Unlock Double Rewards + Hotel Points with Rove’s New Loyalty-Eligible Bookings
Host Justin Vacula dives into Rove’s biggest update yet with guest Carissa Rawson from Rove.
Learn how Loyalty Eligible hotel bookings let you earn hotel points, elite night credits, status perks, and Rove Miles on the same stay.
We explain how it works, which chains participate, smart card pairings, and how to stack promos for maximum value.
We also cover upcoming meetups, FTU updates, and advanced travel-rewards strategy you can use.
What you’ll learn
How Loyalty Eligible bookings earn hotel points and elite credits while also earning Rove Miles
Stacking plays: loyalty earnings + credit card bonuses + launch promos
Participating programs, rate comparisons, and what to expect at checkout
Best credit cards to pair with Rove hotel bookings Community news, meetups, and where to learn more
Launch promo Rove is offering double Rove Miles on Loyalty Eligible hotel bookings through October 31, 2025. Terms apply. Check Rove for details.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:45 Big news in travel rewards
01:46 What is Loyalty Eligible
02:02 How it works step by step
04:23 Maximizing rewards with Rove
05:36 International bookings and comparisons
07:34 Participating programs and promos
08:52 Booking flow and support
10:18 Credit card strategies for Rove
20:46 Events and final thoughts
21:30 Chicago Seminars and promo codes
22:14 CardPointers and FTU Dallas
24:04 Roadmap and future features
27:22 Transfer partners and meetups
28:49 Travel hacking community
36:31 Upcoming travels and meetups
Guest Carissa Rawson — Rove https://www.rovemiles.com/home
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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: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you make money, save money, and travel the world, and next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Big news in travel rewards today, Rove bookings are now a way to earn hotel points and elite qualifying nights.
In addition to gaining flexible Rove miles, Carissa Rawson from Rove joins me to discuss their new [00:01:00] loyalty eligible feature. Visit Meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are October 19th and December 21st, 2025.
Find a link in the show notes for more content between episodes. Follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips, and posts. Find more information including select episode transcripts at HurdyGurdyTravel.com. On with today’s episode recorded, October 13th, 2025.
Welcome back to the show, Carissa Rawson.
Carissa: Hi, thanks for having me, and glad to be here.
Justin: Another announcement. We’ve had you on the show several times for Rove and one time before that, but now you have a new announcement.
Carissa: I [00:02:00] know I can’t help myself. I am very excited about this. We are launching a feature called loyalty eligible, and the way that it works is that from now on when you’re booking hotels with rope, which is one of the things you can do, you can choose to have a preferred road rate and get like however X many miles per dollar spent, or you can choose to do loyalty eligible, which means that.
You’ll still earn row miles and you’ll also be able to earn your hotel points, enjoy your lead status benefits, and get your lean credits in addition to your row miles. So it’s a direct booking feature that we are offering.
Justin: Nice. So people can make their way to Hyatt, globalist, Hilton Diamond, and other statuses in addition to earning through the Rove portal.
Carissa: Correct.
Justin: And for those that might not know or miss previous episodes, a quick description of
Carissa: Roro is a platform that allows you to earn flexible rewards like travel points in a couple of different ways. So you can do so by book travel. We have hotels on our platform and we have [00:03:00] flights on our platform.
We also have an online shopping section of our portal, which has almost 13,000 stores on it. So those are the three main ways that you can earn models right now. You can then transfer those out. To 12 different hotel airline partners with more on the wait and or you can choose to redeem them within rows like platform for flights or hotels.
Justin: Nice. So back to the loyalty eligible. How would we know if a hotel is loyalty eligible When we’re using the Rove portal?
Carissa: So we’ve sought to make this as clear as possible, and that’s actually at the heart of everything that Rogue does is like clear, concise, to the point. So basically when you’re on roe’s website and you have a little hotel section, you type in your search, it populates your search results, and there is a filter on the left hand side.
We’ve got plenty of different filters and with a little toggle on there that says Show loyalty eligible properties only. So you can click that tolerable and it’ll filter out any other boutique properties or anything that does not have loyalty eligible. At this point, we have, I wanna say 10 [00:04:00] programs, hotel loyalty programs that we are supporting.
So those, and then of course it’s gonna depend on where you’re staying, but then it’ll filter out and it’ll show only the ones that have loyalty eligible benefits. You select a hotel from those search results, and then on that page for each specific hotel you’ll see rose rate, however X many miles per dollar you get, and you’ll also see them loyalty eligible rate.
