Frequent Miler on the Air - What are you spending on annual fees? | Ask Us Anything Ep79 | 9-3-25

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the Frequent Myler team answers your questions live. All right. Welcome to Frequent Myler's Ask Us Anything live on YouTube. If you want to get stuff like this in your email inbox, you can go to Frequentmyler.com slash subscribe, join our email list. all of our posts in your email inbox each week, join our frequent Miler Insider's Facebook group

Starting point is 00:00:34 to ask questions anytime you'd like and get answers from lots of different folks. But right now, we're going to get to some of the questions that you have been sending us already and those that you send us here are live. So I think Stevens probably got the first one queued up for us, right? Yes. So one of the comments on the Ask Us Anything post asked, as banks tighten up on credit card approvals, I'm sure many have received a denial for lack of recent installment loan information. Has anybody taken out a loan to improve their odds? To me, it makes sense to take out a loan where interest is less than $50 if it means getting approved for even one more card per year with a large bonus. We'd love to hear thoughts and experiences. So, guys,

Starting point is 00:01:14 have any of you ever taken out a loan to improve your credit card, approve? I have not, and I don't remember ever seeing that as a reason I was denied for a credit card either. let me ask you another follow-up question Greg how many things how many ways have you adjusted your behavior based on the reason that you got for a denial how many times have you adjusted your behavior zero why are you for the I don't know a hundredth time explain why ignore the letter folks ignore the letter that they give you that says you were denied for a or B or C for the most part you can ignore now there are some cases where like for instance we know there's a 524 rule with Chase and so if they tell you you had too many new accounts and

Starting point is 00:01:55 the last 24 months for a chase card, we know you're likely not going to get approved for that card. However, when it's like too many inquiries or you need more installment loans or things that are very kind of squishy like that, I don't put any faith at all in those things. I've said a million times before. I remember the day we got an email from someone who said they were denied for too many new accounts and they had opened zero new accounts in 24 months. It's just like the letter gives you a reason to make you go away. If it was that simple, then the credit bureaus would have no fancy algorithm to sell any of the banks. It's complicated and it's probably not something that an individual can explain anyway. So in most cases, I don't put a lot of faith in whatever those

Starting point is 00:02:37 letters say. And I certainly don't take out a loan in order to increase my ads because I know that all these other folks on the Freakumiler team are getting cards all the time and they're not taking out loans. So I don't need a loan in order to get a credit card approval. It's just for whatever reason, whatever complex mix of reasons, they decided they didn't want to give it to me that day. But you could always just call reconsideration, try again. Sometimes you'll still get a know, and that's okay. And I don't soul search too hard for the reasons why. Just give it another shot at some point down the road, six months, 12 months, whatever.

Starting point is 00:03:09 Don't get too good on it. Yeah, it's kind of funny. I think the banks are required to give a reason, but apparently they're not required to give a correct reason. Right. Nobody audits the reason, whether that's true or not. Well, and the fact that reconsideration exists suggests that the reason is not the reason, right? Like, that's not it. Because if that was it, it'd be just cut and dry.

Starting point is 00:03:31 Okay, you don't have any installment loans. You can't get approved. But if there's a chance you can call reconsideration and get somebody to reconsider, then that's clearly not like any kind of hard and fast thing. Yeah. And on the topic of like installment loans themselves, the danger with doing that is that you take out a loan and it shows up on your credit. report and then a bank denies you because they see that you've just taken out a loan and think oh maybe he's not going to be able to pay the credit card back if he's having to take out

Starting point is 00:03:58 this installment loan and so that could potentially actually hurt your chances anyway so yeah i certainly wouldn't bother getting a loan we do have a post by the way with the issuers by bank or the rules by issuer and that's worth checking out because some issuers do have those hard and fast rules like the 524 rule or pretty solid rules in terms of the velocity with which you can apply for new cards. And like those things that have been discovered and like played out over thousands and thousands and thousands of data points are one thing. But like a one off answer you get is totally different. Yeah. All right. We've spoken. Don't get the loan, but do read that post. On to live questions. We're going to start with Greg here.

Starting point is 00:04:41 recently canceled a stay at Kalala Island inside the cancellation window and sadly had 225,000 Hilton honors points taken away. Have any of you ever forgot to cancel an award in time and had to pay the price? Ouch, that's painful. So I don't think I've ever had anything that big happen. I've certainly tried to cancel before within the cancellation window, but I've been able to, the times that that's happened. I've been able to get my points back one way or another. With a number of chains, it is sometimes the case that the rules say you can't cancel within X number of days before the stay, but they don't say you can't change in that number of times. So I've had success many times just calling, moving the date forward, and then canceling right away after doing that

Starting point is 00:05:40 and then getting my points back. With Hilton and these SLH properties, though, I don't think they let you do that within the change window. And I had a situation where I had to cancel within the window. The hotel, I contacted the hotel, and they were fine with letting me cancel it. So I had to get I had to get like Hilton on the line and say the hotel says it's fine and somehow I connected them up and got my points back. Okay. So contacting the chain and connecting them to the specific hotel might be one avenue to try. Yeah. And I'd say that like if you just forgot about it and missed the stay and it was in the past, you might be out of lock there. Maybe not. But you know, it's like you forgot to cancel it within 60 days and now it's, you know, day number 58.

