Frequent Miler on the Air - The World Unlocked: How the points & miles hobby makes incredible experiences practical | Ep196 | 4-1-23

Episode Date: April 1, 2023

Award travel unlocks an incredible world of possibility. Where will it take you? This week, we talk about how award travel can unlock more travel and more luxury than you may imagine if you're new to the hobby. We also discuss an opportunity to unlock Hyatt elite status that is only available through 4/1/23.  Join our email list: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ 00:00 Intro 01:07 Award Talk: Expedia destroys the value of Hotels.com reward program https://frequentmiler.com/huge-devaluation-of-hotels-com-rewards-new-one-key-program-only-giving-2-back/ 07:48 Card Talk: World of Hyatt Credit Card https://frequentmiler.com/woh/ 18:19 Mattress running the numbers: Bilt promotion to fast track to top-tier Hyatt Globalist status https://frequentmiler.com/hyatt-globalist-fast-track-through-bilt-rewards-for-rent-day/ https://frequentmiler.com/should-you-mattress-run-the-bilt-x-hyatt-promotion/ 37:01 Giant Mailbag 42:21 Main Event: The World Unlocked https://frequentmiler.com/my-100000-vacation-year-on-nicks-mind/ https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-get-53-free-nights-of-vacation-from-a-single-credit-card/ 1:19:42 Question of the Week: You send too many emails. You don't send enough emails. What should I do?

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did City do this week? It's time for Mattress Running the Numbers. Ready for the main event? The main event. Frequent Miler on the air starts now. Today's main event, the world unlocked. With the points and miles hobby, travel,

we never would have dreamed of paying for as easily within reach. We're going to be telling our personal stories, our team stories about how travel that we would have never even thought about paying for is something we do routinely. And that means both incredibly luxury travel as well as traveling much more than we would have ever thought possible before so uh we'll get into that that was it that was it unlocking right there oh nice we've got sound effects live sound effects right now from from nick good uh today we're gonna uh delay the giant mailbag i mean we still are gonna get to the giant mailbag later in the show. But today we're going to start with award talk. What do we have going on in the world of awards, Nick? Well, Hotels.com absolutely destroyed their value this week, or I should say Expedia

destroyed the value of the Hotels.com reward program. If you're familiar with Hotels.com, it was sort of like a 10% rebate. I know somebody's going to get into the math and tell me it was 9%, but you got sort of a 10%-ish rebate on your hotel stays. And now essentially, it's going to 2% back on hotels and vacation rentals and activities and stuff like that. 0.2% on flights booked with Expedia. I'm not really sure that matters much to anybody, but there you go. There you have it. So that's just a huge decrease in value.

Is there any bright spot in that? Yeah, there's a couple of bright spots. One is if you've been collecting um hotels.com rewards so you know the way it worked before or even now i mean this change doesn't happen until mid 2023 we don't know exactly when mid 2023 will happen but um for now and and previously you earned a stamp for each hotel night that you booked through hotels.com and actually stayed in. And after 10 nights, you would get basically the average cost of all those nights. They call it one free night, basically. So let's say the average cost of those 10 nights that you'd already stayed was $200. You'd have $200 to apply to your next hotel stay. That's how it currently works,

but will no longer work in the future. But one really cool thing is they say that the value of the rewards collected so far will just transfer over to this new program. And the reason that's cool is like, you won't have to have collected 10 stamps to get 10% back in rewards in this new program. So for example, if you stay seven nights up until when the program changes over, you'll get the average of those seven nights as rewards, which then can be applied to any hotel stay, vacation rental, activity, vacation package, car rental, cruise, et cetera, that you want to use your rewards for. And for all of those things, except for flights, you can actually just use it as a discount. So for example, like if you have $100 worth of rewards, you want to book something that's $150,

then you could use your rewards and just pay the extra 50. With flights, you have to be able to fully cover it with your rewards. So I actually think that's really nice. And so for the short term, it increases the value of Hotels.com rewards. It's ironically more interested right now in booking through Hotels.com than I will be whenever mid-2023 happens because the rewards will be easier to use. And the new rewards program will be combined across Expedia, Hotels.com, and VRBO. So you'll be able to use your rewards in any of those programs. I don't see really any other thing to be excited about. I mean, yes, you get one nice thing, I guess, is that in the future, you'll be earning rewards across these programs. So it'll collect in one pile, basically, whether you book through Expedia or hotels.com or VRBO. But 2% back, you'd be better off just spending more time worrying about which credit card you're going to use to pay for things. Use a credit card that rewards travel.

And find the best portal to click through when booking things. The rewards from those two things will dwarf the rewards from this program, I think. Well, and I think even more importantly than that is just on a recent episode, we talked about how you did the math in terms of how much return you get from each of the major hotel loyalty programs. And we were looking at what, like 10, 15% in points. Yeah, it sort of starts at around 10% for most of them. And then with elite status and other things, it goes up from there. And yeah, so at the time, it seemed like hotels.com was a good, you know, sort of equivalent

starting point. And you didn't have to be like loyal. Loyal to one. Yeah, that's exactly where I would say the benefit was that, you know, you didn't you could be a free agent and stay wherever and get an amount that's almost comparable to what you would get if you were loyal to one chain. But now with it at 2%, I feel like it's pretty hard to justify going through hotels.com over booking directly through a loyalty program. If you're booking a hotel that belongs to one. Right, right. Um, exactly true. And when booking independent hotels, again, I would look through the portals and just find the best deal. And whether you book through the independent hotel directly or hotels.com or booking.com or whatever, it's going to just depend on what prices are available to you, what kind of rebates are available through the cashback i i just can't see this two percent

thing moving the needle for me no no i can't even imagine thinking hard about it because i you book a hotel that's 700 a night you're talking about 14 bucks right i mean like so is it worth your time at that stage i mean don't get me wrong i like every extra two percent as much as anybody who plays this game but it's just not going to move the needle in terms of making me seek out booking through them, especially not if prices are equal through like, cause I have a,

you know, capital one venture X card in our household. If prices are equal through capital one, I mean, I'd be booking there for the 10 X miles or whatever. So yeah, there's no reason to stick with hotels.com in that world. Right.

Right. And same thing with your, if you have a Sapphire reserve, right, you get 10 X booking through the chase portal with that one right so yeah and and there's various a lot of cards will give you 5x through the banks portals um right if it's not one of these luxury cards right so hotels.com hello for now but goodbye mid 2023 well put well put all right so i guess that brings us next to card talk right so what card are we talking about this week the world of hyatt credit card so world of hyatt credit card

has an annual fee of 95 nice benefit that it has no foreign transaction fees although you don't really want to spend too much money at 1X on this card, probably. So I don't know. The no foreign transaction fee thing comes in handy, I think, mostly if you're paying for hotel stays in foreign places. Because then, obviously, you'll earn greater rewards on the card for spending at a Hyatt property and not have to worry about foreign transaction fees. In terms of bonus categories, 2X restaurants, airlines, local transit, so stuff like Uber, trains, subways, that kind of thing. Fitness clubs and gym memberships. I think it's the only card that I know of that offers a bonus category for fitness clubs and gym memberships. So if you spend a lot on that, maybe it's worth this, although maybe there's some other techniques you could use too. And Forex at Hyatt properties. So, I mean, that's a pretty okay list of stuff.

