Unlocking the Power of Alaska Airlines Miles: A Deep Dive | DansDeals Podcast Ep 3

welcome to the third Dan's Deals podcast this thing is really catching on now I'm loving doing it with you and and I'm excited to see where it goes we've been posting the best deals online for over 20 years saving people billions of dollars and earning them tens of billions of miles and points and we're here to do the same for you with American recently there's a much better way of booking American flights right yeah absolutely you could Book American flights using American miles currently those miles are hard to come by right nobody really transfers over to American and that's on purpose they want you to use their credit card no major Bank no major bank now they announced that with their re-upping of their contract with City Bank that they're closing off the Barclay's cards people that have a Barclay's cards are can be transferred over to a City bank card automatically yeah over the next you know probably 13 months they'll be transferred over to City Bank automatically and as part of that agreement they said that they're going to integrate with city thank you points so which is really cool and everybody's assumption is that city thank you points will be transferable over to America it's just a question of when how about the ratio is it going to be one to one it'll be one to one yeah it was one to one when they did this for for a few month period a few years ago it'll be one to one almost all their partners are one to one pretty much their hotel ones can vary a little bit that's a huge win for City huge win yeah huge win so American miles are great miles first of all you can cancel at any time and get all your miles and and taxes paid back no fees and there's just great value on domestic redemptions International redemptions business class there's a lot of great sweet spots and they still have an award chart for partner Airlines which Delta doesn't have you doesn't have so that's valuable which partners are good with American in general any one world partner so you know anything from cath Pacific to Qatar to quantis British Airways has those fuel sech charges right um but there's lots of other partners there's uh finire there's Iberia there's there's lots of One World Airlines so there's lots of great Redemption options also for to book on Alaska but the game changer that exists right now is that you can transfer miles from AMX to Alaska so that wasn't previously possible but now that Alaska is merging with Hawaiian Airlines this is what I wrote about in August that I was transferring over a lot of miles from MX to Hawaiian Airlines hoping that they'd convert to Alaska miles and MX and August had a promotion for a 20% bonus when you transfer to Hawaiian so for every one AMX point you got 1.2 to Hawaiian Miles and the Hope was that they' transfer over to Alaska miles at an even 1:1 ratio which is exactly what happened 2 weeks later you're able to transfer over those Hawaiian Miles over to Alaska so that worked out well but you can still transfer MX points over to Alaska at a one to1 ratio by basically just transferring AMX points to Hawaiian and then Hawaiian points into Alaska points right and that's all instant all instant uh the names do have to match but with AMX for example if you add an authorized user you can can transfer points to that authorized users mileage account oh that's very cool yeah you do have to have it active for I think 60 days before you could do that as an authorized user but there's no fee to add an authorized user onto most cards right uh so that's a nice way to transfer over to someone else's account very cool okay so let's jump into what you could do with Alaska miles and why they're special it used to be like around 2011 British Airways launched obious and for 4 and half th000 avos you're able to book domestic short Hall flights on American and they've continually raised sample routes of that yeah so New York to Cleveland Pittsburgh Detroit Toronto Montreal Boston DC short Hall routs like that Miami to the Caribbean sure yeah Miami to Cancun and there's lots of other uh you know Los Angeles over to Vegas or San Francisco right or even diabo should be within that first band I have to check exactly but there's lots of great short Hall routes so those used to be 4 and half th000 British Airways miles and they've raised it then to six and seven and a half and 11 and a half and now it's 6 and a half thousand British Airways obious so it's no longer a good deal with British Airways but Alaska came and changed their Award chart they lowered the price which is unheard of really in why they do that just to gain more popularity for their program they have a smaller program it's a niche program but they want people to open up their credit cards and participate in their loyalty program they have just the one Hub in Seattle well they just merged with Hawaiian Airlines so now they they have their Hub in Anchorage their primary Hub in Seattle they also had a secondary Hub in Portland Oregon and now they have the Honolulu Hub that they've inherited from Hawaiian right they're really striving to become an international carrier they're launching flights over to Asia now from Seattle which they've never done before so they're becoming a larger player I could totally see over the Trump Administration