Frequent Miler on the Air - What's in our wallets? | Ep194 | 3-18-23

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

Since Samuel L. Jackson and Jennifer Garner won't stop asking, this week we discuss what's in OUR wallets (and why). Find out which cards the two of us carry regularly for each of the major expense categories.  Join our email list: FrequentMiler.com/Subscribe 00:40 Giant Mailbag 03:02 Card Talk: Hilton Aspire 12:55 Award Talk 13:04 Alaska Devalues JAL awards 17:00 Southwest Wanna Get Away Plus for the win 20:05 Nick’s quick hit Award Talk triple header 20:15 LifeMiles Manual Booking success 22:41 Hotel Nyack 23:38 MGM “Free” stay 25:22 Main Event: What’s in our wallets? 27:38 Greg’s Travel spend card 28:40 Greg’s dinning card 29:50 Greg’s grocery card 31:06 Greg’s gas card 32:10 Greg’s Office Supply card 32:50 Greg’s Apple Pay card 34:52 Greg’s Everywhere Else card 40:33 Nick’s Travel card 43:07 Nick’s dining card 44:04 Nick’s gas card 45:15 Nick’s Office Supply card 46:21 Nick’s Google Pay card 47:08 Nick’s Pharmacy card 48:20 Nick’s Everywhere else card 49:48 Greg’s Debit card 53:14 Question of the Week: What’s the best program for suite upgrades — and what can you do to increase your chances of an upgrade? Music credit: Annie Yoder

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did Citi do this week? It's time for Mattress Running the Numbers. Ready for the main event? The main event. Frequent Liler on the air starts now. Today's main event, what's in our wallets? You know, Nick, the other day I was watching TV and Samuel L. Jackson looked right at me and said, what's in your wallet? And I figured if he's interested, maybe some other people are interested too, what's in both of our wallets. So we're going to talk about exactly that for today's

main event. Today, of course, first, of course, we have the giant mailbag. Today's giant mail comes from Frank as a comment on the revised Marriott Bonvoy Complete Guide that we updated and republished recently. Frank says he called to extend his free night certificate expiring soon and was told that the policy has now changed and these certs from credit cards cannot be extended at all. They did extend them not too long ago. So what do you think? Bad news from Frank? I think bad news from one misinformed agent, or perhaps even if I'm more blunt about it, one lazy agent that didn't want to have to do it is my bet. Or maybe just didn't know. Maybe just let's give him the benefit of the doubt, didn't know. But no, I highly doubt that. The day that that changes, it won't be one

person that reports it and breaks the story. It'll be like a thousand people reporting it, because people are extending these all the time. So back in January, I think it was, several people wrote in saying they had heard a similar thing from calling in Marriott. But when we told them, no, just keep hang up, call again and keep doing that until you get a helpful agent. As far as I know, everybody was eventually successful. And so as we've talked about many times, call center agents don't tend to know the rules of the programs. And, you know, I, I hate to say it, but what you've read on blogs and here on podcasts like ours is, is probably, you know, obviously it's not a hundred percent, but it's, it's better than what you hear from a call center

agent. Right. Well, that makes sense. That makes sense. Because for a call center agent, that's just a job, right? I mean, generally speaking, that's a job somebody goes to for a few hours a day. And, you know, they and most of the stuff they do is probably fairly mundane, ordinary, make a reservation, change a reservation, etc. They're not like eating and breathing the program, like they're just doing the job at hand. So, you know, when you, I think when you look at these types of things, that's why blogs are a better source or internet forums are better source. Cause you're going to get people that are actually doing this stuff all the time versus a person who's just like mostly making reservations and handling the basic stuff and not going to bed at night, thinking about what to do with their free

night certificate. You know what I mean? That's right. That's exactly right. Chances are they don't have their own free night certificates that they've been dealing with, and so they don't know. Okay. So yeah, so that was the giant mailbag. Next up is card talk. What do we have in store? Yeah. So we got to talk about the Amex Hilton Aspire card a little bit today, because this week, well, actually last week, there were some rumors about changes. There was a survey that went out to current cardholders, or at least some of them, with some potential changes coming to the card. And we've often talked about how the Amex Hilton Aspire card is one of the best values on the market, if not potentially the best ongoing value in terms of a credit card,

if you're able to use the benefits on it, it well outweighs the cost of the annual fee. True story. At least today. We'll see whether or not it stays that way, because we've said really from the beginning that we didn't expect that it could keep benefits so good forever. So I'm not at all surprised to hear that there are potential changes. But quick recap of the card and its benefits as it stands today, and then the rumor changes. So as it stands today, the card comes with an annual free night certificate every year, and that's not going to change. Valid at any Hilton property, just about. There's a couple of vacation club sort of exceptions, but almost any Hilton property in

the world, any night of the week. So that's a great benefit to have. The card also comes with a $250 annual airline incidental benefit. So that's your airline incidental fees, similar to the credits on the Platinum card. But in this case, on the Aspire card, it's $250 worth on your chosen airline each calendar year. So that's a nice benefit to have. We have a post of things that work to trigger those credits beyond just the baggage fees and seat assignments. And then it also comes with a $250 annual Hilton Resort credit. So if you stay at a qualifying Hilton Resort, and I use that word qualifying because there's a list of properties that are considered eligible for that resort

credit. And I choose my words carefully there because not all of the properties on the list are really resorts and not every property with resort in the name is on the list. So it's a little confusing, but it's a resort credit. That's what they call it. $250 Hilton resort credit that you can use once each card member year at a Hilton resort. So that's the current set of benefits. Now there's some other ancillary stuff, some priority pass visits and that kind of thing. But those are the key benefits of the card. Free night certificate and a total of $500 in credits is what you get today. However, and diamond status, Hilton diamond status, which you'll continue to get. It's a good point. Yeah. Moving forward,

what they're looking at doing, according to the survey, if the survey is to be believed, and I should emphasize that this was just a survey these are rumors we don't know that these changes are going to happen certainly don't know when if they're going to happen at all so i want to emphasize that to say that we don't know this is even going to happen or that it'll happen this year or whatever else but it seems plausible and that's why we wrote a post about it this week so the rumored changes would be the card would still keep its annual free night certificate and Hilton diamond status, but the annual fee would go up from $450 to a new $550. And if you go up a hundred bucks, it's very believable because they've done that with all the other $450 cards at this point,

increased them by at least a hundred bucks, if not more. So that's very believable that that could happen. And then the other key changes are that the airline incidental credit would change to only a $200 annual airline incidental credit instead of 250. It would drop to 200 and it wouldn't be usable all at once. It would be $50 per quarter. What it's picking up then would be flexibility. You'd be able to use it on any airline charge, potentially on any airline. So even airfare, and it could be foreign airlines,

you wouldn't be limited to the domestic airline choices that you are today. So $50 a quarter, can't double dip then in that case. So there's some downsides. And if you don't know what I mean, maybe we'll talk about that briefly in a second too. So that'll be one change. The other key change is that the $250 annual resort credit, they're looking at changing to one of two things, either a $200 credit,

similar to the airline fees, it would be $50 per quarter, but then usable at any Hilton property is one of the possibilities. Or it might be two semi-annual hundred dollar credits every six months a hundred dollar credit and then that would be limited to like more of the luxury properties curio collection uh lxr and then of course waldorf and conrad and that sort of thing so uh the probably missing a brand or two in there but that's the general gist of it and the idea the card would also pick up 189 clear credit and a 1010 monthly lift benefit. What do you think, Greg, if these changes come to fruition, if this happens? First of all, do you think it's likely?

