The Personal Finance Podcast - How We Travel The World Completely Free! (Travel Hacking 101)

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Starting point is 00:00:56 Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk about how we travel the world for free. Welcome to the Travel Hacking 101 episode. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Founder of MasterMoney.com. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking about how we travel the world completely free. This is the Travel Hacking 101 episode. If you guys have any questions, make sure you hit me up on Instagram or TikTok at Master Money Co.

Starting point is 00:01:49 And follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast. If you want to help out the show, leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast. So today, this is the travel hacking episode. We are so incredibly excited to start this journey with you guys. If you have never heard of travel hacking, you are in for a treat today because this is a way, this is a methodology, this is a system for you to be able to travel the world for free. And this is one of the greatest benefits I have ever gotten out of the financial independence community is learning how to travel hack. And this is something we have been doing for years and years and years. My wife and I did our

Starting point is 00:02:28 first travel hack in 2014 and have not stopped since. And this is a way by the end of this episode, I want you guys to be able to at least book one free vacation next year. The entire vacation completely free. That's the goal. In addition, in the future, we're going to have a a bunch of travel hacking content coming. So I'm so incredibly excited to share that stuff with you as well. But in this episode, we're going to be talking about all the basics of travel hacking. We're going to be talking about how to open up credit cards. We're going to be talking about what travel hacking is.

Starting point is 00:02:57 We're going to be talking about the best credit cards out there. In addition, we're going to be talking about how to actually redeem your points in miles, what points and miles are and a bunch of other systems as well. So buckle up. This one is going to be fun. And this has been a long time coming to actually have this episode. So there is so much value that you can get out of this. In fact, it's thousands and thousands of dollars worth of value every single year.

Starting point is 00:03:20 And this strategy is amazing for a number of people. First of all, if you're looking to travel or explore the world, this is one of the best strategies to do that because it significantly reduces your cost if you want to start traveling and seeing the world. The second one, if you have family who lives out of state or you have family who lives far away and you want to see them more, well, welcome to travel hacking. Because this is going to help you see them more and be able to actually travel for free. Or if you have a business and you have travel costs all the time and you want to

Starting point is 00:03:46 reduce those travel costs, this is going to help you with that as well. Or if you want to travel the world and work remote, this is an amazing way to be able to do that. And this is something where utilizing some of these hacks is going to significantly reduce your living costs. And what you do is travel hacking just gets the value out of everything by thinking outside of the box. So I'm going to make this as simple as possible. My goal is to make it simple because travel hacking can go extremely deep and you'd be amazed how deep it can go. We'll get deeper on episodes as we go along here. But in this episode, I want it to be the 101 version so that you can book that free vacation by next year just by utilizing this information. In addition, I know we're going to be

Starting point is 00:04:26 talking about a lot of things in this episode. So we have a free downloadable cheat sheet that you can download. I'm going to put it up in the show notes so that you can have all this information in your hands. So if you want to take notes, go ahead and take notes. But we're going to have that sheet sheet there available as well. Now, I want to lay some ground rules before we start, because travel hacking is not for everybody. You need to have at least a decent credit score to be able to start travel hacking. For most of these credit cards, you need at least a 700, 750 credit score to be able to start travel hacking. In addition, if you've had credit card debt or you've struggled with credit card debt, this is not the system for you. You are going to have to get out

Starting point is 00:05:04 of that credit card debt first before you actually start doing this system. Or if you've been deep in credit card debt before and you do not want to go back, I do not suggest you utilize this system. It's not for everybody because this system, you have to be able to spend money on credit cards in order to be able to do it. So you have to have a high enough credit score. You have to zero credit card debt. I don't want to see any credit card debt and anybody trying to travel hack if you have credit card debt. And lastly, the other thing that you have to do is you have to spend at least $1,000 to $2,000 per month on your bills because that is what's going to help you get these sign up bonuses, which we'll talk about a lot here in this episode.

Starting point is 00:05:38 but you need to be able to get those sign-up bonuses for this to actually work. It's amazing how much dollars and how much value you can get with these sign-up bonuses alone. So I'm excited for you guys to learn about those as well. But those are some of the criteria. This is not for everybody. If you're in credit card debt, if you don't spend enough money on your cards every single month, maybe you live at home and you are still just getting started out. Well, you need to spend at least $1,000 to $2,000 every single month.

