You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Answers w/ Richard Kerr

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: Back on the Miles To Go podcast, and you guys really liked the AMA last week. We answered a bunch of questions for listeners, folks that are part of the Award Travel 101 podcast and there were just a ton of questions leftover. So Mr. Kerr is back with us. You ran up to New York with the kiddos and now you're back in Georgia, right?

Richard Kerr: Yeah. It's the exact same identical story last week.

Ed Pizza: It is.

Richard Kerr: Fly home Thursday night, podcast is Friday morning, answer a bunch of knuckleheads' questions and do it again.

Ed Pizza: And we have a lot of knucklehead questions. A lot. And we're going to try to get to as many of them as we can for you guys. We will probably not be doing a third AMA next week, but we will save questions for a future episode. And again, a big thanks to the folks over at the Award Travel 101 Facebook group, they've been super happy to host a question thread for us over there. Some of those people say they know you.

Richard Kerr: Well, I don't believe what people say on the internet. So it might be true. It might not.

Ed Pizza: All right. Well, good for me. Okay. So quick reminder, folks, if you do have a question, we love answering those. We actually have a new way this week to answer questions.

Richard Kerr: Oh, do we?

Ed Pizza: Yeah we do. We're working up to video of Richard and I as well. But the complications this week got in the way of that. That and nobody really wants to see either one of us, but you can text us and I'm working on a kitschy phone number, but for now, you can text us at 571-293-6659 and we will answer your questions via text. You can also shoot me an email, ed@pizzamotion.com or you can find me on social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all that stuff @pizzainmotion. Again, if you're texting 571-293-6659, and we'll have that in the show notes.

Richard Kerr: How do I get access to this inbox so I can see the absurd pictures people send?

Ed Pizza: Oh, I will absolutely put a forward in there in the Google Voice account to send to both you and I. That should be awesome. You can screen all the pictures.

Richard Kerr: No, people are so terrible, man.

Ed Pizza: We're going to find out. All right, you ready to get this started?

Richard Kerr: Let's go.

Ed Pizza: All right. First question up. This one is from Kerr Points on Twitter.

Richard Kerr: For myself?

Ed Pizza: AA and B6, by the way, that's Jet Blue for you folks that aren't nerd like Richard.

Richard Kerr: Are you reading my own question?

Ed Pizza: I am reading your own question to you.

Richard Kerr: I did not respond to your ask for a question.

Ed Pizza: So he says AA at Jet Blue need to quickly announce reciprocal, elite status perks, and redemptions, or he's going to have to give Delta all of his business. He says, "What do we think the best things are that exec plats could receive on domestic JetBlue flights?" So what are you actually hoping to get out of this?

Richard Kerr: If you tell, Ed and I have no pre talks before this.

Ed Pizza: We do not script this thing.

Richard Kerr: I'm going to ask you your own question. It's a good question. That's why I asked to the people on Twitter land.

Ed Pizza: It is a good question. That's why I put it in the show.

Richard Kerr: No, I was thinking about this last night. So I flew American home and it's the first time I've flown American since March of 2020. And I've been executive platinum the whole time. Because they finally had a flight and a schedule that worked after giving the entire Atlanta to New York city market over to Jet Blue in the new partnership, which is a shame for me because flying back and forth between Atlanta to LaGuardia was awesome on the inaudible. I cleared upgrade every single time as an exec plat up in Atlanta. The upfront and the inaudible is a single seat on the port side. So you have the window in the aisle and it was just a lovely way as it gets without flying private to fly back and forth. That's all gone.
So flying American last night, I was thinking, Jet Blue needs to offer something compelling for me to now fly all of the Jet Blue flights that go from Atlanta to Newark and Atlanta to JFK or else I'm just going to have to keep flying Delta because of scheduling stuff. So, what could Jet Blue do to incentivize me as an executive platinum to give my business, to fly Jet Blue? So I can earn American miles now, I can earn American status, but number one, I only fly between Atlanta and New York City right now for the foreseeable future.

Ed Pizza: It seems to be that way.

