It's fashion. Thank you for being here in person. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So for people who don't know you, I gave a little bit of an intro, but tell me about how you got into this game. Yeah, I kind of started my career in finance, moved into tech, did a bunch of startup stuff and then got very obsessed of points, mostly because my player to Mandy wanted to travel a ton.

And I was like, how do I do all this stuff about paying an arm and a leg? I think one big trip that really pushed it was a last minute Japan trip. And we paid something like twelve or thirteen hundred dollars for economy. And I'm like, wait, why am I paying so much money for economy?

And then I found to this whole points rabbit hole. I knew about credit cards before, but I was always on team cashback back in the day where I was like, oh, just optimize your categories. And that makes the most sense. But then I realized you can get so much more value from points and that actually moves the needle the most compared to cashback.

Like I like cashback. I think a lot of people can benefit from it, especially if you have a family and you're not traveling as much or you just don't care about that. But I think especially when you're young, points drive so much value and just open so many doors.

Is there a type of travel you think is necessary for points to be worth it? I think it does lean more towards aspirational business and like first class type of trips are just like more expensive trips for economy stuff. I still pay out of pocket generally because the value is not there or I get OK value, like maybe one point five to two cents per point.

But it's not like the astronomical 10 cents per point. So for me, a lot of it is like, how do I as a P get the VIP experience and unlock this whole thing that I didn't think I could do? Like growing up, like pretty lower middle class. I never thought I'd be able to fly business, let alone first.

So the fact that I can actually like even even if it's just for a few hours, like see what it's like to be on the other side and experience that and see these other people who are like dropping 20K on these flights. It's I don't know if it's nice.

It feels really good to sit next to someone be like, how much do you pay? I haven't actually asked. I don't know if you ever asked, but I've always wanted to ask. How much did you pay for that? I've done that in Bora Bora, where we were just hanging out and talking to other people.

And then some people were like, oh, I pay 30. And then someone else was like, oh, you guys are losers. We did it through Costco and we paid twenty five thousand. And I was like, oh, I didn't pay that much money at all. But I didn't want to like burst their bubble.

But you kind of did you kind of just to open them. But next time, here's the tricks. Yeah, I think a lot of people like the idea of points. But then like it's one of those things that you keep in mind, but you never really act on it. I like a lot of people will be like, oh, you can get a lot of value.

That's nice. Whatever. Yeah. So it is tough, I think, to like make that switch. And like that first step is always harder. So I want to come back to these aspirational trips at the end. But first. I feel like there are very few people that are as in tune with everything that's going on with the points, miles, status world.

So I wanted to just bring up the topic of where we're at right now. We're recording this in September 2023. Delta has just kind of told everyone that loves flying Delta that it's going to be a lot harder to get status unless you spend a ridiculous amount of money.

By this point, we probably already will have covered the major news there. But at the high level, status is changing and it has on other airlines over the past few years. Where do you feel like things are in the world of points and miles? What's happening now? So I feel like most of the airlines have told people that either intentionally or unintentionally, that they actually don't care if you fly them a lot.

They care more so how much money you spend with them. So even if you look at your net, it's changed from like the old system to the current one. It's very much contingent on you spending either a crap ton of money on your credit cards or flying a lot of them.

But then it's not even economy flying that you want, like premium last minute business class type flying where you might be going to the airport and paying $1,000 for like SFO to LAX. So Delta's kind of in that same realm. They have simplified the whole process a lot more, but it's still very much targeted towards businesses.

Like even back in the day, you could get two Delta Reserve cards. Spending your way there was about $240K, but it was a complicated. You were like learning about MQT waivers, MQM boosts and stuff like that. And now it's like just spend $400K, spend $400K and you get status or $350K.

Yeah. A lot of money for most businesses. And do you care about status? Is it something that at least let's start with airlines? Is that something you're even trying to get anymore? So I think a lot of people don't rightfully don't like status for a lot of good reasons because they don't get upgrades.

So back in the day, we were chasing United status. And then I think the most we ever got up to was platinum. And then we realized that out of SFO, because like 43 or 50% of people flying through SFO like planes are United. So you're never going to get upgraded because there's too many people that have one K and global services that you can chase it.

But you're not it's not going to help you as much as you think it is. So you pretty much want to get status with the second or third most like busiest airline from that airport. And for us as a fellow, it was Delta. And then if you're in Atlanta, obviously you wouldn't want Delta because there's too many Delta members and people who like just have unlimited corporate account money.

So for us, we got Delta status. We liked it a lot because we were getting upgraded for our cross-country flights. We also fly during weird times. So that kind of helps. But like being able to get a decent business class seat for five or six hours is nice with the new change.

I think we're kind of on the fence about how to play it. So next year, we're still going to be Delta Diamond. The year after that, I think unless we have some like weird astronomical business spend, it just doesn't make sense. And then even then it's like, well, there's an opportunity cost of like should I spend all this money on this card when I can just use a city double cash or like a lot of other cards where you get more value, right?

I think we might chase American status mostly because the spend amount seems pretty reasonable for what we for the level that we want. And then for that level, pretty much the one below EXP, so I think it's platinum platinum pro. Yeah, that one gets you one world emerald status, which gets you in the first class lounges when you're flying abroad.

So we go to Hong Kong like three to four times a year. And if I can scroll up into like the cafe Pacific first class lounge while flying economy or premium economy, that's not bad at all. No. It's funny, my adventures with status started with let's try to chase the highest status on United because we lived in San Francisco.

And then it was, well, we're really only taking short haul trips where I just don't care or really long haul trips or using our points. Forget it. No status. So for the last four or five years, no status. And the one place where it started to bite us back was now we have two kids and we have an au pair.

And sometimes we're traveling with four people or four, five people, four seats. And the reality, we just did a trip with no check bags. But the reality is when you're traveling with four, you got to check bags. And it was just like an added fee. So it's like, do I want to get a credit card to cover the cost?

Or there was a challenge for United, which was like just in reach. It was like spend $1,200 in in three or four months on United. And we had a couple trips planned. So I went for it. And now I'm worried that I'm like kind of getting caught up in this silver.

For anyone listening who knows United status, silver basically is like free checkbacks, like economy plus a check in if it happens to be available. So it's not special, but I'm finally back on that train. And now I find myself doing what I wanted to not do, which was I just want to take the easiest, most convenient flight.

Now I find myself like, oh, can I take the United flights? I'm going to get free check bags. I will just get a credit card then. I feel like that makes so much more sense. You get like all the perks of silver or like even cold status without having to worry about that.