Starting point is 00:06:01 In addition, if your credit score is not very high, then you can't do this yet because you can't open the cards that make this possible. If you're building up your credit score or you're building to get to that point, still listen to this episode because this episode has so much valuable information that you can take away for other areas of your life. Or in the future, use this as motivation to get your credit score up. Use this as motivation as a major perk to be able to start to travel the world for free. This is such a cool hack and it's one of the best hacks in personal finance that you can be utilizing. So without further ado, if this is something you're interested in, let's get into it. All right, so the first question is, what actually is travel hacking?

Starting point is 00:06:39 So travel hacking is centered around using points and miles that you earn from spending money on a credit card to actually travel for free. So you can book flights for free. You can book hotels for free. You can book incidentals for free. And we'll get into some of those as well. But you can actually use points and miles to book free travel. So you're maximizing rewards points to be able to travel for free. And in general, you can kind of think of some of these sign up owners.

Starting point is 00:07:04 There's a bunch of different sign-up bonuses out there, and we'll talk about some of them with specific cards soon. But you can think of a general sign-up bonus as you get approximately 50,000 points if you spend $4,000 in the first three months that you own a card. Now, a lot of times some of these card companies and some of these banks will run promos

Starting point is 00:07:22 where you can get bigger sign-up bonuses than that. So we have a page that we're going to be linking up down below where you can see all the sign-up bonuses for cards and you can see our favorite cards as well that we're going to be talking about today out today and see all the different criteria you need to meet in addition how much they cost per year what their fees are but also what are all the perks that you get because there's an amazing amount of perks that you can get with a lot of these cards so some cards have much bigger sign-up

Starting point is 00:07:47 bonuses than other cards and it just depends on what you're looking to do and the travel destination you are trying to go to on which card and sign-up bonuses you should actually go to but your entire strategy should be centered around these sign-up bonuses meaning that if you need to go somewhere specific, then you need to figure out how many sign-up bonuses do I need to hit so I can get this huge influx of points because these sign-up bonuses would take a year to accumulate if you did not do them up front. So these sign-up bonuses are so incredibly valuable, meaning you get those 50,000 points, whatever the number is based on signing up and spending a certain amount in the first three months. Now, one thing to note is a lot of times if you go through the process and you sign up for a card,

Starting point is 00:08:31 what's going to happen is when you sign up for a card, you could be potentially instantly approved, for example. Sometimes it takes a couple of days for them to go through all the information that you provided before they approved your card. But when they approve your card, the clock starts ticking at that point in time, meaning you have three months to spend, for example, $4,000 in the first three months to get your sign-up bonus. So one thing that you may want to consider is you may want to consider calling up the bank

Starting point is 00:08:59 and saying, hey, can you expedite the card to me? Is there a way that you can actually send me the card information so I can start using it online so I can start spending some of those dollars? Because once the clock starts ticking and if you don't spend enough money every single month, then you definitely want to get that sent to you that much sooner. For me, I spend enough to hit those limits typically in the first month. But if you don't spend enough money, you want to get it sent to you because very early on when I first started doing this, I didn't spend as much money as I do now. My life has drastically changed since I've had kids and all these other things. but now I spend a lot more money but I used to have to ask them,

Starting point is 00:09:32 hey, can you send me the card as soon as possible so I can put as many bills as possible early on on this card so that you can get that sign-up bonus? And the amazing thing about this system is what you're doing is you're putting every single bill on the card that you can and you're spending the money you would already be spending but you'd be getting all of these additional perks as well.

Starting point is 00:09:51 In addition, obviously you're going to be paying off the card every single month so it has zero impact to you by doing this. So that is kind of the over- view of how to get started. Now we're going to jump into the difference between points and miles. We're going to jump into figuring out what your points can do and how you should actually develop a plan for this. And then we're going to jump into a bunch of cards that we love as well. So let's jump into the next part, which is points versus miles. What's the difference? So a big thing to note here is what is the difference between points and miles. So I'm going to give you a bird's eye view of the

Starting point is 00:10:21 difference between points and miles. And this goes really, really deep. And we're going to have episodes on how to maximize some of these points, how to maximize some of these miles. but this can go very, very deep and it can get very complicated. So you need to understand this early on. So miles are a much less flexible way to actually acquire free travel. So miles are something you could think of, for example, the last airline that you flew. Say, for example, you flew Delta or you flew Southwest Airlines. Well, typically they'll have a credit card that they want to offer you,

