Which Hyatts will you be book before the award chart changes? | Ask Us Anything Ep84 | 3-4-26

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Welcome to Ask Us Anything, where the frequent Myler team answers your questions live.

Yes, we're live.

Go for it, Nick.

Take away.

All right, welcome to this week's Ask Us Anything.

I am doing the Greg portion today and welcoming everybody here.

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And I think that brings us into question time, right?

So Stephen, do you have a question to kick us off with?

Well, I have a quick question first, before Stephen's question, I just want to know.

So I had somebody, so what happens when Greg, the frequent Myler, the big thing we need

to call out front and center, Greg, the frequent Myler is not here.

Greg is walking upside down on the other side of the world.

What is it, Stephen?

Trying not to chunder?

Correct.

Trying not to chunder.

Are we sure that's an appropriate word?

I'm down under.

Yeah, totally.

So check out the men down under song.

And so somebody said, so what are we doing, Greg's out of town?

When Greg's away, Carrie, did you throw a cager and invite all of the Ann Arbor peeps

over?

Or is there anything that happens when Greg's out of town, or do we just like industriously

chip away it?

We just, we just keep it rolling.

We just keep, we just keep the machine going for the most part.

When the cats away, the mice don't play.

No, we just work and make work the sad fact is we're all too old to play.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, I guess we don't have a team meeting.

So we can sleep in.

Maybe, I guess.

It depends on what time.

Take a nap.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Speak for yourself.

That's then it's going for me.

Yeah, that's great.

So Greg, Greg's absence is sorely missed, and we hope that he's having a great time walking

around upside down on the other side of the world and chundering.

Or hopefully not chundering.

Yes.

So Stephen, start us off with the first question that you collected ahead of time.

And then, otherwise, we'd like you to submit your questions in the chat here, live

on YouTube and we'll feed them as we go.

Cool.

So our very first question is, what specific higher properties have we booked or will we be

booking before the upcoming award chart changes?

So just as a recap, I had an answer.

They're going to be changing how they place awards.

So they're going to go from off peak standard and peak to five different levels.

I know that there's like top, Nick, you probably remember all five of the terms, different

things.

So what were they?

It was top and lowest, low, moderate, upper and top.

There we go.

So yes.

So we're going to be getting more expensive plus.

We're expecting there to be category changes announced or like with specific properties

going up or down categories announced at some point in the next few weeks because that's

usually when they announce each year's March sometime.

So they announced it'll be April this year, though, when they when they announced the

new award chart, they announced that those changes are coming in April.

I would be April.

I think so.

So do you guys have any plans to book things now before it gets more expensive?

Tim, when do I?

Yes.

Well, I have a, so I had, I'm going to cheat in one way, not really overall.

And partially, it's because I'm not, I'm honestly not expecting to see huge changes

for the remainder of this year.

And I've just started thinking about next year because of the booking windows that ran.

So I'm kind of like at this point, but a couple of things that I did think about one was

a booking that I already made that I'm glad I did is I have been wanting to try a mirror

ball for quite some time.

And so last year, I stretched a little bit and got a, if you get a hundred elite nights

in a year from high, you can get a, what's called a mirror ball extra night that gives

you a free night, like on a points or a cash booking, you can, you can get a, a free night,

like a, that's like a, like a bogey, a buy one, get one free.

And so I had that certificate.

So we had already made a mirror ball reservations.

And I already, like, I can't remember what the cost was.

I think it was like 65,000 points a night.

It's something ridiculous.

But this, these properties, they, they're, it's like a whole, the idea is it's like a health

and wellness retreat kind of thing.

And I already was sort of blanching it, spending that amount of points, looking at what the

new charts look like.

I'm really, really glad that I made that reservation now because I would never spend what they're

going to charge for these properties going forward.

So I did that.

And the other thing is I've been, I've been kind of dancing around for a couple of years

about doing a, just for the blog going somewhere and trying to compare, like do a week and spend

it and do a week of like one night, at one night during a week, at various high at all

inclusive properties.

And I've been putting that off because I don't really like all inclusive properties.

But I thought it would be a fun sort of, hey, here's the different brands because there's

like nine of them now or whatever it is.

So now I'm kicking around booking that or planning that because those charts again are going

up like crazy.

And I already don't like spending the amount that it requires to book an all inclusive

property.

And I'm going to like it even less once the charts take over.

So those are kind of the two things that I'm tossing around.

Nick, how about you?

I want to know if Stephen's planning to stalk me at the places that I'm going to, you want

to know where I'm going to be?

No, yeah.

So I did book a couple, so all right, sort of similar to what Tim said, the, because of

the way the booking window works, I already had most of this year's travel plan, most

of it, when this was announced.

So, and you can only book so far into next year, however, when this was announced, it

was almost perfect for a year in advance for next February.

In my state, New York state, kids are off of school for a week in February and instead

of president's day, they get president's week.

And so that's a really popular week for people from New York to go on vacation, particularly

anywhere warm.

So the Holy Stern seaboard and the Caribbean tends to be very expensive that week during

February.

So I booked a property in the Caribbean, that's as specific as I want to be now, but I booked

a property to go to and check out, and we'll see how that goes for February break because

I knew that that week would be hard to get later on, and probably, and like Tim said,

the prices that some of these properties are going to cost going forward, I'm just not

going to be interested in going anymore.

So I want to get one of those in now while I can.

And then I'm already going to be on the west coast.

So I made a couple of reservations and I don't know exactly which ones they'll keep,

but intend to visit the Monterey Aquarium.

And so I'm looking at the heights in that area to use for now and also in San Francisco

because I'll be out there for a few days.

But unfortunately, like I said, unfortunately, fortunately, I did have most of this year's

travel booked already.

