The Points Guy Transcript!

It's All Written Down Here So You Don't Have to Take Notes Like Busy!

*Please note this is an uncorrected transcript of the conversation and, as such, there may be spelling or contextual errors.

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Busy: Well guys, he joined us, um, drinking his own Dunkin. He travels the world looking for the best dunking. No, I'm kidding. That's not what he does. Um, but I asked, I reached out and now we are all receiving the benefit of having Brian Kelly, the points guy explain to us how we get the most out of these points.

I just feel like, I'm like, not, I'm not doing the most and I feel

Caissie: Yes.

Busy: doing the most. And I feel like I hear. It [00:48:00] was like when I posted that on Instagram, my Instagram story, it was one of the most. Responded to by people that I am friends with and know and also like fans. Like, oh my God, yes, please find out.

Like, 'cause I have Delta status, but I don't think I get, I, nothing ever happens with it and I don't understand how to use it. And I feel the same. I feel the same about my, my statuses, my credit cards, my thing I like, I'm like, what am I doing with all these points? And I feel like we're seconds away from them, like getting rid of them all together.

So I

Brian: Well, you are, yeah, you are not alone for sure. Which is like great job security for me as someone who's branded himself as the points guy, but like really not that complex. So I'm super excited to be here with you today, walk you through it and hopefully just change the way you think a little bit about it because these programs are like super, super lucrative.

And I'm an optimist. I actually would say that there's never been a better time in American history to like play the points game. 'cause you can earn so many, um, simply by like using the right credit cards and making sure, like making these small tweaks in your everyday life. You know, I know you fly American, you can now get elite status just from using your credit card with American, which,

Busy: know that. I do know

Brian: so, so for the everyday person who's not that hardened business traveler, that was like 15 years ago.

You had to be business traveling three days a week to really get status Now.

Busy: my dad,

Brian: Exactly, but now the, in a way, the, the, the, uh, playing field has been leveled in a, you know, by credit cards and, uh, but now everyone has them and knows how to, doesn't know how to use them. So I'm happy to shed some light on just like the core foundations of like, how you need to approach this.

Busy: Okay,

Caissie: I don't know how much Busy wants to go into like what she does, but what I do is so simple that I feel like I can go through it in two seconds, and I'm happy to share because I feel like a lot of people are similar to me. And so the only thing that I'm doing is I use an Amex, a green Amex, which by the way, Brian, last time I got my hair cut, I gave it to the woman to pay the stylist, and she said, huh, never saw a green one before.

And I almost turned to dust and died.

Brian: That might be a signal. You need a new credit card, but no, the

Caissie: I guess so.

Brian: the greens not bad. But first off the bat, like anyone who you know, Amex cards are great. The Amex Gold is where it's at. Like that is the card if you want to accrue a lot of points because it's four points per dollar on dining and groceries.

So all dining your Uber Eats, there's also all sorts of like Uber credits. Um, the Amex Gold is the best points earning credit card for those you know of us who spend a lot going out to eat and grocery shopping. Um, pretty much everyone spends there. So that's like the core card. But instead of upgrading, 'cause if you go online today and try to upgrade your green to gold, Amex will gladly do it, but they will not give you the points.

So what you're gonna want to do is apply as a new card holder. You'll get like 60,000 points. I think that's the current signup bonus on the Gold card. If you have a friend who has an Amex Gold, what you should do is say, Hey, refer me in their Amex app. They can send you. And sometimes the referral is actually higher than what you'll get online.

Of course, everyone listening, go to the points guy.com. We have, you know, that's our whole business. If you want to, you know, compare and contrast offers. But truthfully, if you have a friend with an Amex Gold say, Hey, shoot me a referral, they'll get like 15, 20,000 points, which a couple hundred dollars worth of value and you'll usually get the very best offer out there.

Um, yeah, so that's the first step is like upgrading the core cards and like looking at like where you spend the most money. And then getting cards there, like,

Busy: is gold and platinum the same with AMX?

Brian: no. So platinum is like the highest, the most expensive card. Um, interestingly, you earn five points per dollar on airfare, which is a pretty limited category. I mean, it's nice. It's, it's, but you earn one point per dollar on everything else. So it's kind of funny when I go out to dinner and I see my friends with their Amex platinum throwing it down at dinner, I'm like, oh.

And they, they're so proud. 'cause they're like, I got the best Amex, right? It's the top dog. And I'm like, well actually you'd be earning 400%, four x more points by using the cheaper gold card. So,

Busy: listen. 'cause I have gold and platinum,

Brian: so always use gold. Yeah. So your biggest miss, your biggest mistake is that you are using platinum, use gold for all of those, like dining, you're

Busy: All I do is eat.

Brian: Yeah. So always use your gold card. Who cares? You know, some people are like, oh, well I think the platinum looks nicer. Who cares? I think it's actually like, if I'm on a first date with someone and like he throws down a gold card, I'm like, oh, like I'm, I'm into this.

'cause you know the game, right? So the gold card is also good. The Chase Sapphire Reserve is three x on travel and dining, so that's another good one to have. But in the Amex world, gold is supreme, which most people don't realize.

Busy: Oh

Caissie: Brian, will you come back to that hair stylist with me and we'll find out if she has a platinum card and then we'll be like in your face. Gold is better because I just, I wanna see her face when you tell her that her credit card sucks

Brian: yes, I will be, I will gladly like shame them. No. Well, interestingly, so let's talk about getting your haircut and like all these things like that are not travel or dining that you spend your money on. So you want to get a credit card for your day-to-Day spend, that is two points per dollar. So there's a Capital One Venture Card.

So in a good points earning strategy on like all the random categories, your shopping for, clothes, furniture, whatever. There are no credit cards that have like, you know, two x at the doctor's office. But Capital One Venture is two x on every single purchase. So what I like to teach people is use a Venture card, um, or a Chase Freedom Unlimited as one and a half.

