Lessons

Lesson Info

The Single Best Way to Earn Miles Now

If you really want to take your dream trip thirty days from now, using travel rewards credit cards is the single best way to do it. We always get so many questions about this, so at the end of this lesson, stephanie and I are going to sit in the hot seat, take a bunch of questions from the studio audience audience. We're just going to start by going through a bunch of stuff. First, we have been doing this for years, using credit cards to get sign up bonuses on dh, then ongoing spin and lots of different promotions to earn lots and lots and lots of miles, really millions of miles and points over the years, and we use these for fantastic travel experiences. Just last month, I traveled on singapore airlines in first class seat one a from hong kong to san francisco. The ticket price for this was nine thousand five hundred sixty two dollars. Unfortunately, I didn't have to spend nine thousand five hundred sixty two dollars, I use points transferred in from chase ultimate rewards, and I paid...

about one hundred dollars in taxes. I'll tell you how I earned those points, it's actually very easy anyone who's here today, anyone who's watching online, we'll be able to earn the same amount of points I transfer them to singapore airlines, chris fire program and I books the flight. It was super easy done it many times stephanie has done it and it's, not just us. This is not just something where you're like oh, they can do it, but like you know what about me? What about everybody else? Every day we hear stories of people who've been able to take trips solely from the signing bonuses they earned through credit cards. So here's an example, we get a lot of great notes. I really like this one. It came from aaron addington. He took his son to the grand canyon and here's what he had to say my nine year old son and I made our first trip to the grand canyon. Actually, this is my first trip ever to any of the national parks. I've wanted to do this since I was a kid, we had a great time and this was our first ever big father and son trip. It was a rousing success. Points came from the chase sapphire reza I say six hundred fifty dollars on southwest airlines the marriott visa save three hundred dollars. In my lodging. I was also able to get that southwest airlines card at the fifty thousand point bonus level, so we have enough for next year's big spring break trip and to send my best friend on her trip to portland this summer bottom line is that I never could have afforded to have done this trip without these resource is, you've helped me to stop having the limiting beliefs of what a vacation khun b my not my eyes are now open to all sorts of new possibilities and adventures that I had previously thought we're out of reach, so thanks a lot, erin, for sending us that nice story that for us is what it's all about. Another great story we heard actually, from our in studio audience at the previous, of course, yeah, l grauer was with us. She earned more than one hundred eighty thousand miles right after the course. She then traveled to alaska for her honeymoon, where she got three nice hotel stays and a free car rental. So congratulations, j, yo, on your marriage and your miles we hear so many stories like that, I could just give you dozens and dozens of point is like anyone can do this, andi, we know people have lots of questions, so we're going to dive right in. We're going to talk about this topic over three different lessons from different aspects of it. So today's goals are to choose which cards are best for you at least begin the process might take a little while on dh, then to take advantage of sign up bonuses. At least a few initial ones, or maybe just one, depending on your situation on then three to put your credit cards too work, we'll be talking about a lot of different credit cards in this session, some of it's going to go kind of fast, the links to all of these cars, or at least most of them, can be found at cards for travel dot com. So this is our partner site. I just want to mention that if you prefer to get your cards directly from the issuers, it's the same bonus level there's no difference. Either way, you can go directly to chase or american express or whatever, whatever source you would like, so lots to be discussed about the basics and in the first card and then what we do from here. So I'll hand over to stephanie wonderful. So when we talk about points and miles for credit cards for points in miles, you guys are probably already familiar with you get a credit card that earns points in some type of program you did, you get one point or more than one point per dollar. So that's, one way we can use credit cards were going to talk about that, but you'll also hear us talking a lot about getting sign up bonuses we're gonna look at that more tomorrow, but just for the basics if this is really the first time you're hearing this um what happens is you apply for a credit card you meet whatever minimum is required by the credit card to earn whatever bonus there is you earned the bonus and then you repeat it's pretty simple so just keep that in mind as we're talking through this for the next two lessons now the question we always get is what if I just want to get one card? I'm just I'm new to this I'm an apprentice I just want one card that's gonna earn me some points and miles as we talked about before the one car that's best for you could be based on whatever trip you're going on whatever you're trying to earn miles in but if you just are starting out you don't know where you want