Goodbye USA (flying in Europe is still a mess)

We're Karen and Nate, just two normal kids from Tennessee who somehow managed to become full time travelers. For the last seven years, we achieved our goal of visiting 100 countries just before the world shut down. And that's when we moved into our converted sprinter van to explore the US for a while. These days, we do a little of both. After spending a month at home, today we're flying to Spain. And along the way, we're going to share one of our biggest passions with you. Travel hacking and the book that Nate wrote about it but never published.

Could I be any more basic right now? Airport Essentials.

The average book is between 70 and 120,000 words. Book that I wrote was only about 25,000 words, so it would be considered a short book. But I spent a ton of time on it nonetheless. As Kira can attest to, I am really good at starting things, but not so good at finishing them. So there is a book that is sitting on my computer in this backpack. It is 80% complete and it's been sitting there for the last two years. So today I want to tell you the story, the book that I wrote but never finished.

I asked you if they wanted one because I knew you were.

Morning. Thank you.

We are starting this very long travel day with a quick flight to Chicago.

Nothing sick.

You stow your larger carry on by pitches over headband. She cannot be flying United 2201 up to Chicago. We have one hour. 13 minutes is our flight time. Take off the touchdown. That is so when we originally booked these tickets, we booked them in economy. But then a few days ago, I was checking to see where our seats were and I saw that there were first class upgrades for only $99. I had never seen an upgrade that cheap. So we splurged a little bit. We're flying in first from to Chicago, but unfortunately after that it's back to reality and we're flying in the back of the plane on our long flight across the Atlantic. Just like that.

I can feel something happening behind me.

I was trying not to laugh.

This aircraft also has a bit like that, which really did stick.

This plane kind of sounds like a lawnmower.

Ladies and gentlemen, from the flight deck, currently 100 miles outside of Chicago International Airport, serving our initial ascent in the next few minutes. That went by way too fast.

Now we have a long layover here in Chicago, which normally I wouldn't be excited about because the lounge options here are usually pretty average. However, today we may have access to a lounge that we have never been to before. There's an app called Lounge Buddy. Put your route in, you put your status in, you put the credit cards that you have in, and then it tells you which lounges you can go to. And according to the app, we can go to the United Polaris lounge, which is like an upgraded United Lounge. I'm skeptical, so we'll see how this goes.

Usually the app is pretty accurate, though.

How cool is this? I've never been in the basement of the Chicago airport before, but I love what they've done with the place. It could be really dark and dungeony, but they've made it, like, bright and colorful.

Hey.

While I have your attention, I would like to make a public service announcement. If you're ever traveling and you're on a walkway or an escalator, keep right. It's just like the interstate. The left lane is reserved for people who are late for their flight, stayed in the lounge too long, etc.

Setting a good example. Anyone running can go right past me.

Are we gonna get in?

Totally. This is our home for the next five hours. Here's where our concern is coming from. We are flying international. We are flying to Europe. But it's this part.

Technically, we were a business class customer. Our flight here was in first class, so we have that ticket. But our next boarding pass is economy, so it's just like, which one matters?

So we flew here first. We're flying economy out. And lounge buddy says they have access here, but I'm not sure if they actually do, so I just wanted to check ssd.

Now we know.

Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you.

I'm very mad at you.

Out buddy.

Very bad.

It could be worse. So now we're going to spend our day where we originally thought we were going to be spending it. Anyway.

Welcome.

This one's still really pretty.

So we originally went to a lounge in C, which was overcrowded. There wasn't a single available seat. And now we've come over to the B terminal. This lounge is big, beautiful, beautiful, super spacious. Tons of seats. So if you're ever in the. Where are we? Chicago. Chicago Airport. Not all lounges are created equal. And the lounge in B is much better than the lounge in the C terminal.

I haven't looked at the food yet, but as far as aesthetic goes, C is where it's at. I mean, B, how am I supposed to eat a salad on.

At least you know it.

I have a feeling this is about to be the highlight of this lounge. It may be my whole day.

Yep.

So fudgy.

Oh, you know what this makes me need?

Okay, back to the book. I think we can all agree that the first half of 2020, really all of 2020, was weird. We were all spending way too much time on Zoom, baking bread, watching Tiger King.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm Joe. Exotic. There was just this general consensus of we were all trying to figure out how to spend our time now that we couldn't it with other people. And I decided I was going to spend my time writing a book. Now, I wouldn't really consider myself an expert on anything, but if I had to pick one thing, it would be travel. Specifically travel hacking, which is the art of redeeming miles importance in order to travel for cheap or for free or to get extra perks. Or all of the above. For example, today we skipped the security line thanks to a credit card perk. Now we're sitting in this lounge thanks to my status. And this flight that we were on today, because we booked last minute, should have cost over $3,000, but instead we used some points and we paid $43 out of pocket.

