Financial Feminist - Best Hacks to Save Money in 2026 (Best of) with Chris Hutchins

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

If you thought “hacking” your money meant clipping coupons or extreme budgeting, today’s episode is going to blow you away. Earlier this year, I sat down with Chris Hutchins, of the All the Hacks podcast, to talk about how to maximize value in every area: spending, saving, earning, and traveling. Chris spoke to us about real, actionable hacks that go way beyond clipping coupons—including side hustles that don’t require starting a business, ways to “game the system” to cut costs on everything from groceries to luxury hotels, and how to rack up credit card points without going into debt. If you want to stop overspending, learn to travel smarter, or create extra income on the side, pull up a chair. Chris’s links: Website: https://allthehacks.com/  Visit https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod to stay up to date and find any resources mentioned on our show! 00:00 Intro 07:01 Side Hustles and Creative Money-Saving Strategies 20:03 Travel Hacking and Credit Card Points 24:59 Advanced Travel Hacking Tips 43:14 Negotiating Airbnb and Hotel Upgrades 46:58 Finding Unclaimed Money 55:51 Credit Card Application Strategies 01:00:16 Teaching Kids About Money 01:09:23 Bora Bora Travel Deals 01:12:36 Non-Money Related Life Hacks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, Financial Feminist, welcome back to the show. If you are new, my name is Tori. I am a money expert. I am a multimillionaire, and I've helped over 5 million women be better with money. And we are in the twilight of 2025. Okay, but I'm so excited for what's happening in 26. Today, I have got a great episode from earlier this year. It was so popular and we got so many messages saying how valuable it was that we want to make sure that you either hear it again or hear it for the first time. We're talking, all about how to save money on almost everything this year. So even if you already listen to it, it's worth a second listen just because of how jam-packed all of this is. There's so much information about savings tax that you can use, especially when the economy feels a little worse for wear. But before we get into that, I want to share that on January 1st, we are doing a brand new mini-series to help you get your finances together in 2026 called our personal finance cheat sheet. We're going through everything from saving to spending to investing, to investing in the mindsets that might be holding you back. So please make sure you're subscribed on

YouTube if you want to watch the video or hear wherever you're listening to the podcast. We want to give you all of this information and it is serialized. So we're going step by step through everything you need to know to get your financial shit together this year. And if you're looking for more resources as you start this year, we have free workshops, we have guides, we have the tools we recommend for budgeting or for bank accounts at her first 100k.com slash ffod. And the best place to get started is that quiz you're going to find on that link. You answer six questions. We'll give you a free personalized money plan, her first hundredk.com slash ffpod. All right, let's get into the episode. We'll see you back here in a few days. This is probably the most valuable conversation we've

ever shared about how to save money on literally anything. From travel to groceries, we are getting all of the hacks. Chris Hessions is the creator and host of the All the Hacks podcast, a podcast that helps you upgrade your life, money, and travel. And boy, oh boy, did he bring the heat. We could have talked for three hours. I find that the best ideas and the best things come from how you want to spend your free time and you don't know their businesses. In this episode, Chris completely rewires the way you think about saving money and time. I can almost guarantee that you'll never look at money or your spending or even your time the same way after listening to this episode. That's where I think it can get dangerous to think about how much value your time is because

that space isn't a profitable time up front, right? Like leaving a day a week or We're leaving four-hour blocks of time to think and to just like mess around on the internet or go for a walk and just kind of get creative. You don't monetize that time up front, but it's so valuable in the long run. We start the episode by talking about some general hacks, talking about side hustles that could work for you, how you can take advantage from companies to save money on things like coffee, groceries, and so much more. See where your passion is.

I would say if you could give yourself the space, say, oh, I'm going to take a three-month sabbatical. And instead of going to day one, I'm going to start a company. Day one, just be like, how do I spend my time? And, like, let it evolve. Then we get into the really juicy stuff. This is the episode so many of you have been asking for if you're trying to play the credit card 201 game

and how to really start getting strategic when you're thinking about saving money in a way that's actually worth your while. I'm so grateful to Chris for joining us. You're going to learn so much from this episode. So let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. From Searchlight Pictures comes, is this thing on?

directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Canada's own Will Arnett. Is This Thing On is the story of a man's unconventional journey to find himself, seeking new purpose in the New York stand-up comedy scene while navigating his impending divorce. Is This Thing On is a raw, authentic, and hilarious story about discovery, reinvention, and second chances in life. See Is This Thing On, now playing in select theaters everywhere January 9th. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online.

So whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. From their drag-and-drop templates to their email campaign tools to the ability to accept payments, you can do all of this right in Squarespace. Head on over to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash ffpod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website. website or domain.

You have a show called All the Hacks. Do you have a story that sort of personifies how and when you became obsessed with, like, finding hacks and getting a good deal? I think the story that probably, I don't know if this is the origin story, but I went to boarding school. And most kids who go to boarding school's parents give them all the money. They have their credit, parents credit card. I did not have that. You know, my parents were like, here's a little money, but like I couldn't, I couldn't afford to buy pizza every night, like all my friends. And I was like, but I want pizza. You know, like the origin story is I wanted pizza.

I couldn't have the pizza. And so I thought, what could I do? So I started ordering multiple pizzas at night and selling pizza by the slice, not because I thought of it as a business. Like my my thing is how do I do what everyone else is doing? How do I live that life without having to spend the money? So I would buy the pizza, sell the slices, and eat my profit because I wanted pizza and I didn't have the money to buy it. And so I think there's these two approaches of I can't afford this, so I'm going to not do it, or I can't afford this. Let's get creative so that I can. And that's been the mantra ever since. I think for me and my experience, it's very similar to yours. We're As soon as you find something like that, it also, it almost becomes like a drug.

You're kind of like, how can I do this again? I've told the story, I think only once before on the show, but my dad would go play golf at the country club he was a member of, and I'm not going to say which one. We would purposely have him tee off at like 8.30 at night in the summer because we, I would carry a backpack and he would get in the lake and we would fish golf balls out of the lake and then go clean them at home and sell the, like, title is pro v1 balls. for, you know, $25 or something for a couple of bowls. And so it's like, once you start doing some crazy shit, you're like, oh, this is kind of fun.

And then everywhere you're walking, you're like, ooh, that's a way to make money. Ooh, that's a way to like do something cool for free. Oh, why is nobody doing that? Okay. So before we get into a lot of the ones that work, can you share some of the stories of the money hacks that you tried that absolutely did not work? I think that it's less about not working. working and more about realizing you spent, I don't know, five hours. And then you're like, wait too much time. I saved 37 cents, you know, like I clipped all these coupons. I did all these

things and I didn't actually get any return. Or I did. And then when I think about the value of my time, it's just not worth it. So, you know, every time I'm buying something online, I used to go and say, oh, is there a promo code? Like, let's go search and search and search and search. And I spend an hour and I'm like, yes, I got one. It took 10% off my $8 order. Like, yeah. So, So I think the majority of the errors are spending too much time. And now I think the process is time box the time, focus on specific things, wait till it's worth a lot. But there are plenty of times where I'll use points and book a flight, decide I want to

cancel it, but actually forget to cancel it and then boom, like, lost them all. I make mistakes all the time. I don't think you can get good at anything without learning the hard way, which is to make mistakes and I just try to brush it off and cost it up to the cost of education. Well, let's talk about that for a second because that is my biggest issue with like the hacks or the frugality is that I think a lot of people lose sight of the time and effort it's just going to take to save a couple dollars. So before you decide, okay, this is something I want to spend time. Like what is the time versus benefit analysis that you do? Even if it's just like,

Okay, I asked this question of myself before I decide, yeah, I'm going to spend an invest time here. And it evolves, right? If I go back to high school me, like, I don't know what a slice of pizza was, but probably a couple dollars. Like, I was willing to go through extreme lengths for $2. You know, over time, that number goes up. And maybe for me, I'd probably tell you that it's in the hundreds of dollars. But if I see an opportunity to save like $50, like realistically, I'll probably still try to do it. But I'd like to think that it's crossed over the $100 mark. But I just kind of think, how long is this going to take? What enjoyment do I get out of it? Like, sometimes I'll do things because it's almost a sport more than it is just a practical way to

save money. But I like to look at a purchase. And if I'm spending less than $100, I'm not going out of my way to save money on that purchase. If I'm spending $1,000, I'm absolutely going to do it. And if I'm going to, you know, undergo a massive car home kind of purchase, I'm definitely, you know, thinking, what are the angles here? How can I save more? Is there something? And there might not be. But it's at least worth exploring. And honestly, we live in this great age where normally you do all this research yourself. Now there's both content of people talking about it and there's these AI tools where you could probably go to chat GPT and say, hey, I'm thinking of doing this. What are 25 ways I could save money? And you could fast track it. I don't think it's going to know all of them. But, you know, there are better tools now to fast. track the process. Yeah. So let's talk about side hustle hacks first. You had a great episode with my friend and yours, Paula Pant, where she brought up the idea that she thinks of side hustles in two ways, gigs and then businesses. Can you talk more about that? I'm going to say there's a third way, but yeah. So I traditionally have always thought of side hustles as like, how can I go

