40K to Far Away Afterglow. Help us design the next #40KFarAway challenge.

Here’s a suggestion – everyone has to go to the same destination(s), picked at random by someone who is not doing the challenge 2 months in advance, and everyone has to get there, do a specific event or 2, maybe a couple local excursions, and then return home.

Makes it kind of exciting to see who can accomplish it when everyone has to go to the same place. Could even pick the same starting airport?

For example: Everyone needs to go to the Kelabit Highlands, Sarawak, Malaysia. But could require a specific activity or multiple stops.

Like:
Must have a drink at the Park Hyatt in Japan
Then visit Kelabit Highlands, Sarawak, Malaysia
Then eat dinner at Hofbräuhaus, Munich.

Any extra activities are bonus points!

I’d be interested in a challenge where you get to pick where a reader goes. Not sure if there are other readers interested in this, but I’d let someone pick an itinerary for me and my family (4 total). I’ve posted on flyertalk and other forums asking people to suggest itineraries for us with little to no influence/input from us, and some people think it’s absurd. I think its thrilling and eye opening, as there are places I’ve never heard of, activities that would have never crossed my mind, and of course, the element of surprise.

Of course you’d have to find readers that either already have a certain amount of miles, or find readers that were willing to apply for the cards needed to obtain those miles. I think a 200k chase ultimate reward or 200k amex membership reward challenge would be just about right for a family challenge.

The challenge reminded me of being a broke college student traveling through Europe. Having very little money forces you out of your comfort zone. That said, some of those experiences are the most memorable. You can’t put a price tag on them. Greg’s post from Senegal, in particular, really jumped off the page and grabbed my attention. Dakar isn’t on the top of my list, but you made it interesting and a place that I would think about visiting. Greg got my vote and the main reason was his ability to adapt. When the trip “wasn’t fun” on the first day, he changed that by riding with his friend to the airport. When he initially couldn’t find a place to sleep in Madrid, he considered an all night movie theater. When his train broke down in Africa he made the decision to get on the bus. Creative thinking can make or break a trip. I would like to see a challenge where winning was based on how well obstacles were handled and what was done to overcome them. As I was reading all of the posts, I kept thinking what you would do if your flight cancelled, you got sick, someone stole your backpack etc. Did you have a Plan B if there was a major glitch? Thanks to all of you for enduring jet lag and sleep deprivation for our enjoyment. Frequent Miler is the best!

Congratulations to all three of you on a job well done ! This was one of the best features on any FF blog that I have read in a long time time – interesting, informative, and at times, flat out hilarious. I loved the fast-paced trips with long treks with backpacks , struggles with broke-down transportation, frenetic scrounging for food, and sleeping on the floor. I am an Army vet and it reminded me of my time in the military. It also reminded me of why I left. Much respect for going so hardcore but like many of the other readers, I think I would like to see a slightly more comfortable sojourn featured in the next contest. Plus I never want to see any of you guys post from the local lock up after getting arrested for vagrancy or from a hospital after being injured by some psycho couch surfer. I suggest :

1. An “Economy Plus” trip, i.e. no family stays, couch surfs, or hostels. Use of free nights, promos, etc all within bounds.

2. A “luxury “ trip to gauge how swanky one can go with points and miles instead of cash to make a dream trip come true.

3. I love the “Spin the Globe “ idea another reader mentioned .

4. A challenge that included a family member, significant other, or friend would be value-added as many of us dragoon those we love into coming with us on our FF adventures. Their reactions and perspectives on the trip would be fun to read. Also has the potential of adding a female point of view, which would be good.

5. Please don’t make this feature a one-off! I can’t wait to read the next one.

Thank you guys for your stellar efforts and letting us come along !

