Frequent Miler on the Air - What are the worst airline websites? | Ask Us Anything Ep85 | 4-8-26

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyscape.com. Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the Frequent Myler team answers your questions live. Good evening, good evening. Yes, good evening. All right, welcome. Frequent Milers, Ask Us Anything. We're Nickless today because he's on vacation.

Starting point is 00:00:32 So, Carrie is going to, I don't know, do the thing that Nick would normally do. Yeah, I wish we could ask guests to do it or because I'm sure they would, you know, everyone hasn't memorized, at least in the comments you guys have said that you do. Let's see. Well, if you're watching this in podcast form, you can get the notes. Wait, what does he say? All right, let's just leave it as if you like what you're listening to or you don't. Don't like this video or like the podcast if you're listening to it.

Starting point is 00:01:09 And without further ado, let's get rolling. Do we have a question to get started with? We do. Yeah, we've had a few questions this week on the Ask Us Anything reminder post. So one interesting one that I thought was on there was from Chris who asked, what's the most obscure or lesser-known credit card you use? For example, they use the Venmo credit card for utilities and bills to get 3X on their top spend category. What are some fun unusual cards you all use that don't get talked about much?

Starting point is 00:01:39 Greg, you want to start? Wow. I used to have really good ones. Like, for example, I had a curve card for quite a while that would be like the face of the credit card, but behind the scenes it would charge whichever other. credit card I wanted and that was awesome. But right now, I guess maybe the, it's not even that obscure, but I use a few custom cash city cards in order to earn 5x. I mostly use it at grocery stores, but you could use it for a bunch of different categories in order to get 5X on up to

Starting point is 00:02:19 $500 per billing cycle. But if you want to do that, you have to designate it for one specific thing because it's only give you 5x on the bonus category that you spend the most on. I thought you were going to pull out the city prestige that you've had and you still have even out because it was what discontinued now like four years ago, three years ago, when dinosaurs roam the earth? That is a better answer. Yes. I can have the city prestige card.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Yeah, so I still get 5X on dining, which is why I don't use the custom cash for that. It also has like fourth night free and it has, what else does it have that? I don't know. $250, I guess, of travel credit, automatically credited each year of any travel purchases you make. So Tim or Stephen, do you use a card that's more obscure than that? Sort of, but it's more of a niche situation for me. So I was really struggling to come up with something before when I saw that question. just because most of the time I'm either working on like minimum spend requirements or I'm just using your kind of like regular bonus spend category stuff.

Starting point is 00:03:29 But then just this past week I've had to use my Marriott debit card twice. Oh, nice. So that's a debit card that's only available in the UK at the moment. And so it earns one point on purchases in the UK, two points per pound overseas, three points per pound at Marriot Properties in the UK and four points per pound at Marriot Properties internationally. So it's a fairly good international card, especially as UK cards go because it's got a low foreign transaction fees because over here, there were generally like foreign transaction fees on nearly every single card.

Starting point is 00:04:08 And it's not like the US where you've got like so many different options without foreign transaction fees. But I had to pay our car insurance and our breakdown cover. And for whatever reason, it wasn't accepting like credit cards. stuff. So I figured, okay, well, if I'm going to be paying by debit card, then I may as well pay with a debit card that's going to give me rewards rather than my standard bank debit card. So that's what I used as a like very niche, but not very helpful at all. Anyone else in a situation.

Starting point is 00:04:38 How about you, Tim? Well, first of all, I just want to say that I get tired of how often Stephen is lording over us all the cool credit cards that he gets in the UK that we don't have that we don't have access to here. Have you seen the welcome office over here? Oh, no, totally. No, they're terrible. No, they're terrible. I'm actually giving Stephen a little bit of Guff

Starting point is 00:05:00 because the UK's credit cards are terrible and I feel bad for him. In any event, the one actually that immediately comes to mind is there was a card back in the day called the, it was originally a Sears card that had its own rewards program called Shop Your Way. And it was kind of an obscure sort of deal that the shop your waypoints, you could earn them and redeem them for gift cards and stuff. But what it was known for was having these regular spending offers that I still don't know. It probably was what put Sears out of business. They were doing with things like, you know, spend $500 on groceries this month and get $100 statement credit. And they would do these things regularly and then they would stack. so you could get lots of cash back.

Starting point is 00:05:49 Well, they discontinued that, but changed it to a city thank you master card. So now it doesn't earn shop your waypoints, which were kind of, it earns thank you points, which are much better. And it gives, there's no annual fee, it gives 3x on grocery, 3x on dining, 5x on gas, up to I think it's $10,000 in purchases per year. But the spending offers, everybody thought that when it changed, change, the spending offers are going to go away, but they actually have gotten even better. So I just actually looked. Right now, what I have is, and these are all at the same time,

Starting point is 00:06:25 I get $60 for $600, this is for the rest of the year. Every month that I spend $600 in gas or grocery or gas, grocery and restaurants, I get $60 back. Every month that I spend $1,200, I get $120 back. Every month that I make $8.75 in purchases per month, I get $80 back. If I make a $500 purchase online, I get another $80 back. And then there's another grocery one that's just grocery that if I spend over, that stacks with the other one that I get, if I make $500 in purchases or more, I get $75 back.

Starting point is 00:07:05 So all told, that means if I do it right, I can spend about $1,500 or $1,600. and get like almost $300 back. These things keep going. It's just incredible. And it's 3xon gas, 3x on grocery, or 5x on gas, 3x on grocery, 3x on dining. It's literally just like, I mean, it's an incredible card. Cashback or is it? Cashback.