That's a good base card. Use that for your everyday spend. And then you use your gold for uh, you know, groceries and dining. You use your, uh, chase Sapphire Reserve is Travel and Dine three X, but travel and dining includes Uber, hotels, Airbnb, it's a much larger category. So the goal in life,

Busy: The Chase Sapphire.

Brian: Sapphire Reserve is three points per dollar on all travel and dining.

But the cool thing about travel with Chase and is that it includes like MTA, New York Transit includes Uber parking tolls. Yeah, so anyone who

Caissie: Are you literally writing all this down?

Busy: Yeah,

Brian: yeah, anyone who pays to park in New York, I mean, you should be getting three or in any city. This is not just New York. Um, you, you can be getting Triple Points

Busy: like even my garage points, I would get triple points.

Brian: on your garage. Especially in, you know, I park in New York City and it's expensive. So all of a sudden, like,

Busy: Damn it. Damn it. I can't believe this is like the most interesting

Brian: and here's, and, and here's a, a huge one, and full disclosure, I helped found this company during the pandemic. This is the first credit card. You can earn points on rent with no fee. So the card has no annual fee. And there's, you know, most of the time if you ever tried to pay rent with the credit card, there's like a 3% processing fee, which kind of negates the value of any of those points.

But built B-I-L-T Bilt Rewards is a new credit card. It actually takes the money out of your checking account as if you were gonna write a check or Venmo and you can pay your rent. There's a lot of big buildings around the city where you pay directly. Even if you have a 90-year-old landlord who wants a check built, you can pay your rent via check in the portal and you earn points up to a hundred thousand points a year for rent, which is so many people.

It's like your biggest expense and built points. When I tell you they are the most valuable points out there, you can transfer to American Airlines, United Hyatt, Emirates, air France, like so many strong partner transfer partners and built. Also gives three points on dining and two x on travel. So I would go as far to say, if you want a credit card with like no annual fee, you can earn points on rent, travel, and dining.

The built, uh, MasterCard is like the absolute no-brainer. Yeah.

Busy: We wanna help people.

Brian: I, you know, the, the founder Encore, who's like a successful, he sold companies to Tinder, he's brilliant. He's like, you know, he's like millennial and Gen Z, Everyone's spending their money on rent. You can't earn points. He's like, I think I have a way to convince, you know, MasterCard to let us, uh, to let us run those transactions.

And he negotiated it. And like three years ago it launched. We're now, uh, we just announced, uh, like the company's worth over $3 billion. And it's like one of the fastest growing credit card companies out there because, you know, it's solved a huge issue. Like so many people, you know, consider throwing money away, paying rent.

But now, and interestingly and how credit all works and why I love doing what I do is getting new credit cards. I know a lot of people out there might be like, wincing right now. Like, Ooh, this like hurts your credit if I get a new credit card. That's wrong. The more credit you have. I have twenty-eight credit cards.

I pay them off maniacally in full every month. I don't recommend everyone getting twenty-eight cards, but my credit score is near perfect because when you actually research what goes into your FICO score, the more available credit you have and the less that you use, it's called utilization. So if you've only got one credit a card account, and like every month you're spending a couple thousand, um, it looks like you're spending a large portion of what's available to you.

So I think, um, the beauty of this whole credit card points game, not only do you, as you get more credit cards, you rake in huge sign up bonuses, all of a sudden you're maximizing every single dollar.

So you're just generating more and more points. But your credit score also goes up as long as you pay your bills on time and in full every month. So you avoid paying interest, you pay your bills off, and then the more available credit you have to you that and the less that you're using, your score goes up.

So it's kind of this brilliant way to, you know, maximize the system, you know, and that's what I love. You don't have to be a millionaire. You don't have to be making high six figures. I have tons of college students who follow me, who are really smart about their finances and you know, they're traveling in business class to study abroad.

So the game can be played by pretty much anyone. And, um. Yeah, it's a no brainer in my

Caissie: Whoa. I have a question. Okay, so I don't pay rent, I pay a mortgage, so that probably wouldn't help me. But is there like an area in life that you find that a lot of people are, they're not taking advantage of the points they should be besides like groceries?

Brian: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think once you've become a points person, you'll start realizing like, there's so many ways to earn points. Um, like for weddings instead of giving cash, sometimes you can give gift cards. And what you'll learn is like with that Amex Gold card, you know, we've all seen in supermarkets, they have gift cards that you can buy.

So you can buy gift cards for like kids' birthday parties, and all of a sudden you buy it on your Amex gold and you're getting four x points on gift cards to Target and all of a sudden you start maximizing and buying things at places that are, that are four X, this is one that blows people's minds.

So we all shop online, so there are what's called airline and hotel shopping portals. So for example, you know, because we were talking about American Airlines, it's called

Busy: I do that. I do it.

Brian: yes. So you're, you are, that's that. Well done Busy. So for those, for those not who are not aware, anytime you shop online, everyone repeat after me.

Like you must click through an airline shopping mall because what they are is they put a co, you put a cookie on your computer. So whether you want to shop, um, Amazon is like the one retailer. Not on most of these portals, but any major retailer.

Busy: Sephora. Sephora is a good example because my kid loves Sephora so much. Like, you

Brian: Nike, Bergdorf, Goodman, Carhartt. So you'll earn like one to like 12 miles per dollar. Actually Valentine's day's a perfect one. You'll earn like 30 miles per dollar spent on flowers. We all know we're getting ripped off on those flowers. But all of a sudden you click through the shopping portal, you put in your frequent flyer number and let's just say flowers.

I think there's a bunch of flower. FTD is like 30 miles per dollar. Um, and then those miles automatically get deposited into your American Airlines account completely separate from the credit card that you use. So you'll also earn for the purchase, the credit card points for using the credit card. And then the shopping portal is a separate batch of miles, totally free.

