The Trillionaire Mindset - 9: Scamming Target for Credit Card Miles

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

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Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 So between the two, I had 100,000 bonus points, and then I just did the target scam, and I... I got it. I got it over there. I shouldn't call it a scam, it's not a scam. It is a scam. Well, I just did the target scam. I did the target thing, and I got the points.
Starting point is 00:00:18 It's still legitimate to get it through the bonuses. Yeah, but you didn't spend, like, the people I know who did it had to spend like, over a hundred thousand dollars in a year. Well, those people are foolish. Not really, because they're doing, they're doing it as it's intended. They're like, I already spend a lot. That's certainly a fact.
Starting point is 00:00:36 That's, so that's not foolish, because they didn't use your weird little target scam. No! It's a weird little trick that doctors hate me for Well, shares are just getting hammered this morning You want to you want to you, hey, who am I? Who am I? Who am I? 420 plus 69. No, no, no, you learn this time. Oh, 69 times 420 times 420 times. Oh, 420 equals, wow, it equals 69,420,069. Oh, I had minutes. Do I, um, do you have anything in your teeth?
Starting point is 00:01:46 Nope. Just big old teeth. We both have giant teeth. I do have big teeth. They go honking teeth. We got a special episode today, don't we? We do. You're gonna want to check that disclaimer
Starting point is 00:01:58 in the description first though, because none of this is suitable content. Episode nine. Is that where I? Yeah, suitable content. Episode nine. Is that where I? Yeah, we're at episode nine. We're doing credit cards today because we got a lot of requests from people because I am a bit of,
Starting point is 00:02:15 oh, I'm gonna turn off this calculator. It's a real calculator, how about that? Got a lot of requests from people to talk about credit cards because I am, yeah, I've traveled a lot of requests from people to talk about credit cards because I am, um, yeah, I've, I've traveled a lot of places, done a lot of things. Well, you dropped it on an episode that you are the, uh, you're the points guy. Yeah. I'm not the points. That's an actual brand thing.
Starting point is 00:02:35 I'm not the points. Oh, right, right. That's a guy. It'd be funny if I don't know who he is. You revealed that. Yeah. No, I'm not him. Um, so, but we had some people saying,
Starting point is 00:02:45 please do a credit cards episode. Yeah, so this is it. This is the credit cards. We're gonna talk about credit cards. We got a lot to cover. What's important to know? How do people get started with credit cards? How do people get started with credit cards?
Starting point is 00:02:57 Well, you got to... Should we talk a little bit about your credit score and what that is exactly? Yeah, what's your credit score? My credit score? Yeah, what is. Yeah. What's your credit score? My credit score? Yeah, what is it personally? No, come on.
Starting point is 00:03:09 Yeah, what is it? I'll tell you mine. You're just better than mine. Maybe. And you get into why. Yeah, that's a good print. Mine's like 810 or something, 800 or something. I don't want to say mine.
Starting point is 00:03:20 All right, yeah. It's not terrible. Okay, that's fine. It's not 800. Yeah, so it's a credit score. It's a credit score. I think it goes from 300 to 850. It's 300 is the lowest it goes. I think so. Wow. And it's it's also there's a lot of problems with credit score. It's a it can prevent people from getting loans. Yeah, I think it's I read somewhere. It's like 60%
Starting point is 00:03:44 of employers will check your credit score. Which is loans. Yeah, I think it's, I read somewhere, it's like 60% of employers will check your credit score, which is easy. Yeah, imagine losing a job because you had to, you had to do credit. Yeah. But it basically tells credit institutions how... Credit worthy you are. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:56 Well, how good of an idea it is to lend you money. How likely you are to repay the money they lend you. That is a, yeah, that's a pretty astute way of putting it. But credit is very important. It's like, like you're talking, like when you want to get a house, you need a mortgage, when you want to have access to more low interest money. Right. You need all these things.
Starting point is 00:04:18 You need credit. So there are a lot of problems with it, but you can escape it. Yeah. So this is going to be a little, I'm going to be, I'm going to try not to be all over the place because there's a lot to cover, but I'm going to treat this as if the you, the viewer or listener is a first timer or still kind of green and doesn't really know what they're doing.
Starting point is 00:04:39 The first thing I would recommend to anyone is go to credit karma, they're not a sponsor or anything, but go to credit karma.com and sign up. It will ask for your social security number. Don't be spooked by that. It's to verify who you are. It is free, but they sell your information. I mean, I'm sure that I've gotten plenty of junk mail and credit card offers and whatnot because of them.
Starting point is 00:05:01 Credit cards, once you get a credit card, they're gonna sell your information. Oh yeah, everybody sells your dang information. They'll give you a big, there'll be a big notice in the mail telling you how they're gonna sell your information and there's pretty much nothing you could do about it. Nope, well yeah, no, there's not. But credit card was great because not only does it tell you
Starting point is 00:05:16 what your score is, but it's a useful tool for learning about, and this is where I personally learned. They, it's really well designed straight forward this website. It breaks down how your credit is calculated. And just for those of you who don't, because there are so many things that people ask me, friends who've asked me, like,
Starting point is 00:05:35 isn't opening a lot of credit cards bad for your credit? Like, isn't just a ton of rookie questions that are so, they're just wrong, and it's heartbreaking that most people don't know these things. So the way your credit score is calculated is through what are called the high impact things. Obviously, as the name says, they have a very high impact on your credit. You've got payment history, which is you guessed it, the history of your payments to your credit card companies.
Starting point is 00:06:09 I have a perfect payment history. I have never missed a dang payment. Wow, look at this. Which is not uncommon. Plenty of people haven't missed a payment. But so that's a high one. So like, I did have one instance where I missed a payment, but I called American Express and explained the situation.
Starting point is 00:06:22 You can call and talk to your credit card companies if you've missed payments and anything like that. Get a human being on the other line and you'd be surprised at the leeway you can make. So payment history is a big one. And as soon as I did make it onto my credit report and it dropped my score by like 90 points like that. One late payment. One late payment. Yeah. Cause it ruined by perfect history. Credit card use is the other high impact thing. That is how much credit you use versus how much you have assigned to you.
Starting point is 00:06:55 And this is where it helps to know that having more credit cards isn't a bad thing. Because what does that tell lenders? Right. You have more credit lines out. Yeah. And you want to stay't a bad thing. Because what does that tell lenders? Right, you have more credit lines out. Yeah. And you want to stay below a certain percentage. I think it's like 20 to 30%. You don't want to buy a bunch of credit cards. Yeah, you want to utilize a low percentage
Starting point is 00:07:13 of the credit you're allotted. So like if you just have one card and it's got a $5,000 limit, obviously it would look bad if you max it out every month. Right. They would be like, okay, whoa, you're using all the credit we've given you.
Starting point is 00:07:26 Whereas if you had $100,000 in total credit across multiple cards and only used 4,000, that be a very low ratio. That'd be a 4%. And that's what they want to see. They want to see, okay, are other institutions willing to lend you money? Yes. Okay, cool. You are credit worthy. We will also let you borrow some money.
Starting point is 00:07:47 And what's your payment history? How much of the credit are you using? We're gonna hop on board too, because you seem nice. Right, your history is like a huge part of it. History is huge. You don't have any credit history. Yeah, hard to get a credit card. Which lends itself to the next thing,
Starting point is 00:08:02 which is derogatory remarks. No, that's not them calling you names on your credit report. This guy's an idiot. This guy's an effin. Moron, who doesn't know what an interest payment means. It just means like, what are derogatory remarks? If you've missed payments, if you've had issues with the bank, if you're... Oh, man.
Starting point is 00:08:21 It could be a foreclosure. foreclosure is bankruptcy. foreclosure is bankruptcy. That's the best thing you've got time. Yeah, that's a high impact thing. Medium impact is your credit age that's your average, I actually have a low average credit age.
