Gunnar and Kyle celebrate their recent travel bookings (a.k.a. “Getting Booksy”) before diving into an extremely busy couple days of travel news. Gunnar introduces an unhinged new “Stoke Scale” to help the guys rank a flurry of new route announcements from Italy to Hong Kong, and more. Plus, they break down stories you need to know about the Park Hyatt Tokyo, Hilton’s woes, Delta’s future in Mexico City, some intriguing new Capital One transfer partners, and more!
Gunnar and Kyle celebrate their recent travel bookings (a.k.a. “Getting Booksy”) before diving into an extremely busy couple days of travel news. Gunnar introduces an unhinged new “Stoke Scale” to help the guys rank a flurry of new route announcements from Italy to Hong Kong, and more. Plus, they break down stories you need to know about the Park Hyatt Tokyo, Hilton’s woes, Delta’s future in Mexico City, some intriguing new Capital One transfer partners, and more!
00:00 - Kyle and Gunnar both booked something (Kyle to Hong Kong, Gunnar to Italy)
03:45 - Routes news: All the new routes you should be excited about, ranked on the brand new “Gunnar Olson Stoke Scale”
12:15 - Bad news for consumer rights, worse news for Delta flights to Mexico City (MEX), and some great news from Google Flights
20:07 - What’s the easiest way to stay up on the news? The Daily Beat Newsletter! Sign up (for free) today!
20:40 - Hotel news: The Park Hyatt Tokyo is reopening, the sorry state of Hilton, and White Lotus France hotel speculation
32:00 - Credit card news: The revamped Amex Platinum gets rave reviews, Chase chases Amex with new hotel credits, intriguing new Capital One transfer partners, and Avios news
45:00 - On the spot: Kyle tells us more about his dogs!
46:45 - A heartfelt tribute to the late Katherine Olson, Gunnar’s grandma who helped spark his life in travel
Produced by Erica Kamrowski and Gunnar Olson
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I am Gunnar Olsen here with someone who, rumor has it, got a little booksy this week and secured himself some business class seats.
What is booksy mean? What are we doing here?
feeling of needing to book something. Feeling booksy? Getting a little booksy?
I don't know if I was feeling booksy so much as there was a deal and I just couldn't say no.
That's true. All right. The voice you're listening to is thrifty traveler, executive editor, Kyle Potter, who I meant to intro, but I got too excited about him getting booksy. What did you book? What? Where are you going?
Speaker 2 (00:34.414)
I don't know. I don't know if we're going or not, but all I know is when, you know, our Thrifty Traveler premium team sends out the first Cathay Pacific Business Class Award availability bookable for 70,000 American Advantage miles that we've seen in probably two or three years. I could go to Hong Kong in April of 2026. I booked it without asking my wife and I just sent her a text and said,
Hey, I booked us flights to Hong Kong next April. She's like, cool. Sounds good. So, you know, as often happens with this stuff, that deal disappeared minutes later. And so I just said to myself, I'm going to book this. If we can figure it out, great. If we can't, then I can just cancel it and get my miles back for free because American is just one of the best programs for doing that. So when I have those miles sitting in my account, there was just really no reason not to.
Yeah, that's awesome. I'm psyched for you. Can I tell you a secret? I got a little booksy this weekend too. I booked some stuff. I want to tell you about it. But first, I want to tell everybody what's going on with the show today. We're doing another news rundown. There's been so much going on over the past few weeks that we're going to take a few minutes here and get you caught up on all the headlines we think are important for travelers. Lots of new routes, some new hotel news. We have credit card and transfer partner news. Kyle read through some government filings so you don't have to.
Please.
Speaker 1 (01:57.23)
We've got lots going on and some stuff that's really important, I think. All right, you want to know what I booked?
As long as you promise me that you're not gonna use the phrase booksy again.
Fine, will retire, will sunset the phrase booksy. Thank you. I took advantage of the Amex to Hilton transfer bonus and I made some Hilton bookings, Kyle. You know more than anyone because I blamed you for it. I've been stymied by Hilton for a while here. But I booked two small luxury hotels of the world, properties in Southern Italy. One in Matera, the Sant'Angelo Matera. All the rooms are caves. It's carved out of this like ancient town. It looks super, super cool.
Love it, say less.
Very excited for that one. And then we booked one north of Catania in Sicily called the Donna Carmela Resort. That looks very cool too. It looks like a little more sunshine and beachy instead of an interior Italian cave dwelling. But that one looks really, really cool too.
Speaker 2 (02:53.848)
complexion says you're more of a cave guy, if I'm being honest.
Yeah, I don't know. The May sunshine in Sicily might come for me. And then we actually booked the Delta Noni back from Sicily to JFK using some Virgin Atlantic points. Tax and fees were super high on that one, but that's just a bit of a placeholder booking for us to see what else pops up.
You'll get booksy again later. Hey, we know anything.
you're in on Booksy. Okay. let's get everybody caught up on the news. We have a lot to get through. So let's turn to the news. We cool with that? Let's do it. All right. Welcome back to the Thirsty Traveler podcast.
