How to travel for less: The Points Guy takes 3 Pressing Questions

US Airlines make more money selling points to banks than they do flying airplanes. Points are what drive US Airlines? Today's guest is Brian Kelly, founder of the Point Sky, an author of the best-selling book How to Win at Travel. What started as a personal blog while he was working at Morgan Stanley has evolved into a leading media platform, shaping how millions of consumers spend, earn, and think about travel. And then in May of 2012, this publicly traded company CEO essentially offers to buy my blog. I'm 28 years old. 28 million dollars for this blog that's not even two years old. People today will be like, "Well, do you regret it?" And I'm like, "No." From why flights feel so expensive right now and what's actually driving those prices? To where real value still exists in luxury travel. If your book in luxury hotels never booked directly, that's a trick I think a lot of people fall into. To how shifts in the industry from consolidation to changing loyalty programs could affect your wallet. The problem is once you start merging or going away, airfries can go up even more. Not only airfare but fees, the airlines have increased baggage fees by 30%, and that doesn't go back down. And the simple things most people still miss when they book their trips. 30 years after starting, in points, I'm still as passionate. I think people today are like, "Oh, the game's changing, airlines are raising rates." And yes, the game has always changed, has changed dramatically, but the game is not over. The sooner you understand that and learn how to play the game, the better off I believe consumers are. Brian, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, so just a start off, can we go back to the early days? Because I did not know this. You were working as a recruiter at Morgan Stanley. When you launched What became the Points Guy in 2010, tell us a bit about what pushed you to start the side hobby for starters. Yeah, so just taking it way, way back, my points education began in the 90s. I was 12 years old, my dad was a consultant, we lived outside of Philly, and when I was 12, I was his personal travel agent. And in 1996, we booked a trip for six of us to go to the Cayman Islands for free. So I really started using points of miles in the 90s. So it's kind of 20/26 where now 30 years into the game. So I started the Points Guy in 2010, but that was when I was working at Morgan Stanley in HR. And I started there in 2007, August, so if you bring yourself back to that time on Wall Street, I was in my 20s living in New York, all of my friends were bankers making it rain. I mean, it was the heyday. And so I was doing HR for in retail at the time at Lord and Taylor. I was in there. So I said, if I'm going to do HR, I might as well do it for a bank. So and I'm going to get rich working at Morgan Stanley because even people in HR were making tons of money. So I started at Morgan Stanley, August of '07, and my job was doing the campus recruiting for technology. So my remit was to go and make sure that all the MIT Cornell computer science grads would want to work at Morgan Stanley and not this new crop of Google, Microsoft Yahoo. As you can imagine, especially once the economy hit, it was a hard sell to get these top talent technologists to work at Morgan Stanley. So what Morgan Stanley said was, you've got to do whatever it takes. So I would go to career fairs. I'm flying 50 students a week in, putting them up in hotels, and I would put my credit card down because these college students couldn't pay. So I'm paying for thousands and thousands every week. And I learned very quickly that I could pay $100 and get all of the points for all of my business spend. And then I took it, everything I do in life, I take to the extreme, go bigger, go home, as we say, and I truly embody that as someone who's six foot seven. But I started putting all of the expenses for the entire HR department because everyone hated to do expenses. But I loved it because I could get the points. And I was, you know, '07, '89, I was just living this double life because I had millions of points. So I got promoted, but there were no raises during the financial, the great recession. And I was frustrated because, you know, I was getting promoted, working hard, not getting the money. So I was, points rich and cash poor. So I was, and there was a time in my life where I was living paycheck to paycheck in New York City. And it was cheaper for me to use points to fly to LA. I would, you know, use my points, I'd have elite status, get upgraded. And I had hotel status, so I would get free breakfast, free club lounge. So I could fly away for the weekend in first class for cheaper than staying at home. So anyway, in 2010, I started the points guy as a side hustle because I had just been doing points my whole life. And it was $50 and I would tell you how to use your points. I was like a travel agent for points. That was the nexus of the business at first when I started in April of 2010. And then soon thereafter, a friend of mine, who was a blogger and he was like, you have to blog. Like you absolutely, he was so passionate. He set me up with my own WordPress site and he was like, just promise me your blog every single day at the same time and you will build an audience. And he was right. And about like six months into blogging, it started to take off just super organically. It sounds like. And did I hear correctly? You were also the go-to guy amongst your friends and family anyway when it came to maximizing points and whatnot. For me and to this day, I love figuring out a trip on points. It's like more satisfying than wordle crossword. I mean, some people do that and you feel good about solving a puzzle. Well, like for me, I get a men's joy out of cracking that code. And I just am a believer, even though now I can pay for all of my own travel. I still use points for almost all of my flights and hotels. And funny note, when I did sell the points guy business, one of the final deal notes I put in at the very end was that I could put all of our expense on my credit card. So I could earn the points and they were like, sure, whatever. And all these years later, now it has survived, even though the company's been sold again. I have this like, you know, ongoing points because I need to practice what I preach. And I so basically all these years, 30 years after starting in points, I'm still as passionate it has changed dramatically. But the game is not over. And that's the biggest misnomer. I think