$0 Mexico Vacation (Leadville 100 Recovery)

So I've been wanting to try something for a long time, and this weather is convincing me that today is the day.

So if you missed last week's video, I just finished running a 100 mile ultra marathon in America's highest city, which was by far the hardest thing that I've ever done. So because Kara has devoted the last two months of her life to supporting me in accomplishing this goal, I kind of feel like she deserves a vacation. Not only has she allowed us to devote the last two months of our life to me training, but she also stayed up for 30 hours to crew me during the race.

34.

Colorado is normally not super rainy in the summer. It's been like this for the whole week. And I'm thinking we're going on a beach vacation. Okay. So if you followed our channel for a while, you know that we use miles and points to make travel cheaper a lot of times or sometimes fly fancier than we would if we were just paying for it out of pocket. We've been using miles and points for years. Like back in 2016, I was sitting at a McDonald's in Bangkok explaining how we'd use miles and points to fly around southeast Asia during our first year of full time travel. But usually if you're booking a flight with miles and points, there's still taxes and fees associated with that booking that you have to pay. And then most people just think about using the points to be able to book flights and hotels. But there are a lot of other little expenses that go along with travel, like transportation once you get there, the food that you're eating, tours, stuff like that, that. My goal is to do all of this with files and points. I want to spend not a single penny on this trip. That's the challenge.

Okay, well, Nate is deciding where we're gonna go, which is hopefully somewhere warm and luxurious and smells really nice. I've got to show you the state of this van just in case you missed the Life of 100 video. I hope that you didn't. But we basically were awake for 34 hours straight using this van as a hub for anything and everything that Nate could possibly need for 100 miles, which means this place is a total wreck. This is still what our sink looks like. To be fair, this looks better than it did before. The morning after the race, there was a pan of soggy potatoes on our bed. It honestly still kind of smells like potatoes in here. Here's the bathroom. We have ramen galore. So many batteries, hundreds of drinks. Oh, my gosh.

I Kid you not?

They're still wet.

That was the river and there was this like field that was just like soggy and smelled like cow poop.

There's still smell it. What? No wonder it stinks in here.

I think I can smell it from here, actually.

So I should really spend the next week deep cleaning this van, eating healthy foods, kind of resetting everything. But I think we'll just go on.

Vacation because you know what? It'll be here when we get back. Okay, so back to booking a vacation for $0. We're currently thinking all inclusive hotel in Mexico because one, the whole goal of this trip is to relax. Two, that's going to make it a lot easier not to spend money once we get there. And three, tacos. But the really fun thing about planning this trip specifically is that I'm actually testing a new tool that we're to be releasing over at Daily Drop later this year which makes it super easy to use your miles and points. So this tool that I think we're going to call Daily Drop Pro, lets you search for hotels and flights that are available to book with miles and points. So for the hotel, I just put in tulum the dates we want to travel, and then it shows me all the hotels that can be booked with points around tulum. And then it's basically the same thing for flights I put in that I want to fly from Denver to Cancun tomorrow, and then it shows me all the airlines that have seats available to book with points. So I'm pretty pumped about this because it makes it super easy to use your miles and points and saves you a ton of time because the other option is to go to all these different hotel sites individually and make your searches. And same with the flight. So basically, instead of having 50 different tabs open when you're trying to plan a trip, you can just do it all in one place.

Okay, flights and hotels are booked. We'll fill you in on that shortly. But our flight out of Denver is pretty early tomorrow and we've decided that in order to get a couple extra hours of sleep, we're going to make the two hour drive to the airport tonight and then stealth camp in the parking lot. I kid you not, I woke up and had this idea this morning.

All right, we're almost to the airport. We want to be super incognito. So I'm gonna go ahead and put all of our window covers up in the van and we'll just quietly park, slip into bed and no one will know.

Never heard that noise.

Before.

Why is our van making that noise? It might be at its limit.

We weren't the only ones that had this idea that noise is bad.

I've never heard that before.

Well, I found out what's dragging. Well, the good news or the bad.

News is that the pay funnel.