Starting point is 00:07:30 Cashback, same of credit. Yeah. How are you using anything else ever? Well, I mean, you know, at some point you, like at some point, it does. At some point, I just want to go back. to a one X card that I can shake my fist at the sky and say why don't I earn better on this?

Starting point is 00:07:47 You're pretending to be one of us. And I'm shocked, honestly, that when they went away from the shop your way thing, that City actually is still producing these offers on this card. It's insane. Crazy. I mean, it's insane. So anyway, that's probably the one that for me is the most.

Starting point is 00:08:03 I've loved that card for years and I still love it now. And I love it even more now. And I hope that City, I hope that nobody from City is watching this and that nobody from ever takes a look at what's happening there because I have no way to explain why they do that, why they do what they do with that card. Probably the one employee who's in charge of that card has the card themselves and has enjoyed for rewards.

Starting point is 00:08:26 And so they're probably watching going, yes, you can thank me. I have some home improvement this month. Let's do a home improvement offer. Oh, smart. All right. We have some other questions to move on to. We're going to start with Greg. did the FM team partake in the British Airways Shopping Portal promotion for 250x avios at Kate Spade?

Starting point is 00:08:46 I think it's a runner for deal of the year, this person says. So I don't think we covered that. Did we? Guys, I'm looking for a shake your head. Yes for now. I feel like Nick might have. I think Nick wrote a post and I think Nick actually made some Kate Spade purchases. So I'll be Nick right now.

Starting point is 00:09:07 Yes, I wrote the post and he made the purchase. But I think he only made like a couple hundred bucks or something. Well, the right person to answer it isn't here. Because we are a Nicholas today. I'm not finding anything about it actually on the website. So maybe we didn't end up. So we don't know. Perhaps next.

Starting point is 00:09:26 Yeah. I mean, so what I can say is personally, so I don't remember us posting it, but what I remember is seeing it on Doctor of Credit or somewhere. and thinking that looks like it's so obviously an error that I don't think they're going to honor it. Wow. I think they eventually did though, right? They did, yeah. So I made the wrong call there, but that's also why if we didn't post it,

Starting point is 00:09:52 that's why I didn't suggest we post it because I didn't think, I thought it was not going to work out. That's funny. I didn't do it either. And because the British Airways shopping portals run by Collinson, and that does like some of the more like niche airline program like shopping portals while in Cartera that does like the big ones like American Airlines and Alaska and things like that. I had less confidence that they would honor the 250 X rate just because that was so clearly a mistake that yeah, I didn't get in on it.

Starting point is 00:10:22 In hindsight, I sort of wish I had. But at the same time, it was kind of one of those ones where it was like a bit too rich for my tastes. because to kind of truly make it worth the effort that you want to spend a fair amount of money in order to be earning like a substantial number of avios at 250x and I was just like, well, if that doesn't work out, then it's just going to be a lot of hassle plus. I think I feel like we were living here in the UK at the time

Starting point is 00:10:49 and so like that would have been even more hassle like trying to like resolve anything and like to try and resell any kind of items that I ordered and stuff like that. Yeah. Also, yeah, also the British Airways portal. I'm pretty sure that's the one that had, this is years ago now, that dating app that was something like 40x or something. I can't remember what it was.

Starting point is 00:11:12 And that never got honored. But some people like travel with Grant, he used the service and actually ended up marrying the person. No way. What? That is such a cool story. Right. So there could be some people getting married to their Kate Spade products right now. That's going to make it into a movie one of these days. All right. Tim, next question. What is y'all's favorite and least favorite airline loyalty website to use?

Starting point is 00:11:46 Do you have any ones you hate or love? I mean, the ones that I hate come to mind much more quickly than the ones that I love. Because I think there's, I don't know that there's one that is specifically that I can think of off the top of my head that is. is particularly great that I'm when I'm on it, I just feel like, oh, man, this is, I'm being held in the hands of loyalty heaven here. However, probably there's three that immediately come to mind that I don't like. And those would be, uh, in no particular order, Turkish airlines, Avianca and, uh, Air France, KLM. And Air France KLM, the big reason is just because it's glitchy is all get out.

Starting point is 00:12:29 And the glitches kind of come and go, but the amount of times that I end up having to chat with somebody from Air France, KLM, to actually end up booking an award that it should be there or is there is there is like, I mean, I probably actually booked more force through Air France having to chat with them than actually successfully completing it online. And Turkish and Al Bianca sort of have a, Turkish is probably the worst.

Starting point is 00:12:57 And that said, I haven't booked anything with Turkish for since their last evaluation. So I haven't actually used their website to book something in a while. But the worst was they, for a while, they had this glitch where you would book a, you would book a ticket or you would get to the point. You'd find the availability. You'd get it. It would confirm the price.

Starting point is 00:13:15 You put your credit card in, all that sort of stuff. And then at the end, it would just say there was no button to actually complete the booking. Like the button was gone. Right. And it's like, and there was just, and there was no, there's no button. In Avianca, there is a particular for a while, gosh, I'm trying to remember the exact, because I remember this got me on flying by the seat of our points. I ended up transferring to Avi, like there was a whole problem with how they processed a credit card.