people today are like, oh, the game's changing, airlines are raising rates. And yes, the game has always changed. But when I started the points guy in 2010, people thought it was over. This is what people I have now so much history in this, you know, in 2010, the narrative was points are dead, blackout dates, the game is over. And so the people have always been saying the game is over. Even when I got into fire talk in 2001, when I realized there was a community of people, you know, 9/11, the game is over. You know, airlines are going under points will be no more. But it's been the opposite. Points are what drive US airlines, especially US airlines make more money selling points to banks. And they do flying airplanes. And I want people to understand that they're not going away anytime soon. And if anything, hotels and airlines are now more ingrained into loyalty. So loyalty is the way forward. And the sooner you understand that and learn how to play the game, the better off I believe consumers are so much to unpack there. But I think I have heard you touch on that before that. Did you say that previously for airlines actually what a lot of people don't know is that the credit card game is actually more important in some ways than the actual core business one would think of flying airplane. Absolutely. Let's take American Airlines. American Airlines market cap depends, but usually it's about $10 billion, which is really low. It's they've so much debt. But their loyalty program is valued conservatively at $30 billion. So their loyalty program is worth more than the actual market cap, which, you know, due to debt and how bad the rest of the business is. But all of, you know, even going back to the 2000s, you know, the 9/11 crisis, they all sold points to survive. And they did the same during a COVID, Hilton sold billions of dollars worth of future points to AMX, Delta. These relationships are so material. Delta makes about $7 billion in profit a year. And their AMX relationship is worth about that. And the AMX revenue they make is much higher margin. I think they have like 80 billion in revenue or something like that. 80 billion in profit and it really is from the AMX relationship that they have. I think 1% of total US GDP is on a Delta AMX co-brand card. And now United, there's a new game being played where the airlines are so dependent on this revenue that, you know, United is now making it in certain business class fairs. Now you don't earn any miles unless you have a co-brand card. They are now, because there's what's happened, and I call this the platinum major travel that we're in. So not only do we have the airline co-brands, but now the chase sapphires of the world, the AMX platinum, city strata, elite, built. There are all these new transferable points cards which consumers, myself included, are huge fans of. So now the airlines are in a process of fighting back like, we don't want to lose to the sapphires. How do we convince people they have to get a co-brand? And what we're seeing is a huge gatekeeping of award availability, where today United will only let you redeem if you have a co-brand credit card or elite status. A lot of airlines are now only giving the best awards to elite members. So they're fighting back against the bank. So there's this big battle happening between the airline co-brand and hotel and the big bank cards. And in 2026, we're really just starting to see this play out because there's only so many consumers out there and the airlines and co-brand cards know that they need to do more. To win back consumers. Hence why you call it the platinum age of travel because we've got more choices than ever. For sure. And so when you're thinking about points, there's two sides of the coin. How much you can earn and how much it costs to redeem. So if you only look at one side, the redemption side, for sure, you might think, oh, this is the worst time to be in the points. But I'm not sure. I argue that because it is so lucrative on the earning side, that you can now get certain credit card companies now have 300,000 points signup bonuses. So the signup bonuses, which used to be 25,000, but this is what people don't remember. Back in 2010, when I started the point sky, 25,000 points was a decent signup. We're now six figures, 200, 300,000 points for a single credit card. There's a bananza on the earn side. And also on earning, now you can earn points for free on rent and mortgage with built, which I coincidentally helped to start and advise and an early investor. And it's been amazing to see that grow into what it is. So you used to not be able to, you used to have to pay 3% to earn points on rent. And so yes, there's inflation, but there's also inflation in terms of how many points we can earn. And so my argument is, if you play the game smartly, which you can still do, you can still travel around the world for a fraction of the cost. And I'd argue two planes today, especially in business in first class, are much nicer than they were 15 years ago when it was all angled live flat seats if you were lucky in international business class. Well, that was going to be my question, you know, with regard to just getting started in the points game. Because I am not an American. I only moved back to the US a couple years ago. And I, frankly, this was so foreign to me in the sense that, you know, in Hong Kong where I'm from, it's not really as much of a thing to play the credit card points game. And we've only really got one good airline. And I'm sure you know which one that is. - Yes, Kat, I really like Kat. - I'm a Kat, they go through and through. So, you know, I was going to say, for someone who's a total novice to this, just getting started, let's say, you know, let's say it's an ex-ball like me who just like came back and is getting back into the game. Is that where you would say to start with like the builds of the world and like just start slowly building your point up? - Yeah, so if you are a ex-pad, if you're just starting off with credit, you know, the first thing, you may not be able to get, well, and you don't need to be a US citizen, you get a US credit card, you have to have a social security number, which you can get if you're on a number of different visas. So, but the number one thing you want to look at is just credit in general. In America, your credit score really matters for everything you do. Even getting hired or getting an apartment. So number one is build a good credit score. For ex-pats, I know a billionaire who came to the United States and had a credit score like