Gunnar and Kyle pull out their binoculars to be your safari guides in this week’s episode. After going on their own safaris with the help of points and miles, they talk through their trips, what they loved (spoiler alert: pretty much everything), what they learned, and what they’d do differently next time. Plus, the guys gush about a new feature Google Flights is testing, wonder aloud about when the Chase Sapphire's big bonus will end, and get (rightfully) called out by a listener for a bad take on a previous episode.
Gunnar and Kyle pull out their binoculars to be your safari guides in this week’s episode. After going on their own safaris with the help of points and miles, they talk through their trips, what they loved (spoiler alert: pretty much everything), what they learned, and what they’d do differently next time. Plus, the guys gush about a new feature Google Flights is testing, wonder aloud about when the Chase Sapphire's big bonus will end, and get (rightfully) called out by a listener for a bad take on a previous episode.
00:00 - Gunnar finally tells the “Gunnar Olson Olson Olson” story
03:50 - Why we’re so psyched about Google Flights’ fancy new feature
09:35 - How long will the Chase Sapphire Preferred 100K Bonus Offer last?
12:55 - Gunnar recaps his trip to Zanzibar and the Masai Mara safari in Kenya
34:00 - A word from our sponsor (us … and our free Extra Mile Newsletter for points and miles aficionados)
35:00 - Kyle puts on his safari hat and talks about his own trip to the South African bush
25:15 - More about elephants!
55:02 - A listener calls Gunnar & Kyle out of touch about their Hyatt free night certificates take
58:10 - Kyle puts Gunnar on the spot…and Gunnar eats some delicious crow about Hilton
Produced by Gunnar Olson & Jackson Newman
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo. I'm Kyle Potter, and I get to start this week's episode here with Gunnar Olson, or should we call you Gunnar Olson Olson Olson Olson? I've been called that. Yeah. And it's partially my fault, but also Avianca has a lot to do with it.
So in last week's episode of the podcast, you teased our listeners about just how monumentally or or perhaps not so monumentally you might have screwed up, a plane ticket and resulted in having your last name on your boarding pass three times. So I think the floor is yours now. You get a tight what's sixty to ninety second window to explain exactly what went wrong and how you fixed it. Yeah. It's a pretty simple story with maybe a lesson for some people out there.
But when when I fill out forms online, I use that autofill feature from Google, Google Chrome that kinda lets you just throw some information in. And I was putting together my loyalty account with Avianca LifeMiles, which if you've used the program before, you know it's, pretty quirky to say the least. And This was your first mistake. I think we can agree. It's using Avianca LifeMiles.
It is a notoriously temperamental airline with, not the best website. Yeah. It's pretty brutal, but the rates are undeniable. And I chased after some incredible rates to get my wife and I back from our honeymoon. But, when I was filling in my information for my loyalty account, I used the autofill and press go.
And what I found was when I after I booked a ticket, my name was Gunnar, middle name Olson, last name Olson. So on the ticket, it was showing up as Gunnar Olson Olson, which does not match my passport. So I was like, oh, it does not. Oh, boy. I gotta go figure this out because I'm not getting denied boarding at two in the morning at the Nairobi Airport.
So I called Avianca, got a very nice, guy on the phone who was really happy to help me, and we had this thing buttoned up in, like, twenty seconds. I was like, yeah. It says Gunnar Olson Olson. I just need to take one of the Olsons away, so it's just Gunnar Olson. He goes, I got you, sir.
Thank you so much for, you know, booking with LifeMiles, and I'll talk to you next time. I refreshed the page, and he just tacked on another Olson to the end of my last name. So it was Gunnar Olson Olson Olson, and I was just apoplectic. I called back, and I was about ready to snap at this point. And, a really, really kind lady picked up the phone, and the I explained to her what was going on.
And the first thing she said to me was, sir, I don't think I can add another Olson to this. So I was like, no. I don't want you to add another Olson to this, please. The more the more Olson's, the merrier, I think is the takeaway from this so far. Yeah.
So in the end, I was able to strip three of those Olson's off the, off the reservation, and I was able to get home on my honeymoon. But, yeah, if you're gonna book with LifeMiles, just know that customer service can be a little tricky. And, also, just don't use autofill. It's so dumb. I it's a terrible time calculus for me.
Whatever time I save, it's just never worth the headaches that autofill gives me. I think had I been in your shoes, rather than calling Avianca and trying to get the ticket changed, I might have tried to legally change my name to be Gunnar Olson Olson just because in most cases, that might be an easier path to a resolution. Yeah. Seriously, it's, life miles is always gonna make it tough for you. So but we've got a lot more than that today on the show.
We're gonna discuss some game changing news at our favorite website, Google Flights. And in our featured segment called the extra mile, we're going on safari. Kyle and I are gonna show you how we each book safaris using points and miles, including what we'd maybe do a little differently if we were to do it next time. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Alright.
Let's jump into something hot and something cold where we look at the good and the bad news out there for travelers from the last week. And we're gonna start with something hot as always. So last week, I was, working with the premium team on a flight deal. We found some great fares to Hawaii, under 500, under 400 round trip from some cities, like a nationwide deal. That's not the point of what we're talking about here.
But I was vetting a deal. Always something hot, however. Just so we're clear, we are in support of cheap flights to Hawaii. Yes. And we we always find them.
It's one of our favorite things to do. So I I was looking through some of these fares and just vetting them to make sure that everything was correct. So we sent our subscribers good fares. And what I noticed at the top of the Google Flights page was this little banner that said basic economy, which I've never seen before. So I click the drop down arrow, and where you usually see economy, premium economy, business, and first, Now there's a little basic at the top with a little sentence under it, and then an economy at the top with a little sentence under it that said, includes fares that offer seat selection and a carry on bag.
And, it was full on alarm bells at Thrifty Traveler headquarters. This this new filter is basically a main cabin filter for travelers. It right now, it's only working in select areas in The US and Canada, and not every user is seeing it right now either. Right? So it's clear that they're testing it.
But, this is huge news for us, for people who search for airfare all day every day. But is it is this too nerdy that I'm really excited about this, Kyle? Does anybody care except for people like me? Yeah. If they don't, I think they should.
