A quick word from our sponsor today. I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much more, but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which actually gets harder as you build your wealth. So I want to introduce you to today's sponsor, LongAngle.

LongAngle is a community of high net worth individuals with backgrounds in everything from technology, finance, medicine, to real estate, law, manufacturing, and more. I'm a member of LongAngle. I've loved being a part of the community, and I've even had one of the founders, Tad Fallows, join me on all the hacks in episode 87 to talk about alternative investments.

Now, the majority of LongAngle members are first generation wealth, young, highly successful individuals who join the community to share knowledge and learn from each other in a confidential, unbiased setting. On top of that, members also get access to some unique private market investment opportunities. Like I said, I'm a member and I've gotten so much value from the community because you're getting advice and feedback from people in a similar situation to you on everything from your investment portfolio to your children's education, to finding a concierge doctor.

So many of these conversations aren't happening anywhere else online. So if you have more than 2.2 million in investable assets, which is their minimum for membership, I encourage you to check out LongAngle and it's totally free to join. Just go to longangle.com to learn more. And if you choose to apply, be sure to let them know.

You heard about it here. Again, that's longangle.com. Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel all while spending less and saving more. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I am excited to have you here on my journey to find All The Hacks.

Today's conversation is going to be really fantastic because I'm sitting down, virtually at least, with Brian Kelly. And if that name isn't familiar, it's probably because you know him better as The Points Guy, which is the name of the site he founded in 2010 during his time as a Wall Street road warrior, where he developed his unique ability to maximize his travel experiences while minimizing his spending.

Since then, he's grown the company into a powerhouse travel and lifestyle media platform through a team of dozens of editors and freelancers that span the globe. I know I'm an avid reader of the TPG site and appreciate all the work his team puts in to create such great content.

In our conversation, we'll talk about travel in this post-pandemic world, the current state of points and miles, and we'll get Brian's take on his favorite destinations, credit cards, travel hacks, and more. I know you'll enjoy this conversation with Brian Kelly, so let's jump in. Brian, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, I am excited. This has been a long time coming. You've been a top requested guest, people really passionate about points here. I know the last 18 months has been a pretty atypical month for, for travel and things are coming back, so I'll just kick it off.

Have you had a chance to take some trips recently? Oh, Chris, I've had some of my best trips over the pandemic. You know, when it first hit in March, I took a hundred days off, which was, I think, the longest I'd ever not traveled since maybe I was in high school.

And then I started small, like Palm Springs. Then I went to the Island of Antigua. When that first opened, that was kind of my first international trip. And from that point, I just started to go. I think one of my favorite trips of all time, I did French Polynesia, so Bora Bora.

And I cannot recommend enough. Go in September, October. You can swim with the humpback whales off the Island of Moraya. Have you ever been to Moraya? We went to the Conrad in Bora Bora and you know, everyone says, "Oh, well, that doesn't face the caldera in the middle." And I was like, "Yeah, but it's a pretty nice hotel." Yeah, I stayed at the Conrad as well.

I've stayed at the St. Regis and I loved the Conrad. It was kind of newer, fresher, in my opinion. Although if you're going to go all out, you can't go wrong with St. Regis, but Moraya is so cool. There's only a soft hotel and a Hilton, so it's not as high end, but you can kind of go all around the Island.

And I did two days of private boat and snorkels. And I came face to face with a humpback and her little calf, 20 feet from my eyes, she was vertical looking at me. And it was one of those moments of, "Oh my God, like, is this real right now?" So, yeah, and then I did Kenya and trek with the gorillas in Rwanda, Dubai.

Wow. And this summer I did a bunch of Europe trips and Europe was amazing this summer because there were no Americans. Amazing award availability at the lowest levels pretty much any day of the week. I took my family, seven of us, you know, Sabre level seats on Lufthansa. You know, so it was like, it's been an amazing time to use points.

Certainly demand is coming back and it's getting harder and harder, but, you know, I still think for the next couple of years, there's going to be great opportunities to visit places that were over touristed, the Machu Picchus of the world, you know, Thailand, James Bond beach right now, my friend is there and it's completely empty for the first time in like history since the movie came out.

So I think there's still a lot of opportunities for travelers. Yeah. Are there places that, you know, haven't opened up that you're most excited about? I mean, I'm craving Asia. Thailand just opened up, Singapore. I am hoping Japan, I've heard through the grapevine, maybe Jan one, but for, I think I'll be going for cherry blossoms if it's open, I just, you know, it's been a couple of years of, of no Asia travel.

So yeah, I think that'll be, I'm hoping by, you know, mid 2022, the world is essentially reopened. I found in the couple of trips we've taken that it doesn't feel as unsafe as it might seem. I don't know if you found something similar. I feel 100% safer in any other country besides the United States for a host of reasons, but even just looking at, you know, and I'm vaccinated, I had an asymptomatic case of COVID.

I, I got tested recently. My antibodies are through the roof. So I feel personally comfortable, even if I get a breakthrough infection or whatever, but you know, around the world, people take this very seriously, whereas I think 40% of the country doesn't at all in the U S so that makes, you know, no matter where you are, you know, very widely varying protocols, uncertainty, whereas when you go to most countries, you kind of understand what you're going to get and there are pretty strict protocols.

So, so yeah, it was funny when people were like, travel's dangerous, stay home, stay in the U S I'm like, that was at a time when like my friend broke his leg and couldn't even get an ER room in Florida, in Miami beach, you know, on vacation, he didn't even have COVID.

He couldn't even, you know, he was in a waiting room for 20 hours. So, you know, I think the U S has gotten much better, but you know, I, I don't, I hate when people just think, oh, traveling is dangerous abroad is where you get this scary virus when it's like literally the exact opposite when it's rampant in the U S yeah.

Yeah. It's a, we had a chance to go to Greece. It felt great. It was just good to be out, good to be around other people from other countries and eat other food. And it was amazing. So I know the pandemic's changed the landscape of some of the rules and stuff.

How have points and, and everything really evolved since you started and what are you doing differently? Yeah. So points, I think have gotten more valuable because while most airlines now, well, U S airlines will let you change a flight and get a voucher, a crappy voucher that you may not be able to use for the full amount that might expire.

