Latest Deals, My First 911 Call, Summer Travel, Father's Day and More

00:00:00.000 | Lots of things to share today, from some of the best deals I've seen lately, to my first

00:00:04.680 | time calling 9-1-1, booking award travel for the summer, some Father's Day gift ideas,

00:00:10.040 | a family update from us, and more.

00:00:13.520 | Hello, I am Chris Hutchins, and this is All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life,

00:00:19.240 | money, and travel.

00:00:20.680 | Today is something new.

00:00:21.760 | I'm going to call it Monday Musings because, well, it's Monday, and I have a lot on my

00:00:25.920 | mind.

00:00:26.920 | In fact, this idea came to me this morning while I was on a run, and I just kept thinking

00:00:31.640 | about more and more things to include, which usually doesn't happen on my runs, but it's

00:00:36.200 | probably because I'm normally running with my wife, Amy, who is not able to run with

00:00:40.400 | me right now for a few months.

00:00:42.200 | More on that later.

00:00:43.200 | So, yes, this is a deviation from our normal show.

00:00:46.040 | We'll be back to a regular episode on Wednesday.

00:00:48.320 | It's actually an incredible episode about redeeming points and miles for the maximum

00:00:52.480 | value, so definitely check that out.

00:00:54.680 | Also, given the short turnaround, because I'm recording this the same day I'm going

00:00:58.200 | to release it, and it happens to be a holiday, I am editing this one myself, so cut me some

00:01:02.320 | slack.

00:01:03.320 | Finally, since this covers a wide range of topics, I will remind you that we do put timestamps

00:01:07.440 | to everything in the show notes, so you can jump around, and unless you're on Apple Podcasts,

00:01:12.000 | I have no idea why they don't support this feature.

00:01:14.240 | You can actually just click those timestamps on every other player and jump to that part

00:01:18.000 | of the episode.

00:01:19.000 | So, let's get into it right after this.

00:01:22.600 | Okay, the first thing is a really short one, but I want to remind you all to smile.

00:01:28.960 | Credit to Matt Wilbers on the Peloton app who gave me that reminder during my run this

00:01:33.120 | morning, but it is just wild how smiling can sometimes make you feel better.

00:01:37.960 | Just try it right now.

00:01:38.960 | It feels good.

00:01:40.200 | So, next, I want to talk about the intros to this podcast.

00:01:43.600 | So, if you've watched any of our episodes on YouTube recently, you've probably noticed

00:01:47.320 | we've been doing a bit of a different style intro, which naturally has made me think about

00:01:52.040 | what kind of intros to do with the podcast on audio outside of YouTube.

00:01:56.760 | So, over the next month, I'm going to test a few things out.

00:01:59.600 | You might have heard a little bit of a different intro today, and I'd love to know what you

00:02:03.040 | think.

00:02:04.040 | If you're on Spotify, they have a cool feature where I can do a pop-up poll that I'm going

00:02:07.200 | to try.

00:02:08.200 | Otherwise, you can let me know on Twitter, Instagram, email.

00:02:10.920 | I'm just podcast@allthehacks.com.

00:02:12.960 | Also, for a little context on why this is all happening, it's because there's a little

00:02:17.400 | bit of a shift with audio and video in the industry.

00:02:20.240 | Spotify is starting to allow podcasters to add video on their platform, and YouTube has

00:02:25.080 | moved to a place that if you want to use the YouTube music app to listen to podcasts, you

00:02:29.840 | can only get those as a listener if the publisher, meaning the podcast like me, is putting them

00:02:35.640 | out on YouTube.

00:02:36.840 | So, a lot of things are changing, and it probably won't affect most of you, but I'm starting

00:02:41.920 | to think about how video and audio fit in together in the future.

00:02:45.360 | Okay.

00:02:46.360 | Let's talk about some of the latest deals.

00:02:48.960 | If you subscribe to my newsletter, which I know many of you do, thank you, some of those

00:02:52.960 | deals that you get are going to be familiar to what I'm talking about today, but not all

00:02:57.160 | of them.

00:02:58.160 | That's because every two weeks, and hopefully soon every week on Saturday morning, I send

00:03:02.320 | out an email with all the latest things I'm finding, which includes deals, news, credit

00:03:06.980 | card offers, products, movies, TV show recommendations, and a lot more.

00:03:11.900 | I thought today what I'd do is I'd give you a preview of what that content looks like

00:03:16.600 | and walk through what's in a newsletter so that you guys listening know what you might

00:03:21.320 | get if you sign up and pick up a little bit of cool stuff today.

00:03:25.720 | For those who already subscribe, I added a few extra things as well.

00:03:29.280 | And if you're not subscribed and you want to, go to allthehacks.com/email to get the

00:03:33.540 | latest deals, news, finds, and more in your inbox every two weeks.

00:03:38.080 | So first, I'll talk about deals.

00:03:39.580 | So there are a bunch of card-linked offers lately, and those are when you log into Amex

00:03:43.780 | or Chase or whatever your platform is, and you can add deals to specific cards.

00:03:48.460 | So on the Amex side, Air France, Dell, Hilton, JetBlue, Delta, Hertz, IHG, and Lyft all have

00:03:54.620 | deals that range from $15 off $50 all the way up to $200 off $1,000.

00:04:01.220 | A lot of them expire in June, some of them even further than that.

00:04:05.380 | And then on the Chase side, IHG, Resort Pass, DoorDash, Westin, and Turo all have offers

00:04:11.200 | for anywhere from $10 to 20% back.

00:04:14.540 | Some of those are through the end of May, some of those are pushed out till June.

00:04:18.300 | Next there's a deal for today only where you can get 5X bonus miles on Apple purchases

00:04:24.020 | through the Alaska, American, Delta, and United shopping portals.

00:04:27.260 | So if you have anything from Apple on your plans, today might be a good day to do it.

00:04:31.600 | Next I want to talk about built and how you can start earning even more built points.

00:04:35.040 | They just added 20,000 restaurants to built dining.

00:04:38.660 | And so even if you don't have a built card, you can use a Chase, Amex, anything, and link

00:04:42.460 | that to your built account, which you can create for free.

00:04:46.020 | And then when you go to any of the restaurants in their network, you start earning built

00:04:49.220 | points.

