Are we Raising Entitled Humans?!?! (How does Biz class & boujie Hotels affect kids?!)

Travel with Kids Podcast rec!

What happens when your kids fly business class before they can spell it? We tackle the uneasy question head-on: are we raising entitled travelers—or can points-powered perks actually teach humility, gratitude, and grit? Drawing from our own path—from rural road trips and solo backpacking to parenting three kids with a points strategy—we share the mindset shifts that turned “is this too much?” into “how do we frame this well?”

We start by defining entitlement in practical terms: not nice experiences, but the expectation of them. Then we open the curtain on the hidden work that makes “free” travel possible—earning and redeeming points, offsetting annual fees, stalking award space for five seats, and choosing trade-offs. When kids see the effort, they understand the privilege. From there, we focus on modeling over lecturing. The tone we set—thanking staff, marveling at an economy seat’s movie selection, celebrating a sunset from a budget room—shapes how our kids assign value to comfort, people, and place.

Money talk plays a starring role. We walk through real numbers—cash rates, point valuations, taxes—and turn it into simple math for older kids: how many hours at $10 an hour equals a hotel night? That perspective check pairs with a conscious rewrite of scarcity scripts. Instead of “don’t get used to it,” we teach that with planning and responsibility, they can build the life they want—travel or not. We also highlight the quiet wins travel gives kids: resilience through jet lag, flexibility during delays, adventurous palates, and empathy born from noticing what’s different and what’s the same.

To root those lessons deeper, we add service. Local volunteering like meal packing, and one-day opportunities with reputable groups on trips, turn comfort into contribution without savior narratives. By the end, our stance is clear: perks don’t create entitlement—stories do. We choose to tell a story of gratitude, effort, and respect, so luxury becomes a lesson rather than a baseline. If this conversation resonates, follow along, share it with a travel-loving parent, and leave a quick rating and review so more families can find the show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Lately, I've been thinking about something that I don't hear talked about very often in the points and miles world. And that is when you travel with kids on Points and Miles, are we raising entitled travelers or entitled people? So I'm diving into that concept a little bit more in today's episode. So I hope you listen in. Hi, I'm Raya.

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And I'm Dwayne.

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And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five Podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

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We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

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So if you're wanting to travel more with your family, but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

So welcome to our podcast where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.