to earn your miles yet one card we recommend that's great for travelers is the chase sapphire preferred card it earns points in a chase ultimate rewards program which are very flexible so you can earn the miles now and decide where you're going to use them later and we do have a link for the application for the chase sapphire preferred card and that is at unc dot co slash at sea cft sapphire I can't read so what I want to do is just run you through the different kinds of like the different kinds of travel credit cards that are out there and so one of the things just to keep in mind as we run through this is what do you actually want from a credit card everybody wants different things do you want to get a big sign of bonus do you want to get free bags when you fly do you want priority boarding do you want free hotel nights like what are the things that you're thinking of that you want to get so just keep that in mind as we run through this different kinds there's airline cards there's hotel card there's flexible spending cars, business cards and cash back cards that's what I would say are kind of the big families of credit cards I like families um okay. So airline credit cards the kinds of things that um the reason airline credit cards are great is you can earn airline miles in a specific program so for example you get the delta skymiles card you earn miles in delta they're co branded credit cards between a bank and an airline program. A lot of airlines give you free checked bags some if you are a member of their program you get reduced change fees a lot of them give you priority boarding in zone one or two and some of them the higher and ones give you lounge access so that's kind of just an overview of airline credit cards hotel credit cards are actually fairly similar you there co brandon between hotels and hotel in groups and banks and you earn points in the hotel program sometimes you get elite status with them and one of the things that I think is great some of these give you free nights whether it's a free night as a sign of bonus or a free night as when you re new every year cards from flexible spending programs we mentioned this before there's three big ones the chase ultimate rewards program american express membership rewards program and starwood preferred guests this is a hotel program, but they actually have a very flexible they have a very flexible pro of rewards program as well, and the benefits of a flexible spending program are that there's a lot of different transfer partners you earn points in a bank program and then you can transfer these miles to a number of different partners when you're ready to use them with that partner. One great thing is sometimes these programs offer transfer bonuses like the starwood card. Whenever you transfer twenty thousand miles out of the program, you get a bonus of five thousand extra miles, so you're actually earning a twenty five percent bonus on all your starwood points and really the biggest bonus is you earn now and decide later what you're going to do with them business cards are very similar they come across all the same categories of the personal cards and one of the great benefits is a lot of times you get bonuses on your business expenses so anytime you buy office supplies or your internet or you know your telephone bill he'll get bonuses on business expenses and a lot of people say, well, I don't have a business you could actually apply for most business cards with your social security card I'm with your social security number or if you have an idea and number in the states and you don't live in the states cash back cards guys, I think cash back cards are the most well advertised credit cards out there and there are some good reasons to have a cash card but the way these work is that you you earn dollars in the bank's program you don't earn points but you earn dollars back and then you're reimbursed when you spend these dollars on specific expenses and this could be good it gives you flexibility on travel redemptions. We're actually going to cover cash back cards in more detail in less than twenty five because cash back cards are usually the best for kind of things on the ground or short, shorter term shorter, cheaper flights. But when we're thinking of these like big dream trip flights we want to take the cards that offer bigger bonuses are probably better options for us and then not last but not least we do have cards for canadians there are different cards that you can get a lot of, I think, one of the concerns that is addressed to us a lot of the time it's like I'm not from the states, I can't get a credit card in the us, so I'm not eligible to get these big bonuses and kendrick actually shared with us before that he's got a lot of miles through the american express here. What what card did you have? I have three american express cards on the next gold business and the aeroplane gold, and I also have the merit hotel card fantastic! And you've been earning using these points to earn miles in the air plan program. So a few there's a few airplane cards here, there's some american express, a star would card in canada and another one that we love is our alaska credit card, and we talked a lot about alaska miles because scott's a big alaska guy here you can actually in alaska miles in canada there's a specific alaska card for canada, and if you aren't in canada or the u s there's lots of different ways that you can flop find cards internationally, I'm the easiest way to do it is to check the global bank offering from wherever your base so hsbc, american express whatever