Frequent Miler on the Air - So, you want an overwater villa in the Maldives? | Ep97 | 5-8-21

Episode Date: May 8, 2021

Giant Mailbag 3:02 What crazy thing....did Marriott do? They began taking bookings for a Category 5 resort in the Maldives! https://frequentmiler.com/new-marriott-category-5-maldives-hotel-le-meridien-maldives-use-free-night-certs/ 4:55 Mattress running the numbers: Stacking Hyatt promos and milestone benefits https://frequentmiler.com/targeted-earn-1000-aadvantage-miles-per-night-on-hyatt-stays/ 14:22 Main Event: So you want to stay in an overwater bungalow in the Maldives? https://frequentmiler.com/overwater-villas-in-the-maldives-bookable-with-marriott-points/ https://frequentmiler.com/le-meridien-maldives-worth-buying-a-travel-package/ 56:31 Question of the Week: Is a big credit line going to prevent me from getting other cards? Don't forget to like, subscribe, and enable notifications! To join our email list and find us on social media, go to: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ Music credit: Annie Yoder

frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event so you want to stay in an overwater bungalow in the maldives i do i do i do too we're going to talk about how to do that and to do it with points and sometimes super cheaply so that that's kind of exciting, I think. But first, what do we have? The giant mailbag. The giant mailbag. Pull it out. It's giant.

I've got the mailbag. It's got mail. It's the giant mailbag. It's the giant mailbag with the giant mail. With the giant font. Giant font mail. Today's mail is not so giant in number of words. Here we go. Here's the feedback from

a follower. You'll be happy to know that Lizzie now has some help. That's it. I'm very happy to hear that. I've heard it from a few people now this week, and I'm very happy to hear that Lizzie does indeed have some help. So for those who don't know what we're talking about, of course, we've talked a lot about Vacasa vacation rentals and how to book those with Wyndham points very cheaply. And we have been joking about how it seems like Lizzie is the only person there that can help people book these things. But other people have since, we've joked about it, gotten responses from other people. I think in this case, it was Amy.

That's the only other person I've heard of so far is Amy. So congratulations, Amy, on your new job. Or maybe Amy was on vacation and Lizzie was like, oh, my goodness. When you come back, I am leaving. I'm out. Yeah. Or, you know, congratulations to Lizzie for getting some help. Right. I think that's. Here, here. Right.

And with that, so. One other thing I'm going to throw in another, this isn't, this didn't come in via giant mail, but, but this is another sort of flashback to something else we talked and joked about in a previous episode we talked about how uh we encourage people to join the frequent miler insiders group on facebook and told them you you have to put in a place you want to go for us to allow you in and we we joked about how like bots might just put in the word okay and not get in. And so people who wanted to go to Oklahoma, you've got to spell it out.

So someone who was listening joined the group and put in he wants to go to Oklahoma. I enjoyed that, whoever that was. There you go. We were watching. At least one person did it anyway. Nice. I could have missed some. When I see a place that looks reasonable, I hit accept, but yeah. And then maybe,

maybe Steven or our volunteer moderators that maybe they didn't notice. So, but so if there's somebody else out there, okay. There's might be a few of you that put in Oklahoma, but that yeah. Regardless, we, we enjoyed it very much. So nice, nice job there. Okay. So what crazy thing did Mary marriott do this week greg marriott marriott's up with a crazy positive thing which is they uh just rolled out a brand new resort in the maldives a la meridian property brand new to open in august and they classified it as category five. What?

Category five. So let's look at what else Marriott has in Maldives. They have quite a few resorts there. They do. I mean, they're going all in on the Maldives. They got a lot of places, right? And they have four of them that are category eight, which is their top category. So those are the ones that standard cost 85,000 points a night or 100,000 points in peak season.

That's including the JW, the new Ritz Carlton, the W, and the St. Regis. And then one category less than that, I think it's one category less, is the, yeah, category seven is the Westin. And then category six is the Sheridan. And so the Sheridan is an old property that was the cheapest if you wanted to use marriott points that was the cheapest that was like standard 50,000 points a night still is standard 50,000 points a night but now we could instead go to a brand new la meridian for standard 35,000 points per night the poor sheraton the poor sheraton nobody's staying there when you can stay at the brand new hotel in an overwater bungalow for 35K standard. 30K off peak, right? And only 40K peak. Right. It's a deal.

We're going to get more into that soon. Soon. But first, Mattress Running the Numbers. So this week, we're going to Mattress Run Hyatt. Or we're going to talk about whether or not we should. Because Hyatt has some overlapping stuff going on. So right now you can earn a thousand American Airlines miles per night with a new promotion that's out. Plus you can earn, these people have been earning a thousand Hyatt points per night on top, right? Right. Well, so this is a

targeted promotion. I wasn't targeted for this, unfortunately, but if you're lucky enough to get it, it looked like it was just talking about in the original terms of the offer. It looked like you were just going to be getting a thousand American airline miles and not bonus Hyatt points. But people have been reporting, as you said, they're getting both. So it's a lot better than we thought. Plus it overlaps. It overlaps with the bonus journeys promotion, which is not a targeted thing. So everybody's access to this bonus journeys you might remember is for every two nights, you get 2000 Hyatt points. And if you have a Hyatt credit card, you get a little bit more. You get 2,500 points per two nights. But wait, there's more. There's more.

Right. After 10 nights during the promo, everybody that registers for bonus journeys gets a free category one to four certificate. After your first 10 nights, you get a free category one to four night certificate with Hyatt. So you get that too. So if you're targeted for the American airlines thing, you're talking about getting a thousand American airlines miles per night,

plus at least 3000 Hyatt points per night. Plus if you complete 10 nights, getting a free category one to four Hyatt certificate. I mean, that's what. It's not, no, wait, wait, wait. It's not, it's not 3000 Hyatt points per night because the 2 000 is every two nights two nights i'm sorry on the bonus journey so so think of that as being 1 000 a night also 1 000 a night so so you're getting a total of 2 000 hyatt points per night if you don't have the hyatt card um 1 000 american airlines points per night And if you do 10 nights like that, you also get the category one through four cert.

So what's that a total? How many bonus Hyatt points? We're talking about 10,000 bonus. So 2,000 points a night, basically, right? Times 10 nights. So it's 20,000 Hyatt points. Hyatt, 10,000 American Airlines, right? Right.

