Meagan Coyle (1:48)

Sad womp womp. But it's okay. I knew ahead of time that there was a big winter storm coming. I've been traveling for work to to New York for the past week and I was supposed to fly back to LA on Sunday. Although I was following it on social media and in the news, not very many flights took off on Sunday from the New York airport.

Sally French (2:10)

So did you get notified?

Meagan Coyle (2:11)

I did. Well, first of all, since we work in travel, I knew that a lot of airlines will issue a travel waiver if there is a big storm like this coming. So that was already issued on I think Thursday before the flight and they allowed customers who had a flight booked on Sunday from certain airports to change their flight for free to a different day in hopes that maybe it would be a little bit easier to plan for. So I saw that travel waiver and I was like, you know what, I don't really want to go to the airport on Sunday and risk it being canceled, having to wait there for a long time. So I was like, let me just change it ahead of time.

Sally French (2:49)

So you took the waiver option?

Meagan Coyle (2:51)

I did and it was a free change. I changed my flight to Tuesday actually yesterday and I was able to get back to LA with no issues.

Sally French (2:59)

That is such a good tip because so many people don't even realize they might be able to change your flight for free. Often you purchase a basic economy or some other non refundable ticket and you say, oh my gosh, I can't change this. But during these types of winter storms, airlines want you to cancel your flights so you get out of their hair. Even if you have a basic economy ticket and you are traveling this week and there are still ripple effects from this storm, it is important to know that you can probably change your flight. Just check with your airline, typically on the app or on the website. There's a way to do this.

Ashley Peterson (3:28)

Megan, I gotta say I did not.

Sally French (3:30)

Have a canceled flight, but I got very lucky. So I was flying on Saturday out of Miami, no storm, but my inbound aircraft was from Dallas and Dallas on Saturday had the highest cancellation rate at over 86% of flights out of Dallas were canceled. I think the gods of travel must love me because my flight was only delayed two hours and I will easily take a, I will take a two hour delay over a completely canceled flight. Other big airports that had tons of canceled flights were Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Nashville. And then going into the week past the weekend, lots of flights in the Northeast where you are coming from, lots of canceled flights in Boston, JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Washington D.C. i will warn travelers even as the storm starts to subside, cancellations can take a few days to get back on track because you have crew out of place, airlines out of place. So do brace yourself. Even if you have travels going into.

Meagan Coyle (4:28)

The next week, it can take a couple of days to get back on track. And honestly there's not really a lot of relief coming because there are more winter storms on the forecast for this weekend. So if you are traveling especially in the Northeast or Chicago kind of area, there might be more snow Friday, Saturday, maybe into Sunday. So all these tips we've talked about, if you were not flying last weekend, you still might need to use it this weekend.

Sally French (4:53)

Other tips that I recommend if you are traveling, especially during the winter when we know storms are going to be rough, is you do want to consider holding something like travel insurance. Because when you have weather related delays, airlines typically will not offer a lot of the protections that they offer for other delays. I'm thinking about things like free hotel rooms if the delay is in their control. Most major airlines will offer you a hotel room if your flight is canceled to wait out the next flight. But if the delay is out of their control, which is weather, they typically don't cover that. So that's really where travel insurance becomes super helpful, especially if you're trapped in New York and now you have to pay for a couple extra days of a hotel otherwise because maybe you don't have some sort of family or friends you can stay with for free.

Meagan Coyle (5:38)

This is also where points comes in handy because if you have points, then you could possibly use your points to book that extra night at a hotel, maybe an airport hotel or something maybe slightly cooler. Or my other piece of advice is to book some backup flights on points in the off chance that maybe your original flight gets canceled. And you could instead of waiting for their next flight and that might be days from now, depending on how bad the cancellations are. You could actually just say, you know what, I don't want to fly with you at all. I actually have a backup option that is still on time through another airline and I paid for that on points. And the best thing is if your first flight does work out, then you can cancel that flight on points and get all of those points back. Get the fees and taxes you paid on it all back to your credit card. So it honestly is the most flexible option if you want backup.

Sally French (6:34)

Most airlines do let you cancel points purchases without any sort of penalties. They'll refund the points to your account. Of course, do check with your airline. There are some exceptions. So do just make sure that your points program lets you cancel those points flights without any penalties. Now, speaking of earning points, we got to talk about a lot of credit card updates where you can earn points. And Megan, you know what I'm thinking.

Meagan Coyle (6:57)

Of Built Bill always every single week. We just did an episode on Bill and we're back again with more build. So last week Bill announced more details about how to use bill cash. And I want to say we kind of called it. They introduced a bunch of monthly caps on the different credits you can get by redeeming your bilt cash for credits with different bilt partners. So I think it's just hilarious. It's very ironic that Bilt said originally they didn't want their program to be as complicated as, you know, the cards from Amex and Chase that require you to track a bunch of different coupons. But after they've announced all these monthly spending caps on Bilt Cash Redemptions, I'm like, okay, there's basically a bunch of more coupons.

Sally French (7:42)

So these coupons are basically a bunch of limitations. Like if you want to do the Lyft credits, it's just capped at $10. And I don't know about you, but I've never taken a Lyft ride that was less than $10.

Meagan Coyle (7:54)

It's not just $10, it's $10 a month.

Ashley Peterson (7:56)

Right?

Sally French (7:57)

Right.

Meagan Coyle (7:57)

So you can't even redeem it for a bunch of $10 credits. You have to only get one per month. That's not going to help much. My lift to the airport is usually about $50, including the tip. So the $10 monthly Lyft credit isn't going to go very far.

