Optimizing Flights with Online Tools, Rewards, and Points! | All The Hacks

00:00:00.000 | the reason I reached out to you originally to say, Hey, is there any way we can get a deal

00:00:03.040 | for listeners was because I was like, this is the tool I want to recommend. And so anyone that does

00:00:08.000 | the kind of standard monthly membership can get the first month for a dollar with the code, all

00:00:12.000 | the hacks. And, you know, that's what I tell people to do. And I would tell them to do it.

00:00:16.160 | If you didn't have a discount code. We did want to do that and just make it easy for people who

00:00:22.800 | have points because everyone has points and no one really knows how to use them. And I can teach

00:00:26.560 | you how to do it by hand. You know, we have 30,000 blog posts on one mile at a time. If you want to

00:00:33.040 | do this by hand, I don't know who has time to read 30,000 blog posts though. I bet. But if you want

00:00:38.400 | to, like, there's an option available to you. You don't have to pay anything, you know, to learn how

00:00:42.400 | to do this, but there is a market for people who don't want to do that. They don't want to open

00:00:48.320 | 30 or 60 browser tabs. They just want to see what their options are, get a sense of what the prices

00:00:53.440 | are so that they can do their goal posting as they're earning their points. And just to be like,

00:00:57.600 | "Okay. Wow. Great to know that I can do San Francisco, Paris with flying blue on the nonstop.

00:01:03.520 | Didn't realize the fuel surcharges were going to be $450 a person. I'm going to think about that."

00:01:08.160 | You know, and be informed and then be able to make a decision and, you know, discuss and contemplate

00:01:13.120 | their travel plans. Like that's really what we wanted for Point Me. It was to just help people

00:01:17.920 | not feel like the space was completely opaque and impenetrable, that they could

00:01:23.040 | be informed and make travel choices. Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,

00:01:27.520 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel, all while spending less and saving more.

00:01:32.160 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm excited to have you on my journey to optimize and upgrade my own life.

00:01:36.960 | Now, a good portion of the emails I get from you all are about how to best use all the points and

00:01:41.280 | miles you've racked up for travel. And while I've covered parts of that in at least a dozen episodes,

00:01:46.240 | I felt like it's time to have an episode solely focused on booking award travel.

00:01:51.120 | So for the last few months, I've been trying to track down someone who is truly world-class at

00:01:55.440 | this, and I did. So today I'm joined by Tiffany Funk, who knows this game in and out. For the

00:02:01.440 | past decade, she's produced, written for, and been the managing editor of One Mile at a Time,

00:02:06.640 | the largest independently-owned travel and loyalty blog. And she also ran operations at one of the

00:02:11.200 | top award-booking services, Points Pros, for nine years. Then she took all that experience to

00:02:16.320 | co-found Point Me, one of, if not the best, award-searching product out there. So today,

00:02:22.240 | we're going to break down the why, when, and how to search for award travel, talk about some of

00:02:26.480 | the philosophy about how to think about travel with your points and with your miles. We're going

00:02:30.640 | to get tactical so you can confidently put your points and miles to good use. I'm also going to

00:02:35.200 | try to get a few travel hacks and tips from Tiffany, because after visiting 80-plus countries,

00:02:40.000 | I'm sure she has plenty. So let's get started in just a minute.

00:02:44.000 | Tiffany, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here.

00:02:52.960 | Of course. Thank you.

00:02:54.000 | Yeah. So before we actually talk about the process of booking award travel,

00:02:58.880 | I just want to talk about why people should even think about award flights. I know I get a lot of

00:03:04.000 | people that always email me in and say, "Wouldn't it just be easier if I just redeem all these

00:03:09.200 | points for cashback or book in the travel portal?" And I know you've thought about this more than

00:03:13.600 | anyone. How do you think about that trade-off? Yeah, that's actually really interesting because

00:03:18.720 | my answer three years ago would have been different. And I actually think as we talk

00:03:22.320 | today, there's going to be a lot of things where I will say my answer three years ago would have

00:03:25.600 | been different, but for right now, this... In general, everyone has points though,

00:03:30.320 | and no one knows how to use them. And I think there's an intimidation factor and people just

00:03:35.760 | think, "Okay, it's hard, but the portal is easy." So I think it's worth knowing what the options are

00:03:43.520 | and how to explore your alternatives and just do that comparative shopping.

00:03:47.680 | Even if you do ultimately end up booking through the portal because the nonstop flight isn't

00:03:54.000 | available using a traditional miles and points award, or you decide that actually for this trip,

00:03:58.960 | economy is fine. And so the value is better through the portal just because of the way the

00:04:02.720 | economics have changed in the past couple of years. But ultimately, there is tremendous value

00:04:08.960 | to be had by leveraging these loyalty programs and their partners and what we refer to as distressed

00:04:17.440 | inventory. So the goal of an airline executive who works in loyalty management would be to take

00:04:23.040 | all 150 of those seats on a 737 and sell every single seat on the plane for the maximum amount

00:04:31.040 | that each passenger was willing to pay. So that might be a $49 web saver special.

00:04:37.360 | It might be a 65,000 mile redemption. That's what they're trying to do. But at the end of the day,

00:04:43.920 | if the seat goes out empty, no one gets anything. So because of that, there's this very complicated

00:04:50.800 | interaction between the airline, their alliance partners, other partners, where everyone is

00:04:56.720 | collaborating in the background to make these seats available in different inventory buckets.

00:05:02.080 | And that's where the magic of miles and points comes in, because there's frequently opportunities

00:05:06.960 | to use points that you didn't even know you had or had access to. But they're one of 25 partners

00:05:13.680 | that your credit card or your hotel points can transfer to. You can move them to that program,

00:05:18.640 | you can get a seat on the same flight you were going to purchase otherwise,

00:05:22.080 | and you're spending a fraction of the points that you would have.

00:05:24.880 | Is there a kind of rule of thumb fraction where you're like,

00:05:27.680 | if using points by transferring them to partners can be two to three times as valuable? I mean,

00:05:35.120 | I know. I think one of the scariest things is if you Google online, you'll find someone who writes

00:05:39.520 | a post about, "I got 25 cents per point booking this crazy thing and I don't want to set the bar

00:05:45.680 | there." But is there a place where you're like, "Look, even this feels like a win"?

00:05:49.920 | On average, over the time we've been doing this, I typically find that

00:05:54.400 | people who are transferring their points to a program and redeeming through

00:06:00.640 | the loyalty program charts and those methods, they're getting six to 12 times the value of

00:06:08.080 | someone who redeemed through their credit card portal. And I like to make that comparison

00:06:12.640 | because when people talk about the value they got for flights, it's frequently not reality-based.

00:06:19.440 | And what do you mean by that?

00:06:20.640 | Because ultimately, and this gets into the economics classes that maybe it's been a while

00:06:25.440 | since anyone's taken, the ultimate value of a thing is only what you or a comparative

00:06:32.480 | consumer is willing to pay for it. So that flight from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi is only worth $25,000

00:06:42.400 | if you were ready, willing, prepared, and able to purchase a $25,000 flight to Abu Dhabi. And I don't

00:06:48.320 | have anyone in my life for whom that's true. So you can't really say, "Okay, I traded in my

00:06:52.800 | 70,000 advantage miles for this $25,000 flight," because those 70,000 points are not worth $25,000.

00:06:59.280 | You would not have paid $25,000. What you would have paid might have been $4,000 if it was a

00:07:06.480 | special occasion or something. Even still, I don't know a lot of people who are buying $4,000 to

00:07:09.840 | flights to Abu Dhabi. So I like to base it off of what you would have paid booking through the

00:07:15.520 | credit card portal, because you would probably, if you were in the credit card portal, seen that

00:07:19.760 | price for that flight to Abu Dhabi and been like, "I'm not spending that many hundreds of thousands

00:07:23.520 | of points." But 70,000 points is a bargain. And looking at it that way and framing it a little

00:07:30.080 | bit more practically. And are there types of travelers for whom that huge multiple is not

00:07:37.200 | as valuable, whether it's people flying economy versus splurging for business, only flying

00:07:42.560 | domestic, international? So it used to be that the best value for your points was very consistently

00:07:49.280 | international premium cabins, where you were going to get tremendous outsized value if you were

00:07:55.680 | booking, especially a partner, and booking the front of the plane versus if you were trying to

00:08:01.120 | use your points domestically. There's so many occasions where I'd see someone be like, "Oh,

00:08:06.880 | I booked tickets from Phoenix to Orlando, and they were 50,000 per person each way,

00:08:13.040 | but it was first class." I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you're paying first class on a

00:08:16.080 | terrible, terrible product." There's nothing first about a Dallas to Orlando experience,

00:08:23.600 | regardless. And 50,000 points per person, that would have been enough for you to go to Europe.

00:08:32.560 | But I've tempered that a bit as I've matured in the space. Some people just really want to

00:08:39.040 | go to Orlando. And so that's the best value of their points. There's no value for them in Paris.

00:08:43.680 | It is what it is. And I don't want to be disparaging of other people's travel plans

00:08:50.320 | and dreams and things like that. The other thing is that the combination of dynamic pricing

00:08:55.440 | and the huge change in airline routing and capacity that we've seen since COVID began

00:09:02.000 | means that domestic awards can actually be a phenomenal value. Your flights are very full.

00:09:06.960 | They're very limited. And again, everyone is playing the same game of not having seats go

00:09:11.360 | out empty. So there are frequently times where I've seen domestic flights, where if you go to

00:09:18.160 | buy them last minute, they're setting them at $450, $600 for an economy flight, but you can

00:09:25.280 | get them for 7,500 miles. That's a great use of your points, no matter how you slice it.

00:09:32.000 | And is that domestic economy or business? If domestic economy can be a good deal,

00:09:38.400 | and international business could be a good deal, it seems like there's probably something good

00:09:42.640 | along the whole spectrum. Is there any gap where you're like, "Whoa, if you're interested in this,

00:09:46.800 | not a good fit"?

00:09:48.000 | Yeah. So I generally would say that domestic first or business is still not a good deal

00:09:55.280 | for the most part when using points. And that has gotten worse since COVID because primarily,

00:10:07.120 | we don't have a lot of people traveling for business anymore. And so the cadence of inventory

00:10:14.560 | is different. There's a lot of leisure travelers though, and there's a lot of people who haven't

00:10:18.160 | traveled for a few years. And so they're willing to just buy up and pay the extra $100 when they're

00:10:22.160 | booking their ticket to have domestic first. And that sort of becomes the thing is the buyup price

00:10:27.600 | might not be very high. It might be $100 or $150. But the award price is probably at least double

00:10:33.680 | of economy. And maybe that's fine if you're going from 7,500 miles to 15,000 miles. But if you're

00:10:39.680 | going from 25,000 miles to 50,000 miles, that's just a huge premium for a recliner.

00:10:46.080 | Especially when... Yeah. Well, first off, like you said, it's a recliner. There are very few

00:10:50.880 | other than San Francisco, LA to New York, very few of the routes domestically have a quality

00:10:58.800 | business class product. And then internationally... So you said maybe it's $100, $200, $300 buyup.

00:11:04.960 | I've had cases where... I always had this mantra of like, "I'm never going to pay for business

00:11:09.040 | class. That'd be crazy." I've had times where I've looked and it's like $100 more. And it's like,

00:11:14.080 | "Wow. We have kids. We're traveling with bags. The bag fee is $30."

00:11:19.360 | Exactly. Just adding that up by itself. It's like, "Okay, this actually makes sense."

