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Smart Travel: Upgrade Your Getaways
The Benefits of Award Search Tools and When They’re Worth Paying For
00:34:19
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- [00:00]
Megan Coyle
Sally, Sometimes it feels like the stars have to align to use your points and Miles wisely, don't you think?
- [00:06]
Sally French
Oh my gosh. I totally agree. Often I feel like I find this idea of a great redemption and then I actually go to the airline to book it and then nothing is available.
- [00:14]
Megan Coyle
Yep, and it's way more expensive in points if you do find something available. Luckily there are some search tools that make finding that availability and those lower points prices a lot easier.
- [00:25]
Sally French
Cool, because sometimes finding these things can give me anxiety and figuring out the tools to use them can give me even more anxiety. Luckily, we brought someone on the show who can help us out.
- [00:38]
Megan Coyle
Welcome to Smart Travel, a deep dive into the tips, tools and tactics to maximize your travel dollars.
- [00:43]
Sally French
I'm Sally French.
- [00:44]
Megan Coyle
And I'm Megan Coyle and we are.
- [00:46]
Sally French
The travel nerds ready to help you plan your next big trip.
- [00:49]
Megan Coyle
And we're always roping in our fellow nerds to help us out. Today I invited travel writer Craig Joseph to talk about what award search tools you need to know and which ones are actually worth paying for.
- [00:59]
Sally French
I'm so glad he's here today because he does a bunch of cool multi city trips, so if these tools work for him, they can get you anywhere.
- [01:06]
Megan Coyle
But first, we'll talk about a few credit card companies this episode that are nerd wallet partners and that doesn't influence how we discuss them. The benefits, terms and fees mentioned were accurate at the time of posting, but things can always change. Some offers may have expired by the time you're listening. For the latest details, follow the links in the episode description.
- [01:25]
Sally French
Now the listeners know I'm a huge Disney fan, so this is exciting news. Disney just announced plans to build a new theme park in Abu Dobby and it's a big deal because this will be Disney's first ever park in the Middle east and only the seventh Disney resort destination globally.
- [01:39]
Megan Coyle
It'll be built on Y Island, which already has some big attractions. Sea World, Ferrari World, and Warner Brothers World. Disney CEO Bob Iger said in an interview that it takes up to two years to design a park and then five years to build. So we're looking at potentially seven years or more for this Disney park to open, and they're not committing to any type of opening date yet.
- [02:01]
Sally French
I'm also curious if they're going to make this an indoor park. SeaWorld Abu Dhabi and then Warner Brothers World are both indoor parks, and summer temperatures in Abu Dhabi can easily reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
- [02:12]
Megan Coyle
Yeah, it sounds like a must that it has to be indoors. It's also giving Adventure Dome in Vegas.
- [02:16]
Sally French
Oh, you're right. You're right. Okay, so I ran a comparison of other parks in Abu Dhabi and the nearby Dubai, which is just 45 minutes away, to kind of get an idea of what Disney ticket prices in Abu Dhabi might be. So in May 2025, a one day adult ticket for Legoland Dubai starts at about $80. Compare that with Legoland in California, which is about 90. Similarly, SeaWorld Abu Dhabi is about $100, while SeaWorld San Diego is about $120. This all gives me reason to believe, Megan, that the UAE Disney park might also have cheaper admission than Disneyland in California.
- [02:54]
Megan Coyle
But not a huge difference. 10 or $20 difference. And we're talking seven years from now. We have no idea.
- [03:00]
Sally French
No one should go on a save $20. I do agree with that.
- [03:04]
Megan Coyle
Yeah. I will say you do see some much bigger savings at some international Disney parks, like Tokyo Disneyland. I looked up those May prices, and they're just $60 a day in May compared to like $200 for a Disneyland ticket in California. So that would be some real savings.
- [03:21]
Sally French
I have heard Tokyo is weirdly cheap, and I've also heard Tokyo is the best Disney park. So I think we're gonna have to go check it out.
- [03:28]
Megan Coyle
Oh, yes. I want those little mochis that look like aliens. Yum.
- [03:32]
Sally French
All right, going. Another airline just launched their version of a companion pass. That would be Frontier Airlines. They now have a free unlimited companion travel benefit for Elite, Platinum and Diamond status members in its Frontier Miles loyalty program.
