If you've ever looked at business class prices and immediately closed the browser tab, this episode is for you. I sat down with Ashley, founder of Ashley Gets Around — the only woman-owned, premium-only flight deal service out there. Ashley has visited over 90 countries on seven continents, and she built her entire business by obsessively solving her own problem: how do you fly business class without paying $5,000 to do it?

We got into everything — how Ashley stumbled into entrepreneurship after losing her job and landing in Thailand, why airline loyalty is often working against you, the truth about points and miles (spoiler: she's kind of over it too), and how to actually think about finding and booking premium flight deals. We also went deep on the wild world of flight deal theft, Instagram trolls, and why she once cried on a Delta inaugural flight over Wi-Fi. It's a good one.

Upcoming Trips Mentioned:

1. Morocco: September 4 - 13, 2026

Links & Resources (Ashley)

1. Ashley Gets Around
2. @ashleygetsaround

Links & Resources (Laura)

1. Follow my personal IG: @lolawhiskey
2. Follow my business IG: @lauraericsongrouptrips
3. Follow our podcast: @type2travelpodcast
4. Learn more about upcoming trips: lauraericson.com
5. Check out our podcast page: lauraericson.com/podcast
6. Join my Facebook group: @lolalovestravel

Thanks for being here! As always, rate, review, share with a friend, and tag us if you're listening.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Type Two Travel. I'm your host Laura Erickson and today I'm sitting down with Ashley Peterson from Ashley Gets Around. You know, I would call my relationship with finding flight deals complicated. When I had a nine to five, I was on Google flights every single day just for fun, which I realized probably sounds like some people's personal hell, who would book a trip to a random country just because I found a flight deal.

Now that I travel for a living and I have literally no time for fun travel, finding flights has become genuinely terrible. And I'm sure many of you relate. It's time consuming, it's overwhelming, and by the time you finally find something decent, you've usually burned three hours only to discover that the flight's no longer available or the price jumped. I can feel my heart rate getting faster just thinking about it.

When it comes to flying, I'm honestly a quantity over quality traveler. because I'm on all kinds of airlines, I rarely travel for leisure and my schedule really isn't flexible at all. While I'm by no means the kind of budget traveler that's flying Spirit Airlines or wearing four layers of clothing to avoid paying a checked bag fee, flying first class or business class just isn't part of my reality.

but as someone who spends hundreds of hours on planes every year, it's a system I've honestly always wanted to crack, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to Ashley. Ashley runs Ashley gets around, which is the only flight deal service that exclusively sends business class, first class and premium economy deals. Never economy, never basic economy.

her motto is literally friends don't let friends buy basic economy and I'm here for it. What makes Ashley particularly unique in the travel hacking world is that she's built this business as the only woman owned premium flight deal service

in what's been a pretty male dominated Travel More Con, the premier points and miles conference.

And her work has been featured everywhere from CNN and Good Morning America to Washington Post and Afar. She's got over 41,000 email subscribers who trust her to find her business class deals that save them anywhere from 30 to 80 % off typical flight prices. I think the best part of Ashley's story is that she created this business solving her own problem with no intention of making this a business at all.

In our conversation today, we're diving deep into the world of travel hacking, how to actually find these deals, what mistakes people make when trying to book premium cabins, when airfare status and loyalty actually matters or doesn't, and how Ashley built a business around something she was already doing obsessively for herself. We also get into tactical advice about credit cards, mistake fares, positioning flights, out of reach as some people might think.

If you've ever looked at business class prices and immediately closed the browser tab, or if of spending hours searching for deals that disappear the second you try to book them, this episode is for you. So without further ado, let's chat with Ashley.

Hey adventurers, I'm Laura Ericson and this is Type 2 Travel, where the journey might occasionally make you question your life choices, but the stories are always worth it. Just like Type 2 fun, we're diving into those travel experiences that transform us, challenge us, and connect us. So grab your passport and an extra dose of curiosity. Let's get lost together.

All right, Ashley, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'm excited to chat with you.

I'm excited to chat with you.

So I always kick off my podcast with some random quick travel questions. So first one, over 90 countries on seven continents. What's the most overrated destination that everyone raves about? And what's an underrated gem that deserves more attention?

Okay.

I feel like I'm going to get hate for the first one. But but Bali, like I will go back to Bali, but I don't understand why everybody's so obsessed with Bali. And I've been to so many places in Southeast Asia and I personally prefer Thailand much more over Bali. And I probably will end up going to Bali again this year because so many people are in Bali. But it's just to me, it's it's a little it's a little overrated, I think. And then underrated. I went.

Yeah.

Yeah.

gorilla trekking in Uganda. And, ⁓ it was so good, so good. And I also, because I'm not gonna fly to Uganda for one day, obviously I stayed a little bit more in Uganda and I went on a normal safari in Queen Elizabeth National Park and they don't have zebra and they don't have giraffe.

Mmm, that's on my list. It's high on my list.

but we saw so many leopards, so many elephants, and we were like the only truck with the animals. Like if you go to Masai Mara, you go to Serengeti, you tend to be with other trucks. Like if you find something good, four more trucks, five more trucks come, but in Uganda, and to be fair, I was there, yeah.

Yeah. They call each other.

In Uganda, to be fair, I was there in 2021. So it could just be that it was dead, but it was so magical and because I was by myself, I had a whole safari truck alone. We got to stay with a leopard in a tree for an hour and just watch her. And I was just like, this is the best experience. So I would say Uganda. I really liked Uganda. don't hear about it as much from people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like both of your answers. I have never been to Bali. It is one of those countries that I am sure I will make it to, but is not high on my list. And of course it's hard to say something's overrated when I haven't been there, but from what I know of it and what I've heard, completely agree. It just seems like a place that everyone has on their list. And usually I feel like it's for the wrong reasons. It's they see those photo ops, those fake photo ops, and they have no idea

Yeah.

Yeah.

that it's all these random destinations spread out with big long lines and people just waiting in line and tour guides staging these photo ops. we make it look like it's something that it's not. Not that Bali isn't nice. I just think the places that people probably want to go in Bali are not as amazing as they might look on Instagram.

Yeah, with big long lines.

Yeah.

Exactly. think Instagram is a plus and a minus sometimes with like the photos. I can take a photo and you're like, wow, this is so gorgeous. Well, you're not seeing that I just waited in a line for 45 minutes and that I'm in this one corner that's really pretty and the rest of it is like dirty or like whatever it is. So I would say Bali and I have friends that live in Bali, so I'm sure they're going to be mad that I said

Yes.

Yeah.

I think there's

better parts of Bali that maybe don't get as much attention to it's certain things that people are looking for and then Correct

or other islands in Indonesia that are more

like Bali was 15 years ago. It's just very overrun now. There's a lot of traffic. think people imagine Bali is this eat, pray, love where you're walking around with palm trees and rice fields by yourself. And that just isn't really what you're doing in Bali. I mean, some people love it. My friend Emily loves Bali. It's like one of her favorite places. For me, it's not. I prefer Thailand. I really like Malaysia better. ⁓

Correct.

Yes.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That's just, I don't know, it's just not high on my list to go back.

That's all right.

gorilla trekking is top three for me. And I'm going to be in Kenya for a month in March. And I have four days between two tours. And I was contemplating like, do I fly to Uganda and just fit in a gorilla truck? But then I was like, doesn't that's not how I want to do it. You know, I don't want to just fly there.

I'm

Mm.

see the gorillas fly out. So I decided not to,

Yeah.

Okay, let's get a little bit more into flight. So what's the best business class deal you've ever scored and how much did you save or how much did it cost?

So the cheapest one I ever booked was a flight from Singapore to the Middle East that I paid $238 for Gulf it was an eight and a half hour flight for 200, like $238 or something. that was kind of crazy. And then I booked probably the best one that I talk about a lot York to Brazil for 475. And I actually booked two of them in the

week and for a mileage run and ended up earning status because of it I earned a ton of miles and I earned enough miles that I ended up flying Q suites back from East Africa with 60,000 of those points so it was very much a buy to get one free kind of that one was cool too so and I just came back from

Yeah.

doing the Christmas markets on a mistake fair from my email list for I think it was 871 round trip in business class from Philadelphia to Prague. So that was really fun too.

That's crazy because right now 875 would inexpensive for a normal flight for some of the things that I have to book I have no choice sometimes in the times that I have to fly and where I'm flying to. And so the flights are just the flights a lot of times for me in particular. But like, oh my God, the things I've paid for in the last year is just asinine $1,200 to fly to Greece.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's

so annoying because I see all the deals coming through and I'm like, I can't do that. I have to be in Athens on this day.

Yeah.

And that's unfortunately some of the negative is with the mistake fairs, especially especially you can't control where they're going. They may not work from every airport. You may have to do a positioning flight. So some people can't take advantage of it. But I still send deals that are still very much on sale. They just aren't, you eight hundred dollars. yeah, people think that, ⁓ if they look once, that's the price. And like, if you just maybe looked a few times and

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

weighted, it might go up or down. But yeah, it's hard when you, mean, I'm the same way. there have been plenty of times where I've paid $3,000 for a business class flight because I needed to be somewhere a specific day. find a mileage ticket and I'm not flying economy. So was like, guess I'm paying three grand. So it's just, unfortunately sometimes the flights are what the flights are.