00:11:22.720 | Yeah. But internationally, I think whenever I look, it still seems to be like

00:11:28.080 | three to five times more expensive to buy a business class ticket than it does a coach

00:11:32.240 | ticket. So that's where I think you can get another bulk of value. Does anything change

00:11:39.840 | now? Pre-pandemic, it was me and my wife, just the two of us. Now it's me, my wife,

00:11:44.960 | two kids, and an au pair. So everything has changed.

00:11:48.160 | Everything has changed in more ways than one. But when it comes to travel,

00:11:52.000 | if you're playing a game trying to look for five seats... I want to get in, by the way,

00:11:57.200 | to the actual meat of this conversation, which is "How do you do this?" But if you're someone with...

00:12:02.400 | Someone emailed me the other day and said, "Well, we have four kids. We're looking for

00:12:04.880 | flights with six of us." What kind of expectations should someone like that have?

00:12:09.760 | Because I think looking for one seat is so much easier than looking for four, at least in my

00:12:15.840 | experience. And if it's more... So many things are different when

00:12:17.840 | you're single than when you have a family. And this is actually one of the things that has long

00:12:22.560 | bothered me about the miles and points space. And especially a lot of the influencers are pretty

00:12:28.400 | consistently younger people with not a lot of ties. And they come from a pretty high socioeconomic

00:12:37.280 | status. And so there are a lot of the like... And we're guilty of this. Ben and I, one mile at a

00:12:43.040 | time, so much of when we were doing our things, I mean, we had partners, but we had a lot of

00:12:47.440 | flexibility. We were both digital nomads. So it's very easy to be like, "Yeah. Buenos Aires for the

00:12:52.000 | weekend. Why not?" Once you have other responsibilities and other people in your life

00:12:57.760 | and things change. So I'm very sensitive to people who have kids. I will say in your case,

00:13:04.160 | it's much easier when they're the size that they are, and you don't have school schedules to

00:13:07.840 | contend with. Once you get into school schedules, I think the expectation needs to be adjusted on

00:13:15.920 | the earning side of the equation. So if you have, for your listener who has the family of six now,

00:13:24.240 | and if they know that they're going to be traveling over comparatively peak dates,

00:13:28.000 | you're either going to be going over spring break and everyone in your area has spring break at the

00:13:32.960 | same time, or you're going to be going like when school gets out or things like that. That's just

00:13:37.040 | the natural cadence of family travel. You need to solve that ahead of time and earn more points

00:13:44.000 | either in a specific program or that can be transferred to a specific program from a variety

00:13:48.800 | of sources. And we can talk about some of those. Because ultimately, for a price, these airlines

00:13:55.360 | are willing to accommodate any lack of flexibility that you have. And you just need to prepare for

00:13:59.760 | that early and just know that your awards might cost you more in terms of points, but you can't,

00:14:06.960 | I mean, you could quantify, okay, what is the cost of a connection? What is the cost of a

00:14:13.040 | mid-con red-eye with toddlers? Right? There's huge costs that aren't the points cost for doing that.

00:14:22.000 | But if you can stack up a bunch of points in flexible programs, Capital One and Chase and

00:14:30.560 | even Built Now, and then transfer those points to Flying Blue, Flying Blue will absolutely have

00:14:34.880 | six seats for you from California to Europe during peak dates. You're going to pay some

00:14:39.040 | fuel surcharges, but you can know that and you can plan for it and you can budget around it.

00:14:43.520 | And you can still get a tremendous redemption. It's just different than what a tremendous

00:14:47.520 | redemption might have looked like when you were unencumbered. Yeah, I mean, we're looking at a

00:14:52.480 | trip in February to Belize, which it's so crazy because it's not that far. It's like just a tiny

00:14:59.520 | bit further than Cancun, but getting there is like 10 times more complicated because there's

00:15:03.280 | no direct flights and a lot of the option. And so we were like, gosh, man, it's going to cost us like,

00:15:08.560 | you know, 70, 80, 90,000 miles to get there, which in our mind seems crazy for such a short trip.

00:15:15.360 | But the week that we don't, my daughter doesn't have preschool is the week that all the schools

00:15:20.480 | are out in February. And the flights are like $1,500, $2,000 if you don't want to fly to Dallas

00:15:28.160 | and sit at the airport for seven hours and then get in at 11pm and leave at 5am. And so it's funny

00:15:34.800 | because my expectation, it's actually still a good value to use the points. It's just a lot more

00:15:40.800 | points than I, you know, it would have been if I was like, "Oh, sure. I'll take the red eye on

00:15:45.040 | Wednesday and I'll hang out at an airport for five hours." It's just a different calculus.

00:15:49.200 | So yeah, my takeaway has been the value is still there. It's just more points. And now that it's

00:15:55.040 | more points because of the flexibility, the desire to not change planes as much or long layover,

00:16:00.560 | you just need more points. Right. But I will also say that there is a benefit in thinking

00:16:08.320 | outside of the box with family travel. Any trip that you would take within North America,

00:16:14.480 | including like Upper Central America and things like that, Belize is a perfect example,

00:16:18.160 | is going to be expensive because a lot of people think that it's close and it's easy.

00:16:23.120 | If you were to look instead those same dates and look at going to Thailand,

00:16:28.240 | I would wager that your travel time is not much longer. You would spend far fewer points. You're

00:16:35.680 | still getting to beach. You're getting vastly better food than anything Belize has to offer.

00:16:40.560 | And you might be surprised, right? It might be something to think about. And I know a lot of

00:16:44.800 | parents, especially newer parents are hesitant. They're like, "Oh my gosh, it's a long flight."

00:16:47.920 | Okay. But is it? It's probably the same travel day. And I did this. I'll actually send you some

00:16:56.160 | pictures, Chris, because they're adorable. We took my family, my sister's family and her

00:17:01.120 | kids. We went to Thailand for a couple of weeks over Christmas and all in everything done,

00:17:08.080 | we spent about $2,000 per person for 10 days, including like the value of the points.

00:17:13.440 | And granted I had the points to spend and not everybody has points to do seven people in

00:17:19.040 | international first class, but again, you can plan for that. And it was great. My nephew was

00:17:26.480 | seven at the time, which is a very precarious age for travel because they can't sit still.

00:17:31.120 | Right. And they're very busy, but he was great. And he loved the flight. He laid down in the bed.

00:17:36.240 | It was fantastic. We worked with the jet lag and we didn't have to spend 12 hours in DFW,

00:17:42.640 | which we would have had to do and did the next year when they went to Costa Rica.

00:17:46.880 | So yeah, in this case, the family has decided this is the family trip. So there's a little

00:17:52.800 | bit less flexibility, but you didn't get a vote. That's the other thing about being a parent,

00:17:56.560 | right? Is your vote share diminishes tremendously as you.

00:17:59.920 | But we're going to start planning more family trips for our extended family. This is an extended

00:18:06.560 | family trip where we're like, "Hey, this is the plan this year. This is where we're going.

00:18:09.600 | Let us know if you need help booking it." But I think we can agree. So getting your points

00:18:17.040 | and transferring them can be a lot of value. There's almost 30 different airlines you can

00:18:22.080 | transfer to amongst all these flexible points programs. I went this morning, I was like,

00:18:26.160 | "Okay, if you sum up Amex and Built and Chase and Capital One and Citi, there's 30 airlines.

00:18:30.800 | And if you look and include their partners, it's almost double that."

00:18:33.680 | So I think the best thing is just like, where does someone start to think about this? And I know you

00:18:38.720 | guys have a product to do this. So I want to cover both with and without tools. But if someone's

00:18:43.600 | like, "Alright, I've saved up the few hundred thousand points I need to take a family on a

00:18:48.160 | trip anywhere in the world. But what do I do? Amex probably has more than a dozen places you

00:18:55.440 | could transfer those points to." How do you think about that if you're someone new to this?

00:19:00.800 | Okay, so the very old school way. So I would actually take it back a step. And I would

00:19:05.840 | think about this before deciding whether I'm going to get an Amex card or a Chase card or

00:19:09.360 | whatever other card. Because while they do have a lot of partners, and there's a lot of leverage,

00:19:13.200 | there are some unique situations where you can't get Amex points to United and you can't get

00:19:21.040 | Chase points to American Airlines. And because of how airline inventory management has evolved in

00:19:29.680 | the past few years, there may be times where you do need points with that domestic carrier,

00:19:36.320 | because they are making space available only to members of their program.

00:19:40.560 | Before we started recording, you mentioned French Polynesia. So if you know that you

00:19:45.120 | want to go from San Francisco to Papeete, and you're the only carrier that has a points program

00:19:53.920 | that flies in nonstop is United. That's a trip where I would probably look at paying cash for

00:19:59.280 | the flights because they can actually be pretty reasonable in comparison. And because they are

00:20:04.080 | considered South Pacific, the award prices are bonkers. But if you know you're going to want

00:20:08.160 | to use miles, you know you're going to need United miles in that case, because they're not going to

00:20:12.080 | make space available for partners very, very rarely. So you probably, in that case, want to

00:20:16.400 | get the Chase card versus the Amex card. So that's my setting the table for that.

00:20:21.120 | Otherwise, what I like to do, if we're doing the old school way, I like to go to Wikipedia and look

00:20:27.440 | at the destination that you're going to, and literally put in CDG for Charles de Gaulle

00:20:33.440 | Airport Wiki, and go through and look and see who are the airlines that fly there and where do those

00:20:38.320 | airlines fly to. This is the most manual way possible that you can do it, but I think it's

00:20:42.880 | really helpful because you can look at it and you can be like, "Oh, okay. So I didn't know that Air

00:20:49.200 | France flew there from Salt Lake City," or whatever. I actually don't have the Wikipedia page open for

00:20:54.640 | the Paris Airport, so I hope that's still true. But you can look at that. And if you cross-reference

00:20:59.920 | that to then the list of partners for your credit card, you can see like, "Okay. Does Air France

00:21:09.680 | fly in blue? Oh, they are a partner of my program. Okay. So that's a good place to start."

00:21:13.840 | And that's the baseline. You could go from there. When you get into the more advanced ways,

00:21:19.280 | it's like, "Okay. Well, what other programs are partners of Air France? And is there an

00:21:23.520 | arbitrage opportunity by moving my points to some other SkyTeam carrier or some non-Alliance carrier

00:21:30.880 | and looking at their award charts?" And at this point in time, you should have 30 to 70 browser

00:21:37.520 | tabs open. And that's how you know you're doing it right. I want to go back to this example of

00:21:44.000 | maybe it's better to have points in the domestic program. So I will say, I got lucky. We were

00:21:48.400 | flying last minute, and it was actually cheaper to book through Air Canada's aero plan for the

00:21:53.760 | flights to Papiete. Right. But you were booking last minute, which is not how most people plan

00:21:58.400 | their trips to Tahiti. Totally. Right? So that's sort of that give and take. If you were like,

00:22:03.360 | "Oh, maybe we can go to Tahiti or maybe we'll go to somewhere else." Then that's fine.

00:22:09.280 | But are there programs in general where you're like, "Okay. Flying blue, I think is a great

00:22:16.480 | example because they're a partner of most flexible point programs. They have pretty

00:22:21.760 | reasonable award prices. Is there a... Okay, I want to go on a common route. I want to go from

00:22:28.000 | New York to London." There's probably a quick version of... I would say maybe it's check Air

00:22:34.480 | France, check United or Air Canada, and check British Airways. And start there. Maybe you find

00:22:41.280 | something great before you get to the 60 browser tabs. Right. Well, you said if somebody was

00:22:46.240 | brand new and wanted to know, right? So they don't necessarily know where to look.

