Frequent Miler on the Air - Wild Card challenge destination 3 check-in | Special Feature Episode | 9-31-26

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

This podcast episode is sponsored by Saily. Saily is an ESIM service app created by the security experts behind NordVPN. Instead of paying absurd daily rates to your home carrier or swapping SIM cards on arrival, Saily gives you flexible prepaid data plans in over 200 destinations worldwide. Download Saily from your app store and use our code FREQUENTMILER at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. https://saily.com/frequentmilerIn our third check-in of the Wild Card Challenge, our contestant's were in their final destination, nearly done with their travels. However, judges and viewers were not quite ready to score everything we were catching up on. In this check-in, we scored the second destination's activities and caught up with what our travelers had done since then, in preparation to finish scoring and announce a winner soon!(01:15) - Who is Annie?(05:35) - A quick recap of where the scoring left off(07:47) - Nick recaps his destination 2(09:29) - Greg recaps his destination 2(11:41) - Tim recaps his destination 2(18:28) - Nick's scores for destination 2(20:53) - Greg's scores for destination 2(24:00) - Tim's scores for destination 2(26:43) - Invitation for feedbackComment with your thoughts on how the scores could or should be adjusted here: https://frequentmiler.com/wild-card-challenge-the-scores-so-far-a-final-opportunity-to-influence-the-scoring/(27:40) - Nick shares what he's been up to since destination 2(35:34) - Greg shares what he's been up to since destination 2(49:15) - Tim shares what he's been up to since destination 2You can read more about Tim's award booking here: https://frequentmiler.com/costa-rica-to-korea-and-australia-on-one-business-class-award-tims-wild-card-challenge-journal/(01:08:49) - Our favorite elements of each traveler's tripSubscribe and FollowVisit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie YoderCheck out all of our other travel podcasts from around the worldThis podcast is part of the Voyascape Network, a collection of some of the world’s best travel podcasts. Explore more at Voyascape.com. For advertising or sponsorship opportunities on this show and across the network, email [e-mail] or you can find more information at Voyascape.com/advertsing.

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. This podcast episode is sponsored by Sayley. Sayley is an e-Sim service app created by the security experts behind NordVPN. Instead of paying absurd daily rates to your home carrier or swapping SIM cards on arrival, Saly gives you flexible prepaid data plans and over 200 destinations worldwide. Setup takes just a couple of minutes on your phone before you leave. your data activates automatically when you touch down.

Plus, in order to reduce your data consumption, Saly actually blocks malicious sites, trackers, and annoying ads while you browse. Whether you need a quick gigabyte for a weekend away or unlimited data for a longer adventure, Saly keeps you connected without any surprise bills waiting for you at home. Ready to upgrade your international roaming? Download Saly from your app store and use our code frequent miler at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. Details are in the show notes. Due to our wild card team challenge, Nick Tim and I are currently too busy flying around the world to create our usual podcast content.

The following content is a recording from the final Wild Card Challenge live stream check-in. Frequent Miller on the air starts now. We are, you know, varying levels of alive, but we are at least live. Oh, well sad. Why don't you do your song and dance? Okay. So, oh, yeah, wherever you're watching or listening, don't forget to give this a like, give us a thumbs up, leave us a review, leave us some stars. We appreciate that. Don't forget to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list and follow us on all the various social media. We always appreciate all of those things. If there's more song and dance, I don't in this moment remember what the rest of the song and dance is. So that was good. We don't have theme song yet. So welcome to our final live stream. Thanks for joining the chaos, and it will be a little bit chaotic because we've told you all that we're going to announce a winner, but we have some surprises along the way, one of which is we're not announcing a winner, but we'll announce lots of other things. First off, I would love to introduce a background character that you guys have heard us talking about.

Hi. Hi, Annie. Hi. Nice to see you all. You have to be twins. You can hear else, right? Yes. Do our voices sound the same?

Very similar. Like doing the voiceovers, I feel like you do sound a little bit like Kavis. Well, here's a question for the viewers watching live right now. I want to know how many of you realized the voiceovers was not my voice? But I'm guessing a lot of... For the record, the three of us sitting on a couch in Melbourne and all raised our hands. It's for the podcast listeners. I am strongly guessing that some of you YouTube viewers out there

had no idea that it wasn't my voice in the summary videos. It's been my twin sister Annie's voice. She has the same voice as me. Annie helps us out every year for the challenge. She helps with the recap videos and some of the, like, it's a big edit job what we do. And having Annie help is life-changing. Let's get a round of applause for Annie.

Yeah. guys are too kind. I mean, we just cloned Carrie. We're twins, so, you know, we might as well do that. You want to give, like, a rundown of, like, what this week looks like for us? Yeah, so we set up, like, a command center. I actually brought, I have, like, those little mobile desks. I brought those from home. I brought my own coffee maker, because Carrie's coffee pot is about, like, this big. We need, we're drinking Ann Arbor Lobster butter all week if you're, if you're good. Which is awesome. And I will help her with the reels and stuff, but I'm also doing those daily recaps. So we're kind of hopping back and forth. So if you see

those daily recaps come out a little bit late, it's because I've been helping her too. So those are a lot of hours of editing, and we set up shop in the living room and the dogs are hanging out with us, which is great. So yeah, and she comes out from Ohio. So she, every year for this challenge, we just huddle. Yeah, the last couple years ago, I was doing it from Ohio, and so it just made more sense for me to come to Lewisburg. And then we can give our clips back and forth. It's West Virginia HQ. Thanks, Annie.

Yes. Hey, good to see you. And also, before you go, Annie, I think it also should be known that Annie does the, that the theme music. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Frequent Myler podcast is actually Annie Yoder as well. And if you're interested in checking out more of that, you can find it at, I believe,

Annie Yoder Music. Yes, I actually haven't checked my website in like months, but you can find me on Spotify and iTunes and stuff. I have one album. I really have big hopes of doing another album someday, but so far my music degree is going towards a few jingles and one album on Spotify. It's an awesome album. It's an awesome album. It is. It is. I think that anybody who does not create content probably can't appreciate how much time goes into editing those videos. Like, it's incredible. And I just recently saw somebody else who creates content on Instagram doing a reel about, does it take everybody else four hours? hours to edit two minutes a video.

And yeah, lots of people like it does. Actually, we looked it up last evening. The average, we're pretty much within the standard average for editing minutes per published minute. But some of them, it's a 24 to one ratio. I have to say, though, if ever there's a work or a job or a task that I do that the hours just melt away, I'll be like, in the zone, I'll look up. It's been seven hours, you know?

It's really, I think it's really fun, even, you know, even if it's time consuming. Yeah. So Annie, before you go, though, I'm just curious. Whose footage do you enjoy editing the most? It's like picking a favorite child. I can't do it. There's something fun about each of your voices and perspective. And that's what I think is really fun is pulling these different voices and these different

viewpoints. A few of you have to edit out a few more ums than the others. But that's, it just, we, the ums increases, the days increase. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. All right. Good to see you all. Safe travels. Back to the way. Great to see you. Good to see you. Oh, thank you. All right. So, Stephen, can you introduce what we're doing next while I get back in my headphones? Yes. So just as a very quick recap, at the last live check-in, we rescore their destination won stuff. So going into it, Greg had been in first place, Nick had been in second place, Tim had been in third place.

based off of rebuttals from our contestants and readers, we ended up rescuing things a little bit, which completely rejigged the standing. So Greg ended up losing a couple of points, so he dropped down to 102 points, which put him in last place after the first destination. Nick ended up gaining a few points because we reduced how many points he lost for taking an Uber.