So I'm not jumping on a lot of other stuff either, partly because, and this is probably

the case for a lot of us.

I've traveled to a lot of the places that I kind of wanted to, that they were out there.

And so I don't, I don't feel like as much pressure.

I think if there was a situation where I was like, oh, man, I've always wanted to go

to whatever it is, the Park Hyatt and Paris, then I would be looking to do that now.

I haven't actually stayed at that property, but that was never at the top of my list.

So so I do think it makes sense for those types of properties, your high end category,

seven, category eight that you like have always wanted to and dreamed of staying at.

And you will not dream of spending 75,000 points.

It's worth planning a trip around that now.

So let me quickly add a little asterisk to this question for you.

For you, as you finish your response and then for Steven.

So then based on kind of what you're saying, if, if there was one property that you,

like say, a category six, seven, eight or whatever that you've already been to,

that you hadn't been to, what would you prioritize to say, you know what,

I don't want to get this before it's going to cost me an arm in five legs.

That's a, that's a great question.

Boy, it's, I mean, the property that comes back to my mind is the Grand Hyatt,

Kwai, and it's not because it's the, the best hotel I've ever been to necessarily,

as much as it's one that I really like.

It's very pretty, the breakfast is pretty good, the lounge is nice,

the staff is really friendly and Kwai is just a wonderful place.

And so it's a place that we've been to a few times now.

And so it holds a lot of good memories and it's a place I've enjoyed going back to.

Again, I think sometimes in this game you start to find places that you kind of look forward

to going back to and you look forward to that familiarity of a particular place that you liked.

And so that's a place that holds a, you know, a dear place in my heart that I would enjoy going

back to again, but unfortunately I'm just not going to get a chance to this time.

I think if you've never been to Kwai, that might be one that's worth prioritizing because it's

a pretty good value compared to cash rates a lot of the time, even though it does still cost

quite a lot of points these days. But there's, there's tons of, of great properties out there.

So it's really hard for me to pick one, I think. But Stephen, you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, I probably would have picked exactly the same flop too, as you said, I did love that.

Although, I think it's more expensive now than when we visited a couple of years ago,

because like did it go up to category eight last year if I would have liked?

So it's already like more expensive than it was when I built our stay then.

I think I'd managed to snag like, we stayed there for a week and I think I snagged like at

least two or three days where it was off peak as well. And so it got quite lucky with the award

pricing when it was category seven. Otherwise, maybe like the higher Regency in Lake Tahoe,

we really loved that property. We stayed there in off season and it was a wonderful place,

incredibly dog friendly, like I'm quite a few of the activities and like the guided hikes and

things like that, you can bring your dog along as well, along like we were visiting with our dog at

the time. And so that was super nice that we didn't just have to like leave her back in the room

when we wanted to go do stuff. In terms of future bookings, though, I haven't really got anything

else I need to do, like Nick and Tim, I think I booked most of our accommodation for the coming year

already. We do have a few stays coming up that I do still need to book, but none of those are

cities where high it has any kind of presence. So that's not any kind of priority for booking right

now. So yeah, like as of now, but yeah, I'm not planning on booking anything now. And I think

for all three of us as well, it's quite handy because we're somewhat flexible with when we go

on vacation and travel. So that does give us a bit of an edge over a lot of people who only have

say like one week or two weeks off per year from their job and can only go during like some

of vacation or school holidays or something like that. Being able to pick and choose our dates means

that we can hopefully find dates at a party where we really want to go in the future at the lowest

or low or moderate rates, which makes it a little bit less of an issue with this award-applicing

changes. I find it really interesting that all of you guys have basically planned your entire year

of travel and it's only March. That's what you got to do. Well, you got to plan in advance,

Carrie. Well, and that will be like, I haven't necessarily planned my entire year, but in terms of

like the big destination stuff, like you know, the big like what we're doing over spring break,

it's already planned out what we're doing over the first part, like and partially because of my

wife has is is balanced somewhat by the school calendar. So we look far in advance by her based

on when she's available and so forth. I'm sure there will be other things that I'll add along the

way and we'll do a long way, but it's just the big ones that are sort of like the destination ones.

Those are kind of already planned. I should have added, I'm sorry, and I know we need to move on,

but I should have added that this may all change when the category changes come out because,

you know, if there's places that move up from category four, particularly to category five,

next year, that's going to make huge difference. Then I will make a strong effort to book some of

those category four properties before they move into a band where it's going to cost far more to stay

Yeah, that's a good point. All right, so next question, we're going to start with Tim,

how did you learn about how to find good flights to book with transfer partners?

I'm trying so hard to learn, but it feels confusing and overwhelming. I need more concrete step-by-step

help. What do you got? Yeah, that's a great question. And I would say that I am like still learning

partially, but sort of back up there, there's kind of two ways of, the questions are

asking two ways is like, how do you actually book the partner award? There's the one thing

of how do you find space and know that which program is best to book that space? And then the

second is how do you actually then book the award once you see that there's space? And honestly,

these days, I do the vast majority of my searching through the various award search tools that are

out there. The primary one that I use, and it's just because it's my favorite is Seats.arrow.

