The Podcast You've Been Asking For | DansDeals Pod Ep 1

hey guys I'm Dan I'm JJ and this is the first ever Dan's Deals podcast special for our 20th birthday and Dan I think you have a big birthday coming up too right same day number 40 can't quite believe it but yeah turning 40 uh this November I believe it thanks well the website turns 20 and I started it when I was 20 so if the math checks out that's my 40th birthday so recently there was a deal with an Arbitrage with AMX and Alaska miles weren't sure if they were going to be able to transfer their Hawaiian right yeah yeah so I had my brother-in-law who's an actuary crunch the numbers and figure out some of the calculations on the expected value if you transferred MX points over to Hawaiian with a 20% bonus you know what are the odds you already lost me yeah we're trying to what are the odds that everything works out and if it doesn't work out how badly is this going to work out how poorly is it going to work out do you remember what that calculation was no not off I mean it looked like one of those things in MIT they have on like the chalkboard and like Goodwill Hunting like this if anybody can solve this equation you will get all of the Alaska miles that's what it was maybe they'll throw it up on the screen I mean crunching the numbers it was obvious that we had to post about it and you had to transfer miles only question was how many miles are you going to transfer right and the big unknown was are they just going to devalue their whole program before you have a chance to use your miles right well the dot right now under Biden is investigating the airlines or put them on notice for their miles so I think they're a little scared right now to devalue right yeah and as part of the merger with Hawaiian Airlines Alaska was required to promise not to devalue their miles for a certain period of time so we'll see what that means exactly right but for sure until it's finalized they can't devalue yeah I would assume that they would have to really stick with their published charts for now right okay that's pretty cool and so how many miles did you transfer I transferred over half a million miles I already had I don't know around 800,000 miles with Alaska with Alaska from transferring over from the previous gamble which is over from Marriott oh right when you bought those certificates yeah the certificates for the what year was that about 6 years ago it looked like it was going to work out then it wasn't going to work out and in the end it actually worked out really well cuz Marriott canceled everyone certificates and they bought them back for a lot of points that's right so it actually was quite lucrative in the end right so I had those miles sitting there I'm like all right well how many miles am I practically going to be able to use before they devalue this program so I threw half a million AMX points in there and and that became 600,000 Hawaiian Miles and what surprised everybody was that two weeks later Alaska announced that they were going to honor the Deal completely they were going to have actually made a deal with the de that Hawaiian Miles would transfer over to Alaska miles at a 1:1 ratio plus 20% bonus MH and so I've got all of the flights from Cleveland to New York for 4,500 Alaskan miles that I could possibly use just to expl couple years just to explain it for a second no major Bank transfers to Alaska straight right correct yeah so the catch here is is that AMX transfers to Hawaiian and Hawaiian is merging with Alaskan Air so now you could transfer your MX to Hawai in and you've never been able to transfer AMX points chase points City points Capital One points over to Alaska Airlines you know their program is so lucrative it's only a shame this didn't happen earlier in the year when they were partners with L and they had some crazy Redemption offers on LL Alaska miles to book an L flight exactly exactly right um but even just with American Airlines the fact that I you could book tickets for four and a half thousand miles and they're fundable besides for the small book do you feel for domestic flights in the US Alaska miles are the most powerful miles right now probably yeah I think so yeah I would say so I've been using it like crazy I haven't used Alaska miles in like forever and now all of a sudden that I know I have this replenishment from my millions of AMX points I'm just not afraid and you could instantly transfer AMX points to Hawaiian Miles and then you transfer your Hawaiian Miles over to Alaska also instant also instant and that's just a one to1 ratio so right you could transfer 4 and half th000 AMX points and book that short Hall flight in economy or for 9,000 HX points you get that in business class so so let's so let's assume that Hawaiian and MX are going to end their relationship oh yeah that's that's inevitable that's inevitable that's inevitable and they're not going to partner with theas Alaska doesn't want to be partners right with the transfer Banks they want you to use their own credit card right right for Bank of America yeah so they don't want to be Transfer Partners Bank of America doesn't have any transferable credit cards like that so yeah this is really a limited time opportunity to move AMX points over to Alaska for as long as that lasts so how long will that last I don't know when we have noticed assuming we have noticed that is ending how many MX points are you going to transfer to Alaska let's be honest the problem is you're always worried about the bait and switch right it's probably going to end before the merger closes and are they going to devalue their miles once the merger closes I don't know yeah that's a tough question come on cars on the table over a million you know I might push over another million MX I'm going to do over a million for sure it's just so valuable right now it's a it's a risk but there are other good International redemptions with Alaska still right on some of the Middle East carriers sure there's a there's lots of other great redemptions all of them are subject to devaluation right now I mean I don't think that they're going to just triple the cost of their Awards overnight to make it comparable to what British Airways is charging now for the same short off flight but you never know right so there's there's going to be risk there yeah it's going to make sense to push over more miles in the meantime so yeah and then if you really wanted to maximize I think the most you could do in one transfers 999,000 MX points okay and you do pay a small fee when you trans for AMX points over to domestic US Airlines they do charge an excise fee recovery um search charge so that that's cap how much are you looking out yeah I mean it's like maybe 150 bucks something like that but it's it caps out at that amount so whether you transfer once you get to about I don't know 100,000 200,000 miles I'm not sure I don't remember what the exact number is maybe 150,000 miles you don't pay that fee from 150,000 miles or up to 999,000 miles so if you're going to do a big transfer one shot yeah do it in one shot yeah 999,000 miles I think is the max you could do do at a time you can do more than that but yeah having the high those higher increments will lower your effective fee that you're paying you know it's not it's not it's not a huge deal the 150 bucks yeah when you're transfer over a million points but yeah something to think about it's very cool yeah all right I have a bunch of questions that reader sent into Instagram our forums and uh let's just try to go through some of them together all right first of all congrats on 20 years and on your 40th birthday thank you thank you second of all let's zoom out for a second 20 years ago before you started dance deals what did you think you would be when you grew up general manager of the Cleveland Indians yeah I mean that was a that was a thought I like the analytics side of it and I liked uh love baseball on my flight over today I flew in today yeah to do this podcast from Miami to Cleveland the guy sitting next to me was I was so geeking out he had two screens on the flight one screen was showing all the Guardians pictures in slow motion and then he had evaluation forms and he was literally writing the algorithmic code for the Guardians on what pites to keep renew and how to change their games so Money Ball 35,000 feet in the air yeah that's awesome it was amazing and then we talked about the season great run and he said you just can't compete with that type of money you just can't compete there comes a point where like they got further than any other team like they did Money Ball the best it could Money Ball is small Market teams maximizing analytics and stati statistics to use the lowest salary cap to get the best team and of course that was pioneered by the Oakland Athletics which are no longer the Oakland Athletics are they the Sacramento Athletics I'm not even sure what they are now but they're they already played their last game in Oakland this happens to small Market teams right yeah unfortunately um I mean Indians Guardians whatever they're called their opening payroll this year was under $100 million you're competing against the Yankees and Dodgers Dodgers which have payrolls 300350 million a year yeah it's going to be hard to compete over the course of regular season you can try to cover up some of those flaws but when you're just playing head- on head right best pitchers best relievers every game every player hitting you know hitting swing for the fences yeah it's uh it's man and also you just make little mistakes like you're talking about the Guardians manager vote pitching to Stanton when you first base open you make those little mistakes two games in a row my God two in a rows game four and game five we stting made him pay for that we had first base open that's a that's a I think the Yankees intentionally walked Jose like the inning before right the inning before and Jose wasn't even having a good series meanwhile Sten is just hitting home runs like crazy against us so and they pitched him yeah it's going to be tough to beat and when you make little mistakes like that I mean it's a rookie manager we give for the doubt I think he learned some lessons from that yeah had a good season great season great season um definitely outperformed all right so so Indians manager was that really a thought when you were 20 years old 19 years old to be the general manager yeah sounds like that sounds like 8 ny- Old Dan for real 19 years old we had a lot of doctors we come from a lot of doctors in the family I definitely didn't want to become a doctor yeah that never a thought that was never a thought okay that was one of my like my three options as a kid what were the other two options well I was always going to be a lawyer that was like since second grade every single teacher told me you have to be a lawyer there was a medical my oldest son rafie says he's has to become a lawyer because he loves arguing also and his teachers tell him the same thing I was never into the arguing that much I feel like rafy's get into an Ivy League law school and then you're going to hire him at Dan Ste yes it's possibility just sounds very familiar for some reason I mean the way the Ivy Leagues are going now we've got a younger brother who's in an IV League law school right now and it's kind of crazy hearing what's going on there Colombia is I don't think he was able to walk through his campus for over a year now yeah just wasn't safe yeah so yeah I'm not sure that an Ivy League law school is still as desirable as it was in the past perhaps interesting I I think the job numbers will still back up the though yes yeah yeah okay so but the experience is not what it used to be right so for me personally lawyer number one all the way it's just like the family we came from um and maybe like a rabbi somewhere was just like on the back burner you know from like seventh grade and on what about you yeah I mean I knew I wanted to probably go to business school maybe go into some managing or Consulting maybe I could help out you know as I develop my hobbies of Avi of Aviation maybe I could work with an airline so those are all possibilities you've got them to work with Airlines yeah since right correct and I've turned down some job offers as well so from Airlines because I love what I do more I love creating my own schedule and and working on my own terms and where I want to live so you used to do seminars 10 years ago maybe gosh I think we did the first seminar maybe in 2010 2011 wow 14 years ago and then they really wrapped up we did one in Yus that was around perm 2015 MH and then after that it did a couple here and there right not really open to the public uh we did one in Crown Heights for at the K the annual Gathering of all theab from around the world and did one at a PES program in uh in Whistler when in Florida the Florida one the florid PES program was earlier oh yeah years earlier The Whistler one was later on maybe around 2016 2017 I think it was7 2017 in Whistler okay um that was fun that was actually a program where uh it was right after Trump became president and then Jared and Ivanka and their kids came to the pesak program that was very cool yeah and our kids had Secret Service following them to the uh their daily campus so you actually felt comfortable leaving your kids at that camp yeah I mean it would seemed pretty secure they had like an entire floor of the hotel for Secret Service this is the old Secret Service not the new Secret Service obviously to say that I don't know so that was that was an experience right um yeah that was a I think and what's great about those programs is people always say like you know the miles and points Thing Once you are worth a certain amount you just stop caring about that you could pay cash for everything why why do business owners and and millionaires care about miles and the funny part is that we had someone at that program who's very wealthy has several businesses worth tens of millions of dollars I'm sure and I mean he's had expenses just millions of dollars per month for his business and he had there was there was some kid who was asking questions at the seminars I was giving at this program and the guy's like you know I got to ask my questions they have priority over you because I'm talking about spending millions of dollars a month I really need to figure this out right so there's more to gain there's correct there's much more to G there's never a point where like oh I no longer care about this mile stuff no it actually is definitely there's there's much more to gain when you have it at that scale so so I think