More Money Podcast - 411 How to Fly Around the World for Free - Founder of The Canadian Jetsetter, Graeme Bligh

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

Do you dream of flying business class in one of those lie-flat seats with multiple course meals and unlimited wine on a long-haul flight like I do? Personally, the cheapskate in me could never pay for such an expensive airline ticket. But after interviewing Graeme Bligh, founder of The Canadian Jetsetter, I've learned that you may not have to. If you know how to play the credit card points game strategically, you can fly in luxury for free! Because my episodes with Shawn Stewart, President of AIR MILES, and T.J. Dunn, Editor-in-Chief at Prince of Travel, were so popular, I wanted to invite Graeme on the show to find out his travel tips we can all learn from. Over the past few years, Graeme has become one of the top Canadian content creators focused on educating Canadians about which points to collect and how to maximize them for incredible travel experiences. Not only does he make amazing short-form videos on his Instagram and Tiktok, you can also find his longer-form videos on his YouTube channel and stay in the loop of the latest travel deals by signing up for his newsletter. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Saily, a new eSIM service app by Nord Security. To try it out for yourself and get a special 15% off your first purchase, visit Saily.com/moremoney. Follow me: Instagram @jessicaimoorhouse Threads @jessicaimoorhouse TikTok @jessicaimoorhouse Facebook @jessicaimoorhouse YouTube @jessicamoorhouse LinkedIn - Jessica Moorhouse For full episode show notes and transcript visit jessicamoorhouse.com/411 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. And for this episode, we're talking about travel. We're talking about points. We're talking about credit cards, because even though I had two amazing guests on the podcast for season 18, and I'll talk more about that in a minute, I still have been hoarding my points. And I have not booked a international trip to Italy yet, and I need to because I need a vacation now or certainly after my book comes out. I think I deserve one. Yeah. Anyways, that is why I contacted Graham Bly. He is the Canadian jet setter, and I discovered him just from scrolling Instagram, quite honestly, and I was hooked. I love his style. I love the information he's putting out. And so I wanted to have him on the podcast so we can talk more about something

that he's very passionate about. This is what he does full time now. That's how passionate he is about it. Showing people how they can book their next trip with points and getting the most bang for their buck. He has some incredible stories of trips he's been on that are like business class with the lie flat seats around the world. Trips I would love to go on. And they're actually not that expensive if you know how to play the game. And I ask them all the right questions so you will learn a lot in this episode. Now, two episodes you're going to want to check out, and I will kind of share this in the outro if you miss this or skip it, but definitely check out the two episodes I did in season 18. Episode 393, I did with CEO and president of AeroMiles, Sean Stewart. And that was a great episode just to learn more about the

AeroMiles loyalty program and how to book flights through that program. But also TJ Dunn, the editor of Prince of Travel, that is episode 401. That's really an episode more focused on Aeroplan. So definitely check both of those out. But for this episode, we talk about it all. We talk about all the different loyalty programs, the different strategies, things to do, not do, things you need to know. So without further ado, let me get to that episode with Graham. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by

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To try it out for yourself and get a special 15% off your first purchase, visit salie.com slash more money. Once again, that's S-A-I-L-Y dot com slash more money. Or you can click on the link in the description for this episode. Welcome to the More Money Podcast, Graham. So excited to have you on the show. Thank you. Yeah, super excited to be here. Yes. So I think I initially reached out to you the spring of 2024 because you just came up randomly on my Instagram. And it's, you know, there's a lot of stuff on social media, but your stuff actually made me stop scrolling. And I'm like, oh, what's going on over here? And I just liked your Canadian-ness being the Canadian

jet setter. But also you just, yeah, were able to do all this research that I don't have time for and most people don't have time for to find out what are some of the best deals when it comes to travel. And then, of course, talking about anything kind of around travel, such as credit cards, different rewards and points programs, and doing your research and figuring that out. I've had a few guests on last season, one from AeroMiles and one from Prince of Travel, really focused on Aeroplan. But I like how you kind of talk about everything. You talk about all the different programs, all the different approaches. So I'm really excited to kind of dive in. But before we do, do you want to share a little bit more about how you got into this? Like, it sounds like it was kind of just a personal passion

that kind of got things started. Yeah, it really was personal passion. I've always been obsessed with travel. I live in Winnipeg, so that gives me a great reason. I was wondering, I wasn't sure exactly where you're from. Okay, Winnipeg. Awesome. Yeah. So it gives me a great reason to try and book as much travel as possible, especially in winter. So I've always been, you know, a travel obsessed, trying to get flights for good deals, have always been kind of like deal obsessed. Maybe that's my Winnipegness too. But you know, if I can get a good deal on something, that's just like chef's kiss, the best. So yeah, diving into the like travel content has really scratched both of my itches. And I found that other people are interested in too, and I've been able to help.

So it's been really fun. Yeah, getting here has been an interesting road. I didn't intend really to be a content creator, as I think a lot of people in the finance or points space don't really intend to. I had been starting businesses for quite a while, nothing of note or too exciting, but enough that I was having like to spend way more on a credit card than I would do personally, just because, you know, I had a bunch of spend for the business. And I was scrolling on, I think Twitter one day, and I saw like entrepreneur Twitter, if you will. And there

was the one guy just posting about his amazing travels and how he does it all on points and i was like what the heck is this uh this should be me i don't know why i'm doing business things i should be doing travel things that's much more uh in my line of interest uh so yeah i was just pretty obsessed then on really dialed in on researching all the programs, especially from a Canadian perspective. There's so much good content for Americans, but there's relatively little for Canadians. So I found it a little hard, but that kind of also fueled me to try and put some stuff out there.