Starting point is 00:08:35 Mine's only like four years because I've opened a lot of recent credit cards, but yeah, the longer your credit age, the better. So we're gonna get into it a little bit more But like don't cancel credit cards leave them open because you want to have as long an age of credit as possible Especially your first credit card never cancel your first Yeah Again, it all comes down to what are banks gonna look at?
Starting point is 00:09:01 They're gonna see are you credit worthy? Can we trust you? Are you opening accounts and then closing them? They don't wanna see that. They wanna see that you've got it open. You're cool. You're cool. You're cool. You have to look at your style.
Starting point is 00:09:13 Yeah, they're gonna check your Instagram. They're gonna look at your tagged photos and they're gonna be like, what does he really look like though? They're gonna, oh yeah. Which is an outdated thing because everybody now knows to check their tagged photos and erase the ones where you look like a dummy. I don't erase any tag photos.
Starting point is 00:09:27 I do. I've definitely untagged ones where I'm like, okay, I look like a freak here. Gotta get rid of those. Why? Cause you don't want anybody looking at those like judgment. Like my bank. I don't want JP Morgan. They will check how many followers you have.
Starting point is 00:09:40 Yeah. Yeah, they're gonna use their fenced as to... The bank will look at your fenced as. You are gonna wanna open those up. You're gonna wanna take those public when you're applying for a credit card. Yeah, oh man. There's gonna be a day where you have to put
Starting point is 00:09:54 your socials on credit. I don't know, wait. Sure, and maybe not. Anyway, low way. I don't even think they care that much about... I know they ask for it, but I don't think income is that huge of a- income is how they calculate how much to give you.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Yeah, but they're not gonna- They're not gonna verify it, in most cases. Yeah, so- It's really like self attested, they're never like, I've never had anybody check. The low impact items on how your credit is calculated is the total accounts you have, which is as the
Starting point is 00:10:25 name suggests, how many accounts you've got, and then hard inquiries. That's when they pull your credit. That's when they check your credit card. Yeah. If you got a landlord running a credit report on you, if you've got, if you're applying to a credit card, and that's a huge one that people are always like, these last two, it's really funny. Oh, it doesn't have any more credit cards hurt you and doesn't applying for credit cards hurt you. Yeah. But in the smallest amount, the hard inquiry on your credit, if you do it a lot, if you're sitting there, if you apply for like five credit cards in a month, that'd be the stupid, yeah, that's stupid. Mostly because you're not going to, you're just not going to get approved for.
Starting point is 00:11:01 Yeah. And then you look desperate for credit. And I don't know about that, but it's just like, yeah, because one credit poll, I believe, don't quote me on this, but it only affects your credit like five points, five or 10 points. And then guess what, after a few months, it goes right back up. Oh, I think on my last one, I got things like a point. Yeah, I got like, I get like, I don't know, five.
Starting point is 00:11:24 But then it goes up because guess what, once got like, I get like, I don't know, five. But then it goes up because guess what? When she get the credit card approved, God willing, you now have more credit, which boosts the other impact things. So that's... More credit is the more debt you take on and can pay off is that's the thing.
Starting point is 00:11:40 You would think having little debt would be good, but it's funny because my friend, when he got his first mortgage He was like I made a couple payments on my mortgage and I have like my credit sail through the roof Wow, because now they're like wow. He's got this huge mortgage guys at home owner He could pay he could make payments on his gigantic mortgage your history with credit isn't so good is it now? It's so a bank of America or JPMorgan that's listening.
Starting point is 00:12:06 I'm excited to, well, now, they'll... Tell us what happened. What's your story with her? No, well, so I'm excited that people are asking about this because I mean, I was a... You made some mistakes for people to actively avoid. Yeah. I mean, my biggest mistake was I was overwhelmed
Starting point is 00:12:23 and I think I was just like, I had student debt. I have student debt. Student debt gang rise up. Not me, baby. Grandma gang rise up. State school. What cheap tuition. We should talk about student debt soon.
Starting point is 00:12:37 I mean, yeah, we'll get it right. January 31st. I mean, it doesn't affect me. But it affects 45 million Americans. January 31st. I don't know any of them. They're turning. No, I know I'm kidding.
Starting point is 00:12:47 They're turning it back on. Yeah. And yeah, the debt can be overwhelming. And once you have a lot of debt, it just kind of feels like, it feels like what's the point? You get a bill and you go, that just, you know, tack it on. What does it fucking matter? I'm never going to pay off any of this.
Starting point is 00:13:05 So I let it get so out of hand and I just started ignoring stuff. Your interest payments probably went up. Yep, and then... Panty fees. Yeah, it was horrible. I couldn't get a credit card. And I remember I was in Canada and I was so embarrassed.
Starting point is 00:13:26 Because everyone went to go pay for dinner. I threw my credit card down and someone said, no, no, I threw my debit card down. And someone said, dude, use a credit card so you don't get hit with the international fees. And I was like, I don't have a credit card. And he was like, you got to get a fucking credit card, dude. And I was like, I know, I just, I can't. Like, they won't give me one.
Starting point is 00:13:48 Yeah. So luckily, I was connected to like a family friend who was like, let's get all this under control. They helped me get everything with my student loans under control. Got on like an income-based repayment plan. And then they helped me start working towards getting a credit card. So if you're new, have no credit or have bad credit, there's a couple of things you can start doing.
Starting point is 00:14:18 One of the easiest ways to get a credit card is to do a secured card, which is you basically put a down payment on the card. So, if they don't trust you, if they don't wanna give you even a low amount of credit, they being the bank. Right. You can say, all right, I'll put a down payment of $500 down, right?
Starting point is 00:14:39 Mm-hmm. And then they'll give you, it acts like a credit card, even though they know they're not gonna lose it. You've prepaid it. Yeah, you've prepaid. It's a credit card, even though they know they're not going to lose it. Prepaid it. Yeah, you've prepaid it. It's a credit card that you've prepaid for. And then after a set amount of time, you can show that you can actually make these payments
Starting point is 00:14:54 and you're not going to be irresponsible. They can give you a real credit limit. Another thing that you can do, and this is one thing that I did for a family member who had poor credit, is if you associate yourself with someone who has good credit, you can be added as what's called an authorized user. Basically, like, so this is what I did, I just called my credit card company and I said, hey, I wanna add so and so as my authorized user,
Starting point is 00:15:17 they make a card for that person, it gets sent to them, they don't even have to use it. Right, so I don't think those are as good because they know it's something. But it's still relying on someone else, right? Sure. You want to show the bank that you're reliable and you can make time.
Starting point is 00:15:32 Right, I'm just saying it is one thing in your arsenal to use. Yes. Being associated with someone who has a higher credit. The other big thing is obviously, I mean, it goes without saying, don't spend beyond your means. Don't just rack up, don't think that, oh, it's just, I buy an outpay later.
Starting point is 00:15:49 There are interest payments that you've got to worry about that you didn't worry about. Yeah. And then, I mean, I also got, I also got credit karma, which was helpful. Yeah. I mean, I had things, I just, stupid bills that would have stupid bills that I could have afforded. I just threw in the trash or did something stupid. Yeah, don't do that, folks. You don't want to, is overwhelming as it is,
Starting point is 00:16:14 it's not gonna go away if you ignore it. So I basically took care of all of those little bills that were digging me. Yeah. You can also start a building credit with credit cards. And one thing that you can do if you're trying to build credit and you apply for a card and you get denied say It's not just that's it too bad so sad. Right. You can call the There's things called reconsideration lines, which is dedicated phone lines just for people who've been denied credit cards
Starting point is 00:16:43 Who want to plead their case with an actual person on the phone, you can also just walk into a branch and talk to people. They will work with you. They want your damn money. They don't want to just say no. I mean, yeah, it's risky, but they'll see that you're a person. You plead your case, and more often than not, they'll work with you.
