Episode Transcript
Bryce: Welcome to Takeoff, a points in miles podcast by 10xTravel. I'm Bryce Conway. I'm here with some friends of mine, and we're excited to teach you a bit about points and miles. Why don't we start by telling everyone who we are?
Emily: I'm Emily. I have been in the points and miles game since around 2017. A big thing I'm using my points and miles on this year is traveling to all my friends' weddings just to cut back on the costs. Those things get expensive.
Travis: I'm Travis. I've been in points and miles since 2016. This year, I'm using my points and miles. I've gone to the Maldives and Mexico once, and I'm looking forward to a trip to Scotland in May.
Matt: I'm Matt. I grew up in points and miles, but I had to start using my own in about 2015 or 2016. I recently got back last week from a trip to Hawaii. We got to hang out with 60-plus of our 10xTravel readers and hang out in Hawaii. I just got these fun shirts made to commemorate the event.
Bryce: Beautiful. On today's episode, we're going to walk through some of the basics of points and miles, how it works. We want to teach you some of the early stuff as you get going on your journey, introduce you to who we are, talk about some of our own experiences in points and miles, and most importantly, we just want to have fun. Sounds like a summer camp counselor.
To start things out, I want to start with the basics. I want to try to have everyone explain what the points and miles hobby. Imagine you're at a happy hour, someone approaches you. What is points and miles, kind of the elevator pitch, if you will.
I always say it's using simple ways to earn a bunch of points and miles without actually traveling. Those points and miles can be used to book travel, including some very high-end travel at a fraction of the cost. It's a lot easier and more effective than you probably realize.
Most people assume that this is going to be a lot of work to save a few dollars here and there, save $100 on a flight. The results shock almost everyone who gets into this hobby. It shocked me from the jump. I'm not sure how else to really describe it. It heavily relies on credit cards or in the points, which scares a lot of people away because there are stigmas and negative stuff out there about credit cards. The results speak for themselves.
Matt: I always look at it as extreme couponing because there are lots of overlaps and similarities. With points and miles, you're not getting 50 bottles of laundry detergent for 5¢ a bottle. We get much more usable redemptions out of it, which is travel. It's way more fun than stuff you can get from the grocery store.
Remember those old smart source red coupon dispensers that were on every aisle of the grocery store back in the 90s, maybe the 2000s? They would just pass out the coupons, and they'd be wanting the cereal section for the cereal. To me, it's the same concept here, except the banks like AmEx, Chase, et cetera, are those new SmartSource coupon distributors.
The coupons we're handing out are credit card offers primarily with huge welcome bonuses that you can take and redeem at checkout to apply to your travels. You can also get double and triple manufacturer coupons with transfer bonuses from these issuers to programs. There's a lot of overlap. Also, people carry around binders with tons of credit cards just like those extreme couponers do their binders of coupons.
Emily: I think we might have a new analogy to add to the course.
Bryce: Matt, you seem to know a lot about extreme couponing. Is there something you want to tell us? Did you move all the bottles from behind your camera for this podcast?
Matt: I went through a short extreme couponing phase before I got into points of miles. By short, I mean literally for a month. Then it was not as interesting anymore, but I got some point stuff for free. That was cool.
Travis: Those coupon dispensers, as a kid, were the best. Just go in and pull in coupons from every single one and your parents are yelling at you. Only now, you get free flights. I think this is a little bit better.
Matt: The actual redemption rate on those had to be 5% with the other 80% of it. Being just kids, I would grab them and then throw them away, and then the remaining would be people that just got them but didn't actually use them. But yes, most kids I feel like just pull them out and did nothing with them.
Travis: It's funny like the similarities because those coupons have a cash value written on them. It might have been a fraction of a cent. But in the same way, the points and miles have a value to them as well. Like you said, with the manufacturer coupons by stacking with bonuses and leveraging different partners, you can get a much higher value than what's advertised.
Bryce: Is that your answer, by the way, Travis? We can go to you. You know when our friend of a friend comes up, hey, what's this point stuff about? What do you say?
Travis: I had a lot of good practice before we recorded this. I was at a work function with my wife. She had been telling people about what I do. Everyone wanted to know more. I got it down pretty succinctly to tell them that points and miles are pretty simple. It's using money you're already spending on your day-to-day expenses, but leveraging that with credit cards and sign-up offers to get extremely discounted travel.
Emily: That's definitely an elevator pitch. That's fast.
Bryce: Fast one yet. Emily, what's your go-to explanation for this?
Emily: Mine is pretty similar to Travis'. It's just strategically using the credit cards to your advantage, just making your money work harder for you that you're already spending. The great thing about that is that it can be repeated over and over again.
Of course, there are nuances and there are rules that limit you in certain ways. But essentially, you can just get a new credit card every time you're done hitting the minimum spend on the first one. In no time, you'll have plenty of points and you'll be able to travel a lot more than you could in the first place.
Bryce: I like all of yours better than mine for the record. Nice work. Assuming that someone doesn't come up to you at a bar and give you the elevator pitch, how did you get into points and miles? Let's talk about how we got into points and miles. I want to start with Matt, working our way around the horn here. What was day zero, day one? How did you find this hobby? What was the beginning like for you?
Matt: I grew up pretty exposed to points and miles. My dad traveled a lot for his job and was dedicated to US Airways and Marriott. Our summers consisted of a lot of US Airways Dividend Miles redemptions and Marriott redemptions many award charts ago in a totally different environment for what stuff costs. That's always been fun to see how that's evolved since then.
I guess by about college or so, it was made quite apparent that these miles weren't going to be made available to me in perpetuity and more or less needed to figure it out on my own. I've not directly said that way.
Bryce: We double clicked on that. What was that conversation like? We could do that in a future episode, but I'm curious.
Matt: Lots can be inferred. I had a decent knowledge and understanding of how these programs worked, not the nuance of it, but we got to go on some awesome trips from them. Surely, a couple of years after college, we weren't traveling very much as many people out of college until I stumbled upon a Facebook ad about a crazy guy that went to Thailand for pennies on the dollar. It led me into this group called 10xTravel.
