Insight with Chris Van Vliet - How To Fly For Free - The Points Partner Owen Beiny On How To NEVER Pay For A Flight Again

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Owen Beiny (@thepointspartner) is better known as The Points Partner. He is a former CEO that has spent the last 20 years traveling around the world for free by using credit card points, air miles, upgrades and benefits. He joins Chris Van Vliet from his house in Los Angeles, CA to talk about how anyone is able to sleep on a bed on an airplane for free, what the best credit cards to get are, he breaks the myth that having too many credit cards harms your credit score, his favorite destinations to travel to, the best free trip he has ever taken, how you can do exactly what he does and much more! Use the code CVV to get 15% off anything on The Points Partner website: http://thepointspartner.com For more information about Chris Van Vliet and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet CVV CLIPS: youtube.com/CVVCLIPS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blin. Yep, here we go. Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. I am CBV. Chris Van Bleaks so good to have you with us. And if you haven't yet, please follow or subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to us right now. And if that happens to be Spotify, leave a rating.

We are so close to hitting a thousand ratings on there. Owen Beanie is better known as the points partner. I've been following him on Instagram for a while and just blown away by everywhere that he goes. He's been traveling the world for the last 20 years for free by using credit card points. I thought I was pretty good of this. I'd spent a lot of time on planes. I think this year I've already taken like 55 flights. But Owen just blows my mind with the way that he knows the ins and the outs of airline

and hotel points, and it's something that everybody can do. And he teaches people how to do this. Like, we're talking about, like, taking a trip to Europe on points for free. On social media, he is at the points partner. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. Snap a screenshot. Let us know what you learned from this episode. It's going to be hard to narrow it down to just one thing because there's so much here.

So get ready for it. Please welcome the points partner, Owen. Beanie. You know, I've seen so many photos on your Instagram of you in these lay flat beds on these beautiful airplanes, sipping champagne. So I'm like, oh, and we got to talk. We got to talk. So welcome to the show. Thank you. It's so funny. Everyone seems to comment on how I sleep at night on beds on planes, which is a very curious place to be because most people aren't sharing them sleeping at night. But because I'm on planes, suddenly that's a thing people want to see. Well, look, most people aren't sleeping on planes. That's just the, you know, the truth of it.

Well, listen, my job is to put people on beds on planes for free. That's my job. And you see all the gray hair I have. That's the kind of hard work that it is. So I'm very fortunate to be able to fly quite a bit. And I've flown on planes where I'm in these lay flat beds. And it is, it is a complete game changer when you're in your own little pod. Listen, once you get on a plane and you turn left, you will never get on a plane and turn right again. And the problem is, it's like being a crackhead because the first time you do it, you're like, what do I need to do to get back there again? And essentially, I answer that I solve that problem for people, right? Because it's completely inaffordable the way that it's laid out. But through the mastery of credit

profiles, credit scores, credit cards, points and air miles, absolutely any. one can do it. And I want to start, I always like to start by dispelling those horrible myths that A, getting lots of credit cards is bad for your credit. It's not, if you do it correctly. In fact, it's very healthy for your credit. And the second thing is you do not need to be wealthy or spend millions of dollars on your credit cards to be able to do it. I want to get those out the way before you and I even get started because it's offensive to me that people think that. I've worked my butt off for 20 years with a calculator to be able to help people do this without either one of those barriers. And by the way, for anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about

about turning left, that's when you get on a dream line or a 777 or a 787, and left is where business and first class is, and then right is where, you know, everybody else is. Absolutely, absolutely. I flew from Miami back to L.A. last week, and I was number one on the upgrade list. Didn't get the upgrade, so I turned right. Listen, here's, here's, I'm one of the very few people in the points and miles world that doesn't believe very heavily in status. Now, this is incredibly controversial. People have pulled out knives on me when I've said this at public speaking engagements. But for the average American, right, so I'm talking about 90% of Americans, mathematically, it does not make sense