Speaker 1 (03:40.014)
All right, let's start with a section about new route announcements. It is new route announcement season for next year's summer schedule. Right about this time every year, we get a bunch of new routes from bunch of airlines. So Kyle, explain to me why travelers should care about new routes to begin with.
I mean, first of all, who doesn't want to fly nonstop to more destinations in Italy or Hong Kong or even the Caribbean? But more than that, what we always see is that additional capacity, more flights, more seats, flying to destinations like Italy or to the Caribbean or over to Asia or wherever, always results in more deals. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to be able to find, you know,
dirt cheap, fair flying Delta's very first nonstop from New York City to Sardinia. But because that option is available, other seats are going to open up elsewhere across the globe. And so just as airlines keep adding and adding, there's going to be more opportunity. mean, that's what we've seen time and time again. And, know, before we go route by route here for what's new, I think we should stress, I don't think this is the end of it. You know, while travel demand
does seem to be slowing down as we get further into 2025 and people start thinking about 2026 travels. You know, the routes that we've seen so far, I think we're going to see more. You know, we still haven't seen big splashy additions from United. I think we're still going to continue to see more additions from Delta for next year. So this is a very good start and there's a lot to be excited about here, but I think there's more to come.
Yeah, I think it's also just really fun to see what the airline executives, what are these network planners looking at in terms of where people are booking? Sardinia was not on my radar at all, was never something I even considered. The other one Delta added was more on my radar, but either way, we'll talk more about some of those specific ones in particular. But like you said, more to come definitely stay tuned to the news because that's the best way to find some good award space and things like that. Okay. In order to...
Speaker 1 (05:41.944)
talk about these routes, I've created a scale. It's called the Gunner Olson New Route Stoke Scale. Okay. It's a simple one to five scale, but it's never that simple with me. Okay. So number one, I'm calling this the courtesy emoji. Okay. So this is the lowest level. This is the least important. When I put news of this route into the thrifty traveler Slack, John, our resident emoji expert, he'll just throw an emoji on there. There's no reaction to it. It's just a courtesy like Gunner, you did the bare minimum amount of work here.
Here's an emoji for your time. Thank you so much. All right. That's number one. Number two is called, Hmm. It's exactly what it is, right? You're interested. Not sure if it's for you, not sure if it's for anyone, but it's a new route and new routes are new routes like that. Okay. Number three is called I see you. Right. It's a maybe like you're intrigued. It's nice to have. You're not going to book it right away. Can I
pause you and ask how many work hours this week did you put into coming up with this scale?
No comment. We'll talk about it in my review. Number four, the next highest, okay, is called monitoring the situation. All this is much more serious. You're counting up your points. You're ready to book, but you're being sober about it, right? You're not getting too booksy. You're not getting out over your skis, if you will. And then number five, the highest level, is called sending my wife an uncalled for urgent please call text message. This is...
You know, forget dog sitters, forget childcare, forget my ongoing employment. We're booking flights and we're asking questions later. This is the most important new route news. Checking account balance be damned. Do you like my scale? Hey, all right. Are you ready? You're gonna have to use the names. I'm not allowing just the numbers. I need you to use the name and the number when you classify all of these new routes. The first one, Aer Lingus flying from Raleigh to Dublin starting in April. Where's this on the scale?
Speaker 2 (07:21.848)
Sure.
Speaker 2 (07:38.574)
Let me give this a two, is a, hmm, Aer Lingus has expanded a lot within the last just couple of years. They've added a lot of nonstop routes, but increasingly where they're adding nonstops to Dublin are to second or even third tier airports, airports that don't get a lot of, if any other international service. And this one is interesting. It's not personally for me because I don't need to, you know, get myself to Raleigh in order to fly to Dublin. We have a nonstop on both Aer Lingus and.
Delta here from Minneapolis, but this is interesting because this isn't a perfect example of how airlines can and are using these ultra fuel efficient narrow body planes that in this case, Airbus A321XLR in order to fly routes that otherwise wouldn't work with another plane. So this is just really promising, not just for the people of Raleigh.
But for travelers who want to get to Ireland in smaller cities from across the country, because it may only be a matter of time before Aer Lingus adds another pin.
Yeah, that's smart. You know, last year, Aer Lingus did this with Indianapolis, which people in Indianapolis might be shocked to hear that news. And then the year before it was Cleveland and they just keep targeting these, you know, secondary even tertiary cities and they just want to be the airline that flies you to Europe. know, for Europeans who need to go somewhere specific, the opposite. So interesting model there. And they're really, really targeting these smaller cities. Who's next? I think Omaha, 2027.
Yeah, at this point I don't know that we can rule anything out.
Speaker 1 (09:13.782)
Okay, next new route, Delta to Sardinia starting in May. We just talked a little bit about this one. Where are you on the scale?
You know, I think we have to loop this in with the other recent edition from Delta, which is, to Malta, both of these routes from New York city, JFK, and most importantly, both of these routes, the byproduct, allegedly of a public vote. So Delta pulled a, will, you just got to give Delta credit for some very, very crafty, creative marketing. They held a public vote, or at least that's what they called it. And they said that you can vote on, on.
to pick the next transatlantic destination. And they gave people the choice of Malta, Sardinia, or Ibiza. And the voters chose two of three. Delta said that the SkyMiles members chose Sardinia and Delta employees chose Malta. So not just creative marketing, but also a creative final solution for which one to pick. These are really fun.
