Mastering Travel Hacking: Strategies for Getting Points and Achieving Elite Status

The points in Miles' game to travel hacking game is a game and just like every other game like Call of Duty, madden 2K, football, basketball there's rules to everything. I highly recommend learning the rules before you ever even get started in this travel hacking points in Miles game, because it can get very complicated very quickly.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, John Mendez.

I just shared with you guys how I got my very first MX card. As you know, I have 3. Ok, 3 of them things Now I'm not gonna lie, they're not the most established, the most luxurious MX card right now. I don't have the gold card or the platinum card yet, but I have the MX every day, the MX Blue Blizzards Plus and the MX Marylott Business Bond Roy card. So I have 3 as of right now and they're pretty solid, I guess you could say. But now I wanted to share with you guys my best tips for getting into the points and miles game. So as of right now, 22 years old, I generated over 5, I mean I got received over 500,000 points in points and miles. I'm a Marylott Plant and Elite member. What else I got? Tsa Pre-Check, what else? When I booked my Jet Blue flights, I only borne on Group B and I stayed within the first 10 rows If a single digit rose only. You feel me Right, come on. So I'm traveling a little nice. You feel me Not crazy, crazy nice, but I've been definitely. I'm glad I got the TSA Pre-Check, cause it was annoying. I have to get my fingerprints pretty much scanned, which was very invasive and intrusive, I guess you could say but I signed up for it, but I have it, screw it, I get to skip lines. So, without further ado, here are my best tips. Let me get to the secret sauce that I've learned from applying to a bunch of cards. I'm getting the 9th of a bunch of cards. I'm going to start off with some hot takes. First, hot take number one never, ever, ever get a store credit card. That is the wrong points and miles. When I talk about getting into the points and miles game, I mean getting into travel cards. Now, the reason I don't like store credit cards is because they're one. They kind of trick you. They tell you that you're going to get points back and stuff like that, but those points usually are only redeemable at that said store. You got a K Jewelers card. Now I know cause. I used to work at K Jewelers, nothing against them, but you can only use those benefits at K. So when I'm talking about points and miles, I mean to for traveling, right. So I would never, ever recommend any store card any kind. Now, I'm not going to tell you if you already have a store credit card. Closing a card can damage your credit score, as you know from If you've been listening to the series I think it was episode four when I give that, or episode three of the series when I gave the master class on, like understanding your credit score. Credit history is a big chunk of your credit and so let's say you had a credit, a store credit card, for two, three, four, five years, right, and then you just close it. All that history is gone with it as well. So you may lose your credit card, you may drop your credit score if you close a card. So I'm not going to tell you what to do. But if you already don't have a credit store credit card, I would recommend never, ever get a store credit card. I would recommend never, ever, ever getting one. Don't look away. Right, that's first. I take Number two. Right, I said, if you don't have a solid savings of at least three months minimum, and preferably six months, don't get into the travel points and miles game. Now, the reason I say that is because you can get very, very carried away with your spending when you get into the game. Take it from my experience, because I definitely did my first time getting my chase. I chase freedom flex card. I've maxed it out that first month I was so excited, trying to hit the welcome bonus. I had a credit limit of 1800. My welcome bonus was 500. I should have been nowhere near the 1800 spending limit, but I was. I got too carried away. Luckily oh not luckily, fortunately I had savings in place so I played off in full at the end of every month. If you don't have a solid savings, do not bother getting into the travel points and miles game. Do yourself a favor. It can get very dangerous Very quickly and you can make very financially irresponsible decisions. So, especially when you're trying to hit welcome bonuses. So don't have no savings, don't bother. Right? Number three the majority of the population doesn't need more than one credit card. Now I have nine or ten at I forget, I have to do the math. I got the BoA card, the freedom flex, freedom eliminated, sapphire preferred, marriott bond boy. Right then I got there. Oh, um, I myself a day do business, plus me at business band boy. And then, yeah, I have eight. So I have eight credit cards right now, but I wouldn't recommend for anyone Getting more if you have one solid card like that, for example, a change freedom flex card or freedom eliminated both are no annual fee cards with amazing rewards categories and bonus categories and stuff like that, and you can use those points for cash back or for travel. If you're not traveling, you really don't need more than one card. Like, I do not recommend getting more than one card. The only reason why I recommend getting two cards is, let's say, you have your own business, but then I would get one card for personal use, one card for business use. So you cannot so you don't co-mingle your expenses with your business and your personal Right, meaning you don't have your personal expenses on your business card or your business expenses on your personal card, right? Keep those separate, right? So for majority of the population, I wouldn't recommend getting more than one, maybe two cards. If