It’s the episode where we all get to be jealous of Kyle’s trip to Thailand. Luckily, he tells us how to book it and why his inkling to avoid using points and miles (for part of it) made the trip that much better. Plus, the guys make a bold prediction about airfare, wonder if the lounge overcrowding problem is solved, and ask the question: are hotel points and status even worth it anymore?
It’s the episode where we all get to be jealous of Kyle’s trip to Thailand. Luckily, he tells us how to book it and why his inkling to avoid using points and miles (for part of it) made the trip that much better. Plus, the guys make a bold prediction about airfare, wonder if the lounge overcrowding problem is solved, and ask the question: are hotel points and status even worth it anymore?
Thank you to our sponsor, Bilt Rewards! Earn points on rent and make your entire neighborhood more rewarding with Bilt. Sign up at joinbilt.com/thrifty.
00:00 - Post-trip clarity: Getting home from vacation
02:18 - Kyle welcomes us back from the pool in Thailand
02:45 - Are we heading for an airfare cliff?
10:00 - SkyMiles & Airbnb: More earnings, weird rules
12:20 - Points & miles rates aren’t rising with airfare
14:38 - United cardholder discounts are getting better
18:30 - Why Jackson is souring on hotel loyalty
21:40 - Is the lounge overcrowding problem solved?
27:25 - A word from our sponsor: Bilt Rewards!
28:40 - Everything about Koh Kood in Thailand
37:00 - Kyle’s Thailand trip logistics: Flights, hotels, Hong Kong & more
45:14 - Vote for our live podcast topic at thriftytraveler.com/vote!
46:00 - A listener asks: Should you avoid London due to high fees?
49:00 - What is Gunnar’s Koh Kood?
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 Gunner, and back from his trip to Thailand, he's full of life and that post-trip clarity, it's Kyle Potter. Kyle, welcome back. How do you feel?
I do, in fact, have post-trip clarity. That is a, that is a gem. We're gonna use that one. We're gonna beat that one into the
ground. We sure are.
All right, today we're digging into how Kyle planned this trip to Thailand, what he booked, uh, including the things he did without points and miles. Uh, before that, we've got a few news stories and some takes that Kyle missed while he was gone on vacation, and we've been all waiting for him to weigh in on and let us know.
But first, Kyle, you are now post-vacation. We've talked a lot about being pre-vacation and that mindset, and you've seen that mindset at play in my work every da- every time I go on vacation. What are the best parts about coming back from a trip, and what are the worst parts?
Uh, the best part, to, to echo cool Kyle, is sleeping in your own bed.
There's just nothing like it. It's, you know, for all of the hassle of, of travel and getting home and having to unpack, the u- your first night in your own bed, there's just, it's, it's magic. So that's the best part. The worst part, every single time I go on a long enough vacation like this one, I... Two things happen.
One is great, which is you start to lose track of what day it is, what day of the week it is or what, what the date is, which is amazing. The bad part is, is that eventually you have to come back to real life, and every single time I start typing and it's like I've forgotten- ... basic motor skills. It's like, how, what do I do with my hands?
You know? It's just, it feels so foreign to me to be typing on a computer, and I'm like now at the point where I finally feel like I, I can just do the basics of being a, a, a person in the workplace. I can type on a computer, which is great.
Yeah, I got the sense last week, uh, after you got back that y- you just had a little less patience for all of us here at, in the office.
It seemed like, uh, it seemed like the, the meeting was just going a little long for your liking last week. You were, you were just a little shorter with all of us. Like, "You know what? I've, I've had nothing but beautiful time on the beach with my wife, and now I'm just stuck with these lunatics again." No comment.
All right, today on the show, we are catching Kyle up on the news he missed while on vacation, and then we're digging into his trip through Southeast Asia. All that and more.
Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast.
All right, introducing the show was Thrifty Traveler executive editor Kyle Potter, uh, being about as out of office as one could possibly be in that video. That was a fun one. I was, I was, in fact, extremely out of office. All right, Kyle, let's, uh, well, let's start with something hot and something cold this week, but with a little bi- a little bit of a twist.
Um, when you go on vacation- It's like we are having a substitute teacher here at, at thriftytraveler.com. We ask ourselves, "What can we get away with?" And so we just started willy-nilly publishing content without your oversight, and I wanted to just bring some of that to your attention to make sure that you saw it while you were out on vacation, and you're gonna tell us if our takes or our stories are hot or cold.
Sound good? All right, let's start with, uh ... I published this idea in our extra new- extra mile newsletter last week. Um, it was a prediction that we're heading for what I'm calling an airfare cliff. Uh, I think prices are about to drop in a big way for travel this summer, especially if you're gonna ... if you're willing to wait for just the few weeks before travel, you know, that, like, three to six-week window before your flight.
Um, anecdotally, I keep hearing from people who are pulling back on travel spend in general. A study from Talker Research showed 58% of Americans are planning to cut travel spend in 2026. I'm also seeing more and more reports of empty planes all over the US. A lot of business travelers saying, you know, the, these routes that have been full for years and years and years are suddenly empty.
On my trip to Florida and back in April, there were tons of empty seats to, on a flight to Orlando, which is never empty. Um, same thing for my flight earlier in the month as well. Um, I haven't seen a flight with empty seats on it in a very long time, and all of a sudden it seems like there are empty seats flying everywhere.
So my take is, as airlines are raising fares like crazy to pass along the cost of jet fuel to passengers, I think that they, they can't just keep canceling all these flights and cancel their way out of this, right? They have to operate these. So I think that we're heading for a fire sale. The problem is, Kyle, the data.