Sally French (8:12)

And then they have other credits like you can use your Built Cash on up to $700 of helicopter program where you can basically hail a helicopter. And obviously that's super expensive to do. Here's the catch with the Blade credit is you can only get up to $350 per seat, up to two seats per year. You're probably not finding a blade helicopter for $350, so that's going to be really limiting. They also have options to use your Built cash for something like $120 a year towards grocery or restaurant delivery. But Again, it's not $120. It's a $10 credit each month. So yay. I guess when you add all the. You get a free milk every month. But this is really not going to be meaningful. I find it so annoying to use these credits and Bilt has just piled on with this.

Meagan Coyle (9:02)

Allie, I can't even imagine you redeeming your Bilt cash for that Blade redemption. It does not fit with the Save with Sally brand.

Sally French (9:10)

Save With Sally is not booking a blade. Save With Sally is excited to save $10, but this is not moving the needle.

Meagan Coyle (9:17)

I also wanted to talk about a new build redemption option that we didn't know about, which is called the Points Accelerator. It's only for Built Obsidian and Built Palladium cardholders. Those are the two cards with annual fees. And with this new redemption option, you can redeem $200 of built cash and then get an extra 1 point per dollar on all of your everyday spend, not including like those mortgage and rent payments. There's so many things in the built world that exclude the mortgage and rent payments. But this could be really cool because you could earn a potential extra 5,000 points on your everyday spending. And depending on which card you're using, that could be a lot of points in a certain bonus category. I'm thinking of the Bill Obsidian card which lets you earn 3x points normally on either dining or grocery spending. And so now if you were to redeem your $200 of built cash for this points accelerator, now you're earning 4 points per dollar on either dining or groceries, up to $25,000 a year on the grocery spending. But of course it's only up to $5,000 of your everyday spend once you activate it, so it might not last you the whole year. But that's a really good bonus point option.

Sally French (10:32)

The TLDR here is that built can be great if you are someone willing to really maximize, put in the work, optimize, do all the math and get all the points. I will say though, you need a PhD in BILT to actually optimize this. Megan, I think you have a PhD in BILT.

Meagan Coyle (10:47)

You know I have so many spreadsheets. Sally has seen them and was like what is going on here? But I did end up applying for a new Bilt card, so we'll see as the year goes on whether or not I can really make it worth it.

Sally French (11:00)

What card did you end up applying for?

Meagan Coyle (11:02)

I ended up applying for the Bilt Palladium card. I'm very interested in the signup bonus which comes with 50,000 bill points if you spend $4,000 in the first three months. So that extra influx of bill points is really important to me, especially as I'm saving up for some fun redemption soon. And I also am curious about the 2 points per dollar on everyday spending. I don't have a great everyday spending card, so I'm going to try this one out and see how it goes.

Sally French (11:36)

If you want to learn more about bilt, listen to our previous show where we took a deep dive into bilt. And of course we will post a link in the episode description to the Bilt Rewards Guide that I wrote as well as a couple of other built articles so you can learn more.

Meagan Coyle (11:48)

Perfect.

Sally French (11:48)

Let's move on to some other credit card news and that is that Citi thank you Rewards just dropped Aeromexico Rewards as a transfer partner.

Meagan Coyle (11:56)

This change took effect January 25th. So if you are a city card holder you are already too late to transfer any more points to Aeromexico. But honestly, it wasn't one of the most popular transfer partners anyways, especially compared with Citi's other partners, my favorite being American Airlines. Citi's the only credit card rewards program that transfers to American Airlines. But of course losing a transfer partner is always sad.

Sally French (12:22)

And if you do still want to transfer some sort of points or miles to Aeromexico, the best way to do that is through Amex. They have a 1 to 1.6 transfer ratio that is actually better than the 1 to 1 transfer ratio. Anyway, Capital One also transfers to Aeromexico if you have a car that earns Capital One miles. So if you are planning a trip to Mexico soon, you still have some options. We will put a link to our handy chart of credit card transfer partners in the episode Description Speaking of Capital.

Meagan Coyle (12:50)

One, you know that deadline is coming up where Capital One is changing their lounge access policy.

Sally French (12:57)

I know about that deadline. I'm excited for all the families to be out of there.

Meagan Coyle (13:01)

You know what? I actually called Capital One and I was like, I'm stressed about this change because I want to make sure that my author authorized users on my Capital One Venture X card are not going to lose their lounge access. So let's talk about what's changing.

Sally French (13:15)

So on February 1st, only the primary cardholder of the Capital One Venture X or venturex business card gets complimentary lounge access to those very fancy Capital One lounges. And it's not just that. It is also the Priority Pass lounges that lose that guest privilege. Authorized users of the card will lose their Capital One lounge access and Priority Pass access unless they do one thing. They pay a fee of $125 per.

Meagan Coyle (13:40)

Year and I'm gonna be paying it for one of my sisters that is an authorized user on my card. I was like, this is your Christmas present. I literally wrapped up a little coupon for her. Like you get lounge access through my Capital One card because I will pay this for you.

Sally French (13:57)

Wow, you're a nice sister. Now I will add the other way to bring in guests for free is if you hit 75, 000 in annual spending on the card. So if you're a big maybe you can still bring in some guests.

Meagan Coyle (14:08)

That's a lot of money. And Amex does a similar thing where they allow guests to the Amex Centurion lounges when you spend $75,000. But of course you always have to think about the opportunity cost of spending that much money on one card and only earning that type of point. I will say, though, you can also pay for guest access on a per visit basis if you're not going all the time. For example, Capital One Venture X Cardholders can pay $45 per adult for a guest and then any guests that are 17 and under are only $25. And then children under two are still free. So that's good.

