Frequent Miler on the Air - Unpacking StayCay, best domestic & international travel options post-COVID, a new podcast & more | Ep47

Episode Date: May 23, 2020

Like & subscribe! Find links in the timestamps below. Greg & Nick discuss: Topics: -#StayCaytoFarAway: results are shaping up to be quite a surprise including a huge comeback and surprising (to us) finish -Should we launch a podcast version of our live show? -Travel News & Thoughts: Will Iceland be a safer destination than parts of the US? What are the options we're talking about domestically? -A cool tool for finding award availability 00:00:47 Reader Feedback: Ask Us Anything. Should it be a pod? See: https://youtu.be/fmHjqJWMdaw 8:58: What crazy thing did Citi do this week? See: https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/citi-shows-points-earned-with-each-thankyou-card-transaction/ 15:54 StayCay to Far Away See: https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/tag/staycaytofaraway 38:39 Travel News & Thoughts: International & Domestic, including: -Iceland's plan to test tourists for COVID-19 -Greg's canceled Hyatt reservation -Nick's comfort with being home -United business class to Europe (See: https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/europe-2021-united-business-class-awards-wide-open-book-for-45k-w-turkish/) 55:43 Finding award availability: SeatSpy See: https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/seatspy-founders-deals-ending-soon/ 1:08:41 Question of the week: Is the Best Offers page clear enough? How could we make it more user-friendly? Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe! See thefrequentmiler.com/subscribe to sign up for blog post alerts, our Facebook community, and more.

Welcome to Frequent Miler on the Air. Hey, Nick. Today we're going to be talking about a number of cool things like the State K Contest. There's a lot of kind of funny stuff that went on there. So I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, some funny stuff for sure. What is going on?

I think someone's been stuffing ballots. I don't know. Yeah, right. This voting by email thing is not any good. And travel, like domestic versus international. I wouldn't have thought we'd even be talking about international travel at all, but there's some good reasons to talk about it. So that's another big topic for today. And then a couple other smaller topics, such as, I'm going to dig into one of them

because it's relevant to the reader feedback. Okay. So the topic is... Topic. There's some background. Okay, there's some background to the topic. The topic is, ask us anything. So you might not know this, Nick,

but every Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern time, we've been doing a live broadcast on YouTube where readers can join and ask us anything. Is that what's been going on? Yeah, that's what's been going on. I was doing something. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but. Yeah, I know.

You just thought we were just chatting and you were wondering where I was coming from. I wasn't sure where those questions are coming from came from the eye in the sky somewhere it comes from the mysterious genie who right named carrie feeds us those questions as they're asked so the question came up there about whether we're going to turn it into a podcast itself and when we say it, you mean ask us anything. They ask us anything segment. So we haven't up till now. So up till now, we've had this show,

the Frequent Miler on the air, as both a YouTube channel, not channel. What is it again? A YouTube playlist and as a podcast. And so the question is, what about the Ask Us Anything? Should that be a podcast as well? It was actually asked, should it be a pod? That brings up that whole thing again.

Right, oh. We're going to get an angry comment from somebody by calling it the pod. Should it be a pod? I don't know. Well, we'll leave that to the listener viewer and jake says yes put this on the podcast and no it does not need its own show the same readers and listeners are listening to both we read to get information keep it simple so there's a couple of interesting things here i mean one

one person at least wants it to be a podcast um two jake suggests that we combine the shows so the podcast is is both ask us anything and freaking miler on the air this discussion jake is a glutton for punishment clearly what's two hours of frequent miler all at once kind of a masochist wants to listen to two hours straight of frequent miler come on now well well i you know i i took him to mean like do one two podcasts per day right uh but to the same show to the same podcast show i see i see right not not that we combine it into a two plus hour single okay monstrosity yeah like a movie every we want to do that to anybody and the third thing the third thing he he points out is keep it simple.

And what his point there is, and I just think this is a good reminder to us, that we don't need to get into the deep, dark weeds on these shows because if anyone needs to know more in order to actually do something, like do an award search or whatever it is that we're talking about they're going to go read to find that information hopefully hopefully we hope we as we caution people before like always go double check what we're saying because we're not we're not talking from any notes or anything so there's always a very high chance that something we said is wrong every now and then you know we're like're like, you know, we're human. So we make mistakes here and there, especially on the fly.

So anyway, so what's your, what's your take on, on Jake's position here? Yeah. So cast or no pod or no, you know, initially I was hesitant and I thought, I don't know if it really needs to be a podcast. Cause like you said, we don't have notes per se in terms of, we don't have like talking points worked out ahead of time for this, but we do usually talk about which topics, you know, so we'll, we'll send an email on Friday morning saying, cause we record this on Friday afternoons. So we'll send an email, say, Hey, what about these topics for tonight? Oh, I'd rather talk about this, blah, blah, blah. So,

you know, we, we pick a couple of topics for this. So I'm not prepared in the sense that I don't have my speech planned out on anything, but I'm prepared in the sense that I have a general idea what we're talking about. Whereas the live broadcast, we have no idea what people are going to ask us about. So I have no idea if I'm going to give an answer that's coherent and makes sense or not. I hope that it usually does. But I was hesitant to publish that thinking that you can find it on YouTube. But now that I think about it more, I think probably it does make sense to have it out there because it is kind of an interesting live format. And I mean, hey, that's what like radio shows and things like that are, right? At least somewhat live and not planned and people call in and ask their questions. So

I kind of actually like the idea of publishing it, but I disagree with putting it all together. I feel like that ought to be its own thing. I feel like it's a very different format anyway, I think. I don't know. What do you think? I totally agree. I do not agree with Jake at all.

And nothing against Jake. I mean, I know you mean well, Jake, but no, I think this is a particular show. It has a particular focus to it, which is to cover certain topics each week, the meaty topics, whereas the Ask Us Anything is whatever random stuff people ask us about,

and it has a lot less cohesion. And so I wouldn't really want to muddy the waters. If someone is coming to our Frequent Miler on their show, the podcast or the YouTube show, I want them to know roughly what they're going to get. And I think if they, you know, if we separate them, if there's an Ask Us Anything show, they'll again, they'll know what they're going to get,

which is anything. Right. Right. And it's a very, I feel like it's a somewhat different audience potentially. You know, you get people who want to hear the on the air episode. We're talking about like the cool, interesting stuff from the week that's kind of inspired us or made us want to discuss it that happened this week in Miles and Points. So if you just want to kind of keep up with what's going on in the Miles and Points world,

this show is great for that. If you're just looking for some entertainment and see what people are asking about and what our take is on various stuff i feel like that could be i mean maybe you like both but it could certainly be a separate audience so i feel like a separate show right right and the other thing is now as as owner of frequent miler enterprises you know having two shows means the potential for double the revenue from these shows. Right, right. So double nothing. If you think back, right, do you remember the latest revenue projections

for the podcast, Nick? What was it? I don't remember the details. I got to say, they're steady. The revenue projections are very, very steady. So despite the coronavirus situation, we've held steady? It hasn't affected us at all. It hasn't affected this show at all.

We've persevered. You know, not many businesses can say that. That's true. That's true. I mean, hey, you know, when you're in the business of not making any money on your show, it doesn't matter what happens in the world. So we can be an example for everybody else. Just don't focus on making any

revenue. There you go. There's no recession here, baby. Yes, I agree. I think let's publish it. Let's make it something else. It's a separate thing. Jake, you can listen to both, please.

