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Cards for Travel

One thing I wanted to kind of just point out as we begin this next session, we're really gonna get into a lot of detail here in this section, and some of it may be a little bit dense. Andi, I want to make sure we answer any questions that we have to make sure we really kind of follow through, but the overarching point of travel hacking really like what it's all about it's to allow you to have experiences that you wouldn't otherwise have the whole point is to put the system to work for you. So it's not so much about mastering all these details and nuances if something does feel overwhelming, then don't just just don't worry about that, we'll tell you how to do the simple things. When we talk about credit cards, we'll talk about all these different things, but really the best strategy, if you could just get one or two credit cards and manage those well, then that can help you, too. So I just want to make sure we kind of focused on the main thing. The main thing is that miles and points a...

re for spending, they're for using and putting to good use on experiences all over the world, just as I've been ableto have on definitely been ableto have in many of our readers and community as well, okay? So what we do like to do in this session, a lot of stuff happening here when I focus on big credit card bonuses, I also want to talk about credit concerns. People always have questions like where this ruin my credit, how do I manage this? How do I do it? We'll talk about that in great detail on and talk about how to maximize miles, how you choose which cards to spend for what on so on in the trouble hacking cartel, which I mentioned briefly in the previous session, we have a guarantee where we help our members earn at least one hundred thousand miles every year, which is great, but you can actually earn one hundred thousand miles or more before finishing this segment today, or released before the end of the day with a couple of careful credit card applications. So that's really significant, and we talked briefly in the first session about what you could do with one hundred thousand miles one hundred thousand miles is for domestic tickets to international tickets just about anywhere, one ticket in business class or sometimes first class, almost anywhere in the world, one hundred thousand miles or more, it could go a long way on dh that's what you could do with some of these big signing bonuses. And then the careful use of it over time we'll be talking about a lot of different cards the links to all of these cards can be found at cards for travel dot com lots of different cards on before we dig in I want to give a few disclaimers and disclosure credit cards aren't for everyone that's the first and most obvious thing like if you hate credit cards that's that's great no problem no disrespect their o r some people can't get them or shouldn't or whatever and that's fine you're not excluded if you're not american there are some international cards that will be talking about for this next section were primarily focused on us cards for the next you know twenty minutes or so by getting credit cards you're not cheating the bank or the airline a zay alluded to earlier this is you know credit cards are big business and they're happy for people teo get these sign up bonuses they continue to raise the sign up bonuses they continue to encourage people to get different products that's fine on the last thing to mention if you visit the cars for travel site we do have affiliate relationships with some of these companies so if you sign up on some of those links on than we do receive benefits so just to be very clear about that if you'd really prefer that we don't receive that benefit then you can learn through this just a cz well, and then just google the name of the card and you can apply directly from chase or american express and that's totally fine. We also try to show the best possible cards no matter what benefit we receive or whether we do or don't. S so fun story for the number of years I had had a couple of credit cards that earns miles and points, I had the star word preferred guest card, but I'll show you in a minute. I had maybe one or two other cards and I had begun using this as I was starting to travel the world, and I thought, this is really fun. I wonder if there are other cards out there like this? Or maybe I've seen other cards like I wonder if I could get those other can I only have one or two cards, or how does that work? And so a few years ago, I think it was two thousand eight or two thousand nine I decided to try to experiment, and I call this experiment the frequent flyer challenge, and it was a personal experiment. Originally on dh, I applied for thirteen credit cards all in the same day, and I pick thirteen because that was the number I found that had airline and hotel. You know, points associated with them that's where all the airline and hotel credit cards that I could find, and I said, I'm gonna apply for them all on the same day on dh what's gonna happen, like, first of all, I'm not going get some of these cars, I assume I'm going to start getting declined on the second of all, I assume this is going to be really bad for some reason, like it's really going to, like, you know, impact my credit or destroy my reputation or something. S o I chronic, I've kind of share the whole history of frequent flier challenge on a number of places on my blog's we've repeated it since then. If you go to my block at some point, cresskill about dot com, you can read the whole story, but the short