Episode Transcript
What Your Points Are Actually Worth
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10XTravel_10000K Points_042426: [00:00:00] Each of us has been hypothetically given a hundred thousand points. That's it. Just a hundred thousand points and we have to plan a complete round trip with flights included.
Maybe you replicate one of these. Um, but really it's inspiration to kind of understand what a hundred thousand points can actually, can actually do. And what it unlocks.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Take Off, a Points and Miles podcast by 10X Travel. I'm Travis, and we're doing something a little different this summer. We're on a short break from recording new episodes, so over the next few weeks, we're going back through the archive, pulling out the segments that we think are worth hearing twice.
Almost every conversation about points eventually runs into the same wall. Somebody says, "Sure, that sounds great, but what does it actually cost? How many points is a lie-flat seat to Europe? Is 100,000 points a lot?
Is that nothing?" And most of the time, the answer you get back is, "It depends." [00:01:00] So, it does depend, um, but it depends inside a range, and the range is knowable. So today, no theory, just numbers that we or somebody on this show before actually paid on flights we actually booked, hotels we've actually stayed at, with the taxes and fees included and the parts that didn't work all left in.
what 100,000 points really buys, what business class to Italy really costs, what I actually booked last year with receipts, and why repositioning is the closest thing this hobby has to a cheat code. So if you're brand new here, remember, check out episodes one through six. That covers the fundamentals, as well as the free course that we've got inside of our web tool, My 10X, which we'll link below.
That will get you up to speed. Everything else, don't worry, you'll pick up as we go. So let's do the math
10XTravel_10000K Points_042426: whether you are a solo traveler, a couple, [00:02:00] or a family of four. There are trips that you can book with 100,000 points, but like, let's level set up front. You're not flying international first class to Thailand. You're not even even solo. I'm not doing that. Yeah. Yeah. But like that's okay, right?
Sometimes in this hobby we get tied up in the idea of like really chasing these, these. Big, fancy redemptions, but that's not always what everyone's looking for. That's not always necessary. And so we're gonna show you some, some ways and maybe just some inspiration to think about, Hey, if you've got a hundred thousand miles, maybe you're new to this, you're looking to take your first trip.
Here's some ways that you can actually deploy them to to, to get your. First trip. So copy them or just use them as as inspiration.
But as
I am going to Malaga, Spain, and my reasoning is that it sounds pretty nice to [00:03:00] just sit on the beach on the coast of Spain. For a few days.
Well, I don't think even if I had the points, either of you would be joining me on this flight excursion because I am flying economy over an ocean.
Shocker. But a hundred thousand points, you gotta, you gotta make it go. What a sacrifice. You gotta stretch your points. I respect it or sacrifice. So I actually found a couple different. Different options. The first one is taking advantage of Virgin Atlantic's dynamic pricing. There are economy flights for just 15,000 points each way.
I can get from Denver to Paris to Madrid for, for that, plus 250 ish dollars in, in fees.
The other option that I found would require me to reposition from Denver to Chicago, but I can fly Liberia for 16,000.
Avios from Chicago to Madrid, plus $102 in in fees, taxes, and fees. So I have a couple options [00:04:00] there. The return flight's gonna be. About the same price. I, I found another Virgin Atlantic bookable through Virgin Atlantic flying Air France. Again, coming back from Madrid through Paris, back to Denver. Same price's, the first one, 15,000 points plus the fees.
So, uh, I am. Getting my round trip flights for around 30,000 points.
I, I, Travis is already pointing at me. I'm being a little, I'm being a little sauce. Right. Go ahead.
You're, you're already at like 30,000 points and like $350 in taxes and fees, but you said you're flying to Madrid. That's not Malaga. So you weren't listening?
Uh, did you Just completely ignored me. Oh, no. Did I miss this? I said there's a, there's a repositioning flight on the end. It's $45 from Madrid to Malaga. It's an hour flight. I'm okay with that.
Yeah. Clearly all of the coffee has not kicked. Kicked in.
Yeah, you were, you were [00:05:00] so hooked on like poking holes in my trip.
That, that you poked a hole where there wasn't one.
So that's, that's the flights. There and back, and then I'm kind of hooked on Wyndham now since we recorded the last episode, where the prices are are insanely cheap and there's more transfer partners to Wyndham now, so it makes it a much easier program to use and I, I'm not gonna sell anyone on the luxury of.
Some of these Wyndham properties, but the one that I found is called the Wyndham Grand Costa Del Soul, and it's 15,000 points per night. So after spending around 30,000 points on my round trip flights, I can spend four nights there for 60,000 points total, and I would still have points left over at that point.