Sally French (14:44)

Not a bad deal considering how fancy these lounges are. The cocktails alone are amazing. So if you're someone who's going to get two cocktails at the airport, $45 per adult guest is, is basically what you would pay otherwise. Obviously cheaper for kids because I'm guessing they're not getting those fancy cocktails. And then of course, if you want to bring in guests to the Priority Pass lounges, they also charge a fee. Slightly less is $35 each. I will say I do not hate these changes because I pay a very high annual fee for my Capital One Venture X card. And when you, Megan, bring all your closest family and friends into the lounge and the mix lounge too crowded and then I can't even get in at all, then I'm very stressed. So I say that people who are paying the annual fee for the card get access and then you got to pay $45. If you do want to bring guests, I'm sorry, sue me. Send your hate mail to me at Save with Sally on TikTok and Instagram.

Meagan Coyle (15:32)

But Sally, I'm just saying that if you are a family and you did use this fit of bringing in guests, now a lot of those families won't even use the Capital One lounges at all because they can't bring in their whole family. So I would rather have that option of bringing in guests and making sure that cardholders that are paying the annual fees actually get to use the benefits they're paying for.

Sally French (15:55)

Right? All right, tell us listeners, how you feel about the Capital One lounge guest policy. Do you love it?

Ashley Peterson (16:01)

Do you hate it?

Sally French (16:01)

Send us your emails at Traveldom because I want to know if you're Team Sally or if you are Team Megan. All right, shifting over to some hotel news, Hilton just announced a brand new lodging category called the Apartment collection.

Meagan Coyle (16:16)

This isn't like a typical hotel brand. It's more similar to vacation rentals or maybe even timeshares because the units in the Apartment Collection by Hilton are fully furnished apartments. Think they've got like kitchens, living areas, you really have multiple bedrooms so that many people can stay together. I'm very interested.

Sally French (16:36)

It is Done in partnership with another company called Placemaker Maker, spelled with no e. I love every tech startup that has to remove some val so place M A K R. This is a company that's been building apartment style hospitality for years. The first of these properties will come in the first half of 2026 in major U.S. cities. I'm talking about areas like New York, D.C. and Atlanta.

Meagan Coyle (17:00)

And the great thing about adding this brand to the Hilton collection is that if you stay at the apartment collection by Hil, you'll be getting a lot of the benefits of being in the Hilton Honors system, meaning you'll earn points, you'll earn elite night credits, and you can just really expect a more consistent stay. I know we always get so many questions about how to book Airbnbs or how to find places to stay that allow a whole family to stay together when they're traveling. And I think this is a great option for those types of travelers.

Sally French (17:31)

And we are seeing a lot of people who like the concept of Airbnb because they want the larger space, they want all the family under one roof, they want the laundry and the kitchen. But Airbnbs are just so inconsistent. You don't know what kind of host you're going to get. It can be really hard to understand the experience. So when you're staying at something like an apartment collection by Hilton, you do know that you are getting that brand quality that Hilton is known for, where you're going to get some degree of consistent customer service and help if something goes wrong.

Meagan Coyle (18:00)

That's it for News this week. Onto the interview.

Sally French (18:03)

Okay, so who is it?

Meagan Coyle (18:04)

You know how we always talk about these challenges that airlines do and it's like, visit 25 of our destinations and you'll earn 25 years of elite status.

Sally French (18:12)

Ooh, is that like JetBlue's 25 or 25 promo?

Meagan Coyle (18:15)

Yeah. So I remember you mentioned way back last year that you wanted to talk to someone who completed one of those challenges.

Sally French (18:22)

I do. I'm dying to hear.

Meagan Coyle (18:23)

And I found one for you. This one is not the JetBlue challenge, though. We are chatting with Ashley Peterson, who won 1 million Turkish miles last year. She's the founder of Ashley Gets Around. That's a big premium flight deal alert list for business class flight deals. And honestly, her story of going on this world trip to earn those miles is pretty crazy.

Sally French (18:46)

Wow. Okay, let's hear it.

Ashley Peterson (18:50)

Ashley.

Meagan Coyle (18:50)

Welcome to Smart Travel.

Ashley Peterson (18:52)

Thank you so much for having me.

Meagan Coyle (18:53)

So tell me, how did you get into traveling? Using points and miles and a lot of the Great flight deals you've been able to find over the past couple of years.

Ashley Peterson (19:02)

So I would say my points journey probably was like 10, maybe 12 years ago. And I've just kind of been pretty obsessed with, like, mostly airline points. I was more about business class flights than I was anything else because I feel like with hotels, I now use points for hotels. Honestly, that's how I use most of my points now. But at the beginning, I was using them for a lot of flights. And so I kind of got into the game when I first hit American Airlines elite status, like, eight years ago. And then I started just climbing up to like, okay, well, now I got gold. Now I need to be platinum. Now I'm platinum. I want to be like executive platinum. Like, I want to be top tier. And so that's probably how I first got into it.

Meagan Coyle (19:43)

I'm an American Airlines flyer myself. And I also earned elite status. And I agree. I'm just hooked now. I, like, can't not get it every year.

Ashley Peterson (19:51)

Well, and now it's so much easier. When I was starting, I was like, okay, well, I got to fly to Hawaii so I can get these points. And I would fly to Hawaii and stay like four hours and come back to the east coast.