The pesky data. You, you were, you were doing so well until, until you had to collide with, you know, harsh reality. Yeah. This is why we published this while you were gone, because this never would have f- never would've flown if you were here. Yeah, TSA screenings are up slightly year over year so far, and last year was a historic year.
Plus, IATA released its March data showing travel bookings are up 6.5% worldwide, and in the US they're up 3.7% for international and 1.4% for domestic. So travel demand is up. TSA screenings are up. It seems like more people are traveling than ever, but what's with all these empty flights? So basically I tried to, uh, pound this square peg into a round hole and, uh, I came up with this take.
Is my take hot or cold?
This is a scorching hot take. It's ... I, I wanna preface this. I want you to be right. You could be right. We just don't know. We're still, I think, unfortunately, in the early innings of how this is all gonna shake out for airlines and how airlines try to handle this drastic increase in fuel prices that has led to some of the nasty prices that we've seen lately.
A couple of things can be true at once. One is that while airfare on the whole is up, we just got numbers on Tuesday morning from, um, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that on average, fares in April of twenty twenty-six were up twenty point seven percent, nearly twenty-one percent compared to the year prior.
That is a big jump, and that is not gonna be the end of it. On the other hand, airfare isn't a monolith. There still are good deals out there. We are still finding good deals both with cash and especially with points for our Thrifty Traveler premium members every single day, even though airfare on the whole is up close to twenty-one percent or maybe more.
The other thing is that sure, TSA screening numbers, you know, the number of travelers passing through checkpoints is, is up year over year, but that is also a lagging indicator. Before people stop going to airports and getting on planes, they stop booking travel. So people who have pulled back on travel spending, we may not see that come through in kinda national travel numbers until June, July, maybe even August.
Uh, the odds are this is really only something that we're gonna start to see come, you know, the s- the real thick of summer when people have truly pulled back on travel spending. And then finally, uh, I too have felt like there are a surprising number of empty seats on this flight. I think a lot of people have felt that, and I think it's really important to, to keep in mind that while airlines want planes to be full, that's not really the mission.
The mission is to make as much money as humanly possible. So if they can pass on bigger fare increases to, you know, business travelers and wealthy Americans and charge higher fares, filling fewer seats because fewer people are willing to buy at those six hundred, seven hundred, twelve hundred dollar rates, at the end of the day, all that really matters is getting as big of a margin as possible on each and every flight.
So if there are seats empty, it doesn't really matter to the airline as long as they feel like they're covering their costs. So all that is to say, I don't know. I don't know if you're right. I sure hope you are. I do think it's possible that Americans are gonna hit a breaking point at which they will no longer keep booking f- flights at the prices that airlines are charging right now.
But if and when that happens, what will absolutely happen is that airlines will cut back flights even more than we've seen them do so far in order to kinda right-size supply with demand. So I don't know.
Yeah. I think, uh, this is definitely a, a bit of wishful thinking in my take. I, I just, you know, I have to believe that someone's gonna go.
Like, someone is going to say, "We're not canceling all these flights. Uh, we need to operate them, and we need to at least get some revenue if people have hit a breaking point." Like, even, you know, the, the airline CEOs are talking about the top of the, the K-shaped economy, like the, the richest people are still continuing to travel.
But you're gonna start chiseling away at some of those people too eventually with how, with how high fares are. So I think, uh, I'm hoping that when one airline goes, someone is gonna be the first domino to say, "You know what? Actually we need to sell, we need to sell these fares for June and July and August when we're pumping so much capacity into the market.
When there's a World Cup in the US, like, we need people on these planes." Once one of them goes, they're all gonna go. So I'm hoping that just there's someone out there who's teetering on the edge and who finally says, "Here's the fire sale that you've been hoping for."
Yeah, you know, again, airfare is not a monolith, right?
So even now, while yes, we are finding deals every single day, it has absolutely gotten harder, and the deals are not quite as good as maybe they were last year, especially on the cash side for the prices that we're seeing. What, what I think we'll see, like how we'll see this manifest will be deals will be more frequent.
The price discounts will be a little bit deeper than what we've been seeing for the last two or three months. I think that's probably how this shakes out, in that we, they just become a little bit more widespread and deeper than what we've been finding for the last few weeks.
Okay,
good. Um,
we gave that one a little extra oxygen because of course it was my idea, so and it's my rundown, Kyle.
So I put this all together. Uh, we'll go a little quicker on these ones. Um- Skymiles and Airbnb. So this story was interesting to me for two reasons, neither of which is the actual headline of the story. Uh, Delta and Airbnb announced this week you can now earn 3X Skymiles on Airbnb experiences and services, not just your Airbnb stays.
So we're talking about, like, cooking classes, city tours, spa days, even photo shoots. Uh, what shocked me the most was, one, that Delta and Airbnb had a relationship in the first place. I think maybe I knew this deep down in the recesses of my mind. And two, that when you link your Delta and Airbnb accounts, it only lasts for 10 days, which is this wild rule involved in this partnership.
Um, I think the weirdness of that second rule is maybe why I forgot about this partnership in the first place, 'cause it's just never on my radar to actually earn Skymiles. Um, is the Skymiles Airbnb partnership hot or cold, Kyle? Let's go lukewarm.
Uh, this is, this is nice. I personally haven't booked an Airbnb experience in many, many years.
It used to be my go-to for, like, food tours and excursions and stuff in my destinations, and I just find that the quality of the tours and even the price isn't as good as the likes of, like, Viator and other services like that, or, like, GetYourGuide. Um, you know, there are, those kinds of tour services are a dime a dozen.
