From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - How To Save Thousands On Holiday Travel

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

As millions of people around the nation prepare to make the long trek home for the holidays, there’s growing concern over high travel costs and canceled flights. The Founder and General Manager of The Points Guy travel website Brian Kelly joins to discuss the best ways to consolidate debt, maximize bonus points on credit card purchases, and how to convert those points into free travel.    Later, Sean & Rachel share their tips on saving money on travel and talk about their favorite memories from vacationing.    Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host of the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Sean, it's great to be back at the kitchen table. Well, yes, it is. A lot of people talking about the economy. Of course, Christmas brings up a lot of talks about money and budgets and how do we do it all. You were telling me the other day that people are still carrying debt from last year to this year. So we thought it'd be a good idea to bring in somebody who could talk about just ways to save money. And one of them is to your points. We went on vacation last year, almost all points. And then you told me

they're trying to take the points away. So no, we went on vacation with nine of our kids, eight of our kids left Valentina at home and a son-in-law and a future daughter-in-law. So there were 12 of us or 13 of us. It was 13? No, 12 of us. 12 of us on vacation, mostly all on points. So we want to have a conversation about how can we maximize our point usage? 25% of Americans are carrying their debt on their credit cards from last year. From Christmas spending. From Christmas, that's right. So let's bring in Brian Kelly, the original points guy or the points guy himself. Brian, good to see you. Thanks for joining us at the kitchen table.

We appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. So give us the skinny on points. So I'm not a professional. Rachel's not a professional, but we kind of... First of all, how did you become a professional points guy? Yeah, right. Yeah, funny enough, in the 90s, my dad traveled a lot for work.

And I was always the tech. You know, back in the day when you my dad traveled a lot for work. And I was always the tech. Back in the day when you had a modem and computers and you'd have to dial into America Online, I was kind of our family's little hacker. And my dad in the mid 90s said, hey, I've got all these freaking flyer miles. If you can figure out how to use them, we'll go on a family trip. And I'm one of four kids. So growing up in the Philly suburbs, most people went to the Jersey shore, but I wanted to go to the Caribbean. So I figured out the way calling up us airways and American and I schmooze the phone reps, which I still recommend people do today. That's your other hack.

You want to yell at airline agents. Here's the deal. They're underpaid. They're yelled at all day. And if you're nice to them, they have a lot of power. So anyway, be nice, especially this holiday season. So yeah, in the 90s, I booked our family a trip for free, all six of us, similar to you guys. And it was amazing. And every year, my dad traveled for work. He'd miss my basketball games. That would you know, the light at the end of the tunnel was these amazing family trips. So that's how I got into the points game. And then, you know, in 2010 started a little blog for fun that now reaches 80 million people a year. Really? That's amazing. So I feel like Sean could be the points guy because seriously, he was, I mean, all year long he was planning this trip and we knew we couldn't do it without i mean we we couldn't do it without the point so we were going to the caribbean too brian and i had and again i had to figure out um again i was gonna buy the flights but i we had we needed three rooms and we're gonna go stay for a week

that's a lot of rooms you know for a full week and i'm like how am i gonna manage this thing it's not we're going to the caribbean it's not always the cheapest especially if you want to stay in a decent place and so i was pulling points from here and points from there yes it took me to i actually enjoyed doing it but it took time to make it happen but the but the cost savings was was was was massive and by the way this uh our son is getting married at the end of january it's coming quick and they they announced it pretty not very long ago that they this was going to be the day and literally i was like how are we going to get points to you know how do we have enough points to get a hotel um for all of us to go out to california which by the way brian we do have enough points to get

those hotels she does i was thinking about i thinking about it. I don't manage the points. He does. So first of all, what should people do to get as many points as possible? What's that? Let's start by accumulation. The beauty of it is, and for anyone listening who might say, well, I'm not a business traveler. I can't get points. Well, that was in the 90s when that was really the only way to get points. Now it's a completely different ballgame. More points are generated from credit cards and from offers and shopping online than they are from actually traveling. So you don't need to be a fancy business traveler raking in frequent flyer miles. All you need to do is be smart about your spending because in America, America is the greatest country in the world, especially

for points. So there right now are about 30 different credit cards you could get. Some have signup bonuses alone worth well over a thousand dollars. And so if you have good credit, which is important, I will state, you know, in general, if you are in credit card debt, your key focus should just be getting that paid down. You know, when you're paying these high interest rates, we all know it's a quicksand. So the biggest thing I don't want to encourage people who are in debt or who may be, you know, if you're not great with your finances and if you get a new credit card and you're going to be, oh, let me just put some more and more and more on it. I don't want to recommend to people to start opening up credit cards if it will get you, you know, in debt because the interest you pay is going to negate the value of all those points.