And then a free shirt. Right. And if you have the credit card, it's another 5,000 Hyatt points, right? We're talking about, no, I'm sorry, 500 times, what, five. So another 2,250, right? So 22,500 points total if you got the credit card. So a little bit more yet. So I mean, that's, yeah. So you're talking about 30,000 plus points. If you lump them all together between the Hyatt points and the American Airlines miles, 30,000 points, free certificate. I mean, that's gotta be worth it, right? It should be heading out to a Hyatt right now, right, Craig? Well, let's think about this. What is all that worth? So let's just say that to make it easy, let's say all those points are worth about one and a half cents each. So that's $450 in points plus a certificate. Let's call that 150 just so we'll end up with a nice round number. So that's $600 worth of

travel. I mean, and that's even if you're not using it like to great effect, right? Right. You could definitely do better, but that's- You could definitely do a lot better, but that's like sort of a low valuation of how much value you might get from those things. So is it worth actually though checking in, doing a mattress run and booking 10 nights that way? So you'd have to do it in groups of two to optimize this. Like a three night or five night stay is not gonna optimize this.

So you need five two night stays. You need five weekends or something or two night stays. Well, or you could do 10 altogether. Or 10 altogether. As long as it's an even number within the stay, you're okay. So, I mean, is it worth it? Well, no. Not unless you've got a really cheap Hyatt.

I mean, you've got a really, really cheap Hyatt near you, maybe. If you're staying for business and you're getting a tax write-off with it and you have a cheap Hyatt, then maybe a little bit more. But if you're paying $60 a night, you're paying $600 to get $600. And that's, as we've sort of addressed before, that's not necessarily a deal. If you're paying less than that, well, I mean, it kind of depends on how well you think you'll use the points in the free night certificate. Keep in mind, the free night certificate expires in six months. So it's not valid forever. So you're going to have to be able to use that in the next six months.

So I wouldn't count on a lot more than $150 in value unless you have a pretty sure use of that in a place where you're pretty sure you're going to be able to travel to within the next six months. Right. So I think where it's worth it is if you're also trying to get to the next Hyatt milestone reward. So you're trying to get one of those, the suite upgrade awards or something valuable. So now you're tempting me, Greg. Now you're slow down. Stop talking. So then, I mean, it's kind of like, let's say you book a category one hotel for 10 nights, because we believe, I'm not 100% sure, but we believe that award nights count for both promotions. So that would be 50,000 total Hyatt points that you spend, but you're getting back 30,000

points. They're not all Hyatt points, but still, maybe you're getting a little bit more if you have the Hyatt card. And you're getting 10 elite nights towards your milestone. So that's pretty good. That is pretty good. And so if you're already at 60 nights, Hyatt Globalist, which I am, that's why this comes

to mind. If you're already at 60 right now, then another 10 would give you the choice between another sweet night upgrade or I don't know what the other choices are when you get every 10,000 points. I think it's 10,000 points even. So I wouldn't do that. I thought that's what it was. So you wouldn't do that. But the sweet night upgrades, and I'm saying sweet night, the sweet upgrade awards with Hyatt, because the sweet upgrade award with Hyatt use one of those for a stay of up to seven nights. So here we're talking about if you were to spend 50,000 points on your category one, and if you're willing to call about if you were to spend 50 000 points on your category

one and if you're willing to call it a wash with the 30 000 points you get back not a wash i shouldn't say if you're willing to say you get 30 000 points back so your net cost is 20 000 for those 10 nights then you're essentially paying a net cost of 20 000 or so for a category one to four free night certificate and a sweet upgrade award. Again, if you're already at 50 or 60 high at nights, uh, that's. Yeah, no, if you, I mean, if you're already at 60, what you're getting is upgrades, not, not free nights. That's right. Well, you get the category one to four certificate for, Oh that. Yes. So you're talking about a net, net 20 K for,

but I think, I think where this is most valuable to do is if, is if you're projecting by the end of the year, your regular stays will get you either to 20 nights so that these 10 will get you to Global West or 40 nights so that these 10 will get you to the 50 night part. And you get that 1 to 6 free night, I think. Or does that happen at... No, that happens at uh 60 but this one this one gets you the uh 50 nights it gets you two sweet sweet the sweet upgrade awards yep and definitely if you're at if you project to be at 50 then i think then it's a

no-brainer to do these 10 to get to to 60 for two more yeah sweet upgrade for two more plus the uh category one to seven yeah if you're at 50 nights, then yeah. I mean, I don't know why you're listening to this show unless you're listening to it from a Hyatt. Like if you're not, you should be looking for someplace to check in. Well, again, you know, I'm saying, I'm saying that, that you're projecting you'll be at 50 by the end of the year. So maybe you have a bunch of stays planned or sort of you're thinking about, and then you're saying, Oh, through my regular stays, I'm not quite, quite going to get there. That's when I think you should be thinking

about mattress running. You see, I, I don't, I'm going to take the opposite side of that and say, if you're not really sure yet, it's, I think it's tougher because I mean, if we haven't learned, if we learned anything over the last year, it's a very little is certain. So if you're counting on nights in like September and October to get you towards stat, little is certain. So if you're counting on nights in like September and October to get you towards stat, who knows, who knows if you're going to make those stays. So that's true. I mean, you might feel pretty confident about it and hopefully you will, but I would be less interested in a mattress run if I wasn't sure that the nights were going to get me to that next level. If I'm already at 40, I might do the mattress run for the, for the 50 to know that I have it and know that I've got the award.

Right. Of course, if you have a stay coming up, uh, where you could use the sweet night upgrade award, I mean, I'm getting my Marriott and I know I keep saying the same thing. I don't darn it. Marriott, you trained it, trained it into us. Right. Um, if you could use the sweet upgrades, then, you know, it might be worth hurrying and doing Right. If you could use the suite upgrades, then it might be worth hurrying and doing this so you get the suite upgrades and then applying it to your future stay as well. So, okay. So possibly worth it.

There are some good examples where you might want to do it. It's definitely not for everybody and not everybody's even targeted for it. So there you go. There you go. All right, my friends. So that brings us, I believe, to the main event. It does.

It does. We're going to talk all about overwater bungalows in the Maldives. Ooh la la. And this, of course, this topic was launched by this new La Meridian. That's really hard to say. It is. It's so hard to say. I keep trying to talk about it and say it even at home.

And I'm like the meridian no like there's a new a limerick now there's just no good way to say it Mariette you should change it's not that easy to type it either I believe me I've been working on blog posts especially if you actually want to get the accent mark in there then it's like exactly I gotta go to the character map or figure out the keyboard shortcut I just copy and paste every single time. But still, that's a nuisance. I just wrote it with an E. There you go. I get fancy on me.

