➡ Dr. Steve discusses the issues with the airline industry, including high ticket prices and poor customer service. He introduces Roger Kleckner, an expert on airline operations and the use of airline miles. Roger explains how airlines profit from overcharging customers and how using airline miles can help avoid these costs. He shares his method of accumulating and using points for travel, which has allowed him to fly for free for over 10 years.
➡ Roger, an expert in leveraging points and booking flights, has helped the company save a significant amount of money on travel expenses. He provides advice on how to accumulate points through regular spending and use them for dream trips. Roger also offers a seven-week course that teaches people how to book flights and save money. Despite the initial skepticism, the company has seen substantial savings and now views Roger as an invaluable resource for their travel needs.
➡ The text talks about a website called Miles Mentor that teaches people how to travel better and cheaper by outsmarting airlines. The website offers a course that helps users make the most of their airline miles and travel luxuriously for less. It also has a special page for Turley listeners, helping them fulfill their travel dreams. The author expresses excitement about an upcoming cruise and appreciates Roger from Miles Mentor for his help.

Hey gang, it’s me, Dr. Steve. So, it seems like our airline industry is just facing one, frankly, disgrace after another these days. Just recently, a mom was kicked off a United Airlines flight, for allegedly, I kid you not, misgendering a flight attendant. Jenna Longoria, a dedicated, hard-working widow, who was trying to fly home with her baby and elderly mother, had an unfortunate encounter with a walking DEI billboard who decided they didn’t like her choice of words so she was kicked off the United Airlines flight without her luggage and told she committed a hate crime. The absurdity here seems to know no end, but it goes so much more beyond this.

You may not know this, but we’re actually seeing record profits in the airline industry at the expense of the hard-earned dollars of working Americans. Not only are ticket sales at an all-time high, but there are also nickling and diming flyers at every turn. Now, thankfully, there’s a very real solution to this mess, and it benefits you. Here to discuss both the mess and its ingenious solution is sponsor and Miles Mentor, founder and CEO, Roger Kleckner. Roger specializes in making travel dreams come true, and if you click on that link below, yours will be next. Roger, welcome.

Great to have you here, my friend. Thank you, Dr. Steve. Nice talking to you. I believe it is correct that I’ve had my eye on the airline industry for a long time, and I’ve done about 10,000 hours of research on airlines about how they work and how they make money, how they don’t make money. And so I’ve done pretty well and a better understanding how you can actually travel better and have a higher quality of travel going forward. Yeah, I remember just talking with you a few weeks back, and it was just so interesting when you made this observation.

I mean, you were very forthright with the way you said it. You just really more or less came out and said, look, people have to know the airlines are screwing you. The airlines are screwing you. I don’t remember what your exact words were. This is what I’m remembering, but the airlines are screwing you. I don’t know how much this necessarily has to do with DEI per se, but can you flesh that out for us? Because the way you explained it to me, it was absolutely profound. How does the airline industry take advantage of paying passengers? Well, there’s paying passengers.

And so if you think back with the start of the pandemic, and the pandemic is, you know, the airlines were not nice to people at all because they had a captive market of people. And so they were just going along, and then the pandemic hit, and then they lost all their customers. So overnight, they became sort of a nicer group of people for a few months. But now, as they’re rolling out the pandemic, we had like inflationary times. And so now, people had a lot of pent-up demand, and they wanted to travel. And so the airlines were waiting for them with higher prices.

So they started off by saying it’s like, look, there’s a supply and demand issue because they laid off all their employees. They had less planes flying. And so the people that came back, you know, they had all their travel money that they saved up for a couple of years, and they wanted to travel. So not only did the airlines start overcharging people across the board. It started on the domestic flights, then went to the international flights. So currently, right now, the airlines are making record profit. They have for the last three years that are much higher than their cost of operations.