Meagan Coyle (20:01)

Okay, so you were doing real mileage runs?

Ashley Peterson (20:03)

Oh, yeah. No, I went to crazy places. Like, I went to Lebanon like, eight times for points. It's probably unhinged the places I'll go. But now you don't even have to do that. So now it's like a little bit easier because you can use the shopping portals and stuff. So. But they've raised the amount you need. So that's kind of like a negative because I feel like I could have long earned EP before just by flying, and now there's like, no way you could earn it just by flying. Unless you really spend, like $25,000 a year on flying. But yeah, no, I'm pretty hooked on my airline status.

Meagan Coyle (20:33)

What do you think makes someone a big league traveler, whether they're using points or not? Is there a certain thing once you hear that they've been a certain place or they're booking business class flights every flight? What is it that you think makes someone that next level traveler?

Ashley Peterson (20:49)

I feel like this is going to be a controversial opinion.

Meagan Coyle (20:51)

All right.

Ashley Peterson (20:53)

That I feel like it's up to you what your definition of that, because, you know, for me, I own my own business. Literally. I've been to probably 25 countries this year. I was in Europe four days ago. I probably have a different Standard than most people versus people who have a normal nine to five who have, you know, two weeks of vacation. Maybe it's a big deal for them to take their family to Europe for free. And that doesn't really necessarily matter if it's an economy or business class. For me, I only redeem points for business class. I'm literally not going if I can't find business class. I had to fly home from Philly to Raleigh in economy because I could get home three hours early. And I was like, this is against my brand. And it's an hour flight. People didn't believe that I flew an hour in economy. I would say it's a little different for people who I'm very flexible, so I can fly to different airports. So for me, using redemptions, I've redeemed miles for first class. That, to me, I think is a huge deal. Because there aren't as many first class cabins anymore. It's a lot harder to find sales on first class cabins. So being able to use points for first class and getting like a huge value out of them. Like, I think the flight if I had paid cash for round trip was $11,000 and I used 50,000American Airlines points.

Meagan Coyle (22:11)

So incredible.

Ashley Peterson (22:12)

I think just any redemption, like, even if you're using points, I know I have friends who are mom, they don't travel abroad, but they'll use their points to take their kids to their travel baseball games and they're able to stay for free at like Hampton Inn. And so for that to them is like a huge win. So I think it just really depends on the person. For me personally, I think it's first class, business class redemptions and getting a huge amount of value out of points. But I don't think that's necessarily true for everybody.

Meagan Coyle (22:39)

The reason I invited you on Ashley is because I wanted to talk about some of the crazy things you've done for miles. And one of them is participating in the Turkish miles promo last year, which was to fly across six continents on the airline and you would be able to earn 1 million Turkish miles. Tell us about joining that promo. And what about that challenge made it seem, like, realistic, like you could accomplish that.

Ashley Peterson (23:04)

So when I first saw the challenge, I initially was like, that's nuts. I'm not doing that. I don't think I'm gonna do it. And then at midnight, I was like, well, let me just price it out and see. And one of the big differences is most of the people that I know that did it, did it in economy and I'M not going. I'm not do. I'm not flying from Istanbul to Australia in economy. I'm not doing it. Not even for a million miles. That's, like, not worth the exchange for me. And so I was like, let me just price it out and see, like, what deals I can find. That's my thing. It's my favorite thing to do, is find cheap flights. And so I was like, wait, there's a really cheap flight from Estonia to Bogota on Turkish for eleven hundred dollars. In business class, I'm like, wait, that's really cheap. I can get home from Bogota because it's only three hours from Miami. I can get home fairly cheaply and easily, quickly from. So I'm like, that would get me South America off the list. And then I was like, okay, let me see about Asia. And I think one of the things people don't do is read the fine print. I'm a fine print person. And so I was looking at, okay, what counts as Europe, what counts as Asia, what counts as Africa. And going through the list, and I realized that Dubai counted as Asia. And it's a very quick flight from Istanbul. So every single flight had to transit or start through Istanbul. And so I just sort of started playing around with it, and I was like, oh, I could do this for seven grand all in business class. And I was like, that actually is worth a million points. It ended up costing me a little bit more than I initially planned because I waited too long to buy a flight. I didn't follow my own advice and waited too long to buy a flight. And it went up $1,500. So it cost me, like, a little bit more. But by that point, I had already done five out of six legs. So I was like, well, I'll just have to fork over the cash at that point. But, yeah, I was kind of looking through it and pricing it and realizing, oh, wait, this is actually not that crazy. And I was able to do it in really two big chunks and then one random flight home that I was already in Europe for. And so I was like, I could fly from Europe back to the US to get North America. And so I was kind of like, oh, I'm able to piece this together. Maybe this will work. And then I guess it was too popular. And so I think they announced it in June, and it was July 8 that they were like, we're done. You had to have bought a ticket before July 8th. And I hadn't bought a ticket by July 8th. And so I sent them and I Was like, we're gonna find this out. So I actually bought a ticket right then. I was like, immediately just like, I don't remember which one I bought. I think it was the Dublin to Dubai flight. I just bought it because it was 500 in business. Hey, I'll just buy this. And then I sent them messages through X and was like, I need clarification. Does this include if you've purchased this by the 8th? Because the language wasn't really clear and they assured me that if you purchase them on the 8th, if you purchase at least one, it would still count. So I was the entire time very worried that they were going to be like, just kidding, we're not giving you the million miles. But I did get them.

