Families Fly Free w/ Lyn Mettler (Bestie Ep) #1079

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am
Matt and today we're talking free family travel with Lynn Mettler.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
That's right. Yeah, so Joel, you and I we both
have pretty big families and our youngest kids they're growing up,
so we are finally at the stage where traveling with
the entire family it's becoming more of a possibility. So honestly,
like we've got a vested interest in today's conversation with
our guest, Lynn Mettler of Families Fly Free. She's got
a sight in the podcast. She's been featured on The

(00:48):
Today Show, on US News and World Report as a
long time travel journalist. And Lynn she takes her own
medicine as well. She and her family they travel and
they fly for free about six times every single year.
Doesn't sound like it's it's even possible, So we're excited
to learn all of her secrets. Lynn, thank you for

(01:09):
joining us today on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Sure, thanks for inviting me.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Oh yeah, we're gonna get a lot of secrets out
of you today. Len. All right, let's go all right, Well,
the first question we ask anyone who comes on the
show is what their craft beer equivalent is and what
we mean by that, Matt and I we spend more
on craft beer than the average person would think is sane,
but we do it joyfully because we really like a
good beer now and again. But what is that in

(01:34):
your life? Is there something that you spend more on?
And most people would say, Lynn, that's crazy, Like how
do you how do you fit that into your budget?
What is that for you?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Gosh? I mean a couple things, definitely, Like I'm a
book lover, so I don't I don't limit my budget
on book buying. That would be one area I think.
But I think when it comes to travel, while we're
going to be timing about how to fly for free,
stay for free, all that good stuff today, what we
found is when you learn how to do that, then
you can splurge on other parts of your trip that

(02:04):
you might not have otherwise because you say, you didn'tay
anything to fly there, and maybe you're staying for free
so you can do excursions, or maybe you eat like
a fancy restaurant, or you do a VIP tour at
Disney something like that that you would never ever have
done because you have the money to do it because
you saved so much. So like recently, we were just

(02:25):
in Paris.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, give me an example, I want to hear it.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, and so like we did a private tour of
the castles of the Loire Valley because I'd always wanted
to do that. That's been a bucket list thing for me,
to see those beautiful French castles. And so that was
an example because we on that trip, we covered our
hotel and our flights.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
So I love it.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I would totally do that.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, I wouldn't just be looking to cut back and
eliminate that cost altogether. But how can I not only
do this maybe for yeah, a little more fortaly, but
then kind of come out maybe even but by exposing
myself to just just a vastly superior, much better trip
overall experience, Ye, still coming out less than the average
person spends for not as cool as a trip.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's exactly it. Yes, you can have a way better
trip and still spend less for it than you would
on a very average trip.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, Like, what is it that pushed you down this
path to begin with? Because obviously you teach others now
about how to fly for free. You've got a membership
the cohort that folks can join and will certainly point
folks towards that at the end of the episode. But
was it just a desire to travel more that led
you down this path of learning all about flying for free?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, I think I didn't even think travel was a
possibility for us. I really never gave that much thought.
I was like, well, we just can't afford that, so
maybe in our wildest dreams, someday we'll be able to
travel more. But I was really a coup on er,
so I think I have this mindset of how much
can I get for how little? And as you said,

(03:54):
I was a long time travel journalist, and so I
got pitched a story one day of this couple who
was flying all over the world for free on Frequent
Flyer miles. But what got me was they weren't earning
those miles by paying for flights. And that was kind
of a light bulb moment for me because my dad
was a business traveler and I knew he earned frequent
Flyer miles flying Delta out of Atlanta, right, but it

(04:18):
was because he paid for those flights, and so they
were doing they were earning miles without paying for flights.
So that's where I was like, well, that's interesting. Maybe
I could kind of like couponing. You know, you're like
collecting miles, just like you're collecting coupons, and you're you're
using him to pay for flights. And what a much
better return than saving fifty cents or whatever five dollars

(04:40):
here or there on groceries. But maybe I could figure
out a way that we could fly on these miles
and start to travel. So then I just decided to
figure that out. And you know, it took me a
couple of years to kind of narrow down a process
that worked for us that wasn't crazy time I'm consuming

(05:00):
or overwhelming. And then we started this flying six times
a year for free wherever we wanted in the US
and the Caribbean and Europe. And so I just decide,
I need to tell other people how to do this
this process that I've figured out. It's pretty simple and
it works, you know.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, And let's be honest, epic trips, six awesome trips
a year. That's way better than like discounted catch up
so much better. The reward, the potty gold at the
end of the rainbow, is just so much richer.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
The zero's at the end of the number when it
comes to the savings, is are much more.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, all right, Lynn, how many kids do you have?
And please tell us, like, where have you guys been
able to travel thanks to these reward points? And yeah,
I don't know. I'm just curious how far has this
gotten you.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
So I have two boys and they are now fifteen
and nineteen, so I have one in college, so they're
starting to kind of get to the age where they're
less interested in traveling. So I always encourage people to
do it while your kids are at home, make those
memories while you you know, are all there together and
they still want to go and they're not, you know,
just want to hang out with their friends all the time.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Aude yep.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Or they had to get off their devices when you're
driving and looking at something beautiful, cush darn it, you
know that kind of stuff. But so I would say,
I mean, if we're we've been doing this for I
guess eight years now, and I think we've already flown
six times this year. I think this might be a
record breaking year for us, you know, the one we

(06:31):
first kind of figured out how to do this for
free around the US, and then we branched out and
did Grand Cayman. That was our first trip to the Caribbean,
and we've done a lot of like national parks. We
love Disney, so we go there frequently. We love the
Rocky Mountains, so we love to go to Colorado, California,
love Utah. There's so many great places in the United

(06:52):
States to see. But I'd always wanted to go to
Europe and I had been once, but my family had
never been. And again I just thought, well, this is
not something we'll ever be able to do. Like I
would read under the Tuscan Son and just be like, oh,
I'm never going to get to see couscany you know.
But so we did this for a couple of years
and then I figured out how, okay, how we could