a 16 year old would have in the US because a lot of times they don't transfer. They're actually as a company called Nova Credit, and Nova Credit integrates with a lot of banks now to transfer your credit history from abroad. They actually, so if you're ever filling out an application on an MX and they say you can actually put in that you, and it'll bring in your underwriting history from abroad, which is great because, so you can bring that over. But I would say first, just understand how credit works, you might need to get a secured credit card. So if you don't have a credit history, you just move to the US, you just get a social, go to a, you can put $250, $500 down on a secured credit card. And a couple months in, just make sure you're, you obviously, you pay it off as you're spending, show that you're responsible. And then you can get an intro card. And, you know, Chase Freedom is a great intro card. Chase is one of the most important ecosystems in the points world. You know, start with a student sort of freedom cashback, no annual fee card. And just make sure you understand how credit works, pay off your bill in full every month. That is the number one core of winning at points. You will lose this game if you have high interest, you know, the interest lines on points credit cards are super high. So you have to spend money, you know, but pay it off in full every month. And your score will go up pretty quickly at six months. So once you get into an intro card or a student card or a discover card, we're pretty much easier. And you know, you have to have, generally, mid high 600s to get that. Once you're over 700 FICO score, and everyone can check their FICO score for free, it's not gonna hurt your credit. Everyone should know what their FICO score is. And a lot of credit card companies give it to you for free in the app now. But once you get over 700, you don't need to be making six figures even to get really good credit cards. So that's when I would start going, my main strategy is get transferable point credit cards because the builds, the chase, sapphires, amics, goals of the world. You earn points with amics, and then with my Amics membership rewards, I can transfer instantly to Cathay, Asia Miles, if I find a Cathay Business Class Award, or I can transfer to Air France. Or, you know, there's like 30 different partners. Built has the same 20 sum chase. So having points and transferable currencies is how you hedge against inflation. Because even if one airline, if, 'cause if you're just saying flying Delta, which many people do, great airline, but not a great loyalty program, if you put all your miles and points on a Delta Cobraan, and then you're like, ooh, I wanna fly Emirates to Dubai on a dream trip. You cannot redeem Delta miles for Emirates, but if you had amics points or chase or built, you could. So that you wanna accrue valuable currencies. The only reason why I recommend people spending on an airline Cobraan, like a United or Delta card, is for perks. And the perks would be if you're getting elite status and you have to spend, or free check bags. But you can often get, you know, buy your ticket on the card to get the free check bags, but then don't put all of your spend on that airline card. Put the rest of it back onto a really rich card where you're earning a much more valuable currency. - Yeah, it's a constant puzzle that you're just, like making sure you're conscious of it. - It's a constant puzzle. - But bottom line, even if you don't wanna travel, don't get a travel credit card, you can get a cashback. City double cash is basically 2% cashback, no annual fee. That's like your bottom line. So in America, you should be getting 2% back for everything you spend. So you have to calculate the value of, you know, if you're going for AMX or chase points, you know, figuring out how much of those points are actually valuable to you. Because when you transfer to different partners, you can get 5, 6, 7 cents a point. If you're flying Singapore sweets, like I just flew recently, $10,000 ticket that you can get for 100,000 points, 10 cents a point in value. Now, we can argue back and forth of whether, if you were never gonna pay 10 grand for the ticket, is it really worth that? But the bottom line is everyone has to kind of come up with their own valuation. If you're confused by it all and are in a point in your life where you just want cash and just get a cashback card. But if you wanna start traveling nicely, warning to everyone out there once you start flying business class, it is very hard to unlearn and unsee. - It's terrible, it's hard to go back. - So if you're happy in economy and premium, like stay there because the minute you start dabbling in the dark arts of premium cabins, it is so hard to go back. - Yes, okay, so much more I wanna follow up on. But before that, I did wanna get back a bit more to your story, Brian, because you alluded to this just now. You turned your blog, what initially started out as, into a hugely followed media brand that was sold just a few years later in 2012. I saw the company was sold to Bankrate, which for those who don't know, was a personal finance website for $28 million. And in 2017, another firm, Red Ventures, also acquired Bankrate, including the Point Sky. Reportedly for $1.4 billion, are you at Liberty to confirm? - Yeah, no, that was public, 'cause it was a public, I think it was $1.4 billion, Bankrate, credit cards.com, the Point Sky were all parts of that. I can't really say how much the Point Sky was, but I'll just say that, the Point Sky was the fastest growing asset in that portfolio, and to this day is still doing very well. So the business has been really robust because we have focused on the consumer. I think is, we make a lot of money with credit card companies to affiliate marketing, but at the core, it has always been what is the consumer value, 'cause if you lose credibility, and if we just start hawking every credit card that we don't believe in, I turn down many multi-million dollar deals, especially in the beginning, which was hard to do, because I never wanted to sell. I would never be exclusive to anyone company. And a lot of bloggers, I don't blame them, but usually most bloggers will partner with one brand, and that brand will say, we're gonna pay you a ton, but you're gonna be promoting mostly one credit card company. And I from the beginning was like, if we wanna be held, if we wanna have credibility, and we will tell it how it is, because not every card is amazing. So always putting the consumer first, but also I