Fly First Class For Free with These Travel Hacks with The Points Guy

when your miles expire that's pure cash in the airline's pocket those who aren't getting their rewards basically throwing money in the trash can CEO and founder of the Points Guy Brian Kelly here to help us get a little bit more bang for our travel bucks the Points Guy Ryan Kelly there are so many credit cards out there how do you choose the right one everyone wants free travel so the best in my opinion is I'm Erica kolberg and you're listening to the Erica taught me podcast so Brian the first thing I wanted to ask you is what do you think are the biggest misconceptions around points and travel hacking and credit cards I think the biggest misconception about points is that you need to be a frequent traveler in order to take advantage of all these amazing perks and it's simply not true these days like the best way to get value out of points is through your credit card maximizing your everyday spending and there are so many bonuses out there where you can go from zero to a hundred in almost no time by just like choosing the right credit card bonuses where you put your spend anyone can do it we've got college kids who are flying first class to study abroad yeah if you were to describe someone who has no idea what travel hacking or using points means what do you say so high level Airline frequent flyer programs were created as a tool to get people to fly more not to go too much into detail but the airlines used to be regulated by the government when the government allowed them to compete they thought well we need to start how do we get the best customers to fly on our Airline so when they first started they really were about those business Travelers frequent Travelers but what they've morphed into over the last 30 years 40 years is incredible it's arguably frequent flyer miles and points are the most effective marketing tool that's ever been created so the airlines now many airlines will now sell more frequent flyer miles to credit card companies than and they make more money on that there's a higher margin than they do actually flying planes because everyone wants free travel right everyone wants to stick it to Airlines and credit card companies so the credit card companies have made a huge business out of getting tons and tons of new card holders by offering these frequent flyer miles now where does the consumer stand in all of this in the middle right so the consumers and at the Points Guy what we try to do is say well the airlines are making a boatload credit card companies make billions you know every single time you swipe your card that Merchant is paying a fortune in to have their credit card you know processed the consumer can win by getting the most amount back in rewards and it simply put if you're watching this and you're not earning points on every dollar you spend you are financing my points because the whole system especially in the US you know the the cost of running a credit card transaction is built in whether you go to sex or you know maybe there's a couple gas stations that'll give you a cash discount but in general like the cost of doing you know buying things on credit cards is built in so those who aren't getting their rewards are basically throwing money in the trash can yeah what do you say there are a lot of people who grow up thinking credit is bad don't use credit cards they've been told by their parents for whatever reason not to use credit cards because it leads to credit card debt what do you say to those people I can speak from experience because in college I was stupid I got a credit card the University of Pittsburgh MBNA card I think I got an umbrella in the quad they gave me like like a 2500 credit line I was an idiot and spent it and then they kept raising it so all of a sudden I was six thousand dollars in credit card debt it's like quicksand and it is it's crazy if you run balances you will lose at this game 100 so if you are an immense credit card debt your number one goal should be getting out of debt like I always say my debt-free journey was the best trip I've ever taken right because that minute that you can un you know get out of debt and into a place where you can pay your bills in full every month it's from that point that you can start really winning at the points game because the credit travel credit cards if you're paying monthly balances if you're paying interest on those you're negating the value of any of those points so to win at the points game you must be you know smart about how you pay your bills off in full that being said a lot of people who make great salaries still have that mindset of let me just pay cash and I see it all the time I know a billionaire friend of mine was using a debit card up until I met him and you know he was just like oh Simplicity and there's a peace of mind knowing that I don't owe anyone anything but the perverse aspect of credit in the United States is if you're not building credit and spending every month and keeping your balances down your score is not going to go up and you should think about your credit score as one of your most important assets and you know FICO listed on their website you know half of your FICO score is paying your bills on time and keeping your debt to credit ratio low paying them off in full your score will go up so for people who don't want to pay attention to credit or play by the rules you're really doing yourself a disservice not just from foregoing valuable points but also by foregoing a strong credit score which will unlock cheaper mortgage rates and so many other things in our society so if you can pay your bills off in full every month there's no reason in the world that you should not be putting your expenses on credit cards reaping the rewards and then paying them off in full each month to avoid any interest yeah so me through I am a college student I've decided that I will be responsible with my credit I want to eventually let's say go on a Dream First Class vacation to the Maldives on points what are my steps what's the time Horizon also if you have no real credit history so one of the tips that a lot of my younger friends do is that you can actually get an authorized user card on your parents credit card if they have good credit and the way you know depending on the credit card company but all of a sudden you may inherit their amazing credit score so what I recommend if you have the privilege of doing that that's a great first way to give your credit history a little bit of cred and then once you have that you can get you know in college I would recommend get a Chase Sapphire card because my dad once told me cheap is expensive and it that goes for credit cards the no fee cards are not the best cards for a lot of different