Google Flights is making a big move into the points and miles game, United’s CEO’s egotistical comments, Delta’s weird (but arguably best-ever?) credit card offer, and a bevy of new Europe routes all headline a big news roundup to close out the summer. Tune in as Gunnar and Kyle dole out advice about transferring points to Hyatt, analyze the boom in flights to the slopes, look into some puzzling Chase Sapphire Lounge news, and review the Delta One Lounge in Seattle, KLM’s Premium Comfort seats, and Gunnar’s latest glamping adventure!
Google Flights is making a big move into the points and miles game, United’s CEO’s egotistical comments, Delta’s weird (but arguably best-ever?) credit card offer, and a bevy of new Europe routes all headline a big news roundup to close out the summer. Tune in as Gunnar and Kyle dole out advice about transferring points to Hyatt, analyze the boom in flights to the slopes, look into some puzzling Chase Sapphire Lounge news, and review the Delta One Lounge in Seattle, KLM’s Premium Comfort seats, and Gunnar’s latest glamping adventure!
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00:00 - & the winner of our credit card draft is…
02:15 - What’s going on with Gunnar’s voice?
03:10 - Staley welcomes us back from South Africa!
04:20 - Google Flights gets into the points game
08:40 - United’s cardholder discounts: Solid, but no slam dunk
15:20 - Let’s Play: Translate! That! Airline CEO! (ft. United’s Scott Kirby)
22:55 - Delta’s weird (but awesome) credit card offer
27:00 - New route nerd out: Europe flying goes sky high
33:20 - A word from our sponsor, Saily!
34:25 - Will this be the end of pre-departure drinks?
36:40 - Chase drops its only lounge reservation system
38:00 - American’s new (& worse?) premium card
39:05 - Analyzing the flight boom to ski resorts
42:30 - Delta One Lounge Seattle review
44:00 - KLM: Premium Comfort vs. Biz Class
47:05 - Gunnar’s latest glamping adventure
48:45 - The most & least expensive airports for a beer
51:20 - A listener asks: Should you speculatively transfer from Chase to Hyatt?
55:35 - On the spot: The ideal number of travel beers?
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I'm Gunnar Olson, and with me, as always, is the smartest man in points and miles, Kyle Potter. And Kyle, you and our listeners may have noticed I'm a little hoarse for today's- I did notice. Thank you ... record. I do wanna address that, but first, today we have a big news roundup episode. We're gonna go discuss all the new route announcements from American, United, and Alaska. We're gonna play a round of Translate That Airline CEO. Everybody's favorite game show. Everybody's favorite game show, maybe. We don't know. There's no data on that. Uh, we're gonna take a look at a tantalizing new Delta credit card offer and check out Google Flights' entry into the points and miles game, along with some rapid-fire news at the end. But before we do any of that, we need to announce a winner of the five-card travel credit card draft from last week's episode. That's episode 77, for those who haven't listened yet. It was really awesome. The draft ended up really even, I thought, and I think all the listeners agreed, because the numbers are kind of crazy how close this was in the end. Um, but one of you pulled ahead and secured the win. I was up late last night watching Steve Kornacki take in all the vote totals from Wayne County and Macomb County in Michigan. We've got 'em now. We have a winner with 51.5% of the votes. The winner of last week's five-card draft is, it's you, Kyle. How does it feel? It's a relief. I could not have, uh, have stomached losing another draft after losing to you last year in our airline program draft. I will say not a huge margin, still a W. I like to think that if there were some kind of points and miles sicko electoral college, I would ha- I won that more handily than I did the popular vote here. But a win is a win. Good. A win is a win. Remind us what is Nick's punishment now that he has lost? Nick gets to clap when our plane for our company retreat to Mexico City lands in both Mexico City and then back home to Minneapolis, and that is why I'm ... I really, I honestly don't care about winning a draft. I do, however, care very deeply about the indignity of clapping on an airplane, so the fact that this falls to Nick and not me is just the best. Man, I, I can't wait. I'm just trying to think, like, how I could make it even more awkward for him, and my mind is racing. The, the, so the lead in this vote changed a couple of times, and when it was going Nick's way, I was like, "What have I done to myself by challenging Nick with this, uh, punishment?" I can't wait for it. Um, so I guess I'll address my voice. Uh, there are theories out there that tying the fact that I flew through O'Hare three times in the last 10 days- O'Hare will do that to you Yeah, it's, it's the O'Hare flu, I guess, is maybe why my voice is gone. Some are saying it's my daycare-attending daughter that gave me some sort of sickness, and others are even saying that it was the 75 beers I had over the weekend at my best friend's bachelor party. I don't know. Nobody's, nobody can tell. Um, which one- Science is a mystery, you know? Which one of those explanations seems most plausible to you? Uh, I'm gonna go with 75 beers and, uh, related activities to said 75 beers. That seems like the most likely culprit here. Could be, could be a cocktail of things, who knows? It does. It does. All right, today on the show we're talking new Europe routes, a Delta card offer, United and O'Hare. We've got some mini reviews of Delta One lounge at Seattle, KLM, and a glamping adventure with Hyatt points. It's all that and more. Hi, this is Kaylee, and after running into Gunner at the KLM lounge in Amsterdam, my family has spent the last two weeks in Africa. I'm coming to you from the beautiful Savannah Private Game Reserve in Sabi Sands. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Okay, welcoming us back this week was Staley in South Africa. Uh, if you missed it last week, Kyle and Nick spent the open of the show making fun of me after Staley recognized me in the Crown Lounge at Amsterdam Schiphol. Um, I was- uh, when Staley came up behind me, I was taking video of the buffet, which is something that normal people do at lounges. It is a very, yep. Uh, it- Everybody does it ... it is one of the weirdest things that we have to do, is take photos and videos of food, and people think we're crazy for it. But Staley came up behind me and goes, "Are you Gunnar Olson?" I couldn't believe it. It was awesome. Her whole family was there, three generations, on their way to Cape Town for that safari that she just showed us. Um, and man, I floated to my gate after that, after she recognized me. I couldn't have felt cooler. I, I'm well over the legal limit of do you know who I am's since that moment happened. That was, that was special. Staley, thank you for sending in this video. I will forever curse your name for inflating Gunnar's ego. All right, let's get to the news. Uh, Kyle, we both initially wrote this story off as kind of a nothing burger, and then I think we a- we all came to our senses about it, too. The news is about Google Flights, namely that this, the best airfare search engine on Earth, is starting to show you the cost of flights or hotels in points and miles. But it's only in AI mode right now. So that's kinda where it lost us, because one, I don't get a ton of value from the AI mo- I- AI mode because I am a Google Flights super user already. Uh, but two, it's only American and Alaska award fares right now, plus Choice, Hilton, and Wyndham for hotels. But Google says it's adding Flying Blue, Lufthansa Group, LATAM, and Accor Hotels in the coming weeks. So what made you decide that this is actually big news and not a nothing burger? I think on its