00:04:50.220 | Now built points are some of the most valuable points out there.

00:04:52.100 | You can transfer them to almost every hotel group as well as United, Alaska, Aeroplan,

00:04:57.700 | Life Miles.

00:04:58.780 | There's so many great options.

00:05:00.440 | And this is one way to get them without the built card.

00:05:03.060 | I know some of the restaurants near us that we already frequent.

00:05:05.700 | I now get 3X points at when I'm using any card I have.

00:05:09.900 | However, if you do have the built card, I'm really excited because in four days it's another

00:05:14.080 | rent day and on the first of the month you get double your points.

00:05:17.820 | So that means that built is going to offer 6X on dining, 4X on travel, and 2X on everything

00:05:23.100 | else.

00:05:24.100 | So that's something I always take advantage of.

00:05:25.760 | These built dining rewards stack on top of that, which is awesome.

00:05:29.900 | And one more hack is that I've been using built rent days to go and buy gift cards at

00:05:35.700 | restaurants we frequent a lot because let's face it, we don't always go out on the first

00:05:39.860 | of the month.

00:05:40.860 | And one cool way to do that is if the restaurant uses Toast, which is toasttab.com or the Toast

00:05:46.060 | app, you can easily buy gift cards for those restaurants in the Toast app, which has been

00:05:50.460 | awesome.

00:05:51.460 | Finally, on rent day they have a trivia game that you can play and earn more free points.

00:05:56.060 | So if you want to sign up for a free built account, you can do it at allthehacks.com/built.

00:06:00.820 | Also on the deal side, we've recently shared deals to get 10% off gift cards at 100 different

00:06:06.380 | brands.

00:06:07.380 | That deal's expired.

00:06:08.380 | And then Southwest gift cards were on sale for 16% off at Costco and Sam's Club.

00:06:13.100 | That deal has expired, though funny enough it looks like they are back on sale at Costco

00:06:17.380 | again.

00:06:18.380 | I'm not sure how long that'll last.

00:06:19.380 | But those are some of the deals we like to share in the newsletter.

00:06:22.320 | On the points and miles front, we share things like right now it's Hilton Double Point summer

00:06:27.060 | promo.

00:06:28.060 | So if you register, you can earn 2x points for all stays at Hilton between May 2nd and

00:06:32.980 | September 2nd.

00:06:34.560 | There's no limit on how much you can earn.

00:06:36.740 | We also shared a bunch of the transfer bonuses you can get when transferring points from

00:06:40.260 | Amex City Chase to different airlines and hotel groups.

00:06:43.700 | Right now through the end of May, there's three.

00:06:46.180 | Amex has 20% to Aeromexico and 30% to Virgin Atlantic, and City has 30% bonus points to

00:06:52.260 | Qatar Air.

00:06:53.620 | And then through June 15th, Chase has a transfer bonus of 30% to Virgin Atlantic and to Marriott

00:06:59.260 | for a 40% bonus, and then City has a 50% bonus to Turkish Miles and Smiles through the same

00:07:04.700 | date.

00:07:05.700 | I also love to share when there are cards that are launching or have new signup bonuses.

00:07:09.880 | So the City Premier was recently relaunched as the almost identical City Strata Premier.

00:07:14.880 | It's always gotten and still gets 3x on airfare, hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and gas

00:07:21.620 | stations, but it now also gets 3x on EV charging.

00:07:26.020 | They also added some travel protections, and they increased the welcome bonus to 75,000

00:07:30.620 | thank you points after you spend $4,000 in three months.

00:07:34.180 | The only catch is you can't have received the bonus for a City Premier in the last 48

00:07:38.540 | months.

00:07:39.540 | So I'm debating whether I jump on this because I don't have a City card yet.

00:07:43.900 | There is a rumor that there might be a City Strata Elite card coming sometime.

00:07:47.660 | I'd love to know if that's coming before I decide whether I do this.

00:07:51.260 | And then last, the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserve cards both have an increased welcome

00:07:54.980 | offer right now up to 75,000 points after you spend $4,000 in three months.

00:08:00.300 | That kind of a deal for both cards works out to about 20 points per dollar if you include

00:08:04.460 | the points you get from that spend.

00:08:06.960 | But on the Chase side, you can't get the bonus if you have either card right now or if you've

00:08:13.220 | earned the bonus from either card in the past 48 months.

00:08:16.460 | And obviously for all Chase cards, you have to be under Chase's 5/24 rule, which means

00:08:20.140 | you can't have opened five cards across all issuers in the last 24 months, at least cards

00:08:25.020 | that show up on your credit report.

00:08:26.680 | So sometimes business cards won't count.

00:08:28.820 | But a common strategy for people that already have one of these cards and want the bonus

00:08:31.940 | again is to downgrade to the Freedom Flex or the Freedom Unlimited, wait a week or so,

00:08:37.260 | and then reapply.

00:08:39.340 | Obviously for cards, I'd appreciate you using our links if they have the best deals.

00:08:44.480 | We don't have any City links, so you can go anywhere there.

00:08:46.780 | And if you can get a better deal with a referral from your Player 2, go there.

00:08:51.140 | Otherwise, allthehacks.com/cards.

00:08:54.220 | Last thing in travel points and miles is United, without any announcement, rolled out more

00:08:58.380 | devaluations to some of their partner awards.

00:09:01.500 | So if you're looking to book ANA First Class to Japan, it's gone from 121 to 242,000 miles,

00:09:08.060 | so doubled.

00:09:09.380 | It's kind of a trend that United seems to be increasing partner awards without any notice.

00:09:14.660 | So I've really focused most of my booking on Star Alliance from Air Canada or Avianca

00:09:20.540 | instead of from United.

00:09:21.780 | I also like to share in the newsletter some great finds that I've had.

00:09:25.740 | Recently I found a good video from Dr. Peter Attia that talks about why time isn't really

00:09:30.300 | the best factor when it comes to exercise and some of the indicators that might make

00:09:34.820 | for good exercise like VO2 max and muscle mass.

00:09:38.260 | Nick Gray, who's a past podcast guest, recently went on a publicly arranged blind date where

00:09:44.020 | he solicited recommendations for someone to meet him in Tokyo for a few days.

