Tagging Miles

The Frequent Traveler University Returns to Washington DC March 7-8

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The Frequent Traveler University (FTU) is returning to Washington, DC March 7-8 in teaming up with the Travel & Adventure Show!

Old and New Speakers with tons of experience and knowledge to share

There is a good mix of seasoned speakers from past FTU’s, as well as some new ones. I think that will ensure that there’s something for everyone (as you’ll see a little bit further down in the Agenda). Here are the speakers:

The Topics – Travel & Adventure Show

So, to be clear, there will be a Frequent Traveler University Stage at the Travel & Adventure Show, those topics will be

Saturday:

  • How to Save on a Disney Trip: Visiting a Disney Park is Every Kid’s Dream, But Could Turn Into a Budget Nightmare – Dia Adams
  • Travel the World with 40,000 Miles. Three Competitors, One Challenge: To Take 40,000 Points and $400 and Get as Far Away as Possible – FrequentMiler
  • Upgrade Your Travel Game: The Three Key Concepts for Incredible Miles and Points Travel – Rapid Travel Chai & Tiffany Funk
  • Earn the Most Miles for Your Everyday Spend – Me!

Sunday: 

  • From Bookings to Bandwidth, How to Supercharge Your Business Travel – Tess Zhao and Rob Pegoraro
  • How to Travel Anywhere and Everywhere with Points – Stefan Krasowski
  • The Indispensable Primer on Reward Travel – Tiffany Funk

The Topics – FTU Advanced (Sunday 8 March)

  • Awards Worth MS-ing For – Nick Reyes
  • Is United Airlines The Program For You? – Matthew Klint
  • Advanced Manufactured Spend – Mike Graziano
  • Airlines for Aspirational Travel – Tiffany Funk
  • Generate Miles, Points, and Profits by Reselling on Amazon – Me!
  • The World of Disney: Tips and Tricks That Will Help You Navigate the 12 Parks in the Disney Universe – Dia Adams
  • Credit Cards: Plastic is Still Gold – Stefan Krasowski
  • From Bookings to Bandwidth, How to Supercharge Your Business Travel – Tess Zhao and Rob Pegoraro
  • Closing Panel – All of us (moderated by Stefan Krasowski)

Tickets

Before I even share a link, I want to share with you code:  2020 $10 off till 1/31/2020.

To grab tickets, please use my link to sign up, though note it is an affiliate link. 

Wrapping Up – Frequent Traveler University Returns to Washington, DC

I’m really excited for this FTU. The fact is, FTU’s in general are great opportunities to network, they’re great opportunities to compare notes. But partnering with the Travel & Adventure show, I think gives us even more opportunity. In addition, we have some new speakers, like Dia, Tess, and Rob, so there’s definitely some new ideas for things we’ll be learning about.  I hope you can make it! 

Please let me know if you’ll make it, if we have enough folks, we’ll coordinate a meet-up or find another opportunity to network. 

 

Less than 2 weeks to Toys for Tots Happy Hour! Here are some toy recommendations!

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We’re excited! We are inside of 2 weeks to the Frequent Traveler Toys for Tots Happy Hour! This is a great opportunity to give back, and as I’ll show in this post, to earn a few miles! 

Toys for Tots Happy Hour Info

The event will be in Arlington, VA, like last year, it will be at Bar Bao, as they were incredible last year and welcoming us for a repeat! Details below:

Bar Bao 
3100 Clarendon Blvd
Clarendon Metro Station
Arlington, VA 22201

The event will be 6 December, 6-9pm. We’ll have representation from the US Marine Corp to accept the toys (and our appreciation for their service). We’ll have friends, fellowship, and plenty of great time to talk travel!

Just so we have an idea of how many folks to expect, please register

We are asking that you bring a toy for a child that might otherwise not have a toy underneath their tree. 

What Toys to Get?

Based on information from Toys for Tots, here are some guidelines:

Toys for Tots does not publish a list of appropriate toys to donate.  If such a list were created, most would follow it, resulting in a limited selection of items to distribute in each community.   We would rather our donors consider what might be an appropriate gift for their own child/relative, purchase the item, and donate to Toys for Tots.

Pre-teen/teens are groups for which shopping is especially difficult.  Do you have any ideas?
The Foundation does purchase supplemental toys/gifts for our campaign sites and focuses on these age groups.  In the past, items purchased for these groups have included, but are not limited to:  sporting equipment/bags/balls; books, backpacks, cosmetics, purses, watch/wallet gift sets, bath gift sets, board games, radio control cars/trucks, hand-held electronics, skateboards/helmets, curling irons, hair straighteners, and hair dryers.