I mean, this is far and away the single most requested feature of Google Flights, which not just you and I, everybody on the team, most people in the world consider the best, flight deal search engine out there. And we have heard for years, I don't wanna fly basic economy. I don't even wanna see those fares. I don't wanna search for a flight from Minneapolis to Denver and see a fare for $124 only to click through and see that's basic. And if you want a main cabin fare where you get to pick your seat for free, you can change or cancel your tickets for free, all all of the above.
That's gonna cost you another 80, sometimes hundred dollars or more round trip. If you're talking about Europe, you know, that price differential is 200 or more round trip. This is, like I said, the single most requested feature we've ever heard of. And we wrote a story about just kind of posing the question, just over a year ago. Could this ever happen?
And, you know, I think at the time when we published that story, we were shocked that it hadn't yet. But the day has come. You know, like you said, not everybody has access to this. Yes. Yet it's clear that they're testing it on a limited basis with, you know, some amount of users.
So you might go to your phone or your desktop and search for something and not see this. Others might. But if this becomes widespread, I do think this is a game changer for how people search for airfare. Yeah. It's they're definitely rolling it out slowly, like you said.
And that's because especially once you start going overseas or you start going to, you know, Central America and South America where there are lots of other low cost carriers with very strange fare structures, this gets really tricky. So they're starting slow here and just going with the airlines that you know, where the basic economy and the main cabin all pretty much look the same, and that's with, you know, the big four, big five carriers here in The US. But I'm I mean, I know that we we hear from a lot of subscribers that they still wanna see basic economy. Right. A lot of people out there who still love basic economy fares.
And after we put out this news, we heard from a lot of people who are saying, please don't stop sending me the lowest fares because that's the stuff I'm interested in booking. You know, for me, I I love main cabin fares. I don't really book below that typically, just because I need that flexibility and peace of mind. But if this is just a a really great, way for people to kinda get a get away from that fare that comes with nothing. Those fares that, like, I really hate and a lot of travelers are really annoyed with when they get, like you said, lured in by a hundred and $20 fare only to see that, you know, it's $350 at checkout, and they can't figure out why.
Right. Yeah. And so for those of you who are in Gunnar’s boat, this is amazing news. And I think we all have to keep our fingers crossed that this is going to become more widespread. If you do gladly book basic economy in order to save 70, a hundred, $200 per ticket, Nothing's changing.
I mean, even if this becomes, you know, adopted widespread, it becomes a fixture on Google Flights, you're still gonna be able to search for and find basic economy fares. No problem. It's just for those of you out there who are avoiding basic economy like a plague, this is going to make it so much easier just to not even be tempted by those cheaper fares. And in many cases, I think people get a little upset when they are kind of hoodwinked into thinking they're getting a better deal and then eventually see, oh, this the fare that I actually want is gonna cost me significantly more. We reached out to Google to see, you know, what they had to say about this, whether they are in fact testing something.
Spoiler alert, we know they are. They don't need to tell us that. But we did also ask, you know, is this something that, you know, users can expect to become a fixture for Google Flights? And and we got a very polite no comment. So I think we just have to stay tuned and hope that this does become more widespread.
Yeah. Definitely. One more thing to add on this is just that, all of our favorite little features of Google Flights, like Google Flights Explore, the Explore map, where you can just put in the dates that you want and just look around the globe to see what the cheapest date is. This isn't really working for this filter yet, from the last time I checked at least. So hopefully, they have some bugs to work out, and that's totally fine.
If they wanna keep using me as a test subject here, I'm happy to use it because this is pretty awesome news for people like me. But let's switch over to something cold or maybe something getting cold. Kyle, how would you explain this? Something lukewarm? I don't know.
Yeah. We might need to retitle this segment for this week, because it's definitely not cold. I would say it's still hot. The hundred thousand point offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred is still out there. But, you know, we've been asking the question internally and and publicly on our website, how much longer can this last?
Yeah. And I I think our team has kind of some insights into this just because they've, you know, been doing this for so long. But, obviously, this deal, which is a hundred thousand Chase Ultimate Rewards when you spend $5,000 in three months, when you sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, It's exceptional. It's probably you know, it feels too good to be true, but it's definitely too good to last. Right?
We're not gonna, be sitting on this for months and months here. But, you know, especially given, like, the state of the economy right now, do you think the banks might be a little worried and might fold up shop early here? What do we think in terms of the timeline of all this? Are you asking me to predict what's gonna happen to the economy? Because this is the wrong podcast, man.
No. Jackson on our team, Jackson Newman, our credit cards guru, wrote a really smart story, because Chase isn't saying exactly how long this is gonna last. But, you know, in a lot of cases with this stuff past his prologue, we can just look at the history of how banks have handled this and just kind of think logistically about what Chase is trying to do. What is Chase trying to do? They are trying to just pile people in to their ecosystem, and there is no way more effective to do that than to lure people in with a six digit bonus like this.
And it really is ultimately a marketing move. This is what moves the needle most. It's the most effective way to recruit new customers and then eventually get them to, you know, maybe open a checking account or a business account, whatever else they can do, but they need to get their hooks in people first. So, you know, and beyond that, you know, we looked at the history of of how Chase has handled similar offers. You know, we've talked before in our emergency episode of the podcast.
This is the first time we've seen an offer, of a hundred thousand points on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card in, just under four years. The last time that Chase did this, that offer lasted a couple of months. In the year since, they've rolled out smaller bonuses, and those have lasted, in some cases, just a couple of weeks or a month. So, you know, trying to read the tea leaves and give people some guidance about how long they have to jump on this, I think the general the best advice we can give is don't wait. We don't expect this to last much longer than a month, a month and a half, maybe two at the absolute most, but that seems really iffy.
So, you know, considering that this rolled out in early April, I mean, if you get into the month of May and you haven't made the moves in order to open this card, if you already have it, you know, to downgrade your current card, wait a week, and then apply again outright to be eligible for this new bonus provided it's been more than four years since you were in the last one, you gotta get moving. You gotta get moving fast. Yeah. I would say, the next time you might see a bonus like this might be $20.29, at this rate. So I would probably not wait.
Don't get left behind, and don't be one day late to this incredible deal if you're eligible for it. Alright. It is time for the extra mile topic where we dig into something a little deeper in the world of travel. And this week, we're doing something that, Kyle and I have wanted to do since we started this thing here, and that's talk a little bit about safaris. The African safari has been a tent pole of travel for a long, long time.