It doesn't really blow my mind, but it's there. Right, right. Nothing you've said so far would make me recommend the card by itself, right? Good, yeah. It should. That's right, that's right. I mean, unless you're, if you're spending $100, dollars a year at Hyatt, then getting 4X would be huge, but that's kind of obvious, I think. But that's not all the card has, right? So every year upon renewal, automatically you get a free night certificate, category one through four free night certificate. So, you know, remember card costs $95. You're getting this category one to four free night certificate, which can easily offset a $200 night. I mean,

it's not unusual to find three or even close to $400 nights, sometimes more, but that would be unusual. I think that's certainly not hard to do more than 95, right? I mean, if you're standing in category one, you can very easily be getting far more value than what you're paying annually for the card. Exactly. Yeah. So that's the point. So as long as you use it every year, you're almost certainly going to get the card's annual fee value back. So, you know, at this point, you're still, is great deal with, with just what we've talked about so far? No, but it's still a nice, like if you have a category one through four, uh, hotel that, you know, you're going to stay at every year, uh, like, like the, um, higher Regency grand Cypress and in Florida, which often runs three to four hundred dollars right right right in

that range anyway um you use it there every year that's that's a nice it's a nice win every year basically but it's not huge um but that's not all uh you also get um another free night certificate with $15,000 spend. And then there's elite benefits. And we're bringing this up and this card up because of what we're going to talk about soon with Matt just running the numbers. But basically, the card gives you automatic discoverist elite status, which is Hyatt's bottom tier elite status, which doesn't mean much, but at least you could say

you're elite, I guess. And it automatically gives you five qualifying nights towards elite status each year. And that's where it starts to get interesting for those who want higher levels of elite status. It gets you part of the way there. It also gives you two nights towards elite status with every $5,000 of spend. So just for example, if you every year spend $15,000 with this card because you want the free night certificate with $15,000 spend, you'll also get the extra six elite qualifying nights because of your spend plus you add on the five qualifying nights that you get automatically every year so you would have 11 qualifying nights towards elite status every year uh before you step foot in a hotel and you know so i i think it's worth you know on that note hammering in the fact that that's interesting with Hyatt, not only if you're going to go after globalist status, but because those qualifying nights count towards milestone rewards.

And there are a bunch of milestone rewards along the way to pick up that even if you're not going to make it all the way to globalist, still might be attractive. So getting a head start, I mean, 11 gets you more than halfway to the 20 night choice benefit or the 20 night milestone reward anyway, which is two Club Lounge upgrade or Club Lounge access certificates. So if you're going to stay at a Hyatt at some point during the year that's got a Club Lounge, it could be nice to pick those up and you'd only need to actually stay nine nights or do more spend on the card, I suppose, to reach that. And to be clear, it's not that you get into a lounge two

times during your stay. It's that you use one lounge upgrade certificate in order to upgrade your entire stay for up to seven nights so that you have unlimited access to the lounge during that stay. So you really could get up to 14 days worth of lounge access if you really maximize that benefit. Unfortunately, since the pandemic, there's fewer and fewer lounges, at least in the U.S., that are regularly open. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that particular benefit is not the most exciting one that Hyatt offers. But then at 30 nights, you get a free Category 1 to 4 certificate.

So, I mean, there are some things along the way that could be worth it. So it's worth. I just thought it was worth highlighting the fact that elite qualifying nights are obviously useful for earning elite status,

but also with Hyatt for earning the milestone rewards. So that's why it's attractive, I think, to a wider range of people, perhaps, to earn those

high-night credits with spend. Finally, one aspect of the card, it's not a promise thing with the card, but we found over and over again when Hyatt runs their quarterly promotions, they usually offer something better for Hyatt cardholders than for non-card holders so you get more points or something because you're a card holder that you wouldn't get otherwise and whether or not that's meaningful to you is going to depend on the specific promos and what your travel is but um but there's actually you're saying there's a chance a nice perk yeah very good very okay so so what do you think about this card really i mean so we talked about the benefits there what is this interesting should anybody get it what about

the welcome bonus well the welcome bonus is routinely lackluster uh so that they they advertise it as a 16,000 60,, but in reality, they're including points earned on spend when they say that, which you would earn anyway. So that's not a bonus. That's just regular. So we describe it on our blog as a 45,000 point bonus. You could read the details there, but that is not an exciting bonus compared to cards most cards these days routinely have like at least 60 000 and then usually have promotions where they're

higher than that um so 45 000 point bonus not exciting but i also it's been that way for a long time so i wouldn't if you're interested in the card, I personally wouldn't wait, hoping that it's going to get better. No, it isn't. It isn't, but I shouldn't say it isn't. I agree. I don't think it probably will. But I think it is worth saying though,

again, that you said most cards routinely offer a 60,000 point bonus. And if you Google this card, you might think this card does too, because again, when he says that's the way they advertise it, he means that's the way almost every blog on earth is going to advertise the welcome bonus. So if you Google, you might look at it and say, whoa, frequent miler only has a link for 45,000, but I see a link for 60,000. Oh no, you see a link is advertised as 60,000. We're just not going to lie about that extra 15 K because,

uh, cause that's what it kind of feels like Chase is doing on that because no other card out there includes the points you earn at 1X for ordinary spend in the bonus. This is the only card that does that. So they apparently think they can get away with advertising it as a 60K bonus and thinking they're on par with others. But yeah, bonus stinks. You'd get this card because you want it for the other benefits. I say the bonus stinks. I mean, you could get a lot of value out of the 45,000 bonus points. So don't mistake me there. I like Hyatt points. You can do really well with Hyatt points. So it's better than a hole in the head, as they say. But it's not uh not an exciting bonus offer and the card itself isn't

particularly exciting unless you're somebody who wants to spend towards the extra free night certificate and elite night credits i think if if those things appeal to you then this is a card you need to probably have uh otherwise yeah i think i think this is almost a must-have for those who are going to routinely seek high-level elite status. But for people who are just attracted by some you say, well, we're going to use the free night every year to get a nice weekend getaway for a combined total of ninety five dollars times two. That's a good way to get a annual, highly, highly discounted weekend away. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. All right. That's about, I think, where our feelings are on the Hyatt card. And that might seem like it stands in contrast to our general feelings about Hyatt, because you've probably heard us gush on this show about Hyatt once or twice before.

And I think that that kind of transitions us nicely into mattress running the numbers and talking about something we're really excited about with Hyatt that has nothing to do with the card. And a lot of people have asked whether the card is a component of this or helps to enhance it. And it doesn't, we'll come back to that in a second, but mattress running the numbers this week, we have to talk about the built promotion. And when I say the built promotion, if you're listening to this, the day it publishes, which is Saturday, April 1st, you need to talk about the Bilt promotion. And when I say the Bilt promotion, if you're listening to this the day it publishes, which is Saturday, April 1st, you need to get on the blog today. You may need to pause what you're listening to here and click the link in the show notes

to go and register for this promotion today. If what we talk about in the next five minutes appeals to you, again, this is the last day. So you have to do it right away. Yeah, even if it doesn't appeal to you. You should still register. You can register for this promotion for free. It does take, I guess, three steps, but they're three quick and easy steps. So I would just do it just in case you're interested.

Sign up for the promotion. So what is it? We got to talk about it. What is it? Right. So Bill, I think we should let people know what we're talking about. We should probably it? We got to talk about it. What is it? Right. So I think we should let people know what we're talking about. I mean, that's how excited we are. We're like, don't even listen to the description.

Just go do it. And we don't do it. We're not going to tell you what it is. Do it. And we don't often tell you that around here. Right. So every now and then. Anyway.

All right. So built rewards, which is the rent rewards program.'ve probably heard us talk about before. They have a credit card, but the promotion we're going to talk about has nothing to do with the credit card. Built Rewards is a rent rewards program that also has a credit card, but the rent rewards program that's free and anybody can join and you don't need to get the credit card to join is offering a fast track to Hyatt Elite status. And so the way this works is you, first of all, if you haven't signed up for Built, you signed up for Built Rewards, you download their app, and right on the home screen in the app, there is a link to sign up

for this promotion. You'll have to link your World of Hyatt account number to your Built Rewards account, and then click the button to enroll in the promotion. And what's going to happen is you'll get automatic explorer status, which is mid-tier Hyatt status. You get Hyatt explorer status sometime around April 16th. You'll get Hyatt explorer status April 16th, April 17th. And then during a promotional window from April 17th to July 16th, if you stay 10 nights at Hyatt properties, 10 qualifying nights, which means you can use money, if you stay 10 nights at Hyatt properties, 10 qualifying nights, which means you can use money, you can use your world of Hyatt points to book a free night, etc. If you stay 10 nights in that window, you'll keep your explorer status through February of 2025. But even more exciting, if you stay 20 nights during that three-month window,

then you'll get Hyatt globalist status through February of 2025. So we're talking about a level of status that ordinarily requires 60 nights a year, being able to get that with just 20 nights during the promotional window. Now, we've sounded really excited about this, but that's a lot of nights, Greg. Why is this so exciting? It is a lot of nights, but we've talked a lot, as Nick said in previous shows, about how much we like Hyatt, specifically top tier elite status with Hyatt. No other chain comes close to the types of benefits that Hyatt offers. And when you combine that with the fact that Hyatt also offers the best value for your

rewards. So they have an award chart, which limits the price of their hotels when you're booking with points. So Hyatt is a great program for those just interested in getting into great hotels with relatively few points. And when you layer on top of that, all the incredible benefits you get with top-tier globalist status, it becomes just an unbeatable combination. So globalist status will give you free parking on awards days. So imagine you book a weekend in New York city and, and driving up and handing the valet your, your keys, knowing that you're not going to pay a dime for any of that, unless you tip the guy, I guess. Um, and then, uh, you get, uh, you know, free breakfast and this is like real breakfast, hot breakfast for two. Or you get lounge access, which includes breakfast.