think because I came from Morgan Stanley, I had a way of also working with the banks that most other bloggers. And I think my competitive advantage was number one, I learned early on that media could dramatically shift my business. So I paid and got media training, and so any entrepreneur who's listening, anyone, period who's listening who wants to do a business in media, go to media training where former journalists will grill you, you'll do fake TV interviews, fake radio interviews, you'll watch yourself back and you'll hate doing it, but you'll learn the mistakes that you're doing, the ooms, the a's, the, and it just takes time. But I, so I invested early on, great PR agencies. And I saw that like I could, as the points guy, create a brand that was trusted in the media, and then every time I did a New York Times or CNN was my first ever TV interview, I was mortified and almost fainted, but each and every time I did it, I realized, and then how much credibility that brings, not just with consumers, but when I would walk into the AMX tower after going on the today show, the week prior, that gave me capital to like negotiate for bigger deals. And when the credit card companies will cut back, you know, up economic ups and downs, when you're a long-term partner, when you're just an affiliate, just a site, you know, giving new accounts, it's one thing, but when you're, we're giving them new accounts and we're a brand trusted voice in the media, your partners are much less likely to cut you down and downturns. They'll, I know for a fact that my personal relationships and the fact that I was a media personality helped us, you know, go through multiple storms where many other bloggers were cut. cut because compliance or whatever. So, you know, really building a moat and a brand. And so many people when I first started the point sky, I would say you're never gonna scale this 'cause it's called the point sky. - I was gonna say, I did read recently that you guys have grown to 150 employees, is that right? Did you ever think it would grow to this size? - It was so hard, you know, so just simply put, I mean, I started in June 2010. I started affiliate in April of 2011. I made a million dollars within the first six months. This is before I had sold. And then in May of 2012, I got approached by bank rate, this publicly traded company CEO essentially offers to buy my blog. I'm 28 years old. 28 million dollars for this blog. That's not even two years old. People today will be like, well, do you regret it? And I'm like, no, because I was making 70,000 a year as an HR professional at a bank. Started this blog and it kicked off with the bank, but we had just come out of the great recession. A lot of people thought that the bounce in the economy was short, you know, we always, there's always those, when you, you know, hindsight's 2020, but in the moment people were saying, this is red flags in the economy. And so I sold, and I had a, you know, stake in the, I had a three and a half year earn out. So, but I learned that like by creating myself as a brand to it, really attached me to the business. So as the business continued to rise, and when the business was bought again, a lot of people were like, oh, you know, they're gonna buy the points guy and act you out of it, which is what happens to most founders. But it's hard to act the founder whose visible across millions of people every week and press and media. - So in that case, I mean, I wasn't, I was gonna ask whether you disclosed, whether you were still, you still kind of had a stake when the second sale came around. 'Cause that was a huge number there. - That was a huge sale. Yeah, so I had lots of stock and bank rate, which had been floundering for years. And I had no idea that bank rate was even up for sale. They had some, like the former CFO had gone to jail. There was just some mismanagement going on, but interesting, I wasn't a part of the bank rate management team. Basically, the points guy, we were popping. We had a, we were in WeWorks for a while that we had our own headquarters in Flatiron with Frenchies. We were kind of like a tech company. We still had a startup feel to it. We were owned by this publicly traded company, but they were like, just keep doing what you're doing, right? Like, we were 35 employees and doing huge amounts of revenue. We were the cash cow for the business and growth engine. So, I didn't really understand what was going on. Then one day, they were like, this guy, Rick Elias, Red Ventures. They're buying your company tomorrow. And I was on a film shoot in Cancun. And I'm in a suburban, like, in an air conditioned car talk. You know, I'm Googling Rick Elias. What is Red Ventures? And Red Ventures turns out to be this incredible, you know, at the time, they were like performance marketing, digital behemus. They used, you know, their own technology to grow huge brands. And they took a bet. If we buy bank rate, we're going to use our technology on digital acquisition and infrastructure and data. And at the time, the points we were doing great, but we didn't have a single tech person at the company. Bank rate had no tech strategy. So, it was really a match made in heaven. And so, I definitely did well on the sale because all my stock that had been floundering vested in one day. And then I renegotiated with Red Ventures to stay on and knowing my value a little bit more and knowing what they had paid for the business. Okay, well, my values material to this business. And, you know, it's 2026, not spin. Yeah, that was 2017. So, we're coming up on nine years. And I stepped down as CEO in 2020 'cause then it just became back to your original question of 100 some employees. That was never my intention. My talent in life is not people management. And I kind of realized, I need to be in front of the camera with clients, with our consumers. I believe in the brand and our content, but managing people's a fully different skill. And I was so busy traveling. I'm doing our charity work. I'm so like, you know, taking the time to have a, you know, an exec team of like six senior executives and then spending time with each of them and new employees. Like, I was not the best boss. And I, 2020 hit and I realized I was so burnt out. And, but that's the beauty, Red Ventures, I went to them. And I was like, either, you know, it's been 10 years of the point sky. I've had my earnouts and everything. Is it time for me to go? But I just can't do this, you know, being in HR meetings all day, every day. It's so refreshing to hear about, you know, what it took for you to kind of push through to learn what your worth was. 