I mean, it's synonymous with bucket list, really. It always has been for me, and I think the same for you. Right? Yeah. Exactly.
I've been thinking about them forever. And when I kind of finally saw the light with points and miles and realized I had the opportunity to pull it off with a little bit of style, I definitely figured that I needed to do it. But, obviously, all these places, the trick here, the tricky part here is that these African destinations like the Masai Mara in Kenya or the Serengeti in Tanzania or, like, the gorilla trekking areas in Uganda and Rwanda, it's really far away. And it usually requires a day's worth of travel each way. So there's a comfort factor there.
Plus what you're looking at is that day's worth of travel can get really expensive. And, you know, once you get to Africa, you could also get stuck at a resort that's really remote and end up paying resort prices for the length of your trip as well. And, you know, 10,000 or more is not out of the question if you're gonna do this with cash, but that's where, points and miles come in. Right, Kyle? Can I stop you?
Because I'm not ready to talk about safaris yet. Oh, yeah. Now he's ready to talk about safaris. Now I'm ready. K.
We can talk about booking safaris now. Just get this on. The costume contest. I actually left my hat at home because I didn't think it would fit over or under my headphones, and now I'm super jealous. Spoiler alert.
It does not. No. It looks good on you, though. Thank you. So, when it comes to safaris, I think, points and miles can help to do things like cover the cost of your flights and hotels and some of that in between stuff, that really adds up.
But Kyle and I both pulled a safari trip like this off. Mine was back in 2022. Kyle's, was very recently. And we actually took very different trips and took different, you know, approaches to to doing this. So we're gonna go through each of our trips, and give you give each other some questions and, kinda see what we liked about it, what we maybe would do differently next time.
I definitely have a lot that I learned from that trip that I would possibly do differently. And, thanks to our Thrifty Traveler Premium Hotels team, I have regrets almost every day about what I could do differently. Thanks a lot, guys. But, yeah, let's, let's dig into it. Any anything before I start with my trip, Kyle?
I mean, my trip was more recent than yours, but I would assume that it's still just so fresh in your memory because it's truly not just one of the best travel experiences I've ever had. It's one of the best experiences in my life, period, And something that I would not have been able to do if not for, you know, not just, you know, redeeming points and miles, which of course is a big piece of what we're talking about here, but also just like some general travel tips about flexibility, about using benefits that we we both have on some credit cards that we have in order to lower the ultimate out of pocket cost of this, which is you noted. I mean, Safaris are not just synonymous with bucket list. It's also synonymous with expensive. And when you talk to most people who have been on Safari and paid out of pocket for that, it probably starts at $10,000 and easily goes far, far north of that double, if not triple.
And neither of us can afford a $10,000 vacation. We didn't neither of us paid even close to that amount. I feel pretty safe saying. Yeah. Not even close.
And, you know, that's this is why people think of it as a trip of a lifetime and not, you know, another trip. Right? And it it still is the trip of a lifetime in that the experience is so special, but it doesn't have to be, you know, this is the only time that you'll ever get to Africa. Because once you see what's possible, and with enough advanced planning, crucially, the these trips are not terribly hard to pull off, as long as you're okay with a little bit of travel, which if you're listening to the show, I really, really hope you are. You're in a good place.
Yeah. Alright. Gunnar, tell us about your safari. Where'd you where'd you get started with this and how did you wind up deciding where you wanted to go and how you were gonna get there? Yeah.
So actually so this is my honeymoon, and I've talked a little bit about that on the show already. But, basically, my first criteria for the honeymoon was I kinda wanted to go someplace I'd never heard of before. And so we found the island of San Sabar and realized that you could fly Qatar business class there. And so that was kind of the impetus for it. And then I thought to myself, I'm already in Africa, you know?
Like like, Africa is not this vast incredibly huge place. It's like, well, you know, I'm already in Chicago. No. Africa is so big. But Zanzibar and Nairobi are about a three hour flight from each other.
So we flew to Zanzibar, on Qatar Airways business class. And I don't say Q Suites because this was about a month before the World Cup, and they had switched out Chicago. So they switched QSuites out on us. So we were in a regular two two two business class. But for what we had flown at the time, it was still the coolest thing we'd ever experienced.
And I don't think either of us are ever gonna complain about flying business class. That said, there is something very special about flying Qsuites where you have your own suite. If you're flying with a companion, you can drop the wall down in between the middle and basically form a double bed. It's not quite that, but it's pretty close. So my heart hurts for you a little bit, but knowing that you still had an amazing flight and where you were going, I think, I think everybody can kind of get over it.
Yeah. No. We were totally fine. Actually, when we were about to land in in Doha and the flight attendant comes up to us, he goes, have you ever heard of our Q suites? It's, like, way better than this.
You should come back next time and try that. That was a salt in the wound. Thanks. Been trying to ten years to impress my wife. Still haven't done it.
Thanks to this flight attendant. Great work, man. But to book that, we used 75,000 American Airlines miles each way. We booked them about nine or ten months ahead of time, which back then was still possible. It's almost impossible to pull off this booking now with American Airlines miles.
We'd I'd much rather or I'd recommend that you use British Airways obvious, which are transferable from whatever points currency you have. Well, and this is a pretty key differentiator between how you booked your trip and how I booked mine and that, you know, you booked this trip, what, 2022? Mine was just in early twenty twenty five, and the world of booking Qatar Airways, which was also involved in our trip, has completely changed in those three years. So, I had also hoped to book Qatar Airways using American Advantage Miles. Was not a thing by the time this trip started to come about for us.
Yeah. So that part was tricky. We actually signed up for the, American the Barclays Aviator card, the American Airlines card. It got, 70,000 bonuses on those with, with one swipe. Bought a I bought a pack of gum.
My wife bought her mom and dad a Christmas tree that year, and that was what got us to, to Zanzibar. So and then we bought the miles on top of that bonus. So we saw that the space was dwindling, and so we went ahead and just bought 10,000 AA miles, which I actually don't remember what it cost, and I didn't write it down. What whatever it cost, it was well worth it to pull off the redemption you did. Alright.
