Unlocking Travel Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Leigh Rowan

00:00:00.000 | for maybe like 2x the cost of economy, it's not, you know, even as expensive as first-class

00:00:07.280 | domestically, you can fly JSX. They fly, you would know better than me, what types of planes.

00:00:12.320 | Yeah, they're ERJs. They're little regional jets made by Embraer. They're 30 seats.

00:00:16.480 | That is an exceptional experience. And for the dollar value of that, it's great. You don't have

00:00:20.720 | to worry about, you know, being in a crowded terminal, getting there an hour and a half early,

00:00:24.560 | all that nonsense.

00:00:25.520 | You don't get the plane to yourself. The plane leaves when it wants to leave.

00:00:28.560 | It's still on a schedule. But if you want to experience what it's like to go to the FBO

00:00:33.680 | terminal, to get on, to walk off the plane, and you just want to do that for, I'd say,

00:00:38.400 | probably 2x the cost of a normal economy flight.

00:00:40.800 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life,

00:00:45.920 | money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I am excited to have none other than Lee Rowan here

00:00:51.360 | for another episode. Now, for those of you who don't know, Lee was my first guest on the podcast,

00:00:57.120 | and he is one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to travel hacking,

00:01:01.280 | and really all things travel. He currently runs a high-end travel company called Savanti,

00:01:06.640 | where he's helped clients plan incredible trips to every corner of the world.

00:01:11.360 | He's also a travel hacker himself, and before Savanti, he was the COO of The Points Guy.

00:01:17.680 | So why bring Lee back again? Well, if you listened to Episode 1,

00:01:22.160 | you wouldn't even doubt that decision. But this time, Lee is going to give us a glimpse

00:01:26.720 | into the travel lifestyles of the rich and famous. Think private jets, luxury villas,

00:01:32.160 | and everything else. But we're also going to talk about how you could hack some of these

00:01:37.840 | luxuries into your own life for a whole lot less. This is a really fun episode

00:01:43.200 | with some great hacks, so I hope you enjoy it. Let's jump in.

00:01:52.960 | Lee, thank you for being here again. First, second-time guest.

00:01:57.600 | I am incredibly honored to be here again. I'm incredibly honored to be back here after you've

00:02:02.080 | already had a million downloads, 50-plus episodes. You've interviewed Olympians,

00:02:07.200 | New York Times bestsellers, and somehow I'm here.

00:02:09.840 | Thank you.

00:02:11.760 | First person to have on second, your episode has done the best of all time, I think in part

00:02:16.720 | from Tim Ferriss's comparison to you and Hugh Jackman. He put you on a pretty high pedestal.

00:02:21.120 | That was incredibly humbling. My wife is still trying to get me off that pedestal,

00:02:24.560 | but it's great to be up there.

00:02:26.160 | Well, I got an email, and it made me think, "I think we should get Lee back here." So I'm going

00:02:31.040 | to read it. So Alberto sent an email in and said, "Hey, Chris, love your podcast, and I'd love to

00:02:36.480 | hear more about ultra high-end travel experiences. Even though not every listener can benefit from

00:02:42.080 | them, certainly many aspire to them, and all of them likely enjoy hearing about these possibilities.

00:02:47.920 | So to me, that's what options do people have to fly private? How does that compare to first class?

00:02:53.120 | What premium programs aren't advertised that airlines and hotels offer?

00:02:56.800 | What kinds of experiences can a great concierge cover, etc.?

00:03:00.080 | So I can't think of anyone who knows that space better than you. You already heard in the intro,

00:03:05.360 | but this is what Lee does. He plans these experiences. So I thought that would be

00:03:09.200 | a fun conversation to have and worth having you back on again.

00:03:13.600 | Awesome. Well, thank you. I mean, we can definitely dive into the travel lifestyles

00:03:16.960 | of the rich and famous, but I will caveat it by saying a couple of things. Number one is that

00:03:22.000 | not all of these experiences are off limits to the not rich and famous. I myself don't think that I

00:03:28.800 | can afford necessarily a private jet, but I've been lucky enough to fly private once or twice,

00:03:33.120 | or have these incredible concierge experiences at hotels where if you just know the right angle,

00:03:38.640 | then you can really up your travel game, your travel experiences.

00:03:41.760 | So definitely happy to talk about what people pay for, and maybe some other great area where

00:03:46.480 | you can kind of hack your way in. Perfect. The big question out there,

00:03:50.080 | something that I've never booked a private jet. I've had the luxury of being invited to go on a

00:03:54.960 | flight from LA to San Francisco once. It was quite the nice experience. What does private

00:04:00.400 | jet travel look like? Is it incredibly expensive? Just kind of like set the standard for people on

00:04:05.920 | what is the experience and how much does it cost? You know, if you had asked me this in our first

00:04:09.840 | meeting almost a year ago, where we recorded the first podcast, I would have said, you know,

00:04:13.680 | private aviation is booming. And I would have thought that we were at the very,

00:04:17.600 | very peak of the market. Like the stock market, private aviation's market has gone even higher

00:04:23.200 | since then. So right now private is very expensive and it's exclusive, right? You have your own jet

00:04:29.280 | to yourself, unless you're lucky enough to be invited on somebody else's jet for a short hop

00:04:33.680 | somewhere. But because of that, and because of gas prices and just the demand on the market,

00:04:38.800 | it is incredibly expensive. But the question is, how do you go about finding A, a jet,

00:04:43.920 | B, a deal on a jet? And there are ways of doing that. So there are search engines that are out

00:04:49.600 | there for jets. Some people call up an operator and they say, "Oh, I'd like to charter a light

00:04:55.200 | jet or a midsize jet or a heavy jet, or one of those big business jets, because I've got to take

00:05:01.120 | X amount of people from San Francisco to New York." And then they get back to these quotes that are

00:05:07.440 | exceptional. It used to be you could take a super midsize jet nonstop across the country and it

00:05:13.040 | would be something like 25 or 30 grand one way. And super midsize, how many people?

00:05:17.360 | Yeah, about nine people, give or take, right? Depends on the jet and the configuration,

00:05:20.800 | the seating. Is there a lavatory seat, which is literally like somebody has to actually sit

00:05:25.440 | on top of a closed lavatory for takeoff and landing. What does that look like?

00:05:29.520 | But generally nine people on a super mid, coast to coast. It used to be about 25 or 30 grand one

00:05:34.960 | way. And now you're seeing that push up by 40, 45, sometimes 50 grand just to get coast to coast

00:05:40.880 | on a private jet. So when I talked earlier about how the market is impacted and the prices have

00:05:45.840 | gone up, it's true, they've gone through the roof. But the dirty secret about private aviation is

00:05:50.560 | that not every flight is lined up with a buyer. For instance, let's say they're taking a jet from

00:05:57.200 | the Bay Area to the New York area. And now they got to get that jet from New York down to Florida

00:06:01.920 | for the next client. Well, it's going to fly empty. And so the way to fly private for cheap,

00:06:07.360 | not for free, but for cheap to hack it, is to find an empty leg that works for you.

00:06:12.080 | Now, operators of those private empty legs are savvy. And so they're not going to let it go for

00:06:17.520 | free or even really for that cheap. But instead of spending what would be 25, $30,000 on a one

00:06:23.680 | way flight, you might get it for five, seven, eight, 10. And if you think about it, the cost

00:06:29.600 | of a commercial first class seat might be $1,000 or more on that route. So now if you have an empty

00:06:37.040 | leg that you can buy and you can fill it with eight or nine people paying $1,000 each, well,

00:06:42.000 | hey, you just paid for your empty leg. So if you get very lucky, you know how to play the market,

00:06:47.520 | find the right sort of buys, and you can see those empty legs and fill them with people that you

00:06:53.360 | might know, then you can end up flying private for pretty cheap. Where does that end up happening?

00:06:58.000 | On the busiest routes you'd suspect, right? I got to get a jet from the Bay Area down to LA

00:07:02.240 | so we can fly. It's going to go empty. We try to fill it up. It's always last minute,

00:07:07.200 | 72 hours or less out. And sometimes you can get lucky and get a deal.

00:07:11.280 | And is there a place online to look for these deals?

00:07:13.920 | Oh, boy, there's a bunch. And we'll put some resources online later to show people where to

00:07:20.240 | look. It's definitely a rabbit hole you got to go down and educate yourself on. But there are some

00:07:25.360 | empty leg listings online. There are some operators that publish them online on a weekly or biweekly

00:07:30.960 | basis. There are some of these membership groups that you can be a part of and you can pay to get

00:07:36.000 | access to empty legs. They're just marketing a collection of lists that they've culled together.

00:07:41.440 | But generally speaking, if you invest time and energy into learning a lot about how the market

00:07:47.280 | works and where to find these lists, you might be able to find yourself one or two deals a year that

00:07:51.440 | you could work on. But at the end of the day, the deals we're talking about are flying private

00:07:57.840 | at the cost of commercial first class if you can fill the plane.

00:08:02.800 | If you can fill the plane. It's all conditional.

00:08:04.480 | It's never going to be, "I want to go to LA. Can I get an empty leg for 200 bucks?"

