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Feeling overwhelmed by your family's daily grind and looking for a way out? Welcome to "Dig the Well," the podcast that empowers you to build the life you deserve. Your hosts Vikki and John are top earners at Neora. Vikki is a # 1 best-selling author and John is a retired Los Angeles Police Officer. Together they’ve navigated family challenges, raised successful kids, and achieved financial freedom.
In each episode of "Dig the Well," they dive deep into the strategies and mindsets that can help you break free from the constraints of the traditional 9-5 lifestyle. They understand the unique challenges faced by stay-at-home moms and families who are juggling multiple responsibilities and struggling to find balance. Their mission is to provide you with the tools and inspiration you need to create additional income, gain more family time, and ultimately, transform your life.
Throughout their journey, they’ve had the privilege of working with renowned figures like Jack Canfield and Jeff Olson, whose wisdom and insights have greatly influenced their path to success. They’ve also celebrated significant milestones, such as raising two valedictorian children and supporting their son, an Olympic weightlifter on Team USA. These experiences have equipped them with valuable knowledge and practical tips that they’re eager to share with you.
"Dig the Well" is more than just a podcast; it's a community of like-minded individuals who are committed to personal growth and financial independence. Whether you're worried about your family's financial security, longing for more quality time with your spouse, or simply seeking a way to reignite your passions, this podcast offers actionable insights and real-life stories that can help you achieve your goals.
Our mission is to inspire you with the belief that if we can do it, so can you. We want you to feel empowered, educated, and ready to take control of your future. By tuning in to "Dig the Well," you'll gain the confidence and knowledge needed to break free from the daily grind and create a life full of possibilities.
So, if you're ready to transform your family's future and discover the greatness within you, join us on this journey. Subscribe to "Dig the Well" and start building the life you deserve today!
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
John:Ever wondered how you could turn your side hustle into a full time gig and spend more time together?
Vikki:Hi. I'm Vikki, a number one best selling author.
John:And I'm John, a retired Los Angeles police officer. Welcome to Dig the Well, where we help couples navigate the world of business.
Vikki:We've been married for thirty five years, and because we built successful side business, John retired nine years earlier than he originally planned from the Los Angeles Police Department after twenty five years on the job. Now we spend more time together, and we want to help couples like you do the same.
John:Join us as we help you overcome common obstacles, and we show you how to make extra income without sacrificing family time.
Vikki:Ready to dig deep and build your well? Let's get started.
Vikki:Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Dig The Well. We're glad you're here.
John:Yeah.
Vikki:Yeah. Yeah. Howdy. This is a fun one. This is gonna be fun because who doesn't love to travel?
Vikki:Put if you're on a platform where you can comment, put in the comments if you love to travel. We would love to see all those comments. We love to travel.
John:Yeah. We do. Yeah. And we've got to we've been able to travel to a lot of places.
Vikki:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we have got some tips for you today on business travel, making the most of your money, when you're traveling, and I get to interview John because he is our travel guru.
John:Yeah. I wish. So preface this right right off that we don't we're not saying that we're experts. I think we know, probably more than most about travel because we've just done it so much, and we've learned a lot of tips and tricks along the way, and we wanna kinda share that with y'all. But we're not saying that we know everything about it.
John:And some of the things people may not agree with, and they may know something better, and that's awesome, and let us know if there is. Help us out too. Yeah. We're just trying to share what we've done, what we've learned, and how it's, how we think it's really benefited us for travel, and it saved us money and allowed us to fly in the pointy end of the plane more often than not. Just just with some of these easy little little tip little tricks that we do.
Vikki:Yeah. And this is being recorded. If you're listening, you know, later, years later, this is being recorded in March of twenty twenty five. So things can also change.
John:Yeah. You might be on a supersonic jet or something that they may not really apply to.
Vikki:But some of the tips, you know, in the travel industry, it does change. So that's the only reason I wanted to bring that up. Because you John, I used to do my own travel, just so you know, for the first from 02/2014, I was traveling a lot alone without John, and I figured some stuff out, and I was pretty proud of myself. Yeah. But then you took it over in
John:After I retired. Yeah. And maybe a little before that because I was traveling a little bit more.
Vikki:And that was one last thing for me on my plate that John's and he really enjoys it. It's actually, I enjoyed it too. I was kind of sad to toss it over to him, but, but I'm glad he
John:do it so much better.
Vikki:I'm glad he does it for us now. And, and he actually helps our team, in our business when they are traveling somewhere and they are looking for flights. He's got some really great tips for them. So he gives tips and sometimes just watches out for really great flights. So let's dive right in.
Vikki:Okay. So I've got my list of questions because I don't wanna forget to ask these juicy important questions. So the first one, are you ready, mister Downey?
John:I'm ready.
Vikki:Okay. Is it always best to fly the cheapest fare?
John:Yeah. So I look at it like there's two philosophies to flying. So one is always finding the cheapest airfare and just grabbing those tickets. It may be on who knows what airline it is? It could be on any kind of airline.
John:Or the other philosophy is pick an airline that you wanna fly mostly, to focus most of your flying through and try and earn elite status through that airline. And then you also amass a number of frequent flyer miles or points, whatever the airline uses. When I refer to miles or if I refer to points, it's the same thing. Right? It's some sort of currency that's offered by the airline, a credit card, whomever it is, that you can use, and it actually has value to it because you can use that to trade it for another flight.
