ricky zhang travel

ITINERARIES

TRAVEL PLANNER

AMAZON STORE

PODCAST COURSE

NEW RIVER GORGE

NAPA WINE TRIP

Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking ft. Ricky Zhang, CEO of Prince of Travel

August 22, 2023.

Ricky Zhang, CEO of Prince of Travel joins the Travel Squad Podcast to share the best travel hacking tips and reveal travel credit card industry’s best-kept secrets.

What is travel hacking you ask? Simply, it’s the strategy of using points to pay for flights and hotels. It’s a bit more complex in that you strategically use bonus offers to rack up points, utilize the right credit cards for maximum rewards on what ure already buying, and purchasing the flights and hotels and optimal times to stretch your points the farthest.

Ricky shares his personal 101 to travel hacking. Since he is no stranger to taking first-class and business-class flights on points. In fact, he’s taken what he’s learned and built a business out o teaching others how to get free flights, upgrades, hotel stays, and perks with travel credit card points. 

Whether you’re in Canada or in the US, Ricky has travel hacks to get more points, strategies to earn enough points to afford that coveted flight, and shares some of his unbelievable experiences he’s done on the credit card company’s dime! He also shares more on “travel consulting” and how Prince of Travel can help make your travel-hacking dreams come to life. You do not want to miss this incredibly helpful travel-hacking episode.

In April 2024 Prince of Travel is hosting a travel summit in Toronto, Canada to teach these points strategies in real life. Use promo code TRAVELSQUAD for $25 CAD off the ticket price! Connect with Prince of Travel on Instagram at @princeoftravel and visit their website princeoftravel.com to read their blogs, sign up for their newsletter, and learn more about their travel consulting options.

Travel Hacking – Episode Transcript

1 (45s): Welcome to this week’s episode of the Travel Squad Podcast. We have a very special guest joining us today, Ricky Zhang, the CEO of Prince of travel.

2 (53s): In this episode, we talk to Ricky all about travel, Hacking more particularly how to utilize points from credit card and hotel reward programs to maximize your travel experience. Using those points to get free flights, hotels, and more, we delve deep in and discuss how Prince of travel’s website and tools can help you learn all these tips and tricks to make you a more savvy points traveler.

0 (1m 16s): You squatty are in for a treat with this episode, I was glued to the screen, hung on Ricky’s every word as he revealed the Secrets to the points industry and step-by-step strategies to get free business and first class flights. This is one of the best guest interviews I think that we’ve ever had and you’re really gonna wanna get your notepad out to take notes because there were so many good nuggets in this episode. I know we were writing notes as we were listening to Ricky talk. We were getting ideas that we could activate on to earn more points. Ones that we started activating on immediately after the episode.

1 (1m 51s): In April 2024, they’re actually hosting a travel summit in Toronto and they’re teaching all of you guys how to use these point strategies in real life. They have graciously offered you squads $25 off using the promo code TRAVELSQUAD in all caps. We’ll have the link with all of the information in the show notes and on the episode page on our website. And with that, let’s welcome Ricky to the Travel Squad. Podcast

0 (2m 19s): Ricky, welcome to the Travel Squad Podcast. We are so happy to have you on.

4 (2m 23s): Happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. So

0 (2m 26s): You’ve been on a very epic round the world bachelor trip and we are so excited to get into that and dive into how you did it and how much fun you had. But before we go there, we wanna go all the way back. What is one of your first most memorable travel experiences? Yeah,

4 (2m 44s): It’s a great place to start. For me, probably it would have been 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. That was the first trip that I took kind of solo or with my friends, you know, outside of, you know, traveling with my family, which I had done from a young age. But that was the first time that I was trying to push the boundaries of what I was comfortable with in terms of going to a, a very foreign country at the time. And you know, just like funding the trip on my own, planning the trip on my own back then or flights, hostels, right, accommodations, what to do, what to see, what to eat, you know, figuring out the actual logistics on the ground in a unfamiliar place like Brazil with just a, a few buddies. So that was really a formative experience for me as a traveler and I think shaped me to a huge degree these days.

4 (3m 30s): And look back on that trip with fondness a lot. That

0 (3m 33s): Sounds like an epic trip. It sounds like you have a, a habit of taking epic trips.

4 (3m 40s): Yeah, I tend to have a habit of try to outdo myself with, with each trip or major trip that I try to mark on. So, you know, starting from that first formative experience, I’ve always been seeking the next thrill, the next way to elevate my travels. The next exciting thing to do and especially as I’ve gotten into sharing my adventures with, with an audience as well, there’s obviously that motivation to keep upping the ante, right? To keep, you know, taking fun trips. So yeah, I’d say I’ve been on a hot streak there for sure.

2 (4m 8s): Well, tell us a little bit about sharing your adventures with your audience. So Prince of travel is Canada’s leading resource using frequent flyer miles, credit card points, loyalty programs, et cetera, right? We know this. So at what point in your own personal travels did you decide, hey, I’m gonna start this right here and how did we get into that? So

4 (4m 29s): This would’ve been around, you know, 2014 was Brazil, 2015. I studied abroad in London, UK and did the whole, you know, Europe backpacking trip. And that was also, you know, done on a pretty shoestring budget. But it was, you know, I think for many travelers out there backpacking through Europe is kind of a formative experience, right? And so again, that big part of shaping me as a traveler 2016 is when I graduated university and really started to confront the reality that okay, if I’m working a full-time job then my opportunities to travel the world will be more limited. And so in my full-time job I, you know, obviously was always trying to find ways to still unlock that, you know, ability to travel, the freedom to travel.

4 (5m 10s): And it was, you know, from a bit of that motivation that I, that led me to at first pursuing Prince of travel as a side project, right? But eventually having aspirations to turn it into a full-time pursuit so that I could work on it at the same time as traveling the world and really build that, you know, dream life of travel freedom that, that I value so much. So around 2017 is when Prince of travel started and back then I myself was delving really deep into all of these strategies for using points to you know, maximize your, your flights and, and how to, you know, travel in a fraction of the cost. And I thought especially here in Canada, there weren’t really a lot of resources for that. So why not go ahead and give it a go myself and the rest is history.

0 (5m 53s): That’s brilliant. You really saw a need at the right time and you jumped on it and you’re able to teach people the things that you were doing. And I have a ton of questions in this area going from US to Canada. Do you feel like the credit card points policy is about the same or are there differences over there?

4 (6m 11s): Yeah, it’s overall pretty similar with some smaller nuances around you know, which specific banks are issuing, which specific credit cards like the specific credit cards we use in Canada are gonna be different from in the US All principles of the game of maximizing your credit card rewards are pretty much the same across, you know, both sides of the border. Like overall US and Canada are probably the world’s two biggest markets for this kind of, you know, the ability to maximize your points. And so yeah, overall I’d say like you know, the principles and the best practices that we have in Canada are pretty much the same as down in the states. And so a lot of the content we make is applicable to Americans as well. And yeah, overall we’re looking to serve, you know, we started off with Canadians foremost, but looking to serve a global audience as we grow.

0 (6m 55s): Absolutely never a shortage of need for how to save money and travel more often, that’s for sure. For sure. So let’s get into that. What are some of your top tips for using points to get travel for free or less? Yeah,

4 (7m 9s): Absolutely. So my bread and butter here at Prince of Travel is obviously maximizing your points, right? And that’s what is colloquially known as travel Hacking as well. And when you really delve into it, there’s many, many directions that travel Hacking can take. But to boil it down to the simplest form is really, you know, the idea is to maximize the points that you get from the credit card products that are available in the US and Canadian markets. And when, when we say maximize those points, it means, you know, there’s obviously the signup bonus component when you open the card, but there’s also the points you earn from regular spending by spending on the card. And that’s where the day-to-day purchases that you’ll be making throughout your life anyway, you may as well be earning a maximum return on those to help fund your trip.

4 (7m 56s): And then when you combine that with, you know, promotions that come time to time can, people will be surprised by how quickly you can rack up the points to fund, you know, the next flight or a hotel stay. So the, the idea there, you know, if I were to go one level deeper is it does require, you know, time and effort to study how the whole game works. And in practice for somebody just starting out, it’s important to identify exactly what your goal is from trial Hacking or what’s the next, you know, trip that you’d like to take that you’d like to use points to help get either you know, for free or at a very reduced cost. And it helps to think about a trip that’s maybe, you know, a year to a year and a half out there because it does take time, right?

4 (8m 38s): To put the right puzzle pieces in in place and earn points and and book and you know, you need to book a certain, sometimes you need to book a certain period before the actual date of the trip. So it helps to think of a certain trip you wanna take, like a destination you want to go to or a place you wanna stay or a flight you wanna take. And then work backwards from there. So put together a strategy starting with the goal, figure out which programs are gonna get you the flights required for that destination, how many points are you gonna need? And then which credit cards, whether it’s a combination of signup bonuses or the regular spend that you have month to month are gonna get you enough of those points that can help you book that trip.

4 (9m 19s): Once you have that strategy in place, you go ahead and implement it. It’s easy to be distracted if you don’t have that strategy, it’s easy to go on, hey get that car, I’m gonna get and end up with a bunch of points that don’t actually pull together towards a trip. So it’s important to start with that goal. You’re kind of north star as you’re starting out and, and work towards it eventually resulting in taking the trip.

0 (9m 42s): I think I’ve been doing it a little backwards or maybe wrong because I think about when I’m checking out in an airline and it says, sign up for this card and you get $200 off your bill and all these points. And I’m like, that’s a great deal. I was actually just talking to my grandma yesterday, she called me to ask if this southwest deal was a good one and I told her yes. So hopefully I didn’t lead her astray. What do you think?

4 (10m 4s): Well, so for example, a Southwest deal could be useful if somebody’s goal is to travel to, you know, Yosemite National Park let’s say, right? But if your goal is to, you know, spend summer in Europe, then less so, right? Because Southwest doesn’t fly to Europe. So it, like I said, there is that initial research phase kind of understanding which programs will get you towards which goals and it’s, it’s really a matter of like the more you know, the more you put in in terms of studying, in terms of understanding how everything works, the more you’re gonna get out

1 (10m 36s): Of it. Yeah, and that’s a really good tip because I feel like even though we’ve been traveling for a long time, we probably haven’t maximized the travel Hacking aspect of the game as well as you have, obviously you’re an expert in it, but there’s so many different layers to strategizing. ’cause I know like for example, in the US one of the major banks, they only let you open like five credit cards a year. And so if you open more than that you get flagged of not being able to open every two years. Every two years, yeah, every two years,

4 (11m 5s): Right? 5 24.

1 (11m 7s): So there’s like the 5 24 rule and then it’s like you have to make sure you’re earning points that will transfer to an airline that you might use. So there’s so many different layers to travel Hacking, but while we’re on the subject of money, we’d love to know what’s the least amount you’ve ever paid for a trip that you’ve taken using your travel Hacking strategies.

4 (11m 28s): So it gets tricky to to, you know, pull from my recollection. But you know, if you just think about the at, at a basic level, I’ve probably done a handful of trips where, you know, I’ve used points for the flights and, and oftentimes there would’ve been in business class, right? Because we, we can, we can get into the, the value proposition of economy versus business as well. But I probably have taken a handful of trips where I book flights in business class, the hotel at the destination is covered on points and all I’ve paid for is the taxes and fees on the flights themselves plus food and the activities, you know, whatever you do on the ground. So in terms of those taxes and fees for the flights probably, you know, let’s say 200 Canadian dollars round trip tops and then that’s it for flights and hotels and this would be like to to Europe or something.

4 (12m 15s): And I will say for Americans that number actually goes down even more because the taxes departing out of the US are as low as, you know, $7 or $5 60 cents or something, you know, very, very nicely low that you guys have. Yep.

1 (12m 29s): You hit it on the head $5 and 60 cents

4 (12m 31s): 5 5 60, right, exactly. Yeah. So, so that really goes to show like if you can use points to offset flights and hotel expenses, which tend to be probably like 60 to 75% of most people’s travel budgets, then what you, what’s remaining of your travel budget gets to be stretched so much further, right? Whether it’s an enhanced trip for that one particular trip or taking more trips on the same budget.

2 (12m 55s): Yeah, with the credit card game and travel Hacking you could only do so much on getting free food on the ground in your destination and activities, right? It’s the flight, it’s the hotel, possibly the rental car, maybe other sorts of transportation train or anything like that when you’re on the ground. So in that sense, if you could only do it for all the, only do the taxes that they require, I consider that to be, you know, a, a free trip. But you mentioned something very interesting to me, you know, the economy versus business class, you know proposition, a lot of credit cards these days of course will take your points and trade it to a preferred airline point system on a one-to-one basis more often than not.

2 (13m 35s): And we usually use a lot of our points to get those immediate trips hotels in this that I’m trying really hard to save up to do that business class flight on it. Do you find it to be more wise to purchase an economy ticket regularly and then utilize points for the upgrade from economy to business or just go business, you know, outright and I know each airline is kind of different on how they do points, but what do you find to be the general rule of thumb on which is better?

4 (14m 3s): Yeah, that’s a great question. The, the answer’s pretty clear cut. It’s generally better to redeem directly for business rather than try to use points on an upgrade from economy. And the reason for that is most of the programs out there have set it up so that the value proposition of redeeming directly for business basically is a lot stronger if you are to try to do upgrades. A lot of them tie the upgrade currency to like loyalty to the airlines. So you have to have already been a flying like a lot with like United American or Delta or Air Canada, right? To have the e upgrade or sorry Air Canada calls it e upgrades but every airline calls it something different but it’s like a specific upgrade currency but it’s really intended for loyal flyer like fly a lot and a lot of them tend to be like works travel.

4 (14m 48s): And the other thing is oftentimes it’s only gonna be easier for to use points on upgrades from economy to business if you had paid for like the highest economy fair, which often isn’t the discounted economy fairs, that’s the lowest prices that often shows up on Kayak or Google flights when you know regular travelers shopping around. So long story short, if you wanna try business class using your points, which absolutely is great value and is what attracts a lot of people to right earning points and travel Hacking whatnot, then redeeming directly for business or first is best.

2 (15m 21s): I’m gonna have to put that to practice because I’ve been putting all of our points as of late on hold. I keep telling Brittany don’t book anything, don’t book anything small like hotels, rental cars. Like I, I want to go ahead and do that business class flight and we got a couple long haulers that are potentially coming up to either, you know, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam coming up soon. So I wanna redeem them for those on those luxury airlines that fly to. Absolutely.

4 (15m 47s): I will say be careful because once you fly a business class you’re not gonna back and you’re gonna be playing the game a lot harder as a result. So that’s just something to something to keep in mind.

0 (15m 59s): You gotta keep upping the ante. Right? Exactly.

1 (16m 2s): I was gonna say, I look forward to the challenge. Hey Squad ease. We wanna share one of our favorite travel products with you. Liquid IV is a category winning hydration brand, fueling your wellbeing while traveling.

2 (16m 13s): One stick fits into 16 ounces of water to give you three times the electrolytes of traditional sports drinks and hydrates you two times faster than water alone. They’re half ounce hydration multiplier powder packet is the one product you need in every suitcase carry-on. And dayak

0 (16m 31s): We use it while flying on planes because flights can be so dehydrating. We use it when we feel jet lagged when we’re out on a hike and after a long night out that has us feeling worn out in just one stick you get five essential vitamins B three B five, B six, B 12, and vitamin C liquid

1 (16m 47s): IV also now comes in 12 delicious and refreshing flavors to keep your hydration routine exciting. Our favorites are the lemon, lime and tangerine with immune support.

2 (16m 56s): It’s made with premium ingredients all non G M O and gluten, dairy and soy free. Get 20% off when you go to liquid iv.com and use Travel Squad Podcast at checkout. That’s 20% off anything you order when you shop. Better Hydration today using promo code Travel Squad Podcast at liquid iv.com.

0 (17m 17s): Hey squads, have you ever wanted to make a podcast? Spotify for podcasters lets you make one super easily distribute it everywhere and even helps you earn money. It’s all in one place and it’s free.

1 (17m 29s): Here’s how it works.

2 (17m 31s): Spotify for podcasters lets you record and edit audio right through your phone or computer. So no matter what your setup is like, you can get started creating today, then you can distribute your podcast on Spotify and everywhere else podcasts are heard, what’s

1 (17m 45s): Cool is they also have video podcast capabilities and when you wanna take your conversations to the next level q and as and polls are the best ways to get them talking. We’ve started using polls on our episodes and we love seeing your guys’ feedback.

0 (17m 58s): With Spotify for podcasters you can generate income for your show with ads and subscriptions and best of all, it’s totally free with no catch.

2 (18m 5s): Ever since we discovered Spotify for podcasters, we feel like we’ve had more engagement with our audience and are getting more listens through the Spotify network. We highly recommend you give it a try. Download the Spotify for podcasters app or go to spotify.com/podcasters to get started today.

0 (18m 23s): Hey squats, let’s take a quick detour to talk about our travel Itineraries that we’ve created just for you.

2 (18m 29s): We just launched several new international trip Itineraries, including Tulum and Japan. This is on top of the Itineraries we already have for us trips like the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, the US Virgin Islands, as well as National Park Trip Itineraries, including Utah’s Mighty five national parks and a week at Grand Teton and Yellowstone. These

1 (18m 51s): Fully built out 20 to 30 page P D F guides are available for instant download on our site. Right now every detail of the trip is laid out for you, so all you have to do is download book, show up and have fun.

0 (19m 4s): The Itineraries tell you where to fly into the exact route to take, where to stay, park entrance prices, where to eat, driving distance between attractions, the things to see and do, even the hikes. We recommend their mileage and the time to allot for each one. And believe it or not so much more,

2 (19m 21s): Be sure to head over to Travel Squad Podcast dot com to download your very own comprehensive travel itinerary today.

1 (19m 29s): One thing that you’ve talked about a little bit was, you know, picking the right credit card and then maximizing the points that you get back from that credit card. So what are some other ways to earn more points from credit cards? Are there specific promos to look out for? Do you recommend putting all of your daily expenses on one card, splitting it? What would you say your strategy is on that?

4 (19m 50s): So it’s gonna be a multi-pronged strategy if you want to fully maximize, right? So let’s break it down to three components. The first is strategic use of side signup bonuses, which if you think about it, a lot of these cards out there are gonna offer, you know, 80,000, a hundred thousand, 150,000 points just for signing up and then meeting a certain spending requirement. And oftentimes that’s like a couple thousand dollars in a, in three months you’d have to spend, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to get that equivalent amount from daily spending. So the signup bonus is a huge chunk and there’s like different levels of, let’s call it aggressiveness, that you can go with signup bonuses, right? And you know, some people prefer to, some people out there get like new credit cards every couple of months and then they just keep getting the bonuses and that’s a big part of the strategy.

4 (20m 37s): Now not everybody’s gonna be comfortable doing that, but I think for everybody there should be consideration that if there’s an, let’s say an all time high offer on a card that we’ve, you know, never seen before or we rarely see, and you have the ability to meet that minimum spend that’s associated with it. Let’s say you have some big expenses coming up, if it’s gonna be a high spend right, then it’s worth considering going for that offer because that’s an instant boost to your points balance that can get you much closer to that next trip much quicker. So outside of side of bonuses, right? Whenever you choose the, the pace there, the number two would be, yeah, maximizing your return on spend. So there it’s like simplicity versus maximizing rewards, right?