00:09:49.220 | He posted daily about everything that was happening.

00:09:51.760 | He chronicled all the posts in a wrap-up on his blog.

00:09:54.740 | It was so interesting.

00:09:56.100 | I was literally like waiting for him to write his next post so I could see what was happening.

00:10:01.020 | So that was a fun one.

00:10:02.020 | And then there was a cool article I found from Vox just about why car insurance rates

00:10:06.300 | have been going up so much.

00:10:07.880 | So I'll link to all of those in the newsletter, allthehacks.com/email.

00:10:11.640 | And then last, in the newsletters I like to share recommendations, kind of similar to

00:10:15.260 | Great Finds, but things that I really enjoyed.

00:10:17.540 | On the movie front, I recommended the Tetris movie if anyone hasn't seen it.

00:10:21.300 | I thought it was really awesome and I'd never seen or heard the story behind that game,

00:10:25.980 | which was fascinating.

00:10:27.120 | It's on Apple TV+.

00:10:29.060 | Also recommended Superhuman.

00:10:31.220 | It's really the fastest email out there.

00:10:33.100 | I've saved so much time since I've used it.

00:10:35.280 | It works on Gmail or Outlook.

00:10:37.060 | It works with keyboard shortcuts.

00:10:38.700 | They have an AI to write emails.

00:10:41.140 | It's really great.

00:10:42.140 | I'm sure I left off a ton of features, but you can actually try it for a month for free

00:10:45.860 | at allthehacks.com/superhuman, or you can use the code ALLTHEHACKS.

00:10:50.660 | And last, I shared a show that I kind of just finished binging called Trafficked on YouTube

00:10:55.660 | with Mariana Van Zeller.

00:10:57.620 | It is wild how deep she as a host goes in this docuseries where she's kind of exploring

00:11:03.140 | these really dangerous inner workings of kind of global underworld, I guess, everything

00:11:08.320 | from drug cartels to black market organs, online romance scams.

00:11:12.620 | You can watch it on YouTube, Hulu, and the Nat Geo website.

00:11:15.860 | Really liked it.

00:11:16.860 | So that's what I typically share in a newsletter.

00:11:18.820 | You can go to allthehacks.com/email to read some past ones and subscribe, and I'll be

00:11:23.220 | sending another one on Saturday with some particularly awesome hotel deals related to

00:11:28.780 | cards that have come up recently, as well as some other stuff.

00:11:32.720 | Next topic today, which actually might end up being in that newsletter next week, is

00:11:36.460 | around Father's Day.

00:11:37.620 | I had a few friends ask me if I had any ideas, and so I wanted to pull together a few in

00:11:42.500 | no particular order.

00:11:44.580 | One is the Moft snap-on phone stand and wallet for the iPhone.

00:11:48.820 | It uses MagSafe to kind of magnetically connect.

00:11:51.880 | It says it holds two cards.

00:11:53.220 | I found that it holds three cards and a couple dollar bills.

00:11:56.540 | Moft.us is where you can find that.

00:11:59.540 | The Ooni Pizza Oven is great.

00:12:01.100 | I actually, we just used one at a neighbor's house.

00:12:03.300 | I love making pizza at home.

00:12:05.220 | We've given that as a gift in the past.

00:12:07.380 | I really love, for someone who likes cocktails, the Cocktail Codex book.

00:12:12.100 | It's fantastic.

00:12:13.100 | A friend of mine's really into hoodies and has tried like 15 different hoodies in search

00:12:17.780 | of the best one.

00:12:19.380 | He claims that so far the 10,000 mid-weight tech hoodie is the best one, and he actually

00:12:25.300 | sent me one, and it's fantastic.

00:12:27.780 | I'm still a big fan, from talking about that run this morning, two products.

00:12:31.760 | One is the Shox Open Run Pro headphones.

00:12:34.420 | I mentioned them in my gift guide last year, and I still really enjoy them.

00:12:38.340 | They're open ear, so you can kind of hear what's going on around you better.

00:12:42.180 | The other thing on the run is the Nike Vaporfly 3 shoes.

00:12:45.900 | It might be any number.

00:12:47.380 | They might have a 4 now.

00:12:48.380 | I'm not sure.

00:12:49.380 | I remember reading about these shoes in 2020 when there was an article about whether shoes

00:12:53.160 | can actually make you run fast, and there's been debate about banning these shoes.

00:12:57.660 | Well, just for a test, when I first got them, I finished a normal 30-minute run, checked

00:13:02.860 | my distance, and it was a little shy of 10% further than any 30-minute run I'd done the

00:13:08.060 | past year, so if you want to help someone run faster, Nike Vaporflys are great.

00:13:12.780 | Next, we got an 8Sleep last year.

00:13:15.020 | We absolutely love it.

00:13:16.420 | If you haven't seen, they launched the new Pod 4 Ultra, which is even better.

00:13:20.220 | There's actually a $200 discount that we got them to give us for listeners.

00:13:24.160 | It's allthehacks.com/8sleep, and if you're on the fence, they have a really generous

00:13:28.020 | 30-day return policy, and they even cover return shipping.

00:13:31.060 | A gift certificate for an escape room.

00:13:32.900 | I'm a huge escape room fan, or if you want to give someone a solo kind of escape room

00:13:37.380 | board game vibe at home, Box One from Theory 11 is an amazing game.

00:13:43.420 | It's like a solo game/escape room.

00:13:46.060 | I loved it.

00:13:47.500 | And then my good friends Heather and Jonathan started an outdoor game during the pandemic

00:13:52.500 | called Tug-o-Wobble.

00:13:54.420 | Think of it like tug-of-war, but with a little bit of a twist where you're standing on these

00:13:58.340 | platforms.

00:13:59.340 | It's really fun.

00:14:00.500 | They're having a sale right now that goes through tomorrow, 5/28 for Memorial Day, to

00:14:04.980 | get 25% off.

00:14:06.340 | I'll link to all these things in the show notes.

00:14:08.900 | And then finally, I think you all know that most of the brands we work with as sponsors

00:14:12.940 | are brands that we reached out to because we love the products.