'Cause I think a lot of founders struggle with that early on. I'm so curious as well, you know, obviously now a lot of your job is talking about how to travel hack and make the most out of your trips. One of the things that I have gotten so many questions about for your interview today is obviously about the air fair prices to kind of turn here a bit. You know, they seem to be all over the damn place right now. So anecdotally, I recently saw a $700 ticket from London to Ibiza, which was just shocking for a short haul. So the big question I suppose is, when do you realistically see air fairs coming down if at all? We're in a crisis. I think it's, we're just starting to really understand it. I think we're all as humans. Like, oh, this will be over the straight of, where Moose is gonna open up and, you know, in six weeks or so it'll fix it. It's not. Like, I think we need to start understanding like, this summer is already, even if right away, you know, it's fixed, there is no media fix. And we're seeing there's gonna be consolidation. So I think we're gonna see, you know, United has joked kind of about buying American, but it-- Well, what was your take on that deal, by the way? I did see you spoke about that. Yeah, United isn't buying American. I think the odds of that are very low. I think there were several tactics there. Number one, Scott Kirby. The CEO of United. See, he's on a high right now. I mean, United had good first quarter results and he's really coming for Delta. He wants to position himself as the dominant force. He, you know, for so long United has lived at number three, then it scratched its way to number two. And so I think he, just saying that, in leaking that clearly he or someone at United leaked that information for a reason. And I think really they'll probably buy JetBlue, 'cause JetBlue hasn't turned a profit in years. And the fundamental one, JetBlue is double, the price it was, January one. All of these airlines which have been struggling for years, it just dramatically exacerbates the problem. So JetBlue's an issue, spirit is an immediate issue. And the problem is once he start merging or going away, Airfare's gonna go up even more. Not only airfare, but fee. So all the airlines have increased baggage fees by 30%. And that doesn't go back down. - You have been talking about that, that there's this debundling happening. Can you explain what that is for those who don't know? - So the airlines basically just need to maximize every single square centimeter on the plane. And so debundling's a great way to convince the consumer, okay, I still got a cheap fare, but we're not gonna give you, you know, free check bags, which Southwest got away with, you're gonna now have to pay for that. So what, 'cause the consumer focus is so much on the fare, but fees are where the airlines make so much money. So instead of raising airfare, which will make people stay at home and not travel, what they're saying is you can still travel for a cheap, but, you know, we're gonna nickel and dime you and charge you for your seat and-- - On everything else, basically. - Yeah, when you're buying your ticket, you may say, I don't care about my seat, but then you're like, oh, I don't wanna sit in a middle seat. So then you eventually end up later paying $60 more. So you wouldn't have paid at $60 extra at the time of booking, but when all is said and done, you're paying the airline more for what used to be all included in one price. - And I think I've heard you talk about this, just like as one of the most common pitfalls you see when it comes to booking travel, right? What are some of the other things that you would say to avoid other than, you know, just making sure you're not just trying to get the cheapest airfare period? - Well, on the cheapest airfare, so these basic fares do not have any flexibility in terms of even changing your flight. And one of the best things that came out of the pandemic was most of the airlines now will let you change flights for free. And changing flights pre-pandemic used to be really expensive. So that's now free when you buy a standard fare. Now, even business class United just launched their basic playlist, which is our basic business class. So you can pay a $5,000 business class ticket, not earn any miles, not be able to change it, but spending maybe $400 more, you get tons of flexibility, free changes, et cetera. So cheap is expensive these days, you know, especially if you do need to change your flight sometimes. If you have kids, if you have a sick family member, like do not go for those cheapest tickets, you will regret it when you get zero back when anything happens and we all know life comes in the way. Secondly, I would say like traveling insurance, really, if you've always shrugged it off, like now is the time, I have a yearly policy, but never get it through the airliner hotel, always go through like ensuremytrip.com is the independent sort of marketplace so we can compare and contrast. And why not though, why not through the direct platform? Because the airlines will sell you a really inflated policy and most of the time it's not even insurance, it's called travel protection. So they're selling you at the price of travel insurance for a far inferior quality product. You're paying for the price of a Lexus and they're giving you a Dodge Neon. So at the same price, just go to the, you know, independent dealer marketplace and just buy it there. A lot of people have been saying book all your flights now because like it's just gonna keep going off. Is that something you think? Absolutely, even private jets, I'm, you know, in Europe this summer, I'll fly, you know, use my miles to go to Europe, but around Europe this summer, especially because there's the new EES, not to add more drama to an already chaotic system, but the EU is rolling out this new electronic entry exit and that's causing four hour delays in many airports where you have to use a chaos now. Americans will have to go. The first time you go to the EU, fingerprints and biometrics and there's causing huge lines. So, you know, I book, I'm booking a private jet And I'm booking it now once in advance just because I'm available. can be down and prices will most likely raise. I've been sounding that alarm since the beginning of the year to just book an advance this summer and I haven't heard of a single person who said that they're upset that they got tickets in advance. So yeah, in general, do not procrastinate. Although procrastinating, if