So do you only fly business class?

Yeah, if I can help it. Yeah, so a rule where if it's over an ocean, not doing.

I'm not doing economy. will do premium economy in a pinch, but not on an overnight flight like I would do it on a day flight back from Europe because I'm not going to sleep anyway and I'm going to work. So I would do premium economy, but pretty much no. mean, between miles and my status using system wide upgrades and my email list, I tend not to have that problem. But then I was just in Bora Bora and the only option to fly between the islands was economy so that I was like,

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was like, no more economy long hauls. So if there's an emergency or something, like if I need to get somewhere, sure. But if I can help it now, I pretty much only fly business class.

Yeah.

amazing. So if you could only fly one airline to business class for the rest of your life, which one would it be and why?

Cafe Pacific.

What is it? Cafe? Cafe. I've never even heard of it.

Cathay, sorry Cathay. They're a

Hong Kong airline. So it's C-A-T-H-A-Y and then Pacific. one world partners and they have the best.

lounges. They're first class lounge. You can get a massage. You can get a mini facial. They have sleeping rooms. The service is incredible. mean, the service is just amazing. They treat you amazing if you have status they come over on the plane and introduce themselves and they're like, thank you so much. They thank me for my business American never thanks me for my business and just really good food. Really friendly flight attendants. The service is super consistent.

You

and they actually have a brand new business class that I haven't flown yet that's their And yeah, they're very well connected and I love Hong Kong. if I have to stay overnight somewhere, I love staying overnight in Hong Kong. get me some dim sum, Hong Kong's a fun city. think most people would probably say Qatar or Emirates, but I actually, yeah, but no, I don't,

Mmm.

Mm-hmm. That's what I you would say.

I've only flown Emirates business once, it was fine. I think it's overhyped. I think it's really overhyped. And I think Qatar is really overhyped too. But also I'm so tired of flying through Doha that I'm like, do not put me on a Qatar flight. But I think if you're, know, fly business once or twice a year, Q suites, you definitely do it. I think if you're a frequent traveler, you'll hear this from frequent travelers that like.

Yeah.

Qatar's not as great the service isn't consistent. And I think if you fly enough, you notice things like that. And so it's either I get good service or, and they're very robotic.

Mmm.

they're very much like, think they're worried about getting fired. And so they don't go above and beyond. a lot of times you don't always get somebody super warm and like it really hit or miss. I've never had that issue on Cafe and I've flown them 20 times. I've never had a bad flight in Cafe and they're very well connected. So you can fly from a lot of places with Cafe. So I'd probably say Cafe.

Mmm.

Interesting. So if you got an alert for a $500 business class fight anywhere in the world, where are you going?

I really want to go to Uzbekistan. So it's really high on my list. So I'd say Uzbekistan or maybe Madagascar. Yeah, I like animals and weird off-the-beaten-path destinations. people are like, where's Uzbekistan? But Google Uzbekistan because...

Okay.

Mmm.

Yeah, me too.

No, the stands, the stands

are up and coming.

They're up and coming and it was back this year and just got rid of visas for Americans so we can get a 30 day on arrival entry, very easy. And the architecture just looks incredible. I would say it's just been hiding on my list for like five years and I haven't made it there because it's kind of random. So this year's the year, I think, hopefully.

Yeah.

I just did a podcast recording two weeks ago with a professional food taster. He's a flavor expert and he has two books about Madagascar because he got sent there to source vanilla beans from Madagascar and he became obsessed with Madagascar. So it was a really, really cool. It was really cool interview because I learned all about Madagascar and vanilla beans and just yeah. Yeah, it hasn't come out yet, but it'll be he has.

fun.

my gosh, so fun.

Okay, I'm have to go listen to that one, because now I'm like, you've hooked me. Okay, well.

His name is Emmanuel Laroche, she's French, and he has a book coming out in two weeks about Madagascar. So yeah, yeah, watch for it, watch for it. It's very interesting. Okay,

Okay, I'm excited. I will watch for that one.

what's the most luxurious flight experience you've ever had?

I would say, it's, okay, I two answers. So one, think the first time I flew long haul business was on American Airlines and that was just so cool to me. was like, whoa, these go flat. And I was hooked from that moment. felt very luxurious. I'm flying long haul business. And then I would say if you're just luxury Qatar first class.

Yeah.

So I flew Qatar first class from Thailand to Doha and they have their own lounge in Bangkok and so you can sit and order food. I had steak and shrimp before the You're just very catered to. They have a bar on board which business can also access but I would say that because that's probably a very bucket list kind of experience.

Okay, let's get into your story. So you started Ashley Gets Around 10 years ago as a travel blog and it sounds like you were way better at finding flight deals than writing blog posts. us through the evolution. When did you realize your superpower wasn't writing about travel but it was making travel accessible, especially this more luxury style of flying?

Yeah.

Yeah.

when I was back traveling 10, 12 years ago, blogging was the thing. you want to make money from travel, blog. And I was really good at the traveling part and I was really good at thinking about what I wanted to write. But then I just didn't like that.

Mm-hmm.

mostly because the way I was in all these blogging groups and you couldn't write the way that I want to write, which is just the way that I talk. I just want to tell a story. I don't want to write for SEO. I don't want to write for Pinterest. And so that's kind of what it just seemed like, okay, well, if I want to make money from this and not do law school, I have to write for SEO. And the idea of writing top 10 places to visit in Paris was like the death of me. And so I just, I'd always,

Mm-hmm.

a bit of a travel hacker because at that point I didn't have as much money. I just finished grad school and so I just was like okay I can't afford do all these trips and so I would do insane things like my friend and I took a transatlantic cruise from Miami to I think Rome because it was $300 and it was cheaper than a flight. So we spent 15 days taking a cruise on Holland America which was

I did all these things like try to save money and then I got into looking for cheap flights and this was kind of the beginning where there was scotch cheap flights and that was kind of the only one out there And so originally I was looking for economy deals where can I get for 300 bucks? Where can I get for 400 bucks? And so that's kind of what I did for that and then with my old job I started flying Business class more and as I flew more I was getting airline status so then I would get upgraded domestically and then after I flew

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

to Europe in a lie flat seat, I was only want to do this. there has to be a way to get discount business class. it has to also go on sale. And so then I went down the rabbit hole of flyer talk and all these forums and I'm like, oh wait, there are mistake fares for business class and there's sales on business class. And by this point, five years ago, I had more money so I could afford to pay a little bit more for flights. I just didn't want to pay 5,000 for flights. And so yeah, so then I just

Mm-hmm.

don't sleep, I'm up at 2 a.m. So I would just be up at 2 a.m. on Google flights, being like, where can I find a cheap flight? And I'd be like, oh, I found a mistake fair to Amsterdam. let's go to Amsterdam. And so that's what I started doing. And I was mostly doing it for myself. would occasionally post deals on Instagram. had 700 followers, mostly people that I knew who could not care less about business class flights. And then in 2022, I was really wanting

to travel full-time after the pandemic and I wanted to work and travel I really hated my old job

and so I went to travel con which they still do it actually but it's for bloggers content creators and I was talking about all these trips I was doing and my friend and I had started a tour company which is no longer in existence and nobody wanted nobody cared about these trips I was running only people asked me about the flights they were like wait you flew business for how much and I was like wait should I be posting about these flights and I had wanted to do YouTube which is hilarious

Mm-hmm.

because I'm not even on YouTube, was like, I want to do flight reviews because there weren't any women. There still aren't very many women doing flight reviews. It's mostly men. And that's all anybody wanted to talk about. They were like, you should post videos about these flights. So I started doing that and then ended up blowing up and went from 700 followers to a couple thousand, which I thought that's insane to have 3000 followers on Instagram. And then I had a video go pretty viral. I think I had like a million and I got

20,000 followers from it or 25,000. And so I went to almost 30,000 followers and I was like, oh wait, this is a thing. And at that point I was still posting deals for free. not every day, but I'd be like, here's a deal that I found that none of these other services sent out. And then people started saying we would pay for this. And I was like, maybe I should do an email list. Cause I had thought about it before

Wow.

But I was like, maybe I should try this. And I set up a

a little landing page okay, sign up to be notified if I maybe decide to do that. And a thousand people joined it like the first day. And I was like, wait, this is maybe a thing. And so then I was like, all right, I'm going to send these deals. And I basically sent an email out that was like, hey, I'm going to send flight deals, but I don't know if this is going to last a year. I don't know if I'm going to actually send any good ones. you can pay me 99 bucks. I'm not giving you a refund. You're just taking a chance basically.

taking a flyer and I was like, nobody's gonna buy this. Cause I did a terrible sales pitch. I was like, this may not work. Don't buy it. And I sold so many I had to close it an hour later because I was like, my God. It was, I was like, yeah, I made 10 grand in 45 minutes. And I was like, close, close, close. I was like, I can't. And so then I had like a whole meltdown about like, I don't know what to do now. And so, yeah, so then I started, I ran beta and

Too much pressure.

ran it for three weeks and realized, I actually find a lot of deals and people were already booking them. People were like, I already booked it. I was on your list for five days and I booked this deal wherever. And I was like, this is like a thing. And then.

But, yeah.

That is crazy.