- [03:47]
Megan Coyle
This is the first real competitor to the Southwest Companion Pass program. That one similarly lets Southwest Rapid Rewards members who earn it designate a companion and take them on flights for just the price of taxes and fees, which is around $11 per domestic trip for an entire calendar year, or however long your pass is good for. But usually a year. That could be a ton of flights that you're getting for. Basically, buy one, get one free.
- [04:11]
Sally French
Yeah. And this is quite good. I know that we often dunk on Frontier, and we used to like Southwest. We have increasingly started dunking on Southwest. But I have to say, Frontier is even more flexible because you do not have to designate your companion. We did confirm this with Frontier. So with Southwest, you have to choose a companion. You can change it a few times a year, but with Frontier, you can take someone new as your companion companion on every flight. We have an article on NerdWallet about the different companion offers from all the different airlines. It's not Just Frontier and Southwest. There are also other companion offers, but typically these are limited to one flight only. We also have information on credit cards that can help you earn them. So we will link to that in today's episode.
- [04:53]
Megan Coyle
Description Frontier is really coming for those Southwest enthusiasts like you, Sally.
- [04:57]
Sally French
I know they are winning me over.
- [04:59]
Megan Coyle
Yeah, I was just thinking about that promotion they did last month where they were selling Frontier elite status for $40. If you could prove that you were a Southwest member.
- [05:07]
Sally French
Moving over to some hotel news, Marriott Bonvoy just reached a new milestone. One million rooms in the U.S. big number. And they are also doing some giveaways to promote this big number through May 26. They have an online contest where you could potentially win a grand prize of 1 million Marriott Bonvoy points.
- [05:29]
Megan Coyle
You can try to enter the giveaway by going on their website called Marriott bonvoy roulette.com youm know Megan, I have.
- [05:36]
Sally French
A funny story on that. I actually tried to do this on my work computer and I got blocked.
- [05:40]
Megan Coyle
I did too. I was like, wait, this is actually for work. I'm not gambling.
- [05:44]
Sally French
The IT department here at NerdWallet is working hard to make sure we are not doing anything that resembles gambling from our work computers.
- [05:50]
Megan Coyle
I know this is research. I want to know what I can do with a million points. You know what I mean?
- [05:54]
Sally French
You know, for what it's worth, I'm not convinced that people win these online contests anyway, so I'm not too worried about not being able to enter.
- [06:00]
Megan Coyle
Yeah, that's fair. I've never won one, so. Okay. And in other Marriott news, I was really excited to see that Marriott announced it plans to acquire the Citizen M brand.
- [06:09]
Sally French
I actually just stayed at one a couple weeks ago in Miami.
- [06:12]
Megan Coyle
They look so colorful and fun. I was just looking at one for my Italy trip that I'm about to leave on tomorrow. So. They also have a really interesting loyalty program. Have you heard about it? Sally?
- [06:22]
Sally French
Oh no. I stayed in one and I didn't even bother signing up.
- [06:25]
Megan Coyle
Yeah, that's because you actually pay to be a member. It's not. Oh well, that's why. Yeah, it's $120 per year and then you get 15% off on all stays and 15% off on all on site food and beverages. Plus late checkout until 2:00pm all right.
- [06:41]
Sally French
Moving right along to other news, the real ID enforcement at airports went into effect last week. Now if you are one of the roughly 20% of travelers who does not have an ID that will get you through airport security. I Have to know, what are you waiting for?
- [06:55]
Megan Coyle
Probably their next flight. But for real, everyone, don't hold everyone else up at the airport and make sure you've got a real ID compliant license or a passport or one of the other alternatives. We've got a list that you can find in today's episode description.
- [07:09]
Sally French
Now, I have heard DMV lines are still long. It's tough to get an appointment. So try to get those DMV appointments so you can get that real ID asap.
- [07:18]
Megan Coyle
Also, this is our last reminder. I never want to talk about real ID again. Okay. On with the show. I know some of our listeners have probably been hearing our episodes about transferring points and redeeming them, and they've got to be thinking, geez, this is way too much work.
- [07:33]
Sally French
Honestly, sometimes I feel the same.
- [07:34]
Megan Coyle
Yeah, well, one of the strategies that can make this easier for booking flights is using award search tools. You basically use them like you would use any other travel search tool like Google Flights or Expedia. You put in your dates where you want to go, and it'll tell you how much those flights cost to book in points instead of in cash.