I hope, I hope you'll want to listen to both. That's right. Subscribe to both. Why not? There you go. Why not? All right. So that was reader feedback. That was, that was reader feedback. We've been getting a bunch of feedback this week, right? Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Well, cause I was going to go into stay K, but before I did that, I almost forgot the new segment that we forgot last week. And that was. Oh, shoot.

Yes. I lost your sound there for a second. Oh, okay. You're back. All right, back in. Okay. So we almost forgot the same segment that we forgot last week. So I've got to ask you, what crazy thing did City do this week?

Ooh. This week? Citi did a crazy thing, which is they improved their website in a dramatic way.

What did they think? So Citi has been at least their thank you rewards cards, it's been in the past crazy hard to figure out with each purchase, did you get the category bonus that you're supposed to get or not? So for example, this has just been driving me crazy for a long time, Citi Prestige. So I'm supposed to get 5X at restaurants.

Some of my local restaurants that I frequent, you know, use Square and they apparently aren't registered correctly as restaurants or something. I don't know, but I'm not getting 5X. But figuring that out. It tastes like an algorithm. It's really complicated.

Because all you see is your summary information and when you log into your thank you account. Now you see it right on the screen you just log into your city account and there it is every single charge it says what the charge was how many points you earned boom that's awesome the the the the devastating part is that they did not do this for the AT&T card, which has that awesome online purchase category. So that's where we most need it because nobody knows what qualifies as an online purchase because a lot of online things don't. Right.

That's the card that you definitely want that on. You know, most restaurants are going to be 5X. And, you know, if you go out to dinner, it was 50 bucks and you didn't get 5X. Oh, well, probably not going to be the end of the world. But if you got to go buy something expensive online, you want to know whether you got your 3X or not, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now, I mean, I could have used it. It would have been handy last month on my Rewards Plus card because I had an offer for 10x online purchases. And if I had known that, well, first of all, it would have helped me max out that promotion.

But I think I could have also used it to test out every possibility for the AT&T card to see which one's qualified for the Rewards Plus, and they'd probably also qualify for the AT&T card to see which one's qualified for the Rewards Plus, and they'd probably also qualify for the AT&T card. Good point. Good point. Yeah, I mean, that would be a great add for the AT&T card. So we'll add along with it what crazy thing didn't Citi do. They didn't add that for the AT&T card.

Why not, Citi? And I assume, I don't know this for sure, maybe you do, because you did put out, I think, a Facebook question on this. How about the Citi Sears card that we talked about the other day? There's a Sears card that earns shop your way points. Right. There's a Sears card that earns thank you points. Do you know if that one is showing?

Nobody's told me one way or another about that one. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and assume that probably not because it seems like they didn't do that with the AT&T card, which is kind of a pain it's too bad but yeah actually you know that's a really nice enhancement though for prestige card holders and for premier card holders and actually this came up just like yesterday in a Facebook group that I'm in somebody asked about how the restaurants at the Culinary Institute coded the Culinary Institute of America in a totally different Facebook group that I'm in and because they wanted to know how it coded on a card.

And I was like, oh, well, I assumed that I got 5X on my prestige when I ate there back in January, but I had never actually gone back to do the math and make sure that I had gotten 5X on that specific purchase. But now I was able to go back to January through my credit card stuff

and just right there in the Citi app even, I did it and I could see that I only got one X, even though it says CIA restaurants. Oh, yeah. I only got one X. And that wasn't achieving the Citi. Come on now. No, I bet.

I bet. I think I might have told this story before, but I have to say just because when that happened to me was not not with city but with chase with the sapphire reserve 3x for travel and dining i i booked an expensive um tour this was a few years back and it was booked through zingerman's which is a restaurant like they do a culinary tour it was a tour of italy and so i figured Sapphire Reserve is the best possible card for this because it's either going to be charged as restaurant, which gets 3X, or travel, which gets 3X.

One or the other. Either way, you're a winner. I knew I was a winner. I was golden. And it was charged to their mail order business. I got 1X. Oh, no. Wah, wah, wah, wah.

You're like, I didn't order anything. The mail? Nobody delivered anything? Yeah. The only good news was that I had paid half up front and then half later. So the half later I was able to do with a different card. Now that makes sense. That's good.

And go back to the Culinary Institute. I said it wasn't a cheap meal and it wasn't a cheap meal. But I do have to say, if you haven't been to the culinary Institute of America before and you're in New York, you should, whenever it opens again, definitely go because it's very reasonable for what you get. But I wish I got my five X that's all. So, okay. So, so most people, uh, outside of your neighborhood, when they hear, when you're in New York, they think Manhattan. Right.

Is that where the Culinary Institute is? Definitely not. You'd have to take the train north about an hour and go to the middle of nowhere. It's Hyde Park, New York. There's some historic stuff in the area. That's where Roosevelt was from, et cetera, et cetera. So you got some stuff to see there in Hyde Park. So it's worth taking a train up there, even for a night

and a quick day, if you're going to be in New York City for a few days, the meal is worth the traveling and you're gonna tell me I'm crazy or somebody out there is thinking, there's no way I'm going to take a train like an hour and 10 minutes north of New York City. It's worth it. It's worth it. Food is that good. You get the kind of food that you're going to get it like a, you know, I ate at 11 Madison Park a few months ago, too. And I would tell you that the food at the Bacuse, the French restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America was on par with 11 Madison Park and much more reasonable in terms of cost. Okay, that's good to know. Because I was going to mention that some people think that Manhattan has some good restaurants. It sure does. It sure does. But but for cost, like pound for pound here. Yeah,

yeah, I get a high quality you know five star type of a meal for a much more reasonable cost most of the time i mean it's students cooking it so obviously there's always the chance that something could be off which can happen anywhere and i definitely recommend if you're going to do that trip go to the french restaurant the bakus they also have an italian restaurant there and the italian restaurant's not bad but it's not worth taking the train from manhattan that's for sure the Italian restaurant is not bad, but it's not worth taking the train from Manhattan. That's for sure. The French restaurant is. Oh, interesting. Okay.

All right. Good to know. Very good to know. There you go. Yeah. All right. So that out of the way, we talked about what crazy things Citi did this week. How about the crazy thing we've been doing?

We've been doing this staycate a far away challenge for weeks now. It's been, I guess, five weeks since we started, right? Yeah. Yeah. have started right yeah yeah so so uh just to recap the whole idea behind it was last year we we started this series of doing these far away challenges where we we compete the team members within frequent miler compete to um on some kind of challenge and last year it was 40k to far away where we had each had 40,000 points to go as far away as possible.

And that was loads of fun. And we were getting ready to do something like that again. And COVID-19. Wah, wah, wah, wah. Sad music again there. Yeah. So no traveling internationally this time around. So had to switch it up. yeah so no traveling internationally this time around so right so the stay k to so the stay k

to far away idea was born which is a uh series of four different challenges and there's four competitors and we each had to do each of those four challenges a blog post that went with the video. And when we started it, when we kicked it off, we described what each of the four challenges were. And there were things like destination cooking, where you do like a cooking show. And another one was a travel-themed life hack. Anyway, so we described what they were,

and then we asked people to guess who was going to win. So we had a poll at the bottom of that. And the original poll results were... And this despite the fact that Greg won handily the first time around, right? Right. So last time, it was me in first, Stephen second, and Nick third place. Right. And voters said, or readers said, number one this year would be Kerry.

