Join host Justin Vacula on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast as he chats with Arthur Chow about his extensive experiences and strategies with credit card points, miles, and rewards.
Learn how Arthur has leveraged these perks for amazing adventures in Europe, luxury cruises, and more.
The episode also touches on Arthur’s recent travels, including a detailed rundown of European Christmas markets and first-class flights. Get ready for expert tips on managing multiple credit cards, booking complex flights, and making the most of your miles and rewards.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel with Points and Miles
01:01 Announcements and Upcoming Events
02:39 Interview with Arthur Chow Begins
03:32 Arthur’s Journey into Miles and Points
05:03 Vegas Adventures and Caesars Status
06:56 Family Trips and Fontainebleau Experience
11:05 Around the World with ANA and Starlux
20:45 Etihad First Class Experience
25:49 Exploring European Christmas Markets
28:59 Exploring Festive Christmas Markets in Germany
30:05 Tips for Visiting European Christmas Markets
31:42 Unique Foods and Activities at German Christmas Markets
33:39 Comparing German and Austrian Christmas Markets
34:08 Affordable Travel and Accommodations
34:56 Navigating Credit Card Applications for Travel
42:33 Managing Multiple Credit Cards Efficiently
45:34 Upcoming Travel Plans and Events
48:27 Cruise Adventures and Casino Tips
52:05 Final Thoughts and Where to Find More Content
Show notes:
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Rough Transcript:
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, miles and points with Arthur Chow.
I talked with Arthur about his experience with miles and points, including Europe trips, cruises, Japan, [00:01:00] and more. Before today’s episode, some quick announcements. 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 7th.
I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and had a 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 26th and February 23rd, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more [00:02:00] content between podcast episodes. Follow Herdy Gerdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.
For bonus videos and community content, subscribe to Herdy Gerdy Travel Podcast on YouTube and follow Justin Vekula on Instagram. Search Herdy Gerdy Travel on Subscribestar. com and Instagram. Or become a channel member on YouTube to financially support my efforts. Starting at the 5 a month tip jar level, receive special perks at higher levels, including private one on one conversations and asking podcast guests, your questions.
Find links and more including credit card referrals at hurdygurdytravel. com on with today’s episode Welcome to the show Arthur Chow. Hey, Justin. Thanks for having me. All right. We’re back from Chicago We’re back from Zork Fest 2024 and here to chat today.
Arthur Chow: Yeah, I’m excited always excited to talk miles and points and credit and [00:03:00] Gracing Justin and all these events Yes, we definitely went to several in 2024.
Yeah, they were great. I don’t know, Justin, you’re very good and well versed in more of the online gambling and that realm, which I’m always excited to learn from you as well.
Justin Vacula: All right. Thanks. And you’ll talk about some things today, some different topics, some new topics that we haven’t discussed about in previous episodes, but before that, what is your origin story?
How did you get started in Miles and Points?
Arthur Chow: Back when I was in college, I loved to read these forums on deals and buying stuff and reselling stuff. So I do a little bit by resell on the side, just for extra spending money in college, get into deals, not only with actual electronics and products, but then you start traveling and you want to find more deals on saving on the airfare, saving on the hotels, things like that.
So I started reading [00:04:00] blogs. Like the points guy, I think this was back around 2010 and other blogs, they were just starting out before you know it, you start getting deeper and deeper into it. And at that point, credit card bonuses really started to grow as well. I believe there, it was 15 years ago, there started to be like a hundred thousand FANAT bonuses, which now in these days, it sounds small because we’re, there’s 200, 250, 000 bonuses these days, but back then a hundred was a lot because before there’d only be like 40 bonuses.
From there, just keep up with the news. Keep up with everything that goes on. Things change all the time, year after year, things change. 15 years later, it’s still a viable hobby. It’s still a viable way to save a lot of money on travel, save a lot of money on airfare and hotels. So, where we’re at and throughout time, attending events, meeting people.
I remember that [00:05:00] actually, Justin, the first time I met you, I think it was a few years ago. I met you in Vegas. Just, I just happened to be in Vegas. I believe you, you happened to be in Vegas. I believe we chatted over some free Starbucks you had. Uh, oh wait, Caesar status, right? Oh
Justin Vacula: yeah, the Caesar’s Diamond Plus drink vouchers a few years ago.
Yeah, was
Arthur Chow: it for free drink per day? And you still have Caesar’s status, right? I remember the first time I met you, Justin, was in Vegas. And we chatted points and miles over some free Starbucks you had from your Caesar
Justin Vacula: status. Ooh, yes, the Diamond Plus status. So now with the recent changes, Wyndham and Caesars, with the War on Happiness, no more free diamonds, so you’re going to have to earn diamond through several ways.
So I’m very close to earning diamond after earning some tier from the Caesars Rewards Visa, some tier from Stays, some tier from Online Blackjack. So I’m going to be going to Atlantic City December 22nd. [00:06:00] Playing video poker and working towards that diamond plus status to get the free drink vouchers and more past podcast guest, Mandy is rooting for me for the drink.
Arthur Chow: Nice. Besides that, Mindy is someone you shared the drinks
Justin Vacula: with quite often. Oh, yes, yes. We went on a Vegas trip. It was a double birthday extravaganza. You can see that as a previous video. My birthday was in September. Hers was in October. So we got to chop up many of the birthday rewards in the same truck.
