She's On The Money - Points Hacking (No Credit Card Required)

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Think you need a fancy black Amex credit card to start points hacking? Think again. Because, today, we're joined by our very own resident points queen, Jess Ricci and she spills exactly how you can stack points, cash in bonuses, and score free flights, KitchenAids, and even Dyson vacuums... without ever swiping a credit card. We’re sharing the real rules of smart points hacking, why loyalty programs actually make companies money (and how we’re flipping that to our advantage), plus the stacking tricks, bonus offers, and sneaky little hacks you need to know. Inside This Episode: ✈️How to actually make points work for you (without spending more)✈️The best loyalty programs to jump on right now✈️Smart bonus stacking 101: double dip, triple dip, WIN✈️When to use your points for flights vs upgrades vs shopping✈️The real rules of savvy points hacking (and what to ignore) Join our 300K+ She's on the Money community in our Facebook Group and on Instagram.  Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

hello and welcome to she's on the money the podcast that lets you in on all the money secrets you need to know to live your best life. Because let's be honest, if someone told you that you could fly business class without dropping thousands of dollars or getting a fancy credit card, you'd want the tea, right? Of course. Exactly. Well, today we are absolutely delivering and we're doing things slightly differently. As no surprise to anybody, hopefully, my name is Victoria Devine. And joining me on the podcast today is not our usual deep dive Bex Syed. Don't worry, she's fine. We've kept her in a cupboard to the side, like she's in storage for now. But she's just not the certified point hacker like the guests we have in studio today,

which I obviously gave a really good, what would we call that? You gave it away. Yeah, I gave it away. I gave it away. She's part of the She's On The Money team. And honestly, She is the most points savvy person I know. It's the one and only Jessica Ricci. Hello. Welcome back to a Wednesday episode. Oh my goodness, thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

It's been a while, but the second this topic came up, I was like, oh, guys, I'm really sorry about this, Bec, but you're not allowed to be on this episode. I love you, but it will just be me telling you about points. But if we get Jessica, it can be Jessica telling me about points and I think that's a good deal. I'm pretty happy with that. I think it's really good.

Now, when we say points hacking, a lot of people automatically think about flights, which, yeah, you can totally get that. But that's just the beginning, isn't it, Jess? Jess, I have personally witnessed this. It's not just me being like, oh, I heard Jess did this. I have witnessed this. And I've seen you snag some truly iconic rewards with your points. And none of it actually involved you having to have a fancy black Amex or even a credit card at all. So before we get into the how, let's just dive into Jess, what have you bought with your points oh in the last few years I've had some goodies I got a Dyson vacuum I got my KitchenAid I feel like the OGs know this story the KitchenAid was a community effort I feel like you were

tracking the points I was hustling you were hustling the points but the community was your biggest cheerleader and I love that thing I use it all the time and what else I got AirPods pros with points as well and that's just in the last like four years so it's like not taking me that long either really to do it. So there's been some goodies. I agree, Jess. And also I need to just lay this out, right? Because she's on the money. We aren't here for like just spending to get a reward. Absolutely not. We are not buying things because points are associated. We are buying things because we are intentional with our spending. This is just like a little sugar or cream on the top, right? It's not about spending for the sake of getting a really shiny reward.

So I've got some rules before we start talking about this. All right. So points are fabulous. We love points in this house. Extra value for stuff you were already going to buy, Jess? Slay. We love that. But buying random things that you didn't need because you saw in the catalogue that there were bonus points this week? Not slay. That is not the vibe. In fact, studies have shown, and this is me like about to promote loyalty programs, but then also I'm just going to shit on them a little bit to the start because like we need to just get on the same page right so studies have shown that loyalty programs can actually increase customer spending by 12 to 18 percent and can increase company revenue by 25 to get this Jess 95 percent that's crazy and I

need to get that down because otherwise why Jess would companies have loyalty programs to begin with if it's not driving sales why would you take the time the energy spend all of that effort on building a program if it's not adding to the bottom line. It's a great point. They're making money from giving us points, but we're smarter than that. We are going to take their points for spending things we were already going to spend, right? So now I've laid out a few of the ground rules. Jess, what would be your first tip for someone wanting to maximize the points from their everyday spend? I think like one of the first things you want to look at is what I call it an ecosystem. You've got an ecosystem? I've got an ecosystem. Jessica. Because exactly as you're