You probably can't use for someone else. It's a pretty restricted currency. I think they've marketed it as, oh, book and do whatever you want, but, oh, and by the way, not with basic economy or other tickets. So on the flip side with points, it's gotten much more flexible. You know, almost every loyalty program now will let you change, even if you're not an elite member change, cancel free of charge, get all your points back.

So I think points have gotten more flexible. And if there's one thing travelers need these days, it's flexibility. Now it's interesting dynamics because airfares have come down as well. So the relative value of points, uh, you would think that, well, you're not getting as much bang for your buck because these flights are cheap.

Let me just book them. So, you know, it just depends. I mean, it certainly depends on routes. I mean, I've flown Emirates first-class numerous times, tons of availability, like I've never seen before and, and not all flights are cheap these days, you know, especially since travels bounce back, you know, airfares in the U S are up 30% in 2021 and, you know, rising going to be above the 2019 level.

So bottom line, I think points are valuable because they're more flexible than ever. Cause you can, it's basically like buying a refundable ticket and getting all of your, your currency back, you know, credit cards, there's still a war out there with huge signup bonuses. Across the board. So it's an amazing time for consumers to get cards.

I even helped launch the built credit card, which is the first ever credit card. No annual fee. It's a master card and you earn points on rent with no fees to any landlord, which was huge. There's a wait list for it. It'll be fully launching to the public in early 2022.

But now, I mean, when you look at your spend, whether it's groceries or online advertising, there's so many category bonuses on credit cards and new credit cards, and there's some new cards coming that I know about and can't give details on, but there's some exciting stuff in the pipeline.

So for points, people, you know, some people are just naysayers and saying the points game's over. It's not what it used to be. It's just false. There's more opportunities than ever to earn. And yeah, on the burn side, you might be spending more miles than you did 10 years ago, but your earn rate should be three X what it was.

So as long as you're earning a lot more than the rate at which you're burning, I think you're coming out pretty good. Yeah. So one of the, when it comes to earning a common thing I hear is people say, wow, you have to be rich and spend tons of money, or you have to have a job where you have all these expenses.

And if I'm not one of those people, this game doesn't work for me. I'm curious what you would say to that person. Yeah. I mean, I would just firmly push back if you have a good credit score, if you're not going to be tempted to spend out of your means and mire yourself in debt, you can absolutely play this game and win.

You know, there's probably 10 major banks that offer credit cards and there's probably five solid cards, which each of those banks, probably 50 decent cards out there that offer hundreds, if not thousands in values per signup. And, you know, I've got 26 credit cards right now. I've got an 800 FICO.

And as long as you manage them, you can get new cards every year, new issuers. You know, even my Sapphire reserve, which I got in 2016, a hundred thousand points, you know, Sapphire preferred had a hundred thousand point offer as well this year. So I downgraded my Sapphire reserve to a freedom flex card.

And then a couple of weeks later applied as a new member for Chase Sapphire preferred banking a hundred thousand points because you just can't have had a Sapphire bonus within the last four years. So I was over that. So there's ways to keep trading down, you know, advanced people in this game.

No, the signup bonuses are huge. You maximize category bonuses. And even if you're an average person spending, you know, a couple thousand dollars a month, if you're maximizing, if you're getting your rent points, if you're making sure you use as little cash as possible shopping through shopping portals, there are many ways to travel and get free trips every year without being a road warrior or, you know, small business owner with millions in credit card spend.

Yeah. I mean, obviously if you have those things, it's even better, but yeah, I'm curious. So you 26 cards, I play the same game and have a lot. How do you keep track of everything? And, and beyond just the cards, I imagine you have at least 20 different mileage accounts and you know, that's a lot.

Well, you know, I had always used a word wallet, which had its limitations that not every program was tracked. One of my goals at the points guy was always creating an app that really attract all loyalty points. Every major airline hotel, which we just launched, uh, this September, uh, it's out in the Apple store, just search for the points guy.

Andrew's coming shortly, but you basically, you get your net worth in points at our current TPG valuations. We also track your credit card spend. We'll tell you missed opportunities, you know, I'm the points guy, but I still will use the wrong card for certain purchases. You know, there's just so many, no one person can compute instantly all the different variables and opportunities.

So that's why I wanted to create an app that. That tracked it all, but you know, I've got a similar to you. I've got a, uh, eight figure points balance because we run millions a month in online ads through my personal credit cards at the points guide. And then we use those points for our company travel.

And, you know, we don't take freebies from airlines in general. We use points for everything. So I will say I have so many Amex and chase points that I have lately been going and using like capital one, which allows you to basically wipe off any sort of travel charge, including helicopters or Ubers, or even taxes on award tickets, because, you know, I think a lot of people have hoarded so many points, you can only use so many Amex points, right?

Like there's only so much time in a year and. And travel you can do in first class to actually, you know, and I know this sounds like such a privileged thing to say, but it really is like, just like finance, like diversifying your points balances. So they don't just sit there and grow.

Yeah. I think I'm guilty of sometimes hoarding points and, you know, I'm like, ah, I haven't used those points. And all of a sudden it's like, well, this, this airline's getting devalued and you're like, I should, I should be using these points, but yeah, it's a problem I think a lot of us face when you think about having points in lots of different places.

I know that when you started the points guy, you started doing an award booking service for people, helping people book flights. Do you, do you book all of your award flights yourself now? Or how does that work? Yeah, I don't use a service. So yeah, the points guy before it was even a blog.

So it was like April, 2010, I started it and it was just a form. And I wanted to create a business because I was working at Morgan Stanley. That was, I could make a couple extra a hundred bucks a week being in my twenties and broke as hell living in New York.

Um, and I loved award booking cause it's like solving a puzzle. And it was like using the knowledge I had in my head, expert flyer. I could do for most people, like what they couldn't do themselves. You know, once we got in the credit card affiliate game, it just changed the entire dynamics.

And I realized writing content to millions of people is much, much better than doing one-on-one consultations. You know, things would change. It was so time consuming. Um, There are good, you know, booking services out there. I know juicy miles points pros. I do recommend it. If you don't have the time to do it yourself.

I also have a assistant who is a points wizard that I'm very fortunate. We'll, we'll do the things like, you know, call and change my, my travel changes by the minute. I mean, I'll change, you know, if I see what times of first class availability open up last minute, I'll switch to that.