So he was at 107 points, while Tim ended up getting several more points and he ended up at 107, is that right? For some reason, I thought Tim had... I think it was actually 127. I will have to double-check that quickly because that doesn't seem quite right. Well, you've been underscoring me the whole time, Stephen.

I can double-check that real quick, Stephen in my graphics. I actually have no idea. I'm just giving Stephen a hard time. Oh, wait a minute. No, sorry, I hadn't included negative two. So Nick was on 105. Tim was on 100. That's right. That's right. That was my back. I was just looking at this Virginia and highlighted all of the cells. So, cool. So that's where we were at after the first destination, at the second destination, because particularly Tim and Nick hadn't done all of their activities yet. we waited until now to score them for that just in case that influenced any of the scoring.

So, but before we do that, we're going to have each of them give a very quick recap about in Destination 2, just as a very quick overall highlight, particularly to mention anything that they did after the last live stream. So we'll start off with Rick. Yeah, that's right. Right, because we had not finished our destination 2s because we wanted to just really, really soak in all of the destination to magic that we could, unlike Greg, who really wanted to just cruise through it quickly.

So, Nick, you want to start? Sure. So after the last check-in, I had my second, I really had my one full, full day in Hanoi, Vietnam. Loved it, by the way. Had a blast. Just wandering around what a wonderful chaotic city. I found it so exciting how chaotic it was. But that day I was in Hanoi, I did a, I went to the flower market very early in the morning.

I had done that just before the live stream, perhaps. And so that was cool to see the wholesale flower market and check out the movement of flowers around the city there from that. And then I went and took a coffee making class and learned how to make Vietnamese coffee six different ways, which is something I really enjoyed Vietnamese coffee already. So I was really glad to learn how to make it. Then inspired by my food tour the night before our last check-in, I both. a cooking class at an actual restaurant in Hanoi, and I learned how to make fah and buncha and a couple of other things. And so that was awesome. We actually went shopping for the ingredients, learned how to make them. And so I made a couple of dishes there and then got to enjoy eating them. And then after that,

I went and picked up my new tailored jacket in just 24 hours. They got it finished. So they tailored to jacket. I now have a custom tailor-fit blazer and that was pretty cool. And then I headed back to the airport and flew Vietnam Airlines premium economy to get to Australia. So that was, I don't know, we're recapping Australia as well?

I don't know. Is that? We'll take that a little bit later. Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Just your destination to wrap up. Does Nick lose points because he actually pre-summarized Australia? He does not. All right. Who's next? I guess I'll

I'll go next. So let's see. After the first live stream, I went immediately. I was in Medellina already, Columbia, and I went out on a street food tour of the Medellín area where I was staying. That was terrific. I love trying all the different types of food that he introduced me to. Then the next morning, I went on an all-day tour to Guadipay. And that included a nice boat ride cruise thing. And the town of Guadapay, which the tour guide said, it was one of the towns that inspired Enkanto, the Disney movie. The internet seems to question that.

But it certainly seems like. like it could have. It's a, it's very touristy, but it is so vibrant with so many colors and just music playing, people dancing. It was really, I did not think I would like it. I thought it would make for good, like, footage because it's so colorful. But I actually loved it. I loved walking around that little village. And then it was followed up by going to The Rock, which is a gigantic rock that has steps built into it. And so the thing to do there is climb the rock. So you climb 700 and something steps to the top.

And it's exhausting, but it's so satisfying because you get to the top. And there are gorgeous views of the lakes all around below the, you know, way down below from where you're still. standing way up high on the rock. And it was just gorgeous. And I just love that, that whole experience. So unfortunately, that was about it. I had to fly out the next morning. All right. Tim. So let's see, though. At the end of the last live stream, I was about to go to a Dodgers game. No, no, no. Was that right? No, no, no. It wasn't so, oh, my gosh. Like, literally, I have quite literally no idea what day it is. Yeah. It gets.

It's hard. None. So last time I was in Seoul, which is just like a Dodgers game. It's like the Dodgers game of East Asia. But so I was at Seoul. I had spent two nights at the Mondrian Hotel, which is in a court property there. And the second day, I already summarized the first day that I spent there in the last live stream. But so the second day was the first day was all about like palaces and harvest festival activity. and stuff like that.

The second day, I really wanted to, one of the things that I remember being my first couple times of soul being really surprised by, as I had not realized how mountainous a country, Korea is. Like, there's a lot of mountains, both Korea and Japan, but in this case, Korea. And I really wanted to go and do some hiking to one of these mountains. And I had originally thought about actually renting a car

and going to one of the, the national parks in the east part of the country, but instead I decided to, because within Seoul, you can really easily reach a lot of really cool mountains from like just normal metro transit. So there's one particularly popular hike that's a part of the Seoul Trail

that goes around the mountains around Seoul. And this one, it covers two mountains, Mount Acha San and Mount starts with a U that I can't remember right now. And you effectively, you go, you take and you hike from one metro station to the other and in the middle is a big mountain range with massive panoramic views around the entire Seoul metro area. So I did that. Marvelous hike. You could absolutely tell that it was a holiday weekend and it was the end that people,

the Koreans like hiking on holiday weekends because there's a lot of people there, but it was still really, I mean, just a marvelous. It's amazing that like I left my hotel in the middle of Seoul and two hours later, I'm on top of a mountain with panoramic views around Seoul with, you know, with nobody in sight. It's pretty cool. So did that, came back to the hotel and then got to, there's a popular Korean dessert that's called binju that it's sort of like shave ice, but instead of being made of water ice, it's made of milk ice. So they shave milk ice and they create this, and then they put kind of toppings and all this stuff on it. And the hotel that I was at has some really bougie, way too expensive bingeau that they served.

That I had a property credit from my chase booking that I needed to use. So I used that on a sweet corn binju that was incredibly delicious. It was a big pile of this shaved milk ice topped with sweet corn paray, topped with corn flakes. and then they served popcorn on the side, and you mixed it all together with scoop by scoop in a side dish and ate it. And it was just this blissful mix of textures and sweet and salt. It was marvelous. And then after that, I went down to the sauna in the hotel that you had to pay extra for,

but luckily I had Chase property credit. And I did some dry sauna, some cold pool, some hot pool, some dry sauna, some cold pool, some hot pool. did that for about an hour and then after a while you know my knees and everything that i had just hiked on felt a little more uh human again and i went out and did the uh went to the guang chang uh night market which is a famous night market that's in korea they actually it's a day market and a night market is more people go to for food and part of the one of my many challenges was that i was supposed to do a dinner that incorporated some sort of dietary restriction. And Stephen told me

that lots of meat wasn't a dietary restriction, that it actually had to be some sort of removal of something. So I, the suggestions that I had were gluten-free and vegetarian. And because I had already started with the binge you, that was both, I then did three extra courses at the night market of Jop Chai, which is a sweet potato noodle. So it's good. It's a gluten-free noodle. And it's also vegetarian because it's made out of sweet potatoes. Then I went to another place and had gimbab, which is a, I've been told not to call it Korean sushi. It is a nory-wrapped rice roll stuffed with vegetables that is not sushi. That is delicious and is also vegetarian gluten-free. And then I also had a mung bean pancake that tastes surprisingly like a hash brown patty,

but is also gluten-free and vegetarian. So we had a four-course progressive vegetarian and gluten-free dinner. And after that, I went to a marvelous thing that Seoul does that is very popular over the harvest festival called the Soul Outdoor Library, where they do, they have three locations around Seoul. they set up hundreds, well, maybe hundreds is a couple hundred of these like double-sided recliners, all just in the middle of the, of a square. They have compartments full of books that you can go and there's like colored lights everywhere and there's a playground and there's an outdoor movie screen and all this sort of