4 (21m 17s): Some people are gonna prefer to get one card and not have to think about which card use for their purchase and they’re going to not be able to earn as many points as a result. Whereas if you did, you know, go deeper into like the best card for dining, the best card for gas, the best card for recurring purchases and kind of took note of which portfolio of cards is gonna work best for you, given which categories of spending that you regularly spend on the most, then you’re gonna pull together, yeah. As a bigger points balance as a result. And the last piece is that you said at promotions, right? So one of the more underrated ways of racking up points is through shopping portals. Each of the major programs, you know, each of the major airlines, you know, American United, Delta, air Canada, there’s gonna be a portal that if you shop online you can shop through the portal and it’ll sometimes give you, it’s basically affiliate marketing.

4 (22m 10s): They give you kickback and forth. So you can often earn, you know, one to three times the miles in whichever program that you’ve decided to focus on after thinking about your goals and your strategy, right on like an online purchase on Amazon or you know, buying a new computer or new iPhone or if you’re just buying stuff like shopping online for Black Friday, whatnot. And the best thing is during Black Friday during these peak shopping seasons, they’re gonna put on promos where it’s like instead of one to three times the points it’s five or eight or 10 times the points. So then if you’re doing like a few grand worth of holiday shopping, that’s instantly, you know, a like dirty maybe 20, 30, 40,000 points that are flowing into your account in addition to the points you earn from the credit card you use for that purchase.

4 (22m 56s): That’s how it all really stacks up really quick. And then when you have your eye on the prize for how many points you need to redeem, you just need to get yourself to that level and then it’s time to book.

2 (23m 6s): And I think something too that you didn’t touch upon, but it’s one of those things that when people get a little bit deeper too, is a lot of these reward programs, they will give you referral codes and links as a good example where they’ll give you extra points too. And it’s one of those things where I’ve had my preferred travel credit card for a really, really long time. I hyped it up when Kim actually finally decided she’s signing up for hers. They weren’t giving the referral program anymore and now they are. And sometimes they’ll offer anywhere between 10 to 50,000 points per person up to like five people that you get to sign up. And right there, if it’s at 50,000 for five people, 250,000 points, that’s more than you know, the signup bonuses for those ones.

2 (23m 50s): So that can also go a really long way just as well. And I’m trying to get real hard into that game right now too.

4 (23m 56s): For sure. You’re, you’re badgering all your friends and family to, to get it.

2 (24m 0s): Yeah, and then I had a friend recently, ’cause he was asking me because him and his wife aren’t travelers per se, they have three children right now, but they’re coming with us on a trip to October Fest and he asked me in general, what’s my preferred travel credit card. And since he’s not a traveler, I didn’t think he was really gonna do anything of it. It was just more like a general question tells me the next day he signed up for it and got approved. I’m like, dude, you cost me 50,000 points right now, I would’ve given you the leak.

4 (24m 27s): Oh, unlucky, yeah, you gotta you gotta chastise him for that. But that’s, that’s the tail is oldest time of the space. So definitely, yeah, refer a friend. Bonuses are another big component. You’re right, probably like the fourth, you know, big source of points. American Express offers it both sides of the border. You’ve got Chase that also does refer a friend every now and then. So that’s usually a win-win, right? So if you’re a cardholder and you know, you, you’ve been discovering the benefits of the card and the program on your own, then definitely what the, what the bank wants you to do is to, is to spread the word and you benefit from referring a friend and family member. And especially like you said, if you’re planning a trip with friends, it’s a great time to get them into the game obviously, assuming they use your link.

4 (25m 12s): Yes,

0 (25m 12s): Yes. Hey Ricky, I have a question. You’ve used your points for a lot of flights and hotels. I’ve always wanted to redeem my points as well for business or first class. It’s my dream to fly in a plane that lays down, it gives you a comforter, champagne, all of that. What is the typical like point range for a business or first class flight?

4 (25m 34s): Sure, yeah, I can throw out a few ranges. So these days, let’s say North America to Europe and business is probably gonna be 70,000 to a hundred thousand points. One way, you know, depends on the program, but on average I think 70,000, let’s call it 60 to 80,000 from East coast to Europe, 70 to 90,000 from West coast to Europe. ’cause you know, different distances to Asia, probably a little more. So business you’re looking at like 90 to 110, actually no lower than that. 75 to a hundred for business class to Asia you can usually find, those are probably your two most common ones. And then South America probably also like 60 to 80, 60 to, yeah, 60 to 90 just in case reader.

4 (26m 15s): Sorry, listeners are unaware, right? Business class, you get your life flat seat, generally that’s the expectation. You get food, you get unlimited, you know, food and alcohol, but it’s still a pretty like, you know, that’s it. You know, you get your seed, you get your food and alcohol, that’s it. First class is where they pamper you and make you feel like a celebrity and you have like a whole bed to yourself and they come like with unlimited servings of caviar and they come, you know, ask like what, what more can they get for you? And usually it’s like a lot of, a lot of fun, right? That’s, that’s where the fun gets in first class to Europe. Looking at a hundred thousand one way roughly first class to Asia, maybe a little bit more than that. A hundred to 120 points one way I will say for first class, you do often sometimes need to go seeking out the experience on the right routes because unless you live in a major hub and you’re flying into a major hub, you know you’re not al that’s not always gonna be available.

4 (27m 8s): So you sometimes you need to, what’s known as reposition yourself to let’s say New York, to fly to Frankfurt so that you can try the Lufthansa first class. So you do kind of go out there and seek out the experience. But let me tell you, when you’re sipping champagne at 35,000 feet, it’s all worth it.

2 (27m 24s): I believe it’s all worth it. That’s all of our goals and I think anybody’s with the travel Hacking. But let, let me ask you this, what am I missing? Because everything that I ever see online, that point range you gave is accurate. Of course you’ll see sometimes those point range sales be a lot better, but maybe it’s off season, maybe it’s a random day. But every time I really look to see, okay, how much is it going to cost me on these major airlines to get from where I want to go? Business class even I’m seeing in the one 50, sometimes even 200,000 point range. So what, what is it that I’m missing? Am I just looking at the wrong time or from the wrong airports?

4 (28m 0s): Yeah, let’s stick into this. What you’re seeing is basically, you know, no matter which program you’re using, so if, if you’re using United’s program for example, or if you’re using American’s program or if you’re using Delta’s program or Air Canada’s, each of the programs, obviously they’re designed to serve the interest of their, of their airline, right? And so what the programs do is they make, basically they, they allow you to access every seat on the their own airlines flights, but you’re gonna pay an inflated cost after the first few are taken. So it’s, it’s worth very lightly delving into the economics of how this all works. Like why does using points on flights even work? Right? Essentially airlines can’t sell all their seats and they, you know, just a basic version, they, they use the loyalty programs, they make it available for people to book on points so that they, to minimize the number of seats that actually go out empty.

4 (28m 52s): Because once the seat goes out empty, they just lose that, you know, revenue forever. But if they let somebody use points for it, at least it builds customer loyalty. So they’re obviously not gonna let every seat on the plane, especially in business in first on those seats command 5,000, $10,000 of revenue, right? They’re not gonna let every seat be bookable on points. They’re gonna limit it to like one or two per flight maximum. And that’s where, when I said those points ranges, right, I’m talking about those one or two seats per flight that many of these major airlines have chosen to make available to their partners, which you’re using to book. So for example, if you’re using United Miles, you’ll be able to find, you know, one or two flights on Lufthansa, Swiss Air Canada, Brussels Airlines, right?

4 (29m 35s): The star lines partners that partner with United at that 60 to 80 K or one way range to Europe that I set after those seats are snapped up, all you’re seeing is a hundred, 150 on United’s own flights that they still wanna allow like somebody who’s desperate to use their points to book. But for people looking for a deal, it’s not gonna be as attractive. Same thing applies to American and their partners, right? If you’re using American Miles, you’re looking for that, you’re competing essentially with other people using points for those 1, 2, 3, 4 seats on a, on each flight on their partners British Airways, Iberia, right? Qatar Airways to the Middle East. Once those are gone, all you see is American Airlines flights for you know, 400,000 points one way most people will not take it.

4 (30m 18s): Some people swimming in miles, they will take it and that’s why it’s available. Hopefully it makes it a bit clear. It’s pretty complex topic at the end of

1 (30m 24s): The day. Yeah, I feel like you really clarified that ’cause I didn’t realize how much of a competition it really is and that it’s not the same amount of points across the board for everyone. Which also brings me to my next question. Is there an optimal time to book these flights a certain amount of months in advance so that you are competitive in getting the flight with point? Yes.

4 (30m 43s): At the lower rate there’s two optimal times. So this is different from when you’re shopping for flights that you’re just gonna buy regularly, right? The prevailing advice there is, I don’t know, like a few months to a few to like six weeks before. I think generally with points it’s different. So you either want to be looking for flights well in advance, so 10 to 12 months. So in that case, you know, people who travel on points, people who really take it to a, to a level where it’s, you know, part of their travel lifestyle. Right now we’re in August, 2023 right now. They’d be planning like late summer 20, 24 travels if they wanted to secure those flights while in advance because basically that’s when airlines released their schedule 10 to 12 months in advance at that point usually it’s like they’ve released their entire flight, you know, to be bookable for the public on cash and they’ve released those two seats to be bookable on points and usually it’s two, sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s zero if an airline, like an airline doesn’t have to release seats for points, but they do to keep the whole ecosystem of loyalty going, right?

4 (31m 47s): So that’s one optimal window planning nine to 12 months in advance. The other optimal window is super last bitted because again, airlines at around two weeks out start to know, okay, this flight is not selling too well, it’s looking like it might go out with a few empty seats, let’s like release more on points. And this is a very common practice that most airlines, most airlines do. So at around two weeks out you’ll start to see a lot more seats at those like base levels that we talked about available if you’re to search. So for example, today’s August 10th, if you’re to search for the next two weeks of travel dates, you’ll see you, you’ll see more seats available to book at this last minute stage.

4 (32m 27s): Maybe it’s not that pronounced right now ’cause it’s still peak, like peak summer travel season and it’s been actually quite hard to find those seeds the whole summer. But once we get into fall winter, that’ll, that’ll be the case. Now those are, are the two optimal windows. I will say that it’s different from most people how most people play their travels, right? Well, you know, either can find it challenging to plan 10 to 12 months in advance, let alone last minute. That’s, you do have to be like quite advanced and comfortable with flexibility. We’re gonna talk about flexibility later, but you do have to be quite flexible to be comfortable booking it, you know, two weeks out. But that’s, those are the optimal windows and if you can’t make that work for you, then you, the, the game might look something like, you know, booking something that is changeable or refundable when you’re looking to plan and then looking to optimize it at two weeks out when there’s more space to work with.

1 (33m 22s): Yeah, that’s really funny. ’cause Kim always makes fun of me for how far in advance I plan out my travel. So he’s like, oh, the 10 to 12 month that, that’s you,

4 (33m 30s): I’m on board. Perfect. I’m

1 (33m 31s): The two week one.

4 (33m 33s): Yeah, well it’s either, it’s either, yeah, its last minute planners or super early planners.

1 (33m 38s): Well, I love everything you’ve given us so far. You’ve gone so in depth and you’ve given us a lot to think about too. Yeah. But I wanna dive in to your bachelor trip, the around the world Bachelor trip that you did for $2,000. So give it to us, where did you go? How did you plan it and how long did the planning process take?

4 (33m 58s): Well, I didn’t plan it, it was my team. You didn’t? No, it was my team at Prisoner Travel who surprised me with the whole thing. And they did it as a, they knew that I’m somebody who likes to take things up a notch and, you know, always seek out the best experience and they had to think like, what has Ricky not done? And so I’ve, I have, you know, I’ve obviously flown and I’ve been very fortunate to be able to fly in many of the world’s best business class and first class, but to their credit, they figured out like I’ve done a lot of that, you know, either solo or as a couple, but I’ve never done it with a group of friends with the gang, right? So that’s kind of the trip that they set out to plan. Like a couple of us, you know, they’re good friends and they also work a Prince of travel as well.

4 (34m 44s): So they set out to plan this surprise round the world bachelor party across like many of the world’s best business class and first class flights all as a group of like three or four. And remember I said like most airlines only release two seats in previous cabins. So that was actually quite a quite challenging for them and I really admire what they pulled off. But the whole idea is, yeah, they, they thought about like, what would, you know for, for me, who’s been kind of at this for like 5, 6, 7 years, what would a bachelor party that’s like super crazy and really special look like? And it turned out like pretty perfectly because we ended up on the world’s two best business class. So that’s QA Airways and, and a n a, the Japanese airline widely regarded as the world’s two best.

4 (35m 30s): We ended up with the world’s two first class airlines that actually have a bar on the plane.

1 (35m 35s): Ooh.

4 (35m 37s): So free flowing, like, you know, champagne, like, you know, whenever like we, yeah, we’re at the bar, we essentially bar hopped in the sky, which is pretty crazy. So that’s, yeah, the two airlines are Emirates and Kasar Airways. They have the bars on the plane and we’re just taking over the bars because we’re, we flew, which like they, the cruises the airlines don’t see very often at all. So we’re just chilling at the bar the whole time. We just had, you know, champagne for Four and then Vodka Martinis for four and then old fashioned for four. And then we all got pretty pretty buzzed, took a nap and then it was like caviar for four. So, you know, for us in this space, oftentimes as I mentioned, it’s all about like seeking out these incredible experiences, but to have that shared experience as a group of friends was very much new for me.

4 (36m 23s): And you know, if I, let’s just say, like I said to the team, you know, when I first started Prince of Travel, if I thought that the team would be, you know, doing a bachelor party for me around the world in, in business class and first class, then I never would’ve believed you. So it’s been a, it’s been a, it was a fun trip and one of the better outcomes I’d say from having started this whole thing.

0 (36m 44s): That’s really cool. We definitely feel that about Squad trips, group trips. They, they are something special. It seems like your whole bachelor trip being on these amazing flights, bar hopping plane to Blaine, that’s almost like the highlight of the trip. But did you all have fun in destination too?

4 (37m 3s): For sure. Normally forgot to talk about where we actually went, but yeah, fiery was, we flew from Montreal to Bangkok via Doha, so Casa Airways and then we spent three nights in Bangkok, you know, doing bachelor party things, Bangkok’s destination for that. And then we did the Everetts flight was actually what’s known as the fifth freedom flight. So a flight between two foreign destinations from Bangkok to Hong Kong is one of the routes they operate. So we took that flight to Hong Kong, spent one night in Hong Kong eating and drinking. And then it was next morning, flight to Tokyo, had a more wholesome day in Tokyo where we had friends enjoyed the, you know, sampled the food, took it a bit easier on the night out.

4 (37m 46s): And then the next day it was a n a business class back to San Francisco and then Vancouver. So the whole trip was about a week long. We really squeezed it in. It was also like, you know, the wife wouldn’t let me get away for her for more than that. So we really realized our time. So yeah, it was a, it was a bit of a whirlwind trip, but it was a, it was a great time. Like, you know, Asia’s one of my favorite parts of the world and, and we, you know, definitely made the most of our, of our time in all three cities.

2 (38m 13s): Well it’s funny how you just mentioned everywhere that you went and how with travel time you really only spent a week. But I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t really understand about people who love travel is sometimes getting there and the experiences have the fun and if you’re flying your business and first class, that in and of itself with your friends is the experience sometimes versus the destination, right? Really. So I find that to be, you know, completely awesome, just literally did a circle around the globe. If your first spot was Bangkok and you flew Montreal, Doha, Doha there, you’ve took the longer route technically, if I’m thinking of geographically correct. Right. So the awesome little script around the globe, I love it.

4 (38m 54s): Yeah, I think you guys know the thrill of the journey, right? As well as the destination. And, and I’m the same and I think for a lot of travelers or you know, for a lot of maybe more infrequent travelers, the journey is something that people dread. Like the airport experience isn’t fun for most travelers, but once you get into points and you don’t even need to fly business, right? Let’s say you get the right credit card, you have airport lounge access. Oh yeah. Place to spend time and a good way to like kick off the trip on the right note becomes a lot of fun as well. So that’s been, it’s been something I’ve bought into since the very start. I’m, I’m pretty, I’m obsessed with the journey.

4 (39m 34s): Well,

2 (39m 35s): Before we switch gears and you tell us a little bit more specifically about Prince of travel, I have to ask, did your friends utilize any of your points to pay for this? Or was it all on their points? They used

4 (39m 45s): Their points and apparently we have some accounting to do after the fact. So they, they, they played the first half and then when I was there I was like kinda getting antsy about all the surprises. I was like, guys, let me be involved in this as well. So actually Emirate, the Emirates portion was, was my doing because I was the one who was like, look, we can fly Emirates and do the bar to Hong Kong as the next move. So, so that one, I I poi up a lot of the points and some cash as well because the business was available on points first was cash only.

0 (40m 14s): I’m the same. My boyfriend was planning a trip for my birthday last year and it was the same thing. These surprises, he kept dropping hints and I was like, I know I can plan this better than you. I need to be a part of it. Right?

4 (40m 26s): I was pretty much the same. Like, look, I’m, I’m the expert here, right? So

0 (40m 32s): You are, you know, a ton about this stuff. This is really cool. Listening to all this

2 (40m 37s): And being the expert. Tell us a little bit more about Prince of Travel. I know you talked about how and why it got started, but a little bit more about it other than just your social media and online presence. Of course you offer points consulting, et cetera. So tell us a little bit about that and a little bit about, for anybody who wants to get in the Point Hacking and Travel Hacking game, like where’s the best and easiest way to start?

4 (40m 60s): Sure, absolutely. We got started, you know, back in 2017 making a lot of content and we kind of continued doing that for three, four years. So we made a lot of content on our website, right? That we write a lot of articles and guides and reviews of our experiences. We, we do YouTube, we do the social media and you know, we’re, we’re continuing to do that, but in recent years we’re looking to build out more of a, you know, a, a series of products that can serve travelers as they pursue elevated travel. Which is, you know, very much our mission statement is to help travelers elevate their experiences. So, you know, like I think a lot of people they approach the the points game, like I said at the start, you’ve got to build out your strategy, you’ve got research to do.

4 (41m 44s): Definitely a lot of that is consuming content can help, but you know, depending on the person, it can also get overwhelming. So that’s where Points Consulting comes in to service that we offer where for an hourly fee, we’re able to, you know, one of our consultants speak to you one-on-one about your situation, understand your travel goals, like which destinations do you have aspirations of visiting and which among those might be best suited to using points, right? What are some of the best experiences that right now in the state of the game can be unlocked using points? What are your spending requirements, spending patterns that will, and, and which credit cards will serve those spending requirements best to get you to your, to your goal the quickest. So we offer that service to help people along that journey and we’re looking to build out, you know, more and more products and services that can, you know, similarly serve different types of travelers at different points along the journey.