them trying to buy JetBlue for example okay because they're Alaska's really strong on the west coast right and jeo is so strong Boston JFK Fort Lauderdale which Alaska has very little market presence right so Alaska could really grow as long as they ask the Jet Blue Team that sounds pretty good right which part of Jet Blue Team the whole team and Jet Blue's been going down down down for years now profitability amenities in Flight they're on time schedule what hasn't been bad about jebl the past few years they've been an operational mess for a lot of years now I mean it really started when they had their operations meltdown under David neilan who founded the airline he also founded lots of other airlines like WestJet or Azul and Brazil and he founded Breeze in the US afterwards so he's a prolific founder of Airlines but he was pushed out after jeetu had a had a meltdown a while back but they've definitely gotten worse since they pushed him out less customer friendly at least to be a very customer friendly Airline but just operationally yeah they've been a mess total mess and Alaska's miles are so much better than the jblu points to be fair Alaska is part of the One World Alliance and that's why this is all possible is they have all these partiss because they're able to join that Alliance and jeepblue is a little bit too Niche too small to Boutique right to join an alliance also directly competing with a lot of the other big players in those alliances being on the East Coast but that's not necessarily A Bad Thing For example American had that Northeast Alliance with JetBlue which was helping both of them because they're both too small in the Northeast right in New York City Delta and United are so big that American and jeeto can't really compete with them effectively so that Northeast Alliance help them compete even though they are still competitors with each other but by them cooperating on routes uh they are able to compete better but the Biden Administration uh do and justice department shut that down right so a switch to Trump would then allow Alaska I I could see two parts I I I could see JetBlue trying to restart that Northeast Alliance with American because they both still want it well that's going would be hard of a Northeast Alliance but I could see but they could become Partners there's a few different paths I could see American trying to push Jeet to joining One World although they're pretty small but if if American wants it they'll get them in there because American and British Airways are the anchors the anchors of the One World Alliance but I could also see Alaska merging with jebl buying jebl and integrating them with Hawaiian they're going to keep that as a separate brand they're going to keep you know the Hawaiian planes and Alaska planes separ makes sense for marketing because one's going to Hawaii and one's going to Alaska right it sells itself it would be weird if flights to Hawaii are on Alaska if I'm flying from LA to Hawaii and I'm flying on Alaska it's kind of strange I mean the SEO is also Priceless literally yeah someone's looking for Hawaii flights and hawaiian's number one every single time so that's part of it I think part of it also is they wanted they wanted the local support for the merger to go through so they had to promise that but I think they're going to stick with it just because of that reason they're both named after States right and even though their primary Hub is in Seattle and not Anchorage but they are still very heavy in Alaska so they'll probably keep those two Brands I like that for an airline merger I I feel like when you lose a brand when United lost Continental it just you you lose stuff they kept their tail they kept yeah the logo yeah yeah so interesting little give back there yeah but but but just I don't know I don't if it's operationally or just something's lost when an airline disappears yeah right but I could see Alaska merging with JetBlue and I don't think the JetBlue brand stays at that point I think it becomes Alaska similar to how they bought Virgin America that became just integrated with the Alaska Network yeah I mean also like I said Jeet Blue's been such a mess the past few years even their loyalist customers I think are starting pick I mean they're not even going to be flying to Miami anymore right they're still flying Miami to Boston but yeah it's probably New York I'm in New York Miami yeah New York Miami is being discontinued yeah I had a friend that just signed up for the JetBlue credit card and he's trying to spend on it to get mint status just for the Miami Mosaic status just for the Miami to New York Route which he does all the time and now he's like the news just broke they're stopping that and if you're based in Miami going to Fort Lauderdale is a schlep not too bad but but but yeah depends where you are right right if you're in Bickle you don't want to go to For Lauderdale if you're in you know here we're shooting this episode in Surfside right um it's a it's pretty equidistant right yeah so they're still going to fly Fort Lauderdale to New York yeah just not Miami to New York correct oh okay okay that's not as bad as I thought actually yeah they're just cutting out the Miami Airport Miami is a tough airport for them because American is such a presence there and because they no longer have that Alliance it made sense