💳 Get Started with Travel Hacking (and Stop Paying Full Price to Travel) with Alida @alitravelpoints

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Oh, I wanted to take my family to a Disney cruise.
Hello. That was a fortune that I could
not hack with points. But I did get 5X per dollar on
that on that card on that cruise.
And oh by the way, I signed up for the new business card just
so I can buy the Disney Cruise tickets with the 5X and it's

(00:24):
also 0% APR. Welcome back to the RV Queens
Podcast, where we are all about women making money on the road.
I'm your host, Kate White, and today I'm joined by Alita, a
travel advisor, points expert and mom of three who has
redeemed millions of credit cardpoints to travel to 44 countries
over the past 19 years. She's originally from Panama and

(00:48):
is now based in Florida. Alita is on a mission to help
women ditch the debit card and start using credit card points
for epic travel experiences. With her background in finance
and her love for yoga, art, and adventure, she brings a unique
mix of strategy and soul to the world of travel hacking.
In this episode, we break down why travel hacking is easier to

(01:12):
start than you think, how to pick the right credit card for
your lifestyle, why RV Ers and part time travelers are
perfectly positioned to rack up and redeem points, and the
biggest mistakes that stop people from getting started.
If you've ever dreamed of flyingfirst class or booking luxury
stays without draining your savings account, this episode

(01:34):
will show you what's possible and let me tell you, blow your
mind just like a blue mind. So grab your coffee my friends,
and let's roll. Alita, welcome to the RV Queens
podcast. Where in the world are you this
week? Well, right now I'm in

(01:55):
Jacksonville, FL where we live. All righty, I love it.
I do have to like give a little background to how we met.
You have worked with personal friend and then a friend of the
podcast, Sandy Phelan. Sandy and Jimmy, I think you did
some travel advising with them and that's how I heard about
you. Any recommendations from them?

(02:17):
I'm always here for it. So especially happy to have you
on the podcast and get to know you today.
Also, you are the 1st guest thatcame to the interview with a
mimosa and I had to match your level and go find some white
wine, so cheers. I don't think I've ever recorded

(02:38):
while drinking a glass of wine so this is going to be an
especially great episode. I can already feel it.
Happy hour down here. OK, so another reason I'm
excited to chat with you today is because the listeners of this
podcast and the members of the RV Queen circles, we all love to
travel. That's why we're all here.
And even though we are our viewers, we also, like most

(03:02):
people, also love to fly and stay in cushy hotels sometimes
instead of campgrounds. And who doesn't want to figure
out how to get flights and hotels for free or nearly free,
which you have been doing for 19years?
So you're a magician and you're going to tell us all your
secrets, right? I went to college for finance

(03:25):
and followed my passion which was go work in wealth management
and find all the things to do with your money and make it grow
and also advising people and families to do that for
themselves and over time. Well, my husband and I back
story met at the company from week #1 and we're on the same

(03:48):
team and then we split paths. But then our paths came back
into the same field because I went on to wealth management and
he went into operations and thenI was growing and needed some
partnerships. So he we became a family, truly

(04:11):
a family business inside the company.
So that is still today. And during the pandemic, really
I took on a back seat role. I have now three kids.
You know how the story it goes. So I'm I'm still there fully
supporting, but in the during that time, I just kind of got
bored a little bit, you know, finding things to do every day

(04:34):
at home. And then I just wanted to share
some of this knowledge with the world.
And that that was what began thekind of exposure in the, in the
social media landscape. But that was not necessarily by
design. Ever since we got engaged is

(04:56):
really when I decided to open our first points earning card.
That was with an annual fee because I was always earning
cash back. And that was always my thing
because I will always wanted to like get a little extra.
I love couponing and I was an extreme couponer and got the 2
coupon books every week and followed, went to seminars about

(05:18):
all that stuff. But when we got engaged I was
like no, we need to earn real travel points.
That can be for our future travel.
Now I'd go back and forth to Panama.
So that was a lot of my redemptions at the time.
So this was before Chase even had credit cards and credit

(05:39):
cards that earn travel points. And I'll explain what travel
points mean in my world, but Amex American Express was the
only one at the time that you could do this with.
And what they still do and they're still the winner in my
game is that those credit cards,you don't just earn 1.2 points,
three points, 4 points for different category of things.

