A quick word from our sponsor today. I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much more, but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which actually gets harder as you build your wealth. So I want to introduce you to today's sponsor, Longangle.

Longangle is a community of high net worth individuals with backgrounds in everything from technology, finance, medicine, to real estate, law, manufacturing, and more. I'm a member of Longangle. I've loved being a part of the community, and I've even had one of the founders, Tad Fallows, join me on all the hacks in episode 87 to talk about alternative investments.

Now, the majority of Longangle members are first generation wealth, young, highly successful individuals who join the community to share knowledge and learn from each other in a confidential, unbiased setting. On top of that, members also get access to some unique private market investment opportunities. Like I said, I'm a member and I've gotten so much value from the community because you're getting advice and feedback from people in a similar situation to you on everything from your investment portfolio, to your children's education, to finding a concierge doctor.

So many of these conversations aren't happening anywhere else online. So if you have more than 2.2 million in investable assets, which is their minimum for membership, I encourage you to check out Longangle and it's totally free to join. Just go to longangle.com to learn more. And if you choose to apply, be sure to let them know you heard about it here.

Again, that's longangle.com. Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I am excited to have none other than Lee Rowan here for another episode. Now, for those of you who don't know, Lee was my first guest on the podcast and he is one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to travel hacking and really all things travel.

He currently runs a high-end travel company called Savanti, where he's helped clients plan incredible trips to every corner of the world. He's also a travel hacker himself, and before Savanti, he was the COO of The Points Guy. So why bring Lee back again? Well, if you listened to episode one, you wouldn't even doubt that decision.

But this time, Lee is going to give us a glimpse into the travel lifestyles of the rich and famous. Think private jets, luxury villas, and everything else. But we're also going to talk about how you could hack some of these luxuries into your own life for a whole lot less.

This is a really fun episode with some great hacks, so I hope you enjoy it. Let's jump in. Lee, thank you for being here again. First, second time guest. I am incredibly honored to be here again. I'm incredibly honored to be back here after you've already had a million downloads, 50 plus episodes.

You've interviewed Olympians, New York Times bestsellers, and somehow I'm here. Yeah, just thank you. First person I have on second, your episode has done the best of all time. I think in part from Tim Ferriss' comparison to you and Hugh Jackman. He put you on a pretty high pedestal.

That was incredibly humbling. My wife is still trying to get me off that pedestal, but it's great to be up there. Well, I got an email and it made me think, "I think we should get Lee back here." So I'm going to read it. So Alberto sent an email in and said, "Hey, Chris, love your podcast.

And I'd love to hear more about ultra high-end travel experiences. Even though not every listener can benefit from them, certainly many aspire to them, and all of them likely enjoy hearing about these possibilities. So to me, that's what options do people have to fly private? How does that compare to first class?

What premium programs aren't advertised that airlines and hotels offer? What kinds of experiences can a great concierge cover, et cetera?" So I can't think of anyone who knows that space better than you. Well, you already heard in the intro, but this is what Lee does. Like he plans these experiences.

So I thought that would be a fun conversation to have and worth having you back on again. Awesome. Well, thank you. We can definitely dive into the travel lifestyles of the rich and famous, but I will caveat it by saying a couple of things. Number one is that not all of these experiences are off limits to the not rich and famous.

I myself don't think that I can afford necessarily a private jet, but I've been lucky enough to fly private once or twice or have these incredible concierge experiences at hotels where if you just know the right angle, then you can really up your travel game, your travel experiences. So definitely happy to talk about what people pay for and maybe some other great area of where you can kind of hack your way in.

Perfect. The big question out there, something that I've never booked a private jet. I've had the luxury of being invited to go on a flight from LA to San Francisco once. It was quite the nice experience. What does private jet travel look like? Is it incredibly expensive? Just kind of like set the standard for people on what is the experience and how much does it cost?

If you had asked me this in our first meeting, almost a year ago, where we recorded the first podcast, I would have said private aviation is booming. And I would have thought that we were at the very, very peak of the market. Like the stock market, private aviations market has gone even higher since then.

So right now, private is very expensive and it's exclusive, right? You have your own jet to yourself, unless you're lucky enough to be invited on somebody else's jet for a short hop somewhere, but because of that, and because of gas prices and just the demand on the market, it is incredibly expensive.

But the question is, how do you go about finding a, a jet, be a deal on a jet? And there are ways of doing that. So there are search engines that are out there for jets. Some people turn to brokers. Some people in the travel industry have their own operator relationships where you can call up an operator and say, Hey, I'd like to charter a light jet or a midsize jet or a heavy jet, or one of those big business jets, because I've got to take X amount of people from San Francisco to New York, right?

And then they get back to these quotes that are exceptional. It used to be, you could take a super midsize jet nonstop across the country and it would be something like 25 or 30 grand one way. And super midsize, how many people? Yeah, about nine people, give or take, right?

Depends on the jet and the configuration of the seating. Is there a lavatory seat, which is literally like somebody has to actually sit on top of a closed lavatory for takeoff and landing. What does that look like? But generally nine people on a super mid coast to coast. It used to be about 25 or 30 grand one way.

And now you're seeing that push up by 40, 45, sometimes 50 grand just to get coast to coast on a private jet. So when I talked earlier about how the market is impacted and the prices have gone up, it's true, they've gone through the roof, but the dirty secret about private aviation is that not every flight is lined up with a buyer.

For instance, let's say they're taking a jet from the Bay area to the New York area, and now they've got to get that jet from New York down to Florida for the next client. Well, it's going to fly empty. And so the way to fly private for cheap, not for free, but for cheap to hack it is to find an empty leg that works for you.

Now operators of those private empty legs are savvy. And so they're not going to let it go for free or even really for that cheap. But instead of spending what would be 25, $30,000 on a one way flight, you might get it for five, seven, eight, 10. And if you think about it, the cost of a commercial first-class seat might be a thousand or more dollars on that route.

So now if you have an empty leg that you can buy and you can fill it with eight or nine people paying a thousand bucks each, why you just paid for your empty leg. So if you get very lucky, you know how to play the market, find the right sort of buys, and you can see those empty legs and fill them with people that you might know, then you can end up flying private for pretty cheap.

Where does that end up happening on the busiest routes you'd suspect, right? I got to get a jet from the Bay area down to LA so it can fly. It's going to go empty. Let me try to fill it up. It's always last minute, 72 hours or less out.

And sometimes you can get lucky and get a deal. And is there a place online to look for these deals? Oh boy, there's a bunch. And we'll put some resources online later to show people where to look. It's definitely a rabbit hole. You got to go down and educate yourself on, but there are some empty leg listings online.

There are some operators that publish them online on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. There are some of these membership groups that you can be a part of and you can pay to get access to empty legs. They're just marketing a collection of lists that they've culled together. But generally speaking, if you invest time and energy into learning a lot about how the market works and where to find these lists, you might be able to find yourself one or two deals a year that you could work on.

But at the end of the day, the deals we're talking about are flying private at the cost of commercial first class, if you can fill the plane. If you can fill the plane. It's all conditional. It's never going to be, I want to go to LA. Can I get a empty leg for 200 bucks?

Or can I get a seat on a G450 that has to reposition? That just won't happen, right? So I think that's a really good example here, Chris, that you have to expectation set, right? You're not going to just fly private by using your points from your Chase Sapphire preferred and looking on a search engine online and it happens, right?

