The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - The Points Guy - Brian Kelly On Travel Hacks, Credit Card Reward Points, & Credit Scores, How To Fly First Class On A Budget

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

#471: On today's episode we are joined by Brian Kelly also popularly known as The Points Guy. Brian joins the show to discuss the best travel hacks that people can take advantage of now. We also discuss the best credit cards to get to build credit and aquire points for travel rewards.  To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) Produced by Dear Media 

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extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. There were some other points blogs, but they were pretty, and they were pretty popular, but I would remember because they weren't monetizing then. Blogging's hard. So the people would only update once or twice a week. I remember being at my desk being like I want more of this content I started blogging and like a couple months in it's things started to go viral which I didn't really understand at the time but in the spring of 2011 is when my life changed because a friend from college was like dude you're

an idiot you're writing about the platinum card all day long and you're just linking directly to Amex he's like affiliate marketing if you use my's link, we'll pay you $300 per approval. And I was like, what? Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Brian Kelly, also known as the points guy. This has been a long requested, long overdue episode. So many of you guys want to know about travel hacks, about credit card points, about which credit cards to get, about debt, about all these things. And who better than the Points Guy himself, Brian Kelly. We had a ton of fun talking to this guy. He was one of our favorite guests that we've had on recently.

And we covered a lot of ground. So for those of you that are wondering, how do I travel? How do I get business class? How do I get upgrades? How do I use points? Which credit cards are the best? How do I stay out of debt? What about my credit score? All of these things are in this episode. And I use Brian, Brian, if you're listening, this is a compliment. I think about people all the time online creating content and people that do it in such a smart way. And I think the problem that so many people run into when they're starting to figure out what should I create online is they think about so many different things. How big and broad can this thing be? And I talked about early days and not to take any credit away from Brian, because obviously

he completely executed and just crushed it with the points guy, which you'll get into. But this is a guy that started and said, hey, there is a niche here where people want to understand more about credit cards, more about the right credit cards, more about travel hacks, and more about which of these travel hacks are applicable to him at the time as a consumer. So he went on this long journey and created the points guy and basically shared what a lot of people wanted to know. What's the best airline program? How do you keep your credit score high? What are the best credit cards? How do I use my points? And he exploited this whole area of business and created this whole area of content that has just exploded, right? And it exploited this whole area of business and created this whole area of content that

has just exploded, right? And it's a massive category. And I think during the pandemic, the points guy was probably one of the biggest resources that we look to for travel restrictions, how to travel, where to travel, what to travel, what to do, all of that. So I just think it's a really good example of somebody picking a niche subject, zoning in, and then making an absolute killing on the business side and making it a huge category that so many people want to know about. Started very focused and obviously has

brought it into this massive travel brand. With that, Brian Kelly, the points guy, live on the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. Here we go. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. My husband is the most anal traveler you've ever seen and this is a fun fact for the audience We have been together for like a million years and never once Never once have I booked a flight And we're huge travelers. I've never booked a flight I've never booked a hotel and this is not because I don't like I refuse to it's because he has the strategy so down

That if I even try to get into his process he he doesn't like it but tell the truth are you the anal type of traveler that gets there three hours in advance at periods of time i have been especially now with a kid because i like here's the thing i don't mind necessarily the flight and i i mean i mind all the shit at the airport yeah especially i mean it is and especially with her like we we lay the suitcase out try to be methodical and the next thing you know there's like six more and it's a whole thing and like i have to carry all the shit it's just it's just stressful tell the truth is she ever able to carry on no you've no you've never if you

and i dated i am your worst goddamn nightmare i once went all the way to Venice Italy not knowing where I was going and didn't even know where I was going until I stepped off the plane I'll tell the story so we we know we can get into this but just to give you some context of how like in the clouds she is with this stuff at one we were dating and I thought man this is gonna be like super romantic I'm gonna get so many points I booked a trip to go to Venice and I didn't tell her where we were going I said pack your bags we're going to this so many points. I booked a trip to go to Venice and I didn't tell her where we were going. I said, pack your bags. We're going to this place. And, you know, took it to the nines,

booked all the flights. And I kept like looking over for her to like, look at the ticket and be like, we're going to Venice or like, you know, look at the screen or look at the thing when you board the plane or even listen to the fucking announcements. She didn't know until we landed

and they started speaking in Italian. She's like, we're in Italy. I'm like, we've been flying for 30 hours. Why is our uber a boat i think it's just because i just trust him so much and if you and i were dating it would be even worse can you like i would just wait so i want to know when you were on that flight what eight hour flight like where did you think you were going no idea i didn't think about it but you were so in love you were just like i'm just i feel like i'm so easy going about travel that i'm just like whatever i didn't think about it. But you were so in love. You were just like... I'm just... I feel like I'm so easygoing about travel that I'm just like, whatever. I didn't think about it.

I'm in the corner like this staring, like waiting for the moment and just it never happened. Like sitting there for 14 hours, just staring over and being like, she's going to notice now. Okay. So I want to get into everything about you. People are so excited that you're coming on the podcast. How did you get into this in the first place? How did you see the white space? Well, I mean, I got into points in the 90s.

I was always that nerdy kid. So I was born in 1983. So when I was seven, my parents got like a huge IBM computer. And I remember just like teaching myself DOS, which was like pre-Windows, right? You'd have to do like little syntax commands. You know, I was on the internet in like 1991 when you used to have to install a modem into your computer plug it into a phone line you know so in like 95 my dad got a job for a startup and he was traveling and working from home and i was a computer was and he's like

shit brian i have to book travel i have no idea how to do it and that was the year travelocity came out and it was so easy to do he thought it was super hard so I was charging him ten dollars of reservations for something that took me 30 seconds so that was like my first job in 1995 fast forward like in that winter he was like okay I have all these frequent flyer miles if you can figure out how to book them I'm one of four kids he's like the six of us instead of taking a basic trip you know we grew up in outside of Philly you know to the shore or whatever Orlando he's like you know wherever you want to plan it, we can go. So I booked us to the Cayman Islands because I had just read The Firm by John Grisham, and it was set in the Cayman Islands.

I was just like this precocious little kid at age 12 booking our family of six to an international destination. It was the most amazing trip. And then so that was my dad and I's bonding. He would travel, miss my basketball games. But every year, he gave me his points, and I would book our family a trip to And then, so that was my dad and I's bonding. He would travel, miss my basketball games, but every year he gave me his points and I would book our family trip to Barbados, whatever. So never in a million years did I think that that would become my job. But when I look back on it, all the things that I love in life, like as a kid, I was a voracious writer. They would say,

write a short story and come into school. And I'd write like a 30 page book I've always had this imagination and love to travel so it kind of makes sense that I am writing about travel and inspiring others to do it now it just it wasn't until I got a job at Morgan Stanley in 2007 graduate college and then all of a sudden I became my dad where I was traveling like crazy and I was in HR so I wasn't making a lot of money at Morgan Stanley, but I was running college recruiting, meaning so I would charge the career fair at Harvard and $20,000 expense on my credit card. And I called up Amex and was like, can I get points for this? And they were like, yeah, if you pay $95. All of a sudden the wheels start spinning and everyone at Morgan Stanley hated expenses because you literally used to have to tape paper receipts and fax them in. It was this most tedious process.

