Frequent Miler on the Air - When can you get the same card (and welcome bonus) again? | Ep226 | 10-28-23

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

Did you know that it is possible to get the same credit card that you have had before and get the new cardmember welcome bonus again? In fact, in some cases, you might be able to open a second of the same card that you currently have and get the bonus again. This week, we discuss the rules by issuer. 00:00 Intro 01:45 Giant Mailbag 05:01 Card Talk: Delta SkyMiles Platinum Card https://frequentmiler.com/DLplat/ https://frequentmiler.com/DLplatbiz/ 17:37 Mattress Running the Numbers 17:41 Bilt Rent Day https://frequentmiler.com/bilt-november-rent-day-up-to-150-transfer-bonus-to-emirates-skywards/ 27:23 Award Talk 27:36 Air France KLM Flying Blue reduces award prices 33:50 Vacasa vacation rentals devalued https://frequentmiler.com/wyndham-vacasa/ 36:53 Main Event: When can you get the same card (and welcome bonus) again? 38:35 Amex 45:46 Bank of America 50:08 Barclays 53:21 Capital One 53:32 Citi 53:48 Chase 1:00:44 Question of the Week: What's up with award space from the West Coast? Music credit: Annie Yoder

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did City do 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. When can you get the same card and welcome bonus again? So earning points and miles, the easiest way is through signing up for new credit cards and earning the welcome bonuses from those new credit cards. And sometimes I'd say often there are ways to, in the future, sign up for that same card again and get whatever the current signup bonus is. So we're going to talk about how and when you can do that. So there's a lot of riches

to be had in the long run. This is playing the long game. For sure. And you got to be prepared for the long game if you want to succeed here. And it's fun and also can just help you build your balance quicker. And if you know what the rules are, it's a lot easier to take advantage of the way that they work. So we'll talk about that today. Wherever you're watching or listening to this, please

don't forget to like it. Give us a thumbs up, leave us some feedback, leave a comment, whether you're watching this on YouTube or listening to it in podcast platform. We know that helps other people find the show too. So thank you very much for remembering to do that. Don't forget to subscribe and enable notifications. And remember that we always have the timestamps in the show notes. So if you're looking to skip ahead to a specific segment, you can take a look at the show notes on YouTube. You may have to expand the description box if you're on mobile or wherever you're looking at this or listening to this in a podcast platform. Just check the show notes for links to posts with more information about everything we've been talking about. So for now, Greg, can you drag out the giant mailbag? I've got it right here. Giant mailbag time. Today, we've got two pieces of giant mail. This week, we have reviews that have come in through Apple podcasts.

And, you know, every now and then I like to I like to read the, you know, give ourselves a pat on the back by reading some nice reviews. It's a nice divergence from reading the messages that tell us what we got wrong on previous episodes of the show. Here we go. The first is from Elizabeth Rose. She says, I've been in the game for a while. Frequent Miler is my new favorite resource. I can't believe I've been sleeping on Frequent Miler for years. They have great info, a really positive way of sharing it, and they prioritize providing the best deals even when they lose out on commission. What more could I ask for? Keep up the great work. Thank you very much, Elizabeth. And now we have one from Kay Paley, who says, this show helped me book $115,000 in travel in 16 months.

About 16 months ago, I was just starting to get into the miles and points world in a serious way, and a friend recommended listening to The Frequent Miler. Game changer. In the intervening months, largely thanks to Greg's and Nick's spot on and beautifully organized advice, I've booked more than $115,000 in free travel. Greg and Nick break down complicated actions and lingo in a way that's easy for a newcomer to digest, but without covering the same few basic things over and over. I also love that there's no sales pitch. They're not shilling cards. They don't have ads on the podcast and they're not teasing a course. The guys are honest brokers. If I had to choose just one Miles and Points podcast

to recommend, it would be The Frequent Miler, hands down. So thank you very much, Kay. Thank you. Nice to hear from both of you. Glad the alarm went off and Elizabeth woke up. Welcome to the party. And I'm glad to hear that you found it useful for you. And, you know, certainly also from Kay Paley, thank you very much. It's just, it's always nice to get that, that feedback and also to hear that people are booking awesome trips. I mean, it's, it's crazy. If you stop for a second and say $115,000 worth of travel, and we can get up here

and argue the semantics over how much are the redemptions worth? Are they worth the cash price if you wouldn't have paid for it, et cetera? But the bottom line is that you couldn't have done it without $115,000 otherwise, if not for award travel. And that's amazing to think that we can all live this life. So I was just talking about this with somebody earlier today saying it's pretty incredible, the lifestyle that we can live with these miles and points that you just otherwise most of us would never have a chance to do. So that's awesome. I'm glad to hear it. Very, very good. Yeah, yeah, I really love it. You know, these two are good fans. I think it's time to try to sell them on our $100,000 sign up for a masterclass. Yes, yes. You transfer that right over right now. You know what? What we really ought to do is sell them a credit card. So let's talk about card talk. Right. Okay. It's card talk time. Today, we're going to be talking about the Delta SkyMiles Platinum card. There's two versions. There's a consumer and a business card. We've talked in the past about the gold card as part of card talk, the Delta gold card. And we haven't yet hit the platinum card. And on a future episode, surely we'll get to the Delta Reserve

card as well. But today it's all about the platinum one. $250 a year. The consumer and business cards differ primarily in their category bonuses, where you earn points. So the consumer card, they both earn three points per dollar for Delta purchases. And they both earn three points per dollar for purchases made directly with hotels. So that's kind of interesting for a airline card. The consumer one earns two points per dollar at restaurants and two points per dollar at supermarkets within the United States. The business card, though, instead of restaurants and supermarkets, the business card earns 1.5 points per dollar on purchases of $5,000 or more

with a maximum of 50,000 extra miles per year. Okay, moving on. Delta miles aren't worth a lot, so we're not too excited about those category bonuses, but it's better than nothing. The cards, just like the Delta Gold card, offer 15% off flight awards. So when you're booking an award flight flying Delta, you'll get that discount. And it also gives you priority boarding and first check bag free, which is again, also features of the Delta Gold Card. But where this one really shines above the Delta Gold Card, I think, is that you get each year upon renewal, you get a domestic economy companion certificate. So that means you can book a round trip flight, uh, mostly within the U S, uh, and, uh, add a companion for free. I mean,

you have to pay with, you know, the little bit of taxes and fees for that companion. Um, so you could do that once per year. What are the requirements for using that companion certificate? Is it really easy to use? Is it difficult to use? What's the story on that? I mean, it's technically pretty easy to use in that you click a box and say, I want to use this and try to find your round-trip flight. It's only valid on the cheapest fare classes.