It's a very calculated process that you have to get very lucky with a lot of stars lining to have happen. And if you can do it great, it's an incredible experience. Is it the best? And I'll be all of flying. No, but it's pretty great if you can do it.

And just to kind of benchmark where you gave a couple examples, is there something that's like roughly for the most common type of plane dollars per hour. So if someone listening is just thinking like, Hmm, what would it cost to fly to Cabo for the weekend or somewhere? Is there a benchmark?

There used to be, and it used to be based on plane size. You can get an approximate hourly rate, but there are so many variables to consider that it's so hard to say this is the ballpark cost, especially given a aviation fuel prices lately and be the impacting of the market of how much demand there is for private.

It's just insane. So I wish I could say to you, Oh, heavy jet should be 10 grand an hour. Uh, that would be great. Sometimes you can get a heavy jet for eight grand an hour, and sometimes more often than not, it's 16 grand an hour. So you just really can't ballpark it.

Well, I mean, you just did eight to $16,000 an hour. Heavy jet seats up to 14 to 15, depending on the jet and depending on where you're going, right? Because you can't fly 14 people from LA to Europe nonstop, but you could maybe if you did it with eight.

Okay. The kinds of experiences that you see people having people that are taking their family of four people on a private jet, it's probably a smaller plane. Is that closer? I know you can't ballpark, but like $5,000 an hour, how wide is the swing? That's the benchmark I've always been told is like, if you want a small plane, but it's not a prop plane, it's a jet, it's like 5,000 an hour.

So New York, 30 grand. Now I know you said, ah, things have gone up. Maybe it's 15, 20, maybe it's six grand an hour or something like that. But is that in the ballpark? It could be in the ballpark. And it, again, depends on the jet itself, where you're going to and from.

Honestly, you know, flying West to East is a lot easier because you've got tailwinds and a jet can go a little further, but flying East to West and with a heavier load and a full load of people in the plane, it ends up being a lot more expensive, a lot longer time in that plane.

The other piece to keep in mind too, is what is that plane doing while you're there? Are you going a one-way or are you doing a round trip, right? If a plane is sitting and waiting for you, you're paying that operator to literally just have it sit there empty, underutilized, doing nothing.

If that plane is moving around and then popping back to pick you up later on, well, then maybe the operator can make some money on those other legs. But if they're based out in California and you're flying them to New York, you better hope that they can get some business along the East coast by the time that they've got a return, otherwise you're just paying for that dead time.

When you cross borders, it's a whole different ball of wax. There's this thing called cavitage that I love to talk about because it's so confusing and it's like an 1860s maritime law, but it basically says anytime you cross a border on one type of vessel, you have to cross that same border on the same type of vessel coming back and it's very confusing, but long story short, you can't fly down on one kind of private jet and come back on a different kind of private jet into and out of Mexico or Canada because the operator either won't take your business or the authorities there might get upset with you and charge you fines and a whole bunch of other stuff.

So is a lot of private travel done domestically and internationally? It just is too far distance. So it ends up being too expensive. Are these rules or what's the most common use case for private travel? It honestly depends on the consumer. It depends on what that client needs and what they're trying to accomplish, right?

Some people have a very tight schedule and private allows them that freedom of having the time to do what they need to do in the order they want to do it. For some people, it's about convenience. They just want to show up at an FBO. Don't have to worry about security.

Somebody else handles their bags and voila, they're off to the next place. And it's just done like that for them. For some people, it is about true luxury and they just don't want to have anything less than perfection. And that's what private affords them. There's no worrying about a commercial aircraft delay or a crew delay or whatever.

You're in control. You say, I want to go 15 minutes later, an hour later, the plane waits for you. It's not like you miss your Delta flight. Cause you're like, I'll be there a little later, right? That would never happen. So it really depends on who the person is and what their motivating factor of flying is.

But I can tell you that over the past six years of running this business, I have seen more private demand over the last 18 months than I would have ever imagined. And I would probably just even say we've done more private aviation travel in the last 18 months than we did in the entire first five years of our business's existence.

And do you think that keeps up or do you think part of that, I assume, is because we had this pandemic where people didn't want to be around other people on an airplane, but maybe still wanted to travel. Has it waned a little bit in the last few months as travels picked up and resumed?

Not really. I think what's been interesting is some of the trends in private aviation have shifted to people who they used to maybe not fly private all the time. And now they're only flying private and it's a easily accessible commercial route with a private-like experience. I.e. I can fly from San Francisco to JFK in a live flat seat in a cabin of 12 people.

Right. Even though there's other cabins on that aircraft that have more people in them. My first class cocoon feels like a private jet to me. And then they'll do that over flying transcontinentally private. Obviously people aren't electing to as much flight internationally, right? It's trans-oceanically in private jets, because that is so very expensive.

Flying from the East coast to Europe could easily run you 80 to a hundred grand one way, which is a lot of money. And when you can get a very lovely first class experience on Lufthansa or Air France or Swiss for a 10th of that, it's a pretty easy mathematical equation there.

When we went to Bora Bora a couple of weeks ago, we landed on the tarmac in Bora Bora, tiny airport, like really small airport. And we saw, I can't remember what it was. I'm going to misquote it. I think it was a Boeing business jet. And I was like, wow, this person flew private.

Now the cool thing, if anyone ever sees a private jet, you could look at the tail number. You could type it online and see where did this person come from? Yeah. And I couldn't believe it. So the person came from San Francisco and because the Bora Bora airport has no immigration, they also had to fly San Francisco to Papiete.

They had to get off the plane. You could see that the plane sat there for an hour. They must've gone through immigration, done their COVID testing, gotten back on, flew that plane, the 30 minute route. And all I could think about was they saved some time, right? We got to San Francisco an hour before our flight, hour 20 before our flight.

They might've gotten to San Francisco 30 minutes before their flight. Right. But in the grand scheme of things, it still took them almost 10 hours and maybe they saved an hour, but I'm guessing people listening know that I did it on points, but I'm guessing that was not a $3,000 charter.

No, sir. No, no. That was a very substantial amount of money. Those people spent for what I'm sure was an incredible trip for a private group. Right? You don't think of somebody taking a BBJ for three people, right? It probably was a group of a dozen or 15 people on that plane, flying that route, having a great time together.

And that is great. If that can work out with their schedule and their economics, good for them. But you and I are going to fly United. Yeah. And when you can fly United and find availability and last minute, especially, yeah, we booked it with Air Canada miles. Cause it was less, we got, what I would argue is a very similar experience.

We had a lay flat bed, someone brought us food. It wasn't exactly the same. The plane left when the plane wanted to leave, didn't leave when we wanted to. But for us, it was a points in $30 versus what I'm guessing was over six figures, which well, well over six figures.

Yeah. Good for them. What's the experience like though? You've gotten to do it a few times. Food, service, are there flight attendants? So paint a picture for what it's like from the moment you pull up, what happens? What's that experience like? Yeah. So let's start from the very, very top, right?

You get a special address at a commercial airport that you're flying out of. That is not the regular passenger terminal. And that's called the FBO. That's the area where all of the private planes fly out of. It's usually on the opposite side of the airport from the passenger terminals.

