coming up on let's get to the points let's get started tonight with a new segment and it's called what's in our wallet and we just made this out so Mel you had a fat W so I think we should start with we need to allocate some time for you my husband and I are still working on that card so I have it on my Apple pay so I can use it because this is a Master Card however I read on Miles talk that they're switching this business card over to a Visa so this has interesting implications God there's still more hold on I'm going as fast as I can it's a 45 minute show Nicole I know I'm I'm going I'm getting there all right another Alaska card and I have my goal card my Bank of America debit card and James's venturex all right we're done now let's get to the points she loves to pretend being a crazy rich Asian it's Serena sometimes his journey is the destination it's me she takes family budget travel to another level it's Nicole and he only lies flat over the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean it's MIT Shannon hi there and thank you for joining us on let's get to the points video and audio podcast where we bring you the very best in tips and tricks in the world of Miles points and travel I'm M Shannon and I am joined by my beautiful co-hosts who love traveling the world with their families using their credit card points and Miles first up it's the always smiling and laugh laughing points and Miles Guru Serena hi everyone he's the guy who can help find you the best deal for your credit card points it's riguel y what's up and being a high school math teacher she can calculate points deals for you in micr seconds it's Nicole hey everyone please help us out by clicking that subscribe button now to our YouTube channel Spotify Apple podcast and wherever you watch or listen also give us a like and leave us a comment below and let us know what you think about our show like and the like Miguel now it's time to do it let's get to the points show 49 is here you guys and we've got a lot to talk about tonight we've got the Hilton business credit card we got news on a new katar Airways credit card to discuss and many other things I'm currently aboard the new Cruise Line explor one in Canada and we're going to talk a bit about that more a little later on but let's get started tonight with a new segment and it's called what's in our wall [Music] and this just spontaneously we just made this out so I've got my prop are you guys ready do you guys have your props I have Apple pay oh well hey okay so here's how this works we promise we haven't cheated Miguel has promised he didn't take anything out of his wallet either oh that's really thick there Miguel nice wallet we're going to show you all what's in our wallet of what credit cards and everything that's in there right now so we're just kind of making this up spontaneously so how should this go who's going to go first so since you're traveling Mitch do you want to go sure I'll go first okay I'm going to be really honest I kind of decluttered my wallet because we've been on the cruise so I kind of keep you know just the bare minimum in there when I go out so let's go for it first thing I got in here let's I got some cash in here I got $140 cash so uh let's see what cards do I have so first card I have I have pits Chase Preferred Card and I don't know why it's in my wallet but yeah I got his Chase Preferred Card it's kind of my you know emergency we need a credit card to use somewhere it's the Visa so in case I need a visa they don't take American Express so that's the first card I have in my wallet the next card I have in my wallet okay I cheated I taped over everything here um I have the my and of course Mitch brings tape on vacation that's right I got my American Express gold card I don't leave home without it um my favorite card I use this card everywhere I get four points per dollar for dining and grocery because we're in Canada if I go to the grocery store I'm not going to get four times the points but we go out to eat we got a couple more days we're going to spend in Vancouver got to be breaking out this American Express gold card it is like top of wallet I always use this card everywhere we go so my American Express gold card and I only had three cards in there my final card is my Capital One Venture X Card probably my second favorite card it's two points on everything it's why I carry it so that's pretty much all I have in my wallet right now so cuz I decluttered my wallet before I came okay so I have a question do you have any incidentals on this cruise and what card are you going to use to pay for those incidentals of course he has incidentals do they do room service room service okay so that is a great question Serena because a little hot tip here so they have a casino on board our cruise ship I wanted to test what happens when you decide to load the slot machine with your room key and it codes to your room as a regular charge so I've got my Capital One Venture X on file we got our final invoice because we leave tomorrow and it posted it wasn't a cash advance it posted just like a regular charge I'm just saying you want to go to the casino and cash out you know might be a good way to hit a minimum spend requirement a cruise I don't know I'm just saying great tip Mitch I have a Royal Caribbean cruise coming up in June I'm going to try that but here's the thing so the cruise ship that we were on they only cash out in Euro that's kind of the dilemma I have right now how much Euro do I want to take out on a credit card so I didn't do too much but yeah I did I did a couple hundred because we got some Europe stuff coming up so Miguel you had a fat wallet so I think we should start with you we need to allocate some time for you so it's normally not this fat I I like a minimalistic wallet so that's why I have this wallet you know just for cards a little cash um strap in the back I think I have like $40 or $60 but I've been traveling a lot for work and personal so I I need all the hotel cards just in case I have to switch my reservation last minute so I want to be able to have either a Marriot or haatt card all right so this is what I got so I have two Mar cards so it's like the business card and the brilliant I normally just have the brilliant in there but I have the business one cuz I had Merit reservations and I think that's the card I have tied to the reservations so just in case they want to see that one and then sometimes if I do book the 5% discount lower rate when you have the business card you're supposed to pay with that card I think and then I have my favorite card or one of my favorite I guess the sapphire Reserve AMX gold I have my American Airlines executive Platinum whatever World Elite the one with the long name yeah Capital One and that one um I only have it so I could access a lounge now that I'm an authorized user on my wife's account I have my USAA debit card if I