- [07:52]
Sally French
Comparison shopping for award flights. This is the way.
- [07:56]
Megan Coyle
Exactly. I invited another one of NerdWallet's travel experts to cover this. Craig Joseph is a writer on our team and he uses these tools all the time. In fact, he wrote an article about it for NerdWallet, which we will link.
- [08:08]
Sally French
To that in the episode description. Craig is so good at this stuff.
- [08:11]
Megan Coyle
Craig, welcome to Smart Travel.
- [08:13]
Craig Joseph
Hey, Megan, thanks for having me.
- [08:15]
Megan Coyle
I'm so excited to have you join us. You've redeemed literally millions of points for travel. So what would you say your travel style is?
- [08:23]
Craig Joseph
Well, I got into miles and points about 15 years ago with the primary goal of saving money. I think it's safe to say that that's why we're all here, right? It's to stretch our travel dollars. The more money you save on travel, getting to your destination and the hotel once you get there, the more money you have for cool experiences once you're on the ground. So anyway, I was a poor grad student and loved to travel and tried to stretch my point balances by booking the cheapest flights and hotels possible. And that all changed around 2015 when I used American Airline miles to book an international business class flight for the first time. And that flight was on Japan Airlines from the US To Tokyo. And I remember sitting in the spacious business class suite, looking around with this orner grin on my face, thinking, I Didn't have to pay for this.
- [09:07]
Megan Coyle
Oh my gosh, me too. I'm always wondering how much everyone else around me paid for their flight. And I'm like, it's my little secret that I didn't pay anything.
- [09:16]
Craig Joseph
And talk about imposter syndrome too. Like, surrounded by people that probably paid thousands of dollars for their seat. And I'm just like, do I belong here?
- [09:23]
Megan Coyle
Totally. I also love that you took Japan Airlines. That was also my first business class flight on points. So we've got a lot in common there. So how much would you say you think you've saved on travel? Using points and miles?
- [09:35]
Craig Joseph
I compulsively track everything in all aspects of my life, but I have a spreadsheet that tracks all of my redemptions. And over those 15 years, I've saved something like $250,000 off the retail costs of travel. Oh my gosh, that's thousands of nights on the road, hundreds and hundreds of flights. I've been all over the place and it's kind, kind of neat to track how far this hobby has taken me.
- [09:57]
Megan Coyle
To be able to save that much, do you have to be an expert? Do you have to spend every waking hour looking up flights, finding availability? How much time do you have to put in to be able to get that kind of return?
- [10:10]
Craig Joseph
So back in the day, you had to spend quite a bit of time. There weren't tools out there that made the process easier. But today the process doesn't really have to be that complicated. A lot of people have this misconception that there are all these nitty gritty and nuanced riddled terms and conditions for all these different errors. Airline and hotel loyalty programs that you need to know in order to book a nice vacation. But when it comes to actually redeeming your points, there are so many award search tools out there now that streamline the steps in the points redemption process that used to be super labor intensive, like finding award availability. I remember that first business class flight I talked about going to Japan. I spent hours, probably days combing the American Airlines website just waiting for availability to pop up and other tools that will do that instantly for you.
- [10:56]
Megan Coyle
So that's why we're here today. We're going to talk about some of those tools for people who aren't familiar with them. What do they look like and how do they work?
- [11:04]
Craig Joseph
So think of these tools sort of like kayak or Google flights for miles and points redemptions. The tools let you select what miles or credit card points you have, and once you input details like your travel dates and departure and arrival airport. They show you all the available options for using your miles. So that long list of airlines that partner with your credit card points, these tools search all those airlines simultaneously and show you where there's availability so you don't have to search them one by one.
- [11:33]
Megan Coyle
That's amazing. A huge time saver. But who are these tools really built for? Is it for a casual points traveler who uses their miles once a year or who is best for using these types of tools?
- [11:46]
Craig Joseph
Definitely, there are different tools for different use cases. For the most part, these tools are best for people looking for airline partner award space or that have transferable points from their credit cards and access a wide range of airlines and hotel transfer partners through those credit cards. If you only have rewards with one loyalty program, say a certain airline, United Airlines, for example, you'd probably be better off using the airline website or the hotel website directly to search for that award availability. Otherwise, try out these tools and figure out where your next adventure can take you.
- [12:18]
Megan Coyle
Now, we should say right up front that some of these tools cost money. Is it worth it to pay to use these tools?