face, just with where things are starting, A, only in AI mode, two, only with two airlines- Mm-hmm ... and a pair of hotel chains. It, it isn't much. But this is Google we're talking about. This is Google deciding that it's going to get into award fare inventory, and this is a company that not just inar- it inarguably owns the internet. It will do what it wants to do, so if they have decided, "You know what? We're gonna get into this points game," it is not going to stop with adding Fl- Flying Blue, and Hyatt, and other programs. As long as this goes well, and I have no reason to think that it won't This is going to continue, which is going to have some, I think, pretty drastic ramifications, both good and bad, for how we all find award fares and find the best deals using our credit card points or airline miles or hotel points. Yeah, I think, you know, my mind is racing just the fact that all the airlines are probably gonna have to be here at some point because they wanna be competitive. And then once they're listing what their rates are, I mean, think about the airlines like Delta who have historically had higher rates on various flights than other airlines. Does Delta wanna get beat on price every single time on every single flight? Maybe they have to lower some rates. That's a really good point. Uh, that, it- we're truly thinking long game here. Yeah. But this is, this is where I think this is truly important. You know, right now it is a very imperfect system because there's only two major airlines participating. The rates, uh, what the data that they pull in can be, um, flawed in some cases, but this is, you know, the first prologue of a very long story that's gonna play out over the coming weeks, months, and years as long as Google continues doing this. And, you know, I think there is an element of this where, you know, airlines may decide that they need to compete on price with this stuff, to the point you made, because, you know, sites like Google Flights have in some ways, I think, forced airlines to compete on price because there is a marketplace that you can go to, to not just go to delta.com or aa.com, but see every airline's fares and pick the deal that works best for you. If they suddenly have to do this with award flights, I think there's an interesting element there that there will be more competition on award fares. The flip side of that is if you think that tools like Seats.aero and Points Path and Point.me and PointsYeah and services like ours and others have played a part in making it easier to find the best deals and get outsized value from your points, and therefore encouraged airlines to raise award rates and raise taxes and fees and make it harder to book these things, this is Google we're talking about with billions of users. And not all, you know, two, three, four billion of them that are using these kinds of services are gonna be booking flights with points, but there's gonna be a whole lot more than any of these existing services can ever capture that w- could in the future go to Google to find the flights to book with their miles, which means there would be even more incentive to control those costs on the airlines' behalf, which means more of the devaluations, more of the sweet spots getting closed that we've been talking about for the last, you know, going on two years on this podcast. Yeah, for sure. It's worth noting that the Seats.aero and Points Path e- extensions for Google Flights are still way more powerful than what Google is offering right now, but like you said, it's Google, it might only be a matter of time. But, um, right now we'd recommend either of those two, uh, extensions to get the job done for what you're looking for right now as well. Uh, let's move on to some United cardholder discount data. For years, United has given cardholders and flyers with MileagePlus status expanded award availability, and now they've taken that to the next level. There are bigger discounts, additional discounts, and they bring business class awards to Europe from 200,000 miles each way to as low as 72,000 miles each way. United, unlike or like other airlines, has gotten much stingier with allowing its partners like Air Canada Aeroplan or ANA Mileage Club to book Polaris business class seats. That's how I've done it in the past, and that option pretty much no longer exists. Does not exist anymore, period. Yeah, so these cardholder discounts have become the way to book United bus- business class if you want to, uh, which brings us to a question. How easy or hard is it to actually find these discounted seats? Are they pretty widespread? So this is, this is where this conversation started in, in the office. Um, it's just trying to quantify how good are these deals, how readily available are they, and how should that then shape how people think about United credit cards if you would never even dream of picking up a United Explorer or United Quest card. And, you know, we have to give some credit to the guys at Frequent Miler who were the first to kinda go through the wall on this and look at this, and they determined that there are, there is some amazing availability, as they put it, that, um, you know, people who either have a United credit card or have status with the airline see far, far more Saver Award availability in the neighborhood of s- 80 to 72,000 miles each way for Polaris business class to Europe than any everyday United flier like you and I. Both of-- neither of us have United status nor a credit card. And that is true, but we wanted to figure out not just how much better is it for credit card holders, but how great is that award space. So we did a ton of analysis using seats.aero, um, and analyzing the data that pulls for just how often these kinds of discounted awards are available to cardholders and travelers with status, and the answer is it's pretty nuanced. It is a lot better than you, than you and I get as everyday United fliers. It is still not great. The big picture number is just 5.4%. At the time when we looked at this in late August is when we pulled that data. 5.4% of flights globally to Europe, to South America, to Asia and Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Oceania, whatever you wanna call it, 5.4% were bookable at these discounted cardholder-only rates. So this is not floodgates are open. You still have to be incredibly selective. And some of the other things we found was, you know, how you can be more selective to find more of these awards. Yeah, so, um, is there anywhere you should target if you wanna find some of that 5.4%? I mean, the, the big, maybe the single biggest takeaway is that you have far, far better odds flying home from Europe or Asia or Australia than you do flying to any of those destinations from the U.S. The availability is just so much greater. Globally, you're t- two times as likely to find a Polaris, a discounted Polaris business class award. F- coming home from Europe, you are three times more likely to find these Polaris business class awards at 72,000 miles, somewhere in that neighborhood, than you are from the United States to Europe. And most importantly, London is, like, the biggest outlier in all of this. The flight from L- uh, London back to Newark in Polaris business class is 50%. You, it's a coin flip as to whether you can find that, whereas on some other routes it's like 1% or less. And London as a whole, whether you're talking about to N- to Newark, to Chicago, from Chicago to London, a handful of other routes, 20% of all of the d- these discounted exclusive business class awards are to and from London. It's crazy how much that one stands out. What about, uh, any guidance on the calendar, uh, the time of the year when you're able to find any of these discounted awards? I, I mean, again, it's not like you're gonna pull up a calendar and you're gonna see them everywhere. You