Starting point is 00:06:33 then maybe you'd have a lot of canceling. I also had an SLH property. We had booked in Fiji and on the way to, like, get to Los Angeles to go to Fiji. My son started throwing up. And so we couldn't go. And I was concerned I was going to lose all my points because the same thing. You know, there was a long cancellation window, but exactly like Greg said, I contacted the hotel. I explained in the situation and they were fine with giving me a full refund.

Starting point is 00:06:55 So I got all the points back. Yeah. And no harm in asking. And yeah, if it's a place that you actually still want to stay at, but you just can't make that particular trip. just see if you can push the dates and then just simply not cancel and go ahead in the future. Because, yeah, the property, especially if they have standard award availability for like further dates in the future, that might be something that they're willing to do. I had a situation for our upcoming challenge recently where I had to book a one-night hotel stay

Starting point is 00:07:24 and I messed up with that because I booked it on August 3rd and I thought that I had changed the date to October 3rd, but apparently I'd left it as August 3rd. And so as soon as I submitted it, I realized that it said that I'd booked it for that particular night. And I was like, oh man, what a rookie mistake, especially because we've only got $1,000 to play with in cash and 100,000 points. So like the money and the points are limited. And so I was like, I don't want to have to like cancel that and be out of pocket on that. But Ken contacted the hotel straight away. and explained, look, made this mistake, booked it for tonight, it was actually meant to be for

Starting point is 00:08:08 two months to the day. Is it possible just to move the stay? Even, like, even if it costs less, then I appreciate that I won't necessarily get a refund, but can we move it? And they were absolutely fine with that, and despite it being past the cancellation period. So, yeah, no points wasted on that one. And the stay is still there. I need to call up just to make sure that it is still showing up on their system because on the hotel chain's website it still showed the original date but then we called them a couple of days later and then and they were perfectly fine with that they said that yet that's still showing on our system but I'm still going to be calling before that stay again just to make sure but yeah you might have some luck moral of the story you might

Starting point is 00:08:55 well ask yes no no harm in asking all right Stephen there are good and bad business class products sometimes even within the same carrier, depending on the plane and the route. How do you quickly filter out the bad options when doing award searches and alerts? I personally don't. I mean, like there might be a carrier that I just would simply discount or not bother paying attention to, but for the most part, I'm looking for the best value, both with miles and with, like, taxes and fees. And so if there were some decent options, then sure, I might pick whichever one's best. but for the most part, I'm going for value.

Starting point is 00:09:33 And so if there's something that where it's going to be comfortable enough and it's a decent price, then I'm just going to go for that. I'm not going to like spend too much time worrying about, okay, well, this one's like on a certain type of airbus. This other one's on a different type of airbus. This one's got a slightly nicer suite or something like that. If it's, if the nicer option is available for the same price, sure, I'll go for that. But I'm not someone who is quite as worried about that.

Starting point is 00:10:01 I'm curious if Greg and Nick are. Yeah. What do you guys say? Why don't you go for a snack? I don't do something specific because I'm mostly familiar with which ones are the ones I'm not going to want. So I just ignore them. You know, like Iceland Air, for instance, I know has angled flat seats.

Starting point is 00:10:18 So I just ignore them in search results. I don't like do anything special to filter it out. When it comes to individual carriers, Qatar is one that's really difficult with us because they've got so many different business class seats. And some of them kind of suck. and some of them are really, really nice. And I don't remember. I always have to Google it and look it up.

Starting point is 00:10:38 So I don't have a great tip as to how to do this. So I'm hoping Greg the Frequent Miler has the magical answer here because I just kind of mentally ignore the ones I know I'm not going to like. Yeah. No, I do the same thing as Nick. I see Iceland air or a couple other things that I know I kind of want to avoid. And I'll just sort of mentally filter those out. Then if it's a particularly long flight, so I really care about it being a nicer experience,

Starting point is 00:11:10 then I wait till I see, okay, I found award availability on this airline. I'm not familiar with their business class. And then I'll Google it and see what people say about it. Another quick thing you could do is bring it up on Google flights. and as long as you've selected business class, Google Flights will show you either, like for business class, either like a recliner seat, you want to avoid that, lie flat seat, which is fine, but it might still be that there are better things like a suite with doors, and it'll tell you if it's a suite. And so that gives you a quick hint as to sort of what level of business class you'd be looking for.

Starting point is 00:11:56 I think an important point to make along with that, because I think it's obvious to us, but maybe not obvious to somebody asking, is the reason that like the standard recliner seat, I'll just ignore that entirely, is because that's going to cost the same number of miles in a lot of cases as a lie flat. So if the airline has both, then it's going to be the business class cabin either way. And I don't want to pay the business class price for a recliner seat on a long haul international business class award. I want to get the lie flat if they have that. So that's why we ignore. It's not that I can't sit in a recliner seat.

Starting point is 00:12:28 It's that I don't want to pay the same price for a recliner seat that I could pay for a lifelette seat. Yeah, yeah, that's a good tip. All right, Nick, how many JetBlue Air airports do you have so far? I have 21. The rest of my family has 20 because I did the Duncan flight with Greg to Orlando. My family has not flown into Orlando yet. They will.