- [12:24]
Craig Joseph
Well, I guess it would just be like any service, right? Worth it will depend on the value you get from the service. So if you pay $100 annually for an award search tool, and it saves you more than that, even if you only use it once a year, that's a win, right? That said, many of these tools offer services with monthly rates so you can renew and cancel at will, depending on your travel schedule.
- [12:46]
Megan Coyle
And there are some that you might already have access to for free. For example, Point Me is available to Amex cardholders, so you can find out which Amex transfer partners have some availability. And Bilt cardholders also have the same thing. You just have to go through the Bilt app to see what the flight options are.
- [13:05]
Craig Joseph
But there are some limitations with those search engines. In particular, you're only going to see search results that apply directly to your credit card issuers. Transfer partners. So let's say Bilt and Amex both use Point Me. They'll return different results because their transfer partners are different. And if you have points with multiple credit card programs, it won't search through all of your available transfer partners. So let's say you've got a Chase credit card as well in addition to your Bilt card. When you use Bilt, you'll only see the results for transfer partners. With Bilt, you won't actually see any of the other ones from Amex or Chase or any other non partner airlines.
- [13:44]
Megan Coyle
As a reminder, you can find a list of transfer partners of all the major credit card rewards programs on NerdWallet. We'll put a link in the episode description and Craig, you wrote an article about some of these tools. What are things people should look for? Be aware of as they are looking at these tools and deciding whether they should pay for them.
- [14:02]
Craig Joseph
So of course cost is one, but you also need to know whether the tool is going to do what you need it to do right? So does it offer a search of the airlines that you want to use? Search speed is another Some of these tools query from huge databases, cached databases that can take a really long time to get results. We're talking like 20 or 30 minutes for results for some of them, but there are some tools that operate really quickly and kind of cut out that lag time. Additionally, to me the biggest thing with these tools is alerts, so I don't want to have to go to the airline or hotel website every day and hope that I find availability. These tools allow you to set up alerts with your search criteria. So whatever your travel plans are, they'll send you an email whenever the availability shows up. And sometimes they'll even send you emails letting you know that the availability isn't showing up. Just to kind of remind you that you might need to look for different options for whatever your travel plans may.
- [14:59]
Megan Coyle
Be, we always recommend setting those alerts so that way you don't have to check it yourself every single day. All right, stay with us. We're back in a moment. All right, so let's go through some of your favorite tools. I think let's start with Seats Arrow. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using that one?
- [15:23]
Craig Joseph
So Seat Aero is one of my favorite tools because I can search for a very specific set of criteria. And I should start and caveat this by saying that it's probably not for beginners. For example, I use this tool to search for particular planes or particular seats that I've never flown before. So say I want to fly in a very specific seat like we were talking about Japan Airlines earlier. So you can filter specifically for Japan Airlines first class on a very specific plane. Say they're 777 that offers the first class. Or if you want to look for Singapore suites or Etihad Apartments or Qatar Q Suites, you know, these really aspirational business class or first class products, you can filter just for those and it's pretty valuable for that. I also use Seats Aero to filter only for flights where those seats are available. And no other tool offers that so easily. In addition, Seats Aero has a free and a pro version. Both offer alerts. Like we talked about, alerts are super important. But Seatside Aero does have this one quirky thing where if they send you an alert and it triggers, then it removes the alert and you have to sign back up for it. So if it isn't perfect, if it isn't exactly what the travel plans you're looking for, then you have to go back into the website and set it back up again. So not totally ideal. It's not super, super user friendly. It takes a little bit of time to learn the nuances of it, but still a very, very powerful tool.
- [16:46]
Megan Coyle
Poincia is another one. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using that one so that one doesn't do the filtering by the exact seat?
- [16:54]
Craig Joseph
It doesn't, no. And I should mention that Point is my favorite tool. It's the one I recommend the most often and it's the one that I use the most often. It doesn't do the sort of nitty gritty level of detail that Seats Aero has, but it has a super easy to use interface and lets you customize results in a variety of useful ways depending on what miles or points you're trying to use. So one of my favorite features is that it integrates current credit card transfer bonuses into the search results as well as. And that's one of my favorite ways to save on my points and miles redemptions. So say BILT is offering a transfer bonus to Alaska Airlines. You can actually filter the results to include only Alaska Airlines or its partner airlines that will be part of that transfer bonus. One of the other things I love about points. Yeah. Is that the live search tool covers an eight day range. So you get real time results for award availability over that period on a combination of up to two departure and two arrival airports.