It's, it's out of the box from Delta, both in terms of the destinations that they're flying to. Both of these would be a first for a US airline. And it's also out of the box in terms of how they got there. So hats off to them.
Yeah. How many millions of dollars is Delta getting from the Sardinian government and subsidies on that one? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, Kyle, but this election stunk a little bit to me.
Speaker 2 (10:40.978)
It's, it probably starts with at least seven digits and it might be eight. So I don't know. There's yeah, there's definitely something there, but I don't think anybody is going to complain about another nonstop to Italy. So for that reason, I'm going to give it a four monitoring the situation.
Awesome. I love it. Those are both really exciting routes. Excited to see if and when people book them and if they don't, if the Sky Mouse Flash sales are awesome. Either way, I'm a winner. Okay, Cathay Pacific to Seattle starting in March. I think we know how you feel about this one.
Yes, this is a five sending my wife and uncalled for urgent please call, or in this case, my wife waking up to a text. Hey, I just booked us flights to Hong Kong for next April. Like I said, whether we're actually going to take this flight or not is an open question, but this is fun. I just have to say, I think anybody who lives in or around Seattle should be sending their
wives or husbands uncalled for text messages all the time, because I cannot think of a single airport in the country that is better off right now for competition between the airlines, between Delta and Alaska really duking it out now that Alaska wants to grow into a marquee international carrier. And, you know, the ongoing battle for Taiwan with four international airlines offering about four times as many flights as they should in and out of Seattle.
And now this from Cathay Pacific, this is a lot of fun. This is a great time to be a Seattle-based travel.
Speaker 1 (12:12.91)
Yeah, for real. It's, it's going to be really, really good times up there in 2026 and beyond. All right. Let's get into our next section that I've lazily called things for travelers. Could I have worked any less hard on coming up with this headline? Okay. We're going to eat our vegetables with some of these. Okay. Kyle, we got bad news for travelers from the Trump administration's department of transportation this month. Kyle, can, can you walk us through?
the delays and compensation plan that was effectively asked, asked like, is the current plan? If you are, you know, thoroughly delayed on a flight, what are you do? What are you owed?
Nothing. You know, there really are no real rights for us as travelers here in the United States when things go wrong in air travel. There's not even a legal obligation for the airlines to say, put us up in a hotel if they cancel a flight and leave us stranded somewhere overnight. And so what the previous administration, the Biden administration had tried to do is they proposed a set of federal rules to say, you know what, when airlines leave you somewhere,
they need to pay the price, not just put you on the next available flight, whether that's two hours from now or 24 hours from now, but also issue compensation for the trouble. So what they propose was, you know, a sliding scale of compensation being required from as little as about $200 for a short delay on a relatively short domestic flight to as much as almost $800 for a really long delay on a long haul international flight. And importantly, this is
didn't just come out of nowhere. Basically what the Biden administration was trying to do was say, they do this in Europe and they have for two decades and they've done it in Canada for almost a decade now. So this is something that we can do not just to make sure that travelers are made whole, but also to keep airlines accountable, to give them a reason to make sure that they're running their operations smoothly because when they don't and things fall apart, they pay a price, not just in terms of, you know, a public black eye and not doing right by their
Speaker 2 (14:15.032)
customers, but also a financial penalty for continually failing people. And so again, we just need to stress this was a proposed federal rule. This wasn't something that was passed by Congress. It never became law. And that's the rub. And that's why I think all of us in the office, while we were glad that this conversation was started by former Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, it was a long shot.
because federal rulemaking takes not just months, but years. And they proposed this late into Biden's last year in office. And the odds that that was going to move fast enough were slim to none. And so lo and behold, we got to just a couple of weeks ago, and the Trump administration and Department of Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy said, we're not going to continue with this anymore. And I'm not surprised at all.
Yeah. Okay. Let's, speaking of the department of transportation and, Duffy's department over there, they also put a joint venture between Delta and Aero Mexico in the crosshairs this month. This is our next story. Basically they're requiring that these close partners scale back their partnership by January 1st. They said that Delta and Aero Mexico were squatting on takeoff and landing slots at Mexico city international airport.
giving Delta an unfair edge versus its US counterparts. For those who don't know, basically a joint venture is just the closest kind of airline partnership. means that Delta and Aeromexico can collaborate on schedules and fares. And, you know, it allows them to act as like one airline coordinating all of these things together. Without the joint venture, they can still code share, meaning they can, you know, people can book each other's flights with their websites. Importantly, like you can book an Aeromexico flight using SkyMiles.
still. But, you know, these, this joint venture will possibly now expire at the end of the year. What does it mean for flights to Mexico in the future?
