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00:01:34.640 | Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading

00:01:42.520 | your life, money, and travel, all while spending less and saving more.

00:01:47.160 | I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and today I want to talk about one of my favorite

00:01:52.560 | hacks of all time, credit card points.

00:01:56.360 | Thanks to this hack, I've been taking at least one free vacation every year for

00:02:00.520 | the last 10, 15, maybe even 20 years.

00:02:03.160 | And these aren't small trips.

00:02:04.880 | Like we're talking two-week trips around the world, luxury hotels, flying

00:02:08.720 | first class, loving every minute of it, all for free.

00:02:11.960 | And if I added up the cost of all these trips, I probably saved hundreds of

00:02:16.200 | thousands of dollars.

00:02:17.200 | In fact, I'm such a credit card optimizer that I thought about doing this whole

00:02:21.800 | episode just by myself.

00:02:23.480 | And then I met Alex.

00:02:25.480 | Not only is Alex just as obsessed with credit cards and travel as I am, and

00:02:29.480 | helping make sure everyone he knows takes amazing trips and earns as much as they

00:02:33.360 | can, but he turned that passion into a site called Upgraded Points that he runs,

00:02:37.960 | where you can learn about the best cards, the best tricks to earn the most points,

00:02:42.640 | travel hacks, reviews of hotels, and more.

00:02:45.080 | So I thought it'd be even more fun and valuable to everyone listening if we do

00:02:49.400 | this show together, and not to mention his accent makes everything we do sound

00:02:53.560 | better.

00:02:53.880 | So let's get into it.

00:02:55.560 | But first, a message from a guy I hired online to read this disclosure.

00:02:59.640 | Chris Hutchins works at Wealthfront.

00:03:01.960 | All opinions expressed by Chris and his guests are solely their own opinions and

00:03:06.080 | do not reflect the opinion of Wealthfront.

00:03:07.920 | This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for

00:03:12.160 | investment decisions.

00:03:13.120 | Alex, thanks for being here.

00:03:16.200 | Thanks so much, Chris, for inviting me.

00:03:18.720 | I'm super excited to chat with you.

00:03:20.080 | Yeah, so credit card points are near and dear to my heart.

00:03:22.920 | I'm really excited for this episode.

00:03:25.600 | And I thought it'd be good to go back to early stuff.

00:03:27.880 | So for me, it turns out this started before I even remember it.

00:03:31.320 | The picture I have of childhood, everyone has that photo that their parents are

00:03:36.080 | like, "This is my child."

00:03:37.520 | Mine was a picture of me sipping a bottle of apple juice with a pair of

00:03:41.600 | headphones on in a British Airways first class seat on the way to London when I

00:03:46.160 | was 11 months old.

00:03:47.200 | And that's been my ethos before I even knew it was my ethos.

00:03:51.760 | And it turns out my parents schlepped me around the world on various trips they

00:03:55.560 | took with points.

00:03:56.520 | And so this started early for me before I even got into it.

00:03:59.880 | Ultimately, in college, I was like, "I can get credit cards and earn points."

00:04:03.680 | I took my first trip and it all spiraled from there.

00:04:06.520 | But I'd love to know, how did you get into this game?

00:04:08.760 | Yeah, so I have a very clear memory of this.

00:04:12.160 | 10 years ago or so, end of 2011, I moved completely over to America from the UK.

00:04:19.480 | And so obviously I had to get on a flight to do that.

00:04:22.080 | And I was traveling from London into Chicago.

00:04:25.400 | And my life was like three big suitcases and that was it.

00:04:29.920 | And I booked this economy ticket.

00:04:32.880 | I knew nothing about points.

00:04:34.080 | Like the UK, there's three frequent flyer miles that are being split between the

00:04:39.040 | entire country.

00:04:39.720 | There's no bonus points.

00:04:41.320 | There's very little incentive for people to get excited about it.

00:04:44.600 | So I knew nothing, got to the airport, I was booked for economy.

00:04:49.640 | And basically I turned up looking scruffy.

00:04:52.280 | I used to always wear like a Superman t-shirt.

00:04:54.480 | It wasn't great looking back.

00:04:57.360 | But I rocked up to check in my bags and the lady who was serving me took my

00:05:04.240 | details.

00:05:04.840 | And then she looked at me, she wasn't very impressed.

00:05:07.680 | And once she had put all my details into the machine, she basically looked at me

00:05:12.400 | and said, "Okay, it seems that you've been upgraded to business class."

00:05:17.360 | And she said it with a snarl.

00:05:19.280 | She wasn't happy about it.

00:05:20.640 | And I was thinking, "Oh my God, this is amazing."

00:05:23.600 | How did that happen?

00:05:25.240 | So no one ever told me in the end.

00:05:28.160 | Luckily what I had done, and this is the only logical explanation for it.

00:05:33.160 | I had, you know, signed up to the British Airways executive account membership and

00:05:38.600 | attached my number to the ticket.

00:05:39.760 | That was the only thing I did.

00:05:40.880 | I had no status.

00:05:41.800 | I had nothing.

00:05:42.640 | And they upgraded me and she was so annoyed about it.

00:05:46.360 | And then she was like, "Oh, but wait, I see you've got some big bags there.

00:05:49.560 | It's going to cost you 40 pounds to check."

00:05:52.120 | I was like, just take my wallet like immediately.

00:05:54.720 | This is not an issue.

00:05:55.840 | And inside I was like rejoicing, got onto that flight and I got a taste of business

00:06:01.040 | class.

00:06:01.320 | And so that was a double upgrade, by the way, like skip premium economy.

00:06:04.440 | They were like, boom, like you're in business.

00:06:06.560 | And the flight was super busy.

00:06:08.040 | So I think what happened was that because I happened to have the loyalty count, even

00:06:12.080 | though there was no status, they decided to upgrade me.

00:06:14.800 | So there's probably a lot of people on that flight who just didn't have a loyalty

00:06:18.320 | program attached to their booking.

00:06:20.400 | So there's a lesson there, which we can talk about later.

00:06:23.200 | But anyway, that's how I sort of got a taste of business class.

00:06:26.200 | I was like, oh my God, I don't want to do like economy again.

00:06:28.880 | So really, when I got into America, starting up businesses and like points was just

00:06:34.720 | promoted on billboards like everywhere.

00:06:37.600 | Everyone's talking about them.

00:06:39.240 | Credit cards are absolutely everywhere with these bonus promotions and things like

00:06:43.240 | that.

00:06:43.440 | And I was so intrigued, so spending money, my business, obviously spending money to

00:06:47.360 | live and everything.

00:06:47.960 | And I was like, I'm an optimizer.

00:06:50.280 | So I was like, I've got to dive into this world.

00:06:52.960 | So I followed a couple of blogs, realized that this is actually something I could be

00:06:57.480 | doing.

00:06:57.920 | And then I was completely addicted.

00:07:00.280 | So basically for the last 10 years, I've been researching it pretty much every day.

00:07:04.880 | And then obviously now I run this site that I've had for like five years that launched

00:07:08.160 | in 2016.

00:07:09.480 | I'm fully immersed in it.

00:07:10.760 | And a couple of years after coming to America, I took the first amazing sort of

00:07:16.480 | like redemption, like first class and business class and all this sort of stuff.

00:07:19.760 | And yeah, that's what like fed the addiction was that like free upgrade combined with

00:07:25.800 | the fact that like in America, like people just talk about this stuff like all the

00:07:29.400 | time.

00:07:29.720 | It's so I don't know if you spend a lot of time in the UK and everything, but people

00:07:33.320 | just don't talk about that stuff like it's not promoted.

00:07:35.360 | It sounds like there aren't a lot of options to earn points there like there are

00:07:38.840 | here.

00:07:39.840 | Exactly.

00:07:40.440 | The competition is nowhere near as fierce as over here.

00:07:43.320 | So yeah, yeah.

00:07:44.520 | Here, when you accept a credit card, you're paying like 3% almost fees to to the

00:07:50.680 | processor.

00:07:51.360 | And that money makes its way back to the credit card company in some format.

00:07:54.920 | And then they say, we want to get more people spending money.

00:07:57.320 | So we'll give people points.

00:07:58.560 | And it's this cycle.

00:07:59.520 | And I always tell people, if you're not paying with your credit card, you're leaving

00:08:04.000 | money on the table.

00:08:05.120 | And I think of it as a way to just get more money from banks, airlines, these are

00:08:09.320 | hated industries.

00:08:10.320 | No, totally.

00:08:11.400 | And it pains me as well.

00:08:12.800 | I see someone using a debit card.

00:08:14.080 | I'm just like, okay, given the benefit of the doubt, maybe they feel like they

00:08:19.200 | wouldn't be able to pay off their credit card if they had one.

00:08:21.520 | And the temptation is too much.

00:08:22.920 | But I think I'm too kind.

00:08:24.320 | I think there's too many people there who just have not delved into that world a

00:08:27.640 | little bit and realize that debit cards, they offer such little value.

00:08:32.320 | And the credit cards really, I mean, the rewards and the bonuses and the perks that

00:08:37.520 | you can leverage for them are absolutely incredible.

00:08:40.240 | And the only thing you have to do is make sure that you pay off your statement every

00:08:44.080 | single month. If you do that, then all of those benefits are so worth it.

00:08:49.120 | Yeah, all the benefits of everything we'll discuss today never come close to being

00:08:54.920 | better than paying off your debt.

00:08:56.920 | So if you have credit card debt, focus on getting that down to the point that you can

00:09:00.600 | pay off your bill each month before you get into the credit card game.

00:09:03.440 | Okay, so using a debit card is an obvious red flag that you're not optimizing your

00:09:07.320 | cards and points. What else?

00:09:08.480 | Actually, another red flag is when someone is like using, I don't know, like an

00:09:13.160 | American Airlines card at a supermarket or when they're going out and having something

00:09:19.760 | to eat or buying some drinks or something, because a lot of the airline cards reward

00:09:24.800 | you really poorly for those transactions.

00:09:27.240 | Whereas the flexible points, like you can get three, four, five points per dollar spent

00:09:33.200 | at supermarkets or filling up gas or dining out and stuff.

00:09:39.040 | So you've got to look at where you're spending your money.

00:09:42.840 | The majority of it, I take things to extremes.

00:09:45.360 | I've got like 19 credit cards.