you have a business right, if you're serious about really learning the game, then I would say you could start running up and if you're Disciplined, I would say get more. But and I'll actually like, if I wasn't someone who travels or didn't have plans to travel, I would have never got all the credit cards I did right, I only knew that I was traveling is something that I definitely want to incorporate in my life, like when you talk about life by design, how you want to live your life. I know traveling is only gonna be one of those things for me. So that's why I went so hard now, so that I can start enjoying it as I start growing my business, etc. Etc. And Hot take number five if you don't have at least a 700 credit score, don't bother getting into travel points in my house game. I don't bother trying to figure out you know which myriacard. If you get our Delta card, I forget this jet blue car. Or if I get this myriacard with chasing and the other Myriacard with AmEx and stack my points and get myriacard platinum status, like John did. If your credit score is not at least 700, don't bother. Reason being, most of these more luxurious and higher annual fee credit cards, they have a Pretty difficult to get accepted into. So if you don't have a solid credit score, you might not get accepted and then you're gonna get a hard inquiry for no reason. You're gonna call a reconsideration line, like I did, and then they're gonna be like oh no, right. When I first applied for the chase sapphire preferred card, they dove my dream and I call it reconsideration line and they still still said no. So it's like if you don't have a solid credit score, build that up right, only worried about getting maybe one card right. Or let's say you have Self using self I wouldn't recommend getting the self credit card but using self or maybe like to discover it's a cured card or you know something that's an intro level card, like the shade freedom, flex right and stick with that, and only that, until you get to at least a 700 credit score. Once you're over 700, then I would recommend starting to learn a little bit more about the game and trying to figure out what your strategy is. But if it's not over 700, don't bother. Getting into like the travel, like the travel hacking in the high level points and miles game, right, so, because I'm getting you credit score up Right. So now I'm gonna get into my top tips, right, so I'm gonna start off with Right. I'm gonna start off with the points and miles game. The travel hacking game is a game and just like every other game like Call of Duty, madden 2k, football, basketball, acting, whatever business there's rules to everything. I highly recommend learning the rules before you ever even get started in this travel hacking, points and miles game, because it can get very complicated very quickly, very quickly, especially when it comes to managing points and managing miles and what card has what and all the different payment due dates and etc. Learn the rules of the game, for example, the Chase 524 rule. Right, most people don't even know that exists. Right, learn the rules of the game and before you start getting into it, I said I drop some links as to or some tips and other video as how to understand your credit score. I forget what it's called, but in there I watched Ask Sebi, credit Shifu and Brian Jung, I believe his name is. That's really the guys who I was watching when I learned about credit. Like, watch some of those guys on YouTube for free to learn the credit game before you start heavily investing into this right. Number two my number two tip is start off with getting your Chase trifecta Once you start getting into this points and miles game. Chase, as I said, has the 524 rule, meaning you can't get accepted for more than five credit cards within a 24 month span. That's from how I understand it. So start off by getting your Chase cards first. Get those out the way, get your solid decor foundation and then from there, go wherever you want to get to right. Go wherever you want to go. Now this goes right into number three. I only recommend using Chase and AmEx. Now, capital One has some really good cards. I heard tons of amazing things from Capital One. I just personally have a look into them so I can't speak on them. That's the only reason. And then there's like a JetBlue card with the Barclays or whatever. I don't really know too much about them. Bank of America honestly, I wouldn't recommend them. But that was my first credit card and it had my biggest credit history, my longest credit history so, and it's a no annual fee. So I'm just going to hold out. But I just say, stick with Chase and AmEx. They have amazing travel partners once you start really getting into it. Chase, especially, is really really good when it comes to trenching out points, et cetera, et cetera. When you want to start getting fancy and start leveraging your points at a high level. A lot of the Platinum AmEx Platinum card it comes with a lot of benefits and a lot of and AmEx Gold card as well comes with a lot of benefits. Amex Platinum comes with a lot of status benefits as well. You get Hilton status or something like that, like one of the higher levels, the higher level of death status. You can start getting lounge access. So it's like I would just recommend those two companies for the most part. When it comes to the travel hacking game, I said there's other companies that you can look into. I just don't know much about them so I'm not going to recommend, but I don't know. Number four start thinking about where you travel and the local airlines. So I know over in New York City and LaGuardia and JFK, those are the main two airlines or airports that I fly out of. There JetBlue is like the main airline, jetblue is everything. So Chase is a travel partner. With JetBlue you can transfer your points at