Summer travel this year is shaping up to be an absolutely expensive, chaotic, shrill time. Luckily, we have the cheat codes for avoiding (some of) it. Recorded live at the Ludlow House in New York City for On Air, Max Chafkin and Stacey Vanek Smith, tap Bloomberg travel czar Nikki Ekstein and The Points Guy’s Brian Kelly to provide some understanding, wisdom and good old fashioned travel hacks to lower your anxiety.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, Everybody's Business listeners, I'm Max Schafkin and.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I'm Stacey Vannox Smith, and we.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Have a special treat for you. We hosted a live
show at the Ludlow House in Lower Manhattan a couple
days ago where we talked about the current state of
summer travel.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, it is a little bit bleak out there. Stuff
is changing all the time, people are stressed. But here
at Everybody's Business, we really did get the best of
the best to help you navigate your summer travel plans,
including Bloomberg's very own travels are actual title Nikki Eckstein.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I've gone back and forth. I keep thinking that's
a joke, but it's not. It's not a joke and
I love it. And of course, the one and only
the super Saver himself, Brian Kelly aka the Point Sky Stacy.
He was throwing so many ideas. I was regretting not
having a notepad with me because there were so many
good ideas.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, there was. There is no lack of information, no
lack of tips, no lack of tricks. So yes, get
out your pencil and paper or your phone or whatever
you used to take notes and let's all make the
skies a little more friendly together.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Enjoy.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
So, without further ado, the hosts of Bloomberg Businessweeks Everybody's Business,
Max Chafkin and Stacy vannick Smith.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hello, Lovelow House. Nice to see you all. How's everybody doing? Stacy,
I cannot believe they let us into this place. It's
it's like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's nice. It's technically on the list.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
It's true. We were not on the list. I am Max.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Cha.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
For those who don't know, I'm Stacy Vanicksmith and this
is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Thank you very natural. Uh. Some of you have probably
heard of our podcast, but for those who haven't, we
have a weekly show where we try to demystify the
world of business, money, economics. We are our show, Stacy,
I like to think of it as the friend in
your group chat that knows about business stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, we try to like answer questions, clarify things, make connections,
business and economics. It's all around us. It impacts our
lives whether we want it to or not, especially when
it comes to things like travel.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Early May this is the time we thought, this is
when everybody is starting to think about the summer. What
are they gonna where are they gonna go, where are
they gonna fly? And how much is gonna cost? And
the reality is it's it's bad. But we've got two
great guests to talk about that. Bloomberg Travels are Nikki Xtein.
She's gonna sort of unpack this frustrating travel moment. And
(03:08):
then Stacy, I know you're excited about this.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yes, we've got Brian Kelly, aka the Points Guy. I
don't think my dad has ever been as excited about
a person I've talked to ever in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
We texted Stacy's dad backstage with a video from Brian
and he was completely freak you know. I was like,
what do you say, TPG?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yes? Oh yeah. He was like, you're talking to TPG
And I was like what, Yeah, longtime devotee as are
many of us?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Okay, and so we'll talk to them, we'll have some questions,
then we're gonna have a game. But before we get
to all of that, yes, first off, question, who has
a trip booked this summer?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
At show of hands? Okay, now another show of hands,
how many of the people who have trips booked this summer,
are nervous those plans might change. Okay, so people are
pretty confident in this crowd. Now a last question. How
many people in the audience are happy with the price
(04:08):
they paid? How many of you are happy with the
price you paid for? No one is happy? Person value
That might be Brian happy with the price paid.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
All right, let's get into it. Let's bring up Nikki
Nikki Eckstein. She should be joining us here she is,
She's walking up Bloomberg's travels are I actually didn't realize that, Nikki.
That is your like official title. That's what it says
on your business cards.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
It does, It says, guys, Bloomberg's business cards don't actually.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Have but if it did, it would travel.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
That is actually my my title, travels Ar. I always
salute When I said, I.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Don't know what you should salute a tzar, I imagine
it wasn't I like invention of a title.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
Bloomberg has czars, which is kind of a funny thing.
But yes, I'm the travel czar at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
All right, well it seems like a good kick.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
First question I want to ask you, Nikki, is like,
where are you on travel? I mean, you are the czar.
This is what you do for a living. How are
you what is your plan for this summer and sort
of how are you feeling about it?
Speaker 6 (05:22):
Oh, Max, it's such a cute question. I'm having a
baby in July, completely exagerated from summer travel this year.
I am medically not cleared to fly beyond the end
of May, and I won't be back at it until September.
So this is a hilarious time for me to be
a person who's talking about summer travel. What I can
say is that I am not envious of what people
(05:44):
are paying for their summer travels, and actually I am
right on trend with summer travel by traveling and what
we call the shoulder seasons. So traveling in May and
September as opposed to like the peak summer months is
usually a way to save money.
Speaker 7 (05:57):
But I don't know.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Europe is already completely mobbed with Americans. I have colleagues
in the Amalfi Coast right now and in the Greek Islands,
and they are packed to the gills with American travelers.
So shoulder season is a very known hack at this point,
and I am joining that movement by definition.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Also potentially joining the staycation movement.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
Also joining the staycation movement.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
This is true, how much like what kinds of things
have been changing travel?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Obviously we're in we're going into month three of the
attack on Iran and oil prices being so high and
flights even starting to get canceled and jet fuel price
is going up. How much is that changing things right now?
Speaker 6 (06:41):
Well, you have to remember that this is just like
the latest thing that travel businesses are contending with in
a many years long series of events that started with COVID.
If you go back to twenty nineteen, travel was at
this all time high in twenty nineteen, the numbers everywhere
were record setting, and then twenty twenty shut the entire
world down. We don't need to rehash that territory that
(07:03):
we all still remember too well.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
But then you had the revenge travel.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Then you had revenge travel, and it was a little crazy.
But when the conflict opened up between Russian and Ukraine,
the demand for long haul travel was really impacted because
airlines had.
Speaker 7 (07:17):
To take longer routes to avoid the airspace.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
It's a lot of the same stuff that we've been
rehashing now at the Iran war. Although this kind of
brings it all up to a different degree. But if
you think about like the number of big catastrophic things
that have affected travel over the last few years, it's
been one after another. We've not had stable, you know,
a long stable period for a while.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I feel like when you're talking about this, you kind
of have to acknowledge the Trump of it all. So
I wrote in our notes Trump related crises, So you so,
and that kind of starts. I think with the war,
maybe it doesn't start, but probably the most important thing
you alluded to it is the war in Iran, which
has done two things as far as I can tell.
One of them is it's totally messed up traveled in
(08:01):
Middle East. Dubai, of course, is a major international hub.
When you have you know, bombs flying, that's going to
make things difficult. And then prices, I mean, the prices
have been out of control. I guess I haven't mentioned
those lines, the TSA lines that was another thing shutdown.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
I mean, that's like a lot of the big stuff.
It Also, I think people feel like there's a lot
of shifting geopolitical things happening, so that can also complicate travel.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
This is like a butt wait, there's more right because
think about Doge slashing budgets just a year ago. That
was the beginning of all of our FAA issues.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
Good news for anybody.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
The DHS shutdown obviously has impacted security situations throughout US
airports this year. But also don't forget the situation that
unfolded in Venezuela right over New Year's which left so
many people that I knew in my circle stranded in
different islands. They were all trying to get back after
winter break as school was restarting, you know, after the holidays,
and people got trapped. They were stranded sleeping in airports
(09:08):
for three, four or five nights.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Sleeping in airport. I was like, can you call it
trapped if it's a Caribbean islands?
Speaker 6 (09:12):
Sounded nice on the surface, but it was pretty terrible
for a lot of people. And there were a lot
of travel expenses that people lost out on that were
not recouped by travel insurance. It's been a pretty messy
couple of months or year or year in change or
five years.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So one of the things that we talk about a
lot on the show is what they call the K
shaped economy. That is that the wealthy part of the
economy is getting wealthier and wealthier, and the less wealthy
part of the economy is like getting less and less wealthy.
Now you have explored both parts of the K in
your job, what are some of the ways that people
(09:49):
can I guess, for the upper part of the K
and the lower part of the K get around some
of these complications because it does seem like obstacles are
coming at you all the time. But you have looked
into some of these hacks.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
Okay, so we want to do hacks, all right. Let
me just like say one thing, which is that the
K shaped economy is very real in travel, but is
also idiosyncratic in travel. There's a lot of data that
goes to show that the last expense that people cut
from their budgets now post pandemic is travel. Really yes,
(10:24):
so as much as there are a lot of different industries,
including retail and restaurants, et cetera, that have been really
really hit hard by the kind of radical two ends
of the K shaped economy, in travel it's a little
bit different. What we're seeing is a bifurcation of luxury
and ultra luxury, and everybody who doesn't normally pay for
(10:45):
luxury has to figure out how to come up to
that basic level.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
That's now where things start.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So this kind of gets back to I promise you
we will talk about ways to have better travel. But
this is another area where travel has been tough because
you know, anytime I'm in an airport, now I see
these lounges, and I'm not a lounge person. I don't
know about you all, I will not darken the door
of an airport.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Lounge, like on principle unless forced.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Basically, yeah, yeah, kind of on principle. But but part
of the reason is that, like you look at the
line and you're like, wait, maybe maybe non.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Principle or just you don't want to pay to go
into the lounge.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's all the things.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
Because Max Fly Spirit, I see Max Well Spirit lines
on the lounge and I think to myself, what are
you doing?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You're waiting?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Have you been into a lounge?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But like it does seem like there's overcrowding in these lounges.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
There is definitely overcrowding in the lounges. First of all,
there's a lot more lounges, but there's also a lot
more people who can get into them. You can also
pay your way into a lot of lounges, and so
things that used to be properly premium and VIP have
been diluted to the fact where like you just pay
fifty bucks.
Speaker 7 (11:53):
And you're in the door.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
That's no longer luxury. It's an expectation among many people
that they can just pay those fifty bucks and get
in the door, or have the right credit card in
your wallet and get in the door. And so these
are no longer exclusive spaces, and that's made them less
appealing for a lot of people.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
Who used to use them. Right, what I'm saying the
Spirit crowd well, and that's the.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Other thing, the sort of dominance of these big carriers.
They've done very well right with getting people to pay
more money to sit in the front of the plane
and extracting more money from consumers. And the result is
they've killed my favorite airline, Nikki Spirit air Rip to
a real one. It is very sad for those of
(12:35):
us who appreciated the banana colored airplane.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
Okay, I pulled a couple of stats because I do
think that these are stories that are really well told.
In numbers, Since January twenty twenty, the number of scheduled
business class seats on domestic US flights has gone up
by twenty seven percent.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
What is scheduled business class seats?
Speaker 6 (12:53):
That means that the number of available seats in the
front of the plane, okay, on routes that are flying
across the US has gone up by twenty seven percent.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Are planes are putting in more seas so they're like
luxury loading.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
They're luxury loading the plane. That's exactly right. At the
same time, you know, there's a price for that. The
economy seats are coming out, right, So those premium seats
are growing three times faster than economy seats because there's
more seats overall, Like airlines are getting more planes, there's
more planes to fly, there's more seats, there's more people
in the skies. But the business class seats and the
(13:26):
premium seats are growing three times faster than the economy seats.
Speaker 7 (13:30):
And then we've all heard like, you know, United's getting
these new planes. They're going to have all these different.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Features, basic business blah blah blah. We'll talk about that later,
I'm sure, but for every one of these new planes
are taking out sixty five economy seats and putting in
thirty premium seats.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
So this just gives you a sense of what's going on.
What's really interesting is.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Part of the K it's squeezed. So the at least
flying the lower part of the K is squeezed. There
are just fewer options now Spirit's gone. Yes, sorry Max.
And this is happening also in hotel.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
In hotels, it's happening too. People don't think about this way.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
What does that mean? Describe this situation in a hotel version.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
When hotels get renovated, they are oftentimes ripping out the
smallest rooms, knocking down walls between them, and creating bigger ones.
Because there's more demand for suites and for villas these
days than there is for basic rooms. It's not enough
to stay at the hotel anymore.
Speaker 7 (14:24):
You've got to stay in a suite. You've got to
have a terrace, you've got to.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
Have an ocean view, you got to be able to
brag about it all. And so hotels are actually retooling
their footprints to get rid of those entry level rooms
and put in more suites.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
It feels like things are getting more and more out
of reach. If you're just a normal person, like what
if you just love to travel, but you don't have
luxury travel money.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
You take fewer trips and you spend more on them,
is what most people are doing.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And now Spirit's gone, and now Spirit's gone little known.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
In fact, they do have a business class in Spirit.
It's called a big seat. That's not it may be one.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Also, I appreciate that you keep talking about them in
the present tense, like there's like if you're are you
manifesting that they come back?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I am.
Speaker 7 (15:10):
The wound is fresh, Nikki.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
We're gonna have a whole segment at the end of
this show where we compete to give the best travel hacks.
And I know you've saved one really good one for them.
