100K Vacay Livestream Kick Off | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep326 | 10-3-25

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 This is a VoyageScape Podcast.

spk_0 You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at VoyageScape.com.

spk_0 The 100K VK Team Challenge begins.

spk_0 Frequent Miloer on the air starts now.

spk_0 My benchmark trip is done.

spk_0 I spent four nights in Malta and in today's episode I'm going to give you a full overview

spk_0 about that trip.

spk_0 We'll discuss what went well and what didn't.

spk_0 And then we interview challengers for each contestant.

spk_0 We asked are they confident or quaking?

spk_0 Now that they've seen what my benchmark trip looks like, we learned that both Tim and

spk_0 Steven are starting in New York City.

spk_0 This is kind of ironic because Nick is the only contestant who actually lives within

spk_0 an easy driving distance from New York City.

spk_0 But we don't know where Nick is starting.

spk_0 And we also learned that Tim kicked things off already with a daytime flight and you'll

spk_0 learn all about that in today's episode.

spk_0 If you're interested in following along and you should, make sure to follow Frequent

spk_0 Miloer on Instagram.

spk_0 That's where the stories and reels are presented as close to real time as we can and it really

spk_0 brings the challenge to life.

spk_0 That's where you'll get all the excitement of the challenge as it unfolds.

spk_0 Here's the timeline of the challenge as far as you need to know it.

spk_0 On Wednesday, October 1st, that's a couple days ago as this is published.

spk_0 We did a live stream where Kiran and all three contestants met to kick off the contestant

spk_0 part of the challenge.

spk_0 And Saturday, October 4th at 6pm, we're going to do a mid-challenge check-in.

spk_0 So that'll be another live stream.

spk_0 Make sure to follow Frequent Miloer on YouTube if you don't already because that way you'll

spk_0 get notified about this live stream and all the others that we do regularly.

spk_0 That'll be our chance to see where the contestants are at that moment and to interview them about

spk_0 how the trip's going so far and what's next if they're willing to divulge any of that.

spk_0 And we'll also, as judges, Kiran and I will give preliminary ratings for how well they've

spk_0 done.

spk_0 Finally, on October 8th at 9pm, Eastern Time, it will be the final challenge live stream

spk_0 and that's where we will crown the challenge winner.

spk_0 So be sure to check that out because we will, of course, discuss each contestants' trips

spk_0 and find out then what went well, what didn't, and crown a winner.

spk_0 So without further ado, for the rest of this episode, what follows is the recording from

spk_0 Wednesday Night's live stream.

spk_0 All right.

spk_0 Welcome everybody to Frequent Miloer's Ask Us Anything, but this is a special episode where

spk_0 we're going to be launching our 100K VK challenge.

spk_0 Wherever you're watching or listening, don't forget to like.

spk_0 Give this a thumbs up.

spk_0 Leave us some stars if you're listening in podcasts format, all right?

spk_0 We always appreciate that.

spk_0 Leave us a comment or review.

spk_0 Let us know what you think.

spk_0 We're obviously going to be talking and taking questions live on YouTube as we record

spk_0 this, but if you're listening to it later on, don't be afraid to comment on the post

spk_0 or the podcast or the YouTube video wherever it is you're watching.

spk_0 So now I'm going to kick it over to Greg to tell us about the 100K VK.

spk_0 All right.

spk_0 Great.

spk_0 So every year we do a team challenge where we compete to see who can make the most of

spk_0 points in miles and each year we make up a different game.

spk_0 And this year's game is we each each challenger has 100,000 transferable points and a budget

spk_0 of up to a thousand dollars cash that they can use to build the most incredible vacation

spk_0 possible.

spk_0 And there's some rules involved in that that we'll get into some of that.

spk_0 But this time there's something very different going on, which is that I am not a challenger,

spk_0 but I did do a 100K VK trip.

spk_0 And the purpose of the trip that I just got back from was to set a benchmark of what the

spk_0 challenges are going to be trying to beat all the components of what I did.

spk_0 And one of the reasons we pulled it out is because we have each, one of the reasons we

spk_0 pulled it out is its own separate thing is that each challenger has a certain type of

spk_0 transferable points.

spk_0 One person has American Express, one person of city, another person is capital one.

spk_0 And then there's Chase.

spk_0 And the problem with Chase is that it has to do with how we design the rules of the challenge.

spk_0 And one of the rules is that you have to spend at least three nights in proper lodging.

spk_0 And Chase is only one of these four transferable currencies that transfer to high it.

spk_0 Why does that matter?

spk_0 Well, if you think about what it means to spend three nights in a hotel,

spk_0 what it means with most most point systems, like let's let's take Marriott, for example,

spk_0 typically a decent hotel will cost at least 30,000 Marriott points.

spk_0 And so if you transfer your your AMX points, for example, to Marriott one to one,

spk_0 and you book a 30,000 point hotel for the required three nights,

spk_0 then that would take up 90,000 of your points.

spk_0 And you'd only have 10,000 left over to actually get to the hotel and get back to where you started.

spk_0 High it though, they have an award chart that starts at only 3,500 points off peak.

spk_0 And so there are some great value to be had for very few points.

spk_0 We felt like Chase has a big advantage.

spk_0 So we pulled it out as a separate thing.

spk_0 Like the person who uses Chase points will set the bar.

spk_0 And then the others will try to meet it.

spk_0 Yes. Great.

spk_0 And you just finished setting the bar, right?

spk_0 I did. I got in this morning at around one.

spk_0 Yes, that's right.

spk_0 I know that well because I was there and I also got in this morning around one.

spk_0 So I want to hear a little bit about what was that trip.

spk_0 What did you do and how did it go?

spk_0 Oh, come on. You know all about it.

spk_0 Well, you got to tell the royal way.

spk_0 Where did you go and what did you do?

spk_0 Yeah, where did we go and what did we go?

spk_0 So I started my trip.

spk_0 We were allowed to start our trips from anywhere we wanted.

spk_0 And it would have been really convenient for me to start from New York.

spk_0 But I wanted to make my trip as applicable to many people as possible.

spk_0 So I started my home airport Detroit and paid for a positioning flight to New York City.

spk_0 And I counted for that in the budget.

spk_0 And again, I did that because like I figured that almost anywhere around the country,

spk_0 it's it's possible to get.

spk_0 It's often possible to get cheap flights to New York City to position to go onward.

spk_0 So I feel like that made it more applicable to to many people.

spk_0 So anyway, so I started in Detroit, flew to New York.

spk_0 I met up with Julian, who's a founder of Points Path,

spk_0 but also a good friend for many years.

spk_0 And it's become a tradition for us to meet up on these challenges.

spk_0 I first met up with him in New York on 40 K to far away.

spk_0 And then again, on the SaaS Million Mile Manus Challenge.

spk_0 So this was the third time in a row.

spk_0 Also met up with Carrie there because as a surprise to our audience and to the

spk_0 competition here, or the the competitors in this challenge, Carrie decided to come with me on this

spk_0 trip when I asked her if she'd like to.

spk_0 So we actually met up at the TWA Hotel at JFK.

spk_0 And I had never been there before.

spk_0 Carrie hadn't either.

spk_0 It's crazy fun actually to hang out there for a little while.

spk_0 There's like ridiculous stuff like an old hair salon from 1962 that's all set up.