(06:01):
Those points become what they call transferable.
You don't cash them out for giftcards or products or flights
even inside their page. What they are, is they are an
airline mile, but certain airlines that they're affiliated
with that are they're partners with.
So American Express has the mostand it has about, well, I, I

(06:23):
stopped counting, but they had about 17 airlines and about 3
different hotel chains that those American Airlines,
American Express points could become those airline miles.
So then you just needed to find out how do you redeem those
airline miles for the best value?
So that's kind of how the Inquisition began because by

(06:43):
then blogs started coming out, as you've probably heard the
points guy, there's a few that are not around anymore, but I
learned a lot from, but there's a few that are still around here
and there. And so you learn what you can.
And then I just went head in. So my first redemption was to

(07:04):
Hawaii and then to Japan and allover China and South Korea.
And that was in one year. So it became a little addicting
after that long intro, but you know.
It's it's been a. Long journey and you just
continue to modify the the process and destinations you

(07:25):
know continue to come up. I love it.
You seem like the type of personthat you just, when you want to
get into something, you just go full all the way in all the way
up to your eyeballs, neck deep, full immersion.
And also just quick sidebar, me and my husband were couponers
back in the early days of our marriage too.

(07:47):
And it's like that takes a lot of dedication.
So that's part of why I yes, I know the type of person and that
you have to be very focused and dedicated to what you're doing.
Sounds like you just transferredthat right over to travel
hacking too. OK, Speaking of travel hacking,
have to ask this right off the bat.
Like how do you define it? This this phrase is all over the

(08:10):
Internet, but like, how do you personally define travel
hacking? In my mind, just taking
advantage of free welcome offersor credit card reward offers,
sign up offers, they go by various terms.
It's the initial sign up offer, taking advantage of those and
then using those reward points that they give you in that offer

(08:32):
for then free travel. And then you rinse and repeat.
And then you stack on top of each other with points that
could be combined and then you redeem them for amazing epic,
all kinds of travel. So knowing maybe what stacks
with what and what can be combined with what.
And then it's am I the only one playing this game or do I have

(08:54):
another player? We call them Player 2, so Player
2 can also apply for all the things that I'm applying for.
So it's taking advantage of all the welcome offers, multiplying
that by other members of the household, and then ultimately
redeeming them for the free travel inside the loyalty
programs. Let me make sure I have like the
basics down from what I can understand.

(09:18):
It's just a terminology that explains the free travel getting
them from credit card reward sign up offers.
So it's the sign up offers. So I don't do a lot of like
financial research and credit card research and like stuff
like this. So when you say you can stack
sign up offers, are you saying like you can sign up for as many

(09:39):
credit cards as you want? And then like your sign up offer
is, for example, if you sign up and spend $3000 on this card,
you'll get 50,000 travel points,you know, within the first three
months or whatever. And then you do you just like
stop using that card and like switch to a new card.
Sometimes it could become a keeper card or a kind of like a

(10:04):
card that I'm just going to use and abuse for the lack of a
word. OK, Because you want the welcome
offer for a particular reason. So you want to do the research
on what it is that you're applying for and why.
Does it have transferable pointsor is it a hotel card or an

(10:26):
airline card that is only going to give you points of that
airline or hotel? Or are you getting American
Express points that are transferable to different
airlines? But then comes other players in
the game, other, I call them card families.
There's American Express as the OG, then comes Chase, and then

(10:48):
Chase came in hot. So they have a lot of cards you
can hack that can be transferable.
And then there's the airline cards that I mentioned like
Southwest and individual United,but then there's Capital One is
also great. So there's the Venture and the
Venture X and the business ones.So you can start earning those

(11:12):
those points. And then you do have to pay the
annual fee and they usually charge it upfront.
And then when the year comes up,they send you a bill for the
next year's fee. That's when you kindly call and
say hi customer service. I may or may not have enjoyed
your card as much. I would like to close it.

(11:34):
I prefer to suggest to do a downgrade.
So what I mean by downgrade is you go from a annual fee card to
a no annual fee card. Of that family, the Chase
Sapphire Preferred has a $95 annual fee.
They have a higher card, the Reserve, we'll talk about that
one that's even higher. But then they have free cards

(11:55):
that are like freedom flex, the word free freedom, freedom flex.
So you avoid having to pay that annual fee like forever.
You can decide that two years from now you have to have it at
least one year with the annual fee and then after the one year
you can downgrade it. Now if it if the card has a lot
of perks and benefits that you do like and you and you earn

(12:17):
them back, then you may want to keep the card.
What card to use for what in order to earn the points once
you have a stack full like this.Oh.
My gosh, what? How many cards is that?
I don't know but this is half and these these are all the ones
I have downgraded. No.

