Frequent Miler on the Air - What as the 2022 Deal of the Year? | Ep183 | 12-31-22

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

We regularly report on great deals, but this week we discuss the cream of the crop as we try to narrow down the best of the best deals of 2022.  Join our email list so you don't miss great deals like these: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ 00:50 Giant Mailbag https://frequentmiler.com/frequent-milers-2022-state-of-the-business-report/ 3:55 What crazy thing...did Southwest Airlines do this week? https://frequentmiler.com/southwest-having-operational-meltdown-no-end-in-sight/ 11:10 Mattress running the numbers: Caution on those end-of-year mattress runs 15:45 Awards we booked this week: Alaska one-way with a stopover on a domestic award 18:50 Main Event: What is the 2022 Deal of the Year? 19:40 Amex Offer for 6% back at Belk https://frequentmiler.com/lucrative-belk-amex-offer-make-almost-200-profit-card-linked-portal-earnings-credit-card-rewards/ 25:16 Capital One Shopping offers for 24-30% back https://frequentmiler.com/digging-the-capital-one-shopping-browser-extension/ 29:25 Brussels to New York in business class for 25.5K Avianca LifeMiles https://frequentmiler.com/25-5k-business-class-brussels-to-new-york/ 30:40 Amex Business Platinum No Lifetime Language offers https://frequentmiler.com/more-amex-nll-offers-170k-business-platinum-and-100k-business-gold-targeted/ https://frequentmiler.com/targeted-earn-200000-membership-rewards-when-getting-amex-business-platinum-business-checking/ 33:45 Amex Business Checking 60K offer https://frequentmiler.com/amex-business-checking-cash-out-membership-rewards-points-without-a-schwab-card/ 36:15 Cruise line status matches https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-cruise-for-next-to-nothing/ 39:58 Ritz-Carlton Visa becomes more valuable for the same annual fee https://frequentmiler.com/yes-the-ritz-card-is-now-the-best-value-marriott-card/ 42:38 United offered business class to many parts of the world for 60K miles one-way https://frequentmiler.com/united-offering-60k-biz-class-awards-to-many-locations-worldwide-4-seats-in-many-cases/ 47:00 Narrowing it down and crowning a winner 1:04:09 What are your elite status plans for 2023? Music credit: Annie Yoder

let's get into the giant mailbag what crazy thing did city this week it's time for mattress running the numbers ready for the main event the main event frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event what was the 2022 deal of the year we saw some great deals this year i mean we did We do every year. Truth be told, we always find some pretty good deals each year. There are always some great things going on. This year was really good. I mean, last

year, arguably even better, but there was some really great stuff happening. So, plenty to talk about. We had more nominees than we could deal with. So, we'll get into what we're going to do about that when we get to the main event section of the show. First, of course, we have the giant mailbag, but I am all the way on the other side of the world in New Zealand,

and the giant mailbag did not come with me. So luckily- The postman only delivers domestically, it turns out. Well, you know, he has delivered. I don't know if you're right. He delivered to the Maldives that time. True. So, you know, he does deliver to a lot of places, but for whatever reason, didn't make its way to Down Under. But it did get routed to Nick.

So Nick is ready with with his giant mail. What do you have from the giant mail bag, Nick? I have a giant mail double header of sorts. So the first piece of giant mail came from a post that Greg published this week. It was the 2022 Frequent Miler sort of the state of the business post, which I read and enjoyed. And I enjoyed even more reading the comments on that post. I'm sure you took a look at those too. There were lots and lots of great comments. And it's always great to get compliments from readers who enjoy what we do.

But I wanted to pick just one of them out. There were lots of great ones. But T. Jones wrote and said, Frequent Miler is the single greatest resource for learning and growing knowledge about miles and points. For that, I'll always be grateful to the folks here who continue to provide content that is consistently insightful and entertaining thank you for the work you do and the knowledge that you share thank you also to all the helpful folks who are part of the frequent miler insiders facebook group it's a great place to bounce around ideas and gain new perspectives frequent miler

isn't just a blog podcast podcast, or other social media endeavor. It's a community, one that provides valuable, actionable information while being maintained with the utmost integrity. Congratulations on your continued success. I loved what T. Jones had to say there because that is absolutely correct. Yeah, I did too. What a great comment. And I have to say, and you said this too, that it wasn't just his comment that was great. I mean, there's so many terrific comments in response to that post that it really kind of made my year. Just reading through all those comments was so much fun. It certainly did. It's so great to see how much we're appreciated. The T Jones pointed to not just us in the blog, but the community in general, because

I think that that is incredibly true and valuable. I find that our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group is a great community. I love the fact that things generally stay on topic. People are, for the most part, nice. Like, you know, you probably should be to each other. And, and so I think it's a really useful resource to have. And, and that's really cool that it's resonating. Cause I think that we want frequent miler to be all of those things and to hear that as a piece of feedback for feedback from a reader, I thought was fantastic that

you get it, so to speak. All right. Sorry. So, you know, we'll stick with that for the mailbag for this week. So I think that was good. And if you haven't had a chance to read it, I encourage you to go ahead and read that post. All right. So that was the giant mailbag. So next, we got to talk about what crazy thing and we couldn't possibly this week talk about what crazy thing without talking about what crazy thing did Southwest do or not do, I guess, like, because they didn't really fly anywhere this week, right? I mean, oh, my goodness. What a crazy, crazy week for Southwest Airlines. I mean, if you've been living under a rock, and you have been celebrating the holidays and not reading the news, and you didn't have to fly anywhere, well, then congratulations. But of course, this week, Southwest basically

totally melted down. There was, of course, the big storm last weekend, and then it just threw them off track. But it clearly wasn't just the storm. I don't know what all happened, but it seems that they had some software issues, staffing issue, something or other where they were canceling like 60 to 70 percent of their flights each day and then delaying like another 20 or 30%. So very, very few Southwest flights taking off the schedule of mine got canceled. Lots and lots of other people's got canceled. I was really lucky. Save for me was a pretty easy road trip.

But there were a lot of people that got stranded far away, unable to connect with family. I heard from a reader who was stuck in Honolulu waiting for a flight to Maui. They had a reservation at the Hyatt in Hana. And of course, Southwest flies those inter-island flights, but didn't fly them like they didn't fly anything else this week. And I just can't imagine being in a situation where you've got some expensive hotel reservation that's probably non-refundable.

And my goodness, what crazy, crazy craziness from Southwest, huh? Oh, totally insane. Of course, I don't know. I might have beaten the craziness. I think you did. I think you did, because we got to talk about what crazy things a double header this week. What crazy thing did Greg the Frequent Miler do? Greg the Frequent Miler decided to drive into the eye of the storm that broke Southwest Airlines. What did you do, Greg? And why? toddler son, and we had for a long time planned to go visit her for Christmas weekend. So, you know, as the storm was approaching and the weather people were forecasting doom and gloom, what we decided was we'll just drive in a little bit earlier than we had planned because we're staying in a B&B that's just 10 or 15 minutes down the road from my niece. So surely as long as we could get to that B&B, we'll be able to get the short way down the road to see my niece and her family.