Starting point is 00:17:03 They'll give you something. They'll give you a $500 limit. And that'll be better than sitting at home applying, getting rejected and getting a little bit on your credit every time. And that's kind of the catch-22. You're like, shit, I need a credit card so I can start building my credit back up, but I can't fucking get one. So yeah, talking to someone and being like, hey, here's my situation.
Starting point is 00:17:23 What are my options? They can lay it out for you. Yeah, and there's a lot of, from the people and being like, hey, here's my situation. What are my options? They can lay it out for you. Yeah, and there's a lot of, from the people that I've spoken to and from what you were telling me, there's a lot of things that people, myths that people believe. Like there was one where someone said that they think that carrying a balance each month. Oh, yeah, a balance. Someone said that they, they were told that carrying a balance each month is what you should do because it shows that you're balance each month is what you should do
Starting point is 00:17:45 because it shows that you're being responsible. No, you don't have to do anything. Yeah. And also, there's no, you can pay your credit card whenever you need to also because this same, I believe the same person said that they had thought that there was some kind of penalty if you pay early or anything. You can pay whenever you damn well, please, you don't have to carry a balance. Yeah. You can rack up, you can put $10,000 on your credit card today, pay it off in its entirety, tomorrow, and they're not going to care. The carrying the balance thing is weird. That was one that I heard when I was like trying to build back up. A couple people had said, oh, run a balance for a little while and then pay it off. And my head, I was like, why?
Starting point is 00:18:26 Unless you have an interest-free credit card that isn't charging you interest for whatever reason, it's an intro offer or whatever, also watch out for those because any kind of offer there is going to be fine print where like, for example, interest-free things, they still do require a minimum payment of something each month. You can't just sit there and not pay anything for the entirety of the offer. You have to still do that balance, they're not charging you more for having a balance for your card. So like, for example, one thing that I recently took advantage of, Emil likes to make fun of me for this because I like going to the bank. And I was recently paid for something
Starting point is 00:19:06 and they gave me the choice of direct deposit or check. And I said, I want to check. Yeah, which I thought was crazy. Why? And then I asked you why. And you said, I like having something to do. Yeah, I like having something to do. I like having some place to go. It's a nice errand.
Starting point is 00:19:23 You're not 75, but I do. I do sometimes, sometimes in the life, man, you just need something to do. You're a man in his 30s, you're a man about town. I like filling out that, I don't really like it that much, but it's a nice exercise in maintaining your memory too, because I'm like, what's my account number again? Oh yeah, I know.
Starting point is 00:19:42 One, three, oh, I could wrap it zero zero. I could wrap it up right now. I know it. Yeah, good for you. So I went to the bank and if I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have gotten this great offer. They were running a promo on a new credit card where you get zero percent interest for the first like 30 billing cycles, 30 months.
Starting point is 00:20:03 And I said, hot diggerity, that's a great offer. So what did I do? I was gonna owe a couple thousand dollars on my credit card that month, and I didn't feel, I always pay my bill in full each month because I don't wanna pay interest, because interest is like 15, 20% however much it is. That's so insane.
Starting point is 00:20:21 If you can pay it off in full each month, pay it off in full. Oh yeah, zero balanced. Yeah, and so this is a great example of If you can pay it off in full each month, pay it off in full. Oh yeah, zero balanced. Yeah, and so this is a great example of what you can do. If you are currently running a big balance and you are struggling and you've got interest payments, you can consolidate all of that. If you fund, this isn't the best, I'm not 100% sure here, but I mean, I did this. There are, if you Google just like credit cards with 0% interest rates, sign up bonus, something like that.
Starting point is 00:20:53 Like this one that I have is a US bank credit card. Oh, you don't wanna do with US bank. Yeah, I think they're still running the promo, but it's all new purchases are under the zero percent thing, but all balance transfers. And a balance transfer is when you transfer the balance from one credit card to the new one for which you will pay a fee. I think I paid like one percent or something.
Starting point is 00:21:17 So I'm like, okay, I'll pay 1% of this couple thousand dollars just so I don't have to pay it off all right now. So I set it up, transferred it over, and now every month I've got it on auto pay to pay a couple hundred bucks, and now I just don't have to worry about it for the next two years. It's just going to sit there and pay itself off. And then you know what else I'm going to do? I'm not going to close that credit card. I used to do this.
Starting point is 00:21:41 I don't use this credit card anymore and I cancel it. Don't do that. If it doesn't have an annual fee, there's no reason to cancel it. I don't use this credit card anymore and I cancel it. Don't do that. Right. If it doesn't have an annual fee, there's no reason to cancel it. Just leave it alone. It'll help with the age of your credit. It'll help with those other things.
Starting point is 00:21:53 Just leave it alone. And if it does have an annual fee and you just don't feel like doing it anymore, you have a couple of options. Call the bank. Tell them you don't feel like paying the annual fee. Some banks will say, okay, what if we give you an offer where if you spend a thousand dollars in the next three months, we'll give you X number of points which will effectively
Starting point is 00:22:14 offset the fee. Or if they have no offer, you can request to downgrade the card to a fee-free version, which I've done multiple times. I had these cards, didn't feel like paying the annual fee anymore, called them up, told them that downgraded to a free version, and now I just let it sit there. You do have to watch out. If you can remember, use those cards every so often, and then just pay it off, because banks can cancel cards if you haven't touched them.
Starting point is 00:22:44 Yeah, I'm getting hungry. I'm sitting over here. Jesus, every time. I know. I know. because banks can cancel cards if you haven't touched them. Yeah. I'm getting hungry. I'm sitting over here. She's every time. I know. Everywhere I go with it. What were we talking about? It's just interesting talking about this though.
Starting point is 00:22:53 And like, I've had similar things where I, you know, now that I've gotten my situation sorted out, you have access to things that people who are dealing with shitty credit don't have access to. So, you were allowed to do this balance transfer to this new card, but you would never get approved if you were... You might. You just gotta make some... You have to make a... With shitty credit, they're just gonna let you...
Starting point is 00:23:20 Yeah, well, I mean, first things first. You can call the bank before you apply and explain your situation. If it's your bank that you already banked at, that would be obviously a great help. Just talk to somebody, see what they're willing to do for you to work with you. Yeah, but I mean, I got to, when I had to get some work done
Starting point is 00:23:38 on my car, it was gonna be like thousands of dollars, and I was like, fuck, I don't wanna pay all this at once. And they were like, we're doing this no interest for a year card. I was like, all right, yeah. I'll take a bandage of it. Paint it off over the year. We left it. So I'm looking at the next thing that's,
Starting point is 00:24:01 because we covered the dispelling the myth, hearing the balance. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Payments. Talked about myself. We should talk about you're a real credit card. Guy. Guy.
Starting point is 00:24:13 Yeah. How many credit cards do you think you've had? I can tell you, over like around 40. Wow. Over the years. 40 credit cards. Yeah. That's crazy.
Starting point is 00:24:22 Big F and whoop. I've out. The more you, it shows you on credit karma, the ideal amount, not ideal, but like how it ranks it and like zero to 10, it's like red. It's like, you want more than this. 10 to 19.
Starting point is 00:24:35 It's like yellow. Okay, yeah, you're getting there. 20 to like 30 green. That's so straight. That is so many cards. I keep a spreadsheet. As soon as I get a new card. You're saying it's not stressful, but you're literally talking about work. So straight, that is so many cards. I keep a spreadsheet. As soon as I get a new card.
Starting point is 00:24:45 You're saying it's not stressful, but you're literally talking about work. You're like, it's not stressful. I'm doing spreadsheets. I'm doing stuff that people don't like. It's not even that complicated as spreadsheet. I put the name of the credit card. No, I get it.
