Oh man guys! I been rocking and rolling with Pokémon Go, it’s bad, the last time I was this obsessed with a game it was when NASCAR team racing came out for the original PlayStation but this week was spectacular! My friend Pete and I hit Ultra Friend status during Pokémon Go’s friendship event last weekend.

What’s so great about Ultra Friends and WHY do you want one? Keep reading to find out!

What you gain:

1) 30,000 XP

2) Medium (0.92x) Stardust discount on Trading

3) Medium (1.07x) Gym and Raid attack bonus

4)+2 Raid capture balls

What you need to do:

I work a full time job AND manage a blog so giving of gifts to my buddies was virtually the only way to boost my friendships level (sorry all I’m a busy gal). In sending a gift once a day though to all of your friends, it will increase your friendship score each day. Here’s a useful tip though passed on to me by a friend though, try to alternate opening gifts each day with your friend. If you see a blue halo around their icon you’ve already gotten interaction credit for the day as pictured here:

As stated above, the blue halo means you received credit for interacting with that friend for the day and you should wait till the next day to open their gift. Please keep in mind it will take you 30 days to get to the Ultra friend level so patience is a virtue. The more friends you get the more you will need to spin Poké Stops to collect gifts —oh and you can only hold 10 gifts at a time so if you have lots of friends you’ll need to spin a lot of stops — but it is the tried and tested method. I feel like I should be obligated to note that Poké Stops are not always forthcoming with gifts so just keep at it and you’ll get to the level you need to be.

Gift giving is the only way to become Ultra friends with your Poké Pals from across the globe, I got friends in England, Switzerland, and Japan respectively. The key to upping our friendship level is by sending gifts cause darn oceans have to ruin everything 😉. Just by being persistent with giving and receiving gifts you will eventually reach the Ultra level and you and your friends will be able to battle remotely across the pond.

Battling remotely really is as good as it sounds but until you get to Ultra Friend level you’ll need to up the ante of your friend score through combat, in person. All you need to do is battle your friends at least once a day. I found that battling once a day effectively reduces the time it takes to become Ultra friends by half, meaning it’ll take you 15 days instead of 30, all the while racking up those prizes and getting in a lot of practice for when you start fighting in the leagues.

The final way to increase your friend level quickly is to join together to battle in gyms and raids. I love these experiences because there’s nothing like bonding with people from different walks of life over your love for a game. If you work together once a day you can get a boost to your friend level with each person you are in a Raid or gym battle with. Of course, they have to be your friends to start with, so use your QR code to become friends before you battle.

It should go without saying that this only works with friends you are close to locally but it has the advantage that it works in bulk. A lot of local towns by me have chat groups on Facebook messenger where we plan things so finding your towns chat group is key. If you’ve got six of your friends in a raid with you then all 6 of you will receive a boost to your friend levels. This means you can work together en masse to reach Ultra friend status and get to battling remotely from the comfort of your couch.

The End Game & My Only Gripe

If you do all three of these things, every day, you can dramatically reduce the time it takes to become Ultra friends in Pokemon Go. In doing two of these activities every day, you reduce the amount of time it takes to become Ultra friends to 15 days. By doing three of them every day, you reduce the amount of time it takes to become Ultra Friends to just 10 days. Now get out there and start making some friends!

That’s a huge time saver that will get your fighting with your friends remotely in no time! My only gripe is the only being able to hold ten gifts at a time, as a woman with 55 friends and not the most giving local Poké Stops it would be nice to be able to carry 30 gifts at a time but alas I’m just the peanut gallery. By the way if you haven’t added me-you need to!

Love you. Mean it.

Brittany

Xoxo