Second of all, how soon do you think it would happen? And third, would it still be worth having the card? Okay. Is it likely? Definitely. It's going to happen. I can almost guarantee it may not be that exact list, but the price going up and the benefits becoming more spread out, I think are 100% locked. So for example,

when they changed the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card, the price went up. And then instead of offering, what was it? I think it was $300 back on Marriott property credits, and you could use anytime during the whole year, they change it to, what is it? $25 a month in dining credits. And the idea is they're hoping that it sounds easy to use, which it is, but that then they'll get a lot of breakage because people will forget to use it on a given month. Or conversely, they'll use the card all the time, even for things that don't get those benefits. So either way, Amex and the hotel chain benefit.

And so, yeah, I think it's definitely going to happen um what was the next question is the card still worth it if that if those changes happen would it still be worth it would it still be a good value uh i mean for for hilton fans sure it's just not it's just not a gameable like easy win so today you can could, with a little bit of creativity, you can get back $500 a year for the $450 outlay, and then also get some other benefits that are really good, actually. Like a free night certificate. Like a free night certificate, exactly. And so, you know, you're still going to, if you actually stay in Hilton Hotels, I think with this new one, you can still get easily more value than the cost of it.

But it just won't be one of those. You can stay home and and get the get the rewards the way you can today. Yeah, I think that's the big shame of it. I hate this move to like monthly or quarterly credits. It makes sense. I understand why they're doing it. But it stinks for us because, among other things we just talked about there, when you can use it all at once, A, it's more valuable to me because I'm more likely to need to spend more money at once than $50, right? And B, you can use it each calendar year right now, or at least the airline fee credits, for instance, you can use it each calendar year right now, or at least the airline fee credits, for instance, you can use each calendar year. So if you open the card today, you could use $250 this year.

And then come January, which is still in your first year of having the card, you can use the $250 credit again. So Greg just talked about the ongoing value of those credits. First year is even better, potentially. So whenever you're going to close the card, essentially, you're going to be able to get one more round of credits probably before you close it, which is a nice benefit. But you won't be able to do that anymore if they move to a quarterly thing. You won't be able to use it all at once. So so that'll be a bummer. And, you know,

that'll be unfortunate. I think the card will still be worth the 550 year, like Greg said, for Hilton fans or anybody who travels enough that you're going to need an overnight near an airport or along the side of the road somewhere where fee credits won't be a huge day. It'll be $50 less, but you could still use them in similar ways to the ways that you use them today. You'll just have to remember to do it four times a year. So if you'll use the Hilton credits, then I think the card still will be a very good value. Not what it is today. Yeah. And you can still game it in ways like, for example, you wrote a post about how you can, if you have a stay like next year, you can call the hotel and, and sort of pre prepay some of the charges. So you could probably do that, but call the hotel every quarter, you know, it would be a pain, but it's it's recall four different hotels yeah i mean it's

yeah it's possible it would be much more headache to do it's possible but i the free night certificate on the hilton cards really i mean that i guess that's what it comes down to how well are you going to use the free night certificate because you know if you're going to use that on an inexpensive night then it's definitely not worth the effort but if you're going to use it on a property that's five six eight hundred thousand dollars a night or something like that then you know it could be worth a little bit of effort. So there are also, I didn't mention they're adding a free night certificate at 30K spend and another at 60K spend, but the 60K spend currently exists. The 30K spend will be a new one, but that's really not going to be, I don't know, much of a carrot for most people because of the high spend required. So anyway,

those are the changes. We don't know if and when, but it may be worth considering that card more carefully sooner rather than later. If it's a card you've had on your list, because, uh, you know, at least you'll get the first year, uh, for, you know, the great deal that it is now, if you, uh, if you apply before they change anything. So certainly, obviously if we hear something, we'll let you know. But in the meantime, we're going to skip over what crazy thing and mattress running the numbers this week. But we are going to do I'm in the right place here, right? Award talk. So let's talk about awards. Greg, what's going on in award talk this week? All right. Well, let's start with

the devaluation and then we'll move on to what we individually have done with awards this week so alaska has uh surprised us by changing their award prices for japan airlines right what's going on there yeah yeah and that surprised us in a good way you made it so the way you said it was like oh it's a surprise no sorry surprise if you thought that you sent some excitement in greg's voice it was because he didn't have to be the bearer of bad news. He's like, oh, I'll make Nick talk about this. What do they do, Nick? So, yeah, Alaska increased stealth devaluation here. They increased the cost of most business and first class awards on Japan Airlines.

If you're Chicago based or East Coastbased, it's increased pretty drastically. So business class, I think, went up by 33%, and first class went up by 43% or something like that. So business class now, the 80K from Chicago, New York, et cetera, on Japan Airlines, one way between the United States and Japan, or 100,000 each way in first class, used to be 60,000 business, 70,000 first. Now we're talking 80 business, a hundred first from the West coast business class stays the same at 60 K. So that's the one small ish piece of good news. Uh, but first class goes up still to 75 K or 85 K rather 85 K from the West coast. Uh, so the, whereas it used to be 70 K. So, so, I mean, it's the devaluation but really to me the big

thing here that made this kind of you know nutty and disappointing i guess is that a we saw this coming when alaska debuted their new award chart they said price is starting from rather than setting any kind of ban so it's kind of a useless award chart because it just says hey we'll charge whatever we want it just might be this low. So this really proves that that's the case. They'll charge what it is they want to charge. And then second of all, it's disappointing because, of course, they didn't give any advanced notification and certainly no notification afterwards. So no advance notice, no notification to members afterwards. Just one of those things you're left to discover on your own, which stinks