It takes a little bit, it's not as user-friendly for people that don't know what they're doing,

or not that they don't know what they're doing, but don't have a lot of experience in searching for

stuff. But there's a lot of really broad search capacity that you can do with it. That's really

cool. But that said, I also use a award tool. I also use points. Yeah, those are kind of

like the three that I tend to use. And Stephen and Nick, you can add any that you find useful for

from a beginner's perspective. And even the free versions of those can be very helpful in terms

of finding the actual space specifically for flights, especially on these, is what I'm talking

about in not hotels. The other one is there's one point dot, it's point dot me, right? I mean,

yes. And that one kind of drives me nuts because it's really slow. But what it does have that I

think is cool for a beginner's perspective is once you find space on something, it will actually

show you step by step how you need to get, how to get your points that you have into the currency

you need in order to book that. And pretty much, and a lot of the different tools will have these

sorts of these sorts of things where they'll say, hey, here's the space you can book it. These five

different ways through these five different programs. But point dot me goes an extra step and it

kind of gives you a tutorial and saying here's how to get from where you're at to where you need to

be in order to book this. So that can be helpful. And the cool thing too about a lot of these is

many of them you can buy like a short trial. So like you can, you don't necessarily have to get

a subscription. You can say, hey, I'm going to buy, I think it's usually about a week. I'm

I'm if I'm remembering correctly. And then it's and you can just sort of use it as much as you would

like with unlimited searches during that week. Or you can subscribe to it as well. I subscribe to

a lot of them, but I look for a lot of flights. But that actually these days, I think, is a great

starting point. Now, the caveat that I will say is not everything is caught by these by these

search engines. And as you go through and start to learn more about the programs and where things

can be found, you'll you'll probably start to branch out a little bit on your own and say,

oh, I see this here. This gives me an idea of something I might be able to do here. However,

that's super confusing. And when you're first starting out, I think these award tools are really

great. We have a post, the Greg writes every year called, which award search tool is best.

So check that out. And I'm sure we'll link to it in the show notes here.

Check that post out. And he does a really good job of kind of going tool by tool and saying,

hey, here's the strengths here, the down here are the cons. And then you can and I would I would

use that as a starting point personally. Yeah. A couple of very quick things I'd add is that some

of the search tools are available on shopping portals. So that can make sure net costs for the

first year. I know six to arrow is definitely on there. And sometimes you'll get like 100% back

on your first monthly payment or like 30% back on your first years payment if you do an annual

membership. So that's a way to save a bit more of you are interested in subscribing. And the other

thing I'd suggest is join our frequent mile of insiders Facebook group. Because if you've like

done some award searches, like say you want to get from like the US to Rome or something like that.

And like you go in there, you can post like I found this this and this is this my best option.

There was so many helpful people in the group like there's I think like more than 50,000

people in the group now. And if you show what you've found so far, you will definitely get people

who are wanting to help you find the best possible thing because you've kind of like shown that

you've like done the research, but then they will be like additional stuff that you've missed. So

I'd recommend like joining the group if you're not already there. Yeah.

Well, let me throw in one and a half more plugs. I know we've got to move to that as well.

Uh, points path. If you haven't looked at that, it's worth looking at because that plugs right

into Google Chrome. It's an extension. It'll show you award pricing side by side with cash pricing.

It has a limited number of partners in the free version, but it's a great start for understanding

that. Uh, and it's a tool that I just use all the time without thinking about it since it plugs

into Chrome. And then the other plug I'll give you is that I believe Carrie correct me if I'm

wrong. Is it this weekend's podcast is actually going to be all about the tools that Greg and I

actually use on a regular basis. So we're going to talk about this on the next full length frequent

mile around the air. So make sure you listen to that. That's right. And by the time you listen to

this in podcast form, it will be the podcast from two days ago. Yeah. Okay. So those of you who are

live, that's why I needed Carrie. So for those of you who are live, it will be in two days. Anyway,

so two days either direction. All right. So next question is for Stephen and I.

This person says, now I am retired. My wife and I are interested in finding rentals for several

weeks at a time. I'm pretty good at finding good properties and Airbnb at VRBO for several days,

but I've less experience navigating longer term rentals. Do you have any tips on how to find good

locations and get good deals? Steve, do you go first? Yeah. So I, so this was a comment left on

the ask us anything blog post where we kind of like remind people that it's coming up. And I've

already replied to them there. So I'll basically just read out my answer that I gave them there just

because I imagine there are people watching who would be interested in this kind of information too.

So the first thing I asked them was if there stays within the US or overseas because if they're

in the US, on Airbnb, you can check the price seen for stays of 31 or more days. That's because

a lot of states don't charge for tax. Don't charge like accommodation tax for stays when you're

going to be there for 30 days or more or 31 days or more. It kind of like depends on the state.

And normally if you're staying at hotels for that long, then you have to proactively ask them

through a refund of the tax. But with Airbnb, they seem to automatically remove the tax during

the entire booking process. So you don't even have to pay it up for that, which is nice. Also,

many Airbnb hosts offer a substantial discount when you're booking a month long stay. So it can

be worth reaching out to them directly. If you're not seeing kind of like a big discount displayed

when you're doing a search, just reach out to a particularly a particular proctiona. If you find

somewhere that you're really interested in staying, say that you're interested in a long-term stay

and ask if they'd be willing to give you a bigger discount for that kind of booking. A lot of them

may well say no, but I'm sure you'll get some. Also, yes, also when doing a search on Airbnb,

especially for stays that long, you're quickly going to realise that there's some stuff that's

non-negotiable. Like you're going to want fee parking, Wi-Fi, a kitchen, washer dry, and things

like that. So use the filter options that they have on Airbnb to select all of those, because that will

help narrow down certain properties. And then you can use the slider on there to reduce the price

to a certain price range, so that you're going to be comfortable with. As for Verbo, I don't know,

I've actually bumped through Verbo, I've only ever used Airbnb, so I don't really have many

recommendations for how to find the best deals on Verbo. And then in terms of locations, I also

am if they mentioned general, because it's kind of like, depending on if they're happy to visit

anywhere in the world, or if they're just looking for recommendations of how to find a good location

in any given city, because if they're happy to travel worldwide, Airbnb lets you search by country

or even by continent, so you can just plug in like Europe, you're kind of like dates and like

travel requirements and things like that. And then you'll just get all kinds of options.

