How I Got Elite Status with 8 Airlines & Hotels (Without Flying Much)

00:00:00.000 | Elite status with airlines and hotels. Who needs it, right? Well, six months ago,

00:00:04.660 | I would have said not me. But somehow, heading into 2025, I've racked up status on four airlines

00:00:10.340 | and four hotel groups. In this episode, I break down exactly how it happened,

00:00:14.520 | the unexpected perks, and whether chasing status is actually worth it. Plus,

00:00:18.720 | I'm sharing some incredible listener wins, the biggest loyalty program devaluations you should

00:00:23.620 | know about, and my new approach to actually using points instead of just collecting them.

00:00:28.080 | I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a comment

00:00:32.040 | or review. And if you want to keep upgrading your life, money, and travel, click follow or subscribe.

00:00:37.020 | Okay, so in episode 182, I went over almost a dozen different ways that you can fast track your way

00:00:44.480 | to elite status. But I actually remember saying that I didn't care about elite status that much

00:00:49.980 | because I don't travel that much, and we had so many points and miles saved up that we often use

00:00:55.400 | them to fly in premium cabins, business class, first class. And that gives us a lot of the features

00:01:00.500 | we would get with status. And so if you asked me on the street six, seven months ago and said,

00:01:05.380 | Oh, how do you feel about elite status? I would say, it doesn't really matter. I'm not focused on it.

00:01:10.500 | Well, I found that funny because I started looking at where I ended up for 2025. And it completely

00:01:17.060 | contradicts that thought. I looked and I ended up having status on four different airlines and four

00:01:22.620 | different hotel groups. And I want to talk about how that happened, what it means for the future and

00:01:27.760 | how it might impact your life. And I also want to share a few amazing takeaways I've gotten from

00:01:33.180 | listeners that you've all sent in, as well as some of the interesting things that are happening in the

00:01:37.620 | world of travel points, miles, cards, some of what we've been sending out lately, and some of the

00:01:42.400 | things I've been doing about it. So let's jump straight into airline status. And I'll talk a little

00:01:47.520 | bit about what's going on. So first off Southwest, I don't think I have ever actually had Southwest

00:01:53.360 | status. I've gone for companion pass. But for those who aren't familiar, companion pass actually

00:01:58.620 | is separate from their status, you can earn companion pass just by spending on a credit card,

00:02:03.600 | get a free companion you can add. It's an awesome deal. We've done it multiple times,

00:02:07.920 | highly recommend if you're traveling a lot with the same person to places Southwest flies.

00:02:12.660 | However, the points you earn to get companion pass are different than the tier qualifying points you

00:02:17.840 | earn for status. And I rarely fly Southwest enough and on expensive enough tickets to earn anywhere close

00:02:24.560 | to what you need for A-list. However, there was this promo last year that I caught wind of in a Facebook

00:02:29.920 | group about Southwest, where transferred points from hotel groups were actually counting as tier points.

00:02:37.140 | And there was a separate promo where credit card spend was almost earning twice as many tier

00:02:42.340 | points as normal. Now, this was a really tight window from when I learned about it. Unfortunately,

00:02:47.040 | it never made it to the podcast because it was such a narrow window to act. I did share it with the

00:02:52.020 | membership. So something worth taking a look at if you want to get alerted when I find these wild

00:02:56.380 | things. But what happened was I transferred points from Marriott to Southwest and from Choice Hotels to

00:03:03.220 | Southwest. And those cleared as tier points. And so very quickly, I was on my way to A-list. And then I have

00:03:09.480 | a Southwest credit card and I spent a little extra on that than I normally would. And by the end of last

00:03:15.280 | year, I found my way to A-list. Now, why did I even do this? Well, the primary reason I did it was because

00:03:21.200 | Southwest had already announced that they were making a bunch of changes coming up this year. And one of

00:03:27.440 | them was that there was going to be seat selection, including extra legroom and preferred seats. And that

00:03:33.100 | was the main big change they were going to do. There was no more pick your own seat. Boarding

00:03:37.620 | isn't going to operate how it used to be. And I thought, gosh, if I have this limited opportunity

00:03:43.380 | to get Southwest A-list, maybe when they make that change, I'll be able to pick seats and board and do

00:03:49.460 | all these things that I wouldn't otherwise be able to do. Now, I didn't know how much Southwest would end

00:03:54.760 | up changing between that point in time and this year. And specifically in the last week, for anyone who

00:04:00.240 | hasn't seen, Southwest has basically gone the way of every other airline and almost feels like it'll

00:04:06.520 | be indistinguishable from other airlines because all of the things that Southwest used to do that

00:04:11.040 | made them so Southwest are either things that other airlines have already started doing or that they've

00:04:15.840 | gotten rid of. So going forward, and I can't remember the exact start date. Some of these are flights

00:04:21.440 | booked after May 28th, 2025, but no free checked bags. There's one advantage to this, which I didn't

00:04:27.600 | realize, which is that you have to pay these airline taxes and fees when you sell tickets.

00:04:33.260 | And even if bag fees are part of those tickets, you have to pay those taxes. When you unbundle those,

00:04:38.900 | you don't have to pay all those taxes on the bag fees. So there is some rational economic argument to

00:04:44.500 | do that. You will going forward still get two bags with A-list preferred and one with A-list or a credit

00:04:49.480 | card. A Southwest card is an easy way to avoid that. They're going to add basic economy. They've already

00:04:54.380 | really slashed the earnings of their most inexpensive fare class in terms of number of points

00:05:00.080 | you'll earn. Flight credits you get from canceled reservations or refunded flights are only going to last

00:05:05.880 | one year or even six months with those fares. And so lots of changes. So having A-list will actually avoid a lot of

00:05:12.900 | these. You'll get to pick seats, change your flights, early boarding, free checked bags and all that stuff. So I'm actually

00:05:18.460 | really happy that I ended up with this status this year because once these changes go into effect,

00:05:23.980 | this will add some value and who knows where we'll be traveling on Southwest later.

00:05:27.800 | That said, it's kind of what made Southwest. And now Southwest just feels like every other airline.