There is a consensus about TFM creating more challenges! Yeah! Thank you for the reminder link Greg, “How to piece together an impossible award”, somehow I missed this article the first time around!
So as far as the challenge would go, the deconstructed formula that made the Far away 40k & 400 great this time, still works!
possible and practical. Yes!
Entertaining. Yes!
Innovative Yes!
Now, only how to make things different…I like the ideas about a scavenger hunt, or a “themed” journey. What if the focus/theme of the next challenge was just as subjective as it was in this first one? Themes can easily lead to an excellent series.
I really appreciated how much innovation came from the different interpretations of “Far” in this challenge. Leaving this parameter purposefully undefined, opened possibilities for participants to strategize with varied, yet equivocal journeys. Readers also imagined these definitions and it clearly engaged folks! . What if the next theme was similarly open, e.g. “others” or “comfort” or “other’s comfort”?
Many commented about the bus/airport sleeping & a desire to allocate funds for accomodations on the next challenge, this got me thinking. If I participated in a challenge like this, I would want to know that everyone really enjoyed themselves in comfort & experience. The thing is, comfort is really subjective. In many ways, subjectivity drove this thing. I wouldn’t have wanted to limited how anyone’s personal comfort level, based on an allocated budget. I enjoyed reading about Greg’s trip train experience & the connection he made with his hosts. I equally appreciated all the transportation/logistics Stephen arranged & Nick’s thinking outside the box w/yacht club. Most people make trade-offs in travel, or leave room for flexibility/personal preference at least. For some it’s business class flights, then a budget hotel, everything doesn’t have to match up, to have a trip highlight, or a do-over for that matter.
Still, a theme of “other’s comfort” could work here! If planning a trip for another participant & a family member, or potential Partnerships of FM team member’s w/ a +1 & a Follower w/ a +1, Consideration is going to lead to more traditional comfort. If you were potentially planning something for someone else, I think most people would be more accomodating.
Maybe, “Other’s comfort”, could also focus on “Other’s needs”. I loved that this last challenge considered environmental impact and matched carbon off-sets. In addition to practicing sustainability in travel, I am also intrigued by volunteer opportunities. Often times on vacation I have had opportunities pop-up, but have never planned an international trip around this. What if say,within the confine of, 100k MR/UR/TY pts & 100k Bonvoy/IHG/Hilton/Hyatt pts & 400$ per person made “100% FOR others”. Teams of 4 (FM+1 &Follwer+1) could Plan a wk’ish journey, w/ a volunteer opportunity included, FOR a competing team! Maybe it is cleaning a beach, working with wildlife research, maybe it’s educational. Maybe it lasts the whole trip, maybe it’s only a ½ day experience, it could be 100% for another’s comfort.

I loved the 40k to Faraway challenge and can’t wait to see what you guys come up with next.

All of the potential ideas and readers’ suggestions for the next challenge all sound great.

But you know what would be a lot of fun??? You guys should all travel together to aspirational destinations.

Each of you should write down two destinations that you’ve always been wanting to go to. Each destination should be written on a separate small piece of paper. Fold them up. Then, each of you will pick one piece of paper (with a destination) from the two others.

So… Greg will have to plan an itinerary based on destinations that he selected from Nick and Stephen
Nick will have destinations from Stephen and Greg
And Stephen will have destinations from Greg and Nick

Timing is great since it’s the holidays and it’ll be like a “Secret Santa: Frequent Miler Edition”

The end result will be that each of you will have selected a destination from the other two. And you’ll have to plan a high quality trip with respect to those two destinations.

Think of it as like a creative gift to your fellow colleague authors.

Here’s my suggested rules:
– The budget will be 150k points (any combination from any program) + $1,500 dollars (remember, this accounts for a total of three travelers).
– Food is excluded from the budget. Want you guys to be able to enjoy yourselves
– The itinerary must include the two destinations selected by your colleagues. But you can get creative with how you get there, like if you include any interesting stops along the way.
– Since each of the authors are planning a two destination trip itinerary, there will be three total trips. Obviously, they cannot overlap with timing. So maybe you guys can reserve blocks within the same one or two month period in 2020.
– The author planning the trip is allowed to choose the origin starting point, but it has to be in the continental United States.
– Winner is judged by how much your colleagues enjoyed the trip

I think it’ll be awesome because:
– You guys will travel together, which could be fun or at least entertaining (or interesting?)
– You will go to destinations that you actually want to visit
– You may have to find routes / itineraries between two destinations that could be far from each other (you never know)

Now that I think of it… this challenge is starting to sound more like a “friends trip”. 🙂

