Deanna Radulescu: What is good, everyone? This is your host, Deanna Radulescu with Label Free Podcast. To live your best life, you must live label free. As always, bring incredible guests from all over the world. So sit back, relax, and tune in. My next guest has had a lifelong fascination with travel. He is on a mission to make unforgettable travel experiences accessible to everyone and encourage people to see and experience more of the world. He loves to help people create champagne travel experiences on a beer budget. I think we all can't wait to hear more about this. He is the founder of the 1% Travel Club. Please welcome Rohith Umathur. Rohith, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Thank you. How are you? I am good. I am so pumped to have this conversation. You guys stay tuned. He's got a special gift for you. So if you love to travel and want to learn more how to have a luxury travel experience, he's got a gift for you guys. So stay tuned. Rohith, when we connected, I loved what you told me about like why you founded the 1% Travel Club. So I want you to share with the audience like where this idea stemmed from and what it means to you to help people have these experiences.
Rohith Amruther: Yeah, so traveling, it's been a fascination of mine since I was a kid. I mean, I was always looking at globes, maps. I wanted to travel here, there. I grew up with a father who traveled a lot for work. And when I say he traveled, I mean, he would go… There was one time, I remember, when I was eight years old, he went to five continents in two weeks.
Deanna Radulescu: Wow. Oh, that's right.
Rohith Amruther: That's right. It's funny, at the time, I thought it was all glamorous, but now that I'm an adult, I look back and I'm like, yikes.
Deanna Radulescu: No, I used to travel for business three weeks out of the month. And like, that's a lot. Like, it's not like you're going on a vacation. You get to relax, enjoy yourself. When it's business, you're like, boom, boom, boom. That's part of your body.
Rohith Amruther: Oh, absolutely, especially when you're changing so many time zones. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. But what happened was I remember we would he would take us on trips sometimes. And I would sometimes I would just ask him, like, hey, how much did this cost? And he would say, oh, we basically got it for free. I was like, what do you mean? How did you get this for free? Yeah. Oh, there's this thing called miles. It's like, really? Tell me more. So because he traveled so much, he had all these points and miles. Yeah. And then fast forward a bit. I was in college. I had about 2K saved up from internships and I wanted to spend a month, two months traveling Europe. And I was able to do that without really, I didn't do the whole backpack hostel thing. Cause I was like, I don't want to stay in a room with seven other people. Like I want to be able to eat well.
Deanna Radulescu: Me neither.
Rohith Amruther: You know, all of that stuff. I was like, I wanted to be like, I don't need it to be luxurious. I just need it to be decent. Right. And I got very creative. I used what I learned from my dad. I did some more sleuthing about how to really game the system. And I was able to spend two months in Europe on just 2K. Wow. That includes the flights, by the way.
Deanna Radulescu: Holy crap. So, okay. Tell us, like, how did you do that? How were you able to do that?
Rohith Amruther: Yeah, so I got I just got very creative about where I wanted to be. And I kind of used an Airbnb as like my, you know, home base and stuff. And then I would kind of travel from there. But with the flights, for example, people, I think they let sometimes it'll get things credits and vouchers back from airlines and they just forget about them and you know you look back and you realize oh shoot you had that voucher right and by the way I barely use points and miles for this at all so this was one this was just one way I was able to do that. And then you kind of have to combine the voucher with being creative about where to search your flight from. So voucher was about 700 bucks. The round trip going from my home airport, which at the time was Washington DC was about 1400. Wow. However, if I left from Philly, it was 700 round trip and Philly is only a two hour drive from Washington. Yeah. So being creative like that. And as a college kid, I had to be very creative like that.
Deanna Radulescu: Well, yeah, well, that was smart. I know that we try to we try to when we travel, we always like pick different locations. We try to at least sometimes it's not possible, but that's a great little tip. And so now how did that turn into what you're doing today as a business?
