Frequent Miler on the Air - Which elite status would you prefer, American or Alaska? | Ask Us Anything Ep82 | 1-7-26

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

If you have to pick, which elite status would you prefer, American or Alaska? How does this new edit credit work? We answered these and many other questions on the Ask Us Anything hosted live on January 7th of 2026.(03:34) - ​​Curious to hear what 'coupons/credits' you just let go of, without redeeming by 12/31. I didn't use my first The Edit credit and can't stop feeling guilty.(05:48) - How does this new edit credit work, because there are so many different answers...?You can see a map of The Edit by Chase Travel℠ properties here:(10:05) - ​​What do you think about the Apple Card takeover by Chase?See Greg's old post about the Apple Card here(12:48) - Have any of you proactively lowered the credit limit on a card?(17:17) - ​Do you think that the Bilt leak is real or fake? There are 3 different leaks right nowFind coffee break episode 86 about Bilt leaks here(18:44) - ​​I started with Chase (I'm newer to points), but I'm curious what you all think are the best uses of each of the ecosystems and/or what you personally use them for?Learn more about Citi transfer partners here(23:05) - ​​Last October, I booked a stay at the Hyatt Regency Rome for mid-April 2026, not realizing it was a new hotel. The website now shows reservations starting May 1, 2026, with no availability in April. ​​I’m concerned about whether my reservation will be honored. If the hotel isn’t ready, will Hyatt relocate me, and how soon would I be notified? I’ve booked a backup hotel, but would appreciate any tips(25:25) - Do the miles and points conventions mention things that aren't normally discussed in free podcasts like yours?(26:53) - ​​Alaska miles redemption for Europe often entails BA metal that has high fees. Any tips on European redemptions? Or are Alaska miles mainly for AA or Asian partner awards?(35:22) - ​​Does that PLAT airline credit still work for United Travel Bank this year?See our "Amex airline reimbursement fees...what still works?" post here(36:53) - ​​Venture X travel credit is a discount rather than a credit. If I have two bookings and have to cancel the one booked with the discount, can I retroactively have them lower the second booking?(37:25) - ​​What is everyone's US Bank strategy? I cashed mine out at 1.5x(42:00) - If you have to pick, which elite status would you prefer, American or Alaska?Find our podcast episode about American vs Alaska here(48:01) - Find coffee break episode 86 about Bilt leaks here(48:24) - Tim - In what cases is it worthwhile to keep both Atmos cards (Summit and Ascent)(54:10) - ​​For 2026, any new programs you’re prioritizing for earning or status? E.g. Citi to PHR, Atmos, etc?Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth...

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyscape.com. Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the Frequent Myler team answers your questions live. Welcome to Frequent Milers Ask Us Anything live stream on YouTube. We do this the first Wednesday of every month. So this is our first for 2026. And wherever you're watching or listening, don't forget to like this video or podcast. Give us a thumbs up.

Leave us a review. Leave us a comment. Give us your questions so we can take a look at them and hopefully answer some of them both live now. And you never know. Later on, your question could get answered as well. So that's all good. And don't forget to subscribe.

You want to go to frequent myiler. com slash subscribe to join our email list. Follow us on all the various social media. Join our frequent miler insider's Facebook group and all that fun stuff. All right. So I think that means it's time for somebody to kick us off. When you say that, Nick, is that all right here, Tim.

That's all right here. That's incredible. So before we go further, though, I think we should point out that January 8th is not just the first Wednesday, second Wednesday, or January 7th is not just the first Wednesday of the year. It is actually somebody's greater than 38th birthday. Yes, somebody is. I don't know who we're aware, but there's somebody actually, you know, I do. There's a friend of my name, Lisa, who also turned older than 38 today. Yes. No, I, yeah, yeah, yeah. So today was my birthday. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. And so to celebrate this evening, we went out to, we're in

Orlando right now. So we went to White Rabbit Desert Experience, which I think actually is from the Buffalo area because there are a couple of locations near Buffalo and one in Orlando. So I think it's actually a Buffalo thing. I didn't know that. But the reason we went there is because it was this dessert experience place that was on the Inkind app. And we've written a lot about the Inkind app and how to by in-kind gift cards discounted. And many readers have signed up with some of our referral links. And so I had referral credit to you. So thank you to the readers for buying dessert for my birthday today because now you're

able to get dessert for the family. Thanks to some of you signing up for in kind. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for my birthday gift. Yeah. So I mean, it's a sit-down dessert place. So it's a place you go to.

You know what I mean describe the dessert. Dessert, yes. Well, okay. So I got what was called the, be there or B-square. So it was a brownie topped with like some sort of a preline Nutella mix on top of it. It was delicious. And a chocotella ice cream with it, which is like a chocolate Nutella ice cream. So it was delicious.

It was a huge plate. My son got a Nutella hot chocolate. My wife got a frozen hot chocolate. And my younger son debated forever and asked the waitress for recommendations between the things that he was looking at. That is cute. And did you get hot chocolate with or without marshmallows? Without, there were no marshmallows. So it was my son that got them.

My older son got the Nutella hot chocolate. And they didn't even offer marshmallows because who wants those in their hot chocolate? Everyone but Nick. Oh, man. As a big thank you to our watchers and listeners, we sang happy birthday to Nick before starting the live stream so that nobody else to listen to that. Yeah, it was pretty rough. Right on key. It was totally on tune.

Don't let them fool you. They've got that down. get the tune we did not match paces very well but i know this is um sooner than we normally dive into it but we i think we already have questions flowing through so we might as well start with listener questions if you guys are already yes let's do it all right um we are going to start with birthday boy nick um curious to hear what coupons slash credit you just let go of without redeeming by uh december 31st i didn't use my first the edit credit and can't stop feeling guilty this person says.

Let a credit go unused? What craziness is that? Actually, you know what, though? So here's the truth. I tried not to let any of my credits go unused, but I waited too long. And the orders that I placed from Saks Fifth Ave didn't ship quickly enough. So those shipped on January 2nd.

