Frequent Miler on the Air - Which program do you have the most love/hate relationship with? | Ask Us Anything Ep66 | 4-3-24

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is not your usual Frequent Miler on the Air episode. This is our Ask Us Anything live session, recorded and brought to you in podcast format. Once a month, the Frequent Miler team gets together live on YouTube to answer your questions. Ask us questions about points, miles, credit cards, airline and hotel loyalty programs. We don't know what's coming next and neither do you. Enjoy. I like it. This is our monthly live brought to you not live on a podcast right we're live aren't we live on the internet where everything fun happens this is frequent

Starting point is 00:00:37 milers ask us anything and uh first up i think uh carrie's gonna ask us something because we're gonna uh i think nick is gonna to ask Greg something about a post he just wrote. Yeah, Greg, I saw that you wrote a post that sounded really interesting about Qatar Airways and finding availability. Tell me about it because I haven't read it yet. Yeah, it all started with me. I just wanted to update my post on how to find Cutter award space. And my old post on it is all based on using American Airlines to find the space. But the problem is that I'd noticed that American Airlines doesn't have access to a lot of award space that's available through other

Starting point is 00:01:21 programs, like British Airways in particular I knew had better access than American to Cutter's award space. And so I went down this like big rabbit hole of like trying to figure out what the pattern was. And it turns out that there are like a lot of levels of who gets award space and what kind and and so uh i wrote this post just like identifying the different levels of award space i found now the broadest one the one we already knew about is that cutter itself has access to these like double um double priced awards that aren't available to others. And there's nothing new about that. No other partner has access to those.

Starting point is 00:02:11 Those are called Flexi Awards. What's new, I think, I've never read it anywhere that I can remember, is that Cutter and some of its partners have access to awards that are priced so normally saver awards from the between the u.s and doha are priced 70 000 points one way with cutter for um business class wait can i can i hop in for a quick second i thought that we had agreed to stop calling it cutter oh you're right qatar qatar normally normally cost 70 000 points when savers awards available and if it wasn't available my understanding was your only choice then is to pay double that uh to get the the level. But no, there's something in between. There are awards available that Qatar and Iberia and sometimes British Airways have access to,

Starting point is 00:03:15 which cost 94,500 points one way. So it's like... That's interesting. Yeah. Because you access to more space for a little bit more? Yeah, for just little bit more. Yeah. For just a bit more. And so I found that really interesting,

Starting point is 00:03:28 you know, for several reasons, just like which partners had them and why, like the, the fact that Iberia seems to always have them if Qatar has them, but British airways only sometimes has them. If the other two have them was strange um another finding was that virgin australia has access to those awards at their usual award rate like they

Starting point is 00:03:55 don't they don't inflate the price of those 94.5 k awards um that said they always charge 92k to 104k depending on how long the flight is so it's not like it's a cheaper way of booking anyway not significantly and no one had really from the u.s has access to those miles anyway so there's no transfer program that transfers to them other than uh the australian version of amex that I know of, and none of us have that. So yeah, anyway, so there were those levels. And then at the 70K Saver level, then you have another tier of things, which is JetBlue now has access anytime that there are 70k awards available to Qatar JetBlue also has access to those as far as I can tell um and so then you've got cheaper uh award fees and you get the free cancellations and changes um and so or at least cancellations and um uh uh but American

Starting point is 00:05:04 Airlines in Alaska don't have access to those necessarily they have access to just tiny subset of those uh whereas alaska does have access to way more award space than anyone else except for qatar except they charge out the wazoo for those for most of those so when i say alaska doesn't have access to, I really mean at the cheaper level. Alaska charges around 70K or 85K, depending on how far the flight is for those flights. And they have very little availability, very, very little, just like American. Same availability as mine. So let me ask you a question that I'm guessing maybe you answered in the post, but I haven't yet had a chance to read it. that is did you determine if there was a fare class available that would tell us when jet blue is going to have acts like

Starting point is 00:05:49 that's super helpful for leaving the united states because you'll know if qatar is charging 70k then jet blue also has access to that space but what if i'm looking at a flight that originates in asia and goes to europe or something is there have we identified which fare class it is so i'll know that oh maybe i can book that flight through JetBlue or a different partner? No, I mean, I didn't check that. My general suggestion is to, a lot of tools let you search Virgin Australian award space. And I suggest using that program to identify whether there's awards availability. And if they are,

Starting point is 00:06:31 they're probably available to JetBlue. The few that are those, what I'm calling the 94.5K awards are not, but that's a very small percentage of the flights out there. So I think you start with Virgin Australia, which is weird because you're not going to book with Virgin Australia, but you start with that.

Starting point is 00:06:51 And if you find a word space, then check, does American or Alaska have access to it? Probably not, but just check. Why not? Next one, check JetBlue. And then from there, you might want to check, just book with uh qatar itself i think is probably the best option in many cases so i have a question from somebody

Starting point is 00:07:12 who relates to this and uh we i've got another one queued up in case you already just answered that while i was uh finding it in the youtube uh commenters they, did you notice, Greg, that there were some, QR is Qatar, right? Qatar, yeah. Qatar flights that were available through JetBlue, but not British Airways. Is that the reverse of what you're describing,

Starting point is 00:07:36 or is that exactly what you're describing? I did not notice that, but that's certainly possible. There's no way that I noticed every trend out there. So that, I guess that wouldn't surprise me that much noticed that but that's certainly possible there's no way that i noticed every trend out there so um that i guess that wouldn't surprise me that much because uh british airways just seems it's i i almost feel like when it can't see a word space that's probably that might be a website error or something more than a uh a true thing that they can't see it. And so it wouldn't surprise me

Starting point is 00:08:05 if that's more common than just those 94.5K awards. All right, Stephen. So we're going to move on from that topic till we get more Qatar questions for folks. Do you use the app Slidy? If yes, any improvements you want them to make? And then does anyone else use that app if not?