if you've been collecting miles for a long time, expecting to book a specific trip and you don't even get any advance notice that, hey, you got to make your move on that now. They just suddenly increase the prices. So too bad. So what do you think about rumors that I'm just starting right now that the frequent miler team is cursed? And so when we book an award, then it devalues afterwards. So for example, we booked all five of us on ANA first class using the Virgin Atlantic award chart, which was only 55,000 miles one way between Japan and the US to book first class. And then like five seconds later, that award went up. And then we booked Japan Airlines business class from the US to Japan. Now, in this case, we actually booked with American Airlines miles. And we also actually booked from San Francisco, which I don't think

actually has changed even if we had booked from Alaska. But, but still, is this what, is this what caused Alaska to take a look at it and say, this is, this is, it breaks something in the equilibrium of the universe. I know it's just like something is off there. Yeah, I guess so that maybe that's it. So we ought to be really, let's not book any Hyatt stays for this trip. Okay. Let's make that a rule. No Hyatt stays. We don't want to break Hyatt. Right. Oh my gosh. But, but maybe what we should do is focus on really bad value awards and see if that changes. See if that changes. Right. If we want to get rid of some of those, that'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's use Alaska miles to book Emirates, which used to be a great value and has become like an atrociously bad value

and then see what happens. Sure. Yeah, I agree. Let's go ahead and book that Greg and let me know when I'm flying. Right. So that's a, yeah, that's unfortunate, unfortunate piece of news, but you must have better news, right? What did you book this week that worked out well? Yeah. So this was actually booked a number of weeks ago, but I actually turned to you for advice and it was good advice. So I was booking my niece's family trip to Florida and Southwest had the best times, but the times that were good for my family to travel were very, very expensive. There were other times like very late at night or very early in the morning that were cheap. And Nick's suggestion was why not book them using Wanna Get Away Plus fares with Southwest, which allows free same day

changes. So if you wait till the day of the flight, so it's a little risky, but if you wait till the day of the flight, um, you can, you can log on and, and change the flight to any other time of day for free. Like there's no extra charge to make that change. And so, uh, just want to, you know, sort of circle back and say that worked perfectly. So, you know, I had, I had put two, two, uh, reminders on my calendar. One was at midnight the night, you know, before the flight, um, so that I could get in on it right away. And the next was like early, early in the morning in case I missed the midnight one, I did miss the midnight one. Oh, wow. Luckily in the morning, the flight that they wanted wasn't full. I was able to very

easily change them to it and save bundles of points in this case. I used Southwest points. So great. That was great advice. Yeah, that's great. I almost exclusively booked the one I get away plus fares now because the difference is usually pretty small and I enjoy the flexibility. I'm glad to be able to make a change if I want to. So actually, I like that feature quite a bit. I've been booking most of my Southwest flights on that and I've made a couple of changes and other situations I haven't needed to, but at least knowing that I'll have the flexibility to without paying more miles because that's the thing. With other airlines, you might be able to do that if you have elite status, but with Southwest, if you don't book the one to get away plus fair, if you

want to book the one to get away fair, then you're just sunk and you'll have to pay whatever the high cost is of, you know, an award the same day. Unless you create a weather event that, that leads them to do a waiver so you can do changes for free. So you always have that option. I would prefer, and I think all your fellow travelers would prefer that you don't do that and you just book the want to get away plus fair from the getaway plus. Yeah. The other advantage of the want to get away plus fair is by the way, if you're booking a cash fair is that if you cancel them, then you end up with a credit that's transferable to anyone and it doesn't expire. So if you're booking it as a cash ticket,

then that's another big advantage that you're essentially locking in what will become sort of like a gift card that you can transfer to anybody if you end up having to cancel the trip. So I'm a big fan. All right. For me, awards I booked this week, I have a quick hit triple header. I'm not going to spend too much time on this because we got a main event to get to, but quick hit triple header. So first thing up is I got a new manual or a new LifeMiles manual booking. I made a new LifeMiles manual booking this week, and I wanted to mention it because, so I had a very similar situation. Actually, I talked about a LifeMiles manual booking last month, and I actually booked another seat on the same flight because another family member wanted to join us for the trip, and there was still a seat available. So I booked another seat in business

class on the same trip, did it via email, same steps that I had outlined in the post. So very simple, easy. I emailed on, I think, a Wednesday. I was very surprised when Sunday around noon, my phone rang and I realized that the call came from the same number as before. So it was like sunshine communications or something, a number in Florida. I should add that to the post. So, you know, that that's Avianca calling when it comes up. So I- Your contacts too. So it says Avianca is calling. You're right. Answer immediately. Avianca is calling.

I should. But I didn't answer it because I was in the middle of something. I was like, bingo. I was in the middle of something. I was like, you know what? I'll get the email and then I can just call them back. And so you might remember last time when I talked about this, I said, I got the email and they gave me like 24 hours to call back and ticket it. But I said that was a lot different than the previous time I had done a manual booking because they had emailed me and I had like 72 minutes before the deadline to call back and ticket it. Well, this time around, it was different yet again. And that's why I wanted to mention it. I didn't look at the email right away because like I said, I was busy and I figured I'd probably have 24 hours. Right. So I waited until several hours later and I looked at the email and the email said the ticketing deadline

has already passed. You know, basically like call in, you know, at the soonest time that you can, because it'll be canceled at any time. And I was like, what do you mean the ticketing deadline has passed? Like, A, you guys got back to me faster than last time. And B, I just I missed one call. You're not going to give me a chance to call you back. Like,'s just over. So luckily it wasn't over. I called and I was able to book it. So that's good. I was able to pay for it over the phone. It was pretty painless and easy. The one slight oddity this time was that I called and the representative told me that the English speaking billing department was closed. So he was going to have to call the Spanish speaking department and translate for me. So I had to give my credit

card information to the first agent instead of the billing department. Well, that's great that it worked out. It was, it was great. Yeah, it was fantastic. So if you ever run into that situation, you can certainly ask for that. At least you know that. So I wanted to add all of those points. That was number one of three. Yep. One of three. Second was a guest of honor stay that I'm hopefully going to post about that wasn't even actually mine. It was for my wife. So Stephen was able to book a guest of honor stay for my wife. So Steven was able to book a guest of honor stay for my wife at a property that I'm interested in. So check out the blog hopefully in the next couple of days after this publishes and I'll have a quick little

bottom line review. It's the Hotel Nyack, which is just north of New York City. And I mention it because this is one of the properties that's going up in category on March 28th. Right now, it's 8000 points per night. So it's a pretty cheap getaway from New York city. If you're looking to get upstate a little bit, my kids wanted to go to the Legoland discovery center. So, uh, so my wife decided to take the kids and, you know, she and her mom and the kids have a little getaway for a couple of days. So, uh, so I'm excited about that because it's a couple of easy Hyatt elite nights. So that's nice for 8,000 points a night, not quite mattress run worthy, but certainly I'm, I'm interested because the pictures look kind of quirky and interesting.