Richard Kerr: And I like flying Jet Blue. They got more leg room than Delta, free wifi gate to gate, which is actually huge. But instead of going to LaGuardia, I got to go to Newark, which I talked about last week and that's fun. Or all the way out to JFK, which, a few train rides in with a suitcase gets annoying, or traffic could be 35 minutes, or it could be an hour and a half. You just don't know. So I think if they gave me the even more space seats for free at booking, that would be cool. If they give you a free drink, an alcoholic drink, that would be always welcome. Check bags, you got to do it. But besides that, picking a seat, getting a drink, I don't know if there's anything else that they could do because the mileage in the elite status earning, it's fine. It's not compelling if you're crediting to American. So I don't know, man.
Would you fly Jet Blue to Newark or JFK or would you fly in the back of a Delta A320 to LaGuardia? The main reason probably, it's almost rhetorical is because if JetBlue cancels a flight to New York on a day I got to get there, what are my backup options? Probably not too good. If Delta cancels a flight, there's another flight to all three airports within 45 minutes probably.

Ed Pizza: And I think for business travel, that's probably going to be why you end up on Delta for a lot of these trips. And I'm partial to LaGuardia, I don't mind taking the train, I actually prefer it. And obviously LaGuardia makes that harder as an option. But it's also just so much closer than the other two. I guess they could possibly throw a free snack at us on Jet Blue as well. Which American Airlines does for exec plats.

Richard Kerr: We already get that. Are you talking about like a free? Is there another level of Jet Blue snack? It's just the chips and the Sprite, right?

Ed Pizza: Yeah. No, a good point. I'll be honest. I don't see them adding the free drink. I don't think it's something that they're going to focus on right now. I think the reciprocal perks that are there now are more than I thought they'd have this soon in the partnership.

Richard Kerr: We don't have any reciprocal perks announced yet. Just the earnings.

Ed Pizza: That's what I mean. That's what I think you're getting. The fact that they have that in place already is a little surprised.

Richard Kerr: So at this point, if I could fly, because business platinum removing wifi, not having wifi for every flight right now is kind of frustrating unless you want to fork over the cash. Like last night, the flight pass for the hour and 45 minute flight was 16 bucks on AA. And I'm like, "I'm not paying 16 bucks for an hour and a half wifi." And American is only 10,000 feet still. Anyways, it'd be nice to fly Jet Blue, but I just don't think it's going to allow for business travel back and forth. And then also, we hit the LaGuardia experience last night, we taxied on the ground for over an hour after we pushed back before we finally took off. That's super annoying, which is the LaGuardia fix. I know it can happen. All the other JFK, all of them can be worse.
If American had just kept my daggum inaudible flights, and if there was an express train from any New York City airport to Grand Central Station running every 15 minutes, like every other developed nation in the world, it would be such a less stressful travel experience. Instead yesterday I'm talking to the taxi driver, why are we going all the way up town to take the RFK bridge or whatever it is up there, the Kennedy bridge? Why aren't we going? I'm like, "Why am I not on an express train right now?" This is so stressful and frustrating when it doesn't need to be. But the new LaGuardia terminal is lovely.

Ed Pizza: Yeah. No, it looks great.

Richard Kerr: Unfortunately, Delta doesn't fly out of there so I'll never get to experience it again. Anyways, yeah. Kind of a rhetorical question. If anybody has any great ideas for what Jet Blue could offer American exact plats to make me give them my business travel, I'm all ears.

Ed Pizza: All right. Mr. Kerr points, thank for submitting that question to us via Twitter. All right. Next up, Justin from the Award Travel 101 Facebook group. Again, if you guys aren't in AT101, you need to be. This one's right up our wheelhouse. Favorite properties for category one to four, Hyatt free night certificates.

Richard Kerr: Yeah. Confidante South Beach, Hyatt Grand Cyprus and Orlando are always going to be my top two answers to that. I find nowadays while Hyde is nowhere in the vicinity of what Marriott's done with their 35K and even 50K cert points, typically if you get property one or two or three, Hyatt is going to be a reasonable cash amount ,then I'm going to save it to look for that outsized value somewhere like the Confidante South Beach, I can go for 400 bucks a night, Grand Cypress going for over 200 bucks a night kind of deal. So those are my top two answers for the Hyatt service always.

Ed Pizza: And I have a slew of these and I've stayed at pretty much all of these. And you've stayed at some of them. Hyatt Residents Club in Sedona, I think you stayed at?

Richard Kerr: Yeah. That's only cat four?

Ed Pizza: It's a cat four.

Richard Kerr: Wow. inaudible.

Ed Pizza: I know. Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego I think is another property for if you're heading there. Hyatt Regency Sonoma wine country. You've got three MGM properties in Las Vegas. Park MGM would be my favorite of the three that are on that list. You mentioned the Confidante, which I think is a great property. DC, Grand Hyatt in DC is on the list. New York City Guild hall, which is part of Thompson. So you've got a New York City option to use your category one to four, which I think is a phenomenal value.