So yeah, honestly, the Canadian Jet Setter started as a website that no one went to because no one heard of it, understandably. And I started posting content, just thinking, well, if I could get a little bit of traffic to the website, that would be fun. Like that, that would, that would make my day. And then, yeah, the content took off and I've enjoyed doing it. So here I am. When did you start it? Was it like relatively recently or have you been doing the Instagram? It was a, I think my first post was May, 2023. So a year and a half now.

And now you have like, I just checked out, like as of this recording, about 75,000, 74,000 followers on Instagram, which is kind of incredible as someone who is not, I'm not able to even crack the 20,000 yet. So that's, it just goes to show that you're doing something that people are really attracted to and really like. And I think part of it is just, you just, you're just really good at explaining things and making things really easy to digest. One thing I really want to know, and I'm

sure most people want to know this too, is there's, there's a lot of deals to be had. And I think the reason most people don't take advantage of them is they don't know where to find them. And you are constantly, you know, scouring the internet for all this stuff. What is kind of like, how did you start and did you kind of evolve your strategy to find these deals? Because it's, you know, some of them were like, you can go to Tokyo from Toronto for like $200. I'm like, how did you find that? How do you know this? Yeah, so there's a lot of ways. It's kind of a robust system at this point, but it all really started on watching internet forums. There's a lot of like forums.

Flyer Talk is a main one where people will post. Everyone's like their own, they have threads on loyalty programs and then threads on flight deals. So there's kind of resources or communities where people who are weird about travel gather, myself included. So that was kind of a starting glimpse into like, oh, people are finding good deals. How are you finding good deals? And then I kind of got obsessed with it, especially with Google flights. I mean,

honestly, my people would probably be shocked with how simple my process is for finding travel deals. The catch is that it is a lot of work. So it's like, I kind of think I found the sweet spot where I actually like doing the work and then I can just send people the deals. Uh, but it's not a complicated process. It really is like, i set a bunch of cities i'm watching i scroll the maps every day and i'm like oh oh that price went down oh like just today i found a toronto to seoul deal under a thousand bucks round trip and i was like oh nice okay that's like half off if not more um so send it out and then uh people take advantage so google flights internet forums on the point side it is the wild west of like trying to find good information on where to find points deals

there's a bunch of tools out there i have tried them all i like some more than others but none are perfect i also just do a lot of searching on myself. Uh, so it's kind of all over the map for, for points. Are you talking about, um, earning points, like how to earn those real quick or how to best use the points? So you get those really cheap flights. I was talking specifically in this case about using them. There's kind of the two sides of points, right? Which is really important. I think that's the one that most people are like, I've got points because that, that actually does feel pretty easy figuring out how to get the points. But the, how do I make sure I'm getting the most for my points? Because

sometimes if you're not careful, you're like, this is still an expensive flight. I'm just using points. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, they don't really give you a guidebook or any kind of thing on how to use them. So it's, it's up to you to figure it out. I have started trying to be more educated, like educating people on what is a good use and what is a bad use and showing examples. But yeah, it isn't easy. And there is no guidebook. So you kind of do have to wade in. But like so many people just end up hoarding their points, which I totally understand and did do for a time because it's like, well, I don't know how to use these. I'm going to figure it out later. Exactly. So going back to, you mentioned Google flights. This was actually a question I had, because I know you, you mentioned Google flights a lot in the content that you put out.

Why do you find that kind of the best tool? Cause you know, there's so many ones that are always on like ads, like Tribago and all these other kind of whatever. Um, well, I guess maybe that's more hotels, but there's all these different websites that, you know, oh, you can find cheap flights here, there. Why is Google flights kind of like maybe the most comprehensive or just like kind of the best place to kind of do that research? Yeah. A few reasons for me. One is just their search system is really robust. Like it will search through six months of availability really quickly and show you the lowest price you can fly. So it helps you identify, like it helps me identify, oh, okay,

like prices to this region are going down for this timeframe. So you can kind of find more to pick into. But there's also the angle, all of these search engines are kind of, I don't want to say sketchy, but they are a little bit sketchy. Even Google does it too, where they'll link you to third-party resellers of tickets. As a kind of pseudo travel internet expert, I probably should be even louder that I never use these sites and I really don't trust them. It's this weird world where you're not actually booking direct with the airline, you're booking with a third party travel reseller if anything goes wrong with your ticket it's not westchester or canada that you have to contact it's the travel agent and they probably won't have great support it probably if things go wrong in

your trip and you've booked with a third party agency you're kind of in trouble in my opinion like you are in trouble in actuality so i like google flights because they do make it very easy to see where you can book with the airline. I always personally just book with the airline, saves you big headaches if anything goes wrong. Uh, all these other, you know, kayak sky scanner, Expedia, I don't know. There's like thousands. It's crazy. Um, and then there's like even more ones that will offer you even less price. I'm not sure how they're doing that. So that's kind of a world I've avoided. Just I like my little Google Flights ecosystem.

They direct me right to the airline. It's simple. I feel confident in it. I don't feel confident to the other stuff. Yeah. So sometimes it may not be worth it to save that extra couple hundred dollars or hundred dollars going through that third party because I mean, everyone's probably had an experience of traveling and something goes wrong. You are kind of hooped. And wouldn't you rather be able to just

directly talk to the airline to be like, I need to rebook a flight because I missed it or whatever? I agree. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Going more into the kind of point space, I know what I really liked about your content is you talk about all the different programs and, you know, the top three are like AirMiles, Avion, and Aeroplan. Are there any others that I'm missing? Or are those kind of the main ones? I mean, there's lots. Like there's C++.

