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New Year, New Prince of Travel

I’m excited to share with you a few new developments here on Prince of Travel as we move into 2019!

Written by Ricky Zhang

On January 1, 2019

Read time 8 mins

Happy 2019! I trust that everyone’s enjoyed their holidays? Recovered from their New Year’s Eve celebrations? All set for another year of free-flowing points and epic adventures around the world? Glad to hear it.

(By the way, did anyone manage to get in on those crazy Cathay Pacific First Class fares over New Year’s Eve? If those get honoured, it’d be one hell of a way to kick off 2019. More on that later…)

I’ve made a few changes and additions that I hope will make Prince of Travel an even better resource for you as we kick off the new year. Let’s take a peek at what you can look forward to as part of this new direction.

More Blog Posts

If you’ve been following my stuff for a while, you’ll know that I customarily write three posts a week for Prince of Travel. Starting this year, I’m aiming to bring that up to four or five posts a week.

There are a few reasons for this. First of all, as I create more and more content for the blog, I’ve come to realize that three posts a week simply isn’t quite enough to express everything I want to express.

Travel is one of my greatest passions, and I probably spend at least 50% of my waking hours, if not more, thinking about travel in some way, shape, or form. As a result, there’s so much that I’d love to share with you guys that I haven’t done so yet, and that’s the primary reason why I’ve decided to ramp up the posting schedule.

Take my travel reviews and trip reports, for example. Right now I need to catch up on the installments from at least three trips I took in late 2018, not to mention my current round-the-world luxury hotel trip, as well as the upcoming crazy Aeroplan trip that’s just around the corner!

I’d hate to make you wait on the stunning St. Regis Bali for too long…

I’d hate to make you wait on the stunning St. Regis Bali for too long…

At this rate, I won’t be telling you about my current trip until way later in 2019, and the thought of that makes me genuinely upset. One of my favourite parts of writing for Prince of Travel is being able to chronicle my adventures and share them with you, and now I’ll be able to do so on a more timely basis.

Consider as well the volume of article suggestions I get from readers on a regular basis. In the past, those went into an ever-growing pile of “things I’ll get around to writing eventually”, whereas now I’m looking forward to using my newfound creative freedom to make more of your suggestions a reality.

Writing more posts also allows me to mix things up a bit every week. Some days you’ll get the kind of juicy in-depth points talk that Prince of Travel is known for – something for you to really sink your teeth into – while other days you might get a series of useful tips, or some quick updates and analysis on industry news, or a new YouTube video I made. In other words, I’ll get to take myself a little less seriously 😉

Points Consulting

This is a paid service I’ve been offering informally on the side, and I’m now rolling it out officially.

The idea behind Points Consulting by Prince of Travel is simple: Miles & Points can seem daunting and difficult at times, and I’m here to be your guide.

There’s a wealth of free resources out there to help you learn, practice, and master the art of travelling the world on points. The content on Prince of Travel, for example, will always be free, and I do everything I can to make sure that it’s easily accessible to newbies and experienced folks alike.

I always encourage people to put in as much time and effort on their own as possible, since nothing quite compares to the satisfaction of developing this skill for yourself and using it to fulfill your travel goals.

Nevertheless, if you’d prefer to cut through the many hours of reading and research and take advantage of one-on-one consulting sessions to learn from an expert with many years of experience, I’m here to help.

In addition to saving you time and energy, one of my goals with Points Consulting is to address the uncertainty that newbies often experience when starting out, and help you build comfort as quickly as possible.

Maximizing points to travel the world like a boss is kind of an unintuitive thing – 99.9% of people out there have no idea it’s possible. So when you’re just starting out, it’s natural to have an endless list of questions on your mind. Which types of points should I collect? Which credit card should I get next? Is there something I’m forgetting?

And most importantly… Am I doing this right?

Give me a call and I’ll address every single question that’s on your mind, so you can get certain answers in a fraction of the time it’d take you to scour the blogs and forums for each and every one.

We’ll also work together to understand your travel goals and pin down your optimal strategy for earning and redeeming.

And speaking of redeeming – if you’re planning a complex trip like an Aeroplan Mini-RTW, but find yourself frustrated by fuel surcharges and mystified by MPMs, then hop on a Points Consulting session or two. I’ll share my screen with you as I build your trip in real-time, thereby helping you learn and develop your own skills while making your dream trip a reality.

The possibilities only continue from there. This is your opportunity to accelerate your learning process by working with someone who’s been travelling on points for many, many years and who lives and breathes this stuff.

Sessions are $149 per hour, with discounts available if you book a package of multiple sessions. (And yes, I do take Amex!)

You can read the full details on the Points Consulting mini-site, which is accessible via the navigation bar in the top right-hand corner, under Services.

Remember, if you prefer the challenge of figuring everything out on your own, then my blog articles on Prince of Travel are right up your alley. But if you’d like to have someone help you navigate the learning curve, then head over to Points Consulting to book a session right away.

Insider Emails

Those of you who are subscribed to my email list will be accustomed to reading my weekly newsletters over your morning coffee every Sunday.

Each week, I send you guys a roundup of new articles on Prince of Travel, as well as the hottest deals of the week. But you know what? Sometimes I write a new article that I think turned out particularly well, and I’m convinced that everyone should read it right away instead of waiting until the weekend.

As for the hot deals, some of them are particularly time-sensitive – whether it’s an increased signup bonus, a status match opportunity, or a mistake fare, a particularly good deal might be available on a Wednesday and gone by Friday (or even sooner).

And of course, every now and then there are deals so good that they tend not to be written about publicly… but in an email to the inner circle of my most dedicated readers might well be fair game 😉

As you can see, there are many reasons why I’d want to get in touch with you more than just once a week on Sundays, but I also don’t want to spam you with emails – after all, I’m the first to get annoyed when I feel like someone’s slipping into my inbox a little too often. And so I’ve created the Prince of Travel Insiders email list, which you can join on an opt-in basis.

If you’re already a subscriber, you’ll be receiving an email sometime today that invites you to join the Insiders email list.

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Simply click the button and you’ll be getting all my midweek emails, including the best of my new articles, the hottest time-sensitive deals, and any quick thoughts I get throughout the week that I think you might find interesting but not quite worthy of a full blog post.

Becoming an Insider is by far the best way to stay up-to-date on all the latest travel buzz and Miles & Points developments. If you’re interested, go ahead and accept the invitation in your inbox – if you change your mind later, you can always choose to go back to receiving only the weekly emails.

(And if you aren’t subscribed to my emails, what are you waiting for? Here, I’ve even made it super easy for you to join – simply enter your email below. You can then become an Insider via the first message that lands in your inbox!)

Conclusion

2019 promises to be big year for Prince of Travel as we continue to bring the joys of travelling on points to more and more Canadians. With much more content coming your way, a one-on-one Points Consulting service for those of you who’d find it helpful, and a new Insider email list for my most dedicated readers, I’m hoping to make your experience here at Prince of Travel an even more enjoyable one.

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