And just by clicking one button to that retailer through the airline shopping portal, there's also a shopping portal. If you have Amex, it's Rakuten. Rakuten is like the

Caissie: I am obsessed with Rakuten.

Brian: so Rakuten is normally cash back, but if you link your AMEX membership rewards account, like if you have a platinum or a gold card, you can actually, instead of earning one, you know, per uh, 1% back, you can earn a membership reward point, which when we get into like the redeeming of Miles AMEX membership rewards, points of value.

'cause you can transfer it to, uh, airlines. So you can actually earn AMEX points through Rakuten. So shopped the Rakuten shop through one of the airline shopping portals, and this is free miles that so many people are just missing out on. And it's so easy, you simply click a link through that portal and you get extra miles.

Caissie: You know why I also love Rakuten is because you were talking about like referral codes. When you become a member, you can do a referral code in which I, I don't have like a huge social media following, like Busy does. I mean bigger than, you know, my mother-in-Law, but like, not like Busy. Uh, and one time I shared my referral code somewhere and it made it so that I got like a $30 bonus, like, and everybody signing up got a $30 bonus, but I got like.

$2,000 worth of bonuses. It paid for my whole Christmas shopping that year, which I was so grateful for, and I really only shared it like two times. And still from that two times like a few years later, I'm still getting people using that same referral code. And so every once in a while I'll get a message like, you just earned $30 because

Brian: it's probably like your, your, your high school girlfriends whose MLMs you joined. They probably used your referral links, so it's like, you know, everyone's scratching each other's backs.

Caissie: exactly. Well, I just figure like 30 bucks for me, 30 bucks for you. But it just, that year, for whatever reason, it happened to add up to like $2,000 worth of credit for me, which I really appreciated because I was very underemployed that year.

Busy: I guess like for me, Brian, this is Okay. Wait, so just, just in in to recap, we're using our bill credit card to pay our rent.

Brian: Yes

Busy: our AMX Platinum to buy airfare. We're using our AMX gold on grocery and food

Brian: and Dining. Yes.

Busy: grocery and dining Chase Sapphire you can use for Ubers and parking. 'cause it's travel and you get, how much do you get on that?

How many

Brian: for the Sapphire Reserve. And what people will say is, you know, a lot of these cards, the Sapphire Reserve is $550. Some people will just look at that number and be like, Ugh, too much. This is what I want everyone listening. My dad told me when I was a kid, cheap is expensive. If you're gonna get no annual fee, credit cards, you're not gonna get the points earning and the perks, we haven't really even dealt too much.

We're just talking about points in this conversation. But there are some perks with these credit cards that can save you thousands of dollars, like purchase protection. What people don't realize when you buy goods on an Amex for am Amex is really good with purchase protection. I bought a Moncler jacket, lost it on a trip to Iceland, and they took the $2,600 off right away.

Like I didn't even have to do a police report or anything. You know, you lose a pair of sunglasses that you got. On a trip when you're in the airport, immediately call most of these credit card companies. They don't even ask questions. They're just, they will literally just debit your account back. Um,

Busy: Whoa.

Brian: and also, as we all know, the airlines are a mess lately, and they're delays.

And in the, in the US there are no laws stating the airline has to compensate you. If you're lucky, they'll give you a room at the Motel eight after waiting two hours in line. What most people don't realize is that most credit cards, if your flight's delayed six or 12 hours, your credit card coverage kicks in.

And the credit card companies are, are the ones with money. So as long as you put your credit card, your flight on a credit card, and everyone should just, whatever credit card you have, people, you should understand the benefits. So it's called trip cancellation and delay coverage. It's free as long as you use that credit card to buy your flight.

So whenever shit hits the fan, go to your credit card company and file a claim. They'll pay for your hotel, your rental car. If you had to buy a flight on another airline. Same thing when your luggage goes missing, the airlines are cheap, they will eventually reimburse you, but your credit card company, almost all of them have delayed and missing, uh, baggage coverage and that you can just shop away at the airport, at the Marshalls, wherever you are.

And then you just submit to your airline, see what they reimburse. You can also submit your credit card, so always go to the credit card companies. They're the ones who have the actual cash that will reimburse you when things go wrong.

Busy: You guys can't see this because it's a podcast. My mouth, my jaw is like on the ground. Like I can't even believe that. I didn't know this. I was somewhere and they had like lost or my luggage was like really delayed and I was so upset about it. And the airline’s like, sorry. And I'm like, I'm executive platinum pro.

Or whatever the, whatever I am. I'm like, why can't they do anything? And they're like, sorry, I didn't realize I was like talking to the wrong people.

Brian: Yeah. And just so for everyone listening, if you ever check a bag, and even if you don't always, always, always put an air tag in your checked luggage when the airlines lose your bags, some airlines are better than others with tracking, but when you have an air tag, it will pretty much tell you in real time so you know what airport it's at.

I also recommend with luggage, don't have just like a black or silver bag. I have this salmon colored Ramoa, which when I, they lost my bag in, in Switzerland, I, I showed a picture of this like salmon colored one of a kind. 'cause in that warehouse of missing luggage, they went, instantly found it.

So have the air tag, or at least have really interesting markings or stickers,

Busy: yeah,

Brian: Help you when you’re jet lagged. Looking at the baggage belt, like instead of trying to like, you know, double check the name on the bag tag, you can immediately spot your luggage and always take a picture of your luggage when you check it in so that if it goes missing, you immediately have the picture to show them and they can send it along with the claim.

Busy: I have, I, I do that. I take a, I mean, I travel a ton, so I do take a picture as I'm checking bags, like these are the four bags, so we can, like, um, so I know, just in case I al I also think, you know, I'm always one of those people that believes in like, if you're prepared for the worst, like knock wood, but like, generally speaking, the worst doesn't happen.