But what I figured out was every little slip of paper is free points. So I became the guy in HR that was like, hey, everyone, I'm going to take one for the team and pay for this $50,000 event on my Amex. And people were like, Brian, thank you so much. And I'm like, suckas. Like that's literally a free business class trip. So I started, that was like my side hustle at Morgan Stanley was doing all the expenses. And then I was traveling a ton, you know, on, and during the recession in 07, 08, the

travel companies were giving insane bonuses because no one was business traveling. I would get screwed every year I was getting promoted, but they were like, your bonus is not getting laid off, Brian. Come back again next year. You're in your 20s. And I was so frustrated because being in my 20s, living in Manhattan, I was literally living paycheck to paycheck, even though I was working on Wall Street.

I mean, I would take a subway to JFK and fly Singapore Airlines first class with like $40 in my bank account. Just two points. And I would eat everything on the plane so I wouldn't really have to eat when I land. So I was living this millionaire's lifestyle, points rich and cash broke is what I used to call it. So finally, my ex at the time was like, you're so good at this point stuff. Why don't you start a side hustle where people pay you to book trips for them? And to me, that was like, oh, I mean, it's fun for me.

It's literally like some people sit down to do crossword puzzles i sit down and figure out how can i fly the emirates a381st class and go to the maldys so i started charging people so the points guy was never even a blog it was just like this janky form that you would submit i'm lauren and i have amex points i went to paris with my three friends how do i do it i would email you back and be like paypal me 50 bucks each and then i would just write you detailed instructions like call the airline this is the flight number blah blah blah blah and that so it's kind of like a points travel agent kind of like a consultant almost kind of yeah like a travel i mean i was basically a travel agent for points which didn't exist at the time and even now there's only a couple agencies that

touch points because it's they don't make money on it. And then a friend in June of 2010, a friend was like, Brian, I'm an SEO expert. I had no idea what SEO was. And he's like, if you start a blog, blogs are all the rage. He's like, that'll be the most natural way people searching for how do I use these damn Amex points will find you. It'll be free advertising.

You know, just throw up a blog post every day. You'll get authority in this space. And I was like like and he set me up with my own wordpress blog and so i was like okay and he said just blog every day something good it doesn't need to be life-changing but consistently all around points travel whatever and he's like they will come trust me he's like he was really excited about it too he's like nobody else was really doing it huh there were some other points blogs but they were pretty and they were pretty popular but i would remember because they weren't monetizing then so they would only you know these blogging's hard so the people would only update once or twice a week and i remember being at my desk being like i want more of this

content and then one day i was like why don't i fill in that void and of course at first you have imposter syndrome where you're like well i'm not the biggest expert in the world so why would i you know i started blogging and like a couple months in it's things started to go viral, which I didn't really understand at the time. But you know, the credibility people were sharing the site like crazy in the spring of 2011 is when my life changed. Cause a friend from college was like, dude, you're an idiot. You're writing about the platinum card all day long. And you're just linking directly to Amex. Like he's like affiliate affiliate marketing if you use my company's link and i was like no i don't want to do this my passion project he's like we'll pay you three hundred dollars per approval and i was

like what you know because i had that time i have 40 000 monthly readers but i'm like doing the small conversion rates in my head i was like it doesn't take a whole lot of signups to like fundamentally change the game and and literally that the first month, it was like five grand. And I was like, that's almost like I was making maybe 75 salary. And I was like, if I can just do this a little bit smarter. And then it just took off. The New York Times ended up writing a big piece about this points guy. You got to...

Well, like every credit card company, major credit, travel credit card. All of them came. Yeah. Yeah yeah so then it just blew up so let's go let's take a step back for a second because i think we're versed in points but there's so many consumers listeners people that are listening to show that have credit cards obviously may not even be aware of what kinds of credit cards they should be using may not even know how to use points i get this even you know i'm not an authority in this space i figured out a few things over the years, but I get questions all the time like, how do you use points? What are points? What credit cards? What's the best for this? So maybe taking a stab at one, points, how they're used, what they can be used for, how they accumulate. And then two, maybe listing a

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That's sakara, S-A-K-A-R-A dot com slash skinny. You get 20% off your first order. Sakara.com slash skinny. Fundamentally, every single dollar you spend, you should be earning points. And the United States is the global mecca for points. I won't go into the nitty gritty details, but basically every time you go to a restaurant or to Saks, that merchant's paying Amex or Visa

like 3% of your entire purchase. Huge fees. So basically, the credit card industry is wildly lucrative and it's built into the cost of everything we buy. So if you're going to go to the store and pay with a debit card or cash, I just want you to understand you are throwing money in the trash because you're paying with the cost of those rewards are built in to give back but you're kind of paying for you know the point system for everyone else but don't fret people think that this is just for frequent travelers like frequent flyer programs are now frequent buyer programs like more points are created from spending on credit cards than they are from flying so just think about how much money you spend every month.

And the goal is to get at least more than one point per dollar in everything you spend. So when it comes to getting a credit card, and before I even get into the details, to win at the points game, you have to pay your bill off in full every month. If you are in credit card debt, don't worry. I was actually an idiot in college and got myself into credit card debt kind of put my head in the sand and like ruin my credit score so it's always kind of funny that like now i'm like the world's credit card expert and i was a moron but i actually think that experience of going through it has helped me understand like where people are coming from yeah no we've talked

about on this show and had like like finance experts on and we constantly recommend for you if they can like if you're going to charge on your credit card pay it in full every time don't accumulate the debt and start paying the interest because if you're paying interest even if you've got a lower interest rate card you're negating the value of those points in a nutshell points are worth roughly one cent per point so if you've got

100,000 points in general a conservative value of those points should be about $1,000 now the game is, we all agree that if you're going to get a credit card, you're not going to spend outside of your means just because you can. You're going to pay your bills off in full. And the wild thing is your credit score actually goes up the more credit cards and available credit you have and the less you use. So if you go to the FICO website, and I know people are worried, Brian, I'm not getting

into credit cards. They ruin your credit card if I take out a card. There is like a two to five point ding when you get a new credit card, but your score goes up dramatically. The two biggest factors are paying your bills on time and paying them off. So if you actually have a lot of credit available to you and you pay it off and it's zero, your score, and it's really crazy how quickly your score will go up. So in the points world, it's amazing. People are like, well, I get these credit cards that come with humongous bonuses that are worth thousands of dollars. So their banks are giving points away. And then every dollar you spend, you're earning points. And my score went up too. And a higher credit score means cheaper mortgage. I mean, it's having good credit in

general, like you need to look at as an asset. So you can play this points game and improve your credit score and travel incredibly and have these life experiences that your budget might not have been able to afford, just like I did when I was living paycheck to paycheck, but still going to the Seychelles on a long weekend. So that being said, okay, great. I've sold you on credit cards and good financial health. There's three main types of credit cards. So the type that you want to get, you want to diversify your points. Because what happens is, and I know people will be like, I love Delta. I just want to fly Delta. I only want Delta points. And Delta is a great airline but what happens when your friends are like hey let's all go to dubai and you can't use your delta miles to fly any good airline non-stop to dubai like the goal of points is to diversify so that's why this category of cards that i recommend is called transferable points credit cards so amex membership rewards chase ultimate rewards city thank you points and

then those are in capital one so you get these cards and instead of just accruing into like one single airline with amex for example if you use an amex gold which is probably one of the best amex cards it's four points per dollar on groceries and dining and i think most of your listeners probably spend overspend in those categories and if you're going out to eat or even you know you can select it i remember at one point like i had a at an agency and we selected the option to do the marketing dollars. It's the online advertising. So you bring up a great point. If you've got a small business, even a tiny one.