And even though I ordered on like the 27th of December. And so those credits went unused and it used my January, 2026 credits for a couple of my SACs orders and also at least one of my Dell orders, which again, I ordered with a few days left. I certainly thought that it would ship and it didn't. So I had at least one, maybe two Dell credits go unused and get, you know, and use up this year's $150 Dell credit and that's on business platinum cards. I made my the edit booking very late in the evening.

and actually that may have gone unused also because I noticed today that it's dated January 1st, even though I made the reservation on December 31st and my email confirmation was December 31st. So that one may also have unfortunately gone unused too. So yeah, so there were a couple, believe it or not, that didn't get used. And I'm not going to spend too much time feeling guilty. I'll try and follow up and see if they can do anything. but I doubt that any of those will go anywhere. I probably won't bother with the Sacks credits.

I know that those aren't going to an adult credit. Those aren't going to get fixed. I may try Chase with the edits since I have the email confirmation from the 31st and say, hey, listen, come on. I did this on the 31st. I doubt it's going to do me any good, but we'll see. Yeah. You miss 100% of the swings you don't take after all.

That's right. That's right. I've heard that before you. That's a great, great saying. You should trademark that. That is a good quote. Nick, I'm going to make you explain to everyone now this next question as it relates. This person says, can you explain to me how does this new edit credit work?

Because there's so many different answers. Like it's $300 and will travel credit, will travel credit get together with? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I understand that. But basically, can you explain that what you just said?

Yeah. So the Chase Sapphire Reserve card has several different types of credits. So there is a $300 travel credit and that somebody correct me if I'm wrong. That's a card member year credit these days, right? Yep. So that's, that isn't affected by January unless you opened your card in January. That's a card member year credit. Then the card also has a twice annual now starting this year two times doesn't matter when,

a $250 credit for booking through the edit when you book for two nights or more. And yes, those two will. stack. So for instance, if you made a booking for a $550 two-night, the edit stay, you could get both the $300 travel credit and the $250, the edit credit. In fact, I think if you booked a $250 one, you would also trigger both of those credits. So you'd get $500 back on that $250 booking. And then there is also on top of those. So that's three credits, right? The $300 card member year credit, the $2, $250, credits. Those are not January to June and July to December anymore. Those are any time. And then there's a third one. And that's now a $250 credit for select brands. And it includes just a few brands.

Some examples are IHG hotels, Virgin hotels, minor hotels, which I think has like NH collection and some other things you might have seen before. Pendry and something else. I can't remember exactly right now. But if you were to book one, let's say an Intercontinental, and you were able to book an Intercontinental through the edit, it should, stack the $250 credit for that plus the $250 edit credit plus the $300 travel credit. So you could use all of them at the same time and actually come out ahead of the cost of your booking, perhaps. So those do stack. There's a whole bunch of credits. We've written about it. I think we have a post probably that somebody has already put in the comments. I'm going to bet about that, I think. All right. If I'm not mistaken. Great. Thanks. Can I quick follow up around? I just want a quick follow up. Yes. And this can be an all play. I'm just curious. Did any

Anybody, didn't Nick you or anybody feel guilty about unused credits? No, I actually, I wasn't going to use the edit credit. So that was like a very late in the game. I was like, oh, you know what? I got an idea for something I could book. And I didn't actually even think I was going to use the hotel stays. So the one that I tried to make on December 31st was one that was like a super speculative. But I was able to use the edit credit in about 5,000 points to pay for the rest of the reservation.

So I said, ah, it only ties up $5,000. points and it uses the $250 credit. Let's see. Let's give it a shot. But no, I didn't feel particularly guilty. That credit feels, I'm not going to say useless to me, but it was not terribly useful, at least for the second half of last year, particularly because it came in so late for existing cardholders. It only came in in October. And at that point, I just didn't have any upcoming plans. Now, with a full 12 months this year, I'll probably find a use for both credits this year. But I didn't feel terrible about it last year. Because if I use both those credits this year and the $250 I-HG credit and the $300 card member year credit, you know, like, good enough.

I'm going to do okay. And the Stubhub credits, which I've already used. So, you know, and the Sapphire Reserve tables, which I used my Sapphire Reserve Tables credit just before on the 31st, also buying a gift card from a restaurant online, actually. So, so I, have you all used enough of the credits that if I lost that one, I wouldn't have lost sleep over that. Anybody else lose sleep over a credit that one unused. I think I used all the major ones that I particularly cared about. So I can't remember any that I didn't use. And so I've got no guilt over. I mean, if I kind of remember things in the future, I might end up and having some kind of guild over there. But right now, yeah, I think I, especially all the platinum credits, I'm pretty sure I managed to maximize most of those.

Great. Okay, cool. Moving on, Stephen. What do you think about the Apple card takeover by Chase? and can you explain that to those of us who don't know? So the Apple card had been with a different card issue before, I forget. Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs, that's it, yeah. And then saw just like an hour or two ago that it had been announced that Chase was going to be taking it over, and they were effectively buying the book at a discount to what it's actually worth, presumably just because Goldman Sachs just wanted rid of it,

because it sounds like they lost a fair bit of money over the years on the Apple card. I don't think the Apple card was ever a particularly compelling card. Even if you are a big Apple efficient, there were possibly better ways of buying Apple products than paying with an Apple card, just because you can often get Apple gift cards either at a discount or greatly rewarded, which would be a much better return when you spend than putting that spend on an Apple card. I guess the potential area of interest is if Chase ends up increasing some kind of welcome offer now that they've got it, or if they include it as one of the cards, because every quarter or most quarters,

they tend to offer like 5x or 7x or something like that or 5% back on, say, like, groceries, gas and restaurants on their co-branded cards. So if that gets included with this, that can make it a little bit more interesting, because then every, or you might be targeted for 5% Apple Cash at grocery stores or something like that, which could be a little bit more useful. But other than that, I'm not overly fussed with it, to be honest. More and more British every week. You're underly fuss, is what you're saying. I am indeed, underly fuss.

