Hangouts on Air: Bougie Miles & Travel on Points (Pandemic 2020)

hi how are you good how are you happyFriday happy Friday okay so you have to tell mehow bad the background is yeah maybe push in that drawer closing drawers thatlooks fine hi everybody welcome to spill the tea with Bougie today I am joined bymy very good friend Derrick Dye, Derek introduce yourself and let us know likewhat you do in this world hey Bethenny I run travel on points face book group andalso a blog that's my second job during the day I'm a full-time attorney oh my Idon't know any of those in this hobby there's a lot of I actually just hadDerek's wife Sarah on that's the last episode and she's also an attorney andso we talked about like hi there are so many attorneys in my house I think wefigured out the secret is that rules we like rules like a bit we like bendingrules yes yeah even better than rules are bending the rules yes are youdrinking only water what are you that I put scotch in mykombucha you know it's like healthy and degenerate at the same time exactly nowyou also have another kind of interesting pastime you know what I youknow do this slime yeah yes I'm uh I'm a private pilot I got mycertificate in 2015 Sarah and I co-own with three buddiespiper single-engine forc'd airplane that we've worked on for four years and it'scurrently being worked on getting a bunch of technology upgrade so but younamed it paper it's a that's the motto it's the brand new model it's a PiperCherokee duh yeah kind of like Boeing Boeing 737 this is a fiveor you just nicknamed a piper you know I haven't surprisingly I'm not given her aname she should have won definitely I think it should be Bethenny but you knowyou can reserve just just an idea think about it roll it over whenever theplane comes to see you and we visit it will be named Bethany how about that youknow funny you say that because our last trip big trip out of the area was flyingto New York City so Bethany could come see you at some point when you fly toNew York where do you land and stuff how did we we landed I believe it's LindenAirport it's about eight miles south of due south of the Newark runways Ohinteresting yeah I don't think I've ever been there I guess it's just for privateit's a very small airport yeah our other option was going to Teterboro but it'sextremely expensive it's it's like $90 for any plane to touch the runway thereso that can add up when you add in overnight fees and fuel fees and all ofthat landing there and stay in one night can end up being a couple hundred bucksOh interesting so it's not like I got a plane now I can just go wherever I wantall the time every day you actually have to factor in the additional costs Ididn't I had no idea there was a cost to land yeah most airports don't doanything like that they they just want you to come and buy fuel or come givethem service or whatnot most of the airports you know just takethe government money to operate as an airport and survive on that some of yourlarger places like Peterborough and that service a lot of corporate jets theythey tack on this fee and that fee and the fuel is you know triple what it isfive miles away that sort of thing how interestingOh something I forgot is we have to do two things number one your Facebookgroup everybody has to join the group on points also go to the blog it'stravel – on – points calm alright please subscribe to my channel because I needsubscribers people are watching but no one's subscribing so give me a thumbs upand a subscribe it really helps I know you probably hear that from everyyoutuber ever but it's true anyway okay so Derrick the first thing I've beenasking every single one of my guests is what show would you not be able to getthrough this pandemic without I really enjoyed the third season of Ozarkeverybody loved that one and I think it was awesome and Tiger king whatcharacter would you be integra case not Carroll Baskins first hospital I knowyes since she fed him to a tiger do you think she did you know probably okay I can't do megood she seemed a little off no granted youknow at you you produce videos so you know you edit a lot of things out andyou can you can really put any spin on it anything you want but it's she seemlike a crazy cat lady to to a very extreme place so it wouldn't surprise meinteresting okay so there are things crazy cat ladies could be murderers toothey're a little off when when they are extreme yes let me put that disclaimerthere that video I'll post the picture of it here but did you ever see thevideo with the I think it was like a dating app and the girl is obsessed withcats and all she does the whole like video is talk about how much she lovescats and then she starts crying noticing that it like went viral okay so after weget off you have to watch it it's it's like mind-blowing that somebody wouldactually think that a man would want to have anything to do with that but youknow sounds like she may be on the extreme end of crazy cat lady also Iwould say she's Baskin times 10 how could these but you still didn't answerthe question if you had to be one of those guys which one I would probably beJoe exotic and that's also who your wife said she would marry so I'm an introvertwho also likes to you know not be the center of attention but I do like to uhI do like to you know kind of roll the show so right it'd be Joe exotic we'reall type all of us attorneys are type a people right I have to be the mainperson so here we go yeah and I'm the same way I'm in I'm also an introvertnobody believes that I know it's like