How can you find rooms for 4 in Scotland? Is Bilt worth it if your rent’s only $1500? We answered these questions and more on the Ask Us Anything hosted live on YouTube on April 2nd, 2025.
Watch here…
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(4:00) – ​​If you guys could only have cards from one issuer, which would you choose?
(12:37) – ​​What’s your thought on how long the us bank 4% card could stay alive?
(13:43) –Â Do you guys have a comprehensive list of when each type of point expires? For example United Travel Bank expires 5 years after purchasing, Hyatt points i think expire 2 years if no activity etc.
Read our post on “How to keep points and miles alive” here: https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-keep-points-and-miles-alive/
(14:08) – ​​Do you think Aeroplan is going to lose value bc of too mamy tiers of pricing for different partners? A big chunk of the value is mixing partners, that’s hard if there’s so much variance.
(18:41) – ​​Going to Europe for the first time from lax in 1 year. How do I get started figuring out how to use my many Amex mile
Read our “Best ways to get to Europe with miles or money” post here: https://frequentmiler.com/best-ways-to-get-to-europe-with-miles-or-money/
You can find our “Which award search tool is best” post here: https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/
(22:56) – Opinions everyone – Will Hyatt ever revamp their personal credit card?
(24:02) –Â In the US, you can have multiple people in a hotel room yet in Europe it seems impossible to put 4 people in a hotel room. Is there a way to do that in Scotland?
Read Nick’s post about booking Cottages.com with Wyndham here.
(31:46) – ​​When looking for points/miles redemptions, at what point in time before the flight do you consider paying with cash?
(33:55) –Â You guys stress opening up new cards for Sign up bonuses and using Categories multipliers. How many New Cards do you open for SUB each year and how often apart do you open them?
(38:14) – ​​How many credit cards do you typically open in a calendar year and what’s the split with the amount of new business versus personal cards?
Read the complete guide to credit card application rules by bank here.
(43:58) – JW Masai Mara will charge you $4,950 PER NIGHT if you booked on points and you cancel less than 90 days out. CSR won’t cover it because nothing has been charged on the card in advance. Thoughts?
(49:55) – Hi, is it possible I can get a FREE Carnival cruise if I submit just a MGM gold status + Wynn Platinum? Trying to avoid making a trip to Atlantic City for more statuse
(52:28) – ​​If my rent is $1500 a month is Bilt card worth a 5/24 spot?
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Music Credit – “swappin’ back n’ forth” by up @ night
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If you could only have cards from one issuer the problem with AMEX that was implied but not said so directly is a lack of good value lodging options across the price spectrum. Nick mentioned Hilton is valuable, and they are but mainly for aspirational properties and unusually high cash rate periods. Hilton is great for the crazy $1K+ per night properties with a 120K standard room point cap. At the lower end you don’t see really standard rooms below 40K and often not below 50K in many markets, which translates to $200 – $250 a night buying at 0.5cpp. Hyatt meanwhile has Cat 1 and 2 properties dipping below 10K on award nights, which transferred from Chase is considerably less than what you would need to transfer from AMEX to Hilton.
Two main thoughts on this:
1) You’re right that Hilton is generally better for aspirational properties or at peak travel times when prices would otherwise be high. I admit that I am more focused on that. At a base level, I’m generally collecting rewards for those aspirational properties rather than to save on a night that I could have gotten for $200 or less because that $200 or less sort of price point is one where I’d be fine with paying cash if there isn’t a good use of points. And so on some level, I would be fine with sacrificing hotel awards altogether because I can almost always find a hotel in that price range (~$200 per night or less) that’ll be good enough for my trip. The business class flight to Europe / Asia for a family of four or the luxury hotel in a far-flung destination is the thing that would be out of the realm of possibility for me if it weren’t for miles and points, so those are the things I focus on with the rewards – stuff that would be out of reach if it weren’t for rewards. Like if I could redeem 10K Hyatt points for a Hyatt Place or book a cash rate at a Hampton Inn for $175, I’m equally happy to pay the cash rate at the Hampton Inn because that’s an amount that’s well within budget for me. If I my choice is between paying $1,000 per night or 120,000 Hilton points per night, I’ve either got Hilton points or I’m not going (for the most part). So I do focus more on those types of redemptions where the trip simply wouldn’t be realistically possible were it not for rewards. However, I obviously understand that the threshold where that line exists is different for everyone.
