The fun side of miles, points and travel! 20 Minute Travel discusses all of the important things you need to know about miles, points and travel. Hosted by Shawn Coomer and Mark Ostermann, 20 Minute Travel covers the latest happenings in the miles & points space while teaching you how to utilize rewards to travel for pennies on the dollar with some laughs mixed in.
Mark & Shawn have a combined 18 years of experience covering these topics on Miles to Memories and Travel on Points and are cohosts of the popular MtM Vegas RU-vid Show on the Miles to Memories Vegas channel. Give us 20 minutes of your week and we will give you 20+ years of improved travel!
Lexis Nexis, buy receipts, then they can build up a history of your spending. Remember if you are on medication they can back in to your medical problems. Pay cash and they cannot profile you so easy
I am not a fan of the new southwest seating that they will be implementing. If you are a family that has to sit together fly a different carrier. i always pay for a early bird, only because i like to board first.
LUV the Southwest paying for seats as well, hopefully it will eliminate the miracle flyers who board with a wheelchair but sprint off the plane when it lands…
I’m curious to see what benefits southwest credit cards are going to offer with reserved seats early bird or upgraded boarding are useless. I might keep my Southwest credit card just depending on the benefits. I only got it for the companion pass promo and I hate open seats.
There is no such thing as multiple A1 tickets. Where did you get that from. It’s A1-15 for business class then A16-60 are more than likely early bird payers.
I think BILT has taken it's own life by making these changes. They were complaining about people just using the card to get the rent points. They had some other ways to get points to entice you to use the card and some people did. Now they are taking that all away. So what am I going to do? I'm going to use it just to get the rent points. DUH! And the worst cheesy thing they did was take away the little quiz on the first of the month where you could earn just a few points. That was fun and kept you engaged. Well BILT the engagement is over. I want my ring back!
They say they have no policy for or against saving seats otherwise known as we don’t want to get involved . I totally agree with you it’s garbage one person buys early bird or upgraded boarding and saves a bunch of seats. It’ll probably help cut down on the preboarders who don’t really need it as well.
@@Vegas.777 Exactly! On an ATL-BWI flight recently, 60%+ were pre-boarders. Years ago, you’d have to get a plastic placard after you checked in for pre-boarding. Now, we’re boarding Great Danes and mini horses as emotional support animals. Next, Southwest will start charging for bags as their quarterly report wasn’t too good. Naturally, if you get their co-branded credit card the first bag is free.😂
Delta seems to be as good as usual for reimbursements, from the overall comments in the groups I'm in. People are even getting hotel/Uber/meal reimbursements in a matter of days after submitting their forms. Oh, and Europe is NOT making airlines pay the added penalties we've heard so much about - unlike the US, they've ruled that the Crowdstrike issue was not within the airlines' control.
I received an email saying I'd get a $100 voucher; however I've not paid cash for Delta flights in a long time. If it's transferable I'll give it to my daughter who flies Delta. My canceled Delta flight was booked with Virgin points. Virgin emailed today saying my refund request was approved, and I did see $11.20 tax refunded to my CC. But the 37K points haven't yet been redeposited.
I stayed at an Oyo that was pretty horrendous, and it was outrageously expensive cuz it was the only option, like 130 dollars. We should have just slept in the car.
Does it make sense to get a card with a big welcome bonus, spend enough to get the maximin reward. Then drop the card then come back in two years, get the card again to get the big points. I have done this with Chase and if your patient it does let you “double dip” on the same card.
Great video! I just got into the points world, and went with Amex. I want to focus on turning my points into airline travel. I know there are lots of partners to choose from, but some take longer than others, etc. Would be interesting to see how you guys a) find available routes b) which partners to use (or avoid) c) any tips you do to prevent transferring points to a partner only to find out the booking space you thought you found was phantom space. I live in a United Airlines heavy area so Star Alliance is where I will be looking.
How much of a point deduction is there when you close a card? Would it be wiser to downgrade an annual fee card to a no-annual fee card to avoid negative points on your credit report, or get the no-annual fee card first with a possible sign-up bonus and then cancel your card that has an annual fee? Thanks for any info.
It’s not a huge part of your score so over time I haven’t seen a huge effect of just closing accounts. I do keep some of my oldest accounts open with no annual fee versions but don’t worry too much otherwise. Other positive things like getting more credit over time helped my score too. Speaking about my personal experience only of course and I know many others who have had the same experience.
Loved this episode. I’ve been following you both since about 2021 but finally made the travel card jump this year thanks to my girlfriend who’s been traveling for years now. Just from this one episode she learned a lot more that she never knew about maximizing travel card points and miles.
Thanks Anthony! We’re glad to have this platform to introduce more people to this stuff. We’re working on figuring out ways to make it more approachable.
Figure out your travel goals before you figure out the credit card to get. Most people think about it backwards and are so focused on getting the most “premium” credit card. The card is useless if it doesn’t align with your travel plans. There’s nothin sexy about the Southwest card, but all my travel goals are domestic, and I came up with a sustainable way (that I won’t be sharing 🙂) to never spend money on a flight for myself or my plus one on domestic flights ever again.
Important to work towards a travel goal for sure, especially when you start to get outside of the transferrable currencies. A huge airline mile bonus is worthless if you have no idea how to use it :)
Haha. I doubt he cares much what we say. I once debated one of his cronies at a financial conference while at dinner. Accidentally walked into the conversation and it was quite interesting. I don’t want to pick a fight with the Ramsey verse. His advice is definitely great for some people.
Chase transfers to United and Amex transfers to Delta. No one transfers to American with the loss of Bilt (outside of Marriott) which is a bummer for sure. Only saver awards will show up on partners, which can be frustrating at times for sure.
Great video guys. I wish the Canadian points landscape was as robust as you have down south. But the basic principles you share are bang on, and the credit info piece is something many people don't understand... like how having higher limits isn't a bad thing. I'm sure this video will be very helpful to many 👏
It can depend. For some offers we find links where you can check. Sometimes the offers show up when you login or sometimes they come via snail mail or email. In the case if there are links, etc. we’ll always put either the link or a link to an article explaining it in the description.
@@20minutetravel Amazing! It was a real throwback to the 90s. Edwin McCain & Collective Soul opened. I'll be in Vegas next month to see them again. Vegas shows are only Hootie
Anyone who's been to an airport over the past month or so would probably agree that it's been the busiest time to fly ever. I've never seen airports so packed early morning and late night. "Travel hacking" groups I'm in are busier than ever with newbie questions - maybe an early predictor that soon the airlines/hotels will devalue miles and make status and lounge access even harder to get. Not to worry though - those new travelers' credit card bills are growing, and things like car loans are already seeing delinquency rates rise, so travel may ease up!
DELTA Airlines should have “Wet-Leased” several Wide Bodied aircraft from Thomas Cook and transported major hubs and destinations while staffing their regional routes with those Delta “hub” based pilots and crew. Southwest will start charging for baggage. Their profit/loss statements are looking really terrible.