You get what are some of the other more valuable things? Waved award or wave resort fees, even on paid stays as a globalist lounge access. If you're staying in a property that has a lounge, you just mentioned you get breakfast in the lounge, but you'd also get everything else in the lounge. So snacks and coffee throughout the day, sometimes hors d'oeuvres and even drinks in some properties at night. So that obviously can be a nice benefit to have. And then an upgrade to a standard suite at check-in based on availability. Now that is based on availability, but if you're used to based on availability with other chains, Hyatt, I think, in general, seems to do a little bit better with that.

Now, obviously, it's going to vary by property and location. We talked about all that stuff before. But you got at least a decent shot at getting a suite when you check in, maybe less of a shot now that everybody's going to be elite, so nobody's going to be elite. We'll come back to that in a second and the fallacy of that line of thought. But that's a number of really good benefits. If you just take breakfast, free parking, and lounge access alone, that's a pretty hot suite of benefits. Oh, and we forgot to mention 4 p.m. late checkout. I think it's subject to availability at resorts and destination residences or whatever, but most Hyatt hotels

anyway, a guaranteed 4 p.m. late checkout, which can be great if you've got a late flight out or you're driving somewhere. So absolutely. So when you take all of those things together and you get it not just this year, but all of next year and the first two months of 2025, that's a long time and a chance to use that benefit quite a bit. And like Greg said, I think what makes this most exciting to people is that it's not at a chain where you're going to have to probably spend more than you would otherwise in order to stay at those properties. It's the chain where the awards are the cheapest in general for a comparable tier property. You're going to pay fewer points usually for a Hyatt than you would for a Marriott or a Hilton. So it's already a good value program, places that you're going to want to stay.

Now, if you get all that too, that's pretty awesome, but it's still a lot of nights, right? It is. It is a lot of nights. Luckily, well, one of the things you could do is take advantage of an overlapping promotion. So the Hyatt's spring promotion overlaps with this one. So from April 17th to May 26th, both promotions are in effect. And so that promotion, we joked about that promotion before that it's so complicated to talk about because in order to get any points, you first have to stay at, you have to complete a stay at a Hyatt before earning any bonus points. And, um, anyway, once you've done that, you get 3000 bonus points for every two nights you stay. And, um, so if you did all 20 nights during the overlapping time period and did your first night to, um, start the spring promotion before that, um, then you'd get back, uh, 30,000 points because every two of the nights is000 points. So 30,000 points back, depending on the situation, might even get more points back

if you're a world of high credit card holder, that's even more complicated to explain. So you could go read the posts about that part. But so you'd get somewhere 30,000 to up to 35,000 points back, depending on how you do this, that could, that rebate could account for half. I mean, I don't know how you want to calculate it, but close, let's say close to half of the cost of, of doing this. If you do it right. Right. Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's incredible when you look at that. So that helps to reduce the path. So let's say you're staying, let's say you have a category one Hyatt within reach or somewhere you're traveling to. You're talking about 5000 points per night at standard rates or 35000 at 3500 rather at off peak dates. So let's assume standard because off peak is a little harder to find. So if you do 20 nights at 5000 points per night, which hopefully you're not going to do all 20 as a mattress run. But anyway, we're talking about 100,000 points that you'd have to spend for the 20 nights

required for the promotion. And then you figure you get the 30,000 points back. You're talking about 70,000 points net to purely mattress run 20 nights and end up with globalist status. Now, assuming that you're not actually going to need a mattress run 20 nights because you probably already have some hotel nights during that window that you have to stay, then that cost is going to reduce, reduce, reduce. And so this is going to help really accelerate. So for instance, for me, I already had 10 nights booked during the promotional window. So I only need 10 more nights. So if I mattress run those

at 5,000 points a night, that's 50,000 points out of pocket. I'd get 15,000 points back. So it cost me a net 35,000 points to end up with globalist status for about two years. So that's pretty appealing. And it's not even necessarily your cheapest option. It's just one of the awesome things that this overlaps, although it's worth mentioning, it only overlaps for about five weeks. So it's only like Greg said, from April 17th to May 26th. And a thing to know and understand about how this promotion works, a couple of frequently asked questions that might be running through your head if this is the first you've heard about it. Elite nights earned from spending on the credit card do not count towards this. So we just talked about the fact that the credit card earned some elite nights every 5,000 spend.

That is not going to count towards the 20 nights here. So get that out of the way, number one. Number two, you need to check in starting on April 17th. If you check in before April 17th, the word is, and I think it's true because they did double check this, that you will not get any credit if you check in, like, let's say April 15th and out April 25th. Supposedly those nights are not going to count towards this. So your activity needs to begin no sooner than April 17th and it needs to end by July 16th. So you can't check in on July 15th and out on July 25th and still get credit for the first two nights. You need to check out on July 16th at the latest in order for the nights to count towards this promotion. So those are a couple of things to know. And the same is true with the

3000 bonus point promotion that it, well, the same isn't true in the sense that it's already started, but it will end on May 26th. So you need to check out by that date. If you have a state plan that's longer than that, you're going to want to break that up somehow so that you're checking out on May 26th in order to get the bonus points from that stay. So those are a couple of things to know, but that's not the only way. It's not only category one mattress runs, right? There's another option that lots of people have been looking at. Sure. I mean, as a general concept, you could just look for the cheapest way of paying cash for hotel nights, for Hyatt hotel nights, or nights that credit to Hyatt. So some of Hyatt's partner properties will give you elite nights if you stay there. So do you want to talk

about in detail what I'm sort of... Yeah, you know, if you want to roll the dice on this promotion, then... Little clue there. You may be interested in Hyatt's partnership with MGM. So MGM, big casino operator, they have casinos all over the country these days, but certainly they have quite a few in Las Vegas. The MGM Grand, Luxor, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay, Delano, Bellagio. There's a whole bunch of them in Las Vegas. So those MGM nights, as long as you're booking them either through Hyatt or direct through MGM and you get your World of Hyatt number attached to your MGM profile, which you're going to have to probably do in person at check-in, and then you may want to

double check at checkout that your World of Hyatt number was on there, you'll get elite nights for those nights booked through, again, either directly through Hyatt or directly through MGM at any of their properties. Now, this is appealing because some of their properties in Las Vegas, A, can be very, very cheap, and B, if you have MGM gold status, then your resort fees can get waived. If you don't yet have MGM gold status, I wrote a post this week about casino matching around Atlantic City and Philadelphia that will tell you how you can start with Caesars Diamond, which you well know already at this point. You can get from the Wyndham Earner business card, giving you Wyndham Diamond status and matching that over.

