Frequent Miler on the Air - The awesome Aspire deal. Did Greg do it? Why FM is different. More

Episode Date: November 9, 2019

Greg & Nick discuss: - What is Frequent Miler all about? Why we're different. - The awesome Hilton Aspire deal. Did Greg go for it? - A bit of Virgin Atlantic awesomeness - Airbnb: Will we ever use it again after THE article?

Welcome to Frequent Miler on the Air with your hosts, Greg and Nick. This week, like last week, I'm going to read a review about our podcast. This time, actually, Nick, it's not a review. It's more of a question and comment. All right, question and comment. I'm ready. This one was posted to our blog, so you saw this one, I think. This is from Blue Cat. All right. Question and comment. I'm ready. Yeah. So you probably saw it. This one was posted to our blog. So you saw this one, I think. This is from Blue Cat. All right. So Blue Cat said, Greg and Nick, I enjoy the content of the podcast. Great background music

when on a treadmill. Things that come out of my mouth have never been described as good background music. Right. Well, for me, especially when I'm singing. Right. That's what I mean. Not good background or foreground music. No. I'll take it, though.

I'll take it. Yeah. Yeah. But then he has a serious question. Do you think I'm missing anything by not watching the podcast? If the answer is not really, which I suspect, and I think he's right, then please alert your audience in case this changes for a particular episode. For example, if you're showing examples of your spreadsheet or a PowerPoint or something, again, much appreciated.

Or if I get a nice haircut and you just want to make sure everybody gets this. No. Yeah, no, absolutely not. You're right. I don't think you're missing much by listening rather than watching. I mean, I think that I enjoy video myself, but people that enjoy podcasts, by all means, listen to it. I don't think you're missing anything. And if you're going to miss something, I think that's a great piece of feedback. We'll definitely make sure to let people know if there's something we're going to show. Yeah. So sometimes the sound is going to be a lot better on the podcast, or at least it has been the last couple episodes. We've adjusted things on our end. So I think now we fixed it, but that yet

remains to be seen. So we'll listen. It remains to be heard, I guess. Remains to be heard, yeah. Whether we fix it. So, you know, unlike big podcasts, like I've been listening to Conan O'Brien's podcast a lot, and he's got audio technicians and editors and producers and everything. A team of five to work on that. At least. We've got us. Right. And so I'm looking at this audio mixer thing on the app that we're using to record the video, and it looks like it's recording well so um so we'll see we'll hope for the best anyway um we did also get some more uh written reviews from our uh from on apple podcasts they were all very positive so i'm not going to um bore everyone by reading our uh our mom's

additional reviews uh today but uh good news though also we're on spotify now also right yes yeah i i didn't even know that was a thing i mean i knew spotify was the thing i just didn't know podcasts were on there um and so a reader wrote in saying could you is there some way you could get on spotify well sure great clicked a few buttons and boom we're there. Share your list with your friends now and they can pick it up and see that you're listening to Frequent Mile Around the Air because it's good stuff. Yeah, yeah. And by the way, if anyone's listening and they enjoy our podcast, please do let your

friends know. We do want to grow the audience and no better way than to hear from friends that you like it. That's the truth. So we have anything interesting to talk about today? I mean, I hope we got a couple of interesting things to talk about this week. Actually, the thing that I found interesting this week, I think a lot of readers who are new, and even some of the old-time readers, probably appreciated and enjoyed the

About Frequent Miler post that you put up this week, where you kind of explained what Frequent Miler is that you put up this week, where you kind of explained what FrequentMiler is and what it's about. Because I think there might be some new listeners out there for sure on the podcast who don't know what this whole FrequentMiler thing is. Maybe you haven't been to the site, thefrequentmiler.com, or maybe you've gone and not been sure. And in fact, that was kind of the impetus behind this, right? Somebody said, I went to the site, but I don't get it. What is Frequent Miler about? So what's it about? Right, right. So like a lot of other blogs, we write about miles and points. That's the main topic. And our byline is earn miles without

flying. And by miles, we really mean rewards, but miles is catchier we think so um uh the idea is you know sometimes we we talk to people who say well um i can't earn miles and points because i don't travel and well that's the whole point of this blog is there are tons of ways to earn miles and points without traveling uh so that you can then use them and travel for free or really cheaply anyway. And not only for free and cheaply, but also potentially more comfortably than you have in the past. So that's one of the things that appeals to me, too, is that you can often use the points and the miles to fly in a more comfortable way or stay in a more comfortable place. And like Greg said, there are a lot of blogs out there that write about miles and points, but there aren't a lot of blogs like us. I think we're very unique in a lot of ways. And that's, I think, one of the strengths behind that post you posted this week is explaining

what makes us different than any other blog that writes about earning miles and points. Yeah. So why don't you kind of quickly recap in your words, because everybody who read it heard from me why I think Frequent Miler is different. But you have a slightly different perspective because you weren't here from the beginning. Right. But now you are and very much a big part of the team. So what's your view on it? Well, you know, I was a reader of Frequent Mlar long before I was an employee of Frequent Mylar. So I had an image of Frequent Mylar all along, I suppose. So even though I haven't been here since the beginning, I've been reading for