with the alliance uh but with that end of the alliance the Northeast Alliance with American that had to go yeah they're still flying West Palm and they're still flying Fort Lauderdale I mean yeah like you said in Surf Side I would take Fort Lauderdale every easier airport right versus Miami airport is huge you're renting a car from Miami you need to take the shuttle over first of all you're flying into D60 coming from Cleveland right not as often as it used to be they used to fly those ERJ 145 so now they fly bigger planes okay I mean so D50 D60 somewhere within that region every single time yeah and then you got to go take the train go to the train take it down three places go out you take the shuttle from the rental car just to get to the terminal then you walk in the terminal you're talking about coming to the airport talking about leaving yeah coming to the airport and then if you're trying to find the pre-check and it's all the way at the other end you know it's like by D1 yeah and then you go through and all the people mover is down that's ridiculous but even when the people mover is moving right you still need to wait for that and and and take it all the way down to D60 it only goes about d45 and then walk it's unbelievable rental C to gate in Miami is minimum 20 minutes right no more than that more than that I think so I haven't rented a car in Miami in a long time what how long I mean it depends on security depends if pre-check is open of course there's no clear in the American aliens terminal in Miami because American blocks clear because it's owned by Delta United hello door 11 every single time what's door 11 do you you don't know about the door 11 trick I'm not based in Miami oh my gosh Miami Airport go to door 11 it's right past American and there is a clear line that never has a weight that's awesome you go through it it's e to the left or D to the right okay and you end up right around d35 I want to say when you walk past this path it's it's a bit more walking but it's consistently no security line by Claire and I know with uh I wonder what the hours are sometimes CLA has pretty poor hours I'm flying like on a 900 p.m. flight 9 out of Miami it's probably too late for it we have to uh I'll check it um no I took the 9:00 p.m. out of Miami aturday you leave more time than I do to go to the airport no but it it'll be open we flew yesterday from Louisville to Miami and the brother that's in between us doet was very nervous about only arriving to the airport 90 minutes before the flight and I'm like you're giving no context right now all right fine we were stuck on the highway for 40 minutes not moving there's the context and he's a surgeon when we got to the airport and we got there 90 minutes before the flight I didn't even see him he he bolted he bolted up and I mean it's Lille airport at night minutes we have jobs we are blessed we can do from anywhere in the world fair that's fair he took off for the first time in a while and Di awesome yeah it was awesome we'll talk about that soon we should talk about that but he had surgery he had surgeries lined up people depending on him to operate on them today so you're saying he can't just work from anywhere with a laptop it's a weird concept why would he go into a field like that saving lives and all ah overrated now God bless him he's amazing he's amazing his patients love him if you look on Google he's like his Google reviews are crazy that's right ENT family Broward yeah number one ENT in the world absolutely he's great Dr Dave door 11 check it out are you flying out of Miami tonight y have him drop you off by door 11 okay there's not going to be a long line at 9:00 P p.m. either way so it's a bit of a waste but you could see what it's like and it's just a bit of a walk over a over a bridge or whatever it is hallway to the Deon course and that's my go to Every time I'll check it up okay so you were trying to say exactly what your estimate is for a total time from car return to the airport gate I got to figure it's half an hour wow yeah in Fort Lauderdale 15 minutes if you're flying like United terminal 1 I don't know five minutes 10 minutes oh forget about it clear and pre is there shuttle in for laudale rental in terminal one is the same the car rental return is terminal one is terminal one you just walk right across to the it's so easy if you're flying like Spirit or Jet Blue then there's a shuttle right but yeah United is amazing out of for I love that flight but the only problem is they only fly in the afternoon they don't fly in the evening so if you want to get get the full day out of it you're stuck going out of Miami if you're going to Cleveland let's let's play this game for a second let's go by City talk your favorite airport in each City for the ones that have multiples okay let's uh let's do Miami Miami or Fort Lauderdale yeah I mean Fort Lauderdale every time no I agree as a local it's it's not even close yeah my Miami airport is one of the worst in the world and Fort Lauderdale is just great airport yeah it's just a small like boutiki airport that I I've flown out of West Palm and it's even better it's so small yeah you're right there back back in the day when Continental had a hub in Cleveland we'd fight of West Palm you know would be easy but they have nonstop but now there's so few flights I think Breeze last year