Rohith Amruther: So a lot of, as I got older, I started earning more points and miles. I started traveling more and I was kind of able to get to this point where I was like, wow, I was getting these, I was traveling and I wasn't traveling in like real luxury yet, but I was like, wow, I'm paying such little money for what I travel. And my friends were like, oh, how are you doing this? And I actually started out releasing a course. It was only like a $57 course at the time. Um, but I released a course and I was like, here you guys, if you want to buy it, go for it. Um, and that's kind of how I got, it's got started. Do you still have the course? It's much more improved. This was back in 2016. Okay. Yeah. So it's much more improved, uh, much more information, uh, much. And then also travel has changed a lot since then, obviously. Yeah. So it's, it's kept up to date with that.
Deanna Radulescu: Very cool. And I know how hard it is putting some of those things together because I just finished my first ebook and I was like, holy cow, this is quite the process. So congratulations on that. So what could someone like learn with your course?
Rohith Amruther: So the main thing that I talk about, which I guess differentiates me from other people in this space is I think it's very important to have a strategy. And with travel, there are so many moving parts. There are, where do you spend cash? Where do you earn and spend rewards? How do you avoid fees? Because fees will just come up out of nowhere sometimes, and many of them are completely avoidable. Oh, they are?
Deanna Radulescu: Oh, absolutely. You're gonna have to teach us about that. What does that mean?
Rohith Amruther: Yeah. So you can do that. And then there's also compensation. How do you get compensated if you get an inconvenience? The interesting thing there is a lot of people will ask for compensation when they're not legally entitled to it, but when they are legally entitled to it, they have to pay. They don't. Okay. And then lastly is just how do you maximize your experiences? How do you not end up getting ripped off on a, tour or something like that. How do you create the best experience for yourself? And so that's all. I call that the five pillars of travel mastery. And all of those together really make this strategy. And so on my course, I go through, I guess the first part, there's two levels to it is I help people just understand the monetary aspect in terms of like points and miles cash. That's kind of, that itself can be a little bit complex, but then the other tier is making sure that everyone understands each one of these five pillars and can customize to themselves. And when I work with clients, I kind of do the same thing. I kind of do it for them. I, everything that I, work with them on, I do it in the context of one of these five pillars.
Deanna Radulescu: Sure. Well, I think that it's fascinating and it's very unique what you've created for yourself. I don't know of anybody else that does something like this.
Rohith Amruther: So there are a lot of people who are, let's say, points consultants, who are points bloggers, influencers, etc. They're great. Many of them are wonderful, but the thing that always felt like it was missing in the market was someone who would come in and show you that this was actually a very comprehensive process and that it's actually a strategy and it's something that is sustainable long term. Because a lot of people who just focus on hacks, and hacks can only take you so far.
Deanna Radulescu: Right. And then they end up not lasting forever. You can have from this period to this period, and then all of a sudden, whatever that was that they were doing or teaching or telling people to do is no longer available to them.
Rohith Amruther: Exactly. And I want to give an example. I remember I was at a travel convention where you had a lot of these people and the guy who was giving the talk, he had a lot of great points, nothing against him personally, but he said something that I just found so weird. So what he did, one way that he said you found a way to game the system was to go to, and this loophole doesn't exist anymore, but what you used to be able to do is you used to go to Western Union with your credit card and then wire the money to yourself. So that way on Amex, it shows up as a transaction and you earn points, and you still get the cash back with like minus a fee.
Deanna Radulescu: Wow, that's wild. I've never heard of that. Okay, keep going.
Rohith Amruther: Yeah, there are some wild things like that. And the thing is, he just kept doing it over and over and over again, and eventually they caught on, and it shut down his Amex, and he said he had like 5 million points in there.
Deanna Radulescu: Yeah, because it's almost like a form of fraud, I feel like, doing something like that, you know? Yeah, and that's… Don't do that. Guys, don't do that.