Keep going. If you wanna hear about the park high at Zanzibar, I talked about it, in the emergency episode about the CSP hundred k bonus. So go ahead and check that out. But we used that bonus the first time I got it to, book that stay, which was unbelievable. And then we booked, just a cash flight with Kenya Airways to get from Zanzibar to Nairobi, which is kinda where our journey began.
So I think those flights in between were about 200 apiece. They fluctuate. It's a cash flight. Right. So just keep an eye on that, and obviously, there are ways to cut some costs there.
We booked, a prepaid car transfer from Nairobi to Wilson Airport in Nairobi. So the big international airport is not where you fly out to get to the bush. It's not where you go to get to the Masai Mara, which is our final destination. And I would just highly recommend having a car scheduled ahead of time and giving yourself lots of time between those two airports. The traffic in Nairobi was insane.
Not like nothing I've ever sat in before. So much so that there are people walking down the street like hot dog vendors at a baseball game, like, selling you stuff on the freeway, because everyone's sitting in traffic for so long. But that was eye opening. But give yourself time on that transfer if you're doing it. So we get to, did you get a hotdog?
No. I did not. I did not. The windows stayed rolled up. My wife was a little sketched out by the whole, street vendor situation.
And our driver did tell us, he's like, probably don't buy anything from these people. We're like, sounds good. But we got to, Wilson Airport, which is not a traditional airport in any way. It's kinda just like, it's kind of like an FBO, but you're just you're pulling up into the driveway of the airline that you're taking. So we flew safari link, and I'll put a photo of our safari link plane in there.
But this was about $400 round trip a piece. So this was actually the priciest flight of the entire trip, which is hilarious because it was about forty five minutes and in a eight seater plane, out of with some commercial service out of Nairobi Wilson Airport. And had you booked your Qatar Airways flights with cash business class instead of with miles, that probably would have been in the neighborhood of $4,000 or more each way per person. Yeah. So yeah.
For the most expensive, flight of your trip to the Masai Mara to go on safari to be a $400 round trip bush flight is pretty incredible. Yeah. It was actually incredible. And it was a really fun flight too. It's it's beautiful.
They fly low. They're just little prop planes. And they actually, they go buzz the runway before they land just to clear the wildlife off, and then they circle back and land. That is so cool. I had never thought of that.
Yeah. It was awesome. Because, obviously, there's no when we got to the airport and I'll provide a photo for the YouTube here too, of this airport, the Musiara Airstrip, which is just a bench on a field next to a runway, a little grass runway. And, it was just exceptional. And we land there, obviously.
There's no spotters or anything, so they have to go take it. They go look over the runway, buzz real load, and make sure the animals all stay off, and then they come back and land. It was very cool. And then you get out and you go to the world's greatest airport arrivals lounge. Yeah.
The best arrivals lounge. Yeah. It was awesome. We had, so when we got there, we had a guide from the Neptune Mara Rianta luxury tented camp, which is where we stayed in the Masai Bara. And the guide was waiting there with his truck.
He picked us up and he said, I'm your guide for the whole week. And, he was our guy. Every single time we went out, it was just us two in a truck with him. And so let me tell you a little bit about this camp. I found it because I was just on Capital One's travel portal just looking for, some places to stay.
At that point, I was not flush with hotel points at all. So I was just looking for a good value out there. And this place, Neptune, showed up a few times, on some lists of places that are good to stay as well. It they don't have a loyalty program at all, and they actually sell a lot of packages so you can get your airfare included as well in a lot of cases. But because of Capital One, I wanted to book through them.
So we just did the airfare separately. But it was about $2,200 for four nights. So we did pay cash for this. We booked it through Capital One while I was working on my Venturex sign up at the time. So we earned a bunch of miles on it, which is great.
And we also got to use the $300 travel credit, which knocked it down below $2,000 it's Wait. Let's let's stop and appreciate. Yeah. Paying under $2,000 for a four night stay at a luxury safari camp. I mean, this is where, you know, a lot of places, whether you're redeeming points or using credit card perks or whatever.
I mean, that starts with a 10, and it goes up from there pretty quickly in most cases. It was. I think there's a little bit of kinda post pandemic pricing going on. I think the same camp's a little more expensive. I actually didn't check before this, but it was, a ridiculous value, I thought.
And it was all inclusive for food, drinks, alcoholic drinks. There's a big pool, some, activities and stuff at night too. Every night, all the guides who are native Maasai, sit around the campfire. And, a lot of the, I would say, elderly Brits in the group were mostly sitting at the bar. And my wife and I would go down to the campfire and just pepper questions at these guys, these these guides all night.
And it was really fun. Really, really cool hearing a native Maasai telling the story and about his, first lion kill and ribbing the guy who hadn't had one yet. And, it was very it was like being in a locker room I'd never been in before. But that was special. There is an element of kind of sport to this and the competitiveness.
I mean, I well, I'll save kind of the bulk of my experience for after the break. But, I mean, I vividly remember, you know, us being with our guide in a car and, like, the rush that these guides get when they find something first and then give us, you know, like, a couple of minutes alone with this pride of lions before calling it in to the rest of the guides that are in the area. And, you know, within a couple of minutes, they all come speeding up and break and get there. But, you know, our guides were so proud of tracking this pride before anybody else or tracking a leopard before anybody else in the area could spot it. Yeah.
It was it's so cool. And, yeah, they are, like, pretty competitive with each other. But these people know the land so insanely well, and it's like, it's really special to see the connection they have with the place. But that's, neither here nor there with points and miles, but still just things I think about every day about my Safari. But, yeah, so at the camp, there were the game drives were about $70 a day.
And, again, you can book bundles through Neptune, and get those paid for ahead of time. We just paid for them one by one because we weren't sure which ones we wanted to do and everything. And so our we were assigned a butler when we got there, and our butler would come find us during happy hour every night and ask, like, what are you guys thinking for tomorrow? And the options where you could go out really early in the morning, like a 04:30, five o'clock start. Mhmm.
And the or you can go out from, like, and then you're back by lunch. Or you could go out, for, like, a nine to five. And we did the kinda day full day one the first day, but the best ones were super early in the morning. We had we had some incredible times. They bring coffee out for you.
They make you some breakfast. It's it was a really, really cool experience. I was very pleased with doing the early morning drives, especially. So, yeah, we had four unbelievable days there. Couldn't recommend Neptune enough.