spk_0 And you can go in and sit under the dryers and chat about points and miles like Julian and I did.

spk_0 You can play a giant game of twister like Carrie did.

spk_0 You can do a photo booth.

spk_0 So we were playing around actually having a lot of fun.

spk_0 And ironically, the TWA experience became like sort of a mini highlight of the trip in a way.

spk_0 Then we said goodbye to Julian and flew off in business class to Malta.

spk_0 I'm sorry, flew Air Serbia business class.

spk_0 Let's see.

spk_0 Yeah, we flew from JFK to Belgrade and then onward to Malta from there.

spk_0 In Malta, we checked into the Hyatt centric for four nights.

spk_0 So that the Hyatt centric there was available for only 6,500 Hyatt points per night.

spk_0 So that didn't put a big dent in my budget.

spk_0 And then we went off to...

spk_0 So this was the same night.

spk_0 The Friday night we went off to a particularly scenic

spk_0 Kova Beach area on the island to watch the sunset.

spk_0 And there, Chef Björna, who I had met originally in the 40K to far away challenge

spk_0 in Johannesburg, he I had flown him in to join us in Malta.

spk_0 And so he had prepared a picnic with all kinds of local

spk_0 specialties. And these weren't like fancy food.

spk_0 These were like finger food type of things, the type of stuff you'd get at a street vendor and so on.

spk_0 And a huge array of that kind of stuff.

spk_0 Did any of your finger food type actual fingers in them?

spk_0 Not too knowledge.

spk_0 We didn't...

spk_0 Yeah, if they did, they were really tiny fingers.

spk_0 So rabbit is a specialty, is a food that's eaten often in Malta.

spk_0 And so there could have been rabbit fingers that we didn't notice some, not sure.

spk_0 Is that across as lucky?

spk_0 Because like rabbit food is, but like rabbit to use a finger, I don't know.

spk_0 Lucky, yeah.

spk_0 Rabbit paw, yeah.

spk_0 Sounds like that would be lucky.

spk_0 And so that was, I guess, a really fun to see people's reactions when we surprised

spk_0 feel, but it was also just a great experience.

spk_0 I mean, to on day one, get to try like this huge assortment of local foods from the area

spk_0 that you're going to, what worked out great.

spk_0 And Björn is a lot of fun as well.

spk_0 So it was fun hanging out with him.

spk_0 And the sunset cooperated.

spk_0 It was beautiful weather, beautiful sunset.

spk_0 So that was all fantastic.

spk_0 We were staying in the hotel is in a town called St. Julien's,

spk_0 which is not where I would choose to stay if I was going back to Malta.

spk_0 It is, it's in the sort of party area of Malta.

spk_0 And so, you know, if you want to go out and party each evening,

spk_0 it would be a great location.

spk_0 It's just not how I want a vacation.

spk_0 So, you know, that was, that was not ideal.

spk_0 But it wasn't bad.

spk_0 Like in the hotel, it didn't bother me.

spk_0 It's just that we had to get to the places we wanted to go, to Valetta,

spk_0 and Dina, to the coastal things that we did.

spk_0 We always had to take a bus or a ride share.

spk_0 Bolt instead of Uber is the most common one there.

spk_0 Or a ferry one time.

spk_0 We took a ferry.

spk_0 But we had to walk to Slamat to catch the ferry.

spk_0 And okay, so then over the next few days we did,

spk_0 we did two walking tours, two historic walking tours.

spk_0 We visited the St. John's coca-theodrol.

spk_0 And we learned why it's a coca-theodrol,

spk_0 which I won't give that away right now.

spk_0 The coca-theodrol had a really well done art exhibit there

spk_0 that Kerry was particularly excited about.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 You want to explain that briefly, Kerry?

spk_0 Yeah. For years, my favorite artist has been Caravaggio.

spk_0 And when we went into the church, I saw they were labeling some of the paintings.

spk_0 And it just had a thought like, oh, what if,

spk_0 what if one of these is a Caravaggio?

spk_0 That would be cool.

spk_0 And then like two minutes later, there's this huge sign that says Caravaggio this way.

spk_0 And they don't have just like tiny little labeled Caravaggio paintings.

spk_0 They have a room-sized Caravaggio painting.

spk_0 It's the largest one of his career.

spk_0 And then they had another one in the basement and they had this whole exhibit around it.

spk_0 And that's just like a bizarre thing to not know ahead of time.

spk_0 And just stumble upon your favorite artist's largest work of their career.

spk_0 That was just super cool.

spk_0 Yeah. So, you know, my planning Malta was all because this was Kerry's favorite artist.

spk_0 And of course, I somehow knew that in advance.

spk_0 I somehow knew that.

spk_0 Gosh, you're so good. The surprise is great.

spk_0 It's the great.

spk_0 Is it great?

spk_0 Can you name your favorite Caravaggio painting, Greg?

spk_0 It's a really big one in the room.

spk_0 That's a good whole room.

spk_0 Did you put the tickets ahead of time?

spk_0 And we almost skipped it.

spk_0 That's right.

spk_0 That was all a fake it out.

spk_0 Anyway, that exhibit was so well done.

spk_0 I don't know anything about art really.

spk_0 But I really enjoyed that art exhibit more than just seeing the cathedral itself much more.

spk_0 Did I mention we did?

spk_0 So, we did that. We did explored catacombs.

spk_0 We sampled like the best.

spk_0 Pizzi.

spk_0 In Malta, or at least that's what we were told that this place was best.

spk_0 It was excellent.

spk_0 I believe it.

spk_0 Or like these like, they're sort of like hot pockets, but much better.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 So you got the bread on the outside.

spk_0 I'm going to let me say that Pizzi people would not appreciate that comparison.

spk_0 It didn't take much better.

spk_0 I broke.

spk_0 Of course.

spk_0 And different places have different kinds of fillings in them.

spk_0 But the two main fillings, one is a cheese filling.

spk_0 The other is like a smash pea filling, which doesn't sound that great, but I actually thought

spk_0 that was my favorite of the two.

spk_0 Yeah, I think like curry,

spk_0 curryed peas that makes it better.

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, that's a better way to think about it.

spk_0 So would it have been like chick peas or what they love?

spk_0 No, it was like green peas, yeah.

spk_0 Okay, well.

spk_0 But it was really good that way.

spk_0 That was pretty close to my only vegetables for the whole trip.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 The, so we did two days of that kind of sort of like historic type exploring.

spk_0 Going around,

spk_0 Emdena was fascinating.

spk_0 That's a medieval walled city that's really well kept up.

spk_0 And it's just so cool.

spk_0 I don't know.

spk_0 Anytime I've gotten to see a walled city, you know, that's in pretty good shape.

spk_0 I love that.

spk_0 And Valetta, which is the capital,

spk_0 I thought that was gorgeous.

spk_0 You look down at the water from different parts.

spk_0 They have a lot of, it's not as nearly as old as Emdena,

spk_0 but they have a lot of like old architecture that makes it very pretty.

spk_0 And the history there was just so interesting.

spk_0 I don't want to give stuff away for anyone who's going.

spk_0 Because I think it'd be, I think that was part of the experience.

spk_0 Was learning about it while we were there.

spk_0 Made it like really super cool.

spk_0 I didn't know how much I was interested in history.