But expanding this is helpful. It's one of the few ways to earn any kind of rewards on Airbnb, period, whether you're renting a home or booking an experience. This 10-day shutoff is just really weird, but on the other hand, it's kind of a moot point because in order to earn any Skymiles, period, you have to go to deltaairbnb.com to start, which means that if your account has been unlinked, you're gonna link it within a click and then go on.
So basically, how this actually works is it's less about linking your Delta and Airbnb account on the back end. It's more about kind of, it's like it functions as a shock- shopping portal or like Rakuten, where you have to click through Delta's specific site, then make your booking with Airbnb in order to earn these Skymiles.
So, three Skymiles per dollar on, you know, an $80 cooking class gonna move the needle a lot? No, but it's better than nothing.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's, it's, um, you know, it's not one of those set it and forget it kind of benefits that we love with Skymiles. Like, "Oh, there's my Starbucks Skymiles that just hit my account," or whatever.
Uh, it's gonna take a little extra forethought, and maybe that's why, uh, I'm not able to use it. Uh, points and miles are not rising with airfare. This is our next take, Kyle. Um, airfare's going up overall. It just is. If you need to fly somewhere this summer or you just want to, it's obviously a huge bummer.
Uh, you just mentioned 20% rise in airfare year over year. Um, I took a look at a bunch of coveted routes where Google Flights data says that the prices are up a lot, uh, in business class and in economy. Um, and I just went in and found all the points and miles rates on those routes to try and illustrate a point, which is That points and miles are not following cash rates, uh, the way that they're rising right now, and that right now your points and miles are as valuable as ever.
Is this hot or cold? This
is hot in a good way. I, th- see, the problem is hot takes have, kind of has, have this aura of, like, wow, he's really going for it here. This, I think this is just spot on and good advice and above all is just sound strategy where if you're trying to travel this summer or through the end of the year, this is, number one with a bullet, the time to use your points because those points are just going to go further, including for that simple round trip to Chicago or Denver or New York or wherever.
Because as long as you can book with a program that doesn't set the award rates based solely on the cash price, which the likes of Delta does, to a lesser extent both American and United, though I do still think that those miles are gonna go a lot further with those particular programs. Southwest for sure, JetBlue for sure, those are really tied to the cash price.
But, you know, if you use a partner airline like using Air France KLM, Flying Blue to book Delta instead, or using Cathay Pacific or British Airways to book an American Airlines-operated flight, if you can find that, tho- these are, this is the number one time to do it, and it's, I would say, even more true especially for economy as well as business class bookings abroad if you can lock something in.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's pretty stark, uh, especially when you're traveling internationally right now, too. Um, the, the prices when you use points and miles are just not going up at the same rate. So there's a tip for you if things are looking way, way too expensive, especially with those partner awards. All right, let's move on to United cardholder discounts.
Um, United made waves last year by offering its credit card holders really good discounts on United Mileage Plus bookings. In many cases, uh, the credit card holders would get access to pricing inventory that would otherwise only be available at saver rates. Um, that means it's, you know, the, the lowest kinda bucket fare for, uh, points and miles bookings is that saver rate that you'll see.
Um, so that means what the general public sees as a 200,000-mile United Polaris business class redemption from San Francisco to Zurich is actually available to cardholders for 80,000 miles instead. That's the standard saver rate. But what our Thrifty Traveler premium award guru Peter Thornton found this week was- Saint Peter.
Sorry? Saint Peter. Let's honor him. Saint Peter, of course. Uh, he found that those same flights are now actually 72,000, uh, Mileage Plus miles each way, way less than 80,000 if you have one of those credit cards. Um, th- we found the same thing for SFO to Christchurch. We found the same thing for LAX to Tokyo Narita, where the 300,000-mile rate is actually going down to 90,000 each way, which is lower than the 100,000 saver rate.
Um, this is a pretty wild discovery. I don't understand why United's not screaming this from the rooftops. Uh, what is, what do you think of Peter's discovery? Is it hot or cold?
Scorching hot. Yeah. This is, these discounts just keep getting bigger and better. And let's be clear, this isn't because United is trying to cut people a good deal.
What they're really trying to do is continue to incentivize people, not just to get their co-branded credit card and spend on them, but really to try to show your United miles are worthless if you don't have this credit card. Because it's not just that you can book, you know, San Francisco to Zurich for 72,000 miles or whatever the, the right number is, or over to Christchurch or Sydney or across the globe.
It's that the rates to book that if you don't have the card are so atrocious, and if you don't have the card, United will show you, "Oh, hey, you know this 300,000-mile redemption to Tokyo? Well, you know, if you just open one of our cards with a $149 annual fee or whatever, you're gonna be able to book that for a quarter of the price."
This is what they're doing. It is, on the one hand, incredibly smart and savvy, and I am shocked that another major US airline has not copied this formula yet, even though this really only began within the last couple of months. On the other hand, it's just, it's a little, it's a little bit gross, and I do wonder if they're going too hard at this.
Because there are some people who have plenty of United miles that want to be loyal to United that don't need nor want a United credit card, and those, those peoples' loyalty should be rewarded, too.
Yeah. Yeah, I think this is really interesting what they're doing. Um, I am still confused as to why they're not Advertis-- I mean, I guess maybe because it's a little gross, maybe they know it, they're not advertising it as directly, that this is a 10% savings on the saver fare already.
So, you know, you're getting savings on the lowest rate that you only have access to only if you hold the United credit card. But I, I don't un- I mean, I, I am really confused. I don't have truly answers for this as to why they haven't talked about this yet.