I’m looking forward to the next iteration of the challenge. There are so many possibilities.
Here are some suggestions
– Don’t make it roundtrip. I agree with Nick that adding the RT restriction inhibits open thinking.
– The biz/first class angle would be a good next step. Some flights could still be economy. Maybe you could have a rule like the Excursionist Perk: economy flights are allowed if they start and end in the same region…
– Food should be taken out of the main budget. Maybe have a per diem system where you’re allocated $X per day and can spend it over the trip as you please. You could even make it a separate category. Who “ate” the best? Michelin star dinner on the first night and instant noodles for the next 6? Or taste pizza in every country?
– Lodging could also be a separate category and budget. (Sleeping on floors isn’t necessary and seems overly harsh.) Who “slept” the best? Hammock overlooking a river and a waterfall or bunk in a monastery or overnighting in a manga cafe? Of course those things aren’t usually attainable via points but you get the idea. For this category, maybe points could be optional or have a 40K/$400 budget for lodging. You could expand on this by assigning each person a hotel chain. They could then use any perk that elite status and accompanying credit cards offer. That’d be a good way to highlight what’s possible with lodging.
– I don’t think adding travel companions is needed. It’s basically just making everything cost 2x.

First, you’ve got an obvious game theory problem with forcing contestants to go further with miles or to sleep and eat. You need different buckets of points or dollars… If you stick with the same type of scheme. Also, require paid lodgings. Having people sleeping in dangerous areas creates liability and should be barred.
Sleeping on a plane is fine of course.

A couple other ideas.

1. You think up an itinerary eg Cape Town 40k leaving from certain cities within a date range, and see if readers can figure it out and book it. Anyone who succeeds gets to guest blog if they want.

2. You set your itinerary, you’ll be at x restaurant from 8-10pm on this date, y hotel pool from 1-3pm on y date, z priority pass lounge on z date, see who can meet you using the coolest route.

3. Same contest as modified to require use of hotel rooms, but with objective criteria: distance traveled + cpp, weighted evenly.

Fwiw thanks for the Turkish miles idea, we had just enough typ to book our return flight x4 from ogg after Spring break. Still looking for a good use of the excursionist perk, I’ve got some ideas though!

I’m not too sure why people object to the walking. I’m in my 50s and certainly no runner, or do any kind of outrageous exercising and we often walk 5-10 miles in a day. I’m not into the do nothing vacation (lie on a beach, sit on a cruise liner, etc.) and prefer to walk and explore cities.

The hostel, couch surfing, etc. is another story. While it is adventurous and for some people, there is an element of danger involved and is probably more roughing it than the average economy class person would do.

Of course, your readers are going to have many different perspectives, so whatever you choose will not fit everyone’s preference. I read a few suggestions in the comments below and in the voting thread that I do not agree with because I feel like it would detract from the out-of-the box thinking and real world considerations all of us face with travel. In particularly, I do NOT agree with suggestions to:

1) Take food and/or accommodations out of the budget or separate budget categories too much (although I would be OK with an additional allotment of points for hotel stays), since most of us consider our aggregate “budget” in cash/points for travel in some way. Personally, although I do not have a strict travel budget, I make conscious decisions to spend less money on things I do not value (e.g., private ground transfers, luxury hotels for quick overnights) to have more points/money to spend on other things that are “splurge” experiences or things I value more.
2) Travel with someone else: I travel solo a lot, and I feel like the compromises people make when traveling with others would detract from the adventurous nature of your trips.

I would like to see the following in the next round of the challenge:
1) The same start and end date for each person
2) A more generous budget so you do not have to “rough it” quite as much and might be able to include some opportunities to use points/money for good value hotel stays or business class travel

As an amateur at this miles/pts field and the fact that for the first time in our lifetime, we took our first business class to Europe (SD->AMS->MAD, rt) in late March, early April on the Delta A330-300. Then in June, we took for our first time in our life’s, JAL 777-300 First Class. The experience was just euphoria, to say the least (can’t say enough about this experience)!!! To add icing on the cake, we stayed at the Tokyo Andaz and Tokyo Conrad. Another phenomena experience via chase cards (got it before was added to the 5/24).