version is I was accepted for every single card that I applied for every single one and my credit score er dropped a couple of points, you know, maybe a couple of percentage points, but never below never more than five to ten percent, and it was already really good to begin with. So then it was just really good a little bit lower, and then the interesting thing was over the next year, it actually increased. Over the next year is I, like had those cards and never carried perry to balance on them always paid the bill on time the credit score went back to where it was, so it actually had no emf, no negative net impact on my store, and I share that story on my block, and I said, hey, I'm just providing us information if anybody else wants to try this in their own way, you know, at your own risk, I'm go ahead and do that, and so then I began to receive lots of different stories from other readers who had done the same thing. So one of my favorite stories was from anna, I think was living in new york, and she was able to travel to the philippines and then elsewhere in asia and all over the world, you know, and my favorite clothes in a matter of a few months, I earned four hundred thousand miles all without flying, I think she starts the more details about the story of how she did that either. Of course, I don't know if you remember this the card to the cards that she said were her favorites where the american express business platinum card in the city aadvantage card, and she said she had gotten a couple chase cards as well, and she had wanted to go to one place and when she did this she realized that she was going to be able teo even travel more places and it just got her started in the whole thing great another story very similar mrs from shari she wrote it and she said like this is actually my very first introduction to doing this kind of stuff I went in slow I was a little bit you know apprehensive which is great I said you know just just take it as slow as you want think she applied for a couple of cards in the beginning and you actually apply for this british airways card which doesn't have this bonus anymore but for a year they had one hundred thousand mile bonus one hundred thousand miles for one credit card can get you a really long way and the thing I like about this story is when they sent the pictures in they sent pictures from about ten different countries they made their way around the world that's right around the world and I kept hearing like story after story of people who had done this in their own way on I just thought it was really exciting and so you know for those who are able to do it for those who can again you know manage their credit responsibly it's a fantastic opportunity to do it so let's begin with a what's in your wallet survey were curious like what credit cards do you have here what is in your wallet? How many of you in the studio audience carry more than one credit card and get your wallets out if you feel like if you want teo your credit cards on camera just write your identity will probably not be going and if any of you guys have more than three credit cards who has a mileage earning credit card right now of some kind let's start here and share which mileage credit cards you have I don't think this is mileage points aj the chase sapphire great that's great everyone with their cards we're talking about a second good I love virgin america so I have a virgin america card I don't know it doesn't necessarily have the best rewards associated with it but I really like the airlines so I used credit card for a locker I like birds america's well first sapphires well on and also united mileageplus a great explorer I have the american express platinum card okay um american airlines virgin atlantic virgin america and you have a lot that's great well done it was anybody else um united mileage the british air um american express delta skymiles I just applied for advantage and us airway and southwest so hopefully those beam in my mailbox this week that's great that's a lot of points all at once so that that based that application process you just mentioned I forget which cards you said with that said, well, the first few I have in here and I just applied for like five more last week so what I want teo focus on for the online audience, you know, people who are just kind of learning about this there's a basic strategy and advanced strategy okay, the advance strategy is kind of what I just alluded to about the frequent flyer challenge, you know, people who are applying for five or more cards, you know, in a single day on dh that could definitely work, as I've learned, as many of my readers have learned, but if that stresses you out or if that overwhelms you for whatever reason or if you don't like it, you can do a lot with a very, very basic strategy. So the basic strategy is to get a couple of the best cards and then all of a sudden boom, you have fifty thousand to one hundred thousand miles, you know, just like that and you can go somewhere on dh this is good if you don't want to manage multiple credit cards, you're just getting started you like, dip my toe in the water or whatever so a few of the best cars that we definitely recommend I mean the same ones that we use ourselves the first one it would be the chase sapphire card, which a few people have already allude do and this is ah visa card chase sapphire preferred it's actually called and we like this card because it has I think currently a forty thousand points bonus which will get immediately and you also earn double points on all travel spend spend and all dining spend so in