Yeah, I don't know why. I think it's because I had a United card for so long. And then I just forgot to put a transaction on it and they closed it. And I was like, oh, do I have to really go back and get another new United card? But yes, it's another intro bonus.

Well, OK, so we'll come to that. But yeah, so it seemed like it fit in. So I did it. We're going to get some free checked bags out of it. But at the end of the day, I feel like it's just the credit card can give you the low tier of status, which is like checked bags.

You're probably not going to get preferred seats with any cards. Not with the United cards. Delta does get you upgrades even if you don't have status. But you're not going to like you're not going to get business or first and even first is domestic first, which isn't that exciting.

But like you'll probably get like the premium comfort plus equivalent. So I'll probably play the play the cards through that. What about hotels? We don't talk a lot about hotel status. It feels like in the points and miles world, it's Hyatt Globalist or forget it. I think a big part of it, too, is because airline status is so hard to get with credit cards while they're kind of given out willy nilly with credit cards, hotel status is given out willy nilly.

So you have like all these cards that give you either like mid level or even like higher level status. Hilton Diamond being one of the prime examples, right? Like you're getting a top level status by getting a credit card that runs you 450. And then I would argue that the card actually is a net positive because of all the credits and the free night.

So you have all these people that have status because the math makes sense. And like I think people that watch YouTube are like, oh, yeah, if you run the numbers, it's logical. So I think the reason people like Hyatt is because that's the one you actually had to chase and had to do, meaning that there's less people that have it, meaning that it's more beneficial because upgrades actually come to you.

If you have like 10,000 people that have status compared to 1000, that's up, especially in the US. Internationally, though, it doesn't really matter because everyone else doesn't have status. So like we'll go to like these like other like Southeast Asia, like the name or something, and they'll be like, oh, thank you for being like diamond and and for your two stays this year.

And I was like, yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me, because they don't see that many business travelers and their credit cards don't come with status like ours do. Yeah, I think we've had that experience in Southeast Asia also with Marriott or the former Starwood. Any status was great.

And I think Marriott, you can also get platinum with one card. Mary, you can get it with the Bonvoy Brilliant now before you had to spend 50 K before you had to spend 75 K to get it. And now you get it, which I think is good because a lot of hotels can be free breakfast as well and then upgrades up to like standard suites.

Is there a hotel chain that if you were building loyalty, is it is it Hyatt? I found recently on Hilton, I dug into the terms. It was like, even if there's a nice room, they don't have to give it to you. Yeah, I think a lot of Hilton's are kind of annoying in that way because they'll lean into the terms and then it depends on who owns the hotel and the upgrade policies.

But it's they lean very literally on the can give you an upgrade versus will give an upgrade. But theoretically, it just depends on the person. And then sometimes if you're nicer to them, I find that they are more likely to give you upgrades in the US. They just don't like I'll point out sometimes I'll open up the app and be like, hey, there is like a junior suite available.

There's like three of them tonight. It's like, can I get upgraded to this? It's like, oh, it's not available in my system. Like, OK, like I get that they maybe have sales quotas, but still, it's annoying on that end. Are there are there any chains where you feel like you haven't had that problem?

Because I imagine you probably have hotel status on all of them. Yeah, I feel like Hyatt is one of the best ones for that. That's why I like Hyatt. But their footprint is so much smaller. IHG is probably the worst with it, where even if you have like ambassador or like the top level status, they'll try to upsell you.

Like we stayed at like an intercontinental and it was like empty. It was like during Christmas in Houston, and they were just trying to upsell us rooms, we're like, oh, can we get a tour of it? And I was filming the room. So I'm like, still get a free review of the room out of it.

But then it's like, yeah, that'll be an extra two hundred. It's like, isn't this nice? I'm like, I think your hotel is not that busy. It's like it's Christmas Eve. Like, why are you trying to upsell me? And so if we look ahead, because I feel like you have a pretty good sense of this.

Where do you think we'll start with status and then we'll move into credit cards? But where do you think 2024, what are we going to see? Are we going to see lots of big changes to programs? Do you think they've kind of all made their changes recently? Focusing airlines on spend and hotels, I guess, haven't really made too many changes.

Is anything changing? I think American can be really smart here and like they could actually even do campaigns where they like bring Delta people over and convert them really well. So I think they should do that, but they're not doing it. I think United's in a good spot where they're like, we don't really care.

Delta. I wonder if Delta will backstep the decision, but I kind of feel like they won't. So some people pointed to the fact that like they did make some changes because people complained and petitioned and it took like two years or something. But I'm like, is it really worth your effort doing it?

Number one. And number two, is it like even if they do make a change, it's probably still going to be like a mid-step where it's just not going to be good for you anyways. So I think there are a lot of people pushing for change and like telling people to call the board of directors.

But it feels like a fiduciary move. Like they make they made a decision that makes sense for the company. I've heard the argument that Delta has the best product, like the best hard product on the plane, seats, service amenities, everything. And so they can kind of afford to do this, because if you live in Atlanta, are you really going to change what you do like or not?

And then American doesn't have the best product. And so they're like, we're going to make our program work for anyone. And Delta is kind of like, look, we're really good. We don't need as easy of a program and it might work. And I think it will actually attract the people they want, because even within the diamond rings, there are a lot of people that have status.

So by moving the bar higher up, that means there's less diamonds, but probably more people that are higher off, like with businesses that spend more money that want to buy these tickets or like who spend a lot on their credit cards. So it kind of just works out for them where like they have a better experience within the diamond rank.

So not everyone here is focused on status on hotels or airlines, but I think a lot of people here are focused on credit cards. What do you think is changing? The only big changes recently, and I say big, like if I look back over 2023, I don't feel like there was a lot that changed in the credit card game.

But what do you think? I feel like it's mostly the Venture X coming into the ecosystem and then like disrupting everything. And now the Venture X business can disrupting on the business side. I would argue that even that card is actually the best business card out there. If you can use the credits and points and stuff.

I think we probably at some point we'll see a bit more devaluation over there because it's kind of the Chase Sapphire Reserve strategy where you come in, you like break down doors, but then like you have to take a few steps back afterwards and like either increase the annual fee or like decrease in benefits after you get the market share.

I think Citi is the big question mark that a lot of people have because they got rid of the prestige card and they haven't really been in this travel ecosystem. So like for a long time, they were in that for a long time. They were actually in first place and the platinum kind of like pushed past it.