00:05:34.040 | Every other airline now made all of their flights cancelable and refundable into credit

00:05:39.160 | that last one year. All the other airlines have no free checked bags unless you have a credit card

00:05:43.700 | status and they have basic economy and all these seat rules. So not sure what would make Southwest

00:05:49.180 | any different or preferable other than maybe a slight preference for less mechanical issues because

00:05:56.820 | they seem to only operate one or two airline types. So I know that is one of the reasons they've done

00:06:01.520 | that. But for the most part, sometimes if we're going on a trip during ski season, we think Southwest's

00:06:06.180 | great. We get all these free checked bags and we're going to be needing them. Going forward,

00:06:09.580 | that's just not going to be the case. So a little bit of a segue, but that was how I ended up with

00:06:15.000 | Southwest A-list status this year. I also ended up with United Silver. And based in the Bay Area,

00:06:20.680 | United is probably the best airline for coverage in terms of direct flights from SFO. And I don't know

00:06:28.280 | how it happened because I don't fly that much, but I just barely made it into enough premier qualifying

00:06:34.240 | points to end up with silver, which is their lowest tier of status, gets you almost no benefits other

00:06:40.340 | than a checked bag. And you can pick preferred seats. You can't even pick economy plus seats with

00:06:45.300 | extra leg room until 24 hours before departure, at which point they are almost always taken or only

00:06:50.780 | middle seats left. And so I think the reason I got there was that I was right towards the end of the

00:06:56.800 | year. And I was close enough that if I paid, it was like $150 to upgrade a flight from economy to

00:07:03.860 | business for a flight where business meant nothing, like flying down to Los Angeles from San Francisco,

00:07:08.080 | but that pushed me over the edge. And I figured depending on how much we fly United this year

00:07:12.100 | and whether we're checking bags and traveling as a family and wanting to pick good seats, probably worth

00:07:16.140 | it for a couple hundred dollars, especially when that hundred dollars comes with some benefit

00:07:20.980 | and additional miles crude. So probably $80 or something. And now, sure enough, we are flying

00:07:26.920 | United in the near future and we'll be checking a few bags and that will probably have ended up saving

00:07:31.960 | us more money than it cost. Next, I ended up with Delta status. Shout out to Josh, who I met on our

00:07:38.600 | Iceland trip. He was trying to strategize his way to get to Diamond on Delta. And I spent a lot of time

00:07:45.080 | brainstorming some ideas and giving him some tools that he could probably use to make that happen.

00:07:50.040 | And as a thank you, which was not necessary at all, he used one of his Delta medallion benefits

00:07:55.940 | from hitting Diamond to gift me gold status. And so I'm going to do my best to put that to good work.

00:08:01.480 | I mentioned Josh, who I met on Iceland. We met so many awesome people on Iceland that I'm sure I will

00:08:05.940 | be friends with for a very long time. If you want to go on a trip and meet interesting people that are

00:08:11.700 | also listeners of this show, highly recommend checking it out. We have, I think, two or three spots left on the

00:08:19.100 | second Iceland trip this year, leaving September 28th. So you can go to all the hacks.com slash

00:08:24.400 | Iceland. If you want to have an experience like that, it was absolutely incredible. One of the best

00:08:28.280 | trips I've ever taken. Then next there was Alaska MVP. Now I did a status match from built and that

00:08:34.620 | expired in January. So I went into the year with that status. But if you asked me a couple of weeks

00:08:39.980 | ago, I would have said, didn't matter. I don't really fly Alaska a lot. And then somehow just in the

00:08:45.520 | first two and a half months of the year, almost every trip I've needed to take, I've been on Alaska

00:08:50.680 | and I'm already halfway back to MVP status on Alaska. And so just to make sure that I had enough points

00:08:57.220 | to get there, because for whatever reason, it seems like I'm flying Alaska a lot. And I already have some

00:09:02.920 | flights in later in the year on Alaska. I ended up picking up the Alaska business card, not only because

00:09:08.320 | it had a great signup bonus of 75,000 points, you get a companion fare. So for $99, I think you get

00:09:14.040 | a buy one, get one. But you can earn up to 30,000 elite qualifying miles with spend. So that'll make

00:09:20.640 | sure that I get over the hurdle to get back to MVP, maybe even MVP gold, which based on how much I'm

00:09:26.780 | flying Alaska might actually be the primary airline I fly over United. Built also has a promo that I didn't

00:09:33.040 | realize was recurring, where you can status match to Air France and get gold status there. I thought

00:09:38.260 | it was a one time thing. But the more I read about it, it seems like you can do it every single year.

00:09:42.460 | But until I book a flight on Air France, it doesn't seem like there's any benefit to doing this,

00:09:47.420 | especially if I have Delta status, you know, the Sky Team status from Air France wouldn't matter

00:09:51.480 | either. Funny enough, the one airline that I probably haven't flown in the last five years,

00:09:57.120 | which is American, and obviously, there's plenty of airlines around the world that I haven't flown,

00:10:00.900 | but the one US based mainstream airline that I haven't flown is the one I'm most intrigued about

00:10:06.880 | trying to earn their status. And for people who don't know, American implemented this loyalty point

00:10:12.200 | system where you can earn almost every tier of their status except for their kind of coveted hidden

00:10:17.760 | invite only concierge key just by spending on a credit card, or earning points from shopping portals,

00:10:23.780 | booking hotels, all that stuff. You don't actually have to fly the airline at all. And I thought going into

00:10:29.460 | the year once I was booking these Alaska flights that it might be the right path because almost

00:10:34.200 | every benefit of Alaska elite status is also given to people with American elite status.

00:10:39.280 | And so I ended up also getting the American business card this year, they do have this really interesting

00:10:45.460 | promo going on this year, where best I understand, at least on the business card, when you add an

00:10:50.920 | authorized employee card, whoever the employee is earns loyalty points, and the main cardholder does.

00:10:57.260 | So if I were to use that card and try to earn loyalty points, using an employee card for my wife, we would

00:11:03.540 | both end up with American status. There are milestone rewards along the way. So we both get those milestone

00:11:09.380 | rewards. For some reason, that makes no sense to me. And I'm going to come back to this at the end of talking about

00:11:14.400 | all these statuses. I want to do this. I don't fly American, their route network from the Bay Area is pretty

00:11:19.580 | terrible. The only place I've ever considered flying them is to Los Angeles, where every time I've done that five,

00:11:25.820 | six years ago, it seems like you always land at a remote terminal that you need to take a bus to, which is the most

00:11:30.560 | inconvenient thing. It's certainly not fast. And so I have no idea why I'm interested in this. But it does seem a little bit like a

00:11:38.200 | game, right? Going down the path of Oh, what kinds of things can I do to earn extra loyalty points? I signed up for this

00:11:44.500 | newsletter called loyalty point hunters. And so I get these like, Oh, here's this offer where you buy a meal kit. And the discount

00:11:50.680 | basically makes it $5. But you get 1000s of loyalty points. And a part of me just really wants to play

00:11:55.260 | this game. And then a part of me thinks it's absolutely crazy, because I never fly American. So