(12:39):
Way that you know, they say like, oh, send it back to us,
we'll shred them. I'm like, no, I'll keep them.
I, I, I kind of like, like to hold on I bend them.
So these have all been cards that I have abused paid a fee
for one year, but then downgraded to a no fee card.
And each of these cards have bought me at least a, a flight,

(13:01):
a business class seat and a hotel and then some.
So 44 countries mostly, mostly with credit card points.
Now, there's some cruises in there, but those are my old
downgraded cards. Here are my active babies.
Between my between my husband and I is the stack that I just

(13:23):
showed you, and that's a mix between Chase, American Express,
and Capital One. I love them all.
I'll play with all of them because they all have different
partnerships. So American Express has some
that Chase does not have. Vice versa.
I love Chase because I can send those points for Hyatt.
Hyatt is where I book my hotel stays when I go abroad for the

(13:46):
best value. You can find really good value
hotels for under Hyatt for half of the points required for a
Marriott of the same type for example.
So there's a lot of Hyatt placesyou can get with free breakfast
for the family. 15,000 chase points, you just move them on
over to Hyatt. It's.
Easy. That was my.

(14:06):
And so then you can become maybeloyal to a chain and then, oh,
OK, I can go ahead and get that chain or that brand's credit
card because oh, they'll give mea welcome offer.
OK, thank you. And then I can move points to
that chain from my main card, the Chase card or the Amex card
and top it off and keep booking stays with it and then decide do

(14:28):
I keep the hotel card or not? I personally love Hyatt because
I've they also give you a free hotel night every year that you
have the card open. So you just pay $95 a year and
you can book. OK, I'm in Florida so we're
always going to Orlando. All the Orlando hotels are free
night with that credit card. So I have two of those myself

(14:48):
and my lovely player 2 husband. And so we got 2 free night stays
a year. And it's not just because it's
Orlando, but I can use it. Any you have to look at well,
what the categories or what are the restrictions of the free
night. It basically says, well, there's
8 categories you can book up to category #4 with this free

(15:10):
certificate. So then guess what?
You're looking at the hot, most expensive category four and
wherever you want to go, you know.
For the listeners of the podcastthat are not watching the video
on YouTube or Spotify, Alita just held up a stack of it
looked like what, 15 or 20 credit card there's over. 30.

(15:30):
Over 30. OK, so are you an extremely
organized person? Like do you track?
I mean, how do you like manage? Wow, tell me how this works.
Like in reality, do you have a spreadsheet?
Do you know where you want to goAnd then you like pick the card

(15:51):
or wow, what do you do there? I know because people are like,
Oh my God, how do you do it? OK, yes, there is an app for
that. Shout out to Card Pointers
download. There's a free version and a pro
version. Card Pointers.
You tell it what are all the cards that you have in your box.

(16:12):
I have this in a little box thatnobody knows about because it's
it looks like a cake box, but you know it's cake.
Literally don't. Tell, don't tell the bad guys
no, no. They don't know where it's at at
my house, but you tell card pointers all the cards that are
in the box and you don't have togive it any confidential

(16:35):
information and it'll just startlike sorting it in a wallet
because then it'll tell you, it'll remind you.
Well, there's a little offer that comes with such and such
card, don't forget to cash it in.
Or there's a section that aggregates it all called
pointers. So you get card pointers and
then you go to the pointer section and it basically is

(16:55):
categorized by what kind of carddo you use for what, which is my
typical question for my husband.What do I use for my grocery
spend? And card pointers will tell me
based on all the cards in your wallet portfolio, this is the
card that pays the most points. The American Express Gold.
Oh, by the way, that's my first card and it's still the winner

(17:17):
for any food you earn 4 AmericanExpress points dining take out.
So that's my grocery card. We just know it.
That's that's my husband knows. I know that's that's what it is
for food. Then all the other cards that I
may have gotten for the sign up offer, I meet the minimum spend
and then it goes into the box. If it doesn't have a major

(17:40):
category that's going to beat myother ones, I only carry in the
back of my phone. The ones that are, I'm either
meeting a minimum spend. Oh, hello Hawaiian.
This one is going away next month so I got it before it goes
away and you can't get those bonus points so get it while
it's hot Hawaiian. Then I also carry my food card,

(18:04):
which is the American Express gold and any other card that I'm
that I need to meet a spend or everything else is on my Apple
Pay. So if card pointers tells me oh,
for your gas, which one gives you the highest points?
Well, it's going to tell me which one gives me 3X.