That's an old Starwood brand, right? So Marriott, it's not Marriott's fault. I can't blame that on Marriott. True, true. Anyway, so, you know, obviously it's exciting because the Limeridian, not only is it cheap to book

this Maldives resort, but it books into, you have your choice of a, I forget what the other one is, but an overwater bungalow books in as a standard room. Right, right. And the non-overwater room that we can't remember the name of, because who cares about the one that's not over the water, but it's much bigger too. So if you're looking for more space, then the non-overwater one might be preferable to you. But yeah, I bigger, too. So if you're looking for more space, then, you know, the non overwater one might be that might be preferable to you. But, yeah, I mean, overwater for thirty five thousand Marriott points per night is amazing in and of itself. Like just if you're using points, that's incredible. It sure is. It sure is.

As you pointed out in your post about it, if you have those category, if you have those thirty five K free night certificates that come with a number of Marriott cards, you could use them on this property during standard or off-peak pricing. Standard and off-peak are widely available until about mid-November. And then it goes into mostly peak and then it goes into all peak as you get further into the winter. At least as we're talking right now, they don't seem to have released any booking space past early January. And I'm even talking like paid. So it seems like they're just not allowing bookings more than six months out at this point. So what you could do is just each morning, watch for the next day, it would probably will probably appear as available and bookable. But I am seeing those, you know, the early January

ones that are bookable, I'm seeing them all if they're available at all at peak, which is 40,000 points per night. So there's a good chance that when you want to go, you might not be able to use your free night certificates, but points work fine. That's terrific. If you have a certificate from reaching 75 nights, if you got titanium status and you get a choice benefit, those are 40K certs.

So boom, it works at a 40K property. Those would work. And I think it would be a perfectly good use of the 50K certificates that come with the Bonvoy Brilliant card and the Ritz-Carlton card. And of course, just having the points, if you book five nights in a row, five nights in one stay with points,

one of those five nights is free. And so that's just a standard feature of the Marriott program. And it makes the average per night significantly less than 40,000 points per night. So you could get a pretty long stay out of one or two Marriott card signup bonuses, for example. Right. And a lot of people that have had Marriott cards for a little bit might have a couple of free nights stacking up now. They just announced the extension of some of those free nights

and that should be updated now, the new expiration dates. So a number of people might have a whole bunch of free night certificates. And if you can go this fall, when it's actually pricing at 30 or 35,000 points per night, you might be able to stack up a bunch of those, then use some points from a single bonus and stay for like a decent amount of time. I've seen people in some of the groups I belong to online book in like two weeks at a time at this place, because it's just that good of a deal.

If you're able to book it at 30 or 35,000 points a night, you're talking about 120,000 points for five nights off peak 140,000 for five nights peak, or I'm sorry, not peak for five nights standard and 160 K for five nights peak. I think it'd be right. So that's, that's amazing. That is amazing. So, you know, you do have to be aware there is a airplane transfer and you've got to pay for that. And so that this one is charges $420 per person for the transfer. I think that's round trip transfer, right? It is. Yeah. So that's part of it obviously is not going to be cheap and is also why if you're going, you're not going to want to spend just like two or three days there. You want that part of the investment to account for something. You do. And that's, I mean, it's insanely expensive because you're talking about a 30 minute flight. You can't book that with points. So like I went to Bora Bora last year and you

have to take a flight from, from, you know, the, the capital city to Bora Bora, but that in Bora Bora is bookable with points because you could book through like the Chase portal because it's a domestic airline. It's a flight that's for sale. So you can buy that with points, whereas in the Maldives, that's not the case with any of the flights in the Maldives. So if you have to pay for a transfer to a hotel, you're not using points for that, at least not directly. That's just there's no way to do it. You're gonna have to pay cash out of pocket, so to speak, or reimburse yourself with like venture points or something like that for it. You're not going to be able to cover that organically with points. Right, right. And the other thing that is kind of interesting to think about is I know people have talked about that these new resorts

don't necessarily have as good of snorkeling and diving because the reefs haven't built up. Do you know anything about that here? Is that the case? I've seen the same thing. I've seen that some people said that when there's new construction, reefs aren't going to be in great shape because of whatever the dust and dirt and and stuff sediment that ends up in the water. I don't know if that's the case here. I did see someone else who said that the reef is really good around the island where this one is. But I think anybody's guess at this point, since the place isn't open yet. I think that, you know, my my experience in the Maldives before was that I had stayed at the Sheraton.

And we'll talk a little bit about comparisons in a second. Sheraton is closest to the airport. It's not very far from the airport where you land. And that's why I ended up there because you can get there on a speedboat. So it wasn't too far away, much less expensive and even better yet nowadays. But but the problem is that much of the reef there was dead. There's just going in and out because of the boats going nearby. And then obviously you get all the traffic. So yeah, the reef at the Sheraton is mostly pretty dead. There were some fish, but not what you would expect in the Maldives. And so that's certainly of some concern.

Sure. I would. And so let's talk a little bit because I'll come back to that in a second. Let's talk a little bit. So what are the other options? You look at this and you say, wow, this is an incredible, amazing deal. And, you know, for most people that would ever consider going to the Maldives that don't play this game, the Maldives would be one of those once in a lifetime type destinations that cost like many thousands of dollars to get there and thousands of dollars to stay there. And then of course, even if you're using points, you're going to pay a lot of money for food. You're going to pay a lot for those transfers, et cetera, et cetera. Luckily in our game, we get to reduce that cost significantly since we can get there on award flights and then we can stay on points. But of course,

Limeridian is not the only game in town. How does it compare to the other options? I mean, I know you mentioned Marriott's other options. How do they compare price-wise? Yeah. So I looked at all the Marriott options and, you know, mentioned that before that, that the, the other two resorts that are not at the top category are the Sheridan, which is the standard 50,000 point pricing, I believe. And then the West End, which is, I think, standard 60,000 points. And the other four are all category eight. Again, that's the JW Marriott, the Ritz-Carlton, which is brand new. I think it's opening in June. The W and the St. Regis. I looked at also the transfer fees for each of these. So not only do they cost a lot more in

points, again, 85,000 points standard or 100,000 points when it's peak, that's per night. The transfer fees tend to be more, but not necessarily all, not all of them are like way, way more. So for example, the W is $505 per person as a transfer versus the 420 with the Meridian. So it's less than a hundred dollars more. The JW is $600 per person. St. Regis, $745. And then the Ritz-Carlton, $900. That is a lot of money for like, what is it? I mean, 30, 45 minutes. I don't even know how far the Ritz is.