reasons but the easiest to see is just sign up bonuses you know the credit card sign up bonuses the banks lose money on you for you years because they want to get you in as a customer that's why they offer these huge sign up bonuses so if you have you know I would say 680 or higher FICO score you probably can qualify for your own Sapphire card if not if they decline you which is totally normal I would recommend you can always go for a Discover card they have discovers very all of their cards are no fee it's a lower credit profile get a Discover card or even a Chase Freedom Chase Freedom in General Freedom unlimited is a really solid card because what happens with the chase ecosystem is as your score goes up you can get their Sapphire cards which then unlock your rewards for that Maldives strip freedom in itself is a cash back card but if you then get a Sapphire card you can then take transfer those cash back points into the airline Partners which is where you get mega value back which we'll get into I'm sure today yeah but if you can't even get a normal credit card say you've had some blemishes it's okay you can get a secured credit card or actually a lot of immigrants you know you can be a billionaire in London and move to United States and have the credit score of a 16 year old which is so crazy there is a company called Nova credit it's the first ever International credit score for like 25 different countries from India to Singapore to Hong Kong if you move to the U.S they're now integrated with Amex where they will pull your International credit uh so you can get approved for U.S credit card which I think is super Innovative um but say say you can't do that get a secured credit card put 250 or they'll make you put 500 down as collateral which you basically draw against your own collateral which means it's very little risk for but the credit card companies if you pay your bill each month on time it's pretty quick how you know your score will start to shoot up and uh they'll give you your own credit so once you graduate from a secured credit card prove to yourself that you can pay your bill bill off then you can graduate you know there's always ways to check your FICO score for free there are a lot of fake o scores out there the fake credit scores which you know a lot about what you really want to pay attention to is your FICO score so every couple months check that once your FICO score gets up in the 700 range the gates are open you can pretty much get most of the juicy travel credit cards and there are tons of them out there I'm curious are credit card companies still making money off of people like you who know the systems know the ins and outs the outs or are they more so making money off the people who let's say do carry balances do you open the credit cards and then eventually carry the balances yeah so customers like myself and and yourself were prime or super Prime customers meaning we don't carry big balances and we pay our bills off in full every month now the credit card companies still make money on us because there's a lot of ways credit card companies make money you know the annual fee they charge you plus the interest and a lot of people unfortunately in America do carry balances and pay Hefty Hefty fees and then but the big thing is the merchant transaction so that's why even someone like me I've never I haven't paid interest in over a decade they're still making money on every transaction that I do now they lose money on me for example my city Prestige card which is no longer publicly available but I have and it's five points per dollar on dining and I do lots of dining yeah so when you think about it and I can transfer those City points to airlines that cities paying over one cent per point and you know for me to do that so I'm getting five percent back on a transaction that they're probably getting three three percent on from the merchant so in that specific category City he's losing but they make it up you know if I use my card in other categories that's one point per dollar then they make up for it so in general I don't want anyone here to ever feel sorry for the credit card companies they are making plenty of money they're publicly traded companies you can see for yourself so don't feel bad and don't feel bad I mean not that I don't think anyone's gonna feel bad about getting value back from the airlines some people will say well you know if you're encouraging everyone to redeem for first class the airlines are losing money it's just not how it works fundamentally the airlines decide what tickets go are eligible for frequent flyer mile tickets yeah so yes while at the Points Guy we try to educate people on the highest value redemptions at the end of the day the airlines are deciding which seats to open up and in general it's unsold inventory those seats would have went out empty so even if you're redeeming 80 000 points that you transferred from your credit card the airline's still getting revenue from that so it's they'd rather get frequent flyer Revenue than uh empty seats so don't feel bad about anyone you know everyone's making money it's like my mission to make sure consumers is in this part of the triangle the consumers are getting their value back yeah you've been in the space for so long now this points game how have you seen the industry change over time yeah it's interesting so I actually got into points in 1995 I was 12 years old my dad traveled and he came I was always a computer wiz in our house like in the early 90s I was like a prodigy AOL kid and my dad was like you're so technically Savvy if you can these miles are so confusing and I'm one of four kids we grew up middle class family outside of Philadelphia and he's like if you can figure out how to use these points you know we can go and he was thinking Orlando or you know maybe Phoenix precocious me was like that's boring I want to go somewhere cool so I just read the firm by John Grisham and they went to the Cayman Islands which sounded so amazing so back in 95 there were no online Redemption websites or apps or tools so I called up the airline and this is still one of the tips I used today day is being nice gets you so so so far so I was really nice to Sheila U.S Airways and I pretended to be my dad speaking in a deeper voice and she lit up because I think you know Airline agents get screamed at all day long yeah and I was so nice to her we chatted I learned about her kid and she helped figure out how to get our family of six using his U.S Airways miles to the Cayman Islands and I booked the trip that day I didn't even ask my parents I didn't even know where the Cayman Islands were and when I told them we were going to Grand Cayman my dad legitimately thought for like two weeks we were going to the Grand