2) All that said, I think we should examine your example. You mentioned 40K-50K Hilton points translating to $200-$250. No argument form me there. Then you compare to “dipping below 10K on award nights” with Hyatt. If you’re at 10K Hyatt points, that’s relatively close to $200 in value to me (our RRV is a bit lower, but I usually expect to get 2cpp or better out of my Hyatt points by cherry-picking good redemptions). In my mind, those are pretty comparable deals. If you find a Category 1 Hyatt (which is increasingly close to impossible in the United States after the most recent category changes), then at 5K points per night the Hyatt becomes a no-brainer. But beyond that, I think it’s often a pretty close race. And then when you consider the fact that many people could be earning 6 Hilton points per dollar at US Supermarkets with the Surpass or 4x Membership Rewards points on up to $25K per year at US Supermarkets with the Gold card, which is 8x Hilton without a transfer bonus or maybe 10x Hilton with, I think things become significantly more comparable yet. That 40K Hilton property only requires about $5K spend on an Amex Gold card in 4x categories or less than $7K spend on the Surpass at US Supermarkets. Obviously if you can spend and earn points transferable to Hyatt at a clip of 5x, Hyatt is going to be better. But if you’re earning most of your Hyatt points at 1x or 1.5x, the spread between the two doesn’t become huge even at the low end.
3) Finally, I find Membership Rewards points far easier to earn in significant quantity through welcome bonuses, AU bonuses, referral bonuses, retention bonuses, category bonuses, etc. I would find it easier to amass a lot of points through Amex.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not giving up on Hyatt any time in the foreseeable future. Just defending my perspective that if I had to pick one currency, Amex is it. I couldn’t afford to fly my family of four to a quarter of the places that we visit annually without Amex points. I wouldn’t earn enough URs to fly nearly as many places as we do on award tickets if I were limited to that currency. That’s my story, but I appreciate you challenging me on it!
Always appreciate your well thought out replies Nick.
The comparison in your second point is a bit tricky because the good ways of acquiring Hilton vs Hyatt points are different.
With Hilton we know we can regularly buy points at 0.5cpp, while Hyatt points sales rarely go below 1.8cpp, so at face value a Hyatt point is worth nearly 4X a Hilton point. The FM RRVs for Hilton vs Hyatt are also similar and with those you are right that a 10K Hyatt property is in line with a 40K Hilton property from a “cost” perspective.
I think a strict points earning from spend argument favors Chase more. Knowing AMEX transfers 2:1 to Hilton here’s a few spending comparisons of what you need to earn 40K Hilton points vs 10K Hyatt points:
Hilton transfer bonuses reduce what you need from AMEX, but you can also do better on the Chase end buying gift cards during 5X quarters and using them in non-bonused periods to time shift spending (or better yet always getting gift cards at Office Supply stores or Pharmacies for 5X/3X earnings anytime). The Chase setup requires more cards but also involves juggling significantly lower annual fees and coupon booking ($95 Chase total AF vs $800 AMEX AF).
AMEX wins when it comes to churning SUBs and elevated referral offers, while Chase more frequently offers 5X targeted spending offers. Spending towards Hilton FNCs (or buying via the Aspire) is more valuable on the high end while buying Hyatt FNCs with their card is more valuable on the low end (Cat 4 for $95!).
In the end I’m glad I don’t have to choose! I’m finding it’s largely location driven that sometimes Hyatt is benefitting me greatly for value on stays (New York) and others Hilton is shining through with FNCs or valuable SLH properties (France and Ireland).