- [17:53]
Megan Coyle
And when you say eight day range, that's eight days from the dates that you searched. It's looking up live availability.
- [17:59]
Craig Joseph
You got it. Yeah. So you can search for like Monday through the following Tuesday. So if you know what your departure dates are, you can search for award travel over an eight day period from up to two departure airports and two arrival airports. So it's super powerful. It would be great if you could search for broader periods. Say you just know you want to travel sometime in June. It would be nice if you could search for the entire month. But we'll take what we can get, right?
- [18:25]
Megan Coyle
Totally. What are the downsides of this one.
- [18:27]
Craig Joseph
Poincia offers a monthly and an annual premium subscription. But you'll need to determine how frequently you use the tool to determine if it's worth that $100 annual fee. I think the last I looked the monthly fee was like 12 bucks a month. So if you're only going to use it once, then maybe it's better to use the monthly fee, find what you need and then go back to the tool later and sign up for a premium membership later whenever you want to use it again. One other downside is the inability to search for airline specific stopover multi city benefits. So this is a big deal to me and it's one of my favorite things about award travel. Just for example, I just used Alaska Air Miles on Finnair to get a free stopover on my way to Europe. So I was flying from the US to Amsterdam and because Finnair's hub is in Helsinki, you could actually get a free stop over there. So I went and visited Finland for a handful of days before I continued on to Amsterdam. So Poincia kind of struggles with that a little bit. Another example is the United Excursionist Perk which offers a free one way flight on a multi city award ticket. So for these itineraries that sort of have complex routing, you'll have to search directly with the airline website or call in to confirm award availability. But overall I think a relatively few number of users will be impacted by these limitations. And again, PointCI is a super powerful.
- [19:48]
Megan Coyle
And easy to use tools and it's a good start. Right. Like you can see the one way certain like open jaw itineraries maybe. So it's a good start for trying to book those more complicated itineraries. Point Me, which is one we already mentioned, is one that you can get for free with certain card issuers. What is the service like if you use it outside of the build or Amex version of the tool?
- [20:11]
Craig Joseph
Yeah, so Point Me has a standalone app and website. It's not really a tool that I use much. The search features are relatively limited relative to what you get with a service like points. Yeah, or Seats Aero. And most of all it doesn't offer alerts, you know, for beginners, Point Me could be good because it offers straightforward and step by step booking instructions for how to actually transfer your points and book an award flight with a specific airline after you find award availability. So if you really need some hand holding to get through the process, it could be good. That said, there are tons of resources out there already on how to transfer your points and how to make award bookings. So it's really only valuable if you want those step by step instructions in the same app you're using to search for award availability.
- [20:58]
Megan Coyle
That makes sense. And we've got some of those step by step guides on the NerdWallet website as well. I want to give a special shout out to Points Path, which is a tool a little bit unlike the others. This one is a Chrome extension that shows you how many points you would need to book a flight and it shows up right in your Google Flights search results right next to the cash price. What are your thoughts on that one?
- [21:20]
Craig Joseph
I love PointsPath and I'm glad you brought it up. I think it's a great tool. You know, if I'm not sure whether to use miles or pay cash for a flight, my first step is to use Google Flights to see what options there are. And the Points Path extension seamlessly integrates with the Google Flight search results. So it actually shows you the cash and the points or miles cost of a specific flight right there in the same place. And it makes it really easy to determine the value of your miles and whether you should book and cash your points.
- [21:49]
Megan Coyle
Some limitations of that one though. It doesn't have a ton of airlines on it yet, especially some of the international ones. I've also found some inconsistencies with the price that it's showing in Google Chrome in the extension, and then price when you actually look it up on that airline's reward search. All right, Craig, are there any other tools that you think listeners should know about when they're looking for award flights?
