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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Miles to Go Podcast, the go-to source for travel tips, news and reviews you can't afford to miss. Now here's your host, travel expert, Ed Pizza.

Ed Pizza: Hey guys, welcome back to the Miles to Go Podcast. If you're a regular listener of the show and I hope you are, as you've heard me say plenty of times, I'm not quite ready to start traveling again and up until recently, I wasn't even looking that closely at the sorts of deals that are out there that I should be booking. Things have slowly started turning on that front and my friend Summer Hull brought up the idea of doing a podcast segment on the sorts of deals that we're all hunting for right now, those once in a lifetime opportunities for incredible deals to awesome destinations. I'm not in the habit of saying no to summer so I also followed her suggestion to fold in our buddy Richard Kerr of the discussion. Summer, welcome back.

Summer Smith-Hull: Howdy. Thrilled to be here with both of you this time.

Ed Pizza: Mr. Kerr, good to have you.

Richard Kerr: Hey howdy. Hey.

Ed Pizza: So before we dive into deal hunting season, I just need 60 seconds of your time. If you haven't left us a rating and a review, there's a link in the show notes that makes it super easy to do. Those ratings and reviews help us out big time when it comes to attracting new listeners. And as you're settling in for the laughs insults and mistakes that are absolutely to come on this week show, we'd really appreciate it if you told a friend about Miles to Go. Word of mouth is a great way for us to grow our audience. And now we are officially off the rails, completely unscripted with a few lines on paper for what we've all been discussing and Summer, since this is your idea, I get to put you on the spot first. Have you booked anything right now that's speculative for later this year?

Summer Smith-Hull: I've picked many things. I mean, in full disclosure, we started traveling again cautiously over the summer of 2020 and ramped up a little bit more in the fall until cases started going up again when we have put it back on pause completely for now. So, we are willing to travel with a little bit of risk, just not an overwhelming amount. So that does influence some of what we're planning but we are really looking at the end of 2021 for some big things. I mean, the pent up demand is real, especially for those who have traveled in their inaudible. So, for example, we have booked a huge trip up North of the Arctic Circle, in Finland for late in 2021 with the whole family. We have never done a trip that big since we've had two kids and now it feels like the right time while there's amazing availability and really flexible refundable policies. So we are able to lock something in amazing but not have our lives tied to it if it turns out still, unfortunately, not to be the right time for some reason.

Ed Pizza: And there's no question that the refundability of so many things right now is the big key to everything we're going to discuss today.

Summer Smith-Hull: Totally.

Richard Kerr: You know, it's really cold in Finland later this year, right?

Summer Smith-Hull: I love it. There's reindeer and ice skating and you have to wear these sub frozen suits and chase Northern lights. I don't want to live there but I'm all in for a few days.

Richard Kerr: Fair enough.

Ed Pizza: I'm all in for... An ice hotel's been on our list for a while. It's one of the things a good friend of mine did back in 2002, 2003 and I've wanted to do it ever since. So, that region in wintertime is high on our list. In fact, we did a story for it on TPG, recently, at the turn of the year about some of the best ice hotels out there. So there are some cool experiences that are definitely on my radar. Richard, you're setting aside the RV which, God knows how much I love those, is your family looking at anything where you're getting ready to get on a plane in the next year that you think like now's the time to be booking?

Richard Kerr: I have exactly zero trips booked anywhere, none, nada, zero and I'll tell you why. I am tired of chasing down refunds. It took me 11 months to get my Eddie HUD Miles back, which I got back two weeks ago. 11 months for one account still, haven't gotten my Turkish Miles back. I have a spreadsheet of things to track, to follow up. Now, like AmEx which is taking forever, missing elite qualifying nights, shopping portals not paying out, I'm at capacity. I can't track anymore. I don't want to get my hopes up. It really stresses my wife out when we have plans and then we don't have plans. And then we do have plans. So until things clear up a little bit, until we get vaccinated, I'm sitting tight and I'm jealous of everybody else booking things and I really hope it happens, but it's just not for me right now.