Somebody named Greg the Freaklemyler wrote a post called The Apple Card is great playing devil's advocate back on March 29th of 2019. So maybe Greg has something to say about the Apple. I cannot remember writing that, let alone thinking it. Is it an April full? Do you have any other about that one? Any jokes about that? I'm sure I would if I'd remember.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't remember reading it either. And Nick does feel guilty. I don't know either. All right. Here was my reasoning. It's actually pretty cool. And I wrote, here's the part where I pretend to love the card and argue why it's really cool and revolutionary. Yeah.

It was a stretch. It was kind of a fun. Yeah, kind of April Fool's-ish post, but it wasn't on April Fool's Day. Yeah, there's just nothing. I mean, it's like you get 2% for Apple Pay payments. And so unless that became 2X ultimate rewards points, maybe that would be kind of interesting. All right. Greg, you're going to get the next question.

Have you proactively lowered credit limit on a card ever? Credit limit? Yeah. The, well, I have proactively. Let me try and remember. So recently, so Chase made it so that you can move credit around from one card to another. And so I do that frequently now. So if I'm trying to hit big spend, like the IHG card, if you spend $40,000, you get diamond status.

And if I have a lot of like spend all at once I want to get, I move all my credit limit over there. So that means lowering it on others. But no, I don't think I have lowered a limit just on its own in order to try to. Usually people do that in order to try to get auto-approved for new cards, I think. I haven't done that. Has anyone else done that, Tim, Nick, Stephen? I have, yeah. Both in Greg's scenario.

Also, there are times where I, and I'm less concerned about that now, but where I was concerned about chases, about having an actual physical person have eyes on my activity. So if I were going to apply for a new Chase card, I would proactively reduce the credit, especially on the business side, and then apply for the cards so I get an automatic approval and not have to go through reconsideration. But I think the big one where to me this can be useful is city technically, not technically, city doesn't allow you to move credit from one card to another. And my experience, and based on what I've seen is sometimes they will say, oh yeah, we'll do that for you. but what they're really doing is applying for a credit increase on a card you already have while your credit is maxed out, or not mixed out, what the credit they've already been willing to extend to you has been maximized. So you'll get a hard pull and it may or may not be successful.

However, what I've found is that if you instead call in reduce the credit on another card that you don't want the credit on, or you don't want the credit limit on, and then go online and use their free tool, that expressly does not result in a hard pull. If you wait about, I'm not sure exactly what it is, I've usually waited about two or three weeks that you can kind of slowly move credit from one card to another because you're effectively going underneath the limit first,

letting the little minions in the background figure out that it's been lowered, and then you're asking for the free credit approval once it realizes that you've had, at least that's the story I tell myself of what goes on. Really, it's probably just like two rusty gears clanking and like rust is flying every. everywhere and stuff because it's city.

But that's one thing that could actually, that I found. And again, this is the story I tell myself because we don't know what happens behind the scenes. But it's actually been fairly useful in sort of gradually increasing limit on city cards that I want more limit on and taking it away from cards I want less limit on. Or they don't want that one. Yeah. All right.

That's a great tip. Nick and Stephen have either of you lowered credit limit. Only to do what Greg had done where I've lowered a limit on one card in order to increase the limit on another with Chase, but otherwise I haven't just lowered it just for the sake of it. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't have called that lowering. I'd call that reallocating. I've reallocated limit from one card to another.

But yeah, no, I've not ever felt a need to proactively lower a limit in the hopes that I guess. And I always, that feels like a bad idea to me in a lot of ways. I mean, Tim made the case for why it would, it might make sense. But I think for most people, probably it doesn't make sense because if you lower, that credit limit, you've got one last bargaining chip when you call reconsideration. Whereas if you keep the credit limit, you call reconsideration and say, well, listen, I don't need any new credit. You can take some of the credit limit from one of my existing cards. But if you've already proactively reduced that credit limit, then that's one last option you have available to if you

have got to call recon. So I think for most people, it's not a strategy that you should be engaging in. That said, too, I do think that there is a, in the end, like this is all supposed to be in an enjoyable time for everyone. And for some people, the thought of calling and talking to a person on reconsideration is about as much fun as going to the dentist office with no anesthetic. So for those people, it may actually be worth that. However, I tend to agree with you, Nick, that, like, why? It'd just go through reconsideration.

If they don't, if they don't approve, they don't approve you. And you can always say, hey, can you move this over to another one? All right. Tim, this question is for you. And if anyone wants to hear more discussion on this from our podcasters, Greg and Nick, If you were watching the podcast, you would have seen an episode publish on this just a few hours ago on one of our kind of more spontaneous podcasts. So, Tim, let's get your take on what Greg and Nick have already discussed in that podcast. But do you think that built leak is real or fake?

There are three different leaks right now. What do you think? Like that it, it's just built leak. We should capitalize both of those in all caps now. It's built leak. builtly 2026. We'll remember my answer is yes. I think it's real and fake.

There is undoubtedly information that's out there that will not be a part of the ending cards and there is undoubtedly information out there that will be a part of the ending cards and it's a mixture of the two. My guess is that the lineup or the sort of the lineup of benefits that Nick and Gray discussed on the podcast

is closer than some of the other stuff I've seen especially some of the other card names that I've seen. It's like, no, they're not calling a card bad. But, I mean, undoubtedly, you know, some of the, like whoever asked this question, the commenter said, there's multiple leaks that seem to say varying things. So some of it is obviously not true. So, yeah, yes, it is both. Yeah.