Starting point is 00:08:24 This is an easy one for me to answer. No, I haven't. Anyone? I don't know about that. I do. I do use it. I guess what I want to know is, is the flighty, you know, developers or owners here? Is that where we got the question?

Starting point is 00:08:41 I don't know. It could be. I mean, years ago, someone who created flighty had reached out to me and offered me a free trial and that's why i have it on my phone um i just don't remember their name but uh yeah i like it a lot i don't know i i can't off the top of my head think of oh i've got one suggestion um when you i you i sync it i sync flights from trip it um but flighty does not remove flights that i remove from trip it and i really wish it would because that's really so not to take carrie's job here because i know carrie feeds the questions but as somebody who

Starting point is 00:09:18 doesn't use flighty and since most of us here clearly don't what what what is flighty can explain to all the people out there like me that don't use it yet sure uh it's it's an app that tracks flights and specifically um at least the way i use it is i i put all my trips in trip it and i connect flighty to trip it so it knows all the flights i'm going to take. And then it just sends me alerts about the flight. So if the flight's going to be delayed, it seems to know it before anyone else does. It knows about gate changes. It knows about equipment swaps and things like that before I get alerted by anyone else. So it's a little bit redundant from like the airline apps and TripIt itself,

Starting point is 00:10:09 what it does. But at the same time, sometimes it has more or more timely information. So I like that. Nice. All right, Nick, is there a reason so many credit cards are dropping priority pass? I mean, probably my guess would be that it's more expensive than what they want to pay. I mean, that's basically the same reason you might drop a credit card because the annual cost of it isn't adding up for you. And so I'm guessing that priority pass either just needs more money to economically make it work for them. And so maybe they've increased their prices. I don't know that for sure. But at any rate, apparently, issuers don't think that it's worth whatever the cost to them is to offer to their members. Now, that's probably a mix of data. A, it might be the cost, whatever they're getting charged by priority pass. Or then B,

Starting point is 00:11:00 it might also be they have a lot more data than I do in terms of which benefits their cardholders are actually using. And so maybe they're looking at it and saying not enough cardholders are using it enough to make it a benefit that they think is valuable enough. Now, whether or not that's the case, I don't have any inside information. My first instinct would be that the cost is just not working out to be cost effective for them. It's disappointing. It's too bad because it's something i think a lot of people like although i haven't made great use of it the last couple years i just haven't been in enough situations where it did work out for me maybe yeah maybe it's all my fault it's your fault you should have used it more um all right

Starting point is 00:11:38 one other thing that i'd quickly add to that as well is that not all cards that you might have read about recently are dropping priority pass some of them are just dropping the restaurants part as well so that's what's happened um most recently with ritz-carlton and um sapphire reserve cards as well so it might be that like you might have like seen the headline and thought that they were getting rid of priority pass um and certainly like the was it the hilton business card or was this a pass um it's getting rid of is getting rid of actual priority pass um benefit itself so you just need to kind of like make sure that if you're considering getting rid of a card because you think it's

Starting point is 00:12:16 dropping priority pass make sure that the changes are actually what you think they are because it might be that you're keeping it in one form or another that's a that's a good point and the cards that have dropped it in general have been, I think, am I right here? Cards that only offered a limited number of visits per year as it was. So it's not the cards that offer unlimited visits haven't dropped it. They've just dropped the restaurant access, which apparently that is a point of contention for them. All right. This is the question for everybody.

Starting point is 00:12:46 We're going to start with Greg. What program do you have the strongest love-hate relationship with? Delta. I need to say more. Probably not, but just in case. So Delta is great to fly. I think they do a terrific job in the air. And I think some of their elite top tier elite benefits are really good. I like their lounges when they're not overcrowded. But there's there's things that are really, really frustrating, like the fact that they hardly ever release any award space to to their partners. How do they how can they call them partners when they're not ever going give their partners access to their flights anyway that's that's right steven how about you love hate relationship i'll probably have to go with marriott um just because i've had titanium status with them for like several years because it's been like relatively easy to get at first because of covid but also because i start off with 30 nights each year and so it's been kind of like

Starting point is 00:13:51 really easy to get that but i'm this year i should end up locking in lifetime platinum so that'll kind of make um titanium um less of a push in the future or kind of like less of a priority but it's just hard because their properties cost so many more points now than um they did and like that's often the case with a lot of um award programs but it feels like since we've been on the road trip but maybe it's the one that's had overall the worst devaluation i think for us um in terms of what we were able to book back in 2018 rather than what we can book now um if anything, I'd almost say that IHG is better than it had been back then. I feel like I get so much better value out of it

Starting point is 00:14:31 now. And so yeah, I think it would have to be Marriott just because it's fairly easy to earn titanium status. But then if you're trying to book it with points, then it costs you a whole big big amount so yeah how about you nick you know mariette would be my answer to this also but slightly different reasons i think for me it's the fact that a it's overly complex that the benefits the elite benefits are so inconsistent between brands and like just overall, because they don't offer the same benefits at all brands. And then when it comes to individual hotels that are trying to play games and not offer a benefit the way it's meant to be offered, Marriott does very little to enforce

Starting point is 00:15:16 that in general. So you don't really feel like you've got much backing as a member, but at the same time, they're everywhere, you know, so I end up staying at Marriott's a lot because they are so they have such a wide ranging footprint. And actually, the opposite from Stephen, I have found that points have been pretty valuable, continuously for me have continued to be pretty valuable. Now, that's, I think, a difference between Stephen and I in terms of which properties we're aiming for, probably, because Stephen's looking probably, I'm assuming more of the long-term stay type properties, residence in at the lower end of the point spectrum, which many of those have gone up.