But as you are are talking to friends and family
and trying to give them suggestions of how whatever to
make the most of their travel dollar, how to deal
with some of these issues, why don't you hit us
with some of yours? You got it?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah, we want acts.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
So I'm not a person who plans my travels with AI,
not yet, probably not ever. But Google Flights is a
really really good product that helps you find cheap fares,
and you can talk to it like you would talk
to chat GPT to give it parameters like help me
find a cheap flight within a three hour flight radius
of New York, or you know, whatever stipulations you want
to give it. Just for some examples of things that
(15:57):
I found on it today, Memorial Day flight from New
York to Nantucket. We're down fifty eight percent over there
from their average prices. Two hundred and thirty three dollars
per person to Nantucket same weekend to Hilton Head Island
was one hundred and eighty seven dollars. Like these are
super reasonable prices.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
So do you what is this just like regular Google
or what is this slight flight deals Google flight deals
for Yeah? Interesting, that's what If you just talk to
it and you say, hey, I want to go to Nantucket,
that is awesome.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
Find me a place where the prices are really good
for this upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Here's the hack, though,
It's not just finding the cheap flight on Google flight Deals.
It's then taking that flight that you've identified that's cheap
and booking it with.
Speaker 7 (16:38):
A travel agent.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Why.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
The travel agent doesn't cost you anything to use, and
it is so crucially important to have somebody that you
can call in the event of a cancelation or something
goes wrong in the middle of your your.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Talking about actual human being now like cuctual human being.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
I had a flight.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I feel like I don't even know how to find
a travel agent anymore.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
Oh we got to talk, Okay, I'm going to hit
up like my old job from more than a decade ago,
but Travel and Leisure, where I worked for a long
long time, runs a wonderful list of travel advisors. That's like,
depending on where you want to go, you can find
somebody that specializes in the place that you want to
go to. And that's I still as an alum of
(17:21):
that magazine who used to edit that product. That's still
where I find travel advisors who are not like already
in my network. I would recommend that. But yeah, I
had a flight canceled that left me stranded in Milan
pretty recently, like just a couple of weeks ago, and
I called Bloomberg's travel desk because I was traveling for work,
and they were the ones that got me rebooked on
the next flight out. Like, having that human support when
(17:43):
things go wrong is critical right.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Now, how much does that cost if you're not going
through work, Like, how much does it cost to hire
a travel agent.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
Nothing usually, how is that possible?
Speaker 6 (17:53):
You take commissions off of your hotel bookings and your
flight bookings, but it doesn't cost you a penny. They
have deals with the airline and the deals and deals
with hotels as well, and those deals will, oftentimes at
hotels anyway, get you lots of perks like free breakfast
or a room upgrade if it's available.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
It would see to you nothing to a sweet.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Okay, we got to bring up Brian, but give us
and we'll bring you back Niki. But before we do,
give us one more, one more suggestion here, one more
travel hack.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
I'm gonna say this might be the summer to entertain
a cruise.
Speaker 7 (18:27):
We like, I.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Haven't gotten the haunt to lately, and so.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I was gonna say, I guess the prices are gonna lower.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
I don't think hantavirus that one outbreak I'm hoping is
contained and I'm hoping it's not like proof of something
terrible that's gonna happen in this world.
Speaker 7 (18:44):
But honestly, like, I'm not a cruiser.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
It's not the way that I have chosen to travel
in the past, but it is so attractive at a
time when hotel prices in Europe are so stratospheric. I'm
talking like two thousand dollars a night is an easy
barrier to break in prime destinations. You can pull up
to those same prime destinations in a cruise ship. For
a very very luxurious ship, you might be spending six
(19:07):
hundred dollars a night, including all of your food, including
all of your water activities. Look at Explora, it is
a very very high end new line that's doing thirty
percent off right now. Ritz Carlton Yacht Collection. It feels
like you're on a yacht. It's a thousand dollars a night,
but it comes with twenty four hour room service, butlers,
terraces in every suite. Every room is a suite like
(19:30):
compared to what you get on land. They're good values.
I know it's one thousand dollars a night. I just
said that's a good value. That's the world we live in.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
When something like this happens, like the hant virus outbreak,
what does a cruise industry do.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
They cut prices?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Is that is that right? Or like how do they
get people to like go back on the ship. I
mean this came up during COVID as well.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
I think one isolated incident is not going to change
it anything for the industry. The cruise industry has been
so resilient despite everything that it went through, and I
don't think that they're feeling pressured by this one kind
of anomaloust thing that has happened. Now, if huntavirus started
showing up on cruise ships all over the world, we'd
have a completely different story.
Speaker 7 (20:16):
And I don't want to think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
These don't drink us. Yes, all right, we will send
you back into the audience. We'll bring up.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The Points gott Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And then but you got to stick around. Yes, seen everybody.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Hello, Hello, Hello, Brian Kelly, Welcome.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Excellent, thank you for being here.
Speaker 8 (20:45):
I'm an optimist.
Speaker 9 (20:46):
I'll just tell you that I have a more upbeat
view of things, although you know, certainly there's a lot
of drama out there.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Oh I'm excited to hear this.
Speaker 8 (20:53):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I feel like for people Brian who don't know you
and who maybe have maybe they've seen your website, the
Points guy, but give us your origin story. I mean,
you are this like you're basically like a superhero of
figuring out like which credit cards and which freaking flyer
and programs and making the most of it. How what
is your origin story.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
For my story?
Speaker 9 (21:14):
Yeah, my story starts the year was nineteen ninety five.
I was twelve years old and my dad had a
job as a consultant traveling across the country. And I
was one of those kids in the nineties. This is yeah,
early nineties. I was on AOL Prodigy. I was a
little hacker, and my dad actually said he had hit
it to start booking his own travel, and he paid
me ten dollars per flight to book and he thought
(21:35):
it was very complicated, but Travelocity had just come out,
so I was able to book his flights in like
a minute and he was paying me ten dollars.
Speaker 8 (21:43):
So that was like my first side hustle.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So I started jazz.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
I started booking my dad's travel, and then one day
he said, I have all these frequent flyer miles on
American and US airways. I'm one of four kids. Our
trips growing up were, you know, car rides to the
outer banks. I grew up outside of Philadelphia, but I
always wanted to try the world and I had just
read the book The firm by John Grisham, where a
lot of it takes place in the Cayman Islands. So
(22:06):
here I am at age twelve, and I'm like, I
don't want to go to Florida. That's basic, you know.
The little Queen and me was coming out.
Speaker 10 (22:13):
You want to?
Speaker 8 (22:14):
I wanted to.
Speaker 10 (22:16):
I didn't want to end of shell corporations exactly. Offshore
finance is like a big kank. So I called up.
He had us ARA and American miles. I have three siblings.
I figured out how to get my dad and three
siblings NonStop Philly to Grant. Came in my mom and
I I booked using his American miles, and then I
had to figure out where to stay. Hotels and Grant
(22:37):
Cayman are exorbitant, and there was a new little site
called Verbo that had just launched.
Speaker 9 (22:42):
So I booked us. A doctor in New Jersey had
this cute two bedroom villa on the beach. It was
like twelve hundred dollars and to this doctor, he was
just happy he was getting, you know, people.
Speaker 8 (22:55):
To rent his villa.
Speaker 9 (22:57):
We were on the beach in Rum Point, which if
you ever go to the Cayman Islands, you got to
go to rum Point. It is this idyllic northern little cape.
So I end up booking this whole trip. I had
a panic attack the night before because once again I'm
twelve years old planning an international trip. But I arrived
and my dad gave me the biggest hug. He was like,
this is incredible. We had the most unbelievable week our
(23:18):
family together. Now, mind you, my dad was traveling a
ton for business, so he wasn't home a lot. So
every year our bonding was using his points to take
our family on a trip.
Speaker 8 (23:28):
So we do.
Speaker 9 (23:29):
Barbados came in. So this is all in the nineties.
My dad and I were points people. We didn't I
had no idea that there was a world of people
doing this. Wasn't until I went to college University of Pittsburgh.
I become student body president. I study abroad, and then
one day my us arewa's account was gold and I
remember I was like, I have gold status and I
have no income, and I'm getting upgraded. And back in
(23:49):
two thousand and three, gold status was, I mean, you
get upgraded NonStop. So I Google or dogpile whatever the
search was back then, and I found flyer Talk and
Flyer Talk for those who don't know, is like Reddit
for hardcore frequent flyer. It is a community that's real.
Yeah people are your people, Yeah, there are my people.
It was like finding alien life. I was like, Wow,
(24:11):
there's people out there doing what I do. Like my
dad and I, we would cut like serial boxes. We'd
have our family members send in serial box tops because
you used to be.
Speaker 8 (24:19):
Able to get American miles. So I dove deep into
that world.
Speaker 9 (24:23):
Move to New York and O six, start working in finance,
and O seven long story short, I'm my job is
at Morgan Stanley, traveling around the US convincing computer science
grads to work at Morgan Stanley. Now you can imagine
the years oh seven, eight, the economy collapses. Not a soul,
not a computer science when Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Bloomberg, who
(24:45):
I would compete against. No one wanted to work at
Morgan Stanley, which was you know, in finance. But they
told me we have to hire these tech grads, so
spend whatever you have to do.
Speaker 8 (24:55):
So I had my corporate MS.
Speaker 9 (24:56):
No expense limit, and I had to whine and dine
and fly every week fifty students in for interviews, all
on my corporate card, and I called up one day
and I said, can I get the points for this?
And they were like, mister Kelly, you can, but it's
ninety five dollars a year. And I'm like, wait, hold
up a second. I'm spending like one hundred thousand dollars
a month because I'm paying for all of the students'
hotels to when they came and interviewed. I'm paying for
(25:19):
the intern lunches, and I'm a points person. So there's
so many ways that I was taking all the interns.
We would only eat at restaurants. There's special restaurants where
you can get extra points. To this day, it's called
Rewards Network. We were only eating at this random Brazilian
Trusco area a s. The interns were like, we don't
want Brazilian food again during eight Brazilion. It's cultural anyway.
(25:41):
So I start banking tons and tons of miles. I'm
not making a lot of money because I'm in HR
during the crisis, but I lived this unbelievable life lying
around the world in first class. All my friends were like,
you do realize, like being twenty seven and flying, you know,
I flew with Madonna one weekend, you know, first class
to London. She was amaze. That's a story for another time.
(26:02):
Really yeah, I thought it was Rachel Zoe. It's it's
your way to and here's a hack. Here's a hack
that's very important. Never take your sleeping pill before the
plane takes off because we're flying to London. I take
my ambient because it's a short flight to London in
the summer, and my ambience kicking in. I'm putting my
bag in the front and I can't curse. But like
(26:22):
Madonna walks on the plane and is sitting in the
British Area's first class seat right in front of me.
Speaker 8 (26:27):
Mind you, as a.
Speaker 9 (26:28):
Gay boy in the nine years, the Immaculate Collection was
my jam and I'm just I look at my boyfriend
at the time, I'm like, am.
Speaker 8 (26:33):
I hallucinating it to Madonna? And she was really cool.
Speaker 9 (26:38):
In the morning. I talked to her briefly and she
called me sweetie. So that was like a life highlight.
But that's like what Points were able to get for me.
So in twenty ten I started The Points Guy. Was
not even a blog. It was a travel agency where
people would pay me fifty bucks and I would plan
them trips. So that was just my way to make
extra money because I wasn't making it.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
You know, in my h art, it's like what your
dad was paying you to do.
Speaker 9 (27:00):
Exactly the exactly, So I just started doing it for
other people to me figuring out how to use points
as like a crossword puzzle. Right, I got immense satisfaction
when you crack the code. Still, sixteen years later, I
still love that. I still fly almost exclusively on points.
And so, yeah, I started it. I started blogging a
couple months later in twenty ten, and then it just
(27:20):
sort of blew up. About six months later, a year
after my first blog post, I left Morgan Stanley to do.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
This full time.
Speaker 9 (27:26):
And now we've got you know, one hundred and fifty
employees and millions and millions of readers.
Speaker 8 (27:30):
So it's been quite a ride.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
There have been and we at BusinessWeek have have written
about this. There are these like credit card wars, right,
so the maybe I'm getting my history wrong, but you
had the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and then there are a
bunch of other cards at Amex Platinum, and they're all
competing furiously basically to attract I think people like you
or people who are kind of points aware, maybe not,
(27:55):
they're not full on points.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Maxers points curious.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I'm kind of curious. How do you take advantage of
that competition?
Speaker 10 (28:04):
Now?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
As like a consumer is somebody you know who maybe
isn't at your level of points maxing, but would one
day like to get there.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
Yeah, so I'm a hack one on one. It's just
you've got to get into the points game.
Speaker 8 (28:15):
It is not over.
Speaker 9 (28:16):
Don't tell yourself that though you know, I do not
lie to you. When I started in twenty ten, there
was a whole narrative points are over. People literally said
to me in twenty ten, they're not worth that, points
aren't worth anything more. Blackout date And I'm like, that's
when I went into the media and I was like,
all these bozos in the media, you just don't know
how to play the game. And the game changes, the
game will constantly change, but I assure you it is
(28:40):
still available for play. When so back to your point,
the banks will give you thousands of dollars for free. Now,
mind you, there are ten solid banks with each five
solid cards minimum each. There are no shortage of credit
cards out there. If you have good credit, and you
should actually thank yourself. If you don't have a lot
of credit cards right now, that's a great thing because
you can reap that thousands of dollars and.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Get it two cards credit cards do you have?