All right, we'll find out. Nick, I started with Chase. I'm newer to points, but I'm curious what you all think are the best uses of each of the ecosystem. I'm going to assume they mean the transferable currencies and or what you personally use them for. So can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. Sure. I mean, I think most people that engage in this hobby would tell you that the best use of Chase's ultimate rewards points is transferring them to Hyatt to book hotels because Hyatt has what's probably the, well, one of the few remaining award charts for hotel programs and what has long been one of the most reasonable award charts for hotel programs.

So that's, I almost exclusively use my Chase points by transferring to Hyatt. No, I mean, they do have some other good partners. United might make sense for some people. Air Canada Aeroplane is a favorite of mine, and they partner with a whole bunch of transferable currencies, including Chase. And so there are cases to be made for some others, but I think Hyatt is probably your best option there. Amex, the strength of Amex points is transferring to foreign partners to book airline awards. You could transfer to Delta or JetBlue, but you probably, you probably, probably wouldn't want to. You'd probably want to be looking at their foreign partners. Now,

which is the best? That's going to vary with Amex, I think, a lot based on your use case and what there's a transfer bonus to. Amex historically has been very good at transfer bonuses. They've offered tons of them and good value. And so when that lines up with your award needs, then that can be your best option. But they've got a whole bunch of great partners. So it's hard to pick one. Like I said, I like Air Canada Aeroplane. I like Avianca Life Miles, both of those for booking Star Alliance. awards with no surcharges. I actually got a question just a few hours ago about American Airlines and how somebody said that they wondered why we thought they're useful since they're always seeing really high priced awards to Europe. And I thought to myself, well, if I want to go to Europe,

American Airlines miles are not what I want. I want Star Alliance miles because there's so many more options. And you can book through Air Canada, Aplan, Aravianco without surcharges. So those are two of my favorites, but Air France, KLM, Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. Those can also be very useful with Amex. Capital One has many of the same partners. So I'd say that many of the same things I just said about Amex would be the same for Capital One, I think, in terms of their best partners. And then City. So City, I think probably if you've followed our posts in recent months, and Tim wrote a great post that hopefully somebody can share a link to about City and their hotel partners. So, you know, leading hotels of the world, preferred hotels, choice privileges. They've got great

transfer ratios to those programs that can make for some great award opportunities if those hotel chains can match up with your plans. So that's going to vary person to person in terms of whether or not they have locations where you want to be. But those can be great use as the other typically great use of city points or I should say maybe not typically, but the thing that stands out as different is Eva Air, EVA, Eva era based in Taipei, is known to release more awards based to their own members and their transfer partner in cities. And so you may have an easier time finding awards base to Asia through that particular program. But again, it's kind of hard to pick one in all of these because it really kind of depends on your needs. Oh, and Bill's best would be Hyatt and Alaska,

I would say, would be my two weeks. Oh, I can't believe I left American Airlines out of city, but American Airlines also from city, especially if you want to book on their partners to Asia. So I think it depends where you want to go, what you want to do, but those are some ideas anyway for each of the transferable currencies. I think one of the most powerful things in the hobby, if you're new to it, is that many of these transferable currencies share many partners. And so you can combine forces from your MX points and your Capital One Miles and your chase points together in many cases. By transferring to, you know, let's say Air Canada Aeroplane as an example, you could transfer your Capital One Miles and your MX points and your chase points, all their Canada Aeroplane's

plan to have plenty of Air Canada Airplane miles for a particular award. And that's not necessarily the only program you need to consider. That's just an example to say, hey, you could combine forces from your different transferable currencies. Rather than looking at them as each a specialty for a different thing, they can be combined for a single purpose, single use. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. All right. Stephen, this person says, last October, I booked to stay at the Hyatt Regency Rome for mid-April, 26, not realizing it was a new hotel. The website now shows reservations starting May 1, 2026, with no availability in April. I'm concerned about whether my reservation will be honored. If the hotel isn't ready, will Hyatt relocate me,

and how soon would I be notified? I've booked a backup hotel, but would appreciate any tips. That's smart to book a backup hotel, because my understanding is that it doesn't have an official policy as to how they deal with situations like this, with other hotels where I've seen in the past, where they haven't opened on time. Sometimes Hyatt will refund your points, but also book you in at a different hotel in the city. But that's certainly not guaranteed. What I would do is reach out to them at the moment and find out what the situation is and if they would be willing to rebook you somewhere.

Seeing as you have a backup plan, I wouldn't do anything about it right now because as you get closer to the date, it might be that somehow they end up pushing the opening date back a little bit earlier than originally anticipated. So your reservation might still get honored. It might also, that's unlikely, but you never know. But it might also be the situation where as you get closer and closer and they haven't done anything, it might be more likely that they will re-book something for you at the last minute, whereas they might not do that when it's, what, four months ahead of time, like three and a half months ahead of time or something like that. So yeah, you've done the right thing. You've got a backup plan. I believe, like you could call

them now, but I would just leave it. Don't cancel the reservation for now. And hopefully you'll get some kind of positive outcome eventually, even if that's in April just before you stay. Yeah. All right. Good tip. Thank you for that. And the other thing too, like I would just add to it, don't, don't like be shy about proactively reaching out to Hyatt if you want. Like you could totally call up Hyatt and say, hey, I have this reservation and I just happen to look at the website and I saw that it's not, that they're not accepting reservations until May of what's going on and kind of just see what they'll do or offer you or say about that. Yeah. All right. Good tips.

Regular listeners know that we love transferable points and built has a terrific set of transfer partners, Hyatt, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, Air France, and many more. You can earn Bilt Points Paying Rent and at restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies, online shopping, and more. And now, starting in February, Bilt members can earn points on mortgage payments too. Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com slash miles. That's j-o-in-b-b-l-t.com slash miles. Make sure to use our URL so they know that we sent you. Greg, do the Miles and Points conventions mention things that normally aren't discussed in free podcasts like ours? Yeah, often, not 100%, but often you will be exposed to things that, you know, aren't openly talked about on public websites and podcasts.