What else is out there? Yeah, every major bank seems to have their point system or links to even two point systems. And all of them transfer to different places. Or some of them don't transfer. Some of them transfer to different place or some of them don't transfer some of them do transfer yeah it's great it is uh again like there's no there's no guidebook for it so it's uh you kind of have to wait in and decide what point system you want to commit to what are your kind of favorites because i know you do talk about amex a lot i know that one just from people i talk to and looking on forums as a very flexible program. Is that one of your top ones? Yeah. So for me personally, the main three I collect are Amex membership rewards. And then I

do collect Air Canada, Aeroplan and RBC Avion. Those are the three personally I collect. And the main reason is that I find you can get outsized value for how much points you actually have to spend. Meaning like you could use your, say, $600 worth of points, which would be about 60,000 for all of those. That's kind of what they would, 60,000 points equals $600. But you can definitely, if you know what you're doing, you know where to transfer them, and you know how to find the flight, you can book a $3,000 lie flat seat.

And I find that a lot more fun. It makes traveling the world a lot more accessible, a lot more comfortable. So that's just the real hook that got me all the way into the points rabbit hole. There are a ton of other programs where it's more direct, you know, your $100 will take $100 off any travel expense. Those are great too too and it's very simple that's the benefit like you kind of have to either play a more challenging but more rewarding game or a more simple but less rewarding game yeah it kind of depends on what you're looking for i know like for one credit card that i'll probably hold for a long time it's just the west jet card it's not the best i've done a lot of research and talked to people they're. It's not the best. I've done a lot of research and talked to people. They're like, it's not the best. However, what I do like about it is I go to Vancouver from

Toronto twice a year and I get that companion flight. And so that pays for that credit card, you know, every year it makes it worth it. But I don't, you know, one thing I'm like, I need to look for another. I think I'm probably going to look for an Amex for me and my husband's kind of joint spending for some of those, like the groceries and things like that. So we can accrue those points, kind of utilize them in a different way. And I think that's one thing that you kind of talk often about is it's not about just like having, you know, sticking with one program. It's like diversify, right? Because you can use them for so many different things. I'm curious because you do talk often about different credit cards. You've got

your favorites. What are some credit cards people should pay attention to depending on, you know, if you want to spend money in this way, like groceries or dining out or gas, these are some ones to kind of look out for. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the one that always jumps out, the one that I recommend most to family and friends is the Amex Cobalt card. It's kind of one of Amex's intermediary options. And I totally understand as a Canadian for the longest time, I was like, why would I own an Amex? It's not taken everywhere. I don't see the benefit. MasterCard, Visa, very simple MasterCard, use at Costco. These are all thoughts that I had. And I think probably we've all had. And it took me kind of doing the actual work and looking and seeing, okay, I get this many points for this kind of spend.

This is actually a much better value proposition for me, especially considering I want to use my points to travel. So I like the Amex Cobalt specifically because it earns five times membership rewards points on food. So that's groceries, that's food delivery, and that's restaurants. Of course, not every grocery store takes Aex that is a factor so you have actually kind of changed my spending habits even where i now choose to stop at a grocery store that takes amex just because i'm if there's a spectrum of people who are crazy about points and not crazy i'm all the way crazy about points um and you don't have to go that far but even for restaurant spending it's great. The five times points is really, it is genuinely like 5% cash back as you can redeem it as a statement credit.

But as we've kind of established and been alluding to, Amex membership rewards are flexible. So I've transferred them to Air Canada Aeroplan. I've transferred them to British Airways Avios. I've transferred them to Air France KLM Flying Blue. And I booked really expensive seats just off my food spend, my

grocery spend. So that's the one I recommend the most just because it's kind of an outsized value versus any of the other card competitors. Yeah. And no matter who you are, I mean, I've seen so many people's budgets over the years. Besides rent and mortgage and that kind of stuff, food is where we spend our money. No matter what, number one, we're spending our money on food. And so if we can get something out of it, that's helpful. And one thing you also talk about often is, and this is something, again, I've heard, you know, talking to those other experts on Air Miles and Aeroplan is if you really want to optimize or get the most out of your points, it's really looking for those, like the business class,

those kind of upgraded travel experiences. You don't want to use your, you're kind of wasting your points if you're just flying coach, even though, I mean, there's definitely a space for that. But if you really want to get what your money is worth, the value in terms of points to those kind of bookings is, and you mentioned like the lie flat. That's the dream. I've never done that before. I'm sure you've done it a few times. I saw a photo of you like going somewhere. I'm like, that's the dream. I just want to lie flat and sleep on a really long flight. It really is great. Yeah. You're going to dial in your points because you can do it. I know. Yeah. No, that's, it's the plan. I, you know, I'm still hoarding my points,

but I definitely have some plans for 2025 to finally utilize them and see where, where it makes the most sense. I'm definitely gonna be watching your your page for some of those deals. But you know, what are some, you know, things that you do to make sure that you're like, okay, this is this is the flight I'm gonna book and I'm gonna get that really nice. And is it like, making sure it's a long flight instead of wasting it on like a three hour flight or something like that? Yeah, I mean, that's how I look at it personally for sure is the points are a way to unlock travel that I personally wouldn't spend in cash. Yeah, I wouldn't spend that money.