Canyon and then when he saw GCM what's this airport code and you know so my first trip was in the 90s and points back then were very much like you just had to call hope for the best you know as we look forward to today I mean there's still an element of that where you can ask nicely for Airlines to open up award inventory space especially if you're an elite traveler but certainly the technology has changed so to get back to your question of how these programs have evolved they're still based on uh it's less based on travel you know they're not frequent flyer programs or frequent buyer programs now if you have the right credit cards and you're spend ending and especially for small businesses like I earned most of my points today still because the points go we do all of our online advertising so like Amex business gold gives four x points for Google ads Facebook ads Etc so having multiple cards and the ink card and so this whole small business side of things is really lucrative route and you know for people listening you don't need to have a hundred person small business you can be a sole proprietor with an Etsy shop and then open up the whole world of business credit cards and they're huge bonuses and categories what are your favorite business credit cards I mean Amex business gold is a they give you 4X on your top two categories and then they do it for you which I really like some credit cards make you know just have fixed bonus categories so you kind of have to do the math Chase Inc is been a no-brainer for years you know all the different bonus categories so those are like the top two business cards we use and plus those are or the AmEx card is a charge card so when we spend sometimes fifty thousand in a week it's nice to have that spend capability but when I sold the Points Guy years ago part of the deal was you still need to let me put all of my expenses on my credit cards not a not a corporate card that you know wouldn't earn points because I'm like this is and still it's the number one way we don't we don't take free flights from Airlines and hotels in general at the point very few circumstances we generate all of these points through our advertising spend and then use that for our editorial team to do reviews got it you know what I find so interesting is the business side of things so you started the Points Guy in 2010 yeah and you sold it in 2012 2012 so just two years later and when you started in 2010 you were saying you didn't know what affiliate marketing is so for people who don't understand what affiliate marketing is can you kind of explain yeah yeah so when I started the Points Guy in 22. so the original Points Guy business model was not a Blog even it actually started in April of 2010 and it I what I wanted to do was use my expertise booking airline miles and then just do a side hustle so I was working at Morgan Stanley I was running technology campus recruiting so I was in HR not making a lot of money and I was like you know and during the recession I got promoted but they'd be like your bonus this year is not getting laid off come back again next year and I had a great experience at Morgan Stanley I'm not putting it down but it was really tough to be back office during the recession yeah I would plan all of my friends trips and points and to me it's like doing a crossword puzzle so I was doing it for free helping people plan these amazing trips and my ex was like Brian you do this so well and you love it you should create a business out of it so the points guy was just a form website where you could enter in your information it would email me I'd see if I could help you I'm like oh yeah this this is reasonable I have you know a million Amex points and I want two people to Paris next summer so I would use all these tools extra flyer my institutional knowledge the idea of blogging was to get more people from the internet to my award-booking business yeah but my dad said to me smartly is like how are you going to scale this you can't you know and he's like you need to find a way to make money in your sleep and I'm like duh dad like who doesn't like great advice but it was great advice but I never thought like that you know people advertisers like Amex would want to work with a blogger right it's 2010 that was still very nascent but in early 2011 a friend from college was like you have to meet with me I work for at the time it was called link share which is now Rakuten like one of the largest affiliate networks he said Brian you're blogging every single day about Amex and Chase and this card and that card he's like you're linking directly to their websites he's like what if I told you that if you just use one of our links we will track all the traffic you send and then pay you we don't pay you per click you know you've got to get approvals you know and to get a prime credit card approval it's very difficult yeah but I was joke I was blogging on a gold mine because all of my readers were Consultants bankers and lawyers in New York LA and Chicago like you know the consultants and to this day they're still my like those are my people right they're on the road every week and when you're spending and giving your life to your company like getting those loyalty points is like it is a bonus like that's how you you justify not being home for all those family events and not having a dating life because you're away Monday through Thursday so anyway I got into affiliate marketing and he said you don't change anything he's like just keep writing but where you put united explorer card use this link and I remember the first day I didn't even hyperlink it correctly I think I put the hyperlink as text instead of like and he called me up he's like you're making me look so bad he's like I got you approved into this affiliate program and you're going to get me fired quickly it became like the first month I think I earned five thousand dollars and that was like nearly what my salary was and I'm like this is you know I had 25 000 unique monthlies at the time but I quickly learned like more content serviceable content around the credit cards the more clicks I would get it natural right the more you write about something and it really was April of 2011 the New York Times one tip I give to entrepreneurs always go through your spam inbox because I was going through my spam inbox in April or March of 2011 and the New York Times had written to me and it was Seth kugel who was The Frugal traveler columnist who was huge in travel at the time and he said I've been hearing all about this points guys stuff but like for Budget Travelers I tell my readers not to use points just book the cheapest flight so I was like oh nobody I met up with them in New York at a bar for three hours like changed his whole view he booked a