And so we did that. We got in on Thursday before Christmas. No problem at all. And you're losing Buffalo right now. It's like 10 or 15 minutes away in a snowstorm. Ah, cute. Well, I have to say what we had thought about staying at the Reichardt house, which is a Marriott property so that I could get my last three Marriott nights of the year. I ended we ended up not doing that because that's even further down the road that's more like half an hour down the road and we thought no weather might be bad that won't be good um anyway uh you know well you know what happened we we got there we we actually saw them on thursday no problem went out to dinner and then

it started snowing a bit that night the next morning um we couldn't even like open the door to the to the end to get out the snow had started piling up so high it was a complete whiteout you couldn't see anything and it was like an it was like a a hallmark movie or maybe or maybe an agatha christie uh Christie mystery because we're at this little inn. One of those you want to be stuck in and one of them you probably don't want to be stuck in. Right, right, right. Well, there weren't any murders,

so I guess it was more of the former. So people kept showing up that were stuck down the road and had nowhere to go. They hadn't originally booked this inn, but the innkeeper actually had a big truck. down the road and you know i'd know where to go they hadn't originally booked this in but uh the innkeeper actually had a you know a big truck he went and picked up a family that was literally stuck in a ditch on the side of the road about a mile away and and brought them in and um so it was actually really fun we got to know that all these different families there There was this young woman who had been planning to drive to Michigan,

actually, from Rochester and made her way barely to this inn. And so, you know, it was just like all these different characters and all of us stuck at the inn. And the innkeeper was all alone. No staff were able to make it to the, to the end, but he was, he managed to do everything. He, he made, uh, all the meals and, and, uh, helped, uh, you know, as I said, help rescue some people. Um, we, we all went out to help, uh, as, as the storm was abating, um, one family tried to get out on their in their jeep and we all had to get out and help unstuck her uh her jeep it was it was really bad um yeah i mean there was a lot of snow and a lot of wind in buffalo i mean my god the snow drafts just looked huge they're like it was i literally uh helped out twice by digging out the front door just so that the door can be opened up.

Two different times it was that high. Did you have to climb out of the window? I mean, this is intense. So what happened was the first time there was another door that you could get out because there was a roof over it so you could get out that way. And we were able to dig it out that way. And the second time I was able to just push it just enough to kind of squeeze out squeeze out exactly and um yeah so it was survived to tell the tale so survived although it was getting scary because so on sunday was the day we were supposed to drive back to michigan and we had a flight to new ze Zealand on Tuesday. And it was very clear we were not

driving home on Sunday. On Monday, it was still looking dicey, but we just drove really slowly into Canada. And luckily we all had our passports with us to get into Canada. Canada was fine. Like one side of the border was a complete disaster the other side was like nothing had happened at all yeah and we just zoomed through once we got into canada nice nice yeah that's a it's kind of a cheat code they're going through canada i suppose because you don't get the lake effect snow on that side of the lake i guess right exactly that's exactly what happened yeah yeah yeah nice well done well done all right so southwest was crazy this week greg was crazier but it looks like things are probably back on

track or at least will be by the time uh people hear this and greg you made it to new zealand so congratulations to new zealand that was that was our main objective besides seeing the family of course right right and we all stay safe luckily luckily. We won't tell that. Very good. All right. So, all right. That was crazy, crazy, craziness. Now, let's talk about Mattress Running the Numbers. So, this week's Mattress Running the Numbers, we're not going to actually run any numbers. I'm just going to do a quick PSA for those of you who next year, because, of course, it's already the 31st by the time this publishes. So next year, when you find yourself just a night or two away from requalifying, don't do what Nick did. Because I booked a property. So I'm visiting family in Myrtle Beach, and there are a couple of pretty cheap Marriott properties here.

So I booked one of them, and we decided to go out to dinner nearby that property. So I was like, okay, great. I'll go and I'll physically check in. I need two more nights. End of the year, I booked the 28th to the 30th thinking that, okay, that's great. It will all post and everything and there's a day to spare, blah, blah, blah. So we go out to dinner and when we get to dinner, I realized, oh my goodness, I left my wallet back at my parents' house. So of course, didn't have my wallet, can't check in then because I'm not going to have any ID or card or anything. So, so I said, you know, it's okay. We'll get back home and I'll just call the hotel and tell them, you know, I'll be there in the

morning, hold the room. You know, I already checked in on the app. It'll be fine. So get back, explain to the desk agent, a call and explain, hey, I'm going to be there in the morning. I want to keep the room. I don't want to get checked out. I don't want to get marked a no show. But, you know, I will be there because I figured in the morning I would drive over early and take care of all this. Right. No big deal.

And he understood what I was looking to do and said, OK, yeah, that's fine. We'll hold it. And of course, they didn't. I woke up in the morning and the reservation is not there in the app anymore. And I'm like, oh, no, it's not in the app. It's not under current. It's not under past. It was there before.

It's not anymore. And of course, you know, the short version of the story is that they canceled it as a no show. So even even after talking to somebody and thinking that it was all set and it was OK, I was legitimately planning to go to the hotel in the morning. So I figured, oh, this will probably be okay. But I should have just driven back out to where the hotel was. It was like 20 minutes away. So I was trying to not go back out and do that late at night. But I should have just physically gone to the property and checked in. That was my own laziness that got me there. So of so of course, I hopefully have it worked out,

hopefully, because I went and found out it was canceled. I went to the property in person today, booked a new reservation, checked in in person. But of course, now it's, you know, nighttime as we record this, the day that I checked in and in the app, it still shows me the option to check in like I'm not checked in. So I'm a little nervous about that again right now as we record this. So don't wait until the last two or three days of the year. If you're a couple nights short, take care of this sooner rather than later. And for all the people out there who are always like, well, can I just book something and check in in the app and it'll all post? Okay. You might think so, but it's not always that way. Even when you've spoken to somebody at the property and you think it's going to be okay, it's not necessarily okay.

So find someplace nearby and go and physically check in if it's really close. Because now if it gets messed up tonight, I'm not going to have enough time left this year to make platinum status. And that's not a position you want to be sitting in. It's kind of interesting. It's unclear to me what checking in in the app actually does ever. It doesn't seem to have any positive effect that I can tell. Sometimes it'll assign a room, right? Because you can get a mobile key and then it'll assign a room. And I think if that happens, you're good to go. But I requested the mobile key and it said the property is working on it forever.

It just never got issued. Right. So I think maybe if it had issued the mobile key maybe that would have meant i was good but then of course housekeeping still might have checked me out in the morning if you know if they saw the room wasn't used so so anyway moral of the story don't do that all right so next time yeah i feel like every couple years nick nick has a um don't do this at the end of the year type of story. Right. Like, was it a Dell purchase?