(18:26):
Well, there's only city Premier for that, but most of them will
give me two X and it'll tell me oh, Hawaiian or the Ink cash or
these other ones in your wallet.And then I choose which one to
use. They're all active, but it
doesn't mean I have to actively use them.
And, and so then when you have aton of chase cards, they all

(18:48):
show up in one login. I do have a separate login for
my husband because we have business accounts.
And so then I have to login witha business.
He's considered a different business entity, so it needs a
separate login. But that's because it's we're
doing player 2 mode. So once you get one player in
it, you refer player 2 and you earn referral points.

(19:12):
Player 2 gets their thing. They refer you to the business
card all you refer them to the other business card and you play
pickleball. So you just have two separate
chase logins, but they're all going to show up in Chase.
Not you're not going to look at the stack like I just showed
you. You're just going to see them
all. You can call customer service or

(19:33):
chat. My favorite thing is secure
message them and say please makethe due date all the same and
you can set up auto pay. You can set up auto pay for
minimum violence. You can set it up for the full
balance. My favorite hack has been a home
hack because you can also get some of these cards that provide

(19:56):
0% financing. Basically 0% APR on everything
you purchase for 12 months. OK, hang on.
Wow. What you know, like for a whole
year, So you used to be a financial advisor, so I know
you're financially smart. So you basically leverage the 0%

(20:20):
interest just like let the balance sit there until it's
about to bump up, right. OK All, you're required.
Is to make the minimum payment and you set that up on auto pay
and you say thank you Chase and you, oh, by the way, you get the
welcome bonus points and you don't have to pay them.
You don't have to pay them for the 6000 that you have to spend

(20:42):
to get the welcome points. You can go on your trip, set
your auto pay and pay them in full 12 months from now.
How do you and your husband justlike keep yourself not
financially in deep water with all of these credit cards open?
Like, is that where your organized brain comes in?
It's like this is how much we'reholding on the cards.

(21:04):
This is how much we have, you know, liquid assets in our bank
account or whatever. So for the 0%, it does take a
discipline. You have to totally understand
cash flow and you have to have good cash flow management.
So I do have my 12 cards that I got with this 0% strategy.

(21:24):
In the time that I was building my house, I leveraged over
$200,000 at 0% / 12 different cards.
So I was applying for one between player, one business
cards. These are business cards with
Chase and I'll tell you my secret, Chase Inc cash Chase Inc

(21:44):
Unlimited. Please ask me for a referral
link. Those two cards you get 1 as a
business Miss RV Queens podcast right now and then you earn your
sign up offer, set up your auto pay and that's 0% for 12 months.
Buy yourself your whole RV set up podcast, everything, but you

(22:08):
have to know how much you're putting in it because you have
to come up with the money in 12 months.
Now, if you're, if you have of, of cash flow that just changes
on a monthly basis, you have to plan, OK, we're going to put
this aside and not just let it sit aside.
This financial advisor would make you invested in some way to

(22:29):
make more money while it's waiting.
You don't have to hurry up and pay Chase.
You can hurry up and invest it in a way that you're comfortable
with so that in 12 months that money is there owed.
Oh, and by the way, some profit at a minimum, a high yield
savings interest will give you 4to 5% while you wait.
Why are you going to give that up and give it to Chase?

(22:52):
And while you could just be making that money in your in
your on your own and then pay Chase back in full, I can attest
that this this does work. And I have not paid a dollar of
interest and I have leveraged, like I said, over 200,000.
Now I don't have that balance right now.
That's how much I have let them finance me for 12 months over

(23:17):
that many cards. So what I did was what we were
doing is you got one card, you're for player 2.
He gets the card, let's say nextmonth.
But I would only put so much spend on it and then kind of cap
it so that for cash flow purposes, I don't want to have
like a twenty $30,000 one all atonce.

(23:41):
So I was like, OK, based on our monthly spend, how much do we
and our cash flow? So you guys do your math.
How much maximum do we actually want to put on it and then stop,
then put it in the box, don't put any more money on it that
are on auto pay. OK, next card.
And because what that does is you apply for a card now in
June, so you're you put 10,000, put it in the box and then

(24:05):
10,000 is due next June. But then next July, in July,
next month, you apply for another card, put 10,000, and
then you have 10,000 due in the following months.
So there is like you have to have some sort of I have
reminders, I have my spreadsheet, I have whatever
method works for you. Know that that has to be paid in
full. That's number one key.
But that is a hack that people don't take advantage of because