00:09:46.960 | I've got a bit mental with it.

00:09:48.040 | More than me.

00:09:49.240 | I actually consolidated.

00:09:50.240 | I was like, OK, once you go over 20, like that is legitimately mental.

00:09:54.000 | So I got rid of four recently, but I staggered it over to not hurt my credit too much.

00:09:58.720 | But yeah, you want to look at where you're spending your money.

00:10:00.920 | So if you like going out and you like dining and spend money at bars or whatever, then

00:10:05.360 | you should really get a card that gives you like what we call like a multiplier bonus

00:10:09.960 | for those transactions.

00:10:11.240 | So how would someone even figure out where they're spending money to figure out what

00:10:16.520 | kind of credit cards might make sense?

00:10:17.800 | Is there something you do to evaluate your spending?

00:10:21.360 | You can use like a simple sort of like budget tracker like Mint.com where you can

00:10:26.400 | connect all your cards to that account and then it automatically figures out where

00:10:30.360 | you're spending your money. So you can just have a quick glance at that at the end of

00:10:33.960 | month and be like, huh, wow, I actually spend like 35% of my money at restaurants.

00:10:39.440 | So I should probably make sure that I'm getting a card that gives me the general rule

00:10:44.400 | of thumb is I'm pretty annoyed.

00:10:46.080 | I'm very annoyed if I'm only getting one point per dollar spent.

00:10:49.480 | For me, it's got to be like a minimum of one and a half or two.

00:10:51.920 | And so, yeah, Mint basically is like a good option for that.

00:10:56.280 | What do you use?

00:10:56.840 | So I used to use Mint and there's a bunch of cool budgeting apps out there that are

00:11:01.840 | like Mint. I just was playing around last night in advance of this conversation and I

00:11:05.880 | saw that both Chase and Amex have a spending report and they used to do these as

00:11:11.280 | like a PDF at the end of the year only for the last year.

00:11:15.400 | And now both of them have a look at the last few months, look at last year and they'll

00:11:19.840 | just break it down by category.

00:11:21.240 | So it's a little more work.

00:11:23.960 | And that if you have two credit cards or one of them is at a bank that doesn't offer

00:11:28.200 | this, you might have to look across all of them in multiple places.

00:11:31.760 | And in that case, it might be way easier to just sync everything to Mint and then go

00:11:35.920 | look through all those transactions and see where they are.

00:11:37.920 | But I will say Mint sometimes gets the category wrong.

00:11:41.560 | And I think the credit card companies get the category right a lot more.

00:11:45.360 | So if your credit card company today offers one of these spending reports, I feel like

00:11:50.240 | it's the most accurate data.

00:11:51.600 | But if you have credit cards at lots of places or they don't, Mint, I think, is still

00:11:56.480 | a great place to link an account and look at all of the all the different budgeting

00:12:00.040 | things. But don't look at Mint's credit card recommendations, because not only are

00:12:05.360 | they incentivized by whoever is paying them the most, but I swear every time I've

00:12:09.680 | logged into Mint, they say, "You need an Amex Platinum." And I'm like, "I have my and

00:12:14.120 | my wife's Amex Platinum linked to Mint." Like, I don't need a third Amex.

00:12:18.280 | I can't even get a third Amex Platinum.

00:12:20.320 | So ignore the recommendation.

00:12:21.560 | Me and my wife both have a Platinum, like two Platinums each.

00:12:24.440 | Like, I don't think we need any more.

00:12:26.240 | Yeah.

00:12:26.680 | Yeah. And you did mention credit earlier.

00:12:29.760 | Let's talk a little bit about credit.

00:12:31.280 | Yeah. So when I came here from the UK, I had no credit at all.

00:12:35.000 | The bank that I still had in the UK, they were like, "Sorry, we can't transfer you

00:12:39.640 | credit to the US." So you're basically like a 17-year-old in a hoodie with some

00:12:43.840 | shades on, walking around, looking shifty.

00:12:45.920 | Well, it sounds like you actually were dressed like that, even though you might

00:12:48.600 | not have been 17.

00:12:49.440 | Yeah, just slight modification.

00:12:50.840 | I had a Superman T-shirt on, and that was it.

00:12:52.360 | Yeah. I was actually very lucky, but this could be an option for many people.

00:12:56.320 | My wife is American, and her parents very generously...

00:13:01.400 | I needed a car when I got to America.

00:13:02.840 | I was like, "Oh, my God." And I need a truck as well.

00:13:04.680 | Like, something that's way too big, but it's really cool.

00:13:07.960 | And so I was like, "OK, I need a truck.

00:13:09.920 | I haven't got any credit.

00:13:11.520 | What do I do?" And her parents co-signed for me, which is amazing because it was

00:13:17.920 | their credit, basically, that I piggybacked off.

00:13:20.280 | And so what I did was I purposely paid it off over like 12 to 15 months to show the

00:13:26.560 | banks that I could pay on time and that I could do this regularly.

00:13:30.480 | It wasn't just for one month, but it was 15 months.

00:13:32.640 | And my credit rating literally just skyrocketed into the 700s.

00:13:36.840 | It was so fast.

00:13:37.880 | Something that people always ask me, like, "Oh, isn't opening a bunch of credit

00:13:40.760 | cards going to hurt your credit?"

00:13:41.880 | It turns out that almost 65-70% of your credit is your payment history.

00:13:48.360 | So one, make your payments on time.

00:13:51.080 | And if you didn't make a payment on time in the past, you can even go back and

00:13:54.800 | dispute it and maybe get that overturned.

00:13:56.680 | And then it's actually your kind of debt to credit ratio.

00:13:59.600 | So when you have a new card, banks don't like lending money to people that are

00:14:03.720 | using all of their credit.

00:14:05.440 | So if you have three cards, you actually have a whole lot more credit.

00:14:08.880 | As long as you don't increase your spending 3x, it can actually help your

00:14:12.840 | credit. Now, I know part of the credit score is inquiries against credit.

00:14:17.560 | So when you open a card, you will lose five or so points each time.

00:14:21.800 | But having more credit, paying on time, having a long history really adds to it.

00:14:27.200 | So it can hurt your credit a little bit.

00:14:29.880 | But the long term benefit, and especially if you don't have a lot of cards, opening

00:14:34.520 | a new card can actually bring it up.

00:14:35.760 | Yeah, and like you said, you might get dinged five points or something when you

00:14:40.800 | open a new card, but that is super short term, like in a couple of months it will

00:14:45.280 | restore back. As I said earlier, I got 19 or 20 credit cards and credit score is

00:14:50.280 | not crazily high because I don't have a mortgage yet, but it's 770, 765 because

00:14:57.560 | my credit utilization is something like $200,000.

00:15:02.600 | So like my available credit that I could use, but clearly I'm not spending anywhere

00:15:06.560 | near that per month.

00:15:08.040 | If you're the type of person listening here where having $200,000 of credit means

00:15:13.480 | you'll spend it, this is not a good episode for you.

00:15:16.360 | Yeah, I agree with that one.

00:15:18.320 | It's a shame when you came over to the U.S.

00:15:20.520 | at the beginning, there was there's a company now, a guy I know actually started

00:15:24.760 | this company called Nova Credit, and they partnered with Amex and a few other credit

00:15:28.960 | card issuers, and they actually will use data from overseas agencies, convert it to

00:15:34.320 | a format that the banks here understand.

00:15:37.120 | And so if you go to Nova, you can say, I'm from the U.K., here's all my U.K.

00:15:41.360 | information. And Nova will bridge the gap so that you can open up a card in the U.S.,

00:15:45.800 | even though you have no credit history.

00:15:47.480 | I know that didn't exist when you came over, but if anyone here is new to the U.S.

00:15:51.640 | right now listening, Nova Credit is a great company that lets you leverage your

00:15:56.120 | overseas credit to open cards up here.

00:15:58.240 | That's really cool. And it'll make your life a lot easier.

00:16:00.120 | The other option, just real quick, is that secured credit cards are really good.

00:16:04.120 | So I was helping out a business friend the other day who was like, English guy, my

00:16:07.720 | credit sucks. And I was like, well, you could just get a secured credit card, which

00:16:10.960 | basically means that you put down this deposit that you give to the bank.

00:16:14.800 | So if things go bad, they know that they can take your 200 and pay off whatever you

00:16:20.040 | charge to the card. But if you basically just use that, even that small credit limit,

00:16:24.640 | 200 is not super useful. But if you put $50 on, like pay it off, put $100 on, pay it

00:16:29.280 | off. If you do that for under a year, like that will really increase your credit score

00:16:34.080 | as well.

00:16:34.360 | Yeah, it's effectively a debit card in that you can only spend the money you've put

00:16:37.800 | on deposit with the bank, but it builds your credit in a way that a debit card

00:16:41.000 | doesn't.

00:16:41.320 | Yeah, because debit cards never help with credit.

00:16:43.520 | It seems like with every business, you get to a certain size and the cracks start to

00:16:49.600 | emerge. Things that you used to do in a day are taking a week and you have too many

00:16:54.280 | manual processes and there's no one source of truth.

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00:18:21.120 | It's a free app that helps you manage all of your credit cards in one place, and

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00:19:09.920 | want to try out the Pro version, there's a free trial.

00:19:12.720 | And if you decide you want to sign up after the trial, which you probably will,

00:19:16.800 | you can go to allthehacks.com/cardpointers to get 20% off.

00:19:22.720 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/cardpointers.

00:19:27.760 | So before we jump into points cards, which I think offer tremendous value, I

00:19:33.080 | meet a lot of people who they think they're playing the rewards game because

00:19:36.040 | they have a card that earns them 1% or 2% cash back or 1.5% cash back.

00:19:41.400 | I know points can, you know, flexible points, transferable points, they can earn

00:19:45.360 | a lot more than that.

00:19:46.320 | But is there a type of person where earning 1.5%, 2% cash back is actually the

00:19:51.080 | right path forward for them?

00:19:52.560 | Yeah, I think it's good for people who just want things to be ridiculously simple.

00:19:58.560 | Like, there's no way of turning cash back into something complex.

00:20:03.280 | You get the cash back, you can use it for either travel or non-travel.

00:20:06.960 | But if, and especially I think cash back is useful for those who, and maybe not too

00:20:12.080 | many of those who will listen to this podcast, who don't actually want to earn

00:20:16.040 | points for travel or don't want to travel that much.