I just wouldn't. It's not a good value proposition for me at this point, even though I absolutely love to travel and I try and make it a priority, but I'm not spending $8,000 round trip to fly live flat when I could spend 600 for an economy seat. It just doesn't make sense. But the value proposition does shift when you're using points. And this is one thing that was never explained or like people just don't really understand, which I understand. It's kind of a secret thing. You have to stumble into it. But the reality is a lot of these programs will price points, complete points, seats completely different than their cash seats. And I don't know who came up with this pricing scheme. It's great for the people like me and soon to be you who are obsessive about how to redeem your

points. But yeah, so when you're flying long haul, you know, in cash, let's just say Toronto to London, because it's a very popular flight. In cash, you're probably going to spend 1000 bucks round trip and economy. And because it's a super business heavy route, you probably are going to spend 8000 round trip to fly live flat, just Toronto to London. But if you can find points availability, it's a completely different calculation. It's, you know, let's say six, what is it usually? I use one, I only book one ways on points, just it adds more flexibility. So I think in one ways, but it's 350, say points to fly Toronto to London in an economy, but it's only 60,000 points to fly

Toronto to London in business class. So it's less than half. Whereas the calculation when you're doing cash, it's eight times more expensive. Whereas for the business class, you know, it's less than a half or it's less than twice the price. So that kind of math just like makes it more attractive to fly long haul. The other thing that, you know, I mean, I want to emphasize is that it is sometimes challenging to find those points deals. So you'll see me, you'll see other influencers were like, oh, look, I got this amazing deal. But the challenging side of it is like, you can't just do that every day. You're definitely not going to be able to do that on Christmas.

You do have to be flexible. That's one thing that really helps when trying to book an award flight is flexible on dates, either book really far out or really close to your departure. Those are kind of general rules that will help you find good seats in points, but it is, I don't know, I could rant on. Yeah, no, that was another question I had is when you're using points, what makes the most sense to plan super far in advance and how far in advance does that, are we talking and, or is it really just about, cause you'll hear all the times those last minute things. I've never been able to book a last minute trip. It just, it's very hard to, you know, organize your life around. Let's leave the next weekend. It's not going to happen.

So I'm curious, have you, have you, and have you done both? Have you done, I booked it like a year in advance or I went last weekend. Yes, I have done both. And honestly, that's kind of the best. Those are the best two ways to do it. It's the middle ground, which unfortunately is where most people want to plan. Yeah. Um, so like, and it is also like a flexibility of destination thing too. So my partner and I, we had built up a bunch of arrow plan points over a couple of years. And I'm always now, especially as this is kind of my full-time thing, I'm watching the points availability and I just saw randomly, Oh, you could get live flat seats, Vancouver to Hong Kong in like three weeks.

It was 75,000 points plus 150 bucks or something like that one way. Um, so those seats are definitely usually $5,000 plus, uh, plus, plus, because going to Asia is even more expensive than Europe. Uh, and we were like, Oh, okay. We actually kind of wanted to go to Japan for it, but we were like, Oh, you know, Hong Kong looks cool. It's available. We're going. And we had the best time, really loved Hong Kong. So it is, it does help to be flexible on your destination and your date. Uh, or like, you know, I booked a trip for, I booked it in April and I booked it for March of 2025. So you book it 11 months out. That's another good way. A lot of these carriers will release their award seats kind of between 330 and 360 days out. So it's one of the most reliable

times if you know you want to go somewhere in a year, which I get is sometimes hard to know. But if you have an inclination, you can book it. A lot of the times on points, there's much more reasonable cancellation fees than in cash as well. Like, I think the ones that I booked were on Qatar Airways. And I think the cancellation fee is about $100 each. So it would be annoying to cancel. But if we have to change our plans, it's not the end of the world. It's not like you're losing all your points or money. Yeah, that would be hard. You mentioned you book mainly one-way flights, which is so interesting. I don't think I've ever booked a one-way flight. I've always just done round trip for whatever reason. What's your reasoning behind that? Is it more expensive to do round trip because of

the convenience factor? Yeah. I mean, I I booked one ways for pretty much everything now. And there's a few reasons. One is that like airlines used to price discounted. Um, they used to discount your price when you book a round trip. That's not really the case anymore. Um, like if you check, I always check. Um, and just booking two one ways kind of makes it more flexible in a lot of ways. If you have to cancel one leg, I'm kind of often doing weird travel where it's not like, you know, I go Winnipeg to Toronto and back though. I do sometimes do that. Sometimes I'm like booking a zigzag pattern, going a whole bunch of places. So booking one ways keeps it everything a little bit separate. So if one thing goes wrong,

or if I have to cancel one thing, it doesn't mess up the whole itinerary. But there is also significant savings, especially on the points side. I only book one ways on points as a lot of these programs now use what's called dynamic pricing. So this means that, you know, the, it means what it sounds like the, the, the rate is dynamic. It goes up, it goes down. And when you merge two flight, so say you find one at the lowest dynamic rate and you will find one at the middle dynamic rate and you want to merge them together. Oftentimes it kind of ruins the value of the low dynamic one, or it's kind of pushes it up. So they're both expensive. So booking two separate one ways, both like, make sure I get the lowest rate at this one, you know, the first one, whatever. And then it allows you to either book on a different program, book a cash flight back, it just increases flexibility. And there's no cost. Usually

it's the same price, or less. So that's what I do. That's something that I need to do now. Like, honestly, that's, I've never heard that tip before. So that's actually really helpful. Um, so thanks for that. I'm going to keep that in my back pocket. Um, I'm also curious cause you, you do travel so much. Do you have some favorite airlines? I honestly, I can't say that I've really flown, but many airlines besides WestJet, Air Canada, American. And I think that's like it. Like, I think that's just, and that's just how it happens. What are some other great airlines that you've experienced that you're like, this is worth the money. This is worth using your points

for. Yeah. I mean, I think we in North America are kind of in a bubble where our airlines get us from A to B, but as we all kind of feel now, they're not very nice to us. There, you know, there's no service. There's no, there's not no service, but you know, it's a kind of 10 years ago or 15 years ago. Remember when they give you blankets and pillows? Those were the days. If you to asia or the middle east the carriers are still at least some of the carriers are quite luxurious quite service focused uh so i recently flew on both cathay pacific and singapore airlines business class while i was over in asia and it really is a pretty incredible experience. They just go a lot harder in everything, the service, the food. Air Canada and WestJet do have very nice products, especially in business