Justin: Nice. So I imagine a use case for this would be if there were a low cash rate for a property, or maybe you didn’t have points to book, you were to see something like a Hyatt place and maybe. Directly through the Hyatt app. The Hyatt Place might be something like 125 a night, but you open the Rove portal, you compare it through Rove, and maybe you find a lower rate, or you’re getting a very good bonus for booking the property.
So both ways would be loyalty eligible, but there could be cases to book through the Rove portal instead of directly using the Hyatt app, for example.
Carissa: Yeah, it’s always gonna make more sense now to book with Ro because the cash rate is gonna be the same price [00:05:00] on Hyatt as on Ro. Yeah, so we’re not inflating the prices.
So you’re basically just earning extra road miles in addition to your Hyatt points. You’re, you make a good point actually. If you don’t have, for example, a lot of Hyatt points or you’re trying to earn Hyatt points, but you do have a stash of road miles because your road, when you redeem your road miles, for example, from the Hyatt place, that’s loyalty eligible, that is considered a revenue booking by the hotel.
So you’re still going to be earning like Hyatt points for that. Which would be nice. So you’re doing a loyalty eligible, you’re still minimizing your out-of-pocket cost by redeeming points, and you’re also building your stash in another way while you do it.
Justin: And we might even find some overseas cases like Hyatt Place.
Poland was a really nice property that I was at, and many have commented and said that the Hyatt place overseas, the one in Krakow or Krakoff, Poland, was a lot nicer than the ones they had seen stateside. So will this also apply for international bookings?
Carissa: Yes, it does. It we. So offering like [00:06:00] transferable rewards for hotel bookings is not a hundred percent new.
For example, Amex American Express find hotels and resorts also allows you to earn, for example, Marriott Bond by Points one eight book a Marriott Bond boy hotel through their platform. The difference is that Amex limits it to really luxurious hotels, right? Fine hotels and resorts. And it’s either very expensive or it’s very limited in where you can go, like you’re not gonna find it in Cleveland, for example.
We are not doing that. If it is all on Hyatt’s website and it is bookable at all, we’re gonna offer it as loyalty eligible. So yeah, we’ve got tens of thousands of properties all over the world from all these different chains that you can now earn and redeem your Dell points with.
Justin: Nice. And we’re recording October 13th, 2025, so we’re getting towards the end of the year.
So people will be looking for those elite qualifying nights. So this can be a good option to. Help them as Rove is offering a decent rebate in the Rove miles. In addition to these loyalty eligible properties
Carissa: for launch until October [00:07:00] 31st, we have a promotion going on where we are offering double rove miles on all your hotel bookings, like your loyalty eligible hotel bookings.
So generally it’s a flat five x Rove miles plus hotel points, plus your credit card points, your October 31st, it’s 10 XR miles, plus your hotel points, plus your credit card points. When you think about the way that you’re earning miles in any other circumstance, we blow them out of the water. The fact that we’re transferable one to one, to all of those airline partners it’s really something special.
Yeah.
Justin: Nice. We’ve mentioned Hyatt, because I imagine that’s a fan favorite. Personally, I really like the Hyatt program. I know many listeners are a fan and they have the Hyatt Globalist status, but what are some other participating programs for this loyalty eligible?
Carissa: So we also have Hilton, we have Marriott, we have choice privileges.
Best Western Win Wingham. Sorry, I wish it was win. And IHG, those are the ones I can think of right off the bat. And as we go, we’ll probably we’ll be adding in more, but we wanted to make sure that for the launch we hit all of the biggest brands [00:08:00] first.
Justin: It’s a good start then. And people might not automatically get status through a credit card or they’ll need a combination of credit cards spend plus actual stayed nights.
So I think a good opportunity for people here.
Carissa: Yeah, definitely.
Justin: What percentage of available bookings offered through Rove might be loyalty eligible, and is that number scheduled to grow?
Carissa: Yeah, so we’re not limiting it in any way. Like I said, like with Amex or I think Chase is, the edit also allows you to do.
That and built home away. But again, those are all just very limited in terms of scope we’re offering. Basically if it’s on Hyatt, if it’s on Hilton, if it’s on Marriott, it’s going to e bookable with Rove. And yeah, of course it’s, the numbers are gonna increase because hotel portfolios continue to increase.
So as new hotels are open and added to Hyatt’s platform, it’s also gonna be added to our platform and become loyalty eligible.
Justin: And how do people add their loyalty numbers for these extra credits?
Carissa: So it’s gonna be during the checkout process, you can enter your number in there.
Justin: [00:09:00] Oh, so very easy. They don’t have to add it to their Rove profile, anything like that?
Carissa: No, it’s just right in there.
Justin: And before we were chatting, this you said shows up in the programs app. So if you were to book something like a Hyatt Place after the booking, you can refresh your Hyatt app and it should show in there.