And you can't book first class with this. So you have to book economy where it gets to be problematic is when the cheaper fare classes sell out. So especially, you know, you're trying to book expensive flight over the holidays and you think, well, this is the best time to use my companion certificate. I'm going to get so much value because these round-trip flights cost $900. And then you go and look and you see, oh, there are no flights that are valid for this certificate because all the cheap fare classes are already sold out. So to really get the best value from this, you normally have to book well in advance if you want to travel during the holidays. During off season, I haven't had a lot of trouble using it, but certainly some people have been very frustrated by it.

But well, that's good to know, though. I mean, if you're somebody who plans travel reasonably far in advance, which I mean, a lot of people certainly do, then it probably won't be terribly difficult unless you're looking to travel at the most peak times, it sounds like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. be terribly difficult unless you're looking to travel at the most peak times it sounds like yeah yep yep and you know if you have um elite status uh you're still up uh you're still eligible for upgrades when you book these uh and i'm mentioning that primarily because that used to not be the case you used to be stuck in economy with these companion certificates but that's not what you're going to say with these people like nick stuck with these people with these companion certificates, but that's no longer the case. I thought you were going to say with these people like Nick. Stuck in economy with these. I was like, well, what are we going to do? That's right. Yeah, that's horrible.

You don't want to be stuck with Nick. Nope. But you know what? If you're flying Delta, you're probably not going to be stuck in economy with Nick because Nick rarely flies Delta. Very unlikely.

So I do recommend delta for that reason okay um the other thing that this card offers that the gold card does not offer are some perks that help you get to elite status and i'm going to talk about uh perks that that kick in next year so in 2024 um one thing that it gives you is 2500 dollars of mqds these are medallion qualifying dollars uh it's called a head start an mqd head start so 2500 mqds towards elite status what does that mean uh you need to earn 5 000 mqds in a year to earn silver status, at least in 2024. That's the rule. We expect that to go up in future years. But for now, that's the rule.

So just having this card gets you halfway there. And that means that you earn MQDs once you fly that flight. And so this is basically giving you the equivalent of as if you spent $2,500 on Delta flights in the year just by having the card. And that gets you, as I said, closer to elite status. So that's very good. The other thing it gives you is one MQD for every $20 you spend on the credit card, which is very bad. I mean, that's a very, very low ratio. And if you're hoping to earn elite status through spend, you're going to have to be spending a tremendous amount. And if you're spending that much, you're going to definitely want the Delta reserve card, the more expensive card, because that earns twice as many MQDs for the same spend. So, um, so don't, don't get this

card. If your goal is to earn status through spend, but if your goal is to get a headstart on status just by having the card, uh, it's good in that way. Yeah. And you know, if you're going to be spending on the card on your reserve cards also,. And you know, if you're going to be spending on the card on your reserve cards also, or spending anything really, if you're going to be spending towards the welcome bonus requirement, and so you're going to earn some MQTs and some redeemable miles, then having the 15% discount on award tickets is obviously useful. Now that doesn't stack if you have multiple Delta cards. So if you're gonna have another Delta card also, then it's not going to help you. That 15% discount, you just get one time. But if this is your only Delta card, if you've got a bunch of Delta miles, and you're going to be redeeming that certainly

could be a nice discount, because you've found in searches anyway, that it seems to be a true discount and not just a situation where they pump up the price and then make it look like you're getting a discount. You actually really do save 15% over what somebody like me who doesn't have a Delta card would pay for the same award. Yeah, you really do. So that's a legitimate benefit. And as you said, I mean, if you're going to be spending miles, Delta miles, while they're not worth, it's very hard to get far outsized value from them. It's not like American Airlines where sometimes you can book things like Cutter Q Suites business class all the way from the US to South Africa for 75,000 miles one way. Delta for a similar flight would charge such a big number of miles that I don't have enough digits in my head to say. But they do give a pretty consistent

value of somewhere from one to 1.3 cents per point value before getting that 15% discount. So it pumps it up to more like 1.3 to 1.5 cents per point value with the discount. So it's pretty good, pretty good in that way. Overall, so my take on it is primarily that if lead status is important to you, then yeah, it'd be kind of crazy not to have this card or the Delta Reserve card, which also has that head start. And if Elite Status isn't important to you, but you fly Delta enough that you can be pretty confident that you'll use that companion certificate every year, then this is a really good card. Because remember, the annual fee is $250, at least as we're speaking about it. And saving $250 on a round-trip flight is not very hard to do, in my mind. So you can almost break even by having this card, as long as you are sure that you'll use that companion ticket each year.

So that's my take on it. Do you have anything else to put in about your thoughts on the card? No, I mean, I feel like even for me, somebody who doesn't usually fly Delta, I could make this card into a win. I don't because I got enough other cards in my life and enough other complexities that I don't need this one. But I know that we could book one round trip flight a year and get better than 250 between the companion certificate and the free check bag, which I know you can get the free check bag with the gold card. But if you're going to use the companion certificate anyway, then, you know, I have the gold card. So I'd have this one. Right. And get both. So have your cake

and eat it, too, so to speak. It'd be very easy to save more than two hundred and fifty dollars a year. I don't usually choose to fly Delta because they're not usually the most convenient option for my airport. But if I even flew them every now and then, once a year, and this card would be worth having. So it's definitely, I think, an interesting one in that even somebody like me who Delta is not my habit, I know I could easily get more than 250 in value out of the card. So it certainly could make sense if you're somebody who flies Delta with any sort of regularity. It just doesn't, to me, it doesn't make sense not to have the platinum or the reserve card. And if you're going to fly Delta with regularity, you will probably want one of the two of those. But the thing is, what I want to be clear about is that this is not a good card for day to day spend.

You don't want to put regular purchases on this. This card is one of those that you have for the benefits, the check bag and the annual companion certificate. Even the bonus categories, like Greg said, it's better than nothing, but it's not better than other cards that you should probably also have in your wallet. So certainly not at 1X. Don't put purchases on this at one mile per dollar spent. You might as well just get yourself a 2% cash back card before you go do something crazy like that. So keep that in mind. Robert Leonard And last thing I'll say about this card is that the consumer and business cards, they're considered separate products. So you could sign up for both, you could apply for both

anyway. And if you're approved and meet the spend requirements, you could earn the welcome bonuses on both of them. And some things will will stack like you will earn two companion passes each year um not just one uh and you will earn um two mqd head starts so you would actually start the year with 5 000 mqd so you'd start with silver elite status which is kind of uh amazing um for for that combination. And the reason I could see someone doing two cards like that, even if they're not hunting elite status, is if they have a family of four, let's say,

and you want to have those two companion tickets, that would be enough to fly everybody. Because you'd have to book two separate tickets, I think. You'd have to use them separately in that way, but you could fly one parent with one child, the other with the other. They could be on the same plane, obviously, but you'd have to book them separate. But that's

a great way to save for a family of four. And if I were going to do that, I would not want me to get one card and my wife to get the other. I would want one of us to get a consumer and a business card. That way, all $5,000 in head start qualifying dollars, the MQDs would be in one account. And that's what Greg said, because with that $5,000, each card gives you a $2,500 head start. That'll give you Delta Silver status. So not only would I get two companion certificates to fly my family of four somewhere, but I'd also have Delta Silver status.