make money for my time, but in a way that I'm not getting a job? And so is that I'm going to build, you know, make something and sell it on Etsy. Or am I going to go drive for Uber? Or am I going to go be a task rabbit and go put together IKEA furniture? Like, that's always been what's in my mind for side hustles. And I met this guy. And at the time, I mean, actually now, he still just goes by Kai. He doesn't share his last name. And he has this podcast called The Daily Churn. And I was listening. And Kai was just, he did the financial independence retire early thing, but he was able to do it early because every time he saw a deal, he was like, I'm going to dial in and turn that deal into profit. And I was like, it blew my mind. He'd look at meal kits and he'd be like,

hmm, what if I stack all the meal kit promos to replace my grocery cost? And he was like, look, there's like 10 or 12 companies that do meal kit deals where the first meal is free. And he's like, you know what's really crazy? You can just cycle through them over 12 weeks, right? And then if you have a spouse, they could cycle through them over 12 weeks. And then you cancel. And about 12 weeks later, they're like, hey, can we re-engage you? Do you want another week? And so he basically cut his grocery cost out. Now, maybe that's not a thing for someone listening. Maybe it's exactly what they want to do. But for him, spending a few hours a week finding these deals allowed him to cut his grocery costs down. And Old Me never would have called that a side hustle because you're not

actually generating income. But if you could find seven different ways to cut all of your in your life out. Well, guess what? That's just as good as income, if not more, because if you make $10, you're going to pay taxes on it. If you save $10, you're not. So this class of side hustle, which I'll effectively call like finding online deals, finding, you know, different discounts and ways to monetize your time by saving is arguably just as interesting, though I don't think everyone profitably or confidently thinks of it that way, or consistently thinks of it that way, at least. So we would define gigs as like the task rabbit businesses as, you know, what her first

100K was before I took it full time of like, okay, I have to have, you know, a business license and I'm, you know, maybe a freelancer on the side. And then this kind of like third option, which is how can I save money as a way of almost earning money? Is that right? Yes, or even it could be earning every year when the iPhone comes out, all these cell phone carriers have these crazy deals where they're like switch to our cell phone carrier and we'll give you $1,000 off an iPhone. And so one of the things this guy did was he's like, well, I'll just open up a bunch of phone lines and cancel them after a month. But I end up saving, you know, like so much money on the cell phone deal. And then I just flip the phones and like if these carriers are going to give me such a good deal, why not? And now, not every carrier is going to let you cancel the line after a certain period of time. But, like, there are some rules and nuance. So you're kind of, like, going to the School of Hard Knocks, learning how to do it is, like, reading the fine print of T-Mobile's, like, promotion.

But that's definitely something you could do. And there are people out there, like, the U.S. happens to sell iPhones for a lot less than they do abroad. And so there's these companies called buying groups where you can go buy iPhones in the U.S. and sell them to them. and sometimes you might make no profit on the sale. Sometimes you might make $100, but you also can put the purchase on your credit card and earn those points.

And so this other friend of mine, I think he bought like somewhere on the order of like 500 iPhones or something on iPhone release day and then just flipped them to people who would pay more than street price because they could resell them overseas. It's like, to me, old B is like, that's not a side hustle.

Like I'm not starting a reselling business where I'm going to go, like, get a little booth at the mall and, like, try to convince people to buy my phones. But it just seems like it's never been easier to say, wow, there's a deal here. I'm going to turn that deal into profit or savings. And that version of side hustles is super interesting. So I think I ended up titling that episode, how to make an easy $3,000 a month with online deals.

And, like, we walked through an actual, like, here are all the kinds of things you can do. And, like, who doesn't want an extra $30,000 a year? like yeah i have a very specific example of this so you know how you know if you order enough at Starbucks you get like a free drink right and so uh i don't drink a ton of coffee i'm not like a daily coffee drinker like i had one this morning so i was just like i want something fancy in my life um but you can get when you get enough points to get a free drink it can be the biggest drink so i will order a cold venty drink and then drink half of it and then save the half for the next day. And it's like one of those like very specific things that's like,

okay, it's free. I'm going to get the most of the free thing I can get and then parse it out over time. Yeah. And look, that cost is maybe on the order of magnitude of like four to five dollars. But God, it feels good. Like it feels so good when you get something for free and when you don't overpay for something. Like that feeling is like a rush of endorphins that can sometimes exceed the dollar saved, and I don't know, you don't get those that often in life. Like, life sucks sometimes. And so if you could get a huge win by getting the two coffees for the price of one, awesome. Another fun Starbucks one is, you know, there are a couple credit cards that give you like credits when you spend money at Hilton, like the MX Business

Platinum, some of the Hilton cards, they have Hilton credits. Well, it turns out that a lot of Starbucks is in Hilton's. And so if you don't want to have to go stay at a hotel to get this credit. Like, you could go pick up a Starbucks at a Hilton and get your credit that way. And I was at a nerdy conference for people that are obsessed with points and miles. And it was like, let's all walk three blocks to get our coffees at this Hilton because everyone's coffee is going to be free because we all have like a card that's going to give you some, you know, credits for spending money at Hilton. So like finding those little things to just feel like you're, you know, you're kind of like pulling one over the system. I love it. Yeah. So we have a lot of listeners who want to start side hustles or

businesses, but they feel stuck on what that side hustle should be. How do you guide someone through figuring that out? So my principle, I think I probably started, I don't know, lots of companies that haven't worked and like two companies that took three years to realize didn't work. I find that the best ideas and the best things come from how you want to spend your free time and you don't know their businesses. So I find that it's really hard to just like, think, what do I want to do and just find it? But if you give yourself the free time to see like, oh, I have 10 hours a week, how do I spend it? And then you slowly evolve to realize, oh, this thing I love doing actually could be valuable to other people. And maybe you love knitting.

And it's like, well, do you want to keep knitting and sell what you make? Do you want to start a knitting blog? Do you like talking about knitting? Do you like showing people on video how to knit? Do you like finding the best kniters and reselling their amazing stuff? Like, do you want to create a marketplace, like, see where your passion is. And instead of just, like, doing the academic exercise of, like, thinking about it, I would say, if you could give yourself the space, say, oh, I'm going to take a three-month sabbatical. And instead of going to day one, I'm going to start a company. Day one, just be like, how do I spend my time? And, like, let it evolve. Because my full-time job and my wife's full-time job is to run a podcast and a newsletter.

But when I started the podcast, I was working a day job at a company called Wealthfront, like a fintech, company and I actually started it working there and I asked if they wanted to own it. I was like, would you guys be up for giving me like 25% of my time and to work on this and you guys can own the podcast? And I couldn't appreciate the fact that they said no more than anything in the world right now. But at the time, that's how little of an ambition I had to turn it into a thing. Like, I was just doing it because I really wanted to do it. And I wish I had a friend at the time who was like, no, no, no, don't even offer. Fortunately, I was lucky. But it came. out of like, how do I want to spend my free time? And so look at how you spend your free time,

talk to your friends about what you're best at. I love calling a friend to me like, why are you my friend? What is it about me? What do you tell stories about me? What am I the best in the world at? And just kind of like go down that rabbit hole and explore it. But you need space for that. And that's where I think it can get dangerous to think about how much value your time is. Because that space isn't a profitable time up front, right? Like leaving a day a week or leaving four-hour blocks of time to think and to just like mess around on the internet or go for a walk and just kind of get creative. You don't monetize that time up front, but it's so valuable in the long run. Yeah, I have a formula that I talk about in my book to like determine your side hustle

and I call it the three T's. So it's time, talent, treasure. So time, exactly what you were saying, how much time do you have and how much time do you want to spend? Talent, like, what are the talents you already have or do you need to cultivate a new one if there's a certain kind of side hustle you want to do. And then Treasure is like, how much money do you want to be making? And are you okay if it doesn't make money for a while? Like her first under K, I had lofty ambitions for the company. So I was okay if it wasn't profitable for a while while I built it up. But for some people, they're like, no, I just need money right now. So that's going to be a different kind of thing that you choose versus something that might take a little bit of, you know, runway to get started. Yeah, one book that

I really enjoyed was called Burn the Boat. I think it's Burn the Boats. Matt Higgins. And I had him on and we had this discussion about like psychologically when you create a plan B, it can actually hold you back. So one thing I'd encourage everyone to do, read that book, listen to an interview with him. It's like, don't worry about if it's not going to work. That is going to make it harder for it to work. So it's not just like a waste of time, but it actually has a psychological impact on the success of the thing. And when I see the most successful entrepreneurs, they are just so all in pot committed to everything they can do to make this thing work. And when you ask them, like, I don't know, what about this other company that's doing something? They're like, I don't care.