flew akan to West Palm I didn't make it onto that flight though yeah but akan is more of a pain than Hopkins is for me at least so Cleveland akan Hopkins yeah you know I flew Breeze from Las Vegas to akan okay they actually gave me a ticket on that flight to try them out M it was a really cool experience um how's Breeze different than other airlines Breeze is a new airline that opened up recently probably a lot of about it obv obviously they're lower cost are they going in that Spirit Frontier area no they're trying to be premium so they're flying a220s which is a fantastic plane in the back of the bus that's three and two versus three and three so only one out of every five passengers are going to have a middle seat or less than that if it's not a full flight right so most passengers are going to have that window or Isle seat much more than other airlines because of that configuration 820 is just a great plane also really comfortable plane nice wide seats just really great bathrooms great you're not hitting your head like the uh 7 through S Max no H20 is really a wonderful plane I love that plane and they have premium economy seating and they have first class seating really nice first class sitting really nice reclined good leg Yeah I have no complaints whatsoever about Breeze really really nice and akan airport is it kind of like a Miami for a lot of other airport like I mean Cleveland's not a bad airport but it is bigger Akon's really nice I mean you could park like literally 10 feet away from the terminal it's incredible it's like going to the mall and you just walk inside A's a great airport for that it's farther for me that's about it much less flight yeah the flights are are very limited Breeze is great there Breeze has flights all over the place out of arra now but they they change all the time they FW they were flying to Palm Beach in Los Angeles they don't have those anymore they're shifting them around um but for Vegas it was awesome and their gate in Vegas was right by the MX Centurion club which was nice so I got to take a shower there before the flight and uh get onto that flight and fly in first class back to Aran which is just a fantastic experience that's nice all right now the big question New York LaGuardia JFK or Newark golly Newark has really been delay prone of light they they they've changed where the controllers are based out of they moved the ATC for Newark and that's caused a lot of delays it's just very capacity limited the number of runways is limited theia also only has one real Runway right um but I find the delays in Newark are worse so I've been flying more and more into LaGuardia or JFK okay the new LaGuardia is really nice it is right it's a lot more walking but it's really nice the lounges are amazing yeah they beautiful lounges beautiful lounges the American Lounge has free kosher food really to ask for it oh I didn't know that yeah it's not like you know gourmet food it's Airline meals right it's Airline meals you could get a decent meal sometimes yeah I Tred the spaghetti and meatballs you know it's it's not winning any prizes but it's free and it's good in the American Airlines Lounge there that I get into with my uh City you know American Airlines executive card right the chase Lounge the sapphire Lounge there is awesome you can get into with your Chase credit cards is really a great Lounge you can even sign up for spa services there for free did you get a facial there yeah it was amazing yeah it was awesome inredible the dude was like doing like these like oils in my beard I'm like this is so cool like I've never done anything like this before but but I don't know I felt good we played pinball there it's such a cool Lodge they have a little like shuffle board thing there and and they have custom cocktails and they'll bring you kosher snacks if you ask for great beer too great ipas yeah yeah that's very cool when I was there the uh the like executive Lou rooms were open upstairs they were like showing it off and they had even like more premium snacks up there and yeah those are pretty expensive to rent out those private rooms but yeah they have some snacks not much they have some chips they some nuts what they what they have chips and nuts you know yeah United out of the Fort Lauderdale speaking of Fort Lauderdale again but United Fort Lauderdale has a pretty decent snack menu where they have uh those Tostitos guacamole and they have Bol humus and pretzels and they have some other snacks you could ask for so that's pretty freyle I mean a lot of the Delta lounges have kosher meals also they're not great usually I think out of New York Now Delta is serving Fresco in their Delta clubs I haven't tried that up that's what I heard recently do you still get in with your platinum card sure yeah you need to be fing Delta though right and just the user no more casts right but if you have an additional user on your platinum card if it's a paid Platinum additional user they can get in okay yeah that's cool if you fly Delta a lot right especially if there's kulture food that's actually an amazing perk you could pay that off in three visits easily so LaGuardia is probably my preference out of New York MH yeah that's cool I I guess uh close to Manhattan also and often going to the city when we you know restaurants right when you get into New York yeah if I do want