Richard Kerr: We don't tell, right? inaudible.

Ed Pizza: It is. Yep. Thompson in Chicago. So if you want to go to Chicago, there's an option there. The Eliza Jane in New Orleans.

Richard Kerr: That's a good one.

Ed Pizza: Love that property.

Richard Kerr: Yeah. Good one there.

Ed Pizza: Love it. And then when you get to Europe, I think there's a couple of treats. So Hyatt Regency Paris, Étoile, and I'm sure I botched the pronunciation of that.

Richard Kerr: I was like, that's not how you say it.

Ed Pizza: They have daybeds in a lot of those rooms. So they're great occupancy rooms for families.

Richard Kerr: Can you use the daybeds at night?

Ed Pizza: You know, I'll have to ask.

Richard Kerr: Good question for the American to ask.

Ed Pizza: And then Park Hyatt, Istanbul. Beautiful property. And that's also a category four. So I think there's just a slew of options that you can use your category one to four certs for. And quite frankly, I think it's a good dovetail into the next question, which should be like resounding laughter. Jared from the Award Travel 101 group asks us what are the best uses of a Marriott 50K certificates?

Richard Kerr: I don't know, man. None. Whatever Ritz Carlton you can catch that doesn't have $100 a night resort fee and $50 a night parking fees so you're paying 175 bucks after tax on your second room rate when using a free cert. I don't know. I don't have any favorite Marriotts right. Whatever airport Marriott you need to stay at before an early morning flight. Final answer. If you hear how disenfranchised I am with Marriott over what they continue to do, I just don't want anything to do with them. And I won't for a long time. Unless I got to stay at an airport Marriott like I did a few weeks ago at the Aloft LaGuardia and had a very mediocre experience that reminded me again I want nothing to do with Marriott.

Ed Pizza: I love it. I will try to provide more context.

Richard Kerr: Yeah. Please do. Because I don't have one for this.

Ed Pizza: I don't disagree with you. I think the family visit, the airport hotel, a lot of those things, the rates are high. That's where you're going to find the most value. Typically what I'm finding with Marriott certs, separate from the Hyatt certs, is I'm finding the rates being, as you said, the cash rates are super low on some of these properties. So it's just hard to justify using the certificate. Obviously, if it's a use it or lose it situation, there are certainly times of year these are going to be family oriented, obviously, from my perspective. There are times a year where you can find a slew of properties in Orlando. Maybe not your favorite. What is it? Cyprus? What's the Marriott that you liked that blacked out all their availability?

Richard Kerr: Oh, Harbor Lake.

Ed Pizza: Harbor Lake. Yeah. Maybe not Harbor Lake right now, but there are certainly times of the year where you can find the Dolphin and Swan, as potential sliding in at that 50,000 category. The Gaylord actually popped up when I did some research on this and I haven't stayed at the Gaylord, the Gaylord's right outside the gates of Disney World. It's definitely got some family elements to it, but they've got a little bit of water park, they've got some adult pools and they've got some legit restaurants, things like that. I've heard the rooms aren't great or sizeable there, but it is a Gaylord.

Richard Kerr: Shocking.

Ed Pizza: And I think the Gaylord does a great job on customer service. I think that's another reasonable option for the certificates.

Richard Kerr: But the question is what's the resort fee and the parking fee of the Gaylord in Orlando?

Ed Pizza: Oh, I'm sure it's sky high.

Richard Kerr: 100% is is not zero.

Ed Pizza: It's 100% sky high. And I think this is again where we see the difference between Hyatt and Marriott. I rattled off properties in five or six different states, all places people want to go. You want to go to Sedona, be in the Grand Canyon. You want to go to New York, Chicago, New Orleans, DC. All these major vacation spots. And then we talked about Paris and Turkey and all these places. And that's for a category one to four certificate, which are pretty easy to get if you're at all engaged in the Hyatt program.

Richard Kerr: Yup.

Ed Pizza: And then the Marriott, you and I are just sort of fumbling around like idiots.