The good news is there's nothing wrong structurally with the car. Okay. The bad news is that we no longer have a gray water tank underneath our shower. There used to be a 5 liter gray water tank right there. But you know what? That's another problem for when we get back from Mexico. All right, we're going to sleep. Just tell me to turn your lights on and open the bag and we'll see you in the morning. I don't know why I feel like it helps with our west smoke now.

Good morning. We got eight hours of sleep and didn't get kicked out, so I'd say pretty good decision. And now it's time to go get some free breakfast in the lounge.

I haven't brushed my teeth or had a coffee yet. Feels really weird to be in such a public place right now.

Exit here for all ages.

Game. So our new favorite domestic lounge is the Capital One Lounge. There's one here in Denver in terminal A. And we are about to get it free using this card, which is the Venture X. You get unlimited access to the Capital One lounges with this card plus priority pass which gives you access to another 1200 lounges internationally. So pretty good deal. This girl needs her coffee.

Love this lounge. Coffee is so strong and so hot. And they have oat milk lattes on draft.

So fun. And Dutch mini pancakes, chia pudding and some kind of avocado bowl.

Morning routine in the lounge.

Oh, that's cold water.

Literally using the camera screen as a mirror. And this is not the first time I've had to do this.

Okay. I quickly wanted to come in the bathroom and share my morning routine with you.

And I remember to do that about 50% of the mornings.

One of the main reasons that the Capital One Lounge is my favorite is that most lounges don't let you take stuff out, but they actually encourage it. They have like a grab and go section at the entrance SL exit and you can just grab stuff and take it on your flight with you. Okay. Our flight started boarding five minutes ago and we still have to catch a train and travel to another town. Then I get a little closer this morning. But we'll make it.

Ah, it's bringing back memories. Still a little sore.

Okay. We made it with 12 minutes to spare until they shut the gate. No problem. So I quickly have time to explain how we booked this flight for free. So Tulum is an hour south of Cancun, so I just went into the Daily Drop Tool and then I searched for flights from Denver to Cancun and found this United flight that we're about to board for 20,000 points. But there was $90 in taxes and fees. So where'd that card go? Where's my Capital One card? Same card, the VentureX, the one that just got us into that lounge. I used that to pay for the taxes and fees because Capital One has this unique feature where you can go into the back of your account and then you can erase travel purchases. So $0.01 equals $1 and you can take that purchase off your statement. So we redeemed around 9,000 Capital One points to pay for those taxes and fees. Okay, let's go to Mexico.

We're happy you're flying with us today. As you find your seats, place your larger bags in the overhead bin.

Where do these people keep coming from?

This isn't Southwest. People don't choose whether or not they sit here based on how you look.

Off to a good start. Think the sun is over.

This is not a good use of miles, so it pains me a little bit. But for the sake of the challenge, I just redeemed 800 United miles by Wi Fi flute flight.

Cheers. We have found ourselves with two glasses of bubbly win which is not included on this flight. But we have still paid $0 because we were trying to do something nice for someone else. We met a couple earlier who were on their 15 year wedding anniversary trip. We thought it'd be nice to surprise them, so we asked our flight attendant to give them two glasses of champagne on us. And they were so nice. Not only did they just gift them champagne, didn't charge us, but she brought some to us.

You can't make this stuff up. The timing was just too good. I'm sitting here getting some work done and I get an email from American Airlines titled Get World of Hyacinth's forest status. The property that we're going to stay at is a Hyatt. So I click on it. It basically just says I have to connect my American Airlines Freebo Flyer account to my Hyatt account. And then they'll give me free Explorer status instantly. Which means that now there's a chance that we could get upgraded for free.

What are the chances?

Welcome to Cancun, where the current local.

Time is 2:29pm all right, 3 and 12 hours later, we made it to Mexico and it is warm. Is this way you want it?