00:08:09.760 | Or, "Can I get a seat on a G450 that has to reposition?" That just won't happen, right?

00:08:15.120 | So I think that's a really good example here, Chris. You have to expectation set, right? You're

00:08:20.480 | not going to just fly private by using your points from your Chase Sapphire Preferred and

00:08:25.120 | looking on a search engine online and it happens, right? It's a very calculated process that you

00:08:30.240 | have to get very lucky with a lot of stars lining to have happen. And if you can do it, great. It's

00:08:35.280 | an incredible experience. Is it the best and I'll be all of flying? No, but it's pretty great if you

00:08:42.400 | can do it. Just to kind of benchmark, you gave a couple examples. Is there something that's like,

00:08:46.800 | roughly, for the most common type of plane, dollars per hour? So if someone listening is

00:08:51.680 | just thinking like, "What would it cost to fly to Cabo for the weekend or somewhere?"

00:08:56.240 | Is there a benchmark? There used to be. And it used to be based on plane size. You can get an

00:09:02.720 | approximate hourly rate, but there are so many variables to consider that it's so hard to say

00:09:08.080 | this is the ballpark cost, especially given A, aviation fuel prices lately and B, the impacting

00:09:15.120 | of the market of how much demand there is for private. It's just insane. So I wish I could say

00:09:20.160 | to you, "Oh, a heavy jet should be $10,000 an hour." That would be great. Sometimes you can

00:09:24.720 | get a heavy jet for $8,000 an hour and sometimes more often than not, it's $16,000 an hour.

00:09:29.600 | So you just really can't ballpark it. Well, I mean, you just did. $8,000 to $16,000 an hour.

00:09:34.960 | Heavy jet seats? Up to $14,000 to $15,000 depending on the jet and depending on where you're going,

00:09:41.680 | right? Because you can't fly 14 people from LA to Europe nonstop. But you could maybe if

00:09:48.400 | you did it with eight. Okay. The kinds of experiences that you see people having,

00:09:52.960 | people that are taking their family of four people on a private jet, it's probably a smaller plane.

00:09:58.480 | Is that closer? I know you can't ballpark, but like $5,000 an hour? How wide is the swing?

00:10:04.080 | That's the benchmark I've always been told is if you want a small plane, but it's not a prop plane,

00:10:09.440 | it's a jet, it's like $5,000 an hour. So New York, $30,000. Now I know you said, "Ah, things

00:10:15.280 | have gone up. Maybe it's $15,000, $20,000, maybe it's $6,000 an hour or something like that." But

00:10:19.280 | is that in the ballpark? It could be in the ballpark. And again, it depends on the jet itself,

00:10:24.000 | where you're going to and from. Honestly, flying west to east is a lot easier because you've got

00:10:29.200 | tailwinds and a jet can go a little further. But flying east to west and with a heavier load and a

00:10:34.240 | full load of people in the plane, it ends up being a lot more expensive, a lot longer time in that

00:10:40.400 | plane. The other piece to keep in mind, too, is what is that plane doing while you're there? Are

00:10:45.280 | you going a one-way or are you doing a round trip? If the plane is sitting and waiting for you,

00:10:49.440 | you're paying that operator to literally just have it sit there, empty, underutilized, doing

00:10:53.840 | nothing. If that plane is moving around and then popping back to pick you up later on, well, then

00:10:58.480 | maybe the operator can make some money on those other legs. But if they're based out in California

00:11:03.040 | and you're flying them to New York, you better hope that they can get some business along the

00:11:06.080 | east coast by the time that they've got a return. Otherwise, you're just paying for that dead time.

00:11:10.320 | When you cross borders, it's a whole different ball of wax. There's this thing called cabotage

00:11:14.880 | that I love to talk about because it's so confusing and it's like an 1860s maritime law.

00:11:19.280 | But it basically says anytime you cross a border on one type of vessel, you have to cross that

00:11:23.040 | same border on the same type of vessel coming back. And it's very confusing. But long story

00:11:28.080 | short, you can't fly down on one kind of private jet and come back on a different kind of private

00:11:32.080 | jet into and out of Mexico or Canada because the operator either won't take your business or the

00:11:38.160 | authorities there might get upset with you and charge you fines and a whole bunch of other stuff.

00:11:42.000 | So is a lot of private travel done domestically and internationally? It just is too far distance,

00:11:49.360 | so it ends up being too expensive? Are these rules? Or what's kind of the

00:11:52.080 | most common use case for private travel?

00:11:54.800 | It honestly depends on the consumer. It depends on what that client needs and what they're trying to

00:11:58.880 | accomplish. Some people have a very tight schedule and private allows them, even at whatever exorbitant

00:12:04.720 | costs, it allows them that freedom of having the time to do what they need to do in the order they

00:12:10.320 | want to do it. For some people, it's about convenience. They just want to show up at an

00:12:14.160 | FBO, don't have to worry about security. Somebody else handles their bags and voila, they're off to

00:12:18.960 | the next place and it's just done like that for them. For some people, it is about true luxury

00:12:23.280 | and they just don't want to have anything less than perfection and that's what private affords

00:12:27.040 | them. There's no worrying about a commercial aircraft delay or a crew delay or whatever.

00:12:32.080 | You're in control. You say, "I want to go 15 minutes later," an hour later, the plane waits

00:12:36.400 | for you. It's not like you missed your Delta flight because you're like, "I'll be there a

00:12:40.400 | little later." That would never happen. So it really depends on who the person is and what

00:12:45.040 | their motivating factor of flying is. But I can tell you that over the past six years of running

00:12:50.080 | this business, I have seen more private demand over the last 18 months than I would have ever

00:12:56.080 | imagined. And I would probably just even say, we've done more private aviation travel in the

00:13:01.680 | last 18 months than we did in the entire first five years of our business's existence.

00:13:06.480 | And do you think that keeps up or do you think part of that, I assume, is because we had this

00:13:10.800 | pandemic where people didn't want to be around other people on an airplane, but maybe still

00:13:14.640 | wanted to travel. Has it waned a little bit in the last few months as travels picked up and resumed?

00:13:21.520 | Not really. I think what's been interesting is some of the trends in private aviation have

00:13:26.880 | shifted to people who used to maybe not fly private all the time. Now they're only flying

00:13:32.400 | private. And they're saying, "Well, if it's an easily accessible commercial route with a

00:13:37.360 | private-like experience, i.e. I can fly from San Francisco to JFK in a live, flat seat

00:13:43.120 | in a cabin of 12 people, even though there's other cabins on that aircraft that have more people in

00:13:48.960 | them, my first-class cocoon feels like a private jet to me." Then they'll do that, overflying

00:13:54.320 | transcontinentally private. Obviously, people aren't electing to as much fly trans-internationally,

00:14:02.400 | right, trans-oceanically in private jets, because that is so very expensive. Flying from the East

00:14:08.320 | Coast to Europe could easily run you 80 to 100 grand one way, which is a lot of money.

00:14:13.920 | And when you can get a very lovely first-class experience on Lufthansa or Air France or Swiss

00:14:20.960 | for a tenth of that, it's a pretty easy mathematical equation there.

00:14:26.560 | Yeah, when we went to Bora Bora a couple weeks ago, we landed on the tarmac in Bora Bora,

00:14:31.760 | tiny airport, like really small airport. And we saw, I can't remember what it was,

00:14:36.880 | I'm going to misquote it, I think it was a Boeing business jet. And I was like, "Wow,

00:14:41.360 | this person flew private." Now, the cool thing, if anyone ever sees a private jet,

00:14:44.560 | you could look at the tail number, you could type it online and see, "Where did this person come

00:14:48.000 | from?" And I couldn't believe it. So the person came from San Francisco. And because the Bora

00:14:54.000 | Bora airport has no immigration, they also had to fly San Francisco to Papeete. They had to get off

00:14:58.880 | the plane. You could see that the plane sat there for an hour. They must have gone through immigration,

00:15:03.600 | done their COVID testing, gotten back on, flew that plane, the 30-minute route. And all I could

00:15:09.840 | think about was, they saved some time, right? We got to San Francisco an hour before our flight,

00:15:15.360 | hour 20 before our flight, they might have gotten to San Francisco 30 minutes before their flight.

00:15:19.760 | Right.

00:15:20.080 | But in the grand scheme of things, it still took them almost 10 hours. And maybe they saved an

00:15:26.320 | hour. But I'm guessing, people listening know that I did it on points, but I'm guessing that was not a

00:15:32.400 | $3,000 charter.

00:15:35.360 | No, sir. No, no. That was a very substantial amount of money those people spent for what I'm

00:15:40.800 | sure was an incredible trip for a private group, right? You don't think of somebody taking a BBJ

00:15:46.880 | for three people, right? Probably was a group of a dozen or 15 people on that plane, flying that

00:15:53.040 | route, having a great time together. And that is great. If that can work out with their schedule

00:15:57.760 | and their economics, good for them. But you and I are going to fly United.

00:16:01.920 | Yeah. And when you can fly United and find availability and...

00:16:05.520 | Last minute, especially, yeah.

