Points Travel Festival and Closing

Putting aside the fact that futurists shouldn't be a title, anyone going to have much left one that you give to yourself . Like three or four years ago he gave a keynote speech on how NFTs were the future and how we should all be ex cited by them . And how airlines should go all in on issuing FTs because you may as well just make the money and like it's fine. Don't worry about your operating airplanes. It's a little bit like the credit card schemes and what ? He got one client A,ir Baltic . He was the keynote speaker again this year talking about how AI is the future. You're listening to dots, lines, and destinations, a travel podcast with host Stephen Segraves, Phosma Moon, and Seth Miller. Hello and welcome to episode five hundred and ninety one of Dots Lines and Destinations. I'm Stephen Seagraves. Today, joined by Mr. Seth Miller, Mr. Phosma Moon, and of Point s Travel Festival and every passport stamp, the Facebook group. Stefan Krasowski. How you doing, Stefan? Thank you. I haven't had a chance to be on since pre pandemic. Glad to be back. It's been that long. It has. had We I a think it was maybe twenty nineteen. We had a China travel episode talking about a country that would in a few months be closed to so many visitors for years. So I think the audience and the patreons that got the bonus even were able to apply nothing. They maybe they enjoyed all of the episode anyway . I mean, I like to think that most of our content is useless to most people, so that sort of plays into it. You're under selling a stuff. Come on . Now that now that celebrity roasts are all the trend of I have a deep, deep memory catalog DLD moments that I can put together to get triggers and to and the kids can't be good and a little where he knows our history better than we do guys . That's the thing. Someone someone was asking me the other day, a neighbor of mine, I found out that I do the podcast. She's like, well, like what when did that start? And I'm like, honestly, I don't , I don't know . You were like order, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, it was like we started a travel show that was really focused on airline points a long time ago. She's like, but how many years? I'm like, I couldn't tell you. It's great started we're points holders, you know, did you get a new credit card? What card is that? No, I didn't. I haven't gotten a card in five years. You know, let's let's lean into the aviation side a little harder in the rebrand. Yep, I think so. Yep Yeah, news wise , Seth, Bermuda . Yeah, yeah, I say it's been twelve years, just for the record. twelve . Wow. I've never redeemed my free beer. I've been a paying patreon for a chunk of time, but never tracked you guys down in the wild for that. We do that I had one guy refused to accept it and I was trying to explain to him he had to. It didn't go well, but tell me about Bermuda, Sith. What's going on? Sorry, I have to correct the record. May tenth, twenty twelve zero one . This is thirteen years. fourteen years. Yeah. Because we were we were every other week for a while and then at some point Steven was like, I think we should go to Weekly. I think we'll get better traction that way. It'll be a good idea . And you know, here we are. Probably not wrong, but also maybe not right. Sets was wandering Aramaan, Fazwasp GRD . com and yeah so many so many change and transition but the love of flying is continues well here so Bermuda Bermuda based interesting operation runs embryo eJets . You may recall from their original pitch was going to be an all business class embry . I remember that was like basically it was actually a cool idea. They were going to take the two seating layout and do sort of what JSX does on their E one hundred forty five s on the two side where basically the second seat becomes a tray table slash storage areas you get all that extra space . Never happened . They don't talk about that anymore , which is a bummer. But either way, they also started all you one hundred seventy five's now they got some nineties, so some bigger planes . But it was always just Bermuda to the US and then they added Bermuda to Canada, East Coast stuff . There , I want to say last year or the year before they did some US to other Caribbean markets . And I mostly remember this because I think one of my wife's cousins or something emailed was like, Hey, have you ever heard of this airline? Can we fly them to Anguila? And I'm like, Yeah, they're fine. They're normal. Like it'll be okay . And they didn't get back to me. So I assumed they took the trip and it was fine. But you asked to Turks and Caicos to Belize Anguilla is back from Newark and BWI plus and Boston plus Saint Petersburg, Tampa now , Bermuda Fort Laudle's coming in and they're also adding Guatemala City Via Belize , which is a super interesting one , like tech stop situation. And I think they might have local traffic rights based on what I'm seeing published. This could be the most obscure FOS says, Well, of course the traffic for this corporate contract between Belize and Guatemala City . I'm thinking this is like the Cape Verde Airlines where there's just a huge population somewhere . Yeah , I mean just I don't feel like there's that much of an expat community for B mayelizebe G,uatemal a, but how do you think they've secured right to Turks and Caicos from the U. S. and Belize from the U. S. Are those just open airports ? I can try to look it up. I believeurks is T and Caicos still considered a British protectorate? Yeah , yeah. So is Bermuda. They have rights to fly from any UK airport to anywhere in the U. S., I think but then Belize, I mean, Belize isn't part I mean, Belize still has Belize was a protector at one point. I don't think it is anymore. We have an open skies agreement with Belize . Okay. So