So in their financials, they’re incredibly high. They’re bragging about how much money they’re making and what they’re doing. And so they’re taken out of the consumers on paid tickets. Dang. So you’ve gone into the whole idea of consumers using their airline miles in such a way where they can actually avoid being scammed out of what they’ve earned. Can you talk about how airline miles fits into all this? Well, a lot of people don’t understand airline miles are really how to use them, because most people are just familiar about paying for tickets when they actually need a flight.

And so with the airline miles, they started off with credit cards to actually get loyalty to a particular airline. So first, all the airlines started to to create their own branded credit cards. And so the goal was to give you some miles up front. So you’d be loyal to that particular airline. The goal of the banks was to get you to to get this initial loan and then you would not you would be loyal to that airline for the next decade. Most people have a credit card of either an airline credit card or like Southwest United Delta or so on.

And they’ve had it for the last decade, but they don’t do an evaluation whether that card is actually working for them. So it’s a combination of airlines wanting to build loyalty because the buildup points primarily you only can use them on that airline. And so but they want you to spend on the credit card to actually do that. So on average for a credit card, the average consumer has to spend $14,000 on their credit card to get a single round trip ticket and economy class on a major airline. Wow. Wow. And if I if I could bring it up, you and I were chatting by recall, you said something akin to like you haven’t paid for a ticket like 10 years or something like that.

Do I do I recall correctly or was that just an angel talking to me? No, that actually is correct. So I was, you know, I am a business person. And so I was the person flying around and it was imperative for me to travel more in comfort so I could land safely. My job was to negotiate contracts. And so I’d normally meet with lawyers. And so they would want to beat you up all the time. So I had to be alert. So I had to find better ways of how to travel. So then I got into the points thing about how to understand about how do you accumulate a lot of points rapidly and then use those points for travel.

The use of points is much more economical than actually using the cash. So because I’ve been using my business, I’ve used my personal spending. I’m not asking people to spend more than they’re there what they normally spend on a per monthly basis. But I have a system for how do you generate points that it’s literally true. I have not paid for an airplane ticket in over 10 years. Now, I know here at Turley Talks, we recently saved tens of thousands of dollars on flights for our upcoming cruise, which is just absolutely amazing. And our very own Turley Talks President Ralph Cochran is here to share how he saved a ton of money on his recent European vacation using this very system of Rogers.

Do you want to chat about that, Ralph? Yeah, absolutely. And the one thing, Roger, you didn’t say, which was very powerful to me, is not only was it just getting free flights, but business class flights, right, where you’re laying down on the plane. And that was something Roger did for me, which was my daughter wants to study abroad in January overseas. And I went there and I kind of knew a little bit about this, but I was like, I didn’t do it right. And I kind of wasted some points in the system and stuff. And then I met Roger in the spring.

And we had to go back and get her. And she’s over in France and flying there. And it can be kind of like cumbersome to find these tickets and how to do it right, because you get really, frankly, screwed over like he’s saying. And so Roger worked with me and one of our team members, Liz and Brandon, to really help us figure out how to get some of these tickets at a really reduced rate. And it was incredible the results we got. And it wasn’t only just the tickets we got, but I was doing the math.

I think there’s three tickets. We got three tickets. And I surprised my daughters when we boarded the plane and like, oh, here’s our seats. And we were all like in business class where, you know, everyone’s laying down. It’s usually the seat you pass by when you go to sit back in the back of the plane. We got the, like, here’s your seats. You’re like, what? Just a look on our faces was awesome. And so we got to fly over to France and back lying down and sleeping and just being very comfortable. Amazing food and all that stuff.

And those tickets easily were $10,000, $15,000 each. So you think about like, you know, $30,000, like, which is, I would never in a million years pay for that. Where it cost me, like, they have little fuel seasons, toothy stuff, but it was like, for all three of us, it was, I think, well under like $1,200 or something like that. $1,500, $5,000 for all three. Yeah, because the fees were only like $200, $300 a piece kind of thing. Roughly, I’ll just say $1,000 to $1,500 tops. I don’t have the exact math in front of me. But yeah, but it was an enormous savings and, you know, breathtaking savings.

