Podcast: Stefan on using miles to visit 192 countries!

Stefan (of RapidTravelChai) is both a travel expert – having been to every country in the world, except Syria, and because of his deep and extensive travels, he’s one of the smartest and most well-rounded miles & points people I know.

We turned our conversation with Stefan into two (simultaneously released) episodes.

Part 1, Stefan talks about finishing the goal of visiting every country in the world (1 left!) and the adventures along the way.

Part 2, we talk about becoming an “expert” in the miles and points world – everything from no longer being a generalist, to networking.

If you don’t believe this guy is a miles & points genius, listen for 6 minutes and you’ll quickly see how much info he keeps in his head and how much awesome experience he has booking crazy things.

Available on:

• travelisfree.com – just listen below
• Apple Podcast
• Google Play
• Google Podcast
• Spotify
• Stitcher

Listen Here

Part 1: Stefan on Travel Experiences:

Part 2: Becoming a miles and points expert:

Song credit: “Human” by Kagu (here)

What we discuss

What we discuss in Part 1: Travel

• Stefan reminisces on my near mutiny when during our Namibia trip I realized he wasn’t going to stop for meals.
• Stefan hired two taxi drivers to drive him around all of Egypt 24/7.
• Sometimes when you travel in luxury, you miss out on great experiences, meeting locals, and great food.
• Positive stories of people lending a hand.
  In all of Stefan’s crazy travels, he has surprisingly few bad stories, and way more stories of people going above and beyond to lend a helping hand.
• Socotra – the bazaar plantlife and geography, and some of the best beaches in the world.

What we discuss in Part 2: Miles & Points

• Testing terms and conditions with redeeming and earning.
  Stefan warns the beginners not to simply believe whatever the internet says, or whatever the agent says. But testing things is the only way to actually find deals.
• How Stefan is earning and not earning miles lately.
• Networking: If you ask Dave for secrets and offer to “buy a Coke”, that’s a big no. He wants to get something in return.
• Here’s the link to the Ann Arbor Art Fair Do this year. For those who live nearby, it’s a free get together.
• Stefan goes over credit card travel insurances.
  • Trip delays are very usable, and Citi Prestige will reimburse up to $500 in hotels and food (terms and conditions apply).
• Jamming in tons of layovers on one ticket! Booked a 5 day oneway ticket with United miles (I think for 42,500 United miles) doing the following: Sao Tome, Ghana, Kenya, Rome, Azores, and NYC.

Transcripts of the Podcast

If transcripts are terrible… Blame the program I used. 

Transcript for Part 1

Drew Macomber
This week Dave and I had Stephen Krzyzewski of rapid travel Chai on the podcast, we’ve decided to split these into two simultaneous episodes that you can download and listen to. You’re currently listening to part one, which is all things travel. Stephen is a travel expert. He’s been in every country in the world except Syria. And part two, which you can listen to next is all about miles and points and the conversations Dave and I have with Stephen around miles and points because he’s also an expert there to keep so much information, as you’ll see straight in his head.

This is part one, with Stephen on travel, and I hope you enjoy it.

Dave H
One of the most interesting things I think about having Stephen on is Stephen and drew have actually traveled together and they have completely different travel styles. You can’t get more different between the planning of stuff and

and the lack of planning of drew so for example drew will show up, landed an airport and not know how to get from the airport to the city, let alone have a hotel booked. Stephen would never do that. And I think it’s really interesting that they’ve actually traveled together. So I’m kind of curious to ask Stephen how he found traveling with Drew

Stefan Krasowski
Well, there was an A moment on a day in Namibia where I was pushing to get to a UNESCO heritage site of these rock carvings. And we pause somewhere when we coming off the Skeleton Coast, we finally found gas nearly empty. And drew had a wild look in his eye and he said, You mean we’re not going to eat lunch, and I thought he was gonna knock my leg off and hunger but near the gas station, there was a hotel that had a basket of candy bars and we got it to him and I got to my UNESCO site before they close

Drew Macomber
That was the thing I didn’t have a choice.

I’m sorry, go ahead. I didn’t hear that. I’m saying you’re saying that I didn’t have a choice so I did fine. But I really just said Stephens in charge of this trip I’m going to sit back and enjoy it and that except the eating planning

Stefan Krasowski
Yeah, that’s the way we made that one work I think for a lot of trips it’s it’s good whatever style the trip is whether it’s supposed to be ultra leisure or that was a drive from Cape Town up through South Africa and all around the media was if you if you pick someone who’s going to be more or less in charge of the group and not not try to make everything a democracy every day. Yeah, it can be much Yeah, much more straightforward. So drew

and Carrie were fantastic travel companions. And it was it was a trip that had plenty of spontaneity all the times we nearly destroyed that that poor Corolla with broken tires and underside ripping apart and things

drew drew was a spontaneously learned how to change tires and all kinds of stuff. So we we got along very well by by setting those ground rules in advance of what we were trying to achieve. What what the decisions what the days were going to be like and

in terms of myself being very honest that I’m not necessarily the best person to travel with, but these are the things we will do and and I’ll try my best to be to be amenable and in genial.

Drew Macomber
Honestly, for me, though, it’s I don’t like being bored more than I dislike planning ahead. So that worked out very well. I was never bored. I didn’t have time to be bored.

So anyways, were you gonna say Dave,

Dave H
I was gonna ask stuff. And then when you travel, and you have destinations as a priority, do you? Like bring food with you have some granola bar type things?

Stefan Krasowski
Yeah, I’ll bring snacks during the day. If Yeah, if it’s if it’s traveled by myself and destinations, I won’t focus on the food. The food style trips are when I travel with my wife and that’s her big priority. But for me, I’ll push on through the daytime hours and grabbing go as we go along and eat in the morning eat in the night. and everywhere in between. I max out my time. But I mean, Dave, you You and I have traveled together in a sense you you plop down in Seattle last year for a few hours and and got a got a taste of taste of my style of touring Seattle and your limited time. What was your takeaway?

Dave H
Oh, it was it was fabulous. I can’t imagine seeing more places with excellent explanations and getting as much accomplished as we did. I thought you were fabulous host and drew my wife

Stefan Krasowski
My run requirement is that I wouldn’t have to stop and deal with parking so anywhere there was a three minute waiting zone a 10 minute waiting zone It was here you are this is what you’re seeing get out of the car.

And then after, after the tour covering all different points of downtown, the library Park Pike Place Market all of the spheres out in the gasworks Park around the lake, different parts of Magnolia then then we sat down for a wonderful leisurely lunch but I wanted to keep it moving and getting caught up with with parking and treating the meter and all these kind of things just would would eat away from it. So he did it the he did it the quick style and he can come back another time and leisurely enjoy Seattle with that primer.

Drew Macomber
And Dave, maybe you didn’t see this because Dave, are you on Twitter?

Dave H
That’s good. Just say no. I believe I know.

Drew Macomber
Stephen corrected my last comment I said he hired a taxi driver to take them through Egypt. And the last episode. He actually hired he tweeted he hired two taxi drivers to take him through Egypt. So they could rotate sleeping.

And the crazy thing you said you said that uh, well, that roadblock I guess it’s like from Luxor to the Red Sea. Is that correct?

Stefan Krasowski
That’s from going into Sinai. So coming in. Not not Luxor. But it’s all the way up. So in that case that trip Alitalia a lot of the flights in Egypt come and go from Europe at middle of the night hours. So Alitalia got in at three 330 in the morning. And so these guys were waiting for me. And my goal was to get to Mount Sinai by noon. Because different days of the week, the monks that run run the church there have very different

hours and a lot of times closes for the day at noon at that point. And so we we drove across so that starting from Cairo, you cross over to Sinai, and then there there would be a straight line more or less road to get to Mount Sinai. But at the time, this was 2015, because of security concerns, we had to go all the way around the southern part of Sinai all the way to the eastern side with the resorts. And then there was a few right government convoys a day. So it was it was a strange thing to visit this incredibly holy to multiple religions religious site, and the convoy was filled with all of these Russians in bikinis and speedos and sandals, going out on their day trip in a military convoy. Where did these people think they’re visiting, but had a great, great climb and visited the mountain and then that afternoon, back down all the way around and up to port side for the night and continued up to play places like Alexandria, LMA in the world war two site down to Cairo, and then from that, that trip, so that was what, two, two and a half days, left the drivers there. And I flew down to Luxor, and then used local transport and trains in Overland getting working my way back up towards Cairo.

Drew Macomber
And how much time was all that?

Stefan Krasowski
The car part. So mine sign that was day one day to day, day to night was flying to Luxor. And then Luxor I spent the day and then that would have been day three, and sites around there.

Drew Macomber
That’s crazy. Because we spent we spent 47 days also 2015 I think we went right after you. And I was like, I remember thinking how crazy it was because even we took a taxi from the Red Sea, which is Marcel Olam to Lux or, and that was a crazy drive is also pretty interesting because the scenery was just crazy. But like that, that was a crazy day for us to have that long and a car and Egypt, Egypt, an intense country. I mean, it can be it can be different. And yeah, and we spent 47 nights to do the same thing that you did in three days. I’m not I don’t think we saw more than you either.

Stefan Krasowski
It’s different. And I’m not saying this is a great way to travel. This was the time I had allowed I at the time I was in a corporate job with typical limited American vacation hours as well as a lot of people that, like me are trying to get to every country in the world, they leave a string of wrecked personal relationships, and I value my marriage very much and try to minimize time away as as much as I think is reasonable, which is still still excessive in terms of what what a lot of people do. So I feel like my style travels more like watching a movie than then reading the whole book. And I would love to go back and spend 47 days in Egypt I love to spend a year there. The time I had I it’s it’s done tonight and and maximize that. And each each style of travel has its own kind of rewards. So for that trip coming up from Luxor I was particularly interested in the red and white monasteries, these famous painted monasteries think along the lines of the the the Sistine Chapel. And they’re there in a region that has had on and off security type concerns for many years. So the security forces don’t generally like foreigners going overland there. But that was the easiest way up from Luxor. So the taxi driver that I had had around Luxor for the day and the sites in the nearby Aereo does it didn’t our IP DOS, these I hadn’t gotten comfortable enough with him. So I said here’s what I want to do. Is this going to be possible and so he he put me in local headdress, and it was like Keystone cops of different roundabouts where there were checkpoints where he’s like oh, we’re just going to go around the wrong direction. So they think we’re heading east and then we’ll do a U turn and circle around and then it looks like we’re not coming from the tourist area so we’re going back north so it was this this ridiculous thing where we go in these roundabouts waved to the guards had the wrong way turn around wave the other way and then everybody could be happy that they weren’t sending foreigners up this way. So I saw those Coptic

monasteries and then took the train all the way back up to Cairo and in that I remember it was a holiday time and I there was not forgetting the name of the the town near the monasteries where I could pick up a local train and I went to that four or five banks and not a single one was open because of the holiday all of them had broken ATMs out of cash so I had I had US dollar euro hard currency I but I hadn’t I had run out of Egypt and pounds and and got to know on the train of local sales rep for fire for a pharmaceutical company that helped arrange the ticket and got me on a train that was it was leaving it was one of those The only time in life for the train was really pulling out of the station. And he said that’s the train you want run will jump on, jumped on and and

took care of some Egypt and pounds for me to get my tickets. I wouldn’t be a scofflaw on these things. So everybody has different experiences and adventures out of their trips. For me it’s trying to do some of this really quickly leads to those kind of interactions and learning experiences that that I really enjoy.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty extreme. I I, which kind of leads me to another question. I was thinking about it even the currency thing that’s different than me because I often don’t keeping us dollars because I’m not worried about not finding an ATM, I can always take my time. But you have to. One thing I’ve noticed is I’ve never heard any crazy stories from you that are particularly negative. And like for example, one time, like I got checked, I got checked out of Cambodia, and Vietnam wouldn’t let me in. So and so now I can’t go back into Vietnam. And I’m not allowed it in I mean into Cambodia, and I’m not allowed into Vietnam. So I was in this terrible scary moment where I can’t get into either country and I want this like dirt road bridge in between them. And then I end up paying someone to get me a Vietnam visa last minute but so I’ve had I’ve had all kinds of moments where

Stefan Krasowski
Why were you not allowed into Cambodia?