you have frequent flyer miles, it can be the best time when airfare is really high. The airlines are still releasing a lot of award availability. They want every single flight seat to go out full. So you can still use points even when airfirs are really high and even last minute. That's a great tip. So it really depends on what you're trying to go for. Let's talk about the future of travel. We're starting to see new cabin concepts emerge in economy, such as United's Relax Row, where three economy seats can convert into a couch-like space. And obviously, we know that Air New Zealand was one of the first to come out with this, right? The so-called Skycouch. Do you think this kind of hybrid economy product will become the norm? Or is it still more of a really niche experiment? And why haven't we seen that been picked up more? Yeah. It's just a really brilliant concept. Some airlines look tons of will sell empty seats that, you know, we all get lucky on a flight and you've got the rodeo yourself. Well, now the airlines are saying, we're not just going to give that away for free. We're going to sell that. And it's brilliant because the airlines, once again, I mean, to their defense, they're in a really tough time with these rising costs. And airfirs are not increasing as much as their costs are. So yeah, I see that they will roll out more options because the economy cabin, they can actually make more selling those couch seats where they're taking people who are in the same row and basically just re re-shopling and maximizing. It can be more efficient than business class because a single business class seat can take up six seats and they can actually make more revenue per square foot on the plane by maximizing and especially because most empty seats that go out are an economy. So basically just turning money from wasted space that would have went out before. So, you know, the relaxed row requires some extra equipment in the row and the sky couch. But I see more and more airlines should at least do the day of departure upgrading people to their own row so that they can lay down versus just giving it away for free to the lucky person who ends up in that row. Yeah, no, exactly. I was just so curious because it would seem like there's lots of demand for something like that. Obviously, most people do fly economy. So I was just surprised that it's not become more of the norm already. It's just interesting because people are cheap and I will be interested. I think the reason why they haven't rolled it out because these products, you know, I don't know. Most people paying, you know, that there's a new bunk bed concept on Air New Zealand. It's $500 to get four hours of sleep. I think a lot of people are saying, all right, I'll just stick it out. You know, I don't know if there's going to be a ton of people saying, let me just depart with $500 that I could use on, you know, four nights of hotel or something, you know, in my location. So it'll be interesting. I definitely think there is a business there. But I just don't know how many people are still really cheap when it comes to flying and we'll just grind through. Yeah, that's true. Well, on the flip side, I have to confess, I really love following you because I like my own high end travel and I like having nice things. Obviously, we all want to always get the best deal though. So, you know, I'm curious when it comes to the luxury space, where have you found some of the best value? Who's standing out to you right now? In value for luxury is really tough because we've talked a lot about airlines, but hotels are just wildly priced. Like you're, you know, planning to be in Italy and Croatia this summer and Portugal and I mean, air or normal hotel rooms in Italy, the five star hotels that used to be, you know, 1000 and I pre-pandemic now, they went to two. Look, $4,000 a night is the new norm for a normal room in Lake Como and certain places in France, the fourth season's normal room, $5,000 a night in Capferat. And there's still this huge demand. And we're seeing it in the luxury cruise space too. Four seasons just launched their yacht, Aman is next year or in Express. I actually think the best value is almost cruising. These, you know, you can actually get a, because when you're spending $4,000 a night, $28,000 on a room, that then you have to pay an exorbitant amount for food and beverage. A lot of these cruise lines, it's cheaper to go on a floating cruise ship and see five different ports and the rooms are actually really nice. I haven't taken the Ritz ship or whatever, but I hear great things. And to be able to, you know, in the Mediterranean go see four different areas without having to deal with airports, which are dramatic cancellations. So I do think that all the investments in these luxury ships will pay off. And some people will say, well, for 60,000 a week, just rent your own boat, but you don't realize the boating industry has gone up too. I mean, it's a quarter of a million dollars for like a decent boat, plus provisioning, plus, plus, plus, it's exorbitantly expensive. So for 50,000, you're not getting a yacht experience, you know, you could get a small sailing boat maybe, but it's nothing like getting the four seasons or a mon experience. So, but I would say if you're booking luxury hotels, never booked directly, always booked through, I highly recommend through luxury travel advisors, so virtuoso agents, you know, the MX fine hotels or chase the edit because you get early check-in, like check out a travel advisor will charge you the same amount for the hotel, but you have this expert who can, if they have a relationship with the hotel in the GM, they can get you upgraded. And if something goes wrong, instead of, I hate going to the hotel and negotiating for what I want, you call your agent, a high-powered agent, if you got a bad room, is calling and saying to that hotel, you better make it right for my client because I have tons of other wealthy clients. So, so that's a trick. I think people, a lot of people fall into like never go to four seasons.com, using an agent who the hotel pays them, and then you have them as a concierge. That travel agent, not just for hotel, can also organize the VIP person to pick you up at the airport and just make everything seamless. So, I often at no extra cost is not right. Correct. So, people don't realize, because I'm saving for my honeymoon right now. So, on a personal note, and I've heard you say this, like if you're going to Safari in Africa, which is what I'm trying to do, don't just book direct, you