And we didn’t even do it perfectly. Roger was like, well, if we would have done this, this would have kind of got a lot lower. I’m like, okay, whatever. So then he gave us these ideas on how to get from France, London, you know, get over there and hotels too. And so now he’s, you know, been very kind to help us. We have about 23 of our employees, you know, well, 23 people from our Totally Talks families, I should say, are going overseas. And he’s helped us get three tickets. We’ve already booked them. And we leave August 1st for Barcelona for this cruise.

And I don’t even, the math on that’s unreal. Like, I mean, I just told you what it was for three tickets. I should probably have had that right here. But I think we are saving $40,000 to $50,000 in flights for our company easily for that. So I’ve got I got they gave me the total. Yeah, it’s it’s $66,000. Okay. Saved. Saved. Roger is my new best friend. Yeah, I like that when it has saved next to it. Yeah. You know, I, I travel, you know, now I travel internationally, like two to three times a year, and I most normally always fly business class.

And so I estimate just for my wife and myself traveling the way we do add up the numbers, we’re saving about $100,000 a year, just for the two of us. And so we have my business partner. And so I got her involved in this whole thing. And so she’s a business flyer. And so she says she saves about $100,000 a year. What’s interesting about that is she’s a person that would actually spend that kind of money. So the money saved. Okay, so like last year, she saved $70,000 and she got all brand new landscaping in her house because that’s real money.

And so the real money is we showed her about accumulating points using our business or our personal spend because normal people spend every single month on expenses about how do you leverage that to get more points to just get the amount of points is going to get the sign up bonuses. And then you can leverage those points to incredible trips that are that are a dream trips to what people want to do. Yeah, that’s a great segue into your your course the miles mentor course, which shows people how to to basically beat the airlines at their own game and and and fly for free.

So what can people expect when they join your course? Well, we first started off that they wanted to get they said Roger, you’re as guru person and I’m no genius. I’m just a guy that basically I’m looking forward to detail about how to do things better within your normal spending that any person can actually do. So if your business, that’s great. If you didn’t independent person, that’s great. But what you do is is that you know you have we we have a course and this course is over seven weeks and you have to dedicate about two hours a week.

And then there’s this little videos that you kind of watch. And then also there’s Q&A periods to answer any questions. So we broke it down into segments. So the first segment is is one that to show you what is possible to book and then the savings you can actually do. They’re kind of give like the end first to say, here’s how much money you can actually save. And and so then you say, okay, let’s take a step back about how you organize your points. How do you know what what credit cards you sign up for is going to give you these points and how to leverage those points to get the flights you really need so you can be successful.

So by the set by the seventh week, we actually have workshops that teach you how to book your flights, both domestically and internationally. We have a lot of people that they have different goals and different travel dreams. We have people that want to, you know, take their grandkids to to, you know, to a national park in California and they want to take 10 members of their family. You know, we have all kinds of people but other people they want to apply business class to go to New Zealand or to Europe for the first time. And it’s about us making dreams come true.

That that that it’s like if you have a travel goal, this course is going to help you achieve that travel goal for like $0. And it’s like it is a fair statement to make that all this five business classes actually has cheaper cheaper than even by an economy class. You know, I know I know you’re all about making dreams come true but you also you drove my wife crazy when I told her about you and Miles mentor. She is from Japan. So she’s flown back and forth from Japan for the last what 3035 years and she just said all the money I’ve spent on those trips and now he’s telling me I don’t have to spend the time.

So she if you meet my wife, she might break out the samurai sword. You just got to walk down. I’m just letting you know. I mean, it’s but it is it’s a it’s a I think what it is it’s a it’s a blessing that that reveals to us. Yeah, how much we were taken advantage of by the airline industries and I think you mentioned something when we chatted that the price of a ticket changes numerous times since from the time it’s actually posted publicly. Was it like over 60 times as I’m trying to Yeah, the airlines have about 500 people to figure out your buying habits.