Starting point is 00:24:58 And you will fee how much I owe and when it's due. And the like benefit. So the audio listener, he's taking off a sweatshirt, like it's a. And the like Ben, if the audio listener, he's taking off a sweatshirt like it's a straight jacket. Just to clear it in what kind of psychopath we're dealing with. That was straight jacket. Shout out to Wal-lead for my, for my, it's no longer called Chinatown, but I love that
Starting point is 00:25:20 hoodie. You love shouting people out. Yeah. Ben won the side of the podcast so he could prove that he has friends. All that's all I wanted with this. I really am hungry though. I should have eaten before we came. What were we talking about last week that got me so hungry? Was it Jack in the box? Jack in what box? Jack in. God damn. Was it, was it, was it McDonald's big Macs? It was big Macs.
Starting point is 00:25:47 Man, I've been craving a big Mac ever since we talked about it. Not me. What I would do for a big Mac right now, I'm so, I'm, you know, I don't find them. You gotta be kidding me. Look at this. Are you serious? Are you serious right now?
Starting point is 00:26:03 It's a big Mac. It's a big Mac and it was was a fly just flew off of it Did you do this on purpose? No, no, I didn't but boy look at that thing. It is it is room temperature I did you get some kind of sponsorship from the show? I didn't get a sponsorship from McDonald's But look at that tasty looking burger. What is going on? Oh. What's happening? You're so pleasantly confused.
Starting point is 00:26:31 I will never tell, but I got a big Mac right here. Why? Why does this happen? No, I got a napkin too. They like gross me up. Because I'm hungry, and this is kind of gonna gross me out too, but I gotta take a bite. Why? Are you contractually on that?
Starting point is 00:26:44 Cause they paid me. No, they didn't. I do, I but I gotta take a bite. Why are you contractually, I'm gonna- Cause they paid me. No, they didn't. I do, I do before I take a bite of this. What happened? Don't worry about it, there was a burger right here. It was a- Did you put it there? No.
Starting point is 00:26:56 When, did you see me? Would we stop at McDonald's on the way here? I don't know, I'm very confused. We carpool. We do carpool. So we're trying to save the earth. So just a... Oh, also can I say something?
Starting point is 00:27:07 Sure. A couple of people have said, can we get Ben on a... Nalegene bottle? On a reusable bottle. I, that's true. I have mine. I will bring it. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:27:18 So. So. So, Emil, the credit card thing is a big deal. And am I in an ad right now? Are you gonna do it? No, you're not. You got it like a, Just a burger, just a meal.
Starting point is 00:27:32 So, Emil, you know what? You could buy with credit cards? Big Macs. Big Macs. No, no. No, I'm sorry, we're getting sidetracked. Yeah, you go with a fucking big Mac in runner. You didn't tell me about it.
Starting point is 00:27:43 Well, this is fun. Man, it's just taunting me this thing. So, I was on Wheel of Fortune last year. Right, right, right, the week before it. I remember when you were going on it, I remember being like, yeah, maybe don't do that. Don't go on Wheel of Fortune? Oh, because it was right before the lockdown.
Starting point is 00:28:04 Yeah. So, because it was right before the lockdown. Yeah. So I was bored. I had quit my job like a year earlier and I was bored and I was like, I want to do something fun. I'm going to try to be on a game show. What could I be on? I suck at trivia. I can't do Jeopardy. I have Wheel of Fortune seems to I had never watched a full episode of Wheel of Fortune. I didn't know how the game I know how the game worked, but I didn't know like the specifics of certain things and rules and techniques. So I applied, I went to this audition, then I made it to the next round, then the next thing, and then they told me, okay, you're in the contestant pool,
Starting point is 00:28:38 you're gonna be on Get Ready. And I went, they called me up in November of 28, no, November of 2019. And they said, okay, come on, you're going to be an alternate. So you might not be on, but you're just going to be there waiting in the green room, right? God, you might not even come on, but you will get COVID. That was, no, this is November of 2019. So COVID was happening probably, but we just didn't know. And I'm sitting there and I'm so nervous.
Starting point is 00:29:06 I was like, I was in the green room and I'm like, I'm not gonna, God help me if I go on, because I just do not feel like myself. I was not talking to anybody. I didn't feel, I just, I didn't feel affable. I didn't feel like I'd be fun to be on a damn game show. Okay, so.
Starting point is 00:29:20 Do you feel that way now? Do you feel fun and affable? Yeah, okay good. Little. So. Then that new years I went to a party and I took a Half a tab of acid of what drug holy shit and Don't don't do that folks. You don't need to don't you know, but I
Starting point is 00:29:41 Felt great. I felt was that the first time you ever knew? No, no, no, no. But I felt, you know, just, I was relaxed and carefree and I was sociable and I just felt like the best version of myself. Fast forward to February, this is March, and I got the call to go on as a contestant. And I remembered two things.
Starting point is 00:30:02 I was like, man, when I was on that first time, just as an alternate, I was so nervous. And then on New Year's, when I took the drugs, I felt great. It doesn't always do that to you, for the folks at home. It doesn't. So I did it at like, I woke up at like five,
Starting point is 00:30:20 I got in my car, I, you know, put it in my mouth, and then I drove to the studio, the Sony lot in co-op. Oh, fucking driving on drugs. Look, guys, this is... It didn't kick in until I got there. But so this story is going to have a couple of fun things. So right when I got there, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to be on my phone, and the
Starting point is 00:30:40 market was open. It was a Friday, so I placed a trade from my phone, and then I went in and I had to lock up the phone. So I was like, well, I hope that trade works because it was an options position that was gonna expire that day, that Friday. And my plan backfired with trying to be more sociable and whatnot because I'm on there and, well, we'll just, so my brother recorded the whole thing
Starting point is 00:31:04 and he put it on TikTok and here it is, some highlights so my brother recorded the whole thing and he put it on TikTok and here it is. Some highlights of my brother's appearance on Wheel of Fortune last year. This is where the credit card thing is relevant because they asked me for an interesting thing about myself and the best damn thing I could come up with was, oh, I'll collect credit card points. Oh, they're asking you while you're, no. Well, yeah, but also I'm, I'm like, I don't know anything interesting about myself well, yeah, but also I'm, I'm like, I don't know anything interesting about myself at 8 in the day of morning. What am I going to put on here? Oh, this is a thing. I host a podcast. And I thought that I wasn't even
Starting point is 00:31:33 a thing. You should just set it. Put it out into the universe. And I thought that he was going to ask me, like, have you been anywhere cool? He didn't. He just, you'll see. Pat Sejak, you suck. Hi Ben. Hi. Ben Khan, Los Angeles, a stock trader here. Yes. And you're one of these points guys, right, with credit cards? Yeah, I collected beer in there. I use them sometimes too. You'd like to travel with them?
Starting point is 00:31:55 Yeah, it's all right. It's a workout. Yeah, it's okay. Like coach, you fly business class sometimes. It's great because this was a... This was your high social and affable self. Yeah, yeah, because in my head, I'm like, oh, yeah, I could just I could go on about this. I flew in the, the I went this
Starting point is 00:32:15 place, but the producers there was Gregorius, I would say, well, the producers there are very intense and energetic and they're like, you got to be on, but like also don't talk too much And because the whole thing we're only gonna record for 23 minutes and don't waste our time and all this stuff So I'm thinking that I'm like I don't want to get kicked off of here. I don't want to raise any red flags. I'm just gonna be calm and Yeah, you like it. I'm pretty psychotic. You're like two even keeled, it's unsettling. And my answer to him was so, yeah, I like them.
Starting point is 00:32:48 Yeah, you travel sometimes and blah, blah, blah. And he's clearly just like, okay, you're the loser. Yeah, I do look like a committed crime. Yeah. And I ended up losing. I didn't, well, I took home like $6,100, but I didn't win. And then the trade that I had put on ended up making like 20 grand. Love that.