Speaker 9 (29:04):
I have thirty credit cards and over eight hundred credit score.
Because what you learn is that the more credit you
have and the less you use that's your debt to
credit ratio, the higher your score goes. So by getting
more credit cards, now, mind you, you have to pay
them off in full every month. If you're paying interest
on any of these high interest cards, you're going to
lose the value of the points. But the banks are
(29:25):
in such competition for your business. You know today Chase
Sapphire Reserve is going to give you one hundred and
fifty thousand points for getting that card. Those one hundred
and fifty thousand points minimally are worth three thousand dollars.
You can even get much more when transferring to other
partners plus that card. You may say it's got nine
hundred dollars fee or eight hundred dollars fee, the fee
(29:45):
is not actually that high when you get all the
other perks that come along with it. So and Chase
even will let you get that card if you have
the Sapphire Preferred. They actually just change the rules a
couple months ago, saying we want people to have multiple cards.
So even if you had to sign up bonus on
their ninety five card, Chase openly encourages you to also
get it. They need more people to sign up so
(30:07):
you can get AMEX cards. Chase cards. Now, with Built
you can earn points on mortgage and rent, which is unprecedented.
When I started the Points Guy in twenty ten, earning
points with no fee for rent, I would have told
you you were crazy. You can do that today with Built,
no annual fee and no even if your credit card
charge or your landlords charges for credit cards. Built does
(30:31):
not process like a credit card. They get a direct
deposit or a venmo or a check. So when yes,
there is inflation when it comes to redeeming points. I
was in Berlin this weekend to fly Delta was one
million miles and Delta is pretty bad for that. So
there are certain programs don't go with the big US airlines.
(30:51):
Hack Number two I'll give is pay attention to foreign
frequent flyer programs. Air France has sixty thousand mile one
way business Class awards all summer along to Europe the
same exact flight on Delta's five hundred thousand points. So
it's about knowing which programs to interact with and not
just if you love Delta, great airline, but do not
(31:11):
get the Delta card and put all your spend on Delta. Instead,
get an Amex card which you can transfer to Delta
or thirty other partners. So get credit cards with big
sign up bonuses, but focus and put all of your
spend on the cards that allow you to transfer to
multiple partners. And you know, in twenty ten when I
started out, I had just had to have this knowledge
from years of flyer talk to figure out how.
Speaker 8 (31:32):
To do it.
Speaker 9 (31:33):
Now there are tools like point dot me which will
actually you can tell at what points you have you
want to go to Rome on this date, and it
will actually tell you the exact way to transfer for
the least amount of miles. It syncs up with tons
of different airlines. There's another tool, seats dot Arrow amazing.
It'll give you an entire year's worth of availability. So
if you have family in Paris and you're flexible on
(31:53):
what days to go, you can click one button and
have the entire year of JFK and Newark to Paris
and sort it by damium, economy, economy, and then pick
and choose where you go. You go one way air France,
where it's cheap, you find another way that's Jet Blue.
Jet Blues partners with Qatar, which is a transfer partner
of all the credit cards. It sounds complex, but once
(32:13):
you start doing this you save thousands of dollars. And
final tip that I really have to get out is
one of the best changes of the pandemic was that
frequent flyer programs let you cancel free of charge. So
let me explain this to you. When you book an
award ticket on most airlines, it's like booking a fully
refundable ticket. Some airlines might charge you fifty bucks to
(32:33):
get your miles back, but in general, all the US
programs so you can book placeholder awards. Say you got
to go to a wedding in Europe. It's two hundred
thousand United miles. Okay, you could book that, but as
the price drops, you can rebook it when it gets
lower and lower, and the airlines. A trend that you'll
see when you start booking awards is in the week
of travel. If there's open seats on the plane, they
(32:55):
drop to the Saber level. Coming back from Berlin this week,
when I was booking, it was two hundred miles, but
it was sixty eight thousand, which is the cheapest amount
three days before, because the airlines need to fill every seat,
and they hope that you don't keep checking, So keep
checking and reprice that award and get your miles back.
Or when air France opens up sixty k, you just
(33:16):
cancel your United award and get all those miles back.
So once you start having these miles that can transfer
into all different programs, you start learning to fly one
way on one airline. And this also works for when
you're stranded when the airlines cancel your flights and there's
a mile long line. I have never once waited in
those lines. The second I think that my flight's going
to get canceled, even if it's not, I immediately book using
(33:39):
points on two other carriers that day.
Speaker 8 (33:41):
If I really have to get.
Speaker 9 (33:42):
Out if my flight ends up getting canceled, which it will,
I've already booked the last.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
Remaining seats before you can even wait in line to.
Speaker 9 (33:49):
Get it, because if I don't need those seats, I'll
cancel before departure and get it back for free. So
being on the offense is how you win at the
points game.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
I feel like I should be taking a lot of notes.
Speaker 8 (33:59):
Well, I think this is recorded, so I think we'll
be here.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
H No, this is good. My question is this, so
twelve year old you booking this this trip for your
family and kind of using this system that eventually you
developed into your career. Could you do that? Like what
would twelve if you were twelve right now? Could you
do the same thing? Because it sounds like I think
(34:22):
your brain works a little differently than mine. I feel
like you have like spreadsheets in your brain and it's
like the points go back and forth. I just feel
like quite sometimes overwhelmed by all of the like points
and moving things around and stuff like that. So is
it possible to do it if it's not like a
full time job?
Speaker 8 (34:39):
It is?
Speaker 9 (34:39):
And also there are there are companies that you could pay,
like that Point Me has a VIP concierge you can
pay I think it's one hundred fifty dollars a ticket,
and so you can pay other people to do it,
and paying someone one hundred and fifty to get a
business class ticket versus paying the nine thousand it costs today.
It kills me when people pay these full you know
fair and a lot of people are paying that price.
(35:00):
But like I said before, those tools like point me
in seats dot arrow when they're not that hard to learn.
And I'm telling you once you take that little step
to invest in these tools on how it's done, it
really is not that complex. But even if you don't
want to do the points transfer game by transferring your
Chase points to Hiatt and booking a free stay, you know,
(35:21):
thet all the credit card companies now will let you
book any flight at a set redemption chase. If you
have the Sapphire card, they have what's called points Boost,
so you can get up to two cents per point
when redeeming for certain flights, and it's like one cent minimum.
So even if you don't want to do the Wizardry
high level getting six cents per point, you can at
least be getting you know, one or two cents by
(35:43):
just buying your flights through a credit card agency.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
We should bring Nikki back up here. We are gonna
have a little bit of time for questions as Nicki
makes her way back to the stage, gets set up,
start thinking what do you want to ask? Nikki? Brian
stays for me. I can't imagine what we would have
to say, but we can try. I can tell you
about the Spirit snacks or whatever.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yes, I want to hear about the big seat.
Speaker 8 (36:16):
Big front seat.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
And actually, you know, I'm.
Speaker 9 (36:20):
Going to stand up for Spirit Airlines several times. They
serve a purpose. You know, It's like they're on time,
they're cheap. If you know how to play the game,
and you know, don't bring luggage and stuff. It served
a purpose. I never had a bad experience with Spirit, truly.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Dittoh okay, uh, there should be a microphone floating around
okay in the back. Yeah, so if you have a question,
raise your hand and we can I see I see
a hand raise over there.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Okay. Two questions, sorry, One is is it dumb to
pay for a credit card that gives you lounge access?
And then I'm curious how the private jet economy kind
of fits into this, because we were talking about how
low has gotten moreks like everyone's flying luxury, but I
feel like I'm also seeing a lot more people flying
private and I'm like, have the luxury travelers gone even
(37:08):
more luxury, and so now it's like everyone's moving up.
I'm just sort of curious how that.
Speaker 9 (37:12):
Plays well answered the lounge one, and maybe I don't
know if you have a perspective on the private jet
travel it is it depends how much you're going to
use that lounge access. So with most of the lounges
these days, I would put a very modest fifty dollars
value of going into that lounge. Most of the credit
card lounges you have open bar, decent food. Some like
(37:33):
the Chase Sapphire lounges have free facials for any member.
So the one at Laguardi is beautiful. The Capital One
lounge at JFK, by the way, I'll just say for
anyone want to get a credit card, especially New Yorkers,
the Capital one Venture ex is three hundred and ninety
five dollars. That card gives you three hundred dollars in
free travel a year, so it's a ninety five dollars
a year card. Every year, Capital one gives you ten
(37:54):
thousand miles just for holding the card. At the very minimum,
those ten thousand miles are worth one hundred dollars. So
if you do the math with me. The Capitol one
venture X pays you five dollars a year to get
lounge access to all of their lounges. So if there's
one entry level premium card that I can recommend unequivocally,
even if you'd ever even go to the lounge you're
making out ahead, it's Capitol one venture X. They have
(38:15):
a great in their lounge at JFK Terminal Force twenty
four to seven. So when I was flying to Peru
and my lat Ham flight was delayed five hours, that
lounge was open, which was like probably worth a thousand
dollars to me not having to be out with my
two children in the terminal. As far as the other
perks in these cards, you know, just how much are
you going to go into the lounge, how much you're
going to use it. They have high annual fees, but
(38:36):
these perks that you can get from these cards can
absolutely pay streaming. There's other memberships. You know, just sit
there and do the math, but never just take the
nine hundred dollars that the Platinum card is a year
and say, well that's just nine hundred, No, because you
can actually get very easily more than that in value
before you even take into account the lounge access. And
(38:57):
I'll just also add having these cards kind of what
Nikki mentioned is, especially the premium cards, you get another
level of customer service. You get protections. With the Sapphire
Reserve card, you can get ten thousand dollars in travel coverage.
So if you get sick or a loved one, does
you have built in coverage just by using that card
that Capitol and venture X card has coveraged. My son
(39:20):
messed up a twelve hundred dollars chair by using marker
on it, and vandalism is part of their purchase protection.
I got twelve even if it's your own son. Luckily
I didn't have to have a police report, but I saw.
You know, there's look through the perks on these cards.
There is purchase protection if you buy something online and
they don't let you return it. A lot of these
credit cards have return protection, which you would so you
(39:42):
start using a couple of these perks every year. The
lounge access they can absolutely pay and in general you
get better customer service as well. So when you're valuing
a card, there's a whole picture you need to look
at than just simply the lounge access.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
Okay, so I'm like really mad actually that you asked
about private jack because I don't I don't want to
like get ahead of things here, but I have a hack.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Okay, you're irrelevant.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
Yeah, but we're not playing our game yet.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Why don't you hold that thought? See if we have
one other question.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
I have a question about I appreciate all the strategy,
but I am like a it's a scam first kind
of mindset. So what are actually the scams to watch
out for?
Speaker 9 (40:23):
I mean, the scam is only if you get into debt.
I've never If you spend responsibly, there is no scam.
You have to, you know, maybe pay attention and make sure.
What if you get a card with perks that will
pay for your Apple TV, you must take one minute
and change your billing to that to actually get the perks.
So if you're not willing to do the bare minimum
(40:45):
and like read the benefits of a card and then
change like that, that to me would be the scam
of it all.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
So you have what on ease feel scam adjacent? What
sometimes the fees?
Speaker 9 (40:58):
So the scam would be transferring to loyalty programs that
then charge crazy fees so like you might see, British
Airways has like sixty thousand points to Europe, but now
a lot of them are raising their surcharges to crazy amounts,
especially with the increase in jet fuel. Not only airfare
the cost of buy a ticket, but the fees attached
to award tickets are going up. That can feel scammy,
(41:20):
especially if it's like an economy flight with nine hundred
dollars fee when you can buy it for eight hundred.
So you do have to be particular. Not all programs
are created equal, but I do stand on my tip
of transferring to the foreign frequent flyer programs. The Air France,
Air Canada Aeroplan will charge you about half of what
United often. Well, now, one other thing I'll mention because
(41:41):
the airlines hate that Amex and Chase and Built are
taking all the business. So the airlines are saying, well,
we're going to gatekeep our ward inventory and only give
it to our co brand card holders. So I would
never recommend spending all of your money on an airline
cob brand because you're going to earn that one airlines currency,
whereas you could be earning much more valuable currency that transfers.
(42:02):
But you might want to hold open an airline co
brand like with the United they have even no annual
fee versions, because that will give you access to a
whole new level of inventory. And just I would say
on the scam thing is elite status. Elite status these
days can be scammy where you have to spend twenty
thousand dollars, I call it the hamster wheel. I topped
off the hamster wheel years ago. I don't care about
(42:22):
elite status. I will fly the next I will fly
the best.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Well. I spent sparking on my credit cards, and I
have enough transferable points where mission by mission I choose
which points I'm going to use for which trip I
want to go on to fly the best flight, the
best route.