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SPEAKER_00 1:10

Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Travel Partyify Podcast, where we share all of our fun points and miles experiences traveling around the world with kids. My name is Raya, I am your host, and I am diving into a little bit of a different topic today. But before we get into the meat of today's episode, I wanted to share another podcast that I have been listening to a lot lately. I know that we all are travelers, or I think you are if you're here, or maybe you want to be a traveler. And I love a good travel podcast. So I wanted to give a quick shout out today to the Travel with Kids podcast. The host is Emily Krause, and essentially the Travel with Kids podcast shares family vacation ideas, packing tips, itineraries, and lots of other tips for making travel with kids feel easier, more attainable for the average parent. And Emily also shares like some real behind-the-scenes content that you won't find on her social media, which is also great as a side note. And this is not sponsored in any way, but Emily does sometimes use points and she does a really good job, I think, of using points to make trips more affordable, but not making the whole trip about the points, if that makes sense. Like she is using the points to fit into the trips that she wants to take versus letting the points dictate where they go. She also is really good at finding like affordable accommodations for families with rooms that sleep five or six. I'm pretty sure she's a family of six. So would highly recommend checking out her podcast. I will put a link to it in the show notes if you're curious. I also follow her on Instagram and I really love it. Um, okay, let's dive into today's main topic. And I want to give a little background before we jump into kind of how I arrived at this topic for today's episode, because I was like, okay, when I'm thinking up podcast episode content, I kind of look at what other people are doing. I also look at what we've been up to in the Points in Miles world and like cards we've applied for, maybe new tricks that we've learned. And I was kind of like, okay, like maybe I can do a deep dive episode on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card because I did really just get a ton of value from the two CSRs that Dwayne and I have. And it's saving us like$1,500 on our trip to Thailand next month. So I thought, okay, I could do that. But I was like, that's been done by a lot of other Points in Miles podcasts and everything that I kind of went, I went down the list of possibilities. And I'm like, none of this feels original to me. And then I started thinking about this, this topic, today's topic, which is are we raising entitled humans by letting them travel in business class and staying in these really fancy hotels and all that kind of stuff? Um, and I thought that's something that's actually not talked about a lot, um, especially not in the points and miles world and even in the family travel world. Like it's joked about in a like, haha, like my kids have flown business class more than some adults. Like, yeah. But what is that doing to the kids? And like that's what we're gonna talk about today. And most of this will just be my musings and observations and and theories and thoughts, because I'm not a parenting expert and I'm really not an anything expert. So take it all with a grain of salt. But if you've had this same kind of feeling, then I hope that this maybe gives a slightly different perspective for you. Um, because I know that I have had to kind of change my mindset around it a little bit. So, okay, that being said, I want to give you a little, so that's the background on how I arrived at this topic. But I also want to give you a little background about me and how I grew up because the way that we all grew up is what influences how we see the world today and especially how we parent our own children, I think. And so I grew up in a very, very tiny town in the middle of nowhere of New York State, and we lived on six acres, like it was we lived on a dead end road. It was all all very like rural, okay. I grew up riding four-wheelers in the country and like hiking in the back of our house. And I had a very like solitary upbringing because I do I have a brother and a sister, but my brother is my stepbrother, and we didn't we never actually lived together growing up. Only every other weekend was he at our house. And my sister is 12 years younger than I am, so she was there from the time I was 12 and on, but she was a baby. So I it was a very interesting childhood. And we traveled a bit. We we traveled more than my friends did, but our traveling was like we had we went camping a lot, and that's what you do when you live in the country is you go camping. And we graduated from like tent camping to then a pop-up camper, and then eventually an RV that was very old, like it was an like in a 1970s RV, and this was in the mid-90s, so it was old. Um, and then eventually, like my parents upgraded to a slightly nicer RV, but still an RV nonetheless. So we would drive from New York to Florida pretty much once a year over Christmas. We would go for two weeks, we would split it between Orlando and the Florida Keys, and that was generally our vacation for the year. And then sometimes in the summer, we would also go camping to the Thousand Islands in New York or around there. A couple of other times we like we drove to Texas one time, we went to Nashville. Um, I remember going to the grand old Opry when I was like 16. We drove up to Maine. So it was all road trips. I was never on a plane until I was almost 18. I was 17 years old and I was a senior in high school, and it was for our senior trip, which we went to Walt Disney World, which from the time from a tiny town in New York to fly to Walt Disney World with a class of like 50 seniors as an adult. I'm like, wow, that was a