Summer Smith-Hull: And I think that's so interesting because it really is a personal psychology. Thing for me, I would feel depressed and aimless if I didn't have some anchor point on the calendar crosstalk.

Richard Kerr: I didn't say feel good. I just said, I'm not doing it.

Summer Smith-Hull: We need to work on this. But I agree with you that there are degrees of refundability and while you don't know as certainty, which is going to come back easier than another one I'm, by and large, putting my eggs in baskets that I think have a high chance of being easy to back out of because I've already backed down of, Oh my God, so many, just like everybody else. But even when I put travel back on pause for December and January and February, I had a new round of cancellations. So, drawing on those experiences for which ones are least painful to back out of, I think was valuable too.

Richard Kerr: I'm super jealous. I wish I had things and I hope too, very soon. I think it's going to start with some small things like the bees trip now that the grandparents are getting their second vaccine shot, little things like that but I can't do it right now.

Ed Pizza: Up until recently, if somebody suggested this is a segment, I probably would have said, "great, I'll listen to you talk about things." But we had this moment, which I talked about the podcast a couple weeks ago where I brought it up at dinner, casually and everybody jumped on it of, "Hey, where do you want to go?" And there's definitely some excitement level in our household and I put together a small list of things that I've been hearing about from others. And one of the things that's high on my list because I feel like it could be a great time to get there before things get fully packed again and I haven't been as is, Hawaii. And Summer, that's one of your spots that you know really well. If you had to guess how crowded do you think it's going to be compared to normal when we get to the holiday season in 21, the end of the year?

Summer Smith-Hull: It's so hard to see that far.

Ed Pizza: We'll inaudible talk about next week, come on, I want the hard questions.

Summer Smith-Hull: No, I mean, the unique thing about Hawaii is that they have been ahead of the curve... I mean, they've been massively chaotic in some ways. But they've been also ahead of the curve with these quarantine and testing things that now are becoming more commonplace but Hawaii didn't open back up at all until they had some of those guards in place. Which made them a less attractive destination for people that didn't want to deal with that and a more attractive destination for people who wanted that layer of security and choosing where to vacation. So it's really hard to say what they will be nine or 10 months from now but my gut is that they will still be significantly less crowded than normal for some period of time because, they're still harder to get to than Florida. I mean, they always are because they're out in the middle of the ocean but they're even harder.
I mean, we had a TPG staffer go try out Kauai's vacation bubble, recently, where there's six resorts that you can abbreviate 72 hour quarantine with some testing at and Kauai was empty. And I would argue, Kauai is the most beautiful of the Hawaiian islands and it has the most stringent rules in place. So, you've got the most to yourself and what a unique... It's like when I went to Disney in July, it was a little scary because there was still a lot we didn't know but it also was ridiculously magical to have somewhere that's usually so crowded with such diminished crowds.

Richard Kerr: I hope it stays that way. So my cousin, married a submariner who was in the same submarine squadron as me at our first duty station. He just moved to Hawaii a month ago for his next duty station and Emily and my cousin get along really well. So it's like number one on the list when travel does reopen. So I'm really hoping that it stays as empty as it is now. So we can hop to Hawaii to see that but then we can go to Kauai and have it to ourselves, it would be amazing.

Ed Pizza: Yeah. And I think one of the problems with Hawaii, I really want to get there but there is a level of reduced capacity right now with the airlines to get there. And it's one of those places, like you said, Summer, Florida's a lot easier to get to, especially, for folks on the East Coast. The only thing I think that keeps us from a Hawaii trip in the next 15 months, let's say is not being able to find good availability because some of the flights that have been cut out of Dallas and places I can get to easily.

Summer Smith-Hull: I think that's definitely true. And then the flip side of it is award availability is generally better than ever, especially on some of the routes. So it may require an extra flight and connecting in a hub that still has those flights more than others or getting on some of the brand new flights that Hawaiian is launching, which is super cool. But with that extra hot, maybe you can also score award tickets for less than ever. I mean, we had some savor business lie flat seats book to Kauai specifically, that we had to cancel because it hadn't reopened yet, but it was like... Again, for those willing to deal with the hoops and who decided that the level of risk gets reduced enough at some point before everybody comes back, they're going to be in for a treat, not only with reduced crowds but also with deals and award availability is not normally find-able.