other stuff, but they have like 15 or 16 different sections of books. And the idea is you go, you select your books, you have a little basket. They have a light clipped onto the side of the basket. You take the basket back to your recliner, and then you clip, take the light, and you clip it onto your book, and you read your book outside at night in the middle of whatever square you're at. And hundreds of people do this, and some of them are reading, some of them are, you know, hanging out and chatting, but it's just a marvelous scene that's very colorful and feels very

at tuminal. And that was my last activity. Then I went back to the hotel and used the rest of my hotel credits on two drinks because that's all it took to use the rest of my hotel credits. And had a marvelous last day and sold. That's what I did. Nice. All right. I think that means we are ready for scoring Destination 2, right? Yes. So I guess I'm seeing as they gave their order in how they're sitting on the couch, then we may as well stop. What we're going to do, like, rather than give the individual scores for wallet friendliness, ingenuity, luxury and duplicability for each of the things. We're just going to give like one score for flights, one score for hotels and one score for activities for each of them. That's going to be the total score. I'm going to have a post

coming out tomorrow morning, which will have much more detail about what their specific scores were for each element. But just so that that way we don't end up spending the rest of this live stream, I'm just talking about the individual scores. So for next. flights from Guadeloupe to Vietnam, you scored 33 out of 40. For your hotel in Vietnam, you scored 36 out of 40 because it looked like you had a pretty nice stay there. And your activities, I know that you were like a little bit concerned about the wallet friendliness element of Vietnam, but you earned 39 out of 40.

We were both very impressed with that. So you did not really well. So congratulations, Nick for that. You misjudged your judges. Does it lose points for misjudging judges? For your mini challenge, you picked a good place to propose to someone. The video that you showed, like, it does look like a beautiful place, and you had mentioned about how it was a place where a lot of people liked to take wedding photos and things like that.

And for wedding photos, it did absolutely look like an amazing place for a proposal, like a little bit less convinced just because although it was a beautiful view out the one side, on the other side, it looked like there was kind of like a busy road with stores and things like that. So it didn't seem like blaring speakers or something. It kind of like depends on, I mean, I guess if you're the one leading down facing the stores and they're looking out over the water, you might get away with it. But we awarded a seven out of ten for that one, which means that for you. destination too, you scored 115 out of a possible 130. So not bad at all. Wow, good. I just want to point out the fact that they're not applauding you, judges, that I am.

I'm pretty sure that's worth an extra three points. And so on to Greg, for your flights, you earn 34 out of 40 for your flights from, I'm sure, that's right, from to Columbia that. For your hotel, you scored a 28 out of 40. A fair bit of the dinging was due to the way that it was paid for with Delta Miles. It didn't end up being like amazing value. And you yourself had said it wasn't quite as luxurious as you had been hoping it would be because of the size of the room. And then for your activities, you won 34 out of 40.

You did really one in three categories in that luxury. a little less so. Because like you yourself had highlighted, the luxury boat ride wasn't much of a luxury and the bus ride and the sad zoo. Plus climbing 700-something steps didn't feel overly luxurious on your legs. And so you got marked down a little bit for that, but everything else was really good for your activities in Columbia. And then for your mini-challenge, can you just remind the viewers what you had picked for the

mini-challenge? So my mini challenge was to try a type of food that I haven't had before that would impress foodies. Is that right? Am I remembering that right? Mm-hmm. I had done that, you know, food tour. And while, you know, I had food like it before, I hadn't had as many varieties of those things before because there were like, you know, so many varieties of each of the things. things that we tried. So it, you know, that's basically what I picked. We ended up awarding 10 points

for that. So I was not. We made you a little bit generous, but that'll be, um, we had awarded 10 points, but I don't know if I'd necessarily realized that you had tried that stuff before. So we'll lead it up to the read of a muscle. Hold on. Hold on. Great, sweet buddy to see the score. It's all the truth. There were, you know, there were types of the things that it's like, it's like if you said I was having tacos or something. Of course, I had tacos before, but I've never had anything like these ones, you know. So it was. Okay.

Okay. Okay. We'll see what we'll see what we just say, but you might be convincing me a little because, yeah, I guess someone might have had like Panetta Sada, but they might not have had fish tacos or something. So you've had, you've had like, uh, maybe you haven't had the two. cheese with the cheese with the cheese on top on ice creek or whatever yeah well i can i can say in greg's defense i can say from personal experience there's a lot of things that i've tried in the past that feel new now so after a certain age things just feel new so does the old man it feels it feels like you're trying to foreshadow something to do with

your own trip so um but total points for greg was 106 for um destination to and then on to tim So for your flights, this was like a little bit tricky to score because your flight from Destination 1 to destination 2, it wasn't just to destination 2. It's from destination 1 to 2 to 3. No, wait. Yeah, was that right? Yeah, it was. Okay, cool. Yeah, no. I suddenly had a brief, but I got that wrong. But no, yeah, because you had done it all as like one award using airway plan points. you ended up scoring 40 out of 40 for that because overall for the amount of travel that you got that was wallet friendly

your usage of like keeping the award flexible to make a whole ton of changes showed ingenuity it was luxury because it was business class the entire way I think and then duplicability I imagine a lot of people probably be put off a little bit with the effort that went into it but it is completely duplicable what you did and you did a great job of explaining how you did that in your post. And so, yeah, top marks all ran for your flights there.

Hotel, 36 out of 40. And your activities were 37 out of 40. So you did pretty well overall. And then your mini challenge, if you can remind people what you did for that one. I did the thing that got a perfect 10. That is correct. You did get a perfect 10. No.

Oh, what I did. Only if you can remember what it is. I did Greg's Foody Challenge and it was completely new to me, even though I had done it before. No, I did a, so that was, I did the, it was the vegan slash gluten-free. Vegetarian, not vegan. Sorry. Yes, and that's a very key point. Shaved milk ice is not vegan.

Yes, no, vegetarian, gluten-free, progressive dinner and salt. Yes. So, yeah, you got 10 out of 10. for that one. So that puts your total for destination at a hundred and twenty three points. So as a recap of overall points for destinations one and two, Greg is in third place with 208 points. Nick is in second place with 220 and Tim is ahead in first place with 230 points. So there's a 10 point gap between Nick. Nick and Tim.

So can Nick make up the 10 point difference in Australia? Or has he already? He won't be finding out today. How he did it already. I am, am I? Is that what's going on next? Well, next. So yes, now we've got the scores.

I just wanted to remind everyone to check out Stephen's post tomorrow, 1145-ish, midday. 6.15. 6.45. Steven's going to publish a summary of this scoring that we've just done. So make sure to check that out and feel free to give your feedback again. We like getting your feedback. And like this video if you have not already done that.

Like this video if you think Nick should win. Like this video if you think Greg should win. And like this video if you think Tim should win. And even if you already like this video, if like Greg and I, you've forgotten that you already like it, like it again. Well, then don't like it again because that will unlike it.

Sign in, sign in. Don't forget that you sign in under a different account. I don't like it again. Yes, you are permitted to do that. All right. But next, we would like to hear what everyone has

done since the last check-in. So some of this is going to already have been covered in the, you know, Instagram videos We've seen some not. We're going to do the same sofa order we've got. So Nick, we left off with you in live stream two. I don't remember.

