What cards would you keep if you weren’t bloggers? | Ask Us Anything Live | Ep 43

Last month we exceeded 20,000 members in our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook Group! To celebrate this milestone, we decided to spice up our monthly Ask Us Anything, streaming this month’s episode in that Facebook group instead of our usual YouTube channel and working with sponsors to come up with 7 prizes for the 7 best questions. (20K prizes for 20K followers is catchier but…that’s a lot of latte mugs. So we went with a nice arbitrary number based on however many prizes we could come up with.)

To determine the prize winners, we decided on our 7 favorite questions, then posted a poll to have our readers determine the ranking for those 7 questions.

Here are the prizes and their winners!

You can watch the full episode on YouTube below or you can click the timestamp next to each question to navigate directly to it in YouTube. And of course, if you haven’t already, you can register for our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook Group here!

Episode 43 Questions:

8:48 – With airlines and hotels moving more and more towards dynamic pricing, where do you expect to find more outsized value with miles/points?

11:18 – If owning two businesses…how/when can I/we maximize the SUB’s and get more than one business card (one per business)? Does Chase, CITI, etc. allow this and under what circumstances?

15:27 – Do you still get elite perks when booking a car through an OTA like priceline? I found a slightly cheaper rate through Priceline vs Hertz, however, Idk if i’m giving up the option to pick from the president’s circle if I go with the Priceline option.

18:08 – What do you think is the most overlooked / underappreciated travel deal or credit card at the moment?

22:30 – Greg and Nick, if you weren’t running a points and miles blog, how many and which premium cards would you have and keep longterm?

28:30 – I have orphaned Asia Miles where Award Wallet says they expire in 12 months. I thought they updated their policy on 1/1/20 so they’re easy to extend every 18 months with activity. Can you confirm?

31:34 – With airlines eliminating change/cancellation fees for many flights, how has that changed your flight booking strategy?

35:32 – If you had the misfortune to be banned by a credit card issuer or airline, what issuer would you least like to be banned by and why?

38:22 – I redeemed my Air Canada Aeroplan points for an economy ticket from SIN to JFK (the world’s longest flight). May I use my Kris Flyer points to upgrade to a business class ticket? Any idea when Singapore Airlines releases business class redemption tickets ? 90 days before date of flight ? 60 days before ?

41:25 – Can you explain how anyone gets value out of Priority Pass? My home airport is ORD and lounges are in International terminal but if I’m flying international, I’m already booking business class and have airline lounge access. Is it only valuable for people who fly economy internationally? What am I missing?

46:30 – Have a decent amount of Star Alliance (AirCanada / Turkish) paid travel spend coming up for work, and currently no Star Alliance status. So Greg & Nick, which Star Alliance award account is best/easiest to put paid travel on in an effort to get Star Alliance Gold status from spend?

49:51 – I’m heavily invested in Chase UR and Amex MR and have almost nothing in any other currency. What should I pursue next? Citi TY? Capitol One? Brex? Bilt? American Airlines? I feel I have hotels covered, mostly interested in long haul business class flights to Europe and Asia that will complement programs I can access already (like — Turkish). Two players, each about 3 or 4 / 24. Happy to get business cards.

52:57 – I’m having issues generating meaningful amounts of points for Vacasa. All of my best MS avenues have dried up so the Wyndham biz card is helpful but still difficult to generate points driving a hybrid. There are so few typ and cap1 subs that are attainable in a short amount of time. I bought things at Groupons for 36x if their math works out properly. Any other ideas to get Wyndham points?

53:44 – I’m planning for my next chase card once I’m under 5/24. I have plenty of MR points for flights so what I really need are hotel points. Am I crazy to consider an IHG card? I only have a CSP and CIC. Not chasing status. Not eligible for Marriott Chase cards bc i have Amex Biz Marriott . Sure Hyatt is great but I might find more use in the IHG points and 4th night free. I guess mostly I’m debating on an IHG card or CIU.

55:38 – When will the FM team hold the next challenge (40k to Far Away)? What will it be?

56:16 – Liam – Can I use the Venture X $300 credit to book a Hyatt stay. Then upgrade with points to a suite later?

56:32 – Going to spend 3 months in Europe, is it worth the hard pull to get the charles schuab debit card to avoid paying for atm fees?

57:25 – I’ve never run across IHG lounges but know that they’re emphasizing it in the new program. Where can I find these mythical lounges?

58:19 – Guesses on whether the schwab plat 10x (+100k) offer will return? Considering applying now for cashout vs. waiting.

59:33 – Hilton certs have language saying it’s for double occupancy, in your experience are they strict on that or could I bring my young (5 and under) 2 kids on a free night from a cert?

1:00:47 – Didn’t Marriott promise you could top off certs by the end of April? Any update?

1:02:20 – Is the JetBlue/AA partnership going to fall apart if JetBlue buys Spirit? It seems to me like it might.

1:02:49 – What was your craziest use of miles or points? (Hotels, flights, or anything else!)

1:03:43 – While on a business/first class reward flight, have you ever mentioned how much you paid for your ticket to any of the cash paying passengers in the cabin? If so, how did they react?

1:05:46 – What is Greg’s favorite sandwich at Zingermans?

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