Rohith Amruther: Don't do that. And that brings me to a point where it's like, if this feels like it could go against the terms and conditions, sure, maybe do it once, but try not to make a habit of it. I mean, I've certainly done things like that. But the second thing is that Whatever, a lot of things in this space that people think are hacks are actually like everyone knows exactly what you're doing and it's exactly by design. Okay. Right. Right. We're earning certain points with your credit cards, combining different credit cards to earn lots of points and multiply the amount of points you're earning, multiplying the value of your points by transferring the airline and hotel partners. A lot of people think like, Oh, this is travel hacking, hacking system. And it's not really because they know exactly what you're doing. But I guess I'm also saying that to say that that's still within the rules and that's fine. And it's okay to get creative, but just think about like, if the person who was giving you the points knew what you were doing, how would they feel? Right. Right. Exactly. Right. And if you do it too many times, they can catch on, they can shut down your account, take away all the points without warning.
Deanna Radulescu: That's a scary thought. Like if you've been saving those points for a special trip and then you do something stupid and that would be very upsetting. Yeah. What's good, everyone? This is your host, Deanna Radulescu with Label Free Podcast. So I'm very much into my vitality, my health and wellness, fitness, all those things. So I love the telehealth concierge services. I'm not sure if you're familiar with those, but there's an online telehealth resource to help you with your health and wellness, sexual health, weight loss, peptides, what have you. And I really enjoyed the last therapy I did with them. This time I'm doing weight loss, you guys, because I've been a little bit slowing down here at this age and I'm looking for something to boost that metabolism. I highly recommend Valhalla Vitality. I have a discount code for you, Deanna15, and I will have the link in the description below for you to go sign up. Check them out. Get your appointment scheduled. You'll have a meeting with a great telehealth doctor, supervisor, consultant that will walk you through what it is that you're looking for to improve in your vitality. Again, this is Deanna Radulescu with Label Free Podcast, and I'm here to endorse Valhalla Vitality. I want to hear a little bit more before we get into more like the whole points thing. You said fees and compensation. So what type of fees are people entitled to get back or not be charged?
Rohith Amruther: So a big one is called a fuel surcharge, and this is one that is used mostly with points bookings, and it's used on certain airlines. And it really depends which program you transfer to. So for example, British Airways will do… Actually, let me rewind. A fuel surcharge is basically when you… book an award, not even with an award ticket, with any cash fare or award fare, there is the amount that the airline has to pay per passenger in fuel. So that is usually baked in to the cash ticket. Now, a lot of airlines will do this thing where they actually, if you book an award ticket, they will not pass the fuel surcharge onto you. But there are some very notorious players. Unfortunately, these ones are actually pretty well-traveled airlines, especially for Americans, such as British Airways. And even if you book a British Airways flight with its partner, American Airlines, American Airlines will still make you pay that fee.
Deanna Radulescu: Okay, is that when you go to check out, is that on the detailed bill? Yes. Invoice or whatever, whenever you go check out. Now I'm trying to think, we just booked some tickets to go travel and we did it through Priceline. Do you know if they do a fuel surcharge also?
Rohith Amruther: Was that a cash ticket? Yeah.
Deanna Radulescu: Okay, so I'm talking specifically for points tickets. Oh, specific. Okay, I gotcha. All right. Yeah. Okay, gotcha.
Rohith Amruther: They're in all the cash tickets. Okay.
Deanna Radulescu: Yeah. Okay, cool. All right, so you can keep an eye out for fuel surcharge if you're doing points, right? And can you ask them to remove that?
Rohith Amruther: No, you can't, but there are ways of getting around it. So using certain rewards programs will allow you to get around it. Interesting. So not to your credit card, though. No. So let's say, for example, because Chase transfers to British Airways. Yeah. And British Airways will pass that on. Right. So if you want to go from Chicago to London, let's say that's about I think that's usually fifty seven thousand points in business class plus six hundred dollars in fuel surcharges. Yeah. Whereas if you racked up American Airlines miles instead, you could get that same route on American Airlines for. Let's say. 70,000 points but like $5.60 in fees. Or you can change your chase points to United and book that same route for about 60,000 points and $5.60 in fees.
Deanna Radulescu: Holy cow, what a difference. Okay, so you're like writing this down? You might have to go take this course after this. Okay, we're just giving them a little bit of the highlights so that if they wanna learn more, they can always go get your course and you'll give us that link later.
