Wild Card Challenge Destination 1 Check-In | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep376 | 9-25-26

Frequent Miler on the Air

In this episode of Frequent Miler on the Air, travelers Greg, Nick, and Tim provide their first check-in reports for the Wild Card Challenge

Key takeaways

• Greg used Delta SkyMiles and a $150 Delta Stays credit to secure a suite at the Hotel Plaza Herrera in Panama City.
• Nick demonstrated high-value redemption by flying from Boston to Europe using only 88 Lufthansa Miles & More miles.

Main topics

• Wild Card Challenge updates
• Travel hacking with points and miles

Notable quotes

I want to fly mostly in business class.

Conclusion

The episode provides a technical and entertaining look at maximizing t

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. Speaker 2 (0:11) This podcast episode is sponsored by Saley. Saley is an eSIM service app created by the security experts behind NordVPN. Instead of paying absurd daily rates to your home carrier or swapping SIM cards on arrival, Saley gives you flexible prepaid data plans in over 200 destinations worldwide. Setup takes just a couple of minutes on your phone before you leave, and your data activates automatically when you touch down. Plus, in order to reduce your data consumption, Saley actually blocks malicious sites, trackers, and annoying ads while you browse. Whether you need a quick Speaker 4 (0:44) gigabyte for a weekend away or unlimited data for a longer adventure, Saley keeps you connected without any Speaker 2 (0:50) surprise bills waiting for you at home. Ready to upgrade your international roaming? Download Saley from your app store and use our code FREQUENTMILER at checkout to get 15 % off your first purchase. Details are in the show notes. Speaker 2 (1:05) Due to our wildcard team challenge, Nick, Tim, and I are currently too busy flying around the world to create our usual podcast content. The following podcast is recording from the first of three wildcard Speaker 4 (1:17) challenge live stream check-ins. Let's see who made it to destination one in time. Frequent miler on the air starts now. Speaker 1 (1:27) We made it, but barely. We're all Speaker 4 (1:30) here. The gang's all here. So if you're just tuning in, this is our wildcard challenge. First live check-in. If you're listening in podcast form, don't forget to give us a like, subscribe, all that jazz. We appreciate all that stuff. All right. I didn't mean to take it away from you, Carrie. I just figured I'd give you a second in case you were setting something up. No, Speaker 1 (1:46) that... That is perfect. I am setting something up. So I wanted to just give a little bit of information for our audience about how things are going to go this time. So in the past, we've had these long kind of debate sessions live for y'all. But this time, our travelers had just like a lot on their plate. So we have decided we're going to try to keep this to an hour. And so this time, we're going to start with everyone sharing. for 10 minutes about their destination one summaries. We're going to start with you, Greg. Greg, give us a 10-minute summary of your destination one so far. Speaker 2 (2:23) All right, here it goes. So big picture is that I set some goals for myself that go a little bit beyond what the rules of the challenge are. So, for example, I want to fly mostly in business class. I want to stay in... Interesting hotels, not cookie cutter hotels. I want hotels that are really well located and interesting. You know, I prefer boutique or, you know, historical hotels, things like that. And I want to truly enjoy the destinations. And for me, that means actually having time in each place that I go to actually spend time doing the things that I want to do to get to know the destination. And so, all right, with that behind us, here's what I did. On Tuesday, I flew from the Detroit airport. Speaker 2 (3:18) Had lunch in the Lufthansa lounge there and then flew to D.C. where I had dinner in the Chase Sapphire Lounge, which is disguised as an Emirates lounge, and it's fantastic. Then I boarded Avianca business class to fly to Panama, but via San Salvador. So unfortunately, I couldn't find any nonstop flights that were. bookable, with all the restrictions I had, both self-imposed and imposed by the challenge. So I did have that one stop, which turned out to be a big problem because that flight to San Salvador was very much delayed. And so I would miss the connection. In the meantime, I was actually impressed with Avianca's business class, I think because I had heard such bad things about it, like that it's basically a European business class. And so everything I'd read has been very negative. But service was excellent. They surprised me by handing out amenity kits and like blankets and pillows and things like that. And when there was this problem with the connection that I was going to miss, someone from Avianca actually came on board to... find out what I wanted to do. He gave me some options and everything. I think it's pretty unlikely he would have done that if I was in economy. I can't prove that it wouldn't have happened in