Flipping Homes to Earn Credit Card Points- How We Travel the World for Free

Christian: [0:00] Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. This is your host, Christian Nossum, with the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty Exchange, Inc. Today, I have a very special, beautiful guest, my wife-

Shannon: [0:11] Oh, thank you so much … Speaker: Shannon Nossum. Thank you for joining me today. By the way, you're really fast with your intro, like, the fastest talking of your life.

Christian: [0:18] I just had a bunch of coffee. It is the middle of the day, and I am-

Shannon: [0:24] I love it … Speaker: yeah, it takes what it takes. He's pepped up. He's ready to talk about this today.

Christian: [0:28] It is one of my favorite topics.

Shannon: [0:30] Truly, I, I keep telling him, "Stop talking to me about this. We're doing this on a podcast. Don't tell me anymore." Yep. I wanna be surprised, so.

Christian: [0:36] Yes.

Shannon: [0:37] It's gonna be great.

Christian: [0:38] All right. Why don't you tell us what we're talking about?

Shannon: [0:39] Yeah. We are talking about credit card points and how to use them for travel. So we've been getting this question constantly. We just traveled to Europe with our children, our three kids, and we used points for almost all of it.

Christian: [0:56] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [0:57] Which is insane, especially since the kids, like, we all flew, was it business class? Business class. So the kids have, like, lie-down seats. They gave them- … lobster as an appetizer, which the kids thought was their dinner- Yeah … and they ate it, and then they brought them a steak, and they lost their minds like, "Wait, what?" "That lobster was my appetizer?" So- Yeah … they were living the bougie life- Yes … thanks to Christian's expert- Mm … incredible credit card point skills. Yeah. And today, investors, homeowners, all people who have credit cards, this is your moment to learn from the master of cr- not the master I don't know if I'm

Christian: [1:33] the master, but-

Shannon: [1:34] He's pretty good.

Christian: [1:35] Yeah.

Shannon: [1:35] Yeah. He's pretty good. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. So if you are a real estate investor, like we are- Mm-hmm … you are spending a lot of money. An ungodly-

Christian: [1:46] Flipping these houses- An ungodly amount of money … building houses, you're spending a lot of money. Today, we're gonna teach you how you can use all that spending to help fund your vacations, where you can live real nice, fly business class around the world for almost nothing cost-wise, only in points.

Shannon: [2:04] Yeah.

Christian: [2:04] So.

Shannon: [2:05] Yeah. It's gonna be great. So l- before we get into that, let's talk about- How are you paying? So I'm gonna go back. We remodel homes, and we flip homes. We build homes. Not all of this can be put on credit cards. Mm-hmm. Obviously, lots of money's going out the door every month. Mm-hmm. But tell me, what do we wanna put on credit cards? How do you get as much of that stuff you're paying for onto the credit card?

Christian: [2:34] So obviously, not every contractor GC is gonna allow you to pay with a credit card. A lot more s- either companies and stores now are adding a 3% credit card surcharge. So you really need to weigh whether or not you want to or you can pay with a credit card s- some of the time. It really just depends on what's going on. So sometimes I will, in a pinch, be willing to pay a 3% surcharge or 2.5 or whatever the fee is, especially if I have a new credit card that has a spending limit that I have to hit. So-

Shannon: [3:16] Mm-hmm … Speaker: I guess I'll break it down even more. When you get a new card, a new credit card- A new card

Christian: [3:21] card, uh, when you get a new credit card, it often has a big sign-up bonus of, like, 60 to 150. I've even had some as high as 250 or 300,000 points, but you have to spend a certain dollar amount within a set timeframe. Usually, it's within the first 60 to 90 days. Sometimes it's as long as six months for these bigger spending limits. Once you hit that spending max, or not max, but that spending limit minimum, that's when they give you all these points, and so that's the easiest way to really build a stockpile of credit card points. So for instance, I think right now the public offer, and I say public 'cause sometimes you can get individualized offers.

Shannon: [4:06] I don't know if you knew that. Oh, fancy.

Christian: [4:06] Yeah.

Shannon: [4:07] I didn't know this. Yeah. See, I know nothing. He literally does all this, so I'm learning with you today, not that- … I need to, but-

Christian: [4:14] So for instance, the two main credit card ecosystem, point ecosystems out there are Chase- We're,

Shannon: [4:22] we're getting nerdy now.

Christian: [4:23] We are getting nerdy. Let's go. Chase and American Express. Those are the two credit card ones. Now, on top of that, there's airlines that each have their own, so like Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian, they're combined. They just created Atmos, which is their new credit card points system. Hilton has their own. Marriott has their own. Hyatt has their own. Like, Delta has their own. Most airlines have their own. Some of them are, some of the airlines have teamed up, and so they have, like, one that is shared between numerous airlines. So anyway, what,

Shannon: [4:57] yeah. Can I go back a step real quick? Mm-hmm. Obviously, to get the most points, you wanna spend the most money you can on your cards.

Christian: [5:03] Yes.

Shannon: [5:03] So some of the… I know I've seen this come through our email, like maybe our architect or whatever will send out an invoice, and then you will ask them, like, "Can I pay with a credit?" So it- Yeah … sometimes they won't offer it. Yeah, initially. You have to actually ask them if you can pay with a credit card. Mm-hmm. So I just wanted to point that out, because the more things you can pay with a credit card, the better your- That's how you're gonna

Christian: [5:26] build up the points … Shannon: yeah, the more points- Yeah … you're gonna get. Yep.

Shannon: [5:29] And then I also wanted to point out, we have a good hack, which I feel like I wanna share. We have, uh, 1Password, which is-

Christian: [5:36] Oh, yeah

Shannon: [5:37] kind of a way that you keep your, your passwords secure, and it also saves, like, important documents, but it also has your credit cards on there.