I have ⁓ secondhand anxiety for you when you talk about people giving you $10,000 and then you're like, now I actually have to produce something. Even though you obviously told them you don't know if it's gonna work. there's still certain amount of pressure when that many people.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, and then

like I didn't even have a business bank account.

Yeah.

for the first five months, because I was abroad. I couldn't get one. I was out of the country. And so I was like, I'm going to prison, because this money is going into my bank account. And then I was like, what if I don't send deals and people sue me? Or because I have a lot of followers on Instagram or at the time I had way less. But I was like, well, if people don't like it and they post about it online and people hate me. there was just all this. So I called my friend. I was crying. And she was like, why are you crying about making a bunch of money? I'm like, because this is real now. I thought like,

Yeah.

Yeah.

five people would buy it. I figured I'd make $500. And yeah, I was having to tell people no. I had turned it off to where people couldn't buy it people were pissed. I was like, listen, I can't take any more money. At least it's making me super anxious. So it was very anxiety ridden. And then I was like, okay, I can't, I have to make sure we find flights. So I definitely didn't think about the business. It was not a plan. It was just YOLO. And now it's a pretty big business. It's just kind of funny. It's just kind of funny. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It is crazy. It is

crazy. And I think some people might go, wow, is a lot to sign up for for a subscription. But the reality is, even with regular flights, $99, if you book one flight deal a year, it pays for itself plus saves you money. Business class has to be that tenfold. If you get a good business class deal, it has to be saving you so much money.

Bye.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like

a lot of people booked that Prague flight that was under $900 round trip. And it worked for a ton of dates. So it worked from summer to December. I sent it out last April and so many people booked it. and a lot of times what people don't realize is they have a membership, but they're also booking two tickets. they're booking for their partner or their friend or whatever. And so you booked just one flight. That's a mistake for it. Like you've paid

Right, right.

for my membership for literally 10, 15 years. And then that goes up if you book two tickets. So we have a lot of people who, you know, book three or four tickets for their family to go somewhere. mostly that you know, you're getting a good price because we're searching for the flights all the time. So it's, you know, I can't predict what flights we're going to get, but it's like, if you know you want to go to Europe and you want to go in premium cabin, so premium economy or business, we're likely going to find something the span of

time that you're also looking. So it's kind of like you're paying us to look. But yeah, I've had so many people book like five, six flights. I had one guy email me very early in the business. He took his entire team to India on a flight deal that I sent for $2,000 round trip and he needed to take his employees to India. And he told me that I saved him literally $12,000 and he goes, I don't care what you charge for your membership. I'm never leaving. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. So yeah, it kind of, really does add up just to

That's amazing.

I mean, even if you book one deal every other year, it adds up to a lot of savings for premium cabins because they're so expensive.

Yeah.

Right,

right. So you say we, so I assume you have employees and I know you have multiple businesses, but with this particular business, how many employees do you have?

We have like 10 employees. Yeah, and then I have some contractors. So yeah, it's a lot of people but funny enough in the business

my goodness.

Wow.

Like it's really me and an assistant for the flight searching. have a whole team and then I have contractors have like a business coach and that obviously that's not really a full time yeah, we have a lot of people working on flight sourcing because the first year of the business, you didn't see me without a laptop. I mean, I didn't sleep. I was looking for flights 18 hours a day. so that's just not sustainable.

So we have a pretty big team that searches for flights 24-7. And we get deals out before other services most of the time. obviously not 100 % of the time, but there's considerable amounts of time that we send a deal hours before anybody else does. And I think it's because we have so many people searching for flights.

Do you think other flight services are subscribed to yours?

no, I

know they are. They steal from me. I can prove it. Yeah.

So

they're incognito signed up and then.

Yeah,

You

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

of the owner of the business. Like it said their name and it said the business. And I'm like, are you stupid? Like, you don't think I saw this? So I added a tag to the account in ConvertKit so I could just monitor what they were doing. And sure enough, I sent a very good deal every US city to Spain for 15 or $1,600. This was in 2022. And it was one of the first big deals I sent because it worked for so many airports.

I was in Poland when I sent it. So I sent it very early time East coast. Imagine my surprise when five hours later, this competing service sent the same deal and I went in my back end and I think people don't realize how much information I get when somebody is to subscribe to my email. And I could see how many times the person clicked, how many times they open the email, at what time they open the email. And then I'm subscribed to their service. So I could see what time they sent the email out. And so they stole it from me. Like I could pretty much prove that they stole it from me. And the same day,

the owner of the company changed his email address to his sister's email address. And I could see that because I had a tag on the account. So I called him out on it. I did two videos and I called his sister out too. And how I found out that it's his sister is I Googled the name and I found her wedding announcement in a paper. And I used that on my social media. I actually said, hope your sister enjoyed her wedding at the Ramada Inn and Suites in Fargo, North Dakota.

So like honestly cross me, cause I'll come for you. try me. So yeah, so I called them out. they still take deals from me. I just can't prove it as easily because after I post that video, I think they realize, we need to join under like.

lemonade777 at gmail.com. Yeah, so and so I found some other email addresses from some competitors like going who were on my email list. So now it's much harder because the email list is so big for me to prove that a company stole the deal, but it's like, okay, well if I send a deal at 8 a.m. and two hours later you send the same exact deal and when I click on your links it's the same dates.

Yeah, like be smarter. Be smarter.

Mm-hmm.

you may be steal but there's nothing illegal about it. I could steal steal deals if I wanted I guess. And we do take some deals from flyer talks which is a public forum. It's not anybody's business and we we credit I will say this came from like lemonade 1262 from flyer talk. But but yeah no so everybody steals from everybody. But yeah I can't technically prove it

Right.

Yeah.

I'm the only service that only does premium deals so you know if you want economy deals I don't send we only send premium economy I'll send we don't send very many of them I'd say less than 10 % but most of our deals are business and then first class.

God, that story is fascinating. think also just in entrepreneurship in general, it is a very frustrating experience when you feel like people are copying you or stealing, you know, and it's hard to prove. And they're not technically, you know, doing anything. I mean, they're doing something wrong, but you know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's,

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean you can't really do anything

about it.

in many, many, many different fields of entrepreneurship. People are stealing from other people or copying other people. And it can be a really frustrating experience when you've created something yourself and did all the work for it and somebody comes along rides on your coattails. And, it took them 10 minutes. What took you? God knows how long to create. Yeah.

Yeah

A long time, yeah. I mean, I

my entire business. so she basically copied my website, different colors, different wording, but very similar. Some of the wording was verbatim, like clearly copied and pasted. And she was sending DMs to people telling them, people who followed me, telling them that they could join her email list for $8 a month and get the same deals.

And so I joined her email list under a fake name and she was verbatim stealing my deals.

and sending emails out for $8 a month. anyway, long story short, she worked for a very large consulting firm, that you would know of And she was sending flight deals during the day. So I emailed her and said that I know for a fact that companies like that have a rule that you're not allowed to work for other people during company

and that I guarantee you she's using their devices to infringe on my copyright and intellectual property. And so I sent her an email and I said, my next email is gonna be to the legal team at this company threatening them that I'm gonna sue them for trademark infringement as well as intellectual property and copyright. And she went out of business. Don't fuck with me because I'll come for you. Yeah.

Damn, okay, so more of story, don't fuck with Ashley. We got it, we got

my gosh, that's so funny.

No, but I was what

I was actually saying was like with the copying it's so rampant on social media I feel like you just have to put blinders on because I feel like at the end of the day if you're only Copying from other people and not just occasionally taking an idea of like I kind of like that video because I've done that too where I'm like this is a trend. I'm gonna do that, but if your entire Identity is stealing from other people because you don't have an original thought in your brain you're gonna fail eventually So I just don't worry about that

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Like you just kind of have to put blinders on because if not, it just consumes you. you just worry about that all the time. And it's just not it's not productive to care about what other people are doing. So I try to not care, you know.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's easier said than done, but it's really good advice as a business owner. I honestly, I think people think I'm on social media all the time. I'm actually never on social media anymore because I think people, because I have Lauren and she's posting for me. And of course I know what she's posting and I'm involved in it on the backend. But I don't like scroll. I really don't. ⁓

Good for you, I love that for you.

Mmm.

Ugh, I love that for you.

I wish I could break my

and I was thinking this morning, I getting ready and I was like, I gotta look at your content and it's not don't care. I literally am never on social media because it gives me so much anxiety. Yes, there's so many amazing things out there, but there's also so much shit and there's so much negativity. as an entrepreneur, you can really get in your head when you start seeing what other people are doing and I don't know. I found that it's just not.

Yeah.

Mmm. Yeah.

100%. Yeah.

healthy for me. And so I try really to minimize the amount of time I'll go days and days without being on Instagram. I guess I just haven't found it helpful. But yeah, it is really a struggle when you see somebody you know that they're copying you. And sometimes you're like, I don't want to even put anything out there because then people are going to copy. But at the end of the day, let them do it because they're not going to do it the way you do it.

Ugh, I love that. I love that.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You

I think also the bigger you get, less you can control who's watching and what they're consuming of yours. you have to just kind of let it be. And it's like, hey, if you inspired somebody to copy your business and do something the same way, like good luck. Good luck.

100%.

Good luck, good luck. I mean, honestly, like good luck.