quite a few years beyond what I've been working. And the impression I always had of Frequent Mylar was that it was a site I could trust. And that's one of the things that makes me excited about being involved in it, because it was a site that I trusted long before to give me good advice and to write about things that other blogs weren't writing about. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Now that I sit on the other side of the fence, I understand why some blogs don't write about them, I suppose, because a lot of the things we write about are things that we just find interesting that don't make money for a blog in the traditional way that most blogs make money. And one of the things I love about working for Frequent Miler is that none of the day-to-day

decisions are driven by how the blog can make more money. And it's a really freeing feeling, because for me, Frequent Miler is a place where Greg and I write about the stuff that interests us and that we think readers will find interesting and valuable. And we try to write about it from a perspective that's completely honest and lays out there our feelings and opinions. One of the things I really like about working for Frequent Miler is I don't think Greg has ever told me, you need to write a post about this. Like there have been times where I've told you a story maybe, and you've said, you know, hey, I think that would make a really good post. But I don't think I've ever been given an assignment like you need to write about this credit card and why everybody should go get it. And so one of the things that I think makes frequent milers stand out is you don't see a post like 10 reasons you should get this card. You might see a post

about one of the great benefits that we took advantage of and think is worth telling readers about. But we're not just writing posts to try to advance the business. So I think that makes us much different. Yeah, yeah. And in fact, I used to go completely the other direction. Like I would actually actively avoid writing about credit cards where I had an affiliate link and there was like a extra incentive to sell more cards. That's what the affiliates call it. They call it selling cards. So when I started with affiliate links way back when, that's, by the way, affiliate links, for those who don't know, that's where we put a link to a product on the website. And if you click through and buy it, we get a commission.

And with credit cards, you have to click through and get approved for the card. And so in my first year of blogging, I did start up after a few months. I learned about affiliate links. I didn't know when I first started, but I learned about affiliate links, and I started adding credit card links to the site. But every now and then, the affiliate middlemen, we don't interact too much directly with the banks. There's the affiliate marketing company we talk to. uh, uh, talk to anyway, they would say,

you know what, if you sell 50 Sapphire preferreds or whatever it is this month, we'll increase your, your payouts by this amount. And, um, so I used to actively avoid writing about those cards during those times um which uh i i think was was going too far in the like i was sort of doing the the overcompensating of the sort of consumer reports view of things where they say they won't review anything if they haven't paid for it themselves you know um but uh i i think i got to the point i hope i got to the point and i think did, where most of the audience knows that they can trust me. And if I'm going to write about a card, it's not because of increased payout, but because I'm going to write about it. So I've stopped doing that. I still don't write more because of that situation or write differently about the cards or anything.

It's just if I have something to say about a card, I'm going to say it regardless. I just try to ignore the whole affiliate part of things. Now for you, I think it's worth telling the audience how much you're incentivized to sell more cards. Not at all. Not at all. I'm a salaried employee. I get paid every month whether we sell any cards or not.

I don't know how many we've sold or how much or what they pay. I just know that I do my job. I come to work and I write about stuff that I think people will find interesting. So there's like zero incentive for me. I mean, apart from the fact that, of course, I want the lights to stay on, so to speak. I want Greg to continue to be able to employ me, I guess. But that's happened without me having to worry about what cards we have affiliate links for and what we don't. And one of the things I always enjoyed about Frequent Miler as a reader, and I enjoy about it as an author, is that we don't include affiliate links within our posts. We don't include affiliate links to credit cards within our posts. So, you know, on some other sites, you might see eight links to the same

card over and over again, whereas we keep a separate page with our credit card information, a dedicated page for each individual card. And so you can find an application link there. But it also means that readers who apply through our links have to want to apply through our links, they have to go and find our page in order to apply through the link. And we're very fortunate that we have a great readership of people that do do that and make it possible for us to have the business that we do. But, but yeah, I, it's an interesting, I think, dynamic, or it's interesting in the sense that it's different than what I think people would expect. And that, like Greg said, there's no incentive or like, like, like, like I'm saying, anyway, there's no incentive for me, whether we sell, you know, 100 cards or two cards,

I wouldn't know how many we've sold and it doesn't matter to me. So, and that's a freeing thing, I think. So, we write about the things that interest us and often we write about cards that we don't have affiliate links for or that we do, but we don't publish the affiliate links because they're not as good as other links that we've found. And I think that also sets us apart from most blogs in that, you know, we'll show you the best offer, whatever it is. And we work to maintain that and keep it up to date. And then sometimes if a reader finds a better offer and reaches out and lets me know before I've seen it, I work to get it in there right away so that we have the best stuff on our page all the time. So that's one of the things that I think is different also is our credit card page is the best on the internet.

There's no other page where you'll find all of the best offers, whether we earn affiliate commissions or not. There's a hundred and something cards on that page, very few of which by comparison we earn affiliate commissions on. The other thing that we do that most readers don't know about, I think, is that we assign a first-year value to every sign-up bonus based on our reasonable redemption values of the points as well as other bonus things you get. You might get a $50 statement credit or you might get a free night at a hotel. So we, we estimate the value of all that stuff. Um, and we do it in a, uh, as unbiased of a way as possible. So, you know, it's all based on a formula and, um, set values for these things. So we use that to rank the cards. So when we show the best of the best cards, it is ranked from best to worst as far as what's the most value you're going to get in the first year when signing up for this card. And part of the reason we did that is it's useful. I mean, if you're looking for the best signup bonus, you want to see that on the top.