we have an open skies with them and we have an open skies with Bermuda so that would work or with UK . So yeah, there's some like there's some transitive property stuff going on but I think Turks and Caicos might be because of that Boston to Guatemala City on an E one hundred ninety alise Via Belize Okay, so Boston to Belize, that's a long flight on an E one hundred and ninety. But two, two is far better than three . Agreed . Agreed . Right. I think I think we have some new lines to get . Well, yeah. And we see Porter doing Toronto, the west coast through on embrayers, right? So seems to be working. Yeah. It's two thousand miles so four and a half ish hours Yeah, Belize is further east than you think, I guess. All of South America's further east than you think. Easter ns . Very true. Aruba is east of New York City that's bizarre . That's always what I come back to. Remember that from trying to plan crazy around the world with you could do Amsterdam to Aruba and then fit and then like if you did a Westbound, you could do that and then come back to the United States . It's crazy . A trivia I just heard on a news show this week was which U. S. Atlantic coast state and which Pacific coast state have time zone that is only one hour apart from each other . Atlantic coast state . It's just part of part of part of two different states. One is actually in the mountain time zone and one is in central. Oh , which one's that Seth should be able from his family history guess the Atlantic one ? So part of Florida is in fact in this central time zone like Pensacola is, even though it' s not the Atlantic part of it, that is . And then Idaho, Idaho has no, Oregon has mountain times zone. There you go. East on the east side. Yeah . Look at that. Representing right here in this podcast And FAZ seems to have no fixed address, so it's I've an address somewhere. There are old New York meetups I'm going home to and it'd be always like a muffled Pennsylvania, it might be San Diego , might be it's wherever he can get from Newark . Or Philadelphia. Or Philadelphia. Yeah , I give Bermudaire props for try yeah that's maybe the wrong word. Some credit for trying this. They are jets , for trying some of these routes. They're interesting they're also moving their Orlando service to Sanford , which is the Allegiant hub down there out of Orlando International. So that's an interesting one . But there is is there enough demand for Turks and Caicos Belize and Anguilla for all these places They certainly seem to think so . Just because an airline thinks there's demand doesn't actually mean there is demand. Are they doing it daily? I guess is the question. I think all of it's less than daily. So that I could see because it's like seventy six to ninety or one hundred and ten people . Yeah, I mean it's even less than that. So Boston Belize, I'm looking at the month of December. There's only four flights and it's late in the year so one Yeah, like twice a week . I think that's doable. I think that's doable fossil . So if you miss your flight or it cancels you wait four days or if the airline goes out of business, you never get hit. Well, then you just they pull some country on you. Yeah, the season ends and you go to fuck in Mexico . Yeah . Good luck, Phalas . We're gonna fly the plane back empty. You guys, good luck. I mean, that is, that is a key thing. Like, I mean, I guess a lot of people go for like week long vacations to these places . And so you just pick it up the next week. But if you miss it, or something happens, you've got to wait another three or four days. That's a big deal . And I guess one of the questions would be like in the case of New York with United and Jet Blue with Boston, what's say they won't load a lot more flights just to match the pricing Jet Jet Blue doesn't have the power anymore to do that. They don't have the cash to burn. I wasn't the power. They don't have the cash to burn Absolutely. If there's capacity, but if there's demand, sure , right? Like they'll fly where there's demand. If the demand isn't there, that's where they won't fly. I will say I'm thinking back to you remember when Norwegian played similar route authorities games. They flew to Martinique and Guadalupe because technically they're France . They said it'd be BWI and Boston and JFK maybe and I remember talking to someone at Jet Blue about that at the time and the comment was, yeah, we've looked at all of those. We know what the numbers are We are happy to let them burn that cash . And so I would assume that in this case, Jet Blue has looked at these numbers and is happy to let them burn the cash. I could see United doing it though, just out of spite. Yeah. Yeah, United has the planes and the capacity to be able to throw in. And the cash. Yeah, and the cash I mean, I already does turks and cakeos from Newark . Yeah, I'm intrigued though also SFB bit in Orlando also the Tampa Service is actually St. Petersburg PIE, which is the St. Petersburg airport, which is also an allegiance base or major hub . I didn't realize either of those had international clearance facilities . Processing . But are these precarance airports by chance? Belize is not. Okay . Yeah, that's interesting. Maybe they wheel in a trailer to clear people . Bermuda is, but Believes is not. Right . So Lauderdale is Sanford has Sanford has the ability. Sanford has the ability to process international flights, right? Apparently . Allegiant doesn't have international service . That's one of their things. And it was one of the one of the reasons they wanted the Viva Airbus, which is now just Viva joint ventures, they wanted all the Mexico stuff to come in line come online. And so that was part of that joint venture , which is derailed by the Delta Aero Mexico mess with Mexico International Airport, Mexico City. But yeah, it's