So that's why Travis was giving me grief earlier, because if I just had 5,000 more points could,
but you're forgetting an important detail. Oh, what am I forgetting? Virgin Atlantic and British Airways. Avios are often, [00:06:00] yeah. Transfer bonus destinations. Yeah. So you would, they're likely just plan this trip around one of those, and there's your savings extra night.
Unlike Emily's trip, um, mine's actually gonna cost you $0 out of pocket for the flights and hotels.
I obviously immediately was like, can I pull this off? Like flying long haul international business class? Uh, short answer is absolutely not. No. and that's okay, right? Like. All of this is just about setting expectations and understanding where your points can take you, and that's cool.
Like yes, it would be cool if we could pull off 100,000 points international round trip business class plus enough nights to make it worth it for two people with 100,000 points, but just level setting expectations. That's not possible, but it. Doesn't mean that you still can't take a great trip.
Mm-hmm. Um, I'm keeping it a little closer to home, so that way I can stretch the points a little bit further. We're going to Costa Rica. I went, I loved [00:07:00] it. Had a great time and it came to mind as a great place for a couple's trip. So how do we make a hundred thousand points? Get there. Get you there for your flights and your hotel.
We're actually gonna rely on cash fairs here. Now, I know I said you're not paying anything out of pocket. You're gonna book your flight through the banks portal. I did make the assumption that you're getting 1.50 cents per point. We can push back on that if we want, but then it makes my whole scenario break down.
Um, but if you can get 1.50 cents through a port through your bank's portal, which is not an impossible. Hurdle by any means. I checked a variety of airports, Houston, la, Miami, New York City. I stopped there because basically every single one flights could be had for around $300 round trip. Somewhere a little less like it ranged from like.
2 75 to 3 25 to, to fly down to Costa Rica, [00:08:00] so that's $600 total. If you're getting 1.50 cents per point, that's gonna be 40,000 points to book, to book your flights. That's for both people.
That's for both people, yeah. Yep. That, yeah, that's, that's solid. Now again, like here, here's about level setting. Most of these were operated by spirit.
There were some operated by JetBlue, so you are going to be probably even more uncomfortable than Emily is on her flight to to Europe,
That's gonna be my caveat here, right, is we're trying to stretch the points between more people. We're sacrificing a little bit more of that. Comfort to. To do so, but I also just think it's reasonable, right? Like I think when a lot of people, if they're looking to book cash fairs and they see that the United flight was $600 or the spirit flight was $300, like, like your, your typical traveler is probably gonna book the, the spirit flight.
Speaker 2: So that's the floor. 100,000 points is a real [00:09:00] trip as long as you're honest with yourself about what trip you're taking with 100,000 points. But let's go the other direction because the thing people often also want to know is what it costs to turn left when you board, and that's just our fancy way of saying you're headed to business or first class.
We spent an entire episode pricing out business class to Italy, one of the most popular destinations that people in Points and Miles wanna go to. And the numbers range from genuinely great to frankly insulting. So here's both ends of that
10XTravel_Business Class to Italy on Points_022826: So e evenly spread means just because you don't find a word availability on one of them, doesn't mean that you'll be completely out of luck. You can spread across all three alliances, especially if you're willing to reposition or one of my favorite ways, like do a layover in. Europe can really make Italy more accessible because even if you can't find anything on one of those [00:10:00] 40, 42 city pairs, you can fly to places like Germany, which has 45 city pairs with the US and France, which has 36 and Paris, Munich, Frankfurt, kind of your major hubs for France and Germany are all only about like one to two hour flights to most places in Italy.
Well, I kind of approached it from like. Realistically, what am I, what am I gonna take from my home airport? Or where am I willing to reposition from? So one of the first things that I looked at was United, because there's a relatively new nonstop flight on United from Denver to Rome, but they, they know what they have.
Like everything that I looked at, it was priced at 200,000 points per person in, in business class. I mean, I, I didn't even get past peak season, but I, I just couldn't find a single one that. That is, that was priced at something that I would pay. So that, that's kind of tough and that quickly knocks out my only nonstop option.
When I was looking through the availability, availability on United, there were lots of other [00:11:00] options with layovers for around 80,000 points per person in business. Mainly the ones that I was seeing were with a stop in Zurich actually on Edelweiss Air.
the, the next one that I kind of was looking at was flying blue, 'cause I've done that to get to Europe before and. There's decent availability at outta Denver, either through Paris or through, uh, Amsterdam. And I was, it was kind of tough going, looking through all the, the summer availability for business class, but I did find one for 60,000 points.