Also, above all else, please do not plan to donate realistic looking weapons or gifts with food, they will not be distributed. 

Suggestions giving the Black Friday Deals

There are a ton of fantastic deals out there for Black Friday! Here are just a few suggestions:

JCPenney (usually 5x or better between Rakuten/MR’s, and lower for airline portals) has 25% off all Frozen related toys on Black Friday. You can check out the add here. 

Kohls always offers $15 Kohls Cash for every $50 spend, which is great, that opens up a lot of opportunities to buy things you might already be buying and leave the Kohls Cash for toys for Tots. They’ve got a pretty great Black Friday advertisement

  • Monopoly and other board games are 50% off
  •  Mr Potato Sup Spud ($19.99, reg $39.99)
  • Vtech Pull and Discover Activity Elephant ($19.99, reg 29.99)
  • Remote Controlled Vehicles ($19.99, reg $34.99-39.99)
  • 30% off on select Lego

Walmart is 5% Cashback (or Membership Rewards) for Toys:

Toys for Tots Happy Hour

Target will invariably have wonderful deals as well.

Wrapping Up

There’s a lot of great options out there for buying toys in support of Toys for Tots. I sincerely hope you’ll be able to make it out for the Toys for Tots Happy Hour. As in past years, we’ll have a couple of US Marines attending, and I am certain this will be a fantastic event! I really hope you can make it!!

 

Save The Date: Frequent Traveler Happy Hour in support of Toys for Tots – 6 December!

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We’re getting the word out a little earlier than usual this year, but, we have a shorter holiday season this year, so better save the date early! Its time again for a Frequent Traveler Happy Hour supporting Toys for Tots! This year we’re partnering with Richard Kerr, Loyalty and Engagement Editor for The Points Guy. 

4 years ago, Richard and I started the DC-area Happy Hour in support of Toys for Tots. Its great to come full circle in 2019!

Frequent Traveler Community

Humble beginnings in support of Toys for Tots! First year: 50 toys!

Partnering with Jeanne of Le Chic Geek and Ed of Pizza in Motion, over the last few years, folks have donated hundreds of toys!

Toys for Tots

Toys for Tots 2018 Event – Tons of toys!

The event will be in Arlington, VA, like last year, it will be at Bar Bao, as they were incredible last year and welcoming us for a repeat! Details below:

Bar Bao 
3100 Clarendon Blvd
Clarendon Metro Station
Arlington, VA 22201

The event will be 6 December, 6-9pm. We’ll have representation from the US Marine Corp to accept the toys (and our appreciation for their service). We’ll have friends, fellowship, and plenty of great time to talk travel!

Just so we have an idea of how many folks to expect, please register

We are asking that you bring a toy for a child that might otherwise not have a toy underneath their tree. 

Doing Good – Supporting Toys for Tots

When I originally got into this community, I got in via blogs that shared tips to generate miles and points–and ultimately–great experiences, because they wanted to help. Randy founded FlyerTalk, then later partnering with others–including Ed Pizzarello himself– founding MilePoint with a similar goal in mind. Sharing the amazing things available for folks that want to put some effort in, to get amazing travel opportunities. That grew further to include doing good for others, as we’ve seen in so many groups and online communities centered around travel, miles and points. This is a small way that we as a community can do great things for others who may not even be aware of miles and points. Quite simply, we can make Christmas special.

With that in mind, we invite you to the bring a toy, do some good, and share in the holiday revelry with fellow travel hackers.

If you’re wondering about the best way to procure such toys, this week, you are bound to find fantastic deals where you can leverage Shopping Portals to get some miles while you’re helping to make kids’ Christmas! In fact, here’s a roundup of some great shopping portal bonuses good until Nov 14th (Delta) and Nov 21st (the rest).

I’ll share some deals as we get further into November, but an easy first thought is Kohls, you can check out their Black Friday advertisement, where you’ll see that they are offering $15 Kohls Cash per $50 spent, and there’s lots of great deals. That Kohls Cash (coupled with Yes 2 You Rewards) could be a great opportunity to get more toys for less.

So, will you make it to our 6 December Happy Hour in Support of Toys for Tots in Arlington, VA?

 

Last Call – ResellingDO Reboot – 20 July in Dallas!

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In case you might have missed it, we’re doing a reboot of the ResellingDO event series, and it will be 20 July in Dallas. That’s less than 2 weeks away! As is customary, we need to lock in on the number of attendees for the venue for things like lunch. So if you’ve been on the fence of whether or not to attend, you’re pretty much at the point of deciding.