What you want to do with your debt is open up a 0% card. So while points I love, put that in the future. First, you want to transfer your balances that are on these high annual interest rates that are like quicksand. the credit cards have 0% interest for 18 months. You want to neutralize that debt. So you're not just paying interest every month. You can actually pay down the principal, be as maniacal as you can just to get that down. But once your debts are paid off, you'd be shocked at how high your credit score will go up. One of the biggest factor of your FICO score, which is what lenders use, is how much available credit you have versus how much... It's called the

debt-to-credit utilization. So when you pay your debt down and you have a lot of credit, your score will go up. So for those listening who say, oh, I'm in debt and this game's not for me, if you pay your bills off and on time every month, that's over 50% of what goes into your credit score. So once you get into the clear, your debt's paid off, and you can be very structured and make sure what you want to do is put every expense on credit cards, get those valuable points and miles, and then you pay them off at the end of the month like you would. So instead of using cash, you use your credit card, you earn those points. And beyond just the points, I really want to stress to people, when you're using cash, you don't get valuable protections.

All the credit cards, when you shop, even if they're sprawled, which there's a lot of these days, you're not liable. And the credit card companies are basically like giving you a free loan for a month. So once you master that and can get down to, you charge only what you need on these points earning cards, you pay them off in full every month. you master that and can get down to you charge only what you need on these point-turning cards you pay them off in full every month that's when you get into you're raking in valuable points and not paying any interest and that's where the fun begins so what kinds of things should we be putting on you're talking about groceries um what what what other things can you put on absolutely right

we put everything i can charge a credit card for I put on my credit card to get that because I want to move on the points. Right. So we put everything on and rarely use cash. Yeah. Because you put your mortgage. No, you can't do anything. That has to be like. I don't do mortgage yet, but there is a credit card for anyone who pays rent.

There is now a credit card. It's from Wells Fargo called Built B-I-L-T. There's no annual fee and there's no fee to pay rent. And you earn valuable points every month. And for many Americans, rent's your most expensive monthly purchase. So the bill card now is revolutionary in that you pay your rent, you earn these valuable points and you can use them to travel. You can actually use them to pay for your rent. Or it's the only credit card approved by Fannie Mae where you can use those points over time to save up for a down payment on a house and a mortgage, which is great.

Spectacular. That's awesome. And the beauty of credit cards is, in general, you earn one point per dollar spent. That's the base level earn. But in the example of groceries and dining out, the American Express Gold Card offers four points per dollar on supermarkets and dining. So the first step is getting juicy credit cards with big signup bonuses. Then you want to make sure you get a couple cards that really reward you where you're spending, whether that's gas, groceries, dining. There's an Amazon credit card. If you do tons of Amazon purchases where you can be earning two and three percent.

credit card, if you do tons of Amazon purchases where you can be earning two and 3%. So as you put together a portfolio, I would say for the average person, I have two to three credit cards that give bonuses in key categories so that every year with your spend, you're generating enough points. And the goal is to earn more than one point per dollar. And I would just say for every average, everyday expenses, sometimes you're not going to get a bonus like going to the doctor's office, but the Capital One Venture Card is two points per dollar on everything. So you want to use that card for base spend, your Amex Gold for groceries and dining.

And, you know, you kind of look at where you spend the most money and then get the cards that reward you. So can I say, so Brian, I can get a, and I agree with you, that's really good advice to say, listen, points aren't free if you're running credit card debt from month to month. You're going to get that eaten up in how much you're paying on interest on the card. So if you can pay your credit card off every month and then start to accumulate points, that's the sweet spot you want to be in. But there's a lot of credit cards out there. Some, they don't cost you anything per month. There's no annual fee. And I do get a little bonus set of points for signing up with them. But there's others that'll charge me $400, $500

a month for the card. And then they'll throw in a whole bunch of other things. Like I think I've had a Delta or a United credit card that'll let me use their lounges and then you get extra points when you travel on the airline. How should we assess, you know, whether we're paying an annual fee for the card or versus we're getting a free card? How do you look at what card is best for you

and the annual fee that goes with it? Yeah, so what you're talking about now, so there's points, which I love. I'm the points guy. So that's easy to look at. You're going to see how many points you earn, but perks. So the credit card companies, there's so much competition in the marketplace. The airlines are competing for, you know, these credit card customers, the airlines

make more money issuing credit cards. They're co-branded credit cards and they do flying airplanes. Flying airplanes is expensive and gas prices go up. The margins there are tiny. Delta makes billions and billions a year from getting their Delta Amex customers. Because you may only fly Delta once or twice a year, but if you're using your Delta American Express card every single day, Delta is making a cut of everyday purchases versus just once or twice a year. So it's kind of brilliant. Airlines have actually become banks in a way where this loyalty programs have become their huge economic drivers. And that's what I want listeners to

understand that this is not frequent flyer programs aren't just coupons or a giveaway and oh, poor airlines are just giving away free flights. It's the exact opposite. The airlines are making money, the banks are making money, and it's my life's mission to make sure the consumer gets money. And everyone can win as long as you're playing the game correctly. And just to your point, what I would recommend everyone do, you know, so many people get credit cards from 10 years ago and their life changes.

You may have kids and a lot of families I know say to me, Brian, I'm not even at the mind space to travel right now. And in which case I highly recommend get a cash back credit card because cash is king. And if you really need to buy diapers and pay for child care, and that's where your life's at today, I get it. So instead of getting Delta miles that you're going to let sit for years and get basically a 0% return today, some people will also try to turn those airline miles into gift cards, and it's a terrible ratio.