Awesome. Awesome.
Arthur Chow: Yeah, I actually went to Vegas twice in November. So of course I went that first weekend for Zorks Us, which is a great event. If anyone hasn’t been, you’ll learn a lot about gambling. I think it’s mostly just an opportunity to network with other people that. Are more into the gambling side, the sports betting and how to leverage Cofino status, things like that to, to get more points.
So it’s definitely a great event, but [00:07:00] I went twice in November. The first trip I took my dad and step mom and grandparents. And then the second trip, I came back to Dallas where I’m from for a week. And the second trip I went back, took my mom and my stepdad. So my two sets of parents. And this trip I actually booked Fontainebleau.
I believe the night we booked, since we have multiple platinum cards in the family, were from the FHR credit, which is great because you get 200 off with the FHR, fine hotels and resorts credit, plus you get the 100 dining credit and 60 toward breakfast. And what we usually did, did for breakfast was, especially the first day, the first round I went, we had five people, we’d use the 100 dining credit, With the 60 breakfast and combine it.
So for breakfast, since we had five, we’d use all 160 for that. And then since we did the match earlier this year, I believe it was in [00:08:00] May. Two of us had a Fontainebleau status, a second level, which gave us another 150. Of dining to be used before the end of the year. So we actually had two other meals. I believe we split it up into two separate meals as well.
Justin Vacula: Oh, nice. Lots of stuff. Lots of
Arthur Chow: stacking. Basically, breakfast was covered. Dinner was covered. We had the Caesar celebration, a hundred dollars to use as well. Plus I’m. I was also staying at the Rio simultaneously. So I booked the Fontainebleau for my parents and my grandparents. And I stayed at the Rio for some extra Hyatt nights for globalist status.
And of course Rio, I believe during the week, usually Sunday to Thursdays, if you can find it. This was last month, of course. Things have changed a little bit since then, but it was around 27 to 32. And you get free breakfast for up to two people, but that more than cover [00:09:00] the nightly rate and get the upgraded room.
So yeah, it was great. The only thing I had to do was rent a car, which I believe I used. That trip was Hertz with President’s Circle status. So quite a good trip, quite a great way to spend a vacation with family. And then just really soak up the restaurants at the Fontainebleau, soak up the recredits. And just enjoy the facilities.
Fontainebleau is actually a really nice hotel. I really like it. I wish I could keep the status for another year.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, it’s a nice thing with this hobby that we can share with others. As we hear about, oh, Vegas is so expensive. Oh, the value’s gone. But if you’re playing the game the right way, you come in prepared.
You can use these benefits, these statuses, these rewards and stay for very little cost. And with all the dining credits easily offsetting that 30 a night or the little bit that you might have had to spend after the American [00:10:00] Express fine hotels and resorts rebate.
Arthur Chow: Oh yeah, definitely. And this is what I heard from other people at the ZorkFest One guy, he plays quite often at Fontainebleau and Fontainebleau is known, especially this year for being very generous on the comps. If you do play some table games, because they’re trying to steal some loyal customers from the Wynn, from MGM, from Resorts World to play at Fontainebleau. Since they’re the new kid on the block, they’ve only been open for a year.
And that’s very true because my dad, I believe he only played around, I think he lost around 200. Playing blackjack and he already got one or two weeks after he left came back He got an email for four free nights in an upgraded room at Fontainebleau. Yeah I was very I was like really and I told him forward me the email is really nice offer So you he actually wants to go back now since he
Justin Vacula: got [00:11:00] the offer cool cool.
So lots of Vegas We promise listeners also to talk about other topics. So you are Currently in Europe, right?
Arthur Chow: I just got to Lisbon earlier today and just came back from dinner right now. I believe it’s a five hour difference from the East coast and Lisbon. So it’s my evening over here. I, we’ll talk a little bit.
I came from Taipei. I booked a Starlux flight using Alaska miles that I transferred from Amex. So if you haven’t heard yet, this has been going on for the last two months, I believe. Alaska Hawaiian merger is on, so they actually opened up transfers from Amex to Hawaiian, which has always been there, but then now you can transfer Hawaiian to Alaska.
And Alaska miles before this have been very hard to earn, because you only really had the Alaska, Bank of America, Alaska personal, and the business card. And you can get those sign up bonuses, [00:12:00] and you can use those cards to get more miles. But now, you have this avenue. Amex is One of the easiest points to earn since they have very large signup bonuses, since they have lots of offers and multipliers categories for their cards.
So people usually have a surplus of Amex miles So being able to transfer Amex to eventually to Alaska is a huge thing. But on the other hand, that means that Alaska redemptions have gotten harder, especially on partner airlines and Starlux is one of them, but I was fortunate to get LAX to Taipei flight.
This was, I think the week right before Thanksgiving, the weekend, right before Thanksgiving, great flight. I’ve been wanting to try Starlux. The plane of course is brand new. All right. All the bells and whistles. The food was [00:13:00] exceeded my expectations, honestly, like the freshness of the food. The portions are very large, just very good quality ingredients.
And the service is always solid, especially on all the Asian airlines, Taiwanese, Japanese airlines. Service is great. The flight attendant I had was actually a former Eva Airlines flight attendant. And Eva Airlines is known for being very good in service because of their training and their culture. So she actually went to Starlux.