spk_0 I was learning about this stuff being like, wait, wait, what happened with the night's?

spk_0 Is that true?

spk_0 You know, it was, it was crazy.

spk_0 But one little thing as Carvaggio was fleeing from Italy.

spk_0 He like killed someone, right?

spk_0 Yeah, he murdered someone.

spk_0 And the nights of Malta took him in and as a thank you, he painted that gigantic

spk_0 painting that Kerry mentioned.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 It might have been a required thank you.

spk_0 He was talking about his blackmail, really.

spk_0 He was talking about his provocative character.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 So, okay, so we did those things then.

spk_0 We had to do water activity.

spk_0 What the main touristy water activities is to do these tourist boat trips that go to different

spk_0 Malta has a few islands and they usually stop at set places.

spk_0 There's one place called the Blue Lagoon.

spk_0 There's another something grotto.

spk_0 And I was really mixed about whether we should do that or not.

spk_0 I hated the idea of being like with mobs of tourists.

spk_0 And that's what all the, everything I read said, you know, you can't avoid that.

spk_0 So, I found another option that was a local, like hidden gem spot, which was a

spk_0 a cove with caves like right there.

spk_0 You walk right up and into these caves that are along this cove.

spk_0 And there's enough like rocks in a semi-circle around the cove to shelter this

spk_0 cove from any waves or anything.

spk_0 So, you have nice still water for swimming,

spk_0 scuba divers, which we didn't do, but scuba divers go in right where like people

spk_0 or swimming go in. But then they can swim through tunnels in the rocks that are right there,

spk_0 20 feet from where you get in the water.

spk_0 As we were swimming around, put your face in the water, not only do you see fish,

spk_0 but you see scuba divers too that you didn't know were there, which was a kind of a neat experience.

spk_0 And we hiked a little bit from there up on the cliffs above this area.

spk_0 That was spectacular.

spk_0 All this, like we didn't see any tourists. There were locals there.

spk_0 When we're hiking, there's nobody. It was just us.

spk_0 It was so perfect. It was exactly how I wanted vacation, that kind of thing, rather than the

spk_0 tourist mob. So, that was really perfect.

spk_0 Then we met up with the next surprise. The final surprise of the trip was Mazee, the culinary

spk_0 concierge who accompanied me in the three cards three continents trip.

spk_0 I had invited her to come. It turned out she wasn't able to arrive on Friday like the rest of

spk_0 us did because she was in Los Angeles for a relative's par mitzvah. Obviously she had to do that.

spk_0 I thought we'd, okay, we're going to have to call it off because she wouldn't be able to get

spk_0 there till Monday, which was the day before curing I would be leaving. But then I learned that

spk_0 she was pregnant. I thought, what an awesome baby moon gift I could give her is use my points

spk_0 to give her this vacation. She was super excited about it because she and her partner were able to

spk_0 fly out Sunday night, arrive on Monday. We then used my suite at the hotel to do some sort of

spk_0 interviews to talk to both Mazee and Björn about what it's like traveling with Greg and what they

spk_0 thought when they got these invitations and everything like that. So, that was fun. Then went to

spk_0 the tallest tower. One nice thing about St. Julian's, where the hotel was, is the tallest tower in

spk_0 all of Malta is there. It has this two story rooftop bar. If you go, especially, well, actually either

spk_0 level has just stunning, stunning views. The top level also has a walk out area that's glass bottomed.

spk_0 Some of us were happy to walk out there. Some of us not so much. But I loved it.

spk_0 That was free. They let us come up and look around even though we weren't buying drinks or anything

spk_0 because we had a reservation to get to, which was at a restaurant in Valetta, which was a restaurant

spk_0 that does all Maltese dishes and the Seven Course tasting menu of all Maltese dishes all locally

spk_0 sourced. It's only 48 euros per person for the Seven Course elaborate dinner. So, that's very

spk_0 reasonable for that level of cuisine. It was fantastic. I don't know about you, Kerry, but I made

spk_0 the mistake of eating too much of the yummy stuff early on. By the time I got to my favorite dish,

spk_0 I could barely eat any of it. It was really disappointing because everything had been so good. But

spk_0 then I got to that one. It's like, oh, this is great. I just couldn't do it.

spk_0 I was super impressed with how seamlessly they modified for the varying dietary restrictions at

spk_0 the table because we kind of had a lot of maizey's pregnant, so she has to eat certain things, not

spk_0 eat certain things. Her partner can't eat dairy. I'm technically pascatarian. I felt so guilty

spk_0 when he's like, any dietary restrictions, sorry. But then it was really neat. They brought out all these,

spk_0 so not only are they doing this tasting menu that changes every day based on what ingredients

spk_0 they have. They're also modifying it for us. I don't know. I thought they did a great job.

spk_0 Luckily, I was still hungry when they served the fish because I've never done a tasting menu before,

spk_0 so I didn't know it follows a certain flow. The fish comes at a certain time, which is earlier

spk_0 than the meat, so I got that. I was still hungry enough by the time the fish came.

spk_0 What was your favorite? The fish, the tuna. They did the tuna. That was really good.

spk_0 The octopus was fantastic, too. Although I don't like eating octopus like when I think about it,

spk_0 especially after seeing that movie about them. But it was so yummy. Anyway, for those

spk_0 wondering, the dish that I love so much was rabbit, and I was surprised at how incredibly good that

spk_0 I've had rabbit before, but I've never had it as good as this one was. It was really terrific.

spk_0 That was it for really Malta. We got back to our rooms very late, and we're up probably,

spk_0 I was up to three, I'm doing things like writing my journal entry and then had to get up at,

spk_0 I don't know, 430 or something to go to the airport. I think Kerry was up even longer than that,

spk_0 doing her work. We flew back. We had a positioning flight. We flew economy to Amsterdam.

spk_0 Then flew economy from Amsterdam to London. Then premium economy on Virgin Atlantic from London to

spk_0 JFK. I think that, so premium economy is somewhere between economy and business class. It's not like

spk_0 just economy with a little more leg room. I think Kerry didn't really understand that before.

spk_0 No. We got on the plane, right? I was really impressed. I was expecting exit row economy.

spk_0 I thought premium economy is when they just stick you in the nicest economy seat they have or

spk_0 whatever. I was really blown away, not knowing that it was going to be that nice made it

spk_0 almost more exciting to me than the business class flight.

spk_0 Yeah, it was funny because we get on and Kerry's like, this is like business class to me. Of course,

spk_0 she's tiny. She can almost lie flat on it. But they did a great job. I've done a few other premium

spk_0 economies before, but this was way better than Delta's and both were way better than Laftanza's

spk_0 premium economy. Virgin Atlantic had great service and the food was all served on

spk_0 proper plates and glassware and things like that. The food was very good. I didn't see what they

spk_0 were serving a business class, but it all seemed like what I would expect in business class,

spk_0 not what I would expect in economy. For a daytime flight, I thought that was really fantastic.

spk_0 It was awesome. The whole meal was very comparable to the Air Serbia business class.

spk_0 Meal that we'd had. Yeah. Anyway, to some things up, we were able to fly the longest flights

spk_0 from the US to Europe and then back. The overseas portions were all in premium cabins.

spk_0 So, again, lifeline business class on the way out and then premium economy on the way back.