surprising to me. Obviously they do. I just didn't know that they did . Did it was by the San Fern at one point? Did Tuy Too Definitely yeah Tuy definitely did. So they go. They know they go to Melbourne now instead but that's very fitting. Two e going to Sanford is the most on brand thing they could do. I used to I watched a BA flight land at Sanford once. Well, it probably was a diversion though, right? I don't think so. I think it was a charter. . I will say for all, you know, we can shit on Stanford all we want. It's not as convenient to get into Orlando. It is a very convenient tiny little airport . I mean, it looks nice. I don't see how they process they may have to actually like hold off on a gate area and process coming out of the gate looking at the gate because it doesn't actually look like they have a doesn't look like they actually have a processing facility . Thinking of a route like the Brimieu Deer, I'm curious . Is there numbers or routes to substantiate the theory that a lot of travelers would like to get, say, from Europe to other parts of the Americas without transit ing the U. S. in the current period of time. I mean, that, you know, if it's, you know, if there's if there's to the FOS corporate stuff, if there's two incredibly wealthy Bermuda based lawyers, you know, that every week need to fly to Guatemala City, you know, and are willing to pay as, you know, and they just don't want to go through the U. S., is that is that showing up in any noticeable verifiable way ? In theory y,es , the only non U. S. Canada route via Bermuda Turks and Caicos. You know, I was thinking of something like what a didn't eastern recently launched what Shanghai de Auckland to Santiago de Cho somewhere do Santiago in Buenos Buenos Arees? Yeah. They made a big deal that it was like the quote unquote longest flight , but it had a tech stop in Accont and like maybe local traffic rights and wasn't sure if you got off the plane or not. It was a weird claim to be the longest . I was looking at but in the Chinese marketing it was very specific, you know, you do not need to go through the U. S. I mean it's a big deal these days. Yeah. I was looking at Bangkok back to the US in November and I once again found myself staring at the oddest to New York City options on Ethiopian with a text off in either Lome or Abijan and it was seventeen or eighteen hours. And it just remains baffling to me that from, you know, eastern, but you know, central eastern Africa to New York is still seventeen or eighteen hours . It's a long trip. I mean, what odd is Alegos is what five, five hours? Yeah Yeah., I did the same I did a day trip on connecting in different places and it's like, whoa, these are a lot longer than Joe Burg, Newark is like sixteen, so yeah, but whatever I don't know, I feel like Odys in my brain is just like should be so much closer because it's so much further north, but it's in fact the same distance because it's much further east. Yeah, yeah. And it's like Senegal is closer than you expect. And And Odysseus yeah quite quite a distance. Yeah. Yeah . But I think I think the highest reliability of any airline I've ever been on for my flights is Ethiopia. I've flown, I don't know, like forty something segments probably over time and had like one be anywhere late and it was 'cause the airport in Chad had no electricity and they still managed to get us out less than ninety minutes delay with no systems, no communications . They figured it all out and it still got us going. Impressive . Yeah. I like them that I just don't want to spend seventeen hours in a no slope seat business class if I'm paying for a business class ic, but I think it was there the A three hundred and fifty when it first came out. I happened to be on it in the first couple of weeks. And the right where everybody naturally puts their elbow is the call button buzzer and the entire flight oddest to Rome was just ding, ding, ding, ding ding. And it's like it's like they said the flight attendant said until the pilots approve that we can disable it, we can't we can't silence these darn things I think they copied this set of Continental, right? The seven seven Continental United the seven seven two did the same thing. So united on the old seven hundred and seven A's you would put your elbow down and immediately hit the call button. Yeah. It was like the controller for the TV screen also had the call button in it or whatever. Yeah times . Emirates trolling Germany . How often do you get an airline put out a press release saying we would like to launch service in these markets assuming the government would let us? I mean, for those who don't know, there's been a longstanding cap on flights between destinations in the Middle East in Germany. So there's a cap on the carrier and the route and Emirates has wanted to fly to other places in Germany . They get around some of this cap by putting A three hundred and eighty's and things on the flight , but they want to fly to Light Berlin and Strutger. And that's what they called out in this press release. Yeah,. right I mean, Middle East to India is a similar problem. It's all these bilateral treaties. The Middle East India is captured on the number of passengers . Some of them are total number of flights and like Steven said, you can put an A three hundred eighty on to get more bodies through, although these days a well configured seven hundred seventy W might get more people than a three hundred eighty just fewer premium. Poor configured I mean, a poorly configured seven hundred and seven W. There you go. Fair Yeah, Emirates doesn't do that so much. Anyway, it's it is very challenging, but it was just like, you know, Emirates CorpCom has an impressive cadence of like two or three releases a week. It doesn't matter if there has been news or not. There's always