Getting 125K Expired Points Back, New Southwest Companion Pass Truth & JetBlue Launches First Class!

Shawn Coomer (0:00)

A really cool new free fare tracker tool, breaking down all the Southwest changes, Hyatt Airplan matches, and how Accor treated me so well. All of that coming up right now on MTM Travel.

Mark Ostermann (0:12)

After Shawn fumbled the bag.

Shawn Coomer (0:15)

It's a big time. So happy Monday, everyone, and happy Monday, Mark. How was your weekend?

Mark Ostermann (0:26)

Oh, it was good. We were up at the cottage, and it ended up being nice weather like Saturday and Sunday, earlier in the week, a little bit rainy, and the kids both had like Thursday, Friday off school. So we got a really long weekend. And maybe I can, I'll send you the video of the sunrise this morning so everybody can get a little zen with the waves rushing in. Maybe you can cut it so that they can listen to it for a minute or like three seconds.

But yeah, it's been nice to see you. I think we have one more weekend up here before we have to shut it down for the winter.

Shawn Coomer (0:59)

Yeah, I saw a lot of your Pure Michigan tweets this weekend.

It looked great. But yeah, I got a lot going on. I got a lot of travel coming up and I'm all stressed out because we have so much going on with everything. But I'm excited to be in Detroit. We have the meet up this coming weekend and it should be a fun time. A lot of people learning about the online gambling apps and taking advantage of all that. A pedal pub and all kinds of fun stuff we're going to be doing.

Mark Ostermann (1:24)

Yeah, we're going to a barcade, an arcade bar which will be fun and then the presentations and food and drinks and everything is included in the ticket price and then hopefully everybody makes enough money to pay for the ticket price plus some of their trip. That's the goal. We'll have to see how that all plays out. But in the past, that's how it's worked.

Shawn Coomer (1:41)

Yeah, I love the meetups. Looking forward to seeing everybody. We have another meetup in December for our Diamond group. So that's going to be another fun one as well.

We should talk about this now, Mark. We've made some additions and enhancements to the Diamond group and we've made it better. We do have an article people can break down, but we keep trying to make it better bringing on new team members. A lot of exciting stuff going on over here.

Mark Ostermann (2:04)

Yeah, we added a new moderator, Heather Cobbs, and she's been in the space for several years helping grow communities. So we wanted to bring her on board, and she's going to help in the Diamond group, answer questions when she's available, and just kind of be a part of that and driving in discussion, as well as maybe write an article here or there. Maybe you'll see her on the podcast from time to time, and then maybe more often we'll have to see how that progresses. Then she's also helping out with the public Facebook group, which is free to join, and anybody's welcome to come in there and ask questions or comment about articles or podcasts. So I'm excited to have her on board, and that should help us keep in touch with everybody on a regular basis.

Shawn Coomer (2:44)

Yeah, and we continue to do our Car Crash Show where we debate different topics. Sometimes Joe joins us for that. You have a new show with Benji, where you guys are trying to convince each other of different Miles & Points topics. Spending Time has been an incredible show going on for a long time with Benji and his rotating cast of just incredible people who do incredible things. So a fun membership, of course Slack, and then we do our meetups a couple of times a year as well. There are spaces open, and we would love for you guys to join us. There's so much going on there. If you want to dive deeper into the world of Miles & Points, I know we're a little biased, but we think this is a pretty good way to do it.

Mark Ostermann (3:20)

Yeah, it ends up being that you have four or five extra podcasts every month, essentially, is what it works out to. And then we're going to be doing a quarterly live stream of The Car Crash, so you can participate in that. And then we have live Zooms once a month. We have Slack chats once a month. There's basically something for everyone. And that's what we're kind of shooting for, is to find you where you're at. And some people think it's only for the super, super high-end earners, and that's not the case. It's for anybody at any level, and we're happy to help within it. And then there's different Slack channels for what you're interested in.