a one-to-one rate. So for me that was perfect. I already liked Chase to begin with and now they're traveling with JetBlue. So now I can book JetBlue flights with Chase. Right, and it's very seamless, very, very seamless. And I knew that. Going in Also JetBlue and New York City airports, there's usually one ways to most major airports in the US. So I'm not mistaken at least from what I found, there's never really any case where I have to take a, at least when I'm flying out of JFK or LaGuardia. I only take one way. I don't ever take any connecting flights. So know your local airlines, your local airports, so that you can factor that in when you're looking for cars. Another thing is I plan on getting an AMEX Platinum card. You get access to the Centurion Lounge. There's a Centurion Lounge in JFK and LaGuardia. So right, this is what I mean. You got to start thinking about what your local airports and your local airlines are traveling stuff like that Also. And when I traveled in the past, before I got into the travel hacking space, I used to only stay at least for family trips. I used to stay at Airbnb's, but I used to stay for family trips in myriad hotels. So I was like, okay, well, why don't I just stay exclusive to myriad hotels? A lot of the conferences that I go to are hosted at myriad hotels. So I was like, perfect, like I'm definitely going to work more hardest to get this, this myriad bond where elite status because it just, coincidentally, I was already going to them Might as well run it up and really start becoming a loyal member. Number five wait 90 days before applying for a credit card. Now, some people will say you only have to wait 30 days. Some people will tell you that you can, if you do it properly, apply for two credit cards in the same day and only count it as one heart inquiry. It's time for people to tell you a lot of different things. I'd say just to play it safe Usually you get two credit cards like. Both cards have welcome bonuses. Now let's say they both have high welcome bonuses. That's going to really encourage some bad spending habits. So I would only recommend getting one welcome bonus at a time and give yourself 90 days before each. That way you're not applying too too too frequently. All right, yeah, you might get approved, but for me that's just my rule of thumb. Right, do your own due diligence, but that's just my rule of thumb. I'm not applying for more than one card within a 90 day time span, and nowadays I don't really apply for any card anymore. I'm holding out right now until 2024. And then in 2024, I think about what my next move will be. Maybe the MX Gold card, maybe the MX Platinum card. We'll see how my business is doing and how I'm feeling. But as of right now, I said, never apply within a 90 day time span. In 2006, playing your welcome bonus well in advance, playing your strategy out. Some of these welcome bonuses have very high spends. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred is, as of right now, at least at the time we recorded this, three months $4,000 spent minimum. So you have to spend, if you do the math, $1,333 a month. I don't spend that kind of money ever. That's normally something. I never spend anywhere near close to that. So what did I do? I had my best friend. She had Christmas stuff and back to school stuff that she needed to get. Boom, she used my card. She gave me the money. I paid it off immediately after her using it as soon as I got the money and kept doing that and I was able to hit a welcome bonus. I barely even spent on that card. I barely used that card. Did she use all of it? Now, I would recommend not doing this with just anyone. Make sure you vet the person you're doing this with. As I said, my best friend is someone that I trust with virtually everything. So for me it made sense. I already trusted the person. I wasn't worried about getting screwed, so I was good. Thank you for watching For you. On the other hand, make sure you do your own due diligence, because giving someone your credit card is a very, very big leap of faith, very big leap of trust that you have to put into someone. So make sure you do due diligence, don't get scammed, don't get fraud, don't get screwed over by someone you thought you knew but didn't really know or someone you kind of trusted. I wouldn't recommend that for everyone. I just said I got a real one. So make life easy. Also, as I said, when you're planning on your welcome bonuses, plan it when you know you have big expenses coming up. So, as I said, I did that around back to school in Christmas-ish time. So both very big spending times Plan out. Let's say, you have a birthday and you know you're going to spend anyways. Boom, that could be a good time to apply for a card. Say, you have April or spring vacation or something like that. Boom, that would be a good time to apply. Christmas coming up boom, that would be a good time to apply. Plan it out well in advance, though, so you don't overspend as well. If it's planned, you're less likely to overspend. You're less likely to make decisions on the fly because you feel good, because you have to hit that bonus before time runs out. So that's my plan. Number seven if you get denied, call the reconsideration line. Now, I know Chase has one and I know Eric has one as well and makes reconsideration line. My personal experience kind of sucks. That's neither here nor there, though it kind of sucks. They haven't helped me out too much. Chase. On the other hand, I call the reconsideration line and maybe move up mountains. I remember when I got the Myriad Bond Boy Card, the boundless that one was Chase, and I remember that I was at my best friend still lived at her old spot, and I was waiting for her, her mom and something like that someone, her daughter, to come in the car. And I was just waiting for them and I'm on the phone and they