Milenomics² Podcast Episode 228: News, What We’ve Been Up To and a Carlsbad Trip Report

0:19 Amex

• 10x Referrals: Do we have clarity now that the smoke has cleared?

• Intentionally waiting to overturn throwaway declines vs. getting spend done now

• Upgrading: Are points lost for mid-cycle earning? (still unclear)

• What happens if something malfunctions?

• As Spend increases incremental liquidation cost increases as well. 

6:05 Fluz

• “Miscounting” Transactions 

• Still working well for Amex dining

• Should we be doing Cash Balance loads on Ink Cash wrapped in PayPal? (see this thread)

Struggles Abound: 

11:00 giftcards.com “Bad Penny” Cards 

• Have been a long popular card on this podcast

• Portal Cash back (Capital one most recently) or AA miles were the draw

• Rates with AA have returned, but these are nearly impossible to use

• Buy one and tread lightly. 

• With a good liquidation path these could be great. 

• But using them on Fluz isn’t great vs. 10x spend, cash balance seems to lock these

15:42 Overnight at CDG: Struggles with Family of 4

• Really comes down to an issue with Norway being impossible to get to directly from the US

• Forces an overnight somewhere other than the US 

• My overnight coincides with the start of the Olympics

• $900+ Room rates at CDG airport hotels 

• Family rooms are possible–but not all hotels are allowing occupancy of 4 in a standard room

• Triple booked, flexibly to ideally to get around CDG with a different flight home (AMS maybe?). 

22:55 3 Day “Makeup” Holiday Weekend (Palm Springs)

• I’ve long said I want to ‘make my own 3 day weekends”

• This coming weekend we’ll be doing one of these

• Friday - Sunday.  Driving out to palm springs

• Replacement for our memorial day trips in past years. 

• Wanted to use Hilton Certs/Marriott Points.  

• Wife chose…. A vacasa!

• Private pool and dogs can come with us. 

• I hadn’t considered Vacasa as an alternative to Hotels outside of Kauai. Starting to stockpile more points

28:51 San Diego Trip Report

Premise of Trip

29:34 Delta First Outbound

• Strange thing: On the way to the airport, Delta sends an alert saying our “flight time” has changed and invites us to make free changes

• The departure time remained the same, they were just alerting us that the routing was going to be circuitous and we’d be arriving later than scheduled. New schedule was a whopping 6 hours 47 minutes! Wowza - that’s gotta be one of the longest domestic flights possible.

• I’m so glad I went for the First upgrade I was talking about last week. That’s like a trip to Europe from the East Coast.

• New Delta A321Neo cabin is really nice. Crisp, responsive TVs. Bluetooth headphone pairing that worked and provided terrific fidelity. Fast, free WiFi.

• Food & beverage was good, not great. Unique way of approaching meal service from flight attendant. “Did you want anything to eat?” Passenger: “Um, what do you have?” FA: “Let me check…”

• Seats provide more privacy than typical Delta cabins, and although they are not a lie-flat it makes JetBlue Mint look tired in comparison. Absolutely worth the premium for a transcon flight.

35:51 Hertz Rental Car

• Hertz was like $40/day whereas National was $80/day so went with Hertz

• Presidents Circle was 95% Chevy Malibus

37:34 Park Hyatt Aviara

• We’ve been coming here for 20+ years and still love it

• Standard room was 30,000/nt

• Booked a Premium Suite for 9,000 points + $370/nt

• I think this was a pricing glitch because shortly after booking, I saw the price shift to 9,000 points + $940/nt. Cash price of the room was $1,200/nt. 

• Hotel was completely sold out the weekend we were there

• Pretty wild that we had 3 Guest of Honor bookings, and my wife doesn’t even have Globalist any more

• Breakfast was capped at $120 which covers 3 buffets. Good some morning, great others. Pretty mobbed, but we were still able to get right in each morning.

• Tons of families on Memorial Day weekend. Young kids galore, at breakfast and at the family pool.

• But it works pretty well if you’ve got older kids. Pool is quiet (plenty of chairs). Tennis/pickleball is great fun. Golf was amazing.

• Some fall-of in terms of quality of service. Pool “setup” was self-service (used to be greeted, provided setup, menu, water, etc). Coffee shop was supposed to open each day at 6a, but did not “due to staffing issues.”

• 

• Globalist (Guest of Honor) Folio accuracy report: Resort Fee ($45/nt + tax)  was on the preliminary charges, as was Valet Parking ($65/nt). Stopped by front desk to ask that the Resort Fee be removed (should not be charged for any Globalist stay). Rep said she was in the process of removing those fees for a bunch of rooms and confirmed mine would be removed. I asked about parking fee being removed and she was quick to accurately point out that parking is only free on full-points stays for Globalists, but kindly waived them anyway which was appreciated. 

• Overall: Another great stay, especially when combined with some time at adjacent Four Seasons Residence Club. We’ll be back again and again.

50:41 JetBlue Mint Return

• Was around $2,000 pp one-way until about a month out then prices dropped to around $600 pp one-way

• Got an ominous note the morning of departure that our flight “might” be delayed due to air traffic in the northeast

• When we got to the airport, got an update that it actually was delayed for 90 minutes

• But then got another update the delay was shortened

• Scheduled flight time home was 4 hours 30 minutes. Wild compared to 6 hours 40 minutes on way out.

• Ended up being a perfectly good flight. Familiar if a little tired.

• All comes down to flight times and reasonable prices.