Like, we're going to win. And that mindset is great for building massive companies. But if your goal isn't to go build the next billion dollar thing, you know, maybe it's prudent to understand what your competitors are doing. You know, it's kind of like you said, treasure. it needs to scale with what you want it to become. And I have two young kids. I'm not interested in empire building at this stage of my life because I know the time commitment that goes into that and I just, I'm not willing to make that trade off, which means this business isn't going to 10x next year. And that's okay. But maybe those kids go off to college one day and I'm stuck with lots of free time. Maybe that's the time I want to go build an empire. And that's okay. Right. Well, it's also,

yeah, it's dependent on the life stage. I think we hear from a lot of people who do not have the time to think about, you know, and we're, I always say on the show, side hustle is just a glorification of the word second job, right? Like side hustle for some people is absolutely necessary in order to get by and live their life. And so I think what you were talking about before of like, are there small ways that you can quote unquote game the system that don't involve a ton of extra labor, don't involve you commuting somewhere, don't involve you having to put, you know, a bunch of upfront costs and are just like, okay, can I do? do these small things that maybe save me a little bit of money, put more money back in my pocket.

Yeah. And I'd encourage you anytime you find something that you think is a deal, like you as a child, you're like, wow, all these golf balls are free. You know, it's one thing to say, now I have 10,000 golf balls, but you might not have even golfed, right? Like, look at any time you see something that you think might be a deal and push yourself to think, is there any way that the fact that I found or know about this deal, that I could turn that into income for other people who want to deal? And so young you said, here are all these golf balls, I found them for free. Other people buy them. I can sell them. And so whether that's like a sale at the grocery store, like sometimes that might be the deal. I know people that buy grocery

store gift cards at Kroger and resell the gift cards when they go on sale, but they keep all the Kroger fuel points so they can fill up their car for free. Like, there is always an angle anytime you find something that feels like a good deal. So if you've become a good deal seeker, it doesn't have to just be to save you money. It can also be to make you money. When we come back, we're getting into the most in-depth conversation we've ever had about credit card points, from travel to points and everything in between. I've been doing this for years and even I learned some mind-blowing information.

Stay tuned. If you love financial feminist and you're listening, so I hope you do, we've got something to take your learning even deeper from the podcast, especially if you've ever felt like personal finance is a confusing maze. My book, Financial Feminist, Overcome the Patriarchy's bullshit to Master your Money and Build a Life you love is out now. It is a New York Times bestseller that has sold nearly 300,000 copies, and it is not just another financial guide. It's everything you need to get better with money step by step, but through the signature feminist lens that you know and love here at her first 100K. is so much in the book that we've never discussed on the podcast. There are homework assignments. There are deep dive lessons and there's even more information that you've never heard of here on the show. You can get a copy of Financial Feminist wherever you get your books. And if you

are listening on Spotify right now and are a premium member, you can get the audiobook read by me for free. You can get signed copies and learn where it's sold at her first hundredk.com slash ff pod. This independent podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. You know me. I've used in love Squarespace for a very long time. And one of my favorite things about Squarespace is it makes It's so easy to build a website. I recently helped my partner launch a business, and we literally built his entire website on Squarespace using one of their beautiful templates in a weekend.

Like, we dreamt up the business on a Friday, and he was launched by Monday. So whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. One of the best things about Squarespace is those easy-to-use templates, they're drag-and-drop,

And also, any customers that come to his website can check out through Squarespace. You don't need, like, another third-party platform. And especially for him, he's starting a business on a budget, loves that he doesn't have to use, like, another platform to do payment processing. There's also an email campaign tool with Squarespace. So again, saving you money, you don't have to use yet another email campaign tool. All of it's happening inside Squarespace. Head on over to Squarespace.com slash FFPod.

And when you're ready to launch your brand new website, use code FFPod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So the one hack that I think is such a valuable spend of your time and research and energy is the credit card point ecosystem. And we have talked a lot, especially this year, we had Brian Kelly on. We had my friend Janelle and a jet on. And I've talked a lot about it on the show, too, of ways you can. can use your credit card in a smart way. So how did you start travel hacking in the first place?

Like, let's walk through those early years of you travel hacking. I mean, the early years were so unoptimal, right? It was, I just went on some flights. I accumulated some miles. I didn't really know what they were. I needed a credit card. I was living in, you know, Colorado because I went to school there. So I opened a United card. That's most people, right? Most people open a card that somebody is like their dad is like, this is a good one, maybe. And then that's most people. Yeah. And then I remember a very distinct moment where some kids that were like maybe one or two years older than me that I've become friends with, they were like, we're all going to rent a house in Mexico. I think it was in Porto Vallarta or Cabo. I can't even remember at this point. And I was like,

I want to go. And then I looked at, I was like, oh, that flight's like $400. Like, I guess I'm not going. And I was like, oh, I have all these miles. Like, I wonder if I could use them. And then I was like, oh my God, I can go to Mexico and I paid, I don't know, $10, $20 of taxes and fees. Was it the best deal for those miles? I don't care because it was the most amazing thing. It was the difference between going and not going to Mexico. And so I will say when you learn how the game works, sometimes it can be debilitating because you're like, wow, I know I can get incredible value if I do this other thing. But I want to encourage people to realize that if you don't get the best value in the world, but you get to go on a trip that you couldn't have

otherwise gone on, that's an amazing value. And so that's where it started was like, I went on one trip that I could never have gone on. And then I was like, these points are incredible. And I was like, why don't I open up these two American Airlines credit cards? Why don't I open? Like, why don't I start doing whatever I can to accumulate points? And I would say, I'm sure you've talked about, oh, these welcome bonuses can be lucrative, you know, open up a card. Someone's going to give you 75, 100, 150,000 points. One of the things I did earlier in career because I just wasn't spending a lot of money. Like, sure, if I had a business that was putting a million dollars a year on a credit card, I'd be racking up points, but I didn't. But every time a new

trip came up in the future where friends were like, let's go here or let's do a bachelor party, I said, okay, great, can I plan it? Like, I will plan the bachelor party. And everyone's like, really, you want to do all that work? And I was like, absolutely. We need to book six hotel rooms. I'll book all of them. I'll put them all on my credit card. We need to book eight flights to Vegas. Great. I'll buy all eight flights. And so, you know, I made sure I had a card that earned a lot of points on travel and hotels and flights. And I was everyone's travel agent. And then I'd be like, hey, if you want to pay me, send me some Venmo, send me some, you know, whatever the app of the day was. And probably back then, some of it was like a check.

Yeah. Write me a check. But I was able to spend so much more than I actually spent. And that was the early way in which I was starting to accumulate points faster than just opening up lots of cards. because earlier in your journey, I will say you could open up 10 cards and you'd be surprised that your credit score will probably go up. Like, it's a counterintuitive thing. And there's somebody that posted this thing about he and his wife opened up, I think it was like 26 cards over 18 months. And both their credit scores went up.

They accumulated 2 million points. And like, it was this, they went on, you know, a bunch of trips. So I wouldn't be turned off by the credit score thing. But I would also look creatively at, is there a way that I could be spending more? without spending more. Just like, to be clear, I'm not, I'm not suggesting you just ramp up your spending. I absolutely am not suggesting you don't pay off your balances, like spend within your means. But if you work at a company and they're like, hey, you don't have to file expense reports if you use your corporate card, but you could use your personal card. And maybe if you're going

out for a coffee, it's not worth the hassle. But if you need to buy, you know, an international flight, maybe that time it's worth using your personal card and going through the hassle of the expense report so that you can keep the points. For all of the kind of basics of what we're talking about here, I'm going to send everybody to episode 213. That's the one we did with Brian Kelly because I really want to like double click on all of the like kind of crazier shit. So if you want the sign on bonuses, if you just want to understand generally how credit card points work and how to redeem them, that's a good episode to start with. But like let's talk about the walk four blocks to get Hilton. Like what is

the like the crazy shit? Like the, like the. You know, I've seen people with the binders of 70 cards. Like, what is the next level unhinged shit for people who are ready? Oh, is that? Oh, my God. You're one of them. How many you got in there? Probably, like, at least 50.

But between me, my wife, some old debit cards, Costco cards. Yeah, wow. Okay, see, I'm not even this bad, everybody. Like, I talk a lot about, like, you know, I got this trip for free or I got this hotel stay. But I have eight cards, seven cards, and just the average person, that's a lot. That's crazy. But I don't use, I use only two or three on a semi-regular basis.

I built a model where I put in like every credit card that could be good. I put in both like Bureau of Labor Statistics spending data and my own spending data. And I was like, where is the optimal point on the curve? Is it to have 27 cards? Like if you had every card under the sun and you use, used it optimally, you would earn more points than if you only had one or two. But I will tell you, the return going from one to two is massive. And the return after two really, really diminishes unless you spend a tremendous amount of money for work or personal in specific areas. So when it

comes to what cards do you spend on, I think everyone should get a card that has elevated return on whatever they spend the most on, travel, dining, groceries, whatever. And then everyone should have an everything else card, right? So, like, I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics best two would be the Amex gold because you get 4x on dining and groceries and like something like the Capital One Venture card where you get 2x on everything else. That would be like the staple. So I just want to make sure people see a binder full of cards and they don't think, wow, in order to do this optimally, I need all these cards. No. My general framework is I really, you really only need two or three cards for all of your spending.