00:22:50.240 | So if you're going New York to London, I would look first at Virgin Atlantic. And I would also

00:22:55.360 | look at the travel time for New York to London. I've been on a New York London flight that ended

00:23:00.560 | up clocking in at 3 hours and 45 minutes. I don't need business class for 3 hours and 45 minutes.

00:23:06.640 | Right. And that's something to consider too. And Virgin Atlantic will frequently have

00:23:12.160 | nylon for like 10,000 points in economy. And that's an incredible bargain. It can be a 4-hour

00:23:19.760 | flight. We think of like, "Oh, it's international." But when you're already in New York,

00:23:23.520 | it's not that far. So... But again, I think if you were looking at the Heathrow Airport Wikipedia

00:23:29.680 | page, you would have been like, "Oh, Virgin Atlantic and they're a partner of all of my

00:23:33.040 | credit cards. I can look there." So it's the same method. You don't have to memorize these things.

00:23:38.080 | I just didn't know if you had like a "Before you get to 60, here's 3 or 4 to start with

00:23:43.200 | to see if you find something good." I think it depends where you're going. Right? And

00:23:47.360 | people always want me to say like, "Well, this is the best program. And this is the

00:23:53.040 | best partner. So we should go." But it really depends. And as we see this trend where loyalty

00:23:58.960 | programs are making more and more inventory available exclusively to members of their

00:24:04.240 | own program, it's better to keep your points flexible than necessarily go all in on that

00:24:10.480 | one program. Because what if you can't book something with their partners that you would

00:24:15.920 | have expected to be able to book? It's not like the day, back in the day, where

00:24:21.040 | we moved maybe a billion points from membership rewards to AeroPlan to book Lufthansa first class

00:24:29.440 | when it was a 16-seat cabin with no fuel surcharges through AeroPlan. And it didn't even matter.

00:24:34.080 | There were frequently I would tell people, "No problem. There's space." And then I would go and

00:24:37.760 | actually look to see if there was space because there was always space. There were 16 seats in

00:24:40.880 | the first class cabin. Of course, there was space. And to be clear, these were client points. You

00:24:45.360 | didn't actually have a billion points yourself. Correct. These are other people's points. Yeah.

00:24:50.320 | Yeah. And so things evolve and they change. So one of the great evolutions in the miles and

00:24:57.040 | point space in the recent comparative years from when I've been in the game has been the advent of

00:25:04.400 | these flexible points. So you don't have to commit to a single program early on.

00:25:10.000 | I'm very... It's funny. I always use the United card as the example. People are like, "Oh, I live

00:25:14.720 | in the Bay Area. So I have this United card." And I'm like, "Well, even just a chase card might

00:25:20.000 | actually earn you more United points than the United card itself. And then those points actually

00:25:26.480 | could go to a bunch of other airlines and you don't have to decide until you're planning the trip."

00:25:31.760 | Exactly. If you live in the Bay Area, you should have the United card and you should not spend on

00:25:36.640 | it. Unless you are purchasing tickets on United, you need the baggage benefit because you're flying

00:25:40.800 | economy. And in that case, it makes sense because getting triple points from another card doesn't

00:25:47.680 | offset the $150 that you would pay in baggage fees. But yeah, don't use it at the grocery store,

00:25:54.080 | please. Or maybe even for buying United flights. Yeah. I think does United still have that

00:26:00.320 | limitation where you only get the baggage benefit on your credit card if you purchased the flight

00:26:04.560 | using a United credit card? That is a question I don't know the answer to. Yeah. I don't know

00:26:08.880 | it off the top of my head anymore, but it used to be the case. And so that was then my exception of

00:26:12.480 | this is the time when you would use that United card. Otherwise, but for the Delta and American

00:26:17.760 | cards, have them if you check bags, but don't use them. Yeah. It's funny. I used to be in the

00:26:23.680 | why would you ever check bags camp? And it's like, oh, because maybe you have kids. Yeah.

00:26:28.080 | You mentioned the flexibility, you know, can be what was probably the reason I found such a good

00:26:34.080 | deal. If someone's thinking right now, oh, I want to take a trip. And, you know, do they want to

00:26:40.000 | start looking right at one year out? Like, is there a sweet spot that you've seen of when someone

00:26:45.200 | should start actually looking for a trip they're planning? If they know long enough in advance that

00:26:50.400 | they could search any time? I think if you know, you should just go ahead and book. If you know

00:26:56.480 | that you're traveling someplace a year from now, look and book right now. You can always cancel it.

00:27:02.320 | You can always change it. Award tickets are super flexible. There's frequently not even a penalty.

00:27:07.920 | It depends on the program, of course, but it's so easy to change or cancel them. And you're not

00:27:14.400 | going to necessarily find something better. It used to be that within 10 days of departure,

00:27:22.320 | we'd see a lot more award space. Again, the goal is for seats to not go out empty. But with

00:27:28.800 | COVID and the trying to think of a delicate way to say this, the social commitment to not having

00:27:40.320 | non-vaccine precautions, the reality of that is flight attendants and pilots are getting sick

00:27:46.960 | and they're not at work. And so if you are managing operations for an airline,

00:27:52.240 | you used to comfortably be able to say, okay, 10 days out, this is probably what our flight loads

00:27:58.080 | are going to look like. These are the seats that are going to have occupants. And then we feel

00:28:01.920 | good about it. And inventory management could say, great, we're going to release these seats

00:28:05.040 | into inventory. We'll let partners book them. Maybe we'll have a last minute sale. You know,

00:28:09.280 | there was some degrees of confidence. Now we're seeing that inventory get held until sometimes

00:28:14.560 | two hours before departure. Because on any given day, if you have one flight get canceled between

00:28:20.880 | San Francisco and Minneapolis, you now have 150 passengers that you have to do something with.

00:28:25.200 | So if you don't have a crew, you have to accommodate those passengers. And so we're

00:28:30.240 | just not seeing the near-term inventory dumps that we used to see. That could get better.

00:28:36.640 | So if you're booking a year out, you might get lucky. And within 10 days or 3 days,

00:28:40.880 | you might see a better itinerary, you might see a non-stop, you might see a nicer product,

00:28:46.960 | and you can change to that. But in the current environment, if you see something, I would book it.

00:28:52.240 | What about flexibility with where you go? This is a question that I know you've gotten and I've

00:28:58.160 | gotten a lot. It's like, I just want to take a trip that lets me get a great use of my miles

00:29:03.120 | and go somewhere in Asia next year. And I know from using basically any search tool on the

00:29:10.560 | internet, you can't go and say... I guess Google Flights is probably the closest, but it certainly

00:29:15.440 | doesn't have any miles and points component. But just to be like... It's nice to be able to say,

00:29:20.560 | "Okay, from San Francisco in July or next year, where could I go that's cheap?"

00:29:24.880 | Is there a points and miles equivalent? Or what do you tell people that have a little bit more

00:29:29.840 | flexibility, but don't want to run 1000 searches? So if you're in California, and you want to go to

00:29:35.760 | Sydney, obviously, there's the direct flights that are going to be expensive on Qantas,

00:29:42.320 | or American, or Delta, or United now has nice seats going to Australia. But you could also

00:29:48.960 | route via the Middle East. And you could do something like from California into Doha and

00:29:56.720 | fly Qatar's Qsuites, and then go first class from Doha to Sydney. And you can't really book that with

00:30:04.640 | money, because it's not a legal routing when using money. Qatar might sell it to you as part of a

00:30:11.840 | round trip, but then there's different partners and things like that. But if you call Advantage,

00:30:15.840 | and you say, "Okay, I need to book two awards, but I want them on one ticket."

00:30:18.560 | They can book that for you. And it's business class and Qsuites on the long haul. So you get

00:30:24.640 | that nice flat bed. If you're traveling with a family, there's a suite that can basically be

00:30:28.400 | for four. It's a lovely experience. You can go to the museum and enjoy Doha, and then go on to

00:30:34.960 | Sydney, and it's like 100,000 miles. And that's a great value. It's a really extended trip. It's a

00:30:40.960 | fun routing that you wouldn't necessarily do. And it's frequently fewer points than doing like an

00:30:46.800 | LA-Sydney direct, because carriers charge a premium for that in both miles and money,

00:30:51.600 | because they know that's what people want to do. So you can be flexible with routing. And sometimes,

00:30:56.240 | points and miles lets you do that. What about just destinations? If someone said,

00:31:01.360 | "I want to go to Asia, or I want to go to Europe. I'm not sure where I want to go."

00:31:04.800 | Is there an argument to be made of just searching the major hubs to try to find something there

00:31:09.840 | first to see where it might be easiest to get to?

00:31:12.800 | Yeah. No, I think that's a perfect example. I, in general, think that it makes sense. It

00:31:18.000 | still makes sense to search hub to hub, and just to get a concept of things.

00:31:21.440 | Let's talk about Europe, because Asia is very complicated with COVID still,

00:31:27.040 | but we can go back to Asia. The thing that I think we don't think about, because travel within the US

00:31:32.880 | is really unpleasant. Travel within Europe isn't necessarily unpleasant, and there are a lot of

00:31:39.280 | low-cost carriers. There's a lot of trains. There's a lot of ways to get around. So if you really want

00:31:44.640 | to go to Amalfi, you don't need to look at tickets to Naples. You can look at tickets to Munich,

00:31:51.280 | and then there's a bajillion ways per day to get from Munich to Naples that you can't use points

00:31:56.560 | for, but it might be like a $45 ticket. So I think looking at a major hub in Europe as a starting

00:32:05.600 | point that you wouldn't mind spending a night in if you needed to, or a day, is a great place to

00:32:11.040 | get started with that. For people starting in the US, I think it's important to recognize that the

00:32:18.960 | closer you get to the ocean you're going to cross, the more flight options you will have.

00:32:26.080 | So if you're in Miami and you're trying to go to Tokyo, I mean, good luck. You're not going to

00:32:31.680 | find seats. I think there is a Korean Air flight, or there used to be, from Miami to Seoul, which

00:32:39.040 | would have been a good option. But realistically, you're connecting in California, or at least in

00:32:43.520 | Chicago, or possibly in Texas. And the same thing goes the other direction. If you're in California

00:32:47.520 | and you want to go to Europe, you could luck out and get a nonstop flight in business class

00:32:54.400 | at a good price point at the saver level. Or you might need to pay a few more points to have

00:33:01.440 | expanded availability, and you could plan for that. Or you might need to make a connection.

00:33:05.120 | And that's where it gets into that trade-off of like, "Okay, if you're flexible, and totally

00:33:09.200 | flexible, you still benefit from determining what is most important to you. Is it the in-flight

00:33:16.240 | experience? Is it the travel time? Is it where you connect?" Because overnighting in Frankfurt is not

00:33:24.400 | as fun as overnighting in Munich. I don't know. Everybody has their own things of what matters

00:33:28.800 | to them, and the airports that they like to transit through and not. And I think if you consider all

00:33:33.520 | of that as part of your flexibility, it makes it a little bit easier to narrow down your travel

00:33:38.400 | plans and your flight options. And one thing we talked about before we got started was the

00:33:44.000 | flexibility of dates. People are like, "Oh, I want to go next year." One thing you pointed out that

00:33:49.120 | I was like, "Okay, well, are you really that flexible?" I was thinking about it for myself.

00:33:53.680 | I was like, "Well, I might be flexible to go somewhere next year. But maybe I actually really

00:34:00.400 | only want to go on Saturday to Saturday or something so that we're not taking more than

00:34:06.080 | one week off of work or school or something." It's like, "Well, now you just narrowed 365 days down

00:34:11.200 | to 100." And you pointed out, "What about weather?" There are places...