So you pull up there and you literally walk into a building or sometimes they'll even drive you out directly onto the tarmac to meet your plane. You drop your bags. And from the moment you do that, someone else takes care of everything. So the pilots will walk you through walking a visual inspection on the plane.

If you want to see it and take a look at what little parts of the plane do and educate you, you get on the plane and you can choose whatever seat you want. Cause it's your plane. So there's no assigned seating per se. You asked about catering. You can pre-select what is sort of a standard stock of catering.

And that varies by operator, but generally speaking, there's waters and snacks and some bottles of wine, little bottles of booze and things like that. But you can also augment that by bringing your own catering or working with the operator to have them cater the vessel for you. Thing to note about catering is that if you think getting a private jet is expensive, you have not seen a $65 club sandwich yet because it's unreal what those catering bills are.

We'll see catering bills sometimes in the multiple thousands for not that fancy of a meal. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty exceptional. So I always love just recommending people to bring Uber Eats or bring food from home that you love. Though I guess if you're spending a hundred thousand dollars on a flight, it's a rounding error, but even I guess people that fly private want a little hack to save money on food.

I always recommend that there are flight attendants on some of these flights, especially on the heavy jets and ultra long range jets, generally speaking, you know, not something that I see on a lot of like midsize or smaller jets because there's really no need, especially because those jets have a unlimited mission size.

They're going on a four or five hour trip. Maybe at most you don't really need service during that time. One of the things I find so interesting about flying private is that generally the cockpit doors open at any kind of point in the flight. You can stroll on in and be like, how are we doing folks?

Sit down at a jump seat and kind of take a look at the instrumentation and see how the plane is flown. And that to me is the, it's probably one of the coolest parts of flying private is that you're with the crew. They get to know you. You get to know them.

I've had crew write thank you notes to passengers of mine because they've developed friendships on these short flights. And that's really lovely because you get to feel like you're part of the operation if you choose to do so. If you want privacy and you want to be locked back in your cabin, no problem.

You can do that too. And then when you land, what does that look like? Like, do you just get off the plane and leave? Do you go through the airport? We didn't mention before you board, is there security? What is the kind of ins and outs of getting on the plane?

Yeah, generally there's no security, but depending on the flight and where you're going, if it's transborder, there'll be a little bit of a document check and the passengers will have to make sure that the manifest matches what their IDs are. And the pilots will usually do that, but generally there's no security of anything to speak of.

When you land, this is kind of the best part is you just stroll off the plane. I happened to get very lucky and get an empty leg to go to Bozeman, Montana, and I brought my daughter along with me. And when we got off the plane, our rental car was right there, plain side.

And what I mean right there, plain side, I mean like maybe three feet from the stairs. We just strolled in through our backpacks in the trunk and drove away. It was the coolest experience to be driving on the tarmac next to your plane is just like unreal. So convenience, ease.

Sure. It makes total sense. Price. I mean, it makes sense for everybody. I wouldn't even know if I can call this a hack, but there's an airline, you know, they don't fly all over the country called JSX. The best. And for maybe like two X, the cost of economy is not even as expensive as first-class domestically.

You can fly JSX. They fly, you would know better than me. What types of planes? Yeah, they're ERJs. They're a little regional, regional jets made by Embraer. They're 30 seats. So the window seat, A by itself. And then there's B and C sitting together, 10 rows. And they're exceptional for the value, for the fact that you do pull up to an FBO again, across the airport at Oakland or Las Vegas or Burbank or wherever you're flying, you're not at the regular passenger terminal and you go through a light security check there.

They check your ID. They sort of wand your bag and make sure that there's nothing funky there. And then that's it. You fly on this plane, you land, and it's the same process. When you get to Las Vegas, you walk right through the terminal and you're right outside and there's a taxi cab waiting for you.

And by terminal, Lee means like literally a small building. Like an office. Like I would say out the door to the Uber or Lyft you call is measured maybe in seconds or maybe one or two minutes. Maybe 30 seconds. If you stop to pee, it's a minute. It's really not that, yeah.

So that is an exceptional experience. And for the dollar value of that, it's great. You don't have to worry about being in a crowded terminal, getting there an hour and a half early, all that nonsense. So I'd say you don't get the plane to yourself. The plane leaves when it wants to leave.

It's still on a schedule. But if you want to experience what it's like to go to the FBO terminal to get on, to walk off the plane, and you just want to do that for, I'd say probably 2x the cost of a normal economy flight, you know, you could do that with JSX.

It seems like with every business you get to a certain size and the cracks start to emerge, things that you used to do in a day are taking a week and you have too many manual processes and there's no one source of truth. If this is you, you should know these three numbers.

37,000, 25, 1. 37,000. That's the number of businesses which have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle. And I'm excited to partner with them for this episode. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, streamlining accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more. 25, NetSuite turns 25 this year. That's 25 years of helping businesses do more with less, close their books in days, not weeks, and drive down costs.

And one, because your business is one of a kind, so you get a customized solution for all your KPIs in one efficient system with one source of truth. Manage risk, get reliable forecasts, and improve margins. Everything you need to grow all in one place, which I can tell you from all the companies I've run, makes everything so much better.

So right now, download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist, designed to give you consistently excellent performance, absolutely free at allthehacks.com/netsuite. That's allthehacks.com/netsuite to get your own KPI checklist. Allthehacks.com/netsuite, N-E-T-S-U-I-T-E. There is nothing I love more than learning that something I enjoy is actually so good for you, and nothing showcases that better than Pu-Erh tea.

It has so many health benefits, and I think one of the best and easiest ways to consume it is from our sponsor today, Peak Tea. Peak's Pu-Erh teas are all cold extracted using only wild harvested leaves from 250-year-old tea trees, rich in minerals, theraflavins, and catechins. Then everything is triple toxin screened for pesticides, heavy minerals, and toxic mold commonly found in plants.

And Peak's products are so easy and zero prep, because they're all in pre-measured quantities that dissolve in cold or hot water in seconds, and are so travel friendly. They have so many products, but lately I've been alternating between the green Pu-Erh for mental clarity and energy, and the black Pu-Erh, which helps kickstart digestion and metabolism with a rich, earthy flavor that is so good, and probably one of my favorite things to drink.

And if you need another reason, search for all the amazing research-backed benefits of polyphenols for your gut microbiome, heart, blood sugar, and more, and then be happy that Pu-Erh is more concentrated in polyphenols than all other teas in the world. But you don't even have to take my word, or do any research, because Peak offers free US shipping, free returns, and a money-backed guarantee.

And for a limited time, you can get up to 15% off and a free quiver with 12 tea samples at my link at allthehacks.com/peak, that's P-I-Q-U-E, so check them out today at allthehacks.com/peak, P-I-Q-U-E. So when people who would otherwise fly private are flying commercially, I know there's actually some experiences you can have at the airport, changing planes when you land, that maybe we've casually seen as normal travelers, someone holding a sign or something at the airport.

What are those experiences like? Talk a little bit about first-class terminals and greeters. Yeah, there's two levels of this experience. One is sort of accessible to all, and the other is less accessible to all. So the greeters, those people who are holding the placards when you land and who are not associated maybe with a wheelchair, right, are there waiting for a VIP.

They're people who are greeting you at the jet bridge of your aircraft when you arrive, and they're going to be the ones bringing you through all the formalities that follow. So let's say you fly from Dallas to Paris and you land in Paris, and there is somebody standing at the gate with a sign saying Hutchins, you and Amy get off and you go with that person, and they then take you through the following steps.