to go specifically to the ohal uh to the Rees ohal then I'll probably find the JFK because it's a lot closer right depending how much time you have depends where I want to go yeah that makes sense okay I feel like we zoomed out at one point and we I want to zoom back in on Alaska miles and why they are so good right now for domestic flights yeah so it starts at four and a half thousand miles which is great so you could fly short Hall flights New York to Cleveland to Pittsburgh to Detroit to Columbus to Montreal to Toronto to Boston to DC four and a half thousand miles each way uh or if you want to fly that's crazy cheap yeah it's ridiculously cheap you know and that's on what airline are you flying cuz Alaska doesn't fly those routes right correct book you on their one world partner in this case American and that's an economy if you want to fly first class 9,000 miles each way it's a joke it's it's cheaper than again British Airways is charging 165,000 each way in economy Alaska's charging 9,000 In First Class it's like 2010 came back all of a sudden it's amazing like what happened yes with this program people talk about that era as like being the golden age for redemptions and all of a sudden it's back and availability is pretty good right that's incredible d to see yeah and I've noticed that American will not have sa Awards available for a route but Alaska will have you seen that so American doesn't really have saver Awards per se anymore on their own flights they got rid of their award charts for their own flights though they still maintain them for partner flights and now it's just kind of variable so it could be all over the place but yeah even if American isn't charging the lowest number of miles for a flight it could still be available on Alaska so American might charge 5,000 for Cleveland to New York or they might charge 35,000 and in both those cases I've been able to book them for 4 and half thousand Alaska miles which is interesting the other thing I found really interesting about it is often people look at the paid price it's $450 for this flight like oh that's not going to be available on Miles and let me go in American oh it's 30,000 miles well that's why would I bother checking Alaska and then you go in Alaska and it's 4,500 miles and you're like oh my goodness this is the best deal of there like for Miles especially in 2024 and so many people ask me that about these short Hall flights that could cost a fortune and what they can do about them and that's that's the answer is you transfer your MX points to Hawaiian and then your Hawaiian Miles over to Alaska miles right and they actually have a limited time offer right now on the Alaska credit card right tell me a little about that yeah 70,000 miles we're signing up for that so great offer wow so how many domestic flights are you able to get out of 70,000 miles so with that offer you can get 15 short hul flights wow and I mean sometimes these flights are like $450 more each way I that's over $77,000 for signing up for a credit card like $1,000 is amazing and you're able to get 7,000 out of that um and what's interesting is that there are some sweet spots even in the Award chart which is based on how far the flight is so Newark to Chicago or Philadelphia to Chicago it really should cost 75,000 miles in coach or 15,000 business but they cost 4 and a half or nine don't tell anyone those keep that on the down low right that's crazy yeah wow and how are they for for longer I know like here up Miami to New York is I think 7 and, 15,000 in first which is again the lowest Miami to Cleveland which I'm flying tonight using Alaska miles 7,000 in coach yeah 15,000 in first so yeah great bargain really is a great bargain because even when tickets got expensive you could still find that right and I don't find it with OB though I'm looking at the same flight for for for the cheaper with avos I think so is it just avios went up so much that I'm not associating it with the cheaper rates anymore yeah it just it costs so much now now you might pay you know 20,000 avos for that flight right versus with Alka 7 and a half thousand so the availability I think should be identical okay pry sh's website can be pretty buggy yeah um but it should be uh just that much cheaper using Alaska miles I know you're always telling me to never book around trip flight always book one way what's up with that I never book roundt trip flights I always book one way at a time it gives the most flexibility to change One Direction not the other to cancel One Direction not the other uh so there's no reason to lock yourself into a round trip ticket if you miss the first leg Yeah it automatically cancels the second yeah if something comes up and you need to change that outbound ticket you might lose the rest of your ticket it might cancel out if you need to change it so by having two one-way tickets you can just skip that first leg refund it or just not use it and your way back is still intact and this is especially true for domestic tickets because International I find it's a lot more expensive to book two one ways so it depends if you're buying with cash or buying with Miles typically with miles it won't be more expensive but with cash yes you generally have to book roundt trip if you're using cash internationally domestic sometimes it's true also sometimes when you're using