need cash and my Hyatt uh business card because I was staying at Hyatt and using cash rat so I want to make sure that I get my $50 credit twice a year I already got that so that's what I got wait okay you're holding all those cards right now because you've been traveling right yeah normally I don't carry I mean I try to be as minimalistic as possible so probably just carry like the AMX gold and Sapphire reserve and the uh debit card that's about really all I carry and I'm quite the opposite I carry all of them all the time what you do not I swear to you like this is my regular wallet I literally just took it out of my handbag let me count how many you don't have one of these for like no oh yeah that that's a good one to have me go yeah credit card wallet no well this is not all of them this is just what I have in my wallet now there a lot more there's a lot more in the junk drawer there is I have the Alaska business card I just got that one trying to make the minimum spend on that I have two priority passcards you know one both of them are trash now cuz I can't get any restaurants anymore not till June not till June okay I got some time um I have the business cash in have to go to the office supply store I don't even know why I have James Gold business I have my Sapphire Reserve I have two AMX business cards God there's still more hold on I'm going as fast as I can there is the Venture X it's a 45 minute show Nicole I know I'm I'm going I'm getting there all right another Alaska card and I have my go card and then my Charles Schwab debit card my Bank of America debit card and James's venturex all right we're done okay you have two Alaska cards is one in another person's name no they're both in my name one is business and one is personal and this is your first time dabbling in Alaska miles right this is my first time yes and is this for starlux of course it's for starlux Nyla watched the video one of her only videos Nyla watched and she was like Dad you need to apply for the Alaska card so that we can all fly in starlux talk about that talk about how you successfully got two Alaska business cards well don't tell anyone but I actually have three Alaska cards with Bank of America you can apply for multiple cards within a 30-day period and they only check your credit once so I applied for the business card and the personal card and then because I have an LLC I could apply for a business card under my LLC that's why I got three cards I tried to get a fourth one with my other LLC they were like no ma'am no good enough so Bank of America was not like Oprah you get a card you get a card exactly they were like you only get three cards not four it was worth the try especially because they weren't going to run my credit again so I mean it's a no but you know I got three cards it wasn't bad all right Serena what do you have okay I have my phone I have Apple pay open here a few episodes ago I opened the capital 1 Venture X business card on our show right so my husband and I were still working on that card live yeah I did it live my husband and I are still still working on that card the physical card is in his wallet so I have it on my Apple pay so I can use it because this is a Master Card however I read on Miles talk that they're switching this venturex business card over to a Visa so this has interesting implications cuz number one maybe we can use it a Costco also number two they might remove the restaurants from this card so this is a wait and see we don't know what's going to happen but it's interesting so he needs a Visa my husband does because this is Master Card so I need to put a Visa in his wallet I have a capital 1 Venture X consumer card in his wallet so he can use it at Costco and then we are also um trying to accumulate more American Express points with the dining offer where we can get 14 x at restaurants and dining and we talked about that deal a few episodes ago so we are using our American Express business gold card with that he has it in his wallet and I have it on Apple pay and that's it we're very simple [Laughter] I'm always working on a minimum spend so once we're done with this Venture X business card is going to move on to the next one that I'm working on all right so you guys have a lot of cards in your wallet well except Serena Miss minimalistic what would you say is your two top cards two top cards I got them right now it's the American Express gold and it's the capital inventure x those are my two favorite cards those are the two cards I always keep in my wallet when I travel Miguel so my top two is American Express gold and the chase fi reserve and they will always be in my wallet I have a little bit of Serena in me I'm using number one whichever card I'm making a minimum spend on and I also have that dining offer so I'm using the American Express business gold so tell us in the comments what your top two cards are what are the cards that are front of mine that are always in your wallet leave us a comment below and we'd like to hear them yes Nicole so I'm kind of looking forward to the comments to see what kind of cards people have in their wallet as well and see how they compare to ours so let's continue on and guys there's something I really want to talk about I don't know if you saw the news this week but Qatar Airways is about to release a United States based credit card and it's a little different than what we've seen first off what is interesting to me about this card is for those of us that have been around for a while do you all remember the chase Aeroplan card the United States one that came out a couple of years ago yes yeah so the way that they set that up was is if you pre-registered entered into this little thing of where whenever they announced the sign up bonus and the new card they were going to give you an additional 10,000 Aeroplan miles on top of that sign up bonus and that was a cool little deal because when I signed up for it you know me and my P2 we both got an additional total of 20,000 Aeroplan miles so at the time the sign up bonus was the 50,000 Point certificate times 2 and an additional 10,000 bonus points so it came out to like 100 ,000 bonus sign up which was great for just giving our email address and having them email us when the card came out so I'm kind of looking forward to this are any of you guys signing up for this what are your thoughts on this so I actually did sign up for it so I don't think I'm going to get the card but I don't know what the offer will be so I was like it doesn't hurt me to just sign up to their mailing list and if I'm interested and I end up getting the card I'll get an extra bonus uh just by signing up so I did sign up and we'll see what the offer is but uh it'll be interesting to to see a new car especially from guitar was yeah same with me I am going to add myself to the weight list and everyone in my family as well doesn't hurt I agree Miguel of course