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Skype Check In

Hello, everyone and welcome to create alive my name is ken a classroom and I am your host today this is our halfway midpoint check in for make your dream trip a reality with chris colombo and stephanie zito now the really fun part about this is you can see me here in seattle in my lovely airplanes seats. However chris and stephanie are joining us from a remote secret location which is about to not be so secret. So everybody, what we're going to do right now is a half hour q and a so join us both in the chat rooms as well as start getting your questions in from the first three weeks of this boot camp. So stay stephanie and chris, how are you two doing and where are you? We're doing great we have flown all around the world since we saw you last we went to dubai and then we went to singapore and now we are in london, as we can tell from the flag behind eso chris, you you guys went on what was part of your dream trip. So tell me about that experience because I know you hacked too that you ...

use miles and points I did you know, I've been fortunate to travel to every country in the world, but still some experiences I have had and one thing I really wanted to do was the fly first class on the emirates eight three eight and this is a flight that is normally incredibly expensive people spend twenty five thousand dollars sometimes to do it and obviously I didn't spend twenty five thousand dollars so I found a way to use him milestone points for this experience and this is really an incredible thing because you go on this airplane and for fifteen hours you have your own little sweet and you have a seven course meal and they bring you a bag with all kinds of gifts and then the high point at least I thought I was being able to take a shower at forty thousand feet so I got a chance to do that was it everything you expected and more it was a shower in the sky it was pretty awesome pretty pretty cool. Well, I wanted to first before we go into q and a let you guys know how some of the folks who who were in our studio audience have been doing who have been rocking it we have had such an active facebook page and go in the chat rooms russ is going to drop in where how you conjoined that facebook page but we have like almost a thousand people are over a thousand people in there that have been sharing all of their tips and tricks right? Cool all right, so first I want to talk about kendrick kendrick you since taking the course I realized that in order to reach my dream of destination which is peru to hike too much a peach you know I needed sixty thousand arab plan points I realised that I do not have much points and can go there today if I wanted however I want to go there with my girlfriend so we're using the strategies on lesson nine earned three hundred thousand plus miles and a c single day to get her enough points because we're in canada we rely mostly on amex cards but chris and stephanie taught me that we can also use alaska airlines master card which we are currently exploring right now to open up more options for travel so awesome well done kendrick we have more stories coming in and you guys if you have been working on this as well for the past three weeks we want to hear your stories in our chat room too so what are I'm going to go straight into q and a will kind of throw some of those other things that people have been doing and how they've been earning points and miles already eso everybody the question what we've covered so far if you haven't been with us yet is making your plan earning points and miles and then week three has been booking your flight s oh is that good does that work for you guys that's cool run all right so again lots of activity in that facebook group and which is travel hacking dot org's slash fb dream trip make sure you join that one of the conversations has been about when booking partner awards which airline do I call so it kind of frame this one up for us? I think him when we talked about alliances and blessing for that don't fly on the airline that you're collecting you're points on that the best redemptions are actually to fly with partners but one of the questions that we thought a lot in the facebook group is howto book one of those partner rewards you want to call the airline that I want to fly on or do I call the airline were in collecting my miles and the answer that that is you always call all the airline that you're collecting the miles with so you're collecting united miles and you want to fly with honza you paul unite not okay that's really helpful knowing who to call for starters awesome okay, so another conversation was around is applying for multiple credit cards on the same day a good idea and let me know also like what you've been seeing people talking about about applying for credit cards in the facebook group but you mentioned a mission that this group and it's really fun because there's almost a thousand people now that are carrying their experiences they're posting questions they're helping one another you know stephanie firing the group every day answering questions like a group of answering questions no remember another would speak and so aboutthe applications if you are gonna get credit cards a lot of flowers planted it really is to figure out what they wished parts I want and then actually a blast them all on the same day on that because we have reckon you're crist score believe animal that way we talked about it and of course people missed this lesson. They should go back and watch and learn a little bit about other crafts for is impacted by getting new cards in fact, their score is not