I do I'll mention that our hotels team at Thrifty Traveler Premium did send an alert for the JW Marriott, Masai Mara, which looking at the photos of that place, I was like, maybe I could have done a little better on this, but we had an awesome experience. But if I had a 22,000 Marriott points per night, I would have, definitely booked that. That place looks stunning too. Well, this is the the beauty of of points and miles is that nothing has to be a one and done. You can always go back and do more.
You can go back to a place and do it a little bit differently, using what you've learned in order to do that. And just since we've sent that deal, our hotel team to the j w Marriott and the Maasai, a handful of new, properties that are bookable with hotel points in particular with Marriott are opening in the in the months and years to come. So there's gonna be even more to pick from when you and the wife are ready to make your return trip. So other than that, what was, like, the the biggest you gotta do what we did, and what was the biggest you gotta learn from our mistake? Yeah.
I would say, some of the things we did right. I think and I think you're gonna talk about this a little bit too, but combining this trip with something else and going to Zanzibar as well, I thought was really cool. And I think the length of our time at the safari camp, which was four nights, so it was basically four and a half days of game drives and seeing wildlife, was pretty much perfect. I think I could see it, you know, as much as that kind of beauty and special experience can get repetitive, I could see it getting a little repetitive on, like, day five, six, or seven of this trip. And it also, crucially for us, helped keep costs down.
That I mean, that's the biggest thing is, you know, for I think for most people who are planning a safari, it starts at seven days and might go to ten. It might even go to two weeks. And if you are able to do that, I'm sure you would have an amazing time. And the people who are taking care of you would take even better care of you and make sure that, you know, you do some different things once you round the seven day mark. But for real human beings like you and I, seven days just is not possible on the wallet or the points balance.
I mean, that would drain everything we have and then some, which is not the point of what we're talking about here. Right. And it kept cost down and every second was super special, and I never got bored of any you know, we saw a thousand elephants and I never got bored for a second. I don't know when we're gonna do our elephants talk in this conversation. We'll do it in your section, but I'm ready to go off on oh, I love elephants.
This this podcast might wind up being ninety minutes once we're talking about elephants. So let's we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. But, as far as things I I wish I would have known, maybe some things I would have done differently.
We did not bring enough cash on Safari, which we didn't really know we'd need, but the connectivity was so limited in the Maasai, that some places I mean, our hotel even had trouble charging credit cards, which we didn't need for many things. We were able to just check out with the one big bill at the end. But, there's big tipping culture in Africa. So or in this in Kenya specifically. So we, you know, like, American level tipping is pretty much expected.
And, we brought a good amount of cash to Zanzibar, and, we kind of tipped a little too hard too early. And by the end of it, we had money laid out on the bed trying to think like, okay. We have to tip the guide, and we have to tip the butler, and we have to. And so we were basically, Rationing your tips. Rationing tips at the end, which is so unfair because those the end the best parts were all at the end, and we were like, man, these people all deserve the proper tips.
So bring enough cash. USD is good, especially in the Messiah from my experience. They were more than happy to accept that. No ATMs in the bush, though. They we asked our guide about it, and he was like, yeah.
There's one forty five minutes away if you wanna do that today. I was like, no. We'll skip it. Thanks. But, yeah, I think, you know, I just said, I think the length of our trip was great, but maybe one more day I could've given it.
That was another thing I could've just maybe a fifth day, would have been would have been really cool. But, again, to keep costs down, that's pretty much all we had. And so before we wrap up, how'd you get home? We got home, the Gunnar Olson Olson Olson saga, was born out of this flight. We flew Turkish from Nairobi through Istanbul to Miami.
63,000 life miles each way per person. Really good redemption. And I actually got that from my Amex platinum sign up bonus way back then too. So that was a pretty comfy flight. Again, we didn't have suites on either leg of that flight, but it was for all we knew, it was, the greatest thing that had ever happened.
And, two very comfy flights. I would say everything in and around Nairobi International Airport, give yourself a ton of extra time. Just to drive into that airport, you have to go through security, for instance. And then you have to go through security to get into the check-in area, and then you have to go through security again to get to the gates. So it's a long process.
Things run very slow there. So, give yourself plenty of time. Our flight left at four in the morning. I think we were out of bed at we we stayed at an airport hotel that was, you know, two minutes away. And I think we were out of bed at, like, 01:30 or two, and it felt tight.
So we give yourself time. It was a weird experience at Nairobi International. So But worth every extra minute. Yeah. Absolutely.
So good. Alright, Kyle. It's your turn to talk safari, but before that, we're gonna take a quick break. We're going the extra mile on safaris today on the show and how to pull one off using credit card points and the airline miles. But if you want to dive deeper into the world of points and miles every week, we've got a free newsletter for you.
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Okay. Back to the show. Alright. It's time to talk about my safari, and I could not be more excited. I feel like I've talked to everybody who I know.
I've talked their ear off about this, and I still can't talk about it enough because, like I said, this is one of the most life changingly cool experiences I've ever had. So we're gonna talk about elephants now because the elephants for everything that my wife and I saw on our trip in late January, early February, and we saw a lot. We saw the big five within a matter of hours of being out on drives. But I will never in my life forget the first time I saw an elephant in the flesh that wasn't behind the glass of a zoo. They're just the most amazing animals that you feel like you can learn about them just by looking in their eyes.
Yeah. They're so social, which I was told. Like, the guide was like, yeah. They're very social. They'll look at you.
They're interested in you, especially the babies. And they're also, like, funny. And he said that that's an actual thing is that elephants have a sense of humor. So they'll, like, do silly things to get a reaction out of each other and people in trucks like us. And, I'll share a video in the YouTube of, a bunch of elephants playing in a just a really nasty muddy puddle, and it was it just looked like the most fun ever if, the risk of being crushed by an elephant.
Your wife had to hold you back. Gunnar, no. No. We're not doing it. Gunner Olson Olson Olson.
Yeah. But elephants are so we talked about it as soon as you got back. I was like, what was your favorite part? You're like elephants. It's like, yes.
Okay. Yeah. You're right. They're the best. It was so special.