ResellingDO Reboot Key Details: 

  • When: Saturday, July 20th, 2019
  • What: A full day of networking; presentations on reselling via Amazon
  • Eat: Lunch included
  • Where: Hyatt Place DFW
  • Ticket Price: $130
  • Link: Grab your ticket to ResellingDO Reboot!

Special 101 Beginners Presentation at 8:30am

Registration: 9:15am, presentations start at 9:30am.

We have some excellent speakers! 

We’ll have Joey, who spoke at NapaDO, Phil, co-founder of the Mile High Reselling Club, and who spoke at ResellingDO2, and then we have some new speakers! Tom, a frequent traveler and full time reseller who has figured out a way to balance reselling with a lifestyle of travel. We’re going to do some completely different things here too, since we’ve already seen some couples signing up for the DO, my amazing wife Rose and I will talk about getting your spouse or family involved. We’ll finish off with a panel of all the speakers and Andrew, who spoke at ResellingDO SE, and is a nearly $5M seller.

Agenda

For those interested: 0830-9:15 – Reselling on Amazon 101
09:15 – Registration for everyone else
09:30 – Intro (Trevor)
10:00-11:00 – Retail Arbitrage (RA) (Phil)
11:15-12:15 – Online Arbitrage (OA) (Joey)
12:15-1:15 – Lunch
1:15-2:00 – Case Studies (Tom)
2:00-2:45 – Getting your spouse into the game (Rose/Trevor)
3:00-4:00 – 101 Tips, Tricks, and Tools (Trevor/Tom)
4:15-5:00 – Panel (Andrew, Phil, Joey, Tom, Trevor, Rose)
 
So, will we see you at the ResellingDO Reboot? Grab your ticket to ResellingDO Reboot!

ResellingDO Success Story – Andrew

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I thought in advance of ResellingDO Reboot, that I’d share a ResellingDO Success Story.

ResellingDO Success Story

I met Andrew at ResellingDO 2  At the time we met, he was still working a day job, but was getting further and further into Reselling. It was a great opportunity to network with folks, and he was clearly interested in seeing how much further he could go. 
 
Later that year, on September 11th, he attended ResellingDO 3 and even brought his wife. He was committed to this new business model. At the time he didn’t share how much he was doing, but it was clear he was a rising star.
 
Andrew first presented at a ResellingDO SE, 18 March 2017 – at this point he was out on his own. He had quit his day job and had dove in head first into a full time Amazon seller lifestyle. He had far exceeded what most part timers do, and knew that he could go big, and believe me, he did!
 
Last year, Andrew did $4.8M in annual sales. $4.8M! 
 
A few weeks ago, he shared this screenshot from his Amazon app, just to give you a flavor of how far he’s come:
 
ResellingDO Success Story

An example of Andrew’s month Selling on Amazon

This is not the only ResellingDO Success Story!

Perhaps you are thinking that this is a unique case, but as an example, I have received multiple messages from folks that have crossed the 7 figure line (kind’ve a big deal, right?), and many of them attribute the ResellingDO events as that push that helped them to focus their energy into building their business beyond a hobby. 
 
Andrew is the perfect example of an individual who saw the potential of selling on Amazon and seized the opportunity. He grabbed that brass ring, and it is working out quite well for him.
 
Believe me when I say there are still many Brass Rings to be had! Whether you want to go full time, or part time, there is great potential still left within Amazon! 

ResellingDO Reboot Information

Just in case this ResellingDO Success Story has piqued your interest in attending the next ResellingDO, here’s the info for it:

Will you be at the next ResellingDO?

Last Call for Early Bird Tickets to ResellingDO!

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I know, ResellingDO is scheduled for 20 July, and that’s like 2 months away, but Early Bird Tickets end on Sunday, 19 May. So I just wanted to make one last post because, one of the best parts of these events is the networking. What better way to network, than to have a $30 gift card to the Friday night pre-DO restaurant?

ResellingDO

ResellingDO Reboot Key Details

  • When: Saturday, July 20th, 2019
  • What: A full day of networking; presentations on reselling via Amazon
  • Eat: Lunch included
  • Where: Hyatt Place DFW
  • Ticket Price: $130
  • Link: Grab your ticket to ResellingDO Reboot!

Registration: 9:15am, presentations start at 9:30am.

Recap of the Early Bird Ticket

Book before 19 May 19, and get a $30 gift card to Hard Eight, where we’ll catch up for an informal dinner Friday night!

Will you make it to ResellingDO?

