[Ep. 411] How to Fly Around the World for Free with Graeme Bligh

Hello, Lulu, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast.

I’m your host, Jessica Moorhouse.

And for this episode, we’re talking about travel, we’re talking about points, we’re talking about credit cards because even though I had two amazing guests on the podcast for Season 18, and I’ll talk more about that in a minute, I still have been hoarding my points and I have not booked a international trip to Italy yet and I need to, because I need a vacation now or certainly after my book comes out.

I think I deserve one.

Yeah.

Anyways, that is why I contacted Graeme Bligh.

He is The Canadian Jetsetter and I discovered him just from scrolling Instagram quite honestly and I was hooked.

I love his style.

I love the information he’s putting out and so I wanted to have him on the podcast.

So we can talk more about something that he’s very passionate about.

This is what he does full time now.

That’s how passionate he is about it.

Showing people how they can book their next trip with points and getting the most bang for their buck.

He has some incredible stories of trips he’s been on that are business class, with the lie flat seats around the world.

Trips I would love to go on and they’re actually not that expensive if you know how to play the game and I ask them all the right questions.

So you will learn a lot in this episode.

Now, two episodes you’re going to want to check out and I will share this in the outro.

If you missed this or skip it, but definitely check out the two episodes I did in season 18.

Episode 393 I did with CEO and President of Air Miles, Shawn Stewart and that was a great episode to learn more about the Air Miles loyalty program and how to book flights through that program.

But also TJ.

Dunn, the editor of Prince of Travel, that is episode 401.

That’s really an episode more focused on Aero plans.

So definitely check both of those out.

But for this episode, we talk about it all.

We talk about all the different loyalty programs, the different strategies, things to do, not do, things you need to know.

So without further ado, let me get to that episode with Graeme.

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Welcome to the More Money Podcast, Graeme.

So excited to have you on the show.

Thank you.

Yeah, super excited to be here.

Yes.

So I, I think I initially reached out to the spring of 2024 because you just came up randomly on my Instagram.

And it’s, you know, there’s a lot of stuff on social media, but your stuff actually made me stop scrolling and like, oh, what’s going on over here?

And I just liked your Canadian-ness being the Canadian Jetsetter.

But also you just, yeah, we’re able to do all this research that I don’t have time for.

And most people don’t have time for to find out what are some of the best deals when it comes to travel and then of course, talking about anything kind of around travel, such as credit cards, different rewards and points programs, and doing your research and figuring that out.

I’ve had a few guests on last season, one from Aero Miles and one from Prince of Travel, really focused on Aero Plan.

But I like how you kind of talk about everything.

You talk about all the different programs, all the different approaches.

I’m really excited to kind of dive in.

But before we do, do you want to share a little bit more about how you got into this?

It sounds like it was kind of just a personal passion that kind of got things started.

Yeah, it really was personal passion.

I’ve always been obsessed with travel.

I live in Winnipeg, so that gives me a great reason.

I was wondering, I wasn’t sure exactly where you’re from.

Okay, Winnipeg, awesome.

Yeah, so it gives me a great reason to try and book as much travel as possible, especially in winter.

So I’ve always been a travel obsessed trying to get flights for good deals, have always been kind of deal obsessed.

Maybe that’s my Winnipeg-ness too, but if I can get a good deal on something, that’s just like chef’s kiss the best.

So yeah, diving into the travel content has really scratched both of my itches, and I found that other people are interested too, and I’ve been able to help, so it’s been really fun.

Yeah, getting here has been an interesting road.

I didn’t intend really to be a content creator, as I think a lot of people in the finance or points space don’t really intend to.

I had been starting businesses for quite a while.

Nothing of note or too exciting, but enough that I was having to spend way more on a credit card than I would do personally, just because I had a bunch of spend for the business.

I was scrolling on, I think, Twitter one day, and I saw entrepreneur Twitter, if you will, and there was the one guy just posting about his amazing travels and how he does it all on points, and I was like, what the heck is this?

This should be me.

I don’t know why I’m doing business things.

I should be doing travel things.

That’s much more in my line of interest.

So yeah, I was just pretty obsessed then on really dialed in on researching all the programs, especially from a Canadian perspective.

There’s so much good content for Americans, but there’s relatively little for Canadians.

So I found it a little hard, but that also fueled me to try and put some stuff out there.

So yeah, honestly, the Canadian Jetsetter started as a website that no one went to because no one heard of it, understandably, and I started posting content just thinking, if I could get a little bit of traffic to the website, that would be fun.

That would make my day.

Then yeah, the content took off and I’ve enjoyed doing it.

So here I am.

When did you start it?

Was it like relatively recently or have you been doing the Instagram special for a while?

I think my first post was May 2023.

So a year and a half now.

Now you have like, I just checked out, like as of this recording, about 75,000, 74,000 followers on Instagram, which is kind of incredible as someone who is not able to even crack the 20,000 yet.

So that’s it just goes to show that you’re doing something people are really attracted to and really like, and I think part of it is just, you’re just really good at explaining things and making things really easy to digest.

One thing I really want to know, and I’m sure most people want to know this too, is there’s a lot of deals to be had.

And I think the reason most people don’t take advantage of them is they don’t know where to find them.

And you are constantly scouring the internet for all this stuff.

How did you start and did you evolve your strategy to find these deals?

Because some of them were like, you can go to Tokyo from Toronto for $200.

I’m like, how did you find that?

How do you know this?

Yeah.

So there’s a lot of ways.

It’s a robust system at this point, but it all really started on watching internet forums.

There’s a lot of forums.

Flyer Talk is a main one where people will post.