If they're just wondering about how to find out the best location within any kind of specific city,

then I recommend that they take a look at Google Maps and take a look at the hotel options in

certain neighbourhoods, because if you've got like a high-regency, a clown plaza of Renaissance

and stuff like that, chances are it's a business district, and so that may or may not be good for

what you're looking for. But then if you're finding that in the area, they've got things that I've

read within, days in quality in sub raid and stuff like that, chances are it's going to be a bit more

of a shady dodgy neighbourhood, and so you may not necessarily want to stay there. And also,

I've just used Google Street View as well, so if you, I'm just like drag the little yellow person

on Google Maps onto there, you can just search all around, and then that's not always entirely

actual in terms of getting played in question or not of what a place is like, but it can give you

a bit of a better sense of what that particular place looks like. So that was the recommendations

that I have for them. How about you, Keri? Yeah, the only other things I would add is that,

again, just like you, I don't know as much about VRBO, but in Airbnb, so to see that flexible

search, they have a really convenient search tool, so you click, you know, you can type in where

you're interested, but then in the section where you would put in dates, if you click flexible instead,

you can say you want a weekend, a week or a month, and then you can pick which kind of calendar

area you want it to be in, and then they'll show you all kinds of options. So especially if you're

flexible, then the map will not, it won't show you a specific range of dates, it will show you

a bunch of prices for a bunch of weeks, and you can highlight the options to see, you know, this

one is June 5th to, you know, 15th, and this other one is June 15th to 30th, and so you can start to

kind of build, fill in your calendar or build your trip around this really great spot that happens

to be available for two whole weeks here, or, and so if you select month, it might not show you

an entire month, it might show you like close to a month, but you can start to kind of like

see search results that aren't limited to things that don't apply to you because you're flexible.

So again, just instead of using the calendar, you want to click flexible and then click

weekend week or, or month, and then for figuring out like what part of town to be in, if I'm going

to be somewhere for a long time, I definitely like to pull up Google Maps, type in coffee and

restaurants and start to like get an idea of like, because I like my routine when I'm staying for

a long time, I like my, you know, I start the day with coffee and then I want to have like a few

different restaurants I can try throughout the week, I want to start to like be, picture, picture

what my walking life is going to be like for that week, and you'll start to see like a concentration,

like Mexico City's a great example, you know, we would be pinning all these restaurants and they

all happen to be in Locke and Desa or, you know, you notice that they're all in one part of town,

well then you know that's the part of town you want to be in, for me, walk abilities really

important, if I'm staying somewhere for like a whole month, I want to like where I'm staying.

And then like Steven said, definitely don't be afraid to message the host

and ahead of time instead of instant booking message them and just say, hey, you know, I've got good

reviews if you do, and I'm going to be staying for this amount of time and is there any kind of

discount you can give me since I'm staying for a long time, and a lot of people will do that,

so don't be afraid to ask. Yeah, I think that's all I can think of, how about the rest of you guys,

Tim and Nick, anything else to add? The only thing that I would suggest since you're retired,

since this person is retired, not you're caring, you better not be retired because we need you,

but the there's a service called trust, if you're depending on your pet allergies or your

animal allergies, there's a service called trusted house sitters that we use a lot, and I know

several people that use a lot, and they use this sort of their exclusive way, their permanent

digital nomads, and they use this their exclusive way by and large of going around the country

and effectively this is its place where it matches people who need house sitting and have a pet

usually with people who want a place to stay, and there's no cost outside of the yearly

membership for either party, and in some cases I know I have several friends that they've actually

sort of developed yearly sort of rhythms where they go back to a given place and a given house

and are a given sit and they sort of now have their yearly migration patterns mapped out through

the sits they'd like, and I know that can be a very good way if you're not, but all that to say,

it also does mean that you're going to have a pet there, and in some cases that might be a dog

that you have to walk a couple times a day, and sometimes it means a cat that you can kind of

throw some food in the dish and not have to worry too much about, or in some cases it could be a horse,

there's actually people that try to do horses this way, but I'll bet to say it's worth checking

out if indeed you're trying to kind of do the full time traveling. Yeah, one other tool if you're

looking in the States, there's something called furnishedfinder.com, it's designed for I think like

traveling nurses and stuff like that, people with like work contracts, and so that's more like

three month, you know, one to three month arrangements, I think it's only in the States,

but that's a decent option. It kind of fills the role that Craigslist would have at one point,

if you want to find like sublets and things like that, but instead it's people who,

instead of subletting now, they're just furnishing a room, and they got tired of Airbnb,

and they went long-term folks, so that's another one to test out. I think that's kind of all I can think

of, Nick, anything from your side? Not Craigslist. Yeah, it's been a long time since I've even

remotely considered that, it's like, there's woofing, and then there's...

No, I mean, a lot of things, because yeah, we got an apartment in Berlin years ago for a few

months from Craigslist, so I totally know what you mean. Yeah, but it's freaky to do those for days.

I wonder if that even really exists anymore, and then there's couch serving, which still exists,

but not in the way that it used to, now you pay a fee kind of like the trusted house sitters,

so it's a little bit more like just the rest of these, you know, via bio and whatnot.

All right, let's move on. Steven, this one's for you. Looking to get a Hilton Aspire card and

upgrade a surpass card, should I do this on two different devices at almost the same time,

or does it not matter? I mean, I'm not really seeing a need to do it almost instantly.