And she was there, I believe this was her first year at Starlux I asked to Taipei on Starlux spent a few weeks in Taipei and I actually flew Eva Airlines from Taipei to Paris. Part of my round the world ticket that I booked with ANA earlier this year, I believe I had the Chicago to Haneda segment on The Room on ANA and then from, uh, Haneda to Taipei.
So I used both of those segments. I had the remaining two segments, which was [00:14:00] Taipei to Paris and then Lisbon to Chicago. So with ANA round the world ticket booking, you have to start and end in the same country. So in Chicago. And I was gonna end up in Chicago going back this Friday, one last segment, Lisbon to Chicago coming up in two days to complete my round the world booking.
Justin Vacula: Oh, nice. And can you explain the rules? Yes. To Lisbon? Yeah.
Arthur Chow: ANA on the phone, airways is a Japanese airline. There’s two Japanese airlines. The other one is Japan Airlines. JAL And the room is on one of their newer planes. So they’re a business class. If you’ve ever seen the suites, the first class suites of ANA that they’re known for the famous one.
That one is actually the suite is a first class cabin and the room is a business class cabin. Those are the new cabins on ANA and they only fly certain routes. So this is very important because [00:15:00] a lot of people. They think that, okay, I’m going to book ANA business class. We’re going to get the rule. I’m going to book ANA first class.
I’m going to get this first class suite. But no, they only fly certain routes. And right now the consistent routes they have are Chicago to Haneda and Chicago to Narita. I believe they have two flights out of Chicago every day. And both of those are on the newer plane with the room and the suites. And then there’s the other flight from S South, San Francisco to Haneda, I believe.
That one is, they have two flights, but only one of those is on the newer plane. So when you book your flight, you definitely have to make sure you’re getting the one you want, like the cabin, the sheet, the plane that you want. And the best way to do that is actually to go to ANA’s website, look up the same flight that you’re going to, that you were going to book on points.
And then just see if they [00:16:00] mark it as a room, or if you’re booking first class, see if they mark it
Justin Vacula: as
Arthur Chow: a suite.
Justin Vacula: Nice. It’s a different type of world tour. I usually talk about the world tours as going to multiple stops in one day, multiple grocery stores, gas stations. Whatever it is to buy gift cards, take advantage of deals.
But in this case, you’re going around the world. Yeah. And the reason I do that is because
Arthur Chow: it is really one of the sweet spots and the best and most cost effective redemptions there is, but it is also one of the most difficult. So for these, for around the world books, you minimum, you need three flights to get you around the world.
Basically, I think, I believe I spent around 125, 000 miles for this booking. And I transferred Amex to ANA and ANA only has one transfer partner for the US banks and that’s Amex and it actually takes two to three days to actually transfer the miles over. Usually I like to [00:17:00] keep at least one round world ticket in points.
So I like to keep at least 125, 000 points. In the ANA, I just know that the miles do expire after three years, but I like to keep it there because I know I’m going to use it. And I know that I could be booking around the world ticket at any moment because I just want to get the value because let’s put it this way.
If you book a long haul flight business class, let’s say from the U S to Asia, you’re looking at about You know, minimum 70 to maybe 90, 000 points, usually, on average. Alright, for that one flight. Then from Asia to Europe, maybe another 50 to 75, 000, right? Then from Europe back to the U. S., maybe another, oh, on the low end, maybe 40, 000 to 80, 000.
So to get three of those flights, all right, the bare minimum, three flights is 125, 000. Now you can book more flights. You don’t have to [00:18:00] just book three. You’re gonna take to a couple other places. You can book some short hops in business class. Usually I like to say for around the world bookings and get three to eight, which is pretty realistic.
Flight three to eight business class flights and around the world books, but usually it’s three very long haul flights included in those
Justin Vacula: nice. And the cash value of this, what do you think that might be? Would you ever spend thousands of dollars out of pocket for these flights?
Arthur Chow: Yeah. So the cash value, maybe on each one way business class flight, I would say probably at least 3000.
So we’re looking at probably 10, 000 and up, depending on how many total flights you book, maybe 10, 10, anywhere from 10 to 20, 000. But it is a great deal because some people they’re spending 85 to a hundred thousand on one business class flight. And if you’re able to get three to eight for 125, 000, to me, that’s an awesome deal averages out to maybe 40, 000 per flight or less [00:19:00] on long haul.
So definitely one of the best things. In the points and miles space, but like I said, it is one of the most difficult bookings because all the flights have to be available. There has to be a workspace when you’re actually booking, calling in to book the flight. And yeah, and the other thing is you actually have to call them and be on hold.
So ANA, they’re notorious for having pretty long hold times. Usually, I would say on average, probably like an hour. I’ve had two hour long waits, and I’ve also had 15 minute waits as well. But I would say average, you know, expect to be at least on the phone for 30 minutes to an hour just on the whole time.
But once, if you have everything ready, and you have backups of your itineraries ready, You can feed them the flight information and have them look it up and book it right away. So that’d be my tip is, but it is a more advanced booking where you have to find the space on all segments of the itinerary.
Justin Vacula: All right. So put [00:20:00] that phone on speaker then while you’re on hold, do other things, run your MyVegas games with the phone army, prep your lunch, do what you need to do. Not too bad to have it going in the background with D hold music. Yeah,
Arthur Chow: definitely. I’m always doing something else. While I’m on hold, another tip I would say is if you call on the weekends, usually weekends are probably a little bit shorter wait, but either way you do have to call in or you want to have the miles already in your ANA account when you do have some backup flights in case they don’t see the availability on their side.