John:And and a lot of these same principles apply to rental cars and hotels. Right? It's just pretty much anything in the travel industry is about the same. And you'll see a lot of similarities to rental cars and hotels that you do with airfare, and it has to do with how they do their pricing anymore. It's very dynamic.
John:It's changing all the time, and it's it's it's out of a pain. But anyways, so if you if you focus with one airline, you're going to earn a ton of frequent flyer miles that you can redeem later. And that's nice because when you buy those when you spend your frequent flyer miles or your points, for what they call an award ticket, all you're paying then is taxes and fees. And the taxes it's not sales tax, is what I'm talking about. It's the different taxes that are associated with, that that ticket.
John:Mhmm. Oftentimes, it's not that much. Sometimes it's like $5.
Vikki:Yeah. It's crazy. I know we've gone to Europe and barely paid anything, and then we've gone to Mexico and their fees are a lot higher.
John:Yeah. So Mexico, I think during the pandemic, they raised their gate fees that they charged the airlines. So the airlines pass that fee onto the award tickets by adding that in. So you're paying those those fees anyhow. You know, another thing too is if you're gonna buy an award flight, an award ticket, the one airline you wanna want to avoid, like the plague is British Air Oh.
John:Because they pass a fuel surcharge Uh-huh. Onto their award tickets. Yeah. So the award ticket could cost as much as just buying the flight out outright if you just log in to the website.
Vikki:That's a really pro tip. Yeah. They suck. So yeah. So regarding both of those ways, right, finding the cheapest and doing that and just exclusively going with one airline or grouping of airlines.
Vikki:We used to do the cheapest. I think almost everybody starts out that way. Mhmm. I think it's taught from our parents. I don't know.
Vikki:But everyone I talk to, it tends to just Google go to Google Flights or go somewhere and try to find the cheapest and just go with that. And if you travel once in a while, that's that's an okay way to go. Right? Right. Right?
John:Exactly. Because if you don't fly that much, you're not that frequent of a flyer, it doesn't matter whether you have airline status with or status with a particular airline because you don't fly enough to make it worthwhile. But if you're flying a lot or at least several times a year, you may want it may be worth spending a little bit more money on your flights and focusing on one airline earning status so you get those free upgrades to first class. Get and some airlines, their elites, they allow them lounge access.
Vikki:Mhmm.
John:And then the other thing too is when you have you you wanna look at the right airline to to work with. Let's say you're gonna use that strategy. You're gonna fly a particular airline. You want elite status. You wanna build up your miles with that airline so you can take some free flights.
John:You want to look for an airline that you're close to their hub. So they all have major hubs. Most all airlines fly in what they call a a hub, a spoke kind of a pattern where they fly into a major hub, and then from that hub, you can take a flight to the airline airport you wanna get to. So, like, for us, we live close to Orange County Airport, John Wayne Airport, but that's not a major hub for anyone. It's it's a small air which is why we love that air air Yeah.
John:Same with Ontario, another great airport. Very quiet, very easy to get in and out of. Yeah. It's everything that LAX is not. Right?
John:Yeah. But what LAX is that none of them Denmark is a huge hub for almost all major domestic airlines. And some of the cheapest flights you're gonna find from LAX because it's a big hub. Generally, they're they're gonna be cheaper airfare from the hubs. But let's say you live near
Vikki:Tucson, Arizona.
John:Yeah. So yeah. I guess that's close to Phoenix, so you probably wanna stick with American because Phoenix is a big hub for American. So American was taken over by US Air, and so they use their main hubs from US Air, which was, Phoenix, it's Charlotte, it's DFW, Yep. And Los Angeles.
Vikki:Yeah. Yeah.
John:And oftentimes we found flights and we leave LAX and you think, okay, we're gonna go straight to wherever we're we're flying. No. We make a stop over at in Phoenix. Right. We do.
John:So it's a Straight little
Vikki:flight Like an hour.
John:Change planes, and we're off again. Yeah. Oh, and another thing too is that this just has nothing to do with what we're talking about right here. But if you're looking for flights and let's say you still book through a travel agent because a lot of people still use travel agents, and they're awesome. We don't, but a lot of people do.
John:If you tell your travel agent you want a direct flight, that doesn't mean it's a nonstop. People get the two the two terms. They think they're the same, nonstop and direct. It's not. You can book a direct flight or a travel agent can book you a direct flight if that's what you want, and it may make one or two stops.
Vikki:Yeah. Layovers. I was confused by that.
John:Yeah. A direct flight simply means the flight number doesn't change. So it gets you to from your destit origin to your destination with the same flight number. However, it may make a stop or two in between. It may go for let's say you're taking a flight from LAX to JFK, and it's not a nonstop flight.
John:You say, I own I want a direct flight, but it makes a stop at DFW. And you're flying, let's say, American Airlines flight 13 Mhmm. To JFK. When it lands in DFW, it leaves DFW's a a three 13 going to JFK. So it is truly a direct flight, but it's not a nonstop.
John:So if you want a nonstop, say nonstop.
Vikki:Yeah. I remember you had to tell me that because I kept calling things. I think a lot of people do. We just say direct thinking nonstop.
John:Like, we'll talk to people and they'll say, yeah. I had to fly out of whatever airport they've like, for us, we a lot of times fly out of LAX. We don't like it. The drive there is a nightmare. The drive home is a nightmare.