I almost always extend or come home early. So that's why I always book one way awards. And then I'm always just looking for what is the absolute most comfortable way I can fly. You know, elite status. I do have United one K, but in general, at least that is, you know, when you have so many points, I don't even bother with hoping for an upgrade because that to me is too stressful.

So, so yeah, it's all about just like maximizing points, but I still do it myself. I love, you know, sitting down with a cup of coffee and looking at like, okay, I've got my friend's 50th birthday in Barcelona next month. What should I do? Should I stop and see friends in London on the way?

Should I try the new JetBlue Mint? Is the studio open? You know, like it's still enjoyable for me to, to piece it all together. And do you have that all in your head? I know one time my process was okay. Well, I had a Google spreadsheet that had all the trans-Pacific flights, and then I would like group them by Alliance.

And I would start, you know, searching, searching. I remember there was a time where I started using KBS tool. I don't know if you've ever had to use that. It's like the, it's like this Windows program. So I'd have to run Windows. Is that still around? It's still around.

And if you have a Mac, you have to run Windows on your Mac. So you can use this tool. I remember that. You know, what do you, what do you, do you just know it all now at this point? Or how do you kind of keep track of everything?

Yeah, I have a running list in my head. I, you know, I like to fly different carriers. I think it, you know, and I, I generally, a lot of time I'll read our points guy reviews of the airline. I think we've got most major ones carried, but especially now post pandemic, it's a whole new ballgame.

So yeah. And a lot of times I'll just let the availability dictate, which, which, you know, if I want to fly ANA and JAL, but you know, JL has got the availability. That's the route I'll go. I generally avoid us carriers when flying internationally. I fly them enough domestically and the experience is essentially the same on, you know, so yeah, it's usually just in my head.

Yeah. Yeah. But I, there, you have a bunch of great, if you, if anyone's listening to this and is thinking, gosh, how do I use my Amex points, I can tell you there's probably a dozen articles that'll, that'll walk you through the best redemptions on Amex, the best ways to transfer, you know, I think everyone listening here, hopefully already knows that transferring your points is, is going to be a much bigger win than the portal.

Is there any time that you actually use your points in a portal or for anything other than transferring? Yeah, I gave up my apartment in New York during the pandemic and I would come in and stay at hotels and I have so many points and I don't want to stay in a booking a war, you know, normal room, you know, especially I have dogs.

So for example, the only real hotel that you can take to rescues is Soho grand. They're so dog friendly, amazing. They're not a part of any points program. And you know, their penthouse is like a thousand bucks a night. So I was using 70,000 chase points a night to pay for the thousand bucks so I could stay for free in a penthouse, you know, so it's like, you do generally get value by transferring to United and flying Lufthansa first class for 110,000 points one way, but I didn't need to go Lufthansa first class anywhere.

And I still have zillions of other points to do that, you know? So, um, yeah, I do like fancy non points hotels. So using cap one points to wipe off the state. So house, you can't even book that through most portals, but you can just wipe that charge off as a purchase eraser.

And speaking of hotels, so I tend to think that if you want to use points for hotels, it's chase transfer to Hyatt, stay at high end Hyatt, 30,000 points a night, or even sometimes 25 things like we recently, fortunately, right before the pandemic, we went to Japan and we got to do the new park Hyatt, Kyoto.

It was fantastic. I, is there another angle for transferring points to hotels that you've ever found? Makes sense. Yeah. You know, I recently MX had big bonuses to Hilton and Marriott. Uh, I did the math. So I go to Miami quite a bit and I was staying at the W which was like 80,000 Marriott points a night.

And there was a 50% bonus from MX. So basically, and it was a $2,000 a night hotel during peak weeks. So I was doing the math and like 50,000 MX points was getting me a $2,000 a night hotel during these super crazy weeks. And I would get upgraded in elite status.

So I did transfer MX to Marriott. I have also for the Waldorf Astoria Maldives, when you can find it for 90,000 Hilton, when there's an MX to Hilton, it's already one and a half, uh, one to one and a half, but when it's one to two, 45,000 MX points for $1,500 room.

Is a pretty good value. You know, you're getting over 3 cents per point. So yeah, there are in general though, MX is best to airlines and a Hyatt points are extremely valuable. And now chase and also now built the credit card that you earn points on rent. You can transfer actually to Hyatt one-to-one or American as well.

Oh, that's amazing. It seems like with every business, you get to a certain size and the cracks start to emerge. Things that you used to do in a day are taking a week and you have too many manual processes and there's no one source of truth. If this is you, you should know these three numbers, 37,025, one 37,000.

That's the number of businesses which have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle. And I'm excited to partner with them for this episode. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, streamlining accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more 25. NetSuite turns 25 this year. That's 25 years of helping businesses do more with less close their books in days, not weeks and drive down costs.

And one, because your business is one of a kind. So you get a customized solution for all your KPIs in one efficient system with one source of truth. Manage risk, get reliable forecasts and improve margins. Everything you need to grow all in one place, which I can tell you from all the companies I've run makes everything so much better.

So right now download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance, absolutely free at allthehacks.com/netsuite. That's allthehacks.com/netsuite to get your own KPI checklist. allthehacks.com/netsuite, N-E-T-S-U-I-T-E. You all know, I love credit card points. So I'm excited to be partnering with Card Pointers today, which is one of my favorite tools for travel hacking.

It's a free app that helps you manage all of your credit cards in one place and makes it easy to find the right card to maximize your category bonuses on every purchase. You can also load it on your partner's phone. So they always know the best cards to use.

The app automatically tracks every category bonus and recurring credit from over 5,000 cards. And they also track and help you use your Amex, Chase, Bank of America, or Citibank offers to save even more money every day. And with their browser extension, you can actually activate every single Amex and Chase offer in just one click.

And because of that massive credit card database, you can do all of this without having to give up any personal or banking details. The app is free to download and many of the features are free as well. But if you want to try out the pro version, there's a free trial.

And if you decide you want to sign up after the trial, which you probably will, you can go to allthehacks.com/cardpointers to get 20% off. Again, that's allthehacks.com/cardpointers. Yeah. I feel like we always talk in the points world about Chase and Amex are like the core tenants. And I know, I don't remember how many years ago it was, but, you know, Cap One, Citi, they weren't really transfer points and now they are.