They'll take you through customs and immigration through a fast line, whether that's a diplomatic line or a not crowded line or whatever it is, it's a line where you don't have to wait in line, which is great. They'll then help you expedite and grab your bags, and then they'll bring you onwards to the next experience that's waiting for you.

If that's a connecting flight, they'll help you recheck, go through security again, get on that flight. If it's a ground transfer, they'll know exactly where your ground transfer is, and they'll walk you out to that, making sure of course to stop you at a bathroom or an ATM or a croissant stand or whatever it is you might need.

And that service is actually surprisingly affordable, and in my opinion, one of the most underutilized and highly valuable options that a family can use when going to Europe, especially in the summer, it could be $300 for a family of four to have a VIP arrival experience, highly recommended. At certain airports, you can also do that on the departure side, not usually in the States, but you could, but especially overseas and in a crowded place like Rome in the summer, highly recommend that as well.

I know in the US, for example, if you fly to SFO and you happen to be United's invite-only status, global services, there's actually a separate room and you just go in this room and they check you in, they take your bags, and then they actually just like put you at the front of the security line.

Right. Is that something that you can, instead of having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on United, you could just pay for and kind of have a similar experience? Domestically, it's a little harder because of our democratic notions here in the States that it's hard to buy sort of elite access to things.

There are ways of doing it in some airports, but generally speaking, domestically, especially on arrival, but even on departure, it's very hard to get to the front of the line. Overseas, it's a whole different ball of wax. So you want to spend a certain amount of money in any foreign airport.

There's a greeter service for arrivals and departures that will allow you to basically cut the line, get to the best lounge, and then have somebody walk you from that lounge to the plane when you want. Are you going to board first? Are you going to board last? This is always a choice they give you, right?

So that greeter and lounge experience is generally available for purchase everywhere. Now you mentioned also earlier lounges. What are those exceptional lounge experiences that people can have access to here in the States? We've got one out of LAX called PS the private suite, which is pretty exceptional. It's on the opposite side of the airport from the passenger terminal.

It's on the South side and it is a two part place. One is a salon where it's open to a smaller group of the public. And the other is a private suite, which is just open to you. Prices are pretty steep. They start in the five hundreds and go to five thousands per use per person.

So it can get a little crazy, but the experience is unparalleled. You check in there, you do security there. They drive you to the foot of your plane, to the gate, to get you boarding, whether it's again, first or last on your plane directly from this suite. So you don't have to see the airport at all.

You check your bags there, you do customs there. When you arrive there, like it's seamless and easy and beautiful. So if you're flying into or out of, or even via LAX, it can make sense depending on the party and the cost and what you're trying to do. But mostly in the U S we can rely on our TSA pre, we can rely on clear and we can kind of make the airport pretty smooth.

Chances are most people listening and have a card with priority pass. You can go to a lounge internationally. And I would say sometimes if you're flying internationally in business class and a lot of the Middle Eastern airlines, they include this. So we went to Qatar once and it included this greeter experience.

And it was like, let's skip the whole line here. When you come back, let's skip the whole line. And I was like, wow, that was fancy. And then I looked it up and I think it was, I could be really wrong here, but it was like $80. It was not like $5,000, definitely worth looking up traveling overseas.

And LAX sounds, I can't come up with an experience where I would want to spend $500 to get to the airport and have it easier. But you know, that's for someone. That is for someone. And there are some domestic airfare deals where that's actually bundled in. So you can take a look, you know, United has a deal.

American has a deal with PS at LAX on certain flights. So if you happen to be transiting LAX in the next couple of months or years, it's worth taking a look at it to see if it makes sense for you. All right. So I think we covered a lot on flights.

I'm going to ask a question that has nothing to do with super high end. But I was flying back from Bora Bora on United and I think this was the first time I ever noticed this new cabin. I think they call it premium plus. And I feel like for a long time there was premium economy and then it was gone.

And then all the airlines domestically started adding economy plus and comfort plus, which was basically coach with a little more leg room and maybe some extra snacks. Right. And I saw premium plus and the flight was empty. There was one person in all, maybe 30 seats, but it looked pretty nice.

Is premium economy coming back and for people trying to really maximize dollars or miles, is it a pretty viable option? How does it compare to business or first? This is a great question. So premium economy is a thing and it is also a super confusing thing because airlines have done a terrible job of distinguishing what is an actual premium economy cabin versus what's a premium economy seat.

For example, on United there is economy plus, which they used to call their premium economy seat until they actually put in a premium economy cabin premium plus so confusing. It just, it doesn't make any sense as a consumer. When you're looking at it, you're like, where am I sitting?

What am I saying? What am I paying for? How do I upgrade into this? It's just too much. So I like to think of it this way. Whenever you're flying internationally, ideally transoceanically, there is going to be a premium economy cabin, a separate cabin with fancier seats. They're not lie flat.

It's not a business class, but it might feel like a domestic business class on a lazy boy kind of seat, right? You've got a little more recline, a little more leg room on the United flights. It's usually a two, three, two seating, whereas an economy in the back, it's three, four, three, or three, three, three, very crowded.

You feel more spacious up there. There's a better premium version of food. You earn more miles for those seats, et cetera. So there is a separate cabin for that. Again, it's not going to be seen outside of a couple of domestic routes where they're flying those bigger craft to reposition them.

It's not going to be seen domestically. Now, confusingly, they will market domestically sometimes their economy plus seating as premium economy. Delta is notorious for this. When you fly from JFK to San Francisco, they will market what they call Delta comfort, which is their economy plus as a premium economy cabin.

It's not, it's still just an economy seat with a little bit extra legroom. So we're talking literally about two very separate cabins, very separate experiences. As of right now, the airlines haven't really figured out how to optimize their mileage game when it comes to redemption for those premium plus the actual cabin premium economy seats.

So what I would always recommend is looking to upgrade into them, book an economy ticket and see what the mileage upgrade cost would be to actually upgrade into that premium cabin. It's often fairly affordable. United sometimes charges 10 or 20 plus points per leg. If you have those plus points, whereas other airlines, the price differential is so high.

It's almost like a mid tier between economy and business class when you pay for it, but when you actually use mileage to upgrade, it's not that expensive. Okay. And one thing we didn't mention for anyone using miles to travel internationally, a important thing to remember. If you've never flown business class internationally, then there are two things that are interesting.

One, the trans-oceanic flight is going to be a next level experience. I almost say, make sure that you have enough points to do it again. Cause if you just do it once, you're going to want to do it every time. The small short routes are awful. They're terrible. Yeah.

Intra-European business class is not business class. When we went to Greece last year, we were like, Oh, we found seats. It was business class the whole way. And we were on Air France and from San Francisco to Paris, lie flat bed, wonderful service. We get on the flight from Paris to Crete in Greece.

It's basically the first two rows of an economy flight with the exact same seats and they block off the middle seat. And I would say if you're trying to move around Europe and you want to feel fancy, unless you're sure the plane you're on is a real business class plane, I would not ever use your miles to fly business class, intra-Europe, maybe even intra-Asia.