Starting point is 00:33:10 Yeah, I got back in my car and I was like, Oh, hell yeah, cool. Forget this. Yeah. Okay, so this is how much of a point guy you are. That was your- It's that prominent. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:33:22 That was my interesting fact. I want to take a bite of this. What is with me? Just tell me. It's like, it's just, it's a mystery to you. Did you know it was there before? Yeah, of course I knew the burger was there. I reached it and I grabbed it, didn't I?
Starting point is 00:33:34 But you didn't, there's just a big max sitting here room temperature. It's, it's colder than room. You didn't put it there. I didn't put it there. Santa Claus did. Take a bite. Okay.
Starting point is 00:33:44 Well, you want to know that it's real? No, because I know it's gonna be gross I want you to oh yeah the bottom The whole thing McDonald's grosses me out Why they're not a sponsor American is just fishing Who oh All right now how is it everything you imagined? Doesn't look good you don't you don't look like you're enjoying it. No, I love it all it oh He just you just hit the tagline. This is an ad you said I'm loving it. I did yeah, wow
Starting point is 00:34:27 I didn't realize that I said the tagline I like it Anyway, so that was a wheel of fortune thing and Yeah, so what makes you such a freaking points guy well I will just say that my journey with the points things started years ago when I was racking up a lot of I was paying for gas all the time because I was working as a driver and I just googled like best credit card folks there so much you can find if you just Google things. Now don't tell me that this is the only place you can get this kind of yeah, you're actually your friends. Google doesn't work.
Starting point is 00:35:04 Google does not work. Use a, being, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, who cares? So when I first, I just found like some blog, I don't even think it exists anymore, but I just dove right in, and I learned about this thing called manufactured spending. What's that?
Starting point is 00:35:25 It sounds like a big scam, doesn't it? Yeah. Kind of is. Back in the day, Amazon used to have this feature called Amazon Pay, where it was like PayPal. Are you going to sneeze? I felt like I had to, but that's when you got... I look over and you're just going, huh?
Starting point is 00:35:44 You like took it from me and it sucks. Yeah, sorry. Um, so Amazon had this thing where you could send money to another user without incurring any fees up to $1,000 per month. You could send money to another user, no, I could send you $1,000 with my credit card. Okay. And it would cost nothing.
Starting point is 00:36:03 Neither of us, anything. I got in big Mac burps Excuse me. I got a problem. I burp so much You know why you're like insanely I just I inhale so much air when I eat and drink. It's a problem I'm like Eating that's me eating bite bite and then Life is just a never ending series of burps, belches, and farts. So what I did was I set up an Amazon payments account for myself,
Starting point is 00:36:35 for my mom, and for one of my brothers. And I would send her a thousand dollars with one credit card. She, she, I would just log into the other account. She would send my brother $1,000 with either the same card or a different card. And then he would send me $1,000 with another one of my credit cards. All my credit cards.
Starting point is 00:36:59 And then so all three accounts have $1,000 chilling in them, right? Yeah, but then I would, it is costing you something. No, it's not. Yes, yeah, when I send you the money, it would charge my credit card. It cost me a thousand dollars.
Starting point is 00:37:12 But then I would suck that money out into my checking account. Okay. All three accounts were linked to my checking account. Jesus Christ. So then I would spend a total of $3,000, right? My account sending to hers, hers to his, his to mine. That's $3,000 that are charged on my credit card.
Starting point is 00:37:31 Okay. But then I would wire that money out into my, or into my, yeah, my checking account. And then I would use that very money to pay off the credit cards. I don't think I'm following. If I sent you a thousand dollars, if I use, I'm making a payment on my credit card. But what are you making off of this?
Starting point is 00:37:51 I'm getting points. Oh, it's all for the points. Okay, okay. Because here's the biggest thing in credit cards, sign up bonuses, flashing lights, blah, blah, blah, sign up bonuses. It is a bonus that you can. You didn't explain that in the beginning well that's that's where this comes One of the biggest ways that you rack up a ton of points is via sign sign up bonuses right for example If you spend three thousand dollars in the first three months you get 50,000 points right one of the most classic examples I it's like it's got to be like 75% of millennia olds or something have the chase sapphire It's a great car ever preferred and it's but this to even get the points It's like not it's like spend four thousand dollars in three months and you get like 80,000 points or something. Yeah, it's crazy
Starting point is 00:38:38 Yeah, but yeah, so that's a and to earn 80,000 points outright, otherwise would take years. You gotta spend 10,000 to $1,000. Yeah. So what I did was I took advantage of this, I'll call it a loophole in Amazon Payments' thing, and I got several credit cards quickly. I've got one, I made the minimum spend just through that. There was, yeah, I got a bunch of this began my long relationship with no longer relationship with city bank and American Airlines.
Starting point is 00:39:14 I got the American Airlines cards with them first. Wait, so did anything ever happen with the Amazon? Did you get in trouble or just? No, but they did stop it. They shut down Amazon payments for whatever reason, probably because a bunch of people like me were taking advantage of it. And Amazon had to eat the credit card fees.
Starting point is 00:39:30 Right. But so that went on for, I was doing that for like a year or something like that. And I opened, I must have opened six credit cards in that time. Jesus. Just Amazon cards? No, they weren't Amazon cards.
Starting point is 00:39:44 They were like, I got American Airlines cards, I got a Southwest card, I got a something else card, but I made payments through Amazon. Yes. And then I got a lot of sign up bonuses. I think I got like 250,000. Did you hear about this online? Or you just saw it?
Starting point is 00:40:01 Yeah, I found it online, manufactured spending. Okay. So then I didn't have anything, right? If I had to get a credit. So you were getting sign up bonuses for absolutely nothing. Right. Well, I was still doing my normal payments, but are like spending.
Starting point is 00:40:15 But so then I was really bummed out because I was like, ah, there's nothing else I can really do. There are people who do. There's nothing else I could do. Well, there are things that people could do, but it's a lot more involved and it ends up costing you money anyway you buy gift cards from like the grocery store and then turn the gift cards into, damn man you were deep.
Starting point is 00:40:34 I didn't do this. Okay. Other people did because it sounded too involved. You buy a gift card and then you, yeah how many spreadsheets were you running for that? None. But, the best one, sorry I had to take a drink of water. The best one. And the, and there's a community of people who do manufactured spending. Everybody
Starting point is 00:40:54 was flipping out because target the store came out with what was called, what is called the target red card. And it was a beautiful thing. Everyone was flipping out. We all remember this. It wasn't all just losing our shit up. So everyone was dope. Here's why. You could get a target red card and set it up to just like Amazon payments. You could set it, link it to your checking account, right?
Starting point is 00:41:23 So it's basically acting like a bank account. You go, you open the card and you link it to your checking account, right? So it's basically acting like a bank account. Okay. You go, you open the card and you link it to your checking account, you follow? Yeah, but I link all my credit cards to my checking account. To make payments and stuff. Yes, same thing with the target.
Starting point is 00:41:36 Yeah, yeah. It's basically a gift card. It's a card that you can use to make payments at target, but it also doubles as a gift card that you can use to make payments at Target, but it also doubles as a gift card that you can just put money on to. Okay. So, but the limit this time was $5,000. Okay.
Starting point is 00:41:53 You could put five grand on one of these puppies with a credit card, and it didn't charge you any fees, and then you could just transfer that money right out into your checking account and then use that money to pay off the credit card. So what I did was I opened one in my name, my mom's name, Jesus Christ, my brother's name, and my sister's name.
Starting point is 00:42:17 Did you told them you were doing this? Yes, okay. I had to ask them for their social security numbers and I was like, just let me do this scam, please. We were like, is that gonna hurt me, right? And I said, no, no, no, no. It shouldn't, unless this thing goes belly up. This beautiful, so I had to go test it.
Starting point is 00:42:34 So I went to Target and I just tested, I said, I would like, I'm just like nervous. I've got my Target Red card and my credit card. Hello, yes, I would like to put $100 onto this target card with this credit card. Okay, sir, and they do it. I go home, I log onto the target account, I see the $100 there, I transfer it out to my checking account.