You know, I, my, my guess is, is that all they need to do is show people when they search, people who don't have a credit card, um, you know, when they search from San Francisco to Tokyo and they see 300,000 miles or if you get our co-branded credit card, you can book this for 90,000, that might be all they need to do.
There, no advertising campaign, no press release is gonna be as effective as showing that to, you know, probably millions of potential customers.
Yeah. Okay, let's move on to a take that our managing editor, Jackson Newman, had. He put it on the website. Um, I thought this was really well done. He just laid out the argument as to why he's souring on hotel points and hotel loyalty.
Uh, he pointed out that every major hotel chain has raised award rates at their best properties over the last few months. Um, Hyatt's are about to take place, and they're kind of the most painful of the changes, I would say. Um, at the same time, all the major premium credit cards have integrated hotel booking credits into their portals.
So I'm talking about, you know, the Amex Platinum, the Capital One, uh, Venture X card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Bilt Palladium card, all of these, the, the Citistrada Elite, they have all put in some sort of, like, $150 to $300 hotel credit that you can use, you know, semi-annually or annually. Um, those credits are also crucial to recouping the value of the annual fee on all those cards.
All those cards are, you know, $400 or more in annual fee. Um- So he's basically pointing out that earning status is no longer that important to him. Um, he said he's not going to chase elite status with Marriott again this year after having it for a long time because all of these premium travel credit cards give him elite-like perks, like late checkout, room upgrades, and more.
Uh, and, you know, he's just not seeing the value in the, the points currencies anymore when those hotel credits are sitting right there for him. What do you think about Jackson's take?
Yeah, uh, this is a good one. It's spot on, and I think it gets to that episode we did a couple of months ago about why we're not loyal, and that was m- mainly in the guise of airline loyalty, that it ends up costing you money.
And I think that math has really started to spread even more to hotel programs, where on the one hand, it's much easier to be, quote-unquote, "loyal" to many different hotel chains. You stay at a Marriott in a couple of cities that you go to or as a piece of one trip, but then you stay at a Hilton or a Hyatt when that makes sense, too.
And having one or two of those co-branded credit cards and racking up those points is worthwhile because, you know, you can make some truly great redemptions and get some good value out of your points. And as airlines, or as hotels have eaten away at that, it just becomes a lot harder to justify focusing not just on one hotel chain.
I think more broadly, there's just a lot less juice that's worth the squeeze in these points programs. And to me, the value of hotel loyalty has always been much more about earning points and redeeming them, and any status that you get, either from staying there or for, from having one of their co-branded credit cards in or- in order to earn those points, was just a bonus.
And that entry point has really changed for me. So I think this is spot on, and it's a, at least a smart way and a smart time to rethink how you think about what hotel chains you truly care about and why.
Yeah, and especially if you're in the premium credit card, you know, world. If, if you have one or two of these cards especially, and you can really maximize those credits, I think it does change the calculus for people.
So really smart take from Jackson. I would definitely say that's something hot. One more take for you to react to here, Kyle. Um, Kyle Thomas valiantly filled your seat last week on the podcast. He sure did. He did an awesome job. Um, so since we recorded that episode, he was hard at work on another take that we were kinda pondering as a team last week.
Um, and I think I agree with him, that the lounge overcrowding problem might be solved. Uh, I know, know there are gonna be people in New York City who hear this right now- I can hear them now. They are screaming at JFK. They are, they are the weirdest person on the subway, screaming into their phones at a faceless podcaster like me about this take.
Uh, you live in one of the most crowded places on Earth. You're gonna deal with crowds no matter where you go. You live in New York City. Sorry about it. All right? Um- But in general, my personal experiences, some from the team, uh, have suggested that lounges are really not that overrun anymore. You know, there are always gonna be maybe the most crowded ones, but after this kinda three-year stint where we saw all of the airlines and banks take big, like sweeping changes to their lounge access policy to try and fix this overcrowding problem.
They saw this coming. They've cracked down on guests being allowed. Uh, they've, you know, raised annual fees on the cards that, that allow you into the lounges. Um, they've, you know, restricted how long you're allowed to be there, that kinda thing. They've added these sidecar concepts like Amex has done, which is more of just a grab-and-go lounge, uh, or just like a really quick lounge.
You're supposed to only be there for 45 minutes or whatever it is. They've taken all these steps to fix lounge overcrowding. It took three full years, uh, but it seems like the lounge overcrowding problem may have been solved, if it's not on its way to being solved. Do you agree? Is this hot or cold?
I'm gonna call this one a parboil.
I think it's, it's too early to declare victory. I, I agree, it does feel a little bit better. We are also in this weird intermediary period where, you know, there may be fewer people traveling for work. We may be at the start of seeing a slowdown in travel due to prices and, you know, geopolitical instability, and just look at what's happening in the world.
Everything's a dumpster fire. Gestures broadly. Yes, yes. Yeah. Gestures broadly. I think there are too many potential factors that could be leading to this, and also too many exceptions to the overall trend that y'all observed of to be able to say they fixed it. I mean, I still feel, you know, in going to some Amex Centurion lounges, seeing lines outside of Capital One lounges, I still feel like there are still some pretty significant problems that they may never be able to solve unless if travel just grinds to a halt and nobody is trying to get into these lounges anymore, and we're clearly not there yet.
I mean, a- another important piece of this is every bank, every airline, um, in the country has been on a tear, not just ratcheting up restrictions to stop people from getting into lounges, but building new spaces, building bigger spaces, adding on to spaces that already exist, and that is a really important element of this, too, because at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is whether you have enough space to accommodate the people that you've sold credit cards or lounge memberships to, and that's always going to be a battle Maybe we're starting to get closer.