And then if someone's like, hey, this week, we're going to give you 100,000 points. Okay. You know, I'll take the bait and I'll make sure that I use all the perks that come with it so that if there's an annual fee, I've netted it out. And then at the end of the year, if I'm still going to be paying an annual fee and I can't get my value, I'll reach out and say, hey, is there any bonus if I stick around for a year? No? Great. Can I just change this to another card that has no annual fee? No.

Okay, I'll cancel it. And some cards, like these Hilton cards, the Hilton Aspire card gives you a free annual night every year. And so me and my wife have a couple of them. And we've been able to stay at properties that cost, I don't know, more than $1,000 a night for a card with an annual fee of like $500. So, and I probably am at the stage of my life where maybe not a $2,000 a night hotel room, but I would spend more than $500 a night on that hotel room. So why not keep that card open. Am I spending money on it all the time? No. Um, you know, so it doesn't hurt you to keep the card open if there's no fee or if you're getting value out of it. But I'm not spending money on all of

these cards. The reason they're in this binder is because I leave it at home. Like, I don't need to carry it. Right. But when it comes to some of the kind of, I don't know, ninja crazy stuff, let's think about it. Um, I mean, the welcome bonuses, I ran this analysis. If you can't tell, I really like making spreadsheets. And I took as at some point, I think it was late last year, I was like, what are the top 20 bonuses, cards will offer you to open up the card? And the average return, meaning if a card said we'll give you $1,000 for spending, you know, $1,000 on the card, that would be 100% return, right? Like, they're going to give you your entire money back. The average return was 17% or like somewhere

on that order. It was like 16.7 or 17.3. So you and I both know, there is no credit card that offers you 17% cash back, right? Like, maybe in a perfect world, you'll find a card that earns 5% on one category up to maybe a cap per year. That revolves every three months too. That 5% category is only there for a quarter. Yeah. Yes. So, like, if you're saying what's a baseline, maybe, you know, Robin Hood has a 3% card. Doesn't work well for business. Bank of America, if you put some money on deposit, it's like a 2.6% cashback card. So 17 is incredible. So hands down, your best value is to always be spending on whichever card is going to give you the best return on a welcome bonus. Like that is the optimal way

to spend. But if you don't want to open up 15 cards a year or even five or six, I could say just pick one or two and focus on that. And but those welcome bonuses, I would argue, are the place to Pocus. And if you have a partner that you're playing this game with, it's not a one plus one equals two because you could open one card, then you can refer your partner to it, get some kind of referral bonus, then they could open up a card. And now you get the same bonus twice plus a referral bonus. So like, that is where it starts to get really fun. And, you know, I have a friend who every time there's a big welcome bonus, he not only signs up for it, but he refers his mom, his dad, his sister, and his partner. So like he's getting four welcome bonuses for them. And

four referral bonuses and one welcome bonus for him. And he's just, you know, kind of printing points at this point. And that is where it starts to get really fun, is starting to figure out how you can help the whole family and take big fun family vacations. But that's all on the earning side, right? I think that a lot of people listening have probably been doing that to some extent, right? They probably opened up a car. They probably earned tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe a few people cross the million mark. And they're like, but what? It's just so hard to use these points. Like, I feel like I wonder if people kind of give up. And I'm sure Brian talked about it. So I don't want to go too deep. But the one thing I'll say is it's never been easier

to find out if your points can get outsized value because there have been all these tools that have launched recently. So one that I don't know if you talked about is called Points Path. It's a browser extension that layers on top of Google flights. And it only works for the major U.S. Airlines. But it's like, I'm searching for a flight on Google flights and it's like, hey, on United if you use your United points, it's a better deal

with points. You don't even have to like use another tool. I mean, technically you're using a tool because it's a browser extension, but you're not going to some miles and points tool or paying a subscription. It just sits where you live. And so that's one where I think it can easily

help you kind of optimize without even having to think about it. There are others. There's like points, yeah, an award tool. For those who you are listening to Audio, I now have a new other, another tab open and I am signing up as we speak. Point.me is a partner of ours. That's the other one I love of seeing like, yeah, I want to go this place at this time, or you can be more general than that to see like what my points are going to get me to. Yes. Yeah. So I would say find a tool that you like for when you're searching for a flight and take a few minutes, not hours, to say, hey, I'm looking to go from

here to here. Is there a better deal with my points? No, great. Let's save him for the next trip. I find that the more flexibility you have, the easier it is to get really, really outsized value. And so flexibility doesn't mean dates. It could mean where you go. It could mean how far in advance you plan it. Sometimes my wife and I will say, you know what, we really want to take a vacation and we don't have any flexibility. It's spring break. Like, we are going this week, but we're really flexible where we go. And you know what? If we don't decide until a month before, we're okay. And so some of these tools have alerts. And so you can basically say, hey, I'm looking to go to Europe. You can't search. I can't remember if Point Me has this yet or not. I use Point Me

a lot because I think they have one of the best sets of all partners. Yep. There's another tool called points yeah, an award tool. And I'll say, hey, San Francisco to Europe, set an alert for the date I want. And I might set it six months in advance. And maybe three months later, I get a ping and it's like, hey, San Francisco to Paris, 50,000 points in business class, which had I redeemed those points for, I don't know, Amazon, you know, I probably would have gotten like $300 or something. And so now I'm here I am going to business class for something that is way less than that all the way to Europe. So don't be afraid to think about flexibility outside of just dates. It could be where you go. It could be when you go, whether you change planes. And then think about

trying to get places not necessarily from where you live, which might sound crazy. But a lot of the things these search tools do now is like, give me a flight from the West Coast to Asia, right? And you're like, I want to go to Japan, but like, or I want to go to Hong Kong. I'm willing to fly to L.A. before I get, you know, because not, it sounds crazy, but sometimes I'll find flights where it's like the hard leg to get to Europe isn't L.A. to Paris. It's San Francisco to L.A. But you can buy a San Francisco to L.A. flight for like 60 bucks sometimes. So like, don't lock yourself into only leaving from or going to a specific place. And then I'm going to throw a curveball here. So I recently came across this perspective shift. And I, when I say all the

hacks, when I talk about my show, it doesn't have to be like a little trick. It could just be something that kind of opens your eyes to a different way of thinking. And so we were planning this summer trip. And we found this hotel on the island of Majorca in Spain. And if anyone ever gets a chance to stay there, it's called Cap Rocot. It is unbelievable. It's built into a fortress. It's, you know, the pinnacle of luxury. It's amazing. And I think when we were looking to go last summer, it was like $2,800 a night. That is past the threshold of what I will spend on a vacation. But the reason we found it was because I was using this tool called Rooms. Arrow, A-E-R-O. And I just went to Hilton, small luxury hotels of the world. And I was like, what is available

anywhere in the world in the month we want to go for four nights? And it was like, Caprocotte is available, and I was like, great. It was 120,000 Hilton points tonight. Now, I happen to have that many Hilton points or free night certificates, but here is the crazy thing. On that day, just for fun, as I was going to book it, Hilton said, hey, we're having a sale on our points. On the Hilton website, that day, you could buy 120,000 points for half a cent each, which made it $600 per night. So let's pretend you're listening to this and you're like, this points and miles shenanigans like, I just, it's not for me. I'm a cash person. I love cash back. Great. But if you're going to the Hilton site, you're about to book this thing that's

$2,000 a night and you could just buy the points to book the exact same thing for $600. Like, I don't know, seems like a great opportunity. And points and miles go on sale all the time. And so you can use these tools to say, is there a great points of miles deal to get to Japan, to get to Paris, to get wherever you're going? Even if you don't have the points, one of the airlines that you can use to book that flight because one of the things to know is like a flight on United is bookable by United, but it might also be bookable by Air Canada or Avianca Life Miles or these other carriers. And Avianca, as an example, a Central American carrier, their points of miles go on sale all the time. And there are times where you'll be like,

wow, I don't have 100,000 points to get to Europe. But boy, do I wish I would because I could fly business class and oh it turns out avianka's selling these points for like one point something cents and so you could just buy it there and book it now i would encourage you to make sure it's available like get to the checkout screen before you buy the points because if you don't you're stuck with a much avianca points but i don't know it's it's this mindset shift where i was always all in on points now that i realize there's the opportunity to buy them and use them it just made me wonder like Are there times where cashback might be better? You know, I earn all this cash back, I invest it, it grows.