Basically, I took the course just like we suggest to so many other people. I guess this was early 2016 or something like that, so pretty early days. I went through the same curriculum like we had, applied what I knew or thought I knew from my experience through all this stuff growing up, and then dove headfirst into this world. Now I get to work on it every day helping to expose this magical world to others.
Bryce: Travis, working our way down the line, how did you find points and miles?
Travis: Like my wife says, everything good in my life, I have to give thanks to her for. I guess points and miles is no exception. I didn't grow up traveling all that much. But like Matt, once I was out of college, I wanted to start exploring.
What really got me started was when I got engaged. My wife told me she wanted to take our honeymoon in the Maldives. I actually thought that the Maldives was an island in the Caribbean because everyone I knew went to Jamaica or Mexico, so I hadn't looked it up on a map. I said, sure, why not? Then I looked up where it was, how far it is, and how expensive it is, which for a fresh college grad, and my wife was in graduate school at the time, it was quite a sticker shock.
I'm sitting down so you can't tell, but I'm 6½ ft tall. The idea of starting my marriage off flying 30 hours cramped, that just sounded like a bad start. I was trying to figure out how to make this honeymoon happen. I had heard about points and miles once or twice, so I dug in and said, hey, let's give it a try. We've got wedding expenses, we should be able to meet the bonuses on a few cards. Lo and behold, we ended up flying first class, staying 10 nights in the Maldives all on points and miles.
Bryce: Wow. Do you remember what that first Google search was? When you said, I've heard of points and miles, maybe it's from a friend of a friend at a bar with a bad elevator pitch, but where did you go from there? You just googled how points and miles work? What were the first few steps?
Travis: If I remember, I actually tried specifically with the Maldives. I was searching ‘points and miles free Maldives vacation,’ and stumbled upon another site that outlined a trip that they had taken. I read that, studied it, and started off trying to just mimic what they were doing. I figured if this is what they did and it worked for them, then maybe the same thing should work for me. I ended up actually finding 10xTravel because you, Bryce, had done a guest post on that site.
Bryce: Emily, how about you? What's your points and miles origin story?
Emily: I was going to say, I think that Thailand Facebook ad is your best ROI ever, maybe.
Bryce: Two employees and the results of the attribution settings. Love it.
Emily: Yeah. I remember it was 2017 being at my first job out of college and obviously scrolling on Facebook, again being efficient at my job like Travis was, and seeing this ad, and instantly ignoring everything else I was supposed to do that day and just downloaded the course, which was an ebook at the time and read everything. I just decided then and there that we were going to go to Thailand and this is how we were going to do it.
I mapped out all my cards that I was going to get for the next 2½ years or whatever and forced my now fiance into it as well. Finally in January 2019, we took our Thailand trip. From there, I didn't really have to prove anything out anymore because it had been accomplished. Now I work here, it's awesome, and I get to do stuff that I love every day. Yeah, it worked out pretty well for me.
Bryce: It's a super rapid ascent from January of 2019 first trip, now doing this professionally and teaching others. I love it. I'll quickly tell my own origin story for points and miles. I did not find this Facebook ad for Thailand because I hadn't created it yet. I stumbled into points and miles while trying to save money on a spring break trip in college. This was 2011.
I went to college in Ohio. It's cold. I know. It makes me feel old every time I say it. I was trying to go to Florida from Ohio. I had $18 in my college checking account at the time. I was like, there's no way I can afford this. I just started googling, how do you save money on travel?
I was looking for some of those rumored opportunities that used to bounce around, where you could carry a package last minute and they’ll pay for part of your plane ticket, or you could take photos for a family and they'd help subsidize your travel. I searched for that for half a day. I didn't find a single mention of that actually being real, which was super disappointing. There's no good travel advice out there. It's all the cliché stuff like book on a Tuesday or there's a Harvest Moon, just stuff that just did not help at all.
I remember talking to my parents and was frustrated. Hey, my spring break plan is I'm going to come home for a week, that sounds fun. I noticed from that point forward that pretty much every ad I saw on the Internet was for travel credit cards, which to me at the time was the perfect ad because I was desperate to save money on travel. I roughly knew how credit works or at least I thought I did.
I saw one in particular and it was offering two free flights. I get to sign up and spend $1000 on it. I did, it was a Southwest card. I actually got approved for this. This was in the wild west days of credit on a tour guide salary. I used it to buy my textbooks for the next quarter. Lo and behold, I actually got two free flights with the points. I don't know why I was super surprised by that, but it worked out.
I ended up redeeming those for not just Florida. I booked Ohio to Florida for the first half of spring break and then Florida to Las Vegas for the second half of spring break, because I had two free flights and I wasn't going to save those. I wanted to go big. So I had this great spring break, lots of fun. I knew something bad has to happen when I come home. Things can't be this easy.
I come home and I'm waiting for just anything generally bad to happen. I wasn't certain what it was. I thought maybe the cops are going to come to my college house. Is my credit score going to be tanked? Is the bank going to be mad at me?
The cops didn't come for credit stuff, anyway. The bank sent me more offers for more cards and my credit score went up. I just naturally thought to myself, wait, why wouldn't I just do that again and again and again and again?
I started googling ‘open credit cards, earn points, travel for free,’ and that's when I found FlyerTalk and the early points and miles forums. This is before a lot of other sites are around. I just started devouring content, much like all of you said, seeing how other people are doing it.
I think the space was a little bit more open back then, where people willingly shared stuff because they're very small, and then down the rabbit hole, I went. I just started traveling like crazy with my wife. We'd go to Europe for a long weekend, just burning points like crazy, and did that for a few years. That's what ultimately led to 10xTravel. We'll tell that story in another podcast, but it all started on a desperation to go on spring break and a lack of funds to do so.
Travis: I think your experience of expecting something bad to happen is common. I know my first trip, I took with points and miles. We went to Hawaii. I was so nervous that I was going to get to the airport, go to check in and drop off my bags, and they were just going to laugh at me and say, haha, you fell for it.
I definitely think getting that first redemption out of the way is so key to settling your nerves and realizing this is real, this works. I can keep doing this for years. You've been doing it since 2011, Matt, since he was in the womb. How much of an impact it can have on your life?