Rohith Amruther: Yeah, just one more thing I wanted to say in terms of fees, just one other fee that I wanna point out are foreign exchange fees. The vast majority of credit cards in the US that are used for travel, you don't have to pay a foreign exchange fee. So if you're in, let's say you're in London again, a pound is like $1.15, I think is what it is right now. If you withdraw 100 pounds, you're only going to be charged $115. That's the best way to do it. And when you do pay at the terminal, they'll offer you US dollars or pounds, always pay in pounds because if you're paying dollars, they'll charge a foreign exchange markup. Oh, interesting. Okay, good. Yeah. So there's a lot of things like that, that, you know, they'll just, they'll get you and it doesn't, it might not seem like a lot of money, but as it'll add up.
Deanna Radulescu: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We want to, we want to avoid that. Let's be, let's be frugal here. All right. You said compensation. So I know I have had, I have fought certain airlines to be compensated for our inconvenience for being not delayed, but our luggage not being able to be unloaded off the plane for like six hours. We're stuck at the airport waiting for our luggage to get off the plane. And so we were fairly successful with that, getting some kind of compensation. So what are people entitled to and under what circumstances?
Rohith Amruther: So it's interesting you bring up that example because the DOT just released new guidelines where the airlines have to pay you compensation if, after a certain period of time, you don't get your bags, or if you're delayed a certain amount, or if you're rerouted and you have an extra stop, you have to get refunded, whatever you pay.
Deanna Radulescu: I saw that, but this happened probably about a year ago before that. I just saw that D.O.T., those new rules in place, which is great because I feel like they kind of screw us a little bit when we're stuck. We're like, we're stuck. You know, we should be compensated for our time. Anyways, but tell us a little bit more about that. Just kind of if people haven't seen that on the news, let us know a little bit more what that means. For the D.O.T. one specifically? Yes, sure.
Rohith Amruther: And then any other ones? Yeah, so the DOT one, there were three specific examples of when you would get compensated. And normally what airlines would do is they would say, oh, we'll just give you a voucher. And now the DOT says, no, you have to give them cash. So let's say, I think there were three specific scenarios. I can only remember two off the top of my head. But one of them, for example, was baggage delay. On a domestic flight, if you didn't get it within a certain amount of hours, you would have to get, if you paid for a baggage fee, you would have to get that refunded. Awesome.
Deanna Radulescu: I didn't read all of it. I just saw the notification. I'm like, that's great. And I just kept it moving. But OK, what are other things that could happen that people are entitled to compensation for?
Rohith Amruther: Yes, so I'll give you an example that I actually had. Okay. And I like this example because it puts the whole five pillars of travel mastery together. Pillars one and four, which is cutting costs and getting compensated. So I booked a flight, it was a cheap flight, Chicago to Amsterdam round trip for $450. Fine. And so that was a good time. Yeah. On my way back from Amsterdam, my flight got canceled and I had to get put on the next one for the next day. Okay. The EU has very strict passenger protections, and there's a rule called EU 261, where if your flight is delayed at least three hours or is canceled, depending on which one, you're entitled to a certain amount of compensation. Because mine was canceled until the next day, I was actually eligible to receive $700 in compensation. Nice. And my flight was $450, which means I profited in that range.
Deanna Radulescu: That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, that's supposed to get delayed. Nobody wants that, especially when you're planning to come home. But at least that's good to know. And did you have to fight for that, or did they just offer that up?
Rohith Amruther: No. So there's a third-party website called AirHelp. Now, they do take a commission of what what you're entitled to, so I think I got, out of that I got around like $550. The rest was their commission, but they will take care of the whole case for you.
Deanna Radulescu: Awesome, and was it a quick turnaround, or no, how long does it take to turn it around?
Rohith Amruther: No, it took me about 90 days to get it back. Oh wow, okay. But at the end of the day, it's like it's $500 I didn't pay that I was getting extra, so it didn't bother me.
Deanna Radulescu: Awesome. All right. Well, that's good to know. You guys, if you want to learn more, you have to go check out his course. But let's get into some of the points and how that works and how you can help people understand what that looks like, because it sounds like there's a lot of different like tricks and tips that people can use to get to experience a better quality trip. Yes.