And then when I'm ready to go on a trip, more often than not, I might be able to just use those points to buy or use those dollars to buy the points and go on that same trip. Get that crazy outsized value without having to even play the points game. The answer is like, for me, no. Like, I'm still doing it. But for someone who doesn't want the overhead of points and miles, you can still benefit from points in miles by buying those points on sale.

everybody listening you need to go back about 15 minutes and you need to listen to all of that again that was no it's so good i know i just said it but i mean it go back and relisten to all of that take notes this is probably the most thorough conversation we've ever had about travel credit cards and traveling for free or at major discounts when we come back we're getting really granular about what this process looks like from step one all the way through checking into your hotel we'll see you back here shortly A lot of people ask me about being an entrepreneur and the stress that comes with it. And I think one of the most stressful things about being an entrepreneur is trying to predict the

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something we're definitely going to use as her first 100K continues to grow and change. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash ff pod. That's NetSuite.com slash ff pod. NetSuite.com slash ff pod. The thing we keep coming back to in all of these episodes is like you can be as crazy about this as you want, right? It can just be, you know what? I don't want to spend a lot of time on this or you can spend a million years on this, right? And you can you can, you can hack it all you want. The thing you said about like being really flexible is something that single-handedly changed my travel experience. I would go on a, what we called friend Moon with my friend. We would go to, you know, we would go on a trip every year, but we would let the deals

determine where we went because we were super flexible of like, oh, okay, there's a deal to New Zealand. I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. Great. There was, we wanted to go to Morocco, but there were no deals from Seattle to Morocco. It was extremely expensive. But guess what? Seattle to London was a deal and then a Ryan air flight from London to Morocco. So you can start to think about ways to be more flexible with your travel that are both just the deals, but then also the credit card points to your to your point of, okay, I want to potentially go at this time or even just like this area. Get me close. This is what I just did. My partner's family, somebody was getting married in Italy. If I tried to go to Seattle to Italy, it was a specific time last year. It was

going to be so much money. But I found us a deal from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany, and then hopped on a Ryanair flight from Frankfurt to the Amalfi Coast. Like, that that's what we're talking about here. And it's always funny that you're probably sitting here like, you get off this business class flight in Europe. And you're like, all right, where's the economy check-in counter for Ryanair? Chris, that is the funny thing. And I've been meaning to do a post about this. The year before we went to Paris, lie down flat seats. It was my first ever business class flight. The first time I ever turned left on a plane, and it was thrilling. You know, it's like five-course meal in the sky. All you can drink champagne,

full lie flat seat with a bed. We got off. We took the bus to get to our hotel, or our Airbnb. It wasn't even a hotel. It was the Airbnb. And, you know, that I found that was nice and clean, but pretty cheap. And then we got on a Ryan Air flight from Paris to Scotland, where we actually wanted to go. And then I checked us in at the Balmoral, which is like a literal castle and is a $900 a night hotel that I did with credit card points. And again, we took a bus from the airport to get to there. So it's like, you get to choose where you want to spend your money or spend your points. And I think that the incredible thing about all of these hacks, especially around travel, is you and I are not spending $2,500 on a hotel room. Like, we probably could. I refuse.

That is an obscene amount of money. And for the average person listening, that is way outside your budget. But you get to have these once-in-a-lifetime experience. You get to stay at the five-star hotel where they say your name when you walk in the door, right? Like, you get to have the experiences that you could not afford otherwise because you've done a little bit of due diligence trying to figure out how to use these miles effectively. Yes, I got two quick things. So one, there's this thing called the Dunning-Krooger effect, and it's like this cognitive bias theory So the way this works is when you have really low competence on something, you're actually way less concerned with being optimal.

And you could use your Amex points for Amazon and feel good. And then you go through this, I just did this episode, but this woman, Devin Gimble, who has really thought deeply through this. It's like, once you learn, so for some people, that will be this moment, you have this moment where you're like, I've been doing it all wrong. And now you don't understand how to do it, but you know that what you've been doing is wrong. And I, not wrong.

Wrong is the wrong word. But it's like not as good as it could be. And I want to encourage you to not feel like this is a not fun place to be. Like you are not yet an expert, but you have just enough knowledge that you're doing it wrong and it feels bad. And I just want to let you know, the more you think about it, learn about it, experiment with it. You will climb back out of that kind of valley of despair, if you will.

And it will be amazing. And so we had this episode where we talked about like you started the top of, Then you're like, oh my gosh, my entire life could be so much better off, but I don't actually know how to do it. And you feel awful. And if that's you, like there is hope. We have all been there. And then the other side of that valley is amazing.

So I want to flag that. I also want to say on the Airbnb front, because some of these like optimal hacks, tips, tricks don't have to be points of miles. I met a host of an Airbnb. And I don't know how it came up, but the idea of negotiating your Airbnb came up. and they were like, yeah, about 50% of my guests negotiate the price with me. And I was like, what? Like, I am a deal seeker, and I didn't know that you could negotiate Airbnbs.

Turns out you can, and I've used it, and it works. So it sounds like you have done this also. Yep. Absolutely. I negotiate every Airbnb, especially if I'm a return guest. So if I went to an Airbnb and I really liked it and they knew I was nice and clean and didn't throw a rager, and I'm going back, I'm like, hey, I was lovely. to work with last time, I will be lovely to work with again. Or especially if I like solo travel or I'm

just with one other person and we're like renting a place that has multiple rooms. This is actually what my friend and I did in New Zealand. There was like multiple bedrooms that we weren't going to use but it was in a killer location. And it was a little outside of our budget. And I said, hey, if you can give us, I don't remember what I asked for like 20% off or something like that. We're not going to use that bedroom. So you're not going to have to clean it. Right. And, you know, It's just me and my friend traveling. We're two women. We will book right now, and they gave it to us.

And again, the recurring theme, one of the recurring things of this show is, why not ask? Like, yeah, you might hear no, but you might hear yes. And that's fantastic. Even negotiating, I mean, I always ask for a room upgrade at a hotel, always. And they don't know who I am, right? They don't know I have millions of followers. They don't know I'm an influencer. They don't know who I am.

But I just go, hey, do you have any complimentary upgrades you could offer me? And, you know, let's call it 30, 40% of the time. They're like, no, I'm sorry, we don't. Okay, no worries. And some of the time they do. And I get a really nice room out of it for free just because I asked. And you can ask without asking. So one of my favorite things to tell people to do, if you book a hotel, book it with

the, book it directly with the hotel. Absolutely. Like, when you book on Travelocity, Expedia, yeah. It's not that there's a flag on yourself, but book it directly with the hotel. Find an email address, call and ask. for one and send him an email in advance and say, hey, I just book this thing for three nights. Here are my dates and my confirmation. I'm really excited to stay with you. You know, we're celebrating my husband's birthday. You know, whatever it is. And you don't have

to ask in that moment because hotels love hospitality. And I guarantee that some percentage of the time that's probably close to or above 50%, you will show up at the hotel and something will happen. Whether it's champagne, whether it's, you know, free drinks at the bar, an upgrade, a better you like sending an email to the hotel in advance is one of my all-time favorite tips because it costs you nothing you're not even asking for people who are uncomfortable you don't even have to say can you upgrade my room just let them do the thing that hospitality companies like doing but book directly with them so that they know you actually are interested in building a relationship with them because if you just book on the internet like with trip advisor they might

not even have your reservation until like the day before you check in because of the way this whole systems work. So book direct. And as to something goes wrong, you are working through booking.com or Expedia's customer service. You are not working with the hotel. So if you have to cancel or something goes wrong, yeah, Chris, I'm going to add a hack to your hack. If you are emailing them, which I highly recommend doing as well, email is your fake assistant. I love it. They don't need to know you don't have an assistant. I literally have an assistant, but I don't make her do this because she's got better shit to do. So I have made up an assistant.

And by the way, it's a dude because dudes get usually more respect, unfortunately. So Scott emails all this time. Scott is the hard ass. Scott will come in and be like, Miss Dunlap is coming at this time and this. Like, make up an assistant. Again, you don't have to be an influencer. You don't have to have a podcast. Like, make up your assistant because you will get so much new shit.

It's so fun. It's so great. It worked. Like, these things work. You don't have to. They work. There are hacking. to take a lot of time.

But one of my favorite ways to find a little extra income that for 10% of my audience, because we did a poll, resulted in more, resulted in hundreds of dollars of money. And maybe you've talked about this before, but whatever state you live in,

go to the state's unclaimed money database and search for yourself. And yes, some of you will be like, I found nothing. Some of you will be like, I found that I'm owed $3, but it's going to take me an hour to figure out how to get it back.

I would encourage you to do that anyways because if you don't, someone can probably find your address. Like, it's a good way to reverse engineer what is someone's address. But some of you will find hundreds of dollars. A few of you will find thousands of dollars. So it's a great way to just check

if there's any free money out there for you. I like using it as my like dinner party thing, you know, because you know someone's address because they're going to dinner at their house. I'll just search it up and come over and be like, hey, you know, we brought you a bottle of wine. But did you know that, like Verizon owes you $400?

That's so good. I'm like, I'm making you money and I haven't even stepped foot in your house. Yeah, bothers days around the corner. I couldn't figure out whether to get you tie or socks, but I did find out that Aetna owes you $1,300 from seven years ago. Dad's going to be stoked. So you're welcome. Yeah, that's so fun.

Okay, so we were talking about travel hacks. And again, this is the thing I could talk about forever. So can we start at the beginning of booking the trip? So the flight. what are the hacks that obviously points we're checking we're checking you know i love that tip about you know can you buy you can buy miles right not just like hilton points but you can buy alaska airline miles or delta miles so what other hacks around the flight as we're planning the trip can we be thinking about okay i think there is a lot here so when i'm thinking about

booking a flight there's probably i did this episode but this guy zach resnick and i can't remember what number episode it was. But we went through like a checklist of like 25 things you can do. So checking if it's available for points, we talked about that, buying points if you can. Looking for gift cards, sometimes airlines have gift cards on sale. So right now, at least in the Bay Area, you could buy Alaska gift cards for 10% off. Very often Southwest sells their gift cards at Sam's Club and Costco for 10% off, I think, or maybe sometimes 14% off.