Starting point is 00:15:53 I feel like the mid-tiers of Marriott, it varies. And I often find situations where I'm getting one cent per point or more in the 30 to 40 to 50,000 points per night. But I'm not trying to stay on the road 365 days a year. So for the handful of times per year that I need that type of property, it's meeting my needs from an award perspective. It's just really, for me, it's the inconsistency in elite benefits and the lack of effort on Marriott's end to ensure that consistency. And just in case Marriott's disappointed that it didn't run a full sweep, I have to say Marriott was my first thought answer to this question. I just have a little stronger ties to Delta in both the love and hate side.

Starting point is 00:16:38 Well, I didn't emphasize the love. I mean, there's plenty of great Marriott properties out there. I mean, that's why it's a love-hate relationship, right? Because there's, I mean, tons of the old SPG properties that are in the Marriott portfolio these days are just really nice places to stay. So there's a lot of reasons still to like it, even if, you know, I hate it. We just don't like having to consult a chart to see whether we can go down and get a free breakfast. Yeah, that's ridiculous.

Starting point is 00:17:02 The fact that we live and breathe this stuff and have to consult a chart is ridiculous. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Do you have that printed and laminated? Have to consult a chart is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. We need to sell a frequent miler branded get breakfast chart. Yeah. A pocket book like guide or something like that. All right. Greg, this one's going to go to you. Which ways of booking business slash premium economy domestic flights have the best availability at reasonable cost? I'm trying to make longer positioning flights more comfortable for two to five people. Wow. Business premium economy. I don't really know much about availability of premium economy. There's very few times when you can use partner award programs to book premium economy, although

Starting point is 00:17:49 that's starting to happen now with especially like Alaska. But there's not a lot of that for domestic flights anyway. So I think what you're really talking about is booking regional first class. And so you'll see, I had a whole post about booking regional first class with Qatar miles really cheaply. And Nick has a more thorough post on booking best ways to book flights within the US. And I think that's the best place to start is just look there and see the different options because there's a bunch of different options for doing that that are good pricing. And as far as what availability would be like, that's so dependent on time of year, what route you're looking at, and a million other things that I can't mention any trends.

Starting point is 00:18:50 All right. Stephen, this next one is for you. What's the best way to pay for my 28-day Marriott stay? Perfect for Stephen. CSR, Ritz, or Hyatt for getting globalist status of those three I'd most likely go for the Ritz just because I think that'll like does the Ritz give 6x on Marriott stays? Yeah I'd probably go for that over earning 3x on

Starting point is 00:19:22 the Sapphire Reserve but that would be like up to you as to whether or not you prefer like six Mario points to three ultimate reward points. So personally, just because I don't end up backing up Mario points too much, then I would prefer to do that. But, but you might end up getting better value by paying with a CSR with your hire card.

Starting point is 00:19:43 I'm, I'm assuming you're just trying to go, you're considering that just because you're trying to spend like 5,000 to get to Elite Knight credits or something like that. Otherwise, like paying with your Hyatt card, I wouldn't have thought would have any particular benefit unless it was targeted for one of the like quarterly bonus things

Starting point is 00:20:02 and it bonuses on travel or something like that this quarter maybe but I don't think that's the case so yeah personally I'd go for Ritz but CSR could be a good option but something else that's worth considering considering you've got a 28 day thing booked depending on what state you're in it would be worth looking into whether or not it would be cheaper to book a 31 day stay just because a you might get a cheaper rate for booking it as kind of like a proper month-long thing but also something like 50% of states around the country don't charge you any tax if you stay for 31 days or longer and so even though you'd be paying for three additional days there you might actually spend less long term and depending on how much the tax would end up being and that's if the state even allows you to do that in the first place if you um actually what i'll do is in the comments on

Starting point is 00:20:54 youtube i'll drop a link to a post i've written about that because within there there's also a link to um a site where you can check which states um will waive the tax on a long-term stay like that. Nice. Very cool. Cool. Nick, on a podcast, you said you were going to pick up the Brilliant card even without the signup bonus. Would you not consider temporarily product changing your Ritz cards to be eligible for the signup bonus? Good question. So I said, I, I, I would consider picking up the brilliant card without the welcome bonus, whether or not I actually will, it's going to just depend on how much I need to use those platinum level benefits this year, which is still, still remains to be seen. So I don't

Starting point is 00:21:44 know for sure. Now, would I product change my Ritz cards still remains to be seen. So I don't know for sure. Now, would I product change my Ritz cards in order to be eligible for the welcome bonus? I wouldn't, though. I don't know. I mean, maybe if I ran the numbers, I should. My hesitation there is that I have an old grandfathered Ritz card that only has a $395 annual fee. And so paying $395 for $300 in travel and dental credits and an 85K certificate every year is really attractive. If I product changed and then went back to a Ritz, I'd be paying $450 a year. So it costs me $50 a year. Now, I guess the value of the initial welcome bonus is probably high enough on the Brilliant to sort of offset that for a while. But I don't know whether I...

Starting point is 00:22:24 I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I should think about it. I wouldn't. Initially, my reaction would have been no. Yeah. Okay, good. So Greg, the frequent miler is in my corner. Why?

Starting point is 00:22:33 Well, for what you just said, I mean, if you mess with it right now, you have what seems to be a lifetime $55 savings and yeah every year uh and so for the short-term gain that you you know i don't see it being worth it all right uh greg the frequent miler has spoken now this is the question for everybody um any favorite resources for finding interesting things to do in a country i have several destinations that I want to visit for one to two things I know about, but would need more to fill the trip. We're going to start with Greg. I'm going to go with what I said last time, which is ask the question on Frequent Miler Insiders, our Facebook group. You'll get great answers there.