Oh, yeah. Like, well, it was a United purchase on the 31st. Yeah, they posted with a January 1st date. It was the weirdest thing. It was a United Club Pass, and it posted with a December 31st expiration. But for whatever reason, they put the charge through a day later. So, yeah, anyway, moral of the story is don't procrastinate right i mean that's really what we're saying right don't procrastinate stop it right right i'm gonna i am going to stop procrastinating next month next next month all right get right on that just hold off for now all right well why do

now what we can do later next month why do now what you could put off till later right exactly so okay all right so let's talk about awards we booked this week. You booked something this week that was interesting. Did you not? I did. I mean, technically, I booked it last week. But the I had a I have a trip to Seattle, followed by a trip to California coming up. And I sort of remembered at the last moment, I was looking at flight options that Alaska Airlines mileage plan is a fantastic way to book

this type of thing because I could book a stopover on a one-way award. And so that's what I did. I booked a single one-way flight that flies from Detroit to Seattle. And then two days later, Seattle to Monterey, California, which is where we're flying into. And I just want to point out that it doesn't cost any more. So adding that second leg to fly to Monterey didn't cost any more than what the original flight would have been just to Seattle. And so, you know, what a great deal that free stopovers on one way awards is. It's really terrific. And in this case i i sprung for first class because you know hey 25k one way and get these two flights out of it i'm happy to do that but i could have also done i think it was 12 500 miles or something like that if i wanted to um do economy and and

either way great deal it's it's nothing like you know it's not gonna make deal of the year um type of uh conversation but it's one of those things that's that's actually you know relevant to many like you know normal type of travels and and uh i don't know how often people think about it and it's not something that comes up and you know very often for me to remember it. And so I was glad I did. Yeah, that's super useful because there's lots of times where you could probably tack on a second piece of the trip, a second leg, you know, for no more miles. And for anybody out there saying, well, Aeroplan allows a stopover on a one-way award for 5,000 additional miles.

The aha gotcha there is that Aeroplan does not allow a stopover in North America. So you can't do that with an Aeroplan award, but you can with an Alaska Mileage Plan award. There's no stopovers on American Airlines awards. Southwest and JetBlue have revenue-based programs. So I think this is the only, I think, domestic program that allows a stopover on a one-way award. And I don't think there are any foreign programs that allow a stopover on a one-way award within North America. I don't, at least not that I know of, not that come to mind. So this is a really unique feature of mileage plan.

Yeah. It'll be interesting to see maybe Air France will allow it now that they allow them. I think it's only on their own metal though right now. So far. Yeah. Maybe we'll extend that to Delta at some point. Yeah. For now. Yeah. So far, yeah. Maybe they'll extend that to Delta at some point. Yeah, that'd be great.

But for now, yeah, that's the deal. All right. That brings us, I think, to the main event. It's time to talk about 2022 deal of the year. What is it? What is the deal of the year? So we had a list of, I don't know, probably 15 or 16 candidates. And we decided that's too many to talk through for the show. So we weeded it down to eight candidates. And what we're going to do,

we'll talk briefly about each one. And then Nick and I are each going to pick two of our favorites. And from there, we're going to debate and narrow it down to the single deal of the year winner yeah we're going to pick we're going to pick a single winner today all right you ready to go i am let's let's go through the list so why don't you talk about this first one belk six 6% Amex offer? That doesn't sound like a deal of the year. What's going on there? Well, Steven Pepper wrote a post, a very interesting post about an Amex offer for Belk.

And the Amex offer is one of these percentage back ones, which I would always be skeptical of. Anytime I see those percentage back ones, I'm like, oh, but then I got to click through Amex's link and I can't stack that with a shopping portal or whatever the case might be. So I didn't think it was a great deal until I read Steven's post. And what made this one a great deal is that it was 6% back that was whether you bought in-store or online, it was 6% back up to $250 back.

So that's up to a little over $4,000 in spend. Now you're probably saying, but why would I care about Belk? Well, you might care about Belk because they're a department store and they sell a lot of stuff you might want. But even if they don't sell stuff that you want, you might be surprised to find out that this department store has a gift card rack. And in fact, on that gift card rack, they have Visa and MasterCard gift cards. Now, I got to say, my mom is a regular Belk shopper. My parents go to Belk so often that I went to a Belk with my father today, and the cashier knew him by first name on a first name basis. He knew the cashier like

they go to Belk all the time. And he told me, I don't think they have gift cards. I've never seen one in Belk. Wouldn't you know it right by the register that they go to often enough, there's the gift card rack. So even somebody who shops there regularly hasn't noticed it. I imagine there are a lot of people out there that wouldn't know that Belk has those. So that's already a great deal. But what made it even better is that Stephen reported that there are card-linked programs where you could stack on more back at Belk. So you're talking about, for instance, Rakuten card linked offers, which the terms say you shouldn't use those on gift cards. So YMMV, your mileage may vary as to whether or not that's all going to work out and how hard you go and blah, blah, blah. But

at the time you had written about it, I think the payout at Belk was 10 or 15x. So you're talking about that on top of 6% on gift cards. I mean, that's a pretty good deal. So now of course it was capped. You only got it to a certain percentage, but I want to mention this for a few reasons for a deal of the year candidate. Number one, because Hey, it was a great deal. Even at only 4%, which is what I saw in Rackington today, that's 10% back on up to $4,000 in gift cards. Hello. That's a great deal, right? So for that piece of it, it's good. But I also wanted to mention it for a few other reasons, because who knew that Belk had these gift cards? I'm sure that some Belk shoppers out there screaming at their podcast

player right now saying, I knew and I didn't want anybody to know. I'm sorry. Words out. So not very many people would have known. But the point is here, you probably don't live where there's a Belk because there's only so many. And I say you, whoever's listening, you may not live near a Belk. And that's fine. The key here is that this is a place you wouldn't have thought of to find these. So what's the place around you where you wouldn't have thought to find these either,

where you might be able to stack one of these deals? So I think that it's really notable and interesting for that. And then finally, and I know I can't waste this much time on every single one of these, but the last thing I wanted to mention is that I went to Belk and I realized I did not sync the offer yet. So there I was on my laptop in the car in the parking lot trying to sync up this Amex to Belk and it's not available on any of my cards. But then I remembered that in the Amex app, there's a section for nearby offers that often shows offers at stores near you that may not show up in your Amex login on the desktop site. And sure enough, what did I find with my 6% back at Belk on a couple of my cards? So that is a great tip right there. We need to post on that right away, you know, and we have posted about it before, but it's been so long because I live in the middle of nowhere. So I don't see this all the time. I don't think about it very often,

but because I was somewhere where I was like, okay, well, I'm sitting outside of Belk. So maybe this will come up in the nearby offers because it's not showing up in my login and it didn't show up on all my cards for the record, but, but it up so there you go there you have it so so i think belk was a very good contender here is a strong contender because you're looking at 10 15 maybe like 21 back on gift cards on up to 4k spend that's a pretty terrific deal. It does sound terrific. And, you know, just as a complete aside, it's the whole topic about finding the gift card rack and not knowing about it reminded me of an old post I did about how to find the hidden gift card rack at Sears. There used to be this whole play that involved buying gift cards at Sears. And, you know, obviously that's all gone um but uh just making me feel nostalgic for the days of hunting down gift card racks that people didn't know existed sears used to actively seem to hide them like they'd be in these weird

weird places so oh that's hilarious because my father just wanted to stop and ask somebody i was like no no you gotta hunt around for the rack this is part of the fun it's here somewhere we got to find it yeah yeah and someday when we have more time i've got to find out what the heck your parents do going to department store that often that oh my goodness the employees there know their names i just can't imagine what anyway my mom it's not like a grocery store that you have to keep buying. Except it kind of is to her. Anyway, so that's number one. All right. So what's the second thing? All right. Next one up, Capital One Shopping. We've discussed this a number of times. Capital One has this portal called Capital One Shopping.