I'm not sure if it's the same there, but definitely intra-Europe. Absolutely. And it's always useful to check whenever you're doing those shorter hops, what airline is operating the flight? What aircraft are they actually operating that flight on? And what do the seat maps look like? Because if you're flying from Tokyo to Sapporo in Japan, that's hour and a half flight, they're actually going to put a triple seven with lie flat seats on that domestic small hop.

And it's a great experience, right? And you can use lounges and it's wonderful. In Europe, it's the opposite. You could fly three hours and it could be in a little crappy 737 and they're giving you like a hot piece of pizza for lunch. It's sad. So make sure you're using your miles and points correctly.

And then Seat Guru, great site. You can go look at all the seat maps. They usually say, yeah, this is just a regular seat with the middle seat blocked off. So that's flights. We hit a lot of stuff. I want to talk about hotels because I feel like there's a lot more mystery here a little bit.

Everyone knows first class, they walk by it on the plane, but you don't always walk through the high end resorts. In my opinion, it's a little harder. It's not here are the business class flights. Here are the coach flights. There's a giant spectrum of resorts and hotels. And I used to think five star was the top.

And then that hotel in Dubai started saying, no, no, no. We are a seven star hotel. What does that even mean? Yeah. What is the high end of luxury hotels look like? And maybe just to start, what sets apart whatever category you call them, whether you call them five star or just high end, like what sets them apart from all the other hotels?

Well, there's a couple of things that set them apart, right? One from the very face of it is price, right? What can you charge and get away with charging for that room? And what we've seen very much like we've seen in the private aviation sector is that on the hotel side, rates have gone through the roof over the last two years.

And especially on the higher end of the five star properties, it's incredible what some of these properties are charging, which then begs the question, is it worth it? So that comes to point number two, which is distinguishing factor of service, right? Are you getting the service level that five star or that price tag demands?

That is an issue right now. And I will say globally service for hotels has been troublesome. We had a client recently in the Middle East at one of those five or seven star hotels, and we couldn't get ahold of the concierge for almost a day. That's unacceptable for a global brand where somebody spending thousands of dollars a night for a room, price, service, location, all distinguish in when you create this five star atmosphere.

But the fourth thing is what are the amenities that are on the offer at that hotel that make them truly stand out? A minute ago, we talked about VIP access at airports. A lot of the Parisian five-star hotels will actually, as part of the amenities that you get when you book with them, they'll actually bundle in an arrival greeter that will pick you up plain side and bring you through customs immigration to one of their cars waiting for you to whisk you to the hotel.

And it's a seamless experience. So that's why when we talked on our first chat, we chatted about how important it is to let the hotel know your travel plans, who you are, what you're coming to do, what experiences you want to have, your arrival and departure details, right? Because they're actually going to customize as part of their package that they're selling you, your arrival and departure with them.

That's incredible. So a five-star hotel, in my opinion, provides exceptional service at an attractive price, and I want to say affordable because that's out the window now, and they do it at a great location where the amenities are so rich and wonderful that make them stand out from the rest of their competitors in that field, sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest impact and trade.

Coffee is a great addition to your new year routine. And I am so excited to be partnering with them today. Trade is a subscription service. We've been using for over a year that sources the best coffee across the country and brings it straight to your doorstep. They've built relationships with over 50 local roasters.

So you can enjoy their craft from the comfort of your own home at a fraction of the cost of going out for coffee. There's multiple ways to experience coffee with trade, sign up for a subscription or try one of their starter packs today, it's been so convenient for us to have coffee, just show up exactly when we need it.

And over the past year, we've gotten so many great coffees from trade, but this last bag of beans from drink coffee, do stuff in Tahoe, it's called bark the moon, and it's so delicious. So jumpstart this year by signing up for a trade subscription. Right now, trade is offering a free bag with select subscription plans.

When you visit all thehacks.com/trade that's all thehacks.com/trade for a free bag with select subscription plans, all thehacks.com/trade. Do you all remember episode one 22, when I spoke to chef David Chang about leveling up your cooking at home? If not, definitely go back and give it a listen. But one of his top hacks was using the microwave more.

I'll admit I was a skeptic at first, but after getting a full set of microwave cookware from Anyday, I'm a total convert and I'm excited to partner with them for this episode. Anyday is glass cookware specifically designed to make delicious food from scratch in the microwave. And honestly using it feels like a kitchen cheat code because it speeds up and simplifies the process so much.

The cookware is a hundred percent plastic free and you can cook, serve, store, and reheat all in the same dish that happens to be dishwasher, freezer, and oven safe too. And if you need a recipe suggestion to kick off your Anyday adventure, I highly recommend David Chang's Salmon Rice.

It is so good. And if you haven't checked out the Matte Black Ayo Collection they launched last year, you have to check it out. So to get 15% off our new favorite cookware, go to allthehacks.com/anyday. Again, that's allthehacks.com/anyday for 15% off. I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.

Your support is what keeps this show going. To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals. So please consider supporting those who support us. So let's get a little bit more tangible. If we're going to look at two properties anywhere, let's say resorts in Mexico, four and five star, it might be three or four times more to stay at the higher end resort.

What does that get you? That's a great question. And hopefully the Delta is not three or four times between a four and a five star, but sometimes it is. I would say that at a five star, you're looking at a less crowded restaurants and you're looking at maybe a larger room, a more responsive concierge.

There might be more onsite amenities, more pools, an adult only pool perhaps, or a family pool or something else that sets them apart amenity wise. You might be looking at more personalized service. Do you have a Butler or do you have a team of concierges that are attached to your type of villa product or your room product?

Now, going back to my comment earlier, unfortunately, service has been an issue. Four and five star properties globally lately. So you may stay at a five star and you might be really excited about the splurge, this bucket list experience. We've put all of our points into this stay, and you might be underwhelmed by service.

That's not necessarily a reflection accurately of the star rating right now. It's a reflection of the global atmosphere for service. And hopefully we're going to get out of that this year, but it's been a little interesting out there. So again, coming back to my initial point, the more you can share with a hotel ahead of time, especially a five star hotel to allow them to really customize that experience for you, they'll knock it out of the park with the data that you give them.

Cool. I've learned recently. So when we were going to Bora Bora, I was like, okay, to me, the Conrad, the St. Regis, the Four Seasons, those are the kind of high end resorts, the nicest things. I've recently learned that there is even a tier above that, that I didn't know a lot about.

In French Polynesia, the hotel I'd put there, I learned about was the Brando. It's much more expensive. I would say it definitely is three or four times the price. And then I've learned that there's a whole chain of Amman resorts and they are similarly much, much more expensive. And so what do you call them?

There has to be some way to differentiate a five star St. Regis, Ritz Carlton, Conrad from an Amman or the Brando, or I'm sure there's other examples you have. Yeah. It's a great question. I mean, they're all are still five star, but there are these ultra luxury resorts that have their own sort of special categorization that are unique, singular destinations.

The Brando is a great example. For those who don't know the Brando is its own private Island owned by the Brando family as in Marlon Brando. It's right North of Papeete in Tahiti. And what sets it apart is that it's an eco resort, but it's super luxe. So, you know, you would go traditionally to a normal five star over the water bungalow experience, like the St.

Regis and Bora Bora and have that perfect Instagram photo sort of vacation. The Brando is a little more experiential. There's no over water bungalows. It's more villas on a private beach, but very secluded and very customized to you. So again, back to my point earlier, you bring this super long questionnaire to the Brando where they ask you all your likes and dislikes, even down to which alcohol brands do you like, because they want to make sure that in your all inclusive mini bar, they've stocked that.