I would like to see postings from people’s first experience and how they got there first business/first class seats (how was that like? Was it like euphoria like we experience it?)?

Therefore, I am a big user of your site for getting info on cards and award redemptions and your Best Offer link. So this is very important.

So, I would have to say, to do what you do best in this area.

I don’t mean to put water in this amazing 40K race, but it didn’t help me out for planning traditional travel to see other places in the world at a comfortable pace. Also, the website in your posting was overwhelming with information and I would take too much time to read through it (understatement). Also, it would be nice if someone stays behind at the office to keep up with the latest credit card offers and award redemption as they come out (this is what I missed out on).

A perspective from an amateur at this field.

Maybe others have posted along these lines. But many in the miles and Points community are looking to redeem points for luxury travel (Biz/First Class). Premium suites in hotels etc and that too with family (3 or 4 people). So a luxury travel competition will surely open up a lot of creative nuggets for the whole community to use.

Looking forward to that challenge

Well, since this travel challenge is totally frivolous, and the world is apparently melting due to the privileged few flying gratuitous trips around the world ‘just because we can’, how about an eco challenge? Lowest carbon travel wins. So ebikes, bikes, rowing, walking, sailing, solar-powered planes, EVs etc. (but electrons used to charge your vehicles have to be accounted for – grids powered by coal/gas are fails).

From a narrative perspective, it might be worth considering doing one person at a time — this wasn’t a race, so I’m not sure there was much benefit to going all at once, and it made it harder to follow along. Spread everyone out and you get more of a chance to dive into each person’s trip.

4 x 4 x 4? Fly 4 airlines, stay in 4 hotel chains, on 4 continents.

This series was fantastic. I appreciated the emphasis on “real” travel (people, street food, budget-consciousness) rather than luxury stays and reviews of hotel shampoo. Personally, I would vote against a luxury competition — you can get a version of that material on any bling-blog.

For future projects:

* Around the World in 80 Ks to see who can do the “best” around-the-world itinerary for 80K points and $800 (or whatever dollar amount you think is reasonable).

* A reader challenge where readers can enter the competition and are then judged either by reader votes or by a panel of experts and receive some kind of prize.

* Some kind of themed competition — Beach Blanket Bingo where you have to do the most varied and interesting beach itinerary, or Food Flyaway were you have to eat the most varied and interesting food (still leave enough flexibility in the definition so that people can get creative).

* The scavenger hunt idea suggested by someone else is also great.

I think you should do a competition with a goal and then see who can do it with the best combination of points, money, and other instruments. Like, the goal is to circumnavigate the word and then you each use whatever point, vouchers, free nights or whatever and we vote on it.

Or, do a scavenger hunt. You have ten pictures you need to take and it’s up to each of you how to get them. Then we vote who did it most efficiently. Take a picture with a penguin, at the equator, with a plant indigenous to a particular region, etc.

You catalogue everything of value you use and then we vote on the best trip.

I would say that whatever a future competition holds, an apples-to-apples approach is best. The rules should be very strict, for example: no hostels, no couchsurf or perhaps no using the point-cash conversion equivalent to book. If sending everyone to the same location to test true creativity, Europe is unbeatable for the simple fact that there are probably over 20 ways to cross the Atlantic. As it stands, everyone had great trip ideas but it just becomes a subjective “I think Africa was more interesting” or “Nick went to more remote places”.

Must bring Mothers-in-law on trip. hahahahaha

I love the ambiguous nature of “Far Away” and letting the readers vote. I’ll be giving this more thought, but I’m definitely leaning towards a “Best Bang for your Buck” contest. Include wives and round trips since those are practical constraints for many travelers. 200k points and $2000 or something similar. Which couple got the best value as voted by the readers? Obviously many people will think cents/point, but I think the “value” of the trip will lend itself to different interpretations.

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Travel the way a normal person would travel. So no walking 10,000 miles or sleeping on airport floors. Unless you are looking to create a reality tv show. In that case [Deleted by administrator]. Also no use of friends, family or relying on fame of the blog.

Get back home. Remove restriction on budget. The winner is chosen based on mile/dollar

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