How Carrie & Stephen will score the 2024 Frequent Miler challenge (Flying by the Seat of our Points)

In less than three weeks, Frequent Miler’s annual challenge for 2024 will kick off: Flying by the Seat of our Points. This year, we’re testing our team’s skills with last minute travel. Greg, Nick and Tim will each have to book last minute travel to three different destinations assigned just 48 hours ahead of time by Carrie and me.

For Stage 1, they’ll be meeting up together at a certain location in North America. For Stage 2, they’ll head their separate ways to different locations elsewhere in the world. For Stage 3, they’ll meet back up in another mystery location.

Greg shared more about how the challenge will work in this post, so be sure to check that out for greater detail. For now though, I wanted to go into a bit more depth about how this challenge will be scored.

My wife and I are currently in the process of driving up to Alaska for this summer, returning in about two months time. Taking more than a week out of that for the challenge would detract too much from our Alaska plans, so I made the decision to sit out the travel element of the challenge. I’ll still be involved in this year’s challenge though because Carrie and I have been scheming for weeks – if not months – to make Flying by the Seat of our Points as fun – yet challenging – as possible.

In addition to being the ones planning where the guys will be going and what they’ll be doing, Carrie and I are in charge of scoring. There’ll be three main ways Greg, Nick and Tim can earn points – flights, accommodation and activities.

Flight Scoring

For flights in each stage of the challenge, there are up to 6 points up for grabs – up to 3 points for value and up to 3 points for experience. For each of those two elements, we’ll award 3 points for the person we deem to have done the best, 2 points for second place and 1 point for third place.

As you can tell based on those metrics, what we’re primarily looking for is luxury/comfort combined with value. Flying Emirates First Class would be awesome from a luxury perspective, but would come at a high cost in terms of both mileage and taxes/fees. Flying in economy would use fewer miles, but would come at their own expense when it comes to comfort.

Although we’re awarding points based on value and experience, there are many elements that could come into play when assessing their flights. We’ve therefore come up with a list of factors that will affect how we award points for their flight bookings. This isn’t necessarily a comprehensive list, they’re not in order of priority and we’ll weight each factor differently, but this is what we’ll be looking for:

• Value
  • Good CPP (cents per point) value (e.g. 100%+ above RRV (Reasonable Redemption Value); if someone’s CPP is below the RRV, they’ll likely get dinged)
  • Low taxes & fees
  • Fewest miles redeemed
  • Using airline miles/points already in account & not needing to use transferable points
  • Using a transfer bonus
• Experience
  • Economy vs premium economy vs business vs first class
  • Nonstop flight
  • Quality of food
  • Quality of service
  • Comfort/spaciousness of seat
  • Flying on a carrier they’ve never flown with before
  • Window seat with direct aisle access
  • Amenity kit
  • Best airline lounge they’re eligible for based on their flights alone
  • Luxury (this would be partially accounted for with the economy / premium economy / business / first class factor and other elements above, but this could also account for someone traveling on a much better business or first class product than other participants.)
  • Well-priced Wi-Fi with good connectivity

Some of those factors will be more key when flying to their destinations for Stages 2 & 3; for their Stage 1 flight to the departure location in North America, comfort and cost will be the main things we look at.

It’ll be very interesting to see what award flights they’re all able to book. While the nature of last minute bookings means they might be very constrained with their options, some airlines open award availability at the last minute and so it might be possible for them to snag an award that’s not normally easily bookable ahead of time.

I’ve a feeling this element of the challenge could be as hard for me and Carrie to score as it will be for the guys to find the best flight options for them. For example, one person might find a nonstop flight lasting 7 hours, but where they’re flying in economy. Another contestant might book a wonderful business class product, but it requires 20 hours of travel time with three segments, while the third books business class flights requiring 2 hours of travel but with only two segments and the opportunity to take a free tour of their layover city. Which is the better experience?