spk_0 The vacation involved a lot of interesting stuff that we did, a lot of interesting stuff we learned

spk_0 about, a lot of sunshine, a little bit of rain and fun snorkeling and hiking at that curve.

spk_0 A little bit of meeting locals, not a lot of that.

spk_0 Well, I think it's worth repeating for anybody who kind of just stumbled into this,

spk_0 that Greg's trip, all of that, flights, the hotels, the stuff he did, everything for Greg was

spk_0 just 100,000 points and less than a thousand dollars. You should come in like $970, is that right?

spk_0 $168, and $168, and 100,000 points. We've seen a few cards that have offered that 100,000

spk_0 points with a single card bonus. That's not an out-of-reach number of points and probably not an

spk_0 out-of-reach amount of cash compared to what most people spend on vacation. Yeah. No, that's a good

spk_0 point. It has a very high spend requirement, but the business Sapphire Reserve Card, it has that

spk_0 200,000 point offer, which if you wanted to cash in half of that for $1,000, then you would have

spk_0 the equivalent of my budget for this trip right there. That's of course at the time that we're

spk_0 recording this. At the time we're saying this. The requirement again was at least three nights at

spk_0 bed, $1,000 budget and 100,000 point budget. Greg spent 97,000 points, so he came in under budget,

spk_0 spent $968, so came in under budget there too. Then he spent four nights, which was one additional

spk_0 than the required three. But given all the things he talked about here, he gave himself a rating of,

spk_0 did you say B plus, I think, or was it B plus? B plus. Yeah. So you rated yourself B plus,

spk_0 so real briefly, summarize why B plus, although we kind of got a little idea from that summary.

spk_0 Yeah. Okay. So we are going to be scoring the challengers on a whole lot of that.

spk_0 Huge number of factors, but we grouped them into five buckets. One is we called wow,

spk_0 and that's basically like things about the destination, about what you did on your vacation,

spk_0 did that wow us. Applicability is another one. How widely applicable is what you did to other people?

spk_0 Would people would others be able to do what you did or something close enough to it so that it

spk_0 makes sense for others? And that's why like I talked about like why I didn't start it in New York

spk_0 on my trip because I wanted to be more applicable. The value for your points was another one.

spk_0 And extra bonuses is like kind of a combination of things, but the primary ones are like,

spk_0 did you do this frugally? Did you meet the requirements of staying three nights or did you go above that

spk_0 and you get extra points for going above three nights? And then you have style, and that's more about

spk_0 the travel, did you travel in style? And so I graded myself an A minus for destination. I thought

spk_0 multi turned out to be a great pick. And so I gave myself an A for the location,

spk_0 but there were some other components that we look at in that category like adventure. Did

spk_0 I did you include any activity that was exciting or pushed yourself out of your comfort zone? And

spk_0 we did stuff that I thought was really fun, but I don't there wasn't really anything outside my

spk_0 comfort zone that I did. Relaxation is another one where we did bacon time to relax, but we didn't

spk_0 do anything special to relax. There wasn't like extended hanging out on the beach just for the

spk_0 purpose of relaxing or going to a spa or anything like that. Food I gave myself an A plus for all the

spk_0 reasons we talked about. Anyway, so all these different things I graded myself and there were a few

spk_0 things I gave myself as and some things B's for the destination, but that brought me down to an A

spk_0 minus because of the couple B's applicability. I gave myself an A. That's something I worked really

spk_0 hard on to try to make this a trip that someone could could use their points and book something

spk_0 like this. I don't think there was anything I did that would be hard to replicate as far as the

spk_0 outline of the trip. Now there were details that you might not be able to replicate. For example,

spk_0 we got into certain airport lounges because of my Delta Elite status, so you might not be able to

spk_0 get into those specific lounges, but actually flying the flights we flew and staying in the hotel

spk_0 we stayed at, you could certainly replicate if you had the points. I gave myself a B for value, so

spk_0 even though I came in within budget and everything, I was a little disappointed when I looked at the

spk_0 sum of all the cash. If I had paid cash for everything, what would it come to? I thought it would be,

spk_0 I don't know, at least $7,000, but it was more like, I can't remember exactly, but...

spk_0 4,000... 4,000, something.

spk_0 4,000, yeah. So anyway, so it wasn't as high as I thought it would be. Same thing with frugality,

spk_0 I thought I would spend a lot less than $1,000, not $32 less than $1,000.

spk_0 I didn't rate myself highly on those things. Let's see. So I'm just going to briefly look at my

spk_0 other ones, see if there's any worth talking about before we go in, but the point is...

spk_0 Well Greg, looks at those. I want to mention, you mentioned, because you're talking about applicability

spk_0 and the Air Serbia Business Class came to mind because a reader emailed earlier today that was

spk_0 looking for a specific trip for next summer and said they couldn't find any business class

spk_0 availability. And I used a word tool to do a search for the month they were looking at next summer,

spk_0 and I found two seats or more on Air Serbia and business class, almost daily out of Chicago,

spk_0 not quite daily, but a lot of days out of Chicago and New York. So if that's something that you saw

spk_0 and Greg's trip and appealed to you, there seems to be quite a bit of availability on the Air Serbia.

spk_0 That's a great point. So Air Serbia is not like, it's not the swankiest business class you could do,

spk_0 but it was good. I mean, it was like on par with what a regular average business class is,

spk_0 you do have the lifelad seats. If you do some studying up about their seat configuration,

spk_0 you can sit in a nice seat with plenty of room. And I say that that way because there are seats

spk_0 with very little room and they're very weirdly laid out. And I would not hesitate to fly them again

spk_0 if they're going to where I want to go. And it also points out why I chose why I thought using

spk_0 Air Canada Aeroplane miles to book that flight was a good thing for applicability because even

spk_0 if you're not flying Air Serbia, I think that Air Canada Air Plan has so many partners, including

spk_0 all of Star Alliance, but also lots of other partners that I think they are the probably

spk_0 single best program to find a word availability across the Atlantic. That's my search anyway.

spk_0 And Air Serbia is a good example because you couldn't book this with United Miles or any other

spk_0 like major miles because Air Serbia is not part of Star Alliance. They're an individual partner

spk_0 with Air Canada and that's why I was able to book it with Aeroplane points. So that was good.

spk_0 I gave myself just a B plus for style. So this is like, did you travel in style? Did you stay in luxury?

spk_0 I thought everything we did was good, but nothing was like over the top luxury. You know, we weren't

spk_0 flying Q-sweets. We weren't staying in a park high at, but it was all very nice and comfortable.

spk_0 Yeah. Yeah. But now I want to know how the contestants feel. So now that this trip is done,

spk_0 are you shaking in your boots? Are you feeling pretty confident? Which parts are you confident about?

spk_0 Which parts are you not confident about? And I want to know where you are because I'm pretty sure

spk_0 Nick you've got a fake background going on. And Tim does not have a fake background, but has

spk_0 are those palm trees? There's that's not your living room. And Stephen, we never know where you are.

spk_0 So, okay, we're going to start with Nick. First tell me how you're what you're confident about

spk_0 than what you're shaking in your boots about and then where you're at.

spk_0 Okay. What I'm confident about, I'm confident that I've planned a trip that's going to showcase

spk_0 some enjoyment of fun stuff. And I think that there will be a sense of adventures.