But I think back in like 2017, all the consultants had the Citi prestige because it was like an amazing card where they had this fourth night free perk. And if you were traveling for four nights every week, you would actually just get a ton of like statement credits and like kind of free money through your credit card.

So the question is whether they're going to try to like come back into the top three or whether they'll try to go for the top again and how they play that. Well, it seems like Citi has there's rumors that a new card is coming. Yeah, the Strata Elite and Strata.

Yeah, but we don't know what it is. We have no clue what it looks like or what it's going to do or whether it's going to be competitive, right? Like for the most for all we know, like they could come into the ecosystem and then if it's just like the luxury black card that is expensive but isn't good, then it's going to lose.

I also think I've heard someone make very, very edge cases for Citi points. But if you already have some Amex points or Chase and Capital One, adding Citi doesn't get you much new, many new options other than I think Eva Air. Yeah, and then Eva Air is not even that good of an option.

No, I'm not making a case for for like, go get a Citi card. So you get some points. I just think I think that was the only one that stood out as the unique option. And I know I'm a phony there. It's great business class, and it is great.

And the economy is great. Like they're just very friendly. Yeah. And and I think they make some of their space available just to their program. So maybe that's a chase point or a Citi point benefit. I think for most people, the reason they go for Citi is because you've depleted all your chase options and then Amex is once in a lifetime, and then it's easy to deplete those options as well, because there's only so many MR earning cards.

So you run and then you do Capital One generally early on. So Citi is that next logical step. And the fact that they do have some pretty good cards of like catch all options as multipliers, double cash being the good like two X equivalent. And then the Citi Premier is also surprisingly good, like as a workhorse, because it earns three X on so many categories.

Gas is a big one that a lot of other like banks just don't focus on or they know that it's going to be like a money loser. So they just don't really focus on it at all. And the fact that Citi Premier earns a three X on it and it's uncapped is pretty good.

And on Citi cards, I'll just you know, for any cards we talk about, if you go to all the hacks dot com slash cards, you can find the links for all the cards we're talking about, except Citi. We don't have any partners there, but you do. So if anyone here wants to get any of the cards that we're talking about, obviously support me.

But also, if it's a Citi card, I'll send them your way. Yeah. Asksebi.com again. Asksebi.com A S K S E B B Y dot com. We'll put the link to that in the show notes. And what do you think's coming? So the only big change. So Venture X is a big thing.

I think we have two of them in our house. Venture X business, I'm torn on. It's a massive sign up bonus. I think it's one hundred fifty thousand. But you have to spend thirty grand in three months. But I already have the spark cash plus, which is effectively equivalent.

But I would argue that the annual fee there is a bit higher because you don't have that many credits offsetting. I think there's one where if you spend like one hundred or one fifty K, you get like one hundred back or something. One fifty back. I don't know if I put that much on it.

But basically, there's nothing to help you offset it. While the Venture X business has the same three hundred dollars and ten thousand points. So for me, that's already like, OK, that covers annual fee more or less. Or you get five dollars in value. So that's cheaper on a net basis.

And then you also have a priority pass card that works for restaurants. So if you don't want to run Chase Sapphire Reserve or JP Morgan Reserve, then that's an option. OK. And does the Venture X? The Venture X one works for only lounges. But the business is. The business as a filming works for restaurants as well.

Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. And then I think one of the other big changes was Amex pulling back on Delta lounges. And I guess maybe I think it was it was it this year where they also cut back on guest policies. So I don't know if you spend 75 K.

So I think for them, they're just trying to figure out how to make the lounge experience better, because if you have to wait 30 minutes to one hour to go into the lounge, then it's like a lose lose for that because people start canceling cards. People post on social media that the line sucks and that this is terrible.

So how do you make it accessible to people, but also like make it a good experience? So I think for them, they've toyed around with increasing the annual fee. And I think that is something that we're probably bound to see in 2025. But then the platinum has done so well in the last two years because people have started doing the math and realize that it makes sense that there's just so many like the platinum numbers have doubled in the last like four or five years, which is a lot of people.

And then the lounges have not kept up to it to that. Yeah. And then also a lot more people are traveling now. And I think there's also like younger people who might be getting it because of the perks or the flex on people and stuff. So it's just a lot of people have the cards and the lounge side has not kept up.

Aside from lounge changes, what do you think happens with cards next year? Like, what do you think the you know, in a year from now when we're catching up, what is going to be the Venture X thing we talked about? I think a lot of people don't like high annual fees for exchange of credits, but I think that's the most logical move for like issuers and like everyone.

Like it feels like the most win, win, win. So what I mean by that is, let's say you have a card that has an 850 annual fee, but you have like twelve hundred credits. So some people hate that because they're like, well, I can't use all these credits because I think we're conditioned to want to maximize everything.

But the goal is necessarily to use every single credit to get enough value that you maybe break even for the credit card that way, like it's 815 credits. So all the other perks and the multipliers of the card and of just being value on top. So like positive expected value from it.

So I think we're going to see more of that. Probably Citi's going to push that. But I think that's the most logical move because issuers make money. They probably have a bit more room to give you better multipliers, too. And then for the people that would benefit from those credits, it's also a win because you might come out ahead.

Like for the platinum card, if you live in certain cities, if you don't use certain products, you might actually be losing money or you might be paying that two or three hundred dollars in order to get the card for lounge access and other perks. But there are people that live in New York and the Bay Area who already pay for Equinox where like they come out ahead.

They're like, wait, I use all these services. I use Uber. I use Equinox. I like, yeah, I shop at Saks enough that I can use the credit. So it's I think we're going to see more of that, which might end up pissing some people off, but it's probably a net positive move.

Yeah, I think. I probably come out. I wish I used Equinox so that I could get the value, but I'm pretty confident that just starting to use Equinox is going to not be a net net savings. So one tactic you can actually do is if you have a friend that uses Equinox, you could just let them swap your card in for a month and I'll use up the credit and then they can just treat you to dinner or something.

That's what kind of I'm doing right now. I have like a lot of Platinum cards and then I'm just like, hey, Humphrey, you pay for Equinox already. Anyways, I have these like eight Platinum cards. Do you want to swap them in every single month to use up the credit and then you can pay for sushi?

I'm just going to stand outside of the Equinox in in the Bay Area. So it's a portal every month. So it's easier. And I feel like there's bound to be a lot of tech people, you know, that have it. But it's just a weird conversation. Yeah, probably not worth the brain cells.

Yeah. If I only have one. So if I had eight, maybe it would be worth finding that person. What do you think happens on the earning side? I know there was a big scare, I guess, when we thought this legislation was going to pass and cause all these challenges.