Another reason, though, is to avoid any chance of us even subconsciously ranking cards higher. Again, you couldn't do it because you don't know how much we're getting paid. But theoretically, I could rank cards higher if I know that I'm getting paid more for them. But we specifically put in that formula. So I can't do it. I mean, we sort all the time by that field. I think most people would be amazed by the level of automation that goes into the credit card page. I think really, if you looked at it behind the scenes, and you said, and you saw how things are ranked, really as objectively as they possibly could, I think you'd be probably pretty impressed. I know I have been and still am often when I go through the sheet and put information, I'm like, wow, it's just amazing how well it works at calculating

everything. And to be clear, when Greg said we assign value to first year benefits, whether they're statement credits for this or MQMs or that sort of thing. I want to also mention, though, that we don't assign value to things that are really wishy-washy. Like, for example, if a card comes with elite status, we don't add a value for elite status. We don't say, oh, that's worth $275. I mean, who knows what elite status is worth? So we don't assign value to wishy-washy stuff like that. We assign value to the points. We assign value to concrete benefits like a hundred dollar statement credit or you know a credit for a specific thing perhaps. And even then we don't assign value to like

TSA pre-check credits or stuff like that because you might have six or seven cards that have that. Exactly. So we try to avoid assigning value to anything where it would not be valuable to you if you already have something similar like so if you already have elite status then obviously getting a card that gives you that same status is not worth anything more same thing with pre-check you know there's there's a lot of things that are like that so we just avoid it and then we also avoid things assigning value to things like, I don't know, I don't think we assign value to SACS credit. I can't remember for sure. I don't think we did. We don't know. No, no, I think the only statement credit type things that we assign value to are

like the Delta statement credits on the Delta cards, because they just require a single Delta purchase. And, you know, presumably, if you're getting a Delta credit card, you're intending to purchase something from Delta, probably. So that just makes sense. But some people will use the SACS benefit. Some people won't. Some people use the Dell benefit. Some people won't. So we don't assign value to those ancillary benefits. And also, it's important to note that that first year value Greg is talking about, that's taking into consideration the value of the points that you'll get for the signup bonus, but subtracting the cost of the annual fee if you have to pay that in the first year, and subtracting your opportunity cost of spending on that card versus spending on your next best

alternative. Because of course, if you're putting spend towards the signup bonus on card A, you're missing the chance to earn cash back on card B. So that has to be figured in. So there's a lot of detail and thought that went into how our cards are ranked from best to worst. And so when you look through our best of the best, like Greg said, or the best airline cards or the best everyday spend cards, there's really been a lot of thought put into how to objectively rank those cards that it's very hands off. We don't manually rank any of that stuff. annual fee and usually that's charged first year um and a link was uncovered that that gave you the first year free but the same sign up bonus otherwise right yeah um now before people get excited and run off to to get it it quickly died that that opportunity um but it was kind of funny

that it came up because um we had just last week during the podcast talked all about that card and the fact that I didn't have the card yet. So it was fortunate timing. Yeah. I mean, because the card has been a no-brainer. And just last week, we talked about the fact that it's one of the few, maybe even the only of the ultra premium cards that is an absolute no-brainer because the value clearly outweighs the cost of the annual fee, at least in my opinion. Greg obviously has made the decision and he explains last week why it hasn't been a no-brainer for him, even though it is, I think, for most people. So even with the annual fee, it's kind of a no-brainer. And there were people that weren't eligible for the welcome bonus that

were still applying with that fee waived in the first year because it was such a good deal. So I got to know. Come on, tell me you've got an Aspire card now, Greg. Did you apply for it? I didn't. Oh my goodness. I don't understand. Why not? Do I get credit if I came close? No, you get no credit for that oh my goodness so annual fee waived in the first year so 250 airline credit 2019 250 airline credit in january 2020 250 hilton credit and a free weekend night and that's all beside the sign up bonus for nothing

what yeah yeah so why not what was your rationale well um so that's it guys there is none first let me say i was planning on signing up at least my son that like i was definitely going to sign up um my son for it um but life got in the way so i i was uh i had a date with my wife i think that night you know we went out and i thought when i get back i'll i'll uh i'll sign up and uh it was dead um so uh so life got in the way um i was my my my thought it's an expensive date a very expensive date true true yeah i mean if i sign them up now it cost me 450 dollars right to not jump on that when i when i should have i hope dinner was excellent there there actually was uh there was a uh there was another factor that was

there the reason i didn't jump on it before dinner wasn't really because I was too busy. It was because I was a little bit nervous. It felt to me a little bit like that Platinum 100K offer that came out a few years back. Do you remember that situation? There was a leaked link, and then later on, Amex decided that it was a leaked link that shouldn't have been leaked. And so they clawed back the welcome bonus points from people. Right, right. Which, in this case, wouldn't be that big of a deal.