free flight to Brazil his girlfriend was from Brazil and he's like I wasn't going to be able to see her this quarter because I didn't have the money but I used like he was over the moon and to this day like that's the joy of doing what I do like when I can help people unlock yeah with what they're sitting on already so the New York Times wrote about the Points Guy and unbeknownst to me that link back increased my SEO dramatically and then the site traffic tripled and you know the affiliate marketing money I remember that day just thinking I had thousands of clicks instead of hundreds of clicks on credit card links it was like 25 000. and I think that was a day that I made six figures in one day in 2011. so I actually quit my job at Morgan Stanley I remember doing that I still stayed until June because my mom so I quit in April but I stayed on through June because my mom was like more because she's like this is too good to be true right like yeah being the cutest Mom that she could be but luckily no the revenue you know the affiliate Revenue kicked in and then I just I was like well the more content I write the more money I make so but it was definitely a little challenging being the Points Guy bringing on different writers you know and then in the spring of 2012 a friend was like you need to meet the CEO of Bankrate and bank rate at the time was the website like if you Googled anything like savings home mortgage rates Etc bank rate was the personal finance site pre-nerd wallet and they own credit cards.com and a bunch of other tiny credit card websites and I had you know I was a blogger with the year of Revenue and I was like there's no way a publicly trade a company is going to want to want to buy a Blog of a 28 year old but they did they saw the potential of like let's have this kind of luxury travel tuck in and so in May of 2012 I sold the site and a decade later I'm still here and it's been a wild ride and I always joke that they're gonna have to pry me out of the first class seat uh to get me to stop doing this as an entrepreneur what are some things that you feel like didn't come naturally to you and you had to learn it or train I definitely think management was a big thing for me I'm just not that's not my skill in life and I think I kind of burn out right before the pandemic I think I was trying to prove toward Red Ventures that I was still had it in me to run this business and be the face of the company it's like you can't be in front of the camera and behind the camera doing it all it's just never gonna work so over the pandemic I realized I'm not me being managing there's so many other smart people managers like I just don't enjoy being in HR meetings you know and doing but employee development is very important for those employees so I realized so luckily Red Ventures and why I'm still here at the company is I don't manage anyone now I'm like our key spokesperson doing things like this bringing our you know my knowledge and the knowledge of the company to Millions more people that's really what I love doing so it's kind of cool and I would say to entrepreneurs who are looking at selling a company is really look at your bed partner talk to other are people who have sold companies to them because I know so many companies my friends have sold the companies that will you know ask things like what is my expense report going to be like do what what is my authority to sign off on expenses I knew someone who sold the business and to a PE company and he had anything over a hundred dollars he had to get approved by someone in a different office right oh my goodness and you know so luckily my partners that I've sold to have seen the you know we need to travel we need to and like I said we don't take freebies from the airlines because I think our reviews are more trustworthy when they're not necessarily paid for by the Airlines and the hotel companies now my role I'm so much happier like the weight has been lifted off my shoulder and I think my employees are the same like we love you but like probably you managing everyone and you know was not the best fit so I think that's been the biggest learning experience for me but opening up and being vulnerable being like I don't need to be the boss of everyone and everything at every point and now it's just so fulfilling for me to see all these teams you know growing and pushing our content in ways that I never thought that we would yeah and burnout's very funny because a lot of entrepreneurs experience this burnout and unfortunately a lot of them don't realize the warning signs in time to implement changes in order to help them continue to to work at the company a lot of them only realize that wow I'm really burnt out when they're just done they want no involvement whatsoever the biggest gift I think that ever was given to me was at Red Ventures we had a leadership coach that coaches our CEO and he kind of loaned her to me for a couple months and she because I would always assume hey the business you know numbers wise were Kang Buster you know we're on you know getting booked on all these TV shows readers love us and you know I'm getting this one-way feedback of people like tpg you're a God everything's great we love you you know the site we're doing these big deals so that was my main source of feedback so in my head I'm like oh everything's fine yeah I know I'm like a tough boss and right but the getting an executive leadership coach who independently went in and we also had like you know you run reviews and my employees but like employees aren't always feeling comfortable through official company channels to give you the feedback that you actually need so I was living in a Vortex for a long time not you know looking at the burnout signals that were happening around me but having an independent leadership coach come in and she met you know confidentially with people and then I got the report and it was like a big you know shock to me but it was like in the end she's like this will be the biggest gift you get like this is going to be hard to swallow you know no one hates you but and it was like Wow but it allowed me to like push my you know and change the way I work and focus on the things that I'm actually good at yeah which is why now I'm not burnt out and I'm as excited as ever to stay and you know continue to innovate so I remember reading something a headline maybe in the past year about one of the airlines going after you is that right indeed you know we always knew creating an app that gives consumers more power into their points and one of the things that I love about our app is if your miles are going to expire we will push alert you and as I'm pro-consumer at the end of the day I feel like consumers are my boss so we created features like that because