00:20:18.360 | But yeah, it's really just simplicity, like, you know, the Citi double cash card,

00:20:22.240 | like 2% on any purchase, no limitations.

00:20:25.920 | It's super duper simple.

00:20:27.880 | And it's just not the way you're going to earn the most points, right?

00:20:30.520 | Like, no, you can't, like, you can't get, you know, outsized value with cash back.

00:20:35.120 | Like it's, it's not a great tool for me and for many optimizers and in this kind

00:20:40.080 | of space, it's, yeah, it's not going to get you too far.

00:20:42.640 | I think points have had a reputation in the past of the only way you can use a

00:20:47.320 | point is if you fly on this one day in this one way, but even most of the points

00:20:51.840 | cards these days offer some way to use your points towards reimbursing yourself

00:20:57.960 | or booking through a travel portal.

00:20:59.800 | So you end up getting some of the benefit of cash back in that you could just buy a

00:21:04.840 | ticket and reimburse yourself, or you can buy it without waiting for award space to

00:21:08.840 | open up, but you also get the huge bonuses when you're spending on these points

00:21:13.600 | cards, which there's no cashback card I'm aware of.

00:21:16.560 | That's giving you five X back on your dollars.

00:21:19.280 | Exactly.

00:21:20.160 | So like I was going to say, if you had to add to your point, like if you had the

00:21:25.040 | Amex gold, for example, and you can earn four times points, supermarket purchases,

00:21:30.960 | then if you wanted to use those points in the portal and you get one cent per point,

00:21:35.640 | you're basically earning 4% cash back.

00:21:37.360 | So, yeah, so even the points cards can be better cash back cards than the cash back

00:21:42.000 | cards, as long as you're spending money in one of these categories, which are the

00:21:45.800 | biggest bonuses are in travel and dining and groceries and shop gas are big ones.

00:21:51.160 | But yeah, I always tell people my favorite cash back card is my points card.

00:21:54.880 | Now I just don't happen to use it like that, but one thing are all miles and points

00:21:59.920 | the same, I tend to think they're not.

00:22:02.440 | And I'm curious if you have an attitude towards certain miles being more valuable

00:22:07.160 | to accumulate or points to accumulate than others.

00:22:09.960 | Yeah.

00:22:10.920 | So for me, flexible points and transferable points are by far the most valuable

00:22:16.280 | because you're able to not only use those for buying flights or hotel stays through

00:22:23.000 | through portals, through travel portals, but also this is the biggest takeaway.

00:22:27.760 | Like you can transfer those to their airline partners or hotel partners.

00:22:32.360 | So Chase have 10 plus airline and hotel partners.

00:22:36.240 | Amex have considerably more.

00:22:37.840 | Citi have their own bunch and so do Capital One.

00:22:40.600 | So if you guys have any points that are sitting with Chase, Amex, Citi or Capital

00:22:45.680 | One now, you can literally transfer them to a bunch of different airlines and hotels

00:22:50.160 | and get incredible value that way.

00:22:52.800 | Most people are spending them in the portal or redeeming them terribly for gift cards.

00:22:57.680 | So gift cards aren't a good use of points.

00:22:59.600 | Terrible is literally the worst thing you could do because you're getting less than

00:23:04.280 | one cent per point in redemption value.

00:23:07.600 | So my general rule of thumb is that you want to be getting about two cents in value

00:23:13.480 | per point. But the gift cards, like I think you get point seven of a cent.

00:23:18.600 | So a friend told me last year, he was like, oh, you'll be proud of me, Alex.

00:23:22.640 | I just redeemed a hundred thousand points for like Amazon gift cards.

00:23:27.200 | I'm definitely not proud of you.

00:23:28.600 | That was a terrible decision.

00:23:29.880 | So, yeah, the most amount of value is definitely with like flexible points.

00:23:33.560 | If you've got the less valuable ones are definitely with the airlines, because you

00:23:38.720 | can't transfer, like so many people think you can just transfer American Airlines to

00:23:42.560 | like some other airline.

00:23:43.800 | I'm like, no, you can't.

00:23:44.800 | If I have United Miles, I can book on their partners.

00:23:48.760 | But if I have Chase Points, not only can I transfer them to United and book on their

00:23:53.720 | partners, but I can also transfer them to six or seven other airlines or hotel chains.

00:23:58.880 | And yeah, I'm with you.

00:23:59.840 | I always think I'd much rather have a Chase Point than a United Point because a Chase

00:24:04.560 | Point can be transferred to be a United Point.

00:24:06.320 | You get all the benefits of a United Point with a Chase Point plus more.

00:24:10.200 | And the cool thing is, so this is a common one.

00:24:12.480 | Most people who fly Southwest love Southwest.

00:24:14.920 | It's just like this lovable brand.

00:24:16.360 | And most people who fly them commonly will have a Southwest credit card and be like,

00:24:21.120 | OK, yeah, got the bonus using the card like life is great.

00:24:25.000 | And I'm like, do you want more Southwest points because you like to fly with them?

00:24:30.040 | Yeah, obviously I do. Why don't you sign up to like a Chase credit card?

00:24:34.240 | You could use a Chase Alpha Reserve card, for example, for getting three X on dining

00:24:39.960 | expenses or travel expenses.

00:24:41.560 | The Southwest, even if you book with Southwest, they only give you two points per

00:24:45.720 | dollar spent. So you can immediately add 50 percent more points by booking with the

00:24:50.920 | Chase Alpha Reserve.

00:24:51.920 | If you got a platinum, then you could get five X by using that card to book your

00:24:57.320 | Southwest flight. So you're just like accumulating tons and tons of points through

00:25:02.280 | little adjustments like that.

00:25:03.840 | If you love an airline, don't think that having that airline credit card is all that

00:25:08.760 | you can do. It's very common that you can collect transferable points and then

00:25:14.280 | transfer those directly into your airline account and top up your balances that way.

00:25:19.040 | So, I mean, that's a real big one and something I've done for years.

00:25:22.960 | Yeah, I often tell people, look, if you're really loyal to an airline or a hotel and

00:25:28.040 | the card gives you tangible benefits for that, whether it gives you access to the

00:25:32.440 | airline lounge or it gets you free upgrades or free checked bags, those are things

00:25:37.800 | that you often won't get with the Chase Ultimate Rewards card or the Amex card.

00:25:42.160 | But if you want to earn the most points booking flights, it's almost always with a

00:25:48.000 | card that isn't the airline's card.

00:25:49.840 | There's very few occasions where you want to use your airline card to pay for a

00:25:55.080 | flight. Like you just said, you may get additional perks like lounge access or like

00:25:58.600 | priority boarding and stuff.

00:26:00.080 | And that's cool. That makes sense for people who regularly fly with an airline.

00:26:03.840 | But that card is not your strategy for accumulating the most valuable points.

00:26:08.680 | It's going to be in almost all scenarios.

00:26:11.640 | It's going to be collecting these or earning these transferable points instead.

00:26:16.760 | That's how you can accumulate so many of these points.

00:26:19.280 | Yeah, definitely.

00:26:21.040 | And hotel cards, I think, are depending on the chain.

00:26:23.840 | Like I know with my Marriott card, I actually earn more points when I'm staying at a

00:26:28.760 | Marriott than I would if I used any other card and transferred back.

00:26:31.680 | So I think that's one of a, you know, look into it.

00:26:35.080 | But for airline cards, it's pretty bad.

00:26:37.200 | Like hotel cards, you get that like free annual stay, like one night.

00:26:41.160 | So if you got one of the Marriott cards, they'll allow you to redeem for one night at

00:26:46.240 | any hotel in whatever category it might be, category one to four or something.

00:26:49.760 | And that can have quite a lot of value.

00:26:50.880 | You know, that's often valued at double of whatever the annual fee is for most of the

00:26:56.160 | cards. You brought up a really good point there, which is a lot of people look at cards

00:27:00.600 | with annual fees and they think, gosh, this card's really expensive.

00:27:03.760 | And one thing in the example you just gave, you might have a Marriott card that has a

00:27:07.560 | ninety five dollar annual fee and you might say, oh, I'm not staying at enough Marriott

00:27:12.600 | that the spending makes sense.

00:27:14.160 | But every year they might give you a free night that's worth two or three hundred

00:27:17.840 | dollars. And I often say, don't look at the annual fee, look at the annual fee minus

00:27:22.880 | whatever benefits you get.

00:27:24.160 | And so cards like the Chase Reserve card, it's an expensive annual fee, but they'll

00:27:29.760 | knock off the first three hundred dollars of travel spend.

00:27:32.640 | So you can't really look at it as the whole fee.

00:27:36.080 | You kind of have to look at it net of all of these things that come with it.

00:27:39.280 | Yeah, yeah. And that's what puts people off getting those like more, quote unquote,

00:27:43.040 | like luxury cards.

00:27:44.040 | People think, well, you know, like only rich people have an Amex Platinum like that card

00:27:48.280 | isn't for me. And with a five hundred and fifty dollar annual fee, like, I mean, that

00:27:53.320 | is a lot. But it's it shouldn't be seen as this like sunk cost that you can never get

00:27:58.680 | back. First off, like the sign up bonuses for most of them would pay for the annual

00:28:02.400 | fee for several years, the value from that.

00:28:04.680 | And then like the Platinum, for example, comes loaded with benefits.

00:28:08.640 | And these cards make a lot of sense to a lot of people.

00:28:13.280 | I mean, at the moment, because of obviously like pandemic and everything, they're giving

00:28:17.760 | you credits, things like Uber Eats and you get elite status of Hilton and Marriott, like

00:28:24.320 | Gold Elite. That's pretty cool.

00:28:25.600 | If you stay at any of those hotels like Wrigley, then just instantly get Gold Elite like

00:28:29.600 | by signing up like that has a lot of value.

00:28:32.760 | And then, yeah, like some of those cards can give you, like I said, like the Platinum,

00:28:36.400 | they can get 5x on booking flights.

00:28:38.200 | If you book flights regularly, you're going to get a whole ton of points from that.

00:28:42.200 | And that's extra value.

00:28:43.680 | So try not to like, yes, the annual fee is a real thing.

00:28:46.680 | You have to pay it. But that card makes a lot of sense for people who can utilize those

00:28:51.960 | benefits. And we easily get four times the amount of value back per year by using like

00:28:58.720 | the Platinum card like effortlessly.