(07:13):
make this work for Europe, and we took all of
us to Europe and we did you know, Paris, and
we did Italy and we got to see you know,
like show the kids. They got to see the Mona Lisa,
and they got to see the Statue of David and
they you know, all these things that they're learning about
in school. I just thought was amazing that they actually
got to see them firsthand.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
We bored them a little bit like we stayed over
there for three weeks and then got tired of looking
at churches. But anyway, it was it was certainly an
amazing trip. And then we've kind of realized that we
can now go back to Europe like once a year,
once every other year with our system of collecting miles.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
I love it. Well, okay, so before we kind of
dive into the logistics of flying for free, Lynn, what
do you tell folks, just like right out of the
gate about using credit cards and how these strategies can
packed their credit. Because yes, if you're only focusing on
just the end goal of traveling, it's like, oh well,
if that's the prize, if that's the goal, then I'm

(08:10):
going to do whatever it takes. But of course we
are holistic individuals, Like we take a holistic approach when
it comes to your money. You want to make sure
that you are handling your personal finance as well. So
I'm curious because just a lot of the strategies involve
using some of the different cards, how do you approach
that balance of taking care of your credit while also
trying to reap some of the rewards that you can

(08:30):
get from those cards.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Well, First of all, the way my process of doing
this involves just a couple of credit cards, so I'm
sort of anti have a wallet full of cards and
constantly be opening cards to get the bonus on it.
That there seems to be a prevailing wisdom out there
that that's how you do travel rewards, and you don't
have to do it that way. It's a lot harder

(08:54):
that way, and you get confused with what you owe
on what card and all these annual fees, and then
you can get into trouble. Right, so we've mapped it out.
It's really comes down to understanding the right cards to
put your day to day spending on. That's the key
versus let me constantly be getting a new card and
meeting the minimum spend and getting a big bonus. But

(09:16):
of course we always encourage people to be responsible with
credit cards. I have been in credit card debt myself,
so I know what that's like and trying to get
out of that. So we don't want you to do
this if you know yourself and you can't pay that
balance off. What I always recommend to people is you know,
if you're using it for your everyday spending, so you're

(09:37):
charging your groceries. Then I like to just go in
and pay that the next day, because then there's no
difference in me using my debit card and having those
groceries come out immediately then there is for me using
the credit card where I'm going to pay it right
off the next day. It still came out of my
checking account, so covered, I'm not stuck with a bill
at the end of the month that I don't have

(09:57):
enough money in the bank to cover. And I know
you guys aren't one hundred percent fans of Dave Ramsey
and his you know, all of his recommendations, and I
just I hate that there's this again prevailing wisdom out
there that credit cards are bad. Yeah, and we need

(10:18):
to realize credit cards are just neutral.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
How we use just a tool exactly, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
That's good or bad. So if we can use them
for good and we can understand how to use them
for good and how to use them responsibly, man, you
can save a lot, you know. So I just wish
there wasn't just this blanket statement we should never use
a credit card ever. You know, certainly we don't want
to be in debt, and of course you want to
get yourself out of credit card debt first before you

(10:45):
would engage in anything like this. But yeah, I just
think that as a society we need to re examine
that statement.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, okay, So Matt and I we talk about travel
cards sometimes since we talk about cash back cards. I
guess you mentioned, oh, shopping at the grocery store, and
we like the Amex Blue cash preferred shopping at the
grocery store to the six percent back, and it's it's
a straight up cash back sort of play. But you
are all about the travel, that is the thing you're
going for. So I don't know, tell us, are we
being short sighted using something like cash back rewards cards

(11:15):
some of the time? She will, we be using travel
cards all the time to buy everything.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Well, that's my recommendation if you're interested in traveling, you know,
if you're not interested in traveling, of course, then go
for the cash best cash back that you can get.
But like I was just interviewing one of my members,
she's on the my podcast this week, and she's a
you know, five person, and she was saying she'd always
used her city double cash and she thought she was

(11:40):
doing really great, and you know, maybe she ended up
with a thousand two thousand dollars at the end of
the year cash back, but now she saved eight thousand
dollars on trips they would never have taken or even
known how to do. And how those two don't even compare.
So really, the way I teach it is so you

(12:01):
don't have to, like again, have a wall of cards
and be like, Okay, I use this card for gas,
and I use this card for groceries, and I use
this card for dining. You know what I mean. It's
designed to be simple, and so if you can pick
one or two cards that you just use for your
everyday spending, I think that just simplifies it for a
lot of people. And then you just are constantly accumulating miles,

(12:22):
and certainly you know you can if you could get
a bonus on a card with a bunch of travel miles,
that's going to be better than two percent cash back,
of course, but you know, and it's just sort of
personal preference, Like if you are going to get more
value out of six percent on your MX Blue cash
on groceries and you want to do that, we'll do that,
you know. But if you want to just keep it

(12:43):
simple and just be like, well, I'm going to pick
between these two cards and just use that for everything.
That's generally what we're advising nice to do because people
we're busy, you.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Know, sure, yeah, simple aspect doesn't necessarily need to be
a part time job, and so you can can I
tease to the sign up buses And I definitely want
to ask you some more about that here in a bit,
but so can you just basically or quickly kind of
outline it sounds like you've kind of you've got this
very simplified three card method. What cards are you using

(13:15):
and how are you able to use the cards and
specifically those points to allow you to travel for free.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
The beginning of my process focuses on Southwest Airlines because
they have the best program, loyalty program to allow you
to fly it as many places as you want and
bring your whole family with you. It's the simplest and
you get the most value out of it. So we
teach people how to first earn the Southwest Companion Pass,

(13:46):
and you can do that by applying for two Southwest cards,
so that's really one and two, and the Southwest Companion
Pass allows you to bring one person with you on
any Southwest flight you take while you hold this pass
for free free airfare, you pay the five dollars and
sixty cent security fee that none of us can get around.