my case like traveling dining is like probably like, you know, half of what I spend money on s o that's great and also has no foreign transaction fees so that's the first card that always recommend and the second one is one that I've used for many years the starwood preferred guest mx I think I first got this card before it ever had a bonus like it didn't have a sign up bonus but it was just a great card and I got it so now I think it has something like twenty five thousand points or something ondas starwood card is great because starwood points can be used in a variety of airlines you get started points and you can transfer them to something like twenty thirty one airlines and when you transfer them as long as you transfer at least twenty thousand points then you earn what twenty percent bonus or something yes if you transfer twenty thousand points when you actually get twenty five thousand miles and starwood is also great for hotel redemption so that's my second go to card and then to complement the first chase card there's actually a choice of two either the chasing bold or the chase ink plus and I believe the difference is one is a credit card and what is the charge card but otherwise it's very similar there's a fifty thousand point bonus for each of these cards after meeting a minimum spend and I believe these also have no foreign transaction piece and we touched briefly in the first segment on earning five times the points at office supply stores so if either of these cards everything you buy office supplies stores including gift cards you'll earn five times the points for so the basic strategy is is you know, get a couple of these cards you can get either chasing boulder plus or or both onda starwood and then that will get you, you know, fifty thousand miles for each ankan bowl of forty thousand for sapphire twenty five thousand for the star a preferred guest that's just you know we're getting started and as we saw earlier that can take you all kinds of places just say and credit cards are really overwhelming you could get one just this just the chase sapphire card itself with forty thousand point bonus if all you want to do is take a domestic holiday somewhere this year that's enough points and we'll talk about flexible rewards but you can use this on airlines veteran any alliance and it's enough points to take a domestic economy trip and still have something fair question about the kind of up front bonuses you get with the card you get a lot of great miles up front most of these I think usually have an annual fee and they're good enoughto wave it for the first year I've done some of those in the past but then wondered if it's worth continuing it right in the annual fee versus just getting some credit cards they give you dollars back on a purchase alright then saying, well, I'll just take the dollars and then I can buy the ticket as I want it for from how do you view that and there's a couple things? They're the point annual fees we actually have a whole thing we're going to talk about their about whether you can saloon, whether you don't, you know, kind of like where I started in the last segment, you know, for me at the annual fee of seventy nine dollars or ninety nine dollars, even if it's not waved in the first year, you know, I'm more than happy to pay that for the forty thousand points and then for some of these cards you know chase sapphire and the star would I pay that annual fee every year? I'm happy for it because I get a lot of value out of the product, you can cancel it later and that's fine we'll discuss it as for you know, whether a cash back hard makes more sense that might make sense for some people I guess for me I'm very used my points and miles all the time I use them for high value redemptions, some of the things that will show you later some of these trips that that that I've been on stephanie's been on their trips there would cost five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars or more we're able to take those trips with seventy thousand miles or something like for me like that valuation is great, I think this is about this is what we're going to get into but again masses asking how do you choose which cards to use when you have so many every day? Wait yes, we will get into that slide on that that's right? Exactly very question yes, yeah another question one more from polly mathis was asking just started a startup good wants to know if there are specific cars for small businesses that may give larger sign up bonuses than standard consumer card. I don't think there are cards that give larger bonuses because their business cards say, but she's certainly eligible for all those business cards I should have mentioned as well with the the starwood card there's also a business version of that and you can apply for that as well and receive an additional bonus so you can receive the twenty five thousand points for personal and twenty five thousand for the business that's why I said like what the chasing bold and plus you know they make these products for people who have different needs some people prefer the credit card people for the charge card but there's no restriction on you getting both of them so I have both of them and I received a bonus you know, for both of them so fifty thousand fifty thousand I think you actually got one of your chase cards when it was a higher sixty thousand bonus eso things they're always being shifted around as I said if you have a spouse or partner if you're doing this with someone else then of course they have their own applications so that's you know double there so you can kind