00:29:01.200 | So, yeah, like annual fees, like quite rightly put people off.

00:29:04.520 | But you've got to look at the benefits and the perks and see if that makes sense for

00:29:08.120 | you, because often you can just get so much more value back from them.

00:29:10.360 | And I'll just say one quick thing.

00:29:12.200 | If you said the annual fee, you have to pay it.

00:29:14.240 | But if you've had a card for a few years and you found that right now you're not getting a

00:29:17.800 | lot of value out of it and you're thinking of cancelling it before you do, it's always

00:29:21.520 | worth calling the credit card company and just saying, hey, look, I didn't get a lot of

00:29:25.520 | value out of this. I'm thinking of cancelling unless there's something you could do.

00:29:29.320 | And I've had annual fees refunded.

00:29:31.400 | I've said, oh, go spend a thousand dollars in the next month and we'll give you twenty

00:29:35.120 | thousand points. And I'm not a fan of calling every year to threaten, but if I'm

00:29:39.560 | actually thinking of cancelling something and there's an offer that's worth keeping it,

00:29:43.760 | I'm definitely all ears.

00:29:45.840 | Yeah, totally. Like my strategy is very similar.

00:29:49.080 | Basically, within about one or two weeks of the annual fee kicking in, give them a call.

00:29:55.280 | It helps you actually use the card.

00:29:57.720 | If it's five thousand dollars you've got to spend to get the sign up bonus, don't spend

00:30:01.480 | five thousand and one and then call them up and expect them to give you free statement

00:30:05.960 | credits and everything. You want to use your card fairly regularly.

00:30:08.600 | But I'll phone up and I'll say I'm not a hard baller either.

00:30:11.480 | I'm terrible at that. So I'll be like, you know what?

00:30:13.360 | I love this card. Once I had to phone up Amex because I needed some help.

00:30:17.920 | The customer service agent was like amazing and it was great.

00:30:20.520 | And yeah, I do use it.

00:30:22.200 | But you know what?

00:30:23.280 | I spend money in this certain category and this card doesn't really give me too much

00:30:27.560 | value back. What can you do to sort of help me renew this?

00:30:30.640 | And if you just have a nice conversation and I find if you're not hard balling them.

00:30:34.920 | Yeah, I got like the first time I phoned up after getting the platinum, I phoned up and

00:30:41.280 | used the strategy. I got fifty thousand points for staying on.

00:30:45.000 | And I was like, yes, that was better than me.

00:30:47.560 | I just got my five hundred and fifty dollar annual fee refunded.

00:30:50.800 | Well, I would have taken I would have taken fifty thousand points, which actually is a

00:30:55.240 | perfect segue.

00:30:56.240 | So before we jump into just the best credit cards, I'm curious if we could give people

00:31:02.720 | some examples of how valuable points can actually be.

00:31:07.240 | When we talked about cash back, sure, you can get one two percent cash back if you're

00:31:11.800 | accumulating points.

00:31:12.880 | I think it's possible you mentioned that platinum card can give you five points on

00:31:17.160 | travel. The reserve can give you three on dining.

00:31:20.760 | But the real magic, I think, comes from spending those points by transferring them to

00:31:26.560 | airlines or hotels and taking really epic adventures.

00:31:30.680 | And I think it's cool to really make it clear how valuable that can be.

00:31:34.840 | So I'll give one example and I want to hear what yours are.

00:31:38.160 | And maybe we'll just share a few to give people an idea of how cool this can be.

00:31:41.640 | Mine is my honeymoon.

00:31:43.120 | We wanted to go to the Seychelles, which we'd never even heard of.

00:31:46.600 | But we were like, let's take the most exotic, crazy trip we can.

00:31:49.880 | And it's an island off the eastern coast of Africa.

00:31:53.320 | And we booked it on Air France in business class.

00:31:57.360 | The flights were about eleven or twelve thousand dollars roundtrip if we wanted to pay

00:32:03.560 | for them. And there were one hundred twenty thousand points for us just buying them with

00:32:07.320 | dollars, which that's gone up a little bit since then.

00:32:10.720 | But that's almost ten cents per point.

00:32:13.080 | So if you look at a card that's earning four points per dollar, if you can earn ten

00:32:17.120 | cents for each of those points, you're effectively getting 40 percent cash back.

00:32:21.760 | And we took it one step further.

00:32:23.840 | We knew that this was such a good deal and we wanted a wedding videographer and our

00:32:29.600 | wedding videographer we couldn't afford.

00:32:31.560 | And so she had told me in passing that she also wanted to go to the Seychelles and we

00:32:36.520 | didn't go on a trip with her.

00:32:37.800 | But we said, what if you do the wedding videography for free and we'll send you and

00:32:42.040 | your husband to the Seychelles as well on a future trip?

00:32:44.600 | And so we ended up spending at that time, it was like four hundred and eighty thousand

00:32:48.760 | Amex points. But we got about forty eight thousand dollars of value, which for me was

00:32:54.400 | like the best redemption of all time.

00:32:55.960 | What about you? Yeah, and you said ten cents per point of value.

00:33:00.520 | Remember, the portal gives you a whopping one gift card.

00:33:05.000 | Don't buy gift cards.

00:33:06.200 | Don't buy gift cards.

00:33:07.280 | Gift cards is even worse.

00:33:08.400 | So, yeah, I've been very fortunate.

00:33:10.080 | Like I've done a ton of business and first class travel.

00:33:13.560 | Certainly a memorable one is a round the world trip that I did with my wife.

00:33:17.560 | My oldest brother actually lives in Vietnam.

00:33:19.280 | So we went to go see him and then went to go see some friends in Sydney, Australia, and

00:33:23.440 | then also combine that with going to the Middle East.

00:33:25.720 | And basically we for three hundred and ten thousand miles per person, we paid just over

00:33:33.720 | a grand in taxes and fees.

00:33:36.640 | We got to fly Singapore suites first class.

00:33:40.200 | By the way, for anyone listening, Singapore suites first class is not a bigger seat,

00:33:45.400 | right? This is a bed.

00:33:48.200 | Yeah, a chair.

00:33:49.880 | Yeah, a double bed.

00:33:51.640 | You could put these together and you have a double bed on an airplane.

00:33:54.280 | So for anyone who hasn't had the chance to see these kind of really ridiculous

00:33:58.200 | international first class, this is nothing like the first four seats you walk by when

00:34:02.760 | you get on a domestic flight.

00:34:04.160 | This is a whole nother level.

00:34:06.480 | So, yeah, Singapore suites was absolutely incredible.

00:34:08.960 | We also got to fly Etihad's apartment, which like words can't even describe how

00:34:14.520 | ridiculous that cabin is.

00:34:15.800 | And they got showers and everything.

00:34:17.760 | And is that the one with the door?

00:34:20.680 | And then you have a little living area and then you have your own bathroom and your own

00:34:24.680 | bedroom. Yeah.

00:34:25.520 | So like, well, that's the residence where you got the bedroom as well.

00:34:28.320 | Oh, OK. It's everything you just said, like minus the minus the bedroom.

00:34:32.800 | Like it's so ridiculous.

00:34:34.960 | And actually for that specific flight, it ended up being one hundred thousand points

00:34:38.520 | and five hundred dollars in cash.

00:34:40.400 | Like who would not pay five hundred dollars to like fly 14 hours?

00:34:44.800 | We would just like this can't be happening.

00:34:48.040 | This is so ridiculous.

00:34:49.080 | And not only, by the way, on these flights, are you getting these amazing like you have

00:34:53.040 | a chair, you have a bed.

00:34:54.160 | They're usually pouring you like Dom Perignon, like you're getting like more value

00:35:00.560 | than just that. And in some of these airlines, they will pick you up at home.

00:35:04.920 | In a town car or a limo and bring you to the airport, you'll get the lounges at the

00:35:10.400 | airport. Some of the lounges I've been in have massages.

00:35:13.760 | So like some of these real premium international first class trips are way more than

00:35:19.000 | the mind can sometimes imagine.

00:35:20.520 | And for all those miles, so it's three hundred thousand each.

00:35:22.800 | But so not quite done yet.

00:35:24.640 | So we did the Singapore suites.

00:35:26.160 | We did the Etihad apartment.

00:35:27.840 | And then on my birthday from Dubai back over to we flew back into LAX.

00:35:32.960 | It was my thirty third birthday and we flew Emirates first.

00:35:36.400 | And that is the most blingy over the top experience.

00:35:39.920 | The cabin crew are just incredible.

00:35:42.880 | You can go up to the bar and start ordering Dom Perignon champagne cocktails, which is

00:35:47.920 | completely unnecessary.

00:35:49.040 | If you can do it, why not?

00:35:50.080 | And by bar, like this is a bar on the plane.

00:35:52.880 | The bar on the plane.

00:35:54.200 | Yeah, it's like the back and business class and first class can go there.

00:35:58.600 | But if your first class are like, oh, make sure he gets the Dom Perignon, it's just so

00:36:04.160 | over the top. And they have showers, too, with heated floors.

00:36:07.720 | And it's just way too much space.

00:36:10.120 | The size of the bathroom is probably the equivalent of like nine economy seats.

00:36:15.720 | It's very, very luxurious and very amazing.

00:36:17.600 | So the cost of all of that for two people, it would have cost us fifty five thousand

00:36:22.120 | dollars if we had paid in cash.

00:36:24.760 | It ended up being two thousand dollars between us for all the taxes and fees.

00:36:29.560 | And by the way, all of those flights and there was a few I didn't mention, like

00:36:33.800 | Singapore business, the economy price of them was over four thousand.

00:36:38.560 | So we actually paid half of what it would have cost to have flown all of those in

00:36:43.600 | economy. So it just blows my mind.

00:36:45.960 | And actually, a lot of those people might look at that and be like, that's just

00:36:49.920 | that's pretty aggressive. What can I do with that bit of information?

00:36:53.080 | So you could take one of those flights.

00:36:54.640 | OK, my goal is to fly Emirates first.

00:36:56.560 | I want to go from, say, Houston or Boston over to Dubai.

00:36:59.680 | Let's do it. You can totally.

00:37:02.000 | That's so achievable that actually since we're talking about it, like that Emirates

00:37:06.560 | flight might cost about at the moment, it's about one hundred and thirty thousand

00:37:10.840 | points each way. So it's one of the more expensive ones.