one I think that far ahead for real neither did I you are steps ahead so I did the same thing for Aeroplan I signed up everyone in my family to be on the wait list but we ended up not opening any of them so definitely do it it's kind of like when there's a promo out there sign up just a sign up cuz you never know when the time comes to open the card I don't know if I'm actually going to do it but I'm going to evaluate where I'm at at that time how it is on my priority list you know howy you Nicole this one's more of a me for me yeah we're not playing the game like a me for me I signed up for it because you know fomo and what if there's an extra deal attached to it but I'm I'm curious to see what the offer is going to be but I mean when I think about flexible points I feel like I'd rather get flexible points rather than be pin hold into one Airline but the good thing about Qatar is you can use them on other one world Partners hopefully so let's see what if it has access to that Louis Vuitton Lounge in Doha oh yeah just by holding wait that'd be cool because isn't isn't like the only way to get in like to have guar status yeah one world is not enough so one world status is not even enough to get into qatar's own lounges there in Doha they'll send you to a different Lounge so maybe with this card you can access the lounges or I mean I'd like to see some other type of benefits like that who's the issuing bank for this card people are thinking it's going to be Chase but I don't think that's said in stone yet no no no it's like free form or something like that no cardless oh you're right you're right it is cardless yeah but CET is not the bank they're just they have a few other cards but they're not the bank that's backing do they use the same bank for all their cards though I think one of the last ones they did it was Chase that's why people are thinking Chase but it doesn't have to be because they are not Chase so I'm kind of looking forward to this card we'll see what the sign up bonus is I hope it's just not like this crappy AA card that I keep getting emails for the United States version you know sign up and get 5,000 bonus points you know I have really good hope that this is a really good sign up bonus it might be a really good card you know maybe take it for a spin one time but I think you guys are all right and Serena I love your strategy as well sign up you know all your p's P1 P2 P3 in your house and just have the option because you know it's better to have the option now than it come out and it's a really really good offer that you want and then you don't get that extra sign up bonus bonus so great strategy we're going to put the link in the show notes for you if you want to or wait you should go ahead and get signed up for that now speaking of other good credit cards Serena you've got something about the Hilton business card right so with the Hilton business cards they are issued by American Express I first talked about these cards back in episode two almost a year ago don't go listen to it okay don't don't go listen to it crappy sound bad lighting yeah bad visuals bad audio just stay here you're fine here yes and move backwards exactly so at that time the offer was elevated and I signed up most of my P's for it I signed up myself for the card I signed up my husband for the card and I also signed up my mom for the card as well but since then just recently American Express announced changes to the Hilton business cards the multipliers are changing they are removing the free night certificate after spend and they're increasing the annual fee from $95 to $195 but also in true American Express Fashion they added credits there is now a quarterly $60 Hilton credit to be used at Hilton properties so I've evaluated this for myself and I already know I'm not planning to keep this card anymore because I don't like the higher fee and I also don't like how they remove the free night certificate so when the annual fee posts I'll check to see if there's a retention offer and if not I'm just going to close the cart but in the meantime I need to make use of these $60 quarterly credits so I have a stay at a Hilton property in June in Florida so I called the hotel and asked to charge an amount to my folo equal to the credit they put me in touch with the accounting department and the guy there is so nice cuz I've been talking to him frequently over the last few months and I've been able to charge amounts onto my account so I did three $60 charges one on my card one on my husband's card and one on my mom's card I also did this for last quarter and I did this for this quarter so when I stay there in June I'll have some funds to use for meals any paid activities even the spa if that property has one so these Hilton credits are also on the surpass card and the Aspire card has a resort credit which can only be used at Hilton Hotels classified as Resorts so with my Hilton Aspire card there is a $200 Resort credit that will expire at the end of June I have a stay at a Walder festor later this year so I've done the same thing I contacted the property asked them to charge a certain amount to my folio they had me fill out a form they wanted me to send in my card and then send in a copy of my passport and then they took care of the charge if you have any Hilton cards and you have credits like these to use you can look at Future reservations that you may have and apply the amounts to your reservation for future Hotel incidentals so other ways that you can use these Hilton credits is to pay for room stays and also you can buy physical Hilton gift cards online just be aware that there is a shipping charge that you'll have to pay but recently they have been crediting you for these charges if you buy a physical gift card so these are some of the things you can think about if you have Hilton cards and if you have these credits to use so I'm going to share a funny story so the Waldorf that I just talked about is the Waldorf aoria SE shells I'm going to be seeing there later this year and I used my Hilton Aspire Credit to apply to my folio at this property for later this year there was a little bit of a hiccup when I tried to do this they responded back to me after I submitted my information and they said to me that their American Express machine was down and I laughed because every single Hilton co-branded car right now is offered by American Express they used to have a city card that was a Visa but now they're all AMX cards and so I'm like ha this is so funny so our friend cheu at choose to explore you should check out his YouTube page he's actually at the walr aoria say shows now I actually sent him a screenshot of my email and I said good luck settling your bill and so funny at that same time that he received my scen screenshot he was trying to pay his bill and they told him we can't take American Express right now and he said to them wow I'm not paying