Join Justin Vacula on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast as he discusses low-cost travel tips using credit card points, miles, benefits, and rewards.
In this episode, Justin interviews John Ryan from Frequent Traveler University about the upcoming in-person miles and points conference in Dallas, Texas, from May 2nd to May 4th, 2025.
The episode covers event details, speaker lineups, and other travel strategies. Additionally, announcements include early bird ticket sales for ZorkFest 2025 and various upcoming meetups and events in 2025 that Justin will attend or speak at.
Learn to maximize travel rewards and make meaningful connections within the miles and points community.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:49 Upcoming Events and Announcements
02:47 Interview with John Ryan
03:20 Event Details and Schedule
06:56 Speakers and Sessions
13:25 Booking and Pricing Information
24:34 Personal Stories and Experiences
27:04 Maximizing Credit Card Rewards
27:34 Stretching Points for Travel
30:06 Managing Multiple Credit Cards
33:53 Travel Experiences and Upgrades
35:23 Las Vegas Travel Tips
45:01 Upcoming Trips and Credit Card Strategies
51:42 Conclusion and Event Announcements
Show notes:
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Theme Song: [00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast breaks the mold.
Justin Vacula: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you travel the world at next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and rewards. Make money, save money, and take advantage of great deals. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode. Frequent Traveler University, May 2025 with John Ryan.
I talked with John Ryan of Frequent Traveler University about the upcoming in person miles and points [00:01:00] conference, May 2nd through the 4th in Dallas, Texas. We also talk about John’s experience with the miles and points hobby. Before today’s episode, some quick announcements, early bird ticket sales for Zork Fest 2025, a miles points and gambling event are now live at Zorkfest.
travelzork. com. I hope to see you at Zork Fest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th through December 7th. I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and how to successful 2024. Speaking at events with Award Travel 101, Travel Zork, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events. If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me.
Visit meetup. com slash philly, miles and points, to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel. Credit miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are January [00:02:00] 26th and February 23rd, 2025. Find a link in the show notes
for more content between podcast episodes, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on Facebook and X formerly known as Twitter for bonus videos and community content. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy travel podcast on YouTube and follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Search Hurdy Gurdy travel on subscribestar. com or become a channel member on YouTube to financially support my efforts starting at $5 a month tip jar level.
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on with today’s episode. Welcome to the show, John Ryan. Hi. Hi there. How are you doing today, Justin?
Good. Thanks for coming on this evening, another event. We’re going to be promoting the Frequent Traveler University [00:03:00] event, May, 2025. I’d love to be there, but I have a very first world problem. I have a commitment. I’ll be cruising in the British Isles with Princess on a comped cruise. So thanks for the invites.
I can’t be there, but we’re still going to promote the event and talk about it today.
John Ryan: Totally understandable reason. So you could tell us
Justin Vacula: about this upcoming
John Ryan: event. Absolutely. So this is a vet being held in Dallas, Texas and Irving more specifically located between Dallas Love Field and Dallas Fort Worth airports, meaning that if you were to fly, say Southwest on the way out and the American on the way back, or say, if your friends are flying Southwest and you’re flying American, everybody’s able to meet at a rather central location.
And this is also a great location regardless of that. There’s a lot of restaurants around. There’s an In N Out in the parking lot, which is probably one of the first miles and points here, besides the one at LAX that got Cranky Flyer, Red Skyderg hosts. So it should be an excellent weekend with great weather on the first weekend of May.
Justin Vacula: All right, great. And once again, the dates for
John Ryan: the event. Absolutely. So it’s May 2nd to May 4th. So it’s the [00:04:00] first weekend of May. No Easter, no other holidays are taking place that weekends.
Justin Vacula: All right, May 2nd. So what’s the first day going to look like?
John Ryan: Yeah, May 2nd, we’re going to be having a, at 2 p. m.
We’re going to be having a little meetup thing. We’re working this out with our sponsor, Southwest Airlines. However, Southwest and other partners, we, with Southwest Airlines and other partners, we should be having an excellent little like afternoon activity. So this might be gathering at a museum, it might be something bigger, it might be something greater that’s in the works right now, but it should be an excellent two o’clock in the afternoon session.
And then after that’s done, we’re going to have going to our opening session, have a cocktail hour with open bar and see sort of like food appetizer thing. And then have like maybe another session that evening and then, yeah, that’ll be wrapping it up for the night. All right. So
Justin Vacula: by session, do you mean a social event or speakers?
What’s it going to look like for the conference element?
John Ryan: So it’s going to be unique from other like Chicago seminars and other different events. And so [00:05:00] FT, if you’re not aware, is owned by, uh, run by the same people that run FT events. So what FT events is, it’s a kind of more industry conference company.
So we run the Loyalty Summit, which the Loyalty Summit is held in Chicago and London once in each city per year. As well as the Loyalty Summit CXM, which is the more business side of things. So CXM is the customer service and customer experience, and that’s being held in LA and Stockholm this year. And that’s where kind of the more business people get together.
And then there’s also the Loyalty Summit in Chicago and London, where the more like early people, say the heads of different loyalty programs, stuff like that, they all meet together with those conferences, we’ve used a more unique approach to the typical conference session that you might be more used to.
Other Wiles of the Point sessions. Which is a, something called a hybrid keynote that we’re going to bring in. So what that is, say the speaker speaks for 20 minutes, for example, and then that’s followed by a session where for another 20 minutes, for example, where people in this, um, the attendees, they can ask both speakers and small panel experts questions [00:06:00] about that topic.
So say if you’re telling them America, you’re on loyalty points. Or in your case, the fallen army, you could be,
Justin Vacula: Oh, we’ll definitely get into the program.
John Ryan: So you could just ask and get answers from a field of experts, get answers from other attendees. So it’s going to be a more interactive. Session interactive events that we’re going to be offering.
So to answer your question, that Friday evening is going to be like a hybrid keynote first session. Okay.
Justin Vacula: So at previous events, you had tag teamed with Adam Bauer, past podcast guest, the artist formerly known as Travel Fanboy. So you’d give a little presentation, you’d give a little presentation. And Q& A after, so is that where we’re looking at for the hybrid keynote, not to be confused with hybrid keno, one of the worst casino games to play.
