companion Pass, but more rewarding than paying for Southwest flights. Okay. That's that. I think that's a valid comparison because that's probably the closest, uh, major airline in the U S to, to, uh, spirit.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not flying spirit tomorrow, but probably not. But you're happy with the free spirit program. Um, one other like kind of minor thing I noticed the one place where things don't seem as good as before. So they announced two new credit cards and the,

the old spirit credit card earned two points per dollar everywhere. The new ones only earn one point per dollar except for in, you know, special categories. And so, you know, the earning rate for the credit card is way down. On the other hand, the one with a fee

does give you the ability to earn elite status just through spend. And so if all those perks are valuable to you, like I could see a regular spirit flyer saying, it's worth it to me to spend however much uh per year on this card to keep elite status so that i get all these the seat selection and whatnot for free that would be pretty cool yeah yeah i think it's not bad and actually the no fee card now you're gonna tell me i'm crazy but when i looked at the press release i swear the no fee card shows that it gets a 5,000 point a year anniversary bonus.

Right, with $10,000 spend, I think. Again, not bad. You're looking at at least 15,000 points then, right? Yeah, but if you think about the old card, it would have gotten 20,000 points with the same amount of spend. 20,000, yes. Plus it also had that, I think it also had that annual bonus if you spend.

It might have. Much less useful points. Right. Although if you had that card and you've been building up, I guess they're now useful. But yeah, no, it's a good point. I probably shouldn't really compare the old card to the new. It's not going to compete with your Delta diamond status, Greg,

but it's spirit. I mean, nobody expected it to compete with Delta diamond, right? So it's, I think it's as good as I could have expected as I know, as good as I should have reasonably expected from spirit. Now that sounds a lot less excited about it than you started the conversation. All right. I'm not defending any other bloggers anymore good enough all right because because my point was was not that it was bad just that that was a bit extreme that you know especially i didn't expect one mile time to be talking about how awesome it was when you know to him i mean we all know to him awesome

is when you're getting like luxury and you you're not going to be getting outsized value and luxury from this program. You are going to get good value from the loyalty program. I think so. So, okay. I think decent value for domestic travelers. It's not that like in 2021 here for domestic travelers it's it's not a bad program to look at uh if you don't mind flying spirit but all right that's enough of that we got it right that's good i we we sort of agree and sort of disagree and we came to it that was so that was

a really really good conversation right so we're gonna move on awesome kind of kind of awesome so we're gonna move on to the questions of the week. Ooh, wait, I heard an S in there. Nice. You already just did there, the questions of the week. Yes, you did hear an S in there because there were so many questions this week. I felt like I had to give some space to like two or three. And so the first question is going to be a quick answer for you. So the first question is one that keeps coming up up and that's why I want to address it.

And that is, if I want to book this Hyatt mattress run, can I book a place that has mobile check-in? Can I book it online and mobile check-in and never show up at the desk and mobile check out and get my credit without ever talking to a human being. Is that going to work, Greg? It may, but there's absolutely no guarantee I wouldn't do it because if you try to do it, there's a lot of things that could go wrong in that plan. And you'll still pay for the room. And so if it doesn't work, you're, you're, you're out of luck. So I think it's a bad idea.

I think it's a bad idea to keep people keep asking. I keep saying, if it were, if that were the guarantee, like if you definitely could do that, that's what everybody be doing. Like nobody be actually going to these places and dragging it. If you could do that but typically well i shouldn't say typically but there's at least a good chance you may not be able to you may not get away with that right it does sometimes work it's just that you have to be prepared that things could go wrong and it won't always work so yeah yeah so i wouldn't do it okay got that out of the way that

was question number one because we keep getting some version of that question all right next question up uh we had somebody who wrote in and asked about amex referrals and i thought this was a great question so he said like many points enthusiasts several years ago i'm sorry this is chris chris says like many points enthusiasts several years ago i referred myself to a couple of amex cards back when that still worked so self-referred, referred himself in order to pick up the referral points. Unfortunately, Amex later clawed back those points and also blocked many of the people who had self-referred from referring cards at all.

It's annoying because I do tell my friends and family about Amex cards, but when they decide to get the cards, I can't refer them because they took away his ability to refer people. Right. And of course, the 30K referrals that we've been talking about with the platinum card and and that sort of thing have been really making him jealous. And it's been blocked for a couple of years now, at least. So he says he's tried calling in naively a couple of times and just saying the system won't let him refer. And the phone agents have never been able to figure out why. Do you think there's any hope forever getting unblocked? Do you think I should call in and tell them what happened with the self-refer and the hopes of getting a department that can unlock this?

Or am I forever doomed to miss out on the thousands of free membership rewards points that I should be getting from referrals? Yeah, that's a rough situation. Especially since, like, it wasn't obvious back when self-referrals were, you know, before we knew that Amex frowned on self-referrals, it wasn't obvious that they didn't want to allow it. I mean, it's clear, like, if you think about it logically, like, it kind of makes sense that they wouldn't want to, but there was nothing obvious about it. And so it's kind of sad that, you know, a lot of people got in this situation where they can't refer. That's too bad. I don't know of any examples where someone has gotten that reversed but uh you know first of all i don't see any problem with calling and and being honest about what happened you know that does seem to

me like a good idea a better idea than just calling and pretending that you don't know why you can't refer um because then at least they have somewhere they have a starting point to be looking into what's going on. I mean, like, what would you be afraid of them doing to you? You know, they've already taken away. What's going to be worse than that? Like, if they wanted to close your account, they would have done it back then. Exactly, exactly.

