February 8, 2024 • 48 mins
Curious about how people use credit card points to fly free to bring down the cost of their trips to Disneyland? Today's guest, Owen, delves deep into the process of accruing points through daily expenses and the strategy of choosing the card that aligns with your spending habits and wanderlust goals. Owen's insights are a springboard into not just saving on flights and hotels but also unlocking a lifestyle of savvy, financially sound luxury travel.
Right now, our tools are just for Disneyland, but we hope to expand to other parks soon. Disney changes policies, prices, and shows often. Be sure to visit our website at Parkmagic.com or Disneyland's Website for more information.
Park Magic is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or Disney Enterprises, Inc. Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Mickey Mouse are all registered trademarks of Disney Enterprises, Inc. Any use of third-party names or trademarks is for identification purposes only and does not imply, nor is it intended to imply, any affiliation with, endorsement from, or business relationship with any third party, including with Walt Disney World, Disneyland, or Disney Enterprises, Inc.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm so excited for today's show because today we're
going to be talking aboutsomething that might save you
thousands of dollars on yourtrip to Disneyland and that you
can do multiple times.
I don't have a lot of gurus inmy life, but Owen is my credit
card points guru and hedefinitely helps me in a lot of
different ways, but he's made itso I've been able to travel all
over, including like a full,like 18 day trip to Costa Rica,
(00:22):
lots and lots of trips toDisneyland and Disney World
without having to pay forairfare or sometimes hotels and
sometimes both.
So, owen, thank you so much forcoming on the show.
Can you tell us a little bitabout you and what you do for
people?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Good morning, good to hear you again.
Sure yeah.
For those that don't know me,my name is Owen.
I am known as the pointspartner, and what I do is I help
individuals maximize theircredit card benefits, and I help
people get as many credit cardpoints and air miles as is
mathematically possible fortheir lifestyle, and then I
(00:59):
teach them how to use saidpoints efficiently.
In other words, I put people onbeds on planes for free.
That is what I do for a living.
So basically, anything thatstretches from credit card
credit points, miles, beds onplanes, airports, precheck,
(01:20):
global entry, clear loungeaccess, you name it that's kind
of my jam, yo.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
And you're really, really good at it.
We definitely went from gettingsome credit card points and
using it and having a little bitof freedom to.
You know, we have a friend'swedding.
We don't have to worry abouthow much that Chicago flight is
going to be, and if you're goingto Disneyland, the flights and
hotels will be a big chunk ofyour overall expense.
So if you can use points to geteither a free hotel or your
(01:52):
free flights, that might make ita trip that is not possible for
you possible.
Can we start with, like, whatdoes somebody need to have, like
either credit scores or incomeor spend, in order to even make
what we're going to talk aboutwork?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, let's, let's, let's we can even start before
that, which is your, yourlisteners, your crowd are trying
to get to Disney and back, andthe starting point is I can help
them do that for free.
That's, that's the mostimportant thing.
I think that a lot of peoplethat aren't familiar with credit
card points and air miles don'tsee the value in them.
They had a bad experience, theyweren't able to use them, they
(02:30):
didn't think the value of themwas very high, and I am here to
tell them that that is not thecase and to and to walk them
through that process.
Everyone, if you are spending adollar on groceries every week,
that is a free flight that youcan take, and it's understanding
how it works and how to derivethe benefit from it.
(02:51):
That's the important part.
So I kind of want to grab theattention of everyone who's
listening to this.
You, whoever you are, you, aslong as you're alive, you're
eating.
If you're eating, you're buyingfood, and if you're buying food
, you're earning enough pointsthat, if you use them correctly,
you can fly to Disney and backfor free.
Not for free, for free, forfree.
Just to clarify, maybe there'llbe a flea on the plane and, by
(03:12):
the way, that flea wouldn't havepaid for it either.
Okay, so so that's the startingpoint.
So what's the bare bones of it?
What's the requirements?
Well, the first of all, you'vegot to have decent credit,
otherwise you can't get a creditcard on my website, right?
And what's decent credit?
Credit is not really judged bythe score.
That's more for you and I totalk about.
It's more about your creditprofile and I'm not going to
(03:34):
bore you to death with what thatall means.
But general rule of thumb, ifyou've got above a 700 in your
credit score, you're probably ingood shape to start getting
good credit cards on my website,right?
That's the starting point.
Then the next thing is whichcredit cards should you get?
There are a million to choosefrom.
They all are good and they allare bad for you, depending on
(03:58):
your situation.
People always they love wavingtheir credit cards in my face
and saying is this a good creditcard?
There is no such thing as agood credit card or a bad credit
card.
What there is is a good creditcard for you or a bad credit
card for you, depending on howmuch money you spend every month
, where you spend that money and, most importantly, what you're
going to do with those pointsonce you're given them free.
(04:19):
Travel is a very generic term.
Are you traveling alone?
Are you traveling with family?
Are you traveling in coach?
Are you traveling in businessclass?
Are you going one way?
Do you have certainrequirements?
Are there certain terminals,airports?
There's so many permutationsand that's why it's kind of a
minefield which I can kind ofwalk people through, all right.
So let's presume that the saidJoe blogs has got good credit.
(04:44):
Where did they start?
They start by.
You can go to my website,thepointspartnercom.
There's a bunch of freeresources there.
There's a free course that youcan watch that will start to
talk you down the path.
And then, once you've started,picking the credit cards that
are going to suit you best andthe easiest place to start is
where you spend the most money,which for most people is food
(05:06):
and drink grocery stores,supermarkets, cafes, bars,
coffee houses, delicatessants,food delivery.
Is this sounding familiar,robin?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yes, all things that we use and I think that's one of
the things that I learned inthe course is depending on what
you spend your money on.
That helps you determine whichcard is going to get you the
most points.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Absolutely.
I love it.
So let's just talk about.
Let's give a couple of examples.
Let's say we talk about foodand drink.
Now there are seven or eightdifferent credit cards that will
give you extra points for foodand drink, and one of the best
one, or certainly the mostpopular credit card on my
website, is the American ExpressPersonal Rose Gold card right,
which gives you four timespoints on all your food and
(05:50):
drink.
So let's do a little bit ofmath so people can understand
how much free travel you can get.
Let's say the average familyprobably spends I'm going to
guess 500 bucks a month on foodin the supermarket and probably
a thousand bucks a month onrestaurants and some families it
might be the other way around.
But let's just call it 1500bucks a month roughly on food
(06:11):
and drink for a family of threeor four.
So, we're getting four timespoints.
That's going to come out as6000 points a month.
There are 12 months a year.
Six times 12 is 72, which meansthat 72,000 points just on food
and drink.
And food and drink tends torepresent about 35% of what
(06:33):
people spend on their creditcards.
So let's kind of chuck in.
We'll be very conservative andwe'll say 150,000 points a year
that you can achieve.
What's 150,000 points actuallyworth in free travel?
Well, if you don't know whatyou're doing and you just click
on the travel button on yourcredit card company, 150,000
(06:55):
points will get you roughly 1500bucks worth of free travel.
And some people listening tothis might be thinking, wow,
that's great.
And I'm here to tell you, wow,that's terrible.
Because if you were to usethose 150,000 points correctly,
it could be worth about 12 or13,000 dollars worth of free
travel.
By understanding what to do withthe points, you can move them
(07:18):
out of the credit card companyand into airlines at certain
times and all that kind of goodstuff, right when it starts to
increase the value of it.
So when we start talking about,you know, trying to get free
travel, even if you're a bigfamily of five or six and you
want to go to Disneyland fivetimes this year.
All of those times could bedone for free, using the right
(07:38):
credit card points at the righttime.
So I think that fundamentally,from a bird's eye perspective,
is you can say, ok, if I've gotgood credit, I can go to
thepointspartnercom, get somefree videos, watch some stuff,
and then I can pick a couple ofcredit cards on his website and
now, theoretically, you canstart to travel for free.
It is that simple.
(07:59):
It can also be a lot moreinvolved and more complicated
and, as I'm sure you'll talkabout later on, robin, your
experience coming through one ofmy processes and how you can
actually take it to the nextlevel and start getting beds on
planes to Asia and Europe andAfrica and wherever else.
They're going to put a newDisneyland for us next.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Right?
Well, let's start with like.
So let's say, somebody is likebrand new.
What are some ways that, ifsomebody is, you know, because
we're putting our tickets on ourcredit card maybe, or we've got
to purchase a bunch ofdifferent things for our trip If
somebody just wanted to say,just get their airfare or just
their hotel for Disneyland, whatis like a one card that they
(08:39):
could do if they don't want it,if they're not quite ready to
dive in, but they want to usethis trip to kind of test the
wires?
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
So a couple of couple of great starting points, and
I'll kind of do one for each ofthe major credit card companies.
I'm a big fan of the AmericanExpress Rose Gold card just
because it gives you so manypoints on a place where most
people spend money, which isfood and drink.
Under Capital One, there's acouple of great options.
There is the Capital OneVenture card, which gives you
two times points on everything,which, for somebody who doesn't
(09:07):
spend so much on food, that's agreat option if you're spending
a lot on other things bills,online shopping, all sorts of
stuff.
So that's the Capital OneVenture card.
Now, for those of you who havea family and when you get to the
airport, it drives you crazythat you have to then spend 150
bucks on coffees and food at theairport.
(09:28):
Lounge Access is a massive partof travel that doesn't get
spoken about enough.
The Capital One Venture X,which is its big brother, gives
your entire family lounge accessat 1300 lounges.
Now again, let's do the math.
Robin, the average kid in anairport spends about $25 before
(09:48):
their flight on snacks anddrinks and food.
Adults, it's 45.
So that means every time you'rea family of four, you're saving
100, 150 bucks every time yougo to an airport if you have
lounge access.
So the Venture X comes withthat lounge access, so you can
save yourself a fortune bygetting the right credit card.
And the Venture X, yeah, has abig annual fee.
(10:09):
It's 395 bucks, which mostpeople it scares them off, but
it comes with a $300 travelcredit, so really it's 95 bucks.
It also comes with free globalentry and pre-check, which is
worth 100 bucks.
So when you start to look at,you know what is the value of
having lounge access.
Even if you went to Disneylandonce in a year round trip, you'd
(10:32):
be saving at least 300 bucksand you would have only paid 95
for the access to the lounge.
So the Capital One Venture orthe Venture X, if you want the
lounge access, are a couple ofgreat options as well.
Citibank has got the CitibankPremier Card, which gives you
three times points on all foodand drink.
Why would I mention that ifI've already offered you one
(10:53):
that has four?
Well, the Citibank Premier Cardis a Mastercard, not an
American Express, which meansmore places take it, which can
be a stumping point for somepeople.