Real quick, I want to say a big thank you to a new sponsor of the channel, which is Airalo. You see, landing in a new country can be intimidating, but one great way to take some of the stress out of it is being connected on your phone like you are back at home. That way, when you land, if you need to do things like currency conversion, translation, maybe order transportation from the airport, being connected allows you to do that and just gives you an extra layer of peace of mind. Airalo is the world's first ESIM company that lets you buy digital SIM cards in over 200 countries and regions around the world through an app. And it's already being used by over 10 million travelers. We have tried out a lot of different phone plans over the years, and if there's one thing we've learned is that there is no perfect phone plan. But I think Airalo might be perfect for a lot of you because if you don't want to base your entire phone plan around a couple trips that you're going to take every year, they make it super easy to buy digital SIM cards in the countries that you're going to be traveling to. And it's super affordable. And right now they are offering you $3 off your your first data plan purchase when you click the link below and use code Kara and Nate. I'm currently using Airalo on this trip and I was really surprised by how easy the process is. Plus, as I said before, we have tried out a lot of phone plans over the years and one thing that we've learned is that a lot of the major US phone carriers will actually kick you off of your plan if you use it too much abroad. But Airalo won't do that. They were made for travelers. So you can buy digital eins in the countries that you're traveling to or buy one plan that works globally. Also, one other amazing thing is that you get to keep your current phone number. So if you want to stay connected on your next trip, definitely check out Airalo link in the description below. QR code here on the screen. And don't forget to use code Karen nate to save $3 on your first data plan. Even after traveling to over 100 countries, I still find the Cancun airport chaotic, intimidating. I'm not sure what you want to call it, but as soon as you land. Thank you. Everybody wants to help you. So we pre booked a shuttle. It cost $120. And once again, that is being covered with capital one points. So I'll go back and I'll erase that for my account. I will be the first one to admit this is not the best use of points. But for the sake of this video, we're keeping it completely free.

All right. They're pretty fun, though.

Wow. Thank you. Bye. I thought $120 was a little steep.

But this is like a limo.

I expected to get cramped in the back of a taxi. And this is fantastic.

Very first time we came to Cancun, it was the year after we got married. We have very little money, and let's just say this is not the experience that we had.

We hadn't discovered miles and points yet, and we had $0, so we rented this tiny yellow car. But that's the thing. Like, money doesn't matter in travel. I have just as good of memories from that trip as I will from this one, I'm sure. Maybe more. Those are like core early days travel memories. All we have was a GoPro. We didn't have a YouTube channel yet.

Do you think you would believe it if we would have come from the future and said, no, you're gonna come back here after running 100 miles?

I thought you were gonna say after traveling to 100 countries, but.

All right.

Wow, it's freezing in here.

Hopefully home for the next four nights. A lot happened during check in. Unfortunately, one of those things was not a free upgrade due to my new status. First, if anyone approaches you holding a pamphlet like this run.

There'S some kind of timeshare thing, I guess. Anyway, it was like 30 minutes of our life. Life waste it. Until we eventually realized what it was and said no.

Everyone seemed to, like, tired, critical Cara in our last flight video. So just throwing it out there. They're good. I was really vibing with this girl.

We thought we were ready for a free massage. I was like, wow, this explorer status, so nice.

I think we were too nice at check in. And they were like, all right, send in the sales people. They're gonna go for it. Trust me.

That's probably because we did pay to upgrade our room, which means that now it's spending more capital on points.

We were caught in the moment.

Okay.

We're celebrating.

So, yeah, we paid to upgrade to a preferred room. And we'll let you know at the end of this trip whether or not it was worth it. I'm just a little skeptical. This is what we were all excited about. Everything. And then this is just like, totally turned us off. It's gonna be amazing. We're in Mexico. We're on vacation. Oh, looks pretty comfy, Deez. Yeah, yeah, look, I'm standing in the bathtub.

Okay, here we go.

Hangout area.

Desk.

We're pretty sure all of this is free, but we're not touching it until we know for sure.

We're just a little skeptical of everything right now. Snacks that may or may not be free. We're not sure there is a coffee maker in the room, but it's one of these little pod ones. Not my favorite. If I'm being critical, I feel like.

For hotels, positive, the best. What other hotel coffee is better than that?

That's the last thing I'll be critical about. Nate and I just gotten a tiny little tip.