that a seminar could be very popular nowadays if you do it for beginners like just beginner material and so I want to ask you right now put you on the spot I'm going to ask you the quick the short the short question and then the long question after okay okay credit cards for dummies 60 seconds or less go so somebody doesn't have any credit cards yet have someone who has a credit card with a long history of good payments payments made on time a good healthy credit score the utilization of the credit card is not too high you're not using too much of that credit limit have them add you as an authorized user onto that card and then try to open up either a store card those are easier to get that can only be used at a specific store or a secured card Capital One offer secured cards that earn miles where you basically prepay into that account kind of like a checking account with a debit card but with a debit card you don't earn points on your credit score versus a secured card you do earn points on your credit score okay few months after that you should be able to open a basic no annual fee credit card for most banks okay awesome yeah once you go from there the sky is the limit you can start getting more premium cards after that you want to just work your way up slowly so at each stage give it a couple months couple months couple months with that basic credit card then you can work your way up to the premium cards that have those large bonuses to them are there any pitfalls people have to know about before opening the first credit card yeah I mean absolutely the way credit cards work is that it's it's great for the banks and it's great for consumers and it's great for the airlines it's really bad for the person who falls into a debt trap so so a bad consumer well someone who just spends more than he can someone who spends more than he would spent if he was using cash so you have to be cognizant of that and not fall into a trap of debt where you're paying a lot of interest that's what makes the business of credit cards work is people do fall into that debt trap so don't be that person how does somebody know if they're that person before they open their first credit card I think people know their Tendencies whether you have whether you're going to spend more than you can afford to spend but just be very careful treat it like cash and and make sure you're paying back every month on time and and just don't spend more than you have the means to repay do you use autopay or is that a bad idea yeah auto pay is great auto pay is great if you really want to help your credit score pay that bill off before the statement even closes so I set all of my credit cards that the statement should close on the first of the month and before that point I'll go on and I'll pay before that statement closes and why do you do that it helps your credit score I'll actually leave over about a dollar so that when the statement closes it says I owe a dollar and then autopay will take care of that last dollar um but that basically by paying it before the statement closes not before the due date before the statement even closes that's what's reported to the credit reporting agencies okay so they know how much you owe on your credit card and they know your credit card limits and so when you divide your limit by what you owe that month that's your credit utilization ratio so you want that to be basically on every card that you're just using a dollar every month that's how you and a dollar better than zero dollars yeah with $ zero doar they don't know if the card's active they don't know if you're really using it with a dollar you're using that card you're just not using 99.9% of your credit line okay so a dollar shows that it's active and it lets the credit reported agencies know that that's a good credit card you're paying it back on time you don't know too much on it um so that's kind of the and Credit Credit utilization I don't think a lot of people realize this but this makes up 30 35% of your score yeah it's a huge percentage of your score yeah so it's it's pretty important to help your credit SC to do that to keep that utilization ratio uh low so right yeah that's a good strategy and uh is there a credit utilization like magic number like never go over this number you know I don't think there's a magic number obviously if it gets too high the banks get nervous they might start closing down your cards I've seen online 10% 15% keep it below that I mean ideally 1% less than 1% right as long as you you could you could use your credit card for as much as you want but pay it off before that statement closes and it it won't make a difference it won't hurt your utilization ratio if it's mid Monon as long as by the end of the statement it closes with a low amount if that closes with a high amount of your credit line on that card that will hurt you I think the big myth about credit cards is that if you open up too many credit cards you're going to have a trash credit score yeah I mean is that accurate I've opened up I mean hundreds of credit cards what else is important for a good credit score besides credit utilization yeah I mean things like having a mortgage you're having a car loan um those are good for your credit score those um assuming you're paying them off each month assuming you're paying them off on time of course right yeah basically just make on Time payments MH if you open credit cards that's your part of your new credit that up 10% of your credit score so you'll lose a couple points when you open a credit card but that doesn't affect your score for the long term so after about six months those really won't affect your score as much so you don't need to worry about that too much don't sweat the small stuff real big things are the payments the credit utilization ratio how old are the accounts so you don't want to close down your oldest credit card because that establishes the length of your credit history that's a great secret I don't think most people know always keep your oldest credit card open well not I mean it doesn't have to be your oldest one if you have a few that are open from the same general time that's fine but yeah the age of your credit file is important so when you were talking before about when you start off in with credit cards open a no annual fee card and basically just keep that open indefinitely yeah there's no reason to ever close that for sure right okay um now even if you close it it will stay on your report for a number of years after that but it will eventually fall off your report so it's good for the age of your credit history in the age of your average accounts and age of your oldest card definitely is part of your credit score so yeah keep it open and what's your credit score I mean there's so many different ways of measuring a credit score there's different versions of FICO score there's 850 there's 900 if you go on City yet out of 900 if you go on it'll be an 850 FICO score usually around 825 out of 850 though amazing amazing and after opening up over a thousand credit cards yeah I mean it's a myth that opening credit cards is going to hurt your score right you just have to be responsible about it correct now if you you know open a bunch of credit cards and start spending more than can afford yeah that's going to hurt your score when you don't pay it back of course and you're bottom line I mean if you're doing that you're on the wrong show go to Dave Ramsey you know he's he's going to help you more than us let's be honest if someone's going into Deb they should not they should not be opening credit cards on Dan's Deals and and we and we say that in our and Dave Ramy just uses that as just a general rule is don't use credit cards ever sure you know he says that nobody becomes a millionaire off opening credit cards but we've had so many millions of followers everywhere we go that tell us you know how much their lives have changed change for the better because they're able to travel and see their parents or grandparents or loved ones in cities across the world and make memories and travel on on vacations they couldn't otherwise afford so it really enhances their lives right by earning these Miles by earning rewards and credit cards and you know if I have a laptop that breaks or anything that breaks is covered by a credit card warranty that's thousands of dollars that is covered or if you have get into a car rental accident you're not going to get insurance from your debit card whereas your credit card will cover the damages it's happened to me many times in Israel where they often charge you for damage to your car oh yeah they do again and again and again they just keep charging everybody for the same card the scratch is new it's $2,000 scratch right there so having a credit card is invaluable for that right um he's right though if you're going to fall into trap of debt that it's not worth it I just don't think his general rule that this is advice for everybody is correct it's advice for people that need that advice right makes sense makes a lot of sense now there are Airline points and there are Hotel points can you explain airline miles to me in 60 seconds well originally airline miles started off not as a way of earning from credit card you earned them for flying and they were just a reward they were a cost center for the Airlines and the airlines realized that they could be selling these points to Banks and they would pay them for the miles and they'd make this a profit Center so the airlines also realized that they had seats that were going out unused which they wanted to sell but they couldn't sell those seats so they would be better off giving them away to somebody who earned m miles now if person is earning miles spending on a credit card that earns the airline money then that's just as good as them selling the seat so they're happy to give away those seats so really it started off by giving away these seats at a sa reward level and there were standard reward levels and now a lot of airlines just kind of have Dynamic pricing they don't necessarily have those different levels which is the most beneficial to them of course it's beneficial to the airline but it also makes it less lucrative from a consumer perspective MH because if it's just going to be pegged to the value of a ticket where your miles are worth one cent each why are you going to use an airline credit card earning one mile per dollar if they're only worth 1 cent each you may as well use a credit card giving you 2% cash back right there's no point of earning miles the beauty of the miles so it's shortsighted you think you think it's shortsighted for Airlines to make Dynamic award I think Delta is very shortsighted and I think people will eventually wise up to the fact that their miles are worth so little right when Airlines create opportunity to earn an outsized reward from your milees something aspirational in American United still do that it's something special something unique if I could earn 10 cents value for each mile than I have that makes a lot more sense than using a cash back card so I think Delta is shortsighted they really push the industry in this Dynamic Direction which I think is the wrong direction it's eventually people are going to wise up to that so I think it's a mistake for them are there any airlines that you see that are clearly bucking the trend that Delta set Air Canada maybe Air Canada has very smart very smart people that are running their program and they have a complicated program but one that's fun because it's complicated it has more value hidden in it so Alaska and Air Canada really do well with that and I think making sweet spots kind of like when you go to Costco part of the fun of what Costco does is they make it like a treasure hunt you'll find you'll find cool deals and things that you wouldn't expect sure and when you're searching for these miles you might find a great value so having those little treasure hunts is part of what makes a program so much fun versus delta where that ticket's going to be 500,000 miles it's not that's not aspirational that's not fun right so I'm not going to invest in that program as much have you ever thought that you model Dan's Deals after Costco's model that's funny fantastic brand I mean the the likeability of Costco in America my God I mean our uncle was with Senator fedman right the other the other week in Costco on Sunday you goes every Sunday because it's like it's like synonymous with America now love John fman how amazing is he unbelievable what a what a stch defender of Israel really incredible I I don't think anybody expected that no I mean I think most of the country wrote him off um after his stroke and I don't know if he was always like that or or something just clicked he mentioned the Tree of Life shooting and something just like sure anti-Semitism house yeah very close to him in Pittsburgh and Squirrel Hill but getting back to your question about Costco it's it's it's a good point I think yeah I think your point like Dan is kind of like Costco it is a treasure hunt you never know what you're going to find yeah you're gonna find a deal on clothes on watches on computers on electronics on a cell phone you going find a crazy deal to Bora Bora you never know what you're going to find and that kind of was is what makes it so much fun and why you have to log on and see what's going on in Dan deals you're going to find that one deal at Costco that's like oh my God like get the U-Haul we'll take the whole pallet like this is like 10 bucks selling on Amazon for 50 I'm going to make a fortune reselling it you know we had DDF guys that were looking for that 40-year-old Scotch that was amazing show and tell time again I mean what was that going for was like a several thousand bottle of Scotch that went for like hundred something dollars so so we're talking about 40-year-old Glenn levit this was a limited run by Kirkland Kirland is so cool right cuz they work with the best brands in the world and they just throw the Kirkland label on it I mean their kind of ugly on a 40-year-old yeah it's crazy but like this is like it's awesome at I from Glenn livet a year 40-year-old Scotch thousands of dollars right oh more probably yeah but they throw the Kirkland label on it and I think it was $22 it was less no less wasn't like like $19.97 or something like that yeah I think it depended on the location and it was only in Chicago and I messaged a DDF guy I think lots of Simka um and got white sock ticket that time we had the DDF C together that's right and how many of these did we buy a lot I don't remember exactly but we stupid amount right we gave