of see how it's easy tio get up to some really large numbers if that's that's what you want to do well let's get going all right keep going great couple just notes on some specific issuers chase we talked about sapphire plus ankle there's also a southwest card for people like southwest thank you mentioned that earlier the southwest card right now you can get with the signing bonus is essentially to free flights on southwest which is great. You know, if you're into southwest there's a british airways card marriott cards united explorers club card I think you said you have that one of those on dh hi it most of the chase cards don't have foreign transaction fees, meaning that you can use them anywhere in the world and you're not penalized, which is great on one note that kind of applies to all the credit card stuff that we talked about were not really taking the a p r into consideration the interest rates I really don't I don't care what the interest rate is because I don't carry a balance on any cards, and I always recommend that part of kind of managing credit responsibly is not carrying a balance, so there may be an offer for a you know, a non mileage card that has a better interest rate, but it doesn't affect me because I would never carry a balance on that card, so it is really important to pay off your balance on every month. Um so american express, another great issuer, talked about the star red cards on their part of the membership not start right, but american express has a number of cards that are part of the membership rewards program, including the american express platinum american express premier rewards american express a business card the points for those are pulled into one program called membership rewards I think we have another slide on that coming up at some point I'll explain that, and then they also have some specific cards star worried as well as delta and hilton hilton, amex that's, right, citibank the best city cards was not actually shown in this picture, but the best city cards are the american advantage awards cards. They have a mastercard visa signature card, a business mastercard and american express. They have four products, they're all tied to american airlines. You can apply for each of them so you can have american express, you know, city bank card for america and you can have a visa or mastercard. Each of those has a thirty thousand to fifty thousand point bonus, depending on what's available at the moment uh, we're here on the website cards for travel dot com you can also kind of look at them by category, based on airline based on hotel based on cash back, but paul mentioned flexible rewards or the business category should've been clicking that we go. There are two other there are two other, well there's lots of other banks, but there are two other american banks that have good trouble bonuses. They just don't have, they're not the biggest banks have a lot of cards and those two are u s bank and barclays bank. Barclays actually issues the us airways card, which, if their merger goes through, we'll be going out of business, so it's a good time to get that car and a little card right before continental became united so got fifty thousand points they became united points in my car disappeared and the u s bank has the carlson card which is the hotel club the radisson the radisson properties that's good. Yeah. That's a great tip about when the airline is merging or going out of business or something that you could get that product than you are in the mile is in that car doesn't exist. You start the miles. Yeah, I just have a question and I apologize if you guys have already and you're just catching up here I have a barclays karn, actually, but I don't use it for miles. Is there a way now that I have the card to associate it with something so that I can benefit on the miles? Eso if you already have a barclays account with them, you would need a different card, but it would be very easy for you to get that from them since already having account from them if you wanted to add the other what's the barclay that club carlson one of you was here with us. Are you cash back hard and that's barkley so but that that current crowd you have could not be used for mile journey okay, now you need to add it thank you and I have been when chris said the well, we're on the site. You can look at it by category sometimes it's, when you're looking at so many cards sometimes it's helpful to present it by bank because you could see which different cars are available. But as a consumer thinking, you know, you guys got your travel goal or something that you're thinking about so you can look at it and say, this is where I want to go. This is what I want to dio what kind of cards could I actually get to take me there? You know, if you love marriott or you could look at the hotel card and say which hotels do I want to stay in which airline and most likely to fly and plan your card strategy based on the actual redemption you want? Yes, I have several credit cards that both my husband and I are are on, you know, the same number. So should I get him? Should we separate that's a good question. I don't think you have to separate, but I think he can do his own applications as well. There's usually there's, usually a primary applicant, and then the other person is usually an authorized user. Okay, so be good to know whether it was you that applied and then added him or the other way around. And then the other person could then do their own applications. Yeah, it's just usually going to be in your best interest if there two of you to have your own credit