cash it could be cheaper yeah could be cheaper to book the round trip just depends on the airline depends on the route mhm it could vary okay so always check the oneway pricing and the rure pricing but assuming the same B at is two one ways I would ask you if it's cheaper for paid round trip if you would do that but I know you don't pay for flights so when's the last thing you paid cash for a flight I don't my memory doesn't go back that far and it goes back pretty far yeah I think uh uh mom and dad were paying for our flights back then sounds about right wow what about further routes domestically like New York to LA is that also good use of Alaska miles yeah it is it's 12 and half th000 miles economy or 25,000 in business that's pretty standard across Airlines right other airlines have been raising it so it's pretty good still and their availability will still be better often than Airlines directly like American yeah it should be you know it just depends on your dates and what's going on that day and even if it's not available today it could be available tomorrow for the same flight so you really have to stay on top of it it changes all the time so if I'm looking for a mileage award ticket I'll I'll check it daily if it's not available interesting what about international flights with the last miles are there any uh sweet spots as we call them with for sure if you want to go JFK to London 22.5k in economy 45k in business un American again yeah so Delta's like having this crazy sale today I just they got email where it's 200,000 miles to fly around your business class meanwhile Alaska's regular deal without a sale is 45,000 each way so and they'll book you on American or British Airways you want to be on American though because they don't charge f search charges if you're fly in American if you fly in British Airways they pass on those fuel search charges it'll look pretty expensive right that makes a lot of sense are there any more exotic locations like obviously London cool but a little bit more exotic with Rome is exotic but Rome's a good deal too 275 in coach 55 in business a little more exotic you can go to like Tahiti on Air Tahiti newie is a one world partner so la to Tahiti be like 20,000 miles and Coach 60,000 in business availability is really hard on that with American have you seen it comes and goes it's very it's kind of streaky where some months it'll be wide open some months it won't be but even again from day to day it just changes so frequently but I've seen it available is that based on the weather because I mean Tahiti you're going to boror usually probably yeah yeah so is that based on like the season there it is seasonal it is a seasonal destination Bora Bora is better in our summertime but at the same token if you just want to get away from the cold you can still go in the winter it might be a little bit Rainier but you'll still get good days there yeah yeah Melbourne T is also decent price 42.5 in coach 85 in business uh book youan quantis or book you on American for that okay if you want to go to Morocco it should be I think 275 in economy or 55 in business JFK to Morocco and Ro morck plenty of good deals with that chart depends on the plane JFK to Morocco to Casablanca should be nice yeah you said Royal a marac is the airline yeah I never even heard of them Moroccan National carrier okay yeah and there's a new uh Park Hiatt in Morocco right yeah you heard have you heard anything about that I haven't seen many reviews on it yet not yet no I looked it up it didn't look that great honestly okay yeah I mean people often when they go to like mares they'll want to stay in like a traditional Riad something a little more exotic I guess than a hotel better hospital or Hospitality better location also I think the high a little further of field so Frozen cons you're not like right in middle of the hustle and bustle it's it's more you know right spread out and not in the middle of things but on other hand it's not in the middle of things right and you know this might just be my ignorance showing maybe that was the vibe they were going for at the park High cuz it did look kind of smaller than a typical Park H at room would be and maybe that's what they're going for is that type of local Vibe I haven't like really I haven't really done enough Research into that right I mean I love so many Park Heights I haven't really done much research into Morocco it is on my bucket list kind of pulled back a little bit after October 7th but I'm sure I'll make it there yeah for sure parides generally I think try to blend into the local environment and culture so that's probably what they were going for there okay all right what else can you tell me about Alaska miles if you want to book a partner award they do charge a $1250 per Direction booking fee you don't get that back if you cancel the award so while with American miles it is fully refundable with Alaska you do have that 1250 booking fee but if you want to change the award that's free so rather than cancel award if like I was booked Miami to Cleveland and I and he had to push it off by a day all I had to do was change it to the next day and there was no fee to do that so there's no reason to cancel it per se unless you need the miles for a different trip but as long as you're okay just letting it ride you could change the flight out to four