Carissa: Yep. Instantly.
Justin: That’s nice. So you know that the credit will be there and everything should be good.
Carissa: You’re not questioning. Whether or not we’ve tracked it or anything like that, it is, shows up your name, your info. It is a direct,
Justin: so the hotels will see the loyalty eligible stay as well since it’s showing up in their respective app, correct?
Carissa: Correct.
Justin: And if not, for some reason, what might be the service recovery or the fix for people?
Carissa: So the odds of that happening? I can’t say never, because we know how travel goes. The odds of that happening are basically zero nearing zero. But if someone did end up having an issue where they were denied benefits for whatever reason, then Roe would make sure to make it right. We’ve done quite a few different things in the [00:10:00] past.
If we need to walk you to a better hotel, get you a suite, deliver a bottled wine, give you a bunch of extra miles, like we’re really committed to making sure that you have a good experience out of something that was subpar.
Justin: Good. That sounds nice. And they could contact you or contact Rove. You have the customer service options through the Rove website.
Carissa: Yes, we do.
Justin: If someone uses a co-branded hotel card, would the transaction trigger a hotel category bonus, like a bonus for booking with Hilton, booking with Hyatt, and so on?
Carissa: Version one of our launch for loyalty eligible includes Rogue as the merchant of record. We are 7 0 1 1. That is our merchant code, which is hotels of lodging.
What that means is that for version one specifically, you’ll wanna use a credit card that maximizes hotels. So that would be something like the city strata near the American Express Green Card, or even the Chase Phi Reserve has been confirmed to code as four x for direct booking with hotels, version two, which we hope to get out before too long.
We’ll see the hotel as the merchant [00:11:00] records. So something like the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card would be beneficial because you’ll be getting that 1420 7 million x backed by charging the Hilton Charge two Euro Aspire card, but that is not in version one.
Justin: Might there be a workaround at the property?
So say if you were to book this with a city strata premier online, but then you were to use maybe an aspire card in person and then make room charges to that, might that remedy that?
Carissa: Yes. Any room charges. Yeah. If you use that for obviously any sort of incidentals. Yeah. And then those would of course would code in that way.
If you wanna be the dp, if you wanna be the data point, who sees if we can change the booking. Once you get to the hotel or the card you paid with, I would assume it’s probably not possible right now, but I would like to see you be the data point in tell.
Justin: All right. The points in Miles, future, we’ll see.
Carissa: Yeah.
Justin: Give us a shot, Hilton.
Carissa: Yeah,
Justin: or Hyatt or these other programs. But of [00:12:00] course, as usual, the answer to everything is more credit cards. So if you have one of those cards, the bonuses, general travel, general hotels, then that’s a good remedy rather than just getting un bonus to spend potentially.
Might there be any concern about splitting between loyalty eligible and non loyalty eligible? Or might the dates all be open as all loyalty eligible?
Carissa: So when you’re looking on Rome’s website and you’re filtering it in that way, anything that shows up is going to be loyalty eligible. If you’re attempting to combine a stay that is loyalty eligible with one that is not, I’m going to say your miles will vary, your mileage may vary in the same way that it varies every time you booked through an OTA.
So they may be more inclined. For example, if you start with a loyalty eligible rate and then halfway through your stay you switch to the Rove rate in order to earn more miles, they might fat finger it and give you all of the credit. It just depends on how much risk you’re willing to tolerate in order to see if that works.
Justin: Yes, it could be the case that people want to use Hilton Credits, [00:13:00] the Business Platinum Card, Hilton Surpass Cards. They would do multiple bookings. Oh, that would be. Maybe that would work.
Carissa: Yeah, that would be fine, because it’s still all considered loyal, like loyalty eligible and drug bookings. I thought you were saying like if you wanted to use the rove rate, because for example, the commission that we get, which is how Rove is passing along the miles that you earn, the commission that we get when we’re doing loyalty eligible benefits decreases, so you’ll basically almost always get more road miles per dollar spent without doing a loyalty eligible rate. Sometimes it’s not a huge difference, but sometimes it’s really big. So if you’re looking really to maximize how many road miles you’re earning, you may wanna do the rove rate for part of your stay and the loyalty eligible for the other part.
It really, I thought that was what you were referencing and in that case I’m probably, I would not assume that the one where I was doing the rove rate does in fact count for loyalty eligible, just because I had like back to back day.
Justin: Yes, there could be different scenarios and some of these I’ve had to check in, check out at the front desk or.
This will only be for this part of the stay, but not your whole time [00:14:00] here. So best to clarify with the desk agents and be aware of what applies and what might not.
Carissa: Yeah, definitely.