mind-blowing but obviously I like to bethe center of attention sure there's no one else in the worldI get it but you know that's an interesting like mix because usuallyintroverts want to be like left alone you know I have I definitely have veryintrovert moments but you know somehow I guess you can flip that switch probablylike you do and when you need to when you need to be social I can do it andalthough I'm an introvert I love meeting people so that's kind of weird Jim Imeet people on every trip we take yes oh god never going anywhere with you I'mthe person that sits down and ends up talking to everyone and by the end ofthe night I'm laughing and joking like we've known each other for 50 years ohmy god you're my worst nightmare but you're not gonna but then I go to thehotel room and pass out for mental exhaustion because I just put myselfthrough that yeah are you one of those people who thoughwho like understands the social cues when somebody does not want to talk backor do you just say I think I think I'm enough of an introvert that I fully getthat okay yeah you know that would recognize those cues for myself rightright yeah you're like one-word answers you're like yeah yeah exactlythose people kill me but all right fine as long as you understand the socialcues then we're okay okay so in rapid-fire I just like to ask a fewquestions you know you can give me one or two word answers or whatever what isyour favorite airline favorite airline AAA Oh interesting one why we just flewthem in November and I mean AAA in a first class I mean that's in my mind itdoesn't need to get any better than that okay uh what other first-class productshave you done that was actually my first first class we've done a lot of businessbut we don't typically splurge for first oh very excited I mean at what point isit like too much right so when you can get business for her I don't know 40, 000miles less than first unless comes were rich in those miles like I don'tsee too much of a difference you know I mean if you're worrying about champagneand stuff like that but like either way I just want a bit right right if funnystory about that was when we when we booked the Japan trip it was obviouslythat we booked at Virgin Atlantic 120 each round trip with MX points and I wasbegging my wife Sarah to only use do business class we would look through a a88, 000 round trip for probably a solid week it was our biggest fight over32, 000 points I thought it was ridiculous that they 32, 000 more farmersright right I could be cheap right she finallyconvinced me and said derec will earn these in no time at all we've got tonsof points I think we had the extra 64, 000 Amex points back in our accountin under two months do you think it's why wouldn't you do that right like yousay it's 16, 000 extra or whatever either way it's a no-brainer Oh ahundred percent bet that one is a no-brainer I'm thinking I'm laying himwell it's also cuz you're like well this is good enough yeah I get that but thenyou know you do but all like now your favorite airline is the one that you didfirst with right so and then there will be a lot more first in our future yeahwhat's your what's the one that like you cannot wait to get on I I really want totry the news thing as Singapore sweets I know those aren't technically first butthe new sweets look amazing I also really want to fly the apartment yeah sothe apartment um obviously it's unreal right like when you get in there you'rekind of like I can't believe that I'm here and this is an airplane but Ithought the service was awful oh really oh they were so not friendly interestingI actually hated the experience because of the staff andthere were only two of us in first and still a poor service it was it wasmiserable they know what's unbelievable it was like I took a pictureI know I know like okay yes I'm I'll fess up to it now the first thing I didwas walk straight to the front and taking a picture and take a picture ofthe what's it called the residence yes thank you first thing I did and then theguy came over said did you see the picture I said no I've never do that youknow and then they were like watching me like a hawk the entire you know but Iguess at that point I'm in my little apartment so you know like what's thebig deal and then I asked the flight attendant oh is it okay if I take apicture and she was she was like make sure my face is not in it I was like Iwasn't talking about you lady like take a picture of me please it wasinteresting and I am you don't exert it okay off youtypically hear such good things about Emirates service and the meals andeverything that that shocks me but you know I guess it it's a good reminderthat the service is only as good as the crew on that particular flight okay coolso we have some questions from your Facebook group that they wanted you toanswer well Sarah but um I forgot to ask Sarah and we did not forget about allthe awesome people in the travel on points Facebook group so we are going tohave Derek answer them okay first I don't know why I think this is funny anda silly question but Devin says how do either of you feel about Brussels but isthere like is there some kind of like inside joke there yeah yeah there isthat's that's from my buddy Devin Newman I met him at a points of miles meet uplast summer in Houston we're good buddies now and chat every day but Saraand I have a love and hate relationship with Brussels basically we loved it theidea of Brussels and we went now we ate it after we willafter we've been there have a strong pit I have strong