So at the point, when I sold the points guy years ago, I actually negotiated to have all of the business expense still run through my credit cards because that's the number one way that I get points. Now we're spending like a million dollars a month on Facebook, which is online advertising, which the Amex Business School, Chase Inc. I'll give three and four X points on that. You're just like accumulating a few five million points a month. So just on that one type of spend. Are you taking us to Dubai? Let's go. Have you guys ever flown Emirates first class? I have flown it once and it was I couldn't't even it was like orgasmic i couldn't get

off the plane i know they're long flights and i'm like we did use amex that's how we did it let's go let's go a couple more times but did you do the a380 where you took the shower i didn't take a shower but i was too busy watching beauty and the beast with a glass of um brunello eating my caviar and i mean i was heaven. I took my mom and dad and my mom was like, I don't want to take a shower. I was like, mom, you're taking a shower because where else can you do that?

At 40,000 feet going 554 miles an hour. Well, I think this is a good topic to touch on because sometimes, you know, people will see us travel business and over the years, I've been thoughtful in figuring some of these things out. And most of the time it's through points.

Sometimes there's a small fee and like, you know, you might have to pay the taxes or whatever but it's a fraction i mean for talk about companion passes too like sometimes you get a companion pass so it's like one you pay a little fee then the points and then you get a free like lauren's been able to travel with me free sometimes yep yeah i mean it adds up quickly so basically like the get a transferable points credit card amex gold is like is primo in that they have really rich categories. Chase Sapphire.

I would say if anyone who's just looking like the gateway drug for so many people in points, I would say is like the Chase Sapphire card. The Preferred has like a $95 annual fee. It's double points on travel and dining. Now back to like what I said, every dollar you spend, you want to be getting more than one point. And for example, if you've got a Chase Sapphire Reserve, which is a really good card, you earn three points on travel and dining but i encourage everyone to look at the cards that you

have and like see what that category means in the case of chase sapphire travel includes parking garages tolls you know in in addition to all the obvious you know so there's every credit card has different perk categories that like what i want people to do is look at what the major categories you spend money and then try to get, use a card that will give you a bonus in that category. Now, some categories like doctor's offices, there's no credit card that gives medical.

So for something like that, there are cards that like chase freedom gives one and a half points per dollar on everything. And capital one ventures two X on all spend. cards that like chase freedom gives one and a half points per dollar on everything and capital one ventures 2x on all spend so the goal is like when you're going out and buying groceries you're using amex gold for 4x and then if you're going to go to a doctor's office well you're going to get double points on venture so you use that one other card about cash back so the transferable points is key category number one that's like that's what i think i put the boat the bulk of

my points the The second, cashback credit cards are decent. Here's the thing. The transferable points cards are really valuable when you transfer them to airlines and sometimes hotels. If you want Amazon credit, if you want to use your points to shop at Saks, for example, that's a terrible way to use your Amex points because you're going to be getting less than a cent per point in value. If you want to do that, get a cashback credit card, right? Cashback, like Citi double cash, no annual fee, 2% back as long as you pay your bill on time. So that you spend $100,000, you get $2,000 cold hard cash. You can use it however you want. If you want simplicity, you don't have to want to fly Emirates first class, but you should be using instead of a debit card which you're getting zero use a card like a cash back card and then the third type is like airline credit

cards where once again a lot of people be like well i just love you know delta airlines so that's i'm just gonna use every credit card delta those cards are good but generally not for earning points they're great for perks free check bags but you can use that card but remember you don't have to put all of your spend on one card i highly recommend you know don't get i have 25 credit cards oh jesus that's a little extreme i don't recommend people to do that but get a couple cards that are like solid just you know where you spend the most money office supplies groceries and then you'll see you know not only where you get a huge sign up bonus for a card and that's one other thing never you know if you've got a uh never upgrade your card with a credit card

company you always want to apply for a brand new card because you're going to get the sign up bonus no sign up bonuses can be a hundred thousand points or more you know if you call up your credit card company say i want you know i want to change this card to that one they'll be like sure but then they won't give you the massive bonus you just want to sign up every time yeah let me ask you this say you have a bunch of points and tell me if i'm wrong you log into your credit card account you see there should be up in the right corner should say your points or however miles or whatever it is what is the best way to start figuring out how to utilize because i think a lot of people are sitting there like okay i've had this card for forever i've had an amex and i'm sitting on all these points what the hell

do i do with them yeah well and I'll also just plug, six months ago, we came out with the PointsGuy app and it's the only app that'll give you your net worth in points. So you can attach all your credit cards, your airlines. We use our valuations for what points.

We have a whole, every month our editorial team comes out with a new ranking of how much each airline currency is worth based on general redemptions. So first things first is just seeing how many points you have. And people are usually blown away like, oh, wow, I have a lot more than I realized. And that's what we want to use technology to empower people.

The Points Guy has been around for 12 years. We've got 50,000 blog posts. It is a lot to take this in and to really become an expert. Now, what I would tell people is there are so many resources on the internet. The Points Guy, obviously, but there's plenty of other websites. I encourage people that if you've got a ton of Capital One Venture Miles, Google how to maximize Capital One Venture Miles. They'll be my writers who are the experts in their field that will bring you through each and every...

Or even just say, how do I get to... Say you want to go to the Maldives? how do i get to the maldives on points and there's tons of content that will help start you thinking through like okay what are actually the best ways to do that for example like you know flights are just one side but hotels are another so it's like what's the best way to use amex points for hotels or and do you think hotels are as do you get as much value out of hotels as flights or as flights flights are general especially if you're redeeming for business international and first hotels can be redeeming like chase transferring chase points to hyatt for example

you can get park hyatts for only 25 000 points and those park hyatts are over a thousand dollars a night when you do the math that comes out to four cents per point in value uh if you're using 25 000 points and you're getting something a thousand in value so that's a great redemption i'm going to the rich carlton maldives next month and that's it was like four thousand dollars a night but i was only spending like a hundred thousand points a night and then you get the fifth night free with Marriott. So there's all these nuances. And all I'll say is, it's a currency. It's just like the crypto, the US dollar. It has this inherent value.

The coolest thing about points is the more you mine your knowledge in a certain currency, the value goes up. You'll have those aha moments and it seems really confusing at first, but once you start to speak the language and crack the code,

and I tell you, it is worth it. Because when you transfer points to book that flight to Italy that you didn't think you were going to be able to afford this summer, and the taxes and fees are $41 for a $4,000 flight, it is a rush. And once people do that, that's when they become like, okay, it's a little difficult. But I think in the complexity of all these points programs, it's, it's like solving the crossword puzzle, but instead of just having, you know, pride that you did it or a wordle, you get to take a trip.

That's why I think this is like the most fun game in the world. What is the coolest, sickest thing that you've gotten from your points out of everything you've done? You can name a couple of things things because I feel like you have a couple. BetterHelp Online Therapy. You know what? Life is overwhelming. There's a lot going on. There's a hundred things to do. A lot of us feel tired, fatigued, unmotivated. And this is something that is such an incredible tool to have in your toolbox, BetterHelp. It's a customized online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat sessions with a therapist. Here's the deal. If you don't want

to see anyone on camera, you don't have to. You can just talk to them on the phone. If you want to see someone on camera, great. If I had had this in high school, when I was like looking for a therapist frantically, it would have made my life so much easier. I went to like 10 different therapists to help me through something that I was going through. And I remember it was just like such a letdown. This is something that's efficient. You can do out of your home. You can do video, call, whatever you want. And it's quick to book it's therapy online so if you're feeling burnt out from work if you're feeling burnt out in relationships whatever it is this is such a good tool to take more time for yourself i actually was talking to one of my best friends who's used

better help she was telling me how incredible it was to just get on the phone with someone and just hash out all her problems you could see someone once you could see them a lot. It's whatever you want to do. So BetterHelp is a customized online therapy, like I said, that offers video phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist. So you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. Also, you should know it's so much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash skinny. That's BetterHelp.com slash skinny. So I will start with the first thing is you can use points for charity.