John:Parking isn't particularly fun. But we people say, well, I fly out of LAX because that's the only place I can find a direct flight to where I'm going, when what they really mean is that's the only place I can find it nonstop to where I wanna go. Like, we just we just got back from Tulum, Mexico. And so many of the people that live live near us, they were all flying out of Orange County, out of out of John And none of them had as far as I know, not a single one of them had a nonstop because I don't think you can I don't think there are any options nonstop to Tulum, Mexico from John Wayne? LAX, no problem.
Vikki:That's why we bit the bullet, and we're so glad we did because their day turned out to be twelve hours or more. Ours was short and sweet. And that's another thing that yeah.
John:Another thing to keep in mind too is if if if you need to be somewhere or if you really wanna be somewhere at a certain time, you really wanna catch a nonstop flight because, and you wanna book that early in the morning because it's less likely that your flight will be delayed. Most flights aren't canceled. It's rare that a flight cancellation occurs, but delays are pretty common.
Vikki:Right.
John:And if you have a morning flight, there's the the generally, the plane's been there since the night before. So it's been at the gate. It should be good to go in the morning when you're scheduled to leave. If you're taking a later in the afternoon or evening flight, that flight, they're relying on a plane coming to your coming to you. Mhmm.
John:If that flight is delayed, it's gonna be late delayed getting to you, so you're gonna be delayed taking off, getting to your destination. And the reason why you want a nonstop is, for the obvious reason, there's no connection. You're not you're not stopping, you're not changing planes, you're not moving to the airport. And what if your flight is delayed and you can't make that connection? Then you're screwed because you might have to wait another day or two for another flight to get to where you're going.
John:So
Vikki:So that's a pro tip right there. Most people don't even think about that. Right? That's a super pro tip.
John:Yeah. And and getting back to the original thing about the different strategies, whether you wanna stick with one airline or or fly the cheapest, flying the cheapest saves you money, obviously. Right? But then again, some of those those what they call ultra low cost carriers, they're an ultra low cost carrier for a reason. Right?
John:They lack the amenities. They lack the service. They lack they lack comfortable seats.
Vikki:That's for sure. Some of
John:them are kinda sketchy on their plane maintenance. So Yeah. I'm not I'm not saying don't fly them, and we've flown them before. I just don't fly them anymore. Yeah.
John:They're they're We got to a
Vikki:point in our life, right, that we're paying a little more, but it's worth it.
John:It's definitely worth it. Our minds. Just just for the just for the the the aircraft maintenance. Right? For them, because they're working on such low margins, they have to push those planes.
John:The plane if the plane's not in the air, it's not making them money. So they don't want the plane on the ground going through the maintenance that other airlines will put through will will maintain their aircraft in a shorter schedule. So in other words, they'll they'll keep up with maintenance better, even calling in those planes, which they don't like to do, but sometimes it works out better for them to get those planes in, get it get it maintained, get it back out, and they have a huge staff of mechanics that can do that. If you're flying on some of these ultra I'm not saying all of them, but some of them, they're they're they're pushing those planes so hard. Yeah.
Vikki:It's scary. Alright. So why so now, you know, maybe you're having the philosophy. Okay. I'm gonna I don't travel a lot, so I'm gonna go with the cheapest fare and just do that.
Vikki:Or maybe you're starting to see I am traveling more. I'm gonna pick a carrier, like John was talking about, and go with them exclusively. So so you've got that all set in your mind now. Okay. But the question arises, why do fares change?
Vikki:And fares mean let's clarify for everybody. Fares mean the the price you're gonna pay. Right?
John:Yeah. The ticket price.
Vikki:Right. Just wanted to throw that out there because I I don't know. Sometimes some people don't understand. So Yeah. Why do fare prices change?
John:Oh, for a number of reasons. Right? And and generally, it changes as it gets closer to the departure time the departure day. But they change anyhow because if you think about it, if you're sitting if if you actually ask people who you're sitting next to on an airplane, you're gonna find if you ask 10 people, you're gonna get 10 different answers on what they paid for their ticket. Alright.
John:It's it's amazing. And some of the times, you're gonna find that the person sitting right next to you has basically the same seat that you do paid maybe half as much as you did or maybe paid twice what you paid. And a lot of it comes down to when they booked. Because fares are done in fare buckets. So there's only a certain you know, like, if you've got if you if the plane has, let's say, a 50 seats in it in in main cabin.
John:So and they're all relatively the same. Right? Out of the 50, they'll release a certain amount of seats in a low fare bucket. So in the so that's why booking early makes sense because you're gonna probably have a better chance of booking in one of the lowest fare bucket. But once they run out of seats, they maybe have released however many seats in that fare bucket.
John:Once they run out, it move the next purchase goes into the next fare bucket. And then until that fare bucket runs out, and the next purchase goes into the next fare bucket. And that's why you'll see on some on some airlines websites, you'll run, a search and it'll come up with, round trip $410, and it says two seats left. Well, it doesn't mean there's only two seats on the aircraft. Like, there's two seats at that price, at that bucket that's left.
John:So if you're running a search for just yourself or just like the two of us, and I see the two seats left, I go I know I can get those two seats. So we book them, but what if there's a third person flying with us?
Vikki:And that's happened. Yeah. It's happened many times.
John:The way it works is you would think, okay. You're gonna get those last two seats at that lower fare bucket and the next person's gonna get the next one. That's not how it works. So on airline reservations, they have to have everybody in the same fare bucket at the same fare at the same booking code. So you'll skip those two seats in the cheaper fare bucket and they'll automatically give you the three seats out of the next higher fare bucket.