You do not need to have a Capital One credit card or bank account or really any Capital One account of any sort in order to sign up for Capital One Shopping. It is just a shopping portal. But what's special about it is that it seems to work in very mysterious ways. Most shopping portals seem to want to, I don't know, make money as a business. But this one seems to be trying to do the opposite because what they keep doing is people who sign up and especially if you install the toolbar extension on your browser, click around to various stores, you're undoubtedly going to get email offers that are like incredible for things like, you know, 18% back at this store, 20% back, 24% back, 30% back. And I've personally taken advantage of a lot of them. I had 18% back at IHG when I had an expensive IHG stay. I had 30% back of something or other, um, 24% back at giftcards.com. So I was able to stack that with when, when, uh, there was a 5% off coupon code for Visa gift cards at giftcards.com.

They were already negative costs. You just made them even negativer costs. Oh, way negativer. Yeah. So just one thing after another. And yes, it's not as good as cash back what you get because the so-called cash back can only be redeemed for gift cards, but you know what? I redeemed about $400 of gift cards for a Walmart gift card that I used to buy a Christmas present. And guess what? When I was shopping for those presents, I got another offer for, I think it was 18% or something like that at Walmart. And so when I used my gift card, I got that additional 15% or whatever it was. And so, yeah, yeah, it's just, it's a gift that keeps on giving. It is crazy. And I should mention that we've had some readers report that

they've had issues with purchases, not tracking. And so I know there've been some people that have complained about that and had issues with that. I don't know about you, but I've had almost all of my orders track. Saks Fifth Ave has been the one that I've had problems with. But otherwise, all of mine so far have tracked. But like I said, there's a sizable number of readers, enough complaining about things not tracking properly, that I believe them. And also I should mention that the IT behind this all does seem a little shaky. So I don't find it hard to believe that the it could be a little bit faulty, but, but I've had very good luck with it so far.

And I think both Greg and I have earned hundreds in cash back on this, if not, you know, numbers into the thousand plus range. Right. And, and, and same for me, I've had problems with sex, but not, not other places. Everything else is tracked as far as I know. Yeah. And has paid out, you know, um a month or two or whatever how long it takes yeah yeah yeah and it's i mean it's been huge payouts like you you often see big payouts from certain stores that like you know are often at high payouts uh because their stuff is all over price but that's not the way it's been with capital one shopping it's been big payouts at stores that don't usually offer payouts. I mean, nobody offers 30%

back that has like, you know, a regular store, right? Right, right. That's really the key. I mean, yeah, stores that you don't usually see any kind of deal on, like giftcards.com. I mean, come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 24%. What? It's insane.

I don't know how, like I said, I don't know how they can stay in business with that. Well, they won't forever, but as we've often said before, take advantage of it now. If they're going to blow through a bunch of marketing money with these huge payouts to get people excited and interested, I'd like to get excited and interested. So keep

it going, Capital One. Keep it going. So next up on our list here was a great deal for flying business class to Europe. So not that long ago, a couple months ago, maybe, we reported on a deal to fly business class, live flat business class, transatlantic here, through Avianca Life Miles for just 25,500 miles one way. That's not a typo or a speako or whatever you call it when you're, you know, not a mea culpa there. That is the price, 25,500 miles one way in business class,

transatlantic business class. That's just absolutely incredible. I mean, you're talking about points that a lot of people would cash in for like $250 for a flight that would ordinarily cost, you know, an amount in the thousand, $2,000, $3,000 range, depending on your dates, I'm sure. And it was available in the summer. And notable here was that there were six, eight seats on some of these dates. There were multiple seats on lots of them. I booked four seats on one day for $25,500 for fewer miles than what most programs charge in economy class. You fly business class back from Europe. So I think that was a terrific deal.

Yeah, absolutely. All right. The next one up is American Express business platinum card offers, which American Express seems to want us to sign up not just once, but an infinite number of times for an offer for 150,000 points, 160,000 points. The exact point totals vary. Most of the deals do require $15,000 spend. But what's so cool is that usually with Amex cards, you can't get a bonus if you've had the same card before. But in this case, they're actively recruiting people who currently have a business platinum card to get another one with the same business. And as soon as you sign up for it, and even after you've got the bonus, you're likely to get another offer in your email box, or when you sign in saying, Hey, sign up again. I mean, it doesn't say again, but you know, it's basically saying that. And, and so people have signed up a bunch of times and it just seems like an endless opportunity for just endless number of points. As long as you have the ability to sign up for an Amex business card, you should be able

to get in on, I think that the starting point, you have to have at least one Amex business card before you could get this offer. But once you have one and can get the offer, then I don't know. It seems like you could do as many as you can afford doing that spending. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Is there a limit? I mean, is there a point where you're, I mean, you can only have so many charge cards, right? So. Well, that's true. There are, there are some practical limits. Yeah.

I think you're limited to like 10 charge cards. There's some, there's other like, just, you know, limit. They're not really limits,'s other like just you know limit they're not really limits but just like you know how many times can you spend the 15 000 to meet the signing requirements how many times do you want to spend you do have to pay for the annual fee the 695 annual fee and then if you're paying that well you really want to use up your dell credits and your airline fee credits and and so how much of that do you want to be dealing with? You know, there are limits to how much you might want to do, but yeah, it seems to be like just an almost endless tap of, of points available. Yeah, for sure. And actually it's been not just the business

platinum business gold. Also, there's been similar offers on that for lots and lots of points. I mean, $130,000 has been pretty common, even though the standard offer on that card is like $75,000 maybe. And we've seen a lot of $90,000. But then we've seen lots of people targeted for $130,000. Some people targeted for $150,000, even $180,000 on the business gold. And similarly, I think people have been able to get more than one or two of those. So that's incredible. Points Parade marches on.

Another year of the Points Parade marching on. It sure does. Amex has just been printing those points like it's nobody's business. Oh, they sure have. They sure have. And they just want to keep giving them to you. And in fact, they want to give them to you so badly that they are also giving you the chance to get 60,000 membership rewards points with a checking account, with an Amex business checking account. So right now, as I speak, as I say this, and I think it's only valid for a few more days.