4 (42m 36s): So just to give you another example, we recently launched a, like an actual travel agency in the traditional sentence where we can actually book hotels for people with additional benefits compared to them booking directly at the same price. And that that’s, that’s not, you know, that’s doesn’t really tie into points that much, but to us points is a, you know, we think of it as a bit of a matrika doll, right? Credit cards is a key tool to earn points, which is a key tool to traveling the world, but you know, it’s all about mastering not just points, but also all of the tools at your fingertips if you wanna get the best experiences out there. So that’s where, what

0 (43m 12s): Are some of the benefits that can come when we book through you?

4 (43m 15s): Yeah, so if you book through our travel agency, you’ll get, you know, and this generally applies to higher ed hotels, but you’ll pay the same price as the best flexible rate and you’ll get daily breakfast for two early check-in, only checkout upon availability room, upgrade upon availability, and a property credit usually a hundred US dollars. So you can enjoy the property a little more. So Whether you are, you know, somebody who just stays in luxury hotels all the time or you know, usually you, you go a bit lower end, but looking to splurge for a special occasion, we’re, we’re happy to help. So yeah, happy to, yeah, offer, offer more resources. You know, for, for the listeners as well,

0 (43m 54s): We’ll link all of this in the show notes so anyone listening who’s interested can easily access that

4 (43m 59s): Sure thing.

0 (44m 0s): And you said a, a typical points consulting meeting is about an hour or you said you pay by an hourly fee, right? Is it about an hour that, that the process typically takes or do you see people having a first meeting coming back, doing some research, having a second?

4 (44m 16s): Yeah, that depends on the client. I would say a lot of our requests are one time, you know, planning sessions that generally do take about an hour. I will say that, you know, some people prefer, some people would like help figuring out the best credit cards for them. A lot of people, once they’ve earned the points, you know, they face the problem that, that you guys express, right? It’s hard to find the right seats at the right price and that’s a very time, time intensive process that even, even if we’re able to save the customer that time, that would take to like figure out the systems on their own, figure out how to search for the dates on their own that could be worthwhile for the, for the consulting fee, right? So we do a lot of those requests where people come to us with existing points, they want, you know, this kind of outcome of a, of a trip booked using those points and we go ahead and find that space for them.

4 (45m 5s): That is actually quite difficult to find that we’re competing with other award travelers to book and, and yeah, a lot of people, you know, just take that trip and then maybe they come back for the next trip. Some people, if they’re looking to remain on top of their strategy, they’ll book quarterly sessions. We see that a fair bit. So yeah, it’s a pretty versatile, you know, hourly service that’s, that’s available for your needs.

0 (45m 28s): I think that’s really smart. It reminds me a bit of those people you can hire to get in line for like Taylor Swift concert tickets Yeah. And save you all that time. Yeah, that’s brilliant.

4 (45m 39s): Very relevant topic right now. My, my wife was just upset yesterday that she didn’t get any of those codes, virtual bot.

0 (45m 47s): Oh, I know you were just talking about it at work today too. They’re hard, but see they need, they need experts like you to help ’em out.

2 (45m 56s): I see the analogies kind of on point with that Kim, but also a little bit different, but I, I love the, the thought process on that. I have a question for you Ricky. I’m just curious to know here, what is your favorite travel credit card that you have right now and do you have any that are US based or are they all Canadian based ones?

4 (46m 17s): Yeah, I have Canadian cards and US cards. So for Canadians, one of the more advanced strategies is to kind of play the cross border game. Yeah, we, I’m, I’m familiar with the US cards as well. So right now in, right now in Canada you’ve got the American Express Cobalt card. That’s one of the strongest cards that’s, you know, generally pretty much for everyone because it gives you five times the points on food and drink and it can transfer one-to-one to AEL plan, which is kind of like AEL plan’s Air Canada’s program. And it’s kinda like the only game in town for comedians. So think about it, you’re earning five times the points on a major spending category including groceries by the way, dining and groceries.

4 (46m 58s): And then you can transfer one to one to basically the best program to book business class or first class fights with. So for Canadians Cobalt card is a pretty much a no brainer In the US there’s a kind of an equivalent similar card, which is the American Express Gold card that gives you four times the points on dieting. That’s very popular also for, you know, millennials, people who spend a lot on going out to eat those American Express points. Also transfer one-to-one, not just to Aeroplan but to a much wider range of transfer partners. You guys have that going for you over us Canadians, we have a very limited set, but then the other big one right now is the Capital One Venture X that’s super popular and they’ve launched it fairly recently, so it’s still in their first few years that they’re looking to capture market share.

4 (47m 44s): But you know, that card has a 3 95 annual fee, but it basically pays for itself through the perks and the earning rates are really strong and there’s also a wide set of transfer partners unique to Capital One as well. And last one, I’ll, I’ll shout out in the us you know, you guys all have the best cards is built MasterCard, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Have

2 (48m 3s): Not heard of that. Yeah,

4 (48m 3s): It’s, it’s actually really, it’s a really unique offering because it lets you, it’s the only card that lets you pay rent with a credit card with no fee and the card also has no fee and basically no other card lets you do that. It’s like built as a startup that have basically, you know, entered that space. They work with a bunch of real estate companies and I don’t know, big shots to have made this possible. And so if you pay rent and many Americans do, right, you’re basically, you should get the Bill MasterCard or else you’re leaving points on the table because you have to pay rent anyway and you may as well earn points, bill points on those payments, which are getting more and more valuable by the day as well. Yeah, that’s

0 (48m 44s): Probably the biggest spending category most people have.

4 (48m 46s): Exactly. And it’s one that without the build card, you can’t regularly earn points on. So that’s a very unique product.

2 (48m 53s): Definitely gonna have to check that out. And I know you hit kind of like the, the main travel credit cards of course. I guess I should have specified more so on that question of those which one, yeah, you mentioned the perks of them and the, the categories and what they get, but of their travel and redemption portal, which one would you say is actually your favorite of those?

4 (49m 14s): If you’re asking on the redemption side these days, built rewards is actually a good shout. So honestly like they have one of the strongest like lineups of trans transfer partners even competing very well against American Express, chase and Capital One. American Express is probably the SEC or leading candidate that built is trying to like really compete with, but build’s really built a very impressive set of airline partners that you can, you know, once you’ve earned your build points, choose which program’s gonna make the most sense to you. Now I will caveat that by saying that it’s not that easy to earn build points because you can earn, you can, you know, pay rent and that’s one way to earn it and you can spend on it. But we go back to signup bonuses and how big they are built purposefully doesn’t offer a signup bonus.

4 (49m 57s): You know, they’re more trying to get people into their ecosystem spending. So in terms of how easy it is to rack up the points and quickly get to a high value redemption, American Express, ’cause they’ve got like five, six cards that will all give you like 50 to 150,000 points upon signing up and good spending multipliers as well. So you could quite easily rack up six figures of points, leverage that towards a, a flight and get the ball rolling.

2 (50m 22s): And on that topic of American Express, I saw something, I forgot which famous travel hacker it was, but I know it was a very reputable site. They mentioned one of their strategies, and I’m curious if you’re familiar with this or have any input on it, is of course everyone knows the American Express Platinum. They think that’s a signature card and to some degree it is, but it’s the most expensive in fees. But he said something really good to do is get that and also get the gold card from American Express that you mentioned. And he said actually make all your purchases on the Gold Card because it gives you better reward points than you get. Your Amex membership reward points can transfer and redeem it through the platinum portal and things and get those benefits that way.

2 (51m 3s): And they said it’s better. Are you familiar with that? Do you agree with that topic?

4 (51m 7s): Yeah, like I mentioned, the goal card is four times the points on dining, which the Platinum card doesn’t offer. It’s like, I think it’s one or 1.25 at maybe getting the geographies mixed up, but it’s, it’s low and the whole reason there is platinum card’s more expensive. But people, you know, it’s geared towards people who are seeking out the premium products who are not gonna care so much about the return on spend. So the savvy way to do it is indeed, you know, get the gold card for the, you, you need to think about like what, what are the unique purposes of each card, right? The Gold card gives you that return on spend, the platinum card gives you that unlimited lounge access, which is also very valuable if you’re a frequent traveler. So that’s a good combination, you know, if you can justify the annual fees.

4 (51m 47s): But yeah, it’s always important to, to dig into the details a bit rather than just go, just assuming like expensive card means best card.

0 (51m 55s): I have a question Ricky about opening all of these cards. We’ve always heard when you open a card, it triggers your credit report, it dings it down a little bit. And if you’re opening all of these cards, are people running that risk or is it not as bad as it seems?

4 (52m 11s): There’s a lot of misconceptions around credit scores in general and I think the more one educates oneself around that topic, the clearer things are gonna be the, the credit score is determined of five components and the strongest, the most significant components are your payment history. So Whether, you pay your bills on time and in full every month, which if you’re in this game, you absolutely should because you know you need to have those healthy financial habits. So assuming you do right, then the mo, the majority of your credit score is like well taken care of. And then there’s a small component that’s like how many inquiries there’s been recently, how many new applications you’ve put. So yes, if you continuously open new credit cards that like 10 to 15% of new inquiries that component dips in terms of the score.

4 (52m 57s): But it also means that you’re demonstrating strong credit usage across more products, which proves the remaining like 65% of your score. So 35% is payment history, 30% is utilization, how much of your limit you’re using. So unless you’re like racking limits every month, then you’re good there. So yes, it dips a little bit, but that’s not the full story is the answer. Right? It’ll dip a little bit, but over time, as you use the credit cards you’ve opened responsibly and your credit score actually improves.

0 (53m 28s): And do you keep most of them open or we’re talking about the 5 24, are you closing them within a certain amount of time or do you recommend that?

4 (53m 37s): It depends on how much value you get outta the card itself, right? So for example, somebody might choose to keep the gold card around in the long term because they value the four times the points they can earn on dining. Somebody might choose to keep the expensive platinum card open for the lounge access, but they might also say the Capital One Venture X, which is 3 95, which is cheaper, also gets me lounge access. So after I get the welcome bonus in the first year with Platinum card and I’m gonna cancel it. Now another option in the states especially, and you know, we could go on and on for this, so you’ll have to invite me back for a second episode. But absolutely another option is downgrading your card instead of canceling, which preserves that account, preserves that relationship. But you can downgrade it off like ANU fee card if you wanted to not pay a fee anymore,

0 (54m 20s): Right? There’s a, there’s a lot of things you can do and a lot of money out there points out there waiting to be taken. There’s

4 (54m 26s): A lot of nuances, a lot of ways to optimize, like I said at the start. The more you put in, the more you can get out of it in terms of rewarding travel.

0 (54m 33s): On that note, other than your website, Prince of travel.com, are there any other books or resources you’d recommend

4 (54m 41s): Prince of travel dot com’s? A great place to start. You can join our newsletter to get our, you know, Sunday delivered into your inbox summary of what’s been happening in this space. We’re also hosting an event next, next spring, it’s called the Travel Summit. And it’s very much designed to be a gathering place for, you know, passionate travelers. Those looking to travel the world for maximum effect. Those looking to unlock a lifestyle of travel freedom, the same one that I’ve pursued over the years. The same one that I’m sure is true of you guys as well. So that’s, that’s our flagship event. It’ll be our second edition. It’s happening in Toronto open to people from all over the world and we would love to see some of you guys there.

4 (55m 21s): Happy to toss over a, a little discount code for listeners as well.

0 (55m 24s): Oh, that’d be awesome. Thank you for that.

4 (55m 27s): Of course.

0 (55m 28s): Well, Ricky, before we wrap it up here, is there anything last you, you want the listeners to know, obviously let ’em know where they can find you, follow you?

4 (55m 36s): Yeah, absolutely. You can find us. You can find us at Prince of Travel across socials. I, I post my own trips on my personal Instagram, it’s called Real Ricky. And listen, I’ve just really enjoyed the conversation. As you can probably tell, I’m very enthusiastic and always eager to share what I know and spread the word, spread the joys of travel far and wide. So yeah, thanks for having me. We really hope that the listeners got some value out of this.

2 (56m 3s): Well, we appreciate you being on, we know our listeners definitely did get value of it. We got value out of it. And I am, even though we book ahead, I’m gonna start looking further further ahead so I could get those really special discounted business class rates with my points. ’cause I got a whole stack of them ready to go right now. So you,

0 (56m 23s): You’ve started all of our new obsession. Thank you so much, Ricky. Of course. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for tuning into our episode this week. Keep the adventures going with us by following us on Instagram and YouTube at Travel Squad Podcast. And send us in your questions of the week.

2 (56m 40s): If you found the information this episode to be useful or if you thought we were just plain funny, please be sure to share it with a friend that would enjoy it too. And as always, guys, you subscribe to rate Review our podcast and tune in every travel Tuesday for new episodes.

0 (56m 55s): Stay tuned for next week’s episode. We have some more amazing adventures and tips in store for you. Bye squadies!

keep the adventures going

Two Days in Barcelona Spain »

« travel squad podcast celebrate 4 years.

BE THE FIRST TO WRITE A COMMENT

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Kim, Brittanie, and Jamal all grew up in the same small town. Now we adventure the world together as the Travel Squad, one passport at a time.

subscribe on itunes

Stream on spotify, listen on stitcher, never miss an episode again, privacy policy, travel squad podcast (c) 2023, terms + conditions.

on Instagram

Travel with us.

Episode 23: How to Go Full-Time with Your Points Blog with Ricky Zhang

• Post author: geobreezetravel
• Post published: March 28, 2021
• Post category: Podcast

Podcast Links

Wondering how people go from points and miles as a hobby to making it a career? In this episode, listen to Ricky Zhang’s story about how he has become one of Canada’s leading sources on points and miles travel on Apple, Spotify, RadioPublic, Google Podcasts, and more! And check out all the episodes of your new favorite travel hacking podcast !

Ricky Zhang’s blog, princeoftravel.com, is one of the leading Canadian sources for points and award travel content. His website gets more than 300K monthly page views, and he has more than 33k subscribers across his Instagram, youtube, and Facebook channels.

In today’s episode, we talk about Ricky’s journey from getting into the hobby to building up his blog and going full-time as a content creator, blogger, and YouTube star.

Many content creators such as Ricky and I love producing blog posts, podcast episodes, and other free content to help spread the joys of award travel.

Two of the best ways you can support your favorite people who create free and valuable content like this are

1. tell ALL your friends about how awesome the content is so that we can get more eyes and ears on our work and

2. please use our referral links for new cards. Whenever you apply for a new credit card, please use a referral link from a friend or content creator whose content you find useful, so that they get a referral bonus. Please please please do not ever simply Google a card and apply from there, without comparing offers to what you can get through referral links.

You can find Ricky at:

Website: https://www.princeoftravel.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/princeoftravel

You can find Julia at

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/geobreezetravel

Website:  https://www.geobreezetravel.com

Credit card links: https://www.geobreezetravel.com/cards

Want more information on any of the cards mentioned on the show? Check out  https://www.geobreezetravel.com/cards  (commissions made from signing up through this link help to support the podcast).

The single best travel hack is making friends who can show you even more travel hacks! Sign up for invites to our travel hacking hangouts at https://www.geobreezetravel.com/hangouts

Geobreeze Travel is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as  MileValue.com . This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit  americanexpress.com  to learn more.

Watch with Captions

Prefer to listen to this episode of the Geobreeze Travel podcast on your computer or phone with captions? Check out the video below!

geobreezetravel

Julia Menez is a travel hacking coach, speaker, and founder of Geobreeze. Through her content and coaching services, she aims to spread travel hacking to underrepresented communities by featuring the points and miles stories you won't normally find on the first page of Google or in the bigger blogs. Julia has been a speaker for FinconX and has led a travel hacking workshop for thousands of registered attendees at the SHEFACTOR 2020 Launch Your Life Summit, an event that featured speakers such as Bethany Hamilton, Kaitlyn Bristowe, and Missy Franklin. She has also been featured in numerous business and travel podcasts.

You Might Also Like

Episode 33: How to Become an Expat with Vanessa M.W.

Episode 35: How to Fly 12 Family Members for Free with Jason Francisco

Episode 112: Luxury Arizona Resorts with Jamie McMahon

• Weekly Update
• OUR PODCAST
• Case Studies
• Investor Stories

Ricky Zhang - How to Travel Cheaper & More Luxuriously Using Credit Card Reward Points

Listen to the full episode here:

• To listen to this episode on iTunes click here
• To listen to this episode on Amazon Music click here
• To listen to this episode on Google Podcast click here
• To listen to this episode on Spotify click here

Subscribe here:

The MapleMoney Show

How to get the most out of travel rewards, with ricky zhang.

Welcome to The MapleMoney Show, the podcast that helps Canadians improve their finances to create lasting financial freedom. I’m your host, Tom Drake, the founder of MapleMoney, where I’ve been writing about all things related to personal finance since 2009.

Loyalty rewards programs can be very lucrative, rewarding their members with free flights and hotel stays, and other luxury experiences. But why do have to be so confusing? This week, I sat down with an expert to find out what really are the best credit card rewards programs in Canada, and how the average Canadian can maximize their earnings.

Ricky Zhang is the founder of Prince of Travel, Canada’s leading travel rewards website. Leading up to our conversation, I was hoping that Ricky could clear up some of the confusion I had regarding credit card travel rewards, so I came prepared with lots of questions.

Ricky begins by revealing what he believes are the top 3 travel rewards programs in Canada, for most people. I say most people because it really depends on the individual. For example, there’s no point collecting Aeroplan points if you only fly Westjet.

But Ricky explains what makes Aeroplan such a rewarding program, especially when it’s used in conjunction with American Express Rewards. Ricky lets us know which credit card has the most powerful earning rate in Canada, why using points to fly business class is probably worth it, and how a Canadian can get a U.S. travel rewards card. Hint: it’s complicated, but it’s possible.

Do you prefer to invest in socially responsible companies? If so, our sponsor Wealthsimple will help you build a portfolio that focuses on low carbon, cleantech, human rights, and the environment. To get started with Socially Responsible Investing, head over to Wealthsimple today!

Episode Summary

• The three loyalty rewards programs most Canadians will benefit from, but;
• Choose loyalty rewards programs that are tailored to your lifestyle
• How the 80/20 rule applies to credit card rewards
• Ways to leverage the American Express rewards program
• Credit card companies treat welcome bonuses as a marketing expense
• The card with the most powerful earning rate in Canada
• The value of paying for business class with rewards points
• How the Marriott Bonvoy hotel rewards program works
• How a Canadian can get a U.S. rewards credit card

Read transcript

Loyalty rewards programs can be very lucrative, rewarding their members with free flights, hotel stays and other luxury experiences. But why do they have to be so confusing? This week, I sat down with an expert to find out what really are the best credit rewards programs in Canada and how the average Canadian can maximize their earnings. Ricky Zhang is the founder of Prince of Travel, Canada’s leading rewards travel website. Leading up to a conversation, I was hoping Ricky could clear up some of the confusion I had regarding credit card travel awards so I came prepared with a lot of questions. Ricky is hosting The Travel Summit in late October in Toronto and is giving Maple Money Show listeners a discount. If you’re interested in learning more about making the most of your travel, head to thetravelsummit.com and during checkout use coupon code Maple Money to save $50. 