Richard Kerr: What really burnt me on the 50K certificates, story time ladies and gentlemen so bear down with Uncle Richard here, as we tell a story. So my wife got the Ritz-Carlton card like the last month they were available for new signups, came with two 60,000 certificates. Couldn't use them the first year, they were extended. They said no problem. Basically, long story short, last year when Marriott said we are extending all free nights certificates from co-branded cards, period, the end, that's what the statement, the terms and conditions said, they neglected to say that, oh, the Ritz-Carlton certificates are not going to exist in 2021 so they're excluded and we're going to let those expire. I noticed the expiration date on my wife two 60K certificates were not extended after this announcement. I waited a week, I called and they said, "Sorry, we're not extending these."
And I said, "Here's your little announcement. Here are the terms and conditions. We are extending all co-branded cards, certificates into 2021." Period. The end. I said, "These are co-branded card certificates." They said, "Suck it." I said, "Okay, how about issuing me 120,000 points? We'll call it even." They said, "Suck it." And I tried to use them the last week, but this was still peak of COVID, we're not going anywhere. I tried to use them at the Ritz Carlton Reynolds Lake Oconee here in the middle of Georgia, nowhere. This place, it's Ritz Carlton. Great. But it's literally Lake Oconee. It's a Georgia lake. Nice hotel, but that's it. It's in between Atlanta and Augusta. It's still 70,000 points a night. I can't even use them here. And they just expired. And Marriott said forget it. So I can't use a 50K cert or 60K cert at the Ritz Carlton in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. Get out of here. See you later. Anyways, and that's my story.

Ed Pizza: You are doing an awesome job answering people's questions. But you see what a little bitter.

Richard Kerr: Ritz-Carlton, Reynold's, Lake Oconee, 70,000 points a night for a standard room with a king bed? Okay, whatever, Marriott.

Ed Pizza: All right, let's stay in hotels while we're here. We've talked about Hyatt, we've talked about Marriott. We also had a question from Holly. She wanted to know about the nicest Wyndham properties in the US and I've got a handful of these because we did that Wyndham partnership last year. But any have any favorites for you before I hit mine?

Richard Kerr: Yeah. The indoor waterpark one in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Wyndham of the Smokies?

Ed Pizza: Yup.

Richard Kerr: Awesome. The Wyndham Bonnet Creek in Orlando, lazy river, slides, waterpark. That kind of deal. Cool. I know there are a couple clubs that you can do out in Hawaii that provide really great value for points and give you a one or two bedroom place with a kitchen, which is huge in Hawaii. So, off the top of my head, those are recommendations.

Ed Pizza: Yeah. And to those I would add if you're a ski fan, you've got a Wyndham Park City, which is I think a really solid option. Along with the Wyndham that you mentioned in Orlando, you've got Wyndham Garden Lake Buena Vista Disney Springs. So one of the properties that has extra benefits, when those exist again, for staying on property at Disney World.
And then I think the unsung part of the Wyndham program is a chain of hotels called the trademark collection. And these are unbranded properties in places you actually want to go. They've got a couple of properties in Alaska, they've got a property in Sedona, and then they've got Lake Tahoe. They've got a property in Orlando that I think is awesome where you can get three and four bedroom condos in Orlando that are just beautiful. So big family reunion at Disney. And then they've got some interesting things. Like, if I remember correctly, they've got cabins in Branson, Missouri. And so just a bunch of really awesome properties sort of off the beaten path.
And we've talked a bit about their new credit cards. And I think there are some pretty sick values for folks who have small businesses on the Wyndham business credit card that you can leverage to stay at places like this.

Richard Kerr: Yeah. One of the most overlooked programs, continues to get overlooked, unfortunately so I would highly recommend everybody go at least take a surf around the winter rewards website. And they've got a pretty good filter on there that says filter by brand and then by state or country. And you'll be surprised at what you find there.

Ed Pizza: All right. I'm going to give you a softball. I'm going to try and be nice to you.

Richard Kerr: I'm going to smash it. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know.

Ed Pizza: Kathleen from Award Travel 101 asks, "Do gummy bears hold a superpower for you. And if so, what is it?"

Richard Kerr: Oh, my philosophy on gummy bears. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm not talking adult gummies. That wasn't even a conversation when I first shared my love for gummy bears, which has been lifelong, years ago. Now everybody's like, "Oh, the adult gummy." No I'm talking about... Number one, let's just go ahead and defunct a myth. Haribo gummy bears are nowhere near-

Ed Pizza: Are the best.