I'd happily take the 450 savings and say, too bad about the, what was it it 150 or 120 150 yep 150 000 hilton points um yeah no those would have been nice to have too anyway how about uh anyone else in your family pick it up no you know i a friend of mine sent me a message the next day saying hey i need to get a credit card i have to make the final payment on a cruise tomorrow. And I was like, oh, well, Amex is basically your only option then because they're the only ones that usually are able to generate an instant credit card number, right? And so, he was looking for whatever the best bonuses were. And I was like, you know, you're about 18 hours late if you had messaged me just a little sooner. No, but I mean, what a no brainer that was, if you get it now, like Greg said, there obviously was, I think, a little bit of trepidation over what's going to

happen long term, because I don't know who found the link or where it was found. Originally, we reported it quickly when a reader pointed it out to us. And it was a fantastic deal. And people have gotten the card in the mail already with the card member agreement that shows the $0 fee in the first year. So it's legit in the sense that people definitely aren't going to be charged that annual fee in the first year. But there's definitely cause for concern that Amex could change their minds later on and say that that wasn't a valid link. They have been getting more aggressive as of late. So I can see a little bit of fear there. On the flip side, I think there were probably so many people that opened it,

that's going to be a huge headache for Amex, I think, if they take it back. But I suppose I could see a little bit of your fear there. But what massive value in year one, like, you know, $600 or $700 in points yeah no top all those other things no question and again the the reason i had decided on my son but not yet me or my wife is in both the cases with my wife and i we have to decide which cards to cancel first um and so uh it just takes a little more thought and i this was probably done with me, but it wasn't like top of mind to me that this was likely to die as fast as it did. Did you expect it to die so quickly? Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody in our Frequent Miler Insiders commented and said,

if this is still around in a few months, then maybe I'll apply for it. And I think I responded and I said, in a few months, like, I'd be shocked if it's around in a few days. And what I was actually thinking and what I typed initially was, this is going to be gone in a few hours. But then I said, you know what, watch it be around for the next three weeks. And I look silly for saying that. But yeah, no, I definitely figured this was an hours or, you know, maybe a day, not days and weeks. So it's really your fault then that I don't have it because if you had written in big letters that this is going to die soon, then that would have been more on my mind. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, you know, Greg said that card usually comes with a $450 annual fee. It

always comes with a $450 annual fee. The fee has never been waived. So, yeah. And apart from the Ameriprise Platinum, I don't think that there is any ultra premium card that waives the fee in year one, right? Right. No, I think that's true. I think that's it. Like, you know, if you want an ultra premium card, you pay the fee right from the beginning. So, yeah. Yeah. I made it stand out. So, I think that was a standout offer this week. But, you know, it came, it went, it's gone. So if you got in, congratulations, cheers to you, because I think that was the credit card deal of the year. If it sticks, I don't think there's a better credit card deal this year. I'll, uh, you know, I think that's probably true. Although I, I just can't off the top of my head, uh, think of what all the deals are that,

that we're, we were excited about. But I think that's probably true. Yeah, I mean, hard to beat. Yeah. Meanwhile, getting off of credit cards for a second, you wrote an interesting post this week about Virgin Atlantic has the same policy as British Airways for when you cancel an award ticket, where the fees are less than $40? Less than $50. When the fees are less than $50, you only lose those fees.

And typically, if you booked with Virgin Atlantic a domestic Delta flight or even a one-way that's departing from the US flight, you probably only paid $5.60 in fees. And so if you cancel that, you get your miles back, you lose the $5.60, but that's such a tiny amount that it almost becomes a fully refundable ticket. Right, right. I mean, especially if you're looking at, well, in my case, it was 60,000

points one way that I had booked, or actually, I'm sorry, I take that back, 37,500 points that I booked one way from Detroit to Honolulu per passenger, So three passengers 112,000 points. So yeah, it cost me $5.60 each to get back, you know, points that were super valuable. So yeah, I mean, that was a that was great. And the thing is, I stumbled on it because I actually had canceled an itinerary and been charged the $50 per passenger as I expected, because that's what I had read for years was that it was $50 per passenger. Funny enough, when I think about it now, I don't think I've ever canceled a Virgin Atlantic award before. So I think I've just never actually run into it, even though that's one of the things I love about using foreign programs, and especially British Airways has been good for that, for the

cancellation policy, because it's so cheap. But it really does turn it into a nearly refundable ticket when you have this. So like I said, I got charged the fee. And then on a subsequent reservation, I got told that there was no fee. And really just kind of in passing, I was like, is that a new policy? And she said, no, it's been years. And I was like, I just got charged the fee last month. And I was kind of almost mumbling to myself that I paid the fee last month. And she said, oh, well, you shouldn't have. And the rep continued to press me and said, Well, you should follow up with customer service, because that's wrong. And they should and probably will give you your money back. And I only half believed her and she pressed pretty hard. So I said, Okay, well, you know what, I'll send the email won't hurt. And

