After spooky season, I think annual team challenge season is my favorite of the year. I haven’t invented any kind of decorative pageantry for this season yet, but I think there’s sort of a meta way in which these team challenges are an analogy for miles and points themselves. It’s the reason for the season, so to speak.
Let me explain: with our team challenges, sometimes they start with a thought like “it would be ridiculous to actually do this, but wouldn’t it be neat to try…” For example “it would be ridiculous to actually book Necker Island on points, but wouldn’t it be neat to try?” Thanks to the blog, we can kind of justify these ridiculous or over-the-top experimental ideas because we might be fulfilling curiosities that our readers have too. It doesn’t have to be a failsafe idea or a relaxing restoration – it just has to be interesting in one way or another.
But…isn’t that the beauty of miles and points for all of us, blog or no blog? Suddenly those over-the-top vacations that pique our interest are actual options because we don’t have to justify high dollar costs. For instance Greg has talked about the shift in thinking he and his wife developed when they started to realize they didn’t need to reserve two full weeks for an international trip . With enough miles and points suddenly a trip to London wasn’t over-the-top for just a weekend, it was well within reason.
This week we introduced our next challenge, ushering in my (second) favorite season of the year! We also updated a few of our hotel point reasonable redemption values thanks to a new resource for hotel data, and vicariously enjoyed some delightfully over-the-top travels from first class cabins to castles. All that and more on the blog this week…
Announcing the 100K Vacay Team Challenge! | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep309 | 6-6-25
This episode answers all the essential questions about the rules and premise of our next annual team challenge “100K Vacay”. In short, Nick, Stephen, and Tim each picked a transferable currency they think can beat Greg’s 100K Chase points for the best 3+ night vacation. Greg will travel first with a budget of 100K Chase Ultimate Rewards + $1,000, aiming to set a high bar for the others to beat. Then, he’ll work with Carrie to judge whose alternative 100K points produced the best vacation to compete with his. In this episode we dive deeper into the nitty gritty.
Current point transfer bonuses for June 2025
Don’t forget about this useful resource, designed to always provide the current point transfer bonuses. One of the first things we’ll tell points and miles beginners is how valuable transferable points currencies are…but transfer bonuses help bring them to the next level. As always, please remember that this is not a curated list, but a complete list. In other words, we’re aiming to show you all of the current transfer bonuses (even the ones we might not think are the best deals out there.) And a second important reminder from your miles-and-points-dads: avoid speculative transfers. We’d hate to see you transfer a bunch of points to an airline that has zero availability for your desired trip.
What are Marriott points worth?
We’ve been updating some of our Reasonable Redemption Value data because we now have an excellent source for calculating this less manually. Gondola (a free hotel search tool that shows prices of properties in both cash and points) has kindly made their data available to us specifically for this purpose. We can now use the ~3 million Marriott searches at more than 8,000 domestic and international properties to calculate a much better and more accurate “Reasonable Redemption Value” estimate for Marriott points. Having said that, we had just done a sort of recalculation not that long ago to catch up with recent price-hikes at some of Marriott’s most aspirational properties, among other things. It’s nice to see how spot on our manually calculated RRV was to this more robust one. Quite amazingly, our Marriott RRV stayed exactly the same at 0.76 cents per point.
Best Credit Card Offers for June 2025
Every month we like to remind folks about the most valuable post on this whole site – our Best Credit Card Offers page, where we list all the best publicly available offers all in one place ranked by first year value. This month, we’ve added a link to the new Credit Card Exploration Tool we’re testing which provides the same list of best offers, but allows you to dynamically filter and sort the 100+ offers all in one place.
Grand Hotel Victoria Lake Como, Greg’s turn
Greg’s recent vacation provided us with some great reviews – one of the popular Grand Hotel Victoria Lake Como, an SLH (Small Luxury Hotels of the World) hotel bookable with Hilton points, and later on in this post, a coveted first class product as well. Nick had visited this hotel a few times already and raved about it so much, Greg put it on his radar for his 30th anniversary. Of course…Nick loves the property so much, (or maybe he loves Greg and Pam so much), that he happened to be there for part of Greg’s stay – unplanned! The part that seemed to impact Greg the most, though, was the Lake Como region itself. He ultimately decided that, while wonderful, this hotel wouldn’t necessarily be a repeat for him since there were other towns in the Lake Como area that piqued his intrigue too much.
What are IHG points worth?
