Lessons

Lesson Info

Create Your Custom Travel Strategy

The goal of this course is really to take you step by step on equip you with everything you need to go anywhere in the world by the end of the course, so we did a previous course we help people earn a lot of miles and that was fun, but we also find a lot of people have miles and points, but they don't know how to use them they don't know how to get the best value for them. So the whole point here is to help you go anywhere you want. And we talked yesterday about identifying your dream destination have this great in studio audience hears we went around and talked with them. We heard from matt, who wanted to go to patagonia. Jin wants to go to iceland, casey wanted to go. Where is it to greece? I believe lin wants to go to east africa back on safari I mean, lots of great destinations online that we were hearing about, so we're going to be working on those throughout the course. We also heard from a lot of international folks who are watching from all over they had a couple questions for ...

us. Yeah, fantastic. Well, I also one of the things I thought was really interesting was there's a lot of people who want to go to the same destinations and you're learning a lot from us up here but one of the great things is you all can learn from each other and so make sure you signed up to that facebook group and find somebody else who wants to go where you want to go and figure out what you guys are both learning and and how you can share that information absolutely we want to do this as a fully interactive experience throughout the whole course. Speaking of that there's a couple of things that you can do if you go to travel hacking dot org's slash dream trip you could actually join a community there you can ask questions of us will be engaging directly all of the links that we talk about throughout the whole course will be available there and stephanie mentioned the facebook group that's over it. I also want to say something else if you go back to that last play will do that there's also a special offer at this link that we're going to talk about a lot more in week two. But you can sign up here for a thirty day trial offer of the travel hacking cartel for one dollar and that's going to help you earn lots of points and miles in week two absolutely well even meet the community manager for the travel hacking cartel at some point s o the facebook group trouble talking dot org's slash fb dream trip will be there lots of the in studio guests are there as well some of the special expert some it's going to be great so um every lesson has three goals and today our goals I think many of you have a workbook if you have a workbook here in the studio audience it's page seven if you're following along online you can get the workbook if you purchase the course but if you don't have it it's okay just kind of write this down in a notebook uh goal number one is to price your dream trip kind of understands like what we're looking at I believe in terms of miles not just money because we're helping people do this for free with miles and points and then main goal today is to identify your traveler profile we realize that not everyone travels in the same way and we're gonna help you identify your travel hacking approach as well as your travel style and then lastly to make a plan that works for you so that we can equip you with everything throughout the rest of the lessons so yesterday we talked with a lot of different people and heard a little bit about their ideal dream trips and I was talking with our producer brian he said he wanted to go to switzerland switzerland has always been a special place in his imagination and he decided I want to figure out how to go there but many of us know that flying to switzerland is often kind of expensive, so we did a little bit of research and we found out that for brian to get switzerland it's going to take fifty thousand miles, so he took that destination and he combined it with the objective. This is not just about dreaming, it's about doing and saying, ok, here's, my dream here's, what I want to do to make it happen so he needs fifty thousand miles. We're gonna work on that. And lynn said she wanted to go back to east africa and go on a safari in tanzania. And so I pulled out this picture that I took in the serengeti last year and did a little bit more research on how lin could get from seattle to tanzania, and we think it's going to cost her about eighty thousand miles. So our goal is to help her get eighty thousand miles throughout this course so she can get her to get to tanzania at the end. All right, it comes up there for us, so jin from seattle already travels a lot. She spends time in germany and south africa all over the world, but her dream trip is to visit iceland. So we did some research and we determine that she's going to need about forty thousand miles, so we'll be working with gin on that throughout the rest of the course. And we heard kim story yesterday about why she wants to go toe outer mongolia and we think it's going to cost her about seventy five thousand miles to get there another gin from vancouver, canada wants to go to nepal and so just to mention as we're filming this live nepal is currently recovering from a terrible disaster, something we're all cognizant of in our hearts there with that country but we also realized that in the long term nepal is very, very dependent on tourism, so actually when the time is right, sustainable tourism is actually a great way to support that country, so we'll look forward to helping jane with that throughout the course and that takes sixty thousand miles so we're working on that and of course I told you my dream destination of bora bora apparently there's a