You could do some shenanigans in Atlantic City and end up with MGM Gold status that way. Or if you already had Hyatt Explorist or Globalist before this promotion, you can match that to MGM Gold and get no resort fees. So when I say really cheap, how cheap? I mean, sometimes I'll see those properties from like 10 to 20 to $30 a night. So really, really cheap is the answer to how cheap. And yes, those nights can be elite qualifying. Again, if you booked them directly through MGM or through Hyatt. And if you do have MGM Gold status, it's worth logging into your MGM account because you'll sometimes run across some really good promotions that bring those costs down even further. I booked one stay where I had an offer for a few complimentary nights. Now,

theoretically, complimentary nights are not elite qualifying nights. However, everything I've heard in my past experience has been that as long as you mix in at least one paid night, then it all kind of cries as though each night was paid, basically, is the short of it. So, for instance, I was able to book a four or five night stay that came out to an average of six dollars a night. I saw one for three dollars and twenty five cents. So there are some some really cheap nights to be had in Las Vegas, potentially. Now, that brings me to the next question that everybody's going to be had in Las Vegas, potentially. Now, that brings me to the next question that everybody's going to ask as soon as they hear that, and that is, wow, can I book that and pay for it and not stay? Yeah, can I?

What's the answer? Probably not. Probably not. So you're probably going to have to check in in person at the desk and check out in person or maybe you'd get away with checking out via the app at the end. But almost surely you're going to have to check in in person. And if you're not staying at all, there's a good chance you're going to get checked out if you have a multi-night stay. So, you know, if you try and book like, you know, a 10-night stay or something and show up on the first day and then leave and expect to stay checked in for 10 nights, it's just not going to usually happen that way. So these days they're going to enter your room, and when they see that there's nobody there, they're going to check you out early. So that technique, generally speaking, probably isn't going to work.

So that then begs the question, is it worth going to Las Vegas for this? And, and the prices, I mean, yeah, I'm going to check in, I'm going to go to Vegas at least once. And if I have to, I may end up going twice, because it's, you know, just such a cheap method. It's much a much better deal than, than booking even category one properties, especially if you're able to do it during this promotion where you get the 3,000 points every two nights, because you'll still end up getting that. Now, I know that you did hear me say that comp nights are not supposed to count. So there is a chance, for instance, if I have an offer for four free nights and I book five nights because the fifth night then is paid, there's a chance I won't get credit for those other four nights, but I think it's a good chance I'm going to, and then I'll

get the 3000 points every two nights. So that's going to work out really, really well. So that's, you know, if you're, if you're within striking distance of Las Vegas, I think it's worth considering a trip, especially during the promotion that runs until may 26th yeah yeah it's pretty exciting you know plus if you consider if if you're interested in also doing the free cruise stuff that nick has uh separately written about and we've talked about uh then you can combine all this activity and and just have sort of a mega mattress run slash cruise mattress run. I don't know what to call it. Yeah, I mean, you could look at whatever, like if you have to fly to get there,

you can look at whatever the cost of flying to get there and or to Atlantic City is and look at that as kind of the cost of doing business to get a heck of a lot of free travel. If those cruises and free nights appeal to you, then, uh, you know, it's probably worth it. So, and, and I, you know, I hope that during one of these, I'll be able to use like the free nights from win and resorts world that I wrote about and just go check in at Excalibur and, you know, come in every couple of days and hang out for a little bit in the room. And, you know, so I've used the room so to speak and uh and and hopefully you know uh pick up some easy cheap elite nights that way so uh so anyway i think that that's certainly a strategy it's worth considering if that's in the cards for you

yeah yeah for sure and and and you know keep in mind there's no way we could uh talk through all the pros and cons of right mattress running this in this podcast. Just if you haven't already, and it's still April 1st or before when, well, if it's still April 1st when you're listening to this, just sign up for the promo and worry about whether or not you're going to try to do it later. And then you can take your time and read through the posts about it and everything and try to figure out if it's for you. That's a really good piece of advice because you never know when you're going to end up having a stay you didn't expect. You know, something comes up, there's some places you got to go for work, some family emergency, whatever else. And you end up

at a Hyatt and you're going to kick yourself if you end up at a Hyatt for 10 nights and you're like, oh man, I could have just easily mattress run another 10 and had globalist status. So it's worth signing up. It's not going to prevent you from signing up for a future fast track. So I would totally sign up for it. Now, when you do sign up for built rewards, there is a checkbox you need to undo that says apply for the credit card. And unfortunately, I don't like the fact that when you sign up, the box is automatically checked when you're signing up for the built rewards program. So you do have to uncheck the apply for the credit card box.

So keep that in mind. Look at what you're doing when you're signing up for the for built rewards as just a built rewards member. It's a good safety tip. All right. Well, you know what? It's time for giant mailbag. Whoa, I'm like all discombobulated here. The giant Mailbag.

I know, right? We usually kick off the show with that. But today we didn't, and you'll find out why very soon. Today's Giant Mail comes from Mr. Seg. Mr. Seg says, I don't get all the excitement about the status matching and status challenge. Yes, it's great to have these things, but what is the opportunity cost of pushing myself to spend money or points towards a status to have free breakfast and parking? And this is followed up by our very own Nicholas Reyes, who has a long answer, and I'm going to read it to you. I'm going to read most of it to you. Nick says, I can 100% understand that you may not be interested. If it doesn't make sense for you, then definitely don't go for it. But in terms of not getting the excitement,

just run some numbers of an imaginary person who travels to two nice Hyatts each year for five nights each where breakfast for said person and their significant other would otherwise cost $70 to $100 per night, and who drives to New York City for three or four nights a year where parking might otherwise cost $60 to $100 a night, depending on location, and who might even hit a Hyatt Regency now and then for a work trip where they'd benefit from having lounge access, or better still, where one of those five-night Regency stays is with a family where it's awfully convenient to be able to get the kids free milk and snacks in the middle of a pool day. Now imagine that you have two young kids who go to sleep around 7 to 8 p.m. and your globalist status might just get you a suite at check-in with a completely separate living room with a sofa bed with a door.

Happened to me at the end of my globalist year in February. None of that may apply to you, but those things can be pretty valuable and exciting for someone in a fairly ordinary scenario. For someone who has the freedom to travel more often, all these things get amplified. And when you figure out that you might be able to take advantage of all that this year and next year, it starts to get better yet. So if there's a path to get there relatively easily, easy, I think it's relatively easy to see why some people would be excited about it, especially when you additionally consider that there usually isn't much of a shortcut available for high globalist status. And then you add on what is basically available to anyone. And I think

the excitement is pretty reasonable. Do you have any arguments to pick with this Nick guy? You know, Nick sounds like a real smart guy. I think, you know, you ought to offer him a job around here because he sounds like a sounds like a real character. Yeah, I mean, it's just to me, it's obvious that this is exciting because if it's not interesting to you, hey, fine, I get it. But to not get the excitement, I was a little like, well, come on now, you've got to get it. You may not want to do it. It might not interest you. But to not get why this is exciting, I was

like, come on now, just run the numbers. And all those things apply to me. So it was easy for me to run those numbers. But then I think the additional piece is also that we mentioned earlier that Hyatt is often going to be your best value award option if there is a Hyatt anyway. So, you know, he's talking about going out of your way to spend money to get elite status. And he's right. You know, if you're if you really were going to mattress run all 20 nights of this and you didn't already have any concrete plans or fairly sure plans to stay at Hyatt over the next couple of years, well, yeah, that'd probably be dumb. I mean, that probably wouldn't make sense because you'd be spending points and money for nothing. However, I think it's pretty

obvious to see a lot of people are going to say, well, man, I often stay at a Hyatt place when I'm going here or there, or when I go on vacation, I like to stay at an Andaz or a Park Hyatt or whatever the case may be. And it's going to cost me fewer points than staying at a Marriott or this or that. And I can get the points more easily because I have a chasing cash card that earns five points per dollar at the office supply store. So I think it's just, to me, it's very clear that this is an exciting promotion for a lot of our readership, right? Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, for me, I just felt like on the company dime, you had written what was essentially a long blog post, but it was hidden in the comments. And so I figured we might as well get our money's worth by airing your

response there. There you go. But do keep in mind that just because it's exciting to some, to many, it is definitely not a good deal for everybody. Definitely not. As Nick said, if you don't think you're going to make a lot of use of that status, then it's just going to be a waste. So really think through what you're likely to do with it before you jump in. Yep. Agreed. Agreed. I think obviously the other thing there is that I mentioned in another response there that these loyalty programs are designed to make us do irrational things. So don't fall into the trap, so to speak, and do something irrational, chasing this status

that you're not going to use. That isn't worth it. But I think for a lot of people, you'll find a way to make this, you know, to leverage more benefit out of it than whatever it's going to cost you. All right. Yep. Yep. So that was our giant mailbag.