spk_0 So I think you'll get some of the adventure category from my trip.

spk_0 And I'm just excited. I'm just downright excited about the trip. I think when you plan a really

spk_0 good vacation, you know that excited feeling you get. It's like the anticipation builds up. And I'm

spk_0 actually just excited to do this trip. So that's I think where my excitement level is that I think

spk_0 it's going to be a lot of fun. And hopefully readers will find some inspiration. And I think there'll

spk_0 be some fun surprises along the way through some hints in a post that I wrote today. And some people

spk_0 throwing some guesses already about things. So I think there'll be some fun twists. Hopefully,

spk_0 anyway, we'll see. What am I? What was I was shaking my boots on day one because number one,

spk_0 I didn't expect I mean, I didn't expect Julian on day one and Greg met up with Julian,

spk_0 kill the founder points path. I thought that was cool, but I wasn't yet shaking in my boots.

spk_0 Sorry, Julian until I saw Kerry there too. And then I was like, oh, oh, this is going to be good.

spk_0 And then when they boarded a business class flight to Europe to start out, I thought, uh-oh,

spk_0 it is it's going to be trouble from here because if they managed to do that, I figured at that

spk_0 point, Greg would probably be flying premium economy home. And so I didn't know where they were

spk_0 going to go or what they were going to do. But that was already quite a bit of luxury on just

spk_0 100,000 points. I mean, most people would probably anticipate that would only cover the business

spk_0 class flight or not much more than that. So to cover a business class flight there,

spk_0 premium economy back and a few nights and hotels, that did make me a little bit nervous. But,

spk_0 but you know, we'll see. And then what was the last part I was supposed to shake it? You have to

spk_0 you have to spill the beans. Where are you? Ah, yes. Well, I will spill the beans and say,

spk_0 I'm at home. This is not your right. It's a fake background, but I'm at home just not in this

spk_0 particular room. But, but this room is more attractive looking than the white wall behind me if

spk_0 I didn't have the fake background. So did you travel to that room in luxury? I, uh, I walked.

spk_0 Yes, all the way here. And speaking of walking, I will say that I have been, I've been working out

spk_0 these last couple of weeks because I'm going to need a little bit of core strength and endurance.

spk_0 And, uh, yeah, I've been on the bike every day just about, got myself up to about nine miles a

spk_0 day. So there will be no fairies pulling away from me this time. No surprise, 32 mile bike ride for

spk_0 Nick. Right. Are you doing a triathlon while you're away? I'll see. So, yes, I'm still at home.

spk_0 My trip will start. That's as much as I'm going to say. We'll have to keep an eye on the blog. And

spk_0 on Instagram, of course, we haven't mentioned this and we should have by now that I think the best

spk_0 place to watch these things is on Instagram. Of course, we're going to have all the updates on the

spk_0 blog. Also will each be publishing daily journal updates as to where we are and what we're doing

spk_0 and how what we think of it and all the rest of that. So for folks who prefer to read, you're not

spk_0 going to be left out. Don't worry. But if you want to kind of feel like you're on the trip and

spk_0 following along with it, Instagram is really the best way to do that because you can check the

spk_0 stories and see things kind of chronologically and look at the reals. So please check that out and

spk_0 follow Frequent My Learn and Instagram if you're not already. Yeah. Thank you for that.

spk_0 Okay, Steven, you're next up. So again, what are you feeling confident about now that you've

spk_0 seen Greg's benchmark trip? What are you not feeling confident about? And where are you?

spk_0 Okay, so I'm thinking like that's your any of that. You're not sure where you are.

spk_0 It's hard to like disclose stuff without disclosing stuff. So I guess I'm excited about

spk_0 my destination and activity or well, activities actually that I have planned. I think that that's

spk_0 going to be something that even if it wouldn't necessarily be people's first choice for their own

spk_0 vacation, it might well be something that they would actually be interested in doing nonetheless.

spk_0 And so I'm hoping that that gives some applicability. My trip is going to be incredibly

spk_0 replicable, replicable, I think. So I'm hoping that that ends up showing through just because I feel

spk_0 like it's something that pretty much even a novice would be able to book themselves if they wanted

spk_0 to just because I wanted to make it so that people of any level would be able to do that.

spk_0 And let's see, I guess my biggest concern at the moment is actually budget cash-wise.

spk_0 Because a couple of my activities are overly cheap and so I do need to be careful, especially

spk_0 with things like food and drink. I definitely don't want to be cheaping out on stuff, but I do need

spk_0 to watch my budget just to make sure that I don't end up going over, which I imagine next,

spk_0 like I can see next little grin there, because I'm the most few one and I'm normally the one

spk_0 who stays well under budget and has like a whole ton of money left. At the moment I'm like, well,

spk_0 if I can stay below rigs, 968 dollars, I'll be doing well. So I'm confident I won't go over $1,000,

spk_0 but I would like to stay under 968 if I can just to be able to spend less than Greg. But

spk_0 it could be touch-and-go. If I have to go over 968 up all the way up to like $9999.99

spk_0 then so be it. I'll make you feel better, Stephen. I'm going to push the pedal to the metal. I'm

spk_0 going to leave no dollar left behind. That's good to me. So I might be able to turn to learning some

spk_0 bonus points for spending the least out of every one potentially, but I'm not overly confident

spk_0 about that. In terms of where I am at the moment, I am in New York City. So I actually flew back

spk_0 over here several days ago with my wife. We met up with her parents up here in New York. So we

spk_0 spent a few days with them. And I'm happy enough to disclose that I'm going to be leaving tomorrow.

spk_0 Okay. And you partially picked New York to make it more applicable to our readers, right?

spk_0 Yes. So yeah. You don't live in the States anymore.

spk_0 Yes. So I'm based in the UK now. And so that didn't seem like it was going to be

spk_0 like fair comparison eighter neck and Tim, but also for readers like because maybe if you

spk_0 if we've got minor readers are going to be starting a 100k vacation from the UK. So I figured,

spk_0 okay, I'll come back to the US, start from there, and then go off on my trips. So

spk_0 say yes, I'm in New York City. All right. Cool. All right, Tim. So what are you confident about?

spk_0 Which category are you confident about? Which one has you shaking in your boots? And what do we

spk_0 see behind you? Where are you? And so in terms of which category has me shaking in my boots, it's

spk_0 the flying guests into sharing my vacation with me category.

spk_0 Garnish is available. You should know. No, yarn is not available because he is like, no, I need a

spk_0 vacation after my vacation. Like I can't do that stuff back to back. But yeah, I mean, you know,

spk_0 Greg did a great job of just having all these fun surprise guests. It felt like an episode of

spk_0 like a late night variety show. Here's the next guest. We're going to do a bunch of fun games with

spk_0 the guest, right? And spoiler alert. Oh, well, we'll see. I still I'm going to I'm trying to get

spk_0 Bono, but isn't responded yet. But I don't want to raise expectations. He never responds to my

spk_0 message is either. Oh, really? Geez, I was hoping I was hoping maybe he just was busy. Gosh,

spk_0 even it's hard to say even confident and not I mean, like I said, I like I I Bono is not going to

spk_0 show up on my trip. But I had a fairly with these challenges, I always tend to get kind of I'm

spk_0 like, what is kind of the essence of this challenge? And how do I do a trip that to me feels like

spk_0 the essence of this challenge? And and full disclosure, I read your grading post today. Me too.