country you live in, check what the big banks are offering search on the national carrier's website if you live in germany and you're trying to find out what points of miles card you can get in germany goto lufthansa's website and search and see what cards what cards they're offering as partner bonuses and then check the national bank offerings I lived in south east asia for a really long time and people ask me this question all the time in thailand there's like five or six national banks that actually offer miles that you can earn points on thai airways and so there's lots of options remember that over time you can earn lots of miles and sign up bonuses but I'm going to let chris address some of the concerns that you probably already have before we go any further that's great yes if you look on our desk we might come to this at a certain point but these these are a few of my credit cards here. Um I think stephanie has a similar kind of allotment in her wallet so I have a lot of cards and so does she and people always ask like how how does this work like how do you get all these cards without like, screwing up your life or your credit? People have a number of different concerns so actually gonna address them all directly and then we'll take questions on the whole subject as well so probably number one concern is like if you apply for all these credit cards like, you know, what effect does it have on your credit score? Maybe the first point is you don't actually have to apply for twenty five cards, right? One that's, right? If you're just starting in this, you know, you should one hundred percent be responsible and only apply for cards on which you can pay off in full every month, so maybe you're just doing a couple of things. But the interesting thing is, it's kind of a myth that your credit score is severely impacted by new credit enquiries. Your credit score has a variation of a couple of points or so on average with a new application, and you can actually minimize this by applying for cards in batches. S o, if you do want to apply for three cards, for example, you can apply all at once on the same day as opposed to, like one today, one tomorrow, when the next day or whatever. The timing is that way that whatever impact there is, happens all at once, and then the curious thing like the more we started doing this ourselves, we kind of researched and try to understand, ok, how our people's credit stories composed there's a number of different factories, five or six factors, and new credit is only about fifteen percent or so of the total score by far by far the most important factors that determine your credit score are your payment history so are you actually paying your bills if you're paying your bills? That is the most important thing thie amounts owed so the proportion of the credit that you have their total credit line that you're actually using so interestingly enough it can actually be beneficial to have more credit and not use it then to just have like I may be a slow low credit line they're always kind of maxing out each month so the banks and the issuers tend to see it is being more responsible and it's like having access to this line but you know, very rarely going above a small element of it. So that's something that's really important to understand your credit score is composed of a variety of different things new applications are just one part of it payment history and your total use of credit is the most important thing and if you're watching and you're like, oh, that sounds great like I think I can be responsible with this but my credit is low there are few there's a few things you can do and within six months you'll be able to take advantage of a lot of this so first thing is first and most important do pay all the bills on time even early if possible so each month each credit card that you have kind of reports that balance to all of the different credit score agencies, and they report that balance usually a few days before the bill is due. So if you do have a particularly high balance one month and you're able to maybe pay that off a week or two early and that way when they make that reporting there actually reporting a much lower amount. So pay all your bills on time early, if possible, pay down balances. I understand that not everybody is able to do that right away, but that's definitely a great long term goal for life and for travel, clear any negative information. You should be able to get a copy of your credit score. That's going to be our challenge, which is coming up in a few minutes after the hot seat s so when you get your credit score, if there's something there that's inaccurate art there's something there that you just need to clear up if there is a bill that's due that you never paid like it happens. It's happened to me before just had to go and pay it. And then it's taken away from the credit score. Eventually at least it's reported as paid, or if you see something that's inaccurate. You can dispute it and all of the credit agencies are required to note that you are disputing at us dixon tumor are disagreeing with whatever that is so you want to take a look and see if there's something negative you can take care of if you're just getting started you don't have much credit at all or you're trying to repair something from the past you can become an authorized user on someone else's card so the way an authorized user is if I had a credit card and I wanted it's definitely to the account I could add her to the account as an authorized user she would then have a credit card all of the charges are I'm