Yeah, there you go. In business, um, which had had a layover in Paris. So when you consider some of the, the transfer bonuses to. Air, air France flying blue. They also do a lot of the, the promo offers. Um mm-hmm. They announce new ones each month. So depending on what those are, you can knock a pretty decent chunk off of the, off of that price.
My beef, my beef with flying blue is that they've snuck up on the taxes and fees over the last couple years. I mean, I don't, [00:12:00] mm-hmm. I don't know that you can book a round trip business class ticket for less than like 400 bucks in taxes and fees now, which is just super annoying.
One that I'll say, which. Honestly, I thought about booking, but there's a, there's a direct flight, um, on Delta from JFK to Naples, I believe. And if you check out the Delta app and look at what they're pricing it at, it was 495,000 points per person one way.
there are, there are obviously tons of options program-wise. Not necessarily availability, but at least places to look and see what you can find. A few other ones come to mind are Avianca Life Miles. They've got a, a, essentially a, a zone based, uh, award chart.
So business is gonna be about 63,000 Avianca life, miles plus taxes. Nice thing about Avianca is that, uh, they don't pass along fuel surcharges and so they're, they are Star Alliance, so it can be a great option for booking Hanza or Swiss. In addition, you know, you could still use Aeroplan or United, but Life Miles is another, another good option too.
Ethiopian flies a [00:13:00] number of fifth freedoms stopping in Rome between the us I had no clue of that. Where? From New York? Uh, I think Chicago, Atlanta, and DC. Wow. Okay. I I could be wrong on those. Don't worry. But I had no clue on that's, I know that they do. Good option. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's probably the least exciting option out of, out of all of them, Hey, they've got beds, but like Yeah.
Their availability tends to be pretty decent as well. Hmm. Nice. Another couple options. Virgin Atlantic, some, some options here, sort of across alliances. 'cause they have a few sort of one-off, uh, partnerships. But alliance wise, I found a, a Boston to Rome via SAS so connecting in Copenhagen for about 75,000 miles and 26 bucks.
One thing to sort of along that line to kind of consider is with booking with [00:14:00] Aeroplan, I don't know if they do this for partners or just Air Canada operated flights i'd, I'd have to confirm, but you can essentially pay more points to offset essentially the tax and fee. So if a flight's listed for 70,000 points plus 120 bucks Canadian dollars in the taxes and fees, they a lot of times will give you an option to pay like 85,000 or 90,000 points.
$0 in tax and fee, so mm-hmm. I mean, kind of the same, in the same light. If you're looking at Air Canada versus United, you could pay like 80,000 points per person on United and Yep. Less taxes and fees versus going through, through Aplan. So there, there's different ways to try and avoid the, the extra cost just depends on how much you value your points versus cash.
Benjamin's in your bank. Okay.
Speaker 2: 60,000 on the low end, 495,000, phew, on the high end for the same seats on the same continent in the same month. That spread is the whole points and miles game [00:15:00] right there. But those are searches. Searches are easy to make look good. So here's the harder version. Everything I actually booked for one year of travel, including the two bookings that maybe aren't as, as flashy and that won't garner a lot of attention or, or pride, but here they are
Travis: I'm going to Antarctica for the first time. It's one of those that has been on our Bucket list for a long time, but as much as points and miles makes almost the entire world, not a once in a lifetime destination, Antarctica is one that I've always said might actually be a once in a lifetime opportunity. And so I wanted to be able to scuba dive there.
And there's not a ton of operators that let you do that. My, one of my friends. put together a trip. And so we're going to Antarctica. Um, obviously the Antarctic part is not booked with points, but our flights there and back are. I,
Bryce: And to be clear, they're not being [00:16:00] Antarctica, they're being Argentina. I don't know that you can actually fly to Antarctica with points.
Travis: no, no. Yeah. You have to get to, to Argentina. Um, so we've got our flights to Buenos Aires and then we will essentially reposition down to Ushuaia. I hope I'm saying that right. I apologize if I'm not. But we booked Aeromexico Business Class down there from Mexico City. Yes, I have to reposition to Mexico City.
I think I've talked about it on the podcast before as it's So sometimes this international repositioning is overlooked, but my alternatives were one, two, or sometimes even three stops. So repositioning to Mexico City, I've done it before, it's pretty easy for me from here in Texas. They had, it was technically 100, 000 Aeromexico points per person, but with another transfer bonus.