Welcome to the Maple Money Show, the podcast that helps Canadians improve their personal finances to create lasting financial freedom. Do you prefer to invest in socially responsible companies? If so, our sponsor, Wealthsimple, will help you build a portfolio that focuses on low carbon, clean tech, human rights and the environment. To get started with socially responsible investing, head over to maplemoney.com/wealthsimple today. Now, let’s chat with Ricky… 

Tom: Hi, Ricky. Welcome to the Maple Money Show. 

Ricky: Hey, Tom. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Tom: There’s something I still haven’t fully wrap my head around, which is taking proper advantage of loyalty, rewards and all these points. I’ve got different cards. I collect points in different places, which obviously defeats the point of being loyal. I’m probably in too many different things, but I just wanted to walk through with you how some of these programs are currently working. I know different credit cards change all the time. But how we can take advantage of this better—not just collect points, but really know how to use them. Right off the bat, one of the biggest things is, what do you think are the best current programs in Canada? And just to give you an example of something that you probably won’t say is one of the best—I collect Air Miles just through the promotions Sobeys or Shell or something like that. Not so much on a credit card level, but I know something like that may not add up the most, but it’s also a real hassle to use them too (for certain flights). So assuming you agree with me that maybe that’s not one of the better programs, what else is there and what should people be collecting nowadays? 

Ricky: There’s always some programs that are easier to collect, and Air Miles is one of those programs of convenience where you go shopping, swipe a card and collect the miles. That’s where a lot of this confusion around loyalty programs comes from, because a lot of consumers out there are in the habit of earning points in the most convenient way. But that’s not always necessarily going to result in the best outcomes in terms of the actual travel that you can book using the points you’ve collected. When I think about where most Canadians are in terms of their loyalty habits, I really do think that taking a little bit of time to figure out the right strategy, maybe learning a little bit about the best credit cards, best lots of programs to participate in, and some of the travel outcomes that they can deliver and thinking about which ones of those appeal the most to you and tailoring your strategy that way, is going to result in a much better outcomes for the little bit of time spent. To delve into some of those optimal programs at this point in time, most Canadians would do well focusing on the ecosystem of Aeroplan for flights, Marriott Bonvoy for hotels, and American Express for earning American Express membership rewards points that then transfers to both Aeroplan and Marriott Bonvoy. That’s probably the easiest place to start with these three programs serving your flight, hotel, and rapid point collection purposes. The idea there being that you can earn Aeroplan points directly. You can earn Bonvoy points directly. Both of these have easy ways to earn them. With Bonvoy, it’s when you stay at Marriott Hotels, which is the world’s largest hotel program with the greatest footprint. You earn points there. With Aeroplan, they’re doing many of the earning methods of convenience that Air Miles has been doing. In fact, they’ve poached many Air Miles partners such as LCBO and Ontario. So, when you show your Aeroplan card or digital card, you can get Aeroplan points at LCBO, Starbucks and Uber these days which are some of the brands and services that Canadians use the most. And when you combine all of that with the sheer variety of credit cards that American Express offers, and the huge welcome bonuses on many of these cards, as well as the strong earning rates on a few of them for very common lifestyle expenses, you’re really funneling together a lot more points through just the regular spending you’re doing. And these points you’re earning are far more powerful than, let’s say, Air Miles that many Canadians choose to earn. 

Tom: I certainly realize that Air Miles wasn’t the best credit card option. But if you’re shopping at a Sobeys or something, you might as well earn those as well and then get some other points in your credit card too. But you mentioned how a lot of us are doing it based on convenience. I’ve got two things that I really like that don’t match up with your suggestion. I really like flying WestJet and I really like giving all my money to Costco. Are there options there that work? I fully agree about Aeroplan and Marriott, but in my case, (with WestJet) I’m out near Calgary and shopping at Costco so some of this doesn’t work out so well for me. 

Ricky: Okay, so here’s where we get into the fact that this whole pursuit of loyalty programs and points is extremely individualized, right? When it comes to thinking about strategy, we (at Prince of Travel) put out tons of content, trying to serve as many Canadians as possible. But at the end of the day, every consumer needs to take what’s out there and kind of figure out what works best for them. You live in Calgary, right? 

Tom: Yeah. 

Ricky: Somebody based in Alberta who is going to fly WestJet a lot more often than somebody based out in Ontario, Costco shoppers can only use Mastercard at many locations that. That’s going to drive a lot of the strategy compared to somebody who lives in a big city who doesn’t go to Costco and shops at places like Metro are Sobey’s. That’s where they take American Express. You get five times the points with the Cobalt Card. Maybe that doesn’t apply to you, right? So for anybody listening in, it’s really important to think about all of the possibilities out there and how they’re tailored to you. Now, for you flying WestJet, let’s say their schedule fits your needs and you like going to the destinations served by WestJet, and you shop a lot at Costco, the first thing that comes to mind is very much the WestJet, RBC, World Elite MasterCard. You’ll have no acceptance issues at Costco, no problem. You’re earning WestJet dollars that can be funneled towards your future flights by spending on it. And by holding the card, you are getting the first free checked bag for yourself and the whole family. You get a companion fare that you and your spouse could use. Or, if you want to bring the family, both you and your spouse can get the WestJet card and then bring your kids as companions. These are additional benefits for flying WestJet. I’d say this is actually a great example (in your case) of finding the right product for your needs and tailoring it towards that. Then the question becomes, what if you wanted to go somewhere that’s not served by WestJet? Or what if you wanted to treat you and your spouse to an anniversary trip in business class? WestJet has business class, but they haven’t made a compelling pathway to redeem points for it. So now you’re thinking about dappling into Aeroplan, Marriott Bonvoy and elevating your travels through the other possibilities out there. But I think for many Canadians— first, they haven’t taken the time to think about the strategy for their core needs. And they’re not aware of all these possibilities that Aeroplan, Marriott Bonvoy, and American Express can bring for some truly unforgettable trips. This can be a once-in-a-lifetime trip for many people that can really add a lot of value to their life. That’s the upside to loyalty programs that we, here at Prince of Travel, hope to bring to as many (people) as possible. 

Tom: Yeah, sure, I’m stuck certain times. The RBC card is a great example that would fit those two needs, but there’s other spending I do that I could look at American Express. I remember seeing on Prince of Travel—about a year ago. I assume it still exists. I think it was a PDF or at least web page that had an “order” to sign up for different American Express cards. It can get pretty complicated, but if someone’s willing to put in the effort and sign up through these cards, get the bonuses, sign up for the next card, I assume that’s pretty worthwhile. Are there any catches to that? Do you just sign up for all these cards over a certain amount of time? Then do you cancel them? Can you resign up? How does that work? We can link off to that that page because the actual chart won’t convert well on a podcast. But if you can kind of explain how that works overall?

Ricky: Yeah, sure. This is now we’re getting into the more advanced strategies in play. I think for a lot of people, a little bit of attention. Like I said, it’s an 8020 rule. Putting in 20 percent of the effort will get you 80 percent of the rewards. For a lot of Canadians, a simple strategy would be switching a few cards, putting the right spends on the right places. That can deliver a business class trip once every couple years. That’s a dream for many people. Now, if you’re the type who really wants to take it to the maximum and earn as many points as possible to fuel multiple business class or first class trips—well before you do multiply, you need to do one. The classic example for many people to get into the more advanced side is, a honeymoon. Let’s say they have a wedding. They have wedding expenses so they want to spend on the right credit card so they can use those points towards a luxury honeymoon. It’s really like a once in a lifetime trip that they’re really going all-out for, right? In this case, yeah, absolutely. The flowchart shows you order to apply four different cards in and refer your spouse to cards of their own and kind of back and forth in order to maximize the refer-a-friend bonuses that’s unique to American Express. In Canada, it’s really only American Express that offers for referring other cardholders to cards of their own. And actually, when you do that, the other cardholders actually often get higher points bonuses than the publicly available ones too. By kind of leveraging this feature and getting cards within your household and maximizing those bonuses, you can rack up hundreds of thousands of points in a couple of short months. And that’s where a lot of people who are getting married are using this strategy. Many of these cards require you spend a certain amount and often it’s a high amount for the higher points totals in order to earn the points. So if you have wedding expenses that go on the card, perfect—you’ve kind of parlayed your wedding expenses, gotten the points, now you can book a luxury honeymoon, first class to the Maldives and stay in one of their ultra, water villas. When it comes to the actual process of signing up, whether or not you keep the cards, I think it has to be done with around six months of a timeline to rack up a meaningful amount of points for two people to take a trip. And after you sign up for the card, pay the annual fee for the first year, which is obviously offset by the value of the points you’re earning as a sign up bonus, it’s really up to every card holder to decide whether or not to cancel. These premium cards—many of them are styled with benefits that are supposed to justify the annual fee on an ongoing basis, though, obviously, you don’t get welcome bonuses in future years. You have to take a look at your travel patterns, see whether or not these high-end, travel benefits (like lounge access and hotel elite status) are going to be worthwhile year after year. If not, there’s nothing forcing you to keep the cards. You can go ahead and cancel. And then the strategy for people who are doing this lot is, how do we do this and maximize our earnings without falling too far afoul of the financial institutions and their risk tolerances? That’s when it becomes a bit more of an art than a science. 

Tom: In general, do they start to track that? Can you sign up for the same card? I think I’ve heard of that before where someone cancels a card and sign up for another one again—the exact same kind of card. Is that something that’s still doable? Or is it case-by-case? I’m not sure of how closely they look. 

Ricky: Well, the lay of the land when it comes to that stuff is always changing. But we can start with a basic truth, which is, let’s say every Canadian wanted to do this. Obviously, they would soon clamp down on it because the welcome bonus in the first year almost always outweighs the value of the annual fee. So if everybody were to go ahead and cancel their cards and get the bonuses again, then this would all come to an end. But ultimately, few people do this. Few people have travel needs and desires in the first place to go for it. Among those who do, some of them, feel risk-averse in this kind of this kind of behavior. But yeah, to answer your question, it’s basically all the issuers,  except American Express. It’s very much frowned upon but tolerated. That’s kind of a situation right now. Welcome bonuses are treated as a marketing expense to acquire new customers. And that’s the way that they should be thought of. Now, American Express, until a couple of years ago has been the same. I think during COVID, they were badly affected a little bit by the economic circumstances, and they decided they needed to cut their losses on problematic, unprofitable, customers, as it were. And so these days, it’s not recommended to do that with American Express. It’s recommended to treat it as once in a lifetime. And if you want more bonuses, then you get your spouse on board. You get your family members on board. You kind of convince them of the benefits for signing up. Referrer a friend obviously always helps. But with the non-American Express issuers—you’ve got the big five banks but often their terms and conditions say you’re not supposed to do it. But then the question is whether or not they’re enforced. And those who do choose to kind of push those boundaries take the risk of not getting the bonus if they were to apply again, even if they sometimes do get the bonus. 

Tom: Is there a case where they approve you for the card, but then say sorry, you can’t get the bonus. Is that what’s happening or did they just decline the whole thing? 

Ricky: Well, with American Express, sometimes that happens. It’s a bit of a gamble with American Express. You gamble on whether you get the bonus. Back in 2020, which is when they decided to cut their losses, they actually exited a bunch of customers for historical, unprofitable, behavior. But broadly speaking, no financial institutions are going to say you can’t get a credit card because there’s only an upside to them. They get to collect fees. And right now, no other banks are really doing it, but they reserve the right in the terms and conditions to say that you don’t get the welcome bonus. But again, that’s more on paper than in practice. 

Tom: And you’re right that it did skip straight to something pretty advanced. But I was thinking if someone’s considering all this and they’re going to get an American Express, it would be worth it for them to look at that chart and at least start with the beginner card, even if they’re not trying to rush through all these different card options and at least know where to start to do that flow properly. 

Ricky: The idea is to consider the premium cards, getting them when they have high bonuses. When you’re in an urgent need to earn points for a trip, that’s the time to consider the high fee, high spend, high points, bonuses. If that’s not the case right now and you’re happy patiently building up your balance towards a future trip, then let’s say you get the American Express Cobalt Card which is a very reasonable $12.99 a month for the fee. But it gives you five times the points on food and drinks, which is the most powerful earning rate in Canada. By doing your grocery shopping—and this goes back to where you do your grocery shopping, but if you can do your grocery shopping at Metro, Sobeys, and Safeway, places that take American Express and then use this card every time you go out to eat, drink, go to a coffee shop, then the points rack up really quickly. This is actually how I think the vast majority of Canadians can actually benefit from then transferring these American Express points to Aeroplan and using the power of the Aeroplan loyalty program to unlock these special travel experiences like business class and first class that you’d never pay cash for. Most people will consider this forever out of reach, but it’s actually well within reach just by leveraging your points. 

Tom: That’s an interesting thing I wanted to cover, I’m always seeing people sort of in the travel niche (like yourself) going on these nice luxury trips. Is it just a case of having so many points that you might as well do luxury? Or is there any kind of benefit to booking luxury—and by that I mean business or first class compared to just a regular flight? I assume it still costs more points, but why not just have more coach flights available to you? Or is it just that you have so many points, you might as well use them for something nice? 

Ricky: This is a very common question for a lot of people who are first starting out. There are a couple of factors which I’ll touch upon. Let’s start with the cost. It costs more points to fly business class or first class than economy class. So given the same number of points, you will take fewer trips with business class or first class. However, that differential in terms of price is far smaller than when you’re paying cash. Let me give you an example. If you’re going to Europe, an economy class ticket may be $800 from Canada. Business class could be $2,000, $3,000 or $4,000, far above the realm of what reasonable people would consider paying for. Most people would just spring for economy. If you look at points though, economy is maybe 70,000 points, 80,000 points round-trip and business would be 120,000 points or 130,000 points, or 140,000 points. So it’s almost two times the cost compared to five, six, seven, eight times the cost with cash. If you do have aspirations of experiencing flying up front (at least once in your life) then points are the best way to make it happen. If you’ve ever boarded a plane and walked past the fancy seats and wondered to yourself, “Oh, that would be nice. Now I’m stuck in economy for the next eight hours.” Well, it doesn’t have to be just forever dream, because just by making a few changes or thinking about your point strategy a bit, it’s well within reach. Now, when we talk about continual travels as part of your lifestyle, would you actually use points to continually fly in business class or would you rather take more trips in economy like you said? And this really boils down to the individual because on one hand, if you had unlimited time to take trips, yeah, take more trips in economy, if you really want to see more places in the world. That’s perfectly valid if that is the case. I find that a lot of people who get into points or a vast majority of Canadians, they have full time jobs. They have three to four weeks off in terms of vacation every year. They want to maximize that time and have the best experience possible so business class is something worth considering. Let’s say you’re going to Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, especially, the economy class flight takes a full day at your destination to recover from. Whereas in business class, you sip champagne in the lounge beforehand. You’re treated to a welcome drink. You’re treated to good food on board, and you have a full, flat seat to relax in until you arrive at your destination. It’s a completely different experience. You arrive fully refreshed while rested, ready to take on the travel and the exciting adventures at your destination. And then think about the fact that the differential in cost with points is much smaller than with cash. Going back to some of the credit card strategies we talked about, the fact that so many points are available, so plentifully here in Canada—available to be earned, whether through regular spending or through welcome bonuses, once you start getting into really thinking about the possibilities, really dabbling with the possibilities at play here, you will likely find that using planes to fly business class is the way to go. 

Tom: Yeah, I think you had me at the point value there—the differential between the two because that makes your points technically worth so much more if you’re just doing roughly 50 percent more points. But the dollar cost is three times the value. 

Ricky: That’s a great point. We haven’t even touched upon the idea of value yet. But like you said, in terms of how much dollar value you’re getting per point that you’ve earned… If you’re getting into this game, you really want to maximize. The whole idea is to earn points cheaply and redeem them inexpensively and kind of capture that value of them. Redeeming them expensively means redeeming them for things that would otherwise cost as much money as possible or be as unattainable as possible with cash. And that’s where you get into the appeal of using your points for business class, first class and luxury hotels. Ultimately, yes, we want we want to travel and see the world. We want to do so comfortably. But for large swathes of this community, there’s also a very strong appeal in the sense of winning—winning at the game, maximizing the value of your points and kind of beating the airlines and hotels and banks at their own game. If that’s something that sounds appealing to you, then certainly it’s a very satisfying feeling when you’re sipping champagne at 35,000 feet. I’ll just say that. 

Tom: I like that you mentioned it being a game, because that’s kind of how I looked at it. There is a time commitment to it, but for some people fun to try to maximize this. And if you’re going to look at an American Express or an Aeroplan compared to the travel versions of them like a cash back card, all of that applies. It’s how many points you can earn and then how you redeem them to really figure out what that cash equivalent value would be. The higher you get it, the better off you are saying to yourself, “Oh, I’m glad I didn’t go for that cash back card instead.” 

Ricky: Exactly. I think cashback has its place for the types of consumers who are purely interested in simplicity. The thing is, with cashback you’ll never get some of the special experiences in life that points can unlock. 

Tom: Yeah. And whether it’s a travel card or a cashback card, people need to look at that math to see if they want to pay that annual fee. I’ve had so many people talk to me through the blog and the podcast saying, “I would never get a credit card that has an annual fee.” And I get that. I didn’t do that when I was younger either. I didn’t like the idea of paying for something when you can get a free version. But if you do the math, you’ve just got to decide what works best for you. Even on a simple cashback card, it’s just, “How much am I going to spend and what am I going to get back?” You probably see that a lot too, where people are against this idea of an annual fee? 

Ricky: Yeah, I think that’s a natural place for basically everybody to start when it comes to thinking about credit cards. I was the same back in the day. The way I always present it, and I find that this really cuts through people’s misconceptions is, by paying credit card annual fees, effectively you’re paying the same price as economy class flights, but you get to travel better in business class and first class. It’s not going to be free because you do need to pay upfront, right? You have these costs involved. But the idea of this whole thing was never free travel. It was 10X your travel value. Spend the equivalent of your economy class ticket and get 10 times the value out of that. The people we find really attracted to this are the people who are seeking those better life experiences and treating their friends and family to those and elevating their lifestyle through this value arbitrage that’s available to them. 

Tom: Yeah. And, for anyone else that’s against the idea of an annual fee, if you’re using the card and getting that value, that’s great. If that’s the card that you end up not using and it’s sitting in your wallet, then that’s a problem. You might want to cancel that. 

Ricky: You can always cancel, right? There’s nothing forcing you to keep in years two and three. That’s an important thing to realize. Oftentimes, the value in year one outweighs the fee, and it’s completely well within your prerogative to go ahead and take up banks on that offer. 

Tom: And it’s probably worth remembering when to cancel, and not waiting until you see that annual fee hit your statement and remember, “Oh, I forgot that year old card.” 

Ricky: If you do see it hit, you always have at least 30 days to cancel because there’s a grace period. That’s a useful tip too. It’s always good to set reminders, but in case it does post, all is not lost. You can call them say, “I actually wanted to cancel. Can I get that waived 30 days?” 

Tom: And even beyond the points of these cards, the actual loyalty points, I would say too (if anyone’s weighing that annual fee) look at some of the other benefits too. If you’re getting lounge passes or all the different insurance, put a value on that. And if that’s better than paying for separate car rental insurance and everything else, it gets pretty easy to justify the annual fee as long as you’re outdoing things that would take advantage of these different benefits. 