Starting point is 00:12:48 We will. I'll fly with them later this year. So we've done 20, which should get us the $1.4 million total in the 3,000. 150,000 points each. I say should because we did have a couple of Etihad awards in there that may or may not count. I expect them to count, but there's a lot of controversy as to whether or not they will. So we'll see. At the very least, we should be getting 150 for 15 because we've definitely booked 15 in ways that it'll qualify. So, but no points yet. The promotion terms say I think two to three or three to four weeks before you'll see the points. And it's a little

Starting point is 00:13:21 confusing as to how that's written. It says something like, let's say it's three to four, three to four weeks after completion. And in my mind, that was three to four weeks after you've completed 15. You'll get the first 150 and then three to four weeks after 20. You'd see the next 200. But a few readers have said that that's not the way JetBlue is interpreting it, that they're saying once you've hit 25, you'll get your points and status within three to four weeks or within three to four weeks after the promotion ends on December 31st. the word on the street that I've heard is that people aren't seeing the points post until they've hit 25 destinations. Now, I say it that way because it's a pretty compressed time period so far. So I'm not really sure that very many people have hit four weeks since they've finished doing 15. There can't be that many that have had that big of a gap since 15. So I'm trying to give it some time to see if they just automatically post. And then I'll worry about reaching out to JetBlue later on about that. In terms of 20 versus 20. 25, 25 gives you the status, of course. Later this year, we already had, like, I have the free stay at Atlanta's booked because of my Caesar's diamond status. So we already were going to fly to NASA. JetBlue flies there. So we're going to pick up NASA and we're going to connect in Orlando on the way. So the rest of the family will pick that up. We've got a flight to Tahiti from Los Angeles. So JetBlue flies to Los Angeles. We were going to fly there anyway. So we're going to fly JetBlue. So we've got those other five that were just with existing trips already. So we will hit all

Starting point is 00:14:51 25 by the end of the year. And if we have to make up a couple because a couple didn't count, we will. But like I said, I have fully expected that they're going to count. So, so that's where we are. And now I'm laying low. That was it. That was our big August push to get the 20 or 21. And then the existing trips will take care of the other five. So I won't actually be finished with 25 until about mid-December. My last trip will be to visit family around Christmas, which makes me a little nervous because that's so close to the end of the window that I want to know before December 31st. if I need another airport or two. So I'm a little nervous about that.

Starting point is 00:15:26 So I may work in another backup flight that I haven't discussed with my wife yet. So we'll see. I don't know if she's listening. So we'll see. Will you continue to update that post that you've been putting out on Sundays? I didn't intend to do another update with that,

Starting point is 00:15:40 but maybe I'll do one more anyway with the fact that we've got the 20. I kind of expected the previous one be the last one because I think there was only one more destination that I hit after that. I can't recall exactly. So I'll have to take a look back at it. and update it. And then eventually I'll report out the full costs of everything, too,

Starting point is 00:15:55 how much exactly we spent on all the flights and everything else. So, so yes, look for an update on that at some point here. Cool. All right. Great. Greg, back to you. If the Chase Inc. train shuts down, what would be the team's strategy to earn more chase points? I mean, you know, there's still the opportunity to earn 5X in some categories and spending on the Sapphire Reserve card to get 4x or 8x for travel depending on how you do it, things like that. Sort of the ways that are intended by the cards is a good option if the opportunity to earn a lot of points through welcome bonuses goes away. I don't know that it would ever go away completely as much as maybe you can't apply as often as we have in the past. So I think just like

Starting point is 00:16:50 everyone else will be applying less often and doing what we can to earn through spend. All right. One more question for you before we move on to Stephen. Is that the complete Delft House collection behind you, or are there more? And explain maybe what that is to those who don't know that. That is my complete Delft House collection. It depends what the meant in that context. So KELAM has probably, I don't know, a hundred,

Starting point is 00:17:20 150, 200, I don't know how many of these little houses. And it's really fun going to their international lounge in Amsterdam because you go up an escalator where the whole wall is glass with all these little houses like on display. And it's a really cool thing to ride up that escalator next to all those little houses. But these are little model, Dutch houses that you get whenever you fly KLM business class. So if you haven't googled it already, Greg Stephen and Nick, guess how many different houses there are. Nick looks like you already googled it.

Starting point is 00:17:56 I already did. So I won't give the answer. But I will say when Greg says little Dutch houses, they are actual replicas of real places, real houses. So like there's like the Anne Frank house is one of them. And like there's an opera house. I got a house that I don't know, like maybe the king lived in or lives in. I can't remember. But anyway, they're all like numbered.

Starting point is 00:18:15 So you know which one you can look up, which house. it is. And it's a real house. What a good idea. So Greg and Steven guesses. Greg, how many do you think there are? I'll say 250. I was going to say 279. Jeez, guys. I would have guessed about the same as them for what it's worth. Wow. Well, you'll be disappointed to find out there's only 105. Oh, man. The first number I threw out earlier was the closest. Yeah, 100 or 100. Yeah, I thought there were way more than that. So yeah. Wow. I was going more just because when you like asked us, it kind of sounded like there was probably going to be like way more. That's what I thought to have.

Starting point is 00:18:56 That's why I'd like boost it up, I guess, because I was figuring out. I guess there's only so many historically significant houses, I guess. I mean, they could start going to just ordinary houses as close. I think there's, I think there's only so many tiny little house builders to build these little houses. Oh, you know what else? For anybody who hasn't done these before, they have a selection and they bring them around on the plane. And usually I think they just let you pick what you want off the tray.