It cost me less than 70, 000. out great. The Aeromexico website was not the best to navigate, but I figured it out and got it booked. And [00:17:00] finally, for my return, I overthought it. And so I finally just booked, Copa Airlines back, which was 88, 000 United miles per person. Again, I'm not super excited about Copa, but, uh, from.
The flights we chose are on their planes that actually have lie flat seats as long as they don't get a product change Which I just knocked on wood for again, like It's not the flashiest product. It wasn't what I really wanted, but it works out
So and then finally, we're going to italy and ireland in the summer I took advantage of an American Airlines web special for flights there.
50, 000 points in business class. So I'm going Houston to Philadelphia, Philly to Milan. Or 50, 000 American Airlines points in business class. Kind of hard to beat. That's what finally depleted my AA miles. So time to rebuild those.
Bryce: And
props to you for AA, you had an AA booking to Europe that didn't have to go through Heathrow and pay [00:18:00] like 1, 200 in taxes and fees. You're welcome. On, uh, on that booking
Travis: I know I saw it and I was like, I didn't even know that AA flew from Philly to Milan. So that works great.
I was expecting, I was looking for Air France or KLM and repositioning within Europe over to Milan, but this worked out really great for us.
it's apparently a Hilton year for us because I also booked the Grand Hotel Victoria.
Uh, it's part of the small luxury hotels of the world. used to be bookable with Hyatt. Now SLH is under Hilton. Uh, a lot of people were kind of bummed about this, but again, took advantage of that transfer bonus. What's normally, I believe it was, I don't remember if it was 100, points per night. But if it was 120, 000, again, 000 points per night with the transfer bonus.
And that's before considering the fifth night free. Add that in and it's in the 30, 000 point per night range. Hotel on Lake Como in the summer, which is like [00:19:00] 2, 500 euro a night. if it transferred one to one, it's still a great deal. And, um, then getting back, I'm flying Finnair's new business class, which I've heard mixed things on.
People seem to either love it or hate it, but again, it worked out with my itinerary. I am looking for other options because it's not the perfect flight option for me, but I learned my lesson about overthinking and I saw the availability, so I just went ahead and booked it.
Bryce: our big trip is going to be to Sicily, uh, to Italy. Sicily is the island that the boot is kicking. If you're looking at the map, we're going to be there for, uh, almost two months.
Uh, in an Airbnb, had to pay cash for that, but for flights we did On the way over, we booked through, I think through Air Canada, we're flying Lufthansa Business Class. We have to position to Newark again, which again, I'm, maybe I should just move to Newark.
And that was, kind of leaning into the pragmatic bookings that we've talked about as well, had plenty of better options in terms of product. Like Lufthansa Business Class is just okay. not very private at all. The food is okay. Like, you know, it's, [00:20:00] it's fine.
But a word space is pretty easy. And most importantly for me, that's one of the few business class products that is easy to fly with kids because there's your seats are right next to each other. Like your feet almost touch, uh, which if you're a solo traveler, you know, not traveling with kids, that's not great.
But if you have to be able to assist your kids during taxi takeoff and landing, it's incredible. And of course for, I think it was like 66, 000 Air Canada miles like that, That's awesome.
And we're, we're flying to Munich. Uh, kind of the, the repositioning thing too. It's like, just get me across the Atlantic, the flight from Munich to down to Sicily.
We paid cash. It was like 200 bucks each. Uh, easy to do two hour flight, optimizing for flying over the
ocean.
I I think we're You heard that phrase twice in the last five minutes. Just get me across the Atlantic. That's the single idea that moves the numbers the most, and it's the one people resist hardest because adding a flight to your trip feels like it should cost more, not less. But the truth is, it usually [00:21:00] does cost less, sometimes dramatically so.
Speaker 2: Here's what that looks like when it works and one story where it didn't work out so well
10XTravel_Last Minute Family Travel_020426: So this one, I actually, um, again, it was very last minute. I wasn't sure if I was gonna be able to make it. And then last minute decided to go meet my mom in Italy for a trip that she already had planned. So I booked the flight maybe seven, eight days out, and, uh, I, that one was on, uh, American, I believe, and it was.
I had to repositioned to Chicago and then Chicago to Naples. And I believe, let me look at, I don't remember exactly what I paid for that, around 70,000 miles. Yeah. For business class. And so I was, I was pretty happy with that. Um, and then I, my positioning flight to Chicago, I think cost me about 15,000 United Miles and then, you know, got me over.
Straight into to Naples? Well, because like I said, I keep looking constantly and figure out things better. About two days before I've had an even better [00:22:00] flight and it was, I was able to get on the same itinerary. So instead of me having to position somewhere else, I've actually found Tampa to Philadelphia to Naples for less points, 62,000.