- [22:13]
Craig Joseph
Yeah, there's another tool I use all the time. It's called Aerolopa and I use that to find the layout of the seating chart for whatever of plane that I'll be flying on. And this helps me avoid inadvertently selecting a seat that might have limited recline or a partially obscured window, or that annoying computer box with inflight entertainment that's under the seat in front of you that takes up foot space. I hate that. So it's a great way to see what the plane is going to look like before you get onto it, so you know exactly what you're walking into. Another tool that I use is called Great Circle Mapper, which allows you to see your flight path between two airports. And I am always a window flyer. I want the window seat. I want to be able to look out and sort of daydream as I'm looking at the ground 30,000ft above. So I use Aerolopa to pick the window seat that I want and then I'll log on to Great Circle Mapper and it'll show me the flight path between two airports. So like that flight to Finland that I had mentioned earlier, I logged on to Great Circle Mapper and I saw that I was actually flying over Greenland and just north of Iceland. So basically in the Arctic Circle and I was flying at night. So to me this meant that I had a chance to see the northern lights if I was on the left side of the plane. So I knew I wanted to pick a window seat on the left side of the plane so that some point in the middle of the night I could open my shade and hopefully see the northern lights, which unfortunately I didn't, but I could have if they were there.
- [23:41]
Megan Coyle
And what is the last tool you recommend?
- [23:45]
Craig Joseph
There are probably two more that I use pretty regularly. Award Wallet's a great tool for tracking all of your points balances in one place. It's been around forever. It's easy to use. It's especially useful as well because they'll remind you when your points may be reaching an expiration date so you can avoid losing them, which is a big deal. And if you're renting a car, I always recommend using Auto Slash and that's been my go to for comparing prices and saving money on car rentals for quite some time.
- [24:11]
Megan Coyle
We just mentioned a bunch of different award tools people could use and ways to save. What is kind of the order you use when you are trying to book a trip coming up? Which one do you check first and what's the process you use?
- [24:24]
Craig Joseph
It really depends on what I'm looking for. Google Flights and Point Path are my first step when I'm flying domestically or if I'm paying cash for a flight. But if I know, for example, I'm looking for an international business class flight that I'd never pay cash for, there's no reason to go through that step. So I forego Google flights and almost always head to Poincia. And then once I find availability on points, yeah, I go directly to the individual airline website to confirm the availability is real and then I transfer my points and book my flight. And I think that's another really, really good point that listeners should understand is that some of these award search tools will show what's known as phantom award availability. So the award search tool thinks that there's a seat that's available that may not be available. So you always want to check with the airline before you transfer your points.
- [25:13]
Megan Coyle
We've been talking a Lot about flights. Is there anything like this for finding hotel award availability?
- [25:19]
Craig Joseph
Yeah, a lot of these tools actually have hotel integration, so Points. Yeah, has a hotel search feature, Seats Arrow has a counterpart called Rooms Arrow that does the same thing as the flights, only for hotel rooms. So there's multiple options. If you're also looking for hotel award availability.
- [25:36]
Megan Coyle
Before I let you go, Sally's going to kill me for this. But do you have any hot takes on travel?
- [25:41]
Craig Joseph
Oh, I've so many hot takes. The one for today would probably be that Bilt Rewards is the best travel currency that I personally am starting to value more than Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards.
- [25:53]
Megan Coyle
No way. I'm also a Bilt. Stan, tell me why you think it is beating out some of these other transferable currencies that have been around for ages.
- [26:02]
Craig Joseph
So I was Team Chase and I still am. Don't get me wrong. I love Chase Ultimate Rewards, but For the last 10 years or so that's been my program of choice. But they've really kind of failed to innovate. There are no new transfer partners. It's sort of the same old what you got five years ago is sort of what you get today. Whereas BILT gives you multiple ways to earn their reward points and bonuses within their rewards program and gives you access to award partners that you don't have access to otherwise. So one primary example is Elastic Airlines. Nobody partners with Alaska Airlines. And there are some indirect ways that you can transfer miles from other programs like American Express to get Alaska miles. But Alaska is a one to one partner with Bilt and I find it super, super valuable. Beyond that, they have transfer bonuses at the first of every month called rent day. You can get some really, really sweet deals transferring your Bilt Rewards to certain airline or other transfer partners.
- [26:59]
Megan Coyle
And Alaska isn't the only good one. There's also Hyatt, there's Virgin. There's actually a pretty Rob transfer partners. Thank you so much, Craig for coming on the show. This was super helpful.
- [27:10]
Craig Joseph
Absolutely, Megan, thanks for having me.
- [27:13]
Sally French
I can't believe you did hot takeoffs without me.
- [27:15]
Megan Coyle
We all know Craig is the biggest Bilt stand, so I decided to save you from the Bilt Love fest.