It looks like it's not. Do you think credit card companies in the next year? Do you think that comes back? Do you think we see kind of legislation to try to limit the interchange that card companies can make? I think people are still going to try to push for it, whether it goes through or not is the big question.

If it does go through, I think it actually kind of destroys their credit card space in a lot of ways. I think in the short term, we will see issuers just keep doing the same thing and maybe increasing the multipliers. It's really hard to do the opposite of like, like if you if someone told you we're going from 4x to 3x, that's going to piss off so many people and get so much churn from it that you're probably better off keeping the numbers and then trying to make money back somewhere else, whether that's like decreasing perks or increasing annual fees, because I think people are used to like that cycle of upgrades.

And then you can always argue inflation like, hey, technically 250 two years ago is now like 350 or 300. Yeah, I think one of the hardest parts for cards is all the transfer ratios for the most part are all one to one. And it seems so simple to keep it one to one that they can't really pull that lever easily so they can pull perks.

Do you think we'll ever see cards where it's like here are four perks. You get to pick two of them. I kind of wish Citi would do that or like any other issuer. I think that's like an interesting play and like gamifies it a lot more. But I'm not sure if the normal card user that's not a super user would like that because it might sound too confusing.

I think right now you probably have at least eight priority pass memberships and you don't need them. No, not at all. Yeah, if I could even take like a $50 credit or something per year, that would be nice. And I think or maybe a $50 credit for something else for like Barry's Bootcamp or something.

So I think that would be cool. Yeah, but I think it just brings up a different conversation now because for the platinum. The whole draw is that, oh, I can get $1,400 in value. I might not, but I can. So there's that potential of getting outsized value that I think people like latch on to.

And they love to market that. Yes. And I like even for my like calculations and stuff, I'm like, you need to knock it down for your own case. Like we have calculators on asksebi.com for this. But for I think the moment you're like, OK, cool. That's a 900 annual fee, but you have 800 credits, but you have to pick the ones.

It ends up like not being the best for them, for the company or for people that are signing up. It's only good for us. And I'm pretty sure they're not optimizing for us. Do you think the car like the credit card companies like power users because they tell their friends and their friends aren't?

Or do they like secretly wish that they could put a red flag on all of our accounts and close us all down? I think we represent such a small number that they probably don't care. I think it's kind of like reminiscent of the casinos where there's people that can't count cards, right?

Like you actually want people to think that they can go in and count cards and like movies like that to like propagate. But like the average person, just even if they mentally can't do it, they're not going to spend the time to learn how to do it or they'll think about how to do the process.

So by having this whole thing, like, oh, you can get money, but maybe they don't do enough research, then they end up losing. But the people that watch videos and like read blogs are probably already a lot ahead of everyone else. So we talked about how you have eight platinum cards, which is a little crazy.

And I think one of the things that people often miss about the game is we get so caught up in, OK, well, which card is going to give me the most number of points for how I spend my money? And don't get me wrong. Like I am, you know, I've created a tool where people can actually go in and put their spend in and figure out the right optimal use of cards, because at the end of the day, no one wants to leave points on the table.

However, when I think about it and I just start doing the math, even with the best card, if you could have a 5X points on everything card and your return was 5X, welcome bonuses seem to be better than that. Almost always. Is there an argument that all you should be ever chasing is welcome bonuses and you should not be focused on any multipliers and bonuses?

So I think it's kind of interesting where a lot of people who spend less money focus more on multipliers when they should be focusing on intro bonuses, because that drives more money if you're spending only 500 a month. Getting 200 back for that 500 just makes a lot more sense.

And you can actually repeat that so many times because there's so many cards. But like that 5% on 500 is not material at all. So ironically, the people that should be focused on multipliers are the high spenders, the ones that are spending five or ten thousand dollars a month eating out.

And like, I think some people look at them and be like, that's absurd. Who does that? But like there are people that spend a ton of money. Like for those people, the multipliers start to matter a lot more because that's already 25,000 points in one month, potentially, depending on the card.

So for most people, especially when you're starting out, focus on intro bonuses. That drives the needle. That's like 20% return on spend to 40%, depending on the card. But I think once you ramp up, once you have a business at some point, like you just run out of bonuses.

Like if you're if you have an ad business that if you have a business that runs a lot of Facebook ads, you're spending 200k a month. It's like there's not enough intro bonuses for you to go for. So you do start to focus on multipliers or maybe getting hotel status or airline status with that spend.

Yeah. But if you're someone who has dabbled, right, you've opened two or three cards and maybe you're spending, I don't know, five, seven grand a month. So you're kind of on that high end, but you haven't opened up a ton of cards. Even if you're a high spender, if you've only opened up a few cards in your time, it probably makes sense to focus on intro bonuses.

I think so. I think you can argue that one a lot more because like you're in that weird mid spot. But for me, intro bonuses, especially travel ones, just drive so much value. And it's like, would you rather spend maybe three or four months of spending to get the same bonus or maybe one month?

And especially if you are trying to time towards like a honeymoon or any other like big endeavor where you need a lot of points, it just makes more sense. So to me, I think intro bonuses are the focus, especially when you're young and you like have time to manage stuff.

Anyways, like we have kids, then obviously maybe that's not worth your time. I don't know. I would. I would push back and say, even if you're going to spend the time to figure out what card earns the most points, you'd probably be better off just getting another card unless you've played the game so heavily that you're out of cards.

Yeah. So again, which you probably are. So my view is you should probably like work your way to like 10, 20 or like 50 cards, but obviously like that's not everyone. And I want to be cognizant that like some people do have like lives. Like I like researching stuff like on a Friday night.

I think we'll like watch Netflix, hang out, have dinner. But then like at night, I'm like just randomly researching stuff and going down rabbit holes. Sometimes it's not credit card related. Sometimes it's like travel. Sometimes it's something completely different, like mechanical keyboards. But like I like researching stuff. I enjoy learning.

But like I know some people who are like, no, I'd rather be spending more time with my kids or like partying or clubbing or whatever else. So I think it just depends on you. And so you said potentially 50. Let's pretend someone listening is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was doing this game wrong.

What is I want to address a few things. So one I've noticed from people that have published. Here's me opening up a high velocity of cards over a short period of time. The impact on your credit is surprisingly positive. So I think that's a misconception a lot of people have is, oh, if I opened up five, six, seven, eight cards in a year, it would destroy my credit.

I'm pretty sure my experience from people that have reported it and from the few times where I did that is the exact opposite is true. Is that what you've seen? For the most part? Yes. I think short term, you might see a dip. And then especially if you're a student, you'll see a bigger dip.