Speaker 2 (16:11.342)
That's a big open question. you know, honestly, I'm a little bit surprised that we got here. This saga has been going on for a year and a half or more now. And, you know, it wavers back and forth between the DOT is going to shut this down to, no, they say it's going to be okay. And Delta and Aeromexico are going to be able to continue using this joint venture. So I still don't know for sure whether this is the final answer that
Yes, this has to end. It's going to end January 1st. And therefore, what does that mean? But if that's the case, I mean, I think there's no question that this is going to result in Delta and Aeromexico scaling back some of their nonstop service across the border between the United States and Mexico, because these kinds of relationships are just so integral in helping airlines make sure that these new routes work. just
You know, basically two years ago, Aeromexico went on a tear and added more than a dozen different nonstop routes from, the United States into Mexico city, as well as a handful of other smaller cities like Monterey and Guadalajara and a couple others. Are all of those going to be, continue to be workable when they can't coordinate with Delta and make sure that, you know, Delta passengers can connect from, let's just say Raleigh to Atlanta and then onward to Monterey? I don't know. I think that's the open question.
Delta and AeroMexico have said that as many as two dozen routes could be at risk if this joint venture is shut down. That's probably bluster. That's probably them trying to play hardball, but no question there are going to be some costs.
Yeah. And, know, honestly, if Delta and Aeromexico can't fly some of these routes, does that guarantee that the Mexico government is going to gift those slots to American and United and JetBlue? I don't really think that that's going to be the case. So there's no guarantee here that we're getting more and better competition in the U.S. because of this ruling. All right. Let's do some good news. Put a smile on, Potter, because we have a Google flights.
Speaker 1 (18:15.01)
Basic economy filter. We've been begging for it for years. Tell me where were you when you found out about this news and how excited are you for it?
I was in London and I didn't care. If you want my honest answer. No, this has been a long time coming. We honestly, honest to God, Thrifty Traveler has been hounding Google flights and the people at Google for years. Why don't you have a basic economy filter? Why don't you have a basic economy filter? And we basically got crickets. And then one day in April, it just appeared out of nowhere and
Google really refused to say anything about it, but it was clear that they were testing this out to see if travelers wanted it. And I think the answer was an unequivocal yes, because, you know, around about the start of September, give or take, Google announced that this is for real, that this is expanding. It is going to be a fixture of Google flights. People can, you know, if you love basic economy, you can still default to show those cheapest, stingy fares in your Google flight search results.
don't want to bother with seeing that lower price only to click through and see that the main cabin standard economy fair you want is actually 80 or $220 more. can exclude those from your search results altogether. So this is a big win-win and it is going to be an ongoing feature of Google flights.
Yeah. Notably, this works for flights within the US, Canada and the US territories to start. Hopefully someday they expand it and make it a little bigger. I think there's just a lot of weird fares out there and a lot of weird airlines that Google is maybe not quite ready to do this for, but this is an awesome start. Great news for travelers who use Google Flights and all travelers should be using Google Flights. We have a lot more news to get to, but first we're going to take a quick break. All right.
Speaker 1 (20:04.674)
You're already listening to the podcast, means you're already getting ahead on your travels. But staying up on the news is also crucial. And the best place to find the news is from the people who are breaking it. Kyle, how do you recommend people get the best news?
You should sign up for our Daily Beat newsletter at thriftytraveler.com slash Daily Beat. Every Tuesday through Saturday, we're going to send you the best stories of the day straight to your inbox.
You know what we say Kyle, when the news breaks, we fix it.
We've never said that.
Okay, back to the show. All right, we're back with a section that I'm calling hotels. Do you like it?
Speaker 2 (20:42.284)
You are really putting your back into these section titles.
All right. The first news story in the hotel section today, the park Hyatt Tokyo, Kyle, which has been shut down since May, 2024 will reopen on December 9th. Hyatt announced last week. I stayed here in February, 2024 right before the close. And it was definitely one of the best hotel stays of my life. I loved it so much there. Super nostalgic, old school kind of 90s era business hotel.
I would describe it for you, but I don't have to just go watch the film Lost in Translation, which is filmed there famously. Sadly, Lost in Translation not available for streaming anywhere in the United States right now. Insane.
What's, what's wrong with Netflix or Apple or whatever? All of them. Get your, get your stuff together guys.
Yeah, pretty much the only place you can watch this for free is on an airplane, is my guess. Kyle, where is the Park High at Tokyo reopening for you on the Gunner Olson Stokes scale?
Speaker 2 (21:39.466)
Is this the same scale that we were using before? It's good four. This is big. I have not stayed at the park high at Tokyo. I would really love to. I'm excited that, unless if something happens very quickly, the next time that I go to Japan, this is going to be an option. The downside is that, as you said, this hotel will have been shut down for close to two years by the time it opens its doors.
It's the same scale.
Speaker 2 (22:08.726)
And in that interim period, Hyatt has increased award rates at the park Hyatt Tokyo, even though its doors were closed. You know, so by the time this opens up for reservations, which by the time people are listening to this, it will be bookable both with cash and with world of Hyatt points. But that's going to cost you even more Hyatt points than it did before. So as much as 45,000 points per night during the busy peak periods, like the summer and certainly cherry blossom season in late March and early April. That said.
I mean, I would gladly do it. I'm excited to see what this looks like. It sounds like you had an amazing stay there, but it also sounds like from your account and many others that it was in need of a renovation. And so I have no doubt that they did it well. I'm excited to hopefully see it firsthand.