class. So they are doing well. It's just they kind of take it to a next level. You know, they serve you your food on multiple different plates, which is kind of like, honestly, unnecessary for me. If I'm in a lie flat seat in the sky it's like this is already an incredible experience like the champagne and even fancier food kind of just like puts it over the top for me anyway but yeah we did uh we flew around the world in business class on points which is a really cool experience that we got to try a bunch of different carriers so yeah kathay pacific singapore we flew oman air which was also really spectacular they just do it a bit bigger and especially i think it's it's more of a tourist friendly or hospitality focused culture in a lot of those uh airlines and countries uh whereas we're kind of racing to the bottom in North America, which

yeah, especially like, honestly, I've had like, I I've had some, you know, meh, you know, on like WestJet Air Canada is the American airlines. I've sometimes had some terrible, you're like, oh my God. I mean, to be fair, some of them, the worst one was Spirit. I mean, I know that's a joke for everyone, but that was the first time I've ever did Spirit. And I, it was a very short flight, but I'm like, this is a, this is an experience. i feel like i'm on a bus you know yeah it really is frustrating i mean i understand that that's their business model i recently flew flare after not flying them for quite a while yeah flare yeah and was just reminded like how how poorly they treat you just even i had a last minute flight i wanted to take and flare to credit

to them they had a way cheaper price than air canada or west jet so i was like eh you know it's a two and a half hour flight to vancouver yeah whatever i'm just gonna do it but you know they give you you can bring a personal item for free and i was like oh i bet i can get by with a personal item and to be fair to them they put the the size but when you go to check in they don't let you get your boarding pass until you put your bag in the sizer and it is an incredibly small bag i was like oh my bag will fit under the seat no problem i felt like i'm the travel guy but i'm admitting i got i got duped i my my carry-on that definitely fit under the seat was not big enough to be a personal item so i had to pay like an extra 70 to flare because it was like oh it's a last minute carry-on so that was really

annoying and it's just like i don't know it leaves a really bad taste in your mouth i always feel like if you embed those fees i'm much happier than having to pay those fees separately and so yeah that was the same experience i had with spirit it's like oh you want a carry-on that's an extra x you know, this one. And then you want water? That's extra. And you're like, I just want to like, I want something. Come on.

I don't like being nickel and dimed. Yeah, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That's for sure. You mentioned you traveled around the world. What do you mean by that? Like, where did you go? Was that like just one, like you went for a year and went everywhere? What would that look like?

Yeah, no, I didn't go for a year. It was only a three-week trip, but it was my 30th birthday. And it was kind of a, both an exercise in stretching points to their maximum amount possible and also having a great vacation. One of the things that I just like are possible on points, but are just not possible on cash is kind of linking together even longer chains of flights and Aeroplan specifically is a great program for this. So that's what I did. So basically, just not possible on cash is kind of linking together even longer chains of flights and aeroplane specifically is a great program for this so that's what i did so basically i used points instead of flying oh it's kind of i did a bunch of things that are all you know part of

air canada's program if you read their manual they're like yeah you can do this but what i did is instead of flying one business class flight from Toronto to Singapore, say I flew six. And that is the actually, if you can find the lowest dynamic availability, you can get them all for the exact same price as one flight. So this opens up some fun opportunities to really like stretch the value of your points. So instead of just flying, you could fly you could fly singapore to new york one flight uh but instead i went you know singapore to kuala lumpur to muscat had a stopover in muscat really enjoyed oman such friendly people not a place that's like super popular touristy and understandably because it's across the world and really hard to get to but another thing that kind

of points helps open up. So we had a stopover and Oman really enjoyed that and then continued on and went to Zurich and then Frankfurt and then Montreal and then Toronto. So this long journey that was, I don't know, probably about a week because we had the stopover in between. I think it cost 92,500 aero plan points so that's not much 7.5 plus the 5,000 for the stopover and that was all in business

class so we got to try Swiss Air's business class we got to try Singapore Airlines business class we got to try Oman Air business class so I don't I actually my premium newsletter, I did a whole breakdown on exactly how I booked it, exactly. How long did that take to organize yourself? Because that sounds like a lot of planning. It is a lot of planning. So this is where, again, as I talked about, you can have points that you can't redeem that much value, but they're simple. Or you can have points that take a lot of work, but you can get really crazy value. So it was a lot of work. When you book more than three flights on a single itinerary, you have to call the Aeroplan call center. You can't do it online because their systems can't handle it, understandably.

But even then, that's a bit of a like, they won't help you on the call center put this together. You have to come to them with your routes and you have to find the availability. So even when I was trying to book it, the first itinerary that we tried to put together in price didn't work because unfortunately, Air Canada's site has this thing called, well, at least what the internet has deemed phantom availability.

Basically, it'll show that there's business class seats available at the low price. But when you try and actually book it, they're not available. This isn't a huge issue, but it is a thing that's happening, which is really quite frustrating. I know they are working on it. But they are available, but they're not available. Are they saving those seats for somebody?