months from now and change it again there's no limit to how many times you could change it for free right will they do like a courtesy wave of that $12 fee if you ask nicely if you cancel if you cancel within 24 hours it doesn't go back automatically but if you ask them or you could DM them on X Oh So within 24 hours of booking you could get refunded yeah it won't do it automatically but if you ask for it I dm' them on X and they gave it back that's cool yeah I feel like uh these are the little things that you know that most people don't know is how to reach customer service quickly with different companies is X your preferred way of reaching out to depends on the airline depends on the hotel but yeah it's usually where I'll start MH it's easier than with a chat you know you have to wait for the chat agent to come you don't know if they'll understand what you want so rather than wait on hold for a chat agent and have to do it all in real time on X it's just easy I'll just shoot off a direct message they'll get to it whenever sometimes it's 10 minutes sometimes it's an hour sometimes it's a few hours depending on the airline depending on the time of day but I do find that uh X is pretty great for customer service for Airlines and hotels car rental companies they're all on there yeah you just have to direct message them and they'll take care of you usually are you using uh any SMS or Whatsapp customer service for any airlines or hotels a l is big on what I'm surprised the other airlines aren't I haven't really maybe I'm missing it but I haven't really seen much on WhatsApp on WhatsApp I haven't either and it confuses me so much I was just talking to someone that runs a major company and he's like oh I don't use WhatsApp and I'm like like like to me it's crazy like do you know the market that you're missing here and and maybe it's just because WhatsApp doesn't have the same Market penetration in the US as they do in other countries it's iMessage in America yeah and every other country it's what's that right so the iPhone Market ches here is so great and compared to other countries that people are on iMessage a lot more than WhatsApp yeah for sure when I was in Cabo Mexico and I made my Walmart plus order I was chatting with the Shopper on WhatsApp that's amazing it was so cool yeah and he's just watching okay I'm pulling up now I'm like awesome great and the blue checks show up and he's sending me pictures of of what I'm ordering and what I want to it was so easy incredible I'm like where is this in America I would never use instacart again yeah if Walmart plus had what'sapp yeah their chat system is horrendous so bad interesting yeah but I've used it with like hotels and the Maldives our Butler was on WhatsApp and were able to make requests and it was amazing same thing as doing in Cabo on WhatsApp the butler it's really incredible someone told me it's because of the Apple Store laws in the US okay that it limits what companies can do with this type of WhatsApp API it's just much more limited legally I don't know if that's the case or not okay but if that ever does change it'll be awesome game changer yeah for sure I booked an Alaska flight and I have executive Platinum with American okay but I wasn't getting my executive Platinum benefits because I booked through Alaska what did I do wrong yeah so when you're booking the Alaska flight it's going to ask you if you want to book this for yourself or somebody else so if you write it's for yourself then the Box T the saved profile yeah right if you click myself you're booking yourself a ticket it won't let you change the mileage number away from Alaska so you're stuck with your Alaska mileage number and you're not going to get the benefits you'd get an American okay so if you have American status or even just an American credit card you won't get that free bag because it's recognized that as an Alaska ticket an Alaska mileage number so what do you do instead so what I do is I saved a profile in my Alaska account for Daniel Elli so now when I book a ticket my options are myself or Daniel ell right and Daniel Elli I could put in his American mileage number executive Platinum also so you put in the American number during the booking process by selecting yourself not myself so the first time you're correct so you just say for the first time you did you just write new passenger and just fill out your information okay and then the next save that in your profile for next time and then you would just look for your name rather than myself that's so simple yeah and then as soon as you book it you could log into your American mileage account on aa.com the ticket will be there under my trips you can go in there you can select you know main C exactly main main cabin extra they call it um but you'll be eligible for upgrades as well some routes are really great for American upgrades out of Cleveland it's pretty easy to get an upgrade to Miami or to New York so I just buy the coach ticket but another routes like you know Miami to New York it's going to be more difficult so you're probably better off just spending the 15,000 miles for that business class ticket if you want that for the rout yeah three-hour flight yeah debatable but again it's just 7 and half th000 miles so right extra and you also get extra free bags and the other benefits that come with booking