So it is worth attending some of them for that purpose. But even more so what happens at conventions if you're friendly is you'll meet. other people who will be often very open to discussing things that aren't easily found online anywhere. And that's really the best, one of the best reasons to go to one of these miles and points conventions is not so much to listen to the speakers, although they can be really good and informative, but mainly to make friends that are interested in this hobby who know things that you don't and you can you can probably share things that you know that they don't and it's a great way to level up so to speak yeah that's that's a great point i was going to say we met at a conference

but then i realized we didn't we met at a do which is but i met Craig i met Craig at a conference and Stephen yeah yeah yes so who knows maybe you'll work for a blog someday if you go to those conferences. Moral of the story. Tim. People like to hate on my inability to remember these, what these abbreviations mean. I think you should pronounce it phonetically. AS, Miles.

Is that Asia? What is that? Alaska. Alaska. That makes no sense. Kerry hasn't sent a letter to Alaska in a long time. I think it's the first and last letter in Atmos. Yeah, there you go.

They were smart. That was really smart. So did I say, Tim. Yes, Tim. Alaska Miles' redemption for Europe often, redemptions for Europe often entail British Airways Medal that have high fees. Any tips on European redemptions, or is Alaska Miles mainly for AA or Asian Partner Awards? So what I'm actually going to do, even though I normally like to wax poetic about the virtues of Atmos and also its downfalls,

I'm actually going to kick this to both Greg and Nick because I know that they have both used Atmos points. Alaska miles in the recent history for rewards to Europe. So I'd just be curious to hear what you booked and what the fees were, what the price was, et cetera. And if you thought that was a good value. Yeah. Well, I'll start because mine's really simple. They asked other than AA, but I can't, I flew AA. So I used Alaska to fly Detroit to Chicago to London for only 45,000 miles in business class. and also in the other direction. I did that as well. So it's a fantastic deal, unbelievable.

But it doesn't really answer the question of what other carriers. It's good for going to Europe. Yep. So I booked Condor, which is a German airline. It used to be a subsidiary of Tonza, I think, but it hasn't been now for quite a while. So between New York or Boston and Frankfurt, it's 55,000 miles one way and then just the taxes. So there's no surcharges. It's $5.60.60 departing the United States. And then on the way back, of course, you pay the German departure taxes. So departing Germany was, I want to say something in the range of $150 or $190 or so per passenger. So nothing like the British Airways surcharges. And several readers pointed out to me that if we had started somewhere else that Condor serves in Europe and connected, that the connecting itineraries price at $4.

35,000 miles. So we would have saved 10,000 miles per passenger over what we paid flying from Frankfurt to New York. So look for that as well to do even better. So the thing I like about Condor is, man, they release a lot of award space. There's frequently four seats on like almost every flight. And of course, obviously somebody might book those. So I'm not saying there's going to be four seats every single day. But, man, there are four to nine seats on a lot of days. And so, I mean, we booked five in each direction. We were, traveling as a group of five for Christmas markets this year. So I didn't have trouble finding the exact dates we kind of wanted for five people in both directions, which was surprising to me.

And then I booked for next summer also. I booked a trip on Condor to Europe because, again, summertime award availability to Europe for the whole family and business class. I was pretty happy to be able to find that. Yeah. I would say that, like to jump off of those two guys, like, I'm not exactly sure why it's, it says are AS miles mainly for AA, as though that's not a good European option, because oftentimes AA can be a very good European option. In fact, and I just did the same thing that, or a similar thing to what Greg did, where I had to fly home from London at the last minute because of a family emergency during our challenge. and I was able to find same day AA business class availability from Hethro.

And the, or Heathrow, everybody's going to get on me. Heathrow, Heathrow, he throw. And it's not British Airway style fees, but it's, it was more than it would have been from the U.S. because Heathrow just, there's higher fees outside of that. But it was maybe 200 bucks or something. And 45,000 miles from business class back to the U.S. on the exact time that I wanted literally that that day. But so I don't know that, you know, when looking for,

when looking for European award availability on any one world carrier, which is the alliance that Alaska and British Airways and American Airlines are part of, you will undoubtedly see the most availability from VA from British Airways. And the reason why is because British Airways charges an amazing amount of fees for their award flights. So they release a lot of space. They're like, oh, yeah, you don't want to pay for it. Sure, we'll do.

We're happy to charge you $1,100 and $45,000, you know, or whatever. But that doesn't mean that there isn't space on, just because you see a ton of BA space whenever you look, doesn't mean that there aren't other things in there. And so along with A.A. and Condor, which I've had great luck with Condor, like Nick said. I had a marvelous experience. We flew all the way back from Tanzania this year on Condor going through Frankfurt, and were able to find space for my wife and I. But the other two ones that I would, off the top of my head, are one is Iberia.

Iberia, if you can get nonstop, and the only places, I think you'll probably find it on Alaska because they don't do any connecting it to area or with Iberia would be to Spain. But the fees are much less than BA. They're still there, but they're much less than BA. Like where BA might charge $700, $800, $900, $900. Iberia is usually somewhere in the $200, $200 range. but then also Air Lingus. And Air Lingus can be tricky to find availability, but they do have a surprising amount of

nonstop flights between various U.S. gateways and Ireland and then the U.S. or in Europe. And that can be very, the prices are great. The fees are reasonable. It's not necessarily going to make you feel like, oh, this is a business, you know, this is an Emirates or something like this is some. But it's a lifelab bed. It's perfectly fine.

get across the ocean, you know. Yeah. So that those are sort of the, what Greg and Nick already mentioned, to me, like the big four outside of BA for Europe would be Iberia, Aer Lingus, American, and Condole. Well, I was just going to say in the coming months as well, it would be worth keeping an eye out for Alaska Metal because they're going to be launching to London, Rome, and Reykjavik. So one of the reasons you're not finding good redemptions on Alaska Metal at the moment is because I don't think they actually have any transatlantic routes to Europe, but that is going to be changing to like the UK, Italy and Iceland. And so I think it's still a few months away from when those are going to be taking place.