my bill then yes yes I approve that message yes so what happens is the next thing I knew I get an email and it says okay this is what we'll do we'll process the charge of the mango house and the mango house is an lxr property which is another luxury Hilton brand that's also in the sell so they offer to process it there and then transfer that charge over to Waldorf so when I'm ready to use it it'll be there and so that's what they did for chw too and so luckily Chu was there at that same time to put pressure on them with his MX card too so that we can both get this done for those of you who plan to stay at this property in the future you can thank me and Chu for opening up the American Express window for you otherwise I don't know how people are going to settle their bill it only makes sense to use a Hilton car there especially with the credits that come with the card oh God I'm going to write that line down oh it's not working then I'm not paying the bill you should try that at a Chinese restaurant because they are notorious for not accepting American Express cards I don't know I'm from Jamaica and there's a lot of Chinese I learn not to play with the Chinese people that's true no thank you when I got this email from then I was thinking what are you a Chinese restaurant not taking American Express anyway happy ending yeah very good happy ending I mean how does that even work that a Hilton property can't take American Express I mean I I don't understand that I know it's hilarious you know I think what happens in this situation is if closed mouths don't get fed so maybe if I was in that situation usually people have more than one credit card they' be like oh let me just switch the card yeah pull out another one yeah yeah if you're not advocating for yourself or don't even know that you could you just take whatever they give you always open your mouth and add vate for yourself I'm so glad you added that part yeah thank you let's keep our family rating all right Sera so that's great that you were able to get Che on your side and pretty much everyone else's side and getting that settled that was a nice little ending to that story but one of my favorite programs is Singapore Chris flyer miles and I've got some miles in there and we all know the rules with Singapore Chris flyer they expire hard expire after 3 years and I've got some in there that are going to be expiring probably in the next year so Miguel you've got good news on how I can use these right yeah so I wanted to talk about Singapore's spontaneous escapes what this is is pretty much like a monthly promotion that they have where they offer discounts on award flights so these promotions are usually released about mid-mon and they will run until the end of the month in which they're announced for flights that you can book the following month so for example they released the April spontaneous escapes mid April and you have until April 30th to book any flights in may now most of of the routes are usually between Singapore and somewhere else but there are some fifth Freedom routes that qualify as well so in the US we have what they call fifth Freedom routes with Singapore Airlines so we have New York to Frankfurt we have Houston to Manchester LA to Tokyo and San Francisco to Singapore some of those qualify different months this month in April you can actually book The New York to Frankfurt and they have 30% off in either economy premium economy or business class so if you wanted to travel between New York and Frankfurt the rates this month for economy are 17,500 Mi there are 36,400 in premium economy and 56,7 in business class the typical rate for the New York to Frankfurt route is 81,000 at the saber level or 87,500 at the standard rate so it's a pretty good discount let's not forget that you can also book The New York to Frankfurt route using Air Canada airplan points and that's only 60,000 Mi with a little bit more flexibility because the Singapore spontaneous escapes have a major restriction and that is you cannot change or cancel those flights so that's kind of theop back but if you have a trip that's more than likely going to happen in the next month then you should look into the Singapore spontaneous escapes for a pretty good discount another restriction is that sometimes there's blackout dates so you want to look at the details on Singapore Airlines spontaneous escapees website to see which states don't fall under the promotion period the other route that qualifies for this promotion this month is the route between San Francisco and Singapore but that's only in economy and that's about 29,000 uh miles and if you don't have Singapore airline miles the good thing is you can transfer from all the major banks that have transferal points we're talking about American Express Chase Capital 1 and city thank you points and just like Fitch this is also one of my favorite programs or Airlines really I think Singapore Airlines has some of the best service out there so just want to put it out there again love Singapore Airlines yeah they don't throw me shade when I ask for more food and they don't cancel your flights exactly actually I really like their dessert it's this uh toffee pudding right I really liked it and I was telling the oh my gosh this is so good and she said to me would you like another one I said ooh wow that's so nice but I need to you know watch my weight well speaking of spontaneous I had to spontaneously go to Jamaica this weekend it was for the passing of my grandmother but it was more of a celebration of life I forgot how much how much I love Jamaica it's been I don't know over five years since the last time I've been back I don't even think I can conjure the emotion that I felt when you land in Jamaica the people on the plane I don't know if you like it or not but I love it they applaud like loud roaring applaud and this one lady was like welcome to the best country in the world I was like yes ma'am so some things about Jamaica okay first of all there's an arrival Lounge nothing made me happier than to get off the plane and be escorted to a lounge that's serving unlimited patties and rum punch thank God I wasn't driving because after the third R punch I was good to no one and because everyone in my immediate family has their priority pass Lounge you can access the clubo bay arrival Lounge using priority pass so even though it's kind of a restaurant it still counts as a lounge so all the priority pass will allow you to have access there and so we were traveling with about 12 people and so each one of us was able to take someone in so it was all of my family in and out of this club Lounge I don't know I'm getting a little emotional it was just good to go home and be able to share the benefits of these credit cards with the rest of my family that sounds amazing and I think I saw some to- Go plates did they fix you some to- Go plates oh my God so the club was full