So there's so many credit cardsand they all do different
things.
You know.
Some of them give you free,clear, global entry pre-check.
Some of them give you loungeaccess.
Some of them give you travelcredits.
(11:15):
Some of them give you morepoints for spending money on
food or drink or gas or travelmarketing office supplies.
All of these places are calledwhat's known in the industry as
bonus categories places thatwill get you extra points for
your day-to-day spend, and thereis no one credit card that can
(11:39):
do all these things, and themore involved you become in it
and the more you see the benefitof it, probably the more credit
cards you'll get.
Which brings us on to anothercontentious topic, which is some
people think that having lotsof credit cards is bad, and I'm
here to tell you it's theopposite.
If you are responsible withyour credit cards, you can
improve your credit score andthe amount of available credit
(12:01):
you have and the amount ofbenefits you're getting by
having lots of credit cards.
Your credit is a tool.
You can do good with it and youcan do bad with it.
You can take a hammer and youcan knock down my house with
that hammer.
You can also rob and take ahammer and build me a house
right, and your credit isexactly the same.
It's your responsibility willdecide whether credit and credit
(12:23):
cards is a good thing for youand you can leverage the
opportunity and get free traveland all these benefits, or you
can get yourself into debt andruin your credit.
So that comes down to theresponsibility of the individual
and obviously I wouldn'trecommend anyone going on my
website and getting a creditcard if you don't know how to
use one and how to pay one off.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
And I think that there can be a pitfall where the
way that you get the big bulkof points in the beginning is by
using what?
The signup bonus.
So you spend three or six,sometimes 12, depending on the
card, in a period of threemonths.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So let's explain what that is and why it is.
So it's called a signup bonus.
When you get a new credit card,if you complete the minimum
spend, which is normally around$3,000 or $4,000 within three or
four months, which is prettyachievable for most average
people you then get a ton ofpoints and that can range
between 30 and 100,000 pointsjust for getting the card.
(13:32):
Why do they do that?
They do that to buy you.
They buy you as a customer.
It costs them money.
It costs them lots of money tobuy you to use their credit card
.
Why do they want you to havetheir credit card?
Massive misconception.
People think that credit cardcompanies make money by charging
you interest when you don't payon time.
Well, they do, but that's nothow they actually make their
(13:54):
money.
How they actually make theirmoney is charging the place that
you're swiping that credit carda percentage of how much money
you're spending there.
So let's use an example.
Let's call it McDonald's.
Mcdonald's will take yourCapital One or your American
Express credit card and they'llget charged by American Express
or Capital One, two or 3% inorder to use that credit card at
(14:17):
their terminal.
That's how they make theirmoney, so they actually make
more money from you spending andpaying it back than they do
from you spending and not payingit back, if that makes sense.
And the interest the crazyinterest that these credit cards
have is actually there as adeterrent to make sure that you
pay on time, not as a punishmentwhen you don't right, and
(14:38):
that's the massive misconception.
They would love for you to payon time.
They just make money bycharging the vendor itself.
So that's the reason they givethese sign up bonuses and they
spend the vast majority of theirmarketing budget on the sign up
bonuses, because that's whatattracts us Fundamentally.
I live off of those sign upbonuses.
I do about $150,000 worth offree travel a year.
(15:02):
I'm on, you know, $10,000 bedson planes to Europe, asia, south
America, middle East Africapretty much, you know, at least
once a month.
If you keep up with me onInstagram, you see it all.
I do it all.
I show people how I do it alland I don't pay for it.
It can be done and, admittedly,I'm at the higher echelons or
(15:22):
the most advanced level of thisgame and it is a game, let's not
be under any misunderstanding,but everyone has to start
somewhere and I'd love for youto talk a little bit about how
you started, because I believewhen you first came across me
you were relatively fresh to it,and now one could argue you're
(15:42):
somewhat of a Jedi masteryourself at this point.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Before I go into that , I just want to talk about that
responsibility thing, that thepitfall is you have to spend
that amount of money and that.
So sometimes people will buythings they might not normally
have bought during that time.
And you can.
You don't want to go into debt.
You want to spend the way thatyou're normally spending and pay
things off and not carry abalance, because otherwise
you're you're not gettingeverything for free anymore.
Now you're losing the valuebecause you're paying some
(16:08):
interest.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I can summarize what you just said in one sentence.
Admittedly, I do this for aliving.
Treat your credit cards as ifthey are debit card.
It is that simple.
If you don't have the money,don't spend it.
Don't look at it as a anopportunity to spend money that
you don't have.
Look at it as a different wayof spending the money that
you've already got to get abenefit.
(16:28):
And the benefit is not justcredit card points or air miles
or cash back.
There's also purchaseprotection.
That is a huge part of this,especially if you're buying
stuff like a trip to Disney,where potentially somebody could
get sick, or you get robbed atthe hotel room or some other
drama that comes along with life.
For example, my car didn'tstart this morning.
(16:50):
And if you have a good creditcard, it has this awesome
purchase protection that you canphone and it's it's almost like
an insurance policy where youdon't have a deductible Right.
And I always tell this famousstory.
I'm sure you've heard me tellthis, rubin.
I used to be in the photographybusiness and I went and bought
$20,000 worth of camera gear forone of my photographers and I
(17:12):
drove back home and somebody hadsome scumbag, had followed me
back from the store and brokeinto my car while I was in my
house and took the whole lotfive minutes after I bought it.
I didn't phone my now ex-wifeat the time.
I didn't phone the police.
I didn't phone my car insurance.
I phoned American Express andwithin five minutes they put all
(17:32):
$20,000 back on my credit card.
I went straight back to thestore.
I wish I had an iPhone backthen.
I could have taken a photo ofthe sales guys jaw dropping when
I went back in there and said,can I get the same again please?
And that's kind of you know, agreat example of how phenomenal
(17:52):
credit cards and purchaseprotection can be.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And same for rental car insurance.
You know, on like the platinumyou can get, you can save
yourself the amount of therental insurance because some of
them do have that.
But, like you said, I onlyspend things on credit cards If
I can pay them off in cash everymonth.
I don't buy them on a.
Hopefully one day, someday, mylife will turn out and I'll be
able to pay this off, like Ithink it's really important.
Credit card debt is reallydangerous, so you'd want to be
(18:17):
be really careful.
But when we started out, we hada couple credit cards.
I had American Express, platinumfor our business and a couple
of I think I had one or twocredit cards that were for
personal and we were doingalright, like I was getting some
flights and things along thoselines, but instead of earning I
think I was earning maybe like20 to 50,000 points a year,
(18:42):
maybe.
And then, after having Owen lookat my spend now granted, I have
a business, so my spend ishigher, so I was able to move
things along faster we basicallywent to getting a million
points in the first year andthat allowed us to take several
trips to Disney, both on bothcoasts, and that 18 day trip to
(19:02):
Costa Rica where I only paid fortwo nights of hotels.
Everything else the flight, thehotel, the insurance on the
rental car all of that was takencare of.
So a lot of things that weretaken care of there.
It has really helped me be ableto expand and before I was
really just going into theportal and booking in the portal
.
So American Express would say,here by this flight and then you
(19:25):
can get 35% back because you'rea Platinum member, and I
thought that was a really,really good deal.
But then I learned how totransfer those out to different
airlines to get the best valuefor my points and it made a big
difference in how far I was ableto travel and how often I was
able to travel.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You mentioned during that bit that you learned the
difference between using theportal and transferring the
points out and fundamentallythat is a one line explanation
of my entire career is teachingpeople the difference between
just booking it through the waythe credit cards company wants
you to, versus doing itessentially manually and moving
(20:06):
the points out into airlines andthey become miles.
But the value difference is sosignificant that it's impossible
to ignore.
In some scenarios you'retalking 10, 12 times the value
of your free travel by clickingtwo extra buttons and that the
complex detail behind that isessentially the content that I
(20:28):
share and people always it's sofunny people book calls with me
just for 10, 15 minutes to askme a couple of questions and
they always say well, what doyou want me to do?
And I tell people I don't mindwhat you do, it's the same
content.
You can invite me on yourpodcast.
You can book me for a privatesession.
You can have me do after dinnerspeaking at your company.
(20:50):
You can watch my online course.
You can have me find yourflights or book your flights.
You can do anything you want.
My answer won't change.
It's just a case of how do youwant to consume that knowledge
and information on this topic,and it's different for different
people.
Some people like to read, somepeople like to listen, some
people like to do it in grouptherapy, other people like to do
(21:10):
it over zoom.
Some people want to come to myhouse and have me teach them in
my living room.
I don't mind.
It's the same content howeveryou consume it.
But it's important to consumeit because it will be the
difference between free travelfor life and luxury versus
paying for it less often andsitting upright.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
So if somebody wanted to take the because, one thing
that if you are already in thecredit card points if you're
looking to buy your Disneylandtickets, disneyland usually
registers as entertainment.
It codes as entertainment Ourfriends at undercover tourist
because they're a travel agency.
It usually does code as travel,which can be a higher
multiplier depending on the card.
But if somebody is looking tojust pay for their airfare, what
(21:54):
is one recommended path thatthey could use to kind of get
started?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Here would be.
My recommendation is we'regoing to work backwards.
They don't want to pay fortheir family of four from Ohio
to Los Angeles.
So I'm going to tell you howmuch we can save and the best
way to do it.
To buy tickets from Ohio roundtrip is probably going to be
roughly 300 bucks ish per person.
There's four people, so that's$1,200.
(22:18):
So what we're trying to do issee how much of that $1,200 can
we get rid of.
So now let's talk about thecost of those tickets.
In mileage, in the best casescenario it would be 12,000
points per person each way, sothat's 24,000 points per person.
So it's just under 100,000points.
Plus it would be $5.60 in taxesper person each way.
(22:43):
So any way you slice it, you'vegot about 40 bucks 45 bucks of
taxes.
So I'm going to try and bring$1,200 down to as near to 45
bucks as I can.
And it's so, so simple.
You can go on my website, getyourself the Capital One Venture
card.
I don't think it even has anannual fee the first year and I
(23:07):
think it's 95 bucks.
The second year it comes with a70,000, I think it's a 60 or
70,000 point sign up bonus.
So even in the first month ortwo you would have 70,000 points
.
And if you're getting two timespoints on all of your spend,
you would only need to spendabout $10,000 before you would
(23:29):
have enough points to take afamily of four to Disneyland and
back, and plus the 45 bucks intaxes.
So in other words, if you werespending roughly let's call it
$4,000 a month on all of you,you've put everything on the
credit card every month.