John Ryan: That’s a really good point, and that’s the idea that we plan to have, just more time for Q& A, more time for discussion beyond the speaker, not just like a PowerPoint presentation. Okay, so more interactive. Exactly.
Justin Vacula: Good, so we have some of that maybe on day one, [00:07:00] and is day two scheduled to be a more Seminar, conference, hybrid keynote format on day two.
John Ryan: That’s correct. So we plan to have most of the day be like a keynote thing. And then Saturday evening, we’ll again, we’ll have something called an evening with FGU. This, it starts at around one, but it’s just going to be an evening thing with, we’re going to bring in Tom Stuker. Tom Stuker, for those who don’t know, is basically the world’s most traveled man.
He’s traveled, I want to say at this point, 23 million miles. And we’ll be bringing him in, we’re bringing in some other experts and travel experts that you might be familiar with and they’re gonna just be discussing and talking about their experiences and it’s gonna be a very fun event.
Justin Vacula: And there’ll be lots of talk about credit cards because of course the answer to everything is more credit cards.
John Ryan: That’s it. And then for the FT, an evening with FT, it’s an extra 49 off your ticket, or in addition to your ticket, rather.
Justin Vacula: Okay, so it talks about credit cards, talks about loyalty programs, what else can guests expect to hear about?
John Ryan: [00:08:00] That part is to be determined at this point, but it’s going to have very heavy appetizers, so think of it basically as a dinner substitute.
So you’re effectively getting dinner out of it for the additional 49. And then also like an open bar for about an hour or two. And then for the overall sessions, it’s going to be more like trivia games, more like interactive and more unique compared to our like fashions that will be held throughout the weekend.
Justin Vacula: And you talked about possible outings on day one. Are you going to offer outings maybe on day three? Or after the event, will there be a group of dinners
John Ryan: offsite? So like to go over the overall schedule. So we’re going to have 2 PM as an optional social event. So that’s the thing I talked about bringing in maybe our sponsor Southwest Airlines or bring in another local Dallas area company.
And then beyond that, we’re going to be having basically to answer your question. No, we’re not going to be having a lot of special sessions, but we’re going to be offering like lunch for both of the days. So you’ll just be able to stay in a hotel for the whole weekend and not really need to travel out.
Justin Vacula: Ooh, it could be its [00:09:00] own summer camp. Exactly. Or the parking lot in and out. That’s exactly it. I know that there are often offsite events that people plan in Chicago. There were a lot of trips to Ugazd, if I’m saying that correctly, a Polish restaurant. Some people went to other restaurants. So I imagine there might be some pop up or smaller meetups throughout the event during the dinner hours or the off session times.
John Ryan: Correct. Yeah. And I’d be happy to attend those and we’ll obviously have like more details and maybe other groups will plan those a little bit closer in date. But yeah, we’re open to those. Those will probably be the best day for that is probably going to be Saturday, if not Friday. I will say that if you can’t get there Friday afternoon, if you can only get a flight in and see if you have work, see if you have bad timing, schedule a smaller report, for example, and kick it in.
There is limited availability for that social event, so if you can’t make it, totally understand, and that won’t be an additional cost, but keep that in mind.
Justin Vacula: Alright, sounds good. Some people, particularly on the more intermediate to advanced [00:10:00] side, had said that they’ve learned most from the social sessions rather than the actual sessions.
So if you have an opportunity for the social events, if you have an opportunity for the actual sessions, There can be all kinds of learning that goes on. I’d put myself in the advanced category, of course. And I’ve learned a lot through the social sessions, the hallway conversations, and a lot more. So I’m sure people can look forward to that as
John Ryan: well.
Yeah, we’re going to, we, I’ve seen photos of like what the meeting space will look like, and there’s going to be a large, like just area, so to speak, that you can just. You can socialize, you can mingle with one another. We’re going to have like small breakout rooms that we plan to use, especially on Sunday.
So yeah, those will be both great opportunities for meeting new people and finding out the greatest and with hacks or miles and points.
Justin Vacula: Yes. We’ll talk about Flues in 2025, I’m sure. They sent me a gift in the mail today. I got scented candle and some matches. I posted those images. So Flues resolves to continue in 2025.
Well, all of course, flues to the finish
John Ryan: line. Yeah. And also [00:11:00] for what it’s worth for the venue hotels and just getting around, there is going to be like a local shuttle service. And I guess this would have been a good answer to answer you about just like the different, like the Polish restaurant, for example, I’ll go, we’re going to have a shuttle sponsored by 60 rental car.
We’re during it, during the hours on Sunday, we’re going to have a shuttle that’ll take you. Places to be determined.
Justin Vacula: And there’ll be some Hyatt enjoyers. So people want to stay at the local Hyatt instead of the host hotel. That’s I believe at Hilton. So perhaps you could take a shuttle from the Hyatt to the Hilton and get your globalist qualifying nights in, or perhaps use your Amex Delta reserve business credit card, 10 ride share credits, probably.
Or the Amex Platinum Uber credits, or source your Uber gift cards from Costco at 20 percent off. I think at one point 25 percent off even.
John Ryan: You really have an angle for everything. Yes,
Justin Vacula: yes, there’s an answer. The answer is often more credit cards, as we said, but we do have other plans. And I bring this up because some people in the hobby, [00:12:00] I’m definitely on the frugal side.
I don’t think I’d be caught dead. I’m spending like actual cash money out of my pocket in a quote unquote fine dining or fancy. Restaurant that wants to charge me like 25 for a baked potato. But I feel that these events have tremendous value. Even if I have some incidental costs, even if I’m paying for the ticket, I learned so much from these make social connections and find
John Ryan: it super worth it.
Definitely. Yeah. And I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met over the years at these conferences and it’s just, it’s not just the fact that you’re seeing the same people, there’s also like people like say, how I went to a meetup back in, um, I don’t know, 2022 was I think my first like award meetup. So if I was at that event and then all of a sudden I show up at the Chicago seminars this year and I’m like, Oh yeah, like it’s been two years since I’ve seen you or those kinds of connections that you make are just really awesome.