As mentioned above, we’ve been updating some of our Reasonable Redemption Value data now that we have an excellent source for calculating this less manually in Gondola (a free hotel search tool that shows prices of properties in both cash and points). Because they’ve kindly made this data available to us, we can now use the ~2 million IHG searches at more than 6,000 domestic and international properties to calculate a much better and more accurate “Reasonable Redemption Value” estimate for IHG points. Once again, it was nice to see how close our manually calculated RRV was to this more robustly calculated one. Our IHG RRV went from 0.62 cents per point to 0.61 cents per point. It feels good to make this process simpler and more reliable, but it also feels good to validate our original thinking a bit too.
Emirates first class Milan to New York review
As part of his 30th anniversary celebration, Greg got to fly Emirates’ fifth freedom route from Milan (MXP) to New York (JFK) on their A380 aircraft. Emirates only lets you book first class awards if you have elite status, but there are a few ways to get around this. What Greg did for example was book a business class award, and then at the airport, he used additional miles to upgrade to first class. The flight was, in Greg’s own words, “fantastic”. The lounge had gates that took you directly to the plane, then the plane cabin was of course blinged out with automatic doors, a little extendable mini bar of sorts, and a spacious shower. Enough to knock your cozy slippers (which they also provide) right off.
Negative Venture X & Venture X Business lounge access changes coming
The Venture X and Venture X Business cards are making some unfavorable changes. Currently those with the Venture X personal card have been allowed to get into Priority Pass and Capital One lounges and bring in several guests as well. Authorized users of this card were also allowed into the lounge, despite there being no fee to add an authorized user. This was very generous, but unfortunately it’s going away. Starting February 1st 2026, no more free guests or authorized users allowed into Priority Pass lounges with the personal card, and just 2 free guests if you have the business version of the card. Though, there will be an option to basically buy the lounge benefit for up to 4 authorized users for $125 a person. Then for Capital One lounges, you’ll have to make $75,000 of spend in a calendar year in order to bring in two “free” guests, and otherwise you’ll pay $25-$45 for guests, depending on age. (And actually, $0 for children under three.) Read the post for more specifics on this sad news.
Etihad First Class apartments: morning vs evening | Coffee Break Ep58 | 6-3-25 | Podcast
Undoubtedly one of the huge benefits a quality first class product has over lesser products is how much easier it is to have a truly solid sleep when you’re in a lie-flat seat that practically turns into a bed. But there’s a sort of sleep-or-not bell curve where a first class experience is so nice that sleep becomes sort of a bummer of a way to spend your time (instead of an excellent thing to take advantage of.) After listening to Greg and Nick’s discussion comparing the nighttime and daytime versions of the first class apartment experience in Etihad First Class, it’s clear that the Etihad First Class apartments are on the not-sleep end of that bell curve, but not because of a poor product, but because there’s too much fine dining and sky-showering to enjoy.
Announcing the 100K Vacay team Challenge!
For all those folks who have made comments over the years about 40K to Far Away being their favorite of our annual team challenges, this newest challenge should get you pretty excited. It’s a very similar concept that riffs off of new trends in a pretty interesting way – namely, the (now expired) Chase Sapphire Preferred 100K point offer which created quite a buzz this spring. Instead of 40K points of varying currencies plus $400 as our travel budget, our competitors will use 100K points of varying currencies and $1,000. But before they even hit the road to showcase the strengths of their chosen points currencies, Greg will travel first, using Chase Ultimate Rewards points (and $1,000) to set the benchmark the others must beat. In short, Nick, Stephen, and Tim will set out to prove that the 100K points of their choosing can beat Greg’s 100K Chase points for the best 3+ night vacation. While 40K to Far Away forced some very budget behavior to get contestants as far away from their start as possible, this one should instead have our contestants showing off exactly how flashy a vacation you can build with the power of points.
The power of points promiscuity
Pepper proclaims the power of points promiscuity (and celebrates alliteration while he’s at it!) While loyalty is obviously a very real strategy for maximizing travel, Stephen’s recent galavant across the UK proved just how useful it can be to play the field a little. He stayed in London, Liverpool, Falkirk, Fort William (twice), the Isle of Skye, Inverness, and Aberdeen and in each place he deployed a different booking strategy. By the end, he’d used Hyatt points, Hotels.com gift cards, Hilton Free Night Certificates, Wyndham Points Via Cottages.com, Marriott 35k Free Night Certificates, and of course IHG points. To get the full picture though, read his post and watch how this blend of stays created a really cool vacation across the UK. Amongst those stays for example was the Inverlochy Castle Hotel in Fort William, Scotland which is part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) and therefore bookable with Hilton points & free night certificates).