the one who's responsible for them but she's actually going to get a small boost in her credit score over time just by having that so if there's someone in which you could be an authorized user for or have that issued for you they can even limit the credit line that you have access to they can actually say if they have a total credit of five credit line of five thousand dollars they can say for this authorized user I only want them to have a five hundred dollars credit line or whatever it is you never have to use the card the point is just by associating with someone else with good credit that can help you over time and then lastly if you if you really can't get any of the cards that we're talking about you really are just starting and you find yourself getting declined a lot you can get a secured card and you get that from any bank you just go to your local bank and you say I've been having trouble getting the credit card and they can give you a secured card it's usually a very low credit line but if you have that card and you make your payments six months later you're going to see a big big jump in your score we talked a lot about effect on your credit score we could talk about some more in the hot seat if you'd like another question is annual fees this for us goes a lot too valuation which is something that we're talking about throughout the course so we're telling these stories I began with this story of singapore airlines like I'm flying first class and singapore airlines having this wonderful experience that I would never be able to have you know were it not for miles and points to get those miles and points on those cards some of those cards I might have like a seventy nine dollars annual fee or something so a lot of people really object there like I want to have a no fee credit card on guess what we would say is let's consider what we can get from this you know if I can get a credit card will show you some others there's a there's one from I t that you can get right now where if you get this credit card as long as you have it you pay a forty nine dollar annual fee every year and you can get an annual stay a free night at any hotel in the world that's part of the network so this includes the intercontinental brand continental is a luxury brand they have properties in london that are six hundred seven hundred dollars a night they have properties in singapore they have properties all over the world you pay forty nine dollars for the annual fee and every year you can stay one night so I think that's a great value obviously everybody has to decide for themselves but that's kind of always my response to that is let's look att let's look at the feed compared to what we can really get for it uh meeting minimum spend stephanie mentioned in the beginning a lot of these cards require you to spend a certain amount before they give you the sign up bonus sometimes it's a small amounts sometimes it's a bit larger khun b between five hundred dollars to three thousand sometimes five thousand not usually much more than that and you usually have ninety days to do that so people always ask us like how can I do that? I don't know five thousand dollars a month. My credit card. I believe we're going to be coming back to that right? In less than nine. We actually have a whole bunch of tips about that. So it's actually possible. There's some tricks you can use to make that much, much easier. What else do we got? Managing multiple credit cards like I got a bunch of cards. How I keep track of them all. The easiest way is to keep a spreadsheet. We actually have a free spreadsheet available to everyone. Anyone? Who's, who's watching the course. Even if you haven't purchased the course, I believe you can access this on the course page everyone can access. This will put it in a facebook group as well. Free credit card tracking spreadsheets. Uh, just just lie if you go to, of course, but you do need to rsp piece for the class. And that way, you're getting notifications as well. But you can download that free tracker and excellent other things. Get some free stuff. Priest up. Excellent. Sometimes people talk about how do you how many cards do you keep? How do you cancel them? It's? Kind of a long conversation, and I guess I would say I keep some cards, I cancel, others, cancel them usually. A year in or so before the annual fee comes, do if it's a card I don't want to keep sometimes when that happens, you'll actually call and they'll make you an offer to stay well, actually say like, we want to keep you, so how about we give you more points or something? You kind of decide, you know, is that worth it to me? Or is it not, you know, in the long term, we're just trying to, like I have a strategy longstreet long term strategy for the different cards that we keep and then lastly, on the list of concern is, what if your declined so one fun fact, just like people don't always understand about how credit scores work, people don't always understand that when you're declined, the no is not always no in that case, oftentimes the no is is an automated system that's just kind of made some decision sometimes like I actually applied for cards and I'm declined, and sometimes the reason I'm decline is because I have so many with a particular bank, and so what you can do is you you call, you'll get a letter saying you were declined, maybe online, maybe in the mail, and you just call and you say I saw it was declined, is there anything I can do? You know, to get this card that will work about fifty percent of the time it's kind of fifty fifty often what you may need to