And I think that's when they get like spooked by it. But I think especially if you're like in the twenty five to thirty and like especially later on range where you already have these older cards anyways to like be your anchor and your foundation, the impact is so minimal.

And unless you're like shopping for a mortgage or like something like that, it doesn't really matter. Like, oh, no, my credit score dropped from 800 to 750. Like that plays no role. And that and a 50 point drop like that would not be one card. That would be over a series.

That would probably be over a series unless you had a very thin file. Like if you only had like one card and then this is your second card, then yeah, you might see a 50 point drop. OK, and so how would you think about that sequence if you were someone that's like, OK, let's get a card, a quarter this year?

I think earlier you referenced like, you know, Capital One might be early. Is there a high level version of how you would think about where to start? Yeah, I generally think of it as stages. So Chase being kind of the first off set of stuff because of Chase 524 and how they like limit cards and then also their business cards are pretty lucrative and you can like get a lot of them while you're under 524.

And we've talked about this at length, but I'll just just for anyone who's who's new to 524 when Chase looks to approve you for a card, they look and if you've opened and it's not a published rule, but it's kind of everyone has seen it work. If you open more than five cards in the last 24 months across all issuers on your personal, on your personal report, they're going to stop you.

So if you've opened five and you try to open a business card, they're going to say no. But if you open a business card, it doesn't show up on your personal report on Chase. And so you can you could open up five business cards and then open up a personal card and be OK, because the business card is not going to show up from Chase.

It will from Capital One. Yes. And yeah, some other issuers, but most issuers don't. And then that's why a lot of people end up just kind of going. Once you're at 424, you kind of go down the ink list. And then especially if you have an EIN and like different options there, you can technically get a lot of ink bonuses from each of your businesses.

And we have you have a whole business channel on YouTube that I bet people can go deep, deep down a rabbit hole. Ask Sebby business. Yeah. And so I think a lot of people would be surprised that they probably do something in their life that would qualify them for a business card, even if they're not running a business with employees.

So that's definitely something to look at. And OK, so Chase is kind of where you start because of their kind of application rules is there. So application rules and also number of intra bonuses and then the value of intra bonuses. And then the fact that a lot of their cards have downgrade paths and a no annual fee options.

And also a lot of the ones that don't are just keeper cards. So once where you get value every year by keeping it. Hotel cards being one of the best examples of this. After that, I would do Capital One mostly because they can be pretty hard to get approved for if you have very high velocity and you have a lot of cards.

So like there are people out there who have an 800 credit score, who make like two, 300 K, but who will not get approved for the Venture X because Capital One knows that you're not profitable. So you generally want to like get your foot in that door early on.

Saver, Saver One, Venture, Venture X are all pretty good cards for that. And they also just make sense, like they're good cards by themselves. If you hadn't opened a lot of Chase cards and you're sitting at zero 24 or 124, would you make a case to maybe start with a big bonus on a Venture X up front?

I think that's one of the few issuers I would consider like burning a 524 slot for, but. Yeah, I would probably I'd probably still go through Chase personally, but depends on you. OK. And is it as simple as. You know, Chase 524, if I'm at 124, can I just go open up four cards in the next 90 days or you generally want to get a new card?

I would say every one to three months and then for business cards every two to three months. So you kind of want to just like path it out based off what you're trying to do. iXG Premier World of Hyatt are all pretty good cards. Boundless is interesting, especially if you want to like in the future upgrade to the Ritz card, which is another rabbit hole.

United cards are good for the bonuses and downgrade paths and perks. If you want free checked bags. Aeroplanes just a really good bonus, but doesn't have a downgrade path. But yeah, there's like a lot of cards you can get that just provide a lot of value. Yeah, I think Chase is probably if you made a list of the the issuer with the most six figure bonuses, it's like always chase.

Yeah. And then if you look at bonuses across the board, it's like who really has a lot of bonuses, it's American Express and Chase. And that's why it's like you want to focus on Chase early on because you want to get those bonuses. And then a lot of the bonuses are also on like a 24 month clock, where if you don't currently have the card and you haven't got the bonus in 24 months, you would actually be eligible for that bonus again.

So a lot of people start off chase, kind of go through everything else, and then you can circle back to chase. Yeah. One thing that I think you'll find if you get to your fourth or fifth chase card is you might get denied right away. And you can often, at least in my experience, call up.

And the denial isn't that they don't want to give you the card. It's they just don't want to give you any more credit. And you could say, oh, well, can you move some credit over from this other card I have that has a twenty five thousand dollar limit? You just put 10 there and bring 15 over.

Yeah. So chase generally wants to give you about 50 percent of your income as your total credit limit for them. That's kind of like what they're willing to risk. So if you make 100, then among all your chase cards, total limit should be around 50 K. So you can also carve room, which is what I call it, where you like intentionally decrease credit limits to just make it easier to get approved.

So like, let's say if you have a 200 K salary, you know that your cap is 100 K. If you already have 100 K and you're not using all your credit limit anyways, it's like, why not just decrease one of these cards by five K? Can you do that?

Can you just ask them for a credit decrease? Yes, you can. And then that makes it easier to get approved. And like, obviously, some people will be like, I'd rather call in. I don't owe getting credit limit decreases are as dumb. Why would anyone do that? But like as someone who doesn't like calling in and waiting on the phone and stuff like I'd rather just send a message saying decrease my credit limit by five K, that's immaterial to me.

And like if it makes the approval process easier, then that's a win. Do you think there's an argument of like that actually working more often? Like, is there a situation where I think that's easier? And I think my rationale is that it's lower risk because I think any time you have more eyes on your account, it's a negative thing.

So I don't want to have to call in and then ask them to move limits around and then have someone be like, why does this guy have 12 chase cards? Right. Like maybe that's another risk flag versus like by me decreasing the limit, then it's the algorithm approving me.

And like to me, that's just lower risk. OK. OK. So you go chase to Amex, I'm guessing. No. So you do chase to Capital One. Capital One. And then I would say Citibank of America. Barclays are all kind of in the same zone. U.S. Bank, you'd probably want to kind of do after Capital One.

But I feel like the value of their cards are not as good unless you're on Team Cashback, like the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve Plus. I mean, yeah, yeah. So I think after Capital One, you can make the argument for U.S. Bank and then the only card. There's not that many cards unless you're in Team Cashback, basically.