00:14:16.460 | And so it's no surprise that there are actually four products that I wanted to include on

00:14:19.840 | this list, but I just thought it would be fair to say they are sponsors of the show

00:14:23.060 | as well.

00:14:24.060 | They actually don't know I'm mentioning them and haven't paid to be here, but I think they

00:14:28.220 | make fantastic gifts.

00:14:30.220 | StoryWorth, if you want to create amazing books of stories of your father, it's a great

00:14:35.620 | gift.

00:14:36.620 | You can get $10 off at allthehacks.com/storyworth.

00:14:39.060 | Viore, most comfortable clothes out there.

00:14:42.700 | I'm wearing Viore pants and I'm wearing a Viore shirt right now as I record.

00:14:46.980 | I love Viore.

00:14:47.980 | I wore them on the run this morning.

00:14:49.180 | The core shorts are awesome.

00:14:51.020 | Sunday performance joggers, you can get those 15% off, allthehacks.com/viore, V-U-O-R-E.

00:14:58.380 | Funny enough, I gave StoryWorth to my dad last year and two years ago, I gave him a

00:15:01.460 | subscription to Masterclass, which is amazing online content to learn just about anything

00:15:07.500 | from really world-renowned experts, 15% off at allthehacks.com/masterclass.

00:15:13.460 | And then the last is a new sponsor, which I've actually used their products for over

00:15:18.240 | a decade, which is Indochino.

00:15:20.460 | They're the suit I bought for my wedding.

00:15:22.060 | I still wear it to this day.

00:15:23.800 | And if you want to get someone a new suit for Father's Day, you can get 10% off with

00:15:27.460 | the code allthehacks.

00:15:28.460 | Next, I want to share something a little personal before I jump into booking award travel for

00:15:33.300 | the summer.

00:15:34.300 | So almost a decade ago, my father-in-law did a genetic test and found out he had the BRCA2

00:15:39.180 | gene mutation.

00:15:40.340 | For those not familiar, BRCA1 and BRCA2 are genes that help repair DNA damage.

00:15:45.380 | And when you have a mutation in them, the genes can't necessarily repair things effectively

00:15:49.580 | and it increases the risk for different types of cancers, particularly breast and ovarian

00:15:54.500 | cancer.

00:15:55.500 | And the increased risk is pretty meaningful.

00:15:57.860 | If you look at a National Cancer Institute article, it compiled a bunch of research and

00:16:02.220 | the summary was 13% of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime

00:16:07.240 | in their lives.

00:16:08.400 | But if they have the BRCA1 mutation, that increase goes to 55% to 72% by the time they're

00:16:15.300 | 70 to 80 years old.

00:16:16.940 | And on the BRCA2 side, it goes to 45% to 69%.

00:16:20.860 | So a very significant increase.

00:16:23.460 | On the ovarian cancer side, it goes from 1.2% for the general population to 39% to 44% for

00:16:30.460 | BRCA1 and 11% to 17% for BRCA2 by age 70 to 80.

00:16:35.300 | It has a lot of impact on other cancers.

00:16:37.340 | For example, 6% of people by age 69 have prostate cancer.

00:16:42.180 | On BRCA1 side, it jumps up to 21% by 75 and 29% by 85.

00:16:48.220 | And BRCA2 jumps up to 27% by 75 and 60% by 85.

00:16:53.540 | Now these mutations can be inherited from parents.

00:16:56.380 | And so if one of your parents has a BRCA mutation, there's a 50% chance you'll inherit it.

00:17:01.020 | And so my wife did a genetic test, which I think it was from either Color or Invitae,

00:17:06.100 | and she found out she has the BRCA2 mutation.

00:17:09.160 | After learning this, Amy reached out to her doctors at UCSF who recommended she speak

00:17:13.940 | with their BRCA team.

00:17:15.820 | And a common course of action is actually a preventative mastectomy or oophorectomy,

00:17:20.380 | which is the removal of the breasts and the ovaries.

00:17:23.980 | Now as you can imagine, that's a very serious set of procedures that someone will have to

00:17:28.020 | make a decision about.

00:17:29.440 | And Stanford actually has this amazing decision tool for women to play with some of the numbers

00:17:34.820 | for people with the BRCA mutations.

00:17:36.960 | And it highlights the benefits of those procedures and actually shows some examples.

00:17:40.500 | And I'm just going to read them because I thought it was really impactful.

00:17:43.340 | So what it shows is that for 100 women aged 35 to 39 years old with a BRCA1 mutation who

00:17:48.580 | are doing regular screenings, by age 70, 15 of them will be alive and have never had either

00:17:54.960 | cancer.

00:17:55.960 | 73 will have had breast cancer or ovarian cancer, and of them, 28 will have died of

00:18:00.820 | it.

00:18:01.820 | And then there are 12 other women who would have died from other causes.

00:18:04.620 | And having both of those procedures before 40 years old increases the number out of 100

00:18:09.820 | people who will be alive without having cancer by 4X from 15 to 60 and reduces the number

00:18:18.100 | who have had either cancer from 73 down to 25 and also reduces the number of people who

00:18:23.540 | died from either of those two cancers from 28 to 8.

00:18:27.980 | So those are the numbers for the BRCA1 mutation.

00:18:30.180 | For BRCA2, which is what Amy has, it's slightly better, but it's still not what you want to

00:18:34.500 | see.

00:18:35.500 | So for 100 women 35 to 39 years old with BRCA2 who are doing regular screenings, by

00:18:40.700 | age 70, 37 will be alive and have never had breast cancer or ovarian cancer.

00:18:46.380 | 50 will be alive having had breast or ovarian cancer, and 11 of them will have died from

00:18:51.700 | it.

00:18:52.700 | Then 13 other women would have died from other causes.

00:18:55.780 | And if you have BRCA2 and you get both of those preventative procedures done before

00:19:01.220 | 40, it increases the number out of 100 who will be alive without having either cancer

00:19:05.340 | 2X from 37 to 74 and reduces the number of people who have had either cancer from 50

00:19:12.740 | to just 11 and reduces the number who died from either cancer from 11 to 2.

00:19:18.260 | So I know I threw a lot of numbers out there, but I think that data makes a really strong

00:19:21.540 | case for both procedures.