sure enough, Virgin Atlantic refunded the fees that I had paid back in August. So it took a long time. I sent the email the end of September, and it took like a month before they refunded me, but they sure did. So it does seem that they have that policy. So if you're booking Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic Miles, that's a great deal. I mean, that makes it super flexible. It's almost like having Delta Diamond status. So is it worth manufacturing Delta Diamond status if you can book and cancel Delta Awards with Virgin Atlantic Miles for a $5.60 fee. Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things I love about having the Delta elite status is that I can book and optionally cancel awards that have high fees. And the reason I like that is because those high fees are usually rebated with the airline incidental fee

credits. And so I wouldn't, it wouldn't be, that part wouldn't help me on the Virgin Atlantic side. But it's certainly the case that one of the great things about getting very high level status with any of the US airlines is the ability to cancel awards for free and the ability to do it almost for free with British Airways when you're booking American or Alaska and with Delta, I mean, with Virgin Atlantic when you're booking Delta flights is very close to like having elite status, uh, without having to do anything for it. So that's, that's a heck of a benefit. Um, now I find it really interesting that those two programs are so similar in that regards. Like it seems like they do a lot of things exactly the same way. So just off the top of my head, like, so for example, they both charge outrageously high um fuel surcharges on their flights especially their premium flights uh they um they they both are good for for uh

although this is true with many foreign airlines but for booking flights with their partners more more so than their own metal. Right. Um, they, that's true with most airline programs though, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that is true. That's true. Um, but this, uh, this cancellation fee is, is unique. And also, um, I don't know, I'm not sure I'd call it unique, but I feel like most non-US programs have draconian mile expiry policies where it's hard or impossible to keep your miles alive for more than about three years after you've earned them.

Now, I don't know for sure that that's like the majority of farm programs say most but there are some there are certainly the the the handful that i can think of that are besides those two like air france has has a tough policy on that uh ana singapore yeah um anyway those those are big like key programs for us but but both british airways and virgin atlantic uh keep your miles alive as long as you have uh activity in your account so it's super easy with both of them to keep your points alive so they're both good programs from that point of view and both transfer partners with multiple different programs virgin atlantic of course is transfer partners with multiple different programs. Virgin Atlantic, of course, is transfer partners with everybody, Capital One, City, Chase, who am I missing? American Express, right? Well, but not Capital One. No, not Capital One. No,

no, I'm sorry. Not Capital One. Yep, you're right. Sorry. City, Chase, American Express, they're partners with all three. And British Airways, of course, partners with American Express and with Chase. So plenty of ways to put together the miles for an award. And I should note that I made this discovery regarding Delta flights, but Virgin Atlantic does partner with other airlines that fly to and from the United States. So for example, Air New Zealand is a partner. And so you can use Virgin Atlantic miles to fly on them from Los Angeles to Auckland or from Honolulu to Auckland, also with Hawaiian Airlines. So it gives you semi-refundable tickets on those airlines as well. I say semi-refundable, pretty close to it is what it is.

Would Air New Zealand have that cheap of a fee though? Departing the United States, yeah. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I booked a few flights for other people on Air New Zealand to meet me for the 40K challenge. So yeah. Wow. Yeah, most airlines departing the United States have pretty low fuel surcharges. You know, there are a few obviously British Airways and Virgin Atlantic and Lufthansa. But I find most airlines are reasonable leaving the United States anyway. But But yeah,

so that was I thought that was a great find, especially for people who travel with a family that might have thought they were going to have to pay $50 per person to cancel. Great fine to be able to not have to do that. And when you compare the fee that Delta would charge you to cancel the same award, if you don't have a lead status, it's just an insane savings and makes things pretty flexible. And I enjoy that kind of flexibility. I thought it was great when it was $50 a person. I was like, ah, that's pretty cheap to get my miles back. Um, much better now. So yeah. Yeah. So just a quick reminder to people, to listeners, uh, when booking Delta flights with Virgin Atlantic miles, their prices are usually good if it's a nonstop. Uh, if, if you have

multiple legs, uh, they're going to charge you separately for each leg, and that quickly adds up. But, wow, yeah, I was just yesterday looking at flights to Europe for the summertime and, you know, saw a nonstop flight from Detroit to Frankfurt in business class for, you know, 50K miles using Virgin Atlantic miles to fly Delta. And that's, you just can't beat that. So no, and you can't beat the fact that also Virgin Atlantic seems to have quite a bit of Delta availability, it ebbs and flows. So it's not always the case. But there are times when you might see four or five, six, eight seats in business class on a Delta flight. And when you pair that with the really easy cancellation policy, it makes it very easy for you to book for a family and not have to worry about having to pay out a fortune if you have to cancel. So I think it's a great find for family folks,

family travelers who can be flexible and continue to check the schedule because you will find some great availability now and then. Yeah, super cool. All right. So last week, you teased a bit about an article that you're publishing in the evening weekend review around the web post. You asked me if I had read the Airbnb article. Have you read the Airbnb article now? I have. Yes. And was I fair in assuming that if I asked that question, you'd read the article, you would know what article I was talking about? Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty memorable. So, just really briefly, for people who didn't read it, do you want to just give a