Rohith Amruther: So I think with points, People, in my opinion, they'll sign up for the first program they use. They will sign up for the first credit card that they think earns points. And that's fine. That's a good start. But it's important to be strategic about that. So living in Chicago, for example, let's say my first flight out of there was Delta. That's not really the best option because American and United use Chicago as a hub, but not Delta. Right. So, things like that. And some people will go the extra mile and just say, oh, let me then open up a Delta credit card. And that Delta credit card isn't going to get you much in the way of benefits. So, it's important to be very strategic about it. About what Programs you open accounts with and which credit cards you open with and that's something I help with a lot I do want to dispel a myth here is There is no such thing as the best travel credit card because I get that question all the time It's like what is the best travel credit card? There is not one that said there is the best one for you in your situation, right?
Deanna Radulescu: Yeah, right and do you have people that maybe don't have credit with to get have credit cards for points to help them with their travel plans and
Rohith Amruther: Yes, absolutely. So that's part of, I mean, I give a lot of advice in my course, but also with my one-on-one clients, I work with them closely on that.
Deanna Radulescu: Oh, awesome. Okay. Um, well, gee, I could keep asking you questions, but we're like getting over, getting really close on time here. So, uh, I want to plug where people can find you, connect with you and learn more about your course, working with you, if they want to like get you to, I mean, coach or be the client of yours to, and to experience these great travel opportunities, where can they find you?
Rohith Amruther: Yeah, so I'm most active on Instagram. So my Instagram is 1percenttravel.club with just one T. Okay. I post reels all the time with information. I post reviews of my travels and I'm very responsive there. That's probably where you can get the fastest response and the best content. I'm also very active on Facebook. Pretty responsive there as well. And if you want to reach out to me by email, my email is contact at 1percenttravel.club again with just one T.
Deanna Radulescu: Awesome. And then your website, is the course on your website or do they have to contact you directly for that?
Rohith Amruther: It's on my website. So it's 1percentravel.club and it should be, scroll down a little bit and you can see my courses.
Deanna Radulescu: Awesome. You guys, I'm going to put those links in the show notes. So if you are like me and love to travel and experience the world and you're having a hard time putting it together, First thing you do is go check out his course, go purchase it, or reach out to him, shoot him a message, follow him on social, do all the things, and learn how to experience a much better travel experience, having that luxury experience. We all know we love luxury. But yeah, go check him out. This is the part of the show where I like to ask for less words of wisdom or advice. What would you like to leave with us today?
Rohith Amruther: The last thing I will leave here is kind of what drives me to do this. And what drives me to do this is demand to be treated with dignity. I love that. I say that because yeah, it's nice to get that $60 spirit flight, right? Spirit. But let's, let's look at all the inconveniences you have to deal with because of that. Yeah.
Deanna Radulescu: Yeah. And, and after all the fees you pay, you're almost paying for the same price for a regular ticket with American or United.
Rohith Amruther: Exactly. And that's not to say you have to fly business class on every, every flight. I certainly don't. Yeah. But making your experience, make it what you want it to be. And don't, don't think that money has to be a label, a limitation.
Deanna Radulescu: I like that. That was good. Well, I am just so fascinated by your knowledge and what you do. I say I'm a fan. I think it's awesome. So we're going to give you guys Rohit has got a gift for you guys. So if you've been tuned in you haven't left anywhere. He's offering 25% off for us for his services. So it'd be label free 25. It'll be on the screen here or if you're listening, it'll be in the show notes. So don't hesitate to go use that code and empower yourself around your travel. So Rohit, thank you so much. Really appreciate your wisdom and your expertise. And I can't wait to hear from the audience of them using your, signing up for your course and learning from you and all of your incredible knowledge around travel. Thank you so much, Deanna. You are welcome. You guys, this is your host Deanna Radulescu with Label Free Podcast. To live your best life, you must label free. As always, don't forget to subscribe, follow, rate, review, comment, share, all those good things. And I'll be back soon with more dynamic guests.