Everyone’s like their own, they have threads on loyalty programs and then threads on flight deals.

There’s kind of resources or communities where people who are weird about travel gather, myself included.

So that was kind of starting the glimpse into like, oh, people are finding good deals.

How are you finding good deals?

Then I kind of got obsessed with it, especially with Google Flights.

I mean, honestly, people would probably be shocked with how simple my process is for finding travel deals.

The catch is that it is a lot of work.

So it’s like, I kind of think I found the sweet spot where I actually like doing the work, and then I can just send people the deals.

But it’s not a complicated process.

It really is like, I set a bunch of cities I’m watching.

I scroll the maps every day and I’m like, oh, that price went down.

Oh, like just today, I found a Toronto to Seoul deal under a thousand bucks round trip, and I was like, oh, nice, okay, that’s like half off, if not more.

So send it out and then people take advantage.

So Google Flights, Internet Forums.

On the points side, it is the wild west of like trying to find good information on where to find points deals.

There’s a bunch of tools out there.

I have tried them all.

I like some more than others, but none are perfect.

I also just do a lot of searching on myself.

So it’s kind of all over the map.

For points, are you talking about earning points, like how to earn those real quick, or how to best use the points so you get those really cheap flights?

I was talking specifically in this case about using them.

There’s kind of the two sides of points, right?

Which is really important.

I think that’s the one that most people are like, I’ve got points because that actually does feel pretty easy figuring out how to get the points.

But how do I make sure I’m getting the most for my points?

Because sometimes if you’re not careful, you’re like, this is still an expensive flight.

I’m just using points.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it’s they don’t really give you a guidebook or any kind of thing on how to use them.

So it’s it’s up to you to figure it out.

I have started trying to be more educated, like educating people on what is a good use and what is a bad use and showing examples.

But yeah, it isn’t easy and there is no guidebook.

So you kind of do have to wait in.

But like so many people just end up hoarding their points, which I totally understand and did do for a time, because it’s like, well, I don’t know how to use these.

I’m going to figure it out later.

Exactly.

So going back to you mentioned Google Flights.

This is actually a question I had because I know you you mentioned Google Flights a lot in the content that you put out.

Why do you find that kind of the best tool?

Because, you know, there’s so many ones that are always on like ads like Trivago and all these other kind of whatever.

Well, I guess maybe that’s more hotels.

But there’s all these different websites that, you know, oh, you can find cheap flights here.

There.

Why is Google Flights kind of like maybe the most comprehensive or just like kind of the best place to kind of do that research?

Yeah, a few reasons for me.

One is just their search system is really robust.

Like it will search through six months of availability really quickly and show you the lowest price you can fly.

So it helps you identify like it helps me identify.

Oh, OK.

Like prices to this region are going down for this time frame.

So you can kind of find more to pick into.

But there’s also the angle.

All of these search engines are kind of, I don’t want to say sketchy, but they are a little bit sketchy.

Even Google does it to where they’ll link you to third party resellers of tickets.

As a kind of pseudo travel internet expert, I probably should be even louder that I never use these sites and I really don’t trust them.

It’s this weird world where you’re not actually booking direct with the airline.

You’re booking with a third party travel reseller.

If anything goes wrong with your ticket, it’s not WestJet or Air Canada that you have to contact.

It’s the travel agent and they probably won’t have great support.

If things go wrong in your trip and you’ve booked with a third party agency, you’re kind of in trouble, in my opinion, like you are in trouble in actuality.

So I like Google Fights because they do make it very easy to see where you can book with the airline.

I always personally just book with the airline.

Saves you big headaches if anything goes wrong.

All these other, you know, Kayaks, Sky Scanner, Expedia, I don’t know, there’s like thousands, it’s crazy.

And then there’s like even more ones that will offer you even less price.

I’m not sure how they’re doing that.

So that’s kind of a world I’ve avoided.

Just I like my little Google Flights ecosystem.

They direct me right to the airline.

It’s simple.

I feel confident in it.

I don’t feel confident to the other stuff.

Yeah, so sometimes it may not be worth it to save that extra couple hundred dollars or hundred dollars going through that third party because I mean, everyone’s probably had an experience of traveling and something goes wrong.

You are kind of hooped.

And wouldn’t you rather be able to just directly talk to the airline to be like, I need to rebook a flight because I missed it or whatever?

I agree.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Going more into the kind of point space, I know what I really liked about your content is you talk about all the different programs.

And the top three are like Air Miles, Avion and Aeroplan.

Are there any others that I’m missing or are those kind of the main ones?

I mean, there’s lots like there’s C plus.

What else is out there?

Yeah, there is like every major bank seems to have their point system or links to even two point systems.

And all of them transfer to different places.

Some of them don’t transfer.

Some of them do transfer.

Yeah, it is again like there’s no there’s no guidebook for it.

So it’s you kind of have to wait in and then decide what point system you want to commit to.

What are your kind of favorites?

Because I know you do talk about Amex a lot.

I know that one is just from people I talk to and looking on forums as a very flexible program.

Is that one of your top ones?

Yeah.

So for me personally, the main three I collect are Amex membership rewards.

And then I do collect Air Canada Aero Plan and RBC Avion.

Those are the three personally I collect.

And the main reason is that I find you can get outsized value for how much points you actually have to spend.

Meaning like you could use your say $600 worth of points, which would be about $60,000 for all of those.

That’s kind of what they would, $60,000 points equals $600.

But you can definitely if you know what you’re doing, you know where to transfer them and you know how to find the flight, you can book a $3,000 lie flat seat.

And I find that a lot more fun.

It makes traveling the world a lot more accessible, a lot more comfortable.