two or three things that come out . And some of it is like we donated upcycled backpacks from old economy class seat covers to two hundred countries or about two hundred because there aren't that many but whatever. You do that you like some of it is silly stuff and then like in the midst of all that was this one of Emirates being like, oh by the way, Germany, we would like to send more flights to you. Your people will benefit. Your economy will benefit. Please stop protecting Luftanza at all costs. Thank you And to their to their credit, right? Luftanza doesn't fly long haul from Berlin or Shoekart. Or Stud art. And they have to work there wings, whatever. There is no long haul flying out of Brandonberg. Okay. Having no expertise in this, my assumption would be the type of thing where an airline like that would say we want more frequencies at the biggest, busiest, richest airport , not the we want to fly to these second calm secondaryary terti airports and have that be the Baker. But I guess the way the bilaterals didn't doesn't solve for it. Condor has Abu Dhabi and Dubai , Eur ings has Abu Dhabi , other Dubai and Dubai. I'm looking at December. Euro wings ? Yeah, the guess does it discover is what they call their long haul ones that they discover. Yeah . The Euro wings in the sorry in the in Syrium. From Frankshirt or community? From Berlin or Stutgart is what I'm filtering on. Okay . United has Berlin . Qatar has doha . Interesting, Hanan has a Beijing flight . But Luftanza, nothing, like no main oh speaking of Kabo Verde, Tui Fly has a Kabo Verde flight to Bovis Island . Anyway, there are a few there are a handful of long haul flights but very few and it's obvious it's clear why Emirates wants to do this. They expect that they can poach a crap ton of traffic away from Luftanza or anyone else because all the other stuff feeding into Abu Dhabi in Dubai is for passengers just going there as opposed to the efficiency those handfuls across all the connection traffic That any place has a shortage of German tourists but Caboverde a giant number. I was on a beach eating a sour sauce I bought from a farmer in this very tall, very pale German and a very small speedo came up and asked if he could try it for and I was like why there's a lot of Germans in the wild here . Well, I mean , you guys mentioned Condor Euro wing. So this is endlessly confusing to me. Some years ago I show up at CT Airport to board a flight and the gate next to me is packed with an airline I've never heard of Condor. So we've got Condor and then Leftanza Group and I think you just mentioned Euro wings and Euro wings is the only Leftanza group that isn't Star Alliance and then Condor has nothing to do with any of them, is that rough ? Condo it works. Condor is its own airline and inner lines. Yeah. Yeah, Condor at one point was, I feel like it used miles and more, didn't it? It did at one point like a long time ago. And then you guys co vered all those legal cases the past few years of the those two fighting about I can't even remember now the fair discrimination or something in the German court cases there was a whole thing about Condor had a preferential rate Yeah . Yeah, I don't know if that was my internet of yours. It's appeared. Cool. Yeah, Condor had preferential rates from Luftanza Group for a bunch of fares and then Luftanza was like, yeah, maybe not anymore. And Condro had cut a bunch of cut a bunch of US routes, San Antonio got cut. I think BWI got cut . Maybe some of it's coming back. It's hard to say there were some lawsuits about that though . But EuroWings Discover is a Luftanza subsidiary that's an ultra low cost carrier. And it's not Star Alliance and can you use anybody's miles, miles and more for them? Any like United or any of those Euro wings or you can redeem United Miles on them. Yeah. For Euro wings. Okay. Yeah , yeah. But I don't think you can earn , no. And I'm not sure if you can redeem for a standalone flight if it has to be tied to an onward connection, but I definitely did have a redemption that included them . Because they do they operate a lot of at one point they were operating basically Dusseldorf and Cologne for Luftanza. So Luftanza gave up on those two as hubs and was basically using the low cost carriers ability to fly from there and transferring the passenger. So I don't think they still do that, but that's how it was for a while. I know they do a bunch of to London other than Frankfurt or Munich is on Euro wings now. Yeah . Like a lot of the point to point stuff, yep. Edelweiss, I forgot them. Edelweiss. Oh yeah, the Swiss the Swiss version of Yurwigs. Yeah . Yeah, they used go ahead. I was gonna say I'm bitter. I discovered that Austrian charges for seat assignments on every single seat on the flight which is crazy to me . Even if you call . I haven't I didn't book it because I didn't yeah I'd made an Alaska b ooking for some friends on Airlingus and went to try you can't do online seat assignments if you have to call and I called and the guy's like, Oh I, can give you like forty four D through G for free. And I'm like, Is that by the bathroom? And he's like, yeah, it's right next to the bathroom. I was like, I'll pay so that they're not seated right next to the rest the bathroom He's like, okay, and the prices weren't weren't awful. It was surprising. Like, I think I paid two hundred bucks for four people or something. Whatever. But then I tried to do it through the website like booking online like a, fl ight, a fresh new flight and select seats through the booking processes. And the seat prices were almost double during the booking flow, which I found interesting . Which is funny because usually they try to tease you with like it's discounted now it's gonna always be more expensive later. That's what I would think. Yeah line logic . It is . Taipei, let's talk about Taipei . Steven , you mentioned that Taipei has become this gigantic hub for connecting traffic in a country that doesn't really exist, but it does exist. And I just want to know I want to know what your experience has been going through there because Faz and I have flown through there recently, semi recently . And I want to know what your experience has been like. Yeah, it's I mean, it's an interesting airport of each kid came with their own erector set and you know, I built this segment that looks like this and then we bolted on this hallway that looks like this. But they have a lot of local cultural things, a lot of experiences. So it's not the physically the most beautiful airport, but it's quite functional . You know, there's lots of sensible little things like flights coming in from the US. You just go straight out into the terminal . You don't have the extra screening that say flights from some countries have the agricultural extra screening on transits and that. So it's a very functional airport several times a year for the past several years because for us now it's become the default way to get to Asia when so much flying to China hasn't resumed . Korean Asian is going away but fl,ights to Korea certain, ly from the West Coast, both in cash prices I've found are generally the highest for me out of Seattle. And those airlines have just stopped having functional partner relations for any kind of award purpose . You know, so the type has become, you know, let's just get there and then we can figure this this out next. And the all three of the main airlines I like. I enjoy very different experiences, all high quality, amongst I would say they're amongst the highest quality airlines in the world, both economy, I fly, long haul , business . EVA, I would say is the say the focus. So EVA, their focus really is on the catering is much more Chinese dishes where Starlucks focuses much more on say western service. They typically hire flight attendants that are often from Taiwan but have worked at an EMI three carrier and focus on a more international . There's now a Boba rivalry because Starlucks, their flights out of Taipei have had Boba as an option. And China Airlines recently struck back adding Boba because they're the perception they're the state owned , you know, national carrier, so to speak. And you know, they in some people's eyes, they're the more stodgy, a bit more formal with the , you know, the connecting traffic , you see, just tremendous amounts of passengers going to Philippines, going to Vietnam , certainly out of Seattle where I'm based. Those are two huge dem ographics . And you know, the anytime you talk about the U. S. midnight departures to Asia, you get some people that love them, some that hate them. But what I think is maybe under appreciated is if you know, especially as I said, like markets like Philippines and Vietnam, you have a huge number of senior citizens , elderly , wheelchair bound passengers . And anecdotally I get the impression that the idea that they arrive in Taipei at five AM, they have their connection to Manila or whatever and their families meeting them in Manila at ten AM compared to say taking some of the U. S. Airline afternoon departures and getting into a place like Manila at eleven PM or Bangkok at one AM I feel like that's a huge benefit and for me and my wife traveling, even going to Japan, the idea that we can arrive and be there mid morning, the only way I've ever found to deal with jet legs sort of is just power through the first two days somehow and be miserable and then not nap those two days. And you know, something like Starlucks recently added service to Kobe Japan. We love Kobe and the not that not that Osaka Khan says inconvenient. It's a wonderful airport as well, but just flopping right down in Kobe and essentially walking walking to some of our favorite restaurants , even though it seems quite out of the way. And I don't when you guys pull up your numbers and your, what is it, your serums and your this and your that's I don't know how it's actually reflected, but I do know that a few weeks ago I connected in Hong Kong for the first time since february twenty twenty and gorgeous airport and almost every gate was empty, deserted, this massive airport on the middle of a weekday and Taipei is just brimming and bustling and the think that say Korea has decided they can only support one large airline and merging them away , you know, it just totally fascinates me. So that's I'm curious your industry perspective of China Airlines, EVA, Starlucks. My understanding from local aviation types is pe Taii Airport essentially never give subsidies to airlines to start service, that they're very hard line many years practice. So I think they explained like one guy with a lot of connection. He explained like Qatar has never come because they will not show up unless they get a subsidy somewhere . And so it seems like they're being run based on economic principles, but I don't know, and I'm curious what you all are actually seeing in the numbers , the traffic, the industry. Yeah, I mean, I think Faz and I flown through there. You and I have been there a few times, haven't we? Yes. And I think the first time you and I went through, it was fairly quiet. Like it was it was the United we were taking the United Flight to San Francisco and it was pretty cool that flight gets in at like seven PM . True, true . But then we took we took a flight coming back this just recently and we took Ava to Singapore. Was that trip? Yeah . And the airport was absolutely packed. Like it was just slammed and everything was, you know , every gate everywhere we went was busy. So it was kind of it was a change for me. I think the Star Lucks thing , I don't know how viable they are long term . I think they