economy, but that's my assumption. So that was obviously a bad situation, but good that I like the flight better than expected. And in San Salvador, they gave me a lounge room to stay in. So I was able to get a few hours sleep before the flight. I was reconnected on a COPA business class flight to Panama the next morning at 4.50 in the morning. So I got a few hours sleep and got to Panama. I got to my hotel by about 9 a.m. Speaker 2 (5:26) There, I checked into an incredible hotel, the Hotel Plaza Herrera in Casco Viejo, which is Panama City's old town. And the in-person gave me a hotel tour, which was an amazing hotel, as I said. Then I had included breakfast before going out on the town for a Casco Viejo walking tour, which then... was followed by a Panama Canal tour. So I got it all in in that day, a ton of stuff, including after the Panama Canal tour, I ate at a great Panamanian food restaurant and ended the night back in my beautiful multi-story suite, one and a half baths, a huge balcony. So I enjoyed sitting out on the balcony and just soaking in the nightlife in Costco Viejo. Speaker 1 (6:23) Was that under 10 minutes? It Speaker 3 (6:26) was. Speaker 1 (6:26) Oh, nice. Anything Speaker 3 (6:28) else you want to add to like really sell your trip to us, Greg? Or are you happy with how concise you've been? Yeah, well, since I have a couple more minutes, Speaker 2 (6:38) I'll add a little bit. I was thinking outside the box because I really wanted, once I discovered this hotel, Plaza Herrera, I really wanted to stay there. It's not a Marriott hotel, and I had Marriott points. So, you know, my problem was that Marriott hotels, there aren't any in Casco Viejo, which is the old town, and I really wanted to stay there. And so I did a wacky thing, which is I used my Delta miles to book. I use a combination of my Delta miles and $150 Delta stays credit from my Delta gold business card to book this hotel. So it's kind of like a cash booking, but using miles for admittedly very poor value. But I think of that as kind of. sacrificing my pawn in chess. You know how you do things that seem like a bad idea in order to get something really good to happen. And in this case, it was necessary for me to use my Delta miles to get this great hotel and also to free up other types of points for future things that are coming. Speaker 1 (8:01) Future things that are coming. So cryptic. I love it. Speaker 3 (8:04) A quick bit of clarification, just in case it impacts on our scoring later on. You spent $578 for two nights at this hotel and used a $150 Delta Stays credit, which makes it $428. You redeemed, according to your records, 40,520 Delta SkyMiles. But in your post, you... it seemed like you were saying that you only got 0.7 cents per point of value, whereas that, to me, makes it look like you got just over one cent per point of value. So I just wanted to clarify what kind of value you did actually get with that. Speaker 2 (8:43) Yeah. Huh. Okay. Well, I'm going to have to check the math on that. I guess if you want to look at it. Yeah. I don't know off the top of my head. I might have done something wrong. Speaker 1 (8:57) All right. So Greg's going to check his math. Then, Stephen, if that's all, unless you have additional questions, we're going to move on to Nick. Give us a 10-minute summary of your Destination One story. Speaker 4 (9:09) A quick bit of clarification on Greg's report there, just because I want people to know in case. I think he said the Emirates, the Chase Sapphire Lounge was disguised as an Emirates lounge, but it's Etihad, actually, that they partner with. Oh, Speaker 2 (9:22) thank Speaker 4 (9:22) you. You're welcome. I wasted 30 seconds of my time on you, Greg. So what did I do? Day one, I started in Boston and I figure up using just 88 tons of miles and more miles. So that was from Boston to Zurich to Paris. 88 miles. And of course, Lufthansa is known for their higher surcharges. So I did pay a hefty amount in surcharges. But since I have to get out of surcharges free card, the judges are all going to hold about $48 and change of that against me. So 88 miles and 48 bucks to get all the way to Europe is pretty incredible. Now, even if that hadn't, even if the surcharges counted against me, it would still be really good value for the miles. you'd look at it more like a discount on the cash price. But if you're getting $100 or $150 off with 88 miles, that's a pretty big win. So I wanted to do that in part because it works for the trip, but also in part just to show people that may not have been aware that that's possible. You can get across the Atlantic Ocean for next to nothing. Now, from there, I had a tight connection in Zurich, but I made it to Paris. And rather than sit in a lounge in Paris, I went to Parc Asterix, which is a French theme park based on a French comic series. And so it's kind of like... a cartoon version of ancient history, basically a lot of fun. It was a great park, some awesome roller coasters. You got to check it out. I got to Paris just in time so that I could get to the park right about when it opened and spend about three hours there. I did the