one-minute overview? Sure. The one-minute overview is that a reporter had booked an Airbnb, I don't think intending to do a story on it, but at the last minute, day of arrival, had been contacted by the Airbnb owner to move to a new location because the original apartment that she was going to rent was flooded or something like that. And so, needed to move her to a new location. And that ended up leading to a much bigger story, where she uncovered this sort of criminal ring of people who own a bunch

of properties and create a bunch of fake profiles on Airbnb, and then cancel on people at the last minute and move them into these flop houses that are nothing like the pictures you see online. What the reporter had discovered was that there were a number of fake profiles with fake photos that seem very similar and they were advertising apartments in different cities, multiple apartments in different cities using photos of the same place. So they were just taken from different angles. You could tell it was the same furniture, same artwork on the walls, but taken from different angles so the apartments would look like different places. And with names like, you know, Pete and Rachel or Joe and Susanna or whatever it might be to make it seem like it was owned by a couple,

when in reality, it seems that the places she uncovered were owned by someone in Los Angeles. And when she tried to dig deeper into it, that person really pretty much tried to disappear and change, take down their website and change their LinkedIn and that sort of thing to avoid detection, presumably. So at the end of the story, if you read the whole thing, you'll find out that the FBI actually contacted the reporter after the fact to ask for more detail because Airbnb didn't seem interested in rooting out this evil within their system, so to speak, and trying to figure out who these scammers were, how they were operating. And it seems that they don't have very much incentive to do so. It seems like, you know. Yeah, yeah. So, that's one of the things

Article made clear is Airbnb is making money when things go wrong as long as they don't have to give the full amount back to the person who got wronged. That was the most disappointing part of it to me was that Airbnb didn't seem interested in solving this problem. Not at all. Which is really bad from a marketing point of view if nothing else because when things like this get out i mean obviously it's gonna hurt right it's gonna hurt your business a lot more than than the little bit of cost to do something about it and it's not like the reporter had had hidden what was going on like she clearly had been reaching out to airbnb with full detail about what the problem was and And Airbnb just seemed totally disinterested in fixing it. Right, right, right. I was also surprised. I haven't been with

Airbnb on the supplier side. I haven't been a host. So it surprised me to hear that they don't do anything to verify the hosts, that they are who they say they are right it's like what mind-blowing right i just assume that they would and they would make sure that that pete and rachel were real people yeah i mean i've had some there's some things where uh to verify yourself you actually have to like hold up your your id like next to your face and and uh But they don't apparently do anything like that. No, the reporter did a reverse image search and easily found that some of these photos were just stock photos that were used across the internet, where you'd think that Airbnb, you'd think it's easy enough to write some sort of a program that does a reverse image search on the profile photos

to see if they're stock photos, right? Yeah, but plus, I mean, just do something to require verification. I mean, come on, except that they don't they don't need to because they're making money. And like you said, that was the key point in the article that as long as Airbnb doesn't give a full refund, Airbnb is making money, the property owner is making money. So at the end of the day, there's no incentive to clean it up and very easy to just move people to a place that isn't the place that they reserve. Because the key with the scam is that they would call people, contact people the day of arrival and tell them that the place they reserved wasn't available because of some sort of a problem with the previous tenant flooding the bathroom or doing

some sort of damage or throwing a party. And so then you have people who presumably have nowhere else to go. Maybe hotel prices are high because they're in town for an event. They don't have another option. So they more or less feel strong armed into accepting the option that's presented to them. And then it turns out to be a really poor option and not what they were originally paying for. And Airbnb is just not offering very much of a resolution. Yeah, yeah. So – Go ahead. They also said that these fake owners would accuse the people who stayed in these flop houses of being like really bad guests if those guests try to write a bad review.

And so it it it really uh just very negative experience all around now one thing that really disappointed me from about that writer the uh reporter at the very end uh she wrote well i didn't actually write a review or something like that like well you know what it's Yeah, but here, maybe you haven't stayed in enough Airbnbs to know this. I didn't either until just recently, I stayed in an Airbnb in Tahiti when I took my trip to Bora Bora. And I was very disappointed. I didn't feel like it was as described. We were unhappy with it. And I had it in mind to write a review. And I said to myself, Okay, I'm gonna write a review of this. And a couple of days passed, and I got a notification

that the owner had left a review of me. But in order to see it,'m going to write a review of this. And a couple of days passed and I got a notification that the owner had left a review of me. But in order to see it, I had to write a review. So they do give you some incentive to write a review. But it slipped my mind. We were busy. We were traveling from place to place. And they give you a deadline. If you don't write a review within X number of days, and it's a relatively short number of days, it must have been five days a week something like that at max a week then you

can't leave a review anymore so that okay see that i didn't realize that yeah the owner had actually left me a bad review i think probably anticipating that i was going to leave him a negative review because he knew we weren't happy and he left us a negative review about having left the place in poor condition and i oh man you shouldn't have had that big party. Right. I know that big party. I know. Yeah. Bottles of milk everywhere for my dad. That's right. You had all those babies were rocking out. Oh man. Right. Right. One, one, you know, one, one rock and play after another, it was just, you know, wild, wild afternoon. But, but yeah, so, so she couldn't leave a review if she waited. And that's the thing I, I was disappointed, but at the same time, I was busy with other stuff