Starting point is 00:10:50 and that is how you earn miles is by spending money on that credit card. Points are very different. So points are something that are much more flexible, and you can use them across a bunch of different airlines and hotels. So points are something where it's maybe a bank issued card, something like the Chase Sapphire, for example, where you can transfer it to a bunch of different places. Now, some airlines and some hotels will allow you to transfer those points

Starting point is 00:11:13 to other partners that they have within their network. For example, Chase has a very large network of partners where you can transfer, say, for example, Southwest points and the Chase Sapphire points, you can actually add those two together. So Southwest Miles, Chase Sapphire Points, you can actually transfer those and utilize those together. So these are just a couple of different things and a couple of examples to consider. When you go through this process, I am more so trying to acquire as many points as I possibly can

Starting point is 00:11:40 instead of miles. Points are that much more valuable and you can maximize points so much more as you go on into the future. So if you're looking for your first card and you're trying to open up your first card, I would try to maximize it with something that you can acquire points instead of miles. Now, the next thing you want to do is you want to figure out what you want your points to do. And so to get the biggest bang for your buck, you really want to focus your efforts on the biggest ticket items. So that's going to be your flights and that's going to be your hotels. I personally like to take care of my flights first.

Starting point is 00:12:13 My wife and I have done so many different trips that have been completely for free. We've gone to Italy. We've gone to Greece. We just got back from Tulum. We've gone to Vegas. We've gone skiing in Colorado. We've gone to Napa Valley. We've gone to Puerto Rico.

Starting point is 00:12:25 We've gone to the Caribbean. and there's so many different places that we've gone. The list goes on and on and on. And it's been 100% completely free. And we've done multiple trips per year doing this, 100% completely free. So the first thing I always look for is free flights. And free flights are usually, you want to get there, obviously. So free flights are one of the best ways to do this.

Starting point is 00:12:44 The cost of flying can be really high, depending on where you're flying. Or if you're going internationally, the cost of flying can be low. For example, if you're flying in a domestic area, the cost of flying can be low. the cost of flying can be low, for example, if you're just flying locally, or it can be really high. For example, if you're flying internationally. For international flights, I want to acquire as many points as possible so I can take those international flights. That's one of my biggest interest now is being able to fly internationally. So being able to do that, you need a good number of points because typically when you're flying internationally, you're going to be paying $700 to $2,000

Starting point is 00:13:15 depending on where you're going. And if you get a nicer seat, you can be paying even more than that. So getting that completely free is incredibly powerful. Second place is hotels. So you can utilize these points on hotels. And there are hotel chains and hotel carriers who also have their own credit cards. And some of them have flexible points that you can utilize between different companies so that you can have those transfer partners available to you. So this is the second place to look. And depending how long you stay, this may be your biggest ticket item. So you want to think through how much are the hotels, how nice of a hotel do I want? Because typically when I have extra points available, I want to get

Starting point is 00:13:51 the nicest hotel available. So we've been to be. able to stay at really, really nice hotels that, for example, we just got back from a trip in Tulum where it was $600 per night and we got it completely for free. And it was this amazing hotel that actually had each person had individual huts. They were completely air conditioning. They weren't like huts that were not air conditioning sitting on the ocean. And we were able to do this completely for free on that trip just because we had enough points to be able to cover it. So looking for your hotel stays, you can get some really cool places to stay, some one-of-a-kind experiences just by doing this because you have so many extra points over time. And the last thing you consider is free

Starting point is 00:14:28 incidentals. So you still got to pay for food and all those other things. So cashback cards are going to be great for that if you want some of those free incidentals to make your trip absolutely free where you spend $0. So that is the third option as well as having that option available to you. I like to focus on the flights and the hotels. I usually don't care about the incidentals. I pay those out of pocket. And I will go for the flights and hotels first because I think that's the biggest ticket item that you want to go for. So those are the three categories I would consider when you're looking for your card opening strategy. And we're going to talk about the card opening strategy here in a second. But first, let's talk about how to choose the best travel

