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00:01:34.680 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about

00:01:41.560 | upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:01:43.720 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I am excited you're joining me today for a conversation

00:01:47.880 | all about points and miles with none other than Julia Menez.

00:01:51.840 | She's the host of the Point Strategy Podcast, GeoBreeze Travel, where she

00:01:56.120 | interviews travelers from all walks of life about their points and miles tactics.

00:02:00.280 | I know I've personally learned some great points hacks from her, so it

00:02:04.280 | is awesome she's here today.

00:02:05.760 | We're going to talk about using buyers groups to earn a lot of points without

00:02:09.720 | increasing your budget, stacking deals to get more points, some sweet spots to

00:02:14.800 | maximize your miles, Chase's 5/24 rule, when it makes sense to buy points,

00:02:19.800 | whether you should put your taxes on your credit card, and a lot more.

00:02:23.320 | So let's jump in.

00:02:25.440 | Julia, thank you for being here.

00:02:27.120 | Hey, I'm so excited to be here and to chat about points and miles with you.

00:02:31.400 | One of my favorite topics, Julia and I, we actually met at a conference called

00:02:35.720 | FinCon, where we were both up for the best new personal finance podcast.

00:02:40.160 | Yours for GeoBreeze Travel and All The Hacks.

00:02:42.080 | For me, both of us lost, but we both won this friendship.

00:02:46.200 | And I'm excited that we got that chance to meet because some of the things

00:02:49.920 | I want to talk about today are points and miles tactics that I had not

00:02:53.680 | learned about until following you.

00:02:55.520 | So I am really excited for this conversation.

00:02:58.520 | I just want to jump in and start talking about earning points.

00:03:02.160 | One of the topics that I want to start us with is a one I get a lot of emails

00:03:07.480 | about, and after I published a post about my trip to Bora Bora, the first

00:03:12.040 | question from a dozen people was, well, that's cool, but 500,000 points to go

00:03:17.080 | on a trip is a lot, how do you get them?

00:03:19.320 | And I have my tactics, but I want to hear from you.

00:03:22.200 | How do you help people think about starting to earn points on a smaller budget?

00:03:26.080 | Yeah.

00:03:26.760 | So the signup bonuses are going to be how most people are going

00:03:29.560 | to earn most of their points.

00:03:31.480 | So obviously a lot of people are familiar with the signup bonuses.

00:03:34.600 | You spent maybe $3,000 in the first three months of opening your car.

00:03:38.960 | You're going to get 50 or 60,000 points.

00:03:40.880 | That's where a lot of your points are going to come from.

00:03:43.680 | But a lot of people will react to this and be like, okay, but I don't have like

00:03:47.560 | $3,000 of stuff that I need to buy.

00:03:50.440 | We are on a pretty tight budget.

00:03:52.240 | What do I do?

00:03:53.400 | Do I just not get the signup bonus?

00:03:55.200 | But there's lots of ways around that.

00:03:57.400 | If you have a smaller budget, it's going to be really important to find some

00:04:01.320 | kind of source of reimbursable spend.

00:04:03.440 | And this can be as simple as you pay for dinner for a whole bunch of people

00:04:09.120 | and everybody Venmo's you back.

00:04:11.200 | That way you get the points for putting the spend on your credit card, but it

00:04:16.280 | doesn't really affect your bank account because other people are paying you back.

00:04:19.520 | You can plan parties.

00:04:21.880 | I know that we just talked on my podcast about you planned a whole bunch of

00:04:26.640 | bachelor parties for people in Mexico and got reimbursable spend that way.

00:04:32.480 | So you can earn a ton of points by doing that.

00:04:35.480 | You can put work travel on your card if your job allows it or any work related

00:04:41.120 | expenses, and then just fill out an expense report.

00:04:44.160 | You can, if you're a teacher, we have an episode, I think it's episode 56

00:04:49.920 | featuring Zach from travel freely.

00:04:52.680 | And he was a teacher and had a very small budget, but wanted to earn more points.

00:04:58.200 | But he was also the tennis coach at that school.

00:05:01.880 | So all of their team trips, he would just put it on his card and then fill out an

00:05:07.280 | expense report and get reimbursed for it.

00:05:09.240 | So finding some kind of reimbursable spend is really cool.

00:05:13.880 | One of the more advanced ways that people do this is through something called buying

00:05:19.720 | groups, which basically there are people who like to resale at scale.

00:05:27.320 | Think like PlayStations, Apple products, cell phones, things like that.

00:05:35.080 | Most of the time, if there's a really good sale on an iPhone or an iPad, you're

00:05:41.160 | going to be limited for how many you can buy.

00:05:43.160 | You can't just run into Best Buy and be like, give me all your iPads.

00:05:46.840 | I'm going to resell them right before Christmas, or give me all your

00:05:50.280 | PlayStation fives, I'm going to price gouge everybody on eBay who wants

00:05:54.520 | this for Christmas for their kid.

00:05:56.600 | And so since you're limited for how many you can buy, some people outsource the

00:06:02.640 | buying to other people where they'll say, Hey, I am wanting to resell iPads.

00:06:10.720 | I'm offering this much, get me an iPad, ship it to my place, and I will reimburse

00:06:16.800 | you, and so then you go out and source all of these different electronics, ship

00:06:21.840 | it to their address and they pay you back.

00:06:24.360 | So this is a way that some people in the points world get a lot of spend.

00:06:29.040 | There's lots of different channels that do this for buying groups.

00:06:31.840 | Some of them are like PFS, NYS Buyer's Club, Buy For Me Retail, we have a whole

00:06:38.480 | masterclass about like the pros and cons of each one and where you can source all

00:06:43.200 | of these different products that you then ship to these different places.

00:06:46.720 | But the general mechanics are they put out basically an ad that says we're buying

00:06:52.360 | this, here's how much we'll reimburse you for, and then you try to figure out

00:06:57.040 | how much they'll reimburse you for, and then you try to source that item at a

00:07:01.520 | lower cost so that you're not losing money, and then ship it directly to them

00:07:05.200 | and they'll pay you back.

00:07:05.800 | Do they usually pay more than it would cost?

00:07:09.240 | So there's different ways that can be done.

00:07:12.720 | Some of them actually pay a pretty hefty commission.

00:07:15.400 | So PFS mostly sources like collectible gold coins from the US Mint.

00:07:21.560 | If a coin is going to come out, they're not going to be able to get more than one.

00:07:26.440 | They're going to be by one of this coin, and we'll pay you the cost of the coin

00:07:31.400 | if it's like $3,000 for a collectible or something, plus $200 commission.

00:07:35.040 | These deals are super rare, but that's the one that will actually pay a lot more.

00:07:40.000 | Some other ones, they pay a little bit less than you might just be able to get

00:07:44.680 | with a store price, but if you're using that expense to meet a minimum spend on

00:07:50.600 | your credit card where you're going to be getting $800 of travel vouchers or

00:07:56.360 | something, 60,000 points, it could be worth it if, say, "Well, I could buy

00:08:03.120 | these for like $3,000, they're only reimbursing me like $2,900 or something,

00:08:10.760 | but I'm going to get 50,000 points out of it."

00:08:13.200 | It could be worth it.

00:08:14.520 | There's also other tricks to help make it a little bit better of a return on

00:08:19.640 | investment for you called stacking, where if you are clicking through Rakuten and

00:08:24.320 | earning some more Shopping Portal points for buying this PlayStation or this

00:08:28.560 | electronic, then that helps to bring your costs down as well.

00:08:32.400 | So that can help make up for the gap.

00:08:34.960 | You're also putting it ideally on a credit card that earns points.

00:08:37.960 | And I want to come back to point stacking, but buyers groups, it sounds like there

00:08:42.120 | needs to be some trust here, right?

00:08:43.840 | I see an ad on the internet that says, "Send all the iPads you want to this

00:08:48.200 | random address in this warehouse and we'll for sure send you back money."

00:08:52.800 | Are they reliable?

00:08:53.640 | Do you trust them?

00:08:54.640 | How do you know that you're not buying a device that you are going to mail off

00:08:58.680 | somewhere and never get paid back?

00:09:00.680 | So they have tracking IDs where they say, "When you order your Amazon thing, put

00:09:06.720 | the tracking ID here.

00:09:07.920 | Make sure you add this code into the description on the Amazon so we know how

00:09:12.480 | to pay you back."

00:09:13.400 | They have internal tracking and some of them will pay out faster than others so

00:09:19.840 | that you can pay off your credit card before the 30 days.

00:09:24.280 | And it'll vary on which ones are better than others, which ones are more

00:09:28.080 | trustworthy.

00:09:28.760 | The ones that aren't as trustworthy will lose their credibility super fast because

00:09:32.600 | every points person who's in the buyer groups is going to start complaining

00:09:35.320 | about them.