I will say the, I have such a stressful relationship with Instagram because Ashley gets around was, is my only Instagram. I don't have a personal, that is my personal Instagram, which is hilarious, which is, which is hilarious. And so

Yeah, I made my personal public too.

It's just, you know, sometimes I get on there and I'm just really unfiltered. Cause I'm like, this is what I would post. I forget that there's 160,000 people there and not a hundred people. I think that's why people like me is cause I'm just, I'm just like, whatever. But I've had a couple of videos where I've gotten on the wrong side of the internet and it's only happened a couple of times. And

Yeah.

People tell you to ignore it, but like, I'm sorry, if I have people in my DMs telling me to kill myself, that stresses you out. And so there was definitely a time where I didn't post for a while because I was like, you know, and I feel like I have pretty good mental health. I know not to internalize it, but if it's when it's you open your phone and it's just a message after message, it's horrible. And so I feel for people that have a million followers, cause I'm like, oh God, that must be really hard if you don't

dark place.

And I don't have a team that does that. I'm the only person on my Instagram. So if you send a mean comment, I'm the one that and I'm lucky that

Yeah.

You're

If somebody says something mean, people will fight with them in my comments. I tend to not get mean, they defend me. So I tend to not get mean comments, which I'm very thankful for. But yeah, it's, you know, if I post a reel that gets a lot of views, like I will end up sitting on Instagram and I'll be like, my God, it's 2 p.m. and I've been on here since 11 and time just leaves. So I think I need to be better about taking social media breaks because I do think your mental health is probably affected by it. So I'm very proud of you that you go days without Instagram.

They defend you.

That's something to aspire to.

I also never got into TikTok ⁓ and I technically have an account but I mean I never post but ⁓ I feel like in particular TikTok is just a lawless land in terms of negativity and trolls and comments and people just being nasty and I

Me either, I'm not even on TikTok really.

It's lawless. Yeah.

like you said, you can say you don't care, these are people you don't know, but people need to remember, these are actual humans you are making mean nasty comments about. don't get me wrong, I am the person that scrolls the comments sometimes and I'm just like, my god, who are these people? Yeah, what are you thinking? But yeah, I just don't have it in me to deal with the negativity.

Yeah.

Who says this? Like, yeah.

I don't spend my time writing shitty comments to people because I don't have time for that like if I see something that I don't like I might be like this person's Whatever I keep going I move on and so I have had to tell myself the people that take their time to send me messages that I Should jump off a cliff clearly they have nothing going for them

and you move on.

So anyway, I'm impressed that you're able to stay off social media, because I wish I could throw my phone in a river sometimes. Like sometimes I'm like, goodbye.

Yeah, is a blissful place to be sometimes. Okay, back to flights.

what's the difference between a good deal and a great deal? how do you decide what makes the cut?

we only send deals that are at least 30 % off. So we kind of have an internal thing where under 2200 from the East Coast to Europe in business class is a decent deal. Because typically, any day of the week you'll see anywhere from three to 5,000 depending on where you're departing from.

And I would say anything under $2,000 is you should consider buying because it doesn't happen every week that we see those prices, especially if it's a nonstop flight especially if it works from a really small airport. if you're flying from Huntsville, Alabama you see a $1,700 business class flight to Spain

and spring, you need to book that because that's a very good deal. And then anything that's a mistake fair is gonna be anything that's abnormally low, like a thousand dollars in business class. I would honestly say for Europe, anything under.

1500 is probably what we would say is a mistake fare. It may not actually be a mistake. It may just be a sale, but it's insanely low. So anything under a thousand dollars, you might have a couple hours from the time I send the email to book it, cause it's going to get pulled. I don't normally email people at 3 a.m., but if we find a mistake fare, I send it immediately because it's not going to last. Whereas like if we find, let's say like this,

Mm-hmm.

Right.

week there was $1,900 JetBlue, I think it was to Amsterdam or Ireland or Paris, was somewhere to Europe, and I found it at like 2 a.m. I'm not gonna send that at 2 a.m. because I guarantee you it's just a sale. They occasionally would do sales at that price and so I scheduled it for like 8 a.m. so I wouldn't email people in the middle of the night. that deal may still actually work a couple days depending. It could just last a day or two. So that's kind how we know. We kind of have

some internal pricing, anything for, Mexico, for example, if we're saying flights to Cancun for 350, that's very cheap in domestic first class business class. So we send that immediately. anything under a thousand is considered a good deal. But actually, Google flights will tell you the average prices. So that's really helpful if you're searching for that little chart. And so if it's in green, it's a good good place to buy.

Right. There's

if it's under three grand for this, we'll send it. Like for example, Australia, people are...

relentless in looking for Australia deals and they just don't happen that often. So it's really rare to see anything under five grand round trip to Australia in business class. Like if you see thirty five hundred, like I don't really send thirty five hundred dollar flights, but for Australia I do because that's actually a very good deal. So it really just depends on where you're going. Like I wouldn't tell somebody a business class flight to Panama that's two grand is a good deal. not really a good deal, but two grand,

Right.

Right.

Rome is a very good deal. So it kind of just depends. So yeah, I would say at least 30 % off for us to send anything over 60, 70 is the mistake fair and that's what we aim for ⁓ finding those.

Right.

Yeah.

Australia affairs are very rare and actually, again, I'm not a business class traveler, although you are inspiring me to become one. I live in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It's a small city, like 80,000 people. We have one airport. It only flies to Chicago. T-Bex.

There was, wait, there was a, wasn't there a T-Baxers?

Yeah, okay, sorry, off topic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we had, yeah, so we're not like rinky dink. I mean, we had TBEX here. We're a cool city. We're cool, I promise. But we have

a Bon Iver, Line and Cougles, like a horse-rided capital of the United States. Anyway, we have one airport. It has two flights a day. They go to O'Hare United. Like it's a small airport for context. And so one of my best flight deals, not by price, but just by like the value of what you're saying is I flew from Eau Claire.

Mmm. Love that.

Yeah.

which is again, small airport to Sydney and then back from Melbourne to Eau for $650. It's not business class, but like that's a crazy flight deal. like to your point, it depends on where you're going, how far, what's the average price of that type of flight, know, my small airport, I can get so many good deals, fly cheaper out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin than I do out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. And people never, they never believe me.

That's amazing. That's amazing. No, but that is it. That that's amazing for economy. That's a crazy flight deal.

Yeah.

That's, no, that's actually, that

actually is very true because of hubs, hubs, hubs are more expensive than smaller airports. It's weird because it's,

Chicago and United.

For certain, for mistake fares, it tends to be the bigger hubs. But in general, people are always shocked when I'm like, oh, you live in like Greenville, South Carolina, you're gonna get a better price out of Greenville than Charlotte. people don't believe me. I actually was on the news in Charlotte explaining that. I like, no, Charlotte has the most expensive fares. if you're not, if you're just looking for economy or, you know, you're not looking for a mistake fare, you're looking for just something cheaper. And people always like, well, let me try from Charlotte since I live Asheville.

Right.

huh.

or Greenville or wherever and it's like no you should check your smaller airports because you're likely gonna find a cheaper flight from your home airport. It just may be more annoying because like I used to live in Asheville same thing we had to always do multiple layovers so that's always annoying if you live in a smaller city but sometimes it was cheaper for me just to fly from my house and drive to Charlotte which is kind of crazy.

There's more layovers.

Absolutely, I

would say people in Eau Wisconsin will fight me over this but Minneapolis is not that good of an international airport particularly if you're outside of Latin America and you know me, okay, you're going to Paris fine but when you start going to Egypt and India and all these other places in the world Minneapolis is not it and I think everyone around here thinks it is and I'm like but Eau Claire connects to Chicago. Chicago is a far bigger

Yeah.

Yeah.

Chicago is better.

Yeah than Minneapolis.

It's a better hub. You might

hate O'Hare like I do, but it is a better hub It cost me more to fly out of Minneapolis and I have to drive there, whereas I can... At least there is some value in I drive minutes to the airport and I'm on a plane. Yeah.

Yeah, park there and leave. Yeah, exactly.

And I think the other thing people don't realize is the hub situation. when you have a hub that's so...

dominated by one airline. So Minneapolis, Delta, Delta, Delta, Delta. And so it's the same in Charlotte. So people probably think, ⁓ you would send less deals from Chicago. I send more deals from Chicago because American and United are battling constantly. Plus you have a ton of foreign airlines in Chicago. And so I think people don't realize like, you have to look not just the airport you're leaving from, but the airports that you could connect through. Because a lot of times like, okay, well, Chicago,

Dada!

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

has some more obscure airlines that could have more sales or you could get a more direct flight. and it's the same with people who are like, well, I only want to fly Delta. And it's like, okay, well, you're, you're going to have seven layovers. I hope you like Atlanta. There was a joke one time. was like Delta airlines. if you're flying from Chicago to New York, you should also see Atlanta. it's, you know, like not fully true. And I mean, I love Delta, but it's, I mean, it's the

my god, that drives me insane.

with American you end up having to go more places just because you want to stay loyal to an airline where I you know I like American I have status in American I want to if I'm flying if I'm economy I want my upgrades I'm probably gonna sit with American if I'm buying business I don't care I want the cheapest flight in business class with the best layovers I don't want to do four layovers I don't want to have a 24-hour layover somewhere that's not fun

Mm-hmm.

in Iceland or somewhere that I'm like, I don't want to spend 24, whatever. And so I don't care what airline it is. And I think people think that's so funny because I'll fly, I'll fly an airline that has a worst business class because it's you know what mean? Like I'm like, oh, well I'll just fly in this British Airways. That's the old business class. That's like two four two, which isn't great, but it's still a lie flat seat for eight hours. it's a lie flat seat. I don't have anybody touching me. I get better food and service. I'm fine with it. Cause I can lay down and sleep and

I don't.

and it is a one stop itinerary. know, and so I'll take that 10 out of 10 times. And so I have a lot of people like, I only want to fly Delta. I'm like, okay, okay.