saying, if we're trying to collect points, doing the things we're already doing, thinking about petrol, thinking about where do we buy our groceries, thinking about what stores do you shop at a lot, because there's two major camps in Australia. There's Velocity, which is paired with Flybuys. And then there's Qantas, which is paired with Everyday Rewards. Those are the two major camps. But if you're Jess, you have all of those, don't you? You absolutely can do a little bit of everything. Yeah. Like it's free to sign up. Like I want to have Flybuys and I want to have everyday rewards like pop off queen well and that's it I think like a lot of people will find and I find that I am a Coles Kmart girly velocity is perfect for me but I do still have everyday

rewards so if I happen to find myself in a Woolies I'm still gonna see this is where I'm a bit silly Jess because I'm definitely more of a like velocity points and flybuys points girly because like I think we all know like I prefer to fly virgin so I want my virgin points but I also shop at Coles because it's my local and like everybody knows I love a Kmart. So that camp works best for me, but it's kind of like comparing Taylor. No, it's not. It's not like comparing Taylor Swift and Beyonce. They're not comparable, but I tried to make a comparison that would hopefully tell you like it's in a way, much of a muchness. But for me, I probably should get everyday rewards as well for the random times I found myself in Woolies. Just because you might as well is my

Exactly. Exactly. So what do we need to be thinking about when we're like signing up? Because I think for most of us, just like me, I like lean towards one kind because it just aligns more with just the spending that I already have. So it's totally that. It's identifying where you shop the most, like what, you know, you want to do to maximize. So if you're someone who flies more with Virgin or flies more with Qantas, that might influence the choice that you make. If you're planning to use your points for flights, it's also worth checking which airline partners are associated because it's not just Virgin and Qantas that fly. Both of them have partner airlines that you can also, I know that when I went to Japan, I think it was, might've been Air

Japan was under the Virgin umbrella. Yeah. There's a lot of them. Correct. I think people think that you have to fly Virgin. You don't have to fly Virgin. You have to fly a airline that is going to accept velocity points. Exactly. And like on their website, they have literally so many of them that you can look up. Jess, I just want to segue into this. Cause I've just remembered. So we're talking about, you know, having points and I've said like, I want velocity points and fly bys. And last year I signed up for one pass. And do you remember the message I was sending you? I was like, Jess, like Jess and I were texting back and forth. Cause like, we aren't just like on the podcast talking about this stuff. It's in our real life. I'm like, I feel like I have

hacked the system. Did you know, if you sign up for one pass, you get all of these points. And if you like link it on your phone, you can get double points every time that you shop at Kmart. And like, we were just like on their website, trawling through the terms and conditions. I was like, this has to be capped. It's not capped. So tell me a little bit more about, I guess, other loyalty programs that connect to the ones that we already have to increase our spend. Cause like, that's like OnePass, which I think not that many people have heard about. OnePass is a great one. And we've seen OnePass and the other major supporting or loyalty program is Everyday Extra, which is Everyday Rewards. They're both paid programs, but they both go on

sale. We've seen both of them go on sale. Boxing Day, that's when I signed up for mine. So last year I got it for 50% off. So instead of, I think it's meant to be like $4 a month, I get it for $2 a month. Thanks guys. And we've, Everyday Rewards have gone on sale, I think for half price as well. So keep an eye out because you can sometimes pick up that membership at a discounted price. They also will often have additional perks. So for one pass, I know that you can get free shipping on catch. You get, you know, your four times points on every spend for everyday rewards. You get, is it 5% I think off of a shot once a month, it might be 10%. I think it's 10%. I don't know, but like, it's pretty good. The one thing that I will say is I hate when I get to check out and