Starting point is 00:23:21 Stephen, how about you? I mean, there's the obvious thing of like TripAdvisor. So that's something that we do just to see if there's any kind of like obvious things. And then what I'll sometimes do is just take a look at where we're actually going to be staying in a hotel if we've already got a hotel booked, and then just look at what's in the kind of general area on Google Maps, just because sometimes you'll uncover some random things that you wouldn't generally find on TripAdvisor or that people wouldn't necessarily recommend, but you can end up finding some real hidden gems that way.

Starting point is 00:23:52 So that's what I would say. And then does Atlas Obscura do international or is that only the US? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, because I think you're a fan of Atlas Obscura, aren't you? Yeah, although they've gotten- I'm going to punt my answer to Carrie because Carrie is probably more qualified to answer this. Well, I was going to say Atlas Obscura, but they've gotten so extensive now that it's almost less useful than it was when they had less stuff.

Starting point is 00:24:19 So now they'll include like the, this is the restaurant so-and and so wrote this book at or whatever um you know so now it's leaning more on the obscura a bit but uh i still i still like it for gems guess who decided to drop by tim is coming here or at least his name maybe his name showed up anyway it's threatening it's threatening to tune in if you guys are all super excited that tim joined us please thumbs up this video like this video yeah or if you're disappointed you showed up still like the video yeah either way don't let my showing up stop you from my liking or liking the video for sure correct tim we might as well throw you right in and add you to this group question uh what are your favorite resources for finding interesting things to do in a country?

Starting point is 00:25:10 Oh, wow. Keri Yoder is pretty good. Well, I already went. No, no. I mean, Keri Yoder is pretty good for interesting things to do in a country. You know, I do a, I'm old school. So I, and I use a lot of blogs now, but I always have a travel guide for wherever I go.

Starting point is 00:25:33 And it's like a for real travel guide. My two favorites are the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet. Although it's, and this is a little bit inside baseball, but Lonely Planet's of the last couple of years, I think they've taken a downturn. So I tend to go to Rough Guides now. And I kind of use that to get a general map of sort of years. I think they've taken a downturn. So I tend to go to Rough Guides now. And I kind of use that to get a general map of sort of things that I want to do

Starting point is 00:25:49 in places that I want to go in a country. And then I'll go, once I kind of have that skeleton, I'll flesh it out with local blogs, things that I read on, like from people that have been there. And occasionally TripAdvisor, but that's, it's usually starts with an actual physical book with physical pages and then

Starting point is 00:26:10 goes to, yeah. Wow. Those still exist. That's cool. Yeah. Totally old school. And then, and then kind of fleshed out with blogs. All right, Nick, you didn't think of anything in the meantime? No, I didn't even try it. because I knew you guys would have good answers. I mean, my answer is I ask my wife to find stuff to do. I tell her, listen, I'll get us there and find a good place to stay. But your job is going to be to find the things to do.

Starting point is 00:26:35 And she does a great job of that. So that's my favorite resource is just leaning on her to pull that end of because uh i there's only so many hours in the day right so uh that's how we divide and conquer if you're okay with spontaneous we used to also like to ask uh the restaurant workers so we'd go out for breakfast and then we'd ask them what we should go out and see and uh but then you can't plan ahead um all right we're going to shuffle along and i think uh this one will be who wants to speak on capital one i don't remember where we're at nick's our official capital one spokesperson i vote greg well we'll give it to nick uh i earned a bunch of Capital One points hoping to use them one day on Turkish. But with the devaluation, So 10,000 miles each way domestically, including Alaska and Hawaii, 15K if you actually find that Unicorn United Business Class award seat. So that would be my next one. Then after that, if we're going to leave Turkish aside for a second, then I think my next thing that I love is I love Aeroplan because Aeroplan offers a stopover on a one-way award for 5,000 additional miles and plenty of sweet spots that I think are interesting and unique. I like their award program. So that's probably my next

Starting point is 00:28:12 favorite. And if you want to kind of do something a little wild and crazy and not necessarily as high value from some perspectives, Wyndham. I mean, Wyndham is one-to-one, which if you have a Wyndham earner business card and you're getting 8X at gas stations, rather, then this isn't going to interest you. And if you would buy Wyndham points for less than a penny apiece when they're on sale, this also probably won't interest you. But if you're not in those two buckets, then transferring to Wyndham to use them for Vacasa, I think, is another reasonable use of Capital One Miles. I mean, they've got a great set of transfer partners. So I'm picking out a few here,

Starting point is 00:28:48 but I mean, really, most of their transfer partners are good. So I think you've got quite a few decent options there. I mean, Greg just talked about the various ways to book Qatar business class. And so you've got Finnair as a partner, which you can't yet probably book Qatar Airways business class. And so you've got Finnair as a partner, which you can't yet probably book Qatar Airways business class, but you've got Finnair's own flights anyway, and some more

Starting point is 00:29:12 availability to Finnair members. And then hopefully eventually we'll be able to move the Avios around. I think also you've got Qatar itself as a transfer partner of Capital One, if I remember correctly. And so you could have some Avios. I mean, there's so many different options. So I feel like they're a good program to lean on. Now, you want to just check out our Capital One Miles Complete Guide. And there's lots of different sweet spots that we highlight either in that or maybe there's a Capital One Miles sweet spots post separately. Hopefully somebody will find a link and pop that in the chat. And don't forget baseball games, Nick, when they have those.