lot of people who want to go to bora bora so I really want to encourage you to purchase the course and binge watch it because there is not going to be very much availability to go to bora bora was alive. Teo I know I'm gonna be booking my hotel in this over over the water bungalow but it's going to cost me about seventy five thousand miles I think to get to bora bora it was initially hard for me to figure out my dream destination since I've been to every country in the world but I decided to struggle and sacrifice, and I decided to go back to dubai, united arab emirates, flying on emirates eight, three eighty in first class, so I'm working on that that's my dream destination it maybe it's, even part of the dream trip that we're taking. So we heard for many international viewers and asking questions about whether things work for us and actually, as this course goes out, we're going to be having global meetups. We're gonna have one in asia, and I have one in the middle east and one in europe, and so if you follow us, if you join us in that facebook group travel hacking dot org's slash fb dream trip or follow us on twitter, you'll find out exactly how that works because we want to prove to you that everything we're showing you can get you around the world exactly. We want to live it out by example, and not just for us, but for everybody watch thing as well. Ok, so we talked about miles we need. We kind of identified here's a number. How do you get them? How do you get that many miles? Maybe you're thinking. Okay, this sounds great, but where do they come from? There's not a one size fits all solution on dh that's. Why many people fail it using their points in miles to actually get somewhere they kind of get stuck. So if you want to be successful, you have to start in the right place on that place that you start with is you. You know, the way that you earn miles will not be the same as somebody else. We realize there's people with a lot of different experience levels, engaging with this course both here in the audience and watching online. So we want to talk a little bit about that actually going to ask our in studio audience, starting with casey to just share in a couple of sentences like what's your experience with miles and points thus far. Have you done anything? Is a totally new. And for those watching online, we'd love to noah's. Well, you could kind of share that up in the chat group, and they will come back to kenya. Yes. I recently just started a crew in two mile. So approximately right under one hundred thousand miles in the span of less than two and a half months hundred thousand miles in two and a half months, okay, pretty good. I've actually got my miles so far by actually flying, um, I flew flown about sixty four thousand miles in the last two years back and forth from south africa helps really? Um, but yeah, that I haven't tried to optimize in any other way, yeah, I, uh, earned a lot of miles more than a decade ago, some of which you're still residual, and some of my accounts between those as I've spent them down and my membership rewards miles on amex, and we've done some domestic family trips together as a foursome, you know, very reasonable, uh, mileage, you know, mileage costs, if you will. I'm such a beginner, I have about eighty thousand miles on a credit card, and I have about three thousand miles on an airline um, I've been collecting for about eight months and just more credit card sign ups and a few east or curtis is, but uh, not too many more I have some points on the card, I think andi, I don't know what it means, but I e points he doesn't know it, but there's, no way we're gonna get that. If I had all the miles that I've booked for other people, I would have hundreds and hundreds of thousands, but my for myself, I'm definitely beginner and new to it. I've been earning and burning for decades many of the miles that I've earned I might family ends up traveling one, but through this process hope to accelerate pour gas on that fire and really step it up a notch. Uh, I started travel hacking back in september two thousand fourteen of last year, and so far I've got in three mx card and one married hotel card I've got in two hundred thirty thousand airplane point since then, and I've used up thirty thousand, so right now I only have two hundred thousand eleven thousand I want ingredient I want to get more that's great that's great! I'm a newbie at this process, but have started dabbling a little bit, so have maybe sixty to eighty thousand miles and another forty thousand points look, I know how about you, and how about some of the people that we're hearing from absolutely it's interesting because we do have a lot of people out there who are new and don't have a lot of miles on points so that's awesome because you guys are all in the right place, so graeme w has no experience at all need all the help I can get mike's mmm brand new two miles wondering how to find the number of miles you need for the dream trip we talked about that mark be no experience lindy, no miles, no miles let's say steff. Oz got miles from airlines. I believe I lose them for not using the airline often. Oh, really hard to get a lot of miles with airline programs in the right spot. Emma says, I've always looked at miles a kind of a scam, so I have no miles. I really don't know anyone who uses miles. So this is all very new tokyo so we dressed that way and let's dio one more lnk I've got miles from flying and from credit cards. I recently book miles trip to sweden for three well done, congratulations. That sounds good, but we look forward to helping all those people who were totally new to this. And as for the skepticism about miles and points, we encounter that a lot of a lot ourselves. And we're