I said to them, for instance, I love champagne. My wife doesn't. So they put instead of full bottles of champagne, half bottles. And that was a really nice touch because they knew that my wife wasn't going to be drinking and I didn't want to get knockered off of one bottle, full bottle of champagne, that level of attention to detail sets them apart.

The level of amenities they offer sets them apart. And when you look at a mons or Rosewoods or some of these other ultra high end luxury properties around the world, there are singular destinations that are a truly a sense of place. It's not just an over water experience with a pretty backdrop, but it's the essence of that property or of that destination that sets that hotel apart.

It's villas built into a cliff side or it's villas built over in an eco friendly manner over a mangrove reef. And you're like, wow, this is incredible. And there's no place in the world I could stay like this. And it comes with a price tag, of course, and it comes with incredible amenities that you won't get elsewhere because of what is offered there.

So it's a truly once, I don't know, lifetime for some people, but once ever experience for most of us. For me, I've been in an Amman resort, but I have not stayed in an Amman resort. I also noticed something. None of these have loyalty programs. Yeah. You don't earn points.

You don't redeem with points. Do people that have a lot of money that stay at really high end properties, is that not a factor? Why are there no loyalty programs? I'm mostly speaking because I wish that there were these experiences. Yeah. I mean, they are so aspirational for those of us who aren't necessarily dropping $5,000 a night on a hotel room.

I would say this, there are loyalty programs there. You just don't know about them. The Mandarin Oriental, one of my favorite hotel chains in the entire world. They only have two dozen properties globally and they're exceptional in every single location. They know everything they need to know about you, which is one of the purposes of a loyalty program.

But yeah, you don't have points on a Mandarin card, but they do know when you ordered a drink at the Bangkok bar and then you go to London two weeks later, they're like, Oh, Mr. Hutchins, would you like that same drink with the Bombay Sapphire? And that is like skin crawlingly amazing for like the data to work that way, to make your experience so customized and wonderful.

An example on that, in fact, not to do with loyalty, but to do with data is I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok. And at the time I had an 18 month old child, he needed milk in the middle of the night and he needed to stretch his legs and he was just antsy.

So I took him out of the room. My butler saw that my door was open and said, Mr. Rowan, how do we help you? And I said, we're good. Thank you so much. We're just going to go out and stretch our legs and go get some milk. We're going to leave the property.

It's one 30 in the morning. They're like, Oh sir, we've got milk here. And I was like, it's not the milk. He just needs to like stretch his wings. So there were 11 people that helped me between my room, the elevator, the lobby, the front desk, and leaving that room.

And when I came back, they're like, Oh, did you get milk? Is there anything else you need? How do we help you? When I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental in London years later, they said, Oh, we remember a story about you getting milk, Jeremy. And I'm like blown away that years later they would connect the dots.

So that builds loyalty in me for sure. I will talk about that story all the time. And I will say the Mandarin Oriental knows how to deal with data and knows how to take care of people and knows how to show what it truly means to be a guest.

Do I earn points every time I stay there? Yeah, I use the right credit card, but I don't earn a loyalty program points with them. And that's the kind of loyalty they're trying to build. I've had a glimpse of some of that in four seasons. We were fortunate to stay at the Four Seasons in Bali.

And every morning they remembered, I love jackfruit for anyone who's never had a jackfruit. I describe it as if a banana and a pineapple created a fruit child. Very weird looking fruit child. A very weird looking fruit child. And do not mistake for a durian because very different fruit.

And every morning they were like, Oh, do you want some jackfruit? I know it's not in the regular fruit tray, but even if it was a different waiter, we knew you had it yesterday morning, you asked for it, but I've never gotten to that next crazy level. So here's an interesting, different version of that.

The Four Seasons also has this thing called the glitch report where every day, if there was an issue, let's say your toilet didn't flush. Okay. Everyone in the resort would know that you had an issue and that they are singularly focused on fixing that problem. It doesn't mean that the housekeeper is going to be in your like room the whole day fixing your toilet.

It just means that the pool attendant might be like, Hey, Mr. Hutchins, is there anything we can get for you? I'm sorry. You had a rough night last night. That's incredible, right? That builds loyalty in a way that points and miles maybe won't ever. Because when was the last time that Delta really thank you for your business, Mr.

Hutchins, they're just reading off a sheet. They don't know that you just came from Cleveland and you're tired. You know, they don't know any of that. So that level of loyalty is something that all hotels should aspire to. In my opinion. I look forward to a successful life that affords more of them.

Or for people listening, they might not know that because Lee works in the industry, I think one of the perks that you're afforded is because you make a lot of recommendations to clients. Hotels often give you a good deal. If anyone listening is wondering how to hack it, the other options to just work in the industry.

Come join our industry. We need good people and trust me, we're always hiring. A lot of people I know love to stay at Airbnbs. I'm not saying there aren't high-end luxury properties on Airbnb. There definitely are. But is there another level of the villa or home rental market that someone like me or anyone listening just has never heard of?

Yeah, for sure. So I like to use VRBO and Airbnb as a really good search engine barometer of where I should be putting people in homes in certain areas, because it tends to give me some good feedback on a market that I may not know. The downside is that the quality level stops at that maybe four, four and a half star tier property and just get stuck there.

And if you've got a client with seven star expectations and the need for something a little larger, bigger, whatever, then you got to turn elsewhere. So there are a number of higher end search tools that we can use to source homes and villas, just like the ones you're mentioning, right?

These super high-end luxury villa properties that have multiple bedrooms, incredible kitchens, staff, all of that stuff. Over time, you kind of understand who the players are in each market. And it really is hyper-regionalized. There is a Mexico player that has great villas all throughout Mexico, but then there was one in Punta Mita that I would use specifically when I'm traveling there and looking for properties there.

What are you expecting out of these places? Number one, you're going to be signing a contract that signs your life away. You're going to be wiring money to some bank account somewhere as a deposit, and then 30 or 60 days out wiring the rest. There's big, hefty security deposits.

I just saw for the first time ever, a quarter million dollar security deposit on a villa that we're renting for someone. And my eyes, I'm sorry, what? Not 25,000? So you're looking at big contracts, big security deposits, but they come with these incredible amenities. Some of these houses that we've rented for people come with a staff of 30.

You know, you have your own Michelin starred chef that will cook you whatever you want. And again, pre-ordering and telling them the details ahead of time. This person's vegetarian, they only eat fish, undercook the beef for him. That's super important because they're going to customize that experience to that stay.

But they're just what you would expect from those TV shows, The Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous or Cribs. They're just these over the top homes that have the best view of Aspen, or you have the most incredible private beach in Malibu, or you've got your own nine acres of riverfront property in Montana where you can catch your own fish, just incredible properties like that.

If someone listening is like, I just want to go look at a few pictures. It doesn't have to be a site that covers everything, but is there a place that just has a few of these that you can go look at? Yeah. One I like the most for domestic properties is called Cuvee, C-U-V-E-E.

They're based out of Colorado. They've got beautiful properties. And some of those, including the one in Aspen I mentioned, anybody can book these. You don't need to have a special in or connection, but they're incredible. They're vacation homes of a lifetime and they can actually make sense economically. If you have a big enough group and you're looking for something that's a bucket list experience, it's not always much more than getting rooms or suites at a hotel.