For me personally, in real life I might pick the economy flight as I’d rather just get to my destination with as little hassle as possible. That said, if all three flights for the second option listed above were in Qatar Qsuites, I might be willing to suck up the much longer travel time and multiple segments for the significantly more pleasant in-flight experience. The third option might appeal too if the flight times were convenient and the layover city was one I’d be interested in visiting.

Accommodation Scoring

Similar to their flights, for accommodation bookings there are up to 6 points up for grabs – up to 3 points for value and up to 3 points for experience. For each of those two elements, we’ll award 3 points for the person we deem to have done the best, 2 points for second place and 1 point for third place.

These points will only be earned for the hotels they book for Stages 2 & 3 though; Carrie and I have already booked them a hotel for where they’ll be meeting up in North America for Stage 1 as they’ll all need to be at the same property for the Ask Us Anything livestream that evening where they’ll find out their first international destinations.

Similar to how we’ll assess their flight bookings, there are all kinds of factors that could come into play for how we’ll award points for the hotels they book. Again, this isn’t a comprehensive list and it’s not in order of priority, but it gives an idea of what we’ll be looking for:

• Value
  • CPP (cents per point) being at least 50% above RRV (they’ll get dinged if the redemption is less than the RRV value)
  • Using $200 Amex Platinum Fine Hotels & Resorts (FHR) credit + no more than $100 extra after taxes and fees
  • Using free night certificates
• Experience
  • Access to a club lounge
  • Luxury
  • Utilizing status
  • A suite with a separate bedroom & living room
  • Booking directly into a suite
  • Getting an upgrade
  • Excellent view from their room
  • Fantastic welcome amenity
  • Rooftop bar
  • Cool room/suite
  • Unexpected/uncommon features (e.g. washer/dryer being in room)
  • Some kind of free food and/or drink available outside of things like coffee in the lobby, breakfast, FHR benefits, lounge access, welcome amenity, etc. (e.g. Kimpton offers a free wine hour, some Strawberry Hotels and Choice hotels in Scandinavia provide evening meals, etc.)
  • Close to designated landmark (this will be a factor for Stage 3 only)
  • View of designated landmark from their room (this will be a factor for Stage 3 only)

With so many factors that can go into making for a comfortable / interesting / luxurious / good value stay, this could be another tricky one for me and Carrie to judge. For example, someone who has both Diamond and Ambassador status with IHG who books a beautiful InterContinental using a 40k free night certificate that can’t be topped up will likely have made a great redemption.

However, someone else might find a luxurious hotel in their city that can be booked through FHR for less than $200 (thereby having no cost after their Amex Platinum credit). They might get a significant room upgrade, plus they’d receive complimentary breakfast, a $100 property credit, etc. – another great booking option.

The third person meanwhile might find a Marriott property that can be booked using one of their free night certificates. If they applied a Nightly Upgrade Award to obtain a massive suite, had complimentary breakfast and lounge access courtesy of having Platinum or Titanium status and received a generous and unique welcome amenity, that could be in the running for best hotel booking for that stage, although by splitting out points being earned for value and for experience will hopefully make it a little easier to judge.

Another unknown at this stage is how many hotels we’ll need to take into account when awarding points. The plan – depending on flight timings both in and out of a city – is for Greg, Nick and Tim to stay two nights in the same location for Stage 2 and two nights in the same location for Stage 3. If they find multiple great accommodation options, they could potentially decide to book one hotel for the first night and a different one for the second night. If all three of them did that, that’s six hotels to consider for each stage.

Challenge Scoring

While scoring for flights and hotels will be somewhat subjective, we’ll have a far easier time awarding points for the challenges at all three stages.

For Stage 1, Greg, Nick and Tim are each going to have the same, solitary, challenge. We’d originally discussed having some kind of destination-based challenges lined up where they could do some activities in that area. However, it might be that one or more of the participants won’t arrive in the Domestic Convergence city until the afternoon, with the Ask Us Anything livestream taking place that evening. That won’t give much time for them to explore their destination and make it back to their hotel in time, so we have a fun little activity planned that won’t take much time to complete. It’ll be easy to rank the three of them from first to third, so first place will earn 3 points, second will earn 2 points and third place will earn 1 point.