00:09:36.520 | So that's one way is to just be in the points community and talk to other people

00:09:42.080 | about which buyers clubs they're using and which ones have the best payouts,

00:09:47.440 | which ones pay out the fastest, which ones have the best offers, and then go

00:09:51.800 | from there.

00:09:52.800 | - When you say be in the community, where are you learning about all these

00:09:55.880 | different buyers clubs?

00:09:56.880 | - So I have a Patreon where we have a lot of people who will ask questions on

00:10:02.680 | this.

00:10:03.240 | There's also other Patreons who will talk about buying groups.

00:10:06.240 | One is called the Points Analyst on Instagram.

00:10:08.640 | He has a Patreon.

00:10:11.040 | There's Pack Your Bag with Points.

00:10:12.400 | He has a Patreon or a Discord, and he talks about a lot of these tactics as

00:10:16.440 | well.

00:10:17.160 | And then there's just a lot of people on Instagram who advertise that, "Hey, you

00:10:20.840 | should use this credit card if you can't meet the minimum spend.

00:10:23.760 | I like to use buying clubs.

00:10:25.040 | Here's the ones that I use."

00:10:26.160 | So there's a lot of us on Instagram who talk about buying groups.

00:10:30.920 | - Okay, I'm going to ask for a handful of links, including to your content and your

00:10:34.880 | masterclass, and I'll put it all in the show notes.

00:10:37.200 | But this sounds like something you could do to earn a meaningful number of points

00:10:41.640 | each year.

00:10:42.040 | Is that fair?

00:10:42.640 | - Oh, of course.

00:10:44.440 | Yeah, some people are putting thousands upon thousands of dollars to earn lots of

00:10:50.600 | sign-up bonuses, just maxing out their 5X categories on Chase Freedom Flex, if that

00:10:55.560 | comes up, because one of the main places that people will source from is Amazon.

00:11:00.480 | If you are getting five points per dollar at Amazon, then you are going to meet that

00:11:06.440 | $1,500 cap really fast on a Chase Freedom or a Chase Freedom Flex by doing Buy Your

00:11:11.240 | Clubs.

00:11:12.440 | For those of you not familiar, the Freedom Flex and the Freedom Card may look like cash

00:11:18.840 | back cards when you look at them online.

00:11:20.680 | They say we get 5% cash back on these categories each quarter.

00:11:24.360 | But if you also have a Sapphire Preferred or a Sapphire Reserve, you can actually use

00:11:28.960 | the points or the cash back you earn on these cards as points and transfer them places.

00:11:33.920 | So the same goes with the Freedom Unlimited, which I've talked about a lot as a good kind

00:11:37.800 | of companion card.

00:11:39.440 | So I'm slowly learning that in almost all of the programs, whether it's Citi or Capital

00:11:44.560 | One or Chase, but not Amex, that if you have cash back cards, you can usually combine the

00:11:51.160 | cash back perks with your rewards card and be able to transfer those points as well.

00:11:57.160 | There's one other app that's really good for meeting minimum spend and getting reimbursable

00:12:01.740 | spend.

00:12:02.740 | It's called Grabber.

00:12:03.740 | So if you travel to Latin America a lot, it's spelled G-R-A-B-R.

00:12:07.720 | In Latin America, a lot of the things that we have in the U.S., like iPhones, will actually

00:12:11.840 | cost more there because of the taxes and everything.

00:12:15.480 | So there will be people who are going to say, "Hey, are there any Americans traveling to

00:12:19.960 | this city in Brazil?

00:12:22.300 | I'd like to buy an iPhone.

00:12:23.400 | I'm willing to pay this much."

00:12:25.440 | So let's say price in the U.S. is $1,000.

00:12:28.960 | In Brazil, it's going to cost them $1,500.

00:12:31.000 | They might say, "I'm willing to pay $1,250 for an iPhone."

00:12:35.560 | Then you put in your bid and then deliver it to them, meet in a hotel lobby or something

00:12:40.780 | in the daytime so that you don't meet in an alleyway, obviously, as you're turning over

00:12:46.440 | the phone.

00:12:47.440 | But they prepay for this.

00:12:49.000 | So as soon as you do the exchange, you'll get paid that reimbursable spend as well.

00:12:54.720 | So not only do you get reimbursed, but you also get paid a commission for delivering

00:13:00.200 | this.

00:13:01.200 | And the commission should be enough to cover any kinds of custom taxes that you might have

00:13:05.120 | to go through or just like the time and effort for hauling stuff in a bag.

00:13:10.400 | Don't bring like 25 iPhones into Brazil.

00:13:14.000 | That looks sus, but you can bring a couple iPhones, like a couple of other things that

00:13:20.040 | people are requesting.

00:13:21.560 | Medical devices sometimes get requested if they just don't have access to them in those

00:13:25.800 | hospitals.

00:13:26.800 | So you can bring some medical devices for people in Brazil and they'll pay you commission

00:13:30.800 | for it.

00:13:31.800 | So that's another way to get reimbursable spend as well.

00:13:34.640 | And really just pay for a trip to Brazil or Argentina or a lot of other South American

00:13:39.000 | countries if you were planning to travel there anyway.

00:13:42.320 | You talked a little bit about stacking and I think it would be good to walk through an

00:13:46.300 | extreme example of how valuable this can be.

00:13:48.640 | So maybe one of your own that you've had recently where you're able to stack as many points

00:13:53.800 | as you could on a purchase.

00:13:55.320 | Because I think sometimes we think about the most obvious way to earn points is sign up

00:13:59.960 | bonuses.

00:14:00.960 | There are huge bonuses for spend and then your regular day-to-day spend.

00:14:04.800 | If you spend a lot on travel, you spend a lot on groceries, there are cards to maximize

00:14:08.720 | that.

00:14:09.720 | But every now and then, you're making a purchase that's large enough that you're like, "Is

00:14:14.320 | there another way to maximize?"

00:14:16.080 | And there are.

00:14:17.400 | Talk about all the ways that you know that you could stack points together on an expense.

00:14:22.580 | What I like to do for excursions a lot is I'll go to Groupon and then find an excursion

00:14:26.980 | that I want to do.

00:14:27.980 | It'll normally be discounted.

00:14:29.920 | Well then, I'm going to go figure out what's the exact amount that I'm going to spend on

00:14:34.560 | Groupon and I'll buy a Groupon gift card through this app called Floos because they're probably

00:14:39.960 | going to give me an extra 5% or 6% back just for buying their gift card.

00:14:44.520 | And then I'm going to go use on Groupon.com.

00:14:47.360 | But I don't go directly to Groupon.com.

00:14:49.560 | I instead go through Rakuten.com because Rakuten will also give me an extra 5% to 6% usually

00:14:55.200 | for clicking through.

00:14:56.200 | I've gotten as high as 18% I think if it's beauty salons and spas and stuff.

00:15:02.960 | So I'm earning credit card points.

00:15:05.800 | I'm earning points through Floos.

00:15:07.560 | I'm earning points through Rakuten and I get a Groupon discount.

00:15:10.880 | So that's one example of how you can stack things.

00:15:15.040 | I try not to go super crazy with stacking like 17 steps because that's 17 steps you

00:15:21.240 | have to track in each one like what if one thing goes wrong.

00:15:24.160 | But there's a lot of different ways to automate the stacking.

00:15:28.240 | It's really easy to do this with restaurants.

00:15:31.660 | So you can sign up for airline dining portals, lots of different dining portals.

00:15:38.260 | So you just have to link any credit card that you want and then when you dine at a partnered

00:15:43.280 | restaurant with that credit card, then you're going to get extra points through this dining

00:15:48.280 | portal.

00:15:49.880 | So in New York, we have a lot of restaurants that are in this dining portal.

00:15:55.080 | We also have this app called Seated where you make reservations through this app.

00:15:59.280 | You take a picture of your receipt afterwards to make sure that your reservation is completed

00:16:05.760 | and they will give you 23% back a lot of the time, sometimes up to 60% back for dining.

00:16:11.680 | And if you can do this on a group dinner, well, I think I made like $60 in one weekend

00:16:15.820 | because no, everybody else was from out of town.

00:16:18.960 | Here's the group bill.

00:16:19.960 | I took a picture of the full group receipt before we split it up and earned $60 from

00:16:24.800 | some group dinners.

00:16:26.300 | So you can stack Seated, you can do the dining portal.

00:16:30.320 | Can you stack different dining portals?

00:16:32.360 | How does that work?

00:16:33.360 | And for anyone not listening, Harish, who's starting a podcast, he heard all the hacks.

00:16:36.920 | He was like, I want to do this.

00:16:37.920 | It'll be called Hacking the American Dream.