Christian: [5:45] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [5:46] I, not knowing anything about our credit card game, never know what card to use. Mm. And so Christian, you wanna explain how you tell me on there-

Christian: [5:54] Yeah … Shannon: what it is you do? So I literally make it as easy as Uh, it, so I guess I'll take a step back, but I label the card and say, "Use this." Yeah, or don't use this. That's literally the name of the credit card, or don't use this one. Yeah. Like it's that simple.

Shannon: [6:08] Um- Or if it's, like, specific to if you're an investor and you have LLCs, like, it'll say- Yep this LLC, but it, we might have multiple cards for that LLC, so it'll say, "Use this," 'cause- Mm-hmm … he's trying to get to the, meet that minimum. Yep. So I just wanted to point out that if you have, like, you're working with a partner or you're working with other people who are paying, there is an easy way to kind of chart which card d- do you want them using.

Christian: [6:28] Yep, and 1Password is essentially like a program application on your phone and your computer. It syncs between all your devices, and so if you're on your phone and you need to pay a bill, you can just pull it up right there. It's an easy way to just save

Shannon: [6:43] everything in one spot. Obviously, it's kind of amazing in general.

Christian: [6:45] It is.

Shannon: [6:45] Okay. Yeah. So back to the cards. What's the best card? What do we wanna get?

Christian: [6:49] Okay, well, that's a loaded question. Um, so it depends. So what we do is for every flip, we do them in a new LLC. This is ta- costs a slight amount of money to build, to create an LLC and file it and do all that stuff. And a

Shannon: [7:03] slight amount of Shannon sanity.

Christian: [7:05] Yes, 'cause she's the one that has to do that. Every time

Shannon: [7:07] we do a new LLC. Yeah.

Christian: [7:08] But the reason we do that is because that is now a new business entity. With every new business entity, you can get a new business credit card. So even though we are the only members of the LLC, it doesn't affect our personal credit, 'cause it's a business. So this is how when you're flipping or building, uh, or just remodeling, you can actually have a ton of different credit. We have a stack of unused cards, or s- cards, I guess, not all unused, but cards, credit cards like that thick.

Shannon: [7:38] Um- And this doesn't affect your credit as much as you'd think, right? This doesn't

Christian: [7:40] affect- Wouldn't

Shannon: [7:40] there be like

Christian: [7:41] a- your personal credit at all … hack?

Shannon: [7:43] Kind of people think, oh, if you open too many credit cards, you're gonna- Right … yeah.

Christian: [7:47] So on the personal side of things, for your personal credit, you want to have, and you can do all this research on your own, I'm just gonna glance over it, but you want to have, uh, your credit cards opened as long as you can. The longer you have established credit cards, lines of credit open, the more the credit card companies like you, so the more your credit score goes up. And, and someone might think that we have all these cards, our credit score is crap- It's just the opposite. We just got a new card, uh, personal card, and they sent a letter saying, you know, when you get a new card, they give you a letter, and it says what your credit score was, and it was 839, so that's extremely high for your credit score. Mm.

Shannon: [8:29] Why you gonna share our business? I'm just playing with you. Okay, so what's the best card? This is-

Christian: [8:34] So- This is the big question … if you're doing business, a business line of credit or a business credit card, you always wanna shop around and see, but stick with one ecosystem. So stick only with Chase or only with Amex, American Express, until you kind of max out all of the cards that that one has to offer. So for Chase, they have a whole line of business cards that are called the Ink card. One of them is free. Two of them, I think, are $99 a year for their annual fee, and then another one has a higher fee that I think they just increased. I don't really know. I don't pay attention to that one 'cause it has a higher fee. They all have different pros and cons, so each of those cards will earn you, depending on different categories of spend, a different number of points. So if you… So what that means is different categories of spend, meaning they will have, say, you earn three points per dollar spent on restaurants. And so dining and hardware stores, for instance. That is a great one for if you're flipping- Mm-hmm … 'cause you're gonna spend a lot of money on hardware stores, like Home Depot, Lowe's, anything else that, that is considered a hardware store by the credit card company. So for every dollar, you can earn three points, which is crazy.

Shannon: [9:53] Yeah, it's really good.

Christian: [9:54] And then if you're going out to eat, you can actually put that on that card as well. So if we have a business meeting, we might charge it to that LLC because- Yeah … at that meeting- We're talking to

Shannon: [10:05] a new investor or-

Christian: [10:06] Yeah, or something like that … a partner. Or we're taking a contractor out 'cause we wanna keep them happy, like it'll be on that card. So probably start with Chase. That's what most people start with. Okay. That's what we started with. But once you kind of max all those out, then you can go and dip your toes into the American Express portal. American Express has three major credit cards, the Platinum, which has like a $695 annual fee. It's a lot. You get a ton of extra benefits though, so you gotta weigh those out to see if you're actually gonna utilize them. Like, it gives us free Global Entry, um, for the entire family, which is, I think, $200 for one person and then $100 for everybody after that. So that adds up real quick. Mm-hmm. It gives you all these, a ton of different benefits, free TSA PreCheck, all these things. Also Clear for at the airport, which is awesome. Yeah. That's pretty- Yeah, we've been

Shannon: [10:54] using that.

Christian: [10:55] Yeah, so we skip the line whenever we go travel. It's great.

Shannon: [10:58] Okay. Um-

Christian: [10:59] And then

Shannon: [10:59] we don't want cash back, right? We want transferable

Christian: [11:02] points. Yeah, so cash back, we don't ever use that, and we don't go for cards that have cash back. Um, we go for cards that build points, um, because I know how to, and I will teach you, how to use those points so that they're worth more than the cash back that you would get.

Shannon: [11:20] Okay, and then how many points, if somebody has… Like, is there a threshold of points where you're like, "I have a lot of points. Now I should go look and try to plan a vacation"?

Christian: [11:30] Um, yeah, sure. I mean, you can use your points whenever you want. Some companies will even let you do a combination of points and cash.

Shannon: [11:38] Okay.