John:K. So how that works when we fly together when we fly together, I'll oftentimes buy separate tickets on separate reservations because they're if I run the I'll run the search for the seat with the two of us, the two passengers, and it tells me how many of the how much it's gonna cost. But then I'll run another search for just one passenger. And sometimes I'll see the price come down.
Vikki:I've done that.
John:Which tells me then there's only one seat left in that cheaper fare bucket. But since the reservation has two people, they have to put us both in the same fare bucket, they move us up. So we both pay the higher amount. Uh-huh. So what I'll do then is I'll book two separate reservations.
John:I'll book one for myself and one for Vic, and then that way we're gonna get that last seat in the lowest fare bucket and then the one seat in the next fare bucket higher.
Vikki:Interesting. And you've learned this all on your
John:own. Know.
Vikki:Amazing. That. Right? So are you recommending that that's what people couples that are traveling should do?
John:Well, I mean, if you wanna maximize your savings and if you don't mind being on two reservations and here's the other tip trick too is let's say that happens and you find that you've got the last seat in that cheap fare bucket and you have one other seat and the other one. So you're on two separate reservations. You can call reservations and ask them to link your reservations together.
Vikki:And link is the operative word because I kept saying connect, and John's all, that's not the word. You need to use their language.
John:That's one thing. You're learning through this industry that they have their own little language, and it's and it's really cool because they're all human. Right? Especially the people who are answering these these customer service and reservations phone lines. They're on the phone all day long with people and I would have to believe that most of the people aren't even nice to them.
John:Yeah. Right? It's usually they're calling because they're having a flight problem. Right. And they take it out on the poor person on the other end of the line who obviously had nothing to do with your flight problem Right.
John:And is trying to help you.
Vikki:Yeah. So be nice.
John:So And I'll tell you, when we've always been nice to airline personnel and they've always been so nice back.
Vikki:Until until, you know Yeah. We're not getting what should happen, then we can be mean. Right?
John:I don't think we're
Vikki:Not mean, but we can put our foot down. Like, I want to speak to your supervisor. We're firm with
John:certain things. Especially, there's been times when we've talked to someone who they didn't really don't even understand some of their own policies. They say they can't do that. They're like, well, actually, you can. Is there someone else I can talk to?
John:And here's here's another tip too for you. Yeah. If you're calling on the phone, oftentimes it's better just to say thank you very much for your time. No problem. And just be done, hang up and call again.
Vikki:Yeah. And isn't there a thing? Was thinking of acronym
John:for that.
Vikki:It's like hang up and call again. So h u
John:I don't know.
Vikki:A anyway. Yeah. There's Okay. There's an acronym for that. And people know it because you'll talk to other, like, travelers and they're like, oh, did you x y z l m n o p?
Vikki:You know? It's true. It's hang up and call again.
John:It's true with a lot of different industries and businesses. Right? Oftentimes, you're speaking to someone who you know that they can help you, but they're either not willing to help you or they don't know that they can help you. They may not even know their own policies that well.
Vikki:And we've done it. So that's happened where
John:Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know,
Vikki:they clearly don't know their policy. John's reading the policy on the website. They're reciting something completely different. He's like, you you don't even know your policy, but instead of arguing, you just say, okay. Thank you.
Vikki:Click. And he tells me what he's doing. They didn't even know. I'm calling back. And when you call back, the next person knows the policy and does the right thing.
Vikki:It it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So So Interesting.
John:What I was was I
Vikki:gonna About the fair price fair why did the fairs change? We were talking about that.
John:Yeah. There was something to do with the but we got we got totally sidetracked on the hang up and call again. Yeah. Anyway, it's Jacob will come back to me in a little bit. Another reason why the fares change too, when you wanna book, like, people ask oh, was you're gonna I think you said you were gonna ask me that.
John:When was the best time?
Vikki:Oh, yeah. So next. Yeah.
John:Oh, so anyways, the fares change I wanna get get on this real quick is as you get closer to departure, fares almost always goes up, and I I don't I don't recall ever seeing them come down. And it usually occurs right around the twenty one day mark. Fares start they go up considerably. And then they go up again at about fourteen, about two weeks out, and then a week out, they'll go up another another pretty good jump, and they stay high. And the reason for it is they know they can make a ton of money on last minute travelers.
John:People who are booking last minute, usually they're doing that because they don't have any other alternatives. And, the airlines are gonna try and get as much money out of them as possible, and they're usually business travelers. Because oftentimes people who are planning a vacation, they plan their vacations out months, sometimes years in advance. Right. So they're not the ones booking in that seven day window before the flight.
John:It's usually always a business traveler. And business travel, they're not so concerned about the fare price. They just need to get their employee to from point a to point b.
Vikki:Right. They should be. Like, if you're like us, a micro entrepreneur or an entrepreneur Right. You should be concerned, but John's absolutely right. They're thinking of bigger Big companies down.
John:Big corporations. Just like, hey. Just we'll we'll book it, get it done, and and and even like if you look at airport parking, there's a huge difference in if you go to the parking lots on how much it costs for airport parking. Yet if you look at most business travelers, they book through the most expensive parking companies. And the reason why they do is they offer corporate accounts for them.