Starting point is 00:19:27 But it's not just the newest ones on the tray. They will have a mixture on the planes of what it is they have. So you might be able to get one of the old ones. Some of them are like, there were fewer of them produced. And so they're kind of collectory items. So, yeah, if you like that kind of thing, then do your research ahead of time and know what you're looking for. I'm guessing Google flights when it says whether or not your business class is lifelight or recline doesn't say, you know. Doesn't say, yeah, unfortunately now. It's going to have to

Starting point is 00:19:54 count on luck. All right. Stephen, am I using award tools wrong? I set alerts and sometimes get emails for them, but the awards always seem to be gone by the time I check them an hour or two later. Not sure what to do differently. My guess is that you're probably going for an in-demand award and that you might not be the only person who's setting these alerts, which means that whoever gets there first is going to be the one to book it. So that's my guess is that if you are actually getting these alerts, then that means that availability has opened up. If availability is not there by the time you come to book, then yeah, it just means there's somebody else's and it's just snap it up before you, most likely. I haven't heard about issues with kind of like false positives

Starting point is 00:20:36 where various award tools will send you an email saying there's availability even if there's not. So I think that's the greatest likelihood. So yeah, I'd say just keep using those tools every so often maybe just run a manual search just in case you get lucky with finding something before the tool has had a chance to alert you. And yeah, I don't have, I mean, I don't tend to use alert tools all that much just because I haven't had much of a need in terms of flights and things like that. I think Greg's probably used it far more, like especially even just when researching for the various award tools posts that he's written. So have you encountered this kind of thing before?

Starting point is 00:21:17 Not exactly. I've seen things like incorrect alerts. Like I got alerted to a Qatar business class flight to Europe through Doha from the US. That was, it claimed it was like 45,000 points. So I was like jumping on to book that thing right away. And of course, it was actually like 245,000 points. So, but no, I haven't encountered that in general when the alert has been correct. I've been able to jump on and get the, you know, get the award.

Starting point is 00:21:50 All right. Anyone else have any tips to add before we move on? Okay, Nick. What are your 524 strategies? Do you always stay under if and when do you go over? How much do you go over and do you bunch the applications or do you spread them out? I haven't been under 524 in years at this point. So no, it's been a long time.

Starting point is 00:22:10 since I've been under, well, I say years. Actually, it's only been, I guess, not quite two years now because I did get a chase card almost two years ago. I'm close. A couple months from now, I'd be under 524 again. At the same time, I would still, I still applied for the, uh, the Atmos Summit card. And so, you know, I, and I didn't get it or at least haven't yet. I need to follow up with reconsideration. But, but anyway, regardless, I wouldn't hold out that. I'm not nearly as married to 524, I think, as some people are. I have most of the chase cards that I really want at this point. And yeah, I would enjoy getting a welcome bonus or two, but I'm also not willing to forego all of the other good welcome bonuses out there. I picked up two Hawaiian cards in one day

Starting point is 00:22:59 earlier this year, even though I knew that was going to put off 524 for a while, because I knew that the 520, the cards that I would want to get when I get under 524 are probably still going to be here next year and the year after that, whereas I didn't expect that the Hawaiian cards would be around forever. And so, and the summit card. Again, it's a fantastic offer. It's a good card and this card I want to have. And so I wouldn't hold out for one or two or three chase cards and miss out on one or two or three really good opportunities now. So I don't apply for every card out there because I wouldn't mind getting under 524, but I'm also not going to close my eyes and, you know, shut my ears and try to not pay attention to the good offers that are out there. Because think of all of the

Starting point is 00:23:43 offers I'd have missed over the last couple of years if I was just solely focused on trying to stay under 524. There's only so many cards that I can get once I'm under 524 anyway. I've got a bunch of the chase cards already. So, so anyway, that's my take on. So your strategy is to keep the cards you like. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had, I have the collection of chase cards that really matter to me at this point. So, you know, I would, yeah, I'd be happy to get a welcome bonus or two, but I'm not going to give up five or six welcome bonuses that I could get to get one or two that would be kind of nice to have. That's my take on the strategy. And is anyone, Greg or Stephen, are either of you drastically different than that? Similar. Yeah, I've, I've, I've been hovering under

Starting point is 00:24:31 524 for a bit now. So I made a concerted effort to get under in order to get a certain chase card. I forget which one it was. It might have been, I don't know, the Hyatt business card or something. I forget why. But anyway, I got under and since then I've been applying for, you know, new business cards regularly and applying for new consumer cards more judiciously and trying to spread those out so that at any given time, if I do go over 524, it won't be that long before I go under again as kind of how I've been approaching it. So far, that hasn't meant me giving up lots of applications that I would have done, especially since sometimes, you know, I manage my wife's and my son's credit card applications

Starting point is 00:25:25 as well. And so if there's a card where I really want the welcome bonus, but it would put me over 524, and for some reason, it's not good enough that I want it to put me over 524, I could throw in the applications for my wife and son and get points that way. Yeah, that helps. All right. Stephen, anything drastically different? No, similar kind of situation. I thought that I was under 524 and that I was at 424 a few months ago, only to realize that a Capital One business credit card was reporting and showing up on my thing on my credit report. And so that meant that I was actually at 524. And so I got declined by Chase because of that, which was really annoying because I completely forgotten about that when looking through my own records.