⁓ it is it

is such a thorn in my side. And it's probably like I said, my proximity to Minneapolis because everyone around here is very Delta. And I'm guessing you'll agree with me, but it's it's people who want this airline loyalty and they're not regular travelers even. So so I think it's like a status thing, though. It's like, well, I have to fly Delta and I have to use my points and da da da da. And I'm like, why does this matter so much to you? You don't fly that often. And people who do fly a lot, I would argue a lot of them.

Delta, delta.

I don't understand it. It is.

aren't airline loyal unless you're living Minneapolis and you're always flying Delta because you're always going to the same place, you're flying to the same cities, it makes sense. But a lot of times, if you are just looking for the best flights, the best flights are not on one airline. And I don't get the inconveniencing yourself just so that you can fly one airline because that is where your credit card is, that is where your points are. You are limiting yourself so much by wanting to have this status on this airline that doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's

like, it's the bait of my existence trying to tell people okay, I know you fly United, but have you heard of the United partner? And they're like, I don't know about...

Have you heard of

Air Canada?

They're like, I

don't know about a Canadian airline. And it's like, okay, Greg, okay. Well, do you want the $800 flight or not? I don't know what to tell you. you know what I mean? I'm like, you sure fly Delta direct Minneapolis to Paris and enjoy paying $6,500. Feel free. Or you can fly Chicago to Paris on United nonstop for 4,000. even if you're not buying it on super sale, you can save a ton of money just by not being loyal to one airline. And I say that as somebody who

who sells a course about being loyal to American Airlines. But I pick flights based on number of stops and the price and I don't care what airline it's on because I just want to be comfortable and I want the best itinerary. I I don't want the 5 a.m. flight. I want the 2 p.m. flight that, has a quick layover in Philly and then I sleep on the plane and I'm in Paris. I don't want to be like, OK, well, I only want to fly Delta. So I have to fly from Raleigh to Atlanta and then Atlanta to New York and then New York to Paris.

so yeah anyway people from Delta are gonna be like we hate her but I love Delta I do love Delta Delta is just an example because people are very Delta it's a great airline but it's the way people yes

No, I... I know.

It is a good airline. It's nothing against the airline. It's the way people hold it to this

elite standard. I was just arguing with my friends about this last weekend because my friend flew out of my city for the first time and he apparently had a horrible experience. And so of course now he's like, well United's awful, right? And so I had this horrible experience. So this is why I only fly Delta. And I said, hot take. Every airline sucks. when they fuck you over.

Mm.

Yeah.

And you

could find millions of people out there that hate United, that hate Delta, that hate American, that I right now, Egypt air, I am so mad at them yesterday for, my God, there's a whole nother story. I almost punched a wall yesterday. I was so mad after them leaving me on hold for two hours. Anyway, I digress. the point is you just have to have one bad experience with one random airline and you know, like,

I hate Egypt air.

my God.

and it can ruin you. Yeah.

Delta fucked me over and left me stranded and da da da da da. Like everybody hates one airline at any particular time. And for him it was United, and it was like, well, Delta would never do that. And I was like, yeah, they would. They do it to lots of people and so does American and so does United. These are airlines. Like they ultimately are running a business and sometimes these things are outside of their control. And sometimes you just had a bad situation.

They would, they've done it to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like if you went

to CVS and one lady at CVS was rude, you're like, I'm never going to another CVS. You're like, well, that's just Brenda. She was in a bitchy mood that day. So it's just, mean, the thing with weather, that kills me when people are like, this happened last week, with people throwing fits. They were coming to my DMs being like, they left me stranded. And it takes everything in my power not to be like, there was a blizzard. Where do you expect them to get another 777?

correct.

Do you want to die? Because nobody wants to die. these planes can't take off in a blizzard. you knew this storm was coming. You still chose to fly. And then they get mad that American won't pay for their hotel room in Dallas because they're stuck there. And it's like, well, Dallas doesn't get, seven inches of snow very often. Raleigh, we had a

of snow last week. no flights were leaving. I think it's again the difference between somebody who flies once or twice a year and somebody who flies 50 times a year or 10 times a year. I'm not a very laid-back person in general I'm probably like a little type A but when it comes to travel

I'm such the opposite. if I go up to the gate and they're like we have a mechanical, it's going to be four more hours. I'm like, cool. I just go back to the lounge. I don't care. Everybody else is in a tizzy. And it's so funny that that's the one thing that doesn't bother me. But if I go to McDonald's and they give me a regular Coke instead of a diet, I'm like, ruin my day. But it's funny because the flights, I'm like, oh, well, whatever. We'll get there when we get there. And so it's funny that I'm like that with flights. But yeah, I mean, I try to do my best to try to mitigate some of that stuff. I'm not going to try to fly in a blizzard, but yeah, it's just the,

Yeah.

airline loyalty when you don't need to be because it's not like you fly every week is always very confusing to me. why do you only want to fly Delta One? what about Air France? They have doors. Like, you could fly Air France and save two grand and they're like, now I want to fly Delta. for that, I'm just like, okay, well, if you want to pay $6,000, be my guest. If you want to pay $2,000, maybe fly KLM, you know, or another partner. So it's always interesting, people's thoughts about it.

Yeah.

I think this is just such a larger topic, but it's people using travel as a flex. airline status, it's credit cards, it's lounges, it's God knows I almost would argue it's people who travel less that use it as a flex versus the people who do it all the time. like, cool, you have global entry? So does everyone else.

No, 100%.

Yeah,

Priority pass? Wow, like, yep, priority pass sucks, by the way, but like, like...

Woo! Woo! Move out of the way! got a prayer request!

I don't know, just feel like sometimes people are flexing about it and I'm just like, we aren't special. you're not special, I'm not special.

No, and also

it's so funny because I've spent...

You know, it is an evolution of travel. I first started traveling, I didn't have as much money, I didn't have any of the credit cards, so I only rarely got lounge access. So then once I started getting lounge access, I became a lounge snob. And now it's taking another turn where I will be in an airport and be like, well, don't want the food at Admiral's Club. I'm going to P.F. Chang's. I'm sitting in the airport eating P.F. Chang's and not at the lounge because I'm like, I'm over the lounge food. So there's benefits to having the lounge access. Of course, like you should have pre-check. I, somebody took my pre-check.

I'd have a nervous breakdown. But yeah, I think it's just like, oh, look at me, look at me. and I say this as somebody who's a fricking travel influencer and I get embarrassed filming in airports. I'm like, I don't want anybody to look at me. but yeah, I think it's like such a flax. I think it's like, oh, I have the Amex. Like I'm only doing this in Sharianner. I only am doing Delta because my Amex gets me lounge access to Delta. And it's like, okay, so you'll pay a hundred more dollars so you can get $15 worth of free drinks. Okay. But it's not even worth arguing.

Yeah, which that

with people. I'm just like, okay,

no.

that you want to fly Delta, fly Delta. You want to fly American, good for you. it's not even worth an argument, but I just find it funny because I'm like, but you're inconveniencing yourself both in a financial way and time to fly Delta or United or American or Spirit, like whatever it is, because you want to be loyal to this like one airline for points that you probably won't even be able to use because you're not earning that many of them. So anyway.

Mm-hmm.

or they're

not as valuable as you think you are, which brings me to, I guess, my next conversation, which is points and miles and credit cards. So what is your favorite travel credit card?

I mean, this is probably gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I use two cards primarily. So for personal cards, I love my Venture It's a standard two X per thing you buy.

It has priority pass. So it has your lounge access. And I find the benefits pretty good for the annual fee. Like you get a credit, hotel credit and some other things within. It's not a huge annual fee. And then for my business I buy a lot of my flights on my Amex Platinum because of the trip insurance. And I get 5X when I buy business class flights with the Amex Platinum and I buy a lot of business class flights. So I earn a lot of points.

Okay.

maximizing that 5x benefit. But yeah, I mean, I think I'm not as much into points and into credit cards specifically as a lot of people. I'm probably not great at them, which is funny because I own a points and mouse coverage, but I, to me it's...