Starting point is 00:13:43 And like the bank, they would say it was the wrong, they didn't accept that bank or the bank was declining the charge. And the bank really wasn't declining the charge. But then it caused all sorts of fraud. and it caused them to actually shut down my ability to redeem Avianca miles during flying by the seat of our points while I was trying to book an award from, you know, Switzerland for the next day at like 3 o'clock in the morning. So I have a particular, I wrote a whole, I wrote a whole post about how I hate Avianca after at 3 o'clock in the morning at that one. But so those are probably the three that kind of come to mind immediately. I'm going to throw two more in there. I'm going

Starting point is 00:14:22 say British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. So British Airways, something, it doesn't seem to have been as much of a problem recently, but like for the last few years, if you enter a date for an award search, it will end up displaying results for the day before. And so we've been caught out by that a few times. And it doesn't always happen to me now. And I'm not entirely sure if you fix that or if I'm just getting lucky or something like that. But like, that's such a, such a dodgy thing.

Starting point is 00:14:52 that is. And then also, if you try, or whenever I've tried going on their website on my phone, rather than desktop, if you enter the city code, it doesn't actually bring up any cities. Like on desktop, it's perfectly fine. On my phone, it doesn't, unless after you've typed in the first three letters or the three letter code of the airport, you tap in the box again, and then it shows the drop-down list of potential. options. So if you don't tap, it doesn't show anything. It's like so weird. So that's kind of annoying. And then Virgin Atlantic. It's going to say, don't forget Virgin. Yeah, like Virgin Atlantic, I could not log into my account on desktop. It's annoying. It's just impossible to get in. Like it just ends up showing

Starting point is 00:15:41 an error. And it's the same on my wife's account. I've tried doing it in different browsers, different, like an incognito and stuff like that. And for whatever reason, it's not recognizing our accounts. In their old app, it was perfectly fine. I could log into my account and book flights, book award flights, do searches and things like that. So that was kind of my backup thing. But they've just launched a new app and they're going to be disabling the old app. And it won't let me log into it because it seems to boot it via their website where it doesn't and when I've tried like doing like I forgot my password to see if it's just a password issue, it says that it doesn't recognize our accounts like it doesn't recognize my email address

Starting point is 00:16:26 and it doesn't recognize my virgin atlantic flying club number and stuff like that even though i'm logged in on their existing with this account and stuff like that so i need to call up their help desk and stuff and see if there's anything they can do but but that's still your favorite website right that's my homer yeah how about you gregg yeah just real quick i mean virgin uh virgin's website has all kinds of fun problems in the past, not being able to find cities that it should exist. That's a good one. Not being able to check out with a credit card, things like that.

Starting point is 00:17:03 Iberia website regularly has some fun problems too. Probably the most fun problematic website these days to me is the preferred hotels. I prefer booking when you're going to book hotels because shows you which hotels are available for points when you put in dates and it shows some people different hotels than it shows other people just sort of randomly and then when you click in to see the calendar it may show you point availability it might show you cash availability in the calendar either way that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to that you either can or can't get a room you have to go to the final checkout screen to see if there's actually a room available for points so

Starting point is 00:17:48 So of course, I love that. It's a lot of, it's a fun game to try to see if you can actually get a booking. How are all these websites so bad? But I will actually put a real favorite out there. I think United has done such a good job with their app. Their app makes it really easy to do just normal stuff and make changes and let you know how many minutes it's going to take. you to walk to the gate from the lounge and stuff like that and you know let you know so it i find it really really good yeah they just added tsa wait times also as of today i think

Starting point is 00:18:31 if you have to update the app though um so try that um all right um stephen this next question is for you with all the recent and pending devaluations what hotel rewards program if any would you recommend for someone who generally only stays in hotels for a week or two each year? I think it kind of like a large part of it will depend on what you're actually looking for. If you're just looking for something that's good value, that would be like one thing. If you're looking for kind of luxury or being able to book kind of nicer experiences with points, probably higher just because you can book nice properties for a somewhat reasonable number of points.

Starting point is 00:19:13 hopefully that doesn't change too badly from next month. But you can also book suites. You can book rooms that have lounge access, even if they're not necessarily a suite and things like that. So that can end up being a potentially good option for someone who doesn't want to have the hassle of earning status, but have the sort of status benefits that go along with that. Another one would be Hilton for things like SLH properties.

Starting point is 00:19:40 If you can stock up on three-night certificates, that can be a nice, option if you're going after luxury experiences. If you have any Amex Platinum or business platinum cards, then the hotel credit $300 every six months can be a really good option to get some really nice stays all around the world. But I guess the first things first would be to say like where do you want to go and what kind of stay do you want? Because that would impact on it. And if you're the kind of person who's able to plan fairly far ahead, then you can like, if you know that you're going to be traveling in, say, like,

Starting point is 00:20:18 October next year or something like that, you can do your research and then decide to collect points in this program. And then for the following year's vacation, you could be like, okay, well, we want to go to this other place. And there's only, like, certain chain hotels there. And so I'll focus on their points instead. So those are a few approaches that I would take in that particular situation. Anything else for anyone to add?

Starting point is 00:20:40 The only one that I might toss in there, and this is sort of an and it kind of depends on the person, but it ends it, and it's sort of a left field one. But a core has a lot of different transfer. And it's not necessarily something like I totally agree with the other one that was Stevens Hilton call out, I think is really good. But a core, the great thing is right now is that you can get all the points. They're always fixed.

Starting point is 00:21:02 It's two euro cents per point, regardless of where you're redeeming in the world, which, because the dollar has. has fallen quite a bit against the euro, that actually makes the points very valuable. And no one does one to one to a core, but there are transfer bonuses and a multitude of different transfer currencies transfer to them. But because they're one-to-one, whenever there's a cash sale for a core, there's a point sale. So if it's 30% off a cash booking, it's 30% off the points booking because they just take the cash rate and apply a point, you know, that two euro cents per point towards that cash booking. You can add breakfast rates. You can add sweets if you want.