Starting point is 00:26:12 So I think I'm at like 524, 624. My wife's a similar kind of thing. And so I do want to get under. But yeah, there's the city strata elite that I'm interested in getting for my wife. really interested in the Atmos Summit card because of the 3x on foreign purchases like being in the UK now that that would be quite sweet to have so and I don't have any of the Hawaiian cards personally so I could go for the business one but the personal one has a better welcome offer so yeah I'm trying to weigh up at the moment like what I should go with but I've ended

Starting point is 00:26:47 up procrastinating and not getting anything but I don't feel like I'm getting it very much closer to being under 524, so I really need to just do something, basically. All right, so a little of everything amongst the team. Okay, Greg, which credit travel portals or travel booking portals have you confirmed that will still earn you your hotel points? And then maybe explain a little bit what that means. Okay. Yeah, so normally when you book hotels through an online travel portal, an online booking

Starting point is 00:27:20 agency, you will not earn hotel points for that stay. You will not earn elite credits for that stay, and you may or may not benefit from having elite status during that stay when you book through a third-party portal. However, sometimes the travel portals are being set up so that they first in certain situations they'll set up your reservation such that you will earn points you will earn elite credits and you will get your your elite benefits and the first one like that we were aware of to do that was was American Express with fine hotels and resorts and the hotel collection where they promise that they do that now I could say that we've had lots of individual reports of people being frustrated because in specific situations that didn't work out that way for them. But in general, that's what you should expect when booking through those two platforms. With Chase, with their travel portal, they have it set up so that all of the hotels in The Edit Collection are supposed to work that way, as well as some other ones. And the way you know that the other ones are like that is that in the search

Starting point is 00:28:44 results when you're looking for a hotel, it'll actually tell you in the search results this stay is eligible for loyalty points, something along with those lines. So that's how you know that that's happening there. We don't know. So, oh, another one that's that apparently does it is built. So their built rewards portal is being set up so that most of the bookings, at least over time, they're switching over to a situation where most bookings will be direct with a hotel. instead of going through the sort of online travel agency type of situation. And that'll give you your points that way. I don't know how you can tell, you know, whether it's happening that way or not.

Starting point is 00:29:25 What I've been told is if it has the place to enter your loyalty number, that means you're going to earn the hotel points with built. So if you're looking at a hotel reservation with a Hilton property, for instance, if it has the space for you to enter your Hilton honor's number, then it's set up so that you'll earn the points. And if it doesn't have that, which I've seen it doing searches. So I've seen the difference, even within a single chain like that. If it doesn't have that box, then that means you're not going to earn the hotel points.

Starting point is 00:29:53 But over time, I'm told that they will have eventually, I think, all of the five major chains set up to be able to earn your loyalty points. So Hilton, Marriott, IHG, Accor, and Hyatt. I was trying to think who I forgot. So that should long-term be the case. I think it just takes a while to build that out. Yeah, yeah. And then we still don't really know about City. I'm pretty confident you won't earn your loyalty points when booking through City,

Starting point is 00:30:27 but I don't have any, I haven't heard any data points one way or another yet. Consider that an official prediction? We can write it down. See if you're right. All right. Stephen, I know you weren't part of the coffee break, but I'm pretty sure you know this answer anyway. After listening to last coffee break,

Starting point is 00:30:45 you can freely transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points between spouses after saying it up, correct? I believe that is correct. Yes. So I don't know if there were any particular quirks that Greg and there could gotten into. I don't think that it necessarily even has to be a spouse as such. It just has to be someone in your household.

Starting point is 00:31:05 So if it's just like your partner or potentially even a roommate or something like that, You could do that provided you do live at the same address. Yeah. We talked about moving points from one household member to another. What we didn't mention on the show is that you could then also move them back if you want to later. So it was in the context of, hey, it's a good idea to move all the points to a grandfathered Sapphire Reserve card to lock in the ability to redeem for 1.5 cents per point for. for the next two years.

Starting point is 00:31:43 But, you know, some follow-up questions where, well, what if, what if I do that, move my points there, but want to change my mind about how I want to use them, can I pull them back to the other person? And yeah, you can. And if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, Saturday our how to post about how exactly that's done will go out. So if you subscribe, you should get a notification to that or you'll also see it on the blog. So here's another question I'm going to take.

Starting point is 00:32:08 This person says, how do I ask a question? That's very meta. You did it. I know. I just had to answer it to make this person's reality. So you ask a question, just how you ask that question, by commenting on this video in the feed, in the chat feed. But if you have a question not during an Ask Us Anything Live, we do have a Facebook group, Frequent Miler Insiders. That's really useful for asking questions as well.

Starting point is 00:32:35 Join that group, and you can ask questions to our. Very active community. All right. Nick, what's going on with City and suddenly freezing already approved strata elite accounts? Don't know. That's first I've heard of it. Not something that you've heard?

Starting point is 00:32:51 All right. If we hear something, we'll say something. No. I've not heard anything about that. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up freezing accounts where people have spent excessive amounts on, like the weekend nights on dining or something like that. Like if it's like substantial, substantial amounts.

Starting point is 00:33:10 But other than that, no, I haven't heard any like major data points of that happening. So I'm curious now. So this is our first time hearing that. Okay. Greg, are there times that you buy points? We've answered this question a few times and it asks us anything, but we might as well answer it again. Do you ever buy points?