Richard Kerr: The think about America is everybody's entitled to their wrong opinion. And Haribo, which is not American, is nowhere near the best gummies that there are. Ladies and gentlemen, go to the wonderful state of Indiana to the Albany's Gummy Factory. And when you go to Walmart, when you go to your favorite grocery store, when you go to whole foods in your local Manhattan district, get yourself a bag of Albany's gummy bears and enjoy life. Sit down, listen to some music, watch a game, read a book, do whatever you want in life. And when you have a lovely gummy bear from Albany's, American made in Indiana, your life is going to be better.
Now when you go to Germany and you have these hard Haribo things, you're going to see what I'm talking about. So, Albany's hold a wonderful superpower of making life enjoyable. Again, Black Forest, tremendous, lovely flavors. Doesn't taste just like sugar. They actually put some work into the different flavors. And then if you want to go to Europe and feel like you're cool and go to the Haribo store, knock yourself out. But then you have to brush your teeth and use a pick to get all the hard crusty gummies out of your teeth. Does that answer your question, Kathleen?

Ed Pizza: So if anybody out there has contacted Haribo or Albany's, we are certainly looking for sponsors for the podcast.

Richard Kerr: Oh I used to hit up Albany's on Twitter all the time, which I'm sure people do. And I was like, "Can I please be your spokesman? I have a captive audience of tens of people that would love to get your products."

Ed Pizza: Twenties of people. Twenties.

Richard Kerr: Twenties of people now, yeah. We've been at this for nine years. So we've got from tens to twenties and sadly they have not hired me yet.

Ed Pizza: All right. Next up is a question from a friend of ours, Kim on Facebook, and this is her big Japan trip that she had to cancel because of the pandemic. And she's looking at options to get from Japan back to the US. She's got her outbound flights booked. And I know Japan is a place that's near and dear to your heart. If you were saying what's your favorite products to get from Japan to the US, who were you trying to fly and why?

Richard Kerr: Not an American carrier. That's number one. Any Asian carrier that is not a mainland China carrier is going to give you a better experience than an American carrier. So, ANA, JAL, obvious. And if you want to connect via Cafe Pacific.

Ed Pizza: Does Cafe Pacific still fly? They have what like six planes left?

Richard Kerr: Probably. Because poor people. Yeah. If you want to connect through Taiwan on Eva, lovely experience. But ANA, JAL, you're never going to go wrong. Regardless of what class of service you're in, you're going to enjoy the flight and Japanese hospitality, guaranteed.

Ed Pizza: And if you had to say, at a high level, would you say you have better value transferring ultimate rewards to the book and ANA flight or would you try and do something with JAL, which I'm guessing the best path for JAL would be to use American miles?

Richard Kerr: Yeah. That's your best path for JAL. Or actually flying Blue, believe it or not.

Ed Pizza: Fly Blue, which you can transfer to from...

Richard Kerr: Anybody.

Ed Pizza: Pretty much everybody, including that pretty awesome Brex deal that came last year.

Richard Kerr: No, the best bit for ANA is still going to be transferring to Virgin Atlantic and booking that partnership, whatever absurd rate it still is for round trip on ANA business or first-class and you can transfer to Virgin from, again, everybody. I think that's going to go away soon, it's been way too good a deal for too long. I actually think they did just adjust it and it's not as great a deal, but it's still reasonable. So that's always the recommendation to go and book ANA via Virgin Atlantic, you can't do it online, you got to call the lovely phone reps over in the UK. And they are the best trained and polite and impactful phone agents of any airline in the world, in my opinion.

Ed Pizza: Amen. Amen. All right. So where do we go next for questions? Oh, here's an interesting one, a prediction one. Jeffrey from AT101 asks if we think we're going to see an Airbnb credit card anytime soon.

Richard Kerr: There's been a lot of rumors about Airbnb creating a loyalty program. I know they had a test program out in Latin America. A couple of high level thoughts on this. Number one, Airbnb does plenty of business without a loyalty program. So why do they need one? The answer to that, again, my own question, I'm getting pretty good at answering my own questions.

Ed Pizza: You're doing really well at this. This is great.

Richard Kerr: Is, loyalty programs typically no longer have anything to do about loyalty. They're just about a new revenue stream. Loyalty programs make companies money, in the airlines case far more money than the airlines themselves. So if Airbnb has figured out a loyalty program model that drives additional revenue, then that's why they need it. Obviously a co-branded card would be a huge revenue driver if they figure out a points system or currency or cashback that makes a bank give them a few billion dollars to sell their Airbnb currency. So, unless Airbnb has hired some really smart people to figure out a way to drive huge revenue from a new loyalty program, I don't think they will be launching one anytime soon.

Ed Pizza: I'm torn on this. I kind of feel like something's coming down the pike. I've heard some rumors here and there. So I feel like something's going to happen. I'm just not sure when. I would be surprised if it happens in 2021, given everything else that's going on right now. I think 2022 is when this will happen. And I do think it'll happen.