Kerry. They thought Kerry was going to win. So Carrie had sort of by at that point, barely been introduced on the blog at all. Right. Nothing. I mean, so she's, she's helped with the blog a bit here and there in past years. But probably most readers didn't know that necessarily right it's like kind of behind the scenes surprised if anyone knew that i mean it had been mentioned a couple times here and there but um and then i don't even remember where you know where we introduced her on the blog but but this came up very quickly after she was introduced and and everybody was convinced without a doubt 42 percent carrie was going to win this thing right and that's with voting for four candidates

42 went for carrie like 42 went for carrie largest now nick came in actually with pretty close with 31 so people were were feeling pretty good despite you being the biggest loser last time. Ouch. People thought that I would try to redeem myself somehow. Now, people were less confident about me and Steven. So I got 14% of the votes despite having won last time. And Steven got 12%. So we were pretty statistically even, I'd say. Yeah. So anyway, that was what people predicted, which was, I wasn't surprised that people thought you would win. I wasn't even particularly surprised that people thought Kerry would do well. It just was surprising the margins there. Well, given the fact that we might have assumed that Carrie wasn't particularly well known to frequent

miler readership. Now, I say we might have assumed that and obviously some folks who've been in the miles and points space for years are probably familiar with Carrie from blog travel is free that she and her husband have had for years and years. So probably some people, and that vote tells me that more people than I realized were familiar with Carrie already and knew who she was because she definitely had some clout right away. Right. Or, you know, I mean, the other possibility, and I think this is a strong possibility, is that people who didn't know her but do know us know that we're unlikely to do a good job. And so that other person, that other random person is likely to win. Has to be better than these guys, right?

Right. I've seen them on video every week. She's got to be better than that, right? They're like, we've seen Nick and Greg on that Frequent Miler on the air show. We know they're not we've seen steve we've seen nick and and greg on that on that frequent miler on the air show we know they're not going to do a good job carrie's got this so so carrie's got this so so that that was going into it but then uh week one you came out with your cooking video where you created pasta and sauce, and your son kind of stole the show, not going to lie. But even the scenes without your son were really great.

I mean, that was a really good video. Thank you. I even said after that week it was my favorite of the videos that week. And viewers agreed. So you got by far the most votes that week. I mean, like it wasn't even close, right? So I pretty much crushed it. So you crushed it. So at the end of week one, if we had asked people, who's going to win this thing, there'd be little, there would have been little doubt nick's got it right i mean if you went if you went by that first week's wild success then yes you might think that if you

if you if you were looking ahead though there were some challenges to come so i wouldn't have been overconfident right off the bat but yes okay all right it was looking good for me yeah now i think i think we had a conversation at the end of that week where I said, I'm going to crush it next week. Because I had come up with my Necker Island idea, where I was going to recreate my trip to Necker Island for the imitation travel segment. And I didn't crush it as hot as far as I thought I would. Like, I mean, I thought I'd get, you know, way, way more votes than anyone. And I did get more votes. Uh, uh, but, um,

it, it, it's been pretty close. I mean, like up to, up to right now, like, I mean, you had, you've had a few more, I think that my cooking video, but only a couple more. Yeah. It's're neck and neck. Yeah, it's been neck and neck for weeks here. So yeah, which surprised me because when I saw the video, to be honest, I thought for sure that you were going to like absolutely slaughter everybody in terms of the number of likes that that video alone got.

So that video was fantastic. And anybody who hasn't watched it, you should probably put this on pause and just watch greg's necker island video because it's that entertaining right you should it is right i mean it's and it and it's like high quality stuff like i i spent so much time on this thing and it made a really really good video i'm really proud of this thing so yeah so so the next week welcome back welcome back because i know you paused and you went to watch it. So welcome back. Right. Welcome back.

Hope you enjoyed it. Um, the next week I did a, um, much easier thing where I, where I, uh, showed how you can discuss people with dirty underwear.

And that did as well as my Necker Island thing that I work like crazy on. So you just never know. You never know what's going to resonate with the people. Right, right. So going into the beginning of this week, so we finished all the videos last week, right? And starting Tuesday, starting tuesday this week meaning the week leading up to this uh recording um each day at noon one of us posted uh why vote for us well no wait before you even get into that i got i gotta say because greg mentioned that he he crushed it two weeks in a row then i gotta mention that the last the final

week steven pepper and i tied for first so like overall yes you did sorry i didn't mean to out of this out of this four weeks like greg won two and i won two right steven you won a week there with me all right okay i'm not taking that away from you but we each won two weeks right that's an important caveat right so okay so it it was pretty clear at the end when we finished all the videos right that the front runners were you and me right i mean had to be basically two to two right um and i even i i added up all of the i did some homework for the show. Before this show started, I added up all the likes that each person got across their four videos to see

just mathematically who's ahead. The two of us are way ahead of... It goes Greg, Nick, Carrie, Stephen is the order. That's consistent with what we saw with the weekly results, right?

So anyways, so, so we were front runners without a doubt, right? We put out a poll with, and this was always the plan that, that the winner would be picked. We'd have individual winner. We'd have weekly winners. We'd have category winners that are, that are from the likes on the videos, but the overall champion would be voted on as a poll, through a poll. Put out the poll on Saturday. On Monday, we looked at the interim poll results in order to decide the ordering in which we would each plead our case. So the idea was whoever got

the least votes up until then gets to go first to plead their case on Tuesday. And then second most votes would go to Wednesday. That way they have the longest amount of time to gather some more votes. That's right. That's right. The idea was, yeah, give them a better chance of trying to get those votes so that there's more competition. So you would think that at that point, we would have seen that you and I were on top, right? You might have expected that. I mean, given that we each won two weeks, Greg had taken three

categories at this point, or at least he was on track to take three out of the four categories. I had the other one. One might have thought that Greg and I would be at the top of the polls on Monday afternoon. And in fact, I was figuring I had until probably Thursday to do my video. And I was wrong. Yeah. I would have assumed that one of us would be going Thursday and the other

one Friday. That was what I assumed. Right. But you know what happens to people that make assumptions. We do know that. But this is a sometimes G-rated show. Right, right. I just said you know.

I didn't actually say it. You know what I mean. Unlike the F-bomb episode. So, Carrie, let's just so carrie was way way ahead of all of us and in the pre-voting right and poor steven though was way way at the bottom like he had like i don't remember exactly but like four votes or something and i wasn't much ahead of him so it was really like carrie way on top you were next and so you sort of held both of you kind of held your positions from the actually i guess all three of us held our positions from the original voting i suppose

that's right yeah right i didn't even think about it but yeah so it's like it's like the whole contest made no impression whatsoever on the voters you were gonna vote for who they wanted four weeks of videos there um but then so steven's like way way at the bottom so he gets to go first so on tuesday he he published like one of the funniest things ever. Probably the best video of the entire challenge. I mean, it was the best video of the entire challenge. It was just, it was a mic drop moment because I watched it and I was curious what Steven Pepper would do.

I didn't know what he would do. And you know, I didn't expect him to come out like firing with two machine guns in hand. And that and, you know, I didn't expect him to come out like firing with two machine guns in hand. Like I, and that's not to say that I thought he would just lay down and die, but I definitely miscalculated how competitive Steven Pepper would come out with that because yeah, he came out with this political attack ad that was the stuff of brilliance. Like if someone is not right now looking to hire him for a political campaign they should be he did really well he did he did and you know we've we've known we've known that he's

a funny guy from you know hanging out with him sort of behind the scenes but it hasn't shown up on his videos up till now that much and what this one just Not only blew away his previous work, but our work With how good it was and how funny it was so Got it you got a Hand that's right. So we we saw something amazing happen, which is he We saw something amazing happen, which is he went from almost no votes to being the clear frontrunner in a couple days after he published that. He sure did.