I don't want a single mile to go expired I want to empower people to do something very simple like shop online and you can reset that expiration but we knew that might wrinkle some feather the airlines make a lot of money not every Airline a lot of airlines have no expiration policies but when your miles expire that's pure cash in the airline's pocket they win you lose American Airlines for example does expire their members miles and so they unfortunately decided to cease and desist us they didn't you know they came up with a lot of different reasons why the tpg app was bad at the end of the day we don't track anyone's miles if the consumer says Hey tpg we've read your security we take security very seriously I want to allow you to track my balances and like inform me so if consumers do that that's how you know we're not scraping people's accounts we're not doing anything that the consumer doesn't want fundamentally we believe the consumer just like you have the right to track your 401k and your monthly spending and apps like mint right because it makes you a smarter person when you have more total vision into your finances I believe that's the same with loyalty when people don't have to check 100 web websites when you can see them one spot this is my net worth and points and let's put all of these different points so I can go to Bora Bora for free I think the consumer wins there there have been lawsuits back and forth we're currently still you know technically in the legal process I will say like I think both sides at the points we don't want to like waste our time and money on lawsuits and these lawsuits can get extremely expensive very quickly so I'm very optimistic that it will be resolved I think you know it's just different mindsets I think American has a more old-school mindset of like the consumer and their data I'm pretty confident we'll be able to resolve it but I knew we'd ruffle some feathers but having the world's largest airline sue you with something if you would have asked me five years ago probably wouldn't have been on my roadmap but you know I still would like to say though even though on the app side we still work with American Airlines we you know it is important to our readers so I don't involve our editorial team in the lawsuit for example we do have it separate and I do think for our credibility you know you're not going to just see a taken off the Points Guy I'm confident we'll be able to come to a resolution that's so interesting it actually is such a big problem of expiring points I can't tell you how many people have messaged me saying oh points are expiring so I actually have two fine print hacks and then you can tell me if you have any more to add to this so one and obviously as a disclaimer this doesn't apply to all Airlines all situations but one I made a video on this is that if your points are expiring you can go ahead and buy a flight and then every flight has a 24-hour cancellation policy so then within those 24 hours go ahead and cancel the flight and then for some Airlines your points will then reset as if you've you've purchased the flight so then they reset for another year or whatever and then another one my dad actually used to do this it's I forget which airline it is but you can actually donate your miles so if you donate a thousand miles to one of the charity organizations they've partnered with that also shows that you've used your miles then it resets and extends it absolutely those are great hacks that most programs that will work you just need some activity in your account another one and just a general tip if you're listening if you shop online repeat after me never never never never never never never go directly to a Retailer's website because there's uh cash back portals but also Airline mileage portals for example advantagehopping.com is American Airlines and you can buy a five dollar item from a retailer and it'll take a week or two for those points to go into your advantage account but you earn points directly into your loyalty account plus the credit card points from using a credit card it's like a double dipping opportunity so versus going into a store where you're just going to earn those credit card points shopping through an online shopping portal and that activity will 100 reset the activate you know the clock but yeah they're easy things you can do you don't have to fly to keep your miles active it's a lot harder to get them back once they expire the airlines will try to charge you always keep an eye on your expirations so luckily Delta Unite United and Alaska have gotten rid of expiration dates on their miles but some programs there's nuances so is it hard being expected to be an encyclopedia for all things point when things are kind of changing too it is you know I the industry changes every day you know mergers and program changes and it is so I mean on one hand it's like job security for us we always have things to write about and that's why I think with our app like continuing to build and having personalized information because at the point that we write 30 articles a day but we're moving towards a like a feed of the most relevant things to you so if you're a jet blue flyer or if you tell us you want to go to Bali and if there's Bali flight deals I want to I want to create a more personal relationship with our readers to get more you know contextual relevant content I think that's a big thing on our roadmap to do to sift through there's so much noise and what do I actually need to know yeah what is the Redemption that you are most proud of okay well I will say this the best use of points that I've ever used has been to help save people's lives specifically if you donate points to Rainbow railroad it's an amazing organization I've been working with for years they help LGBT Q Plus people around the world who are living in countries where it's illegal you know they're at risk of jail or death and so we donate points I personally donate quite a bit of points to Rainbow Railroad and we I met so in chechnya there are gay concentration camps where they're trying to eradicate the gay Scourge I read about it in the New York Times it was like this I put my head in the sand I'm like this can't be real but luckily rainbow railroad we actually have safe houses in Russia and then we use points Aeroplan points you can donate Amex to Aeroplan and some other airlines we're working with to get more miles but and then we get fly them to countries like Canada and Argentina and we declare Asylum so I met some of the Chechen refugees in Toronto that we helped save and to look someone in the eyes and when he said to me Brian when the plane was taking off from the small airport in Russia and I knew I was on my way to freedom and I'd be able to live a free