Drew Macomber
No, I checked out of

Stefan Krasowski
there like I miss

Drew Macomber
it. So the guys like it. The guys like no, we already stamped you out you have to have another stamp before you stamp me before we stamp you back in, which I think is

Stefan Krasowski
well I don’t understand. Like I need to remember when I went from 7am to French Guiana the drunk French border guard at the river crossing that is normally the latest flag locals through they don’t need to stamp but he’s, he was so drunk. He stamped me with the out and then he just kept re stamping it till it see thought it was sufficiently went away. And then stamp me with the end. So you could you just need to go to a French speaking

Drew Macomber
fee. But that it that could have easily gone bad. You know what I mean? So like, do you have any? Like,

I don’t know, do you have any crazy border crossing things where you’re like, this is terrible. I never like, like I have nowhere to sleep. Or I’m never going to get into this country. And I’m like, anytime or you’re like I am screwed. Because that’s how I felt that day. I’m like, I am screwed my bus left, I’m in the middle of nowhere. I’m screwed. Have you ever had that?

Stefan Krasowski
Yeah, I guess I don’t overdramatise stuff. And in that, but there’s certainly moments and things have gone wrong when I went to Bosnia, which is a

self declared country that is part of what would be the territory of the country of Georgia. So you, you can enter either from Russia if you enter from Russia, like Sochi, or the Olympics where you need to go back via Russia otherwise get in trouble with the Georgian authorities or you go through Georgia back and forth. So in that case, I went via Sochi, it was a few months before the Olympics. So I was curious to see that city. And

they, for whatever reason, they shut down the border for several hours that day. And then they finally opened it up in the evening. So by the time I got to the main town, it was nearly midnight, just totally deserted streets and a guy came up. And I have my backpack because traveling of the backpack and on the move and guy came up and tried to bug me but he was so drunk, that he could barely do anything.

I just I was able to just shove him off and then finally found what led various old information. But finally found one of the places that was supposed to be a hotel actually still existed and was open and got to a room so that that kind of thing could have gone very differently. In hindsight, should I have just not not crossed that that late in the evening and change my plan, but it ended up working out and those kinds of stories have been

so minor compared to all the stories of people coming out of the blue to do great things and helpful things and, and being reasonable. I do at times lose my temper and some of those moments I’ve regretted because it’s almost always been counterproductive. But otherwise staying calm and in working through and figuring out what what allows the the person you’re dealing with their people you’re dealing with to do either save face or get what they need or look like they’re doing this like I said the Egypt traffic circle example they just did their job was to make sure foreigners coming from Luxor were not heading north, it wasn’t prevent a foreigner from turning east and you’re turning and going north. So that that work for everyone. And that that wasn’t my that wasn’t my inspiration. It was just a local driver. But it was enough to just follow along and and observe how it all worked out.

Dave H
Do you have any kind of random acts of kindness?

stories of people going out of their way to help you when you’re trying to make your way through a different country that you’re not used to? Oh, yeah, they

Stefan Krasowski
probably every country has had something like that one. The first one that jumps to mind was when I was traveling overland in Central America, in LA Salvador and and so you guys say I plan everything I I plan my itinerary a lot, but I often don’t plan where I’m sleeping, certainly not where I’m eating. And this was

so I took a bus I’m forgetting the name but from San Salvador to the the middle of the country, there’s what appeared to be a very major town and that’s where a lot of the buses terminated or a junction and

not that far like an hour to away there were there was one tourist town or something so I got on the bus in the afternoon. The flight came in middle of the day. And by the time I get to the town I realized that it isn’t actually a town it is just really a junction where all the buses change. And there was no accommodation of any kind anywhere it was already after dark and because of the safety concerns in the country there the buses everything shuts down at night. And so the young ticket taker guy a teenager probably 16 maybe years old through through my limited Spanish figured out and he just motion to come with me so he took me to his little you could call it sort of a dorm room where he had a hammock strong in the room and a toilet outside. And he gave me He gave me the hammock he slept slept near on the floor and, and 430 in the morning, it was time for a shift and he just woke up and the dominoes and we were off. Yeah, and you know these these kinds of things are

sound extraordinary, but they happen all over the world and, and they even they even happened in the US and I think if we talk about some of the points travelers, a lot of what the points travelers do by going to the most luxury experiences are end up shielding themselves off from from the kind of memorable fun interactions that that you have by by doing the regular stuff. So I’ve been recently looking to finish my us 50 states and as well started visiting the US National Park so I went to Channel Islands National Park in California last month. Fantastic day trips, Catalina islands, the most famous but that’s uninhabited, very developed Island. So the from the parks Conservancy as well as the US National Parks the rest of the islands are either military or uninhabited where you can camp and do day trips. And so I went to Santa Cruz famous for the Channel Islands Fox Fox that walks around almost almost like the size of a cat that you see all over the island for the day and it was I recommend that to any travelers to California but its way up the boats leave mostly from Ventura which looks like it’s close to LA but it’s it’s an hour and a half two hours plus in traffic and stayed at a motel six there and checking in the the $35 night motel six remember that lady a check in and she’s just going of the questions you’re alone Do you need a pesky smoking room and and she looks she goes Oh, you don’t smell like a smoker, no smoking and in that and these kind of things and you know that you’ll never get that at a five star hotel. But that’s that’s the smell. That’s the kind of thing and then we get into talking about this and that and her family and and i think in the same trip by by Joshua Tree which is near the Arizona border in Southern California. And there’s it’s one California forces high tax and in different things about produce in that in Arizona, you felt the gas tank over on that side. So I think that was that was another motel six or something like that. I’m the I’m the California side and they start talking to the to the manager and he had just moved from good move from Michigan from the East Coast originally and within a minute he said yeah, I love this town. I mean what whatever you’re trying to run your you know, the the cop just looked the other way.

Within a minute. And then he’s off to talking about always barbecuing with the cops.

You know, this is this is the Americana they talk about. And unless you stay at a dumpy motel six or super eight or any of these, you’re just you’re never gonna encounter it.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, it’s not how I picked my city, but a

Dave H
different priority. But and I mean, there’s a lot to be said for me. Well, not necessarily motel six in particular. But staying at a, a less fancy place. I remember somebody doing a post about how they stayed at a really fancy hotel in Hong Kong, and how they got the free breakfast and the free orders and they didn’t have to go up there for dinner because they got the free orders and people are like, Dude, this is like some of the most amazing, you know, whether it’s restaurants or street food or whatever, you’re really missing out on doing the luxury hotel thing in a city with greatness.

Stefan Krasowski
And Hong Kong is one of our let me for people that aren’t familiar my background. I lived in China for eight years. I studied in Chinese University of Hong Kong for a semester and it is one of my favorite places in the world. We spend a week there every year if we can. We were just there in January for a week and the having a fantastic hotel is nice and this time we had a Marriott travel package we use at the Renaissance that we self upgraded the category or two and the breakfast the lounge the afternoon lounge, the clotted cream on the scones. I mean my wife loves all of that. But that does not stop us from going out and eating and today’s point to me. One of the few events I went to a guy came up to me and said yeah, I just spent a week in Hong Kong and the same thing as Dave said that I didn’t have to eat a single meal outside the GW Marriott had everything in the lounge and it’s just me fly around the world just to eat our favorite cuttlefish balls and all the the the Hong Kong breakfast the pineapple buns and all that stuff we just find fantastic and it’s it’s so much a part of the culture there if you’ve if you’re ever in Hong Kong just done any neighborhood street walk into the one of the neighborhood cafes the chanting is they’re called and order a Hong Kong french toast and their take on french toast is so delicious and so awesome. And you get it as an afternoon tea set with a multi it’s it’s incredible. So our rule in Hong Kong is every day we have a minimum of five meals, which pretty much mirrors how the locals go because the locals will have a breakfast often a mid morning snack. And these these cafes are set up with special meals and special sets at all different times. And then they have lunch and then afternoon tea and then a dinner and sometimes a late dinner. It’s it’s a food, intense culture and totally skipping out on that because you’ve got hotel benefits is is a real shame.

Drew Macomber
And it’s not like it’s as as expensive as London or Switzerland where you’re saving like 30 $40 a meal. Not that you can’t find restaurants in Hong Kong, certainly, that are that expensive, but I’m just saying it’s not like if you’re if you’re just eating the cheapest way possible in the GW area, then it’s not like you’re then you could eat for $1 a meal in Hong Kong if you wanted to. If you’re if you’re Oh yeah. It’s not the biggest benefit the

Stefan Krasowski
odd the odd thing in Hong Kong is more traditional Chinese restaurants are often rather expensive. But the the Hong Kong style places these cafes and places in the local neighborhoods in the shopping malls are very, very reasonable. And even some of the more international cuisine restaurants can be can be great deals as well. But it’s it’s certainly certainly a more budget friendly in terms of eating. You don’t need to really make any effort. I mean, you’re staying at a hotel at Pacific place in Admiralty or central just walking in the neighborhoods of Central at lunchtime. That’s where all the office workers go out and you have your pick of options.

Drew Macomber
Well, I have I have one last travel related question before we move on to miles and points because I do think seven year your you keep more miles and points knowledge in your head then. Within most people it’s it’s pretty amazing. So it would be a shame for the listeners if we didn’t spend a lot of time there. But the the trip to Sokoto I’m just super jealous. So I have to, I have to hear more about it. And I guess, I guess it should be described as a Galapagos or Madagascar from what I’ve read, they call it a bio

diversity hotspot or something like that. But and you’ve been and you’ve been to Galapagos and Madagascar.