right and so I told lady listen it's fine we just want something to go she goes what do you want I said to her uh can I please have one of everything she said like any Jamaican would say no problem man my daughter went in she had the same request my niece went in we had the same request we left with like 16 little boxes of food and they had no problem giving it to us two things you have to do when you go to Jamaica you have to go to the beach and you have to eat the food you must eat KFC and when you go to KFC ask for the barbecue chicken the line at KFC is like an hour long and people wait in the line it's that good Nicole is that anything like the KFC here here like is there a difference absolutely not okay it's totally different like it's not affiliated at all it's kind of like the Costco that it's a knockof like that it's not a knock off it is a franchise of KFC but I think just like when you go to an Indian McDonald's they're not serving you beef right so they're able to alter the menu based on the people that live there and we have a barbecue chicken I mean every time my sister goes to Jamaica on her way out she stops at KFC that's a bucket of barbecue chicken and brings it home second thing you must have the Patty like I know everywhere sells a Jamaican Patty but this Patty when you eat it if there's not crumbs in your entire lap wasn't good that's for the food some places you have to visit duns River Falls Anytime you Google Jamaica that comes up but a lesser known place maybe like half an hour away is called the Blue Hole so we go there every time it's a waterfall that you can climb it's much less crowded and you get a guide when you go in if you don't have a Jamaican passport they're going to tr you $25 now the water in this place I don't know if you guys are I think you guys are old enough do you remember Brook Shields the movie Blue Lagoon the water is pristine blue everyone got to the top we were able to jump off the ledge my crazy teenage son did a whole backflip I swear I was going to kill him oh wow we had the rope swing and just everybody had a good time and the water even though Jamaica is super hot the water is super cold because it's coming from the river in Jamaica we stayed at my sister's Airbnb it's in a community called Richmond in St ANS Bay and it is a lovely Community there's a massive pool there's gyms and the house is a three-bedroom house and we fit up to 10 people in this property I'll leave the link in the description below in case you guys are visiting Jamaica and want to stay at a nice Airbnb and take all your family it's a really good location it's about 20 30 minutes from everything that's popular in OAS in Jamaica all right one last thing the lounge on exit we left out of Montego Bay and we got to go to the lounge close to gate one that loue was just renovated about 3 months ago the staff in there is so amazing this guy told us he goes my name is Andrew but they call me Dr smooth because if you're not having a good time I'm going to make it smooth I was like okay there is rice and peas fish there is Jamaican patties again an unlimited amount of rum punch do you remember Nana from Costa Rica she had one rum punch and she was out Mitch plug in some Boll here I have Nana sleeping at the lounge I mean like she you would think it's her bedroom she's just laid out across the bench I highly recommend anyone going to Jamaica it is a complete Vibe When I visit Jamaica it's not like a Park High star looks kind of stay it's more homey but I think that's the best way to get the vibe of Jamaica like if you're staying in an all-inclusive take a day and go out and Venture eat some food see the people that's the best way to Jamaica I am going to put it right back on the top of my list and I hope to go back there very soon the food was great but it's not great for your waistline but definitely try it if you go I like your point about the waistline there Nicole cuz I don't know if you can see my waistline or not but um yeah it's pretty bad right now I think I put on 10 lbs cuz I'm on this cruise and it's really embarrassing wait Mitch before you start about your cruise so before I left I put on a dress to go to the funeral right and it zipped I was only there for 3 days when it was time for the funeral I had my son and my daughter try to zip me in the dress and it wouldn't fit I had to wear something else it's probably our rum punch weight yeah it'll be gone with your first run your next R oh my God I can imagine on the cruise must be the same thing right the food is so good yeah I was going to say it's probably the run punch too um it's the food on the cruise yeah it's it's the same thing we're we're living in the same worlds right now Nicole so We are continuing our I guess you call it our spring break Mega vacation last week we were in Taiwan and this week we are on a cruise so we're doing this explora cruise and you probably haven't heard of them before so let me kind of fill you in a little bit on who they are so I don't know if you know who the Aon family is so they're from Switzerland they own the MSC Group which is the cruise lines and the container shipping company so maybe this might help you they have over like a 100 billion ion dollar they're probably one of the richest people in the world oh yeah I know them yeah you know we're good friends they're a friend of mine yes they don't have to worry about credit card points and Miles that's how rich those are but yeah that's kind of who these people are so they had this Vision they wanted to come up with a luxury Cruise Line and I've kind of had my eye on this for a while I've seen ads for it and everything and I'm like let's try it here we are we're aboard the explor one we're in Canada right now we're getting ready to wrap up this cruise and just like you Nicole the food on this Cruise has just been mindblowing so couple things I want to talk about the food on the cruise is number one everyone loves a good Buffet the buffet on this cruise is elevated because when you go everything is pretty much custom made they have a salad bar but you say I want this on my salad they have a pasta bar you go and say I want this Noodle and I want this sauce they make lobster tails shrimp fresh to order they've got oysters crab legs anything that you could want at this buffet and it's been incredible and the other thing that is top of the list you know luxury everything about this has been great but the coolest part about this is the WiFi and I don't know if anyone's ever done a podcast from a cruise but the Wi-Fi speed on this ship it's the starlink satellite service that they have I've been doing speed tests the entire time I've been on this and I've constantly got a 100 megabyte download and at least 40 megabyte upload speed on this entire time I have been on this Cruise so we have had a fantastic time you know Serena's kind of mentioned it over and over on our show