So that's one. Chris, can I pause you for a second? Yeah. Can I just, we have to talk about Costco. Like, that's a hack in and of itself. Is I, everybody knows this because I'm from the Pacific Northwest. Costco, if they reached out and they're like, Tori, we need a kidney, I'd be like, which one? Like, I love Costco so much.

But they do a lot of, like, you can go in and buy the cards, you know, and then you exchange them for the stuff at the register, you know? But, like, right now they're doing, um, a three-day park hopper pass to Disney. And I'm a huge Disneyland addict for like way less. I think it's like 75% off and it includes like a meal ticket or something. But like Costco is your secret weapon both for like Costco travel, renting a car, getting gift cards like I love Costco just as a hack for things beyond the rotisserie chicken. So you mentioned Costco.

I can't not. I mean, we haven't talked about it. But I have two Costco things on my desk. One is a Costco membership. The other is a rack, which you might not know what this is, but it's from Pamp, which is a Swiss company that makes gold. And I asked for an extra one. It's one of the racks that Costco puts gold on in their storeroom.

Oh, yeah. I probably bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of gold at Costco in the last six months. Wow. And I've started a gold reselling side hustle that is quite lucrative. So Costco's amazing. We can come back to that, but I want to hit on all the flight things. Yeah. Sorry.

I just got excited. You said Costco. And I was like, no, no, I love it. Look, believe me. Like two weekends ago, I think we went to Costco five times. More because the gold, the limitations on gold purchases and the number of Costco is in the area. But a few other things. So there are rare cases where a travel agent is going to get you a deal for a flight.

I would say if you are flying internationally, especially if it's one way, there might be some obscure options. I will say, if you're booking a one-way flight international, you are going to be faced with an outrageous price. And if you just simply change it to a return, a round trip, even if you don't need the return, the price will go down. And so I had a friend who has way more money than I do, and he was like, I'm looking to go to Europe. It's just a one-way ticket. It's like $9,000. And we added a return in economy, and the entire ticket went from like $9,000 to $4,000. Like, he saved $5,000 by adding an extra flight. The same thing is sometimes true. There's this website skip lagged, which basically does what's called, you know, like hidden city ticketing where it's

like, well, flying from San Francisco to New York is $500, but fine from San Francisco connecting to New York and going to Boston is $300. You know, you could if you weren't checking bags, like get off in New York and miss your flight to Boston. The airlines don't love this, so I wouldn't do it a ton, at least not if you have your frequent flyer number on the account. But if you're doing a one-time trip to Asia. And I don't know, like Japan Airlines is, you know, $1,000 if you fly through Japan to Taiwan and it's, you know, $4,000 just to Japan. Like, I don't know, that'd be a case where if I'm not checking bags, I'd be willing to kind of take the $3,000 savings on a one-off case. If you're flying a ridiculous amount, I would say do everything you can to become friends with

someone that works at the airline and kind of encourage them to make you their buddy, there's kind of a gray market for brokering these buddy passes, but I would say it's very gray. But if you found the right airline, like, we talked about this in this episode where it's like, how do you go about getting those things? I think it's episode 156. And like, there is a way to do it. I was like, should I just be reaching out to people on LinkedIn? Like, how do I find it? I don't travel enough and I have a family, so it's not worth it. But if I were single, traveling a ton and maybe taking a sabbatical, I would do everything I can to find out if I know anyone that works at an airline that might be able to make me one of their partners.

If you do have a company, most companies can enroll in like the business program of the airline. And it might only be three, four, five percent off. But I don't know, like I want, my principle is every time I'm buying something, whether it's a, you know, a new toilet at Lowe's or it's a flight, it's like, what's my checklist of all the ways to save money? Like, can I buy a gift card? Is there a shopping portal where I could use Rackaton to, you know, layer on some extra points. Is there a coupon or a promo code? Am I using the card that gets the most points? Can I, you know, like all of the things every time. So, I don't know, I think that's the most of it. On travel portals, I will say, you and I have a similar belief that booking on Expedia for a hotel

can leave you in a frustrating situation if you need to change things. So I rarely will do that. You also might not, if you had status with Hyatt, you might not get any elite nights. You might not get treated well because they're not always. required to do any of those things for third-party bookings. On the airline side, things are evolving. And so keep an eye on this evolution. There's this thing called NDC, which sounds like it could be a cool thing. It stands for new distribution capability.

It's like the like dumbest moniker, but it allows these travel portals to book flights with airlines as if they were booked directly with the airline. You can still manage them with the airlines. You can still change things. as these travel portals adopt these platforms, you won't have that problem with flights. And so Capital One, the VentureX card gets you five X points on flights if you book in their travel portal.

You know, I may be questioning whether I want to do that depending right now on whether my flight will change. But in the future, if that travel portal adopts this, which honestly, I don't know how you would know if it did yet, but they'll probably do some marketing around it. I'll certainly be talking about it on my show and newsletter. Like, then I'm down to go book in a travel portal to get more points. Oh, that was so good.

When we come back from a word with our sponsors, we're wrapping up our conversation with Chris by talking more about credit card points and other ways for you to hack your everyday life, including how Chris is teaching his kids about getting better with money. We also talk about how to know when a deal is actually worth your time versus a waste of your time. Stay tuned. Something you've brought up in one of your episodes on your show that we haven't talked about

on ours is the 524 rule. I don't even know what this is. Tell me what it is. So almost every credit card issuer, meaning bank, has rules that they typically use to decide if you're eligible for a new card. So, you know, Chase is notorious for this 524 rule, which is if you've been approved for five credit cards in the last 24 months, that show up on credit report, and I'll come back to that, they're almost always not going to approve you for a new card. Now, I say that show up on your credit report because business credit cards don't always show up on your credit report. Most of them don't. A lot of other issuers have similar rules. Amex, it's like you can't apply, I can't remember all of it. It's like you can't apply for the same card within 90 days. And if you

go search card approval rules by bank, there's a blog post that the Frequent Miler team wrote where it's like a list of every single one of those rules. Obviously, if you're going to be applying for card, make sure you don't break those rules. Like, some issuers are like, we'll only approve one card within six days. Well, then don't apply for two cards back to back. It's just not going to work. That one's the most notorious. What that means is, if you saw two great sign-up bonuses, maybe apply for the one at the bank

that cares less about those kind of rules second and the one that, you know, cares about those rules first. So if you'd opened four cards in the last 24 months and you're really eyeing two cards with big welcome bonus is, get the Chase one first, because you might not get approved for the Chase one second. I would say high level, Capital One is like, if you've opened a lot of credit cards, they get skittish. Chase kind of has more rules. They're less skittish than that. And then Amex is probably the least skittish. And then obviously they're not the only three issuers, but high level, like those are three of the biggest. But, you know, sequencing what order you apply for a card

and makes sense. And if you want to hit the game hard where you're opening, I guess, more than five personal cards over 24 months, then, you know, that rule is going to matter. But we talked about business cards. And I think one thing that's important to clarify is, I know a lot of people who think, well, I can't have a business card. Like, I don't own a corporation. And I will say, there's a wide definition of what a business is. If you have an Instagram account and maybe one day, you might want to monetize that, well, every time you post, you're kind of laying the foundation for a future, you know, influencer business. You don't need to go get your EIN from the IRS, though that is a very, very simple process,

like fill out a form online and get it immediately by email. But if you have anything that could one day make money, that could be a business and you could do that business as a sole proprietor. So I know a lot of people who are like, oh, I've done a little consulting. I'm like, you have a business. Oh, sometimes I like buy things and sell them on eBay. Well, you have a business. Like, I would imagine that almost every single person here listening is doing something in their life that would legitimately classify as a business, even if it doesn't have revenue yet, even if it's not, you know, filed with the state.

I teach piano lessons. I, yeah, all of these things. This is one thing, actually, Chris, this is perfect to talk about because I've been meaning to talk about this. I almost want, like, beg of people to just, quote unquote, start a business. business, even if it's not really a business to get all of the additional perks of business owners, the write-offs, the points and miles, especially if you pool your business points and miles with your personal points and miles. There's so many opportunities for you, to your point, to come up with what the business is and immediately start saving a shit ton of money on the

things that you're already spending money on or thinking about on a day-to-day basis. I can't remember. I think it maybe is like the hobby rule or something, but the IRS doesn't look too great at people who have a business that has a bunch of expenses and no income forever. No, totally. Yes. There's a massive asterisk on that. Thank you. Yeah. So I say if you don't have any revenue, those write-offs might not be as lucrative as you think. But again, like you would be surprised at how many things might generate enough revenue that it's a business. Like, I buy a lot of gold at Costco. I sell that gold. Like, I have a business, even though I might not think of it that way. When, you know, if anyone has a credit card, which I imagine most people

do, and you log into your issuer and they, you know, there's all these deals, like a card length deal where it's like, oh, if you spend $200 at lows, we'll give you $50 off. If you go spend $50 at Chewy, you know, we'll give you $15 back. Well, every time I see one of those, I think, is there a way to make money? And so this is a fun exercise with my daughter. And we had this Lowe's offer for $5 off $200. And I don't need anything at Lowe's right now. Like, there's nothing that I need at Lowe's.