So that’s a part of my around the world itinerary. The Starlux was separate. So let me continue. I went from Taipei to, to Paris. And then just a few weeks ago, I saw that there was some availability that opened up. Etihad, first class apartments, right? Now the reason it opened up. Before they only had Etihad first class apartments on the London and Abu Dhabi route and then they just put it on the JFK [00:21:00] and Abu Dhabi route.
So those are the only two routes that they had the first class apartments. It’s on the A380 double decker. But a few weeks ago, They actually added another route, which was Paris to Abu Dhabi. I saw that and I was like, wait, I’m going to be in Paris during this part of December, and I think there’s availability because they just changed the plane over.
So I looked it up. Sure enough, there was space. I booked it right away. And that was my thing. Now, usually I don’t like to fly just to take a flight. I like to fly to a city. See the city, have a purpose, right, just to travel. But this time I did fly to Abu Dhabi just to pick the apartments on the A380. And I flew back on the A380 as well.
So I actually flew twice, back to back, on the same plane coming back. And I want to say, if you’ve never done it before, it’s [00:22:00] great. Shower on the plane. Alright, you have five minutes of running water, shower on the plane. You got caviar, champagne. Everything, great service, great food, dine on demand. You have a sliding door that closes a big ol suite.
There’s a kind of a long sofa in front of your chair that folds down into a little single sized bed. Really great experience, but if you’ve never done it, this is the best way to do it. This is the second route. It’s a shorter route. I would say it’s around 7 hour flight, so definitely I wish it was longer.
But the, you had the London Abu Dhabi route, now you have the Paris to Abu Dhabi route. And booking Etihad you’d use, the best way of course would be using American Airlines miles, which are a little bit hard to come by, but 62 and a half thousand, so 62.5k miles to fly Paris to Abu Dhabi. And like [00:23:00] minimal taxes and fees, I believe it was like 50 bucks or less.
Yeah. So definitely one of the great perks. Yes, you do have to be in Europe to fly it, but you don’t have to spend a hundred plus thousand. 62, 000 is all you need and experience a shower in the sky just to say that you’ve done it. So definitely recommend.
Justin Vacula: So once again, the answer to everything is more credit cards for more points for more trips.
Arthur Chow: Of course. You could always. Thanks. There’s some, in certain situations you can buy points on, with some hotels, with some airlines, but in this situation with AA. Just, you just need more AA points, right? Do some more shopping via the AA portals, get more AA cards. That’s what it is. Yeah. You know the situation.
Yeah. But AA miles are some of the most valuable miles. Some of my favorite miles because I’m out of Dallas too, but I don’t use them for domestic US flights. Always save them up. I’ve used [00:24:00] them for JAL, Japan Airlines First Class. I’ve used, and now I’ve used them for Etihad First Class You can also use them for Qatar Q Suites which is a favorite of a lot of people in business class.
Like some of the, the most popular business
class, I want to say, the Q
Suites Yes, but our good friend Dave Ramsey said that you could just pay for your own vacation. You don’t need no stinking credit card. We
all know Dave Ramsey. He’s, he takes loans on his property and assets, or so I, I read somewhere that he has a persona, he has a character, and then he has what he really does.
Justin Vacula: Ooh, so are you going to spend $10,000 and take these flights? He says, spend your own money to make your own vacation rather than using. An airline mile, that’s almost impossible to use, according to him.
Arthur Chow: My answer to that, Justin,
Justin Vacula: I, I’m all for
Arthur Chow: credit cards. I’m all for miles and points. And honestly, some people like we’ll spend cash, but for me, if I could spend miles, definitely miles would be the first one, even [00:25:00] on hotel bookings, airlines, some people really like discount by discounted business class fares with cash, but I’m more of a points guy and unless it’s a horrible, unless sometimes.
You get such a good cash deal, let’s say in a hotel, let’s say 60. Maybe I’ll spend cash if it was 60 a night instead of spending the points.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. The Rio example you mentioned, but I’m thinking of these overseas flights that would be really expensive. And for me, these would be trips I definitely wouldn’t take.
Paying out of pocket as miles and points has unlocked so many great experiences that were traditionally out of reach or cost prohibitive. Oh, yeah.
Arthur Chow: No, I 100 percent agree. Especially first class flights, use points whenever you can and business class flights. So, now did the Abu Dhabi, Paris? round trip, showered, let’s talk about the Christmas market.
I was very surprised. So my thing was, I’m going to go to Paris and [00:26:00] my goal was to go to Strasbourg. All right. Because I heard Strasbourg has the best Christmas markets. Blah, blah, blah. It’s so nice. It’s like the center of Christmas markets. Okay, Strasbourg, if you guys don’t know, is a town on the eastern border of France and bordering Germany.
And it’s about, I forgot, but I want to say it was like a two or three hour train ride. I think a three hour train ride from Paris. And fortunately, I have a very good friend, like a longtime friend of 27 years. that lives in Strasbourg. So a perfect reason to go there and meet his family. So Paris, I’ve been to the Christmas markets, I believe one or two years ago.
I thought it was okay. You know, it’s okay. There’s a little Ferris wheel. There’s some food and drinks, stalls. It, it, it reminds me of a fair, like a state fair, but a lot smaller. And usually they hold it in a plaza or in a park, right? That’s a Christmas market. I go to Strasbourg, a [00:27:00] friend takes me around.