Starting point is 00:21:46 You can add, you know, I mean, you can book effectively anything that you can book with cash, I think for the most part, you can also book with points. And because of just how valuable those points are right now, I think it can be a really useful one. If you're just wanting to like build up some points and then do a couple of stays a year and you want the exact room and you want the exact you want to have breakfast you want to have every mean you can effectively do that all at a rate of i think right now it's around you know 2.3 cents per point or 2.4 cents per point or something like that so i'd say that's another one to take a look at and then one other very quick thing as a sort of add on to what i'd said before with um hilton um if you get an aspire

Starting point is 00:22:24 card that will get your automatic diamond status and so um you don't have to like if you're only staying in hotels for a week or two a year you're not going to be earning status organically unless you're doing it through spend on certain credit cards and things like that. So that's one good way of getting top tier status. And then same with Mario, if you have the Bonvoy Brilliant card, you get the 85K certificate and, did I say Brilliant or did I say Bantford? I meant to say Brilliant. And you get platinum status as well.

Starting point is 00:22:54 So then you'll get free breakfast and lounge access and things like that. So just as a sort of shortcut to improve your experiences during stays. Yeah. And Greg would probably throw in preferred hotels, of course, because it's so easy to book. And it's really, you can count on what you're going to get. So we don't have to be sure to pick up the preferred hotels luxury card. Does that not exist or? No, no, it doesn't.

Starting point is 00:23:19 All right. So don't do that. Okay. Greg, this next question is for you. I've tried getting Capital One Venture X, but they keep denying me. I've opened three personal and two business cards in the last nine months. The last was December 31. what do you think I should do?

Starting point is 00:23:35 Deep cut foot leg. Totally. This is great. All right. So the guys are laughing because Capital One doesn't like me. And they don't mind approving me for cards, but then they will cancel them from me for no reason at all. And so it's just kind of funny for me to answer that. But I mean, I don't know what this person's background is, but I mean, one,

Starting point is 00:24:03 thing I would think about is have you tried applying for the Venture X for business card? Because that's virtually identical. And the sort of the rules or the guidelines they use for deciding who to approve or not approve vary between cards with issuers and especially between business and personal cards. So that would be one thing I would certainly try. but does anyone else have any other ideas or suggestions? So what I would say is maybe look at the venture rewards card too. The regular venture rewards usually has a fairly comparable welcome bonus as the Venture X, not always, but oftentimes.

Starting point is 00:24:52 The earning rates are very similar. You still get Capital One's transfer partners. And the approval, from what I understand, the approval standards for that are less stringent than the Venturex. And then you might be any product change in a year up to the VentureX possibly. Yeah. You do want that.

Starting point is 00:25:09 All right. Good tips. So, Tim, this one's for you. Does the FM team have any success with credit card reconsideration with Bank of America, business cards? Any tips? Thank you. I wish I did.

Starting point is 00:25:24 I have never had to use Bank of America reconsideration. So has anybody else? Yeah, anyone else? I did with a personal card. So the Atmos Summit card I applied for, it got denied. And the letter that came said that I didn't have enough business or whatever with deposits or something with Bank of America, which made me realize right then that there was something wrong. It was just, I could tell that, you know, something had gone wrong with the application

Starting point is 00:26:06 or the approval process because I have platinum honors status, which requires $100,000 or more in savings and investments, and so they wouldn't have, you know, thought that. So I had to go through multiple, I had to call and try to explain it and have someone then transfer into another department another and and eventually they said, well, we'll let you know definitely tomorrow and it still took like two weeks. But that's a really special case where they just screwed up. They somehow had multiple identities for me in the system and the application got attached to a new, like a new identity instead of my existing one. So, but with business, I don't know. I haven't had any problems getting approved for on the business side.

Starting point is 00:27:00 All right. I think we'll move on then. And Tim, you have the built palladium card, right? Well, I do, but I've had it for three hours. Oh,

Starting point is 00:27:10 okay. Has anyone had the built palladium card? This next question will go to anyone who has the built palladium card or has had it for longer than Tim. Yeah, I've had it from about as close to the get-go as possible. All right. So this one is for Greg then.

Starting point is 00:27:26 I mean, has anyone, yeah, go ahead. Has anyone's thoughts changed on the built palladium since they started using it? I've tried doing the math to see if it's worth it, but not sure I did the built math correctly. So what do you think? What's that actually like? I don't think there is any correct built math. The built system, it's so complicated. There's so many ways to kind of play it that there's no single right or wrong way to do it.

Starting point is 00:27:55 But that said, I mean, I think it's if you can, if you're not, if you don't get caught in the many sort of built transition gotches, there's a lot, a lot of upside to built, especially with the palladium card. Because, you know, if you have rent or mortgage to pay, averaging over 3x for all your spend is, is, is. pretty easy. If you don't have renter mortgage to pay, it's still easy to average 3x because you could use your built cash to buy those accelerators or whatever they're called, where you get an extra extra 1x for up to $5,000 spend. So if you could spend exactly $500, if you could spend your $200 built cash to add that on, spend exactly $5,000 on the card, then you're earning 3x during that time. and then you can repeat because when you spent the $5,000, you just earned another $200 billed cash,

Starting point is 00:28:58 which you could use for the next one. So, yeah, I think it's, you know, very, very rewarding. Let me put it that way. The one thing I've changed, so I've had the basic idea of using those accelerators over and over like that is what I've been starting to do. The one thing I've added in is every rent day. So the first of each month, make sure to spend, make sure you're not working on an accelerator because they don't overlap.