ResellingDO Reboot Agenda

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Last week we announced the ResellingDO Reboot. This is an exciting event, that we’ll have mid-coast in Dallas-Fort Worth to make it easy for everyone to attend. We’ll have something for folks new to reselling, as well as for those who have been in the game for a while. This post shares the agenda for the day.

Key Details

  • When: Saturday, July 20th, 2019
  • What: A full day of networking; presentations on reselling via Amazon
  • Eat: Lunch included
  • Where: Hyatt Place DFW
  • Ticket Price: $130
  • Link: Grab your ticket to ResellingDO Reboot!

Registration: 9:15am, presentations start at 9:30am.

ResellingDO Reboot

For the agenda, we’re pulling out all the stops. We’ll have Joey, who spoke at NapaDO, Phil, co-founder of the Mile High Reselling Club, and who spoke at ResellingDO2, and then we have some new speakers! Tom, a frequent traveler and full time reseller cover some case studies; he and I will also team up to present a Stefan of Rapid Travel Chai style 101 Tips, Tricks, and Tools presentation. Since we’ve already seen some couples signing up for the DO, my amazing wife Rose and I will do a talk on getting your spouse involved. We’ll finish off with a panel of all the speakers and Andrew, who spoke at ResellingDO SE, and is a nearly $5M seller.

Agenda

For those interested: 0830-9:15 – Reselling on Amazon 101
09:15 – Registration for everyone else
09:30 – Intro (Trevor)
10:00-11:00 – Retail Arbitrage (RA) (Phil)
11:15-12:15 – Online Arbitrage (OA) (Joey)
12:15-1:15 – Lunch
1:15-2:00 – Case Studies (Tom)
2:00-2:45 – Getting your spouse into the game (Rose/Trevor)
3:00-4:00 – 101 Tips, Tricks, and Tools (Trevor / Tom)
4:15-5:00 – Panel (Andrew, Phil, Joey, Tom, Trevor, Rose)

Wrapping Up

This’ll be a great event, we feel we’ve made it well rounded enough for a variety of skill levels. Hope you make it!
 

Rebooting ResellingDO – 20 July in Dallas-Fort Worth!

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Big news! We are rebooting ResellingDO! am I overly excited about this? Heck yeah! One of the greatest things about the miles and points community (and reselling!) is the fact that all of us love to get together, connect, break bread, and share knowledge. We’ve had a great run of ResellingDO’s and this one will be just as great! Why? Because networking is key in reselling, just like it is for travel hacking.

Past ResellingDO

Rebooting ResellingDO

In an attempt to keep things a bit easier logistically, we’re rebooting ResellingDO in the middle of the country. We’ll be at the Hyatt Place DFW to make it easy for folks to attend from anywhere in the country (or our friends in Mexico or Canada).  

Key Details

  • When: Saturday, July 20th, 2019
  • What: A full day of networking; presentations on reselling via Amazon
  • Eat: Lunch included
  • Where: Hyatt Place DFW
  • Ticket Price: $130
  • Link: Grab your ticket to ResellingDO Reboot!

Registration: 9:15am, presentations start at 9:30am.

Who’s right for ResellingDO?

The way we’re crafting this event, it will be useful for folks that want to add to their income as a side gig (like me), as well as folks that do this full time. In fact, we’ll have a great group of speakers, that span the gambit between side giggers and full timers, as well as serial entrepreneurs.

What if you are new to reselling?

Great! This event is for you! We’re even having an additional hour of presentations so you can get up to speed on selling on Amazon. Our ResellingDO Beginner’s Primer will start at 08:30. Here you’ll get a feel for the basics, and have a solid foundation for the rest of the day’s presentations.

What if you are an old hat with Reselling?

Well, hope you’re buying drinks! (kidding!) We’ll have presentations covering Retail Arbitrage, Online Arbitrage, Tools of the Trade, and more. I have complete confidence that you will learn something, and even if you don’t, you’ll be able to network with sellers that range a few hundred thousands in annual sales, all the way up to $5 million a year! Many of the attendees are how Amazon has so much of an impact on small business!

Book early for even more value!

We haven’t done this before, but like any good story, there should be a bit of a twist, right? So for ResellingDO Reboot, we’re providing an Early Bird Benefit (Book before 19 May 19)! If you book before 19 May, you will get a $30 gift card to Hard Eight, where we’ll catch up for an informal dinner Friday night!

Wrapping Up

If you’ve ever been curious about reselling, or if you’ve already got a mature reselling business, this is the event to attend this year! We’ll be talking about Online Arbitrage, Retail Arbitrage, Tools of the Trade, and even have an open format Q&A session with a $5M+ seller. Even better: Every presenter is a travel hacker / mile and point aficionado! 