going to go down very much at all what's most important that they pay their bills on time on so if you know what you're doing but if you're going to get to do it okay that's really helpful and I actually took that advice and applied for my alaska airlines card and I now have the chase sapphire card and I did them at the same time s o I followed the rules I follow the guidelines what was that again sir? You're having here that's right halfway to paris which was my dream destination back if you were with us when we started okay, I have another good question that is is it possible teo upgrade on economy class ticket using miles and if so, how it is possible it is not usually the best use of michael's on that's because sometime the stairs are not offering we'll have to spend a lot more money to make that get more valuable in the eyes of your life on your also competing with other mileage rewards so basically may be the best answer to that is you can do it but it's much better if you want to put in business possum first toe actually just use your miles for that has no word from the beginning and can I ask you that if you do want upgraded ticket you have to look at the rules for the airline that you're flying on not the airline uh not airline miles that you might have to support you you can't use a partner airlines upgrade another another airline all right that's really good info and so what I'm hearing is teo the best toe always be strategic about the best use of your myles and really knowing whether you know you should just chuck it off and use it for that first class versace how many you know ifyou're don't wanna waste those miles if it's not really worth it we learned a lot about that throughout the boot camp I'm talking about really being strategic and that's kind of what this whole thing has been is really identifying what it is that you want to do what is your goal and then how to get they're specifically on dh I think that's what is so awesome about this class? So let me go on to the next question and again everybody if you're just tuning in and joining us we are doing our skype q and a with chris colombo and stephanie zito they are in london and we are taking your questions because we're in our mid way point of maker dream trip a reality bootcamp so this is a good topic as well chris and stephanie how do I earn a lot of miles if I can't get credit cards wait and foreign lesson five I was thing to do is to all of the different to follow the different airlines that you signed up for and to look for deals that you're able to advantage oh, we talked about a number of different things a lot of people have been reporting that they signed up for dining and shopping program we have a great wei had some really great reason a facebook group trying to figure out how to get my we were saying that their fiance wasn't also in the basement through and they're really really good way started the course and you alluded to it a little bit we talked about everybody getting school and the goal is you know, green destination let's identify this place that I want to go to and from that infidelity and so we also talked about travel profiles and maybe people are just joining us now they didn't want to take part of that, but if they go back and watch the sea that you can be really conservative or you can be really impressive with this whole scale of being a rock star backpacker or being in a furnished jet setter oh are being out of control, a backpacker and all these kind of things and I think maybe the important thing is that there's a variety of ways to do this if people can't get credit card which they can still earn miles, they can still fall a lot of different deals they can do it from all over the world put group we're seeing people from many different reese who are all kind of putting your own strategies together and coordinating with one another so there's a lot of different ways to do it and credit cards are really fast way but it's not the only way for sure, which is awesome because I think that's kind of the first thing that people think about when they think about travel hacking, but I love how we had that whole concept of how to earn miles while you sleep and so there's all of the tools that you give us for that I was thinking about starting with lots of people have no posting and saying like, oh, I signed up for this or I just I just got this new card, or I'm this big pissed in some kind of figure out company files concerning everything your steamer reported millions and millions of miles coming in through this, so, thanks, it makes me happy to see two and in fact, on that note, let's share some when we checked in with our six studio audience members and that got what what they had been doing, and one of my favorite ones to have seen is bills bill gordon, who found so many miles that he didn't know he had, so he discovered for hundred thousand points that he didn't realize he had that's a lot of points, almost half a million points hey had two hundred twenty thousand on a u s a a visa reward discard one hundred eighty five thousand on his old hyatt gold passport account, and those were still active, and I know a lot of people have concerns about oh are my are my points of miles going to expire, you know, kind of get them in time. He also had one hundred twenty five thousand british airways miles on some new credit card sign up bonus bonuses, so he is feeling very confident that not only is he in great shape for his dream trip, but beyond so star, I think bill was coming into this. Something in here for one thousand miles like every day it's a hundred dollars coming in so good with investment for him really good