opinionsthat's the FAFSA that's my second disclaimer for the show I guess you knowthe the food just wasn't as good as we expected that people weren't friendlythe architecture is obviously wonderful but all of all of Western Europe is andwe we just didn't really enjoy the city much interesting I've never been thereactually I'd skip it we loved Bruges I go back to I'd go backto Bruges and spend the week it was a lovely city there is that even it's outtoward the coast southwest of Brussels about an hour hour and a half train rideokay hmm so I will keep that in mind and community Hill I hope I said thatright sorry in do you ever desire to go back to a place you've traveled to whenthere are new places to explore if yes where would you go more than oncethat's a good one why oh yeah I like that question anyway yeah Mark's mom islike the number one fan in like everything social right like she'llwrite on Facebook like that was the best place I ever read mom well I'll sendthem to you they are finished mom that is awesomewe struggle with this right so we have our favorite trips we have our ourevolving bucket list of places we want to go all the time I don't think there'sa right answer here have we returned anywhere for a big trip that we've donetwo before no Julie yes and I think the first place will return his Cape TownSouth Africa it was that yeah that combined with the Safari outside ofKruger was both mine and Sarah's favorite tripI've retired a Capetown and a heartbeat it's just it's my favorite city I'vebeen to Wow okay so I booked that error fare on lookTam maybe yes I hope that's the right one and so a bunch of people from milesmemories are going there's gonna be like six of us and I we either stop in CapeTown or we have a full day there I don't remember which I think it's a full daythere I got that invite and I couldn't make it work for my scheduleunfortunately I'm in love Cape Town you'll love it oh man that would've beenfun for you to be there okay so mine is a really weird one – Toronto really it'smy favorite place in the world I I've tried so hard to like love another placethat much but I just can't okay well first of all I people know this about meI'm like a huge Canadian music fan Alanis Morissette and Barenaked Ladiesare like my two like Ryder dice so that's like one thing I think that waswhy I went there in the first place and then we went there for a BarenakedLadies concert and we stayed at at the time it was called the Adelaide but it'snow the st.

Regis Toronto probably the nicest room I've ever stayed inand then basically it's New York but it's clean everybody is nice andeverything is 35% off because of the conversion so when we went to like asteak house we got the most expensive steak the most expensive bottle of wineI think we spent like 300 for two people but think about it if you see that inNew York if you like to go right it would be like you know so yeahoh god I just love it there it's it's such a good placealso there's so much fun stuff to do there like it just never ends and I loveit there we have a flight out of Toronto in November if we're able to take it somaybe we can get there a little bit early and maybego for dinner oh please you the restaurants are phenomenal and they haveexcellent steak houses and again it's like 35 percent off with the conversiongood to know yeah you're like I'm so rich here alsofor all the single ladies out there the ratio of men to women is like 2 to 1 soI've never paid for her drink there like ever like I walk into this sounds solike braggy but I don't mean it to be that waywell like walk into a bar we'll have like three or four drinks in front of usfrom people who are like oh look let us buy you a drink I'm like where are wethis is like freaking heaven yeah anyway okay keeping a lot of single guysperfect single ladies go to Toronto okay now let's see we okay so this is fromluxury on points what's the best food you've had abroad that you wish werepopular in the US popular in the US I was talking about it earlier today Idon't know how popular it is or not but I love doner kebab and Istanbul it wasunbelievable I had it three or four times a day everyday Anna stem day yeah you know you just go get a small little sandwich and Sarahand I could split it and you know it would be a a year or two or lira I guessthere and the equivalent of a utero or two and we'd have a little snack holy orwalking 20 miles a day around is that both long doner kebab yeah I love Lomosaltado in Peru I love that you can just make french fries and big pieces of beefand make it something that it's steak and french fries and somehow they makeit sound like this exotic dish I had it twice a day every day steak and frenchfries but when it's Lomo saltado it seemed so much more exotic okay nextI told you we edit freely I just laugh at your louis i yeah okay so next isaaron bill heard i think we know her she's awesomelove her she says for the love of god when will we be able to leave our housesbring your crystal ball I don't know if you have an answer for that but do youhave any you know any idea or any sort of like estimate or what you think wellsince its Aaron and we know and love air and I can say in complete sincerity findsomething essential to do and you can leave your house Aaron just kiddingthere is just kidding gosh I don't know when I came home from work 32 days agoand I really thought it would be a few weeks and I thought yeah I came home myfirst day was the 13th I believe March 13th my math may be off there by a dayor two but I really thought it'd be a few