So that’s just the real hook that got me all the way into the points rabbit hole.

There are a ton of other programs where it’s more direct, you know, your $100 will take $100 off any travel expense.

Those are great too.

And it’s very simple.

That’s the benefit.

Like you kind of have to either play a more challenging but more rewarding game or a more simple but less rewarding game.

Yeah, it kind of depends on what you’re looking for.

I know like for one credit card that I’ll probably hold for a long time is just the WestJet card.

It’s not the best.

I’ve done a lot of research and talked to people.

They’re like, it’s not the best.

However, what I do like about it is I go to Vancouver from Toronto twice a year and I get that companion flight.

And so that pays for that credit card, you know, every year.

It makes it worth it.

But I don’t you know, one thing I’m like, I need to look for another.

I think I’m probably going to look for an amex for me and my husband’s kind of joint spending for some of those, like the groceries and things like that.

So we can accrue those points, kind of utilize them in a different way.

And I think that’s one thing that you kind of talk often about is it’s not about just like having, you know, stick with one program.

It’s like diversify, right?

Because you can use them for so many different things.

I’m curious, because you do talk often about different credit cards.

You’ve got your favorites.

What are some credit cards people should pay attention to, depending on, you know, if you want to spend money in this way, like groceries or dining out or gas, these are some ones to kind of look out for.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, the one that always jumps out, the one that I recommend most to family and friends is the Amex Cobalt card.

It’s kind of one of Amex’s intermediary options.

And I totally understand as a Canadian for the longest time, I was like, why would I own an Amex?

It’s not taken everywhere.

I know.

I don’t see the benefit.

But MasterCard Visa, very simple, MasterCard, USA Costco.

These are all thoughts that I had and I think probably we’ve all had.

And it took me kind of doing the actual work and looking and seeing, okay, I get this many points for this kind of spend.

This is actually a much better value proposition for me, especially considering I want to use my points to travel.

So I like the Amex Cobalt specifically because it earns five times membership rewards points on food, so that’s groceries, that’s food delivery and that’s restaurants.

Of course, not every grocery store takes Amex.

That is a factor.

So I have actually kind of changed my spending habits, even where I now choose to stop at a grocery store that takes Amex, just because I’m…

If there’s a spectrum of people who are crazy about points and not crazy, I’m all the way crazy about points.

And you don’t have to go that far.

But even for restaurant spending, it’s so great.

The five times points is really, it’s genuinely like 5% cash back.

You can redeem it as a statement credit.

But as we’ve kind of established and have been alluding to, Amex membership rewards are flexible.

So I’ve transferred them to Air Canada Aeroplan.

I’ve transferred them to British Air Rosabios.

I’ve transferred them to Air France KLM Flying Blue.

And I booked really expensive seats just off my food spend, my grocery spend.

So that’s the one I recommend the most, just because it’s kind of an outsized value versus any of the other card competitors.

Yeah.

And no matter who you are, I mean, I’ve seen so many people’s budgets over the years.

The, like, besides rent and mortgage and that kind of stuff, food is where we spend our money.

No matter what, number one, we’re spending our money on food.

And so if we can get something out of it, that’s, that’s helpful.

And one thing you also talk about often is, and this is something I’ve heard, you know, talking to those other experts on Air Miles and Aeroplan, is if you really want to optimize or get the most out of your points, it’s really looking for those, like the, the business class, those kind of upgraded travel experiences.

You don’t want to use your, you’re kind of wasting your points if you’re just flying coach, even though, I mean, you know, there’s definitely a space for that.

But if you really want to like get your money’s worth, the value in terms of points to those kind of bookings is, and you mentioned like the lie flat, that’s the dream.

I’ve never done that before.

I’m sure you’ve done it a few times.

I saw a photo of you like going somewhere.

I’m like, that’s the dream.

I just want to lie flat and sleep on a really long flight.

It really is great.

Yeah.

We gotta dial in your points because you can do it.

I know, yeah.

No, that’s the plan.

I, you know, I’m still hoarding my points, but I definitely have some plans for 2025 to finally utilize them and see where it makes the most sense.

I’m definitely gonna be watching your page for some of those deals.

But what are some things that you do to make sure that you’re like, okay, this is the flight I’m gonna book and I’m gonna get that really nice?

And is it like making sure it’s a long flight instead of wasting it on a three-hour flight or something like that?

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Yeah, I mean, that’s how I look at it personally for sure is the points are a way to unlock travel that I personally wouldn’t spend in cash.

Yeah, I wouldn’t spend that money.

It’s just, I just wouldn’t.

It’s not a good value proposition for me at this point, even though I absolutely love to travel and I try and make it a priority.

But I’m not spending $8,000 round trip to fly live flat when I could spend $600 for an economy seat.

It just doesn’t make sense.

But the value proposition does shift when you’re using points.

And this is one thing that was never explained.

Or like people just don’t really understand, which I understand.

No, it’s kind of a secret thing.

You have to stumble into it.

But the reality is a lot of these programs will price points, complete points, seats completely different than their cash seats.

And I don’t know who came up with this pricing scheme.

It’s great for the people like me and soon to be you who are obsessive about how to redeem your points.

But yeah, so when you’re flying long haul in cash, let’s just say Toronto to London because it’s a very popular flight.

In cash, you’re probably going to spend a thousand bucks round trip in economy.

And because it’s a super business heavy route, you probably are going to spend 8,000 round trip to fly live flat just Toronto to London.

But if you can find points availability, it’s a completely different calculation.

It’s, you know, let’s say six, what is it usually?

I use one, I only book one ways on points, just it adds more flexibility.

So I think in one ways, but it’s 350, say, points to fly Toronto to London in economy.