And so I'm gay and so lucky that in the United States, I can be CEO and my family loves me and even have kids if I want to. But a lot of LGBT people around the world have it really bad. So I support an organization called Rainbow Railroad. And we actually, it's a global network and we help people where being gay is illegal. You can be imprisoned, you can be killed. And unfortunately, it happens a lot more than you think so rainbow railroad you can donate your points your amex points or air canada aeroplan and we actually save people's lives with those points so we'll get people out of chechnya where there's currently gay concentration

camps jamaica beautiful country amazing people but like trans people in jamaica literally live under bridges they're called gullies i i went with 60 Minutes to Jamaica and literally was able to witness people. And if you're trans in so many communities, you can't live. You can't get a job. So the best use of points in my life is helping save people's lives, getting them to asylum in countries where they can live their authentic selves. Plenty of other charities, too. Make-A-Wish.

We do a lot with their number one request from their wish kids is travel. So if you ever even have points just laying around that you're not going to use, I highly encourage you to donate them. So many amazing organizations. And do you just go to those organizations, say I have points and I want to figure out how to-

Yeah, each airline and credit card company is different in the charities they align with. But what you can also do, even if you can't donate, what you can do is for your kid's school, for example. I know a lot of schools hit parents up for fundraisers. You can actually use your points and say, hey, look, I'll book a $500 flight. Amex points are, you know, I'll book a $500 flight

for someone in like a raffle. And then you can just use your points and book travel for other people. So there's a lot of different ways you can get creative about it. But the bottom line with points, if there's one thing you take away from this podcast is you've got to use them because they lose value over time because

the airlines in general and hotels they just what we call a devaluation they keep raising the price you know 10 years ago you could go to europe for 100 000 miles in business class that was like the going rate you know it's like 400 400 yeah so that's it's not doomsday because on the earning side there's no better way than today bonuses those categories so if you're smart about it you can be earning tons of points so that you can offset that inflation in the price by earning more you know let me ask you this so say you have you're just starting out on your journey with credit and you don't you don't have a lot of credit what is what is the type of card you would recommend people to start with like say they can't get

approved for an annex gold even though like that's one of the starter you know you know there's uh discover is a great card none of them have fees they're more entry-level point you know you may not get a chase sapphire card but you can start with the freedom which has a little bit lower credit profile i know a lot of immigrants you know you come even if you're a billionaire immigrant and you live in London, you fly, you come to the US. There's no credit profile. You literally have the credit profile of a 15 year old and you can't even get a cell phone. I'm actually working with a company called Nova Credit and it's the first ever international credit score where they're now integrated with Amex and Verizon. But if you have a credit history abroad for the first time, you can actually get the credit that you deserve because they transfer those international uh scores over what are the ceos of all these

companies got you on speed dial or what well it's kind of fun you know now imagine it this way there's some leverage going on investing and and i'm still full on with the points guy i sold it a decade ago it's so fun we're growing the company but now i think advising and investing is a real passion of mine just this week someone came to me a Encore Jane, the CEO of Built, which is the first ever credit card, you earn points on rent. We just launched it nationally with Wells Fargo this week. But we came up with this idea, like most young people, your biggest expense is rent. And that's the one area in points, you could pay your rent, but they charge you 3%. And once again, if you're paying 3% to earn points like you're negating the value of those points because so we have created

this new credit card built which is no annual fee you earn points on rent and because your biggest expense is now on your credit profile your score goes up over time as long as you're paying it off and paying it off in full so built it as an intro card for a lot of people renters it's a way to start earning points even if you don't have your own business and are spending millions on advertising. Yeah, Discover card. You can even get a secured credit card, put $500 down, and then pay it off every single month. The thing about credit is so many of us want to put our heads in the sand. It's too difficult. Your score can go up really quickly if you just have a strategy.

I think people get bad advice. There's a lot of financial experts say, I think the message gets construed as don't use credit. And I think what those experts are saying is don't carry balances on credit with interest. They assume the worst in people. And Dave Ramsey, look, I mean, a lot of people in America are in credit card debt, and it sucks. It's quicksand.

There are so many predatory. Even when I was broke living in New York before I started the points guy, like I refused to ask my parents for money. So I got a payday loan and it was evil sorcery. Like I would pay it off, but they would have all these stipulations. And it's funny enough that the guy who owned that company is now in jail. There was a Netflix documentary about this payday loan companies. So I get it.

Like for people, when you have no money scared of it they're scared like it's gonna hurt me you should rightfully be scared and have you know but if you have the discipline if you have cash in your checking account and you can pay your bill off in full every month and you your score will go up and your points balances will increase and that's what i like to teach people it's not it's it 100 is a game you can win i got a weird tip you can get a card especially in a business you can win i got a weird tip you can get a card especially in a business card especially but also personal cards and you can get supplementary cards for free on those and set limits on them and most of the time it's done when like a parent has a

kid i think that's a smart way if you're going to carry a credit card and you're scared to go over your balance like set a thousand dollar cap and if you hit that it's like you can't spend on anymore absolutely what cards suck i would say there's like a visa black card that is not the real the real black card is amex centurion funny enough like so i'm a amex centurion card holder and it's five thousand dollars a year and honestly for it's one of the worst amex cards in terms of points you only earn really one point per dollar spent which is so wild to think the 250 gold gold card, you earn four X and three. So I would say that there is a lot of super expensive credit cards that are, it's more about the hype and having the card than it is actually the points.

One other thing, but the one other thing we haven't talked about, points are amazing, but perks are another thing that can be incredible. So as we talked about, the airport can be a scary place these days. So if you really value being able to go to a lounge and not just get free booze in the lounge, what people don't realize is whenever a flight gets canceled, you can't get through on the phone and there's a two-hour long line to talk to a rep, go to the airline lounge because the people at that front desk can rebook you and get you home on that last seat. I know, I always see those people waiting in line. I'm like, oh, you're doing it wrong.

By the time you get to that agent, you're going to have no options left. Did you know that tip? Yeah. That's a great tip. Well, and also too, you like put some of the Centurion and the plan. And now we're getting to the operational ones, but like you can get to somebody much easier on the phone. Yep.

And that's why, I mean, I started booking with travel agents, travel advisors. I have Amex like travel, which is pretty good. Whenever it's a 10 hour wait on the phone, I can message my Amex rep and be like, hey, cancel these flights or change these. I'll end on the worst credit cards. A lot of no fee cards.

I know people have this natural version. I don't want to pay annual fees. The cards with annual fees actually offer the most benefits. And what I would implore people to look for is more than just the points, but look at perks. A lot of credit cards have what's called travel interruption or delay coverage. So if you're delayed 10 hours or overnight, airlines are not going to give you a hotel stay or get you a rental car to get to your destination. But credit card companies will.

So while, yes, it's nice to look at how many points you're earning, but a lot of credit cards will have, if you're in Africa on safari and you're with your parent that has a heart attack, if you book on an Amex Platinum, they'll actually, they have evacuation coverage that can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's not just the points that you should be looking at but also look at the perks and i'll just say for people who use like debit cards out of fundamental principle you know they don't have the purchase protections you know when an airline goes bankrupt literally just goes dissolves overnight and that's happened a lot and if you're stranded it happened in iceland with this budget carrier wow air you're stranded, it happened in Iceland with this budget carrier, Wow Air, you're screwed.