00:37:13.560 | But it's fifty six dollars in taxes and fees.

00:37:17.400 | They've just reduced those massively.

00:37:19.360 | And you can transfer your points from Chase, for example, like over to Emirates or

00:37:24.400 | you or these are like ten thousand dollar flights.

00:37:27.720 | Oh, these are not cheap flights with dollars.

00:37:30.480 | Yeah. Yeah. It's even if you could afford that, like me and my wife play the city

00:37:35.480 | game when we're waiting to get on a flight.

00:37:37.120 | We're like, it's called points or cash.

00:37:38.720 | It's a very simple game.

00:37:39.720 | We literally look around and we're like, oh, that person looks like, you know,

00:37:43.160 | wearing a suit and stuff, looks smart, clearly going to business class because

00:37:46.320 | he's lining up for business. What do you reckon?

00:37:47.720 | Points are cash. To me, it's so obvious when someone is using cash because I

00:37:53.080 | don't know. I feel like that person is just not like an optimizer.

00:37:56.280 | And anyway, has there ever been a contentious episode of points or cash where

00:38:00.320 | both of you were so sure you were right, but you thought the opposite, that you

00:38:03.880 | had to ask the person?

00:38:04.960 | Yeah, we've definitely had a little bit of an argument about it, but I didn't have

00:38:09.000 | the guts to actually go and ask the person.

00:38:10.680 | I was like, hey, yeah, I hope you enjoy your first class leaning over, trying to

00:38:14.480 | look at his ticket, see if you could glance at you.

00:38:16.960 | Yeah, exactly. But yeah, like just you could book like that Emirates first.

00:38:21.720 | If you find a what space where you could book it for 130,000, if you've got a big

00:38:25.320 | sign up bonus or you've been using a card that rewards you for the areas that you

00:38:29.920 | spend the most money in, like these are super attainable.

00:38:32.880 | It's almost like they're so over the top, these products that you look at people in

00:38:36.360 | them in images or videos and you think categorically could not do that.

00:38:41.840 | Like, you know, I run my site, Upgraded Points, and we get comments from people

00:38:47.040 | saying you're just rich.

00:38:47.960 | That doesn't work.

00:38:49.360 | I'm like, oh, could you just check out this article where we do literally like a

00:38:52.720 | step by step? This is how you book Etihad or Emirates or Singapore or something.

00:38:56.680 | And then you come back and they're like, oh, amazing.

00:38:59.520 | Like I didn't actually realize this was attainable or the conversation goes very

00:39:03.000 | quiet. Yeah.

00:39:04.160 | I always say once you get a taste of business class, it's like, God, business or

00:39:08.920 | first is the only way I want to cross an ocean.

00:39:11.040 | But if you don't play the points game, that can be pretty expensive.

00:39:14.000 | If anyone's listening doesn't have a good sense that you can go on amazing vacations

00:39:17.840 | for free, then, you know, I'm sorry.

00:39:20.240 | So is there any trip you like really want to take with your points?

00:39:23.080 | Yeah, funny you ask that, Ashley, because I'm in the middle of trying to find some

00:39:27.160 | award space to get on to A&A's first class products and then fly back in business

00:39:33.000 | because I want to experience both.

00:39:35.400 | They have a new product for business and first and there is an amazing this is

00:39:41.400 | probably like the best redemption option out there at the moment.

00:39:44.520 | So even though this doesn't make any sense and it's feasible because of the

00:39:49.560 | partnerships that airlines have with each other, you can transfer from Chase

00:39:55.600 | one hundred and twenty thousand points to your Virgin Atlantic account and book A&A

00:40:02.000 | first class round trip.

00:40:03.680 | So sixty thousand points each way to Japan from the US.

00:40:09.440 | And literally, like if you go and Google like an A&A first class cash price, I

00:40:15.200 | don't think you'll ever find one that's under ten grand each way.

00:40:18.280 | Like it's obscenely expensive.

00:40:20.360 | And for one hundred and twenty thousand points, again, I don't fly in A&A, so I

00:40:26.000 | haven't earned those points by flying them or using their credit card.

00:40:29.320 | I've transferred them from Chase, these transferable amazing points.

00:40:34.120 | And that's what I'm looking at.

00:40:35.960 | I've also got a Singapore first trip booked for like later this year.

00:40:40.560 | I don't know whether I'll take it or not because of obviously the current

00:40:42.680 | environment. But I booked that a while ago.

00:40:44.840 | So I'm super excited if that materializes.

00:40:47.560 | So it's clear that there's incredible value from credit card points and using

00:40:53.840 | them to take amazing vacations.

00:40:55.440 | I feel like now's the time to ask, what are the best cards now?

00:40:59.280 | I've been so out of the loop for the last 18 months with a new child, a new

00:41:05.680 | job, the pandemic.

00:41:07.600 | You run a site about this.

00:41:09.800 | What are the best points cards right now?

00:41:12.320 | Yes, I really like the Amex Gold card.

00:41:15.400 | I think they've done an amazing job with it over the years.

00:41:18.560 | So the Amex Gold will get you four times points when you're spending money at

00:41:23.360 | supermarkets, but also restaurants.

00:41:25.440 | And then you'll get three points per dollar spent flights and travel if you book

00:41:29.760 | through their portal.

00:41:30.640 | You also get Uber Eats free pass and then $10 a month credit.

00:41:35.480 | And the sign up bonus is pretty generous at the moment as well.

00:41:39.160 | So the Amex Gold is like a great kind of every day because I feel like most people

00:41:42.920 | shop at grocery stores like somewhat regularly and go to restaurants and so forth

00:41:47.400 | and obviously book travel.

00:41:48.400 | So the Amex Gold I really like.

00:41:50.240 | And again, remember, like Amex have a ton of airline and hotel transfer partners.

00:41:55.560 | So you're earning points fast and then you've got so many different ways that you

00:42:00.960 | can use those.

00:42:01.760 | I also like like on the Chase side, I do the Chase Apple Reserve.

00:42:05.960 | You get three points per dollar spent on like dining and travel.

00:42:10.120 | When people start like using Lyft and things like that, a lot more, you get 10

00:42:13.760 | times points per dollar spent on Lyft travel, which is really cool.

00:42:18.200 | And then, as you mentioned earlier, as part of the annual fee, you get $300 that you

00:42:23.120 | can use towards travel.

00:42:24.600 | But actually, at the moment, they've sweetened that deal.

00:42:26.600 | You can use that towards grocery and like gas expenses.

00:42:30.280 | So it's really easy to use up that $300, which is eroding that annual fee.

00:42:35.360 | So those are some really good cards.

00:42:37.400 | If you want to step it up.

00:42:38.600 | Oh, by the way, the Sapphire Reserve is great for lounge access.

00:42:41.080 | You get into those, you've probably heard of like priority pass lounges.

00:42:43.880 | There's 1,200, 1,300 of them around the world.

00:42:47.120 | So that's great if you want to be relaxing in the lounge when you're at the

00:42:50.600 | airport. And then, to be honest, like one of my favorites for sure, and I can't not

00:42:55.360 | mention is the Amex Platinum, because it is the best card for lounge access, because

00:43:01.000 | not only do you get access to all the priority pass, you get into the amazing

00:43:04.920 | Centurion lounges, which I absolutely love.

00:43:07.080 | They're just super crisp, run very well, really delicious food and unlimited drinks.

00:43:12.240 | And even some of them have like spas and showers and so forth.

00:43:15.280 | And they've got a bunch now.

00:43:16.680 | I don't remember specifically how many, but it's at least a dozen and they keep

00:43:20.200 | popping up everywhere.

00:43:21.120 | I'm waiting for one to come to Austin, but fingers crossed on that.

00:43:24.200 | I have the Platinum and the only caveat I'll say is I view it with the exception of

00:43:30.120 | getting five points on flights, which is huge if you book a lot of flights, right?

00:43:34.720 | Other cards, you might earn three, five is definitely the most that I'm aware of.

00:43:39.520 | But other than that, I think the Platinum card, I view it more as a perks card.

00:43:43.200 | There's a lot of credits for things that you can buy right now.

00:43:46.720 | Every month you get $30 off PayPal and you get $50 or off at Saks Fifth Avenue.

00:43:52.480 | So there's just credits and perks and lounge access, but I don't actually, other

00:43:56.760 | than flights, put any money on my Platinum card.

00:43:59.120 | Yeah.

00:43:59.720 | Yeah.

00:43:59.960 | It's not the card that you want to use to start accruing and earning loads of

00:44:04.240 | points.

00:44:04.680 | Like you said, it's the benefits and the perks card, because remember too, with

00:44:08.000 | those benefits that you had mentioned, you get the hotel, like elite status, you

00:44:11.960 | get gold elite at Hilton and Marriott, pretty cool because those statuses give

00:44:16.640 | you upgrades and all the rest of it and earning more points when you stay there.

00:44:19.840 | That's where the gold comes in because you're rewarded.

00:44:23.160 | Like I use the gold to like accrue loads of points and then I'm like cashing in my

00:44:27.720 | benefits as it were, like using the Platinum.

00:44:29.640 | So yeah, like those are a couple of the cards that are really hot right now.

00:44:33.080 | Yeah.

00:44:33.480 | So you mentioned the Amex Gold, you mentioned the Chase Reserve, our two great

00:44:38.080 | earning cards, the categories are a little overlap, right?

00:44:41.720 | So you've got restaurants on both, you've got travel on the Reserve, you've got

00:44:47.200 | groceries on the gold, you know, is there a card you think is a good complimentary

00:44:52.000 | card for all that other spending that doesn't fall into a category, whether it's

00:44:57.720 | a drugstore, whether it's, you know, Home Depot, whether it's shopping online, do

00:45:03.160 | you use those cards for those purchases or what do you do?

00:45:05.800 | Yeah.

00:45:06.560 | So I'll have, so for example, I got the Chase Freedom Unlimited, which is

00:45:11.640 | like my cashback card, I'll use that card to get me at least one and

00:45:16.560 | a half cent cashback, but what's really cool is that if you had the Chase Sapphire

00:45:22.360 | Reserve or the Chase Sapphire Preferred or a number of Chase's business cards

00:45:26.640 | that carry an annual fee, if you've accrued cashback with the Freedom

00:45:30.760 | Unlimited, you can convert that cashback into points.