have there's a lot of money invested in making them work . I just don't know that that market share is there. Maybe people like you who find the convenience of the late night flight and connecting in Taipei to be pleasant will continue to fly . But I mean, you can fly to Nerita or Hanida and get a connection down to Kobe and some people want to do that I'm surprised to hear you say that flying via Taipei to Japan is a reasonable thing. That's a long way out of the way, man. Yes and no. So the specific to where I am in Seattle , if I'm looking at awards, especially premium cabin, it's a jail jail flies to Nerita, not Haneta. And so it's either the same price and m iles fly Delta to Hanida, an ANA award that all the brokers in China are squatting on and are impossible to get or I fly Jail to Nerita and suddenly my connection to Kobe and to I think Supporo is about the only one and we love Supporo. We go almost every year . That's about the only one that Jal flies out of Nerita. So the domestic flying in Japan is incredibly functional and unsexy and bland. And depending between the Narita and Eda thing , it can take time. Now if you look at the U. S. West Coast schedules, say for EVA going there, the flights to Japan are timed incredibly well and coming back they're terrible. And so unless and we do sometimes do want that minimum eight, nine hour connection because we go into Taipei or Shinchu for Costco and D ecathlon and Carafor and those and do a lot of spice shopping and sports gear shopping, but the it only really works the one way and and then in some parts of Japan, of course, are quite far south. So Starlucks and China Airlines both in the past year resumed or started , I think they were technically resumptions of services, China Airlines to Ishigaki , a snorkeling and shark diving destination very close to Taiwan, there's an intercontinental hotel and various other things. And then Starluck started Miyakojima as a Hilton resort for aspire card holders and I went there and did a lot of turtles snorkeling . And those are much closer. But your point is going. Taipei is very far south. It 's if we're going to China I'm sorry. Yeah, I was saying it makes me think of the Guam Hub debate whether connections Vietnam . And you know, I mean, you know, it's certain. I mean, Japan is certainly out of the way. If you're going to China and Starluck does nots have rights or any flights to China, but we'll hop on a different airline. It's like an hour, fifteen minutes flight to Ningu and Zhujiang, slightly under two hours for Shanghai. So it isn't that much . And then there's the big question of sort of like when I was living on the east coast , is a seven to nine hour flight better or worse than a nine to twelve hour flight . And for me, Seattle, Tokyo route , economy's not that fun and business class, I always feel like I shouldn't have bothered because you can eat or you can try to sleep, but I've had the flight be as short as seven hour s and you know you pay in whatever form for business class. So I actually prefer the slightly the slightly longer Seattle to Taipei . If I'm in business class, then I can enjoy the full night. But economically, I mean, I arrived back in Seattle on a delayed flight from Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago and there were two EVA planes, one Starlucks, one China Airlines all leaving within an hour of each other. I mean, that I learned a lot of lingo from you guys, a lot of lift. So how does this how does it work for the industry? You are correct that the numbers are growing. I've pulled up the Serium data here . I would say Taipei is up forty percent over where it was in twenty nineteen . And a big chunk of that is Starlucks, but it's also The CI is China Airlines is relatively steady. They haven't changed that much. Avar EVA is up significantly as well . They're eighteen percent. Can you look at how much Hong Kong has shrunk in that time? It's actually bigger by number of flights . Seats, I will pull it up. I don't think it's shrunk, but I don't think it's grown certainly not. I think it's shrunk. Because Kathy used to buy all seven seven three hundreds, right? Now they're all mostly three hundred and fifty nine hundreds . I don't want buyer. Let me pull that out, sorry. So looking back over the past twenty years , Hong Kong , you're right, it actually has shrunk since in both flights and in seats since twenty nineteen . Sorry I got that. So twenty eighteen was actually even better. It was thirty three thousand flights and ten million seats. And it's now at twenty five thousand flights and eight million seats for twenty six . So yeah, Hong Kong. Hong Kong has suffered . There's no doubt and part of that is I mean, a lot of that is the China challenge and part of it is like it's become just from COVID, but part of it is like policies, politics, finances have become so much more intertwined with the mainland China government and economics . It's no longer the sort of free wheeling standalone but happens to be nearby kind of world that it was . Yeah . How much does Manila figure into this? Because that's another one you guys have been talking in recent episodes about U. S. Airlines starting service. When I'm on the Taiwan flights, you know, and it wouldn't make sense unless you really wanted to go , you know, a really cheap fare to go all the way to Hong Kong to connect back to the Philippines coming from the US except I just said I connect via Taipei to go to Japan. But you know what, you know, I mean the there's of course tremendous global diaspora on the move of Filipinos, but you know, and I think rising economic . Well , I think geographically, right? Manila and Taipei are only seven hundred and thirty miles away from each other . So like , yeah. I think Manila the Manila question should really be answered