So I ended up getting some points back. Could. Canceled that United flight, got those back. And then I really liked the idea of being on one itinerary because, you know, if anything goes wrong, then at least the airline's more likely to help me out.
But even the better part was, is because of, you know, having a position over Chicago, I wanted to leave a lot earlier, so not having to do that, I actually got an entire day, extra day in Italy.
Nice, nice. You know, I was supposed to land at night and I was able to get there in the morning. Um, so I got pretty much an entire extra day, which was, which was really nice. Yeah. Less points, more time, I'll take it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, obviously getting it all on one itinerary is certainly ideal, but seems like despite the setbacks, you're not afraid of repositioning.[00:23:00]
No, but I've learned my lesson. I will do it the day before.
Next part.
Travis: I've done the Iberia option, the 34,000 miles in business class. Um, I think I went via JFK and returned through Chicago. Um, that one was really nice, you know, to, to snag 34,000 points
Matt: probably a little bit more, 'cause 34,000, and that's to Madrid, right?
Travis: Yeah,
Matt: from Madrid to wherever in Italy. So it may be like 40,000 or something all in, but still great price,
Travis: think it, it's distance based based off of the total flight. So I think from the East coast, um, I actually, yeah, I actually went to Southern France first, so my routing was to, to Nice. So not too much more. It fit in, in the
34,000. Um, the return might have been a little bit more going from, uh, Florence to Madrid to, to Chicago, but it was, it was a great option.
Matt: Yeah. Well, and guess [00:24:00] add some context on there too for the IB, those are the off peak dates. So typically not middle of summer. It's basically,
Travis: was February.
Matt: I was gonna mid to late, uh, September, maybe early October, all the way till probably mid-April they publish a calendar. Um, so if that's something that you're looking to book, be sure to pull that up.
Otherwise, if you're looking for 34,001 way in business in the middle of July and wondering why you're not finding it, that's
why.
Bryce: And of course anytime you're traveling to Europe on points of Miles, I think we have to mention that you don't necessarily have to have a destination of the actual country that you hope to visit. I mean, here comes our friend, you know, Virgin again, where you could potentially just book like New York to London for the, you know, six or 7,000 points that whatever those charging for economy and then fly Ryanair Travis's favorite.
Once he tries it for the first time, uh, you know, down to Rome or Milan or Venice or wherever you need to get to. It's, it's certainly a lot easier when things are a little bit tighter together and you have good budget airlines that kind of cover that last mile slash last 800 mile [00:25:00] problem, uh, at least from a Europe travel perspective.
So,
Speaker 2: So let's put the numbers in one place because that's the whole point of today.
100,000 points is a real round trip for one person to Spain with four nights on the beach, a real trip for two to Costa Rica. Business class to Italy, that runs roughly 60 to 90,000 points one way per person if you're patient and flexible, and 200,000 or worse if you insist on the nonstop on the fixed dates.
34,000 if you'll go in February with a stop in Madrid, 50,000 if American drops a web special and you're paying attention. And repositioning the thing that feels like extra hassle is usually the single largest discount available to you.
None of these are promises. They're a range, and knowing that range is what turns this from luck into a decision.
Here's how we put it at the end of the Italy episode, and I think it's the right note to end on
10XTravel_Business Class to Italy on Points_022826: I've used this analogy with people a lot, and I [00:26:00] don't know if it makes sense to people, but it does to me of like when you're. Looking at building those point redemption skills, it's, it's like a puzzle, right? Like you start with the outline, but it takes a number of pieces before you actually start really seeing the full picture coming to life.
And that's kind of the takeaway here, right? This is not the comprehensive everything you need to know, but it's some of those most valuable pieces if you're looking for business class to Italy and quite frankly, like can be pretty. Cross applicable to central Europe in general. If you enjoyed today's episode, head over to our Facebook group. Tell us or our YouTube in the comments below. I would, love if you would like, subscribe, leave us a rating.
Let us know in the, in the comments and the feedback, whether that's, like I said, Facebook, YouTube, or if you're seeing this as a clip on Instagram or wherever. So the, the point of all of this is to [00:27:00] educate you, to help you redeem your points to go and travel. That's
Speaker 2: summer's coming to an end. We'll be back soon, we're taking questions and the objections that come up constantly in the Facebook group, the ones people are slightly embarrassed to ask out loud, and we're gonna answer them from the archive.
So if you've got a question or an objection to Points and Miles even, drop it in the group or in the YouTube comments this week and we'll try to get to it.