spk_0 So like I don't and it's like and I because I almost I don't want to even let that affect me.

spk_0 And so I purposely put it off because I just want to create a trip that I think kind of shows

spk_0 what I think the like the heart of the challenges. And so I kind of gave myself some different

spk_0 parameters. And I don't think they're they're necessarily like exclusive parameters. They're within

spk_0 what what you guys set up, but but just different parameters where I wanted it to feel like somebody

spk_0 has a week off. What's a vacation look like for that person? And then when my trip's done, I want

spk_0 to feel like this looks like a vacation and somebody might have taken. I wanted to as opposed to

spk_0 hunting a place that is offers good value. I wanted to show good value at an expensive and

spk_0 popular place that people would go. So I limited myself to the 15 most expensive countries that

spk_0 Americans go to. And I wanted in terms of the applicability and I can actually kind of

spk_0 misunderstood it a little bit, but that's that's beside the point. The applicability thing like

spk_0 I thought that was a great idea. And so for this trip, like I set myself a goal of not using any

spk_0 elite status, no hotel instruments, no card link benefits, nothing. There's nothing about my trip

spk_0 that a person who has read frequent Myler of the last year couldn't I replicate?

spk_0 And so those were kind of my big three in terms of what I was doing. I feel pretty confident about

spk_0 that. Now do I feel pretty confident that that's going to like beat, you know, Stephen,

spk_0 writing sharks off the coast of Madagascar or Nick Skydiving from wherever he's going to Skydive

spk_0 from. I have no idea. I have zero confidence that I'm going to win, but I have confidence,

spk_0 but I feel really good about what's here in terms of like the parameters that I was looking for.

spk_0 Do you know that you just revealed? I didn't actually answer the question.

spk_0 Yeah, but Tim, do you know that do you know that you just revealed that you're not going to be

spk_0 writing sharks or Skydiving? And let's you're being very cheeky. Yeah, maybe that's exactly what

spk_0 he is doing. Oh, that would be tricky. Well, now Nick's going to change his trip and go do that.

spk_0 I know. I'm going to throw a bono out there so that when Ozzy Osborne shows up from the dead,

spk_0 it's going to be so much more exciting. But yeah, so anyway, I'll have to say, I don't even know

spk_0 what confidence feels like outside of that. So I guess that those are the parameters that I would

spk_0 use for it. I have zero confidence that I am going to be chosen as the winner over Nick and Stephen.

spk_0 Zero. Okay. I do think I'm going to have a pretty cool trip. So I think that and to me,

spk_0 that's more the fun part of it. All right. And where are you? Well, I'm in what's commonly known

spk_0 as pepper land. The pizza place in Malta. The old folks call it the United Kingdom.

spk_0 Tell us about that. When did you actually depart? Are you a cop or something? No, no, no, I'm actually

spk_0 in the United Kingdom and a little place they call Marlabone. Is it a day to that right Stephen?

spk_0 Marlabone. Marlabone. Marlabone. Almost like Maui bone, but marlabone.

spk_0 Like that. Is there no? Or kind of like the Ellen the E sort of silence. I guess you say

spk_0 it ends, but Marlabone. Marlabone. Marlabone. Marlabone. This is like a tar all over again.

spk_0 This is what I'm going to get my local interaction going around asking people to pronounce

spk_0 Marlabone for me. Marlabone. Okay. So you're already overseas. Tell us about that. When did you

spk_0 start? So I started like Stephen. And again, I sort of had a different take on applicability. I

spk_0 looked for the area that the that has the highest volume of North American travelers leaving from

spk_0 and decided to part from that area, which was the New York metro area. More passengers depart

spk_0 through that area than they do through any other area in the United States. And I really wanted to,

spk_0 like I said, maximize this whole time. And so and I don't want to get into a full trip report now.

spk_0 We can do that later. But and I have always I got to say and this is, but I don't I don't know

spk_0 nothing. No offense East coasters. I hate East Coast Europe flights. I hate them. I hate them.

spk_0 I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. Sure. Yes. Exactly. They're too fricking

spk_0 and short. They're like, it's it's the exact same reason why I don't fly red eyes from the

spk_0 West Coast to East Coast because they're five and a half hours long. By the time you have dinner,

spk_0 there's three hours left. I can't say for the crap anyway. I agree. It's a waste to fly business class,

spk_0 isn't it? Right. Right. It's like it's useless. It's so useless. Like you can't and then like you

spk_0 go overnight, you get there at seven o'clock in the morning. And I'm blurry. I'd I'm jet lagged

spk_0 all these sort of things. And so I'd always said I'd always thought what would what would it be

spk_0 like to like I don't fly red eyes from the East Coast or from the West Coast to East Coast.

spk_0 What about taking a daytime flight to Europe? There's only a handful of them. And so right at the

spk_0 beginning of this challenge, I was like on October 1st, I want to take a daytime flight to Europe.

spk_0 That's what I did. And I got to say it's freaking awesome.

spk_0 And you built it. I left New York at eight o'clock. I got into London at seven thirty.

spk_0 We've very early on. I don't. I don't feel there. I think even my beyond that same flight tomorrow.

spk_0 Actually, I'm curious. I'll be. I'll find out. But yeah, like it's just it really is. It's

spk_0 awesome. I would if I if I was flying from the East Coast and this is going to be controversial

spk_0 to a lot of East Coasters. I would take a daytime flight over business class any day of the week.

spk_0 I just think it's a way nicer way to show up in Europe for me. And now that said, I can't sleep

spk_0 with a crap like in anything but a prone position like a flat position and even then it's tough.

spk_0 So you know, take care of the grain salt. But it's so good.

spk_0 Quick question for you, Tim. Answer just as yes or no. Are you on the terrace? I think you're on.

spk_0 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have a few more details about this terrace that Tim is on. He's

spk_0 been secretly sending me footage all day, but we didn't want people to know where Tim was until

spk_0 after this live. So make sure to watch Instagram to see more about this terrace that Tim is on.

spk_0 Cool. That's exciting. Yeah. So I won't, yeah. And I don't want to give away.

spk_0 Like I said, I don't want to make a full trip to Port or give it away.

spk_0 Like everything about what's been going on. We need to create a healthy degree of mystery.

spk_0 But yes, all that to say, the cathedral, I don't know if you can see the cathedral spire in the back.