And so the airlines are about maximizing the profits for them. And so when an airline releases an award, typically on average it changes in price over 62 times before that flight actually departs. So so there are better times to be looking for your flight, whether it’s a paid flight, but also on a word flight as well. That’s all. So it’s like, you know, it’s it’s like a lot of people say, well, let me look a year out when the day that it’s actually released because that’s the best time to buy your ticket. That’s not true at all.

So there’s different times to understand the patterns of who travels or their personal travel or vacation traveler. An example being is after you get through the Christmas holidays in January is the prime time that people start thinking about their summer holidays. They log online, they want to go to Europe, and then they say, wow, it’s like $2,000 bought to fly economy class to go to Europe and back one either I’m not going or two is okay, well, it’s going to get more expenses. So I better shell out the money now. And they don’t realize that you can actually travel for free when you’re getting closer in.

And that’s what we did with you, Ralph. And I don’t know if you know that we’re working on your trips to get back. And just for the small group, I know we saved $10,000 just on your return trip. Yeah, it was very nerve wracking to because I’m like, I got to trust this guy and lo and behold, like they’re switching my flights within two to three days of us leaving and I’m like, okay, and it was like way better. It was crazy. There’s exactly what he said. He knows the formula, the secret sauce of how the whole system works.

Yes, the airlines have certain buying habits and they know exactly when you’re most likely to book a trip. So in early January, the prices are high for your summer travel, because they know that’s when the average consumer that is that is not informed about flight variations, and they’re trying to take advantage of you, and then they just leave. And they don’t know you can cancel your flight and you can rebook your flight. So the best times to book your flight are actually four to six weeks out. If I can add one point to, I’ve been in this point game for a long time, and I thought I knew it pretty well.

I didn’t know anything once I was met Roger. I mean, seriously, like it was shocking to me. I’m like, kind of like your wife Steve, but at least I have kind of made that hateful price for the past few years. But what really came out to me is like, we all need coaches. We all need people to kind of tell us the next step. Like you’re at the gym, you’re lifting if you do it wrong this way. And the coach could point it out, don’t do it. In the moment, you need that person to point out.

And that’s what Roger’s played this role for us for the past few months. And it’s been all the difference, because the confidence and certainty I’ve had in making these persons and then going on this wonderful, wonderful vacation with my daughters. And now I’m like tickled, think about what we’re about to do in a couple weeks, Steve, with this cruise, I think it’s going to be some really precious memories for all of our team. And thanks to Roger, frankly, we couldn’t have needed what it’s going to be if it wasn’t for Roger. Well, we’re here to educate.

And then what you’re just getting exposed to for you and your team is that how do you do this? How do you beat the airlines at their own game? And it’s like, how do you have a better, more sophisticated way to learn how to travel and travel better? So that’s what the course is all about. So the website is milesmentor.com. And we’ve got a special site just for the Turley folks. So it’s, you know, forward slash Turley. And there’s a whole landing page set up just for Turley to say how we could help your listeners travel better, because we know your people want to travel.

Yeah, absolutely. And you’re making those dreams come true. So, gang, this is amazing stuff. And again, we’re the beneficiaries of it here at Turley Talks. The airlines might be out to get every single penny they can out of you. But people like Roger at Miles Mentor are coming in with the details you need to use. Your airline, Miles, stand up to these big guys. So gang, seriously, you can fly luxury for practically nothing and make your travel dreams come true when you join the Miles Mentor course to learn how to beat the airlines at their own game.

Just click on that link below to be one of the smart ones in the flying game. And my wife can then put away her samurai sword, I promise. Roger, thank you so much for being with us, Ralph. You as well. Good to see you. I’ll see you soon anyway. Great. Thank you very much. We’ll see you soon. [tr:trw].

See more of Dr. Steve Turley on their Public Channel and the MPN Dr. Steve Turley channel.