So if I were going to do it, that's probably the way I would do it because I do have a family of four. So that was a great point. I'm glad you mentioned that. All right. So that's our card talk. Let's talk about Mattress Running the Numbers. This week's Mattress Running the Numbers is Built Rent Day. The first of the month is coming up soon and built is back baby with another

rent day promo. What's up this month? Yeah, so built rent days promo to dad, they're offering a huge transfer bonus for Emirates. So if you want to transfer your bill points to Emirates, what is it called skywards or something silly like that. So you want to transfer your built points to Emirates, what is it called? Skywards or something silly like that. So if you want to transfer your points to Emirates, basic, they have this elite program with built. So it's based on how many points you earn with built. You get to different tiers of elite status.

So the bottom level, like no status at all, is called blue. And so for blue members, you get a 75% transfer bonus. So for every, you know, if you transfer 100,000 built points to Emirates, you'd end up with 175,000 Emirates points. Silver members get 100% transfer bonus, gold members get 125% transfer bonus and platinum members get 150% transfer bonus. So that 100,000 points transferred would become 250,000 Emirates points. So that sounds like a lot. But is there anything we can do with those Emirates points? I mean, we don't want to go transferring our points to Emirates. If there's nothing good we could do with them. Well, let's be clear. You don't want to transfer speculatively. That's what we well, you know, that's what we always say. And

I would maintain that still here, except if you are particularly interested in an Emirates route. However, you got to know that there are high surcharges on the flights to and from Dubai. But the good news is that at least sometimes you don't have high surcharges on the Fifth Freedom routes. And by that, I mean the route from JFK to Milan and from Newark to Athens. So New York, JFK to Milan and Newark, New Jersey to Athens, Greece. So those two routes have just $104 or so, a little over $100 in surcharges when you find Saver Awards available, Flex Awards available. So it's 87,000 miles one way and $104. But even better yet, if you can find round-trip Saver Award availability, a round-trip business class award from JFK to Milan or Newark to Athens is 108,000 Emirates miles. Great. Bust

out the calculator. What does that mean? 108,000 Emirates miles. How many built points would you need to fly round trip in business class to Europe? Yeah. So rounding up to the nearest thousand built points that you would need. If you have no status at all with built, you would need only 62,000 built points transferred to Emirates to have enough for round trip business class. Round trip business class. And the surcharges on a round trip award are $246 in total. Like that's taxes and surcharges. Round trip, $246. So 62,000, that's, I mean,

for a round trip business class trip to Europe, that's crazy cheap. But it gets crazier at the, we're not going to go through every single level, but at the very top tier elite status where you're getting that 150% transfer bonus, you'd only need to transfer 43,000 built points for that round trip business class trip.

That's insane. That's insane. That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Emirates on these two routes is still flying the 777. They've been flying the 777 for a long time from Newark. The JFK route used to have an A380, but now it's the 777. So it's not Emirates' best business class product.

There are some seats that wouldn't have direct aisle access. But if you're flying with somebody else anyway, then you could put two of you together. And it's still, I think, a lie flat product. So it's still reasonably nice, certainly nice enough to do it for 42,000 miles round trip or 42,000 built points round trip. That's pretty nuts, in my opinion. So now, you know, what's availability like? Well, surprisingly, I found examples of Saver business class, at least one way, if not both, in like peak summertime dates. I was really surprised. So you may be surprised at how much availability you can find.

Now, round trip, the 108K, I had a harder time finding a course during the summer, and that should surprise absolutely no one since summertime availability availability Europe is generally really hard to come by. But at least in one direction, it's usually pretty easy. And that shouldn't be too surprising because at 87,000 miles in business class, Emirates is already priced high for their business class awards. And then when you consider it's not the best business class, not so many people get super excited about 87,000 miles one way. But if you're talking about 62,000 one way, if you have no status, or rather 62,000 round trip, round trip, if you have no status with built, well, now that's a whole different ballgame. I mean, if that were the case every day, then everybody would be talking about booking Emirates, right? Right, right. All right. So here's the question. Is this good enough? Should people

speculatively transfer to Emirates because they've got a big built balance? Should they just dump them all out into Emirates? No, no, no, you shouldn't. And, you know, we've talked so that built has run a couple of incredible transfer bonuses this year. There was one to Air France flying blue and there was one to Virgin Atlantic. And and when they ran those. Virgin Atlantic, we were hesitant. Air France, both of us said it probably even makes sense speculatively and maybe we should transfer our miles speculatively. This one, I wouldn't do it speculatively. And the reasons for that are multiple. The main reason is because there aren't many good uses of Emirates Skyward

miles. It's just basically this is it. This is going to be your best one anyway, JFK or New York to Europe here on Emirates. And that's only true if you find availability and Emirates has jacked up the surcharges quite high on most of their routes. These two routes seem to still be immune to that, but who knows when they're going to increase them. And I should have mentioned before that the sort of saver flex price is eighty seven thousand and about one hundred bucks on the way out on it's like one hundred and on the way back, it's like one hundred and thirty or something like that, depending on the taxes, whether you're departing Italy or Athens, Greece. But they also have basically non-saver awards. I think what they call Flex Plus,

if I remember correctly. And those are $142,500 one way and $1,200 in surcharges. Oh, boy. $1,200. Wow. Yeah. One way. Yeah, yeah. You want to avoid those. You want to avoid those. And so I wouldn't want to speculatively transfer and then find, oh, man, all I can find available are these hundred and forty two thousand mile awards with twelve hundred dollars in surcharges. Nor would I want to wait. And then like a year from now, I'll be like, oh, I'm ready to fly Emirates. And all of a sudden they've added those surcharges to all of

the awards or something. So I wouldn't do it speculatively. But if you find award availability, I definitely might. And in fact, I might do this because I have some orphaned Skyward Smiles. And I mentioned the orphaned Skyward Smiles because I want to give you a little something to avoid here. A few months back, we were looking to travel to Europe and sort of close to the last minute, we decided, oh, I think we want to try and sort of close to the last minute, we decided, oh, I think we want to try and book Emirates because there was availability from New York to Milan.