Starting point is 00:15:03 awards cards and my favorite travel rewards cards, especially if you're a beginner. All right, so we're going to talk about my favorite travel rewards cards, some of the best ones that are out there where you can maximize your points to get free flights, free hotels, all those different things. Now, we are going to link up down below a link that will show you all my favorite credit cards that are out there. In addition, I will link up all of these cards that I talk about with their own individual link as well. If you want to support the show, make sure if you sign up for one of those cards, you do it through there because that's an affiliate partnership that we have. And so it's an amazing way to support the show if you sign up for one of these cards

Starting point is 00:15:36 is to do it through one of our links. So I'm going to list the most flexible cards out there, meaning my favorite ones for beginners, especially if you've never had one of these cards, these cards have so much flexibility and so much possibility to maximize your points that I absolutely love them. So the first two we're going to get to are the Capital One Cards. And there is the Capital One Venture X rewards card and the Capital One Venture Rewards card. So let's look at the Capital One Venture X first and see what it offers. So right now at the time I'm recording this, you can earn 75,000 bonus miles if you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months. So 75,000, $4,000 at a minimum allows you to get $750 in free travel.

Starting point is 00:16:20 So say for example, you just put your bills on this Capital One Venture X rewards card. Then after you spend $4,000, you're going to get $750 back absolutely free. That is an amazing return on investment for just spending the dollars you would already be spending. Now, the thing about the Venture X is that there is an annual fee every single year. Typically, the annual fee is waived the first year that you own the card. So you don't pay that annual fee the first year. get that big old bonus. The annual fee for this one is $395 at the time recording this. But you can earn some of that back because let me show you how. You can earn rewards 10x points if you book

Starting point is 00:16:55 hotels through the Venture X card. You get 5x points on flights book through Capital One travel and 2x on all other purchases. Now this one is a premium card. This is one that if you are just getting started, you don't want to pay that annual fee, then maybe you want to go down to the Capital One venture, which will explain what that does in a second. But overall, this is a decent rewards card, especially if you travel a lot, you can earn a lot of those rewards there where you get the 10x on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One travel, 5x on flights booked through Capital One travel, which is their portal, and you also get 2x on all other purchases. So in the first year, especially when the fee is waived,

Starting point is 00:17:32 you can get way more value out of this car than you're actually spending on the annual fee. So that is one option to look at. Now, if that $395 fee is something that may deter you from actually opening up a card. Here's the next one. Now, this is one that has been a staple for me for a very, very long time. This was the second travel card I ever opened in my entire life, and it's the Capital One Venture. So the first one we talked about was the Capital One Venture X. The Capital One Venture is an amazing card, especially if you're entry level. So same exact perk on this one, only a $95 annual fee. So once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening, you earn 75,000 miles. That's an amazing perk right now that they

Starting point is 00:18:16 are running on this one. And the rewards that you get is you get two times miles on all purchases. So there's no accelerated point like the Capital One Venture X, you get 10x on hotels, 5x on flights. This one, you just get two times miles on all purchases, which is a great, awesome perk that you can have there. So this is one of the most well-known cards in the travel space. And is one of my favorite cards. I've had it for years and years and years. My wife has had it for years and years and years and is one is the first ones that I recommend to most people who are starting off travel hacking because they have a great fantastic way that you can actually transfer these points you can use them as cash if you want to but to maximize them you definitely want to use them on travel now some other perks

Starting point is 00:18:54 that you get with this card is you get up to a hundred dollar credit for global entry or tsa precheck so you get a hundred dollar credit if you want to get tsa precheck you can also transfer the points to a bunch of different airline and hotel partners and so this is a fantastic card for flexibility to be able to transfer those points, to be able to actually utilize it on travel, you can really maximize the points on this card and is very easy to reimburse yourself via Capital One. Capital One is one of the easiest places to actually get reimbursement when you utilize these points and miles. You could do it through their travel portal or there's a bunch of other ways that you can do it as well. So this is one of my favorite cards and one, like I said,

Starting point is 00:19:33 I've had for a very, very long time. So the next one we are going to be talking about is the Chase Sapphire preferred. This is my daily driver. This is the card that I use every single day and one of my favorite cards that are out there as well. Now they have a smaller sign-up bonus, which is why I'm talking about the Capital One Venture first. Right now they have a smaller sign-up bonus. So it's 60,000 bonus points on every 4,000 you spend on purchases. But these points are still worth $750 in free travel if you redeem them through Chase Rewards, which is their online portal that you can redeem those points to. But this one has some amazing reward bonuses as well, which is why this is my daily driver right now, because the annual fee is the same, $95, which is