Christian: [11:38] So if you don't have enough points, you can pay the cash difference, or you can actually buy points if you need to, like, refill your points bucket. So let's say-

Shannon: [11:47] I guess I'm just trying to understand how much. Let's say you have 100,000 points. Is that nothing, or is that good?

Christian: [11:51] It's not a lot. I mean, it's a, it's a decent amount. It's… So to put it into context-

Shannon: [11:57] Yeah … Speaker: when we flew business class to Paris from Seattle, actually we went to Norway first, it was 60,000 points, Air France points, for each ticket one way. Mm.

Christian: [12:11] So with 100,000 points-

Shannon: [12:14] Got it … Speaker: it's gonna be not quite a round-trip flight. Okay.

Christian: [12:18] Now, that said, that was a deal-

Shannon: [12:21] Yeah, that sounds like a good deal.

Christian: [12:22] Yeah. Okay. That was not, like, the base price.

Shannon: [12:25] So now we have all these points.

Christian: [12:26] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [12:27] In theory, we've used the cards properly. We have been spending all of our rehab money on this.

Christian: [12:32] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [12:33] How do you use them? Do you just log on somewhere and- So- Like, what does this process look like?

Christian: [12:39] Yeah. So there's, there's two different ways to do that. The one that is not really recommended is to use the portal that the credit card company has.

Shannon: [12:48] Okay.

Christian: [12:48] So if you go to Chase.com, you log into your account, then you go to the Ultimate Rewards portal, you can book flights, you can book hotels and all that through there, and they will kind of incentivize you with, like, a $50 off or $100 off if you do that. But it's not the best redemption, meaning if you were to instead transfer those points- Okay … to a partner that they have, so Chase will let you transfer it to a ton of different partners. A ton of different flight or airline partners and hotel partners.

Shannon: [13:22] So like Air France, Hyatt- Yeah … like all the- Mm-hmm Okay. So you can just transfer your points.

Christian: [13:25] Yep. So generally, there's what they call sweet spots, and that's where you can transfer it to one of these different, like Air France, for example. We love Air France. We also love Hyatt. Those are the two that we have used most recently. Air France, when we did transfer, not only did we get a deal, but they had a, I think it was a 20 or a 30% transfer bonus. So for every-

Shannon: [13:51] Nice … Speaker: point I transferred, I got an extra 20 or 30%. So- Wow … Speaker: it really reduced the cost of the, the business class tickets that we bought by whatever that was, 20 or 30%. I don't really remember what it was, 'cause it was, like, over a year ago that we booked these. Okay. So you transfer the points. Mm-hmm. Is there… Is this hard to do? How far ahead of buying a ticket do you need to do it? Can you do it and then it happens, like, right away?

Christian: [14:17] The majority of the time, the points do transfer instantly. So you have to, in the Chase portal or in the American Express portal, you do need to log in and connect your whatever airline or hotel partner. But once it's connected, which doesn't take much, then the majority of the time it does transfer instantly. I have heard horror stories where things just waited and waited and didn't transfer. I don't know why. Oh. But that's a pretty rare occurrence. If in doubt, you can always also call the airline. Ask them, and I've heard people do this, I've never done this 'cause I haven't needed to 'cause it worked instantly, but you can always ask the airline while you're on the phone with them, "Hey, can you put these tickets on hold? I'm transferring the points right now." Once they transfer, then you do it, and I've heard people do that.

Shannon: [15:03] Got it. Okay. How do we find the deal that we wanna do? So let's say I'm looking for a hotel or I'm looking for a flight, how do, how do we actually do that part?

Christian: [15:12] Good question, and that is kind of the hardest part. So this is kind of a game. Okay. At least that's how I look at it, otherwise I'd be really annoyed. You could also look at it as kind of a part-time job, side hustle, 'cause it's not easy necessarily to find deals. Now, you can go onto… Like, we also have Alaska Airlines miles, which you cannot transfer, other than Bilt, which is a interesting credit card that we don't have. You can't really transfer points from your credit card to Alaska Airlines. There was a short-

Shannon: [15:42] Oh, I didn't know that.

Christian: [15:43] Yeah. So Alaska you actually have to earn either with the Alaska Airlines credit card or by flying.

Shannon: [15:49] Okay.

Christian: [15:50] That said, they're generally viewed as more valuable, meaning you get more, you get an outsized reward for spending those points. That said, you have to work a little harder to find them. Okay. So find the actual flights that you want. So, like, right now, even though we just got back from Europe, I'm planning next summer's trip to Japan. Crazy, but you have to do this sometimes, like, a year in advance. We also have five tickets I'm trying to get as an award flight. That's what these are called, award flights. They don't… Not every flight, or not every seat on the plane is technically an award flight, so it, it's kinda like finding a deal.

Shannon: [16:25] Oh, how do you find it? Where do you look?

Christian: [16:27] So-

Shannon: [16:28] Let's talk about, let's talk about Alaska as an example- Yeah … because a lot of people use this airline.

Christian: [16:32] So Alaska, the spending… So for this Tokyo flight that we're looking for- Mm-hmm … Seattle to Tokyo, you go to alaskaairlines.com, you look there. The thing is- Spending or buying a flight on alaskaairlines.com, uh, that is an Alaska or a Hawaiian Air flight- Mm-hmm … is super expensive. So one-way is somewhere between 170 and 250,000 points- What? per ticket.

Shannon: [17:01] Okay.

Christian: [17:01] So it's super expensive. It actually doesn't make any sense. That said, Japan Airlines, which actually has a fantastic, actually better rated first class experience than Hawaiian Airlines, they are a partner. So JAL is a partner with Alaska Airlines. It's only 95,000, sometimes 75,000, I believe, uh, points for one-way business class. So while it's a lot of points, it's a better product on a different airline. And with Alaska Airlines, when you, this is a new thing within the last year, um, when you travel on award flights- Mm-hmm … meaning tickets you bought with points, it actually counts as towards your, uh, status with the airline. So if you're trying to get, it used to be called MVP Gold or MVP Titanium or all these things. They changed the name. Mm-hmm. Actually, now it's changed to Gold, Titanium, and Platinum or something like that. This is the other thing. They're always changing things, so there's other- It confuse

Shannon: [17:57] you.