We've got snacks, coffee in the room.

Huge closet with robes, secret cabinet. We packed in the carry on. And so I took a risk and I didn't pack any lotion. But check out this full sized lotion that smells so yummy. Lotion pool.

His in our sinks. Bathroom. Last but not least, waterfall shower.

The grand finale. A balcony.

Fly just hit me in the face with the tub.

I believe they call this jungle views.

Yeah, so far I'm thinking don't pay for the upgrade. I think our other room was like right in the middle of everything over there. So maybe this is like more private. Like I can like kind of hear the music, but if we would they really be able to hear the music? I sound like an old lady.

You do sound like an old lady.

I don't mind if there's music. Turn up the music.

Quit having fun. You're bothering me.

Go.

Have my office by the ocean.

Thank you.

Well, that is one of the best looking waffles I've ever been served. We just discovered this morning that this little iPad thing allows us to order room service for free. I'm trying to make this whole eat in bed thing work, but it's really annoying me.

I give up, you guys. Yeah.

Okay, so we gave this place a little bit of a hard time when we first got here, but it's been pretty great. This resort is called Secrets Akumal. And I was really surprised when I went on and searched for hotels that were available available to book with points that there were actually a lot of options even though it's the week leading up to Labor Day. But we specifically ended up choosing this one because it had over 10,000 five star reviews on TripAdvisor. Which is one reason I was maybe a little disappointed when I checked in because I feel like my expectations were up here with all of those reviews. But then also, and probably most importantly, this place was only 30,000 Hyatt points per night to book. And the great thing about hotel is that unlike flights, they usually don't charge taxes and fees to go along with your booking. So I didn't have to burn any of my valuable capital one points to cover the taxes and fees this time.

Got your votes, sir. Which is scratchy ass. Salud. Salud.

That was the worst years ever.

So I think this is a really bad idea, but we came up with a new theme, a new type of tour that we might try out on this channel. We're going to call it Tipsy tours with Karen Nate. So we thought we'd have a margarita and then show you around.

This is going to be our most honest tour. This tour is going to be a tad bit different than our usual tours. I think we've mentioned once or twice that we've been on vacation. Usually we try to do every single thing, give a full review of the entire place, but that's not what we've been doing. I don't even think we've done half of the things that this resort has to offer, and chances are we won't before we leave. So this tour is going to be more like the highlight reel of our trip so far, which is mostly food. So this resort is kind of shaped like a horseshoe. So we're going to start on one side and make our way all the way around to the other side, starting with this beach bar. There are lots of bars throughout the whole thing, but this one's our favorite because it has swings, it has a beautiful ocean view. It's a vibe.

Also, it's definitely not the dreamiest weather for this tour. So you're just going to have to picture this whole resort as beautiful and sunny, which is the weather that we got yesterday when we enjoy getting a tan.

So there are two big main pools at this resort. This is the first one right by the beach. One of my favorite things about our stay so far is that it is far from crowded. Sometimes at resorts, I feel like you have to, like, wake up early when you're on vacation, which is the worst. Just to come throw your stuff on the chair just to have a spot the rest of the day. But that has not been the case with whatsoever. Maybe we just got lucky with the time of year.

It is raining. It's usually more crowded than this. But there's always space.

They're so nice. Next bar. Is this pool bar, which I have mixed feelings about. Basically, I'm never going to be able to enjoy sitting in a pool in public ever again.

So one thing that we've been doing during our vacation is some polls. On Instagram, I posted this video of caraping in the ocean. Everybody thought it was really funny, subtle, definitely no one loves. She did a poll asking how many people peed in the ocean, which I think is a totally acceptable thing to do. The concerning thing was she then followed it up with a poll of how many adults pee in pools. And you don't want to see this.

I'll never be the same. I'll never be the same.

And then we had several people who were lifeguards message us and just say, watch. The people who are sitting around the pool bars. They never get have to leave. I'll let you guess what's happening there. So we won't be spending much time at that one.