Starting point is 00:33:29 Yeah. For me, it's very rare because I have plenty of transferable points. And usually that can handle whatever I need. I think the last time I bought points was quite a way. while ago when there was a really good sale on choice points. And this was before city had the ability to transfer one to two to choice. So buying points for less than a half cent each, which was the case at that time, was a really good deal. All right. Any of the rest of you have any drastically different approach? IHG points. I bought quite a few in the past. That was back when we were living

Starting point is 00:34:03 in hotels and Airbnb's though. So I probably won't be buying anywhere near. as many going forward, but our balances are fairly low, and so I might end up picking up some at some point when they go on sale for half a cent each, just because that can be a good option. Back when there were daily getaways deals, I bought choice points a couple of times from them before because that was a pretty good deal at the time, but daily getaways is no more. But other than that, yeah, I don't tend to buy points of miles. All right. Stephen. There are a lot of reports of Chase telling people that the sign-up bonus on Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve is now once per lifetime. Did you hear anything on this? We've heard all sorts. So before the Sapphire Reserve revamp, it sounded like it would be possible to get the welcome offer if you've had it before. And like all of the stuff that we were sent seemed to be very explicit about the fact that there was no issue.

Starting point is 00:35:06 issue with that and that if you had a sapphire preferred you could still end up picking up the sapphire reserve and stuff and that didn't end up being the case so people were applying and then they were being declined specifically or like being or getting a pop-up basically saying that you're not eligible because you've had this card before and have had this welcome offer before you could still proceed and get the card just minus the welcome offer which wasn't what we had been advised, but yeah, that seems to be the way that Chase has decided to implement it, even though it wasn't what they said that they'd implement originally. All right.

Starting point is 00:35:45 So this next question is for Greg and Nick. We'll start with Nick. Have Gregor Nick changed their evaluations of Alaska Atmos versus A.A. Miles after the removal announcement of SQ, what is that? Singapore and Latam Awards. So our personal valuations of them or our reasonable, so our reasonable redemption values are based on data that we've had access to regarding the average value of points used and removing those two partners is probably not going to make a measurable effect on what the reasonable redemption value shows for Alaska Miles. Personally, I'm not particularly concerned about the loss of Singapore because I hadn't been using Alaska Miles for Singapore flights. If you have, I could totally understand how that would be a major devaluation for you because they do or have had access to more Singapore award space than most other partners, save for Air Canada, I suppose.

Starting point is 00:36:46 But that wasn't my use case for Alaska Miles for the most part. So that didn't necessarily bother me. I'm very bummed about Latam because there aren't very many great ways to get to South America in liflatte business class using points. And this was a really good one. so I'm very disappointed. I'm also not shocked, though, because, you know, Delta owns a stake in Latam. And I think we all kind of thought for a long time that Latam and Alaska wouldn't stay partners forever. And we've been kind of surprised that it continued on. And so I'm not shocked that it's happened. And it's a bummer and it stinks. And I was planning to use it. And probably I'm not going to be now because I don't think we're going to take the trip that we had originally booked. So, so I'm very bummed. But that said, I've only used Alaska miles to fly a lot of time once during our party of five challenge. And I have many, many more times already booked awards to and from Europe and to and from Asia and other carriers with Alaska miles. So my main use cases are those.

Starting point is 00:37:48 And my main use case at this point is really flights to and from Europe. And so it doesn't really affect how I look at the prospect of earning Alaska miles very much. I think it's a bummer, but it's not like not something that I'm like, oh, don't want Alaska Miles anymore. I still want Alaska Miles. So your opinion has not changed since that podcast episode. No, I mean, I'm still bummed. Yeah, I'm bummed that they're losing them, but no, my opinion about, my excitement about Alaska Miles has not waned in any meaningful way. And Greg, how about you? Yeah, my reaction is pretty much exactly the same as next. All right. Small potatoes. You guys are unconcerned about that.

Starting point is 00:38:26 I don't know. That's the way to say it. It's a bummer that we're losing it. it, but it doesn't change the fact that we are bullish on Alaska Miles for other things. And those other things dominated how we were using Alaska Miles anyway, personally. So, you know, so we're not going to look at Alaska Miles and say, wow, for us, they're worth less than before because it's not making material difference when we haven't been booking Latam. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Whereas I have booked Air Tedi Nui this year.

Starting point is 00:39:01 I booked Condor this year. Greg's booked American Airlines a few times this year. If they lost all of those partners too, then we'd obviously have a different perspective. Yeah. All right. Stephen, we'll start with you and we'll make this in everyone question. Y'all have flown some epic flights to Asia. What's your all-time favorite way to get to Asia?

Starting point is 00:39:20 Looking to book a trip to Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Most epic ways to get to Asia, Stephen? I mean, based on what I've experienced my sense, I mean, A&A first class was pretty nice. I would love to fly EVA Air or Eva Air, I forget which, what the pronunciation of that one is, in business class because that was fantastic. Flew them back in 2017. So it's been eight years and it was just an absolutely superb experience.

Starting point is 00:39:51 The food was fantastic. The service was great. It was like a nice comfortable seat. there was just absolutely nothing wrong that we experienced from what I can remember. So, yeah, I would love to fly EVA again. All right. Nick, any different suggestion? Favorite way to Asian? You know, the vast majority of Asian carriers are really nice. So it's really kind of splitting hairs. Do I have a favorite? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:40:17 I mean, they're all really Japan Airlines first class is great. Annie first class is great. Singapore Airlines first class is great. I mean, I don't think, I think the one that's available when I want to take my trip is my favorite option. Because they're all kind of hard to get. That's a really good answer. I was having a hard time thinking how to answer this. But yeah, that's a good way to say it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:40:40 All right. Nick, what exactly does the Chase Affair Reserve authorized user get besides their own priority pass access? Let's see. Get your own access to Sapphire lounges, I would assume. I, you know, I don't know, to be honest with you, for sure, because we've never added each other's, or like my wife has the Sapphire Reserve in our household, and she's never added me as an authorized user. So I don't know for sure, but I would assume you would get access to, like, getting national executive elite status, not executive elite, but executive status with national car rentals. I don't know. What else?