And now that we're in reverse order here, I think that means it's time for the main event. Main event, the world unlocked our hobby brings the world in reach and and enables us to do things we would never never have dreamed of actually doing uh and this includes both more travel uh than we would have ever done if we were just having to pay cash for everything. But also travel that is usually reserved for just the 1% of 1% type people. And it becomes fairly common. And I'm not trying to brag. I'm saying this is something that those who are into the hobby for a while, I think all of us experience this and it's just incredible. So we're going to tell some stories basically about how that's affected our lives, our travel, and hopefully you'll be interested or inspired by it. First, I collected some quotes from some team members.

So I'm going to start by reading those and then we'll get into our personal stories. So first, Stephen. So whether or not you know this, Stephen and his wife have been on what was originally called a five-year 50-state road trip. The pandemic caused it to become more than five years. So it took out that fun five theme to it, but 50 states, I think, still holds. And so anyway, they've been living for over five years now, mostly in hotels. And Stephen says, we would not have been able to afford to live in hotels for the last five years without points and miles uh so their 50 state road trip just would not have been possible I mean so you know talk about unlocking the world like literally this

dream lifestyle you know when it goes on that that many years it's not it's not just a trip it's a lifestyle uh is literally unlocked because of because of the points and miles hobby that stephen got into um carrie uh she and her husband uh similarly have lived many years on and off as uh nomads basically they've they've traveled the world and uh spent years uh without having a single home you know a single place to call home and um in in carrie's case i i think they they still would have done that but but the the outcome would have been very different yeah they would have done it differently uh she says while we lived in hotels nomadically all over the world, we often marveled at how it was actually cheaper for us to stay in luxury hotels than it would have been to rough it in hostels.

Miles and points made our nomadic life way more sustainable by upgrading it significantly. When we first started this, we had so many miles. We flew my sister and another friend to Easter Island with us. It would have been impossible for us to pay our own way there at the time, let alone pay for friends to join us. Similarly, a few years later, we used a collection of free night certificates to piece together five nights in French Polynesia, bringing Drew's mom, that's her husband, Drew's mom along for five nights of overwater bungalows. So that's Carrie.

Amazing. Amazing. You know, when I, when I saw that, which he had written, I resonated so much because she mentioned that staying in luxury hotels actually was like cheaper than roughing it in hostels. And that was, I think the light bulb moment for me in this game where I was like, wow, we'd been staying really cheap places and traveling really cheaply. And I was like, wait a second, I can stay a lot more comfortably. And it doesn't like it actually cost me less than it used to,

you know, to rough it, so to speak. You know, this is amazing. And I think that that's such a, I think, a fascinating part of this hobby that I knew plenty of people who were traveling that same backpacker shoestring style way. And people who still are, who could be spending less and staying more luxuriously. So it's a pretty wild hobby in that regard. It really is. And I love listening to their stories.

If you ever get a chance to hang out with Drew and Kiri, they didn't always spend nights in luxury hotels. So they'll talk about how they slept on a beach in an inflatable boat one night and then all dirty and haggard walked into a intercontinental resort to wherever everybody's dressed to the nines and and uh and they're they're looked at suspiciously because they don't look like they belong there and uh you know it's just fun uh all of those all those kind of stories anyway um tim also chimed in with his own thing uh so tim hasn't been living a nomadic lifestyle, but, you know, points miles have unlocked some things that he just never would have done. So a couple examples that came up to him were watching leopards hunting in South Africa,

swimming with whale sharks in the Maldives. He said another cool thing in the Maldives was sitting in an overwater jetted tub, watching sharks swimming underneath. So I think what he's talking about, there's those overwater bungalows that have like those tubs that have glass bottoms, right? So you can just watch the sea life underneath you, which must be an amazing experience i haven't done exactly or i haven't been in overwater bungalow that has that but that would be really cool for sure um he adds and technically i'd be unemployed because i wouldn't work for frequent miler

and he says it's like a points and miles it's a wonderful life story. So that's great from Tim. Yeah. All right. Yeah, you know, I think it's, this whole hobby is amazing because, you know, for years, my wife and I traveled on a shoestring in many ways, similar to the way that Carrie

often describes her and Drew's travels. And, you know, the sweaty and dirtiness and those things that, you know, you mentioned the sleeping on the beach and that sort of thing. We did all of those types of things for such a long time. And I had no idea that this world of miles and points even existed. I really accidentally stumbled into this combination of factors. We had gone to Asia, met up with a friend. And, and so somehow we ended up deciding to go to Macau, which is like

sort of like the Chinese Las Vegas near Hong Kong. And we booked a place on Airbnb because the hotels were outrageously expensive, at least for our budgets at the time. And we booked an Airbnb, a shared apartment staying with two people. One was a performer in one of the shows. They were Americans, two Americans, a performer in one of the shows. They were Americans, two Americans, a performer in one of the shows, and then like a yoga instructor or something like that. I can't remember exactly what the other job was, but I, but anyway, so in talking with them, they talked about flyer talk and ITA matrix. And I remember like, they've kept talking about this a little bit, but I didn't really get it. And later on, I went on to flyer talk and ITA matrix, and I didn't understand any of it. And I gave up. I was like, Okay, I don't get it. I don't know what this is all about.

And, and so I gave up with that. And then it wasn't until years later, when my wife and I decided, you know, we're going to finally settle down and get married. We'd been together a long time. And we want to take a really long honeymoon, kind of our last hurrah. And so I had heard people talk about round the world tickets before I'd never tried to book one, but I'd heard people talk about it. So I was like, well, how does that work? You know, one ticket and you can visit a whole bunch of places, not even award tick. I'm talking cash round the world tickets. And so I was Googling around for how to do that. And that's when I stumbled on stuff by the points guy, a million mile secrets and, and kind of stumbled into this

whole world. So I say I had no idea this stuff was a thing back then, I don't think. So when I look at starting there and where I've been in the eight or nine years or whatever, since I started collecting these points, it's just absolutely amazing because I never would have done most of the travel that I've done in the last however many years here, if not for points and miles. I would have traveled some, but it would have almost surely been 99% domestic and probably close percentage road trip. I probably wouldn't have flown very much. I didn't fly much at all growing up. As a kid, we never took a family vacation by plane. I interviewed for a scholarship when I was a senior

in high school. And that was the first time I flew with my parents. I had flown once in second grade with my grandmother. So that was it for my airplane travel. So I, again, didn't know much about this world. And now in these last, I don't know, eight, nine years, I've been some fantastic places. One of the things that really stands out to me was flying into Bora Bora. And it was the moment flying in when you see that mountain and that blue water that I mean, I've seen some pretty blue water before, but it just looks like the postcard. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And I never, ever in a million years thought I'd see something like that. We get off the plane, you're at the airport, you're at the airport looking at the water that

is just this gorgeous blue color that is like almost nothing I've seen before. And that just kind of blew my mind because that's something rich people do. I didn't grow up with any kind of, there were no kids in my class going to Bora Bora. You know what I mean? Like, that's not, that's not the life that I ever imagined. So being able to be there and do that, that was something that really stuck out for me. That was like a, wow, this is amazing. And that's something that happened since I started working for Frequent Miler. You know, that was a trip I took three or four years ago. So, so that was a pretty amazing one for me. What do you have? What are some of your, your highlights that kind of blew your mind? Yeah, yeah.

First, let me ask you a question. So is your travel now more, just more, or is it more luxury or both? Oh, absolutely both. Absolutely both. I mean, before I did this, I remember one time, so my wife and I did a big trip in Europe long before miles and points. We had jobs where we were working on the internet since 2009. So in 2010, 2011, maybe we went to Europe and sublet an apartment for a while in Berlin and flew around on Ryanair and that kind of thing. And so that was a totally different time in our lives.