Behind us, 42% of adults pee in public pool. Honestly, I respect their honesty. I don't even know if I would admit it if I did. I don't, and I haven't and I won't. But it's cool that people can be okay with it, I guess.

No, it's not. It's not okay.

First time I've done this.

Let's go. She's a natural. This is a seafood restaurant. We haven't been there yet, and I don't think we're going. But it looks nice.

This is the tour you've always wanted to do, isn't it? Hey, we're going this way, around the horseshoe.

Oh, right.

All the rooms are just kind of in these separate buildings that look like they have one too. Maybe like 40 rooms in each building. And then the cool thing is, each building has its own private pool, which.

I will not be swimming in now that my life is ruined.

Now we have entered the Mexican jungle.

Yeah, it's kind of like being on.

Spark with a koi pond.

I saw a thing that looked like a dinosaur crossing this path the other day.

That was fun.

And this morning, we still don't know what it is. This creature just jumped out of the trash can.

Whoa.

What is that?

Awesome. What's up?

Maybe it climbed up a tree right in front of us.

It's like a cross between a raccoon, a mice monkey, and an anteater.

Okay, here's where things get really fun. So this is the area where a lot of the main restaurants are. Here we have coffee available all day. Behind me is the market Cafe, which is like the main buffet. It's massive. Feel like usually the buffet is not my first choice, but we went there for breakfast yesterday, and it was solid and it was really good. Like, I kind of want to go back here for lunch.

There are several different restaurants, all kind of in the same compound right here. One is called El Patio, which is a Mexican restaurant that we're planning on trying out tonight. And then the other is the Asian restaurant that we have now been to two nights in a row.

My favorite restaurant of all time.

And ordered the exact same thing because it was so good the first time. Like, we went back and literally just did a complete redo of night one here.

Just as exciting.

This is a new spot in the resort for us, I think this. This is called the Desires nightclub, which I Believe opens at 10:30, which is the reason we haven't been here before, because we've definitely been in bed before 10 every single night.

Welcome to your mid-30s on vacation.

This is kind of cool. I mean, it does feel like you're in the middle of the Mexican jungle up here.

Binos a coco Cafe. This is 24 hours open, never closes. Has coffee the whole time. Late night snacks. Pretzels, mainly coffee. It's really good.

We're exploring new territory.

Oh, I heard there's a gym around here. Haven't seen it. Won't see it.

It appears that there's also tennis court somewhere, a theater, BA. Who would do that?

I would have gone to the spa if it wasn't like $250 a person for 50 minutes.

But if we would have done the timeshare presentation, we could have each gotten a massage for $24. That's how they sucked us in. They were like, do you want a $24 massage? And we were like, of course.

Oh, yeah. The lobby is also this way, which we are steering clear of. This is the most people have ever seen at the sports bar. We did come one night.

I think it's pool tournament. Kara's about to claim that she beat me in pool, but she did not. Our buzzer started going off, and it was time for a dinner reservation, and we had to stop. But I was on the comeback, and the game was not over. Just to set the record straight, I won.

I had more points. When we don't get.

You don't get points in pool.

More of my balls were in the pocket.

This is the quiet pool. They play this beautiful tranquil music. I actually really do appreciate this pool because once you get in your 30s old, some would Call it. You don't always want to be by way the pool. That's like, who wants to play pool volleyball?

All right, it's really starting to rain, so we've got to speed this up. There are a couple more restaurants. This is seaside. We had breakfast and dinner here. It was good, but I would just go to the Asian restaurant a third time if I had it to do.

Again at breakfast time.

It's only for preferred members, but the buffet was better.

There are people looking at us.

The best part of this entire resort, the outdoor pizza restaurant. There is an actual pizza oven next to the pool. You can come up here. You don't even have to come up here. You can just tell someone, bring me a pizza, and they'll bring it to your chair. And they make it fresh right here. It's brilliant. Like, whoever's idea this was needs a race. They even have truffle oil.

And this is another poolside cafe. You can order anything you want from your chair. We ordered some veggie burgers the other day that were 10 of 10. The french fries were still warm and crispy, which I feel like is hard underneath those little silver trays. They always tend to get soggy. But it was fresh, hot, and delicious. And I ate my veggie burger with a view of the ocean.