How do you think Citi, Capital One, and I guess Bilt fit in this ecosystem with most of the conversation focusing on Chase and Amex? Yeah. I mean, Capital One is really stepping up their game. I went to their first new lounge that they're opening up at Dallas Fort Worth.

Gorgeous. Like Peloton bikes, relaxation rooms, really high-end food and beverage. In venture, yes, you can use your points for purchase a race or, or you can transfer one-to-one to AeroPlan, even Turkish now. There's a bunch of one-to-one partners. When, when Capital One launched, they were funky. It wasn't one-to-one.

It was very complicated math. And now they've listened to our feedback and they have a lot of one-to-one partners. So I think Capital One is somewhat of the underdog, but they've always been huge with that mid-market and sub, not subprime, but the lower market cards. And they've really made huge strides in the up-market space.

Citi, I love my Citi points. I use my Prestige for 5X on dining most of the time. The transfer partners aren't as prestigious. For a while, you could transfer to American, which was kind of cool. Their partners are, are, are second tier and even Citi's kind of backing away from the premium, you can't even get the Prestige card anymore.

I don't think Citi knows exactly what it wants to be totally in the marketplace. They've launched more cash back cards lately, but you know, and they've kind of, the Citi Prestige and the Fourth Night Free used to be so amazing. They've rolled that back. So I think Capital One is rising in the up-market reward space and Citi's kind of in a holding pattern.

Yeah. I mean, I, I recommend the Citi Double Cash when people don't want to play the points game, but I, I, I haven't had a Citi card since. I remember there was a 75,000 point American signup bonus on all three cards. And I remember getting all three in one day.

And, and that was the last Citi cards I had. Well, and it's interesting with the American Airlines new, did you see their new elite program where they're revamping how you earn elite status? So instead of getting away with EQDs and Ms and whatever, they're now just have AA loyalty points that, so you need 200,000 points in a year to get exec plat.

But you could spend 200 grand on a co-branded card and without stepping on a plane, earn a exec plat. So all these programs are really becoming frequent spender programs. We've seen that slowly over time as they're adding in these revenue requirements and there's winners and losers with every change.

If you are buying expensive tickets and spending a lot on credit cards, there's never been a better time to be in this space. If you're on a shoestring budget, trying to buy mistake fares and get tucked to your status, it's a lot harder to do that nowadays. Yeah. I gotta be careful with American.

I have some bad relationships there from, I don't know if you remember, maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago. It seemed there was a promo with this card called Founders Card and Founders Card gave everyone that signed up for it free AA gold. And so the card was a hundred bucks a year.

And you can't buy AA gold at the time. The lower tier statuses have gotten worse over the years. But back then, AA gold for a hundred bucks was a no brainer. And so I went on Flyer Talk. I posted my referral link and probably 400 or 500 people signed up.

And it turns out the American team that did this deal with Founders Card was just like a guy that kind of did it on the side and it was fine. But AA HQ sent a cease and desist to Founders Card. They asked me to get removed from the program.

All the referral points I'd gotten got removed. Everyone thought I was scamming everyone. And so... I remember Founders Card's interesting. Over the years, it's like, we have benefits, but they can't really say what they are, you know? Yeah. Though this is a reason because they're not allowed to market the benefits because they want people to sign up for other reasons.

Right. Yeah. So 26 cards. When do you think about canceling cards? Do you have a rule of thumb that you use when you get a new one for a bonus? Absolutely. I generally don't cancel cards. I'll usually downgrade them to like a no fee version. Even the no fee cards usually have some perks that are valuable.

You know, I look at every card in my wallet. I mean, I'm a little bit different. I'm in the cards business. So it's like having cards, getting the marketing materials, it's like, it's good for business. And also I get reimbursed on annual fees as part of being a TPG employee.

We have a cool program, but in general, like if I'm not using the card, I don't want the account to just be dormant though, because they'll close it automatically with no activity. So if I can't downgrade it, I will cancel a card if there's just absolutely no real benefit to it.

But most cards these days have perks that easily out the annual fees on them. But, you know, I recommend to people do an audit twice a year, three times a year, and get rid of the ones that aren't holding their weight. Yeah. A reader wrote in and asked, you know, should I keep my Marriott Bonvoy card?

And, you know, the annual benefit, it's like, I think it's 95 bucks and you get a hotel in a category four. And my answer is if you're going to use the category four, it's a no-brainer. If you're not going to use the category four, depends how much you spend at Marriott, right?

The multipliers on a Marriott card, if you're spending money at a Marriott, are great. Pretty good. Yeah. But if you're not, you know. So I still have my Southwest card, which is a bummer because I think Southwest has a huge bonus right now. A hundred thousand. Yeah. Get that companion pass.

Yeah. So if you're listening, but don't do it. Do you think it'll still be around Jan one? Well, you can apply. Just don't hit your minimum spend until the new year. So the points drop, you know, the statement after you hit your spend. So you can get it. Yeah.

I made that mistake once and I had to transfer some Marriott points to try to close the gap. Cause you need it. You used to need two Southwest cards to hit the companion pass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The companion pass on Southwest is one of the best perks out there.

Uh, you can read more about it. Just Google Southwest companion pass ins and outs, but essentially if you qualify for it in January of any given year for two years, through the end of December, the next year, a passenger applies free with you, whether you're paying with points or cash on Southwest, so think about if you travel with someone else, you can change a companion over time, but it's an insanely valuable kind of one of those insider things that.

People, if you fly Southwest, you should know about the companion pass and you can qualify. You don't have to fly a hundred flights. You can qualify via credit card, sign up bonus and spend. And when the signup bonuses are like a hundred thousand, you only need to spend like 10,000 or less to get this amazing benefit, just make sure if you're, if you're going to go for this next year, which means buy one, get one free 2022 and 2023.

And by the way, that works with points. So when you use those a hundred thousand points to book flights, you still get a free companion. Uh, just pay the $5 TSA fee. It's amazing. Exactly. So if you're doing that, don't hit that minimum spend any earlier than Jan one or you'll lose a whole year of it.

Any other big, uh, signup bonuses or cool deals right now? Yeah. I mean, I think there's, there are a ton. I mean, there's just so many perks over the pandemic, you know, credit card companies have added tons of perks to cards, trying to think if there's any one in particular or any new perks you're excited about, well, I mean, definitely these capital one lounges.