And I surprised her for her birthday and we went to Paris and I had price lined a room. So it was one of those deals where like you name your own price at a Hyatt Regency. And I remember I was like, wow, this is really nice. I mean, the Hyatt Regency to me at that point was like top tier. That was, I hadn't been in anything like that before. My hotel stays were like, you know, Ramada or, you know, like the lower end of the lower mid-tier sort of properties, choice privileges type properties. That's the type of travel I mostly did. And I mean, I don't have any problem with a comfort in or whatever else nowadays either

when I need to. But it's I usually use my points to stay someplace that's more luxurious than that. And I was happy with that. Don't get me wrong. I was fine with traveling around and staying at less expensive properties, but I was paying more for them because it was costing me 100 bucks a night or whatever else. And now I can generate these points so much more cheaply. It's incredible with this hobby between welcome bonuses on credit cards or category bonuses or referrals or promotions.

The way I'm able to generate points makes it possible for me to stay at places that are way more luxurious than I ever would have and to travel way more often. I would probably take one trip a year, maybe two if I was lucky. And if I did take two, there certainly wouldn't be more than one by airplane. And here this year, I wrote a post that I take the retail value of the trips we're going to take this year for my family would be over $100,000. I mean, I don't know how many millions of dollars I would have to have before that would seem even remotely reasonable to me if I were paying for it. But like in this circle that we run in in this game because we're able to do this, that's not even an outlier.

Like that doesn't make me special compared to a lot of people's plans out there in terms of what they do. And that blows my mind. It blows my mind. It blows my mind that we're able to do that kind of thing because of these like made up currencies. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a very different story. So I always traveled a lot, I guess. I don't know, maybe not a lot compared to our current circles. But when I was little, my parents took me to Brazil and South Africa.

And when I became an adult, but way before the points and miles stuff, my wife and I both enjoyed travel. Most of it initially was domestic until one day my wife saw a article in New York Times about how flights to Australia were dirt cheap. And our son was pretty young at the time. We looked at our calendars. We could only find like a week available. And normally our style of travel before that, and the reason we hadn't done much international travels, we always thought, well, to do something like overseas, you um, total of six days and, uh, we had a great time and it, and it, it absolutely changed the, our style of travel. So, you know, we had, we had been wanting for a long time to go to Hawaii, but again, we had been putting it off because like, when do you have two or three weeks to do it? So we're like, no, let's just go each year to a different Island for, you know, a week or so. And, uh, we started doing

that. So we hit all the major Islands and, and then things like going, going to, uh, across the country to California or, or Seattle. Again, it used to be like, well, you need at least a week or two to do that. And it became like, no, we could do that in a long weekend. That's where things change so much because of that Australia trip. And so we were traveling a lot already. And then points and miles. And suddenly it's like, in fact, within a month of me, like learning about the points and miles stuff, we had a trip planned to England and I was able to change our flights to business class and book us into the intercontinental park lane for three nights using points from, you know, one credit card sign up. And it was just an incredible start to what became just an incredible new lifestyle

where in my case, instead of traveling more, what it means is I'm traveling in ways I literally would have never thought I would possibly do because I would never think of paying for these things. When you look at a flight that costs like $8,000 round trip or $20,000 round trip, you look at a hotel that's like over $1,000 a night. I mean, it literally just would not have been on my radar to do any of those things at all, even if no matter how much I could afford it just would not have, uh, ever come up. But, you know, uh, since then those things have become common and,

you know, so some, and, and, and you have like these incredible seeming experiences, um, some, and some are just become routine. Like, like, So going to the airport now, and it's been this way for years now, is like walk by most of the lines because I go up to clear and look in the machine and get right up to TSA pre-check where I don't have to take off my shoes or anything and walk right through and and I know that varies from airport to airport but there have been plenty of times where I've gotten through in about a minute whereas like other people are waiting for half an hour to get through security right means man when he says other people waiting for this guy come on Nick trying to get to the lounge here. What's he doing? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, the lounge, that's the other thing. It becomes routine, right? Right. You have the right credit cards that get you into the lounges. And so you're not worrying about paying for food at the airports anymore. And you sit somewhere hopefully comfortable. Flying most of the time in first class or business class and you know just uh i'll talk about just a couple of of experiences though that kind of knock my socks off with with travel um

this is what while my son was still pretty young uh but after i got into points and miles i was able to book all three of us first class liftonzaansa flights to Paris via, I think it was Munich. And, you know, so we are in a lounge. We were taking off from Toronto. So we're in the Maple Leaf Lounge. The escort comes to pick us up from the lounge to walk us personally to the flight. And we're the only people in first – well, no, we weren't the only person. But we're the only people we could see that were in first class.

And they lead us to a door just for us to go in, not to mix with all the others. My son's like, what's going on, Dad? I don't understand. You know, and you have all the great comforts of flying international first class. You get the pajamas, you get the caviar and champagne and all that kind of stuff. But it's the ground services that really stuck out as, you know, as most memorable. I don't remember the flight. I remember the ground services. So we arrive type stuff and while you enjoy the lounge and then you enjoy the lounge and then they say uh here's your passports back uh your the car is waiting for you outside the lounge the car yep the car uh there was a mercedes waiting to drive us literally across

the tarmac to the airplane where everybody else had already boarded and they watched us you know the movie stars or whatever you are you know boarding the plane to fly the short distance to paris from there and very similar stuff on the way back that's that's wild those kind of things you gotta stop there for a second and appreciate that because the short distance to Paris from there and very similar stuff on the way back. That's wild. Those kind of things are really memorable. You got to stop there for a second and appreciate that because that is wild. I mean, you're living that movie star lifestyle, essentially, you know, when you have that kind of an experience.

And I think that is something that stands out as unique and special about this hobby, that it gives you the chance to live that James Bond lifestyle or whatever, movie star lifestyle for a few minutes that you even if you become successful enough to be able to afford it, you probably wouldn't have done or wouldn't have done much if ever at all. I mean, I can't imagine I would have. So, you know, that's it's just an absolutely incredible feeling. I remember our first first class flight, too, because it was the first time I had one time in my life I had redeemed miles that I didn't realize I had. And then I was like, oh, I got these miles. And it was a really poor, ridiculous redemption for an interisland Hawaii flight. But without getting into that story, the first time I redeemed miles was for a first class flight on Etihad from Cairo to Tokyo during our honeymoon.

And so my first experience in an airport lounge, I didn't even know airport lounges existed before I got into this house. Right. They even know it was a thing. My first airport lounge experience was in Boston at the Air France lounge because it was a priority pass lounge for the start of our honeymoon trip. And I was like, wow, I get to eat for free and the drinks are free. And this is quiet and nice.

I was impressed already. And then when I eventually got to Cairo and we flew Etihad first class, I was like, just my mind was blown. I hadn't even one time in my life, I saw lie flat business class seats. And I remember being surprised because I was like, what is this? I had no idea that existed. I looked at it again. I just, it wasn't in my wheelhouse. I hadn't been in the front of a plane before. So I had no idea that existed. I looked at it again. I just, it wasn't in my wheelhouse. I hadn't been in the front of a plane before. So I had no idea that was a thing. You know, I think it was the trip to Australia that I mentioned where I first saw those lay flat seats.

And I was like, whoa, what is that? I want that. But I couldn't have it at that time. Right. You know, then five years later or whatever, it became routine. Yeah. Yeah. it's amazing um so yeah i'll skip i mean i gosh i have so many examples of that type of thing um but one other thing i have to mention is like who who gets to who who else is going to go to necker island for a week which which is Richard Branson's private island and

hobnob with like the rich and famous, uh, you know, my wife and I did that using Virgin Atlantic points, uh, about, uh, wow, it's probably eight years ago now, I guess. But, um, you know, it, again, it's a thing at the time it would have cost $30,000 for us to stay the week, but we used points instead. And, you know, we, not only was the whole experience like just incredible, like over the top incredible, but we made like great friends. So, you know, we were a little afraid going in that every, every other guest there would be these like rich snobs that we wouldn't get along And we've been able to see these couples multiple times since then, again, thanks to the hobby. So it's like, oh, we're flying over to London. We message them, say, are you around? And they invite us over to dinner. And same thing with And it's just kind of ridiculous that the types of things and experiences and longstanding relationships that could happen as a result of all this.