spk_0 Yeah. It might fade in and out. But yeah, that's in Pepperland and the posh neighborhood of

spk_0 Meribon. Meribon. Meribon. Meribon. Meribon. That's a white Elvita. Oh, man. So anyone else

spk_0 feeling nervous? And Nick and Stephen, how do you feel about the fact that Tim's already hit the

spk_0 ground running, making nervous at all? It makes me a little nervous in that. It means that he could

spk_0 potentially fit in like seven nights of accommodation into this challenge if he has enough points for

spk_0 that. And so that would be pretty impressive if he manages to do that. So it makes me a little bit

spk_0 nervous that he's going to do that because that would obviously be more than either Nick or I

spk_0 will have been able to achieve just because we have to be done in the October wave. So

spk_0 but you're in a, you're in a lodging tonight. Stephen. I am in New York, but it's not part of the

spk_0 challenge. Oh, okay. Sorry. Separate. Yeah. Now I feel I think it's pretty funny that I had a

spk_0 very similar perspective to Tim, I think, on different in many ways. But similar in that, you know,

spk_0 I wrote a post that I published today where I said I decided that for a while I was focusing on

spk_0 how can I get like a wow factor in terms of value for how much I got how many flights or,

spk_0 you know, the expensive hotels I booked. And like there's going to be some wow factor,

spk_0 but I realized I was focusing so much on that and less on the vacation that I was building a trip

spk_0 instead of a vacation. That's what I said. And so then I pulled back and I said, okay, well,

spk_0 you know, how, what would I do if I could spend a week doing whatever I want to do? And you know,

spk_0 Greg's trip was I think a really great example of a lot of us really enjoy that group environment

spk_0 family trip hanging out with friends and and that is great. But there's also sometimes compromises

spk_0 when you do that. I don't mean I travel with kids all the time. We got to make compromises about

spk_0 where we can go and what we can do and whatever else. So I said, you know what, if I got a solo

spk_0 vacation, what would I want to what would that trip look like? What would I want to do? And so I

spk_0 think it's cool that like Tim and I both had at least Tim and I maybe Steven too had that perspective

spk_0 of, okay, well, what would a really fun trip look like to me? I'm a little nervous that my

spk_0 applicability won't be as good as as Tim's. And I don't know as good as Steven's or not because

spk_0 I don't feel like I have as much of a handle on what Steven's doing yet from what you said there. But

spk_0 I hope anyway that what I do, it looks like a vacation that you could say, okay, well, that was a

spk_0 vacation. You definitely had a vacation, whether or not that's going to be what everybody else wants to

spk_0 do. And I think that that's kind of cool that we share that that perspective on it. So hopefully,

spk_0 hopefully we're going to get that. I'm a little nervous though. Like Steven said that he did get

spk_0 the head start today. I did for a while when I was looking at some of the other channel. As I had

spk_0 talked about potentially booking and I was looking to position to London to start. I had that exact

spk_0 flight on my radar for quite a while. And then it went up in price and I said somebody booked it.

spk_0 It was you Tim. Thank you. Because I'm pretty excited about the trip that I ended up with. So

spk_0 maybe thank you for yeah. I'm just seeing what you do. Although it would have been pretty fun. I

spk_0 got to say I was half expecting either you or Steven. And once I knew that Stephen was attending a

spk_0 daily show taping today, I knew Stephen wasn't going to be there. But I was half expecting to see one

spk_0 of you guys at the gate. That would have been like the Millie Mile man of stuff where we kept

spk_0 showing up the same place. Right. I had actually considered like trying to leave today before and

spk_0 I'd looked into my options for that. And I do have it in my points budget to book another hotel

spk_0 somewhere if I wanted. Only thing is that with like two sets of activities that I'm doing,

spk_0 there I need to do them on specific days. And so I couldn't I just couldn't make it work based

spk_0 on when those are going to work. And so it was just like okay, I'll stick with the number of days

spk_0 that I've got. So it would have been nice to have gotten an extra one, but yeah, I had to make

spk_0 do with what I had. Yeah. So question for Tim. So first a statement, which is you know, when I've

spk_0 done daytime flights, when I when I recently did a daytime flight to London, the great thing about

spk_0 it is you have to get up really early East Coast time. So you know, then you fly during the day. And

spk_0 and by the time you get to London, you're you're you're going to be tired at sort of a normal time.

spk_0 You could go to bed at 11 and actually fall asleep even though East Coast time. It's only like

spk_0 6 p.m. and and West Coast time never, you know, it's even earlier now. But you had to stay up. You

spk_0 would stay up. Now it's what I'm for you. Is there it? It's 3 a.m. Did you get a good nap in or

spk_0 anything? Oh no. Oh no. No, no, no. I I spent some time exploring the town. Did you know, and

spk_0 and honestly it was yeah, but but I but I will say and I don't want it to your point. I completely

spk_0 agree with it. And I was just talking to my wife before this and I said, you know, this it would

spk_0 it would be awesome because I'm ready to go to sleep. You know, right? I'm ready to go to sleep at

spk_0 like 11 12 o'clock. Yeah. Right. And it's like it's such a perfect way to bad jet lag because you

spk_0 don't you don't have it. You just go to bed at normal local time when you're right. Yeah. Man,

spk_0 I love it. I'm right. Democrats fight down. They're going to start increasing the price on those

spk_0 awards. Well, there's not what I think is really interesting and not to go on a tangent, but just

spk_0 a small tangent. What I think is really bizarre is it's such a great experience. Like it would be like

spk_0 if 90% of the flights from the west coast to the east coast of the United States were at night.

spk_0 And that's how they run transatlantic. And it's like there's there they mean you really have to

spk_0 search. There's only a handful of these daytime routes. And it's like, why don't

spk_0 well, and they're all heavily booked because everybody wants to use them, you know.

spk_0 Yeah. I think the reason is that, um, and you know, the other thing is almost all of them

spk_0 fly to London, almost all of the daytime flights. And I think the reason is that most other

spk_0 European airports, they they want to have the flights arrive at a time where they can have a

spk_0 connection where people can connect to another flight to get to their ultimate destination. And

spk_0 morning flights just won't work for that because they arrive at night in their destination.

spk_0 And I think London is often enough the final destination for people that that's why it works for

spk_0 flights to London is what I suspect. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I'll see some of that to Paris though.

spk_0 And you know, yeah, like Barcelona Madrid, like, and be nice.

spk_0 Other Western. It would be nice. If you're listening airlines, it would be nice.

spk_0 I think part of it as well is that a lot of cities, they don't allow flights to land after

spk_0 a certain time as well. And so they're kind of limited as to how late in the morning,

spk_0 the flights can depart from the US in order to make it to those airports on time. Just in case

spk_0 there's like a delay of an hour or two or something. Because if it's due to, I feel like London

spk_0 might have a kind of like 10 pm or something like that. I might be wrong on that. But it means that if

spk_0 you're due to arrive at 730, if your flights three hours late, it's just not going to be allowed to land

spk_0 there. So I think there's that risk element involved for airlines with deciding to do those kind of

spk_0 flights too. That would make for some good content though for Instagram if one of you guys is on a

spk_0 flight that's not allowed to land. As long as you have good internet on your flight. Nick.

spk_0 I think it's tempted. I think we'll take just a few questions. We don't have a lot of

spk_0 challenge related questions. So we'll start with this one for Greg. Redemption on VS, which

spk_0 is virgin for some reason, right? Yes. Why? Good job. Redemption on virgin in Europe is

spk_0 distance-based, not considering layovers, something you advocated. Is it worth the extra time to

spk_0 save some miles due to layovers in Amsterdam or Charles de Gaulle? Would you do it? Is it worth it?

spk_0 Would you do that if it weren't for the challenge, for instance? Well, I think what they're referring

spk_0 to is a different trick. So you can fly with virgin Atlantic. You could fly, for example,

spk_0 air France from... I'm going to make up an example. I don't know if this is exactly right from like

spk_0 Venice to Rome for as low as few as 4,000 points, but it's flying through Paris to do that.