Starting point is 00:42:57 Boom, the $100 is there. Boom, I pay off the credit card. All right, it works. So then I start going every month for six months. I'm starting to get why you like the bag. Yeah, it gets to the bril. For the check. Oh, baby, I sign up.
Starting point is 00:43:12 No, for the bank, go into the bank for the check. You got too much time. I don't have time to go down the target and do these games. It took 30 minutes. What's the month? Okay, I'm sorry, you're on card. So here's what I did. I would go, I had a baggy full of cards.
Starting point is 00:43:26 A baggy full of cards. Yeah, and I would go. All right, here's my target card with my name on it. I would like to put $5,000 on this with this credit card and they would look a little sketched out, but then they would see the names match and they're like, okay, and they would charge five grand. And I'm like, oh boy, here we go, hope this works.
Starting point is 00:43:45 And then I'm like, okay, but that's not all. This is my mom's card. I would like to put $5,000 on this one as well. And I would like to use this credit card to do it. And they're like, all right, I mean, it's your credit card. So that's fine. And I did it again and again. I'm sure this cashier doesn't give a shit at all.
Starting point is 00:44:02 But it was 20 grand that I just put on to these target cards and I'm sweating a little because I'm like, is was 20 grand that I just put onto these target cards and I'm sweating a little because I'm like, is this gonna work? I go home, I log in. To you call your mom, you're like, Mom, we got another Amazon pay situation on our hands. No, she didn't know she didn't care.
Starting point is 00:44:16 So I log on and I check each account, they're all there. I wire them all out to my checking account. It all goes through, I pay off all the credit cards and I'm off to the races. So I opened, I don't know. What's off to the races, you're getting the sign on bonuses? Yes. So I applied for, I don't even remember how many cards, maybe 10 over the course of six months. I got an American Airlines business card. I got a Chase Inc. Preferred business card. I got a business card, were you open in LLCs and stuff? No, you don't need, that's another thing.
Starting point is 00:44:47 You don't need to have like an LLC or anything to open a business card. I think you need like a taxate. I have business cards. If you want a business... For businesses. If you want a business checking account, you do for sure. Yeah, sure.
Starting point is 00:45:00 But you can just open a business card. You can open business credit card accounts, yeah. I'm learning stuff. Yeah, we're all learning. Don't, this is advanced stuff. Yeah, also, this is for fun. Don't get yourself a credit card. Don't do whatever. Yeah, well, I'm talking about what you can do.
Starting point is 00:45:14 And so, so, So this guy's opening business card. The target scam went on for like six months before they shut it down. Because people were, I mean, you think I'm bad. There were people on Reddit who were like, I'm putting $120,000 over like several, I got my cousins, it was insane. And Target shut it down.
Starting point is 00:45:35 They still have the red card, but it's not like you can load it up with credit cards or anything. But in that time, I must have racked up, I don't know, five or 600,000 miles across multiple cards. And so then, what do you do with all those miles? How do I know what to use for where? You know what I do? If I have a bunch of chase points or American Airlines points
Starting point is 00:45:57 or American Express points, what do I do? I just Google best use of American miles, best uses for chase rewards miles best uses of these and there are so many bloggers out there Who will do all the work for you and give you like just lists of things that you can do that are most valuable right and so I had Like the first one that I did was the Southwest companion pass, the Southwest Airlines team. They still do this one. They still do this one.
Starting point is 00:46:28 Yeah, this one's insane. Yeah. I don't remember the exact details for how you get it, but it's worth looking into. You have to spend a lot. You have to either spend a lot or acquire a certain number of points in a calendar year. But then the companion pass is good for the remainder
Starting point is 00:46:43 of the year that you earn it, plus the following. Right. And basically, you and whoever your company, you buy a ticket or use points to get a ticket and your companion, whoever that designated companion is, flies for free. Yeah. That's it. You're getting bogo fucking tickets. Yeah. It's insane. It's nice. It's a good deal. So that's something. But you do it. I'm pretty sure you have to spend a lot. You either spend or you get it through getting miles. And the way I got it was through signup bonuses. I got a personal card.
Starting point is 00:47:13 You did it all through one of these little, I got the Chase Southwest personal card and then I got the Chase Southwest business card. Each had a signup bonus of 50,000 points, and you needed 120 points in a calendar year to get the 10,000. 120,000. Yes.
Starting point is 00:47:32 So between the two, I had 100,000 bonus points, and then I just did the target scam, and I, you got me over there. I shouldn't call it a scam, it's not a scam. It is a scam. Well, I just did the target scam.
Starting point is 00:47:47 I did the target thing and I got the points and it was great and, um, Damn, I know people who have that, I know it's a lot because I know people who have the companion pass legitimately and I'm like, damn, I didn't know you had it like that. It's still legitimate to get it through the bonuses. Yeah, but you didn't spend like,
Starting point is 00:48:07 the people I know who did it had to spend like, over $100,000 in a year. Well, those people are foolish. You don't have to do that. Not really, because they're doing, they're doing it as it's intended. They're like, I already spend a lot, right? I travel a lot.
Starting point is 00:48:22 Why don't I get this card? That's certainly a fact. So that's not foolish, because they didn't use your weird little target scam. You know, it's a weird little trick that doctors hate me for. So yeah, to qualify, simply fly 100 qualifying, one-way flights or earn 125,000 qualifying points
Starting point is 00:48:40 in a calendar year. And sign up bonuses count toward that 125,000 qualifying points. So this friend of yours, if they have a spouse, that spouse should sign up for their own credit cards and then do it that way instead of having to spend 100 grand or whatever it is. So there are obviously. Usually miles kind of end up being like a buck when you spend like. Yeah, there's conversion rate like on my chase affer for some things I get like three x points, but for like regular purchases I get one x.
Starting point is 00:49:12 So if you need 125,000 points in a year, you might be spending like $7,500,000 in that card. Yeah, I have to pee. I'm going to take a quick. Okay, see. Are we are we still going now? Did you just take another bite? Yeah, I have to pee. I'm gonna take a quick. Okay, see Are we are we still going now? Did you just take another bite? I did I just took a we just had a quick bathroom break And I went first and then I came back and saw that you would go on so I yeah, I took another bite a big Mac Man those things are tasty. Oh boy
Starting point is 00:49:40 Hmm my arteries They're piling up. Yeah, come on, man. Yeah, I know, I know. So there are risks to what I did because I did feel invisible and when the target thing ended, I just was kinda like, all right, too bad, so sad.
Starting point is 00:49:58 I kept all those city credit cards. There were a few, and they all carried a $95 annual fee. City bank was really, really good about waving the fee. I would call every year and say, I don't really feel like paying this annual fee. What can you do for me? And they'd be like, well, sir, we can cancel that. We can offer you 10,000 miles if you spend a thousand dollars in the next three months on this and we'll wave the fee. And I was like, I'm gonna get the fee-waved and I'm gonna get 10,000 miles.
Starting point is 00:50:29 Yeah, I'll take that offer. And once they stop doing that, I downgraded them all to the free version and I just stopped using them. But American Airlines, I've got a bit of a tenuous, I used to love them and I still do. They're a great airline. Did you run a scam on them?
Starting point is 00:50:51 I did. I did participate in something that got me banned from their advantage, American Airlines Advantage Miles program, which was, listen, I had probably accumulated and used up until this point, I don't know, seven or eight hundred thousand American Airlines miles. 800,000? Oh yeah, I'd flown, I flew first class a few times, I flew business class to Tokyo once, I did to Europe, I took my mom to Europe in business class. Well, you better, she's in on all these scams, you're using her.