Meagan Coyle (26:00)

Woo.

Ashley Peterson (26:01)

I think they didn't realize that you could do it for $3,500 in economy there. I had a lot of friends who did it for around 3 to $4,000 all in economy. And that's pretty cheap for a million miles. I think they didn't realize how many travel hackers would be willing to fly to six continents per million miles. So it seemed to be a little bit more popular than I think maybe they initially thought it would be.

Meagan Coyle (26:23)

And let's back up. So that's a pretty short time period. You had June to basically early July to buy all these flights.

Ashley Peterson (26:31)

You just had to buy one. Sorry, you just had to buy one.

Sally French (26:32)

I had to buy one.

Meagan Coyle (26:33)

Okay. When were your flights, when did you start this round the world trip?

Ashley Peterson (26:38)

I did the first set the last couple days of July into August, the first week or so of August. And then I did one flight back from Europe to North America at the very end of August. And then I did the other weird chunk of them right before the deadline in October. So I did 3, 1 and 2.

Meagan Coyle (27:02)

And then tell us your flight path so we can all follow along.

Ashley Peterson (27:07)

So I did this in a weird way to save cash. I didn't start from the US That's a big tip that people, I think if they're, they don't realize when you're planning a multi country trip that the US is always going to be the most expensive place to start normally.

Sally French (27:22)

Okay.

Ashley Peterson (27:23)

And so I could not find cheap flights on Turkish under four grand, 3504 grand to get to Asia. And so I was like, okay, well I'll fly from Europe. And so what I did was I found, I had found a flight deal on JetBlue from New York to Dublin and then I had found, realized that I could fly from Dublin to Dubai in business class on Turkish. I think it was like 500 and something euros. It was very cheap. And the flight from New York to Dublin was right at $1,000 in business class in JetBlue Met. And I just happened to have a credit. So that flight was for. Well, I had paid for it some other point, but it was free.

Meagan Coyle (28:03)

Right.

Ashley Peterson (28:04)

And then I just kind of played around and realized I could get from Dubai to Estonia very quickly, and so that counted for Europe. And then I had found a flight deal from Estonia to Bogota, Colombia. And then the second part of that is I flew from France to Turkey to Dallas. That was my North America leg. And then for the last two legs, I did Luxembourg and the EU to Morocco via Istanbul, and then Morocco, Istanbul, Istanbul to Australia with a stop in, because they make you get off the plane in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So it was a very weird, wackadoodle way to get to all these countries. Other than the one flight from Paris to Dallas, I didn't really fly in and out of North America as part of the challenge at all. I either used points. I used points for some flights. I used a system wide upgrade to fly from Brisbane back to Dallas in business class with American. And then I used some cheap cash flights to kind of piece them together. I mean, I have a whole spreadsheet. It was kind of, yeah, you need one.

Meagan Coyle (29:13)

That's a lot of flying. And were you spending any time in these countries or no?

Ashley Peterson (29:18)

Yes and no. I mean, Bogota, I literally. I was trying to fit this in between all of my other trips. And so I needed to get back home because I was leaving for France in three days. So I. For Bogota, I'm surprised I got into the country because they were very confused why I was flying from Istanbul into Bogota and, like, leaving 12 hours later. It was like a whole thing. I was like, oh, no, this is the first time out of 100 countries I'm gonna get detained. But they ended up letting me in. I was trying to. And I was like, I know this is weird, but doing this flight thing. And they were like, okay, you seem insane, but like, whatever. So for that, I literally was only in Bogota 13 hours. I spent the night and left the next day. And Estonia. Estonia was one of the only new places that I hadn't been. And so I did spend three days there. Dubai, I spent three days, to be honest, didn't really leave the hotel. I was just in the hotel working, and I needed Hyatt Night. So I was like, perfect. This kills two birds with one stone. I can work on my Hyatt status. And. And then Morocco, I was there for three nights. And then in Australia, I flew all the way to Australia and I was there for four days, so. Which is kind of crazy.

Meagan Coyle (30:29)

Yeah.

Ashley Peterson (30:30)

So I did two nights at Sydney, two nights in Brisbane, but then left early the next morning to catch the flight back to Dallas. So it was kind of. Kind of crazy.

Sally French (30:39)

Wow.

Meagan Coyle (30:39)

What a trip. Okay, we're gonna get more into it after the break. Stay with us. Hey, it's Brooklyn Adams, and I'm partnering with Abercrombie to tell you about the newest drop from their active brand. Your personal best. YPB leggings are made with buttery soft fabrics that hug you in all the right places and come in Abercrombie's viral curve love fit, designed to eliminate waist gap. Paired with sports bras and super soft sweatshirts, it's activewear that supports every part of my busy lifestyle and gives me my best butt ever. Head into the new year feeling your personal best. Shop Active by Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores. If you're an H vac technician and a call comes in, Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Welcome back, Ashley. Now, something that I think is interesting is even though you had to go on this world tour, basically you actually didn't get to visit every country you wanted to see. Tell me a little bit about that. Why did you choose the destinations and how did price come into that decision?

Ashley Peterson (32:07)

Originally I was like, how fun would this be if I went to some really unique places that I haven't been? Some backstory? I have been to a hundred countries.

Meagan Coyle (32:16)

So unfortunately there weren't a ton of other options.