just trying to try to share stories we say well, here's, how it's worked for us and here's what we've learned along the way on it's, not just us way talked with all kinds of people who've been able to put this to good use so well accorded to addressing that I love it that we have people who are just starting out with zero miles and people who have tons of miles and who've been earning and burning them for years. And this course is really relevant toe all of you, because for those of you who are starting out, we're gonna teach you everything you know, step by step. And for those of you have been doing it for a long time, we're going to teach you some some will tricks to optimize your strategy, and we hope you can all learn from each other as well. So to think about how you're gonna earn miles and how you're going to get to these destinations, we wantto look at you individually and help you think about what strategy is best for you. The same strategy isn't going to work for everyone, you know, it's not the linds not going to get to tanzania the same way that matt is going to get to patagonia. They aren't gonna turn miles the same way, and they aren't probably gonna redeem their miles the same way. So it's really important to start out at yourself and to think about what's best for you to earn miles and what's best for you to spend miles and how we're going to do that is we're gonna look at two questions. These two questions are what kind of travel hacker are you? And what style traveller are you now? This might seem like why are we doing this? You know, we we just really want to learn how to earn the miles we wanted to jump right in this setting up this framework it's, so helpful because it's what's going to ensure that you're successful in doing this. Not that you just have a whole lot of miles that you can't use to go anywhere. So the first question we're going to look at is what kind of travel hacker are you? So we have this we have this great speedometer with apprentice at one end and out of control at the other end, and we're going to go through each of these different levels and explain to you what they mean and help you to identify where you are as your approach as a travel hacker and none of it's right or wrong it's not better to be out of control than it is to be an apprentice. A lot of it is about how much time you want to put into this as a hobby. How fast do you want to get to your dream destination? I know yesterday one of the questions wass well, how long is it gonna take me to turn my first fifty thousand miles? Well, it might take you a really long time or you might be able to do it tonight, so a lot of this is kind of your speed as a travel hacker, so we're gonna go through some trouble hacking styles and we're gonna ask you at the end of shoes awesome. So if you're just starting out or if you don't have a lot of time you might be an apprentice and if you're an apprentice, you just want the miles for the trip essentially you mostly earn miles when you fly. You haven't started earning a lot of big bonuses, you haven't taken advantage of promotions on being a princess is not a bad thing. You just kind of want to gather the miles that you need for your trip. You could actually be doing this for a long time and still be an apprentice because you just don't want to put a lot of time into it, but you can still take your trips as an apprentice absolutely also we want to give a shout out to doug meal who made these amazing graphics for us that's right? The the second level is enthusiast I would say this is a step beyond apprentice, so maybe you are a person who watched our become a travel hacker course in two thousand thirteen and you're interested in this and you want to learn more you might be an enthusiast maybe you um you have some time that you want to invest in it but you don't want to dio everything maybe you want to get a credit card or two you know sign up for a few programs, take advantage of some bonuses um you know, sign up for a service that tells you what the deals are you're interested in doing it but you I don't want to spend all your time thinking about points and miles you'd probably be an enthusiast and once you really get into it or if you are into it really already you might be a rock star you're convinced and committed you earn a ton of miles and points maybe like kendrick here just a few short months two hundred thousand miles or maybe casey and a couple of months one hundred thousand miles on and you're definitely more active you know and some you may even be diversifying your miles and points because when we talk about a dream destination it's totally possible to just say here's what I'm going to do here the mile is I'm going to focus on someone asked how do I find out what those miles are for the the destination I need will show you exactly how that works but if you're a rock star maybe you like the idea of making travel part of your lifestyle maybe you like the idea of taking repeated trips not just having one dream destination so if you need american airlines miles for something you're accruing those if you're trying to earn starwood points you also do that so rock star is definitely more attentive it's something that takes a bit more time but it has a bit more reward and we actually think all of you are rock stars in the world even if you might not be a rock star travel hacker and out of control person doesn't mean you're totally off the chart and over the top there are some people like that in fact what I wrote upgrade unlocked I told the story of this guy if you want to find it you khun google him on you who travel or something but he decided he wanted to do an experiment to see if he could earn one million miles in a month and he succeeded in