It would only be about three orfour months before you would
have enough for the entirefamily to go roundtrip For free
(23:52):
to Disneyland and back.
And where it gets interestingis that's like one credit card.
If you were to get two creditcards immediately, you would
have your free trip because thesign up bonus.
If you were to get the AmericanExpress Rose Gold card as well,
that's another 60,000 points.
So you'd already have 135,000points.
In fact, you could already bookyour free trip to Disneyland
(24:13):
for the whole family and behalfway on your way to your next
roundtrip to Disneyland.
That's how it can get.
And then you end up with peoplelike me.
I have I think I have 57 creditcards right now.
So imagine when you startscaling that up.
You know I have millions ofpoints, millions.
I can go anywhere I want in theworld, in any class, with
(24:35):
anyone I want.
Stay in any hotel, get pickedup, fight it five.
I just this week alone I bookeda trip for me and my girlfriend
to Egypt where we're going tothe pyramids.
We're going there six foot layflat beds, we're staying at the
four seasons.
And we just booked for Octobernext year we're going to the
Maldives all business class beds.
(24:55):
We're going to have the hut onthe water, all that kind of
stuff, these crazy bucket listtrips that people pay tens of
thousands of dollars for.
I do it for free.
Yes, I do spend a lot on mycredit cards every month, but no
more than I would do if Ididn't have credit cards.
It's still the same amount ofmoney I'm spending every month.
And people, people moan aboutannual fees.
(25:15):
Every single annual fee of anycredit card ever is easily
justified if it's the rightcredit card for you.
Yes, there's no point paying500 bucks a year for a big boy
credit card If you're not goingto use any of the benefits of it
.
But if you're somebody whotravels a lot and you can save
50 bucks every time you go to anairport on food and drink by
having lounge access.
All of these things pay forthemselves Very, very quickly.
(25:39):
I'm the most extreme case thereis.
I have 57 credit cards.
I pay, I think, just under twoand a half thousand dollars a
year in annual fees of all thesecredit cards, but I'm doing
$150,000 worth of free travel.
So that means I'm paying lessthan 2% of the free travel that
I'm getting in annual fees.
So let's scale that down tosomebody who's never done this
(26:03):
before what's 2% of 1200 bucksand that's what you would be
paying in annual fees.
It's so, so worth it.
The math is in our favor, nottheirs.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
So let's talk.
I think a lot of people saywell, if I'm going to know I'm
going to use it for airfare, Ithink I should probably just get
an American Airlines or a Deltaor a Marriott card.
Can you talk about why theseother cards have a better
benefit most of the time, formost use cases, than going with
the airline card?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, there are two types of credit cards.
There are generic credit cardsthat collect credit card points
and those credit card points canbe used on any airline, any
hotel, at any time, and on topof that they can be transferred
into a bunch of different hotelsand frequent flyer programs of
airlines and become airlines orhotel points.
(26:55):
And those are predominantly thebig blue bank that rhymes with
face Capital, one city bank andAmerican Express.
And then you have what's calledco branded credit cards.
That's when a credit card getstogether with either an airline
or a hotel group, you earn yourbenefit on that credit card in
(27:16):
the local currency, which willbe either a public inspection, a
public ticket, a public Frenchand a public guests on the
(27:37):
island.
It takes the pretty neat one.
If they fly a lot on JetBlue,that, oh, I should get the
JetBlue credit card.
No, you shouldn't, it's notmeant for you.
These air miles that you'recollecting on these credit cards
are not as valuable as genericcredit card points that can turn
(28:03):
into those, in this example,jetblue air miles.
But they can also turn intoBombay points, they can also
turn into Air France, they canturn into British Airways, they
can turn in to whatever you wantthem to.
So let's talk a bit about thevalue.
Your average air mile is worth1.1 cent each.
Your average credit card pointused badly is worth more than
(28:25):
that, but in the best casescenario is worth 8 cents each.
So credit card points are worthway, way more than air miles,
and you can do more with them.
So my recommendation, as ageneral rule of thumb, is to be
loyal to the credit cardcompanies, not to airlines.
You can still enjoy airlines.
You can still fly the majorityof your time or even have status
(28:48):
and all that good stuff with anairline, but you should.
The majority of your organicmonthly spend should be going to
the credit card companies, notto the airlines and that also
gives you more flexibility.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So let's say you want to fly from Ohio and you know
that you want to try to avoidLAX because oh, one lives there.
Like I tell people not evenpeople who live near LAX like
going to LAX exactly, exactly so.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, absolutely so.
You don't want to pin yourselfinto one airline.
If you've got a delta creditcard and you can only fly on
delta and delta doesn't haveanything good the day that you
want to go, you're screwed,you're going to end up buying
tickets, whereas if you havegeneric credit card points, you
can move them to a differentairline and you have lots more
availability, a lot moreflexibility, a lot more
(29:34):
availability and thus a betteroption of pricing.
So, on the day that you knowthat I talked about it being
12,000 air miles each way fromOhio, there's somebody listening
to this who lives in Ohio, whohad a look today and they're
going to go.
No, it's not.
It was 45,000 points.
That's because you are onlylooking on American Airlines,
where they've already sold alltheir tickets.
(29:55):
If you had every single airmile, you'd be able to find one
of them that was doing it for 12.
So having generic credit cardpoints that you can transfer to
any airline is the ticket tocheaper, free travel.
The assumption is you'realready, you're not paying for
it, but I don't want to even pay.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I want to pay the least amount of air miles on top
of the least amount of moneyand because most of you are
going to want to try to fly intosna santa anna airport or long
beach airport using delta as anexample.
Delta has very, very fewflights into those airports, so
having that flexibility,especially with disneyland, is
helpful.
And then sometimes the creditcards will offer a bonus.
(30:34):
They'll say, hey, if youtransfer your points to myriad,
we'll give you 40, a 40% bonus.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
absolutely so.
There's two bonuses that make ahuge difference in the credit
card points world.
The first one we've alreadyspoken about, which is a sign-up
bonus.
When you get a credit card,they give you tons of points.
The other bonus and this isreally separates the amateurs
from the ninjas is the transferbonus, and every month different
(31:02):
credit card companies offerdifferent percentage bonuses
when you move credit card pointsto an airline or hotel group.
I shall give you an exampleright now.
If you've got I think it'samerican express points, you can
move them to virgin atlanticand you'll get 30 more air miles
will show up than points thanyou transfer.
(31:22):
So let's say you transfer 100000 points, 130 000 air miles
will show up, and somebody'sprobably thinking, oh, that's
cool, but I don't want to fly onvirgin atlantic.
They don't fly to disneyland ordisneyworld.
Well, actually they do.
So let me explain to you how itworks.
Each airline is a part of analliance.
Alliances are groups of ofairlines.
(31:45):
There are three major alliancesthere is sky team, there is
Star Alliance and there is oneworld, and pretty much every
single airline you've ever flownon is a part of one of those
three and you can book any oneof those airlines from any one
of those members.
So Virgin Atlantic is a part ofSky Team.
(32:08):
Who else is a part of Sky Team?
Well, approximately a third ofall the airlines out there, but
included, but not limited, to,delta, which means you can book
Delta flights using VirginAtlantic air miles.
And here's the crazy part.
Here's the bit that blowspeople's minds it's nine times
out of ten cheaper to book thesame seat on the same Delta
(32:31):
plane through Virgin Atlanticthan it is to do on Delta's
website, and that's not evenunique.
It is exactly the same forAmerican Airlines and British
Airways and it is exactly thesame for United Airlines and Air
Canada.
It is cheaper to book throughpartners than it is with them
directly, and the reason it'scheaper to book through their
(32:53):
partners than it is with themdirectly is the only people that
have watched my online courseor listened to me speak on a
podcast or TV Know that that'sthe case, and therefore everyone
goes to the big brand the Delta, united or American.
So they hike the prices up.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And let's talk about somebody who might say well, you
know, I think my hotel isactually going to be more
expensive.
You know, I'm only flying fromArizona.
When is it better to save yourpoints and only use it for
airfare, and when is itworthwhile to use it for hotel?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
So we spoke briefly about the value of these points
and we said that airline milesare worth less than credit card
points.
Well, there's one thing worthless than air miles, and that's
hotel points.
In fact, excluding Hyatt, allof them are worth roughly 0.4 or
0.5 cents.
(33:45):
Each.
Hyatt can be worth considerablymore.
Their programs are a bit morebeneficial, but any way you
slice it, your points are bestused for flights and then hotels
.
So how do you distinguish thetwo?
Well, here's the simple rule ofthumb, which is, once you
finish booking all of yourflights for the year, whatever
you've got left over, in theoryyou can use that for hotels, but
(34:08):
to do it the other way roundwould be mathematically
inefficient.
If you don't have any flightsto book, then and you live
within driving distance ofDisney, then absolutely use your
points for hotels.
But if you've got flying to do,you will end up it will end up
costing you more money if youtry and get the hotels free and
not the flights.
It is literally that simple.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
And if somebody was looking to, if you had to tell
somebody, if they were going totry this for the first time,
what are some things that youwould say like these are the
biggest or have we alreadycovered them the biggest
mistakes that people make.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah.
So the number one mistake thatpeople make is they don't know
how to use the points.
They just go into the portal ofor the travel button within
American Express or Capital Oneand they click travel and then
they just use all their points.
You're throwing them away doingthat.
It's worth the investment ofwatching an online course or
doing a session with me orlearning another way, because
(35:06):
once you've learned it once it'slike riding a bike you then
have that skill set and you canyou can increase the value of
your points tenfold.
That, fundamentally is, is thenumber one mistake is learning
how to use your points.
The second mistake is when youdo start looking for your
mileage tickets is people searchroundtrip and you don't want to
(35:27):
do that.
You want to search one way,always going to find more
availability and better pricingsearching one way and booking
two one ways than you will be asa roundtrip, and it seems
counterintuitive because we allgrow up being told always book a
roundtrip, it's cheaper, and itis cheaper if you're paying for
your ticket but we're notpaying for it.
This is a mileage ticket.
(35:48):
It's not the same rules, it'snot the same availability, it's
not the same pricing and itactually is more beneficial to
book two one ways.
Even if I found something as aroundtrip, I would still book it
as two one ways.
And the reason I would do thatis if you book a roundtrip and
while you're on that trip youneed to make that trip shorter
or longer, and you phone, forexample, delta and say, hey, I'm
(36:12):
sick, I need to stay here anextra couple of days.
Now They've got you by theballs.
You're in the middle of yourtrip.
They're going to charge youfive, six, seven hundred bucks
per person to change thoseflights.
But if you book two one ways,technically you haven't started
what is your return trip.