You're going to lose almost all the value of those miles. In general, the airline miles and credit card points are best used when you redeem for flights and hotels, like you guys did in the Caribbean. If you're not at a place you want to travel, 100%, you got to reassess, get a cashback credit card. There are many with no annual fee. Citi Double Cash basically gives you 2% back, no annual fee. And when you think about how much money you spent, that can add a nice amount to your household's bottom line every month. And then when you're ready to travel, you can apply for a new credit card in travel, but at a very minimum, you should be getting one and a half to 2% cash back with no annual fee from a cash back card so that should be your baseline earning we'll have more of

this conversation after this bet mgm is an official sports betting partner of the national hockey league and has your back all season long from puck drop to the final shot you're always taken care of with a sports book born in vegas that's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite skater, or your style, there's something every NHL fan is going to love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your hockey home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a celly and an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM, a sports book worth a sellie and an official

sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. When I'm thinking about accumulating points, my instinct is to not have as many cards so that I'm consolidating my points. But you're saying you should ideally, if your debt is all paid off you should have two or three and one is for groceries one is for airline hotels and and the

other is wherever you're spending a lot absolutely i mean look i have 25 credit cards in a near perfect credit score that shocks people but and i do not recommend most people get 25 credit cards. You're a special dude. The point is you can absolutely get a couple credit cards. I recommend you start with one. Once you got one and you're making sure you're paying it on time, you could get a second card. Because not only are you going to be earning new categories and getting perks, the free airline tickets. With a lot of those airline and hotel cards, the annual fee might be $100 a year, but they'll give you a free night at a hotel that's easily $250. So I have credit cards, most of the hotel credit cards have really good perks that are easily over the annual fee.

They're very easy to get. In general, I do say cheap is expensive in terms of the no annual fee credit cards generally don't give that many perks and sign up bonuses. So it might make sense to pay $100 a year for a card that's going to give you $1,000 sign up bonus and really rich perks and earning. Now, for the American Express Platinum card is now, I think, $700 a year. I would not recommend that for the average family. dollars a year. I would not recommend that for the average family. But if you're a Delta traveler and you like going into the Amex lounges and you're going there quite a bit, you got to do it. Everyone has to do a personal cost benefit. How many times a year am I going to use these perks? You know, there's a SAX. But if you don't shop at SAX, that credit's worth zero.

If you shop at SAX all the time, you may be able to get hundreds of dollars in value. So everyone has to look at all the perks and say, actually, it's very worth it to pay the annual fee. One final point on the perks that most people overlook. We've all seen last year, Southwest Airlines had their operational meltdown. All the airlines have had their meltdowns, busy travel. Many of these credit cards come with trip delay and cancellation coverage. So in America, when the airline cancels your flight, you're not owed any compensation. Some airlines may throw you a voucher for the Motel 8 if you stand in line and beg for three hours. But in general, there are no consumer protections. All you're owed is a refund if things go bad, which doesn't help you when you're with your family of four stranded and you

need to get home. But credit cards, many of these credit cards offer trip delay. So if your flight's delayed for six or more hours, some credit cards will give you $500 per person to get a hotel room, meals, change. You can even buy clothes. Do you have to sign up for something special or just being part of that, having bought it on there is enough? Exactly. And so many people don't realize that. And this is what I love about it. I had no idea. Yeah. So when things go wrong with the airline, Realize that. And this is what I love. I had no idea.

Yeah. So when things go wrong with the airline, you know, always try to get compensation from them. But you can often file a claim and get hundreds or thousands of dollars back from the credit card company. Okay. So, Brian. How do people find out there's all these perks that we don't know about? Is it that you're reading that fine little print at the bottom of it? So at the points guy, I mean, what I would recommend, no matter what credit card people have today, look and see if it comes. You can just Google, you know, if you have

a Chase Sapphire trip delay and cancellation coverage, just Google that today, you know, whatever the name of your credit card is and Google the perks. Take 10 minutes to see. There's also purchase protection on a lot of credit cards. You can buy something if you, you know, we all lose sunglasses. Yeah. Bought within the last six months or 90 days. And even if you lose them, if you run them over, you call up and they'll take it off your statement. It's, there's a lot of parts that people don't realize. Are these on your site, by the way, can we go to your website to get tips on, you know, all these different things that I've never ever in my life read the fine print on the credit card.

Most people don't. And that's why we love to shout it from the rooftops. Like, you know, reading the fine print can save you a lot of money. So, yeah, thepointsguy.com, we have a section that says guides. And there's also a beginner's guide that will take you through all of these. It'll go through the best beginner credit cards, teach you all about credit. I do admit that it sounds confusing at first, but when you put a little bit of time into it, you can save so much money.