I'm like checking out, I've scanned my flybys thing. And then it pops up and says, do you want to spend flybys points? Cause I'm like, I don't want to accidentally hit yes, because I just want to be really clear. Love you flybys, love you one pass, but that's actually a really bad exchange of points for money. So like if you're at the checkout and you're like, oh, maybe I should pay with points. I mean, if you're straight for cash, great option, but you're not getting good ROI. Like you're not getting a good exchange rate. And we need to consider that too, which is like when we talk about, or when I talk about the exchange rate, right. It's like, how many points per dollar are we basically getting? Like that's really low. But did you know,

Sorry, side note. Tell me more. If you go into your frequent flyers app, you can turn that notification off when you scan in at Coles. I used to do that because it pops up all the time. Yeah, and I always have that minute of like, which one do I press? I don't want to do that.

I don't want to do that. Yeah. Yeah, so go turn that off. I know that you can do it because people have told me that you can do it, but I haven't done it for myself yet. So that's probably like a life admin task. We're both going to do it right after this episode. Yeah, okay.

All right. So you've told us that you actually have an ecosystem, which is absolutely not how I thought that this was going to go. I thought you're going to be like, yep. So points, you get one, you spend one, just got an ecosystem. And it turns out I do too. I did not realize. You should know it. But I didn't know that you call it an ecosystem and now it feels more legitimate. I've just got my flyby as my one pass. I've got all that set up. I've got it all attached to my velocity, but now we've picked an ecosystem. We've added our like a little booster, let's call them booster membership. So you've got your like one pass

all your everyday extras, but you're not done with us yet, are you? No, no, no. There's more to learn. Like otherwise we wouldn't have a whole episode for you. Yep. So you're absolutely right because I want to talk about bonus offers. And these are my favorite because they're very easy and weirdly kind of satisfying. Oh my goodness. Are they ever? Like talking about bonus, there was a bonus ages ago when I was buying my iPhone. This is probably not how normal people function. cards. Yes. Love it. You got a whole heap of points if you're buying gift cards, but the same amount of points on my phone wouldn't be it. And I remember there was like some weirdly specific like numeric value. You had to buy like a hundred dollar gift cards. Yeah. So I bought

like 20 of them. Yeah. Points queen. We love to see it. Points queen. You should have seen the receipt when I checked out with my iPhone because it was like this poor girl. Anyway, I regret nothing. Sorry about that. Well, both flybys and everyday rewards run in-app offers every single week. So if you don't have the apps, get the apps. There's things like if you spend a set amount of groceries, say $50 on groceries, you get a thousand bonus points. Money win. Or buy a specific product that they want to promote and you get triple the points. But you're already going to be spending money on groceries. Correct. If it means that you're like, oh, should I do the grocery shop today? Or, oh, hold on. Bonus points are on Monday. I might just push it out like a day or two if you

can or like specific point, can you build your menu around that? Well, that's it. Cause sometimes I'll even do one where it's like a four week challenge. It's like spend a hundred dollars every week for four weeks. So what we'll often do is push our higher ticket items out so that instead of buying, cause in our household, for example, I drink Pepsi Max, my boyfriend drinks Coke Zero. Excuse me. So we'll alternate the weeks. Excuse me. I know. Not even a diet Coke. Can you believe it? Yeah. Only diet Coke in this house. In saying that, I don't know if everyone's seen the video, I did a blind taste test of the two and it turns out I can't tell the difference. But if you show me the can, I know. They both taste like dirt. But Doreen,

so splitting up your higher priced purchases across those four weeks. I'm watching you just so you know, if you're going to, you're not going to be invited back on this podcast if you smack talk coke like that. So I deeply apologize. So activating those offers, keeping track of, you know, what's available, you can then, you know, build it around your half price specials and things like that to still keep your costs down while maximizing the points you can get. Yeah. I feel like people think this is really complicated and they're like, oh, I don't even know where to start with points. Baby, just sign up for flybys. You sign up for flybys. You can get the card. It's either a card you keep in your wallet or I have mine on my pay