I don't know if they're actually taking bookings yet or not, but that will hopefully be another good option. Those routes are from Seattle, though. So if you're going to be flying from the East Coast, then that's not really going to be particularly helpful because you're not really going to want to backtrack across the US in order to be able to take a flight that way. But yeah, if you're on the West Coast or easily positionable to Seattle, then take a look at that. The last thing I wanted to mention about this is that you mentioned on European redemptions, and we've all been assuming and probably correctly,

assuming that you mean between the U.S. and Europe, but it's also worth mentioning that Finair has decent award space within Europe, and you can use, it's hard to find thin air space between Europe and the U.S. That's another option with Alaska miles, but I don't, I haven't found that to be widely available. However, for flights within Europe, we just flew thin air between Germany and Rovaniami, Finland and back to Germany again, and 7,500 miles each way for flights that were pretty expensive at the time, actually. I was surprised to have found them through Alaska. So that's another thing to keep in mind is the intra-European flights. I mentioned thin air, but of course, Iperia also would potentially be a good deal for intra-European flights.

British Airways, maybe not as much because you are going to hit some additional fees. But anyway, so keep that in mind if you want to visit more than one place in Europe, they can be useful for sometimes connecting the dots. Yes, and lots of commentary if you're following on YouTube, and a lot of listeners are weighing in on their own thoughts here too. So check in there. I think Nick, we're at your question. Now, does the Platte airline credit still work for a United Travel Bank this year?

So we have a post called AMX Airline fee reimbursements, what still works. And if and when the day ever comes when that stops working, you will definitely find that noted in that post. Like, we won't wait days or hours or much more than minutes before we update that. if once we figure out that it has stopped working. So my answer would be always check that post. And if there's nothing there, then in the post itself, I don't mean just in the comments because sometimes people will jump in the comments and be like, oh my goodness, there's a pending charge and it looks different than

what I remember in the past. And I don't think it's, I think it's dead now. And I'm like, just chill out. Give it a week. You just made the charge five minutes ago. Hang. If you scroll down through the comments, you're going to find 18 other people who have panicked like that too over the last year.

And later we're like, oh, Yeah, no, no, no, no, it's fine. As far as I know, it still works. And the moment that we know anything differently, we'll fix it. One very quick thing to add to that is that, yeah, United Travel Bank is still working when loading it to your own account. There have been quite a few reports, though, that if you're loading it to someone else's account, which used to work, that is no longer working and people don't seem to be getting the credits, or at least not 100% at the time anyway. So if you are going to do United Travel Bank, load it to your own account. Yes, okay, thank you for that. Stephen, I'm going to give this next question to you. Venture X travel credit is a discount rather than a credit. If I have two bookings and have to cancel the one booked with the discount, can I retroactively have them lower the second booking?

I actually have no clue about that one. Anyone else have any experience with how that works? Can't imagine. I think it's unlikely, but I mean, you could ask them. Maybe they could do something, but it seems unlikely to work. We're dubious. You never know. All right.

Greg. Well, everyone, I guess, starting with Greg, yet another one that doesn't make any sense to me. And so tell me if this doesn't make sense in general and we can skip it. What is everyone's U.S. bank strategy? I cashed mine out at 1.5X. So, Greg. Yes. This was talking about the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card, which used to be a very compelling

card, sort of a cash back-ish card if you played it right, it would earn four and a half percent back for all mobile wallet payments and travel charges because of a combination of things. Anyway, they kind of nerfed that whole thing and promise to bring transferable points or promise to make their points transferable, and we're still waiting on that part of it. So right now it's it's a Nerf card where you can't redeem for one. You can't cash out at one and a half cents per point anymore as you were able to before. And so I guess the best you can do is book travel through U.S. Bank's travel portal. Yeah, even that though.

I think your best option is just the highest value you can get now is one cent per point. Oh, even through there. Yeah, redeeming to the U.S. Bank check. is your best option. And so it is nerfed, but nerfed still means 3% back anywhere you can tap your phone, which is still probably the best option. Better than the Apple card. It's better than the Apple card. That's, you heard straight from the horse's mouth. So my personal approach is I'm just waiting to see. I haven't been spending on it. So I haven't been earning points on the card hardly at all for a long time now. But anyway, so I'm just waiting

to see what happens with if they do introduce transferable points and if they're any good. And if they are, then I think it'll be interesting to me again. And I'll start using for mobile wallet payments up to what, a limit of $10,000 per month. So it's a pretty high limit, I think. I think it's five, actually. I'm pretty sure. 98%. Up to a limit of something, which is probably high enough for my notes anyway.

Yes. What about everyone else? Yeah. Yeah. Tim, how about you? different strategy, same strategy? I don't even have the U.S. Bank Altru Reserve because I pushed it off and I kept pushing it off and pushing it off applying for it. And I pushed it off long enough that it no longer became

available. So all I can do is wistfully look at and or wistfully envy Greg and Nick thinking about what they're going to do with their rewards because I can't even think about it. I mean, I can think about it. But I have to make it. Just makes me sad. Nick, I think you already commented on your strategy, right? Or did you have more. Well, I'm still using it. I'm still using it because 3% back everywhere would be good if that's the worst that happens. It's the worst that's going to happen now.

And if they ever launch the transfer partners, then, you know, then hopefully they're earning three points per dollar, three transferable points per dollar on spend will be good. Although I did predict this year that they are not going to, if you read our predictions post for 2026, I predicted that they're not going to actually launch to the transfer partners. and you can read more about that in our 2026 predictions post as to why I think they might not. But even still, 3% back, and it is 5,000 a month. I double checked.