Definitely. If you have a chance, do go, uh, to Europe. You don’t have to go to Paris, you don’t have to go to France, you can go to any of the major countries and experience the Christmas vibe. But Strasbourg has a great vibe. They have the stalls, so to say, like the Christmas market spread out through the city.
You can go to different parts of the city and they’ll just be selling trinkets, souvenirs, all kinds of stuff. Like pottery, ornaments, different chocolates. beeswax figures and things, candles, uh, anything you can think of in the holiday mood, holiday, you know, forms. So I was impressed. Strasbourg was nice. I think it was nicer than Paris.
Hotel wise, hotels are expensive, especially during this month. 300, 250, and a lot, though not cheap. And then if you want nicer ones, they’re like 500, 600 a night. So if you’re what I would do is I [00:28:00] would use some of the tools out there to find. Some award night space, so you can use points to book some of these nights.
There are some hotels from Marriott, Hilton. There may be a Hyatt, I can’t remember, but Marriott has the biggest presence in a town like Strasbourg. There’s one Hilton, hotel wise. Maybe if you have a bigger family, maybe like Airbnb or something. So I was impressed with the Christmas markets in France. Not bad.
Then, so I just left there on Saturday, on Saturday night, I went to visit, I have another friend. Alright, it’s great to have friends all over the world. He lives in Karlsruhe, which is like an hour or so, uh, north of Strasbourg. So I took the train, I went to visit him, and he took me to the Karlsruhe Christmas market.
I was super impressed with the Karlsruhe Christmas market. A German Christmas market. Hands down blows French Christmas markets away, like by far. [00:29:00] Super festive. Like the stalls are decorated so nice, nice. They even have like big statues and structures and on top of the, like the little wood cabin stalls.
Um, they just deck it out. It is just such a different feel. They have the same Ferris wheels, carousels, but more of them. They have live music. I don’t know how to say it, but if Paris, if I gave them like 75, Germany would be like 90, 95 out of a hundred. Germany knows how to do Christmas markets.
Justin Vacula: Nice. So a good time of the year.
And how was the temperature?
Arthur Chow: Temperature is very cold.
Justin Vacula: We’re
Arthur Chow: talking like it’s Strasbourg. I think it was like fluctuate. One night I was walking outside. It was 32. Fahrenheit and then by the time I got back it was like 29 Fahrenheit. It’s very cold. You definitely have to wrap up scarves, turtlenecks, like big [00:30:00] jackets and coats.
Germany was maybe a few degrees warmer, but I 30s. If you ever go to Christmas markets in Europe, you gotta go early. So usually they’re open during the day, but they do close at 9 p. m. At least for France and Germany. And when I say 9 p. m., they close 9 p. m. on the dot. They pull down like the shutter. And they just, it’s like a wooden panel.
They just pull it down and it’s closed. And I’m like, you know, at first I was like. Don’t they need to clean up and put stuff away? But no, because it’s so cold outside. It’s like in the 30s. They don’t even need a refrigerator or anything. The, the outside is a refrigerator. So really their cleanup is super fast.
So you definitely want to get there early. I don’t think it, some people go probably thinking they close their channel at 11 p. m. But no, it closes 9 p. m. on the dot. So go during the daytime. But the best time I would say would be the evenings. Because it gets dark. You get out of the lights. And then in [00:31:00] Strasbourg, like, they have this big Christmas tree.
But I would say most of the markets, they have their, like, the jumbo Christmas tree in the middle. But the Strasbourg one, they actually have a light show on the Christmas tree. Each hour on the hour, they have, like, music and they have lights dancing around. And it’s all coordinated. The evening would be the best time, I would say, probably around 6 p.
m. And now during the winter, you get started between 6 and 9 p. m. That’s when. It gets very busy, especially on the weekends, Saturday and Sunday, slightly less busy on the weekdays. People usually go at night. So if you want to avoid the crowds, you can go during the daytime as well. And now then that’s for Paris and the German Christmas markets.
So we went to the Karlsruhe Christmas market, which was great. They had an ice skating rink set up, which is really cool because the shape of it, it was only a temporary one, probably only for this month only. But the shape of it was really cool. It’s like a rectangular, but then one section goes off [00:32:00] into this long strip.
So it’s like a track. So you can skate all the way down and then all the way back. So it’s like a protrusion of the ice rink that goes like a racetrack. Super long. Had never seen anything like that before. They have a curling game. Each Christmas market is different. They have a curling game. You just curl.
And then we also went to Wiesbaden. So Wiesbaden is actually. Like 30, I want to say 30 minutes or 40 minutes outside of Frankfurt, and that’s another small German town and the market there was awesome, too. Like It’s just a different, decorated a little bit differently. They had some of the similar foods.
So obviously, here in Germany, they have tons of sausages, all kinds of sausages. Cheese filled sausages. But then they also had more like fish and herring sandwiches and salmon sandwiches, which is common in Scandinavia and Amsterdam and up a little north. In Germany, there’s something very popular. [00:33:00] I don’t know what it’s called in Germany, but it’s like hash brown patties.
Like fried hash brown patties and they usually give you three and you dip it in an applesauce So that was very interesting And then they have this thing called langouche, which is this flatbread that they fry like this dough They fry like a donut, but it’s flatbread. Then they put this garlic sauce on it Then they put cheese on top of it.