Justin: And might the loyalty eligible stays book through row count toward brand specific promotions, like double nights or bonus points?
Carissa: Yes, they should. In things like diets brand explorer, they should all count because again, it is considered direct booking.
Justin: I received a Wyndham email recently that was stay two nights with us, get bonus points. How about something like that?
Carissa: Yes. I think you should wait until tomorrow and then do that.
Justin: We’re recording on the 13th. Yeah, I know. If it goes live on the 14th, is that right?
Carissa: Yeah.
Justin: The time traveling podcast listeners on there. I’ll
Carissa: mute is when you should book that.
Justin: And before the 31st. Because they’re getting the two x mile. Two the double miles. Double miles. Double on the other X’s. So as usual, America loves math, not just two x, but double what usually is offered.
Carissa: Correct?
Justin: Lots of numbers. [00:15:00] Always fun.
Carissa: Yeah.
Justin: And might airlines be eligible for this or might this always have been a feature?
Carissa: It’s interesting because it’s interesting that airlines have not exerted the same pressure that hotels have done when it comes to Berkeley food. Third parties. So you know the way that hotels force you to.
Book through their platform in First they try it with the carrot, which to which is to say they’ll give you the same rate, like a price match guarantee, and then they do it with the stick, which is to say you won’t get your late night benefits and your credits and things like that if you don’t book directly with us.
And they’ve done that for a very long time. It’s interesting that hotels have, or airlines have never done that. You can always book through row and get your United Miles and your benefits and things like that. That’s not gonna change, right? So you can always earn between one x to 10 x row miles on your flights.
It’s a flat one x if you don’t wanna boost. If you wanna boost, you can get up to 10 x on your flights, which is pretty interesting. So yeah, that’s always an option.
Justin: So prior to this, the hotels were more guarded or what might you [00:16:00] think?
Carissa: It’s just because the way, the reason that the hotels do this is because they lose a lot of money in commission to third parties.
Third party booking agencies like Rove has previously considered third party, just like expedient price line. So it behooves them to force you to stay on their platform so they don’t have to share their cut of the money with Expedia, et cetera.
Justin: So what has changed?
Carissa: It’s just a difference in the commission.
Justin: Oh, okay. Yeah. So now they wanna play ball.
Carissa: Yeah.
Justin: But give us some first. Yeah. And enough,
Carissa: the carrot.
Justin: And I think if any one is still listening, who doesn’t have credit cards, I think this can be a great opportunity for people using debit cards. Maybe they’re not responsible with credit, they stay away for whatever reason.
This is a good way to earn loyalty rewards and participate in travel loyalty.
Carissa: You know what’s really good about that? Do you know Dave Ramsey? I had to
Justin: Rave Dansey. Never heard of the guy.
Carissa: Who knows? Yeah, it is actually, that’s interesting that you should bring that up because we’re talking about that today, about the fact that anybody with a debit card can now have [00:17:00] complete access to transferable rewards and in a way that they previously wouldn’t have.
Justin: Interesting. It would be cool to see in the future if Rove partnered with some sort of debit card. There’s no partnership at the moment, right?
Carissa: No. It would be more problematic because the, one of the reasons that we’re able to build such a strong transfer base transfer partner base is because we don’t have any sort of credit card issuer.
So for example, programs like United and Delta, and I don’t think American, but they thrive and where they. You couldn’t have United as a partner because they’ve got a Chase cobrand. So if we were to open it, probably even, I would assume this would apply to debit cards as well. But if we were to have a credit card or a debit card associated with us, we would probably fall afoul of those exclusivity agreements.
Justin: Ah. Or there would be a massive bidding war and we could see who wins.
Carissa: Yeah. But I
Justin: have seen various rewarding debit cards. There is recently a Wyndham debit card, a Southwest debit card, I [00:18:00] believe, and there was a Delta one, but I think that the Delta card is being discontinued.
Carissa: I didn’t know that. I know.
There’s also the Amex one, which I have. Oh,
Justin: the business?
Carissa: Yeah.
Justin: Debit card,
Carissa: business rewards checking or something like that.
Justin: Yes. Mr. Or one Mr. Membership reward for $2 spent because America still loves meth.
Carissa: Yeah. You know how many times I’ve used it? Hang on.
Justin: Yeah. For the cases where you can’t use a credit card on something, I think that can be interesting.
And then of course there’s the Discover debit card where you get 1% cash back up to 3000 spend per month.
Carissa: That’s more than zero.
Justin: More than zero for sure. Someone, a listener was asking, Hey, what are some debit cards? That I can use. ’cause they were rebuilding credit, so they were looking at some debit card options.