On 5,000 up to $5,000 a month is still a good return for mobile wallet spent. So I'm still using it and hopeful that they launch the transfer partners. If they don't, I'll be really disappointed that I didn't cash out what I had at one and a half before. But I actually, this is still my primary card for rental cars because I live in New York. And so Chase's rental car coverage is no longer primary. This card earns three points per dollar on travel and gives me, you know, primary CDW coverage. And it's the card I typically use when I'm checking into a hotel for 3X on travel. So, and I use it for a variety of 3x travel type purchases.

I just use it on board my Margaritaville at C Cruise, which turned out to be a mistake because the onboard charges did not code at 3x, even though the booking charges had coded as 3x beforehand. So that was a big disappointment. But anyway, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it. All right. Stephen, anything different? I'm a little bit like Tim where I never ended up having the card. I think I'd applied for it at one point and US bank declined me.

So yeah, I just never ended up getting it. All right, Nick, skipping Tim, because then Tim, Tim, you've got your own question coming up next. If you have to pick which elite status would you prefer American or Alaska? That's a great question. I wrote a post about this and I'd have to read it to remember which I picked. Oh, man. Right now I got both. You know, I think that if you can get the summit card, I would be happy with Alaska status because it would be reasonable to earn through spend.

You'd earn great benefits through that spend. And so if I had the summit card, Alaska would be my pick, mostly because spending on the card would work out well with the companion certificate, the 100K campaign certificate, in particular that you can earn at 60K spend on that card. Without that, I think both Greg and I wrote posts about this, actually, and we both came to the conclusion, I think, that it was just enough easier to earn American Airlines status through spend and whatnot. And I think we both came to the conclusion, if I remember correctly. I think it was a podcast. Greg hasn't nodded, so I'm getting right.

Yeah, great. Did you come to a different? I can't remember the post or podcast that Nick's talking about, but I do know the one that Tim, was referring to, recently I wrote a post, it wasn't really which is better. It was more which one should I pursue in order to get one world emerald status, basically. And I decided that the rewards I'd get along the way with my Atma summit card and the value and how much I value the miles, like it would work out a little bit better going with Alaska than with American. but it's not like a big, you know, it's a pretty small difference.

And they both, I don't know, they seem like they're both pretty strong programs. They both have miles that can be crazy valuable. And, you know, depending on how you use them. So I like a both. I wouldn't be disappointed with either one. And then depending on what level status you'd be earning, one reason you might want to American is because they have a partnership with Hyatt and they will often do a reciprocal status match or status challenge and so if you have say like Platinum Pro status with American

you might have an opportunity to get say Exploist status with Hyatt and then have a chance to stay say like 10 elite nights or something like that in order to own globalist status with tired. And so that kind of thing, depending on your situation, might be helpful. But I wouldn't necessarily include that as a like chief consideration just because there's no guarantee as to how that will work in the future. And especially if all you're going for is like low level status like American gold, then that might not be particularly useful in the first place. Yeah. Now, I want to ask Tim, though, because Tim, you know the Alaska program, I'm sure better than the rest of us. And so you probably have an opinion about which status is most useful. Well, yeah, but I actually, I was

when if I assumed Kerry was going to ask me this question. So I was, and I was planning on punting it to you and Nick because you had both written posts about it recently. But, you know, like for me, I live in Seattle, or live in the Seattle area. Seattle's my home airport. I fly Alaska all the time. It's my primary airline for both my wife and I. And so we love it. You know, it's a marvelous to, we're both top tier Alaska elites and we get marvelous treatment. We get upgraded all the time. We get great earnings on our flights. We get earnings on our award flights.

We get, like, it's, I don't know. Like, if I was going to transition to American, I would have to strategize a ton about how I would get the same level of status with American. And I don't really have to do with Alaska because it's very straightforward. I get miles on my award flights and, you know, now there's a credit card option. And based on what I understand from other, from American flyers who fly out of hubs, my last year, I haven't done the actual stats, but last year I believe I got upgraded to first class on 78, 78, 79% of my flights, almost 80. So effectively four out of my five flights that I booked an economy ticket for.

I was upgraded to first class. I have yet to talk to. That's with Alaska. That's with Alaska. And I have yet to talk to an executive platinum from American that reaches anything close to that level of upgrading, especially if they're operating out of a hub like the FW or something like that. So, but that's a very specific, like, you know, Seattle, it's like, to me it's almost a no-brainer if you're in Seattle, unless you have like some sort of Delta

company corporate kind of deal that you're working with. But elsewhere, that's where I think it's almost more important what you guys think, because you're looking at both programs based on sort of a light level of usage of Alaska, a very light level of usage in Alaska. And that's where I think it becomes more applicable to the vast majority of people that are even questioning it. Because honestly, I don't see how if you were living in Portland or Seattle or Alaska, how you would even think about that question. You're not asking that question, you know.

Right. But one of the things you brought up reminds me why another reason I chose Alaska is the ability to earn elite qualifying points based on our award redemptions, even with partners, is just so great. And so the idea that you're getting rewarded, not just by, you know, using the points to do something great, but that's all that you're also being further recognized in an elite way with that travel is great. And that's such a, you know, such a nice feature of that program that I really love that. All right.

I'm going to interrupt here for a moment. We have a lot of people asking about built. And so I'm going to remind everyone again, we have a whole conversation on this, episode 86, coffee break episode 86. Go check that out for all your questions. And Greg, were you done with that thought? Was everyone done with that thought?