Yeah. There's a house, feel free to Google it. It's called Villa Turquesa and it's in Cabo. And we've been there for a handful of bachelor parties and it actually ended up being reasonable. Especially my villa hack for this is if you're going with a group of people, divide the rooms up in a way that lets the friends of yours that have the money that want a little nicer, get something else.

So this particular house, if you look it up, has four bedrooms with a king bed, four bedrooms with two queen beds and one room with 12 bunk beds. And so we priced it such that if you want your own room with your own bed, you pay a lot more.

And if you want your own bed that you only have to share with one person, you pay more. And if you're okay being one of the 12 people in the bunk bedroom, you get a great deal. And you'll have a hell of a party. It's a fantastic house. There's a chef named Lorenzo in the house, cooks whatever you want, but it ended up working out with a group of 20 people to be maybe a thousand dollars per person.

And that included enough money for all the food for maybe five days. So it's incredible. It's a great deal. I want to say that also included all of our transportation. Whenever I would plan a trip like this, I would try to come up with a dollar figure that would cover all the shuttles, all the activities.

One day we're going to rent a boat. One day we're going to do this. And the hack for me was I would plan a trip for 20 people. I'd put the entire villa for five nights on my credit card. I'd book the flights for all 20 people going down.

I would, obviously there's a little risk. The one person who doesn't pay back. Fortunately, if you ever book group flights, if you call the airline, you actually go to the group desk. They usually give you the wiggle room to drop one or two people in a group before the, or change the name or do something.

And so that's both how I accumulated a lot of points and found that for the right group with enough people, it can work really well. Yeah. If you want to go to this house and you don't have kids and you're not going to use the bunk bedroom, then it's going to sleep a whole lot less people.

It might only be eight couples and that might be much less affordable, but it is possible. I think it's a really cool experience to stay in a villa with a chef that can cook meals, especially, you know, in a time where you may be coming out of the pandemic, not ready to go to a super crowded resort.

Sure. I'll give you one further hack on that, which is that a place like Villa Torquesa is probably marketing itself in 25 different directions. And so what you should do before you get to work with Villa Torquesa is Google it and figure out where are they marketing and what are the prices on each of these places and go back to Villa Torquesa directly and say, Hey, listen, I see your marketing over there for a little cheaper.

Or I see that somebody over here is costing even more money. If I were to book that with them, I want to book directly with you. I want to pay the best available price. What is that? All of those villa prices are slightly negotiable outside of peak periods. So be sure to go directly to the ownership, not through an intermediary villa company, and ask them what are they willing to do if you book direct.

I love that. And in our first episode on the show, you mentioned if you can't find them, take an image, do a Google image search of the core image of the property, and you can usually find the other websites that image appears on. One last thing we didn't talk about with hotels is the kind of perks you get when you book them through a travel advisor.

Anyone can book most of these properties. You want to book a Nauman, you want to book a Four Seasons or a St. Regis, you can go on the website. But when you book through someone who has a relationship with these brands and properties, like you do at tons of these resorts, you end up getting amenities that I talked about a few weeks back, this kind of hotel experiment that we're working on with all the hacks, where you might get an upgrade, free breakfast, a property credit, late checkout, an amenity in your room.

Because I got so many questions about that, I want to talk a little bit about how it works. Generally, these hotels, my understanding is they want to extend perks to people who are related to clients that send lots of traffic, or how does it work? Yeah, that's exactly right.

There are a couple of ways of getting these outsized perks at hotels. One of them is having a high tier in loyalty, right? Having Marriott ambassador status means that Marriott knows who you are when you stay at a Marriott property. And anybody at that property could tie into the Marriott database and look up Chris and say, "Oh, wow, he's fancy pants.

He runs a great podcast. And he's a nice guy. Let's take care of him." But that's where that sort of stops. And it obviously stops with Marriott. If you have no Hyatt status, or if you've never stayed at an Amman, they don't know anything about you. So the second way that hotels get a lot of their info and therefore assign a lot of perks is through this travel advisor relationship.

And that relationship is actually probably the strongest sales channel for hotels, because it develops a quality guest. It says, "Hey, this is who Chris Hutchins is. Whether he stays in a Marriott, a Hyatt, an Amman, a Rosewood, or whatever, this is who he is, and this is what he wants, and this is what his experience should be.

Can you help craft this?" And a good hotel, a four or five star hotel, will absolutely do that. And in exchange for that, they'll give perks. They'll say, "Look, we want Chris to come stay here, spend his money here. So we are going to give him daily breakfast, and we're going to guarantee an upgrade for him at booking.

And we're going to make sure that every morning when we run our arrivals report of who's coming in that day, we flag him as a VIP and say, "Chris needs this." Or, "Let's give Chris his room assignment. Let's give it an even better upgrade or a better view just because he came in through this channel, and we know things about him that we wouldn't know if Chris just booked online." So it's rate parity.

They're never going to give you like a crazier rate. Four seasons doesn't discount, right? But they are going to give you a better experience by knowing the channel through which you came. So you mentioned earlier that right now, this is mostly a channel restricted to travel advisors, or if you have an Amex Platinum card, or you have some other way of getting a perk program.

We're trying to democratize that, especially for all the Hacks listeners, a special way of getting that access, a sort of a self-serve model. So more on that coming soon. But the big takeaway from that is that the more a hotel knows about you, the better the experience will be, and they're willing to give you perks for that.

They're willing to say, "Hey, be part of this program as you book. Give us some information on how we can make your stay special so that you're going to spend money here, and you're going to come back here, and you're going to tell all your friends about what a wonderful experience it was.

Here's some more perks." So if you're listening, that's a little bit more about the how and the why behind this kind of hotel perks and benefits experiment I mentioned. Shoot us an email. The email I made was getupgraded@allthehacks.com. And the caveats, just because I've gotten a lot of questions, has to be a paid booking.

Unfortunately, a lot of these perks don't apply or none of them apply to award stays, and it has to be booked through our relationship. So if you haven't booked yet, and you want to get some of these premium perks at probably almost 4,000 hotels around the world, shoot us an email.

I'll put the link in the show notes. Just let us know where you're going, rough budget, and when you're going, and we'll see if we can help get you hooked up. Last topic I wanted to go on was little tricks and tips when you are there that don't have to do with booking, don't have to do with flying.

One I want to ask first is around tipping. What is the practical advice around tipping, not for daily housekeeping, but to enhance an experience? I watched Inventing Anna, or Anna, or however you want to pronounce her name, and she was handing out $100 bills around the hotel, and it just made me think, is there a benefit to giving a tip to the concierge, or the person checking you in in Vegas, or the person at the front desk of a restaurant?

When is there not, right? If you have the means to do it, then absolutely, I would do it. And I wouldn't always limit it to just money. So let's use a concierge, and let's just say Paris, for example. There are a couple of different ways of taking care of that concierge.

Number one, if you have developed via email a relationship with a particular concierge, before you arrive, one of the things you can do is write a note to the general manager and say, "Hey, Laurent has been amazing. I just want you to know I'm so looking forward to my trip because Laurent has already dialed in all these experiences for me.