And so is how how would this compare to those

Stefan Krasowski
hot cultures an Indian Ocean Island, part of Yemen, but it’s it’s quite remote from mainland Yemen, both in terms of culture, and specifically in terms of the hostilities that have been happening on mainland Yemen. There’s been no fighting throughout the conflict. What’s the issue has been is that the island has been cut off while the airspace has been closed to civilian flights. So that the situation persisted for several years. Late last November, you many of the national airline was able to start up weekly flights that go from Cairo to say Yemen and mainland Yemen, an airport in the middle of the country controlled by the Yemeni government and then to Socotra. And as well as it’s possible with with a lot of effort to go overland from Oman, and take an overnight bus ride some travelers have been doing to get the Segway on, which was a little beyond my risk tolerance.

Drew Macomber
But But my understanding is that it’s safe because it’s part of the the UAE essentially claims that it’s they don’t they don’t view it as Yemen. And Yemen has kind of said they don’t have the manpower to reclaim it as their own. That’s, that’s my understanding my somewhat correct I

Stefan Krasowski
think as someone is, as it is, it’s difficult to get a clear picture. It’s it’s actually a three party situation. So you’ve got mainland Yemen, you’ve got government, you’ve got UAE government, and there are two UAE charter style flights every week that take patients seeking medical equipment, many psychiatrists islanders have gone to UAE to work over the years as well as even serving their army. So there’s a lot of deep family ties with UAE. And then you’ve got the UAE, Li Saudi Arabia, which also is there and like any Alliance, it’s complicated between the two so at the moment when we were there in April

the Saudis have a presence and the UAE ease have a reduced presence and the Yemeni Government is increasing their presence so different government minister The only hotel on the island had different government ministers working on different things to rebuild the island Following several hurricanes over the past few years that that really hit the limited infrastructure particularly for for tourism things on the coast. So it’s it is a complicated geopolitical situation it’s not one that I have much expertise just follow the events as closely as I could and in hoping to make a journey it’s it’s something that I had waited several years for like many conflicts of large powers it’s it’s the local people that have a very tough time and so for several years they’ve been cut off other than a few aid flights and occasional ships so now it’s it’s finally regular rising the the flights are totally packed but people traveling back and forth. Mainland Yemenis are starting to come to Sokoto looking for for different work opportunities so the populations increasing a bit it’s the population of the island to get a census currently somewhere between 60 and 100,000 people and so it is there are a few small outlying islands but unlike say like Galapagos It is mainly focused on the main large island and the big highlights so the what what it’s really famous for our the dragon’s blood trees, the bottle trees and various plant life that you think only Dr. Seuss could have dreamed up that somehow nature produced their spectacular and seeing these were as incredible as as I dreamed and it wanted to for this and so these are rugged, arid landscapes in the center of the island and then what the two big surprises were is one the amount of beach and water activities so the the best beaches I’ve ever seen in the world would be there Seychelles or Fernando de niro India Brazil

these these rival those and almost undeveloped other than the occasional camping hotter shack or toilet facilities for campers. So if you like totally

totally undeveloped white sand beaches, somewhat towering sand dunes behind one sand dune I decided to climb climb to see if it was possible and it was possible

our are just spectacular. So there was a lot more beaches snorkeling then than I had expected, there’s dolphin watching that you can do. So there’s there’s a lot of water stuff and then the food was incredible. So one of the things in my travels is always searching what places have incredible seafood that my wife would love. So there one of her great pleasures in life is is seafood. And she’s very particular and

great seafood does not mean taking a good piece of seafood and deep frying it to the point that it’s it’s dry and flavorless. So when you go to much of the Caribbean, that’s essentially all you get. And some of those some of those can be very nice but there’s very few places that in the Caribbean that I’ve ever said I would want to bring her here because she would really enjoy the seafood and then Guadalupe the French territory as well as Martinique because they have so much of that French cooking influence or maybe the exceptions Senate race to Providence to the

islands that are part of Columbia as well would be the exception so getting the Yemen I we’ve been warned supplies are low there they don’t have much food bring snacks So yeah, I had all these I had all these snack bars as well as good thing you don’t need

Drew Macomber
Yeah,

Stefan Krasowski
so I had brought all this and the food was was absolutely incredible the the fish and and they have local lobsters which which I’m allergic to but others tried and in that the steaming grilling baking a lot of the tourism again, there’s only one functioning hotel on the island of the main city so the few tourists that are going there generally it’s first night and last night at the hotel and the rest are camping at different features and sites around the the island and what these what these guides can do just on these beachside camps, the seafood is incredible. And, and it’s it’s so much that, that I would bring my wife halfway across the world to enjoy it. And that that I would, was just a total shock again, the the picture that had been painted in advance by the by the locals of what the food situation was, as well as, I guess to them, part of the thing is they like eggs and for some reason they don’t they don’t like chickens so they they bring in all their eggs from the mainland and they don’t raise chickens on the island. It’s It’s It’s a particular very peculiar place and that all the animals like it’s mainly goats and that are free range. So they also don’t have any dogs on the island. Because the dogs would terrorize the free range animals so it’s, it’s it’s a rare experience to not see any dogs for a week.

Dave H
But yeah, definitely

Stefan Krasowski
there they’re upset because they have fewer eggs. And here we’re saying you’re just pulling the most incredible fish out of the ocean and cooking it perfect delay. It’s incredible. So if I know drew you’re interested in it, it’s it’s now possible the the tourist season in terms of the best weather is usually October to May, this the May through September can be very high winds, which limits some of the waterborne activities. And then September October can be early October can be quite rainy. So the the ideal time is, again late October all the way into mid May.

Drew Macomber
Is there any safety issues with it like there would be with mainland Yemen? Like I’m not going to Yemen?

Stefan Krasowski
No, they don’t have any guns, the locals don’t have any gun ownership.

The

there’s, as I said, there’s been there’s been no fighting, there’s none of that culture of kidnapping. I mean, it’s it’s it’s a very distinct culture, it’s it’s effectively independent, it’s there’s an identity and into a degree of a feeling that they should be should be something fully independent. So it was not not something that any of my research indicated concerns nor, nor when I was there any kind of concerns. And I as I said, my risk tolerance, I would I would not be going to mainly Yemen right now as a reference point.

Drew Macomber
Right. That’s good to know. Yeah, it’s a good reference point. But I mean, there are a lot of places that

even if they just sound foreign people will get scared of it. I’ve actually, there was a blog recently that was talking about a place in Southeast Asia.

That I guarantee you, we’ve both been to multiple times, or we know, I mean, it’s just a place with a lot of resorts and they were talking about it as this crazy, far flung place. And, like did all this research on safety. And I’m like, Man, that’s one of the biggest beach areas in the, you know, in that part of the world. So people just have completely different perspectives and a lot of that space on what you’re familiar with. And the thing is, is we’re familiar when you

Stefan Krasowski
look at the the Rick Steves Facebook group, and these are all Americans that maybe have lived their whole lives wanting to maybe go to Europe someday and and, you know, they’ll they’ll make it sound like you know, walking down the street in Rome. You’re going to be Rob stripped, gagged and bound. And I think Rick Steves and his his beginner guidebooks has this wonderful tarot card where he tells you get a dummy wallet, put in 10 euros and it’s in like five, six languages. It says, Thank you for robbing me today, please enjoy your 10 euros or something like that. And I’ll try to try to take the edge off the the concern but it’s Yeah, I mean it. Yeah, sure it. I’ve had many of those moments, many places I go to it. It’s unknown, it seems scary. And then you get there and you realize that that a lot of those places have people those people have kids, the they go to work every day and different different guidelines, we talked about, maybe a trip was my thing has always been are the women and children out and about in a place if it’s if you only see men on the streets, that’s a little nerve wracking and, and Darius his thing was are the are the elderly people out and about, and

if they’re out and about in a lot of societies that they’re on the watch and and their respected. I mean, Dave was asking about times where things have gone wrong. And when I was in Cameroon on yesterday, one year,

I went to different churches that were having these these gorgeous, a few ceremonies and then I walked through a market and I knew I knew it’d be very cautious about not have my phone or my camera out and I just got complacent. And so I was walking down the market with my camera with my phone in my hand. And suddenly the guy hit me and grabbed and started dashing, just because it was a close and close quarters and that I was able to lunge and grab them. And it was this teenage kid who just looked terrified. And, and I could have just just because of my size compared to him I could have harmed him and, and but within got the phone and within moments, one of the elders of the neighborhood and guy in a skullcap came running up. We don’t speak the same language, it’s French speaking territory. But he immediately scolded the young boy and took me and took me walking and and you know that that kind of thing when people like that are out and about even if something happens, it’s it’s it’s very much a community thing. So so looking for those cues, is a good sign of what areas are, are better. Which, which one you might want to be cautious to?

Drew Macomber
Yeah, actually, my parents,

I guess, they were concerned about our Mexico City trip, which I thought was quite funny. So I texted them a bunch of pictures of old people and children out in the parks at like 11pm.

I mean, this isn’t like the local area or whatever. So it’s a nice area. But that’s where we were staying and it’s just a nice area. So

Stefan Krasowski
Mexico City is one of the most fantastic cities in the world and that the archaeological museum there is one of my favorite museums in the world. It really is an incredible place there’s areas that you’re not recommended to be and you can find that information very quickly. But even the metro has very safe women’s only cars that women travelers can feel comfortable in and are very, very closely patrol no men allowed. So there’s there’s a lot of things in place. I think throughout throughout Latin America, there’s different taxi companies now for instance, that that specifically it’s women only drivers that that women women, travelers can call in and feel feel much safer in summer done and cutesy colors and that and so there’s there’s a lot of these systems, Peru those those luxury, so called luxury but not necessarily in price compared to what we’re used to paying for travel, tour buses. I remember going from Cusco to Nazca to see the lines there, and multiple security checks, camera checks, Id checks, and all of these procedures in place. Even taking a picture of each passenger in their seat with their luggage, making it clear that it’s actually safe to go to sleep and you’re here bag is probably not going to walk away. While you’re on the bus. There’s a lot of these things out there. And and as I said, it’s the thing things can go wrong. But the

Well, you’ve heard I get both of you guys have heard when I’ve done different talks on on travel skills and getting people started in international travel and in one of my roles is the 3ds which is don’t be drunk drugged your device. And you know if you’re going to do that kind of stuff, and I live in Washington state now the the only convenience store we have on my street is a pot shop. So if you’re interested in trying out or if I’m interested, I know the legal system. I know the support network, I know the numbers to call. If I want to try something that it’d be a lot smarter for me to do something here than to go to a country where I didn’t pay attention that it says death to drug traffickers on the immigration farm or something. And so a lot of people, a lot of people go overseas and because it’s so different think it’s like playing with Monopoly money in a sense. And I noticed that myself when I’m driving that I’ll drive faster, be a bit more careless overseas at times for whatever reason, then, than I am in the US. And and I think a lot of people that that go and party and do things that are way beyond what their judgment would say make sense. in their home country. That’s that’s when they get to a lot of issues. Yeah. Yeah. I love that,

Drew Macomber
that you said that you have this fear before you go to a place and then you get there and then it goes away. And because you’ve been to every country in the world, I mean, I missing one. Syria.