I can't wait to see what it actually looks like. Yeah. Yeah. I've been curious about this hotel for a while since it showed up. Yeah. So we'll find out. I'll let you know how that ends up working out. And then finally, last but not least, I booked an MGM free stay and I'm going to put free in quotation marks, not totally free. So we've talked in the past maybe about how if you're an MGM member, and if you have Hyatt Explorers status or higher, you can match to MGM Gold. So if you have Explorers

or Globalist, you can match to MGM Gold. And we've often talked in the past about how you get some good room offers sometimes from MGM. And I get occasional free night offers, and it varies. Some properties, it'll be one free night, other properties, two or three or four. And in the past, I've booked those and I've had the nights count as Hyatt Elite qualifying nights. But then I've had some readers report that the free nights don't count as elite qualifying nights. However, I've had a couple of friends who've been to Las Vegas in recent times, and each of them have reported to me that when they book one of these free night offers and they have at least one paid night in this day, they end up getting the Hyatt credit for all of the nights. So what I'm doing is taking an offer for three free nights

and I'm going to book four nights. One night will be paid $13 for the one night that I have to pay for. That's right. And so what I'm hoping is that those four nights, A, will count as elite qualifying nights for Hyatt, but B, more importantly and interestingly, is that they're going to be during the promotion here where every two nights will get you 3,000 bonus points. So I'm hoping that for $13, I'll walk away with four Hyatt Elite nights

and 6,000 Hyatt points. We'll see. So I have that on the docket. Wow, that would be awesome. I hope that works. I'm looking forward to hearing about that. Be tuned in a few weeks, yeah. Yeah.

All right. Nice. So that's that. That's awards we booked this week. So, my friends, it's time for the main event. Main event time. What's in our wallets? All right. So let me post some disclaimers before we dive into

explaining what credit cards are in our wallets day to day. First of all, if you sign up for new credit cards all the time, probably your best approach for earning the most points per dollar is just use whatever card you most recently signed up for. And you're trying to earn the minimum, uh, you're trying to, you know, spend the minimum spend amount. So you earn the signup bonus. Um, just to give you an example, if you had, this isn't even a good offer example, but

if you had, if you had an offer for 60,000 points after $5,000 spend, then that means the first $5,000 to spend on that card is earning 12 bonus points per dollar to get the bonus, plus whatever the card normally earns. So if it earns only one point per dollar, you're getting 13 points per dollar from that spend. So that's awesome. And so let me just sort of put that aside. We're not talking about signup bonus spend when we say what's in our wallets right now. Another thing, another caution or disclaimer is that we each have a lot of cards that aren't in our wallets usually. So these are things like hotel cards that we keep around primarily because they give us a free night every year. Or our platinum card, our Amex platinum card, which is great for getting

into Centurion Lounge and various other benefits, but again, is not our day-to-day spend cards. Airline cards that give you free check bags, or even the United fee free card gives you better award availability with United, things like that. You don't, it's great to have those cards. You don't need them to be in your wallet. All right. So with all that said, I'm going to talk about what's currently in my wallet and then Nick will do his.

All right. So answering Samuel L. Jackson's question, what's in my wallet and then Nick will do his. All right. So answering Samuel L. Jackson's question, what's in my wallet? What's in your wallet? What's in my wallet? For travel spend, I use my Sapphire Reserve card to get three points per dollar everywhere. Now, this is an example of one that's not really in my wallet. It's in my travel wallet, this is an example of one that's not really in my wallet. It's in my travel wallet, which is different. And you could read about that on our blog. But anyway, the point is,

if I'm paying for travel, I usually whip out my Sapphire Reserve card. It gets great automatic travel protections. It gets three points per dollar and their chase points, which I find super valuable specifically for transferring to Hyatt. Wait, I got to ask you a question though. Yeah. Do you not use, at least sometimes, I'm sure that your answer is going to be like, well, yeah, sometimes, your altitude reserve card for travel spend so that you can use real-time mobile rewards yes uh so we'll get to that but okay um yeah uh yes i i do sometimes use that um okay just curious yes uh that's a good question um for dining i still have the old city prestige card that's no longer available five points per dollar for dining um i'm really

glad i kept that i was on the fence back when about whether i should keep that card and it's turned out to be a winner um why for me why is it trying to be a winner a long time five x nine sure but you can get 4x dining on a whole bunch of other cards that you probably have so it's not can't be worth the extra one point per dollar can it um well first of, I do spend a tremendous amount on dining. My wife and I just like to go out to eat. We like to go out to fine dining. So I do spend a lot on dining. And I love that Citi has introduced that one to two transfer ratio to choice points. So earning 5x Citi points is like earning 10x choice points. And as I've written

about in various and talked about on the show at various times, there are some great values to be had with choice. It's not an everyday program. It's not like I'm going to be using them as often as I do Hyatt or Marriott or whatever. But when I do use them, I can get tremendous value at times. So love that. All right. For grocery, I use the custom cash, the Citi custom cash card to get five points per dollar on up to $500 spend per billing cycle. So what I do is I actually have two custom cash cards, and I'm probably going to get a third any moment now. And what I do is, so after I use one at a grocery store, if I spend enough, like a few hundred dollars or whatever, then I'll swap it out for the other one in my wallet so that I'll be less likely to go over the 500 in any given billing cycle that way. And if I could get to where I'm juggling three of them, that'd be even better. As an aside, you're not supposed to be approved for a new one if you already have one. So how do you get a new one? What you do is you product change from any other Citi card. And so

we've long said that usually when you're tired of paying an annual fee for a card, your best option is to product change to a no-fee card. And since I've been doing that over the years, I have a bunch of kind of useless city cards with no fee. And so I have a handful that I could product change to custom cash cards for this purpose. For gas, I use the Wyndham business earner card to get eight points per dollar for gas. So that's the first one in my wallet that is not earning transferable points. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that's a really interesting point.