(14:08):
So eleven dollars and twenty cents.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
So we caught you land. It's not totally free.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
I know.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
I can't tell you how many times I hear that,
So I have to make sure I say there is
a security fee. It's the airfare is free, but you
have to pay the security fee. Yeah, but you know whatever,
I'll pay eleven bucks any day for a flight. Sure,
So that person can fly as many times as you
want to fly while you hold the pass, and the
pass is good from the time you earn it until

(14:33):
the end of the following year. So we try to
get our people on a system so they have it
for almost two full years at a time. Because Southwest
kind of the way they word it, they want to
tell you you need to be re earning it every year.
It's kind of funny how they word it, like, yeah,
I have one this year, but I need to be
re earning the points again for next year's, which is

(14:54):
not how you want to do it.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, technically you can, so, I mean, it's a two
year benefit, right, So whatever year you earn it, you
have it for the remainder of that year, but then
the following year as well. That's funny.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
The worst case scenarios you get it in November December
and you don't get that till two years in market.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Well, and even like I there's a lot of discussion
out there about that, like, well, I only want to
get it if I can have it for almost two
full years, and that is the ideal, and we get
you on that. But like, if let's just say it's
September and if you could get this pass in November,
you'd have a free flight in December, well get it,
because if that's going to save you the cost of

(15:30):
that flight, you're going to have it the following year,
and then we'll get you on our system to always
have it for two years kind of a deal. So
we start with that, because there's no better deal going
than eliminating the cost of one member of your family
completely in points. You don't pay any points for them,
and in dollars. And then we show you southwester there's
just a lot of tricks you can play with them
to pay fewer points per flight, just the way that

(15:53):
their system is laid out inevitably, like on a Delta
or an American or United you're probably gonna end up
paying around twenty five thousand miles round trip. If it's
beyond driving distance, you might be able to find a
better deal here and there, but for the most part,
that's what you're gonna I mean Southwest now not always,
not during super busy times, but I mean we regularly

(16:15):
fly for we just saw people get three thousand point
round trip flights in October when they not in October,
it was just a couple months ago when they had
a sale.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Was I joked on that one? Yeah, I think I
got round trip to New York City from Atlanta for
I want to say, fifty six hundred points or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
Not bad exactly. So like how many you could take
five of those for twenty five thousand points that you
would likely pay on another airline, So you can get
way more trips in you're eliminating the cost of one person.
And like we you know, the Southwest always has where
if you book them in points, really if you book

(16:53):
in cash too, but and the price goes down, you
can rebook that flight at no cost and get the
difference put back in your account. So with cash you
would get a credit, which we don't love. So we
always teach people to book Southwest in points. But if
you're booking in points and so, like we save tens
of thousands of points just checking to see if the
price has gone down after we book it, wow, and

(17:15):
getting points put back in our account because there's they
charge no change fees, they charge no cancel fees, so
you can even like like your flight from Atlanta, New York,
you could have grabbed that, not sure if you would
take it or not, and if you ended up not
taking it, you just cancel it and points go right
back in your account.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
That's one of the one of the benefits with the
Southwest because I mean, and I've seen you talk about
this as well, and specifically I guess kind of going
back to the companion pass, but we're kind of comparing
Southwest to Delta and some of the other carriers, Like, yeah,
you can get a companion pass with Delta, but it
is far inferior to the offerings that that Southwest. Can
you kind of talk about that and some of the

(17:52):
other advantages that Southwest has over the other airlines.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Yes, and I have a whole podcast on just that
the difference between Southwest companion Pass and Delta and Alaska's
because so many people go, oh, but Delta has a
companion pass. Yeah, so Delta's is one time only and
you have to pay for your seat in dollars, whereas
and then you can add your companion for free. Whereas

(18:18):
on Southwest you can pay for your seat in points
and add your companion for free. And that's what we teach.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
You, how to do an unlimited number of.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Times, unlimited number of times.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Until until that thing runs that which is incredible, I mean,
and that's obviously. One of the benefits of points as well,
is that they never expire. I will mention I'm more
of a travel points kind of new but I only
realized this recently. But for some reason, I thought that
you had to like, quote unquote spend your points in
order to receive the companion pass. But it's not about

(18:49):
how many points you actually have in your account. It's
about how many points you've earned over that period of time,
and you can still use those points to book your
own travel. It's just that they go towards At this point.
Now it's a hundred and third five thousand points in
order to score that companion passes. Is that Am I
understanding it correctly?

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Right? Yeah? So, and that is a common thing that
a lot of people think when they're first learning about this.
So you you have to collect one hundred and thirty
five thousand points within one calendar year, so a lot
of people mess that up to between January first and
December thirty first. Otherwise the number of qualifying points you
have starts at zero again on January first the next year.

(19:26):
So but you just it's just about you said, the collecting.
You just got to collect them, it's not about spending.
So as soon as they are collected, they count toward
your companion pass and then you can use them to
book flights. And that doesn't mean you lose their qualifications
toward companion pass either. And it's like a double bonus.
So you're collecting one hundred and thirty five thousand points,

(19:48):
you get a companion pass to bring someone free, and
then you use your one hundred and thirty five thousand
points to book everybody else in your family. And then
there's so many ways to stretch those one hundred and
thirty five thousand points across many many flights. You could
choose to fly to Hawaii over Christmas and that probably
will take the whole one hundred and thirty five thousand,

(20:08):
or you can. Like what we did at the beginning
in particular, is we just looked for where is it
cheap to fly to from Indianapolis that we haven't been
that we'd like to see, And so that's how we started.
We're like, well, kids haven't seen New York City, Let's
go out there. Kids haven't seen the Rocky Mountain, Let's
go out there. We've never been to Disneylands. We did that,
and so that's a way to save too. It's just
by picking places that are cheap.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yes, I love that too. Letting the deal drive the destination,
whether you're paying in dollars or points, is a really
good way to think about it instead of being like,
oh man, I got to get here during this date,
this specific time period. Well, if you can be a
little more flexible about where you're going, like, yeah, I'll
take any of these cool ten destinations you're going to
in all likelihood be able to pay less, whether it's yeah,

(20:52):
points or dollars. But Linn, we've got more questions. We
want to get to with you. We want to go
even beyond Southwest because they're great. But what if you
want to go to Europe like you just did. We'll
talk about that, We'll talk about sign up bonuses, all
that kind of stuff. Well, we'll get to more with
Lynn right after this.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
All right, we are back from the break talking with
Lynn Mettler of Families Fly Free and Linn. So correct
me if I'm wrong, But it sounded like maybe you
have a three pronged approach when it comes to flying
for free. Is do you count multiple Southwest cards as
one of those prongs or do multiple cards count as
part of that three card approach? Can you basically explain

(21:36):
to us the rest of the rest of your approach
for keeping things simple as families are trying to get
their family places for free?