Ricky: Yeah, everybody’s got to kind of take a critical look at their travel patterns, their lifestyle patterns, which of the credits and benefits available out there they’re likely to take advantage of. Like I said, it’s going to be very individualized. The point is, all these possibilities are out there and not enough people know about them. That’s kind of the crux of the work we do. 

Tom: We talked about Aeroplan and how the points work there. What about this Marriott Bonvoy? Is it something similar? Is there a benefit to getting better rooms or anything like that? How does that program work and what’s so good about it? 

Ricky: With Aeroplan, the way it works is, airlines try to sell as much of their seats as possible, obviously, but if some seats are going out empty, they’d rather reward loyalty users with them than just have the seats got empty because that just costs them money. With hotels, it’s kind of a three-pronged relationship. You’ve got the loyalty program, you’ve got you as the member, and you’ve got the hotel itself. The idea there is you can earn and redeem points through the loyalty program for free stays. And through the credit card, obviously, there’s points as part of the welcome bonus and as part of regular spend. Generally speaking, we touched upon the idea of value, the amount of money that things would otherwise the cost if you were to pay cash. Business class and first class flights generally have the highest value and hotels are probably a tier below that. And economy class are probably a tier below that. So with hotels, you’re still going to unlock pretty decent value many times when you’re redeeming for free night stays. But there’s also other times where it could make sense to simply pay cash for the hotel. Because, if you think about it—well maybe not right now because everything’s expensive, but in a normal year, if you go to a major city, you can expect to pay anywhere between one and $100 to $150 to $300, depending on the luxury or tier of the accommodations. With hotels, free night stays are one component. But the more you stay with a chain, you also earn elite status and you can get very meaningful benefits out of that status. That’s another component of the game where you’re getting these upgrades for free just because you stay frequently. You get a free breakfast in the mornings. You get lounge access at some hotels where they actually have an evening spread. I find that works really well for families where you bring your family to the evenings spread and that kind of takes care of one of the meals of the day, which can be otherwise quite stressful on a family vacation. There’s a whole ecosystem of benefits that you can unlock. Upgrading to a suite for free is also huge for a family if you need more space is one example. That’s where the benefits of being loyal to one hotel chain come in. And here in Canada, there’s really not much choice at this point in time because it’s really only the Marriott Bonvoy that has a co-branded, credit card presence where you can meaningfully engage with the program through your credit card and through transferring American Express points. The other major chains don’t have that in Canada. It’s mostly just Bonvoy until we see more competition. 

Tom: When you talk about upgrading a suite, do use points to upgrade that or is it just that you have the status and they will do that? How’s that part work? 

Ricky: Well, it’s possible to book higher-end rooms or suites with points, but generally speaking, the most value is when you get to a certain level of status. It’s platinum elites with Marriott Bonvoy, which requires 50 qualifying nights. But having the credit card already gives you 15 so you really only need 35 nights and you get platinum elite which (as part of the terms of the status) gets you suite upgrades, subject to availability. Remember how we talked about the three-pronged nature of this whole ecosystem? The loyalty program dictates that you’re supposed to get free upgrades, but it’s subject to each individual hotel to deliver on that. Some hotels are more generous. Some are more stingy. You can always help your chances by proactively reaching out to the hotel before your stay. Marriott has a chat function in the app that makes it really easy to just chat with them and say, “Hey, I’m arriving for my stay. I’m really looking forward to it. Here’s my estimated time of arrival. I’m a platinum elite member or a titanium elite member (which is above platinum) and I was taking a look at the list of available rooms, and I’d love the opportunity to stay in your executive suite or Prime Minister suite or St. Regis suite.” The more enthusiasm you demonstrate, the more organically it comes off. Ultimately, hotels want you to have a good experience and come back, right? We call it “suite” talking. It’s very much the secret sauce to getting suite upgrades more than you would otherwise get if you just left it to chance, basically. 

Tom: You mentioned how many nights you have to stay at it to get a different status level. And the credit card gave you a 15, I think you said. The credit card spending, though, doesn’t have any effect on this, then, does it? It’s all about hotel stays? 

Ricky: Yeah, not in Canada. Some of the U.S. issued Bonvoy cards let you spend your way to a certain status, but not in Canada. It’s 15 elite nights, then you’ve got to stay for the rest of the 35. Here’s one more tidbit. If you didn’t care about platinum, the tier below platinum is gold elite, which still gives you room upgrades, not suite upgrades. It gives you a leg to stand on if you wanted to “suite” talk for a potential suite upgrade. And it gives you extra points and some smaller benefits. You can get that status instantaneously by holding the American Express platinum card or the business platinum card. It’s one of the benefits. That’s like a minor league, elevated hotel experience just by holding the platinum card of the business platinum card. Again, that’s one of many benefits on the card so you have to decide if that justifies the $499 net annual fee on those cards. But that’s a way to kind of get into the status game without having to stay much at all. Just get it instantaneously and enjoy the benefits. 

Tom: Yeah, that seems reasonable. If you’re able to do this “suite” talking to take that extra advantage of it just to kind of catch their attention instead of, “I’m someone that’s never stayed at this hotel chain before. Give me something.” Instead, you’re ultimately saying, “I’m a loyal customer. Can you help me out?” 

Ricky: Yeah. 

Tom: You mentioned the difference in the program and U.S. cards. I’ve heard, as a Canadian, you can get U.S. cards. How complicated is this? Is this something that’s actually common because I’ve seen U.S. cards in the past and thought some of those deals look way better. But I assumed I couldn’t have them and I’ve heard you can. How does that work? 

Ricky: You can, but… Remember, we earlier we talked about the 8020 rule, the more introductory stuff, the more advanced stuff? This is like super advanced stuff. If you’re comfortable juggling multiple credit cards in Canada and maximizing those benefits to your advantage and built up some experience there, I would recommend pursuing cards south of the border. It’s very much possible. Many people do it. It’s essentially all about building ties (to some extent) in the States, which includes bank accounts and an address to receive your mail. It’s hard to get a Social Security number though because you have to move there and have work or get an individual taxpayer identification number, which many banks recognize as a stand-in for the Social. There’s processes for each of these. For the U.S. bank account, that’s probably easiest. Many of the Canadian bigger five banks have cross-border banking branches so you could set yourself up with that easily. The U.S. address, it’s either family member or friends address in the States. Or there are mail forwarding services that will actually forward your mail up to Canada. And then the ITIN is kind of the last step, which is more involved, but it’s available to any foreign residents to apply for if they’ve earned U.S. income. And the stated purpose is to kind of either submit U.S. tax returns for your U.S. income or to show that you’re exempt from U.S. taxation as a foreign resident. So, anybody who has won $5 has technically earned U.S. income and is therefore eligible for it. I’d say that goes probably beyond the scope of this particular conversation, because these are the steps you need to take. To answer your question of whether it’s a lot of work, it is, upfront. That’s why I’d say it’s only reserved for people who are traveling a lot, people who really aspire to sample not just business class and first class, but many of the world’s best first class airlines like Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Etihad Airways, and kind of have that “bucket list” mentality where they want to pursue some of these really, really special experiences. The amount of work that goes into it, while it may seem outlandish from the outset, it’s all worthwhile. It really just depends on the person doing it and what they want to get out of travel and how central all of this is to their travel identity. 

Tom: It does sound complicated, but I guess if someone’s kind of hit this point where they’ve done all they can in Canada with it, with all the different card options, I guess that’s starts to make it more worthwhile. 

Tom: Well, thanks for running us through all this. I think it gives people a good base to consider what kind of cards to get, how this all works. I like the bonuses. I like the redemption side a lot. I think you made me understand the benefits of the business class and the first class travel through Aeroplan so much better than I ever did before. So thanks for doing this. Can you tell people where they can find you online? 

Ricky: Of course. We run Prince of Travel. You’ll find the website at princeoftravel.com. You can also find us on YouTube. We have two channels. One is Prince of Travel. It’s all the information you need—credit cards and travel the world. We have Instagram, we have TikTok. We have a bunch of platforms. When you’re on princeoftravel.com, you can find our newsletter for all the key updates, delivered every Sunday. And lastly, we’re hosting an event in Toronto. It’s called The Travel Summit. You’ll find all the details at thetravelsummit.com. This is the number one event for elevating your travel. So if you want to get deep into the stuff or you’re just a beginner looking for the best place to learn the ropes from a wide range of expert speakers and panelists, this is the place to be. It’s going to be at the Metro Toronto Convention Center from October 29th to 30th. We’d love to see you there. 

Tom: Yeah, the event looks really good. I was looking at some of the session topics and there’s tons to go way deeper than this episode, so I think it would be a great option for people. 

Ricky: Tom, hope to catch you there as well. 

Tom: I’m hoping to make it. Thanks for being on the show. 

Ricky: Thank you for having me. 

Thank you, Ricky, for clearing up some of the confusion many Canadians have about travel rewards programs and for sharing some tips that make us all smarter travelers. You can find the show notes for this episode at maplemoney.com/199. And a reminder, to get $50 off the travel summit, go to thetravelsummit.com and during checkout use coupon code Maple Money Show to save $50. I’m really looking forward to having you back here next week for episode 200. I’m bringing back the two guests that have been on most often, my friends, J.D. Roth and Miranda Marquardt. See you next week.

Most Canadians would do well focusing on the ecosystem of Aeroplan for flights, Marriott Bonvoy for hotels and American Express for earning American Express membership rewards points that then transfer to both Aeroplan and Marriott Bonvoy . - Ricky Zhang Click to Tweet

• Visit Ricky’s website, Prince of Travel
• Follow Ricky on Twitter
• Check out Prince of Travel on Instagram
• Watch the Prince of Travel on YouTube

Stay Up To Date

Be the first to know about all the latest topics on MapleMoney.

Advertiser Disclosure

Our goal at MapleMoney is to present readers with reliable financial advice and product choices that will help you achieve your financial goals. To do that, transparency is critical.

MapleMoney receives compensation from some companies issuing financial products, like credit cards and bank accounts, that appear on this site.

Unless a post is clearly marked “Sponsored”, however, products mentioned in editorial articles and reviews are based on the author’s subjective assessment of their value to readers, not compensation.

Read more at: https://maplemoney.com/legal/

Explore FI Canada

A podcast for Canadians, by Canadians

031: Canadian Miles and Points | Prince of Travel

In this episode, Money Mechanic and Chrissy interview Ricky Zhang from Prince of Travel! We talk miles and points in Canada, how to optimize your earning, and what to focus on now, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Money Mechanic Alright folks, thanks again for joining us on Explore FI Canada. Money Mechanic with you. And of course Chrissy. How are you doing this fine day?

Chrissy I’m great. How are you doing?

Money Mechanic Pretty good. I’m looking at some drizzly weather. So I’ve been trying to convince the dogs it’s not a walk day, but they’re not hearing any of it. So we’ll move on from that.

Money Mechanic Yeah, we’ve been wanting to talk about travel rewards and points on the show for a while now. So I figured I better get on the expert in Canada. We have Ricky from Prince of Travel with us on the show. Welcome, Ricky.

Ricky Hey, guys. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Money Mechanic So Prince of Travel is your blog. And yeah, let’s just start off with a little off the wall here… so many people refer to traveling with on rewards points as travel hacking, you really don’t like that. You wrote a strong article about that a couple years ago. Just give us a sort of brief overview of what you feel this hobby should be more referred as.

Ricky Of course. So I guess a lot of people yeah, a lot of people know the practice of using rewards points and maximizing credit cards and loyalty programs to travel the world and they know that term. You know, they know that concept as the term travel hacking .

Ricky And I think it’s a bit unfortunate that that’s the term that has caught on originally because they just think it sends the wrong message, right? I think those who are, you know, those who are practicing this understand the sense that it’s kind of a hack…

Ricky In the sense that it’s a life hack, right, that allows you to do you know, it’s a clever way to use publicly available offers and products to get what you want kind of to travel the world. But I think externally, it doesn’t exactly send the best message in terms of what people’s intentions are.

Ricky I think it sends a message of, you know, there’s an element of shakiness or unethical in nature about it. Whereas, you know, I think it’s something really that is extremely natural and intuitive for people to try to be maximizing.

Ricky All the financial products out there all the credit cards, the loyalty programs, to pursue their goals, their travel goals. So really I like to call it you know, maximizing your credit card rewards, maximizing your credit card points.

Ricky Generally, on my website, I tend to just refer to the whole practice as, you know, miles and points. Miles and points landscape, the miles and points community. And that’s what we’re all a part of.

Chrissy Yeah, I agree with that view. I think it the term hacking does give it sort of an illicit kind of connotation. And we don’t really want that because everything we’re doing here is aboveboard, and it’s legal. It’s legitimate. There’s nothing wrong with what is happening here.

Ricky Absolutely.

Money Mechanic So you’ve got an excellent blog, PrinceofTravel.com , and you also have quite a good series of YouTube videos that are out there for all our listeners to go check out. So we’ll highlight some of those in the show notes.

Money Mechanic And one of the questions I wanted to sort of start off asking is I’m definitely a beginner in the traveling with miles and points, sort of hobby and I’ve never really gotten involved in it. I’ve definitely collected Aeroplan before, but those were just sort of from flight rewards.

Money Mechanic Anyway, I’ve collected Air Miles with my shopping. But I really haven’t dabbled into this. And you did a great video on some of the hard truths that is important for beginners to understand for when they’re going to start doing this… this, get serious about collecting miles and points. Can you outline some of those hard truths?

Ricky For sure, I think a lot of people are initially attracted to the idea of maximizing their miles and points by you know, the the promise of traveling the world and business class in first class, and kind of seeing the end results of it without necessarily appreciating the entire process of earning and redeeming points and all the thoughts and energy and effort that goes into it beforehand.

Ricky So I do think that when people are first starting out, it’s important for them to, you know, first of all understand the strategy and the process. And kind of the basic concepts that we talked about in the community, but also a few things that may not be immediately obvious.

Ricky So I guess a few of those hard truths that I had covered in the video would be, you know, in order to first of all, in order to be able to maximize and juggle many credit cards at once, you do need to have a high level of financial literacy, and a high level of organizational skills, right?

Ricky So that you never, for example, end up paying more fees than you need to or end up paying interest on missed payments. For example, you got to ensure that you constantly pay off all your credit card balances in full and on time.

Ricky Because any such additional fees aren’t going to quickly eat into the rewards that you earn and wipe out the value that you’re getting. So that would be I guess, the first, you know, major, hard truth that I tell people.

Ricky If you don’t have your financial house in order, then focus on that first before even thinking about maximizing rewards, because the rewards really is the gravy on top of having everything under control, which I’m sure many of our listeners, you know, the vast majority of our listeners do have their financial house in order. So that’s good.

Chrissy I think it’s important that you outline that because this could do way more damage than than good if you’re not if you don’t have your finances in order to start with.

Ricky Yeah, that would be the most major hard truth, I think to start out with the other hard truths, I think, is just to appreciate that maximizing your points is like anything else, you know, like building up other aspects of your, you know, financial strengths.

Ricky It’s also something that does require time and energy to learn and understand and try out for yourself in order to get good at, right. So when I say that, you know, I’m talking about the, the time and energy spent in terms of learning the learning the ropes at the start…

Ricky Of learning all the important concepts and strategies, but also in the sense that the miles and points is really a game that rewards people who are willing to spend some money in the first place on travel. Right?

Ricky I kind of I kind of like to say that it’s a pay to play game, where, the… sure that you’re able to get, let’s say $1,000 of value. If you don’t want to spend any money out of pocket, like if you want to spend zero dollars out of pocket, you’re able to take advantage of the credit card signup, bonuses that have, let’s say, first year free or no annual fee…

Ricky And you’re able to get, let’s say $1,000 in value from your flights and hotels as a result. But if you’re somebody who initially are are willing to spend, let’s say, $1,000 out of pocket, then you could potentially leverage the rewards to get $10,000 in value, like a much, much more significant amount of value, if you’re willing to pay to play at the start.

Chrissy Yeah, I like that concept that you outline that… as someone who has been in the game for a while and has seen the ins and outs of all the various credit card strategies. It’s nice to actually hear that you have to pay to play because a lot of us in the FI community, we are pretty frugal.

Chrissy We are really careful about how we spend our money. And it can be painful to have to pay those annual fees or anything else that might be involved in trying to earn the higher bonuses. It can be difficult to justify that. But when you really sit down and do the math, and you know what you’re doing, you’re right. When you pay to play, you can really get a lot farther ahead.

Ricky Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s something that most people in the community have had to deal with that change in mindset. I know I personally started out when I was a university student, and I didn’t have a lot of income.

Ricky At that point in my life, I was all about the frugality and, and spending as little money out of pocket as possible. And then, as I you know, developed some disposable income. I came to realize that Yeah, the value that’s really there to be attained is more available if you’re willing to spend a little more On, let’s say annual fees.

Ricky And, you know, the taxes and fees when you redeem points and that kind of stuff. So really, the mindset should be something like, you know, if you had an annual travel budget of a certain amount, regularly, you might be able to get, let’s say, one or two trips using your budget…

Ricky But with points by knowing how to maximize points, you could potentially turn that into four or five trips and in a much greater level of comfort to so business class in first class, for example.

Money Mechanic So I think it’s important to to point out pay to play means you can really level this up and leverage it up by paying for some of those fees. I mean, I’m definitely guilty of being adverse of paying any credit card fees, but that’s because I’ve never really made a plan to use the points I’m strictly a cashback person.

Money Mechanic So I think it’s really interesting. And the more I learned about that, as you can definitely start with the no-fee cards and I think the people in our community probably would want to start there. But like you’re saying you might get one trip a year out of that. But if you want to level this up and travel in some luxury, then you do need to have to invest a little bit of money into it,

Ricky For sure. And I think it’s also worth pointing out that, you know, even though I say that that’s the best way to unlock the most value, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the path that everybody goes down. I mean, at the end of the day, it really depends on your goals and what you want to get out of this.

Ricky How much you you know, enjoy traveling in the first place, how much of a priority travel is in your life, right? If it’s something that you really want to pursue, you know, in a larger quantities than than otherwise would be able to then the tools are there for you to do so.

Money Mechanic And I think that kind of leads us a little bit towards one of the next points we were going to have a little discussion about was having a good plan. Because for example, when I had my Air Miles , I was just getting them because I shopped Thrifty’s is in town here and I got Air Miles.

Money Mechanic I had no idea what I was going to use before. So for our listeners out there that just think that they want to start accumulating miles and points and maybe start turning some credit cards. Unless you’ve got a plan. Tell us a little bit about how to think forward and go, this is the end goal I want to have and how do I get there?

Ricky Absolutely. There’s two sides to the game, right? There’s earning points, which is most easily and most cost effectively done through credit cards and maximizing your return on spending and the signup bonuses.

Ricky And then there’s redeeming points for excellent value. So the idea there is, you basically acquire points for as low cost as possible, and then you’re aiming to redeem them as expensively as possible. As in for the most, the greatest value, the most expensive, possible stuff.

Ricky So usually, in terms of the retail tag price on stuff that’s going to be business class flights, first class flights. Now most people start out on the earning side, like you said, like kind of earning points here and there, you know, willy nilly without really putting much thought into what they’re going to be able to use those points for in the long run.