pass. Like what is it? Like the Apple Pay or whatever it is. Your Apple wallet or your Google wallet? Yeah, it's in there. It's just on my phone. I'm just collecting points. It's not going to happen overnight, but then you'll check and one day you'll be like, new iPod Maxes. Perfect. iPod? AirPod. AirPod Maxes. And that's a good reminder for people. Pop your cards in your wallet because I feel like the barrier for a lot of people is not remembering that they have it. Or if you have a partner and you only have one card, put them on your Apple wallets. Or if you're like me and you have become a mom and you are spending a lot at Kmart, lol jokes, everybody spends a lot of money at Kmart, but I feel like I'm keeping them in business by buying their baby

clothes. Link your cards through your like Kmart login. So it's like one and done. So you don't have to remember when you're online checking out all the information is just like in there. But Like I do that through my one pass anyway. Yeah. But we've picked our program, Jess. We've, you know, doubled up, we've boosted our points. But besties, we are just getting started. So we're going to go to a really quick break.

And after the break, Jess is going to take us even deeper into the world of point stacking and how to make even more points go even further. Stick around. Jess, welcome back. I'm very excited that you are still here. thanks for sticking around even though you're like Pepsi, not Diet Coke. But before we go any further, I was doing a bit of research for this episode and I actually have to talk about this

now. I feel like it is like the wildest points hack of the year and it involves a bath toy. Oh, I have seen these. Tell us all about it. So a few weeks ago, Big W had this random $3.50 like bath toy. It was literally like a duck, like a little yellow rubber ducky, right? And for some reason it was earning a thousand Qantas points per duck. Crazy. $3.50 for a thousand points, right? And because everyday rewards links to Qantas frequent flyer, a few very clever people, they worked out that by buying a couple of hundred ducks could actually score them business class flies for approximately $1,100. So they had done all of their numbers and worked out, all right, I need to buy this many rubber ducks.

Obviously they sold Big W out of bloody rubber ducks. Like literally it was posted like an hour before in a points hacking group on Facebook and then it sold out completely. And I just thought that was insane. I also don't endorse it though. So like, don't get me wrong. If you were planning on you know purchasing business class flights fantastic I think but also what waste like why are you buying you know 350 bloody rubber ducks Jess yeah like what are you going to do with that like it sounds good in theory but I think it was a bit of a mess up I don't think they meant to give you a thousand points on rubber ducks like I don't know the semantics of that situation but the idea that you're purchasing stuff you don't need for points I'm just like babe that's not it

that's not the point of points hacking. Points hacking for me is about spending money that I was going to already spend, but getting a bonus or a benefit for doing so. Yeah, definitely. And it's really easy to have, you know, I think going back to the bonus points thing, if there's something that you use and you know, you're always going to use, I've done it with like toilet paper or again, when soft drinks on sale or something that I know we use all the time, we buy it all the time. And if we've got the funds in our budget to purchase ahead, maybe we'll buy a couple of extra when they're on you know some kind of bonus point exactly but buying 350 rubber ducks as you said like i think it's fun and i loved reading the article

and it's clearly very relevant but for me it's actually not a benefit like what are you going to do start a rubber duck shop that's it i wonder what 350 people who want to buy rubber ducks yeah it's absolutely wasteful also what were you going to do return them Ew, no, no. Well, when you return things, they get rid of points. Exactly. So I think it's just, it's very important that we're taking this into consideration. So you've told me a lot about like the points stacking and that makes sense.

And I feel like I'm ticking all the boxes here, mainly guided by you, if I'm being honest. But one thing we haven't mentioned that isn't points, just we're obviously checking out online, getting some points for like, we're using Shopback, right? shop back cash rewards any kind of cash back platform is a great way to double dip yeah like double dipping like I want to double dip so if I can I'm ordering online because you can literally so if you're doing your like weekly grocery shop not only is it going to be more planned to do click and collect but you can literally check out through one of your cash rewards programs and like

get your five percent back or get you a couple of percent back and then your flybys points and it becomes like a game. Yeah. You are gamifying grocery shopping. And once you start thinking about it, it becomes really like second nature to go, okay, well, if I'm going to get something and they sell it at BW and they sell it at Kmart, well, I'm going to go to whichever one aligns with the points that I want to collect. A hundred percent. And I mean, you mentioned before like your petrol. And I feel like this is one that I hadn't thought about deeply enough. Now I have, obviously. But like at the time I thought, Oh, this ecosystem thing at the time, I didn't know it was an ecosystem. It just gets too complex. Like I'm like, Oh, is it like Caltechs? Do I go