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Right, So yeah, I count those two cards. Those are
first two, and then then the next part is really
just picking the right card for your travel goals, picking
a flexible travel card to focus on. And this is
where I think a lot of people mess up. So
many people come to me and they're putting all their

(22:04):
spinding on an airline card. Pick your airline, doesn't matter.
Could be Southwest too, and the problem with that is
you're earning a point only in that currency, so you
can only use it with Delta. You can only use
it with Southwest, and mostly on those cards, you don't
earn very many points per dollar in most categories of spending,

(22:24):
so you're gonna earn more when you buy something with Delta.
But the whole idea here is for you to not
have to buy anything with Delta, so that shouldn't help you,
So we recommend picking a flexible travel card. So like
I really like Chase Sapphire Preferred, I also like Capital
one Venture X. Both of those systems, the Chase Ultimate
Rewards and the Capital one Venture system work very well

(22:49):
and so you are going to accumulate more points per
dollar and different categories of spending. Capital one system gives
you two points per dollar on everything, which is nice
and simple. It's just a flat two points, whereas Chase
a Fire Preferred, you're going to get two points per
dollar on travel, three points per dollar on dining and
some other categories. So you're getting more points per dollar,

(23:09):
and you're getting a flexible point that you can use
wherever you need it. So the Chase system is great
in working with Southwest. So if you want to if
you need more Southwest points, you just accumulate them over
in Chase and then you move them over to Southwest.
You know, you can move your points to United. You
can move it to get free hotels days at Hyatt
and Marriott and the Intercontinental Hotels Group. But better yet,

(23:34):
you can use They have their own travel portal. So
just like booking on an Expedia or something like that,
you can go in and use your points to book
almost any airline and almost any hotel within their system.
And so that makes things infinitely simple, so you know,
versus like trying to fly to Europe and collect Singapore

(23:56):
Airlines miles and then use those miles to book in
UNI because it's cost you less, and then you have
to look for an award seat and you hope that
it pops up on a flight that you want to take.
You know, that's not my jam. So I am looking
for simple. I can go in these systems, I can
book If I want to book a first class flight

(24:16):
with my points, I can do that. If I want
to book the NonStop, I can do it. If I
want to find a cheaper one, that's an option too,
and Capital One works very similarly, and it's even more
flexible in that you can book directly with the airline,
so I could. That's what we did with our Europe trip,
is we booked a flight directly with Delta. We paid

(24:37):
for it with that card, and then they have a
way you can use your points to erase or pay
for if you will that charge.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Nice. Well, I think your approach is great because it
does keep it simple, and I think that's what keeps
a lot of folks from kind of going down the
path of trying to find ways to utilize these points
in these miles in order to travel for free, because
it seems so daunting and overwhelming. But you mentioned I
love your approach. How your third car does either the
Chase Saffire I preferred or the Capitol one venture X
to kind of fill in all the little nooks and

(25:05):
crannies after you are maybe knocking out the bulk of
your spending with the Southwest cards. What specific Southwest cards,
by the way, are you liking these days? Is it
the Plus one or I forget the names of the cards,
but do you have a recommendation there?

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Yeah, so they have business cards. There's two business cards
and then they have I just call them personal cards
to differentiate them from business cards. But there's three personal cards.
So and here's the thing with travel credit cards is yes,
we do this keeps it really simple, but there's still
all kind of rules and that you have to know
about how then you can get cards, and you know

(25:41):
how many cards Chase will let you have and how
much time you need to leave before applying for another one,
that kind of stuff. So, for example, Southwest has the
three personal cards. You can hold only one of those
cards at a time and you can get the bonus
on those once every twenty four months, so you're limited
to one there. So there are three, and we recommend

(26:04):
either the one with the cheapest annual fee, which is
sixty nine dollars, So if you're looking to not outlet,
you know, outlay as little as possible to do this,
that would be the best option, but it has really
no perks with it, or the most expensive one, which
is the Priority and that one's one forty nine annual fee,
but it comes with a lot of great perks. So

(26:25):
on Southwest. The downside of flying them is they don't
give you your seating assignment in advance, so we have
all kinds of ways we teach you to mitigate that.
But so the perks that you get primarily with this
priority card give you like earlier boarding orders, which mean
you can pick your seat sooner, or it checks you
in earlier, which also gives you an early boarding order.

(26:48):
So if seating is important to you, you might want
to opt for the one with the perks. And if
you don't care about that, then we tell people go
with the cheap one, the middle one. There's really no
benefit to having it pay a higher annual fee, and
you really don't you get no international transaction fees.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
With dis Okay, yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Talk talk about sign up bonuses versus getting rewarded based
on just the spending you're doing day in and day out.
And there's so much chatter, so much excitement, so much
of the time about oh, the sign up bonus, the
sixty thousand or the seventy five thousand or even more
sometimes points or whatever that I'm getting when I actually
get the credit card and meet that initial spending threshold.

(27:29):
How important is that versus just the regular spending you're
doing every day, day and day out and sticking it
on those cards, so it's.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
You know, it's a combination of the two. So I
don't want to say we aren't ever going for the
card bonuses, because you do need to do that from
time to time, but we really limit it. We don't.
The industry term is churning, which we don't recommend at all.
So that means constantly opening, closing, open, and closing. So
you do want to get as big a bonus as
you can. Of course, when you're first opening these cards,

(28:01):
you know that you might as well rack up as
many points as you can, and that really comes into
play when you're earning the Companion pass. You can get
two card bonuses. Then you're close to or all the
way to the one hundred and thirty five thousand points
you need Companion Pass done, you know, and you got
one hundred and thirty five thousand points to start you off,

(28:23):
and then you want to get a bonus on whatever
your everyday spending card ends up being. And you know,
some people like the AMEX system that would be another example,
or city they have a flexible travel system. But after
that you can just focus on continuing to put your
everyday spending on this flexible card. Or some people work

(28:43):
with two cards. You know, it just depends on what
you're up for. And we have found so you know,
I've been doing this with my membership for We're on
three years now and so we've had hundreds of members
go through this. When you follow this system, I mean
we have people saving five thousand, eight thousand, ten twelve
thousand dollars on travel just by doing this. So it