Starting point is 00:29:44 Oh, yeah. I got tickets to a game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, Greg made a great point there. Yeah. Major League Baseball. They've got a partnership with Major League Baseball. So every single baseball game all year long, they've got four seats that are usually great seats, a few rows from the field that are only five thousand miles a ticket. They also have access to lots and lots of horrible seats for really bad redemption rates. But there are four seats somewhere close to the field that are listed as forty dollars even though they're often in a section that costs one or two hundred dollars or more a ticket so uh but but you got to hop on those like we'll post them as soon as we know they're

Starting point is 00:30:17 available and you're gonna hop on it in the first couple of hours because the games will be gone uh the same day they come out usually what a random tip i love it uh so now we're going to switch to tim um i have a question how can i book swiss rail path i've tried everywhere and i just can't find it is there a way to use any airline points or just pay cash for that i didn't even know there was a swiss specific rail path hoping you know something about it tim no i've never been to switzerland but uh uh based on everybody's facial reactions i'm guessing everybody but steven knows a lot about it i was just about to say when i saw that i figured no one here probably knew and so i googled in advance just to see if i could find it

Starting point is 00:31:02 i just googled um swiss travel pass. I just Googled Swiss Travel Pass. Oh, no, I Googled Swiss Rail Pass. And the very first option that came up said Swiss Travel Pass. And on that website, which is sbb.ch, on there you can just buy a ticket if you like. I mean, I've never heard about being able to book it with airline miles or anything like that. But, yeah, it looks like you can just buy the tickets on there with cash. So that shouldn't be a problem. Yeah, I think the short answer is you can't, to our knowledge, use airline miles to book Swiss rail pass.

Starting point is 00:31:38 I did look into this years ago because I've been to Switzerland, but I don't think anything I learned back then is relevant today. Well, and anything you want to know about train travel in general, Man in Seat 61 is the blog to go to. They've literally got almost everything you'd ever want to know about train travel. Man in Seat 61? Yep. Is that man singular

Starting point is 00:31:59 or min plural? Man singular. Oh, okay. Otherwise, it would be a little bit uncomfortable sitting on a train with several men in one seat. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not trusting the advice of people who have two guys in one seat. Like, they're gone. They can't go. I think I have another question.

Starting point is 00:32:20 I made myself lost in my notes, but I think we're at Greg. Does that sound right? Several airlines use Avios and they may have different expiration policy. Can I transfer from one to the other to avoid expiration? It's a good question. I would assume so, but I never looked at that. Does anyone know the answer to that for sure? Yes, you can, but it doesn't reset the expiration of what you travel and what you transfer into. So whatever. So for instance, let's say you have Iberia obvious that are expiring in three months and BA obvious that are expiring in two years. If you transfer, your BA doesn't extend to three years. It stays at the two-year mark,

Starting point is 00:33:07 and now those obvious are good until the end, whatever your currently existing BA expiration date is. So it doesn't reset the clock on the program that you're transferring to, but it will then go by whatever that clock is at on the program that you're transferring to. So it can be used to extend them, but it doesn't actually extend that clock on the transfer to program, if that makes sense. That does. And so if you transfer to Iberia, then you would suddenly be taking them from a two-year expiration to a three-month expiration

Starting point is 00:33:45 for example right correct correct so that's correct it looks like they're all at 36 months now so i think they must have aligned themselves recently because i like when i saw that question i googled that one too just to check and and like erlingus ba iberia and qatar like all say that they're 36 months so um so they seem to have aligned well but the deal is though that it's not necessarily that they're all at 36 months but they're all at 36 months from your last activity so they will still all be at different times because like let's say your last activity was two years for qatar one year for iberia and zero months or zero years for BA, you would have a three-year expiration for BA, a two-year expiration on Iberia and one year for Qatar. So that's why you should

Starting point is 00:34:32 pay attention very closely when you try to do that, because if you just transfer them thinking it's going to extend the clock on the program you're transferring to, it won't. And you could end up actually having them expire sooner if the activity in that program was less was less than um you know was less than the one that you're transferring from so more just transfer a thousand miles into that totally like yeah or you could just transfer a thousand membership or whatever any kind of points into the program and reset the clock so i you know i think that's probably an easier way to deal with it true um all right um moving on i think to steven um can the mx 10 plus referral multiplier stack

Starting point is 00:35:16 um not stack with each other in that you can't refer someone twice from your card and earn 20 um like additional points per dollar. However, if you are able to generate a whole lot of restaurant spend and stuff like that, you could, in theory, refer from one card and have it attached to that card. You can then refer from another membership rewards earning card and have the plus 10 attached to that card too. So that way you would double up your potential spend. But I think think is the cap on like 25 000 dollars of spend or something like that so unless you're able to max that out

Starting point is 00:35:51 on one of the cards then it won't have any benefits all right it does stack with the with the category bonus on that card so oh okay yeah with the yeah so if you get it on the amex gold card then you'll earn 14 points per dollar. But yeah, you can't do multiple referrals from the same card and have it like add 10, add 20, add 30 effectively. All right, Nick, when applying for a second ink card, is it similar to the initial application or do you have to explain to Chase that the new card is for a different business.

Starting point is 00:36:30 I mean, you don't have to explain to Chase. Like you would just apply under potentially under a different business. If you have another business, there's no explaining there. It's just a matter of filling out the application and submitting it. But you don't even necessarily have to apply under a different business. You can apply under the same business for another one. So there's no need to even do that unless, I mean, if you have two businesses, great, go ahead and apply under another business. But if you don't,

Starting point is 00:36:52 you could just apply for another one under the same business and that's fine. All right. So sounds like they don't need to worry about it. No, I mean, like, I mean, obviously there's always a chance that you'll get declined. You have to call and talk to a reconsideration person, but, but there's always a chance that you'll get declined you have to call and talk to a reconsideration person but uh but there's also a chance that you'll get automatically approved for another of the same for the same business all right uh tim greg and nick both said that they would prefer alaska miles over aa miles i heard the reasons why but can you name

Starting point is 00:37:23 any sweet spots with alaska can i name any sweet spots with alaska can i name any sweet spots with alaska well i you know what i would um so there's a let me find it it's a winner's alaska award chart winners losers and sweet spots i believe is our um, the post title and that lists all of the, the, the sweet spots on the new, um, the new award chart. Um, I think that, so there's some like right off the top of my head, um, with the new chart that just started literally three days ago, uh, or was fully put into place. You can get Latam business class to South America on shorter haul flights now for 35K one way. Business class to New Zealand, if you can find it, is 35K. East coast to Europe is 45K one way.