a business class ticket so if you're flying with a couple of bags it could make sense just monetarily to go first class someone without status or a credit card for sure that could make a lot of sense yeah so not every deal lasts forever Alaska used to be incredible for booking flights to is all what was the deal back then so it was a pretty shortterm deal because Alaska refreshed their award charts end of March this year and through the end of July they were still partners with L so with their new Award chart because of how lucrative it is it was only 35,000 miles to fly LL economy 45,000 for premium and 70,000 miles for business class between the US and Israel you know JFK Tel Aviv Non-Stop and so those are all crazy Bargains right so that lasted for again for a few months four months yeah something like that and that was an amazing deal while it lasted fortunately L decided to partner up with Delta and try to get into the sky team Alliance so Alaska's in one world Alliance and they didn't allow them to remain Partners so that ended the end of July but people still have tickets my brother-in-law flew recently and he actually had to make a change to his flight there was a schedule change so because of that schedule change he was allowed to change the date of his flight and he actually wound up entering his I think his Virgin Atlantic mileage number and got miles for that flight because it rebooked him as Aid like a paid ticket because they're no longer Partners right so he actually wind up getting miles for that flight as it was a paid flight even though he only paid like you know I think 70,000 to fly business class right on L which is you know crazy value these days where business class is a fortune right to fly hundreds of thousands miles nowadays or just $110,000 to fly round trip business class at least to Israel right wow yeah so that was little opportunity pretty great and Alaska used to be amazing for like EAD and Emirates right yeah back in the day there was uh some sweet spots there for Emirates and that went away but yeah I flew Emirates shower class got the shower on board the plane and the suite with Alaska miles that was a bargain so is it just more expensive now to book Alaska on Emirates or or doesn't exist no their partnership ended a few years ago towards the end it also they charged a lot more miles to fly in it than it used to be they devalued that so it wasn't a huge loss but yeah you're no longer able to use Alaska miles to fly an Emirates someone must have a shower on their okay yeah one of the best ways of booking that now yeah so if you want to book etad shower class their first class has a shower on board not quite as great as Emirates though seed is pretty cool I don't I didn't find the service quite as good as Emirates but you could do that with ettihad Miles uh also it's kind of pricey but you could find some decent deals with that you could transfer from most banks over to ettihad or if you have American miles you could actually book ettihad usually you have to do that within like 30 days of a flight for first class or 60 days of a flight for business class so you have to do a closer in to find that availability through Partners like American will American be the cheapest partner I think so yeah okay that's good to know yeah and are you flying those carriers mainly to the UAE like Dubai and Abu Dhabi are you flying them to Singapore where do you like to fly yeah really anywhere you want to go if you want to go to South Africa or SE shells or yeah Indian subcontinent there's a lot of opportunities there to go they fly all those places from the US with a stop over yeah stopping over with EAD in Abu Dhabi or with Emirates through Dubai um and you can get a free stop over there if you want as well do you feel that Dubai abuabu is safe after what happened with rebc Hogan yeah that was a pretty crazy story you know I felt very safe there going there I was there in 2017 before the Abraham Accords years before the Abraham Accords and met with RAB dman who's now the head schak of the UAE back then he was and he was just there kind of scouting the place out still he was living there with a small community that was still underground right but I felt really safe there felt safer there than I do in walking around Paris or London so yeah kind of shocking not saying much no it's not in 2024 at least unfortunately it's not it's not funny at all it's terrible what's happening in Europe right now for Jews yeah so no longer feels comfortable to walk around in aaka there it's which is crazy that we've gotten to this point but I do think that they're safe I think the government responded very quickly they're not supporting that kind of activity and hopefully they'll be able to root that out but obviously different when someone is working there and your patterns are able to be observed versus when you're just a visitor and you're not a specific Target right so obviously you need to take precautions wherever you travel as a visible Jew these days that's true in Australia that's true in Europe that's true pretty much wherever you're going to go and even here in the US obviously not to the extent of of those places you be aware of your surroundings but I I think the risk as a tourist is low thank you guys so much for joining us make sure to subscribe and tune in next time to learn more