It’s shows like the true power of these events.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, lots of meetups. And interestingly, I found people in my area I didn’t even know [00:13:00] existed. Definitely. Oh, you have a meetup in the Philly area, greater Philadelphia travel, credit miles and points. Oh, I never even knew about it. I make new friends through these events.
We connect online. So it’s been a very positive community. Overall,
John Ryan: there’s so many different channels you can get to know people through, whether it be Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, in person meetups that you just don’t have in the plan, but they happen.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, a lot of impromptu business decisions.
Agreed. And what is the price looking like? Is there an early bird price? Is it a fixed rate? What’s it looking like at the moment?
John Ryan: So as of December 16th, there’s kind of a couple different pricing tiers and methods that we have. The current price is 249. That’ll increase to 349 as time goes on closer into the event.
You save 49 off your ticket if you’re an FTU member. So an FTU membership costs 69 per year for the first year, followed by 129 for the second year and every year thereafter. And with that, um, membership, you get a 49 Canadian 4 year ticket, meaning that the price would be down to [00:14:00] 199, you wanted the evening with FTU, that would be 248.
The membership really just pays for itself, because you get this, you get a 50 off code, You got virtual seminars that we have that are throughout the year, and I think, Justin, you’ve spoken at one, right?
Justin Vacula: Yes, uh, multiple actually, so you can hear the archived recordings. Definitely,
John Ryan: yes, you can see that, um, over 150 recordings at this point.
Justin Vacula: And because America loves math, we’re talking maybe 249 for a ticket over three days, so about 80 a day, and potentially less. If you become a member, get a discount code, enjoy the content. So I think great value out of that and using your Hilton points or Hyatt points to book the hotel, probably. The flights are covered with your points and miles and different instruments.
Maybe the United travel bank, you can get those credits out for once in a while.
John Ryan: And, I will say, while using points is overall highly recommended, I’m sure Justin needs to do the same. I will say for this hotel, it’s really enough that grade of a value, [00:15:00] it’s 120 a night, and I believe last I checked, it was like 50 60, 000 points for each
Justin Vacula: night.
Awww, Hilton points for the fifth night free when booking with Maybe? Yes,
John Ryan: even so. That’s 25, 3 cents each.
Justin Vacula: All right, listeners will definitely figure out where to stay and I imagine a lot of people will be commuting between the Hyatt and host property. But personally, I like staying at the host property to just be able to easily access the venue and.
People stay up pretty late. It would suck to take an Uber at 11pm going back to another hotel. I’d find myself at the host property if I were not on a princess cruise in the British Isles.
John Ryan: Also too, for the booking that Takistree by Hilton is what the rate is, you do get a 15 per day breakfast. I keep calling it breakfast, but I’m just used to the I’ll do getting an actual free breakfast at us hotels, but like the regular food and beverage period that you get, that’s for one person, two person or D 30.
And that’s if you have gold or diamond status, which as Justin always says, the answer is always a new credit card and you can get a [00:16:00] healthy surpass. I want to say that gives you a, gives you gold status for 150
Justin Vacula: a year. Yeah. The surpass for gold aspire for diamond. And I’m sure many listeners have these pesky 50 Hilton gift cards through various Amex benefits.
So maybe you can book the cash rate for the hotel and use these Hilton 50 gift cards and one of our favorite phrases, splitting tender, coming in with maybe six or seven 50 gift cards and paying the cash rate at the property.
John Ryan: Yeah, fingers crossed. Hope it works out.
Justin Vacula: We’re a Hilton property, but we don’t accept Hilton.
Yeah, cashier’s making up the rules. Alright, and the URL, where can people find more information about the
John Ryan: event? So we’ve migrated everything over to ft. events slash ftuniversity. So again, that’s foxtrotango. events slash ftuniversity.
Justin Vacula: Okay, and if people Google frequent traveler university, that should be easy for them to find.
So people will sign up, [00:17:00] people have the date, the time, location. Price all sounding very good. Can we go into more of the speakers?
John Ryan: A lot of them I’ve met before. So we’ll have Ariana Ervanduol. She’s from Afghanistan originally, and she’s also traveling around the world, which as a female I know is definitely a kind of a different experience than males might experience.
She’ll have some excellent perspectives on that. If it was just general like point related stuff. We have Adam Bauer, who everybody loves. He’s from Sheepskate, Vegas. Also known as Adam Bauer. Bauer power, Hauer on X. We have Dave Canty from built rewards. So he’s an executives, their executive there. If you will, we have Brian Cohen, who’s from award magic, David Seldman, who’s one of the people behind loyalty summit and the different B2B events.
Peter Greyberks from CBS, one of the travel editors. We have Marshall Jackson. He’s an expert on cruises and is a boarding area contributor. Jamie Lourdes, also behind the FT event umbrella [00:18:00] Seth Levy from step up. He’s a phenomenal frontier airlines expert. So if you have any questions about that, he’s the guy.
We have Troy Leo from points. Yeah. He’s the founder of the company and he’ll be there to answer any questions about that. We have Rudy Loxa from he’s a travel journalist, worked East York at PBS. So he’s a great guy for anything related to that. We have Chris Rawson, Bridget Blaise Shumai, also from Poincia, Ryan Smith, he’s visited all 197 countries, Tom Stuecker, Bart Welch, then also co founder of Poincia, Clint Henderson from the Points Fag, Trevor Mountcastle from Travel Stories, as well as Tom Kim, Morty Paz, Creighton Miller, and then Tommy Danielson and Scott McCartney, a former Wall Street Journal columnist.
Justin Vacula: Ah, great. A, a long list and perhaps more speakers incoming or is it finalized? What’s it look like? Yeah,
John Ryan: we’re, well, he, through that, we’re almost done with the speakers list, but those are our current ones at this tower and we hope to grow the list to be even more.
Justin Vacula: And if a listener wants to be a [00:19:00] speaker, how can they propose to be a speaker?
What’s that process? Yeah,
John Ryan: just send me an email. My email is JO hn John at FT events, and I’d be happy to take a look.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. Adam Bauer, he was a past podcast guest. And we both presented on many casino topics at different events. He claimed that I had the advantage at one event because I presented first, then he had to present later, so this time he’s going to be the sole casino presenter, I imagine, so he wins this round.
John Ryan: Yep, you’re, you got a point there, so, um, slates equal now, if you will.