Remind us, where were you in live stream two? What have you done since then? So the live stream two was after I had arrived in Hanoi and I'd done my Michelin Bibb-Corbon food tour and spent the night but not actually slept yet in Hanoi. Can you just move the microphone a little bit closer, please? Yeah, I could probably grab it. Yeah, so the check-in two, I did in Hanoi,

and I had done my Michelin Bibb Gorman food tour and wandering around the night market a little bit and not sleeping at all in Hanoi, and staying in a luxury hotel, five-star luxury hotel in Hanoi. So that was what I had done so far up until that check-in. And then afterwards, I did all the things that I already talked about in Vietta.

And then I flew premium economy on Vietnam Airlines from Hanoi to Sydney. I got to access the lounge in Hanoi because of my match status with Delta. Premium economy I booked with Virgin Atlantic miles, 47,500 miles plus taxes. And so that was relatively comfortable. It was pleasantly surprised with the padding on the seat. It doesn't recline all the way. Of course, it's not a lie flat, but it was a pretty comfortable way to fly. And I was glad I booked that one. specifically because that flight left late enough at night that it gave me all day to spend in Hanoi. I wouldn't have had enough time to do the things I wanted to do in Hanoi if I had booked the daytime flight I looked at originally. So I was very glad with that decision. And so I flew to Sydney. And then from Sydney, I had to get to Melbourne, of course, in Australia. And so I used 8,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points to fly Virgin Australia, which I'm putting in air quotes for anybody listening in podcast form because that involved a connection. I had actually fly Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne and the Sydney to Canberra is actually operated by some other small

airline called Link. So it was a Virgin Australia sort of a ticket booked via Air Canada Aero Plan for 8,000 points plus taxes. That's not always a good deal I want to point out. So if you're looking at coming to Australia, you might want to look at cash prices because oftentimes they're much better. This week in particular is a school break week in most of Australia. And the day I was looking for was expensive enough that it was a good deal with Miles, but it isn't always going to be. So I know some people have commented and said, I didn't even realize you could book Virgin Australia with Air Canada. And you can, but a lot of times you're not going to want to. And so I think it's worth pointing that out. But in this situation, it worked out. So I got to Melbourne and I checked into

the West in Melbourne, which I booked with 75,000 Marriott Envoy points. I pointed out on Instagram that I actually booked it for 85,000 points for two nights initially. And then every day for the next 10 consecutive days, it dropped 1,000 points. And I kept canceling it and rebooking it until it got down to 75,000 points for the two nights. It still wasn't a fantastic value for Marriott points. It would be a pretty good value for free night certificates. It's a place I would have been less excited about using points, though, because the value is actually a little bit below our reasonable redemption value. Unfortunately, that was the case with all of the Marriott properties in Melbourne, but I had Marriap Envoy points from the draw. So that's what I used. The Weston was actually quite

nice. The bed was super comfortable. I got to spend a nice, luxurious night in bed there, sleeping and getting some rest before meeting up with Greg the Frequent Milers. So I met up with Greg. I'm going to say yesterday. I don't know what day it was Eastern time, where everybody is listening to this. But here in Australia, it was yesterday. And so I met up with Greg and we strolled around Melbourne a bit and then he had planned an activity that I'm sure he'll tell you more about that was a lot of fun last night. And then today I had the challenge left to find a dish that I'd never heard of that would be acceptable to a picky eater, that a picky eater would try. And so I brought Greg and Tim for two different dishes, two different such dishes. The first up was Jaffels, or Jaffels perhaps it's pronounced.

So that's a sandwich that is essentially similar to a grilled cheese, but it's made in a waffle that it's supposed to be made on a waffle iron that closes it to keep everything on the inside. So you have, like, they have filled with beans and cheese and things like that. So it's similar enough to a grilled cheese that I think a picky eater would try it, but also there had enough different types of things. that it might have been interesting. But I took Greg and Tim to a particular place that is vegan. So it's an entirely plant-based menu. And I have to be honest, the joffles were not our favorite. I wondered why there was suddenly no footage.

There was a, what do we? We'll see how it goes. And then no video. I'm not sure that plant-based cheesiness is any of our thing at this point. But not that, I mean, I think all of us enjoy. vegan food sometimes. But I personally don't tend to enjoy vegan cheese as much. So maybe that one was less of a hit for me. But the idea anyway of the Jaffels I thought was good for a picky eater. Anyway, after that, I took them for Lamingtons, which is a distinctly, and both of these things were

very Australian. Jaffles, the Jaffel Iron was invented in Australia in 1949, and it's very common around Australia now. The second thing were Lamingtons, which is again a very common Australian dessert, found all over Australia became popular around the turn of the 20th century. So 130 years ago and it's still popular today. And it's essentially sponge cake that is rolled in icing to make the sponge cake even moisture and then rolled in desiccated coconut. And I took them specifically to a place that had one. It was also a mixture with something called fairy bread, which is another popular kid's dessert. And so that I figured would probably satisfy most picky eaters because it was essentially cake. but in a different form than what we're used to in like a sort of a cube form.

And so we did that. And that depending on how much you like desiccated coconut was either pretty good or not your thing. And so I say that because some of us at this couch or at least one of us on this couch is not a fan of desiccated coconut, as I learned. So some picky eaters might not like it, but my kids would have eaten it. And then after that, we did Tim's activity and a holiday. let Tim tell you about it, but I will say that Tim knocked it out of the park with his activity. So probably the most fun activity we've done on a challenge happened today. But that was Tim's.

So I'll let him tell you more about it. Yeah. So that was, I think that was it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't want to say that really quickly in Nick's defense, I liked my Jaffe Jaffel. Yes. And I liked the Lamington. It was Nick and Gray.

So I had a fine time on Nick's experience. I thought it was good. Would you call yourself a picky eater, Tim? On the fact that Nick got his beans in my water. I don't know how that happened. All right, Greg. And I'll just say, and you will hear about Tim's experience soon, but that it was absolutely awesome.

But Nick is in denial. He really preferred the cute fish spa from a few challenges ago over today's. But, you know, they were. I'm not forgetting that. They were both great. Okay. So, gosh, where do I start? All the way back in.

So I left Columbia on sort of a continuation of the award flight, not sort of, it was a continuation of the award flight that I had booked to get to Columbia. So it was a stopover in Columbia. And I flew to Miami in business class to Miami. From there, I went to Fort Lauderdale on cheap tri-rail transportation. used my $50 Rezi credit at a awesome James Beard recognized restaurant. And the next morning I flew United in luxurious United Economy to the most awe-inspiring city, Cleveland. and luxury points.

I didn't have time to get out of the airport. So I enjoyed the United Lounge in Cleveland and then flew onward from there in, what is it called, Economy Plus, on United Economy Plus to L.A. And there I enjoyed an excellent dinner in the Polaris lounge, which, The dinner was great, and the little sort of phone booth room I had to do work afterwards was great. The lounge is surprisingly not great compared to the one in San Francisco. So I've been into the United Polaris Lounge in San Francisco is really terrific. This one is not one I would go out of my way to make sure you can be it. But it did what I needed.

And then I flew United Polaris business class to Sydney. I really, I'm a fan of United Polaris business class, not because it's like, it's not the most luxurious business class there is, but as a side sleeper, the seats are actually soft. So I can actually sleep on my side without, like on most business class products, I have to turn over every half hour because it starts to hurt whatever side of mine. So that makes a big difference to me, so I really like that, and I slept really well to Sydney. And then because there were no good award flights available from Sydney to Melbourne, I booked a $188 Virgin Australia flight to fly directly to Melbourne. I see it as kind of like, you know, we often book awards that have surcharges that are. in the hundreds of dollars. So to me, this is like paying a surcharge to get there without any paying any miles.