00:11:59.860 | I'm going to address my own problems after I run through this inventory. But I figured it's kind of

00:12:06.200 | helpful to hear where all these statuses came from how I ended up with them. Because they do provide a ton

00:12:12.360 | of benefit when you have a lot of statuses, you're boarding early, you're earning more points,

00:12:17.160 | you're not paying for check bags, all kinds of things like that. I am happy I have them. I just

00:12:21.880 | think to some extent, it's a little crazy, given that we're not flying that often. On the flip side,

00:12:27.480 | I really love it. And it's kind of a game. So if I treat it from that perspective, then it's really

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00:14:57.220 | slash Gelt or find the link in the description to stop overpaying on taxes. Okay, when it comes to

00:15:02.740 | hotels, I'll start with Marriott because one of the perks of hitting Marriott Titanium, which requires

00:15:08.800 | 75 nights, is that you actually get United Silver status. So one of the things I was thinking about

00:15:14.560 | last year was, gosh, if we fly United enough that it would be valuable to pick the right seats, get

00:15:19.560 | free check bags, all those kinds of things. Should I just get it by trying to do more Marriott nights or

00:15:24.600 | should I get it by going for United status itself? Because it's not reciprocal the other way. I don't

00:15:30.120 | think United Silver gets you anything meaningful on Marriott. I do think if you earned high enough

00:15:35.420 | United status, you would, but I certainly haven't. To do that, though, you need to spend 75 nights in

00:15:41.240 | Marriott, which I probably spent nowhere near 75. However, with the right set of Marriott cards,

00:15:48.680 | you get a huge head start. So most of the consumer cards give you 15 nights towards your status.

00:15:54.120 | And then on top of that, if you get the Bonvoy Brilliant card, that gets you 25 nights. And then

00:16:00.540 | the business cards will also get you 15 nights. So if you have both, you can get 15 nights. And if one

00:16:05.980 | of your consumer cards is the Brilliant card, then you get 40 nights. The funny thing is, though, if you're

00:16:11.300 | really chasing that status, that Brilliant card also comes with Platinum status, which I think is the

00:16:16.680 | most important status for Marriott stays because it gets you the free breakfast, the upgrades and late

00:16:23.640 | checkout and all those things. Do you have a higher priority on those upgrades with higher status? Yes.

00:16:27.760 | But it clears the hurdle of I'm staying at a resort, I want the free breakfast, I want a lot of those

00:16:32.760 | perks. And so you just get that with the card. So if you're someone who cares about Marriott status,

00:16:37.780 | that card will just get it to you. You don't have to worry about anything. The other thing that's

00:16:41.440 | interesting is Marriott does have this lifetime status program. And I'm at the point going into this

00:16:46.800 | year, I had eight years of being Platinum. Last year, I didn't have it. So I ended up opening up the

00:16:52.040 | Brilliant card, because that would clock me in at Platinum status for 2024. I would have it also in

00:16:58.420 | 2025. So that would take me to nine. And next year will take me to 10. And so by holding that card for

00:17:05.240 | what will end up being about 15 months, that should put me over the threshold to have Platinum on Marriott

00:17:10.780 | for the rest of my life. And I will never have to hold a card or think about status at all. So I'm

00:17:14.860 | really excited about that. Now, does it make sense to push for titanium on Marriott or,

00:17:21.080 | you know, silver on United? I'm not sure. I still have to think about that. Because I'm starting out

00:17:25.980 | with 40 nights, that still is 25 nights in a Marriott, which is a lot of nights. There is one

00:17:30.660 | credit card, I can't remember the name of it. It's a chase one that lets you earn elite nights by spending,

00:17:36.280 | but it is almost prohibitively expensive. That's something I'm thinking about. But

00:17:40.120 | Marriott is a program where recent devaluations, which I'll talk about in a bit, have just made it

00:17:46.840 | a little tricky to be really loved. In fact, in the points and miles world, anytime a loyalty program

00:17:53.300 | does something that people don't like, the term that I've now heard everyone using is that they've

00:17:58.920 | gotten bond void. Because Marriott just continues to make things difficult for everyone. There's

00:18:04.080 | literally a matrix that I'll link to in the show notes that you need to follow to try to figure out

00:18:09.640 | whether you're actually going to get a free breakfast based on how you booked your reservation,

00:18:13.440 | where you're staying, what chain, etc. They don't make things simple or straightforward

00:18:17.020 | whatsoever. So that's Marriott. Where I actually switched all my loyalty this year to was Hyatt.

00:18:22.980 | So last year, going into the year, I thought, this status of Hyatt seems to be the thing everyone

00:18:28.760 | in the points and miles world loves. I've never had Hyatt status. I rarely had ever stayed at a Hyatt

00:18:33.760 | hotel. And it was very hard to get. And so the reason why most people seem to love this status is

00:18:38.440 | because you really get treated like an elite member of their loyalty program, because it's a lot harder

00:18:44.200 | to get. Marriott, you can get, you know, platinum status with a credit card. Hilton, you can get

00:18:49.040 | diamond status, their top tier with a credit card. I think IHG, you can also do that. So if you want to

00:18:54.560 | get top tier status on Hyatt, it is way harder. You need to spend 60 nights in a Hyatt, or you need to

00:19:01.380 | augment those 60 nights by spending a ton of money on one of their credit cards. And each one of those credit

00:19:07.580 | cards for every $10,000 you spend, you get five elite nights, which means to get all the way to 60,

00:19:13.060 | you need to spend $120,000. Now, if you have a lot of tax payments, business expenses, or you're running

00:19:19.320 | a gift card site, you might have the spend to do it. But you might be asking yourself, is it even worth

00:19:24.620 | it? Now, if you're earning one Hyatt point per dollar at 1.7 cents per point, depending on who you

00:19:30.780 | ask, maybe you could call it 1.3, 1.5. It's not as good as other cards that might earn you three or four

00:19:36.140 | points until you think about it in the context of getting all the way to the status. So when I mapped

00:19:41.620 | out, what would it look like to get to 60 nights? How would I make it happen? Along the way, Hyatt gives

00:19:46.980 | you all these milestone rewards, right? For every 20, 40, 50, 60 threshold, you're getting sweet upgrade

00:19:54.360 | awards. You're getting free night certificates. You're getting bonus points. You're getting these

00:19:58.680 | things called a guest of honor certificate, which I will probably be doing a giveaway for later this year,

00:20:03.120 | where you can gift someone else globalist status for a stay up to seven nights. And so when you add

00:20:09.680 | all those in, I put the value of spending money on that Hyatt card at about 3.4% back because you were

00:20:16.720 | getting the points and those perks, which made it worth going for. But it was over $100,000 of spend,

00:20:23.400 | which I didn't have entirely. Now, I did have some stays at Hyatt, so I didn't need to spend all of them.