Yeah, so. So I mean, you’ve been, you’ve been nearly everywhere in the world. And that that feeling is still there. Because the the unknown is that powerful. And even when I went to Columbia,

I didn’t think anything of it my first time. So this is kind of funny, given how popular and lively and it’s just so wonderful to be out on the street in Columbia. But

my first time going, I had a friend message and he was like, man, I would never go there. Like, have you looked up about kidnappings there. And of course, it’s like, he’s thinking of like the Pablo Escobar era. And,

and but I still looked it up and I got freaked out. And then it was all of like, two minutes after being there. I’m like, this is the What was I thinking. And that happens all the time where I have some unknown scary expectation for a place and then I land. And it turns out, like you said, they’re just regular people

Stefan Krasowski
just fine. So it’s not something to be in cautious or careless. But it’s also that being so nervous, and, and on guard, and that can make you act in ways that that can get you into more problems or make make situations more tense. And that so it’s, it’s I’m thinking and Dave was asking about pleasant stories. When I went to Nigeria, I had every one of the

stories about scams and frauds and all of this swirling in my head and, and it was a pain to get the visa because they had changed different rules about getting in your home country, different things. So I was already in a bad frame of mind. And I land there long flight from Addis Ababa, it’s like five or six hours from Addis Ababa, and go through immigration, everything is so smooth. And then just as I’m about to exit immigration, a guy like one of the guys in uniform, the last guy standing there stops me passport plays. And I thought, Oh, boy, this is this is when they’re going to get me. And, and I felt so embarrassed. Because a few moments later, he flipped through, saw the inside, gotten the entry stamp. And he said, thank you so much for visiting my country welcome, and handed me the passport back and sent me on my way. Now that’s not to say other people have had bad experiences in Nigeria, even even at the airport, but that I was I was so tense, and I was ready to conflict or get into an argument. And it was it was totally unnecessary. And and I’ve never been to in all the countries I’ve been to I’ve never been to one where we’re at customs officer welcome me to like, just revisiting.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s that’s a great example. And it is a good point that it doesn’t mean that you should be without any smarts whatsoever. Obviously. I like we do think about these things. And we do take basic precautions. And there’s a reason that I’m guessing that you haven’t been to Syria yet. Although some of that’s probably visa or there’s I mean, but when you do go to a place like Syria, or mainland Yemen, I’m guessing you’re pretty strategic, you hire someone who knows what they’re doing. Or I imagine you’re very intentional, and you don’t just go, if you do have a sense that there is actual danger, then you’re using more smarts than normal. And I was gonna say, I’m guessing that’s true. But I know it’s true. Because I remember

Unknown Speaker
maybe,

Drew Macomber
well, why did you hire the for that gorilla trekking?

Stefan Krasowski
Was that in Dr. Cairo? I mean, certainly, our guides work with the park and that’s part of the national park system. And they they put together the visa but yeah, there’s there’s certainly countries I mean, that

I travel Normally, I travel solo, and I love the planning and I love putting together a trip on my own. So I just thought of choice and my fun and interest, I generally don’t work with tour guides or tour agencies, I’ll charter a taxi or something for a day, if it’s not a place, I’m driving, things like that. But

in certain countries, of course, it’s it’s required. And then others, it just seems like I don’t have any read on the situation. I don’t have any expertise in the language or her understanding of the background. And I would think it would just be foolish to, to stumble around without, without some guidance. So So some of the countries that have had more conflict. So I’ve done that and been very careful of picking who I am who I’m working with. And some of these companies take like the the ultra high profile armored approach that some corporate travelers do, which is like hire armed bodyguards, and all of this to, to go to Brazil or Johannesburg, even even places that seems ridiculous to do it. But other ones that work with journalists or work with scholars, so people that are called fixers, you may have heard the term that generally try to work on a much more low key basis, you know, they don’t stay at the five star hotel, they stay at an unmarked Hotel in a place or

they

keep a low profile, more local dress kind of things under the radar, not trying to make you look like Hi, I’m a VIP, please target me, kind of thing. So, and I don’t I don’t rush to a place you know that there’s a lot of travelers that are similarly trying to get to every country in the world that are trying to set a record for something either it’s for promotional purposes or self fulfillment, they want to be the first you know, x y&z to get some place and and that that can cloud your judgment and and make you take more chances then then you might otherwise do. So it’s, it’s tempting. Yeah, it’s frustrating that I’ve got for several years now I’ve been had these two countries now I’ve been to the men, but it’s been almost three and a half years that I’ve gotten out this one to go. And it’s it’s very frustrating. But I have to put it in perspective that it’s, it’s not worth trying to do something that that doesn’t make sense. In the case of Syria, the effectively no one what the US passport is getting visas at this point. So it’s out of my hands. But But still, it has to be a situation that makes makes sense for me. And,

and where I can have a quality visits. I mean, the past year or two people have been going to Yemen where they go to the Oman border, and they get somebody to get them across the border for a couple hours and look around. And if you’ve ever seen pictures of mainland Yemen, I mean there, it’s incredibly beautiful and very different architecture and landscape wise from any of its neighboring countries. So there is a time I hope that that I will be able to properly visit mainland and have a long visit in that, that one day toe tap, that wouldn’t be worthwhile to me to do try to pull it off just to tick a box. So I I will, I will wait and unite. And I try to keep perspective. I mean, this is an incredibly when you look at it and incredibly selfish pursuit and hobby it’s like, please Why? You know, why don’t the Syrians give us visas, and he’ll look at all the suffering of the people there. So it’s a I keep, I keep that bat in first and foremost in mind and in hope that somebody like me being able to travel and then others later, when it gets better and better means that there’s finally good things for the local people that have suffered so much.

Drew Macomber
Well, Dave, anything else before we move on to miles and points before we start picking Stephens brain?

Dave H
I guess the one question that does come to mind is with all your knowledge in so many different areas of so many obscure countries, have you ever toyed with the idea of possibly putting together travel packages for others and maybe leading some tours.

Stefan Krasowski
I’ve toyed with the idea. If I do something like that, it would start with China, which is the country I know best. I’ve as I said, I lived there for eight years, I speak Mandarin, I’ve been to every province and really know that deeply. And that’s that’s something that I have taken friends at, at different points and very much enjoyed. It is a it’s a tough business to scale. Because if the business is about you, then it’s your time away. And, and it’s hard to economically make that work as well. As I said, relationship wise, it’s, I don’t want to tell my wife that I’m going to be traveling 10 weeks a year or something. So right looked at different ways to do it. It could be something like, once or twice a year to do something very special or something that would be meaningful to me. And I think to other travelers, China, one of the things is

from the US, you can get these incredible tours, it’s $1,000 for a week from New York with airfare, hotels, and you see the Forbidden City you see the terracotta salt, you see all that it’s a it’s a price that can’t be beats, and it’s subsidized by hours and hours of forced gift shopping at the silk museum so called. And the Jade museum so called which are really just dusty equipment and displays that lead you into a gift shop that’s like a timeshare sales kind of pressure thing and the guy disappear and watching cameras as their numbers ring up. And only when they hit their targets, they emerged a couple hours later, so Wow. Yeah, it was interesting when I was living in China, there was when sea trip, you know ta rose up one of their innovations was that they would price, two different tours, they’d be the same thing at a Hong Kong tour with all the normal force shopping would be will say 2000 RMB. And then they would call it the note and like the no shopping, the no hassle trip would be like 50% more. And wow. But we’re willing to pay it because they understood that that guarantee that they would spend their time and others wanted the the cheaper trip that had the shopping and they didn’t mind that. But a lot of first time visitors to China aren’t aware of what it means to be getting that budget price and the amount of time you’re going to spend on those gift shops in that. So

something I would do would be much more certainly not the gift the gift shopping type of one but but to a lot of destinations that I think interest people there’s there’s considered in China for holy Buddhist mountains and they’re all very different or five tallest mountains. And each of these you could have like a two week itinerary that that link up these for people that are interested in the religion and philosophy and the scenery and see these kind of things. And there’s there’s not really people offering that kind of approach because there’s so much locked into the the same several itineraries of of great highlights. But for people that have had been to China and seeing those some of those first trip highlights they might be looking for more so may may put together something like that. Although

Drew Macomber
if you do that, are the guests allowed to eat? or sleep? Is that just is that just for me that you avoid those things

Stefan Krasowski
in China, I guarantee or there will be lots of eating, I can’t guarantee your for every country. But yeah, it’d be a totally different thing. And it’s it’s figuring out that whole model and it’s

flexible reflexively. For me, solo travel, I think is the most rewarding form of travel. And so it’s it’s rethinking my perspective on what what makes a group work and what makes a group beneficial. I think there’s, there’s some operators out there that are really good at bringing in people that enjoy traveling together, and then the group is the big highlight of their trip, and they enjoy that time together and where they’re going is, you know, in essence, sort of a sideline in terms of their memories. So it’s connecting with that group. So somewhere in between rice, still think that destination should be forward and top of mind, but what a group that that functions well. And, and I mean, the challenge of the group is always a group as always as as slow as the, the fastest, the slowest person and all of that. So figuring out groups that have a pace, and that works. All of that that’s, that’s something that’s I guess, it’s harder to deliver. And that’s that’s why there’s, there’s so few companies that I think do it really well.

Dave H
I think that would be fascinating. And I also think now would be a good time for you to mention where people could find more information about you.

Stefan Krasowski
Right, well my blog is onboarding area called rapid travel Chai and I also have a Facebook group called every passport stamp. So the blog is more focused on the point side boarding areas a, a host of many points blogs, and then every password stamp on Facebook is is very little of the points it’s much more focused towards getting to every country in the world so and what I’ve really enjoyed about that is the membership while there’s a lot of people from the US and Europe there’s a lot from all over the world that I never would have met any other way and the information sharing on on destinations like Syria like like Yemen, but also very mainstream destinations but doing it in much, much more intense ways or, or things that that are developing I think the Vatican what just a few weeks ago open some kind of stairway that that hadn’t been open for a few hundred years to view and these kind of things and people were sharing it as fast as news came out that I really enjoyed and it’s a free Facebook group too.

Drew Macomber
Thanks for listening to Part One on travel with Stephen. If you enjoyed that at all or if you enjoy miles and points and collecting miles at all, then I promise you you will enjoy Part Two with Stephen. He knows as much about miles and points as he does travel.

I hope you join us and listen to part two next.