weeks I thought we might be back totraveling by early May you know I figured give it the rest of March all ofApril we might be okay in May I just don't know I just saw something today Ithink it was Gary left said he thinks that we may be not back to normal youknow whatever our new normal is but back to back to normal no travel restrictionsin the United States maybe not till Septemberwell I think I know I don't know we're all gonna be in a lot of troubleespecially the travel industry if we're not released to something for our newnormal by September yeah and it's you know there's there's only so much youcan do to stay sane right I mean I think the longer this goes on you know to turnserious here for 30 seconds the longer this goes on the more people really haveto start thinking about their mental health and and taking care of themselvesand keeping a good mental attitude and yougot to do something for some level of exercise because yes even if you'recompletely sedentary you're not you're now not walking from your car into youroffice every day I mean you got to do somethingmm-hmm Oh 100% and so two things on that the I don't know if it was just New Yorkbut I believe it was the federal government also passed a bill that youdon't have to pay co-pays for telehealth regardless of whether it's related toCorona or not and a lot of telehealth providers also do therapy or likewhatever the equivalent to that is through their programs so that'ssomething to think about I also noticed that Hyatt world of Hyatt send out anemail saying they were partnering with talk space which is I remember MichaelPhelps doing a commercial for it I assuming I'm obviously they're notgiving you free therapy but it seemed like there were some like mindfulnessexercises involved and something you know something along those linesand then the third thing is you can get so many free trials for like workoutprograms and exercise classes and if anyone's having trouble paying for anyof that contact somebody who knows what they're doing because a lot of us like Ihave telethon right so I have like unlimited virtual classesI know active aapt IV has an Amex offer right now and they give a free monthtrial and you know a month gets you like a pretty long way get through this rightso yes mental health exercise very important agree that's a good that was agood serious note okay so wait let's see if we have any more questions no that'sit oh wait there is some work what's something you've oh this is Olivia ScalfWidow okay so your readers have the hardest names to pronounce okay what'ssomething you've learned by trial and error along the way in traveling withpoints so I think this is a mistake that Sarah and Ibut I think it's a mistake I'm probably almost every season to where travelersmade and one that brand-new people are gonna make the easy way to book a flightis probably not the best way you mean probably not the cheapest yeah okayyeah with a little bit of work we can all transfer chase ultimate roars toUnited for example to book anywhere that's that's as easy as it getstaking another step and do you book that United flight with Life miles oraeroplane or Turkish can save you a ton of miles and can open up newpossibilities because in learning that just that one extra step of a way tobook it's amazing what you can learn in those are word charts and learnsomething for the next the next trip and the better you get I always say thebetter you get it redeeming your miles the better your word travel life becomesbecause when you save miles on each booking and then you realize how cheaplyyou can do some of these aspirational trips the the bar is lower to the pointwhere it's like that's obtainable and not only is it obtainable but it mightbe obtainable twice a year or more times a year right we're not now we're notsaying I need to open up a five credit cards and I'll be able to travel nextfall you're saying oh well we have enough points to do two trips this yearthree trips this year and let's get ready to go for next year so I thinkthat's a mistake we all make we definitely did it and anyone with anhour to here there can figure out a cheaper way to book the flight they wanta book yeah oh absolutely so two things on that point number one Google is yourbest friend right because you can literally put I need to get from Miamito I don't know give me something saint-tropez right how do I do that onmiles and points with these miles and magically 15 articles will pop uptelling you exactly what to do right that's one of those interesting ones butthe other thing is I the other side of the coin on that is that you know timeis valuable too absolutely so I will prioritize theeasiest miles to use even though it's not always the best price for me likewhat I'll do is I'll say like okay you know what I would rather have Americanmiles than adios because I know if I if I need to buy American I don't want tohave to look for obvious fail ability even though this is a bad examplebecause obvious makes the British Airways makes it pretty easy but it'slike that same type of like thinking where like I just kind of want to golike direct but yes for like the aspirational flights I mean most peoplewould never be able to do those most including myself would never be able todo those without those kind of hats you know or even like the apartments forlike I think the one that I booked for 60, 000 AAA miles was like two hundredand eighty-three thousand miles I was like okay right so yeah stuff like thatI completely agree um you know it's it's a balance of like your