00:20:28.480 | But I ended up doing what I'd always heard people do and never done myself last year,

00:20:33.120 | which was I ended up going on what's called a mattress run. And so I found a category one property,

00:20:37.940 | which is the lowest tier. I found it at an off peak time. And I found it locally. So I only had

00:20:44.080 | to drive 20, 30 minutes to get to. And I ended up checking into this hotel for about three or 3,500

00:20:51.760 | points a night. And one of the perks of the Hyatt business card is you get a 10% rebate. So 3150 a

00:20:57.820 | night, which those points were points I'd already used from spending on the card. So it kind of felt

00:21:02.820 | like a free stay. And I drove down, I checked in for a seven night stay. And I never stayed at the

00:21:09.340 | hotel once. I went to the front desk and I told them a story of, I'm checking in this hotel, I don't

00:21:14.460 | know if I'm going to stay here. And I don't know how many nights I'll be here. But if you could leave

00:21:18.620 | this room available, I will check in with you regularly. So you know that I might come back,

00:21:22.680 | I would really appreciate it. I put the do not disturb sign on. And every two days, I would text

00:21:27.040 | the front desk and say, I don't know if I'll need this room, but please keep it open for me. And they

00:21:31.180 | had no problem. The seven nights posted. And it was a lot easier than spending an extra, I don't know,

00:21:37.700 | for seven nights, you could probably call it somewhere on the order of $15,000 on the card. So

00:21:42.540 | ended up going for that. I'm really excited to put that to use this year, especially because

00:21:48.180 | one of the features of Hyatt that is unique is it's very easy to book suites. And so if you're

00:21:53.640 | traveling with a family, and you have kids that go to bed early, and you don't want to have to spend

00:21:58.060 | the time after they're in bed in a quiet, dark room sitting there being silent, not even being able to

00:22:04.400 | see much, you can book a suite. And Hyatt lets you confirm those suites at booking, or use suite upgrade

00:22:10.020 | awards to confirm them for no additional cost. And so doing that is just such a great experience when

00:22:15.100 | traveling with kids. So that's one of the reasons I'm excited about Hyatt Globalist,

00:22:18.400 | among lots of others. So I will probably share more about that at the end of the year once we've

00:22:22.620 | been able to use that status. On the other two hotel statuses, there was a built promo to get a core

00:22:29.560 | platinum status. So I did that. And we have the Hilton Aspire card, which includes free Hilton diamond

00:22:36.760 | status. And those Hilton cards, which right now have really great signup bonuses, you can go to

00:22:42.240 | all the hacks.com slash cards and check them out. But they just make it so easy to earn free nights.

00:22:47.140 | And as much as I love Hyatt, for certain reasons, married for some reasons, the thing I love about

00:22:51.660 | Hilton is that their free night certificates are good for any category hotel, as long as they have

00:22:57.060 | standard room availability. So we use those hotel certificates last year to stay at a hotel that

00:23:02.980 | was three or $4,000 a night. And right now open a card, the signup bonus includes a certificate.

00:23:09.460 | Some of the cards, you get another one when you spend $15,000. Some of them, it's $30,000. It really

00:23:13.980 | depends. There's a different flavor of card for everyone. But the Aspire card also comes with diamond

00:23:19.000 | status on Hilton, which is their top tier. So that's how we ended up with four hotel status tiers. I guess

00:23:24.100 | I don't have any IHG status, but haven't stayed in an IHG hotel for a really long time. So I thought

00:23:29.800 | it'd be interesting to share all of that, because that's how I ended up where we are today. And I did all of

00:23:36.100 | that despite feeling like status wasn't an important thing. And I'm not really sure why we didn't even

00:23:43.360 | have a lot of travel planned this year. And as I reflect on this, and in the spirit of my conversation

00:23:48.940 | with Simon Sinek, I will try to be a little bit more vulnerable. Like, I think I just have a little

00:23:53.280 | bit of a problem where I enjoy figuring out a system and trying to kind of level up in the same way as a

00:23:59.820 | kid, I enjoyed playing Super Mario and trying to get to the end of the game. It was figure out all

00:24:04.460 | the strategies and the tactics to get through the level and get to the next one and get to the next

00:24:07.660 | one. And then at the end, you win, and you save the princess and everything's great. And each one of

00:24:13.520 | these challenges to get these statuses feels like that. It's like, oh, I want to get Hyatt status, but I

00:24:18.960 | want to find out if it's worth it. So I get to build this model and I get to figure out whether the ROI is

00:24:23.080 | good. Well, the ROI is good in that the amount of Hyatt points and milestone benefits I've earned

00:24:30.620 | are technically worth an amount that is greater than what I would have gotten if I used 3% cashback

00:24:37.060 | card. However, it's only greater if I actually use those benefits. And right now, we're sitting on

00:24:42.880 | millions of points and miles that we haven't used. And so I have to ask myself, if I look hard in the

00:24:48.260 | mirror, am I actually getting the value that I believe I'm getting? And in the points and miles

00:24:55.740 | world, if you talk to people that play it really, really hard, earning millions and millions and

00:24:59.800 | millions of points a month, what they find out is that they can't use the points fast enough and they

00:25:03.960 | end up cashing them out in various ways at way lower value than what you think there should be worth.

00:25:09.460 | Right? If you're someone who only has a million Amex points, you might be able to use them for travel

00:25:15.740 | for the next three or four years. But if you had 50 million Amex points, you might never be able to use

00:25:19.680 | them for travel because there's just too many. And so even though there might be some amazing redemption

00:25:24.980 | that gets you two or three or four cents per point, if you're never going to take that redemption

00:25:29.200 | because you have too many points, then it's not worth that. And so I'm at a point where looking hard in the

00:25:34.520 | mirror is telling me that I should probably earn less points. I should probably stop chasing these

00:25:40.720 | statuses, even though I get a ton of satisfaction out of it. Or, and this is where I convince myself

00:25:47.260 | the alternative, we just say every year the kids are out of school, we just take a really big trip

00:25:53.140 | where we're staying in lots of hotels, using up all these points, traveling a lot, and really focus

00:25:58.580 | on going lots of places. And I rationalize some of this to myself saying, well, by earning status and

00:26:06.020 | earning points across tons of different programs, we have the ultimate flexibility, right? I tell myself

00:26:12.060 | that because we have points in, I don't know, probably five hotel groups and 15 airline groups and five