Bryce: It truly is dramatic. I think one of the unique parts of my own journey here is that that's all I've ever really known because I've found this in college. I didn't really have a period of life where I'm used to paying for travel or budgeting for it. That gives me a weird perspective.
I remember in the first few years of 10xTravel, I would struggle outlining what points are worth. I would be telling people, yeah, 30,000 points, you can fly to Europe, which usually costs—I have to pause. I have no idea how much a flight to Europe cost. I haven't paid for one before, so I'd have to google and search for these things.
I usually tell people that it would be pretty rare that you just find it at the perfect time, so don't beat yourself up over it.
Matt: As someone that wasn't as lucky to find it in college as you and paid cash for their honeymoon, paid cash for a couple of Europe trips, and then other general travel like the year when I think we had 11 weddings in one year, I wish I found this sooner.
Bryce: That's Emily's situation right now. I knew when she found out.
Travis: We've talked about our styles changing, seeing that evolution of paying cash and how you travel. What's your points and miles style now? What does that look like for you all?
Bryce: I feel like I'm getting picky with my products. I'm happy to be more flexible to get a better experience while traveling. I think that I've followed a typical pattern that we see in this, where you start out where you're all quantity, no quality. Pretty much everyone says, I don't know why you redeem for business or first class when you can have three or four economy tickets.
I said that, and everyone says that, and then you try it. You usually come out saying, oh, I'm only going to do that going forward. That's pretty much me. If I'm flying over an ocean with points and miles, I am very likely not flying on economy. Even if I have to move trip dates or anything, once you know that that's out there, it's hard to go back. Guilty as charged. Boujee.
Matt: I'm definitely similar. My style has definitely shifted and evolved. Probably a common theme we'll hear. When I first got started into it, I literally maximized every single card swipe. I was always working on a signup bonus. I would go to Office Depot to buy gift cards, so I was not getting 1X on any transaction I was making.
We had the companion pass, so we flew Southwest a ton. Just literally a lot of travel and I optimize pretty much everywhere I could. Now I've shifted. I maybe open three to four cards a year on average, loosely pay attention to the spend, and don't go out of my way to maximize every single dollar, but that directly contradicts my travel style.
Premium cabins as much as I can, not always, just as much as I can. But hotel stays, I really want to pay attention to the thread count on the sheets. Is there a turndown service and other higher-end opportunities when I can? It's definitely a little bit spoiled, both on the travel side but also the wallet side. Quality over quantity is probably a natural progression.
Emily: I never really was super focused on every single point-earning opportunity. I think maybe that might have to do with starting off while I was living in New York. I think it's a lot harder to do the gift card approach and trying to maximize your spend that way. Mine was really just completely signup bonus–focused, still is at this point. I will out myself and say, I have still not flown in a premium cabin. I am still in the economy phase of my life, but hopefully not for very much longer because ideally, for my honeymoon next year, I will be flying in a very nice cabin.
Travis: Are you going to find those flights yourself for your honeymoon?
Emily: I think I might. I just liked the challenge. I know I could use the booking service.
Bryce: I use the booking service.
Emily: I know.
Bryce: People always struggle with that. I think we should take a moment and try to warn you, Emily. A premium cabin's great, but the moment you cross over, it's like Morpheus appears. If you take the premium cabin pill, you'll never be able to go back to the economy. But if you take the economy one, you're still satisfied. Do think about it for just a few minutes if you're ready to open that Pandora's box.
Matt: What do they say, once you turn left, you'll never go back?
Travis: Yeah. It's interesting, though, because I've been thinking recently of not stepping all the way back because that would be too much. I've definitely contemplated premium economy, especially on some of the daytime flights to Europe. When I'm not necessarily looking to sleep, I just want a little bit more space. I haven’t actually done it, but I've at least thought about it for what it's worth.
Emily: I feel like from a booking perspective, it's really hard to find. It's almost harder to find premium economy availability than it is business.
Travis: I almost booked it for my trip to Scotland, but it was only 15,000 more points for business as well. I'm sitting there weighing for 15,000 points to spend the next 10 hours in business versus premium economy. It's a totally theoretical concept that I've not booked yet, but I found myself at least hypothetically saying I would.
Emily: I look forward to reading your premium economy trip report.
Bryce: We look forward to reading your first premium cabin trip report. This could be a live podcast from the skies. Let's find a plane or you all can both do it on the same flight.
Emily: Travis is in premium economy.
Travis: Newark to Singapore, the world's longest.
Bryce: I love it. Yeah, I have the same experience. Premium economy seems like airlines price it at 90% of business. It's not 90% of business. But I will tell you the one beauty of premium economy, and I've flown it quite a bit lately, sadly paying cash a lot, is for families.
If I'm in a conventional premium cabin product with my three-year-old, if she can't see me behind her own little seat—they have to be sitting now for takeoff; all that serious stuff—that's a problem. Premium economy makes it perfect because we all get a little bit more space, but I can still reach, help with the toys, cut the food, and all that. Premium economy is like business class for families with young children.
Travis: Bryce, you've flown a little bit of everything, economy, premium economy. Matt and I sound super spoiled. Having done all that, what's your favorite redemption so far?
Bryce: That's always a hard question. I feel like that's when people ask you, what's your favorite place to travel? It's all different. I'd probably say ANA first class to Tokyo. I think that's probably the single highest end product I've flown. It helped that the booking was just an incredible value. I booked through Virgin. I want to say it's 120,000 points round trip.
Matt: And you had a fun story booking and finding that space, if I remember.
Bryce: Oh yeah. I booked it through United because it wasn't available initially on Virgin, and then I got it through United. I held my own ticket because I had the booking on United, but it's still within the 24-hour window.
I called Virgin and I was like, hey, I want to find a seat on this flight. They're like, oh, we don't have any available. I was like, one moment please. I clicked cancel, cancel, and she's like, how did you do that? Magic. I released my own seat and then ended up booking it for less than half the price.
If anyone is interested, just google 10xTravel, how I booked ANA twice. It'll pop up. That was a wild day. They are featuring screenshots of my text messages back and forth with people on the team when I found it and stuff. It was a fun article, fun trip.
I guess in terms of point value for a super premium product, it's really hard to beat that particular redemption. I'd be curious to hear from all of you. What's your favorite redemption so far? We can start out with Emily.