That, again, just wouldn't have ever happened, wouldn't even been close to my radar if it wasn't for the points and miles hobby. Yeah, you know, and I think that I've had those sort of moments that you mentioned that, like, you're going to visit somebody, well, you know, we're going to come to London. And, and that's just not something that I that I would have thought possible, I guess, before this, you know, I wouldn't have thought that I'm going to be able to make those kinds of things happen. And there's been so many of those moments over the years where I said, I didn't think this would be a thing. I mean, when I saw Tim's comments about going on safari, for instance, and you mentioned having gone when you were younger, I remember like seeing pictures of animals in textbooks and on TV and never in my life thinking I was going to see those things

firsthand. And that was like the first time I went on safari. And when I went to visit the pyramids during three cards, three continents, those were moments where I was like, wow, I remember seeing this stuff as a kid. And it just wasn't even like I wasn't disappointed that I wasn't going to see those things. I just never thought that I would like it was never something that popped out of my mind. And I said, oh, I'm going to go do that. And I think that miles and points makes that so possible and then also makes it possible to go back. You know, you mentioned how you change your outlook on trips in terms of I don't need three weeks or two weeks or whatever to see these places. And that pressure comes off even more so when you that I never, ever would have gone to visit, not only because they would have been inaccessible, but then also because if I was going to take my one trip every five years or whatever it's going to be, it was probably going to be to Paris or to London or to Rome, it certainly wasn't going to be to Saipan or Phu Quoc or, you know, or Nui or, you know, some of the places that I've been able to visit with miles and points that it wouldn't have ever been those, those five places I would have gone, you know? Absolutely. Plus, you know,

sometimes the, the points and miles, it not only makes it easier to go to those, but sometimes the deals point us those ways in those directions, right? Like you see like an incredible deal to get to name the place. And you're like, huh, never thought about going there, but let's look into it. It looks interesting. Let's do it. And that's not unusual at all. And so it opens more of the world than we would have found otherwise. It sure does.

I'm going to visit Fiji this year. And that's a great example of exactly that, that we reported four seats available in business class to Fiji on a number of dates. And I was like, well, I don't know anything really about Fiji, except they gave trips away there on Wheel of Fortune when I watched that as a kid. Every now and then I'd say, oh, you're going to Fiji. Fiji, where's that? I didn't even know where it was on the map growing up probably you know but uh but but oh there's four seats there well i don't know is there something to see there is there something to do let me look that up it looks pretty well why not and and that's not how i would have planned travel if i were paying cash for everything all the time like i would have

picked the i want to want to see the Coliseum and wanted to see this big landmark and that big landmark and plan my trips only around those things. And I still do plan trips around those things. I love seeing those types of things also, but I have the freedom to be able to travel more and again, more comfortably

because of the miles and points. And I think that that's something that often comes up with people that primarily redeem points for economy class. And when I first started this, that's what I wanted to do. And now I redeem most of my points for business in first class. And I can see the value in both. And I can see the intrigue and interest in both. But I think for me, being able to travel more comfortably has also opened up a lot more because it's not nearly as challenging. In fact, I was supposed to today, as this publishes, fly across the country and spend a week. I was actually going to go to Arizona and Las Vegas. But the last few days,

my wife and I had been feeling tired. The kids were seeming like they have a little bit of a cold. And really, honestly, the prospect of flying kind of crammed in for, you know, five or six hours and having to connect to get there across the country. We were like, ah, you know what, let's just hold off and do that some other time. And, and, and a, I have the flexibility to do that because I booked everything in ways that is flexible. And that's not what I would have done before. I would have always booked why I couldn't refund and a hotel that I couldn't refund. I don't have to worry about that now because everything is flexible, number one. And number two, it's so easy to look at a trip like, well, going to Europe is the same distance's a world I didn't plan before. I would have looked at that and said, oh, man, that's going to be tough. It's going to be tight. There's not going

to be much space. We're going to have to change a diaper, find snacks or this and crawl between the seats to get something that drops. And and I don't have to deal with those headaches because we can use miles to fly more comfortably, which I think makes it a lot more possible to consider these wild and crazy trips to far flung places that we never would have otherwise. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's absolutely the case. And I don't want to put down, if you're using your points and miles to fly economy because that's just as good for you because you care more about traveling more, that's great. I mean, that's, that's the other thing it unlocks. And so awesome. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think, I think it's, uh, uh, for me, it's a place I am in life and what I value.

And I tried to emphasize that when I was saying that. So I'm glad you mentioned that too, that I, it's not that I, I think that flying economy class is bad necessarily. And it's not that I wouldn't fly away and have it. I mean, my goodness, before I found this hobby, we flew, we always flew kind of, like I said, I didn't even know business class existed. And that was fine with two kids. I find it really helpful now to be able to use my points for more space. So that's one of the things that I like about it, but other people like other things and, and traveling as much as we can, thanks to miles and points, is, I think, just such an amazing piece. You know, when I mentioned in the post this week that when friends ask me my travel plans, I don't usually tell them everything because I know it sounds ridiculous. Like who travels this much?

You know, it sounds silly and ridiculous to anybody who's not in this hobby. You know, like people in this hobby will talk about what we're doing. But to anybody else, it sounds kind of silly. So I won't even bother getting into the details a lot of the time uh and that's i think just a wild and crazy piece of playing this game and you get to go and and i think another thing that you you had written down and so i think it's worth mentioning is the ability to splurge on things that you wouldn't have necessarily done because everything else is covered with miles and points right i mean because you've been able to do some of those things that you wouldn't have necessarily done because everything else is covered with miles and points, right? I mean, because you've been able to do some of those things that you might not have done otherwise, right? Yeah. So a recent example, so I've talked about my New Zealand trip

that I did. I used points to fly business class to New Zealand and used points for most of our nights there. And most of them just happened to be through Hyatt. And, but, you know, one of our favorite experiences there was a night on Doubtful Sound on a boat on Doubtful Sound. That of course was with cash and it wasn't like horribly expensive, but we would have been willing to pay even more if that was all that was available. And it was the type of thing that if I had paid cash for everything else and all those numbers that added up and looked at the doubtful sound thing and said, oh, it's another $800, $1,000, whatever, I might not have done it. And that would have been a huge loss. Whereas meanwhile, it's like, wow, we're barely paying anything out of pocket for pretty much anything we're doing here. It was no big deal to splurge on a few things while we're there. And I think that's another great thing that it unlocks the ability to sometimes say, oh, you're spending money you shouldn't because you wouldn't have spent it otherwise. And I understand that perspective. But I think that the way this frees up budget to do those things is exciting and fun. And that, to me, walking around the lake that you're the sound there that you took your, you know, your cruise through. And I would have missed that

experience probably because like you said, if I was paying for everything else, I'd have been like, man, I don't know if it's worth that much more extra. But you're able to get those types of really special experiences without it really hurting because you're still paying less than you probably would have spent on a much simpler trip. And there's nothing wrong with simple trips. I like those too, and love to visit places domestically. We talk a lot about flying internationally, because that's where a lot of the best values and miles and points come from. I love traveling domestically too. My mom's parents were very big on the fact that you don't

have to leave the United States to see amazing things. And it's totally true. I mean, we've got such an incredible landscape here and there are plenty of places to use your miles and points within the United States too. So again, though, when you're not paying for the flight and not paying for the hotel, then you can afford to supersize the value meal or whatever it might be that you know you're enjoying while you're out there exactly exactly exactly like like get a free free uh weekend in new york city and and splurge on the play or whatever it is that you're exactly you're you're wanting to do yeah exactly that's totally it love it love the hobby better example than the value meal i've got a little uh trivia about myself okay that i realized when you assume that

because i'd been to south africa that i'd been on safari but i've actually been to south africa three times three safari zero times how is that so so what did you do as a kid then when you went to south africa what did you do oh boy uh i don't remember that. I was like seven years old, so I don't remember a lot of that. What I think is my seven-year-old memory is like the most exciting part of it was on the way to the zoo, I got to eat Nutter Utter Butter peanut butter cookies, and those were really yummy. So- Hey, you know, it's the important thing. Yeah. Yeah.