And then here I'm staying at, I booked tonight at the Langham Hotel, which is where we are now with these views. And once again, I did it with Delta Miles and a cash co-pay. Now, wherever I had a cash co-pay with hotels, I also had a cash co-pay in Fort Lauderdale. I forgot to mention. I had a $250 statement credit with my Bonvoy Brilliant card. So that more than covered the two places with hotels where I had to pay a cash pay on top of the miles I use. And okay, I think that brings to the activity.

So Nick already mentioned that we hung out yesterday afternoon, which was really terrific. Sadly, Tim wasn't here yet when we started my set of activities, but I made sure to put what I thought would be the best part late enough that Tim would be able to join us. And he was. So what I had planned was a special kind of bar crawl, if you will, but with all hidden secret. like speakeasy type bar. So we started at a like sort of a cafe bar type of thing that had some bookshelves in the corner. And you go over there and if you know just the right book, you pull it.

So I had Nick pull the book and a whole bookshelf slides open to open a staircase where you walk downstairs and then there's a whole speakeasy down there. enjoy drinks there. And then we went on to the next was probably my favorite of the ones that were hidden. So the book the bookshelf thing is so awesome and so classic. But the, the pizza place. We went to pizza, pizza, pizza. And it, it doesn't have any like moving gimmicks or anything. What it has is you go down an alley to find this pizza place. And you see like, it's not even big enough to have any seats inside. It's just a guy standing there making pizzas, preparing them for takeout and delivery.

And that's all it looks like is a greasy spoon takeout place. And you go in and you say, can I have the secret menu? And then he points you to the doorway that says staff only to go through there. So you go through there, down some steps. And once again, there's a, I wouldn't call it a speak easy, but basically a pizza restaurant bar that was really nice and cozy and great pizza. We really enjoyed that a lot. Then we went to a few places where they didn't have as much of a gimmick,

but they're mainly hidden because you go down an alley. and there's either no markings on the doors or above it. You just have to know where to go. Or like in one of them there were like two letters. And you know those two letters stand for the name of the place. And so you go in there. One of them, it would be so cool if you go on a weekend because one of them, it's like that. You have to find the secret bar.

But then if you know about the secret other bar inside that bar, you could go down into the swamp, which is all decorated like a swamp. And I think that would be super cool. But again, it's only available on weekends, unfortunately, that part. Then we went to the only one that required reservations. And we met Tim on a street corner. It was lucky Tim happened to be on street corner. As many do.

And it was, again, it was a similar thing where you go into an alleyway, dark alleyway and go in a door that you would never in a million years like go into. too if you didn't know about this. And that's straight after picking someone off, picking someone up from a street corner in the That's right, right, right. But you do need to have reservations before you pick someone up on the street corner if you're going to do this. Especially picking me. And this place is known for having kind of like flamboyant, interesting drinks.

So I thought it would make a really good spectacle to do this. So we asked the way. for recommendations for the ones that would be both delicious and visually appealing. And there was a lot of smoke and fire involved in all three of them, which was really fun. And one of them that we ordered and was had to do with my mini challenge. So my mini challenge was to do an activity that one might do on a honeymoon. Now, I think the overall thing of going to speak easies and everything is easily a honeymoon activity, but sort of the ultimate, it would only be on a honeymoon type of thing, is to order a drink for two with two straws and drink from it at the same time. So my

beloved here and I enjoyed that drink together. So it was a very touching moment. I love that. I love the still shot of that. Awesome. Yeah, it looked like you guys hit up some cool spots. And if I'm not mistaken, that's kind of a uniquely Australian thing, too, right? To like the speakeasy thing is just just blew up there for whatever reason. At least that's...

I mean, it's especially popular here for sure. Yeah. But it's been growing in all major cities worldwide. Yeah. So very cool. All right, Tim. I think that wraps you up, right? Greg?

Yeah, I'm all wrapped up. All right. So, Tim, what did you? Yeah, so first of all, I want to, there's a couple things I want to highlight about Greg and Nick's trips that I don't think they highlighted that I think are worth highlighting. One thing was for Nick, Nick was, despite the fact that he had to take three trips across the Atlantic in order to fit in Guadalupe, or Guadalupe. Guadalupe. Yeah, Guadalupe. he was the first to get to Melbourne.

Yeah. And he did it under budget. Which is very unique for Nick. Which is very unique. On time and under budget, Nick. Yeah. Well, and you, and that's exactly the point I was trying to make. Both of these things are new pages that Nick is turning over in his challenge life.

Wow. So that's pretty cool. And Greg had the unique, uh, distinction of booking his hotels with his airline miles. Yeah, I can't believe I forgot to mention that. And booking his airlines with his hotel points. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Sorry, you know, between writing posts every day about this stuff and recording videos for real, you forget what you haven't talked about on this, which will be awesome. Podcast listeners will experience. Yeah, I need to explain that. I love that it turned out that way. I find it so sort of satisfying in a weird, like, dad-jokey way that I use all of my airline miles, you know, the Delta miles and the American Airlines miles exclusively for hotels.

And I used all of my bonvoy points, every single one of them, to plus some, extra ones that I transferred from my amics points to transfer to United so that I could book that United Polaris Award, which included the flights from Fort Lauderdale through Cleveland to L.A., but then that business class flight to Australia was all in that 190,000 point award, which was essentially booked with 180,000 Marriott points. So that was, I don't know how I'll be judged on that, but I was like through the moon about the, it was just so satisfying to like complete the puzzle in that bizarre, bizarre way. So yeah. Yeah. All right. Now that, now that Greg took it back from Tim, I'll steal it too. Because you're right, it's easy for us to forget,

I think, what we haven't talked about on this and leave things out that would be relevant for podcast listeners. So I'm glad you brought that out. Thank you, Tim. I hadn't thought about to make the point that I came in under budget, not just like kind of overall, but under budget in every single currency, which was a goal of mine from the beginning to stay under budget in all of the currencies, not just like one of them. So I didn't exhaust the supply of any of the miles. And I did that both to avoid any controversy of going over budget. I didn't want to, I didn't want any sneaky tricks this time. But also I did it because there are some folks who watch our challenges and always wonder about, well, how about getting back home? And that's not really the point of our challenges. The point of our challenges in my mind is to give you an idea of what's possible with your miles and points. And so, you know, we wouldn't want to limit what we can do just to double back and prove that we could get home too. So generally speaking, we don't worry about the way home being part of the challenge because there are so many different ways you could just get back from the ending point. However,

I know that there are some folks who really hold on to that and are like, yeah, but how is you get back home. And so this time, I saved enough points that I could book by way home using the points that I have left over. Now, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to get home much more comfortably tomorrow, but I could. And that was, to me, that was a goal that I, once I realized it might be possible to do that, I really wanted to kind of try to conserve that. And so that was something that I was, I was proud to have gotten here first. And I forgot to make that point. And I was proud that I held on to that. So thank you, Tim, for recognizing. I'm glad you recognize that. But now we got to hear about what you've done. Now, no, what are you proud of, Tim?