Emily: I've really only done one big trip at this point because the others got canceled due to that little pandemic. Thailand was awesome. It was great because you get that first redemption high. But I will say that I also got a similar high off of booking an around-the-world trip for one of our clients. That was just exhilarating and I don't even get to go on it. I just was so proud and excited that I had done this super challenging booking. I hope that whoever is taking that trip has a great time.
Bryce: I hope they're listening and realize that you got excited by booking that. This is the first episode. Of course, to provide some quick context, Emily runs our entire award booking service, which sees all different requests and bookings. She's by far the person to go to on staff for, I have these points, I want to book this. You talk to Emily.
Emily: I'm here. I think that day, I was just sending so many slacks to everyone being like, okay, it's on hold. Okay, it's booked. Now I'm just waiting to pay the taxes and fees, like live stream updates.
Bryce: Travis, how about you?
Travis: I originally had another trip in mind for my favorite. I think reflecting on it, my favorite was probably for my wife's birthday last year, we went to Bali. What made it so exciting was I booked it using American Express membership rewards points. With the business platinum card, you get 35% of your points back on premium cabin bookings. I just randomly found round trip flights in business class for $1400. With the 35% points back, it was 100,000 points per person round trip through Amex travel. It's not using a transfer partner, it's just booking.
Emily: How dare you.
Travis: Yeah, I know. What made it so exciting—and I think everyone maybe remembers my inner child coming out a bit—was when we were at the gate to board our flight from Chicago to Tokyo. They announced that they had changed the aircraft and ANA has released a new business class, so we were originally booked on the old one. With the aircraft change, we got changed to the new one. I was so excited because I was not expecting it at all. ANA's old business class is still nice, but the new one just blew them all out of the water. It's my favorite business class experience now.
Matt: And you literally found out 10 minutes before boarding and weren't even sure until you got on the plane, right? I think I remember that.
Travis: Yeah, because they called me up. The gate agent said, Mr. Travis Cormier, please come see the gate agent at gate D14. She said, hey, I just wanted to let you know, we had to change the aircraft and your new seat faces backwards, is that okay? Only their new business class has seats that face backwards. I was so excited and trying not to get my hopes up, but I was spamming everyone like, oh, my goodness, I think I'm going to get to fly the new business class.
We got to Bali and stayed at this beautiful new resort, where the rooms don't have walls. They're exposed to nature in the jungle. It just had a very nice, relaxing time. On my flight back, I was supposed to be flying United business class back to Houston. That flight got canceled while I was in Jakarta, so I called up United to ask them to change my flight.
I just asked them to put me on ANA's new business class again to New York. Sure enough, they did. In one trip, I got to fly their new business class twice, which I was not expecting at all, which just made me very happy. It was a fantastic experience. We were already expecting it to be a great trip, but it just made it so much better despite having a flight canceled. That's normally a nightmare situation for people, but it worked out for me.
Bryce: At some point, we need to release screenshots of these internal threads that we're all referencing, where we're freaking out about, they asked if I want to sit backward, we all know what that means, but no one else on the plane does. We're the only people who can celebrate that with you because most of your friends are probably, what, huh, are you going to get plane sick?
Travis: It's great because I actually prefer sitting backwards on planes, too, so it made it even better for me. A lot of people don't like it, but I really like it.
Bryce: That ladies and gentlemen is a preference that you can only have if you're (a) stupid rich, or (b) very good at points and miles.
Travis: Opinions on which direction to sit on the plane.
Emily: You and your wife flew different routes and everything on that one, right?
Travis: Correct. Yes, we did.
Emily: Because I feel like that's not something that a lot of people are open to.
Travis: Yeah. Again, all good things in my life come from my wife. I'm lucky that we sometimes have different priorities in our travels. Sometimes we'll take a trip and there's only one seat in business or first class available on one flight, there's one seat on another, and she's totally open to us flying separately. On that trip, she wanted to get home faster, and I wanted to take a different route to fly a different product. We were on separate itineraries on the way home.
She didn't even know that my flight got canceled, until she landed back in Houston because she was somewhere over the Pacific when that happened. She just had a nice little message. Oh, my flight got canceled, but now I'm flying ANA's new business class again. I hope you enjoyed your flight.
Emily: Perfect.
Bryce: Are you sure it's not I'm sitting backward in all caps or that's minus points? I love it. Matt, how about you?
Matt: For me, from just pure luxury flying experience, Singapore Suites is by far my peak redemption. I don't really ever anticipate topping it. I would love to. But for the time being, I don't foresee any other products topping that I will be flying anytime soon or that exist. That was just, literally, the icing on the cake or whatever the level above that is.
Travis: I've got to ask you then, Matt, because I do think of something that might be able to top it. Have you taken a shower on an airplane yet?
Matt: No, but that's on the to-do list. Some of us don't go to the Maldives every other weekend. Emirates multiple times or they have Emirates from their home airport that they can just hop on when they see fit to go shower in the sky. But yes, it's on the list.
Bryce: Travis is Houston-based, by the way, everyone. It is the envy of the entire staff, the amount of flights and availability that he has from his home airport.
Travis: You all can move.
Emily: I already did that to a worse airport.
Matt: From a luxury standpoint, Singapore Suites. But I don't want people to think that all we do is talk about premium cabin redemptions here and first class, this and that. Actually, I think my favorite redemption we've done was back in 2016. I think we did end up paying a little bit extra cash at check-in to upgrade to premium economy, but it wasn't. It was just a bigger seat, maybe even the bulkhead.
We flew to London and Paris. I actually used the Capital One Venture miles that I'd earned from years before really getting into points and miles for a $350 fare or something like that. I just used them at 1¢ for the flights, but we had opened a couple of Chase products since then. I transferred points to Hyatt to stay at some awesome hotels in London and in Paris.
It was a combination of, oh, wait, this isn't a scam, it actually works, and, oh, I really like Boujee hotels. It was awesome from that standpoint, but also spoiled us moving forward, because how can every other trip live up to this level of luxury? We stayed at the Churchill in London. It's been five or six years since I stayed there, but we loved it. We got upgraded to an awesome suite.