making his full time job so most people are not going to do that but that was out of control I thought that was I would say it may be off the charts a little bit to the right so but if you like there are a lot of people who are kind of out of control in this hobby and they just you know love to find everything there is in do it all that's right way actually talk tio tio how tran who was a college student who earns two and a half million miles and points before he graduates so that wasn't his fault. Time's lesson nine make sure. Okay, well, here about how he did it. Well, here, about how you with credit cards and other stuff, how it didn't affect his credit score, negativity and how it didn't take up all his time. So there's all kinds of approaches, so we want to know what's your travel, hacking speed, could we ask the audience? We're gonna ask the audience and we also want to ask everyone online. So in your workbook, there's a exercise for this if you have the workbook that's great. If not, I'm going to go ahead and start with lynn over here on my right what's your travel hacking speed well, a few months ago, after I read a few articles online, including some yours, chris, I dipped my toe in the water, I think with the information that we started getting yesterday, I'm dog paddling, and I'm hoping by the end of the twenty nine lessons that I will be swimming from being an apprentice to being an enthusiast. All right question a quick question as we do, this exercise is from chelsea when you pick your traveler profile, is that where you are right now or where you want to be a question? I would say where you are right now and noticed that this is not only is this a speedometer, but this is also a scale, and I think you can move back and forth on this scale because it's not on ly like you're level it's also how much time you're putting into it. So if you're planning a big trip, you know, for the christmas now you're probably going to be like, you want probably to go at rock star speed and then maybe you'll just be an enthusiast when you aren't planning something actively, so I think you can move along, but I would say where you are now is what we want to hear the question I originally thought I was a rock star, but I might be out of control because what I've been doing is I have a presentation already ready. So every time I meet someone and and I talked about traveling, I would think of my wallet and I have my mix cards ready and I put it on the table and explain to them that way that's awesome. Uh, I'm I'm embedded in enthusiast, but you know, the more I learn about this, I consider myself a rising rock star. Oh, good, I'm definitely an apprentice, maybe a secret rock star in hiding what I feel like wannabe rock star like e like I put all my time into it we're like the searching and flights and trying to get the prices but with this points thing it's it's super new to me but yeah, I feel I can want to be upon stage awesome you have a chance to be up on stage uh I'd say I'm an enthusiast but I would like to aspire to rock star status I'm definitely an apprentice currently, but I'm going for rock star uh back in the nineties, I think I was close too out of control definitely rock star when I was doing on an expense account, I've found a lot of ways to use the miles, but I felt deeply back into the enthusiast category of the last ten years and so I want to reclaim my rock star status. Yeah, I'd say I'm an enthusiast yeah, I think I have some some big goals and ambitions somewhere between the enthusiasts a rock star but I'd say right now probably enthusiast that's right? So we have quite a range of people here what we have online okay, online we have a variety we have during hundred percent apprentice samos three eighteen media uh linda e I'm a rock star wannabe willing to put in the time to take multiple trips per year but I have no experience so that's awesome we have ah j, c f and allison or enthusiasts linda bella apprentice rock star here we have md poet who says hi I'm out of control but not in a good way could help. Okay that's wonderful. So we're gonna put this together with something else what are you what? Um I I think I'm rock star out of control ish yeah what do you think what you think probably probably need thio okay, I guess you might have to be a rock star out of control if you're up here. Teacher I suppose so. Probably so okay on the special charm but other people might think of us haven't done a million miles okay, so we're going put this together the travel hacking approach the reason we talked about traveling he approaches because again the courses about doing it's very practical it's not just dreaming it's like how are you going get you to that destination so that's what? We talk about miles and point so much but we're also talking a lot about actual travel so we want to know what style of traveller are you so let's say you have all the miles and points you need and then you're going to go out and take a trip what has been your experience in that? So we also have some fun illustrations from doug neal? Thanks again, doug for those we have four profiles here for traveler and the first one is a backpacker now this is probably something that most people are familiar with and relate to backpacker is someone who's really comfortable travelling in budget style they tend to be really flexible if someone's a backpacker and they go on the flight they always book economy class they would never think about upgrades they would never think about trying to get into business class or first class that's just kind of a world beyond them and that's fine so that is backpacker on bit's you don't have to like actually carry a backpack and only sleep in hostels to be a backpacker if your goal is