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Frequent Miler on the AirPodcast

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Earn Miles Without Flying:
You may be familiar with airline and hotel loyalty programs which seek to reward frequent travelers. But contrary to what you may assume, you can easily earn hundreds of thousands of points and miles without actually traveling to earn them. Then, you can use those miles and points for your own luxury travel.

Frequent Miler is all about getting the most out of the loyalty game. On this podcast, Greg (founder of Frequent Miler) and Nick (senior author at Frequent Miler) discuss and debate current topics and strategies in the points and miles world. Available on all major platforms, you can pick your favorite podcast streaming service below, or watch the episodes on YouTube.

Spotify Podcast

iTunes Podcast

Google Play Podcast

Youtube Podcast Videos

Preparing For The End of 2024

Preparing For The End of 2024 | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep284 |...

3
There are a lot of things in the points and miles world that kind of come to a head at the end of the year, so you'll want to know what you should be...
Predicting the next credit card collectibles

Predicting the next credit card collectibles | Coffee Break Ep35 | 12-3-24 | Podcast

17
There are credit cards out there which are not available new, but are still supported for those who already have them. In this episode, we have a prediction about a few cards that will...
10 frequent flyer-ish things we're thankful for

10 frequent flyer-ish things we’re thankful for | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep283...

1
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we're chatting about the 10 "Frequent Flyer-ish" things we're thankful for! Watch the full episode below, or listen on your favorite podcast platform. You can click the timestamps below to...
Million Mile Madness' home stretch

Million Mile Madness’ home stretch. It’s all over but the voting | Frequent Miler...

0
Greg, Nick, and Stephen are spent the last two weeks competing to satisfy the SAS EuroBonus Millionaire promo with the most style, affordability, and speed. If you've been following along by reading their journal...
Our Favorite Credit Card Perks

Our Favorite Credit Card Perks | Coffee Break Ep34 | 11-19-24 | Podcast

4
Rewards credit cards are often most valuable for their welcome bonuses, but many of them also have very valuable perks just for having the card. So which credit cards have the best perks for...
Heads up! Because I solicit team feedback when answering questions on posts and pages like these, it may take some time for me to get to your questions. Thanks in advance for your patience! - Carrie
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DaveS

I always reason that the rep could be hit at any moment with any of a thousand questions, and it’s hard to be current on all of them, especially when some may not often come up. On the other hand, when we call or chat on some topic it’s normally one we’ve been researching right at that time. It’s logical we know more about our topic in the moment than the agent does.

James

I hasld a free stay at an SLH property and used my Hilton business card for incidental expenses. My dining credit left a balance of $8 which I paid with my business Hilton card , amex then credited back the $8. So it does work. James

Prerna

Hi my husband has lifetime platinum with Marriott. With that, we get free breakfast/lounge access and upgrades. What is the best card to get free nights and to supplement any platinum benefits? Thanks so much!

Caroline Yoder

There really isn’t a card that supplements Platinum benefits. As you probably know, you will get elite nights annually for holding a Marriott credit card, but those will only matter for you if you are after the 50-night choice benefit or you intend to go after Titanium (which doesn’t offer enough benefit over the Lifetime Platinum to be worth it IMO.In terms of the best card “to get free nights”, the best answer to that is whichever is offering the best welcome bonus at the time you’re applying. All of the ~$100 annual fee Marriott cards come with an automatic annual 35K free night certificate. The Brilliant card ($650 AF) comes with an annual 85K free night certificate and $25 per month ($300 per year) in dining credits — that may or may not be worth it to you. The $250 cards require spend to receive their free night certificates (which are valid for a night up to 50K).

A perennial “favorite” card among Marriott enthusiasts is the Chase Ritz card because it costs $450 per year and comes with up to $300 in airline incidental reimbursements + an annual free night certificate for a night up to 85K points. However, you can’t apply for that card new, you would first need to get one of the Chase Marriott consumer cards and wait a year after you open it and then you should be able to upgrade to the Ritz card.

Note that it doesn’t make sense to put ongoing spend on Marriott credit cards because the return on spend is weak — most of them offer 2 points per dollar spent on unbonused spend. Our Reasonable Redemption Value for Marriott points is only 0.7c per point, so that’s like a return of 1.4%, which isn’t a good deal. Even if you think you’ll redeem Marriott points for better value, consider that Marriott often sells points for around 0.9c per point. You could get a 2% cash back card and for every $1 you spend, you’d get 2 cents that could buy you 2 Marriott points and you’d still have 0.2c left over. That might not sound like much, but it adds up over time (and if you have access to options that earn 2.625% back or 3% back, the math on earning Marriott points through spend on Marriott cards gets worse). Welcome bonuses are really the best option for earning Marriott points.Speaking of Marriott card welcome bonuses, the rules as to whether you’re eligible for each of the cards can be complicated. See these posts for more info:

9:19

https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-bonvoy-complete-guide/#Credit_Card_Eligibility
https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-card-eligible/

(Since I always use team input for responses to podcast-related questions, my responses may be delayed. Thanks for your patience!)

Prerna

Thank you! That’s very helpful

Michael

With the latest don’t siesta on Sonesta jargon, I wanted to add that the free version of FoundersCard provided by Clear (and other vendors) includes discounted Sonesta stays and automatic status with Sonesta.