And the reward on the time you put in to learn about the stuff, you do actually reap the benefits. This is all in danger. I'm going to get to that in a second. But I want to first ask you about, we use a Marriott card, right? That's what I did. I used our Marriott card and the points on the Marriott card to do this, the hotel vacation in the Caribbean. But then there's also, and by the way, I got to tell you what, I don't like the airline cards just because I don't feel like I get good points on the airline. You can give me pushback on that, but they don't give me, I feel like a good return on the dollar I spend with the airline. I'd like to hear his pushback on that. But also, but there's Capital One and American Express and others where if I get points with

them, I can go to their website and book my travel through their website using the points I've used on their card, or I can take the points and try to use them elsewhere. When I'm ready to use the points, it's easy if I have a Marriott or a Hilton card and I'm going to use that for the hotel at Marriott or Hilton. But so many of these points, there's options on how I use them to maximize the value of the point. Any advice on where we should be to maximize that value using the points? Yeah. So Sean, I totally agree with you. In general, I meet so many people that are like, well, I fly American Airlines. I live in Dallas. I just have American Airlines card and just fly.

But the problem with that is it's kind of like your investment strategy. You don't want to just invest in one stock. You want to diversify because what happens when you don't want to fly American? You want to stay at a Hilton or Marriott? To your point, there are credit cards out there. So I call them transferable points credit cards. So this is your Chase Sapphire, your Amex Gold, your Capital One Venture, your Bilt Card. These credit cards allow you to accrue into one central currency and then through their own travel agency, you can buy whatever flight, cruise, hotel, car you want. So it gives you flexibility outside of just the one airline that you fly. Now, you still may want to have an American Airlines card to get into the lounge or to get a free check bags. Because once again, that's all about- Which is the only reason to have that card, in my opinion.

That's why I have it. I want to go to the lounge. No, it works. But for points, you want those transferable cards. So you can transfer to different airlines, you can redeem for them, you give yourself more flexibility. So I completely agree with you there. I just keep thinking about your dad. He must be so amazed that you turned this tech teen into a whole enterprise here. I'm just amazed. I can't help thinking that it must make him so amazed at you. His name is also Brian Kelly.

I'm 6'7". He's like 6'4". So like there's a lot of, I call him the original points guy. And I threw a nice little party for them in New York, but they've gotten to travel all around the world with me in first class. So I think the... Well, that's what I was going to get to, Brian.

I want to hear what is the most fabulous thing you've ever done with points? Like, what is the most amazing... I don't know if it's the most amazing vacation, the most amazing purchase. Like, just wow me with, like, your points. Well, I will say the most luxurious airline is Emirates. They're A380 airplane. It's a double-decker plane. And, you know, it's really easy to use points.

You can, and on the plane, there's a big onboard bar. I remember just having scotch with my dad. We were flying, where were we flying from? Beijing, Dubai to Beijing. We're flying over the Himalayan mountains. My dad and I are just drinking this. It's like $1,000 a bottle scotch as we're looking out over. And the coolest thing about this flight is they actually have first-class showers.

So you get to take a hot 10-minute shower before you land. They unlimited VR and Dom Perignon. And it's, you know, not that much when you use points. I will, and especially because it's a holiday season with that, you can also donate your points. I love Make-A-Wish. At The Points Guy, we donate millions of points and our readers donate points to Make-A-Wish. And 70% of wish kids have wishes that involve travel.

So travel is one of Make-A-Wish's expenses. You can donate your points. So even if you don't want to use points yourself, you're not traveling anywhere anytime soon. I highly encourage people, don't let your miles expire at a very minimum. Make sure you donate them to a charity of your choice. It's great advice. Super advice. Brian, I want to get to this because this is a big deal for me because when I got to Congress, I was in 2011. Dodd-Frank had passed before I got there. And there was an amendment by Dick Durbin in Dodd-Frank that took our ability to earn points.

The consequence was that our ability to earn points on debit cards was hobbled by this amendment by Dick Durbin. Yeah. Right? And so, just to be clear for our listeners. Dick Durbin. Yeah. Right? And it's... But just to be clear for our listeners... Dick Durbin's still in Congress. He's still in the Senate, yeah. He's the one who said

that we should let illegal immigrants join the military. Right. He's not a good guy. You don't have to comment on the politics. No, you don't. That's just me. But it's the merchants who are paying

a small fee to let you use the credit card. You're not paying for the use of the card. The merchant pays a small fee and they get guaranteed payment. They get all these benefits as well by taking your Visa, MasterCard or American Express. And Dick Durbin, for some reason, is at war with banks and the credit card companies. He's at war with banks and the credit card companies. He's now resurrected this legislation to take points away from credit card use. He has this crazy idea that if I take away credit card points from consumers, and that means that merchants are going to pay just a little bit less in fees, the merchants are going to give me that money back as a consumer in lower prices at the grocery store or at Walmart.

And that's total bullshit. But that doesn't work. But this is really, all this whole industry, our vacation, your vacation, so many people's vacation. Your website, your whole business. It goes away if this guy's successful. So talk to me about the risk that this very simple thing that we've come to expect of points. And by the way, we go home, people are traveling for Christmas and they're planning a little vacation or a weekend away.

And they're thinking about how they're going to use their points to minimize the cost to their family. They're doing things that they normally maybe aren't able to do because they have these points. But Dick Durbin is trying to put this at risk again in the Senate. Talk to us about that. I laugh because, I mean, I joke that frequent flyer miles and points are like the last great American bipartisan thing. All my Republicans. I mean, who doesn't like to see family? When we think about inflation in this country and travel, it was going up 20 percent month over month at one point. It was crazy. So many Americans were boxed out of traveling because it was too expensive. And points, as you mentioned, were one key way where people could travel.