00:16:06.640 | Book it, you know, we booked it with Air Canada miles because it was less,

00:16:10.400 | you know, we got what I would argue is a very similar experience. We had a lay flat bed,

00:16:14.880 | someone brought us food. It wasn't exactly the same. The plane left when the plane wanted to

00:16:19.360 | leave, it didn't leave when we wanted to. But for us, it was, you know, points and $30 versus

00:16:25.440 | what I'm guessing was over six figures, which...

00:16:27.760 | Well, well over six figures.

00:16:29.360 | Yeah.

00:16:29.680 | Good for them.

00:16:31.040 | What's the experience like though? You've gotten to do it a few times. Food, service,

00:16:35.200 | are there flight attendants, you know, paint a picture for what it's like from the moment you

00:16:39.120 | pull up, what happens? What's that experience like?

00:16:41.360 | Yeah. So let's start from the very, very top, right? You get a special address at a commercial

00:16:46.320 | airport that you're flying out of. That is not the regular passenger terminal. And that's called

00:16:50.320 | the FBO. That's the area where all of the planes, the commercial, excuse me, the private planes fly

00:16:56.320 | out of. It's usually on the opposite side of the airport from the passenger terminals. So you pull

00:17:00.480 | up there and you literally walk into a building or sometimes they'll even drive you out directly

00:17:05.520 | onto the tarmac to meet your plane. You drop your bags. And from the moment you do that,

00:17:10.080 | someone else takes care of everything. So the pilots will walk you through

00:17:13.840 | walking a visual inspection around the plane. If you want to see it, take a look at what

00:17:18.320 | little parts of the plane do and educate you. You get on the plane and obviously you can choose

00:17:24.000 | whatever seat you want because it's your plane. So there's no assigned seating per se.

00:17:28.240 | You asked about catering. You can pre-select what is sort of a standard stock of catering,

00:17:33.840 | and that varies by operator. But generally speaking, there's waters and snacks and some

00:17:38.720 | bottles of wine and little bottles of booze and things like that. But you can also augment that

00:17:43.120 | by bringing your own catering or working with the operator to have them cater the vessel for you.

00:17:48.480 | Thing to note about catering is that if you think getting a private jet is expensive,

00:17:53.200 | you have not seen a $65 club sandwich yet because it's unreal what those catering bills are. We'll

00:17:59.760 | often have, we'll see catering bills sometimes in the multiple thousands for not that fancy of a

00:18:06.320 | meal. Wow. Yeah. It's pretty exceptional. So I always love just recommending people to bring

00:18:10.880 | Uber Eats or bring food from home that you love. I guess if you're spending $100,000 on a flight,

00:18:17.360 | it's maybe a rounding error. But even I guess people that fly private want a little hack to

00:18:22.720 | save money on food. Yeah. I always recommend that. Cabin attendants, there are flight attendants on

00:18:26.880 | some of these flights, especially on the heavy jets and ultra long range jets. Generally speaking,

00:18:31.920 | not something that I see on a lot of midsize or smaller jets because there's really no need,

00:18:38.080 | especially because those jets have a limited mission size. They're going on a four or five

00:18:42.320 | hour trip maybe at most. You don't really need service during that time. One of the things I

00:18:48.000 | find so interesting about flying private is that generally the cockpit door is open. So you can,

00:18:53.280 | at any kind of point in the flight, you can stroll on in and be like, "How we doing folks?" And sit

00:18:58.960 | down on a jump seat and take a look at the instrumentation and see how the plane is flown.

00:19:03.120 | And that to me is probably one of the coolest parts of flying private is that you're with the

00:19:07.920 | crew. They get to know you, you get to know them. I've had crew write thank you notes to passengers

00:19:12.800 | of mine because they've developed friendships on these short flights. And that's really lovely

00:19:17.200 | because you get to feel like you're part of the operation if you choose to do so. If you want

00:19:22.000 | privacy and you want to be locked back in your cabin, no problem. You can do that too.

00:19:26.000 | And then when you land, what does that look like? Do you just get off the plane and leave? Do you

00:19:31.520 | go through the airport? We didn't mention before you board, is there security? What is the kind of

00:19:36.640 | ins and outs of getting on the plane? Yeah, generally there's no security.

00:19:39.680 | Depending on the flight and where you're going, if it's transborder, there'll be a little bit of a

00:19:44.640 | document check. The passengers will have to make sure that the manifest matches what their IDs are

00:19:49.600 | and the pilots will usually do that. But generally there's no security of anything to speak of.

00:19:54.800 | When you land, this is kind of the best part, is you just stroll off the plane. I happened to get

00:20:00.640 | very lucky and get an empty leg to go to Bozeman, Montana and brought my daughter along with me.

00:20:05.360 | And when we got off the plane, our rental car was right there, plane side. And when I mean right

00:20:09.840 | there, plane side, I mean maybe three feet from the stairs. We just strolled in through our

00:20:15.120 | backpacks in the trunk and drove away. It was the coolest experience to be driving on the tarmac

00:20:20.480 | next to your plane. It's just unreal. Convenience, ease. Sure, it makes total sense.

00:20:26.320 | Price. I mean, it makes sense for everybody. Yeah. And if you're listening, I wouldn't even

00:20:32.000 | know if I can call this a hack. But there's an airline, I think they don't fly all over the

00:20:36.320 | country, called JSX. The best. And for maybe like 2x the cost of economy, it's not even as expensive

00:20:46.320 | as first class domestically. You can fly JSX. They fly, you would know better than me, what types of

00:20:52.000 | planes. Yeah, they're ERJs. They're little regional jets made by Embraer. They're 30 seats.

00:20:56.720 | So the window seat, A, is by itself. And then there's B and C sitting together, 10 rows. And

00:21:03.040 | they're exceptional. I mean, for the value, for the fact that you do pull up to an FBO,

00:21:07.200 | again, across the airport at Oakland or Las Vegas or Burbank or wherever you're flying,

00:21:11.920 | you pull up, you're not at the regular passenger terminal. And you go through a light security

00:21:16.960 | check there. They check your ID, they sort of wand your bag and make sure that there's nothing

00:21:20.800 | funky there. And then that's it. You fly on this plane, you land, and it's the same process when

00:21:25.600 | you get to Las Vegas. You walk right through the terminal and you're right outside and there's a

00:21:30.400 | taxi cab waiting for you. And by terminal, Lee means literally a small building.

00:21:35.040 | Like an office. Like an office. Yeah. I would say out the door to the Uber or Lyft you call

00:21:43.680 | is measured maybe in seconds or maybe one or two minutes.

00:21:48.480 | Maybe 30 seconds. If you stop to pee, it's a minute. It's really not that... Yeah.

00:21:51.760 | So that is an exceptional experience. And for the dollar value of that, it's great. You don't have

00:21:56.800 | to worry about being in a crowded terminal, getting there an hour and a half early, all that nonsense.

00:22:01.840 | Yeah. So I'd say if you don't get the plane to yourself,

00:22:04.880 | the plane leaves when it wants to leave. It's still on a schedule. But if you want to experience

00:22:10.640 | what it's like to go to the FBO terminal, to get on, to walk off the plane, and you just want to

00:22:15.840 | do that for, I'd say probably 2x the cost of a normal economy flight. So when people who would

00:22:21.920 | otherwise fly private are flying commercially, I know there's actually some experiences you can

00:22:27.040 | have at the airport, changing planes when you land that maybe we've casually seen as normal travelers,

00:22:34.720 | someone holding a sign or something at the airport. What are those experiences like?

00:22:38.400 | Talk a little bit about first class terminals and greeters.

00:22:42.160 | Yeah. So there's two levels of this experience. One is sort of accessible to all. And the other is

00:22:49.840 | less accessible to all. So the greeters, those people who are holding the placards when you land

00:22:55.520 | and who are not associated maybe with a wheelchair, are there waiting for a VIP. There are people who

00:23:00.480 | are greeting you at the jet bridge of your aircraft when you arrive. And they're going to be

00:23:05.840 | the ones bringing you through all the formalities that follow. So let's say you fly from Dallas to

00:23:11.040 | Paris. And you land in Paris. And there is somebody standing at the gate with a sign saying Hutchins.

00:23:17.440 | You and Amy get off and you go with that person. And they then take you through the following

00:23:21.840 | steps. They'll take you through customs and immigration through a fast line, whether that's

00:23:25.600 | a diplomatic line or a not crowded line or whatever it is. It's a line where you don't

00:23:30.400 | have to wait in line, which is great. They'll then help you expedite and grab your bags.