Richard Kerr: An empty back of the bus. So if my family's got to fly to Hawaii, I follow a Southwest Captain on Instagram and every one of her flights right now, she flies from California to Hawaii like every other week. There's four people on the plane. So whatever the cheapest Southwest ticket is, you can all spread out and have your own room for the price of Southwest to head down there.

Ed Pizza: And I would... And it's funny because if we had the time, I would absolutely do Southwest that way but I would also leave a day or so to hang out in California. So I'd get to California, chill for a day and then take the coach flight or try to find the business class, Hawaiian seats or something like that. But I would actually be willing to fly coach to Hawaii if I could break it up especially because the non-stop business class option doesn't exist for us, right now. And Richard, you talked about keeping track of lists, shifting gears for just a second, of things that you need to get back from various travel brands. You guys probably remember the Delta vacations promotion from 2019. And for folks who are listening, who might not remember, there was this really great opportunity where Delta vacations was discounting their prices such like a 50% off discount on redeeming points for a Delta vacations, where you have to combine air and hotel or air and other things like rental cars, stuff like that.
We went big on this and had a Bermuda trip plan for last summer. And Bermuda, as you guys know, is a tough place to find points hotels, or at least, has been traditionally because Marriott, getting ready to open there. So I've got this big voucher from Delta vacations. It's supposed to expire this summer. And when they gave me that voucher in March of last year and said it was good through June of '21, I'm like, "ah, that'll be super easy to use up by then." And now I'm sitting here going, "geez, I think I need to call them to get an extension."

Richard Kerr: Same for some of these hotels suits I'm sitting on when they extended it to August of 21, I was like, "ah, no problem." And now I'm like, "ah, I don't know. I don't know if I'll be able to use these things by then. I hope a whole other round of extensions is in." So completely right there with you. And these questions are going to persist. Companies are going to have to,.. I guess that's the next horizon on my time I'm looking at when the hotels and airlines say, "okay, we can't continue to extend everything forever. Certificates, vouchers, refunds, elite status." At what point in '21 are they like, "I'm sorry, it's user lose it time. We've got to get these off our books. This is going to be the new normal going forward."

Ed Pizza: That would be painful, the status stuff. I think it's easier for them obviously because if people aren't traveling, they're not getting those benefits but if Delta vacations decides to push my certificate through a shredder, that's going to sting quite a bit.

Richard Kerr: I don't know if it'll be this year, but even if it's not this year, it's still going to be a lot of people not comfortable traveling. And when we get to '22 is at the time where they say that's enough you have until the state to redeem it? I don't know.

Summer Smith-Hull: I think that you're right. I don't think it's going to be at least on any large scale this year. And now on micro levels, it's already happened to some people that have already had these things expire from like Frontier gave you hardly any time at all, for example. So it's already happened, but I don't think it's going to happen on a mass scale in 2021, but you're right. At some point, it's the end of the road and hopefully, if things go the way they seem to go, we will have mass vaccination at some point in '21. And hopefully an extension to 2022 will get most people to where they're comfortable to get some value out of most of this.

Ed Pizza: And when you talk about certificates expiring and status expiring, I think the one piece that I've seen out there when I was doing research for the segment, that went the other way and I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to play it is is Korean Air. Was set to change their loyalty program around sky pass and they put it off. And there's this potential opportunity before they move to a distance based chart to maybe score one last one last trip under the old Korean jar, which is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards. So I'm wondering if you guys are thinking that maybe it's a placeholder to book some sort of an Asian trip in late '21 or in the first half of '22.

Richard Kerr: It was a transfer partner but now you can only get it through Marriott.

Ed Pizza: Oh, did it go away? Yeah. That's right, it did go away. That's a bummer.