And I also think Nick at some point should talk about that he was planning on getting a platypus tattoo in order to, in order to impress Shea Pepper. Stephen Pepper's beloved other. But I'll, you can, I'll let you show that story when you want to. And so I have my phone here. And the reason why I have my phone here is because I have a spreadsheet that tracks. everything that I did, and I'm using that to remind me what I did. So I'm not just like looking at my phone. I mean, I'm looking at my phone, but in order to remember what I did. So after Seoul, or not after soul, but starting with Seoul, the last morning. So I had taken, and I'm going to kind of refer to some posts, and if folks who are listening to this want to read more, they can read more about it in the

post. But I had done a last minute change. So I booked everything from Costa Rica to Melbourne on one Air Canada Aeroplane Award award and I wrote a post about how that happened. It's Steven Arty referenced that folks can read about that. But the last change that I made was changing from a nonstop flight to Hanoi that would have made me take a overnight in Hanoi and then it booked a separate award from to Melbourne. And instead, I changed it to an ANA award from Korea to Tokyo to Sydney and then finally over to Melbourne. And that saved me from having to spend money on the, or just points on the award from Vietnam to Melbourne. I had to pay a change fee on this particular one, but it was worth it to save all those points. And what it did is, and it gave me the opportunity to also work in

a stopover at no extra cost in Tokyo and in Sydney. So I flew out of Gimpow, which is a, is a secondary airport in Seoul that's closer to Seoul, and it's much smaller than Seoul. It's much more convenient to fly out. So it gave me a relaxing morning, that final morning in Seoul. I flew to Hineda, which is the secondary, kind of the secondary airport now. It's much bigger than it used to be. But it is closer to downtown to central Tokyo, so it's easy to do a, much easier to do a stopover, like to go into Tokyo from there than it is from Nerita, which is depending on how you get there between in like 45 minutes to an hour, or probably an hour,

hour and a half from central Tokyo. So I flew there in regional A&A business class, which is, it was fine. It would be like the top business class product in the U.S. if it was in the U.S. And then once I was in Tokyo, I wanted to, when we were in one of our, when we all did a challenge called the Party of Five Challenge back in the day. We were all five of us spent two weeks traveling together. The idea was two teams had to do a trip where we were booking everything for five people to make it more difficult to show people to kind of show ideas for that. And one of our, all of our highlights was when we were in Tokyo, Stephen and Kerry took us to a digital art installation called Planets from a digital art cooperative called TeamLab. And everybody loved it.

It's a really cool, immersive, just kind of mind-bending, really fun thing. But TeamLab also had a different installation called Borderless that I had been to previously, but they had shut it down and then reopened it in a different location. So I wanted to do that this time as kind of a shout out to that previous one. So I took the train from Haneda to borderless and check that out. And I won't go into great detail describing it. It's really cool. There's a lot of really fun. It's much more visual in nature than planets is.

Planets. There's a lot of stuff where you're like literally standing in water and you're physically interacting with things, whereas borderless is much more of a visual thing, but it's still a really cool experience. And anybody who goes to Tokyo, in my opinion, should check out one of them because it's just, it's very one of a kind kind of thing. I ended up spending my goal was to, my goal was actually to do this and then go out for a sit-down dinner. But I ended up spending a little more time at borderless than I meant to. So I only had about an hour between when I left borderless and when I needed to get back on the train to get back to the airport. And I had sort of a plan B, which was there's a type of cuisine or kind

of restaurant in Tokyo that I think it's, I believe the pronunciation is takaguchi or Takaguchi or something like that, that the literal translation is eat standing up. And the idea is there's no tables here. You go in and you just stand there and it's faster for, it tends to be faster. Obviously, it takes less room, but it tends to be cheaper as well. And there was this sushi place that was a stand-up sushi place that was in the next metro station down that I'd read about that supposedly had really, that excellent fish quality, but especially, it's kind of in a ritzier neighborhood of Tokyo that was like a really good spot. So as my plan B, I went there. and you go in and it's kind of fun each each there's only 12 places for people to stand

each place has a little i like effectively like a tablet like a iPad tablet or something like that and you can choose either Japanese or English and then you can just order off the tablet all of the the three sushi like there's each there are three sushi chefs and each of them served four people they all spoke enough English to tell you what you're getting and stuff so I don't know how necessary it was, but it made it very easy. So I ordered an 11 piece, what they call an Omicasse, where the chef chooses what it is, and had a beer, and the fish was just delightful. And what's unique for, it was a very cheap, like the whole tab was just over $30. But they still had some high-end stuff like the salmon row, like the big fish eggs, the akura, they had abalone.

They had some higher-end fish stuff in there as well. and the quality was sublime across the board. The whole thing from beginning to end took about 25 minutes. So I had plenty of time to get there, eat, and got back to Haneda, hung out in the business class lounge at Haneda, the A&A business class lounge for a while, and then took a business class flight on A&A from Haneda to Sydney. And when I got to Sydney, thankfully, I had planned to go in. I had an event booked, and I had planned to go in and take a, there's a bunch of ferries that go throughout Sydney Harbor, and I had wanted to take a round-trip ferry to do a kind of a a cheap harbor tour, effectively.

Luckily, the judges didn't think that was something that anybody would want to see or know about. So they gave me an obstacle called the overpacker where I had to, I had to, instead of just being able to walk off and take my bag into Sydney and put it in the left luggage facility, I had to go wait for it to get released from the clutches of A&A. Then I had to physically take it over to the domestic terminal to Virgin Australia and then check it, recheck it in and then go back into Sydney And so by the time that procedure was done, I didn't have time to do the harbor tour. But I still had, I went in, I had a lovely, there's a bar, I mean, the Sydney Harbor is beautiful. I'd actually never been there before.

And I was really struck by it. It was super busy because of the school holiday and it was a cruise boat in town. But it's really a striking, striking scene. And I had lunch and wrote a post and hung out. And there's a place called an opera bar that's like a, it's right right in front of the opera house and it's sort of like a normally there'd be more of a restaurant there now it's sort of just like they have a couple bars and you can order food from a couple different places but just a lovely place to hang out and then the kind of the centerpiece of it was when um i had wanted to

when i had first heard they were going to australia i was excited uh i kind of wanted to to work in an event at the opera house and i was able to do it and the and the reason was so a year ago I had to withdraw from last year's challenge because my dad passed away during last year's challenge. And I had wanted to do something that would sort of commemorate kind of the year that it's been a year since he passed. It was this year last time. And so I was thinking he was a huge, he was a huge, huge classical music band jazz, classic big band jazz, old school Hollywood musicals. Like he just ate that stuff up with a spoon. And I had wanted to figure out some way, regardless of where I was, to kind of work out something that where I could kind of do something like that.

And the Sydney Opera House had sort of a special thing because I remember there was way back in the day when I was a kid. And I don't remember if it was like a PBS special or if it was in it was like on a record cover that he had or something. But I saw the Sydney Opera House and I thought classical music was really boring. And then I saw this thing that looked like a spaceship. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's so cool. And he's like, well, maybe we can go see a concert there someday. And my dad was not a traveler. He had no intention of ever going to Australia or trying to actually see a show there.