00:23:35.120 | And then they'll bring you onwards to the next experience that's waiting for you. If that's a

00:23:38.720 | connecting flight, they'll help you recheck, go through security again, get on that flight. If

00:23:43.520 | it's a ground transfer, they'll know exactly where your ground transfer is. And they'll walk you out

00:23:46.720 | to that, making sure, of course, to stop you at a bathroom or an ATM or a croissant stand or

00:23:50.960 | whatever it is you might need. And that service is actually surprisingly affordable. And in my

00:23:56.240 | opinion, one of the most underutilized and highly valuable options that a family can use when going

00:24:03.280 | to Europe, especially in the summer, it could be $300 for a family of four to have a VIP arrival

00:24:10.240 | experience. Highly, highly recommended. At certain airports, you can also do that on the departure

00:24:14.960 | side. Not usually in the States, but you could, but especially overseas. And in a crowded place

00:24:21.760 | like Rome in the summer, highly recommend that as well. So what does that look like? You show

00:24:26.480 | up at the airport. I know in the US, for example, if you fly to SFO, and you happen to be United's

00:24:33.760 | invite only status, global services, there's actually a separate room. And you just go in

00:24:37.760 | this room, and they check you in, they give you your check, take your bags, and then they actually

00:24:41.680 | just like put you at the front of the security line, right? Is that something that you're saying

00:24:46.240 | in some airports, you can instead of having to spend 10s of 1000s of dollars on United,

00:24:51.520 | you could just pay for and kind of have a similar experience?

00:24:54.640 | You know, domestically, it's a little harder because of our democratic notions here in the

00:24:58.960 | States that it's hard to buy sort of elite access to things overseas, it's a whole different ball

00:25:03.200 | of wax. So you want to spend a certain amount of money in any, you know, foreign airport,

00:25:09.360 | there's a greeter service for arrivals and departures that will that will allow you to

00:25:12.800 | basically cut the line, get to the best lounge, and then have somebody walk you to walk you from

00:25:17.520 | that lounge to the plane when you want was that, you know, are you going to board first? Are you

00:25:23.280 | gonna board last, this is always a choice they give you, right? That greeter and lounge experience

00:25:27.680 | is generally available for purchase everywhere. Now, you mentioned also earlier lounges,

00:25:32.000 | what are those exceptional lounge experiences that people can have access to? Here in the States,

00:25:36.400 | we've got one out of lax called PS, the private suite, which is pretty exceptional. It's on the

00:25:42.240 | opposite side of the airport from the passenger terminal to the south side. And it is a two part

00:25:47.920 | place. One is a salon where it's sort of open to a smaller group of the public. And the other

00:25:53.280 | is a private suite, which is just open to you. Prices are pretty steep. They start in the 500s

00:25:58.960 | and go to 5000s per use per person. So it can get a little crazy. But the experience is unparalleled,

00:26:06.240 | you check in there, you do security there, they drive you to the foot of your plane to the gate

00:26:12.240 | to get you boarding, whether it's again, first or last, on your plane directly from this suite. So

00:26:17.360 | you don't have to see the airport at all, you check your bags there, you do customs there when

00:26:21.520 | you arrive there, like it's seamless and easy and beautiful. So if you're flying into or out of or

00:26:26.720 | even via lax, it can make sense depending on the party, the cost and what you're trying to do.

00:26:31.600 | Okay, so but mostly in the US, we can rely on our TSA pre we can rely on clear, and we can kind of

00:26:37.520 | make the airport pretty smooth. Chances are most people listening have a card with priority pass,

00:26:42.480 | you can go to a lounge, but internationally, and I would say sometimes if you're flying

00:26:47.280 | internationally in business class, and a lot of the Middle Eastern airlines, they include this.

00:26:52.800 | So we went to Qatar once, and it included this greeter experience. And it was like, let's skip

00:26:58.560 | the whole line here. When you come back, let's skip the whole line. And I was like, wow, that

00:27:02.560 | was fancy. And then I looked it up. And I think it was I could be really wrong here. But it was like

00:27:07.200 | $80. Yeah, it was not like not expensive $5,000. So definitely worth looking up traveling overseas.

00:27:15.440 | And you know, lax sounds I can't come up with an experience where I would want to spend $500

00:27:20.080 | to get to the airport and have it easier. But you know, that's for someone that is for someone and

00:27:25.280 | there are some domestic airfare deals where that's actually bundled in. So you can take a look United

00:27:30.400 | has a deal American has a deal with PS at lax on certain flights. So if you happen to be transiting

00:27:36.080 | lax the next couple of months or years, it's worth taking a look at it to see if it makes sense for

00:27:40.400 | you. Okay. All right. So I think we covered a lot on flights. I'm gonna ask a question that has

00:27:45.200 | nothing to do with super high end. But I was flying back from Bora Bora on United. And I think

00:27:51.360 | this was the first time I ever noticed this new cabin. I think they call it premium plus. And I

00:27:56.960 | feel like for a long time, there was premium economy and then it was gone. And then all the

00:28:00.960 | airlines domestically started adding economy plus and comfort plus, which was basically coach with

00:28:07.040 | a little more legroom and maybe some extra snacks, right? And I saw premium plus and the flight was

00:28:13.200 | empty. There was one person in all maybe 30 seats, but it looked pretty nice. Is premium economy

00:28:20.320 | coming back? And for people trying to really maximize dollars or miles? Is it a pretty viable

00:28:26.160 | option? How does it compare to business or first? This is a great question. So premium economy is a

00:28:32.320 | thing. And it is also a super confusing thing, because airlines have done a terrible job of

00:28:37.680 | distinguishing what is an actual premium economy cabin versus what's a premium economy seat.

00:28:46.640 | For example, on United, there is economy plus, which they used to call their premium economy

00:28:54.160 | seat until they actually put in a premium economy cabin. Premium plus, right? So confusing. And all

00:29:01.120 | of these, like, it just doesn't make any sense as a consumer. When you're looking at it, you're

00:29:04.800 | like, where am I sitting? What am I seeing? What am I paying for? How do I upgrade into this? It's

00:29:08.400 | just too much. So I like to think of it this way. Whenever you're flying internationally,

00:29:13.040 | ideally transoceanically, there is going to be a premium economy cabin, a separate cabin with

00:29:19.200 | fancier seats. They're not lie flat. It's not a business class, but it might feel like a domestic

00:29:24.800 | business class on a, you know, lazy boy kind of seat, right? You've got a little more recline,

00:29:29.840 | a little more leg room. On the United flights, it's usually a 2-3-2 seating, whereas in economy

00:29:35.040 | in the back, it's 3-4-3 or 3-3-3, very crowded. So you feel more spacious up there. There's a

00:29:42.240 | better premium version of food. You earn more miles for those seats, et cetera. So there is a

00:29:48.720 | separate cabin for that. Again, it's not going to be seen outside of a couple of domestic routes

00:29:53.040 | where they're flying those bigger craft to reposition them. It's not going to be seen

00:29:56.640 | domestically. Now, confusingly, they will market domestically sometimes their economy plus seating

00:30:04.320 | as premium economy. Delta is notorious for this. When you fly from JFK to San Francisco, they will

00:30:10.560 | market their, what they call Delta Comfort as, which is their economy plus, as a premium economy

00:30:17.600 | cabin. It's not, it's still just an economy seat with a little bit extra leg room. So we're talking

00:30:22.400 | literally about two very separate cabins, very separate experiences. As of right now, the

00:30:26.560 | airlines haven't really figured out how to optimize their mileage game when it comes to redemption

00:30:32.720 | for those premium plus, the actual cabin premium economy seats. So what I would always recommend

00:30:38.800 | is looking to upgrade into them. Book an economy ticket and see what the mileage upgrade cost would

00:30:43.680 | be to actually upgrade into that premium cabin. It's often fairly affordable. United sometimes

00:30:51.360 | charges 10 or 20 plus points per leg if you have those plus points. Whereas other airlines,

00:30:57.520 | the price differential is so high. It's almost like a mid-tier between economy and business class

00:31:04.400 | when you pay for it. But when you actually use mileage to upgrade, it's not that expensive.

00:31:08.640 | Okay. And one thing we didn't mention that I think is a, for anyone using miles to travel

00:31:13.680 | internationally, a important thing to remember. If you're just, if you've never flown business class

00:31:19.600 | internationally, then there are two things that are interesting. One, the trans-oceanic flight is

00:31:26.000 | going to be a next level experience. It's the best. It's, it's, it's, I almost say, make sure that you

00:31:30.960 | have enough points to do it again. Because if you just do it once, you're going to want to do it

00:31:34.000 | every time. The small, short routes are awful. They're terrible. Yeah. Intra-European business

00:31:40.800 | class is not business class. Yeah. We, when we went to Greece last year, we were like, Oh, we

00:31:46.400 | did, we found seats. It was business class the whole way. And we were on Air France and from San

00:31:51.680 | Francisco to Paris, lie flatbed, wonderful service. We get on the flight from Paris to Crete in Greece.

00:31:58.400 | It's basically the first two rows of an economy flight with the exact same seats and they block

00:32:03.600 | off the middle seat. And pretty sad. I would say do not, if you're trying to move around Europe and

00:32:10.400 | you want to feel fancy, unless you're sure the plane you're on is a real business class plane,

00:32:16.160 | I would not ever use your miles to fly business class intra-Europe, maybe even intra-Asia. I'm

00:32:22.640 | not sure if it's kind of the same there, but definitely intra-Europe. Absolutely. And it's

00:32:27.120 | always useful to check whenever you're doing those shorter hops, what airline is operating the

00:32:32.240 | flight? What aircraft are they actually operating that flight on? And what are the seat maps look

00:32:36.720 | like? Because, you know, if you're flying from Tokyo to Sapporo in Japan, it's an hour and a

00:32:41.920 | half flight. They're actually going to put a triple seven with lie flat seats on that domestic,

00:32:46.560 | you know, small hop. And it's a great experience, right? And you can use lounges and it's wonderful.