really need to be selective, and naturally that's gonna mean off-peak travel. Uh, so, you know, to and from Europe, the, the most likely, the most prevalent time you're gonna find these deals is in January and February. Is that exactly when you wanna go? It might not be. Should you anyway? I mean, if you have the United miles and you have, uh, status or one of these credit cards, these are some pretty good deals that you're not gonna find, in many cases, through any other airlines. And then the other one is, um, off-peak days, too. I mean, it's like the pinnacle of all things cheap travel, the cheapest days to fly. Not the cheapest days to book, but to actually put your butt in that seat, Tuesday, Wednesday, and to a lesser extent Thursday. Exact same thing carries over here to these, to the point that 50% of all of these discounted exclusive awards are flying on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On like a Sunday, it's below 5%. Yeah. Okay. Um- That sounds pretty restrictive to me, and probably does to a lot of people, too. Is it worth it to pick up a United card just to get 5.4% of international long-haul routes, the ability to book Polaris for that cheap? Well, I think this is why this research a- and analysis is important is because it depends on how you travel. Can you be this flexible? Can you really bank on flying home from Europe or f- from home from Australia instead of starting your trip that way in United Polaris business class, and you know you can find a different way to get where you're starting your trip? Then probably. Can you, you know, structure your travel so that you're traveling during off-peak times and increase the odds that you're gonna find one of these great deals? Then yes. Can you fly on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or a Thursday when you are far, far, far more likely to find one of these 72,000-mile business class awards in Polaris? Then yes. If you can't, it's probably not. And again, that's why this is important, is it's not wide open you're gonna be able to book everything. And then the final thing I'd add is this could all change. I mean, this is based on a snapshot of award availability in late August when we pulled this data. In a couple of months, maybe even a couple of weeks, this could all change for the better or the worse. So this is probably something we're gonna have to revisit, but for now, I think if all of these very important caveats fit you and your travels, even if you're not a loyal United flyer, it might be worth picking one of these cards up, at least one of the cheaper ones. Yeah. If you're interested in this data, we have a lot more of it on our website, along with some guidance there. But, um, you know, if Scott Kirby, if you're listening, maybe open up some more availability and let us know. We'll run this analysis again, no problem. I'm sure Scott Kirby is listening to this. I hope he is. And if he is, he's gonna love this next segment, Kyle. The aforementioned Kirby, he's the CEO of United Airlines, made some interesting comments about the airline's home airport of Chicago O'Hare, ever heard of it, to a group of Chicago business leaders last week that made some headlines. Um, so before we're gonna do a little translate that airline CEO, uh, there seems to be an intense, passionate love affair for Scott Kirby among the, uh, the airline media that I don't quite understand. Can you explain to me why this guy's so beloved? I can't. I don't, I think lionizing any CEO, let alone a Fortune 100 company, is just a really strange thing. No question, he deserves a ton of credit for turning United around. When he took the reins at United bef- uh, during the middle of the pandemic, during the worst of the pandemic, United was in a much different place than it is today. That airline has some serious swagger. It's doing some really cool things. It has improved in almost every metric. Is it the best in the United States? I don't know, but it is a question now, and it wasn't six years ago. So I think that alone deserves some credit, but is he a hero? Um, should there be, like, fan pages for Scott Kirby? No, there shouldn't be fan pages for anybody. Okay. Uh, let's go back in time a week. Just picture this, Kyle. You're sitting at the Crain's Chicago Business Power Breakfast. Is there anywhere else you'd wa- rather be? Just what a, what a lovely morning. In a prison in Chicago. It sounds like my version of a prison. So you're, you're halfway through your, uh, cinnamon French toast and, and you're having a little macchiato as you're want- as you're known to do. Kirby starts doing his favorite thing up on stage. He's bullying American Airlines. So here's the first quote from Kirby that needs translation. Quote, "In the 12 months into Q1, American lost $1.1 billion in Chicago. That number is going to be bigger for the full year because that's before their growth push started them and before oil prices went up. You can't do that in the long run, but you can do it in the short term." Translate. American is Scott Kirby's favorite punching bag. That is because American was Scott Kirby's former employer. American bounced him in favor of who eventually became the CEO of American. That put Scott Kirby over to United, eventually in the CEO chair, and he has basically been on a vengeance path ever since, it seems like. And it seems like one of his major goals, one of United's major goals, is just to dominate and frankly own Chicago O'Hare. Why anybody would wanna own that airport is anybody's guess. You tell me. But this is what he has been doing. He's basically been wish-casting to say American Airlines is gonna put itself out of business by competing in Chicago. You should fly with United instead. We can do so much more for you. And part of how they're doing that is making this case that they are losing gobs of money. They probably are. And you know what? As a result of this competition between the two, United is probably losing a little bit of money in Chicago too, or maybe they're, like, barely breaking even. Is American Airlines losing a billion dollars a year? Not a chance, because the only way for anybody to figure this out is just by looking at the kinds of fares that they charge, the revenue that they're pulling in from Chicago, and doing some back-of-the-napkin math. And if you only look at that, you might be able to come up with $1 billion, but that doesn't count ancillary fees like seats, seat selection, and bags, and most importantly, it doesn't count the credit card revenue that they get for Chicago flyers who have an American Airlines credit card, and there are probably millions of them, that they are making far more money than they would ever make flying Chicago residents to and from O'Hare. Those two things alone just make this a, an absolutely worthless argument. Yeah, I mean, look, wish-casting the demise of your rival is totally fine, especially if they ousted you and now you're triumphantly returning to try and go take them over. But I think this is just, this number doesn't make any sense. You know what? I love a good troll. I, I am here for it, but I don't think that, you know, publicly traded airlines should engage in that level of trolling where you're just kinda throwing around numbers. Honestly, that trolling piece, I just, I mean, that's almost just kinda funny to me. This is where it kinda gets less funny and gets very annoying and becomes a problem for consumers. So here's the next quote. He said, quote, "United's presence in Chicago should be bigger, but United needs to be at 1,000 flights a day to make that happen." And the third quote that he has alongside that is pretty much tied to this, he says, quote, "I have a list of 15 new long-haul international destinations," end quote. That's what he teased the power breakfast with that morning. So much- How do you translate these