00:34:16.560 | Right. There are places that are super muggy in the summer. And I love Japan as an example,

00:34:21.280 | because everyone is like, "Oh, I'll go anytime." But you don't actually want to be in Tokyo in

00:34:25.040 | July. It's very hot. They turn the escalators off. You could still go and have a great experience,

00:34:32.160 | but it wouldn't be my preferred time. What are the local holidays when you're going? If you're like,

00:34:38.080 | "Oh, okay. I'm going to try and time it for cherry blossom season." But do you want to

00:34:41.440 | be there during golden week? Pros and cons to that. That should be a conscious decision.

00:34:45.440 | There's also a bit of just the human psychology of it where we all have this fear of missing out.

00:34:51.680 | And in decade plus of doing this, I think every single time... And I could check with my colleagues,

00:34:59.760 | but I'm pretty confident saying every time that we've had someone say, "I'm totally flexible."

00:35:05.200 | If I give you an itinerary, your natural instinct is going to be like, "Okay, but what about this

00:35:09.280 | instead? What about this alternative?" So you aren't actually totally flexible. You do have

00:35:14.720 | opinions. You do have priorities and things that you want to consider. So when you're booking for

00:35:19.760 | yourself, I think just going through that triage list and thinking about what are school schedules?

00:35:25.520 | What am I willing to accommodate? Do I want to have a night in a cool city on the way to my

00:35:31.120 | destination? Or do I want to just have a shorter layover and just plug through? Am I checking bags?

00:35:36.720 | If so, am I concerned about if my bags get lost? One of my colleagues, this is a great example,

00:35:44.000 | their daughter and her husband were doing this hiking backpacking trip in rural Scotland last

00:35:49.920 | summer. And they did almost everything right in their planning, except they didn't plan enough

00:35:57.120 | time in Edinburgh at the start of the trip for in case things go wrong. And so when inevitably with

00:36:04.080 | the Heathrow baggage meltdown of last summer, their bag was delayed. They're like, "We're in

00:36:09.360 | Edinburgh and we have nothing. We don't have... We have just the essentials that we need in our

00:36:13.200 | carry-on, but we obviously didn't carry on our tent." So you need to think about those things

00:36:19.040 | and think about that too. With the type of trip that you're taking, that may matter or it may not

00:36:25.200 | be an impact at all. If you're planning on spending a week in Paris with your kids, having a lost

00:36:29.600 | checked bag is not a big deal. You're in Paris, you just go to care for them, buy whatever you

00:36:33.600 | need to buy and get it reimbursed through your credit cards, trip delay and coverage and move

00:36:39.600 | on with your life. Yeah. I think the other thing I've just been thinking about is, okay, even if I

00:36:44.160 | was like Japan flexible next year, there's probably an ideal month or an ideal period of time. And I

00:36:50.320 | don't know if you have any stats on this, but I imagine if you're like, "I want to go to almost

00:36:55.040 | anywhere," and you're flexible within a month, you're probably pretty likely to find something

00:36:59.920 | that I don't even know if you need a year's worth of flexibility.

00:37:03.600 | No, no one needs a year's worth of flexibility is my general sentiment there.

00:37:08.720 | Other than that year's worth of flexibility helps you rule times out. So I personally have done it

00:37:17.360 | a couple of times and I will probably in future avoid traveling to Asia during Lunar New Year.

00:37:24.000 | It's a really fun experience in ways if you haven't done it, but I think for most people,

00:37:30.560 | if you're not actively setting out to do that, it's just frustrating. It's too crowded. All the

00:37:35.200 | places you want to go, everyone else also wants to go. And a lot of things are closed.

00:37:39.120 | In Vietnam, they don't refill the ATMs during the holiday. So there's just one very specific

00:37:47.360 | difficulty for traveling during that time period. So there's things like that, that you can rule out.

00:37:53.440 | But in general, I would say there's always a word space. And I don't want to say that that means

00:37:58.800 | there's always good award space, or there's always this thing that you saw on Instagram

00:38:03.360 | that you're going to be able to book, but there's always something. And

00:38:07.200 | finding something that is good for you has a lot of nuance.

00:38:14.720 | Are there a few kind of either routes or destinations that if someone's truly like,

00:38:20.560 | "I just want to go on an amazing trip with my points" that you see more frequently than not

00:38:25.120 | popping up with better availability that could inspire someone and save them some points?

00:38:30.080 | I would generally say, if you're going further, you're going to have better availability.

00:38:36.880 | Like domestically, North America, even South America, flights are so full that there are just

00:38:44.000 | not the point bargains that people might want. And so I do think that if you're looking for some

00:38:48.800 | kind of like aspirational fun trip, it makes more sense to go further afield. You also have the

00:38:53.360 | benefit of when you're going further of getting those international products that are much nicer.

00:38:58.640 | Qatar has their Qsuites product and availability is pretty good. Not necessarily from all cities.

00:39:08.160 | Like it's not great from LA right now because it's very popular, but they also have it to Seattle.

00:39:12.080 | So if you're willing to do like that short hop up and then connect, and then that opens up all

00:39:16.560 | of Africa and the Middle East and Southeast Asia to some really phenomenal options.

00:39:23.040 | I think if you're doing that, I also like to look at places where

00:39:26.720 | hotels are reasonable. A lot of people have like the pinnacle of their trip has been like,

00:39:33.200 | "I'm going to use my points. I'm going to fly business class or first class. I'm going to

00:39:35.920 | go to the Maldives." And that's great. I personally don't love the Maldives,

00:39:40.720 | which I know is sacrilegious, but it's just a difference in what I'm looking for in travel

00:39:46.400 | at this point in my life. But I think that there's things like that, that you can look at, like,

00:39:49.840 | "Okay, well, I'm going to go and then I'm going to go and then I'm going to go back."

00:39:55.760 | I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point.

00:39:58.720 | And I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point.

00:40:02.400 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:05.360 | I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:08.160 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:10.720 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:11.600 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:12.160 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:12.320 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:12.560 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:12.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:32.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:42.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:44.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:46.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:48.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:50.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:52.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:54.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:56.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:40:58.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:00.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:12.640 | I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:14.640 | And I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:16.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:18.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:20.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:22.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:24.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:26.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:28.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:30.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:32.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:34.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:36.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:38.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:40.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:42.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:44.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:46.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:48.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:50.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:52.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:54.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:56.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:41:58.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:00.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:02.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:04.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:06.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:08.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:10.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:12.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:14.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:16.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:18.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:42:24.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:26.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:28.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:30.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:32.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:34.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:36.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:42:42.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:42:46.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:48.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:50.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:52.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:54.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:56.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:42:58.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:00.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:02.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:04.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:06.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:08.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:10.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:12.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:14.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:16.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:18.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:20.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:22.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:24.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:26.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:28.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:30.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:32.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:34.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:43:36.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:43:48.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:43:52.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:44:00.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:44:28.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:30.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:32.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:34.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:36.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:38.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:40.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:42.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:44.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:46.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:48.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:50.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:52.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:54.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:56.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:44:58.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:00.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:02.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:04.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:06.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:08.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:10.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:12.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:14.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:16.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:18.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:20.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:22.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:24.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:26.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:28.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:30.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:32.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:34.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:36.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:38.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:40.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:42.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:44.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:46.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:48.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:50.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:52.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:54.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:56.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:45:58.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:00.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:02.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:04.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:06.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:08.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

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00:46:12.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:14.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:16.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:18.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:20.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:22.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:24.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:26.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:28.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:30.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:32.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:34.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:36.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:38.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:40.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:42.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:44.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:46.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:48.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:50.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:52.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:54.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:56.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:46:58.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:47:00.640 | And I think that's a really good point.

00:47:02.640 | Okay, that's fun. That's sort of two different questions.

00:47:04.640 | Why do airlines make it so hard?

00:47:07.640 | I don't think airlines make it intentionally difficult to use their points.

00:47:11.640 | It depends on the program.

00:47:13.640 | We have a lot of loyalty program managers

00:47:15.640 | that have been playing on easy mode recently.

00:47:18.640 | We're about to see this in a lot of aspects of the economy.

00:47:21.640 | But when we had the last recession,

00:47:24.640 | loyalty programs had to get really innovative.

00:47:27.640 | And they had to get really creative.

00:47:29.640 | And ultimately, the job of a loyalty program

00:47:32.640 | is to fill seats on planes or fill hotel rooms.

00:47:35.640 | It's to avoid perishable inventory.

00:47:37.640 | That's why you have a loyalty program.

00:47:40.640 | And we saw 15 years ago,

00:47:45.640 | really a lot of creative promotions

00:47:47.640 | and really interesting engagement

00:47:49.640 | and really honing in on who the customer was

00:47:51.640 | and how to leverage their interests and emotions

00:47:54.640 | in order to get seats filled on planes.

00:47:57.640 | That hasn't been a challenge recently.

00:47:59.640 | I mean, the past couple of years notwithstanding,

00:48:01.640 | but the latter half of this decade,

00:48:03.640 | everybody's on easy mode.

00:48:04.640 | We saw a lot of loyalty programs go to,

00:48:07.640 | we're basically running a coupon program.

00:48:08.640 | It's buy nine, get one free, just like at your local coffee shop.

00:48:11.640 | And that's as innovative as they were getting

00:48:14.640 | because people had a lot of money to spend on flights.

00:48:17.640 | And so it wasn't as much of a priority.

00:48:19.640 | So I don't know that programs don't want you to use your points.

00:48:24.640 | They do because they want you to be engaged with the program.

00:48:27.640 | They want you to be a repeat customer.

00:48:30.640 | They want you to have that satisfaction of redeeming your points

00:48:33.640 | because then you're going to commit to earning more points.

00:48:35.640 | That's what loyalty is.

00:48:36.640 | All those things are important.

00:48:38.640 | But they are burdened by using computer systems

00:48:43.640 | from like the Apollo era in some cases,

00:48:48.640 | where literally they're using DOS-based systems still in some cases.

00:48:55.640 | I think one of the most public examples of this,

00:48:58.640 | and I think it's to the credit of the program that they shared this,

00:49:02.640 | was AeroPlan with their AeroPlan 2020 project,

00:49:05.640 | which they started in 2016,

00:49:07.640 | knowing that they were going to buy back their loyalty program.

00:49:10.640 | They were going to modernize their technology

00:49:13.640 | and move off of Resy 2, which was their old reservation system,

00:49:18.640 | which Resy 2, because it came about in like the 1980s,

00:49:21.640 | rather than what they had before.

00:49:23.640 | So moving from that technology that's literally older than us

00:49:27.640 | into something more modern took them five and a half years.

00:49:32.640 | So it's these huge technical lifts.

00:49:35.640 | And that's the case with a lot of this.

00:49:36.640 | There are still airlines where they are taking their award inventory,

00:49:42.640 | and it's a CSV file that they're uploading from time to time

00:49:45.640 | into their other inventory system.

00:49:47.640 | Their revenue management systems aren't tied with their airline inventory systems.

00:49:51.640 | And if the person who's in charge of uploading the CSV isn't there that week,

00:49:56.640 | then award inventory doesn't get added that week.

00:49:58.640 | You have to wait until the next week.

00:50:00.640 | Fortunately, that's rare.

00:50:02.640 | But when you talk about why is this so hard, that's why it's so hard.

00:50:06.640 | It's they don't have super robust computer systems.