Yeah. And all the ones you mentioned, Bank of America, Barclays, U.S. Bank, are they all cash back? Bank of America would be for Alaska points, OK? Because that like is super valuable and they have a lot of first business class options with their partners. Yeah, we flew Alaska a lot for a few years.

We had some status and I collected all these Alaska points and I never want to spend them because I feel like they're the one currency that's like there's just no way to get more Alaska points that I know of. Maybe Bonvoy transfer. It's not really a good transfer, though, right?

It's pretty bad value to transfer. But yeah, you could. There is a case for Bank of America if you're on Team Cashback, if you want to have 100K with their brokerage or something. But yeah, that's let's come back to cash back. OK. And then and then Amex after, basically.

Yeah. And any nuance with Amex that that I think would be helpful. You generally want to start with the platinum card to the like how they use the platinum offers to entice people to come in. So generally speaking, if you're not a customer of them, you can get the most value, generally like 125, the 150K as an intro bonus.

And like they dangle that carrot, because when you're not a customer, they want to bring you in. But then the moment you become a customer, it becomes a lot harder to get that offer. You can still pull it up by using something like card match. And like we have a whole blog post on assets.

I'd be walking through a card match. But I think a lot of people just don't realize that they get like they see the gold card and they're like, that card makes a lot of sense for me. And then you get that card and then you potentially lose out on 75K.

So like 25K in MRF bonus from the platinum that you otherwise could have gotten. I just got an email today that 150K on platinum through card match is kind of a very open option. Like sometimes it's you're lucky if you get it. Right now, it seems pretty pervasive for new customers.

So I'll find a link to card match for the 150K and I'll put it in the show notes. Yeah. So 150K tends to be if you're not a customer with them, that's generally the easiest way to get the 150K. If you are a customer, you still can get the 150K, but it's just a lot less common.

Yeah. And sometimes you have to literally wait for the flyers to come in the mail like physical paper. And after, how do you think about the strategy of going through Amex membership rewards cards or MR as you've been saying or all their airline hotel cards? I would do the other cards first just because they have so many other rules around it.

So there's something called the 4, 5, 6 rule. So for their credit cards, you can only have four or five or six of them. Their charge card, you can't say charge card anymore. Their MR cards don't have that rule. So you can actually kind of get as many of them as you want at any time.

So you generally want to start with the credit cards first, because that just makes more sense, like to start those clocks, because that's going to be like your bottleneck. OK, and that's all the Marriott. Delta, Marriott, Hilton. Yeah. And I mean, there's other cards. I think there's like a Cole, not a Cole's.

There's like a Lowe's card, but like I haven't gone that one because like that doesn't matter to me, but there's cards. Would it be there on your quest to 50? Is there an intro bonus? There is an intro bonus, but I don't think it matters for me because I don't shop there.

But yeah, yeah, I got my total toilet at Lowe's, so, you know, there's always value there. And then what's after that? That's it, right? Is there you circle back to chase or you get into the business game? But I feel like that's it. We didn't talk about built at all because as great as I think built points are.

There's no welcome bonus. There's like a secret welcome bonus that exists if you like technically, if you sign up and then oftentimes in the first five days to like let you earn up to 50 points. Yeah, you get five X points. And it's now it's first day announced that it's official and then they announced that it's random and it's not official.

So I don't want to promise it. But I think if you want a card to earn three X points on on travel and or three X points on dining, great. But if you pay rent, it makes sense. I would still put it in the back burner after American Express, though, or maybe like at the same time as American Express, the rationale being that the intro bonus, like the multiplier sounds nice on the surface.

But if you're someone that's a low spender, you're better off using that rent to help hit intra bonuses. So like if you're someone who doesn't spend that much on everything else, but you're paying New York or Bay Area or anywhere, rent that 500 or 1000 or 2000 and spends like you can earn one X.

That sounds great. But like you're better off just literally hitting a full on intro bonus and paying like maybe 2% fees. OK, so you're arguing that because the intro bonus is so big, let's use a practical example. You get a card spend. Let's say you live in New York.

Your rent is 4K. You could easily use that 4K to hit the CSP intra bonus of 60K points. Maybe put on the belts are getting 4000 points. So you're looking at 60000 points versus 4000 points. And the fact that most intro bonuses are repeatable, you're kind of better off like you're better off going down the intro bonus list.

That makes sense. And going for an intro bonus each month, even if you have to pay $80 in fees on one card, you're paying 4000. You're getting a 60000 point bonus and spending $80 in fees. And on the other, you're spending 4000. You're getting 4000 points, but no fees.

Yeah, because the net amount is positive. So like even if you use enough credits to offset the fees you're paying, it just makes financial sense. Like the math works out. Yeah, it's almost what do you what would you say? Have you done the math? What is a average kind of percent back in points or intro bonuses?

I'd say for cashback equivalent, probably about 20 to 30% for travel stuff, 30 to like 80%, like Southwest ones. Like we've seen some pretty crazy offers there because they also have just like lower minimum spends. Oftentimes business tends to be about 11.1%, give or take. Yeah. OK, so when you say 2025, you mean it's kind of like if your Amex gold card earns four points per dollar on groceries for the amount of money you spend on the intro bonus, you're earning effectively 25 points per dollar.

You could say that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's different per card. And if you spend money past the intro bonus, it's not the same. But the argument for so for dining, I feel like that's it still makes sense that introduces are better, but that's still for X. We've built you're only looking at one X.

So like that, that is a pretty big difference to me. OK, I think that makes sense. OK, that was a lot. I think people have probably been convinced at least to look into the intro bonus game a little bit more if they haven't. And what's the cap? How many cards are you at?

North of 50. But yeah. And no problems. Like, do you feel like when you were in that home stretch doing the last from 40 to 50, you were still getting approvals? That's why American Express was towards them. So like, I think if you actually map out things properly, you can easily do that.

It's not a problem in terms of managing. I think some people will be like, oh, that's a lot of work. You can automate a lot of it using either code or just like building your own stuff. Or even if you don't want if you want to keep it very manual, you can set a lot of the dates around the same time.

So, for example, like all my chase cards close on the first of each month or like almost as close as I could make it to like the end of the month because like everything just closes there. And then all my Amex cards like close mid month. That way, you can.

Why does that matter? Mostly just to make your life simpler. Like if you are trying to like, hey, like if someone's like 50 cards, like how do I deal with paying these off? And but you're not using all 50 regularly. Yeah, I'm not using all 50, but I'm saying I think just even like if mentally, if like it's weird for you to be like, I don't want to look at my cards every single day of a month, potentially for some weird fraud charge or something.