two? So much power in that room. I think this is how he is trying to make the case, which is ridiculous and should be dismissed out of hand, that it is in the public's interest, that is, it, it is in Chicago's interest for United to have a fortress hub in Chicago, that with American out of the picture, they can add so many flights because there are gonna be more gates for United to use to add flights to destinations near and far that aren't currently served. And he apparently also made a point that, sure, would, would cheap fares suffer as a result of American no longer competing in Chicago? They might. Spoiler alert, they absolutely will. We know how important that kind of competition is for keeping fares down. But he made the case that especially for business leaders who eat at things called power breakfasts, what they really care about is not cheaper fares. What they care about is more nonstop service, which may be true But that doesn't mean that we need to entertain it because it is, it is not in the consumer's interest to have yet another fortress hub in the United States, to have one of the few airports in the country, one of the biggest airports in the country, have very intense competition between two airlines benefits absolutely everybody. And if Chicago becomes another Atlanta or Dallas-Fort Worth or Salt Lake City or Charlotte, that is not good. It's good for United, and you know what? Scott Kirby is, should, that's, this is what he should do. He should make the case for what is good for his airline. That doesn't mean that we should believe him and the things that he says. Yeah. Right. I mean, simply he and I and the people who attend a power breakfast, uh, we have never had a power breakfast. Should we start having power breakfasts? Yeah. Thrifty Traveler power breakfast, join us. Holiday Inn Express near the airport. We're all just gonna go into the free buffet. Um, all right, so here, this is the big point, right? Why are people rooting for him to do this? This is, it comes back to my point at the beginning, like he seems to have a lot of people who adore him as an executive. How you could adore an executive, I don't understand, but people really want him to do this it seems. Why? I, uh, y- I can't fathom it either. I think it's a bandwagon. I think people understand momentum, and they wanna hop on the bandwagon that has gained momentum, and no question that is United. And he has all of these huge visions of becoming the Emirates of the United States and becoming the United States' true global carrier. And again, you know, that is good for United, but having one true global carrier comes at the expense of everything else in the United States, which means that everyday consumers here in the United States end up paying the price for those visions, which is why I think they should be dismissed. You're never getting invited to the power breakfast ever again. Well, we've always got the Holiday Inn. All right, here's our next story. Credit card offers usually follow somewhat of the same format, right? You spend some money. You earn a big chunk of points. We call it a day. That's why this newest card offer from Delta kinda had me taken aback at first and now has me wondering if this is the best card offer I've ever seen, especially if you need to fly over the holidays this year. Let me explain. Here are the terms. If you apply for Delta's highest Delta SkyMiles Reserve American Express card through November 4th, you can earn a two-part welcome bonus when you spend $10,000 in the first six months. So it's not nothing as far as spending, but this is a really good bonus. One, you get a bonus of 50,000 SkyMiles. Pretty paltry compared to the about 100,000 we usually see on the elevated bonuses. But the second one is you earn two round-trip tickets in Delta Comfort to anywhere in the mainland US, excluding Hawaii and Alaska, but including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Uh, isn't this a crazy good value? What's going on here? So we, we got wind of this last week, and I assumed that this would have to have so many catches, so many fare restrictions or limits on how these certificates for comf- roundtrip comfort tickets can be redeemed, that it would just be far less valuable. And the honest answer is it's not. It's what it seems like. This could be as valuable as you want it to be, which is crazy. I mean, you know, even Delta companion certificates, which you get starting your second year with the Delta Reserve card, have all of these catches about only select fare classes can be booked, which means that when people go to redeem them, they often will find no flights that are available, period. So you can't use them. That is not the case here. There are, like, shockingly few restrictions around this. Most importantly, there's no limit on the value of the ticket that you use this for. The only real limits are, like you said, it's gotta be within the mainland US, not Alaska and Hawaii, but it includes Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, so, you know, if you're talking about a trip, you know, this winter to the Caribbean, that is suddenly in the cards just with this card. Uh, you can't book within 21 days of a departure, so last minute stuff is out the window, but there's plenty of time to use this. These are valid for travel all the way through January 15th of 2028, so you, depending on when you earn them, you've got more than a year to redeem these. Uh, you don't earn SkyMiles or credits toward Medallion status. That's a bummer, but the value that you could get from these, I mean, if you do think about those kinds of holiday trips, and you know you're staring down an expensive trip home for Thanksgiving or Christmas or both There's an easy path to $2,000 in value here just from these alone. Yeah, at least. Like, if you wanna fly, I mean, Christmas is over a weekend this year. I mean, prices are gonna be really expensive to fly over Christmas this year, I suspect. Um, if you wanna just fly on the exact dates that you want in comfort, I mean, it's a, it's a really, really awesome value. This is your home for the holidays card. If you don't have this already, and you need flights home for the holidays, I, I wouldn't think twice. Um, this is a really good offer if you can hit that high spend. It's $10,000 in six months, which, uh, some people won't bat an eye at, and for a lot of people is a lot. So make sure you're doing the math on if you can hit the spending bonus. But, um, yeah. I mean, those two- think about this. You're missing out on 50,000 SkyMiles in what you would otherwise get with a S- SkyMiles reserve card bonus, but two round-trip tickets in comfort over the holidays are gonna be way north of 50,000 SkyMiles. I think the value here is undeniable. Anything else on this card? You know what? It's a, it's got a steep annual fee at, I think, $650 a year. That is certainly not nothing. This is, generally speaking, not the right card for Delta's flyers to start with, and in some cases, not the right card for Delta flyers to get period. This offer, I think, changes that math a lot. I think this is worth a hard look if you have some expensive travel coming up over the next, you know, six to nine months. Okay. Um, Kyle, thank you for allowing me to do this next story. It's a new route nerd-out, and I can't wait to talk about it. You were born to do this. Uh, so usually we don't start getting the new Europe route announcements until about October. Uh, but this year, the airlines have gotten ahead of themselves and started announcing their 2027 nones already. Last week, you discussed, uh, the new United routes to Luxembourg, Slovenia, Marseille, Sardinia, Sicily, Ibiza, Valencia, and Terceira. Is that how you say that? Sure. Whew. I should look that up. Don't ask us. Uh, also the flight to Toulouse, which, uh, our editor Kyle Thomas