to chase any form of status with any major, airline, be it American, United, Delta, JetBlue, Hawaiian, Frontier Spirit. It doesn't make sense. What does make sense is to look at where you spend your money every day and then choose credit cards on my website that are going to give you credit card points and not just one point for every dollar that you're spending, but look at where you're spending. Is it food? Is it drink? Is it gas? Is it travel? And then find the credit cards that are going to give you two, three, four, five times points for every dollar that you're spending. Credit card points are fundamentally, if you know what you're doing, and it's my job to teach people to know what they're doing, are worth seven times

what air miles are. Okay? Seven times. Seven times. Seven times the amount. But you cannot use them the way that the credit card companies imply that you should. You have to learn the art and the skill set of transferring your points out of the credit card company. And that's essentially what a huge part of what I do is. If you look at it as points as being a currency, they're no different to dollars, euros or yen. You buy them at a rate and you sell them at a rate. Now, we're not actually buying them. We're getting them for free with our spend every month on credit cards. And we're not actually selling them, Chris. We are redeeming them for free travel. But the concept is still exactly the same. But it's not weighted the same. And let me know if I

lose you here. When you buy and sell dollars or any form of currency, there's a 50-50 chance of you buying or selling and the value against each other. But when it comes to points currency, the buying side or the earning of the points only represents 30% of the transaction. 70%, in other words, the majority of the value is the selling side or the redeeming for travel side. So if you don't know how to use your points, if you're just clicking the travel button within your credit card company, you've automated. lost. You've missed out. Okay. And that's why I have all these online courses that do so well, because it shows you exactly how to set up these frequent flyer programs and hotel groups,

how to connect them to the credit card companies, how to search for tickets, what prices to look for, when to transfer the points, and the taxes, what seats are choose. All of the details around that makes the difference, right? Many hands make light work. And for every gem that I drop, that's another few percent that you can save. And the way that I love to describe it is, if you have, say, 100,000 points, to you, to the average, to the average consumer, that 100,000 points is worth $1,000 worth of free travel, right? So you get roughly 1% back of the points that you've achieved. But if you use those points correctly, that's worth $7,000 worth of free travel. And now that you've got credit cards that even, you've got credit cards

that even just the sign-up bonus, just for getting the credit card, give you that amount. Well, now you're talking about if you get two or three new credit cards in a year, in the right order, the right sequence at the right time, all right, and you've got the organic spend to meet those sign-up bonuses. Forget about the points you're getting every day. Just the sign-up bonuses alone, you can do $20,000, $30,000 worth of free travel, right? And I, you know, curiously, people always assume that I'm like a multi, they see me on TV. They're like, oh, he's a billionaire.

he's like Grant Cardone. I'm not. I'm a very normal human. And last year, I did $136,000 worth of free travel. And when people hear that, it sounds like BS. They're like, this is a joke. He sounds like a secondhand car salesman. And that is originally the reason that I opened up an Instagram account, right? And to show people, in my stories, every day, I scream, it's a free travel day. And I tell people what I did to get that free travel. and I show them how I get to the airport for free, how it gets through security for free, I go to the lounges for free, I get on a plane, I turn left for free.

The entire thing, and I explain mathematically which credit card, where I moved the points, how I booked it, done, no, no, that. And that's what makes the difference. It's that detail. And I think that the average American thinks,

oh, yeah, I've got an American Express card or a Citibank card. I'm doing great. What does this guy know? All right, well, I didn't see you on today's flight. So you must be doing something. different. But people want to find these stories to these stories. You're at the points partner on Instagram, the points partner.com as well. Yes, that's me. That's where I live. Let's back this

way up, Owen. How do you even start with doing this? Okay. So I, we didn't even, you and I just jumped straight into it. I didn't even. I love it. Yeah, they have no idea who I am. I'm going to, we already covered that in the intro. I'm British. I'm British royalty. That's all you need to know. So originally, My father and I owned a paparazzi photography company back in London. This is going back 20, 30 years ago. And my job, I had a team of 1,500 photographers, and my job was to run them and chase celebrities around planet Earth getting photos of them.