It's always when you're like unprepared. Like, I don't know, which suitcase was it? What was it? Ah. Um, but wait, so those are like the top credit cards. And then, and then you just have like the regular run of the mill, like airline credit cards that you can like get, I have like an American MasterCard, I think.

I don't know. That's just like, that earns points from

Brian: so the foundation, yeah. So the strictly looking at it from a point, and I, I think we didn't finish our thought. The base card is the Capital One, Venture X for like all earned, 'cause that's two X. So between Capital One, Venture X, Chase, Sapphire Reserve, Amex Gold, Amex Platinum, and Bilt, um, you're covering a lot of your bases.

And the beauty of each of those credit cards is unlike airline or hotel cards where when you use that card, you're only earning one, say, Delta Miles or one singular American Airlines Miles. Those programs are amazing. We call them transferable points programs because the Amex program, you can transfer those Amex points to over 30 different airlines and to win at points when it comes time to use them.

What the biggest mistake so many people make is I fly Delta, I have a Delta co-brand, everything's Delta, Delta, Delta, Delta, Delta. Then they come, people will come to me and be like, but I wanna fly that Emirates flight to Milan. How do I do it, Brian? And I'm like, you can't because you have accrued one singular, pretty useless currency, and you can't transfer Delta.

To Emirates for example. So what I tell people is the programs we just mentioned, all of those programs transfer to Emirates. So if you had Amex, Chase, Bilt points, you can transfer one-to-one to Emirates. I'm flying that a three-eighty flight. If you've never flown it, they fly Emirates flies New York to Milan and Dubai obviously, and and Athens.

But it's eighty-seven thousand miles and a hundred bucks to fly first class, which has unlimited Dom, Perignon, Emirates has unlimited caviar and the shower. So this is where like the math gets really interesting. So when you know how to like redeem your points, so think about it, eighty-seven

Busy: I don't know how to redeem points. I don't know how to do any of it.

Brian: but it's, it's so easy and I'll teach you like the foundations the biggest foundation is earning points into really valuable currencies.

So you know, you're already earning Amex points and those you can transfer to so many different partners. Um, so onto, I think we should just get into like how to redeem points. 'cause everyone's like, oh, oh, actually let me just finish the point on the co-branded card. So like, it's okay to have an airline co-brand if it gets you into an airline lounge if you're spending on that card.

In order to get elite status. And that elite status really gets you upgraded. And which by the way, most mid and lower level elite status these days, you're not gonna get the first class upgrade. You know, you might board somewhat early. So what I would caution people is instead of like blindly accruing, like Delta, American Marriott, whatever it is, you want to accrue points where you have a zillion options when it comes time to redeem.

Because when people come to me and they're, they've got a ton of Amex and chase points, there is nowhere in the world you cannot go. It's almost like overwhelming when you have these transferable points. 'cause there's so many options. But, but once you start understanding the really valuable transfer partners, um, and the biggest tip I have is that in America, because we have so many, uh, and I think anyone who flies Delta American or United will will notice over the last 10 years, the amount of miles needed to fly is insane

Busy: Insane Delta is like Delta first class from um, LA to New York or New York to LA or whatever. I was looking together, it was like 380,000 points and I was like, in what fucking world?

Brian: And let's take that example one way, 300,000. When you have Amex points, you could transfer, like I said, 87,000 miles, one-way, Emirates first class New York Milan. So for the same price you could get over three one-way, Emirates first class flights to Europe for the same price as one Delta business class.

LA that's when people start doing the math and they're like, wait a minute, why am I only accruing? And trust me, Delta points aren't, Delta miles are not useless. But of all the currencies out there, they're probably on the very bottom quartile. 'cause what's happened is the US airlines, you know, they've gotten kind of greedy, like, and they've just conditioned us, right?

Every year it gets a little more, a little more expensive. The joy of foreign frequent flyer programs are in Dubai, for example, they don't have as many credit cards as the us. So if Emirates were to all of a sudden start charging 500,000 miles each way, there would be a mutiny. 'cause people in Dubai would be like, we don't have these credit cards too, you know what I mean?

So, and same thing like Air France and in Europe, they don't have the points bonanza that we have in the US. So what I tell people to play the game is you earn tons of points here. You maximize our credit card system, but you don't squander those points with American Airlines, you know, the US Airlines, because A, they're gonna charge you a ton.

And frankly, the experience is not that great. I like redeeming. I just flew to Japan last week on Japan Airlines, absolutely exquisite sushi tasting flight attendants who welcome you and are so happy to have you. Like, you know, you compare that to a lot of, uh, the US Airlines that are like chicken or beef outta my way, you know,

Caissie: chicken or beef, if you're lucky. I got some pretzels or pop chips.

Brian: So, so the goal is a crew, but then redeem and foreign frequent flyer programs, and this is where it gets like a. A little bit confusing, but like Air Canada, Aeroplan is one of the best loyalty programs out there. Um, like my friend who met me in Japan, he wanted to actually fly. He, he flew United Home, but it was only seventy-five thousand miles via Aeroplan.

And that same flight on United was almost a hundred thousand miles, which was actually low for United. So the thing is

Busy: so you can like book through other airlines things, right? Because let me just tell you something, Brian, my daughter's in boarding school this year in Sweden, which let you know who doesn't fly to Sweden. Um, American, um, no, but also, um, but we,

Caissie: the name.

Busy: it's in the name, but SAS is like the, the airline that you have to fly to Scandinavia, basically.

And so we all signed up for that frequent flyer program, but that transfers back to, I think Delta. 'cause I think I get, I think the status is like

Brian: well, so this is what I would recommend. So SAS is star Alliance, which teams up with United and Aeroplan, the one that I just mentioned. And Aeroplan, you can transfer your Amex points to Aeroplan, to fly to Sweden, nonstop. So the, the most difficult part is finding availability. So this is where people, 'cause who's got the time to sit there and go day by day by day.

What I'm

Busy: I don't.