But it’s only 60,000 points to fly Toronto to London in business class.

So it’s less than half.

Whereas the calculation when you’re doing cash, it’s eight times more expensive.

Whereas for the business class, you know, it’s less than a half.

Or it’s less than twice the price.

So that kind of math just like makes it more attractive to fly long haul.

The other thing that, you know, I mean, I want to emphasize is that it is sometimes challenging to find those points deals.

So you’ll see me, you’ll see other influencers were like, oh, look, I got this amazing deal.

But the challenging side of it is like, you can’t just do that every day.

You’re definitely not going to be able to do that on Christmas.

You do have to be flexible.

That’s one thing that really helps when trying to book an award flight.

It is flexible on dates.

Either book really far out or really close to your departure.

Those are kind of general rules that will help you find good seats in points.

But it is, I don’t know, I could rant on.

Yeah, no, that was another question I had is when you’re using points, what makes the most sense to plan super far in advance and how far in advance are we talking?

And or is it really just about because you’ll hear all the times of last minute things.

I’ve never been able to book a last minute trip.

It’s very hard to organize your life around, let’s leave the next weekend.

It’s not going to happen.

So I’m curious, have you done both?

Have you done, I booked it like a year in advance or I went last weekend?

Yes, I have done both.

And honestly, that’s kind of the best.

Those are the best two ways to do it.

It’s the middle ground, which unfortunately is where most people want to plan.

Yeah.

So and it is also like a flexibility of destination thing too.

So my partner and I, we had built up a bunch of Aeroplan points over a couple of years.

And I’m always now, especially as this is kind of my full time thing, I’m watching the points availability and I just saw randomly, oh, you could get live flat seats, Vancouver to Hong Kong in like three weeks.

It was 75,000 points plus 150 bucks or something like that one way.

So those seats are definitely usually $5,000 plus, plus because going to Asia is even more expensive than Europe.

And we were like, oh, okay.

We actually kind of wanted to go to Japan for it, but we were like, oh, you know, Hong Kong looks cool, it’s available, we’re going.

And we had the best time, really loved Hong Kong.

So it does help to be flexible on your destination and your date.

Or like, you know, I booked a trip for, I booked it in April and I booked it for March of 2025.

So you book it 11 months out.

That’s another good way.

A lot of these award carrier, or a lot of these carriers will release their award seats kind of between 330 and 360 days out.

So it’s one of the most reliable times if you know you want to go somewhere in a year, which again is sometimes hard to know.

But if you have an inclination, you can book it.

A lot of the times on points, there’s much more reasonable cancellation fees than in cash as well.

Like I think the ones that I booked were on Qatar Airways.

And I think the cancellation fee is about $100 each.

So it would be annoying to cancel, but if we have to change our plans, it’s not the end of the world.

It’s not like you’re losing all your points or money.

Yeah, that would be hard.

You mentioned you book mainly one-way flights, which is so interesting.

I don’t think I’ve ever booked a one-way flight.

I’ve always just done round trip for whatever reason.

What’s your reasoning behind that?

Like is it more expensive to do round trip because of the convenience factor?

Yeah, I mean, I book one-ways for pretty much everything now, and there’s a few reasons.

One is that airlines used to discount your price when you book a round trip.

That’s not really the case anymore.

Oh, really?

Like, if you check, I always check.

And just booking two one-ways kind of makes it more flexible in a lot of ways if you have to cancel one leg.

I’m kind of often doing weird travel where it’s not like, you know, I go Winnipeg to Toronto and back, though I do sometimes do that.

Sometimes I’m booking a zigzag pattern, going a whole bunch of places.

So booking one-ways keeps everything a little bit separate.

So if one thing goes wrong or if I have to cancel one thing, it doesn’t mess up the whole itinerary.

But there is also significant savings, especially on the points side.

I only book one-ways on points as a lot of these programs now use what’s called dynamic pricing.

So this means that, you know, it means what it sounds like.

The rate is dynamic.

It goes up, it goes down.

And when you merge two flight, so say you find one at the lowest dynamic rate and you will find one at the middle dynamic rate and you want to merge them together, oftentimes it kind of ruins the value of the low dynamic one or it’s kind of pushes it up.

So they’re both expensive.

So booking two separate one-ways both like, make sure I get the lowest rate at this one, you know, the first one, whatever.

And then it allows you to either book on a different program, book a cash flight back.

It just increases flexibility and there’s no cost.

Usually it’s the same price or less.

So that’s what I do.

That’s something that I need to do now.

Like honestly, I’ve never heard that tip before, so that’s actually really helpful.

So thanks for that.

I’m going to keep that in my back pocket.

I’m also curious because you do travel so much.

Do you have some favorite airlines?

Honestly, I can’t say that I’ve really flown many airlines besides WestJet, Air Canada, American, and I think that’s like it.

I think that’s just how it happens.

What are some other great airlines that you’ve experienced that you’re like, this is worth the money, this is worth using your points for?

Yeah.

I think we in North America are in a bubble where our airlines get us from A to B, but as we all feel now, they’re not very nice to us.

There’s no service.

There’s not no service, but it’s a kind of bare boats.

It’s not what it used to be 10 years ago or 15 years ago.

Remember when they give you blankets and pillows?

Yes.

Those were the days.

If you go to Asia or the Middle East, the carriers are still, at least some of the carriers are quite luxurious, quite service focused.

I recently flew on both Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines business class while I was over in Asia.

It really is a pretty incredible experience.

They just go a lot harder in everything, the service, the food.

Air Canada and WestJet do have very nice products, especially in business class.

They are doing well.

It’s just they take it to a next level.