Justin Vacula: And we’ll see what kind of hat he’s wearing. I have my hat from Flues with the gold coin. And pretty soon I’ll have a hurdy gurdy travel hat. I used to have one some time ago, but the quality wasn’t so great and it deteriorated, so a new one is coming.
John Ryan: I wonder what hat it will wear. I guess probably the blogger one. You really can’t go wrong with that.
Justin Vacula: Brian Cohen from Award Magic. I recently met him. He came to one of my in person meetups in Willow Grove, and he was also a past podcast guest. So [00:20:00] lots of good from Brian Cohen, the real Brian Cohen, or maybe a secondary Brian Cohen.
Yeah. The jury is out on him. He’s from Philadelphia. I wasn’t sure where he’s from. Philadelphia area. And Carissa Rosson was also on the show. She presented at Zorkfest recently. I believe she presented in Chicago as well. So she’s definitely rounded the circuit writing freelancing for Many sources. So yeah, lots of knowledge in the speaker’s bureau for sure.
And
John Ryan: I think Chris, if I remember correctly, she used to be in the military as an Arabic language interpreter. So pretty fascinating story there.
Justin Vacula: Yes. We met each other at Rio by accident. It was funny. She’s walking down the hallway. She sees me, Justin, is that you? Oh, how’d you end up here? I wondered how all roads lead to LA Las Vegas, especially with the newly Changed after the other changes, breakfast menu, as we’re all aspiring globalists.
John Ryan: Definitely. Yeah. If you want to talk about this more later about last living in Las Vegas, I’m more than happy to, but yeah, living in Vegas, it’s pretty cool. Having the, [00:21:00] basically the mattress for the capital of the world. You have the Rio, you used to have the Excalibur. So it’s a great thing to have.
Justin Vacula: And for listeners, can you explain mattress run for those unfamiliar?
John Ryan: Well, mattress runs is, so you might be familiar with mileage runs as well. So mileage runs is just the idea that. You’re flying or you’re spending money in order to get ideally to the next to lead status threshold or tier. And that’s kind of similar idea for mile for mattress runs. So the thought is that say, if you’re at 55 nights and you want to get to 60 nights in the world of higher program, you’re going to look for the cheapest ways to get to that next five minutes.
And more often than not, the cheapest way is to book rooms at the Rio, though that being said, it’s not as good of a deal as it once was with the Excalibur. As the Excalibur, you could do remote check in, which remote check in is phenomenal, but that’s not a thing.
Justin Vacula: Another dead deal, but Rio’s really nice. I get some hate, but I don’t play in the casino there, so I don’t really care about the games and the shape of the casino.
The rooms are recently renovated in the Ipanema Tower. And again, hash house a go [00:22:00] go, the new breakfast is most of the menu now. And a complimentary breakfast for two guests. So if I can pay a cash rate of 30, 40 a night at Rio, get the breakfast, even if I have to Uber or Lyft between there and the Strip, I’m okay with that as I’m getting progress toward Hyatt status.
So using the Hyatt points for Rio if the cash rates are very high. It’s also an option. So lots of winning in Las Vegas. The wins continue.
John Ryan: Totally. I get it. That it’s not the best property, like no Blasio or Cosmo, but come on for 25 bucks a night. Is there anywhere else in the US you could get a like room with like restaurant breakfast?
That’s pretty good if you ask me.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. And some are also not even staying at Rio. They’re just booking it. They’re checking in. And they’re staying somewhere else. If they want the bougier properties, personally, I’ll definitely stay and sleep at Rio. So that’s not a problem for me. So hopefully we have other Rio sleepers
John Ryan: in the audience.
Living in Vegas, like air conditioning [00:23:00] bills over the summertime can get expensive, obviously with how hot it gets up to 120 degrees. So it felt less, you could just crack up the air conditioning and get a cool room, I guess, and have a good pool. And we have a pool here as well, but yeah, it’s just a nice break from home, a little like staycation thing.
And the rooms are fine, I mean like the beds were comfy enough, the hallways were quiet, so no complaints.
Justin Vacula: Sounds good, anything else about the event that we haven’t shared that you’d like to bring up?
John Ryan: Not at this time, just stay tuned, you can book tickets whenever you want. Book a room as soon as you can, there is only 200 rooms at the Nilo Las Colinas is the name of the hotel.
So I would try to do that as soon as you can. Room rates are around 120 to 130 per night. I will say that since this might be a popular event, it will will be a popular event as long as things go right with all of our great speakers. Booking those rooms early definitely unheard you, me, just ’cause otherwise we might be faced with higher road rate and if you book in advance, you have the fully
Justin Vacula: cancelable reservation as minor.
John Ryan: Definitely. Yeah. Don’t book a, I think it’s an honor of sale or a [00:24:00] just pay now rate book for Hilton Honor. Either book in the honors discount, which is like the regular best flexible, but it discount being a Hilton Honors member. Or book a semi flex. It’s a little bit like a longer cancellation window, but still flexible.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. If you’re on the fence about, Oh, I think I can go, maybe I’ll go. You can always book those nights. So don’t wait until a week or two before the event and Oh no, everything is sold out. You could have booked in advance and it’ll be okay. If you have to float a little bit of Hilton points or an advanced deposit or whatever happens to be the case, it should be all right.
Very good. So we’ll shift on to you when looking at your Facebook profile. I see you were born in 2007. So maybe you’re one of the youngest active people in miles.
John Ryan: Yeah, I’ve been, I’m a senior high school at the moment. I’m, this is actually a semester exam week. So not too stressed with the classes exams I’m taking this week, but yeah, it’s definitely unique.
So just managing school with, well, managing this stuff, like. Obviously I’d like to do this full time, but that’s [00:25:00] not possible at the moment. But it’s, yeah, it’s been definitely a unique journey. I think this has provided me with a lot of cool stuff. Like in high school, the school that I go to, we book a lot of trips.
So if you were for a club that I’m in, we’re going to Bopki in January. And I was the one that was behind booking all the group stuff, booking all the hotels. And it’s become a great skill for working for FT events. And yeah, it’s just provided me any perspective on things compared to everybody else. And how did you find out about the hobby?