Okay, so I've come down to the main airport because the lounge was quiet and awkward.

I wanted to finish explaining why I truly believe miles and points have changed our lives. Ten years ago, which feels crazy to say. I was planning our honeymoon at that point. K and I had just graduated college. We had basically no money, and I was trying to save as much of the little money that we had as possible. So I started doing all this research and I eventually came across this documentary on PBS about these frequent flyers who were flying around the world in business class, going to airport lounges, and they were doing it all with miles and points. I didn't fly much growing up, so this literally opened my mind to a whole new world that I didn't even know existed. And I quickly learned that if you're not a frequent flyer, the easiest way to earn miles and points is by signing up for travel credit cards. And to be honest, I was a little skeptical at first because it sounded too good to be true. You sign up for a credit card, you get these points, and then you can use those points to travel for free. But eventually my curiosity got the best of me and I signed up for one credit card, and now my wallet looks like this. And that's only about half of the credit cards that I currently have. As soon as I start talking about credit cards, people assume two things. One, that Kara and I are in a ton of debt, which is not true. We have never carried debt on a credit card. So before I go any further, I want to make it very clear that if you carry debt on a credit card and you have to pay interest on that debt, that is going to drastically outweigh the travel benefits that you get. So, please, if you're watching this, if you feel tempted to sign up for a card but you know that you're going to go into debt, don't listen to me. Don't sign up for a card. It's not worth it. Also, people assume that because we have so many credit cards, my credit score must be terrible. Well, it's kind of weird in the US but it's actually the opposite. The more open lines of credit that you have, assuming that you're using those lines of credit responsibly, the better your credit score is. So I checked mine last night. It was above 800, which is excellent. And here's proof in my credit card, my account. So during the first two years that we were married, I was trying to start a business. Cara was a preschool teacher, and we had a combined income of less than $50,000. But we were working the system, signing up for these cards, doing it all responsibly and strategically. And during our first two years of marriage, we were able to visit 13 new countries. Had we have not done that early travel in our relationship, I can confidently say that we would have never decided to take a year off and go travel. The which ultimately led to starting this YouTube channel, which in a long, roundabout way, eventually led to me standing right here in this airport that may be burning down right now. I'm just kidding. That was a bad joke. You can't say stuff like that in an airport. Okay, I'm getting a little long winded because this is a subject that I am very passionate about. But basically the idea was to write a book that would do what that documentary did for me 10 years ago, Spark someone's interest in miles and points and give them enough information to get started. So at this point, as much as I would like to see a physical copy of the book, I just want this information out into the world, and I want people using it to get started on their own miles and points journey. So what I've decided to do is instead of turning all this writing into a book, I'm just going to publish it on the Daily Drop website as a really, really long blog post, which, if you don't know, is a travel newsletter that we started that gets sent out every day that gives you all the best miles and points tips. So I'll leave a link to the book slash blog post in the description below. In a perfect world, you would head over there, read the book slash blog post, get a base knowledge of miles and points, and then you would sign up the Daily Drop newsletter, which is going to keep you up to date with everything going on in the world of miles and points and travel deals. Like the other day, Frontier Airlines just gave away free flights and if you would have been subscribed to the newsletter, then you would have known about these free flights. So a lot of the stuff that we talk about, especially the credit card stuff, is geared towards Americans, but this newsletter is truly for anyone, no matter where you live. At least 50% of these strategies and stuff that we talked about can be applied anywhere. I don't think we've ever said this out loud here on the channel, but Cara and I have had a lot of conversations about this and our ultimate goal at this point is to inspire you to travel through these videos and then give you the tools and resources to actually go do it yourself by the other things that we're creating. So through fair Drop, through the Daily drop, now through this book, ultimately we want to help you save money on travel so that you can go make these memories for yourself. It might not be surviving on an island or biking across Iowa, but whatever your travel dreams are, as corny as it sounds, we want to help you make them come true. So hopefully we're off to a good start, but if you have other ideas, definitely let us know in the comments below.

Where's our seat?

This is me, this is Kara, this is no one sitting in between us. We have 45 minutes until our 8 1/2 hour flight board to cross the Atlantic. And if nobody sits in this middle seat, our life is going to be so much better.

Please, please, please, please.

Also, we're currently watching Eamon and Beck's portion of the survival video that we did in Canada and I think theirs might be better than ours.