I know I didn't run 100 miles, but I went on my own journey, and I just could not be happier. In the this moment, we're missing one major thing. The preferred club.

Let's go.

It's just right here.

Look at Kara knowing where she's going.

Follow me.

This is the preferred club, which is like one of the major benefits to upgrading your room.

Picture the preferred club like an airport lounge.

That's actually what it looks like inside.

Nice seating, air conditioned. A fully stocked bar with what looks like pretty premium bottles. So there's umbrellas, really cozy chairs, everything that the regular non VIP people have. Once again, it's not crowded. There's tons of seating, so it really doesn't make that big of a difference to sit over here as opposed to over there. But we did just learn from our friend Alejandro that we probably would get better service if we were sitting here. There's less people, more attention, you know, more refills, more pizza deliveries.

In fairness, we have not tested this. We've sat in the regular area every day, and service has been good over there as well. Thank you. He's the preferred concierge. He's the one taking care of us. And even though we've Given this whole preferred thing, a really hard time. He's amazing. But that's the thing. All the staff is amazing no matter where you sit. Maybe that's the takeaway from this is it's not that preferred isn't any good. It's just that they're so good at doing the regular stuff. Or if you come as a regular guest, you get so many perks that you don't need extra burns. Yes. Okay, I think that officially does it for the tour. Is it time to eat again?

Yeah.

We'Re back at the buffet for lunch. Sushi bar. This is just course number one.

Round two, taco bar.

Don't do it.

How fun is this Mexican snack? It's just watermelon on a stick with some tajin. What a great dessert.

Delicious delicios. Wait, is that time?

Oh, it's kind of weird. Like spicy flakes on a watermelon you're sitting on.

People's sweaty.

No, I think. I think that's rain.

Moisture.

Pretty sure people don't feel in the pool seats.

Well, they pee in the rain, suit in the pool and then they come sleep.

Sorry, we just still can't get over this. If you ever want to get the most bang for your buck visiting an all inclusive resort, go run 100 miles and then immediately come to an all inclusive. My body is just an inferno and I cannot put enough food in it.

Super fun for me.

What did you want me to talk about? So I told Kara this one thing and she now really wants me to tell everyone.

This might be a surprise to you, but I'm the emotional one in the relationship. I know. Shocking. And sometimes I try to get Nate to feel his feelings cuz it doesn't come naturally. So I've been asked asking him over and over again since the race. Are you so proud of yourself? Do you have any other feelings you want to tell me about? Like tell me every story and every thought that you had during the entire race. And he told me something that I think is really, really, really cool and special. And not many people get to feel this way.

Okay, let me work up to that. I do feel like we rarely get the chance to debrief after we do these big adventures. Like we just move on to the next thing. This is is by far the hardest thing that I've ever done. My why of doing the 100 mile race is maybe still a little fuzzy. I think like ultimately just kind of like expanding my comfort zone and personally seeing what I was capable of was my biggest motivation for signing up. And doing it, like, if I train, like, there's a lot of things that I think, okay, if I really put my energy into this, I think I could do it. But you never know until you try. And I wanted to prove that to myself. And the thing that Cara wants me to tell you you is that for the next three days, anytime I caught a glance of myself in the mirror, I, like, looked at myself for an extra half second and being like, you did it. Like, you finished the Leadville 100. And I think that's the first thing that I've ever done where I've almost looked at myself differently in the mirror, which was a pretty cool feeling. And a bunch of people were asking me after, are you going to do something like this? This again? I say, give me two days. We're now 11 days removed from the race. I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm already looking at other things. I could not walk correctly for a couple days after at least. I think I'm pretty much back to normal, except there is kind of like this nagging left knee injury. I think I'm going to go for my first run this afternoon and see how it feels. This is much better than the $250 massage I got you. And I don't have to sit through a timeshare presentation.

Can anyone spot the stingray? That thing is huge and so close to the beach.

All right. It's been 11 days since the Leadville 100 finished, and this is my first run.