I don't know. The farthest place I've heard of is like a 45-minute flight. I have to say, though, the pictures of the Ritz look spectacular. I mean, they should at $900 a piece just to get there from the Capitol. Right. Right. Right. It has to be so good that you just don't want to leave. Right. Right. Right. Better be. And they're not going to give you breakfast with your status. So, you know, and that's another thing they can say they won't. Although, although it looks like it looks like breakfast will be included there. So, so I think that's okay. So you will get breakfast there.

And with your Marriott Platinum status or better, you would get free breakfast at St. Regis or the W or the Westin or the Sheraton. You get at all of those places. Now, the Sheraton, when I went, also had a club lounge. So if you had Platinum status or better with Marriott, you would get club lounge access. And that was another one of the reasons why I stayed at the Sheraton was because it did have a club lounge. So if you had platinum status or better with Marriott, you would get club lounge access. And that was another one of the reasons why I stayed at the Sheraton was because it did have a club lounge and club lounge served enough food that it could kind of substitute for dinner if you wanted. I actually found that while everybody will tell you how expensive food is in the Maldives and for sure it can be as expensive as anybody has told you it can be. There were also some

items on the menu that were pretty reasonable. If you bought local-ish type dishes, Maldivian dishes, then it was 25 or 30 bucks for an entree, which don't get me wrong, I guess isn't cheap. But for a resort in the Maldives, I was like, 30 bucks an entree. I mean, I can handle that. I can deal with that. But this is at the Sheridan Sheridan, which by the way, we didn't mention the transfer fee, which is right. Used to be one 39 round trip for a speedboat, uh, transfer. Now the speedboat transfer is actually free according to the website. But, but, but but so for for a marriott elite i mean the sheridan is like probably the cheapest way to do this even though it costs more points than the la meridian

uh you don't have to pay a transfer fee you have now i'm learning you have a lounge so you can eat there more than just breakfast for free. Why wouldn't you go back? Well, okay. So I'm joking to some extent that I wouldn't go back. It's not actually necessarily that I didn't like the Sheraton. The Sheraton was actually pretty darn nice. I was pleasantly surprised because I had read some people kind of really poo-pooing the Sheraton. Now I understand why, but as far as the hotel itself, I don't know, the island was pretty, the lounge was decent, service was pretty good. So it's not necessarily that I wouldn't go back to the Sheraton so much as I stayed at the Sheraton. Number one, knowing that if I want to go back to the Maldives, I can, because I have these miles and points. So it wasn't a once in a

lifetime trip necessarily for me. While I know that most people would look at the Maldives as like a once I'll, you know, the only time I'll ever do this, thanks to miles and points. I know I could get flights there again, if I want to go back. So for me, there was some comfort level in that. If I was looking at it as this is the only trip I'm ever going to take to the Maldives for sure. I probably would want to get the full Maldives experience. And for that, you want great snorkeling. You want those crystal clear waters and you probably want to get farther from the airport. So you're not seeing the, you know, the planes coming in and out. And then of course the cargo ships going in and out of the bay there

for the capital city and whatnot. So you're, you're going to want to get away from some of that. And so I wouldn't probably recommend the Sheraton if it's that this is your once in a lifetime trip to the Maldives type of a trip. Now, La Meridian is going to cost 420 bucks a piece to get there. And I assume it's probably not as nice as the Ritz or the St. Regis or even the W necessarily. So there is part of me that would have the same hesitation and say, you know, if this is a once in a lifetime trip, I don't know if you want to cheap out, so to speak, in the hotel you pick when you fly that far around the world. Because one of my impressions of the Maldives is that it was very pretty and beautiful flying over it. And the Sheraton was nice. But there are a lot of really pretty beach places.

So is it worth flying halfway across the world to get there? Now, my perspective on it was skewed because I stayed at the Sheraton. So I was like, you know, I can go to other beautiful places with crystal clear water that I don't have to fly, you know, half a day or a few days to get there and spend a half a million points or whatever. So I wasn't wildly impressed. But again, that was colored by where I stayed. So I'd have the same hesitation with La Meridian initially. However, since it's brand new, I have to imagine it's pretty nice. So, you know, if you're going to go stay this fall or even this winter, I mean, that's got

to be a pretty darn compelling option, I would think, unless reports come out early on that the reef is in terrible shape there or something. But even then, you probably pay for an excursion to go check out the reef somewhere else and still get a terrific Maldives experience. I think I would book the Lumeridian. Yeah. Yeah. It's also the only one, I think where you could easily with just, just a few Marriott signup bonuses have enough points for a lengthy stay.

You know, the, the other ones that maybe, maybe the exception of the Sheridan are just going to cost too much because you know, that you Marriott has all these rules about which cards you can get. So any person who's like starting now could probably at most get to signup bonuses. And maybe they're, if you're going with player two, maybe that's two more. So I guess you could get a fair number. Let's say a total of 400,000 points, which can't really be combined. Well, Oh no, they can be. No. Well, a hundred thousand a year. Yeah. A little tricky to move.

Kind of plan it all out and move a hundred thousand this year, next year, blah, blah, blah. So it could kind of be done for you to be able to get maybe a five-day stay. If the stars were all aligned, maybe you'd get a five-day stay at even the top place. At one of the top ones. Yeah, so that's interesting. So you could do four credit card sign-up bonuses and get a five-night stay at one of the top properties.

Or you could do two sign up bonuses and get a five night stay at the La Meridian and have points left over. Yeah. Yeah. You'd have points left over. Yeah. I mean, with one bonus when I think one of the cards has got to be at 125k right now right so i mean that's right yeah if you're able to get off peak then you're talking about five nights there already and then by the time you've done the spending and maybe just a little bit more spend on the card you could have standard five nights so with one so if you were to get those same four cards that we were talking about a minute ago you could be there for darn near a month, right? Yeah. Although, you know, do keep in mind that, you know,

the off peak that we're seeing right now on the calendar is right when it opens, which would not be ideal to, at any hotel to be there right when it opens, let alone go halfway across the world before there's any reviews and gets stuck in there. So we don't know if we're going to see that kind of pricing again. I also, I think it's extremely likely Marriott tends to change categories like in about March of each year. And I can't imagine this staying past March of 22. I can't either. And so I would probably be most inclined to jump on a reservation like February, March, April, whatever. If you're going to jump on it-

Wait till those dates open up and jump on it. You're going to be paying peak, but it's worth it. I mean, it's because it's so much cheaper than the other options. Let me real quick say that I did look at which of the Marriott properties book directly into a overwater bungalow, if that's what you're really looking for. And I was surprised how many did. So we already talked about La Meridian does. And most of the top category ones do. So the JW does, the Ritz Carlton does, and the W does. It's only the St. Regis that charges an extra fee to get into their base level overwater bungalow. The others all have an overwater bungalow that's available directly at standard pricing. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, that sure is. And you have to consider when you're comparing here. So La Meridian Meridian lot cheaper for an overwater bungalow than those other places that you're talking about. However, I think with at least some of those, and I don't know which ones, cause I haven't looked at them like today, but I think with at least some of those, your overwater bungalow has like a splash pool.