John:Right. You're not booking from a little company, you're booking from this big company, you have a corporate account, and they're good at almost every major airport. It's the same parking company, good at every major airport in The United States. It's simple. They just get billed once for all the parking for all their employees no matter where they are in the country.
John:It's simple. Although it's ridiculously expensive. It's like three, four times more than the parking lot next door.
Vikki:So we're teaching you, if you're a solo entrepreneur, how to do it right. Yeah. With this these philosophies
John:for sure. We're not a big corporation, so it does matter. Right? It does matter if we can save a hundred bucks on airfare.
Vikki:It does. Absolutely. So, you know, there's been a myth oh, you touched on it a little bit about when you should book. And I know that this is where an example where things change over the years depending when you're booking flights. So when I, back in 02/2014, was looking, there was a sweet spot of about the fifty six day mark is when the prices were rock bottom.
Vikki:That's what I was taught. And that but then as then John took over, and I tried to give him that information that I knew, hey. Are you gonna start looking at our flights? Because we're fifty six days out. He's all, oh, Vic, that doesn't matter.
Vikki:That has nothing to do with it. So that's an example. Why do they you know, when when are the best times to book that you do? And you did touch a little bit on why they do it.
John:But Yeah. And then I think you also had some idea of it was, like, best to book on, like, a certain day of the week. Yeah. Day of
Vikki:the week. So hit on that too.
John:And I think maybe at some at some point in time, it was true. There was probably something like that.
Vikki:Like Tuesdays were good, not weekends.
John:Now though. Today, it's not it's not like dumb.
Vikki:So that was a myth. Myth alert. Myth alert.
John:Yeah. I was reading I've I've read reports from from people who have analyzed thousands and thousands of air air air airfares over the last couple of years, and there is no pattern to it other than that Goldilocks window, which is most domestic flights or domestic flights have a Goldilocks window, which you're not booking too early and you're not booking too late, you're booking just right. It's one to about one to three months for domestic flight and then somewhere about two to eight months for international flights. The only exception to that would probably be be if you're flying in a holiday period, like you're flying around Thanksgiving or Christmas, then you'd want to probably add a few weeks to a month to that to start looking. But if you if you're flying and we'll stick with domestic for now.
John:If you're flying domestically and you haven't booked your flight and you knew you know about the flight. Right? You know ahead?
Vikki:Yeah. You've got a conference coming up. You know you need to go. Right. Yeah.
John:You know, months in advance. Sometimes you know a year in advance. Right. If you wait till the last month to book, man, you're you're leaving yourself with very few options and and you're probably gonna pay for
Vikki:And a lot of times then, a lot of entrepreneurs just won't even go. That that has and that breaks my heart because they didn't plan poor planning on their part made it so they're not gonna Proper
John:proper path.
Vikki:Yeah. That's what I was trying to
John:think of. That's piss poor performance? Yeah.
Vikki:It's true. Say that again? Prior
John:Seven p's to it.
Vikki:Okay. Say it again.
John:Prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
Vikki:Exactly. So don't do that to yourself. You know, we are we have a big international conference with our company coming up April April, '20 fifth, '20 sixth, I believe. Anyway, we, you know, bought our tickets for it months ago. I think a year ago with the last conference we bought our tickets.
Vikki:So we've known for a year, like you were saying.
John:But we didn't buy airfare for that a year ago.
Vikki:Right. We waited. And John will have things on the calendar, and he'll be looking ahead. And he's like, it's about time that we should be buying our conference air airline tickets. And so yeah.
Vikki:When was that for you that we did that?
John:I don't even recall. I
Vikki:feel like December is
John:But I start looking Yeah. I start looking at, like, some of the trends. And some of them just when you first look, it's like, wow. This is ridiculously high, and we're still pretty far out. It shouldn't be that high.
John:So it it matter with like, if you book too early, does it really make that much of a difference? Like, I booked flights, like, way in advance. I knew they were high, but I just wanted to get in there just because I was worried that the flights could go up. Right. Even though that we were months early, and I still booked it.
John:Right. And I was right. They were high, and they came down. And I'm thinking, gosh, you know, if you think, well, I'm screwed. The prices came down.
John:I already
Vikki:booked it. Pro tip alert. Pro tip alert.
John:Yeah. All you gotta do is pick up the phone, call reservations, and ask for the fare difference.
Vikki:That's it. That was actually on my notes to ask about But, yeah, you can chain you can most people don't realize that. They think they're locked in. They can't get their money back. They can't get any type of credit.
Vikki:So explain that in a little more detail.
John:So here's the deal. Like, when we book flights, I check I keep checking flights, and it's not really it's not that difficult to to do a real quick check on a flight. I'll use I usually use Google Flights just to track different flights, and they'll even give me an alert that says, hey. The the prices are down. The problem with Google Flights though, it it looks for the cheapest airfare on whatever airline you choose.
John:Like, instance, we fly a lot of American Airlines in Alaska, and it used to be solely for both of us American. It's not because they're the best airline in the world. It was just that back in the day when Vicky was flying and I wasn't, she decided, hey, I'm not gonna start I'm gonna stop the the strategy of flying the cheapest air possible, and instead, I'm gonna stick with one airline and amass frequent flyer miles and Got the credit card. So And all of that. Yeah.
John:So what she did was she looked into the all the the legacy airlines. Right? She's she's looking at American, United, and Delta to see which one worked out best for her. And it turned out to be American. At that time, American had a really good loyalty program.