Ashley Peterson (32:20)

There weren't really a lot of options. I used flightconnections.com to kind of see every single place that Turkish travels. Turkish actually flies to more destinations than anyone else, funny enough. And so I was like, okay, they fly to Uzbekistan. I really want to go to Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan, let's go to Uzbekistan. That turned into a logistical nightmare trying to add countries that I haven't been to. And so I was like, what about Uzbekistan for Asia? And then I was like, what if I do a safari as part of Africa? So at one point I was going to maybe do Cape Town. It was a little bit more expensive. Getting from Cape Town back to Istanbul was a bit of a nightmare. And so unfortunately I was like, let's just do it by price and then redeem the miles for crazy trips. So that's my plan, is to try to redeem the miles for Madagascar or the Seychelles, some places that I haven't been. And if I want to keep this under 10 grand, I kind of have to go buy what is the cheapest. And what ended up being the cheapest is the closer you can fly to from Istanbul, the cheaper it generally is. So that's why I picked Dubai instead of picking like Uzbekistan or Mongolia, which I would have loved to go to Mongolia. And so that's kind of how it ended up happening is just based on, based on price.

Meagan Coyle (33:35)

You used a couple of tricks I feel like in this world tour to find those cheap flights. So one of them was flying to close by places. Are there any others that jump out to you as things you did to try to find those cheap cash prices?

Ashley Peterson (33:49)

Being flexible with airports? A great example is the flight from Luxembourg. I think people forget. Well, I think people don't realize Luxembourg is a country, much less has an airport there. And it is a very cute little airport. But a lot of times people don't realize that Luxembourg's a two hour train ride from Paris. And so originally I was like, okay, I'm looking at Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, the normal. And to get to Morocco, because I had found a semi cheap flight from Morocco to Australia. And so I was like, okay, I got to get to Morocco and I needed to fly through Istanbul. Well, flying direct is never cheaper, rarely. I mean, occasionally you'll see it nonstop on sale. But typically flying from Istanbul to Morocco is going to be the most expensive. And so I had looked at Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and you know, I kind of waited last minute to buy the tickets. I was like, wow, these went up like 700. And then I was like, wait, what about Luxembourg? And so Luxembourg was $600 cheaper to fly from Luxembourg to Morocco. So I was like, luxembourg it is. And I had used American Airlines miles to fly to Paris. That was my flight. The thing a lot of people don't realize about American Airlines, which is unique, is that you can actually change the destination within the region as long as there was a word availability available. So I was able to call the EP line and said, hey, I don't want to go to Paris. I want to go to Luxembourg. I found that there's a word, availability. Can you change my flight? And they did, with no issue, with no fee, completely free. And also I was like, well, worse comes to worse, I'll just take the train from Paris. But they were able to change it. And so I flew from Charlotte to London, London to Luxembourg, no problem. All on points on, I think I spent 50, 55,000American Airlines points. And so that was kind of the thing too is being flexible with the airports, because I think especially with Europe, there's so many airports so close that people don't realize just by flying instead of from Paris, flying out of Amsterdam or Brussels, that's, you know, two, three hours away, can save you literally a thousand dollars. And sometimes that's true coming from the US Too. Oftentimes we'll see Paris is on sale, but Athens isn't, or Rome isn't, but Milan is. And so I think being flexible with airports is also a huge money saver as well.

Meagan Coyle (36:02)

That's a really good call out, especially because in Europe, we talk about looking at a bunch of different airports in America, but it's like, oh, this city has two or three airports. But in Europe, you're right, everything is so close that you could look in another country and that might be very accessible. That's amazing.

Ashley Peterson (36:19)

Yeah. Everybody talks about, especially with Italy. Italy, such a summer destination for Americans. I love Italy, so I get it, like wanting to go to Italy. And everybody's like, Rome, Rome, Romero. And I'm often like, okay. But there's a ton of award availability into Venice because American and a bunch of carriers in the summer fly to Venice, they fly to Naples, they fly to Milan, and you can get on a train for like $30 and be there in two hours. And especially if you're trying to redeem points, especially if you need multiple seats, adding a train ride, and maybe you wanted to be in northern Italy anyway, so it might not even be as big of a deal. Obviously it's a little harder. If you, like, live in LA and all your flights leave from New York, that's a little bit different. But if you're somewhere like Europe where the airports are close, it's less of a hassle to be flexible with your airports.

Meagan Coyle (37:07)

And it sounds like you've flown Turkish before. What were your thoughts on the business class seats or first class seats you got on all of these flights?

Ashley Peterson (37:17)

It was kind of interesting because I think only one business class cabin Was full. It was kind of very strange coming. As you know, you have American Airline status. I doubt you ever get on an American Airlines plane, especially within the U.S. and there are empty seats. In business, that's very rare.

Meagan Coyle (37:32)

Yeah, never.

Ashley Peterson (37:33)

So it was always very strange to get on the plane and be like, oh, there's no one around me in business class. It could have just been the days that I picked. But yeah, I would say that the business class is very consistent. As far as service, I think you don't hear a lot about Turkish compared to Qatar or Emirates because I do think the service isn't above and beyond. But when you compare it to legacy carriers in the U.S. the United, Delta, American, the service is a lot more consistent. So you can have really good service one day on American and the next day you have terrible service, which is something I've definitely noticed. I would say that the service was pretty consistent. The food was very good. It was a lot of the same menu. So I was like, if I have to eat this pasta one more time. So it was a lot of the same food menu. The seats were pretty comfortable. I was lucky. I purposely picked all of their business class. So I flew everything, I mostly flew the 1, 2, 1 configuration, but I actually did purposely pick a flight that was their 2, 3, 2 configuration in business class so I could show people that, hey, actually sometimes you can be in a lie flat seat in a middle and so it's important to look at the configuration of your flight before you book them. And then I flew a few recliner, typical domestic first class products on the shorter flights. I think the Dublin to Istanbul and the Estonia to Istanbul were just in a normal recliner seat but pretty comfortable for a 2, 3 hour flight. So not anything bad.