But if you put it on an Amex or Chase, there's so much that they can do above and beyond. And these days, travel continues to melt down. It will for a while. There's pilot shortages, all sorts of things that are going to make travel complicated. So having the right credit cards where you pay a little bit, you can get a ton back in terms of the perks and benefits. Okay. I feel like you're the perfect person to ask this i want to take this step by step say suzy in oklahoma has atrocious credit like it's the worst credit you've ever seen what would you advise her to do step by step like really tangible takeaways for our audience yeah the number one thing is you've got to pay

down your balances so So your first goal, so we're not even going to think about applying for new credit cards or anything like that. You want to get your balances down. And if you have a card that's like you're getting 30% in APR, there are balance transfers that can make sense. So instead of trying to think about a points card, like look at cards that will offer,

you know, 0% financing and take advantage of them. You've got to neutralize yourself in the quicksand and just be maniacal, cut your costs, pay off your debt. As soon as you pay off your debt and you're paying it every month, your score will start to go up. If your balances remain and the monthly fees will offset the minimum payment, so you're going to be sitting in quicksand forever. Your score is not going to go up. So the goal is to just get your balances down over time and you will see as you're spending. And once you have the big credit limit, you're whittling it down. That's when your score goes up. There's really not that much more to it. There's a lot of scam

companies out there that will sell you on credit cleanup, take that money and pay off the principal balance. And you can do a lot of that stuff yourself. If there are inaccuracies, you can dispute them for free. I would just say to anyone in debt, just educate yourself on the resources available. Talk to the lender, see if they have forgiveness. Don't just put your head in the sand and walk away from it. And I know a lot of people are like, well, I have one late payment and in seven years it'll be gone so i might as well have more but that's not the way to think about it this is nuanced and maybe high level but i think it's worth mentioning i i remember one time we were going to france and i wanted to use miles and it was through amex was it through amex or

might have been chased anyway it's a transferable point program and the airline we were trying to use the miles through wouldn't allow it so what i had to do was actually transfer the miles to like air canada and then air canada so i don't remember how i figured that out but i think it's worth mentioning because there's also ways as you're transferring like you might want you might think i'm going to france i need to fly air france but you can't but if you transfer partners yes partner programs so the holy grail for us so today you like and you and my favorite site to look up cheap flights is Google Flights. It's free.

You can search by calendar, like what day is going to be the cheapest. That doesn't exist for using your points, as you just mentioned. So if you've got Amex points, there's 25 different airlines you can transfer to. In the case of Airplane, it's actually one of the best transfer partners that people don't know about. Air Canada is a Starlines airline, meaning you can book lufthansa singapore and so many others what we want to create at the points guy is the google flights for award travel you know like you can go to online travel agencies and search paid flights because there's like one pipe that the airlines have built to kind of display airfares they don't have that for frequent flyer miles so each and every airline has its own

platform we want to build the platform that will merge all of them so if you have amex points and some american and some hyatt and you want to take a trip to the caribbean and this week we want to be able to reverse engineer that but the airlines have been challenging to work with because you know when they created online travel agencies it took business away from them so so how did i figure that out i wonder because i remember when i did it was significant it was it was a lot of savings when i figured and i don't remember if someone consulted me or if it was something i navigated through the site but if somebody's doing this and going through the exercise and be like oh like i want to figure out other ways to figure out how to use well actually the points guy app which is in the apple app store just as the points guy it's free we actually have a trip planner tool so it'll say if you want to go austin to london so basically the logic gets crazy if

amex has 30 different transfer partners and each of those airlines is a part of an alliance or has other airline partners like the statistical ways that you could use those points are like you're like so in our trip planner in the tG app, we'll actually list all the different transfer partners that you have with that airline and how many miles roughly they would take

for you to fly a certain route. It's not perfect because it doesn't pull in the real availability. In order to do that, the airlines would need to share their,

you know, the APIs to their award availability, but I do believe we will get there one day. But the point is you can kind of surf around and not just take the first result and see if there's transfer points and look around

and bet your options a great example of that is like if you got amex points delta is a transfer partner but don't transfer to delta booking you're transferring to virgin atlanta usually if you can find that same delta flight it's at a fraction of the cost and fees once again this is like with the transferable points it's a tricky game but once you start learning it that's when you get insane value let's say brian is booking a flight to saint bart's i'm going next week for the first time actually oh look at this i'm psychic let's say that you're booking the trip walk us through every single little hack that you're taking to book this trip in the most bougie extravagant way on a budget that's a great example because okay one lesson is it's all about the plane people different types of planes you can have a wildly different experience and i am a

snob when it comes to flying like i need a life flatbed when you're tall i'm six foot seven you know sitting in a recliner seat single you guys i know if anyone's out there six foot seven and single and with points with a lot of points uh so in my case new york city uh united airlines actually flies a 767 to san juan with lie flat beds and then from there i can take the puddle jumper and it's cheaper to fly through san juan most people instead of saint martin yeah everyone says oh we'll fly to saint martin it's actually saint martin's much more expensive to fly to and they've got crappier planes so when it comes to flying like i always look at a site called seatguru.com can help you look at

the seat maps and see what kind of plane it is unfortunately new york to austin there are no live flats but i feel like that's going to change one day michael just popped a boner when you just said seat guru i've been on seat guru for years you don't know this i have no idea i type in the number the flight number i go in there and figure out what the plane i look at the pictures keep going give them all the secret you know i'll answer one of my top questions people ask is like, I'm a nervous flyer. So here's the thing. The bigger the plane, the smoother the ride.

So you can, I always recommend take the, and you can look at the type of plane that's flying on a certain route. Also, I recommend flying newer planes like 787s, A350s are like quiet inside. And if you want to get sleep on a plane, some older planes are like, and if you sit next to the engine on a triple seven like my head literally like shakes in its seat so always try to sit as far front in the plane as possible especially internationally because you want to get off the plane first like if you're in the back that could be an extra hour and in customs at the airport you know clear tsa pre all the programs my biggest thing like i told you now is like how do i jet through in the most seamless

way possible with my wife, kid, the chihuahuas, everything that's going on? How do you do it? All right. When I moved to Austin, I needed a doctor. And guess what? I have an app. It's free that shows you doctors who are patient reviewed, take your insurance and are available when you need them. So instead of going

to Google and like trying to figure it out and the reviews are fake and like people are boosting things, you can just go to ZocDoc and you can read up on local doctors. You get verified patient reviews. Verified is very important. And you can see what other real humans had to say about their visit. So easy to find a doctor, especially if you're moving somewhere new or if you're already living somewhere and you don't have a doctor. And you also know when you walk into the doctor's office, you're set up to see someone in your network who gets you. I also think like just having the booking intro is so important

because they take your insurance, they get what you need, and they can be available when you need to see them. It just takes all the pain points out, which is so nice. All you have to do is go to ZocDoc.com, you choose a time slot and whether you want to see the doctor in person or you can even do a video visit. I love this. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to go to ZocDoc.com slash skinny and download ZocDoc app for free. Then start your search for a top rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash skinny. ZocDoc.com slash skinny. Everyone should get global entry. Globalry is $100 for five years.

It's $20 a year. And with that comes TSA PreCheck. And doesn't Amex include it in there? Exactly. And a bunch of different credit cards have free Global Entry. So just Google what credit cards offer free Global Entry. Sign up for it now. It'll come with TSA PreCheck.