Christian: [17:57] Yes. There's other, um… You have to kinda stay up on, um, on what these changes are. So, like, Frequent Miler is a podcast and a website that does a great job of keeping me up to date on this. Okay. The Points Guy does a great job of this too. There's a ton of these companies that will, or people, that will keep you up to date on- Educate you- Yeah … Shannon: as the process goes. Okay. And then where you actually look, now, if we weren't looking for an Alaska Airlines-operated flight- Mm-hmm … or partner flight, and we were looking for something like Chase or American Express-

Shannon: [18:28] Okay

Christian: [18:29] I like Roam.travel, R-O-A-M-E.travel. Um, and then if you have American Express- And

Shannon: [18:37] what does that do? What does Roam-

Christian: [18:39] It, it's like Expedia.

Shannon: [18:42] Okay.

Christian: [18:42] Except for points.

Shannon: [18:44] So what do you look for on there? Like, how does that

Christian: [18:46] work? So, like, I have one already up. Look, Seattle to Tokyo. Actually, no, this is Tokyo to Seattle. Yeah, and this is- So I'm trying to look for- … Shannon: just points things? This is just points. Oh,

Shannon: [18:55] okay.

Christian: [18:56] So it shows you- Very cool … and you can, you can, you know, filter it for, these are the dates I wanna travel, these are the points that I have. Mm. So it doesn't show you, like Capital One is another points currency. I don't have Capital One, so I filter that out, 'cause I can't transfer that. So I don't care- Mm-hmm … about those, those flights. So Roam.travel is a great one that kinda is essentially like Expedia.com-

Shannon: [19:21] Got it … Speaker: except for points. Okay. Another one, if you have American Express, Point.me, which is normally a paid service, American Express has a, as part of your bonus of using it, has a free version of that. Oh, nice.

Christian: [19:34] So it's Amex.Point.me. Um, and you can sign in through your American Express account and use that. Um, and then for hotels, I actually like Max My, ooh, Max My Point? Let me see. I have it written down. I believe it's MaxMyPoint.com. They actually will… Yeah, it's MaxMyPoint.com. They will help me find those hotel deals. So let's talk about hotels.

Shannon: [19:58] Yeah, let's talk about hotels.

Christian: [19:59] So again, I briefly talked about how different airlines, different credit cards have, are different currencies. Yeah. That's how you have to look at it. Like, there's an American dollar, the Canadian dollar, there's pesos, there's the yen. Yeah. These are all different currencies. Chase points, American Express points, Alaska Airlines points- Mm-hmm … Hyatt points, Marriott points, these are all different currencies.

Shannon: [20:20] Okay.

Christian: [20:21] Make sense?

Shannon: [20:21] Yes.

Christian: [20:22] So Hyatt points are worth way more than Marriott points.

Shannon: [20:29] I love the Hyatt, so I'm, I'm really excited about that.

Christian: [20:31] So I'm gonna give you an example. So for example, h- Marriott might charge 60,000 points per night for a hotel that costs $300 a night cash.

Shannon: [20:43] Okay.

Christian: [20:44] So that's about a half a point or half a cent per point.

Shannon: [20:48] Mm-hmm.

Christian: [20:48] Does that make sense? Sure. So you're just dividing it and figuring out how many cents per point.

Shannon: [20:52] Okay.

Christian: [20:52] Meanwhile, Hyatt might charge 20,000 points per night for a hotel that costs $400 in cash.

Shannon: [20:58] Oh, wow.

Christian: [20:59] Which is actually pretty accurate. That's two cents per point, so that's four times more- Wow … value p- for your points. Now Chase, you can transfer 60,000 points from Chase to Marriott or Chase to Hyatt.

Shannon: [21:15] Mm. So you

Christian: [21:16] can pick which one. Hyatt's gonna give- So it's like better value. Yeah, you can choose. Okay. So go with Hyatt 'cause you're gonna get way more value. So with 60,000 points on Marriott, you get one night. With 60,000 points at Hyatt, you get three nights. Mm. And it's the same number of points leaving your Chase account, but you get way more value. So I like Hyatt a lot more.

Shannon: [21:37] And you use this most of the time when we go to hotels? Mm-hmm. So, like, if we go to Disneyland- Yes instead of staying at a Disney hotel, we do the Hyatt nearby- Mm-hmm … or… Okay.

Christian: [21:45] Yep.

Shannon: [21:45] And is it hard to find hotel rooms that you can pay with points, or is that-

Christian: [21:50] No. So- Is, is that pretty easy? … you can go to each individual, like, hyatt.com, and you can search right on there. Go to marriott.com, search right on there. They don't make it as easy 'cause you're searching, like, one specific day, or maybe they'll show you one day on either end or maybe sometimes a week's worth, but it's, it's kinda hard and tedious to go through each day.

Shannon: [22:11] So tell us about the MaxMyPoints. How does that work?

Christian: [22:13] So MaxMyPoint, instead of just showing you, like, one or two days worth of availability and how much it costs, they'll show you, like, a full-on calendar, like a month-long calendar. Mm. But… And when there's numerous days that are available, 'cause again, it's not always gonna be available, available. They don't always have these points rooms available. MaxMyPoint also shows you, like, the suite cost versus just the regular standard room. That said, you always want to double-check with that branded hotel that it's actually there. So, like, MaxMyPoint will give me a pretty good idea that it's probably available. I always double-check at hyatt.com to make sure it's actually available. Sometimes I will even call. Uh, especially with Hyatt, I don't keep, like, a ton of points in my Hyatt account- I only transfer it in when I actually need it. Okay. Um, and so on Hyatt, they don't always tell you exactly how many points, when I say for a date range, it'll say c- could be from, you know, 20,000 points per night, but some nights, like on a busier night- Yeah … maybe a Friday or a Saturday, it's gonna be 25,000 points for that same room- Mm-hmm … versus 20,000 for a Wednesday or a Thursday. So I will call and I'll say, "Hey, how many points is this gonna be? Cool. I'll transfer it while I'm on the phone." Mm-hmm. And then I'll book, and then I'll confirm while I'm on the phone that it actually went through.