They haven't announced who will get access to them, but just seeing the lounge, there's going to be one in Denver and DC in 2022, the Dallas one opens November, 2021. That I'm excited about. What about some of these crazy aspirational cards? Everyone in this game always is like, ah, that Amex black, that Amex black.

And then I had a friend who got it and he's like, you know what? Like the way I spend, I don't know if it's worth it. What do you think of the high end cards? Yeah. So I've had the Centurion card for five years now, but the key is get the business Centurion.

The personal Centurion is horrible. It's literally worse than a platinum card. Unless you really value Equinox membership. The reason the business Centurion is so valuable, they don't advertise it. Well, they don't advertise the cards at all. Is that you get a 50% rebate on pay with points, which means your Amex points are worth 2 cents each towards buying flights through the Amex portal.

And Amex travel has also has discounted business class fares that are fully more reflect, more flexible. So, you know, with an Amex platinum, your points are worth 1 cent business platinum, they're worth 1.35 cents per point. And with this Centurion, you're getting 2 cents per point in value. So it really, if you have tons of Amex points and you'd like the flexibility to buy whatever the flight you want, you earn elite miles on those flights.

That's the no brainer, you know, Centurion it's $5,000 a year. Now you get top tier access to Equinox. Well, if you don't live in a city where there's an Equinox or, you know, that's a $0 benefit. So there's a bunch of other perks. I mean, in general, my Amex concierge, Ray, the way I value it is that he's our booker for all TPG kind of high-end travel.

And during the pandemic, when shit hit the fan and you couldn't even get through to a airline for credits and things like that, I just email Ray and say, cancel these four tickets. We get full refunds, you know, you have the backing of Amex at you. And there's a value to that.

The purchase protection is insane. Anything I break, even if it's my fault, they'll pretty much just wipe off my charge. So there's yes, points are one side of the equation, but when you look at these super premium cards, you really have to look at the perks and your personal, you know, Centurion lounges are super crowded and, you know, you'll get turned away a lot of times due to overcrowding, but never, if you're Centurion, they'll even clear a table for you and give you vogue.

So that's kind of cool. So business Centurion, I think is a winner. And if you do want to, you can call Amex and kind of raise your hand and say, you're interested in the card. If there's no official way to apply for it though, you know, Amex platinum just raised their annual fee.

They added a bunch of other perks. If you can get value out of the soul cycle benefit, or, you know, people do say, oh, it's a little bit like a coupon book and it's, it's not exactly that. I think it's a little bit more valuable, but you should go through it and say, well, I actually get that value from this card.

We've seen huge entry, even after Amex raised the annual fee on the platinum, there's still a huge interest in the card. They just reported in their quarterly results, huge uptick in interest. So there is a market people want to pay for premium experiences. So I bet Amex will continue to double down on the premium space.

Whereas Chase and City and Cap One are a little bit of a step down in terms of the annual fees and the perks that they're offering. Have you ever gone too far with all the points and miles game? Is there a particular reward or experience where you're like, you know what, you can go too deep down the rabbit hole at some points?

Well, I think in general, pre pandemic, I was just traveling nonstop, you know, and too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Like I was constantly jet lagged. You know, I had a lot of work travel, plus we do a lot, I do a lot of charity work and then plus personal travel and it was all blending together.

And I think, so I think in general, I like overdosed on travel. And so the pandemic for me was a really nice way and once in a lifetime opportunity to hit that reset and rebuild my travel into a place where it actually serves me, like, just because I can, doesn't mean I should, I say that to myself all the time now and learning how to say no to things, even though it's, Oh, it's Paris is reopening and Air France has business class availability.

I have to go to Paris this weekend, even though I have four other plans next week and I know I'll be exhausted. So I think in general, I've never been a crazy miles and points, uh, person in terms of the gray areas, even mileage running. I've only really ever done one or two mileage runs in my life.

I'm not the type to fly to Australia and turn around and fly back to me. That just, it really is crazy. And luckily I find enough where I don't have to do that. I understand why people do, and I'm not judging it, but I try to keep the, the points and miles addiction, uh, to a minimum and realize my personal physical health is far more valuable than any point or mile.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I'm similar to you in that over the time, as you learn the points game and you maximize points, elite status just matters less. And so I think I have my silver United through Marriott, which is basically I get a free check bag, which we have a kid now, so I never thought check bags mattered, and then you had a child and I'm like, uh, can I check six bags?

How do I set the, you know, I got a crib and a car seat and all this stuff. Do you, do you ever check bags? I do, you know, it annoys me. I was in Europe for like two weeks this summer. I just couldn't, they were like different climates beach.

And so I will check it back. It is so annoying though. I hate myself when I do it. Cause you know, I was flying from Ibiza to Milan on easy jet and I'm like, whatever, I'll just pay to check the bag. Well, of course there's like a strike in Italy, an air traffic, strike flights delayed nine hours.

I'm like, no way in hell. Am I going to sit at this crowded, horrible airport for nine hours? So great. I'm just going to rebook myself. Oh crap. My bag is on the plane. I go and easy jet has no employees anywhere. So I'm like, okay, well I'll just go back to the checking counter and someone there will have to figure it out.

Well, easy jet has like two flights a day out of Ibiza and the same employee that works at was working the a hundred person long line that I've refused to wait in, but now I'm like past security. So I ended up getting it. I had to get like a cop in the airport to help get an airport manager that they pulled the bag off the plane.

But you know, especially nowadays travel goes wrong so often, you know, delays cancellations, you really limit yourself when you check a bag because you can't just pop off a plane. Oh, there's another flight to Chicago across the hall. I'm going to hop on that, which is the joy of miles and points, especially you can be sitting on a plane and rebook yourself, but long story short, like if I'm going on a long trip, you know, I like to have different looks every day on vacation and you know, when you're in the social media, I, people will call you out for wearing the same thing over and over, so maybe I should probably stop caring about that.

Yeah. I mean, we just went on a flight this past weekend to Austin and everything was delayed. We get to the airport and they're like, Hey, you're going to miss your connection and we were like, Oh, but there's a nonstop. Can we just get on the nonstop? They're like, well, you know, it's oversold, but 28 people haven't checked in and I was feeling good and they're like, there there's two people ahead of you and they called them up first and they were like, did you check bags?