time and then forgeeks like us it's also kind of fun yeah and I mean you know and and you put ayou put a good caveat on that you know there's a lot of rabbit holes in ourgame and you know and that's without going to Reddit and flyer talk andspending weeks there on every topic right there are a lot of rabbit holesyou can go down these rabbit holes to the point that you're mentally andphysically exhausted so it's a especially for the beginners it's reallythat fine line between getting a deal and hating your life trying to get a tableso yeah right you can make that mistake the opposite way you can spend so muchtime trying to save you know 25% of your points or miles that you you makeyourself so tired and upset that you're done with the game that's also not thegoal and that's a that's probably a worse mistake than over speed so it is afine line and unfortunately beginners don't know where that line is yeah youdon't know what you don't know I feel terrible for the people who booked allthis crazy travel and like you know like one of our mutual friends for examplespent hours and hours and hours on the phone with like three different airlinestrying to find a ward space and they all got cancelled anyway to me that like atravesty there's a lot of that happening right now and you know for for the moreadvanced points and miles people that do all these intricate bookings thatrequire phone bookings and having the agents search segment by segment topiece it together losing one of those trips oh my god Mikeit can be like a once-in-a-lifetime flight you know what was it's sodifficult to book yep so you know Angelina from Angelina travel she was onthe show a few weeks ago she had her and her daughter's birthday traffic booksand she 19 separate bookings night teeth yeah tinsel and so many differentairline names so she had I can't even imagine unfortunately for her sherealized that everything was canceled prior to do tea coming out and sayingthey have to give you a refund so refunds yeah so she was like fightingwith everybody yet I was like you are amazing I'm not worthyspeaking of mental health okay so good transition into oh reallyfunding but I like to call plead the fifth I know you know what that meansright I do okay so for everybody watching plead the fifth basically I'mgonna ask Derek three questions and he can choose not to answer one of them onthe grounds that you may incriminate himself you know what let's start with asoftball who aside from yourself gets the all-time crown for best blogger orblog team out there like who do you admire the most who do you think it'sjust the best that stuff best obviously I have my my daily readers I followprobably ten to twelve vlogs every day I think you know just just from a industrystandard I'd say it has to be Gary laugher Ben you know lucky at one mileat a time I mean they're their industry leaders and they've been around for solong so probably give the the crown to Gary he's he's so innovative and he's sorespected me I read I read one of his pieces last week he was I believetestifying before Congress how about the airline bailout so I mean we don't havemany of those people in our hobby so that's that's really unbelievable yeah Imean Gary is a very deserving wearer of the crown for sure um and so it's beenI'm also partial to obviously moms members but frequent miler yes when Ifirst met Greg deep Oh hard port I read everything they put out I think they'reI think they're brilliant and I mean they're 40 they're 40k far away wasingenious I mean I knew that that day they took off them on Instagram I havetwo computers going I'm like hitting refresh as quickly as I can it was greatthere's so much fun I love it and also NIC like really brings someinteresting like buried CD test well ferry details Nick if you'rereading you like with half words amazing okay soenough with gushing about the people that we love tell me who do you think isthe blog that would be like the biggest pandemic all on their ownjust worst one out there some people choose to answer some people don'tmm-hmm this is like we're on question two so this is the devil the devil youknow or the devil you don't right well you know wondered what is it shag marrykill oh you know I think I'll plead the fifth okay that's fair you pled thefifth that means he has to answer the last question so shag marry kill do youwant guys or girls girls okay oh this is gonna be funlet's go mommy points Angelina from Angelina travels andTiffany from one mile at a time that's hard and listen the person that youdecide to kill it's just a default and I will not tag them in mentions don't gotit so this one's actually really easy for me Oh Tiffany from one mile at atime I've met several times she's lovely she's also the celebrity crush for oneof my fraternity brothers so based on that I'll have to marry her so that he'sjealous for life yeah he met her at Chicago and he thinks everything shewrites is the most brilliant stuff ever oh it's true yeah I am like her numberone fan like I just amazing ground like a little puppy dog and I think she'slike leave me alone it's just okay so what kill mommy points I will marryTiffany and shag Angelina although this is all hypothetical of course all rightDerrick thank you thank you find you find me in facebook grouptravel on points website travel – on – points com on Twitter and Instagramtravel on points one the number one and I'm always active on all of those at allhours of the day so yep and we can chat alright thank you so much I'll see yousoon all right thank you all right bye.