What I would do is get the Aspire card first and get that approved, because if you upgrade

the surpass card first, that will likely prevent you from being able to earn a welcome bonus on

the Aspire card, so sort out the Aspire card, then after that, do the surpass card.

And sometimes there's a landing page on the MX website where you can just visit your surpass

card and then upgrade to an Aspire. Other times you can't actually product change online,

so you would need to do an online chat and or like call up Alex and have them upgrade the card

to an Aspire for you. But yeah, definitely sort out the granular Aspire card before

didn't surpass. All right, Nick, I am planning a trip for two weeks, covering Copenhagen, Stockholm

and Oslo with a two-year-old. Do you have recommendations on where to stay, planning during July?

Well, I mean, the first thought that comes to my mind for that part of the world is

Trace's privileges, because they partner with what's now known as strawberry hotels, but it's

still Clarion and Clarion collection and comfort in type things. But those properties are nice

in Scandinavia, and just as is the case with Trace's privileges properties elsewhere, sometimes

you'll be able to find rooms that accommodate more people, larger rooms, sometimes even

suites available for the same cost as a standard room. I haven't looked at those properties in Scandinavia

for suites in a long time, so I don't know if top of my head if there are those everywhere,

but I know I've run into those situations before anyway where you'll find those larger rooms

that accommodate more people, though if it's just three of you, I imagine most rooms would probably

accommodate two adults in a small child. Anyway, so that's where I look first. Clarion collection

offers, and there's at least another brand that offers this too, offers both a free hot breakfast

and a free hot evening meal, which is a fantastic value, and if it doesn't sound amazing yet,

just wait until you go out to dinner and Oslo, and you'll be really happy about the idea of having

it included in your hotel bills. So that's one place I would recommend looking. Now,

if you're a good value shopper, and you're willing to do a little bit of extra work,

another potential option that doesn't get talked about a lot, but I've written about before,

is that Finair has a number of hotel partnerships in the Scandinavian countries,

where you can buy a voucher for a particular brand of hotel for a number of obvious and a cash

component. Now, the thing to know about this is whatever you see advertised on the landing page

for that is actually flexible. You can choose to pay more obvious or less obvious, and if you choose

to pay the least number of obvious, essentially, you can pretty easily come out with like 15 or 20

cents per point in value when you're looking at the Scandic Hotel vouchers and the Soca's hotel

vouchers. Some of the other brands you may not get quite as much, but again, there are opportunities,

and you'll find those brands in all of those cities that you just mentioned in this question. So

so that's that's another place to look. So if you look up Finair Scandic Hotels SCAN DIC,

you'll probably find the landing page and from there figure out what you have to click to look at all

the different hotel ones. The thing about those is that you get a voucher and you can only do it

up to six months in advance. It does show you on the website, though, the code that you have to use

to check for voucher availability. There's a couple of different vouchers like for Scandic. I know

there's a basic voucher for some properties and a premium voucher that works for other properties.

So it'll take you some time to research that, but can be well worth it. I did write a post about it.

So if you just Google frequent Myler Finair hotels, I'm sure you'll probably find it or hopefully

we'll get a link in the show notes here with a link to that post. So that's another option to

consider for award stays if you're looking for a good value. Great. I'll just add like two very

quick things. One is that Finair hotels and resorts and properties. There was some like somewhat

reasonably priced ones in Scandinavian countries. So if you have an MX Platinum or Business Platinum

and you have the $300 like twice yearly credits to use up, take a look at those. You've mentioned

as well that you're going to be going with a two-year-old. So I'm kind of assuming that there's

like two of you and a two-year-old. If that's the case, that could potentially limit your options

because a lot of hotels in Europe only let you have two people in a hotel room, but hopefully with

them being two years old, there might be a little bit more flexibility there, but I imagine that

we'll have some kind of impact on where you'll be able to book. So that in itself will probably

like the strain constraint where you can actually book anything. Yeah. Good point. All right,

moving on to Tim. What would you suggest if your P2 player 2 is very reluctant? I can't convince him

to open more cards. Is that something you've experienced and what would you suggest? I think that

everybody but Nick Reyes. Everybody not named Nick Reyes has experienced this. Nick has one of the

rare P2s who's really a P1 masquerading as a P2, and she's really taking Nick along for the ride.

She doesn't listen to the podcast, not good at any kind of thing. No, no. I'm not sure if she

looked at the podcast. Nick's next player 2 is somebody that everybody in this game like

NB says like, oh my gosh. She's liquidating gift cards for you on your monitor.

And remind me of Nick's fun. Yeah, I mean, you know, I, you know, this is relationship. And

I would, my first thing to say is that just like anything else in relationship, it's not worth

your relationship to try to get them to open up more credit cards. And you really have to pick

your battles. And so, you know, what I have, like for instance, my wife doesn't, we have a,

we've we've developed after years of negotiation and therapy and all this other stuff.

We, she can have three, she wants three cards. And that's all she wants. She knows she's

willing to do three cards in her wallet. And she'll spend on those three cards. So I've developed

a strategy around a three card strategy for her. You know, she's like, okay, here's, here's

what we can do. This is these are the three cards. And she's willing to have it rotate as long

she's having one three cards. But I think that in general, the thing is to just let your P2,

let your P2 be your P2. And probably as you get more into things, as you start to open cards,

as you start to take trips together, as they start to see what is happening, as they start to,

you know, as all of this stuff sort of, as you get more into the, the, the hobby, they will

probably become more comfortable with the idea of them opening more cards, or you sort of managing

that on their behalf. And it's funny. I just had a good friend of mine who was married to another

really good friend of mine. We'd gone a weekly walk together. And just this last week, he was saying

that for the first time ever they had ran out of, I think it was Delta Sky Miles or something.

And his wife had agreed to let him open up a card for the first time ever in her name.