And Global Entry allows you, when you come back to the U.S., to avoid the lines. You don't even need to put your fingers down now. It scans your irises and you're through in two minutes same thing tsa pre-check is great some airports that pre-check line like in atlanta it's so long that getting clear which also credit cards and if you have top airline status with united or delta they'll give it to you for free but clear allows you to get to the front of the tsa pre-check line that's super cheap was it like 30 bucks a year now no clear is actually a little bit expensive it depends yeah it's like 150 or so a year um i remember when they first started it was it was really cheap because they wanted people on clear is also cool because it works at stadiums too so yankee stadium

there's a long security line there's clear lanes that can get you to the front they're starting to do it more at like festivals and they had some covid vaccine passports through clear so it's a pretty innovative company but yeah pre-check and clear is the way to go for sure and then when boarding a plane getting an airline co-branded card will get you you know instead of group nine when you're gonna have to check your bag wait you know go to the belt getting on the plane matters getting at least an airline co-branded credit card that will uh get you that zone three boarding lauren gets mad at me when i want to get on the plane but here's my here's my logic tell me you disagree i don't want to stand in the tube with everybody holding all the bags so i either want to get on first or at the very very end if i have to i mean

for me i'm like as little time as possible on this tiny metal tube is good but i'm you i'm you know because you all stand there like you guys are so different than me i am so lax i put my headphones on i don't know what i didn't even know there's different kinds of planes but lauren i have no idea i'm in la la land i think like i am in the goddamn clouds like i have which is probably the way to win these days i just don't let like all of these outside things affect me but but i'm like are you a window seat or aisle seat girl i don't care i don't think about it the reason you don't think about it it doesn't affect you is because your husband is standing in the corner probably fighting with other people for that last spot maybe i'm a princess like that because i just

let you handle it you know what she does we get get off the plane. This is a true story. We have a dog and a carrier. We have a child. We have three carry-on bags. We have a stroller. The flight lands. She gets up, grabs her glass of water, walks off,

and I'm standing there and people look at me on the plane like, you poor son of a bitch. Lauren, surely this isn't true, is it? No, this is 100% true. I just think the plane

is just- She didn't answer the question. Put your headphones on and have a glass of champagne and enjoy the ride. She puts the headphones on because she can't hear my screaming cries for help i also can't control the plane or the pilot so i just detach from it people always ask this question about flight anxiety i don't have any how do you deal with that yeah i mean but i agree with you in that you got to control your own environment so i always have my you know i lately i like the apple

uh airpods max you know i can block out if there's a screaming baby like just crank up your music and get into your own zone take a gummy of whatever choosing that you like to enjoy yourself and just like don't be so i think people walk into the airport like ramped up stressed out to begin with and that's why you see so many psychotic people just acting like crazy so i do believe like a good attitude like and it's not you know we should be like thankful we're able to travel these days especially after coming out of a pandemic where we've been cooped up so and i just would say to anyone please stop yelling at airline employees like because not just because it's a rude thing to do but like these employees have all the power they are paid nothing and they can control whether you get home or not so screaming at

them is literally the dumbest thing you could ever do i think that's in any it's so unbecoming when you're in line at the airport and you see someone losing their cool on on an employee it's it's it makes you look like a fucking dick yeah Yeah. Just stop. The employee is doing their best. It's so stupid. And I'm a big believer in kill them with kindness. It's the best way. That's how you get ahead, especially in airlines. And also these days, plan extra.

I'm sorry when people are like, I'm going to miss my 41-minute connection to go on my $20,000 cruise. I'm like, why would you? These days, flights are going to get canceled. The airlines are not staffed appropriately. Do not plan anywhere a 30 minute connection. You know, like I love when we land on time and someone's racing from the back. I'm going to miss my connection. Like, why did you book such a stupid connection?

And also the points guys on the plane. So maybe not the right plane to say that on. Well, you know, I think you mentioned earlier, like, am I the guy that shows up three hours? I think when I travel now, I want it to be leisurely, right? Like I don't want to sweat or rush through. And even if that means I have to go a little early and go to a lounge for a little longer or walk through connection, because I was that guy in the past was like, it was tight and it was go.

And they're like, now I'm just like, it's too much now with a kid and especially with pregnant. It's impossible. So I'm like, you know, make fun of me that I get there a little earlier but i'm relaxed i'm not like running like i wouldn't say you're relaxed i actually created a character on snapchat probably about seven years ago called susan and susan is michael at the airport susan is is susan a relative of karen susan is like worse than karen susan is slamming suitcases zipping things aggressively pounding things on eating quickly i was the dad meme i was the dad it's just like

calm down i don't this i read this quote the other day about how anxiety does nothing for you and it really doesn't do anything it's a waste of goddamn energy you know though it is there is nothing worse than like i remember one time we were leaving jf i mean jfk is a bitch of a report to get out of jfk that's another tip if you yeah just completely yeah um we had to go there was a big snowstorm in new york and we're trying to leave and the traffic just got crazy and then the flight got canceled literally right when we got there and getting a hotel everyone got canceled so the hotels are limited out there and they're all like fucked up yeah and so we had to stay and that was that was a mess like that's my worst nightmare you have like post-traumatic stress over things i don't even remember i don't

remember any of you put on gone girl and served me a breakfast restaurant that's what i had that was my experience i was stuck in a gone girl a dark room wait i have to ask you guys questions so i want to have kids one day how has traveling changed with one kid and like how are you preparing for the second it's completely fucking you want the truth this is completely different i'm just telling you right now hold on you gotta you gotta come prepared and listen i'm as you can tell i'm not a prepared person can you tell i come with like dried mango puffs apple crunchables like let's clarify here though

I laugh at the parents that say it's hard traveling with a child that's a year old it's not I mean it is it's challenging and I say that because I'm a parent who's done it yeah try traveling 18 months to two and a half years when you can't reason with them when they don't want

to sit down when they don't want to listen but he's not there yet he's he's at one but the reason i mentioned is because that i used to think when we were traveling at that age my god this is challenging this is hard i was one of those i look back on that i could do that so easily now right there's certain things that i would get to do it because now that i've experienced through the first year we're not there yet has azaz ever had a full meltdown on the plane are you kidding me what do you do when they're just like i hand her to michael to get a glass of champagne i have so much empathy now for parents when their kids are having a meltdown because here's this i look at it in three stages the first stage is you don't have kids and a kid starts screaming you're

annoyed you're like oh jesus the crying kid on the flight the second stage is you're a parent who has a kid and you just look at that parent like oh my god i feel so bad and then i think the third stage which we haven't got to but i see is older people that have had kids but don't anymore and they're like get it i think that you gotta bring snacks you gotta bring a water cup that sips through a straw it has to be a straw don't try to bring any other cup other than a straw. I also think you need a blanket in case they get cold because sometimes it gets air conditioning. You gotta do like the barefoot.

Yeah, you need like a barefoot dreams mini blanket. You also have to have activities and the activity that I'm obsessed with right now and everyone needs if you're a parent. My friend Hillary told me about it. It's a coloring book but it's with water the pen is water so when they color on the coloring book it shows up in color but it's water so mommy doesn't get any markers on her white couch so if you bring colors

on the plane or they're gonna get it everywhere i'll you also and this is the biggest one you gotta have a show downloaded yeah and don't come at me on instagram and say i don't let my kids watch tv you gotta have a fucking show down yeah for your own sanity i have a lot of friends who say like you limit the screen time like a lot on land but like anytime on a plane you just like let them go out take the heroin never ever let them learn how to use the screens behind the seats. Yeah. Let me tell you, there's maybe parents nodding their head. Because what happens is when they're in this in-between age, when they don't understand it, it doesn't act as an iPad,

and there's announcements or things that chirp in, and they're literally smashing it. It stops their show. So now I pretend that doesn't exist. There's things that you're going to- I've had kids banging my seat, like playing. You're going to call me in a year and a half and be like, oh shit. Yeah.