And you can also get it with like other toppings, like mushrooms and ham and stuff like that. So really interesting foods that you’ll see like in a lot of the German markets. And then usually different regions will have their regional specialties as well. If you come to Europe for Christmas markets, come to Germany before you go to France because if you can only go to one, go to German Christmas markets.
And I’ve heard Austrian Christmas markets like Vienna, they’re good as well. And I can see why because they’re very closely linked to, related to Germany. So either of those would probably [00:34:00] be my go to, uh, and what I’d suggest that people go if they only had the choice and only had time for one.
Justin Vacula: Nice. So some cool experiences, very low cost with the travel, flying in good accommodations.
Sounds nice. That’s the result. So what might the process look like? What do you have to do to get there with signing up for these cards, putting spend on the cards? Can you walk us through a overview of that process to, for people new to, and you bring up a good
Arthur Chow: point with the costs. Let me just go back to the Christmas markets.
The German Christmas markets are actually quite affordable too. Like I was surprised because I’m used to these state fair prices where you buy a hot dog and it’s 8 and a turkey leg is like 15 now at the Texas state fair. But no, these German Christmas markets, like you get stuff for five and they’re pretty good portions.
So, Definitely impressed. So going back, how do you get here? We [00:35:00] talked a little bit about booking flights. All right. With a word flights, you can do it through partners like Alaska. You can do ANA around the world and book Star Alliance partners. All right. So we’re down there. We got that. You got to find the word space, use some tools if you need to, but you can do the old fashioned way, search on United, a website, Avianca, Aeroplan website.
Those are some of my go to for Star Alliance space. Search on American Airlines, British Airways website for one world. Hotels, I’m biased to Hyatt internationally. Hyatt just doesn’t have a big presence. So you’re looking at Marriott. That’s usually my second go to and I rarely do Hilton. Usually I’ll just use three nice certificates for really luxe or bucket list properties.
So usually it’s Marriott. I do search some of these other brands like Choice, Windham, Best Western, ISU sometimes, but usually I end up just booking Marriott. Card wise. What do you have to get? Everyone’s situation [00:36:00] is a little bit different. If you’ve heard me speak on other, in other places or other seminars, I like to say, Hey, Citi is usually my top application first.
I would do Citi Capital One, maybe Barclays after that. And then Chase, even though they’re, they have 524 rule, right? I would put them maybe third or fourth, and then always Amex, Amex Less. And
Justin Vacula: a quick explanation of that for listeners, the 524
Arthur Chow: rule. Yeah, 524 rule just means that you can get approved for five personal credit cards that report to your credit report within 24 hours.
24 months, all right, so two years, five personal credit cards. And if you have five already, Chase will not approve you for a credit card. All right. Now those five cards could be with any bank. It doesn’t matter what your credit score is, how great your credit report looks. Chase just will not approve you for a card just [00:37:00] because they want you to put them first.
And I, this is the example I give a lot. It is. You have a girlfriend chase wants to be your number one or number your first or second option They don’t want to be the fifth option. All right to put that in terms again Usually I like to put Citibank Capital One as the first or second option. They’re the main girlfriend Why because capital one is very stingy Especially if you have a lot of recent inquiries a lot of recent accounts They will deny you and they will reject you and that I know a lot of people they have great credit 800 plus score But they cannot get for the life of them to venture X card just because they’re always every year They’re constantly applying for other cards in order to get capital one You really got a chill for a while and when I say chill Basically that’s come to a stop for a while because capital one as they check all three credit bureaus.
All right now you [00:38:00] can freeze one credit bureau and still they will pull two and you can still get approved with them checking only two credit bureaus. So the one that tricks is freeze the one where you have the most recent inquiries because then they can’t check that one they’ll still check the other two if the other two are okay they’ll still approve City Capital One is some of my top two I’d apply for first.
Chase It’s okay. They have a 524, like I said, five personal cards in 24 months, but they’re okay with having cards and applications more so they’re more okay with it than the other banks I mentioned, Citi, Capital One, and then Amex, of course, we know they can be your little mistress on the side and they will still take you in no matter what.
No matter if you did them wrong many times, you apply for them, usually they’ll approve you whenever, no matter how many other cards you’ve applied for. As long as your score [00:39:00] is good, you don’t have any negatives, no derogatories, things like that, collections, charge offs. And the Amex, of course, is a soft pull, if you’ve already had an account with them, I would say 90 percent of the time.
Sometimes, my new situations, they will do another hard pull, but
Justin Vacula: that’s very rare. Alright, good. So, that’s talking about different cards, different issuers, some skeptics, people that are, Critical of the hobby. They say things like, Oh, I don’t want to be juggling many cards. Oh, it sounds like too much effort.
What do you have to say for them? The deeper you get into this
Arthur Chow: game? Yes, you will have more and more cars. I don’t deny that, but it is also the fastest way to rack up lots and lots of miles, because You have the main four, Amex, Chase, and then Citi Capital one. All of them have premium cards, travel cards that give really good signup bonuses.[00:40:00]
All right. And some of them you may be able to get more than once, right? Yes, you will have cards and you will, my, my strategy may be different than other people’s strategies. My strategy would be to be constantly applying for a few cards every year. All right. Alright, maybe every three to six months, apply for a few new cards, depending on how much, how many points you need, and how often you travel.
