Getting ready for full vacay mode: Nick’s 100K Vacay focus

Tonight, we have a live stream scheduled at 9pm Eastern time to recap Greg’s 100K Vacay benchmark trip and officially kick off the travel window for Tim, Stephen, and me (while fielding some of your questions). We were free to begin traveling as soon as today, and all of us need to be somewhere in the midst of our journey (i.e. not at home) for the live stream this Saturday night at 6pm Eastern time and then make it back to our origin airport in time for the 9pm live stream on October 8th at 9pm Eastern. You can find full details in this post: Announcing the 100K Vacay team Challenge! [Mark your calendar].

Spoiler alert: I am still at home today. Nonetheless, I wanted to take a second to explain the theme / motivation for the trip I booked before you start seeing daily updates in my 100K Vacay journal (which can be found here and will be the place to look for daily updates once I take off). This post will not reveal any details (though it may include a couple of hints ;-). Instead, my purpose here is to explain my focus for those interested.

Past Frequent Miler team challenges have mostly focused on surprising airline redemptions. From the Turkish sweet spot to Hawaii to leveraging the now-dead United Excursionist Perk to a round-the-world booking using a single card welcome bonus to Qatar first class lounge access for the business class price to visiting 6 countries on 5 airlines over 5 days on a single one-way award, we’ve worked to show you how and where you can stretch things farther than you may have otherwise imagined on the airline redemption side.

And that focus makes sense. After all, this site is about earning miles without flying and using them for great value. Of course we focus mainly on how to use your miles and points to get outsized value.

But some may ask, “To what end?”. In other words, what is the point? Are we letting the tail wag the dog if we focus first on “getting a deal” and second on the trip itself?

I would argue (and have argued) otherwise, noting that some of my favorite trips have been the result of a “deal” I couldn’t pass up. I’ve often “discovered” a place I loved thanks to getting a good deal on the flight or hotel. And each of us has found awesome things to do in the places we’ve visited on these challenges. In large part, I just enjoy seeing new places and experiencing new things just about anywhere.

However, during the initial planning stages of this trip, I found myself trying to focus a bit too much on impressive value for flights and hotels, such as I previously laid out in my post about considering the British Airways multi-carrier award chart and Finnair Avios to plan a trip to Scandinavia. That trip looked terrific on paper; I think it had the potential to “wow” in terms of all I could get for just 100,000 points and $1,000 (even if I had to dial it back a little bit to stay under $1K spent), and it would have featured some lesser-known sweet spots, which I love to do. But then I reflected back on the name of the challenge: 100K Vacay. I realized that I was mentally building a trip, not a vacation. Sure, I could get great flight and hotel deals with my points, but I began to pivot toward the idea of getting a great vacation using the budget we were afforded. When I thought more about that, it looked different.

To me, a vacation is all about the experience. It is a time to embrace what you truly enjoy. We are all familiar with the “can’t wait” feeling of anticipation leading up to a trip that truly excites us and the joy we can hold in the memories we bring home.

Greg really nailed it in many ways with his benchmark trip by getting some friends to come along for the ride and share the experience. It is clear that Greg very much enjoys that communal experience. I think that’s why he holds such fond memories of Necker Island and why he does some of the food tours he does and why he hosts the entire FM team for an internal face-to-face meetup once a year and why all of us enjoyed the Party of 5 Challenge so much. I think we can all relate to the joy found in a group / family-type experience. Group and family travel is terrific, and I love it as much as anyone.

While many of us thoroughly enjoy those communal family experiences, I think that all of us would admit that planning any kind of group trip requires compromises to cater to the needs, wants, and interests of others. And there can be joy in that! I loved how, during our Party of 5 trip, both teams made an effort to plan activities that we knew would appeal to other members of the team, even if they weren’t things we’d have chosen to do on our own.

But that brought me back to a different focus for this trip. Solo travel creates room (and perhaps permission!) to be selfish. If you could live the dream and go anywhere to do anything with 100,000 points and $1,000, without needing to take anyone else’s needs or wants into account, what would you do? That became the question that I wanted to answer for myself.

Ultimately, I decided that for this trip, I’m going full vacay mode, and it’s all about me. Nothing says “living-the-dream vacation” like planning an entire trip centered around doing things you have always wanted to do, but have never done before. The point of my trip isn’t to impress you with flashy style (though I do have some of that up my sleeve!), but rather to inspire you to get out there and live the dream the way that miles and points can uniquely make possible by creating the opportunity to go places and do things and indulge in those vacation dreams of your own.
Will a trip designed around my interests match your interests? The answer to that is probably going to be “yes” in some ways and “no” in others, but know this much: I intend to take things to new heights and harness the winds of opportunity as I conquer the road that lies ahead. In the end, I will be playing to win. Though that may give you some hints, expect some unexpected twists as I try to live the life of a man of mystery. Bookmark my journal post to see daily updates over the coming week, but make sure to also follow Frequent Miler on Instagram (@Frequent_Miler) as that format is much better suited to sharing the travel story in near real-time.

See you tonight at 9pm Eastern on Youtube. Here we go!

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