I noticed the PayPal debit card that’s also out there, which gives you 5% on certain categories of
Carissa: bad. Something
Justin: there. Bad? Yeah. Not bad at all.
Carissa: Even a secured credit card might be a good option. Capital One I believe has a really has a version of a venture card that is secured and [00:19:00] still earns rewards.
Justin: Alright. Any other credit card options that. You might have for people using the Rove portal. You mentioned the City Strata Premier, the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Other options?
Carissa: Yeah, the American Express Green Card is another good one. Any sort of general travel is good. Any that are rewarding hotels, those are really gonna be our top options for maximizing because of our, the way that we code.
That’s really it. I’m trying to think who else. Capital One Venture, I hesitate to say it is two x, but if you’re giving up an X, like you’ve would with the Sydney Strive Premier, which gives you three x, but if you have it already, fine.
Justin: Not bad.
Carissa: Yeah, it could be worse.
Justin: And of course, working toward a signup bonus.
Yeah. If someone’s gonna be working on a signup bonus, if you think you couldn’t get the spend in right, and you’re okay with giving up an X or two x versus a category, it might be a good option. But generally, I don’t want to give up those bonus categories, especially when they’re higher. But for some people, maybe just getting into the game.
They don’t have a lot of creative spending that can make sense.
Carissa: And that’s actually something, [00:20:00] that’s a good point actually. So we have recently added the ability to make every one of your hotel bookings non-refundable. So previously it was only available on select like rates within each hotel. But now during the checkout process, there’s a toggle that you can switch, you can flip on to make your booking non-refundable.
So that means that every single time you book out a toggle list, you can choose to make it non-refundable and get your miles instantly. For example, if you were trying to meet a signup bonus for Amex, which posts really quickly, once you hit your threshold, your spending threshold, and you book a $3,000 hotel stay.
’cause that’s how much you need to spend. On row, and then you make it non-refundable. You immediately get your Rose Miles and then you immediately get your MX points and you’ve got your whole big and boom done.
Justin: So some good options there. And let’s talk about some upcoming events because you and I are going to be on this circuit.
We have Zor Fest 2025 coming up in Las Vegas, December 5th through the seventh at M Resort. Yep. Casino Hotel. Buy your [00:21:00] ticket@zorkfest.travel zork.com for an event combining Miles Points. And gambling, you’ll be there, correct?
Carissa: Yep. I’ll be there talking about probably, I’m pretty sure I’ll be talking about ro.
I got a couple different things
Justin: promoting the CVS Care Pass or Extra Care plus program.
Carissa: Then I give everyone a like a swag, but it’s just gonna be one really long receipt paper.
Justin: Yes. We’ve all used our $10 benefits. So here have some dental picks or floss.
Carissa: Yep.
Justin: Free for attendees. Yeah. And we also have Chicago Seminars.
Hyatt Regency O’Hare.
Carissa: Yep.
Justin: November 7th through the ninth.
Carissa: Yep. You’ll
Justin: be there as well.
Carissa: Yep. I am actually going to be speaking as well,
Justin: and I have the promo code Dy Gerdy. You can use that when buying a ticket to support the show. And we have October 24th through the 26th, 2025 Chicago Seminars holiday in Chicago.
Oakbrook
Carissa: will not be attending that one. I had previously planned on going, but I have to go to a work event in Amsterdam. [00:22:00] Instead,
Justin: ah, the travel hacker’s dilemma strikes again, travel interfering with other travel.
Carissa: That’s exactly what happened. Yep. Yes.
Justin: But if you were going, you can always use my co-host Darren’s favorite promo code.
I must have a promo code 20 for $20 off tickets. And this episode is also supported by card pointers. If you have multiple credit cards like me, card pointers helps you automatically activate bank offers and tells you which card to use for maximum rewards. Use my link card pointers.com/her Gordie Travel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans.
And we have a new announcement here, frequent Traveler University FTU Dallas Event. It’s an Irvine Irving, Texas just outside of Dallas, May 1st through the third 2026. We’re well ahead of schedule on this one, folks at the Nylo Las Colinas Hotel by Hilton. Hopefully I didn’t botch that. Do you think that’s good pronunciation?
Carissa: Honestly, sounds good to me.
Justin: Okay, we’ll go with it. Join me and community members for social events and educational sessions. And [00:23:00] you are also confirmed as a speaker, right?
Carissa: Yep. I’m gonna be there.
Justin: And ticket sales are now live with an early bird discount, $200 for FTU members and $249 for non-members. You can become an annual member for online courses, seminars, member perks, event discounts, and more.
Sign up link for membership and FTU Dallas is in the show notes. I’m a part of the Frequent Traveler Education Foundation Board, and you can use my link to support the show and my content, happily promoting Frequent Traveler University. Book your tickets early, get the early bird discount. Awesome. All right, back to the show here recording with Carissa Rossin of Roe.