Richard Kerr: If I was Airbnb, I would do a few things. Number one, clear up your pricing model because it's really annoying not to know how much an Airbnb actually costs, which is why I stay away from airbnb.com. I don't have anything do with it because I don't know the fair and transparent price of what a night in a unit's going to cost. Number two is your customer service is slacking. Lot of complaints from owners who are shafted all the time because people put in a false claim, Airbnb immediately says it was the customer. And that's the end of it. You and I know some mutual people who've gotten out of the business because of that.

Ed Pizza: Yeah.

Richard Kerr: And then number three is there are cities and municipalities around the country and world that are on a warpath to make Airbnbs illegal because people coming in, buying up 20 properties, getting rid of inventory for people to come and live in their community to make homes short term rentals, you better have a lot more lawyers and PR campaigns about why Airbnb is good for a place. All of that goes ahead of a loyalty program. And ladies and gentlemen, if Airbnb makes a loyalty program, it is to drive additional revenue to Airbnb. It is not to reward you for being a loyal Airbnb customer. Just remember that.

Ed Pizza: Amen. All right, I'm going to pitch my own softball, just because of what today is. Today is National Donut Day that we're recording this and Joseph on AT101 did ask what the best donut ever is. And while that would take us the entire podcast and weeks and weeks beyond that, I'd say I'd throw out a couple of my favorites.

Richard Kerr: And we actually disagree on this. So I'm interested to hear your answer.

Ed Pizza: Disagree on best doughnut ever?

Richard Kerr: On good donuts period, actually.

Ed Pizza: Oh, okay. Well, as you like to say so frequently, you're entitled to your wrong opinion. Wichita, Kansas actually has a super strong donut game. They've got a place called Donut Hole that I love. And then in terms of most engaged doughnut place ever, there's a place called Hurts Donuts there and they have two things. They have an emergency donut vehicle, it's an ambulance designed as a doughnut vehicle, which I love. And they have the best coupon in the world. You buy a $15 t-shirt from them, and anytime you wear the t-shirt into the store, you get a free donut, which I think is like incredible marketing. And good donuts. But I'd say Donut Hole.
There's a place called Neil's Donuts up in Connecticut that's one of my favorites. And I don't mind Voodoo. It has its place. I think they're definitely pricey and I don't love their yeast raised donuts. I'm more of a cake guy. But for me, most of my favorite doughnut places are going to be sort of like hole in the wall places like Donut Hole. There's a place just outside of Cleveland in Ohio called Bill's Donuts, which is one of my favorites. And then Edmonton in Canada, which I can't get back to anytime soon because we can't get across the damn border, has an incredible place up there called Destination Donuts. Tell me why you disagree and I'll tell you why you're wrong.

Richard Kerr: Three comments on this. Number one, I don't want cake. I want a donut. IE, yeast raised donuts. You're a cake connoisseur, man.

Ed Pizza: There are two types of doughnuts. There are yeast raised and there are cake doughnuts. You just need to understand that that's fact.

Richard Kerr: Okay. Well, I mean, what do facts even mean in 2021 America anymore? You go get yourself a box of warm Krispy Kreme right off the roller of yeast raised donuts and everybody in the world will have a big old smile on their face. You on the other hand are over there with a fork and a knife, eating a dense cake going, "Mmm, look at this donut." No, man, it's just not the way it is.

Ed Pizza: There are plenty of great yeast raised donuts in the world. Krispy Kreme is not one of them. They're too sweet. You talk about too sweet gummy bears. They're just too sweet. They're fine. But you cannot put Krispy Kreme in the Pantheon of good donuts. You just can't.

Richard Kerr: We're using the word Pantheon.

Ed Pizza: Yeah, they're not going to be in the hall of fame. Unless you want me to get a dump button and dump your mic for you to keep on talking about Krispy Kreme on my show.

Richard Kerr: It's more the yeast donut thing. Krispy Kreme is a personification of why yeast is better than cake.

Ed Pizza: But here's the thing. The best donut shops in the world have both. So Donut Hole in Wichita has really good cake doughnuts and really good yeast raised. Same with Bill's in Ohio. So you can decide which one you want. And I think the best donut shops have both and Krispy Kreme, and to a large extent Dunkin, they're both lacking on having some good cake doughnut options.

Richard Kerr: Second comment on your donut tirade is that you explained to everybody Cleveland was in Ohio. I thought that was funny. And then third is, you did not mention Dee's Nuts in Tabor City, North Carolina.

Ed Pizza: We didn't get to try them.

Richard Kerr: But the best named donut shop.