The first one that doesn't earn transferable points is earning Wyndham points. Doesn't that seem like an odd pick that it would be a great return? Nothing comes close to eight points per dollar. And we love our Wyndham Vacasa vacation rental use of points. You can get fantastic value. I mean, it's not even hard to get around three cents per point value when you do do that so i mean imagine eight points per dollar like times three what what percentage uh rebate is that on gas 24 if you think of it that way right i don't like to think of it that yeah but but still but that's like better than

what the upside is right it's like over 20 return is the upside there right um office supply everyone needs an office supply category of course you do you buy a lot of paper and binders and uh reams of paper and binders and because weekly staples indoor office max are having deals on visa and master card gift cards and so uh you could buy those gift cards often with no fee. I mean, you pay just their value and earn five points per dollar with the ink cash or ink plus card. So that's what I have. I actually have one of each, but right now I'm working on meeting my minimum spend on my new ink cash card so um apple pay so when when i'm in person at a store or even actually on my phone if apple pays an option for paying for something i will uh use the my altitude reserve card because that thing gets three points per dollar for mobile wallet payments. And when you use points for

real-time mobile rewards, which I guess we'll have to explain briefly, but when you use points that way, they're worth one and a half cents each towards travel. And so that's like a four and a half percent return on any time I use Apple Pay. Nick asked about, do I ever use the Altitude Reserve for travel? And so, yeah, I have it as my default card for Uber, for example. And Uber, you know, it earns three points per dollar with Uber because Uber is a travel and Altitude Reserve also gets three points per dollar for travel. But even better, what happens is since I'm signed up for real-time mobile rewards is when I call an Uber, U.S. Bank sends me a text saying, do you want to use this many points to pay for your Uber ride? And

the math works out to you're getting one and a half cents per point value by using points that way. And I find it fun. I don't know why. We've talked before about the joy of free. This is one of those where it feels like, oh, I'm getting this Uber ride for free. And I like that. So there's this fun, there's this instant gratification, I guess, of you just type in redeem in the text and press reply and it says, boom. And you still earn the three points per dollar even on that. So, yeah, you're getting, you're sort of double dipping there. Nice little double dip. Yeah. So everywhere else I have an everywhere else card. What if, what if I'm, I'm doing spend that doesn't meet any of the above. I'm currently using my bank of America premium rewards card. Uh, that card by default only

earns one and a half percent, uh, cash back for most categories. But if you have $100,000 in investments with Bank of America and or Merrill Edge and Merrill Lynch, then you get something called Platinum Honors and that gives you a 75% bump in your rewards for certain cards. That makes this card earn a minimum of 2.62% cash back everywhere. 2.62%, cash back everywhere. 2.62%. That's awesome. Now, $100,000, that might sound like a lot. And for someone young starting out, that is like way too much. But if you're a bit

further along and you have retirement funds, not locked up with your employer, but somewhere you can move them around. You can actually move the management of those funds over to Merrill Edge and use those funds to qualify for this. It doesn't mean selling and rebuying your stocks or anything like that. It's just moving who's keeping track of them. And boom, you get this benefit. So that's what I'm currently doing. I have in the past sometimes used a 2X, a card that earns two points per dollar, two transferable points per dollar is my everywhere else card. And I'm happy doing that when that's a good alternative for some reason. But you do have to realize that when the alternative to earning two points per dollar is 2.62%, you're giving up 1.31 cents per point. So it's sort of like buying each point for

about 1.3 cents each, which is not a bad price for transferable points. But if you're not in the market for new transferable points, if you're not needing new transferable points, it's not necessarily a great deal. So that's why I am currently preferring the cashback as that. You know, one thing I wanted to mention too, when you mentioned moving your investments to Merrill Edge and you said like moving like the management, I think they call it like the custodian of your stock, I think is what I say. The custodianship, I think is the word they use for that. But I wanted to mention importantly that when you talked about moving the management, your funds don't need to be managed in the sense that like you don't have to go to Merrill Edge

and pay the management fees that they charge for managing your portfolio. That's why you mentioned Merrill Edge because Merrill Edge doesn't have any fees. So if you just have simple stock and bond sort of investments or an IRA, that sort of thing, you can move that to Merrill Edge and it doesn't cost you anything to have it there. You're not paying a fee to have it there. So that's what I like about it because it isn't... I think many people that I know would associate high management fees with Merrill Lynch, which may be the case, but Merrill Edge is not that way. Yeah, that's a self-directed brokerage. Really great point. And I'm going to add a couple more points about my wallet before

letting Nick take his turn. First, a careful listener may have noticed that I didn't mention any Amex cards. I'm not earning any membership rewards points in my day-to-day wallet. And the reason for that is I've been earning so many points through welcome bonuses with Amex, with them offering me huge bonuses for the business platinum card over and over again. Or, you know, there was that recent one with the, um, uh, free business checking account. You get points and, uh, referring friends, you get points. So there's so many ways to get points with Amex. Just got a couple more of those business platinum mailers. A couple more of the business platinum mailers. There you go. Nick is showing his latest. Yeah, a couple more of the business platinum pre-approval offers.

Yeah, yeah. And so anyway, I'd rather earn other points that aren't flowing so quickly into my account than Amex points in general. And what about rotating category cards like Discover and Freedom that offer 5X and rotating categories each quarter? I have those cards. I haven't been actively pursuing figuring out what to use when. I've just sort of become too lazy. I always forget to put those cards in my wallet when I'm going to like Target

or whatever the thing is that that quarter. What is it this quarter, Craig? What is the freedom category this quarter? Or what are they? Yeah, who knows that, right? Like you gotta go to frequentmiler.com though. And it's in the sidebar, right? Yeah, we started putting in the sidebar.

So it's an easy reminder. So I should know, but I don't. I don't know either. You know what? I do know? I think it's grocery and target and something else, I think. And I only know that because we talked about what was in the sidebar in our team meeting this week. So I looked at it like yesterday kind of a thing. But that's and I think there's a third thing and I can't tell you what it is. So that shows you how well I have those memorized. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't work very hard at maxing those out either. Maybe I should, but I don't work particularly hard at maxing those out either. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes when it's really easy, like it's a drug store, I might, I might grab my freedom card and run to the drug store and buy

some juicy gift cards or something. So what, so Nick, what's in your wallet? What's in my wallet? Well, I'll have a few surprises in here. So for travel spend, like the card that I use most of the time, like if I'm checking into a hotel and I'm not. Actually, I shouldn't even say that because I'll usually switch out to the hotel card. But when I'm out and about and have some sort of travel spend that comes up, it's usually my VentureX card because it earns two points per dollar everywhere. And I don't have a card in my wallet that offers a particular travel bonus. My wife has a Sapphire Reserve,

so it's not that we don't have it. But frankly, I don't spend that much on travel-related categories like dining, yes, and lots of other ancillary things. And hotels I do spend money on, but usually if I'm spending money at a hotel, that's one of those rare cases where I'm using the hotel card.

So are you just trying to butter up Samuel L. Jackson? You know, well, wait a minute. He's not the venture. He's into like Quicksilver or something. Right, Quicksilver. So no, I'm not buttering him up at all. Maybe it's Jennifer Garner. I don't know if she's still on that card or not.