Legs on fire. Heart rate's high. This is a full body burnout.

This is really dangerous with the wet floor. Nate inspired me.

I hate running.

But I love nourishment block.

And today's run is not like to stay in shape or anything like that. It's really just more about the curiosity of how my body will do if I go run a few miles. Not exactly the best place to run, though. There's no sidewalk.

This is less safe than the race. I think I should turn around. This is not worth it at all.

I've never driven sweat like this in my life.

All right. Oh, almost four miles. Knees still hurt. Not quite the run that I was hoping for, But I guess 11 days isn't that long to heal after 100 miles. It's not the muscles anymore. It's something going on inside of both of my knees, which hopefully can just be fixed with rest.

What?

It's just too big to wear in your hair.

It was on the ground. We did not pick it. Nice this music really fits the vibe. Oh, such a bummer. We have to go back to the Asian restaurant.

Honestly, it just felt wrong to eat at the same place every single night. But no regrets.

We at a seaside the first night.

And I regret that we're back. Hello. How are you? How are you?

Nice to see you again. This is your favorite.

Thank you.

The sweet, sweet woman at the front desk remembered us because it's our third time here, but also knew our room number.

For better or for worse, we're basically locals. Also, if you're into hibachi that's going.

On back there, I'm into it.

But, like, from afar, you sound like an old person. Once again, I'm 33 and losing her zest for life.

This is not what the vegan rolls looked like the last three nights.

I mean, there's a reason we've been here three nights in a row, but tonight they really have taken it up a notch. They knew it was our last night. Everything just looks like 10 times times better than it did the first two times.

It's better every night.

Have a nice.

Trip.

We told them we didn't want dessert and they brought it in anyway.

I don't like it, but it's not.

Very jelloy. We're going. We're going. We're going. We're going. We're not. It's 8:30. It's not over.

How is the flash on right now?

You have to turn off the flash. It looks later.

Ow.

All right. I gotta give them credit on their turndown service. We have to flashback to night one, when we came back from dinner.

Wow.

What matters is what is written in the heart. Wow.

That was deep. Our robes are perfectly laid on the bed. All of our dirty clothes that we just threw on the floor have been laid nicely on the couch.

Well, all good things must come to an end. Heading back to the airport, devastated.

It is about to rain, which feels better.

For all the nitpicking that we did of this resort, we're very sad to leave.

You live here forever, for sure.

All right, from here, we have a direct flight back to Denver, this time on Southwest. Kara had a lot of Southwest points hanging out in her account, and we were able to find flights for less than 15,000 points each, and then some taxes and fees which, once again, were covered by capital one, which pains me. The only reason it's painful is because there are better uses for those miles. Like, if I was transferring them to an airline, I could get 2 or 3 cents worth of value out of those points. But just racing purchases, I only get one cent.

Three and a half hours later, we're back in Denver.

Home sweet home.

We still have a jam door. There we go.

Full of all the problems, just like we left them.

I spent my time on the plane putting together a spreadsheet of exactly how many miles and points we spent and where they came from. I realized that we might have an issue. We may have failed the mission because there was one thing that I overlooked. I still need to put the finishing touches on it, but I'll explain in the morning.