So, will we see you at the ResellingDO Reboot?

Frequent Traveler Happy Hour in support of Toys for Tots 10 December!

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It’s the holiday season, so of course, its time again for a Frequent Traveler Happy Hour for Toys for Tots! We started this tradition in 2016, and partnering with Ed from Pizza in Motion and Jeanne from Le Chic Geek, we made it even bigger in 2017. 

Toys for Tots

Toys for Tots 2018 Event – Tons of toys!

And we’re doing it again this year!

The event will be in Arlington, VA, thanks to Jeanne’s amazing contacts with seemingly every DC restaurant. Details below:

Bar Bao 
3100 Clarendon Blvd
Clarendon Metro Station
Arlington, VA 22201

The event will be 10 December, 6-9pm. We’ll have representation from the US Marine Corp to accept the toys (and our appreciation for their service). We’ll have friends, fellowship, and plenty of great time to talk travel!

Please take a moment to register.

We are asking that you bring a toy for a child that might otherwise not have a toy underneath their tree. 

Doing Good – Supporting Toys for Tots

When I originally got into this community, I got in via blogs that shared tips to generate miles and points–and ultimately–great experiences, because they wanted to help. Randy founded FlyerTalk, then later partnering with others–including Ed Pizzarello himself– founding MilePoint with a similar goal in mind. Sharing the amazing things available for folks that want to put some effort in, to get amazing travel opportunities. That grew further to include doing good for others. There’s a MilePoint Kiva Lending Team that is doing amazing good for people who might otherwise not get microloans to do good in their own community. All of these things were inspiration for us in the travel community to do good.

With that in mind, we invite you to the bring a toy, do some good, and share in the holiday revelry with fellow travel hackers.

If you’re wondering about the best way to procure such toys, this week, you are bound to find fantastic deals where you can leverage Shopping Portals to get some miles while you’re helping to make kids’ Christmas!

A few things I saw in the Cyber Monday advertisements that could be fun are (Note: none of these links are affiliates that benefit me; to the best extent possible I’ve stripped out any tags at all — this is about the kids!) : 

All of those are Walmart links because, as of writing this post, you can get 5% cashback on toys via the Ebates shopping portal.

Here’s hoping we’ll see you on 10 December at Bar Bao to support Toys for Tots and talk travel!

Accepting Defeat – ResellingDO for Beginners cancelled

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It is with great sadness that I am accepting defeat for ResellingDO for Beginners. 

What goes into hosting a ResellingDO

There is a lot of time that goes into selecting venues, working agreements, finding awesome presenters, and don’t forget the catering. All of these aspects take great care and effort, so that we can put on quality events like ResellingDO3, and NapaDO. But the hardest part is the leap of faith one must take to sign a contract for $6,500 (or more) for an event, without having a single ticket sold. Setting that ticket price is also rather tough. Unfortunately, shutting down a brewery is not the cheapest endeavor. So I needed to factor in that I needed to spend at least $6,500 (not including tips for the staff), so I established that in order for the event to be break even, at the $149 we set the ticket price at, we needed at least 43 attendees. 
 
As of 29 July when I finally called it, we had sold 8 tickets. 
 
To put it differently, as of 29 July, when I had to make the decision on the contract (they do give us a brief window to pull out), I stood to lose around $5,000, hosting this event. 

What happens to those 8 folks that bought tickets?

We have refunded those tickets already. I’ll try to go a little further for those 8 folks, because they were committed to attending, some making the purchase the first day tickets went on sale.

ResellingDO’s going forward

As for the future of ResellingDO. Putting on events takes a significant amount of time and to put on quality events such as my wife and I strive to do, they also cost a bunch. Further, we’ve never had sponsors because I’ve always wanted to ensure that we have the freedom of what we present. Going forward, I will still coordinate events but we will limit it to the Mile High Reselling Club (MHRC) primarily, which will help us properly gauge scale of interest, and essentially the scale of the event. 

Wrapping Up

It was very hard for me personally to come to terms with the decision to cancel this ResellingDO. Going into it, I had thought this event was going to be the largest we’ve had, given the great interest we saw in a beginner level event. We chose to go back to a venue that has treated us well and that we had received great feedback on from past events. What this all leads me to believe, is that this type of an event may no longer be the best approach. I’m not quite sure what is the best approach, but I’ll keep trying things to see what works, because I really strongly believe that face to face networking and conversation is what builds this community the best.
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