So now. So why is Dick Durbin doing this? Well, simply put it, this is not for consumers. And this is what drives me wild. Meanwhile, Dick Durbin is doing this for merchants because when Walmart and Target, if they have to pay even 1% less to MasterCard and Visa and all the processors, they take those billions of dollars, which today pay for points. So it's taking the value of those points from the consumer pocket and putting it into the shareholders of these huge retailers. It's a huge lobbying effort by the Retail Association. And we know what's going to happen because a decade ago when he did this with debit cards, he said, don't worry, everyone, those using debit cards to get points, don't worry, the retailers are just going to miraculously slash prices across the board and the consumer is going to have a

great win. So let me first say people who are using debit cards were generally lower income. So but they used to be able to earn points on purchases just like credit cards. You used to also be able to get pre-checking everywhere because, you know, there was money being made on the transactions. When Dodd-Frank passed and the Durbin Amendment, which killed debit rewards overnight, all banks stopped offering rewards on debit. So I'd like to ask Senator Durbin, who do you think that benefited? All those low-income Americans who couldn't get credit cards now were boxed out of the reward system. So explain to me how in any shape, way, or form that helped consumers. It didn't. And then, so you might say, well, Brian, because the merchants were paying less in fees, they dropped prices for everyone.

Well, the Federal Reserve did a study three years later, analyzing how much did consumers get out of this, right? Ooh, let's crunch the numbers. And they interviewed and did price surveys. And I think it was 2% of retailers actually dropped prices. Most actually kept the same and some 20% increased the prices. So there was kept them the same and some, you know, 20% increase the prices, you know, so there was no benefit to consumers whatsoever. And, you know, in politics and legislation, there's always the law of unintended consequences. Well, what ended up happening was that checking accounts and debit became so unprofitable, the banks didn't invest, and then they added fees to checking accounts. So lower income Americans,

thanks to Dick Durbin, lost points and started having to pay fees and the merchants gained. So think about that. He's now trying to do this on a much a thousand times larger scale for all credit cards. And the crazy thing about this legislation, which is titled Credit Card Competition Act, which is hysterical because there's no other country in the world where there are more credit card choices for consumers, cash back to credit card. So he's trying to make it seem like there's no competition, that it's a bad system for Americans, which anyone who participates knows that it's not. What he's mandating is that they won't take away your visa on your credit card, but they're going to put a second network, like a debit network where the retailers, if you're going out to eat dinner, you need to argue and you need to negotiate with the retail. You better run it on the visa.

Don't run it on the, they're going to force you to put a debit network on your card. So even if you're paying $500 a year for a premium credit card that gives you triple points on dining, that gives you purchase protection. It gives the choice to the retailer to say, no, we choose to run it on this bare bones debit network. So you get no points. Which who wants to have this conversation at dinner after dinner with their retailer? I mean, the whole with the restaurant, the whole thing.

So it's so duplicitous from the way they name these bills, which is the opposite. Like you said, they make it appear like they're increasing your choice and access when they're not. lobby we have a collective action problem right like they the retailers walmart's and the targets that's right they can they can organize and basically pay their way to get senators like dig durbin to do their will which increases their profits at the expense of consumers but we consumers i mean i guess we have you brian but i mean, that's it. Like, you're not organizing and lobbying on our behalf. So it just makes it, it's so crazy. We have voters in Illinois that could do something for us, but they're not going to kick out Dick Durbin. So that's a problem in and of itself. But also, Brian, when you talk about choice, a consumer doesn't have to take a MasterCard, a Visa, or an American Express.

They can take a check or they can take cash. They have all kinds of options on how they accept payment. But if you want to accept this payment, that's a credit card that you and the consumer both think you get benefits from, that is your choice. And Dick Dobrin is like, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on a second. I don going to I don't like this deal that I don't like consumers and merchants have together. I want to step in and make sure they can't cut that deal between each other. Have they gotten have they gotten reactions from it? Like what has been the reaction? Is Dick Durbin able to do this under the cover? Normally, Republicans would look at this and say, stop trying to meddle with

business. You know, like have choice. It's a free market. The government. Come on. The government coming in and saying what consumers and businesses can and can't do is ridiculous. However, he does have a partner, Senator Marshall, Republican senator, for some reason that I won't get into. He has something against the banks. So he's teamed up with Durbin and this bipartisan. I won't get into he has something against the banks. So he's teamed up with Durbin and this bipartisan. They're together with the retail lobby, clearly trying to say inflation. I mean, it's crazy. They even put it in the language of veterans.

Oh, veterans are suffering from inflation. So we need to destroy credit card fees because this will help struggling veteran. And it's just like this doesn't make sense because consumers don't pay the fees. Consumers today, when you go out and use your card, you're not paying the fees. The merchants do. So, you know, then they'll say, well, small businesses have to pay this processing fee, which is hurting them. But what I say is when consumers use credit cards, they shop more.