00:16:40.440 | And he was like, do you talk about dining portals?

00:16:43.960 | They're crazy.

00:16:45.080 | And so he sent me some screenshots from the Southwest Rapid Rewards Dining Portal.

00:16:49.960 | And he's like, there's a bunch of restaurants.

00:16:52.340 | You might not find all the restaurants you want to go to and certainly don't only eat

00:16:56.400 | at restaurants for points.

00:16:58.000 | My advice is eat for food and go where good food is.

00:17:01.360 | If those intersect, that's great.

00:17:03.160 | But do you have to pick one or can you say, I'm going to do the American Dining Portal

00:17:07.120 | and the Rapid Rewards Dining Portal and, and, and?

00:17:10.520 | Normally, you can only choose one per card.

00:17:13.680 | So if I'm using my MX Gold to get 4X points on dining, I can only link that to one program

00:17:19.840 | because most of them are going to go through like the same central place and their same

00:17:23.480 | restaurants are on most of the networks.

00:17:25.840 | So you can really just choose one, unfortunately.

00:17:29.600 | But you can link it with another app that's kind of like a dining portal called DOSH,

00:17:33.880 | where it's the same idea.

00:17:35.140 | You just have to link up your credit card and then go to a partnered restaurant or shop

00:17:40.680 | with a partnered store, pay with that linked credit card, and then you're going to get

00:17:43.880 | some points with DOSH as well.

00:17:46.480 | And for super stacks, Episode 7 of the Geo Breeze Travel Podcast features this girl named

00:17:53.840 | Angel Trinh.

00:17:55.020 | You can find her on Instagram @pennywisetraveler and she stacked like 15 things one time in

00:18:01.880 | a group outing.

00:18:02.880 | She did like an Uber Eats credit, DOSH, seated, dining portals.

00:18:11.320 | I think there was like a Rakuten thing because she purchased a gift card to use at the restaurant

00:18:16.160 | there as well.

00:18:17.160 | So she was stacking so many different tactics for one dinner.

00:18:21.920 | Again, that's Episode 7 of the Geo Breeze Travel Podcast and that goes into a much more

00:18:27.040 | extreme example of how to stack things.

00:18:29.880 | Awesome.

00:18:30.880 | So I have slowly inched my way into stacking.

00:18:34.960 | And the way I often do it is I use Cashback Monitor.

00:18:39.000 | So anytime Julia mentioned Rakuten, a lot of people know that formerly known as Ebates

00:18:44.440 | is a portal you can earn cashback when you're shopping online.

00:18:47.440 | Anytime I'm going to make a purchase online that costs maybe over $100, I'll go look and

00:18:53.160 | say, "Is there cashback or points?"

00:18:55.720 | And the thing Cashback Monitor does that's really cool is they'll show you what are the

00:19:01.000 | best places for cashback, transferable points, airline points.

00:19:04.760 | So if you're watching on video, you'll see two chairs behind me.

00:19:07.620 | But in the near future, you will see a sofa behind me because this recording studio/office

00:19:12.960 | will soon become a guest room as well.

00:19:15.020 | And so we needed a sofa bed.

00:19:16.560 | And I was like, "Okay, we found the one we liked at Crate & Barrel."

00:19:19.960 | And I was like, "Where can I get points?"

00:19:21.440 | And it turns out that, yeah, I could get half an Emirates point per dollar or a few other

00:19:26.960 | places.

00:19:27.960 | But I get three JetBlue points per dollar was the best deal.

00:19:30.880 | So before I bought the couch, I went to JetBlue, I logged in, and I ended up clicking through

00:19:36.680 | their link to purchase the Crate & Barrel couch on crateandbarrel.com, earning three

00:19:41.120 | JetBlue points per dollar.

00:19:43.160 | This is a money hack, but you might like it.

00:19:45.560 | One thing that I found is there are a lot of ways online you can earn coupons for major

00:19:51.420 | retailers.

00:19:52.840 | And so one that a lot of people know about is anytime you change your address, the USPS

00:19:57.400 | sends you a bunch of coupons to your new address.

00:20:01.440 | There are websites that sell those coupons to save you the hassle of finding them.

00:20:06.640 | And so right before we purchased the couch on Crate & Barrel, stacking the JetBlue points,

00:20:12.720 | I went to this website and it's called saveindeals.com, like 7deals.com, but S-A instead of S-E.

00:20:20.900 | And I tell you, this site looks like it's illegitimate.

00:20:23.860 | It does not look like a professional website.

00:20:27.120 | But what they do sell are Lowe's, Home Depot, and Crate & Barrel coupons.

00:20:32.240 | So I went in and I found a 15% off Crate & Barrel coupon.

00:20:37.440 | And for the low price of $3.99, I PayPaled a random address.

00:20:44.500 | And seconds later, I had an email with a 15% off Crate & Barrel coupon.

00:20:48.040 | Sometimes you used to be able to find these on eBay.

00:20:49.900 | It's become harder to find them.

00:20:51.680 | A lot of people list them on Craigslist, which is how I found them.

00:20:54.600 | I use Search Tempest and search for coupons and it searches like all the Craigslist around

00:20:59.900 | the countries.

00:21:00.900 | You can also stack with coupon codes.

00:21:02.220 | I think most people listening have probably heard of Honey or RetailMeNot and websites

00:21:06.640 | you can get promo codes for.

00:21:08.160 | But when you want actual coupon codes with unique barcodes, yes, you can do the change

00:21:12.800 | your address, but you can also buy them online on sketchy websites.

00:21:17.560 | Being a parent can be scary, whether it's watching your toddler jump on your new couch

00:21:21.840 | naked during potty training, or the indescribable pain of stepping on tiny plastic dinosaurs

00:21:27.640 | in your bare feet.

00:21:28.920 | Both of which happened to me recently.

00:21:30.720 | Well, one thing that doesn't have to be scary is getting life insurance, especially when

00:21:35.740 | you do it with Fabric, who I'm excited to partner with for this episode.

00:21:39.800 | Fabric by Gerber Life was designed by parents for parents to help you get a high quality,

00:21:45.640 | surprisingly affordable term life insurance policy in less than 10 minutes.

00:21:49.760 | And when I say surprisingly affordable, I actually went online to compare prices and

00:21:54.680 | found Fabric to be highly competitive with great policies like a million dollars in coverage

00:22:00.720 | for less than a dollar a day.

00:22:02.560 | It takes less than 10 minutes to apply and you could be offered coverage instantly with

00:22:07.160 | no health exam required.

00:22:09.100 | So protect your family today with Fabric by Gerber Life.

00:22:13.680 | Apply today in just 10 minutes at meetfabric.com/allthehacks.

00:22:19.880 | That's meetfabric.com/allthehacks, M-E-E-T, fabric.com/allthehacks.

00:22:28.980 | Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states.

00:22:33.720 | Price is subject to underwriting and health questions.

00:22:37.800 | So I am quite comfortable right now, which is actually true almost every day, and that's

00:22:42.320 | thanks to Viori, and I'm excited to be partnering with them for this episode.

00:22:46.320 | They make performance apparel that's incredibly versatile.

00:22:49.880 | Everything is designed to work out in, but it doesn't look or feel like it at all.

00:22:53.800 | And it's so freaking comfortable, you will want to wear it all the time.

00:22:57.320 | Seriously, I am pretty sure it's more comfortable than whatever you're wearing right now, unless

00:23:01.580 | you're wearing Viori, in which case you already know what I mean.

00:23:04.600 | And it's not just for men.

00:23:06.240 | My wife is as obsessed with Viori as I am.

00:23:09.060 | My favorite is the Sunday Performance Joggers.

00:23:11.560 | I think I have three pairs, and they are probably the most comfortable pants I've ever owned.

00:23:16.280 | Their products can be used for just about any activity, whether it's running, training,

00:23:20.600 | or yoga.

00:23:21.600 | They're also great for lounging, running around town, or their MetaPants can even work for

00:23:25.720 | a night out.

00:23:26.720 | Honestly, I think Viori is an investment in your happiness, and for all The Hacks listeners,

00:23:31.520 | they are offering 20% off your first purchase, as well as free shipping and returns on U.S.

00:23:36.880 | orders over $75.

00:23:39.240 | So you should definitely check them out at allthehacks.com/viori or in the link in the

00:23:45.320 | show notes.

00:23:46.320 | Again, go to allthehacks.com/v-u-o-r-i and get yourself some of the most comfortable

00:23:54.360 | and versatile clothing on the planet.

00:23:57.920 | One other place where you can stack so many things is in Las Vegas.

00:24:03.360 | There's so many different ways to get deals.

00:24:06.440 | One of my favorite apps is called the MyVegas app, and then you just play these free slot

00:24:11.560 | machine games.