that one of the best vacations you can take with your family is a cruise and I think my family you know my husband poed his mom Aunt Peggy his brother John we've all had an incredible time on this Cruise that's the other thing about this is pretty much everything's included there's no drink packages there's no meal packages it's just whatever you want go down to the bar you want a cocktail get it you want to order wine to your room you can get it we wanted an elevated Cruise experience for his mom and and that's what we did it's been great so Mitch how big is the ship how many passengers can fit on the ship so right now it can hold roughly around a thousand probably a little bit less than that and we were talking with a lot of the crew here and right now they have about 700 passengers and they said that's the most that they've ever had because it's a pretty new Cruise Line to them that was kind of a lot because they're used to having these light loads of passengers the crew has been incredible any request you throw at them they'll do it for you no matter what and I think that's the real stars of the show of this crew is just the service there's not been a no it's always been yes absolutely let me make it better for you whatever you need they haven't asked you to wait 15 minutes because that's when the next meal service is do you still want it oh the bread sandwich where's the beef no not at all it's just I can't even put it into words how incredible the crew and staff is is here so some of you may know this but you know a lot of these employees they're on contracts and it goes for like a 4 to 6mon contract and we were talking with the captain that's another thing that we got to do that was pretty cool I got to talk with him and he said probably roughly about 80% of the crew renewed their contracts for the second time that they enjoy working for this cruise line and it's been a lot of fun for them what are some of the activities that they have on board yeah so it's not your typical you know Mexico type Cruise where you go and it's there's no Newlywed Game yeah there's no newly wed game there's no DJ with people handing out shots and stuff in Thea there's no whistle there's no bottle of tequila it's not t-shirt contest oh yeah it's none of that it's so one night they had kind of like a jazz show which was really nice some of the other things is they've been having a lot of talks and a lot of seminars that was one that I did that I personally liked was getting to talk with the captain about his life and it was kind of like the below deck you know kind the captain Sandy type thing getting to talk to him about his career and everything that he's done here at the cruise line Explorer okay Mitch you talked about the lobster and the crab legs are those all you can eat yes it's absolutely all you can eat so it's not like you need to show your room key you don't need to tap to pay so today we just had room service because you know why not PD's like oh isn't it funny they didn't ask us to sign the check yeah it's all you can eat all the shrimp all the crab everything that you want to eat they'll bring it to you they try to do a really good job at keeping things sustainable if they have leftovers like crab and stuff they'll try to use it repurpose it in other ways like they'll make a salad or something else with that for the next day so this is how I know that it's a really nice Cruise Line when they offer all you can eat seafood the high-end Seafood the lobster tails and the crab legs my family has been on many mainstream ocean liners and my dad loves the lobster Tales we always make lobster night and he always asks for another one and they always reluctantly say oh I got you the last one so he gets Max two okay and I give him mine so maybe has three so they're very stingy on all the other liners but if you can have all you can eat that's a good one it's a literally all that you can eat so the one night they had the crab legs at the buffet for dinner and we went and oh my God these crab legs they were massive and they cracked them perfectly so you could just scoop out the crab meat and just it was it was mind-blowing how good it was wait they're cracking the crab legs for you oh yeah and then they're serving them out of their bosom into your mouth that's the other thing mini bar they've got an unlimited mini bar here too so you need more wine you need more cocktails they'll reload your mini bar for you so it's been a fantastic Cruise you know I think I've done enough footage to where I can do like a special edition episode about this I don't know if this is really for points and Miles people but if you're kind kind of into this high-end stuff you know if you're a park Hiatt type of person you know this might be the cruise for you Serena I was just going to do that Serino yeah I totally go on this Cruise so Mitch I want to know what the incidentals are so most of the stuff is included great food drinks no drink or food packages so what are some of the things that if you want to go a little bit over the top what can you spend more money on yeah so that is one of the things with our package we did get a € 300 credit for our cruise so they kind of have like the top top shelf liquor that's not included so say you wanted a bottle of D Perry on you know you could get that they also have this Michelin star restaurant on board it's called Anthology we did that and that was of course you did of course that's what we spent our credit on fine dining it was mindblowing it was a seven course tasting meal and probably one of my favorite dishes was the caviar of course of course was there a sefood foam yes a Parmesan foam is what was was on that and the second favorite dish was the scallop canoli it was just yeah really really good I'm pretty sure after watching this special I'm going to want to book something because I'm not really a cruise person I've mentioned before that if I did one I'd probably want to do the Virgin voyages with my wife or do a Disney cruise with a family but this other one you're making it sound like really really good so I'm sure this special edition is going to make some of a book this let me add this real quick okay Miguel because po at my husband he's exactly like you he is not a cruise person at all like anti- Cruise doesn't want to do it so what happened yesterday we were sitting in the forward lounge and he's like oh maybe we should see where Explorer goes again I think we should do this again I fell on the floor he wants to book another one of these and that's just that speaks volumes because he is a non anti- Cruise person and for him to say that is like something really good must have happened so that was my other question what other itineraries does Explorer have so far they only have one ship the Aponte family they've decided they want to go full steam ahead no pun intended um they're going to have another ship they're