Meagan Coyle (38:58)

Are there any things that you always take with you on these long haul flights to make them more comfortable even though you are flying in premium classes. But I know I always bring a little comforting thing. My thing is actually bringing a pastry or a snack from someplace in the city that I'm eating my little food snack and it just makes me feel so much better that I don't have to eat the airplane food. So I'm curious if you have anything like that.

Ashley Peterson (39:26)

So I used to not do that and now that I fly so much, you get really tired of playing food. And there's nothing worse on a long haul flight like eight or nine hours. I don't know about you, Megan, but sometimes I just want like a snack. I just want something to nibble on and you'll get on a plane, they'll be like, here's your tiny bag of pretzels. And you're like, no, thanks. I want, like, chips or something. So I'm a big Cheez Its person. So usually before I leave the US I will pay $9 for one of those giant bags of Cheez Its. And I try to ration them on my flights.

Meagan Coyle (39:59)

Yeah.

Ashley Peterson (39:59)

I also used to not care about taking water with me because I'm like, I'm flying business. It's not a big deal. However, I've had enough times where I've sat on a tarmac with no water that I'm like, never doing this again. So I either travel with. Depending on how long I travel, if I'm gone for, like, a week or two, I take my reusable water bottle. If I'm gone longer than that, I worry that I can't really clean it in a hotel sink. So I am. I sadly do buy bottled water. Nobody yell at me, but I'll take a water and usually, like, a snack or two from the airport just in case I don't like the menu on the flight. At least I'm not eight hours starving. And then I always travel with earplugs. They do give you earplugs, but I've had too many times where I've, like, one falls out of your ear, and then you're like, okay, well, Greg over here is talking on his phone. Need another earplug. So usually travel with earplugs. I have this silk eye mask that I travel with that I'm obsessed with, and so I take that every. On every flight.

Meagan Coyle (40:53)

I'm a recent eye mask convert because I didn't realize, like, how many lights are on in the airplane at all times. Even if you're flying overnight. Getting an eye mask really changed flying overnight for me.

Ashley Peterson (41:05)

Oh, 100% highly recommend. Yeah.

Meagan Coyle (41:08)

What was the highlight of your trip last year? Around the world to earn a million miles.

Ashley Peterson (41:15)

Honestly, I was in Sydney, and I landed in Sydney. And I have been to Australia before, but not in nine years. It's not typically somewhere I go very often.

Meagan Coyle (41:26)

Right. It's far.

Ashley Peterson (41:28)

It's very far. And now I really want to go back. So I'm like, of course, now that I go, I'm like, oh, I want to go back. But I landed in Sydney and was like, wait, I just went to six continents all in two months. This is crazy. It was kind of a realization of being like, whoa, I just traveled more than most people will travel their entire lives. And I Did it just for points. And so that was just kind of nuts, you know. And then I ended up staying at the Park Hyatt Sydney. I booked it through Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts and got a deal of a lifetime. I think it was a mistake, but I got an insane deal. It was $600 off what Hyatt was charging. I paid $300 a night for this hotel. I'm pretty sure it was some sort of pricing error, but it was fine. And with my Hyatt status, I was upgraded to a view of the opera house. They said it wasn't a suite, but it was a suite. And it was this gorgeous room and it was the most incredible sunrises I've ever seen. They were just gorgeous. And I was like, wow, how cool is it that I'm in Sydney, Australia on like a random Tuesday watching the sunrise? And I came here just for points. It was kind of funny. And then obviously when the points actually hit the. I refreshed it. I was in my car, everybody was having their points. I was hearing like, this person got their points and I'm like, oh no, am I not going to get these points? Am I going to have to fight for these points? And I refreshed it and it went from 50,000 points to a million points. And I screamed because I was like, oh my gosh, it was so cool. I was like, whoa, that was pretty crazy to see all of those.

Meagan Coyle (42:55)

And it must have made it so real, like it was all worth it to have done all of that.

Sally French (43:00)

Yeah.

Meagan Coyle (43:00)

So you said you want to like use them for future fun redemptions to places you've never been.

Ashley Peterson (43:06)

Yeah.

Meagan Coyle (43:07)

Tell us where you're gonna go with them. Have you booked anything yet?

Ashley Peterson (43:10)

I haven't booked anything yet. So I kind of have a bit of a plan. I want to take my brother and sister in law. My brother's never been to Europe and so my sister in law loves Europe and they just had a baby. Later this summer I think we're going to go to Europe. So I'm going to try to use points to fly them so they don't have to use their points because I have a million. I also one of the really good redemptions with Turkish is using them for domestic United flights if you can find the availability and there's no distance requirement, which is kind of crazy. So you can actually redeem them for business class from Newark to Honolulu in a lie flat seat for 15,000 points. The problem is finding the availability. But I've been searching. I'm determined to get Hawaii for 15,000 points in a lie flat seat. So we'll see if that happens. And then the other things I want to use them for is I will likely redeem them from Istanbul. Is my plan is to try to find. I think it's easier to find the availability when it doesn't touch the US really at all, if you can help it. But I want to go to Uzbekistan. I really want to go to Madagascar. I'd like to go back to southern Africa, so Namibia, Botswana or South Africa. And so that's kind of what I'm planning. And then I want to try to redeem them on Star alliance partners that I haven't flown. So we'll see how that works out. But yeah, you have two years to use them. So I probably need to get started on the redemptions.