life he's like all I want to do is go to concerts like everyone else and knowing my frequent flyer miles it's like roughly 75 000 points can help save a life to me there's no better Redemption of points out there and there's certainly there are tons of different charities that you can donate points to so I always like to say giving to others you know make a wish is another one we work a lot with I think 70 percent of wish kids wishes include travel so donating your points to them is amazing and I've been on wish trips and spoken to their and to see young kids get to experience these life-changing moments that's I think where the real magic is if you ask me just like personally I love flying Emirates when it comes to I always say like the Golden Age of travel is now if you actually fly the right Airlines so Emirates is a Transfer Partner of Amex Chase built uh Capital One and it's like 136 250 miles one way and uh last year I flew Dubai JFK on their brand new triple seven in their game changing suite and that's floor-to-ceiling doors that Emirates first class experience even on the A380 where you get to take a shower at forty thousand feet is just out of this world so I love redeeming for Emirates because and also when you walk on an Emirates plane it's like the United Nations you never know your flight attendants are going to be from Uganda and I or Egypt and it's just so to me that is like The Inspired way of flying yes it's a little over the top and some people say the gold bling Bling's gaudy but like I just think Emirates has that's like when I want to get re-inspired to travel I love flying Emirates Emirates is the best I flew well I have to caveat this because my my husband and I we flew Emirates first and business class and so I got him a first class ticket on points of course and then I really wanted to get myself one too but they had run out so I got on business and you're a good wife I am but you know at the airport we tried to switch he was like no I want my wife to ride first and just for regulations they cannot let you switch tickets um but I did when we entered I sat in it for good like 20 seconds enough to film some videos and it was magical you're like those influencers that get caught in first class like they're I always see on like online like the influencers on on private jets but then it ends up being like just like a movie set or like or they take a picture real quick when they board you're the real deal one other thing so if you're flying Emirates when the doors close you can actually try to upgrade on the plane as well Emirates is one of the few airlines that if you so always schmooze the Purser just try to be as nice as if there's open seats which I don't know if there were that flight but one of the key tips it never hurts to ask it still goes to this day be extremely nice and you'd be shocked you know Hotel upgrades you know just being a genuinely nice person especially during these times when staff is so overworked and the travel industry is underpaid for sure and it's all in their control right and why would anyone want to help a person who's being rude right I know and I get it people are like especially people don't travel a lot like it is stressful but trust me honey like the gate agent at LaGuardia wants you out of their face like they're not delaying the flight for fun to like mess with you like they want you out of their flight attendants on most Airlines don't even get paid until the flight is in the air so yes it's annoying you're on the tarmac and yes they should be giving you water and snacks but like just have a little bit of Grace get the mentality that like everyone in the travel industry is against you it's you know everyone is just at their wit's end yeah have you ever been upgraded to business or first without having to pay an additional fee or extra points yes so it's operational upgrades and my first one uh pre-points ago I was 2008 my ex and I were flying to Buenos Aires from JFK on Delta and I'm a you know points nerd I was broke as hell I had no money to my name but I looked on Expert flyer and I saw that the flight was zeroed out meaning that the Delta was no longer selling tickets which to me is like oh they're oversold because Airlines will keep overselling a flight but if they won't even sell a ticket on a plane there's probably gonna be a situation when um they weren't actually oversold but I went up to the gate agent and I'm six foot seven so I'm always like let me just like let her know a that I'm super tall let me charm her and I just remember she was so friendly I said I was like Hey girl like if there's a need I'm like here to fall on a sword for you like if you really need to like open up a coach seat um like I'm happy to sit in business class and she was just like she laughed at me she's like you're crazy but she's like give me your boarding pass she's like I'm not I can't promise anything but then when I was boarding the plane I was like my heart was racing and it's like and then all of a sudden and it shoots out like a mini new boarding pass and I it was a 10 and a half hour flight my first ever true International like business class and on a Delta old 767 but that was like the probably the best upgrade of my life oh goodness so yeah never and that's another thing if you're ever going to take a bump you know airlines are oversold when they're going to rebook you always ask for first class on the next flight it never hurts to ask they have the ability especially if the gate agent's stressed negotiate for the best price don't over negotiate but like say hey this is my bottom line and put me in first on the next flight and a lot of times they'll actually rebook you in a paid first class ticket so you're earning more miles as well yeah I mean you saw the headlines recently about the ten thousand dollars offered to get pumped from the flight yeah which is insane crazy and you know I was shocked because I pulled my audience and I thought a hundred I pulled them asking if you were offered ten thousand dollars to change flights would you take it and I think only 70 said yes like I would I don't care what the situation is like not valuable yeah unless it's at the I will say at the tail end of a trip so I love animals I have amazing dog and I have such like dog fomo by the end of a trip like where I'm like I probably would turn down ten thousand just because like if I know I'm I'm gonna like hug my dog within like six hours like but actually no yeah the funny credit cards out there how do you choose the right one so there are three main types of rewards cards the best in my opinion is what we call transferable points credit cards so that's you get a credit card with the bank it's a Chase Sapphire Amex gold Capital One Venture built rewards those are