So when my wife and I did this trip, we had to do things a little bit differently than you. I mean, you also kinda made this part of a bigger trip, but we were really pressed for time on our trip because for reasons that I can't exactly explain, the trip started in Istanbul. I can't explain it, but it still it is not gonna make a lot of sense. And then we ended the trip, before flying home to The States in Cape Town. And so we had tried to figure out what we wanted to do in between.
Do we wanna go to the beach? Do we wanna go like you did to Zanzibar, which is something we considered? Do we wanna go to Mauritius, the island off the coast of, of Southern Africa? And ultimately, we decided like you did, we're gonna be in Africa. Let's make a safari happen, but we really could do about two nights maximum.
And so we had to make some difficult choices, but choices that were well worth it of how to kind of be strategic about where we were going in order to make this a reality. And it ended up working really well. It was an unorthodox way to do a safari. I will tell you that. It was a very challenging puzzle.
It was probably one of the hardest kind of trip bookings from start to finish that we had ever done, and it took us many months to actually get everything booked and decide what we were gonna do. But, man, what a cool trip. Yeah. So how tell me a little bit. How did you find the flight?
Like you said, this trip started in Istanbul, not exactly your traditional jumping off point for a safari. When I told my wife that our trip to South Africa was gonna start in Istanbul, I gotta look. I'll put it that way. But the pieces came together. It started, because in early twenty twenty four, just over a year ago, Turkish Airlines announced that they were going to be raising award rates on all of their flights within a matter of just a couple of weeks.
And so the price of flying business class from The United States to Istanbul was gonna jump from 45,000 miles each way to 65,000 miles each way. And I had at the time from a previous sign up bonus and some additional spending about exactly 90,000, points in a Citi thank you account from a Citi strata premier card. And when the universe tells you it's time to go back to Istanbul, which we've talked about before is one of my favorite cities in the world, you listen to the universe and you book that trip. So, you know, without talking about it a whole lot, I booked those flights and we started, piecing things together. So it was 45,000 miles each way, plus about 230 in taxes to fly from Chicago to Istanbul.
And we use some sky miles to get from Minneapolis to Chicago earlier in that morning, gave ourselves a pretty good four hour buffer, which ended up turning into, like an hour and fifteen minute buffer due to a delay getting off the ground. That is why you give yourself as much time if as possible, if not departing the night before one of these big, big, transatlantic or transpacific trips. And then, so we had that done and we start talking about, you know, okay. South Africa, what do we wanna do? Where else do we wanna go?
Cape Town has always been on our list. And we were actually on a trip last year, going through, French Polynesia, Australia, and New Zealand. And in Queenstown, New Zealand, I woke up to a text message from Thrifty Traveler Premium, Unicorn Alert, Qatar q Suites availability, not just, you know, to and from The US and, Doha, but also all the way down to South Africa. And like I said before, we had hoped to book these flights, using American advantage miles. I had been saving some from a couple of sign up bonuses between both my wife and I who also, you know, opened the Barclays card, bought a pack of gum, saved those save those points.
But by the time, you know, 2024 rolled around as we were trying to plan this trip, it was just not possible to book almost anything operated by Qatar in business class using American miles. So in this case, the alert that we sent our premium members was booking with Qatar or British Airways Avios, ninety five thousand Avios each way and about $250 in taxes each. So definitely not cheap, but, you know, by, you know, having welcome bonuses and just ongoing spending on Amex Gold cards that which both my wife and I carry just to, you know, spend at the grocery store at restaurants and referring some friends for that card because it's the card that we talk about the most. We had enough to make it happen. So, yeah, 95,000.
We transferred those points from American Express and all of a sudden we've got, you know, a flight to Istanbul and then a flight home from Cape Town and some plenty of time at that point because this was, you know, late February twenty twenty four. Plenty of time to figure out what happened in between, and that's when the plans for Safari really started to come together. Yeah. So you did you did Istanbul, Doha, Cape Town in QSuites and then and then Cape Town, Doha home? We did, Istanbul, Doha, Johannesburg.
Oh, right. Because that was this the thing is, you know, like I said, we really only had two, three nights at most in order to kinda squeeze in this safari trip. And so much as I would have loved to go to the Masai Mara like you did, that just isn't possible for a lot of safari destinations because, you know, once you start thinking about the travel time to get to, you know, not just Nairobi, not just, Johannesburg or Cape Town, but get from there to where you need to go and get in a car for a couple of hours and then get on a bush flight and pay an additional 4 or $5,600 on top of everything else you've already done. That was just time that we didn't have. Yeah.
So we started looking for a safari destination in South Africa that was a little bit closer and was gonna allow us to have some precious time on the ground, go out on game drives every single day without burning a lot of travel time and additional money in order to do it. And so we ended up finding two prime candidates. There's a there's two, airport major airports, not major. They're relatively small, but they have commercial aircraft service, on the edge of the Greater Kruger National Park. There's Mambella and there's Hoot Sprite, which is ultimately what we ended up flying into because we found a safari lodge that just looked incredible and it was.
What was that airport like? Was it really small or was it like kind of mid size? It was a very outdoor airport, but they had a couple of shops, they had a restaurant, they had security, pretty limited security, but that's what you'll find in a lot of places outside The United States and in Europe that that aren't major major airport hubs. But it was still a lot of fun. It kind of felt like a blast from the past.
I just love small airports. There's something about just like a really simple airport, like the bus stop style airports that are just my favorite. It it's so much fun. It makes the travel day a lot better too. Yeah.
So how from from that airport to Greater Kruger, the national park, what's that travel like? We flew into Hootsburgh from Johannesburg after flying in on Qatar Airways that morning. So we we got to Johannesburg at about 03:30AM, booked, an airport hotel that was basically connected to the airport using a Delta Amex, gold card because it has the hundred dollar credit each year. And this is the perfect way to use that for that kind of must have either, you know, you're somewhere for a wedding and you just need one hotel night or, you know, in our case, we just needed a place to lay down for a handful of hours rather than being stuck inside the terminal. So it it covered all, but I think $8 of our hotel stay that early that morning.
And then we we flew, Airlink, one of the major airlines within South Africa from Johannesburg to Hoot Sprite. And then from there, it was about a thirty five minute drive to our lodge from the airport, which is, again, when you talk about saving time to make sure you can go do what you wanna do and not, you know, burn an entire day to get to places that I'm sure are absolutely incredible. But it was well, well worth it. And then we ended up, at our lodge, which was called Imagine Africa Safari Lodge, just outside of Hoot Sprite, which was I I just can't say enough good things. There were five luxury tents.