00:32:50.480 | In Europe, it's the opposite. You could fly three hours, right? And it could be in a little

00:32:55.760 | crappy 737 and they're giving you like a hot piece of pizza for lunch. It's sad. So make sure you're

00:33:01.600 | using your miles and points correctly. Yeah. And then SeatGuru, great site. You can go look at all

00:33:06.240 | the seat maps. They usually say, "Yeah, this is just a regular seat with the middle seat blocked

00:33:10.560 | off." So that's flights. We hit a lot of stuff. I want to talk about hotels because I feel like

00:33:16.560 | there's a lot more mystery here a little bit. Everyone knows first class, they walk by it on

00:33:21.040 | the plane, but you don't always walk through the high-end resorts. And there's, in my opinion,

00:33:27.760 | it's a little harder. It's not, "Here are the business class flights, here are the coach flights."

00:33:31.920 | There's a giant spectrum of resorts and hotels. And, you know, I used to think five-star was the

00:33:37.440 | top. And then that hotel in Dubai started saying, "No, no, no, we are a seven-star hotel."

00:33:41.840 | What does that even mean?

00:33:42.640 | Yeah. What is the high-end of luxury hotels look like? And maybe just to start,

00:33:47.760 | what sets apart whatever category you call them, whether you call them five-star or just high-end,

00:33:52.480 | like what sets them apart from all the other hotels?

00:33:55.600 | Well, there's a couple of things that set them apart, right? One from the very face of it is

00:34:00.320 | price, right? What can you charge and get away with charging for that room? And what we've seen,

00:34:05.440 | very much like we've seen in the private aviation sector, is that on the hotel side,

00:34:09.200 | rates have gone through the roof over the last two years. And especially on the higher end of

00:34:13.920 | the five-star properties, it's incredible what some of these properties are charging,

00:34:20.000 | which then begs the question, is it worth it? So that comes to point number two, which is

00:34:25.360 | distinguishing factor of service, right? Are you getting the service level that five-star

00:34:32.000 | or that price tag demands? That is an issue right now. I mean, I will say globally,

00:34:37.840 | service for hotels has been troublesome. We had a client recently in the Middle East at one of

00:34:44.080 | those five- or seven-star hotels, and we couldn't get ahold of the concierge for almost a day.

00:34:49.040 | And that's unacceptable for a global brand where somebody's spending thousands of dollars

00:34:55.120 | a night for a room. So price, service, location all distinguish in when you create this five-star

00:35:03.040 | sort of atmosphere. But the fourth thing is, what are the amenities that are on the offer

00:35:08.240 | at that hotel that make them truly stand out? A minute ago, we talked about VIP access at

00:35:14.560 | airports. A lot of the Parisian five-star hotels will actually, as part of the amenities that you

00:35:19.920 | get when you book with them, they'll actually bundle in an arrival greeter that will pick you

00:35:24.480 | up plain side and bring you through customs and immigration to one of their cars waiting for you

00:35:28.720 | to whisk you to the hotel. And it's a seamless experience. So that's why when we talked on our

00:35:33.680 | first chat almost a year ago, we chatted about how important it is to let the hotel know your

00:35:38.240 | travel plans, who you are, what you're coming to do, what experiences you want to have,

00:35:42.480 | your arrival and departure details, right? Because they're actually going to customize as part of

00:35:47.360 | their package that they're selling you, your arrival and departure with them. That's incredible.

00:35:52.320 | So a five-star hotel, in my opinion, provides exceptional service at an attractive price.

00:35:59.120 | And I want to say affordable, that's out the window now. And they do it at a great location

00:36:04.720 | where the amenities are so rich and wonderful that make them stand out from the rest of their

00:36:10.240 | competitors in that field. So let's get a little bit more tangible.

00:36:14.000 | Let's take two resorts. Let's call it a four-star and a five-star resort

00:36:19.280 | in any place you want. Somewhere in Mexico. How would you describe what's likely to be different

00:36:25.120 | about staying there, your room, the meals? What really sets it apart? Because oftentimes,

00:36:31.200 | the four-star hotel is $200 a night and the five-star hotel might be $1,000 a night.

00:36:35.360 | Right. That's a great question. And hopefully the Delta is not three or four times between a four

00:36:40.320 | and a five-star, but sometimes it is. I would say that at a five-star, you're looking at less crowded

00:36:46.080 | restaurants and you're looking at maybe a larger room, more responsive concierge. There might be

00:36:51.440 | more onsite amenities, more pools, an adult-only pool perhaps, or a family pool, or something else

00:36:57.600 | that sets them apart amenity-wise. You might be looking at more personalized service. Do you have

00:37:02.080 | a butler or do you have a team of concierges that are attached to your type of villa product or your

00:37:08.080 | room product? Now, going back to my comment earlier, unfortunately, service has been an issue.

00:37:13.600 | Four and five-star properties globally lately. So you may stay at a five-star and you might be

00:37:19.200 | really excited about the splurge that you're about to... This is this bucket list experience.

00:37:24.080 | We've put all of our points into this stay and you might be underwhelmed by service.

00:37:27.920 | That's not necessarily a reflection accurately of the star rating right now. It's a reflection

00:37:33.120 | of the global atmosphere for service. And hopefully we're going to get out of that this

00:37:37.760 | year, but it's been a little interesting out there. So again, coming back to my initial point,

00:37:43.520 | the more you can share with a hotel ahead of time, especially a five-star hotel,

00:37:47.520 | to allow them to really customize that experience for you, they'll knock it out of the park with

00:37:51.520 | the data that you give them. I've learned recently. So when we were going to Bora Bora,

00:37:55.120 | I was like, okay, to me, the Conrad, the St. Regis, the Four Seasons, those are the kind of

00:38:00.560 | high-end resorts, the nicest things. There is even a tier above that, that I didn't know a lot about.

00:38:05.920 | In French Polynesia, the hotel I'd put there, I learned about was the Brando.

00:38:10.800 | It's much more expensive. I would say it definitely is three or four times the price.

00:38:14.960 | Oh boy.

00:38:15.680 | And then I've learned that there's a whole chain of Amman resorts, and they are similarly much,

00:38:25.760 | much more expensive. And so what do you call them? There has to be some way to differentiate

00:38:31.760 | a five-star St. Regis, Ritz-Carlton, Conrad from an Amman or the Brando, or I'm sure there's other

00:38:40.160 | examples you have.

00:38:41.200 | Yeah. It's a great question. I mean, they all are still five-star, but there are these ultra-luxury

00:38:46.320 | resorts that have their own sort of special categorization, that are unique singular

00:38:51.840 | destinations. The Brando is a great example. For those who don't know, the Brando is its own private

00:38:56.880 | island owned by the Brando family, as in Marlon Brando. It's right north of Papeete in Tahiti.

00:39:02.640 | And what sets it apart is that it's an eco resort, but it's super luxe. So you would go traditionally

00:39:09.280 | to a normal five-star over-the-water bungalow experience like the St. Regis and Bora Bora and

00:39:14.960 | have that iconic, perfect Instagram photo sort of vacation. Brando is a little more experiential.

00:39:22.640 | There's no over-water bungalows. It's more villas on a private beach, but very secluded and very

00:39:28.400 | customized to you. So again, back to my point earlier, you bring this super long questionnaire

00:39:34.480 | to the Brando where they ask you all your likes and dislikes, even down to like, which alcohol

00:39:38.080 | brands do you like? Because they want to make sure that in your all-inclusive mini bar,

00:39:41.440 | they've stocked that. I said to them, for instance, I love champagne, my wife doesn't.

00:39:45.520 | So they put instead of full bottles of champagne, half bottles. And that was a really nice touch

00:39:50.560 | because they knew that my wife wasn't going to be drinking and I didn't want to get knockered off of

00:39:54.880 | one bottle, full bottle of champagne. So that level of attention to detail sets them apart.

00:40:02.000 | The level of amenities they offer sets them apart. And when you look at Amman's or Rosewood's or some

00:40:07.440 | of these other ultra high-end luxury properties around the world, they're singular destinations

00:40:12.080 | that are truly a sense of place. It's not just an over-water experience with a pretty backdrop,

00:40:17.440 | but it's the essence of that property or of that destination that sets that hotel apart.