Transcript for Part 2

Drew Macomber
Well, we’re gonna switch pace a little bit and start talking about miles and points. Stephen. I think

I said this about Gary left on another podcast somehow he knows about everything and it keeps it straight in his head. I think I think you’re the same way and you keep you keep extreme details like credit card insurances. I can ask you about anything, which is actually an interesting subject but you’re able to, to keep it all in your head. Are you just are you reading everything or how

Stefan Krasowski
to get somewhere from 1% of what Gary knows to maybe 10%

I don’t try to claim the league. He’s in his he is this all knowing seer of the other

of the points world. And that, for me, it’s it certainly is, it’s a subject that that I really enjoy and the credit cards in particular, I’ve enjoyed as well as the airline award travel and because my travels have been

primarily that getting to the least visited countries in the world is often an incredibly expensive thing in terms of airfare. So the one hour flight in West Africa can cost $500 cash or, or it can be a one way inter regional airlines award on Brussels airways or something. So those have been my two particular interests. And those have led to

requiring a lot, a lot more broad knowledge than then say a lot of the points travelers that are much more focused on on one type of traveler one, one set of destinations and if they’re just Europe in Hawaii, they don’t need to engage or try to maximize the range of programs that that I’ve had to out of necessity.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, I know, I know you’ve done well, with the United layovers not I wrote a lot about stopovers but you would force and layovers. I don’t know if you did that with Alaska as much, but you used to be able to jam in as many layovers as as you wanted.

It. Yeah. So I know, I know you’ve taken advantage of that, given that you’re trying to see every place and sometimes you don’t have a lot of time. So that’s worked well, in your benefit. Am I correct?

Stefan Krasowski
Yeah. My last parting kissed United’s all layovers was a five day one way from South omega to Ghana to Kenya, to

Rome for the Vatican to the Azores. Atlantic islands to Portugal back to New York. You know, the price is a one way Africa. Wow, that’s incredible Africa.

And that’s, that’s the kind of thing is I’ve still never properly visited Rome. I’ve never seen any of these sites of Rome. I

Been in other parts of Italy I have many more Italy trips coming in the future. But I was looking at all of the connections so that one I was able to force like 23 hours in Kenya. So

there will be other Kenya trips. Other times in this case, I was able to rent a car go out to parks like Hell’s Gate have think I had what, three, three different flat tires on this horrible rental cars, you know, the day of going to different parks and in all of them. So I packed a lot in those 22 hours and then and then so I could force like 10 hours or so in Rome. So I figured this Rome, I’ll go spend weeks sometime in my life, but I knew that was exactly enough that I could see the sights in the Vatican.

So just arrived at dawn had the breakfast of the Vatican ticket to skip the lines at the museum and all of that and then got back to the Azores. And so those those awards when they exist are possible. I’ve had much less luck with Alaska.

So Alaska is on paper, fantastically generous and stopovers. And in reality error code 1580 will appear on many many searches and I think the other error code is what 1430. So 1430 is related to routing rules and 1580 is is when just partner stuff doesn’t work and that

so the most straightforward stuff is going somewhere in the US stopping in Seattle and in continuing or San Francisco wherever they have a sort of hub.

the all the complications get in like I’m planning some Alaska travel right now. So they have two local carriers Penn air and Raven that are partners, and both of them do but different things to award pricing So Raven,

every it screws up everything even on connecting tickets, so the Seattle to Anchorage to Homer, Alaska. So the anchorage to Homer is operated by Raven, that will price out as one ticket more expensive than booking those two with with mileage plans separately. And it doesn’t matter which save or however you figure it out. All the raven flights are 17,500 miles. And but somehow it screws it up.

Drew Macomber
Sounds like you’re having worse luck than I am on that. But but I’ve never been able to do something with Alaska that, like you did with that united I mean, that’s going the wrong direction. And then coming right back. I mean to go from

Western Africa.

Race via Kenyan Rome is just nuts, because you could have thrown a rock from one to the other.

Stefan Krasowski
This is what what drew you’ve taught me a lot was posts about your your various hop overs and stop overs is thinking about looking at where these were air airlines put regions on there. And a lot of them even if they’ve gone sort of revenue base did still have airline regions and routing rules and where they put territories. So Azores is Portugal. And they just treated as Portugal. So connecting through them. Yeah, why I was able, the only reason on that why I was able to go through Portugal and back through Portugal was I connected through Lisbon one way and Porto coming back I think was it and Azores had flights to, to both. So figuring out these regions and testing things, and a lot of it is nobody at these companies. And I’ve when I go I don’t have that many industry connections. But I’ve been the things like the Freddy awards, where loyalty program people, and you very quickly realize that Loyalty Program Manager is a mid level job in the corporate run that somebody spends a couple of years in and hopes to get promoted to something higher up the pay scale and marketing. And to them, it’s just a daily corporate job and how many people can say that they pay intense thought and attention to the details of their daily corporate jobs. So these people, they when they go home, they think about gardening or yoga or whatever their hobbies are, they don’t go home at night thinking about this stuff like we do. So they they program, something nobody at United probably ever really heard of Azores are thought about it, or why I could connect, they are why I could cross from one side of Africa, all the way to the other. And that involves like 15 hours of flying or something, it’s so far, but now they say oh, it’s just Africa. It’s like connecting between, you know, San Francisco and Houston or something, you know, it just know these these kind of things. So testing it, seeing the possibilities, seeing where people didn’t have the imagination to think of the stuff that we might think of that’s that’s a lot of what you’ve opened my eyes to. And it’s it’s helped me a ton in these trips.

Dave H
And do you remember how many miles that ticket was?

Stefan Krasowski
Was that South West Africa that was was at 42,500 or 37,540, or

Dave H
42 and a half and amazing value.

Stefan Krasowski
Here’s a book economy for myself and business for my wife. And that that very much helps. So know the questions you guys have discussed about family travel, it’s very easy when we travel as a couple that only need one seat. So next week, my wife is trying Jet Blue mint. And I don’t have a seat assignment because all the free seats are are taken up on Jet Blue, and I’m trying to see if that means they put you into a nice seat or they just stick you into a middle seat that comes out

Drew Macomber
at the end. Just check in on time, I guess. Do you think there’s anything equivalent to that? Is there any program you’re looking at now? to do

Stefan Krasowski
stuff like do more with UVA? UVA is one that it’s not so much equivalent. I had my mind still back in terms of the one business class word I think when you’re discussing with Spencer, you talked about programs that have different availability for their members and not and

that that still plays a lot so EPA is a good one for that one business class seat that they’re not giving to partners. In terms of the crazy stuff. They said I’ve been trying to make Alaska work for different things and not had as much success as as it might supposed to be on paper. asia miles ama and Japan mileage bank gel are all programs that over the years I’ve bookmarked whenever people have written about them and i’ve i’ve meant to study and figure them out and just haven’t still in the end I mean Delta has gotten worse and worse for many of the stuff I tried to do but I’ve gotten all these countries almost entirely on on Delta sky miles and united mileage plus one world is much less useful to me because it’s in terms of destinations it’s not essential. There’s the there’s places on the sky team goes there’s places only Star Alliance goes but there’s nowhere that one world goes more or less that that I can’t cover with the other two. So as my biggest balance that I hardly ever use. I’m trying to think what what other programs have been dabbling with recently

I’ve been putting some rental cars at Nash national you can now earn miles and different programs. So I’ve been putting Lufthansa miles

some national rentals as well as the hurts days last the big promotion they had last year. So Lufthansa has some interesting stuff for United, that’s changing main ninth, the prices are going up slightly but not not horrifically. So that that can do some stuff on united. I’ll be a popular one that I’ve used some for more straightforward stuff, but not, not to the degree that

some people have found with with different mics, cabin style lighting varies.

Drew Macomber
Do you ever buy miles from them? Do you ever find that worth it? I mean, when Avianca was doing

a lot of their bonuses, is that something you didn’t see, it makes sense I

Stefan Krasowski
have not needed to I’ve had enough for what I need with credit card transfers. And part of that has been the weaknesses of Avianca are a lot of airports are not included or routing rules. So I’ve never had luck with them for stuff I was trying to do in Africa. And these the even just certain one ways like South Sudan to Ethiopia means it’s a one way and Ethiopian, but they don’t have the airport code supported. And so that’s it for them. So I’ve only recently started using them for more conventional things like us to East Asia. Those those do make good sense that you know, I think in terms of my own travel, I’m perfectly fine sitting in economy swell just by cash tickets or points of cash. And then stuff for my wife is wherever you Avianca Star Alliance awards from us to East Asia. make a lot of sense.

Drew Macomber
I love that. That’s the more conventional. Yeah.

Stefan Krasowski
Yeah, I mean, I’m struggling to find ones that that really do the unusual. And so a lot of it is and I my biggest pet peeve blog posts about award topics is when somebody writes a theoretical award post, which is they look at an award chart and they say this should be bookable and I know drew you hate that stuff, too. And you actually test it out. So a lot of the Eddie hard stuff has,

Unknown Speaker
although I did get in trouble with that recently, but

Stefan Krasowski
it was up there, Morocco stopovers or something. But

Drew Macomber
I had, I was pretty certain that that was doable. And I well anyways, and then the other thing I did was, I just put I just compared but this is something else. This is maybe a little different than what you’re talking about. But I try to get charts in cross compare things I just like, I like the visual display of cross comparing things. So I put all the round the world award charts back to back and, and arrow Mexico by that by that chart is killing it. It’s just by far the best award chart and people when guy was like I went into the office. He’s like, I know Spanish. I tried calling. He’s like I went into their office in Mexico. I mean, in New York, the arrow Mexico office, and they’re like, No, we don’t see, we don’t see any availability, and doesn’t matter what it is for any partner flying, they just don’t see award availability. So it’s just

Stefan Krasowski
left the juice worth the squeeze is to win the award. I guess what I’ll do is I’ll ask award Booker’s, like like Gary like Tiffany funk, like Matthew, Clint, do you use this program, and then when they say we don’t touch it. Now, these are people who are doing it full time, and sometimes even speak the local language of the airline. And they still say it’s just, it’s just such a Canadian and Europe, Mexico is one I’ve heard is you’ve got to be very patient, very fluent in Spanish, very flexible, very, very persistent, very local to

Drew Macomber
make it work. My friend is fluent in Spanish. And he said that he calls in he’ll, he’ll have up a word availability on one screen and he’ll say, okay, flight, whatever, whatever. And they’re like, we don’t see any order availability there. He’s like, I know that there’s a word availability on that flight. And they just, they just claim that there’s, they see no partner ability. My

Stefan Krasowski
only tip is ask for the coconut juice. So the for some reason, even if you’re sitting in business class, they serve it any economy, not in not in business, you got to ask it for the for the economy. Good. You should

Drew Macomber
have told me that a month ago.

I love

Stefan Krasowski
the airline itself. I enjoy and I like Mexican City Airport. But

Dave H
yeah, it’s these these programs.