a bunch away to DDF guys that were helping post deals you get 100 hat tips you get a nice prize that's right giving an Amazon gift card as well as some 40-year-old Scotch was a nice I mean this that was I think that was one of the best deals that never made it to the main site right cuz there's obviously a lot of deals that die or they're too limited a lot of in store deals yeah they're a little too obscure there's just not enough quantity that it's worth posting about right some in Chicago they ran around at some Chicago area stores and bought out every store yeah so somebody was asking me what was the what are the best deals that never made it onto the site that you've gotten in your life gosh what go ahead what do you think I mean there was the time that I got 500 bags of chocolate chips for free also got a few hundred boxes of uh the goo squeeze apples saces I meany yeah some of them is just not made for the public I mean even now there's a lot of stuff that you just if you post it it's it's gone in two seconds right it could last for years and I think that's something we learned about yeah you have to know how to thread that needle but what kind of deals are going to be deals that are able to survive for a long time if they're not posted and we generally aren't going to talk about that sight you might talk about in like seminars when we were doing the seminars or on DDF on the I think the best deal that never made it to the main site and that's cuz it died first was United had $5 tickets system wide do you remember that gosh that's a long time ago yeah yeah yeah it was like maybe H 11 years ago or so okay and they were just charging taxes it was like a thre minute glitch I think I think there was one new site that like typed it up but it was like a three-minute glitch and we saw it and we were like oh my God go go and they're like no no we test the deals before we post it we don't just like yeah always got to test it before you share it and that was I mean it was soon after the Delta one where people were flying to Hawaii or California In First Class you know 50 bucks yeah New York to Hawaii in first class for 50 bucks was unbelievable yeah I was in Hawaii then and I mean we went to like the seven sacred pools and the whole place was from New York there were stories of the Delta JFK LAX flights that were getting delayed because there were so many people with strollers and C seats and Gage all dozens of strollers that tickets a lot of our followers have strollers good times that was good so I have a little surprise for you um and especially for our readers for our 20th birthday we are giving away the most incredible prizes you have ever seen in a giveaway there's over $50,000 in prizes and if you want to get in on the action there's going to be one drawing every single day all you have to do is enter your name and an email address all right you're going to like this looking forward to the next 20 years of Dan's Deals I'm going to ask you some business ideas for Dan's deal and just give me your gut reaction to each of them okay ready open a con Year's travel planning and booking service I mean it would be super fun to be able to help people do that Is it feasible from a business perspective it's been tried I don't think I'm not sure that it really is sustainable okay yeah so that's a no I mean it would be fun yeah and we both love planning trips maybe AI will get to the point where it can do that it could like it could it can't for a kosher traveler maybe it'll get there though right you know if we put enough can it learn from enough of things that we've posted can we feed it enough information it'll get there that's not a question okay yeah well then yes it'll be feasible 20 years from now we got it all right open a deal section only for women's deals yeah it's interesting I mean you might have to get your wife involved too my wife Mimi of course is involved in Dan's Deals she does advertising Department of Dan's Deals yeah I mean she sent some deals on like maxi dresses or like I don't know anything about it is the problem right about things that we know and we don't know what's a good deal for that or what people are interested in exactly um I think there is a demand though for a women's only section on for a deals website yeah that has potential all right you're going to hate this one so much update the Dan deals forums to a modern WordPress interface that syncs with One login for Dan deals.com I guess the question is you don't want to lose your existing user base right so everyone's used to certain formatting but if they've been on there for years are they leaving because of a software update possibly I mean I've hated some websites that have been updated that lose functionality familiarity okay so it would have to be somewhat similar yeah it really can you really move over everything that's existing onto a new platform the database you could for sure that's that's the easy part the question is how similar can you get the functionality the look The feel right and how long is the new software going to last for cuz I mean SMF no one's ever even heard of it simp machine for no one's using it's ancient and I think that I think that's the biggest thing scaring off new people from joining the forums okay so maybe it's a definite maybe a definite maybe all right your retirement age you know some days I think I'm never going to retire so who knows right now what's your got oh gosh I guess it'll be up to our kids they're going to push us out they're going to want nothing to do with any of this probably hard to say yeah I I see I don't see it as the type of job you retire from it's too much fun yeah right I age like it's what you make of it right and I think it's the best job in the world I'm glad you think that I do too all right let's keep going here Dan news.com Dan news.com does that come before or after Dan meals.com that's on my list that's that's the nice question okay that's fair dnews.com it doesn't have to be you writing all the Articles what I don't like about so many news sites is that it's all just done so superficially is like well well this website we didn't very ify any information that we're posting well then why are you posting it if you can't stand behind your reporting then what is it good for well it's like any business if they're dependent on this for their income Source yeah they have to keep up with everyone else and they have to do it so the question is I feel like if you can't do it right and you can't do it in depth then what's the point well I think that's why people love Dan deals right is because you are being that meticulous and care we do cover a news story you know I interview firsthand I make sure we get everything right yeah we cross the tees we dot the eyes and but isn't there room to get reporters like that to do that type of in-depth reporting it could be one post a day every other day or it could be if it's just common things that you know in airline news that are popular there's a lot of airline news that I think you'd be able to put up yeah I mean and I enjoyed doing the news roundups and we were doing those weekly but they're just very very time intensive labor intensive that really started with Co right even before Co I think we we're doing it as early as 2018 okay with Co I stepped up kind of in that direction def as we were covering Co and we posted deals on things that were in short supply sure so dnews.com yes or no again a definite maybe these these are things that I love to do but I don't think I have the time can we hire people to do it and is it sustainable as a business it's an open question that's that's that's the real trick right because love the job it is what we make it we work all hours of the day if we can clone ourselves then obviously that's a no-brainer but you can't do everything but to be on top of new hires and other people it's tough yeah it's it's a very different it becomes a very different job and I do worry about burnout right for something like that yeah and just maintaining those standards even when you hire people is always a challenge right right so because for this this is our life for an employee they're an employee it's yeah y it's tough another definite maybe there all right Dan's meals with a map and reviews of all kosher establishments in the world that' be fun open to positive and negative reviews what's your take on negative restaurant reviews this is something that uh it's a tough come a lot Rec the L HR people will say you can't say anything negative but if it's l toy alysis if it's to save people time and money from going to places they won't enjoy and if it's if it's descriptive of what exactly you don't like about it then it should be allowed right but if you're opening up a platform for anybody to write anything with what probably will be loose to no moderation right because who can monitor a website that large it's I mean we do it for the forums we do it for the forums but I think this would be on a much bigger scale okay and where do you draw the line yeah what is critique what is constructive and what is a pissed off customer most of the existing business models are based on only giving positive reviews because the restaurants are paying for that experience and for that exposure they're not going to be willing to pay for something where there's negative feedback about them so you have to find the business model to make that work right um I think it could do great yeah could probably be awesome I think it's going to upset a lot of people all right so we're uh definite maybe yeah yeah we're gonna go with that again all right what are your favorite kosher restaurants right now favorite kosher restaurants don't think about it too hard just your favorites yeah in Manhattan Tabernacle and Barna are awesome yeah awesome steakhouses really great Ambiance really great service a Bas in a league of its own in Manhattan just great pizzas and pasta does sure favorite pizza favorite pizza probably Pizza time I think Pizza Time makes a really great is that that a flat Bush Bar Park I think it's Flatbush yeah I think it's Flatbush cash only I think Porto gave it a crazy good rating right I mean I have like I don't know $6 cash in my wallet right now like they're telling me cash only it's like five bucks a slice I'm like oh gosh there's the N ATM machine yeah por gave it an a point to he liked it amazing amazing it's really yeah just great pizza yeah no flop all right where else T sir and the the her wi Arena it's so beautiful there it's is really a destination there yeah that's awesome that's an awesome place the Bas place in the valley there yes I couldn't believe it yeah that's it's amazing it's ridiculous just buttery delicious Bara Savory and sweet and yeah that place awesome uh Lenny's uh Cita in Los Angeles is great Jeff's is a classic I know you your wild western burger I think they added it on the now the wild western burger I don't think it's a secret off menu anymore no longer a secret secret is out that's right I mean Miami have so many good ones bamboo is incredible Chinese probably the best Chinese anywhere now that Chinglish in Las Vegas closed down yeah I think they sent you like a signed menu right when they Clos I do have a signed menu that we were big fans of them we sent a lot of people over there yeah show that menu for a second we have the uh Dan Chinglish with harded that place was special oh my gosh that lemon chicken oh my goodness we're a sucker for lemon and uh but everything they made was just even the sweet and sour chicken it was just elevated it tasted delicious it tasted fresh something was not your greasy standard Chinese Fair 100% benoo gives a good greasy fix like you want that you know a little bit Bamboo's great yeah they have some good dishes Street Kitchen I mean atica David is so talented at Street kid I mean when he's on that's B it yeah it's going to rival any Kush restaurant in the world when he when he's on in the kitchen yeah yeah for sure but mle's here in Cleveland is great too we love having it here you got him to move to Cleveland right yeah I mean I definitely had a part in it we helped uh definitely helped make that happen yeah I had his hot dogs at uh the Prague and uh got be the best coach of stand in baseball it's not even close it's not even close I mean we had the uh the Yankees like Legends food that was it's a league of its own you can't I mean it's liter like a restaurant when you're sitting in Legend Suites and Stadium or the champion Suites where you have it the food delivered I mean you're getting staks at a game like you can't compare that to hot dogs at a game correct and and nobody would compare hot dogs to to you know a $100 steak or whatever they're giving you but mendal stand open to the public versus like the general like just Yankee Stadium or City Field hot dog which are just like barely cooked they serving team cold they're really just rubbery and dis don't get me wrong eating a dog at a game is nostalgic and amazing I mean Field of Dreams what do you want dog and a beer that's what you need to have at a baseball game yeah so I mean the fact that it's available at those places I'd still eat it i' enjoy the heck out of it but mendal yeah I mean just the pulled brisket and all everything he puts in there the chili dog the pamy dog are just phenomenal out of this world I mean I think Dodger stadium has Jeff's dogs which are great too Toronto has a phenomenal stand sure with the Capital One seats you actually get unlimited free kosher food oh wow yeah that's crazy they have I mean they have even have a deep fryer there which is pretty rare I don't know if anybody else has a so they've got like french fries that are actually fried fresh yeah so those are awesome right there was a place in Argentina and Vancouver you used to love right restaurant aana and Argent in buos was probably my favorite restaurant ever had some really great meals there yeah and I flown down to buos ciris just for that I mean to be fair there was a glitch there were free first class tickets there's a deal that didn't make it onto the M time a short limited time British Airways glitch where he just had free tickets they weren't actually charging the Avio from your account did it it charge it and gave it back or just didn't charge it I don't think it ever charged the avos amazing yeah so we flew down and you flew that that day the next day yeah that day we only had one kid at that point so we dropped him off of my mother's house and drove to the airport right then right that was like the Hong the Hong Kong Four Mile glitch right no well yeah one guy got it that day same