traveling still. Cause I, I was in Bora Bora and whatnot. Uh, and, and the number of days passed and I couldn't, so she, I'm sure the same thing happened to her that she thought she was going to, and then either didn't or thought that maybe it wasn't important enough. Wasn't a big deal. One, you know, one-off kind of a thing, but then obviously came to find out that there was a much bigger scam so yeah yeah it's disappointing but but yeah so would you would you book an airbnb now knowing the story well so i mean i've had

some really good experiences with airbnb and um i what i've always done done is filter to super hosts that have all positive reviews. And so I thought that protected me. It's not clear from this article whether it would or not. I mean, I believe she said that the places had mixed reviews. So I think I would have been saved from this situation by filtering a super host but i don't know so i'll definitely be more cautious a super host do you know i i don't know i mean i did look at that at one point but i can't remember what it yeah i don't know either i don't know either i know it's a thing it says super host but i don't really know if it means anything because obviously they don't

verify anybody so maybe they verify their super host i don't know but but i just don't verify anybody. So maybe they verify their super hosts. I don't know. But but I just don't know that it's I mean, I assumed it had to do with reviews, the reviews and maybe how much, you know, how many guests they've had or whatever. But I mean, that makes sense. I also assumed that Airbnb made sure that the hosts were real people. So I mean, who knows? Exactly. Exactly. Which of our assumptions are correct? Yeah. Which is right. I think the thing is, I'm not worried. I wouldn't be scared of booking with Airbnb in terms of if that happened to me, I would certainly, A, have booked with a card where I had travel protections, and B, felt comfortable filing a charge back through the credit card company if I didn't get what I had paid for.

There might be some fight involved in getting my money back, but I certainly would pursue it. Although I say that, and she had a lawyer in the article who had a lot of difficulty following up with Airbnb also. But more importantly, I would have the points to book a hotel at the last minute, probably. In most scenarios, I'd probably be fine and find someplace else to stay, whereas most people wouldn't. The thing to me, though, is that that just demonstrates such poor customer service. And why would I want to risk dealing with that headache? I've read too many stories in the last year of people having their Airbnbs canceled at the last minute by hosts for one reason or another. And if I book a place to stay, I want to know that I have a place to stay. And it's very rare that I'm going to get to a hotel and they're not going to have my room. And if that's the case, if that happens, they're going to pay to put me up someplace else. So

I don't have to worry about that at all. Whereas apparently you do have to worry about it with Airbnb. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like it. So, so now I've heard bad stories on both the guest side and the host side. And so it does seem like there's a lot of fixing to be done um by airbnb a lot of good stuff too like you said i've had good experiences so i mean there are good there are good people out there but i don't know if it's worth the risk to me i'd have to be saving a lot yeah i don't know but you can certainly have experiences that you just can't have in hotels so it's it is true it can be pretty special. Um, yeah, I don't know. I get the appeal living like a local and, you know, and that sort of thing. I just,

I prefer predictability. I prefer to know that when I get there, there's going to be a place for me and I'm not going to have a hassle and I'm not gonna have to fight to get my money back when they try to put me up in a place that's all mattresses and no furniture as the case was in, in some of these situations. So I know my wife wouldn't go for that. And, um, yeah, I just wouldn't want to have to deal with that aspect of it, but, but I'm sure that Airbnb will continue to be popular and continue to boom. And I'm sure that they know that. And that's why they don't seem particularly concerned with getting this fixed. I mean, I hope, I actually hope it does become a big deal to where they, uh, they feel

like they have to police it in order to get their good name back. For once, I understand the hotel side. So the hotel argument is always that Airbnb is these unlicensed hotel operators, basically, they don't have to follow the same regulations as hotel owners. And that's the fight that hotel ownership associations always put up when cities are considering how to regulate Airbnbs. And that argument to me just seemed like sour grapes over the fact that the hotels would either have to charge less to compete or give up some business. But now I see it a little bit more after reading this, I can see the argument on the side that says there's got to apparently got to be

some oversight if Airbnb isn't going to make an effort on their own to to regulate this kind of stuff so yeah yeah so anyway oh well all right well um i guess there's always uh vrbo i don't know if that's any better but there's probably just as many scams over there yeah yeah and hopefully this will root itself out because when there's a need usually people find the technology to figure that out and something comes along if Airbnb isn't going to do it themselves. But enough for bad news. Quick good news. A couple of big hits this week. The American Airlines award availability for the Tokyo Olympics.

Pretty amazing. Not American Airlines availability. Of course, it was Japan Airlines availability. You could book with American Miles or Alaska Miles. I haven't actually looked to see if that's still available. Have you? No, I haven't. I haven't. But that's for Japan Airlines business class, right? Right. Business class to get to Tokyo and back. They have a new flight from San Francisco to Tokyo that debuts in March. And there was a ton of availability all the way up through and including the Olympics when we got it posted the other night.

So I don't I imagine that there's much less availability, if any, left. But there were four seats. So pretty, pretty hot commodity there for folks who are interested in going to the Olympics. At this point, though, I would say if you haven't looked into the hotel situation, you might be in trouble. Really? The Olympics. Yeah. Have you looked at that?