So we wanted to use my wife's Amex membership rewards points, but she didn't have an Emirates account. So we signed her up for an Emirates Skywards account. We transferred Amex membership rewards to her Emirates account, and then we went ahead and booked the first class awards that we wanted, except Emirates locked up her account for security risk because she had just opened her Emirates account, immediately transferred in miles and tried to book a first class award. They didn't seem to like that. So they locked up her account, didn't let her book the awards. And it took like months to get that sorted out so that her account was unlocked. And now she's got a couple hundred

thousand Emirates miles that we never really wanted to have in the first place. So I have these orphaned miles there now. And now I might actually book an award using some of the built points I have. So anyway, the moral of the story here is that you don't want to just open up a brand new account and transfer in right away. Open your account now. If you don't have an Emirates Skywards account yet, open that right now and link it up to your built account so that you're not doing it all in one day. Yeah, that's great advice. So let me say my take on the whole transfer bonus and whether you should do it speculatively. At first, I was actually thinking, if you were pretty confident you would eventually want to fly one of those two routes that we've been talking about,

Newark to Athens or JFK to Milan, I was going to say, well, yeah, you probably should speculatively transfer because it's such a good deal. But I do think and agree with Nick's take on this that I would not trust that these prices are going to stay like that for long. So it'd be a pretty big risk. And, you know, a couple of years ago, there were a lot of good uses for Emirates points. And now there's like these two that we know of. I mean, I think there are others out there you could probably find. But the point is they've been dwindling fast. And so I wouldn't want to put my apples into that cart, let's say. There you go. All right. So that is our

mattress running the numbers. The basic consensus is probably wouldn't do it speculatively, might do it for a fantastic deal, though. All right. So that's that. Let's talk about award talk. So speaking of cheap awards to europe you can get some really cheap ones now yeah yeah uh so we've got we've we've got both good news and bad news in today's award talk so we'll start with the good news uh the good news is that air france klm flying blue has reduced their award prices between the u.s and europe so um the way it used to work as of i would say a week ago from when we're recording this uh was that the further that from the east coast to europe uh you could find business class awards for as cheap as 55,000 points. But as you went

west, it would get more expensive. So out of Detroit, it started at 70,000 points one way we're talking about. But now, just sort of like overnight, all of a sudden we're seeing consistently, no matter where in the U.S. you search from, a low price of 50,000 points one way for business class. And let me say, when I say we're seeing that price, I don't mean we see it on all flights every day or anything like that. It's just they have certain seats that are allocated as like available at this saver rate, let's call it. And that saver rate, like I looked at specific examples

from Detroit, for example, that where it would have cost me 70,000 points had I tried to book this a week ago. Now it's showing up as only 50,000. So that's a huge discount from anywhere but the East Coast where the East Coast is still saving a bit. So either way, you're better off. And you also have some good prices, premium economy, 35,000 points one way and economy 20,000 points one way. So those are all excellent. And you know what? Flying Blue, we often, often see transfer bonuses

from various transferable points programs to Flying Blue. So this is a program that more and more, I am willing to speculatively transfer to this program. So yeah, you know, next big one, uh, if, if, uh, if, if built comes back with a huge one to, to, uh, flying blue, I would do that transfer again. And, uh, you know, if we see a really good one out of, uh, Amex or, uh, like city, I I'm going to want to do that. Um, I'm hesitant to do my chase points because I still would prefer to use my chase points for Hyatt.

But yeah, yeah. You know, I think it's it's really neat because Flying Blue is one that it's a program that I used some before, but not a ton because of the surcharges, which aren't high. Let me be clear. They have very moderate surcharges on their awards, which i think makes them a good deal compared to some but it's you know we're talking a little over 200 bucks each way basically uh for the surcharges on a flying blue award which isn't bad for one person but as a family of four i'm looking at eight hundred or a thousand dollars in each direction in surcharges which i don't love but. But I mean, now this price at $50,000,

boy, that becomes a pretty compelling deal. Because even if you think about those surcharges as though they were miles at one cent per mile, it's still a pretty solid deal. And remember, it's worth noting that Flying Blue offers a 25% discount for children's tickets on the long hauls. So if you were flying round trip with a child that's between two and 11 years old, you're going to pay only 75% of that price for the award for a child. So that's what 37,500 miles each way for a child. If you find the saver availability in business. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's amazing. And then if you also had found a transfer bonus,

even a 25% transfer bonus, you're talking about the child tickets being 30,000 miles each way. And the adult tickets were just a little bit more than that. Right. So, uh, you know, less than 40 still. So, I mean, that's, that's pretty darn good. If you're, uh, you know, if you're able to take advantage of one of those transfer bonuses. I mean, better than pretty darn good. That's fantastic. And the nice thing is that Flying Blue does not always have great availability, but they have better availability than a lot of programs do. So at times you'll be looking at 1.2 million miles each way. Don't get me wrong.

But if you plan reasonably far in advance, they tend to have okay availability. So and the other thing I should mention is they often, they tend to have okay availability. So and yeah, and the other thing I should mention is they often if they do have availability, it's not uncommon for it to be a lot of seats. You know, I'll see flights with four or five, six, seven, eight seats available sometimes, at least from New York. And so I think that that's something that to keep in mind for people who are traveling with a family or friends or, you know, a large group that flying blue might actually have enough award seats. Whereas some programs we didn't even talk about in other segment that today we talked about Emirates and their first class awards.

Generally they only have one seat, you know, available. And so that's not particularly useful for anybody who travels in a family or France by comparison here in business class often has four or five, six seats available if they've got availability anyway. So that's nice. Yeah, it sure is. And I want to point out, I often talk mostly about Air France when we're talking about flying blue, but KLM shares this rewards program. And so it's all everything we said is also true for KLM.

And so, you know, that gives you even more options for flying between North America and Europe. So that's fantastic. And actually, let's bring that up. I have not checked to see where they're pricing Air Europa flights, whether that changed at all with this. So I'm not positive about that. Air Europa only flies a couple of U.S. routes.

I think JFK and Miami are it. But they don't have the $200 or so in surcharges, just taxes when you're flying Air Europa. So that's less expensive. Typically, in the past, it's cost a few thousand miles more than an Air France or KLM award. So I would expect that if they changed in price, they'd still be more than $50,000, but probably less than $60,000 if they changed in price with this. I'm not sure yet. All right. All right. So that brings us- That's great.