That's right. Yeah. I know the Ritz does. I'm not sure which other ones. Yeah. Yeah. That's gotta be kind of nice. I imagine. Yeah. It is a pretty big difference. You're going to be there and overlooking the ocean and want to have the magic of, you know, relaxing in your pool while you're looking at the water or whatever that, I mean, that's, that's kind of, yeah. You know, I, and also I didn't look at it, but I bet the square footage is much bigger of these others. So if you're looking to spread out and everything then maybe uh maybe it's worth if you have the points of going to to one of the others as well right i think i would i don't know i'm torn between like if if i could make it this coming winter out to the maldives and it's it's not it's not that impractical for me to do. We've already talked about me flying around the world, me and my wife.

So if we could fit in a little jaunt over to the Maldives in there, which would I do? I mean, so part of me is like, I want to go all out and stay at, you know, maybe the brand new Ritz or, you know, one of these top tier ones. But at the same time, it's like such a good deal. And it might be good for the blog for me to go to the La Meridian and be able to say how it is. So I'm still on the fence. And one of the downsides, you know, if you're thinking like, oh, well, Greg could just hotel hop and, you know, stay at both and kind of get both experiences. It's not very practical in the Maldives because there's no way, generally speaking, to get from one hotel to the other.

You got to do the round trip transfers back to the main island and pay for those separately so if you wanted to go to both Limeridian and the Ritz you'd be paying 420 each for the round trip transfer to Limeridian and then 900 each person for the round trip transfer to the Ritz there's generally not a way to get from hotel to hotel unless you have like a private yacht transfer service and that's not going to be right right uh marriott's missing out on an opportunity here they they should make it you know that's got to be a common desire for people to try out multiple resorts when they're all the way there in the maldives so uh why don't they do that they should allow free transfer among their properties you know you're already paying the round-trip price, so a lot of people have to get from one to the other.

Yeah, so I guess the thing is then you'd have to hire the seaplanes to fly between the resort islands, I guess, because I don't know what all the regulations and whatever else are in the local politics. Well, sure, shoot my idea down. Well, I mean, I don't think it's a bad idea. And Bora Bora, not only could I have arranged a transfer from the hotel to go to an entirely different hotel, but I actually booked it independently with some company that's got a boat that transfers people around from hotel to hotel. That's cheaper than what the hotels charge. So, but of course, Bora Bora, it's a little more compact. It's close. You can't

just take a speedboat. Whereas in the Maldives, you do have some distance between some of those islands. So, I mean, if you're talking about 30 or 45 minute flight, you probably don't want to be on a boat for that long. I mean, maybe you do, but I don't, let's be clear. I don't love boats. So, so I'd be happier in the sea plane myself, but, uh, but so, I mean, you've got a bunch of different options and that's tough. I think right now with Limeridian being such a good deal, it really is intriguing, but I'd be in the same boat as Greg. If I was really considering a trip to the Maldives, I feel like, especially after I stayed at a place that was very close to the airport last time, I would really kind of want to go all out and stay at one of those nice places. So that's a

tough, tough, tough, tough, tough call. But keep in mind all the other expenses. And so, you know, if you're going to be looking at $900 a piece for the plane to get to the Reds and whatever the Reds charges for meals, which is surely not inexpensive, maybe the Limeridian makes more sense to be a more budget friendly option. So you remember where we're planning on doing a GUC trip, the Global Upgrade Certificate trip. I could see some bonus points in your future if you somehow end us up at the Meridian. The thought crossed my mind when I saw it come up.

I was like, ooh, interesting. And then I was like, oh yeah, my wife will love that I go to the Maldives without it. It'd be terrific. So, so the, the way I'd get around that with my wife is, is I'd say, well, Nick and I are going to go to the Lemuridian. You and I wife are going to the Ritz. Nice, smart, smart play there. That's, that's very well done. Part of me wants to do it just because my wife won't get on the seaplane. That's, you know, that was the other reason I stayed at the Ritz because she doesn't like small planes. So part of me, I'm it just because my wife won't get on the seaplane that's you know that was the other reason i stayed at the reds because she doesn't like small planes so part of me at the shirt exactly i'm sorry yes that's why i say at the shirt and exactly so that's part of

the reason why i was like oh maybe we could work this into the guck trip and i could actually get the seaplane transfer here but well we'll see that's down the road but it's worth mentioning that marriott isn't the only game in town if you want to stay in an overwater bungalow, because of course the Conrad Maldives has overwater bungalows that are standard rooms. So 95,000 points per night is what it has long priced at. And hopefully still does talk more about that in a second, but 95,000 points per night. And of course Hilton gives you the fifth night free on awards days.

So if you were to book five nights there, you'd pay an average of 76,000 points Hilton points per night to stay in an overwater bungalow. Given the fact that Hilton points are worth a decent bit less than Marriott points, that's pretty comparable to the Limeridian price probably. So we're close enough anyway, close ish. So that's a pretty good deal. And the Conrad Maldives looks quite nice. Got that underwater restaurant. If that's your thing, looks like a terrific place. Also, you could use those free night certificates that you get like every year with the aspire card or with 15 K spend on the surpass card. And you can pick up a lot of points right now. The, the offers on the surpass and the no fee Hilton cards have hit like, you know, eye popping levels. So you can pick up a few free nights with

those. So that's another decent option. And of course you'll get free breakfast. Thanks to, you know, having one of those credit cards, you'll have either gold or diamond status, depending on what you have and either one guarantee you free breakfast there. And the Conrad Maldives I've read offers like a cocktail hour for diamond members. So if you're a diamond member, you get like a little appetizer and a drink in the afternoons, not like having a club lounge, but you will get at least a little food and a free drink or two, which in the Maldives, again, drinks are expensive.