That varies by person. If you’re going by category, let me put it in, like, the simplest terms. If I have 10, 000 spend today, and I’m going to max out a four times category spend. So let’s say this 10, 000 spend will give me four times the points, that’s 40, 000 points. Let’s say I have 10, 000 spend, I have three signup bonuses.
A lot of times they’re 3, 000, 3, 000, 4, 000 signup bonuses. Maybe those signup bonuses each give 60 points. That could be three signup bonuses worth 180, 000 to 210, 000 points. [00:41:00] Would you rather have 40, 000 points with your 10, 000 spend or maybe around 200, 000? So I would say. Most people would probably take the latter because you give five times as many points for the same amount of spin.
Will you max out signup bonuses? I would say only the very, very advanced people may run outside bonuses, but most of the people The casual people, no, you’re not going to run out of signup bonuses because by the time you go through one round, two, two years later, you can get the bonus again. Some cards you can get the bonus every four years.
You’ll always be cycling. There’s so many cards out there. And then you have so many, let’s say your husband and wife combo team, right? You play it two players at a time. You can alternate. So there’s so many strategies out there, but I still say that the signup bonus. Strategy is still the best, unless you’re like a super advanced player and you have millions of dollars in spend,
Justin Vacula: go for the signup bonus.
And people starting small [00:42:00] is what I suggest too. They look at my situation, oh, I don’t want to have 40 credit cards, this sounds really complicated. You’re just going to start with one, hit that signup bonus, and later move on to the next card and scale up from there. And I think you learn the process as it goes along, maybe you do some of the more advanced tactics.
And you get more comfortable having two cards, three cards. And you’re enjoying all the different signup bonuses, the benefits, bonus categories, and more rather than just using cash or debit or the same credit card giving you maybe 1%, 1. 5 percent cash back. Yeah, and
Arthur Chow: I want to say, I don’t, even though some people may have 40 credit cards, I would say if you’re playing the game right, really, you won’t have 40 credit cards because out of these cards that you have signup bonuses, some of them you might downgrade after a year and some of them you might outright close after one year.
Right. It really evens out. You’re not going to be constantly collecting more and more cards exponentially because you’re always going to be closing cards and opening cards. Yes, [00:43:00] is it something to keep track of? Of course it is. And that’s why you keep spreadsheets. You keep spreadsheets on when you apply for certain cards.
When the bonus is up, how much you gotta spend, when you should close the card, things like that. And that way I can look at one page and see everything that I’ve applied for. And then just keeps you on track. At this point, if you’re having 20 cards, let’s say, I think 20 is a good average. If you have 20 cards, you really got to, and then set reminders.
You definitely put on your calendar. Hey, look. This is the one year date. So two weeks before that, I’m going to see if I can get a retention offer, or I may see if I want to keep the card, or I may close the card at the one year anniversary, set a reminder. Once you get it down, you’re going to have reminders.
So you’ll be constantly saying, okay, this is time to renew. You won’t forget people. I think the main thing is people think that they’re going to forget, they’re going to be paying all these annual fees. No, if you keep good records, keep a spreadsheet, set [00:44:00] reminders, you’ll be able to. easily navigate, uh, around those 20 or so cards.
And then if you have a P2 that’s not really involved, okay, times it by two. So you may manage your cards and then their cards as well, but do the same thing. Keep a spreadsheet, set reminders. And I think that’ll take, really get you past all the hassle and hard work that people think
Justin Vacula: that there is. Yeah, they’re overestimating the effort, and I’m usually logging into my accounts once per week.
I’m seeing, okay, is a payment due? When do I have to make this payment? And I’m also looking at recent transactions to make sure that everything seems right. And if an annual fee does post, then I know it’s there, and with most issuers, I usually have. About 30 days to make a decision about whether I want to keep cancel or downgrade the card.
Arthur Chow: These days I have a calendar, which really just goes one through 28. Basically I have all the cards listed [00:45:00] and their due dates on this calendar. And it’s not by month. It’s just like the first, the second, third, all the way to the 28th of the month. And then for each day, I have the due date because usually the due date is the same due date per every month so that I can quickly look at it and see, okay, what payments do I have coming up?
I know the ones I set auto pay on. So usually I would say most of the cards have auto pay on and maybe a couple of the cards I don’t. I like to manually pay them. That’s again, you set up the system, calendar, you can just glance at it and you can know right away.
Justin Vacula: Do you have trips planned for 2025 as we’re recording here at the end of December 2024?
Yes.
Arthur Chow: At this moment, I don’t have anything in stone. I know I want to do another family trip. Last year, around June, we did the Waldorf Cabo, Waldorf Pedregal in Cabo, Mexico. So that was great. Everyone really enjoyed it. Parents loved it. My brother and sisters loved it. So We [00:46:00] want to do something similar this year.
I don’t know when yet. One thing that really, so this is all more on the casino side, but disappointed was that once the Rio changed the destination by Hyatt, it was harder to get the 20 something dollar rooms now. So we’ll see how that pans out. Of course, there’ve been some changes in the casino status matching as well for next year.
So we’ll see how that pans out. Usually I like to do a Vegas trip, usually in the spring and one in the fall. Hopefully we can continue doing that because it’s always great to go as a family and eat and learn, just to enjoy Vegas and the new hotels and things like that. I do have, actually, I do have a trip, Lunar New Year’s coming up, January 29th.
