Wild Card Challenge Destination 2 Check-in | Special Feature Episode | 9-28-26

Frequent Miler on the Air

This episode serves as the second live check-in for the Frequent Miler Wild Card Challenge, featuring updates from travelers Greg, Nick, and

Key takeaways

• The judges revised Destination 1 scores following reader feedback, moving Tim into the lead with 107 points.
• Greg traveled from Panama to Medellin, Colombia, where he climbed the 708 steps of the Guatapé rock.

Main topics

• Wild Card Challenge score revisions
• Travel updates from Colombia and Vietnam

Notable quotes

I am in destination number two, which is Vietnam.

Conclusion

A high-energy update that demonstrates the deep engagement of the Freq

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (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 (1:04) 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 a recording Speaker 4 (1:14) from the second of three wildcard challenge live stream check-ins. Let's see who made it to destination two in time. Frequent miler on the air starts now. Speaker 2 (1:25) All right. Welcome, everyone. We're at our second live stream check-in. This is exciting. Speaker 3 (1:32) Welcome to our Destination 2 live check-in, although not everyone is in their second destination. So we're going to start off with each of you explaining where you are, and we're going to start with Greg. Where are you right now physically? Maybe mentally and emotionally, if you want. Speaker 2 (1:49) Well, just real quick, you know, my first destination was Panama. And when we did our Destination 1 check-in, I wasn't in Panama anymore. I was in Colombia, which was my second destination. And so now for the second destination check-in, I'm obviously not in Colombia anymore. I'm in Fort Lauderdale, of course. So that's where I am today or now. Speaker 3 (2:12) Interesting. All right. And Nick, how about you? Speaker 4 (2:16) So I am in destination number two, which is Vietnam. I'm in Hanoi, Vietnam. I got here early morning hours, your time, I suppose. It's now Sunday morning where I am. And you can see I made my bed already or actually just never actually slept in it. So it's been a busy, busy night. So the content doesn't write itself and the clips don't send themselves to Carrie, unfortunately, to work her magic. So it's been a long night, but yes, I am here in Hanoi, Vietnam and excited about it. Speaker 3 (2:49) Yes. All right, Tim, how about you? Where are you? Speaker 4 (2:51) I Speaker 5 (2:52) am in a similar time zone to Nick. I'm in Seoul, South Korea. I'm on the Seoul train, so to speak. And to Nick's point, I last night, I was joking with Carrie and Annie because last night I got back and I started because, you know, like we get back and get back to the hotel and you have to go through all your video clips and edit them out because you can't just send all the stuff to Annie and Carrie, even though Carrie probably thinks that it seems like I do. So I was narrowing him down and I sent one batch out. And then the next thing I know, I like wake up and it's like five hours later and my glasses are down and my phone. Yeah. Speaker 4 (3:28) Oh, I Speaker 5 (3:29) never finished that. Which is funny Speaker 3 (3:33) because I'd still gotten so much footage already that I was like, OK, that's that's Tim's day. Nope. But it reminded Speaker 5 (3:41) me of when we were on the Party of Five challenge. There was this night we were in, I think we were in Buenos Aires, and Nick and Carrie and I were sharing a room. And I had to do a featured post for the next morning. But so I was doing the featured article, and I literally fell asleep with the computer on my lap in the bed. And Nick, bless his heart, came over and just put the computer and he wrote the article for me. Speaker 3 (4:06) I remember that. Speaker 5 (4:07) Did he tuck you in too? At the start, I was like, oh my gosh, I woke up and I knew the feature hadn't been done. And then I looked and it had published. I'm like, wait, Speaker 3 (4:16) how did that happen? You guys have opposite Speaker 5 (4:18) sleep Speaker 3 (4:19) arrangements that you keep accidentally falling asleep and Nick just doesn't sleep. i have never seen Speaker 5 (4:27) seen nick really sleeping in bed before so yeah Speaker 1 (4:29) um during the live stream because unlikely Speaker 4 (4:34) after my salted vietnamese coffee at breakfast so no fear of that that's good mojo Speaker 3 (4:41) All right. Thanks for that update, everyone. And just you heard these guys reference Annie. That's my twin sister. She helps us out during the challenges. She makes those great recap videos everybody loves and just helps me with behind the scenes stuff. All right. We are ready to move on through our destination check in. As you recall, those of you who showed up to destination one, we dealt out some scores that you guys had some opinions about. Speaker 1 (5:10) Yes. And there were a lot of opinions. And it's been really fun, like, reading, like, how passionate everyone's been about this challenge and how we scored. Like, it does seem like perhaps Carrie and I... didn't necessarily score things entirely appropriately, which that was pointed out quite a few times. And it's completely fair call, like looking back at how we'd score things at the time, like we'd said during the live stream that it had felt like Tim scores like might be a little bit low. And indeed, that was the case. So we invited all the readers and viewers to give their feedback on how they thought things should be scored and that we would talk about it and potentially rework some of the scoring. And that's what we have done. So as just a