Ed Pizza: Absolutely best named donut shop in the world. I forget the crosstalk. All right, we're running out of time here. So we're going to try and squeeze in some more questions. Not that I don't love talking about donuts. So just to round out the hotel stuff, Jared asked the question, he says he really wants to make Hilton work for his family of six. Man, that's a tough one for travel. Sick people, just, man, wow.

Richard Kerr: Better hope Airbnb has a loyalty program.

Ed Pizza: Right? He says, "Because they have so many properties that fit a family of our size." He says, "How can I get good value out of the program when it seems so far from the value I get from," wait for it, "world of Hyatt?"

Richard Kerr: Yeah. Well, good luck feeding that family of six at Hilton now with whatever credit you're going to get.

Ed Pizza: Yeah, that new breakfast benefit. There's an oxymoron.

Richard Kerr: Yeah. With that. Second is, man, I would be looking at the Homewood Suite. Go ahead and forget about the Hilton resorts at the beach with a family of six. You better start looking at Hampton Inn and Suites, Homewood Suites, Tru by Hilton, all the places that give you the larger rooms, that's where you're going to find the value unless you're going to be booking two rooms, which, not going to be good.

Ed Pizza: I think with family, you just got to assume with Hilton you're booking two rooms if you want to go anywhere nice. And I just think that's where World of Hyatt, if you don't love the footprint of Hyatt, so be it. I understand it. But the reality of it is is that if you're a family and you like to travel to places that are actually desirable, it's really hard to compare Hilton and World of Hyatt. There are thousands and thousands of Hilton properties that you can stay at with your family where you can get rooms. Most of them are in places you don't want to spend a vacation. Whereas your World of Hyatt has some phenomenal opportunities than different brands. It's unfortunate.

Richard Kerr: I will tell you, Hilton points are relatively easy to earn compared to anywhere else, which is probably why their rooms cost so many points. But they constantly have a double or triple points promo on top of a co-branded card promo on top of any lead bonus or something. So getting over 30 points per dollar, when you do stay at a Hilton is not hard to do if you time it just right. You do have to register for these.

Ed Pizza: Yeah.

Richard Kerr: Make sure you are before you pay for your next Hilton stay.

Ed Pizza: All right. Last question before we run out of time. John, just emailed me this right as we were getting ready to record, and I'll start with the end. He says, "Thanks again in advance for any input and keep giving Kerr," fill in the blank, a word that we don't use on the podcast because we don't want the explicit lyrics.

Richard Kerr: Krispy Kreme?

Ed Pizza: Yeah, right. So he's talking about a spring break trip. They want to grab some of the cheap tap fairs and use the free stopover option in Lisbon, which I love. Super love tap for this. They serve a bunch of US cities. You can stop over, not just in Lisbon, but generally speaking, you could also stop over in Porto. So if I remember correctly, you can do two stopovers, one going and one on the way back to add four cities to your vacation. But his comment was, they were trying to decide in terms of what city they want to come back from. They were trying to decide between Brussels, Munich, Frankfurt, and Zurich. And they were also talking about whether they want to spend time in London or Brussels. So I'll let you hit this one first, as far as the which city do you think they should spend time in alongside Lisbon? And then I'll give my opinion.

Richard Kerr: If you said Frankfurt, which I think is one you said, it's basically a financial city, I did not find it particularly interesting. So, hard pass there. Munich, Munchin, definitely do that. Wife and I did that two years ago for our 10 year anniversary. City was awesome. Easy train rides to see a lot of places close by. Go to Salzburg, go out to see German history, castles, Dachau Concentration Camp, bike tour of the city and the huge park. Really, really enjoyed that entire area down there. So that would be my recommendation. I think I've spent a couple of days in Brussels and it was a long time ago so I'm not even educated enough to have an opinion there. But Munich, great.

Ed Pizza: I would say one of the reasons why I would think about Brussels is because it's a not too hard train ride to get to London. So I think if you want to spend time in London with kids, he said they've got an eight year old and an 11 year old, I think London's a great city for kids. Especially if they're into Harry Potter. I've heard that that's a big thing there. Yes, I am a muggle. So I think Brussels is a good option. I love Zurich as well. I think that's another good option. I'd echo Munich although I'd probably throw one in here that's not mentioned, because you mentioned Salzburg. I would throw in Vienna because of the proximity to Salzburg. I think Salzburg is a great family town. Especially if you get kids that are into the Sound of Music, there's a bunch of Sound of Music stuff there, but the town, the surrounding hills, all that stuff, just unbelievably beautiful, especially in the summertime.
And Vienna has a bunch of family-friendly activities and, wait for it, has a phenomenal Hyatt, Park Hyatt Vienna took awesome care of our family. Massive suite connected to another massive room. Super, super awesome. Awesome breakfast restaurant. You name it. You can swim in a bank vault. So I would say Vienna with a tag on for Salzburg is my first choice. And then I would say Brussels to have the London experience would be my second choice with kids. I absolutely believe in the Lisbon stopover. Viscerally. And I also believe in Porto as a potential stopover as well though Lisbon's more family-friendly than Porto.