Yeah, think, unfortunately, for all of us who would like to book it, I think there's just a high level of froth for this reopening. And I think that for so many people, it is a number five urgent text to your wife on the heat scale. So I think finding that award availability is going to be very hard. And I think the cash rates are going to be very high for a little while. So maybe let some of the sizzle burn off here and then go get it next year or the year after.
You didn't spend any time with any lounge singers when you were there, did you?
No, I did not. Okay. Next story. Hilton and a devaluation for the third time in less than a year. Hilton raised its award rates on some of its most popular properties this month. Some night awards are coming in now at 250,000 points per night. All of this started, mind you, after Kyle spent a full podcast episode luring me into the Hilton swamp without telling me that it's full of Gators. So Kyle, what is the state of your swamp?
Speaker 1 (23:50.766)
Tell me about Hilton Honors and what you're doing to me.
The state of the swamp is not good. That episode where we, I tried to make the case that Hilton was on par with, if not better than Hyatt, has aged like airport sushi. It's not a great luck gunner, so I'm sorry. In the span of about nine months, the most expensive properties using Hilton points from the Waldorf Astoria and the Maldives to Kalala Island, an all-inclusive private island off the coast of Nicaragua.
has gone from 150,000 points per night, which in itself, that seems pretty unattainable to a lot of people and rightfully so. And now those are all pricing out as high as 250,000 points per night, a quarter million points for one night at a hotel. know, Hermitage Bay, the property in Antigua that I have sung its praises, when we booked it for our stay last fall, it was 130,000 points.
Today it's 230,000 points. 100,000 points more per night. It is ugly. And while the damage is definitely deepest at the cream of the crop, super luxury, ultra expensive properties, there definitely is pain all around, even on some cheaper things where, you know, a standard city hotel might have gone from 40,000 points to 50 or even 60,000 points. I've seen a lot of that as well. So I'm not feeling great about my takes. Put it that way.
Yeah, I think while the Hilton free night award that you get with some of its credit cards still exists in its current form, this is now the perfect use of that to save 250,000 points. I don't regret coming into the swamp because like I said at the top of the show, I just booked some small luxury hotels in the world I'm very excited about and they were relatively cheap. I think one was 85,000 a night, one was 75,000 a night in Italy. That's pretty great. That's a good use of our points.
Speaker 1 (25:51.438)
Man, 250,000 when you said a quarter of a million points for one night at a hotel that fried my brain a little bit.
Yeah. I'm glad you pointed out that you booked some affordable or at least reasonable properties because it's not all doom and gloom. There are some great properties out there that either haven't changed award rates or they're still pretty reasonable. That said, I want to ask you a philosophical question about all of this. Do you feel like we, and we could be a thrifty traveler and you and I on the podcast here talking to each other on mic or
the royal we of the travel blogosphere and influencers and everybody who talks about this stuff night and day. Do you think we're responsible for these things happening?
Well, I'm a Midwestern man, so self-reflection isn't something that I do, Kyle. But I do think maybe because there is just so much interest in it and, you know, not that, you know, we are driving so much interest that it's changing everything for people, but points and miles are easier to earn probably because of the methods highlighted by websites like ours and podcasts like this one. And that might have led to this just kind of overall inflation. But man, I got to imagine that
You know, how, what is the percentage of people booking Hilton hotels that are using Hilton honors points? I think it's got to be still insanely low in the grand scheme of things. And so maybe it's just, you know, they're, taking advantage of the people who are already loyalists or dug in and they have a ton of these points and they're saying where, what else are going to do? Where else are you going to go? So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (27:29.964)
Yeah, I'm a little bit torn personally. On the one hand, I think that there's no question that the outsized attention on podcasts, especially on social media, has created this larger than ever economy of people with points and people who are paying closer attention to these things. And we're a part of that, right? At the same time, you know, we talk about these things because they're exciting. We talk about Hermitage Bay.
in Antigua. mean, I've talked ad nauseum about it because it's a great way to redeem your points. And if the cost of that is that that gets more attention, gets more attention from other travelers across the country, and then Hilton sees it and raises award rates, that's the downside. The upshot is that we probably helped at least a handful of people book it before that happened.
So I think it kind of all comes out in the wash and I don't know how large of a role we in particular, Thrifty Traveler, Gunner and Kyle and Jackson and Nick on our team play in driving these things. But I still think I'd kind of do it again. I think, you know, we have a responsibility to share great deals with people and if we're not doing that, we might as well close up shop. So I don't know where the line is, but I'm happy with where we drew it in this case.
Good point. Okay. The next story, the next hotel we're focusing on, they have no use for your points. You cannot use your points to book a White Lotus hotel. And that's because they are fictional. The HBO hit series, The White Lotus, which follows a murder mystery through a luxury resort in each season is going to France. HBO head Casey Boyce confirmed this at the Emmys last week. Given the White Lotus has exclusively shot at four seasons resorts, one in Maui, one in Sicily, and one in Koh Samui, Thailand.
The speculation machine is up and running on our website too thrifttravel.com. can read Jackson's story speculating which of the three French Four Seasons it could be. The options are Kyle, the Four Seasons Hotel Maghives in the Alps.
Speaker 2 (29:41.122)
There's no way that you got that right.