Speaker 9 (42:36):
When you're stuck in the airline hamster wheel of only
flying Delta to get your Delta status, and then you
want to go to the Maldives and you can't fly
Emirates because all your miles are with Delta, and you
realize that you're millions of miles or two tickets instead
if you would have spent on AMEX, you could have
twenty tickets. I mean it's that stark sometimes, So when
you go all in and don't think about your strategy
(42:56):
and spend on the right cards that you can end
up in a situation where you're like, this wasn't really
worth it.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I mean, I have to say when I hear this,
I feel like the scam is that you have. We
have to live in a world that you have to
optimize to this level.
Speaker 9 (43:11):
Your time and you know, I want everyone to understand,
this is the biggest privilege in the world. No other
countries like the United States when it comes to points
Europe does not have credit in the world. You will
never go to another points more Points friendly country. Sign
up bonuses in many parts of the world are max
thirty thousand miles and in the United States you can
get up to three hundred thousand. It is a bonanza here. Yes,
(43:32):
it sounds complicated, but I need you to understand having
a million options of credit cards to get is much
better than having none, right.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
Because nobody is willing to spend on travel like Americans.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Oh is that right?
Speaker 7 (43:43):
That is right?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
So okay, so last segment here, Yeah, we are going
to have a little game. We're going to each give
you a personal travel tip. Now, I think we've all prepared.
I hope Brian, you haven't given all years away yet,
have you?
Speaker 6 (43:57):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
No, okay, here now, there are three criteria that I
want the three of you and myself to think about,
and I guess the audience you will have to think
about this as well, because you are gonna be asked
to judge the criteria. We're gonna vote based on the
volume of applause.
Speaker 8 (44:14):
We have a.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Decibel meter ready to go, so it's gonna be very scientific.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, Jasmine is running the decibel meets.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
The criteria are as follows. So the first one is
cost savings. How much is this hack gonna hit my wallet?
How much is it gonna save me? The second one
is exclusivity. You know, what's a good hack if if
everyone's got it. And the third one, and I feel
like this is where it's gonna trip me up personally,
is consideration of fellow travelers, because if you are doing
(44:41):
a hack that hurts everyone else, that's that's not good
as well. So, Nikki, you started to give yours, why
don't you finish your hack for us?
Speaker 6 (44:48):
All right? Well, so let's let's do like a little
like guess first before I, like, you know, show my hand.
The question was about private jet travel and whether that's good,
you know, more.
Speaker 7 (45:01):
Popular, or is it just a perception.
Speaker 6 (45:03):
I mean, yes, people would love to instagram themselves on
a private jet. It is such a flex but it
is growing and it is also becoming more affordable to
at least some of us.
Speaker 7 (45:13):
So I asked my colleagues.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
This morning how much they think it costs to get
a seat on a private jet flying from the New
York area to the Miami area. The guesses in my
row Bloomberg has is like a very open concept office,
and everybody raised their hands like trying to guess. The
guesses ranged from eight thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars.
(45:39):
I was like, okay, we're talking about a one way
seat New York to Miami. They're like, yeah, that's probably
what it costs, right.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Well, yeah, you work for pursuits like these are people
with a free level of fluency and in luxury, Like.
Speaker 7 (45:52):
This is we pedal in luxury in our row. That's
our job. That's watch guy. There's a watch guy.
Speaker 6 (45:57):
He was the one that guessed fifteen in further upward
and then I said, okay, well, how about what if
you knew that the same flight New York to Miami,
if you booked it in the first class. I'm putting
air quotes around first class even jets tub no, no
on United. On United first class, which is a joke
(46:18):
on domestic flights, as many of us have learned, It's like, it's.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
No better than the big seat.
Speaker 7 (46:23):
It's the big seat.
Speaker 6 (46:24):
Okay, a flight in quote unquote first class on United
one Way five hundred and fifty dollars. Okay, So how
close do we think the private jet seat is to United?
Speaker 7 (46:36):
And my colleagues answer are fifteen cares.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
You said Miami area, and like, I feel like that's
a trick. We're not talking about Tampa or anything like that.
This is actual Miami.
Speaker 8 (46:45):
Miami.
Speaker 7 (46:45):
Private jets don't land in commercial.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Era, but it's from like three hundred miles away.
Speaker 6 (46:50):
I'm specifically looking at a flight that lands in Opa Waca,
which is like the main private jet hub in Miami.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Proper.
Speaker 6 (46:57):
Okay, So again, we think that private jet seat is
going to be somewhere between eight and fifteen thousand dollars.
United one Way five hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 7 (47:06):
Guess what.
Speaker 6 (47:08):
You can book a private jets seat for six hundred
and twenty five dollars.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Really js js X.
Speaker 7 (47:16):
This is something that.
Speaker 9 (47:19):
Ran I would say the more accurate, like that's like
a regional jet basically that flies out of private airport,
so it is much more easy. But you're getting like
regional jet type seat. But there are like the exojets
of the world that are real private jets, and it's
like twenty five hundred you can get seats for sometimes
(47:39):
like twenty I would say twenty five.
Speaker 7 (47:41):
Ran on my parade.
Speaker 8 (47:42):
Brian, Yeah, well you're technically I'm not saying.
Speaker 6 (47:46):
So hang on.
Speaker 7 (47:47):
Let's like let's get the full.
Speaker 6 (47:48):
Extent of this experience though, because it's not just the
seat that you got on the plane, which is like
a private jet light experience on board, but still you know,
like a business class seat going from New York to Miami,
but you're flying out of either like Teeterborough or Westchester airports,
which are these little private jet hubs.
Speaker 7 (48:04):
You basically drive right up to the hangar.
Speaker 6 (48:07):
The TSA experience is you walk through a scanner on
your way up the aircraft door.
Speaker 7 (48:12):
That's it. Pets, you can bring your dog and then
for all.
Speaker 6 (48:19):
The din quads out there, do you guys know the
word no double income.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
With a dog.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Now, audience, keep in mind that back and forth, because
I do think that complicated Nikki's tip. But but keep
that in mind. I think Stacey, you and I should
go next because our tips are better. And then we'll
say Brian for.
Speaker 8 (48:40):
The last one.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
My tip is very basic.
Speaker 8 (48:43):
I don't know it.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
I just white embarrassed to bring this up. But this
is my true travel hack. It's the only thing I got.
I'm yes, I so.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Just spit it out.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
My travel hack is packing cues because I can, I
can re old the judgment, but hear me out. So
I am a big believer in never checking a bag.
I think it keeps you loose when things change. You
never have to like you have you can run across
the airport, you can change flights, you can carry everything everywhere.
(49:18):
But I've even gone I've never even when I travel
for a long period of time. I went on a
like three week trip, and I just took a little time,
like the smallest little roller bag and a shoulder bag,
and then you can like wash your clothes in the
hotel and.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Use what specifically do the cubes do. That's the thing
that I've never really understood.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
They're actually pretty good. So you can basically just they
decrease the volume, thresh your clothes into these little bricks,
and it does keep it organized. So I am just
a big believer in like staying flexible in that way,
and then you can kind of change your plans and
and everything is with you all the time like a turtle.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Okay, I actually think that's a really good tip. Sta
I'm just gonna.
Speaker 7 (50:07):
Terrible.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
It is very dorky though, is that. I know, I
know it is, but my tip, and I feel like
I'm gonna get some judgment for this, But I have
three children, and it is incredibly nikky. You have a
couple of kids, you have to, okay, so you know
it's really you know, it's kind of annoying. You book travel,
it's it adds up or whatever. And now with the
(50:29):
changes to how tickets are priced, every airline basically charges
you to to like select a seat, which as a
parent is hectic and you you you don't want your
like three year old to be in the front of
the plane while you're in the back of the plane.
That would be very upsetting. And my hack is to
never pay that fee because I look at it. First
(50:50):
of all, there is a there is a rule that
the airlines have to try to see you together. And
I also feel like if they don't seat me with
the children.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Using social pressure to make people leave there, that is.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Their problem, not my problem. That's that, like it's a
much better flight.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
So you just like you just like find the person
sitting next to your three year old.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
It's never come up. I've never paid for I've never
paid to select a seat, and no bad has ever before.
So people have always been the airline does it. They
may behind the scenes, maybe they juggle. I don't know, Brian,
how does it work?
Speaker 9 (51:24):
You know, it depends that the algorithm will try to
put you together. Okay, so but yeah, sometimes they can
get dicey. I'm glad you haven't had an issue.
Speaker 8 (51:33):
I do know.
Speaker 9 (51:33):
I mean I see it all the time that it
does come up, and then it's you.
Speaker 7 (51:36):
Know, issues of strangers.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Okay, Brian, your hack?
Speaker 9 (51:44):
So my hack is that you know, airlines and hotels
are using AI to screw us all basically, and that's
not going to change. So as consumers, we need to
use AI to fight back. So when it comes to booking, flights.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Do you mean like pricing, dynamic pricing.
Speaker 8 (51:57):
Dynamic pricing, Yeah, so what you can do use AI.
Speaker 9 (52:00):
So there's a tool called with Autopilot, so whenever you
book a flight, it'll track and automatically keep checking constantly,
and if the flight price drops, they automatically rebook it
and give you a voucher.
Speaker 8 (52:11):
You have to do.
Speaker 9 (52:12):
Nothing, So I think tools like that. There's also Google
Flights are Google Hotels. Now, once you book a flight
or a hotel on Google Hotels, you can track it.
So if that hotel drops in price and you booked
a refundable fare or night rate, you can automatically you'll
get a ping alert and just go in, take two
seconds rebook it at the lower rate. There's also auto
(52:33):
slash which does that for rental cars. Rental cars can
drop dramatically. So my point to all of you is,
whenever you book, stop assuming that that's the best price
you're ever going to get, because let technology continuously check
and then rebook and put money back in your pocket that.
Speaker 8 (52:47):
You can then use on the things you actually love.
Speaker 6 (52:49):
I'll add one to your list, which is air Help
has an app now and if you're flying to Europe,
the consumer protections for flight disruptions and cancelations and are
really strong. So if you're worried that, like all of
the chaos with fuel prices in our European airline is
going to run out of fuel, is my flight going
to get canceled?
Speaker 7 (53:06):
If you so much, just track your flight with air Help.
Speaker 6 (53:10):
Should anything happen to that flight that would qualify you
for consumer protections, air Help would automatically put through the
claim and get you paid for it. And the only
thing that you pay is like a thirty percent commission
on the actual payout that's delivered to you.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
At the end of all that, you are sort of
favoring a regime with fewer credit card choices. Though when
you do that, because the European didn't, I mean, didn't
you hear that these consumer productions the.
Speaker 7 (53:37):
Point I will say, no, Brian has a point. Brian
has a lot of points that.
Speaker 6 (53:45):
I'm just gonna say, all right, but I will say
that this is one of the silver linings of all
the travelcasts that's happening right now is that Europe has
always been the only region to have consumer protections like
it does, and all of the like mayhem that was
caused when the Middle East airspace was closed, is encouraging
other regions around the world to say, this is a
reputational backlash if we don't have consumer protections, and we
(54:07):
really got to get on it. And now those programs
are being put in place in more places, and hopefully
that will lead to an environment where, even if geopolitical
chaos persists, we don't get screwed as often.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
All right, I think it's time to vote with our
applause the app Okay, all right, Jasmine is the applause meter?
Speaker 8 (54:27):
Ready?
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Okay, got a thumbs up Nikki's travel hack of taking
a private jet. And what are the criteria we need
to go? Okay, one more time.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
One more thing, one more time. Criteria, cost savings, exclusivity,
consideration of fellow travelers.
Speaker 3 (54:43):
Okay, so private jet.
Speaker 6 (54:46):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Get it's pretty good. Back, Well, that's like a pitty noise.
I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Letting your children loose on the airplane, letting your children's
move next to strangers.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
And guilty strangers into movies. And finally AI for good
a fighting robots, Yeah, fighting robots and robots.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
All right, let's do.
Speaker 4 (55:25):
The final Okay, wow, packing cubes.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
I love that Bryan's tip robots is the wind, Stacey wins.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
I am floored and and very grateful.
Speaker 8 (55:59):
Is there brand brand? Is there a brand of cubes
that you love?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
The Amazon one? Pretty good there?
Speaker 6 (56:07):
Yeah, thank you for bringing our conversation back to earth.
That was a really important moment.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
That it's the cheapest of the hacks for sure.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yes, Brian Nikki, thank you for being here. Thank you
to the Ludlow House, thank you to on AirFest. Really
appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (56:22):
Thank you all.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
Yes, thank you, and travel safe.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
And we'll put some of Brian's tips in then show
notes or something right because I feel I saw some
people taking notes.
Speaker 3 (56:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
There's a couple of credit cards I need to get.
I don't even have close to thirty.
Speaker 8 (56:38):
It's a good thing.
Speaker 9 (56:39):
There's this website called the pointskuy dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
I've heard good things about it. The show is produced
by Jasmine JT. Green, Stacy Wong, and Miles J. Hersenhorn.
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Rogan handles engineering,
and Dave Purcell factchecks. Special thanks to Muscus, Julia Rubin
and Maria Ling and a very big thank you to
(57:03):
Scott Newman and the rest of the on air fest team,
along with ludlow House for putting this together. If you
have a minute, please rate and review the show. It
means a lot to us. And if you have a
story that should be our business, please send us an email.
Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody's with an us
at Bloomberg dot net. Thank you for listening. We'll see
you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, Everybody's Business listeners, I'm Max Schafkin and.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I'm Stacey Vannox Smith, and we.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Have a special treat for you. We hosted a live
show at the Ludlow House in Lower Manhattan a couple
days ago where we talked about the current state of
summer travel.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, it is a little bit bleak out there. Stuff
is changing all the time, people are stressed. But here
at Everybody's Business, we really did get the best of
the best to help you navigate your summer travel plans,
including Bloomberg's very own travels are actual title Nikki Eckstein.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I've gone back and forth. I keep thinking that's
a joke, but it's not. It's not a joke and
I love it. And of course, the one and only
the super Saver himself, Brian Kelly aka the Point Sky Stacy.
He was throwing so many ideas. I was regretting not
having a notepad with me because there were so many
good ideas.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, there was. There is no lack of information, no
lack of tips, no lack of tricks. So yes, get
out your pencil and paper or your phone or whatever
you used to take notes and let's all make the
skies a little more friendly together.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Enjoy.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
So, without further ado, the hosts of Bloomberg Businessweeks Everybody's Business,
Max Chafkin and Stacy vannick Smith.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hello, Lovelow House. Nice to see you all. How's everybody doing? Stacy,
I cannot believe they let us into this place. It's
it's like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's nice. It's technically on the list.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
It's true. We were not on the list. I am Max.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Cha.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
For those who don't know, I'm Stacy Vanicksmith and this
is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Thank you very natural. Uh. Some of you have probably
heard of our podcast, but for those who haven't, we
have a weekly show where we try to demystify the
world of business, money, economics. We are our show, Stacy,
I like to think of it as the friend in
your group chat that knows about business stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, we try to like answer questions, clarify things, make connections,
business and economics. It's all around us. It impacts our
lives whether we want it to or not, especially when
it comes to things like travel.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Early May this is the time we thought, this is
when everybody is starting to think about the summer. What
are they gonna where are they gonna go, where are
they gonna fly? And how much is gonna cost? And
the reality is it's it's bad. But we've got two
great guests to talk about that. Bloomberg Travels are Nikki Xtein.
She's gonna sort of unpack this frustrating travel moment. And
(03:08):
then Stacy, I know you're excited about this.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yes, we've got Brian Kelly, aka the Points Guy. I
don't think my dad has ever been as excited about
a person I've talked to ever in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
We texted Stacy's dad backstage with a video from Brian
and he was completely freak you know. I was like,
what do you say, TPG?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yes? Oh yeah. He was like, you're talking to TPG
And I was like what, Yeah, longtime devotee as are
many of us?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Okay, and so we'll talk to them, we'll have some questions,
then we're gonna have a game. But before we get
to all of that, yes, first off, question, who has
a trip booked this summer?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
At show of hands? Okay, now another show of hands,
how many of the people who have trips booked this summer,
are nervous those plans might change. Okay, so people are
pretty confident in this crowd. Now a last question. How
many people in the audience are happy with the price
(04:08):
they paid? How many of you are happy with the
price you paid for? No one is happy? Person value
That might be Brian happy with the price paid.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
All right, let's get into it. Let's bring up Nikki
Nikki Eckstein. She should be joining us here she is,
She's walking up Bloomberg's travels are I actually didn't realize that, Nikki.
That is your like official title. That's what it says
on your business cards.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
It does, It says, guys, Bloomberg's business cards don't actually.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Have but if it did, it would travel.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
That is actually my my title, travels Ar. I always
salute When I said, I.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Don't know what you should salute a tzar, I imagine
it wasn't I like invention of a title.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
Bloomberg has czars, which is kind of a funny thing.
But yes, I'm the travel czar at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
All right, well it seems like a good kick.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
First question I want to ask you, Nikki, is like,
where are you on travel? I mean, you are the czar.
This is what you do for a living. How are
you what is your plan for this summer and sort
of how are you feeling about it?
Speaker 6 (05:22):
Oh, Max, it's such a cute question. I'm having a
baby in July, completely exagerated from summer travel this year.
I am medically not cleared to fly beyond the end
of May, and I won't be back at it until September.
So this is a hilarious time for me to be
a person who's talking about summer travel. What I can
say is that I am not envious of what people
(05:44):
are paying for their summer travels, and actually I am
right on trend with summer travel by traveling and what
we call the shoulder seasons. So traveling in May and
September as opposed to like the peak summer months is
usually a way to save money.
Speaker 7 (05:57):
But I don't know.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Europe is already completely mobbed with Americans. I have colleagues
in the Amalfi Coast right now and in the Greek Islands,
and they are packed to the gills with American travelers.
So shoulder season is a very known hack at this point,
and I am joining that movement by definition.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Also potentially joining the staycation movement.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
Also joining the staycation movement.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
This is true, how much like what kinds of things
have been changing travel?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Obviously we're in we're going into month three of the
attack on Iran and oil prices being so high and
flights even starting to get canceled and jet fuel price
is going up. How much is that changing things right now?
Speaker 6 (06:41):
Well, you have to remember that this is just like
the latest thing that travel businesses are contending with in
a many years long series of events that started with COVID.
If you go back to twenty nineteen, travel was at
this all time high in twenty nineteen, the numbers everywhere
were record setting, and then twenty twenty shut the entire
world down. We don't need to rehash that territory that
(07:03):
we all still remember too well.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
But then you had the revenge travel.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Then you had revenge travel, and it was a little crazy.
But when the conflict opened up between Russian and Ukraine,
the demand for long haul travel was really impacted because
airlines had.
Speaker 7 (07:17):
To take longer routes to avoid the airspace.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
It's a lot of the same stuff that we've been
rehashing now at the Iran war. Although this kind of
brings it all up to a different degree. But if
you think about like the number of big catastrophic things
that have affected travel over the last few years, it's
been one after another. We've not had stable, you know,
a long stable period for a while.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I feel like when you're talking about this, you kind
of have to acknowledge the Trump of it all. So
I wrote in our notes Trump related crises, So you so,
and that kind of starts. I think with the war,
maybe it doesn't start, but probably the most important thing
you alluded to it is the war in Iran, which
has done two things as far as I can tell.
One of them is it's totally messed up traveled in
(08:01):
Middle East. Dubai, of course, is a major international hub.
When you have you know, bombs flying, that's going to
make things difficult. And then prices, I mean, the prices
have been out of control. I guess I haven't mentioned
those lines, the TSA lines that was another thing shutdown.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
I mean, that's like a lot of the big stuff.
It Also, I think people feel like there's a lot
of shifting geopolitical things happening, so that can also complicate travel.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
This is like a butt wait, there's more right because
think about Doge slashing budgets just a year ago. That
was the beginning of all of our FAA issues.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
Good news for anybody.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
The DHS shutdown obviously has impacted security situations throughout US
airports this year. But also don't forget the situation that
unfolded in Venezuela right over New Year's which left so
many people that I knew in my circle stranded in
different islands. They were all trying to get back after
winter break as school was restarting, you know, after the holidays,
and people got trapped. They were stranded sleeping in airports
(09:08):
for three, four or five nights.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Sleeping in airport. I was like, can you call it
trapped if it's a Caribbean islands?
Speaker 6 (09:12):
Sounded nice on the surface, but it was pretty terrible
for a lot of people. And there were a lot
of travel expenses that people lost out on that were
not recouped by travel insurance. It's been a pretty messy
couple of months or year or year in change or
five years.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So one of the things that we talk about a
lot on the show is what they call the K
shaped economy. That is that the wealthy part of the
economy is getting wealthier and wealthier, and the less wealthy
part of the economy is like getting less and less wealthy.
Now you have explored both parts of the K in
your job, what are some of the ways that people
(09:49):
can I guess, for the upper part of the K
and the lower part of the K get around some
of these complications because it does seem like obstacles are
coming at you all the time. But you have looked
into some of these hacks.
Speaker 6 (10:02):
Okay, so we want to do hacks, all right. Let
me just like say one thing, which is that the
K shaped economy is very real in travel, but is
also idiosyncratic in travel. There's a lot of data that
goes to show that the last expense that people cut
from their budgets now post pandemic is travel. Really yes,
(10:24):
so as much as there are a lot of different industries,
including retail and restaurants, et cetera, that have been really
really hit hard by the kind of radical two ends
of the K shaped economy, in travel it's a little
bit different. What we're seeing is a bifurcation of luxury
and ultra luxury, and everybody who doesn't normally pay for
(10:45):
luxury has to figure out how to come up to
that basic level.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
That's now where things start.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So this kind of gets back to I promise you
we will talk about ways to have better travel. But
this is another area where travel has been tough because
you know, anytime I'm in an airport, now I see
these lounges, and I'm not a lounge person. I don't
know about you all, I will not darken the door
of an airport.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Lounge, like on principle unless forced.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Basically, yeah, yeah, kind of on principle. But but part
of the reason is that, like you look at the
line and you're like, wait, maybe maybe non.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Principle or just you don't want to pay to go
into the lounge.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's all the things.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
Because Max Fly Spirit, I see Max Well Spirit lines
on the lounge and I think to myself, what are
you doing?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You're waiting?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Have you been into a lounge?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But like it does seem like there's overcrowding in these lounges.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
There is definitely overcrowding in the lounges. First of all,
there's a lot more lounges, but there's also a lot
more people who can get into them. You can also
pay your way into a lot of lounges, and so
things that used to be properly premium and VIP have
been diluted to the fact where like you just pay
fifty bucks.
Speaker 7 (11:53):
And you're in the door.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
That's no longer luxury. It's an expectation among many people
that they can just pay those fifty bucks and get
in the door, or have the right credit card in
your wallet and get in the door. And so these
are no longer exclusive spaces, and that's made them less
appealing for a lot of people.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
Who used to use them. Right, what I'm saying the
Spirit crowd well, and that's the.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Other thing, the sort of dominance of these big carriers.
They've done very well right with getting people to pay
more money to sit in the front of the plane
and extracting more money from consumers. And the result is
they've killed my favorite airline, Nikki Spirit air Rip to
a real one. It is very sad for those of
(12:35):
us who appreciated the banana colored airplane.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
Okay, I pulled a couple of stats because I do
think that these are stories that are really well told.
In numbers, Since January twenty twenty, the number of scheduled
business class seats on domestic US flights has gone up
by twenty seven percent.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
What is scheduled business class seats?
Speaker 6 (12:53):
That means that the number of available seats in the
front of the plane, okay, on routes that are flying
across the US has gone up by twenty seven percent.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Are planes are putting in more seas so they're like
luxury loading.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
They're luxury loading the plane. That's exactly right. At the
same time, you know, there's a price for that. The
economy seats are coming out, right, So those premium seats
are growing three times faster than economy seats because there's
more seats overall, Like airlines are getting more planes, there's
more planes to fly, there's more seats, there's more people
in the skies. But the business class seats and the
(13:26):
premium seats are growing three times faster than the economy seats.
Speaker 7 (13:30):
And then we've all heard like, you know, United's getting
these new planes. They're going to have all these different.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Features, basic business blah blah blah. We'll talk about that later,
I'm sure, but for every one of these new planes
are taking out sixty five economy seats and putting in
thirty premium seats.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
So this just gives you a sense of what's going on.
What's really interesting is.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Part of the K it's squeezed. So the at least
flying the lower part of the K is squeezed. There
are just fewer options now Spirit's gone. Yes, sorry Max.
And this is happening also in hotel.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
In hotels, it's happening too. People don't think about this way.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
What does that mean? Describe this situation in a hotel version.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
When hotels get renovated, they are oftentimes ripping out the
smallest rooms, knocking down walls between them, and creating bigger ones.
Because there's more demand for suites and for villas these
days than there is for basic rooms. It's not enough
to stay at the hotel anymore.
Speaker 7 (14:24):
You've got to stay in a suite. You've got to
have a terrace, you've got to.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
Have an ocean view, you got to be able to
brag about it all. And so hotels are actually retooling
their footprints to get rid of those entry level rooms
and put in more suites.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
It feels like things are getting more and more out
of reach. If you're just a normal person, like what
if you just love to travel, but you don't have
luxury travel money.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
You take fewer trips and you spend more on them,
is what most people are doing.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And now Spirit's gone, and now Spirit's gone little known.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
In fact, they do have a business class in Spirit.
It's called a big seat. That's not it may be one.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Also, I appreciate that you keep talking about them in
the present tense, like there's like if you're are you
manifesting that they come back?
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I am.
Speaker 7 (15:10):
The wound is fresh, Nikki.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
We're gonna have a whole segment at the end of
this show where we compete to give the best travel hacks.
And I know you've saved one really good one for them.