So usually I like to spend. Lunar New Year in Taiwan with the in laws. Speaking of which, you just reminded me, I actually have Japan Airlines A350 booked to go back to Asia in January for Chinese New Year. So I’m very excited [00:47:00] about that. It’s probably the longest, usually I like to book last minute flights, but this flight was probably the earliest I booked.
I booked it maybe almost 11 months ago, just because space popped up. And at that point, Dallas, Haneda was rumored to have the A350, but it wasn’t set in stone. So I booked it anyways. And now it’s the A350 Japan Airlines. It’s the newest cabin, newest plane. If you guys want, don’t know. I feel like the service is still going to be the same.
I’ve taken Japan Airlines first class on their older plane a couple of times. I feel like the service is going to be the same. The food is very similar. I’ve seen the menu. It’s going to be the same, but the cabin will be nice. It’d be like a big suite with a closing door. So a little similar to Etihad. So that’d be exciting to try out.
That’d be later in January. And looking forward to some of the same events every year. In the spring, so [00:48:00] probably like April, May, I believe there’ll be some nice points
Justin Vacula: and miles events. And I just had John Ryan on the show promoting Frequent Traveler University, Dallas. Oh yeah, I think I will go to that because I live in Dallas.
It’ll be super,
Arthur Chow: super convenient. Cool.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, so it’ll be easy for me to make that. Yeah, no travel hackers dilemma on that one that you end up traveling and miss some other event because you’re traveling. You’ll just be home and you’ll be there for the event. So no schedule conflict there. I’m going to be on a cruise.
I can’t make it. Oh, are you really going on a cruise though? Yeah, I’ll be cruising with Princess. It’s a British Isles cruise. They invited me to speak. I said, thank you for the invitation, but fortunately and unfortunately, I have a cruise planned at the same time. How long is that cruise? Uh, I think that’s a 10 or 11 day cruise.
That’s a longer one. The princess cruise I had matched, um, either casino status or a different cruise offer and they gave me the British Isles cruise in a balcony room, so I’m looking forward to that, but [00:49:00] it’s just too bad that it’s happened to be the same weekend as the FTU event, but I booked this Earlier this year, I had to wait quite a while.
Oh yeah. Don’t
Arthur Chow: worry about FTE. I’m sure there’ll be more FTE events coming up. So just to add a question, do you play blackjack or do a little gambling?
Justin Vacula: Like when you’re on these cruise ships? Oh, that’s a good one. It depends on how the casino operates. Some of these would charge a fee if you were to buy chips using credit or otherwise charged to your room.
Some 3 percent and at that point, it might not be worth it. But some are fee free or maybe a low fee of one, one and a half percent, so it depends on the cruise line. But if they’re charging no fee or a low fee, then that’s an interesting proposition because if I have something like the Chase Sapphire Reserve attached to the room, I’m getting three times UR on that because it’s coding as travel.
So even though I’m giving up about a half percent house edge and blackjack if the [00:50:00] game has good rules, It’s going to be worth it if the load fee is zero, but
Arthur Chow: in that situation,
Justin Vacula: are you just gambling through the money one time or kind of, Hey, I like blackjack a little bit. I might play a little longer. Oh, no.
I usually play for about 15 or 20 minutes because if I’m playing through the money again and again, it’s going to eat away at the gain from the credit card rewards. But yes, for the online purposes, I play through the money exactly once and cash out. But in person. Um, I’m not exactly keeping track of how much I bet out of the current stack that I bought in with, but I think playing for about 15 or 20 minutes and leaving has been okay for me.
Arthur Chow: Okay. So you’re definitely not going for any, trying to rack up any tier credit or
Justin Vacula: any kind of cruise status. No, I don’t think it’s going to be worthwhile for me. I have eight cruises in 2025 planned, so I can get many comp cruises. Through different offers without having to actually play on board. Enjoy all your cruises.
That’s uh, that’s like a
Arthur Chow: packed schedule.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, there were [00:51:00] some where we had, I planned with past podcast guest Mandy. We were planning together and we saw that some of the cruises would have overlapped if we booked them. Or they were very close, maybe about a few days in between or a week between. So we try to avoid that as much as we can.
There was even a Margaritaville at sea offer that came up and we had to book it in December because all of the other days that were available seemed to be too close to other travels. So it’s uh, quite a fun life that we live. Yeah, that sounds awesome. And I think you’re gonna have fun and enjoy it. Yep, it should be fun.
Looking forward to the cruises. And now I have an on the go microphone and I’ve been using a better editing program. So I look forward to recording on the cruise ship. And also taking video with my phone that I’m also working on editing those videos. I’ve put several of Atlantic city on my YouTube channel and some other videos from recent trips.
So lots that listeners can look forward to.
Arthur Chow: That sounds great. Yeah. [00:52:00] Expecting all the new content and everything should be great.
Justin Vacula: Very good. And to wrap up, where can people find you? Yeah,
Arthur Chow: I think Instagram is the main channel. It’s just my name. V. Arthur. Chow. Arthur is A R T H U R. And Chow is C H O W. So V.
Arthur. Chow.
Justin Vacula: Okay, very good. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. 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, December 5th through the 7th, 2025. I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and had a successful 2024.
Speaking at events with Award Travel 101, Travels Ork, Frequent Traveler University, [00:53:00] 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.
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