He sure did. And when Greg says the clear frontrunner, I mean, we mean by a pretty significant margin. He was well ahead all of a sudden to the point where it seemed like it was just a battle for second place at that point. It seemed that way. And Carrie, because she had the most votes going into the week, she went last. So today, earlier today, she published a funny video. And that seems to have been effective too. Because right before we came on,

Stephen and Carrie were tie. Wow. I don't know where, you know, so I don't know if that's still true about, about half an hour later, but they were tie. And so I'm not,

I'm a little worried, you know, cause I was kind of excited about the comeback kid story and kind of rooting for Steven now. So we'll see how it goes. Yeah, I mean, Steven, like Greg said, Steven came from nowhere. I mean, he had a couple of votes, just a very small handful.

He was well behind everybody. And in fact, after he published it, and we all said that it was a terrific video, he said, well, he was just hoping to be able to basically keep it respectable. He knew that the rest of us would put out videos and pick up votes during the week. So he knew he had to do something to pick up a bunch so he could hang in there. And my goodness, like he was just not confident enough in his video because I saw it and I was like, I don't think I'm going to pick up any votes from posting a video at this point.

Anybody who has seen that video, I just think there's anything I could do that was going to get me any vote. And sure. I got a few more votes, but I am definitely getting stomped in fourth place at this point. As of the last time I looked anyway, and Greg is just in front of me in third place. And both of us have no shot.

I don't think of catching Steven and Carrie. They're way off. No, we have, we have have we have no shot because we're ending this at noon tomorrow and so uh we have no shot we have no no set uh you know opportunity even to try to convince people to vote for us and nor do i particularly have a desire to no No, I don't either. I think it's a great story. If you haven't seen Stephen's video, you have to watch it. Actually, go to all four of the Stay K to Far Away posts this week. They were all very funny. Three of the four included funny videos.

Mine did not, but I just had sort of funny text. Very entertaining still, yeah. Yeah, they were. They were good. I I just had sort of funny text. Very entertaining still. Yeah, yeah, they were. They were good. I think it was good fun writing. And I think, you know, what I really liked about this week is I felt like the final please here kind of gave some insight into the personalities of the people behind Frequent Miler, right? I mean, you get to see a little bit because like you said, I wasn't surprised that Stephen's funny. I know Stephen is funny. My wife was a little surprised she was like oh wow i didn't realize steven had that good of a sense of humor and i was like i've told you that steven has a

really good sense of humor but she just hasn't had a chance to see it because she doesn't see it in the posts every day kind of a thing so i was like yeah i mean steven's got a great sense of humor but i don't necessarily think everybody knew that until they saw that this week and i think now now they know now they know right he doesn't just sound like he doesn't he doesn't just sound like john oliver he has humor like john oliver right which you're lucky if you're there to when it comes out and we were exactly exactly and carrie carrie didn't quit either so you should definitely check out her no not at all not at all all. She put out a very funny video, which used your kid. It did.

It was cheating. Well, you know, and I was trying to help her. He wouldn't cooperate. He refused. He was very loyal. So I appreciate adorable.

So, so we'll see what happens. So what was your favorite video of the actual challenge real quick? But which one would you pick? Cause you're not, not your own, your favorite video of the actual challenge real quick but which one would you pick as you're not your own not including the actual challenge not including steven peppers that knocked it out of the park this week because that's so far you know in its own category there out of the actual four challenges that we had crafted at the beginning here what was your favorite apart from your own yeah you know what's funny i knew this question was coming and i forgot to think about it i decided forgot to decide ahead of time what it was. So,

uh, while you're answering that question for yourself, I'm going to be thinking about my answer. Well, you know, there were a lot of individual moments that stuck out at me from different videos, Carrie's suitcase moment. Like I still kind of laugh thinking about it. I watched it a few times. Uh, Steven Pepper's Barky McFly, like I didn't see that coming at all. So that one definitely surprised me. But as far as like my favorite overall video, hands down the Necker Island video. Come on now. If you haven't watched the Necker Island video, that was great. And I think it was enjoyable because I was a Rick Miller fan at that point. So I was following along and watching the posts about Necker Island. And so I have memories of those posts and that story. And so then to see them recreated in really funny

ways, I thought was both fun and enjoyable and also like really creative. Some of the things you did, I definitely thought were creative and it was well shot. You thought it out because you shot the things to kind of show what you were doing as far as the invitation travel goes and then panned out to be able to show how you were making it happen. And again, it just showed some thought put into it. So I thought that was a really well done. Thanks so much. And it was so much fun doing it too. I'm sure. It was great fun. And it was a whole family effort. So it was fun doing that together because the others weren't as collaborative afterwards but you know what so I watched all of them it took quite a while I was surprised

how long it took to watch a bunch of three to five minute videos but I watched them all in order to do my Monday morning sort of summary post of everything and and I was impressed by how good so many of them were that the only ones that you know I'd say we could do without that improv category in the future because there were funny moments but there were also cringe funny moments but but anyway so I this sounds so boring but cringeworthy moments. I could do with that. But anyway, so this sounds so boring, but the cooking

video, your cooking video. Oh, come on. You had to pick one of mine. It's true. I mean, it was fun. Yeah. I mean, Stephen wouldn't win

if I got to pick his campaign video but hands down rules where i couldn't pay right i did which was actually your role but i just repeated it and one one of the thing about the necker island stuff you said you were you were watching back then i had put out a whole bunch of videos back then of mine while I was at Necker Island and the way I did it was Kerry she was she was at home we were using Dropbox so I was uploading all the video from my phone and she was downloading it through Dropbox and she made videos every day from the random stuff I was uploading and so anyone who was following along back then already got to see some of Carrie's work, which is kind of neat how it all comes full circle.

Yeah, absolutely. That was like three years ago, something like that, three or four years ago. Yeah. Maybe four. Well, and she's been a great add to the team. So I'm glad that she's having a lot of success with this and glad for Steven,, because they're both super valuable members of the frequent miler team. And so I'm glad that people are enjoying and appreciating the stuff they do because on a day-to-day basis,

people don't always see the things that those guys are doing behind the scenes. They might see the fruits of the labor, but they don't always see everything that those guys are contributing on. So great to see them having some success with us. Right, right. Yes, absolutely. And there have been,

there's some very visible uh results of having carry on the team like our new website theme and and now we have the we've finally redesigned the newsletter it was so ugly before i could barely stand it and so now I love how it looks, but if anybody has Microsoft Outlook, they're not loving it. Unfortunately, Microsoft Outlook does not resize images appropriately in emails, and so there's certain crazy workarounds you have to do to get it to do that on the server side.

And so we're trying to figure out how to make that happen, and until then, I'm sorry for any Outlook users. Seriously, you might want to think about switching to Gmail, but that's just my biased opinion. So, you know, Stay K, that all sounds pretty good. But now let's talk about actual travel

because we did the Stay K because we couldn't travel internationally. But this week we wrote some posts. We talked a little bit about possibility of international travel and some of the new developments. And then of course, also about domestic travel. So when it comes to international travel, what was some of the news this week that stood out to you? Well, one of the most interesting things is that Iceland is offering free COVID testing upon arrival. If you're one of the first few weeks of people who are allowed in, starting, I think it was June 15th. So first couple weeks upon arrival. So they're opening up to everybody, opening up to the world but the idea is you have to get tested upon arrival and um and the test will be done in about four or five hours they'll alert you you can go about your business but they'll alert you if you come if you're found to be negative and that would obviously be a problem

for you but um if you're found to be positive well they'll alert you if you're found to be positive yeah yeah yeah yeah but if you're negative then you know you're found to be positive. If you're found to be positive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if you're negative, then you're good to go and enjoy the rest of your vacation. So that's kind of neat because they've done such a good job of containing the virus there that it suddenly seems like a potentially safe option that's an international option and so we've talked before about not only is it potentially risky to travel but that the international destinations might not let us in but here's one that wants us to come if you're one of the early ones they'll pay for your test and even if you're if you're later if you're willing to pay for the test upon arrival, then you have a potentially quite safe option for international travel.