Richard Kerr: What is this newbie podcast?

Ed Pizza: A good podcast, we'll cut that part out, but since we said we're going to leave inaudibleinsults, I got to have a couple of things inaudible.

Summer Smith-Hull: Well, you're not wrong that it was one, it was one. People could still have Miles sitting there to use. But what I think is very true on of what you said is that, 2021, just like 2020, is very likely not when you're going to see massive award chart shifts for most of the programs, it's not the right time, there's no point. I mean, last year, Hyatt already delayed their's, Alaska has already tweeted, if you want to say that's official, but they've tweeted, at least, that they are not going to make any big changes in 2021 but we all know change will come, whether that's '22 or '23, who knows, but there is a sweet spot that we're in. That's a little more stable than normal on the award chart front for most programs.

Richard Kerr: We even saw Qatar Privilege Club do a reevaluation at that. That was a stealth reevaluation because apparently all of us missed it but they did every evaluation. That makes it a decent option for a city thank you point transfer destination. That wouldn't have happened unless it was part of the pandemic, but to your original point, Korean, the best thing about them was that you could find eight or nine business class seats on a lot of routes from the U.S to Korea. So I know a lot of people did speculatively transfer some big balances over there before they went away from Chase or even if you have Marriott points to transfer over there because let's be honest, you should stay at Hyatt anyways. It's probably a good place to look right now before they de-value that program.

Ed Pizza: And when you talk about award inaudible freezing in place, I think one of the other things that could be a potential value because I don't think they'll make short-term changes. Air Canada rolled out a completely new loyalty program under an established name Aeroplan. And for me being an East Coast guy, they're a great option for us to get to Europe. Quick hop up to Toronto and then across, and I am eager because some of their distance bands and the stopovers and stuff are appealing, such things, I don't know if they'll stick around for a long time. So air Canada is one of those ones that I've been soft circling as a potential first booking for us to get back to Europe.

Summer Smith-Hull: And we leveraged transferring membership reward points to A.N.A, which of course, you could also transfer them to Air Canada but to hop on there 88,000 mile round trip business class awards. Because again, they're available right now but anything that is better than all the others likely doesn't stay forever. So we went ahead and locked it in. The risk, of course, is those points are now transferred to that program. So if they change and our trip falls apart, well, that was the calculated risk we made. But I really do... Personally, if you're willing to deal with a little headache, get plans change. I think it's a great time to be booking trips for a year from now because inaudible is eventually going to change for the worse on the loyalty front but there'll be a sweet spot, hopefully, when things have changed for the better on the health front. And you can get in to that Venn diagram of happiness.

Ed Pizza: The Venn diagram of happiness is distorted quite a bit over the past 10 months.

Summer Smith-Hull: It's just still there.

Richard Kerr: It's just a single circle of bad.

Summer Smith-Hull: There had been sweet spots already where things were not as bad and there were opportunities to do things closer to home. And I think that that circle of happiness later in 2021, is going to really grow unless there's another dark force that we don't see coming yet.

Richard Kerr: I would agree. If you can book something right now, go and do it. It's just a mental block for me and my family that I'm not doing it. I really should. There even fantastic airfares that you can book right now. If you have zero miles laying around to go fly cheap on an empty plane where you're going to have a whole road to yourself. I really wish we were all vaccinated so we could take advantage of that before things go nuts. So I think Summer's strategy is great, if you have the mental capacity to do that, go for it.

Ed Pizza: Summer, you brought up a good point about, obviously if anything goes sideways, you got to keep those points there and have other options. When we talk about far away and aspirational, one of the things I put down on the list to ask about is something like the Maldives because typically, the transfer partners that you might use to string those trips together are going to involve some foreign carriers where, maybe you get some points stuck somewhere that you might not otherwise want them stuck if you can't make it to the Maldives. What do you think about trying to say, "go big and go home", in say early '22, for something like the Maldives?