noted is gonna have the flight number 222, 222 to Toulouse. Amazing. Airlines love doing that stuff. Great job. Uh, just a few days later, American came in with some intriguing stuff of its own, launched, resumed service to Reykjavik, swapping its Dallas route that ran for a few years back in 2018 with a Philadelphia flight. Also from Philadelphia, Porto, Portugal, and Vienna, Austria as brand-new destinations, and then new routes from Charlotte to Barcelona, JFK to Amsterdam, and JFK to Nice. And that all came after Alaska already announced its new service from Seattle to Paris and Athens to complement its Iceland, London, and Rome flights for next summer too. So first of all, Kyle, anything jump out at you from American? You already had your chance to react to United. You know, I, I think it's interesting and fun what both, uh, United and American are doing with narrow body planes. Uh, that in- to be able to fly to destinations that they wouldn't fly, you know, a big wide body triple seven or 787 Dreamliner like Vienna from Philadelphia, like Porto Is fun. I, I think that's what we should all want as airlines continually expand into Europe. Do, do we need another nonstop to London or Paris? Probably not. You know, being able to fly nonstop to Slovenia or, you know, northern Portugal, Vienna, Austria, destinations that aren't as nearly well-served as many others, I think is a, is a really fun piece of this. Yeah, I agree. These are really exciting. So I decided to dig into some of the numbers, Kyle, 'cause it seems like there is a crazy number of new destinations to Europe when you start putting pins that small on the map. It got me really interested. Um, so I dug into the Cirium data, I added all of these new destinations for 2027, and I found that the big three US airlines, so I'm just looking at Delta, American, and United, are all currently scheduled to operate nonstop flights to 50 different European cities in 2027. Name them. Go. I will not. Uh, okay, so that is 15 more destinations than 2019, so pre-pandemic. Um, that's also assuming there are no route cuts this year. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe we saw one pin fall off the map, maybe two, depending on what airlines have been doing. They've been taking some big swings, so you never know what works and what doesn't. Um, it's not only more destinations. Uh, between 2019 and this summer, there was a 21% rise in available seat miles. That's the best metric that we have to determine airline capacity, and a 17% increase in just the number of flights, too. And remember, Delta's new routes aren't even announced yet. They're, they're probably still sticking to that October timeline. Who knows what they're cooking up. Uh, what do you make of this explosion in not just Europe flights, but Europe destinations? I, I, again, I go back to the point I just made. I think it's really cool that we're not just adding, you know, big trunk routes with another frequency to London or Paris or Amsterdam or Frankfurt, that we're getting to nonstop destinations on smaller Spanish islands and, and second and in some even ca- in some cases even third-tier cities in Europe that people want to go to but would have to take a handful of connections and/or a train ride in order to get there. So this is r- this is really fun. This is exactly what I would want to see airlines do. I, on the one hand, I hope Delta does some of this. On the other hand, I don't think we're gonna see much from Delta to Europe for next summer because they've already said that u- they feel a little bit tapped out on Europe. So we might see one or two things, but I don't, I don't think we're gonna see anything nearly as splashy as what both American and United have done to Europe for next summer. And two, Delta doesn't have any of these narrow-body planes that they both do. So they don't, they don't have the right plane to fly into some of these much smaller but still popular cities that the others do. Yeah, this A321XLR is, is really a fun plane and a game changer, and the only reason why you can fly nonstop to Uh, Ibiza and Toulouse, right? Like, you need something that small because you just don't have the full demand to fly a big wide-body plane over there all the time. Um, we have this A321XLR flying to Vienna and Porto for American. It's Valencia, Ibiza, Toulouse, and Luxembourg for United. So those are all things that they're trying that are really exciting, and this plane makes it possible. So I have a question here from Mike Villafana who, who reached out to us. He said, "With all the new mainly US to Europe seasonal routes for 2027 using planes that are single aisle, can us listeners and viewers get your opinion on whether you would seek out a seven to nine-hour nonstop flight in economy class to your destination instead of enduring at least one connection?" I think what Mike's getting at here is some people don't like the idea of being in a plane that small for that long. I have no qualms with it. What, what are your thoughts? I don't care. Yeah. A, a seat is a seat. The seats on these narrow body planes are as good as, if not better than the seats on, you know, triple sevens where, you know, some of these airlines have, what, 10 seats across in some cases, um, on Dreamliners and nine seats across, which is just really cramped. And if you are in three-three in economy, it's like a domestic flight. Are those domestic flights great? Not always, but they're okay. You get through them, you get where you need to go, and if where you need to go or where you want to go is somewhere like, um, Porto or Vienna or one of the Spanish islands that you really wanna go to, being able to do that nonstop I think beats anything else. I think the concern about flying a narrow body overseas is just so overblown. Yeah. Okay. Um, thanks for allowing me the new route nerd-out. Uh, we have more to get to. We're gonna review some business class seats, a Hyatt glamping campsite, and we're gonna rapid fire some other news, but first we're gonna take a quick break Okay, it is time for the rapid fire section. Uh, it's brought to you this week by our awesome Extra Mile newsletter. It hits your inboxes every weekday morning, giving you the latest travel news and some really fun deep dives that we've had recently too. Sign up today at thriftytraveler.com/extramile. All right, first one, Kyle. New FAA guidelines that go into effect September 1st will require flight crews to collect all airline-provided service items, such as plastic cups, prior to the airplane pushing back. Does that mean that pre-departure drink service in first and business class is dead effectively? Maybe. I mean, here's the thing. It, I think it was already hit or miss to begin with, just based on when catering was loaded, how boarding was going when that started. This would be, like, the first thing to get cut, and this is just another reason for flight attendants to not bother with it. Do I care? I mean, not really. It is a bummer though, I think especially for people who are paying hundreds if not $1,000 or more for a domestic first class ticket to not even be able to get a cup of coffee. And it's also pretty silly that you can't get a cup of coffee and drink it after pushback, but you can bring Starbucks on board and continue drinking it after pushback. I'm not sure what problem is being solved here. I, it's not a huge problem anyway. You guys made the point in the Extra Mile that made me laugh. I actually had this on, on Sunday morning, uh, flying back from Chicago. I was in AA first class, and I got a little pre-departure coffee. They took it from me before pushback, but I was in the bulkhead, so I had to put everything up top, so I brought my water bottle into the seat with me. My Stanley water bottle, when it's filled with ice water, is approximately 10 pounds, and it is a blunt instrument