I don't like to me it's not worth my time to care if I'm making Forex on a $14 purchase at like a barbecue joint. I don't care I'm just pulling out the first card I get because to me it just doesn't travel, I think everybody should have at least one card with really good rental car insurance and trip insurance So if you do get stranded in Dallas because of weather your am at if you paid for the flight on AMX AMX will give you money for a hotel and food and so then you're able to get that

So I think whatever card has the good trip insurance is good and then You know Amex not everywhere takes Amex. I wouldn't only have an Amex because that's a bad idea and my Venturex is a visa that's taken everywhere and so that's probably the two cards I use the most and then I do like my Amex gold for dining because I love a restaurant So I do try to maximize that but for smaller purchases I tend just to pull the first card out of my wallet. I mean I have

have like 20 credit cards. I usually sign up for the cards for the bonus. mean, the bonus is really where you're getting the biggest chunk of miles. unless you're spending $400,000 a year, you're not really earning that many points. I mean, I earn a ton of points because I spend 20 grand on flights a year. So I'm earning like over 150,000 Amex points a year because of flights, but that's very niche. mean, most people are not spending that kind of money on flights. So I would say it's like, look at what you're spending. If you're looking for just an everyday

same.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Right.

that you're like, don't want to think about this. Venture X, 2X, it's very simple. And then maybe another card for the signup bonus. I tell people if you're looking to take a trip, like you're wanting to go to Tokyo and you know you want to use points for hotels, find out what hotels, what points you need, and then figure out what credit cards to get and then sign up for those that way. Because then working backwards is probably easier cause for example, if you know you want to say at a bunch of hi-its in Japan, signing up for a capital one,

one, doesn't help you because you can't transfer to Hyatt, so you have to get a chase card. And so that's kind of how I would tell people to do it. But yeah, I think it's very complicated. I'm like the worst. I just pull the first card out of my wallet most of the time. I'm like, look, use this one in a while.

Mm-hmm.

No, I'm

the same. I think as someone who's been doing it for a while, it's gotten so complicated. And I think points have been devalued so much. So people who have been in the game for a while know what it used to be like, and I'm kind of over it. Chase, I'm over you too. Like you're on my shit list.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I don't have any,

I don't have any Chase cards. I hate them, so.

I think

I'm on their naughty list at this point, so it's fine. I feel like we're breaking up and it's the end of an era for me. But I have too many other cards. I think I have them all already and I think I'm on their list. But also, I'm just so pissed over the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which I know many people are. But I think, you know, five years ago when I had a normal job and I had the time to sit and fuck around with points and miles and keep track of all this shit, like it was fine. I sit there and think about what

Yeah.

Yeah.

What could I have been doing during this time that I sat here nitpicking or making sure I'm using all the benefits of my card or up for all these like stupid things? It's the gamification of credit cards has gotten in my opinion so out of control. They're obviously hoping that you don't use any of these benefits so that they win in the end and $795 for a sign up. It for an annual fee on a card is insane and I mean yes it

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's insane. It's insane.

Could that be worthwhile for somebody who travels a lot and happens to use all of those things that are bonuses with that card? Sure, but the average person, no. And I always tell people, they're like, oh, look, I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve. And I'm like, you travel three times a year. That is probably not the best card for I think the moral of the story is like, pick the card that's best for you based on what applies to you. Because it's going to be individual for every person. People are always like, what card should I get?

Yeah. For the average person, doesn't.

Not the card for you. It's not the card for you.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I don't know anything about you.

Well, I don't know

about you. Yeah, exactly. People ask me that all the time and at the very beginning of my business, I had credit card links. And so I was very limited on what I was allowed to say on social media because Chase is, they're a bunch of dicks. And I hate their bank, I think they're assholes. But I will say I missed out on, a bunch of people got invited to a fun trip that I was not invited to. And I'm sure it's cause I talk shit about Chase, but I don't care. Don't invite me. I'm like, I don't need your,

You

low rent canapes or like a free trip to New York. I can buy it myself. people will ask me and I'm like, I have to ask you 40 questions and I think it's also different. Like I have a lot of friends who are moms and like they're you they have kids and so they need to do more of the gamification because they want to be able to take these expensive trips because they have to pay for five people. That makes sense for me. I just I personally don't think it's worth my time to be like, oh, I earned an extra 15 points because I use

a gift card that I bought at a Sam's Club on a Tuesday night on a, you know, like I don't have time for that. Some people love it and if you love it, great. It's a game and you can totally game the system. But for me, I'm too lazy. I'm just like, I don't care about the 50. And I don't even use my points. I'm the worst at using my points. So I'm,

Yeah, no.

Yeah, I don't have time for it.

Well,

again, points have lost value, I think, across the board. And often the dollar value versus the point value, the flights cost more. Sometimes you can find a deal, but often you're kind of losing money technically if you figure out the, it's just, I'm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have to, you

honestly I'm very well versed in points and miles. So I do find like the 50,000 point flights to Europe on American all the time. It's harder if you don't do it that often. It's also harder if you need more than one ticket and I'm a business owner. there's no availability on Friday night. I'll go Saturday. I'll go Sunday. I'll go because I'm flexible, I would argue, I think hotel points are easier to use than flights.

Mm-hmm.

I transfer points to hotel partners more often because there's more availability. I just came back from Bora Bora and I did six nights on points and I I saved like over 10 grand but it wiped out a lot of my Marriott points and so I tend to save my points for like bucket list stuff. ⁓ But yeah, I I think it's very individualized for what you're doing, how much time you have, are you interested in having a hobby, because it's a hobby, mean it is like, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It used to be a hobby for me. Now it's an annoyance.

Yeah, so that's how I've turned into it. It was a hobby for me and now I'm annoyed by it. So it's kind of funny.

Yes. When I'm, even when I'm on group trips, like, cause you know, we do a lot of bill splitting and so people are very weird about like, well like I wanna, I wanna pay for it. I wanna pay for it. No, I wanna pay for it. And it's they, everybody wants the points and I get that to a point. But also if you sat there and thought about what that point value actually is at the end, like I know it all adds up.

Okay, yeah. They want their points.

It's like,

I get

yeah.

it, but we are talking about three dollars in points like I don't think people think about the actual monetary value of these points sometimes that they are so, so adamant that they need to get.

I think it's just a game. I think that's what it is. It's like a game that people are like, well, I want to get the most points. I'm the worst because I'll go to be, I will just to be a brat. I will go out with my friends who are big points people, like they're all points content creators and we'll go to dinner and everybody's pulling out their AMEX gold for their Forex and I'll be an asshole and pull up my AMEX platinum that only earns one X and just to see people's faces. They're like, you're paying for a $50 dinner when you're missing out on 400 points. I'm like, literally don't care.

Yeah.

Don't care. Just to see people's reaction. They're like, what? What are you doing? I'm friends with a lot of points people and they love it and that's good for them. I just think you don't have to love it. If you don't want to love it, don't love it. It's fine. I'm not going to judge you for only having one credit card. that's insane.

so let's move on to a little bit more about booking flights, travel planning. So for someone planning a big international trip, when do you think they should start looking for flight deals? This is always a big question for people is like, when do I start looking? Because sometimes people, my gosh, they are looking a year in advance, sometimes I'm like, their flights don't even exist yet. Like we gotta calm down. So like, what do you feel like is the right window?

Yeah.

They don't even exist yet. Yeah.

So I think, and let me caveat by saying.

I'm the kind of person who if you were like, hey, do you want to go to Paris next week? I would go. So I'm maybe not the best person to ask. In terms of pricing, airlines release their calendars 11 months in advance. So not a year, sometimes even less than 11 months, 10 and a half months. So I would say, you know, it also depends on where you're going. If you're going somewhere more obscure, like you're trying to get to like Zimbabwe that has less deals, you're going to want to like maybe look more versus if you're going to

Paris or Rome or London where there are tons of flights, I would start by looking to see what the average price is. So I would just randomly look for your dates. I would also see if you could be flexible. leaving a day earlier or a day later literally can be the difference in a thousand dollars sometimes. So I would be as flexible as you can with your dates, even if that means only being flexible a day or two. And I would watch it for a while. I don't think buying it

the first day you see it. That's never a good idea I would look for the average flight and then I would say let's just use Paris for example let's say you're flying from Chicago to Paris and the first day you look is $3,700 round trip in business class and Most of the flights are around 37 and I'm making these numbers up since I'm sure somebody's gonna be like it wasn't 3,700 but these are made-up numbers and One day, you know a month later you are happy to be in Google flights and you see something for $2,100

You should probably book that because it's a significant difference from the average price and again Google will tell you that and you can set alerts Alerts are easier for Economy flights. They're not as reliable for business, but you can search for business And then I would just be flexible with airports. So, you know, like you live in a smaller city I live in now a bigger city, but still not a hub and so I would also be looking at okay. Well, I'm Near New York. So maybe let's

to see, especially for business, think for economy, maybe you don't want to do that, but for business, the savings is so big that sometimes it's worth taking a positioning flight. So I would first start by just seeing what the average prices are and then deciding what's a good price for you.

you know, if you're like, okay, well, I want to stay around two grand, okay, just kind of look and see. And when it gets near your price, buy Because there's no real...

date that, you know, like the six to eight weeks before your flight isn't true anymore because everything's based on this algorithm and it's like supply demand and it changes constantly. I mean, even flights I looked at can change the next day to a thousand dollars more or a thousand dollars less. there's no real thing. So I think figuring out where are you comfortable spending and saying okay, if business gets to X amount, I'll buy it. And you have to be realistic. Like you can't be like, okay, I'll buy it when it's $600. Cause that's not happening. ⁓ And so,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I would first look and then kind of base your flights around that because they do go up and down. So I think people look once and they're like, okay, they're $1,800 for economy and then they buy it. And that was actually a high price. So I would keep looking probably multiple times to kind of see.