were like hey, yeah. So you said your income is XYZ. We already gave you a credit limit across all your cards combined of over 50% of that. And so they asked me is there anything else that I make, any other income that I make? But I don't report anything like that. And so I had them bump my income a little bit, nothing too drastic. But boom, they did that, put that in. And then manually, a couple minutes later, boom, I'm approved. And so, chase, reconsideration line. They're the goats man. They've been helped out a whole lot. So make sure, if you get denied, call the reconsideration line. Skip whatever prompts they try to hit you with. Just get to a representative as soon as possible. Number eight when you're not actively applying for credit cards, request a credit freeze on all three credit bureaus. Now, experience, equifax and TransUnit are the three credit bureaus and you can freeze your credit report, meaning people can't get access to your report, people can't hard pull on your credit report, and so I would highly recommend doing that, just for credit safety. Credit fraud is a big, big issue in the country, so what I do is I freeze it. Now, if you go on experience, they're going to try to tell you about an experience freeze or something like that. I forget what the exact wording is and it's paid. That is not the experience. A credit lock or something like that. I forget what they call it. That is not the thing I'm talking about. Freezing your credit report is free. Whatever experience tries to upsell you on, stay away. Do not engage. Just go there and freeze your credit report. If you want to take it a step further, there's a tool called Enogus or Enivis, and that's what people like, I think, when they're doing like life insurance stuff like that, I just see it's real, like high level. But you can also freeze your report on an novice as well, so that it's even harder for people to get access to your credit file, your credit report. So I also do that as well. And there's another one, but I was just slipping the top of my mind right now that I froze no credit report on. I gotta make sure I'm doing all this Points and miles stuff, right, I got I'm putting out information that you know. I got I'm being a points and miles space. Yeah, we haven't people scam me, feel me, so I gotta stay protected. Tip number nine is Plane out your downgrade and your upgrade options before you get a credit card. Now, this is primarily for getting credit cards at an annual fee. So, for example, I got the chase sapphire preferred card $95 annual fee if I wanted to upgrade it. I have the chase sapphire reserve, as right now I think it's a 40 495 annual fee. And but if I wanted to downgrade it, right, there's a chase sapphire card. Now this isn't listed on the website, so you can't even find out about this. This is one of those things that inside of things where, if you're not listening to Trill Johnny, you don't know about these things. That's how you gotta make sure you follow the podcast and you tell a friend, because I'm dropping gems, right? No, but I'm a serious no, there's cards that you wouldn't even know existed. For example, chase has a merry out a rich Carlton Card, but if you look on their website it's quote-unquote, discontinued. You really even find information on their website about the rich Carlton card, if I'm not mistaken. But I'm pretty sure if you already have a myriad card, you can upgrade into it. It's like things like that. It's like the little insider tips or if you're not really in the trial hacking space, you would even ever know about. So Plan out your upgrading, your downgrade options Before you get a credit card. So I say the card doesn't serve you. For example, in the future. I said I got the chase sapphire preferred card. In the future I want to get the chase ink preferred card, which is another which is a chase business card, but it has an annual fee as well. And with the chase ink business card I mean a chase ink preferred card you can transfer out the travel partners as well. The only reason to have the chase sapphire preferred is to travel out to travel partners. It's to transfer out the travel partners. So I don't need two cards doing the same exact thing. I think you know. Transfer the downgrade the chase sapphire card to a regular chase sapphire with no annual fee keeps us In preferred right. And the last tip I got for you guys is look into, look into the travel partners of the card and this kind of goes in hand with, like your local airlines and your local airports and hotels and stuff like that. Right chase, they have travel benefits with Marriott and JetBlue, right Mx has as one of the travel partners is Marriott as well in Delta Delta. I don't really fly Delta much, but it's another pretty big airline over in the New York area. So either way, I know I'm pretty good depending on which card I have in is said Mx, they have this interior knowledge and they get access like the Delta Sky lounge for, not mistaken as well. Don't have that card yet, but I said I already planned that kind out in advance. So when that time comes it all makes sense. So those are some of my best tips and hot takes on. You're getting into the points and miles game in the next episode. I got a pretty good one, I think, for you guys. I'm going to share with you guys the finale, which is some credit card misconceptions and Just going to some of the things that I've heard people say that aren't really true, and start breaking some of these myths, you guys can start to better understand the credit game a little bit. There's not gonna be so much on travel hacking and points and miles, like I talked about on this episode. It's gonna be more general Credit card information. So make sure to stay tuned for the finale and I'll see you guys in the next one.

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