But it's actually a one way andthe way they look at it is they
don't want to lose yourbusiness.
(36:32):
You haven't even started yourtrip yet and they let you change
it for the phone fee, which is50 bucks.
We find ourselves in thiscurious position where it makes
more sense to collect creditcard points but turn them into
air miles and we should book twoone ways which could be booked
as a roundtrip.
But that is the math behindwhat I have discovered over the
years and I teach and I preachand I help others do it it makes
(36:54):
a massive difference, a massive, massive difference.
I'll give you another thing, andyou touched on it briefly
before.
You were talking about whichairports to fly into and how do
I know which, who flies whereand what, and all that kind of
good stuff.
Here's a great tip.
People love this one.
Go to flightconnectionscom it'sa free website that won't cost
you a penny FlightConnectionscom, and put in the name of the
(37:18):
airport that you're trying tofly to or you're flying from,
and it will show you exactlywhat airlines, on what days, fly
where to and from that place.
So let's say you want to flyinto Orange County.
You can put in Orange Countyand see if there's a flight that
comes from your airport, ratherthan going to each individual
website and seeing if they'vegot a flight for you.
(37:39):
You can you can work out theflight path yourself, and that's
another way of kind of cheatingthe system, and you can do some
really cool stuff at theadvanced level of this game.
So, for example, there's afeature on that website where
you can just draw a circle andit shows you all the airports
within that area.
Well, I'm going to Sardinia,which is an island off of Italy,
this summer and there was noflights from Cairo, where we're
(38:02):
going to be in Egypt to Sardinia.
So I drew a map around thewhole island and it turns out
there's not one airport there.
There's one airport thateveryone's heard of, there's
also six tiny ones, and they flyto lots of places, included but
not limited to Athens, of whichI could find a cheap flight
from Cairo to Athens.
So now I'm going to go fromCairo to Athens, athens to
(38:25):
Sardinia, without having to do14 extra stops, which is what
Google Flights wanted me to do,and that's where this stuff kind
of gets a bit more involved.
But it's good to hear theseexamples so you can understand
what can be done.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
And one thing you had that I really struggled with in
the beginning was I was like Ifly American, I fly American,
but how can I?
You don't have to worry aboutthe same benefits of loyalty
because you can get that upgradeto get you the earlier boarding
, because you're able to usethat on the point, so you don't
need to be loyal to just oneairline Exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's like music to my ears, robin.
So yeah, absolutely A lot ofpeople struggle when they hear
me say points are better thanairmars because they love their
status.
Let me just tell you status isa joke.
You are left at the gatesweating, staring at a board,
praying that somebody felt ill,and you're going to get an
upgrade because of your status.
(39:19):
When you do it my way, you'llhave more points than you will
airmars and you can bookyourself in business class six
months earlier and probably forthe same amount that you were
paying to go and coach anyway.
So there's different ways ofskinning a cat and the way that
they want you to, which is withthe status where you're tied to
them and all this stuff.
It just doesn't make sense intoday's day and age.
(39:40):
It makes much more sense to geta boatload of points and bully
your way into beds.
I walk past you know millionmarlers on every flight and I go
and sit in business class and Ipaid less than them and I
didn't have to sweat at the gate.
I booked mine six months ago.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
And then you still get the free luggage, and all of
that because you're booking thehigher value.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, once you're business class, you get the
lounge, you get the luggage, youget everything.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
So it gives you more options.
And for every airline there arecities that are a pain to get
to.
You know, from Phoenix Deltajust doesn't work well for me,
you know, but they're you know,but my friends live in Florida.
They can't really imagineflying, and you know, from
another, a different airline,because Delta works really great
from Atlanta and a couple otherplaces.
So having that flexibility willgive you the ability to go
(40:23):
anywhere you want to avoidlayovers.
What are your thoughts on, likewhen is a layover worth it or
when should you, you know, paythe extra in points or dollars
to avoid a layover?
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah.
So I think that if you're notan experienced traveler, the
layover is torturous becauseyou're hanging out in an airport
.
It's uncomfortable, it's smelly, it's expensive.
If you're a regular traveler,the likelihood is you have a
premium credit card and thusyou've got lounge access, free
(40:54):
food and drinks.
When you do travel luxury andthere's no cost involved it, I
do it all for free, but when youdo it in luxury, it's a
pleasure, a travel day, not aburden.
Most people hate travelingbecause it costs them a fortune.
They have to get up early inthe morning cost them money.
When they get to the airport,they have to stand in a long
line.
They have to sit uncomfortablyon a plane, get served crap food
(41:17):
and then pay, you know, for anexpensive Uber.
The other end that soundshorrible Mine is I get up.
When I get up because I can geton the most expensive flight,
which is later in the day, I geta free ride to the airport.
There's no lines for me becauseI have global entry, pre check
and clear all free on my creditcards.
So I walk through I think I'msitting in the lounge, get drunk
(41:39):
and stuff my face with food andthen I get onto a bed on a
plane where I get treated likean absolute king and brought
five star cuisine.
I have a nice sleep.
I wake up in a differentcountry and somebody picks me up
at the airport for free, on acredit on one of my credit cards
.
The whole thing is free andluxurious.
It's a pleasure.
I love going to.
It's cheaper for me to fly toAsia than it is for me to drive
(42:03):
five minutes down the road toMcDonald's and get and get lunch
.
Now it's a strange scenario,but it's absolutely true.
If I get in my car, it's goingto cost me why I have an
electric car, so it won't costme any gas, but it will cost me,
let's say, 20 cents inelectricity.
It's going to cost me $2 topark on the street and it's
going to cost me $7 to buy aMcDonald's.
If I go to the airport, it'sfree.
(42:24):
On an Uber credit, I all myfood and drink is covered.
The flight is free.
It's it's cheaper for me to goto Asia to have sushi than it is
for me to drive down the roadto McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
It's a pretty unique place to be, but the credit card
points can be really, reallyhelpful.
They can I mean they can takeyour trip from a $5,000 or
$10,000 trip down to you know,sometimes half or less,
depending on where you're flyingfrom.
So it can be really valuableand can even get you to some of
the Disney's, like Tokyo,shanghai.
You know all of those Disney'sas well.
If, if you're a big Disneyperson so I know that you said
(42:56):
you had a hard stop on want tobe respectful of your time Can
you tell people a little bitabout you?
Know how they can reach you andif somebody's like I have
points but I don't know how tobook them, how they can use you
to book their tickets.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The starting point if anyonewho wants to find me is the
points partnercom.
That's my website and I'm onall social media platforms at
the points partner Instagram isprobably your best port of call,
so I'll just talk you through.
The first thing I would sayanyone who's interested in this
stuff, just go on my website,watch the.
There's a free version of myonline course which is called
(43:33):
the fly free Academy.
Go watch the free course.
It's about an hour and a halfof free stuff there, does not
cost you a penny.
And then, if you do want towatch the full course which
Robin has watched and perhapsshe can speak on that in a
minute I'll give you guys adiscount code.
Just use the discount code.
I G is an Instagram live, iglive and that'll get you a chunk
(43:55):
off the full course.
Everything I do is completelyguaranteed money back guarantee.
You're not happy with anything,ever, anywhere, with anything
I've ever said or done, I'llhappily give you back your time,
money or anything else you areowed.
It doesn't happen.
I am obsessed with what I dofor a living.
It is not just my business, itis my life, my hobby, my passion
(44:18):
, it is my everything.
So that's the online course.
If you want to help booking aflight on my, on my website,
there's a form you just fill out.
Take your 10 seconds to fillout what points have you got,
where you're going, how manypeople, what class, what dates,
and I will or me or someone ofmy team will come back to you
with options.
You pick them, will book themand you pay us for the service
of doing that.
(44:38):
All the prices are on the formso you can see what it will cost
you.
It is a phenomenal deal If youare traveling international.
For domestic, I wouldn'trecommend it.
You should do that stuffyourself.
So if you want beds on planesfor Europe or Asia or Africa for
next summer, where the peopleto come to, if you've got a ton
of points and you don't know howto use them outside of that,
(44:59):
there's a couple of otherservices that I offer.
I do a white glove consultation, which is better than I thought
.
I do a white glove consultation, which is basically an hour and
a half to two hours with me onzoom, which will be bespoke made
to your situation.
I recommend that for highspenders or business owners, so
if you're spending more thanseven or $8000 a month or you
own a business that spends morethan that every month on credit
(45:20):
cards.
That's probably your beststarting point, but there's also
everything else under the sun.
So if you just want helpchoosing a credit card, you can
book a call with me for 15minutes and have a bunch of
questions that you can ask me.
That tends to be a lot of theplace that people start.
They want to just kind of grabme on a zoom call for 15 minutes
(45:40):
and bend my ear on theirsituation, so maybe that makes
sense and I can kind of guideyou from that point as to where
to take it from there.
But those are predominantly theofferings that I have.
I'd actually, robin, I'd lovefor you, just before we we wrap,
I'd love for you to tell peoplehow you found me and what
you've done with, or of myprocess and kind of where you're
(46:03):
at now.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
I don't remember how I found you.
I think I must have seensomebody post something or I
must have seen a Tik Tok orsomething.
I saw something and I reachedout to you and then, because we
have a business outside of whatwe do at Park Magic, we did the
white glove thing first and thatreally helped because we were
able to really change how manypoints we were able to do.
(46:26):
I took the course afterwardsand I recommended that to a
bunch of friends because itreally did lay it out like okay,
that makes sense.
And he goes.
There's a section where he goesthrough like each credit card
and why you know what's theright use case for each credit
card, and that really did helpsome of my friends identify the
best place to start.
And then he has kind of thisinner circle that we do that.
(46:49):
You know there's a zoom callwhere people can ask questions
and he has guests on that talkabout specific topics.
So I found all of them helpful.
I think in the beginning I wasjust, you know, I came actually
from more of like a Dave Ramseyall the way over here.
So you know, I think that I wasvery overwhelmed in the
beginning of it.
(47:10):
So it definitely helped to havesomeone on one time, but I
think that even if I hadn't donethat, the course would have
gotten me most of the way there.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Awesome, awesome.
I was funny, interesting,because some people there's no
real sort of starting point orfinishing point.
Yeah because the inner circle,which I forgot to mention before
, which is my private community,we do two zoom calls a month.
That's just kind of ongoing inthe background.
People come and they go and youknow that doesn't necessarily
pay relevance to people that dowhite glove consultations or
(47:41):
watch the course or any of thesethings.
So there's no real startingpoint.
I would say go to my website,fish around, pick something.
Either way I'll be here and Iwill get you on your beds on
planes for free.