Brian: what I'm excited to share with you, this is an app that's gonna change your mind or change the way you, you do points. It's kind of, it's still kind of in like the frequent flyer inner circle, but it, so the website is seats.aero. Seats.aero. And this is a really amazing tool I pay that's like $5 a month or $10 a month for their pro version.

But what this app does, it's, you know, you can put New York to Stockholm using, uh, you uh, you can put Air Canada Aero Plan and over the next year it'll show you, you can then sort by business class non-stop on the SAS flight and it'll show you a calendar of dates that has business class availability. So instead of trial and error, hoping, you know, 'cause you'll go on, what happens is people will go on once, like one day this summer you'll be like, let me see if there's any availability.

You won't see it, you give up. Right. 

 What you can do is put like JFK to Stockholm and you can sort by coach, by business and it'll actually just show you all the days that there's business class availability. And if there's not, say you want to fly over a certain week, this is what I recommend.

You set alerts so you can set alerts for multiple dates. And the airlines nowadays, they release award seats and even up until the days, up until departure. So this is what I recommend. People say, you really want to go away. You can book a connecting flight, um, SE via Frankfurt. Lufthansa has tons of availability.

Not ideal, you want to fly nonstop to Stockholm, but you set an alert so that when SAS does release that business class ticket, you can get a text message and then you go online to aeroplan. You can change your award from that connecting through Frankfurt. And this is like what experts do and the airlines.

And one of the beautiful things of Covid is that they now let you change your flights for free when you use frequent flyer miles. So you can keep changing and tweaking that flight and then changing it again when the nonstop opens. And that's what being like, kind of savvy and, and flexible. And that's why like these frequent flyer programs are just amazing.

'cause you can keep changing your flight for free or very, very nominal fee versus when you buy a ticket and you want to go with another airline, you're gonna get a voucher that you may not use. So more than ever points are really valuable. And I'll just say they're like an insurance policy. If you're traveling abroad, you need to get home due to family emergency.

Last minute tickets are through the roof. And almost always you can find award ticket availability. When you have a bunch of, and especially when you have a Chase and Amex built points where you can transfer to a bunch of different partners, you will become, it gives you a peace of mind traveling, knowing that you can burn some points and be anywhere in the world for free, basically.

Busy: So saying so, but you are saying like your biggest, like you are saying to. Essentially use the points from the credit cards that are like the transferable points. Spread them out a across the airlines. Don't focus on the American based airlines because they're just not

Brian: because they're D, d, D. Yes. So for example, um, let's just say JFK to Stockholm on United, they charge if you can find the same seat that you can book via Aeroplan for, I think 60,000 points. United charges 88. So they're like, the US programs charge more for the same price. So that's why in almost every circumstance, transferring to the foreign programs.

Saves you a huge amount. Now

Busy: so Aeroplan though, what is, what is Aeroplan?

Brian: is Air Canada's loyalty program. It gets even better. It gets even better because a lot of these, uh, credit card companies have what's called transfer bonuses. Chase just had a 20% bonus to AeroPlan. So when you think about it, it actually, when you get that, that means if you transfer a hundred thousand Chase points, you're getting 120,000 AeroPlan.

So you can maximize these transfer bonuses and then the reduced redemption rates, like this is where all the sudden your points that you thought might not be able to get you. Like even one round trip, you're like, wait a minute, I'm juicing these out. You know, another loyalty program that's amazing is Air France flying Blue.

You can go on so many days this summer business class and Air France's business class is fabulous. They have redone it, beautiful suites, 50,000 points one way on so many dates to Europe. This summer, I'm gonna go see Taylor Swift in Lisbon and I had tons of different options. I now travel with a nanny and a baby and it's like I will book things.

I'll just, especially 'cause you can get the points back for free or like 50 bucks depending on the program. I'll book flights just to have it when I see them open up as like backup policies. Um, so yes, I know it sounds complex, 

Busy: What if you're like me and you're just a mess and you have so many different, um, like I just look, I just looked while we're, while we're talking because I'm like, I just, when I have you here, I should just look.

Caissie: this is, this is what I wanted to talk about a little bit too busy is like, do you have any advice for someone for whom the barrier might be like psychological, like intimidation, just feeling like it's too much, it's too complex for me to figure out. I'm trying to keep it simple.

Brian: Yeah. For those people and people who don't wanna deal with this at all, at the very minimum, just get cash back. 'cause the city double cash card, no annual fee, and you're getting 2% back on all of your spend. So at a very minimum, that's your baseline. Like I want people to be getting value back. Now, putting it into perspective, a hundred thousand dollars spent on a 2% cash back card is 2000 bucks.

Not bad. I mean, no one will scoff at that, but a hundred thousand dollars spent on your Amex Gold when say 10,000 of that was groceries and dining. So that's 40,000. Like that a hundred thousand in spend might be 200,000 points. That's two round trip business class tickets. So my question to that person is, yes, this is a little bit complex to learn the ins and outs.

I can assure anyone the beauty of what I'm explaining has been written by, you know, I founded the Points guy. We've got 50 writers that cover this every day. You can sit down today and I highly recommend to everyone just Google if you have, if you have Delta miles, American Google, how to maximize x.

Miles and there will be tons of bloggers who have done step-by-step tutorials on. I also recommend sweet spots. So American Airlines Miles sweet Spots. I'm going to the Maldives next week. Flying Qatar Airways for 70,000 AA miles, one way business class to the Maldives. It's like a $7,000 ticket. So like each of these award programs has their like real and it's 60,000 miles uh, to go to Japan using American Airlines only when, you know, when flying their partner airlines, which are better than American.

So what I would say to people is, would you rather have $2,000 or two round trip business class flights? I think most people would rather have $10,000 worth of flights than 2000 cash. Some people might not. Some people might say, I hate traveling. But at the very minimum, make sure you're getting cash back.