Starting point is 00:41:14 Greg, what am I missing? Yeah, I'm not even sure if you would get those things since you, I think you'd have the same credit card number. I don't know if they would let you do multiples. Yeah, yeah, it's unclear to me that there's anything else other than that that person can, you know, charge travel and things and get the same protections that you would get. But, yeah, to me, that's a way too expensive authorized user fee to even consider. I can't see paying for an authorized user for the new salary. fire reserve because it's what it's $195 I think if I'm remembering right it's something ridiculous yeah per per authorized user and that's I mean that's more you know than than most cards let

Starting point is 00:42:04 alone right most authorized user cards yeah yeah all right Greg any tips for improving approval odds with city recently denied for the AA personal card I do have a Costco card that I have not been using, but other than that, no city cards. Thanks. I can't think of any specific, you know, information I have that helps get approved with city. Do you guys have anything? I mean, city's like fairly finicky. I remember, I guess it was two, maybe three years ago. City increased the welcome offer on what's now the strata premiere and so many people applied for it and so many people just got flat out declined that they've got some really strict and or weird approval rules, it seems.

Starting point is 00:42:53 And so I don't know if that's still the case because I'm not able to get city cards anymore. But I guess maybe try putting some spend on your Costco card just in case that's a little bit like with Amex where if you put spend, then you might get out of pop-up jail. Maybe it's like that was city, but I've never heard an actual data point where someone's actually done that in order to be able to get approved with them. Stephen, what is your holy grail of first class suite? Emirates, Eddie Hadd, J.A.L. We'll make this an everyone question, and we'll start with you, Stephen.

Starting point is 00:43:24 You're asking the person who's probably more an economy class. I did really enjoy Emirates first class when we did fly them, although we didn't end up getting the full experience because it wasn't the plane that has the share with it. Plus, we booked it like an hour beforehand, literally at the very last minute. And so they didn't end up having the full first-class catering on board. So we weren't able to have any caviar on that particular flight. But it was still a fantastic experience nonetheless. I think Greg and Nick probably are much better able to compare some of their experiences

Starting point is 00:44:03 as to which one was their favorite overall. All right. Holy grail, Nick. Oh, I was hoping you were going to go with Craig first. I think it's hard because the experiences with each one was different. like, you know, I've said before, say again, flying A&A first class with the rest of the frequent my other team was such a unique experience. Like, when are you ever going to get to fly something like that with four friends? It just doesn't happen. It was one of those once in a lifetime kind of

Starting point is 00:44:31 things. So that's super memorable because I never have had and likely never will have that exact experience again. So, so A&A first class kind of holds a special place for that. But then, like, Singapore first class, I think if I had to pick one of my one favorite, I think the combination of food and service on Singapore has probably been my favorite. And I haven't flown their newer, fancier first class product even. And I really liked it. But that's tough because we're really splitting hairs over excellent first class products. Most of the airlines of flying international first class cabin do it well.

Starting point is 00:45:10 And so I think it's hard to, hard for me to pick one over the others. So I'll tell you Singapore today, but if I get a, if I find award availability in Japan Airlines first class tomorrow, that might be my new favorite. I mean, the salon champagne that they served was fantastic. It really is. How about you, Greg? Yeah, so I interpreted the question a little bit differently. I thought they're asking not really what was my favorite that I've flown, but what, you know,

Starting point is 00:45:37 what's the one to aspire to the most? And I think in my book, it would be, it'd be Edihad First, the residence. So what that is, is we've talked a lot about Eddihad First apartments, where you have a whole kind of room to yourself, and there is a shower on board, which is separate that's shared with the other Eddihad First passengers. But on that same flight, there is a two-room suite. called The Residence, which has like a living room, a big, like, I think queen-sized bed or double bed, and a bathroom, private bathroom with a shower.

Starting point is 00:46:23 And what they typically do these days is not sell that suite, but rather offer it as an upgrade, a paid upgrade from Eddie Had First Apartments. So what I would look to do, and I hope to do someday, is, you know, book Eddie's had first apartments and if I don't get the upgrade you know it's an awesome experience as it is so it wouldn't be horrible but but you know hopefully get the opportunity to upgrade to the residents and try that out that's that I think that would be kind of the pinnacle of things to try we had a um free insider's group member who reported that they got a free upgrade they don't know why they were picked but they got a free upgrade to the residents and so that was super sweet for them

Starting point is 00:47:09 I guess nobody had paid for the upgrade, so they just gave it to one of the passengers. Okay, Nick, I'm curious if you continued on with casino status matching in Atlantic City. I still have Bali's superstar, and I'm now eligible to rematch to Hard Rock Ocean. Curious if you've done so yet. Great question.