But as you are are talking to friends and family
and trying to give them suggestions of how whatever to
make the most of their travel dollar, how to deal
with some of these issues, why don't you hit us
with some of yours? You got it?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah, we want acts.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
So I'm not a person who plans my travels with AI,
not yet, probably not ever. But Google Flights is a
really really good product that helps you find cheap fares,
and you can talk to it like you would talk
to chat GPT to give it parameters like help me
find a cheap flight within a three hour flight radius
of New York, or you know, whatever stipulations you want
to give it. Just for some examples of things that
(15:57):
I found on it today, Memorial Day flight from New
York to Nantucket. We're down fifty eight percent over there
from their average prices. Two hundred and thirty three dollars
per person to Nantucket same weekend to Hilton Head Island
was one hundred and eighty seven dollars. Like these are
super reasonable prices.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
So do you what is this just like regular Google
or what is this slight flight deals Google flight deals
for Yeah? Interesting, that's what If you just talk to
it and you say, hey, I want to go to Nantucket,
that is awesome.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
Find me a place where the prices are really good
for this upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Here's the hack, though,
It's not just finding the cheap flight on Google flight Deals.
It's then taking that flight that you've identified that's cheap
and booking it with.
Speaker 7 (16:38):
A travel agent.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Why.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
The travel agent doesn't cost you anything to use, and
it is so crucially important to have somebody that you
can call in the event of a cancelation or something
goes wrong in the middle of your your.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Talking about actual human being now like cuctual human being.
Speaker 7 (16:55):
I had a flight.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I feel like I don't even know how to find
a travel agent anymore.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
Oh we got to talk, Okay, I'm going to hit
up like my old job from more than a decade ago,
but Travel and Leisure, where I worked for a long
long time, runs a wonderful list of travel advisors. That's like,
depending on where you want to go, you can find
somebody that specializes in the place that you want to
go to. And that's I still as an alum of
(17:21):
that magazine who used to edit that product. That's still
where I find travel advisors who are not like already
in my network. I would recommend that. But yeah, I
had a flight canceled that left me stranded in Milan
pretty recently, like just a couple of weeks ago, and
I called Bloomberg's travel desk because I was traveling for work,
and they were the ones that got me rebooked on
the next flight out. Like, having that human support when
(17:43):
things go wrong is critical right.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Now, how much does that cost if you're not going
through work, Like, how much does it cost to hire
a travel agent.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
Nothing usually, how is that possible?
Speaker 6 (17:53):
You take commissions off of your hotel bookings and your
flight bookings, but it doesn't cost you a penny. They
have deals with the airline and the deals and deals
with hotels as well, and those deals will, oftentimes at
hotels anyway, get you lots of perks like free breakfast
or a room upgrade if it's available.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
It would see to you nothing to a sweet.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Okay, we got to bring up Brian, but give us
and we'll bring you back Niki. But before we do,
give us one more, one more suggestion here, one more
travel hack.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
I'm gonna say this might be the summer to entertain
a cruise.
Speaker 7 (18:27):
We like, I.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Haven't gotten the haunt to lately, and so.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I was gonna say, I guess the prices are gonna lower.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
I don't think hantavirus that one outbreak I'm hoping is
contained and I'm hoping it's not like proof of something
terrible that's gonna happen in this world.
Speaker 7 (18:44):
But honestly, like, I'm not a cruiser.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
It's not the way that I have chosen to travel
in the past, but it is so attractive at a
time when hotel prices in Europe are so stratospheric. I'm
talking like two thousand dollars a night is an easy
barrier to break in prime destinations. You can pull up
to those same prime destinations in a cruise ship. For
a very very luxurious ship, you might be spending six
(19:07):
hundred dollars a night, including all of your food, including
all of your water activities. Look at Explora, it is
a very very high end new line that's doing thirty
percent off right now. Ritz Carlton Yacht Collection. It feels
like you're on a yacht. It's a thousand dollars a night,
but it comes with twenty four hour room service, butlers,
terraces in every suite. Every room is a suite like
(19:30):
compared to what you get on land. They're good values.
I know it's one thousand dollars a night. I just
said that's a good value. That's the world we live in.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
When something like this happens, like the hant virus outbreak,
what does a cruise industry do.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
They cut prices?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Is that is that right? Or like how do they
get people to like go back on the ship. I
mean this came up during COVID as well.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
I think one isolated incident is not going to change
it anything for the industry. The cruise industry has been
so resilient despite everything that it went through, and I
don't think that they're feeling pressured by this one kind
of anomaloust thing that has happened. Now, if huntavirus started
showing up on cruise ships all over the world, we'd
have a completely different story.
Speaker 7 (20:16):
And I don't want to think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
These don't drink us. Yes, all right, we will send
you back into the audience. We'll bring up.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The Points gott Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And then but you got to stick around. Yes, seen everybody.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Hello, Hello, Hello, Brian Kelly, Welcome.
Speaker 8 (20:43):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Excellent, thank you for being here.
Speaker 8 (20:45):
I'm an optimist.
Speaker 9 (20:46):
I'll just tell you that I have a more upbeat
view of things, although you know, certainly there's a lot
of drama out there.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Oh I'm excited to hear this.
Speaker 8 (20:53):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I feel like for people Brian who don't know you
and who maybe have maybe they've seen your website, the
Points guy, but give us your origin story. I mean,
you are this like you're basically like a superhero of
figuring out like which credit cards and which freaking flyer
and programs and making the most of it. How what
is your origin story.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
For my story?
Speaker 9 (21:14):
Yeah, my story starts the year was nineteen ninety five.
I was twelve years old and my dad had a
job as a consultant traveling across the country. And I
was one of those kids in the nineties. This is yeah,
early nineties. I was on AOL Prodigy. I was a
little hacker, and my dad actually said he had hit
it to start booking his own travel, and he paid
me ten dollars per flight to book and he thought
(21:35):
it was very complicated, but Travelocity had just come out,
so I was able to book his flights in like
a minute and he was paying me ten dollars.
Speaker 8 (21:43):
So that was like my first side hustle.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
So I started jazz.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
I started booking my dad's travel, and then one day
he said, I have all these frequent flyer miles on
American and US airways. I'm one of four kids. Our
trips growing up were, you know, car rides to the
outer banks. I grew up outside of Philadelphia, but I
always wanted to try the world and I had just
read the book The firm by John Grisham, where a
lot of it takes place in the Cayman Islands. So
(22:06):
here I am at age twelve, and I'm like, I
don't want to go to Florida. That's basic, you know.
The little Queen and me was coming out.
Speaker 10 (22:13):
You want to?
Speaker 8 (22:14):
I wanted to.
Speaker 10 (22:16):
I didn't want to end of shell corporations exactly. Offshore
finance is like a big kank. So I called up.
He had us ARA and American miles. I have three siblings.
I figured out how to get my dad and three
siblings NonStop Philly to Grant. Came in my mom and
I I booked using his American miles, and then I
had to figure out where to stay. Hotels and Grant
(22:37):
Cayman are exorbitant, and there was a new little site
called Verbo that had just launched.
Speaker 9 (22:42):
So I booked us. A doctor in New Jersey had
this cute two bedroom villa on the beach. It was
like twelve hundred dollars and to this doctor, he was
just happy he was getting, you know, people.
Speaker 8 (22:55):
To rent his villa.
Speaker 9 (22:57):
We were on the beach in Rum Point, which if
you ever go to the Cayman Islands, you got to
go to rum Point. It is this idyllic northern little cape.
So I end up booking this whole trip. I had
a panic attack the night before because once again I'm
twelve years old planning an international trip. But I arrived
and my dad gave me the biggest hug. He was like,
this is incredible. We had the most unbelievable week our
(23:18):
family together. Now, mind you, my dad was traveling a
ton for business, so he wasn't home a lot. So
every year our bonding was using his points to take
our family on a trip.
Speaker 8 (23:28):
So we do.
Speaker 9 (23:29):
Barbados came in. So this is all in the nineties.
My dad and I were points people. We didn't I
had no idea that there was a world of people
doing this. Wasn't until I went to college University of Pittsburgh.
I become student body president. I study abroad, and then
one day my us arewa's account was gold and I
remember I was like, I have gold status and I
have no income, and I'm getting upgraded. And back in
(23:49):
two thousand and three, gold status was, I mean, you
get upgraded NonStop. So I Google or dogpile whatever the
search was back then, and I found flyer Talk and
Flyer Talk for those who don't know, is like Reddit
for hardcore frequent flyer. It is a community that's real.
Yeah people are your people, Yeah, there are my people.
It was like finding alien life. I was like, Wow,
(24:11):
there's people out there doing what I do. Like my
dad and I, we would cut like serial boxes. We'd
have our family members send in serial box tops because
you used to be.
Speaker 8 (24:19):
Able to get American miles. So I dove deep into
that world.
Speaker 9 (24:23):
Move to New York and O six, start working in finance,
and O seven long story short, I'm my job is
at Morgan Stanley, traveling around the US convincing computer science
grads to work at Morgan Stanley. Now you can imagine
the years oh seven, eight, the economy collapses. Not a soul,
not a computer science when Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Bloomberg, who
(24:45):
I would compete against. No one wanted to work at
Morgan Stanley, which was you know, in finance. But they
told me we have to hire these tech grads, so
spend whatever you have to do.
Speaker 8 (24:55):
So I had my corporate MS.
Speaker 9 (24:56):
No expense limit, and I had to whine and dine
and fly every week fifty students in for interviews, all
on my corporate card, and I called up one day
and I said, can I get the points for this?
And they were like, mister Kelly, you can, but it's
ninety five dollars a year. And I'm like, wait, hold
up a second. I'm spending like one hundred thousand dollars
a month because I'm paying for all of the students'
hotels to when they came and interviewed. I'm paying for
(25:19):
the intern lunches, and I'm a points person. So there's
so many ways that I was taking all the interns.
We would only eat at restaurants. There's special restaurants where
you can get extra points. To this day, it's called
Rewards Network. We were only eating at this random Brazilian
Trusco area a s. The interns were like, we don't
want Brazilian food again during eight Brazilion. It's cultural anyway.
(25:41):
So I start banking tons and tons of miles. I'm
not making a lot of money because I'm in HR
during the crisis, but I lived this unbelievable life lying
around the world in first class. All my friends were like,
you do realize, like being twenty seven and flying, you know,
I flew with Madonna one weekend, you know, first class
to London. She was amaze. That's a story for another time.
(26:02):
Really yeah, I thought it was Rachel Zoe. It's it's
your way to and here's a hack. Here's a hack
that's very important. Never take your sleeping pill before the
plane takes off because we're flying to London. I take
my ambient because it's a short flight to London in
the summer, and my ambience kicking in. I'm putting my
bag in the front and I can't curse. But like
(26:22):
Madonna walks on the plane and is sitting in the
British Area's first class seat right in front of me.
Speaker 8 (26:27):
Mind you, as a.
Speaker 9 (26:28):
Gay boy in the nine years, the Immaculate Collection was
my jam and I'm just I look at my boyfriend
at the time, I'm like, am.
Speaker 8 (26:33):
I hallucinating it to Madonna? And she was really cool.
Speaker 9 (26:38):
In the morning. I talked to her briefly and she
called me sweetie. So that was like a life highlight.
But that's like what Points were able to get for me.
So in twenty ten I started The Points Guy. Was
not even a blog. It was a travel agency where
people would pay me fifty bucks and I would plan
them trips. So that was just my way to make
extra money because I wasn't making it.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
You know, in my h art, it's like what your
dad was paying you to do.
Speaker 9 (27:00):
Exactly the exactly, So I just started doing it for
other people to me figuring out how to use points
as like a crossword puzzle. Right, I got immense satisfaction
when you crack the code. Still, sixteen years later, I
still love that. I still fly almost exclusively on points.
And so, yeah, I started it. I started blogging a
couple months later in twenty ten, and then it just
(27:20):
sort of blew up. About six months later, a year
after my first blog post, I left Morgan Stanley to do.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
This full time.
Speaker 9 (27:26):
And now we've got you know, one hundred and fifty
employees and millions and millions of readers.
Speaker 8 (27:30):
So it's been quite a ride.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
There have been and we at BusinessWeek have have written
about this. There are these like credit card wars, right,
so the maybe I'm getting my history wrong, but you
had the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and then there are a
bunch of other cards at Amex Platinum, and they're all
competing furiously basically to attract I think people like you
or people who are kind of points aware, maybe not,
(27:55):
they're not full on points.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Maxers points curious.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I'm kind of curious. How do you take advantage of
that competition?
Speaker 10 (28:04):
Now?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
As like a consumer is somebody you know who maybe
isn't at your level of points maxing, but would one
day like to get there.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
Yeah, so I'm a hack one on one. It's just
you've got to get into the points game.
Speaker 8 (28:15):
It is not over.
Speaker 9 (28:16):
Don't tell yourself that though you know, I do not
lie to you. When I started in twenty ten, there
was a whole narrative points are over. People literally said
to me in twenty ten, they're not worth that, points
aren't worth anything more. Blackout date And I'm like, that's
when I went into the media and I was like,
all these bozos in the media, you just don't know
how to play the game. And the game changes, the
game will constantly change, but I assure you it is
(28:40):
still available for play. When so back to your point,
the banks will give you thousands of dollars for free. Now,
mind you, there are ten solid banks with each five
solid cards minimum each. There are no shortage of credit
cards out there. If you have good credit, and you
should actually thank yourself. If you don't have a lot
of credit cards right now, that's a great thing because
you can reap that thousands of dollars and.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Get it two cards credit cards do you have?