going to have explor to and I think it's getting ready to come out soon and right now it's just the ship just kind of goes around I they showed us this video it was their first time through the Panama Canal so they went from the Caribbean all the way around and that's where we picked up the ship we came up here now we're in Vancouver it's going to go back to LA and then the crew's kind of excited they're going to go out to Hawaii so that's where they're going next I'm sure I said one last question but I promise you this is the last question is this a cruise for families did you see any kids or teenagers on board so they do have a kids game room and this is probably one of the coolest game rooms for kids I've seen I'll show you some video right here you walk in they have like this mini pool table where they can play pool they had these three TVs with this gaming system that was just yeah so I asked the crew I said are any kids on this creu and they said there's only five teenagers on this cruise but they said two cruises ago there was about 65 kids so it seems to be kind of mixed about wherever the ship goes or if it's a spring vacation type of cruise if kids are on here or not so I know I mentioned earlier how this isn't really a points of Miles type of thing but one of the ways that we did offset the cost of this cruise is a couple of ways so seems like over the life of this show we've all kind of mentioned it before and I just remember because Serena was talking about it during our game show recently is always want to diversify and one of the ways that we help offset the cost of this cruise is we've been doing Bank bonuses so we paid cash for this cruise we didn't get it for free we paid for it and we've been doing Bank bonuses so probably over the past year and a half we've made a total of around about $2,000 in Bank bonuses we recently did the Wells Fargo one which is $350 we've done a couple of Chase personal and business ones as well so we offset it by using that cash to help pay for this Cruise because you can't really book it with points or anything like that the other thing that we did is we also once again this is what you guys do right we got a couple of new cards to help pay for the cruise to get that sign up bonus as well to hit a couple of those sign up bonuses so you know in essence there is some ways that you can tie some points and miles into this and diversify the way that we paid for this Cruise like you mentioned it's a good way to hit a minimum span so you are thinking of spending a lot of money not just on a cruise but on any trip it's a always a good time to get a new card because you're already paying for that trip anyway get some points for the next trip so since we already have Mitch going on a Spirit flight I say we amend that itinerary and add like a carnival cruise maybe like one of those 2day Miami white T-shirt contest kind of cruise put on Che Cruise yeah the fun sh the free cruises the ones they give away oh oh yeah you know it's been a lot of fun um I don't know about that idea Nicole maybe we can revisit that later but you know it's great give me a month or two I'll work on that special edition episode and you know tell me what do you think do you want to see that is that something that's interesting to you I really love to hear about that yeah yeah wait are you asking the audience you can answer Miguel it's okay Miguel wants to see it oh yes Miguel I promise okay for you I will do it yes but yeah everyone else you know drop us a comment I would love to know if you want this is something that you want to see if this is something that you're interested in and I will show you everything that we did on this cruise I think it would do really well and by then if you're interested let us know and then you know hey maybe we could help you book it too okay yes love the confetti that is a big celebration all right it's now time to move on to ask us okay let's get to the points team Chrissy from Los Angeles here thank you so much for all the energy that you bring to the podcasts every week I'm just having a blast listening to the four of you uh you know tell your travel stories and talk about the deals you're finding and I'm learning so much from you so thank you two-part question for you we are working on a sign up bonus right now for the Capital One Venture X business card I helped my husband uh sign up for that card and we're going for the 300,000 mile bonus which I thought we'd be able to hit easily because he owns a business that has a legit amount of spend but the snag that we're running into is that the card keeps getting declined even for like small amounts so I hadn't totally thought through this that since this is a charge card with no preset limit that it actually takes some time to build up credit with them because I want to be able to confidently you know give that card to the team and say go use this part one of my question is do you have any tips on how to build up credit more quickly with one of your issuers if you or on one of your cards um if it's a charge card specifically part two of my question is I know Capital One has a pretty good travel portal and I'd love to get 10x points on I think it's hotels and rental cars and then 5x points on flights but I did remember that you said that American Airlines recently came out with that rule that you have to book directly through them in order to get your loyalty points or miles with them and I just wanted to ask are there other either Airlines or major airlines or major hotels to know about that that's also the case I would just hate if the team uh was traveling for work and not earning their miles cuz I wanted them to be booked through the portal so I got my credit card points so just want to make sure I'm understanding that correctly thank you so much for everything look forward to hearing from you hi Chrissy thank you for your video question we love your energy and your smile okay guys Chrissy loves our show so we got to help her out here Serena I know you probably got some firsthand experience dealing with Capital One since you just opened and I might add live on our show too the New Biz Venture X card from Capital One so what are you going to tell her hi Chrissy congratulations on that approval it's not an easy one to get you have some really nice Capital 1 miles coming your way regarding the problem with your charges getting denied that is so frustrating Capital One can be a pain in the butt and I'm so sorry for that so here are some things that you can do on the capital 1 website when you log in there is a tool it's called confirm purchasing power and here you can put in the amount of your next large purchase and that can be up to a million doar and this tool will tell you whether or not it will be approved or not and if that doesn't work another thing you could do is to call them one thing that they might suggest is to pay your bill