00:26:19.880 | transferable points groups, I now have the flexibility when we travel to stay anywhere we want because of all

00:26:26.500 | these programs. But that's not really true. Because we were talking about wanting to go visit the island of

00:26:32.460 | Lanai, or I think it's actually pronounced Lanai in Hawaii. And I'd heard a story of a trip report on

00:26:39.620 | another podcast where someone said it was the most magical trip they've ever taken. They said it was

00:26:42.760 | one of the best islands, you have to check it out. I actually have some friends that work to help design

00:26:47.360 | one of the hotels on the island. Turns out, they're just two Four Seasons hotels. And so no amount of

00:26:54.140 | Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, you know, IHG points or Amex points could be used for anything other than

00:27:00.340 | maybe booking in a travel portal a room at the Four Seasons. And so I think sometimes points are also

00:27:06.980 | restrictive. And what I've come to the conclusion of recently, is that I need to let go of those

00:27:13.180 | restrictions. And so one thing that I will start doing more of is using my points, even if it means

00:27:20.080 | in the travel portal for one and a half cents, when I know they probably could get more value,

00:27:25.080 | but just sitting there, they're not. And so that's something that I'm going to be making

00:27:30.000 | a change. Obviously, we haven't planned out all our travel for this year, but things will come up.

00:27:34.640 | So I assume that these statuses will get put to good use. But I really think I need to start using

00:27:39.500 | these points, even if it's not the perfect redemption, because just letting them sit there,

00:27:43.760 | you know, they're constantly getting devalued, which I will talk about in a minute.

00:27:47.060 | And if that money was sitting in cashback, it'd be earning interest.

00:27:50.360 | So I owe it to myself to actually try to bring down the balance of points.

00:27:53.760 | So stay tuned on how successful I am at this and really changing a little bit of this behavior.

00:27:58.920 | But after I prepped for this episode and thought about how I should really be rethinking these,

00:28:04.000 | I met with someone and they talked to me about how there's a way to earn Japan Airlines status

00:28:10.520 | for life with one of their credit cards. And the renewal fee ends up being about 2000 miles.

00:28:16.520 | So you can earn Japan Airlines status for life, which translates into a one world status

00:28:22.460 | that would give you priority seating and free check bags on American, on Alaska, lounge access,

00:28:28.200 | all of those things forever. It was a huge spend requirement. But I came home and I was like,

00:28:33.940 | hmm, I just prepped an episode where I said I should stop thinking about this. And here I am again,

00:28:40.820 | wanting to go chase status on an airline that isn't even based in the US, which has reciprocal benefits

00:28:46.540 | on most airlines that I'm not flying when I'm also chasing status on an airline in that alliance

00:28:52.840 | separately. So we'll see where it goes. But one of the things I just mentioned was the reason to be

00:28:57.800 | using your points is that they're always getting devalued. And I sent this in the newsletter and

00:29:02.380 | something I'm going to try today is I'm going to try to run through some of the most interesting

00:29:06.940 | things that have been happening as well as some amazing listener stories. Some of these things

00:29:10.940 | have been in the newsletter. So if you're subscribed, a couple of them you might have heard, you might not

00:29:15.000 | have heard the commentary I'm going to give, but I've shared them a bit. But if you're not, and you want

00:29:19.640 | to make sure that when things like this happen, you hear about them, go to allthehacks.com slash email

00:29:24.300 | and you can sign up. So devaluations are something that happens all the time. And last year, we saw a

00:29:30.140 | handful of them across tons of different airlines. Just in 2025, we've already seen a few. Avianca, which was

00:29:37.020 | one of my preferred ways to use miles to fly on United or Air Canada or Lufthansa because they had such great

00:29:43.880 | deals. They just increased their award prices in business anywhere from 8% to 15%. In first class, all the way up to

00:29:51.120 | 25%. So that kind of stuff happens all the time. It's one of the reasons that I love transferable points, because if you

00:29:57.620 | keep your points in Amex or Chase, and this happens to Avianca, well, now you can prioritize Air Canada, or you

00:30:03.200 | could prioritize United. Whereas if you accrue in one airline, and this happens, it makes it really

00:30:07.440 | difficult. On the hotel front, Marriott had big devaluations, they fluctuated a lot of the things, they've

00:30:14.780 | introduced dynamic award pricing. So it's not always clear what number of points you need for a room. There is a

00:30:21.760 | secret award chart that I'll link to in the show notes, but they've made some devaluations this year.

00:30:27.060 | Hilton increased the points required for most premium properties, with some top tier hotels going way over 100,000 points

00:30:34.000 | a night. And then just recently, Hyatt did some category shifting, they moved 151 properties, 118 of which are going up in

00:30:42.380 | price. 33 are decreasing, but the vast majority are going up. So this is always happening in the industry. That's why I love the

00:30:49.700 | transferable points. But it is another good reason to not stash and hoard points, because you're just going to get

00:30:57.100 | stuck with them being worth less and less over time. Whereas had you earned cash, you would have been seeing them

00:31:01.640 | worth more and more over time. This episode is brought to you by Element. Now I love Element and I use it all the

00:31:07.860 | time because it helps anyone stay hydrated without the sugar and other dodgy ingredients in popular electrolyte and

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00:31:19.200 | headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, and weakness. In fact, Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix

00:31:25.860 | and sparkling electrolyte water born from the growing body of research revealing that optimal health outcomes

00:31:31.880 | occur at sodium levels two to three times government recommendations. Element is formulated for anyone on a mission to

00:31:38.620 | restore their health through hydration and is perfectly suited for everyone from athletes to regular people like me and

00:31:45.420 | works if you're fasting on a keto, low carb or paleo diet. And if you're not sure if it's for you, don't worry because

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00:31:58.480 | Element purchase at chrishutchins.com slash LMNT. This deal is only available through that link. So support the show and go to

00:32:06.600 | chrishutchins.com slash element or click the link in the description and get hydrated. This episode is brought to you by built

00:32:13.520 | rewards, which is an amazing points program with so many ways to earn including on your rent where you don't even need to

00:32:20.000 | check with your landlord. So let me explain. First, there's no cost to join built and as a member, you'll earn valuable points on

00:32:26.100 | rent and on your everyday spending. Built points can be transferred to your favorite hotels and airlines and even the ones you haven't

00:32:32.460 | heard of. There are over 500 airlines and 700,000 hotels and properties around the world you can redeem your built

00:32:39.000 | points toward. Points can be redeemed towards a future rent payment and unique experiences that only built members can

00:32:44.660 | access. So if you're not earning points on rent, my question is why not? Start earning points on rent you're already paying