return on investment I love that um so you were just talking about chris about how people are in that facebook group and are joining us from all over the world and I know that there are people that are actually creating so subgroups is that right can you tell us a little bit about that in terms of the geography is where they are it's not really some groups but people have created their own hash tag within a foot group and there is definitely a canadian group and there is a german group and there is australian group and they're all saying to help us find a really great feel teo look at the credit card in their own movies to figure out the miles per the national air of fine program where they are so it's been really encouraging I learned some stuff about other countries that I didn't readers happening in the group that well anything for a couple of days ago and we had to meet up a dream trip made up for people who were watching the course there from singapore it was funny for a guy named leonard of the kind of life will actually just cover that he had a hundred thousand miles you didn't know about s o he also found some miles on a trip the best part of going to this course and it's working people in korea is working over there are the strategies they prove the tactics may be different, but if you have this philosophy, if you really going to stop this destination and learn about some of some of the crew doing there's definitely a way to make it work awesome. I love seeing stuff happened like that organically that we didn't even plan for it's. So cool, so cool. This question is about round the world tickets, which we just had this week on dh. So the question is, when in the process you can see what the cost, when is it that you can see what the cost might be? It seems like a lot of work before you're able to know what the cost of the ticket is is what this this person is saying, so advice on pricing out those around the world tickets okay, I'll take this question and seventeen do connections. I thought we've been talking a lot around the world ticket. When you go through those online calculators, we talked about in a lesson which every alliance has one you don't have to go through a ton of work, you could put together a little mock around the world and just do about five cities, it'll take you maybe a minute or two, and then yeah I never screen it will show you the price and if you want to change the country to go and change the origin on that will take you a better price for that so unfortunately there's not one control the station so everything but it doesn't take that long if you just do it that way great and you know if you if you are planning a round the world trip it is going to take some work to play that trip so it's all it's all part part of the process absolutely okay let's go to another question let's see this is from world traveler one hundred who and it's carrie who was in your travel hacking class you're first travel hacking class on creative live that was in san francisco in the past so our question is about credit card turn what happens when you have like fifty cancelled accounts? Do the banks and creditors look at that and can they say they won't issue mohr cards since you keep canceling that I actually have that problem and I've probably got it least physically you're more crazy one thing that I do but I can cancel car what I live for card and get you don't get approved right away and have a ball and after reconsidering is give them a reason for why I want to do cars and legitimate reasons but I will say like I know I'm interested in changing to this hotel group and I see you have this new bonus that I want to try that or I'm looking for ways teo track my friend's face differently so I want to use new card for for a different reason usually the bank will give you credit and so I haven't kind of any problem which is not wanting to give me cars because I can't okay really good to know because I think that's a concern for a lot of people to um okay, I have actually another good a good credit card question from b kelly and I was actually thinking this the same thing when I was applying for the chase sapphire card. So the question is, if you apply for the chase sapphire card and the chase ink plus on the same day would chase potentially approved both is it best to space them out by months be kelly also has a chase united card for a while and I found the same thing I had like three old chase cards and so I was wondering if that the bank mattered even though there were different types of cards yeah, no, I think it's fine to apply for them on the same day that one of those is a personal card and one of them is is a business card chase sapphire versus chasing and so they will process them a little bit differently like if the application is not a prude immediately you can call it stephanie was just saying that there's actually a different phone number one hundred personal of one for business but it's it's not a problem to have multiple all right I have multiple chase's parents multiple and experience edison experiences unaided eye more than fifty parts you know cancelled over the years and and it's not been a problem to you okay awesome so I think that what the theme is like get over your fear of credit cards are of the sort of the process behind be responsible like one hundred percent but esther as long as islamist responsible then it's a great tool you know that makes it possible to do all kinds of fun things this dream trip that we've been on you know it comes entirely from miles and points and when you're in this place you know through the left airlines credit card lots of different things