the key programs that I have most of my points in so the transferable cards allow you to bank points and then transfer to a number of different partners truly Amex gold 4X on dining and groceries what so many people spend on so you want to look at a card that's going to reward you for the categories you spend the most in built rewards is the only credit card that gives you points on rent so you're able to pay up to 50 000 a year in rent with no fees no annual fee and those points you can actually transfer to United American Hyatt and a bunch of others so if you're paying rent absolutely that's a good no-brainer card because when you actually put your rent on your credit card it actually increases your score over time but in terms of like best all-around transferable points the Chase Sapphire Reserve is kind of like the Primo card triple points on travel and dining and what I want to encourage people is the travel category it's not just Airlines and hotels that's Uber it's MTA Tran you know Transit parking tolls you name it so the name of the game is like getting credit cards that align with your biggest spend categories so that's like on the transferable Point side where you should really look to and I use the Capital One Venture X that's two points on everything so when I'm not earning four and five in these top categories base spend you want to be earning more than one point per dollar the second type of cards you should look into are the co-branded cards so Airline and hotel credit cards and their earning rates are not as rich as the transferable cards in general but it's the perks or where it's at so a lot of Hotel credit cards will give you a free night just for renewing at 89 but you can use that free night at a 300 Hotel yeah so it's always just about doing the math I mean same thing with the airline cards getting free checked bags if you're paying checked bag fees or if you're paying for airline lounges at 600 a year it's cheaper to get Airline Lounge for 450 on an American you know executive Advantage card and the crazy thing about that card is also I want people to know is once you have a card you can get additional card holders a lot of these cards will give you free additional card holders that also get lounge access and a ton of other perks like on the AmEx Platinum you for 175 dollars you can get three additional card holders that's fifty eight dollars and you know 33 cents per additional card holder and they get Global Entry Delta lounge access Centurion it pays for itself many times over so if you have people that you trust looking into the additional card holders then the final type is cash back so if you don't want to travel this points thing sounds too complicated a city double cash card which is basically two percent back when you pay your bill on time that's like the gold standard you should be looking for at least two percent cash back base Bank of America has a premium rewards card that can get you more than that if you have some of your investment accounts you know so at a very minimum you're earning two percent back base level but through the points credit cards they're perks their bonus categories you can be getting way more than that you know for every hundred thousand you spend 2 000 is the Baseline where you should be getting value but if you spend a hundred thousand and you're getting 4X and dining here and there all of a sudden you can be easily getting six seven ten thousand dollars back in that spend per year in the form of Rewards I want to also mention credit card churning this is something I used to do very actively where I would open a credit card just to obtain the bonus let's say a hundred thousand points after I spent three thousand dollars in three months and then eventually a year later I would say okay maybe I'll just go ahead and downgrade this card or cancel this card can you talk about credit card churning and then also downgrading room canceling cards so the biggest thing about credit cards that you should look out for so the sign up bonuses are juicy and great but don't apply all at once for a bunch of cards because you don't want to bite off more than you can chew also you want to be smart and methodical like I have 25 credit cards I don't recommend anyone getting 25 cards but my score my FICO score is near perfect because I'm Maniac about paying them and the more credit cards you have and the more you pay off your score actually goes up but the credit card companies are on to this because every time you get a hundred thousand Point bonus that's literally they're giving you 1500 in cash or thereabouts so if you just open and close like crazy a you can get banned from a credit card company if they if you open and close after three months you're sending them a signal like hey I'm gonna punch you in the face and you know they hate when people cancel cards so I recommend keeping cards open for as long as possible every year do an inventory does this card carry does it bring me more value than the annual fee if it doesn't don't cancel the card downgrade to a no annual fee card that that credit card issuer has almost every issuer has them that way you keep the relationship you keep the average age of your accounts longer which is a part of your FICO score but yeah I mean every three to six months to get one or two new credit cards is totally sustainable and you just have to be where you know for Chase Chase credit cards are the most popular there's lots of them out there they have What's called the 524 rule basically if you have five credit cards from the last 24 months from any issuer they might automatically deny you so when you're thinking about getting into this credit card game you might want to front load getting the sapphire Freedom Card or ink card first because it once you have five cards within two years they may block you so doing a little more research on the 524 rule but in general you just want to be a good customer pay your bills on time keep the accounts open if possible and you shouldn't have any issues if you know there is a Reddit uh form called churning where people go extreme and you can get the same card multiple times that does come with risks you know the credit card companies can just cut you off for life and it does happen to some people but the thing about this credit card game is you don't need to be going that extreme to get a bunch of free trips every year and save thousands of dollars we were talking earlier about how at the airports you can try to be very nice and possibly they might give you a favor upgrade you to First Class what are some things that I can call the credit card companies and get favors on so for instance one thing that I've always done is right before I want to cancel a card because the annual fee doesn't make