Caissie: You get that cash. And I wanna say two things too, and I am, I'm a novice at this, and I'm just now starting to figure out like the advantages of a high yield savings account as opposed to a low, pitiful yield savings account and how easy it was to move my savings. The first thing is, one, you deserve this.

You deserve to take advantage of the systems that are put in place to be taken advantage of. You deserve it. You deserve to have some nice things for money that you're already spending, and you don't have to be like a high roller to get these perks and these bonuses. The second thing is, and I'm talking to you and you know who you are, if you can figure out all the ins and outs of when and how Tom Sandoval cheated on Ariana when it happened, and who it happened to and how it happened, 

 if you're keeping track of every Housewives’ business, you can keep a little track of which credit cards are the best things to use to spend for food versus rent versus office supplies. For your own self,

Brian: I will admit like you know, every, we all connect with people, like influencers that like speak our language. I totally admit like my, I'm a super luxury guy, but there are so many bloggers, you know, in the especially female points, bloggers who I love at Points by Jay is one of my favorites.

She breaks it down in super easy to understand like format. She's super relatable. There's also Janelle on a jet. She's a Delta girly, but she breaks it down in a really fun way. So there are all these really. And I love, like, people will think, oh, these people are coming for you, Brian. I'm obsessed with this new crop of young influencers like I, There

Busy: Yeah, also like Brian's doing fine.

Brian: Yeah, no. Like there's plenty, there's plenty of

Busy: I appreciate, I appreciate a person who's like, there's plenty of room for all of us to succeed because Yeah. I get, I, I see, I see you, Brian and I get it. And you were, and you, and no matter what, you know, you are the, you know, you

Brian: I mean,

Busy: guy. Come on. You already, you made the mark. But like, I love that you're like, there is room, there is space.

And like that is, that is true. It is true. Um, okay, well those are some good hot tips. So I'm just like, I don't even understand. I just signed up for Aeroplan right now. Just also I was like looking, I was looking in my emails and I'm like, wait, I have taken so many Air Canada flights because of like traveling to Canada for work.

I never had a frequent flyer number. That's so embarrassing,

Brian: Well, that's another tip to anyone listening. Always put a frequent flyer number when you fly. And so many airlines have partners. So, um, always look to see if you can credit that, um, flight to a different partner where you might have miles.

Busy: right?

Brian: Um, I'm, I'm looking up Newark to Stockholm. There's actually only one business class seat available on April 12th and it's 60,000, uh, Aero plan Miles.

Newark to Stockholm, but that's just putting it in perspective, 60,000 points. Um, there's not many this summer, so I'm like, I'm

Busy: Well, summer, I don't care. She's in school. You know, like, it's like it.

Brian: if you want to go to Newark, Stockholm, 60,000 points business class nonstop, but um, the Seats.aero tool is really cool. Once you like learn, there's a whole tutorial on it, Oh, actually, and we haven't really talked about, um, hotel points, which hotels are really expensive these days.

Busy: They're really expensive. Wait, you can use points for hotels too. Of course you can.

Brian: Of course you can. So basically Chase points you can transfer. The high points are like generally like the most valuable.

Busy: Oh, oh, I do have Hyatt. I have points, I have Hyatt, whatever.

Brian: well the problem is like a lot of times, a lot of times, um, like for example the park High Kyoto is like twenty-five hundred dollars a night. It's one of the nicest hotels, like points hotels out there.

But just like airline tickets, like you, finding availability can be difficult and the Hyatt websites tricky. It'll show like there's points availability, but then when you click through, there aren't, so there's a website called MaxMyPoint.com, and you can type in the hotel name and let's just put like Park High at Paris, which is like one of like the best redemptions for um.

For Hyatt points, you can actually look on a calendar view. It'll show you all the days where you can use just thirty-five or forty-five thousand points, and it'll show you the cash price of that room. So I'm just looking like February 20th, it's thirty-five thousand points a night for a $1,500 room.

That's like getting 5 cents per point in value. So like, this is how you maximize points. So there's all sorts of like really amazing resorts that where you can use your points. Maxmypoint.com will let you, you know, search throughout a year to see when there's availability. And then I like to tell people, like, plan your trips around when you can get the best Redemptions when possible.

Caissie: really good advice. So how can I ask, how much do you like? Do you block out some time in the beginning of the year where you just try to plan out your year?

Brian: It's interesting, like I go in blocks, like I didn't travel that much Q4, but this quarter I was like, I want to go to Tokyo. I haven't really been to Asia proper since the pandemic. And

Caissie: Yeah.

Brian: and now I'm for my birthday's in March of every year. So I, I usually go away for a couple weeks. So I'm like, but I, I, I let the award inventory, I'm flying Emirates first class to Milan, spending time with friends there, going to Madrid, and then Abu, Dhabi, then Maldives, like all on points.

And for me, I'm like, I and I have so many points and especially for the small business owners out there. Getting small business credit cards will double or triple like the rate at which you earn points. And here's a little tip for any of my entrepreneur friends, or if you run a business that does Facebook or Google Ads, the Amex Business Gold Card listen here, gives four points per dollar on all internet spend.

So if you're running Facebook ads and you're getting reimbursed or you know your company, so part of the points guy when I sold it is that I got to still put all of the expense in the company on my credit cards 'cause I needed to create points. Um, so we do a lot of internet advertising. So I have like multiple Amex gold cards where I'm earning four x points on like hundreds and hundreds of thousand dollars of spend.

The chase in card also gives three x on on internet spending. So make sure you're maximizing not just your personal spend, but also small business spend. You know, there's a Capital One Venture X business card that has like a 300,000 point sign-up bonus right now if to spend a bunch on it. So small business credit, and you don't have to have like a huge small business.

You can be an Etsy, you can have like a sole proprietorship apply with your personal social security number to get a small business credit card. You can have even a concept of a business to get small business credit cards if you catch my drift.