Talking about the new promotion offering, double the rewards and loyalty eligible bookings on hotel stays. So we talked about the current promotion. What do you [00:24:00] think is to come, what might the future of Rove look like?
Carissa: Rove has only been around since April. Okay. So in the term, in terms of a company, we are in our infancy, but since launching Grove has acquired 12 transfer partners.
We have added 9,000 stores to our shopping portal for a total of, like I said, almost 13,000. We’re launching loyalty eligible. We have an app coming. We just have this absolutely phenomenal team with just like bowling straight ahead with growth. So we have a lot of different things that are in the pipeline.
Like I said, the app will hopefully be coming up pretty soon. We’ve got loyalty eligible company coming. We have new transfer partners already agreed on the horizon. I know the. There are a few that are gonna be super, super exciting. Like I’ve said in the past, Rove is built by points and miles people, and you can tell in who we choose to be our partners.
We also have some other sort of things that are gonna be coming up, but some things like a program that may compete with [00:25:00] Amex, FHR, we have a lot of, we’ve gotten a lot of feedback where, for example, luxury travel advisors are saying, we have a lot of Hyatt Preve bookings and things like that, and our customers are wanting to have those sorts of luxury level of benefits.
Can you make it happen? Stuff like that. We have these sorts of things coming up, which our Cardlink offers, which is really cool, where once you add your card to your row wallet, when you go shopping, whether you’re in person or online or when you dine, you’re miles are automatically added to your row balance.
You don’t have to activate anything, and that’s pretty cool. So there’s nobody else in nobody. Who offers the ability to do it without activation. So for example, capital One will let you do it, but you have to add it to your wallet in Capital One, and then it’s only good for a couple of days, whatever. So we have that coming up.
We are toying with a couple of other things. Maybe a program where those who earn a lot of miles [00:26:00] in a year can access special benefits, like special transfer bonuses, things like that. We do have two transfer bonuses. Are going on right now. We have a 20% to flying blue through October 22nd, and we have a 20% to Finnair through December 31st.
And if anybody doesn’t know, Finnair is part of the Avios program and those are all easily exchanged between each other. So Finnair actually also equals British Airways and I, Iberia and Air Lingus and Qatar Airways, that’s all of them. We got a lot going on.
Justin: Nice. So the winds continue. Lots of changes with Rove, lots of added features.
Responding to some listener.
Carissa: Yeah,
Justin: feedback as this continues to be the for US bias program, there was that old brand, maybe still active fubu. So I think of Rove as that.
Carissa: Honestly, I feel, and I know I’ve said this in the past episodes, but when I realized what Rove was, I hopped over to LinkedIn as quickly as possible and I was like, please let me join.
I love [00:27:00] this tool. I love the fact that you guys are willing to listen. I love everything about it. So yeah, I feel very fortunate that I was able to join the team and that, yeah, we get to build a product that’s genuinely useful to all of us.
Justin: Lots of things happening. That’s really nice. Yeah. And the transfer partners.
Maybe more coming, as you said, and a lot of existing transfer partners, so that’s really nice.
Carissa: Yeah, we’ve got some really good ones. We even have ones that don’t, you don’t see with other partners or other programs like Amex City, capital One, chase, we’ve got Air India, we’ve got high non airlines. We’ve got Vietnam Airlines and we have Thai Airways.
And those are all unique among the big in Morales people
Justin: and some in-person events you’ve been planning and doing, correct?
Carissa: Yeah. So we have our first meetup. In New York, where at which I moved to this week for growth. I did move to Manhattan by the way. So we have our very first meetup scheduled for October 18th at Mr.
Paradise. It is a resi restaurant. Oh our, I guess so. You can, [00:28:00] everybody can use their resi cards ’cause I’m aware of our audience. So yeah. So that’s it. I believe it starts at six o’clock. That’s based off of our Facebook group, so if anybody wants to go to that or have an invite, we are Robe Insiders on Facebook and then the meetup is on the 18th.
And Justin, I’m gonna pressure you and say you have to come.
Justin: Ah, I think the travel hacker’s dilemma striking a good, because I’m hosting an event on the 19th,
Carissa: and the problem is I have to go to Amsterdam on the 19th, so I.
Justin: Once again, lots of travel. I posted this meme. It was like, yeah, the book club wasn’t getting many people today because people were still reading the book, the Procrastinators Club.
Maybe they’ll go to the next one. That’s how a ca point in Miles, all these things happening and travel interfering with other travel related things.
Carissa: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah.