This is a true story. You can look it up. The company was called W-E-N-N-N, World Entertainment News Network. So I spent my entire working life on a plane essentially chasing celebrities. And it was back in 2005, I got a phone call asking me to cover the breakdown of Britney Spears in Los Angeles. When she shaved her head. Correct. It was that week that I came to America. Now, for me to come to America and do a job was not a big deal.

I used to come every six weeks to shoot somebody or other. So this wasn't a big deal. And back then, we didn't know that this breakdown was going to last. Well, it's still going on now, isn't it, Chris? So I didn't know that. So I came out for a week to cover Britney Spears. And her breakdown just lasted longer. So I stayed out here and I was flying backwards and forwards.

And I'll cut a long story short. I ended up living here in Hollywood. And the industry kind of just went in the wrong direction. It started getting very aggressive, too many people, too much money. And I kind of quit at the top. I quit while it was still the golden era of paparazzi and there was still money to make. And I was looking for something else to do. And realistically, my only skill set outside of chasing celebrities was

flight-related because I'd spend every day on planes. I'd found all the tricks to get upgraded to be with celebrities on planes to ask questions and get into lounges. So I kind of came up with the idea. I'd spend so much time helping friends and family pick credit cards, show them how to move points. It seemed natural that I would do something surrounding credit cards or points. And I came up with the idea of the points partner. And I went to buy pointspartner.com and it was $30,000. And then I put very, very, in front of it, and it was $2.99. So for $2.99, I started the points partner, and for many years, I was seeing clients privately

here in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills, helping rich folk fly for free, which as a business, it made lots of money. But as the morals behind it was, I can help people that can't afford to fly, fly. And I can help people that can afford to fly, flying business class for nothing. So it didn't make sense to help a small population of very wealthy people. So I flipped the whole thing on its head and created an online course, which is called the Fly Free Academy. And now I can help millions of people every single day for a fraction of what I was charging before. And I'm able to help the average American now, which for me, I sleep better at night on my bed on a plane knowing that.

How many flights a year do you take? I don't take as many as people think. On an average year, I do about 50 or 60 flights. So I'm also a single dad. I live in Los Angeles. My girlfriend lives in New York. My parents live in London. So what I tend to do is every other week I'm in New York

and every other week I'm in L.A. with my daughter. And then every three or four weeks, either me and my parents go on vacation, me and my girlfriend go on vacation or me and my daughter go on vacation. And unrelated to treating planet Earth like my house, because I don't have my family in my house. One's in New York, one's in London. So I treat that as walking around the house. My actual passion in life is travel, and I don't consider that travel. So for me, it's going to the depths of Southeast Asia, or it's going to South America or Africa

or the Middle East. That for me is my passion. So when I'm on planes, I'm actually planning other. trips. So like this week alone, I've planned a trip for my girlfriend and I to Colombia. I planned another trip for, I just booked Valentine's week. We're going to go to Japan. And all of this is done using points and miles from credit cards. And it's all done in business class, or at least the international stuff is. In fact, that's another thing that people are always surprised by is that I'm mainly flying coach domestically. And even though I can fly in

business class, it's the amount of points that it takes is not relative to the experience or the value. I'll give you an example. I live in Los Angeles. If I want to go business class to New York, that's 25,000 points, right? But for 25,000 points, I could fly 16 hours to Asia in coach. So when you look at the value of those two flights, to me, I'd rather save my points for the bigger trips and in business class. I can go to Asia and back. What would it cost a class? What would it cost a fly economy from here to New York on points? Oh, 5,000 miles. Oh, this is five times the amount. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing. So, you know, I treat, you know, domestic, flying in coach is free for everyone on earth. You can get on a plane for free, just pay the taxes in America.