It was really pretty straightforward. I started when I was around 11. Back from back then, I was really had not much of an interest and I didn’t know much about using points, but I’ve been traveling to my grandmother’s house since I was like one and I’ve been accumulating Delta’s found miles ever since, but for hotel stuff, I started back when I was 11.
That’s when I started getting more hardcore into things. We used to book Hotwire for all of our hotel stays. However, I just had enough of that. Ended up in some not so good hotels. One of which has become a homeless shelter in Denver, Colorado, because of that, I looked at alternatives and we started doing the children’s honors [00:26:00] program, and then eventually I moved on to the world of high programming.
Justin Vacula: My origin story was listening to the gambling with an edge podcast. That’s now largely inactive. They had a guest who was talking about doctor of credit, talking about signup bonuses, bank account bonuses. So I went down the rabbit hole as I found a lot of mix between gambling and miles and points. But I had wished that I had the memo when I was 11, I was in my teenage years.
How did you get the memo? How did you figure out that, Oh, actually it’s really smart to sign up for multiple cards or in your case, Hey dad, sign up for some cards. I’ll help you manage the account and walk you through this.
John Ryan: The main idea was just during COVID in particular. I know there’s a lot of people that were impacted by the events.
If it was just a good time for online learning and all that stuff to be able to travel and we took proper precautions with all that stuff, but it was just a good time to. Travel for less. And I feel like in order to travel more, I started looking into miles and points to subsidize our trips. And that started with the trips to Dubai in [00:27:00] 2021.
I’m just using different hacks to earn world of high points. Like from that state, for example. We got our last day for it. It was a 1, 000 stay, but it was 10 nights he was suite at the higher urgency duvet. We got a category 1 to 4 freelancer certificate, plus another 12, 000 points. So obviously that’s a huge return on such a short stay.
Justin Vacula: A lot of these experiences wouldn’t be possible or cost effective to use cash. So using credit to generate spend, to get all these points and miles, to get these welcome bonuses, to have multiple cards. Really ramps it up.
John Ryan: Absolutely. Yeah. And without credit cards, I don’t think we would be where we are today.
For example, back in 2021, had my mom open up an Amex platinum card and with that one signup bonus, which was I think 125,000 membership award points, we’re able to go to Europe. Round trip economy, plus a second side. Yeah, Europe round trip in economy with Virgin wedding on the way there. Caleb Onlo back.
And then another trip to Israel with economy on the way there, [00:28:00] pre economy on the way back. And then finally another trip this past winter break using Air Canada AeroClean points for one person flying home from Lisbon, Portugal to Las Vegas. So as you can see, you can really stretch these points really far if you know what you’re doing.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. People talk about these trips as once in a lifetime trips or, Oh, we can only do this once every four or five years. And I think they’re just doing it the wrong way. That if they did the things that we did, even at a low level of maybe just a few cards a year, of course, I was encouraged more, but even at a low level, there’s tons of value to be had.
And I think going for the low hanging fruit of the signup bonuses, the easy spend opportunities, there’s so much to be had
John Ryan: from this. Definitely. And I know there’s a family friend of mine and I’ve heard him say like. All I’m going to use ever is my Southwest card. But at the same time, it shows that people are just really stuck in their ways.
And there’s also that perception by credit card companies, like Delta SkyMiles are the greatest currency out there when they’re really not. Do a little bit more than that and put a [00:29:00] little bit more effort than that. You can really get an excellent return off your miles.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. Some people I talk to, I say, Hey, you have some bigger expenses coming up.
Do you have maybe auto insurance payment, some home renovations, whatever it is. So it should be easier for you to hit. Yeah. The sign up bonus is okay, you’re going to be spending 1, 000 on new windows and you have these other expenses, so how about just putting that spend on a new card and you’re going to get a welcome bonus of maybe 000 points.
This is quite a rebate, so rather than just using that Southwest card getting 1x miles, why not work on a new card, get some new bonus categories, new benefits, a big sign up bonus. And much more.
John Ryan: As you should see a different credit card that doesn’t give you 1x points use a The probably the best example is either the Capital One Venture card, which is a 95 annual fee.
Or the Chase staff card preferred, which is also like a 95 to 100 annual fee. You’ll get 2x points, which is far better than winning a Platinum Card Rancher, [00:30:00] for example. So just knowing this credit card for airfare and this credit card for dining, that can really go a long way.
Justin Vacula: And how is it for you managing the different accounts?
I hear this as a criticism of, Oh, it sounds like too much hassle managing all these accounts. I’m juggling credit cards. Oh, it sounds like a lot of effort and too much organization. I do everything
John Ryan: mostly mentally. I know it’s really bad and it’s probably cost me a little bit here and there, but Yeah, it’s just going through my email.
I feel like with how many, do you ever find this to be a problem with how many emails are just junk you get from like airlines like upgrade this upgrade, do you ever find that to be a problem?
Justin Vacula: I got an email from fountain blue to bring in the new year and stay in a special suite for prices starting at 5, 000.
So think, Oh, I was hoping for a lower price or some kind of offer. So like I could open an email and some, I just don’t even open. But if it seems like [00:31:00] potential, I’ll open it. But I’m usually multitasking when I do this. I’m working on something. I’m just waiting on lunch. So it is a little bit time checking emails and updates, but it’s very little effort to just click a button and then just move on to the next.
John Ryan: Yeah. And I feel like at the same time, those like they’re almost reminders. She’ll be, I just, if I see that and go. Rhea, didn’t I book that XYZ thing? Like it’s just serves as a good reminder, like to just get that out of the way. Say if I cancel something, I’m usually pretty good at not canceling flights.
Like flights are pretty firm, like our dates and we keep those. But yeah, for hotels, I’m always like juggling things. So I think just like checking those apps, my main two chains are pretty much my only two chains are Omicult and HiNet. So just checking those apps a lot, checking the. Account balances, and you can just get good at that.
Justin Vacula: We are fans of Award Wallet on the Herdy Gerdy Travel podcast, but not everyone’s going to use all apps. Some people are more old school with paper and notes, like past podcast guest Heidi. So I [00:32:00] say, Heidi, if that works for you, that’s okay, but we can also use Google Docs. We can use spreadsheets, but I think the problem of people on the fence about this, or skeptical about the hobby, Is that they’re looking at the final product of what I’m doing and thinking, Oh, I can’t just start there, but nobody’s ever suggesting, Hey, day one, sign up for 10 credit cards.