For Stage 2, each contestant will be given a set of three challenges unique to both them and their location. If they complete all three challenges, they’ll earn 3 points. Complete two to earn 2 points or only complete one to earn 1 point. (And, heaven forbid…earn 0 points if you complete none.)

For Stage 3 where they all meet back up in the same city, there’ll be three challenges, but in the form of one challenge per person. Carrie and I will then award points based on who we deem to have done the best with the activity they plan. Similar to other scoring, the best activity will earn 3 points, next best will earn 2 points and third best will earn 1 point.

Bonus Point Opportunities

Based on the earning opportunities listed above, there are up to 39 points up for grabs:

Stage 1

• Flights = 2-6 points
• Challenge = 1-3 points

Stage 2

• Flights = 2-6 points
• Accommodation = 2-6 points
• Challenges = 1-3 points

Stage 3

• Flights = 2-6 points
• Accommodation = 2-6 points
• Challenges = 1-3 points

The nature of the scoring will likely mean that all three participants will have fairly close scores by the end of the challenge. In addition to those standard points, Greg, Nick and Tim will have opportunities to earn bonus points.

We don’t have set parameters for what will specifically earn bonus points, but as a former United States Supreme Court Justice might have explained if they were responsible for doling out bonus points for this challenge:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be worthy of bonus points, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

For example, one person might book a hotel that blows away the bookings of the other two contestants in one way or another. Having them earn 3 points for an experience or value factor while the second placed person earns 2 points might not provide enough differentiation in scoring.

Similarly, someone who manages to book a low redemption cost, high-luxury flight might deserve more of a point difference than a maximum of two points. Another example would be if their flight(s) have availability for at least two people. While this isn’t necessary for the purpose of this specific challenge, if they could show that what they book would be possible if they had one or more other people traveling with them, that might be deserving of bonus points, especially if they were able to do that for all three stages.

Another potential way to earn flight bonus points would be for the coolest booking. This would be completely subjective, but it could be through travel on an unexpected airline, an intriguing routing (e.g. 5th freedom flight), a layover with a free city tour, etc.

When it comes to challenges, perhaps a contestant will deserve bonus points for doing theirs with flair. For example, let’s say we gave the following challenges to someone for Stage 2:

• See the city from above
• Do something you’ve never done before
• Find a local person to do an activity with

Someone might fulfill those requirements by having a drink in a rotating bar at the top of a skyscraper, going whitewater rafting and doing a free guided walking tour respectively. That would be interesting, but not necessarily worthy of a bonus point. However, if they booked a tandem skydive, that could satisfy all three challenges within one activity, while also being fun and exciting – worthy of a bonus point.

We don’t have a specific number of bonus points to award – it’ll all depend on how the three guys manage to impress me and Carrie with their bookings and activities.

When Points Will Be Awarded

At each stage, we’ll be announcing rankings and awarding points (both standard and bonus) during a livestream on YouTube where all five of us will be there.

• Pre-Departure – Monday June 3 at 9pm ET. This will be where Carrie and I let the guys know which North American city they need to head to for Stage 1.
• Stage 1 – Wednesday June 5 at 9pm ET. We’ll be awarding points for their flights from their home airports to the Domestic Convergence city, as well as awarding points for their first challenge.
• Stage 2 – Friday June 7 at 2pm ET. We’ll be awarding points for their flights from Stage 1 to Stage 2, their hotels at Stage 2 and for any Stage 2 challenges they’ve managed to complete by that point.
• Stage 3 – Monday June 10 at 9pm ET. We’ll be awarding points for their flights from Stage 2 to Stage 3, their hotels at Stage 3 and for any Stage 3 challenges. We’ll also award any final bonus points which will enable us to announce the winner of Flying by the Seat of our Points during this livestream.

In addition to us awarding the points, viewers will have a chance to make a case in the livestream comments at each stage for whether bonus points should be awarded for any of the contestants.

Question

Are there any other factors that you think should be accounted for when we’re scoring the Flying by the Seat of our Points challenge? Let us know your ideas in the comments below.

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