It's $5.60 and you can bounce around. You can get one credit card from my website that doesn't even have an annual fee, and already you're flying for free domestically. That's not, fun. For me, I'm way beyond that. I can help other people do that. But the bit that I care about is a sweet spot of your average American who earns a living doesn't have to be a fortune. It can be $30,000, $40,000 a year, right, that pays once a year to go on vacation to Mexico or Hawaii. Those people, A, I can get rid of that cost. And B, I can times it by five. You can have five trips, and you can do it in business class and have beds on planes. You can have lounges at airports, champagne and be treated like the kings and queens that you are. And it's not rocket science. It's not

BS. It's math. And in fact, when you really take away the sexiness of me showing you beds on planes and flying around the world, I'm actually in the business of financial literacy. You actually peel it away. It's math that I'm teaching. There's no magic source. I'm not teaching inside my course secrets that no one else knows. I'm explaining it in a way that you can utilize it. It's math. And that math is only relevant if you can get credit cards. And those credit cards are only relevant if you have good credit. And you can only have good credit if you're financially literate. So actually, I'm a boring math teacher teaching finance who dresses it up as sexy free vacations with beds on planes. So when you talk about good credit, what would you be

considering to be good credit? So when you talk about credit, most people talk about their credit score, right? And that credit score is a quantification of how trustworthy you are to lend money to. Now, that is not what the underwriter of a credit card company uses. They don't even look at your credit score. They look at your credit profile, which is the detail behind that. How many people have lent you money? When did you pay them back? How much did you borrow? And all of the details surrounding that. So you shouldn't confuse the two, but if we are to look at it as a number, around 700, credit score is at the point where you can go on my website and pretty much start applying for any of these travel rewards credit cards. But that doesn't tell the full story, but that's a good

starting point. How many credit cards do you currently have? Currently have 48 different products, but that doesn't mean number of credit cards. So a lot of these credit cards, I'll have authorized users. I'll have extra cards under those account. So the actual total amount that I have is probably about 150. But there are 48 different styles of credit cards that I have. That doesn't mean that everyone else should have that. I'm a professional. And I know the rules, the sequencing, and how to manipulate and use credit responsibly. Right. So my credit score is actually 839. It's almost perfect. Wow. Yeah. And that's why I started, we started this conversation with, I wanted to dispel that myth, but getting credit cards as bad for your credit score. So the most important

part of your credit is made up of payment history, right? You're actually paying on time. But after that, it's what's called your credit utilization. And your credit utilization is the percentage of your available credit that you use each month. I'll give you an example, Chris, right? Yeah. I don't want to confuse the hell out of you. And you or any of your listeners, if you have a credit card that, say, has a limit of $10,000 and you spend $5,000 this month, you are at 50% utilization. And the credit bureaus ideally want to see you use less than 10% of your available credit. So if you get a new credit card that gives you more available credit or added to your existing credit, and you're spending the same amount every month, which you should be, then the percentage that you're using has gone

down, which means your credit score goes up. And that's how you end up with gangsters like me with a fistful of credit cards and a almost perfect credit score. And that's when this financial literacy piece comes into it, right? It's not as sexy as the beds on planes, but it's an important part of it. It's a part of that chronological order. What's the one trip that you are most proud of? Like, you've traveled all around the world. You've stayed in so many amazing places, flown on so many amazing aircrafts. What's the one trip that start to finish? You're so proud of. Just before the pandemic, me and my best friend went from Los Angeles to turn. Tokyo. We did a week in five-star hotels across Japan, took the bullet train across to the other

side of Japan to Osaka, took business class from there to Shanghai, China, spent New Year's even Shanghai, China, five-star hotels, and then business class back, or back to Los Angeles. In total, it was about $22,000 worth of travel. And I think out of pocket, it would have cost us. $118, but I actually paid myself back with the points just to say that the entire thing was free. But essentially, it was 100 bucks, just over 100 bucks to do that. And I explain to people on my Instagram every day and in my online course, exactly how to do this stuff.