Starting point is 00:29:29 But so make sure your last accelerator is done before rent day and then spend exactly $500. And that maxes out the doubling. So you get, you get 4x points on that 500, which, you know, 12 times a year is pretty good. all right um by gregg's explanation you can see how simple the whole process is right there is a really quickly just to point out even though i did not have the platoom card there is a post yet that i just reread today i had to reread my own post about it to remember but there is a post um specifically that i think is interesting for the palladium card it's something like um built rewards you more when you spend less. Built 2.0 rewards you more when you spend less. Take a look at that, especially if you

Starting point is 00:30:20 have, if you're trying to take advantage of some of the housing payment things that Bill provides. We hope you're enjoying the Frequent Miler on the air podcast. Did you know that Frequent Miler is also a website? At frequentmiler.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards, the single best, best credit cards page on the web guides to all popular awards programs and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our post sent to your email, go to frequentmiler.com forward slash subscribe and sign up for free. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:58 All right. So I'm going to call out a few questions that we're not going to answer and I'll explain why. So some of you are asking about the best Hyatt properties to book before the new award chart takes place. We discussed that kind of at length last episode. So if you go to or Ask Us Anything Live feed on YouTube, just click the previous episode. And then to the person asking about how many credit cards the team feels comfortable having, we discussed that at length two in episode 63.

Starting point is 00:31:31 How many credit cards does the frequent miler team have? So check out the last episode for Hyatt recommendations. and then episode 63 for comments on credit cards. All right. So, Tim, this next question is for you. What airline loyalty top status is it worth pursuing in your opinion? Oh, I've got two questions for you actually in a row. So I answer that one first.

Starting point is 00:32:00 Tell you what, then I'm going to give this one to Stephen first. All right, sure. And maybe we can, maybe the three of us, because my first response to this is that it really depends on your situation. Okay. I would say. But so Stephen, Stephen has a unique situation. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:15 Well, I mean, I was going to say that exact thing. A large part of it's also going to depend on simply where you live. Like if you live in Atlanta, then it would make sense to look for Delta status. If you live somewhere where the hub is united, then that would make more sense. Same with Alaska, same with American and things like that. So that would be my biggest consideration is where are you going to get the most use out of your status because it doesn't seem worth going for like jet blue mosaic status if you live in, I don't know, like Texas or something like that that doesn't really have

Starting point is 00:32:51 any kind of jet blue service. So yeah, that would be the biggest consideration. If I was still in the US and looking to earn some kind of status, I'd most likely probably, well, yeah, I think I would focus on Alaska status because then that gets you status with Alaska, but it also gets you decent benefits on American, their points are valuable. They have a very good rewards program and different ways of earning status. You can earn status through spend on the Alaska Summit card and things like that.

Starting point is 00:33:23 So overall, I feel like in terms of making it somewhat easy to earn status, especially through spend, Alaska's done a really good job. They haven't necessarily made it easy, but they have made it like a compelling option that's achievable. So that's probably, probably as a general idea, Alaska is probably one of the better options if you can make use of Alaska and or American flights.

Starting point is 00:33:50 Right. And Greg, you maybe have an answer as well? No, I mean, I think what Stephen said is exactly right. So I'll just add one sort of specific thing is that Air France has some interesting things that you get if you get to platinum status with them. They give you more award availability at the saver level. And it becomes possible to use Miles to book their La Premiere first class, which is not possible unless you have platinum status. So it's pretty niche. I mean, you'd have to really want to book a lot of awards, I think, with Air France in order to value it enough to want to seek platinum status. But it's, you know, it's just kind of interesting for a different reason than getting perks on the Air Force. line as you're flying it. And they have made it easier to earn the status now because they

Starting point is 00:34:43 revamped their credit card recently and so you can own your status through spend a little bit more easily than it passed as well. So it's not like you only have to credit your flights to flying blue now. Like it's possible to get it otherwise. Yeah, great point. All right. Tim, this question. Do you use Atmos Summit to rent cars overseas? And then they add a note, Greg should update auto rental post to compare Bank of America Atmos Summit to compare to the others. Greg, what are you doing not updating that post? Is that like Greg's not add that? That's like Greg's specific job?

Starting point is 00:35:19 I have no idea, honestly. I don't even know who the author is on that. And just sort of a behind the scenes thing, a lot of sort of our resource posts have been collectively written by many years. And so just because it says Greg's name on it, he may not have been the last person to actually update it. So it might be that it's actually Stephen's fault, but it's most likely Nick's fault. So, and I don't hear anybody saying otherwise, so there we go.