00:24:12.560 | They give you free tokens every day in hopes that you get addicted to gambling and then

00:24:15.900 | put money in their app, which I've never actually done.

00:24:18.120 | But they give you all of these free tokens, and you play little slot games, and you can

00:24:22.600 | redeem the points that you get for free Las Vegas hotel rooms or food or show tickets.

00:24:30.520 | Tons of different things.

00:24:33.000 | It's for the MGM network in Las Vegas, and MGM has a partnership with Hyatt.

00:24:37.960 | So here's what you do.

00:24:40.820 | Play the MyVegas app, get a whole bunch of points that you can redeem for a free room

00:24:44.680 | or two, and then go online, status match.

00:24:49.520 | If you have Hyatt Explorist or Globalist status, then you're going to have MGM Gold status,

00:24:55.080 | which means you don't have to pay any resort fees at all.

00:24:58.440 | So you have a free hotel room where you'd normally have to pay taxes and fees, but you

00:25:03.120 | don't have to do that anymore because it's waived with status.

00:25:06.080 | And then when you check in, you give them your Hyatt Elite ID number, your World of

00:25:12.480 | Hyatt ID number, so that you're going to earn Hyatt Elite Nights for staying at this free

00:25:18.280 | MGM hotel.

00:25:21.240 | And that brings you closer towards status so you don't have to stay at nearly as many

00:25:24.680 | different Hyatt hotels just to get the free breakfast or the free upgrades or any of those

00:25:30.120 | other statuses.

00:25:31.120 | For people who really want Globalist status but can't afford to stay at that many Hyatts,

00:25:37.400 | don't want to put a whole bunch of spend on a World of Hyatt card through buying groups

00:25:40.600 | or anything like that, this is a really cheap way to just get Elite status with Hyatt.

00:25:47.000 | How many nights could you conceivably do this for in a year?

00:25:51.360 | How hard is it to actually earn these MyVegas points that get you free nights?

00:25:55.180 | Super easy to earn the points, but they limit you to one premium redemption each month.

00:26:00.560 | So you can do two nights per month because some of them are for one night free, some

00:26:05.200 | of them are for two nights free.

00:26:06.840 | You can conceivably get 24 Elite Nights this way, which is almost halfway to the 60 that

00:26:12.360 | you need.

00:26:13.680 | Also, you can just pay for the cheap Vegas hotel stays.

00:26:20.200 | You can, but don't have to stay there.

00:26:22.120 | If you wanted to just book the Excalibur for four nights on weeknights, it's like $20 or

00:26:28.760 | $30.

00:26:29.760 | And then the rest of the steps are the same.

00:26:30.760 | Your resort fees are waived.

00:26:32.120 | Make sure you give them your Hyatt ID upon check-in.

00:26:35.000 | Then you just get four Hyatt Elite Nights for $20 to $30 each.

00:26:40.680 | So you can get status really quickly that way.

00:26:43.720 | I want to just highlight some of the crazy amounts of points stacking deals.

00:26:49.200 | I'm looking at Cashback Monitor right now.

00:26:51.600 | And I'm looking at the Apple Store, for example.

00:26:54.200 | If you buy an Apple product and you click through the Chase portal, if you have a Chase

00:26:58.440 | Freedom card, you're going to get two points per dollar on Apple.

00:27:01.880 | Nike, three points per dollar.

00:27:04.320 | Also through Top Cashback, 10% cashback.

00:27:07.080 | So this comes to a place where you're like, "What do I really want?

00:27:10.000 | Do I want to maximize my points or do I want to maximize cashback?"

00:27:13.120 | But some of the deals I've seen have gotten really lucrative.

00:27:17.280 | And I just want to make sure people know that this isn't a place where you could earn a

00:27:21.800 | couple points here and there.

00:27:22.960 | You can earn thousands of points on a purchase you're already going to make.

00:27:26.280 | Also sometimes Rakuten will increase the amount of points that they're giving for a Marriott

00:27:31.920 | or an IHG or something.

00:27:33.940 | If you already have a trip booked and the price hasn't changed too much for your dates,

00:27:39.680 | cancel that trip and rebook it, clicking through Rakuten.

00:27:42.280 | Because then you can get 10% back on IHG or something for a trip you are going to take

00:27:45.880 | already.

00:27:46.880 | And that's something you haven't already paid for.

00:27:48.120 | So that's another thing that we do with just getting more points.

00:27:52.360 | If you're on a small budget without having to spend more than you wanted to spend.

00:27:56.920 | Keep an eye on these portals if you have big purchases.

00:27:59.320 | I know our couch, it's not in stock because of all of the supply chain issues, but they

00:28:05.160 | told us in our email confirmation, if we have to cancel it, you're okay until it's been

00:28:09.240 | confirmed that it's going to ship.

00:28:10.840 | So you better believe that I was checking.

00:28:12.920 | If for some reason there was a 10% cash back, which is not unheard of on some stores.

00:28:18.000 | In fact, I think when we bought our first couch from Macy's, Macy's is notorious for

00:28:23.000 | having some of the highest cash back rates.

00:28:25.400 | And I believe we used like a 10% cash back link to buy the first couch.

00:28:30.560 | So I would certainly cancel and repurchase the couch if it ended up being 10 or 20% off

00:28:35.120 | because of it.

00:28:36.640 | Every now and then I find out there are deals to be had that I missed out on.

00:28:40.520 | The charity donation thing in December where people were donating money and earning crazy

00:28:46.440 | amounts of miles.

00:28:47.800 | I kick myself regularly for the fact that I missed out on the opportunity.

00:28:53.120 | I know there are certain sources that write really good content, but what are the places

00:28:57.600 | you go for the deals that are timely and you need to act on them quickly?

00:29:01.840 | Are there specific places?

00:29:03.440 | Yeah.

00:29:04.440 | So if you follow a lot of us on Instagram who post about these, I post about these and

00:29:07.880 | you turn on post notifications, then you'll get alerted, but you can do that with any

00:29:11.640 | blogs that you follow too.

00:29:13.280 | So a few of my favorites, I really like frequent miler and doctor of credit to stay on top

00:29:19.800 | of these different deals.

00:29:20.960 | Those are two of the ones that I follow very closely.

00:29:24.760 | I check it every day.

00:29:26.800 | I aggregate all of these into an app called feedly, so I don't have to go to each individual

00:29:30.760 | blog website that I read, but you can put on notifications on your email when you're

00:29:36.400 | subscribed to their list as well if you really want to jump on things as soon as they hit.

00:29:40.880 | That brings us to another point.

00:29:41.880 | So you use the feedly app.

00:29:43.000 | I know there are points all over programs and one of the things that I've accumulated

00:29:47.880 | over the years is small balances in lots of places, keeping track of it all.

00:29:52.600 | I think you have a binder with lots of credit cards.

00:29:54.800 | How do you organize all this information?

00:29:57.080 | Are there tools that you use to stay organized with your points or you use to book things

00:30:01.680 | that you prefer?

00:30:02.880 | Yeah.

00:30:03.880 | So I have different tools for different purposes for figuring out how many points I have with

00:30:10.440 | each program.

00:30:11.440 | I like to use award wallet.

00:30:12.920 | So it's just one dashboard that aggregates everything into one place for you.

00:30:17.520 | So I don't have to go check my chase account, then my Amex account, then my Marriott account,

00:30:22.760 | then my Hyatt account.

00:30:23.760 | It's all just in one dashboard and it's free.

00:30:27.040 | There's a paid version where they'll actually send you alerts.

00:30:29.740 | If you have points that are expiring, I like to use this tool called travel freely to check

00:30:36.080 | how many cars have I opened in like the last 24 months so that I know my five over 24 status.

00:30:42.320 | I like it because it sends me email reminders when I have an annual fee that's going to

00:30:46.040 | come to you.

00:30:47.160 | So then I can decide, okay, should I hang onto this card?

00:30:49.320 | Am I getting enough value out of it or should I just downgrade it because I'm not getting

00:30:52.800 | enough out of the annual fee.

00:30:54.400 | So I like travel freely because it sends me that reminder to stay organized for which

00:31:00.680 | card to use for any given purchase.

00:31:03.060 | I like to use an app called card pointers.

00:31:05.840 | You just tell it what cards you have and what you're trying to buy, whether it's groceries

00:31:10.460 | or gas, online shopping, public transportation.

00:31:14.260 | And then it'll tell you, oh, based off of the cards you have, here's the one that's

00:31:17.500 | going to earn like the most points slash most value.

00:31:20.300 | So you should use this card for your dining purchase.

00:31:23.760 | And it just takes out so much like decision making and brain usage.