But you'll be, I feel like you'll make it seamless. Yeah. But it's definitely a different experience and you need a lot of champagne. How, so are you going to take. Zos has been on probably 60 flights. She's been a lot. Are you going to take a baby move? Like while pregnant like

at what stage do you travel to i don't have that much interest in taking a baby moon i would rather take a moon after i give birth because listen i can't have a margarita in cabo i'm rolling around like an old sow like it's to to have sex right now it feels like someone's just like porking me from behind it's like it's just not like these baby these baby moons are just like no i don't get it like i want to have an afternoon like i feel like the baby's out like we're good i can have a margarita like it's hotter sex how like after your first trial like how long did you travel without the child? Like, do you have guilt? Like at a certain, yes.

Cause I'm just trying to think of my life. Once I have a kid, it's like, you know, do you feel guilty traveling without the child? I certainly want to like, would want to like stay home. I don't know if it's so much guilt as it is like you do.

Like in our case, we do miss her, but at the same time, I think it's healthy to not. Michael, we've taken one night trip away from the baby. She's two years old yes it is we're taking two which one went to vegas and then we went to um there's another place we

went oh no no it is i don't believe you no there is but maybe oh not together yeah not together there has been though no there's been one trip we yes we feel guilty but the woman feels that i've noticed way more than the man like the woman because you're supposed to like you're supposed to like be a stay-at-home mom but also i work full-time the same amount as him it's so interesting i was telling someone the other day everyone asked me if i have a nanny but no one asked him and we work the exact same amount of time it's so weird that's a different conversation anyway so yes you do feel guilt but i but I think that for you, you're just going to have to manage it because it's part of your gig.

Afternoon, what are your top destinations? Where are you dying to go once you're traveling again? I just want to sit in Cabo. I've never been to Cabo. What? Yeah. I've been to the Maldives six times, but never Cabo. I've never been to the Maldives, so do I need to go to the maldives are awesome it's just like they're far but it's like

just being on a tiny speck of sand in the most crystal blue waters just like hint hint and you fly emirates through or qatar like the middle eastern airlines are sick you make the trip it's it's a long way there but you make the trip part of the you know here's what i think what i predict so zaza has been now she's been to the uk she's been to france switzerland where else she's been i don't know but this is nothing to brag about because it's been a nightmare travel the whole time reason i'm not bragging but the reason i mentioned is because she's been on these distance flights and it's great once you get over there and it's nice but what it's it's a lot of effort once they're over 18 months and it's a it's a lot of strain so and i think lauren and i are now looking okay

now that we're in this phase of life and we have young we're gonna have young kids for a little while like where are the places where you can get there three to five hours in a bang and like really like have a great time but not have the like it's it's hard when you start a trip with 15 hours and a jet lagged kid yeah it just is but one of my friends went to australia and she put her baby in a fucking car seat. You can't go anywhere. The baby couldn't go anywhere and sat there for 15 hours. Well, my mom used to always give me drama.

I was like, mom, I'm not sick. She's like, take this. I'm like, I bet that's illegal these days. Can I interview your mom? That's amazing. She's awesome. I don't know what this says about me, but I learned that after I was born, like a few weeks later that my parents went to Europe for three weeks.

So I don't know what that's about oh that explains it yeah where is your favorite place to travel if you had to give us your top three places and like what what does that look like i'm in texas right now and it's hot, lots of sweat, lots of moisture. And here's the deal. Sometimes you need a little bit of help down there, if you know what I mean. So let me introduce you to PHD Feminine Health. They have holistic feminine care. So I got to try some of their products and the one that I think is the move, if you have a feminine odor, the one that I liked was the Holistic Feminine Deodorant Spray. And it's like a cucumber spray. And it's this compound that's a peptide and amino acid. And it basically neutralizes odor.

This is so amazing if you want to go to the gym and then you want to go to happy hour, but you don't want to smell, especially down there. And so to have this like light cucumber spray that's in your bag, it's holistic. You could spray it on your underwear. You could spray it down there, whatever you want to do. It's great for feminine odor and hygiene. And Michael is not listening to this right now. And he doesn't need to be, this is like a little secret between you and I. So anything from funky odor, uncomfortable itch, dryness, or anytime when you're at the beach or the water or the pool, or you have a swimsuit on, this is the move. PHD offers trustworthy feminine care products that actually work. So there's other

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code skinny at phd femininehealth.com slash win. Well, my top overall destination, I love traveling within Africa. South Africa is, have either of you been? No, I really want to go. Let me just tell you, I get chills even thinking about South Africa because Cape Town is like the stunning city, table mountain on the coast. There'suins in the water it's kind of got this you know european vibe to it cool and then the wine country is 45 minutes outside the city and it's rolling valleys insane wineries like just a vibe and then also safaris just have you been on a safari safari i mean i love animals but just being the middle, like you look at like the animal kingdom as what it's supposed to be. Like you really feel like these, you know, you're in a, in a Jeep, two feet of lion walks by you and you're just watching nature as it happens.

It's like so exhilarating, but also like you go to a good, like Singita Labombo, I highly recommend. It's in South Africa. Chic, chic, chic, like gorgeous, you know villas you're on a watering hole so you're showering and you see animals coming up to the watering hole from your room and then at you know at night you have sundowners which is when the sun's going down on the savannah they set up a beautiful like cocktails and it's just so South Africa is like what's the hotel to stay up there well the silo hotel in Cape Town is the super chic design hotel it's like in an old factory but it's got huge windows really nicely designed and singita labombo in a kruger sabi sands is like

amazing so i i always recommend south africa there's culture there's you know food and wine and everything also one of my favorite trips and for west coasters it's tahiti's eight hours from la and so bora bora is stunning you know you can use points at saint regis and the conrad are both really good hotels but what i recommend is um the island of morea it's a smaller you know small little island unlike bora bora where all the hotels are pretty much you have to get a boat and they're all separate morea and if you love whales from july through october it's whale season but it's one of the only places in the world where they'll let you actually get in the water with the humpbacks you can snorkel with humpback whales

in tahiti and all i can tell you is you know you kind of you got your fins but i had this experience with like a mother humpback whale like 15 feet away from me and we just like that clip it i have pictures of it it's insane but tahiti's experience with a mother humpback whale yeah i'm pulling that out of context putting it out i mean when you're snorkeling in the pacific and you see a humpback below it's like a submarine it's a little bit it's not for the faint of heart i'll say but tahiti's just i mean you don't have to swim with the humpbacks but it's could they eat you no but but i have a video where i was goproing for a friend who loves whale she was in the hospital i'm like hey like and then literally at the very end of the video that one breaches probably go 150 feet in front of me but just goes into the air boom and

i'm like if that was me underneath it like i'd be you know all i can imagine is pinocchio yeah like when the whale ate there was a story last summer that a fisherman like a lobster fisherman was in the water and a humpback like swallowed him and spit him out but i think that was started to get i think it got disputed okay well i need to know if humpbacks can eat you anyways well the humpbacks that what you're worried about these sharks follow the humpbacks that are you the guides that you're with have rods and if these sharks come up to you they're actually they're like dogs they're curious and as long as you smash them in the face with the rod they'll go away but if you don't see them and they come up they'll like actually start eating you so you

just have to always um maybe i'm not selling this whale experience am i yeah lauren i mean i wouldn't want you to guard me with a rod like there's a kid in the honey with the bags on the air yeah i'm sure she'd be really attentive on my headphones. My noise canceling headphones on with my glasses. So I want to tell the audience what it's like to sell a company. Yes. I mean, that's a big deal that you did that.