Stefan Krasowski
I had a conference in Australia once I did a whole lecture. This is not all American telling them what what they don’t know about Virgin Australia. But it was entirely about Coco’s Christmas Island. So these are two Australian overseas territories and way West. So almost closer to Malaysia and Indonesia than then mainland Australia. I wanted to see the big annual red crab migration, which I eventually did, but it was a four year process of

getting the natural conditions timing when they when they migrate, and you only know a few weeks before. And so years of booking all these awards a year out hoping that the dates line up and everything works perfectly. And and this is a great one that some of the leading sites in Australia publish these theoretical award charts, as they say, I mean, if you look at the Eddie hot guests website, they have these awards charts for Virgin Australia, and they specifically named these airports and other ones. And some of them are very big destinations, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast type, Great Barrier Reef type islands that you go to, and they publish, specifically this city to this city cost this many miles. But you can call them 100 times and every time was they Oh, this is operated by Virgin Australia regional so we can’t book it. And this is operated by this. And this is operated by that. So Singapore, Chris fly or the same thing. They publish Cocos Keeling, they publish Christmas Island on the reward chart, tried many times over multiple years, never once was able to get them to actually confirm space, the only program that could reliably do it other than Virgin Australia velocity was Delta sky miles with a lot of exceptions of how they display it. And there’s there’s things about technical stops and flight numbers changing it. It seems like a very obtuse technical case. But the point is, these are ones Eddie had Singapore, they publish right on their award chart. These cities they named them and as far as I can tell, and all of my efforts and asking other people they are, some of them are totally unbreakable.

Drew Macomber
I have to say, Stephen, this might be a might be a Stephen problem. Because

Stefan Krasowski
as I said, this happens to these great barrier reef Island destinations that people actually will want to go to more than more than just me, but that you know, so that that’s an extreme case. But that’s one where it just gets frustrating. And so when people just quote the award chart and say you can book this, well, sometimes you can and it’s fantastic. And other times you just you just can’t and and so that

that that gets a bit frustrating.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, I understand. I’m just saying, Dave and I haven’t had issues finding Cocos Island nice. Christmas Island.

Dave H
haven’t lost any time at all. When I was

Stefan Krasowski
young.

Dave H
It wouldn’t have been never but

although that I do have to say the red crab migration pictures that you took were just fabulous. Amazing. Yeah. Really amazing. Just thousands of

Stefan Krasowski
unusual claims. If you search What does it feel beach on Christmas Island on Google Earth you’ll see me in an orange baseball hat and gray t shirts.

Dave H
Know so everybody can see what you look like they

Unknown Speaker
blow out the face but

Dave H
okay.

Stefan Krasowski
I don’t know what you’re doing the the migration, the park ranger with the camera on his backpack. So it’s quite a lot of fun to see that process anything?

Drew Macomber
Yes. Cool.

So how, how are you earning miles these days? Are you?

I mean, you’re mostly a credit card. person, but do you do you Ms ever or I mean you used to just curious what you’re up

Stefan Krasowski
To these days, this is where the sandbagger Dave finally gets gets involved, because on the prior episodes, he’s not doing too much. And yet

I take Dave’s point that it’s all relative. And

my mind is I’m definitely earning a lot fewer miles. And it’s costing me more than than I did in the past. When I moved from New York to Seattle, I thought things would improve and they went the other direction because with there’s very specific demographics that tend to get into miles and points and a lot of those demographics work at Amazon, Microsoft, T Mobile, all their Expedia, all the rest that are in the Seattle area. And so a lot of people just slashed and burned and killed off stores. One thing that’s I noticed about Seattle is especially within Seattle City Limits, but even surrounding areas is because labor costs are quite high. Many stores customer service desks,

operate limited hours and they only have one person. And if you don’t have two people and you have some Ambassador with a garbage bag full of Visa gift cards and wants to run 50,000 in volume that shuts down the customer service desk for a few hours a day. And that that shuts down a store really fast and there’s been enough of those people in the Seattle area that they say it’s responsible and master and and the one you know in a Walmart was actually buying something and saw this guy and it turned out I knew him on on flyer talk by a handle from from years ago. And he was upset because people were irresponsible doing doing 80,000 a day and he was doing a reasonable amount of 50 to 60 a day.

But he was actually only doing a few thousand like five minutes and then letting the next customer in line go through so he was actually acting in a in a way that would not destroy the stores but others would insist on doing

their whole thing. And in that pretty much destroyed but in person things of Seattle unless you’re willing to drive at least an hour in different directions. And so that that kind of stuff I’ve I’ve mostly stopped. So it’s it when opportunities come up that are are things online that have higher fees, I mean, paying taxes or bill pay, I mean, these kind of things are our typical examples. And if I’m hitting a credit card signup bonus, if I’m

hitting something that like on a Hilton card that triggers a hotel server that I’ll run the costs and see Is it is it good for me to pay that fee, compared to the payoff and all the time savings. And I’ve I really

in addition to things getting tougher is true to a specific lessons one, I’ve learned that that I have been way too much of a generalist and the really successful point generator

masters these types that I know they don’t have a broad thing they’re they’re working on one or two deals and making it as efficient as possible and so when something like a comes out I think last Christmas they had this promo was like dude, each of these 15 different tasks sign up for lifelock do this or that. Each one earns a few hundred miles and it’s fun and addictive but if you go through it, you’ll spend hours and hours to just get a few thousand miles compared to the really efficient MSers is that they’ve just got this one or two thing going. But it’s it’s an hour before work. It’s an hour after work on their commute. They’ve got it down to a science and they generate a lot from it. So I’ve tried to resist my natural inclination to, to spread around and study things and focus and I’ve also just, I’m working for myself now and it’s it’s I think the best way to be a great Ambassador is to have a corporate job that puts no demands on your your

time. And so if you have a corporate job where you’re just sitting around and thinking about these things, and figuring them out, and the direct deposit comes either way, then you can afford to spend an hour at Walmart after work or this kind of stuff, when you’re working for yourself. But you really are faced with that trade off is does this hour does this two hours Make sense? Does it exhaust me so if i in Seattle, if I bought a car, if I spent two or three hours going to Tacoma every day, I I may generate more points, but I know it will hurt my business. So I’m really trying to focus on on things that don’t take a lot of time even if they have higher fees.

Drew Macomber
So what kind of things don’t take a lot of time,

Stefan Krasowski
credit card signups the amount of fashion, as I said, things like Bill Pay, and that’s anything you can do from your keyboard.

City retention offers with to at&t access Moore’s,

between my wife and I, we have five chase freedom, so that’s an person five x but at scale by five, and those categories are usually pretty easy. And if I’m taking a road trip somewhere in the US, I can I can say if a so that’s, that’s 1500 times five, that chunk of gift cards, I can go somewhere and do those freedoms somewhere in the US that’s that’s more amenable to, to the MS style techniques than the my local area and just be done with that over a day or two in the course of a trip I’m taking and then it’s not, it’s not something out of my daily routine trying to go there all the time. So these these kind of things that I think where

a lot of the big masters are, it’s it’s no big secret in terms of it’s just various methods to get Visa gift cards or other gift cards and either resell them, which is a full business or find places that can get them to money, order bill pay these kind of things. You know, that’s, that’s all been out there. The trick is, is finding places that that can do it. And then there’s done there’s more of the black hat and kind of travel hacking stuff, which some of it I get, I get told and hear about and I just think Oh, that’s interesting academically, but it’s it’s not something that I would ever feel comfortable with doing myself. And that’s, that’s where a lot of the energy is also going.

Drew Macomber
But you you also have talked about keeping and using passive benefits more than any anyone else. And I think most people overlook those things. Are there anything like I mean, there used to be more annual free night bonuses with with Fairmont if you hit the 12 k i think. And now that’s gone. The city prestige thing is changing but there are there any other passive benefits that you that you actually use

Stefan Krasowski
every single one of the hotel certs i think is worth it. And the annual fees don’t don’t bother me. I’ve never had one go expire, then I don’t understand the hotel snobs online that that are like, Oh, it’s impossible to find a Marriott that’s worth it at 35,000 points a night and you know, there’s some spectacular places and and yeah, that’s crazy, you know, and it’s and it’s just totally nuts that

that that you can find something I mean, even if

you can, so maybe your goal is luxurious hotel. But if if you also want to go visit New York or Hong Kong or Tokyo, you find these hotels and so I have hotel certs from all of them. I mean, we have a nights in the

Drew Macomber
public don’t live by the way of the Marriott, hotels, the category five or now they call it just under 35,000. But I published the complete list of St. Regis and Ritz Carlton hotels and there’s like 40

Stefan Krasowski
Yeah, and so I mean, we’re only limited by the number of cards we have between my wife and I, we use all the certs and I mean even we have a night next week, New York JFK and we had an old Radisson certain days. And they don’t have many hotels left in some cities, but they do have a JFK Airport one so fine. We get there at nine at night. We’re out in the morning. The cert starts fine. It’s the Hilton cards I think are especially the Hilton ascend. So that’s the $95 one not not the not the benefits rich Aspire one that I don’t even in Ariana point, Jason wrote the same thing recently that I don’t even know where all the points seem to come from. Because late last year, they just kept being these 20,000 bonuses that didn’t even seem to be offers that we were targeted for. And it just the point balance on that just keeps seems to increasing the healthiness by are the premium card that comes with diamonds, can you expand on that you just keep getting targeted? Well, I mean, like the so right now I have the Aspire the Hilton sandwich I’ve had for many years, and the Hilton business card. So they’re all from Amex, and the Ascend in particular.

Every, every other month or so it’ll be it’s been a little quieter this year. But it’ll be something like get 20,000 points for spending 2000 get another 20,000 for spending 4000. So if you’re doing grocery store style type things like gift cards, you hit 15,000 per calendar year, you also get a weekend nights are plus the earning is what six points $1 had grocery stores. And and you get these kind of bonuses. And then there were other bonuses, like in December January for things on if you spent like $500 and Amazon so that they had all of these and, and both her and I was looking at our accounts independently just trying to figure out, it seemed like there were a lot more 20 thousands that never should have been awarded. So it’s like they they even had promos that they probably didn’t even didn’t even email us or we never noticed their inbox, they didn’t require registration. So that that card just actually that really seems particularly generous.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, no idea.

Stefan Krasowski
I don’t have that. And that’s not something that’s not something you can really guarantee and it’s not something I would just get the card, you know, hoping for good luck, but it’s a decent card to have anyway, if you can do grocery store stuff and and get that weekend certs and get the get the earning and and you know a lot of these. Another thing I’ve learned from from both of you guys and and people that have been doing it longer is you’ve got you’ve got the published terms and some of the stuff we do credit card applications. And that is just maximizing the, the the letter rather than the spirit of the terms and conditions so

and then the other the other side of stuff is when it’s stuff that the terms and conditions explicitly say is not supposed to happen, like a shopping portal that says does not count for gift card purchases, but it actually does. And so going out and testing things and seeing if they work seeing if you got the at&t access more testing sites to see, is it is it going to be the three x online? And can I get a retention offer for an extra two x? So it’s five x online? For all these things? Does this bill pay service count things have come and gone with that card. But if you keep experimenting, even if it says it’s not supposed to work? That doesn’t necessarily mean it was programmed that way. So don’t you know, don’t be like those those blog commenters that often say I called once the agent said you can’t do this the end. Right?