history as well as your own applications, because you can get extra points for adding an authorized user to some accounts, but they're usually not a big bonus it's just like a few thousand miles or something to add unauthorized user, but to get a whole new account is twenty five thousand fifty thousand points or more question, uh, along these cards are bank branded cards. Is there a limit to how many cards you can have? Her bank? Yes, there is, and it varies by bank and what will happen essentially on chase's chase is a good example of this. I don't actually know what the limit is. I'm not sure if it's if it's public that's proprietary to them, they do have a limit, and if you reach the limit, then you'll be declined for that card, and you can usually call and talk to him about it and say why. I wanted the southwest card because, you know, I had these other cards, but and I wanted out that that bonus for the two free southwest flights, and often what they can do is kind of consolidate some of the credit that you have from other cards or maybe you can close your folder chase card that you no longer have to get it so there is often a limit in american express has one too so when you apply if you're declined it's very helpful to to call and ask him about it because often the declines air just on automatic thing it's not like someone who's really looked at your account and turned you down but if you called the reconsideration line is what it's called then you can usually get that sorted out if I had some more material but we have more questions just just to be clear on the opposite end of the spectrum like if I signed up my mother for a car that got me twenty five you know, hundred extra bonus points and she got a card can she just tread that card and I have the miles and that's that's done we'll probably talk to her first way talk daily, right? But she would be getting the miles it's hard miles is going to her account the on ly the only difference are the on ly kind of loophole. There would be like the united explorer card if you when you add a user too that card, you get an additional five thousand miles so you could get your mom and your sister card or something there on dh, then get a five thousand bonus points there if she used the card or not yeah, but if she opened the account two miles would be in her name she couldn't use the miles however she wanted to, right? If she wanted tio out of the kind of super heart send you on a trip somewhere, she could do that, but they wouldn't but miles wouldn't be in your account. Okay, thanks makes sense, that's good. I think it was this kind of like leading to what we were talking about about, you know, in advanced strategy is okay, what if you really want to, like, rock this out a little bit? How can you get more cards and go further? That's what I first did in the frequent flyer challenge many years ago have continued to do every year since I'm not not applying for thirteen cars in the same day all the time because I've run out of cards, but whenever new new card products become available, I've applied for them. Sometimes I do it a certain number of days every year like every six months applies that all my applications are done on the same day, I think that's helpful just in terms of the credit report that all the activity is in a certain period of time as opposed to applying for a new car like every few weeks or something andi, as I said, we've heard from a lot of our readers who have done this in different ways, some using the exact process that I used in some of their own accord on they've been able to earn two hundred thousand hundred thousand sometimes as you saw four hundred thousand miles or more a year, I want to just briefly give a shot to our international audience could be kind of patient. I don't want them to think that we've forgotten them. How does it work if I'm not american? There is a list of canada options and canada cards that's coming soon, I think by the end of the day, on our cars for travel site, and there are a number of cards available in canada, the most of the bonuses or not fifty thousand points, you know, times two plus add your spouse to get to three hundred thousand points, but there are some options for that on. If you're in other countries to find mileage turning cards, it often helps to start by looking at the national airline or the national bank of your country, like in thailand with jail in japan, qantas in australia, singapore airlines so there are other offers out there, they're not all as amazing as what are available in the u s, but there are other offers out there. Um, okay. So before we talk more about, like details of cars and I want again always relate this to what we can do with it, right when it relates to how we can actually like, benefit from this to actually going and seeing the world. So we have a couple of examples. We talked about goals earlier. Most of you set one many of the online audience we're setting. A travel goal is well earning a certain number of points. Esso I like what stephanie mentioned about relating your travel goal to something specific to the miles that you need and then thinking about how to get them. So we have a couple of examples here on this is one from ko samui, thailand, which you went to that's. You that's right in the hammock. That's great. Eso with a basic strategy. We talked about a couple of cards, the cards we mentioned right in the beginning. Chase sapphire preferred chasing kbohls or plus. And the star red card this let's. See, how would you describe this? You know well, the chase sapphire in the chase ink bold that