Steve G

New(ish) to the hobby and love the podcast. Just finished a remodel on our house and stocked up on roughly 1M AMEX points and 800k Chase points!!! It is time for next round of cards. My question is Nick because I am looking at the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card but want to know if the “How to turn a $95 card into 4 ocean cruises” still works before I apply for the card. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Rene Flores

Can I use the Chase Ink Preferred Business (Visa) card for payment with Plastiq for my mortgage? The table in your site for Plastiq shows that “Visa” is one of the cards that you cannot pay for mortgage (only Mastercard and Discover). I’ve read in some blogs and TPG that the Ink Preferred business card is an example for paying mortgage with the use of Plastiq. I’m confuse. Could you explain this? Thank you.

Greg The Frequent Miler

I don’t think you can you it for paying mortgage. So, no, I can’t explain TPG

Tony

Hi, It has been over 4 months since JetBlue implemented this tile-to-mosaic system. Has anyone done the calculation to verify their current tile count? I have spent over $19000 on my JetBlue credit cards and over $2800 on JetBlue flights, and my current tile count is 16. If I understand the system correctly, it should have been 47 in total. Customer service told me over the phone that it would take four to six weeks for the number to appear accurately. Has anyone else seen that their tile count appears to be off?

Greg The Frequent Miler

Confirming your math: You should earn 1 tile with every $1,000 spent on your JetBlue credit card so I’d expect you to have 19 tiles from that and 28 tiles from JetBlue flights for a total of 47.

Sounds like they’re slow in awarding those tiles!

Roberta Moscovitz

Hi, your discussion about how to get and use Avois points was absolutely enlightening. I’d say I’m a partial newbe; I’ve flown free to Borneo, with a 2 day layover in Singapore, Romania, Bahamas, and I’m completing a trip to Rwanda and Tanzania. I have United Mileage plus and American miles. Simple question, for this trip, I booked one way with United and for the return trip, I used AmEx points through their portal. I input my American Advantage frequent #, but since the booking I’ve signed up for Qatar privilege . Can I also put in my Qatar # or for Qatar miles? Can I switch?

Greg The Frequent Miler

You can switch if you want to, but you can’t have both numbers on one flight

Adam

Just listened to your podcast with a short segment on rental cars.
FYI, Orlando airport has a visitor toll pass that you can use for free. 10 minimum deposit, but then every toll you go it just subtracts from the 10$ or charges your credit card if more.
Then you just return it when you get back to the airport. Simple as that.

Chuck

I am going to come up short for Platinum Medallion on Delta. Is it too late to add a Delta card for the 2500 MQDs as part of the Headstart program

Greg The Frequent Miler

No, it’s not too late. You can add a Delta card any time this year and you should get the headstart

Matt Feltz

Love your site and your podcast. I am dying to fly ANA business class to Japan. I have 400k United Miles, 200k Chase points and 100k Amex points and all are growing, with the biggest monthly growth being my united miles due to business travel. What would you suggest is my best option?

Daniel A

Hopefully someone has something helpful to share. I’ve had no luck. I searched a significant portion of the full year calendar for HNL-TYO on ANA site and couldn’t find a single business seat. Just endless “wait-list”, which is a feature that makes their search engine more a headache and something ANA should eliminate. I generally have been stunned how poor ANA availability is even for economy on their own metal and even find good dates the fees are prohibitive. Based on my experience with ANA availability combined with the lag in transfer time from Amex and 3 year expiration I would be super hesitant to transfer points to ANA.

Last edited 9 months ago by Daniel A
Greg The Frequent Miler

It’s really hard to find ANA business class award availability and even harder to find it with their new business class product (I wouldn’t go out of my way to fly their old one). Seats.Aero is the best tool I know of for finding availability. I just looked at United through Seats.Aero’s explore feature and found a bunch of ANA biz class availability but all of it is within the next week or so. In other words, they seem to be opening up space very close to departure but not much otherwise.

Mike Wise

The Bilt credit card allows you to pay dorm charges for a college student. We set up a 529 for our granddaughter and she is now a freshman at Washington University in St Louis. Her dorm fee per semester is $6594.00. Wash U charges 3% for credit cards. Sent a Bilt check to Wash U and had no problems with the transaction!

Gman58

LOVE to hear some tips on dealing with the issue of businesses now adding a 3-4% charge to anyone using a credit card for payment. At first I thought it was limited, but now I’m seeing more and more! From my local pizza place to my (soon to be EX)- internet security company to even (can you believe this!?) the company that pumps out my septic tank!!

This bull-ony is making things very rough on the small time point collectors like me. I’ve miffed, annoyed and looking for guidance from the FM crew.

Would appreciate some wisdomly advice!! Thank you!

Gman58

Mercedes

Regarding the announcement that Southwest will soon have free Standby: Would you do a podcast teaching us about Standby and how to use it? I understand the concept, but have never done Standby, and always have wondered how it is done, literally, step by step.

Daniel Alexander

My understanding is the easy way to find standard award availability across multiple dates is to look for max 120k then click and it should show standard room availability. Yes?
If I’m correct, you can add Hilton Moorea Lagoon to the list of NO free night certificate availability. As the lowest points looking at the full is the 270k. If wrong, I want to find how I can find availability!

Greg The Frequent Miler

The max depends on the property. Some go as high as 150k for standard room awards. Luckily Hilton shows on their award calendar which nights are standard awards: https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-find-the-hilton-flexible-date-calendar/

And see this post for how to find availability: https://frequentmiler.com/tools-for-finding-impossible-hotel-awards/