So if you're looking to pay for drinks, you know, maybe that'll save you a couple of bucks anyway in the evening. So, so that's a potentially good option though. I think the transfer, I don't know. Did you look up the transfer costs to the last thing you did was $600. And it's probably gone transfer, I don't know, did you look up the transfer cost? Last I knew it was $600. I haven't looked. And it's probably gone up because inflation. Right, right.

Pops everything up eventually. So I bet it's maybe even more now. So not cheap to get to the Conrad Maldives. And of course, there are other options too, right? Right. So Hilton has that other one that just popped up to 150,000 points per night. I'll let you say the name of that one. The Waldorf Astoria. That's as much as I'm going to say. I'm not going to get into that whole long

name. The Waldorf Astoria is now 150,000 points per night. By all accounts, it's amazing. I mean, I don't think I've heard anybody say like, oh man, I was really disappointed in my stay at the Waldorf Astoria Maldives. Sounds like it's terrific, but 150,000 points per night. I know, that's rough. I mean, it obviously becomes a fantastic use of those free night certificates. And if you could do it before the end of next year, those free night certificates can be used any day of the week. So, you know, if you somehow got enough of those together, then, then you wouldn't care about the 150,000 points. And playing in two player mode, that may be possible because I mean,

if you have inspire cards and you had free night certificates issued after May 1st of last year, those are valid until next year. Then you get another one this year. So if you're playing in two player mode, you'd have four right there. Then each get a surpass card and do your 15 K spend this year, 15 K spend next year. You'd be talking about six, eight free night certificates. Maybe if you play your cards right without even using any points.

So it's possible to put enough together, but you would want to because how much is the transfer to get there? I don't know how much it is, but, but they do like a luxury boat. They do. It's $800. I think 7 $795, I think so, for person. That's just crazy. You'd think it would be less for going on a boat, but it does look very luxurious. For what that's worth, I think it's a pretty short ride.

Yeah, so that's another possible option. Of course, Hilton's not the only one. And Hilton also has a Curio Collection property, I believe. I haven't heard particularly good things about that place. Oh, no. Yeah, so we'll skip right over that place. I haven't heard too many good reviews on the Curio. Right, right.

Of course, there's the Radisson Blue that we've talked about before that sort of came out of nowhere. We were surprised when that launched. We don't know what it's going to be priced yet, right? Because they're changing up the program and changing the word pricing. Yeah. I'm concerned because that's the only property. I mean, I don't know the entire portfolio of Radisson properties around the world, but it's the only notable one anyway that I didn't notice in the new chart. So I wondered, is it not going to be

part of the standard chart? Is it not going to be part of Radisson? I don't know. Radisson awards are only bookable 270 days in advance these days. So you only get availability for six, seven, eight months, whatever that is in advance. So if you want to book that place, I guess you got to book it now for some time in the winter. And beyond that, I just don't know what it's going to be when the new program changes in June. But for now, anyway, it's 70,000 points per night for an overwater bungalow at the Radisson Blue.

And that place, I mean, it opened during the pandemic, right? So, I mean, it can't be that trafficked yet. So it's got to be in a pretty nice way. The early reviews are very positive. So that's another one that I'd be, I would love to go to because I'd love to spend my points there. But at the same time, I'd be in that sort of dilemma. Do I go to what I know is going to be fantastic, like the Ritz or the JW, I mean, or the St. Regis,

or do I, or even the Conrad, because I've heard great things about that, or do I take a chance that the TripAdvisor reviews are right about the Radisson, but that'd be a great use of my points. It would be a great use of Radisson points, but, but that is a definite trouble with the Maldives because it's so far and it's going to cost you a lot of points to get there. And even though I said the transfer costs, transfer costs and everything else, even though I said, you got a lot of points, maybe you can go again.

You may not want to go through all that hassle multiple times. Right. So, so then you, again, you run into that same, like, do I just go all out? But Radisson Blue, not the only additional option. Of course, we've got to mention, well, IHG has a couple of options in the Maldives now, I think. So there's a Six Senses property, maybe? Yeah, there is.

So they recently acquired Six Senses and started to incorporate them into their program. So you can book the Six Senses Maldives property for 100,000 points a night. Plus, if you have the right credit cards, you get the fourth night free. So that actually becomes a pretty darn good deal because it looks like a fantastic property. I think they also have an intercontinental, but I don't know anything about that. I believe they do. I don't know anything about it either.

So we're going to skip right over that. I'm sure it's nice. Let's do that. But then, of course, switching gears yet again, you got the Park Hyatt Maldives. You do. You do. 25,000 points per night. Have you looked into that one at all?

You know, I did years ago, but not in a long time now, because there's so many new properties that have popped up that I feel like everything else starts taking your attention. But then I look at it and I say, I'm fairly sure it's still 25,000 points per night. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Nick cutting in here, post-recording. I'm about to go on saying that I think the Park Hyatt Maldives still cost 25,000 points per night. But a few years ago, it moved up to the 30,000 point band. It's now a Category 7 property for 30,000 points per night. So ignore what I'm about to say about it being 25K in a second here. It's really 30,000 points per night for that Park Hyatt Maldives.

All right, back to me. Take it away. 25,000 Hyatt points per night. That sounds pretty good too. Now, the 25,000 points per night, to my knowledge is not an overwater bungalow. It's a beach bungalow, I believe. Um, but I do think if I remember correctly, I think you can maybe use a sweet night upgrade to get an overwater bungalow though. What I recall reading about the park Hyatt Maldives is that the overwater bungalows were a little small. And so you may actually prefer the beach bungalow there, but matter of personal preference. I feel like when

you talk to people who've stayed, see, I haven't stayed in an overwater bungalow. I've stayed in like the beach style a number of times now. And the overwater ones look fun. I feel like when you talk to people who've done it a bunch, they often say it's awesome the first time you do it and, you know, kind of a cool novelty, but then it's not necessarily something that you need to have once you get that out of your system so to speak i haven't gotten it out of my system yet so at this point i'm excited about that but i you know it's worth thinking about i guess and looking at the pros and cons because right in a lot of these places the beach type of a bungalow is significantly larger so if you want a little more space that might not necessarily be a bad option. No, that's, that's right. I mean,

if you look at some of these, the pictures, I mean, the, the bungalows themselves are huge. They usually have a pool attached, like a private pool with it as to some of the overwater ones, but those are much smaller pools. Um, and then they often have nice views you know from the beach right outside of the the unit so you know it it could be better that way but i agree with you i i don't have it out of my system i haven't done an overwater bungalow villa whatever it's called right yet i do want to do that and uh boy i really really want to i want to go spend you, a month in the Maldives and try these all out. So let's do it. Let's just move FM headquarters to the Maldives for a month, just for a month, Greg.