do is kind of murder credit lines like if I called chase that like what you already have, you know, five of our products I might say probably more fifty yard you have everything we've ever made and I'll say yes, but there's this new offer I'm actually kind of interested in these benefits what if we reduce my credit on one of the other cards you know? So I can get this one so fifty percent of the time that will work when you're declined oh, I forgot one business cards stephanie mentioned briefly I forgot three of them actually business cards stephanie mentioned you can apply for a business card using your social security number these days lots and lots of people have all kinds of self employment income they do consulting they do freelance you sell something on etc you sell something like something like there is something and so it's not about lying you're not misrepresenting yourself you can use your own name is the business name use your social security number ultimately, the way the banks make the decision has nothing to do with your business. It has to do with your own credit history whether it's a business card or personal card sometimes people say like you know are you taking advantage of banks? You know is this bad for the banks? It's really not bad for the banks that banks know exactly what they're doing in terms of issuing credit cards and coming up with new products they want new customers they actually want responsible customers so it's not bad for the banks it's not bad for the airlines the airlines in some ways they're actually supported through the frequent flyer programs some some mileage programs for airlines are actually more profitable than airlines themselves. So this is a huge business, tom this is not about taking advantage of the banks are anyone else may be the last problems we're going to have too many miles like what do I do what you have to go somewhere you have to put them to good use because as we've said, a couple of times we often hear stories of people who are like, oh, I earned like all these crazy miles and points and we're like great what you do there like nothing and so we really want people to not just earn the miles not toward them but to actually put them put them to good use for an amazing experience for you or for someone that you love and care about so lots of concerns that we've gone through there just wanted to kind of provide cem you know, initial information on that and then I believe we're going to jump in the hot seat now. Okay, we're going just you carry them all that's great. We know that people always have a huge number of questions on this topic remember that we have two more lessons about it coming up but before we jump into that what should we discuss? What do you think he's got? Can you tell me about whether or not to for example I know you're big on chase and their family of products. So do you get cards and then make minimum spend and then get the bonus miles and then cancel them and then reapply for the same thing? Okay, all in rapid succession ok, so a few things there I actually think it's good tio diversify your credit cards so yes, chase does have some great products used them personally and myself used this much a sapphire car we mentioned I use it every day double points on dining and travel. Some other trace products are great too, but I actually think it's good teo build credit history with multiple issuers because you have a credit scorer that is run by independent agencies but then each bank actually maintains a credit history on you, so chase has their own history on anyone who has an account and sodas mx I think it's good to actually divers by as for you whether I'm earning the bonuses and then canceling and then getting the card again, some cards will let you do that and some won't that's that's the short version some of the some of the products that we've used before we actually have got many times american express will not let you get a bonus more than once chased woman get you let you get a bonus once every twelve months on the same product on dh, then some other airline, some other cards alaska airlines card, for example, is you can get it and cancel it and get it and cancel it get more alaska cards every sixty days I'm not there people that will get eight to ten the last airlines, cars a year, yeah, same card, they get the bonus, then that's it cancel it before the fiesta. But as a point to that kind of my strategy is I have a couple a card that I used like those of the card that I keep in my wallet that I use on a daily basis and that's mostly my chase sapphire card, my starwood american express card and then I also someone who's trying to get elite status on american and I have a card that will give me elite qualifying miles if I reached a certain spending, so I have those three cards and they're the three cards primarily use and then what of the other card that I'll uses? Whatever card I'm trying to meet the minimum spend on at that moment so I'll get a new card I'll keep that one in my wallet until I reached that minimum and then I tuck it away in my envelope that says active cards yeah, yes, uh, are you going to talk about stacking the cards like, physically? Isn't that booth very nice, actually? Are you there, but like chase sapphire business bold and think I don't know, whatever, but so those air all those are actually different cards, those are actually different cards that all earn points in the ultimate rewards program. So if you're talked about flexible spending programs, briefly ultimate rewards is one membership rewards from mx another also