That is great. So that brings us to the bad news. Yeah, bad news. You want to be the bearer of bad news, Greg? Ah, sure. Why not? Vacasa Vacation Rentals. We love the fact that you can use your Wyndham points to book Vacasa Vacation Rentals for only 15,000 points per bedroom per night, or even less if you have a Wyndham earner card, because that gives you a 10% discount. And that hasn't changed. You can still do that. The problem is, it used to be that there was a limit of, based on the cash rate, you couldn't book a Vacasa vacation rental that cost more than $500 per bedroom per night of your stay.

And that's all in with all the taxes and fees. went to Hawaii. I booked an incredible oceanfront condo that was three bedroom for, you know, the cash rate was just slightly under $1,500 a night, which put it right in that sweet spot of an average of less than $500 per night. So I was able to book it with points for this rate. Well, I wouldn't be able to do that today. Why not? Yeah. Because they lowered the limit. So now the cash rate has to be $350 or less per bedroom per night. Yeah. Ouch.

So there's still, you know, you can still get very good value for your window points. You could still get over two cents per point value, which is great for window points. But it's just hard, you know, to find that those extremely amazing deals is going to be harder. And that's it. That's a shame. It is. It is a shame.

You know, I think that in at least some places, you'll probably still be able to find some of the multi-bedroom places that fit. And obviously, there's still a lot of places that are going to fit under the limit, even when we're talking about just one bedroom places. But it's going to be a little bit harder than it was, and you're not going to get

quite the outsized value that we were. So to me, it's a big bummer from a, I don't know, a maximization standpoint. But I think it'll probably still be useful. And as sad as I am that they decreased it, like you said, it's still pretty easy to get more than two cents per point in value. And Wyndham still sells their points occasionally for one cent each. So you basically get yourself a half price discount pretty easily. So as sad as I am, I can only be but so sad. It's still a pretty good deal. And we did long say this can't last forever. So take advantage of it while you can. Of course, I'm kind of bummed because I'm planning a trip to Hawaii. And I just assumed I would book a vikasa for part of it. And now I don't know

whether I'll find one that fits the bill or not. So I'm a little bummed personally. But I also can't complain too much because we had plenty of opportunity to take advantage of that one. And hopefully we'll continue to have an opportunity to take advantage of it while it's still pretty good, if not amazing. So that's our award talk for today. Let's get into today's main event. Yeah, today's main event. When can you get the same card and welcome bonus again? All right, let's dive into that. So as you know, because you're listening

to Frequent Miler, you know that the best way to earn lots and lots of points and miles quickly is through credit card welcome bonuses. As you know, we maintain what we think is the best page on the internet for finding those welcome bonuses are our credit card page shows like all the best credit card offers, regardless of whether we have affiliate links for those cards. And in fact, often we have affiliate links for certain cards, but we don't show those affiliate links because we have found a better public offer for the same card. So we only show that better offer that doesn't pay us anything. That's how, that's why we feel like we can credibly say it's the best page on the internet for that because it's the best for you. But what's not obvious is whether like, let's say you've signed up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve or something like that in the past, and now you see it has a new great signup bonus.

Can you get that bonus again? And so let's dig into the different issuers and talk about whether you can. Yeah, absolutely, because they all have different rules. And that's why we're going to dig into different issuers, because the rules are not the same with each bank. The general answer is, yeah, you probably can get the welcome are not the same with each bank the general answer is yeah you probably can get the welcome bonus on the same card again but the rules are going to vary from one issuer to another so we're going to go alphabetical here i think and start with amex so if you have we're going to start with the one the one uh card though i'm sorry the one issuer where you can't get the same card again, can you?

Because the rule is, the rule that they have is the lifetime rule, which says if you've had this card before, you may not be eligible for the welcome bonus. But of course, I'm being a little facetious there, aren't I? Well, because this is where you get into trouble if you only read the first couple of paragraphs and or don't go hunting for the fuller story. If you don't ask yourself, well, how long is a lifetime, really? Then you might assume that you could never get it again. And certainly if you read the terms, it sounds

like you at least might not. And I'll get back to that in a second. But the first keynote to know here is that Amex is known to kind of forget that you've had the card before five to seven years after you've canceled it or product changed. It used to be everybody said seven years, but we've had some success reports of even less time than that. The seven year mark always made sense to me because that's how long positive accounts remain on your credit report. So after seven years, it drops off the report.

And so I kind of figured that that was why Amex seemed to forget you've had it before. But it does seem that some people have reported success even at the five-year mark or maybe give or take a little bit even. But again, they sometimes just seem to forget that you've had it before. So if it's been a long time, since you canceled a product change, you might be able to get it again. Yeah. And that last part is key. It's since you canceled or product change. So it's not like you could say, oh, I've had this card for 20 years. Maybe they've forgotten about it. So I'll cancel it now and sign up again. That won't work because they'll see that you just had it yesterday.

But if you as long as you had canceled, you know, seven years ago, then you should be good. Yeah. Yeah. In most cases, the other piece of it, well, you know what, before I get to that other piece of it, let's, let's, let's, let's say the next thing. And the next thing is that Amex is known. So they have this lifetime language. It says if you had, or if you have, or have had the card before you may not be eligible, but sometimes we see links with no lifetime language that don't have that statement about having, or, or having had the card before making you language that don't have that statement about having or having had the card before making you ineligible. Sometimes that statement isn't in the application terms. So you

always want to click the offer terms, which is always somewhere around the welcome bonus information. There's a little link that says offer terms, and we'll report it when we find links that have no lifetime language. So if you find one of those that doesn't have the lifetime language, then it is possible to get approved and get the welcome bonus again if it doesn't have that. Now, there's a thing called a pop-up. So cards that have lifetime language, what they say is that you may not be eligible if you have or have had this card before. And it goes on to say in the lifetime language these days, it goes on to say that if you're not eligible for the welcome bonus, they'll let you know before submitting your application so that you have the chance to withdraw it.

And the way they do that is during the application process, if they determine that you're not eligible for the welcome bonus, whether that's because you've had the card before or because they just don't like you because of your previous activity, opening and closing cards or something, you'll get a pop-up that says, hey, you're not eligible for the welcome bonus. So you can submit the application if you want to get the card without the welcome bonus, or you can withdraw your application now. What do you want to do? And so you get that choice, whether you want to continue or not. If you don't get the pop up reports we've had have almost entirely been success in automatically getting the welcome bonus. I say almost entirely because I feel like a couple of years ago, there were a couple of reports of people that didn't get the bonus despite not getting a pop up. But I haven't heard one of those reports in a long time now. So everyone I know who's gotten through without a pop up in recent years anyway, has gotten the bonus as expected. And in fact, that's what I would expect based on the wording of lifetime language that if you don't get a pop up, you're good to go. And

same thing with a no lifetime language offer. If there's no lifetime language and you go through the application and don't get the pop up, that means you should get the bonus. Now, I'd always take a screenshot of the terms if you can. I've taken one even on the cards where it has lifetime language. I'll take it because I know that if I didn't get the welcome bonus, I'd point back to that language that says, hey, it said if I'm not eligible, you'd let me know and give me a chance to withdraw the application. And if they don't give you that chance, then I would say they're obligated to give you the welcome bonus. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would probably agree, I think. But anyway, so the absence of a pop-up means you're likely, very likely going to get the bonus.