Starting point is 00:20:15 typically waived the first year that you actually utilize this cards. And you get five X points on travel booked through the Chase Travel Portal. You get three times ultimate rewards points on restaurants, streaming services, online groceries, Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs. That's an amazing perk. You get two times rewards on points on all other travel purchases and one time points on every other dollar spent. So the difference between the Chase Sapphire and the Capital One venture. The Capital One venture, you get two times points on all purchases. The Chase Sapphire, it's specific on what you get points accelerated on, but the first one is five times points on travel booked. Or if you shop at Target or Walmart a lot or you have a lot of streaming services, you get three

Starting point is 00:20:57 times points on that. So you could come out on top by utilizing the Chase Sapphire and said, for me, I shop at Target and Walmart all the time. So for me, those accelerated points are really beneficial. In addition, you get two times reward points on any other travel spending and one X on every other dollar spent. So if you spend a lot more money outside of these categories, then maybe the Capital One venture would be better for you. But if you spend a lot of money at Target at Walmart, you have a lot of streaming services and you spend a lot of money on travel, then the Chase Sapphire may be the better option for you. So it also has a bunch of other benefits as well. So there's no foreign transaction fee. So if you're traveling, one thing I love

Starting point is 00:21:35 about this Chase Sapphire is that there's no foreign transaction fees when you use the card and you're traveling. Also, you get rental car insurance. Like if you rent out a rental car and you're traveling, you get free rental car insurance through the Chase Sapphire. And if you use it in the Chase Travel Portal, you'll be able to get 25% more value when you redeem your points through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal. So there's a bunch of different awesome options. And one cool thing is if you click on these links as I'm talking about these, you can also see that they have a comparison tool at the bottom where you can compare them to some of these other cards that we're going to be talking about here. So the Chase Sapphire is the one I use

Starting point is 00:22:10 every single day. It is my daily driver for most of my purchases. And then my wife uses the Capital One venture. But I also have the venture and I use the venture for specific purchases as well as we go through that process. So I've had both of these for a very long time. The Chase Sapphire was the first Travel Awards card I ever opened. So it's a fantastic card. It is one that I have been using for a very long time. The next one is the City Premier card. And City has really, really valuable points as well. City has some amazing bonuses that you can utilize. And with the City Premier card, they have a bonus structure right now where you get 80,000 bonus thank you points after you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months of opening. So City also has a

Starting point is 00:22:54 great bonus perk right now. You earn three times at restaurants, three times at supermarkets, three times at gas station, three times the points for air travel and hotels, and one-time points on purchases. So everyday purchases, you're earning a lot with this city premier card as well. Additional benefits, you get $100 hotel credit. Every time you spend $500 in a hotel, you get a $100 hotel credit. And you can also transfer these points. City points are very flexible to some of their other airline and hotel partners. So when you click on this city link, it also compares it to the Chase Sapphire and the Capital One venture that we just talked. talked about so you can see the comparison between the three of them and see which one may fit best

Starting point is 00:23:33 for you. And then there's one other card that we're going to talk about, which is the American Express Gold Card. So a lot of people like American Express, especially if you've had American Express for a very long time. And so MX points are fantastic as well. We've used MX points for all different types of travel. In fact, on our Greece trip, we used MX points to get there completely free, flew to Greece, and to pay $0 out of pocket with our MX points. So you can earn 60,000 membership reward points, that's what they call it at American Express, after you spend $4,000 on eligible purchases within the first six months. So if you don't spend $4,000 within your first three months, this one is actually extended out to six months instead. So if you

Starting point is 00:24:15 don't spend a lot of money every single month, maybe you're nervous about that. Maybe you will only spend a couple hundred dollars every single month, eight, nine hundred bucks every single month. Then this is a great car to go with, the American Express gold card. So the only downside to this one is that the annual fee is much higher. So it's $250 on the annual fee. But you get a lot of bonus points here. So you get four times back if you go to restaurants worldwide or if you get take out or deliver, you also get four times back. You also get four times back at the supermarket and up to $25,000 per calendar year. Then after that $25,000, then you get one times point back. And then you get three times points for flights booked directly with the airlines through MX's travel portal