(24:27):
they don't read fine print. And Chase is not promoting this
either. Yeah, my mind is like totally
blown a little bit right now. Like I feel like I've been taken
advantage of over the past. Like I just pay my credit card
ever off every month and I'm like what?
Well, not all of them have this and it's only like 12 months
from when you apply and get it and it has to be in it's certain

(24:50):
cards. So I was able to get like 6 of
them in one business and then like 4 in another business.
But now the rules have changed. Now you can only get 2 cards
with Chase and apply for a thirdone on the business side.
But still you can still get 2 a 0%.
And the other one is the one with the annual fee which is the
Inc preferred. That is the one that all these

(25:13):
points could be sent to, and then they become all
transferable. So the ones with the 0% that I
mentioned, the Ink Cash and the Income Limited, they are 0% APR,
but they're also no annual fee, so they're totally free.
It's like what? But those points are not

(25:34):
transferable. You have to have a Chase
Sapphire in your card of your family or the the business
version of the Sapphire, which is called the business
preferred. So if you have either one of
those, basically the ones with the annual fee, then all the
points can be combined inside the Chase account system.

(25:55):
There's even a button that says combined points and you move
them from card one to card the card that's transferable, the
free card to the to the one withthe fee.
And then they're all magically transferable to Southwest Hyatt,
Marriott, IHG 13 partners, I think is a JetBlue.

(26:16):
A lot of the basically all the all the major carriers.
And it doesn't just stop at whatyou see of the partner list.
Then each airline belongs to an alliance.
So let's say you want to fly American Airlines, but it's like
nobody transfers to American Airlines only if you have the

(26:37):
American Airlines credit card, which is what got me to Hawaii
first. But I've I then since it's
closed it and I earned those points by shopping online, but
that's another topic. So nobody transfers to American
Airlines, but guess I can book American Airlines flights by
sending my points to British Airways or to Alaska Airlines

(27:02):
because those are part of the alliance.
And then American usually releases some of their their
availability of their seats to their partners to be booked with
their awards. So you my specialty is to search
inside of these frequent flyer programs for the flight that

(27:26):
everybody that that somebody wants to go on and see what's
available from Partner 1234 all the way to however many I need
to check because you can find that on British Airways, but
also with another partner at a different price.
And depending on where you have the points will determine what

(27:49):
choices you have to search in. So I just kind of, I just kind
of work backwards. And I also have like my own
reverse route search method for finding the, the flights with
points based on the route that you're going.
But I I also have to work on rerouting when people want very

(28:14):
popular routes or on peak times or premium cabins meaning
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journey with our journey. OK, hang on.
I I have to dig a little deeper into this topic of the business
cards transferring to the personal cards.

(29:37):
Are you saying that so me and myhusband each have our own
businesses that, you know, own LLCS, whatever that we can sign
up? Like we can basically refer each
other player one, player 2 and like each of us can be getting
the sign on bonuses and earning the points and the all the
things. And then if on a personal level,

(30:00):
outside of the business cash flow on our personal lives, we
can also have like these other, let's say, chase cards.
And if all of those, the business cards and the personal
cards can all be accruing pointsand then transferred to the, I
think you said that one was likethe paid, you can like bubble

(30:20):
them up to the paid card and then release, redeem all of
them. Am I understanding this
correctly? Yeah, so you, the personal one,
you're taking good notes. Personal one could be the the
sapphire and then that's a personal and one of you can get
it and then refer the other. So both of you can get it.
And then one of you downgraded to the breed the freedom freedom

(30:46):
ones, free freedom, OK. And then we got the business
guy. This is this has been abused
quite a bit. So you got the business ones
being the unlimited and the CashInc they go by Chase Inc
business Unlimited and the Ink cash.

(31:06):
So you can each business can sign up for each of these.
And then these and these are no fee and both 0% APR and these
can be combined with the points from here.
And then you 0 these out and these are all transferable and
now each different card. And this is where card pointers

(31:28):
app helps. It's like, well, which card do I
use for what purchase because I want the most Chase points that
I can get for my dollar. That's the couponer.
I mean, so then you're ready forthis.
You have, you have to get this in cash, business cash, OK.
There is a very specific category that earns you 5 Chase

(31:53):
points per dollar and that is office supply stores.
OK. I can't buy that many computers
and that's at Office Depot. No, but what you do is you go
into Staples and Office Depot and you shop at their gift card
section. Yeah.
And So what do you buy? A gift card?