That's it. When we got there, there was, a pair of other guests, and they left the next morning, which meant that for more than half of our time, we were the only guests at this lodge. I I wanna talk about the, the tent thing for a second because our our safari camp was a tented camp, resort. So every single one of the rooms was, like, a big glamping tent. And I'll share a video that I also have, from our glamping tent there.
But they're not like what you'd think of when you think of glamping. It's not, as simple as, like, an under canvas setup, which is still very nice. This is, you know, built in year round, big bathroom. There's a bathtub in it. There was, you know, a big, a big shower, stone shower.
And, you know, these these places are very nice, but they are tented camps. So you're gonna get a lot of outside noise. At at ours, we had, for instance, a bunch of hippo noise all night, and they just would serenade us with their grossest, grossest, gaseous sounds. But you had me until gaseous sounds. I was like, nobody's gonna complain about hippo sounds.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Maybe. But yeah. Just so you know, if you are really worried about it, I promise you it's so comfy and fancy and I'm sure yours is the same way.
But a lot of these places are tented camps, so beware of that. Yeah. I mean, to me, it's part of the experience to, you know, have this amazing tent, which is air conditioned, has a fully functioning bathroom, a very comfortable bed, a nice deck that overlooks a watering hole where, you know, that is where we were when, you know, about two hours after arriving, a family of elephants walked up and started drinking from the watering hole and playing around and eating shrub bushes is just the the coolest thing. Imagine Africa safari lodge outside of Food Sprite. It was about $1,500 for, two nights.
We were there we ended up being there for basically two and a half days, but that includes, two game drives a day, one early in the morning as you recommended, which definitely those were our best game drives that we had. One later in the afternoon, kind of getting into dinner time when you end up getting back. All of our meals, I mean, we would go out on an early morning drive and have and stop after two or three hours and have a coffee and watch hippos swim around. And then we'd go out on the evening drive shortly before dinner and right before driving back to the lodge would stop for sundown or happy hour and, you know, have a gin and tonic with some with some classic South African jerky. Just the most amazing thing.
And best of all, you know, we booked it using a Capital One card, which meant as soon as that purchase cleared, we went back and erased the entire thing using a 50 ish thousand Capital One venture miles. So it was there's I think there's a temptation to look at that and say, oh, well, you know, you only got 1¢ per mile that you use. You could have gotten double, triple, quadruple that by transferring them to Virgin Atlantic and booking ANA business class to Tokyo. And you know what? I don't care.
It was far and away the coolest thing we've ever done using miles, and I will never regret it for a second. Yeah. I think, Capital One is kinda perfect. You know, if you're gonna just pick up one card to go do a safari like this, that that Capital One VentureX is, you're gonna be hard pressed to beat that one just because those Capital One points, you can do that, what they, you know, formally known as purchase eraser. And now I think it's cover your purchase with points.
It really rolls off the tongue. But they you can go back and and cover these things at these, smaller boutique outfits and same thing with, the airlines that, you know, Safari link and some of these really tiny airlines, within Africa. They're gonna take you to exactly where you wanna be. Are not, you're not gonna get a lot of alliance benefits out of them. These are really scrappy little operations.
So these but they're they're coding as travel, so you can go back and cover a lot of these purchases with those points. Yep. And and having a Capital One card, with that $300 travel credit on the Venturex card, That's how we booked our flights within Africa on Airlink, you know, flying from Johannesburg to Hootsuite and then from Hootsuite, down to Cape Town, which is where we spent basically the final week of our trip before eventually heading home in Qatar Q Suites. Again, I just one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life, everything. What's what stands out to you most about your own safari?
I think, I underestimated the travel just to get to the Maasai. That part stands out to me still. Like, it it's a day to get out there from Zanzibar. I thought, you know, it's a quick quick hop, and then I transferred to another airport and another quick hop. It's not that simple.
Things are never that simple in Africa. Things move a little slow. But I just remember, when things were moving slow, just not caring at all, especially when you're out in in the Maasai and these beautiful places. And, I think a lot of the things that stuck out to me weren't just the seeing incredible animals. It was a lot of the cultural elements of being with the Maasai people, and just, you know, seeing a group of people who have taken back their, you know, I guess they never lost their land, but they've taken control of the tourism.
I mean, the the Maasai people were running every single aspect of everything that happens in that in that world there in the Maasai Mara. And it's so beautiful, and they protect it, you know, with their lives because they have to. And it's I just remember just learning a lot every day around those campfires, and, my wife and I were in awe just the whole time. And obviously, seeing all the animals, you know, seeing a giraffe in person is is something Yeah. Really crazy too.
And, there are there are so many examples of that. A cheetah, a leopard, you know, things that I I'm not a not a, I guess I've I've never traveled to go see wildlife before. I'm usually like, let me go hike that mountain kind of traveler. I'm not a let me, you know, see how many birds or how many animals I can see here. But that kinda changed things for me.
It's, you know, maybe it was turning 30 or maybe it was going on safari, but now I'm like, oh, what's that bird? So maybe a little extra curiosity for me for the other species. I'm I'm still so delightfully surprised that we could do a safari and have an amazing time and not feel inordinately rushed in just two nights. I think another night would have been amazing, if we had the time, if if we could have afforded it. But I think you you truly can pull this off as part of a of a broader trip as long as you're in the right corner of the globe, and do it in in just two or three nights, which again was was pretty surprising.
I mean, I am never in my life, like I said, gonna forget the first moment we saw those elephants walk up. I will never forget the feeling of tracking a pride of lions for a couple of days and, you know, worrying, are these cubs gonna make it? They look pretty thin. And then the morning before we left on our final game drive, we found them, after taking down a water buffalo. And they had stomachs so full, it was, like, comical.
Seeing those same lions the night before walking, kind of stalking around elephants, and they just form this phalanx and just, you know, start sounding off to protect their young because they had a couple of babies behind them. These elephants, I mean, just amazing things. Truly, truly amazing life changingly cool things that, again, would never have happened to us had we not put in the time to to learn about these things and put in the time and resources to redeem credit card points and airline miles to make that stuff a reality. Yeah. It is pretty cool.