Starting point is 00:24:53 and then one X points on all other eligible purchases. And then some additional perks is you get $120 restaurant dining credit when you dine at Grubhub or Cheesecake Factory or a bunch of other restaurants that they have on their list. You get $120 Uber cash on gold and each month you also get $10 in Uber cash. So if you use Uber a lot, you're going to get some free perks there. You get $100 hotel credit to spend on qualified expenses. So you can kind of add up those three perks right there

Starting point is 00:25:21 and it's going to cover your annual fee of $250. So there's a lot of value to pull out of this card within that first year. And this has been one of those cards that I absolutely love to use as well. So fantastic card, especially if you don't spend as much money in the first three months, then you can draw that out to six months and still get that bonus. So those are the five cards we're going to talk about for beginners. We're going to do a whole episode on cards and some of my favorite cards, breaking down some of them, what are best?

Starting point is 00:25:49 and we're going to do advanced travel hacking strategies as well so that you can kind of think through which one might be best for you. But these are the best starter cards by far. I love these five cards. Specifically, the Capital One Venture, the Chase Sapphire, the City Premier, and the American Express Gold. Those four right there are some of my favorite cards ever,

Starting point is 00:26:08 especially just starting out because they have low annual fees that you can still maximize some of the points that you use for travel and they have a bunch of additional perks. Now, let's get into the basics of a card opening strategy if you want to start travel hacking. So lately, I've been noticing how fast things are changing at home. The kids are growing like crazy, clothes don't fit anymore, and routines are changing. And it just hits you. Life is expanding.

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Starting point is 00:28:53 Honey, forget about the lasagna. Let's celebrate! 19 plus Ontario only, please play responsibly. Concern about your gambling or that if someone close to you, call 1-86531-2600 or visit Connexontera.ca. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette. with a flame thrower.

Starting point is 00:29:18 Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero, more like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. So there are a bunch of different card opening strategies that are out there, but what I'm going to do is give you what I think is the best opening strategy for beginners and one that I still use a lot today.

Starting point is 00:29:40 So I'm going to go step by step. I'm going to give you the three to four step process so that you can just follow along, have it in there. But in addition, that principle that we're providing you will also have this four-step process in there as well. So step one is to open up your first card. Obviously, use our links down below, open up the first card so that you can get this process rolling.

Starting point is 00:29:59 Once you open up the card, you want to go to everywhere that you have a bill and put that card and pay for those bills on your card. If you automate all of your money and you pay your bills on automation, which I advise most of you to do when we talk about this, you know that we love to automate our money, here on the Personal Finance Podcast,

Starting point is 00:30:16 then you just want to go ahead, change your card on each one of those bills. This is usually going to take you about 30 minutes. This is one of the things where this is the small amount of work that you have to do when you travel hack, is change your bills to the card, but the bonus is obviously worth it in the end. You can think of it as you're making over $750 per hour

Starting point is 00:30:33 just by doing this. The next thing you want to do is you want to spend $4,000 so that you can hit that sign-up bonus. And once you hit that sign-up bonus, then you can open your next card. So if you really want to be aggressive with this strategy, you want to open a number of cards so that you can get that free trip, then you can open the next card. Now, if you are married or you have a partner, guess what? You can now have double the power of opening cards here. So what we do specifically is I will open a card. We'll put all of our bills on that card. We will get the sign up bonus. Then my wife will open a card. We'll put all of our bills in that card. We'll get the sign up bonus.

Starting point is 00:31:07 Now we kind of do this casually. We're like every couple of months we'll open a card so that we can just keep acquiring points because we're not traveling as much as we did. before, but I still want to take two or three trips every single year completely for free. So we're kind of casually doing this. If you want to be aggressive about this, maybe there's a bunch of trips that you have planned coming up, then you can open one. Your spouse or significant other can open one. And you go back and forth like that, filling it up so you can get all those sign-up bonuses because what you're going to realize is as you start to do this, you're going to have

Starting point is 00:31:34 a large amount of points that you are going to start building up. Then you're going to repeat this process over and over again for step four. Now, it sounds amazing that you can open up all these cards and get all these bonus points. But there are rules to each of these companies that you want to know. So I'm going to go through some of these rules right now. The first one is Chase's 524 rule. And they made this famous because they were the company that probably did this, one of the earliest ones to do this.