And if you get the pop-up, then you'll know, okay, I'm not eligible and I can't do it. So it is possible to get an Amex card again. In fact, we sometimes see these offers with no lifetime language. Amex for a while was sending out offers to expand your membership and get another of a card you already had. This was really common with business platinum cards. If you're a business platinum cardholder these last couple of years, you have probably received an offer from Amex that says expand your membership and get another business platinum card. And those expand your membership offers have frequently had no lifetime language. Well, in fact, I think they always said no, they didn't have no lifetime language because that was the whole point was expand your membership. They know you have the card and

they're saying, get another one and we'll give you another welcome bonus. So, I mean, assuming you, you meet the terms of the, and requirements of, you know, whatever the minimum spend is and so on. Yeah, so it's kind of funny that Amex has, on the surface, the most restrictive language around whether you could get the card again at the high level. The answer is just no. If you've had the card, you can't get a bonus again for this card but but in reality um it's very very common to to get the same card again and to get a bonus so um that's kind of nice and i i'm kind of a fan in a weird way of the pop-up because

um it's frustrating getting the pop-up because you know you're you're trying to get a card and of course you want the welcome bonus and so getting it is frustrating getting the pop-up cause you know, you're, you're trying to get a card and of course you want the welcome bonus. And so getting it as frustrating, but the fact that there's like no risk that, that like, if you have had a card before and you want it, you want, you're hoping to get it again and get the welcome bonus. Um, it's not like you're risking anything by starting the application process, because if, if the the pop up comes and says you're not eligible, then you just cancel out of the application process and no harm, no foul. They haven't run a credit check or anything. So and they usually don't anyway for existing cardholders.

So, yeah, there's just no downside to that. So that's great. Yep, absolutely. And if you've gotten the pop up on one card or another, it doesn't mean you'll get it on every every card. There is some variance. Sometimes people get the pop up on one specific card, but not get it on another card. So if there's more than one card you're interested in, it might still be worth trying for a different one. Even if you get the pop up on one that you were thinking about, don't don't be discouraged and think that that means that you just can't get any amx cards at all yeah great point all right let's go on to bank of america um so bank of america is a little disjointed they they have sort of different rules for different groups of cards but uh they have they have they have variations of a 24 month rule on on different cards so uh their their Alaska cards and at least the personal card and the premium rewards card. Um, both of them say you can't, uh, get, you can't get this, uh, this offer if you've had this card, if you currently have the card or if you've had it in the past 24 months. So, you know,

it's, it's, uh, it's pretty clear saying basically you'd have to have canceled or product change more than 24 months ago. Yeah. And if you have one of those now and you want a product change, they can typically be product change. The Alaska cards, Bank of America is somewhat unique in that most issuers, not quite unique, but close to it anyway, most issuers won't let you change from a co-branded card like the Alaska card to a card that is just a generic Bank of America type of a card, except Bank of America does allow that at least sometimes. So for instance, years ago, I product changed an Alaska card to like a, I don't know, a cashback, a basic cashback card with Bank of America. I don't know if they've changed that, but I haven't heard

anything. Have you heard anything about that changing or you think that's still possible? Yeah, no, as far as I know, it's still possible. My memory, it's been a while since I've product changed any Bank of America cards, but my memory is that there were limits. You couldn't just pick any card in their portfolio, but you often had a lot of flexibility. And sometimes you could even do things like say, I'd rather have the MasterCard version of this card, even though it's normally issued as a visa, which that's very unusual, but Bank of America seems to be able to do that with some other cards at least. So that's pretty cool. Yep. Yep. So if you want to product change one, then it's, and that's really

a good lesson to learn in general. If you're not So if you want to product change one, then it's and that's really a good lesson to learn in general. If you're not familiar that often you can product change to some other kind of a card with many issuers. So although you may not have as much flexibility, Bank of America tends to offer a little bit more flexibility. Citi offers the most flexibility. Amex and Chase and Capital One have less flexibility in terms of what you can product change and how.

But if you don't like the card you have, it may be possible to product change. So that's something to keep in mind. But again, you'll have to wait 24 months before you get the welcome bonus on that again. But then what's the deal? Go ahead. So yeah, so now they have some other cards that also have 24-month rules, but they're very different remember the the ones we just talked about though like the alaskan premium rewards card you'd have to have not had um the card in the past 24 months the travel but but on the flip side the travel rewards card and the cash rewards card um both say if you've had this card before you have to have had it for at least 24 months. So that means that you can still have the card,

but you better have had that sitting there in your wallet for at least 24 months, and then we'll let you get another one. So they're pretty explicit there that they're fine with you getting another one. I'm not really sure why you'd want another one except to get another welcome bonus. But that's kind of, it's just very unusual

to have such different language across different cards. Yeah, for sure. And like you said, the only reason I could think of to get another one is for another welcome bonus. Of course, if I was calling reconsideration or something and they asked why I wanted another one, it would probably be so that I could split up expenses and kind of divide things and make my personal accounting easier. I want to have two different cards for two different kinds of purchases.

But somebody were asking, that'd be my official reason. But my unofficial reason would be just get another welcome bonus. That's about the only reason. Although, as I've said before, if you're interested in a welcome bonus, the cash rewards card is a questionable play. And I say that as somebody who opened the cash rewards card this year. But you probably should consider at least opening the premium rewards card initially. And if you don't want to continue paying the annual fee, then just downgrade it to the unlimited cash rewards later. Because the welcome bonus is much better on the premium rewards card.

So that's why you'd probably consider that. Okay. So bank of america next up barclays what's the story there yeah so barclays issues cards like like some american airlines cards jet blue cards windham cards and a bunch of other um uh smaller like specific uh co-brands and things. So they have on most of their cards, if not all of their cards, that you can qualify for the card again if it's been at least 24 months since you received a welcome offer. So if you want to sign up for the Wyndham card, you've had it before,

make sure it's been at least 24 months since you earned the welcome bonus before. It doesn't matter when you signed up before. It matters when the welcome bonus was received. And it's worth noting that Barclays is very fickle when it comes to what they approve and what they don't approve. So this doesn't mean you can definitely or rather I should take that back. It doesn't mean you definitely will get the card again. It means that you can potentially get the card again. But it really seems to vary from person to person as to how easy it is to get approved again. But that's the rule anyway, 24 months since you last received the welcome offer.