00:32:51.240 | by going to chrishutchins.com slash built. That's chrishutchins.com slash built, B-I-L-T. Make sure to use our URL so they know we

00:33:00.080 | sent you chrishutchins.com slash built or the link in the description to start earning points on your rent payments

00:33:06.000 | today. A few other things in the newsletter before I share some really creative ways that a lot of our listeners have earned

00:33:13.540 | millions of points. And there are actually ways that you can use as well. One, there are some really awesome

00:33:19.840 | card-linked offers right now. So I'm not going to go through all of them because they're often only good

00:33:25.080 | for a month at a time and they change depending on who you are. So some people are targeted for some,

00:33:31.380 | some aren't. Each week in the newsletter, at least each week that I find relevant ones, I'm sharing some of the

00:33:37.500 | best ones. I'm trying to go through as a filter because you might have four or five hundred card-linked

00:33:42.660 | offers on any given one of your credit cards, but they might be for products and services and brands

00:33:47.360 | you don't have any interest in. I'm trying to find the ones that I think have the most broad appeal that

00:33:52.100 | you should know about. One trick that I like to use, and it saved me probably at least a few hundred

00:33:57.500 | dollars if not more, is use an app that automatically adds all of your card-linked offers to your cards.

00:34:05.420 | So the wild thing is there might be an offer on your Amex, U.S. Bank, Bank of America card

00:34:10.640 | that you just haven't activated. Even if you go spend money at the merchant that there is an offer

00:34:15.780 | and you haven't activated the offer, you won't get the cash back or the bonus points. And so I really

00:34:20.460 | like an app called Card Pointers. You can go to allthehacks.com slash cardpointers to get, I believe

00:34:24.900 | it's 30% off. Members actually get 50% off. Or there's a new one, I think SaveWise is also offering

00:34:31.420 | this service. And there's an app called Max Rewards that for kind of security reasons, I can't endorse

00:34:37.340 | that app right now, though I know lots of people that have had a good experience. But there are three

00:34:41.740 | offers that are really interesting that are probably a lot bigger than most of them. You'll see an offer

00:34:45.620 | that's 10% off or 5% off or $10 off. But there's three right now that are really big. One of them is

00:34:52.160 | for Calm. And if you have either the Chase Reserve or the Chase Preferred card, you can get 50 to 100%

00:34:58.640 | back on an annual membership. So the Reserve is going for a full 100% back on a Calm annual membership

00:35:03.920 | through the end of May. So that's really awesome. The Preferred only gets 50% back. And they're all

00:35:10.320 | kind of in the health and wellness area. The next one is for a company called Lifeforce. So I haven't

00:35:15.760 | actually used this product. But I'm prepping an episode about all the different kinds of health

00:35:20.380 | diagnostics you can do. So I've been trying a lot of things out. They have a diagnostic where you do

00:35:25.980 | 50 plus biomarkers, blood tests, service, and then you get a consultation with a clinician. It's $599.

00:35:31.880 | But there's an offer right now on both Chase Reserve and Preferred for $300 back.

00:35:37.040 | And then the last one is with Pronuvo, which I've talked about in the past, I've done a full body MRI with

00:35:43.580 | Pronuvo two times in the past. Normally, that would cost $2,500. And if you do have a Chase Reserve card,

00:35:50.360 | you get a $600 back offer. So that brings the cost down to $1,900. However, one thing not everyone

00:35:57.960 | might know is that Pronuvo, like many other health services, is eligible for an HSA or an FSA.

00:36:03.880 | So let's say you were to spend that $2,500, but reimburse yourself from your FSA or an HSA,

00:36:11.680 | depending on your tax bracket and where you're at, that could bring that cost down, maybe at the highest

00:36:17.480 | tax bracket in California, in half. Maybe in other places, it comes down a third. But just for the sake

00:36:22.180 | of argument, let's say you bring it down in half to $1,250. So you've saved $1,250 in taxes on that

00:36:27.820 | Pronuvo scan from using tax-advantaged accounts, but you're also going to get $600 off. So if you stack

00:36:32.740 | those two offers, it can really bring the price of that service down. I have had one friend whose

00:36:39.400 | full-body MRI resulted in learning about something that very likely would have been a tumor that killed

00:36:45.840 | them in the next six months. It was pretty serious and resulted in some kind of very,

00:36:50.080 | very last-minute surgeries. And most people have found very few things. If you're someone that

00:36:56.020 | learning about a few things that might be off would really make you nervous, then it's probably not for

00:37:00.980 | you. But I imagine if you're more like me, where more information is better, it's been really helpful

00:37:06.320 | to know what areas of your body are things to focus on. It can obviously spot things much earlier.

00:37:12.540 | There's so many amazing stories of people whose lives have actually changed getting a Pronuvo scan.

00:37:17.740 | In fact, I just pulled up on the website. There's tons of stories you can go read, but they're saying

00:37:21.400 | one in 20 scans result in a potentially life-saving diagnosis. Super interesting service. I have done it

00:37:27.680 | before in the past. Full disclosure, one of them I paid for, one of them I did not. I had met someone

00:37:33.440 | connected to Pronuvo and told them I was doing this health diagnostics episode. And they said,

00:37:37.820 | Josh, if you haven't gotten a scan in the last year, why don't you come in and get one so you

00:37:41.400 | can talk a little bit more about the experience we have today. They also did set up allthehacks.com

00:37:46.620 | slash Pronuvo, which has a discount. And so I actually, I think you could potentially stack

00:37:52.440 | a discount plus the Chase rebate, plus your HSA, FSA, and get it even lower. But just make sure that

00:37:59.020 | the requirements of the card linked offer don't require you to spend an amount that a discount

00:38:05.680 | might bring you below. So just make sure you could do that. I don't want you to get a $100 discount

00:38:09.820 | that prevents you from getting a $600 savings. Also on the note of card linked offers, I finally

00:38:15.820 | opened my first Citi thank you points card, which was the Citi Premier card. It had a 75,000 point

00:38:21.760 | offer, which I took advantage of. And so now I have not been able to talk a lot about the Citi thank you

00:38:27.360 | point experience. And now that I have a card, I'm going really deep on it, I might actually do a

00:38:32.260 | series where I go down the rabbit hole of the entire rewards program for every single major issuer.