It is Meguive, I looked it up, okay? Alright. the Hotel George V in the heart of Paris, and the Grand Hotel Du Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera. How do you think I did with Du Cap Ferrat? I did not look up that pronunciation.
No idea. I'm the wrong person to ask.
of those three, what do you think it's going to be? What do want it to be?
Much as I would love for Mike White and company to give you your wish of a cold Lotus and put this in the Alps. I think they're going to the French Riviera. I just have a feeling that that's the vibe that they're going for. And it fits in with some of the themes, especially about wealth that they've leaned down pretty heavily in the previous three seasons where I would like it to be. I had this thought the other night. I think they need to go to Singapore.
Speaker 1 (30:12.598)
I'm Mike.
Speaker 2 (30:34.614)
at some point, I think that would be a great setting. I'm, I'm, I'm over with, with the white lotus season four. I'm going season five or season six, bring it to Singapore guys.
like it. my thought is, I think it's going to be at in Hotel George the fifth in the heart of Paris. The French Riviera one would be awesome, but it seems, you know, aesthetically vibes wise a little like Sicily, like they've kind of done the, you know, the coastal scenic, you know, I think something in an urban area would be pretty cool. I think that's probably what they'll do. But of course, I hope that it would be in the Alps the
If you're looking for a show that's about like class interplay, there's nothing like a ski resort to highlight the haves and the have nots. There's so much to do at a ski resort. There are so many like beautiful shots to be had. I mean, just like a scene in a tram or a gondola or all these different ways that you can bring characters and people together in ski resorts is pretty amazing. Little lift line confrontation. I don't know.
If, so if, if anyone in the tri-state area of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa hears somebody screaming yes through the streets, it's because Gunner has found out that they have in fact set this in the Alps and Gunner gets his cold Lotus season coming to HBO sometime next year.
We need to have it. We need to have it, Mike White. Be brave. Okay, this next section, bear with me. It's called credit cards.
Speaker 2 (32:04.789)
You are on a roll today.
All right. Let's talk about the Amex Platinum. We did a whole episode on this that came out last week. I encourage you to go check it out if you haven't already. The revamped Amex Platinum card has been out for one week now. Kyle, we did extensive coverage on all the new credits to places like Lululemon, YouTube TV, fine hotels and resorts. And of course your favorite, the Aura Ring. Please go listen to last week's episode to hear Kyle's rant on the Aura Ring.
The top line, guess, is all for a new annual fee of $895 a year. Despite that, our coverage was pretty positive. I think we both liked the changes. What have you seen out there? What's the reaction been in the world?
think if you had told me just a couple of weeks or months ago that the reaction to an almost $900 a year travel credit card with honestly pretty few travel benefits would be overwhelmingly positive. I wouldn't have believed you, but I think that's where we're at. think Amix made a conscious decision to just.
pull everything out and throw the kitchen sink at this card with an absurd amount of credits. And yes, some of them are harder to use than others. Some are dumber than others. I don't need to repeat that rant, but on the whole, think, you know, all of us in the office who already had this card and the people that we're hearing from who are looking at it, look at the value proposition and what they can get for that $895 a year compared to what the old system was.
Speaker 2 (33:40.91)
$200 less a year, $695, and they say, yeah, you know what? That works.
Yeah, I'm keeping mine. I liked it. I like the changes. I'm going to be able to make use of a lot, if not all of those credits, even as I told you, my wife found out about the Auroring credit. So guess who's getting an Auroring in the family coming up?
Congrats, Megan. I'm really happy for you.
All right, let's move on to a competitor of the Amex Platinum. So when Chase announced its new Chase Sapphire Reserve earlier this year, Amex stomped on the announcement with their own vague announcement of this new Amex Platinum that we got last week. So when Amex launched the new Platinum card last week, wouldn't you know it, Chase dropped us a little press release, its own little news bump, adding another $250 hotel credit to the existing $500 hotel credit. It already rolled out a few months ago.
Um, there are some strings attached to this extra $250 though, right?
Speaker 2 (34:38.952)
Yeah, two really important ones. One is that this is a one time thing. Unless if Chase decides at some point next year, you know what, we're going to do this in 2027 too. But as it stands right now, this is only going to be available to Chase Sapphire Reserve card holders in 2026. And it's only going to be eligible at a handful of different chains booking through the Chase travel portal, including IHG, Virgin, Omni, and a couple others.
And like the existing credits on this card, it requires a two night stay in order for that $250 credit to kick in. And so at the same time, Chase made, I would say an important, a relatively important change to the longstanding ongoing credit for the edit hotels. So rather than giving you one $250 credit to use from January through June and another to use from July through.
December, they're now saying starting in 2026, they're still split up into two and you still have to book at least a two night stay in order to use them. But you can use those two back to back. So on January 1st, you can use one credit to book one hotel stay and one credit to book another and use up all $500 in two quick transactions. That's, that's not nothing. Um, I think the question is whether it's enough.
Yeah, especially compared to what the Amix Platinum just did. If you're not already a Chase Sapphire Reserve card holder, will this put you over the edge? I'm not quite sure.