I don't know the genesis of what is causing that issue, but it happens a lot with specific carriers too like uh etihad's an aeroplane partner and a really valuable one at that because um it's a middle eastern carrier that has very fancy nice service and so i was i found a flight on our canada's website that said it was available to book and i called in and they were like oh yeah actually we've been having troubles you can't book etihad right now but yeah it does take a lot of work to go back to answering your question like piecing it together finding all the availability if i'm making it sound very easy and attractive but but it was kind of like weeks like weeks of work or months like what are we uh no well for me actually it's kind of like years of work on understanding

how yeah fair enough and then like and then like a day of like, okay, we're free at this time. I found the flight out to Hong Kong. So I mentioned that one that we flew. We did Vancouver, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Bangkok. That was on one itinerary on Aeroplan Points. And then I booked some separate cash flights to get from Bangkok down to Singapore and, you know, spend time in Southeast Asia which was excellent again similar to the airlines the hotels there even though some of them like we stayed at a lot of

Marriott properties which is obviously an American brand but the service level in Southeast Asia is at a different level it's just incredible and the cost too I couldn't believe how cheap you know like you go to Toronto or Vancouver you're if you want to stay at a relatively nice hotel you are shelling out hundreds and hundreds of dollars a night whereas you can stay at a five-star luxury hotel in bangkok for like 150 a night even less that's wild and it's like the nicest hotels i've ever stayed at it's crazy it's crazy so uh yeah. So again, points kind of have helped unlock the ability to travel further and more comfortably. Uh, so yeah, I, I'm obsessed with both talking about it, helping people do it. I'm glad you are. I'm curious to what,

how important are lounges? Cause that's another kind of component of like the travel hacking is lounges. I was, I had a, it was a call outside of the episode I did with the editor of Prince of Travel. And he's like, Oh, one little tip is the Chicago airport has a really great lounge. So if you can do a stop over there, you want to,

you want to do that. I'm like, that's so random. Maybe is, is our lounge is part of your, your, when you're making a plan for your trips or is it like i don't really care for me it is again i'm a travel nut so i'm not advocating this

for everyone but i will absolutely i love the lounge i'll be honest it really does like change the the experience when you it does when you haven't done lounges for so long and then you get access you're like i can never go back. Well, you're absolutely right. I can never go back. No. As we've established, carriers in North America are pretty unreliable. I could check my flighty account that tracks my flights, but I think 80% of my flights have been delayed at least 15 minutes. So that's a pretty bad ratio. So, but it really softens the blow. If you are at a nice lounge in a comfy seat, you have unlimited food and drink.

It's like, oh, you can get some work done or you can relax. It's a little less chaotic. So yeah, I will absolutely plan trips, not maybe long trips, but shorter trips. Like we're going down to Orlando for a bit and there are directs from Winnipeg, but I caught a pretty good layover in Atlanta and Atlanta just built a really new state of the art centurion lounge. So I was like, Oh, we could stop in Atlanta, check out the new lounge, uh, you know, enjoy some nice food and drink and then continue on.

Vacation. Yeah, exactly. exactly so for me it's a big piece especially well both some of the premium credit cards give you unlimited access which is really great and then also with the points and accessing business class that includes lounges too so like in Hong Kong we went to Cathay Pacific's flagship lounges and those are the nicest lounges I've ever been to yeah really insane like made to order noodle bar gigantic spaces with runway views champagne like really kind of ridiculous stuff no I haven't experienced that myself I've really just done like the premium plaza whatever it is it's like you know the Toronto airport you're like this is nice I guess. You'll find me most at the Plaza Premium Winnipeg Lounge. So that's not a Cathay

Pacific's Hong Kong lounge. I don't do that everyday thing, but it's better than nothing at the Plaza Premium Lounge for sure. It's something, but yeah, you just, you kind of mentioned, cause I feel like a lot of people don't know how to access and I think things have shifted a lot, but before it was, I felt like very difficult to get access to lounges. And I feel like COVID out of that, they changed things. And now it's fairly accessible, good and bad. Sometimes you go to a lounge, you're like, it is busy in here. Or there's kids running around. You're like, I thought I would have a nice relaxing place to hang of mentioned a few different credit cards and points. If someone has never done a lounge and they want to make sure they get access on their next trip, what should they look out for? What should they do? If you were looking for an entry to airport lounges, I would look at a travel credit card, especially if you don't have one. There's a lot of base, or not base, but kind of mid-level cards in the $100 to $150 annual fee range that will give you

airport lounge access passes, which is a great way to try it out and see if you like it before committing to trying to burn all your points to get it or to spend a lot on a credit card to get it. You have to do the calculations if you're spending on a high-end card that gives you unlimited lounge access. But I just did a video about the CIBC Aventura Gold card, which gives you four airport lounge passes But I just did a video about the CIBC Aventura Gold card, which gives you four airport lounge passes. And it's a first year free card too. So it's kind of a nice, like you can get the card, you can get a bonus points. You also get a Nexus credit and you get four visa airport lounge passes, which will be accessible. You

can go on their website. It would cover you in most Canadian cities and most American cities. There'll be some lounge you can access. Are there any lounges that are the worst that you've ever been to? Or even airlines too? Are there ones you're like, stay away? This isn't, you know, you may, maybe people say it's great online. Not so much. Yeah. I mean, there's just been ones where it's like overrun with people, which just does happen, especially at busier airports. It is actually a very, or like, it's a nice space, but the Toronto Maple Leaf Lounge, I've only ever gone and it's only ever been completely packed with people. So it's like, you're kind of fighting for a spot. It's not super relaxing at times, but they actually in

Toronto, to be fair to them, they have the Air Canada Cafe downstairs, which you can also access if you have business class. And that I think is quite nice, a great concept. You can, they have all this like food that's grabbed to go. If you get a high-end card, like the American Express Platinum, you get a priority pass, which gives you access to a bunch of different lounges that are not associated with an airline, but are, you know, just the lounge in the airport. So the priority pass lounge in Phuket was an absolute gong show, just like every seat filled, basically no food, not great drinks. To be fair, that was the entire Phuket airport. I mean, that just sounds like Phuket. I've been to Phuket before. It was not my favorite place. So it's just so busy and touristy. I guess that's not a surprise.