Right, right. So they're fickle about getting approved, but if you are approved, aren't they pretty darn lenient about this rule? It seems like they ignore this rule, even if it's been less than 24 months since you got the welcome bonus, as long as they approve you. Yeah, and in fact, actually, recently, somebody pointed out the terms on the Aviator Red card make it sound like, if you've ever had the card before you wouldn't be eligible again. The language on the aviator red card sounds very much like the Amex card language, like the lifetime type of a language. However, I've been approved again. My wife's been approved again. And I've never heard of somebody getting approved for a Barclays card and not getting the welcome bonus on it. And not only have we been approved, but there's like a welcome bonus tracker in our

accounts that the bonus on that card at the time of writing here requires a single purchase and adding an authorized user and having them make a purchase. And so there's a tracker that shows that we added one authorized user and you've made one purchase or two purchases or three or whatever. It shows how many purchases and how many days left to earn the welcome bonus. So I fully expect we'll get the bonus. One of the components of the offer on those is that you have to pay the annual fee and neither of us have been charged the annual fee yet. So that's why we haven't actually earned the welcome bonus yet, but I expect that we will soon. So even though you may see lifetime language on that, a fairly universal rule with most issuers or at this point, maybe even all of them is if you get approved any issuer other than Amex and not getting

the bonus. And with Amex, again, it's only if you get the pop-up that says you're not going to get the bonus and you decide to continue and apply for the card anyway, that you wouldn't get the bonus. So that was Barclays, 24 months since you last received the welcome offer. What about Capital One? Yep. Capital One, it has to be at least 48 months since you received a welcome bonus. So we're leaping up from two years to four years when we get to Capital One. Citi is in the same boat as Capital One,

48 months since the welcome bonus. So they seem to have colluded on the rules there. We're seeing those same rules. They're based on when you got the bonus and they're saying, wait, 48 months, but they're not alone either. Because Chase, with both the Sapphire Preferred and Reserve card, you have to wait 48 months. But what's tricky here is it's a family rule, which means if you have, if you, it has to be 40.

Let's say you want to sign up for the Sapphire Reserve and you've had the Sapphire Preferred before. It also has to be 48 months since you got the welcome bonus on the Sapphire Preferred, even though you're signing up for the reserve. And the reverse is true if you want to get the preferred and you've had the reserve before. And in both cases, you can't currently have that card as well when you're signing up. And key point we've mentioned, I know, but I want to be very explicit about it, is that with Chase and also with the city and Capital One rules that we just talked about is that it has to be 48 months since you last earned the welcome bonus. It doesn't matter when you open the card or when you close the card. So don't even think about those dates because they're totally irrelevant. It needs to be 48 months since you earned the welcome bonus. Now, my assumption has always been that the welcome bonus is awarded when your

statement cuts during the period in which you've met the spending requirement. I don't know whether they drill down to the date you finished the spending requirement or the date your statement cut and you were awarded the points, but I would think it's reasonable to interpret as since the statement where those points arrived. So 48 months since that date would be the date when you would be clear to apply again. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, since most, most welcome bonuses are like, you have to meet the spend within 90 days of signing up. You know, for a lot of them, if you have records showing when you signed up, you could sort of guess that it was like about three months later that you got the welcome bonus. And you're probably fairly safe with that calculation. little hemming and hawing a little bit there because lately we've seen more types of bonuses where you might get um like five exit grocery stores for 12 months something like that and

they say they'd actually base the 24 or 48 months or whatever the rule is based on the last time you got even that part of the welcome bonus so that that then would be a year after you signed up. And we've also seen some offers from some issuers with longer spending periods, although I can't think of an example of that with Chase City or Capital One that we did mention Barclays a minute ago in 24 months since you last earned the welcome bonus. And the Barclays Wyndham cards have offered a six month timeframe to meet the spending requirements. So you do have to kind of be aware of how long it was. So hopefully you recorded some of those details the last time that you applied and or hopefully you still have access to some online statements or have them saved somewhere. So all

right, that's Citi and Chase, but there's more to Chase, isn't there? There is. So with Chase, we only mentioned the Sapphire Preferred and Reserve. Most other Chase cards, not all of them, but most of them have the same rule, but only 24 months. So again, you want to get the, you name it, the Freedom card again. Then you must no longer have that card, and it has to be 24 months since you received the bonus on the card before where chase one of the most interesting things with chase is with their ink card lineup so they have multiple ink business cards and with those there are no known restrictions. You can, I have gotten the same card again. So that's a kind of amazing deal. I have no idea how long it'll be before they decide to cut that off.

But at least for now, that combination, the ink cards tend to have the best or close to the best welcome bonuses available anywhere. And also the easiest terms as far as getting them again, because like I said, there don't seem to be any. So that's great news. Pretty incredible. Yeah. And I mean, so to be clear about that, like my wife got two in cash cards within like three or four months of each other this year, maybe six months, most I can't remember exactly the timeframe, but and has applied for a third and waiting to

hear back on that. So you can potentially get the same card. Those are all in cash cards. You can potentially get the same bonus again within not that long. I don't know how short of a time frame is potentially acceptable, but it's worth knowing that because like you said, some of those bonuses have been great. And some of those ink business cards are just good business cards to have. I mean, the ink cash card is one that lots of people love to have. And the ink business unlimited, if you don't have a freedom unlimited, again, it's just a good card to have if you're in the chase ecosystem. Yeah, yeah, they're really good cards. Great for earning points

ultimate rewards points and as long as you have a uh ultimate rewards card that has an annual fee so the ink business preferred is one or sapphire preferred or sapphire reserve you can move your points from the fee-free cards like the chase ink business cash or the chasing business unlimited you can move those to the card that has the annual fee and then transfer those points to airline and hotel partners. So that makes the points potentially much, much more valuable. So we love them. I think everybody on our team, except maybe Carrie, has multiple J-Sync cards, especially the in cash. Cause we love that five X office supply, um,

um, benefit of, of that card. Um, now before you, uh, complain about this, if you dive deep into the terms and conditions,

uh, with the application for the ink cards, you will find, uh, some 24 month language like deep in there. I'm 99.999999 percent sure that um that was a copy and paste from some other card and into those terms and and uh it just doesn't apply they certainly don't enforce it yep very good yeah so very good ones to keep in your wallet so all right great news