to just get as many miles as you can see you can go as many places as you can and do it as cheaply as possible you might fit into the backpacker style even if you know you really like to take showers that's great super flexibility maybe that's a good point flexibility all right second our second profile is bath hacker there's actually word I made up because I kind of think it's my profile and this is kind of like a hybrid of a backpacker but someone who also likes really nice things so it's I would say a bath hacker is someone who wants to go is many places as possible you know ken fly economy class I wouldn't mind an upgrade you know and and is willing to spend maybe some extra miles for a specific trip or when the possibilities they're the term actually comes from spending a lot of time on the road doing budget travel and then getting that chance to stay in a nice hotel and take a really nice bath great so you might be a backpacker if you fit that profile the third one is vacation ist this is someone who might be planning a really big trip and doesn't have a lot of flexibility maybe even a family travel or maybe someone who works a lot a big trip like a honeymoon you want this ship to be really good you actually don't have a lot of flexibility you don't always need high standards but in some cases you're not as flexible as maybe the other category so you are a vacation ist in our last profile our last style is the jet center this is somebody who really aspires to have nice things and it doesn't have to be just because you love luxury travel. It could also be because you're six foot four like scott and it might be a lot more comfortable to sit in in first class or business class or maybe you're older and it might be it might actually make it possible for you to travel if you khun have nicer stay in nicer places or travelling in higher style so this is someone who's willing to earn the extra miles and spend the extra miles on on their nice nice luxury travel okay? So backpacker backpacker vacation ist and jet setter you know, as we submission at the start these travel profiles aren't one size fits all it is a spectrum it talks may change based on season that may change on your time in life I'm a change on a specific trip, but I think it is really helpful a cz we begin the process of saying okay what's our dream destination how we're going to get there to think about both the travel hacking approach on the travel style eso we'd love to know but from the studio audience on from those watching online what is your trouble style? So they come back over here, right? Yeah casey a bath hacker um there's nothing wrong with liking, you know the best of both worlds. So I think I definitely about doctor about that. I think a lot of people think I'm a jet setter because most of my trips are very far into places like cape town, london um australia and things but it's actually I go as a backpacker so it's very like I want to say bath hacker kind of but you know, I'm actually an ultimate flexibility so and for me it's uh speak for two of us because it's my wife and I at this point in our lives and I would say we're bath hackers I'm a bad hacker but I want to say my trip to mongolia will be a vacation ist because it's time dependent and location ofthe also I think I toggle between backpacker and bath hacker I think a lot of people think that from violence have some flexibility but as we learned about nice things we think might as well you know if I can do without without spending a lot of money um I think that I'm a backpacker like I were flip flops in the snow and I are staying in a hostel right now so like I was backpacker but my girlfriend when we travel together like she's more of a vacation so I guess like when we compromise we meet at bath hacker like I'm happy to upgrade she's happy to downgrade will meet in the middle that's great so she watching the course now are you just gonna learn everything for I guess I'll learn everything and just not tell her that it's great I go between backpacker and bath hacker however I'd probably change it to pillow hacker oh no it's creating your own profile uh definitely trend towards bath hacker my wife's more of a vacation ist but I am six foot four and I love the upgrade probably to a fault so strong jet setter pull there okay I'd like to say I'm a bad hacker but I've slept in airports before so maybe I'm really a backpacker way also, even airports I think I've evolved from a backpacker to a bath hacker over the years makes perfect sense, but in the chat rooms we have emma, who says I've been a bath hacker for most of my life, but then I upgrade got upgraded to an owner suite on a cruise on I think I'm more of a vacation jetsetter now way when you get upgraded target way have people who again quinn is a backpacker, but wife is a just center way have gracie backpacker love the spontaneity, but still being comfortable let's see, we have yeah, we have jet setters, we have vacation ist the number of vacation is to have families but are looking tio they would love to fly first class their family with their kids. So all kinds of people screwed that's wonderful class under five is what I always say way. So how do we put these profiles together? What does that mean for us? So what we want to do now is to take your travel hacking style and marry that with your your travel hacking speed and marry that with your travel hacking style to give you your trouble profile that we're gonna use throughout the course, so for example, here you'll see if I'm an enthusiast and a vacation ist then I'd be the enthusiast vacation ist and this is something I want to keep in mind throughout the whole course and actually it will be really interesting to see at the end of the course how