They're like, yes. And they're like, sorry. And then they called us. So, you know, that was the one where I was feeling pretty good. We didn't check bags because we were managed to get out. I just, I was just spending time with the senior airline exec and we're talking about this topic and he's like, honestly, when I interview people, I ask them, do you check a bag?

And if they say yes, they don't get the job. It's cold. Of course you mentioned earlier using the MX concierge. When you travel, how do you collect information? I know TBG has a ton of great content on airlines, hotels, but what about when you're figuring out what to do somewhere, where to eat, are there sources or concierges or anything you use?

It's awesome. I mean, I Instagram for me is so amazing. Last week I went to Dallas for the first time in a couple of years. And I know Dallas has a pretty good food scene. So as I was boarding at Newark, I said, all right, off to Dallas, like, what do you got?

And like hundreds and hundreds of messages come in. And I just kind of sourced, like you see the patterns and my readers have really good taste. So like, I've never gotten bad recommendations. Now what we want to do at TPG. So we just bought lonely planet during the, uh, about a year or so ago.

So we envisioned the points guy being getting you there, lonely planet, really diving deep into cool experiences. So lonely planet's about to relaunch really cool new branding and lots of investment into what to do when you're there, but I think we can do more at TPG as well. I'd love to have like user generated forums.

So just like, you know, our readers can share and it's almost like trip advisor, but for like smart travelers, I think there's a big need for that. Cause like when you go to trip advisor, it's a shit show, you know, two reviews, one, one star, one five star. You're like, clearly this person has never traveled before and their expectations are out of control.

So on our product roadmap is how do we leverage this amazing community of really smart travelers and get their recommendation surface so people can share usually just through friends. I love Conde Nast traveler, travel and leisure, but going through Instagram or asking my friends who I know have been places, that's like the best way to get, get the real Intel.

Yeah. Trip advisor reviews. The only thing I find myself using them for is I search them. If I have a question, like now we have a kid, does this hotel have cribs? I'll go search the review for cribs. But man, when you read these reviews, you're like, I don't know if I could trust anything here.

And when you know, so many of them are fake, you know, so many lawsuits lately of rival hotel is trashing each other. Cause it really does to get the number one hotel or number of top 10. It's valuable. So yeah, it's valuable, but you really just need to learn how to.

To leverage it. Yep. When you're traveling outside of points and miles, do you have favorite travel hacks, travel tips that you use at any point along the way? Well, my two famous ones are the, uh, number one, when you're wearing a mask now on a plane, putting your mask around your headphones so that it does not go around your sensitive ear, you know, especially on long flights, you can get like rashes, so people like that.

I will just say I've broken several masks by stretching it too far, especially with these big Apple headphones that I have, but it is nice and people like that one, my old school is the TPG stab. It's taking a fork. Whenever you're eating a salad or opening up a compressed, you stab it.

Depressurize it so that when you open it, it doesn't splurge all over you. Those are, those are my two hacks for travel. There is nothing I love more than learning that something I enjoy is actually so good for you and nothing showcases that better than Pu-erh tea. It has so many health benefits and I think one of the best and easiest ways to consume it is from our sponsor today, Peak Tea.

Peak's Pu-erh teas are all cold extracted using only wild harvested leaves from 250 year old tea trees, rich in minerals, theraflavins, and catechins. Then everything is triple toxin screened for pesticides, heavy minerals, and toxic mold commonly found in plants. And Peak's products are so easy and zero prep because they're all in pre-measured quantities that dissolve in cold or hot water in seconds and are so travel friendly.

They have so many products, but lately I've been alternating between the green Pu-erh for mental clarity and energy and the black Pu-erh, which helps kickstart digestion and metabolism with a rich earthy flavor that is so good and probably one of my favorite things to drink. And if you need another reason, search for all the amazing research-backed benefits of polyphenols for your gut microbiome, heart, blood sugar, and more, and then be happy that Pu-erh is more concentrated in polyphenols than all other teas in the world.

But you don't even have to take my word or do any research because Peak offers free US shipping, free returns, and a money-backed guarantee, and for a limited time, you can get up to 15% off and a free quiver with 12 tea samples at my link at allthehacks.com/peak, that's P-I-Q-U-E, so check them out today at allthehacks.com/peak, P-I-Q-U-E.

Sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest impact, and Trade Coffee is a great addition to your New Year routine, and I am so excited to be partnering with them today. Trade is a subscription service we've been using for over a year that sources the best coffee across the country and brings it straight to your doorstep.

They've built relationships with over 50 local roasters so you can enjoy their craft from the comfort of your own home at a fraction of the cost of going out for coffee. There's multiple ways to experience coffee with Trade, sign up for a subscription, or try one of their starter packs today.

It's been so convenient for us to have coffee just show up exactly when we need it, and over the past year, we've gotten so many great coffees from Trade, but this last bag of beans from Drink Coffee Do Stuff in Tahoe, it's called Bark the Moon, and it's so delicious.

So jumpstart this year by signing up for a Trade subscription. Right now, Trade is offering a free bag with select subscription plans when you visit allthehacks.com/trade. That's allthehacks.com/trade for a free bag with select subscription plans. allthehacks.com/trade. I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.

Your support is what keeps this show going. To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals, so please consider supporting those who support us. Anything you do, you know, in a first day in a city that you haven't been to before?

I mean, I love to just walk around. I mean, I always will eat, you know, find a good, like I'm not a good person when hangry, but yeah, usually just get a good meal, walk around, you know, on Instagram, see what, what people are recommending. And the cool thing is people who follow me run restaurants or, you know, when I went to Dallas, the coolest restaurant is Monarch Room.

It's on the 50th floor, booked up, but like the owners of the restaurant were like, Hey, come tonight. I'm like, okay. So I'm a little bit of a lazy traveler and I'll be like, let me see what opportunity lands in the lap and just meeting up with interesting people.

I mean, some people think I'm crazy for meeting people off of Instagram, but I've, there's a, I've got a cool follower. So I've never, to this day, I haven't had a bad meetup yet. And you know, meeting a local, it changes the experience completely. Yeah, and you don't have to be a celebrity, right?