Summer Smith-Hull: I think you're right. You're going to have to trade off using the absolute best award chart to get somewhere like that. Like Richard mentioned Qatar, I think that they are actually a great option to get to the Maldives. But if it doesn't go the way you want, you have to think through whether or not they're going to have that plan B available that you would want to book. But Maybe they will, maybe they won't. So as opposed to going through a partner like United, where if Maldives doesn't work out and you've booked via United and they were partners, you may have more options for that money or those miles in the future than you would locking them into a program that has fewer closer to home options for you. So you do need to think all of that through. I think that's a really wise thing and if you decide to roll the dice, roll them in and commit to it but not everyone will want to lock points up in a program that they're not as familiar with or that doesn't have as many plan B and plan C options for them.

Richard Kerr: First of all, where's the Maldives? I haven't heard of this place.

Ed Pizza: This coming from a Georgia boy.

Richard Kerr: I'm just asking the question everybody's wondering.

Summer Smith-Hull: It's that fancy place in the middle of the Indian Ocean-ish, you call it whatever you want.

Ed Pizza: Paradise.

Summer Smith-Hull: That place where you drink on a coconuts and each hotel's its own private Island. It's lovely. You should check it out.

Ed Pizza: We had plans for French Polynesia, based partly on Summer on your great trip there. That one, I feel a little bit better about because I feel like I could use Aadvantage miles from American Airlines and potentially use their partner network for Air Tahiti Nui. So that's also been on our radar as well, especially since I have a store from Hilton points, having been a finished up Hilton Diamond, I think that could be a good solid uses of Hilton points.

Summer Smith-Hull: I think so.

Richard Kerr: Aren't they closing today?

Summer Smith-Hull: They are but they will reopen one day, probably about the same day and is ready to go.

Ed Pizza: I would say it's a solid chance that they will be opening before I'm ready to travel.

Summer Smith-Hull: So the other thing I've done that has helped me mentally but for some people, I'm sure won't be good, but I have stopped canceling trips. At this point if I am booking something, it's not getting canceled. Now the date might have to move but if I love it enough to commit to it right now after almost a year of living through this wildness, then it's not going to go off my calendar, it's just going to shift. I already have several trips that have shifted into 2022, from this ski season because it didn't feel right for me but they all still exist. They just got a new date.

Richard Kerr: Well, my trips still exist in my head. Does that count?

Summer Smith-Hull: And that's a happy place for them to exist, for me.

Ed Pizza: Wildness may be the nicest way I've heard anybody refer to the hell that we have been through when it comes to crosstalk.

Summer Smith-Hull: There're a lot of words that are appropriate, a lot of them, very colorful words.

Ed Pizza: Just remember though that we still have never had the explicit lyrics label on the podcast and we're going to continue that three years.

Summer Smith-Hull: Right. So we're going with wildness, but again, for me, if it's worth planning at this point, it's worth keeping and it'll just roll if it needs to roll.

Ed Pizza: Summer one of the things that you brought up when we were setting up the segment here, it was interesting to me because I didn't know what the deposit requirements were for... I'm putting you on the spot a little bit but you talked about the refundable nature of Marriott Villas as a potential choice. And we had Scott Mayerowitz on the podcast, probably seven or eight months ago, when he had a great Marriott Villa stay, very early in the pandemic. And I really liked the option and I definitely loved the refundability of it. I wonder though, when you're booking those, like if I was booking something speculatively for say '22, do I have to pay for the whole thing?

Summer Smith-Hull: No. So, that's great because that's actually what I... A lot of these ski trips that I have moved, were indeed home rentals and I will not put any more non-refundable home rentals. So it was pretty simple and some of them were indeed Marriott and it was easy. It was an easy, cancel, click or move, click, whichever the case may be and the money came back for the one before I stopped canceling trips altogether. The money for that one came back just, as they said within a few days. So it is a deposit, it's not the whole thing, it may very well be half of it though. It just depends. These go through traditional platforms like Turnkey, for example, that rents stuff out. So you're not actually booking through Marriott, you're booking through one of those more traditional lodging rental companies, Marriott's the platform but you're not going to typically pay the whole thing upfront.
It'll usually be half. And then with most of them, certainly all of them that I'm booking these days, there's either a 30 day or a 10 day cancellation. And being able to cancel an entire home rental up until 10 days before. And that one comes with just a $75 fee, the 30 days generally, no fee but it depends rental to rental. But anyway, being able to back out of an entire home rental until 10 days before is just outstanding and something that did not exist before this. So we're back to planning big family trips with home rentals and crossing our fingers.