- [27:20]
Sally French
Honestly, I appreciate that. I also really liked his advice for different tools. If you have points in a lot of different programs, it makes it easier to comparison shop and save yourself points.
- [27:31]
Megan Coyle
Yeah, the alerts like that's something we can get the robots to do, not something I need to be checking.
- [27:35]
Sally French
The robots are taking over, but at least they cannot Travel like we can.
- [27:39]
Megan Coyle
That's true. All right, Sally, I did save the listener question segment for you.
- [27:43]
Sally French
Good, because I actually just got a great one from a reader this week. His name is Maju.
- [27:47]
Megan Coyle
Tell us what Manju said.
- [27:49]
Sally French
All right. Hi Sally, I recently read your helpful article on NerdWallet regarding lounge access for Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders. It was very informative. My family and I have a specific question about lounge access for an upcoming trip that I haven't been able to find an answer to. And maybe you can help me.
- [28:04]
Megan Coyle
Us.
- [28:05]
Sally French
We are a family of four, two adults and two children traveling from the US to India via Frankfurt in December 2025. My wife and I both have the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, which we know grants us complimentary access to the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge in Frankfurt. However, do you know if we can bring our two little kids to that lounge for no additional cost?
- [28:26]
Megan Coyle
Ooh, okay. This is a fun one because I think a lot of Chase Sapphire Reserve card holders don't even know that they can get into these Air Canada lounges. That perk went into effect in late 2024 that many of Air Canada's U.S. and international lounge locations are available to Chase Sapphire Reserve Card members and their authorized users.
- [28:46]
Sally French
This is a great reminder, so thank you, Manju, for that. Anyway, for all of those other Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders out there now, there are a few stipulations. One, you must be flying either Air Canada or another airline in the Star Alliance Network, such as United or Lufthansa. So for Manju, I'm assuming you are doing that.
- [29:03]
Megan Coyle
That and then the real hang up is that they are stingy on guests. Like no guests.
- [29:08]
Sally French
Yes. So the guest fee is 59 per guest. In the US it is €59 for the Frankfurt lounge. Contrast that with lounges like those accessed through Priority Pass. With the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, you can bring up to two additional guests into Priority Pass lounges at no additional cost.
- [29:26]
Megan Coyle
To be clear, you can take a guess. You just have to pay for them, right? So there are a few workarounds. One is that those Air Canada lounges are available to authorized users of the Chase Sapphire Reserve. So you could theoretically make your kids an authorized user on your card, though you'll have to pay 75 for each authorized user. So that might not be worth it if you're only going to visit one of these Maple Leaf Lounges once, but if you're going to do it a few times a year, that might be worth it.
- [29:53]
Sally French
Yeah, you said you had little kids, manju, I'm guessing your kids will not be taking advantage of other benefits of being a Chase Sapphire reserved authorized user. Those are things like card rental car insurance or their own doordash dash pass subscription. So not sure about that one.
- [30:07]
Megan Coyle
But hey, it could help them build credit. And this is something I do with my family is I add them as authorized users so they can get the lounge access.
- [30:14]
Sally French
This is the bougiest card for a little kid to be building credit with. True fun Question Thanks MAU. I actually just went to the Air Canada Lounge in sfo, one of my favorite lounges at that airport. Period.
- [30:26]
Megan Coyle
Really?
- [30:27]
Sally French
Well, you know I love my protein options. They had some good chimichurri beef sliders, some chicken adobo. The coolest part was an outdoor roof deck.
- [30:35]
Megan Coyle
I love an outdoor deck at an airport lounge. By the way, we should post the link to your SFO Air Canada Lounge review in the episode's description.
- [30:44]
Sally French
Let's do it. And thanks again, Craig for being on the show today. To hear More from the NerdWallet travel team, follow the show on your favorite podcast app, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio. That way you'll automatically download new episodes. And if you are listening on Spotify, leave us a comment or a question right on the platform.
- [31:00]
Megan Coyle
This episode was produced by Hilary Georgi. Claire Soci helped with fact checking, and a big thank you to Nick Karisimi for editing our audio.
- [31:07]
Sally French
And here's our brief disclaimer. We are not financial or investment advisors. This info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes. It may not apply to your specific circumstances.
- [31:17]
Megan Coyle
We hope you're inspired to keep your passport full and your wallet even fuller. Thanks everyone. We'll see you next time.
- [31:24]
Craig Joseph
Sa.