But I use this app called Card Pointers, and it added that offer to seven of my Amex cards. So we go to Lowe's, and then I look at the gift card rack at Lowe's, and I look for whichever gift card has the highest resale value, which was I think at the time it was Apple or, or Dick Sporting Goods. I think it was Dick Sporting Good. They were all sold out of Apple gift cards. That what I wanted. And so for $200, I buy a $200 Dick Sporting Good gift card, which I could sell for like 89 cents on the dollar. So I lost 11%. But I was getting 50 of the $200 back. So I was getting

25% off. So I get 25% off and I can sell it for an 11% loss. Like I made 14%. So we just bought seven, we went to the self-checkout, $200 gift card, one image. $200 gift card, next Amex. Like, we're just buying these gift cards, taking advantage of this offer, reselling the gift cards, and I think that day we made like $200. Now, was it worth my time to go through this hassle, drive to Lowe, spend an hour buying these gift cards? You could argue no.

But do you want to know how excited my five-year-old daughter was when I, like, put $200 into her, like, little bank account, and we started talking about what she could do with $200. And that afternoon, we went for ice cream, and she's like, Can I buy mommy and daddy ice cream? Like, she bought me ice cream. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So even when the, like, now that we have children, when I see these little plays, if

you will, where I'm like, it's maybe isn't worth my time. I'm like, but could I teach my daughter a lesson in this process? And I don't know what that lesson's worth, but it's worth a whole lot more than the dollars we saved. So, I don't know. Like, you can see, I like, I just could go down all these rabbit holes on, on this. you take this where we want to go, but I feel like every time I see a deal,

it's like, how could I make money on this deal? You and my father would be best friends. I don't know if you know this about me. I started my first business when I was nine years old because my dad bought a candy, like vending machine, like a gumball machine, and brought it home and said, do you want to start a business?

And I owned 15 of these vending machines by the time I graduated high school and all the profits went to my college fund. And this was the thing that my dad and I would do once a Saturday or once a month on a Saturday is we would go out and we would service the machines. And like, I didn't invent anything. I didn't go on Shark Tank, right? But I learned how to run a business. I learned how to manage money. I was writing checks as a 10 year old. I was writing checks at Costco to be able to

buy my chocolate covered raisins to go in my vending machine. And like, I learned so much from that. And I also have so many memories with my dad. It wasn't really about the money. It wasn't, you know, we barely made any money. It was about spending quality time with my dad, learning something new. I 100% believe that a lot of the skills I learned throughout my childhood of running this business, I use every single day in running this business now.

And so those kind of things, yeah, it might not be worth your time, but wow, it becomes an activity. And it's an activity, like, I didn't have to take her to the fair to spend a bunch of money or to a movie. We didn't spend any money. We actually made money. Like, I love that.

I'm looking at this can and I'm, because one of the things we do is we take all the aluminum cans and we go recycle them for the cash. Oh, same shit I did too. And I'm like, so if you live in California or Michigan or Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, or Iowa, like, at least on this can, we just collect all the cans. We go cash them in. The place is kind of grimy, but my daughter's like, I don't really like this place.

I'm like, but at the end, somebody hands are like $4.85. And she's like, this is so cool. I made money. Yeah. So that leads me to something that is really important. talked about it briefly at the beginning. But in my head, usually, because I think, you know, when you get to the point where either you're, you know, a busy person or a business owner, or honestly, my mindset kind of switched as I started to make more money, I realized like, okay,

there's a certain cost-benefit analysis that I need to do of, can I be using my time to make more money than, again, trying to find out all of these hacks. So you had briefly talked about it, but I just want to return to like, when do we determine what's worth it for us versus what isn't? Because some of these are 100% worth it. I can spend two hours researching business class flights and get them for super cheap, amazing. Some of these other hacks, I'm not sure. So how do we determine that and how do we determine that for each of us as individuals specifically? I'll give you an answer and then a caution. So you could do it as simply. as saying, okay, what is my hourly rate? And that can be tough when you're an entrepreneur because

the three hours that you spend thinking about your business could come up with an idea that makes you an unlimited amount of money or could be completely useless. And so I like to think of it not as an hourly rate, though maybe it's kind of backed into it, but I just kind of set it more than trying to calculate my income divided by my hours. It's like, what is my threshold for when an amount of money moves the needle. And for me, I have one when I'm with my kids and one when I'm not assuming that the thing is a teachable lesson. For 50 bucks, I might take my kids to do something to teach them. But if it's during the nine to five workday and they're in school, like, I'm not going to do it. So I would say everyone has to come up with that dollar amount. It's going to

be relative to how much you currently earn, how much you save, how much savings you have. Like if you've saved a ton of money, like maybe you're not interested in spending more time to save more. It's going to be relative to what else you would do. If you don't have a business idea and then, you know, that's probably different than if you have an active business you're running and you're taking time away from it. I would not encourage anyone to, you know, with an active business to be spending the weekend going to flip gift cards from Costco when they could be building a company if that's their

their main thing. So I try to think of a dollar amount. and then I say, wait, wait, wait, pause. Is this thing going to cross that threshold, right? Is going to Costco to flip this gift card going to make me enough money that I want to do it? But I would encourage you to maybe choose the hours by which you do this. Because for me, I've probably set that thing at hundreds of dollars an hour somewhere. But I don't want to think about it on the nights and weekends because the last thing I want to do is my daughter's like,

hey, do you want to play a game? And I'm like, well, the game's going to take an hour. Like, I got to pay $400 to play a game with you. Sorry, kid. So, like, for me, when I have work hours, I try to value my time. When I'm not during work hours, I try not to value my time. And I set a much higher bar. And so when I was talking about Costco Gold, my wife and I, like, the bar for weekend time with the kids is like $1,000 an hour. So, and it just happened that last weekend there was this like any trip to Costco we'd make a thousand dollars and we were like kids are going to Costco again but if it was $300 like I might do that during the work day when it's just my time but but on the weekend I set a way higher bar and I'm not really thinking it's

more like opportunistic than trying to you know track every hour and value each one so I would say earlier in my career it might have been $20 went up to 100 maybe now as a few hundred and during times when life is busy or families involved and might cross 1,000. So you don't need just one number. It can be relative to the situation and relative to your time.

But I can't overstate how important free time is when you're running a company because you're just so caught up in all the day to day that it's always so hard to think what should we do?

And so for us, I really wanted to go to Iceland and we ended up starting like a tours business where like we found a guy that knows more than anyone in the world about Iceland. We did an episode about just Iceland and then we said, hey, we're

going to go on this trip. Does anyone want to come? And we took a group of people to Iceland last year and now we're taking two groups of people to Iceland this year. Like, that didn't just like pop in my head until I was kind of ruminating on Iceland and it came there. So leave time for that. It is valuable.

It's just hard to put a specific dollar amount on it. Yeah. I just realized we didn't talk about Costco. So let's touch on Costco really quick. And then I have one last question for you after Costco. Okay. So yes, the 499 rotisserie chickens, absolutely incredible. But the one that I found that literally everybody in my life knows because I was trying to bully anybody and everybody into taking this on with me. They had a Costco travel deal. Did you see the four seasons Bora Bora situation at the beginning I think of this year? Did you see this deal? I was saying at the St. Regis Bora Bora

on points. And every couple we met, we were like, how did you discus? decide to come here and they're like, Costco. Costco. It was, so it was round trip economy from L.A. to Bora Bora. And as anybody who's tried to get to Bora Bora knows that flights are so goddamn expensive. So I think it was round trip flights. And then it was like, you get free breakfast. You get all of that. But it was four nights, I think, at four seasons, Bora Bora, which normally costs like $2,500. And I think all in, the whole trip was like $4,000, $5,000. Like, it was so cheap. And I didn't up pulling the trigger, but everybody heard about it. I was like,

it was so good. I don't know when this will come out, but right now, for whatever reason, Hilton has a ton of open inventory at the Conrad Bora Bora for 120 to 140,000 points a night. Which again, Hilton points go on sale

all the time. We've been to the Conrad Borobora twice. Economy flights ever since French B, which is like a discount French carrier, came, economy flights have gotten very cheap. So, like, from San Francisco, I've seen Bora Bora for like six, seven hundred bucks round trip.

So if you have Hilton points, if you want to buy Hilton points, a trip to Bora Bora can be in your future. I don't know why Bora Bora doesn't get as much love as the Maldives, because if you live on the West Coast, it's like an eight-hour flight. Like, it's almost as, it's like not that farther than like Miami and New York. And you went on this trip. It's amazing. If you are an active person that wants to, like, have a thousand places to drive and do, it's not a trip for you.