She probably is. But yeah, so like if I'm, for instance, if I'm in New York and I'm paying for the subway, I don't carry a card in my wallet all the time that offers a travel bonus. So I'll use the VentureX in situations like that. But then I also carry in my wallet the Chase Ritz card. And the reason I carry that one is because you never know when there's going to be a crazy airfare sale or an award all of a sudden opens up. And that's the card that I use for any kind of travel bookings because it's got very similar protections to the Sapphire Reserve. And the Ritz card is just the one that I have. So if I see something crazy and outrageous, then I want to book it on that that so i get all the travel protections that go along with that because it carries the same travel protections so so i made the mistake

of putting that card in my wallet on a recent trip and i say it was a mistake because that stupid card set off the metal detector at the airport you didn't take it out of your pocket i mean i always take my wallet out you didn't take your wallet that's because you don't go through pre-check why well normally you don't have to take out anything when you're on pre-check. You just walk through the x-ray. Well, you take out your phone. Yeah. I mean, there's so many metal cards in my wallet. I always assume that that has to come out because half my wallet is metal. I've never had any trip in. Really? Just the Ritz card.

Just the Ritz card. Interesting. Well, good to know. There you go. So yes, I do carry it. I take my wallet out. Don't go through my bag the next time you see me in the TSA line. So that's my travel spend. And I've mentioned a lot of times before that when I'm in line at the grocery store, I'm usually looking for travel deals. So that's why I legitimately mean I do carry this and I have it on me because I never know when I'm going to see something. So that one I keep too. Then for dining, Amex Gold, 4X dining. I don't have the prestige. I let that go years ago. And so the Amex Gold card for 4X is my go-to for dining spend. Also for grocery spend, Amex Gold card, 4X. I mean, the whole reason for having that card is to get 4X in those two categories. If I weren't going to use it in that, it wouldn't

be worth paying the $250 annual fee probably. So that's the card I use for both of those things. No big surprise there, I don't think. I do have other cards. So if they don't take an Amex, if I'm dining somewhere that doesn't take an Amex, I have at times kept the US Bank Altitude Connect in my wallet because that gets 4% cash back at restaurants. So I did carry that as a dining backup for quite a while anyway. It's not in there right now though. So for now, I'm in the US, most places are going to take MX Gold. So that's what I end up going with for Forex. Gas, I keep the wind and business earner card. It's actually my wife's card, but I keep that in my wallet because I end up filling up the car more often than she does. So the Wyndham Business Earner card

is definitely it for 8X. Now, Greg mentioned before how you can use Wyndham points for outsized value with Vacasa, and that's true. Also, I think maybe I mentioned this in passing once before, but I'm going to mention it once again. Wyndham has a partnership with Caesars and you can move a certain number of points over each year. I think it's 60,000 now. I think it used to be 30 and mention it once again. Wyndham has a partnership with Caesars, and you can move a certain number of points over

each year. I think it's 60,000 now. I think it used to be 30, and now it's 60 that you can move between the two programs and they become rewards credits with Caesars. And so that can be useful, A, if you're going somewhere with a Caesars property, because those points are worth one cent each towards spa treatments or dining or room or whatever else with Caesars. Or you can transfer them over to

the sports book from there. If you're in a state with a sports book app and use them again there, you get one cent per point. So that essentially sets a floor level to me of one cent per point with the 8X Wyndham points, which makes it, I think, I mean, a fantastic gas card. So yeah, a floor of 8% back. That's, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, it does seem that way to me. So that's the Wyndham card. And then, of course, every now and then I need ink for my printer. So for my office supply card, no, I don't know. I don't need ink. I have a laser printer, guys. Come on. Now I buy a Willie thing, a toner once every eight years. So so I have the ink plus the old ink plus, which is no longer available.

It's the same thing as the ink cash. It just has twice the capacity for five X instead of on up to 25 K per year and spend. It has up to 50 K per year that you're in the five X, uh, on, but it's the same card essentially. Otherwise it's the ink cash for the most part. It does add the ability to transfer partners. And so that's when I keep in my wallet so I can transfer to my loyalty accounts easily. So ink plus card is my card for that. I also used to carry that one to pay for hotel charges. If I needed to pay for a hotel cash rate and I wasn't using the hotel chain card, that would be like my backup for 2X. But I don't do that anymore because I'm happy to get the 2X

capital one miles if I'm only going to get 2X. I earn enough chase points at 5X usually that I'm happy to have that exclusively for office supply and not worry about any other categories. So that's that. Google Pay, frankly, I'm not using it much anymore. So I had recently a business platinum card on there because we were working on finishing up the spending requirement on a new card. But you said at the beginning, we weren't going to talk about new card bonuses. This is about what we actually carry. That is what's still on my Google Pay right now as the default card. So I haven't used Google Pay as of late. I don't have something that bonuses that in particular. So card issuers, if you're out there, if you're listening,

I know the Altitude Reserve gives a bonus on this. Somebody else ought to copy that and toss that on a card because I don't know that I am all that into the Altitude Reserve. Otherwise, I don't spend a ton of money in person where I would use Google Pay, but I might pick up a card that had that bonus. Maybe I'll get the Altitude Reserve eventually. It's just been one of those things that hasn't been a priority. I'm going to add another category here, and that's pharmacy. And the reason I'm adding that, Greg mentioned going to the drugstore before, is because I live in a small town where the pharmacy is the convenient place to get stuff. I'll go to the grocery store, yeah, for a lot of food-related stuff. But anything that's not food, and even sometimes when it is food, I'll run up to the

pharmacy because Walgreens is right there. So it's super simple, and you earn three points per dollar on the Chase Freedom Unlimited. So I have the Chase Freedom Unlimited card in my wallet to get three acts at Walgreens. And I go up there often enough for random stuff. I've got kids. So you never know when you're going to need the medicine or this or that. Pedialyte pops or one thing or another that I can't get at the local grocery store, but I can get at the local pharmacy. So I definitely spend more money than I should at Walgreens. So the Freedom Unlimited is good for that. And of course, also for the occasional gift card here and there. So 3X there is a good bonus category for me. And then the Freedom Unlimited has that 3X bonus category. The Freedom card though does not. Am I correct about that? Or am I incorrect? Yeah, the old Freedom visa that's no longer available for new applicants, I don't think

it has the 3X pharmacy rate. OK, good. So that's the 3X. And then for my Everywhere Else card, I use the Capital One Venture X. And I didn't really mention why I use the Venture X before. So briefly on that, first, first is two transferable points per dollar everywhere. So I like that. It's not the only card on the market that offers two transferable points per dollar. We've got a Blue Business Plus in our household that would also earn two points