Starting point is 00:38:24 Iceland air from, I believe it's Northeast. It's whatever there is. There's a couple of cities that are in like a short band that you can get their business class for 30 K to Iceland. But the asterisk being that it's really not business class. It's like internet or it's a, it's just recliner seats. It's not a lay flat, a life flat seat. And then see, although, so I'll say this singapore air used to be it actually went down it used to be um 100k one way from to asia uh from the u.s uh it's now 85k

Starting point is 00:38:57 from from the west coast i don't think i think it would be more from the east coast from the west coast um but there's some sort of weird thing going on with Alaska and Singapore right now, where they're not, they're, they're not linking up correctly as part of this award transition. So if you look at it right now, I don't think you'll see any availability, but there actually is availability for it. If you call in, I've been told, but so I think those are some of the new ones. Anybody else think of something right off the top of my head or off the top of your head?

Starting point is 00:39:27 Don't have to worry about my head. I can't think of anything off of your head. I'll just say when Kerry read the question and asked you to name the sweet spots, I thought literally they were asking you to name them, like call the Iceland air one. That would be Bjorn. That's Bjorn. The east Coast to Europe and Northeast Coast to Europe is Bruno. It's the Italian enforcer.

Starting point is 00:39:54 Has to go back to Sicily. We've covered both methods of answering that question. But anyway, we'll throw that post in there. There's a post that goes through all the new sweet spots and we actually should update the alaska sweet spots post as well but that has the new one all right great um now we're at greg about to apply for the venture x and i'm curious if you know anything about the black box that is their approval algorithm so speculate away. Unless you have specific data

Starting point is 00:40:28 points. I know nothing. Anyone here have any useful speculation? I don't think anyone knows any specific things to do. There's speculation that you should say you don't pay off your credit card each month, but whether or not that does actually have any kind of impact is a whole other matter. Yeah, interesting. So it will remain a black box. I'll just say really quickly,

Starting point is 00:40:59 if it is their first Capital One card, usually the first one is fairly easier than multiple cards. So you probably won't have much issue with it. And I always say, you know, like, kind of. But you probably won't have much issue with it if it's your first Capital One card. They tend to like to give you one. And then once you want more than one, they start to get very, very, very suspicious. So I'm going to give Greg a redo question because

Starting point is 00:41:26 I think this one is well suited for him. Can you reiterate some of the best practices to limit the risk that Amex doesn't treat tax payments as eligible spend for the signup bonus? Have you ever heard of that happening and how do you prevent it? I mean, I don't think there's any best practices. You can just do it. For the most part, Amex is going to treat tax payments as legitimate spend for a sign-up bonus. It's not one of their types of spend that is listed as a type that would make your spend ineligible. There have been a couple reports here and there of people who didn't automatically get their sign-up bonus. And when they inquired with Amex, the rep told when that happens it's because the rep was just

Starting point is 00:42:28 looking for an excuse for why this happened they have no idea why the person didn't get the bonus bonus might not just not come yet i mean there's any any number of reasons why it why it messed up or or they didn't get the bonus but um i don't think it's very likely that had anything to do with it being a tax payment and i feel like pretty much all of the data points that remember seeing where this kind of thing has happened it's related to it in theory related to a tax payment is when somebody's used a temporary card number and i i imagine it's because somebody's um applied for a new amex card because they need to make a tax payment and that's like imminent. And so they need to get the card number straight away. And that's why they've done it.

Starting point is 00:43:10 So it does seem like possibly using your temporary card number might cause an issue. That's certainly not always the case. But if you are wanting to make tax payments, I would just try and make sure you do it in enough time to be able to get the Amex card, activate it and then use that card, because I've never heard of any issues where that's been the case. It's generally only been occasional times where it's been the temporary card. Yeah. And it's worth mentioning that I earned an Amex business goal welcome bonus last year entirely on tax payments made with the temporary number so uh you know so it worked for me but steven's right like there are the data points that we have of people i think are that have said that they didn't get the bonus automatically been people that used

Starting point is 00:43:58 the temporary number for their spend so maybe there is some glitchiness that's out of interest how soon after you made your um how soon after you got the temporary card number did you make the next payments okay because i wasn't too sure if it's like if it's done within an hour or something like that if that's maybe the issue or something like that because for whatever reason their system doesn't pick up the transaction um entire or like whatever the issue is but um but yeah if it's the same day then yeah certainly seems like it should work so yeah all right steven this one is for you uh with the robin hood card and the usbar um us bank altitude reserve us bank altitude reserve would it wouldn't it make more sense to buy points versus getting points on a card? It depends on the situation and which points of miles you're actually looking to collect. So

Starting point is 00:44:52 with things like Hilton points or IHG points that go on sale for half a cent each, then it might make sense to earn 3% cash back and then buy those. However, there's all kinds of other cards where you can earn airline miles in a category bonus, where you might actually do better than earning at 3% and then buying the points and miles. And then the other thing to consider is the fact that if you're signing up for new cards all the time, then you can earn welcome offers. And the number of bonus miles and points that you can earn from those is going to significantly outweigh the number of points that you're going to earn just through everyday spend on those other cards so they're certainly not a bad option but you just need to like weigh up all your different options because yeah they

Starting point is 00:45:37 could still be much better things to do all right nick cruise questions. It seems that Caesar's status alone is no longer enough for cruise matches, and they ask for other offers. So trip to AC is a must. Is that correct? Atlantic City, is that a must? You know, so I, good question. Yeah, I mean, a trip to Atlantic City would definitely get you, at the very least, a free MSC cruise or two.