I'm not quite sure yet.
Yeah. I think one thing that maybe is related to this too is we also as a team have been talking about, a, a few members of our team have been more and more vocal about how they're kinda out on lounges now. Some of those team members have young families where you can't really get the whole family into the lounge, and even if you do, do you really want a four and two-year-old boy running amok through a lounge?
I don't know. I don't want you running around amok in my lounge. So, no. Yeah, if I'm allowed in the lounges, uh, you shouldn't gatekeep children out of lounges. Yeah. Uh, but I, and other members of our team just say, like, you know what? The food's usually just not adequate. I, like, I need a full meal. I don't, I don't really wanna deal with it.
I don't wanna stand in line or pay the annual fees anymore. So maybe there's like, uh, just enough people who are kinda souring on the experience at the same time that maybe they're fixing some of these problems that is leading to fewer and fewer crowds. With, of course, the caveat that we live in the middle of the country, and we don't deal with crowds like other places do.
That's, that's true. That, that is an interesting angle of, you know, to what extent is there, like, a big group of travelers who have just aged out of lounges, where because they have two kids and they don't wanna pay for their spouse and two small children, or just because they've been traveling so much for work for the last five years, and you know, sure, they can expense an Amex Platinum, uh, annual fee or a Delta Sky Club membership.
They can also just expense that meal at the airport, and maybe that's a better experience too. That might be a piece of this. I, I think if lounge overcrowding is truly getting better, and I do still think that's an if, there's gonna be a lot of things. It's not gonna be just one thing. It's gonna be everything that we talked about, restrictions from the companies, more bigger spaces, just changes in what people care about when they travel, even though these premium travel credit cards that get you into lounges are, without a doubt, more popular than they've ever been.
Whether everybody's taking advantage of lounges, I think, is an interesting question. Yeah.
You're never gonna see me outside of the lounge. I, I'm a lounge creature for life. You're gonna see me with my AirPods in, making myself a disgusting little charcuterie board to take back to my little seat.
I can't, I can't wait to see you when you're, like, 75 and you have a cane, and you've got, like, three drinks next to you-
and you're just taking a nap, and maybe you even slept through your flight. I see that in your future. Ah, God, I hope so. What a life. That
sounds so nice. Yeah.
All right, let's talk Thailand, but first we're gonna take a quick break. You've heard me talk about Bilt as the loyalty program that lets you earn points on rent wherever you live, and they just leveled up even more.
As of 2026, homeowners can also earn up to 1.25x points on their mortgage payments. This is thanks to Bilt's three new credit cards, the Palladium Card, Obsidian Card, and Blue Card. All three turn your housing payments, rent or mortgage, into flexible rewards. So you can choose the card that fits your lifestyle without missing out on points and exclusive benefits.
Bilt points can be redeemed at top airlines and hotels, amazon.com purchases, future rent payments, and more. Bilt points have also been ranked by top publications as the industry's most valuable point currency. Your housing payment is already your biggest expense. Make it your most rewarding. Find the card that fits your lifestyle and apply today at joinbilt.com/thrifty.
That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T .com/thrifty. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Terms and limitations apply. Subject to approval and eligibility. Bilt cards are issued by Column NA, member FDIC, pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated.
All right, we're back and it's time for the Extra Mile, where we dig a little deeper on an important travel topic, and this week we're going with Kyle to Thailand.
So Kyle, to start off on your trip, what's the single best thing you did? And tell us how you booked it.
The single best thing that we did, so we spent seven nights on a tiny island, a tiny Thai island near the border with Cambodia called Koh Kood. And the single best thing that we did the entire trip was something that we did almost every day on the island, which is we got on a scooter and motored around this island from beach to beach.
By far the best beaches I've ever seen in my life. And we went to, like, nine, and all nine of them would make the top 10 easily, and saw a grand total of no more than eight to 10 people at each beach. In some cases, we were the only people there. And then we would go to the next beach, and then we would go search for a beach bar somewhere or go find a restaurant in town or find a restaurant on another corner of the island.
And how I booked it was I paid the hotel that we were staying at $8 a day for this scooter- ... in order to have absolute freedom in just one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. $8 a day. $8 a day for a scooter. Okay, so this was Koh Kood? Koh Kood. How do you spell that? K-O-H K-O-O-D. I cannot recommend it enough.
It- How do you, how do you get to Koh Kood? It is a gauntlet. You know, when you, when you want unspoiled, untouristed beauty, you, you gotta pay for it in some way. So, uh, you know, our trip started by flying into Hong Kong because we found a great Thrifty Traveler premium deal many, many months ago flying from Seattle to Hong Kong.
We were able to book that in business class starting in Minneapolis with a connection on Alaska Airlines, so Minneapolis to Seattle, and then Seattle 14 hours to Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific business class. Spent a few days there, and then from there the trip to get to Koh Kood began, which required- A three-hour flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok, which is the only city that offers nonstop service or any air, any flights, period, to, uh, the, the region in Thai- eastern Thailand called Trat, which is kind of near the border with Cambodia.
And then from there, you get in, you book a ferry service and car transfer. So from the airport, it's about a 70-minute drive to the ferry terminal, then you get on the ferry, and it's about another 70 minutes on the water, then you finally get to the island of Koh Kood, and it's, depending on where you're staying, 30 to 40 minutes to get to your accommodations in the back of a truck.