My wife and I went to, we'd backpack for seven months and we were using couch surfing and every night, you know, before we had points before we're doing anything. And it was amazing to just hang out with locals. And you can do that by couch surfing. You could do that with sites.

Like, I think it's with locals is one, there's a bunch of sites where you can book a local tour guide all the way up until, you know, where you are, where you could just say who who's around and, you know, filter the list, any advice as someone who's gone from writing about points to notoriety in the space for me, as this podcast has been taking off like crazy, what do I need to think about as I kind of move up in, in the world of, of points and miles towards the direction you're at, maybe never, I'll never be the points guy, but.

Well, I mean, I would just say, I still read comments, emails. I know it can get, you know, especially when you have a lot on your plate. I just never lose touch of like the pulse of what your original audience wants. Also know that you have to evolve and people will probably not be happy when you evolve from what you started originally.

I had to learn a long time ago, people, Oh, you're a sellout. You're just doing this to make money. And I'm like, that's not the only reason I'm doing it, but what's wrong with making money? What's wrong with having a vision to have bigger impact. We actually turned the comments off on the points guide throughout the pandemic because there was just so much hate and vitriol come up with your own policy and stands for that.

Like, I think in general, the community, the points and miles and travelers are good people. But there's just freaks out there that are, you know, the trolls that just want to be nasty. And I, you know, I have a policy on my personal Instagram. Like if you say anything nasty, if you just are being a negative person and a lot of times I'll go through like DMS and I'll just see that person just constantly says negative things like this is a bad person.

You have no right to be in my sphere. You know, I don't owe anyone anything. I give a lot. I'll share and help people, but I block instantly with zero regrets if someone's being a jerk. So I don't know. I mean, it's been, uh, it's fun to grow a business.

You've done it before you've sold a business and, but just have fun with it. Never, never lose sight of like why you started it in the first place. Yeah, I think that's great advice. The one thing I'm jealous about is when you run a website, you know, obviously if you turn comments off during the pandemic, it's different, but when you have a newsletter, when you have a website, it's, it's easy to have a two way channel and podcasts are very difficult, right?

I, every episode I give our listeners an email address and lots of people write in. And I love it. I read every message. I try to make sure if I haven't answered a question you've sent, it's probably because I'm saving it for a Q and a episode. And so I'm trying to build that two way channel so we can have a dialogue and I could really get to understand the audience and, you know, I'm sure we're going to turn ads on because it turns out this is a lot of work and finding guests, prepping for interviews.

And if I'm one day going to do that full time, you know, I have to live too. Your real fans though, we'll respect that. And truly the minute I started making more money on the points guy, I expanded the business. I hired people and it benefited everyone versus just having the Brian blog.

Right. I think we all overthink as creators. We overthink those decisions like turning on monetization and I'm going to cannibalize what I've built and break. It's like so much of that is in our heads, you know, like. People, if you're creating good content, you should get paid for that and you should not feel bad about it, period.

Yep. So expect it might even be this episode might even be the first one with an ad. Who knows? A few kind of rapid fire questions towards the end. Travel insurance. What do you think? I personally don't do travel insurance unless, you know, nowadays like Bahamas will make you pay for it.

I'll gladly pay. But in general, I book all my travel with Amex. I highly recommend use a card with travel protections. You know, I years ago I was in Bali when the volcano was about to explode and I was like, OK, I got to get out of here. I actually booked a private jet in city because I had it had accident, you know, crazy insurance on it.

I got reimbursed the 20 grand for the private jet that got me to to Jakarta, which was pretty awesome. So I don't know. I and I have so many miles and points. I redirect myself. I think if you're going on a cruise with 20 family members and spending 100 grand and you want that extra protection.

But in general, the type of coverage that cancel for any reason is super expensive. You know, you're not going to get that you get back at most 75 percent of the cost of the trip. So look at what do you think the odds are of this trip going haywire?

So I think there are good policies, but short answer is I don't really purchase it. Yeah. For someone who's learning the points game, ready to start using some points. Let's assume the world's fully open. What are your top kind of two to three award redemption slash destinations? So one of the things I'll say if you're new to the game is learn how to search for availability.

You know, we have expert flyer, which we own, which will help set alerts if certain availability opens up. But also last minute airlines open up tons of space. So if you have flexibility, keep checking last minute and then go on a trip when space opens up. I mean, I'm a scuba diver.

And who doesn't love an amazing beach? And I think in the points and miles world, it's like Tahiti and Maldives are like the two kind of I think Maldives are number one in terms of like the dream redemption. There's so many good points hotels. I love Waldorf Astoria, St.

Regis, Ritz Carlton, Maldives, Park Heights, a little bit older, but charming, but not not up to the caliber of the others. All pretty good uses of points. And yes, it takes forever to get there, but fly Emirates, Qatar using miles and the journey becomes fun. If you've never flown in a Middle Eastern carrier like Emirates or Qatar, they're amazing.

And don't think of it as like it's going to take me 24 hours to get there. Like, enjoy the actual flight. You know, Q suites are amazing. Emirates first class on the A380 is iconic. Take your shower in the sky, drink Dom. I actually once brought the Dom bottle in the shower with me.

So but Tahiti is also amazing. It's eight hours from the West Coast and lots of good points. Hotels are just so freaking beautiful. But, you know, Europe's been on sale this year. You know, Air France, 57,500 miles using flying blue. They transfer for most programs to fly Air France business class.

And there's been availability at that saver level pretty much any day that may change in November now that Europeans will be coming to the US and filling those planes more. And South Africa, I mean, if you want to take a trip of a lifetime, you know, United Flies are nonstop, pretty good award availability or through the Middle East.

But South Africa is my favorite just to beauty, natural beauty, Cape Town, stunning. The wine country is outstanding. And then safari is like my favorite. So those are my like favorite destinations to use points. Yeah. South Africa is, is amazing. And, you know, if you haven't traveled a lot, it's surprisingly easy to travel, right?

You know, you, you've heard that travel around Africa can be tough, but South Africa is kind of a different beast and it's, it's amazing. And have you got a chance to go up to Namibia when you're there? You know, I've traveled to a lot of African countries. I love, I have not done Namibia yet, but I've done, you know, Botswana, Rwanda's absolutely breathtaking.