00:45:35.560 | So for me, like I'm only using a cashback card if I can then later, if I need

00:45:42.360 | to convert that cashback into points.

00:45:44.880 | And it's a little hack there because they never market this, the Unlimited

00:45:49.120 | is marketed as a cashback card.

00:45:50.720 | And by having another Chase card that has an annual fee, you can convert it

00:45:54.920 | over and then like we've chatted about, you can use those points for incredible

00:45:58.800 | travel.

00:45:59.280 | So I do like the Freedom Unlimited.

00:46:00.920 | Some people like, if they truly want cashback, like they might use something

00:46:04.320 | like the Amex Blue Cash Preferred, which gives you like 6% cashback on

00:46:08.240 | supermarkets, that's pretty cool.

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00:48:58.920 | I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.

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00:49:18.560 | Okay, so if I have a Chase Reserve or I have even a Chase Sapphire Preferred, the

00:49:23.640 | everyday spending card is the Freedom Unlimited.

00:49:25.880 | Yeah.

00:49:26.560 | Does Amex have a good kind of everyday points earning card for all those other

00:49:30.160 | categories?

00:49:30.920 | No, not really.

00:49:32.440 | Like they do on the business side.

00:49:33.920 | So like for anyone who runs a business and is listening, like the Blue Business Plus

00:49:39.360 | will just give you 2x on everything up to $50,000 in spend.

00:49:43.280 | So that is one of my 19 cards and I just hit that 50 and then I put it in the

00:49:47.360 | sock drawer, like it's done.

00:49:48.800 | That's another 100,000 Amex points like easily accrued.

00:49:51.960 | Just so people know, you do need to have a business to do this, but that business

00:49:56.720 | doesn't have to employ people.

00:49:58.560 | If you freelance on the side, if you sell things on eBay, like anything that counts

00:50:05.000 | as a business can make you eligible for a business card.

00:50:07.960 | I had a startup and I was able to get a business card, but before that I didn't.

00:50:12.680 | But every now and then I did some consulting work for a few hours here and

00:50:17.000 | that counted.

00:50:17.560 | And then at one point in time, I drove for Lyft to make some extra cash during the

00:50:22.480 | New Year's season and that kind of stuff.

00:50:24.200 | And I counted that as business.

00:50:25.360 | So there are various ways.

00:50:26.640 | It doesn't mean you have to own a company that employs people to necessarily be

00:50:30.920 | eligible for a business card.

00:50:32.080 | Yeah, 100%.

00:50:33.040 | We got an article that talks just about this actually, because a lot of people were

00:50:37.040 | asking about it.

00:50:37.720 | And so, yeah, you don't need any sort of like complex or big business at all.

00:50:41.840 | And then you unlock like the business cards, to be fair, like are super exciting

00:50:45.760 | because they have huge bonuses.

00:50:47.960 | And then if you're a business owner too, like in your, you're paying for Facebook

00:50:51.520 | ads or things like that, like they reward you three times points per dollar spent.

00:50:55.600 | One of the Amex business gold will give you four.

00:50:58.600 | So if you're regularly spending in these categories, like business owners is like a

00:51:02.440 | whole kind of separate topic, but there's a ton of great cards.

00:51:05.800 | One thing that you've taught me in prior conversations that I want to make sure is

00:51:10.960 | clear when you're using the Amex gold, it works at groceries and you get four points

00:51:16.920 | per dollar at grocery stores, but it gets you nothing.

00:51:20.080 | If you're going to Home Depot, it gets you nothing if you're going to any other drug

00:51:24.880 | store, but you can buy gift cards at the grocery store.

00:51:29.520 | So the hack you taught me was go to the grocery store with your 4X points on

00:51:34.600 | groceries, buy your Home Depot gift cards, and then go to Home Depot and pay for

00:51:39.400 | everything with gift cards. And you can get the 4X without having to do it.

00:51:43.600 | And that was like such a good hack.

00:51:45.280 | Yeah, this is one of the coolest hacks.

00:51:46.960 | And by the way, it's not like something that's worked for six weeks and probably

00:51:50.440 | won't work again.

00:51:51.120 | Like I've been doing this for at least eight years.

00:51:53.920 | Like I, whenever I make any purchase on Amazon, it's off the back of me buying a

00:52:00.720 | gift card at say a supermarket store or an office one.

00:52:03.480 | I'll talk through the office one in a minute.

00:52:04.840 | But with the gold, yeah, you get 4X at supermarkets.

00:52:07.360 | They have tons of different gift cards there.

00:52:09.880 | You can grab an Amazon one and then load up your Amazon account.

00:52:12.880 | I mean, it's super easy. It takes you like one minute or iTunes or the airlines as

00:52:17.720 | well. So again, coming back to like, why would you use the Southwest credit card to

00:52:23.080 | purchase a flight with them when you could just buy like a Southwest gift card or

00:52:26.520 | multiple of them and you get 4X on them?

00:52:29.000 | So it's a really sweet hack.

00:52:30.720 | And there's so many retailers as well.

00:52:32.280 | So it's not just like you're reduced to only a couple of options.

00:52:35.160 | Amazon is a biggie because everyone spends money on Amazon.

00:52:37.840 | You should not be just using like a normal credit card to get one point per dollar

00:52:42.080 | spent. Load them up with these gift cards that you've earned like 4X off.

00:52:45.880 | For business owners, if you you can get like the Ink Cash, which gives you five times

00:52:51.120 | points at office stores.

00:52:52.840 | So I go there all the time and I load up on some of the same similar retailers.

00:52:57.440 | So that's a way for me to like top up my chase points by going to the office store to

00:53:03.080 | buy those gift cards. And then on the Amex side, I can go to the supermarkets, right, and

00:53:06.880 | get 4X off and be getting the gift cards that way.

00:53:10.240 | And this is not like cutting out a coupon or spending hours doing something like that.

00:53:14.000 | If you go to the supermarket to buy food, just throw some gift cards in, like job done.

00:53:19.040 | Like they don't give you hassle about it.

00:53:21.040 | Any other hacks to earn extra points beyond spending?

00:53:24.480 | Yeah, this one's kind of cool.

00:53:26.000 | So if you hold something like one of the Platinum's or if you hold actually the gold

00:53:32.760 | card, when you log into your Amex account, they may have said, hey, do you want to sign

00:53:37.760 | up to our pay over time feature, which basically means that if you've made a purchase

00:53:43.080 | of $100 or more, you can pay it over time, which we don't want to do because that would

00:53:47.840 | mean that you're paying interest and all that horrible stuff.

00:53:50.680 | But by simply just saying yes, I would like the ability to be able to do this.

00:53:56.320 | They can give you 20,000 bonus points.

00:53:59.320 | So I've done this on multiple cards.

00:54:01.040 | So I've racked up like at least 40,000 points by doing this.

00:54:03.880 | And again, you don't even like I've never used pay over time to pay off my statement

00:54:07.920 | every single month. But by just saying yes, I would like the option to that you can get

00:54:13.360 | up to 20,000 points.

00:54:14.600 | So go into your account, check to see if you've had it.

00:54:17.000 | There's also a way to they have a link that you can click on.

00:54:20.600 | You can just go to our site or you can Google it and find out what link that you have to

00:54:24.880 | click to see if you're targeted for that offer, because it is a targeted offer.

00:54:27.880 | But in my experience, almost everyone gets off at that at some point.

00:54:30.960 | I also love the offers section.

00:54:33.760 | So when you're logged into Amex or Chase, they give you all these offers.

00:54:37.280 | And I feel like a year or two ago, it was these crappy offers.

00:54:41.240 | Spend $300 on flowers and get $10 back.

00:54:44.640 | But this year, at least with Amex, I've gotten a $100 off a Best Buy purchase of $100.

00:54:51.720 | I've gotten $100 at Dell off $100, $100 at Home Depot off $100.

00:54:56.320 | So I've probably gotten $300 or $400 back from my Platinum card on purchases I already

00:55:02.640 | had to make. This microphone I'm talking on, I bought at Dell and got the entire

00:55:07.360 | purchase refunded. And there's no cost to adding these things.

00:55:11.040 | So every month I log in, I'm like, are there offers to add?

00:55:14.360 | I'm tempted to just add all of them just in case I go buy something online.

00:55:18.960 | So I know you can only add $100 to one card.

00:55:21.440 | OK, so of course, Alex knows the answer.

00:55:23.960 | He's tried.

00:55:25.600 | Yeah, a member of our Facebook group said, oh, what's going on?

00:55:28.160 | I can't add any more Amex offers to my card.

00:55:30.640 | I was like, how many do you have?

00:55:31.440 | Screenshot 100. I was like, yeah, you've got enough of it.

00:55:34.200 | Yeah, there's some really good ones I added.

00:55:36.240 | Hyatt have got one at the moment.

00:55:37.680 | So spend $300 and get $60 back.

00:55:40.000 | So 20% off, basically, which is super cool.

00:55:43.080 | There's loads of ones around like Booze and Wine.com and everything like that.

00:55:46.840 | But oh, yeah, this was a cool one.

00:55:48.800 | So with my Amex Gold, you get $10 per month that you can spend on Uber Eats just by

00:55:55.400 | having the card. But they've also got an Amex offer, which I've added to my card

00:55:59.960 | that enables you, I think you get, I don't know, like $5 back for every 15 that you

00:56:05.080 | spend. And you can do this five times.

00:56:06.920 | Not only are you getting the monthly credit with just by having the card, I'm

00:56:11.920 | stacking that with this Amex offer that then gives me like $5 back for every 15.

00:56:17.320 | Yeah, there are some great offers.

00:56:18.440 | And you're right, they're so aggressive with them now.

00:56:20.960 | There's just so many of them.

00:56:22.240 | And they're easier to find, like they used to be buried.

00:56:24.400 | Chase are behind, like Chase offers suck.

00:56:26.440 | They're really not very good.

00:56:27.760 | The other stacking thing, a lot of these have a lot of these points, portals and

00:56:33.200 | airlines have these shopping portals.

00:56:35.000 | Yeah. And I always say before you buy anything online, make sure there's not some

00:56:39.720 | website that has a browser extension or a link you can click to earn more.

00:56:43.560 | And oftentimes, I think some of the, you know, I go to Cashback Monitor.