And if that sounds like way too much, I'm telling you, I would do it tomorrow. It is so... This is, this is, this is why I travel, is to find places like this and to just feel like, right or wrong, and it is wrong, Koh Kood, I'm not the first person to go to Koh Kood. I know that. That is silly. We went there because we had heard from people or read online, "This is a place to go if you wanna get away from Phuket and Koh Samui," which was really our goal for, for doing this.
But you go through the trouble because it just takes more effort to get to these places, and that effort is worth it, at least it was for us. Are there, uh,
points and miles options to get to a place like Koh Kood, or was this, uh, kinda outside of your points and miles realm? I know you challenged us and all the listeners at the beginning of the year to maybe get outside of the points and miles realm when it comes to booking travel.
Uh, is that what you did here?
Yes. I mean, that, that really was the genesis of challenging myself and my wife, as well as you and everybody on our team and everybody listening to this podcast, is to not just be beholden to the points that you have and feeling like, "Well, I've got this stash of 300,000 Marriott points, and if I wanna go to Thailand, that means I'm gonna stay in Bangkok or Koh Samui or Phuket or Krabi, and that's it."
Those are really the only true options if you wanna use hotel points anywhere there. So on one hand, no, there really wasn't. We used some Capital One miles to book a hotel. This is why I love Capital One miles so much, is it gives you that freedom to cover things with miles, even if you're just paying f- on Expedia or b- booking with the hotel direct and then going back and covering the cost of, you know...
Each night in a pool villa on the south coast of Koh Kood was less than $180. That's 18,000 Capital One miles. I- you can't do that with Marriott points. Yeah. You can... Soon you can't do that with Hyatt points either. So- That was really the beauty of, of it and the appeal of it, is being able to do things that for most of the last five years we just didn't do because we had points and we were focused on using them.
You can at least get to that corner of Thailand using points. The, the one airline that flies from Bangkok to Trat is called Bangkok Airways. I don't have a, a boatload of Bangkok Airways miles, but it is partners with both Japan Airlines and Air France KLM, so you could use Flying Blue miles and transfer them from, um, you know, Amex, Capital One, Chase, whatever.
We didn't. We just waited for cash prices to drop and then booked them.
Yeah, just wait for that bonus episode next week, how to earn Bangkok Airways miles at scale. It's gonna be our shortest episode
yet. It's gonna be four minutes and 30 seconds. Um, what was the hotel called? So we stayed at two places on, on the island of Koh Kood.
Uh, the first four nights we stayed in a pool villa at a place called Hideout Koh Kood, which was great. It was, um, kind of a influencer mecca without the influencers. Like, it's just, it was built to be photographed on Instagram. There j- it doesn't have that vibe once you're there. The, the hotel itself was great.
The room was amazing. We had our own little pool, which was a lot of fun to go into every night. That's the pool that you introed the show from? That is the pool. Okay. Um, and maybe the best part, and the reason why I would encourage people to go there is while the hotel itself doesn't have a great beach, it doesn't have much of a beach at all, it is a, about a five-minute walk to probably what I would consider my number two beach on the island, a place called Klong Hin Beach, where there is a beach bar that is apparently a hotspot for Russians.
Uh, there's a, there's a store that says something, something along the, the, the lines of Thai shop for Russians. I don't know. It was a little weird. We barely saw anybody there. Um, but this beach is just amazing. Um... That's awesome. And then the final three nights there we went to a place called Shantaa Resort, which is kinda up on the northwestern coast of the island.
The grounds are absolutely stunning. It's a massive space. The rooms were a little bit smaller, but it was beautiful, comfortable. The bathroom was, like, this amazing covered outdoor space with, like, a bunch of bamboo and palm growing. It was, it's... I just, I love it so much. It was exactly what I wanted. Oh, that's
so cool.
It sounds incredibly, incredibly relaxing, and it, uh, illuminates why you were probably so short with us when you got back, uh, because that prob- that was probably, uh, the most relaxed you've ever been. It
was... I, years ago I, I w- was a much different traveler. I wasn't big on beaches, um, and I really was averse to renting any kinda transportation and driving myself.
And, you know, as you get older, your tastes change. The idea of just sitting on a beach with a book and then trying to find the cheapest beer possible, the, the record for this trip was $1.25- ... for a bottle of beer. That is what I want when I, when I just want a piece of the vacation to just reset, and that's really what we wanted to do there, was just relax and explore, not do a whole lot, read, um, sit out in the sun, warm up, all of that stuff.
Yeah, I, I apologize for my brevity with
you last week. Please, please don't apologize. Um, okay, so l- l- let me break down the trip. You went... You were in Hong Kong for a few nights. You were in Koh Kood for a full week. How did you start working your way home?
Again, that same gauntlet in reverse. Uh, drive up to the, uh, drive in the back of a truck up to the ferry port, hour-plus long ferry, hour-plus long car ride, Bangkok Airways flight back to Bangkok, where we spent one night at the Park Hyatt Bangkok, booked with, uh, one of the $300 credits on an Amex Platinum card.
Great hotel, um, wish we, wish we had had one more night there. It would've been cool to have one more night in Bangkok. That said, it was 97 degrees the night we got there and the morning after, and about 80% humidity, so it felt like it would be nice to stay here, but this is a lot to be here right now. And especially after being on an island which might have had 1,000 people on it total, seeing 1,000-plus people in a small shopping mall was a little bit like, "Whoa, this is what real life is like.