available in canada on so you can get multiple cards that all earned points in the same programme, which then pull together. I don't know if we're gonna talk about that, I do that I have the sapphire and the kind of other stuff, so you want to get a business card with the same company? So same brand. So say like you want to get the chase ink and you want to get the csp so the chase sapphire preferred would you suggest that you get the business one first so the personal one first or doesn't matter how you like when you go to apply for both of them that way you can get approved for both of them. I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters. I don't think so. You know, the process may be a little bit different for for business application, but I think for me, for the business application, I usually would wait until, um, there's a big bonus, I think right now what's the bonus for the forty or fifty and every once in a while chase, we'll do like a sixty thousand point bonus on their business cards until that's, when I would wait to get the business card. Yes, question for, um, our big sign up bonuses in canada. They usually you have to have a, you know, a certain earning point. Do they actually look at the earning points, or do they only look at your credit score? Well, it's self reported, they look at what you put down, right? I didn't actually know that that there is a turning point, a minimum. I'm not sure I don't know. Sorry, matt, what do you recommend? I often see, like a lot of deals and you know it sounds great it sounds great other any like red flags are like things to avoid that you see and you're like okay, you know what? Even though it sounds great like there's definitely a catch here and I don't want a piece of it sure sure that's great I mean, I think probably the person most important thing is is you do this if you can do it responsibly like that is the most important thing like you you use credit cards for the signing bonuses if you khun meet the requirements and pay your bills every month like that's just my first most important as for the new the second, the second thing is I guess you want to make sure that it's a good offer you want to look for a strong sign up sign up bonus offer you know in the u s would be looking at a minimum twenty five to forty thousand point sign up bonus offer in canada maybe it's starting at twenty five thousand points, they're still just so many cards out these days that will offer like a serious bonus that probably not worth it going for something that's that's small yeah, I think it really depends on what you're trying, what you're trying to get at, you know and and I think the question I asked in the beginning what do you want from your from your credit card, you know, I know families who travel and it's, really they travel a lot domestically, and they might not be, you know, they might be planning a vacation. This they might be saving their miles to plan for a trip, but when they're flying in the states it's really important for them to have their bags paid for, because if they're checking four bags as a family it's costing them an extra hundred bucks every time they fly. And so by getting by keeping an airline card that has that benefit, you know, that's paying for itself every year. So I think a lot of it is thinking about what you want and what what's the right card for you. But I don't think there's anything bad things that they're trying to take you in any way, yeah, of course, with you with that stack that you have it's, like, overwhelming, of course, to see, but, like, do realistically, do you have, like, this crazy, like? Back pack of cards and when you get to a restaurant you like old this one is the best best best runner matt, I carry these with you wear what I want to pay today so so actually ironically the ones I'm holding here way put some tape on them just because we don't we love our online audience but you don't come to steal our identity the cards actually used most frequently actually my wallet there's probably three or four cards there I have do you have another taste? How far that I have the starbury card? I have a couple of business cards I use for expenses so so I'm carrying like three or four cards in any given time and then like stephanie said, you know we get other cards for the signing bonuses or we get them for a specific purpose, you know, like that family who wants free checked bags or you have a hyatt card here you know you actually might want to use that higher card when you're staying at high properties your good actually actually extra bonus points for that. So so every card has a purpose that's the goal and it's not cement it's not meant to be like an overwhelming thing of like I have like these forty cards well, what am I supposed to know? How do I spend my coffee shop purchase on you know, today also that this has come about over a number of years, right? This isn't one week and one thing we're going to talk about in less than eight the next lesson is how to strategically understand the bonuses that the credit cards offer when you spend so the category bonuses when you're spending at a supermarket or the gas station, how do you know which card to use where and it seems really complicated like I'm at the gas station, I don't remember which one has two times points on gas, and so how you can kind of think about how you can think about that and a lot of it is just standing like a minute and just understanding it and then just having a system that works for you uh, first one is, uh, what happens after you burned all the bonus points