So they're not going to close your account because you're calling to ask about this one thing. The other thing I would recommend is that you ask to speak with a supervisor. That in my experience with Amex, most of the sort of first line call answerers don't have as many powers as the supervisors do. And if you get a good supervisor, they might not be able to directly help you with this issue, but might not be able to directly help you with this issue, but they should be able to open up a case that then goes to the right people

and hopefully gets resolved. So I've had situations like that in the past where that's happened where I was skeptical when the supervisor said, I'm opening the case and I'm going to get back to you. But in fact, she did open the case and she did get back to me and it was all resolved to my favor. So again, I don't know that that would happen in this case, but I think for there to be a chance of something good to happen, I think it has to at least get to that level of the supervisor doing something proactively like opening a case and investigating it. There you go.

Yeah, I would agree. I think that's the best course of action. Now, tagging a similar question onto that similar ish. I had somebody reach out to me the very next day after this, who reached out to me and said, Oh, I accidentally self-referred myself. So it was a situation where, yeah, they, you know, they thought they were logged into the spouse's account referral link, but turned out they were logged into their own account, didn't realize until after they applied I, do I call Amex and say, whoops, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do this to just leave it alone. Like what'd you do in that situation? I think whenever I'm walking past Amex,

I'd wear a wide brimmed hat and just kind of stick to the shadows. Hopefully you just slide by. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't, I can't imagine that calling attention to it in this case is going to be helpful. Right. If they haven't noticed it themselves, then yeah, calling attention to it probably doesn't make any sense. Just let it go and save your prayers.

And just hope for the best. For the best. Yeah. That's, I think that's all you can do. That's my guess. I mean, I hate to be giving wrong advice here. I mean, I guess there's theoretically a possibility of getting someone on the phone

who would understand your plight and proactively stop you from getting banned. But that's a lot of ifs. Yeah, there's a lot of ifs. And my thought is probably one of them is going to slide through probably now. I mean, I wouldn't do that on purpose but if you ended up in that situation accidentally i would probably just cross my

fingers and hope and i think in the case the person that reached out to me was hilton points which is probably in slightly better shape that way than if it was membership rewards points i think so uh so anyway all right and of course, obviously, don't do it again. Right. Don't make that mistake twice. Fool me once. All right. One last quick question, I hope. I know we've gone a long time today, but it was a very good week full of good questions. So last question somebody asked is they have the Amex gold card and they don't want to pay $250 for it. They get the $100 airline credit and a little bit more on groceries, but that's not enough. Probably not going to use the dining credit for this particular reader. Frank said they weren't going to use that, but Frank has a lot of membership rewards points.

So what should Frank do to keep his membership rewards points alive? He doesn't want to keep the gold card. He says, you've mentioned that the every day, the Amex every day credit card with no fee is good for preserving points, but I assume it can't transfer points to airlines or hotels. Is that true? What else could I do if my spouse has me as an authorized user on their account? Does that preserve my membership rewards points? What can you do if you got the gold and you don't want to keep the gold? You don't want to pay for the gold, but you want to preserve your membership rewards points. Sure. Okay. So Amex membership rewards, as long as you have any account as a primary owner of the account, any account that earns membership rewards, then you can cancel any other account you have and all of your membership rewards points are

preserved because they automatically pull them all together, and they're tying them to you, not to your specific credit card. So that's different from how Chase does it. The other thing is Amex used to have some cards that had membership rewards that were limited where you couldn't transfer to transfer partners. But all their new cards allow transfers to transfer partners. There's literally no downside to the membership rewards points attached to your every day, your no fee every day card when compared to your gold card. Your points are worth the same amount. The other no fee card that I really like, and I would

suggest before the everyday card is the Blue Business Plus, because that's also no fee, but it earns two points per dollar everywhere for 50k spend a year. So that's just a great card in general. No fee, keeps your points alive. That's a great one to get. Being an authorized user on another person's membership rewards card does not keep your points alive. So that you could forget about. But yeah, get the Blue Business Plus or if for some reason you don't want to get a business card, get the everyday card.

And then you're free to cancel your gold card if that's what you want to do. And you have and hold and keep that card, that no fee card forever because then you'll always have it. And if you want to cancel your gold card if that's what you want to do. And you have and hold and keep that card, that no fee card forever, because then you'll always have it. And if you want to cancel or upgrade or downgrade or whatever you want to do with all your other cards, you know, you've always got that fee free card that's going to preserve the ability to

transfer to airline partners and hotels. That's a really nice MX. You don't get that with chase. That's a nice benefit of membership rewards. It sure is. Yep. All right, my friends, that brings us to the end. That's it. That's a triple feature for question of the week this week. So that brings us to the end of a long show, but we hope you've enjoyed it. And if you have, and you'd like to get on our email list, so you can read all these posts that are going to come out, especially about passing the Gawk. You want to know what I'm doing and what I'm planning, what we're cooking up, et cetera, et cetera.

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leave us a comment, give us a like. Same thing if you're listening to this in podcast platform, leave us a comment or review, et cetera. Thank you guys very much for being out there with us. And we're going to see you again soon. Last note, while Nick is busy getting his gucks in a row, don't forget to give us some feedback about other ways he can earn bonus

points on the trip. I think I'm expecting a lot of good ideas there. I'm hoping everybody. Thank you.