But once I knew we were going to Austria, I thought, man, you're really cool to be able to go and see something that's sitting the opera house. And it turned out that this layover that happened or stopover that happened because there's about an eight-hour stopover. It was perfectly timed so that I could go see the musical. my fair lady at the opera house which is my favorite musical it was one of my dad's favorite musicals he would sing a couple of the songs to my mom we we actually sang like we would sing some of the songs kind of were like family standards for us and um so and i got tickets tickets and it actually if we had been in sydney i was planning on taking nick and gregg to the to my fair

lady and luckily it would have blown my budget if i had done it today with nick and gregg but yesterday at or whenever it was a couple days ago on the matinee it was like like 35 bucks or 40 bucks or something you asked for the tickets which was to my mind really cheap and it was a terrific terrific terrific performance but so um I brought a I don't have a lot of things from my like my dad is a very different size than I am or was a very different size than I am he was shorter rounder um but I have a couple short sleeve shirts that kind of sort of fit me and so I brought a shirt of his and wore it into the opera house kind of the symbolism of like

kind of fulfilling that going to the opera house of my dad so it was a really it was meaningful for me it was a fun thing and it was a really marvelous I mean it really was just a marvelous performance of my fair lady so then did that

and then went back to Sydney Airport took the same double flight that Nick took because school holidays like one of the it was freaking hard to get to melbourne like it was there was there was there were no awards there were flights but there were no award and all three of us went into like to get from sitting to melbourne was just brutal and i was just glad to be able to get anything that i could work into that aeroplane award um got here late that night or later in the evening and for my hotel

I used my final Chase edit credit that I had. So I used one on the hotel in Seoul. I used the second one here for the Park Hyatt, which, surprisingly enough, during school holidays, and they're actually sold out again. Like, they have a bunch of conferences. It's really weird how this, I don't know if, I'm, it's weird how there's been these, to me anyway,

that there's been these really unique values, to me, unique values compared to what I'm used to seeing from the edit. but it was two nights for I think it was right over a little over 600 bucks and it was a 1.65 cents per point point boost so effectively using the chase credit I was able to book the park Hyatt for two nights for 10,000 points per night and originally when I budgeted this whole thing out I thought that I was having to account for tonight's lodging as well because I stayed there for two nights and then it turns out that we only had to budget the first night. And I had asked Carrie and Stephen how they wanted to do and they said, oh, you can just count half the night. But then I figured, well, since I'm using the edit credit,

you really wouldn't be able to use the edit credit. So I just left that in there. So effectively, the total points that I spent included an extra night of lodging because it includes tonight, or the lodging for tonight as well. But still 10,000 points per night for the park high in Melbourne with the credit and all that stuff is awesome. And it was cool because what I've been trying to do, this whole challenge is to only use benefits from the cards that I had, even though it was perfectly allowable to use additional benefits, just because I was trying to see what I could kind of work up with just the cards. And I had not used any of my own elite benefits until the Park Hyatt. But then I got there and they effectively, so normally as a globalist,

you'd be entitled to up to a standard suite upgrade. The Chase Edit benefit would be you would get a one category upgrade, usually, a minimum one category upgrade. And so when I got here, they said, well, you know, you're a globalist, so you get the standard suite. And then you have the other category. So we went ahead and upgraded you to a premium suite. And the premium suite was the ambassador suite, which is massive. I mean, it's crazy. It's got like a full dining room, living room, fireplace.

There's a real honor right now about in Instagram. It's got a walk through closet. I told Nick and Greg today, it was really funny. Last night, I woke up in the. middle of night had to go to the bathroom and sometimes like you're like when you're traveling a lot like i'm a little like get up and like disorienting i'm like okay where am i whatever i literally got lost in my own hotel room like i went through one side and i ended up and i and i'm like and i was getting non-fogging i'm like i have no idea where i am in my own hotel room like the hotel room is this

massive um and so i didn't care enough about not using uh my own benefits to decline the upgrade. So I just went ahead and stayed in that room. And then today we went on nixing. And actually, I'm going to turn this back. So my mini challenge, I want to hear how you guys would describe it because I knew more about it going in. And so my mini challenge was to book an activity that was for families, but that the adults wouldn't find or wouldn't be bored by. And I can tell you, none of us were bored. But so I actually, I actually would be, I want to hear you guys describe what, but what you did. Okay. Well, yeah, at first when we went in, I thought maybe this was like an escape room type of thing.

and it turned out it was, it's this thing where you are kind of like a player in a video game, but like physically in the video game. So you go from like room to room where there's different games that you play and they get increasingly physical as you go from one room to the next. So like first room was just like typing in codes as quickly as you could on these different screens. The next room is throwing balls at like these targets based on like a pattern that that shows up, having to sort of solve little puzzles. But then the next, I don't remember exactly what the next room wasn't. But it was. Oh, like, yeah. So there's a room where you have to, there's lasers, laser beams that go across the room in different patterns and you have to be able to cross the room without interrupting the lasers.

And I have to do it like 100 times. I mean, it was a lot of times. Yes, we did it. It's like, oh, no, we did it. It's doing it again and again and yet. But it was, you know, it was really fun and tiring. And then you get to a room where you're standing on these like steps. Like there's these steps all over the room and it's like lava on the floor.

So you're not allowed to get off these steps. And then then it's a game where you have to jump from like one to another to accomplish it. The floor is lava. And I'll leave the last one for Nick, I guess, to describe. But it was it was just so much fun to be part actually like inside this video game, basically. It was it was amazing. It was just total blast. And we were all like sweaty as could be.

Yeah. Greg actually skipped a couple of them there. What is it called real quick? It's called one, two, three, boom. One, two, three, boom. And I believe, I looked it up afterwards. I believe it's only in Melbourne. in Brisbane, but brilliant business idea, whoever came up with it, because we had so much fun

and my kids would want to do that again and again and again and again. And I'm pretty sure my wife would be just as happy to do it again and again also. It was like I could see it being pretty, well, I say want to do it again and again. We were all exhausted. So I mean, we're all tired from the travel, but we were beat when we got done with it. So very much like being in the video game in many ways. So it's something that's, I think it's difficult to describe well. But anyway, the final level was to diffuse a bomb. And so you had to do some things to diffuse the bomb. And if you don't diffuse the bomb, then the bomb goes off. And in this case, it wasn't a bomb going off on a screen. It was actually some physical things that shot different colored liquid at us. So we had to

suit up in hazmat suits and a shield over our face and everything to try to diffuse the bomb. And, And I'll let you check it out on Instagram to see how successful we were or we're not in diffusing the bum. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a while until that gets published. I'm sure. I'm sure. Did that do it? Yeah, no, that was, that was, that was good. Nice.

Yeah, it was, that was, that was a fun. Yeah, we all just, it was a good time. It was a really fun time. Yeah. So that sounds awesome. So that, that was the last. And then we went, we had, we worked, we, we, we replenished our bodies from all. the calories that we burnt off from our video game inhabiting.

And now here we are. That's it. That sounds awesome. I am already jealous of that event, even though I haven't reviewed the footage yet. And speaking of which, now I'd love each of you, although I'm going to start with Stephen, to pick out what is the one thing you would bookmark from your competitors or the competitor's trips for your own future travel. Stephen will start with you.

Pick something from everyone's trip that you've bookmarked that as like, I'm going to do that sometime. Oh man, like it feels like there's a lot of stuff. Like Nick's beach in Guadalupe just looked absolutely amazing. I could just imagine spending like days there relaxing. This one, two, three boom thing.

I really want to go and do that. It sounds absolutely fantastic. Definitely the kind of thing that I would like to do. There's a thing called the, there was a TV show back in the day in the UK called the Crystal Maze and there's a version of that that you can play in London now and I've really wanted to do that but one, two, three, boom sounds like it's even more amazing than that potentially. So that would definitely be on a to-do list. We have friends in Melbourne, so we have a good excuse to head down there and do that at some point.

In terms of kind of more practical things, I think I'd probably say the way that Tim had booked his Aero Plan award to give a whole ton of flexibility, but then also be able to take advantage of lower pricing further down the line. That's a really useful tip for things, especially if you're planning a trip quite far out where you don't necessarily need to book everything at the last minute, somewhat like they did. If you've got a lot of time, then this gives you even more opportunities to hopefully pick up routes and itineraries and products that you want to be able to fly. So for me, I feel like that was probably the most useful thing for readers to be able to get out of this. All right.