Shannon: [23:33] Okay. And sometimes if they only have, like one or two nights, and you need three nights, do you book- Mm-hmm with the credit card for one or two nights, and then you just pay for the other night? Yeah. And then you have two different reservations- Yep … and you just make it?

Christian: [23:43] We've done that before, for sure. Okay. On a trip, like we had to go at that ex- specific- Yeah … time. Yeah, we've done that. Um, and it's still a great way to save money.

Shannon: [23:51] Yeah. Okay. Well, let's talk about timing. So you were saying you were looking for next summer's plane tickets. Mm-hmm. Talk about that.

Christian: [23:59] Yeah, so airlines re- they will release their f- their reward or saver fares, which are these, you know, fares that are available to book with points, the best deal on points, depending on the airline, 11 or 12 months in advance. Mm-hmm. So that's why I've been looking at next summer, um, now, 'cause it's summer.

Shannon: [24:21] Got it.

Christian: [24:22] Okay. So hotels, I don't actually know when they release. I think they're kinda more flexible on that, but that's, that's when, when I'm always looking for flights. That said, leading right up to, like within a couple weeks of a flight departure date, sometimes stuff will open up then too.

Shannon: [24:39] Mm. Interesting. And-

Christian: [24:41] I'm not willing to wait and- Risk it … do that.

Shannon: [24:44] Yeah.

Christian: [24:44] Especially f- 'cause I'm, we're always looking for five seats. If it was a trip with just you and I, and maybe it's a last-minute thing that we're l- trying to do, maybe we'll do that.

Shannon: [24:51] Yeah. Yeah. So what happens, um, and this did happen to us once, you book a f- big flight using points- Mm-hmm and then you have to change it. Yep. How does that work? What do you do?

Christian: [25:01] So-

Shannon: [25:02] Do you lose your points?

Christian: [25:02] No. So it depends on the airline obviously, but what we did was I had to call and just tell them what happened, and it was a medical thing with one of our kids. They needed surgery. We couldn't fly. We had to postpone it. So I called. They said, "Hey, you gotta give us a letter from your doctor." I actually had to give them that letter, and then they were like, "Okay, cool. It's fine." If you don't have a valid reason that is in their policy, you can often just, like cancel it, and they'll refund some of the rewards, and maybe they'll charge you, like some dollar amount to do that. Mm-hmm. But it's still probably a good idea, um, still a good deal.

Shannon: [25:37] Okay. And then- So let's pretend, let's just give an example. Mm-hmm. Let's say somebody has a lot of points and they wanna go to Greece.

Christian: [25:45] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [25:46] What would be their steps? What, what, what would, how would they go about it?

Christian: [25:49] So here's what I do. I will look at rome.travel, and I will just do, hey, where do I, exactly do I wanna go? I wanna go to Athens, 'cause that's the biggest airport there.

Shannon: [25:59] Mm-hmm.

Christian: [26:00] I'll go, okay, Seattle, Athens direct. Are there any flights? 'Cause that's the most direct way. Mm-hmm. Most likely there's gonna be a connection in there somewhere, 'cause there's not a lot of Seattle to Athens flights. And then I'll just kinda make a little chart and go, okay, well, it's gonna cost this many points per ticket. Then I'll go, okay, well, what about Seattle to some nearby airport or something somewhere close to there? If I already know that I'm transferring through Paris or Heathrow, I will then just do, like, okay, well, how much is it to Heathrow or to Paris or to Amsterdam? 'Cause those are the three major hubs. And I'll just see if there's available flights for that, 'cause that's more often available, 'cause there's so many more flights there.

Shannon: [26:42] Got it. Okay.

Christian: [26:43] So then I'll go, okay, well, I might pay a cash price to go from that main hub to the city I actually wanna go to, or maybe I'll make a trip out of it and do a train and stop on somewhere on the way or something like that. Yeah. But I just need to get to Europe. And then once I'm there, I can figure out a pretty inexpensive way to get where I wanna go.

Shannon: [27:03] And that's why we went to Venice, right? Mm-hmm. Because we needed to get a flight back. Yep. And the best flight for points was in Venice. Yeah. So we're like, "We gotta end in Venice somehow." Yeah.

Christian: [27:11] Exactly. This is what

Shannon: [27:12] we're doing.

Christian: [27:12] Yeah.

Shannon: [27:13] Not that it wasn't amazing and-

Christian: [27:14] Yeah. I mean, we wanted to go there anyway,

Shannon: [27:16] but- worth that flight. But yeah, sometimes you just gotta figure out-

Christian: [27:18] Mm-hmm … the destination. Yeah. It was hundreds of thousands of points cheaper to fly out of Venice than out of Paris And we were like, "Okay, well, we'll go to Rome, then we'll go to Venice, then we'll leave."

Shannon: [27:29] Yes. Okay. And then what other things can you use your points… Can you use them on Airbnb? Is that a thing? Are there excursions you can do with them, or is it just flights and hotel, like?

Christian: [27:41] So through the hotel's, um, their point ecosystem, most hotels only let you do it on rooms. Mm. Some are starting to allow on excursions and stuff. It doesn't really work for Airbnb. Uh, there was a time where it did, and that, they kind of closed that for whatever reason. For the most part, though, it's just either a hotel or a flight. Alaska has this Alaska Unlocked experience where you can actually spend your points on, like, concert tickets and sporting events and hikes and these random experiences. Okay. Which is, they just did this in the last year or so. We actually used that to go to a Mariners game before. Oh. I don't know if you know that.

Shannon: [28:23] I had no clue.