They serve you your food on multiple different plates, which is honestly unnecessary.

For me, if I’m in a lie flat seat in the sky, it’s like this is already an incredible experience.

The champagne and even fancier food just puts it over the top for me anyway.

But yeah, we flew around the world in business class on points, which was a really cool experience.

We got to try a bunch of different carriers.

Cathay Pacific, Singapore, we flew Oman Air, which was also really spectacular.

They just do it a bit bigger, especially I think it’s more of a tourist-friendly or hospitality-focused culture in a lot of those airlines and countries.

Whereas we’re kind of racing to the bottom in North America, which-

Yeah, especially honestly, I’ve had some meh on WestJet Air Canada.

It’s the American Airlines.

I’ve sometimes had some terrible, you’re like, oh my God, I mean, to be fair, some of them, the worst one was Spirit.

I mean, I know that’s a joke for everyone, but that was the first time I’ve ever did Spirit.

It was a very short flight, but I’m like, this is an experience.

I feel like I’m on a bus.

Yeah, it really is frustrating.

I mean, I understand that that’s their business model.

I recently flew Flair after not flying them for quite a while.

Oh yeah, Flair, yeah.

I was just reminded how poorly they treat you.

I had a last-minute flight I wanted to take and Flair took credit to them.

They had a way cheaper price than your Canada or WestJet.

So I was like, it’s a two and a half hour flight to Vancouver.

Yeah, whatever.

I’m just going to do it.

But you can bring a personal item for free.

I was like, oh, I bet I can get by with a personal item.

To be fair to them, they put the size.

But when you go to check in, they don’t let you get your boarding pass until you put your bag in the sizer.

It is an incredibly small bag.

I was like, oh, my bag will fit under the seat.

No problem.

I felt like I’m the travel guy, but I’m admitting I got duped.

My carry-on that definitely fit under the seat was not big enough to be a personal item.

So I had to pay an extra $70 to flare because it was like, oh, it’s a last-minute carry-on.

So that was really annoying.

It’s just like, I don’t know, it leaves a really bad taste in your mouth.

I always feel like if you embed those fees, I’m much happier than having to pay those fees separately.

So yes, that was the same experience I had with Spirit.

It’s like, oh, you want a carry-on, that’s an extra, you know, this one.

Then you want water, that’s extra.

And you’re like, oh, I just want to like, I want something, come on.

I don’t like being nickled and dimed.

Yeah, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, that’s for sure.

You mentioned you traveled around the world.

What do you mean by that?

Like, where did you go?

Was that like just one, like you went for a year and went everywhere?

What would that look like?

Yeah, no, I didn’t go for a year.

It was only a three-week trip, but it was my 30th birthday.

And it was kind of both an exercise and stretching points to their maximum amount possible and also having a great vacation.

One of the things that I just like are possible on points, but are just not possible on cash is kind of linking together even longer chains of flights.

And Aeroplanes specifically is a great program for this.

So that’s what I did.

So basically I used points instead of flying.

It’s kind of I did a bunch of things that are all, part of Air Canada’s program.

If you read their manual, they’re like, yeah, you can do this.

But what I did is instead of flying one business class flight from Toronto to Singapore, say, I flew six.

And that is the actually, if you can find the lowest dynamic availability, you can get them all for the exact same price as one flight.

So this opens up some fun opportunities to really like stretch the value of your points.

So instead of just flying, you can fly Singapore to New York one flight.

But instead, I went Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, to Muscat, had a stopover in Muscat.

Really enjoyed Oman, such friendly people.

Not a place that’s like super popular touristy, and understandably because it’s across the world and really hard to get to.

But another thing that points helps open up.

So we had a stopover in Oman, really enjoyed that, and then continued on.

And went to Zurich, and then Frankfurt, and then Montreal, and then Toronto.

So this long journey that was, I don’t know, probably about a week because we had the stopover in between.

I think it costs 92,500 aeroplan points.

So 87.5 plus the 5,000 for the stopover.

And that was all in business class.

So we got to try Swiss Air’s business class.

We got to try Singapore Airlines business class.

We got to try Oman Air business class.

So I actually, for my premium newsletter, I did a whole breakdown on exactly how I booked it, exactly what I-

How long did that take to organize yourself?

Because that sounds like a lot of planning.

It is a lot of planning.

So this is where, again, as I talked about, you can have points that you can’t redeem that much value, but they’re simple, or you can have points that take a lot of work, but you can get really crazy value.

So it was a lot of work.

When you book more than three flights on a single itinerary, you have to call the Aeroplan Call Center.

You can’t do it online because their systems can’t handle it, understandably.

But even then, that’s a bit of a like, they won’t help you on the call center, put this together.

You have to come to them with your routes, and you have to find the availability.

So even when I was trying to book it, the first itinerary that we tried to put together in price didn’t work because, unfortunately, Air Canada’s site has this thing called, well, at least what the Internet has deemed phantom availability.

Basically, it’ll show that there’s business class seats available at the low price, but when you try and actually book it, they’re not available.

This isn’t a huge issue, but it is a thing that’s happening, which is really quite frustrating.

I know they are working on it.

But they are available, but they’re not available.

Are they saving those seats for somebody?

I don’t know the genesis of what is causing that issue, but it happens a lot with specific carriers too, like Etihad is an Aeroplan partner and a really valuable one at that because it’s a Middle Eastern carrier that has very fancy, nice service.

I found a flight on Canada’s website that said it was available to book, and I called in and they were like, yeah, actually, we’ve been having troubles.

You can’t book Etihad right now.

But yeah, it does take a lot of work to go back to answering your question, piecing it together, finding all the availability.