It's not cheating. It's not hacking. I hate this phrase, travel hacker. It doesn't exist. When you look up the definition of the word hacker, it says that you're cheating or breaking something. I am not cheating or breaking anything. I keep it within the rules and regulations, the terms and conditions of every single credit card company, frequent flyer program, hotel program. The government don't hate me. The police don't hate me. The credit car companies

don't hate me. The airlines don't hate me. The private lounges don't hate me. In fact, quite the opposite. They kind of like me because I'm promoting using their products and services to have these experiences. So, you know, it can be done by anyone. This is not. This is not aspirational. I hate it when you flip through Instagram and TikTok and you see people showing off with their Bugates and their islands, right? And I don't think it's healthy for the average American to see that. So what I like to do is bring some of that luxury of life back down to earth and you'll see me, show me on beds on planes, but then I'll be talking over it and saying, you can do this, transfer your, you know, whatever it is, your city bank points into Air France, upgrade it to doing this, click that,

move this and I tell people that they can do it and I show them how to do it and then they go do it and then they tag me and wake me up at 4 o'clock in the morning and if I'm honest there's I'm always jet lagged anyway I'm up every 10 minutes my my my you know they say like every company should have a story now or they should have a mission statement my mission statement is I want to be woken up in the middle of the night with a DM with a picture of you on a bed on a plane for free that is my mission statement. I would just encourage you to turn your notifications off. Your life will be so much better if it's not buzzing all the time. You might have just sold the mystery of all the gray hair on my head. So if someone has never turned left on an airplane before and they want to take a trip

halfway around the world, let's say it's Europe, what credit card do you recommend they get and make this happen? There is no such thing as a good credit card or a bad credit card. What there is is a good credit card for you and a bad credit card for you. So how do we know what's good or bad for you? Your starting point is to print out your credit card statement from last month. Look at where you spend your money. And is it in any one of these six places? Food, drink, gas, travel, marketing or office supplies. If you spend any money in any one of those categories, which everyone does because everyone's alive and therefore eats, okay, then you need to find credit cards on my website that are going to give you more points just for your food and drink. And right now,

for food and drink, there are two credit cards that clearly hands down work with everyone else. You've got the Citibank Premier card, which is the most popular card on my website for the last two months. It's $95 annual fee. It comes with an 80,000 point sign-up bonus. That's three and a half thousand dollars worth of travel if you know what you're doing right without knowing what you're doing it's worth 800 bucks and it gives you three times points on your food your drink your gas and travel so you can use that credit card for pretty much everything for your day-to-day life and you are crushing it the other credit card that's that i think is a great starting option is the american express rose gold card okay now this card has a two-endale

$250 annual fee, but they give you back 240 of it in credits for places that we all use. Grubhub, seamless, Uber, Uber eats, a whole bunch of places, right? So realistically, the card is $10. Comes with a 60,000 point sign-up bonus, which is $3,000, if used efficiently. And it gives you a whopping four times points on all of your food and drink. That is grocery stores, supermarkets, cafes, coffee houses, bars, restaurants, food delivery, delicatessens everywhere. The only exclusions is Walmart and Target.

So let's just do some basic math, all right? If your listeners haven't fallen asleep yet, I'm going to tell you just that one card, what that looks like. You get 60,000 points as a sign-up bonus. The average person in America spends about $1,000 a month on all of those food and drink categories combined, right? So that's all the supermarkets, the food, the cafes, everything. So that means you'll be getting 4,000 points a month. Plus, you still get one point for every dollar spent anywhere else. Let's chuck in another thousand bucks of gas, water, electricity,

shopping, doctors, lawyers, dentists, clothing, all that stuff, right? So we're going to call it 5,000 points a month on average. That means at the end of year one, you'll have about 60,000 points, plus you have the 60,000 points that you've got as a sign-up bonus. So you'll be sitting pretty with about 120,000 American Express points. Now, if that's all you do is get that card and use it for your life, that's about $1,200 worth of free travel. But if you learn the skill set that I teach of transferring those points out of the credit card companies and into a frequent flyer program of an airline, that is enough for a round-trip business class, six-foot, lay flat bed from anywhere in America to anywhere in Europe or Asia and back again. And if you were to buy that ticket,

right now would be about somewhere between $7,000 and $9,000, and you will have paid $10 for it. And for those reasons, mathematically, not my opinion. Nothing to do with relationships I have with airlines or credit card companies. Mathematically, that is a slam dunk. So what you're saying is if you pay your credit cards off on time every month, there is zero reason you should ever be buying anything on a debit card. One hundred. There is one.