00:56:47.840 | Yeah, I look at who has the highest percent cash back.

00:56:50.480 | And oftentimes the cash back makes sense.

00:56:52.680 | But if you're someone who's new to points and you're just trying to see how quickly

00:56:57.560 | can I get to my goal for this trip, whether it's 100, 200,000 points, you can go to

00:57:03.000 | Chase and click on a link at Chase's website to some retailer online like Macy's

00:57:09.280 | to go buy a gift for someone and they're on the holidays.

00:57:12.320 | And I might earn three, four, five points per dollar spent.

00:57:15.600 | And then I can pay for it with my Chase card and earn another one or two points

00:57:20.440 | per dollar. The shopping portals can be a great way to accelerate your points earning.

00:57:24.840 | Yeah. And with the portals as well, like this, you might not earn thousands and

00:57:30.160 | thousands of dollars by doing this once.

00:57:32.000 | But since we all online shop, just have a quick check to see if there's a multiplier

00:57:36.560 | bonus happening at one of the shopping portals.

00:57:39.240 | This is literally how you start racking up thousands of points over the year, because

00:57:44.720 | now when you're buying something online, you're maybe going through a portal.

00:57:48.240 | If you're going to Amazon, well, wait a minute.

00:57:49.840 | I got my gift cards at the supermarket.

00:57:51.880 | And when I'm booking a flight, like I'm getting five X points, like all of these

00:57:55.920 | different strategies together.

00:57:57.080 | This is how I say you rack up tons and tons of points.

00:58:00.160 | So the shopping portals is good.

00:58:01.400 | They also have the dining the dining programs as well.

00:58:03.920 | Oh, yeah. Not quite as exciting.

00:58:06.200 | But you just basically add your card to specific airlines or hotels dining program.

00:58:13.240 | And then if you were to go to one of the restaurants in their network, they will give

00:58:18.840 | you bonus points for every dollar that you spent on top of whatever that card gives

00:58:23.520 | you. So, for example, with the gold, if you went and dined at a restaurant that was

00:58:27.680 | part of American Airlines dining portal program, you would earn four on the card.

00:58:32.960 | And then for all of that restaurant could be giving you five on top of it.

00:58:36.680 | So you come out with nine times points per dollar spent.

00:58:39.880 | And over the course of the months and the years, like you really do earn loads and

00:58:43.840 | loads of points. So I like to use those as well.

00:58:46.680 | So you have 19 cards.

00:58:48.360 | I assume you have points across many different programs.

00:58:52.440 | Is there any easy way that you can organize all of that and keep track of where your

00:58:56.760 | points are, how many you have?

00:58:59.000 | Is there anything that makes that simple?

00:59:00.440 | Yeah. So I like to use Award Wallet.

00:59:03.560 | They have a pretty good feature there where you can just load up all of your accounts

00:59:07.920 | and then they'll automatically check those accounts periodically to give the most

00:59:12.720 | recent balances that you have.

00:59:14.520 | And so you can see like in one screen, oh, here are all my different accounts is the

00:59:18.640 | total that I have. That's cool because, yeah, if you take it to the extreme like me,

00:59:22.280 | it can quickly get out of hand and you need to be a little bit organized or you can do

00:59:26.360 | things like spreadsheets and just like once a month you do like a quick balance check.

00:59:29.520 | But I do. Yeah, I do that feature that they have at Award Wallet.

00:59:32.360 | I know when you transfer points from Amex or Chase to different airlines, you're still

00:59:37.720 | relying on the availability of award travel, which sometimes might not be

00:59:43.000 | open the days you want to fly.

00:59:44.480 | If you want to just fly whenever you can and you don't want all those restrictions, is

00:59:50.240 | there a way to use your points, either the shopping portal or the travel portal or

00:59:55.600 | something that still makes it better than a cashback card?

00:59:58.480 | Or if I want to be able to fly on any flight at any time, am I actually better off just

01:00:03.280 | getting cash back?

01:00:05.160 | Well, remember, the points cards in the first place are going to earn you more points for

01:00:09.440 | every dollar that you spend, so you're already ahead by choosing a points card.

01:00:13.200 | So if you decide then to use that in the most simplistic way in a travel portal, you're

01:00:18.600 | going to end up like getting the most amount of value.

01:00:21.120 | And the great thing about the portals is that there are essentially like no blackout

01:00:26.040 | dates, like no restrictions, and you can book pretty much any flight that you want.

01:00:30.400 | I mean, Chase is literally port with Expedia, so it's like you're using Expedia.

01:00:34.680 | And what kind of value do you get?

01:00:36.080 | If you have the Chase Apple Reserve, you'll get 1.5 cents per point in value, which is

01:00:42.800 | awesome, considering that you may have earned three times points on travel purchases and

01:00:49.360 | dining purchases.

01:00:50.480 | So each of those points is then being redeemed at one and a half.

01:00:53.960 | I'm not a very good mathematician, but I think that works out to getting a 4.5 percent

01:00:58.360 | cashback, essentially.

01:01:00.400 | Yeah, even if you can go on the most optimal trip, if you're as flexible as possible and

01:01:06.520 | you want to say, I'll go anywhere in the world in first class on any day, you're going to

01:01:11.480 | get the most points if you transfer to an airline.

01:01:13.880 | And we should do a whole episode on how to do those transfers, how to find that

01:01:17.840 | availability. And that'll come soon.

01:01:19.600 | And stay tuned because we won't get into that at all today.

01:01:22.240 | But even if you just book through the portal, you're getting four and a half, maybe five

01:01:28.720 | if it was a platinum card, maybe more like you can still get a value that's greater than

01:01:34.160 | just getting one and a half or two cents back.

01:01:36.040 | So Chase Reserve, Amex Gold, great cards for earning points, platinum, great card for

01:01:41.800 | perks. The other big way to accrue points is not just spending on your credit card, but

01:01:47.360 | the huge sign up bonuses you get signing up for cards.

01:01:50.680 | I remember one time in the same day I signed up for three Citi American Airline cards

01:01:57.720 | and earned something like 75,000 each for 225,000 points in one go.

01:02:03.560 | And the requirement was to spend two or three thousand dollars over a period of time,

01:02:08.560 | which I was able to do.

01:02:09.600 | I know that's a huge way people gain points.

01:02:13.160 | Are there any big sign up bonuses now?

01:02:15.400 | So right now there are some incredible bonuses that are happening.

01:02:19.360 | The Chase Sapphire Preferred, like the 80,000 points, it's always like 60,000.

01:02:24.080 | So you get like another 20,000, which is really cool.

01:02:26.840 | And then the Amex Platinum, they bump that up from like the usual 60,000 to 75,000.

01:02:32.720 | And on our website, we actually have an article on how you can get up to 125,000 points

01:02:38.640 | from the Amex Platinum. There's a super cool way of getting a targeted offer.

01:02:42.240 | Put that and everything we've discussed will all be in the show notes.

01:02:45.960 | Check it out. Yeah, definitely.

01:02:47.360 | Because if you're going to sign up for the Platinum, one thing I haven't mentioned is

01:02:50.920 | that you can only get a sign up bonus from a card once in your lifetime.

01:02:55.440 | So better make sure that with something like the Amex Platinum that you reach for that

01:02:58.920 | 100,000 points or minimum 75,000, don't settle for that 60,000 points.

01:03:04.400 | The Amex Gold has also bumped theirs up.

01:03:06.560 | I think it's usually 35,000 and they've got that at 60,000, like literally like every

01:03:11.600 | card, nearly every card has increased their bonuses right now.

01:03:15.480 | And it's the banks catching up to all the stuff that happened in the pandemic.

01:03:19.320 | So if you're thinking about jumping on a card, I would massively recommend that you

01:03:23.960 | look into it ASAP because the bonuses are just so strong, like the Chase Alpha Reserve

01:03:28.640 | has bumped up to like 60,000 and it's usually at 50.

01:03:31.520 | Business cards are big as well, like the Inc.

01:03:33.600 | Business preferred 100,000 points for a $95 annual fee card.

01:03:38.160 | Like the 100,000 points, even if you use them in the worst possible way, is worth over

01:03:43.240 | $1,000. Even if that was for like, I think gift cards would be maybe a little bit less.

01:03:47.520 | But don't be doing that. If you used it in the portal, it would be $1,250.

01:03:51.800 | So big, big bonuses.

01:03:53.760 | Honestly, there aren't that many cards that haven't increased their offer right now.

01:03:58.440 | And one thing I think this, correct me if this isn't true anymore, but I know Chase has

01:04:04.280 | a pretty hard rule when you're opening new cards that if you've opened more than five

01:04:08.720 | cards in the last two years, you're not going to get another one.

01:04:11.600 | Is that still the way they operate?

01:04:13.520 | Yeah, they call it the 5/24 rule.

01:04:15.720 | It's not an official rule, but it's basically like what the optimizers have found out.

01:04:19.800 | What makes this relevant to you is that if you're thinking of getting a few Chase cards,

01:04:23.840 | get those first before you then jump on, say, an Amex card or a Citi card or whatever.

01:04:29.720 | Because if you take out more than five cards in a 24 month period, you're not going to

01:04:35.240 | be able to take out that Chase card that you're looking at.

01:04:37.680 | So that's why if you love the Chase Sapphire Preferred 80,000 bonus points, but you also

01:04:43.600 | like the Amex Gold and maybe you've taken out a few cards in the last year or two, grab

01:04:48.840 | that Sapphire Preferred first and then get the Amex afterwards.

01:04:53.760 | I just saw an ad yesterday for the Capital One Venture card, 100,000 points.

01:04:59.440 | Does that have a place?

01:05:00.760 | We haven't talked about that card at all.

01:05:02.160 | Yeah, so Capital One have really stepped up because now you can transfer miles that you

01:05:09.560 | accrue with them to airline and hotel partners just like Chase, just like Citi, just like

01:05:14.560 | Amex. Previously, they didn't do that.

01:05:16.760 | So the miles that you accrued, you would have to use for statement credits and things like

01:05:22.280 | that or something in their travel portal, which wasn't very valuable.

01:05:25.800 | But now you can transfer them to partners.

01:05:28.120 | So yes, like 100,000 points on a venture is a monster sign up bonus.

01:05:33.080 | And if you're looking at Capital One cards, that could be a really good one.