about twelve months, eighteen months after Philippines joins One World . Because that's going to change the shift . The connection flow, you think will move? I think there'll be more traffic at that point in the Philippines. One of the one of the challenges is though there's no space at the airport Manil airport . When is that ever stopped an airline It's just hard stand it. Also , the Philippines product is not great and it varies differently, very differently between planes. It 's very economy class heavy . Yes . But increases passenger numbers though, right? Yeah . Yeah. I mean, Manila has grown a little bit, but not nearly as much as Taipei in the last ten years, six years, seven years, whatever number range you want to look at. It is bigger. It's still smaller as an airport . I do agree, Faz. There 's the potential for it to be a great , you know, connecting flow space if they start pulling traffic away from Cathay, especially and given there's people avoiding Hong Kong. There's clearly something going on in Mailer, right? United is up to two flights a day on their largest plane and Delta is igning it . Right. And so I think Manila is going to see a surge in the next few years and how they do it. I don't know. Maybe it's in the middle of the night flying when the airport's not so busy . Well, it's interesting because Starlucks too was there was rumors that Starlucks wanted to join one world . And I think it's very public. They've said they want. Yeah. Isn't it? Reporting that one of the veto holders hard to guess who is blocking it Reporting this week . So to me, it's weird because they're very close together and I think it would mean the end of Cathay as a one world carrier to be honest with you. How far is Hong Kong from Manella ? Hong Kong is a two hour flights, a thousand miles. Seven hundred miles. They're almost there it's like a triangle right there. They're all very close together. I don't think it'd be the end of Cafe 'cause there's still finance , some finance in Hong Kong. Right. There's still HSBC . Yeah. Even JPMC has a presence there . So and some of the Chinese banks have substantial presences there as well, Bank of China and among others. So I don't think Hong Kong is going to go away, but I think Hong Kong is going to become more of an O and D and less transit. Unless you're going to China because it's hard to get to China right now and it's an easy it's easy to get through Hong K ong, get through China through Hong Kong. Exactly . Yeah . And they have they been just before COVID, they were picking up all the other Hong Kong the airline. There was dragon air and there was something else were. try Theying to snap it all up and roll it in it. And they came out of COVID as like, screw it, we're not keeping all these different brands. Everything's now Cathay Pacific. We're done here . Cathay Dragon was right and that was just an episode. That I did notice how everything had disappeared when I was there last month and yeah the one brand. And yeah, dragon is what we took up to Beijing, isn't it? All those years ago, yeah. Yeah. At the time, that would have been all of the and at the time actually a lot of people liked their less fancy lounge better because that was more authentic dishes and less, you know, the Dandan noodles that aren't Dan Dan noodles in the noodle bar in that dragon lounge was focused on like it was like a unrenovated cafeteria but kind of much more much more genuine . I just don't I don't want to we've been going long. So let's do let's talk about Stefan Stefan your event and you've got an event coming up He's here. That's the reason he's on the show. Yeah. Yes. And do it when everybody's tapped out because we've been roaming roaming around the world, but the my fascination with aviation and I think it's not pejorative to say avi ation geeks or av geeks. And you guys I learned so much. And so I arranged the events, Gold Points Travel Festival , Chicago seminars. We changed the name this year to Points Travel Festival. I'm based in Seattle. Our Pacific Northwest event started in twenty twenty four and this year august first , twenty twenty six we are coming to Stepshen home' , Portland, and we are going to have the first ever in front of audience live taping of Dots Lines and Destinations, the three of you all and rather than being a general purpose miles and points conference of many subjects, we're having two tracks . And one is aviation and headline by you all, and then the other because Portland's zero sales tax is buying groups. And in all the stuff in your point hoarder days you were not actually doing. So it will be an oil and water mix, but the and I feel like I feel like the airlines are some of and it's I guess deliberate are some of the worst marketers of the fun and joy of flying that you guys have and the extreme level of technical knowledge on IT systems. I mean, you know , in like cloudfare, whatever, all of these things , crowd strike, they could all go down and like Foz alone could like run United Airlines for a few days until he finally needs the needs I go to sleep. I mean, it's such incredible knowledge and , you know, staffs as well, this incredible tech technological knowledge. I may say political and moral courage to the extrem e that I respect with Seth and his from billboards to actually running and winning state statewide office. So the , you know, having you guys having aviation subjects, you know, and I feel like a lot of travelers, I just said, I haven't been in Hong Kong airport since february twenty twenty. And I even studied in Hong Kong at Chinese University of Hong Kong on an exchange . And the one thing I'll sometimes ask travelers is which airport in the world , when the jet bridge, when the plane door opens, you step on the jet bridge, you hit that gust of air. Like which