What did that process look like? And what's your, what was, what's your after selling the company life? I'm in a really unique. So I sold it. And so June, 2010, I start blogging.

March of 2011 is when I start monetizing. And it was incredible, life-changing. And it was May of 2012 that a friend said, hey, you should meet this guy. The company was called Bankrate. And bankrate.com is the top site for mortgages. And they own creditcards.com. And unbeknownst to me I they were like well the points guy is this niche luxury vertical that we're going to acquire so I actually didn't even use an investment bank it was me

negotiating with the CEO for six weeks and it was like the most stressful insane six weeks of due diligence and when you're selling a company you go through highs and lows and i'm thankful for the experience i wouldn't you know at age 28 or 29 it was kind of like you know i went from making like 70 000 a year in hr to now being a media ceo and i had no investors so it was like it was amazing it was a life-changing deal for me and so many people now will say well don't you regret selling because the company now has got 120 employees and it's very successful but so many of my entrepreneur friends told me like take the money off the table like especially for your first thing that i had no idea i mean it was just this rocketing rise i thought for sure it was going to come to an end so i know i would always

just say i leaned a lot on entrepreneurs who had done it before to and try to get as much advice as possible. But choose the right partner because I sold to Bankrate 10 years ago. We were acquired by Red Ventures in 2017, and I just signed a five-year deal to stay on. And also, I would say is you don't need to be the CEO in charge of everything. Yes, the Point Sky is my baby and my brand, but it's grown so much now that i think my biggest two years ago when the pandemic hit i realized like i hate managing people like i love people i'm not the greatest manager in the world and you think you would have scaled it to what it is now if you didn't i definitely i mean

i had no you know i was a spanish major my first job was a buyer for lord and taylor i ended up working in hr at a bank like so i i I was never the hard, I'm an entrepreneur, the mechanics. I'm a creative. I love storytelling. I love, I'm a salesperson. There's a lot of things that I love, but the mechanics of the business. And I think if I did have all of that,

I probably would have taken investors and taken a different route. But I have no regrets on what it is. But if you're going to sell your business, I mean, I've just been lucky to have really good partners. Like after I sold the points guy they were basically like just do whatever you want for years but red ventures has taken us to another level because we they had tons of engineering expertise that have that's really allowed it to grow so yeah it is like one

of the if not the premier travel blog site platform in the world. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy to think about. We actually just, the comp score just came out and now we're above, I think CNN travel might be above us or USA to, you know, it depends on how you rank it, but still.

And when you, but when you think about like a singular site, we're by far the most profitable by many, many margins. So there's a lot of ways to measure success in the business, but it was kind of, I pinched myself, you know, when we surpassed, you know,

Connie Nash Traveler in traffic several years ago. And it's like these magazines that I read growing up and it's like, wow, this little blog that I created now is like this little powerhouse. Well, I think it's such an interesting story for people to hear because you took this niche and this passion that seemed maybe small to you at the time. Like, oh, I like booking travel and I like credit cards and figuring out points. And you've turned into this massive platform. And I think that's what the internet has done for some people. It's democratized things that you, things that could only be small things before can now be huge things.

Yeah. Right. Like you did, if you, if you started doing this in 99, but I mean, or nine, but like 1970,

like it just, there's no way. Yeah. To scale it. I remember my dad said, Brian, you need to learn how to make money in your sleep and that's what i was doing because i would come home from work i'd be doing these bookings and then i actually i call it my phone sex operator phase i was charging people 100 an hour to speak to me on the phone and i would give them travel tips but that was like so hard to scale and you know in a direct to consumer business there was

so yeah being able to create content that today, right now, our content's monetizing all across... It's been a really interesting journey to create a digital content, but by leveraging affiliate. And in 2011, affiliate was kind of looked down on as scammy, right? But now you see almost every major news network that Today Show has a shopping platform. And there's nothing wrong with it, as long as you're giving value to the consumer. Brian Kelly, the points guy, you're unbelievable unbelievable where can everyone find you what are you working

on what should they sign up for give us the give us the details well you know the points guy.com on and the points guy on all social channels but i'm personally brian kelly on instagram that's my personal travels that's where i update with hard-hitting news like starbucks mobile ordering which is now available in airports which i just used today oh yeah it's major you can order your starbucks in an airport and have it waiting for you oh yeah baby and i highly recommend the wait times are long do it when you're going through security or even before because throughout the pandemic with staffing shortages the starbucks i've been in line i'm like i might miss my flight i need this cold brew michael wants to slit his wrist every time I get in line at Starbucks.

The original founder CEO stepping back in to right the ship again. Oh, really? I think he's like, hey, we need to get Starbucks back on the map. I think the mobile ordering should help get them there. But no, I'm excited. I'm working on a TV show now. I'm repped by WME. We're talking to a lot of really interesting people.

So I'm excited to kind of bring the points and travel world and to do a travel show that actually teaches you how to travel instead of just showing up in an exotic location and showing cool stuff like i want to get more people into points because it is such a no-brainer thank you for coming on come back anytime next time you come on you got to bring claude from the morning toast that's that would be she's my best friend and i i mean it would be a diabolical episode i think we got I mean It would be A diabolical episode I think we gotta do it We love a diabolical episode

We love having her on too Next When we come to New York Let's do a foursome Let's do it And also I invited you guys I have a new Horse farm

In New Hope, Pennsylvania And I have a Mini horse named Ginger Spice Who's like the sassiest Bitch in the world She's like becoming A star on the internet And I think

You guys would hit it off with her I would love to ride her It'll be just like Riding on an airplane Zaza definitely like the sassiest bitch in the world she's like becoming a star on the internet and i think you guys would hit it off with i would love to ride her it'll be just like riding on an airplane definitely can't oh i can't ride her it's a mini horse lauren oh it's a mini horse okay you're better with the humpback whale yeah thank you for coming on thank you so much for having me do you want to win a goodie bag all you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest post at lauren bostick always, thank you guys so much for listening. Things are going on postpartum with the hair. You know that. You've heard me bitch about it. And I'm going to give you some tips to get the hair thick, to get it luscious postpartum. I've tested everything on myself.

My first run with postpartum hair loss was a nightmare. I didn't even get that thinning hair. I just got shedding, a lot of shedding. And here is the formula that works, okay? You want to do some great supplements. You want to do microneedling and you want to do scalp massage. And I have a hack. You want to scalp massage with Devee. Devee is one of the leading scalp health brands founded from a personal story of hair loss and hair thinning. This product is all over social media. It is crazy. Go look at the before and after photos. You will not even believe it. It's wild. So what I do is I already scalp massage. Every single time I wash my hair or even if I have someone wash it for me, I scalp massage.

And I like to take one of those scalp massager brushes, and then I'll put this lightweight scalp serum on the brush. And it's infused with a powerful blend of amino acids and peptides. And what it does is it detoxes follicle buildup. It supports thicker hair and it encourages overall scalp health. Scalp health, by the way, is so underrated. Like this is something that you need to pay attention to if you're trying to grow your hair. The scalp is so important, okay? It's just for anyone who wants to be preventative about scalp health and grow their hair because the benefit of having a healthy scalp is hair growth. I was telling Michael about this the other day and he was literally eyeing it out of his peripheral. So you could use this on your husband. Sometimes I'll even like wash his hair when we're in the shower together and put this on my scalp massager and he absolutely loves it. Super easy to fit in your routine. Use it whenever you wash your hair. You got to take

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