idea yeah well correct people that flew that day got to actually take advantage of it and United wind up canceling everyone else's tickets that didn't fly right then if there's a great deal the only way to get it absolutely is get on it that happened twice with British Airways so once we flew to Vancouver In First Class when Kathy Pacific was playing JFK Vancouver in first class and then once we did it to Buenos okay so favorite coach restaurant ever open and closed is yeah aan asan in B Chinglish is is up there Chinglish is pretty great in Las Vegas okay um how about the Israel kosher scene any favorites there you know Israel is so complicated just because of the H issue of what's sure what mahadin is you're going to get us canceled if you say what your favorite is is that what you're trying to tell me everything is delicious there just go to the Shook and get some falafel from Aisha which is y Mahin raban or the canafe which is also rabut mahaj sure uh hatch is there that just makes great beers and froes and yeah just there's so many great places in the shook right there you really don't need anything else it's such good food pizza wise is incredible in yine what's it called all just saying just pizza all there so many great pizza stores in yot which is amazing because our first time in Israel there was no pizza in isra Pizza has gone from being like a zero to a 10 like an actual zero I don't I don't know if people understand how bad pizza was in Israel 20 years ago I mean it was yeah yeah and now there's there's sever I haven't been I haven't been to is in a while there's amazing pizza now in is Incredible Pizza in Israel that's awesome uh in yusem La Piedra is is phenomenal it's just up the hill from the Waldorf um right across from the great synagogue and the old Sheran Plaza Leonardo Plaza now and when did that pizza Revolution start in Israel I don't it's got to be the past 5 years or so okay I feel like over Co when the whole sourdough craze happened I feel like a lot of people got into the pizza craze Pizza makes great souro pizza I like the one in the city more than in the shook actually for craft Pizza okay yeah uh Anthony's pizzas also those are all phenomenal I I have to go to Israel it's crazy how the pizza scene there has gotten so good it's crazy yeah better than America better than pizza time oh I mean you can't compare those are more authentic Italian style pizza stores and pizza time is just a great New York slice of pizza what we grew up with yeah I mean a bite that makes also very Italian you know Artisan Pizza versus the New York slice which is Pizza Time Sabas right if you have an itch for pizza that's what you want yeah got it okay uh I mean Paris though has the most incredible restaurant the croissants from the reserve are just mindblowing breakfast there is one of the most special treats you'll ever have is it is it I I brought in some treats from Miami from Mor Moran is great you know he doesn't compare not even close I mean not even 5% of how good wow really yeah yeah the reserve in Paris is unbelievable like the park high of Paris gives free breakfast from a place called I think 25 okay um they're good they're probably comparable to what Moran is making the reserve just blows everything out of the water the croissants there are just you bite into it and you see people crying I mean it's that crazy I mean they also have crazy cheeses there and breakfast food and drinks and everything but past past St yeah they must be making their own cheeses and butters then I mean doing incredible things there really really phenomenal there's so many great restaurants in Paris though so that's always a fun city to tour Rome has amazing that's exactly what I was about to say I was there my Johannesburg is really the sleeper place for kosher food so many great places that are it's Dirt Cheap like we yeah we ordered like a plate of ribs and and onion rings everything and it come up be a few bucks it's really crazy saalo where Dan was started also really cheap me that's right yeah yeah but Johannesburg really was a good combination of high quality food at at low cost um yeah place they're called Next Door had amazing food and there's Nando's fast food Burgers and Brew Nando is kosher there a kosher nandos yeah there is a kosher nandos Oh Come is nandos in America there is yeah there's London based thing but yeah the one there's one branch that's kosher in the world and we actually tried really bringing a branch to Cleveland and we were looking to open a restaurant here we contacted them we talked about it they they were not interested in opening any more kosher branches and so is that like uh crispy chicken sandwiches type stuff at nandos or Burgers chicken yeah all all sorts of chicken dishes yeah I mean their best thing might be their Perry Perry the spicy potato wedges just mindblowing like like french fries but like soft delicious mashed potato inside but crispy shell and it's so good it sounds like the chip we had at Nia in Surf Side do you remember those artichoke similar but yeah nothing close to it the spicy are yeah just unbelievable that's awesome yeah that's awesome RTD RTG there had great amazing Asian dishes in Johannesburg I know where I think has the worst kosher scene country in the world I want I want to stay on the count of three together 1 2 Australia the food is so bad there my goodness I so B I know they're a former penal colony but you're not supposed to serve prison food in restaurants stop it why oh my God we're getting cancelled in Australia right now wow I went there with my I'm sorry I went there with my family for PES and we're like this going be great we're going to buy like hot dogs we're going to Road Trip the whole PES we're going to see the whole country we bought hot dogs we boiled them the case fell out all the stuff fell out from the inside we're like no no no no no and like Sydney had one great coach at restaurant caty which had like these ribs they were good they were good okay I want to say great it was great for Australia because we were there for a few weeks and there was much to eat there and it closed go to Australia over if you go to Australia you're there for a few weeks I mean yeah you got to make your way around right and they closed over Co so there's really I was looking into it now there's really not much there it's pretty brutal crazy and Melbourne also just had nothing um really surprising yeah I I was in a Melbourne restaurant and uh I went to use the restroom and I think it was a hole in the floor oh my God like actually memory serves me correct and and I think I don't want to say that's representative of the kosher food scene in general but U maybe yeah it's it's pretty bad I did like their catering though their airplane food from from Louis was actually really good oh my god do you remember that on Singapore Airlines yes was that from The mald singap Unbelievable we had multiple courses on on like a short flight how long is that flight from all the Singapore 2 3 hours maybe about 4 hours like two ENT I just remember there was lamb on it it was the best lamb I had in my life correct it was phenomenal that was the best airline me had came from Sydney from Sydney I I don't know what is going on they're supposed to have good um good maybe that's the play is just buy food from Lewis and Sydney and bring that around with L is the is the airline cater yeah and they do sell to the public because I actually looked into it if I wanted to go to New Zealand how I could try to get their food maybe out fly to Australia and bring it to New Zealand and figure out the import rules because New Zealand is super strict with import food so is Australia you can't just bring food there um so that was an option because there's really nothing in New Zealand right maybe that's why the koser food's not good because the local Market's not very big big and they can't import most of it yeah so they make it locally they just know what food is supposed to taste like down there I'm not really sure because Brazil and Argentina and Johanna and South Africa all have it figured out and then there's Australia left in the Southern Hemisphere and the food's just not very good and it's expensive mentioning New Zealand where have you not been that's number one on your list to go oh New Zealand New Zealand yeah and I have I always have tickets to go there I have tickets now to go there um you always have multiple trips booked any given time yeah absolutely especially with deposits being free these days you could book it cancel anytime yeah just to have it on the horizon is fun I think half the fun of a trip is finding that availability and getting that rush and booking it and planning it it falls apart it falls apart right just see you know this is only .01% of the world that gets that Rush yeah I'm weird like that it's a fun hobby though right it's awesome worst hobbies to have 100% um I probably booked New Zealand a dozen times but for various reasons it always seems to fall apart but I do have a booked uh for next year next February is it going to happen we'll see I don't love I Don't Love solo travel so I usually have to find someone else and rub somebody else into it yeah of course you had to go and have triplets so you're never available to go anywhere um I love solo travel when I was single and I I we were just talking before this about how I never stayed at the park high at Paris I'm like I was in Paris I slept in the airport though and and I went around I have so many good members of the park ey there as part of the experience of Paris and using the points there I got a $3,000 room for 20,000 high points now it's 40,000 with inflation but right it's just like such a part of the experience of going there no doubt and and since I got married I'm definitely doing that more and more often and I've I've been at unbelievable hotels around the world as well yeah uh for free but yeah I mean Paris Shanghai Tokyo I went to all those places single and it was so fun I know but like my experience of going to Tokyo and like pulling into the park high and they open the door of the taxi and welcome Mr and I'm like how how how did you know who I am what what is that what is that the you this before you checked in yeah you walk out of the taxi and they greet You by name yeah it's unbelievable like it's the service level just off the charts then we spayed at the park hide in Kyoto and same thing there just unbelievable service and they the hotels they call ahead when you they see you're saying in another Hiatt right they you know they offer to tell people you know they to tell people the other Hotel all about you and your preferences and really just that's amazing outside of America and Israel is Japan your favorite country or what is your favorite country outside of America I mean Japan is one of my favorite places to travel around I've spent chabas and and Tokyo and Kyoto and in Kobe um just a really just fun culture and good people even just like going to a baseball game there so much fun such a different experience and they're so into it I think I read that there's more people watching the World Series Dodgers versus Yankees which should be a super popular World Series in the US more people are watching it in Japan than in the United States even though it's on at 9 A.M there wow because of show from 9:00 a. to noon yeah sh is definitely a huge part of it they watch it anyway but sh is definitely I think the Japanese tourism to La has tripled since they signed Jo what a move by the Dodgers I mean they knew what they were doing giving him the biggest contract oh absolutely yeah is there something you've traveled to hundreds of destinations is there something that you've seen seen culturally or otherwise in other countries you wish we did in America I mean just us from a service level in America we don't there are no really great hotels to stay in the service is not up to par compared to most foreign countries especially Asian countries outside of the hotel industry just in general culturally etiquette wise anything that you feel that we could really use hair in America gosh off the top of my head I mean there's the orderliness of Japan you talk about the shabuya Crossing right compare that to like uh leaving the Yankees game where they're just shoving you and jumping over things yeah so I mean like going back to Japan just culturally speaking they do everything very orderly when they walk go down the escalators everyone that's standing stands to one side everyone wants to walk down the es goes to the other side wow everything's super like driving rules but walking yeah exactly everything is super prompt trains always run on time and and everything is very clean um I mean Singapore my goodness yeah that is the clean country world you there if if you litter and if you bring in drugs they kill you um is that so bad that's one way to control those problems yeah yeah it's often more affordable even in countries that are high cost like Japan but just like to go to museums or tourist attractions could be more affordable than they are in the US surprisingly right um yeah over the past 20 years there have been some insane deals on Dan steals free flights travel Vegas vacations what are some of your alltime favorite deals the Wendy's cups are up there okay where you had to get cups from Wendy's and send them into Air Tran and you got credits and then I figured out how to use those credits for air Trend to book you on other Airlines and I saved up tens of thousands of dollars of travel credits on United for examp how did you get the Wendy's cups um because that's not a kosher establishment no no were you like eating some not kosher to get the cups let's be honest for the most part I just bought them on eBay but people went like dumpster diving and they went through dumpsters to try to so who sold Wendy's cups on eBay Wendy's or like employees were taking them out back probably one's employees were just selling cups when they realized what they were going for what what was those stack of Cups going for it was it was still cheap I mean it was like a few bucks for for stack of Cups and you trade and you're turning into the how much money you know it could be a few thousand dollars of flights so you're buying $10 of Cups and you're getting $3,000 of Continental Credit Air Tran credit uh it was continent it was Air Tran credits and Air Tran would book tickets for you on Continental okay or any other Airline and so the trick was figuring out what's the most expensive Continental ticket you can get in the world in economy sure and so I was doing research and I found well they