Meagan Coyle (44:35)

Are you worried about having a two year limit on these points or not so much?

Ashley Peterson (44:40)

No. For me, my main thing is I want to get everything at saver level. So I don't want to be the person that's like, okay, well, I'll spend the 150,000 miles to fly business to Turkey when you could find it for I think 70,000. I think if we get close to the end and I'm like, okay, I have 200,000 points left. I'll just book 200,000 business class seats. I think it was more of like the challenge that I liked and the fact that I was like, oh, this is a story. I'll be able to tell a story in like 20 years and like, what a fun story. So I think I'll end up being able to use them. But if, if not, the story for me was worth it. I just feel like it was a really fun and challenging trip. I like puzzles, so piecing everything together was fun and then actually earning the points was really cool. So I think it'll be good. But we'll see.

Meagan Coyle (45:31)

Ashley, well, thank you so much for sharing that story with us. It was so great to have you here on the show today.

Ashley Peterson (45:36)

You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

Meagan Coyle (45:38)

That was Ashley Peterson, the founder of Ashley gets Around an email list for cheap business class flight deals.

Sally French (45:46)

Great interview with Ashley. Now I'm going to Madagascar this year, so maybe Ashley return it and make it actually happen. I'm going for my honeymoon. So, Ashley, if you don't go, I'll at least let you know how it was.

Meagan Coyle (45:59)

Well, now that Ashley is a million miles, she can totally go. So if you want to follow her journey this year, spending all those miles, Ashley is At Ashley gets around on Tick Tock and Instagram.

Sally French (46:10)

Follow her and of course do follow us. You can follow the official podcast account which is Smart Travel Pod on TikTok and Instagram and then you can follow my personal account. I am save with Sally.

Meagan Coyle (46:21)

And I'm myles with Megan company. Megan is with an H&CO. Now let's do a quick hot take.

Sally French (46:28)

You got one for us?

Meagan Coyle (46:30)

I do. Oh okay. Mine is that I now prefer flights over six hours if you're flying overnight flight.

Sally French (46:37)

Interesting. What do you mean by that?

Meagan Coyle (46:39)

So ever since my sabbatical last year and I flew a bunch of different long haul flights, they were all 10 hours plus I decided that 6 hours, 5 hour, 4 hour flights, these are not enough time to sleep on the airplane and then function the next day like a real human because they wake.

Sally French (46:58)

You up and you're like I was actually asleep on the flight, I wanted to sleep longer.

Meagan Coyle (47:02)

Yeah, sometimes they wake you up. I mean sometimes it takes me like 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep even after you've like taken off or whatever. And so I was planning a route over my sabbatical to Korea and I had a couple of options and one was you could fly a five hour flight here and then land at 6am and then you could fly another five hours here and like technically that would have been nice to have shorter flights but I was like, no, sign me up for the 10 hour direct flight overnight and I'll be good.

Sally French (47:34)

So Meghan, are you flying economy or are you flying business?

Meagan Coyle (47:37)

Oh I wish, I wish I was flying business all the time.

Sally French (47:39)

Oh, so you stand by this take for economy?

Meagan Coyle (47:41)

That is even for economy I would just rather have all that time to get in the sleep and take my melatonin and not be bothered.

Ashley Peterson (47:50)

So.

Sally French (47:51)

So Megan, I have never flown business class. I am flying business class for the first time ever for my honeymoon. And speaking of Madagascar, after Madagascar I'm going to Mauritius and I'm flying from Mauritius to London. This I think is a hack. So it's a very long flight. One of these ten plus hour flight flights from Mauritius to London and I did splurge. I'm flying business class. The way I am justifying it though is I'm doing basically your tip is a flight leaves at 10pm and then gets to London at like 6am and my justification is I am saving money on a hotel room because it's at nighttime. So basically I will sleep and it is business is lie flat. So that is my hotel room for the night.

Meagan Coyle (48:32)

Oh I think that's a great plan, Sally. You're gonna be fine. Especially in business class. You can really, like, lay flat and sleep very well. I'm gonna be very curious, though. If you're tempted to wake up for the meal service just to get your money's worth, you do not have to, Sally. You could say no, I'm gonna put.

Sally French (48:47)

Up a sign that says, don't make me up. And I will say, I purchased my airfare for that flight using miles from my Capital One Venture X card, which no longer allows guests. So I will enjoy my peaceful lounge on my peaceful business class. Flat flight.

Meagan Coyle (48:59)

Incredible. Poor Hamilton. He'll be out in the terminal being like, I can't eat anything.

Sally French (49:06)

He's fine. Business class, too, so he'll be fine.

Ashley Peterson (49:09)

Yeah.

Sally French (49:09)

Make sure to follow Smart Travel on your favorite podcast app that includes Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes if you are listening on Spotify. Did you know you can drop us a comment on this specific episode right in the app? I read them all, so please leave a comment. And please leave a review of our show.

Meagan Coyle (49:25)

This episode was produced and edited by Nick Karismi. Claire Sosi and Hilary Georgie helped with.

Sally French (49:31)

Fact checking and time for that disclaimer. We are not financial nor investment advisors. This info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes. It may not apply to your specific circumstances.

Meagan Coyle (49:41)

We hope you're inspired to keep your passport full and your wallet even fuller.

Sally French (49:44)

Thanks, everyone.

Meagan Coyle (49:45)

We'll see you next time.