Wow." So it was, it was a good way to end the trip. And I will say that starting our trip with three nights in Hong Kong, where we stayed at a great hotel called The Langham, um, on the Kowloon side of the city, which we also booked using credits from an Amex Platinum card. Making our way, you know, truly off the beaten path to somewhere that our points won't cover, to somewhere that to me was exactly what I wanted, and then going back to civilization, where you can use points or credit card benefits before making our way home, I think this will probably be the format of how we travel now.
Because you get, you get to save on travel, which is what we talk about. Um, you get to go someplace special that your points can't cover, and then you come back, and you do it all over again before heading home on a flight that you booked with points or on a cheap fare. I really liked that. It was, it was a really fun way to structure a trip and use the points that we have, use the benefits that we have to make a trip possible, but then Go somewhere else and just kind of free yourself from the expectation of, "I have to use these points I've earned.
I have to maximize these points, otherwise what did I earn them for?" You can do both.
Yeah.
It's a, a points
burger, right? You've, your, your buns and your condiments are, are your points and miles, and then that patty in the middle is, is Koh Kood, right? And that's your, that's the meat of the trip. You
just peaked- I did
with that metaphor. I did. That's amazing. You're very welcome. I don't th- I don't think anybody's in a rush to trademark points burger. But that's pretty good. Points sandwich
just didn't s- feel like me. No. I went with burger instead. Um, so, uh, I, we joked while you were gone that your trip was probably completely flawless and you had no travel mistakes.
Was I right, or did you have any, any mishaps or anything you'd do differently along the way?
You know, there was some errant driving on the scooter. It, there's a learning curve there. I will say I'm really glad that my first time renting a scooter, always wear a helmet. I'm really glad that it was on a very slow, sleepy island like Koh Kood and not Koh Samui, let alone Bangkok.
I would never do that there. Not only would I never do that for the first time, I just wouldn't rent a scooter, period, in a place that has, like, pure chaos traffic. So that, that, those are probably the biggest mistakes, you know, a couple of bad turns. Um, no- ... no wipe outs fortunately. That's good. Um, th- that's the big one.
Okay. Good. Well, it's- Nobody, nobody's perfect, Gunner. Nobody's perfect. You're just, you're the least perfect Based upon that last episode.
Nobody's
perfect,
but some people
are far from
it. Um-
Can I tell you one thing that was perfect? Yeah. Flying Cathay Pacific first class home from Hong Kong end to end was probably one of, if not easily, the single best flight of my life.
It was from start to finish. The lounges in Hong Kong, Cathay's first class lounges in that airport are amazing. There's two now. They just reopened the wing which has this amazing 18-person speakeasy basically inside of the lounge where, um, as long as you have a first class ticket, you can get in and there's, um, you know, just this bar shrouded in curtains with a list of 200 to $300 champagnes and a couple of red and white wines, as well as a special whiskey that is only served inside of this space.
The Pier Lounge, which I know you love, lives up to the hype. We spent most of our time in the wing, including in that little 18-space bar. And then the flight itself, um, Cathay Pacific's first class on their Boeing 777s on the one hand is old. The seats are old, and they, they do kind of show it. There are a lot of scuffs.
There's not anywhere near as much privacy as you would expect to find flying first class on basically any other airline. But it doesn't matter. Mm-hmm. The seats are outrageously comfortable and wide. Both my wife and I slept for more than eight hours on this flight after I had not just, like, caviar and champagne and all of the works, but w- easily the best meal I've ever had on a plane, um, with a pumpkin soup and this octopus salad where I took a bite of this octopus and I was like, "There's no reason for this to be this good-
inside of a metal tube. It doesn't make sense. And then a, a lobster dish, I mean, and the service s- absolutely second to none. I just can't say enough good things about that flight. I loved every second of it. That was,
uh, did you book that on one ticket, Bangkok through Hong Kong to LAX? No, we- No ... we
flew, um, we actually booked a cheap Emirates business class fare because I wanted my wife to experience the bar on the A380 from Bangkok to Hong Kong.
Oh. They fly this funky fifth freedom route, um, between those two cities. It's, it's like a two, two and a half hour flight. It's not very long. I was hoping we would be able to upgrade to first class using miles on this ticket, but unfortunately that cabin just got full. But it was still really fun to go back to the bar and, and get a picture.
We'll, we'll throw some of this on YouTube, but that was how we got back to Hong Kong, and then had six plus hours to kill in the Hong Kong airport- Oh, nice ... at these two amazing lounges before boarding the flight back to, uh, back to LA.
Nice. Very good. And then you came back to us- And we're- ... we're better off for it, but you're not.
I wish I was back there. Some offense to you specifically. No, no, no offense to anybody. Yeah, it was just amazing. Anything else on the trip? Sounds amazing. Go somewhere your, your points won't take you. Go somewhere that's a little bit further th- and a little bit more complicated to get to than you f- maybe feel comfortable with.
Um, as long as you give yourself enough time in that destination, you know, it was a, it was a three-plus-hour journey to get to Koh Kood, and I, I'm glad we spent a full week there. I wish we would've spent a little bit more. I wish we would've spent 10 days or so I think would've been the right amount.
But as long as you can devote that time there to truly exploring a place and justifying the long journey to get there, it's, it's gonna reward you.
Yeah. That's amazing advice. I'm, I'm planning to take your advice, actually. I'm heading to a little place called Italy. Ever heard of Italy? Where? I- Southern Europe.
Oh, cowboy boot. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Like cowboy boot. Yep. I'm heading there in a few weeks, so I'll t- I'll take your advice. A little, little town called Rome- Hmm ... we've got circled. We'll see how that goes. I've heard good things about their pasta. Um, your Thailand trip sounds awesome. I hope, uh, someone out there can, can either replicate it or take your advice and, and go get way, way off the beaten path and find something amazing.