points from those two cards are enough points that you can transfer to miles to actually fly from the u s to cause million thailand and then I had the one star would point the one star with card with I've actually got a thirty thousand point bonus on that they do that once a year thirty thousand points and that was enough at that point in time the evaluation starwood's changed a little bit this year but that was enough to stay two days at the meridian and costuming, which is actually so basic strategy is like all the way to thailand and, you know, two nights in a nice hotel there on then and there it is that's a nice hotel and then you were saying something like, if you can add on if you want, like, say you apply for the business card in addition to the personal card and that's an extra night you know I am ready and you could add the hilton card, you know, to your portfolio and you extend your stay at the hilton conrad similarly, which is a great property. Come on street, right, exactly. So just an example of kind of adding on a trip I tick really recently I just went tio thank howie in malaysia right after we host this big event every year called the world domination summit in portland and that's right racial group that's, right and it's a great experience I love what we have you know, thousands of people in town with that. I'm also exhausted afterwards, eh? So we have some wrap up and then I kind of go away, just you know, by myself for a little trip. And so this time I went teo link howie and I flew to malaysia, flew to hong kong first in cathay pacific first class and then in business class to qualify for. Then I used points to stay at the grand hyatt calling pour on. I flew onto land. Howie and I spent almost the better part of a week mostly it's starwood properties around the island. This is all on points. And then I came home via singapore on singapore airlines first class with american express membership rewards points. And so we'll be talking about redemption, like later on. But I just I want to understand the real value of these experiences. Thes things would be prohibitively expensive. Otherwise, I mean, the tickets, like a first class ticket on singapore airlines, could be ten thousand dollars or more. I would never spend that personally. But, you know, if I have a chance to experience that with my miles, you know and just pay the taxes, you know, that's great, so again, a real world down experience and this was all possible because of flexible reward partners just to cover this briefly I mentioned membership rewards fun thing about membership rewards it's probably the best known flexible program and if you're earning points from your business card or your premiere rewards card or your platinum card those points are all cats in one membership of words bucket and then you can then transfer to specific partners whenever you want to redeem so I had membership rewards points that I then transfer to singapore airlines for example, to book that ticket quick just if that's a little bit too complicated for people who aren't familiar with flexible rewards. A flexible rewards program is different than so for example, if I have adult toe credit card whatever points I earn on this credit card become delta models automatically but a flexible credit card like a regular american express card. This is part of this membership rewards program and there's a number of partners whether their hotels, airlines and sometimes they're shopping partners as well and I can transfer the point centre in this bucket to delta or to another airline and it lets me redeem with a broader range of partners and one quick knows something that's actually happening today by coincidence which was great starting today british airways and virgin atlantic which are both partners and membership rewards are offering a transfer bonus and I believe it's a twenty percent transfer bonus to british airways from membership rewards and a thirty percent bonus virgin atlantic from membership rewards so the reason why this is interesting they do these a few times a year sometimes different airlines doing you never know when it's coming it's kind of pops out and the reason why it's good to keep points in membership rewards is you keep them there until you have an idea of what you want to do like I did with my singapore trip or if there's a trip you can plan on british airways or virgin atlantic, you keep them in membership rewards until the bone becomes available now there's a bonus and all of a sudden it but you know I'm transferring a hundred thousand points on that one hundred twenty thousand one hundred thirty thousand actually deposited to my account yes does it cost money to transfer those points out? I don't think it does it might have their taxes don't believe so we're going to check on that if I'm wrong on all issue a correction yes, other questions um couple more points on flexible rewards and then we'll do some more questions eso membership rewards is one flexible program and american express starwood is another one can be confusing but it's both american express but just remember, you know star what is its own thing? Starbright has thirty one partner airlines most of those transfer on a one to one basis so if you have ten thousand starwood points that transfers ten thousand miles but they also will give you a twenty percent bonus for every twenty thousand that you transferred so if you transfer twenty thousand it becomes twenty five thousand frequent flyer miles there's a list of the partners available on the site you're a little more advanced and you know that you like united miles