per dollar. They'd be Amex points. But like Greg, I do have a lot of Amex points and I use the gold card for dining and grocery. So I don't really need to continue adding even more onto that pile necessarily. And Capital One adds a couple of partners that Amex doesn't have. So I'm happy to earn some Capital One points. And then I have one of those old Capital One cards. And every now and then I've heard from somebody who just randomly discovered that their player two in their household has one of these old Capital One cards that has the weird ability to redeem 64,250 Capital One points for a $900 Marriott gift card. And I like that because then it's essentially sort of like earning 2.8% back towards Marriott stays on the venture card. And I use it that way often because

if I do have to have a paid stay, then I like being able to use the gift cards for it or for other charges that I'm going to incur at a hotel. Or I thought briefly about going to the Maldives at one point and I thought, well, you pay the seaplane charge to the hotel. So I could redeem Capital One points for gift cards from Marriott in order to cover that cost if I wanted to. So that's my everywhere else card. Now, the other thing we didn't include was what about debit card, Greg? Do you carry a debit card in your wallet every day or not? I do. I do. So I have Chase private client, which for a long time, Chase had been my go-to everywhere banking. And so just out of laziness and no reason to change it, I continue

to do that. And because I have a private client, my debit card gives me the same things that a Schwab fee-free card gives you, which is no foreign transaction fees when withdrawing money and no, they pay me back for any ATM fees and things like that. But that's all I use my debit card for ever is to get money out at an ATM. What about you? Yep. I have the SoFi money card because I was one of those people that opened it years ago where rebates, ATM fees everywhere worldwide. So that's not a feature of the SoFi money card anymore.

And it's been years since that was a feature. So that doesn't apply to most people. But for those of us that have an old SoFi money card anymore. And it's been years since that was a feature. So that doesn't apply to most people. But for those of us that have an old SoFi money card, I like that. And the one benefit of that over the Schwab debit card is that the Schwab debit card, at least as I understand it, rebates the fees like at the end of the month, whereas the SoFi card rebates the fees like immediately, instantly. You get the rebate as soon as you take the money out, the rebate goes back in. So that's kind of nice because, yeah, you get a notification on the phone that they've rebated it.

So you know that you got it back and you don't have to wait until the end of the month. I don't like to keep a lot of money in an account that I carry the debit card for day to day because if it gets stolen, I don't want it to get cleared out for a lot of money. So that's convenient for me because I don't really want to lose that five or six bucks

because I don't keep a ton in there to begin with. And so I don't want to end up in a situation where it's like, oh, I don't have enough to cover the five or six dollars for the withdrawal fee or something. So I like that it gets rebated instantly. And then I'll just transfer money into that account as need be. If I take money out, I'll transfer money back into it so that I'll have money in another day or two in that account so so if my money card is the one i carry but the schwab debit card would be the one i carry if not for the instant rebates from sofi from that old account okay well there you go so samuel or jennifer if you're listening out there you now know what's now you know that's now you know what's in our wallet no more mystery now you now know what's in our wallets. Now you know what's in our wallet. No more mystery. Now you know what's in there for now anyway. And we should mention that this changes. It does

tend to change. We've written posts in the past about what's in our wallet. And if you look back, if you just Google Frequent Miler, what's in our wallet now or something like that, what's in Nick's wallet, what's in Greg's wallet, you'll probably find an old post that has totally different cards than what we just talked about today. We're going over now what's in there today. And if you look at what was in there a year ago, I'm sure the cards would be quite different for the most part. Yes. True story. Many of them would be. All right. Oh, and by the way, I should have mentioned for everywhere else, you might be like, why don't you have the Bank of America card also that Greg has? And in my case, that's because that's my wife's card and she hasn't added me. We haven't added me as an authorized user because I don't really want the extra accounts

that are going to trip up the computer for 524 and that sort of thing. So I don't carry that one in my wallet. She carries it in hers, which makes life a lot easier because then I don't have to worry about her choosing the wrong card when she's out and about and doing something. So it's a great one card solution for her. That's the reason why it's not my everywhere else card. Awesome. All right. I should have mentioned that before. All right. Now let's get into this week's question of the week, because I think that wraps us up for the main event,

right? Yep. Okay. So this week's question of the week comes in from Garrett via email. Now, the question of the week that he sent in, as soon as I read it, you're going to be like, oh, well, that's an easy answer, but I'm going to change it a little bit. You'll see what I mean. So Garrett says, hello, after listening to your previous show about the most rewarding hotel chain, that was just last week, last week's episode. I was left wondering in which hotel chain are you most likely to receive upgrades with elite status? I tend to think Hyatt and IHG may result in more upgrades because I believe they have fewer elite members than Marriott and Hilton. What do you think? Thanks, Garrett. Now, I know I know that Greg is itching to say it all depends on where you are and when you are and how many people are there. There's

no way to predict which chain in general has the best chance of upgrades because that's going to vary tremendously. So instead, what I want to adjust Garrett's question to be, and so Garrett, that's the easy answer to you. It just depends when and where you're going. But better question, I think, if I can just tweak it a little bit, Garrett, is what could you do to increase the odds of getting an upgrade? Or what factors do you consider? Like when you book a property, do you think about the chance of getting an upgrade? And do you do anything to position yourself to be more likely to get an upgrade? Or how do you go about it, Greg? Okay. Great question. I don't have a ready answer, but I want to add to the previous thing about it depends to say that there are a lot of properties that have very, very few suites.

If you're talking about upgrades to suites, for example. So that fits in. It doesn't matter. Yeah, you got to consider. So it doesn't matter what chain it is. If they only have two suites, the chance of getting upgraded is, you know, tiny. For me, now that we don't usually travel with our son anymore. Now he's like 20 something.