Starting point is 00:35:46 So let me just say quickly, our guide to ultra premium credit card travel protections does have the summit card in there, and that includes rental car information. Okay. Yeah, and I'm not exactly, I'm not sure, I'm not kind of sure the question, I don't, and I'm not quite sure the question on the question behind, or the question that is behind this question. or the issue. The Alaska Summit card, the Atmos Summit card, the cool thing about running overseas is you will get primary car insurance and it earns 3x on all overseas purchases when you're not shopping and when it's not a US dollar transaction. However, lots of credit cards give you primary

Starting point is 00:36:24 credit card or car rental protection overseas. Even cards that don't give it to you domestically, oftentimes, not without, not without a, and this is not, you know, universal, but it's, you know, but it's pretty common that even if they don't give it to you domestically it it they do give it to you overseas and so I have not used the Atlas Summit card yet the last card that I used overseas was the strata elite because the rental car I booked through city travel and earned what is it 12x I think 12x when you book cars through city travel and so I earned 12x thank you points and because it's overseas got primary car rental insurance which ended up actually being very helpful because I was driving around Stevens' home country and put a pretty decent

Starting point is 00:37:11 scrape inside of my car. Yeah, driving through a street that was like this wide and found the reimbursement process to be very streamlined and easy to follow and so forth. And so I don't know that I would necessarily immediately turn to the utmost summit card earning 3x. I would want to look at the other because, I mean, I would rather, I would take 12, even with the loyalty points that you'd earn with the utmost summit card, I would take, for instance, 12x thank you points over 3x at most points any day of the week, especially given that the, there are the coverages were similar. But so that's all that to say, I'm not, I'm assuming that's the idea behind it, but I think that's the, that's what my response to be. Okay. All right.

Starting point is 00:37:58 Greg, this one for you. Do authorized users get the same discount on United Award flights as the primary cardholders. Is that something we know yet? They do not. Just the primary gets that. So we know it and it's no. But I mean, a workaround would be that the authorized, like if the primary card holders willing to use their miles, they can book an award for the authorized user using their own miles and take advantage of the discount and do it that way. But that wouldn't be as helpful if the authorized user is the one who has like a whole ton of

Starting point is 00:38:33 miles that that was. Yeah, although United lets you pool miles and if then they don't let you book non-united flights with those pooled miles, but you can then unpool in order to effectively move them for free to someone else. And so yeah, so there are workarounds. All right. Stephen, I think. No, Tim, actually, we're going to give this one too. Does the Atmos give status points when paying rent on built platform. So I'm assuming the utmost recall talking about the various utmost cards and yes, they do. Okay.

Starting point is 00:39:11 Great. Another quick one. Steven, the latest collectibles card episode was interesting. So as a recap for people, Greg and Nick discussed the credit cards that they love, which are no longer available, new,

Starting point is 00:39:27 but you can keep them and the ones that they find worth keeping. So this person wants to know, are there any dead cards that you particularly miss? And Stephen, since you didn't get to be part of that discussion on the podcast, why don't you share some of those cards? I'm struggling to think of, like, dead cards that aren't available anymore that I would want to use. Like, I know that, like, kind of back in the day, the SPG card and stuff was great,

Starting point is 00:39:54 but nowadays, like, I'm curious kind of quite how compelling it would seem compared to all the other options that are out there now. I can't think of any cards that I simply don't have anymore just because they got cancelled or they got product changed into something completely different. And yeah, I can't really think of anything else as well that's gone where I might still want to get it. I mean, like in theory, getting a city prestige would be nice.

Starting point is 00:40:24 Do you just feel like good riddance? anything. I mean, I think I'm just blanking on things as well. I'm sure that later on I'll be thinking about it. Be like, oh yeah, there's this car. There's this car. Because I still have like things like the IHG select card. I do still have that. And that gets like a free night certificate for 49 bucks a year annual fee. And you get a 10% points rebate. And so I'm glad that I'm never ended up upgrading that card to a Premier card because Chase was offering like 5,000 or 10,000 points for upgrading. And so I'm glad that I kept that because I was also at the time able to also apply for a Premier card. You can't do that now and get both of them. But I did back then. So

Starting point is 00:41:06 that's one that I certainly would have missed, but I didn't miss just because I still have it. And Tim, how about you? Any of those collectibles? Yeah. So there are a few. The one that I miss, if I, I mean, the one that I made, if I were talking about missing and not necessarily one that's current form is the original city prestige. I mean, that card was like the most incredible, I honestly, I can't think of one that was better in terms of it had an incredible fourth night free benefit. It paid for rounds of golf when you were traveling. It gave you access to American Airlines miles or lounges rather when you were traveling. I believe at trans, you could buy American Airlines tickets for 1.5 cents each. And it had all of

Starting point is 00:41:53 these benefits that it still has now in terms of the 5x like Greg is hoarding over there in Ann Arbor. But so that's the one in terms of like mess. The other two that I can think of right off the top of my head are the IE select card because I had kind of a mini shutdown from Chase that lasted about two minutes. But unfortunately that was one of the cards that got shut down and you can't apply for it again. So I just lost it.

Starting point is 00:42:18 And getting a 40K cert for 49 bucks every year was pretty sweet. and there's a couple of other side benefits. And the other one, honestly, is this, it happened recently, and that's the Senesta card. That was a great card when it was around. It had a great sign-up bonus. I have a bunch of Senesta points,

Starting point is 00:42:35 and by having the card, your points never expire. You get automatic gold status, which gets you free breakfast. And it was a great card to spend, like I think it was $7,000 a year or something, because you got to effectively, you could earn 5X up to the first $7,500 of spend per year.

Starting point is 00:42:51 And it was, it was a great card but that went away and it's now been transferred to a bank of america card that's not very great so those are the two that i can think of right or those are the three that i can think of right off the bat yeah this is just our nostalgia episode i guess it is a couple of a couple of mine that died uh that i wish hadn't or it was the fairmont fairmont card uh which uh i don't remember i i don't remember this details i just remember it was like um really rewarding for a few stays a year. And it's not so much the card that I've missed, but Club Carlson had this second night free deal on as long as you had the card,

Starting point is 00:43:39 then your points were basically worth double as long as you did an even number of nights with your award redemptions. And back then, those points could be used worldwide as well. It wasn't broken up into international versus domestic and so on anyway so those are a couple that i can think of yeah that's a good one brings a tear to my eye i mean this is old length sign man yeah i remember checking out every two nights at the co-carlson hotels i'd completely wrong about that car i did have it for a little while but i think i got in on the tail end of it just as the like two for one was ending. And then within like a year or two or something like that, they just ended up moved.