They shop with confidence. So small businesses, when you allow people to use a credit card where they're earning points, they know they have purchase protection. They're buying larger purchases than if they're using a debit card or cash, period. And that's why in a free market, smart retailers aren't charging fees and trying to discourage credit cards because they make more money in the end when people shop with confidence. So I think there's this whole backfiring. We're trying to help small businesses by taking choice away from the consumer, but they're going to see that consumers will spend less. Basically, they're going to force these tiny little debit networks onto credit

cards. All of a sudden, there's going to be billions in transactions run on these networks that are not meant to handle that type of volume. There's going to be fraud. It's going to be a nightmare for consumers. And for what? To save a fraction of a percent on processing for merchants. It's just common sense. It's common sense. I mean, I go to the grocery store. If I'm not getting points on my credit card, I'll use cash. If I use cash, I buy less. I just know it's just natural because I know I have only so many, you know, maybe $300 in my wallet. Then I know I'm not going to be able to spend more than that. But if I'm at the grocery store with my credit card and I know I'm also getting points with it, I go, well, you know what? I might as well get this too, because I know I'm

going to need it. You know, this, this is non-perishable. I can just throw this in my cart and grab your, absolutely. I spend more when I have my credit card, which helps the retailers. I will just plug. So on your topic of lottery, so at the points guy, obviously we're passionate about this. So we have a website, protectyourpoints.com, and you can actually write a letter to your Senator, take 60 seconds. And even, you know, many senators are undecided on this. And we've actually had a million submissions to senators across the country. And, you know, you guys know, every week senators get reports of the issues their constituents are writing and calling in about. It is critical. It takes 60 seconds. Send them a message saying,

Bozos, focus on, oh, hey, maybe the actual crisis is like hitting our country right now. And the global, you know, it's a lot of bigger problems than taking points away from consumers, but participating in the process by writing into your senators the easiest, fastest way. And we do that at protect your points.com. Totally. I'm just going to as. As we close out here, I served with Roger Marshall. I like Roger Marshall. For all intents and purposes, he's a good guy, but I'm looking at what he's doing, teaming up with Dick Durbin on this one, and it makes no sense to me. And again, in the fights in Congress, this was the first one I got in. And I'm like,

I believe in choice. You were fighting this years ago. And the advice I got was, Sean, you're a new member of Congress, don't actually engage in this fight. You've got merchants and banks and everyone's fighting. And I just said, you know what? There's right and there's wrong. And I think to be on the side of competition and freedom and letting people choose and earn points, I think is the right thing to do. And I think J.D. Vance was actually siding with Dick Durbin for a while until he figured out, hey, hold on a second, this actually isn't going to help consumers. It's going to help merchants. And he kind of stepped away from this fight as well. But I know Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall are trying to push this.

Sean, you can also speak to just, I mean, you mentioned the place on your website where people can go to write a letter or they can write a letter or make a phone call on their own to their member of Congress. And a lot of times people, even I did before Sean was in Congress, I didn't think it made a difference to make a call. Sean, you were in Congress for 10 years. What kind of difference does it make when constituents call in or write in about something? To your point, I knew what people were writing about.

I knew about the chemtrail. People are like, there's chemtrails. I knew about when bees were having problems because, I mean, I got all these different letters. Bees were the biggest letter writer, bee people. The bee people were like, but you're right. So if you go to thepointsguy dot com, you have is that we have the where's the where's the where's that option? Yeah, right. Your points dot com will bring you directly to a landing page on our site that pre populates based on where you live. Protect your points dot com. Send a letter to your senator. If this passes in the Senate, it'll go to the House.

Hopefully it would die there. But it's a real issue. And again, it's an issue near and dear to our heart because we have a lot of kids and we like to travel. And if you use your points as well, we should maintain this great point ability into the future, not just for us, but for maybe our kids and grandkids too. Well, I mean, things are getting so expensive. I mean, I can't tell you just from doing Boxing Friends, we've done more segments on how families have had to cut back on vacations and leisure time. And frankly, that's what life is about. I mean, like we all work so we can enjoy ourselves and enjoy our families. And if traveling and getting hotel rooms or if you have big families, you know, getting three hotel rooms can be just it's just not attainable unless you have points. hotel rooms can be just it's just not attainable unless you have points. And so that that at this time, when the economy is so bad, that our Senate is spending time to take points away from families

who want to be able to spend more time with each other and travel and, and in some cases, even pay rent, as you mentioned with the built card. I think it's just it's crazy. So I'm really glad that you're one telling us how we can maximize our points and our credit card usage and use it responsibly and more effectively, but also alerting everyone on this issue. When is that? When is it going to be voted on? So is that the portion right now that hasn't been pushing a vote, but it hasn't come up. They're trying to find an avenue to get it in marshall marshall you know marshall tried to put this on the defense bill and he actually was gonna kind of side missioned it and said nope he was holding military funding saying you gotta ram this through he finally backed down and said oh they told me that we would vote on it in 2023 well that's not happening because they're out of session now so clearly