And so suite upgrades is not a priority for me anymore. What is a priority is things like ocean view. So it's going to depend where we are, whether I even care about an upgrade at all. And so, yeah. So many places, city hotels, I just don't worry about it. And if I'm planning for a beachside hotel, then I do care a lot and I will look for things like, how full are they? So, you know, there's one in Michigan that I've gone to a lot, then at Bay Harbor, which, you know, even as a titanium Marriott Elite, they try to give me

upgrades, but if they're full, they're full. And they often are, They have like wedding blocks, blocking all the rooms, things like that. So, you know, if it's that important, I'm just actually not going to book it or not going to book it as a word in that case, because with Marriott, you can't, you know, you can't guarantee the room in advance. You can't guarantee the upgrade in advance. So how about you? You have a different situation than me. Yeah, I do. I value the suites tremendously now because, you know, we got two young kids. And so

having the extra space, being able to put them to bed and close the door and still be awake kind of a thing is very, very valuable to me at this stage. The suites didn't matter to me at all when it was just my wife and I traveling and they became tremendously important in the last couple of years. So what Greg said there was certainly part of what I wanted to address for Garrett. And that's taking a look at what's available at the property, because which property I book, especially if there's a couple of options, will sometimes depend on which one I think I'm likely to get an upgrade on based on how much they have for sale. Like, does this property have like just a few rooms left for

sale? It seem, I mean, obviously, you won't know if they've got 10 suites or eight suites available, but how many different room types are available? Are there three different types of suites that are still available, or is there only one type of suite that's still available? Because if there's only one, then I know my chances of getting upgraded to that are slimmer. So I'll look for properties where it looks like, oh, wow, almost every room type is available. Now to go along with that, when I get there to check in, I'll often inquire and ask, hey, do you have any suite upgrades available? Any complimentary suite

upgrades available? And multiple times in the past, I've had a check-in agent say, no, I'm sorry, we're fully committed for the night. And I've turned my phone and been like, oh, really? Because I see three different types of suites available for sale on the app. And just with legitimate surprise, not trying to be rude. And oftentimes, magically, they'll find one that's open at that point. So that, you know, knowing what's available when you step up to the front desk is certainly helpful, I think, anyway, in terms of knowing what's possible. And I just did that recently. I didn't end up having the desk didn't tell me that there were no rooms available. But I went to the desk knowing which suite types were available. So I asked specifically for the

suite type that I knew was available for sale, knowing that probably they would look at that because they're looking for a specific room type now, not just any suite, but they're looking for a specific room type that I've asked. And so it's much more likely that they're going to say, oh yes, that is available. So I can assign that to you. So that's certainly something to look at what's available for sale. And also considering your location and time of year, because that's what I kind of dismissed the question with. And I didn't mean to at the beginning is that it varies tremendously, but you have to think about, okay, is this a peak time? Is this a property that's highly desirable? Is this a place in the middle of nowhere where there probably aren't very many elites checking

in because it's 20 degrees below zero this week? So those types of things factor into. In fact, I was just at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Florida recently, and they told me they had something like 60 globalist members checking in that day when I was at the front desk. So if you're checking in with 60 other globalist members on the same day, your chance of scoring that upgrade is pretty slim. I mean, that's a property that has a lot of suites. So maybe you're going to be more likely to get upgraded there, but you got to consider that. If you're going to the Andes, Maui, you know, good luck getting an upgrade at a place like that. Good point. Now, you've also had good luck messaging the hotel in advance. And I've done that a couple of times, especially when I want to make clear what my preference is. So, for example, because it's just the two of us, I've been known to message the hotel and say,

hey, if there are any upgrades available, I just want to let you know, it's more important to me to have a ocean view than a bigger room, you know, and you might do the opposite, right? Because you want the bigger room or the suite rather than the view. And so I think it just, it helps them out. And it's not going to be a hundred percent, but it can be good. No, it can be. And I've written multiple times before about how I've had a lot of success with that in the Marriott app. In the Marriott app, you can chat with somebody at the front desk starting two days before

check-in. And I had assumed for a long time that you were chatting with some random customer service person, you know, at a computer overseas somewhere, but you're not, you're actually chatting with somebody at the front desk at the hotel when you pull that up. So I've had a lot of success with messaging somebody there. I usually wait until check-in day, but sometime in the morning, I'll message and explain what it is that I need, what my preference is, just like Greg has said. And I've had tremendous success with that. I also sometimes will email the property. I'll just Google the name of the general manager, whatever property it is.

And if you've ever emailed anybody at that chain, you can figure out the email address, usually like first name dot last name at Marriott or at Andaz or whatever the case might be. Hopefully you've got an email from somebody at one of those chains before that you can go back and reference. And I'll usually email the general manager

knowing that the general manager isn't gonna handle it. They're gonna pass it on to somebody else. I've talked about this before. They're going to pass it on to somebody else, but I'm always banking on the fact that that somebody else, when they receive an email from the boss saying, Hey, can you handle this? Hopefully they're going to handle it. So I've had decent success again with getting upgrades by just emailing in advance and explaining what it is that I'm hoping for and what I need. And of course it's still going vary. If the place is packed and fully sold out, then I know I'm not going to get an upgrade. And if there is a highly desirable place where there's going to be a lot of other elite members checking in, again, my chances are probably pretty

slim. But the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So I try to squeak in advance if I anticipate those things being a potential roadblock anyway. And that'll position me hopefully for the best bet. But yeah, in terms of like, are you more likely to get upgraded with Hyatt than IHG? I mean, Hyatt tends to be pretty good about their elite benefits, I would say in comparison to others. But like Greg said last week, there's still variance from property to property in terms of which properties are good at elite recognition. So you're probably better off seeking out properties in each chain that are known for good elite recognition if you want to try to increase your odds. But again, traveling at low season and weekdays and things like that are more likely, I think, to increase your odds.

Yeah. One last tip, If the upgrade is really, really important to you, call the hotel and just say, you know, I have this award stay booked. Can I pay a little bit to upgrade to, and like Nick said before, I would have a room type in mind, like check ahead of time that it's available for sale and say, you know, I really want, for whatever reason, you know, probably helps to explain the reason to and say, you know, I really want for whatever reason, you know, probably helps to explain the reason to have this, you know, is there a way to pay for an upgrade to that? And, you know, then hopefully they'll give you a reasonable price and you could do it and you have it locked. Yeah. And you may even end up surprised. Yeah. I did that for a property once

where I wanted the two or three bedroom suite and I did that for a property once where I wanted the two or three bedroom suite and I wanted that. So I anticipated having to pay for it. So I emailed in advance asking how much to upgrade to that. And they just wrote back and said, we'll upgrade to complimentary to that. Wow. That's great. My mind was blown, but if I hadn't asked and I just waited until check-in day, who knows whether or not I would have gotten it. But it was important to me in that case. And I was willing to pay something for it.

And luckily, I didn't even have to. So it's worth reaching out. Like Greg said, I think that's a great tip. Look at the exact room type you want and ask for that. And that will at least increase your odds. But there's no 100% way to make sure you get the upgrade every time. If there was a secret, I'm sure you would find it out there on all of the mainstream media sites that would say, hey, for an upgrade to suites,

walk in in your suit and tie. And don't you see those articles all the time about how to upgrade to first class? Dress well. And then V from the Wing writes a rebuttal the next day about why those things don't work. Right. And I believe him about that. Right. Yeah. Don't usually work. Same for hotels.

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