that don't need them it's like the responsibility good answer I like it coming back to responsibility for sure big traveler what is the ideal cost of a mile when is it worth it to buy airline miles and when is it worth it to redeem miles for a hotel st we actually had a conversation about this in the facebook group and you know I have principal cole I called petty principle I think you should have ever protect miles spend money for more than about one set for miles but of course that's variable because here going teo buy a plane ticket that crossed twenty five thousand dollars and you can get miles for two cents a tease and a ticket would cost you know fifteen hundred dollars then it would be before cool thank you thank you. Okay, this is an interesting this is an interesting question about travel insurance on dh so the question is when you when you get traveling turns you have to sort of say what the cost of things are do you know if how do you ensure with your reward trip? So do you ensure for what it would normally cost without miles or do you ensure just are what you've paid which is kind of really is the less value of the actual value of the trip if that makes sense does that make sense? Yeah interesting question we have a whole lesson coming up about logistics we're going to look at some things about insurance and as well as visas and packing and things like that I guess it's a little kind of delve into it more as we go along but I guess you would look at maybe the replacement bust of what you know if you weren't going to take that trip and what would you lose? I want youto have replaced so whatever that is gotcha that makes it that makes a lot more sense okay let's say we have another question about cards vey wink are are there any debit cards that you could earn miles with it? Is that a good idea? There are some but not so many basically just because of how the banking system is structured debit cards do not have a lot of fees for merchants and so it's always credit cards that are incentive by and so all of these big signing bonuses you see was there one hundred percent for credit cards there are a couple of debit cards we'll post the links for these you know on the travel hacking dot org's page in that group there are a couple of days the cards that will earn miles they usually earn at a much lower rates and the credit cards to esso if you're only able to get debit cards there are still some options for you but they may not be as favorable as the credit cards great good to know um okay, so I did have a question wanted to know a little bit more there was some confusion in the facebook group around the ultimate rewards partners can you talk a little bit about again? What who is that who are the ultimate rewards partners in points there are eleven ultimate rewards prepper ners of these in the airline he can transfer ultimate reward point to united to korean teo british airways to singapore airlines southwest and virgin atlantic and then the other five our hotel partner hotels train so you know, ultimate rewards points are really valuable because they're flexible, they can go to all the different places, and then you keep him in one account, so to speak, and I believe people who purchased the course get a special bonus, it's like forty ways to use ultimate rewards points, which was actually written by one of the special guests we're spending on toward the end of it. So if they have access to that there's a lot of work, awesome, thank you, that was forty is a lot of tips on we'll talk. We'll talk before we close out about what those other bonuses are that you do get when you do actually purchase the trip and it's cool to see people who have purchased the trip and kind kind of binge watch and get ahead and move a little bit faster on getting they're making their dream to reality. I do like this question from marcy photo if you cancel a card after a year, do you lose the miles and points that you've you've gathered on those? No, the only exception would be if it in one of the bank or flexible reward programs you have to, you have to move the points out of the bank program before you can sell that car, but they won't take away okay, good to be spending an anyway before your airline carver something if you get the american airlines card and cancel the car you can cancel that card as soon think of miles miles airing your mileage which has nothing to do with credit card of yours truly. All right, thank you. Thank you for clarifying that one. Okay, maybe this is the last question that came in from travel time the red bird card the red card if you can give us sort of an update on the red card since we first met and talked about that on if you have any suggestions I know there's been a conversation about this in the facebook group but give us the update on the red card you know, things are changing in the title after world and we want to teach people a strategy that will be effective for years to come. And so the strategies are effective for years to come, but the tactics often change their was a recent shift with the red the prepaid target card and there is a way teo get working on the car but it tastes a little I don't know if we can get all the details, not it's simple. I drew the short version it's not as easy as it was even weeks ago, but they're still possible in it that goes away completely, there will be something else coming on and that's. I agree. I think that the ability to be flexible and used the principles and figure out new ways. That's. What what? The importance of having these communities is where people are sharing all the latest and greatest information, because it does change so much.