That's what I do.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well, I want to thank you for your time here.
I know you're busy.
I know you're probably gettingready to go someplace else, so
thank you so much for coming onthe show today and sharing about
credit card points and how touse them.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
My absolute pleasure Anytime.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Just a reminder make sure you use those credit cards
responsibly.
It can be easy to get yourselfinto a mess you can't get
yourself out of, so only do thisif you know you have enough
discipline to do it responsiblyand keep your your, the well
being of your family andfinancial future safe.
I'm so excited for today's show because today we're
going to be talking aboutsomething that might save you
thousands of dollars on yourtrip to Disneyland and that you
can do multiple times.
I don't have a lot of gurus inmy life, but Owen is my credit
card points guru and hedefinitely helps me in a lot of
different ways, but he's made itso I've been able to travel all
over, including like a full,like 18 day trip to Costa Rica,
(00:22):
lots and lots of trips toDisneyland and Disney World
without having to pay forairfare or sometimes hotels and
sometimes both.
So, owen, thank you so much forcoming on the show.
Can you tell us a little bitabout you and what you do for
people?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Good morning, good to hear you again.
Sure yeah.
For those that don't know me,my name is Owen.
I am known as the pointspartner, and what I do is I help
individuals maximize theircredit card benefits, and I help
people get as many credit cardpoints and air miles as is
mathematically possible fortheir lifestyle, and then I
(00:59):
teach them how to use saidpoints efficiently.
In other words, I put people onbeds on planes for free.
That is what I do for a living.
So basically, anything thatstretches from credit card
credit points, miles, beds onplanes, airports, precheck,
(01:20):
global entry, clear loungeaccess, you name it that's kind
of my jam, yo.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
And you're really, really good at it.
We definitely went from gettingsome credit card points and
using it and having a little bitof freedom to.
You know, we have a friend'swedding.
We don't have to worry abouthow much that Chicago flight is
going to be, and if you're goingto Disneyland, the flights and
hotels will be a big chunk ofyour overall expense.
So if you can use points to geteither a free hotel or your
(01:52):
free flights, that might make ita trip that is not possible for
you possible.
Can we start with, like, whatdoes somebody need to have, like
either credit scores or incomeor spend, in order to even make
what we're going to talk aboutwork?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, let's, let's, let's we can even start before
that, which is your, yourlisteners, your crowd are trying
to get to Disney and back, andthe starting point is I can help
them do that for free.
That's, that's the mostimportant thing.
I think that a lot of peoplethat aren't familiar with credit
card points and air miles don'tsee the value in them.
They had a bad experience, theyweren't able to use them, they
(02:30):
didn't think the value of themwas very high, and I am here to
tell them that that is not thecase and to and to walk them
through that process.
Everyone, if you are spending adollar on groceries every week,
that is a free flight that youcan take, and it's understanding
how it works and how to derivethe benefit from it.
(02:51):
That's the important part.
So I kind of want to grab theattention of everyone who's
listening to this.
You, whoever you are, you, aslong as you're alive, you're
eating.
If you're eating, you're buyingfood, and if you're buying food
, you're earning enough pointsthat, if you use them correctly,
you can fly to Disney and backfor free.
Not for free, for free, forfree.
Just to clarify, maybe there'llbe a flea on the plane and, by
(03:12):
the way, that flea wouldn't havepaid for it either.
Okay, so so that's the startingpoint.
So what's the bare bones of it?
What's the requirements?
Well, the first of all, you'vegot to have decent credit,
otherwise you can't get a creditcard on my website, right?
And what's decent credit?
Credit is not really judged bythe score.
That's more for you and I totalk about.
It's more about your creditprofile and I'm not going to
(03:34):
bore you to death with what thatall means.
But general rule of thumb, ifyou've got above a 700 in your
credit score, you're probably ingood shape to start getting
good credit cards on my website,right?
That's the starting point.
Then the next thing is whichcredit cards should you get?
There are a million to choosefrom.
They all are good and they allare bad for you, depending on
(03:58):
your situation.
People always they love wavingtheir credit cards in my face
and saying is this a good creditcard?
There is no such thing as agood credit card or a bad credit
card.
What there is is a good creditcard for you or a bad credit
card for you, depending on howmuch money you spend every month
, where you spend that money and, most importantly, what you're
going to do with those pointsonce you're given them free.
(04:19):
Travel is a very generic term.
Are you traveling alone?
Are you traveling with family?
Are you traveling in coach?
Are you traveling in businessclass?
Are you going one way?
Do you have certainrequirements?
Are there certain terminals,airports?
There's so many permutationsand that's why it's kind of a
minefield which I can kind ofwalk people through, all right.
So let's presume that the saidJoe blogs has got good credit.
(04:44):
Where did they start?
They start by.
You can go to my website,thepointspartnercom.
There's a bunch of freeresources there.
There's a free course that youcan watch that will start to
talk you down the path.
And then, once you've started,picking the credit cards that
are going to suit you best andthe easiest place to start is
where you spend the most money,which for most people is food
(05:06):
and drink grocery stores,supermarkets, cafes, bars,
coffee houses, delicatessants,food delivery.
Is this sounding familiar,robin?
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yes, all things that we use and I think that's one of
the things that I learned inthe course is depending on what
you spend your money on.
That helps you determine whichcard is going to get you the
most points.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Absolutely.
I love it.
So let's just talk about.
Let's give a couple of examples.
Let's say we talk about foodand drink.
Now there are seven or eightdifferent credit cards that will
give you extra points for foodand drink, and one of the best
one, or certainly the mostpopular credit card on my
website, is the American ExpressPersonal Rose Gold card right,
which gives you four timespoints on all your food and
(05:50):
drink.
So let's do a little bit ofmath so people can understand
how much free travel you can get.
Let's say the average familyprobably spends I'm going to
guess 500 bucks a month on foodin the supermarket and probably
a thousand bucks a month onrestaurants and some families it
might be the other way around.
But let's just call it 1500bucks a month roughly on food
(06:11):
and drink for a family of threeor four.
So, we're getting four timespoints.
That's going to come out as6000 points a month.
There are 12 months a year.
Six times 12 is 72, which meansthat 72,000 points just on food
and drink.
And food and drink tends torepresent about 35% of what
(06:33):
people spend on their creditcards.
So let's kind of chuck in.
We'll be very conservative andwe'll say 150,000 points a year
that you can achieve.
What's 150,000 points actuallyworth in free travel?
Well, if you don't know whatyou're doing and you just click
on the travel button on yourcredit card company, 150,000
(06:55):
points will get you roughly 1500bucks worth of free travel.
And some people listening tothis might be thinking, wow,
that's great.
And I'm here to tell you, wow,that's terrible.
Because if you were to usethose 150,000 points correctly,
it could be worth about 12 or13,000 dollars worth of free
travel.
By understanding what to do withthe points, you can move them
(07:18):
out of the credit card companyand into airlines at certain
times and all that kind of goodstuff, right when it starts to
increase the value of it.
So when we start talking about,you know, trying to get free
travel, even if you're a bigfamily of five or six and you
want to go to Disneyland fivetimes this year.
All of those times could bedone for free, using the right
(07:38):
credit card points at the righttime.
So I think that fundamentally,from a bird's eye perspective,
is you can say, ok, if I've gotgood credit, I can go to
thepointspartnercom, get somefree videos, watch some stuff,
and then I can pick a couple ofcredit cards on his website and
now, theoretically, you canstart to travel for free.
It is that simple.
(07:59):
It can also be a lot moreinvolved and more complicated
and, as I'm sure you'll talkabout later on, robin, your
experience coming through one ofmy processes and how you can
actually take it to the nextlevel and start getting beds on
planes to Asia and Europe andAfrica and wherever else.
They're going to put a newDisneyland for us next.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Right?
Well, let's start with like.
So let's say, somebody is likebrand new.
What are some ways that, ifsomebody is, you know, because
we're putting our tickets on ourcredit card maybe, or we've got
to purchase a bunch ofdifferent things for our trip If
somebody just wanted to say,just get their airfare or just
their hotel for Disneyland, whatis like a one card that they
(08:39):
could do if they don't want it,if they're not quite ready to
dive in, but they want to usethis trip to kind of test the
wires?
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
So a couple of couple of great starting points, and
I'll kind of do one for each ofthe major credit card companies.
I'm a big fan of the AmericanExpress Rose Gold card just
because it gives you so manypoints on a place where most
people spend money, which isfood and drink.
Under Capital One, there's acouple of great options.
There is the Capital OneVenture card, which gives you
two times points on everything,which, for somebody who doesn't
(09:07):
spend so much on food, that's agreat option if you're spending
a lot on other things bills,online shopping, all sorts of
stuff.
So that's the Capital OneVenture card.
Now, for those of you who havea family and when you get to the
airport, it drives you crazythat you have to then spend 150
bucks on coffees and food at theairport.
(09:28):
Lounge Access is a massive partof travel that doesn't get
spoken about enough.
The Capital One Venture X,which is its big brother, gives
your entire family lounge accessat 1300 lounges.
Now again, let's do the math.
Robin, the average kid in anairport spends about $25 before
(09:48):
their flight on snacks anddrinks and food.
Adults, it's 45.
So that means every time you'rea family of four, you're saving
100, 150 bucks every time yougo to an airport if you have
lounge access.
So the Venture X comes withthat lounge access, so you can
save yourself a fortune bygetting the right credit card.
And the Venture X, yeah, has abig annual fee.
(10:09):
It's 395 bucks, which mostpeople it scares them off, but
it comes with a $300 travelcredit, so really it's 95 bucks.
It also comes with free globalentry and pre-check, which is
worth 100 bucks.
So when you start to look at,you know what is the value of
having lounge access.
Even if you went to Disneylandonce in a year round trip, you'd
(10:32):
be saving at least 300 bucksand you would have only paid 95
for the access to the lounge.
So the Capital One Venture orthe Venture X, if you want the
lounge access, are a couple ofgreat options as well.
Citibank has got the CitibankPremier Card, which gives you
three times points on all foodand drink.
Why would I mention that ifI've already offered you one
(10:53):
that has four?
Well, the Citibank Premier Cardis a Mastercard, not an
American Express, which meansmore places take it, which can
be a stumping point for somepeople.
So there's so many credit cardsand they all do different
things.
You know.
Some of them give you free,clear, global entry pre-check.
Some of them give you loungeaccess.
Some of them give you travelcredits.
(11:15):
Some of them give you morepoints for spending money on
food or drink or gas or travelmarketing office supplies.