00:31:30.840 | If all of this is already calculated for me, they also track in the pro version, all of

00:31:37.120 | those like Amex credits, how did I use my dining credit this month?

00:31:41.320 | Do I have shopping credits that are left somewhere else?

00:31:43.280 | You can track those on card pointers.

00:31:45.560 | So those are three apps that I really like to use to stay organized.

00:31:49.040 | I want to come back to something you said, which in the miles and points world is really

00:31:53.080 | well known, but I think for a lot of people listening might not be, which is the 5/24

00:31:58.240 | rule.

00:31:59.240 | So can you talk a little bit about the 5/24 rule and why it's important for people?

00:32:04.200 | Sure.

00:32:05.200 | So 5/24 rule is a rule specifically set by Chase that says if you applied for five or

00:32:11.000 | more personal cards across any bank, Capital One, Amex, Chase, Citi, then you will be rejected

00:32:18.120 | on your application for your Chase card if you've already done five or more applications

00:32:22.580 | in the last 24 months.

00:32:24.840 | That's why a lot of points blogs will really prioritize recommending Chase cards to beginners

00:32:29.080 | because you can grab five Chase cards and then move on to other banks, but you can't

00:32:34.360 | grab five Capital One, Amex, and Citi cards and then move on to Chase because they'll

00:32:38.800 | reject you.

00:32:39.800 | So that's kind of the order of operations of cards is because of this rule.

00:32:44.360 | This rule drives so many decisions that people make with points and miles and sometimes a

00:32:49.000 | good offer comes up and you're already at 4/24 and it could be worth it to just get

00:32:54.280 | the Capital One Venture X or something else.

00:32:57.560 | But that's what the 5/24 rule is.

00:33:01.320 | So if you're listening and you're thinking about a Chase card and you think there's any

00:33:05.320 | chance you might have opened five cards up in the last 24 months, at least is it just

00:33:10.200 | opened or is it applied?

00:33:12.200 | Opened.

00:33:13.200 | Okay.

00:33:14.200 | So I would recommend anyone who thinks they could be in that camp to check this out before

00:33:17.440 | because you're going to get immediately denied from Chase if you have.

00:33:22.000 | Is there an easy way to find out if you forget how long you've had certain cards for?

00:33:27.280 | I like to use Credit Karma because they're going to have my entire credit history of

00:33:30.760 | like when certain accounts were opened so I can use that.

00:33:33.560 | But then going forward, once you know how many you've opened, use something like Travel

00:33:38.200 | Freely because it's a lot more user-friendly rather than going through the credit history

00:33:42.680 | on Credit Karma.

00:33:43.680 | Yeah, we're still in early days with all of these Points and Miles products.

00:33:47.920 | I've talked to the founder of Card Pointers and I just wish that they all started talking

00:33:51.800 | to other services more regularly.

00:33:53.960 | I don't want to track whether I've used my dining credit or Uber credit.

00:33:58.320 | I want you to talk to Uber, find out if I have and remind me if I haven't.

00:34:01.980 | So I'm hopeful that in the years to come, a lot of these products start to connect to

00:34:07.320 | some of the platforms they track.

00:34:09.080 | Like Award Wallet connects to some of the points sites so that we can get kind of like

00:34:12.640 | really real-time notifications of things.

00:34:15.120 | But we've talked about the Card Pointers app before and I'm a big fan, but I just feel

00:34:19.120 | like there's so much more opportunity as a lot of these programs open up and make it

00:34:23.720 | easier to share information between each other.

00:34:27.800 | It is worth noting on the 5/24 rule that business cards for Chase are subject to but do not

00:34:33.080 | count towards 5/24, which is the most confusing thing.

00:34:36.840 | So if you are looking at any Chase business cards, if you're over 5/24, you can't get

00:34:43.200 | them.

00:34:44.200 | It doesn't matter if you have a separate EIN, you can't get them until you're back under

00:34:47.400 | 5/24.

00:34:48.400 | But if you're at 4/24 and then you get a business card from Chase or Amex or anyone with some

00:34:57.040 | caveats, then you're still at 4/24 afterwards because the business cards don't count towards

00:35:02.560 | the 5/24 score.

00:35:04.960 | There are some exceptions, TD Ameritrade, Capital One, Discover, I think, but nobody's

00:35:12.380 | really using those too often.

00:35:14.360 | So most of the time, like with Chase and Amex, you're going to be good.

00:35:17.200 | We didn't ask this, but I probably should.

00:35:19.080 | And I didn't even have it on my list.

00:35:21.080 | What are your go-to cards?

00:35:23.040 | Whatever signup bonus I'm working on is going to be Plan A. And then Plan B is whatever

00:35:27.480 | Card Pointers tells me to do.

00:35:29.520 | For dining, that tends to be my Amex Gold.

00:35:33.240 | For rent, obviously, it's going to be Bilt because that's the only one that's going to

00:35:36.160 | let me earn points on rent.

00:35:37.760 | What else do I spend a lot of money on?

00:35:41.600 | Otherwise, most of the time, I'm working towards a minimum spend unless there's a lot of hotel

00:35:49.680 | promos going on, then I'll just use a hotel card or a bare-ended card.

00:35:53.160 | Do you have a threshold for when a signup bonus is worth applying for?

00:35:56.880 | I think there's always a signup bonus you can find to earn 50,000 points and there's

00:36:01.600 | rarely a signup bonus that'll earn over 100,000.

00:36:06.280 | Is there a point at which you see something and you're like, "Let's jump on it"?

00:36:10.400 | I try not to get shiny card syndrome for seeing different promos.

00:36:14.240 | So what I would do instead, especially for beginners, is pick a trip that you want to

00:36:18.840 | take and work backwards from there.

00:36:21.160 | Figure out the different routes that fly into that destination, how many points those routes

00:36:26.560 | cost, what kind of points you need, and let that determine what kind of credit cards you're

00:36:30.040 | going to open.

00:36:31.880 | Don't open cards just because you saw a whole bunch of points influencers post about it

00:36:37.280 | and because there's a great signup bonus, but you have no idea how you're going to use

00:36:40.600 | those points.

00:36:41.600 | Because let's say there's a really good Southwest promo, but you're going to be living abroad

00:36:47.000 | most of next year, do not get that Southwest promo because it's going to be completely

00:36:51.080 | useless to you.

00:36:52.240 | So I would say work backwards rather than chasing good signup bonuses.

00:36:57.480 | How would you recommend doing that?

00:36:58.640 | Let's take an example of someone says, "Gosh, I'm trying to think of one I just got in my

00:37:02.420 | email."

00:37:03.420 | Someone said, "I wanted to go to Italy."

00:37:04.420 | Let's work backwards on that process.

00:37:06.160 | How do you arrive at which card might make sense?

00:37:08.440 | Yeah.

00:37:09.440 | So there's a new tool that came out.

00:37:10.640 | It's called PointMe, point.me.

00:37:13.520 | And this would be the first and easiest step, is if you already live near a major airport,

00:37:19.760 | you just plug in your airport, you plug in wherever you're trying to fly, it will tell

00:37:23.940 | you what is the best route for points and how many points you're going to need, what

00:37:28.760 | kind of points transfer, what cards will transfer.

00:37:30.720 | So that's like plan A, where everything works on the happy path.

00:37:37.160 | Sometimes it's going to give you ridiculous results.

00:37:39.800 | Oh, I want to fly direct from Kansas City to the Philippines on business class.

00:37:44.540 | That's just not going to happen.

00:37:46.480 | So then you're going to need to probably do a positioning flight to a larger airport and

00:37:52.140 | look from there.

00:37:53.800 | Always be open to looking at surrounding airports.

00:37:56.040 | Or maybe if you live, I don't know, North Carolina, South Carolina, you can position

00:38:00.500 | yourself to New York and then fly to Italy from there.

00:38:03.720 | Do it in two legs and do two different searches rather than just looking straight from North

00:38:08.800 | Carolina into Italy and there's nothing.

00:38:12.340 | Or if you wanted to go to a specific island in Thailand, do not look for flights directly

00:38:17.520 | into that island.

00:38:18.880 | Look for flights that go into Bangkok and then take a cheap Thai Airways flight once

00:38:23.520 | you're there.

00:38:24.520 | So the positioning flights are going to help a lot.

00:38:27.000 | Another trick that's really good for figuring out who flies to certain airports is look

00:38:30.880 | at that airport's Wikipedia page because it will list all of the airlines that are

00:38:35.120 | serviced by that airport.

00:38:39.480 | And from there you can figure out, okay, are they mostly Star Alliance flights?

00:38:42.720 | Are they mostly One World Alliance flights?

00:38:45.540 | And you kind of learn over time who transfers to who, but you can figure that out from just

00:38:50.400 | looking at their Wikipedia page.