Like, if you're someone who wants to just relax at a hotel and, you know, have everything catered to you, it's fantastic. And if you open up one of those Amex Hilton cards, you, or at least the Aspire card, you get diamond status on Hilton. So at least when we went, free breakfast, which these breakfast buffets are just unbelievable. And I actually did an episode that I filmed from the Conrad Borobora talking explicitly about how we, like, the price mechanics of that deal, it was a little windy, like, the audio quality isn't as good as others. But Bora Bora on points, specifically, like, looking at it today in June 2025, I was blown away at the availability to go during the summer, which we've been in the summer, is a great time. It's a little warm, but not like, you know, desert valley warm.

It was great. So I would encourage anyone with Hilton Points or a desire to buy them to check out the Conrad and Bora Bora. Highly recommend. Or check out the Costco travel deals. Yeah. Guys, I have, I think, seven tabs open just from you and I talking. Like, again, you think I'm good. Chris's next level. Okay. My last question for you, your show, all the hacks, which is literally going to be my next, you know, 12 hours of listening, you talk generally about upgrading your life or optimizing. So what are some of the best non-money-related hacks that changed your life for the better. Like, I'm thinking especially about that episode you did on sleep.

Yes. I mean, sleep, it's so funny that in our world, especially with the kind of people on Instagram, everyone's like, you know, do you use an infrared or do you use a like dry heat sauna? It's like how, you know, you can optimize so many things in your health. If you're not dialing in your sleep, like I would say on the order of important things, it's like sleep, exercise, and nutrition, like all the other little tiny things you can do to tweak your health don't really matter. So I always laugh when I see someone ask me because we have

a sauna and I love the sauna. And they're like, do you think I should get a sauna? And I'm like, how often do you exercise? For longevity purposes. They're like, I want to live longer. Sanas are known to do that. Do you want to get a sauna? Should I get a sauna? Like, how often do you work out? They're like, I'm not really working out right now. I'm like, you know what's going to move the needle on longevity a lot more than a sauna? Exercise. Like, you know, so I think that definitely sleep is important, definitely nutrition's important, definitely exercise important, all those things. Some fun health things that I love, this is a very simple hack. I am really bad when it comes to saying no to eating unhealthy food. Like, you put a plate of cookies in my house, I will eat a lot

more cookies than a normal person. So what I've started doing is I don't try to say no. Don't say no to the cookie. Say no to the cookie for five minutes. Give yourself permission to have the just in five minutes. And for my brain and the way my psychology works, it is so much easier than saying no. But in those five minutes, I get distracted. And all of a sudden, I'm like on to some other thing and I forgot about the cookie. And then maybe I come up to the kitchen an hour later. I let myself eat a cookie. And then I say five more minutes till the next one. But old me would have eaten 13 cookies before I even left the kitchen. And so like that is a very simple thing that has actually changed how much unhealthy food I consume in my own house.

I also think that if I'm going out to restaurant, I sometimes look at the menu in advance, usually like right after lunch. And I just like decide what I'm going to order for dinner because I make a much better decision when I'm not hungry at home than when I'm sitting at the restaurant. And if I go to the restaurant, I'm like, that burger looks good.

If I'm at home, I'm like, I don't know, that salad looks good. And so I just like pre-commit to what I'm going to order. It's not like I'm calling the restaurant saying, when Chris shows up tonight, do not let him order anything. You know, I just, it's like little mental ways to change my perspective in my mind and it helps so much. Yeah. I'll share two with you that you may have talked about on the show. I love it. One blew my mind a couple months ago and it's so fucking simple. If you want eight hours asleep, you need to be in bed for nine hours. Like, it's so easy. But all of us are like, okay, we're doing the math of like, okay, if I wake up at

seven, I got to go bed at 11, blah, blah, and it's like, no, you're going to take 20 minutes, you know, to fall asleep. You're going to have to get up and use the bathroom. You're going to toss and turn a little bit. Like, you will not get eight hours of sleep. So you need to spend nine hours in bed. And like that single hand, I was just like, like, okay, I need to stop doing the mental calculations for eight hours and I need to do the mental calculations for nine and I need to get my ass in bed with nine hours to spare. So that's the first one that was so simple. The second is I have a history of diabetes in my family and the order in which you eat your food matters so much. Do you know about this, Chris? So much. Yeah. I mean,

I'm guessing you've worn like a continuous glucose monitor to even, like, feed the data. I'm not quite that crazy yet. Okay. But no, I like, listen, glucose goddess is the one I listen to. Do you, do you know this woman. I know, but I have not. I do not know. Basically, it's like the order in which you eat your food matters so much for our blood sugar and our energy. And even if you are not diabetic, it's like, basically, you don't want to put carbs in first. And you definitely don't want to, like, have a sweet breakfast. Protein first. Protein first with fiber. So bread often is the first thing that comes out, right? And same thing with your cookie example. I don't, I'm never going to turn down bread, okay? But the bread sits on my plate until the salad comes out. Then I eat the salad

and then I eat the bread. So I eat the salad first and then I eat the bread. So just even that has like changed my energy level so much. Same thing. I don't drink a lot of coffee. I had a coffee this morning. I know if I drink that coffee on an empty stomach, I am going to be a fucking crazy person all day. So I wait. The coffee sits there. I do not even take a sip. I eat the food and then I get to have a sip but it's like it's not deprivation it's just doing things in a different order and it's single-handedly changed

so much of my life. So I think you have more self-control. My version would be to tell the waiter or the waitress I'd be like could you just bring the bread later? Like I see it on another table. Sometimes it doesn't happen so I will be 100% honest. If I am ravenous sorry I'm eating that bread but in general I try to say okay I'm at least going to have like

two bites of salad, three bites of salad because the way she describes it and I think most dietitians and nutritionists describe it the same way, is it's like, your body is a sink. And what you're shoving down the sink first is the thing that sits there. Right. So like, you need to think about, okay, I'm going to put veggies and I'm going to put, you know, I'm going to wait to put the fats or the sweets until the rest of it. So that's been super helpful for me. Totally. Now, I would say I've got, I've done a lot of like health testing. And to anyone that's interested now, I believe you can get continuous glucose monitors over the counter now. You can. And it's wild.

because I wore one for a week. And there are a few things that people say are like, for some people, if you put like cinnamon with your carbs, the spike is lower. So I was like, let's experiment with this. The one I've heard. Apple cider vinegar. Yeah. I'm not even kidding. I would like just experience. My wife and I had some fun experiments. We were like, what happens if we eat 30 Swedish fish? And it's like your blood glucose is like literally so high off the charts. It's insane. But when I would eat like cinnamon rolls versus bread, the cinnamon rolls did not spike me as much as bread because I guess my body cinnamon. But when you actually see the data working,

you're like, oh, wow, eating my protein before I eat my carbs. Like, you can see that it has an impact and you can try different foods all week. And like, I would encourage you the first time I did this, I did not do it, like write things down because it's so interesting in the moment. And then three months later, you're like, wait, what was the thing that spiked my blood? I totally forgot. Or even just take photos and then you could figure it out later. At this point, you could probably export your data, take a photo of every meal, the photo has like a time stamp in the data, put it all in chat, GPT, and say, here's all the food I ate this month, here's my data, just tell me what I should and shouldn't eat.

Probably. If you're not leveraging AI for almost everything you're doing, it's like having an army of interns for free, and that's just one great hack, but it was so fascinating to see the data that comes off of a continuous glucose monitor, because then I was like, now I'm changing this thing, and it wasn't just because someone told me, it's because I actually saw it work in my body. Yeah, Chris, you should follow glucose goddess because she literally does charts of like cookie, cookie with milk. Toast, toast with avocado. Like, and you can see the different spikes. It was, it would just tickle your brain. Okay, I can talk to you for hours. We have to

wrap up. Chris, tell me everything about the podcast and newsletter. Where can people find more about you? Everything's at all the hacks.com or Chris Hutchins.com. They're the same place. You can search my name. If you're listening to a podcast, just search for it. I would say similar to what we're just talking about. Like, I try not to focus on just points and miles. I feel like if you had a podcast that was all about that, a lot of people like me and you, we might just be like, it's too much. So we actually just did an episode on gut health. Like we've, I'm looking at this board. We've done an episode on happiness, medical tourism. I like to dive into upgrading your life, your money, and your travel. There's a special place in my heart for points and miles. But my goal is every

episode, no fluff. Let's just get to the tactics. Let's get to the playbooks. And let's figure out how to dial one area of your life in. And I hope that every single time someone leaves with like one thing that will change their life and make them happier, make them healthier, make them feel better. And that is the goal. And so it might be a lot like I'm not just sitting there like shooting the shit, right? Like it's like, I want you to learn and then get back to your busy life. And so you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm always open to people reaching out. You can contact us on the website. links to everything are there. Yeah, that's where I am. Amazing. Chris, thank you. This was so valuable. Thank you so much. This is a lot of fun. Thank you so much to Chris for joining us.

All the Hacks is available wherever you're listening right now. I know I subscribed immediately after interviewing him for this conversation, and it's such a great show, especially if you love Financial Feminist. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. This is a great episode to share with loved ones, with your partner, with your family, especially if you're trying to save extra money right now or trying to get creative with ways to save money

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