I’m making it sound very easy and attractive, but you do have to-

Weeks of work or months?

What are we talking about?

Well, for me, actually, it’s years of work on understanding how all of the things work.

Then a day of like, okay, we’re free at this time.

I found the flight out to Hong Kong.

I mentioned that one that we flew.

We did Vancouver, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Bangkok.

That was on one itinerary on aeroplane points.

Then I booked some separate cash flights to get from Bangkok down to Singapore and spend time in Southeast Asia, which was excellent.

Again, similar to the airlines, the hotels there, even though some of them, we stayed at a lot of Marriott properties, which is obviously an American brand, but the service level in Southeast Asia is at a different level.

It’s just incredible.

The cost too, I couldn’t believe how cheap.

You go to Toronto or Vancouver.

If you want to stay at a relatively nice hotel, you are shelling out hundreds and hundreds of dollars a night, whereas you can stay at a five-star luxury hotel in Bangkok for 150 a night, even less.

That’s wild.

Isn’t that crazy?

It’s like the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed at.

It’s crazy.

It’s crazy.

It’s crazy.

Again, points have helped unlock the ability to travel further and more comfortably.

I’m obsessed with both talking about it, helping people do it.

I’m glad you are.

I’m curious too, how important are lounges?

Because that’s another component of the travel hacking is lounges.

I had a call outside of the episode I did with the editor of Prince of Travel, and he’s like, oh, one little tip is the Chicago Airport has a really great lounge.

So if you can do a stopover there, you want to do that.

I’m like, that’s so random.

Maybe.

Is our lounge is part of when you’re making a plan for your trips, or is it like, I don’t really care?

For me, it is.

Again, I’m a travel nut, so I’m not advocating this for everyone, but I will absolutely like it.

I love a lounge.

I’ll be honest.

It really does change the experience.

When you haven’t done lounges for so long and then you get access, you’re like, I can never go back.

Oh, yeah.

You’re absolutely right.

I can never go back.

It’s just as we’ve established, carriers in North America are pretty unreliable.

I could check my flighty account that tracks my flights, but I think 80 percent of my flights have been delayed at least 15 minutes.

So that’s a pretty bad ratio.

But it really softens the blow if you are at a nice lounge in a comfy seat, you have unlimited food and drink.

It’s like, oh, you can get some work done or you can relax.

It’s a little less chaotic.

So yeah, I will absolutely plan trips, not maybe long trips, but shorter trips.

We’re going down to Orlando for a bit, and there are directs from Winnipeg, but I caught a pretty good layover in Atlanta, and Atlanta just built a really new state-of-the-art Centurion Lounge.

So I was like, oh, we could stop in Atlanta, check out the new lounge, enjoy some nice food and drink, and then continue on.

Build it into the vacation, yeah.

Exactly.

So for me, it’s a big piece, especially both some of the premium credit cards give you unlimited access, which is really great, and then also with the points and accessing business class, that includes lounges too.

So like in Hong Kong, we went to Cathay Pacific’s flagship lounges, and those are the nicest lounges I’ve ever been to.

Yeah.

Really insane, like made to order noodle bar, gigantic spaces with runway views, champagne, like really kind of ridiculous stuff.

I know.

I haven’t experienced that myself.

I’ve really just done like the premium plaza, whatever it is at the Toronto airport.

You’re like, this is nice, I guess.

Yeah.

You’ll find me most at the Plaza Premium Winnipeg Lounge.

That’s not a Cathay Pacific’s Hong Kong lounge, or an everyday thing, but it’s better than nothing at the Plaza Premium lounge for sure.

It’s something.

But yeah, you kind of mentioned, because I feel like a lot of people don’t know how to access, and I think things have shifted a lot.

Before, I felt very difficult to get access to lounges, and I feel like COVID out of that, they changed things and now it’s fairly accessible.

Good and bad, sometimes you go to a lounge, you’re like, it is busy in here.

Or there’s kids running around, you’re like, I thought I would have a nice relaxing place to hang out for a few hours.

What are some ways that you kind of mentioned a few different credit cards and points.

If someone has never done a lounge, they want to make sure they get access on their next trip.

What should they look out for?

What should they do?

If you were looking for an entry to airport lounges, I would look at a travel credit card, and especially if you don’t have one.

There’s a lot of mid-level cards in the $100 to $150 annual fee range that will give you airport lounge access passes, which is a great way to try it out and see if you like it before committing to trying to burn all your points to get it or to spend a lot on a credit card to get it.

You have to do the calculations if you’re spending on a high-end card that gives you unlimited lounge access.

But I just did a video about the CIBC Aventura Gold card, which gives you four airport lounge passes, and it’s a first-year free card, too.

So it’s kind of a nice like, you can get the card, you can get bonus points, you also get a Nexus credit, and you get four Visa airport lounge passes, which will be accessible.

You can go on their website.

It would cover you in most Canadian cities and most American cities.

There’ll be some lounge you can access.

Are there any lounges that are the worst that you’ve ever been to?

Or even airlines, too?

Are there ones you’re like, stay away?

This isn’t, you know, maybe people say it’s great online, not so much.

Yeah, I mean, there’s just been ones where it’s like overrun with people, which just does happen, especially at busier airports.

Not it is actually a very or like it’s a nice space, but the Toronto Maple Leaf Lounge, I’ve only ever gone and it’s only ever been completely packed with people.

So it’s like you’re kind of fighting for a spot.

It’s not super relaxing at times, but they actually in Toronto, to be fair to them, they have the Air Canada Cafe downstairs, which you can also access if you have business class.

And that I think is quite nice.

It’s a great concept.

You can they have all this like food that’s grabbed to go.