quick recap, when we did the initial scoring, Greg had 104 points, Nick had 102 points and Tim had 101 points. So it was all fairly close, like only three points between them, but it was an order of like Greg, Nick and Tim. Carrie and I chatted today and went through things. And so I guess we should share the revised scoring. Let's do the reveal. So we'd also mentioned on Slack, like on our private Slack, that we were planning on doing these changes. And Greg pretty much begged for us to deduct points from him. But when your boss is telling you, like, Please do not give me so many points. You kind of have to obey him. So Greg did lose a couple of points. So let me get up his one. We dropped his luxury flights from an eight to a seven because he had booked a two stop. But that had increased his chances of encountering irregular operations. Feels like seven, like maybe is still like a little bit generous. But he also did get to travel in business class for most. the way. And we also dropped his wallet friendliness for flights from a seven to a six as well, because in hindsight, like him booking his award for 35,000. Plan was it wasn't a bad redemption, but it didn't justify a seven. So he's dropped down one point with that one, which means that his score is now I believe 102 points. Hold on, let me just ask Speaker 4 (7:34) for a moment in the fact that I'm tied for first. Speaker 3 (7:37) Nick or Greg, for now, Greg, how do you feel? How do you feel about this adjustment? Speaker 2 (7:43) I feel really good. I think I said at the time that I thought it was very generous what I was scored for flights. And so I think this is a better, you know, more realistic score. So good, good job with that alteration. However, I do think Speaker 5 (8:01) Greg should get some, I'm going to rebut for Greg, but I think he should get some ingenuity for glamping inside an airport. Speaker 3 (8:09) He got a view of the sky? Speaker 5 (8:12) Yeah. I Speaker 2 (8:14) had no idea that was a thing until I saw it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I give myself points for luckily having a travel pillow with me because. I would not have been able to sleep on that rock-like thing that they called a pillow that was in there. Speaker 3 (8:30) All right. So just to resummarize, Stephen, for my own notes, can you remind me what Greg's, which two categories changed and what his new total is? Speaker 1 (8:39) Both of the changes related to the flight category. So he lost one point from luxury, which took it down from an eight to a seven. And from wallet-threateningness, it went from seven to six. Speaker 3 (8:51) All righty. Thank you. And now we have some other changes, don't we? Speaker 1 (8:57) So, Nick, you were on 102 points and now you're level with Greg, except you're not anymore because your score has changed. So we've had quite a bit of feedback from leaders about your penalty for taking an Uber because your obstacle card was that you weren't supposed to take any ride shares and you did take an Uber while you were in Paris. It does seem like a lot of readers, I think by nature of the Points and Miles hobby, people love gaming, people love finding loopholes. And the readers have been demanding that you not be judged quite so harshly for the fact that you took an Uber in Paris because, strictly speaking, it wasn't in one of your first two destinations in the way that we had written that. Like this one much more all of a sudden. does still feel like you kind of went against the spirit of that rule which I feel like there was slight consciousness of guilt by the fact that you would address the fact that the judges would decide about that before but we did have one reader in particular suggest maybe Nick should only be deducted two points. So we have adjusted your score and gone with that idea, especially because so many other people didn't think that you should be deducted any points at all. So we're going to stick with minus two points. But that does bump your score up from 102 to 105. Speaker 4 (10:22) Whoa, hold on. Let me really bask for a second. Speaker 3 (10:25) So let us know what you think. What do you think about that, Nick? Surprised? I Speaker 4 (10:30) mean. I am surprised that, not because I don't think it's fair. I think that if you read the comments on the post, particularly if you read Whitney's comment, my Speaker 5 (10:41) new attorney, Speaker 4 (10:42) I think she presented our argument quite well. Speaker 1 (10:46) But yes. If you haven't read Whitney's comment, go to our judging post where we share the scores and see what she wrote because... Yeah, it was fantastic. Speaker 5 (10:55) Stephen Pepper was threatened with legal action if he didn't change courts. Speaker 4 (10:59) It Speaker 1 (10:59) was Speaker 3 (10:59) quite compelling. Speaker 4 (11:01) I would like to thank my attorney for getting three points returned to me here. But you have Speaker 3 (11:06) to split it with your attorney, of course. Speaker 4 (11:09) Well, that's right. One and a half points for Speaker 3 (11:12) you, Speaker 1 (11:12) Whitney. Speaker 3 (11:13) So that's not all, though, is it, Stephen? Speaker 1 (11:17) That is not all. We also have to re-evaluate Tim's scores. So, readers were pretty much unanimous that we had underscored Tim and then, yeah, when looking back it did seem like we applied things a little bit differently. It felt like it was logical at the time but, yeah, it seems like Nick was getting points where Tim wasn't for similar kind of things. we have increased, let's see, your hotel duplicability from a six to a nine, because we had marked it down a little bit because he had used the