(32:14):
What do you mean? Amazon is my life.
OK, so you buy $250 at a time, you load them into your Amazon
account, boom, throw the gift card away.
But me, I kept it for a prop. I buy this on the regular
monthly. I only stock my Amazon account
with my 5X if I earn 5X on the gift card.
Otherwise. And everybody in my house shop

(32:36):
is shops from the Amazon balance.
If it's running low, that means I got to go get some more.
I told you about my home, but Wayfair.
I bought myself a MacBook a couple years ago.
This is how many gift cards I had to get.
But hey, I'll do it. The, the limit is 2000 per day.

(32:57):
Oh, I wanted to take my family to a Disney cruise.
Hello. That was a fortune that I could
not hack with points. But I did get 5X per dollar on
that on that card on that cruise.
And oh, by the way, I signed up for the new business card just
so I can buy the Disney cruise tickets with the 5X and it's

(33:22):
also 0% APR for 12 months. What this isn't I'm.
Seriously, you are like blowing my mind right now.
OK, let's talk about can I ask you like very specific questions
because I know the listeners arewondering this too.
Whenever you say a business account is all you need an EIN

(33:46):
or do you have to have like, youknow, an LLC?
You're like, whatever. You just need the EIN, so you.
Can apply as a sole proprietor with just your Social Security
number. So here's a it's a very specific
way to apply. Actually created a little guide
for that that you use your name.Name of the business is your

(34:09):
name ID of the business. There's a drop down that says
select social tax ID or EIN ITINor EIN and then you select SSN
and you add the information of what this business is.
It could be consulting, it couldbe mow lawn mowing, it could be

(34:30):
reselling stuff online. I would I was my first business
card with with Chase was and I'mstill a landlord.
So I have rental properties. So, Oh, OK, I have, that's my
business, but I didn't have an LLC set up for that
intentionally, you know, to apply for that card later on.

(34:50):
Now I created an EIN and that's my player 3 on business side.
But my husband also has sole proprietor applied for the
business cards. So it's just using your name as
your, your name as the business and your social and then you can
put in what the business type isand that's where the categories

(35:11):
would come in. Now, if you don't get immediate
approval, you can call them and answer questions about your
business because then they can, if it's a new time, first time
you ever apply, then you can call them to, you know, push
that approval. It's like a reconsideration
line. You can Google it or you know
there's some blogs that will give you the phone number of

(35:35):
where to call but it helps. Girl, let's say someone similar
to me is like totally new to this and you're like, hey, I
would love to go to Europe for Christmas right now when we're
recording it's June. Is is it conceivable that like

(35:57):
within the next six months I canlike spin up these credit cards,
do my monthly amount, get the sign up bonus?
I just have to meet the minimumslike can I get this going within
a few months or what is it The what's a good expectation for
newbies to be able to like actually redeem the points and

(36:18):
start traveling with these? You can absolutely do one trip
with one card depending on what kind of travel you want and what
kind of flight you want. Are you looking for?
Just get me there. I'll go in economy, I don't
care. I want premium or I want fully
life flat because that will determine how many points you

(36:39):
actually need. So thinking of the destination
and how many points based on thecabin can help determine the
goal of points needed. So then we work backwards.
So then my question is how many travelers for business economy,

(37:02):
premium and where to? Economy.
I don't care, just get me there.Doesn't matter to, let's say,
Spain. So to Spain and from departing
like out of anywhere on the EastCoast.
Let's say. Florida So one thing I also like

(37:22):
to make sure that people know iswhen we're booking with points,
sometimes we have to get ourselves to a hub that has the
points deal, for lack of a better term, or the best connect
direct route. And so then that's never
Florida. Let me tell you, I always have
to get myself to Atlanta, Washington, Boston, NY and

(37:49):
Chicago. But nonetheless, let's just
assume you know, we're going to.And so what's your country of
like your dream country to visit?
Because I always like to think of like, what's your dream
destination? Let's say Barcelona so.
I'm going to look at one of my favorite tools.

(38:09):
If you all want to take note it they have a free one that lets
you see just three months ahead of time.
The paid version you can see allyear, which is my favorite.
It's called seats dot arrow. I'm going to see what's
available for the month of December right now and which is

(38:31):
anything that could be bookable with points sent to specific
programs. So a lot of the airlines can
accept points from let's say Chase M, Capital One and
American Express mainly like theEuropean airlines.
So if you see if you start signing up for frequent flyer

(38:55):
programs to just start maybe dabbling and searching
destinations, see how much does it cost to go from here to
there. Well, some of the programs you
can sign up for that a lot of points could be sent to is like
Air France and that's very like all the points could be sent
there or British Airways. So to get to Spain the the

(39:20):
flights if we can find with points, ideally it would be
Iberia. And so you send points to
British Airways to book Iberia because it's part of the
alliance. Usually we want to stay away
from when school is out. OK, here we go.
You ready? So a little bit I did like plus

(39:42):
minus December, like 12 like allmonth, one month plus or minus.
So I found for let's say mid November, Atlanta to Madrid,
12,000 points each way per person.