(29:07):
absolutely can be done without continuing to add a bonus.
And you know, another thing that's part of my system
is you do need We do recommend you always have
a companion pass. So that means two years in the
future you're going to need to get another one and
then you're going to get another chunk of one hundred
and thirty five thousand points. So that helps too, you know,
like keeps replenishing your balance on top of your every

(29:28):
day spending.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
So okay, So is that a good reason. So let's
say you've got a partner, a spouse, is this a
good argument then for not adding them as an authorized
user to that card and instead having them apply for that,
say that Southwest card two years off into the future.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
So yeah, So one thing we tell all of our
people is not to add spouses as authorized users. Now,
that doesn't prevent your partner or traveling companion, spouse, whatever
from that card themselves. So even if you didn't know
this and they're already an authorized user on your card,
that's okay. They can still get their own version of

(30:08):
that card. But going forward, we don't recommend doing that
because I don't think there's any need these days for that,
like unless you physically need to have the card, and
almost everywhere now takes Google Pay or Apple Pay and
you can just add it to your partner's Apple Pay

(30:28):
and pay for it that way. If you need to
use that card.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
To have an actual separate device that allows you to
make purchases in person.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Right, yeah, Like if you need to put it on
that card and you don't physically have two of that
card because that person's not an authorized user, that's a
way around it. But again, like for Southwest, we're not
recommending you're putting your every day spending on that. You
just meet your minimum spend and then you move on
from that card occasionally, like if you really needed to
have your everyday spending card, both of you need to

(30:55):
have that, that would be the one to do it on.
That one every day spending card. You're flexible travel card
if you just I don't know, Kroger doesn't have Apple
pay where I livery, I don't know why get with
it Kroger. But you know, that would be an example
where you might both need to have the card. But
the reason for this is we deal a lot in
the Chase system, and Chase limits you to five. They

(31:19):
won't approve you for any Chase cards if you've opened
five cards of any type in the last twenty four months.
So we see a lot of people you know that
have opened you know, Kohl's or Home Depot or Old
maybe when you get sucked in at the checkout and
they're like open a car today and you get fifteen percent.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Off or whatever the worst cards you can get.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Basically, yes, don't do that, but everyone makes that mistake
at some point, so you'll now you know now not
to do that, But that counts as one of your five. Basically,
it's limiting your ability to get travel cards down the road,
and so being an authorized user counts as one of
those five. So that's why you want to be careful
with that. You just don't want to limit yourself way
if it's not needed.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Kind of like a real estate investor not having you know,
too many loans. If you get husband and wife together,
two people living on the same household a limit your
ability to get mortgages. It's yeah, getting complex yet, but
okay tell me this, Lynn. I want to know about
business credit cards, because that is you mentioned Southwest has
some business credit cards and individuals can sometimes get business

(32:25):
credit cards. Are those something that people should be pursuing
instead of just personal cards? Is a little bit of
both or how how do you recommend people use some
of those those business cards specifically to help them achieve
these travel goals.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, I absolutely recommend business cards and realize there are
small business cards. So I think a lot of people
here business card and they think, well, I don't have
a corporation or I don't have an LLC, so I
don't I for sure don't qualify for that, and they
just don't even think about it ever again. And really
all that means is that you have any kind of
side income that's not salary income, so you know that

(33:02):
literally can it could be having real estate for sure,
I see a lot of people miss that or you know,
owning vacation rental or you know, it can be walking dogs,
it can be selling things on eBay. And we have
families who before they go to Disney, they have a
garage sale and sell their toys that they're not using
anymore and they use that to help fund, you know,
maybe buy souvenirs or whatever fund their Disney trip. That's

(33:22):
a legit side income that would qualify for a small business.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
So I doesn't seem like a quote unquote Wall Street business,
but yes, it doesn't have to be exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah, that's the whole thing. And so if you don't
open your mind to that, you miss out on a
lot of potential travel savings because a lot of those
cards have the better offers and so and we do
what the companion pass want to pair two cards and
you can only get one personal card. So you do
need to be open to getting a small business card.

(33:54):
They they are sometimes a little bit more strict on
their approvals, and so they will they might decline you
more often, but not for a reason like something's wrong
with your credit. I've just found that they tend to
chase in particular, I think does like a random check
and I think they just randomly decline a third of people,
and then they have you submit this paperwork and there's

(34:16):
an easy way around. It's not around it, but to
satisfy that requirement basically, then you're approved and then you
move on. And so everyone that we help get the
small business card has been able to get it unless
there would be some other like a credit issue or
something like that, or they are outside the five twenty
four or something to that effect.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, that's sometimes the case. Oftentimes that's the case, and
yet another reason why you need to be taken care of,
taking care of your credit score to make sure you
can apply for some of these better offerings that are
out there. But awesome, I'm glad that we've covered some
of these specific cards. We'll make sure to list some
of these out for folks. I feel like we've talked
through a lot of details regarding some of the different
business cards, the different Southwest cards.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
But this is a great approach.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Lynn, I want to talk specifically about a destination Disney
specifically because there's been a lot of reports of just
these record low crowds at Disney lately. It seems like
demained is down because of that. Have you seen any
deals at either of the Disney resorts. Basically, I'm wondering
if now it's a good time to book, because you

(35:19):
were talking earlier about you know, we're talking like the
golden rule of travel, right, letting the deal drive the destination.
How closely do you follow different trends like this that
you are seeing, in particular when it comes to a
place like Disney.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Well, I followed Disney very closely because I personally love
Disney and someplace again my family likes to go, and
I would say probably a third of our members are
interested in Disney. And I actually just to my email list,
but created a product that shows you how to do
Disney for free using travel rewards. So I took the

(35:54):
same approach I've done with travel rewards overall a overwhelming,
sometimes complicated lots of information and dialed it into a
simple process. I've kind of done the same thing for Disney.
So Disney, you know, I have seen these things about
crowds are down. I mean it's the middle of summer.
There as horrible.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
I mean I wouldn't ever, as Joel knows, he's just there,
He's stay back in weeks down in Orlando. Well's house
was getting worked on, so June July in Orlando's not
the best.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
No, And we have never gone during that time period
because we lived in South Carolina for a minute and
boy the heat. So yeah, we avoided it. So I
think a lot of people do avoid it at this
time of year because of that. And it's become where
Disney is more popular like almost every other time of year,
like we've been, I feel like in every other month
but summer, and there's just always packed. So I don't really,