pretty great trip. But that was the first time I ever stepped foot on an airplane, and it wasn't even on a family trip. So I share that with you so that you know that I did not have fancy travel in my childhood whatsoever. And that's gonna come into play later, I as you'll see. The other piece of background that I think is important here for context is that I originally got into points and miles, not so that my kids could see the world. I got into points and miles so that I could see the world because I was a big traveler. Well, I was as big of a traveler as you can be when you're like a broke 25-year-old who didn't know points and miles. So I started traveling solo in my mid-20s. I think San Francisco was my very first solo trip I ever did. And since then, like went went to Europe for a couple months solo and did a few other solo trips. But once we had kids, all of my hopes and dreams about being able to see the world kind of went out the window. And the way that this kind of all fell together is I came back from Europe after three months, and I told Dwayne, Dwayne and I had just started dating, and then I went on a three-month trip. So that was interesting. But we had, you know, we became like friends in that time, which was I think really important for the future of our relationship. And I told him I am going to go to Southeast Asia next. That is my next trip. And that was in September of 2012. And then in May of 2013, I found out that I was pregnant with our oldest. And he was born in December. Um, and if you're doing the math, I was already like eight weeks pregnant before I had any idea. So that was a whole interesting uh time and was clearly very unplanned. So after that, and after he was born, I almost experienced this like mourning for my old life. And I wouldn't say that travel was a specific part of that like mourning period. And don't get me wrong, like I was really excited and happy to be a mom, but there was also just this piece of like missing my old life. And I think that that's something that moms don't talk about enough, especially if it is a pregnancy that you didn't plan for. And so just being honest here, hopefully this resonates with someone and is not too much information. But I really felt this morning, and over, you know, the like the first few years that he was born, I just kind of felt like not myself. And we did travel with him. In fact, his very first trip was to Las Vegas, and he was six weeks old. And you might be thinking that sounds crazy. Um, and it was a little bit, but the the reason that we went was my uncle was there in town and I wanted to go and see him, and I wanted him to meet the baby. And so that was why we drove. We actually drove there on a Saturday and back on a Sunday. So we were only there for one night, and I made sure that we stayed in a smoke-free hotel because I was incredibly terrified about like SIDS and all of that stuff. So, anyways, it all turned out fine, obviously. Um, but we did travel with him during those first few years, but it wasn't the type of travel that made me feel alive, you know, like it was enough to get me by, but it wasn't all of what I was looking for. And I didn't find points and miles until he was like eight or nine. And so finding points in miles and like having the ability to take the trips that I wanted to take, you know, eight, nine, 10 years before. And now having the ability to not only go myself, but to bring my entire family of five with me was life-changing for me as a mom because it gave me back a piece of myself that I had been missing that entire time. And that was a big part of me starting to share content and creating this podcast, is I thought I can't be the only mom that is experiencing this, like this longing to travel and continue seeing the world like I was doing before I had kids. But now I have to find a different way because it's so expensive. Like, oh my gosh, flights alone for five people is thousands of dollars. So that was uh one of the main reasons for me sharing content around family travel using points and miles. And that's the one piece I don't think I've done a great job of communicating to all of you listening, both here on the podcast and also on Instagram. And so that's something I want to try to focus on more because that that is a really big part of my like why, as they say, like why am I doing this, especially when we don't really make any money at it? It's because I want other moms who have that like longing to be able to find this and be like, you can actually take your family on a trip around the world. So, anyways, those are the two things that I think are important for you to know as background context as we jump into this conversation about are we raising entitled humans? Okay, so let's first define what I mean when I say entitlement. And I don't think it means like, oh, your kids have experienced nice things or your kids have flown in business class or they've stayed at these, you know, five-star hotels. I don't think that that is entitlement. I think entitlement is expecting every single trip to be like that, expecting upgrades, complaining when something is less than by their standards, being disappointed by normal things, thinking business classes standard and complaining about economy. And I wouldn't say that I see too much of this in our kids specifically, but I do find myself feeling really frustrated sometimes that they don't seem to appreciate the incredible life that they live and the experiences that they get to have, because as a kid, I would have died to go to Europe or Japan or Thailand or Costa Rica or really anywhere. Okay, like I love travel from such a young age, and so I would have been so excited. So when my kids are not super excited for a trip, which as a side note is most of the time, like they're not thrilled about it, I really struggle because I feel like they're not grateful. And that's why I shared that the piece