00:19:23.500 | But given the impact on having children and breastfeeding, Amy and her doctors ultimately

00:19:27.840 | decided to hold off on anything other than frequent screening until she finished having

00:19:31.940 | children and breastfeeding, which was last year.

00:19:34.940 | So being the incredible and courageous woman she is, last week Amy had her double mastectomy,

00:19:41.620 | which seems so far to have gone as well as it could have.

00:19:45.020 | She's probably going to do her ovarian removal next year, which because it can likely be

00:19:49.340 | done laparoscopically will be much less invasive with a much shorter recovery.

00:19:54.420 | As for now, she is recovering at home and it is so tough to have to explain to the kids

00:19:59.300 | why mommy can't pick them up, but they are taking it well and we're just all really excited

00:20:03.940 | for her to be fully recovered and to take a family trip, which we're planning on the

00:20:08.100 | other side of this at the end of the summer.

00:20:10.300 | So part of the reason I shared that is just because it's something we never knew about

00:20:14.940 | before going into this.

00:20:16.620 | The testing was something that only really came up because her father tested for it.

00:20:21.040 | And I just thought it was interesting and knowledge that some people might want to have,

00:20:24.860 | especially if you're in the middle of this situation.

00:20:27.540 | However, there is one more part of the journey that while very difficult in the moment and

00:20:32.540 | hard for us, had some valuable takeaways that I wanted to also share.

00:20:37.480 | So last Wednesday morning, Amy was discharged and we came home and she was mostly resting.

00:20:43.140 | After dinner, she decided to stay downstairs and I helped drain some of the fluid from

00:20:46.900 | the tubes that they leave in for a few weeks after surgery.

00:20:50.460 | Now I'm not sure why, but afterwards Amy felt a bit nauseous and we decided to help her

00:20:55.420 | get upstairs to lie down and about halfway there, she decided she wanted to sit down

00:20:59.740 | and took a break on the bottom of the stairs and she ended up passing out.

00:21:04.260 | Now she was completely unresponsive for what was actually only about 20 to 30 seconds,

00:21:09.100 | but felt like way longer.

00:21:11.540 | While absolutely terrifying, I immediately called 911.

00:21:14.820 | Her mom propped her up and very shortly she came back to it.

00:21:18.460 | She said she felt like she had just fallen asleep.

00:21:20.880 | Very quickly the paramedics arrived.

00:21:22.640 | Thank you so much for all first responders.

00:21:25.660 | They checked her vitals.

00:21:26.660 | They didn't really find anything wrong at all, but of course they still suggested she

00:21:30.840 | go to the ER to get checked out either in the ambulance or we could drive her.

00:21:35.780 | Now it's 9 30 PM when this happens.

00:21:38.520 | After having had surgery, the absolute last thing Amy wanted to do was to go sit in an

00:21:43.460 | ER for hours.

00:21:45.100 | So fortunately I decided to call a good friend and ER physician, a guy named Bill Yount,

00:21:51.400 | who happens to also host an amazing podcast called Catching Up to Phi, where he basically

00:21:55.620 | covers the financial independence journey for people who are getting a late start.

00:21:59.900 | I've been a guest, so thank you Bill for having me on.

00:22:03.580 | Bill didn't want to give me personal medical advice, but he wanted to talk about the situation.

00:22:07.700 | He pointed out a few things that would have been warning signs of something much more

00:22:11.820 | serious like a pulmonary embolism, and those warning signs made me want to share this story

00:22:17.480 | with you.

00:22:18.480 | And the two things were whether it came out of nowhere or not.

00:22:21.780 | So Amy was feeling a bit nauseous for a few minutes before she fainted, so that was actually

00:22:27.340 | pretty positive.

00:22:28.540 | And then the second was whether it was accompanied by shortness of breath, difficulty breathing,

00:22:33.380 | lots of sweats, which it was not.

00:22:35.940 | Now Bill's professional advice was to go to the ER, be seen by a doctor, rule out something

00:22:41.720 | more serious.

00:22:42.820 | However, personally, he said if it were him and his wife, it sounded like a safe situation

00:22:48.060 | to stay home, and that it likely could have been a vasovagal syncope, which is a common

00:22:53.440 | cause of fainting that happens when your heart rate and blood pressure suddenly drop, reducing

00:22:58.420 | your blood flow to your brain, causing you to lose consciousness for a short time.

00:23:02.660 | Some common triggers of that are seeing blood, standing up too quickly, or being in a stressful

00:23:07.300 | situation, all of which were present that night, so ultimately we decided to stay home

00:23:12.700 | and we haven't had any issues since.

00:23:15.220 | Amy has been resting more, not watching when the tubes are drained, and staying very hydrated.

00:23:20.640 | So I wanted to share that because I thought maybe it would be interesting, maybe it would

00:23:24.740 | be useful.

00:23:25.740 | Honestly, I hope it's not useful to any of you because you never have to deal with any

00:23:28.620 | of those situations, but it's something that I thought I would share today.

00:23:32.660 | So thank you so much for listening.

00:23:33.820 | I'm going to take a little bit of a turn here and talk about summer travel with points,

00:23:39.380 | and it's relevant because we're going to be taking a summer trip with points after Amy's

00:23:42.500 | recovery, and it's tough because in the summer, it seems like everyone in the United States

00:23:46.860 | wants to take a vacation.

00:23:48.540 | So I first want to tell you a story about summer travel, but related to a friend of

00:23:52.820 | mine who, funny enough, is also named Bill.

00:23:55.840 | He was looking to take a trip from Seattle to London and come back a few weeks later

00:23:59.560 | from Paris back to Seattle.

00:24:01.620 | He had very specific dates, he wanted to fly direct, maybe one stop, and he was willing

00:24:06.420 | to pay to do it in business class for three people, but he was sitting on a lot of points

00:24:10.740 | and wanted to see if he could get a good deal.

00:24:13.300 | Now when he looked, each one way from Seattle to London and from Paris back to Seattle was

00:24:17.700 | about $5,000.

00:24:19.300 | When we looked at points, we found an option to go from Seattle to London direct on Virgin

00:24:24.100 | Atlantic booked through Air France for 105,000 points and $200.

00:24:29.660 | Comparing that to $5,000 was about 4.6 cents per point, which is a great, great, great

00:24:35.340 | value.