Justin: I’ll talk about this in a future episode, but it was interesting. This article came in the New York Times. About, they called it credit card churning, and there were people in the comments that were saying, oh, instead [00:29:00] of chasing deals, why don’t you find community and purpose and time again?
Oh, I’ve met so many people through this hobby. I’ve had a lot of fun and have found purpose and meaning through travel. So it’s very odd that critics of that us.
Carissa: Yeah, all of my life, all I ever wanted to do was travel and to have found a community and a way to do it that doesn’t require me to be ultra rich.
There is bound to be jealousy. I’m surprised sometimes at the VMNC with which we’re retreated, but like I assume it’s just jealousy.
Justin: Yeah, it’s strange because they frame it as some sort of class issue, and we’ve heard this from our friend Dave Ramsey, that, oh, you’re taking money from people that can’t afford to pay groceries, this and that and feel bad, and all these odd criticisms.
So the New York Times readers might be somewhat in that camp, although on the opposite side of the coin. And I think this has allowed us to transcend those. Thought of limitations, people thinking that travel is for these ultra wealthy people and oh, you need to be retired and have all the savings to go on [00:30:00] cruises.
And I’ve gone on seven cruises this year, paying next to no cost, and I’ve declined some offers because it’s just been too much travel in my mind. I didn’t think that would happen.
Carissa: Yeah, I still find that I frank that daily. My mom, my sister and I went to Hawaii a year ago and we did a Hilton timeshare presentation.
When she heard that we were going, she got really upset and she said, the reason I’ve never gone to Hawaii is because it’s just so expensive. I can’t believe you’re going, we’re flying out there. Okay, it’s $200 round trip per person, Southwest from California or Alaska, and then it’s 3 49 for five nights in Hawaii.
That’s sure there is a subset of people for whom that would be, they would be classed outta that, but as far as vacations go, that’s a really cheap vacation and it’s not at all this reflective of. The sort of Hawaii is unobtainable. It’s something that you’ll never get to do. It’s so expensive. It’s really, it’s not, and it’s just lack of education.
Justin: Yes. And people talking about [00:31:00] things being once in a lifetime. But I’ve joked about having multiple lifetimes with travel because of this hobby.
Carissa: Absolutely.
Justin: And now Rove making that happen for people as well. Giving them good reasons to book through the portal, save on travel, or at least get a big rebate after they book with already rates that are low.
Carissa: Absolutely.
Justin: All right. Anything else you’d like to add?
Carissa: No, I think that’s it. Thanks for having me.
Justin: Oh, and once again, your Rove meetup in New York. That’s October 18th, so we’re recording on the 13th. Not much time in between, but for people. Listen early.
Carissa: Yeah. If anybody want, they might
Justin: come.
Carissa: Yeah. Mr. Paradise, again, it’s the RO if for the official invite, it’s the Rove Insiders Facebook group and the event is in there.
Justin: Nice. And the resi credits are quite funny because I know many people will have them on personal gold cards. Delta reserve cards, yeah. And other cards. So this would be this splurge opportunity, I would suppose, because I like
Carissa: specifically for the resi,
Justin: many have multiple [00:32:00] $50 credits, $20 credits, and so on.
So people with multiple players, meaning others that. They’re helping sign up for credit cards with, they could be going and getting a hundred dollars worth of food and not paying for it. So I think that’s a pretty cool perk for attending the meetup.
Carissa: Yeah, agreed. And
Justin: may, maybe future ones will be at Hilton Resorts, so everybody could use their Aspire credits as well.
Carissa: Wait, that’s smart.
Justin: Ooh, the Hilton Resort next to a resi restaurant.
Carissa: Oh my God. Hold on. I’m like resort list that I keep in my head. Are there any in New York?
Justin: And then maybe after 6:00 PM so they could also use those city nights benefits,
Carissa: I gotta tell you, I have a city prestige, which gives me five x on all dining all the time, and I was just talking to Angie Sparks over award travel and one, she brought that up and I had very happily.
Ignored that the city, it’s the city strand elite, right? That does, yes. The
Justin: card and people may or may not have received forms saying that they had to submit their income or verify their income and all their accounts may or may not have been locked.
Carissa: Oh [00:33:00] my God. Okay. I am not, I’m just clutching my city prestige card just like as hard as I possibly can.
Justin: The five X is pretty strong. I would hold onto that too.
Carissa: Yeah. Are you kidding? Dining is. Dining and travel are basically my only categories of spending.
Justin: The monastic lifestyle as has been referred to on the Mile Ns podcast.
Carissa: It’s a hard life, my man. Yes. Especially with
Justin: all those CVS credits, right? Yeah. And supermarket sweeping with all the grocer reward points, the fuel points.