All of these places are calledwhat's known in the industry as
bonus categories places thatwill get you extra points for
your day-to-day spend, and thereis no one credit card that can
(11:39):
do all these things, and themore involved you become in it
and the more you see the benefitof it, probably the more credit
cards you'll get.
Which brings us on to anothercontentious topic, which is some
people think that having lotsof credit cards is bad, and I'm
here to tell you it's theopposite.
If you are responsible withyour credit cards, you can
improve your credit score andthe amount of available credit
(12:01):
you have and the amount ofbenefits you're getting by
having lots of credit cards.
Your credit is a tool.
You can do good with it and youcan do bad with it.
You can take a hammer and youcan knock down my house with
that hammer.
You can also rob and take ahammer and build me a house
right, and your credit isexactly the same.
It's your responsibility willdecide whether credit and credit
(12:23):
cards is a good thing for youand you can leverage the
opportunity and get free traveland all these benefits, or you
can get yourself into debt andruin your credit.
So that comes down to theresponsibility of the individual
and obviously I wouldn'trecommend anyone going on my
website and getting a creditcard if you don't know how to
use one and how to pay one off.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
And I think that there can be a pitfall where the
way that you get the big bulkof points in the beginning is by
using what?
The signup bonus.
So you spend three or six,sometimes 12, depending on the
card, in a period of threemonths.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So let's explain what that is and why it is.
So it's called a signup bonus.
When you get a new credit card,if you complete the minimum
spend, which is normally around$3,000 or $4,000 within three or
four months, which is prettyachievable for most average
people you then get a ton ofpoints and that can range
between 30 and 100,000 pointsjust for getting the card.
(13:32):
Why do they do that?
They do that to buy you.
They buy you as a customer.
It costs them money.
It costs them lots of money tobuy you to use their credit card
.
Why do they want you to havetheir credit card?
Massive misconception.
People think that credit cardcompanies make money by charging
you interest when you don't payon time.
Well, they do, but that's nothow they actually make their
(13:54):
money.
How they actually make theirmoney is charging the place that
you're swiping that credit carda percentage of how much money
you're spending there.
So let's use an example.
Let's call it McDonald's.
Mcdonald's will take yourCapital One or your American
Express credit card and they'llget charged by American Express
or Capital One, two or 3% inorder to use that credit card at
(14:17):
their terminal.
That's how they make theirmoney, so they actually make
more money from you spending andpaying it back than they do
from you spending and not payingit back, if that makes sense.
And the interest the crazyinterest that these credit cards
have is actually there as adeterrent to make sure that you
pay on time, not as a punishmentwhen you don't right, and
(14:38):
that's the massive misconception.
They would love for you to payon time.
They just make money bycharging the vendor itself.
So that's the reason they givethese sign up bonuses and they
spend the vast majority of theirmarketing budget on the sign up
bonuses, because that's whatattracts us Fundamentally.
I live off of those sign upbonuses.
I do about $150,000 worth offree travel a year.
(15:02):
I'm on, you know, $10,000 bedson planes to Europe, asia, south
America, middle East Africapretty much, you know, at least
once a month.
If you keep up with me onInstagram, you see it all.
I do it all.
I show people how I do it alland I don't pay for it.
It can be done and, admittedly,I'm at the higher echelons or
(15:22):
the most advanced level of thisgame and it is a game, let's not
be under any misunderstanding,but everyone has to start
somewhere and I'd love for youto talk a little bit about how
you started, because I believewhen you first came across me
you were relatively fresh to it,and now one could argue you're
(15:42):
somewhat of a Jedi masteryourself at this point.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Before I go into that , I just want to talk about that
responsibility thing, that thepitfall is you have to spend
that amount of money and that.
So sometimes people will buythings they might not normally
have bought during that time.
And you can.
You don't want to go into debt.
You want to spend the way thatyou're normally spending and pay
things off and not carry abalance, because otherwise
you're you're not gettingeverything for free anymore.
Now you're losing the valuebecause you're paying some
(16:08):
interest.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I can summarize what you just said in one sentence.
Admittedly, I do this for aliving.
Treat your credit cards as ifthey are debit card.
It is that simple.
If you don't have the money,don't spend it.
Don't look at it as a anopportunity to spend money that
you don't have.
Look at it as a different wayof spending the money that
you've already got to get abenefit.
(16:28):
And the benefit is not justcredit card points or air miles
or cash back.
There's also purchaseprotection.
That is a huge part of this,especially if you're buying
stuff like a trip to Disney,where potentially somebody could
get sick, or you get robbed atthe hotel room or some other
drama that comes along with life.
For example, my car didn'tstart this morning.
(16:50):
And if you have a good creditcard, it has this awesome
purchase protection that you canphone and it's it's almost like
an insurance policy where youdon't have a deductible Right.
And I always tell this famousstory.
I'm sure you've heard me tellthis, rubin.
I used to be in the photographybusiness and I went and bought
$20,000 worth of camera gear forone of my photographers and I
(17:12):
drove back home and somebody hadsome scumbag, had followed me
back from the store and brokeinto my car while I was in my
house and took the whole lotfive minutes after I bought it.
I didn't phone my now ex-wifeat the time.
I didn't phone the police.
I didn't phone my car insurance.
I phoned American Express andwithin five minutes they put all
(17:32):
$20,000 back on my credit card.
I went straight back to thestore.
I wish I had an iPhone backthen.
I could have taken a photo ofthe sales guys jaw dropping when
I went back in there and said,can I get the same again please?
And that's kind of you know, agreat example of how phenomenal
(17:52):
credit cards and purchaseprotection can be.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And same for rental car insurance.
You know, on like the platinumyou can get, you can save
yourself the amount of therental insurance because some of
them do have that.
But, like you said, I onlyspend things on credit cards If
I can pay them off in cash everymonth.
I don't buy them on a.
Hopefully one day, someday, mylife will turn out and I'll be
able to pay this off, like Ithink it's really important.
Credit card debt is reallydangerous, so you'd want to be
(18:17):
be really careful.
But when we started out, we hada couple credit cards.
I had American Express, platinumfor our business and a couple
of I think I had one or twocredit cards that were for
personal and we were doingalright, like I was getting some
flights and things along thoselines, but instead of earning I
think I was earning maybe like20 to 50,000 points a year,
(18:42):
maybe.
And then, after having Owen lookat my spend now granted, I have
a business, so my spend ishigher, so I was able to move
things along faster we basicallywent to getting a million
points in the first year andthat allowed us to take several
trips to Disney, both on bothcoasts, and that 18 day trip to
(19:02):
Costa Rica where I only paid fortwo nights of hotels.
Everything else the flight, thehotel, the insurance on the
rental car all of that was takencare of.
So a lot of things that weretaken care of there.
It has really helped me be ableto expand and before I was
really just going into theportal and booking in the portal
.
So American Express would say,here by this flight and then you
(19:25):
can get 35% back because you'rea Platinum member, and I
thought that was a really,really good deal.
But then I learned how totransfer those out to different
airlines to get the best valuefor my points and it made a big
difference in how far I was ableto travel and how often I was
able to travel.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You mentioned during that bit that you learned the
difference between using theportal and transferring the
points out and fundamentallythat is a one line explanation
of my entire career is teachingpeople the difference between
just booking it through the waythe credit cards company wants
you to, versus doing itessentially manually and moving
(20:06):
the points out into airlines andthey become miles.
But the value difference is sosignificant that it's impossible
to ignore.
In some scenarios you'retalking 10, 12 times the value
of your free travel by clickingtwo extra buttons and that the
complex detail behind that isessentially the content that I
(20:28):
share and people always it's sofunny people book calls with me
just for 10, 15 minutes to askme a couple of questions and
they always say well, what doyou want me to do?
And I tell people I don't mindwhat you do, it's the same
content.
You can invite me on yourpodcast.
You can book me for a privatesession.
You can have me do after dinnerspeaking at your company.
(20:50):
You can watch my online course.
You can have me find yourflights or book your flights.
You can do anything you want.
My answer won't change.
It's just a case of how do youwant to consume that knowledge
and information on this topic,and it's different for different
people.
Some people like to read, somepeople like to listen, some
people like to do it in grouptherapy, other people like to do
(21:10):
it over zoom.
Some people want to come to myhouse and have me teach them in
my living room.
I don't mind.
It's the same content howeveryou consume it.
But it's important to consumeit because it will be the
difference between free travelfor life and luxury versus
paying for it less often andsitting upright.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
So if somebody wanted to take the because, one thing
that if you are already in thecredit card points if you're
looking to buy your Disneylandtickets, disneyland usually
registers as entertainment.
It codes as entertainment Ourfriends at undercover tourist
because they're a travel agency.
It usually does code as travel,which can be a higher
multiplier depending on the card.
But if somebody is looking tojust pay for their airfare, what
(21:54):
is one recommended path thatthey could use to kind of get
started?
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Here would be.
My recommendation is we'regoing to work backwards.
They don't want to pay fortheir family of four from Ohio
to Los Angeles.
So I'm going to tell you howmuch we can save and the best
way to do it.
To buy tickets from Ohio roundtrip is probably going to be
roughly 300 bucks ish per person.
There's four people, so that's$1,200.
(22:18):
So what we're trying to do issee how much of that $1,200 can
we get rid of.
So now let's talk about thecost of those tickets.
In mileage, in the best casescenario it would be 12,000
points per person each way, sothat's 24,000 points per person.
So it's just under 100,000points.
Plus it would be $5.60 in taxesper person each way.
(22:43):
So any way you slice it, you'vegot about 40 bucks 45 bucks of
taxes.
So I'm going to try and bring$1,200 down to as near to 45
bucks as I can.
And it's so, so simple.
You can go on my website, getyourself the Capital One Venture
card.
I don't think it even has anannual fee the first year and I
(23:07):
think it's 95 bucks.
The second year it comes with a70,000, I think it's a 60 or
70,000 point sign up bonus.
So even in the first month ortwo you would have 70,000 points
.
And if you're getting two timespoints on all of your spend,
you would only need to spendabout $10,000 before you would
(23:29):
have enough points to take afamily of four to Disneyland and
back, and plus the 45 bucks intaxes.
So in other words, if you werespending roughly let's call it
$4,000 a month on all of you,you've put everything on the
credit card every month.
It would only be about three orfour months before you would
have enough for the entirefamily to go roundtrip For free
(23:52):
to Disneyland and back.
And where it gets interestingis that's like one credit card.
If you were to get two creditcards immediately, you would
have your free trip because thesign up bonus.
If you were to get the AmericanExpress Rose Gold card as well,
that's another 60,000 points.
So you'd already have 135,000points.
In fact, you could already bookyour free trip to Disneyland
(24:13):
for the whole family and behalfway on your way to your next
roundtrip to Disneyland.