many of you all feel like you changed a little bit be grated our last check in but so how this effects your travel how you're goingto take away from this course is you know if you're a rockstar bath hacker which is what I would be you're gonna have a lot of flexibility in your trouble plans because you're gonna have a lot of miles and you're willing teo you know spend a lot of miles if you need to, but you're also willing tio do things on economy class or in budget hotels you're going to make it work and you're gonna have a lot of currency to make it work and if you're out of control backpacker for example you have lots of flexibility and you have lots of miles and points, eh? So you'll be able to get to your dream destination much quicker that's something that a lot of people have asked how much time is it going to take? Well, it depends on you as we've been saying so if you have a really aggressive approach if you put in some time and you could do anything well well, great you can go right away on the other hand, if you're an apprentice jetset center so you have really high standards and a big goal, but you're kind of going slow toward it you can still get there khun still totally work but it might take some time so take longer to get all those miles exactly so you know the challenges essentially like let's put these things together let's think about a travel hacking style is think about our travel profile that's going to determine a lot of what we do and it will help you set realistic expectations as well for when you're going to be able to take your dream destination absolutely so let's maybe workshop this out a little bit you know we have this amazing set courtesy of creative lives thanks guys. One of the things that we requested of course you know, it was a first class airline seats so they source that from the seattle museum of flight thanks again, I would love to actually bring someone up from the studio audience. Scott, can I ask you to come and join us here in the travel hacking hot seat? Come on up you've been upgraded way drink up champagne on the aisle to unlike your mimosa tall people always want to recline like that's great that's great, so I just wanted to talk a little bit more about your travel profile okay? We spent some time talking about travel hacking approach and travel profile and remind us again what you said about the first thing that trouble talking approach yes that I'm an enthusiast because of some of this stuff followed in some of the tips that I've gotten from you you know I really aspire to be a rock star I've been churning in burning miles for a long time but I need more on and I just see well I'm following you guys traveling around the world every country and so forth something and why not mean so so I'm you know I mean by the end of our course I may be a rockstar okay rockstar right start rising and use that phrase that was great. Okay. So rock star ascendant star rising on then what about your travel profile? What kind of trouble do you like to do? I will I love trouble with my wife and I think that she probably falls into that vacation ist because thank heaven she can hold a steady job. Um I'm more of a phone in that bath hacker but because you know it's definition saying earlier I'm six foot for the person in coach who sits in front of me gets excellent lumbar support and so I I really do love you the upgrades and I really do love people calling me sir andi I just falling all over me give me that hot towel and that preflight beverage on is that wrong no, thank you for flying with us today. There's. A strong streak of jeff center painted right down the middle. So before we downgrade you back to coach, you tell us a little bit about where you where you hope to travel and what your dream destination is. Well, you know, you asked me to narrow it down, and I I picked the farthest place that I could figure, which is cape town, south africa. Mostly I have some friends in south africa like to visit, but I do want to go and stay. Stop along the way. So whether our used miles and points or whether I actually buy a round the world ticket, I want to end up there, but I've got a lot of stops along the way. Indonesia, egypt, london. Things like that, you remind us, remind us earlier what you shared, how many miles you have and kind of what you're doing right now, I have about actually, I looked it up last night after we talked about this one hundred thirty two thousand four hundred sixty last year. You buy coffee this morning with your credit card, but I did sign up for the for the yes on for the rewards dining program, yes turning burning, and then I have about eighty ninety thousand chase points, which which are really, really handy, I think there's a lot, we can do it that I look forward to working that out throughout the rest, of course, thank you much. Someone got tio eject, you hear the way you disembark through the front door? S so we have a challenge every day, every day of the lesson, but I'll tell you about that in a moment before we do that thought we may be asked questions and see what people are thinking if there's any comments or questions, you want to share that we can talk about travel profiles. All right? So we have some questions coming in from online on some of this is what are we going to cover this or not? Okay, so one that we didn't talk about in our lesson, one live event was, if you can use if we're gonna learn how to use miles on things other than hotels and flights, for example, cruises, trains, boats, is there anything else that we can use miles on? What we're going to talk about is the best things to use miles time and very often that is flights and hotels very often, the best value you can get is by booking flights and hotels, we'll