sense to me I go ahead and call them and say Hey would it be possible to waive the annual fee this year is there anything else that people can be doing to call their credit card companies once again back to the it never hurts to ask so before canceling a card you know you can if they're if they don't budge you can say let me just talk to a retention agent credit card companies might waive your fee they might give you 50 000 points which actually are worth more than the feast you should always see instead of the wave fee hey do you have a points option as well you know if you're in the armed services you can get your Annual fees waived with most care or with most major credit card issuers in general I think people there's so many any offers now on credit cards Chase just launched to deal with instacart you know you can earn 10x points on Lyft Amex offers can be super valuable you know they have a lot of travel offers too like I've seen you know spend a thousand with Air France and get 300 back plus your earning points for you know using a credit card that earns 5x on airfare so there's a lot of ways to get value back from the credit card companies even purchase protections I had bought a Montclair jacket was in Iceland filming Vlogs and I left this beautiful parka oh and I called up I put on my AmEx platinum and Amex instantly took the two thousand dollars off my bill I didn't need a police report it because it was within 90 days so like understanding there are huge huge perks you know concert tickets so whenever you get a credit card spend time understanding the perks Google like you know obviously I'm biased the Points Guy how to get the most out of my AmEx Platinum we'll have the 10 things you need to do you know make sure you get your Uber credits your sax credits it can be overwhelming but when you do that every year am I getting more value from this card than what I'm paying for it you know these 550 Dollar Plus cards can easily pay for themselves many times over than you know the no annual fee yeah options for people who have credit card debt how do you feel about balance transfers yeah so your number one goal if you have credit card debt is get out of the quicksand pit and obviously paying 20 plus APR will make it nearly impossible so yeah you should instead of focus on the points and Miles later but zero percent balance transfer offers it's amazing because it neutralizes even though there usually is a three percent fee to transfer when you do the math if you're getting a year to 18 months you need to neutralize it because it's literally quicksand it's almost impossible I'm borrowing you getting an inheritance or you know to get out of that so absolutely look into zero percent balance transfer I know their top credit cards out there that you know have that but in general like just be maniacal get yourself out of credit card debt it will be the best thing you ever do for yourself yeah what are some of the favorite trips you've taken so I love South Africa I absolutely love South Africa uh Cape Town is just a beautiful city uh and Safari I love animals so Sabi Sans singita La bambo has been one of my my favorite Safari to date and I've done them all across Africa Delta now flies to uh Cape Town United as well so you can find non-stop from the US which is exciting I also am a scuba diver so Maldives of course you know have you been to Maldives yes for my honeymoon it was amazing amazing there's something you know people will say Bora Bora versus Maldives actually I love Tahiti and Bora Bora and if you're on the west coast that eight hour flight is hard to beat but Maldives are something special about just being on a speck of sand in the middle of the Indian Ocean and just resetting and sleeping even when it rains it's sexy in the Maldives but Tahiti from July through October I highly recommend if you love animals it's one of the the countries in the world where you can snorkel with humpback whales you can actually get in the Pacific and I went for a day and I get my heart starts racing thinking about it but being in the Pacific looking down and I thought it was a submarine and it's just a humpback in her calf and it was I had this moment of just being like 30 feet away looking at this mother humpback and it was like amazing and also you know Japan when I quit Morgan Stanley in 2011 I left my cubicle in Times Square and went straight to JFK flew to Tokyo by myself it was my first time to Asia I just quit my job I knew my life was in for this wild ride and I spent a week in Tokyo in June of 2011 right after the nuclear incident so I was like the only Western tourist but just walking through the parks getting Ramen like just you know Japan is just special so I can't wait for it to reopen but those are probably some of my favorite trips ever I want to end this we have a tradition this is called the Erica taught me podcast but really today is all about Brian taught me so what do you want people to walk away from this podcast being able to say Brian taught me I want people to walk away from this podcast saying Brian taught me it's possible to win at the points game and that travel's still worth it you know the travel headlines these days are crazy but don't let those headlines scare you I have a lot of friends uh recently who are canceling trips and it's too much and travel does not need to be complex and it's been the biggest gift to me it has completely changed the way that I view the world and I think now more than ever with so much racism and fear of perceived enemies and you know in our media like getting out there and meeting real people globally will change who you are so I highly encourage people to travel use your points because they lose value over time so having points for me it's not just about saving money but it's about having peace of mind it's about like leaving for the airport knowing I got this right and I think a lot of people don't want to travel because they feel overwhelmed the industry's Stacked against them I think what I want to let people know is like the Points Guy we got your back and as long as you educate yourself equip yourself with the right tools credit cards protections traveling is amazing and I highly recommend it thank you so much it's been so fun thank you if you've enjoyed the episode please take a moment to leave a review it really helps support what we're doing thanks for listening and I'll talk to you next Tuesday on a brand new episode of Erica taught me

Channel: Erika Kullberg

Views: 397,868

Keywords: brian kelly, erika kullberg, erika taught me, personal finance, investing tips, travel tips, budget travel, hotel rewards, travel credit cards, money management

Id: waF8CvERPTY

Length: 49min 2sec (2942 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2023