So if you got in mind to do this, I think you got to get on it sooner rather than later. I think the offer is scheduled to expire January 2nd or 3rd, if I remember correctly. I should have double checked before we recorded this. But you'll have a couple of days anyway after we release it, I think, while it's still on. But the deal is you need to sign up for open an Amex business checking account. You have to deposit $5,000 within 20 days of opening it. You have to have 10 transactions post to the account and maintain an average daily balance of $5,000 over 60 days. So you need to keep 5K in there. You need to put 5K in within 20 days, keep it in for 60

days and have 10 transactions, which can be deposits. It can be bill pays. They can be other, whatever else you used your business checking account for, I suppose. And they give you a 60,000 points based on the offer that's out there right now, 60,000 Amex membership rewards points. Now, if you've got a business platinum card, and if you don't, then I suggest you rewind the podcast to that previous section we just talked about, get yourself one of those. Then you can cash out points with the business checking account at one cent per point. So we're talking about a bonus that's worth at least $600 cash. If you've got the Schwab Platinum, you're talking at least $660 cash. And if you keep them as membership rewards points, hey, rewind the podcast to that part about

how Avianca had business class on Brussels for 25,500 miles one way. You're talking about maybe enough points for a round-trip business class ticket to Europe as a checking account bonus? What? That's insane. That's a fantastic deal. It really is. And it's a completely fee-free checking account. So really the only financial thing that you have to do is lock up $5,000

in the account, but it actually earns interest. It's not high interest based on today's interest rates, but something around 1.3% right now, I think, which is actually better than many checking accounts. So yeah, it's a smoking deal. So, all right. The, the next one, and, and I don't know if we said this, but that was the next nominee was the business checking. The next nominee is cruise line status matches, the ability to get free cruises. Talk about that. What's the deal there? Well, so if you've got Caesar's Diamond status, which if you don't have it yet,

you could sign up for the Wyndham Business Earner card and get Diamond status with that card and match that Diamond status to Caesar's Diamond. Caesar's has offered some matches periodically from other programs in person at their casinos, but you can match over from Wyndham to Caesars Diamond and then submit that to Carnival. And they have been giving people a free cruise. And the nice thing is that it hasn't really been very limited in terms of the free cruises.

Now, they cruise in a lot of different places. So you get a free cruise in the Caribbean or Alaska and Alaska cruise, or they have cruises in Europe. And so I took one of those this year, like a 10 or 11 night cruise to a bunch of different places in Greece, Turkey, Italy. It was a fantastic cruise. So now when I say free, you still do pay the port taxes. You pay $100 a person sort of as a deposit and you get that sort of back as a hundred dollars per person onboard credit. And, and then you do pay the port taxes, which on the cruise that I booked was $90 a person. So it wasn't very expensive.

And then you will be on the hook for gratuities. So you'll have to pay the gratuities so that depending on the length of your cruise could be a couple of few hundred dollars. So for instance, in my case, we booked for four people. So I had an extra charge for the kids. But if it was just two of us booking, we would have gotten somewhere in the range of about $3,000, I think off of the cost of this cruise, two to $3,000 anyway, off of the cost of the cruise and paid just a few hundred dollars. I think it was $680 maybe total. And that's with

a $200 credit, onboard credit and $200 cash they gave me in the casino as a free play, but they gave it to me in cash. So really a net 480 out of pocket for $200 non-board credit, 10 or 11 nights in Europe. I mean, it's just your food, obviously place to stay and some non-alcoholic drinks and yeah, transportation to a bunch of amazing spots. So that's an incredible savings. And then, so that right there, I mean, already you're talking about you could save two, 3,000 bucks on a cruise

in some of these places. That's a pretty smoking deal. You know, when you compare that up against a $600 checking account bonus that I just talked about a moment ago. But then you can take that a step further and match that Carnival offer over to Royal Caribbean. And Royal Caribbean would give you a quote unquote free cruise where

you only had to pay the port taxes, which again, varies by destination. So you may pay as much as a few hundred dollars a person depending on the cruise. But, you know, there are plenty of options where you pay a hundred dollars a person in port taxes as well. And again, save well over a thousand, maybe $2,000 depending on the cruise. a person in port taxes as well. And again, save well over a thousand, maybe two thousand dollars, depending on the cruise. And the kind of cool thing that we didn't publish about that deal is that when you do that match, it's supposed to be for a free cruise, but it ends up coming with two free cruises. It doesn't explicitly say that, but it gives you buttons to redeem for two free cruises.

And we were able to book the two. And I kind of insinuated that in the post. So anyway, that has turned into being a couple few thousand dollars more from the status matching. So cruise line status matching. I mean, in my family alone, we're going to save thousands over these cruises that now we wouldn't have probably taken the cruises otherwise. So it's not exactly saving thousands, but we're getting thousands in value anyway. Sure. Some nice vacations for very little, for a few hundred bucks each time. That's absolutely incredible. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Next contender, the Ritz-Carlton card got more valuable out of the blue without raising the annual fee. So a sort of side repercussion of the Amex Bonvoy Brilliant card becoming more expensive was they raised up the sort of premium card, the annual free night that comes with that ultra premium card, it used to be worth up to 50,000 points, but moved to 85,000 points. And for some reason, the powers that be decided they would do the same with the Ritz card, the annual free night that comes with the Ritz card. So it's now 85,000 points that you could spend at any Marriott hotel. And all the other great features of the card

remain as is, including the $450 annual fee. So the card already came with $300 in airline fee credits, which hasn't gone away, and also comes with the best version of Priority Pass on the market, unlimited guests, as well as free authorized users for the Ritz card that can get their own Priority Pass. So it was an excellent deal before. Now it's an even better deal, that Ritz card, which, by the way, still remains the only way to get it. Start with a Chase Marriott consumer card, not a business card, a consumer card, and then call after you've had that card for at least a year, call Chase to see if you could upgrade to the Ritz card. It's the only way to get that Ritz card. That's a great deal. It's one of the better, one of the best, I'd say ultra premium cards on

the market in terms of the value for the cost. I mean, you get well over the annual fee just with the free night certificate, even if you didn't use the $300 per year in airline incidental cards, which are incidentally pretty easy to use. Right, right. So my last look at Marriott point values, I saw that while on average points are worth around 0.8 cents each, it's not hard to cherry pick awards and get about a penny per point value. So if you booked a hotel that costs 85,000 points, I wouldn't be surprised if it would otherwise have cost you $850 or in that range. And so, yeah, I mean, this is really nice. Really nice addition to an already very good card. For sure. For sure. Okay. And then the last one on the list for our list of nominees for Deal of

the Year. I mean, as Greg sits in New Zealand, I saw the pictures. I know that you flew United Polaris business class and I know how you did it because United offered a great deal this year, 60,000 miles one way on a whole bunch of different routes. Tell me more about this because you obviously took advantage of it and looked at it more closely than I did. Yeah. Yeah. So we still don't know, was this, was this a mistake? Um, was it some kind of unpublished sale, but for whatever reason, awards to many parts of the world, um, much of Asia, New Zealand, uh, I believe the Maldives, uh, I don't even know where else. All these places were available for 60,000 United Miles for business class one way. And what was more exciting to me, it was not just the award price, which was cheaper than usual, but what was much more exciting was that awards were wide open to certain destinations. So in New Zealand, most of the awards were available where the destination was Wellington in New Zealand.