Okay, first thing I would say is no one should have a credit card unless you treat it like a debit card. You spend money that you have in your bank account and you pay it off in full every single month, put it on auto pay and don't touch it. That's absolute absolute starting point, non-negotiable. Don't phone me, don't text me, don't invite me on your podcast unless you're paying your bills on time. That's the number one thing. Thank you for bringing that up. Let's talk about the use of a debit card.

There is one use of a debit card only. When you stay in a hotel for free on points and you go downstairs to the bar and you get drunk and eat food for free with the benefits, of your credit card. If you go back upstairs to your room and you've forgot your room key at the bar, you can take your debit card and you can kind of shimmy it in the side of the door and you might get your door open. That is the only use of a debit card. I think one of the other great advantages of a credit card is the protection that you have,

whether that's against something being damaged, stolen or even like when you rent a car. Absolutely. People always assume that my skill set is just. on points and miles. It's not. It's of all benefits of credit cards. And I'm pleased you mentioned that. Purchase protection is the number one most useful thing on the high-end premium credit cards. Now, you do get purchase protection on pretty much all of these cards, but the good stuff is on like the business platinum card, the personal platinum card, the Capital One Venture X. Those credit cards, if you're making a large purchase of something that is a value to you,

and I would say anything above, you know, $500 to $1,000 is of value to you that isn't consumable. So not tickets to a show, not food, not drink, not gas. I'm talking about TVs, tables, washing machines, anything's artwork, any, you know, that has substantial value, don't worry about the points. You'll have plenty more points, trust me. Worry about the purchase protection.

If you go to the Apple store and buy a laptop using your debit card and you walk out and it gets stolen from you the second you walk out of the Apple store, you're going back in the Apple store and spending another $2,000. Me and you, Chris, we're just going to phone American Express or Citibank and they're going to give us the money straight back. And I think that that purchase protection is something that gets overlooked by the sheer sexiness of free travel when we talk about credit cards. I'm a little embarrassed. I feel like I've been doing this all wrong. I fly so much. And I think I put a real emphasis on being executive platinum with American. And I've been using, I'm sure you're familiar with this card.

Yep. It's made of metal. It has a very expensive annual fee. Yeah. So listen, you're paying the best part of 500 bucks a year for the pleasure of that card. And the major benefit of that card is that you get access to American Airlines loungers, which is one brand of lounge. On a traditional premium credit card,

which has a similar value, you would have priority pass select, which would be 1,200 lounges around the world. And if you pick certain credit cards, you'll get extra lounges on top of that. So, for example, Capital One Venture X, you'll get access to the Capital One lounges as well. If you choose American Express Platinum or Business Platinum card,

you'll get access to the Amex Centurion lounges, and Delta Lounge, if you're flying Delta that day. So when you start to break down what these benefits are, there are some people that that credit card makes a lot of sense for. If you work for a company that pays for your travel and they exclusively put you on American Airlines, sure, it makes sense for you to have their card and go to their lounges. But if you're an average consumer that takes a different airline,

goes to a different place, different airports, different terminals, different lounges that are available, then you're going to want a generic credit card, that gives you access to all of those. And the irony is, most of the time, they work out cheaper to have more access. And those points are flexible. The point that AMRs that you're getting on that credit card, you can only use on that airline. So what happens if American Airlines hasn't got the time that you want to fly?