Okay. We are finally making some progress on getting this van cleaned out, but I wanted to take a quick break, share with you my spreadsheet. So, for our flights, we ended up paying 68,220 miles in total, with an additional $244.16 in taxes and fees. Our hotel is super simple. It cost 30,000 points a night, so 120,000 points in total. Then I put all the other miscellaneous expenses in the other category. I used 800 miles for WI fi on the flight, and then there was the transportation to and from the hotel, the room upgrade, which was not worth it and I definitely regret, and then the tips. So in total, in the miscellaneous category, we used 800 miles in points and then spent $880. Then I just made another category to show where the points actually came from. We use 40,800 United miles, which were already in my United account. Then we used 112,000 chase points. Those are the ones that we transferred to Hyatt to book the hotel. Then 28,000 Southwest points out of Kara's account to fly home. And then finally, the most painful one of all, we used 102,000 capital one points, and we used those points to basically cover all of the expenses where we otherwise would have had to pay cash. We basically use those points to just erase expenses that we had put on the credit card during the trip. So in total, for this trip, we burned through283,436 points. The problem is, there's one expense on the spreadsheet that I cannot figure out how to erase. While we were at the resort, we tipped a hundred dollars, and that was cash that I got out of an ATM using my debit card. I probably could have got cash out of the ATM using my Capital One card and then erase that expense. But usually ATMs charge a cash advance fee to pull cash out of an atm, and so that just wasn't worth it. So in total, we spent $100 out of pocket. All right, that is it. I hope at least some of you enjoyed the miles and points aspect that expense, but usually ATMs charge a cash advance fee to pull cash out of an ATM and so that just wasn't worth it. So in total we spent $100 out of pocket. All right, that is it. I hope at least some of you enjoyed the miles and points aspects. Did this video. I know I tend to nerd out on this stuff, which is probably why I started a newsletter that talks about miles and points that goes out six days a week. And it's been brought to my attention that maybe six days a week is a little too much for some people. Like they kind of just want to know the highlights. Which is why we have started the weekend sin. So for those of you who don't want six emails a week about miles and points, you can sign up for Daily Drops Weekend Sim which will just give you the highlights of the week so you can stay on top of everything. And then we'll also send you red alerts so that you never miss an amazing deal. But that's like six a year. So one email every week with maybe an additional six anytime there's an amazing deal that you need to know about. I'll leave a link to that down in the description below and hopefully that's a better fit for some of you.

Also, if you sign up before September 24th, you'll be entered to win a free all expenses paid trip to Hawaii. Good luck.

Also, I just wanted you to know that Daily Drop Pro is going to be a part of Fair Drop. So if you're already a paying Fair Drop member, don't worry, you're not going to have to pay for a new service and we're going to work to get that out to you as quickly as possible. And last but not least, if you're wondering where all these miles and points came from, the majority of them came from travel credit cards. That is how we earn the majority of our miles and points. And choosing a travel credit card can be really overwhelming. Which is why every month the Daily Drop team ranks the best travel credit card cards. And we always keep this page up to date to make it really easy to figure out which travel credit cards are going to give you the most value. And I'll also link that page down below. Okay, time to finish cleaning this van and we will see you next week or the week after that. One of those two. Boop. Why is everything everywhere? Feet are freezing and it's August.

Mic Drop well.

How did I turn this around, girl? He filled me my face. All right, one. One positive, one positive.

I'm not gonna be excited about pods.

This name just, like, makes you feel like your status is getting you something. It should just say timeshare services.

Do you pee in the ocean?

Yeah.

No one pees at pools.

I think some people do.

Oh, my gosh. You think adults pee in pools? Yeah, unfortunately, I just have to know. I actually, truly, genuinely thought only kids peed in pools. But I've already seen a few DMS adults confessing that they pee in pools. And that's what chlorine is for, apparently. And that, like, anytime they're sitting at the pool bar, like, be careful. Don't put your head under at the pool bar. People sit there for hours and drink.

All right.

Many adults peeing pools and openly admitted it on my poll. And I will never be the same. I will never be the same.

Over 30,000 people. Those people clicked. I pee in pools as an adult.

I can't get over it. I can't get over it. I will never enjoy being in a public pool again. I'm not saying I'll never get in one again, but, like, I'll never be able to fully just relax. I had no idea. What poll should we do next? I'll go first. I have feet in the shower in emergency situations. It is not something I'm just.

Okay with on a daily basis. It's never the goal, it's never the plan, but it has happened.

That's not what we want answered. We. We want. Do you pee in the shower as, like, a habit?

Like, do you think it's okay? Do you have a problem with it? Yes or no?

And yes, we are standing in the pool, but I have not put my head under it.

We decided we would face our fears, get in the people. It's gonna be fine. That's what chlorine is for. I mean, if you've watched Mark Rover's video, you know.

It doesn't.

So maybe there aren't as many people paying.

This is not the pool that has the pool ball.