In Paris, we were supposed to have two nights at I think it's called the Hotel Madeleine or something like that. It's a Hyatt property, and then three nights at the Park Hyatt, which was awesome. We went to check in at the first hotel, and there was a strike by the housekeeping staff or something wild. They were like, you can't check in, but we've already moved you over to the Park Hyatt, so you'll just stay there for six nights. I was like, darn, I think I can accept that, but they didn't charge us any more.
I want to say it was $20,000 a night in the park I was, $30,000, or whatever, so I basically got a third price off or whatever for the Park Hyatt for three extra nights, so that was awesome. I think that was probably the favorite trip for being able to do it on our own dime and also get the itch for luxury travel.
Bryce: For my favorite redemption, we talked about ANA first class is fantastic. I noted my first ever flight, which was also to Paris. That's my first award flight. I still have that feeling of like I'm sitting in my seat, but until they close this cabin door, I'm convinced that someone's going to come de-plane me and be like, that dude's using points, get him out of here. He's cheating or whatever.
I still feel a little bit guilty when I book expensive travel with points. I don't know if you guys get that, too. It just feels like this is almost not fair. It's too easy. I know I'm not going to get dragged out anymore, but I still feel like, wow, that was too easy.
Anyway, we sound like a bunch of experts here. We just talked about some amazingly complex bookings, but it's not always been that way.
Next up, I want to ask you each. What was the biggest mistake that you've ever made in points and miles? I'll start on this one. This was a while ago, I'll preface that. I once transferred 100,000 Chase points to Southwest because I thought it would earn me a companion pass. I didn't read all the fine print. I think this was before I was even writing about points and miles, but maybe not.
I transferred it. I was waiting to add a companion ticket to a flight that was already booked. The companion pass didn't show up for two weeks. I called Chase and they're like, we don't know what you're talking about, you have your points here. I always send them. I called Southwest like, where's the companion pass? They're like, those don't earn companion passes, but congrats on your transfer. I was like, oh, right. Lesson learned. Matt, how about you?
Matt: I think my biggest mistake and what everybody can also relate to is, does not getting started sooner in this count as a mistake or not?
Bryce: Didn't you start when you were like five?
Matt: Not on my own. If that counts, then that. But if it doesn't count, I don't have one major mistake that I can think of, but I have a lot of small mistakes. Recently, I closed an Amex business platinum card, and I hadn't utilized any of the credits for that year after they reset before I closed it.
A day or two later, I was like, wow, I just closed that and didn't use the Dell credits, the travel credits, any of them. I don't know what that would have been like, $300 or $400. I just gave it back. Little things like that every once in a while. Every six months or so, there's a random mistake or something like that and I'm like, ah, I shouldn’t have done that.
Bryce: Could be a lot worse. Travis, how about you?
Travis: I've made a lot of mistakes in this. Reflecting on them, I think what people probably need to realize when they do make a mistake is that it's not the end of the world. It's just an opportunity cost mistake. You might not be making the best decision or the perfectly optimal choice, but it doesn't mean you're not still going to get to travel. You transferred 100,000 points from Chase to Southwest. I'm sure you've used all of those points since then. You just lost the opportunity of using them for other travel.
That's what happened to me with one of my biggest mistakes, not quite 2011, way back when. Back in the day, the world of Hyatt credit card bonus offered you free nights certificates instead of points. For my honeymoon, we stayed at Park Hyatt Maldives, so I thought, hey, let's open one of these. You had to redeem them and use them within a year.
I thought I had to book the trip within the year, so I earned them in February of the year before my honeymoon, which we took in March, but they had to be fully used. I had to complete the stay by the expiration date, so I couldn't use them for my honeymoon. Like I said, opportunity costs, I ended up using them to go to the Miraval in Arizona instead, which was still a great use of them. I had gotten them specifically for my honeymoon and instead had to transfer some Chase points to make up the difference at nights.
Bryce: Sounds like it worked out. Still married, so it's all good. Emily, how about you? What's the biggest mistake you've made?
Emily: Mine is not a huge crippling mistake, but one of my weaknesses is definitely not assessing what's in my wallet and closing and downgrading things in a timely fashion. I just loaded my wallet and my 10x, and realized how many fees I was paying, which is fine. I'm getting a lot of value out of them. A lot of them are credit cards from hotels, so you pay $95, and you probably get more than that out of it. It was a little bit of a shocking number and I might have to do something about it.
Bryce: I don't know when this airs, but my 10x, something big is coming soon. I don't think we'll talk about it too much yet. We're all playing with this tool yet, and hopefully it'll be something big in the very near future.
Travis: Coming soon, maybe here by the time you're listening to this.
Bryce: Maybe, yeah. We will see. None of us are perfect. I still regularly make mistakes in points and miles all the time. I've been curious about, what's your why buying points and miles? Why do you do this? Of course, to save money. That seems to be the thing that brings everyone in, but what keeps you going? What motivates you to do your best at points and miles? What do you think about as you're redeeming these? Whoever wants to go first, jump right in.
Matt: I think for me, it's a combination of making more travel happen than actually wouldn't happen without points and miles. The step above that is making that travel be more luxurious than it would ever be possible that I could envision. I never would see myself staying at hotels that cost $1500–$2000 a night. Not to say I do that regularly, but it's not uncommon at some of these properties that we redeem points on to stay at the cost that definitely feels like fish out of water a lot of times, but it's still pretty awesome.
Of course, like we've mentioned, once you do that, you want to do more of it. It is a little bit of an addiction. I stay at plenty of Hyatt places, Fairfield Inns, whatever to offset it. Especially if we're going on a fun vacation to a good destination that has a luxurious property, we try every way to be able to make that possible, which would not be happening without points and miles.
Another caveat to that, too, is I almost always am able to say yes anytime a travel opportunity is presented, and I almost never have to think about it from a cost perspective. Maybe probably 95% of the time. Whether it's a friend, it's like, hey, let's go to the mountains, the beach, Europe, or wherever. Okay. That's my first answer. Not we'll look into it and get back to you, whatever. It's yes, we can do that without even thinking about what it costs, and then figure some of that part out later.
Travis: I'll add. I'm pretty similar to Matt. It's getting to travel more and getting to travel in luxury, especially when my wife comes along. If I'm traveling by myself, I don't mind staying at a cheaper hotel or something. Sometimes I just want a nice, safe place to sleep. Generally, it's to access travel that I never thought I'd be able to pay for.