That's how it can get.
And then you end up with peoplelike me.
I have I think I have 57 creditcards right now.
So imagine when you startscaling that up.
You know I have millions ofpoints, millions.
I can go anywhere I want in theworld, in any class, with
(24:35):
anyone I want.
Stay in any hotel, get pickedup, fight it five.
I just this week alone I bookeda trip for me and my girlfriend
to Egypt where we're going tothe pyramids.
We're going there six foot layflat beds, we're staying at the
four seasons.
And we just booked for Octobernext year we're going to the
Maldives all business class beds.
(24:55):
We're going to have the hut onthe water, all that kind of
stuff, these crazy bucket listtrips that people pay tens of
thousands of dollars for.
I do it for free.
Yes, I do spend a lot on mycredit cards every month, but no
more than I would do if Ididn't have credit cards.
It's still the same amount ofmoney I'm spending every month.
And people, people moan aboutannual fees.
(25:15):
Every single annual fee of anycredit card ever is easily
justified if it's the rightcredit card for you.
Yes, there's no point paying500 bucks a year for a big boy
credit card If you're not goingto use any of the benefits of it
.
But if you're somebody whotravels a lot and you can save
50 bucks every time you go to anairport on food and drink by
having lounge access.
All of these things pay forthemselves Very, very quickly.
(25:39):
I'm the most extreme case thereis.
I have 57 credit cards.
I pay, I think, just under twoand a half thousand dollars a
year in annual fees of all thesecredit cards, but I'm doing
$150,000 worth of free travel.
So that means I'm paying lessthan 2% of the free travel that
I'm getting in annual fees.
So let's scale that down tosomebody who's never done this
(26:03):
before what's 2% of 1200 bucksand that's what you would be
paying in annual fees.
It's so, so worth it.
The math is in our favor, nottheirs.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
So let's talk.
I think a lot of people saywell, if I'm going to know I'm
going to use it for airfare, Ithink I should probably just get
an American Airlines or a Deltaor a Marriott card.
Can you talk about why theseother cards have a better
benefit most of the time, formost use cases, than going with
the airline card?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, there are two types of credit cards.
There are generic credit cardsthat collect credit card points
and those credit card points canbe used on any airline, any
hotel, at any time, and on topof that they can be transferred
into a bunch of different hotelsand frequent flyer programs of
airlines and become airlines orhotel points.
(26:55):
And those are predominantly thebig blue bank that rhymes with
face Capital, one city bank andAmerican Express.
And then you have what's calledco branded credit cards.
That's when a credit card getstogether with either an airline
or a hotel group, you earn yourbenefit on that credit card in
(27:16):
the local currency, which willbe either a public inspection, a
public ticket, a public Frenchand a public guests on the
(27:37):
island.
It takes the pretty neat one.
If they fly a lot on JetBlue,that, oh, I should get the
JetBlue credit card.
No, you shouldn't, it's notmeant for you.
These air miles that you'recollecting on these credit cards
are not as valuable as genericcredit card points that can turn
(28:03):
into those, in this example,jetblue air miles.
But they can also turn intoBombay points, they can also
turn into Air France, they canturn into British Airways, they
can turn in to whatever you wantthem to.
So let's talk a bit about thevalue.
Your average air mile is worth1.1 cent each.
Your average credit card pointused badly is worth more than
(28:25):
that, but in the best casescenario is worth 8 cents each.
So credit card points are worthway, way more than air miles,
and you can do more with them.
So my recommendation, as ageneral rule of thumb, is to be
loyal to the credit cardcompanies, not to airlines.
You can still enjoy airlines.
You can still fly the majorityof your time or even have status
(28:48):
and all that good stuff with anairline, but you should.
The majority of your organicmonthly spend should be going to
the credit card companies, notto the airlines and that also
gives you more flexibility.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So let's say you want to fly from Ohio and you know
that you want to try to avoidLAX because oh, one lives there.
Like I tell people not evenpeople who live near LAX like
going to LAX exactly, exactly so.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, absolutely so.
You don't want to pin yourselfinto one airline.
If you've got a delta creditcard and you can only fly on
delta and delta doesn't haveanything good the day that you
want to go, you're screwed,you're going to end up buying
tickets, whereas if you havegeneric credit card points, you
can move them to a differentairline and you have lots more
availability, a lot moreflexibility, a lot more
(29:34):
availability and thus a betteroption of pricing.
So, on the day that you knowthat I talked about it being
12,000 air miles each way fromOhio, there's somebody listening
to this who lives in Ohio, whohad a look today and they're
going to go.
No, it's not.
It was 45,000 points.
That's because you are onlylooking on American Airlines,
where they've already sold alltheir tickets.
(29:55):
If you had every single airmile, you'd be able to find one
of them that was doing it for 12.
So having generic credit cardpoints that you can transfer to
any airline is the ticket tocheaper, free travel.
The assumption is you'realready, you're not paying for
it, but I don't want to even pay.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I want to pay the least amount of air miles on top
of the least amount of moneyand because most of you are
going to want to try to fly intosna santa anna airport or long
beach airport using delta as anexample.
Delta has very, very fewflights into those airports, so
having that flexibility,especially with disneyland, is
helpful.
And then sometimes the creditcards will offer a bonus.
(30:34):
They'll say, hey, if youtransfer your points to myriad,
we'll give you 40, a 40% bonus.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
absolutely so.
There's two bonuses that make ahuge difference in the credit
card points world.
The first one we've alreadyspoken about, which is a sign-up
bonus.
When you get a credit card,they give you tons of points.
The other bonus and this isreally separates the amateurs
from the ninjas is the transferbonus, and every month different
(31:02):
credit card companies offerdifferent percentage bonuses
when you move credit card pointsto an airline or hotel group.
I shall give you an exampleright now.
If you've got I think it'samerican express points, you can
move them to virgin atlanticand you'll get 30 more air miles
will show up than points thanyou transfer.
(31:22):
So let's say you transfer 100000 points, 130 000 air miles
will show up, and somebody'sprobably thinking, oh, that's
cool, but I don't want to fly onvirgin atlantic.
They don't fly to disneyland ordisneyworld.
Well, actually they do.
So let me explain to you how itworks.
Each airline is a part of analliance.
Alliances are groups of ofairlines.
(31:45):
There are three major alliancesthere is sky team, there is
Star Alliance and there is oneworld, and pretty much every
single airline you've ever flownon is a part of one of those
three and you can book any oneof those airlines from any one
of those members.
So Virgin Atlantic is a part ofSky Team.
(32:08):
Who else is a part of Sky Team?
Well, approximately a third ofall the airlines out there, but
included, but not limited, to,delta, which means you can book
Delta flights using VirginAtlantic air miles.
And here's the crazy part.
Here's the bit that blowspeople's minds it's nine times
out of ten cheaper to book thesame seat on the same Delta
(32:31):
plane through Virgin Atlanticthan it is to do on Delta's
website, and that's not evenunique.
It is exactly the same forAmerican Airlines and British
Airways and it is exactly thesame for United Airlines and Air
Canada.
It is cheaper to book throughpartners than it is with them
directly, and the reason it'scheaper to book through their
(32:53):
partners than it is with themdirectly is the only people that
have watched my online courseor listened to me speak on a
podcast or TV Know that that'sthe case, and therefore everyone
goes to the big brand the Delta, united or American.
So they hike the prices up.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And let's talk about somebody who might say well, you
know, I think my hotel isactually going to be more
expensive.
You know, I'm only flying fromArizona.
When is it better to save yourpoints and only use it for
airfare, and when is itworthwhile to use it for hotel?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
So we spoke briefly about the value of these points
and we said that airline milesare worth less than credit card
points.
Well, there's one thing worthless than air miles, and that's
hotel points.
In fact, excluding Hyatt, allof them are worth roughly 0.4 or
0.5 cents.
(33:45):
Each.
Hyatt can be worth considerablymore.
Their programs are a bit morebeneficial, but any way you
slice it, your points are bestused for flights and then hotels
.
So how do you distinguish thetwo?
Well, here's the simple rule ofthumb, which is, once you
finish booking all of yourflights for the year, whatever
you've got left over, in theoryyou can use that for hotels, but
(34:08):
to do it the other way roundwould be mathematically
inefficient.
If you don't have any flightsto book, then and you live
within driving distance ofDisney, then absolutely use your
points for hotels.
But if you've got flying to do,you will end up it will end up
costing you more money if youtry and get the hotels free and
not the flights.
It is literally that simple.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
And if somebody was looking to, if you had to tell
somebody, if they were going totry this for the first time,
what are some things that youwould say like these are the
biggest or have we alreadycovered them the biggest
mistakes that people make.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah.
So the number one mistake thatpeople make is they don't know
how to use the points.
They just go into the portal ofor the travel button within
American Express or Capital Oneand they click travel and then
they just use all their points.
You're throwing them away doingthat.
It's worth the investment ofwatching an online course or
doing a session with me orlearning another way, because
(35:06):
once you've learned it once it'slike riding a bike you then
have that skill set and you canyou can increase the value of
your points tenfold.
That, fundamentally is, is thenumber one mistake is learning
how to use your points.
The second mistake is when youdo start looking for your
mileage tickets is people searchroundtrip and you don't want to
(35:27):
do that.
You want to search one way,always going to find more
availability and better pricingsearching one way and booking
two one ways than you will be asa roundtrip, and it seems
counterintuitive because we allgrow up being told always book a
roundtrip, it's cheaper, and itis cheaper if you're paying for
your ticket but we're notpaying for it.
This is a mileage ticket.
(35:48):
It's not the same rules, it'snot the same availability, it's
not the same pricing and itactually is more beneficial to
book two one ways.
Even if I found something as aroundtrip, I would still book it
as two one ways.
And the reason I would do thatis if you book a roundtrip and
while you're on that trip youneed to make that trip shorter
or longer, and you phone, forexample, delta and say, hey, I'm
(36:12):
sick, I need to stay here anextra couple of days.
Now They've got you by theballs.
You're in the middle of yourtrip.
They're going to charge youfive, six, seven hundred bucks
per person to change thoseflights.
But if you book two one ways,technically you haven't started
what is your return trip.
But it's actually a one way andthe way they look at it is they
don't want to lose yourbusiness.
(36:32):
You haven't even started yourtrip yet and they let you change
it for the phone fee, which is50 bucks.
We find ourselves in thiscurious position where it makes
more sense to collect creditcard points but turn them into
air miles and we should book twoone ways which could be booked
as a roundtrip.
But that is the math behindwhat I have discovered over the
years and I teach and I preachand I help others do it it makes
(36:54):
a massive difference, a massive, massive difference.