I have. Yeah yeah and there's very little anything available even the even the capsule hotel at the airport that i stayed at is not available most of the nights so yeah well the place you stayed though in honolulu most recently is still available i hear the oh i'm sorry sorry in tokyo i got mixed up with honolulu oh yes yes yeah yeah the concrete slab outside the airport in Honolulu, that's still available. It's right there. That's available, but that's not in the same place. No, no.

So that's no good. Yeah. It wouldn't help you, unless you're going to fly back and forth every night. No, that probably wouldn't help you very much. You could find a train where you could sleep on the seat in the train and go to Kyoto or something and come back. Well, for folks who, I shouldn't say complain, but who have been dissatisfied with the value of American Airlines miles, that was a great opportunity this week to get good value out of your miles anyway. And also, AA keeps running these flash sales, these economy web specials,

5K each way, a whole bunch of places around the country this week, including Transcons. Did you book any American Airlines awards? I did not. Me either. Me either. Me either. But if you live in a place that's served by American Airlines um including trans cons did you book any american airlines awards i did not me either me either but if you live in a place that's served by american airlines and you can take advantage of it great um it didn't i i checked a few flights actually myself that i thought would be useful but unfortunately i couldn't find anything that yeah but it's encouraging to see

yes oh definitely definitely um now i did stumble upon um an award. I booked an award to go to Grand Cayman from Fort Lauderdale on JetBlue. And I'm only mentioning this because, so the flight itself was crazy cheap. In that direction, it was only like $69. But the points price was only 3,100 points. So it was like over two cents per point value. And, you know, I've written a post about how what the JetBlue points are worth. And this is way above what I would have predicted in that post. So I'm not really sure what happened there. But who's going to keep an eye out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice, nice. Yeah, that's a great deal.

I, you know, I, I'm, I'm always interested in flying jet blue because I like jet blue, but it just doesn't ever work out to be convenient for me. So one of these days I have some points sitting there from like the shopping portal back in the day. So I get some points. They're sitting there waiting to be used, calling my name and, and, uh, and unused. Don't you have any from that big, that big jet blue deal where if you have Virgin America miles, they match. You didn't do it.

I didn't do it. No, I should have. I know. I know. Oh man. I didn't do it. And I had, I had the points to do it. I definitely should have.

That was a big mistake. So you're still burning through those. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, jet blue lets you pull them. So I, I, I, I did that a deal for all three of us in the family immediate family so my wife son and i and so we each got i think 75 000 points and uh i've used a lot of the points to um actually to fly my niece to florida and stuff um but um yeah so so there's still some left here's my point

on that so that was before i started working for FrequentMiler. And this January will make three years that I've been working for FrequentMiler. And you've been using them to book flights for other people. And you still haven't managed to use all of those points. That's why I didn't do the deal. Three years later, I'd still be sitting on those points. Instead, I put those points to good use with SPG. Because I think that's what it was, right?

You could transfer SPG to Virgin Atlantic and then Virgin Atlantic over it. That's what it was i think that's what it was right you could transfer spg to virgin atlantic and then virgin atlantic over that is what it was right so i put those points to better use back in the day you transferred to virgin america and those those points became alaska miles so it's not like they devalued in any significant way and then um and and actually they transferred i think it was like one to 1.1, something like that. Something like that, yeah. So it was actually better than transferring directly from SBG at the time to Alaska. To Alaska, yeah.

It was, you're right, you're right. The details are foggy now, but yeah. So maybe I didn't do better, but maybe I still have that stash where I was getting free flights to Grand Cayman. So look what I missed out on. I can't believe that deal was so long ago. I still think of it.

I was thinking of it as like a recent great deal. Yeah. I can't call it recent anymore. So, yeah. That was a nice back. Looking it back. Speaking of recent great deals, though, I should mention, if you've been listening the last couple of weeks, you heard us talk about SoFi money in the last couple of weeks. And if you haven't paid attention, haven't checked, haven't seen it on the blog this week, they did decrease the referral bonus on that. I had to reach out and tell some of my friends

because I know that they were encouraging friends and family of theirs to sign up. And I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows that the referral bonus is dropped on that before you go and refer friends and tell them that they're going to get a hundred dollars per person that they refer. It's still a good deal, but it's obviously not quite as good as it was. So update on that. Okay, cool. All right. Anything else today?

No, that's it for today. So if you're just joining us, just hopped in, you can find us online at thefrequentmiler.com. So that's T-H-E, frequentmiler.com. You can also find us on Twitter at Frequent Miler or our Facebook page, Frequent Miler. You should also join our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group where you can connect with other readers and ask and answer questions and interact with us and the many people who read our blog. Feel free to leave us questions, comments, concerns, whatever it is that you need help with on the blog, on this video. You can find us on YouTube, our FrequentMiler channel there, and you'll find this podcast wherever it is that you like to listen to your podcast for Apple, Android, and the web. So check us out online in all of our many formats. And you can find us

every week. We do this usually on Fridays. This week, we're a little bit early. And on Saturday mornings, you'll find the links to that week's podcast and that week's week in review. So you can check that out every Saturday morning at thefrequentmiler.com. All right. Thank you, Nick. And thank you very much, everybody. Take care.