Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
If you’ve already read Greg’s post where he assigned points to Team SFO and Team TYO, you already know that it came out to a tie with each team receiving 130K arbitrary Greg-points for a variety of categories, like lodging, flights, activities, and more.
If you need a refresher, here’s a reminder of the competition premise: Each year the Frequent Miler team does a challenge to see who can stretch the value of points and miles the farthest. In the past, we’ve competed against each other on our own individual trips. This year, we shook things up by traveling together as a party of 5. Team Tokyo (Stephen and Carrie) were tasked with building an awesome trip that began and ended in Tokyo, while Team SFO (Nick and Tim) were tasked with building a trip that began in San Francisco.
Greg needs your help breaking the tie
Though Greg’s job during this challenge was to serve as our judge, his job got much harder when his backpack with all his judge-notes got stolen in Santiago, Chile. He’d been keeping a tally of points for each travel day up until that point. He did his best to create a modified judging system to evaluate the trips after-the-fact, but now he’s open for some assistance from our readers. In his post this morning he said: “I’ll consider your input and publish final scores on Friday evening (June 23).”
Watch a recap of each trip below
There are a number of different ways to refresh your memory about each team’s full trip. For instance, you can read the Daily Update Post we kept throughout our travels here. Or you can hop over to Instagram and watch the “highlight reels” for each team’s trip.
But don’t worry – you don’t have to be an Instagram user to watch the videos we created throughout the trip. We’ve compiled all of the Instagram content into two YouTube videos which you can watch right here.
Keep in mind as you watch, the videos will show a few interactive elements from Instagram which aren’t interactive on YouTube. For instance some videos say “Tap to watch the full video” or some show interactive polls. While you won’t be able to interact with those elements, you’ll still be able to watch each itinerary unfold.
Team Tokyo’s Full Trip
Team San Francisco’s Full Trip
Help Greg break the tie!
Now that you’ve refreshed your memory on the highs and lows of each team’s trip, cast your vote to help Greg break the tie. (Again, you can also review Stephen’s overview and accounting of the trip organized by Team Tokyo (Philippines, Macau, and Tokyo) as well as Tim’s recap for Team SFO (San Francisco, Santiago Chile, Buenos Aires, and Iguazu Falls) and read Greg’s post outlining his process for grading each trip.
Who should win the 2023 Party of 5 Challenge?
- Team San Francisco (Tim and Nick) (52%, 126 Votes)
- Team Tokyo (Stephen and Carrie) (33%, 80 Votes)
- Keep it a tie! (16%, 38 Votes)
Total Voters: 244
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I appreciate Team SFO’s general style (though I don’t skip the food) as it reminds me of how I usually travel. I try to get the flight, lodging and transportation as cheap as possible so I can spend the money on amazing stuff, whether food or activities.
But both did an amazing job building an epic trip!
The Best part about the challenge was getting to know Stephen, Carrie and Tim better. And Carrie, her laugh is infectious. . Loved hearing it on all the videos.
Both teams were great and I am too soft hearted for either to lose. It’s a tie!
I think the LAX-SCL-EZE redemption pushes SFO over the edge, but both teams did great.
Team Tokyo by a whisker. AirBnB , Labs .
Tea SFO I liked the 4 course dinner and chat will wee hours. Where else can you do thaat!. But Team Tokyo finished by a hairline
I think its a wash but would give the edge to Team SFO for the nicer flight experience. Team TYO for the unique BNB property and snorkeling was cool, but. Team SFO and Iguazu Falls helicopter ride did it for me.
Tie for me except for the flights. Team SFO slight edge due to the nicer flights.
Team Tokyo
+ AirBnB
+ Snorkeling without effort
Team San Francisco
+ Iguazu Falls (3 ways)
+ Street Art Walking Tour
The winner is definitely the readers and viewers! Great job all!
Team Tokyo by a nose. Great content!