And maybe, maybe we need to pick up a FM yacht so we can get easily from one to the next. That's what we need. That's what we need. We need a few readers. What we need is a few readers. We need a few other readers to come and party in the Maldives with us for a month so that we can collectively rent a yacht out that travels island to island, right? There's got to be a reader out there with a nice yacht. Who would love to? It would be very nice to meet you. Dear reader, send us a message.

Of course, if you're in a nice enough yacht, what do you want to be at the resorts for at that point? Who knows? Who knows? But I don't know. Maybe, what do you want to be at the resorts for at that point? Who knows? Who knows? I don't know. Maybe you just want to drive us around to the resorts, so to speak. So how about how to get there? I mean, like, is there a reasonable way to get there? We said it'd take a lot, a lot of points. So is there a reasonable way to get there?

Yes. Yeah, you tell me. How do you do it? What are the best options? Well, so it depends on whether you want to go economy or business class. If you're an economy class flyer, some of your best options are going to be using Turkish miles and smiles 45,000 points each way on Star Alliance, Turkish Airlines flies to the Maldives, I believe that Lufthansa does, but the you talking economy? 90,000 points round trip? Round trip, yeah. That seems high to me.

Is that not high? No. I don't know because I'm thinking about ANA that'll let you go. Round trip, business class to Africa for 104,000. I don't know what they charge to the Maldives. ANA is an even better option because they charge 80,000 round trip to the Maldives. So Turkish is one of your best options. ANA is going to be your best-ish economy class option at 80,000 points round trip to the Maldives.

However, you can do better than that even. So 80,000 points round trip economy. But if you want to fly around the world, if like Greg, you've got this time on your hands and you're itching, you got itchy feet, you're looking to spend some time. You've been like, what do my itchy feet have to do with this at all? I don't know. I shouldn't have brought up Greg's itchy feet. My something unrelated for all I know. So not 80,000, but only 75,000 points. You could do around the world trip

in economy class with ANA. So ANA is around the world award chart. Greg's talked about it a bunch, written about it a bunch. You could do 20,000 flight miles. So you could fly around the world. So I'm talking about 20,000 miles flown for 75,000 ANA miles,

one-to-one transfer partner of Amex membership rewards. So to give you an example of what that could look like for 75 000 miles you could fly from newark so new york city to amsterdam to athens to istanbul to malay now i had colombo in there but i guess i must have been thinking that you might fill in the blank with british airways Sri Lanka, because it's only 4,500 points using British Airways points, maybe 5,000. Now, I think it went up. Then to Bangkok, on Thai, perhaps, then to Beijing and back to Newark, it'd be 75,000 points in economy class. I mean, that's pretty amazing. And stopping in all of those places. I'm not talking about

those are layovers. I'm talking about stops in all of those places. Big adventure. Big adventure. So that'd be? Big adventure, big adventure. So that'd be pretty good economy business class. I think Turkish has got a very good price at 67,500 miles each way in business class. So 135 K round trip, uh, central Asia with Turkish is actually only 52,500. So if you wanted to combo this with a trip to India, you get to India for 52, five in business class. And then a trip from India to the Maldives wouldn't be as long number of different options to do that. And a charges 136,000 points round trip, uh, in business class, which is also

pretty good about the same as Turkish that's for star Alliance, American Airlines charges 70,000 each way. You can fly Qatar, Etihad, or Cathay Pacific for 70,000 each way. But once again, the ANA around the world chart, that same trip I talked about a minute ago, New York, Amsterdam, Athens, Istanbul, Mali, blah, blah, blah, 115,000. 115,000 in business class all around the world. That's just crazy. That's great. Right. So you're talking about like for 115,000 points,

one, basically one card bonus, right? We still have a link active, at least at the time of recording for 100,000 points on the Amex Platinum card, right? So basically once you finish the spend on that card, you're going to be awfully close and you have your 10X gas and grocery for six months. Be awfully close to your 115,000 points to fly around the world in business class.

And then one Marriott card, and you could potentially have like four or five nights in an overwater bungalow. Right, right. That's pretty, that's pretty amazing. So now, so that's, that's sort of an extreme if you have lots of time and want to go to lots of places, what if you just want the most convenient option? You want to get there and one stop or less. What's, what's the best, what should we be flying? And then how should you book it? Probably. I mean, what should you be flying?

I mean, I think that for business class, probably most people would be very happy with flying cutter airways to 70,000 points one way in business class via American airlines. That's pretty hard to beat. You're going to talk, you're talking Q suites from most of the cities they fly from in the United States. I think for 70,000 points, you could fly from anywhere within the continental U S and business class. And again, you get q suites to doha and most of those routes whether or not they fly q suites from doha to malay i'm not sure if it's all the flights or not if you wanted to fly an economy class for 49 250 points with british airways obvious from new york boston philadelphia washington or toronto so you're

talking less than 50 000 points each way in economy on gutter airways also. So that's, I mean, those are both pretty good options if you live in a city served by them. So you just have the one stop in Doha. That's pretty hard to beat. Sounds good. Otherwise you're going to be looking at connecting a couple of times, probably in most cases, you could also do Cathay Pacific, Cathay Pacific would be one stop also in Hong Kong.

So, I mean, that's another option. Right, right. Do you know, is it much faster to get there by going east or west from the U.S.? No, I don't know. That's a good question. I think it's a long time either way. I think so. It's basically another side of the world.

Yeah, it really is. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. So there's a good option so to speak there is I recall if I remember correctly. So I flew there in Emirates from Dubai and I believe it was about a five hour flight from Dubai. If I remember. And I flew, actually I flew out of the Maldives on Emirates. I flew to the Maldives on Cathay Pacific. So I flew from Hong Kong and I think it was about the same, about five or six hours from

Hong Kong. So I could be wrong. Somebody's going to listen to this and look it up and tell me, no, I'm wrong. But I believe it was about the same either way. It depends on how far it is for you to get to Doha or Hong Kong. Doha has a long flight from just about anywhere. And Hong Kong's pretty long for most of the U S too. So either way, you're gonna be on a plane for a long, long, long time. So, so again, yeah, I, I'd be very nervous about being like one of the first people to try out the Limerick in here on that long flight. Wondering am I doing the wrong thing? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Cause you gotta be talking like 20 ish hours of flight time to get there. And you know, so that's at least so.