It definitely is.

It's way fun air.

I'm like trying not to cause a scene in the lounge and laughing so.

Hard.

Boarding one minute ago. So even though we had a six hour layover, we're still late.

B16 sounded close to B6, but apparently it's not. But we did make time to buy chocolate for our flight attendants.

Enjoy. Okay, have fun. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Well, we made it on board but apparently we're still doing this. This is.

That is definitely an Oktoberfest hat. I'm so jealous.

42 and 40.

I like to write just a little note on the chocolate that we buy for our flight attendants. We've talked about this a few times on our videos and oftentimes there are comments of people saying that they want to do this too, but they're nervous. When do you hand it to them? Is it when you get on the flight? Is it when you get seated? Is it at the end of the flight? I typically like to get seated first because boarding is like a hectic, like out of mask shape. Boarding is a hectic time usually and I feel like they're really busy. So I like to wait until things have settled down a bit and then either right before takeoff or right as we take off, I'll hand it to somebody walking by who doesn't seem like they're on a mission. We respect them a lot and this is a fun way to make their day a little better.

This is just a PSA to be nice to your flight attendant. Maybe bring in something special. They'll really appreciate it.

Can we talk about these seats? This is like the nicest TV screen we've had in months.

The comfort level on an economy flight when you have someone sitting beside you versus having an empty seat beside you is the difference between like a two and an eight. Like, I'm going to be 20% comfortable, which is basically miserable, or I'm going to be 80% comfortable, which is like I'm not quite in business class. But this isn't so bad. My fate is about to be determined.

The bears. Nurse.

Do you think it's true? I think boarding is complete. Did she say boarding was complete?

I love you, but I love you a seat away from me.

I love you so much. So far away from me.

We have an extra pillow, an extra blanket, and.

Oh so much.

Kara takes this time before flights very seriously. There's nothing worse than watching a bad movie on a flight and wasting a couple hours of your life. She always likes to see what movies are on the plane, then look up the Rotten Tomatoes score to see if they're actually any good. Then I usually just watch whatever movie she tells me to watch.

All right, this is another little hack. We've been eating majority plant based lately. So when we booked this flight, we opted for the vegan option, which they don't just offer to anyone. You have to specifically say that you want it. But even if you are vegan, if you have any kind of special request with your meal, when you book your ticket, your food comes out first. We're like the only people with food on the supply right now, I have no idea what it is. And I have a card with my name on it which makes me feel really special. Let's see. Looks like a little bitty salad. Vegetable oil with spread. Butter replacement, it seems. And a roll.

No way. First of all, it looks all of the ingredients, which I've never had on a flight before. This is very exciting. It's called seven vegetable Stir Fry, and it has noodles. Asian noodles.

Oh, this is perfect. I'm so happy. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. They look a little bland, but I'm still excited.

Not bad.

My review is less bland than they look. Also, I'm only about halfway through, but Dear Rider is an excellent movie.

This almost feels like business class.

That's it.

Slept enough for this. This is the first time a flight's ever just been canceled. As much as we travel, I genuinely have no clue what to do right now.

I click other options and it just shows me the flight that was canceled. Such a disaster.

There is a flight with lufthansa that.

Goes 2pm yeah, that would be great.

It's taking a long time to get to this point, but after a lot of time on the phone, we have new tickets. We fly in three hours, and we have confirmed that our bags are going to Mallorca.

I'll believe it when I see it.

In case anyone's curious, what happens when your flight gets canceled? First, I contacted United. They couldn't help me, just hung up. Then I contacted Eurowing, and I sat on the phone with the Eurowing lady for at least an hour. She kept saying, one more minute, one more minute for an hour. Then we went to baggage claim. Our bags weren't there. So then we went to the service desk. Guy told us to come from upstairs to the other service desk. They told us that our bags are being put on the plane.

You know, I'm tired when I'd rather nap than have a coffee.

I need two things in my life right now. A pretzel and a nap. Yes.

Let's go.

I think this might be a dream.

It's a wall of pretzels.

So glad our flight got canceled. This is way better.

Well, we accomplished all of our goals. Found a lounge, ate a pretzel, took a nap. Now we fly to Mallorca.

Currently, we're still cruising at an altitude of 37,000.

Prepare for landing. Welcome to airport. All right, we made it. Let's see if our bag's dead. It is a miracle.

Thank you.

Wow. Home sweet I've been waiting for this moment for so long.

It feels so good to be horizontal.

All I can say is that was a long travel day. There's no doubt that it's gonna be totally worth it.

Totally.