It's just easier to like maybe set like one or two dates in a month as like dates that you like even look at stuff. But yeah, I don't you don't need to use most of the cards. I just link all my cards to I use Copilot, but you can use any other tool, link all your cards, you'll see all the transactions come up.

So, you know, I don't I don't think I've reviewed my transactions on the card issuer sites for a while. Yeah. So I think that also works if you have like an aggregator. But yeah, for the most part, you don't really. I think it's a lot less stressful than you think it is.

I think if you're coming from zero cards or like three cards to 50, that sounds very intense. But if you're someone who's already at like eight to 10, it's you're used to it. Like at this point, it's like going to the gym, like, oh, cool. Yeah. And so 50 cards, that's easily.

I've got to assume at least 75,000 points per bonus, give or take. Yeah. And I think to be fair, a lot of the bonuses were easier to get back in the day as well. Like Bank of America was substantially more lax with their bonuses and like how many cards you could get.

Yeah. OK. Any any other things to keep in mind, especially on Amex, when it comes to how many times you can get a bonus? So it's technically once in a lifetime. I think there are some like a form inkling saying that maybe it's like once every 10 years. But like, I just don't want to rely on an exception.

Yeah, for most people, I would lean towards American Express towards the end, unless, you know, that you don't want to get that many cards because not everyone does or you're just a very high spender. Like if you are somewhat if you're a food reviewer in New York and you spend like 10K a month, then yeah, the gold card probably works out for you.

Yeah. And and so we said we would talk about cash back briefly. If someone's thinking, this is great, I want to earn a lot of value. I want to open cards. But when it comes to using my points, I just find that I don't get the value I want.

And if you're ending up using your points to just book in the travel portal on Amex or Citi, is it even worth playing the points game or is it worth considering cash back cards? I think you still can go for intro bonuses because that's still it's the same math that drives the needle the most set up wise.

You might be looking at different cards. So I think Chase still kind of works pretty well for cash back. Bank of America is another consideration now because they have like these really good cards that you like earn up to five point two five percent on a lot of transactions and like two point two six.

I think on like six to five. Yeah. Two point six to five on everything else. Yeah. So I think there is a play for that, especially if you just want something super simple. And I think a lot of people get pissed off because they're like, wait, I only get zero point six cents in value for my points.

And that's not very good. You can get the Schwab card in order to get like one point one cents. So that's a bit better. But the Schwab Platinum. But then at the same time, you're like, well, if you don't. If you're someone that's focused on cash back, you tend not to travel, in which case the Platinum card becomes a lot harder to like recommend and use.

So it's that weird dilemma where you're like, technically, a Platinum card might make financial sense because I spend so much and that increases my earn rate, but I don't travel. So this card is not useful other than for that earn rate bonus. Yeah, I think if you want to earn points and you want to use them without having to go to the hassle of transferring, Chase is probably going to be best.

Cap one city. Cap one, I think it's really tough because you only get zero point five cents per point unless you use like the saver. But the Venture X kind of becomes like out of the equation. OK, even if you're bringing in their portal. If you book through their portal, then you.

Oh, yeah. If you're doing some form of travel, then you actually have one side, sorry. But if you're like purely, purely cashback, then I would say capital one. Other than the saver, a safer one would not be on my list. City's also not bad. Portal's still only one cent, but you can also cash out at one cent per point, which is pretty nice.

OK, and then for people, we talked about rent, right? One way that you could hit these intro bonuses because some of them, you know, spend a few thousand dollars if you don't have that spend or if you want to do it, do a lot of them, even run some in tandem.

You know, you could just pay fees. Are there other ways you've seen people get successful? Are there other good ways to. Kind of increase your spend to hit these bonuses without necessarily adding to your expenses for the year? Yeah, I think you can speak to this pretty well. If you're the group trip planner, that works out very well, especially if you have like more wealthy friends for like a bachelor party or something.

If everyone's paying you a ton of money and then you're booking up hotels, meals are obviously another one. I think a lot of people also end up starting businesses as a means of earning more points and then eventually, ironically, that ends up becoming like a profit center and say, oh, I can make a lot of money here.

So I've seen people like flip things or like more do more like drop shipping style stuff where you can get a lot of points and also get money. Like I run into people who are like, yeah, I run 100K in ads. I like make a crap ton of money.

But it's like I started this because I was trying to figure out how to get more points. Yeah, I met someone recently who I think he said makes spent $4 million a month for his business on. I can't remember which Amex it was. I would be so sad if it was like a platinum card because he could just be earning twice as much.

But at that point, I'm like, if you're earning four million, four million. Yeah, I was going to say I was going to guess the business gold for ads, but then it's all formulas a lot. That's a lot. Yeah, I guess Amex might be the only card that would give you a limit to do that.

Capital One Venture X business is also like a charge card where it's uncapped. OK, yeah. And two weeks back and everything. I know that's what that's what this person should have. That's why I think it's like the best new card right now or like the best business card, arguably the same with the Sparkash Plus.

Yeah, Sparkash Plus had the best intro bonus. When I got it, it was 250,000. But it's just the fact that it's uncapped because like Amex, unless you're doing like five K plus purchases, then you get one point five X on the platinum business. But like everything else is like capped off, like the blue business.

Plus, that's only 50 K. Like you're going to burn through that. Yeah, if you're a high spender, Amex doesn't have a great everything card. OK, so we talked a lot about earning points. We talked a lot about what's coming. Let's talk a little bit about how do we how we use them.

We I think the two of us have gotten a chance to do a lot of exciting international, maybe some domestic kind of these aspirational trips. If people are sitting on points and thinking, what are some amazing ways to use them, what are some of your favorites and your highlights, whether it's airline cabins, destinations or specific properties?

I think if you have a player to you should probably ask them where they want to go. That's a good starting point, because for a lot of people, that's how they actually convert their partner to get into credit cards, because they're like, why are you focused on these points?

This sounds dumb. But when you take them to the place they want to go, they're like, oh, this is really nice. Wow. Why were we flying economy before when we can fly business? I think in terms of I lean more towards hotel still in terms of value, because I think you get so much more time there.

And also you can have two people. Flights are fun, but they feel so much more finite. I think Bora Bora Maldives are obviously the go to ones. And I think some people argue it's a bit overrated as someone that likes to snorkel and like enjoy the water. I really like it.

And I think the fact that I can check it off the bucket list is fun as well. Yeah. No Seychelles yet. That's on the list for 2024. OK, yeah. Yeah. There's the new the new Waldorf. Oh, we did two Hilton's there. I don't know if they're both still there.