00:50:11.640 | -And how are you guys--

00:50:13.640 | I remember a handful of companies trying to make this easy.

00:50:16.640 | There were plenty of people that were like,

00:50:17.640 | "We're going to help you find the award flights."

00:50:20.640 | How did you guys end up making it work?

00:50:23.640 | Was it relationships with airlines?

00:50:24.640 | Was it just software?

00:50:26.640 | How is that possible?

00:50:28.640 | -Ultimately, I think what it is--

00:50:32.640 | without getting into like secret sauce and things like that.

00:50:35.640 | Of course, we can talk about some of that.

00:50:37.640 | But ultimately, I think it's the experience and the knowledge.

00:50:40.640 | Other people have tried this, but most of the time,

00:50:43.640 | it's been people who are parachuting into the space.

00:50:45.640 | And they're looking at it and being like, "Oh, here's an opportunity.

00:50:47.640 | I love opportunities. I'm going to do this."

00:50:50.640 | But they don't have the decades of really deep knowledge

00:50:56.640 | of airline inventory systems,

00:50:59.640 | and especially as they relate to loyalty management.

00:51:02.640 | And that's not repeatable.

00:51:05.640 | No one else has that.

00:51:08.640 | It's just a handful of people who would have had it to begin with,

00:51:12.640 | and we're all working on point me.

00:51:14.640 | So I think that's the thing.

00:51:16.640 | It is not an exaggeration when I say that even people who work at airlines

00:51:19.640 | don't understand how their systems work in many cases,

00:51:23.640 | as far as it relates to their business rules or their routing logic

00:51:28.640 | or their partner relationships.

00:51:31.640 | They don't know, but we know.

00:51:33.640 | And so we were able to take that knowledge

00:51:36.640 | and build out all of those data relationships and those ontologies

00:51:43.640 | and those different structures that allow you to then create

00:51:46.640 | the business logic and the tool itself.

00:51:50.640 | But you have to have all that knowledge to give it to the software.

00:51:53.640 | You can't just...

00:51:55.640 | - Basically, you've built this tool where I can go in and say,

00:51:59.640 | "I want to go from destination A to destination B on these dates

00:52:04.640 | in business or economy with this many people."

00:52:07.640 | And you'll go out and run the 30 browser tab search on your side

00:52:12.640 | and come back in a couple of minutes with,

00:52:14.640 | "Here's exactly what's available across all the airlines."

00:52:18.640 | And because you've gone in and said,

00:52:20.640 | "I have Chase points or I have Amex points or Capital One points,

00:52:23.640 | here's the cheapest way to book it."

00:52:25.640 | And I'm pretty sure it's also like,

00:52:27.640 | "And here are the instructions on how to transfer them and book it."

00:52:29.640 | - Yeah, step-by-step, here's how I would book it myself, for sure.

00:52:33.640 | And I think the thing that is worth noting,

00:52:36.640 | maybe goes into what you were talking about,

00:52:38.640 | how airlines make this difficult for themselves,

00:52:40.640 | not just for us, but for themselves.

00:52:42.640 | We're not just going out and doing 30 searches.

00:52:44.640 | I mean, we're pulling inventory from like 35 different places

00:52:47.640 | at this point in time,

00:52:48.640 | and we're continuing to refine our data sources.

00:52:51.640 | We're also applying all of the routing rules and the logic.

00:52:56.640 | So things that airline websites themselves don't always show,

00:53:01.640 | but we know to work.

00:53:04.640 | And then there's things that like,

00:53:05.640 | we know that the airline website doesn't show it either,

00:53:08.640 | and we're still trying to figure out

00:53:09.640 | how we best present it without causing frustration.

00:53:13.640 | I can give a real-time example.

00:53:15.640 | Delta is partners with China Airlines,

00:53:17.640 | which is a Taipei-based airline.

00:53:19.640 | And I don't know if it's political reasons or technical reasons,

00:53:23.640 | but you can't find routings on delta.com

00:53:26.640 | connecting through Taipei on China Airlines very easily.

00:53:30.640 | It requires a lot of manipulation of the website

00:53:32.640 | in a way that no other airport code requires.

00:53:36.640 | And so ultimately,

00:53:37.640 | those things generally have to get booked over the phone

00:53:39.640 | if they're bookable at all, but we know that they're there.

00:53:41.640 | And so that's something that Point Me can do,

00:53:43.640 | is we can look at, okay, well, we know the slide is here.

00:53:45.640 | We can combine this,

00:53:46.640 | and we can tell you what the price should be.

00:53:48.640 | And then it's, yeah,

00:53:49.640 | here's the instructions because you're going to have to call,

00:53:51.640 | and this is the magic word that you're going to have to say

00:53:54.640 | to the airline agent in order for them

00:53:56.640 | to be able to find the inventory.

00:53:57.640 | And so sometimes we go through that and we say,

00:53:59.640 | we decide that, okay, this is actually too complicated.

00:54:01.640 | Let's pause this for now.

00:54:03.640 | Let's maybe not show this result.

00:54:05.640 | So we do a lot of that triangulation,

00:54:07.640 | a lot of that verification.

00:54:09.640 | If we see something that's available on AeroPlan's website

00:54:13.640 | and on United's website,

00:54:15.640 | but it's not available through a third Star Alliance carrier,

00:54:20.640 | we go through this whole check process of,

00:54:22.640 | is this space actually available to Star Alliance?

00:54:24.640 | Is it Phantom Space?

00:54:26.640 | Which is when one of these airline websites

00:54:28.640 | is just making things up,

00:54:30.640 | and they display a flight that's not bookable.

00:54:32.640 | So we try and go through and filter that as well

00:54:34.640 | and apply our knowledge

00:54:38.640 | so that people aren't getting frustrated

00:54:41.640 | by trying to book things that aren't there.

00:54:43.640 | - The reason I reached out to you originally to say,

00:54:45.640 | hey, is there any way we can get a deal for listeners,

00:54:47.640 | because I was like, this is the tool I wanna recommend.

00:54:50.640 | And so anyone that does the kind of standard

00:54:52.640 | monthly membership can get the first month for a dollar

00:54:54.640 | with the code AllTheHacks.

00:54:56.640 | And that's what I tell people to do.

00:54:58.640 | And I would tell them to do it

00:54:59.640 | if you didn't have a discount code.

00:55:02.640 | It's nicer for them to get one.

00:55:03.640 | - We did wanna do that and just make it easy

00:55:05.640 | for people who have points,

00:55:06.640 | because everyone has points

00:55:07.640 | and no one really knows how to use them.

00:55:09.640 | And I can teach you how to do it by hand.

00:55:11.640 | We have 30,000 blog posts on one mile at a time

00:55:15.640 | if you want to do this by hand.

00:55:18.640 | I don't know who has time to read 30,000 blog posts though,

00:55:20.640 | but if you want to, there's an option available to you.

00:55:23.640 | You don't have to pay anything to learn how to do this,

00:55:26.640 | but there is a market for people who don't want to do that.

00:55:30.640 | They don't wanna open 30 or 60 browser tabs.

00:55:33.640 | They just wanna see what their options are,

00:55:35.640 | get a sense of what the prices are

00:55:37.640 | so that they can do their goal posting

00:55:39.640 | as they're earning their points.

00:55:40.640 | And just to be like, okay, wow, great to know

00:55:43.640 | that I can do San Francisco, Paris

00:55:45.640 | with flying blue on the nonstop.

00:55:46.640 | Didn't realize the fuel surcharges

00:55:48.640 | were gonna be $450 a person.

00:55:50.640 | I'm gonna think about that, you know,

00:55:52.640 | and be informed and then be able to make a decision

00:55:54.640 | and discuss and contemplate their travel plans.

00:55:56.640 | Like that's really what we wanted for Point Me

00:55:58.640 | was to just help people not feel like the space

00:56:02.640 | was completely opaque and impenetrable

00:56:05.640 | that they could be informed and make travel choices.

00:56:08.640 | - Advice I often give people is,

00:56:10.640 | look, if you wanna do a quick search,

00:56:12.640 | pull up like the main three domestic carriers

00:56:15.640 | or maybe a partner that has better search.

00:56:18.640 | So I always say like, pull up United,

00:56:20.640 | pull up Air France, pull up British Airways

00:56:23.640 | and you could do three searches.

00:56:26.640 | That's not gonna get you a comprehensive view.

00:56:28.640 | Like by all means, I've done that three airline search

00:56:31.640 | and then I've gone to Point Me

00:56:32.640 | and I've gotten results that I didn't find.

00:56:34.640 | But sometimes it's like, you know,

00:56:36.640 | you find exactly what you're looking for on search one

00:56:39.640 | and you don't need the other 59 browser tabs.

00:56:41.640 | - Well, and that is why I like to say like,

00:56:43.640 | start with, you know, the Wikipedia page

00:56:45.640 | of the airport you wanna go to

00:56:47.640 | because it gives you some bounds

00:56:51.640 | for your browser tab experience, right?

00:56:54.640 | And you could look and be like,

00:56:55.640 | okay, so I'm looking at this list.

00:56:57.640 | There's not a single Star Alliance carrier.

00:56:59.640 | I mean, granted, you also have to open the tab

00:57:01.640 | for Star Alliance carriers.

00:57:02.640 | So you're two tabs, but you know,

00:57:04.640 | there's not a single Star Alliance carrier that flies here.

00:57:06.640 | So maybe there's not a benefit of even opening United

00:57:09.640 | or Aeroplan, but like, oh,

00:57:11.640 | there's three different one world carriers that fly here.

00:57:14.640 | So I can just use, you know, the Alaska tool

00:57:17.640 | or the American tool or the Qantas tool

00:57:19.640 | or the British Airways tool

00:57:20.640 | or whichever one I'm most familiar with

00:57:21.640 | and most comfortable using.

00:57:23.640 | And I can look at space there.

00:57:24.640 | - I can't speak to this product because I haven't used it,

00:57:27.640 | but someone emailed me from a company called Flights From,

00:57:30.640 | and I pulled up the product and I just looked at it.

00:57:33.640 | You can go in and say all nonstop flights from Paris

00:57:36.640 | filter by Star Alliance.

00:57:38.640 | So, and it actually shows you all the flights there,

00:57:41.640 | you know, days of the week, what airlines they are.

00:57:44.640 | You know, I'm not getting paid to promote this product,

00:57:47.640 | but you know,

00:57:48.640 | for someone who wants something more visual than Wikipedia,

00:57:51.640 | which by the way, Wikipedia was also my path.

00:57:53.640 | I'm always like, wiki, CDG, go look and look at the airline.

00:57:56.640 | I feel like sometimes you get like, oh, this is seasonal.

00:58:00.640 | It's not going to start till next November.

00:58:02.640 | Whereas if you just search a flight connection.

00:58:04.640 | - Right, this seasonal thing is so helpful

00:58:06.640 | because I always get people who are like, oh my gosh,

00:58:08.640 | you know, I want to fly nonstop to Nice.

00:58:10.640 | It's like, okay, there is one fricking flight

00:58:12.640 | from the US to Nice and it's seasonal.

00:58:14.640 | And they're like, oh, but my friend just took it.

00:58:16.640 | Yes, in the season, right?

00:58:18.640 | You were not, it's November, it is not the season.

00:58:20.640 | - But I did play around on this site for a little bit.

00:58:23.640 | And I was like, oh, this is actually like,

00:58:24.640 | this is a tool I would like.

00:58:26.640 | I can look at a routing map and, you know,

00:58:28.640 | filter for where does it go, so.

00:58:30.640 | - Yeah, I'm looking at it now.