to 7-Eleven? Like, where am I going to do this? Talk to me about partner stores. Like, cause like you have it all mapped out. Like, you know that these are the stores that I get the best rewards at. So like, I know you hold off getting petrol. You have literally broken down on the freeway before because you've been waiting to get petrol at the right petrol station. So don't be like Jessica. No. But I mean, we could learn a little bit. Definitely.

So I always fill up at a 7-Eleven or a Shell Coles Express because they're partnered with Velocity. And again, you can, like your one pass example you gave earlier, you can link all of these things online. So I use the 7-Eleven app that's got my Velocity card linked to it. So I scan my 7-Eleven app in store, which is great because I also will often scan it because I'm using the Fuel Lock program, saving money on fuel there. Again, we're double dipping where we can. If you are in Everyday Rewards camp, the Woolies fuel stations are the ones

that you want to fill up at. Both of those platforms also run bonuses. So at 7-Eleven, it'll often be, you know, buy a meat pie and something and get an extra 500 points. Speaking of meat pies, did you see my video on meat pies? Because I did a collab with 7-Eleven because obviously I'm obsessed with them. And I literally love working with 7-Eleven. Like this is so lame, but like my 7-Eleven partnership came from a spat I had online with a local coffee shop. Do you remember that condescending man who told me that if I wanted to afford the good things in life, like I probably should get a real job. Anyway, that was really fun. If you want to look up Coffee Gate, you can just Google Victoria Divine Coffee Shop and it'll come up. It's all

over the Daily Mail. But he also told me that if I can't afford the coffee at his coffee shop, because I had said online, oh my God, guys, like an oat latte for $7, like wasn't complaining. I was literally posting something that we were all thinking. Didn't name and shame his cafe, just to be very clear. It wasn't being rude. I posted a blank coffee cup, but he knew that I went to his cafe. So he was not impressed. And he told me that I should go to 7-Eleven. So you know what I did? I went to 7-Eleven and the coffee there was better. There you go. And a lot cheaper as well. A lot cheaper. But recently people were like, Victoria Devine doesn't eat meat pies. Like this video is phony. Jess, we love a meat pie. We love

a Slurpee. Our old office used to be, do you remember the one on Bourke Street? Used to be around the corner and we would literally be like, okay, cool. So if we get this one piece of work time, we get a meat pie and a Slurpee. It was the best. Literally, money win. Anyway, I just felt like I needed to say that because I am so proud of that partnership. But like, I talk about it because I love it, not because they're paying me, guys. And it fits in the ecosystem. Oh, I love an ecosystem. I'm going to refer to it as an ecosystem to my husband and see how he feels about that. It sounds fancy. It does. Another good one is Liquorland. They're linked to flybys. So if I'm restocking the wine rack, buying a bottle as a gift or throwing a party,

I'll always try and go there instead of going somewhere random because again, that's fair they'll sometimes offer points deals and when it comes to my car I will get my car serviced more often than not at my car I get my tires and stuff there too because that used to be the Kmart one right yeah so my cars Kmart tire and order I think rebranded they often include free roadside assistance with your service excuse me which I have used when I had my flat tire recently that is actually so funny Kmart free roadside assistance came out sorted me out but I got fly so this isn't the first time you've required roadside assistance oh no I'm a regular a customer. You're like, oh, I see that the fuel gauge is flashing red. That just must mean it's

having a good day. It's a rave day. But earning flyby points on my service, they sometimes will offer bonus points there as well. I think one time I got like 20,000 bonus points. So if you need a logbook service or something looked at, it's going to cost you a bit of money anyway. You might as well squeeze all the value you can out of it is my philosophy. And she literally does. Like that's why she's on this episode because she's so much better at it than I am. I'm like, oh, I don't have that many points. And then I kind of like, don't do that much about it. Jess is like, excuse me, what? Like you should see her account balance is honestly shocking. I would always say, just check the partner stores first. And remember, because I know