already from existing cards. So in canada, it's, mainly the american express, so I've got in the three already, and I've got in the welcome bonus points and you said that they don't replenish, so is it worth it to go get let's, say, the platinum version? But they have very high annual fees on that? We're sure they're a couple different times we might talk about the platinum card and win those high annual fees were worth it, and when they aren't often they have the high annual fee includes like a two hundred dollars statement credit on the airline of your choice and that's true for canada as well so that that credits that like that he's like doesn't really way just read this last night don't worry so you know we were surprised actually like when we were doing our research there is actually a number of new products for canada that's just come that have just come out recently do you have a star would card I want to get the next one you're working on so that's another twenty five thousand points and in those points will be transferred to any airline so some cards you can get again like we were talking about in the beginning but others like with american express you can't okay we aren't sure about the alaska card for canada though way aren't sure if you can get that one again and again like you can in the us okay, so that was my second question but way don't for sure you can get that last one in the us over and over we're not sure about the canada edition and that could change by the time you know if if you're not watching this live, that could change but you know that's why it's good to keep up with some of those forums and blog's that we talked about our cards for travel dot com where we're always updating on what the latest and greatest you know credit card offers are and on cards for travel dot com you can sign up for the updates and we will send out an update whenever there's a new like interesting product and there is a section on cards for canada there without alaska card when you're reapplying is that does that go to the same mileage plan number? Where do you have to have a different mileage plan number for the new card? Both basically it it goes to a new one that's created but then you can merge it with your existing one basically so let's say you're trying to pieces everywhere you know your emergencies late instantly I don't know if you can do it online I reviewed it with a phone call you could do with the phone call I actually just got when I actually thought I had applied with my alaskan number and it came the card came with a different number on it and I was really confused and so I called and they just merge the two accounts immediately unless also had the business card as well. So you actually think you got three or something has three multiple three of their cards objectively right now I think casey had a question I want you back the whole store would card so I've heard you mention it before and I've been tracking it for like months the bonus is still the same I heard rumors that it may go up in the summer time have you ever seen that guy saw what bonus go up in the summertime starry starry bonus doesn't usually go up that much once in a while it will go up like five thousand point so so the cards were good for different reasons like we're talking about and some of the cards have a big bonus star one is better for ongoing spend so start where you're gonna earn like the twenty five thousand or thirty thousand not as much as others but over time you're actually gonna be earning one point two five miles or points for all your spoon because of the transfer thing that they have it's also great for hotel stays you actually later on we'll talk about elite status and you actually earn a couple of state credits every year for the starwood card so that's good what your chase after I preferred those like you to go to cargo tio two cards for personal spending yeah hey sapphire for all dining and travel star with personal for everything else dining I know we need to wrap this lesson up everybody has lots of questions we do maybe one or two more questions that all right? I think I just wanted to remind everybody at home that they can use the hashtag dream trip the hash tag for this entire boot camp if you do have more questions and so yeah I think everybody here could ask questions all day long but I think we can you're right keep going okay awesome awesome. So let's see well so we have I believe we have a workbook activity which is to list your mileage earning programs and then identify which credit cards you could use to earn points in each of those eso if you're watching if you have the workbook you can do it otherwise you can make a list it's totally great. So okay, so we just did a whole lot of questions so just maybe let us know what's the most important thing you learned today would love to hear from maybe two or three people in the studio audience yes place so I've been earning dollars instead of points and miles because I have uh um a cash back venture card so I have to change my whole thinking about this so I'm going to go for miles points I think that's actually better than I do. It is better and we'll talk a lot more about that in less than twenty four and kind of the strategy of what good things you can use those the the cash back points you have are valuable for some very specific things right? But I really need to be chasing points and miles all right unauthorized user could help someone's credit score I never knew that and I think that's that's. Awesome. Because I think I got a lot of people can get started that way.