Or the price that you like. And that's when the flexibility of that, of credit card points kicks in. Because you can use them, they can act as credit card points in their own travel portal. They can act as air miles when you want them to with a whole host of different airlines. And they can act as hotel points if you need them to, if you need a place to stay. And they can even act as cashback if you lost your job during the pandemic and you can help you pay your bills. And it's that flexibility and freedom that gives credit card points so much greater value than getting air miles. And on top of that, when you're spending day-to-day co-branded credit cards, when you get these credit cards with airlines and,

credit card companies, they don't give you very good multiples for your day-to-day spend. They give you good multiples for spending money with them. Credit card companies will give you more points and they're worth more for day-to-day spend, food, drink, gas, the stuff that you're swiping on every single day of the week. You're blowing my mind here. You just get me warmed up. This is so good. And look, I have a real soft spot for this because my father worked for Luftanz of the German airline

for his entire career. He's so passionate, so passionate about travel. And I know he's going to be listening to this episode. So, hi, Dad. My sister then inherited that same thing. She works for WestJet. So like, and I fly all the time. So this is like, I feel like it's in our blood. So I'm going to, I'm going to drop a secret here, but I don't know if your listeners know. You're originally from Canada, correct? Right. That is not a secret. Well, it might be to new listeners. I don't know. We don't know. So West, Jet is a technical partner of Delta. And one of the sweet spots of Delta is booking any Delta flight in America to Canada on WestJet.

And it can be done for as little as 4,000 air miles. Now, when you start to look at it like that, remember that's backtracked when we were talking about the American Express Rose Gold Guard that gives four times points. That means every month you can afford a flight back to Canada. using that card, assuming that you eat. That's how simple this stuff gets. And you can transfer Amex points directly into Delta, and they become Delta Sky Miles, right? So that means for your average person,

if they wanted to come visit your parents' house in Canada, they could do that for free every month of the year. I've made a note here that I'll be applying for the American Express Rose Gold card after this. So why we're on that subject? My website is one of the top websites in the country for applications of credit cards. And the reason for that is 80% of applications of credit cards don't go well. Either you get denied or they tell you they want to think about it and they send you a letter in the mail 10 days later.

What I offer, which to my knowledge, I'm one of a handful of people across the country that offers this is apply for your credit cards on my website. Yes, I do get a kickback. They send me a couple of bucks. but in return I am available. So if you have questions or you have an issue surrounding that application or your credit card in general, you can get hold of me. I do this for a living. So you can DM me and ask me questions, send me pictures.

How do I do this? Can I move my credit? Can I downgrade this card? That's what I'm here for. So absolutely, if people are going to get that rose gold card or the city premier card or any one of these other cards, please do it on my website, the points partner. dot com. The other thing I'll say is when you're looking at credit cards on my website, don't be fooled by the big shiny numbers. All points are not created equal. Okay. The most valuable are credit

card points. Okay. Then it is air miles and then it is hotel points. So if you see cards that give you 150,000 points sign up, but it's a hotel card, that is worth less than 40 or 50,000 credit card points. And that's where this stuff starts to get a little bit more complicated, which is why I created the online course, so to break it down for people, because I'd get people all the time saying, I just scored 150,000 points on your website for nothing. Yeah, but that's not worth even 35,000 say city bank points or Capital One points or American Express points. And it's understanding that all points are not created equal that is the key to you choosing what's going to work best for you. I think there's going to be a lot of people listening that will want to go check out your course.

So that's on the points partner.com as well. Yeah, yeah. You just head over to my website. It's called the Fly Free Academy. And you twisted my arm. I've got a discount code for all of your listeners, which is C, VV. V. That's pretty easy, everyone. CVV. It doesn't get much easier than that.

And that will get them 15% off. Oh, my gosh. And that will be valid until the end of the coming month, which is end of September. So they're good to go. Okay. What else you want to talk about? What are you having for lunch today? My goodness.