00:58:31.640 | I think that's really fun.

00:58:32.640 | The one thing that I would caution with looking at this,

00:58:36.640 | 'cause you know I have to have a caution,

00:58:38.640 | is that it looks like it includes

00:58:39.640 | a lot of low cost carriers,

00:58:41.640 | which is phenomenal for thinking about

00:58:43.640 | how you can be flexible,

00:58:45.640 | but is not going to be good for using your points.

00:58:50.640 | 'Cause you generally can't use your points

00:58:52.640 | on those low cost carriers.

00:58:53.640 | - My hack there was I went in

00:58:54.640 | and I just checked like Star Alliance.

00:58:56.640 | - Yeah, so the same thing that you can do

00:58:57.640 | on Google Flights then, where you can just be like,

00:58:59.640 | just show me Star Alliance or just show me One World.

00:59:02.640 | - Yeah, I guess Google Flights just does all this also.

00:59:05.640 | I don't know why.

00:59:06.640 | I don't know why I was looking for a new tool.

00:59:07.640 | It's just sometimes I'm like,

00:59:08.640 | what airlines fly here and Google Flights.

00:59:10.640 | - Well, because I mean,

00:59:11.640 | I actually do think that the low cost carrier feature

00:59:13.640 | is super helpful 'cause you often don't see those

00:59:16.640 | and they matter.

00:59:18.640 | You know, we used to live in Sicily

00:59:20.640 | and like, yes, there were a couple of Alitalia flights,

00:59:23.640 | but mostly it was going to be EasyJet or Ryanair

00:59:27.640 | or Air Malta or things that you couldn't use points on

00:59:31.640 | and you weren't going to find searching,

00:59:33.640 | you know, other consolidators

00:59:36.640 | unless you knew to look for them.

00:59:38.640 | So I think knowing where to look is hugely valuable.

00:59:43.640 | - Are there any other tools in the space online

00:59:45.640 | that you use or recommend people check out

00:59:48.640 | when they're trying to think about award travel?

00:59:50.640 | - I think it depends on what you wanna do.

00:59:51.640 | And this is, I don't want it to be a plug,

00:59:53.640 | but this gets into why we built Point Me

00:59:55.640 | because there are things like, I use ExpertFlyer every day,

00:59:58.640 | but more for schedules and upgrade space potentially

01:00:04.640 | and things like that.

01:00:05.640 | You can use it for award inventory, but ExpertFlyer,

01:00:08.640 | like if you know that A space is first class in Alaska

01:00:12.640 | and W is economy, you can pull up ExpertFlyer,

01:00:14.640 | you can search for it that way,

01:00:16.640 | but it requires a lot of knowledge

01:00:19.640 | to be able to use it effectively

01:00:21.640 | and requires you to know the routing rules.

01:00:25.640 | You know, like you can find you space,

01:00:27.640 | but it doesn't tell you the combined ability.

01:00:29.640 | So if you are getting deeper in the rabbit hole

01:00:32.640 | and you're really interested in those kinds of things,

01:00:33.640 | I think you get to a point

01:00:34.640 | where ExpertFlyer is indispensable

01:00:36.640 | for sort of cobbling those things together

01:00:38.640 | and being like, oh my gosh,

01:00:39.640 | I should actually book premium economy

01:00:41.640 | on Virgin Atlantic on this route.

01:00:42.640 | And then I should upgrade

01:00:43.640 | because then I'll get my extra MQMs for Delta.

01:00:48.640 | When you get into that level,

01:00:49.640 | you definitely need some of those more technical tools

01:00:51.640 | that aren't necessarily as user friendly,

01:00:53.640 | but do have really great information.

01:00:55.640 | - Yeah, I will point one thing out

01:00:56.640 | that you just brushed over,

01:00:57.640 | which is just because you find award availability

01:01:01.640 | between two cities

01:01:02.640 | doesn't mean that you can always combine it.

01:01:04.640 | So I've had times where it's like,

01:01:05.640 | oh, I can go from San Francisco to Paris

01:01:07.640 | and Paris to, I don't know, let's say Athens.

01:01:11.640 | And I like looked at each individual leg

01:01:13.640 | happens to have an award flight that's reasonably priced,

01:01:16.640 | but when combining them, it doesn't always work.

01:01:19.640 | So I know you guys do that in your search,

01:01:22.640 | but I would just caution people sometimes.

01:01:24.640 | And I'm curious what you think about this.

01:01:25.640 | Sometimes I'm like, okay, I wanna get to Europe.

01:01:28.640 | So let's not look at the ultimate destination.

01:01:30.640 | Let's just look at like the transatlantic flights.

01:01:33.640 | And that's like how I sometimes narrow it down.

01:01:35.640 | I'm like, look, I'm not gonna take two stops.

01:01:38.640 | So like, I wanna get from San Francisco to Athens.

01:01:42.640 | If you're willing to say,

01:01:43.640 | I'm only gonna change planes once

01:01:45.640 | and ideally it's not, you know,

01:01:47.640 | a six hour flight to the East Coast,

01:01:49.640 | you can kind of narrow it down to like,

01:01:51.640 | maybe there's only seven routings you could take

01:01:53.640 | or 10 routings.

01:01:54.640 | You could just kind of systematically

01:01:55.640 | check those seven to 10,

01:01:57.640 | but just make sure that you check them

01:02:00.640 | all together by the end.

01:02:01.640 | Otherwise you might end up finding out

01:02:03.640 | that it doesn't actually work.

01:02:05.640 | - Right, and the altogether at the end

01:02:06.640 | will also matter based on what program

01:02:08.640 | you're booking through.

01:02:10.640 | That phenomenon you're describing

01:02:13.640 | is referred to as married segment itineraries,

01:02:17.640 | where there are many cases where,

01:02:20.640 | let's say it's Lufthansa,

01:02:22.640 | 'cause they do this a lot,

01:02:23.640 | where they'll say, sure, you know,

01:02:25.640 | if you are coming from San Francisco,

01:02:27.640 | of course we'll make sure that there's space

01:02:29.640 | all the way through to Athens for you,

01:02:31.640 | or vice versa.

01:02:32.640 | And they'll say, you know,

01:02:33.640 | this isn't necessarily combinable on our ward

01:02:37.640 | because, you know,

01:02:38.640 | we don't need to make inventory available

01:02:40.640 | on the Frankfurt-Athens route.

01:02:43.640 | It's going to sell out anyways.

01:02:45.640 | So there's a lot of that,

01:02:46.640 | and it can depend because some,

01:02:48.640 | even within an alliance,

01:02:49.640 | some partners have better access

01:02:52.640 | to those married segment itineraries,

01:02:54.640 | or they are willing to pay

01:02:56.640 | a little bit more to their partner

01:02:57.640 | to have access to that space.

01:02:59.640 | Or sometimes it's, especially in the US,

01:03:03.640 | this segment is only available

01:03:05.640 | to members of our loyalty program.

01:03:07.640 | So Delta or United or American

01:03:09.640 | might even be able to give you

01:03:10.640 | a great discount on that flight

01:03:12.640 | from San Francisco to Salt Lake,

01:03:15.640 | but they're not going to make it available

01:03:17.640 | to their alliance partners.

01:03:19.640 | So, you know,

01:03:20.640 | you wouldn't be able to combine it

01:03:21.640 | if you then saw space on Flying Blue.

01:03:24.640 | - But if someone's kind of thinking,

01:03:25.640 | okay, I want to take a trip,

01:03:27.640 | is there an easy way to just get a good sense

01:03:29.640 | of like how much it might cost?

01:03:31.640 | You know, it used to be, you know,

01:03:33.640 | years ago, there's just an award chart.

01:03:35.640 | It's like, okay,

01:03:36.640 | I could go pull up the award chart

01:03:37.640 | for a few airlines and it's like,

01:03:39.640 | you know, I remember United,

01:03:40.640 | it was like every domestic flight

01:03:41.640 | was 25,000 points in coach

01:03:43.640 | and 50,000 points in business round trip.

01:03:45.640 | And it was just so simple.

01:03:46.640 | It's like, you want to go to Europe?

01:03:48.640 | This is the cost.

01:03:49.640 | Maybe some airlines, you know,

01:03:51.640 | I think some airlines still have that,

01:03:53.640 | but for the most part,

01:03:54.640 | it seems like everything is a mixed bag.

01:03:57.640 | How could someone just kind of get a sense

01:03:59.640 | of what might it cost a family of four

01:04:01.640 | to go to Europe without necessarily

01:04:04.640 | having to go through all the searching?

01:04:05.640 | So many programs still have award charts.

01:04:09.640 | You know, like American Advantage

01:04:11.640 | still has an award chart for their partners.

01:04:13.640 | And I think that's actually

01:04:14.640 | probably a good place to look.

01:04:15.640 | They still publish it.

01:04:16.640 | And a lot of things are in that range.

01:04:19.640 | You know, so if you're like,

01:04:21.640 | I have no idea, ballpark,

01:04:23.640 | what I should be spending,

01:04:24.640 | you know, that gives you a sense.

01:04:26.640 | It gives you a starting place.

01:04:27.640 | And Delta or United or Aeroplan

01:04:29.640 | may charge more or less,

01:04:30.640 | but at least you have the right number

01:04:31.640 | of significant figures.

01:04:33.640 | You know, for the most part.

01:04:37.640 | The flip side of not everybody

01:04:39.640 | having award charts is that

01:04:40.640 | with the dynamic pricing,

01:04:41.640 | sometimes you can see really low prices

01:04:44.640 | that would never have made it

01:04:45.640 | onto an award chart

01:04:46.640 | just based off of inventory capacity.

01:04:47.640 | I mentioned earlier,

01:04:49.640 | Virgin Atlantic will have

01:04:51.640 | just bargain flights

01:04:53.640 | from New York to London,

01:04:55.640 | you know, 10,000 miles in economy.

01:04:57.640 | And if you stack that

01:04:58.640 | with a transfer bonus,

01:04:59.640 | you know, and where you're getting

01:05:01.640 | a 30% bonus when you transfer

01:05:03.640 | your chase points to Virgin Atlantic,

01:05:04.640 | it's just a steal, right?

01:05:05.640 | That would never show up

01:05:06.640 | on an award chart.

01:05:07.640 | It's not a consistent price necessarily,

01:05:09.640 | but it happens often enough that,

01:05:11.640 | you know, I can speak to it

01:05:12.640 | because it's not like a one-off, right?

01:05:14.640 | It happens with some consistency

01:05:15.640 | when they have extra space on a plane.

01:05:18.640 | So the dynamic inventory is hard, right?

01:05:22.640 | Because we all like to know

01:05:24.640 | how much things are going to cost

01:05:25.640 | and be able to work towards them.

01:05:26.640 | I think that's such a key component

01:05:27.640 | of loyalty programs.

01:05:30.640 | But the little bit of the crumb

01:05:32.640 | that you're getting there, at least,

01:05:34.640 | is that there are sometimes

01:05:35.640 | some really great values

01:05:36.640 | on the other side,

01:05:37.640 | especially domestically, I think,

01:05:39.640 | where you get some prices

01:05:41.640 | that you wouldn't have anticipated.

01:05:42.640 | When people listen, they're like,

01:05:43.640 | "Okay, I now get it.

01:05:44.640 | "I know how...

01:05:45.640 | "I feel confident about how

01:05:47.640 | "I could start to plan this trip

01:05:49.640 | "and book this and find availability.

01:05:51.640 | "But now I got to go get

01:05:52.640 | "those 300,000 points."