Right. Right. What about first class? Have you looked into that at all? You know, first class, I, I believe with American, it'd be 110 one way, if I remember correctly. And, and, uh, that I'm doing from memory rather than something that I have a note on. So I could be off on that. And if you want to fly first class Star Alliance. How about Emirates? Emirates be 180,000 Alaska miles. So if you've got Alaska miles. With their own miles, I was thinking might be cheaper now.

Probably is cheaper, but I don't know from the U.S. what it is. With their own miles only really became much of a deal and in recent memory now, right. Right. Eliminated the fuel surcharges. So no, I don't know what they charged in their own miles. I know that if you're looking at going to Europe, you'd be talking about what is it? 130 something thousand round trip in first class. So to get to the Maldives, obviously it's going to be more than that. How much more? I don't know off the top of my head, but that probably is a pretty good deal. Now I need to look into that. That probably is a decent deal for, for how to get there. And

of course, Emirates did used to fly the A380 from New York and from a number of other cities in the U S but I don't believe they're flying that now. So whether or not you can even get there in first class, I'm not even sure necessarily they're operating it on all So whether or not you can even get there in first class, I, I'm not even sure necessarily if they're operating it on all the routes. It kind of depends on how things happen over the coming months. I saw that Etihad saw that a one mile at a time and posted that Etihad now is flying planes or scheduling planes. Don't even have first class from New York. Yeah. That's so sad. It is. Yeah. Um, I'm glad I flew it when i did for sure for sure yeah yeah it's looking very unlikely that the uh flying etihad apartments is going to be something probably anyone's going to

be doing from now on uh which is just yeah really sad yeah all right uh so so those are some good very good options for getting to the maldives. Maybe not quickly, but you'll get there eventually and hopefully in comfort. So, all right. What is next? Post-roast. Post-roast time. I am not ready with a post-roast. Let's skip over the post-roast.

Who needs to roast? Who needs to roast? You're not ready either. We didn't do our homework. No post-rorust this week. So, so that we're going to move right into the question of the week instead. All right. So question of the week this week, I often give you these questions and I'm like, you're not going to be able to answer this. This week you will be able to answer. And I bet this is a question that quite a few readers have had before. So hopefully if you've ever had this one, you're going to get it answered today today once I am able to get it on the screen

so I can see it. There we go. So Noah in our Frequent Miler Insiders asked the following question. One year into my career and I finally have a good credit score and not carrying a balance. So still fairly new to having a lot of credit card options.

I recently got the Sapphire Preferred for the signup bonus, which I plan on hitting in the next two months, but I was approved for a credit line much higher than I expected. Does the amount of available credit you have affect your ability to open new cards? I'm looking to get a more premium card this summer, maybe the platinum card, Delta, platinum or reserve. And I'm wondering if I should ask for a decrease in credit line as my total available credit doubled to about a third of my income. So I need to ask for a decrease

if I wanna be approved for a higher annual fee card. Yeah, so I mean, the short answer is no, don't do that. The nice thing about that big credit line is one of the factors in your credit score that's a pretty big factor is your utilization ratio. You want to have the amount of credit that you're using each month compared to the amount that you have available to you. You want to be a small percentage. And so by having a big credit line, even if you end the month with like owing, I'm going to say like $2,000 on your credit card,

and you've got a $30,000 line, that's a very small percentage. And so that actually looks good on your credit report and will help you with your credit score and therefore signing up for other cards. With Chase itself, you might get to a point where it will hurt you sort of, which is that you might apply for a Chase card and they might say, we've already extended all the credit we're willing to extend to you. And so you're denied, but that's okay.

Because all that takes then is a phone call to the reconsideration line where you say, look, I'm not really looking for more credit. You're welcome to move credit from my Chase Sapphire to this new card. I just really want this new card. And not only will they often do that, but more and more, they've actually been doing that proactively.

So that might not even come up. You might apply for a card. They'll see that they can't extend you more credit. So they'll actually just take, let's say, $5,000 credit line off of your Sapphire and put it on your Freedom, whatever it is you applied for. As long as it's a personal card. If it's a business card, they can't move it around like that. But for personal cards, they can shuffle your credit around. So you're good.

I'd be happy with that high credit line. Yeah. And there's a theory that higher limits beget higher limits, at least to a certain extent. So it's likely that cards you get approved for from other issuers will probably be at least competitive with that rather than being small credit lines in general. Now there's some issuers that are stingier and whatnot, a lot of different factors, but likely if you applied for an Amex credit card, they're going to give you a credit line that is probably somewhat competitive. And that is counterintuitive. I mean, you know, only in America, so to speak, it's counterintuitive that you can get as much credit as you can here,

because people who've been playing the game for a long time, it's not uncommon for people to have multiples of their their annual income in terms of available credit. You know, they have well more than their annual income in available credit. And that seems crazy. And it seems like, oh, no, I mean, that's not the way it should work, right? It just is the way that it often works. So you might think, oh, no, I'm not going to get approved for another card because these other issuers are going to look at it and see that a third of,

you know, I already have credit that's like a third of my income. I can't possibly have more credit. Yeah. You, you can't have more credit. They will give it to you. Welcome to the United States. Right. Well, I mean, you know, competitively, I think they're like, you know, Hey, I want this guy to spend all on my credit cards instead of on Chase's credit cards. So, you know, they have a competitive interest in doing that. They sure do. They sure do. So yeah, no, enjoy that.

Be happy that you got a nice, good starting limit. Cause that gives you a lot of juice to be able to move it around later on. I mean, if you got approved with a monster credit line from the get-go, like Greg said, you may be able to get other cards down the road that perhaps you wouldn't have gotten if you only had a tiny little credit line and you couldn't move much around. So that it's actually terrific news. So congratulations to you, Noah. And if you're in that same boat, certainly don't be upset or afraid of that. And you might see some sort of pros, so to speak, you know, the people who've been playing the game a long time, talk about decreasing their chase credit lines in the hopes of getting automatically approved

for a card in the future. But that's something that I generally don't recommend. And, and the people who are considering doing that are generally people who have lots and lots of cards already. And they're just looking to free up some limit, hoping for an automatic approval rather than having to call the recon line. If you're just starting out in this game, I would totally want to be in your shoes, Noah. So for sure. All right. That my friends brings us to the end for today. So thank you very much for being out there with us. If you'd like to hear more about what we've been talking about, you wanna get our posts in your email inbox, you need to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe.

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Kind sir or madam. Thank you very much. See you guys next time. Bye, everybody.