Ed Pizza: And folks, if you miss the episode that we had on with Summer very recently, two weeks ago, we talked about her ski trips and some of the problems that she ran into with quarantine restrictions changing and them not being able to have all the families in the house. So definitely something to key in on there. But if you don't have to put the whole deposit down, then I think that could be a pretty appealing choice, I think if folks were trying to make speculative bookings and they had to fork over the entire amount now and then wait until the end to get the refund that could be painful for some people's wallets.

Summer Smith-Hull: Oh, for sure. No, it's not that painful. And I can say, no guarantees for future but past experience has been that, when I had to cancel the money did come back pretty quickly and in very easily.

Ed Pizza: So one of the questions that we had come in over the yield internet was about Vegas. And I'm going to have some opinions on Vegas and whether or not I plan a trip there right now, trying to lock up one of the deals for later this year. What do you guys think? I know it's a place both of you guys have been in like going to... What's your opinion on planning Vegas trips right now?

Richard Kerr: So I sold a few. The one thing that is tentatively scheduled, is a trip to Vegas.

Ed Pizza: She lied to us when you said crosstalk.

Summer Smith-Hull: You're not traveling but you have a trip to Vegas on the books, Richard Kerr.

Richard Kerr: You don't even let me finish before... Y'all what is this TBG lounge?

Summer Smith-Hull: Where are your Facebook comments section comes to life?

Richard Kerr: I have nothing booked at this point is a true statement. However, there is a group of good friends that are going over the next few months that would only be on my calendar if I am, for some reason, vaccinated. And it was two weeks after the second dose. Because if you book, basically get paid to stay in Chase luxury hotels right now, with all the free breakfast and the $100 property credit, on a $90 rate. And you can do a booking a night, the deals are just ridiculous. And then flying Delta out there in the middle seat block, which I really hope they extend until at least June for like, unless it's 200 bucks round trip to have your own row. When are you going to get to do Vegas like that when it's empty, a billion people crazy going around? I just think it's maybe like a first, "okay, this is a sense of normalcy with friends who are all vaccinated and some time and getting a really good hotel deal. It's just like days of pass." It's a nostalgic idea that's in my head but nothing's booked, all right. So it's just an idea.

Summer Smith-Hull: You're right though. I was looking at the Amex Fine hotel Resort collection in Vegas just yesterday, actually and you're right. Some of those marquee, big hotel, fancy names in Vegas, they're like a hundred bucks a night and you get more than that in rewards back. So if you're in a position to do it safely, there's killer deals waiting out there for you.

Ed Pizza: And my two sense, Vegas is a place I go very frequently for business. The only reason why I'm not booking Vegas stuff right now is because as far as I can tell, there hasn't been any uptick at all in conference bookings and conventions and conferences are such a huge part of what drives Vegas. And from my standpoint, I feel like until I start to see that rebound, I expect the deals are going to be incredible. When you have casinos that are closing on weekdays, major resorts, like Wynn and Encore and stuff like that, that tells me that demand is still significantly low. And I think until I started to see the convention numbers pop up, we're going to continue to see fabulous Vegas numbers. So if it was an either or situation, I feel like the Vegas discounts are going to be there in four or five months when I'm thinking about booking,

Richard Kerr: I'm curious. I've seen pictures and follow some of the Vegas folks that are halfway in the points of mile space. I just don't know if the experience will be as fun. I mean, sitting at a blackjack table, half the funds, Jack and cokes and shooting the breeze with whoever sits down there. But if he got plexiglass surrounding you and every other... I don't know if this is going to be fun or not, I guess I'll go find out.