Yeah, you know, this, this to me says two really important things about where things are at in this kind of broader premium travel credit card market. One is that clearly this competition is incredibly cut throughout that, you know, just like they did earlier this summer, Amex and Chase are basically falling over each other to try to position themselves as the premium travel credit card. And two, this doesn't happen very often. I mean, we are not even
Speaker 2 (36:37.1)
three months past Chase unveiling the first big update on its flagship travel card. And three months later, they're making some pretty substantial changes that just does not happen. And so that to me says that the, the refreshed, the revamped Chase Sapphire Reserve card is not going as well with their members as they hoped it would. And they need to make some changes in order to try to make it resonate more. And I should note that I spoke with Chase as they were.
kind of previewing this news and they insisted that no, you know, all of their metrics are looking good and that they are just listening to card member feedback and that they'll continue to make these kinds of changes and whether you believe that or not is up to you.
Yeah. If you want a premium credit card is the most interesting time to take a look at all of your options. And the option we did not mention here would be Capital One's version, the Capital One Venture X. And Capital One also made some news this week. This is our next story here. It added to its already stellar list of airline and hotel transfer partners this week, bringing the total number of partners to 22. The new ones are, and I'm going to need you to Stokescale, Gunner Olson Stokescale trademark.
these transfer partners as I read them. Okay. A one to one transfer ratio to Qatar Airways Privilege Club, part of the obvious program, which allows you to combine BA, Aer Lingus, Finair, Iberia, and more points. How do you like that one?
give it a two next.
Speaker 1 (38:06.324)
A one to two transfer ratio to I prefer hotel rewards. That is preferred hotels. have some brands like Pendries and some Virgin hotels. Honestly, can't say I'm that familiar with them. I have never dug into the I prefer program. I've done 0.0 hours of research on this one. How do you feel about I prefer?
I have done 0.2 hours of research into I-PREFER. I know that there is some value here and the fact that Capital One Miles will transfer on a one to two ratio, so a thousand points gets you 2,000 I-PREFER points is potentially promising. So I'm going to give it a three. I see you. It's just going to require some further research. This is not one that I think is going to be a huge needle mover, but it could work for some people in the right circumstances.
And finally, Capital One Venture Miles transfer now to Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, a 2 to 1.5 transfer weight ratio, weight, with a limited time 30 % transfer bonus, bringing the new ratio to a mind numbing 2 to 1.95 points transfer ratio.
My head hurts.
This is Japan Airlines second US transfer partner after built rewards Because it's kind of new. I also haven't really dug much into this program yet. How do you feel about it?
Speaker 2 (39:34.03)
Can I do like a 4.5? Like draft a text, but not send it yet. I don't know. I don't know what we would call this. I mean, we know that Japan Airlines mileage program can be very good. important. There's, there's two, two primary reasons for that. One is that Japan Airlines, like many, many other airlines out there gives their own mileage program members access to much greater award availability than they do to partner. So.
You can.
Speaker 2 (40:03.01)
While it can be hard to book a Japan Airlines business class seat from the United States to Tokyo for 60,000 advantage miles each way, you're going to have a much easier time finding those flights using Japan Airlines own mileage program because they just get much better award availability. And two, so when you find that award availability, it's as low as 55,000 miles each way and pretty reasonable on the CAS.
cash surcharge side, it's, in the neighborhood of about $150 each way a little bit more if you're flying back from Tokyo versus from the United States over to Japan. I mean, if you can book a business class seat for 55,000 miles, especially on one of those new planes flying from, Dallas, Fort Worth, New York city, and most recently LA, that is a screaming deal. It is still pretty difficult to find.
that award availability, even though there's more of it when booking through Japan versus American or Alaska. but they also have different tiers of awards that are available at a slightly higher price. So it's much easier to find it for 75,000 miles each way. So I'm, I'm excited about this. think there's a lot of promise here. I think we need to dig a little bit deeper into whether there's going to be promise for using Japan airlines miles to book other one world carriers like American or Alaska. But I got to ding some points for.
this absurd transfer partner ratio and bonus, uh, two to 1.95. It would, I can't do math. I used a calculator. basically means take the number of miles that you have and multiply it by 1.02. See the fact that that's what it comes to is ridiculous. That transfer bonus. So just don't do this stuff guys. Just make it one to one or one to two. Um,
was gonna quiz you.
Speaker 2 (41:53.71)
Or two to one, whatever you have to do. Just make it a clean, even number and stop driving me insane, please.
was gonna quiz you on what 55,000, JAL mileage bank, also not the best name, JAL mileage bank points would be in Capital One, but I won't do that.
think it's 57 and change. And one of the redeeming features of this is unlike every other major bank out there with transferable points currencies, Capital One allows you to dial in your transfers in increments of a hundred, which is really nice. And they also generally speaking will help you calculate exactly how many miles you need to transfer in order to get X number of points. So you're not having to do the math on the fly or pull out your calculator or use a notepad. don't know.
But yeah, it's just annoying. Knock it off, guys.