01:05:53.640 | I think we've talked plenty about,

01:05:55.640 | "Okay, well, you can get the card

01:05:57.640 | "that optimizes where you spend your money.

01:05:59.640 | "You can get some sign-up bonuses

01:06:00.640 | "and keep on top of what they are."

01:06:02.640 | I try to share that.

01:06:03.640 | Any other kind of, maybe,

01:06:05.640 | second-level hacks or tips or tactics

01:06:08.640 | that you like to share with people

01:06:10.640 | who are trying to get to that mileage goal

01:06:13.640 | so they can take the trip?

01:06:15.640 | Yeah, that's really a fun question.

01:06:17.640 | I think, in general,

01:06:18.640 | I like to encourage people

01:06:19.640 | to be opportunistic.

01:06:22.640 | If there is a great sign-up bonus,

01:06:24.640 | to take advantage of it.

01:06:26.640 | I'm also at a place

01:06:28.640 | where I recognize that people

01:06:30.640 | who are doing this also have other jobs.

01:06:33.640 | Right? Full-time jobs.

01:06:34.640 | So you don't necessarily

01:06:36.640 | want to be in a situation

01:06:37.640 | where you have so many cards

01:06:38.640 | and they're hard to manage

01:06:39.640 | and things like that.

01:06:40.640 | But I think it's important to think about it.

01:06:42.640 | If you're planning an extended family trip,

01:06:44.640 | maybe you have that conversation

01:06:45.640 | with the extended family

01:06:46.640 | and say, "Hey, this is a trip

01:06:47.640 | "we want to take.

01:06:48.640 | "It's going to be this many points.

01:06:51.640 | "In our household,

01:06:52.640 | "we're going to get that

01:06:53.640 | "because we're both going

01:06:55.640 | "to get this card.

01:06:56.640 | "That might be an option for you.

01:06:57.640 | "You don't want to be in charge

01:06:58.640 | "of your family's finances overall.

01:06:59.640 | "It's a bad, bad life choice."

01:07:01.640 | But to think about that

01:07:04.640 | and to be sure

01:07:07.640 | that as you are getting credit cards,

01:07:11.640 | that your points

01:07:12.640 | are ultimately combinable.

01:07:13.640 | I think this is especially important

01:07:15.640 | if you have a family

01:07:16.640 | or if you're more than one person

01:07:18.640 | in general,

01:07:19.640 | is, okay, it doesn't help you

01:07:23.640 | to have 50,000 points here

01:07:25.640 | and 60,000 points here

01:07:26.640 | and 80,000 points here

01:07:27.640 | and 70,000 points here.

01:07:28.640 | You may find yourself

01:07:29.640 | in a situation

01:07:30.640 | where you have half a million points

01:07:31.640 | and you don't have enough points

01:07:32.640 | for a single round-trip

01:07:33.640 | international ticket

01:07:35.640 | because they're not combinable.

01:07:36.640 | So that's, I think,

01:07:37.640 | the second level thing

01:07:38.640 | is don't just get

01:07:39.640 | the Chase Sapphire Preferred

01:07:40.640 | because it has a big sign-up bonus.

01:07:42.640 | Like, that's great.

01:07:43.640 | Do that.

01:07:44.640 | But then when you go

01:07:45.640 | to get your next card,

01:07:46.640 | look at, okay,

01:07:47.640 | well, where could these points move to?

01:07:49.640 | I want to make sure

01:07:50.640 | that my next card,

01:07:51.640 | I can also move those points

01:07:52.640 | to the same places

01:07:53.640 | or it bolsters

01:07:54.640 | one of those balances there.

01:07:56.640 | And just make sure you have

01:07:58.640 | a couple hundred thousand points

01:08:00.640 | in a program

01:08:01.640 | or able to get to a program

01:08:03.640 | before you move on

01:08:04.640 | to the next thing.

01:08:06.640 | My advice has been,

01:08:07.640 | you know, you can now,

01:08:09.640 | for most airlines,

01:08:10.640 | book one-way awards.

01:08:11.640 | So instead of,

01:08:12.640 | I always say,

01:08:13.640 | instead of trying to book like,

01:08:14.640 | oh, we're two people

01:08:15.640 | and we have enough points

01:08:16.640 | in two programs,

01:08:17.640 | book the one-ways together,

01:08:19.640 | both be on the same itinerary

01:08:20.640 | with one program

01:08:21.640 | and then the return

01:08:22.640 | with the other program

01:08:23.640 | instead of trying to book

01:08:24.640 | each person separately.

01:08:26.640 | Yeah, absolutely.

01:08:27.640 | Especially if you have

01:08:29.640 | one person who's not as confident

01:08:30.640 | of a traveler,

01:08:32.640 | you know,

01:08:33.640 | or you have that,

01:08:34.640 | you know, the extended family members.

01:08:36.640 | I always talk about like,

01:08:37.640 | when we're traveling with our moms,

01:08:38.640 | it's totally different

01:08:39.640 | than when we're traveling

01:08:40.640 | just with each other.

01:08:42.640 | And I think that that's key,

01:08:43.640 | like staying on the same itinerary.

01:08:45.640 | And again, it's just,

01:08:46.640 | are you getting points

01:08:47.640 | in a program?

01:08:48.640 | So maybe it's more thinking of like,

01:08:49.640 | am I getting points

01:08:50.640 | in an account, right?

01:08:51.640 | Because if you have,

01:08:53.640 | if you have 50,000 points

01:08:54.640 | in United Mileage Plus

01:08:55.640 | and your partner has 50,000 points

01:08:57.640 | in United Mileage Plus,

01:08:59.640 | you still,

01:09:00.640 | neither together

01:09:01.640 | nor separately,

01:09:02.640 | have enough points

01:09:03.640 | to do what you want to do.

01:09:04.640 | You know,

01:09:05.640 | if you have 100,000 points

01:09:06.640 | in one account,

01:09:07.640 | you have more options.

01:09:08.640 | Alyssa actually reminded me,

01:09:10.640 | I know Capital One,

01:09:11.640 | you can share points with anyone.

01:09:13.640 | So if you have Capital One points,

01:09:15.640 | you can.

01:09:16.640 | With Chase,

01:09:17.640 | I think it's within your household.

01:09:18.640 | So if you're both accumulating Chase,

01:09:20.640 | you can share within your household.

01:09:21.640 | Amex,

01:09:22.640 | most of the actual airlines though,

01:09:24.640 | make it incredibly difficult

01:09:26.640 | and costly to share points.

01:09:28.640 | So another bump

01:09:29.640 | to the transferable points game

01:09:31.640 | is that it is very hard to,

01:09:34.640 | like if you have American points

01:09:35.640 | and someone else has American points,

01:09:36.640 | you combining them for a trip,

01:09:38.640 | a few of the international carriers

01:09:40.640 | have programs for this,

01:09:42.640 | but it's very hard.

01:09:43.640 | Yeah, you should combine,

01:09:44.640 | combine them

01:09:45.640 | before they get to the airline.

01:09:46.640 | The nice thing though,

01:09:47.640 | is that for the most part,

01:09:49.640 | all the airlines will let you

01:09:50.640 | book tickets for someone else.

01:09:51.640 | And we hear this all the time

01:09:53.640 | because we have the grandparents

01:09:54.640 | who want to pay for a honeymoon

01:09:55.640 | and they're like,

01:09:56.640 | "How do I get my Amex points

01:09:58.640 | to my granddaughter?"

01:09:59.640 | It's like, "You don't.

01:10:00.640 | "We'll take your Amex points

01:10:02.640 | "and we'll move them

01:10:03.640 | "to maybe your Aeroplane account

01:10:05.640 | "and then we'll book the flights

01:10:06.640 | "for her from your account."

01:10:08.640 | You don't have to transfer them

01:10:09.640 | to other people and pay transfer fees.

01:10:11.640 | But if you do have,

01:10:12.640 | if you and your spouse both have,

01:10:14.640 | let's call it 50,000 Amex points

01:10:16.640 | and you want to book an award

01:10:17.640 | that's 100,000,

01:10:18.640 | there's no good answer.

01:10:20.640 | You can't combine Amex points.

01:10:21.640 | But my version of a hack,

01:10:23.640 | which I think is still possible,

01:10:24.640 | is that if you get

01:10:26.640 | an authorized cardholder,

01:10:27.640 | if you add your spouse

01:10:29.640 | as your authorized cardholder,

01:10:30.640 | then you can transfer points

01:10:32.640 | from Amex to their accounts.

01:10:34.640 | - Correct, yeah.

01:10:35.640 | If it's an authorized user

01:10:36.640 | that you can transfer them,

01:10:37.640 | transfer them to the same account.

01:10:40.640 | - So you can't combine

01:10:41.640 | the membership rewards balances,

01:10:42.640 | but if you're transferring to Delta,

01:10:45.640 | you could transfer them both

01:10:46.640 | to the same Delta account

01:10:47.640 | and book from there.

01:10:48.640 | - Right.

01:10:49.640 | I would say if you are going to do that

01:10:50.640 | and you know you're going to do that,

01:10:52.640 | do...

01:10:54.640 | It gets tricky.

01:10:57.640 | There is a high potential

01:10:58.640 | for the airline to put a fraud alert

01:11:00.640 | on the account

01:11:01.640 | if you're getting back-to-back transfers

01:11:03.640 | from different accounts

01:11:04.640 | in short succession.

01:11:06.640 | They'll resolve it.

01:11:07.640 | It's not going to be actual fraud.

01:11:08.640 | It's just going to be something

01:11:09.640 | that needs manual approval.

01:11:10.640 | So if you are in a situation

01:11:12.640 | where it's like, "Oh my gosh,

01:11:13.640 | I know that I'm going to book this flight,"

01:11:16.640 | or you find this diamond

01:11:17.640 | in the rough award space

01:11:19.640 | that you would never have been able to book

01:11:20.640 | and you're like moving

01:11:21.640 | all these points all around

01:11:23.640 | to temper expectations

01:11:24.640 | because it might be 72 hours

01:11:26.640 | before those points are cleared

01:11:28.640 | for you to book it

01:11:29.640 | in that specific example.

01:11:31.640 | I don't want to dissuade anyone

01:11:32.640 | from earning points,

01:11:33.640 | but it's good to know

01:11:35.640 | that there can be pitfalls.

01:11:37.640 | - One important thing actually

01:11:38.640 | that came up with another listener

01:11:40.640 | was there are a lot of mileage programs

01:11:43.640 | where I think it's like

01:11:45.640 | you can't transfer points in for 72 hours

01:11:47.640 | or there's some rules

01:11:48.640 | about how long the account has to be open

01:11:50.640 | before you can book something.

01:11:52.640 | So one suggestion I have

01:11:53.640 | is if you have Chase

01:11:55.640 | and it doesn't cost you anything

01:11:57.640 | to go to the dozen or so Chase airline partners

01:12:01.640 | and go open all of those mileage accounts now.

01:12:04.640 | I don't know if you know exactly which ones,

01:12:08.640 | but I know there are at least a few airlines

01:12:09.640 | where it's much better

01:12:10.640 | to have had the account open

01:12:11.640 | than open it when you need it.

01:12:13.640 | - Yeah, I mean,

01:12:14.640 | I would actually say

01:12:15.640 | with almost any of them,

01:12:16.640 | it's better.

01:12:17.640 | And again, this is just security checks

01:12:20.640 | are all driven by algorithms.