Starting point is 00:51:22 That's part of the reason I was like, I hope my mom something. And I loved using American miles for business class, which for those of you who don't know, it's the same damn thing as first class, but it's cheaper, both in dollar and points amounts. And it's the same thing. You got a lay flat seat, you get a meal, and it's not the same thing. It's the same thing. It's basically take it from someone who's flown both. I have flown both, not because I paid for it.
Starting point is 00:51:48 I got a flight from Europe. I got, they pushed it a whole day. I got stuck. I had to sit there in the airport and I was freaking out. I was like, and they were like, we can upgrade you. Oh, I had to fly from Greece to France to get home. Yeah. And they were like, we'll put you in first class.
Starting point is 00:52:04 And international first class is amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. And I've had some horrible experience in its in economy. That was the only time I've ever flown first class. And it was so much business class. Oh, business class. Yeah, business in first are like the same thing. First is just a little bit nicer. It's like nicer cutlery and a little bit. It's basically the same thing. If you're thinking about using points for one or the other, go with business because it's going to be fewer points. Oh, you're talking about the difference between first and business.
Starting point is 00:52:33 Yes. And I'm using these American points. But so a few years ago, and so with the city American cards, the reason why I was able to get so many is because they allowed you to. You could get one every month or something, one every three months, something like that. So that's why I was getting like- You could get a new card every three months. I would get a new city personal card.
Starting point is 00:52:56 There's personal and business cards. I got a business card, I got a personal card. And then like a month later, I got another personal card. And then like a month later, I got another personal card. And all those points are coming to the same account? Yes. When you go to fill out the application, it would ask,
Starting point is 00:53:09 for do you have an advantage account? And I would put in my advantage account. And then it would just all go in there. If you don't put that, it's gonna create a new one for you. And then you could probably consolidate them anyway, but I didn't need to do that. So they stopped doing that. They changed the
Starting point is 00:53:25 rule so you could only get one American Airlines personal card every two years. Devastating. So devastating. Oh my God, the game's up. The jig is up. You can only get one of these things every two years, every 24 months, they would say, but some enterprising people on Reddit found a loophole, a miraculous loophole. You know how sometimes you get a credit card offer in the mail? Yes. Physical mail? Those are called hard mailers. They come in the mail and they give you, it's tailored to you.
Starting point is 00:54:00 It's got a special code that you can use, but the code is usable up to like four or five times so that you can give it to friends or relatives. He's here. I'm going with this. And a beautiful thing about these hard mailers is you'd read the fine print. It did not include the 24 month language. So if you applied for a personal American Airlines card via the hard mail or code, you could get as many as you wanted. Jesus. And that's what I did. Along with everybody else, I went on to read it and there were people selling the codes for like 20 bucks. So I'd be like, I want to try this. So I got one. And then I got the bonus and I was like, Oh, damn. Oh, here we go. And I got like eight cards over the course of like six months for the listeners
Starting point is 00:54:51 only. Ben is rock hard right now. It's disgusting. So I got like six, what was it? What did I say? Six? I don't even remember how many I got. I got like six to eight cards in as much time, in as many months rather. And remaining in my American Airlines account was about 650,000 miles that I was so excited to use. I was gonna go, I like going to New York a lot. I was gonna fly their business class round trip. I was gonna go to Japan, I'm gonna go here and here and here. But then American Airlines got wise to what they had done with their hard mailers.
Starting point is 00:55:29 And not only did they immediately pull the rug on that, but they punished every single account that had taken advantage of it myself included. So it was like, it was a big deal in this subreddit. People were freaking out because first what American did was they just froze everybody's accounts. And you didn't know like, all right, what are they going to do? Are they going to like, file a lawsuit against everybody? Are they going to, are they going to like make you pay? What are they going to do?
Starting point is 00:55:56 Are they going to cancel everybody's accounts? And what ended up happening was they just canceled. I'm talking thousands of people's accounts. Band cannot open another advantage account again. Your band? Band. Yeah, I can fly American, but I cannot open an advantage account. So how many cars did you lose?
Starting point is 00:56:13 I lost about 650,000 miles, which is like roughly $7 or $8,000 worth of flights. So I was devastated, absolutely crushed. But then I discovered and leaned into American Express cards, which I love. By the way, I have, God damn, excuse me, I have referral links in the description. I mean, I don't think I really get anything, especially the American Express ones I checked, I don't get anything. But the bonus that people get if they use it is higher than the normal sign-up bonus. But I don't even know if I should go into detail on all the cards and why I like them, but that seems like too much.
Starting point is 00:57:02 Because like the American Express Gold Personal Card has a $250 annual fee, but it's offset by like you get grub hub credits and Uber eats credits. Same thing with like chaff, chase half our reserve. Chaff are? Fuck you. No, fuck you. Same with the chaff, the chaff, the chaff, the chaff, I record. Stop.
Starting point is 00:57:21 I'm serious. They all come with perks. They cost awesome. I think if you get the reserve, it's $450, but then you get $300 travel credit and they pay for your like global entry pass. So yeah, they've all got crazy perks. But we might, so I might put for a- Maybe we can do a little social thing.
Starting point is 00:57:39 We can figure something out. I don't know, but just in case we end up doing it, check the description box. Maybe we'll have links in the description box, maybe we'll have links in there. I know there'll be a little surprise for you. But my best story, and this is where the nudity comes in. Remember I teased the nudity, the very real nudity. There was one in my looking at all these different credit card things.
Starting point is 00:58:01 I wanted to fly on like the most expensive, best seat you could fly in, which at the time is so. Can I also tell people that you're like a bit of a plane guy? Yeah, I love airplanes. He's like, if you walk around with Ben, like, I'll just point at this guy and go like, oh, that's a B60, whatever. And you just B60. Come on. Okay. See, this is a plane guy. I messed it up and he couldn't let it go. They all Boeing all starts with sevens. Okay. So anyway, there was one. There was one flight in particular that I wanted to do because you got two flights for the price of one. And it was specifically the Emirates, which is a Middle Eastern. It's like, I don't know what the where they're based out of Dubai or something.
Starting point is 00:58:43 United Arab Emirates. It's like one of the nicest luxury airlines, even in coach, it's very, very nice. But the flight specifically from Tokyo to Los Angeles is the longest one you can do for one ticket because it doesn't just go from Tokyo to Los Angeles. It goes in the other direction, it goes west, it goes Tokyo to Dubai where you have a free stopover and then Dubai onto LA. So I wanted to do that because like I said, I wanted to fly first class freaking twice for the price of one.
Starting point is 00:59:14 It was like 15 hours from Tokyo to Dubai 24 hour layover in Dubai and then like 17 or 18 hours from Dubai. So this thing that doesn't sound fun to most people spending basically two days on a plane. Yeah. Oh, I was thrilled to be on belief. Yeah. I got to spend I spent a day in Dubai for my, I think it was my 30th birthday. I flew in a gyro copter. It was cool. 24 hours there. I went to the top of the Burj Khalifa. It was nice. The cool thing about flying Emirates first class, and there are so many, the first class lounge at the Dubai airport is like, it's its own like terminal. They've got amazing food. You get a free massage. I
Starting point is 00:59:57 went and got a massage for like 30 minutes. And you get your own special ramp to board the plane. Wow, look at you, your fancy boy. But what sucked is, so this is one of the things that you can do, that, I mean, it is no longer, but this is how I got that flight. A lot of airlines are part of, like, not coalitions, but that's for like nations. Conglomerates?
Starting point is 01:00:22 Not conglomerates, but like groups. Like the American Airlines and British Airways and something else, they're part of like the one-world group. Okay. And then there's others. But the way that you could do this was with Alaska Airlines cards or miles. Because Alaska and Emirates are part of the same group. And if you got 90,000 Alaska miles, you could use those to make this flight.