they fly to this place called palao so I was having them book me tickets to palao okay and then you actually went to Pal eventually I did there much later than this I mean this happened probably around 2006 and I went there in 2015 to P to Jellyfish lake which is amazing and and did you still have credit from the Wendy's deal I still have credit now yeah so today 15 years later yeah wow that's incredible turned into United Credit yeah over the past 20 years danals has had had some of the craziest deals that I don't think most people would believe is is is real that that they actually happened but they did of course um I think the first big one that made Dan deals like a household name was probably the LL price mistake the first first one CRA deal tell me about it just a little bit Yeah someone on the forums posted Mickey G uh posted that there was $330 flights uh from New York to to Israel in LL and they went viral yeah that was pretty awesome was that a price mistake you think with L probably we haven't really seen that since so they've definitely put in right processes to stop that from happening again but they weren't unhappy about it they they enjoyed the publicity of it they sold seats that would have otherwise gone unsold they brought in new customers that might not have flown them so it worked out pretty well actually there was never another LL price mistake but there were a lot of other airline price mistakes I know um there was Air Canada to Israel for $20 something dollars I remember I woke up Sunday morning and I saw I think on our forums or something soone was saying like $200 you know Air Canada I I called your phone so fast I'm like I think the funniest one was on weero when this airline that was partners with United Okay found the owners of that Airline the CEO of that Airline The Operators of that Airline found a glitch on United and so we posted tickets on United to Israel also for around that price about $300 right if you booked it through weero this Norwegian airline um and they leaked it they leaked it on the internet that there was this glitch I think they leaked it on Saturday and we caught it after shabas that night is that right that's certainly a possibility yeah sounds right that was kind of crazy yeah and then I mean of course for I had a birthday party where I was supposed to be going to I didn't know about it it was a surprise birthday party and there was turn on my computer after shabus and there's free tickets to Las Vegas and free hotels in Las Vegas and free limo transfers and so I had a friend that got kicked out of Yeshiva for doing that deal by the way yes oh my gosh he was gone for a weekend and the rabbi's like where were you and he in Vegas there was a free dance deal what could he do I'm posting this deal and I'm writing about how you can get cir to tickets are free and limo transfers to stain the BL free and free flights to everything Las Vegas was free yeah and my wife tells me um so there's a surprise party for your birthday and it's not just for your birthday it's also for two other birthdays that are also then and they're all waiting for you did you tell her we'll let them go celebrate their birthdays so we go there and everyone there is talking about the deal right they want to know how they could book it so someone winds up getting a laptop and I wind up booking everybody there the best birthday party vas party favor of all time yeah everyone still talks about it remember that time we got to Vegas for free that's amazing that's unbelievable uh what the um let's think there were some deals that were crazy there was four miles uh to Hong Kong right New York to Hong Kong for four United miles right which wasn't honored unless you were for that right away people that flew within a couple days got it and everyone else got cancelled there was British Airways had free flights twice I I think right but that didn't make it onto the main website where were some the Fairmont deal I mean was probably one of my favorite deals yeah for tell me about it yeah I mean so Living Social had this deal for $2,000 you got the penous suite at the San Francisco Fairmont okay but you also got in the fine print of the deal it said you get lifetime Fairmont Platinum Status and you get for those that don't know Fairmont is a very Niche High scale Hotel all their properties are like castles picturesque and it even spelled that status included a free night for life and free dining certificates for Life Plum certificates for Life came with all these benefits including a free room every year for life and so Living Social at the time for every three Deals you referred you got one for free so I wound up with nine free lifetime Platinum accounts wow so 27 dance deals people got the deal well at least bought it through my link other people made their own Congo lines and so people more people got it I think there about 115 people in the world that bought that package that package wow so that was pretty crazy yeah I got to stay in some really really incredible Fairmont hotels all over the world you know from Dubai to Maui to Vancouver to Mexico yeah and we we both benefited from that deal and full disclosure we we enjoyed those St so much we both have Fairmont beds in our homes and we stayed at the Singapore Fairmont was that right when we were going to the m yeah that was right yeah so that's been that was a fun deal for sure yeah that was amazing my personal favorite deal elevated uh I got I got my wife I think six or seven pairs of Jimmy chews yeah oh for sure has that many Jimmy chews and other shoes as well for was it $24 was it there was a code brought down to 1999 if you knew what you were doing you overpaid by $4 for those shoes that was fun that was amazing I mean see yeah my wife has in her closet now $7 $8,000 wor the shoes that cost me $100 that was the best and I sold a lot of them online cuz I was at some point they started selling out and I'm like just buy every size right let's go yeah I actually made profit on those that was that was my favorite deal ever and then I think the company closed like a month later they're probably just clearancing them out they're just trying to get rid of other stock you know they bought distressed stock people don't realize that about price mistakes that often the item is costing Amazon whoever the company is so much to store it or so much because other things could be selling more right now that they do drop the prices and they want to get rid of it yeah for sure your favorite redemptions of all time I think we have some Show and Tell to to show people want to grab some stuff and show it off what do we have here I mean you got you got first P of the World Series stealing second base Cubs game I mean so yeah this had to be my favorite Redemption was Redeeming the 1 milon 60,000 starward points to throw out the first pitch a game seven of the 2016 World let see the Cubs at Indians now signed by Cory clubber there um who pitched in that World Series a few times I love it it said course signed by Cory Luber he was the pitcher in that game or yeah in that game and it says always next year down which that's our slogan here in Cleveland there's always next year but we did get to go 2016 to the Cavs Championship that was a lot of fun that was a lot ofun that was the best this is amazing yeah we've got tickets here for the uh 2016 game seven I flew out to Oakland for that to see the Cav wi the championship I think if you look up like the sports center clip right after they won it says Cavs fans celebrate in Oracle Arena have like millions of years got your tits out it's me jumping up and down this is the game seven ticket uh $420 ticket apparently but they were selling for like 20 or $30,000 oh yeah I mean the CBS a joint drought of what 180 years or something in game seven exactly unbelievable yeah so we sat in the second row right behind the rickets family the owner of the Cubs in that game um no we couldn't actually scalp the tickets we actually actually had to go there but all of us you and my wife was actually our anniversary November second that's right and uh Grandpa got to go down with us onto the field and talk to the manager and and that's where I love of baseball's from right from Grandpa absolutely and he was there in 48 I think when the Indians won World with his parents in 54 he's been in League Park he watched you know all the great it's amazing and you got to steal second base right you want to pull up second base over that's in the next bucket see what we got here so there are things that Miles could get you that you can't get and I've flown I've been to Seven Continents right I've flown to everywhere I haven't found an eth yet and i' I've gone everywhere you can go with as far as miles as far as going places but to be able to redeem you know I think I 25,000 United miles for four tickets to an Indians game people don't understand how heavy this is second base yeah it's uh it's heavy but I got to run out in the middle of the game and just lift it up yeah and and take it it was like Dan of Dan deals will not be stealing second base and the fans are like what is happening right now like and the starting pitch is like wait he's going off the field with second base like what is happening here but he actually signed the play it's like that's crazy I'm walking around the stadium with it everyone's like wait you actually got second base was that the most high fives of your life I remember leing that g that was unbelievable everyone's like still second base bro and they announced like he's going to go and steal second base every was like what are they talking about yeah such such an incredible experience and use of Miles yeah that was pretty fun and then we got to play on Wrigley in Wrigley Field one of the most historic Parks if not the most historic par a softball game in Wrigley they made us they gave us jerseys show me the Jersey over there I mean I don't know this is in 2016 to it's okay if you have a Cubs Jersey it was in 2016 right it was in August 2016 so before we even knew there'd be an Indians series but yeah they gave us official Cubs jerseys you got to write whatever you want in the back of it so we got the uh dance deals which is the second Dan deals Jersey because well this was first this one came first this one came from redeeming 10,000 Starwood points to play softball and get kosher they got kosher food for us they got his jersey and then when I threw out the first pitch at the Indians games we had to get the uh the dance from the famous picture you up on the Jumbotron absolutely that was awesome what is your favorite Redemption that you've done in the past 20 years I know American used to have around the world Redemption I saved up so many American miles until I got married to do that and they just ripped it away from me without even warning they just took without even warning I had all the Miles ready for my wife and I to go in a honeymoon around the world so tell me about that yeah I think we've redeemed something like 180,000 miles and you got to go around the world up to 16 flights in first class I mean that's going to get you like to Europe nowadays right yeah mileage inflation is a real it's a real problem yeah and so we booked going to London and then Hong Kong uh down to Thailand and Australia so that was really a fun Redemption we traveled around for a month before we had kids and it was a whole lot easier to travel those were the days huh those were the days no but the kids are the kids are great I believe you've flown on private jets for free right in past 20 in the past 20 years rather yeah Jets marter had that crazy deal uh for for pre private jets where if you had Elite status with any Airline or had even certain credit cards you got the jetsmarter membership where you get free private jet rides so they would tell you where the private jet is going where they have to reposition the private yeah it was an app where they they basically they would sell you on empty legs where if they have to reposition the private jet they have legs that are going to fly empty anyway sure so they'd give them away and I don't really know what the business model was but I flew to New York for free I took my son rafie to a baseball game in Minneapolis who went run a private jet for free that's awesome and yeah like we just got this plan it's all for us it be where I should where I it I'm like wherever you want son it's our plane it's like the business model makes sense empty legs put people in it but you got to charge them I think that's where they missed it right it was the charging anybody can give away flights that's the easy part it's charging for the flights that's more difficult and you've got you said seven continents you've been to Antarctica that means yeah Antarctica was a fun one so just really quick was that Miles money yeah so in 2016 I tried a lot in 2016 yeah you know 2016 was a busy year that was good year so there was an auction again with Starwood okay all of a shom yeah I don't have them around anymore um but they were auctioning off a trip a cruise to Antarctica MH uh that I was bidding on but the company is through National Geographic and lindblad said that they wouldn't be able to get kosher food and you couldn't bring your own food on the pl on the cruise so it was pretty going to be pretty tricky to do that so what we realized after contacting a bunch of cruise lines was the only way to have koser food on a cruise was to organize our own Charter basically because of Hala because of Jewish law we couldn't be the entire ship we actually had to be a minority of passengers on the ship to be able to go over chabas um but we found over 50 uh danals readers who wanted to take a cruise to Antarctica so we got that final truly once in a lifetime yeah I mean have our our course that we chartered here and uh and we made all kinds of goodies for that we have our Nal Antarctica trip anarctica yamaka is in our little penguin hair with his yamaka and sensus on it that's awesome let me see the penguin have you named him uh nope nope all right we'll have to work on that I don't know this says 2018 and well 2016 auction was it took two years from it took two years from the auction till we actually got everything um yeah there was a lot of planning although it fell into place really quickly in 2018 we found out that if we wanted to do a trip with the parameters that we have where we because of lots of obscure reasons we had to leave on a Monday and there's only a trip of 2018 not 2019 so we actually threw it all together pretty rapidly about three or four months and is that when you met your friend shuer