I've done the gorillas twice now in Rwanda. Cannot recommend enough, you know, Masai Mara in Kenya. I've done a safari on the great migration in Tanzania. I also love West Africa, Ghana. I've been probably 15 times. We do a lot of peace work with, with, uh, Nobel peace prize winners there in Liberia.

Really fascinating, culturally rich, very safe places to go, even though, you know, in the media we'll say it's so safe, you know, but you stay in the right places. You listen to locals. You don't go to areas you're not familiar with, just like, you know, in cities like New York or Chicago.

Yeah. I think what, what helped me when it's kind of an interesting thing to do before we went on this trip around the world, I went and I bought the Lonely Planet for New York because I lived in New York at the time in the Lonely Planet, they're like, Hey, when you're in New York, make sure to put your money in a, one of those belt wallet things that you hide in your pants.

And I was like, wait a second. They're saying New York is dangerous. I walk through New York every single day. And so it kind of gave me this realization that basically there's a blogger or a book that will tell you that everywhere is unsafe. And so reading the travel guides for your own city will help you understand a little bit about what anyone can say.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. So I think all those places, fantastic. Have you been to Cape Verde? For some reason I want to go and I've never been. I haven't, but I want to go to São Tomé and Príncipe and like all those little funky, I really want to go do Azores and actually United's now going to be flying nonstop to the Azores.

I actually, throughout the pandemic, I got, uh, I did the Portugal golden visa and now I'm an EU resident. I got it after about a year, I invested like 350,000 in a Renaissance Marriott hotel in Porto, and it qualified me for their investment visa. I have a whole blog post about it.

And a ton of TPG readers have since done it as well. But after five years, I have to spend one week a year in Portugal. And after five years, I can apply, take a proficiency test in the language, which I actually took Portuguese in college. And you become a full citizen and passport holder, which I think is kind of cool.

Who knows where the world's going? Portugal is the third safest country in the world and pretty affordable to live. So who knows, maybe in retirement, I'll end up in Portugal. And great weather, awesome weather, amazing food, centrally located to get around places. So that's been a fun, fun little journey for me.

That's great. Awesome. Well, this has been so helpful before we go, anything coming down the road for TPG or anywhere you want people to check out? Yeah, I mean, just if you have an Apple phone, check out the Point Sky app. You know, today it was a beast to get this app out.

We tracked most major airline, hotel programs, credit cards. We're going to be rolling out a bunch of new features to make it run smoother. Also allowing multiple tracking of accounts. So if you manage your spouses or kids' accounts, you'll be able to have that. But I think long-term we're going to be adding more and more tools.

I want the TPG app to be able to reverse engineer a trip. So if you say, I want to take my wife and two kids this week of March, somewhere warm in the Caribbean, and I've got Hyatt and Amex points, how do I go there from Austin? And we can reverse engineer and say, Hey, these are the flights.

What about this place in Mexico? You might not have thought about, or Turks and Caicos, because the points and miles world is tough and it's constantly changing. So we want to build tools that actually help you maximize and travel more. At the end of the day, we want people traveling more, experiencing the world.

And I'm excited for that. Hey everybody. I just want to interrupt because I've partnered with Point.me, my favorite award search tool, to give you a special offer of only $1 for your first month of their standard plan. If you go to allthehacks.com/pointme and use the promo code HACKS. Again, allthehacks.com/P-O-I-N-T-M-E, or find the link in the show notes.

So definitely take advantage of that if you're planning a trip with points. I know that all of these award wallet and other companies have had struggled to be able to collect this information because they have bad relationships with airlines, have you guys actually built all those relationships directly so that you're not going to get shut down trying to find award availability or sync balances?

Yeah, we've created our own platform. I think the difference between us and award wallet and smaller startups is that they don't have as many resources. The points guy, we're part of Red Ventures, which is a private, but a multi-billion dollar. You know, we've got top tier security, we've got a huge tech team.

So we work with all the airlines and hotels in different capacities. And I just firmly believe the consumer, just like you do with your banking information, you should be able to look at your loyalty information in one place and use tools that help you get the most value. That's our fundamental belief at the points guy.

We want to work with every airline. We'd love to add even more functionality into it. And we've had really good conversations. So, you know, stay tuned. But I think a lot of good things are coming in that space. That's fantastic. I have it up. I've got my points net worth, which is pretty cool number to track.

And I can't wait to be able to add everything for my wife's accounts all in one place. Last thing, where can people find you online other than the points guy.com? Yeah. So I'm at Brian Kelly on Instagram. That's where I share almost all of my travels. Even the trips I talked about today, whether it's Rwanda or Antigua, I pin them all on my Instagram stories.

You can actually see, I'll always tag the tour guides that I use, restaurants that I go to. I know it's a little bit of a wonky format. One day we'll have that into a premium version of the site where you can even do TPG itineraries and restaurant recs, et cetera, but yeah, follow me on Insta.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Chris. Safe travels. I love a good points and miles conversation and this one was fantastic. So I hope you all enjoyed it too. I'll make sure to put links to everything we discussed in the show notes and to everyone who's been writing in the past few weeks and really since the beginning.

Thank you so much. I'm reading every email and I promise if I haven't gotten back to you, I will, as soon as I can get caught up. In the meantime, keep those emails coming. We'll have another Q and A episode soon. And until then, I'm Chris@allthehacks.com. And if you want to help out the show, please leave us a five-star rating and review.

Thank you so much for all your support. See you guys next week. I want to tell you about another podcast I love that goes deep on all things money. That means everything from money hacks to wealth building to early retirement. It's called the Personal Finance Podcast, and it's much more about building generational wealth and spending your money on the things you value than it is about clipping coupons to save a dollar.

It's hosted by my good friend, Andrew, who truly believes that everyone in this world can build wealth and his passion and excitement are what make this show so entertaining. I know because I was a guest on the show in December, 2022. But recently I listened to an episode where Andrew shared 16 money stats that will blow your mind, and it was so crazy to learn things like 35% of millennials are not participating in their employer's retirement plan.

And that's just one of the many fascinating stats he shared. The Personal Finance Podcast has something for everyone. It's filled with so many tips and tactics and hacks to help you get better with your money and grow your wealth. So I highly recommend you check it out. Just search for the Personal Finance Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and enjoy.