Speaker 9 (29:04):
I have thirty credit cards and over eight hundred credit score.
Because what you learn is that the more credit you
have and the less you use that's your debt to
credit ratio, the higher your score goes. So by getting
more credit cards, now, mind you, you have to pay
them off in full every month. If you're paying interest
on any of these high interest cards, you're going to
lose the value of the points. But the banks are
(29:25):
in such competition for your business. You know today Chase
Sapphire Reserve is going to give you one hundred and
fifty thousand points for getting that card. Those one hundred
and fifty thousand points minimally are worth three thousand dollars.
You can even get much more when transferring to other
partners plus that card. You may say it's got nine
hundred dollars fee or eight hundred dollars fee, the fee
(29:45):
is not actually that high when you get all the
other perks that come along with it. So and Chase
even will let you get that card if you have
the Sapphire Preferred. They actually just change the rules a
couple months ago, saying we want people to have multiple cards.
So even if you had to sign up bonus on
their ninety five card, Chase openly encourages you to also
get it. They need more people to sign up so
(30:07):
you can get AMEX cards. Chase cards. Now, with Built
you can earn points on mortgage and rent, which is unprecedented.
When I started the Points Guy in twenty ten, earning
points with no fee for rent, I would have told
you you were crazy. You can do that today with Built,
no annual fee and no even if your credit card
charge or your landlords charges for credit cards. Built does
(30:31):
not process like a credit card. They get a direct
deposit or a venmo or a check. So when yes,
there is inflation when it comes to redeeming points. I
was in Berlin this weekend to fly Delta was one
million miles and Delta is pretty bad for that. So
there are certain programs don't go with the big US airlines.
(30:51):
Hack Number two I'll give is pay attention to foreign
frequent flyer programs. Air France has sixty thousand mile one
way business Class awards all summer along to Europe the
same exact flight on Delta's five hundred thousand points. So
it's about knowing which programs to interact with and not
just if you love Delta, great airline, but do not
(31:11):
get the Delta card and put all your spend on Delta. Instead,
get an Amex card which you can transfer to Delta
or thirty other partners. So get credit cards with big
sign up bonuses, but focus and put all of your
spend on the cards that allow you to transfer to
multiple partners. And you know, in twenty ten when I
started out, I had just had to have this knowledge
from years of flyer talk to figure out how.
Speaker 8 (31:32):
To do it.
Speaker 9 (31:33):
Now there are tools like point dot me which will
actually you can tell at what points you have you
want to go to Rome on this date, and it
will actually tell you the exact way to transfer for
the least amount of miles. It syncs up with tons
of different airlines. There's another tool, seats dot Arrow amazing.
It'll give you an entire year's worth of availability. So
if you have family in Paris and you're flexible on
(31:53):
what days to go, you can click one button and
have the entire year of JFK and Newark to Paris
and sort it by damium, economy, economy, and then pick
and choose where you go. You go one way air France,
where it's cheap, you find another way that's Jet Blue.
Jet Blues partners with Qatar, which is a transfer partner
of all the credit cards. It sounds complex, but once
(32:13):
you start doing this you save thousands of dollars. And
final tip that I really have to get out is
one of the best changes of the pandemic was that
frequent flyer programs let you cancel free of charge. So
let me explain this to you. When you book an
award ticket on most airlines, it's like booking a fully
refundable ticket. Some airlines might charge you fifty bucks to
(32:33):
get your miles back, but in general, all the US
programs so you can book placeholder awards. Say you got
to go to a wedding in Europe. It's two hundred
thousand United miles. Okay, you could book that, but as
the price drops, you can rebook it when it gets
lower and lower, and the airlines. A trend that you'll
see when you start booking awards is in the week
of travel. If there's open seats on the plane, they
(32:55):
drop to the Saber level. Coming back from Berlin this week,
when I was booking, it was two hundred miles, but
it was sixty eight thousand, which is the cheapest amount
three days before, because the airlines need to fill every seat,
and they hope that you don't keep checking, So keep
checking and reprice that award and get your miles back.
Or when air France opens up sixty k, you just
(33:16):
cancel your United award and get all those miles back.
So once you start having these miles that can transfer
into all different programs, you start learning to fly one
way on one airline. And this also works for when
you're stranded when the airlines cancel your flights and there's
a mile long line. I have never once waited in
those lines. The second I think that my flight's going
to get canceled, even if it's not, I immediately book using
(33:39):
points on two other carriers that day.
Speaker 8 (33:41):
If I really have to get.
Speaker 9 (33:42):
Out if my flight ends up getting canceled, which it will,
I've already booked the last.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
Remaining seats before you can even wait in line to.
Speaker 9 (33:49):
Get it, because if I don't need those seats, I'll
cancel before departure and get it back for free. So
being on the offense is how you win at the
points game.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
I feel like I should be taking a lot of notes.
Speaker 8 (33:59):
Well, I think this is recorded, so I think we'll
be here.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
H No, this is good. My question is this, so
twelve year old you booking this this trip for your
family and kind of using this system that eventually you
developed into your career. Could you do that? Like what
would twelve if you were twelve right now? Could you
do the same thing? Because it sounds like I think
(34:22):
your brain works a little differently than mine. I feel
like you have like spreadsheets in your brain and it's
like the points go back and forth. I just feel
like quite sometimes overwhelmed by all of the like points
and moving things around and stuff like that. So is
it possible to do it if it's not like a
full time job?
Speaker 8 (34:39):
It is?
Speaker 9 (34:39):
And also there are there are companies that you could pay,
like that Point Me has a VIP concierge you can
pay I think it's one hundred fifty dollars a ticket,
and so you can pay other people to do it,
and paying someone one hundred and fifty to get a
business class ticket versus paying the nine thousand it costs today.
It kills me when people pay these full you know
fair and a lot of people are paying that price.
(35:00):
But like I said before, those tools like point me
in seats dot arrow when they're not that hard to learn.
And I'm telling you once you take that little step
to invest in these tools on how it's done, it
really is not that complex. But even if you don't
want to do the points transfer game by transferring your
Chase points to Hiatt and booking a free stay, you know,
(35:21):
thet all the credit card companies now will let you
book any flight at a set redemption chase. If you
have the Sapphire card, they have what's called points Boost,
so you can get up to two cents per point
when redeeming for certain flights, and it's like one cent minimum.
So even if you don't want to do the Wizardry
high level getting six cents per point, you can at
least be getting you know, one or two cents by
(35:43):
just buying your flights through a credit card agency.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
We should bring Nikki back up here. We are gonna
have a little bit of time for questions as Nicki
makes her way back to the stage, gets set up,
start thinking what do you want to ask? Nikki? Brian
stays for me. I can't imagine what we would have
to say, but we can try. I can tell you
about the Spirit snacks or whatever.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yes, I want to hear about the big seat.
Speaker 8 (36:16):
Big front seat.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
And actually, you know, I'm.
Speaker 9 (36:20):
Going to stand up for Spirit Airlines several times. They
serve a purpose. You know, It's like they're on time,
they're cheap. If you know how to play the game,
and you know, don't bring luggage and stuff. It served
a purpose. I never had a bad experience with Spirit, truly.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Dittoh okay, uh, there should be a microphone floating around
okay in the back. Yeah, so if you have a question,
raise your hand and we can I see I see
a hand raise over there.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Okay. Two questions, sorry, One is is it dumb to
pay for a credit card that gives you lounge access?
And then I'm curious how the private jet economy kind
of fits into this, because we were talking about how
low has gotten moreks like everyone's flying luxury, but I
feel like I'm also seeing a lot more people flying
private and I'm like, have the luxury travelers gone even
(37:08):
more luxury, and so now it's like everyone's moving up.
I'm just sort of curious how that.
Speaker 9 (37:12):
Plays well answered the lounge one, and maybe I don't
know if you have a perspective on the private jet
travel it is it depends how much you're going to
use that lounge access. So with most of the lounges
these days, I would put a very modest fifty dollars
value of going into that lounge. Most of the credit
card lounges you have open bar, decent food. Some like
(37:33):
the Chase Sapphire lounges have free facials for any member.
So the one at Laguardi is beautiful. The Capital One
lounge at JFK, by the way, I'll just say for
anyone want to get a credit card, especially New Yorkers,
the Capital one Venture ex is three hundred and ninety
five dollars. That card gives you three hundred dollars in
free travel a year, so it's a ninety five dollars
a year card. Every year, Capital one gives you ten
(37:54):
thousand miles just for holding the card. At the very minimum,
those ten thousand miles are worth one hundred dollars. So
if you do the math with me. The Capitol one
venture X pays you five dollars a year to get
lounge access to all of their lounges. So if there's
one entry level premium card that I can recommend unequivocally,
even if you'd ever even go to the lounge you're
making out ahead, it's Capitol one venture X. They have
(38:15):
a great in their lounge at JFK Terminal Force twenty
four to seven. So when I was flying to Peru
and my lat Ham flight was delayed five hours, that
lounge was open, which was like probably worth a thousand
dollars to me not having to be out with my
two children in the terminal. As far as the other
perks in these cards, you know, just how much are
you going to go into the lounge, how much you're
going to use it. They have high annual fees, but
(38:36):
these perks that you can get from these cards can
absolutely pay streaming. There's other memberships. You know, just sit
there and do the math, but never just take the
nine hundred dollars that the Platinum card is a year
and say, well that's just nine hundred, No, because you
can actually get very easily more than that in value
before you even take into account the lounge access. And
(38:57):
I'll just also add having these cards kind of what
Nikki mentioned is, especially the premium cards, you get another
level of customer service. You get protections. With the Sapphire
Reserve card, you can get ten thousand dollars in travel coverage.
So if you get sick or a loved one, does
you have built in coverage just by using that card
that Capitol and venture X card has coveraged. My son
(39:20):
messed up a twelve hundred dollars chair by using marker
on it, and vandalism is part of their purchase protection.
I got twelve even if it's your own son. Luckily
I didn't have to have a police report, but I saw.
You know, there's look through the perks on these cards.
There is purchase protection if you buy something online and
they don't let you return it. A lot of these
credit cards have return protection, which you would so you
(39:42):
start using a couple of these perks every year. The
lounge access they can absolutely pay and in general you
get better customer service as well. So when you're valuing
a card, there's a whole picture you need to look
at than just simply the lounge access.
Speaker 6 (39:56):
Okay, so I'm like really mad actually that you asked
about private jack because I don't I don't want to
like get ahead of things here, but I have a hack.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Okay, you're irrelevant.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
Yeah, but we're not playing our game yet.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Why don't you hold that thought? See if we have
one other question.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
I have a question about I appreciate all the strategy,
but I am like a it's a scam first kind
of mindset. So what are actually the scams to watch
out for?
Speaker 9 (40:23):
I mean, the scam is only if you get into debt.
I've never If you spend responsibly, there is no scam.
You have to, you know, maybe pay attention and make sure.
What if you get a card with perks that will
pay for your Apple TV, you must take one minute
and change your billing to that to actually get the perks.
So if you're not willing to do the bare minimum
(40:45):
and like read the benefits of a card and then
change like that, that to me would be the scam
of it all.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
So you have what on ease feel scam adjacent? What
sometimes the fees?
Speaker 9 (40:58):
So the scam would be transferring to loyalty programs that
then charge crazy fees so like you might see, British
Airways has like sixty thousand points to Europe, but now
a lot of them are raising their surcharges to crazy amounts,
especially with the increase in jet fuel. Not only airfare
the cost of buy a ticket, but the fees attached
to award tickets are going up. That can feel scammy,
(41:20):
especially if it's like an economy flight with nine hundred
dollars fee when you can buy it for eight hundred.
So you do have to be particular. Not all programs
are created equal, but I do stand on my tip
of transferring to the foreign frequent flyer programs. The Air France,
Air Canada Aeroplan will charge you about half of what
United often. Well, now, one other thing I'll mention because
(41:41):
the airlines hate that Amex and Chase and Built are
taking all the business. So the airlines are saying, well,
we're going to gatekeep our ward inventory and only give
it to our co brand card holders. So I would
never recommend spending all of your money on an airline
cob brand because you're going to earn that one airlines currency,
whereas you could be earning much more valuable currency that transfers.
(42:02):
But you might want to hold open an airline co
brand like with the United they have even no annual
fee versions, because that will give you access to a
whole new level of inventory. And just I would say
on the scam thing is elite status. Elite status these
days can be scammy where you have to spend twenty
thousand dollars, I call it the hamster wheel. I topped
off the hamster wheel years ago. I don't care about
(42:22):
elite status. I will fly the next I will fly
the best.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Well. I spent sparking on my credit cards, and I
have enough transferable points where mission by mission I choose
which points I'm going to use for which trip I
want to go on to fly the best flight, the
best route.
Speaker 9 (42:36):
When you're stuck in the airline hamster wheel of only
flying Delta to get your Delta status, and then you
want to go to the Maldives and you can't fly
Emirates because all your miles are with Delta, and you
realize that you're millions of miles or two tickets instead
if you would have spent on AMEX, you could have
twenty tickets. I mean it's that stark sometimes, So when
you go all in and don't think about your strategy
(42:56):
and spend on the right cards that you can end
up in a situation where you're like, this wasn't really
worth it.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I mean, I have to say when I hear this,
I feel like the scam is that you have. We
have to live in a world that you have to
optimize to this level.