Flying Emirates first class, I've done it six or seven times now. I couldn't fathom paying $10,000–$15,000 for a flight. It makes the experiences more luxurious, but it also creates a really interesting mindset shift. When my wife got a new job last year, we had to cancel a big trip that we had planned to Egypt for my birthday.
So many people were telling her and they were so nervous. They were like, wow, that sounds so amazing. I can't believe you need to cancel that. But the way she put it, I thought was really, really succinct. She said, to a lot of people, that would be a once in a lifetime trip. But we take a once in a lifetime trip every six to eight months. Giving that flexibility in your life when other things do come up, you don't feel like you're missing out or losing something. I still got to take the trip later anyway, so it all worked out.
Bryce: I'll jump in and give my answer if I could, real quick, Emily, because it's very similar to Travis, except it didn't have the cancellation bit. My wife with points and miles now is the mindset shift of abundance mentality. If I'm in Paris and I'm on day three of a trip, I'm a little tired, and I want to go to the Louvre. I think I want to go to the Louvre, but I don't want to go to the Louvre. I'm tired, my feet hurt, and I'm hungry. I won't go.
I won't go because I know I can come back. I know that I don't really have sunk costs. It's not like, hey, I saved for nine months for this trip. You better get out there and do all these things because you sacrificed hard for this. No, not really. It was almost given to me with points and miles, so I just feel like everything's house money.
I'm just going to actually enjoy myself knowing that I can return, and many times, I do. You can just travel at a slower pace, just do what you actually want, and have that abundance mentality. That's what really fuels me. Anyway, Emily, how about you?
Emily: Mine is similar. The past couple of years. I've been using my points and miles for a lot of domestic travel for weddings and stuff. It's really nice to not have to worry about the cost of that.
Obviously, I'm going to try and use my points and miles for international trips and stuff like that, too, but just this savings that I get from domestic travel makes me feel a lot less guilty, or it just takes away from like, oh, man, I really have to budget and plan for this big international trip that I'm going to do.
Instead, it's like, okay, well, I used points and miles to fly to Paris, but maybe I don't want to stay at a chain hotel. Now I saved so much money on my domestic travel that I'm fine paying for a nicer hotel with cash. It just balances itself out that way. It's really to save money here so I can spend it on something nicer later.
Travis: It gives you options.
Emily: Yeah, I love the options.
Bryce: Next question as we come to the end here of episode one. What is your best hot take in points and miles? Points and miles is a space that seems to have orthodoxy. Admittedly, 10xTravel, we are probably guilty of pushing that because there are pretty particular steps.
The phrase I often use is there's less variability to strategy than you think. A lot of people come in thinking, I have these unique circumstances, therefore, I need this unique strategy. That's not generally how it works, but I'll save my hot take for a minute. Let's start with Emily on this one. Emily, what is your hot take in the points and miles space?
Emily: I have two, but I'll just start with one just so I don't steal someone else's. I think in general, we always are pretty against buying miles, but there are some instances where it's actually a pretty good deal. You always have to do your research and do the math. But if there's a really nice hotel somewhere that is going to cost you $6000 to stay there for four nights, and then maybe it's a Hilton Hotel and Hilton selling you points, where you can buy them and get 150% more on top of the ones that you just bought, you just have to do the math of here's how much it's going to cost me to buy the points I need to book this hotel, versus here's what the cash cost of the actual hotel is, and then obviously choose whichever is less.
Matt: I'm glad you used Hilton as an example because they're probably the best case scenario for that example. Time and time again, they almost always have a buy-points-get-X-number-bonus-points sale going on. Because it's such a big chain, there are tons of points availability anywhere around the world. Even if you don't do points in miles, you should look into it because you could save 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% off a cash rate by paying cash, but just channeling it through buying points.
Travis: On that, Emily, are you saying that people should just buy Hilton points whenever they go on sale just in case?
Emily: No, don't do that. Please don't do that. That's why we always got to do the math. I think it's a bad idea for sure if you just get shiny object syndrome. Shout out, Megan. You see that they're on sale and you think it's a great price. The better option 99% of the time is to look into how you can earn points that either transfer to that program or you'll earn already existing within that program. Great call out, Travis.
Matt: Buy only if you have an immediate redemption to use them for.
Bryce: And the math makes sense.
Travis: What's your other hot take, Emily? I'm curious.
Bryce: We know we're going to get to that. Yeah, let's do it.
Emily: This one, I think you don't always have to follow the best cards list. I know that's a 10xTravel hot take. Here's my theory, which is that you don't always have to go in the order of the next best card. Sometimes there's a great strategy in looking at cards. There are a few cards that earn United miles.
Maybe instead of going in order and getting an IHG, a Hyatt, a Marriott, and having these spread out points and not having enough to really do anything with them, if you focus in on all the United cards or all the cards that are in Avios, then you can take that approach, too, rather than just looking at the next best signup bonus.
Bryce: Okay, three hot takes and a question pronunciation later, which we'll maybe link in the show notes. I don't know. I think we have to know this now.
Travis: Maybe we'll have to have an article, where we just have someone pronouncing things. It's like, click here to learn how to say Avios.
Bryce: It's funny because we get press releases sometimes in the space, where a brand will clarify how to pronounce their name, and it's always silly. I think Marriott was the last one to do it because they're tired when it goes like Mariot. Anyway, Travis, what's your hot take?
Travis: I guess bringing it full circle back to Hilton again. A lot of times, especially if you've been in our 10xTravel Facebook insiders group, you've probably heard a lot of people talking about transferring Chase points to Hyatt. A lot of people take a broad generalized view that Chase points are great for hotels, particularly transferring the Hyatt, and American Express membership rewards points are really good for flights.
Something that I don't see people talking about that often is using those Amex points to transfer to Hilton. They transfer one to two, so you get two Hilton points for every one Amex point you transfer. I'm a former science nerd. Doing the quick math, a top tier Hilton will only require 45,000-ish points per night. Hilton also gives you the fifth night free on award stays. If you stay five nights, that dilutes that down even further into the 30,000 points. Top tier Hyatts now are in that 30,000–40,000 point range as well.