about my childhood and kind of how I grew up, is because I grew up with parents telling me I should be grateful for all these things. But spoiler alert, I don't really think them telling me made me grateful at all. And in fact, what did make me grateful was uh as I got older, like it didn't happen in the moment. It was as I got older and I started to see how other people lived and how other people's parents parented them. And you know, I think you learn from your parents either what to do or what not to do. And I definitely learned a good mix of both of both of those things from the way that I grew up. But I definitely did develop gratitude for some of the experiences that I had. I just didn't do it until later on in life. And so I try to remember that when I'm when I'm talking to my kids. The other thing that I've noticed is that, and this is again, I'm not a parenting expert, but I do have 12 solid years of parenting experience under my belt at this point. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt that not one time have my kids ever done what I said because I said it, but they have modeled how I did it or how I was when I did it. Meaning they they do, what is the saying? They do what you do, not what you say. And so the one thing that I am always doing, and it's not hard because I am incredibly grateful, is I am always modeling gratitude around these trips that we get to take, the places that we get to stay. I am always in awe, I am always shocked, I am like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing! Like, I can't believe this view, I can't believe this, blah, blah, blah, right? I can't believe we're here, I can't believe we get to do this. And that is not um hard for me to do because I genuinely feel that way. And so my hope is that that is how my kids will end up being, even if I can't see it right now. Another thing that I think is important is a lot of times our kids don't see the work that goes into planning a trip, especially on points and miles, because you gotta earn the points, figure out how to redeem them, plan the whole thing, schedule the activities, blah, blah, blah. And they don't see the annual fees that you pay with credit cards. They don't see the spreadsheets that I have to kind of offset those annual fees, utilizing as many credits as I can. They don't see the late night award searches where I'm trying to grab availability before anybody else does because there's five of us. They don't see the credit card strategy that I'm trying to think through or the mental gymnastics to make five tickets happen on this flight or that flight or whatever. They just get to show up at the airport, they walk down the jet bridge, they sit down in their seat, and to them, it's just what we do. And so I am trying to do a better job of letting them in on the effort that it takes so that they can understand the privilege a little bit more. But at the end of the day, I also have to remind myself that I am doing this for me selfishly, and they are along for the ride. And while I think that they should love it, maybe they'll grow up and not enjoy traveling. Like that is a very valid possibility. And there are a lot of people in the world that just traveling is not a priority. Maybe my kids will see so much of the world by the time they're 18 that they'll be like, nah, I'm I'm good to stay home. And like I can't control that. You know, there's nothing I can do about that. So while they're with me, we're gonna travel. And then beyond that, you know, it's really up to them. Um, I think the other thing I really try to keep in mind for myself is that no matter what or how hard I try, I cannot control their experience. So I can model the gratitude, and I I very much do, and I think Dwayne also does, but I cannot make them love a city, I cannot make them love a food, I cannot make them enjoy a trip, right? Like that is all up to them. And like sometimes they'll be like, oh, my favorite part of the trip was sitting in the hotel room eating Italian takeout and watching my iPad. And okay, cool. That wasn't my favorite part, but I'm glad that you had a favorite part, you know, like whatever, I guess. The other part of me that sees my kids flying in business class and staying in these like luxury hotels is like I almost feel like, gosh, like don't get used to it, you know, because like once you have to start paying for your own stuff, like clearly you're not gonna afford this. But then I have to really like give myself a reality check and be like, why can't they get used to it? Like, why shouldn't they like be able to stay in nice hotels, right? Like, we're not wealthy. So if I can earn points and miles to stay in these places and book these flights, then why can't they do that when they're an adult? So that has been a limiting belief that I have really had to work on is like, oh well, like don't get used to it, but why not? Why shouldn't they get used to it? Right. As long as points and miles are around, this is something that they could do for themselves the same way that we are doing it for our family. And in fact, it'll take less points because it's just one of them. So I also had to like just kind of reframe that belief in my mind. And that is a hundred percent, like I said, my limiting belief that comes it, it comes from a place of scarcity. And I really like I really am working on that specifically to be like, why can't they do this when they grow up? Because they can, and I'll help them and I'll refer them to all the cards and I'll help them get approved, and I'll, you know, they'll be a great P3, P4, P5 at at some point. So and then on the flip side, we have okay, like, yes, our kids have seen lots of countries and whatever. But and we've talked about the the benefits of traveling, you know, with kids too, and like how this benefits them. But like I don't wanna, I don't want to do a whole episode around like, are they becoming