(40:02):
JFK Barcelona 12,000 Atlanta Barcelona 12,000 So and that is
all booking it with Virgin Atlantic points and flying
Delta. So you're flying Delta, but
you're sending the points to Virgin and Virgin points could
go. It's one of those airlines that

(40:24):
a lot of the cards can send the points to.
So it basically you can you collect points anywhere they can
set, they could be transferred to Virgin.
Some cards have bonuses and Chase just had a bonus to Virgin
of 25%. Basically 1 Chase point equals
1.25 percent, 1.25 Virgin pointsand they run those a lot.

(40:48):
So I would keep an eye and frequent milers, a great blog
and podcast that I that I listento.
They have a page that shows current transfer bonuses of all
the cards. They keep it up and that's a
great resource that I would recommend.
But yeah, so that gives you, youknow, just some idea of the

(41:12):
power of points because I use tools that help me find it
faster and cheaper. But you the old school way,
which is how I learned, was going one by one, day by day,
frequent flyer to frequent flyerand learning about all the
routes. But now there's so many tools
that I've tried and tested and I'm I've subscribed to many and

(41:35):
this is my favorite seed stud arrow.
OK so this is. I can see how you would need to
back into this. So for taking this example, I
just said if my family of four wants to go to Spain around the
holidays, it's going to be about48,000 points one way for all of

(41:55):
us. So I need to think about how do
I get 100,000 points and if I can leverage the higher like the
cards with like the five you spend $1.00 and you get the 5X
points. That means I only have to spend
$20,000 on credit cards instead of like if I just use the 2X

(42:16):
points, I'd have to be spending like $50,000 on the credit card
before I can like get those points.
Am I? Am I understanding how this all
kind of comes into? Reality, yes, but I will give
you an even more short, a biggershortcut with way less spend so
you can get the 75,000 points from the business card number 1.

(42:38):
OK, I mean. Yeah, I'm 3/4 of the way there
then just signing up. 75,000 points right there with card
number one with 0 fee and you spend I think the minimum spend
I have to look it up is 6000. The personal card you have to
spend $4000 and you get 60,000 points and these are combinable.

(42:58):
So 60 plus the 75 that's 135. So that's so I do the math more
like no, it's just two card signups.
Player one, player two, player 1, and player one business.
You just space it out based on your spending needs.
So one a month is fine, one every two months is fine.

(43:18):
I mean the velocity is really upto your spending needs.
If you have a whole RV to buy then look up the offers.
I would say the Capital One business card is your goat.
That's 150,000 welcome offer butit's a 15,000 minimum spend Last
year I and keeping an eye on on high offers.

(43:41):
Don't let the annual fee scare you.
Last year, American Express offered not just me, but me and
my husband, 250,000 Amex points for one sign of of an American
Express Platinum. Oh, it's a $700.00 card, but
that's 250,000 Amex points. Guess where we're going in a

(44:02):
month? Italy.
Oh my. Gosh.
I mean in business class, five of us.
That is amazing. OK, this is so inspirational.
I just want to keep talking to you forever about this, but
we're already 45 minutes into this interview and I can't
believe it. I do have to touch on one other

(44:24):
thing. Just switch gears for a little
bit because a lot of RV Queens are content creators.
Let's talk about the other ways that you get paid to travel,
especially like your content creation business.
I know you work with luxury brands.
Tell me how that part of your life hurts.
Well, I have so far sponsored all of my travel by credit card

(44:47):
points 100%. I have reached out to a lot of
the hotels in advance of me arriving with my booking that
I've made already with my pointsand they are like oh thanks.
But you know they're always oversaturated.

(45:09):
So I can't say that I have generated revenue or income from
travel, but that is my business category.
So it does help me tax with tax purposes because all my expenses
I do get to use as part of that business tax strategy.

(45:30):
Now I would say that the way that I do generate revenue is
through private coaching and I used to be an affiliate for the
credit cards, but now I just focus on the private coaching
and I partner with a group of Airbnb investors that also

(45:54):
leverage a lot of these strategies.
And I do a lot of the follow up and strategizing with them.
So I do one-on-one sessions and I also help people book the
award travel. So if they need just, hey, help
me get to my trip in Europe withthis many people on these dates
and this is how many points I have, I do all of that.