If you transfer Amex points to Hilton, you're often getting the same value as transferring Chase points to Hyatt. But sometimes Amex also has transfer bonuses to Hilton up to 50%, where you'll actually get three Hilton points. When that happens, you can actually get Hilton Hotels for fewer points than Hyatt's by transferring membership rewards instead of transferring ultimate rewards.
I just didn't see people talking about that enough. Similarly to Emily, I'm not saying transfer them speculatively whenever you see the transfer bonus. But if you're shopping at hotels and there's a Hilton and a Hyatt, and you need to transfer points to either program, it might actually require less Amex points to Hilton than Chase points to Hyatt.
Bryce: I love it. On this podcast, one of the goals is to humanize this, if you will. I guess real people hot takes are, you don't have to follow the best card list, and you should transfer Amex points to Hilton. I feel like if we put that in the Facebook group, we get flak from our own readers about it. I'm hoping that this helps to dull that because I agree with both of you.
Matt: I'll just keep the trend going and give us a good third one. We tell people to almost never do it. But if you know what you're doing, transferring points to take advantage of a transfer bonus without a redemption immediately in mind, can be a worthwhile move.
Point in case, I use this regularly for transferring Amex or chase points to British Airways to take advantage of 20%, 30%, 40% transfer bonuses, just to always keep them in my account. In fairness and disclosure, I live near Charlotte, which is an American Airlines hub. I have a little bit of an unfair opportunity at Avios that a lot of people probably don't because I can fly a lot of nonstop flights, so I get really good redemptions on them. If y ou don't live where there's nonstop American Airlines–operated flights, not that that's the only place to use them, but they shine really well here domestically, then this strategy won't work for you. But it works for me.
Travis: Only domestically or also to Turks and Caicos?
Matt: Yes, correct. That's basically domestic. Charlotte has a ton of nonstop flights to the Caribbean. That's where I use a lot of them. The last time I did, I transferred 100,000 Amex points. They gave me 140,000 British Airways Avios each way to Turks and Caicos in economy, mind you, which we do all the time because a 2½-hour flight is 11,000 Avios. Literally, I got two free round trip tickets as a part of the transfer bonus, which was awesome.
Bryce: Back to my earlier question, you definitely feel guilty booking that, right? Because I would feel guilty booking that.
Matt: Knowing that the cash rate is $700 or $800 almost all the time, and seeing that the fights are pretty full. People going on vacations that they've probably saved up for quite a bit for a long time. We do it twice a year on average, and it's not a big deal. That's the part I feel guilty about. It's like, yeah, we're just going to go to Turks and Caicos for the weekend, whereas that's a huge redemption for a lot of people. I've never really been able to wrap my head around that. I'm spoiled in that regard.
Bryce: For those only listening on audio, if you don't see Matt's face, he just looked guilty. I don't know if you all just saw that. He said that and then he looked left, looked right, and then looked back at the camera. Guilty as charged.
Travis: I was going to say it's funny. A lot of my friends have started texting me now if they're wanting to make plans. The first thing they ask you is, hey, are you in the US? Like you said, Matt, you're going there twice a year, you're going to other places all the time. They just know that you might not even be here now.
Bryce: I will wrap this one up, and we'll do one more question after this. My hot take if I have one in points and miles is that you have to learn by doing. I think that there's so much of this hobby that is surrounded with psychological barriers that don't make logical sense. Points and miles attract a logical crowd. It's like a puzzle. There are rules. You have to learn these systems. If you follow the rules, you do well.
Where a lot of people get stuck is that there's truly a barrier to redeeming your first points. You know that it's 11,000 points to fly from Charlotte to Turks. You know how to run the award search. But until you actually click the buttons and that magic clicks in your head, I think that your learning is quite limited.
I encourage people, especially if you are new to this and as I always say, make mistakes of action and not mistakes of inaction. Don't sit there, overanalyze everything, and then end up doing nothing. I would rather you use points horribly, just book something bad, and waste three vacations with the points, because then you learned, and then someday come on the podcast to tell us about your biggest mistake.
Matt: Paralysis by analysis is a major pandemic in the points and miles world.
Bryce: A lot of it I think is because there are outlets like ours, where people are showing off these amazing redemptions for just stupid, low amounts of points that you can easily convince yourself like, wait, why am I not doing that? You're looking at the people who are the best at this in the entire world. I think that people need to do more, book more, even if it's not perfect, and that's how you're going to learn it. Just know that it'll eventually come around. Anyway, that's my hot take.
I think we'll do one more question. I think what we're going to set up for here is what your advice would be to beginners because we're hoping a lot of people who are listening to this are pretty brand new to this. I will say, first and foremost, if you're still listening and your head is spinning, you're like, oh, my goodness, they're talking about how to pronounce these names I've never heard of, they're transferring points here and there, and it just seems like a complete traffic jam of knowledge. That's normal? We were all there not long ago. No one picks us up early. I'm already answering my own question.
I'll save my answer here for a minute. I just want to mention that this is going to seem confusing at first. We're going to boil it down and make it easy for you. I want all of you to be thinking about that question.
While you do that, I want to mention to everyone listening, the thing that sets us apart at 10xTravel is we go out of our way to teach beginners. We have an amazing free course that you can find on our site, 10xtravel.com/course. It walks you through everything you need to know.
If you're doing it right, you're going to have to go through that thing 5, 7, maybe 10 times reverting back to it almost like a cookbook because very few people memorize how all this works, including myself. I don't mean to speak on behalf of all of you, but I'm assuming that you're in the same boat. You forget things. You have to re-pick things up, relearn them. That's normal. It's a journey. You'll get there, we'll help. We'll start by helping by telling you our advice for beginners.
Let's go back this way down the order. Matt, what would you tell someone after they've asked you what points and miles are? You gave them your earlier speech, which is way better than mine. What's your advice for them if you just had one or two things to tell them?
Matt: No offense to Travis, but flying first class to the Maldives, semi annually on Emirates first class, is perfect for Instagram. It's awesome and I'm envious of the people that do it. I haven't been, but maybe one day. It's also just not a realistic way that a majority of people are going to use their points and miles.