for the first time yeah so I asked my sister-in-law where we can get a cater because we had to cater the food for that trip at in Canada okay or the ship would go from Canada down R our sister from Montreal she's from Montreal and she suggested sheua lur and so he I asked him how adventurous he was feeling and he said absolutely adventurous so he came down to Antarctica with us to cater this trip amazing he sent food from his catering business in Montreal onto this boat he had trained to on a train to Halifax and then the boat took it down to Argentina yeah and then he wound up moving to Cleveland to be the manager at which you also brought to Cleveland so that was fun it's amazing the branches on the on the cruise to Antarctica then there actually wasn't enough fuel to get us all the way to Antarctica in Argentina there was a fuel shortage then so we actually had a detour to the Falcon Islands right where I never thought I would be there were barely any flights that you can get there they're all on Saturday I think yeah the flights are often on Saturday if there are any flights at all and while we were there we actually raffled off uh some tickets for this Cruise mhm and one of the people who won that raffle Le Ben yamson actually printed helped to print a uh a Tanya which had never been printed before in the Falcon islands and it's one of the traditions of kabad adversaries to print a Tanya everywhere in every city and had never been done there already had one but it was even harder to get to the Falcon islands where that never happened so we tried to add some Holiness to the Falcon islands like I told everyone you know I don't know if anyone's ever been here before so if you make a braa here you do something holy like you know try to bring some Holiness bring some spirituality here while you accomplish something while you're here if that's why we were sent here how has danals changed your life I mean we're talking about these different branches from just one story how has it changed your life from 20 years ago to today it's at this point it's Inseparable right right but it's not just how it's changed my life but everywhere where I go like we went to Alaska this summer and there's a hundred Jews there and they all know Dan's Deals and every one of them has a story to tell me of how it's Chang their lives and I think the most special part about anywhere I go now people want to share that with me and how it's enhance their lives and change their lives for the better and it's just unbelievable that everybody knows about it like right like everybody that's you know Orthodox and and our and our approximate age group knows about it and has and has benefited from it so it's it's really cool to to see that and hear from people like yeah I think that's the best part of the job is the feedback from people yeah it's unbelievable really yeah do you consider yourself an influencer I hate the term influencer no I don't but you are influencing people right well when you do a trip report when you if you're trying to influence people and and you're doing it for if your if your Revenue stream if your business model is that you're an influencer then it detracts from your message I feel like I didn't start Dan deals to make money I started it as a hobby I started it to help people and and the business model came later on mhm um and I I don't never tried to Influence People I just write about what I'm doing what excites me what I'm passionate about right and and that turned into a business so yeah I just took what what I was passionate about and and and eventually made a living from it versus trying to make a living influencing things turns me out so that's the distinction you make an influencer is someone that is making their living off influencing so they have to continue influencing and there can't be like and and they're going to expand beyond what they their Niche and Beyond what they know because that's how making money and I totally understand that but you feel that Dan deals is different and you're different because you aren't forced into influencing anything specifically you just are being yourself I don't think and and post sharing that with I think most influencers that are having collaborations with businesses if they have a bad experience there they're not sharing that with their readers they're not it's not actually authentic it's just a paid advertisement right you're Shilling for that business that restaurant which is fine but it's not authentic it doesn't feel you know like that's really contributing right we've had offers over the years of investors of you know VC firms that want to buy Dan's Deals would you ever consider not really having too much fun doing it and I don't want to give up that editorial control over what we do right so there's been a lot of the I think the all the biggest logs I we've been around for 20 years and I think a lot of them that sold out maybe uh eight years ago or so um some of the really big ones sold sold I don't want use the term sold out but but they sold up to to large corporations and I think some of them aren't even around anymore yeah some no longer several no longer exist the founders get bored and they got their payday and they they move on to something else or they retire at 25 but even the ones that are still involved they're they're not they're not making the editorial decisions and it goes in a different direction than what had started with right so I'm I'm not comfortable going down that path I'm not going to say there's no price that I'd possibly do that at but it would it just wouldn't make sense right I think there was a deal site that sold recently for 500 million yeah you know that do you think that L has been price gouging since 107 that's a loaded question yes yes it is no but I hear where people are coming from I think you have I think you have a very unique insight into the airline industry and so I think you have a very different view than your average consumer explain why you that I can see why your average consumer feels that way tickets are are a fortune now right sure and if you want to fly non-stop between the US and Israel you're flying LL nobody else is flying but airfare is always priced by an algorithm which tells the airline exactly what price to sell each seat at so that every seat on the plane is maximized for revenue and you don't think they changed that since 107 no I don't think the algorithm has really changed at all I think it's it's doing exactly what it's programmed to do which is to maximize revenue and fill every seat on the plane right they are selling more seats than they used to so they're making a bigger profit because nearly every seat is sold and at a higher price point though often I believe they have record profits and they've published that publicly yeah yeah record profits no question you're not forced to fly a la you could take connections you could fly a US Airline to Zur and then fly on Aria or isra or L on a short Hall flight which would be much cheaper than flying L direct sure so nobody's forcing you to take that non-stop flight should LL price their tickets artificially low that would just cause planes to sell out earlier and that people that really need seats won't be able to buy those seats even if they're willing to pay more money because this the flights are going out full so they could artificially sell it lower than it the algorithm says that it should cost they could change that algorithm you're going to have a whole other scho people upset yeah people that really need to go somewhere that they can't literally can't buy a seat so I don't think they need to underprice their their ticket right yeah very interesting so this is a a goodie bag that I got flying on the final United 747 fight the 747 is just a beautiful playe the queen of the skies and uh is that your favorite aircraft yeah I mean it it barely exists anyway anym I flew it on Lanza they still fly the 747400 and the 747 are we allowed to fly lianza nowadays and know they paid out a few million dollars because of because of our reporting I think they've done tsha I think they realized the the errors of their ways yeah I I agree they've they've taken some really good Stu air flies at 747 but that's about it United gave us this whole goodie bag down to the safety card they're like take the safety cards it's all you don't need it anymore being trashed yeah down to just medallions for the final flight and coins they made it was such a cool experience flying uh that was on San Francisco to whole Honolulu at what point did you know you were an AV geek Aviation geek yeah I mean I just love flying I love I always feel the need to travel I've been flying I think I have like four years of consecutive months that I've flowing in a plane now since Co yeah pretty much uh it's it's a bit of an addiction I suppose but I just I love constantly moving and and and I just love everything about it I love the feeling of being in the clouds I think it's the most incredible feet of humanity yeah absolutely like literally I I know it's been around for a journey that would take years or couldn't be done in a lifetime could be done now and be complain oh that's a 15 hour flight it's so long that flight took years years they couldn't do it it didn't exist it's amazing and and what elon's trying to do with with SpaceX and I mean getting I I think in In Our Lifetime it's going to be here to Australia in 30 minutes yeah that would be awesome I think that's going to happen I think the entire global economy and but will you go to Mars I don't think so I don't think so would you yeah it would be a tough sell I think yeah I mean there's only certain Windows they could land in but the moon might be more feasible yeah we'll see yeah if their daily flights the moon even just outer space and when that becomes more affordable I can't wait to use my miles for something like that I missed out on the opportunity to fly the Concord on Miles because that was always bargain but that was before my time to fly supersonic on the con boom boom we'll see you know boom is a new uh jet manufacturer you'd call them I guess that's trying to make another Super the problem with the conord and why the Concord failed was just that first class became so nice and Concord was all coach configuration charging more than a first class flight I mean just flying on lifton's a first class I flew earlier this year and they give you little rubber duckies to take home with you Lion's a first class terminal for the bath that they have in the uh these are famous rubber duckies by the way if you don't know about these the Lanza first class terminal in Frankfurt is people have collections of hundreds of these guys yeah and they change them constantly yeah they're always changing yeah that's so fun there's these little parts of like the mileage world that the people in it it's it's it's it's like you said it's the best hobby it's really the best Hobby and you if you know you know that you call the lounge beforehand and they get kosher food for you when you're there and they'll drive you in a Porsche up to your plane just the little things it's it's really fun and so the fact that it takes seven hours to fly instead of 3 hours it's not that consequential when you're flying in that kind of luxury Concord come back will Super Sonic Jack come back maybe yeah tough business model it is historically a lot of kosher consumers would not travel to yah Pittsville uh on vacation even if it's a beautiful place cuz there's no Kosher food right A lot of people I don't mean to hate on New York at all but you know they used to certain Creature Comforts what what are your methods what are you doing nowadays to Buck that Trend cuz I I I want to say that I think Dan deals has strongly encouraged people and gotten thousands tens of thousands of people to travel to more exotic locations yeah I mean eventually going to Miami is boring right there's a time and place for a 2-day trip to Miami I mean I moved there so is it boring it I'll let you know fair enough I feel like it's a good place to vacation to but I can't do the Summers there so what are you doing as a coacher consumer to be able to travel anywhere what are your secrets yeah the polar bear bag is something that's definitely critical because it's an insulated bag that you can check under a plane and it fits lots of food that you can freeze and you can put you know Frozen and milk and things in there that will also keep everything else nice and Frozen so I've flown with one of those to palow or to Guam or to spalart up by close to the North Pole and down to Antarctica and the malds whove traveled with that so it just keeps your food good and Frozen for several days sure and if your hotel room doesn't have a freezer you could even load it up with like ice cubes and keep been there done that keep food Frozen it's amazing I've done it I've done a twoe trip with the polar bear yeah so that's fantastic the hot logic is something very cool gameer it's absolute GameChanger you could bring it a little like oven like device but it's small and portable folds up to nothing you can plug it in on a plane and have even if the plane doesn't have kosher meals you could warm up your own meal sometimes the kosher meal the salad tray is all Frozen or the food is frozen you could pop it in there and you'll have hot kosher food do you ever get scared using the hot Logic on of plane I've seen flight attendants use it really yeah yeah really yeah so they're not scared of you're not you're not scared i' I've used it and the outlets they only allow a limited amount of power I you know I think maybe today you me mentioned that yeah my laptop wouldn't charge on the plane unless it was off but the hot Logics they draw so little power that it's it's not a problem right and then they have two sizes you could do 9 x13 in a hot logic or just a little serving and they really did I me we always used to travel with a big toaster oven but this is a nice replacement now we still sometimes might bring the toaster oven too depending on the Betty Crocker is great Betty Crocker is also awesome yeah I mean Pizza Oven eggs Pizza on it everything everything you brownies you know you're cook anything on that Betty Crocker it's pretty great and they even come in red and blue if you want to use it as a grill to cook your hot dogs and burgers then want to cook your pizza and what what have you yeah so I don't let that aspect stop me you just go to any kosher you know takeout counter and you could have them make meals or you could even do it yourself by buying tin foil pans and just you know I know there's