Ricky I usually advocate if somebody is interested in starting out on the right path for them to think, you know, think very hard about what trips are possible using points, like what types of trips, which destinations traveling and what class of service staying and what level of hotel, what what’s attainable using the various points offers that are available on the market out there…

Ricky Thinking about the exact trip that they’d like to take using points. And then thinking about the best points to use to book those trips. And then finally, putting together a strategy to earn the amount of points required, using the credit cards that are available on the market, and then executing on that strategy.

Chrissy Well, that’s interesting, because you’re flipping the script, like most of us do it backwards, right? We earn the points first, and then we go, oh, what am I going to do is this pile of points. But what you’re saying is it might make more sense to first learn about these programs and see which one might work for the trip that we want, and then go backwards from there and figure out what the best credit card or whatever system might work best to earn us the points that’ll get us the trip that we want.

Ricky Yeah, that’s gonna be the way to do it. That makes the most sense. And that ultimately, is the most time and cost effective for you to prevent you from you know, ending up with small balances of points, divided into multiple different programs, and then scrambling to figure out how to use them.

Chrissy As most of us, me included, we have these little bits of points everywhere, and they’re useless because they’re spread out so far, right?

Money Mechanic You’ve got the 4,000 Aeroplan miles sitting over there somewhere and like the 1,500 Air Miles that don’t do anything.

Chrissy Yeah! That’s that’s fantastic to have that to help us focus our efforts in the right places at the right time. Because that will get us the most benefit. Thank you for pointing that out. It takes someone who knows that the ins and outs of this well, in order to see that overall concept that way, because we’re all so used to doing it the way that we all do, which is just earning first and then deciding later.

Ricky Yeah.

Money Mechanic Well, and I think, too, that the really nice part about looking at it from that perspective is, it’s pretty overwhelming for most of us that are beginners to look at the volume of programs that are there, whether they’re through the credit cards through the airlines through our banks, I just have no clue what to pick.

Money Mechanic But if you take a look at down the road and say, I want to do a trip to South Africa, what airlines am I going to get there on what points are going to work the best and reverse engineer just like you described? I think that makes people’s decision how they start so much better.

Ricky Yeah, and the challenge is, all the different programs are telling you that they’re the best, right? Of course, if you look at all the banks, all of the credit cards, they’ve all found some, you know, some obscure criterion to say that they’re the number one rewards program for Canadians or something like that.

Ricky And the thing is, they may be number one for certain types of travelers, like I know, there are travelers out there that value, you know, programs like let’s say, Air Miles, or let’s say CIBC points. Further, you know, reasons that have merits, but it may not be the program that has the highest value on paper.

Ricky And that’s where you’re thinking about: exactly which places you’d like to go, which airlines you’d like to fly, in what class of service? And then which programs make that possible? How do I earn those points? Those are the steps.

Money Mechanic One of the things I got from one of the videos I was watching is that you talked about the sort of different types of points , those points that are representative of a dollar value. And then there’s also points that are transferable and what was the third one? I’m stumped now. There’s one in the middle there.

Ricky Right. The third one was like fixed value points.

Money Mechanic That’s right.

Ricky That’s one cent per point.

Money Mechanic So just briefly outline those three for our listeners, because that’s kind of what we’re all sort of dealing with and how they can be put to use just sort of a quick summary for us.

Ricky For sure. So we’re familiar with, you know, the fact that there’s tons of programs in Canada. And in general, I’d say that they all fall into one of three categories. The first category would be an airline frequent flyer program.

Ricky So an example might be Aeroplan, which is affiliated with Air Canada. Or let’s say, British Airways, Avios. So that’s the program for British Airways, but they do have some involvement here in Canada as well.

Ricky Generally, for the airline programs, each point doesn’t necessarily have a fixed value of its own until you redeem it for something. So every program has their own charts and rules that you have to follow when you redeem your points.

Ricky And these charts will be based on let’s say which geographic zones you’re flying to or how, you know, how far you’re flying. It’ll charge you a certain amount of points for the certain class of service. So the value really depends on what you use it for.

Ricky And the more time you spend studying the charts and the sweet spots within the charts, the more likely you are to extract the highest value there. So after airline programs, we then have fixed value points. So when I say by fixed value points are programs like Scotia Rewards or CIBC Aventura rewards, or let’s say BMO Rewards.

Ricky These programs, you know, they all give you a certain fixed value for every point that you earn, which you can then usually apply against travel. So an example is Scotia Rewards which is basically has a fixed value of one point equals one cent.

Ricky And you can then make any travel purchase on your Scotia Rewards card, whether it’s a flight, hotel or car rental, and then you can go onto your, you know, Scotia online dashboard and redeem those points against that travel purchase at that fixed rate.

Ricky So the advantage of fixed value points is that they’re simple to use, right? You know, you’re getting this fixed value. You don’t need to worry about studying any rules and charts, you can just go make your travel purchase and then apply your points against that purchase.

Ricky Now the disadvantage is that once again, the value is fixed at one cent per points and you might not be able to extract higher valuations like 5, 10, 15 cents per point. But you would if you did study a flexible award charts and you know, redeem your points for let’s say, a business class or first class.

Ricky And finally, we have transferable rewards, which is kind of the best of both worlds because they can be used as fixed value points. You know, if you just have a travel purchase that you’d like to make, you’d like to use your points for it without the hassle of, of looking into all the rules and charts, then you can use your transferable rewards in that purpose.

Ricky And since they’re transferable these points can also be transferred out to a variety of different airline and hotel partners as well. So the best transferable rewards in Canada would be American Express Membership Rewards which can be transferred to Aeroplan and British Airways Avios at a one to one ratio.

Ricky As well as hotel points like Marriott Bonvoy , for example. And the other big one would be RBC Avion . RBC Avion points actually can be transferred to a handful of frequent flyer programs and redeemed for very good value there too.

Ricky Or as I said, these points can also be applied directly to a travel purchase if you just prefer that simplicity. So really transferable points best of both worlds and are probably the most important points currency to prioritize earning.

Money Mechanic Yeah, I think are a lot of our listeners are going to be pretty familiar with how to optimize their credit cards, if they’re been on a cashback. Trying to optimize that in the past, but if they’re looking for travel, and you mentioned the Avion and the Amex ones…

Money Mechanic And that flexibility I think will be attractive to a lot of our listeners that maybe don’t want to have multiple credit cards or, or be churning all the time. And just the ability to transfer those between programs. That sounds very powerful to me.

Money Mechanic I’m sure it would resonate with listeners that would like to optimize those things. So those two cards are really nice to have in Canada. But when it comes down to really accumulating points as a beginner, we have to start talking about churning . Can you just kind of give us a sort of overview of what that looks like as a beginner? How do I start going about churning cards?

Ricky Sure, yeah, I agree. When you’re first starting out as a beginner, the real way to sort of level up your points earnings, if you don’t have you know, huge organic spending is to quote unquote, churn the cards, which is basically the idea of getting the cards purely for the signup bonuses.

Ricky And then with a view of cancelling the card and eventually, perhaps within the first year so that you don’t pay the second year’s annual fee, and then reapplying for it in the future in order to get that bonus again. And, you know, this is a practice that’s perfectly aboveboard and legal perspective.

Ricky But you, some credit card issuers may not actually like it very much, because obviously, it can be unprofitable for them. So that’s kind of why some people might be, you know, feeling a little touch and go about it.

Ricky But generally in Canada, it works pretty well. You look for the credit cards, one of the best signup bonuses out there. Generally speaking, when you’re starting out, it’s it’s safest to hold the card for at least six months before thinking about canceling it.

Ricky The reason for that is because of the impact on your credit score, right? When you open a card for six months and keep it open for six months. It’s no longer too new to report to the credit bureaus and instead it’s treated as in good standing so it actually contributes positively to your credit score.

Ricky And that’s why we recommend to hold for at least six months. And then you know, let’s say that eventually you do decide to cancel if you do want to reapply for the card and get a shot at getting that bonus again, then again, it’s recommended to leave at least a six month gap there.

Ricky And that’s really just about your relationship with the issuer, you don’t want to come across as you know, you’re just trying to get the bonuses and being a bad customer in general, right, you want to at least give them some opportunity to make profits as well.

Ricky So you want to be spending regularly on your card ideally, and not coming across as you’re purely there to turn right. The bottom line is you don’t want to make that intention too obvious.

Money Mechanic Right, so you’d basically open a card, get the bonus, a lot of them are going to have a minimum spend, you make that minimum spend, but you continue spending on that card for say that, like you said, maybe six months or whatever you feel is appropriate. Yeah.

Ricky Exactly.

Chrissy That’s a good point because I tend to just get the bonus and then stop my spending. Then I leave it for a few months and then I cancel. So it’s great to have these very specific, actionable things that we should keep our our eye on and and to do so that we’re not taking advantage in a way that’s going to hurt the overall system and make it look like we’re just out for the points and then we’re gone.

Ricky Yeah, I think I think there, you know, there are cards out there that makes sense to spend on a day to day basis to in terms of the returns on spending. And those can be the cards that you prioritize in terms of your spending.

Ricky After you’ve completed that minimum spend, there are cards out there that, you know, don’t offer as competitive a return on your spending. And for those, you could just think about, you know, perhaps putting a few small purchases on it every now and then.

Ricky And I think the more the more serious people who are, you know, try to try to apply for as many cards and earn as many points from the signup bonuses as possible. Most of their spending is going to be going towards some of that minimum spend right in order to unlock the bonuses that they’re chasing.

Chrissy So, if our listeners would like to pursue a more minimalist approach and just get one or two cards that will just serve long term, they don’t have to keep switching around from card to card. What are a few that a handful or less that you might recommend that people just hang on to long term? They don’t have to worry about, you know, thinking about a new card every few months?

Ricky Right. It’s a good question. And I think a lot of people would probably benefit from a minimalistic approach. If they don’t want to, you know, go all gung ho with the credit card applications. I think it goes back to the fact that the transferable currencies are the most valuable…

Ricky Because they offer the best of both worlds, right in terms of the simplicity of fixed value points, and the flexibility and higher value of frequent flyer programs. So like I mentioned, the two best transferable currencies in Canada would be American Express , and RBC .

Ricky And that’s kind of where I would focus my attention on if I just wanted to build a kind of minimalistic credit card portfolio. So I would probably choose to have one American Express card and one RBC card. Because remember, not every issuer out there accepts American Express.

Ricky So you always want to combine that with an RBC Visa, for example. And the two cards, they’re are probably recommend for most people would be the American Express Cobalt and the RBC Avion Visa Infinite .

Ricky Now the Cobalt is very unique card in the sense that it gives you five times the points on food and drink purchases, which is an incredible return pretty much unparalleled right within Canada in terms of that five times the points return.

Ricky And I think since food and drinks, which includes groceries dining, food delivery services, and you know, cafes and bars and stuff, since that’s such a big chunk of spending for most households, I think it makes sense to choose the Cobalt as one of your core cards to hold on to…

Ricky And then combine that with the RBC Avion which you would use as a Visa card wherever the retailer doesn’t accept Amex, in order to rack up some of your points. which you can then again, transfer to a variety of frequent flyer programs.

Chrissy That’s perfect. I love how you just streamlined it and outlined it so clearly there because even me I, I would say I’m kind of an intermediate. I’m intermediate with my knowledge of credit card points. And it’s hard for me to wade through all that’s out there, all the noise, and figure out what would be the most beneficial but simple for for me to use. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Money Mechanic Yeah, and I always find that every time I look on, you know, Rate Hub or any of the sites and kind of try and compare cards. The first thing I always see is the signup bonus. So it’s hard to sort of get past that initial bonus…

Money Mechanic And dig in and go well, what’s gonna give me more value with my day to day spending as I work towards a bigger goal. And because I haven’t done much with doing travel miles and points before, I haven’t spent a lot of time into that.

Money Mechanic I do dig more into the cashback in the past but I’m definitely at the point. Now I think I’m going to add a card into the rotation here to start doing ratings the miles and points to as we’ve I’ve got some time obviously right now before we travel again, so maybe it’s a good time to start leveraging up for that.

Money Mechanic Now before we move on too far, we talked a little bit about churning, you mentioned organic spending, which I think is fairly obvious. That’s our day to day type normal expenses. There’s another like type of spending, which I actually misunderstood…

Money Mechanic Because when I first heard what manufactured spending , I thought it was buying a gift card so that you could spend it later on but that’s not actually manufactured spending, by definition, that’s just, you know, using it’s an opportunity to spend ahead of time maybe to make your the signup payment requirement done that you know, you’re going to spend the money.

Money Mechanic So manufactured spending without going into some crazy detail on this, but it’s a really interesting subject just give us a little bit of a high level look at what manufactured spending is and how people that want to really level up their points accumulation are gonna need to do some of the research and learn how to do this for themselves.

Ricky Sure. So manufactured spending. Yeah, you’re right. So something like buying gift cards, and then using that gift cards for your regular spending, that still falls into the category of spending that you would have done anyway, right, you’re just kind of different or bringing it forward to spend right now.

Ricky Whereas manufacturers spending, the idea there is that you’re putting purchases on your credit card, that can be easily liquidated into cash, and then you then use that cash to pay off your credit card and bring you back down to a zero balance.

Ricky But then what you’re left with is the points from that purchase. So you kind of need to you know, think about this process a little bit and think about you know exactly how that works. But basically, it’s about generating points on your credit card through putting purchases on it that you can then easily liquidate into cash and then pay off.

Ricky So obviously, this is something that you know, seasoned practitioners, who are very familiar with the process can use to generate huge amounts of points, because it just looks like purchases, regular purchases on your credit card.

Ricky But having said that, seasoned practitioners tend to be very secretive about the exact methods that they use, to manufacture spend, because it’s something that necessarily imposes a cost onto a third party in the process of generating points, right.

Ricky So one example from the past might be the Royal Canadian Mint used to sell these face value coins that you could buy on their website. So it was like $20 for $20, you could pay with a credit card, and then you would get this coin that was worth $20, that was legal tender…

Ricky Which you could then use to pay off your credit card. So then people you know, bought up thousands of dollars worth of these points. And then you know, you use the thousand dollars to pay off the credit card leaving themselves with thousands of points on their account.

Ricky So when you think about this method, you need to think about who was actually paying for those points that people were earning. And the answer is the Royal Canadian Mint was bearing the cost of everything right?

Ricky They were, you know, producing this face value coin that was supposed to be a collector’s item. But then they were also accepting the coin back from the banks where these, you know, weird, big coins are being deposited, technically as legal tender.

Ricky And then they were, you know, they’re bearing the cost of transporting those coins back to the Mint, and also paying the credit card transaction fees, the interchange fees on every transaction on the website that people were ordering for.

Ricky And so eventually, because this imposes such a big burden on the Mint, they shuttered the program, and they stopped issuing the face value coins. And so the idea is yeah, manufacturer spending imposes a cost on a third party.

Ricky It’s somewhat exploitative, and that’s why people don’t like to talk about it too openly. Because if the methods, you know, got widely distributed, if everybody started doing it, then the methods would be shut down.

Ricky It’s definitely very high level very advanced method to generate points. I would say something that not everybody, absolutely not everybody needs to pursue. Only if you’re really, really serious about wanting to travel the world and business class or first class, then it’s something to consider.

Ricky And if you do you know, if you’re interested in at least want to hear more about the subject, then I would say the best way to actually learn more is to attend some in person events with people who know their stuff.

Ricky People in the miles and points community, where it tends to be much more open to talk about this stuff than online where nobody really knows each other. And there’s always the chance of, you know, speaking to too many people and getting it shut down.

Chrissy Interesting. Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard, like, both in Canada and the States where it yeah, it has to become kind of a secretive thing so that it doesn’t get shut down. because too many people are taking advantage.

Chrissy The, Ricky, part of the reason why we wanted to get you on the show now is because the landscape has changed a little because of the environment we’re in with the pandemic, and all travel has stopped.

Chrissy So we’re wondering, as expert you are, what kind of strategies should listeners… should anyone who’s interested in miles and points be focusing on right now, since we can’t travel? What, what should we be doing?

Ricky Right. Most of the advice that I have given so far right, is, is applicable during ordinary times when people are traveling when you’re always thinking about, you know, what’s the next big trip I can go on these days?

Ricky Obviously, there’s lots of uncertainty across all industries, including this one. So one of the elements of uncertainty in loyalty programs is that you know, nobody really knows whether the the future of the loyalty programs will remain the same whether or not they’re going to be devalued or the rules are going to change and stuff.

Ricky So the idea is right now the most important thing is to not have all your eggs in one basket, right? Not be collecting, you know, hundreds of thousands of the points only in one program, because on the chance that that program gets devalued or the rules change unfavorably…

Ricky Then the value of your points, entire points holdings has decreased, right? You want to remain as flexible and as versatile as possible. And again, it would go back to those transferable rewards currencies. If you held you know, major balances in American Express points , RBC Avion points…

Ricky Then let’s say that one of the transfer partners, let’s say, you know, let’s pretend that Aeroplan changes the rules and makes it much more unfavorable in the future for redemptions right? You’re kind of protected from that devaluation because you still have the opportunity to transfer your points to different programs…

Ricky Like British Airways or Delta or American Airlines, or WestJet, or hotel points too. So you’re definitely insulated from single programs devaluing if you focus on transferable currencies. Like American Express , and RBC.

Ricky In addition, I would also say that right now there’s a real case to be made to perhaps take things a little easier than ordinary times in terms of racking up points quickly. And I say that again, because nobody really knows when we’re going to be able to travel again… you know what that timeline looks like?

Ricky And so it could make sense to spend this time kind of doing more research and understanding what the possibilities are, and thinking about your own travel goals and developing strategies before jumping into action. hopefully sometime soon in the future when we’re able to travel again.

Chrissy That’s great advice. I think all of us need a bit of guidance right now with so much stuff up in the air. It’s helpful to hear your thoughts on it and helps me personally because I have been collecting kind of haphazardly.

Chrissy And now it it helps me realize that yeah, if we have all our points focus in certain programs is a bit of a risk. And it would be helpful to maybe start considering those.. what are those? The transferable points. That they sound like they have a lot of value, especially in times like these.

Chrissy So maybe we’ll move on to the next point we’re going to talk to you about: what should we be looking at as in the future, as far as booking travel? Should we just be focused continuing to focus on learning about the systems and accumulating these more flexible points? Do you have any ideas on what we should be looking ahead to as far as planning and booking future travel?

Ricky Yeah, it’s a good question. And it goes back to what I was saying about, nobody’s really sure about the timeline in terms of when we’re going to be able to travel. So the strategies as a result are a little bit all over the place.

Ricky And there are a few different items to talk about, but I’ll try to touch upon all of them. One of them is, you know, the future of whether or not we’re going to be able to get value out of our points compared to, let’s say, just paying cash for travel for flights and for hotels, for example.

Ricky You know, I’ve talked about how the reason that we’re able to get such high value out of our points in ordinary times is because we’re able to redeem for business class or first class. We understand that, you know, those fares that people pay for business class…

Ricky Regular people who buy these tickets are business travelers, right? That’s the reason why the fares are so high because business travelers just pay a large amount of money for for these fares often on the last minute basis too.