tallest, fastest roller coaster in all of France there. That was definitely something we did as a kid. My vacations when I was a kid were, we didn't fly anywhere for vacation. My vacations were always centered around going to an amusement park just when I was a kid. So, so that very much. reminded me of being a kid. I didn't put it forth as though that was how I was going to meet my mini challenge on this one because this wasn't one of my destinations. It was just a layover point. But you can actually take a shuttle bus from the airport to the amusement park and back. I did end up having to take an Uber on the way back to the airport because they shut the shuttle bus down for a while. I didn't realize. But it wasn't one of my first two destinations. So I'm saying that that Uber does not count against me. Now, I, of course, mentioned that because one of my or my. school card was that I couldn't take rideshare in my first two destinations, which of course are Guadalupe and Vietnam. So I figured it didn't count them. I flew on, on Air France. I used 12,000 Virgin Atlantic miles, transferred from Capital One and about $50 in taxes. And I say that because with surcharges, it was $202 or so, but of course the judges aren't counting those against me. So I'm still getting terrific value. So now I will have... or I did cross the Atlantic twice for 12,088 total miles. So 88 miles to get to Europe, 12,000 miles to fly from Paris to Guadalupe. I did that on Air France. It's a daytime flight. Because I status matched JetBlue to Delta before the challenge started, I have SkyTeam Elite Plus status now. So I got an exit row seat with like infinite leg room. Pretty comfortable. They also, by the way, on both Swiss and Air France had pillows and blankets, Greg, just so you know, it's not only Avianca business class that features that amenity. When I got to Guadalupe, I stayed at a place called Tropicana Suites. It was $110 for a full suite. full living room, bedroom, and an outdoor kitchen on my huge balcony that had pots and pans and a fridge and everything with a hammock and a little table. I got there relatively late, so I didn't enjoy many of the hotel's amenities, but they did have a hotel bar that had a live musician until about nine o'clock that I could hear very well in my room. And that was kind of fun, actually. It was cool jazz music, a lot of old standards, things that you'd probably know if you know kind of like old jazzy lounge music. French. So that was cool. And so I stayed at Tropicana Suites. And then this morning, I got up and I went to the Botanical Garden of Guadeloupe, which was amazing. I got to feed lorikeets and I landed right on my hand. Lorikeets are a colorful bird. So that was a lot of fun. Strolled around the botanical gardens, beautiful flowers, really impressively large. I was surprised. From there, I went to La Lange. Dubrun Oms, which is perhaps the best beach in all of Guadalupe, and had it almost entirely to myself. You'll have to check it out on Instagram. It was beautiful. The water is crystal clear. The sand is pristine. And maybe I saw 15, 20 people there total over the time I was there and not all at once. So it's more like one person here and two or three there. pretty sparse. You'll see if you take a look at it on Instagram. And then next up, I went to a waterfall in the National Park in Guadalupe that is a quick 10-minute walk from the parking area, free to park, easy peasy. Oh, by the way, on the hotel backing up, it was $110. I had some Capital One credit from a price match that'll come back into play. The reason I booked through Capital One is because my venture card comes with $300 in Capital One stays credit. So this was covered by that stays credit. So good value there in terms of the hotel getting basically an Airbnb with off street parking, but with also a hotel bar. Right. Anyway, after the waterfall that I went to this afternoon, then I ran to the Memorial ATCE Museum in Guadalupe, which is a museum dedicated to the history of slavery and the slave trade, which was fascinating. Obviously a dark topic. but a really fascinating look at the history of it, far more than I had ever learned in school, that's for sure. So I was, I found it to be a really interesting experience. It's really highly rated and for good reason. They don't let you take any pictures inside. So there aren't any pictures inside on Instagram, but if you go to Guadalupe and you miss that museum, you feel like you kind of missed the boat. And I had been to Guadalupe before and did not know that museum was there. And I feel like you really kind of miss out if you don't do that because it's such an educational experience. So I did that, all of those things. And then the other, ways I spent money. I spent 27 euros on the car rental for that, rented from Avis. Super easy experience there. Shuttle from the airport and they dropped me back off at the airport and I had to fill up the tank with gas. So that was 15 euros and I stopped at a French bakery to pick up some, you know, a baguette and a croissant and eclair. The eclair was horrible, but everything else was pretty good and it cost me like