(36:48):
in my personal opinion, think there's going to be a
downturn at Disney. But we'll see. They are offering deals
right now to book directly at the resorts. You can
get like twenty five to thirty five percent off. I
think it's uh. There's some like late summer deals, and
then there's some like October through December deals right now.
But you can actually book Disney resorts, you can book

(37:11):
off property, you can book vacation rentals, you can use
travel rewards to do all of that. It's literally as
possible to do Disney for free now from start to finish.
Whether you'd want to do that, you might want to
use your travel rewards in other ways, like I like
to really focus on making sure all of our flights
are for free, and then if we can get some
free hotel stays on top of that, we'll do some

(37:32):
of that. But if you're a family just wants to
plan this amazing Disney vacation, you know you could literally
do it. You can get your dining free, It's kind
of nuts.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Can you get entrance into the park for free? Too?

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (37:44):
You can, Okay, tell me about that.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah, So if you you can use you know, a
card that like the Capital one system. That basically the
way it works is it lets you use the miles
that you've collected over there to pay for any travel expense.
So if you can get the park tickets to This
is a little bit in the details too, so sorry,

(38:07):
but to categorize like the merchant category to be travel. Normally,
if you buy direct from Disney, it's entertainment, That's how
it comes up. But if you buy through a travel
agent or a site like Undercover Tourist, that will.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Category travel and so then you can get your points
to count towards those purchases exactly, effectively erasing it. That's
good stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yeah, there's a lot of little tips and tricks and
hacks at Disney even you know, on how to say,
like I just was did a webinar on most people
think about, like how do I cobble together all these
little discounts. Well, you can do that, I mean the
big ones like oh, free water, you can go anywhere
and get free water at Disney, right, you can do that,
or you can learn how to just cover the whole

(38:53):
thing in its entirety with travel rewards, which just pales
in comparison, because like the average cost right now now
to go to Disney is on the cheap end, forty
eight hundred on the expensive end, this for family for
ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Wow, easily.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yeah, that's a huge savings.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
It's like Cuponic for catchup versus travel awards in Jet.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Again, there are way more zeros at the end of
that Disney trip than Disney cookies.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
It more and more expensive, so the need to figure
out a way to make it doable is becoming more
and more important, you.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Know, sure, that's right. Yeah, Well, okay, so we're gonna
We've got a few more questions for you, specifically regarding
I guess some of the other ways that folks can
vacation other places that they might want to fly to
and we will get to those questions right after this break.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
We're back from the break. We're still talking with Lynn
Metler about family travel for free. And Lynn, Matt and
I we were just remarking the other day about this
new cruise ship that just launch. I don't know if
you saw it. It's called Icon of the Seas. It's got
twenty decks something. I mean, it looks like a city
floating on the water. It looks like a Disney theme park,

(40:09):
like smushed onto a boat. Basically, basically it's kind of preposterous.
But speaking when we saw that, we were like, well, well,
let's ask Lynn about getting a deal on a cruise
or cruising for free. I know a lot of people
you specialize in flying hotels, day stuff like that, but
what about cruises, Like, do you have any tips for
people who want to get out on the water, And yeah,

(40:29):
that's the way they prefer to travel.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
So I'm not a cruiser, but a lot of my
followers are, and so we do talk about cruising. There
aren't a ton of great ways to save on a cruise.
You can kind of use my trick there on Disney
to pay for a cruise and use a card like
that that erases travel purchases. That would be a way
that you could go at it, you know. And there's

(40:51):
other things about like certain times of year that are
better to book cruises than others. But Disney cruises are
very expensive as well but popular. So a cruising isn't
my favorite thing to do. It's nice in that you
get to see a lot of places in a short
amount of time, but I don't know. We like more
of the We like about every other kind of trip

(41:14):
except for except for a cruise. That's one thing that
we don't.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Len's Cup I've never done. Yeah either, but.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Good people watching, I'll say that I.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Feel like it would be I've only partially. There's a
couple I'd love to do. I want to do an
Alaskan cruise someday because I hear you can get views
of Alaska that you can't get from them from the mainland.
But for the most part I'm not interested either.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yeah, European River cruise, that one's also would be of
interest to me. Haven't done that yet, but I think
that would be good on a small boat.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
So Okay, so we're talking about cruises, are there some
other From a trends standpoint, have you seen or noticed
deals when it comes to different destinations, like, for instance,
seeing some different headlines as well as far as more
folks going to Europe. Everyone's done the local US thing
after the pandemic. Everyone's got their road trips in, they've
seen all the national parks. Is travel to Europe more expensive?

(42:01):
Is it more affordable now to go down to the Caribbean?
Have you noticed anything like that?

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Well, I mean, Europe prices are through the roof right now.
So the average flight to Europe is twelve hundred dollars,
and you know it's we were just in Paris, but
it's definitely it's bursting at the seams in places like
Rome and Venice and Paris and all of that. Like
I think everyone this summer went international. So I keep

(42:28):
reading stories about Airbnb suffering because they're not having as
many bookings because everyone's overseas right now. You know, national
parks have been, you know, continually at capacity. We have
started to avoid those now because you have to have
so many reservations. And even when you go, like I
feel like we're on hikes and we're like backing up
against rocks to let people through, and that's not what

(42:49):
you want. The whole idea is to be out in
nature and get away. So I'm kind of ready for
that to kind of slow down, you know, people to
get over hitting all these major national parks. But I mean,
in terms of deals, I try to look at where
is everybody not going right now? So, like I always
talk about spring break because everyone wants to go to

(43:10):
Florida or the Caribbean. Because I live in Indiana. It
gets cold here. We've about had it by January, you know,
but we try and so we're like, please, we need
to get somewhere warm. But what we've done in the past,
it's just expensive to go anywhere in Florida or anything
over spring break. Is like one year we went to
Utah and we did hike you know, Zion and Bryce

(43:31):
Canyon because it was warm enough there that we could
do it, and then there was nobody there. So if
you can kind of take that approach of going where
everybody else is not thinking of going, that's a way
you can score you know, some better deals.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Okay, is it possible to get deals on airbnbs, like
to pay little to nothing for an airbnb? Stand it
seems like it's easier for hotels because you can book
them through something like the Capitol One or Chase Portal
or you know, they even have hotel specific cards like
the Intercontinental Hotel Group Premier Card or something like that,

(44:07):
which can be pretty rewarding. But so it seems like
it's easier to get free hotel stays. But what about
staying free at Airbnb? Is that possible?