Ricky Now, with the future of travel uncertain, with the future of business travel uncertain because people are doing more work online, etc. nobody really knows if those fares are going to stay nearly as high. And indeed, we’ve already seen like in the past few weeks or so we’ve already seen a bunch of cash fares for business class flights and economy class flights that are way below the usual amount, right?

Ricky Because, again, nobody’s traveling right now, it makes sense, the cash fares are lower. I think for the foreseeable future, we’ll see cash fares that are generally lower than what we’ve expected to see them in the past.

Ricky So there’s definitely reason to kind of also think about the cash side of paying for travel in addition to rewards points, right? When you think about the relative value that you could be securing, so that’s one thing.

Ricky The other thing is, is now the right time to be planning and booking travel? And I think, and I think that depends on, you know, your appetite for traveling soon after, let’s say, the worst of the pandemic passes, right.

Ricky I think it will be a gradual process in terms of governments relaxing the travel advisories and countries opening up their borders and relaxing the requirements for quarantines, for example. So it depends on if you’re willing to kind of play that game and trying to travel as soon as possible.

Ricky Or if you feel more comfortable waiting for everything to blow over first, maybe you’ll be waiting, you know, six months, one year from now, before taking a trip. And whatever decision you make. Another thing that you need to be thinking about is how you’re paying for these flights and hotels, and especially flights.

Ricky And I say that because right now the airlines all around the world are strapped for cash, right? They have negative revenue because more people are canceling than booking travel, obviously, because nobody’s traveling.

Ricky And so what’s been happening what we’ve been observing is a worrying but somewhat understandable trend, where if you book you know, a ticket with an airline, and they’re the ones who canceled your flight, then they actually refuse to provide you with the full refund to your original method of payment.

Ricky And instead they they provide you with the travel credit for the next 24 months which is, you know, under under law, they’re supposed to give you a full refund. So that’s a risk that you’re taking by booking tickets right now, booking regular tickets with your cash.

Ricky And instead, I would say for anybody who has points on hand, use your points to book trips that you’d like to take over the next six to 12 months. Because even if those trips need to be canceled, the loyalty programs have been a lot more generous about providing those refunds refunding your miles and the taxes that you’ve paid compared to the airline’s themselves who badly need to hold on to that cash.

Chrissy That’s so interesting. And I found in the past too, that loyalty programs do tend to be more generous with their refunds. They often don’t even charge a fee or if they do, it’s much smaller than if you had paid in cash.

Ricky Yeah, it’s also a benefit of loyalty programs in ordinary times too, because you’ll find that a lot of their cancellation policies are much more friendly. Sometimes they don’t charge a fee if you’re canceling, let’s say 60 days or more before your date of departure…

Ricky And even if they do charge a fee, it’s like 75 bucks, and you get all your miles back, for example, compare that to oftentimes when you’re booking, let’s say, the cheapest economy class ticket. It’s fully non refundable, right? It’s like take it or leave it.

Ricky Or even if you cancel, it becomes a travel voucher that you have to use in the future. So in general, traveling on points is much more flexible than traveling the normal way. And and that’s one of the reasons we love it so much.

Chrissy So personally, for you, what are your plans? Are you going to be booking travel? Are you going to wait for six months, 12 months, or are you going to start booking earlier than that? Because there might be some deals to be had?

Ricky Yeah, I’m definitely on the more eager side, right. I love traveling. I built my whole website around the idea of traveling as much as possible. And so I’m looking to obviously get going as soon as it’s safe and appropriate to do so.

Ricky Now exactly what when that is, I’m not sure, but I think my strategy will be to book trips and reschedule my existing trips for the future, but with the understanding that they might not materialize, and I may need to make further changes or push it further into the future as well.

Ricky So I’m staying flexible. Right now, for example, I was supposed to take another like round the world trip in May, but I’ve pushed that into August. Some people are still saying, like, you’re not going to be able to, you know, enter these countries by August, and there’s a good chance that that happens. And I’m comfortable with the fact that I may need to call that trip off eventually, as well.

Ricky But yeah, I’m just remaining flexible and keeping an open mind in terms of being able to make the bookings, again, using my points instead of cash to take advantage of the flexible cancellations. But also having that open mind and being willing to cancel if need be.

Chrissy So if someone like me, needs to be booking on cash because I’m a family of four and it’s really hard to accumulate enough points to book a trip all in points for a family of four, would you recommend it’s probably safer to hold off then?

Chrissy Because we don’t know what the refunds are going to be like in a year from now. If we were planning to travel in a year, it would it be safer to hold off on booking anything on cash? And if you have enough points and use that, but if not, maybe don’t make cash bookings right now.

Ricky I think right now, like as, as of the time that we’re recording this, I think that’s probably true. I know that many passenger advocacy groups in Canada are working hard to have, you know, have the Canadian transport agency, have the government review these rules on refunds…

Ricky And kind of step in and, you know, stick up for consumers rights in terms of if the airline cancels your flight, you’re entitled to a full refund. Right, end of story. Until that happens, yeah, I would kind of observe the situation and see if there’s any changes to this worrying practice of the airlines just holding on to everybody’s money.

Ricky Having said that, you know, I have noticed that in the US and in Europe, the governments have stepped in and have said that airlines should be providing the refunds. And they’ve given airlines a little bit of a relaxed timeframe to do so.

Ricky But they have said they have kind of put their foot down and said that, yeah, it is your obligation to provide the refunds. So if you’re booking travel, you know, to Europe or on a European carrier, then they will be subject to those rules.

Ricky But again, it you know, if you’re more risk averse, it is a situation that’s worth monitoring for a while before jumping in on a hot deal.

Chrissy So that covers my questions. We have a few more but…

Money Mechanic I’ve got a I’ve got a really important…

Chrissy Yeah, okay…

Money Mechanic Really important question. This cant, this can’t wait. Do you have any idea, how… do you keep track of how many credit cards you’ve had?

Ricky I do I do. You need the you need the organizational skills right. You need to be on top of everything. So…

Money Mechanic For fun, how many of you had in your lifetime for travel, for accumulating miles and points?

Ricky Um, yeah, that’s a question that I get all the time. And I’m just pulling up my spreadsheet now, because I, you know, I don’t keep it off the top of my head, but so I think I personally have had 45 in Canada, open and closed life to date.

Money Mechanic I thought it would be more actually interesting, okay.

Chrissy Yeah.

Ricky Yeah. And here’s the thing. I know, I know, a lot of people out there actually do have a lot more, because they, you know, they go for like 12 new cars per year or something. But then that’s just under my name in Canada.

Ricky You know, there are more dimensions to this game to, obviously getting credit cards for your household for your family members, for your friends. And there’s the US side of the game to us credit cards, obviously, much more lucrative than they are here.

Ricky So across, you know, all all the accounts that I manage, maybe across all geographies, it’s probably closer to 60, 70.

Money Mechanic Wow.

Chrissy Wow!

Money Mechanic That’s, that’s pretty cool. Yeah, well, I think we, you know, we’ve just barely scratched the surface. And that’s why we wanted to have you on the show because you’re a wealth of knowledge. And definitely let our listeners know where they can go and dig into this. where they can find you.

Ricky Yeah, absolutely. So I mostly share my content in in blog form over on PrinceofTravel.com . That’s my website, I usually publish seven to eight times per week in terms of new content. And, you know, there’s always lots of new stuff to talk about exciting news and developments in the miles and points space…

Ricky As well as my own analysis, and advice on the best deals and the best opportunities. In addition, I also publish video content on my YouTube channel . So Prince of Travel, you’ll be able to find it. And that’s really, I noticed that there were a lot of YouTubers in the US were talking about credit cards and optimizing your credit card holdings and portfolio anf stuff…

Ricky But not really anybody in Canada doing it. So I decided to also jump into the video space too. And that’s been a lot of fun. And I know a lot of people have found that valuable. And finally, you know, I’m on Instagram a lot.

Ricky I share the highlights of my travels, you know, the fancy business class pictures and stuff that’s kind of showing people the end results right and getting people interested in what’s possible and learning more about that.

Ricky Yeah, so I would say those are the three main platforms that you will find me on PrinceofTravel.com , the YouTube channel , and the Instagram .

Chrissy I would throw in your email list too. I’m your, one of your email subscribers, and you often send out these last minute deals or these breaking news articles that we need to pay attention to if we’re serious about earning points. So join Ricky’s newsletter it’s it’s been really helpful for me I’ve I’ve learned a lot and I’ve gained a lot from it.

Ricky Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for that, Chrissy. If you’re on PrinceofTravel.com , you can join the newsletter which you’ll receive on weekly basis every Sunday, that gives you the latest, you know summaries of the posts of the week as well as the biggest news from the week.

Ricky You can also choose to join my Insiders email list, which is basically a license for me to email you whenever I want, when time sensitive deals and just thoughts that come to my mind and stuff like that. Yeah, I hope to see you all on the list too.

Money Mechanic Well, and fair warning to our listeners. If you start watching Ricky’s videos, you’re gonna get caught up, he has got an awesome intro to your videos, and the music’s quite catchy. It’s stuck in my head.

Ricky Yeah, I would agree with that. Actually, I find myself watching the intro quite a few times… editing too.

Money Mechanic Yeah, it’s a good one. Yeah, I enjoyed all your videos and it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you today. There’s so much to learn in this area and for any of our listeners that are interested in it. Ricky’s a great place to start with his blog and his YouTubes.

Money Mechanic And yeah, it’s I’m kind of a little bit excited about this. Now there I do have some time to learn more about it and that’s sort of downtime. And I’ve never really put as much thought into this as I have recently. So thanks again for being on the show. Great talking with you.

Ricky Thanks so much for having me. Chrissy and Mister Money Mechanic.

Chrissy Yes, thank you, Ricky, we’re happy that you are sharing what you know, in the Canadian space because there’s not enough info and you put out great content. So thank you for sharing it. And thank you for coming on to the show.

Ricky Yeah, it’s my pleasure. Thank you guys.

Transcribed by Otter.ai

Outro Thanks for listening. If you’ve been getting value from our content, please support us in the following ways:

• Leave us a review and subscribe in your favourite podcast player.
• Tell your friends and family about us.
• Use our referral links at exploreficanada.ca/recommendations .

All of our show notes can be found at exploreficanada.ca . You can also find us at our own blogs figarage.ca , or eatsleepbreathefi.com .

Our music today was provided by Purple Planet .

Episode links

• PrinceofTravel.com
• Why I Hate “Travel Hacking”
• Prince of Travel YouTube channel
• Prince of Travel Aeroplan guide
• Prince of Travel Air Miles guide
• Prince of Travel American Express Membership Rewards guide
• Prince of Travel Marriott Bonvoy guide
• Prince of Travel RBC Avion guide
• Prince of Travel American Express Cobalt review
• Prince of Travel RBC Avion Visa Infinite review
• Prince of Travel on Instagram

Prince of Travel YouTube videos

• What Is Manufactured Spending? (If you know, you know…)
• The Major Points Programs (Aeroplan, Alaska, Avios, and more)
• Credit Cards & Points: The 9 Types of People You Meet
• Some Hard Truths on Credit Cards & Points
• The Minimalist Credit Card Portfolio (Canada)
• How I’m Getting Through Quarantine (Credit Card Strategies, The Future of Travel, etc.)
• The Credit Card “Churn” (How to Rack Up the Points)

Episode transcripts created in:

Help us grow by:

• Leaving a review and subscribing in your favourite podcast directory.
• Sharing our show with family and friends.
• Using our referral links on the Our Recommendations page.

Thanks for your support!

Share this:.

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

• Book Travel
• Credit Cards

Become a Prince of Travel Member

• Club Lounge on Discord
• Hotel Crowns
• Miles & Pints
• Learning Sessions
• Preferred Pricing
• Priority Access
• Book a discounted session
• Ad-Free Browsing
• Content Vault
• Consulting Discount
• 10% Discount On Points Consulting
• Display name & flair in comments
• See replies to your comments
• Save your favourite posts

Travel Itinerary For One Week in Moscow: The Best of Moscow!

I just got back from one week in Moscow. And, as you might have already guessed, it was a mind-boggling experience. It was not my first trip to the Russian capital. But I hardly ever got enough time to explore this sprawling city. Visiting places for business rarely leaves enough time for sightseeing. I think that if you’ve got one week in Russia, you can also consider splitting your time between its largest cities (i.e. Saint Petersburg ) to get the most out of your trip. Seven days will let you see the majority of the main sights and go beyond just scratching the surface. In this post, I’m going to share with you my idea of the perfect travel itinerary for one week in Moscow.

Moscow is perhaps both the business and cultural hub of Russia. There is a lot more to see here than just the Kremlin and Saint Basil’s Cathedral. Centuries-old churches with onion-shaped domes dotted around the city are in stark contrast with newly completed impressive skyscrapers of Moscow City dominating the skyline. I spent a lot of time thinking about my Moscow itinerary before I left. And this city lived up to all of my expectations.

Travel Itinerary For One Week in Moscow

Day 1 – red square and the kremlin.

Metro Station: Okhotny Ryad on Red Line.

No trip to Moscow would be complete without seeing its main attraction. The Red Square is just a stone’s throw away from several metro stations. It is home to some of the most impressive architectural masterpieces in the city. The first thing you’ll probably notice after entering it and passing vendors selling weird fur hats is the fairytale-like looking Saint Basil’s Cathedral. It was built to commemorate one of the major victories of Ivan the Terrible. I once spent 20 minutes gazing at it, trying to find the perfect angle to snap it. It was easier said than done because of the hordes of locals and tourists.

As you continue strolling around Red Square, there’s no way you can miss Gum. It was widely known as the main department store during the Soviet Era. Now this large (yet historic) shopping mall is filled with expensive boutiques, pricey eateries, etc. During my trip to Moscow, I was on a tight budget. So I only took a retro-style stroll in Gum to get a rare glimpse of a place where Soviet leaders used to grocery shop and buy their stuff. In case you want some modern shopping experience, head to the Okhotny Ryad Shopping Center with stores like New Yorker, Zara, and Adidas.

Read Next: Things To Do on Socotra

To continue this Moscow itinerary, next you may want to go inside the Kremlin walls. This is the center of Russian political power and the president’s official residence. If you’re planning to pay Kremlin a visit do your best to visit Ivan the Great Bell Tower as well. Go there as early as possible to avoid crowds and get an incredible bird’s-eye view. There are a couple of museums that are available during designated visiting hours. Make sure to book your ticket online and avoid lines.

Day 2 – Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Tretyakov Gallery, and the Arbat Street

Metro Station: Kropotkinskaya on Red Line

As soon as you start creating a Moscow itinerary for your second day, you’ll discover that there are plenty of metro stations that are much closer to certain sites. Depending on your route, take a closer look at the metro map to pick the closest.

The white marble walls of Christ the Saviour Cathedral are awe-inspiring. As you approach this tallest Orthodox Christian church, you may notice the bronze sculptures, magnificent arches, and cupolas that were created to commemorate Russia’s victory against Napoleon.

How to Get a Decent Haircut in a Foreign Country

Unfortunately, the current Cathedral is a replica, since original was blown to bits in 1931 by the Soviet government. The new cathedral basically follows the original design, but they have added some new elements such as marble high reliefs.

Home to some precious collection of artworks, in Tretyakov Gallery you can find more than 150,000 of works spanning centuries of artistic endeavor. Originally a privately owned gallery, it now has become one of the largest museums in Russia. The Gallery is often considered essential to visit. But I have encountered a lot of locals who have never been there.

Famous for its souvenirs, musicians, and theaters, Arbat street is among the few in Moscow that were turned into pedestrian zones. Arbat street is usually very busy with tourists and locals alike. My local friend once called it the oldest street in Moscow dating back to 1493. It is a kilometer long walking street filled with fancy gift shops, small cozy restaurants, lots of cute cafes, and street artists. It is closed to any vehicular traffic, so you can easily stroll it with kids.

Day 3 – Moscow River Boat Ride, Poklonnaya Hill Victory Park, the Moscow City

Metro Station: Kievskaya and Park Pobedy on Dark Blue Line / Vystavochnaya on Light Blue Line

Voyaging along the Moscow River is definitely one of the best ways to catch a glimpse of the city and see the attractions from a bit different perspective. Depending on your Moscow itinerary, travel budget and the time of the year, there are various types of boats available. In the summer there is no shortage of boats, and you’ll be spoiled for choice.

Travel Itinerary for One Week in Beijing

If you find yourself in Moscow during the winter months, I’d recommend going with Radisson boat cruise. These are often more expensive (yet comfy). They offer refreshments like tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and, of course, alcoholic drinks. Prices may vary but mostly depend on your food and drink selection. Find their main pier near the opulent Ukraine hotel . The hotel is one of the “Seven Sisters”, so if you’re into the charm of Stalinist architecture don’t miss a chance to stay there.

The area near Poklonnaya Hill has the closest relation to the country’s recent past. The memorial complex was completed in the mid-1990s to commemorate the Victory and WW2 casualties. Also known as the Great Patriotic War Museum, activities here include indoor attractions while the grounds around host an open-air museum with old tanks and other vehicles used on the battlefield.

How I Planned My Trip to Vietnam

The hallmark of the memorial complex and the first thing you see as you exit metro is the statue of Nike mounted to its column. This is a very impressive Obelisk with a statue of Saint George slaying the dragon at its base.

Maybe not as impressive as Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower , the skyscrapers of the Moscow City (otherwise known as Moscow International Business Center) are so drastically different from dull Soviet architecture. With 239 meters and 60 floors, the Empire Tower is the seventh highest building in the business district.

The observation deck occupies 56 floor from where you have some panoramic views of the city. I loved the view in the direction of Moscow State University and Luzhniki stadium as well to the other side with residential quarters. The entrance fee is pricey, but if you’re want to get a bird’s eye view, the skyscraper is one of the best places for doing just that.

Day 4 – VDNKh, Worker and Collective Farm Woman Monument, The Ostankino TV Tower

Metro Station: VDNKh on Orange Line

VDNKh is one of my favorite attractions in Moscow. The weird abbreviation actually stands for Russian vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo khozyaystva (Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy). With more than 200 buildings and 30 pavilions on the grounds, VDNKh serves as an open-air museum. You can easily spend a full day here since the park occupies a very large area.

Places to Visit in Barcelona That Aren’t Beaches

First, there are pavilions that used to showcase different cultures the USSR was made of. Additionally, there is a number of shopping pavilions, as well as Moskvarium (an Oceanarium) that features a variety of marine species. VDNKh is a popular venue for events and fairs. There is always something going on, so I’d recommend checking their website if you want to see some particular exhibition.

A stone’s throw away from VDNKh there is a very distinctive 25-meters high monument. Originally built in 1937 for the world fair in Paris, the hulking figures of men and women holding a hammer and a sickle represent the Soviet idea of united workers and farmers. It doesn’t take much time to see the monument, but visiting it gives some idea of the Soviet Union’s grandiose aspirations.

I have a thing for tall buildings. So to continue my travel itinerary for one week in Moscow I decided to climb the fourth highest TV tower in the world. This iconic 540m tower is a fixture of the skyline. You can see it virtually from everywhere in Moscow, and this is where you can get the best panoramic views (yep, even better than Empire skyscraper).