Christian: [28:24] Yeah. Interesting. And a lot of times it's in their suite. So co- corporations, as you probably know, will buy a suite as a sponsorship thing to- Mm do whatever they gotta do. And then Alaska is smart, and they're like, "Oh, well, we can have people spend their miles on a ticket." So like Climate Pledge Arena, I've seen Lady Gaga, The Who, all these different artists come through, and they're giving suite tickets away for a certain number of points. It's up to you if that makes sense for you, 'cause you can always do the math on that. Well, how much is it, is the cost of a suite ticket, if you can even get it, for dollar and then… Or cash versus how many points it's gonna cost you. So you can do that conversion and figure that out, if it makes sense or not.

Shannon: [29:08] Do you have any clue mis- like, mistakes you've made in the past using points or anything you see people- I've never once made a

Christian: [29:13] mistake in my life. What are you talking about? I am perfect.

Shannon: [29:16] Okay.

Christian: [29:17] No, I'm not. Yeah, early on, I way overpaid. Like, I think I did stay at Marriott, 'cause it was closer, especially to, like, Disneyland. Mm. 'Cause we go there often, and the Marriott's literally right across the street, and I think I paid, like, 400,000 points for two nights or something like that. Got it. And I was like, "That was dumb." Got it. We could've spent, like, two weeks at a Hyatt for that same amount.

Shannon: [29:39] By the way, Hyatt at, uh, Anaheim is amazing. Mm-hmm. There's numerous of them. Yes. They are great.

Christian: [29:44] They're great. They have a free breakfast that's included, which actually is a legit, good breakfast. Yeah. It's not like-

Shannon: [29:49] It's very easy to walk there … Speaker: it's not like a muffin. It's like- It's like a full on buffet.

Christian: [29:52] Yeah.

Shannon: [29:52] So- So- … if you're trying to go to Disneyland-

Christian: [29:54] Mm-hmm … Shannon: use your points. Yeah.

Shannon: [29:56] Stay at a Hyatt. Mm-hmm. You're good to go.

Christian: [29:58] Yep. And Hyatt will transfer from both American Express and Chase, so.

Shannon: [30:02] Nice. Yeah. Okay, tell us your top tips.

Christian: [30:06] Again, pick one or two card ecosystems. Probably start with Chase. You can do… I look at it as two different routes. You wanna do your personal route, which you can't, and you probably shouldn't, open more than five personal cards within a 24-hour or 24-month timeframe. And Chase, actually most banks will, they have that limit. So if you're over five cards in a 24-month timeframe, they actually will deny you immediately, even if you have great credit and you can afford it. So that's one thing. On the business- And can your

Shannon: [30:40] partner and you both have a card?

Christian: [30:41] Yep.

Shannon: [30:42] So if there's one really, what's the best card? If you could get one card, what's that one?

Christian: [30:46] So for Chase, the best could mean anything for you, but the one that has the highest sign-up bonus is g- usually the best, but not always. So Chase just revamped over the last month- Okay … their high-end premium card, which is called the Chase Sapphire Reserve. They increased the annual fee from 550 to, I think, 900 or $800 a, a year, which is kind of ridiculous for what it is. If you're gonna use all the extra benefits that come with that, maybe it makes sense. Chase also has a Chase Sapphire Preferred versus the Reserve, which is currently only $95 a year, but apparently they're gonna increase that annual fee up as well.

Shannon: [31:27] So is it really about the signing bonus or about just- The sign-up bonus the combination

Christian: [31:31] of things? It, it… It's a combination of the annual fee, what other, in addition to the points, uh, benefits you're gonna get, and what you're actually gonna use. It's… They're kind of getting a little coupon booky, meaning- Mm … you don't get the points, but you get all these extra little benefits, which you have to sign up through their thing to get and-

Shannon: [31:51] Okay.

Christian: [31:52] Yeah.

Shannon: [31:52] Got it. Got it.

Christian: [31:53] So I don't… It, it's hard to say what's the best.

Shannon: [31:56] What's your favorite of ours?

Christian: [31:57] Of ours? My most lucrative was, uh, recently, uh, even though I already have an American Express Gold Card, they gave us another gold card. Same business. I don't know why, but they gave us another one. Great. Thanks,

Shannon: [32:12] American

Christian: [32:12] Express. Um, it has, I think, a $295 annual fee, but they gave us 225,000 American Express points.

Shannon: [32:19] Whoa.

Christian: [32:19] For spending, like, $4,000 over a six-month timeframe. I'm like, "That's not hard."

Shannon: [32:24] Do you wanna tell them your, your record that you set for getting points for- … the card you just got?

Christian: [32:31] So Amer- or Alaska Airlines just-

Shannon: [32:33] This is a world record here.

Christian: [32:36] Alaska Airlines just redid, like I said earlier, their points system. They had a new credit card that they released, which is a more premium. It's, like, $395 a year. It comes with two annual or two lounge cra- What is it called? The Atmos Summit card- Okay … I believe.

Shannon: [32:54] So you got this card.

Christian: [32:55] So I got this card the day that… Well, you pre-signed up for it, and if you did that, they gave you an extra 5,000 mile bonus, or I think they call them points now, not miles. And so I got an email. I was just… You know, I woke up. I was at the gym. That's usually what I do in the morning. I'm usually on my phone going through my email.

It's like 6: [33:12] 00 AM. I get this email from them saying, "Oh, the card's released. You can sign up now." I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool. I'll sign up." So I signed up right then.

Shannon: [33:20] Mm-hmm.

Christian: [33:21] Took all of two minutes or something. Saved it in 1Password. Thank you. Um- They

Shannon: [33:26] gave you the, the nu- number

Christian: [33:28] They gave me, so I didn't immediately get the number. Okay. I got approved, and then, like, the next day I got an email saying, "All right, your card is being printed. It's gonna be shipped in, like, seven to 10 business days." I'm like, "All right, whatever." Mm-hmm. So a couple weeks it'll get here. I'm like, "Oh, well, we just got, we have a big architect fee that had to be paid." It was like 6,500 bucks. The- The

Shannon: [33:49] joys of being a real estate investor.