sometimes people will say, you know, the prices might not be as good, the place that's more favorable for your point system. But a lot of stores like Officeworks, for example, will price match and Officeworks is another one that's in the fly by system. Jess is not going to let you get away without getting a good deal. So, look at price matching as well if that's something that you're concerned about. 100%. And as I mentioned before, obviously, if you're shopping online, make sure you're using other platforms like Shopback so that you're getting cash back, but they aren't points related. But both Qantas and also Virgin, they have their own online shops or online malls or whatever we want to call it. So, basically, you can click through their site

before heading to, I guess, stores. So, you log into your Virgin and then go, oh, I do want to hit like the Iconica or I really want to go to Sephora or David Jones or whatever. But when you do it that way, you can often earn like bonus points on your shop. You're not necessarily spending your points, but you're like getting more points because you're logged in, which is a money win. And like Qantas actually have just like shop back. They have like a browser extension. It's called points prompter. And it just pops up while you're online shopping to let you know where like bonus points could be made. So it's like doing it for you, which I think is really cool. now I also wanted to touch on this I know that you buy stuff Jess like you're really good at like

getting like a stand mixer and stuff I have had this debate a few times with Brooke in our team who's also a very big points hacker like if she wasn't based in Perth this would be a three-way conversation but she would never buy things from the online shops that like Virgin or Qantas have because she's done the maths and the conversion doesn't make sense but then I also know that you're making sure you're like, well, I'm not just going to save it all for travel. Cause like, I was going to buy AirPods. My AirPods are free. I'm not going to like. For me, it's about like, if I want something, but I'm not prepared to pay the money for me, but you're absolutely right. I wanted to talk about it. Like the conversion is not incredible, but like you're getting an

item for free. That's a better deal than, you know, saving it for travel for you because you're like, well, I don't know when I'm going to do X, Y, or Z or like, that's not in my value system at the moment. It's like, yes, we want to make sure we know how to get the best possible deal. But also like Jess, she was never going to buy a stand mixer from KitchenAid that was like nearly a thousand dollars. Get it on points. Exactly right. But talk us through the best way to get the flights. Yeah. So when it comes to flights, there are actually a few good tips that have come out of our Facebook group. So I went through the Facebook group and was like, let's do a little roundup. Reward seats. So they're the seats that you can buy with your points. They are usually

limited and it usually works out to book really early for your holiday or your flight or book super last minute. So there are usually only four or fewer, which is wild, seats per flight in premium cabins available. And they go really quickly. Like remember when we were booking to go to the US Jess? Because we points hacked it. Yeah, we points hacked our way to the US. And like, just so you know, guys, we flew the whole team business class to the US. And it was lovely. Yeah, it was so nice. But it was because we were points hackers. But the way that we did that meant that, you know, we weren't on the most popular flight time, right? Like we all had a chat and we were like, okay, cool. Like we all want to fly business. We can be a little bit

flexible on this. And we booked so far in advance that meant that we could, but then on our return flights, we like hadn't worked it out. So we booked super last minute and ended up getting business class. So I think it's really important to understand how the booking works. Cause if you're like, Oh, I might go in like a month. I'm not going to lie to you. There's probably not going to be points flights available or your points are not going to go that far. Cause like your points to upgrade or to go on that flight might be all of your points or completely astronomical and a really bad like exchange, if that makes sense. Whereas the exchange that we did, it was incredibly reasonable. So I would be making sure that you're either booking soon as

the flights are released or getting ready to pounce like really last minute when the airlines actually just drop all of their unsold seats. Upgrades. So you know how people are like, should I, and this I guess is a good question, should I buy a flight with 100% points or should I buy the flight and then upgrade with points? Usually upgrades are going to get you better value than full redemptions. And that's what we did. So we had normal flights that we upgraded with points. Otherwise it would have been astronomical. So if you already paid for like an economy seat, using your points to upgrade to business or premium economy often gives way more bang for your buck than using points to book the flight outright. And I have done this