00:40:23.040 | It's villas built into a cliffside or it's villas built in an eco-friendly manner over a mangrove

00:40:30.160 | reef. And you're like, wow, this is incredible. And there's no place in the world I could stay

00:40:33.520 | like this. And it comes with a price tag. Of course. And it comes with incredible amenities

00:40:39.040 | that you won't get elsewhere because of what is offered there. So it's a truly once, not in a

00:40:44.720 | lifetime for some people, but once ever experience for most of us. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I've been in

00:40:52.560 | an Amman resort, but I have not stayed in an Amman resort. I also noticed something. None of these

00:40:58.960 | have loyalty programs. You don't earn points. You don't redeem with points. Do people that have a

00:41:06.000 | lot of money that stay at really high-end properties, is that not a factor? Why are there

00:41:11.120 | no loyalty programs? I'm mostly speaking because I wish that there were so I could have these

00:41:17.200 | experiences. Yeah. I mean, they are so aspirational for those of us who aren't necessarily dropping

00:41:21.360 | $5,000 a night on a hotel room. I would say this. There are loyalty programs there. You just don't

00:41:27.680 | know about them. The Mandarin Oriental, one of my favorite hotel chains in the entire world,

00:41:32.960 | they only have two dozen properties globally, and they're exceptional in every single location.

00:41:38.160 | They know everything they need to know about you, which is one of the purposes of a loyalty program.

00:41:43.120 | But yeah, you don't have points on a Mandarin card. But they do know when you ordered a drink

00:41:50.240 | at the Bangkok bar, and then you go to London two weeks later, they're like, "Oh, Mr. Hutchins,

00:41:54.880 | would you like that same drink with the Bombay Sapphire?" They know. That is skin-crawlingly

00:42:00.960 | amazing for the data to work that way, to make your experience so customized and wonderful.

00:42:06.160 | An example on that, in fact, not to do with loyalty, but to do with data, is I stayed at

00:42:12.080 | the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok. At the time, I had an 18-month-old child. He needed milk in the

00:42:17.520 | middle of night, and he needed to stretch his legs. He was just antsy. I took him out of the room.

00:42:22.480 | My butler saw that my door was open and said, "Mr. Rowan, how do we help you?" I said, "We're good.

00:42:27.280 | Thank you so much. We're just going to go out and stretch our legs and go get some milk. We're going

00:42:30.960 | to leave the property. It's 1.30 in the morning. Leave the property, get some milk, and we'll come

00:42:34.400 | right back." They're like, "Oh, sir, we've got milk here." I was like, "It's not the milk. He

00:42:37.440 | just needs to stretch his wings." There were 11 people that helped me between my room, the elevator,

00:42:46.240 | the lobby, the front desk, and leaving that room. When I came back, they're like, "Oh, did you get

00:42:51.280 | milk? Is there anything else you need? How do we help you?" When I stayed at the Manor Oriental in

00:42:55.520 | London years later, they said, "Oh, we remember a story about you getting milk, Jeremy." I'm like,

00:43:01.760 | blown away that years later, they would connect the dots. That builds loyalty in me, for sure.

00:43:07.040 | I will talk about that story all the time. I will say the Manor Oriental knows how to deal with data,

00:43:11.440 | and knows how to take care of people, and knows how to show what it truly means to be a guest.

00:43:16.000 | Do I earn points every time I stay there? Yeah, I use the right credit card,

00:43:20.160 | but I don't earn a loyalty program points with them. That's the loyalty they're trying to build.

00:43:24.640 | Yeah. I've had a glimpse of some of that in a Four Seasons. We were fortunate to stay at the

00:43:31.760 | Four Seasons in Bali, and every morning, they remembered, "I love jackfruit." For anyone who's

00:43:37.360 | never had a jackfruit, I describe it as halfway between, or like if a banana and a pineapple

00:43:42.400 | created a fruit child. Very weird-looking fruit child.

00:43:45.200 | A very weird-looking fruit child. Do not mistake for a durian, because very different fruit.

00:43:50.320 | And every morning, they were like, "Oh, do you want some jackfruit? I know it's not in the regular

00:43:54.480 | fruit tray, but we knew, even if it was a different waiter, we knew you had it yesterday morning,

00:43:58.240 | and you asked for it." But I've never gotten to that next crazy level.

00:44:02.160 | Here's an interesting, kind of different version of that. The Four Seasons also has this thing

00:44:06.800 | called the glitch report, where every day, if there was an issue, let's say your toilet didn't

00:44:11.040 | flush, okay? Everyone in the resort would know that you had an issue, and that they are singularly

00:44:16.400 | focused on fixing that problem. It doesn't mean that the housekeeper is going to be in your room

00:44:22.240 | the whole day fixing your toilet. It just means that the pool attendant might be like, "Hey,

00:44:26.080 | Mr. Hutchins, is there anything we can get for you? I'm sorry you had a rough night last night."

00:44:29.200 | That's incredible, right? That builds loyalty in a way that points and miles maybe won't ever,

00:44:34.560 | because when was the last time that Delta really thanked you for your business, Mr. Hutchins?

00:44:38.240 | They're just reading off a sheet. They don't know that you just came from Cleveland, and you're

00:44:41.040 | tired. They don't know any of that. That level of loyalty is something that all hotels should

00:44:47.120 | aspire to, in my opinion. Yeah. I look forward to a successful life that affords more of them.

00:44:53.360 | For people listening, they might not know that because Lee works in the industry,

00:44:58.640 | every industry has its own set of perks. I think one of the perks that you're afforded is because

00:45:04.560 | you make a lot of recommendations to clients, hotels often give you a good deal. If anyone

00:45:10.160 | listening is wondering how to hack it, the other option is to just work in the industry.

00:45:13.840 | Come join our industry. We need good people. And trust me, we're always hiring.

00:45:17.840 | Yeah. But what about... A lot of people I know love to stay at Airbnbs.

00:45:22.400 | I'm not saying there aren't high-end luxury properties on Airbnb. There definitely are.

00:45:27.840 | But is there another level of the villa or home rental market that someone like me or anyone

00:45:35.600 | listening just has never heard of? Yeah, for sure. I like to use VRBO and Airbnb

00:45:41.040 | as a really good search engine barometer of where I should be putting people in homes in certain

00:45:46.400 | areas because it tends to give me some good feedback on a market that I may not know.

00:45:51.200 | The downside is that the quality level stops at that maybe four, four and a half star

00:45:57.200 | tier property and just gets stuck there. And if you've got a client with seven star expectations

00:46:02.320 | and the need for something a little larger, bigger, whatever, then you've got to turn elsewhere.

00:46:07.040 | So there are a number of higher-end search tools that we can use to source homes and villas,

00:46:13.760 | just like the ones you're mentioning, right? These super high-end luxury

00:46:18.320 | villa properties that have multiple bedrooms, incredible kitchens, staff, all of that stuff.

00:46:23.440 | And so over time, you kind of understand who the players are in each market. And it really

00:46:28.640 | is hyper-regionalized. There is a Mexico player that has great villas all throughout Mexico,

00:46:34.320 | but then there was one in Punta Mita that I would use specifically when I'm traveling there

00:46:37.920 | and looking for properties there. What are you expecting out of these places, right?

00:46:42.560 | Number one, you're going to be signing a contract that signs your life away, right?

00:46:47.600 | You're going to be wiring money to some bank account somewhere as a deposit and then 30 or

00:46:51.760 | 60 days out wiring the rest. There's big, hefty security deposits. I just saw for the first time

00:46:57.920 | ever, a quarter million dollar security deposit on a villa that we're renting for someone.

00:47:03.520 | And my eyes sort of like, "I'm sorry, what? Not $25,000?" So you're looking at big contracts,

00:47:10.400 | big security deposits, but they come with these incredible amenities, right? Some of these houses

00:47:14.880 | that we've rented for people come with a staff of 30. You have your own Michelin-starred chef

00:47:19.600 | that will cook you whatever you want, right? And again, pre-ordering and telling them the

00:47:24.160 | details ahead of time. This person's a vegetarian. They only eat fish, undercook the beef for him.

00:47:28.400 | That's super important because they're going to customize that experience to that stay.

00:47:32.240 | But they're just what you would expect from those TV shows, The Lifestyle, The Rich and Famous,

00:47:36.400 | or Cribs. They're just these over-the-top homes that have the best view of Aspen, or you have

00:47:42.160 | the most incredible private beach in Malibu, right? Or you've got your own nine acres in

00:47:50.080 | wherever. And it's nine acres of riverfront property in Montana where you can catch your

00:47:55.360 | own fish. Just incredible properties like that. And is there... If someone listening is like,

00:47:59.840 | "I just want to go look at a few pictures." It doesn't have to be a site that covers everything,

00:48:03.840 | but is there a place that just has a few of these that you can go look at?

00:48:07.120 | Yeah. One I like the most for domestic properties is called Cuvee, C-U-V-E-E.

00:48:11.760 | They're based out of Colorado. They've got beautiful properties. And some of those,

00:48:16.240 | including the one in Aspen I mentioned, are... Anybody can book these. You don't need to have

00:48:20.080 | a special in or connection. But they're incredible. They're vacation homes of a lifetime.