starwood is not a good partner for him star united would be the one apartment it's not so good convinced him on in the last flexible rewards program we wanted just cover briefly its ultimate reward on this is the program with chase so if you're earning if you have to chase sapphire car that we talked about carter the both card or the freedom card all of those cards kind of pool into the ultimate rewards which can then be transferred to a number of partners my two favorites from tastes are united and hi it s so I transferred to united for use on star alliance flights on transfer toe hyatt hotel stays but they also have southwest korean error which can be used person skyteam redemptions and a few others as well for you since you like southwest right, you could get a southwest co branded card and get a membership ascent chase sapphire card and put those points in southwest is well and then you would have to bonuses that we're both in southwest so again, always relating like the real world valuation here ah, trip for a first class slew finds a trip. This is actually a real road trip. This is what stephanie took recently from ethiopia to tampa the frankfurt and dulles seventy five thousand ultimate rewards points and we looked up the value of the trip and it was nine thousand four hundred eighty nine dollars. We just look that up yesterday. So if you were to purchase that flight that's what it would cost again she's probably gonna purchase a ten thousand dollar airfare, but the point is that what? I don't get a cash card? You don't get the cash card because she wants to have experiences like this with the lifeline that cash back, right first class terminal lounge with the bathtub and all that stuff uh, ninety thousand mx membership rewards this's a trip I took san francisco from here. It's, a hong kong singapore thie value of the trip ranged from I think this is singapore dollars is not quite wonder one, but between four and five thousand us dollars or so again that was evaluation. If someone were to go and purchase it. Twenty thousand star points free nights at the st regis mauritius riches is a beautiful country but it's very expensive there because most people are going on holiday and traveling a long distance so the rate is seven hundred thirty euros a night I guess between nine hundred thousand dollars maybe s o twenty thousand star points instead of spending a thousand dollars um yes we want to say about that another night stay another business card in staying in tonight that's what it was tonight's star but also has a fun thing they fun option for cash in point states where you can use what you can pay for your stay using some points and some cash write an evaluation of that depends on the property etcetera etcetera but in this example you could spend ten thousand points and one hundred eighty dollars for a state one hundred eighty dollars a night is still not cheap but it's a lot cheaper than seven hundred thirty euro tonight and so then you might have more point spend you know for an extra night or whatever the park hyatt tokyo where I was a few months ago nice place it's the hotel that was actually featured in lost in translation if you've ever seen that movie the whole movie was set in a hotel twenty thousand ultimate rewards points from chase it cost a whole lot of yen I don't know what that is it's like lots of money forty four thousand yen which actually haven't noticed this born and fifty three dollars plus tax per night on remember that the bonus for ink balls and plus his fifty thousand points each sapphires forty thousand so basically any one of these cards get you you know, almost two nights are more than two nights you know, in that hotel okay, we're gonna talk about credit concerns any other questions before we get to that and then you had mentioned that you have all the cards and so you only get one as the new products come out what's the deal with, like canceling because I know you only get the sign up bonus when you started yeah great question thie answer depends on the specific issuer or sometimes the pacific card product eso some cards you can get more than once and you can receive the sonnet bonus more than once there's usually a delay and how often you can do that it's usually about a year or so like, if you've had a card and you cancel it, sometimes you can apply for a year later and get it. Other cards are like a lifetime kind of thing, you know, what's kind of what's what's happening now is like I'd leave with most chase cards it's a lifetime bonus like I can't get another set fire bonus you know, even if I can't sell my cart and get it but what happens is they keep making different products and they keep making offshoots right like I first got the plus and then they had to in boulder vice versa or whatever s o they continue to be new products, you know, every few months or so. Plus, if you're just getting started with this, you probably don't have twenty seven credit cards you probably a long way to go before you exhaust, you know, your possibilities, good personal questions from not personal here, but for you, he's a star cottage is asking when you, when you are traveling, do you always stay in hotels that you can use your spg rewards that or do you use those for luxury step great, great question I mix it up, you know, I like to do a lot of different kind of things, and, you know, in this session, I'm really going to ask this because I do want to address this, like, in this session, like today, we're talking about travel, hacking, you know, we're talking about using miles in points like all these things that you know, to