Okay, one last story also about transferring points. So the tool that you use to move obvious between your accounts just got a whole lot easier. So obvious, you know, as the points currency of British Airways and Aer Lingus and Qatar and Finair and Iberia and more, we'll say moving points between those accounts was probably the defining feature of
Speaker 1 (43:11.47)
The obvious program, the ability to transfer into one program. And then once your points are there, they're not stuck there. You can move them to other obvious programs. The problem is the mechanism for doing that used to be such a pain. We actually had a story on our website, kind of decoding it. And it was lengthy and, honestly, tough to read. Sorry, Peter, you're a great writer, but that was, it's not the most fun thing on our website. They have completely revamped this now, as long as you put all of your
information in for all of your accounts into this new obvious transfer website, you can pretty much freely do these and it's almost instant. It's it's a really slick new tool we played with it. I played with it a little bit. When I wrote up the news. This new website just makes this whole thing a breeze.
I haven't used it myself, but man, this was long overdue. Like you said, the ability to transfer obvious between British Airways and Iberia and Aer Lingus and Finair and Qatar Airways is really unique in the world of points and miles because the cardinal rule of miles is you can't transfer miles from one airline to another. You can transfer credit card points to different airlines, but once they live in an airline account, they are stuck.
And even if you have a partner airline, like you can't transfer Delta Sky Miles to Virgin Atlantic and vice versa. But this relation, this relationship between this group of European airlines, plus Qatar of all airlines breaks that rule. And it's really great, but it was, man, it was a hassle to especially.
You know, have to log into Iberia's site and then try to transfer your Iberia obvious to use them instead through Finair, which meant you had to send them to British Airways first, but oops, that's not working because that website is down half of the time. I mean, it really was just a technological nightmare. Like many of the like British Airways and IAG group airline family websites. So this is a great, great improvement.
Speaker 1 (45:07.842)
Yeah, awesome news. Is that a good catch up? You think everyone's good on the news now?
Let us know at podcast at thriftytraveler.com whether you are sufficiently caught up on the last few weeks of travel news.
Okay Kyle, honestly lost track of who's turn it was to put who on the spot, so I just picked myself to put you on the spot. You alright with that?
I'm also going to demand a recount for this, I think.
Okay. When we first started doing interviews on this podcast, I asked you and John the same simple question. And we thought it would be a recurring one for all of our guests. And it kind of fell off. was simply, tell me about your dog. And considering you have a new suite, albeit temporary family member in the house, tell me about your dog.
Speaker 2 (45:51.106)
Well, we still have Mika who is the light of our lives, but she has a temporary foster brother named Fonzie who is just adorable. He's like comically cute. I have no idea what kind of dog he is. He's probably like part coon hound, part Australian shepherd, part something else. But yeah, he's just an awesome little dude. The only thing he likes more than barking and playing and running around our yard is taking naps. So he'll like...
play for like 30 minutes and then nap for two hours. It's incredible. And he's probably three months old, maybe less, almost completely potty trained and sleeps through the night in his kennel. It's a dream.
Might have to include a photo of Fonzie and yeah, someone come adopt this dog. It's a beautiful, beautiful looking dog that seems to have put a lot of happiness in your home over the last. Okay, Cal, I'd like to do one thing as I close the show here today. And I wanted to take a second to dedicate this episode to my grandma, Catherine Olson. She is grandma Katie to me. She passed away Sunday night at the age of 87. We're all a bit torn up about it.
always.
Speaker 1 (47:01.876)
in the Olsen and Hodgson families, but I've also smiled a ton remembering her lately. She's just a loving matriarch to a huge close-knit family. She wrote and recited a poem at each grandkids' wedding, including a hot air balloon-themed poem at my own wedding that was absolutely beautiful. She was an accomplished botanist among many other pursuits. She had an all-time laugh, and trying to make her laugh was
one of my favorite things to do. She also played no small part in my love of travel. She and my late grandpa would take every cousin of ours to Washington DC when they turned 10 years old, was a family tradition. And what I remember about that trip was just what a dynamo she was. We rented bikes and crisscrossed that city 10 times over in three days. We saw everything that there was to see. And then some, think she just downloaded the DC board of tourism website and we just hit it all. It was.
an unbelievable map if you could have traced our path through that city. We skipped nothing. And I learned a ton at an age where I was not into learning anything at 10 years old. So we flew US Airways from Chicago to DCA on that trip. And on that flight, I remember leafing through the US Airways magazine with my grandma and going to the back page, as I always did in these magazines, to see the route map.
she and my grandpa explaining to me what a hub and spoke network was based on. was like, why do all the flights go to the same three airports? it was just a, a fun memory of, of, my grandma Katie. And anyway, I just wanted to send my love to grandma Katie and the entire Olson and Hodgson family this week. Thanks for letting me do that.
What a special woman. That's amazing. I'm really sorry for you and your entire family's loss, but clearly she has made her mark on you and the rest of your family.
Speaker 1 (48:57.186)
Yeah. Thanks for letting me have the time there. And thank you all so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice, if you would, and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube. We've been having a lot of fun on YouTube and our videos keep getting better and better. Send this episode to someone you know who needs to catch up on the news and who needs to take a vacation. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast at thriftytraveler.com. We would love to hear from you there as well. Kyle, tell us about the team.
This episode was produced by the excellent Erika Kamrauski and your favorite host and proud grandson of grandma Katie Gunnar Olsen. It was edited by David Strutt. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissel. See you next week.
See ya.