I'll give you another thing, andyou touched on it briefly
before.
You were talking about whichairports to fly into and how do
I know which, who flies whereand what, and all that kind of
good stuff.
Here's a great tip.
People love this one.
Go to flightconnectionscom it'sa free website that won't cost
you a penny FlightConnectionscom, and put in the name of the
(37:18):
airport that you're trying tofly to or you're flying from,
and it will show you exactlywhat airlines, on what days, fly
where to and from that place.
So let's say you want to flyinto Orange County.
You can put in Orange Countyand see if there's a flight that
comes from your airport, ratherthan going to each individual
website and seeing if they'vegot a flight for you.
(37:39):
You can you can work out theflight path yourself, and that's
another way of kind of cheatingthe system, and you can do some
really cool stuff at theadvanced level of this game.
So, for example, there's afeature on that website where
you can just draw a circle andit shows you all the airports
within that area.
Well, I'm going to Sardinia,which is an island off of Italy,
this summer and there was noflights from Cairo, where we're
(38:02):
going to be in Egypt to Sardinia.
So I drew a map around thewhole island and it turns out
there's not one airport there.
There's one airport thateveryone's heard of, there's
also six tiny ones, and they flyto lots of places, included but
not limited to Athens, of whichI could find a cheap flight
from Cairo to Athens.
So now I'm going to go fromCairo to Athens, athens to
(38:25):
Sardinia, without having to do14 extra stops, which is what
Google Flights wanted me to do,and that's where this stuff kind
of gets a bit more involved.
But it's good to hear theseexamples so you can understand
what can be done.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
And one thing you had that I really struggled with in
the beginning was I was like Ifly American, I fly American,
but how can I?
You don't have to worry aboutthe same benefits of loyalty
because you can get that upgradeto get you the earlier boarding
, because you're able to usethat on the point, so you don't
need to be loyal to just oneairline Exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's like music to my ears, robin.
So yeah, absolutely A lot ofpeople struggle when they hear
me say points are better thanairmars because they love their
status.
Let me just tell you status isa joke.
You are left at the gatesweating, staring at a board,
praying that somebody felt ill,and you're going to get an
upgrade because of your status.
(39:19):
When you do it my way, you'llhave more points than you will
airmars and you can bookyourself in business class six
months earlier and probably forthe same amount that you were
paying to go and coach anyway.
So there's different ways ofskinning a cat and the way that
they want you to, which is withthe status where you're tied to
them and all this stuff.
It just doesn't make sense intoday's day and age.
(39:40):
It makes much more sense to geta boatload of points and bully
your way into beds.
I walk past you know millionmarlers on every flight and I go
and sit in business class and Ipaid less than them and I
didn't have to sweat at the gate.
I booked mine six months ago.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
And then you still get the free luggage, and all of
that because you're booking thehigher value.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, once you're business class, you get the
lounge, you get the luggage, youget everything.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
So it gives you more options.
And for every airline there arecities that are a pain to get
to.
You know, from Phoenix Deltajust doesn't work well for me,
you know, but they're you know,but my friends live in Florida.
They can't really imagineflying, and you know, from
another, a different airline,because Delta works really great
from Atlanta and a couple otherplaces.
So having that flexibility willgive you the ability to go
(40:23):
anywhere you want to avoidlayovers.
What are your thoughts on, likewhen is a layover worth it or
when should you, you know, paythe extra in points or dollars
to avoid a layover?
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah.
So I think that if you're notan experienced traveler, the
layover is torturous becauseyou're hanging out in an airport
.
It's uncomfortable, it's smelly, it's expensive.
If you're a regular traveler,the likelihood is you have a
premium credit card and thusyou've got lounge access, free
(40:54):
food and drinks.
When you do travel luxury andthere's no cost involved it, I
do it all for free, but when youdo it in luxury, it's a
pleasure, a travel day, not aburden.
Most people hate travelingbecause it costs them a fortune.
They have to get up early inthe morning cost them money.
When they get to the airport,they have to stand in a long
line.
They have to sit uncomfortablyon a plane, get served crap food
(41:17):
and then pay, you know, for anexpensive Uber.
The other end that soundshorrible Mine is I get up.
When I get up because I can geton the most expensive flight,
which is later in the day, I geta free ride to the airport.
There's no lines for me becauseI have global entry, pre check
and clear all free on my creditcards.
So I walk through I think I'msitting in the lounge, get drunk
(41:39):
and stuff my face with food andthen I get onto a bed on a
plane where I get treated likean absolute king and brought
five star cuisine.
I have a nice sleep.
I wake up in a differentcountry and somebody picks me up
at the airport for free, on acredit on one of my credit cards
.
The whole thing is free andluxurious.
It's a pleasure.
I love going to.
It's cheaper for me to fly toAsia than it is for me to drive
(42:03):
five minutes down the road toMcDonald's and get and get lunch
.
Now it's a strange scenario,but it's absolutely true.
If I get in my car, it's goingto cost me why I have an
electric car, so it won't costme any gas, but it will cost me,
let's say, 20 cents inelectricity.
It's going to cost me $2 topark on the street and it's
going to cost me $7 to buy aMcDonald's.
If I go to the airport, it'sfree.
(42:24):
On an Uber credit, I all myfood and drink is covered.
The flight is free.
It's it's cheaper for me to goto Asia to have sushi than it is
for me to drive down the roadto McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
It's a pretty unique place to be, but the credit card
points can be really, reallyhelpful.
They can I mean they can takeyour trip from a $5,000 or
$10,000 trip down to you know,sometimes half or less,
depending on where you're flyingfrom.
So it can be really valuableand can even get you to some of
the Disney's, like Tokyo,shanghai.
You know all of those Disney'sas well.
If, if you're a big Disneyperson so I know that you said
(42:56):
you had a hard stop on want tobe respectful of your time Can
you tell people a little bitabout you?
Know how they can reach you andif somebody's like I have
points but I don't know how tobook them, how they can use you
to book their tickets.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The starting point if anyonewho wants to find me is the
points partnercom.
That's my website and I'm onall social media platforms at
the points partner Instagram isprobably your best port of call,
so I'll just talk you through.
The first thing I would sayanyone who's interested in this
stuff, just go on my website,watch the.
There's a free version of myonline course which is called
(43:33):
the fly free Academy.
Go watch the free course.
It's about an hour and a halfof free stuff there, does not
cost you a penny.
And then, if you do want towatch the full course which
Robin has watched and perhapsshe can speak on that in a
minute I'll give you guys adiscount code.
Just use the discount code.
I G is an Instagram live, iglive and that'll get you a chunk
(43:55):
off the full course.
Everything I do is completelyguaranteed money back guarantee.
You're not happy with anything,ever, anywhere, with anything
I've ever said or done, I'llhappily give you back your time,
money or anything else you areowed.
It doesn't happen.
I am obsessed with what I dofor a living.
It is not just my business, itis my life, my hobby, my passion
(44:18):
, it is my everything.
So that's the online course.
If you want to help booking aflight on my, on my website,
there's a form you just fill out.
Take your 10 seconds to fillout what points have you got,
where you're going, how manypeople, what class, what dates,
and I will or me or someone ofmy team will come back to you
with options.
You pick them, will book themand you pay us for the service
of doing that.
(44:38):
All the prices are on the formso you can see what it will cost
you.
It is a phenomenal deal If youare traveling international.
For domestic, I wouldn'trecommend it.
You should do that stuffyourself.
So if you want beds on planesfor Europe or Asia or Africa for
next summer, where the peopleto come to, if you've got a ton
of points and you don't know howto use them outside of that,
(44:59):
there's a couple of otherservices that I offer.
I do a white glove consultation, which is better than I thought
.
I do a white glove consultation, which is basically an hour and
a half to two hours with me onzoom, which will be bespoke made
to your situation.
I recommend that for highspenders or business owners, so
if you're spending more thanseven or $8000 a month or you
own a business that spends morethan that every month on credit
(45:20):
cards.
That's probably your beststarting point, but there's also
everything else under the sun.
So if you just want helpchoosing a credit card, you can
book a call with me for 15minutes and have a bunch of
questions that you can ask me.
That tends to be a lot of theplace that people start.
They want to just kind of grabme on a zoom call for 15 minutes
(45:40):
and bend my ear on theirsituation, so maybe that makes
sense and I can kind of guideyou from that point as to where
to take it from there.
But those are predominantly theofferings that I have.
I'd actually, robin, I'd lovefor you, just before we we wrap,
I'd love for you to tell peoplehow you found me and what
you've done with, or of myprocess and kind of where you're
(46:03):
at now.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
I don't remember how I found you.
I think I must have seensomebody post something or I
must have seen a Tik Tok orsomething.
I saw something and I reachedout to you and then, because we
have a business outside of whatwe do at Park Magic, we did the
white glove thing first and thatreally helped because we were
able to really change how manypoints we were able to do.
(46:26):
I took the course afterwardsand I recommended that to a
bunch of friends because itreally did lay it out like okay,
that makes sense.
And he goes.
There's a section where he goesthrough like each credit card
and why you know what's theright use case for each credit
card, and that really did helpsome of my friends identify the
best place to start.
And then he has kind of thisinner circle that we do that.
(46:49):
You know there's a zoom callwhere people can ask questions
and he has guests on that talkabout specific topics.
So I found all of them helpful.
I think in the beginning I wasjust, you know, I came actually
from more of like a Dave Ramseyall the way over here.
So you know, I think that I wasvery overwhelmed in the
beginning of it.
(47:10):
So it definitely helped to havesomeone on one time, but I
think that even if I hadn't donethat, the course would have
gotten me most of the way there.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Awesome, awesome.
I was funny, interesting,because some people there's no
real sort of starting point orfinishing point.
Yeah because the inner circle,which I forgot to mention before
, which is my private community,we do two zoom calls a month.
That's just kind of ongoing inthe background.
People come and they go and youknow that doesn't necessarily
pay relevance to people that dowhite glove consultations or
(47:41):
watch the course or any of thesethings.
So there's no real startingpoint.
I would say go to my website,fish around, pick something.
Either way I'll be here and Iwill get you on your beds on
planes for free.
That's what I do.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well, I want to thank you for your time here.
I know you're busy.
I know you're probably gettingready to go someplace else, so
thank you so much for coming onthe show today and sharing about
credit card points and how touse them.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
My absolute pleasure Anytime.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Just a reminder make sure you use those credit cards
responsibly.
It can be easy to get yourselfinto a mess you can't get
yourself out of, so only do thisif you know you have enough
discipline to do it responsiblyand keep your your, the well
being of your family andfinancial future safe.
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