Yeah, I think we were looking to that initially. And then when we heard that the water was opening 2024, I was like, oh, OK, let's just do that instead. Yeah. Some of those aspirational stays have been great. But even domestically, I feel like you've been done Ventana, which is one of the best values of high points out there, despite being a lot of high points.

Yeah, I think that one's an interesting one. It's not for everyone like I've heard. You either love it or you hate it. So I like it because it's a means for me to like reconnect with environment and kind of like get away from everything as someone who's like constantly connected to like technology.

So as someone like I grew up like camping and doing a lot of that stuff. So it was the closest I could get to that while still keeping Mandy happy because Mandy just does not like outdoors stuff for whatever reason. She's also sitting there right now. So, yeah, I think that was like the closest she got to glamping, which is kind of funny and also sad.

Yeah, I I've been there for a wedding and we were too cheap to book a room at the wedding rate and there was nothing with points. So we booked over like a room at a hotel down the street. And I have not been back yet. Yeah, I think it's nice.

It's probably worth at least like one weekend. It's just a nice little escape. That's nearby. Yeah. So we hit the most obvious spots. Are there a few properties that aren't quite as wild as, you know, these honeymoon destinations that you think are interesting spots to check out around the world or even domestically?

So not really a points one, but you can use points to like it. They're booking through portals. Faroe Islands is like still our favorite vacation that like we pretty much paid out of pocket for. So it's like this little islands that is owned by Denmark, I believe. That's like between like London, Iceland and like.

Yeah, like basically up there. It's like a tiny islands. They have these puffins there. It's beautiful. That's kind of what you imagine Iceland to be, but like even nicer in a lot of ways, just super picturesque. Awesome. OK, then last, what have been your top airline cabin experiences? If someone's like I'm saving some points up and I just want to have a wild experience in the sky, where do you think your points can take you right now?

Because I know a lot of the past, like getting Emirates first used to be a little bit more accessible. Fees can get pretty high. What do you think is the best bang? The best bang for buck would probably be A&A, given just the ways you can book it and like the value of the cabin and also the fact that it's like one of the best first and also business class.

If anything, it's the best business class cabin right now. So I think that's like where the value is. I think in terms of like crazy experience, I mean, Etihad first apartments is still nice. I don't like their soft product. They were kind of mean, but it's fine. But the hard product is nice.

It's like very big. And where can you get what's the way to get Etihad? Etihad, you could book through American. Americans, probably the best way. OK, or you can book through, I think, their points, but it might not be that advantageous. They used to have a lot of more routes.

But then since the shutdowns and stuff, the routes only recently opened back up. So I think London to Abu Dhabi or is it France? The Abu Dhabi is the main one right now that has the new cabin. OK. And so American points pretty hard to get. Is it just is your stash of American points, just American cards, or how did you build up an American balance enough to do it?

It's mostly American cards and like we don't have that many anymore. So sometimes we actually even like buy it if the math makes sense. So they'll have like promotions where they'll be like, we'll give you an extra 40% points. So for us, I'm like, OK, cool. So that means I can book first class for about like twenty two hundred dollars.

I'm like, that still makes sense. So like, I think there is a stage where if you're comfortable, especially for like reviewing stuff, there is a case of buying points because like at a certain point you do run out of points. Yeah, I actually I watched someone do the math on Wyndham points.

And so Wyndham points using the book of a Casa, you can get some good deals. But at times, and I think recently there was one of those times where you could book Wyndham points for less than a penny a point. And so to transfer your points to Wyndham was actually a worse deal than to redeem them for statement credits and just buy the Wyndham points.

Yeah. Same thing with IG, where like their points are terrible value wise. And like there's almost no use case. We're getting at least one time per point. So you're better off either just booking through the portal or just like cashing it out. But that's also why I'm kind of like wanting to switch from Delta, because I have a lot of business spent anyways.

And I'm going towards status. I'm like, do I like for my end result, do I want to have, let's say, 200000 Delta miles or do I want 200000 American? And American has so much more value while I'm sitting on like one point two. I'm sitting on an astronomical amount of Delta miles because I haven't had a good use case.

Like I've been waiting for Delta flash sales to come back and they just did. But like other than that, like I don't want to spend 400K for a business class one way flight. So if someone's listening and they have half a million Delta points, how do you use Delta points to get good value?

It's either Delta flash sales or kind of treating them like cash and like Southwest miles where you like get fixed value. And if you're fine with that, that's great. Like for cashback focused or like economy travel, it's not bad. But like if you're looking for outsized value, it's tough.

Is there ever a way that you'd find? I remember we took our honeymoon to the Seychelles and it was 120000 Delta points on Air France partner awards on Delta. Are there deals ever to be had? So there used to be a lot more and it was a lot easier back in the day of partner awards, and it's not really the case anymore.

So Delta flash sales is like the main thing that they discontinued for like three years during the shutdowns. And it just brought back in August. That's generally when they have either Delta or partner flights that just have a lot of availability that like people aren't flying. So they end up having a sale for it.

And it's better value. Yeah. I've been getting a lot of value from Delta points on just short domestic flights. But it's it's like fixed value. Like for that, you're getting like one point three to one point five. Like you're not getting crazy value. You close to two cent values on Delta to Mexico booking on Delta through Aeromexico.

And it was actually like a two, two and a half cent value, even in business. So there is also another trick that I think I haven't talked a lot about because I wasn't sure if it was a good idea. But if you actually don't fly from the U.S., if you leave from Mexico, you can still get good value from business class on Delta, on Delta and through partners.

So like if you flew to like Mexico City to fly some other airline, it's like Korea or something, then it's not going to cost you 400,000. It's about only cost you like 100,000 points. OK, so if you live in Texas, it might be a good deal. Get to Mexico City and go.

If you live on the West Coast and have kids, it might sound like them. Yeah, I don't think I would do that if you had kids. Yeah, it's not on the table. Awesome. Any any other cool deals, hacks like that, you know, in the miles world that you want to share before we take off?

Um, nothing I can think of too much right now. Yeah, I think for the most part, that's it. This is so awesome. If you want any links to any of the cards we talked about, you can go to all the hacks dot com slash cards, except a few. Sebastian, let people know where to find those and everything else you're working on for city cards or for other cards where you want to run the numbers and play off the calculator.

We have that on AskSebi.com. You can find me on YouTube and AskSebi and then AskSebi Business. Yep. We'll link to everything in the show notes. Sebastian, thank you so much for being here.