All right, let's take a listener question. But before we do that, we have a really fun live show update. Um, the live show, you know, Friday, June 12th at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. We- I, I'm planning to be there. You're gonna be there? Yeah. Oh, good. Good. Are you gonna be there? I didn't get your RSVP.
Uh, we're really excited to talk to all of you and, and finally see our listeners for the first time. It's been so long. You've been seeing us on YouTube, and it's finally time to, for us to turn the tables. There is gonna be lights on us on the stage. It's actually gonna be back at the listeners. Um, we want you to come join the show at thriftytraveler.com/live to get your tickets, but I have another wrinkle.
We want you to vote on the topic that we're gonna cover during the live show. So to do that, head to thriftytraveler.com/vote. Let us know what you wanna hear Kyle and I talk about on stage. Any, uh, guidance for them? No Canada. No Canada. All right, fine. No Canada it is. Uh, are you ready to help Leon? Let's help Leon.
Okay. Leon asks, he says, "Hello, Gunner and Kyle. I am a new listener and recently started exploring credit card points. Currently, I'm looking at booking business class tickets to London using points, but the taxes and fees seem to be getting higher and higher. In your opinion, is it better to pay the higher taxes to fly directly in and out of London, or would it be more cost-effective to fly into a different European city and take a cheap cash flight into London from there?
For context, I'll be repositioning to a different airport since my local airport, BHM, does not have any good international redemption options. Thank you for the great content, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Best, Leon." And he ha- added a P.S., and I swear he actually said this: "I think Gunner deserves a raise."
Um- Is he your middle name Leon? It's not. Is this you? Be honest. No, but Leon is... He's just, just a really smart, astute guy. Um, Kyle, is it smart to skip London to avoid taxes and fees? I- I'm inclined to think Leon's way lately. I have a never Heathrow policy in my travels, uh, and one of those reasons is because taxes and fees into the UK, in and out of the UK are so expensive typically.
Um, what do you think?
W- I'm gonna dust it off. Porque no los dos? Do a little bit of both. Fly into Heathrow because with few exceptions, so the exceptions being, you know, if you're trying to book British Airways, for example, flying either in or out of London, you're gonna pay some nasty surcharges on those, and they get even higher departing London.
But, you know, if you book a ticket with Delta Sky Miles, American Advantage Miles, Alaska, et cetera, go down the list on other carriers, you can pay as little as $5.60 in taxes as fee, in fees for a flight from the United States into London. So if London is on your list, don't just rule it out because of the taxes and fees.
You can do that, and then finish your trip by departing from somewhere else. So maybe hop on a cheap flight flying Ryanair or British Airways from London over to Dublin. That's not gonna get hit with as nearly as nasty as, of the fees. Take the Chunnel down to France. Um, hop anywhere else really in mainland Europe, I would say.
Specifically, um, you know, avoiding departing from London. Paris is probably the second worst. Some of the German airports have taxes and fees that can add up pretty quickly, but, you know, if you depart from Ireland, if you depart from, um, Madrid or Barcelona, Amsterdam, Portugal, any of those is gonna be a good point from which to begin your journey home.
So do both. See London, stay there for as long as you want, and then make your way to a second destination and use that as your starting point to get home.
Yeah. Couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly the advice. Fly into London to get the lowest taxes and fees, and try and fly out from somewhere else using a low cash fare.
I think you're right on, Leon. Um, if you want us to answer your questions on the podcast or if you have any feedback for us, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com so we can feature your question on next week's show. We're gonna close with On the Spot, as always, and Kyle, you're back, so I figured I'd give you the mic.
Kyle, to Gunner, On the Spot, what do you have?
Whether you've been there yet or not, what is your Cocoon? What is the place that just isn't really maybe on the map, isn't a place where you can redeem your points, but is just in the back of your mind of either I wanna get back there because it was really special, or I need to get there and I need to make it happen in 2026 or
2027?
Uh, I think I've talked about this on the show before. I wanna go skiing in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. Um, you, you can't... I mean, you can fly to, to Georgia with points and miles. Just so we're clear, the country Georgia-
Yes ... not the state. Yeah. Not a lotta great skiing, so far as I know- Mm-hmm ... in the state of Georgia.
No, I have not been skiing in either the state or the country of Georgia, and I'd like to change that, uh, specifically with the country, but y- you know, it's Once you get there, it, to Tbilisi, uh, from there it's all, you know, uh, random buses or cars to get up into the mountains, and there are not a lot of chain hotels up in those mountains, but everything is incredibly cheap once you're there.
You know, five-star hotels for less than 100 bucks a night. Some of those, you know, including ski packages, and you can ski at, at, uh, I think it's called Gudauri is their, like, kinda main, biggest ski resort for seven euro a day. Um, which, you know, when you think about skiing Vail over Christmas is, you know, sometimes closer to $300 a day is, is completely wild.
But that's the kinda place where, uh, I really love to go. I've also seen some, like, cat skiing. Anyway, I'm getting way, way, way out over my proverbial skis. You haven't been thinking about this at all. Yeah, I, I think about this all the time. I'm actually... I'm really, really trying to plan this for the winter.
Um, but I haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet. But that's my, that's my Koh Kood. But I don't know, Koh Kood might be my Koh Kood. I, uh, you made it sound pretty special. Could be. Could be. Uh, all right, that's a good one. 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 beach in Koh Kood real bad. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. This episode
was produced by your favorite host, who is cranking out hot takes for two-plus weeks while I was out, Gunnar Olsen.
It 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.