sense of air do you totally recognize? You just start beaming and smiling. And I'm actually not that big of a flying person as far as the aircraft types and that , but I know in Hong Kong in Minneapolis where I grew up in Shanghai where I lived when that gust of air from the jet bridge comes and I've arrived and the magic of the flying and that. So that's that's part of the , you know, years ago you guys recorded at the Freddy's in Asauna to know audience. And now we're going to bring you bring you in front of a live crowd , going to record, celebrate things aviation , tech tools, industry stuff more guests coming along the way. So it's points travelfestival. com and ticketing page on event bright. And this is also an outgrowth of our Washington State, Oregon State and British Columbia called PNW Points Meet Up Group, which is very active. We just had a big family picnic yesterday . And so this event, although the main Saturday, august first is a conference and party . The Friday, we do have optional add on peninsula park, Portland , a family friendly picnic where many of our local members bringing bringing spouses and partners and kids. It's very much a community, summer party . Now that I've been in this region almost a decade, I have learned through prior difficult event experiences that in summer cruise ships go to Seattle and Vancouver, BC, and they do not go to Portland . And rates for travel , accommodation , again, no sales tax. Portland in summer is spectacularly beautiful. We're going to do as much outside as we can Really a great fit and very much look forward to having you a swimming pool at this facility? There is a swimming pool actually. There's a public. There's a public pool there, I guess. Yeah, there was a history. There's a period in which there was the pool sessions . And if you guys remember this and I would like while everybody else was doing regular stuff inside and like microphones and whatever, I would go sit down at a swimming pool and like be sunbathing and just sit there with a drink and talk to everyone to talk about points and miles. That we may have that. There's many I think Portland has its share of park bench long term residents as well to chat with and but the it is the venue is the Hyatt Regency Portland the full name Hy isatt Regency Portland at Oregon Convention Center, which is on the Max light rail line from the airport. Guests that stay there get a free transit pass for the weekend. Well, it's part of the destination fee, which globalists don't pay. So for the points audience , the only thing they actually care about of any kind of meet up, conference and event is it at a high it? And I think that I think that that holds true for even post the evaluation . And I can put on the record that I have tried to communicate to the ownership, management, everybody of the hotel , what globalized breakfast will mean when we're there. And so far, they have shown no interest , understanding or comprehension of what will be them, but we are not starting we're not starting the Saturday conference until ten AM because we know everybody will be. I've stayed at the property. It is, it's very nice. It 's very convenient. The light rail is just truly outside the door and Stephen feel free of course you'll the actual local to s local color. Yeah, if the if people come to the picnic I'll be on the cargo bike probably so you can check out a cargo bike if you want to see one I'll, probably have my kiddo with me on the back . So you can try that basket You can fit in the back if you want. It's probably not going to be comfortable . I might have the new jack by then. Is yours the rear basket cargo or at the front . I have I a have a long t ail yeah, so it's a guy. You could you could ride with Brendan and did you see that video the other day and a guy missed his bus and a e bike with the front cargo bike? He's like the guy started running the guy with an e bike pulled up and I'm like he's like you're try,ing to catch the bus pop in and they beat the bus to the around the corner to the next stop and the guy got out and got on the bus. That's great. I love it. I love it . And as a courtesy to all registered attendees, we will find some semi confidential way to share what flights these three gentlemen will be on because those unless you want to be on delayed flights , you know, they they have the highest game you guys mentioned San Francisco to Taipei, that's like episode two hundred and ninety six , you know, you know many more hours of delays and FAZ arguing with San Francisco gate agents on how to do their job Well that's that's what we reference because Faz and I tried to go to Tai pei a third time and we ended up I just ended up turning around and going home because it got so delayed . The Stephan's dropping episode numbers in here is pretty great. Yeah, that one is just totally out of my mouth. You know, we somewhere in the middle, you know, the counting is very fuzzy and we haven't decided what episode number make it special. It'll be episode number six hundred will we will figure out all the information but it'll be episode six hundred. What were you going to say Fast? Was that the one was that the one where you missed the flight, they pushed back and we came back to the gate? Yeah, exactly. And then they wouldn't let me let me take the seat to go out. And so then you did a trip in vain. Yeah . Should times our lifetime global serv ices is no reaccommodation, no protection, no priority. Middle fingers . This is pre global services, but yeah in Portland. Yes, come hang out and for our Patreon supporters , stick around . We've got a little bit of a giveaway for you if you stick around for that . Thanks, Tefan for joining us. Thanks everyone for listening and we will talk to you next time. Happy travels. Take care . Thank you later