Starting point is 00:44:22 Was it a US bank card? Because I feel like they changed it to like triple cash or something like that. Yeah. So yeah. So nostalgic. All right. I can't remember where we left off. That was a Stephen question, I think.

Starting point is 00:44:36 So Greg, how many thank you points are you going to transfer to preferred hotels before the devaluation? This person is thinking about 500,000. thank you points or more. What do you think? Yeah. Well, I wrote a whole post about it. I am going to go back to my post and see what I wrote and transfer that many. I think it was in the neighborhood of 600. No, it wasn't. It was in the neighborhood, about 260,000, I think, because I was going to get, I wanted to end up with a little over a million points. Okay. Anyone else? I'm curious if Tim is going to do that. So I was actually just thinking, and the timing couldn't have been better for

Starting point is 00:45:15 preferred hotels or thank you points depending on who it's more advantageous to but i just last week had a stay in guatemala in antigoa guatemala at a preferred hotels property that was just sensational and it was 30 000 preferred hotels points which cost me seven or per night which cost me 7500 city points per night and it just reinforced it like man when this thing is sweet it is just sweet. It is like I there's just and and and last year on the challenge you know like I was able to for I think 12,500 city points and I get a sweat or get a sweet and marly bone with like a you know the big patio that overlooked the. That's amazing. And like it over overlooked the cathedral next door and all this. I mean and like man when it's good it's just good. So I'm I'm kind of I'm thinking about that 500,000 level

Starting point is 00:46:11 myself. Yeah. And it really makes me nervous because prefer hotels. is such a janky program. And I could see it like in a year. I mean, Greg covered all this in his post. And you should really read Greg's post, what you should do. But I could totally see that, like, there's a huge devaluation in six months or the program goes belly up in two years or something like that. Or not the program, but the points. But the upside is just so good.

Starting point is 00:46:37 Yeah. Still waiting on that room tour video of the Antiqua property. Where did we leave off? I think Tim were at you. Does United give elevated offers if you open a bank account? So I think, and somebody correct me if they had known something else that's different.

Starting point is 00:46:54 I'm not entirely sure what they mean by a bank account. I'm assuming they mean the United debit card. That's what they mean, or unless they vote United and they meant an actual bank rather than an airline, I'm not sure. I'm guessing the debit card, maybe. Yeah, and I don't, I actually just, weirdly enough, I just opened the debit card today.

Starting point is 00:47:14 So I can't tell you for sure. I don't know why there would be necessarily or why United would. And maybe it would be trying to convert customers that are only debit card customers into credit card customers. So maybe there would be something that comes along the line. But similar to the palladium card, I've only had it for six hours now. So I can't speak to that person. All right. So this is a really cool question that we're going to make an all play.

Starting point is 00:47:43 but we're going to start with Stephen. If all airline miles were dynamic, the same way Delta Sky miles were, for example, around 1 to 1.5 cents per point, would you still play points in miles game, and which cards would you actually find rewarding on spend? Yeah, I mean, I'd definitely still do it because the welcome offers are certainly worth it.

Starting point is 00:48:05 Like, even if you don't necessarily use it for your everyday spend, then welcome offers are certainly good. transferable points of currencies, especially if you could earn like 4x5x or something like that, would still be worth it because then you can still transfer to airlines. And then you have various cards, things like the Alaska Summit card, that earns 3x on foreign transactions. And so if you have a lot of overseas spend,

Starting point is 00:48:31 then that means you're still getting back like 3 to 4.5 cents per point of value if that was the way that the dynamic pricing were. for Amateur awards. So yeah, I think there would still be opportunities out there. It would be a shame if every single airline went to something like that. But then I think you would then have like some of the more niche players who would end up trying to do something a little bit different. So that might open up different opportunities.

Starting point is 00:48:59 So, but yeah, fingers crossed, that doesn't happen across the board. Right. So Tim, any different thoughts there? No. Outside of, I'd like to see, if you're getting a 1.5,000. cents per point average on your Delta Sky Miles Redemption. I'd like you to send me an email and show me, no. And that's why reading the question, I'm wondering if it, if, because partially the, what's,

Starting point is 00:49:23 what's a bummer about Delta Sky Miles being dynamic is that for non-D delta card holders, you're really getting pretty close to one cent per point now on average. And Delta is really trying to, like, that, that is, that seems to be the strategy. So if everything were like close to one cent per point and you're just effectively, if like Delta is doing and I'm not sure if that's the idea of that question, then it would be exactly what Steven said. It's like, well, what's more rewarding? Like, you know, if I'm getting 5x of a one, even if it's only worth 1.1 cents per point, if I'm getting 5x on that versus 2x or if I'm getting 100,000 points on a welcome bonus by spending $2,000, then I would absolutely still be in it. That wouldn't change anything at all. And I mean, in some ways, I think they're, especially domestically, most domestic carriers

Starting point is 00:50:14 kind of are dynamic in some ways to some degree or another. They, even when they have safer pricing. But so I would, I would effectively, though, I would completely agree with Stephen that, you know, doing welcome bonuses and pursuing welcome bonuses will probably always be valuable if they are in a similar, unless they go UK style and it's like, you know, 15,000 points for 10,000 pounds spend or something like that. But it'll, there's just, there's so much value to be had from even doing two or three cards a year that absolutely I would still, I would still be involved. Greg, how about you? Yeah, no, I think I think the answers that other guys gave are great.