00:48:25.200 | And they can actually make sense economically. If you have a big enough group and you're looking

00:48:31.440 | for something that's a bucket list experience, it's not always much more than getting rooms

00:48:36.240 | or suites at a hotel. Yeah. There's a house. Feel

00:48:39.760 | free to Google it. It's called Villa Turquesa. And it's in Cabo. And we've been there for a

00:48:45.520 | handful of bachelor parties. It actually ended up being reasonable, especially my villa hack for

00:48:51.520 | this is if you're going with a group of people, divide the rooms up in a way that lets the friends

00:48:57.520 | of yours that have the money that want a little nicer, get something else. So this particular

00:49:01.760 | house, if you look it up, has four bedrooms with a king bed, four bedrooms with two queen beds,

00:49:06.880 | and one room with 12 bunk beds. And so we priced it such that if you want your own room with your

00:49:14.560 | own bed, you pay a lot more. And if you want your own bed that you only have to share with one

00:49:19.040 | person, you pay more. And if you're okay being one of the 12 people in the bunk bedroom, you get a

00:49:24.160 | great deal. And you'll have a hell of a party. And it's a fantastic house. There's a chef named

00:49:29.040 | Lorenzo in the house, cooks whatever you want. But it ended up working out with a group of 20 people

00:49:35.600 | to be maybe $1,000 per person. And that included enough money for all the food for maybe five days.

00:49:44.320 | So it's incredible. It's a great deal. I want to say that also included all of our transportation.

00:49:49.280 | Whenever I would plan a trip like this, I would try to come up with a dollar figure that would

00:49:53.360 | cover all the shuttles, all the activities. One day, we're going to rent a boat. One day,

00:49:57.360 | we're going to do this. And the hack for me was, I would plan a trip for 20 people. I'd put the

00:50:03.440 | entire villa for five nights on my credit card. I'd book the flights for all 20 people going down.

00:50:08.720 | Obviously, there's a little risk, the one person who doesn't pay back. Fortunately, if you ever

00:50:13.200 | book group flights, if you call the airline, you actually go to the group desk, they usually give

00:50:18.240 | you the wiggle room to drop one or two people in a group before the 30 days out. Or change the name.

00:50:21.760 | And so that's both how I accumulated a lot of points and found that for the right group with

00:50:29.360 | enough people, it can work really well. If you want to go to this house and you don't have kids,

00:50:34.560 | and you're not going to use the bunk bedroom, then it's going to sleep a whole lot less people.

00:50:38.640 | It might only be eight couples, and that might be much less affordable, but

00:50:42.480 | it is possible. I think it's a really cool experience to stay in a villa with a chef

00:50:47.840 | that can cook meals, especially in a time where you may be coming out of the pandemic,

00:50:53.520 | not ready to go to a super crowded resort. Sure. I'll give you one further hack on that,

00:50:57.440 | which is that a place like Villa Turquesa is probably marketing itself in 25 different

00:51:01.520 | directions. And so what you should do before you get to work with Villa Turquesa is Google it and

00:51:06.400 | figure out where are they marketing and what are the prices on each of these places. And go back

00:51:11.280 | to Villa Turquesa directly and say, "Hey, listen, I see you're marketing over there for a little

00:51:15.120 | cheaper. Or I see that somebody over here is costing even more money if I were to book it

00:51:18.640 | with them. I want to book directly with you. I want to pay the best available price. What is that?"

00:51:23.520 | All of those villa prices are slightly negotiable outside of peak periods. So be sure to go directly

00:51:29.120 | to the ownership, not through an intermediary villa company, and ask them what are they willing

00:51:33.680 | to do if you book direct. Yeah, I love that. And in our first episode on the show, you mentioned,

00:51:39.920 | if you can't find them, take an image, do a Google image search of the core image of the property,

00:51:45.760 | and you can usually find the other websites that that image appears on.

00:51:48.800 | One last thing we didn't talk about with hotels is the kind of perks you get when you book them

00:51:53.200 | through a travel advisor. And so anyone can book most of these properties. You want to book an

00:51:58.320 | Amman, you want to book a Four Seasons or a St. Regis, you can go on the website. But when you

00:52:03.120 | book through someone who has a relationship with these brands and properties, like you do at tons

00:52:08.000 | of these resorts, you end up getting amenities that I talked about a few weeks back, this kind

00:52:13.040 | of hotel experiment that we're working on with all the hacks, where you might get an upgrade,

00:52:18.000 | free breakfast, a property credit, late checkout, an amenity in your room. And so because I got so

00:52:24.400 | many questions about that, I want to talk a little bit about how it works. Generally,

00:52:28.400 | these hotels, my understanding is they want to extend perks to people who are related to

00:52:35.840 | clients that send lots of traffic, or how does it work?

00:52:38.480 | There are a couple of ways of getting these outsized perks at hotels, right? One of them

00:52:42.480 | is having a high tier and loyalty, right? Having Marriott ambassador status means that Marriott

00:52:47.280 | knows who you are, when you stay at a Marriott property, right? And anybody at that property

00:52:51.440 | could tie into the Marriott database and look up Chris and say, "Oh, wow, he's fancy pants.

00:52:55.280 | He runs a great podcast, and he's a nice guy. Let's take care of him," right?

00:52:58.720 | But that's where that sort of stops. And it obviously stops with Marriott. If you have

00:53:04.640 | no Hyatt status, or if you've never stayed in an Amman, they don't know anything about you.

00:53:08.480 | So the second way that hotels get a lot of their info and therefore assign a lot of perks is through

00:53:14.240 | this travel advisor relationship. And that relationship is actually probably the strongest

00:53:18.720 | sales channel for hotels, because it develops a quality guest. It says, "Hey,

00:53:23.840 | this is who Chris Hutchins is, whether he stays in a Marriott, a Hyatt, an Amman, a Rosewood,

00:53:27.920 | or whatever. This is who he is, and this is what he wants, and this is what his experience should

00:53:31.680 | be. Can you help craft this?" And a good hotel, a four or five star hotel, will absolutely do that.

00:53:37.600 | And in exchange for that, they'll give perks. They'll say, "Look, we want Chris to come stay

00:53:41.840 | here, spend his money here," right? So we are going to give him daily breakfast, and we're

00:53:46.400 | going to guarantee an upgrade for him at booking. And we're going to make sure that every morning

00:53:50.080 | when we run our arrivals report of who's coming in that day, we flag him as a VIP and say,

00:53:55.280 | "Chris needs this," or "Let's give Chris's room assignment, let's give it an even better upgrade

00:54:00.240 | or a better view, just because he came in through this channel and we know things about him that we

00:54:04.320 | wouldn't know if Chris just booked online." So it's rate parity. They're never going to give you

00:54:09.840 | like a crazier rate. Four seasons doesn't discount, right? But they are going to give

00:54:15.040 | you a better experience by knowing the channel through which you came. So you mentioned earlier

00:54:19.680 | that right now, this is mostly a channel restricted to travel advisors, or if you have an Amex Platinum

00:54:27.600 | card, or you have some other way of getting a perk program. We're trying to democratize that

00:54:32.240 | and create, especially for all the Hacks listeners, a special way of getting that access,

00:54:36.960 | a sort of a self-serve model. So more on that coming soon. But the big takeaway from that is

00:54:42.480 | that the more a hotel knows about you, the better the experience will be. And they're willing to

00:54:47.920 | give you perks for that. They're willing to say, "Hey, be part of this program as you book. Give

00:54:53.520 | us some information on how we can make your stay special so that you're going to spend money here,

00:54:57.280 | and you're going to come back here, and you're going to tell all your friends about what a

00:54:59.760 | wonderful experience it was. Here's some more perks." Yeah. So if you're listening, that's a

00:55:04.080 | little bit more about the how and the why behind this kind of hotel perks and benefits experiment

00:55:09.280 | I mentioned. Shoot us an email. The email I made was getupgraded@allthehacks.com. And

00:55:17.040 | the caveats, just because I've gotten a lot of questions, has to be a paid booking. Unfortunately,

00:55:22.240 | a lot of these perks don't apply or none of them apply to awards days, and it has to be booked

00:55:28.480 | through our relationship. So if you haven't booked yet, and you want to get some of these premium

00:55:33.840 | perks at probably almost 4,000 hotels around the world, shoot us an email. I'll put the link in the

00:55:39.040 | show notes. Just let us know where you're going, rough budget, and when you're going, and we'll

00:55:44.320 | see if we can help get you hooked up. Last topic I wanted to go on was just stuff when you're at a

00:55:49.760 | destination. Little tricks and tips when you are there that don't have to do with booking,

00:55:56.080 | don't have to do with flying. One I want to ask first is around tipping. What is the practical

00:56:02.320 | advice around tipping, not for daily housekeeping, but to enhance an experience? I watched Inventing

00:56:10.000 | Anna, or Anna, or however you want to pronounce her name. She was handing out $100 bills around

00:56:14.800 | the hotel, and it just made me think, "Is there a benefit to giving a tip to the concierge,

00:56:21.280 | or the person checking you in in Vegas, or the person at the front desk of a restaurant?"

00:56:26.000 | When is there not? If you have the means to do it, then absolutely, I would do it. I wouldn't

00:56:31.680 | always limit it to just money. So let's use a concierge, and let's just say Paris, for example.