i don't know if he's just show voting but, but it's not happening this year. Next year. Why is he so hell bent on it? Great question. But so in 2024 is an election year, huge stakes, Congress and balanced presidents. So I think any politician who looks at this and sees how fraught this is on all sides, why would you want to have a toxic issue that's going to rattle bees nests across the board, especially when there's bigger issues at play? So I am hopeful it doesn't pass next year. But Dick Durbin is an operator. And they just said they're going to try to attach this to anything that moves any vehicle

in Congress, you know, that they're going to try to attach it last minute. And that's how we got the last one through last minute on Dodd-Frank. Well, they're going to have to go through six, seven Brian Kelly to make that happen, which I wouldn't I'm going to bet on. I'm going to bet on you and the points guy, Brian. Listen, we appreciate you coming on and joining us at the kitchen table, talking about, again, an issue that we all use. It's at risk. Again, as Rachel said, how we can maximize it. We appreciate all your good work. And as Americans are traveling this Christmas season, a lot of them are using the very points that Dick Durbin is trying to take away.

So thank you for being here with us. Thanks for shedding some wisdom. If you want more information, you can go to thepointsguide.com. I've been there myself. You get good tips on how to maximize your points. One of the best credit cards, because things change. One of the best credit cards to get the most points in the way that we use points. So Brian Kelly, thank you for being here. Thanks for joining us and Merry Christmas to you. Great stuff. Safe travels.

You got it. Take care. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Again, I appreciate Brian joining us. This is a fascinating topic, Rachel, because again, and maybe it's more for me because I actually, I spend a lot of time with the clients. I know you do. It's so near and dear to your heart. And again, what credit card we have and which one we're using and how we maximize it. And I'm playing tiddlywinks compared to what Brian is doing. I know. Actually, it's so funny because my brother lives in Dubai and he gets a lot of points because he travels back and forth between Dubai and the United

States quite a bit. And he has to also bring his family back because he wants to come see us. And his wife wants to see her father. So he's been collecting points. And he actually did what Brian did, which is he saved points and let my dad go visit him on, what is it, Emirates? Emirates Airline. And my my dad with a stand-up bar there yes and they sent the pictures and it's amazing like i'm like you know what i wouldn't

mind saving points and doing i mean i have a brother in dubai i've never seen it but the flight is a long long flight like unless you're doing it and like i mean i don't want to be in a plane that long but under those conditions yeah i do that. It seems like it's almost like being in a hotel and a luxury hotel at that. So maybe I would want to do that. And that's something you got to have points for. I mean, there's, I can't afford that. So, so, uh, a little over a year ago, we've, we flew over to Europe, Rachel and I did. And, um, I wanted to go first class, but like a first class ticket was like $4,000. I'm like, I'm not paying $4,000 for a laid,

one of the laid out, not business class for the laid out and see. You are, you are worth it actually. I wasn't worth it. So I found a way to use points. Yeah. And a few extra $100 to up. So I did, I did this for a few points

and less than a thousand dollars flying to Europe. First class, business class for the both of us. Yeah. And when you fly at night, I mean, it was awesome. I'm like, and we made it happen through having. Yeah, we flew at night. So like we basically woke up and we had slept. I slept literally because I came off the set to the airport and I had, I had, I had

to host a night show, um, an evening show. So I hosted that show. I don't know if I was filling in for someone, someone and Jesse or Laura. And then I immediately went to the airport and I was so exhausted because I had done Fox and friends in the morning, done that show in the evening, went to the airport. Now my vacation starting and I literally slept the entire time. I slept actually through all the meals and the breakfast. I woke up. They said, you missed the breakfast.

Do you want it? I said, no, I'll just take a cup of coffee. And I was in Europe. And I slept like a baby. Before the wheels were off. Because it was layout. She had to lay down. But again, we did that trip.

We paid less than $1,000 for that trip and some points. It was really remarkable. So anyway, I love the topic because I spent a lot of time with it. And again, I get really angry when Congress does stupid stuff. I can tell. It makes me really frustrated. And again, most members of Congress, most senators don't. They want to stay away from this issue.

Most members of Congress, most senators don't. They want to stay away from this issue. So you hear how adamant Senator Roger Marshall is in trying to take away your points. Is there a champion on the other side? Is there a senator, you know, with the same kind of passion that he has on the other side? I don't think so. Listen, so the Senate, you know, they don't like to maybe engage in these fights, but I know on the house, on the house side, we had several of us, not many people wanted to engage because there's all these different players that have an interest.

And again, this is, this is comes back to good government, do what's right. Right. And if, if something bad is, is happening and you might have friends on both sides of the issues, be principled and say, you know what? I believe in free enterprise. I believe in consumer's choice. I believe that we should have this option. We shouldn't go, oh, this is wonderful. Beeson and MasterCard have developed this technology with all these rewards for people

that they love and the merchant's going to pay for it. And so, no, we want to take that away now. So JD Vance backed off. He did. But did he just kind of back off and neutralize? He didn't back off and go, oh, wait a minute, this is a bad idea. I'm actually going to defend consumers and families who use these points. He didn't go that far. But I think at one point he's like, because at the start, you're like,

listen, the merchants, the Walmarts pay this small fee on the credit card transaction. If they don't pay that small fee, you're going to have lower prices, Rachel. And I saw that same study that Brian Kelly mentioned, which is the prices don't come down. They don't pass it off to the consumer to lower prices. They just take the profit. They take the profit. So I pay, I don't get points. They get more profits and my prices don't go down. So you made this point, the consumer is the loser. And again, I would love to have a cup of coffee with,

and again, I know Roger Marshall. Roger's a good- I just saw him the other day in the green room. He's a nice guy and beautiful, really nice wife. I like him a lot. But this issue, I'm sorry, Roger, you're wrong. And that happens. I have 13 years of fighting this stupid issue and it's come back up again.