00:38:38.440 | So do one for Citi and for everyone else. So stay tuned for that. A few other things that I've shared

00:38:44.300 | in the newsletter that I thought would be fun to share here. One of my favorite things about the

00:38:49.840 | Animal Spirits podcast, which is really about markets and investing, is that they always talk about

00:38:53.440 | their favorite shows. And so I started adding that to the newsletter. And I realized people wrote me

00:38:59.600 | back every single time saying, Oh my gosh, I love that show. That was such a good tip. Or I love that

00:39:03.640 | show to check out this other one. And those things never made it to the podcast. And I don't really

00:39:07.880 | know how to fit them into the format of the show we do regularly. But I will just say that a few of the

00:39:13.660 | shows that recently I've loved that I've been sharing on the newsletter were Paradise. I think

00:39:18.800 | see episode seven of Paradise was one of my favorite episodes of television. And so highly recommend

00:39:23.680 | don't even look up what it is because I loved being surprised. I had no context going into it really

00:39:29.060 | like Landman about the oil and gas industry silo day of the jackal. Those are all great. There's more

00:39:36.320 | recommendations that are regularly coming in the newsletter. If you have any show recommendations

00:39:40.400 | based on those, and other ones you've seen me mentioned, definitely send them my way. Another

00:39:44.800 | little tip I shared recently is that Uber, if you're traveling abroad is starting to add a one and a half

00:39:49.900 | percent fee for the convenience of displaying prices in your home currency. Everyone's automatically

00:39:56.160 | getting opted into that. So anyone who travels internationally and uses Uber, go into your app,

00:40:01.800 | go into the wallet and select no preferred currency and save yourself one and a half percent on those rides.

00:40:06.740 | This episode is brought to you by Viore, which is amazing because they are one of only the few brands I

00:40:11.640 | wear almost every single day. I've got a shirt on. I've got the core shorts on. I love Viore and I love

00:40:17.680 | that they bring a new perspective on performance apparel. It's so versatile. It can be used for just

00:40:22.480 | about any activity, whether it's running, training, swimming, yoga, or even lounging or running errands

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00:40:33.500 | talk about their dream knit collection because it's amazing. It is super soft, lightweight, moisture

00:40:38.820 | wicking, but also has this amazing four-way performance stretch that makes it so comfortable.

00:40:44.100 | While it's almost impossible to narrow my Viore recommendations down to just one thing, I want you

00:40:48.660 | to check out the Ponto performance jogger for men or the performance jogger for women. I know me and my

00:40:53.580 | wife, Amy, absolutely love them and wear them all the time. Seriously, I think Viore is an investment in

00:40:58.900 | your happiness. And for everyone watching, they're offering 20% off your first purchase plus free shipping

00:41:04.380 | on US orders over $75 and free returns. So get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile

00:41:10.600 | clothing on the planet at chrishutchins.com slash Viore. That's V-U-O-R-I. Again, that's chrishutchins.com

00:41:18.040 | slash Viore to discover the versatility of Viore clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full

00:41:24.380 | terms and conditions and find the link in the description. Finally, one tip I've shared multiple

00:41:28.720 | times on the podcast and multiple times in the newsletter that I think is really worth sharing

00:41:34.000 | again is to go check for unclaimed money. And the way this works is there are circumstances where

00:41:41.060 | someone might owe you money, they can't get it to you, or you haven't cashed a check. And so they pass

00:41:45.120 | it over to the state. This might happen with a cable bill or a medical bill that you overpaid or you

00:41:51.860 | canceled an insurance policy and they owe you a refund. And why I share this is because even though I've

00:41:58.220 | shared it multiple times in the newsletter, I thought I'm going to share it again. And I'm

00:42:02.400 | actually going to do a quick poll of how much unclaimed money people found. And while 47% of the

00:42:08.080 | people subscribed found no money, which kind of made sense. I've shared this in the past. Not everyone

00:42:12.620 | finds it. The results of the other 53% were super interesting. So 31% found less than $100. 15% found

00:42:21.220 | 100 to $500. 3% found 500 to $1,000. And 5% found over $1,000 of unclaimed money in their name. And we had

00:42:31.800 | 250 people respond to this. So 250.05. That's 12 people. 12 people found $1,000 just by going to their

00:42:40.440 | state's unclaimed money site and searching. If you haven't done that before, highly encourage you to do

00:42:45.480 | it for yourself, for your spouse, if you have old enough kids that they might be in this

00:42:49.540 | circumstance, for your parents, for really anyone. I've always said in the past that it's kind of a

00:42:53.640 | fun party trick. If you show up to someone's party, you can bring them a bottle of wine or you could

00:42:57.400 | check in advance and see if they are owed thousands of dollars. And obviously, I don't know about you,

00:43:02.080 | but $1,000 seems like a much better gift than a bottle of wine. So each week, we're sending out all

00:43:06.380 | kinds of stuff like this, whether it's new card offers, gift cards, deals, promos for bonus points,

00:43:11.780 | freebies. A couple of weeks ago, there was free Starbucks and Febreze plugins and Slurpees,

00:43:15.900 | transfer bonuses and all that. So allthehacks.com slash email if you want them more regularly.

00:43:20.240 | I've even considered doing a little quick Saturday episode that just runs through the highlights of

00:43:27.100 | the offers for the week. It wouldn't be edited. It wouldn't be produced that well, but it would be

00:43:31.040 | turned around really fast. So something I'm considering. But for now, it seems easier to

00:43:35.140 | write them and email them out because it's more time sensitive.

00:43:38.520 | Okay. Last thing I want to cover is a question that I get from so many people. And it's about

00:43:45.640 | getting started and whether all the crazy things I'm doing are really even possible for the average

00:43:50.040 | person. And so in the spirit of all this talk about earning the most, having the most amazing

00:43:55.580 | experiences, I want to share five short but incredible stories from listeners about how they

00:44:01.520 | were able to save a combined $100,000 doing various points and miles things as people that

00:44:08.660 | aren't me. They're not going down the rabbit hole as deep as I am. Some of them just got started in

00:44:13.020 | the last year and they've had really, really incredible experiences. So first, Winnetta took

00:44:17.840 | her honeymoon in Bora Bora and a baby moon to Greece and Croatia. So congrats, double congrats.

00:44:23.960 | To get to Bora Bora, they transferred Ultimate Rewards points to United for the first flight.

00:44:28.240 | They managed to find three nights at the St. Regis, getting 2.9 cents per point, saving over $9,000.