Starting point is 00:31:57 And the reason why it's called the 524 rule is that Chase has this thing where you cannot open more than five cards within 24 months. And it's not just Chase cards, it's any cards that are out there. So if you have any cards that you've opened up, maybe you opened a city card and a capital one card and you opened another different card. Any card, no matter what you open, maybe open a cashback card or a Macy's card at a local department store. Any card that you open up in the last 24 months qualifies for this. So this is why I typically recommend people to start with Chase when they start opening up their card because they have this rule in place.

Starting point is 00:32:34 In addition, if you're an authorized user on somebody else's card, that counts as you opening up a card. So every time you open a card, you do not want to put your spouse or a single person. significant other on there as an authorized user if you're going to open up a bunch of cards because that takes a double hit where it means that each of you actually open up a card according to Chase. So if you have an authorized user on there, you want to make sure that they're not doing this strategy with you so that you don't have to take those dings and you can both open up enough cards to make this worthwhile for you. And then in addition, one thing to note about Chase is that you can actually get the sign up

Starting point is 00:33:05 bonus multiple times. You just have to wait a certain amount of time. Some cards do not let you do this, but I've done it before with Chase. So I've opened up to Chase Sapphire twice before. And both times with that Chase Sapphire, I have gotten the sign up bonus. So the first time I opened it was about eight years ago, was the first time I opened it.

Starting point is 00:33:21 And then I ended up closing the card. And then a couple of years later, I reopened it and got the sign up bonus again. So you can do this with Chase. A lot of people have done it even sooner. I've heard people doing it within the last two years, those 24 months being able to get that signup bonus again. For me, it was three or four years before I did it

Starting point is 00:33:38 based on my personal experience there. So Chase is one that you can do that. Now let's look at the Amex rule. So American Express has a one bonus per lifetime rule. So it's the opposite of Chase. You can't get multiple bonuses like I did on that Chase Sapphire that I just talked about. American Express only allows you one per lifetime.

Starting point is 00:33:55 But guess what? I heard people talking about after five to seven years, they've been able to get multiple bonuses. So this is just a rule to keep in the back of your head. When you open up that Amex card, you can get the bonus one time typically. And then lastly, Citibank has some rules as well. So Citibank says that you have to wait 24 months after opening or closing a card in order to get a bonus on any card within that same card brand. So for example, let's say you want to get some thank you points or some American Airlines miles.

Starting point is 00:34:23 Well, you've got to wait at least 24 months after opening or closing the card in order to get a bonus on any card within the same card brand. So that rule is with city. And so you just got to think through your card opening strategy by utilizing some of those rules. we do some advanced episodes on this. We'll talk some more about that. I'm going to do a full episode on card opening strategies so that you can kind of get an idea of some of the best ways to do it. But to start off, like I said, just going back and forth, opening them every couple of months. If you want to, you can do it casually. If you want to be aggressive, you can open them as fast as you hit those sign-up bonuses. You can do that as well if you have a bunch of trips planned

Starting point is 00:34:58 coming up. So that is something to think through as well. Now, let's talk about redeeming points. And when you redeem points, there's a couple of ways to do that. There's a bunch of really advance ways to maximize your points when you get those points. And one way to do that is to be really flexible on where you're going. So say you just want to travel the world, you want to see a bunch of new places. If you're flexible on where you want to go, you can actually really, really get some amazing seats. For example, say that you have no preference on where you go. You just want to travel internationally. Well, if you're patient, what happens is you can sign up for alerts on a bunch of different sites, like a ward wallet. There's a bunch of newsletters out

Starting point is 00:35:33 there that'll help you with this as well. And you can figure out, hey, if I travel, to London next month, I'm going to be able to book a flight for 20,000 points when typically it costs 100,000 points to fly to London. Well, that's absolutely amazing. So there's ways to maximize your points like that if you're flexible where you're going. But if you're not flexible where you're going, there are portals that you can use the points through as well. So each card company has their own portal. Like, for example, Chase has their own online portal. And so you see when they talk about their cards, you can get a 25% discount if you book it through their portal. They want you to book it through their portal because they have partnerships

Starting point is 00:36:06 with all of these hotels, all of these different airlines to make it easier for you, but in addition, they get kickbacks as well. So they want you to push it through their portal so that they have complete control over your travel experience. Now, I've done this a lot of times before. I've booked through the portals because it's just easier. You don't always maximize your points this way, but sometimes it's just easier to book through the portal.