Yeah, I agree. I think people get this anxiety over am I booking too soon? But then they also wait too long and then also they have these unrealistic expectations of well, I don't want to pay this much so I'm just gonna sit here and wait and wait and wait and wait and ⁓ now it just went up even more and it's like well, I always tell people I feel like the more flexible you can be with dates and location ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

what's your priority is it to go to Paris during the Olympics well then good luck you know you need to go to Florida during spring break with your family of five and you're trying to find a deal it's gonna be a lot harder now if you're just like okay I want to take a vacation I want it to be tropical but I'm very open to where that might be and I'm very flexible it could be the whole month of February you are highly likely to find something good

Perfect. Yes. You're highly likely to get a deal.

Yeah. They're like, I, nope, I only want to fly March 1st to March 11th. I only want to fly Delta. And I refuse to leave from any airport other than Fargo or wherever. Like, I'm like.

But like people are so close minded about like when they went, nope.

You

and I'm not

paying any more than $400 I think people think there's this magic wand that I or anybody else in the travel industry, travel agents, whoever can magically find a deal and that's just not how it works. I think deals are about being open-minded and signing up for services like yours or going or whatever it is.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and I

tell people all the time, if and I will say it heavily depends on the route too. If you're like, want the Caribbean for less than a thousand, I pretty much could guarantee I'm gonna find that for you. If you want Europe because of how many carriers fly that North Atlantic route.

Mm-hmm.

I send so many deals to Europe. If you're like, want a deal to Kyrgyzstan on April 7th. Good luck, because I don't know if anybody's finding that. And it's not because we aren't looking. We're looking for thousands and thousands of routes every day. just sometimes they don't exist. You know what mean? Like sometimes like, OK, maybe your budget for business is under 2000, but you're going during the Olympics. you may not find that. So you have to book premium economy or if you're willing to reposition. And I get it. I used to live in

Right.

smaller airport, still reposition from Raleigh. it's not super sexy, but it saves me $1,500 and I get to fly business class. The other thing I tell people, it's the same number of flights. If you leave from where you live, you're, don't have direct flights to Paris. Like you're to have to connect in Chicago or Minneapolis or somewhere else. Buying two different flights doesn't increase the number of flights. just decreases your cost. And yes, if there's inconveniences, I get it. But like,

inconveniences. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you're not checking a bag or you can fly in the day before and it's not really that far, like if you live in DC, getting from DC to New York is really not a big deal, be a little flexible.

Or the

layover, like sometimes I have a eight hour layover in O'Hare. I could have just booked the flight from Eau Claire to Chicago and then bought a different flight from Chicago onward. And sometimes that makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. And yes, luggage comes into play, having to go pick up your bag and check back in. But if I have eight hours to burn anyway, like what's the difference if I have to go grab my bag and check it back in to save $500?

Exactly.

Yeah.

What's the difference?

Yeah, exactly. there's gonna be people who just.

will argue with you with anything. And I'm like, OK, maybe my list isn't for you then because I'm not trying to be rude to anybody. I don't want you to pay me and then be pissed that I didn't send exactly what you wanted. I knew my friend Emily and I wanted to do the Christmas markets in December last year. And we were like, we're doing it. We talked about it for three years. The first year we had booked flights ended up on a cruise to Brazil. Long story. Last year before we ended up going to Kenya because I found a deal with Kenya.

And so we were like, we're doing the Christmas markets. So when that deal came up for like $75, $900 round trip in business class, it was to Prague. We didn't know where we were going. We were like, cool, I guess we're doing the Christmas markets near Prague. And so we ended up going to Austria, which was great. I had no plans to go to Prague, but it ended up being perfect and it was cheap. And I was like, this is great. It's business class for so cheap. And it was a great trip and I was fine being flexible. So I think it just kind of depends. But yeah, the more flexible you can be.

Yeah.

that means one day because sometimes you don't realize like, well, flying back Sunday is $700 more expensive. OK, well, could I fly back Monday instead? So I think even being even being tiny bit flexible and a lot of things people don't realize is Europe is so connected, people think oh, I really want to go to Amsterdam. I'm like, well, why don't you look into flying into Brussels because it's a thousand dollars cheaper and it's a two hour train ride. you know what I mean? I get it if you have 17 children or you're taking or you're older.

Yeah.

and

you like whatever, but if you're by yourself or you're with a girlfriend, it's like, okay, well, we're gonna stop in Brussels for lunch and then we're gonna go to Paris from Brussels. to me, that's not, I'd rather fly the long, I'd rather save money and fly in business class than fly direct in economy. So I think it just depends on people's priorities, you know?

I of the best trips I've taken were ones to places that I really didn't have that much interest in going to, but it was a cheap flight. if it's not that important oh my God, I need to see the Eiffel Tower or whatever it is, I get it, like that's your bucket list and you do you. But if you're just like, I need to take a trip. think of how much more money you can spend on your accommodation or food or experiences if...

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

you're saving $1,000 or more on your flights. And so think people need to prioritize how important is that destination on those dates? Because I don't know, I just think you can find so much more value in being open-minded and it takes you to places that...

maybe you weren't on your list, but end up being just as good. Because ultimately I think we're looking for an experience. we think we need to go to this destination, but that's not actually our motivation. Like we need a vacation, we need a break, we wanna have experiences, we wanna relax, we wanna try amazing food, whatever it is, I could go on and on on about that. But it's not always about the destination. I think we make it too much about the destination. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think it's more of

a journey. I've had such fun experiences in places that I had no interest in. Well, I want to go everywhere. I want to get to every country, but I sometimes don't really care where I go. I just follow the deal. And so when I bought that really mistake fair, was like the one we talked about earlier, $200 to Bahrain. I had never been to Bahrain. I was like, okay, I guess we're going to Bahrain. I knew nothing. I knew it was in the Middle East. I knew nothing about Bahrain. And I had a great few days there. And I was like, this is so cool.

I didn't have any expectations going in to Bahrain. I mean, I wouldn't say it's a top travel destination, but it was very interesting and I had a good time, I had great it was an unexpected trip and I ended up going to Gdansk, Poland randomly for a conference and I loved it and I never even looked at it. I got there and I was like, wow, this is so gorgeous and had such incredible food and incredible restaurants and I'd never even heard of it before I went. So I think sometimes it's like,

I don't know, I just like an adventure. So if somebody's like, all right, we're going to Courageous Day and I'm like, sign me up, like, it could be fun. So I think it just depends on your priorities. But I also get, we are business owners, we have flexible schedules. I mean, I'm assuming you have a flexible schedule, but like, I can kind of do whatever.

Yeah.

I do feel, you know, it's different if you're like, have two trips a year and I've always want to go to Italy. Like, OK, go to go to like go to Italy. That's where you want to go. But if you're flexible or you've been to a lot of places and just want a nice beach, like just follow the deal because most Caribbean islands are very similar. you just want to sit on a beach with a cocktail. I don't think it matters if you're in Turks and Caicos versus Jamaica. I just think go where the deal is. But again, that's my preference.

Yep, and I can't go on these dates because, yep.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Some people will disagree with me and that's fine.

No,

I 100 % agree and actually it's ironic because I don't get vacations ever because all I do is lead group trips and I don't get to choose the destinations and I don't get to choose the dates and so I pay more for flights on average probably than most people because I'm so locked into dates and I don't have flexibility. I'm often traveling on holidays it's so annoying as a person who would

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

by choice just follow the deal. And I see flight deals coming through all the time and I don't even wanna look at them because I can't go. I can't do it, but that's what I would be doing if I had the flexibility to just follow a deal, book what's out there, take a risk and see where it takes you. ⁓ So one more question on the business side. So often when you book a...

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

quote unquote regular flight, you'll get an opportunity to upgrade maybe leading up to the flight or like day before. When is that worth it? And do you have any tips for bidding on upgrading?

Mm-hmm.

The bidding's interesting because most people bid the lowest or like $50 over. So honestly, bidding $100 over sometimes will get you the upgrade. It also just depends. The other thing is there's a website called Expert Flyer and it is a little hard to use, but you can find out how many seats are left in each fare class. So for example, like J-R-D-I-C, they're all different codes for

Mmm.

business class. So you can actually go into any flight and see how many seats they're still selling and that can kind of give you an idea if you should bid for the upgrade or not or maybe if you should bid more for the upgrade. You know if it's looking like on the seat map that there's two people in business class that minimum bid probably will clear but if you look and there's one seat left in business that's open

and there's other people bidding, you're gonna need to bid at a higher price. There are certain airlines, like for example Qatar, you can upgrade at the airport.

They even have an upgrade desk. can do it. What I have found in my experience is the email upgrades where they email you, hey, you can upgrade for 700 bucks, are cheaper than upgrading at the airport. Every single time I've asked, it's been cheaper if I upgraded via email. A good rule of thumb is $100 an hour

for a business class flight. like, for example, if you're flying from New York to Doha, that's a 13, 14 hour flight depending on the winds. If they're offering you an $800 upgrade, that's a really good price. then at the same time, I've met people who were like, oh, I got an upgrade for $1,800 each way. And I'm like,

you could have paid for, like you would have just bought the ticket for the same price. I would just look at the cost, if it's a $5,000 flight normally, I don't know if I'd spend four grand for an upgrade a round trip ticket, because you're only paying an upgrade for one leg. I would look in the emails. I tend to book a lot of those. If I get upgrade offers, I'm a sucker. I'm like, oh, 400 bucks sold.