show you some tips and tricks for other things will show you how some of those things are connected some of those worlds are connected how you can use points teo benefit with ground transportation little bit with cruises I believe it in week five we talk about upgrading your whole experience and we look at some of those things we look at ground transportation rental cars we do talk about cruz is a little bit not specifically around miles but looking at the concept of repositioning cruises that's all in week there's actually a family is going to be in studio and they traveled around the world family of four and one of the things they did was they took a cruise from I believe south africa to europe so they flew for part of it and I took a cruise department put a whole thing together so we'll talk a little bit about great jane buckley skies I said at the top of the show I have about a thousand miles now from flying what am I doing wrong? Okay we're not doing anything wrong that's great you're not doing anything wrong at all but one of the things that we focus a lot on is that most miles air not earned through flying so it's great that you earn miles for all the flights that you take but if you want to earn a lot of miles and points there's all kinds of other things that you can do so so flying is great but I would say make sure you tune in with us in a week to that whole week is gonna cover earning miles on the ground and our last lesson of this week week four we're going to talk all about airline alliances and that's really key for people who are earning miles from flying absolutely people are asking again about does opening all these credit cards negatively affect your credit score? Okay, great well it's not all about credit cards that's the first thing we're talking about a lot of different things but well actually talk very specifically about how opening credit cards affects your credit score. The short version is it affects it very little compared to other things like paying your bills on time so the best thing you can do for your credit score is to pay your bills on time and opening new credit credit cards carefully and responsibly can actually help you in the long term. That lesson eleven eleven lesson seven fantastic would love to know everybody watching online what's the most important thing you learned today you can actually share that with us on travel hacking dot org's last dream trip or you could go to that facebook group which has trouble talking dot org's last dream test fb dream trip on for the audience here before we wrap up what's the most important thing you learned today not that the splitting yourself up into that group is huge because like once for me like I know that I want I see all the options I just get overwhelmed and I'm like oh but like crazy ten star hotel would be amazing you know they don't have tensed up but but when you when you're like okay let me focus in and be like okay no I'm this style so let's just focus on this and then I can work on actually taking action on that so that's really cool toe no I know what I am I know where ai how quickly I'm gonna learn it on guy can really start to make some serious expectations of goals from that excellent school junior agenda yeah the exact same thing like knowing exactly where you are right now and how you can get to the next goal and how fast you can get there it helped you not be so overwhelmed by everything yeah it's like all this information is like packing you don't think you can fit it all in but it's exciting by peace not just like throw it all hands that's the whole goal of the step by step of course you have to let us know how we do in the online on against him let us know as well it's really basic but just the idea that I need a plan you know like he's saying I need a plan but my plan is not going to be a cookie cutter and that I mean that's sort of a da but still when I'm talking to somebody else what they're doing even the cards they might beginning or the places they're going it it's my plan's going to be different in a lot of people have turned their backs on him I thought the discussion around travel stiles was really relevant if you're going to travel with other people whether it's a spouse or friends because it's a great entree into the conversation off how you will just drag absolutely not everyone has the same right? Right that's great ability you know, one of the things you said at the beginning which isn't directly related to the travel styles but the fact that you guys are planning global meet ups you know, to build community because you know, we're just getting to know each other here in the audience that's great building this community but I think it's really special that you're actually using that mode of meetups in different places around the world so we're excited about that if you get out of control it's okay to go back to rock star actually exactly like well here's this like level you can reach and like this would be the top one and it's like well, maybe I only need to be out of angel this year and then I can return it's a challenge when you're going to think yeah, I think I just kind of piggyback with jim said. It was cool to think that for each trip you could be a different level. And, you know, knowing what level you are for that trip and what's, your mindset is going into that trip. Great. Is there anything from you for me? And I was reading what people were saying online and one person side, okay, but the credit cards, paying that off on a on a monthly basis and having that set up, you know, it's, a good way, tio, forward and a and approach linda, he says. I just learned that I'm a rockstar, jetsetter willing, tto work hard to enjoy a fancy trip. I can't wait to learn more.