Sapphire Reserve Select Hotels Credit, which expires at the end of this year. But then someone had pointed out that... the hotel credit that Nick was using for it was a Capital One, limited time one that probably even fewer people are actually using and so that absolutely made sense that Tim certainly shouldn't have been penalized for that. We've increased hotel ingenuity from seven to an eight because of like the research he did and just kind of like because he was going to be arriving like late at night and having to leave fairly early in the morning on the second morning, it made sense to be staying by the airport to maximize everything that he needed to do. So an extra point for that one. Activities luxury from an eight to a nine. Again, like his kind of stuff was very similar to Nick's. And so he shouldn't have been penalized. One extra point for that. and ingenuity of activities from an eight to a nine because a couple of readers have pointed out how good it was that he'd researched so many different options and had like a whole ton of like backup options for all of his activities so that if things got rained off or something like that then he would easily be able to adjust on the fly. So that means that Tim went from I think it was 101 points and he is now at 107. So that means that where before Greg was in the lead, Nick was second and Tim was last. Now it's reversed. And Tim is first at the moment. Nick is second and Greg is in third and final place. Speaker 5 (13:25) Wow. Speaker 3 (13:26) Oh, and Tim, what do you think about these changes? Well, Speaker 5 (13:30) I mean, honestly, I'm Speaker 3 (13:31) a Speaker 5 (13:31) little, I'm a little, I'm worried. I just hope that you guys still are paid the same after this challenge as you are right now, Speaker 4 (13:38) because you're. Speaker 5 (13:40) I don't know. I don't know that I would mess around with Greg's score like that, but you know, that's you guys do you. No, I mean, honestly, I thought it was, I thought it was fun. Like you guys, I thought it was fun to read some of the comments about all from, from Whitney's legal summation of why Nick was unjustly accused all the way down. I just, that was actually this whole, I really, I really enjoyed the reader input in general. And it was fun to see Ben Reeder debating each other. And that was a lot of fun. So thanks to all the readers for their engagement in this. We have fun reading these things and seeing everyone else. We've seen all those opinions. So that was kind of the fun thing that came out of this. I think you guys should just intentionally misscore everything. Really. Speaker 3 (14:28) How do you know that's not what we did? Maybe. Speaker 2 (14:31) No, I. Speaker 3 (14:33) I also really appreciate the readers chiming in. It was awesome to see how much you guys care. And, you know, we've had challenges before where the readers decide the entire win. And sometimes we do that. Sometimes we don't. And either way, we always want you guys to be involved and we value the input. So thanks for chiming in on that post. Speaker 1 (14:54) And something else I should clarify, which I'd meant to include in the first live stream check-in, we had a few people commenting about it, which is why I figured I should add a little bit of context to the situation. A few people had asked why Nick had been deducted points for going against his obstacle card, whereas Greg ended up taking a flight before 10am and he had the night owl card, and so shouldn't he have been penalised for that? as it was happening in real time, like Rick had sent through that his flight was delayed and I'd thankfully been still being awake and so I said like just rebook whatever you need to rebook or whatever they do for you because ultimately someone who's a night owl you might Kind of try to avoid early morning flights when you're booking them for yourself But if you encounter a regular operations, you're not gonna say to like the phone agent. No, please don't be booked me on the 4 55 a.m Flight, please don't be booked me on the 6 30 a.m. I have to leave after 10 a.m Like that you're not gonna do that if you're going on vacation somewhere or something like that All you want to do is get your travel day over and done with and get your destination as soon as possible I'm an eye down myself and I'm not a big fan of taking flights before 10 a.m. But in Greg's situation, I absolutely would have gone for like one of the two flights that he was offered early in the morning. And so and because that was irregular operations rather than him actively booking a flight before 10 a.m., that's why we didn't penalize him for that. So just to give a bit more clarity regarding that. Speaker 3 (16:27) Then one other piece was that I forget if this was recorded in a live or just in a team meeting. Greg had attempted to kind of clarify the T's and C's beforehand. And we'd kind of stated that if you take a he was trying to clarify, like, at what point in the night does it switch from night owl late at night to, you know, early bird early in the morning? And Stephen and I had kind of decided that, like, if you're still in the airport. Like if you haven't gone to get a hotel, then it's late at night. Greg did not leave the airport. So he actually still, he's still satisfied with the T's and C's of his challenge. So. Yeah, because really it was, it was Speaker 1 (17:09) more just like having a nap in a private room in a lounge. Plus the, he had also asked beforehand, like, what's the deal if you have, like, if you book a flight that takes. that departs after 10 a.m but then the next flight that's part of that itinerary departs before 10 a.m like