see the world, how these great experiences that's, what travel hacking allows me to do to stay in these nice hotels, and they have these great flights, but, you know, I've been travelling for more than ten years, you know, all these countries I have learned about this mid point, so I have stayed in plenty of hostiles in plenty of boutique hotel is that state in houses of friends and readers and all kinds of things and so I guess when I first started learning about this, it was like a special thing it was like, okay, if I have the star ricardo of these points, then I'm on the road for like, a week I'm staying into maybe like more budget places, and then I'm gonna check into, like, the nice hotel to, like, relax and it's really kind of fun. So for me, it's been a big evolution, and for me, it's been much more about travel than about, you know, the mileage points per se, but you know, these days now that I've traveled more than ten years now, I'm starting to stay in hotel smart affect on credit score, and you should say something about this. Well, a zay said from my own experience, I've always like shared my own credit score on my block whenever I updated I'll post it. The effect is usually a variation of a few points upon applying or upon canceling later, you can minimize this by applying for cards in batches. As I said, if you do want to apply for multiple cards, then you should do it all on the same day as opposed to kind of spreading it out, I think it's really wise to first of all, be aware of your credit score you can get that at myfico dot com you can go on that's actually a paid kind of service to see the ranking. I believe you can get your credit report free. That's what is an annual credit report? Dot com? I think someone will correct me if I'm wrong. I think that's really a wise thing to do. Everybody should do that once a year, and if you're just starting to see what happens for you just, you know, you don't have to apply for thirteen cards, get a couple of things, we'll see what happens, and I don't think it will. I don't think it will drop. I think it will continue to increase over time. Um, and your fears briefly talked about summer worth it. The question is, do the benefits of the card in the annual rewards outweigh the cost with high it? You get a free hotel night every year and you can use that isn't any property category four category for okay s so you can use that for a property that's at least three hundred dollars or more? Probably, you know, for me that's worth the annual fee, but it may not be worth it for some people, um men of meeting minimum spend is a big question I don't know people ask this in the chat rooms yet, but they should, because this is coming out. We have a whole slide on this in just a moment, because a lot of these cards you have to meet a minimum spend before you received a bonus, and a minimum spend could be as little as five hundred dollars, sometimes it's as much as five thousand dollars most commonly is between five hundred fifteen, a hundred, two thousand or so there's a lot of different things we can do about that. I have all side coming up on how to do that usually have ninety days to do it as well. How do you manage multiple cards? Easiest ways to keep a spreadsheet, a very simple spreadsheet or on every note file that just kind of says what the what the information is, what the bonus was date of your application, you know what happened? If you haven't online log in, you keep that they're just so you kind of keeping things track anything straight, uh, knowing which cards to keep. I ended up keeping all of mine after a while, but in the first years I was like first years, I was like only keeping the ones that actively used and then at the end of the year before the annual fee came, teo I would cancel the card and I would usually call to do that and sometimes they would wave the annual fee and keep it open. I'm not great, you know, other times they would consolidate the card to another card that didn't have an annual fee and that was also great that didn't have any effect on the credit score and sometimes they would just cancel it and that would be fine coming up getting business cards. We touched on that briefly, so you should never lie in an application, but you can receive business cards as an individual, you just list your name as the business, same as you provide your social security number instead of india in and you provide your own income instead of the income of the business declined credit if you are declined that's quite normal like I said it's automatic often so no one is necessarily reviewing your application when the issue that decline well usually there's usually a phone number that's included and it's called the reconsideration line you call them and you say, hey, I received this notice I really wanted this product is there? Is there something wrong or something I can do to fix it? I would say out of all the readers that I've heard from, we've done this it's like fifty, fifty, you have a fifty percent chance of getting that teo work out, and if you are declined, would be good to understand, like, okay, why was I declined, like if you really are? Was it too much credit without too many recent enquiries and that's, the case where you just kind of wait a few months, continue to manage your credit? Well, fix anything that's messed up before you go back again. Concern is, is it? Is it bad for the banks to do this short version is no it's not. We're very happy for people to do this big concern. I have too many miles, if you have to me, miles that's, a good problem to have too much money.