Caissie: I catch your drift, you know how I know your message is really spreading because here's a change that I've noticed culturally since the Points Guy has become a thing. Remember how everybody used to sorta tussle over who was gonna put their credit card down at a restaurant? No more. People will break their arm trying to get their credit card outta their wallet to be like, I'll get it, I'll get it.

You just all, everybody Venmo me. Everybody is so eager to put their damn card down to cover a $600 restaurant bill. And I'm like, this is 'cause of Brian the

Brian: I, it's like

Caissie: they know

Brian: tag me when there's like seven Sapphire reserves around the table. Like it's, it's like Proud, proud Dad moment.

Busy: I

Caissie: I love

Busy: I do too. I just like, yeah, I think I always am like, have such a hard time figuring out the, like getting the most for my points. So I think that like max, my, is it Max my Point.com

Brian: Yes. That's the one for hotel points. And then Seats.aero is the one that really, and also Roame.travel, that's another tool that will help you kind of, you gotta learn how to use technology to like find the best deals. And you gotta be a little bit flexible. But's like the same thing as finding like good fare deals, which for anyone listening Google flights, if you don't know how to maximize, work your way around Google flights take a little bit of time.

That's how you find the cheapest airfare. And Google Flights has a really cool feature called Explore. So google.com slash flights, that's where you can search, you know, you wanna go to Miami, you can search, it'll show you a calendar. You can. Sort by business class nonstop. A really fun feature is the explore map.

So you can actually put, like, say you're in New York City, it's horribly cold March. You want to go away for a weekend in March, the Caribbean, you can just put New York City to Caribbean nonstop flights and it'll show you a map of the Caribbean and you can see the cheapest islands where to go. And sometimes you'll be like, oh, Turks, like I looked the other week and Turks was like $240 like on JetBlue, which is actually, I'll even fly JetBlue and coach sometimes 'cause, 'cause like the leg room is like similar to

Busy: bad.

Brian: It's similar to what the other,

Caissie: JetBlue's my main girl.

Busy: Mm-Hmm.

Brian: JetBlue, an exit row is more leg room than like a recliner seat on United on the same flight. That's like 10 times the price. But anyway, the explore map feature and also a tip for people is like when you're, you can track the price of your flight when you book it because the airlines now let you rebook.

A lot of them will actually let you, if the price drops enough, you can get a voucher for the difference. So even after you book, you can track the prices on your flight. Google Flights will let you set an alert, Hey, if this flight price drops below this amount, a lot of times Delta is very flexible.

They'll let you online switch to the lower price and give you a voucher for the difference. Southwest Airlines will always let you drop and rebook at the lower rate and give you a voucher. So just another fun way to like continue, you know, saving where you can.

Busy: Um, this is incredible. And also I still am like, but if we have status on airlines, like it doesn't even matter. I don't know. Does it? What do we, I'm like, what am I, I don't even know.

Brian: Yeah, so I think if your executive Platinum on American, which I'm assuming you, that's what you said you were qualified for Exec plat

Busy: see. Lemme see here. You know what, I just looked on Delta. On Delta. I'm platinum Medallion. And on American. I am executive platinum.

Brian: So American, the, the top tier status is where it's at. So for example, American will let you get system-wide upgrades. Historically, those have been the most valuable.

Busy: Yeah, but I don't even, but what are

Brian: I know. So you can actually, the really, so if, if the thing is you can buy the cheapest coach ticket and then upgrade on, pretty much on any flight to business class, theoretically that sounds amazing.

A cheap ticket. And you're gonna get business class. However, the airlines are selling out business class. So you kind of generally have to wait up until the day of departure. So if you're someone like me who, like, I'm not flying internationally and economy, I'm six foot seven, I'm just

Busy: No, you can't.

Caissie: Six seven???

Brian: But you can give them to friends or assistance, etc. Like you can help people. So those are generally like the best parts. But if you're flying in paid business or you're using points, my tip to most people is just be really smart about your points and then redeem for the flights that you want. Don't you know, the lead status upgrades have gotten so hard to come by Back in the day, 10 years ago, you could be dealt a platinum.

Upgrades on JFK LA that almost like never happens

Busy: Yeah. Never. Well, I just, you Brian, some friends now that I just had the worst thing, I did not get my upgrade, uh, which I normally am, like, it's normally like paid for, the flights are paid for for me or whatever. But I was like trying to do the system wide upgrade. I was like, first on the list because they do it by status and by, and so I was like, surely I'll get the no

Brian: humble, was it a humbling experience?

Busy: It was only just like a bummer because I had a good seat, like in that, that first bulkhead on American, like, you know, whatever. So you have like all that leg room, but the man sitting in the middle seat next to me was like, you basically, I mean, he was like wa he was just wide like a football, like his, he physically didn't fit in the seat, so it was like one of us either had to be forward or the other one had to be back.

And then it was just like this weird, I was just uncomfortable the whole time. 'cause I was like, this poor guy can't, his shoulders don't

Brian: And they're always gonna be in those bulkheads or exit rows. That's why when I'm like, oh, I could do an exit. I did it recently where I was like, I'm not gonna pay, I'll just do, it was Charlotte, New York short flight, but I was next to a linebacker and it was just like, and it's never a 90 minute flight.

You're on the plane, 40 minutes boarding taxi, like you're, all of a sudden you're like, okay. So, um,

Busy: I've learned my, I

Caissie: your, do you think your height had anything to do with you going into this

Brian: for sure. For sure. I mean, I mean, I've been a schemer since like I can remember and I

Busy: Yeah. This is my, I wanted to know what, like how you got into this biz.

Brian: yeah. So I

Caissie: I love that, I root for a schemer and a scammer sometimes. I have to be honest, if no one's getting hurt.