00:38:53.440 | Okay.

00:38:54.440 | I like that.

00:38:55.440 | Hey, everybody.

00:38:56.440 | I just want to interrupt because I've partnered with Point.me, my favorite award search tool,

00:39:01.080 | to give you a special offer of only $1 for your first month of their standard plan if

00:39:06.080 | you go to allthehacks.com/pointme and use the promo code "hacks".

00:39:12.000 | Again, allthehacks.com/p-o-i-n-t-m-e or find the link in the show notes.

00:39:19.520 | So definitely take advantage of that if you're planning a trip with Points.

00:39:22.560 | I want to talk about sweet spots for redemptions, especially maybe if you don't have a huge

00:39:28.000 | balance.

00:39:29.000 | I know you've dug into a lot of this, taken many of them yourself.

00:39:32.480 | What are some really amazing international redemptions?

00:39:35.960 | So for international or domestic redemptions, you can get anywhere in the US, including

00:39:42.360 | Alaska or Hawaii on Turkish Miles and Smiles for 7,500 points in economy or 12,500 in

00:39:49.360 | business class if you can find the award availability.

00:39:52.400 | To transfer to Turkish Miles and Smiles, you're going to need either City Points, Built Points,

00:39:56.880 | or Capital One Points.

00:39:58.440 | The booking process is a little annoying because you have to call somebody once you find the

00:40:02.520 | availability to actually get these seats.

00:40:05.040 | But if you can get them, such good outsized redemption.

00:40:07.960 | You can fly from New York to Hawaii in business class, 12,500 points one way.

00:40:14.480 | So that's one for domestic.

00:40:16.480 | There's the ANA Around the World redemption, which is one of the most popular sweet spots

00:40:22.200 | that anybody ever talks about.

00:40:24.200 | And basically, if you have Amex points, you can transfer them to ANA Airways, which is

00:40:30.000 | a Japanese airline, and they will let you book up to eight legs in business class around

00:40:37.440 | the world.

00:40:38.720 | And it depends on the physical number of miles you're flying, but it's going to be around

00:40:42.760 | 125,000 points total.

00:40:45.960 | There are eight business class flights.

00:40:48.280 | So there are some rules around it.

00:40:49.480 | You have to be traveling continuously east or continuously west.

00:40:53.400 | You have to have at least one stop in North America, South America, one stop in Europe

00:40:59.400 | or Africa, and at least one stop in Asia or Australia.

00:41:04.160 | And you cannot cross back and forth between different continents.

00:41:08.120 | So like once you go from North America to Europe, you can't suddenly go back to North

00:41:12.200 | America, but you can travel around within Europe, you can crisscross back and forth

00:41:16.080 | within Europe before moving on to Asia.

00:41:18.800 | So this is one of the most outsized redemptions ever is the ANA Around the World.

00:41:24.800 | You make me feel bad not talking about it before.

00:41:27.320 | I'm like, you're like, "This is one of the best things."

00:41:29.240 | I'm like, "Oh man, this is why we have Julia on the show," because I remember learning

00:41:34.640 | about it a while ago and haven't thought to bring it up, but 120,000 miles business class

00:41:39.920 | around the world with eight legs, that is unheard of.

00:41:44.320 | So sorry, but keep going.

00:41:46.960 | So to book this thing, what you do is you search on ANA's website to figure out what

00:41:51.240 | the eight legs you want are.

00:41:53.400 | And you don't have to have eight, you have to have a minimum of three, maximum of eight.

00:41:57.680 | So you find the flights that you want, write down the flight numbers and the flight times

00:42:00.620 | and the city, kind of make your itinerary.

00:42:03.320 | Then you have to call ANA in order to actually book this because their website cannot handle

00:42:08.600 | an eight legged multi-leg trip.

00:42:11.760 | Also you need to transfer in your Amex points.

00:42:14.280 | However, it takes three days.

00:42:16.640 | In those three days, you have to pray that your availability does not disappear.

00:42:20.960 | So you should do this like 10 months in advance so that in case one of the legs is gone in

00:42:26.240 | those three days, you have like backup routes that you can do.

00:42:30.520 | Also if you call ahead of time, like at the beginning of those three days, if you get

00:42:35.640 | a nice ANA agent, they might hold the space for you while waiting for your points to transfer

00:42:41.040 | over.

00:42:42.040 | I've never heard that hack of asking someone to hold, but be kind and maybe you'll be lucky.

00:42:47.760 | I think with ANA, they also have an incredible round trip to Japan.

00:42:52.240 | I don't know if it's still only 80,000 miles, but one of the better deals.

00:42:57.040 | What I say is it can be daunting.

00:42:59.080 | If you're transferring all the miles and points you have to ANA and relying on them for one

00:43:03.720 | specific trip that could be gone by the time three days pass.

00:43:08.040 | I don't know if that's the best use case, but if you have enough points that you could

00:43:12.720 | transfer 80,000 and you know you want to go to Asia, but you're totally flexible when

00:43:17.720 | you can probably make it all work, but I didn't know that you could call and ask them to hold

00:43:22.040 | it.

00:43:23.040 | And if you can get someone to do that and take away all the risk, that's the move.

00:43:27.840 | You can also, if you didn't want to fly all the way around the world, but you just want

00:43:32.160 | to experience the actual ANA plane, which is fantastic.

00:43:36.320 | It's supposed to be one of the nicest first class products in the sky.

00:43:41.140 | You can travel from the U S to Japan in first class.

00:43:46.320 | I want to say it's like 120,000 points round trip, which is crazy good because these flights

00:43:52.120 | are $20,000 and sometimes you can transfer virgin.

00:43:58.880 | You can transfer Amex points or any kind of points that transfer into virgin Atlantic

00:44:03.200 | and then book ANA with virgin Atlantic.

00:44:06.520 | And sometimes there will be Amex transfer bonus promos.

00:44:11.080 | So you transfer 60,000 points or whatever, you get maybe like a 20% bonus.

00:44:15.600 | So you can do that.

00:44:16.940 | You cannot transfer virgin points to do ANA all around the world, but you can just do

00:44:21.040 | it if you want it to fly to Japan and back on ANA's actual plane.

00:44:24.840 | That's great.

00:44:26.720 | Any other amazing redemptions?

00:44:28.940 | Maybe if someone's trying to go to Europe, where's the sweet spot to book that?

00:44:33.520 | So I want to talk about a sweet spot across Europe.

00:44:36.840 | You can actually do this for like 10,000 United points in business class from like France

00:44:41.240 | to Greece, which is crazy.

00:44:43.260 | So this is called the United excursionist perk.

00:44:46.020 | We're going to start with a small example and then go into the super hack example.

00:44:49.540 | So what this is meant for is if you're doing like a triangle itinerary, like you're flying

00:44:54.480 | from New York to London, to Paris, back to New York, if you do it all on United points,

00:45:01.160 | that middle leg is free as long as the middle leg is in the same region.

00:45:05.560 | So there are certain rules.

00:45:06.560 | We're going to assume everybody who's listening to this is based in North America because

00:45:10.460 | you can do this for other regions, but for North America, your first flight on the itinerary

00:45:15.900 | has to start in North America and your last leg has to end in North America and your free

00:45:22.120 | segment, both ends of it have to be not in North America within like another region.

00:45:29.080 | So Europe is one region.

00:45:31.440 | So that's why that itinerary works of New York starts in the North America region, fly

00:45:37.320 | over to London, London to Paris is both self-contained in a separate region, and then it ends back

00:45:44.140 | in New York.

00:45:45.140 | So you can do that.

00:45:47.120 | Now you can super hack this.

00:45:49.800 | It does not need to be a continuous itinerary.

00:45:52.940 | So let's say you went on to Scott's cheap flights or something, found a really good

00:45:56.680 | deal flying into Paris, and you found another really good cash deal from Greece back home,

00:46:03.640 | but you have no way to connect these two deals.

00:46:07.320 | You can actually fly across Europe for free, basically free.

00:46:10.940 | So here's what you do.

00:46:11.940 | Let's say you're in Los Angeles.

00:46:13.920 | You can book a United flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for like 5,000 points.

00:46:20.120 | Then the next thing you search for in your itinerary is from Paris to Athens.

00:46:25.480 | And then the last leg is going to be from another random flight from Los Angeles to

00:46:30.560 | Las Vegas for 5,000 points.

00:46:33.320 | That middle leg is still free because your first flight starts in North America from

00:46:39.080 | that random Los Angeles to Las Vegas flight.

00:46:42.020 | Your middle leg is completely contained in not North America, Europe to Europe.

00:46:48.680 | And your last leg, which is another Los Angeles to Las Vegas flight, still ends in North America.