Yeah, that was that was the airport in general. So to be fair, it matched the vibe of the airport. Um, but yeah, so there are sometimes bad ones or things where it's like, Oh, it's just a priority pass lounge. Like I wouldn't book a trip, especially to go to a priority pass lounge or something like that, but a new flagship American express entering lounge and be like, okay, I'm going to try and get there because I want to check it out. Now we're talking. What was the best trip that you have ever been on on points or the best trip that you got like the best deal on? Like you used the least amount of points to get to wherever your destination was. I was already alluding to it, but the best one was definitely the round the world trip. Just the value per point that we got. That was kind of a purposely trying

to extract so i think we used a hundred and what it was 87 no 92 plus 80 so 180 ish thousand points so it is a significant amount of points like that was accrued through a couple credit card bonuses and regular spend but to fly around the world in business class for uh you know that amount of points was really like do you know how much in dollars that would have cost you or an estimate it was it was like 10 20 grand it was closer to 20 grand for sure wow Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So that was like a definite pushing of the limit where, um, or yeah, you're just getting a kind of an insane value. I've have booked some other really good ones. There's, there's sometimes some like kind of sneaky, really good, um, business class flights that you can get. I booked recently one. It's not directly to Canada, but it was from Madrid to New York JFK. And then I booked with 34,000 Avios points, which I used,

I transferred my Canadian American Express points. So it was 34,000 American Express points transferred to British Airways Avios. And then you can book the lie flat seat for 34,000 points. And I think again, like 200 in fees. So you're looking at a total theoretical cost of like 500 bucks for a one-way lie flat. Um, yeah. And like a lot of the American Express cards, their welcome bonuses, like, yeah, they're huge. You can get 80,000 points. So you could fly round trip, Madrid to New York, New York to Madrid or other American cities that's on Iberia. So it's not quite the tier, like the Asian carriers we were talking about, but still a nice product, a nice business class. You can sleep on the flight and you could get that. If you can find

the dates, which again, we've, we've established that's a bit of the, you've got to plan ahead or plan last minute or get lucky in the middle. But yeah, it's very accessible. So that's a program that I really like. British Airways, obviously, has a few really good sweet spots, even better than Aeroplan or anyone else. How often, you know, the easiest way, quite honestly, to get those points is those welcome bonuses. That is how I've gotten the majority of my points, quite honestly. And there's some really great ones. And sometimes I just, you know, look online, look at the forum, see what's going on. But there's definitely a limit. I've definitely, I feel like hit a limit with Amex. They're not super happy

with me because I think I've gotten too many and canceled a few. But for you, like, what is your strategy for like, you know, maybe, maybe not churning isn't the right term anymore, but making sure that you are, you know, getting those welcome bonuses. How often do you sign up for credit cards? Do you ever close them or do you just keep them open? And I know there's rules against like if you've already signed up for that card, got that bonus. And even if you waited a few years, you can't reapply and get the same welcome bonus again. I'm pretty reserved on my credit card applying and canceling, at least for someone who's points obsessed.

I know there's people who max out trying to get as many credit cards as possible, as many points as possible. I would say I apply for a new card every six months, say maybe every four, depending on if there's like a welcome bonus that's attractive or a specific program that I want to start getting

more points with and then I usually am canceling cards um two I think it's important to weigh the annual fee versus the point you're getting that's always the thing you're like oh I don't want to pay that fee that's a high fee oftentimes the math definitely makes sense when you're getting a welcome bonus of points and you're collecting a lot but once you're not getting a bunch of points for the welcome bonus and if you're not using the perks or the points you're accruing on the card then the math really doesn't make any sense so i'm pretty stringent to try to cancel at about a year for the cards where i'm like okay this provided me value but reviewing on year two it it's not, I have a spreadsheet where I, you know, track all the cards I have. I think I have about six active right now, which some people

are probably like, oh, that's a lot. Whereas no, I think I probably have about six. Okay. Yeah. Some people I know have like 20 plus and it's like, for me, it's like, that's a lot. I don't know if I could keep track of all of those. That'd be kind of, I'd forget, I'd put something on one and totally forget. That scares me. Yeah, me too. So that's the way I do it. There's also other ways that I've kind of gotten more interested in accruing points.

So as you said, like it is hard to earn on spend, but it is something, especially if you own a business, that's how I kind of got into it. And you're putting a lot of business spend on a card. I've actually had so many business owners reach out and I help them with finding flights because obviously they're running a business that has a lot of spend, but they don't have time to dive into these details, which doesn't make sense to another thing that I've gotten really into over the last, I would say eight months is buying points, which I do not recommend people.

Not many people talk about that and you're, you're like you're like, no, it can be a really good idea. It can be. You need to understand the risks. In my premium newsletter, I've done full deep dives on all the risks, all the rewards. But the long and short of it is I would only buy points if I kind of have an ideal redemption that I've already scoped out. I know, okay, I can buy a real plans points right now. They're recently, not currently, but they just had a bonus of 125% when you bought points. So I actually did top up. I know I'm going to be able to redeem these for lie flat seats to far places that I would never pay cash

for. And like, it is possible to get really nice redemption values, but it isn't, you know, it isn't something to invest in. It isn't something to, it's always possible that airlines devalue the points change how many seats are available. There's so many, not, well, they are risks, frankly. It's like, you kind of want to go into it eyes wide open, know what you're doing, and know that like, you might not be able to find the perfect flight for the points you bought, unless you've already done that actively and