And there were some to Christchurch as well. I don't know. I can't remember if there were any to Auckland. There might have been a few. But, you know, it depended where you're going as to how open. But the point was that normally over our winter and New Zealand summer, it's usually impossible to find like saver level awards to fly in business class. It's probably hard to find economy, you know, at saver levels. And, but we were able to find them, you know, whatever, almost whatever dates you wanted. And,

and so we were able to fly, you know, fly over the holidays. So, so we're currently in Auckland. I mean, that's a longer story about how I actually changed, was able to take advantage of a flight change in order to call and make a change to the itinerary overall. So we flew directly into Auckland, which was fantastic. And we're currently in Auckland at the Park Hyatt, the new Park Hyatt in Auckland. And we're going to celebrate New Year's right here in Auckland before we head down to the South Island and enjoy another almost two weeks of our trip. Fantastic. That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, that's great because a lot of people have United Miles out there and or Chase Ultimate Rewards points would transfer to Ultimate Rewards. So it was great because people were able to take advantage of that and like greg said it was

pretty wide open both in terms of dates and multiple seats i mean it can be hard to find that's an important part you could have yeah you could have flown a family four or or larger i think on on a number of those those routes and, um, yeah, we don't see that often. What was so special about it to me, not so much the price, but the, the, uh, open availability. For sure. For sure. I mean, that's notable. And, and we do, you know, now and then see good award availability, different parts of the world. And as we talked about deal of the year candidates, I went back through posts this year, looking at different award alerts we had sent out. And there were quite a lot of them over the course of the year. And that struck me as interesting

because I think the average person who kind of plays this game would tell you that 2022 was a tough year for availability. Award availability was not as easy to come by for parts of the year. In fact, over the summertime, a lot of blogs were talking about this absence of award availability that was kind of unprecedented. Then I went back and I looked at all these posts we wrote about awards being wide open to Fiji at one time of the year, wide open to Tel Aviv at another, wide open to New Zealand as this one that Craig took advantage of. So that tells me that even in a time when award availability is pretty tight, if you're subscribed to the right blogs anyway, the right sites,

and you're looking at the right deals, you can still find these amazing things. So, you know, hopefully as award availability loosens up, it'll be even easier. Hopefully. Absolutely. All right. All right. That's right.

We've discussed the eight nominees. Now Nick and I are going to take turns picking two of our favorites that are going to make it to the next round. So I'm going to let you go first. Pick one nominee from your side. That's even tougher because now I got to go first. So I got to hope that if I pick one, then I know which one you're going to pick. Let's see. I, you know, I know that some people are not going to like this pick, but I have to pick the cruise line status matches, not only because I took advantage of the deal, but because

dollar for dollar, it was some of the biggest savings of any of the deals we wrote about this year. So I'm going to take cruise line, uh, status matches for one of my two. Great. And I'm going to start with the United 60K wide open award availability to New Zealand. I'm here enjoying it. How can I not pick it? Very good. Absolutely. All right. Well, I got to be honest. I can't see. I look forward to you trying to convince me, but I can't see how the no lifetime language business platinum offers are not the deal of the year. So that has to be my second pick how the no lifetime language business platinum offers are not the deal of the

year. So that has to be my second pick. The no lifetime language business platinum offers that just keep on coming. The, you know, the wind that just keeps on winning. That has to be my second pick. All right. Well, my second pick, I'd pick these in advance, um, is the cruise line status matches. Wow. Wow. I just think that's just such a smoking deal. Just because I'm not interested in going on a cruise doesn't mean it's not an incredible deal. So that's my second pick. So now we've got three contenders.

And now we each are going to pick one of our preference. And if we don't agree, we're going to fight it out. So you got to pick one. In the end, there can only be one. Well, you know, as much as I love the cruise line deal, and it was incredibly valuable, I have to give the nod here, I think, and I look forward to you fighting it out with me if you're going to fight it out with me, but I have to give a nod to the No Lifetime Language Amex offers because these business platinum offers have been the gift that keeps

on giving. They're incredibly generous. Yes, you have to pay the $695 annual fee. So that certainly is a barrier for a lot of people and I can understand why. But as we've written about, in the first year, especially if you sign up in December, if you've done it in December with enough time to take advantage of all the benefits, then you're talking about potentially, what, $800 in Dell credits before you have to pay your next annual fee. You're talking about the, what, $600 potentially an airline fee credits before your next annual fee again if you sign up for these in December with enough time to use this year's credit next year's credit and the year after which we talked about on a recent show uh you know and all the other benefits plus the 150 160 000 points some people 250 000 points with no lifetime language and and

I opened one of these earlier this year, and then a second one in December. So two this year, and then within a week or two after opening my second business platinum this year, I got the offer for 160,000 points again in my Amex offers. And I haven't opened it for a third time, but it's just the gift that keeps on giving. It's the point parade that marches on. And those points we know can be far more valuable than their cash value. Cash value already we're talking about, now that I have the business checking account, $1,600 each time on these $160K offers. And obviously, potentially much more with valuable transfers to transfer partners.

So that, for me, is the deal of the year. All right. Well, my pick is actually the cruise line status matches. Nick didn't think I would pick this one at all. I never in a million years would have thought, Craig. No, absolutely not, because you're not interested that's accessible to almost anyone that, that wants to put in pretty moderate or even small amount of work and, and very, very little, um, you know, financial, uh, responsibility to get into this. Whereas the, uh, I don't, I don't disagree at all about how valuable the business platinum thing is, but the, the high spend requirements as well as the, the high annual fees, you know, it's not like something that a young couple not making much money could, could, could really

handle. Many people can't handle those high spend requirements and uh but the but the cruise line thing i feel like you know someone could could start up today um and within a very short period of time have booked a trip that you know they might not have even dreamed of ever paying for a you know three thousand dollar cruise or whatever it is. And here they can get that almost for free. Amazing. That's a great point. You know, I met a number of readers on the cruise they took in Europe that were there because of the deal that, you know, we had written about and came up to say hi. And I also met a number of people who were taking this cruise and had paid for it. And it was like a, you know, like once in

a lifetime, sort of a trip where they were visiting a whole bunch of different places in Europe that were, you know, exotic places that most people don't get to travel to every day. And it's easy to forget about that when you play this game and earn a lot of points and you travel a lot, if this is something you've been into for a long time, that most people don't do what we do in terms of, you know, earning points and burning them. And so you're right. I think that's a really interesting point that just about anybody for what the $95 cost of the Wyndham earner business card, a few minutes of matching that around to Caesars and sending a screenshot to Carnival could get a really amazing deal. That's not going to cost them. You know, it'll cost them a reasonable

amount of money that most people would consider spending on a vacation, a few hundred bucks. And so then if you've also collected some points to cover the flight, wherever it is, you're going to cruise from, I, you know, I, I did not have that on my radar as being the winner because the business platinum offers have been such a great deal and we've taken advantage of it in my household. But I think you might've sold me on that idea because you're right. I mean, it does require $15,000 spend for each one, $695 annual fee, got to have a business. Although I suppose the Caesars deal does require starting with a wind and burner business card as well. But we've talked before about how easy it is to have a business. So that's not a really large barrier at all. So, wow, I definitely expected that I would be

sitting here just obviously the no lifetime language offers are clearly the winner. And I said right from the beginning, I was like, I just can't even see a way that you could argue anything else. And not only did you argue it, I think you convinced I just can't even see a way that you could argue anything else. And not only did you argue it, I think you convinced me. Interesting. You know, that's a little disappointing because, you know, I was hoping for some kind of big battle here at the end, you know, where we would actually duke it out and whoever's left standing would get to pick the winner. But, you know, maybe maybe we'll just go ahead and settle it amicably. We'll see. You know, personally, the the United deal is my personal deal of the year just because I'm here enjoying it. So everybody's going to have their own, you know, favorites.