Drew Macomber
But but you kind of learn what to look for in these areas. Like you talked about terms and conditions with with, you know, earlier, you talked about terms and conditions with routing rules, but like I, I kind of ignore, and I just see what the computer allows. And so when I’m trying a new program in the past, my program was you know, I did. So now I’m looking for other programs where I can just test things. And I’m and I generally know the things to test. So if I, for example, if I take a flight within Northern Africa, will it route me through Europe for the same price, that’s just a thing to test? because then I can look for how how the computer prices, these things. In those cases, I completely ignore what the written routing rules are. And I go see what the computer actually does. Because it’s it’s, it’s rarely the same. In the case of credit card stuff. It really is about terms and conditions or messing. Like the first thing, if we find something new, the first thing you’re going to do is go search the terms conditions for the word limit. So I think I think each of us have learned there are Dave, do you have an example of something where you you went straight to the terms and conditions and you searched for a word like I was just thinking I searched the word limit recently, because I thought I found a new thing we’ll see. I’ll tell you later, where

were somewhere Carrie actually sent money to you, Dave, and it got sent to my car on accident and it didn’t get it didn’t charge a fee. I have no idea why this happened. So so $80 got put on my card $80 got sent to you. And the first thing I did is went in search for the word limit in the terms and conditions. And I don’t see a limit in the terms and conditions. But that’s just an example of something you go and search for right away.

Dave H
Well, and and I actually think it’s more important to cut to talk more about what Stephen was talking about, of trying to push it if it says gift cards don’t apply. Those are the things that people want to try that are listening to us that are trying to learn how to do this because

Once you figure that out, you’re not talking about the whatever store in downtown Seattle that’s getting overrun. You’re talking about your own little honey pot that’s going to produce for a long time. So it’s like, do you put in this effort on, you know, 510 15

different places? Maybe when you do strike gold on one of them, though, you’re just set for a while. So I mean, that’s where it’s worth trying to put in that extra effort up front to develop something that will have a long life that you normally don’t see on a lot of the more public that’s just testing things, right?

Stefan Krasowski
Yeah, I mean, one, right, relatable cards prepaid cards that I had just written off for years, actually. And it had been closed on me because I had an early account, and I hadn’t been using it. I had written off because the Publish limit was so low that I just didn’t think it was worth my time to get out to a store where I could do the reloads. And then they said, Well, have you actually ever tried to use it? what they said, well, the publisher,

It is one thing, but if you’ve used it for a few weeks, you can do a lot more because they just publish limit as that, but they just they process a lot more. And that’s something that people are smart enough, I wasn’t smart enough to just say him over the limit says X number you can load per month, but I’ll just try another one does it go through, it’s going through and the next one wins through and the next one wins through. And they and it’s not something that they’re shut down at the end of the month. It’s people been doing this for several years. And they they eventually realized their actual limit on their card is three or four times what the Publish limit of the loads are. And I was a dope and didn’t didn’t use the card or test it out in that way. And that’s that’s what I’ve tried to get better at.

Dave H
And that’s a perfect example. And I mean, and that also falls into the category of tradable information. So if you find a heavy hitter, and you say, Hey, I have something it’s in this general area, do you have something and then all of a sudden you

have street

credibility and you have something of value to trade. Well then that opens more worlds for you. Yeah, and I think I think the

Stefan Krasowski
rapping back to what’s published and all of that, I think the one of the biggest mistakes people very new in this hobby make is they assume everything is online. So like what the word availability, many partners, a just started showing it he had, but they don’t show a cafe in jail. And so you have to learn that not everything is online. And then I think a little bit down the road of progression, people start thinking that, Oh, now I have to call in and they call in is the word of God, and then they get misled by information of customer service reps that are are not not that well informed or don’t know how it works. And then they’ve got to get to that, you’ve got to get to the point to realize that it’s a hybrid of both online and in person calling and neither is perfect. And both have opportunities that are beyond what either is telling you exist.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, I actually have an example from a ways back where it wasn’t me being smart enough is

me being over aggressive, I guess, with the net spend cards.

There, they’re meant to be reloaded. And so you buy, you buy the initial $500 card, and then you can continue to reload it. And I got banned from the program. And so when I went to register it, it’s like, sorry, the social security number doesn’t it no longer works with this thing.

But just use the last four digits of the pin. So now my social security number triggers turning all of these into a debit card.

So I mean, I don’t I don’t know how I would have discovered that. Otherwise, then then and then I found you know, there are pretty easy ways to do that. But

you know, sometimes you just you just got to start testing things. And in that case,

I don’t I don’t know how to repeat the experiment and have the same results.

Stefan Krasowski
For someone else form letter to every bank, please banned me. Here’s my Social Security.

Drew Macomber
Which works until they put out something you actually want.

I had to write Google and like once once a month to ask them to and banned me from their

their money, you are banned or money transfer thing, but it ended up being a huge pain.

Stefan Krasowski
Because your whole account, right? Tiffany wrote about an issue with Google five and it shuts down Google phi. If you’ve got it.

Drew Macomber
I did not have Google fire at the time. But it does use Google payments my Google phi account now. So I can’t imagine if I did not get that overturned. So sometimes being aggressive. You know, it’s just a free way to unload cards for a while and I

would have not been worth it. I don’t know how much I did it was probably a few thousand but I got I got banned so it’s not always worth getting banned. That’s my point is you don’t want to just go try to get banned to see if you can get your own honey pot as Dave said, because I do not want to be banned from Google. That’s one thing.

Stefan Krasowski
Dave you mentioned about the networking and I think that’s it conferences events that’s always the biggest question that comes up and you’re the type of person that people want to get to know and and as as helpful and amenable as you are many of others with your skill level are are not so much and they they get tired of people asking for the free secret and running away. So what’s what’s the way from your perspective for someone to actually build a relationship with with someone like you that that’s mutually beneficial and opens the door but I’m still trying to get Dave to tell me secret. So I’d like to know the answer to this. I’m

Dave H
And eventually drew will probably earn some sort of level of trust with me. Just kidding.

I, the biggest thing comes back to what, you know,

what would that person have to offer? If that person comes up to me and says, Can you tell me the secrets are can? Can I buy you a coke? Can you tell me the secrets?

No, you know, but if they’ve done, you know, if there’s a more equal relationship, and they said, Did you know about x or y, then that’s more likely to build that sort of trust. And I mean, there’s some stuff that’s more

you know, that doesn’t, that’s kind of out there that that won’t get blown up if another person or two hears about it. But then there’s other stuff that’s more fragile. So the fragile stuff? Probably, you know, that would be super long term, if at all, that would come up with there’s certainly other things of value. And I mean, in that the you know, it would be a two way street. In my mind, that would be the easiest way to accomplish something like that.

Drew Macomber
But are both of you like on a standoff with like telling other person a secret to earn the trust?

You know, what I’m trying to say?

Dave H
I don’t know, I think there’s certain people that you, you know,

Drew Macomber
you just get in conversation and you say, I have something that can help you.

Dave H
I mean, that happens for right, or, or there’s just some people that you know, are playing at a high enough level that they have something right, yeah, that’s true. And it might be now it might be in a half a year, they’re going to come across something. So

you know,

there’s going to be more of an attempted a relationship with somebody like that, whether they have anything now or not, then you know, what I mean? And I just find it all interesting and fascinating. So I mean, quite honestly, a lot of this stuff I hear I’m you know, I’m kind of in this stuff in camp of academically? I’m glad I heard about that. But I’m just not going to do it for whatever Sure.

So but but to me, it’s more, it’s more the hunt and more the figure it out, and what else can work? And what else can I bring in, you know, and I get a big thrill out of finding something that can help somebody else and telling them, you know, I’m not going to use this, but this ought to be really great for you. And they get really excited. And they say, Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. So I mean, even just, you know, the I don’t know my mind.

Stefan Krasowski
And it doesn’t necessarily might be saying that you have something totally unrelated. I mean, one guy that that I’ve

met at one of my new york meetups and now a couple years later has become this giant MS heavy hitter.

We’ve, he doesn’t share that kind of this stuff was with me, but he shares business type stuff from from his work that that ends up helping me and so it it’s something that I know that there’s another person in New York is the same way that we’re good friends, and I know he does a ton of stuff he’d like five years, I don’t think he’s ever shared a live tip with me. And I’ve never pushed him for it. But I’ve helped with stuff. And he’s helped me in other ways, because these are often very resourceful people. And similarly that I know they do. They have people that that they’ve worked with that that have tried to do like save the reselling type business, they have helped and coach people that have gone up and wanted to do the more tit for tat equal in kind stuff when those people have said I’ve got this deal and I think they have like your your cheese example somebody wanted to go in on 5000 bucks of cheese and you know, when it’s a joint project that you’ve got, you’ve got some the ability to, to each each get a win win and build some of the trust that only comes with wiring somebody’s money and hoping it doesn’t vanish.

These these kinds of things, so it doesn’t have to be you must show me the one way to get ms gift cards there’s there’s things I asked Dave I asked drew that have nothing to do with, with with this particular subject just because you guys know a lot about a lot of type of things and and the great friendships and relationships that that aren’t just based on, on this this one particular subject.

Drew Macomber
Dave, I feel like this is a good time to plug the Ann Arbor do because that that is genuinely a group

of people who have been doing this a long time. And a lot of the people there have been doing this a long time. And the stories from the last time I was there. were awesome. And speaking of which, you’ve got to record some of these stories like that guy

who had the eBay coupon that is a hilarious, amazing story. You gotta you gotta does he come regularly?

Dave H
he does, he actually lives in so

Drew Macomber
you got to record all these stories, that’s going to be an episode. And and, and,

Dave H
and and just for? Yeah, I will. I will put this out there. This was

like, outrageous. So he got a 20% off coupon.

And he looked in the terms and conditions to see Was there anything that wasn’t allowed to be purchased? And the answer to that was, was

Drew Macomber
there a limit?

Dave H
And then he and was there a limit? And the answer to that was no.

And let’s just say he bought something very, very, very expensive on eBay. And he was able to sell it for most of what he paid for it. And he got 20%. Yeah, it was amazing. And he

Drew Macomber
found someone to purchase it beforehand. So that that’s like the safety net part He’s like,

Unknown Speaker
right.