I did not think if I were to ever go on safari, I thought, I was gonna have to hitch my wagon to someone way richer than me or fly, fly economy and just scrape it together or just maybe you just have to go back to the zoo. So the fact that I was able to do this is, something I'll never forget for sure. And I know you had the same impression. But two really excellent safaris, two very different safaris. Yeah.
But it's this is all easy to pull off. But I would stress, and I've said this a few times on the podcast before, but you really need to be way out ahead of this stuff, especially if you wanna fly lie flat to get there. And if you wanna book the best places, I would say you need to have a fifteen month head start on doing this. Maybe that's a little aggressive, but I would say, you know, the flights especially you're gonna need to be booking ten to eleven months out. And for some of the plate like, for instance, we wanted to stay at Giraffe Manor in Nairobi.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's the place where the giraffes, like, poke their heads into the, you know, into the restaurant and will eat breakfast with you. And I was ready to book that twelve months ahead of when we wanted to stay there and it was gone, all booked up. So a lot of these places are pretty competitive. Everyone wants to go there. So I would say get out way ahead of it.
It'll make for the best experience possible. Yeah. And I think if if I can leave people with anything about going into this, it it takes a lot to put all these puzzle pieces together, but ultimately, you're going there to go out on game drives. And I we heard some horror stories from our guides about, you know, really entitled guests who, you know, expected to go out and see a lion within thirty minutes or to see a leopard on their first day. And we were really, really lucky.
We were incredibly lucky to see the big five within, less than a day of being there. But, man, the bush owes you nothing. This place is wild and free and unpredictable. And so you need to go into it with as minimal amount of expectations as possible because I promise you, you are gonna see something that you will never see again in your life and you won't see anywhere else on the globe. And that is really cool.
Yeah. Nature definitely calls the shots, when you're on safari in Africa. So that's a very good point as well. Alright. It's time for our listener question of the week, but instead of a listener question, we're gonna get some listener feedback of the week.
We have a listener named Kyle. Not me. Not you. Just so we're clear. But Kyle thought we missed the mark on our take about the Hyatt free night award certificate that we talked about a few weeks ago.
That's the yearly kind of categories one through four free night you get with the World of Hyatt credit card. In his note, Kyle said, I'm a fan of Thrifty Traveler and enjoying the show so far. I do take a bit of umbridge though with how you discussed the Hyatt free night cert on this week's show. I believe the quote is, there aren't a lot of special ways to use them. Kyle goes on to say, I certainly know what you mean about getting outsized value, but for a podcast and website called Thrifty Traveler, I think it's important to remember that the special thing is the travel itself.
Not everyone in points and miles are using Thrifty Travelers trying to get to the four seasons. They're just trying to see as much of the world as they can for as cheap as they can. Most of the points in Miles' world is full of influencers who spit on economy flights and inexpensive hotels. Please don't try to take that market share from them. Kyle, did, other Kyle just accuse us of being out of touch?
He did, and I don't think he's wrong. Yeah. I think we stepped in it a little bit, in the hotel's episode where we focus primarily on whether Hilton was gunning for Hyatt's crown as the best, hotel program. I think what we should have said is that as, you know, Hyatt has on a yearly basis reshuffle these award categories and moved hotels that were category three or four up to five or six and, you know, therefore limited how many of them are eligible for these free night certificates. It's just gotten harder to organically build a fun trip and use these certificates in a way that's truly useful versus doing something like randomly booking a hotel or a staycation just in order to redeem it.
What we shouldn't have said is that there aren't special ways to do this. It's about outsized value versus it just being valuable. And that ultimately is super personal. So, yeah, Kyle called other Kyle called us on it, and I think he was right. And we sent him a note back saying, you know what?
Other Kyle, you are absolutely right. And and again, I think he was. Yeah. Kyle, I think you nailed it. We're very conscious here of, making sure that we're not hitting maximum value too hard.
You know, maximum value, maximum value. It's a kind of a mantra that's pretty annoying in points and miles writing. And in this world in particular, because that means something different for everybody. And your category one through four free night certificate with Hyatt can absolutely be hugely valuable and create awesome experiences. And you don't have to stay at a five star hotel to have the trip of your life.
So you're absolutely right there, Kyle. His quote, which I think we should end with is, I think it's important to remember that the special thing is the travel itself is gonna stick with me for a while. So thank you, other Kyle, for reaching out to us and calling us on it. You were right. Yep.
Kyle, you nailed it. Thank you. If you want us to answer your question or, you have some feedback for us, email us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, and your question might be featured on next week's show. Alright, Gunnar. It's my turn to put you on the spot.
Are you ready? Yeah. I'm ready. Come on. Alright.
So in the vein of of Hilton and Hyatt, it was almost a year ago when I first pitched the story to you. Is it time for us to think about whether Hilton does deserve the crown? And you were skeptical to say the least. Not an hour before starting to record this show, you told me you opened a Hilton surpass card to earn some points and a Hilton free night certificate. So to put you on the spot, how does that crow taste, Gunnar?
The crow tastes amazing. I got my email for my free night award already, and, it took me about a year during that with Hyatt. So no. You absolutely helped convince me over time. I think that first meeting where we discussed this for about twenty five minutes and took over one of our Thrifty Traveler meetings where our poor coworkers had to sit there and listen to this.
And I think that might have been where the podcast even started. It was partially in that discussion where everyone was like, all right, you guys need to record this and get it out of the world. But anything so we didn't have to subject them to it. Yeah. Right.
We get to torture the rest of you now. Please stop talking. But yeah. No. I'm I've joined the Hilton universe, and I'm excited to see what's over there.
What's going on in that pool? So it's warm so far. Pool's warm. Keeping it in the mid eighties. That's good.
Let's kill this metaphor and this show. Yep. Let's end this show mercifully. Thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice, please.
And also like and subscribe to Thrifty Traveler on YouTube. And then send this episode to someone you know that wants to go on safari or someone who needs a vacation or needs a good way to use their Hyatt free night award certificate. And like I said, if you have feedback for us, send us a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you. Kyle, tell us about the Thrifty Traveler podcast team.
This episode was produced by our senior editor and credit card expert, Jackson Newman, and your favorite crow eating host, Gunnar Olsen. It was edited by David Strutt. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissow. See you next week. See you next week.