We asked our kids, we went on vacation. I don't know. Recently, I can't even remember where we went, but we asked them their favorite part and they said something about a hamburger and fries. And I was like, oh, great. So we could have gone to McDonald's is what you're saying. And just taking care of the whole vacation. Remember what it was.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the way it was. Yeah, yeah. So that's where it goes. So yeah, for whatever reason, for a long time, the idea of a safari didn't appeal to me. So even when I went back as a young man in my 20s, I visited a lot of South Africa but didn't go on any safaris. And the most recent trip was during the R40K to far away challenge where I didn't have any time to do a safari, unfortunately, but I wanted to. But it's very, very, very high on my wife and I's list of trips that we want to do as to do a safari. We definitely are going to do one, just haven't yet. Yeah. And I think that growing up again, I shouldn't even say growing up. Growing up, I never thought I would do it. As I became an adult, I thought, in fact, my wife and I,

we'd been together a long time before we got married. And we said, someday we're going to save up and go on a safari. And I think it was the type of trip I assumed we would need to save five or $10,000 for or more than that to go on that type of a trip. So it was something I figured we'd probably have to put money aside for for years to get to the point where we'd say, okay, we're going to do that trip now. And then we discovered that, oh, wow, we can get there with just this many miles. And actually there's affordable places to stay in Kruger National Park. And oh, there's a Marriott, Not anymore, but used to be anyway, right outside the gate. Those were all things that I wouldn't have known you could do and I wouldn't have realized

it was possible before. And I used to pay for those things in cash and now I mostly use miles. And it seems crazy to me to think about spending cash on a lot of the flights and things. So when I talked about this week, running the numbers on some of the trips and my dilemmas kind of in looking at, well, how much am I spending in points on this? And is that reasonable? Because those numbers feel unreasonable to me still, because I'm still not at the point where I'm used to thinking about spending that much, I guess, on things. So it makes me second guess it in terms of what's reasonable and what's possible. And I think those are interesting concepts to consider in miles and points. But at the end of the day, we get to all live a lifestyle that is not reasonable,

but awfully amazing, right? Right, right. It, you know, it's, it's so rare for something that sounds too good to be true to actually be true. I mean, that's, that's what hooked me into this hobby is that, you know, I start reading about it and your first thing is like, nah, there's gotta be a catch to it. And there is a catch. It's, it's that you have to, you have to learn your stuff. You have to do it right and not fall for like – get into like credit card fees for late payments and all that kind of stuff. But if you do it right, the pot of gold is real. It is. It is.

It's real. It's tangible. And it's fantastic. All right. So I think then that brings us to this week's question of the week. And this week's question of the week is actually a statement. But I realize that it's a statement we should put on here and I should get your reaction to because it's a statement we get every now and then. I was looking for the exact one. All right. You know what? I can't find the

exact one. I thought I had it open here. The comment was something like, you send too many emails so this is a piece of feedback or something like it that we get from time to time but i don't know if we've talked about it in a while on the show we always tell people at the end it's a good point you want to subscribe to the email list go to frequentmiler.com subscribe but we probably haven't talked about the different options and what makes sense for who yeah yeah well let me back up a bit and say, uh, within, within a day of each other, we got one email from, from someone saying, uh, that they're subscribed to our daily emails and they can't figure out how to switch to instant, the instant newsletter. And then the next day we got, we got this one that said, uh, I'm getting too many emails, you know, asking us to basically reduce the number of emails because this person was subscribed to the instant emails, which means every time we publish, you get an email right away, basically.

And in both cases, the answer is there's text right at the top of the email. So if you're, if, if you're subscribed to the instant emails right at the top, I admit it's very small text, so you might not notice it, but it says too many emails click here to switch to to daily emails, you know? And so you literally just click there and it would switch your subscription from instant to daily, which means instead of getting an email every time we post anything, you'll get one each morning that lists all the posts we did up to that point since the previous email. And then if you have the daily one, there's a link that says if you want more, click here to switch to instant. if you want more, click here to switch to instant. If you want fewer, click here to switch to weekly and something along those lines. So right there in the email. Right there in the email, or if you go to frequentmiler.com

slash subscribe, you've got the different options. But I guess what I wanted to highlight here, though, along with it is who, you know, what makes sense for who? So and what you get. So with the instant emails, you're gonna get an email every single time we post something. There's no way to filter out and say, I wanna get emails about this or topic or that. So you pick instant, you're gonna get an email

every time we post something. That subscription is best for somebody who wants to know about the limited time deal. When something comes out, you wanna know about it. There's some crazy sale, some amazing award availability, some deal where you can get a thousand percent off, then you want to be on the instant email list so that you get every post and you just delete the ones that aren't relevant to you or interesting or ignore them, whatever it is that you do with that kind of email.

Daily, you get one each day. And what happens is you get the morning post from that day and all of the posts from the previous 24 hours. So, or the previous 24 hours or previous time since the last daily email, I guess is what it is. So roughly for 24 hours. So, so that's going to give you the main post of the day and everything from the previous day, basically. So if you sign up for the dailies, then you get less email. You're not going to get emailed every single time, but you got to know that you're going to miss out on some of the short-term deals, because a lot of times we'll find some hot deal and it's only going to last a few hours. So by the time you get the daily email the next morning, it'll already be over. So if you care

about knowing about those, you know, wow, this is an amazing deal. It's only going to last a few hours that you need to be on instant daily is mostly to find out, okay, what's the big news at the blog and what's going on in general, uh, you know, with deals. So find out the general gist of it. And then weekly is for somebody who just kind of wants to keep the pulse of the hobby. You just want to know what's going on. You're going to get our weekend review post each weekend that summarizes the main daily analytical posts from each day. It might include a deal or two, uh, when there's something really notable, like this built Hyatt fast track thing will be in there because that's a really notable short-term

deal. Otherwise it's going to be the major analytical posts in that each week. And our podcast is in that each week. So those are the three different types of subscriptions. So you know what you're getting into when you pick one of them, because instance is going to be a lot of email. You're going to start probably most days, three, four or five emails a day, sometimes eight emails in a day, depending on how many deals there are. Daily is going to be one a day. Weekly is one a week. Right, right. And if you do more often, if you get the emails more often, you're not missing out on anything.

Right. There's no content that won't come to you because you picked instant instead of daily or weekly so and and same thing with daily the uh you'll get everything as well it's just that it'll all be links to all the posts we did as opposed to uh the full content of the post which you get with the instant right right i wanted to mention that because i figure there's got to be people who listen to this opposed to the full content of the post, which you get with the instant. Right, right. I wanted to mention that because I figure there's got to be people who listen to this show that either A, don't read or B, also because we get feedback so often from people

who exactly like Greg said, either want more email or less email. And it doesn't seem intuitive to them either A, how to do it. Just click the link at the top of the email or B, what it is they signed up for versus what the other options were. So that's where you get all those very good point. Okay, good idea to bring that up. I thought I thought it might help out at least a few people, hopefully, because any piece of feedback you get from two people, you know, there's at least 20 other people that have run into the same thing and just didn't write. So there you go. There you have it. Hopefully that helped. Thank you guys very much for being here with us. If you enjoyed this show, like I just said, you want to go to frequent

miler.com slash subscribe to get on our email list, follow us on all the various social media. You can join our frequent miler insiders, Facebook group, where you can talk, chat about award travel and all these topics with lots of other people. And if you have a question or comment that you'd like to be considered potentially for a future mailbag or question of the week segment, you can send that to... Mailbag at frequentmiler.com. Bye, everybody.