capable of horrible, horrible things. Hey, you know what? Careful what you say on this podcast. People, people do listen. I know, but I'm saying, like, the, the fact that I'm allowed to bring this Stanley water bottle, which could kill somebody, into the cabin, but they have to take my little plastic cup of water away from me because it's a safety issue is kinda ridiculous. But either way, I mean, they're, the airlines are all excited about this probably. It gives them another chance to cut a little bit more cost. I, I'm sure there are still going to be pre-departure drinks on first class flights in the United States. There will absolutely be fewer of them going forward as a result of this. Okay, let's move on. Uh, Chase quietly got rid of advanced reservations for its Phoenix Sapphire Lounge last week, which it used to be really critical because that space was really, really small. Um, why are they getting rid of advanced reservations? People liked this, right? People like this. Uh, Jackson on our team was the first to notice that this had gone away, that Chase posted that as of September 1st it's no longer available I, to me, the problem is not just Phoenix, which is tiny. Phoenix is getting expanded. It's going to double in size, which is probably part of the reason why this is going away. But even doubling in size, it's like 7,000 square feet, still one of the smaller airport lounges in the country, at least among, you know, the big banks like Chase, Amex, and Capital One. So not only does Chase need this in Phoenix, Chase needs it everywhere. What they should be doing is rolling out this kind of a digital wait list to all of their now 10 plus lounges nationwide, not pulling it from the one that has it. When both Capital One and American Express have had digital wait lists for years and Chase is removing the single lounge that has it, I just don't understand this move. Yeah, weird, weird step backwards. I don't have anything else to add on that one. Can we move on to the refreshed Citi AAdvantage Executive Card, now offering its highest ever bonus, 125,000 AAdvantage miles after you spend 15,000, ooh, in five months. The card's annual fee just jumped to $695 a year, but new perks have also been added. There's a $500 AA Vacations Club credit doled out in two $250 bits, a $100 in-lounge Admirals Club credits, and then Omni Resorts status and an Omni Resorts free night, and there's some other perks in there, too. Interested in this card offer? Not even a tiny bit. Yeah. Uh, even before this, a- among the premium airline credit cards that cost, you know, anywhere from $350 to almost $700, American's was the lowest in the totem pole for me, and it just went even lower. I don't need more of these credits. I certainly don't need a $700 annual fee. Pass. Yeah. What is a $100 in-lounge credit even for? Is, is that just, like, premium drinks? Probably I guess, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. All right, uh, can I do something super self-indulgent? It wouldn't be the first time. It would not. Um, I did another big Cirium analysis this week, uh, after I saw a tweet from Peter Landsman. He's the creator of the website LiftBlog, which covers the ski industry with a very specific focus on lifts. Fun fact, he actually rode and documented every single lift in North America, every chairlift, including, like, the two at the Minnesota State Fair. This guy has seen it all in terms of basically public transport in the air. It's kinda crazy. We should, we should do a power breakfast with him and not Scott Kirby. Exactly, just the three of us. Yeah. You, me, and Peter Landsman. Um, Peter caught my attention 'cause he pointed out on Twitter that you can fly nonstop to Jackson Hole, Wyoming this winter from 14 US cities, a crazy high number to a town of 10,000 permanent residents, uh, to the awesome small airport, the only airport in the country in a national park. Fun fact. Uh, since 2018, Jackson Hole Airport has seen a 2,000% increase in available seat miles. That's 20 times as much capacity as 2018. So I did the same analysis to include a bunch of other comparable ski towns. I looked at, like, Aspen, Bozeman, Vail, Steamboat, Sun Valley, and more. I avoided the hubs like Denver and Salt Lake and Seattle, and found that in the same time period, those airports also saw 17 times as much capacity as 2018. So Kyle, my question is, did everybody suddenly adopt my favorite hobby of skiing all at once, or is skiing just bougie and airlines like bougie people? Yeah, you're not special anymore. I, I think it's more of the latter. I- Well, I think it's two things. I think that this fits in pretty well with the premium travel boom That wealthy people are wealthier, have more money, and are more willing to spend that on travel, and so going to places like Jackson Hole, not the cheapest place in the world by any stretch, or Park City or wherever to spend, you know, three, $400 a day on lift tickets is getting them there nonstop is a good way to get their money the first time and get their repeat business. And two, you know, it also fits within the expansion over to Europe, which is that airlines gotta grow to make more money. Airlines have a mandate to make more money. In order to do that, they have to grow. In order to grow, they have to add new service, and that means that they have to start adding nonstops to destinations that they would previously only serve by connecting through, like, Salt Lake or Denver or Seattle. So this is what we see. We see more nonstops to second- and third-tier cities in Europe, and we see the same thing here in the States. Yeah, and especially, you know, those, some of those same planes flying to the secondary, tertiary cities in Europe are just being flipped around and flown in the winter season when things are usually pretty quiet for airlines anyway. Right. So you've seen some of that where, like, JetBlue a few years ago was putting its Mint product on its flights from JFK and Boston to Bozeman. You know, flying a business class product into Bozeman twice a week for ski season is pretty wild until you think, "What else are you doing with that plane?" Right. Yeah. It's pretty exciting. Um, uh, I mean, in, in, in general, the ski industry is just out of control. Uh, Beaver Creek launched a $392 single-day lift ticket dur- dur- over the holidays for this year. Um, I mean, the price gouging at ski resorts is out of this world, and the airlines probably are seeing a little bit of that and being like, "Hey, we wanna do some price gouging, too. Let us in. We -- Let's be a part of it." Okay, let's go to the next story. Do you wanna hear the laziest question I've ever asked on this podcast, Kyle? The bar is low. Kyle, Delta One Seattle lounge, thoughts? I am pro the Delta One Seattle Lounge. How's that for a lazy answer? Good. All right, moving on. No- ... go ahead. What- It's- What'd you like about it? It's good. I- it is kind of weird. I think l- Delta One Lounge, these business class lounges, calling it a lounge is a little bit of a misnomer. It's really more of a restaurant. Basically, the entire footprint of 10,000-some square feet is dedicated just to à la carte dining, which is not a bad thing. It is a little bit like when I first got there, I was staring down, like, a nine-hour connection, and I'm like, "Man, I'm looking at nine hours of eating here. I don't know that that's what I want. I would really like a place to sit or even sleep during this layover." Fortunately, amazing agent as soon as I walked in. Asked for help trying to get booked on a different departure so that there was, like, a three-hour connection instead. Happened within about 45 seconds. Can't say enough about that guy or the service as a whole. Really lovely. Very importantly, you can't... It's not just that you visit it flying Delta one from Seattle to Europe or to Asia, you