Christian: [33:51] Exactly. The minimum to get the bonus was $6,000. So I was like, "Oh, I can just pay this with that." So this was literally, like, the next day after I signed up for the card. So I was like, "Huh, I wonder if I can get a temporary credit card number online." So I went on, they did, it didn't show up on the app, on the Bank of America app. But it did show up- But you found it … on, yeah, bankofamerica.com. So I used that, paid, and like, literally the day after I signed up, I'd already hit the bonus, and they were like, "Oh, congrats." So within one day of this

Shannon: [34:25] credit offer- He doesn't even have the card yet, and he's hit the bonus.

Christian: [34:28] So yeah.

Shannon: [34:29] That's how much money we spend. Yay.

Christian: [34:32] I mean, we gotta

Shannon: [34:32] spend it anyway. You gotta be, you gotta be smart, though. When you get a big bill from somebody- Yes … like, "Hey, if I could pay this with a credit card, I'm doing it." Mm-hmm. And it makes, I don't know about you, but it makes me mentally not be as stressed and sad when I have to pay these big bills. They come, and I'm like, "Oh, points."

Christian: [34:47] Yeah, exactly.

Shannon: [34:47] Yay.

Christian: [34:48] Yeah.

Shannon: [34:48] More points, more travel.

Christian: [34:49] Well, and, uh, disclaimer, don't do this if you can't pay the card off every month.

Shannon: [34:54] Yeah.

Christian: [34:55] Oh, 1,000,000%. Like, this is not, we're not saying build up all this debt. No, no, no, no, no. This is- As soon as these bills come in, you're setting aside, if you need to mentally do that, set aside that amount in a savings account or a separate account so you can pay that off. Like, that is

Shannon: [35:09] what you have to do. Yeah, you have to pay everything off.

Christian: [35:10] Pay it off every single month. This is not a rolling, building-up-debt kind of thing.

Shannon: [35:14] This is just, if you're gonna pay it, pay it with the card, then pay it off- Mm-hmm … get the points-

Christian: [35:18] Exactly … Shannon: kind of system. Exactly. Okay. So those are your favorite cards. Yep. And then any other tips? Look for those big sign-up bonuses, uh, when you're-

Shannon: [35:27] What's a good one? What do you wanna see?

Christian: [35:29] It depends. So Chase is usually, like, the… A good one would be, like, over 90,000 points, which is a really good one.

Shannon: [35:38] Okay.

Christian: [35:39] Some of those business cards, they're, like, 75,000 and there's no annual fee, which I'm like, "Sweet, I'll take a free 75,000 points." Like, American Express, they have a Blue Card, which there's no annual fee. It's actually a great card to use because I think it's two, two points for every dollar you spend on anything.

Shannon: [35:56] Oh, nice.

Christian: [35:57] Which most things, like I said earlier, it'll be, like, $3, or three points per $1 spent on only these certain categories. So if you don't remember which category that is- Hmm … and you're like, "Well, I wanna get as many points as I can," and, or, "I know that if I spend it on this card it's only gonna be one point per dollar. I could just use the Blue Card, and that'll be two points per dollar."

Shannon: [36:19] Okay. Any other tips?

Christian: [36:21] Book early. That's the big one. That's, you're most likely gonna find them that way. The nice thing about that Rome.travel is they do have alerts set up.

Shannon: [36:31] Mm. Nice.

Christian: [36:31] So I have, for any trip that we're looking

Shannon: [36:35] for- Yeah, tell me, where are you, where are you trying to go that you haven't told me that you have alerts set up for?

Christian: [36:39] It's the same trip I always tell you about. To- Tokyo right now.

Shannon: [36:42] Okay.

Christian: [36:42] Anything else? And then you're going to some trip in Europe with a friend, and so I have alerts set up for you to go there, which that's gonna be easier- Yay for me … 'cause it's just you. And so I have alerts set up for all these things.

Shannon: [36:52] Sometimes he sets up alerts for things, and then I'm like- And he goes, "Oh, just points came out for this flight." And I'm like, "What? We never even talked about going to this place." But, you know, he wants to know.

Christian: [37:03] Oh, darn.

Shannon: [37:04] He wants to know.

Christian: [37:05] Let's see. Yeah, that- that's how I find those deals, um- And the

Shannon: [37:09] sweet spot's kinda like…

Christian: [37:10] Yeah, then the sweet spot's use Hyatt for hotels if you're gonna stay in a hotel, Air France for Europe, for, uh, to get a little more, I guess, detailed. Business class, it's not the same on every airline.

Shannon: [37:24] Mm.

Christian: [37:24] So look at, like, it might be really cheap to use business class on this specific airline, and even within that airline, they have different planes that have either a newer business class seat or a really old, outdated

Shannon: [37:38] one. And how do you figure this out?

Christian: [37:40] That's, like, listening to those other thing, other podcasts and websites. You

Shannon: [37:43] told me you went on YouTube and looked at, at

Christian: [37:45] like videos of planes. Yeah. No, and that's… So I will generally, like, if I know exactly what flight, right before I book it or when I see that that's often available, I'll Google or I'll look on, on YouTube, hey, what is the business class seat look like? What is the experience here? Is the food good? Is it crap? Is the service good? Is it bad? Like, all that fun stuff. Yeah. So I will look that up.

Shannon: [38:06] And some of them don't have really a first class, right?

Christian: [38:08] Yeah. Some don't have a first class at all. They only have business class. Mm. Some have crazy first class where, like, there's one called the suite. There's another called the apartment. It's literally, like, a room that is all yours, and there's a full-on bed. Some of them even have, like, a full shower.

Shannon: [38:26] I don't wanna get this for the kids.

Christian: [38:28] No. No, no, no. That's gonna be a you and I trip-

Shannon: [38:30] Even if we can do points … if we do it I feel like that's, they're, the- That's-

Christian: [38:33] They're gonna get way too spoiled expectations are gonna be… Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, they

Shannon: [38:36] already- They already got too spoiled. They did. So we can't go any further than that.