It’s sign up for your first card work on that. And you build up over time, how the first card works. You have the login, you have everything set up with the payments. You could even just check all of your accounts once a week and make your payments. Some people put stuff on autopay. I’m not a fan of autopay.
Because I have multiple bank accounts and different monies moving around. But you start with one card and you build up over time and you know it. It’s like learning chess. You’re not just going to start in these complex situations. You’re going to learn the basics of the game. And over time then you become a skilled player and you find that the effort was quite worth it.
And in miles and points, when this is giving me eight [00:33:00] complimentary cruises next year, I’m going on so many trips. I’ve already gone overseas to Italy, to Greece. I’ve gone to Hawaii, Alaska, and so many places I never would have paid. I never would have paid out of pocket a full price to go to these destinations.
So unlocking this travel has been really life changing and I don’t even work full time. I quit my job. I’ve been out of traditional work for years, relying on miles and points as a main source of income. Yeah, even at a lower level, as I mentioned earlier, some people might only take a handful of trips a year, maybe even one or two, and some even focus more on the cashback side, which is fine for those who aren’t traveling as much.
Or some are taking a hybrid approach, so you can customize this to what you want to do. It doesn’t have to be all travel, it doesn’t have to be all cash, you could determine what’s important to you, what you value, and make it happen. And I think, too, the travel experience. Is greatly upgraded with the statuses, as you mentioned with Hilton, getting extra food, [00:34:00] getting room upgrades, getting flight upgrades in many cases.
So it’s not only traveling at low costs, but it’s traveling at low cost. With good experiences and upgraded accommodations in many cases.
John Ryan: Yeah, agreed. And also too, if you travel to Asia a lot and you’re also to an extent, the experience you’re going to be getting in the U S with the sea, like a date food beverage fit, yeah, that’s nice to have.
And I mean, Mike can upgrade here and there, but when you go to Asia, like the upgrades you’re going to be getting, especially as a HIVE member, but also a Hilton member, It’s incredible. My mom and I moved to China for the summer for, and I speak Chinese. I’ve been learning it for three years in high school.
I’ve gotten to, I’d probably call like a six out of 10 for fluency and whatnot. But like the hotels that you see there, they are jaw dropping. Like they’re incredible. Like the, we got upgraded to a hotel in Suzhou, China, which is a small, small ish city population, 10 million, you probably haven’t heard of it.
It’s a city located outside of Shanghai. It’s a category, um, or Park Hyatt. And we got upgraded to a Lakeview suite [00:35:00] with just the most phenomenal furnishings. It was incredible. You’re not going to be seeing that in the U. S. as much just due to how many globals there are. But the experiences you’re going to be seeing internationally are pretty incredible.
Justin Vacula: Nice. Lots of experiences, lots of variety. It’s not just one airline, one destination. I go to Vegas a lot, but I’m also going on a lot of other trips as well. Yeah. And still lots of value in Las Vegas for sure. You mentioned Rio. Are there other Properties or other things that you look to in Vegas as being good value.
John Ryan: So unfortunately, and we’re talking about this before we started recording and out on how some people feel, I’m not naming names here, how some people feel the value of it is diminished over the years. I will say that I agree. So the thing is there’s still some value to be had off strict. South Point’s probably the greatest value these days, I find their food and beverage options to be pretty affordable.
You can get good cons for the most part, they sell the poker arena, just a nice casino, good rooms, lots of good service. But [00:36:00] on the Strip, it’s really not hard to find good food, good budget eats. For example, the Ocean One, which is a really popular value restaurant. A really cheap entrees, I think 5 to 7 for the quesadillas, mac and cheese, et cetera.
And that place just went out of business within the past month. And that was a huge blow. There still was like In N Out and Shake Shack to debrief. But I just went to this trip with my dad and my uncle over this past weekend. And walking through there, I noticed like Nathan’s Famous, the hot dog. Place.
They had hot dogs for, I want to say 12 or 13 hot dog. Pricing has gotten insane on the strip.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. So my rebuttal then would be that Vegas is expensive. If you don’t have a big game plan going in that, if we could utilize the Hyatt points at Rio or pay the low cash rates, we have the statuses that we get through earning.
I find a MGM right now. I’m looking at my MGM account. I have 1, 600 in comps at the moment because I spend on the MGM [00:37:00] MasterCard. Which also gives me the platinum status. So I get free parking, waived resort fees. I don’t think many in the audience will go for the high level of platinum status with the credit card spend, but gold status is very achievable as you only need 75 K tier in a year and a lot of the spending on this card is going to give you two X and at certain times three X so very easy to accumulate comps with MGM and also status.
To stay at some of these strip properties that are very low rates, or you mentioned earlier, the phone army. That quote unquote playing the MyVegas games will get you two comp nights and a lot of food discounts that you can stack with the comps. So I’ve been going and using the 20 off of 40 rewards, the buy one get one rewards, and picking up 75 to 100 in free play every trip just through these silly mobile and browser games that I’m hardly paying attention to.
But I could just set them up, be in the lobby, auto spin the games. And it’s very easy. For sure.
John Ryan: Yeah. And I think there’s a lot of value in Vegas on the tier properties, at least on [00:38:00] the GM’s side of things. Man wide Bay is phenomenal. In my opinion, it’s with the luxury middle tier one, the whole complex is great.
I’d recommend staying there. Luxor also the best value on by far. It’s a lot better than Excalibur, especially if you can get into the East or West tower. There, I think I heard a new name now that I can’t remember it, but golden, right? Yeah, but anyway, that’s a really good property. Eftelbrer is decent.
York is good, especially if you have a T Mobile readout that you want to open. MGM is good. I think they’re going to be renovating their rooms to the near future. And then you have Park MGM, which is also quite nice.
Justin Vacula: Oh, I wasn’t there for Monte Carlo, but I do really like Park MGM with the central location.