I think so. Great. Okay. Then Tim, a very similar theme here. In what cases is it worthwhile to keep both at most cards summit innocent? This is a very tricky question to answer right at this moment. And the reason why is traditionally what I would say, A, if you fly Alaska a lot, the summit card is just great. They did a really, really good job, in my opinion, of tailoring that card to make it a really good value for people

who fly Alaska. There's a lot of great benefits for people who fly Alaska. Or if you, even if you don't fly Alaska a lot, but you use a lot of Alaska miles to burn part, but part book partner awards, there's some really good opportunity there. Or if you are using your Alaska card to try to spend towards status, even if you're a non-alaska hub, the not only do you have a 100K global companion award certificate that can be used towards partners that you earn after $60,000 in spend, but you get two, you get a status point per $2 spend versus the Ascent card has a status point for $3 spend. So in almost every way, if you're engaged with Alaska's program, the summit card

will probably be a better option. That said, the primary difference in terms of what they offer you is that the companion fare that's offered by the assent card, the cheaper card, is valid towards paid fares. Whereas the companion fair that's offered towards from the summit card is an anniversary benefit is effectively a 25K discount on award flights. So they're very different things. Now, traditionally, if you already, and so one scenario is if you already had the ascent card from the days that, like all of my assent cards in our household are grandfathered in from before they actually required minimum spend for these cards. So I get a companion fair every year for paying the annual fee. And that was a no-brainer for years. Now you have to spend $6,000 a year

on that card, which you're going to get in 2000 status points and there could be some things. But that's $6,000 spend as a not insignificant amount for many people to get that companion fare. And again, historically, that would have been worth it because Alaska's companion fair traditionally was extremely flexible. You could use wallet funds, which means that like the funds that I save, that I capture from using my American Air line or my American Express incidental credits to book things and then cancel them and turn them into Alaska credit, I could then take that credit and apply it towards

companion fare for me and my wife. And additionally, although technically it was always valid for a one way or a round trip, you could use it for all of these crazy itineraries. So for years, like the vast majority of my wife's, of my wife and my travel has been using four or five companion fairs a year. And we're taking a lot of flights for that. However, Recently, Alaska has nerved both of those things. You can still, and they're talking about how the response has been universally negative. So effectively now they're actually limiting people, unless you use an old version of their booking software, they're actually limiting people to only doing a round trip or a one-way flight,

and they're not allowing wallet funds to be used at all towards them. Both of those, to me, seem way more onerous than what's, they intended. So they're talking about walking both of those things back. But all that to say, to me, the sum value of the Ascent card is the Companion Fair. And if Alaska does not walk back some of these changes, effectively what you have is a $121 companion fair that you can only use, that you're also paying an additional $75 year annual fee and spending $6,000 a year to get it. So really, you're spending somewhere around $250 a year on this based on your opportunity costs and all that sort of stuff, $200, $250. And all you can do is use it for a round trip.

Now, if you can do that and save money, great. But how much money are you really going to save, you know, consistently with that? Especially for folks who are outside of Alaska's West Coast footprint that, you know, if Greg wants to fly anywhere, he's got to go through Seattle. that's not convenient. So if he's, you know, it reduces the, the appeal that that sort of thing has to it. So I would say that if I was right, like right now, and this, this goes like, the welcome bonuses for the first year are going to be worth it regardless. Like, I'm talking specifically about keeping the card, not about getting the card, getting the welcome bonus, and then canceling it out for after the first year. But all that to say that there's a, that's a really long-winded way of saying that the, the value of that

paid companion fare is very much in flux right now. And if Alaska does nothing to walk back the changes they've made, I don't know why you would have it, honestly. If they do walk back some of them, it could be very valuable again. But right now, if I was saying, hey, you can keep this card, pay $75 a year plus $121, plus spend $6,000 and get a companion fare that you can only use on a round trip and you can't use your wallet funds towards, oh, you know, if you have a use case for that, great. But that's the use case, in my opinion. All right. Thanks. So that was a long way of saying, no, just keep the summit card.

Just trying to summarize. It's a really, it can be a really, that's a really awesome thing. But anyway. It's all about the nuances. All right. Stephen, final question for you. I believe you kind of dabbled on this topic in a recent post. For 2026, any new programs you're prioritizing for earning or status?

And then they give some examples, but curious what you'll say. I don't think there's any that I'm necessarily prioritizing that in you. But, yeah, I would check the website because I published a post recently about my status plans for the year. The initial title is about why I'm not going to be going for a higher globalist this year. But then it does also include all of my other status plans. Nick's already done his. I think Greg's got a post coming out. Is it tonight or tomorrow?

It just went out a few minutes ago. There we go. So, part of the press, Greg's plans for status. And then I think Tim's going to be publishing his post for this soon. Is that right? Yeah. But yeah, like just as a very quick answer, there aren't any new programs that I'm particularly prioritizing.

It'd be interesting to test drive sterling status with leading hotels of the world and things like that. But at the moment, I don't have any firm plans and I'm not making any specific effort for that. But if I end up booking some kind of FHR stay that happens to be a leading hotels of the world property, then that would be great because I'd love to check that out. How about the rest of you? Make it quick, or we're going to wrap up? No, no, no. See the post.

There's nothing new in terms of prioritizing. I would say that I'm prioritizing at most for airlines, high it and using my credits for hotels. and nothing for car rentals. I'm a free agent when it comes to car rentals. Right. Anything else noteworthy before we wrap up? Actually, one thing that I am possibly considering prioritizing

is titanium status with Marriott, which hadn't been at all on my radar up until a few weeks ago. So I will have a post coming out about that in the next couple of weeks as to why that would make sense for me. It's not really going to make sense to probably 99. percent of weekly minor leaders just given my

particular circumstances and the opportunities that I have but I figured it could make an interesting read anyway so but yeah that is one

that I might prioritize I'm still to be decided on that. Yeah. So watch the blog for some of these posts we've referenced

that are coming up and thanks for tuning in today. We are now past 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. So I think we're going to end there.

Thanks for joining us everybody. Happy birthday, Nick. Good night. Bye now. Thank you. Birthday. Travel Tales with me, Mike Siegel, is full of funny, inspiring, and wild adventures.

Listen now at voyescape.com. If you love travel, you'll love winging it travel podcast. Every Monday I share stories from 75 countries, from backpacking tips, epic adventures, and plenty of travel inspiration. Alongside that, I host guest interviews every two weeks. Check it out at voyscape.com.