spk_0 Because virgin only calculates the distance from your starting point and your ending point when

spk_0 you're flying air France or KLM within or near Europe. So it includes northern Africa too,

spk_0 that you could do this. And so if the distance is below, I can't remember if it's something like

spk_0 600 miles somewhere in that range anyway, then it can be as cheap as 4,000 or 4,500 points,

spk_0 something to do that. So the question is, is it worth going way out of your way? Well,

spk_0 depending on what two cities you're doing, you could be going way out of your way to get the

spk_0 Paris and then to go back to very close to where you started. I would say, I don't know, I wouldn't

spk_0 do that except for as one of these challenges. Or if I could find... If I wanted to do something in

spk_0 Paris, or you could also do this with Amsterdam if you could get the KLM flights to line up.

spk_0 If I wanted to do something in Paris or Amsterdam, and I could range it so that the flight

spk_0 arrives in Paris or Amsterdam like one afternoon and that the next flight back is in the morning,

spk_0 then you could have like a night in one of those towns or sometimes you might be able to do a day,

spk_0 like maybe you arrive early in the morning and you can spend the day there and then

spk_0 do the next flight in the evening. All right. How did you end up in business class in Air Serbia?

spk_0 I never heard of it before. Never even heard of it before. Yeah, it was simple as I used a

spk_0 ward tool to search for flights and that option came up right away as something bookable with

spk_0 Air Canada Aeroplane. So I went to Air Canada and verified that it was able to book that.

spk_0 I looked at a few reviews of their business class to make sure it wasn't horrible and their

spk_0 views were good enough. It was pretty easy actually. All right. Show us right up on aircanada.com

spk_0 also. So it's an easy to book partners. There's no, you don't have to call anybody or anything.

spk_0 It's just right there on the aircanada website. And you heard us talk about Greg doing all this

spk_0 for under 100k. I don't know if he mentioned 20 recaptus trip that it was a 20% transfer bonus

spk_0 from Chase to Air Canada aeroplane that made that doable because it was it's 70,000 miles for what

spk_0 or 70,000 aeroplane points, I guess it is for the flight he took, but it only cost him 59,000

spk_0 Chase ultimate rewards points. Also keep in mind that if you've got an ultimate rewards card and

spk_0 the Chase aeroplane card, you always get a 10% bonus and that can stack on top of the 20% bonus

spk_0 to get you even a little bit more value for your points. Right. Yeah. That's good. No. This person

spk_0 asks quite relevant. Did any of your vacations take advantage of mile transfer bonuses? So without

spk_0 sharing too much too many specifics, did anyone else take advantage of mileage bonuses?

spk_0 To do a show of hands. Show of hands. Yep. That's everybody's. Everybody did.

spk_0 Did anyone do more than one program? So I did both Virgin Atlantic transfer bonus and

spk_0 Air Canada aeroplane. So two people did more than one. Did anyone do more than two

spk_0 transfer, two different programs? Yes. So more than three of having multiple

spk_0 transfer bonuses. Transfer bonuses are like a superpower because it helps you expand your budget

spk_0 and get more points out of your points. Tim had a whole bunch of transfer bonuses.

spk_0 So yeah. It was actually easy with them the last six months.

spk_0 I actually only did two. I didn't do that. I kept raising my hand. I only got it.

spk_0 Another question for Greg. Greg and I, I guess. How was the breakfast at the Hyatt-Centric

spk_0 Malta? Did they have local food? Yeah. I thought it was good. They did have local food.

spk_0 There wasn't or at least we didn't see a menu you can order from. But there was like a

spk_0 an omelet bar, an omelet station where you could get things made to it or there.

spk_0 What did you think, Carrie? Yeah. I thought it was really good and I did really like the local

spk_0 the local food. Most of it was stuff that we recognized by the time we had done all these kind of

spk_0 things. Yeah. But yeah, we'd be like, oh yeah, this is the thing. Berenna talked about where

spk_0 this is the one thing he didn't bring us and we'd see it on the thing and be able to try it.

spk_0 They actually had a pretty good selection of both local foods and kind of standard Western foods.

spk_0 Yeah. And then we'll make this the last question. For you, Greg, somebody says,

spk_0 was there anything you would do differently? I mean, they have a longer question, but that's

spk_0 that's the piece that we'll take time to answer right now. Is there anything I'd do differently?

spk_0 You know what? I mean, there's nothing really that stands out as something that like,

spk_0 oh, I wish I had done this other thing. It all worked really well. Let me modify it then.

spk_0 If you were to go back to Malta, what are the things that you would do differently?

spk_0 Like, you know, if you weren't constrained by this artificial budget, yeah.

spk_0 You'd do differently. Yeah, thank you. That's right. I would absolutely stay in

spk_0 Malta instead of St. Jolans as the main thing that I would do differently. I probably,

spk_0 even though it was really fun, if it was just my own vacation, I probably wouldn't fly out random

spk_0 friends. Random. Let's take a guess. As you should, Gary. As you should. And I would do, I probably

spk_0 would do some of those things that tourists do, but I would look for a, like a boat tour, either a

spk_0 private boat tour or one that's a very small group tour to go to the different islands and do,

spk_0 there's like kayaking trips you could do on the islands. So there's a bunch of,

spk_0 there's actually a lot still to do in Malta that I didn't get to, which is always true of every

spk_0 vacation I've ever taken. So there's nothing special about that. But so I guess you could say,

spk_0 you know, if I do anything differently, I would stay longer and do more of the things before I left.

spk_0 Yeah. All right. I think we'll let him go to bed. Oh, no, come on.

spk_0 Maybe we should go late. Maybe we should do another few hours.

spk_0 Yeah, for sure. We miss this next week.

spk_0 Make sure he doesn't miss breakfast. Let's keep him up.

spk_0 Make sure to check out the Instagram for the most immediate updates on what these guys are doing.

spk_0 I think one of you, yes, Steven already revealed that he'll be leaving tomorrow. And Tim's already

spk_0 gone. So you know that there will be content. So make sure to check that out. We'll also upload it

spk_0 to YouTube as we're able. And thanks for joining us. Everyone, our next live check-in is,

spk_0 can you remember Saturday 6 p.m. Eastern time Saturday, October 4th, 6 p.m. Eastern time. Come

spk_0 back for the mid stream check-in where we'll find out where everyone is. We'll do a little

spk_0 tallying of how their budgets are doing so far. Yeah, so make sure to check that out.

spk_0 Thanks for coming, everyone. And we'll see you on Saturday. I hope.

spk_0 Hi, I'm David Brody, co-host of the Travel and Ten podcast. Together, myself, my co-host,

spk_0 Tim Johnson, have traveled over 150 countries around the world and all seven continents.

spk_0 Now we're sharing our favorite places, some of our best tips and experiences from all around the

spk_0 world in just 10 minutes on Travel and Ten. Join us at voicecape.com.

spk_0 I'm Pauline Fromer. I've spent most of my life writing, talking, and thinking about travel.

spk_0 Not just where to go, but how to go in a way that's meaningful. On the Fromer's Travel Show,

spk_0 a week's tour, the trends, people, and ideas shaping how we see the world. If you care about

spk_0 the why, as much as the where, I hope you'll join me. You can find new episodes weekly at voicecape.com.

100K Vacay Livestream Kick Off | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep326 | 10-3-25

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