entitled, right? By it like experiencing all these things without addressing the like the positive side of what they're experiencing from the travel, which is, you know, they're like seeing how other people live and seeing that it's different from the way that we live. And different doesn't mean bad, you know. Um, they're managing long layovers and adjusting to different time zones and pushing through when we feel tired, right? That equates to like not giving up when something is a little bit hard. Um, they try new foods all the time. They're actually very adventurous when it comes to that. And it's not because I've said to them, like, you need to try this, you need to be adventurous. It's just because they have a lot of opportunity in front of them to try new things. And they have learned through trial and error that when they try new things, sometimes they find things that they like. And so I think that's just, you know, one positive thing that comes from exposing them to these new environments and these new places and new people and new foods is sometimes you find things that you like, sometimes you find things that you don't like. You know, sometimes we'll be driving and or maybe on a train or something, and I'll say, look out the window, like what what looks different to you here versus at home? Like, what do you see that's different? What do you see that's the same? And just try to kind of I I want them to ha develop a mindset that the world is a safe place. Most people are good. And just because someone does something differently than you doesn't mean that it's wrong or bad or anything like that. So um something else that we have started doing a little bit more intentionally to try to, I guess, help them to understand what we're doing is we to we talk about money in our house. And I talk about money pretty frequently, actually, because I'm a woman in tech sales, and I learned very early on from a mentor that you have to talk about money with your coworkers because that's how you know if you're getting screwed. And so I am very comfortable talking about money. Um, and like sometimes in a way that makes other people uncomfortable. So that's kind of awkward. But we talk about money in our house, and while our kids are always like, How much money do you make? We don't tell them that. Not because I don't want them to know, but I more don't want them to go to school and like use that as leverage or like bragging rights or or um like not bragging rights, I guess, depending on who they're talking to. So we don't we don't talk about that. But I do say, like, hey, if we paid cash, this hotel would cost$700 a night. Um, or like, hey, like I this is what I paid for these flights, right? These are these were the taxes because I use these points, but like I could have cashed these points out for this amount of money, right? Or if I would have paid cash for the flights, it would have cost this amount. So we're always talking about how there is a trade-off, right? And we are choosing to use some of our points and money for travel. Um, but I'm also like I'm talking to my my 12-year-old now about retirement and how I have a goal to contribute an extra, you know, amount to our retirement this year. And I just am talking about all these things because I want it to be normal. I want to normalize it for them. And so we do say, like, hey, oh, this hotel is only$200 a night. Like, that's a better deal than this hotel over here, which is$400 a night, and they're in the same area and blah, blah, blah. So we'll stay in the cheaper one because that makes more financial sense. Um, I also will sometimes say to my older two, okay, well, if it costs$200 a night and you're making$10 an hour, how many hours would you have to work to earn that money? And so I just try to put it in like perspective for them of like, oh, I'd have to work, you know, 20 hours to pay for one night. Like, wow, like that's a lot of time, actually. I think it's it's maybe the question is not like, are we raising entitled humans? But more like, are we modeling humility and gratitude for these humans that we're raising? Right. Because I don't think that kids become entitled because they experience nice things. I think they become entitled when they believe that they deserve those things without any sort of gratitude or even any work on their part, right? Like, so I think it's it's not so much the type of travel, but it's like how you view it to them as a parent and how you portray it to them. So if you are mad about flying economy, then they're gonna be like, oh, this sucks, you know? But if you're like, wow, like, you know, we're gonna be on this flight for nine hours and look at the amazing like in-flight entertainment you have, like, look at all the games, look at all the movies, like this is great, then that's how your kids are gonna see it too. So I think as parents, we are in an incredibly powerful position because we get to frame and shape the experience that our kids have. And sometimes I even think it's worth like fudging the truth a little bit. Like sometimes I'll tell my kids, like, wow, you guys are so well behaved, even if they're not. And I don't mean like they're, you know, clearly misbehaving and throwing things and all of that, but like I want them to feel like they're good kids because I think that that deep belief in in themselves goes a long way, especially as they get older, of like guiding how they act out in the world, right? And if it's like if if I see myself as a good kid, then all of my actions are gonna like kind of reflect that as I get older. And so that is, I think, another key thing that I have learned as a parent. And like this is a uh, I wish that Duane were here for this piece because we have this like discussion all the time when we get invited to birthday parties. Okay. So sometimes if it's a kid we don't know very well, or if our kid is like, oh, I don't really know like what they would like, we'll give them some money in a card. And I think that if you are between the ages of five and 10, I think that$10 is plenty of money to give you. Okay. But Dwayne thinks that we should be giving$20. And I am like, for a seven-year-old,$20 is a lot of money.