Thank you for employing somebody like Laurent." And that non-monetary bit of time that you just spent taking care of Laurent will go so far in making your experience even better before you get there. So that's number one. Number two is, yeah, bring them a gift, bring them some little goody, and to say, "Thank you." So that might mean that you buy La Duree Macarons the moment you arrive at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, and you have your VIP greeter stop you for a second to buy them, buy them a little treat, a little token of appreciation there, or even bring it from home, bring them Ghirardelli chocolate from California.

Not the best chocolate in the world, but it's something from San Francisco. It's cool. It ties you to a place, and it shows this intention of thank you, of gratitude, right? And then of course, give them money. I like to tip concierges at the beginning of a stay, which will always help ensure wonderful service.

And then at the very end of a stay, if they've gone above and beyond, again, I would give them something. What are you giving them? It's really up to you. There is no guide. I was talking with a hotelier in Paris, actually, and he said to me, "We've got some clients who tip a 20 euro a day, and they give it at the front.

And if the concierge has gone above and beyond while they're there, they give them a little bit more at the end, another 20 or 50 euro." I know one guy who just tips a thousand dollars wherever he goes when he gets there, because he can do that, good for him.

Trust me, his service is exceptional, right? So it really depends on what you want to do, but any token of gratitude and appreciation is always appreciated, including just a simple email before and after the stay saying, "Hey, you did a great job. Thank you." Can tipping ever unlock something?

Can you walk into a restaurant and say, "Tip the hostess and get a table that you wouldn't otherwise gotten." Or I've often heard tipping the person checking you in, in Vegas, gets you a nicer room. Right. Have you had experience with those things? Yeah. Do they work? I think in certain places, it absolutely works.

In Vegas, in Italy, in Paris, it can go a long way. In Frankfurt or Zurich, I don't know if you're going to get the same reaction by tipping somebody 20 francs or euro. It just depends on what the local custom is. In Japan, that might seem very odd to receive a tip at check-in from someone.

But if you wrote them a lovely note and handed it to them with two hands at check-in, that might be a different story, and accompany that with a gift. So really, yes, the answer is it can unlock experiences for you, for sure. It has to be culturally appropriate to the market that you're in.

And if you have questions about that, look online and look ahead of time and say like tipping concierge or tipping at check-in and seeing what will happen. What won't work is you're not going to get an upgrade if you give a flight attendant 20 bucks. You're not, they're going to be pissed at you.

The same thing with a gate agent at an airport, right? Those things don't work. You can, which I've done, absolutely bring flight attendants chocolate and say, Hey, I know how hard you're working. Thank you. And watch what the service you get is. It's exceptional. No matter what a cabin of service you're in.

The followup question naturally is, is there anything you can do to get an upgrade on a flight for free without using your points and miles? It sounds like the answer is no. I have no recommendable options other than enhancing your on flight service experience by bringing gifts for the flight attendants.

I love doing that anyway, because they're some of the hardest working people in hospitality. That's a crazy job and think about how many crazy people are yelling at them at all times. Take care of them, bring them treats, bring them chocolates. Just even just saying, thank you. Some loyalty programs will give certain status members, like there's a little like certificates that you can then give away to a flight attendant to say, Hey, thank you did a great job.

And I've actually written in to request more from American airlines and they've sent them to me. So that's also useful to know is that American United, they used to Delta for a little while, they used to give you these certificates, ask your loyalty program, if they have anything that you can use to reward their staff, they might just direct you to some online form, which is worthless.

If they have a physical thing you can give away that, that goes, that goes miles. All right. Last thing is about organizing stuff on the ground. I know we talked on this in our first episode, but if we're focused on the higher end, are there concierge services? Is it the hotel?

Is it things like quintessentially that can unlock stuff or are most of these services more about saving you the time and energy of organizing than actual access? All of the above. So it depends on the experience you want to have. And I'll give you an example. If you want to go to the formula one track in Monza in Italy, okay.

There are multiple ways of going about that, right? You can go to the formula one track and find out, Hey, how do I get access here? And if they say to you, Oh, sorry, it's private only, or you can't, you're a schlub or whatever it is, then you look at step B.

Well, who sells just access to that? Is there a racing club? Is there a formula one focused tourism experience that I could look at where I could buy access that way? What hotel you think, can you ask them and can you see what they can do? Do they recommend not working with the concierge, but working with a local ticket provider or something else, right?

Yes. You can go to a DMC that oversees a region and they might look at all of Northern Italy, or they might be responsible for all of Italy and say to them, Hey, listen, I want to do this experience in Monza, but I also want to go to this restaurant and this, and they can help you put together that whole experience.

Or it might be something that is so hyper-focused that you would want to use a service like a quintessentially where they're putting together an entire trip for you based around one experience. I want to go golfing at St. Andrew's. I want to do the racetrack. I want to do driving here.

I want to do whatever. And then they literally craft a trip around that. Whether it's a travel designer or a membership club, like quintessentially, I would recommend looking at that to see who can help you build that rounded trip with the guarantee of access to the key thing it is that you want.

But I would always first start with what is that service? What is that place I want to go? And is there a way of cutting out all the middlemen first, directly getting access? And if I can't do that, then keep going in the concentric circles thereafter. I haven't used quintessentially or any of the other high-end concierge services.

They're quite expensive thousands of dollars a year. I'm actually thinking maybe it would be a fun episode to bring someone on from them and just talk about where they add value, how that works. So that's something we'll do in the future. I think that's all I got for this episode right now.

I'm sure we're going to come up with more. We'll have Lee back on a third time. Before we go, where can people stay in tune with what you're working on? My name is spelled in a funny way. It's Lee, L E I G H. And last name Rowan, R O W A N.

The company is Savanti Travel, S A V A N T I Travel. Hit me up online. I'm always here to be helpful however I can. I'm so appreciative of the opportunity to see you again in this beautiful place and to check in again on these fun topics. And again, I'm giving you huge kudos on the millions of listeners you've had, the incredible success and these luminary guests of which I am just a mere peon.

Well, the advice you've given in our first episode to reach out to the hotel, to get upgraded has easily been the most emailed topic I've gotten from any listener. So many people have been upgraded because of it. Shout out to one listener, Janie who actually had her initials embroidered into a pillow.

That was so cool. It was wild. So, you know, your hacks in the first episode and this one will hook up hundreds of people. Thank you and hope to do it again soon. Thank you so much, Chris. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

If you haven't already left a rating and a review for the show in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I would really appreciate it. And if you have any feedback on the show, questions for me, or just want to say hi, I'm Chris@allthehacks.com or @hutchins on Twitter. That's it for this week.

I'll see you next week. I want to tell you about another podcast I love that goes deep on all things money. That means everything from money hacks to wealth building to early retirement. It's called the Personal Finance Podcast, and it's much more about building generational wealth and spending your money on the things you value than it is about clipping coupons to save a dollar.

It's hosted by my good friend, Andrew who truly believes that everyone in this world can build wealth and his passion and excitement are what make this show so entertaining. I know because I was a guest on the show in December, 2022, but recently I listened to an episode where Andrew shared 16 money stats that will blow your mind.

And it was so crazy to learn things like 35% of millennials are not participating in their employer's retirement plan. And that's just one of the many fascinating stats he shared. The Personal Finance Podcast has something for everyone. It's filled with so many tips and tactics and hacks to help you get better with your money and grow your wealth.

So I highly recommend you check it out. Just search for the Personal Finance Podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and enjoy.