more often even if you're making small amounts on your card if you're reaching a threshold that's uncomfortable for Capital One and they're just trying to feel how you are as a customer they may want you to pay your bill more frequently so that's something that maybe you can suggest or something that they will end up suggesting to you you can also talk to them about why your charges are getting denied and maybe if there's something that they can do on their side to help you get your charges through you can also throw on the old well you know what American Express will gladly take these charges I will have no problem with them and see what they say I have a feeling they're going to do something to help you out so let us know how it goes good luck yes Serena I don't have that Capital One business card but I do have charge cards with American Express and I wish I knew how their algorithm works but something that I regularly do not only with business charge cards or any card is I do more frequent uh payments so I don't wait for the end of the month I do as I'm pretty much as I'm using them weekly maybe and I feel like more frequent payments could only help increase whatever threshold they have that they don't tell us right the true spending power that that you have for those cards regarding the second question American Airlines is the only one that's pretty much said anything about uh loyalty points or Elite status if you don't book direct but they haven't published the list of who the preferred travel Partners will be so hopefully Capital One is on there and you don't have to worry about it at all but I would say whatever is best for the business that's where I would go if it were my business and that's what what makes it easier for booking uh employee travel that's what I would do and you're earning your 10x miles I'd say you know sorry employees if they don't earn any loyalty points or any benefits for them but I would say you come first here I have an employer that I have to travel for and they have their travel policies I can't book on my own I have to book through a certain portal and that's just a requirement of working there so that could be a requirement for your employees to have to have their travel book through Capital One if they don't earn any miles for flying then then so be it I would get my 10x you know I don't know about you guys hi Chrissy congratulations on your new Capital One business card in regards to booking directly with the airline versus to the portal so it's quite likely that other airlines may follow the same Trend and require you to book directly through their website in order to get Elite benefits now I would probably pose a challenge to my employees maybe if they could find and maybe you set a threshold if you could find a flight directly with the airlines that's say 20 25% cheaper maybe you would go that way so the company is saving money and they're getting a benefit but other than that I agree with Miguel it's your company and the benefit should lie with you so if it's more advantageous for you to get 10x points then that's what the company should do what do you think Mitch how should she go about handling this situation with loyalty points yeah I agree with everyone here and I just kind of want to tag on a little bit to what you and Miguel were talking about and I want to give a specific example last week on the episode I was in Kung and I was at their Mary and you know I've talked about this before in a couple of different episodes as well but I had the capital 1 Venture X and we all know that it comes with a $300 annual Travel credit well you know I kind of put it off and I forgot about it but that's how I booked the Marriott in kaung was directly through the capital 1 venturex Travel portal and that's just kind of the world that we live in these days when it comes to the hotel part of this you have to make a decision so the first option is you can book directly with the hotel and make that choice do you want benefits and do you want the points and the status and everything that comes with that or there's the other option and that's what we did we booked through the capital 1 venturex Travel portal and we are both Lifetime platinums with Marriott and it was kind of a difficult decision to make because what we gave up is we gave up lounge access we gave up late checkout and everything else that came along with that and not only that when we were checking in they reminded us multiple times that we had booked directly through Expedia which is the partner of Capital One and that all of our benefits did not apply to that stay but on the other hand you know there are some pros and cons to this so what are the pros so by booking through Capital 1 Travel portal here's one of the pros to that we were able to do a price match and because of that price match we were able to get a $30 Future travel credit for that by price matching to the price that was on the Marriott website so that is one of the pros one of the cons like I said we didn't get any of the benefits that came along with our stay so so that's some of the decisions that you are going to need to make as you go through this world of points and miles is are you going to book directly with the hotel or are you going to book through the credit card portal however way you do it that's a decision that you are going to need to make so booking through that travel portal whatever it is Capital One Chase take your pick that is considered a third party so because of that especially with hotels 9 times out of 10 you will not get those benefits and you will not get those points on the hotel side of that if you're going to be booking flights through the travel portal you want to consider this if there are any issues that come up with the flight you're going to have to contact Capital One to help fix those issues and if you are traveling for business and it's most important to get a quick resolution it might be in your benefit to book directly with the airlines so just keep that in mind yeah that is some good advice so thank you for that Nicole and thank you everyone and thank you Chrissy for sending us your video question please let us know how things go with Capital One it's always great to share data points and we like doing that as well so anything you get we'd appreciate hearing about it too so it's so easy for you to be on our show simply drop us a line on anywh of our social media channels or visit our website at let's getet tothe points.com and we'll answer your question right here that's it for now I want to thank all of our hosts it's Serena bye everyone thank you Miguel later and it's good to see you too Nicole thank you so much see you guys next week and I'm MIT Shannon you can fight out more about us at our website let's get tothe points.com and we'll all see you here next Friday thanks for watching and listening [Music] let's get to the point.com