Brian: I was like a closeted gay boy growing up in the Philly suburbs. I just wanted to live a fabulous life. I was like, you know, grew up in a middle, middle, upper class family. My parents were like, you know, vacations to us were like Orlando, Outer banks, like great, like regional. And when I was 12, my dad who traveled was like, if you can figure out how to use our points, like we'll go on a trip.

And I had to like just read the firm by John Grisham and they were in the Cayman Islands and it sounded so fierce. So I planned our, I figured out how to send our family of six for free to the Cayman Islands. This was 19 ninety-five. So this is actually we, I was 12 years old. My parents and I laugh about it, but they trusted me to plan this trip.

It was amazing. And so that's like every year my dad and I would bond, I would figure out how to use his points to go to Barbados or like at mostly the Caribbean. And then it was in college when I studied abroad in Spain. That I all of a sudden had elite status and then I discovered this world called Flyer talk, which is like kinda like Reddit for frequent flyer nerds.

And that was in 2004. And I realized that there was like thousands of people around the world doing this frequent flyer game and then moved to New York, worked in finance oh seven to 10 and that's when at Morgan Stanley I realized like my corporate card I could get points and all of a sudden I started scheming the HR department.

I was putting all the career fairs on my corporate credit card and everyone in HR was like, thank you. You're like, thank you for like doing all the paperwork for expenses. I was like, I got it guys. Meanwhile I'm like, you idiots. Like each of these expense reports is like two business class tickets. So that, and then it was, so that was like I started the Point Sky in 2010 while I was at Morgan Stanley just showing people like, you don't need to, I was making 65 KA year, like broke like paycheck to paycheck in New York.

But traveling first class I flew with Madonna one weekend. Like I was living this like double life through points and all my friends were like, you're the points guy. So I started the Points guy as just like a fun side hustle just, and my friend was like, you should blog. You've got like an interesting point of view taking these like really boring freaking flyer miles and then relating it to the masses.

So I basically started translating flyer talk, which was the wonky world, deep underworld of freaking flyer miles to like normal people. And that's kind of like what shot me to. To where

Busy: we are to hear, to the, to the place where we are. This podcast,

Caissie: this podcast,

Brian: That's it.

Busy: I feel like I, I feel like I we're all gonna like digest this a little bit. We're gonna have more questions. We're gonna go to the points Guy.com, and we're gonna figure out other things there that we are gonna need to find out about what? Right. Like but you have like so much information

Brian: We have so much. We have beginner's guides, and then, you know, at the points guide on social media, my personal travels, well, you'll see me and my cute baby traveling. The world is at Brian Kelly and I try to respond to

Caissie: Congrats on the baby. By the way, we were planning to have you on so long ago, but then you had a

Brian: Yeah. How dare I? Yeah,

Caissie: more fun, but, uh,

Brian: He's been to 12 countries now. 12 countries in 16 months, so, and he is about to check off a bunch more.

Busy: he is 16 months.

Brian: 16 months. So he's like yapping talking like he's just the cutest freaking thing.

Busy: I do wanna just warn you, Brian, I have two children. I traveled a ton. My daughter Birdie came with me on a European press tour, uh, before she was two years old. You will hit, you will hit an age where you will hit an age. 'cause there's a, there are like, it's like two and a half years, about maybe like three years of time where you will prefer to not have your child with you because they hit, they're, they're like, when they're real little and they hit this point where it's like, no, you can't.

They actually, it's really unpleasant. Like, even, even for like the most seasoned, like the joke was like Birdie was, you know, in, um, in Monte Carlo like ordering room service at 18, at 18 months old. And she was just like the most adorable traveler and she could go anywhere and she was amazing and would sleep and was, and then we hit the wall.

Brian: yes.

Busy: then you're like, when you hit the wall, you're like, where is, where am I going? That's, um, on this time zone and is less than a three hour flight away.

Brian: I have heard that for

Busy: So enjoy it.

Caissie: My kids got rotten because, well, my older son, because the only traveling we ever did was with TV shows that I was working on. So like if you do the show from say, Disney World and you're working on a TV show that's broadcasting from Disney World, they set you up with the most deluxe experience. And so the first few times my kid ever went to one of those major amusement parks was basically with a personal concierge.

Like taking him directly on every Yes, yes, yes. And then like the time we just went like regular with our own American dollars. Uh, my kid was like, what the fuck is

Busy: now we

Caissie: I have to wait in line to talk to Geppetto. I don't think so.

Busy: we know that we can work it with the points and we can all have like a super VIP experience because we are gonna learn how to figure it out using our points.

Brian: exactly.

Busy: Okay. Brian, thank you so much for joining us. Explaining so much in such a short, like, I mean, it was actually an hour, but it like, feels like, it feels like it's so, it's like so much information.

Brian: Yeah. Well, I'm happy to come back whenever, happy to like, come and do a, a status check. You can always just message me and I'll, I'll tell you, you're doing great sweetie. Or you need to make a couple more tweaks, but it's a lifelong process. Don't get overwhelmed, but you're already, you're in a good spot.

I'm proud of

Busy: Okay. Good. Good. Thank you. I'm proud of you too. Um, Brian Kelly, thank you so much.

Brian: Thank you for having me.

Caissie: Guys, everyone check out all of of his information, but also, um, if it's cool with you, Brian, I think I'm gonna try to transcribe the, your interview portion so that people can just, so before you message me on Instagram asking what's that website, Brian said, what's that app?

I'm gonna try to put a, uh, a transcription on our sub stack so that you can just read it and find it there.

Brian: awesome.

Busy: And return to it. 'cause that's what people will be like, oh good, good information. And then like in three months they'll be like, okay, wait, remember when the points guy was on your podcast? And he mentioned that website, I'm gonna travel for the summer and I need that web. And we're like, I, I mean, okay.

Okay girl.

Caissie: It'll, I'm gonna put it in a place, I'm gonna find a place to put it and put it there.

Busy: okay. Thank you Brian. Thanks so much.

Brian: All right. Thanks for having me. Bye-Bye.