Speaker 3 (44:15):
So you can you can use again that the trick.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Of a travel expense.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Okay, very careful over there, because I think Airbnb codes
as travel and traditionally like Verbo and some of the
others did not. Now just I had a one of
my team members she booked a Verbo in the last
couple months and hers did categorize as travel. But you
just kind of never know for sure how that's going

(44:42):
to categorize. Airbnb seems to be a safe one that
you can use. And also when it comes to hotel stays,
like flying free is the easiest of it all. You
can just fly a whole lot more places for free
than you will ever be able to stay for free.
So when I have people that, like, I don't people
to think they're always going to be able to stay
for free. You should be able to get some free

(45:05):
hotel stays, but not always. And like in Families f Libory,
we try to teach people not just how to get
flights free and stay free, but how to save on
the whole trip. Because even if we can fly free
six times a year, there's a lot of other expenses
that come with that, like car rentals and eating out
and the activities. So we try to show people here's

(45:26):
how to get the best deal on a car rental,
and or we talk about renting other people's time shares
as a good option where you're out of pocket but
it's very cheap. So that could be an alternative to
booking end points at a hotel and you get you know,
the space of a vacation rental.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
You know, can I can I ask where you would
book somebody's timeshare? Would that be like through vacation dot
com or something like that.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Well, you can do that. The better thing to do
is if you can find someone to work direct with,
So like we let our members, we have a lot
of timeshare members in there, like with Wyndham and Marriott
and Disney Vacation Club, which I'm a member of.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
To.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
And so if you can work direct with someone, you
cut out the middleman because they're going to take their cut,
right sure, So like Koala is a site I'm trying
to think with the other there's another big one out
there that you can do time shares, but it's more
expensive that way because they're taking their middleman cut. So
if you can there's like Facebook groups and some different ways,
or if you just know someone that you can work

(46:23):
directly with, that's a way you can really score a
deal and you can't use points for that one, but
it'll be cheap, you know.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Now, that's great. Yeah, again, just another way to kind
of think outside the box and avoid doing whatever it
is that everybody else is doing, whether that's the destination
like Europe, certainly avoid that right now. But also when
it comes to maybe your lodging wherever it is that
you're looking to stay. But Lynn, one last question here
for you, like, what do you think are some of
the just honestly the biggest mistakes that folks make when

(46:52):
they are trying to travel for free? Right, So this
isn't just the folks who are out there just say Okay,
I'm gonna go on vacation I'm going to book it.
But folks who are actually trying to do it on
the cheap, folks who are trying to find find those
different deals, what mistakes are those folks making and how
is it they can avoid this pitfalls?

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Well, when it comes to travel rewards, I think people
learn about this concept and they're like, oh my gosh,
this is amazing, Like I did this same thing right,
and so you're like, you see all these card offers
out there and they have a limited time, like and
I got sucked into like an American Airlines one, right,
but I had no plan for how I was going
to use those miles, didn't know anything about it. I

(47:30):
was like, oh, that's that's high bonus and it's going away.
And so I think the mistake is not having a
plan right. You need to figure out where you want
to go and and how how many points and in
what system do you need to get there, and then
you can decide, Okay, then what cards do I want
to add into the system, Because that's how you end

(47:51):
up with all these extra cards that you that get
overwhelming and confusing, you know, is when you're just don't
have a strategy right, randomly taking offer so I think
that's a big one. And the other one that I
would tell everyone to make sure you're not doing is
is putting all your spending on an airline card. I
just see that one over and over and over and

(48:11):
over again, and just that little shift to a flexible
card can make a huge difference in your ability to
be a lot more flexible and earn a whole lot
more points.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Len, that's awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Thanks for all the advice and the tips today. We
really appreciate it. How can how do money listeners find
out more about you and what you're up to?

Speaker 3 (48:35):
Sure? So you can go to familiesflyfree dot com and
pretty much everywhere on social media. We are just Families
fly Free. So I'm particularly on Instagram and YouTube. Those
are probably my top two places if you want to
check us out there, awesome.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
We will make sure to link to that and all
that you've got to offer. Lynn, thank you so much
for joining us today on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Thank you appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
We appreciate Linn, don't we Joel, Yes, we do, manus
so info. I feel like Lynn was able to put
into perspective travel rewards and traveling for free in a
way that we in a way that we quite haven't
been able to decipher maybe from previous guests. Uh. And
so my big takeaway is gonna be just kind of
how she boiled it all down to a very simple approach,

(49:19):
and she kind of, I guess hit on it again
there at the end as far as sort of the
biggest pitfall to avoid is that people start chasing some
of these rewards without a plan, right, without a system.
And she actually said to kind of choose to.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Think of like someone running at three mile race or
something like that, if you call out in the first
two miles, sorry, it doesn't matter how big of a
lead you built up. If you're exhausted, then then you're
gonna lose. Or in reality, if you don't even know
that you're running a five k but it turns out,
oh shoot, this is a marathon. Yeah, it's a it's
a completely different approach. And she said to kind of
figure out where it is that you're wann to fly,
but you don't always know I guess where it is

(49:53):
that you're gonna fly, and you don't always know where
the deals are gonna be. But then she followed that
up with find a system, figure out a system that's
gonna work for you. And that's I think what's so
great about how she approaches this and to specifically get
that companion pass with Southwest, how that can essentially knock
out eighty percent of your cost right there, your ability
to fly I mean Southwest. They don't only fly in