Starting point is 00:36:26 If you want a stress-free time, you're just looking for one vacation a year, then it's very easy to just book through their portal and go through that process. You can book your flights. You can book your hotels. You can book your rental cars. So it's really cool how they do it through there. The same thing with Capital One, the same thing with City, all these other banks, American Express.

Starting point is 00:36:42 You can book through their portals. You're not maximizing the points in the most efficient way, but it's still efficient enough to make it worthwhile. But in addition, you can also maximize it by transferring some of those points to loyalty partners. So say, for example, you have something like a Delta card and you also have a bunch of chase points as well. And you want to take a flight on Delta.

Starting point is 00:37:01 You can transfer those chase points and those Delta miles so you can book a Delta flight and be able to get that for free. So there's transfer partners. So you want to look at each card what their transfer partners are. Chase has a great network. All of them have a great network now. But look who the transfer partners are and you'll be able to actually book your travel that way and set up your itinerary the best way you can.

Starting point is 00:37:20 So some of the best ways to actually think through this is maybe you want to join a brand's loyalty program, for example. So you're going to find that credit card partners with that loyalty program. So like, for example, I used to book hotels all the time for business. and they would have loyalty programs where you get specific points for Hilton, for example. And they had a bunch of points just every time you booked a hotel with them, you'd get some bonus points through that. Well, if you wanted to also transfer points over to that card,

Starting point is 00:37:45 you can do that by those loyalty partnership programs and be able to get more free hotel stays. So thinking through your plan when you're transferring points to loyalty programs or to preferred partners is something you definitely want to do. There's a bunch different ways to maximize the points that way as well. So when we have that episode, we talk about how to maximize your credit card points, we will go through some of that in great detail

Starting point is 00:38:07 so that you can know some of the best options for you as well. But if you're just starting out, you want to take that free vacation, then just doing some of these strategies that we just talked about is the best route for beginners. You don't want to overcomplicate this. And if you're just looking for one, two free vacations every single year,

Starting point is 00:38:21 keeping this strategy going is going to be something that you can definitely do. So listen, this is travel hacking 101. That is the starting point for learning how to travel hack, how to get that free vacation I'm so excited for you guys to take this information and learn about it. In addition, make sure you get that free printable down in the show notes so that you can follow along with this information.

Starting point is 00:38:41 We'll give you step by step on how to do some of this stuff as well. And if you sign up for some of these cards, make sure you do it through our links, through our portal. And you can also compare different cards through our portal as well. If you want a cashback card, we have it on our link down below. If you want other types of cards that may be more beneficial to you, you can utilize that link as well. We are so incredibly excited for you guys to start transferring.

Starting point is 00:39:02 traveling the world. I want you to tell me exactly where you plan on going. Hit me up on Instagram or TikTok at Master Money Co. And then lastly, if you're really interested in travel hacking, we want to create a community of people who are really interested in this as well. So I'm going to leave a link and I'll put it in the downloadable as well for you to jump on a travel hacking email list. And what this list is going to be, I'm not going to send very many emails through this group here, but this email list, every time I get some new information on maybe some major card bonuses that are coming up or new information. on some really cheap flights that I see,

Starting point is 00:39:34 then I'm going to send it to this email list so that you can see, hey, here's how I maximize this travel hacking. It's not going to be like something that you get weekly or anything like that, but you will get some really amazing deals. I'll send them over to you. But in addition, as we do some of these deeper dives, I'll send you some of these printables, some of the show notes, so that you can check out exactly how that works.

Starting point is 00:39:52 So if you're interested in traveling the world for free, make sure you jump on that email list. We'll link it up down below as well. So incredibly excited for you guys to get started with travel hacking. If you guys, again, if you guys have any questions, let me know. And we'll probably after this episode, a couple days later, we'll do an Instagram Q&A also. So if you guys have questions, you can ask me directly on there. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.

Starting point is 00:40:15 I truly appreciate each and every one of you. You guys mean the world to me. We are so incredibly excited to start building wealth together as a wealth builder. So so incredibly excited to start building wealth together. We are the wealth builder. So if you guys are getting value at this episode, share it with your family, share it with your friends, so that you guys can build well together. Thank you guys so much for listening,

Starting point is 00:40:34 and we'll see you on the next episode.

The Personal Finance Podcast - How We Travel The World Completely Free! (Travel Hacking 101)

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