00:24:36.340 | And just for anyone trying to understand the math there, I took $5,000, which was the fare,

00:24:40.780 | minus $200 to account for the taxes and fees you have to pay on the award ticket, which

00:24:45.240 | comes out to $4,800, and then I divide that by 105,000 points, which gets you 0.0457,

00:24:53.340 | or about 4.6 cents per point.

00:24:55.900 | So that was great.

00:24:56.900 | But the return was a bit tougher, and the best option we found was one stop on United

00:25:02.700 | a day later for 175,000 points and $150, which works out to about 2.8 cents per point.

00:25:10.220 | Now if he wanted to go the same day direct, it was over 300,000 or 400,000 points, which

00:25:14.660 | was just not a good deal.

00:25:16.620 | So the total for those two flights is 280,000 points and $350 per person.

00:25:23.060 | Now relative to two $5,000 tickets, it actually seemed like a really good deal.

00:25:27.860 | It would have been an average of 3.4 cents per point.

00:25:31.540 | But then I remembered something and asked him if he looked at multi-city flights or

00:25:35.780 | two one-ways.

00:25:37.100 | Now he couldn't have booked a round trip because he wasn't actually going into and out of the

00:25:40.740 | same airport.

00:25:41.740 | He was doing what's called an open job, where you book from Seattle to London and then back

00:25:45.660 | from Paris.

00:25:47.340 | And funny enough, it really, really changed things.

00:25:51.320 | But when you want to do that search, a lot of places can do it as a multi-city, where

00:25:55.020 | you can do that on Google Flights, you can do it anywhere.

00:25:57.300 | And sure enough, if Bill bought that flight from Seattle to London and Paris back to Seattle,

00:26:01.780 | all in business class as one ticket, where the outbound was on Delta and the return was

00:26:06.340 | on Air France, which works well because they're partners, instead of $5,000 each way, it came

00:26:11.860 | down to $4,050 total.

00:26:15.340 | So now I went back and said, "Oh, let's look at those options again."

00:26:19.180 | But keep in mind, those best options weren't even as ideal as the paid ticket because the

00:26:23.620 | return wasn't direct and he had to leave a day later.

00:26:27.440 | It would have actually only been 1.32 cents per point, which means he would actually just

00:26:32.160 | be better off buying the $4,050 ticket in the Chase portal because with his Chase reserve,

00:26:37.760 | he'd get 1.5 cents per point to book in the portal, which he would only need 270,000 points

00:26:44.480 | to do.

00:26:45.480 | Meanwhile, booking with points and miles and transferring to partners was going to cost

00:26:49.000 | 280,000 points, which is more, plus $350 in taxes.

00:26:54.680 | And that doesn't even take into account the fact that on those paid tickets, he'd actually

00:26:58.680 | be earning a lot of miles and points because he's buying a business class flight.

00:27:03.740 | If he credited all those flights to Delta, and I know he has status, so he'd be getting

00:27:08.020 | nine points per dollar, so almost 36,000 points.

00:27:12.040 | So you could actually factor that all into the calculation as well, and it brings the

00:27:16.080 | value to 1.17 cents per point.

00:27:18.640 | So in this case, for him, the portal was actually a much better deal, that if he's always going

00:27:23.360 | to travel like this, meaning he has no flexibility on dates or destinations, only really wants

00:27:28.000 | to fly direct, he's probably better off stopping playing the points game and just focusing

00:27:33.040 | on cashback and burning all the points he has right now in the portal.

00:27:37.320 | However, if he had another way to get outsized value from his points, he should just book

00:27:41.840 | this trip direct, pay out of pocket with dollars, and save his points for another day.

00:27:47.400 | And while he agreed that travel isn't usually that flexible, he did point out that he thinks

00:27:51.760 | he's going to be able to get a lot of value transferring his points to Hyatt and booking

00:27:55.560 | a lot of hotels, and that value can often be in the 1.8 to 2 cents per point.

00:28:00.760 | So for now, he's going to hold off on transferring his points, use them for Hyatt, and this is

00:28:05.080 | a trip he's just going to have to pay cash for.

00:28:07.320 | Now, before I talk about our trip, I want to come back to the idea that booking international

00:28:11.680 | one-way flights, especially between the US and Europe, can be very suboptimal.

00:28:16.040 | However, I want to flag an incredible way to save money if you ever need to do this.

00:28:21.520 | For example, I looked at a flight from Seattle to Paris where the one-way business class

00:28:26.280 | ticket was $4,383, but if you booked that exact same $4,400 business class flight and

00:28:33.040 | added a return in economy a few weeks later, it came down to $2,465.

00:28:40.900 | And if you just made that return go back to New York instead of Seattle, because that

00:28:45.000 | leg is even cheaper, the total came down to $2,250.

00:28:48.600 | Now, I only checked one date, and I put it in the summer, and it came back to just one

00:28:54.480 | airport.

00:28:55.480 | It is very possible that if I went and looked at more dates and more airports, it could

00:28:58.840 | have gotten any cheaper to come back.

00:29:01.800 | However, that took the price of the exact same $4,400 flight down to $2,250, meaning

00:29:09.520 | saving almost 50% of the cost.

00:29:12.800 | And it's not just true for business class.

00:29:15.200 | I looked on economy and a one-way flight, same dates from Seattle to Paris, that flight

00:29:20.920 | was $928 in economy for a one-way ticket, but if I made it a round trip coming back

00:29:27.520 | to New York, it brought the round trip price down to $691.

00:29:32.520 | So by adding a round trip leg, even if you're never going to take it, you would have saved

00:29:36.800 | on that economy ticket $237 or 26%.

00:29:40.440 | Now, if you want to take it even one step further and get more, once you've flown that

00:29:45.360 | first leg, you can cancel the return flight.

00:29:48.720 | Now, you're not going to usually get the fare back at all, not even as a credit, because

00:29:52.840 | you've started your trip, but most airlines are still required to give you back the taxes

00:29:57.480 | and fees if you cancel that leg, which in this case was actually $107.

00:30:03.320 | So that adds to the savings as well, and that was true even for economy, bringing that economy

00:30:08.760 | flight back after the refund to under $600.