(50:14):
the US, but also up in what Canada some Mexico
destinations to the Caribbean. Can't get to Paris, you can't
get everywhere, but that that'll at least for a lot
of domestic stuff and for the best deals on domestic airfare,
Southwest is going to be And it's nobody less point.
You're gonna use so many less of the points that
you earned. Yes, when you fly on Southwest with some
of the other.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Airacome did the math. It's like you're talking about maybe
five flights for every one Delta flight, and so how
much is flying with delton? Hey, we're here in Atlanta, right,
so we're like Delta. Homer's here. We like Delta. They're
a great company. But is it worth five times Is
it worth paying five times more effectively in points? Would
you rather take four more flights in addition to that one,

(50:56):
maybe that's what it is that you're looking for. Ultimately
comes down to whatever aim it is that you're playing,
but I really like her approach, specifically focusing on Southwest
and figuring that out and then figuring out your destinations
from there.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
And then yeah, like you said, filling in the nooks
and crannies with that flexible car English muff, and how
when you spread the butter over the top, that butter
is going to seep into those boxs and crannies. And
that's what those other cards are for the Capitol One,
venture X and the Chastaffire Preferred. So if you just
kind of take that three or four card strategy that
she's mentioning, you can get a lot of your bases covered,
and you can travel a lot for free, even if

(51:28):
you have a family, which I think rocks so absolutely.
We'll link to some of those, by the way, the
show notes, we'll link to our credit card tool as well,
which can help you see what the best sign up
bonuses are on each of these cards. Although that's right,
that's not even the only thing worth considering, but it
is worth considering that. At the same time, our my
big takeaway though from Lynn was let me hear it,
she's it was kind of a mindset thing at the
very beginning. She said, my approach is how much can

(51:48):
I get for how little? And to me that is
kind of uh got you written all over it. She's
not necessarily looking for the cheapest piece of crap, which
I used to be more in that kind of vein
that mentality. But she's a value us and she's saying, listen,
I want to take the same trip, or maybe even
a better trip than most people get to take, but
I don't want to spend my cold hard cash on

(52:11):
that trip. And I thought it was amazing too. She
doesn't come from this place where she was already traveling,
but now she's saving. This process enabled her to travel
and do things she never thought were even possible. So
I think that's pretty cool and that you'd been inspiring
to a lot of people out there who are like
I too, wish I could travel, but it doesn't seem
like there's any way for me to make that happen.
And I think her simple strategy can help a lot

(52:32):
of people get out there and see the country and
even see the world while still kind of keeping a
pretty good budget and saving and investing a good bit
of their money.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Yeah. Yeah, you could either drastically cut back on your
travel budget and travel just as much as you were before,
or you could continue spending how much you have been
spending and just see a you know and do and
travel a lot more. It kind of again depends on
what your situation is and how much money you're willing
to put towards travel. But Joel mentioned the beer that

(53:01):
you and I got to share during this episode. This
is another halfway Crooks beer. And I think the way
that you say this is Cha said DJ. So literally
says that on that side.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Like.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
You're supposed to say it as Chase the DJ. But
so this is an Italian style pilsner, and it's Cha,
said d DJ, Like not DJ, Yeah, it's like Chase
a DJ. Yeah almost. Oh what does that mean?

Speaker 1 (53:27):
I forget.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Season the day.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
Spanish is rusty, So this is I guess in Italian.
But if only we were drinking it on the Amalfi
coast or something like that, I would.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Think, if only we had a way of figuring out
how to get there, fly there for free what we do.
But this is the kind of beer that I want
to be drinking while enjoying a nice pizza, like a
Neapolitana style. Right, so's you got that brick or another
brick oven, but but a wood burning oven, and they've
got the pizza in there, the rotating it around, maybe

(53:56):
a little bit of spice. Because of that, you need
just a nice, cold, but very clean drinking beer.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
I don't want's what you get with this in I
p A. You don't want the like the you know,
massive hot punch to come right after that massive pizza punch.
You want something a little more dialed back. This is
exactly that. This did have flavor though, Like it wasn't
flavorless like a lot of the macro style pills nurs.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
This one.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
This had a lot going on unlike the macro pills
nerves that most people just like water. Yeah, it was
like sweat or what it tastes like your uncle used
to smell. Right, and so this is glad.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
You follow that up.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
This is much more refined than the traditional pilsner you're
used to, the.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Macro produced Italian so it's kind of got that euro
pills flavor. I don't know how to describe it, like, well,
maybe I do like it reminds me of like the
fresh garden hose or fresh popping open a fresh can
of tennis balls, sort of like that. Maybe that like
that slight rubberiness that wine drinkers that you sometimes you
get with like a reasling. I think that's accurate. I

(54:54):
don't know if. I don't know if if the wine
part is accurate, but that sort of rubber element is
totally what I taste. But yeah, I totally agree this.
You don't want to drink of super flavorful beer, Like
the last thing you want is a barrel aged spicy
stout or something like that when you're eating a pizza
or honestly any food. I rarely drink great beers when
I'm eating great now. If I am, I want it

(55:15):
after the fact. It's something really basic. I tend to
enjoy my beers either before dinner or after I eat. Yeah,
just like you. So it makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Otherwise you're losing some of the greatness and the flavor
of that beer, totally getting lost in the food.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
That's right. Yeah, So glad you and I got to
enjoy this one, and I'm glad that we got to
chat with our friend Lynn Metler today, will make sure
to link to not only her site and where you
can check out her membership program, the Famili's Fly Free group.
She's got an awesome cohort there. But we'll link to
some of the specific cards that we mentioned as well,
so that you can start along this path of taking

(55:49):
advantage of some of the different travel rewards that these
cards are offering. Jill, I really do see more travel
in our future. I think you do as well. And
I think a large part of that is going to
be because of how it is that Lynn approaches travel. Yeah.
I just don't want to pay for it, right, So, yeah,
and I don't have to think about it too much.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
That's the other half of I don't want to complicate
it too much. Well, and some of the guys, some
of the influencers out there definitely do that Lind does not,
So all right, Matt, that's going to do it for
this episode. You can find show notes, links to some
of the cards we mentioned, links to lind site. Will
put all that up on the website at how to
money dot com. That's right, buddy, So that's gonna be
it until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Joel Larsgaard

Matthew Altmix

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Families Fly Free w/ Lyn Mettler (Bestie Ep) #1079