recently. I have a wedding in August. It is in Bali. I have booked flights, but the way that Steve and I did it. I booked economy flights and then we've just upgraded using points to fly business. Gorgeous. But I'm not going to pay for business class flights. Like, please don't get me wrong. I don't know at what point in my career I will be comfortable spending money, like that amount of money on business class flights. Crazy. Like at what point do you go, oh yeah, $10,000 is reasonable for flights. Yeah. And it's something that like, for me, I'm like, that's just something I could simply never afford until I started using points. And was like, oh, this is how people do it. Yes. Like even like, and please don't get me wrong. I am not

so silly to think that you're not looking at me and going, Victoria, you absolutely could afford $10,000 if you want to. Yes. And I am so grateful I can. That is a dumb financial decision on my behalf. I'm not doing it. Like I don't care how much money I have. I'm not wasting that much money on a flight, but you best believe my points will get me there. So if I'm on a business class flight, you best believe, girl, it's a flex because I've points hacked my way there. Incredible. The other thing I would say is consider using your points for accommodation instead of flights. So I was lucky enough that we had heaps of points when Steve and I did Europe. So we did Europe when Harvey was four months old and we actually booked a heap of our accommodation subsidized with points,

which ended up working so well. But another community member I saw in our Facebook group had shared that it worked out to be cheaper to pay cash for their flights to Europe. And then they use their points to cover 10 nights of accommodation in London and Barcelona. So flights aren't necessarily always the best value, especially when hotels in really big cities can be really, really expensive. So have a look at that. Cause like, I know that you and I are like, Oh, business class. So nice. But it's not always about just upgrading and having business class flights. Like sometimes I want my economy flights to be free, you know? Yeah. Like that's the biggest flex. Absolutely. Not spending money. And if you want to compare points to value,

because like I'm all about a ratio here, we all know I'm an investing queen, points value to the cash price, right? So you know how I was saying, oh, it's not a good exchange. How do you work out your exchange rate? I've got a stat for you. Oh, perfect. So before booking, I would divide the ticket cost by the number of points required. And if you're getting at least like 1.5 to 2 cents per point, that's a good deal. So I want it to be like 1.5 to 2 cents a point. That's a good deal. That's a good deal. If you want flexibility, I wouldn't limit yourself to just one airline's points either. Sorry. One of our She's On The Money community members actually shared that she prefers not to stick to just Qantas or Velocity. She actually collects both like

Jessica Ricci so that she has more options available across lots of different airlines and partners. And that honestly gives you a better shot at finding availability and sometimes better value for your points. And that's something to think about if that's important for you. So if today has taught us anything, Jess, it's that you actually just don't need a fancy credit card to start collecting points. And you actually don't need 600 duck bath toys. Like you really don't if you want to make points work for you. Totally. And the big reminder, you are collecting the points the points are not collecting you okay yeah I feel like people get like real like caught up in it and it's easy to it's addictive like I remember when you were like literally so close to

having enough points for your stand mixer which I think was your big first points purchase yeah like say this is genuinely something we talk about in our team all the time and you were like oh my god V I'm like 300 points away and you kept checking every day to see like what was coming in because you've linked everything. You're like, surely, surely now. Yeah, genuinely. Like we said earlier, the rewards can be amazing, but they only make sense if you're spending the money you are going to spend anyway. Exactly. All right. Well, I feel like that is a very good place to leave it. And ah, a very big thank you to our resident points queen, Miss Jessica Ricci for sharing all of her tips and her tricks and genuinely iconic hacks, even though I don't

agree with the fact that she drinks Pepsi with us today. And guys, if you enjoyed today's chat and now you're low-key planning on how to turn your grocery shop into a holiday or even a KitchenAid stand mixer, make sure you hit follow or subscribe so that you don't miss out on our next episode. And hey, if you've got a wild points win or a stacking strategy that we need to know about that we haven't covered today, please drop it into the She's On The Money Facebook group to benefit the whole community because we are always here for a points hacking suggestion. absolutely we are see you next week guys bye the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your

individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision if you do choose to buy a financial product read the pds tmd and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289.