They'll usually send them via email. You can also upgrade at the airport. Some airlines allow you to upgrade with miles. So Emirates is one of those that you can upgrade with miles. And you can also do it from business to first class. So there are some airlines you need to look and see which airlines allow you to do it. Emirates is just like an Emirates in Singapore do it. I've never upgraded that way. And yeah, I would try to bid.

you know, a little bit more than the minimum because most people are bidding the minimum. then you have a higher chance of it clearing.

Is it a myth that someone could just walk up to the counter and ask for an upgrade or see if there's upgraded flights available? do it, how, yeah, like how often do I, somebody was just traveling with recently and they're like, yeah, like I just got randomly selected to upgrade. I hear people saying that and I don't know that it's people that have status. So I'm curious, I'm curious like when that happens. Doesn't happen to me, I know that.

to pay for or for free.

It is really, that is really rare. ⁓

It doesn't really happen to me. I mean, to be fair, I'm usually already in business class,

So the times that it'll happen is when the flight's oversold, they typically will move people from economy who have status up to business. Again, it's very rare.

walking up to the counter and asking for business class that's actually not that rare. If it's available they will sell it to you. It's just gonna depend on how expensive it is. So I would say if you get an upgrade via email and the price is reasonable I wouldn't take the chance on getting to the airport and it being $50 cheaper at the airport. I would just buy the upgrade especially for a long flight. But yeah I mean I've even upgraded on a plane before actually.

Mm-hmm.

Really?

Yeah,

I upgraded as I was boarding a flight. asked if I could upgrade and they were like, yeah. I was able to, yeah, it wasn't, was on a, was on a Singapore Air has budget carrier called Scoot.

Did you pay for it?

I love scoot. actually I've flown scoot a lot through Southeast Asia and they have business class seats on some of their flights. And so I got on the plane. I was like, can I upgrade to business? And they let me pay for it and upgrade on the plane to business. So it does happen. But it's not uncommon to ask at check in. So it's worth always asking because they can sell you the ticket. It's just you're never going to know how much it is you can get up there and they could be like, it's seventy two hundred dollars. Like you just never know. But yeah, always ask because

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

you just never, you never know if it's a cheap upgrade. Cause it could be, they could be really empty and they could sell it to you for 300 bucks. you just don't know.

Yeah,

yeah, I think people think I'm gonna get tapped and upgraded, which I think does happen sometimes, but not very often. I fly United all the time and I have silver status, but not once have I gotten anything beneficial out of that. nobody gives a shit. So they,

Yeah. Yeah, and-

I think for legacy carriers for like United American Delta and then I would probably say Alaska as well, business class is always full. it is rare that these flights are going out empty in business class because of how many people. I mean, I'll be on an upgrade list and I'll be like number one on the upgrade list and there'll be 80 other people in the upgrade list who have lower status than me. And so I think for those carriers, it's really rare.

Good to know. Okay, let's talk a little bit about your AA status fast track course. Can you tell us what that is?

Yes.

Yeah, it's not your typical airline because American allows you to earn status not by flying. you could earn AA status and never be on an American Airlines flight in your life. And so it is beneficial if you fly fairly often because you can get what's called one world status. So Americans part of this.

a lot airline lines called One World and you get a bunch of reciprocal benefits. So you'll get lounge access and the foreign lounges are a lot nicer than like a priority pass And you're able to earn like a shit ton of points and AA miles because they don't have transfer partners, like you can't transfer credit card points to American. Their miles haven't devalued as much as like Delta's miles, which are called sky pesos for a reason.

Mm-hmm.

And so I find American Airlines miles super easy to use. I pretty much can always find business class unless I'm flying July 4th or something crazy. And the miles tend to be pretty reasonable and you can earn them from so many ways through shopping portals or AA hotels. And I just think the miles are really valuable. the status fast track maybe wasn't the best name for it because I originally the only people who would want to buy this are people who want

Hehehe.

airline status, but then I realized like, actually travel hackers would benefit from this because it's just how to earn a bunch of AA miles and the status is a secondary benefit. But yeah, I only open it once a year, so it'll open I think in February at some point. If somebody really wants to buy it, I'll sell it to them, but I don't, I only sell it once a year, but it's a pretty lengthy...

Mm-hmm.

I mean, it has videos and you can listen to it like a podcast if you like the sound of my voice. I don't know who does, but maybe somebody does. And yeah, it just helps you earn a bunch of miles.

and also status. in American Delta, you can use the Delta credit card to get some miles like in status that way. I would argue, I mean, the statistical upgrade for last year, they said, was less than 6 % of people with status got upgraded on Delta. So it's not really worth getting their status, in my opinion. But American miles are so valuable and they're so easy to earn you know, even just earning 40,000 for gold.

that's enough for a trip to Europe. So if you're not spending any more money, you're just using a shopping portal link to buy your normal stuff. I would argue that that's worth it. So yeah, it just kind of depends and if you already have status, I can help you earn higher status fairly, fairly easy because of all the ways to earn and maximize their system. So there's some hacks around it as well.

Okay. So wrapping up here, we're to play a quick closing game. This one's going to be upgrade or downgrade. So my guess is you're always going to be upgrading, I played would you rather last night with somebody in the podcast. goes, these are all really hard, impossible situations. I'm like, have you ever played would you rather? that's the whole point. There's it. Okay.

Okay.

That's the whole point. That's so funny.

⁓ First one, business class, but you have to sit next to a crying baby and a broken TV or premium economy in a quiet cabin.

Okay, I'm probably the only person that's going to say this, but I would say the crying baby because I travel with headphones. I also have a master's in developmental psych, so babies don't really bother me and I have headphones and then I don't watch TV on planes. I work on my laptop. If the question had been premium economy with Wi-Fi or business without Wi-Fi, I would pick premium economy because I have to have Wi-Fi. I get really upset if I don't have Wi-Fi.

Mmm.

fair. I don't like to work on planes, but it's always the time I'm like, I need to work on this plane that they're like, sorry, no Wi-Fi. And I'm like, cool, great. Thank you so much. I'll just journal.

and you're like, cool, great.

The only

time I really ever cried on a flight, I got on a Delta inaugural and I was invited by Delta so I didn't pay for this flight. And it was very nice of them to fly me. It was really great. I flew the inaugural Seattle to Taipei. I didn't know till we were in the air that that aircraft, they had sent an email in the middle of the night, like at 4 a.m. that I didn't see that was like, oh, sorry, you're not going to have Wi-Fi on your flight. And so I had planned to work the full because it was a day flight. So I had planned to work the full 11 hours. We get in the air and they're like, yeah, there's no Wi-Fi. And I hadn't told any of the people that work for me that I'd be out

off-grid, I just started crying. They're like, who cries over Wi-Fi? And my friend was on the flight and she goes, here she goes. I've never seen you cry about anything when I cried over Wi-Fi. yeah, anyway.

Touch.

my god.

Okay, score an amazing business class deal but you have a 12 hour overnight layover or pay full price for direct flight in economy.

I'm taking the layover. I'll just go explore.

Overnight though. This is like inconvenient times. Get bumped from your business class seat but receive a $1,500 voucher or keep your business class seat. Fly a five-star airline with mediocre food or a four-star airline with amazing food.

That's fine. I'll just, it's fine. I've slept in plenty of airport lounges. It's fine.

I'm keeping the business class seat.

for starting a line with amazing food.

have access to unlimited airport lounge day passes or a lifetime TSA pre-check and global entry.

⁓ TSA pre-check global entry for sure.

Yeah.

Book a mistake fair that might get canceled or pay slightly more for a guaranteed booking. I know it depends, but...

I I like to take a risk, so I do the mistake fair.

as long as it's something that's not life or death, obviously.

Yeah, if it's not like,

if it's something like, ⁓ I have a Taylor Swift concert or something I need to get there. But if it's like, this is a random flight that is random, I might just take, I like, I just think it would fun to take the risk.

Yeah.

Yeah, take a chance. Cool. Ashley, this was so awesome to chat with you.

I

Awesome, thank you so much. ⁓ sorry.

to. So thank you so much for your time. Where can people find

more about you if they want to learn? Where can they find you?

I'm mostly

on Instagram, Ashley Gets Around, and then my website's AshleyGetsAround.com. And I do have a free email list ⁓ that sends occasional deals. If you just kind of want a taste of the kind of deals we send, you can join at AshleyGetsAround.com. yeah. Yay. Sounds good. I know it would be so fun. We'll have to connect. This was super fun. Awesome, nice to meet you.

Cool, awesome. Well, we'll be in touch and hope to see you, hope to run into you somewhere at some conference.

Yeah, for sure. Cool.

You too. See you soon. Bye.

Bye!

That's all for this episode of Type 2 Travel. If you're loving these conversations, hit subscribe or follow, give us a 5 star rating, and share with your adventure seeking friends. Remember, the best stories rarely come from staying in your comfort zone. Until next time, this is Laura Ericson reminding you that your passport is collecting dust, your PTO is piling up, and the world is out there waiting for you to explore it.