there uh overall you know, again, you can get a lot of these cards again. So it's pretty awesome to consider and can be a great way to earn miles without flying and build up your balance because even cards that you've had before are potentially available to you again. And those welcome bonuses are incredibly lucrative. So go after it. All right, my friends, I think that brings us to this week's question of the week. This week's question of the week was actually proposed as an entire podcast topic, but I'm going to throw it in as a question of the week for today for us to address the fact that we've seen it and have it in mind. So somebody in our Facebook group, Ben posted and said,

as a Los Angelino, I've been ruminating on this for a while. Obviously, premium award space to Europe, the Middle East and Africa is going to be most plentiful from East Coast gateways, especially New York. And that is commensurate with the higher number of routes and available seats compared to airports further west in the US. That really then skews the focus of travel blog tips, review trips, et cetera, to better serve those on the East Coast. It's totally understandable, but also leaves the many millions of us west of the Mississippi occasionally feeling neglected. How about a main event focused on scoring award flights from the West Coast, covering topics like routes and carriers with the most likely award availability?

Who has the cheapest redemptions? Maybe a sidebar positioning flight best practices should be in there. So what do you think, Greg? What do you know about award availability trends from the West Coast? Yeah. Well, first, let me say, you know, as we talked earlier about Air France, Air France KLM Flying Blue reducing their award prices. So it used to be from the West Coast business class cost quite a bit to go to Europe, but now it's down to as low as 50,000 points one way. So that's good news for West Coasters. I can't speak to the availability of those awards from the West Coast,

but at least the pricing is good news. Yeah, I mean, he's totally right. You and I don't have experience looking at too many awards from the West Coast. So we're going to have to leave it up to Tim, I think, who's a West Coaster, to do the research for us and hopefully write a poster too. And then, yeah, maybe we could do a main event on that I'm going to give to further West Coasters. So all the way out in Hawaii, one of the things I found, I stumbled upon, is awfully good award availability business class on Hawaiian Airlines to Seoul, Korea. So if you're interested in going to Asia, I think it was 60,000 Hawaiian Airlines points, one way business class, not bad. And a lot

of availability. You could also book that with American Airlines miles, 55,000, I think with American Airlines miles, something like that. So yeah, so there's a little tip for the further west and souther folks. Yeah, I would generally think of the West Coast sweet spots that I'm aware of are things that are, say, Asia. So you're right. We don't cover a lot of sweet spot redemptions to the Middle East and Europe and Africa. But that's so that's largely the first. The main reason why I didn't see this probably being a main event topic for us anytime soon is I have no idea what availability trends are from the West Coast because I never search

awards from the West Coast to Europe. So even if I did it today, I'd have one day's worth of data for you and not enough to have gathered the wealth of experience you would need as a West Coaster. However, Tim is uniquely positioned to to give us that information. I say that, of course, because he lives on the West Coast. So he's you know, he's our resident West Coast expert. So we'll have to get him to take a look at or to let us know what availability trends are. At a high level, what I would tell you if you're based on the West Coast is that you obviously are not going to be interested in programs that are distance-based when it comes to finding award availability to Europe or the Middle East or

Africa, because it's going to be far. So you don't want those programs. Instead, you want to find programs that are zone-based. And by that, I mean, they charge the same price from anywhere in North America or anywhere in the continental United States to Europe, et cetera. So the first programs that come to my mind like that are things like, um, uh, Avianca Life miles. I had them in there and then they dropped back out. So you're looking at 63,000 miles, one way to most of Europe anyway. So 63,000 miles in business class on Star Alliance carriers. So if you can find Star Alliance availability, that'd be a good program for you. Of course, if you can find Star Alliance availability on like United or whichever of the other Star Alliance carriers serve the West Coast airports that don't have fuel surcharges, then Turkish at 45,000 miles one way would be great. Or ANA charges the

same 88,000 miles round trip, I believe from the West Coast to Europe also. So you have a few of those zone based things. Now, I don't know what Star Alliance availability is like from the West Coast to Europe. So there is my trouble there. But those are some options. And one to not forget about is Alaska's partnership with Condor, because Condor has a number of routes now with live flat seats to Germany from West Coast cities also. So that's one to think about. And then the other thing to keep in mind is British Airways, because British Airways probably has award availability, I would bet on most of their routes they do because of the high surcharges that they normally have. But don't forget that British Airways will allow you to pay more for business class awards and

then eliminate the surcharges. So if you're willing to pay whatever the more it costs in order to eliminate the surcharges, that could be okay, except that, of course, it's a distance-based program. So you're going to pay more miles. That would probably be most attractive with a transfer bonus. So those are a couple of options anyway, not all the best, but a few things to keep in mind. And then the last piece that I want to just quickly, quickly touch on here, Greg, is that do you have any quick positioning tips, any best practices? If you lived on the West Coast and you were like, OK, I can't find any awards from the West Coast, but I can find plenty from the East Coast. What would you keep in mind in terms of positioning? I feel like I feel like the way you phrase that, that you have something in mind. I don't want to run around with that.

Well, I just mean to consider things like the fact that you're on separate tickets, then there's obviously some danger in the sense that you may not be protected if your first flight gets delayed. If you're on separate tickets, especially with carriers that don't have a partnership, then you're going to be in trouble. So you may want to consider positioning the night before using a free night certificate of some sort for an airport hotel. There's certainly some potential issues anyway, in terms of that. I believe that one world might be your safest bet on that. You'll have to double check on that. But

because I think if you're connecting American to another one world carrier, they may protect you. I'm not sure. You know what? I'm not even going now i wouldn't i wouldn't bet on that i wouldn't uh but anyway yeah i i've been known with like positioning flights to book multiple positioning flights with uh with miles or well or you could do cash these days if you don't mind uh canceling and getting airline credit back um so in fact, I just did that recently. I flew to London from DC. I booked a Delta flight to get into DC and also a later United flight that was a little closer to departure for the connecting flight. And the idea was that if I had any problems with a Delta flight, we would have had the United flight as backup. We didn't have any problems. So once the Delta flight was underway, then I just cancel the United one, get my miles back and done.

Yep. So that's probably the biggest tip for positioning. I would book a backup flight with awards that you can cancel for free because there's plenty of ways to do that these days with US-based carriers. So definitely a good tip there. All right, my friends, that's it for today. We're at the end of today's episode. If you've enjoyed today's episode and you'd like to get more of this stuff in your email inbox each day or each week, you want to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe. Again, that's frequentmiler.com slash subscribe. Join our email list. Follow us on all the various social media. We're on Instagram and Facebook. You can join our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group where you can ask and answer questions all the time. Lots of active members in the group

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