If you get a high end card like the American Express Platinum, you get a priority pass, which gives you access to a bunch of different lounges that are not associated with an airline, but are, you know, just the lounge in the airport.

So the the priority pass lounge in Phuket was an absolute gong show, just like every seat filled, basically no food, not great drinks.

To be fair, that was the entire Phuket airport.

I mean, that just sounds like Phuket.

I’ve been to Phuket before.

It was not my favorite place.

So it’s just so busy and touristy.

I guess that’s not a surprise.

Yeah, that was the airport in general.

So to be fair, it matched the vibe of the airport.

But yeah, so there are sometimes bad ones or things where it’s like, oh, it’s just a priority pass lounge.

Like I wouldn’t book a trip, especially to go to a priority pass lounge or something like that, but a new flagship American Express entering lounge and be like, okay, I’m going to try and get there because I want to check it out.

What was the best trip that you have ever been on, on points or the best trip that you got the best deal on?

You used the least amount of points to get to wherever your destination was.

I was already alluding to it, but the best one was definitely the round the world trip, just the value per point that we got.

That was a purposefully trying to extract.

I think we used 92 plus 80, so 180-ish thousand points.

It is a significant amount of points.

That was accrued through a couple of credit card bonuses and regular spend.

But to fly around the world in business class for that amount of points was really like-

Do you know how much in dollars that would have cost you or in an hour?

I did calculate it.

It was like 10, 20 grand?

It was closer to 20 grand for sure.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was like a definite pushing of the limit where you’re just getting an insane value.

I have booked some other really good ones.

There’s sometimes some sneaky, really good business class flights that you can get.

I booked recently one.

It’s not directly to Canada, but it was from Madrid to New York JFK.

Then I booked with 34,000 Avios points, which I transferred my Canadian American Express points.

It was 34,000 American Express points transferred to British Airways Avios.

Then you can book the lie flat seat for 34,000 points and I think again like 200 in fees.

So you’re looking at a total theoretical cost of 500 bucks for a one-way lie flat.

Yeah.

A lot of the American Express cards, they’re welcome bonuses like, yeah, they’re huge.

You can get 80,000 points.

So you could fly round trip from Madrid to New York, New York to Madrid or other American cities.

That’s on Iberia.

So it’s not quite the tier like the Asian carriers we were talking about, but still a nice product, a nice business class.

You can sleep on the flight and you could get that.

If you can find the dates, which again, we’ve established that’s a bit of the, you got to plan ahead or plan last minute or get lucky in the middle.

But yeah, it’s very accessible.

So that’s a program that I really like.

British Airways, obvious, has a few really good sweet spots, even better than Aeroplan or anyone else.

How often?

The easiest way quite honestly to get those points is those welcome bonuses.

That is how I’ve gotten the majority of my points quite honestly.

There’s some really great ones and sometimes I just look online, look at the forums, see what’s going on.

But there’s definitely a limit.

I definitely feel like hit a limit with Amex.

They’re not super happy with me because I think I’ve gotten too many and canceled a few.

But for you, what is your strategy for maybe not churning isn’t the right term anymore, but making sure that you are getting those welcome bonuses?

How often do you sign up for credit cards?

Do you ever close them or do you just keep them open?

I know there’s rules against, like if you’ve already signed up for that card, got that bonus and even if you waited a few years, you can’t reapply and get the same welcome bonus again.

I’m pretty reserved on my credit card applying and canceling, at least for someone who’s points obsessed.

I know there’s people who max out trying to get as many credit cards as possible, as many points as possible.

I would say I apply for a new card every six months, say maybe every four, depending on if there’s like a welcome bonus that’s attractive or a specific program that I want to start getting more points with.

Then I usually am canceling cards too.

I think it’s important to weigh the annual fee versus the points you’re getting.

That’s always the thing.

You’re like, oh, I don’t want to pay that fee.

That’s a high fee.

Oftentimes, the math definitely makes sense when you’re getting a welcome bonus of points and you’re collecting a lot.

But once you’re not getting a bunch of points for the welcome bonus, and if you’re not using the perks or the points you’re accruing on the card, then the math really doesn’t make any sense.

I’m pretty stringent at trying to cancel at about a year for the cards where I’m like, okay, this provided me value, but reviewing on year two, it’s not.

I have a spreadsheet where I track all the cards I have.

I think I have about six active right now, which some people are probably like, oh, that’s a lot.

No, I think I probably have about six actually.

Some people I know have like 20 plus and it’s like, for me, that’s a lot.

I don’t know if I can keep track of all of those.

I’d put something on one and totally forget.

That scares me.

Yeah, me too.

That’s the way I do it.

There’s also other ways that I’ve gotten more interested in accruing points.

As you said, it is hard to earn on spend, but it is something, especially if you own a business, that’s how I got into it and you’re putting a lot of business spend on a card.

I’ve actually had so many business owners reach out and I help them with finding flights because obviously, they’re running in a business that has a lot of spend, but they don’t have time to dive into these details, which doesn’t make sense to.

Another thing that I’ve gotten really into over the last, I would say, eight months is buying points, which I do not recommend people do.

Not many people talk about that.

Yeah.

You’re like, no, it could be a really good idea.

It can be.

You need to understand the risks.

In my premium newsletter, I’ve done full deep dives on all the risks, all the rewards, but the long and short of it is, I would only buy points if I have an ideal redemption that I’ve already scoped out.

I know, okay, I can buy Aeroplan’s points right now.

They recently, not currently, but they just had a bonus of 125 percent when you bought points.

I actually did top up.