You could just hop on the tram, go to Aria, Bellagio. Very easily from park MGM and it has a lot of the, my Vegas restaurants, best frame, la la noodle. So lots of good options at park MGM. And then just going next door to Aria, using the tram to get to Bellagio, even more restaurants and more opportunities.[00:39:00]
With
John Ryan: park MGM being smoke free, I think that is a huge value if you don’t smoke. And then some fortune in the past years of Mirage has gone. I think that was an amazing property, a great pool, just very easy to get around. Um, But with that being said, it’s going to be hopeless and better next year’s.
Justin Vacula: And with the Caesars property, I know many listeners have been floozing to the finish line with the Wyndham business card.
So they have many Wyndham points that they could transfer to Caesars. And in 2025, I’m going to be staying at the Wyndham desert blue. So for weekend, I think it was around 000 Wyndham points, which is very little, especially when the signup bonus was 60, 000 or so points when I got it. And then you’re earning 8x on fuel coding purchases.
So on the weekend for 000 points, whatever it is, that’s really good. If the points are valued at one cent
John Ryan: per Yeah, that’s a decent location. Like I just looked it up now, I’ve always, I thought that was a dirt corporate building from a long time, but yeah, that’s a good location. You’re right by the [00:40:00] Rio, which is not the greatest of all locations, but You could use your rideshare pranks and get over to a safe fashion show, Caesar’s from the back.
Justin Vacula: And Caesar’s, I talked in a previous episode with co host Darren about getting Caesar’s diamond status now that Wyndham is taking that away, the war on happiness once again. No more free diamond status, now you actually have to play. So with the Caesar’s Rewards Visa credit card, And playing some video poker during tier multiplier days, I think there’s a very easy path to diamond status in the future.
So Caesar’s diamond status with waived resort fees. And you’re earning on the Caesars credit card. And when you pay the Caesars credit card with certain rewards, earning debit cards, for those in the know, you’re getting an additional 1. 5, 2 percent atop the one X or potentially more comp earning. So it turns out to be something like a two to 4 percent everywhere type card.
And what I usually get with Caesars is staying at horseshoe, staying and paying [00:41:00] about 20, 30 a night. So 20, 30 a night, no resort fees. I think the MGM MasterCard in the Caesars Rewards Visa is looking really strong in 2025 when the status matching game has really changed.
John Ryan: It’s definitely going to be an interesting year next year.
I think Venetian might be, they have a status match. Hopefully they don’t get better this time real soon. Yeah,
Justin Vacula: I got a grand prize of 15 in free slot play, no return offers, nothing. So it wasn’t like win Las Vegas of, Hey, we’re going to give you this 150 birthday comp and get some free play and maybe come back and stay two nights.
So we’ve been really spoiled in the status matching game getting so I
John Ryan: guess it doesn’t help. I think Venetian is now on pile one. Say Apollo goal may I admit, as a consumer or a guest, they’re probably not going to be offering you the best comps.
Justin Vacula: And, uh, Venetian, historically, listeners in the comments, you can correct me if I’m wrong, I think they started the trend of Triple Zero Roulette, [00:42:00] one of the worst casino games that you can play.
John Ryan: Not good enough to spread across the street, so.
Justin Vacula: Plague of Triple Zero Roulette has spread. And some casinos try to be sneaky about it, as they have the casino logo on the felt. And it doesn’t necessarily look like a triple That’s
John Ryan: sneaky and very vague as to do.
Justin Vacula: And with gambling, of course, we encourage you to gamble responsibly and learn the games before you play and play good games, of course, is what I recommend.
I have many instructional videos on YouTube teaching blackjack, and I’m going to create some instructional video poker videos as well, because I think this is the future in 2025 for blackjack. Earning the tier statuses as there are some ups and downs with gambling. So miles and points, people get really, Oh, I don’t want to lose money.
Oh, I’d hate to lose this day or that day. But of course we’re in it for the long game. The math works out over time. America loves math. And when considering these tier opportunities, cruise opportunities, and much more. The gamble is definitely worth it. [00:43:00] As some say, no gamble, no future. And how do you say that in Chinese?
John Ryan: No future in it’s Joe Mayo . Alright.
Justin Vacula: Listen from some other Chinese listeners to see if he got that one there. But yes, some ups, some downs in gambling, but the math works out over time and of course we’re in it for the long game, not about what happened yesterday, this week, this month. It’s nice to have the wins of course.
And it can feel bad to have the losses, but you have to be not results oriented, process oriented, and in the long run, you’re making smart decisions that are going to work out over a larger sample size. So trust the math, trust the process. One thing
John Ryan: that I have judged that you have in on the East coast that I wish we had here in videos.
Wawa. Something I miss.
Justin Vacula: Ooh, yes. And Wawa often sells the online gambling gift cards. So that’s another benefit of Wawa. Some of them coding as fuel. If they have gas pumps. Pretty cool. Adex [00:44:00] Wyndham business at fuel pump and gas slash fuel coating Wawa’s. Um, smoothies,
John Ryan: sandwiches, anything that you want.
Pretzels, the
Justin Vacula: double pretzels. I gotta have a Wawa, but there’s fierce competition. Panera is down the street from my local Wawa and I have lots of Panera’s. So I have the unlimited sip club for 99 a year, free drinks, every visit, every two hours. So that’s one of my favorite. Redemption
John Ryan: after you show up an hour and 59 minutes after you get your roster.
Justin Vacula: Oh, you have to put your phone number in the system and then the cashier would say, Oh, the drink’s not available. But at this point I’ve become enough of a regular where they just hand me the cup as I want
John Ryan: it. Okay, so there I have a funny story with that. So there is a back in, I want to say 2021. We’re with the Amex Platinum that you got six months of a free trial and you just keep extending it and doing all that stuff.
And yeah, eventually the cashier there, they just knew me and just gave me a cup. You extended
Justin Vacula: the free trial. Let’s move on [00:45:00] to a different item. Trips coming in 2025. Where are you going next? Yeah,
John Ryan: it’s looking, turning out to be a fun year. First off we have in January, we’re going to, I’m going with, to Boston.
There’s like a school field trip to a competition at MIT. And then next up, I have a trip to, I want to say, Phoenix, and that’s going to be at the Tempe Mission Palms in, um, Tempe, Arizona, followed by a trip over spring break, by spring break, to Stockholm, Sweden, and Gdansk, Poland. That’s going to be to attend the Loyalty Summit CXM conference.