Starting point is 00:46:08 I did see I've seen the data points that that Holland America and Princess were not just taking Caesars Diamond status anymore. They were wanting to see something else. So Atlantic City would help with that. Although just this week, we've got a new match out at Wynn in Las Vegas. So if you're West Coast based, you don't want to make the trek to Atlantic City, and you have Caesars Diamond status, then you can instead go to Las Vegas and match Caesars Diamond to Wynn Platinum status. And one of the benefits of Wynn Platinum is a complimentary Holland America cruise up to seven nights in an Ocean View cabin. The one gotcha there is that it requires, in order to use that

Starting point is 00:46:45 benefit, you have to have made two stays at Wynn in the past year or the current year that were non-consecutive. So if you haven't stayed at Wynn at all, you're going to have to book two non-consecutive stays at Wynn in order to be able to use that one, though that could still be a great deal for the free cruise. I assumed this, and then somebody asked me whether or not it's true, and so I'm not positive here. I assume that booking through Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts will probably satisfy that requirement for your stays at Wynn. Somebody did ask me, well, do you have to book direct at Wynn, or would a Fine Hotels and Resorts booking work? I assume a Fine Hotels and Resorts booking will

Starting point is 00:47:24 work because those are normally treated like a direct booking. I don't know that for sure, but there are some midweek nights that are not super expensive through FHR. If you've got a platinum card and you're getting the credit. But there's some gimbal there. So, yeah, I mean, but if you did go to Las Vegas in person, you could match your Caesars Diamond status to win. And then I believe you'd be able to match at Mirage to Hard Rock Icon, their Unity program icon. And so you'd have a few statuses to be able to show when you get to submit your offers for cruises. And I think Carnival still takes just Caesars Diamond, so I think you know, submit your offers for cruises. So, and I think carnival

Starting point is 00:48:05 still takes just Caesar's diamond. So I think you'll at least get the carnival option. I'm, I'm on a carnival cruise right now is where we're doing this somewhere in the Atlantic ocean right now. No better place to answer cruise questions right now. I have a quick question, Nick on that. I haven't read the wind thing yet, but do you know, do Encore and Wynn count as, like, can you go from Wynn to Encore and have that count as non-consecutive stays or would they count that as one consecutive stay because you just hopped to the neighbor property? That's a great question. I don't know for sure. I guess, so Wynn and Encore are next door to each other and it's kind of sort of like one property, but it's also two separate properties. So that's why Tim's asking this. And I guess I don't actually know that a stay at Encore counts now that you mention it or if it has to be at Wynn because I know that when I've read what I've read so far is that it's only in Las Vegas. So staying at Encore in Boston will not count for this. And you can't do the match at Encore in Boston. So now that you've asked me that question, that makes me wonder if you have to stay on the wind side in Las Vegas in order for that to count.

Starting point is 00:49:15 Again, I don't know for sure. So that's a really good question. And if we get a data point on it before, I think that matches only through May 31st, if I remember correctly. So if we get a data point on switching between those two properties between now and then, then we'll certainly update the cruise post. I intend to update the cruise post with the information on that match. And look for that to be republished this week because that's interesting. Also, by the way, the win match is potentially of interest for people because it's also platinum status, which, again, you can match from Caesar's diamond to win platinum comes with a hundred dollar spa credit and $150 birthday dinner credit. So now you get a little something there too. And I was thinking that that spa credit might stack with the spa credit from a Amex fine hotels and resorts booking because when comes with $150

Starting point is 00:49:59 spa credit, when you book through FHR. So, so if it does stack, then, you know, that'll be great and wonderful too. I won you know, that'll be great and wonderful too. I won't know about that until next month though. Hopefully sooner because hopefully we'll get data points from readers sooner. Nice. So will you be doing the next ask us anything from the win? No, no, but I, but I do intend to make a trip out and give this a shot if data points continue the way they have, because I would, why not? I mean, I've done a lot of cruises these last couple of years. Why not take one more while we still can? So, you the next question for tim uh as someone who just started in the points game am i too late with all the devaluations going on i love questions like this tim did this person miss at all yep you did i'm sorry uh you know i wish if you would have just started reading last week, it would have been. But no, not at all.

Starting point is 00:51:08 Not at all. And without, I mean, there's a bazillion different ways. And without knowing exactly what you're referring to with devaluation, you know, devaluation program. Devaluation is just like inflation, right? Cash prices of things are going to go up. Eventually, the points prices are going to go up to accommodate the cash prices. In some cases, there will actually be devaluations as well, where it goes past what the cash prices are, and you're actually getting less for each point that does happen. But it's, it's just it happens, it's going to happen is going to keep happening until, you know, we don't have airlines and fire programs anymore and hotel programs. But in terms of the banks, you know, there's some, specifically Amex has definitely thrown some wrenches into trying to get multiple cards. They have all of these labyrinthine family rules that overlap

Starting point is 00:52:02 with labyrinthine Marriott rules about which Marriott cards you can get. But there's still plenty of fish in the sea as terms of cards. I mean, there's, you could go, you will go, you could start embarking on your points voyage now, and you will have years and years and years of fun ahead of you. There's just, there's so much opportunity out there still. And I'm not saying that there won't at some point, you know, that the, at some point the musical chairs won't end and you know, the point, whole points and miles game will crash completely, but I, not right now,

Starting point is 00:52:38 for sure. We're in, we're definitely not anywhere close to that. Tim, where are you calling in from? Not a cruise. I am. I would show you, but my background's on. I am in SeaTac Airport right outside of the international arrivals on a bench. Yeah. Sharing with some lovely folks over here. We got a cruise buffet. Yeah, totally.