Parts of the floor are made of tempered glass, so it can be quite scary to exit the elevator. But trust me, as you start observing buildings and cars below, you won’t want to leave. There is only a limited number of tickets per day, so you may want to book online. Insider tip: the first tour is cheaper, you can save up to $10 if go there early.

Day 5 – A Tour To Moscow Manor Houses

Metro Station: Kolomenskoye, Tsaritsyno on Dark Green Line / Kuskovo on Purple Line

I love visiting the manor houses and palaces in Moscow. These opulent buildings were generally built to house Russian aristocratic families and monarchs. Houses tend to be rather grand affairs with impressive architecture. And, depending on the whims of the owners, some form of a landscaped garden.

During the early part of the 20th century though, many of Russia’s aristocratic families (including the family of the last emperor) ended up being killed or moving abroad . Their manor houses were nationalized. Some time later (after the fall of the USSR) these were open to the public. It means that today a great many of Moscow’s finest manor houses and palaces are open for touring.

20 Travel Tips I’ve Learned From Travelling The World

There are 20 manor houses scattered throughout the city and more than 25 in the area around. But not all of them easily accessible and exploring them often takes a lot of time. I’d recommend focusing on three most popular estates in Moscow that are some 30-minute metro ride away from Kremlin.

Sandwiched between the Moscow River and the Andropov Avenue, Kolomenskoye is a UNESCO site that became a public park in the 1920’s. Once a former royal estate, now it is one of the most tranquil parks in the city with gorgeous views. The Ascension Church, The White Column, and the grounds are a truly grand place to visit.

You could easily spend a full day here, exploring a traditional Russian village (that is, in fact, a market), picnicking by the river, enjoying the Eastern Orthodox church architecture, hiking the grounds as well as and wandering the park and gardens with wildflower meadows, apple orchards, and birch and maple groves. The estate museum showcases Russian nature at its finest year-round.

12 Stunning National Parks and Regional Parks In France

If my travel itinerary for one week in Moscow was a family tree, Tsaritsyno Park would probably be the crazy uncle that no-one talks about. It’s a large park in the south of the city of mind-boggling proportions, unbelievable in so many ways, and yet most travelers have never heard of it.

The palace was supposed to be a summer home for Empress Catherine the Great. But since the construction didn’t meet with her approval the palace was abandoned. Since the early 1990’s the palace, the pond, and the grounds have been undergoing renovations. The entire complex is now looking brighter and more elaborately decorated than at possibly any other time during its history. Like most parks in Moscow, you can visit Tsaritsyno free of charge, but there is a small fee if you want to visit the palace.

How To Stop Procrastinating When Trip Planning

Last, but by no means least on my Moscow itinerary is Kuskovo Park . This is definitely an off-the-beaten-path place. While it is not easily accessible, you will be rewarded with a lack of crowds. This 18th-century summer country house of the Sheremetev family was one of the first summer country estates of the Russian nobility. And when you visit you’ll quickly realize why locals love this park.

Like many other estates, Kuskovo has just been renovated. So there are lovely French formal garden, a grotto, and the Dutch house to explore. Make sure to plan your itinerary well because the estate is some way from a metro station.

Day 6 – Explore the Golden Ring

Creating the Moscow itinerary may keep you busy for days with the seemingly endless amount of things to do. Visiting the so-called Golden Ring is like stepping back in time. Golden Ring is a “theme route” devised by promotion-minded journalist and writer Yuri Bychkov.

Having started in Moscow the route will take you through a number of historical cities. It now includes Suzdal, Vladimir, Kostroma, Yaroslavl and Sergiev Posad. All these awe-inspiring towns have their own smaller kremlins and feature dramatic churches with onion-shaped domes, tranquil residential areas, and other architectural landmarks.

Two Weeks In Thailand: The Perfect 14-Day Itinerary

I only visited two out of eight cities included on the route. It is a no-brainer that Sergiev Posad is the nearest and the easiest city to see on a day trip from Moscow. That being said, you can explore its main attractions in just one day. Located some 70 km north-east of the Russian capital, this tiny and overlooked town is home to Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, UNESCO Site.

You Will Also Like: 3-Day London Itinerary

Sergiev Posad is often described as being at the heart of Russian spiritual life. So it is uncommon to see the crowds of Russian pilgrims showing a deep reverence for their religion. If you’re traveling independently and using public transport, you can reach Sergiev Posad by bus (departs from VDNKh) or by suburban commuter train from Yaroslavskaya Railway Station (Bahnhof). It takes about one and a half hours to reach the town.

Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is a great place to get a glimpse of filling and warming Russian lunch, specifically at the “ Gostevaya Izba ” restaurant. Try the duck breast, hearty potato and vegetables, and the awesome Napoleon cake.

Day 7 – Gorky Park, Izmailovo Kremlin, Patriarch’s Ponds

Metro Station: Park Kultury or Oktyabrskaya on Circle Line / Partizanskaya on Dark Blue Line / Pushkinskaya on Dark Green Line

Gorky Park is in the heart of Moscow. It offers many different types of outdoor activities, such as dancing, cycling, skateboarding, walking, jogging, and anything else you can do in a park. Named after Maxim Gorky, this sprawling and lovely park is where locals go on a picnic, relax and enjoy free yoga classes. It’s a popular place to bike around, and there is a Muzeon Art Park not far from here. A dynamic location with a younger vibe. There is also a pier, so you can take a cruise along the river too.

How to Save Money While Traveling in Europe

The Kremlin in Izmailovo is by no means like the one you can find near the Red Square. Originally built for decorative purposes, it now features the Vernissage flea market and a number of frequent fairs, exhibitions, and conferences. Every weekend, there’s a giant flea market in Izmailovo, where dozens of stalls sell Soviet propaganda crap, Russian nesting dolls, vinyl records, jewelry and just about any object you can imagine. Go early in the morning if you want to beat the crowds.

All the Bulgakov’s fans should pay a visit to Patriarch’s Ponds (yup, that is plural). With a lovely small city park and the only one (!) pond in the middle, the location is where the opening scene of Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita was set. The novel is centered around a visit by Devil to the atheistic Soviet Union is considered by many critics to be one of the best novels of the 20th century. I spent great two hours strolling the nearby streets and having lunch in the hipster cafe.

Conclusion and Recommendations

To conclude, Moscow is a safe city to visit. I have never had a problem with getting around and most locals are really friendly once they know you’re a foreigner. Moscow has undergone some serious reconstruction over the last few years. So you can expect some places to be completely different. I hope my one week Moscow itinerary was helpful! If you have less time, say 4 days or 5 days, I would cut out day 6 and day 7. You could save the Golden Ring for a separate trip entirely as there’s lots to see!

What are your thoughts on this one week Moscow itinerary? Are you excited about your first time in the city? Let me know in the comments below!

JOIN MY FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER!

Email Address *

YOU WILL ALSO LIKE

10 Dishes You Must Try When Going To Moscow

15 Fantastic and Easy Day Trips Close to Moscow

When Is the Best Time To Visit Russia

24 comments.

Ann Snook-Moreau

Moscow looks so beautiful and historic! Thanks for including public transit information for those of us who don’t like to rent cars.

MindTheTravel

Yup, that is me 🙂 Rarely rent + stick to the metro = Full wallet!

Mariella Blago

Looks like you had loads of fun! Well done. Also great value post for travel lovers.

Thanks, Mariella!

I have always wanted to go to Russia, especially Moscow. These sights look absolutely beautiful to see and there is so much history there!

Agree! Moscow is a thousand-year-old city and there is definitely something for everyone.

Tara Pittman

Those are amazing buildings. Looks like a place that would be amazing to visit.

Adriana Lopez

Never been to Moscow or Russia but my family has. Many great spots and a lot of culture. Your itinerary sounds fantastic and covers a lot despite it is only a short period of time.

What was their favourite thing about Russia?

Gladys Parker

I know very little about Moscow or Russia for the\at matter. I do know I would have to see the Red Square and all of its exquisite architectural masterpieces. Also the CATHEDRAL OF CHRIST THE SAVIOUR. Thanks for shedding some light on visiting Moscow.

Thanks for swinging by! The Red Square is a great starting point, but there way too many places and things to discover aside from it!

Ruthy @ Percolate Kitchen

You are making me so jealous!! I’ve always wanted to see Russia.

Moscow is in my bucket list, I don’t know when I can visit there, your post is really useful. As a culture rich place we need to spend at least week.

DANA GUTKOWSKI

Looks like you had a great trip! Thanks for all the great info! I’ve never been in to Russia, but this post makes me wanna go now!

Wow this is amazing! Moscow is on my bucket list – such an amazing place to visit I can imagine! I can’t wait to go there one day!

The building on the second picture looks familiar. I keep seeing that on TV.

Reesa Lewandowski

What beautiful moments! I always wish I had the personality to travel more like this!

Perfect itinerary for spending a week in Moscow! So many places to visit and it looks like you had a wonderful time. I would love to climb that tower. The views I am sure must have been amazing!

I was lucky enough to see the skyline of Moscow from this TV Tower and it is definitely mind-blowing.

Chelsea Pearl

Moscow is definitely up there on my travel bucket list. So much history and iconic architecture!

Thumbs up! 🙂

Blair Villanueva

OMG I dream to visit Moscow someday! Hope the visa processing would be okay (and become more affordable) so I could pursue my dream trip!

Yup, visa processing is the major downside! Agree! Time and the money consuming process…

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies

My website uses cookies so that I can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to my website and helping me to understand which sections of Mind The Travel you find most interesting and useful.

You can adjust all of your cookie settings by navigating the tabs on the left hand side.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that I can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, I will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit my website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

R&K Insider

Join our newsletter to get exclusives on where our correspondents travel, what they eat, where they stay. Free to sign up.

A History of Moscow in 13 Dishes

Featured city guides.

• China Edition

• China Daily PDF
• China Daily E-paper

Russia increases tourism and cultural cooperation with China

By Pan Yixuan | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-09-07 09:09

A meeting themed “Russia-China Cultural and Tourism Cooperation” was held at the Russian House in Beijing on Tuesday.

Representatives from China and Russia discussed tourism and cultural cooperation.

During an interview with Evgeny Kozlov, first deputy head of the Office of the Mayor and Government of Moscow and chairman of the Moscow City Tourism Committee, he highlighted business and film cooperation between the two countries.

Beijing and Moscow have enhanced business and tourism cooperation after the pandemic. Kozlov mentioned a large-scale communication with “15 companies from Moscow met with 150 companies from Beijing” and methods to promote Moscow-Beijing mutual tourist flow including “more than 56 direct flights from Moscow to Beijing”.

According to Kozlov, businessmen and elder people make up most of the Chinese tourists to Russia and social media has been an important channel to promote Russia’s tourism to Chinese people, especially young people.

Kozlov stressed that an optimistic attitude is necessary to develop tourism in the post-pandemic era.

Besides, “film can be a new kind of business communication,” said Kozlov. He mentioned that Moscow has a cinema platform initiative to create platforms for Russian and Chinese film producers. Studios of about 300 hectares are under construction in Moscow for future investment and cooperation in film production.

Kozlov said cooperation to create new fashion connections would be considered when talking about a fashion trend in China that combines traditional Chinese style and characteristics.

More From Forbes

7 international destinations perfect for a golf trip.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

You’ve played some of the best golf courses in the United States . Now, you’re looking to pack your clubs, rally some friends, and hit the links on an international golf trip. But which parts of the world boast the best collection of golf courses?

Top Golf Destinations

From Latin America to the South Pacific — and, of course, Scotland — here’s a list of seven international destinations perfect for a golf trip.

1. Scotland: The Birthplace of Golf

The famous Swilcan bridge on the 18th hole of the Old Course links in St Andrews, Scotland. Many ... [+] famous golfers have traditionally posed for photographs on this bridge at the end of their tournament rounds, thanking the crowds for their support. The Royal & Ancient clubhouse can be seen towards the left of the background.

The Scottish seaside town of St. Andrews is known around the world as the birthplace of golf, and the iconic Old Course headlines most golfers’ bucket lists. Book a stay at the golf-inspired Rusacks St Andrews, where rooms come with views of the hallowed turf.

Even if you can’t score a tee time at the Old Course, there’s plenty more courses beckoning. In fact, Scotland has more golf courses per person than anywhere else in the world. From the links of Fife to courses along the dunes of Aberdeenshire’s coast, the country has more than 550 courses.

Scotland’s weather is known to fluctuate, but the golf season is typically April to September.

2. Ireland: A Links Paradise

Google issues ‘critical’ chrome update for all windows users, new ios 18 ai security move changes the game for all iphone users, world war i tactics make a comeback as a ukrainian gunner in the back of a propeller plane shoots down a russian drone.

Adare Manor in Ireland.

Ireland is nicknamed the “green of dreams” and the island is home to more than 400 golf clubs. A third of the world’s natural links courses are here, and more than 240,000 golfers make the pilgrimage to Ireland each year to play on the unforgiving fairways.

In County Limerick, Adare Manor is a coveted stay for golfers. The championship golf course designed by golf architect Tom Fazio will host the 2027 Ryder cup.

While most courses are open all year round, the best time for Ireland golf trips is from April to October. In peak summer, it stays light out until 10 p.m., which means you can play a couple of rounds and make the most of your golf vacation.

3. Fiji: Luxury Private Island Greens

Denaru Golf & Racquet Club

Fiji is a draw for all types of vacationers, from honeymooners to scuba divers. But it’s also a golfer’s paradise in the South Pacific, with more than a dozen courses scattered across the islands and stunning fairways lined with palm trees.

For those coming for golf, Viti Levu, the main island, is home to three championship courses: Natadola Bay Championship Golf Course, which is located at the InterContinental Resort and comes with Pacific Ocean views, Denarau Golf & Racquet Club, and The Pearl South Pacific Golf Course.

Fun fact: The country has even produced one of the world’s top golfers, Vijay Singh, who fell in love with the game at the Nadi Airport Golf Course.

4. New Zealand: Dramatic Scenery

Te Arai Links in Tomarata, New Zealand

In New Zealand, golf is the sport with the highest participation among both men and women. The country has more than 400 golf courses, and the dramatic landscapes — from craggy, isolated coastlines tracing the greens to soaring mountains in the alpine areas — make it one of the most idyllic destinations for golfers.

Renowned architect Tom Doak has said “no country has seen its golf courses improve more over the past 20 years than New Zealand.” One of his famous New Zealand courses is Cape Kidnappers, which is perched above the ocean on clifftops, and built on ridge-and-valley landscape.

A 90 minute drive from Auckland (or 25 minutes via helicopter), Te Arai Links , which has two links golf courses along the coastline is also a sought-after destination. One course was designed by Doak, and the other is from Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. In between tee times, the area is known for its surf breaks and lively nearby market towns, Mangawhai and Matakana, as well as its vineyards and olive groves.

October through April is considered high season, and golfers will pay less the other times of year.

5. Mexico: Mountain, Desert And Ocean Landscapes

Villa del Palmar at the Islands of Loreto

Los Cabos and the Baja Peninsula have long dominated as one of the best golf destinations in not just Latin America, but the world, thanks to its mountain-desert-ocean landscape, gentle sea breezes, and a collection of cacti-studded courses designed by some of the world’s greatest golf architects, like Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Greg Norman and Robert Trent Jones, Jr.

In Loreto, which is on the Eastern coast of Baja California Peninsula, golfers can tee off in a UNESCO World Heritage site when they play a round at Villa del Palmar at the Islands of Loreto by Danzante Bay, which overlooks the turquoise waters of the Sea of Cortez. Travelers can book packages Unlimited Golf or Spa that comes with unlimited rounds for three days.

Golf continues to grow and get better throughout Mexico, with more than 200 courses to play. Beyond the Baja Peninsula, some other top golf spots in Mexico include the courses dotting the Pacific Coastline and in the Riviera Maya, like El Camaleón, an 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed course that moves through tropical jungle, mangroves, and past freshwater canals. It’s also the first PGA Tour Course in Latin America.

6. Vietnam: A Fast-Growing Golf Destination

Hoiana Shores in Vietnam

For golfers looking for the next ‘it’ destination, turn your attention to Vietnam, where some of the world’s best golf architects are designing courses in the mountains, jungles, and along its coastline. Before 2020, there were about 80 golf courses in Vietnam, many attached to luxury resorts. By 2025, more than 200 courses will be built out.

Golfers can find year-round golf in Vietnam, heading into the highlands like Dalat for a cool mist and mountain breezes and hitting and booking tee times in Ho Chi Minh City and Southern Vietnam throughout the year. November to April is dry and cool in Northern Vietnam, and the same goes for Central Vietnam from February to May.

Hoina Shores Golf Club , designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., is a must-play for any golf enthusiast visiting Vietnam. It’s located within the $4 billion Hoiana Casino and Resort development on the Vietnamese coast south of Danang.

7. Mauritius: Bucket List Golf Destination

Anahita Golf Club

Mauritius is known for its stunning beaches and lush rainforests and unofficial world wonders like the Chamarel Seven Colored Earth Geopark, a sand dune bursting with colors. But this island in the Indian Ocean also has a history of golf. The tourism office claims that in 1844, when it was under British rule, Mauritius was the third country in the world to be introduced to the sport and Gymkhana Golf Club was the fourth country club in the world where golf was played

Today, Mauritius has 10 18-hole courses and three 9-hole golf courses, including the bucket-list worthy Iles aux Cerfs Golf Club at Shangri-La Le Touessrok, Mauritius . Golfers take a complimentary boat shuttle to the golf course where 18 holes come with scenic ocean views. The resort’s second course is Anahita Golf Club, which is set on a former sugar plantation and backed by mountains and fringed by a lagoon.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

First scientist to publish Covid sequence in China ‘evicted’ from lab

Zhang Yongzhen stages protest, as government attempts to avoid scrutiny over handling of outbreak

The first scientist to publish a sequence of the Covid-19 virus in China was staging a sit-in protest after authorities locked him out of his laboratory.

Zhang Yongzhen, a virologist, wrote in an online post on Monday that he and his team were suddenly notified they were being evicted from their lab, the latest in a series of setbacks, demotions and ousters since he published the sequence in early January 2020.

The move shows how the Chinese government continues to pressure and control scientists, seeking to avoid scrutiny of its handling of the coronavirus outbreak .

Zhang wrote the post on the social media platform Weibo but it was later deleted.

In protest, Zhang had been sitting outside his lab since Sunday despite pouring rain, he said in the post.

Zhang, when reached by phone on Tuesday, said it was “inconvenient” for him to speak, however a collaborator confirmed on Monday the demonstration was taking place.

• Coronavirus
• Infectious diseases
• Asia Pacific
• Medical research
• Microbiology

More on this story

Newly released Chinese Covid data points to infected animals in Wuhan

Doctor who exposed China’s cover-up of Sars crisis dies aged 91

China to reopen to foreign tourists for first time since Covid crisis

Detained activist fears for missing zero-Covid protesters in China

China claims ‘decisive victory’ over Covid amid doubt over figures

China’s provinces spent almost £43bn on Covid measures in 2022

Eight in 10 people in China caught Covid since early December, say officials

Chinese flock to Hong Kong to get private Covid booster shots

Chinese warned not to visit elderly relatives as Covid spreads from cities

China halts short-term visas for South Korea and Japan over Covid travel curbs

Most viewed.