01:05:36.720 | Again, I think they have 15 or 16 different transfer partners.

01:05:40.440 | And a couple of years ago, they had none.

01:05:41.840 | So they've realized that everyone is being lured in by Chase cards and Amex cards.

01:05:46.160 | So that's great for the consumer because now the bonuses are going up because Capital

01:05:50.480 | One, like they want your business and then Chase are annoyed.

01:05:52.880 | So they increase the sign up bonuses and make everything so much more lucrative.

01:05:56.720 | It's great for us. It's so good for us.

01:05:59.640 | If you look back five years ago, like it was pretty nuts to have 100,000 bonus.

01:06:05.560 | And it was nuts to have four times points per dollar spent on things like supermarkets

01:06:10.640 | and dining and everything like that almost didn't exist.

01:06:13.600 | The competition has gone pretty crazy.

01:06:16.000 | Like this last five years.

01:06:17.160 | So genuinely, like now is a really good time to be looking at cards because those bonuses

01:06:22.080 | are massive and they've adjusted the benefits to the pandemic.

01:06:26.760 | They're like not loads of people want to travel.

01:06:28.600 | So I'm going to give you a ton of statement credits at grocery stores.

01:06:32.120 | I'm going to give you a bunch of stuff back on dining or delivery.

01:06:36.040 | That's why all these Uber Eats passes are being marketed everywhere.

01:06:39.000 | And that's why they're baked into a lot of these cards.

01:06:41.600 | So to be fair, they've done a good job.

01:06:43.320 | The issue is of adjusting to the current environment.

01:06:46.360 | And it makes those cards, like to me, like even more useful.

01:06:49.560 | Yeah, I remember once I applied for a chase card, I didn't get it.

01:06:53.840 | I called up the reconsideration phone number, which you can find just googling around.

01:06:58.160 | And I ended up getting them to reconsider and I got the card.

01:07:01.560 | Is that something that still happens?

01:07:03.720 | Can you still do that?

01:07:04.560 | So if you ever apply for a card and you're not instantly approved, you definitely want

01:07:08.960 | to phone up the reconsideration line, because often they just need a little bit more

01:07:13.120 | information. And by giving that information, it gives them enough confidence to then give

01:07:18.040 | you the approval for the card.

01:07:19.440 | It doesn't always work.

01:07:20.800 | Sometimes there's a legitimate reason why you haven't been accepted for a card.

01:07:25.920 | But I always will phone up the reconsideration.

01:07:28.520 | It's worked for a bunch of friends, too.

01:07:29.960 | Definitely worth the time.

01:07:31.280 | And actually, you get through pretty quickly on reconsideration lines.

01:07:34.240 | So when you open these cards up for sign up bonuses, if they're not cards that you

01:07:39.040 | necessarily spend regularly on, how long do you keep them open?

01:07:42.520 | Do you close them at the end of the year?

01:07:44.120 | Do you close them as soon as the bonus posts?

01:07:46.280 | Yeah, so it used to be a lot more lax.

01:07:50.080 | So you used to be able to just sign up for the bonus, spend one dollar more than the

01:07:54.440 | minimum spend and then close it.

01:07:56.520 | And the banks would be a bit annoyed or the airlines would be annoyed.

01:07:58.880 | But it was fine.

01:08:00.480 | You could do that. Now it's much riskier.

01:08:03.560 | So let's say, for example, you get a hundred thousand bonus of a plan and you want to

01:08:08.240 | close it. It is not unheard of for them to take that bonus back from you.

01:08:12.920 | So my recommendation is that you want to spend quite a bit more than the minimum spend

01:08:18.800 | on a card so that if you then later want to close it, you wouldn't run into any trouble.

01:08:23.000 | Now, to answer your question about what I do, if it's a no annual fee card, it is a

01:08:27.240 | sock drawer card.

01:08:28.680 | I keep it open because that helps with my credit, because the longer that you've had

01:08:33.880 | a card open for, the higher that your credit score will go up in the portion that looks

01:08:38.080 | at that section. If it's no annual fee and it's not causing you any bother, just keep

01:08:42.200 | it open. Obviously, if it has an annual fee, you're going to have to like make an

01:08:45.240 | assessment. Wait a minute.

01:08:46.240 | I'm paying, say, 200 a year, 300 a year.

01:08:48.240 | Am I using any of these benefits?

01:08:49.600 | Am I using any of these perks?

01:08:51.000 | If it was purely a sign up bonus play, like I mentioned, just make sure that you're

01:08:55.640 | spending more than what the minimum requirement is before you cancel it.

01:09:00.480 | And yeah, cancel it towards the very end, because they may offer you like the story

01:09:05.880 | that you shared with me. They may offer you a statement credit on the entire annual fee

01:09:10.160 | when you phone up and you just never know.

01:09:12.400 | Like I got that 50000 points from Amex Platinum and there's been a few other scenarios

01:09:16.360 | as well. But there's no reason to close it.

01:09:19.200 | And it's actually a bit risky to close it, say, in month five or month six and wait

01:09:23.760 | until the annual fee is going to kick in, give them a call and just see what they

01:09:29.000 | offer you. Like they could offer you something really awesome.

01:09:31.160 | And you're like, oh, actually, I did want to close this, but now they've offered me

01:09:35.040 | 40000 points.

01:09:36.320 | Yeah, I don't want to close it anymore.

01:09:37.640 | Yeah. When the Chase Reserve came out and it was 3x on dining and travel, I had the

01:09:44.160 | preferred, which was 2x on dining and travel.

01:09:46.640 | And I thought, I'm never going to use this card again.

01:09:48.920 | But one thing that you can also do is you can downgrade cards.

01:09:53.400 | Now, not I don't think every credit card company lets you do this.

01:09:56.680 | I know Chase does.

01:09:57.720 | But I called up and said, oh, is there any free card you have that I can downgrade this

01:10:03.160 | to? Because I didn't want to lose the history on that card.

01:10:05.760 | Yeah, I did the same thing.

01:10:07.120 | I had a United card for that was the first card I got in college, and it was really

01:10:11.840 | helping my credit in terms of how long of a history I had.

01:10:14.520 | And it turns out, even though they don't really market it that heavily on the website,

01:10:18.720 | there is a no annual fee United card that I downgraded to.

01:10:21.480 | So if you can't get them to waive the annual fee or give you a bonus, you might be able

01:10:26.520 | to downgrade it to a free card and put it in a drawer.

01:10:29.160 | But I would say if you've had it for a long time and it's really helping your credit,

01:10:33.560 | it's worth at least once a year.

01:10:36.240 | Go make a purchase.

01:10:37.600 | Just make sure you spend something because unfortunately, that United card got shut down

01:10:43.280 | and my average length of credit history dropped because that was the only card I'd had

01:10:48.640 | for more than 10 years.

01:10:49.800 | I, yeah, I downgraded actually think about I downgraded the Sapphire Preferred to a

01:10:54.440 | Freedom card or something.

01:10:55.560 | So, yeah, like it keeps all that great history and doesn't hurt anything.

01:11:00.080 | And it's a no annual fee card.

01:11:01.280 | And you can set up a reminder or something to make a purchase, or you can sometimes

01:11:05.320 | people have a tiny recurring annual fee for a specific service.

01:11:08.680 | Just stick it on that, stick it on that card, you know, so there's at least one

01:11:12.120 | transaction a year.

01:11:12.920 | I like that strategy.

01:11:13.840 | Yeah.

01:11:14.400 | Alex, this was amazing.

01:11:16.240 | I feel like I thought I knew a lot about credit cards and points and I feel like I know

01:11:21.080 | even more now.

01:11:22.120 | Hopefully, everyone has a new strategy to take an amazing vacation.

01:11:27.160 | Thank you so much for being here.

01:11:29.320 | Where can people find you, Upgraded Points and anything else you're excited about

01:11:34.120 | online? Yeah, thanks, Chris.

01:11:35.960 | I really enjoyed the chat and Upgraded Points is my website.

01:11:39.800 | And we got over 2000 articles there.

01:11:41.840 | We go super detailed, lots of in-depth content and we update it regularly.

01:11:46.480 | So go check out UpgradedPoints.com for more information about what we chatted about

01:11:51.520 | today and plenty of other topics as well.

01:11:54.000 | Wow, that was great.

01:11:56.920 | There will be lots of links in the show notes for sure.

01:11:59.560 | So you can find those at AllTheHacks.com.

01:12:01.840 | And thank you so much for listening.

01:12:03.960 | I can't believe it's already been three shows.

01:12:06.320 | I'm already working on lining up the next few episodes.

01:12:09.080 | But in the meantime, I would love to know if there are any other topics you want to

01:12:12.360 | hear about on the show or questions you have for me or even hacks that you know about

01:12:16.680 | that you want me to share.

01:12:17.720 | You can email any of those to Chris@AllTheHacks.com.

01:12:21.520 | I really want to make this show great for all of you.

01:12:24.280 | So please reach out by email, on Twitter if you have any feedback or other ideas.

01:12:29.600 | And to everyone who's already left a review or a rating, thank you so much.

01:12:33.960 | If you haven't, it's never too late and it would really help the show out.

01:12:38.120 | It's one of the main ways that Apple decides what to feature.

01:12:40.920 | Or if you want to share the show with a friend, that'd be amazing, too.

01:12:44.200 | So thank you so much.

01:12:45.640 | And I'm really excited to keep this going.

01:12:47.400 | Have a great day.

01:12:48.440 | I want to tell you about another podcast I love that goes deep on all things money.

01:12:59.440 | That means everything from money hacks to wealth building to early retirement.

01:13:03.200 | It's called the Personal Finance Podcast, and it's much more about building

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01:13:11.080 | is about clipping coupons to save a dollar.

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01:13:22.640 | I know because I was a guest on the show in December, 2022, but recently I listened

01:13:28.160 | to an episode where Andrew shared 16 money stats that will blow your mind.

01:13:32.280 | And it was so crazy to learn things like 35% of millennials are not participating

01:13:37.240 | in their employer's retirement plan.

01:13:38.880 | And that's just one of the many fascinating stats he shared.

01:13:42.520 | The Personal Finance Podcast has something for everyone.

01:13:45.480 | It's filled with so many tips and tactics and hacks to help you get better with

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01:13:52.880 | Just search for the Personal Finance Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or

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