So I find that very interesting, and it's an intriguing idea, but I'm still on the fence about whether I would do it. What do you think? Well, first of all, I think it's a really interesting and unique play. I think that, you know, when it comes to getting people to spend tourism dollars again, there's a lot of different countries and destinations out there that are basically, have an economy

that's basically focused entirely around tourism. And so, you know, we've talked about how, and I've certainly thought about, how are those countries going to move forward in order to make sure that, A, they don't bring infection in, and B, they still bring in a livelihood for their people. And I think, so I think Iceland deserves a lot of credit

for coming up with a really creative solution in terms of testing everybody when they come in. And like you said, it's going to be free the first few weeks, and then after that, you'll have to pay. So if you want to go to Iceland, you're going to have to pay for a test when you get there. So you will get tested. And so I think that that's a brilliant way to try to preserve their tourism economy. Do I think I would go? No, I'm still not going to go. I still don't feel like I need to be on the leading edge of proving that that's a good solution, because there's definitely part of me that says, yeah, but if you caught it from somebody on the plane on the way over, if somebody else on the plane

was positive, well, first of all, if someone else on the plane was positive, then what happens? Are they going to quarantine everybody who was on the plane or the passengers who were sitting around them? Or am I going to get stuck in Iceland and be stuck in quarantine somewhere for two weeks or something because of someone else testing positive? Am I going to pick it up on the plane and not know? Not worth it to me yet. I'm not going to be in those first couple of weeks of free tests. But I give them a lot of credit for a brilliant solution that will work for a lot of people who are, you know, willing to put up with that risk. I mean, because goodness knows there's risk all around us all the time. So I do recognize that. And I think that there are some people that will say, you know, this is not much riskier to me in my life than a lot of other things I do.

And so they'll go ahead and do it. I won't do it. But what about you? Yeah. And I, well, I think, I think they're right. I think it's a lot less risky than a lot of other things. So I would probably seriously consider it if I had never been to Iceland because it's, you know, my wanderlust as such that's like, I want to go somewhere, and here's an opportunity to go somewhere really interesting. So I think I would consider it. But since I've been before, it's just not at the top of my bucket list.

And aside from all the risk, which I'm less concerned about than you are. Yeah. There's going to be, for lack of a better word rigmarole involved in getting to the country and leaving the country i mean i don't know what it all be but but i don't think it's going to be pleasant traveling during this time so you know i travel to enjoy it and i just think there's going to be especially in the first few weeks while they're trying to figure out the processes and everything i think there's going to be long lines i think there's going to be especially in the first few weeks while they're trying to figure out the processes and everything i think there's gonna be long lines i think there's gonna be a lot of temper

yeah yeah yeah for sure for sure and and i i don't know what the general public in iceland thinks about this i certainly haven't looked into seeing what people in general think maybe they're welcoming the tourists but i don't't know that all the shopkeepers and restaurant owners and everything else is going to be excited about tourists or not either. So, you know, I don't, I don't feel like, like you said, I don't think it'll be the same pleasant experience. So I would agree with you on that too. So yeah, I probably won't do it,

but I'm sure that I know some people who will consider that. And, you know, I think it'd be a lot safer going to iceland than going to we're both in states that are that have started to unlock but are still like mostly locked down um yeah i think it'd be more dangerous going to one of the states that's uh wide open and um yeah where you where you know that the majority of people have not been tested going to one of the states that's wide open and interacting with people. Yeah, where you know that the majority of people have not been tested. Yeah, versus the fact that all of the other tourists have been, and presumably the local people have too, if they're testing the tourists. So yeah, I think it probably is safer than flying somewhere within the United States,

which is amazing to think that that's the case. Right. But it's still my bet that most people who are thinking about traveling are thinking about traveling within the U.S. And probably most of those are thinking about car travel. But some are thinking, and including my wife and I, we so want to go back to California. We've talked about this before. They love the Ventana Big Sur. So we talk about that every now and then.

And I also did a post on the best Hyatt resorts for, not for summer travel, that I'd done earlier, but this one was for winter and spring break travel. And it just kind of rekindled a number of the places that were in there would still be great for summer travel as well. So it rekindled my like, just desire to get out and every place that I want to go that's on that list is far enough from me that driving would not be a reasonable option. So we're sort of half thinking about it, but haven't made any decisions yet.

Yeah. So when do you think, you know, if you were to consider it, if you were to get serious about it, when would you think about flying somewhere in the United States? Or is it just too hard to answer still? It is hard to answer. I mean, I'm going to kind of wait until I look at the option and say, yeah, I'm comfortable with that. I had booked time in July at the Ventana. And I did that because Lucky, one mile time, wrote about how the Ventana Big Sur was showing their suite award availability online so you could book it online, which

that's surprising and interesting because usually with Hyatt, you can book standard rooms online with points, but you can't book suites online with points. And if you know that, that is usually a great thing for you because if there's no award availability for standard rooms, you probably can find a suite available. So then One Mile a Time, which is one of the biggest blogs out there boasts about how it's his favorite resort too and it blew up your spot and let everybody know right and and and and he said hey you can book all these amazing suites online and what a good value this is and blah blah and so i'm thinking now oh freaking so so i'm thinking not only so that there's two problems with this one you know one is it's going to fill up so i got a secure place but the other problem is normally they've been very good about upgrading uh people who are

globalists or who go in as a guest of honor, upgrading them to a great suite. But now if everybody can book that suite online, that suite's going to be gone. Exactly. If all the suites are booked already, there aren't going to be any upgrades for globalists. And so I was like, not only do I have to book it now, but I have to book the suite I want.

So I have to pay way more than I would normally pay in points to secure a suite because normally I would have taken the chance and said, well, I'll, I'll get a, either I'll be globalist by then, or I'll get a guest of honor thing so that I go in as a globalist. And yeah, so i got on and i booked i booked a few nights um in a in a suite and then yesterday without any kind of email communication the that reservation got canceled so i just got a confirmation of the cancellation but there i was surprised that there was no communication from the resort itself yeah but my thinking is i figured out that there was no communication from the resort itself yeah but my thinking is i figured out that these things were being booked and they weren't supposed to be being booked which if i'm right about that i'm really glad because then that brings things back

to the status quo and it probably means that it probably means the sweets are available for upgrades right well that was a long way to talk about it yeah so you're hoping for july story of my summer trip that i'm not actually planning i had just booked it just in i just booked it just in case just in case yeah yeah i mean we've been getting cabin fever too. Truth be told, I have been more comfortable with staying home than I would have imagined because I am not usually like, you know, the homebody type. I mean, granted, I live in the middle of nowhere and I've kind of learned to embrace that over the years. Certainly it wasn't my preference to begin with, but I've learned to embrace it.