And, you know, but that's a good point, because my personal deal of the year, I thought about that when we were writing about this. And the deal of the year for me, without a doubt, hands down, was taking advantage of one of those Amex Platinum offers that included the 15X small business. Because I bought a minivan at the beginning of this year and I wrote about it. I earned more than half a million points buying my minivan using a platinum card because I was able to take advantage of a great welcome bonus and the extra points at small business. Now that was really a deal from last year, but it carried into early this year. So you were able to potentially take advantage of that even early this year was still alive. So we don't consider that really part of this year's deals because it was a last year deal that carried into this year but personally that was a deal of the year for me so amex points have been on my mind all year long and and you know when you look at these business platinum offers

if you can meet the spend right two of those is three whatever 320 000 amex membership rewards points i mean you showed what you could do with the ANA round the world chart. So, okay, let me argue that for a second. So if you were able to do two of those this year, which you could potentially do, at least you could potentially get approved for two of those, that's 320,000 points. You could fly two passengers round the world in business class with the ANA round the world chart. And we're talking in that case, probably 10, 15, $20,000 worth of business class flights with two credit card signups and no lifetime language to stop you from doing it. Do you think those cruise offers are that good, Greg? Well, again, it comes down to, for me, my thinking about it comes down to who can take advantage of all that.

And so when you talk about getting two of them, that's doubling the amount of spend required. And then being able to take advantage of things like an A&A Around the World Award or even easier, taking advantage of Air Canada Aeroplan Awards and 5K stopovers and all that stuff that you showed what you could do with. All of that is, is less accessible because it's complicated. You've got, you've got to learn all the ins and outs, find the word ability, yada, yada. The, again, I go back to like the cruise thing, very little upfront requirements that you need

to get started with that you don't need a lot of money you don't need a lot of knowledge really um and you can get actually you said earlier two cruises um for free by by doing this so yeah i'm gonna stick with with my pick But why are you here if you're not going to learn how to maximize all the points, Craig? I mean, if you're listening to the show, it's because you want to maximize this stuff, right? I mean, you want to be able to take advantage of those hot deals that we've written about. And really, is it that hard to meet the spending requirement? Now, I say that, and I know there's some people who are like, oh my goodness, $15,000 is a lot of money to spend. But you know as well as I do, there are plenty of ways out there for somebody who wants to meet the spend.

I mean, Frequent Miler is the earn miles without flying blog. We wrote the complete guide to manufactured spending. There are ways to spend $15,000. I mean, the very least comes to mind now because we're at the end of the year. You can make a tax payment or two or an estimated payment and potentially get a refund for that payment. Now, I say that, and I guess I should probably with that say that there were a couple of people. And when I say a couple, I mean just a very few number of people that said last year they made tax payments and didn't earn the welcome bonus on their Amex card. And I don't know what's up

with that because it was such a small number of people that I would have thought that it must have been something they did wrong. But those people were so meticulous about the way they seem to have documented it that I'm like, I don't know. Was it them? Is there something weird going on with Amex? And of course, you get the risk of the IRS hanging on to your money for a long time. They don't always refund people as quickly as one would hope. So there are some caveats and gotchas there, but it can be done. Let me address the not getting the welcome bonus thing. I'm 99.9% sure that something else led to them not getting the welcome bonus. No idea what that something else was. And then when they call to complain about it, the reps are trying to figure out what it is. They see a tax payment. They think, oh, that sounds like a cash like purchase. You're not allowed to do cash like purchases, even though it's very clear that tax payments are fine. There's nothing in the terms that bar them or define them as being a cash-like payment.

I don't know any world in which that even makes any sense. And so, yeah, I'm confident that that is fine. I would totally feel 100% safe using tax payments as a way of meeting minimum spend requirements with any bank, not just Amex. But the ability to float $15,000. So basically, if you pay $15,000 in tax payments near the end of the year, you're basically giving the IRS a loan until you file your taxes and until they decide to refund the overpayment. And we don't know how long that'll be. You don't have to do it with all 15. Obviously, you're going to spend some money each month, right? So you only have to float whatever the difference is between what you're naturally

going to spend in three months and the 15,000. So, I mean, I can imagine most people listening probably spend at least a thousand dollars a month, if not two in just general expenses that have to get paid. Right. So, I mean, if we split the difference there and say $1,500 a month in expenses that can be paid by credit card, that's 4,500. So you only have to float 10, five. It's a little bit less. Yeah. So, um, so can we agree this to this, that the, the business platinum offers are, there's, there's more upside there for people willing to put in the work and the, and floating, figuring out how to do the spend, all that kind of stuff of stuff uh but that the cruise deal is more widely available uh you know it's more widely available many more people could could take care and take advantage out if they're interested in without any you're right i mean i'm trying to argue the other side

a little bit but you're right without any complexity without any difficulty you just fly yourself to seattle and take a cruise to alaska and be like wow i got an amazing deal for very little effort you're right it's hard to argue i tried so does that does that mean you're you're uh i'm conceding i'm because i you know i hate you know i hate to concede and say that craig won anything but but i have to admit that that uh that argument convinces me that it is very easy for just about something you can explain to just about anybody. And they could do it. They could follow a few steps and make it happen. So that's unexpected.

Dark horse winner for deal of the year. Wow. Cruise line status matches. Talk about an unexpected winner. And I should mention with this that if you're not familiar with the cruising world, and I sure wasn't because I was never particularly interested in cruising before this, it's worth mentioning that this is not something that frequently happens based on like the Googling and reading I did in the past. It sounds like the whole status matching thing was not really a thing in cruise lines before the pandemic. Even the few that match status,

you were matching for like a 5% discount. It sounds like in most places based on the little bit of research that I did, certainly not free cruises from matching. So I think that's a product of the pandemic and the fact that the cruise line industry has not recovered as quickly as everything else. So I wouldn't expect that to be around forever. If you're interested in doing any of that, I think you got to get on it sooner rather than later. And they've been a little slow in sending the cruise line, the free cruise offers.

Even lately, we've had readers getting impatient, like, Oh my goodness, am I going to get the offer? And am I going to get the offer? And invariably, eventually they do get the offer.

It seems, but, but I think there's more of a potential for that to go away sooner. Amex doesn't seem to show any, any letting up on the no lifetime language offers, but the cruise line thing won't last forever. So you might as well take advantage while you can. Good.

That's a really good point. I hadn't even thought about that. So good to know. All right. That, my friends, I think wraps up discussion of the deal of the year. And I've got to imagine when you start listening to today's show that is not what you probably thought if you had an opinion so

certainly certainly Nick did not think for a second that I was going to say that he knew that I don't personally want to be on a big cruise boat I'd be happy to do like a smaller one but it doesn't interest me even a little small cruise boats but you know different strokes for different folks.