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye on our month-ending last chance deals to take advantage of them before they expire.
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Honestly, I find this sort of thing pretty cringeworthy, and amateurish. Look, you guys are going to play your games, everyone knows that. But – perhaps a news flash for narcissists – people are not all that into YOU. And you make this ALL about you. The nonsense you engage in is for bloggers and others without an actual job or life responsibilities. Hooray for you, you found a rare unicorn cheap “sweet spot” that you were able to exploit. But that usually means squat for people with actual lives who want to actually go someplace specific, not engage in duck-measuring contests with other bloggers, most readers don’t give a hoot about your “contests.” But go ahead, play on, and enjoy your navel-gazing.
I’m retired. I have an actual life traveling full time for fun without an actual job or life responsibilities, and have been playing this game longer than most of the team. I love Frequent Miler! It is my favorite blog in this hobby. Play on FM team!
Two things I like about this blog. One is that there is a wide variety of posts so if I don’t like one thing there are lots more to choose from.
The other thing I like is that most people here are really nice and polite.
I’m assuming that you didn’t read Greg’s post where he explained how the challenge will work. Otherwise you’ll have seen that booking a unicorn award is what we’re trying to avoid with this challenge and that we’ll be rewarded for booking great value flights and hotels that are easily replicable by readers.
Readers are the reason we do these challenges as they’re a way to showcase solutions to problems, as well as giving ideas and inspiration for their own travels. The Party of 5 challenge was done to show ways you can book overseas flights in premium cabins and luxury accommodation for larger families. 3 Cards, 3 Continents displayed what could be done with the points/miles from just three welcome offers. Flying by the Seat of our Points focused on last minute travel for people who might have to make an urgent booking at the last minute or for someone who has a lot of flexibility. 40K to Far Away showcased what could be done with a relatively small number of points.
This new 100K Vacay challenge is being done to highlight some amazing 3+ night itineraries readers could book with only 100,000 points & $1,000. If you think that people with jobs and those who have responsibilities never take a 3+ night vacation, I don’t know what to tell you.
I’m also confused by the fact that you seemingly think that we don’t have jobs and responsibilities. We chose the dates for our challenge precisely because all our own commitments and responsibilities meant that was pretty much the only time this year where we could do this challenge.
Raul, your comment is focused on yourself. You are self-absorbed, closed-minded, and seem bitter. Are you a Millennial or Gen Z?
YOU aren’t able to benefit from the FM content. Fine. But, you project your inability onto everyone else. You can’t see how anyone else might benefit from these articles. And, that’s simply not the case. There are plenty of readers who can benefit from their articles.
Caroline’s commentary at the beginning of this post is refreshing. It’s about experimenting. Try this, what about that? A person has only so many points — because they are low income and can only generate 100k — what might they do? Experiment. The embedded message is that EVERYONE can play this game. Not just those rolling in points. Can you not grasp this?
Like reader Julie, I’m a seasoned hobbyist. Every so often, I find a nugget that’s applicable to my travel. And, sometimes I find something that will benefit family and friends . . . whose inexperience might not allow them to see the “how” of a particular strategy . . . so, I find it for them. And, on their limited budgets, they experience more.
Even if a person takes one trip a year, one FM article might make that one trip more affordable, more enriching, or even possible.
To me, the FM team opens up opportunities to some who never dared to even dream.
Raul, try thinking about how someone other than yourself might benefit from something.
It is interesting how some people learn from these challenges and others do not, isn’t it? When I was new to the points and miles game I didn’t find the FM challenges all that helpful. But as I have learned more about this hobby it is surprising what random piece of information can come in handy later.
I recently booked some rather hard to find and desirable award flights using techniques I had learned from several different sources (including a previous FM challenge) along with a couple of tricks I figured out for myself. As a result I was able to snag what might have seemed like unicorn fares to my earlier self. But I knew how to find them and grab them before they were gone, so they didn’t seem unicorn to me.
I have learned a lot following this blog and I just try to file away as much as I can knowing some of it will be useful down the road, sometimes in surprising ways.
These contest are not my cup of coffee
& that’s okay! You don’t need to read them but I for one, do really like them.
That was a great week of posts! FM is always good, but you folks have been on a roll lately.
And look, not a single clickbait post to be seen… (In case any other bloggers are reading this, hint, hint…)