So I don't necessarily hate where I live or anything like that. But I generally like to get out of town and go do something. But I haven't felt that way. So I've been kind of surprised. My wife, though, has been getting itchy feet like, whoa, and ready to go anywhere, like ready to just get in the car and drive for an hour just to go see something different. And we've done some of that in the last couple of weeks. And so we've talked a little bit about, okay, well, if things open up, where might we go? What might we consider doing? But for us, I think it would probably be a drive. So it would still be a drive and likely to visit people we know who have had limited

contact with other folks too. So I think that we'll probably be still looking at that for 2020. For 2021, though, I'm actively looking at booking trips. So I'm looking at February and March and the beginning of April of 2021. And this week, there was a ton of United Business Class award space that was released to Europe. And so I don't know if it's still there. But if you're looking at going to Europe in the spring of 2021, I looked yesterday and one example route that I put in the post,

every single day in January, no, I'm sorry, in February and March had four seats available in business class from Newark to Amsterdam. And that was not the only route. And there were days with six seats or maybe even more available. So if you're looking to go to Europe in the spring, there was a ton of United availability. And you can book that, of course, with United for 60K, or you can book it with Turkish Miles and Smiles for 45K and $5.60 one way on the way to Europe, a few more bucks in taxes on the way home, or 88K round trip with ANA. So some great deals for business class to Europe in that regard. And I also wrote a post about the best ways to use Miles to fly an economy class to Europe. So if you're looking to get to Europe and you want to fly an economy, stretch your miles as

far as you can, you got options from 10K each way. So I can be even cheaper in terms of the number of points than a domestic flight in some cases. All right. That's crazy cheap. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. 10K each way to Europe. To Europe. Yeah. I mean, it depends. Like that particular 10K, the cheapest of the cheap is using Virgin Atlantic to fly Virgin Atlantic to the UK. And that is going to come with more in taxes and fees. So it's a little misleading, I guess, saying 10K on that, except there's also sometimes the possibility to use Air France's promo awards to get tickets for in the 10, 11, 12k range. And in fact, some options are 12.5k each way. So that are advertised at 12.5k each way sometimes.

And then sometimes, of course, because Air France and KLM have a dynamic pricing thing going on, even though they say that it's from 12.5k. Sometimes if you look to Prague or Budapest or a couple of other Eastern European cities, sometimes it'll be even less. So we've seen, you know, 10 or 11 K each way between the U S and you're up to. So, so there are some really cheap economy class options. If you're looking to get a whole family, it's much easier in economy class than it is in business class. So we wrote a post with all of those various sweet spots as we continue to kind

of round out our sweet spots around the world posts or posts. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited to see it all rounded out. And we added it to the resource page, a link to the page that has all of your how to get to Europe, Asia, Africa, you know, South Pacific, on and on and on. And so you round it out with now you have South America in there, you've got within the United States. So that should be especially interesting for people who are looking for the domestic travel. And that's me. I'm focusing on domestic travel for early 2021. So I've been looking at different domestic destinations for the first half of 2021

in warmer parts of the United States. So yeah, if you're looking for the best ways to get within the United States and or the US and Canada or so, then that post is for you because there are a number of good options with different transfer partners, especially again, if you're willing to fly economy class

and on domestic flights, I usually am. So if you are, then there are some really awesome options. If you live in that zone two, Avianca has got great deals. I mean, Turkish, obviously everybody knows about, but if you don't have thank you points,

Avianca life miles can be another great way to fly United really cheaply. So zone two is what do you remember? Well, you know, I know that it stretches from like, for instance, North Dakota to Florida. So, you know, like quite a big region quite a big region yeah and yeah and so 7500 points each way is is the the general price for economy class and that would be what

10k each way in business class uh in that zone which is again quite large and if you can find business class availability which i, that's a whole... On United, that's always... On United, yeah, it's tricking it out of itself. But maybe you can and then get yourself some free bags too. But that's a huge zone. And keep in mind that Avianca has like a chart for that, or at least they do have a chart. I'm not sure if they have it on the website anymore.

But they also have some flights that oddly just price less than what they're supposed to. So every now and then you'll come across one that only costs 5,000 or there's one, I think Denver to Houston or something or one way or the other is like 3,500 each way. So, uh, so there are some pricing anomalies there too, but yeah, life miles is a good one to look at if you don't have city points and, uh, you know, and you want to stick within your region. Right. Right. So one of the hard things with chasing award flight, award flights and award flight deals is that sometimes the routes that you're most excited about, it's very hard to find the award availability. For sure. So, you know, for example,

we've talked about the Turkish thing over and over and over again, where you could fly United for 7,500 points one way to Hawaii. But if they had their United's first class, which the rest of the world thinks of as business class, available for an award, you'd be able to fly there for 15,000, I think. 12,500. 12,500. It's even better. 12,500 one way way 25k round trip right

in first class all the way to hawaii and back which which is 25k is like what used to be the standard for domestic economy round trip flights there used to be the one way for a business ticket and and most and one way for a business right exactly more than that usually but yeah yeah so so that's just a crazy deal um and it's but it's but it's crazy hard to find the availability and so uh that's why the seat spy thing is so interesting so it is if you're if you're willing to bet on their project on what they're planning to do, there's a chance to get in on an amazing tool early on. Do you want to talk about what the situation is there? Yeah, so SeedSpy, you might remember,

Greg wrote a post a few months back, and there'll be a link in the timestamps. I haven't mentioned that yet today, but I'm putting links in the timestamps. So whether you're looking at this on YouTube or you're listening in the podcast, if you look at the episode notes, there are links to the things we're talking about. So there'll be a link in there to Greg's Seat Spy post from a few months ago where he looked

at it. So it's this tool that comes out of the UK, I think, and essentially it began as a tool for finding British Airways availability. And so very quickly with a single search, you can look at an entire year of availability on the airlines that they cover. But of course, right now, being a company based in Europe, they cover British Airways, they cover, I think, Virgin Atlantic

and now Air France and KLM, right? Right, yeah. Right. So with a very quick click, you can look at a large calendar of availability to see which flights have available seats. And then you can look at a large calendar of availability to see which flights have available seats. And then you can also set up alerts and receive an alert. So you can get a seat alert essentially, which some people may be familiar with from ExpertFlyer. But the thing with

Seatspy is, is that they are significantly cheaper than an ExpertFlyer subscription. And so they are kind of trying to disrupt that market, I think. And they also have this ability again to search and look at a calendar of a year of availability at a time. They say, okay. Yep. No. Well, I was just going to say, it's hard to explain how useful that calendar is. You know if you, if you search for round trip, especially what, what they did with round trips, if you search for round trip, especially what they did with round trip. So if you search for round trip travel, they show you side by side a year of availability. And so you can visually match up, you know, okay, I found a month that has good outbound availability. And oh, yep, there's like one day where there's good return availability.