a lot of wrap them and you could warm it up anywhere there's some koser stores that sell prepackaged meals do you like that or you like doing it yourself more it just depends on the trip I've done you know pomegranate meals s we've done um I'm not sure they have the same quality as they used to have but it's nice it's convenient it's hard to keep up that quality when the price of everything goes up and and what you're able to charge for those yeah what is the biggest mistake you see people doing with points and Miles you really have to know how to maximize your points and Miles so you don't want to use your your miles for shopping at amazon.com where you might only get I know when I go to check out they're like do you want to use your bank points for one cent off your purchase not even you might only get like s cents for MX points at Amazon bad a terrible Redemption they do offer sometimes promotions where you could use one point and get $15 off that's awesome but don't use more than one point um but also if you just look at you know a travel portal you might not get a great value for your miles so if you're trying to redeem miles for a paid flight on some cards it can be worthwhile but other cards it's not worthwhile so you have to know which card you have and the value of your miles oftentimes you may be better transferring those points to an airline where you can get a better value for your miles but sometimes it could be worth using the portal you just have to compare and see what's the best value for your miles how much is a paid ticket how many miles do you need which partner Airlines might be really good to redeem them with and that way you could maximize your Redemption here's the boarding passes from one of the uh crazier things that I've done which is when I flew home from my SMA program in Los Angeles at Oran and kabad to Cleveland I made about 14 stops why did I make 14 stops well I I flew from Dallas to San Antonio and then from San Antonio to Dallas and back and forth to Austin and to Houston you kept you kept all these boarding passes yeah I kept the boarding passes what not they had these flights which were dirt cheap and every flight that you took you got 10,000 bonus miles so there for Smiles I got status and so uh that was fun how many boarding passes have you kept in general I keep all my boarding passes I've got a full thousands of board down to my Singapore sweets experiences where I've had you know couple sweet on a Singapore plane my wife we flew to uh JFK to Frankfurt and then to Paris yeah just uh hang on to them my boarding passes still there's more boarding passes this isn't even a fraction this is this is the boarding passes from the United Island Hopper where you stop and go from Honolulu to majo to palao uh and you stop in quadulan sh and kasay um yeah so I hang on to him that's awesome fun can you really quickly rank your favorite Airlines pling award program what you love about each one just really quick yeah I I mean as far as like an award Redemption is concerned I love flying on the Asian carriers ja is an awesome first class experience with Miles and Ana so both those Japanese carriers are are amazing cath Pacific from Hong Kong you really love Japan uh cath Pacific Hong Kong Bas is also is also awesome is that as good since the protest there and everything and Hong Kong is quite the same as it used to be wait Kath you think is yeah they still great and they're launching an awesome new first class product I think you said kath is the best bed in the sky yeah most comfortable bed for sure for sleeping and for sitting it's it's not as private it doesn't have the showers of Emirates or etad which are a lot of fun um but just very comfortable right so Lanza like I said is is always a fun experience just for their first class Terminals and lounges that they have I think the craziest thing is and someone that hasn't flown first class literally won't believe this you could get off a 12-hour flight and be like do I have to get off yeah I just I don't want to get off spin it around again and that's not an exaggeration that's not an exaggeration at all back in 10 uh we flew lianza first class on a trip where I had planned an entire surprise trip using a US Airways kind of round the world award redemption in first class and I didn't tell my wife Mimi where we were going so checking at the airport in Cleveland I had her wait and not see where we're checking the bags to that is so fun yeah so we went to Zurich in the first and then we were flying um from Zurich to Paris via Frankfurt I'll be on starlines carriers and based on a word availability of course right and then in in Frankfurt or was it Munich it's been already 14 years but the first class Lounge agent was like oh so where are you traveling to and I said my wife doesn't know she's like oh my gosh that's the sweetest thing I ever heard so she's like just just hand me your boarding pass I won't say anything and she's like okay then you're we're in the first class Lounge so like the driver will come pick you up from the first class lounge and drive you to the plane and the driver when he brought us to the plane said hang on here for a minute cuz he was told that she didn't know where we were going so the driver went onto the plane told the pilot don't announc where we're going to and then so on that flight they never announced this is a plane going to XYZ going to Paris they didn't say a word about it all the other passers on board are freaking out where are we going I assume they used their boarding pass and went through the regular gate we just climbed up the plane from the bottom where the on the tarmac wow you go straight from the lift house in the lounge onto the plane correct yeah so you're going onto the tarmac and you just take an elevator up to the plane um and so on the plane itself attendant asked my wife if she figured out where we were going yet and that's to give announcements in French and uh and she said you know they also speak French in Geneva that's amazing so that was pretty incredible wow that's incredible what got you to move into the credit card miles and point space on Dance deals because the first deal was not that so what got you to shift into that like I said I always love to travel um when I was in yiva I was always involved with chartering planes for the whole yiva to go on a trip to New York mhm stuff like that sure um and yeah like I said I used to fly home with 14 stops or I would American Airlines had this promotion where If you flew twice between New York and Florida or California you got a free ticket to fly anywhere in the world and yeah so those redemptions were just so exciting at that time and I just got really involved and passionate in finding the best ways to use them the best ways to earn them um and so naturally the easiest way to earn miles was opening credit cards and at the time you could open up pretty much an unlimited number of credit around what year was that was that before the crash the crash in 2008 yeah far before then um I mean I first got into miles on a large scale probably with the eBay anything points where you could earn eBay points for selling things on eBay so I would sell things to myself on eBay which is probably against the rules but I would generate hundreds of thousands and eventually got you know over a million points that I transferred from eBay and how old were you then over to Cath Pacific um this is probably 200 2001 2002 is um so I was maybe 17 or 18 okay and when I cracked my first million points with CRA a Pacific transferring over from eBay points so you had a million miles before you were 18 yeah and so then it's just an addiction how do you get more miles and credit cards was just the easy way to do it right and the blog has always been very much so a Blog Dan deals is a Blog and it's what interests you what interests me exactly and that's what we share yeah so write about how to earn those miles and eventually well you could earn a lot of miles opening credit cards so I just kept writing about what I was doing which is opening hundreds of credit cards and earning tens of millions of miles on the forums we talk about a lot of stuff that we don't talk about on Dan deals.com is there a line a threshold that you won't cross on deals when it comes to topics you talk about again it has to be scalable to be on the main dance deal site has something that's worthwhile for hundreds of thousands of readers I don't even mean deals I mean uh politics religion um when is next Wednesday hot hot topic on DDF think is as controversial as when is next Wednesday no no not even the Caesar salad of Tabernacle is that controversial because if it's Thursday when is next Wednesday is that this Wednesday or is that next Wednesday no no it's next Wednesday next Wednesday might be this Wednesday this Wednesday might be a week after next Wednesday well this Wednesday he's crazy it's next Wednesday I think we try to shy away from politics more on The Dan Deal's main site but on DDF people can let as like a corporate decision like any company yeah all right very cool how much money do you think you've saved over the past 20 years and also how much money can someone expect to make or or value attained through getting into credit cards that is not involved in credit cards I mean saved is kind of relative what I have so I mean value attained right like you took a $110,000 flight that's let's call that $10,000 right how much have you gotten I mean for sure I FL on millions of dollars of flights millions of dollars yeah I but that's easy because a first class easy no no I mean just to get to hit that level I mean when you redeem for a first class ticket an Ana that cost $30,000 sure and you could use you know7 000 Virgin Atlantic points he transferred over from 50,000 Bank points right with a transfer bonus and you got player you know two- player mode yeah you're opening up credit cards in your own name and your wife's name and you're yeah you rack up the miles it's not I remember you were on my favorite Airline JJ and you had a literal couch in first class just you guys we had the entire cabin so we redeemed half a million US Airways miles for the entire Tam which is airline code was JJ their first class cabin was four seats basically in a living room could configuration very similar to what Air France has today but it's very hard to redeem miles for Air France first class you have to be an Elite member on Air France or you could use hybrid points so what would that have cost monetary to book an entire first class cabin oh tens of thousands of dollars easily um but we booked it round trip for half a million uh US Airways miles crazy crazy outsized values yeah it was unbelievable to have the whole cabin just for at the time we had two kids and for us to be able just to have the whole cabin not have to worry if the kids cry it doesn't matter we are the entire cabin right so it's like flying private but on a jumbo jet down Toth unable unbelievable they even picked us up we stayed at the W South Beach they picked us up in you know limousines from the W and drove us to mayam airport and escorted us to the lounge into the plane so it was really an incredible experience that's the what you were talking about before that's the service you find outside of America it just doesn't exist here correct it's incredible and I remember the World Series you got the first pitch of game seven in the World Series and they sold that at auction yeah and it sold for a million doll half a million dollars so what I used a million miles for and you think of a mile as being worth well it's like 1% cash back so it's like one cent each so for that to be worth half a million dollars 50 cents a mile cents a mile is an incredible value for your miles like if every mile that I had was worth 50 c i mean right there you made a million you made you made half a million dollars right so I didn't make it and I didn't save it because I wouldn't have spent it Grant but you you obain a value of I could I could I could live I think this sies back into it being just a great hobby you know people have hobbies that cost them money we have a hobby that right is allowing us to travel the world for free and getting experiences and fill up passports full of awesome stamps I'm going to be sad when they get rid of passport stamps I think Europe is on its way out of really removing all passport STS just digitally they know who you are facial recognition they exactly but we want to look back at these stamps and see the places we've gone and stamps from everywhere from Antarctica just to we went to Egypt together for stamp I have I have that in this passport that's a cool stamp actually yeah paa's little jellyfish stamp here I mean it's just it's something special to be able to look through that I'm going to feel a little sad yeah I think anyone from our generation is going to miss passport stamps so how much can someone expect to make off credit cards that is not involved in at all but is open to getting involved in it I mean don't think of it as how much you could make but you know again how how much will you enjoy having those miles what kind of trips could we be able to take that you wouldn't be able to afford otherwise life experiences you life experiences memories travel with your family travel to see family it opens up doors that will wouldn't be open otherwise people with relatives living across the world that they see once every 10 years they could see them so yes is your is your dream to fly in first class yeah you could do that you could fly in flights that regular people can't afford sure right so you could easily obtain so it's not about the monetary gain as monetary gain but it's just a fun expence hobby it's a fun life experience fun memories right yeah I mean growing up we always traveled um you know winter break our parents would fly us somewhere definitely not In First Class not internationally yes but yeah and a lot of people it creates nice memories I think there's a misnomer about miles in general that people think you have to go to borbora or the Maldives or first class in ettihad and Emirates like no a family of six can can fly from New York to LA and have an amazing time in yosity Valley that they wouldn't be able to have otherwise you know or go to um my God Big Sir uh the hotels there are just unbelievable I love big sir and and you got the hide up there and even Death Valley is crazy beautiful America is is honestly totally unbiased here it's the most beautiful country in the world the most diverse by a long shot there's a lot there's a lot to see national parks in Utah and in