Dave H
Right. So So yeah, so for those that don’t know, or haven’t heard about the art fair do. There’s a Facebook page. It’s private. But if you answer a question, you would be allowed to enter the Facebook page. It’s also posted on fire talk, which I go to, not very often. But I put that information about the broad fair deal on that page on fire talk. And basically, it’s a get together this year will be July 20. There’s no fee, there’s never been a fee. I asked speakers that I think would be interesting. And it was it this year and this year. Well, there’s two people there’s going to be one person talking about street art.

And her flyer talk name is Katie Oh, her real name is Karen. And she goes all over and takes pictures of street art. And one of the other people will be coming in from Texas and he will be talking about getting college degrees in foreign countries for cheap to no money. He received an MBA from in Germany. So he’ll be talking about that experience. So I mean, it’s, you know, there’s x, Pat’s stuff, there’s miles and points stuff, there’s cool travel stuff, stuff in stock there Jews talk, they’re bunch of other people talk, there’s been going on about 15 years. But if anybody’s interested, feel free to sign up, and we’ll make sure we get a big enough place that everybody wants to just

Drew Macomber
search and our brand new flyer talk, or an arbor to 2006 2009

Dave H
and Arbor, Ann Arbor Art Fair do would be would probably get you there even

Drew Macomber
2019. Two

Dave H
and then. Right? Yeah, there’s some other ones it’s been going on, like maybe 15 years. But then one of the things drew alluded to is we have a tip section where you can win some typically bizarre aviation type prizes.

But bottom line is people will give tips that they would never give online for fear that it would spread too fast. So there’s kind of a code of honor that people what gets shared in there kind of stays with you unless you talk to the person that originally shared it and get permission. And then you end up with some pretty cool tips. A lot of times,

Stefan Krasowski
I remember what, two years ago, the guy with his his whole outfit designed to get himself flight upgrades was hilarious. I endorse the event and I’ll, I’ll actually I will be there this year.

Dave H
That’s right. That’ll be cool. It’ll be good to see you again.

Stefan Krasowski
I think for just quickly for two people starting up,

If you’re if you’re looking to get to know MSers is a head of an arbor fair dude to blogs you could look at million mile guy is a guy out of Minneapolis and I think he’s he’s the only really heavy hitter MSers that’s writing a lot online these days. So if you want to see the psychology and process of that, and like the new marathon man

Drew Macomber
or more more of a blogger than

Stefan Krasowski
Minneapolis has, it has a good group, I go to those meetups, that’s my hometown when I can. But it’s blog and he’ll he’s very focused and very specific. But you get to see how how that process works. And then the other one I think is useful in this area, miles per day does a deal dead series. So he only reveals deals when they’re already dead. But studying the studying how those work does, how you end up finding the new things that that do work. those resources are increasingly rare in terms of stuff you can read of that world and getting a sense of what it’s like. And,

Dave H
and and just to clarify enter in our broad fair do we’ll talk very little If none about MS. I made that mistake about six or seven years ago to bring in somebody to talk about MS and like a lot of stuff in Ann Arbor went till after that so I want to never never make that a topic of the enterprise it’s a fun social thing and but getting to know those kind of characters I guess.

Right, right.

Drew Macomber
So I’ll I’ll move towards wrapping up the whole thing. But, Stephen, I was going to ask you one more thing. I feel like I’ve asked you about this a couple times. But it just the ability to retain it in my head is not as good but just talking about travel insurances with credit cards.

So we can talk about auto and travel and any other tips you might have. But so let’s start with travel.

What kind of protection if I if I purchase a flight with whatever Chase Sapphire preferred? Or you tell me if there’s a better card? what what what’s going to be the maximum? I’m going to get? Is it reimbursed or a hotel? If there’s a delay, like what are the rules here?

Stefan Krasowski
The main differences trip delay versus trip cancellation on the trip cancellation stuff i think is harder to trigger and very specific events. The trip delay is more common to a lot of us frequent travelers. City prestige right now has the most generous benefits. Some of the chase cards have it. The main thing is they will cover say up to $500 of expenses include hotel, meals essentials, what a what none of them include as a replacement flight. So I’ve had that were they The only flight the only option available was was another flight on another airline that fortunately was was cheaper even than the hotels. And that was the one thing that they would deny they say they pay 500 for our hotel, but they wouldn’t pay 130 for a replacement flight. So if you have to be somewhere else, you’re going to end that day and you need another airline, you’re probably not covered but everything else. So my pain with this

Drew Macomber
if I paid with a with my city prestige card for a flight, and it’s it’s gotten delayed. So let’s just say a weather delay. And I’m going to be stuck in Chicago overnight, I can book a hotel, and just put it on my card and then later I go back to city and file a claim I assume have some Yeah,

Stefan Krasowski
they have a they have a form you can you can fill out and you can get it from the city benefits builder part of the card website and submit it and they’ve changed certain things about how they treat connections and that but if you follow the terms, it’s it’s pretty, pretty straightforward. Chase I found has more exceptions that they tell you about after the fact doesn’t need to be a round trip doesn’t need to originate from your home home country city is a little more broad. So most of these, the issue is if they can the administrator that’s hired to adjudicate these claims will find ways if they can to not pay things and I think like city I had an odd one where I had a trip to LA for a snowstorm overnight and the only thing they denied was my New York City subway fare because they said their terms included ground transport, so I could have taken a car share service like 100 bucks from New Jersey to JFK. But since I took the subway, they said that’s not brown transport. And then when I called they overruled, they said yeah, that’s silly and stupid. will pay you the 275. But united did it. I mean, I I the subway was faster even then I wasn’t what was this, this is what.

So those kind of things would be covered by that. I mean, all of these benefits, the credit cards cover a lot. If you’re doing a big cruise that costs a lot of money, a big family event, a wedding or reunion or something. There’s going to be gaps on the credit card coverages that you’ll need to take a hard look at and decide should you purchase a more comprehensive insurance policy for that and specifically that that doesn’t have some of the gaps of where things fall in. For the most part, the credit card coverages. You do need to pay with that credit card, whatever you whatever you expect to have covered. I think there’s a few exceptions. medical evacuation for Amex platinum, as long as you have the card or you’re an immediate family member, you have medical evacuation coverage, even if you didn’t use the card to book the trip. And then things like that, like a medical evacuation that can sound like a great benefit but certain cards come with like the Platinum come with a lot of money to pay for that evacuation and other cards just connect you to a medical assist line where they help you arrange it and you get the bill. So I think freedom miler has done some great tables comparing the various premium card travel protections, Chase Sapphire reserve, city National Bank, Crystal vs infinity city prestige, these are Ritz Carlton card, these are some of the ones that that have the best, the best overall coverages across a bunch of categories. The other rental car thing very quickly is that no card covers liability, which is an issue in the US. It’s an issue in Mexico, Central America, it only covers damage to the car itself. So if you own a car and have an auto policy, you’ll have liability coverage that will extend to your rental car. If you don’t own a car, any credit card that has primary or secondary rental car coverage will cover the car itself. But you are not covered for liability. Every car in the US is by state minimums. And those are very small like five or 10,000 in some states that are attached to the rental car. So liability you should buy from the rental agency or if you rent cars a lot like me, you can get what’s called a non owners liability policy, it’s hard, you got to make a lot of phone calls to different insurance agents. You’re not going to find that online to get a policy like that. But I’m paying like, almost 600 a year for liability coverage. For any rental car, I have a car I operate throughout the year, which compared to 15 to $18. a day for rental cars ends up ends up working out for me, but I rent quite a bit. As I don’t own a car in Seattle, so I’ll rent every weekend or every other week for a day.

Other other insurances medical type stuff.

The credit cards cover medical evacuation, but not a lot of medical care. If you you can get annual multi trip policies, which I use. One that’s called geo blue, tracker choice. Plus, it’s a policy available in many US states. But not all, it’s an annual multi trip as long as each trip doesn’t extend more than 30 days each. All your medical and evacuation is covered. And they have a great network of doctors.

And that’s a cheaper policy than for instance, comprehensive type travel insurance that include medical, but include a lot of

trip cancellation and other benefits. So our policy for my wife and I is a little under $300 a year. Whereas a comprehensive policy that includes a lot of the non medical stuff might be seven or eight or $900 a year. So we’ve had good success with that I had two minor claims in Hong Kong and Japan this year on that policy, and it was direct below what the provider I never filled out a form never, never paid a cent up front. I’m very happy with that one.

Drew Macomber
You know, you know why you keep all this stuff straight in your head is because you travel enough to use it. So you’re the only person I know that has filed a claim for a subway

ticket to be covered.

Stefan Krasowski
It wasn’t just the subway ticket pointing out. I

Drew Macomber
know, I know, I know.

Stefan Krasowski
I said I’m dumping this couch because I didn’t want to risk a $400 Hotel in case they decided to deny it. I mean, some of these policies, people are just greedy or ridiculous. It’s like up to 500 benefits. So I’m going to go to the the apple vending machine and the airport and say that I needed a new, new, you know, $200 dongle that I couldn’t live without because it was in check baggage router, which is fine, except you make it denied. And then you just spent $200 on a dongle. And so how can you be confident that your hotel is going to be covered, you can call and then they say, please submit the form. And we’ll make our determination that and you can’t be 100% confident you can get and you it’s more or less after the fact but many of the major airlines have online process either instant or pretty quick response where some of them call it like it’s like a cruise ship page or whatever, where you can just put in your your email and your ticket and you get on airline letterhead, a PDF that says your flight was delayed for these reasons. If you get that airline letter,

yet, it’s pretty certain that it matches the reasons match the terms that that

that your credit card benefit has in place, you have a pretty good chance of having your claim approved. But yeah, I’ve always been cautious. As I said that New York one I slept on my friend’s couch because I was already on that couch the night before and I didn’t want to risk an expensive hotel that I didn’t need to risk there was just no benefit to me doing that.

Drew Macomber
Well, that’s the a lot of information. So thanks for sharing that. It’s like, like I said, I think that’s because you can keep all that straight. Because you actually use all this stuff. And same thing with the countries like you know, you have recommendations on every place, because you’ve been to almost every place and you know, I find myself I can keep it. I mean, I can give you recommendations for places and Albania because I’ve been there and I won’t be able to. You know, I know a little bit about someplace I haven’t been maybe, but it’s hard to keep straight. But so I think, Stephen, that’s what makes

what makes you an awesome guest is you’ve done it. I’ve done everything and been everywhere. Dave, do you have any more questions? Are you ready to sign off or?

Dave H
I’m ready to sign off. I think it was excellent that we had Stephen and that was just a ton of knowledge in this past podcast.

Drew Macomber
Yeah. So thanks, Stephen, for joining us.

Stefan Krasowski
Thank you My pleasure. break it into a two part series then we can build inclusion.

Drew Macomber
Yeah, so thanks, Stephen for joining and thanks everyone for listening. You can follow Stephen at rapid travel Chai

which is his blog on boarding area and he’s on Twitter and you can see him at Daves in Arbor do in July. You can look that up on flyers Hawk. Again, thanks for listening