So I can match that up. And I could do my, you know, let's say 10 day trip or however long you're looking for visually. And there's no other tool super that I've ever seen that lets you do that. No. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, personally, I've been looking at a specific destination. I'm not even going to name you because I've been having a hard time nabbing the flights I want. But I've been looking at a specific destination with United. And I've been running into that where I'm not even going to name yet because I've been having a hard time nabbing the flights I want, but I've been looking at a specific destination with United and I've been running into that where I'm finding flights in one direction, but then I have to search the opposite. And of course, the days that that's available aren't lining up. And so I have to keep kind of going back and forth and writing notes. I mean, okay, there's an outbound on this day. Oh, but wait, there's

not an inbound for two more weeks after that. That's not going to work. And I got to keep searching and doing it again. So if you had a calendar where you could view both at once for a year, I mean, that's just hugely, hugely helpful, right? So Seats By is doing that. And right now they have European airlines and they tell us that they are in the process of adding US airlines, that they intend to add US airlines to this. So for right now, they have a free option where you can just do searches and you can only search, I think, on British Airways with the free option. And then they have two paid tier subscriptions. And until midnight, May 26th, which I assume is midnight UK time on May 26th, you can sign up for those two premium tiers. So they have actually a premium and a first class

subscription. And if you sign up for those now, you lock in their pricing for life, they say. So the premium subscription is, I think, £1.99. So it's like about $2.45 US based on the current exchange rate anyway, for their premium subscription. And that would give you access to future airlines that they add and hourly seat alerts, I think is what it is, and some other bells and whistles. And then they have a first class option that's $2.99 pounds that comes out to about $3.67 US per month for the first class subscription. And that gives you instant email alerts and some other, again, bells and whistles along with that. So actually that premium tier, the center sort of option, if you look at the post that's linked below,

that premium tier is $1.99 in pounds, so $2.45 a month. But they give you a three-month free subscription to start before they even start charging you. So you can sign up now for that plan and get three months to play with it for free before you even have to start paying for it and you lock in the price for life. So that's actually probably a pretty appealing deal for people who are interested still at this point of the conversation. That is probably the one you'd want to go for. Me, I was more interested in the first. Is there anyone who shouldn't? Sorry, is there anyone who shouldn't do that? So let's say, I mean, unless you wanted the other one, other option, but if you're just on the fence about doing it at all, shouldn't you just jump on? No.

I feel like a salesman or something, but I'm not, I don't have any financial interest in this, but why wouldn't you just jump on and sign up for the three-month trial? Reasonable question. So in my opinion now, and I said this in the post I wrote this week, this is what I think for me,

which is not what I'm suggesting for other people. So I'm not saying that anybody has to have this perspective. I don't really have a recommendation. I think for most people, this is a gamble. We don't know that this company is going to be able to successfully add the US Airlines they want to add. We don't know that they're going to be financially successful in the long run. Obviously, it's a shaky economy right now. There are a lot of unknowns here and the tool, the way it is today is really interesting, but not super useful for most people. But me, I'm looking at it, I'm saying it seems really cool and they seem ambitious and interested in making this a bigger,

broader thing. And if they add one or two useful US airlines, then it would certainly be worthwhile to me. So I'm kind of like in the position where I'm like, all right, I'd gamble 50 bucks if they make it, right? So if I'm willing to gamble 50 bucks that they make it, I can do the math and figure out how many months I can pay for to see if they make it. Now, the reason I think that the first class is better, A, it gives you the instant email alerts, which I think that if this tool becomes popular, getting that instant alert will help you nab the seat versus somebody who's getting the alert an hour later, potentially, So we know that hot availability goes quickly. And the difference in price between the special pricing now was much bigger. So I think that I want to say that,

and this is in pounds, the premium subscription for life right now, if you get it is $1.99. And if you wait until later on, it's either $2.99299 or $399 so it's like another pound or two maybe per month whereas the first class subscription is going to go up to $799 so you know that's all right so your point is this is the last chance to lock in a really low price for that first $3.67 for for what will eventually cost nine or ten bucks uh a month and and and that nine or ten bucks a month that's pretty close to 10 bucks a month, that's pretty close to what ExpertFlyer charges. Now, I would argue that the Seatspy, if it continues to work the way that it has, is probably better than ExpertFlyer in a lot of regards. ExpertFlyer

has some advantages, don't get me wrong, for people that use some of the more advanced features. But in terms of just finding award availability, I think Seatspy is probably going to be a better tool. But that price point, the $10 a month has kept me away from ExpertFlyer for a while now. So the $367, I think. I don't think that Seatspy will ever have as many airlines covered as ExpertFlyer does. So, you know, if people are wondering, like, when would you use ExpertFlyer? When would you use Seatspy? When would you use JuicyMiles? You know, JuicyMiles and ExpertFlyer, when would you use Seatsify, when would you use Juicy Miles? You know, Juicy Miles and expert flyer are great when you know around, like, which dates you want to fly with plus or minus two days on either end.

Or three days, sorry, plus or minus. With three days with expert flyer, plus or minus one day with Juicy Miles. With Juicy Miles, you don't even have to know which airline you're interested in. It'll search them all, pretty much, almost all. Expert Flyer, you do have to know which airline, but they have a large list of them to pick and you can find award availability that way.

And it's got some other things, like upgrade space and things like that. You can find out how many seats are left. It absolutely has other features. There's a lot of other features that might be useful to you if you are an expert flyer um but if your main use of expert flyer is for award availability um again expert flyer has a lot more airlines than a lot more airlines than c-spy does at this point right but c-spy that visual

let me say definitively yeah let me say definitively, yeah, let me say definitively that if Seatspy has the airlines that you're interested in, it's just a way better option than ExpertFlyer. Like, I mean, it's not even close. It's not even close in my mind. No, me neither. That's why I looked at it

and I was like, okay, at $367 a month, I'd probably lock that in now. Now, and the free trial for three months and then the $2 and change, I don't think that's a bad option. I mean, I think that probably

that's what most people would go for. I'm willing to gamble a little more because I think it looks that awesome that if it becomes worthwhile, it's worth $3.67 a month. Right. So do you know the free trial, do you have to put in your credit card information

so they'll start charging you? I don't know. Because the reason I'm asking is I could see someone saying i'm gonna hedge my bets by doing both and so basically if if they decide interesting one if they decide um you know it's not worth the extra dollar or whatever yeah the first class they at least have locked in the other one. The pricing, yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. We're talking about advanced plays here. It's so close in price. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. You're saying if you're that interested, it's so close in price, then go for the first class?

Probably just go with the first class. Yeah. I mean, I think that anybody who's marginally interested, that premium three-month trial and then locking in the price makes a lot of sense. If you're only marginally interested, then you get three months to see if they do anything. And then if you want to pay $2.50 or so a month for a few more months and see what happens in the next six or eight or 10 months or whatever, then it gives you a pretty low cost of admission a pretty low gamble i think that they are are

billing it as like for the less than the cost of a you know a coffee at starbucks or something you can kind of you know get your your place so to speak here and subscription which you know i get a caution people and say lifetime subscriptions i'm always kind of wishy-washy and iffy on because you know you never know they add six more tiers to the service at some point in the future now they think that the seat spy guys are going to do that they seem like pretty upstanding guys to me so far but i don't know that they maybe they'll decide that they need to add more tiers for different types of airlines and stuff so i don't know what what the lifetime subscription particularly will look like long term so i'm always a little wary when i see that as to how excited i want to get about it. But on the flip side,

I feel like the value here could be phenomenal if it works out well. Yeah, yeah. I guess when I asked you the question about shouldn't everyone do it, the premium subscription is more about everyone being like, all the people that wouldn't have done this at all. Until they heard us talk about it. Yeah, then definitely. Like why not? Why not at least lock in that three-month trial and then worry about later whether you actually want to pay for it just because that way,

if you find out it is valuable, you at least have a seat at the premium table that's discounted. I was going to try and fix that, but maybe not. All right. Yeah, no, totally agree. Totally agree.