Yellowstone there's so there's so much and that's not even getting into Hawaii and Alaska right and those are just so Sil if you haven't into to Hawaii or Alaska yeah yeah absolutely yeah and you can get there on Miles and that's a great Redemption for family very easily Alaska's very very affordable right it's a long flight it's about eight hours we flew from Newark to Anchorage but wow it's uh it's an amazing Place beautiful just beautiful so exotic feeling so beautiful what do you choose Hawaii or Alaska well do you like hot or do you like cold they're both beautiful they both are super unique you really need to experience both of them you've been to Hawaii how many times too many I'm going to out you right now you're Hawaii you're asking acting like it's this toss up how many it's probably at least 18 times how many months have you spent in whole years now well my first trip there was in 2006 okay again I was in SM program in Los Angeles and there was a deal to fly to Hawaii for 80 bucks round trip round trip including the hotel including car rental including the airfare so my Kus and I were like well we're going to Hawaii for perm I forgot to realize when we were find in Tinus Esther is that the fast gets a couple hours longer when you fly in that direction three hours longer nice long fast for for tin sester there but uh we brought food for the SCH from Los Angeles to Hawaii yeah that's something you do a lot right I know I try to do it always try to bring food for SCH wherever we go I ask them what they need so when we went to Kyoto last year I asked the you know what is it that your kids might want or and he's like oh my kids have actually never had any dairy because they keep and there is no Dairy it's the concept that doesn't exist in America no they've never had yogurt they've never had cream cheese and so we brought them and their kids are going crazy over they're so happy they got me that must feel amazing that's awesome so I had that in the polar bear bag and and brought the buge of or in Alaska I asked them and they're like donuts you know kids would love some donuts right so there's amazing donuts here in clev at H's Bakery so we brought a few dozen donuts and gave them to the the kids there and they're loving it so beautiful yeah so it's always it's always nice because these K in these farflung places they don't their kids don't get treats like that ever so to be able to to bring something unique like that and they're like how did you get it here it's perishable like well we have this polar bear B right that's fantastic is there anything that people should remember about Black Friday shopping Black Friday shopping it used to be like all in store you'd have these crazy lines outside Best Buy but nowadays really Amazon is taken over I think from the brick and mortar stores in general for retail right brick and mortar stores aren't willing to take those losses like they used to the mail and rebates that they used to have don't exist anymore kl's does yeah but not the same not the same level where I was going to Best Buy and getting free phones out the door rebate like it was crazy what they were doing at for for years around the turn of the century really nowadays with Amazon just look at Dan deals you follow dance deals notifications and you'll get the $94 you know cameras that should cost $1,000 dollar or oh yeah there was a prime day in October just now and I got 27 inch uh screen computer screen with speakers built in for $20 yeah and and that was a lot at 3:00 a.m. I shared it there was there was like sofas like this beautiful Drop is a nice little hack you really got to stay up at 3:00 a.m. on Prime day in Black Friday and saber Monday and wait for that drop yeah I mean it's once every few years it happens and it's alive for an hour but yeah there were beautiful leather sofas for like $200 like $2,000 sofas just a few weeks ago and they s crazy pretty pretty quickly even at 3:00 a.m. oh yeah no question or they fix it it's an algorithm because what people have to understand is is 3:00 a.m. is specific time where a lot of these companies are B especially Amazon and that's when they're setting the new prices and they're changing on Prime day on Black Friday as I reminded they're changing Millions tens of millions of asens is is what they call it over there and product locator numbers product locator numbers and and some just slipped through the cracks they they left a coupon on that's not supposed to be there or with the free uh was it the free handyman services that they had on Amazon I got my playground set up my backyard which is great incredible yeah so that happens so shop online for Black Friday it's not store anymore sign up for Dan deals notifications exactly what'sapp we got a new app going on got Dan Deal's app what are some of your favorite stories that Dan's dealers have shared with you over the years about how you the site has affected their lives yeah I mean you know stories like being able to to travel to you know a sick grandparent in Israel wouldn't be able to afford otherwise but this way they able to take the whole family to do that or grandparents traveling to see their grandkids abroad those stories are always are always awesome some of some of my favorites are there were some sh made through Dan deals and DDF and DDF um there was a DDF member Judah that passed away and we got to raise money for him and for his widow and their their kid at the time to help support them when they really needed it it's really a community on DDF it feels like a family yeah um some of the other incredible stories was reuniting reuniting that sitter that old prayer book from was that from the Holocaust I think do you remember even older but even old I think it was from the 19 Century wow with their family they were able to find it with their family just tracing lineage to have a Jewish burial for uh remember able to help identify the uh names for Jewish burial and um there's a lot of cool stories for sure it's incredible I think even one couple mentioned on in the New York Times in one of their you know dating profiles that they had somehow encountered each other through danal mentioned Dan deals in the article like yeah was it like the Delta flight maybe or something [Music] that you see you know the Divine Providence that you see just in everything and every little detail you know when flights go wrong and something happens our aunt was caught in Chicago during the Great blackout and wound up meeting her future husband there during that black so whenever I whenever I travel and something bad happens I think you know okay we move on WE improvise this is meant to be for some reason I think if you go with that attitude that it's meant to be and that there's a reason for these bad things that are happening that you just don't realize yet might not realize now you might not realize for 10 years from now but time and time again in my life I've seen that yeah so you just go roll pun yeah you roll with the punches and you and you make the best of it and there's a reason why you're there and you just have to figure out what the reason is so be open to new experiences and and and to make the best of it even when that flight's cancelled there's a reason for that so right strongly believe that I was going to Cabo the other week to uh the zun there most unbelievable coach of property in my opinion in the world and and better bahamar oh yeah I me I love the bahamar the bahamar for Family Travel I feel like is amazing no question the bahamar is is incredible for family incredible for for the water park high points for that experience where you get free kosher breakfast there and unbelievable kosher food it's so amazing and it's so easy to get to NASA it's non-stop flights yeah no question so many places but the zun quality Cabo Cabo sorry the well the zun and Cabo exactly it's a r Carlton Reserve property there's like maybe seven in the world um um the level of service is is again it's out of outside of America and the level of service is just unparal is unparalleled you have your Tas Swani and Butler you talk to them on WhatsApp and they have a kosher Chef there that's cooking you everything with a fulltime Ash separate kitchens they'll make you anything you want the menu is amazing they use they have this like Mexican chant that is like unbelievably good you would never guess how good it is and uh anyway my flight's there though you remember what happened there that's a bit of a think I had like eight different flights there and back but but yeah that's all I brought this it's all Divine Providence and for good things so that's good oh uh so we talked about some of your favorite Airlines what are your favorite hotels in the world Hotel Brands Hotel redemptions what are your favorites I I love the Park Hyatt brand yeah the service there is always elevated and always the US parkids are not great I don't love the US Park Heights but some of the foreign ones Sydney Melbourne were such great experiences in Tokyo Kyoto like I mentioned before Paris zoric um there's some really really great Parkay hotels they're special they're special they may they really they blend in with a local so nicely where it's just like you feel like Paris for me now part of it is Park High how can I not stay there it's like just part of the experience the smell of it like just getting you now I'm back I love that Fairmont hotels obviously yeah of course there fairmont's the Kalani and Maui the Pacific GM and and Whistler sorry Vancouver yeah the fa like Louise Jasper those are all awesome the best there the view from your room in Lake Louis I mean it was unbelievable it was the most unbelievable View and and feel and and even like the Fairmont in Pittsburgh we went over Co yeah um I took I took my kids to Pittsburgh which is a two-hour drive from Cleveland right and there was an Indians game then and it was Co so they were playing these games with empty ballparks sure but from our room from our suite that I got with my Fairmont Platinum for life account for free we were able to watch the baseball game Clear View there's even binoculars in the room you could see even better uh from The View you see straight to home PL right so just a simple like Fairmont Pittsburgh but it was awesome that is awesome I think points wise hay is so far ahead of everyone else yeah H really the best value overall they've had a lot of new Partnerships with Mr and Mrs Smith and some all inclusives that might not be as great of a Redemption value as what they used to be um I feel they're like 10 years overdue for a devaluation and I don't want to jinx anything and it's amazing but I think they see that value that you talked about earlier of actually having loyal members yeah and I think a lot of the old Starwood program Executives went to H it they didn't Mar it and so merid doesn't seem to really get loyalty anymore maybe they're just too big that they don't care whereas hi it is small they have to have a niche and their Niche is having these aspirational values right right so they give you upgrades with status yeah you can confirm sweets in advanc Hiatt Marriott wouldn't dream of that um yeah so there's a lot of value in that Hilton has been on the up and up though Hilton has been getting better they took away the slh portfolio from hayatt and there's some great redemptions in that hotel portfolio right and obviously the Walder fror brand fantastic the one Jerusalem is best hotel in Israel in your opinion you know I think maybe it's not what it used to be definitely foodwise it's not what it used to be oh wowco or postco yeah um same story for the Ritz Carlton Herz aah I love staying in both those hotels but both have gone downhill MH um maybe they just need some more higher end competition over there the Intercontinental Jerusalem is opening say year it's been saying next year for a long time it's kind of like Cleveland sports championships there always next year always next year that's right but that should be uh some good competition there for them right across from the great synagogue nothing will ever compare to our Starwood trip around Israel no that was amazing wasn't it that was the most unbelievable trip our first time in Israel you me Brother D and we use Starwood points in a lot at the herods vital Spa we St at the Sheran Plaza in yam that was when the plaza was like the hotel Taria the Dead Sea Kaa there were star hotels everywhere for like a few thousand points a night yeah it was the year after the Lebanon war in what 2007 2008 yeah and then 2006 the war 2007 2007 and and they set the evaluations of the hotels what it's going to cost the year prior and they didn't change it so and it was based on capacity yeah so the hotels were totally empty everything's a category one 2,000 points a night or something 2800 night and we're staying at the some of the nicest hotels in Israel was that was a fun trip we went around for a month around Israel there's nothing that was our first trip to Israel we' never been there before and I was 20 22 years old yeah I was 15 I think and yeah but I said that I was going to take my kids back before they 22 and I did kids have been there several times that's amazing yeah have you ever considered doing a paid subscription model to like exclusive deals no you know I kind of like just the free model I kind of like that it should be open to everyone it's a little bit in the name right yeah it's it's stands deals right that's right I don't know it feels it feels kind of strange to charge people for a premium service you know people that are really in the know will maybe subscribe to different ways of getting notifications some might be faster than others um and you just have to be quick but no I don't think we're going to do a premium service I mean I'll never say never right it's hard at scale because there's a lot of deals with low quantity that I I I end up posting most of the deals like on the daily well I think that's a rep thank you for joining us yeah thank you Dan for for everything you do for everyone and uh thank you personally for me and happy 20th birthday to Dan deals and happy 40th to you thank you JJ and uh how long has it been for you at Dan deals now gosh 11 or 12 years awesome have to redo this for your 20th and and thank you to all the readers really it's all possible because you guys and your clicks and support and visiting the website and we it means the world to us and and when you share what you're able to get you're able to gain it it's it's really why we do this all right I guess that's a wrap till next time until next time have a good night everybody good night