Speaker 9 (43:11):
Your time and you know, I want everyone to understand,
this is the biggest privilege in the world. No other
countries like the United States when it comes to points
Europe does not have credit in the world. You will
never go to another points more Points friendly country. Sign
up bonuses in many parts of the world are max
thirty thousand miles and in the United States you can
get up to three hundred thousand. It is a bonanza here. Yes,
(43:32):
it sounds complicated, but I need you to understand having
a million options of credit cards to get is much
better than having none, right.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
Because nobody is willing to spend on travel like Americans.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Oh is that right?
Speaker 7 (43:43):
That is right?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
So okay, so last segment here, Yeah, we are going
to have a little game. We're going to each give
you a personal travel tip. Now, I think we've all prepared.
I hope Brian, you haven't given all years away yet,
have you?
Speaker 6 (43:57):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
No, okay, here now, there are three criteria that I
want the three of you and myself to think about,
and I guess the audience you will have to think
about this as well, because you are gonna be asked
to judge the criteria. We're gonna vote based on the
volume of applause.
Speaker 8 (44:14):
We have a.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Decibel meter ready to go, so it's gonna be very scientific.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, Jasmine is running the decibel meets.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
The criteria are as follows. So the first one is
cost savings. How much is this hack gonna hit my wallet?
How much is it gonna save me? The second one
is exclusivity. You know, what's a good hack if if
everyone's got it. And the third one, and I feel
like this is where it's gonna trip me up personally,
is consideration of fellow travelers, because if you are doing
(44:41):
a hack that hurts everyone else, that's that's not good
as well. So, Nikki, you started to give yours, why
don't you finish your hack for us?
Speaker 6 (44:48):
All right? Well, so let's let's do like a little
like guess first before I, like, you know, show my hand.
The question was about private jet travel and whether that's good,
you know, more.
Speaker 7 (45:01):
Popular, or is it just a perception.
Speaker 6 (45:03):
I mean, yes, people would love to instagram themselves on
a private jet. It is such a flex but it
is growing and it is also becoming more affordable to
at least some of us.
Speaker 7 (45:13):
So I asked my colleagues.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
This morning how much they think it costs to get
a seat on a private jet flying from the New
York area to the Miami area. The guesses in my
row Bloomberg has is like a very open concept office,
and everybody raised their hands like trying to guess. The
guesses ranged from eight thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars.
(45:39):
I was like, okay, we're talking about a one way
seat New York to Miami. They're like, yeah, that's probably
what it costs, right.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Well, yeah, you work for pursuits like these are people
with a free level of fluency and in luxury, Like.
Speaker 7 (45:52):
This is we pedal in luxury in our row. That's
our job. That's watch guy. There's a watch guy.
Speaker 6 (45:57):
He was the one that guessed fifteen in further upward
and then I said, okay, well, how about what if
you knew that the same flight New York to Miami,
if you booked it in the first class. I'm putting
air quotes around first class even jets tub no, no
on United. On United first class, which is a joke
(46:18):
on domestic flights, as many of us have learned, It's like, it's.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
No better than the big seat.
Speaker 7 (46:23):
It's the big seat.
Speaker 6 (46:24):
Okay, a flight in quote unquote first class on United
one Way five hundred and fifty dollars. Okay, So how
close do we think the private jet seat is to United?
Speaker 7 (46:36):
And my colleagues answer are fifteen cares.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
You said Miami area, and like, I feel like that's
a trick. We're not talking about Tampa or anything like that.
This is actual Miami.
Speaker 8 (46:45):
Miami.
Speaker 7 (46:45):
Private jets don't land in commercial.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Era, but it's from like three hundred miles away.
Speaker 6 (46:50):
I'm specifically looking at a flight that lands in Opa Waca,
which is like the main private jet hub in Miami.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Proper.
Speaker 6 (46:57):
Okay, So again, we think that private jet seat is
going to be somewhere between eight and fifteen thousand dollars.
United one Way five hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 7 (47:06):
Guess what.
Speaker 6 (47:08):
You can book a private jets seat for six hundred
and twenty five dollars.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Really js js X.
Speaker 7 (47:16):
This is something that.
Speaker 9 (47:19):
Ran I would say the more accurate, like that's like
a regional jet basically that flies out of private airport,
so it is much more easy. But you're getting like
regional jet type seat. But there are like the exojets
of the world that are real private jets, and it's
like twenty five hundred you can get seats for sometimes
(47:39):
like twenty I would say twenty five.
Speaker 7 (47:41):
Ran on my parade.
Speaker 8 (47:42):
Brian, Yeah, well you're technically I'm not saying.
Speaker 6 (47:46):
So hang on.
Speaker 7 (47:47):
Let's like let's get the full.
Speaker 6 (47:48):
Extent of this experience though, because it's not just the
seat that you got on the plane, which is like
a private jet light experience on board, but still you know,
like a business class seat going from New York to Miami,
but you're flying out of either like Teeterborough or Westchester airports,
which are these little private jet hubs.
Speaker 7 (48:04):
You basically drive right up to the hangar.
Speaker 6 (48:07):
The TSA experience is you walk through a scanner on
your way up the aircraft door.
Speaker 7 (48:12):
That's it. Pets, you can bring your dog and then
for all.
Speaker 6 (48:19):
The din quads out there, do you guys know the
word no double income.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
With a dog.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
Now, audience, keep in mind that back and forth, because
I do think that complicated Nikki's tip. But but keep
that in mind. I think Stacey, you and I should
go next because our tips are better. And then we'll
say Brian for.
Speaker 8 (48:40):
The last one.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
My tip is very basic.
Speaker 8 (48:43):
I don't know it.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
I just white embarrassed to bring this up. But this
is my true travel hack. It's the only thing I got.
I'm yes, I so.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Just spit it out.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
My travel hack is packing cues because I can, I
can re old the judgment, but hear me out. So
I am a big believer in never checking a bag.
I think it keeps you loose when things change. You
never have to like you have you can run across
the airport, you can change flights, you can carry everything everywhere.
(49:18):
But I've even gone I've never even when I travel
for a long period of time. I went on a
like three week trip, and I just took a little time,
like the smallest little roller bag and a shoulder bag,
and then you can like wash your clothes in the
hotel and.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Use what specifically do the cubes do. That's the thing
that I've never really understood.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
They're actually pretty good. So you can basically just they
decrease the volume, thresh your clothes into these little bricks,
and it does keep it organized. So I am just
a big believer in like staying flexible in that way,
and then you can kind of change your plans and
and everything is with you all the time like a turtle.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Okay, I actually think that's a really good tip. Sta
I'm just gonna.
Speaker 7 (50:07):
Terrible.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
It is very dorky though, is that. I know, I
know it is, but my tip, and I feel like
I'm gonna get some judgment for this, But I have
three children, and it is incredibly nikky. You have a
couple of kids, you have to, okay, so you know
it's really you know, it's kind of annoying. You book travel,
it's it adds up or whatever. And now with the
(50:29):
changes to how tickets are priced, every airline basically charges
you to to like select a seat, which as a
parent is hectic and you you you don't want your
like three year old to be in the front of
the plane while you're in the back of the plane.
That would be very upsetting. And my hack is to
never pay that fee because I look at it. First
(50:50):
of all, there is a there is a rule that
the airlines have to try to see you together. And
I also feel like if they don't seat me with
the children.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Using social pressure to make people leave there, that is.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Their problem, not my problem. That's that, like it's a
much better flight.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
So you just like you just like find the person
sitting next to your three year old.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
It's never come up. I've never paid for I've never
paid to select a seat, and no bad has ever before.
So people have always been the airline does it. They
may behind the scenes, maybe they juggle. I don't know, Brian,
how does it work?
Speaker 9 (51:24):
You know, it depends that the algorithm will try to
put you together. Okay, so but yeah, sometimes they can
get dicey. I'm glad you haven't had an issue.
Speaker 8 (51:33):
I do know.
Speaker 9 (51:33):
I mean I see it all the time that it
does come up, and then it's you.
Speaker 7 (51:36):
Know, issues of strangers.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Okay, Brian, your hack?
Speaker 9 (51:44):
So my hack is that you know, airlines and hotels
are using AI to screw us all basically, and that's
not going to change. So as consumers, we need to
use AI to fight back. So when it comes to booking, flights.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Do you mean like pricing, dynamic pricing.
Speaker 8 (51:57):
Dynamic pricing, Yeah, so what you can do use AI.
Speaker 9 (52:00):
So there's a tool called with Autopilot, so whenever you
book a flight, it'll track and automatically keep checking constantly,
and if the flight price drops, they automatically rebook it
and give you a voucher.
Speaker 8 (52:11):
You have to do.
Speaker 9 (52:12):
Nothing, So I think tools like that. There's also Google
Flights are Google Hotels. Now, once you book a flight
or a hotel on Google Hotels, you can track it.
So if that hotel drops in price and you booked
a refundable fare or night rate, you can automatically you'll
get a ping alert and just go in, take two
seconds rebook it at the lower rate. There's also auto
(52:33):
slash which does that for rental cars. Rental cars can
drop dramatically. So my point to all of you is,
whenever you book, stop assuming that that's the best price
you're ever going to get, because let technology continuously check
and then rebook and put money back in your pocket that.
Speaker 8 (52:47):
You can then use on the things you actually love.
Speaker 6 (52:49):
I'll add one to your list, which is air Help
has an app now and if you're flying to Europe,
the consumer protections for flight disruptions and cancelations and are
really strong. So if you're worried that, like all of
the chaos with fuel prices in our European airline is
going to run out of fuel, is my flight going
to get canceled?
Speaker 7 (53:06):
If you so much, just track your flight with air Help.
Speaker 6 (53:10):
Should anything happen to that flight that would qualify you
for consumer protections, air Help would automatically put through the
claim and get you paid for it. And the only
thing that you pay is like a thirty percent commission
on the actual payout that's delivered to you.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
At the end of all that, you are sort of
favoring a regime with fewer credit card choices. Though when
you do that, because the European didn't, I mean, didn't
you hear that these consumer productions the.
Speaker 7 (53:37):
Point I will say, no, Brian has a point. Brian
has a lot of points that.
Speaker 6 (53:45):
I'm just gonna say, all right, but I will say
that this is one of the silver linings of all
the travelcasts that's happening right now is that Europe has
always been the only region to have consumer protections like
it does, and all of the like mayhem that was
caused when the Middle East airspace was closed, is encouraging
other regions around the world to say, this is a
reputational backlash if we don't have consumer protections, and we
(54:07):
really got to get on it. And now those programs
are being put in place in more places, and hopefully
that will lead to an environment where, even if geopolitical
chaos persists, we don't get screwed as often.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
All right, I think it's time to vote with our
applause the app Okay, all right, Jasmine is the applause meter?
Speaker 8 (54:27):
Ready?
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Okay, got a thumbs up Nikki's travel hack of taking
a private jet. And what are the criteria we need
to go? Okay, one more time.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
One more thing, one more time. Criteria, cost savings, exclusivity,
consideration of fellow travelers.
Speaker 3 (54:43):
Okay, so private jet.
Speaker 6 (54:46):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Get it's pretty good. Back, Well, that's like a pitty noise.
I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Letting your children loose on the airplane, letting your children's
move next to strangers.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
And guilty strangers into movies. And finally AI for good
a fighting robots, Yeah, fighting robots and robots.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
All right, let's do.
Speaker 4 (55:25):
The final Okay, wow, packing cubes.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
I love that Bryan's tip robots is the wind, Stacey wins.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
I am floored and and very grateful.
Speaker 8 (55:59):
Is there brand brand? Is there a brand of cubes
that you love?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
The Amazon one? Pretty good there?
Speaker 6 (56:07):
Yeah, thank you for bringing our conversation back to earth.
That was a really important moment.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
That it's the cheapest of the hacks for sure.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Yes, Brian Nikki, thank you for being here. Thank you
to the Ludlow House, thank you to on AirFest. Really
appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (56:22):
Thank you all.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
Yes, thank you, and travel safe.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
And we'll put some of Brian's tips in then show
notes or something right because I feel I saw some
people taking notes.
Speaker 3 (56:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 3 (56:34):
There's a couple of credit cards I need to get.
I don't even have close to thirty.
Speaker 8 (56:38):
It's a good thing.
Speaker 9 (56:39):
There's this website called the pointskuy dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
I've heard good things about it. The show is produced
by Jasmine JT. Green, Stacy Wong, and Miles J. Hersenhorn.
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Rogan handles engineering,
and Dave Purcell factchecks. Special thanks to Muscus, Julia Rubin
and Maria Ling and a very big thank you to
(57:03):
Scott Newman and the rest of the on air fest team,
along with ludlow House for putting this together. If you
have a minute, please rate and review the show. It
means a lot to us. And if you have a
story that should be our business, please send us an email.
Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody's with an us
at Bloomberg dot net. Thank you for listening. We'll see
you next week.
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