Christian: [38:39] Yeah. Yeah, and then also, you don't always have to fly business class. Like, obviously- Mm-hmm … the business class for international flights, they're more like first class. It's actually better than first class in, like,

Shannon: [38:53] domestic- 100%. Like- Like, we got to lay down. They gave us, like- Yeah … slippers, blankets, like, eye masks-

Christian: [38:58] Mm-hmm … headphones. A whole toiletry kit.

Shannon: [39:00] Full toiletry kit. A

Christian: [39:01] huge TV thing. Like, it was awesome. And a

Shannon: [39:03] multi-course meal. They were-

Christian: [39:05] Yeah … yeah. So business class is way nicer than domestic first class in the US. Their premium class is more like first class. Actually kind of nicer than first class in, in the US. And that's what we flew on the

Shannon: [39:17] way home.

Christian: [39:17] Yeah. Yeah. So we- 'Cause it was way cheaper. Also, I did that on purpose 'cause I didn't want the kids to sleep on the way home because it was, I was trying to get them- Yeah the jet lag to be minimized. Um, so And it was still super nice. Like, footrest that went way back, giant TV, still a ton of great food.

Shannon: [39:35] Wait, tell them about the crazy place we went at the airport.

Christian: [39:38] Oh, yeah. You guys, this is big news. This is the other thing. When you get to, when you fly business class, if you ha- Well, not even if. Usually you have lounge access. So with Air France, the, Air France doesn't have a lounge in Seattle, but they are partnered with Delta. And Delta has- It's crazy … two different lounges in … See, I think they probably have more, but they have two different versions of a lounge. They have the Delta One lounge and the regular lounge. Regular lounge, super nice. Delta One lounge, insane. Like-

Shannon: [40:09] Literally crazy, you guys … Speaker: insane. Like, it was basically like a really nice high-end restaurant. Really, really, really nice.

Christian: [40:16] Yeah. We sat down at… They, like, sat us at this table, which- Outside … we sat outside at the airport, which was super cool. Mm-hmm. They had a waiter come and be like, "What would you like? Here's a menu." And it was like a full-on restaurant, and they had all this super high-end alcohol. They had all this amazing food.

Shannon: [40:31] Super high-end. The kids were… got, like, so many things.

Christian: [40:34] Yeah.

Shannon: [40:35] They got dumplings, which

Christian: [40:36] was so random. And it was

Shannon: [40:36] all

Christian: [40:36] free.

Shannon: [40:37] It was all free. Amazing.

Christian: [40:37] All free, included with the business class tickets. So-

Shannon: [40:40] Yeah, like a super high-end restaurant. It was really cool.

Christian: [40:42] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [40:42] Beautiful.

Christian: [40:43] Yep. So factor that in, and then that also, we got lounge access to the Air France lounge in, uh, Paris.

Shannon: [40:50] By the way, Air France has the best bread on their flights. You- Well, of

Christian: [40:53] course.

Shannon: [40:54] It's insane.

Christian: [40:55] Yeah.

Shannon: [40:56] No, but like, you wouldn't expect… Like, some of the best bread we had the whole trip- Mm-hmm … was on the Air France airplane.

Christian: [41:01] Yeah. So factor that in as well, like- Flying premium economy, that did not come with lounge access. We didn't care 'cause we had a very, we had like an hour and a half connection between in Paris, so it didn't matter. We just went to Starbucks and grabbed a bite and a drink and got back on the plane. Yeah. So, but yeah, that was, that was actually something that was really cool.

Shannon: [41:22] Are there any educational things? You mentioned a few, like the Rome, the Max My Points.

Christian: [41:28] Mm-hmm. Those are the tools to find the actual availability, the education part, um, Points Guy, Frequent Miler. There's literally a ton of people that are, that are Instagram famous. Their niche. Yeah. So follow whoever you're into. I get all these random things that pop up on Instagram for me, and I'll find tips here and there. I mean, there's so much more I could go into. I'm not going to 'cause this has already been a long butts time, but yeah, there's a lot. But

Shannon: [41:54] feel free to reach out and ask us questions if we didn't- Mm-hmm … cover something that you're wondering about.

Christian: [41:59] This is how we use our spending on the flips, paying for materials, contractors, staging even, all these things to fund our vacations, and it's not affecting our personal credit. It's affecting the business credit, and the bus- business credit is brand new 'cause it's an LLC that we just created for that specific flip. So it is a fantastic way to fund your vacations for almost free. It is great.

Shannon: [42:27] It was amazing.

Christian: [42:28] It was

Shannon: [42:28] amazing. We had a great time in Europe.

Christian: [42:30] Yeah.

Shannon: [42:30] Thank you, real estate, for-

Christian: [42:32] I know … Shannon: giving us something to spend money on so that we can- Mm-hmm … Shannon: travel the world with our kids. And it allowed us to pay off those credit cards, uh, because the profits that we made from flipping the house.

Shannon: [42:42] Yeah. Let me tell you, having three kids is very expensive to travel, so- Oh, my

Christian: [42:45] God … Shannon: it was really- Yeah … nice to have some support from our points. Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [42:49] Yeah.

Christian: [42:49] Exactly.

Shannon: [42:50] Well, Christian, thanks for sharing all of your points nerdiness with us.

Christian: [42:54] Mm-hmm.

Shannon: [42:54] I appreciate it. I learned a lot 'cause I know nothing about this, so this was great. And if you wanna see us next time on the Awesome in Seattle podcast, check it out, subscribe. And as always, if you have real estate questions, not just point questions- Mm-hmm … you can reach out to us, and we will help you on the investor side, or if you just wanna buy a primary.

Christian: [43:15] Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you can even use the same tactic if you're remodeling your own primary home. Like, it's a fantastic way to go. So let us know if you got any questions. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next episode of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. See ya.