00:30:13.760 | So two big takeaways.

00:30:15.240 | If you need to book a paid one-way flight between regions, especially the US to Europe,

00:30:20.160 | it can be way cheaper to add a throwaway leg to make it a round trip.

00:30:24.560 | And the extra bonus is if you're trying to do it in business class, make the return leg

00:30:29.040 | in economy.

00:30:30.040 | Now, you can't do this the other way around, because if you miss your first flight, your

00:30:34.440 | second flight will get canceled.

00:30:36.160 | And second, it doesn't make sense to compare the miles you need for two one-way award tickets

00:30:41.120 | to two one-way paid tickets if you can book those flights as multi-cities or using the

00:30:47.080 | trick we just talked about for way, way less.

00:30:49.920 | So hopefully that's helpful for anyone either traveling on one-ways or thinking about booking

00:30:54.600 | flights in business.

00:30:56.160 | So I first want to tell you a story about summer travel.

00:30:59.760 | As for our situation, now that our oldest daughter is going to school, it turns out

00:31:04.460 | as any parent knows, except us, because we're just entering this, the travel window just

00:31:08.940 | gets really narrow.

00:31:10.380 | It was obvious as we thought about it, but we never really processed the fact that once

00:31:14.280 | you have young kids that are in school, now you are forced to travel during summer, Christmas,

00:31:19.280 | Thanksgiving, New Year's, and spring break, maybe a winter break if you have that as well.

00:31:23.760 | Otherwise, you're pulling your kids out of school.

00:31:26.160 | So we decided we wanted to take a trip somewhere this summer.

00:31:29.040 | And when it comes to weather and young kids, it seems like the best option for late summer

00:31:33.520 | is somewhere in Europe.

00:31:35.040 | As it turns out, lots of people want to go to Europe in the summer, and we're going to

00:31:38.320 | be looking for four to five business class seats, depending on whether we bring our au pair.

00:31:43.040 | And so I thought I'd share about how I approach that search, because it's a little different

00:31:48.060 | than other times.

00:31:49.400 | For starters, I'm not even thinking about our final destination, whatever that may be,

00:31:53.760 | because we don't even know what it is.

00:31:55.280 | Instead, I am just looking for a flight directly from San Francisco to Europe over a large

00:32:01.380 | travel window that we can go.

00:32:03.320 | And I've been checking for five, 10 minutes every few days, but I actually found the flight

00:32:08.480 | we booked on PointsYaz Daydream Explorer tool, which if you aren't familiar, go back and

00:32:13.760 | listen to my episode a few weeks ago with Greg from The Frequent Miler.

00:32:17.560 | But I put in US/Europe with a window, I put four seats, and sure enough, I found a flight

00:32:23.240 | on one particular day that was cheaper than every single other day, and that was from

00:32:27.960 | San Francisco to Paris, and it was only 45,000 points, plus $200 per person.

00:32:33.680 | Now, since we don't have a destination in mind, it's really hard to compare that to

00:32:38.040 | what the cash price would be, but given what I just learned from helping Bill, it seemed

00:32:42.640 | like about $2,000 might be fair.

00:32:46.180 | Compared to $2,000, 45,000 points.

00:32:48.160 | Now, keep in mind, we probably aren't actually going to end up in Paris.

00:32:51.240 | We went there a few years ago, but because it's a direct flight to Europe, during dates

00:32:54.940 | that work for us, that lands early enough that we could easily hop on another cheap

00:32:59.000 | intra-Europe flight or train, we decided to book it.

00:33:03.160 | And a few considerations when you're doing one of these bookings, which is, I'll say,

00:33:06.640 | a little speculative.

00:33:07.840 | One, I was concerned that had I known where we wanted to go, I could have added that connecting

00:33:13.880 | leg on without paying any more miles, but just to set aside that concern, I ended up

00:33:19.200 | searching for those same flights with flights to all over Europe.

00:33:23.880 | Search Scandinavia, Rome, Portugal, Spain, everything, and every time it almost doubled

00:33:29.180 | the price, so I wasn't too worried, and when I was looking at all those intra-Europe flights,

00:33:34.400 | they were all less than 10,000 points in economy, availability was pretty good, and even if

00:33:38.880 | we had to pay cash, they were a couple hundred dollars, so I wasn't really worried about

00:33:42.640 | that aspect of it.

00:33:44.120 | Also, I did consider that we might find something better later, which brings up questions about

00:33:48.520 | the cost to cancel if you do something kind of speculative, and that's where the airline

00:33:53.600 | you book with actually matters.

00:33:55.720 | So in the case of Air France, I had to transfer those miles from Amex, which is irreversible.

00:34:01.400 | So if I want to change plans, and those plans aren't on Air France, I'm stuck with a balance

00:34:06.600 | of Air France points.

00:34:08.120 | So I have consistently found great Air France deals in the past, and it's pretty easy to

00:34:13.840 | prevent your miles from expiring, and so I'm okay leaving those points and miles in Air

00:34:20.400 | France if we decide to change things, but another important thing is that I also have

00:34:24.720 | enough points in Amex and Chase that I can use somewhere else, so it's not going to be

00:34:28.720 | too restrictive.

00:34:30.000 | However, also important is the cancellation cost.

00:34:33.280 | Many U.S. airlines will let you cancel and redeposit your miles for free, which is awesome,

00:34:39.160 | but a lot of the international airlines don't.

00:34:41.040 | So for Air France, you pay 70 euro per person to cancel, so in this case, if we found something

00:34:45.920 | better or decided not to take this trip, we'd be out 350 euro, which would suck, but it's

00:34:51.840 | nowhere near as bad as some others, which can be $200 per person.

00:34:55.480 | I'll link to a frequent miler article in the show notes that covers all the award cancel

00:34:59.100 | and change policies for every airline.

00:35:01.080 | As for coming home, we actually don't have a return trip, and that's something that in

00:35:05.320 | Wednesday's episode this week, I'm going to talk a lot about with Nick from The Frequent

00:35:09.480 | Miler also, and it's just such a great conversation.

00:35:13.080 | You are going to love it.

00:35:14.080 | We are going to talk about how to focus on getting the most value from your points and

00:35:17.360 | miles and ways to think about planning an entire trip, so stay tuned for that in two

00:35:21.880 | days.