If you're in that boat where you're like, what, seats by, huh? And I got to look at the link now and then you just read about it. Yeah. And of course I would do the free three month trial for sure. Yep. So pretty interesting. Pretty neat nonetheless. Hopefully very useful. Yep. I think this brings us to question of the week time. It does. Question of the week, it does. And there's kind of a bit of self-reflection here

because the question of the week this week is kind of going to be a question from me to you based on a question that I got from a friend of mine. So a friend of mine asked me earlier this week. This is like one of those like really private questions. It's like a friend is having this problem. Not me. Not me. It was a friend of mine. So a friend asks. No, so a friend of mine asked me earlier this week. First of all, so this friend of mine is a reader. I hesitate to say regular reader because I don't know that he reads like every single day, but he reads plenty to be able to ask me relevant questions now and then.

So he's been in the game now, I would say probably a year and a half, two years. And really in the game for him is in the points collecting game. He hasn't really been burning many points, but he's had a lot of expenses over the last couple of years in his life. So he's realized, been smart enough to realize, hey, I can pick up some big signup bonuses pretty easily because I'm already spending money on A, B, and C. So he's been able to pick up a bunch of bonuses. He's got the five chase cards he wants. He picked up some Amex cards when they made sense, checked in with me each time to see which card, A or B, et cetera. And so this week he came to me and he said, Hey, I got some big expenses coming up so I can easily hit

the spending requirements. Which one should I go for a business platinum or an Aspire card? And I said, okay, well, business platinum and Greg and I have talked about why we might say business platinum before. So I told for him, I said, business platinum gave him a lot of reasons. So I think that's where I'd go for it. He said, okay, came back to me a couple of days later and he says, Hey, I'm only seeing, you know, I'm only getting a 75 K offer. And I know that there's an 85 K offer out there in the business platinum. Do you have any, any tips or tricks about how to get it? I've tried, you know, some of the various tricks that I've read about out there because he reads us and he reads Dr. Credit

and stuff like that, but I haven't been able to get this 85K offer. So now when he said that, because I know he's a pretty smart guy, probably one of the smartest people I've ever known, actually a real smart guy, and he's fairly versed in this game. So I had made the assumption

without going to our best offers page that he had gone to our best offers page and seen a 75k offer for the business platinum, but read somewhere that there's an 85k offer. And short version of the long story is eventually he called and he was able to get the 85k offer over the phone. And then I went to the best offers page just yesterday. And I was like, wait a second, we had a link for the 85k offer right on our best offers page. Like that's exactly what's there. It's a referral link. It's the 85k offer right on our best offers page like that's exactly what's there it's a it's a referral link it's the 85k offer like it's there and so i sent him a message and i was like hey you know the link at our best offers page is 85k and he said oh i well you didn't have a direct link to it and i was like well you didn't even have a direct link of course we had a

direct link to it i told him where to go in order to apply. And he said, oh, well, when I clicked on it on the best offers page and it took me to another page that was just a frequent miler page, I thought you guys didn't have a link to the application. And I was like, oh man, like he's been in this game almost two years. He reads frequent miler, not like every day, but regularly enough to be able to ask me, should he get the platinum or aspire? He knew that both offers were particularly compelling right now for different reasons, but didn't realize that we had a link that's one of our referral links to go to the business Platinum. And he was just going directly to the Amex site then and seeing a 75K offer at the Amex site, a lesser offer, and he was logging into his account and seeing that lesser offer and missing out on the fact that he could have gotten

a better offer. So that brings me to the question of the week. Is there something we can do or should we do something to somehow make it clearer to people that the best offers page is a list of card information, but they have to click through to the card pages and then click through from there to get to the application pages. Is it clear enough already? Or is there something we can do better? And or what can we do? Because I was like, wow, I can't believe, like he's not unfamiliar with computers. So it's not like this was, this wasn't like a, you know, a someone who just isn't very good at the internet or something like that. And it's somebody who reads pretty regularly,

but obviously has missed a key point here. And how to apply for credit certificate for my life. Wow, I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but you know, it makes me reflect on why it was changed in the first place. It used to be that the best offers page, like if you go way back, the links were right on there. One of the obstacles I do remember that happened along the way was with our affiliate links. And some banks had rules like you can't have our affiliate link on the same page as an affiliate link with other bank.

So there were rules like that. And anyway, and a lot of weird other rules that I don't want to get into right now. But point is our solution was have one dedicated page for every single card. And wherever you are on the blog, whether it's the best offers page or a post where we're talking about that card, you click the link, you get to that one page, and that's where you'll find the link, whether it's an affiliate link or a referral link or a direct link that's not the above.

Right. So that's worked well. I mean, I thought. I thought so too. I mean, obviously, and many people have figured that out and applied through those links before. But I was like, well, that clearly wasn't necessarily clear enough to him. And if it wasn't clear enough to him, then I would imagine there must be other people that it's not clear enough to either. So I wonder if there's a way we can make our best offers page more user

friendly. And I don't have the answer to that. But it certainly made me reflect and say, okay, what can we do to make that a more user friendly experience? And I don't have the answer to that, but it certainly made me reflect and say, okay, what can we do to make that a more user-friendly experience? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I thought it was a question worth asking and a question worth posing to people who are listening too, who want to comment on YouTube or on the blog or whatever else. If there's a way we can make something like that, not just the best offers page, but in general, if there's something that you feel could be more user-friendly, we're always happy to get that kind of feedback. And particularly now, you know, that this has come up, obviously, I'm particularly interested in making the best offers page as user-friendly and obvious and intuitive as possible. But yeah, so. Right. But it also suggests that maybe the card page wasn't as user clear as friendly and obvious as possible i mean what

i'm trying to figure out is he gets to the business he clicked through from the best offers page got to our business platinum page presumably saw right at the top the 85k offer and highlighted in yellow yellow like here i know i know and so it's very easy to be like, oh, you know, come on. How did you not figure that out? Right. Which was, there was definitely a part of me saying that, but then there was a part of me saying, well, you know, if you didn't, then what is it that I could have done that would have made that process easier? I'm not sure what the answer to that question is. And I do wonder also if there might not be people who mouse over something on the best offers page and see that there's, well, there's no link to another place.

Like, you know, it all goes to frequent miler here. So there's not an application link. So maybe they wouldn't even click through to the card page because maybe they noticed that it was linking internally. I'm not sure. I don't know what the right answer is. Maybe it's a problem that doesn't need to be solved. Well, I think this question ought to be posed to the person who was voted most

likely to succeed at stay K to far away. Right. Our very own creative director, Carrie, uh, she, uh, this is very much in her,

uh, her wheelhouse in her wheelhouse. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see, we'll see what she thinks about it in terms of race come from in her wheelhouse. Yeah. I don't know. Like, what is a wheelhouse?

I don't have a wheelhouse, I don't think. Maybe that's why it's not in my wheelhouse. Right. Clearly, it's not in mine because I don't have one. No wheelhouse here. There's so many things that we say that come from, like, long, long ago. And they're just, like, forgotten things. Idioms are fun.

Yeah, they are. Lots of good ones out there. All right. So that was our question of the week. And that's something for readers and listeners and people to ponder along with us. So that said, I think that brings us to the end of today's episode. So if you've been enjoying what you've been hearing and you want to hear more of it and read more about it, more importantly, go to thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe. Again, that's thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe. And that way you can get on our email list or join our Facebook group or follow us on Twitter and all that fun stuff. It's all right there. So you want to check that out and please come back and listen to us once again. Please give us your likes and subscribe and leave your comments and questions and feedback so we can talk about them next week. Thank you very much, Craig. Thanks, everybody. See you next

week. Take care. Bye bye.