Starting point is 00:53:06 It's fun, and I'm going to take a selfie with everybody once we're off of this but the last time i actually talked to these guys was this morning on the tarmac in london and i now literally just got off the flight from london and i'm on zoom with with with these guys again so it's kind of what's what was the time difference for you from our noon meeting to now eight hours transpired for me how many hours transpired for you i mean like well i can't math quick enough i think i think it was the same eight hours i was asleep for part of it so i can't can't accurately say that I got it at all. But I think the actual time flowed at the same speed. I was eight hours ahead when I first got where I'm at now.

Starting point is 00:53:54 So it's the same time. Well, it was close to the same time. Because I think when I said goodbye to you guys, it was like 4 p.m. in London. You just chilled for like 10 minutes. Yeah, pretty much pretty much great um all right greg uh is there a way to avoid or i guess filter out an airline in google flights explore tab there's an option to toggle in the regular flights tab but not in the explore tab is that your experience um yeah you can if you do a search for uh specific uh flights in google flights first

Starting point is 00:54:30 and then set set the those filters then switch like your destination to europe or whatever to make it go to explore it usually keeps those filters so that's what you have to do is do the filters beforehand. I just have to slip this question in. This is, I think, my favorite question I've ever seen. This is for everyone. Which one of these humans is this frequent miler? I'll direct that question to Stephen. Oh, no, wait. Greg. Who knows? I'll direct that question to Stephen. Oh, no, wait.

Starting point is 00:55:08 Greg. Yeah, I don't think it helps to point since I can do the pointing. Yeah, Greg can do the pointing. Yeah, so I started Frequent Miler as a blog only in 2011, and it was just me for a while and and um for uh uh the very beginning i i was anonymous like i had a real day job and i didn't want people knowing what i was doing so i didn't have my name on the blog at all i just i authored everything as frequent mileriler. Later on, when I came out, so to speak, on the blog, I transitioned to Greg the FrequentMiler. And now I'm thinking of changing to actually just having my full name on the blog. But yeah, that's the very brief history of where the frequent miler comes from

Starting point is 00:56:06 does your author title still says greg the frequent miler i think for now yeah but i'm thinking of changing that so it'd be greg the frequent davis teen yeah something like that oh that has a nice ring maybe we could all be the frequent milers so yeah no yeah you know why that's another way to go. All right. Let's do another question. Steven, how can I keep my Hawaiian points from expiring?

Starting point is 00:56:33 I recently canceled my Hawaiian credit card. And there's absolutely nothing that you can do because Hawaiian points don't actually expire. So you don't need to worry at all about that. Oh, nice. Well, that was too quick of an answer so now stay alive stay alive oh here we go this is a clarification okay there you go here's a good uh clarification

Starting point is 00:57:00 on that question who's the frequent miler uh who has flown the most miles ah the most frequent miler oh no i don't even begin to know that yeah no idea sure no idea either they're doing um during the tweak arts three continents Tweak Continents thing, I think he probably just on that one trip on a one-way ticket and then all of this over the years, I imagine. Problem for Nick is the cruise doesn't count

Starting point is 00:57:36 as flight. And I don't think I haven't traveled more than Carrie and probably not more than Tim, I don't think overall. But I don't know more than Carrie and probably not more than Tim. I don't think overall. So I, yeah, but I don't know.

Starting point is 00:57:47 That's a really tough question. I think the thing about forever, our travels were always, you know, we didn't double back very often at all. Right. We didn't either in the beginning we did. Well,

Starting point is 00:58:00 okay. We didn't go as continuously as you guys did, but we didn't double back as many times in the beginning but nowadays we do so i feel like greg does quite a bit of doubling back greg might be the frequent miler he might be no way of knowing there's no way of finding out because none of us have good enough memories and greg was still using pencil and paper when he started traveling so i thought he was on chalk and stone i didn't realize it was on pencil and paper when he started traveling so i thought he was on chalk and stone i didn't realize it was on pencil and pencil paper one of you was probably using a dry erase board i don't

Starting point is 00:58:34 know i mean i mean it's fair to say we've all traveled like a lot i feel like right i mean you know not the most of anybody that we know by any stretch necessarily, but Stephen's been traveling nonstop for years, and Kerry's essentially done the same kind of thing, right? And then the rest of us have done a fair amount, so quite a bit of miling around here. Yeah, I think it's equal miling. I'd say as far as today goes, though, Tim has a solid life. Tim wins the day.

Starting point is 00:59:07 Tim definitely wins the day. That's true. I didn't want to brag but you're right yeah slow and steady wins the race i've i've been here in the ocean too so good point i mean i drove to the grocery store so here we go um okay i think technically we would have time for me to wrestle up a question but it would be that entire minute of me trying to wrestle one up so i think i think we end early um sorry everyone ending one minute early and don't forget if you haven't already please uh give us a like and if you um don't already subscribe to our YouTube channel, please subscribe and hit that little bell notification so you'll get notified next time we do and ask us anything or when we publish new videos. And even that, hey, that took us to 10 o'clock. So there we go. I want to break into the world

Starting point is 01:00:07 But never...

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Frequent Miler on the Air - Which program do you have the most love/hate relationship with? | Ask Us Anything Ep66 | 4-3-24

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