00:44:35.020 | When they went to Greece and Croatia, they did 10 days back in 2024 and they credited episode 166,

00:44:42.540 | which is where we went through all the best tools for the way they were able to book this just three

00:44:47.400 | weeks in advance. So they used PointsYah and they found an amazing deal. They used the Venturex for

00:44:52.980 | lounge access. They used the travel credits for their rental car. And then the cash value of the

00:44:57.940 | whole trip was way over $6,000 they saved. But the real treat of all of this, and this is why I love

00:45:05.180 | the Points Game, is that they said they got to travel more and in style that they never would have for so

00:45:10.460 | much less. And I think there's something to be said for the fact that many times, maybe you would have

00:45:17.260 | had more money than you would have spent on a trip, but you might not have taken the trip or you might not

00:45:22.000 | have taken the trip in the style you want. And sometimes those little luxuries and that extra

00:45:27.040 | trip make the year, the month, the whatever period of time so much better. So one of the reasons I love

00:45:33.720 | Points and Miles, so glad you got to take both of those trips. Congrats. Next one is from Corey,

00:45:38.780 | who basically had an almost free honeymoon in Japan. They did ANA's The Room, which was an incredible

00:45:45.700 | business class or I guess first class product I've never taken. They booked an older business class

00:45:51.820 | product on ANA on the way back. And they did four nights at the brand new Hotel Indigo in Shibuya in

00:45:58.240 | Japan, two nights at the Intercon Beppu, then some nights at the Grand Hyatt Fukuoku, the Hyatt Place

00:46:04.140 | Kyoto, and the Andaz Sol. They said almost the entire thing was free. Over $20,000 of value from signup

00:46:11.020 | bonuses on a few cards, the only thing that wasn't covered was they did stay at a Four Seasons in

00:46:16.960 | Seoul, but they used their Amex Platinum FHR benefit to get $200 a night off. So that's awesome. Nothing

00:46:24.420 | like taking a $20,000 honeymoon for a significant fraction of that cost. Next, I want to share what

00:46:31.580 | Jake did, which was really awesome. He took three trips last year, burned 1.3 million points, went to

00:46:38.680 | Japan, inspired by episodes 101 and 102, which are, I assume, the ones I did with Brandon Presser. Two

00:46:45.280 | business class tickets for 400,000 points, 150,000 points to stay at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, which I

00:46:52.920 | think right now is under renovations. But when it's done, I think it's supposed to be really, really nice.

00:46:57.380 | Did another trip to Prague to go do IVF. He actually was a little bit of the inspiration for this medical

00:47:02.640 | tourism episode because he said, hey, did you know it's way cheaper to go to Prague to do IVF than it

00:47:07.060 | is to even just do it in Houston? He's like, our system's really broken, but you should do an episode

00:47:11.280 | on that. And that kind of led down to this rabbit hole. But in specific numbers, he said the quote for

00:47:17.480 | IVF at home was $30,000 to $50,000. And they spent $5,000, had a great experience in Prague.

00:47:23.080 | And when you include everything, treatment, travel, food, they still spent less than half the cost of

00:47:27.640 | IVF at home and got a trip out of it. Did three legs on KLM with points and got a really great value

00:47:34.080 | saving thousands of dollars there. And then finally, they went back for the IVF transfer and spent some

00:47:40.300 | time in Budapest. So that's awesome. Glad you were able to take advantage of medical travel.

00:47:44.600 | I'm actually looking at the recap. They said they got an average of four cents a point from all 1.3

00:47:49.140 | million points. And a lot of these people said that this is not something that they've been doing for

00:47:54.240 | a while. And they said just listening and taking the leap has been what made this happen and really

00:47:58.740 | stoked. Kieran wrote in saying they weren't really into points. It was a thing, a hobby of the past.

00:48:02.920 | And just last year, they got into it. And then by the end of this year, already set to accumulate a

00:48:08.840 | million miles. From a combo of signup bonuses and spend, they're really racking it up. So that is

00:48:16.160 | awesome. I know for some people hearing this, they think a million miles, it sounds so unachievable.

00:48:21.600 | It sounds so crazy. And then I think of myself, a couple days ago, I did what is often called an

00:48:28.460 | Aparama. But I basically opened up a Bank of America, Alaska business card and a city American

00:48:35.340 | card. And the signup bonus on all three of those totaled about 225,000 points. And both my wife and

00:48:42.320 | I this year opened up an Amex business gold when it was a 200,000 point signup bonus. So last year,

00:48:49.280 | those five cards, which weren't all the cards we opened up last year and includes none of the

00:48:54.680 | spending was already over 600,000 points. And so and that's just one under my wife. So if she had

00:49:01.360 | just done the exact same thing as I did, probably easily be at a million. And that was just what we

00:49:06.840 | did in the tail end of the year. So definitely something that's possible, even if you don't have

00:49:13.060 | a ton of business spend to do. Last is one of my favorite stories. So Brandon sent in this epic

00:49:19.780 | photo, which with his permission, I will put in the show notes, they had a contractor who was building

00:49:25.600 | out some renovations or their house. And he asked if they could pay for the building materials. So their

00:49:30.800 | contractor wouldn't let them pay by credit card, but they were willing to let them go to Lowe's and pay

00:49:36.020 | for the materials themselves. And so they had about $170,000 to spend at Lowe's. First, they bought all

00:49:43.740 | the Lowe's gift cards they could at a deal. Unfortunately, they were only able to get up to

00:49:47.800 | 5,000. This was before I had launched the gift card site. And then they put the rest on their credit

00:49:53.020 | cards. And between him and his brother, they stacked out a bunch of different credit cards, rang it up to

00:49:58.140 | $170,000. And if you just assume an average return of let's call it two points or two and a half

00:50:05.680 | percent, they earned back over $4,000 of value. I didn't ask him which cards. I'm going to hope

00:50:11.440 | there were a bunch of signup bonuses in there. If there were five or six signup bonuses, well,

00:50:15.320 | that could have been, you know, millions and millions and millions of points. But I didn't

00:50:18.500 | ask which cards there were. If there were a bunch of signup bonuses in there, who knows? It could have

00:50:22.060 | been a million, 2 million points. It really depends on the spending patterns. But $170,000 for just

00:50:29.120 | asking a question, I encourage everyone to try to do something similar themselves. Anytime they're playing

00:50:35.340 | any time they're trying to earn more, there's always something that comes from asking, can I pay you with

00:50:41.540 | a credit card? What would that cost? Is this possible? There are some banks that let you pay

00:50:47.700 | bills by credit card. Never hurts to ask. So really, really stoked to hear all those stories. If you have

00:50:53.940 | any similar stories of huge wins in the points and miles, in the health, in the any category we've ever

00:50:59.520 | discussed on the show, send them in. Podcast at allthehacks.com. I love hearing them. Thank you so much for

00:51:05.160 | joining this week. I will see you next week.

How I Got Elite Status with 8 Airlines & Hotels (Without Flying Much)

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