So anyway, also speaking about, we're not going anywhere for this Christmas. Yeah, I know. Last year we had that trip that you talked about. You planned that trip for like a year, collecting points so we could go on vacation with our family. And I'll tell you what, and this is why it makes me mad what they're doing because that vacation was, I might even get a little over-climbed on it because it was really emotional for me that we were able to take all of our children and we left

Valentina behind because she was still in diapers and we just wanted to really be able to spend, be at the beach. And so we left her with her grandparents who love on her like you won't believe. So she had alone time with them. And then we took everybody else, our future daughter-in-law, our new son-in-law, all of our children. And we just had the best vacation ever. And there was a moment where you and I escaped to have a slightly nicer dinner without the kids and the older kids took care of all the other kids so we could go and have an alone dinner during that week. And then we came back to find them. They weren't in their rooms and we found that they were all sitting in the hot tub. And that was ranging from age six, you know, to 23 at that time. And they were, I mean, there was, they were laughing. There was 10 of them. They took up the entire hot tub and they were, and we snuck in and we actually got to watch them without them seeing

we were watching and we were watching all of this interaction and all of this socializing and and love and bonding that was happening in this moment with you know no chores no dishwashers no homework no you know nothing but just having fun and enjoying each other and i thought this is the greatest gift you gave our kids and frankly we would not have been able to do it in that way which was really special in this beautiful caribbean island without the point and so yeah congress find different problems you know we got war in ukraine that could lead to you know world war three and we know there's a bunch of money laundering going on there. We have the Chinese. We have the Chinese taking over Latin America. We have Yemen and Iran and their proxies

shooting at us in the Middle East. We have inflation. We have a border crisis. My God, you have lots of things to worry about, and you're hyper-focused on taking points away from consumers. Shame on you. By the way. Get to the real problems. Dick Durbin's from Illinois. Illinois has a lot of problems. Points are not one of them, Dick Durbin.

No. Why don't you go back to Chicago? And as I thought, Brian brought up such a great point on how it was low-income people that had debit cards, and now they have been completely taken out of the points market. And by the way, who wants a debit card? I mean, I don't want a debit card. You used to. I used to.

I've never used a debit card since that happened. But he's right that you start to see now. That's on the backs of poor people that they're getting richer. The fees, you used to have free checking. You used to have all these free give me's that came with your bank because of the debit card. And now people are paying. So not only have you lost the points, now you have to pay. By the way, some of our checking accounts are free, but I've got some other ones where

they charge me $5 a month for a checking fee. So again, these good intentions, and those were in your quotes, are, again, they have bad consequences. And I've gone to the Point Guys website a lot through the course of our marriage. I've never met him. What a nice guy. Yeah, I love this story.

I love his backstory. It was just so great. I mean, like, and then what a full circle moment for the dad to go on this awesome Emirates airline trip with his son to Dubai and then to Beijing on the points. And he kind of turned, I mean, that is really one of the beautiful things of parenting is like empowering a kid saying, hey, hey, kid, hey, son, I got all this, all these points. I can't figure it out. You're young. You got time. Figure it out. We'll take the family on a vacation. And it turned into You're young. You got time. Figure it out. We'll take

the family on vacation. And it turned into a career for him and a profession. And now his job of helping consumers maximize their points is in jeopardy because Congress can't get its act together and do important stuff. And they're wasting time on this. So I was thrilled to have him on. I thought he was great. Great. I hope we can have him on. I thought he was great. I hope we can put him back on Fox because he was awesome. Yeah, no doubt about that. Listen, as you're all doing your final preparations for Christmas in the anticipation of this magical moment that comes on Christmas morning, we are too. And get this little hairy, little hare brains. A little razzle and dazzle happens before. But we're having fun.

We're having fun doing it. Yeah, I mean, I think it's really, it can get overwhelming sometimes. I think the trick is, the challenge, I should say, is to not allow the stress and the pressure of perfection to get in the way of doing the good and just really enjoying the journey. It's been hard because I have kids, I have adult kids coming in today. And, you know, it's just, there's a lot, but I'm trying, I'm trying, Sean, I'm trying. And I went back to Wisconsin this weekend, so I wasn't here to be helpful. So we had a few days of, I think it's spreading it out over time as well. You can't do it all in a couple of days.

You got to take chunks of this because we want to be all done and be able to share time with our family as we come into the weekend before Christmas and Christmas to celebrate it together. So yeah, that's an exciting time of year, especially if we have points. We still have points. Listen, thank you for joining us at The Kitchen Table. If you like our podcast, you can

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