And he was so excited about it. He's like, I feel like this is a whole new chapter in our

relationship. Right. But I think, you know, I mean, because, you know, the reality is, you know,

they're their own person and they have their own credit and they have their own, you know,

and it's not worth, it's, in my opinion, it's not worth trying to badger them into doing what

you think you should they should do, as opposed to just welcoming them into what you're doing.

And I think in the end, there will probably be some kind of meeting in the middle somewhere.

Yeah. And just as a like nice manipulation, maybe book a trip that would be like a dream trip

for them. And so I make it luxury. So try and fly business class and stay in a suite or something

like that. Because if you do something like that, there's a good chance they're not going to

want to go back and they'll be like, okay, I, I can see why people enjoy business class. I can see

why people like this luxury hotel. I'm, I'm getting on board like, like Tim said, like, even if they

don't necessarily want to be opening a whole ton of cards themselves, they might be willing

then to let you kind of manage that side of it. So I'm like, although it is manipulation,

really, it's benefiting them. And so it's a really manipulation at that point. So yeah, that's

just one. Don't go to Stephen for marriage counseling though. I think it's also helpful,

or at least for me, it was helpful because I was a somewhat reluctant P2 to demonstrate the increase

in credit score. Like, I don't know what different people have different reasons why they're nervous

about having more credit cards. But you know, if you, you know, help them understand that it doesn't

have to be something that tanks your credit score. And in fact, I can improve your credit score

than I think that's, that can take a lot of that nervousness out. Nick, did you have anything, Dad?

No, I mean, I, I thought that Tim hit the nail on the head. They, it doesn't matter whether

credit cards are anything else. You don't want to force an interest on somebody that they don't

have. And, and, you know, and to, or Stephen's point, I mean, demonstrating how it works and

allowing them to become interested in it on their own, you know, that, again, that probably is

effective with anything, whether you're interested in cooking or watching real housewives or,

or traveling with credit cards, whatever it is that you have an interest in the way to share

that with somebody is more so just share your enthusiasm rather than try to kind of shove it

down their throat. So I would, yeah, I think that you have to respect that as particularly in this

field. I think to Carrie's point also, a lot of people get nervous about opening new cards

and managing new cards and all the rest of that stuff. And so I think it's natural for people

to be hesitant. Also, though, it's probably natural for most people if they see that it's working

to be like, tell me more about that, actually. So, yeah, I think it's a smart strategy. Just

plan some trips and rather than try to force it on them, share when they ask questions and, and

don't, don't push it on them, let them become interested in it on their own. It's kind of like

what a leadership works, right? Don't forget to see why they want to do not everyone should be doing

this. So don't forget that, you know, there's some people who probably should be opening cards.

Yeah. So, you know, if someone is nervous because they know themselves, then definitely no

push it on them. Anyway, for sure. We're going to move on to Steven. Do the higher changes make you

reassess the value of chase ultimate rewards points to an extent. I guess it does just because

pretty much all of my chase points do get transferred to higher. That said, at the moment,

there's kind of no real way of knowing quite how bad this is going to be. We don't know yet

what the award calendar is going to be like. I'm quite how expensive it's going to be. I mean,

we know like how expensive it's going to be on a like numerical basis is to if something's like

top or moderate or lowest or whatever, but we don't know how that's going to be spread out over

the course of the year. And so once we have a better idea about that, then we'll have a much

better idea. And also like with the award category changes that are going to be coming up in April,

once that's all like a bit more clear and we've been able to do a bit more research and see

quite how bad or not how bad it is. At that point, I guess I'll like re-evaluate how I value

chase points because if it does kind of obliterate the higher program, then it might be that I'd be

more likely to transfer like ultimate rewards to error plan or something like that. But at the same

time, I think I still have a hard time not transferring it to higher. So I probably will stick

with high regard list. So to an extent, it doesn't necessarily matter like how like what the value

will be unless it does end up being abysmal. We hope you're enjoying the frequent

Mylar on the error podcast. Did you know that frequent Mylar is also a website?

At frequentmylar.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points,

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If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to frequentmylar.com forward slash

subscribe and sign up for free. All right, anyone disagree with that? Anyone want to fight

Stephen on it? All right, Nick, can I request a retention offer for my altitude reserve

and then product change a month later to connect? You can try. I don't... there's nothing

It's going to stop you from trying. I think US bank is less established in terms of the whole

retention offer thing because they've never really been known for wildly generous for retention

offers. And I also don't think probably that there were a lot of products where people were

asking for retention offers either. So it's not one that I have a great sense on in terms of like,

do they claw back a retention bonus? I would doubt that there that sort of with it and organized

to do that. I'm not aware of them, clawing back retention offers. So maybe you could do that.

And I also don't know what they make you agree to. Like American Express, I know, has a disclosure

that they read you or if you do this in chat that explains that if you accept a bonus,

that you're green to keep the card for 13 months or whatever it is and that if you close it sooner,

that they have the right to take the points back. I don't know what that disclosure is like,

or if it even exists with US bank. So I've not had the same type of disclosure with other banks

on retention offers in general. So I would doubt that US bank has anything like that. But I wouldn't

know unless you try to be honest with you. A great place to ask that question would be our

frequent Myler Insiders Facebook group because you'll probably find somebody in there who has done

it with US bank before and could tell you whether that worked. I will say though that we've had

some reports of people downgrading their altitude reserve and getting a pro-rated annual fee.