Richard Kerr: No arguments there. We did the Munich, Salzburg, Vienna itinerary, and it was just perfect. Everything you said, Park Hyatt Vienna, tremendous. And walking distance right there in that district to a million different things. Really awesome.

Ed Pizza: Have you done Lisbon yet?

Richard Kerr: Have not done Portugal yet? Nope. There's like a list of three places I'm embarrassed that I'm 34 and never been to. Portugal is one. Spain is number two.

Ed Pizza: Yeah. Portugal is definitely up there and it's someplace you should go. But I mean, that being said, I'm way older than 34 and I still haven't been to Hawaii. So we've all got our glaring mishaps in the world throughout. Speaking of glaring mishaps, I seem to keep dragging you onto the show and somehow we seem to keep getting to the end without going completely off the rails. We appear to have gotten to the end of another show, we've gotten through most of the questions, apologies for the folks that we didn't get to. But I don't know, man, are we going to be able to have you back on again or are you bailing? Is this hitting your groove?

Richard Kerr: Yeah, I'm not traveling next week. As I keep alluding to, my calendar right now, I just have a huge question mark across Google Calendars because I don't know what it's going to be. But inaudible buddy, I love coming on and chatting all these things and hopefully providing some, number one, entertainment, number two, useful information, and number three, something to distract you from all the crazy things that happen in all of our lives. So if you get 45 minutes to put Ed and I on, tell jokes, and not think about whatever stressful thing you have waiting, then this is all good to me.

Ed Pizza: Yeah. And since the summer's coming up, once the kids are out of school, the entertainment level will ratchet up significantly because I will start using the RV again. And that will inevitably lead to screaming, cursing, things breaking.

Richard Kerr: You don't have hot water right now so it may be crosstalk.

Ed Pizza: Yes. I am currently burning money trying to repair my hot water heater. I don't know what's next, but I will be burning money doing something with that GD RV.

Richard Kerr: There's one thing I've said on your podcast that I get more grief for, and you just said it, than anything else I've said. People are like, "It's just a water heater. You don't have to say hot water heater. Are you going to heat it to cold?" Like, all right, everybody, sorry, we keep calling it a hot water heater. That's the way we're raised in central Georgia here. So forgive Ed and myself, although he's from New York, for saying hot water heater. Our sincerest apologies. You don't have to send me any more hate tweets or comments.

Ed Pizza: Yeah. I'm not apologizing, but you should send all your hate tweets and comments to Richard. I think that's probably the best way to handle that. He is in charge of customer service. So you can you send him. You can also send him the awkward pictures. And, as I said at the top of the show, if you do want to text us your questions along with all the other fun ways to find us, you can text us at 571- 293-6659. And if you really, really made it this far in the show, and you still think that we're not a bunch of knuckleheads, I would love it if you would hit the link in the show notes and leave us a five star rating and a review because those things do a bunch of good stuff for us in terms of promoting the show. An I would dare say that if you like what you hear, then tell a friend and tell them that they need to listen to Richard and I defining the world of travel one donut and gummy bear at a time.

Richard Kerr: We defined a lot of different things today.

Ed Pizza: Yes we did. All right. Well, before I kick you out of here and go to the dentist, tell people where they can find you.

Richard Kerr: Find me at Kerr Points, K-E-R-R on all social media. Big things coming this summer, Ed. I'm going to keep saying it. I'm excited.

Ed Pizza: I can't wait, man. I can't wait. You tell me when we can let some of the information loose. Until then, I'm going to go get beat up in the dentist and we're going to do this again next week.
That's a full wrap on this week's episode. You can find links to everything we discussed today in the show notes. A big thanks to all of you for tuning into this week's show. If any of you have questions or suggestions for a future show, you can drop me an email at ed@pizzainmotion.com or hit me up on social media. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all @pizzainmotion. And you can find me blogging daily pizzaindmotion.com. Until we upload again, we've got miles to go.