Starting point is 00:50:56 I mean, I feel like you guys would do this even if there were like no benefit. Well, I mean, there's a lot more to the game also than. you know, collecting points that you redeem. There's also things like short cuts to elite status that we like to play with. There's maximizing credit card benefits, you know, figuring out how to get the most out of your final hotels and resorts credits and all those other things. And so I think there's always like, you know, even if that happened,

Starting point is 00:51:25 which it's not going to happen, that all of them will go to completely dynamic that way. But even if it did, there's plenty more games to play. And as Stephen said, like, the more, there's always businesses trying to differentiate themselves. And often they do that by providing some kind of outsized value that is possible to get if you engage with that program. And when that happens, that's when we jump in and figure out, you know, what is the best way to engage and get those rewards? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole game, right?

Starting point is 00:52:03 and it's a game, so it's a little bit fun. I mean, you guys don't enjoy going to Lulu Lemon, but you do it a lot. All right. I think we have time for at least one more question. We're going to make this, Tim. Which programs are the best for not showing phantom availability? And can you describe to those who don't know what that is? Yeah, so what did you say?

Starting point is 00:52:27 I said sing it too in the style of fandom of the opera. Oh. I've been an organ, obviously. I would do that, but without an organ, I just feel like it's not even worth doing. That makes sense. So, Phantom Availability is when you see an award that looks like it's available when you search for it. But then when you go to book it, when you go to book it, you find that it's actually not available. And it's usually some sort of message like, we couldn't finalize this booking.

Starting point is 00:52:53 Please go back to your original, you know, go back and do the search again. I had a speak, gosh, this is bringing up all of my, like, flying by the seat of our points. nostalgia. Yeah, because there was, I had some real issues with some Swiss air

Starting point is 00:53:09 fancied. Also, Nick not being at the meeting yet also was reminiscent of anyway. He's about to show up. He's probably in Morocco

Starting point is 00:53:17 right now trying to get through security. Yeah. But yeah, so anyway, I don't, you know, and it's funny,

Starting point is 00:53:23 I don't know about which programs are best. I noticed over the years and it may be different now that Swiss air is brutal in terms of like through multiple

Starting point is 00:53:32 programs, not just like, United or not just through our Canada or something like that, that they often show phantom availability or they're, and I'm assuming it's something because of the way that they do their awards or their partner availability. But, you know, people have talked about all this phantom availability, for instance, with Alaska, specifically on American flights, I believe. I have never encountered that. I've never, I honestly don't encounter a lot of phantom availability in general. So in terms of going to specific rewards programs that seem to show it less or more. I honestly don't have a lot of

Starting point is 00:54:08 data there or a lot of input. Do either of you guys or you, Kerry, have any, any thoughts on that? I feel like Greg. The only thing I'll add, I mean, I have the same as you, Tim, that I haven't seen a lot of it. So I don't, I can't really make a judgment call. But what I have noticed a few times in recent months is United showing like this flight is no longer available for certain partners. And so I think that's United's attempt at not of letting you know that like some phantom of that what came up to them is probably phantom. But that's just, I'm just suspecting that. So like when you do the original like on the initial search screen, like when the search results display. You'll see like a row for it, but it says the slide is no longer available.

Starting point is 00:55:02 Oh, it's interesting. So maybe they're trying to kind of police it a little bit on their side. It's just a guess. Yeah. It's interesting. All right. Well, that brings us essentially to the end of our episode. Let me see if I can remember Nick's little segment here on whatever platform you're watching or listening. Please give us a like and a follow if you're on YouTube and a subscribe. and you can tune in to these the first Wednesday of every month at 9 p.m. to ask your questions. I think that's what he says. I think you're deserving of your own fedora now following that.

Starting point is 00:55:39 You know what? I think Nick owes me a fedora. Well, honestly, I think the thing that you did forget is Nick always talks about how he really loves working with Greg and Stephen and Kerry and Tim and how we're a terrific team and he wouldn't trade us for anything but the world. Yeah, yeah. Well, same. Whatever Nick says most of the time also. Yeah. All right. Well, we will see you guys next time. Please join us next month.

Starting point is 00:56:06 If you love travel, but don't always have time to plan, we've got a podcast for you. It's called Travel in 10. And in every episode, in about 10 minutes, we give you a smart, practical overview of destinations all around the world. We cover what to see, where to stay, where to eat, what actually matters when you're planning out a trip. It's designed for real life. Listen on the way to the airport, in the car, or while you're thinking about your next getaway. So if you want expert advice, zero fluff, and travel inspiration that you can actually use, search for travel in 10 wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can also find us atvoyascape.com. Hi, I'm Mike Siegel, host of the Travel Tales podcast, and I'm a stand-up comedian who's been touring the world for years. And when I'm not traveling for work, I'm traveling for fun.

Starting point is 00:56:54 And when I'm not traveling at all, I'm talking with friends, influencers, expats, and other. people from all walks of life about the thing I'm most passionate about travel. So if you want to hear a fun conversation about travel and maybe even learn a few things along the way, check out the Travel Tales podcast with Mike Siegel wherever you get your podcasts.

Frequent Miler on the Air - What are the worst airline websites? | Ask Us Anything Ep85 | 4-8-26

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