There are quite a few people who have reported that they've downgraded to the altitude connect

and gotten a pro-rated annual fee. And there was one person who commented today on the post we had

written about that to say that they had a card that renewed in November, I think, and they used

the annual travel credit right away in November, December just downgraded recently and ended up

getting the entire annual fee refunded, which they're surprised. So I wouldn't necessarily even

worry about stacking them here. But I guess that's the best I can answer is maybe. Does anybody have

a better sense? No. I don't know my guest bank. I know that, like you said, AMX will claw back

if you don't keep it for a year after. But I'm not sure. I don't know about any other banks.

I'll tell my head. All right. Then we'll move on. Tim, can I book Hyatt says now before the changes

take effect and later modify the dates while keeping the same redemption rate?

Well, I can't say with 100% surety. I can say with about 98.75% surety. Maybe even 99.75% surety

know. The only thing that we have to go on is past changes and category changes on all of those if

you change the dates after the change is going to affect you have to pay the new pricing.

All right. Anyone else have any thoughts on that before we move on? Same. Same. Look at

it. Steven, what is the best way to use Wyndham points nowadays? And do you see any new alignments

in the future to replace Vakasa? No sense. And if they'll be doing anything to replace Vakasa,

to be honest, I'm not too sure if there are all that many other vacation rental kind of conglomerates

out there that aren't Vakasa or I can't even remember what company it was that bought

and Vakasa it was something. Hasago, maybe. Hasago. Yeah. Hasago. Hasago. Hasago. Hasago kind of makes

sense. Yeah, it does. It does. But in terms of like best uses now, colleges.com, if you're going to

be traveling in the UK, you can get some superb value there. Stay in some like incredibly cute

little colleges. Like we stayed at one in the Arles Sky, which was an absolutely incredible year

ago. And they're like, they're just all over the UK. So that's one good option. Wyndham

properties overseas, I would recommend like values like redemption values in the US don't tend to be

all that good for the most part. But overseas, you can get some really decent value for 7,500

points. Like during the challenge last year, we stayed at a property of Munich during October

fest, only 7,500 points. But it was going to be like two, 300 bucks annoyed or something like that

otherwise. When I was researching for that challenge as well, I noticed that Dubai had some

incredible values as well. Like they had 7,500 point redemption, but much more expensive

not necessarily your best vacation option right now, especially in terms of just physically

being able to get there. But that's just one for the future. Bangkok in Thailand, I can't remember

what property it was. I think it might have been a gemada. And again, gemada overseas is way

different to gemada in the US. So don't let that scare you. But there was a 7,500 point property

that had like a full kitchen. There was one bedroom suite or something like that. So that to

could be some good value. And then, yeah, just in general overseas, you can find quite a few 15,000

point properties, 7,500 point properties that are much better than one simple point value. Plus

the Caribbean and a few other countries have some all inclusive properties. And so those can be

good redemption option as well. Oh, and Hawaii as well. Let me jump some points in Hawaii.

There's a few properties like that that are good. Let me jump in on that. If you're not married to

the idea of accommodation, you should also take a look at the Wyndham rewards experiences. If you

just Google Wyndham rewards experiences, they offer numerous different experiences you can book with

points. And in some cases, there are things that you just couldn't get otherwise. I am really

disappointed that I missed the chance there are several New York Rangers hockey games this year,

where you could get four tickets in the lower bowl and get a chance for two kids under the age of

like 13 to ride the Zamboni out on the ice. And I feel like that's so much fun. That's in points

for the kids. And I missed all of the day would have believed me. Sam or under 13.

All right. Good question. Good question. But they do other things too. In fact, I just today was

mentioning with the team here that they had a bunch of minor league baseball experiences.

I bought at some point minor league tickets for my sister and I was a big baseball fan to be like

the playball announcer at a minor league baseball game. And so that was kind of fun. Today I noticed

that the team in Frisco, Texas has these founders club tickets or something to their minor league games.

I think it was like 5,000 points for two tickets to a game that includes a full dinner and dessert.

It included unlimited hot dogs, hamburgers, beer and wine at the game, parking pass, all the

rest of that for 5,000 points, which you can sometimes buy for about $35. So yeah, pretty,

pretty Troy. So there's some things like that every now and then where I'm like, wow,

that's a great deal. If I was in Frisco, Texas, I would be going to some games. But I'm not in

Frisco, Texas. So I'm not doing that one, but worth looking at their experiences. They've said that

for this month, for members month, they're going to add more stuff to it. They've got tickets to

Lady Gaga's shows and Madison Square Garden. So there's some other cool stuff like that that you

might not have considered. And if you're not going to use your Wyndham points on a hotel, they may be

attractive. Yeah, there's some kind of music festival. I think it was in Florida. It's like some

kind of three day festival, 1,000 points. If you, I think it's like unlimited time, like there's

only a handful of tickets kind of thing, but 1,000 points for a three day like VIP pass to this

music festival. Wow. If you enjoyed the music, that's there would be a fantastic opportunity.

Yeah. Well, cool. All right. Great. Nick, this one's for you. So earlier, we talked about the

tools that help us kind of figure out transfer partners and all of that with award searches

for flights. This person wants to know, are there good award search engines for hotel award

stays? So, got into the AI is one that I know Greg uses a lot. I don't love it. I have not found

it to be always useful in finding the places that I wanted to find. But Greg's been using it a lot.

So I must be missing something. But gondola.ai will look for hotels and you can toggle on a switch

to look at the points pricing versus the cash pricing. And gondola uses our reasonable redemption

values, actually, to show you whether or not the hotel is a good value as compared to its reasonable

redemption value, which I think is super handy for people who don't want to do the math or aren't

familiar with the math or are new to the game and don't even know what the math is that they need

to be doing. So I think it's really useful from that standpoint for the places that it does find.

The other tool that I use quite a bit is Max My Point. And so Max My Point will show you calendars

for particular properties. So you kind of have to know what you're looking for to some extent.