00:46:55.520 | So then you just have to fill in the gaps of like find a cheap cash flight, find another

00:46:59.000 | way to get from the US to France, find another way to get from Greece back home.

00:47:03.720 | But that middle leg is going to be free.

00:47:06.400 | So that's just an economy thing.

00:47:09.100 | If you wanted to book Los Angeles to Las Vegas in business class United, you can get that

00:47:14.380 | middle leg for free in business class because it'll match whatever is the first leg.

00:47:19.300 | You have to take the first flight or it negates the rest of the itinerary, but the last flight

00:47:24.420 | is optional for you.

00:47:27.420 | So for people who want to just do a quick route or if you already have to take a short

00:47:32.180 | domestic flight anyway, and you can plan ahead and structure these itineraries, you can fly

00:47:38.000 | Cape Town to the Seychelles, which I don't even know how expensive that would be, but

00:47:42.640 | you could do that for free if you can structure a United excursionist itinerary correctly.

00:47:49.400 | If I understand this right, I can book a North America flight, even if it's a short distance

00:47:53.360 | like San Francisco to LA, which sometimes is only 7,500 miles.

00:47:57.960 | And then at a date after that, I can book a one-way ticket, even if it connects within

00:48:03.860 | one region.

00:48:04.860 | So like you said, Cape Town to Kenya or to the Seychelles, places where flights are really

00:48:09.700 | expensive.

00:48:10.700 | And then a date after that, just book another flight within North America, LA back to San

00:48:15.740 | Francisco, don't even have to take it, could conceivably get both your North America flights

00:48:21.460 | and the international flight for potentially 15,000 or less miles.

00:48:26.100 | Yep.

00:48:27.100 | That's amazing.

00:48:28.100 | That's a great hack.

00:48:29.560 | I'm going to brainstorm ways to use it.

00:48:31.640 | If anyone listening has creative ideas on how they could use something like that, definitely

00:48:35.520 | reach out.

00:48:36.680 | Would love to see all the creative ways they wrote about it.

00:48:40.280 | You all know I love credit card points.

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00:51:11.240 | Before we get back to the episode, I just want to thank you for listening to and supporting

00:51:14.520 | the show.

00:51:15.520 | Your support of our advertisers is what keeps this show going.

00:51:19.180 | To learn more about all our partners and get links to all their deals, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals

00:51:25.920 | where the URLs, codes, and discounts are all right there.

00:51:29.580 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:51:32.440 | A few other quick things before we go.

00:51:34.560 | I've gotten a few questions from listeners that I feel like would be a great conversation.

00:51:38.900 | And I want to get your take on some.

00:51:40.760 | And one is from Eric from Cincinnati, who I won't say the city's from everyone, but

00:51:45.120 | Eric's name in his email from was Eric from Cincy.

00:51:48.400 | So it seems fun.

00:51:49.400 | Asked if buying points ever makes sense.

00:51:52.120 | And I'll give you my perspective and I want to hear yours and we can go back on a few

00:51:55.440 | of these questions.

00:51:56.440 | But in general, there are always these promotions that I've seen from airlines, from hotel

00:52:02.420 | groups to buy points and they're like, "Oh, it's 2x points.

00:52:05.820 | Everything's 50% off."

00:52:07.420 | My advice has always been, if you have a redemption in mind, it can be a really great deal.

00:52:13.120 | Or if the whole world is blowing up about how it's the best thing ever and you have

00:52:17.200 | to do it, great, which is rare.

00:52:19.540 | But otherwise, I see almost weekly some promotion for buying points at a huge discount.

00:52:25.920 | And I pretty much disregard all of them unless I'm about to do something.

00:52:30.060 | What do you think?

00:52:31.060 | Very similar thoughts.

00:52:32.160 | So do not speculatively buy points only buy them if you already know how you're going

00:52:37.760 | to use them and you've done the math to make sure that whatever redemption value you're

00:52:43.040 | going to get from using those points is better than the purchase price of those points.

00:52:48.500 | Don't buy points for like two cents per point and then use them on a redemption where you

00:52:52.000 | get one and a half cents per point.

00:52:54.280 | So just make sure that you know what you're going to use them for and that you've done

00:52:58.000 | the math on it and then you're good to go.

00:53:00.680 | The two exceptions I have are, it might not be a great deal to buy points, but if you

00:53:05.680 | are trying to book a flight or book a hotel and you have almost enough, you want to book

00:53:11.520 | an award that's 80,000 points and you have 78,000 and you don't have any way to transfer

00:53:17.440 | it in, it could make sense to pay an astronomical like five cents per point or whatever the

00:53:22.520 | fee is to get those last 2,000 points to get you this amazing reward.

00:53:27.600 | That's generally, I think, one of the few use cases, but it falls into exactly what

00:53:31.360 | you said.

00:53:32.360 | Make sure you have a way you want to use it in mind before you do it.

00:53:36.000 | Because just like Marriott's recently done some devaluation, the last thing you want

00:53:40.080 | to do is buy something that sounds like a good deal today, but the program changes and

00:53:44.880 | maybe it's not a good deal tomorrow.

00:53:47.720 | Absolutely.

00:53:49.640 | What about paying taxes on a credit card?

00:53:53.240 | I think I had always thought my whole life, it would never make sense to pay fees on a

00:54:00.400 | credit card purchase.

00:54:02.080 | So whenever someone says, "Oh, we'll charge you 3% before the built card."

00:54:05.760 | It was like, "Oh, you can pay your rent, but you have to pay fees with plastic or other

00:54:09.880 | services."

00:54:10.880 | I was always like, "It never makes sense to pay fees to earn points."

00:54:13.960 | And then I just started digging into paying taxes on a credit card this year, and I'm

00:54:17.720 | not sure I agree anymore.

00:54:21.160 | So it can be a really good way to meet minimum spend if you don't have another way to easily

00:54:27.320 | meet your minimum spend.

00:54:28.320 | So for example, the Amex Business Platinum has a $15,000 minimum spend, which is a lot.

00:54:36.240 | And so if you don't want to do buying groups or any of the other reimbursable spend things

00:54:39.920 | that we talked about earlier on in the episode, it can make sense to just pay an extra 3%

00:54:46.160 | to get that 120,000 point bonus on the Amex Business Platinum.

00:54:51.040 | So if you're going for something like that, or you have Hilton Surpass, where you get

00:54:58.240 | a free night if you are putting $15,000 on the card each year, if you're going to get

00:55:05.480 | whatever 15,000 times 3% is, at least that much value out of your free hotel night at

00:55:13.040 | some Waldorf Astoria, it could be worth it to do it for something like that.

00:55:17.080 | Or just like cap it if, "Oh, I'm like 10,000 of the way there.

00:55:21.000 | I have no other way of getting that 5,000."

00:55:24.360 | Then it might be worth it if you want to put your taxes on a credit card and pay that extra

00:55:28.840 | fee.

00:55:29.840 | So I started looking into this and I realized most of the places you pay for things online

00:55:35.040 | on a credit card, the fees are pretty high, 2.5%, 3%, I've seen 4%.

00:55:40.680 | What I realized was that the fees to pay your taxes on a credit card are actually lower

00:55:45.280 | than I expected.

00:55:46.320 | So there are 3 sites the IRS shows.

00:55:49.560 | The lowest one is pay1040.com and the fee is 1.87% this year.

00:55:56.540 | So I was thinking, "Gosh, I have a VentureX card."

00:56:00.560 | And at the worst case, you can redeem your points, which you earn two of at one penny,

00:56:07.720 | booking travel.

00:56:08.760 | So $0.02 per dollar spent, so 2% cash back.

00:56:13.600 | Also could do it with a Citi Double Cash or any card that pays 2% cash back, you would

00:56:17.880 | actually net a profit paying your taxes on your credit card.

00:56:21.660 | Now, I quickly thought, "Ooh, who doesn't want a free profit?"

00:56:25.100 | So I was like, "Hmm, what if I put $10,000?"

00:56:28.040 | I'm not saying I owe 10,000 or you would, but just to illustrate the example.

00:56:32.760 | And I realized if I'm going to put $10,000 on a credit card and I'm going to pay a fee

00:56:37.160 | of $187, but I'm going to earn 2%, which is $200, I'm literally going to make $13.

00:56:46.040 | And that's for a $10,000 tax bill.

00:56:48.100 | So I thought, "Okay, this is not a way to make money.

00:56:51.060 | This is not a way to rack up points at the IRS's expense.

00:56:55.820 | But what it is, is a great way to meet minimum spend."

00:56:59.540 | So if anyone's listening and they had a business and they signed up with Capital One's Spark

00:57:05.620 | Cash Plus card, it had the most egregious minimum spend, which was $50,000 in six months.