John:Their advantage program was was one of the best. They had a number of things going for. Right. So she decided and they're still a decent airline. They went through a period where they were crappy, and I left them.
John:Yeah. As an executive platinum, their highest pub public tier level, I just had enough. And I've left them. I've sync up since gone to Alaska. I don't regret it.
John:I love Alaska Airlines.
Vikki:And the cool thing is they partner together. Mhmm.
John:Yeah. The problem with Alaska is they just don't fly to enough destinations. So I still have to fly American and like Vicky was saying, since they're a closed partnership, I still get Alaska credit and I can use my Alaska elite status on American Airlines. Yeah. But anyway
Vikki:So that's another pro tip.
John:Yeah. So Vic chose American Airlines to to to run with and like she said, she got their credit co branded credit card. There's reasons why you wanna get a co branded credit card. Another thing is people complain about paying bag fees, and if you fly Southwest, your bags don't fly free anymore.
Vikki:Yeah. I've seen a lot about people are upset.
John:I don't blame them. Right? Because there was always two bags flow free. Right? Yeah.
John:Flu free. Now it's zero unless you have status with them. Or here's the deal, just get their cobranded credit card. Yeah. Right?
John:I think if you have their cobranded credit card, you not only get Southwest what do they call it?
Vikki:Frequent rewards. Oh, that's it.
John:You not only get their points that's gonna help you. You can you can use those points to book a free flight somewhere, but it gives you it's gonna give you a free bag, I think.
Vikki:Yeah. Right? Exactly.
John:So it's worth it in just for that reason alone.
Vikki:And can we touch on that really quick? I think you were going somewhere else, but let's touch on that because I used to be one of those, I'm never paying for a credit card, an annual fee. I'm only getting free cards. Don't dare try to charge me. I had that philosophy.
Vikki:You know, I don't need to be paying a yearly fee. Well, I quickly learned that some cards are better than others, obviously, and some give you more rewards than you're even paying. For example, the American Airlines card that I have, the black card, I get admiral's club. I get into any admiral's club with that card. I find that it's worth it.
Vikki:I think we've used it time and time again. We would have been exhausted travelers if we didn't have it. We would have had to pay for food in the airport, like so many things. It's been worth it to me to get that. But and then John's investigated other cards for us because it might be a $99 fee.
Vikki:Right? But it gives you so much more. You get a free hotel stay somewhere. You get this. You get that.
Vikki:So gone are the days of not us not paying for a card. We do have some free cards, but we were not opposed. And that's what I kinda wanna ask John about. Like, what do you recommend for people maybe trying it for the first time paying for a card?
John:I would say look at the benefits and just sit down and on a piece of paper, start writing down, the benefits that make sense to you. Because some cards have benefits that you'll never use. Right. And then so, of course, there's no value what's at all with those with those, benefits that the card lists. But look at it and figure out which of the benefits you can actually use.
John:And how much is that worth to you? Like, for instance, one of our cards gives us a $400 dell dot com credit. So every six months, we can order 200 worth of stuff or whatever we order from dell.com, we get $200 off. And what does
Vikki:that cost us a year to have that card?
John:I forget. Anyways, there's a whole bunch I'm just saying that there's a whole I just wanna talk about that one benefit because there's other benefits with that card too. But what I'm saying is so that's $400 a year, but to me, is it really worth $400? Probably not because I don't order from dell.com every every six months. If I were like constantly ordering, it's a business card.
John:So it's it's geared toward businesses and they want Dell wants you to order your business supplies, computers and and peripherals and whatnot through them. So it gets you in a habit of always going to dell.com and ordering because you're gonna get $200 worth of free stuff, free credit, every every six months. So to me, it was worth something, but not quite worth $400. So I had to figure out how much was that worth to me, and I figured out it's probably worth about $200. Right?
John:Right. So we end up getting like our little gaming chairs.
Vikki:These chairs are from Dell.
John:It's worth it for that. But other than that, I don't know that I would, it was worth it to me. But anyways, make a list of of the benefits and if and how much they're actually worth to you. And then also consider the the signing signing bonus because there is a sign up bonus to most all credit cards that if you, are approved for the card, from the date you open the account, it may be thirty days, sixty days, however long, ninety days, maybe six months, but there's a certain spend requirement. So it may be $4,000 in the first six months of card, of card ownership.
John:So if you spend $4,000 in your first six months or maybe a thousand dollars in the first two months, whatever it is, if you reach that threshold, they're gonna give you a gob of points, a ton of points or miles. And and and if you look at a valuation, and there's websites that have valuations for all for every point system and every miles for for for airlines and the points for whether it's credit card points, rental car points, hotel points. It tells you what their points are worth or roughly what their points are worth. And you're gonna find that on several on many of those, that well sign up bonus, that welcome bonus is worth thousands of dollars of points. Mhmm.
John:And so, like, I know on some of the some of the cobranded, hotel cards, you can stay a week Yeah. At other hotels for just the welcome offer.
Vikki:Right. And some of the flight ones, you can take across country flight to and from and and another one sometimes.
John:Yeah. One of the airlines, you can, their welcome bonus on their on their co branded credit card is enough for a round trip flight to Europe.
Vikki:Oh, yeah. That's right. I've made some deals. So We should probably do a podcast on credit cards. But yes.
