00:00The best way to get a deal is so in google.com slash flights it's a free tool there's a feature
00:05that's you click explore and this is where I tell people so it's the winter time in New York and you
00:11just want to go to the Caribbean you can actually put New York to the Caribbean and you can put if
00:16you have a certain week you want to go or just say hey one weekend in February these dates it's very
00:20flexible and it reverse engineers it'll show you a map of the Caribbean you can sort by business
00:25class non-stop and that's where you find the best deals instead of searching one by one each and
00:32every route you've got to use technology to help find the best deals. Can you click through from
00:37there and buy your ticket? Yeah and and tip always book directly with the airline as we saw this year
00:42with the meltdowns and because if you book through an online travel agency it's so much more complex
00:47you know the airline cancels your flight and they're at the gate and they're saying well you got to call
00:50the online travel agent so book direct. By the way Brian why aren't you uh offering these kind of
00:56services and especially with your business I would imagine you could use AI on your website absolutely
01:04um to help people solve problems yeah I mean at the points guy we have an AI strategy we have a lot
01:09we're overhauling the website as we speak we have a great new CEO who started this year with us so stay
01:14tuned for more but there are concierge services so I as the points guy when I started in 2010 working at
01:19Morgan Stanley I was a travel agent for points I would charge people 50 bucks a ticket and use my
01:24knowledge there is a tool out there now point.me slash concierge and if you have a bunch of points
01:30and you like to travel you don't have the time to figure it all out you can pay I think it's $200 a
01:35ticket but if you're saving thousands which the service can do it can pay for itself so for the busy
01:40executive you know getting that concierge can be a good option. You get different deals if you use
01:45points versus if you use cash I want to know what are the best deals out there that right now that
01:50you identify. So look points there's been devaluations going on but I want to remind people
01:55when you book a ticket using your frequent flyer miles they are refundable tickets so when you're
01:59comparing and contrasting I love using points still you know and and some of the best deals out
02:04there Air France Flying Blue that program uh has 60,000 mile business class award tickets to Europe
02:12all next year that same ticket if you use Delta it's going to be 400,000 points the U.S. Airlines
02:18United, Delta, American is the best of the big three but they're all increasing the amount of miles
02:22the foreign programs I'm going to St. Moritz next month Swiss Airlines if you if you book via Air Canada
02:28which is a transfer partner of Amex and Chase 70,000 points business class one way for $4,000 ticket
02:35so there is still tremendous value with you know transferring points and remember if I need to cancel
02:41that ticket to Switzerland my kid gets sick I get all my miles back but if I paid five grand for that
02:46ticket I'm going to get a voucher on Swiss Airlines that I may or may not be able to use so points still
02:52offer tons of flexibility and the airlines last minute open up tons of seats I'm going to Sydney
02:57this week and I've been monitoring there even last minute over the holidays the airlines American
03:02Airlines opened up a ton of upgrade space if you have miles so you know for last minute procrastinators
03:08when you buy tickets the airfare is through the roof but it can be the best time to redeem those
03:13points. When you go to St. Moritz do you fly into Zurich or to Munich? Well so Zurich is the easiest if
03:19you want to take the train but Milan is only two and a half hour car ride so actually after after St.
03:24Moritz I'm going to go to Milan where the Winter Olympics are and but even that weekend of the opening
03:29games for the Winter Olympics Emirates to JFK Milan has business class award availability for like
03:34$200 and 60,000 miles so I want to re-emphasize to people the points game is not over but using tools
03:42like PointMe there's another tool that I love called seats.aero a-e-r-o seats.aero allows you
03:48to scan up to a year in advance so if you want to fly Emirates business class to Dubai you can actually
03:54search for a year and it'll tell you what days there are seats available so you once again you can
03:59reverse engineer your trips based on where the award availability is. I'm fascinated by the fact that
04:04you just said in airlines are opening up a bunch of seats I didn't realize it was that dynamic that
04:09maybe they were holding back seats till the last minute and also dynamic pricing apparently I'm
04:14getting prices on you know an individual basis and I don't like that. No and that so Delta this year
04:20they said you know two percent of their airfare was dynamically priced via AI they're going to move
04:24to 20 percent in 2026 they say that to the consumers don't you worry we're not going to use your personal
04:30data but I think you know as consumers you've got to be smarter. This year we saw the airlines
04:35now start charging more for your single passengers so all the three big U.S. airlines now if you're
04:41flying by yourself on vacation you can pay up to 60-70 percent more because what they're trying to do
04:46is target business travelers who have to pay so if you book it always what I recommend is search for
04:52two tickets sometimes it's annoying to fly with someone else but you can save a ton of money so
04:57you know family travel sometimes it used to make sense to book separately in case one person couldn't
05:01go but when possible book two or more and that can save you a ton of money. I like to fly without my
05:07kids. It's worth the premium. Yeah you and I are in the same boat in terms of progeny right mine are five
05:13and two and it's just the worst it's a nightmare to fly with these kids how do you do it? Well I've got
05:20a three-year-old and a one-year-old and and this year we're about to get my seventh continent my one-year-old
05:25will be the youngest person in the world to go to all seven. How do I do it? Well I'll be honest I
05:30travel with an amazing nanny who is who loves to travel so we have a good good system set up but
05:35honestly using points for business class has been a game changer so I know people say oh can I bring
05:41kids in business class? I mean my kids are well behaved but yes it is your right and having extra
05:46space makes your kids aren't screaming the whole time? Look any kid's gonna scream my kids are pretty
05:50I you know and I do recommend people start them young and especially the first year of travel is pretty
05:54easy they sleep most of the time anyway but um yeah using points and actually getting extra seats
06:00for kids even though they can sit on your lap for up to two years my kids are big so I started getting
06:05them their own seats which was great let them sprawl out in a little bed and they sleep the whole time.
06:10Very cute now talk to us about domestic destinations where are people traveling within the United States?
06:15Yeah so a huge trend we're seeing in 2026 is people still want to travel but there is still a little
06:19trepidation even with the markets going up people are nervous so and uh so we're seeing
06:24uh you know the pandemic we saw everyone going to national parks but we're seeing that surge now
06:30Bozeman Montana Jackson Hole Key West so people Alaskan cruises are through you know those bookings
06:37are way up so I think people are a little nervous about international I think people have also been
06:41so sick of paying those premium prices to go to Europe the last several years we've now seen that
06:45Italian hotel room go from 1500 a night 4,000 a night you know you go peak summer and also 60%
06:52of people we surveyed are planning on shoulder season and I've been preaching about shoulder
06:56season for a long time Europe in May is way nicer than in August and you go in August it's all
07:02Americans all the locals are gone so why it's hot they don't have air conditioning and you're with
07:06all the people you see in America help me out speaking of shoulder season I was just in Livingston
07:10Montana last month thought it was going to be way too cold but it was perfect and there was nobody in
07:15the national park no yeah the national parks in those shoulder seasons of fall and Aspen is
07:19beautiful I mean so yeah think outside the box don't just go you know Christmas week to Aspen and
07:25then you're shocked at the prices
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