00:57:13.020 | And now all of a sudden, I'm thinking, "Maybe I should lower my deductions from work on

00:57:17.420 | my taxes so that I owe the IRS money, so that I can put some spend on this card."

00:57:22.640 | But at 1.87%, I think it could work really well for meeting minimum spend and not losing

00:57:28.580 | money.

00:57:29.580 | But it's probably not a way to generate a return.

00:57:34.540 | So if you overpay your taxes, the IRS will issue you a check back.

00:57:40.340 | It's very slow.

00:57:41.940 | They're very slow to do this.

00:57:43.580 | But if you wanted to pay them $50,000, they will probably send you a check back like six

00:57:49.860 | months later for $40,000 in this example, and then you earned your bonus.

00:57:56.480 | So that is a strategy.

00:57:58.100 | Some people do.

00:57:59.100 | I don't want to be that leveraged for $50,000 for six months, but some people do things

00:58:05.540 | like that.

00:58:06.540 | I definitely do not want to owe, especially on a card that's a charge card.

00:58:11.380 | Maybe if it was a 0% APR card, you could carry it.

00:58:14.420 | But I did realize that if you're trying to meet a minimum spend in 2022 at 1.87% on the

00:58:20.660 | right card, right?

00:58:21.660 | It has to be a card that's earning you 2% back or more, otherwise you'd be losing money.

00:58:26.620 | But I've turned my position on this a little bit, and I think it could make sense.

00:58:30.760 | Last few things.

00:58:31.760 | I got an email from a woman named Brandy who pointed out something that I didn't realize.

00:58:37.380 | I'm not in the military, nor is my spouse, but I recently learned and wanted to share

00:58:42.940 | that if you have a Chase, an Amex, or a Citi card, and you are in the military or your

00:58:48.220 | spouse is in the military, they will waive your annual fees on all the cards.

00:58:53.500 | I looked at the list.

00:58:54.780 | It's Chase Reserve, it's Amex Platinum, real cards with high annual fees.

00:58:59.660 | I know you've done an episode on a lot of these things.

00:59:01.940 | I wanted to hear your take on this and other perks that might apply to people in that situation.

00:59:07.700 | So they'll waive it on all personal cards.

00:59:09.860 | Unfortunately, they won't waive it on business cards if you're trying to get like the Chase

00:59:13.100 | Inc Business Cash or the Amex Business Gold.

00:59:15.940 | But for all of the personal ones, yes, you don't have to pay the $700 on the Amex Platinum,

00:59:22.740 | which is amazing.

00:59:23.960 | We actually have an episode that covers a lot of different military benefits.

00:59:27.940 | It's episode 67, featuring Mark White.

00:59:32.180 | And he's in the military, he talks about the waive fees.

00:59:35.020 | You can get into different lounges for free with military ID if you're traveling.

00:59:40.840 | You can get free status with Caesars.

00:59:43.980 | I don't know if they still do this because they recently changed their program, but it

00:59:48.500 | used to be that you would get automatic platinum status for both the military member and their

00:59:54.500 | spouse.

00:59:56.020 | And each of those would get you three free nights at the Atlantis in the Bahamas.

00:59:59.880 | So six free nights for an Atlantis Bahamas vacation for a couple.

01:00:05.440 | So lots of different tricks like that.

01:00:08.040 | More of them in episode 67 to talk about lots of different military benefits and places

01:00:12.040 | that you can get discounts or just extra perks for military.

01:00:17.120 | And one thing you told me, there's a site called id.me where it's not just military.

01:00:22.200 | There are other branches of healthcare and I think education maybe where you can go link

01:00:26.800 | up your email to prove that you're in that group or even verify it in other ways and

01:00:32.000 | get access to a lot of perks.

01:00:33.800 | Yep, absolutely.

01:00:35.480 | Travel perks, different discounts with different stores, restaurant things.

01:00:38.960 | So if you're a student, a teacher, government worker, healthcare worker, military, you can

01:00:44.960 | go to id.me and check for all of these different discounts.

01:00:49.280 | Awesome.

01:00:51.320 | Last thing I want to share is I've talked numerous times on the podcast and gotten so

01:00:56.240 | much great feedback from listeners getting upgraded around the world by sending a note

01:01:01.220 | into the hotel after booking directly with them.

01:01:04.540 | And people have asked me, "What is the message you send?"

01:01:08.080 | And I've always given really generic advice that was, "Oh, just say, 'Hey, I'm coming.

01:01:13.900 | These are my dates.

01:01:14.900 | This is what I'm doing.

01:01:16.700 | And I want to share your link," which Julia has set up.

01:01:21.200 | Let us know where to go for your guide to exactly what template you should send to a

01:01:26.080 | hotel to maximize your chance for an upgrade.

01:01:29.220 | So I made you guys a special link.

01:01:30.620 | It's at geobreeztravel.com/allthehacks.

01:01:34.080 | It'll take you directly to the template that I've used to get some amazing upgrades.

01:01:40.200 | One of my favorites, I used it at the Waldorf Astoria in Maui, which we were using a Hilton

01:01:44.860 | free night certificate.

01:01:46.020 | And it's one of the most expensive hotels where you can use this free night certificate.

01:01:50.240 | So rooms start at like $500.

01:01:53.020 | And I used this email template asking if we could get upgraded to the $650 room if they

01:01:57.420 | had availability.

01:01:59.260 | We got upgraded to a $900 room.

01:02:02.100 | And this place was crazy.

01:02:04.700 | It was in a gated community, part of the hotel.

01:02:07.300 | I swear I could see three islands from the balcony in this room.

01:02:11.320 | It came with free breakfast.

01:02:12.900 | It came with free cocktail hour and dinner.

01:02:15.820 | So we didn't even have to buy food that much when we were in Hawaii.

01:02:19.600 | So lots of crazy upgrades that I've gotten.

01:02:24.340 | You can find all the details at geobreeztravel.com/allthehacks.

01:02:28.860 | It also walks you through like, how do you find the correct email address to where to

01:02:32.980 | send this to?

01:02:33.980 | How far in advance should you send these things?

01:02:35.860 | So check it out and always let me know if it works for you and you got a cool upgrade

01:02:40.740 | because I love hearing about the cool upgrades that people get with it.

01:02:44.020 | That's a great segue to where can people find you?

01:02:46.940 | Obviously GeoBreeze Travel, the podcast, search for it in the store, GeoBreeze Travel, the

01:02:51.340 | site.

01:02:52.340 | What about you personally?

01:02:53.340 | Where are you online and how can people get in touch?

01:02:56.180 | So I mostly hang out on Instagram @geobreeztravel.

01:02:59.720 | I try to respond to all the DMs of people who follow me.

01:03:03.280 | So give me a follow, send me all of your questions, feel free to email me.

01:03:07.260 | Any questions, julia@geobreeztravel.com.

01:03:08.860 | Awesome, Julia, thank you so much for being here.

01:03:13.300 | I look forward all the time to your Instagram stories because I never know what next deal

01:03:18.100 | or awesome perk I'm going to find.

01:03:19.940 | I look forward to more conversations like this down the road.

01:03:23.260 | Absolutely.

01:03:24.260 | Thank you so much for having me on the show.

01:03:26.020 | If anybody has any questions, I am always happy to talk about points and miles.

01:03:29.980 | So feel free to reach out, say hi and send me all your questions.

01:03:34.020 | Awesome.

01:03:35.140 | Thank you.

01:03:37.500 | Okay.

01:03:38.500 | There are going to be so many links in the show notes.

01:03:40.980 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

01:03:43.260 | Thank you so much for listening.

01:03:44.940 | If you plan on signing up for any of the cards we discussed or really any cards, you can

01:03:49.380 | support me and the show by doing that at allthehacks.com/cards and I would really appreciate it.

01:03:56.700 | And as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, this Sunday, May 8th marks the one year

01:04:01.620 | anniversary of this podcast.

01:04:03.580 | It is crazy to think it's almost been a year.

01:04:06.240 | So thank you all so much for supporting me on this journey.

01:04:09.740 | To celebrate, I'm inviting you all to join a live recording of a Q and A episode this

01:04:14.840 | coming Monday, May 9th at 12 p.m. Pacific.

01:04:18.780 | If you're able to join, I'll be taking questions live, but I'll also be taking questions by

01:04:23.260 | email.

01:04:24.260 | So send them on over, chris@allthehacks.com.

01:04:27.940 | It's free to sign up and join the live stream.

01:04:30.780 | Just head to allthehacks.com/live and you can get it on your calendar now.

01:04:36.140 | Okay, that's it for this week.

01:04:38.140 | I'll see you next week and hopefully live on Monday.

01:04:45.420 | [Music]

01:04:47.420 | [Music]

01:04:49.420 | [Music]

01:04:51.420 | you

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