00:56:38.000 | There are a couple of different ways of taking care of that concierge. Number one,

00:56:41.120 | if you have developed via email a relationship with a particular concierge, before you arrive,

00:56:46.640 | one of the things you can do is write a note to the general manager and say, "Hey,

00:56:49.680 | Laurent has been amazing. I just want you to know I'm so looking forward to my trip because Laurent

00:56:54.080 | has already dialed in all these experiences for me. Thank you for employing somebody like Laurent."

00:56:58.480 | And that non-monetary bit of time that you just spent taking care of Laurent will go so far in

00:57:04.800 | making your experience even better before you get there. So that's number one. Number two is,

00:57:08.960 | yeah, bring them a gift. Bring them some little goody and to say, "Thank you." So that might mean

00:57:14.480 | that you buy, you know, la durée macaron the moment you arrive at Paris Charles de Gaulle

00:57:20.160 | Airport and you have your VIP greeter stop you for a second to buy them. But, you know, buy them

00:57:24.880 | a little treat, a little token of appreciation there, or even bring it from home. Bring them,

00:57:29.120 | you know, Ghirardelli chocolate from California. Not the best chocolate in the world, but it's

00:57:32.480 | something from San Francisco. It's cool. It ties you to a place and it shows this intention of

00:57:37.440 | thank you, of gratitude, right? And then, of course, give them money. I like to tip concierges

00:57:42.160 | at the beginning of a stay, which will always help ensure wonderful service. And then at the very end

00:57:47.840 | of a stay, if they've gone above and beyond, again, I would give them something. What are you

00:57:51.840 | giving them? It's really up to you. There is no guide. I was talking with a hotelier in Paris,

00:57:56.640 | actually, and he said to me, "We've got some clients who tip, you know, 20 euro a day and

00:58:00.880 | they give it at the front. And if the concierge has gone above and beyond while they're there,

00:58:05.840 | they give them a little bit more at the end, another 20 or 50 euro." I know one guy who just

00:58:10.880 | tips $1,000 wherever he goes when he gets there because he can do that. Good for him. Trust me,

00:58:15.200 | his service is exceptional, right? So it really depends on what you want to do. But any token of

00:58:20.080 | gratitude and appreciation is always appreciated, including just a simple email before and after

00:58:25.040 | the stay saying, "Hey, you did a great job. Thank you." But I guess my question was,

00:58:30.080 | can tipping ever unlock something, right? Can you walk into a restaurant and say,

00:58:35.840 | you know, tip the hostess and get a table that you wouldn't otherwise gotten?

00:58:39.680 | Or I've often heard tipping the person checking you in in Vegas gets you a nicer room. Have you

00:58:45.920 | had experience with those things? Yeah, I think in certain places, it absolutely works. In Vegas,

00:58:50.880 | in Italy, in Paris, it can go a long way. In Frankfurt or Zurich, I don't know if you're

00:58:55.520 | going to get the same reaction by tipping somebody 20 francs or euro, right? It just depends on what

00:59:00.880 | the local custom is. In Japan, that might seem very odd to receive a tip at check-in from someone,

00:59:07.600 | right? But if you wrote them a lovely note and handed it to them with two hands at check-in,

00:59:12.160 | that might be a different story, right? And accompany that with a gift, right? Yes,

00:59:16.160 | the answer is it can unlock experiences for you for sure. It has to be culturally appropriate

00:59:20.240 | to the market that you're in. And if you have questions about that, look online,

00:59:24.160 | look ahead of time and say like tipping concierge or tipping at check-in and seeing what will

00:59:28.480 | happen. What won't work is you're not going to get an upgrade if you give a flight attendant

00:59:33.680 | 20 bucks. They're going to be pissed at you. Same thing with a gate agent at an airport, right?

00:59:39.200 | Those things don't work. But you can, which I've done, absolutely bring flight attendants chocolate

00:59:46.080 | and say, "Hey, I know how hard you're working. Thank you." And watch what the service you get

00:59:50.000 | is. It's exceptional, no matter what a cabin of service you're in. Well, I guess the follow-up

00:59:55.040 | question naturally is, is there anything you can do to get an upgrade on a flight for free

01:00:01.280 | without using your points and miles? It sounds like the answer is no. I have no recommendable

01:00:05.680 | options other than enhancing your on-flight service experience by bringing gifts for the

01:00:10.800 | flight attendants. I love doing that anyway, because they're some of the hardest working

01:00:13.920 | people in hospitality. It's a crazy job. And think about how many crazy people are

01:00:17.440 | yelling at them at all times. Take care of them. Bring them treats, bring them chocolates,

01:00:22.000 | even just saying thank you. Some loyalty programs will give certain status members

01:00:30.240 | these little certificates that you can then give away to a flight attendant to say, "Hey,

01:00:34.080 | thank you. You did a great job." And I've actually written in to request more from American Airlines,

01:00:38.240 | and they've sent them to me. So that's also useful to know, is that American United, they used to,

01:00:43.520 | Delta, for a little while, they used to give you these certificates. Ask your loyalty program if

01:00:48.800 | they have anything that you can use to reward their staff. They might just direct you to some

01:00:53.360 | online form, which is worthless. But if they have a physical thing you can give away, that goes miles.

01:00:59.760 | All right. And last thing is about organizing stuff on the ground. I know we talked on this

01:01:05.280 | in our first episode, but if we're focused on the higher end, are there concierge services?

01:01:13.200 | Is it the hotel? Is it things like Quintessentially that can unlock stuff? Or are most of these

01:01:19.600 | services more about saving you the time and energy of organizing than actual access?

01:01:24.960 | All of the above. So it depends on the experience you want to have. And I'll give you an example.

01:01:29.600 | If you want to go to the Formula One track in Monza in Italy, there are multiple ways of going

01:01:37.360 | about that. You can go to the Formula One track and find out, "Hey, how do I get access here?"

01:01:42.720 | And if they say to you, "Oh, sorry, it's private only," or "You can't, you're a schlub," or whatever

01:01:46.960 | it is, then you look at step B. Well, who sells just access to that? Is there a Formula One racing

01:01:53.680 | club? Is there a Formula One-focused tourism experience that I could look at where I could

01:01:59.200 | buy access that way? What hotel are you staying? Can you ask them and can you see what they can do?

01:02:03.680 | Do they recommend not working with the concierge but working with a local ticket provider or

01:02:08.080 | something else? Yes, you can go to a DMC that oversees a region. They might look at all of

01:02:14.320 | Northern Italy or they might be responsible for all of Italy and say to them, "Hey, listen, I want

01:02:18.560 | to do this experience in Monza, but I also want to go to this restaurant and this," and they can

01:02:22.960 | help you put together that whole experience. Or it might be something that is so hyper-focused

01:02:27.440 | that you would want to use a service like Acquintessentially, where they're putting

01:02:30.800 | together an entire trip for you based around one experience. "I want to go golfing at St. Andrews.

01:02:36.480 | I want to do the racetrack. I want to do driving here. I want to do whatever."

01:02:39.680 | And then they literally craft a trip around that. Whether it's a travel designer or a

01:02:44.240 | membership club like Acquintessentially, I would recommend looking at that to see who can help you

01:02:48.800 | build that rounded trip with the guarantee of access to the key thing it is that you want.

01:02:54.000 | But I would always first start with what is that service? What is that place I want to go? And is

01:02:59.200 | there a way of just directly getting access? Cutting out all the middlemen first, directly

01:03:03.040 | getting access. And if I can't do that, then keep going in the concentric circles thereafter.

01:03:08.720 | Yeah, I haven't used Acquintessentially or any of the other high-end concierge services. They're

01:03:12.560 | quite expensive, thousands of dollars a year. I'm actually thinking maybe it would be a fun

01:03:16.880 | episode to bring someone on from them and just talk about where they add value, how that works.

01:03:21.200 | So that's something we'll do in the future. I think that's all I got for this episode right

01:03:25.360 | now. I'm sure we're going to come up with more. We'll have Lee back on a third time.

01:03:29.360 | Before we go, where can people stay in tune with what you're working on?

01:03:33.600 | So my name is spelled in a funny way. It's L-E-I-G-H, last name Rowan, R-O-W-A-N. The

01:03:39.920 | company is Savanti Travel, S-A-V-A-N-T-I, travel. Hit me up online. I'm always here to be helpful

01:03:47.680 | however I can. I'm so appreciative of the opportunity to see you again in this beautiful

01:03:51.280 | place and to check in again on these fun topics. And again, I'm giving you huge kudos on the

01:03:58.080 | millions of listeners you've had, the incredible success, and these luminary guests of which I'm

01:04:02.800 | just a mere peon. Well, the advice you've given in our first episode to reach out to the hotel

01:04:09.760 | to get upgraded has easily been the most emailed topic I've gotten from any listener. So many

01:04:17.040 | people have been upgraded because of it. Shout out to one listener, Janie, who actually had

01:04:22.640 | her initials embroidered into a pillow. Yes. You sent me that email. That was so cool.

01:04:27.120 | It was wild. So your hacks in the first episode and this one will hook up dozens of people,

01:04:32.400 | hundreds of people. Thank you. And I hope to do it again soon.

01:04:36.000 | Thank you so much, Chris.

01:04:37.120 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

Unlocking Travel Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Leigh Rowan | All The Hacks #51

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