Vikki:So sometimes,
John:you're paying an annual fee and you and you think, gosh. That kinda sucks. I'm paying for nothing. You're not actually paying for nothing because if you look at the benefits, it may benefit you to pay the $3.04, $500 annual fee. It may be worth it to you.
John:And then there's some other strategy you can use strategies you can use to, to maximize, that welcome offer more than once. Some credit cards allow you to earn it more than once. Others, it's like American Express, it's once in your lifetime. Wow. Once you've earned that that welcome offer on that credit card
Vikki:Never again.
John:Very few exceptions. Wow. You're on your Social Security number is tied to it, and if you apply again, they're not gonna give you the welcome offer. Unless you're targeted and they offer it to you, then the best thing to do is call them and make sure and verify that you are eligible for the welcome offer because the welcome offers are huge if you can get them.
Vikki:Yeah. That's that is something that has totally transformed how we travel is taking advantage of the good things for us from these credit cards that where I used to just blow it off. So if that's you, it's something to investigate.
John:Another another little tip is if you have a credit card that charges an annual fee and all of a sudden now that card doesn't have value to you. Right? You look at that card, it comes up for renewal, and you just got charged, let's say. Let's say this is March. Right?
John:So in March, they charge you. You get your statement, and they just charge you the $250 for the annual fee. And you're thinking, gosh. I don't even use the card anymore. Maybe I don't fly that airline any longer.
John:I don't stay at that hotel. Whatever it is Right. There's just not much value. Don't cancel the card outright.
Vikki:That hurts you.
John:It's gonna you're gonna your credit score is gonna take a dip because what especially if you've had that card for any period of time because part of your credit score, a good part of your credit score is credit history. So you're taking away because what they do is they average all of your open accounts, and it gives you an average of of the account. So maybe your average is seven years, six months, and you've had that card for the last seven years. So if you cancel it outright, it takes it out of that equation. So now your average went from seven years, six months down to five years, four months.
John:So your credit course score is gonna take a dip because of that. The best thing to do is to call the credit card, its numbers on the back, and just ask for a product change. And just to explain to the operator, say, hey. Look. You know what?
John:I've had this card for seven years. It had a lot of value when I first opened it. I loved it, but I'm not finding any value in it now, not enough to pay for the annual fee that I was just charged. So they there's a lot of things that can happen for customer retention. They might just go and tell you, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna go ahead and reverse the annual fee, keep the card for the next year.
John:There's no annual fee on it. Right. Or they'll say, we'll refund that annual fee back to you if you make a thousand dollars worth of purchases in the next thirty days. That's happened with us before too. Right.
John:Or it has happened too where they've said, you know what? How about if we reduce the annual fee in half? So instead of instead of paying $2.50, you're only gonna pay a hundred and $25. Would you keep the card one more year? Because we don't wanna lose you, they always say.
John:Right. If they don't have any retention offers offers for you, then just ask for a product change. And just say you wanna downgrade to a no annual fee card, and so they'll look in that family because cards come in different families of cards. Right? So whatever card that you're trying to downgrade, they're gonna look within that family of cards if there's an if there's a no annual fee option, you can just switch to that no annual fee.
John:And what happens is it keeps your account open. It doesn't close your account and you're not opening the second account. It just moves from that annual fee card to the no annual fee card, so you keep that You
Vikki:keep your credit history. Exactly. Yes.
John:So your score stays up. The only thing you won't get is you're not gonna earn the welcome offer on that no annual fee card. Right. Don't fret about it, because no annual fee cards don't have any great welcome offers anyhow. That's why they're no annual fee card.
John:If they a super welcome offer that's worth thousands of dollars, it wouldn't be a no annual fee card. It would be at least 75, 90 5 dollars, which is pretty low for an annual fee card. But Right. So we've done that many times where we've done that product change, downgraded to no annual fee, and didn't care about the welcome offer anyhow Yeah. And kept her credit history.
Vikki:Yeah. Wow. This is churning from flights to credit card tips. But this is good. I hope you relisten to this.
Vikki:John just dropped a ton of nuggets. Tons.
John:You all might have different different experiences with this. And if if I've given him him, you know, some advice and it didn't work out for you, I apologize because like I said, I'm not an expert in in any of these fields. It's just stuff that we've done over the years, and it's worked for us.
Vikki:It's working for
John:us. Maybe we got lucky, but it's worked for us, and it's We don't believe in luck. Helped us.
Vikki:We don't believe in luck if you listened to the last episode or two episodes And then one last question, and we'll wrap it up. But the last question is, when should I use my miles or points and whatever you wanna call it instead of cash? That we get that question a lot.
John:Yeah. Yeah. So what I tend what we tend to do is when when I'm booking flights, I'm looking, is this a a vacation? Is it a pleasure trip? Or is it business?
John:If it's business, and again, not a tax expert. This is not tax advice. If you're thinking about tax information or want tax advice, please speak to a tax professional, speak to a CPA, speak to an EA, speak to whomever is in the tax field that you wanna talk to. For us, this is how it works. The federal government, the IRS puts no value on miles and points.
John:They think it's free. Even though it cost you a lot of money to earn them, they're saying that, you earned them and it was given to you by the airline, by the hotel, by whomever. So there is absolutely zero value in that. So if you book a business flight using your points or miles, that's not a tax deduction whatsoever. So even though it's a true business trip, you're flying to Dallas, let's say, a business meeting or a conference, you're going there, you have everything you need to prove that deduction and and all the deductions you're going to take for flying over there.