How about, so you've isolated something from Tim Strip, something from Nick's trip, isolate something from Greg's. What would you borrow from Greg's trip? I'm just trying to think, I mean, even though I said that it wasn't at all luxury, I'd be kind of curious climbing those 700-something steps up. that giant rock just for the sense of achievement. I can't remember where it is. It's something in Denver. Oh, is it the Manitow incline or something like that that's somewhat similar where there's like hundreds and hundreds of steps up this hill or mountain or something

like that? I've never gone around to trying that, but that would be something that I'd be keen on doing as well. But yeah, I think from Greg's trip that and also just some of the food tastings and things like that he did look like a lot of fun. Frank Speakeasy tour last night, you would have loved. Oh, yes. That's a good point, yeah.

That's what I'm seeing. That's like, yeah, that would absolutely be my stuff. I don't think I've seen that stuff on Instagram yet, so it wasn't as I'm at the forefront of my mind, whereas I've like kind of like visualized all of the other things that you've done. But yeah, absolutely the speak easy tool would be a lot of fun. I think, yeah, I think, yeah, I think, yeah, I think Shane and I definitely do need to take a trip down to Melbourne again at some point.

And I'll do that. All right. Nick, what's one thing from each of your competitors' trips that you would bookmark for your own trips? I mean, one, two, three, boom, was a blast. So if we get back to Australia with the rest of my family, there's no doubt that I would, even if we weren't planning on coming to Melbourne, I think I would be like, you know what, we need to like squeeze in a day or two for Melbourne just to go do that. That was fun.

So that's definitely the first thing that comes to mind. although Stephen mentioned Tim's Aeroplan Award. And I think that that was such a brilliant trick. We were talking about this when we first got together because a few years ago I had not a latitude, Air Canada Award, a regular one, where I wanted to switch part of it but not lose the award seats on a piece.

And I wasn't sure if that was possible. And I called and I was able to do that. But it never dawned on me that that trick would be amplified so significantly by booking one of those latitude awards. I think that that was such a brilliant move that I would use that now in the future, both A, because it gives you so much flexibility, like Stephen said, B, because, well, actually, I back up and I say, you know, if you didn't want to put the points into a latitude award and you just want to book the cheapest one, if you're booking far out in advance, the chances of a schedule change

that might allow for a free change or another thing to keep in mind. So I think that that really highlights a sweet spot in our Canada Aeroplane. so that's definitely something I'll use again. One, two, three, boom is definitely a thing that I'll do again. The, I loved the helium balloon and the garlic bun look terrific. So Tim had quite a few highlights that I would enjoy. And the, the garden that senior scissor hands cut up. I said earlier to Tim that that looked pretty cool.

So a bunch of things there, I think. with Greg's, I think that the the speakeasy tour we did last night is not something I would ever think to do because I don't tend to drink many cocktails. I'm obviously traveling as a family traveler most of the time, but that was such a cool idea. It was so cool and fun and a great theme

to build a night around. And so whether or not I would do the speakeasy tour exactly, like I enjoyed it and I would be happy to do that again. But I think that that type of theme of hidden things like that was such a creative idea. So I really liked that. And I told him Guadapé in Columbia. I loved Columbia when I went years ago,

and that town seemed so vibrant and cool. So I know you said one thing, and I definitely went beyond one, but there you have it. Those are one-ish, one-ish thing for each person's trip that I would do. All right, Greg. All right.

I'm going to have to go fast. My laptop battery is low, and I don't have. We're on a real-time crunch then. So from Tim's trip, well, once again, that latitude award thing, I don't know if it's been explained really here well. But he basically, he found a very rare business class flight to Asia and booked it in a way that it would be like changeable. So then when he found other pieces of the trip that he could kind of connect the dots, he added those on for free.

Now, he made one little error of locking it all in at a certain point when he still was going to make more changes, it turned out. But the overall approach of doing that, and, you know, finding ideal awards is usually the way you do it is by, setting up alerts and waiting for the for good things to show up and so when you have a complicated itinerary you're trying to build putting pieces together in ways that you can change it if you need to is just so important and and i was just kicking myself for not doing that same process so that was awesome um as far as specific things like uh let's see next trip um the coffee making experience the food tour totally uh would love to do those things. The, you know, stop over and going to the Sydney Opera House. That's awesome. Doing the hike in the mountains around Seoul.

Absolutely awesome. So I'll stop there. All right. Do we have enough battery life left for Tim to pick one thing from everybody's trip? Let's see. If not, we'll say, guys, viewers, follow the blog and Instagram for an announcement as to when we're going to officially announce our winner. We're not going to do that today, especially if our battery is limited.

So if we die before then, now you know. All right, Tim, go for it. Well, I'll go quick here. Because we actually just talked about this around dinner tonight. For Nick, and there's more than just these things, but for Nick, the big one is Hanoi. I've always wanted to go to. I was actually really excited to go to Hanoi, even though it was really inconvenient for my itinerary and was more expensive for my itinerary.

And just seeing what Nick did there and his, the video there and it did nothing but wet my appetite even further for going to Hanoi. And for Greg, I agree completely with Stephen that the rock, man, that looked like the video of just the view from there. It just looked like such a unique spot and such a beautiful view from there. And I know it's whole. hard, like it was hard to get up there.

But it's also done. Very satisfied. Yeah. And done fairly quickly. And you can, you know, it's not like you'd take three days to get up there or something. And then I also really loved, even though I know Greg didn't like his tour guide, I thought the Panama, I've always, I've never been to Panama. I'd love to go to the Panama Canal. And I think the, I would love to, I thought his, his footage of like the scene the boats go up in the locks and stuff was really cool.

And so I wouldn't take Greg's tour. because Greg would tell me not to take his tour, but I would love to have that experience that he had outside of his substandard tour guide. And while we still have a teeny bit of juice, how about you, Carrie, what were your favorite things from each of their trips? All right, I'll make it super quick.

Nick, it would be the coffee-making class and the custom tailoring in Hanoi, even though I wouldn't get a suit coat. I often thought about getting skirts or dresses tailored when I was in Southeast Asia. I think that's a cool idea. Greg, I also liked The Rock. I like things like that where you get a view and you have to work for it.

I think that's fun. But also the Speakeasy tour, I love a gimmick. It makes me think of Meow Wolf in real life, like when you have to ask the pizza guy for the secret menu. Love that. Tim, one, two, three, boom, obviously sounds amazing, though I haven't seen the footage. And the Team Labs, borderless. I'd love to see the bigger, you know, we as a team saw the planets version. I'd love to see a bigger one.

All right, guys, thanks so much for joining us. You will have to stay tuned to find out who officially wins and to see how we score Destination 3. We'll be publishing more information about that as soon as we figure out our own crazy schedules. So safe travels back from Melbourne. Anyone have any final thoughts before the laptop dies? No, just that.

I better shut off the live stream before it's too late. All right, but before the bomb goes out, It's like you're back in one, two, three, boom. This episode was produced and edited by Carrie Yoder, music by Annie Yoder. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today and you'd like to get more of this in your email inbox each day or each week, go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. Follow us on all the various social media. Join our Frequent Myler Insiders Facebook group. And wherever you're watching or listening, don't forget to like this or give it a thumbs up.

If you have a question that you'd like to be considered for a future question of the week or a piece of feedback that you'd to be considered for our giant mailbag. You can send that to send it to mailbag at frequent miler.com.