$10 is a lot of money. So I'm like, you need to stop like putting it in our kids' heads that like$10 isn't a lot of money because when you're seven or eight, it is a lot of money. You can buy a good amount of things for that. And I'm like, it's all in how we portray it to them. Like we are shaping their world right now. And it won't always be that way. But for now, like, if we want them to be grateful for$10, we have to be like, wow, you got$10. That's amazing. Like, you can do so much with$10, right? But if they get$10 and we're like, oh gosh, that's not really that much money. Of course they're not going to be grateful for it. Of course they're gonna be like, oh,$10, that's it. And could you imagine? Could you imagine if your kid said that to someone, I would wither away and die of embarrassment. So I think that is, as I'm processing out loud here and appreciate you all for listening to my my therapy session. I think that that is probably my biggest takeaway is just continuing to model for our kids like gratitude and humility, and you know, obviously kindness and patience and all of that when we're staying at these properties and on planes and like don't be rude. Um, but I think that that is probably the the biggest key, I think, in making sure that you are not raising an entitled human. So to sum up and to wrap up, I think ultimately, like the answer to are we raising entitled humans, there's there's really no clear-cut answer because it comes down to us, right? Yes, our kids are experiencing a lot of things that even many adults haven't, but also that many adults don't really want to or are not prioritizing. Um, but yes, that does come with responsibility, but I don't think that like, well, at least for us, like not traveling is not the answer. I don't think shrinking their world down or avoiding nice things is the answer. I just think what what I said before is it comes back to us as the parents, modeling it out loud, saying this is special, not everyone gets this opportunity, we're so lucky. Um, and talking about how we got there and all the steps that it took, because it does take work. And I also think it's letting them know that we as their parents prioritize travel. And because we prioritize it, we are we want to put in the work to make it happen. But if if we didn't prioritize travel or whatever, like then we would put this time and work into something else, and that would be okay too. So I think it's just showing them like it's okay to like put time and effort into what you want to get out of life. And it doesn't have to be travel, it could be anything, but I really think it's more of like a metaphor rather than anything. So I think modeling humility and gratitude, inviting them into the how and the why we got there. How did we earn these points? What did we buy? Like, what is the value of the points? That sort of thing as they get older. It can be like fun math. Um, and that way they're just a little more aware, right? Of like how how we got there and how we're paying for it. Um, and then I do think I just want to add one more thing. Um, volunteering is something that has been on my radar for a long time. And I just I've have felt like our our younger two were not old enough yet. But I yesterday finally scheduled us to volunteer at a local uh charity called Feed My Starving Children. And it is local to us. I've done it a couple of times before with like work groups and um whatever. And so I finally signed us up as a family to volunteer at this organization. And essentially you fill like food bags for um underprivileged communities, and they show you a whole video in the beginning, and then you go into the back room and you every person has a job, and you're basically building these like food bags with like rice and I forget what else is in them. Um and so our daughter is still a little bit too young. But I I scheduled the four of us, so my Dwayne, myself, and the two boys, um, for a weekend in May. And I know, I know it's February, but that was the first weekend I could find where they had availability on a Saturday that didn't conflict with our soccer schedule. So I have us booked in the beginning of May to do this as a family. And I'm really hoping that volunteering on a semi-consistent basis can also help to instill a bit of gratitude into our kids. And so that's what I'm hoping for. And if anyone has any recommendations for maybe volunteering opportunities that they have done in other countries, I would love for you to send it to me because that's something that we would be interested in as well. I'm not talking about like mission trips or anything because that's a whole different ballpark, I think. But like spending a day volunteering with a certain organization in another country that we we happen to be visiting, that is something I would be very open to. So if you have any information on that or maybe you've had a good experience with that, I would love for you to send that to me on Instagram because I would like to start incorporating some of that into maybe one of one or two of our trips in the next year. So, anyways, okay, I think I have prattled on enough. If you have any questions or feedback or anything like that, would love it if you would send me a message on Instagram at travelparty of five. If you like this podcast and have not already done so, please leave a rating and review on um Spotify or iTunes or wherever it is you listen. And one more shout out for the Travel with Kids podcast. I do really enjoy listening to that and would highly recommend if you are in the market for another travel family podcast. Thank you guys and catch you on the next one. Bye.