So some ways to save a lot of money as the New York Times readers would compare it to couponing, but I think we’ve really outclassed the coupons.
Carissa: Actually, when I was a kid, that was actually my favorite extreme couponers. That was like my, I was like, look at their, like they have the bomb shelter with 90 packets of Tide.
And I was like, wow, they’re so smart. And then we’re doing that times a million for travel.
Justin: Yes. And the couponers aren’t gonna be flying overseas as far as I know. And a few years ago there were some great grocery promos involving gift cards as well. And I still have a lot of [00:34:00] laundry detergent, printer paper, and much more in my storage room.
So I got the best of both worlds.
Carissa: Yeah, you really do, man. My, my permit here in New York is 200 square feet, so now I’m buying like one roll of toilet paper at a time doing the opposite of storage.
Justin: Ah, let’s just start New York. Traditionally being expensive, right?
Carissa: Yeah, it is.
Justin: Any other New York or New Jersey events that you might be hosting or attending in the near future?
Carissa: I think we don’t have anything planned yet for November, but I’ll probably put one out there just to try and get a community started. Maybe Jersey. I hear there’s some sort of online gambling you can do in Jersey.
Justin: Jersey and pa. Yes.
Carissa: Yeah, but Jersey’s closer, right? It’s just across the way.
Justin: Oh, okay. Yep.
Yeah. All right. And Atlantic City, then not too far away. If you’re going to Jersey, then Atlantic City’s the logical step. Past podcast Guest Decker. I’ve met him in Mount Laurel, New Jersey as he took public transit to get there from the Manhattan area, and we went to Atlantic City using free nights with [00:35:00] the My Vegas apps.
Staying at Borgata
Carissa: didn’t, you guys didn’t go to the Oceans Casino Resort?
Justin: No. S. No s or joking pre show about that one? Yep.
Carissa: Oh, okay. I just wanted to be clear. I wasn’t sure.
Justin: Yes, no S for sure.
Carissa: Ocean Casino Resort.
Justin: Very good. And one more time. Where can people find Rove online and engage more with Rove?
Carissa: So our website is ro miles.com.
We have a very strong Facebook group, Rove Insiders. We’re also on Discord. Discord. We have the link to that in the Facebook group. If you want to find us on Reddit, we have a subreddit, which is Road Miles. We have join Rove, which is our Instagram, and at Road Miles is TikTok. So we’re everywhere. If you just Google it like it’s everywhere.
Rove. Nice. Yeah.
Justin: And in the show notes, I have a Rove Miles link. You can sign up using my Rove referral link and that’ll also send you to rove miles.com and find it there. And where can people find you online
Carissa: when [00:36:00] I’m not vlogging, Rove and how great it is. You can also find me at just Plain points, which is P-L-A-N-E, just plain points.
That is my sort of personal brand, my freelancing, which is a lot of what I did before joining Rove. Yeah. Just at just link points on Instagram. I have the Facebook, I have a website, all of those sorts of things.
Justin: And LinkedIn as well. I recently joined LinkedIn as I’ve been off the platform for some time, but now I’m back on.
So they could find you there as well, correct?
Carissa: Correct.
Justin: All right. Anything else to add?
Carissa: No, I think that’s it.
Justin: Any upcoming travels for you besides Amsterdam?
Carissa: I got back from the Maldives last week. Then the next big travel I’m doing is gonna be in December where I’m going to French Polynesia for 12 days.
There is an island in French Polynesia called ti, which is next door to Bora, and it’s Bora pre-development. So they have no hotels, they just have a handbook, guest houses, and there is a villa there that I keep going to, which is a hundred dollars a night for a two [00:37:00] bedroom T beach front villa, and it booked up really far in advance.
So I booked this like a year and a half ago and then forgot about it. And then I remembered and I was like, oh, crap. So I booked my flights. So that’s what I’m gonna be doing. It’s very rustic, but it’s incredible. It’s unspoiled by tourism. I’m just really nice. Except me. I’m spoiling it, but,
Justin: all right. Very good.
And then of course, I have the Willow Grove Meetups coming up October 19th and December 21st, 2020. People can RSVP at meetup.com/philly miles and points and we’ll probably have you as a speaker in 2026. Yeah,
Carissa: I’ll come as soon as it, I’m humanly able. Honestly.
Justin: Bring your laptop, bring your gambling gift cards and have a go edit it.
Carissa: Both cell phones.
Justin: Ah, multiple cell phones. Always good. Multiple cell phones. The phone Army. Always welcome. Alright, thanks for joining me today.
Carissa: Thanks
Justin: and thanks everyone for listening. Stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between episodes, follow [00:38:00] Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x.
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