are ready to redeem right away. So you're kind of in the mindset, this is kind of what I've heard from others is the idea of like the earning the points and burning those points. Because like you said, even if they don't devalue the points, the flights will get more expensive because of inflation. So your points are not going to change. They're going to stay the same. So you want to make sure that you are always making a plan to use those points relatively in the near future, right? Yes, that's definitely my recommendation and what I practice myself too. Like I try and keep low points balances. Often what I've done, which I've kind of alluded to too. Like I try and keep low points balances. Often what I've done, which I've kind of alluded to too,

is I will just like book a flight. I'm not even sure I'm going to take yet. And, you know, if I have to pay the cancellation fee, so be it. But it's kind of like, it's on the books. You know, makes me motivated to work hard and then like get myself on another trip um and it's just kind of a little carrot uh and then it also you know saves you from hoarding too many points but you obviously have to have the ability to travel which I realize you know yeah if you have a nine to five and you know only this amount of days and I know sometimes it can be very difficult to try to get the days you want.

I've been there. It can be difficult. But yeah, one thing I've been thinking too is just life gets busy and it goes by fast and you have these plans to go on a trip. And then five years later, you still haven't gone on that trip. So sometimes it is about book the flight, go on the trip and make it happen because you'll never regret. I've never regretted going on the trip and make it happen because you'll never regret i've never regretted going on trip even ones where there was like some sort of you know yeah we missed her flight or something you know some kind of i'm sorry some kind of catastrophe uh happened uh you know there's always good memories like what like i still have beautiful memories of going to

paris with my husband it was during the paris floods of like 2016 so you know a lot of these museums were flooded out it rained the whole time my husband was sick then he got me sick all these things went wrong still an amazing trip right it's all about the experience and and uh you know doing it now because if you wait too much into the future it just you might not do it and then you'll regret it and yeah we don't want to do that live your life exactly well it was so great having you on this show before i let you go you mentioned um your newsletter what a great resource um you know i guess one tip you probably also have just to stay in the loop with lots of these airlines is to sign up to their newsletters that's probably

how you find out oh they have a deal on point so that's probably one tip but also signing up for your um different newsletters you want to kind of share a little bit more about that, how people can find how to sign up? Yeah, for sure. If you're interested, thecanadianjetsetter.com. I have an email capture right on the homepage for my email newsletter. I have a free newsletter where I just cover cash deals, travel deals from all major Canadian cities. It usually comes out about once a week, sometimes more.

I just sent out an emergency email today as there was some great deals to New Zealand and South Korea. I was like, okay, I'm going to get those out immediately. And then I have a premium section as well, which kind of helps support me as a independent creator. And I think it provides a ton of value too. There I'm finding specific points redemption deals. So I'm watching, you know, similar to the one I mentioned where I flew Vancouver to Hong Kong on points. That was one I actually featured in the newsletter. And I just booked it myself too, because I was like, oh, this is a great deal. I also do cash deals. If you're not just into points, I do business

class cash deals. That's another area where if you are a frequent flyer or someone who has a little bit more money to spend on travel, you can actually earn pretty meaningful points, loyalty points for whoever's airline program if you're flying in the higher tiers. But obviously, there's more cash to spend. So I kind of have two options. And I have Yeah, usually two to three emails a week. And people can hit me up and ask questions through the email too. Amazing. And of course you've got your Instagram.

Where else is there any other kind of resources that you've got online that you want people to know about? Yeah. Instagram and TikTok are both very robust. I'm posting almost daily. Check me out on YouTube too, if you're interested. I'm just about to start my, I've hired an editor. The editing process is going much,

going to be much more consistent and faster now. So tomorrow I'm dropping my first of what should be a regular once weekly video. So excited about that. And then I will eventually be having some kind of Graham's point handbook offering that is not ready yet, but it's going to be coming kind of summar's point handbook offering that is not ready yet, but it's going to be coming kind of summarized my thoughts. All my thoughts are really on the internet. So if you scroll through my videos, you know, you can find them, but I'm trying to work on a resource.

Something condensed one stop shop guide. Exactly. So that should be hopefully out in the next month or two. I'm just working on updating my website and making everything. But yeah, exciting times. Very exciting times and so much great information. Thank you so much for sharing it, Graham. It was a pleasure having you on. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for having me. No, I had lots of fun. And that was my episode with Graham Bly, the Canadian Jet Setter. Make sure to check him out at thecanadianjetsetter.com. Also make sure to give him a follow on Instagram. He is simply just at the Canadian jet setter and also his YouTube

channel. Make sure to subscribe to that, which is very easy to do if you're already watching this podcast on my YouTube channel. So check that out. He's also on TikTok, the Canadian jet setter. So I'm going to include all of this in the, you this in the show notes, the description, wherever you're at. If you ever want to find more information about a podcast episode, it does live on my website forever. So just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast. Or if you know the episode number, which should be in the title wherever you're listening or watching to the episode, just go to jessicamoorehouse.com slash the number of that episode. But you can also easily search for guests by name or even topic on my website, jessicamoorehouse.com

slash podcast. So make sure to give Graham a look, a subscribe, a like, a follow, and also check out his different newsletters. He has one that's free, one that is more premium and paid, and he is a content creator like me. So, you know, support a fellow local Canadian content creator who's just trying to help you, you know, get some deals and who doesn't like some deals. So, so there you go. Thank you so much for watching, listening. Make sure to share this with a friend or give it a like, a follow, give it a review, only if it's a nice review. I don't like nasty ones because I have a heart. But I appreciate you listening

and I will see you back here next Wednesday with a fresh new episode of the More Money Podcast. The More Money Podcast would not be possible without the amazing talents of video editor, Justice Carrar and podcast producer, Matt Rideout, who you can find at mravcanada.com. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.