can actually do it for the same price, but more perks. Totally. And have the expertise of someone you know, Roar Africa is one of my favorite travel agencies in Africa, female-owned, and they've been to all the camps and can give you the perspective because having that inside knowledge can make all the difference. I do think a lot of people have bad hotel stays because they were never supposed to visit that hotel because right now discovery on hotels is through Google. Who's paying Google or Expedia the most to get seen? I think a lot of people are not getting matched to the right property and that can make all the difference. So, having an advisor who specializes in Safari or specializes in meditating and cruises and can say, you know what, based on what I know about you, you'd actually love this ship that you may not have heard of. And oh, by the way, we can get you special pricing. Like, they can pay luxury travel visors. We'll pay for themselves many times over. On that note, for the average traveler, where is the best place to look for flights and book? You know, when it comes to platforms like Google flights, Skyscanner, I feel like my friends are always like, what is the difference even really? Yeah, so I mean, I'm a big Google flights fan. It's 90% accurate. Like, there's some airlines that aren't in it, especially internationally. There's a feature called Explormath. And if you're really looking for the best deal, you have to be flexible these days. So, if it's March and you live in New York City or Chicago and you want to go to the Caribbean, you can do go to the Explore tab and put in your home city and then put in Caribbean certain dates or four days over this month or whatever or and it'll just show you a map of the region, whether it's Europe, Caribbean, and it'll show you the cheapest islands, the cheapest countries. And you can sort by nonstop by certain carriers. And that's where you save money is when you can look at tons of different options all at once instead of having to click one by one. The same, there's a tool called Seats. Arrow. So if you have points, Seats. Arrow will actually look at the entire year. And so if you're flexible and you just want to go LA to Tahiti on Air France, you can actually pull up an entire year's worth of what days they have business class or premium economy. So like using technology to give you the big picture and then sniff out the deals for you. What is one of the like biggest steels you feel like you ever stumbled across? Well, I would say this summer, I mean, Air France flying blue freaking flyer program, which transfers in from AMX Chase, cap one, all of them. They have 60,000 point business class awards to Europe on tons of days this summer. So to put it in perspective, like United, it's 200,000 minimum, 300,000 most days, one-way business class, Delta's 450,000 points, you know, American. So 60,000 points one way or 120 round trip is a steal, especially when round trip business class, $6,000, $7,000. So currently, I think, you know, flying blue is probably my favorite loyalty program of the moment. There's also a lot of like traveled domestically. You don't have to travel in first class. There's a lot of programs Alaska Airlines, which is now one world. You can fly American Airlines flights even flights. Last minute flights from, you know, Miami to Philadelphia can be $500 and you get them for like 7,500 miles. So there's a lot of like short haul, distant space award programs like Alaska where you can get outsized value, especially if you're a last minute booker. And once again, last minute, the airlines open up a lot of award inventory. So you don't have to be flying business class internationally to get good value from points these days. Yeah, and speaking Thank you. You have international. I will I'll say one of the big things that I always think about is why do U.S. airlines often seem behind certain international carriers when it comes to the more premium product? Because we all know Emirates, this is my, this is my, this is my hill to die on. I mean, the U.S. carriers got to get their act together. There's a lot of issues going on here, but you know, simply put, it's capitalism 101. They drive as much to the bone. They give as little as possible. They spend so little on food. You know, they're not saying Asian carriers like Singapore will say, "What cuisine can I offer that on a handsy experience?" Like the U.S. carriers are how much, what's the lowest level of quasi-dog food I can give you? So you're not going to not book because I know you have, you're addicted to the loyalty program because I know you need elite status. So you're, is there a structural issue here though? Is it because there's so much competition or what is it really generally? The U.S. airlines are just chasing profits more than the others. You know, the Middle Eastern carriers aren't as, you know, incentivized to give quarter to quarter results, you know, because they're backed by the governments largely. The Asian carriers, you know, the sense of pride and brand. There's just different cultural differences where, you know, the U.S. carriers are all about profit. So share greed, basically. I mean, essentially, and how long can I possibly take before I have to renew the cabin? And I hate to say it. I mean, there are certainly great U.S.-based flight attendants, but the flight attend, I almost always avoid flying U.S. carriers. I have had so many experiences of aggressive, mean, spirited. Like where my, I hate that energy when a flight attendant's screen, like on a U.S. carrier, it's normal. They don't even say hello. They come up. What do you want? Chicken or fish? Tell me now. And they're like, my adrenaline gets going. I'm like, what is going on when you fly foreign carriers that have pride, you know, and the same thing in the middle of the night U.S. flight attendants screaming in the galley, screaming, complaining, like clanking dishes, it's almost like in a business class where people are trying to sleep. So I've had so many weird experiences and I know I'm not alone. So yeah, I think there's like labor issues. I mean, a long time to figure out which U.S. airline to build loyalty with when I move back. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask also, you know, on a personal note, you recently crossed a milestone lately, which I just talked to you about, where your son Cooper just became the youngest person ever to visit all seven continents. Tell us about this journey and what inspired you to take him on this. I didn't, you know, start off thinking that we would do this. You know, when he was born, my book came out last year. How to win a travel. He was born in December. My book came out February 4th. So I had extreme parent guilt because I was on book tour and I was not spending as much time as I would have liked with him and my other son, you had three babies. So I have two babies. Yeah. I had two new babies, my book and Cooper. So basically what I said was in April, I'm going to take the month off. We're going to go to Thailand and we did. So we went to Thailand and that summer went to Europe and I was invited by National Geographic to go to Antarctica and I said, well, I'm not going without my kids like they said, well, you can now fly the Drake. So there's, you can fly over the Drake passage, which is like the world's most dangerous waterway. So instead of having a day and a half of Rocky C's, you just take a plane two hours, land and kids as young as one at the time. We're allowed to go, you know, with doctor approval. My kids are healthy. There's doctor on the ship and funny of my friend who worked for National Geographic. His husband is a doctor, pediatrician. So there were pediatricians. My son's healthy. The ship has stuff. So I felt good about going. And so once I had Australia book, when I was in Europe that summer, I was like, well, let me just pop down to Morocco. We got, we went to Tangier, which is beautiful for a day. And so yeah, and we flew to South America to get to Antarctica. So the last was Australia. I would say, I mean, the trip to, we went to Machu Picchu and then Antarctica. And I'm a single gay dad. I have an amazing nanny. Well, I'm very transparent that I don't pretend to do this all myself. I have an incredible nanny who would used to be a flight attendant and a monastery teacher. So she's like my dream. She loves to travel. She her attitude is good. Everything traveling with kids is your attitude. I mean, everything in kids in my opinion, they pick up on you are their northern, you know, star. They don't, kids are born not knowing what the heck's going on. So they look to you for everything. And with travel, you know, you can plan, you know, the right, I like doing night flights when they're sleeping, always having games, food, just plan for the worst, but also your attitude and having a good traveling partner and just going with the punches when things go wrong. And I think, you know, there were definitely had flights with the kids were crying. But it's just like don't panic, parents get panic like, Oh, you know, in business class. And then you, it's a spiral. And I think just having the strong attitude of like, you're doing everything possible, take your kid going to walk in the plane, go to the galley, do what you can to not disturb other passengers. But at a certain point, like we were all kids and, you know, they deserve to be here as much as anyone else. So refreshing because I do know a lot of young parents that get scared to fly with their kids. So it's so great to see that you're trying to bust through that. I guess lastly, you know, what is your end game here? If we were to sit back down and let's say 15, 20 years, where would you want to be? I love where I'm at now where I'm able to do the point sky. I think there's a lot still at the point sky I would love to do in terms of technology using AI to help people that are maximized their points and track their points. The technology, the technological underpinning of the loyalty world is based on very old technology. So how do we use blockchain and but that's like a larger industry. The industry has to come to the 21st century because a lot of the technology behind airlines is so dated and credit card companies. But I also, you know, I've been an angel investor and I've had some really huge wins there built, you know, was an idea that Encore Jane, the CEO, came to me in 2020 when I wasn't traveling and I and you know, helped him create built, which is now, you know, an $11 billion company and growing rapidly. So that's been really, I love being able to invest and advise startups who are attacking parts of the industry that I know need to be fixed from a consumer perspective. So yeah, I think my goal now is to, you know, be an investor, but also like I'm very cognizant. My kids are one and three now being at home with them, especially while they're young pre-kindergarten traveling with them still is my number one priority now. So I try not to plan too far in advance, but I think you're me continuing to invest in, you know, keeping the doors open, who knows maybe there will be a time in the future to get more involved in the day-to-day of the point sky. But for now, I have this really great period of, you know, doing what I love at the point sky, investing my own money on the side and really innovative companies, which keeps me engaged. And the AI play is really interesting. I can see you're eyeing another new category to create there. Brian, thank you so much for breaking all this down. Now we're going to end with a quick rapid fire round. Don't overthink it. Okay. Say whatever comes to mind. Favorite airport in the world? Singapore Changi. So beautiful. That's true. That's true. The jewel. Yeah. Most underrated city to fly into. Hmm. I will just say, well, my most underrated like place to visit is Guatemala. I think it's so stunningly beautiful culture, my energy, it's like highly recommend. I've been multiple times. Yeah. Pat Peeve when it comes to travel. My pet peeve is people screaming at frontline employees. I see it all the time. It is so rude, these employees don't want your flight delayed. They're not doing it. And so misplaced anger and travel really great to me. Big issue. Best airport lounge in your view. Hmm. I love the chase sapphire lounges are really nice in terms of like main lounge. But the Air France love premiere lounge. I love the most because they pick you up in a Porsche at your plane and take you from the lounge in a Porsche to your plane. So the ease of just not even having to navigate the airport is Air France does the ground experience. The best. We recently had on the CEO P.S. which I'm sure you have. Yeah. That's very similar, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know what P.S. is doing is incredible. Yeah. I love that part. Another fun one for you. Very insightful Brian. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Safe travels. Thanks for joining us on Behind the Business. For more stories on business and leadership, follow us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next week.