John:If you used your points and miles, you're not going get to deduct that portion of it. So on business flights, I'll generally pay cash. Even if there's a great deal to use miles or points, we'll still pay cash just because we can we can write that off. Right. And then we use we just we have a ton of miles and points.
John:Gosh. We have over a million probably. Yeah. Yeah. Airlines miles.
John:So many. Between the two. Almost yeah. Over half a million in Alaska. So when we wanna go on vacation, if we wanna take a a bit of just a pleasure trip, and it's not business related.
John:So, obviously, we're not gonna we're not gonna deduct it from our taxes. We're not gonna try. We'll use miles for that.
Vikki:Right. We we have that discussion all the time. Yeah. It's like, well, this isn't a tax write out because we're not working our business over there. Let's use our miles.
Vikki:Yeah. Yeah. That's how we do it. Yeah. Exactly.
Vikki:And, you know, for friends and friends and family. For family, maybe you wanna give somebody a trip, you know Mhmm. The flights. We do that. That's really fun that you earn these miles, really.
Vikki:They are worth they are valuable. You've you
John:know, it's tough to do it. People talk I I see people that will say, well, I use my miles, and it was so it's a free flight. And I'm, okay. Cool. And and they were, you know, somehow in the discussion, it's how many miles they use for the flight.
John:Yeah. I ended up having to burn, like, 300,000 of my miles. And you flew economy? Yeah. That would be crazy.
John:Do you realize how much your mile like, oh, your miles are probably worth, like, a penny and a half per mile. Do the math. You way overspent on that. I mean, you could have found a better I don't tell them all this, but gosh. You could have found a so much better of a redemption value using your miles for something else.
John:And that's the other thing too is if you have credit card points and one of the credit cards I really like or the credit cards that I do like are credit cards that have what I call, like a universal currency to them. So all all these like, if you gosh. I'll say here. If you have, like, for like, for instance, Vicky has her American Airlines co branded credit card, which gives her American Airlines miles. That's not a universal currency.
John:That currency, the American Airlines miles, can only be used on American Airlines. Or if she's gonna if she's going to use a partner of American, she can still book through American Airlines using her miles to get on an Alaska flight, which is kind of a mess. But she's stuck with just those American Airlines miles. With credit cards, there are some credit cards that give you what I consider, like almost like a universal currency even though they're not truly universal, but they have partners that they trade with. So you can transfer your credit card points into miles with several different airlines.
John:You can choose through their portal or you can trade them with, for hotel points or you can trade them for rental car points or you can trade them as a as a statement credit. Generally speaking, the worst redemption values are when you trade for hotels and rental cars. You don't get a whole lot for it. And even if you use it for a statement credit, you're not gonna get a lot for it, usually a penny per point. You can get and we've done this.
John:We've gotten over 15 per point valuation by trading it for flights because there's certain flights that'll that'll be just a smoking deal. And if you transfer the points to the that airline's miles and then purchase the flight using their currency, their airline miles currency, there are some crazy deals out there that you can that you can grab ahold of in the better redemption value. So if you do have if you're looking at credit cards, it's another thing you wanna look at is look at ones that have a number of trading partners.
Vikki:Mhmm. Good. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Vikki:That was a lot of great information, John.
John:Like, from
Vikki:years from years and years of you learning all this. So yeah. Thank you so much.
John:And there's so much more to it too. We've kinda just scratched the surface even though it was, you know, it's been forty five minutes of scratching the surface.
Vikki:But it
John:really truly is. There's so much to it.
Vikki:If you wanna hear more, definitely in the comments, let us know. Tell us what you'd like to hear more of. We could do a whole episode on one specific, maybe just credit cards, maybe just how to use points the best way, you know, or or something else when it comes to business. We would love to hear from you. We'd love to have you share this episode with a friend that maybe is traveling and looking for the best way to to use their their money for their business or their points.
Vikki:So we've had a great time with you today. Thank you for joining us. Oh, did you have one more
John:say too is if you're thinking about like, if you think the credit card thing makes sense, because it really does. It does it does for us you know, immensely. We've we've saved so much by having the the right credit cards, and that's the key. Right? The right credit cards.
John:If you're thinking about it, reach out to us because we can give you kind of some suggestions of ones that have worked really well for us and what I thought had really good value for their annual fee. And the re and I can explain the reasons why we felt that way. Maybe you'll feel the same. So reach out to us, and we'll be more than happy, to send you and just tell us what you're interested in. You fly Delta all the time, or you would like to fly a certain airline or stay at a certain hotel, or whatever your situation is, just let us know.
John:Give us some give us some pointers on where you're at, and then give us some idea, and then we'll be happy to analyze and see what is the best maybe what maybe what is the best credit card for you.
Vikki:Yeah. And and you can find the information on how to get in touch with us in the show notes. So go ahead and scan that, find our email, and, we look forward to hearing from you.
John:Yeah.
Vikki:Alright. Have a great one and travel well. Bye. Bye.
Vikki:Thanks for joining us on dig the well.
John:We hope you feel empowered and ready to take on new challenges.
Vikki:Remember, if we can do it, so can you. Keep learning, keep believing, and going after your dreams.
John:And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs a little inspiration or maybe a nudge in the right direction.
Vikki:Help us grow this community of go getters. Together, we can achieve greatness and get back to family.
John:Thanks for listening, and let's keep digging the way.