00:35:22.880 | But coming back to it, we actually did find a return trip that could work, and it was

00:35:26.480 | a pretty good deal, 63,000 points, but it was on Swiss Air from Vienna to Zurich to

00:35:32.360 | San Francisco.

00:35:33.360 | Now, knowing we have no plans to end up in Vienna and that we have to book through Avianca,

00:35:37.700 | which was a $200 per person cancellation fee, I felt like it wasn't as likely to work as

00:35:42.440 | the other one, and we passed on it.

00:35:44.720 | Now, funny enough, if we could have just booked that direct Zurich flight instead of have

00:35:49.440 | to start in Vienna, I probably would have done it, but for some reason, that flight

00:35:54.400 | just didn't show up.

00:35:55.680 | If you wanted to book directly Zurich to San Francisco, it was like three times the price

00:35:59.580 | as booking Vienna to Zurich to San Francisco on the same flight, so that's just one of

00:36:04.160 | the nuances of miles and points and why having to use a lot of these new tools to do searching

00:36:09.040 | can be super valuable.

00:36:11.360 | Once we get everything booked, I will make sure to share all my learnings, and when we

00:36:14.560 | get back from the trip, I will definitely share my takeaways.

00:36:18.860 | Two more things that I quickly want to talk about.

00:36:21.120 | First is about teaching our three-year-old daughter how to read.

00:36:24.000 | Now, this wasn't something really on our minds at all until I saw this tweet go viral a few

00:36:29.200 | months ago about an app called Mentava that helps teach kids to read at really young ages,

00:36:35.160 | as early as two or three.

00:36:37.320 | Our daughter has been interested in letters and numbers, but we never really thought about

00:36:41.360 | trying to teach her to read yet, but I love technology, so it seemed like a great time

00:36:46.520 | to give it a consideration, so I signed up for the wait list and soon got an invitation.

00:36:52.240 | Without much context, the initial price of this app gave me a bit of sticker shock.

00:36:57.840 | It was $500 a month.

00:37:00.320 | Initially, that seemed really high, but in comparison to a private tutor, which would

00:37:05.200 | be $1,000 a month, or even private school at $2,000 to $3,000 a month, you could probably

00:37:10.720 | make an argument that this is a much better deal.

00:37:13.540 | Either way, it had a 30-day money-back guarantee, so I thought, "Why not give it a try?"

00:37:19.160 | About two weeks in, I was absolutely blown away.

00:37:22.800 | My daughter was actually reading four-letter words on her own, and all I could think about

00:37:28.400 | was what did I get myself into?

00:37:31.080 | The CEO of Mentava, Niels, has been posting a lot of interesting stuff online.

00:37:35.240 | He shared that the 30-day refund rate was way lower than expected, and they've seen

00:37:39.080 | a much higher renewal rate, which probably tracks with the experience that we're seeing

00:37:43.420 | of how well this works.

00:37:45.160 | Also, any time someone criticized the price online, he just offered up the advice of this

00:37:50.760 | incredible book for less than $20 that can help kids have a similar outcome.

00:37:56.160 | It's called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons."

00:37:59.240 | Naturally, I bought that book as well, and am trying to at least do my best comparison

00:38:04.560 | before the 30-day window is up.

00:38:07.200 | But having done a couple of lessons from the book, it really feels like Mentava wins on

00:38:11.800 | at least convenience and engagement, especially if my daughter had a vote, but that obviously

00:38:17.240 | comes at a cost.

00:38:18.680 | Quick aside, that also made me wonder, are there other apps or companies that could be

00:38:22.440 | built to take other types of learning and make them more convenient?

00:38:26.500 | So if you have that same idea and you're curious, definitely check out Greg Eisenberg's "The

00:38:32.000 | Startup Ideas" pod, because I joined him a couple weeks ago to talk about that exact

00:38:35.600 | topic.

00:38:36.600 | Now, just to clarify and be extra transparent, Mentava is not a sponsor of this show.

00:38:41.760 | At all.

00:38:42.960 | There was zero consideration given from Mentava, as much as I would absolutely love to get

00:38:47.680 | a free subscription.

00:38:48.680 | That was not offered to me, at least not yet.

00:38:51.040 | Niels, if you're listening, you have my email.

00:38:53.680 | But they did offer a $50 discount with the code ALLTHEHACKS to anyone who wants to give

00:38:58.360 | it a try for a month.

00:38:59.520 | I will just give you the same warning I gave my sister and wish I got myself.

00:39:03.640 | Don't try it unless you're actually willing to continue, because there is something so

00:39:07.500 | magical about seeing your child starting to learn to read.

00:39:11.320 | Next thing I probably need to do is some research on whether early reading actually has any

00:39:15.480 | impact on educational success or anything like that, so stay tuned.

00:39:19.760 | Finally, I want to give an update on the charity water fundraiser we did last year.

00:39:24.440 | We hit our goal of raising $20,000, which was $15,000 from all of you, and we ended

00:39:29.320 | up matching the first $5,000, which means we will be able to fully fund two water projects.

00:39:35.820 | Thank you so much to everyone who contributed.

00:39:38.240 | A special thank you to the five people who contributed $1,000 or more, Christian, Richard,

00:39:43.680 | the Greger family, Court, and a huge thank you to Kylie for the final $2,421 that got

00:39:51.280 | us to our $20,000 goal, which was on top of another contribution she had already made.

00:39:57.520 | I will keep everyone posted if we get updates from Charity Water about the progress of the

00:40:02.200 | water projects we're building.

00:40:04.640 | Thank you so much for listening.

00:40:06.220 | If you have any thoughts or feedback about this Monday Musings episode, please let me

00:40:10.720 | know.

00:40:11.720 | You can tag me on Twitter or Instagram, you can send a DM or email, podcast@allthehacks.com,

00:40:17.360 | or if you really want to speak my love language right now, it would be through a five-star

00:40:21.040 | review on Apple Podcasts.

00:40:23.480 | Thank you so much.

00:40:24.480 | I will see everyone on Wednesday.

Latest Deals, My First 911 Call, Summer Travel, Father's Day and More

Chapters