(46:15):
And then I get back to you and say, OK, we're ready to move the
points. Let's get on a virtual call and
make it happen like we did for Sandy a few times.
So that's my favorite. And so I do virtual calls if you
need help reviewing like, hey, where do I start or where do I
go from here? Because people need help not
just turning the points, but then redeeming the points.

(46:37):
So I love to find the deals. And you know, if people are
looking, I have pretty much found the flights for anywhere
in the world that I place. Places that I couldn't even
imagine that you could book withpoints, I have pretty much been
able to piece together in one way or another.

(46:58):
So it keeps me, you know, excited with the routes and
things. OK, I'm glad you mentioned how
you work with people. I was going to ask you, you
know, you're this expert obviously like travel hacker and
I've only been talking to you for less than an hour, you know,
detail. So you teach people how to do

(47:19):
this one-on-one. You have live workshops and then
you offer this concierge type service where you look or you
book other people's travel for them using their points.
I mean, just go ahead and give us your elevator pitch.
Share with everyone how they canwork with you.
What website do you want to direct them to?

(47:40):
What upcoming workshops and events do you have going on?
And then I'll wrap up and ask you my final question.
Well, everyone can just follow me on Instagram at Alley Travel
Points for direct messages mainly.
And my website is Alley Travel Points where I can have you book
any consultations also on my Instagram.

(48:02):
And I also have a newsletter that if you want to join, I will
be hosting some, I want to say alittle preview, but it's
unofficial. So just join my e-mail list and
I will be making announcements of what the group classes will
be about because we have some exciting partnerships where

(48:25):
we're going to be teaching some of a lot of these untold hacks
that we can't really go on online all about.
So I would encourage everybody to just, you know, let me know
if they're interested and I'll be happy to share the links when
that's ready and available. Allytravelpoints.com and then

(48:46):
the same handle on Instagram. Good stuff.
OK, so I'm going to end our interview with a fun lightning
round of questions, hopefully fun.
And I just want to help the audience get to know you more
and kind of another side to you.OK, so don't think too hard
about these. I'm just going to ask just
first, first answer that comes up in your head.

(49:08):
OK, here we go. What is one travel hack that you
swear by that most people are totally sleeping on?
The 5X points on the gift cards for everything in your life and
then you buy what you're going to buy through a shopping portal
with said gift card and get extra miles. #2 if you could

(49:31):
drop everything and fly somewhere tomorrow.
Free flight, upgraded seats, like the whole thing.
Where are you going? Bali.
Love it #3 What's the travel mistake that you've made that
makes you laugh now? But maybe it made you cry at the
time. I was going with my family my my

(49:51):
mom and her siblings, not reallymy husband or anything and I had
booked the way back. To.
Athens and I did it at the PM versus the AM and I had to buy
the whole ticket all over again in cash which I didn't get to
buy it in with points to begin with and then I had to pay cash
not once but twice doubled the pain you.

(50:15):
Hate paying for anything now that you know how to hack the
system. You're like what?
I actually had to pay real moneyfor this.
Low cost airlines, they they're,they are a monopoly on some of
those islands. Hard to get destinations.
You can't get it with points. You can get to the main hub, but
not to the island. Lesson learned, I guess.

(50:35):
OK, last question for you. What does freedom look like for
you right now? You know.
Actually, financial freedom and just having the luxury to choose
your future. Yes, I mean, financial security,
what we're all going for. That's right.

(50:55):
All right, Alita, that is a wrap.
Thank you so much for being on the show, sharing all your
secrets with us. I've really enjoyed this.
I wish we had another hour to spend together.
I know this is gonna be super helpful for listeners.
I just really appreciate you coming on the show.
It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Kate, you're welcome. All righty, I will see you on

(51:16):
the road. Thank you so much for tuning in
to today's episode and for beingpart of the RV Queens community.
Remember to hit subscribe on whatever platform you're
listening on. And guess what?
You can have conversations like I had on this episode with your
fellow RV women who are living intentionally and making money
on the road. Head to

(51:37):
rvqueenspodcast.com/community tojoin RV Queen circles today.
It's a totally unique online space with a shared prosperity
model that's all about communityover competition.
I'd love to have you be a part. All right guys, I'll see you
next week or hopefully I will see you on the road.
Seriously, you are like blowing my mind right now.

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