And then you can look at award availability calendars. And so I find that useful both A to take a

look and see what's available, but B because I set alerts with it so that when a room opens up,

I can snag it. And that has helped me find rooms. I needed numerous times already where there was no

award available when I was searching, but I set up an alert. And in fact, just to kind of test it

out early on, I set up one of those and I still obsessively searched like all day for days and days

and days on end to see what I find it before Max My Point found it. And I didn't. So I was really

happy that I got the alert was able to book. So that's a tool I use rooms. arrow does similar stuff.

And so I haven't used rooms. arrow. I use seats. arrow all the time. I just haven't gotten in

the habit of using rooms. arrow, but that offers similar functionality in terms of being able to

set alerts. And I think perhaps it's even more useful if one of you guys uses rooms. arrow.

Maybe you can talk about that. So that's a little bit about what I use. And then if you have a platinum

card, Max My Point has Max F HR also. And that'll help you find F HR and hotel collection properties

and that I use all the time now to look for properties because I hate having to log into my

Amix account. It's like a slow process. And instead I can just pop in a country and some dates and

and look at what there is available for F HR hotel collection. I find it just to be a faster tool to use.

All right. Anyone else have anything to add there? Well, really quickly just to throw on the Max F HR

thing. I can't remember the name right off the top of my head. It it. Do you remember what the

tool is for the edit? It's like max. So Google frequent mileer. Oh, it's a weird name because

it sort of sounds like a like an adult side. It's like max x x x. Edit it. It's edit max dot com.

Edit max. But there's a x x ER dot com. That's true. But don't worry about the two x's. It's

actually completely safe for work. And that's also one that can help with chase the edit credits

as opposed to what Max F HR is awesome for F HR and and hotel collection stuff. But this is

that's also one that's good for it. The edit. All right. Now we're going to move on to

everyone. This is an all play, but we'll we'll start with Tim and I'm going to like reshape the

question a little bit. So this person says have or would you guys entertain having all of your

P2s again, that's player two on for podcast or and ask me anything so we could hear about their

experience through the shenanigans you play. So since we don't have them here, I'm curious

can each of you think of the one thing your P2 would say if they were on a podcast about like

the shenanigans they have to put up put up with Tim. What would what would your P2 say?

Well, my favorite my favorite P2 moment and it's and it's and I'm sort of disregarding a question

a little bit but a little but answering it in another way is she doesn't have a high tolerance

for the frequent mile around the air podcast. Shame or or a lot of frequent mile really, but it's

so much jokingly sometimes when we're like going around or something I might turn it on to say

oh hey I have this great you know and I'll turn it on and it's Nick and Greg and at one point

I think I think it was Nick talking about the Wyndham earner business card and like the various

like they were they were at one point we had a a segment called card talk where they would go

through like a specific card and talk about that and so Nick was talking about the I'm going to say

it's Nick who's talking about the various earning ratios and stuff and she's like you know what that

sounds like to me it sounds like the adults in the Charlie Brown shows where it's like A-Dex

true everything between the first sounds like fair totally fair Nick how do you feel about that

totally fair I understand so I think there's a fair but so what I give her crap about though is

like she is like incredibly on the Starbucks rewards program

and I'm like how is it that this is the one that captures the attention but anyway I don't know

I don't know so coffee is an addictive substance so totally totally but so Nick next even

what would your P2 say I mean we already know kind of what Stevens would say because she she

helped Stephen and Shade Pepper were the world champions of the 2025 annual challenge

yes so Stephen what do you think she would say if she was on a podcast specifically about

the shenanigans that she has to put up with I don't know I mean because she doesn't have to

get involved in too many shenanigans like she would be more than happy to come on a podcast and

stuff like that like she's way more entertaining to listen to than I am but I don't know I mean she's

for me like almost the perfect P2 maybe not quite as perfect as next P2 I'm like how much effort

she'll put into the earning side of it but Stephen just has nerve steel well we're happy

married for almost 22 years I can get it first you're advising everyone to manipulate your P2

and okay anyway sorry go on but like she's really great just because she's more than happy for

me to manage like the credit card side of things she will make phone calls like like if needed I do

try to like reduce the need for that kind of thing but yeah if she does have to ever call up a

bank or anything like that she is willing to do that and like back when we were living in the U.S.

and things like that if we were going to like an office depot or going to Costco or something

like that she's like do I need to come in with you and if I said yes but then she would like come

in and be willing to do that and stuff like that and so plus I think I can imagine it being

pretty hard if you have two people really deeply involved in the game just because then especially

when it comes to award booking I can imagine there being kind of like conflict as to no this is

the better option list the better I want to be fine like this business class now I want to be

flying this business class and like this location is better this hotel speeds better and things

like that because she is happy to leave that up to me then like I can try and make the best decision

like for us for like how we like to travel and things like that without us like having to like

have any kind of like conflict as to like whose idea is better and things like that so overall it's

like a great situation for me so redeemed you redeemed yourself all right Nick what do you think

your P2 would say in the interest of time what I'm going to tell you is when this can I saw this

recently someone I don't know if I saw this particular question I came from someone else and

and I told her that someone had brought up the idea of the player too is coming on ask us anything

she looked at me and she said did you tell them that I'm not awake past nine o'clock at night

that's a good one that's a good one so yeah so I don't think you'll be hearing from her on this

at mean time soon because she is not a night all like some of the rest of us right like like

Stephen over there at 2 a.m. his time zone yeah yeah now yes all right well speaking of which

thanks so much for joining us all we've come to the end of our time again we do this the first

Wednesday of every month at 9 p.m. Eastern time join us ask your questions we've really enjoyed it

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