can also do it in reverse. So I was flying from Tokyo back to Seattle. Cleared customs and i- immigration. Their customs and immigration hall in Seattle is maybe the single best in at least the United States, if not the world. I did not stop walking, and it's beautiful, but then went back through security and made my way to the Delta One Lounge no problem with that Delta One boarding pass from earlier in the day. Nice. Awesome. So you'd visit again? Yes. Again, I am pro the Delta One Lounge in Seattle. Okay, how about the second laziest question? Uh, Kyle, ask me about my KLM trip. That's not a question, Gunner. No, it's not. And yours wasn't either. Tell me about your KLM trip, Gunner. Wow, okay. Um, yeah, my KLM trip was really nice. Thank you. Uh, last week I flew both KLM Premium Comfort and KLM business class to and from Amsterdam. I tested out both products. That's where I ran into Staley on the way home. Uh, my KLM Premium Comfort review is live on the website. I think the business class review should be up by the time you hear this, too. Uh, plus, we're gonna put both on YouTube eventually as well in the coming weeks. Um, check out both reviews for my nuts and bolts. But my big takeaway is KLM Premium Comfort is a truly world-class premium economy product. I've flown several of them. I found KLM's business class to be a little lackluster compared to some of the business classes I've flown. Uh, Premium Comfort, it, the seat is wide, it's spacious, and it's pretty high-tech, like, uh, USB-C chargers. And, um, you know, the, the p- Basically, I found the experience to be kind of, uh, punching above its weight for what you'd expect from KLM, and especially for a 40,000-point redemption. The taxes and fees are a little higher, and of course, these fares are now changing. Uh, you have a couple more days to book the, the old fares before, uh, they change to, like, a three-tiered pricing structure. But considering that the business class seat on the 787 was a little weathered, I, I mean, I would not balk at flying Premium Comfort both ways again next time. Um, business class, of course, is still gonna be way better if you need to lay down, if you really want that sleep. But for those short flights to Amsterdam, especially if you're in the Midwest or on the East Coast, uh, I would not balk at Premium Comfort. It's really nice. Would you say that just about KLM using, you know, KLM's business class, which you found just, like, wasn't top of the, top of the class, right? So does that apply just to- KLM business class or does that apply to any transatlantic flight from the Midwest or East Coast? I would say the, the, the gap is narrowed with KLM just 'cause the premium comfort is so nice. Mm-hmm. And I, I would definitely say that not all premium economies are equal and not all of the business classes are equal, so it'll probably vary. But I mean, like, the difference for instance between, like, Condor premium economy which, you know, is basically just an extra legroom seat and Condor business class which is so nice and fancy on those A330-900neos, uh, I mean, that gap is huge. And then the KLM gap I think has just tightened a little bit. Yeah. So if the price is, you know, if it's enough for you to get a round trip in, in premium comfort and that's all you can afford, you're still doing really well when you fly KLM. Are there any other airlines that, where you feel like the gap is close enough that it's worth just saving the miles and flying premium economy? I didn't get to fly Singapore business class, but Singapore premium economy impressed me so much that I, I would, you know, I would definitely consider flying that almost anywhere. Um, of course, if you're flying all the way to Singapore, maybe you want the extra room. I don't know. Yeah. But I, I think KLM was the first time where I really felt like, you know, the, the gap is, is pretty narrow there, so. I really liked the seat. I'd recommend it to anybody. Um, Kyle, ask me about the Fields of Michigan. Gunnar, what are the Fields of Michigan? Oh, wow, thanks for asking. Um, you've been so interested in my travels today. I really feel like our friendship is forming. Uh, the Fields of Michigan, it's an independent glamping outfit that I tried out with my family. Uh, it's in Western Michigan. It's a ... All right, let's, let's link these together here, flowchart this. It is a partner of the glamping brand Under Canvas, which is- But not Un- Un- But not Under Canvas But it is not Under Canvas. Sure. Un- Which is, through the Under Canvas partnership, a part of Mr. and Mrs. Smith hotels that are now bookable with World of Hyatt points. Nobody said this job was gonna be easy. Guys, this stuff is getting out of hand. Just, like, make some deals and make our lives easier, please. I know. Um, so we, we went to this place, uh, for our anniversary. My wife and I love glamping. We got married at Under Canvas Glacier, uh, so every anniversary we try and go glamping somewhere, and this place was in the Midwest. It was close to a family home we had in Michigan, so we parlayed it into a little trip. It was awesome. We snagged two nights here for 20,000 World of Hyatt points per night. Uh, that was two weekends ago now that we stayed there. Um, it's not, like, the craziest value you're gonna get from your Hyatt points, but it's really fun. It's really unique. Um- What's different is, is that this place was just like a little blueberry farm about five minutes from the beach in Michigan. It was insanely wholesome, but this place was really cool. I highly recommend it, especially just like a little getaway if you're in the Midwest and you can drive there or take a short flight. It was really cool. The Fields of Michigan is what it's called. I would go again for sure. Um- Thanks for telling me about your travels this week, Tim. Yeah, of course. Uh, I added an emergency last thing to our rundown here, Kyle, and that is because I just got a press release that we need to talk about. Uh, the data experts at playcasino.com, no idea if this is a reputable joint, but I'm gonna go ahead with this anyway. Uh- Just quick disclaimer, we are not to be held responsible for any things that happen to you after visiting the website playcasino.com. Yeah. Honestly, I wouldn't. Uh, they compared the latest available airport menu averages for a regular-sized domestic beer at the 50 busiest US airports, and the results reveal a $7.42 difference between the most expensive and the cheapest airports. Uh, Kyle, of the 10 most expensive US airports to have a domestic beer at, what do you think is at the top? Uh, San Francisco San Francisco is number two. The top spot is LaGuardia. The average cost of a domestic beer there is $13.83. San Francisco comes in at 12.61. How many ou- Are we talking 16 ounces? It said a... I think it just said a regular-sized domestic beer, so. Okay, and so for the 75 beers you drank last weekend- ... how much money would you have spent at LaGuardia? I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Uh, LaGuardia prices are enough to make me go sober on my travels. Uh, Dallas, JFK, Honolulu, Seattle, Vegas, O'Hare, Newark, and Austin round out the top 10 there. What do you think is the cheapest US airport for a beer? These are major airports. Yeah. Uh, prob- like Providence, Rhode Island, or somewhere in, somewhere in the South. Okay, Providence not on the list, um, but Salt Lake City- Huh ... is gonna top the list, $6.41, which means that two beers at Salt Lake is less than one beer at LaGuardia, which is offensive. Supply and demand. We also have Portland. We have Fort Myers. We have New Orleans. We have Houston, San Diego, Cleveland, Nashville, Dulles, and John Wayne Airport, uh, rounding out the top 10 cheapest beers that you can get. All right, where... Most importantly, where do both Minneapolis and O'Hare stack up? I- O'Hare is in the top 10 most expensive. Uh, they're number eight, it appears. Minneapolis not on either list. Right down the middle, just like Minneapolis. Let the record show that we question playcasino.com's, uh, methodology on this. Playcasino.com, thank you for the data on this. Uh, if you're going to LaGuardia, hold your nose if you need to go drinking, I'll tell you what. Can we help a listener? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, Erica asks us, "Hey, Gunner and Kyle, I'm a big fan of the show and was wondering what you'd recommend for those of us with the Chase Sapphire Preferred who are trying to plan a Hyatt transfer before the transfer ratio changes from one to one to four to three." I'm planning an anniversary trip to Amsterdam in June 2027 and plan to transfer some of my Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt to book either the Hyatt Regency or the Andaz Amsterdam. But it looks like their award availability only goes through March 2027 for me right now. I know the rule is to never transfer points speculatively, so I'm worried about transferring the points now and hoping for the best when my travel dates become available. Obviously, I would find a use for those Hyatt points at some point, but why transfer speculatively when I could hold out hope for Gun Air to become a transfer partner? We're working on it. We've reached an impasse. They don't like our terms. What would you do? Transfer before October 1, stalk the award calendar and hope for the best, or open the Chase Sapphire Reserve to keep that sweet one-to-one transfer ratio, something else entirely? Thank you. Okay, so Kyle, Er- what Erica is referring to here is that ratio is going from one to one to four to three just for Chase Sapphire Preferred holders starting on October 1st. So what she's talking about is a speculative transfer. What is that, and why don't we recommend it? This is where you transfer points from your credit card account, be it Chase, Amex, Capital One, whatever, to, uh, an airline or hotel partner without knowing exactly how you're going to redeem it. The advice that we almost always give to absolutely everybody is if you're gonna transfer points, you should be turning around to redeem them straight away. Otherwise, 999 times out of a, out of 1,000, if not far more frequently, you are much better off just keeping those points in your account until you're absolutely ready to use them So what should she do here? You know, this is an interesting one. Where that we start to break that rule is if you know enough about how you're going to redeem your points in order to make use of them, or you have enough points in Chase and other programs to risk stranding some somewhere else, so then the opportunity cost of transferring, say, 120,000 points just isn't as high as it would be, you know, if you only had 120,000 points, right? So if you know enough about what you're trying to do with these points and/or you have backup plans, I think getting in on this current one-to-one transfer ratio before it decreases isn't the worst idea in the world. The same is true for people who know what to do with British Airways Avios, aren't going to use them tomorrow, but there's, you know, a 30% transfer bonus from American Express to British Airways or a 40% transfer from Chase to Virgin Atlantic. Those are the situations where it starts to get a little different. But I would still say unless if you know exactly what you're going to use them for and/or have backups, it's probably not worth it. That Andaz in Amsterdam is really awesome. It's in a great area. The Hyatt Regency, I've heard, is also excellent, so you've got a couple of options there. I like that. You should really be able now to look out as far as June of 2027, so I would take another look and see if that award availability has started to come online before you transfer things on October 1st. If you can't figure out all of those pieces, it's probably worth a flyer. It's also not the worst idea to pick up a Chase Sapphire Reserve card to preserve that one-to-one ratio if you're going to continue earning Hyatt points, if you still see plenty of value in Hyatt's program despite what they've done to their program over the summer. Yeah. Also, maybe consider opening the World of Hyatt credit card. Uh, that could be an option, too. That'll also give you more availability further out in the calendar, which I guess in this case you don't actually need, but- You shouldn't need, yeah. Yeah, but it also will give you a nice little bonus of points, too, if you wanna protect those Chase points for something else and you're just waiting on that availability. But I think, I think you're right. I think you walked her through it. I don't, I don't think we gave her an answer at all, to be honest with you. I don't -- I'm, I'm honestly thinking back, I don't know that we ever give truly definitive answers for what people should do. No, we're just asking them to do our programming for us- Yeah is what we're doing. Yeah. So if you'd like to do our programming for us and you want us to answer your question on the podcast, if you have any feedback, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show. To close the show, as always, it's On the Spot. Kyle's putting me on the spot this week. What do you have? In Fargo, when we did our live show in late July, you asked me about my perfect travel beer You said you drank 75 beers this past weekend. It was an estimate. Now... Yeah, a rough estimate. What is the perfect number of travel beers? Oh. Like, what, which number in that sequence is the best? Oh, wow. Are, are we talking, like, during the travel day, or are we talking, like- You- ... while in, whilst in travel? You, you answer that question however you want. Okay. Well, if I'm flying, I, I typically don't drink a lot of beer at the airport or while I'm flying. It just doesn't mix well with the flying experience from what I've, I've experienced. Uh, so I'll take this a different way. I'll just talk about, like, while I'm traveling, I think that that range between three and five beers is just, is the magic state right there. I mean, that's, that's really where you're experiencing a place. That's when, that's when you're seeing a city like a local does, you know? I think, uh- I don't think the locals want that from you- ... if I'm being honest. No. Locals despise guys like me on their fifth beer trying to talk to them in their native language that I don't know. Uh, no, I think that's the f- I think that's, that's where you wanna be, right in between three and five. Anything less and, and you're not quite there yet. You're not, you're not feeling free. But anything more and, you know, we don't, we don't go, we don't go higher than five. We don't talk about that. Not when you're playing a road game. No. You... So just, just to be clear, you hit what you would call, like, a flow state- Yeah somewhere between three and five beers. Yeah. That's, that's how I lost my voice, was talking to a bunch of guys at this bachelor party in a loud bar, and I just get really chatty between three and five, and so that's when my voice went. We should do a podcast when you've had three to five beers. We can. We can try it sometime. I, I think we- The last podcast of, of the, the series ever. Yeah, we would get fired. All right. Thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Rate us five stars on your platform of choice, and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube. Send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We would love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. This episode was produced by your favorite host, who would love to share all of his travels with you personally. You can reach him at gunner@thriftytraveler.com. His name is Gunner Olson. This episode was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.