Summer Smith-Hull: Well, it sounds like if you bring your own bubble then you're halfway there.

Ed Pizza: And a bummer for me is some of my favorite restaurants still haven't reopened. So that's why I'm not in a huge rush to get there because I feel like the experience is going to get much better a little bit further down the road.

Richard Kerr: I thought about that and I went to an awesome dinner last time we were both there and places like that probably aren't open right now.

Ed Pizza: I don't know if inaudible is open or not. That's at Cosmopolitan and it's legit, awesome robotic grill.

Richard Kerr: So if those places aren't open, that'll be a bummer because I don't really want to stand in line with 800 other people to get a brownie and a coffee from Starbucks in Vegas but I guess we'll find out.

Ed Pizza: All right. So before we run out of time, we had one question come in just now from Twitter, from flying tiger. When I asked you guys your opinion on this, he said, "after countries begin opening up, will we see any more 5k or 10K web specials to a place like Japan from American Airlines or other airlines with low mileage redemption rate, like super awesome saver web specials." What do you guys think?

Summer Smith-Hull: That Venn diagram of happiness. I mean, the ones who are able to safely travel first or at least, before it reaches critical bass are going to have the opportunity to snag some once in a lifetime deals. So, whether or not we'll see that example specifically, I don't know but we will see amazing deals for the ones who are ready to go before everybody's ready to go.

Richard Kerr: Yep, 100%, the deals are already here. The deals are right now and they'll continue for the next few months. But once travel is "back" whatever that means, it's too late in my opinion. So do it now if you can. Unless you're like me and don't have the mental capacity to do it. So do like Summer

Ed Pizza: And there you have it. Mr. Kerr getting the final word again with a good close on his mental capacity. There doesn't really seem a better place to end it. So Summer, tell folks where they can find you when you're not wrestling with Kerr and I on the podcast.

Summer Smith-Hull: Totally. You can find me over at The Points Guy website and also on social media, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera. I'm typically at mommy points, M-O-M-M-Y points.

Ed Pizza: Mr.Romantical Kerr. Tell us where we can track you down.

Richard Kerr: You're such a jerk. You can find me on Instagram at pizza_in slow_motion. I also write a blog on boarding area called Pizza At Standstill. You can find me there anytime.

Ed Pizza: And for those that don't understand the romantical reference, just Google, Richard Kerr the hustler and all your hopes and dreams will come true.

Richard Kerr: I haven't done that yet. Is there something up there about romantical?

Summer Smith-Hull: There will be.

Richard Kerr: This can go in some very bad directions.

Ed Pizza: Could go in some bad directions. All right. Well, thanks to both Summer and Richard for getting me even more excited about travel this week. There are so many places that I am so close to booking and flexible cancellation means, I may do just that in the weeks to come. Quick reminder, before we close out the show, please take 60 seconds to tell a friend where you heard all of these great and insane ideas. And if you haven't left us a review and a rating, please take a minute out of your day for that as well. If you have any questions we love answering those. You can shoot me an email @pizzaandmotion.com and as Richard so eloquently put it, you can find me on all the social medias, at "pizza in motion." There's more travel planning coming up in my future and probably pretty soon. I'll share all those updates as they happen but until then, we've got miles to go.

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  • Fun episode. One point of interest that seemed important was the brief discussion that Summer and Richard had about avoiding award bookings which are a pain to get refunds (Richard mentioned Etihad and Turkish). Personally it took a lot of calls to get a refund on my Avianca miles from a cancelled flight from last summer. I’d love a list or discussion on miles programs easiest to get refunds and which to avoid during this season where risk of future cancellations remain high. Thanks!

  • My favorite episodes are these, where you bring in Rich and Summer. You 3 have a nice chemistry that I think you should dive into further. Summer’s enthusiasm, Rich’s attention to detail, and Ed’s wisdom balance out very well. Please consider making this trio your bell cow….just don’t let the Chop drive the boat!