I know I’m going to be able to redeem these for lie flat seats to far places that I would never pay cash for, and it is possible to get really nice redemption values, but it isn’t something to invest in.

It’s always possible that airlines devalue the points, change how many seats are available.

There are risks, frankly.

It’s like you want to go into it eyes wide open, know what you’re doing, and know that you might not be able to find the perfect flight for the points you bought unless you’ve already done that actively and are ready to redeem right away.

You’re in the mindset, this is what I’ve heard from others, is the idea of earning the points and burning those points.

Because like you said, even if they don’t devalue the points, the flights will get more expensive because of inflation, and your points are not going to change, they’re going to stay the same.

You want to make sure that you are always making a plan to use those points relatively in the near future, right?

Yes.

That’s definitely my recommendation and what I practice myself too.

I try and keep low points balances.

Often, what I’ve done, which I’ve alluded to too, is I will just book a flight.

I’m not even sure I’m going to take yet.

If I have to pay the cancellation fee, so be it.

But it’s on the books, it makes me motivated to work hard and then get myself on another trip.

It’s just a little carrot.

Then it also saves you from hoarding too many points.

But you obviously have to have the ability to travel, which I realize.

If you have a nine to five and only this amount of days, and I know sometimes it can be very difficult to try to get the days you want.

I’ve been there, it can be difficult.

But one thing I’ve been thinking too is just life gets busy and it goes by fast, and you have these plans to go on a trip and then five years later, you still haven’t gone that trip.

So sometimes it is about book the flight, go on the trip and make it happen because you’ll never regret.

I’ve never regretted going on a trip.

Even ones where there is some sort of, yeah, we missed our flight or some kind of catastrophe happened.

There’s always good memories.

I still have beautiful memories of going to Paris with my husband.

It was during the Paris floods of 2016.

So a lot of these museums were flooded out, it rained the whole time, my husband was sick, then he got me sick.

All these things went wrong, still an amazing trip.

It’s all about the experience and doing it now, because if you wait too much into the future, you might not do it, and then you’ll regret it.

Yeah, we don’t want to do that.

Live your life.

Exactly.

Well, it was so great having you on the show.

Before I let you go, you mentioned your newsletter.

What a great resource.

I guess one tip you probably also have just to stay in the loop with lots of these airlines is to sign up to their newsletters.

That’s probably how you find out, oh, they have a deal on point.

So that’s probably one tip, but also signing up for your different newsletters you want to share a little bit more about that, how people can find how to sign up.

Yeah, for sure.

If you’re interested, thecanadianjetsetter.com, I have an email capture right on the homepage for my email newsletter.

I have a free newsletter where I just cover cash deals, travel deals from all major Canadian cities.

Usually comes out about once a week, sometimes more.

I just sent out an emergency email today as there was some great deals to New Zealand and South Korea.

I was like, okay, I’m going to get those out immediately.

Then I have a premium section as well, which kind of helps support me as an independent creator.

I think it provides a ton of value to there.

I’m finding specific points redemption deals.

I’m watching similar to the one I mentioned where I flew Vancouver to Hong Kong on points.

That was one I actually featured in the newsletter.

I just booked it myself too because I was like, oh, this is a great deal.

I also do cash deals.

If you’re not just into points, I do business class cash deals.

That’s another area where if you are a frequent flyer or someone who has a little bit more money to spend on travel, you can actually earn pretty meaningful loyalty points for whoever is airline program if you’re flying in the higher tiers.

But obviously, there’s more cash to spend.

I have two options and I have usually two to three emails a week.

People can hit me up and ask questions through the email too.

Amazing.

Of course, you’ve got your Instagram.

Is there any other resources that you’ve got online that you want people to know about?

Yeah.

Instagram and TikTok are both very robust.

I’m posting almost daily.

Check me out on YouTube too if you’re interested.

I’m just about to start my, I’ve hired an editor.

The editing process is going to be much more consistent and faster now.

So tomorrow, I’m dropping my first of what should be a regular once weekly video.

So I’m excited about that and then I will eventually be having some kind of Graeme’s Point handbook offering that is not ready yet, but it’s going to be coming kind of summarized my thoughts.

All my thoughts are really on the internet.

So if you scroll through my videos, you can find them, but I’m trying to work on a resource.

Have something condensed, one stop shop guide.

Exactly.

So that should be hopefully out in the next month or two.

I’m just working on updating my website and making everything.

But yeah, exciting times.

Very exciting times and so much great information.

Thank you so much for sharing it, Graeme.

It was a pleasure having you on.

Thanks so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

I had lots of fun.

That was my episode with Graeme Bligh, the Canadian Jetsetter.

Make sure to check him out at thecanadienjetsetter.com.

Also make sure to give him a follow on Instagram.

He is simply just at the Canadian Jetsetter and also his YouTube channel.

Make sure to subscribe to that, which is very easy to do if you’re already watching this podcast on my YouTube channel.

Check that out.

He’s also on TikTok, the Canadian Jetsetter.

I’m going to include all of this in the show notes, the description, wherever you’re at.

If you ever want to find more information about a podcast episode, it does live on my website forever.

Just go to jessicamoorhouse.com/podcast, or if you know the episode number, which should be in the title wherever you’re listening or watching to the episode, just go to jessicamoorhouse.com/thenumber of that episode.

But you can also easily search for guests by name or even topic on my website, jessicamoorhouse.com/podcast.

So make sure to give Graeme a look, a subscribe, a like, a follow, and also check out his different newsletters.

He has one that’s free, one that is more premium and paid, and he is a content creator like me.

So support a fellow local Canadian content creator who’s just trying to help you get some deals, and who doesn’t like some deals?

So there you go.

Thank you so much for watching, listening.