Thank you so much. I don't know how you contain so much knowledge inside of your brain, but more importantly, how you're able to articulate it so eloquently. And maybe that's just the British accent, I don't know. Yeah, I'm actually useless. It's just the British accent gets me by in America. That's why I'm making it. No, I see what it is, Chris, is at heart, I'm an educator.

I know how to explain to people in a way that they can understand by speaking slowly, and at the same time making it sexy enough and entertaining enough to hold their attention, right? There are plenty of people that know this stuff. I am not a genius, but can they tell to you, can they get on this podcast and be able to reach people and it be entertaining at the same time? That's the challenge, which is why I scream and I shout and I have a stupid accent, and I try and make it as entertaining as possible, because as I said, fundamentally, this is a math class. This is financial literacy, dressed up and garnished in a sexy bikini, which is beds on planes for free. Before we wrap this up, talk to me about the best bed on a plane for free.

Is it Emirates, like, where you have your own, like, room? So here's the thing. There's an argument on this one. People in the industry, I would say the top two or three is Singapore Air First is phenomenal. Qatar Q suites is phenomenal. But those are what I call aspirational travel. You're doing it for the sake of saying I had the best suite on a plane. For less points, you can get business class all year round on other carriers that's still a six foot lay flat bed with seven course meals. You know, I love Delta One, Delta's product going from the West Coast to Asia. You get your own sushi chef.

and here's where it gets fun. Here's where it gets fun, is that most people don't know about that, and it doesn't come as standard. You need to ask. So I'm sitting next to a guy who's paid $12,000 for that ticket, and I'm sitting there for free,

and I've got my own sushi chef, and he's eating the plastic food packages. It was hysterical. Knowledge is power, Chris. Like, if you don't know, you don't know what you don't know, right? So it just depends. When you've traveled as much as I have,

I would say this, don't waste your points of miles on aspirational travel. Go from paying $1,000,000, sitting upright in the back of the bus to paying nothing and get yourself a bed at the front in business class. And that, if you just stick to that rule, that is a slam dunk win all around financially and your lifestyle as well.

So enjoy the travel. They always say life is not about the destination. It's about the journey. Well, let me tell you something. You will have a better vacation if you're not jet lagged and you've been sleeping all night instead of sitting upright hurting your neck on the plane. This is so, so good. Owen, thank you for all of this.

And I end every conversation with the same question because I'm all about gratitude. I start and end every day saying out loud three things that I'm grateful for. So what are three things in your life that you're grateful for? Three things I'm grateful for in my life. I am grateful for the. capacity of other people. We spend a lot of time as a society moaning and being negative about other people, but the good people and the good thoughts and the good intentions don't get the headline. So I'd like to give them that. I am grateful for the people that I have around me

specifically. Your net worth is your net work. It's been said a million times, right? but you can't expect to succeed in life. And I'm not talking about just finances. I'm talking about any aspect of your life if you don't surround yourself with people that are of a similar mindset. And the third thing I'm grateful for, and this is going to sound cheesy and it will make you laugh, but I genuinely am very, very grateful for credit card points.

I was wondering how long we would take to get to free travel. I left it as long as I could. What do you want me to tell you? If you took away all my points, I would be a broken man. I would be a broken man. Owen, thank you so much. My absolute pleasure. Any time you want me back, I'm here.

So, so good. Thank you to Owen for dropping all that knowledge. His website again is the points ofartner.com. Use that code. CBV for 15% off his course. And, you know, I was thinking if you've never been on a plane before or you've never travel before, this feels like the perfect way to do it. If you have solid credit, if you pay your credit cards off, I mean, why not make that work for you, right? Snap a screenshot, share it on

social media. Let us know what the biggest thing that you learned from this is, or perhaps let us know where you're going to fly to first and tag us so we can share it out. He's at the points partner. I'm at Chris Van Fleet, and I think this quote says it best. Travel leaves you speechless. then turns you into a storyteller. Be great and be grateful. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes.

So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of Sports Smack. Ticket manage you, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast.

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