And then after that, I’m planning a trip to Japan over the summer. That’s also to be determined, probably going to be to the Tokyo area, maybe Osaka and then somewhere from there.
Justin Vacula: All right. Sounds great. And new cards coming. So are you going to have a primary card coming soon? Are you an authorized user at the moment, or will you be an authorized user on some accounts?
John Ryan: It
Justin Vacula: is
John Ryan: currently an authorized user on my mom’s iChase Setup Finder Preferred [00:46:00] Card. However, I do want to see them get into more credit card application stuff since They’re like X, Y, Z out of 24 numbers are pretty low at the moment. I think maybe a platinum card for my dad, possibly, or Capital One Venture X.
Those parts might be great. I will say just watch out with the Capital One Venture X. My mom got denied for that one, despite having nearly perfect credit.
Justin Vacula: Ooh. And I heard some people get declined due to having a thick credit profile of many inquiries in the last few years or even sooner. Yeah. Yeah, Dave Ramsey says that you need to go into debt and pay interest in order to have a high credit score But of course, that’s not how it work.
And how are you going about managing your dad’s accounts? Are you a more active main player? Is he like a player 2? What’s that looking like?
John Ryan: I don’t think for the most part I’m a main player just because I fly the most out of them like I’ve been doing a lot of hotel trips in the past few months with a couple of different school friends.
Well, we travel, we can’t travel to a hotel yet since we’re not 18. So we, [00:47:00] so we’ll fly Frontier and I have platinum status with them. So we’ll fly to, say, San Francisco, San Diego, Denver. Those are the main cities I’ve been to already. And we just visit them for the day and come back. So yeah, I’ve been the main one managing their different accounts.
And that’s just through checking your log. It’s making sure everything looks good. And if we have a big trip coming up, of course, I’ll, um, be transferring points. But in recent months, so I, my dad did buy a lot. I’m not going to. State the number, but he did buy a lot of Alaska airlines or Hawaiian miles, rather it was possible last month.
I want to say where you could buy wine miles for about 1. 2 to 1. 25 cents each. And then since there’s a one to one currency exchange with Alaska mile to planet miles, you’re buying those miles at well over 50%.
Justin Vacula: Ah, nice. And American express membership rewards still transferring to Hawaiian as of today, 12, 16, 2024.
It’s still alive. And then people are transferring from Hawaiian to [00:48:00] Alaska. And there’s also a lot of code sharing between Alaska and American airlines. So lots of interesting things with membership rewards from America. Definitely,
John Ryan: just watch out with if you are transferring points over from Hawaiian, watch out if there is like a federal excise tax for doing that, same with Delta Sky Miles.
So it might only make sense at a certain threshold to transfer your points over.
Justin Vacula: One big transfer. Correct. And it caps at the 99. Yeah,
John Ryan: so I’m not sure what the rate is on that.
Justin Vacula: So how about this? If your dad has a business platinum card, can he add you as an employee and then you have your card and you can check in at the hotel, or they’re saying that that’s no good because you’re still underage?
I think
John Ryan: they’re gonna still say that I’m underage, even though it’s, the name matches, unfortunately. But, regardless of the whole name thing, it’s pretty darn weird. Like in foreign countries, I think that I’m like the cack holder of the high count when I’m not.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, how many people born in 2007 are active and engaged with a hobby and have multiple carts?
I would imagine
John Ryan: you’re involved with [00:49:00] the world apart for her.
Justin Vacula: So you must have scored high in the conscientiousness element of the big five personality. Yes, probably. I haven’t taken that. Ooh, we’ll find out in the next episode. All right. How can people find you online? And once again, if you could plug the upcoming FTU event.
John Ryan: Definitely. People can find me primarily on Facebook. That’s where I’m probably going to be most active. Hey, my name is John Ryan. Oh, that’s a common one. I don’t know how else to say it. I think I’d be friends with you. I used to get maybe looking that way. Yes.
Justin Vacula: You, you should have a unique URL.
John Ryan: Let me see what that is.
That is, oh, jryan563, so j r y a n 5 6 3 is my Facebook handle. People can find me most likely on the award travel groups, both 101 and 201. I post quite actively there. And then also too on the FTU group, which is a Facebook group for FTU members. You’re welcome to join and we’d love to see your members there.[00:50:00]
Please feel free to post, comment. I’m the main person behind those posts. So if you could interact there and do all that stuff, that’d be great. And I’d love to see what you have to say.
Justin Vacula: So for listeners, once again, it’s facebook. com slash J as in John Ryan, 563. It looks like your profile picture is you standing in the center of a sign hashtag.
S A D I Y H E? Yes. You
John Ryan: covered a lot of names. It’s We were just flying to Dubai at this really cool beach
Justin Vacula: club. Yeah, it was really cool. And in the cover photo, I see a Ferris wheel, and it looks like multiple cruise ships, and you live in Henderson, Nevada. Correct. Yeah.
John Ryan: A small sub not small anymore, but the actually the second largest city in the state.
And it this is the a suburb of Las Vegas, where about I’m maybe 10 minutes from state, from city
Justin Vacula: line of Vegas. Ah, nice. So you should be eligible for the MyVegas rewards when you come of age or [00:51:00] your dad’s account and then redeeming the reward. Phone Army will assimilate you. And one more plug for the event.
Sure. If
John Ryan: you can find that over on ft. events slash FT university, and you’ll see it as a little thing on the top bar called Dallas 2025. You can find out all there is to know about registering, who’s going to be speaking, and you know, we look forward to seeing you there. And will you be speaking? I don’t know.
I hope to. I will be just, I might be just running around frantically, I might be running around frantically for a while on that weekend, but we’ll see.
Justin Vacula: People can still meet you at the interview. Totally. Love to meet you. Anything else you’d like to say? No, it was great to be on here and thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. Early bird ticket sales for ZorkFest 2025, a miles points and gambling event, are now live at zorkfest. travelzork. com. I hope to see you at ZorkFest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th through December [00:52:00] 7th. I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and have a successful 2024, speaking at events with Award Travel 101, TravelZork, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events.
If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me. Visit meetup. com slash philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel. Credit miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are January 26th and February 23rd, 2025.
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