Starting point is 00:47:30 I still have the Bali superstar also, and I intended to match that back around. I haven't because now Ocean has, well, first of all, they instituted the requirement to earn a certain number of tier credits, 250 tier credits in order to qualify for the free cruise. And so that requires some gambling. I was still for the sake of science interested in going to do that and see how I could do that with as limited downside as possible. But they changed their cruise partner to Virgin Voyages. And unfortunately, that doesn't interest me because we travel with our kids and Virgin Voyages as

Starting point is 00:48:05 adults only. So I wasn't interested then in going down and gambling enough to earn the 250 tier credits in order to get a cruise that I wasn't going to take anyway. Virgin Voyages had had numerous match opportunities where you could get a free cruise for a while over the last couple of years and we haven't done it because we're not taking one of those cruises. So it's not as big of a carrot and I believe you also, they may have even increased the number of tier credits you have to earn and you have to earn those for the complimentary stay in Las Vegas also. So I haven't felt a sense of urgency to go do it again. The other reason that I haven't felt a sense of urgency is because Caesar's new credit card

Starting point is 00:48:46 now offers the ability to spend to diamond status. And so the reason why the whole merry-go-round thing was important to get on and stay on this year is because there was no easy way to get Caesar's diamond anymore. Now, there is again because I say easy. It's not really easy because there is a high spending requirement to, earn enough tier credits for diamond but if you have the capacity to do a lot of spend it's possible to earn diamond status with the caesar's visa signature card and and that's kind of appealing the card is a pretty good deal it's $150 a year is the annual fee and you get a free one-night stay each

Starting point is 00:49:20 year after anniversary up to $300 you get $100 dining credit so if you go to Vegas or Atlantic City with any kind of regularity that card is relatively appealing and again especially if you have the capacity for really high spend. So I'm less concerned with staying on the merry go around now because I know I could spend my way to diamond status on a Caesar's card if I really decided I wanted it again. And right now, I'm just not interested in that particular cruise opportunity. So it hasn't been a focal point for me now. All right. We're going to do, I think, one more question. And this could be a long topic if we wanted it to be, but we're going to keep it short and keep it to

Starting point is 00:50:00 everybody. So I'm going to simplify the question a bit. Apologies to the original asker. What are you spending on annual fees? I love the game and I do the same, but I'm curious what your fees are looking like. So I'm going to say, let's not think about, oh, does that count as an expense? Because I'd be paying for that. You know, okay, just your quick estimate of how many, what's the total cost of your annual fees each year, roughly, starting with Gray. quick estimate I have no idea too many too much I would I would guess I mean it's got to be thousands of dollars because I have quite a few ultra premium cards in my collection right now and with each one I try to you know make sure I'm getting if I keep it

Starting point is 00:50:48 after the second year after getting the welcome bonus I try to make sure I'm getting at least as much value hopefully more than the annual fee from it each year but just like Nick posted recently, I need to go through my stuff and start pairing down. It's just too much. Yeah. Yeah. Steven, so we've got multi-thousins from Greg somehow, but not that you're glad about it. That's a good summary. And Stephen, how about you? Same, yeah. Like, we've been pairing down how many business platyms and things we've had over the last couple of years from all the no-life, no lifetime language offers. Yeah, it's kind of a point. painful amount when I'm adding them up. And so I don't know exactly, but it's definitely in the

Starting point is 00:51:34 thousands and it's not the low thousands. All right. Stephen, similar multi-thousins and not very glad about it. Nick. You know, I think you're, but I want to clarify that you're asking a group of people whose jobs are to write about credit cards. And so probably, A, we have more than we would if we didn't write about them. And then B, you're also asking people who are pretty hyper-focused on eking all of the value out of these things. And so, you know, we're more likely, I think, to have a whole bunch of them, at least short-term. And so, you know, to quote a number is kind of tough because you quote a number and you say, well, yeah, but I would close this one where I earned a welcome bonus on this that more than canceled out the cost of admissions. So I don't have an exact

Starting point is 00:52:21 figure either. I know in the post that I wrote recently, I wrote about how just an ultra-premium cards I was, I don't know, north of $5,000. And then when you add the rest of the cards in, it's more. So it adds up. But, you know, for us, in part, it's like just part of the cost of doing business. No disclaimers allowed. No disclaimer. The first step is to it. First step is to admit you have a problem. I think we're all there. We're all there. Do as we say, not as we do. Yes. So Nick's summary is multi-thousands, but don't do that. Yeah, I mean, most people don't need to do that. Most people aren't going to go as crazy about it as we do.

Starting point is 00:52:59 Interesting to see if it will be the same next year. It seems like there were a lot of ultra-premium cards. Well, by next year, we could be in multi-thousins with just one card, probably, the way Daniel fees are going. That's right. That's true. I think it's unlikely any of us is going to be under multiple thousands anytime soon. Yeah, so we're all going to be in that boat no matter what, probably for a long time. Yeah, yeah, but don't do as we say.

Starting point is 00:53:27 Or don't do as we do, do as we say. All right, well, thanks for joining us, everybody. We do these once a month, the first Wednesday of every month at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. Thanks for joining. We'll see you next time. Hi, I'm David Brody, co-host of the Travel and Tech. podcast. Together, myself and my co-host, Tim Johnson, have traveled to over 150 countries around the world and all seven continents. Now, we're sharing our favorite places, some of our best

Starting point is 00:54:00 tips and experiences from all around the world in just 10 minutes on Travelin 10. Join us at voyescape.com. I'm Pauline Fromer. I've spent most of my life writing, talking, and thinking about travel, not just where to go, but how to go in a way that's meaningful. On the Frommers Travel Show, we explore the trends, people, and ideas shaping how we see the world. If you care about the why, as much as the where, I hope you'll join me. You can find new episodes weekly at voyescape.com.

Frequent Miler on the Air - What are you spending on annual fees? | Ask Us Anything Ep79 | 9-3-25

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