That's the whole thing. Like, I don't, no interest in being on a small boat and, you know, bobbing around and feeling it. So I'm thinking more like a river, river,

river cruise. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Fair enough. So a, a,

you know, a, a, a perhaps more luxurious cruise, shall we say, which should mean everybody likes luxury. So that's so that's that's universal all right anyway surprise there let's move into the question of the week and this

week's question of the week comes from a guy named nick who you know pretty well and it's a question for greg uh because i'm kind of curious about this as we wrap up 2022 and kick off 2023. What I want to know, Greg, is what are your elite status plans for 2023? What statuses are you planning to go after in 2023? What's on the plate? What's on the docket? All right. Interesting question. Okay. So an easy answer, Hyatt Globalist i've i've uh really enjoyed it i'm definitely gonna keep going for it year after year um the only um let's see as far as other hotels go ihg i'd hope that if i do the ambassador renewal thing that'll re-up my um ihg diamond status so i'd be happy to keep diamond status year after year by doing that and i've posted about how you can if if you do the the by signing up for the ambassador status you have to pay a certain amount of money or or points to to do it

each year but um you get this like buy one get weekend deal, which you can turn into a fantastic deal. So I kind of have fun with that. And Marriott, I have lifetime platinum status with Marriott. So, you know, it seems to me unlikely that I will pursue titanium again. We'll have to just wait and see. Like the only reason I did this year is because I happened to get close enough to where it was, you know, reasonably obtainable. It seems unlikely next year, but we'll see. And then on the, on the airline side, you know, I'll probably keep playing the American Airlines loyalty status game this year. It looks like I'm going to be closing with platinum status instead of the platinum pro

that I was hoping for. Doesn't make a big difference to me, to be honest, which I get. But maybe I'll get platinum pro next year. We'll see. Delta, I'm looking to just get platinum status this year, I think. Wow. No diamond, just platinum. I think so. So I have so many MQMs rolling over from previous years that all I have to do to get platinum status is spend $25,000 on a Delta credit card and I'll have platinum. We'll see.

I am kind of predicting that Delta is going to do something to make some change, make diamond status desirable again. They really torpedoed the value with what they did to global upgrade certificates this past year i feel like they have to do something to make it valuable again if they do maybe i'll i'll go back into that game but as things stand right now wow all right so downgrade the platinum there marriott lifetime platinum which is interesting because uh you know marriott you're i'm sure you're starting the year with at least 30 elite nights, if not 40, depending on whether or not you got the brilliant card. So titanium isn't that far off. But at the same time, is it for 35 nights of your life?

And Marriott properties, I mean, I have a hard time arguing with the fact that I wouldn't probably go for that either. So, yeah, interesting. I mean, Hyatt, of course, Hyatt Global status, 60 nights, so that's, you know, a tall commitment there. That's a lot of nights. Yeah, well, you know, I have the Hyatt credit card, so I can do a lot through spend as well. But, you know, I've been finding we've been traveling more and more and and I've been finding our myself at Hyatt's very, very often. In fact, this trip to New Zealand is almost entirely thanks to Hyatt, all our stays. So I mentioned I'm at the Park Hyatt in Auckland.

Next step is an SLH property in Christchurch. And then a few independent nights before we end up at another SLH property in Christchurch, and then a few independent nights before we end up at another SLH property in Queenstown. And so those are all Buckthrough Hyatt. The combination of Hyatt points or in Christchurch, it was actually category four certificates. So I'm going to have a bunch of nights just right there from these days. Right off the get-go, hopefully. So, wow. Yeah. So I'm going to have a bunch of nights, uh, just right there, right there these days, right off the get go. Hopefully. Yeah. Very good. Worth mentioning that the global status doesn't do you any good at the SLH properties because any booking through Hyatt gets the same benefits through SLH, but that's also worth mentioning because it's nice,

right? You get free breakfast for two each day and 2 PM late checkout and a room upgrade. So booking SLH properties is actually a great deal, even if you don't have high global status. So I'm now finding, I was skeptical in the beginning, but now I keep finding myself looking for more of these SLH properties. Yeah. Well, you found that incredible one in Lake Como. Yeah, that's right. And I'd love to go to that one someday. Yeah. I've got my eyes

on another one now that I'm, I'm interested and we'll see if I can make this trip work that I'm planning. So hopefully next year I'll have a review of another one that I think should be interesting. But anyway, I, yeah, that's definitely something to keep your eyes out there for a while. So Hyatt Global is Delta Platinum or Delta Plat. And so, and, and, and how about, how about you? What, what are your, what are your elite plans? You know, I know I'm not going to stay enough nights for Hyatt globalist and I, uh, I don't have the Hyatt credit card, but I do have this friend, Greg, the frequent miler, who's a globalist. So, uh, so hopefully, hopefully you'll be able to help me out of a gym now. And then if I need a guest of honor stay and, uh, and so I'm not going to probably stay enough

nights to earn high globalist status. So I'll stick with Marriott platinum. I don't have the brilliant card, but I do now have a business and a consumer. So that's 30 nights right off the bat. So I only need to say 20 nights next year in order to renew my platinum status. And that'll be realistic with whatever my regular travel plans are at 20 nights a year is pretty easy for me to hit. So I'll probably continue with that in part because I'm not yet at Marriott lifetime platinum. I need a couple more years and a couple more years worth of nights. So another three years or something like that, I think. So I'm getting there anyway. And hopefully once I get there, I can drop worrying about it. But right now, the credit cards are still a great deal with the free night certificates because those have been

even more valuable than ever. So I'm going to stick with Marriott, even though I don't love Marriott. I'm going to stick with them probably as my hotel chain of choice because Hilton, my beloved Hilton has torpedoed the breakfast benefit, which is super, super annoying. So, uh, I'll probably still have Hilton diamond for a while because of the aspire card, but I, uh, I I'm not excited about Hilton diamond at all. So, um, I thought about IHG, whether or not I should get the ambassador membership. I don't right now, uh, but I have the IHG diamond from the like short-term match. So maybe by the time this publishes, I'll have bought ambassador just in the hopes that that will extend my IHG diamond status. So I may keep that airline side. I'm not one to chase airline status.

I play the American airlines loyalty points game because it's fun. So I think, I hope I will still make it to platinum pro by the end of February. And that will just be for kicks and really not for any practical use. Although I did mention this fall that I was able to take advantage of it with jet blue, but, but otherwise I probably won't bother with airline elite status at all this year. All right, good. So, yeah, I guess that, that wraps up not just this show, but this year,

this year it's done. It's a wrap year's over. See you guys next year. If you have enjoyed this year's content, I can almost guarantee you that you're going to enjoy next year's. So you're going to want to make sure that you join our email list. That's at frequent miler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. You can join our Facebook group, the Frequent Miler Insiders, because remember, Frequent Miler is not just a blog or a podcast or a Facebook group, but it's a community in general. Join the community in Facebook and follow us on all the various social media. And wherever you're listening to this show or watching it, please give us a like, a thumbs up, leave us a little bit of feedback.

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