01:12:22.640 | And it's obviously,

01:12:24.640 | if I say it out loud,

01:12:25.640 | it's obviously more suspicious

01:12:26.640 | to have a brand new account

01:12:27.640 | that was just opened

01:12:28.640 | and now is receiving points

01:12:29.640 | from non-flight activity

01:12:31.640 | from multiple sources in 90 minutes.

01:12:34.640 | Like if you're a computer,

01:12:35.640 | you flag that too, right?

01:12:38.640 | So you can just avoid

01:12:40.640 | some of those triggers

01:12:41.640 | by opening the accounts early on,

01:12:44.640 | maybe make a purchase

01:12:46.640 | through the airline shopping portal early on.

01:12:49.640 | I don't want the takeaway from this though

01:12:51.640 | to be that like airlines

01:12:52.640 | are super concerned about fraud

01:12:53.640 | and that you're going to run into problems

01:12:54.640 | when you're doing meet your points.

01:12:55.640 | This gets into like the edge cases of it.

01:12:58.640 | Most people are not going to have these problems.

01:13:00.640 | - But there are some airlines

01:13:01.640 | where I think you can't actually do anything.

01:13:03.640 | Even if they don't flag you for fraud,

01:13:05.640 | they just have a rule.

01:13:06.640 | It's like you can't do anything for three days.

01:13:07.640 | Your account has to be open for a week.

01:13:09.640 | - Yeah, and there's others

01:13:10.640 | where you can't search award space

01:13:15.640 | unless you have a couple of points in the account.

01:13:18.640 | And if you can't search award space,

01:13:19.640 | that means you can't book award flights.

01:13:21.640 | So, but you don't necessarily need

01:13:23.640 | to have the full number of points,

01:13:24.640 | but if you have two points in there

01:13:27.640 | or five points

01:13:28.640 | because you bought something

01:13:30.640 | through their shopping portal

01:13:31.640 | and posted the points there,

01:13:33.640 | then you can have full functionality.

01:13:36.640 | - And the other one is I've had some issues.

01:13:39.640 | I can't remember exactly why,

01:13:41.640 | but my name is long enough

01:13:43.640 | that sometimes when I try to add an airline

01:13:46.640 | to my Amex account,

01:13:47.640 | the transfer points out.

01:13:49.640 | It's like, ah, it didn't work.

01:13:50.640 | So I would also say you can go in

01:13:52.640 | and link up your,

01:13:54.640 | if you go and create an airline mileage account

01:13:57.640 | for all these airlines that you can transfer to,

01:13:58.640 | you can also go and link those accounts

01:14:01.640 | to your Amex, Chase, Cap One kind of account as well.

01:14:06.640 | And the thing I'm ultimately trying

01:14:08.640 | to help everyone avoid is you don't want to go

01:14:11.640 | and find a flight and be ready to book it.

01:14:14.640 | Then finally I found the availability.

01:14:16.640 | - Right.

01:14:17.640 | - But I didn't.

01:14:18.640 | - And now it all falls apart.

01:14:19.640 | - And now I need to wait three days

01:14:20.640 | for my account to be active.

01:14:21.640 | Or now my account was active,

01:14:23.640 | but now that I linked to Amex,

01:14:25.640 | there's like some error

01:14:26.640 | and I have to get Amex

01:14:27.640 | to help resolve the error before it works.

01:14:29.640 | - Right.

01:14:30.640 | - So I like to put all the pieces in place.

01:14:31.640 | - That's actually maybe the next level of things

01:14:33.640 | is when you are applying for credit cards

01:14:37.640 | to apply for them with the name

01:14:40.640 | that is on your secure flight information.

01:14:43.640 | And this might seem obvious to people,

01:14:45.640 | but like American Express

01:14:46.640 | will issue you a credit card as C. Hutchins,

01:14:49.640 | but Flying Blue won't allow you

01:14:52.640 | to create a Flying Blue account with C. Hutchins.

01:14:55.640 | It needs to be Chris or Christopher

01:14:56.640 | or whatever is on your passport.

01:14:58.640 | And so when you go to transfer the points,

01:15:00.640 | they won't match.

01:15:01.640 | And so Flying Blue will send the points back.

01:15:03.640 | So, and I think a lot of us with like shorter names

01:15:06.640 | or I have two middle names,

01:15:07.640 | so I just never include them on anything

01:15:09.640 | because it's too complicated.

01:15:11.640 | But, you know, it's like,

01:15:12.640 | oh, I'm just applying for this credit card

01:15:13.640 | and I'm not thinking about using my full legal name

01:15:15.640 | as it is on my passport.

01:15:17.640 | So just to add something else to,

01:15:19.640 | just something else to make it

01:15:20.640 | a little bit more complicated for everybody.

01:15:22.640 | - Any other travel points, miles,

01:15:25.640 | broad speaking, tactics, tricks, hacks to share

01:15:28.640 | before we wrap?

01:15:29.640 | - I think the biggest thing to think about

01:15:32.640 | is that you can absolutely use your points.

01:15:36.640 | People get so overwhelmed.

01:15:37.640 | They get so wrapped up in trying to optimize

01:15:39.640 | and find the very best example,

01:15:41.640 | or they see, you know, influencers who are doing things

01:15:44.640 | and they think that there's only one way

01:15:45.640 | to redeem their points.

01:15:47.640 | At the end of the day,

01:15:48.640 | the best use of your points

01:15:49.640 | is one that allows you to have an experience

01:15:53.640 | that might have otherwise been out of reach.

01:15:56.640 | Whether that's a trip that was expensive

01:15:59.640 | or a trip that was difficult

01:16:00.640 | or a trip that was super aspirational and lovely

01:16:03.640 | and to just not be afraid to go ahead and book it.

01:16:05.640 | Like, there's no, it's not a contest.

01:16:07.640 | It's not a race.

01:16:08.640 | And there are tremendous ways to improve your life

01:16:12.640 | through these experiences.

01:16:13.640 | Just go for it.

01:16:14.640 | If it's not perfect,

01:16:15.640 | then maybe the next one will be better.

01:16:17.640 | And you learn so much going through that first process

01:16:19.640 | of booking an award flight

01:16:21.640 | that you then apply to the second.

01:16:22.640 | But I find so many people are too intimidated

01:16:24.640 | to book the first one.

01:16:26.640 | - Yep.

01:16:27.640 | And hopefully I think people can leave this saying,

01:16:29.640 | "Okay, I feel like I understand how the system works

01:16:32.640 | "so I can, you know, do some searching myself.

01:16:35.640 | "I know of at least one tool that you guys have built

01:16:37.640 | "that will make this a lot easier."

01:16:39.640 | - The reason why we set a point up the way that we did

01:16:41.640 | and why we're happy to, you know,

01:16:44.640 | for certain audiences like yours

01:16:45.640 | give a really significant discount to use it for a month

01:16:48.640 | is because we are pretty evangelical

01:16:50.640 | about using points as an option.

01:16:51.640 | So for a dollar, you can spend a whole month clicking around

01:16:54.640 | and just sort of seeing what the options are.

01:16:56.640 | And we have the instructions laid out for you

01:16:58.640 | step by step by step.

01:17:00.640 | And I do truly think that for most people,

01:17:03.640 | if you just try, maybe even take a theoretical trip,

01:17:07.640 | one that you're not emotionally committed to yet,

01:17:09.640 | but you've just thought about wanting to take

01:17:11.640 | and go through the steps,

01:17:12.640 | and maybe you're not actually transferring your points,

01:17:14.640 | but you're sitting there and thinking,

01:17:15.640 | "Okay, this is the point where I would go

01:17:17.640 | "to my credit card company and I would transfer the points.

01:17:20.640 | "And okay, I see now how I would book."

01:17:22.640 | And just play with it and build that confidence in doing it,

01:17:25.640 | because it doesn't have to be overwhelming.

01:17:27.640 | It's not, at the end of the day,

01:17:30.640 | well, there's a lot of information.

01:17:31.640 | There's a lot that you could do.

01:17:32.640 | There's a lot of ways that you could maximize

01:17:34.640 | the heck out of it.

01:17:36.640 | At the end of the day, it's not that much more difficult

01:17:38.640 | than other things that you successfully do

01:17:40.640 | every week of your life, right?

01:17:41.640 | You're just applying that skill set

01:17:43.640 | and those abilities to something different.

01:17:46.640 | And you only are able to do new things

01:17:49.640 | when you practice them.

01:17:50.640 | I do think we work really hard at Point Me

01:17:52.640 | to give you all the tools that you need to be successful.

01:17:56.640 | We're checking to make sure that it's actual flights

01:17:58.640 | that you can actually book

01:17:59.640 | with the points you actually have.

01:18:00.640 | And we have step-by-step instructions,

01:18:02.640 | including little videos of like,

01:18:04.640 | "Here's where you go to click."

01:18:05.640 | So ideally, anyone should be able to do this.

01:18:08.640 | And I laugh because we say this, but it's true.

01:18:10.640 | We've tested it with our moms,

01:18:12.640 | who are not the most tech-savvy group of ladies out there,

01:18:15.640 | although we love them.

01:18:16.640 | So I do really hope that by using the self-serve tool there,

01:18:19.640 | that for a very moderate price,

01:18:22.640 | you're equipped and you can book travel.

01:18:24.640 | If you are somebody though,

01:18:26.640 | who has a lot of points and a lot of different accounts

01:18:30.640 | or with different family members,

01:18:31.640 | or you're planning something that is complicated,

01:18:34.640 | but you know specifically what you want to do,

01:18:36.640 | it's just too complicated and it's too intimidating.

01:18:38.640 | We do have a team of people that can book that for you.

01:18:42.640 | It's obviously much, much, much more expensive

01:18:44.640 | than the self-serve tool,

01:18:46.640 | but that is an option that's available as well.

01:18:49.640 | - You've been to a bunch of countries, more than me,

01:18:51.640 | more than probably most people listening.

01:18:53.640 | Are there a couple of places that you think

01:18:55.640 | might not be on someone's radar?

01:18:57.640 | Like you mentioned earlier,

01:18:58.640 | your new focus on travel isn't just the place everyone goes.

01:19:01.640 | Are there a couple of places that you'd say

01:19:02.640 | people should check out and maybe

01:19:04.640 | something interesting they could do while they're there

01:19:06.640 | that might make it an exciting destination?

01:19:09.640 | - I do think that Malaysia is really underrated

01:19:11.640 | for people who are looking for a trip to Asia.

01:19:13.640 | Incredible food, really welcoming people,

01:19:16.640 | fantastic beaches on a lot of the islands.

01:19:19.640 | I think that that's some place

01:19:21.640 | that people should really consider.

01:19:22.640 | And then I'm of course biased because I've lived in Sicily

01:19:25.640 | and people go to Italy,

01:19:26.640 | but they don't really go to Sicily to the same extent.

01:19:29.640 | And I think if you are an independent traveler

01:19:32.640 | or you're open to, again,

01:19:34.640 | having to work for it a little bit,

01:19:36.640 | that there's some really incredible experiences there,

01:19:38.640 | some agriturismos that you can stay at

01:19:40.640 | where you're getting just a much warmer experience

01:19:45.640 | than you'd find on a lot of mainland Italy.

01:19:47.640 | And some interesting history and archeology

01:19:51.640 | and all those things too

01:19:53.640 | that not as much on the tourist trail.

01:19:57.640 | - Tiffany, thank you so much for being here.

01:19:59.640 | This is great. I appreciate it.

01:20:01.640 | - Of course. Thanks for having me.

01:20:02.640 | I hope it was helpful and demystifying for people.

Optimizing Flights with Online Tools, Rewards, and Points! | All The Hacks | Tiffany Funk