I think seeing this on Instagram, TikTok, whatever, gives off this false narrative that that's the only way to use points and miles. That's the stigma that I like to try and disprove. No harm against people that do it. It's an awesome destination. In terms of value in travel that you would never be able to probably do for most people on cash, yes, it's amazing.
To me, domestic or close to home travel is often how a majority of people are going to end up using their points of miles. In some regards, a family reunion in the middle of Iowa that was made possible by using points and miles is just as good of a redemption as a week at the Park Hyatt and the Maldives. I think those should be celebrated equally.
Focus less on comparing the different types of champagne that Emirates and Etihad serve in first class or whatever, which one has the shower, which one doesn't, and the cents per points you got on that redemption other than using that as a baseline, and more on the overall impact on the redemptions that you're making.
Travis: I just want to clarify, I have flown business class to the Maldives. Etihad and Emirates both have a shower.
Matt: I don't know if that helps or hurts.
Bryce: Nice. Travis, what will be your advice for beginners or new in points and miles.
Travis: I would say that my advice would be to slow down. Points and miles has a learning curve. It just inevitably does. A lot of people tend to jump-in headfirst trying to go 200%, rather than slowing down, finding the pace and the balance that goes for them. Matt earlier mentioned how he's gone from buying all these gift cards and going to office supply stores to three to four cards a year, and he's still taking all of the trips that he wants. Slow down, find the pace that works for you, and enjoy the journey.
There's a learning curve to it. You will inevitably find that you hit a point where you feel like I can't figure this out, this is not going to click. I'm going to tell you now, that is redeeming points for flights for the majority of people. That's where that curve starts to feel like you're a little lost. The best way to get through it is to keep practicing.
Tap into the resources that are available. Because as you practice over time, you will eventually find yourself having random pieces of knowledge that feel ridiculous and nonsensical. You can book American Airlines flights with Etihad miles or Matt's example of booking those flights with British Airways Avios.
That might not feel normal to you now. You might not have that instinct that those are options that are available to you. But stick with it, keep practicing, and just engage with communities and resources that are out there. Someday at some point, you'll still feel lost, but you'll read a comment in the Facebook group or someone else asks, I'm looking to fly from Charlotte to Turks and Caicos on American Airlines, what's the best points to use?
While you won't think you have the answer, you'll hear this little voice in the back of your head saying, Avios with Emily's pronunciation, not A-vios like mine. You'll find these moments happening more and more, and that's a sign that you are learning. Don't be discouraged if it feels overwhelming at some point. It's happened probably to all of us here and it's certainly going to happen to you. But as long as you stick with it, you'll get past that.
Matt: We're going to look really silly if British Airways reaches out after this goes live and says it's actually pronounced Au-vios. You guys aren't even on the right syllable with the emphasis.
Bryce: I love it. Emily, what would you tell the beginners about points and miles?
Emily: I think it's in the same vein as what Matt and Travis have said. Make the hobby work for you. Idealizing all these awesome redemptions is great. It helps you set goals and figure out that you might be able to do that at some point, too, but there are a lot of different ways that you can approach the hobby.
You don't have to dive into 100%. You can pick and choose what's going to work with your lifestyle. Just because Matt's going to Office Depot seven times a week, doesn't mean that you have to do the same. Not anymore.
You just have to pick what fits with your lifestyle. If that's not going to work for you, then take a different approach and just focus on a couple of cards a year. Take it slow and build up your knowledge as you're doing that. I think there's a lot of pressure to do it the best every time. It's okay to not do it that way.
Travis: You might be surprised where going slow can get you. We've written articles on our site showing you how you can take trips with just two cards. It doesn't have to be, oh, I'm never going to be able to do this. Find what works for you, find the pace that works for you, and figure out how to deploy your strategy rather than everyone else's.
Bryce: I guess my advice for beginners is always as a one card, one trip. Make it super tactical, super clear. Open a credit card, do that soon. Don't sit there and analyze all of them to death. You should probably start with one of the Chase Sapphire's Preferred, Reserve, or even less. We can help you.
Do that soon. Earn a bonus and then redeem it in any way that you can, but do so quickly, even if it's crap, even if you take Europe's worth of points that you saw someone else use for showering this guy, and you use it for a flight to Missouri and back. That's fine. One card, one trip, not one card, one cash.
Once you get that under your belt, it just seems like that's what makes things click. You'll start to see credit card offers and points through the lens of how you can redeem them. It's just the smallest little cycle of what you'll hopefully repeat for a lifetime and just seeing how points work. Don't overanalyze, don't sit there and hoard a bunch of points until you're deemed or something. Open one card, earn its bonus, and book one trip. It does not matter what it is, and then everything else will start to click.
Travis: On behalf of Bryce, no offense to all of our readers in Missouri, this is true.
Bryce: I live in Ohio. When I say that, people are usually surprised. Apparently, if you work in travel or media, you don't live in Ohio, I guess is the unsaid thing. Apologies to our readers in Missouri for our champagne enthusiast and to everyone at British Airways, who works on the pronunciation team.
Anyway, I think that's about it. Great first episode. Any closing thoughts from anyone, points and miles related? Random? Nope. Emily, you're starting to smile.
Emily: I was just going to plug some resources besides that.
Matt: We got to get to the sponsors of the show. Isn't that all the podcasts do this?
Emily: Yeah. I think you've heard a lot from us today about mistakes you can make, how we all got started. But if you're looking to jump into this hobby as well, we've got a lot of great resources. We have a free course on our website, 10xtravel.com, where you can build a foundational knowledge. What's great about this podcast is that going forward will be breaking down the nitty gritty to give you guys the resources to be successful in this hobby yourself, so definitely check out the website.
We have a Facebook group, 10x Travel Insiders with over 200,000 people on it. If you're looking for other people who are just like you and getting started, that's a great place, too. If you get stuck where everyone else tends to get stuck trying to redeem your points, we also have an award booking service. Feel free to reach out to us, and we're happy to help you spend your hard-earned points.
Bryce: Awesome. Well for Emily, Travis, and Matt, I'm Bryce Conway, we are 10xTravel. Thanks for joining us on this first podcast. We hope to catch you again in the next one. We'll see you around the Internet.