Starting point is 01:00:45 And you could get those Alaska miles like that, because you could get a personal card, and you could get a business card. I don't like where you look at me when you say that though. Go ahead, look off camera, look at it. So you could get, so I got the personal Alaska card and the business card, both how to sign up bonus of like 40,000 points. And then with the manufactured spending at Target or whatever it was, I got the 90,000 miles
Starting point is 01:01:08 and I was like, hot diggity, I'm gonna book this flight sometime soon and I waited too long and then I check back and they had this happens, you gotta be careful, they will change their like ratio or whatever their redemption rates, they doubled it to 180,000 and I I was like, God, damn it. How am I gonna come up with 90,000 more Alaska miles? More skinnly.
Starting point is 01:01:31 Fortunately. Fortunately. There was another scare. Bank of America had a very relaxed policy on how many cards you could get in a certain amount of time. So I got like two more personal cards. And I went to Target and I did my thing and I got the 180,000 cards and I went to Target and I did my thing and I got
Starting point is 01:01:45 the 180,000 miles and I booked the ticket. It was like a $15,000 ticket and it cost me a hundred dollars. And I was very, very excited. So folks, if you, you know, if you get good enough with credit cards, you can, do you actually can't. So now you can use, I believe Chase ultimate rewards points to fly on, uh, on Emirates. But so that's my whole thing. And should we just tie a ribbon on that?
Starting point is 01:02:14 Cause we got a word. We were almost done here. People wanted some credit card stuff. Yeah. We asked the community out there for questions. We asked if anybody had any questions for us. We, we post the question on Instagram and Twitter. What questions do you have for us? The gurus, the geniuses, the trillion years?
Starting point is 01:02:30 And we're going to have to do this again because we're running out of time. We're going to get through some of these, but we got so many questions. A lot of them are a lot of them are fun. I did have to sift through a lot of do that thing hang though. Thank you for that. Or do that thing be farting. So thank you for those questions. Thank you. I don't, but thank you.
Starting point is 01:02:50 Tastes your question. Yes, that thing do be farting. Those things do be farting my dudes. So the first question we've got is from J0506. What do you think about scalp trading? Only way I have made money swing trading, F'd me. Can you explain scalp trading? Scalp trading is when you're just in and out real fast.
Starting point is 01:03:06 Oh boom, you're in for a quick profit on a long or short and you scalp it. It gets just... What do you think about it? I think it's totally fine. It thinks it's fine. It's what trade. It's what trade.
Starting point is 01:03:16 You do. It just, you know, use stop losses. If you're an active trader, stop losses are your best friend. They keep you within a defined limit that you put in for yourself before the emotion takes hold. But, you know, also be cautious because if you're scalping, you might be susceptible to extra volatility swings might get you stopped out that you just actively monitor your positions. It's not fun. But it's not for everybody. It's for advanced. It's more advanced. This next one I think is a good one to pair with this episode about credit cards. Do you think it's a good idea to be investing? If you have debt, you also need to pay off.
Starting point is 01:03:55 That's from Grub-O. Grub-O. Yeah, that's a... There's a tricky question. I think that it depends on the debt. If it's debt that you are gonna, it's gonna take years for you to pay off. If you've got a solid plan in place where you're making payments on it and the interest rate is manageable for you and you're making enough money and whatever career you're in,
Starting point is 01:04:18 where you can contribute. If you can contribute to a 401k that your employer matches, max that thing out. Absolutely contribute to an IRA, open an employer matches, max that thing out. Absolutely contribute to an IRA, open an IRA, which is after tax stuff. So that means that when your paycheck comes, the tax man has already taken his cut, then you can put that into an IRA, which you don't get taxed. All the gains on your IRA don't get taxed until your retire. In which case, at which point, I don't even think it gets taxed. I should know this, but otherwise we talked to some people who said they, their investment
Starting point is 01:04:50 plan has gets them more gain gets them more gains than their. Yeah. So again, it's not for everybody, however, but don't risk more than you're willing to don't risk. Don't yolo your fucking shit to get out of that. Don't ever don't do that. Don't be foolish. So it's got to get out of debt. Don't ever, don't do that. Don't be foolish. So it's gotta be right for you.
Starting point is 01:05:05 But also a good rule of thumb is pay off all your debt before you start saving up. Because otherwise, you're gonna be paying interest. And that is. And that is, you're just gonna get deeper and deeper. Yeah, you're gonna get murked. The next question comes from rock underscore Amman. Any plans to extend the Trill brand past this pod?
Starting point is 01:05:24 You darn tootin. Oh, and they also asked, do you guys have plans for merch? Yes. Big fan wood cop. And yeah, so as far as, I mean, weren't, what did you say we're at episode nine? Yeah. We got all kinds of plans.
Starting point is 01:05:40 Yeah, let us know in the comments what you'd like to see. What should we make? What extra videos? What do you want to see? What merch ideas have you got? As long as people want merch, we'll do merch. Let us know if you want merch and we'll see what we can do. We'll see what we can do.
Starting point is 01:05:53 Let us know what kind of merch you want. Anthony72 says, I woke up down 20% on a position. Do I wait? We're trying to make it up elsewhere. Buddy, I'm going to need more details in that. Were you down on an option position, where you down on just a regular long, or you short, I'm assuming that you're just long on something
Starting point is 01:06:10 and you woke up down 20%. What's your time horizon? What's your plan? Is it something that you're holding on for a year? Is it something that you plan on investing in the long run? Was this one part of several purchases you plan on making, the dollar cost average into it, it all depends.
Starting point is 01:06:28 But like I said, have a stop loss, have a plan. The biggest thing if you are trading and not investing is to have a plan, I mean, you should have a plan regardless. But have a plan for your entry and your exit on a trade. It's going to make your life so much easier so that when a certain thing happens, you know, okay, my plan is to drop it if it drops 20%. That's pretty much it.
Starting point is 01:06:53 Okay, Anthony, that's your fucking answer. Yeah, you got it. Sorry about being down 20%. Pal, I've been there. Last question. Which US President could you easily beat in a fight and why? This is from Briggs Cunningham. What do you got? All right, well, this is a tough one because the question is which one could you easily beat in a fight and why and I'd have to pick.
Starting point is 01:07:18 I don't want to do this. Now go ahead. Who? Go ahead. He's one of my favorites. Uh-huh. FDR, but if we're talking easy. Why FDR? He was famously famously what? Polio Strican. We can find to a wheelchair. But if we're talking easily, love the guy. Yeah, you don't know how to beat him up. So he didn't specify the rules. FDR might be carrying a little pistol. True. So maybe I'd pick Andrew Jackson, because I fucking hate that motherfucker. Which one died in a duel?
Starting point is 01:07:51 No, Andrew Jackson beat someone to death. Andrew Jackson was so fucked man. Yeah. So why would you want to take him on? I would want to take on shit. It'd be easy for me to, I'd be so angry. Yeah. I'd be able to scrap. You know who I would take on? Who I would take on? Ben Franklin. You know why? Wait scrap. You know who I would take on. Who would you take on Ben Franklin?
Starting point is 01:08:05 You know why? Wait, wait, wait, wait. I would show him, no. What? It says President. Oh. Ben Franklin, President. I was just tested, you know.
Starting point is 01:08:13 They didn't say which. Just to see what. Well, yeah, I'm extending this question to founding fathers. That guy's such a weeny. You're gonna do it. I would just say, look, a printing press and he would turn around and then I you know
Starting point is 01:08:32 Spatum you love so you're like I started was Ben Franklund printing presses him or George was or a blanket and family doesn't Famously doesn't turn around when he's at the theater my god Maybe we should got that I don't know Abe Lincoln was also a weini, wasn't he? No, yeah. He's a Lincoln famously good guy. Yeah. Some of these guys, I'll tell you what. Some of the ones who were born before
Starting point is 01:08:53 like the industrial revolution, you could easily just trick with like, hey, look over there. And then, you know, have your way. George Washington. JFK used to just ride around convertible. We got, you guys, we got to stop, we're gonna, JFK, JFK, it's JFK used to just ride around convertibles. We got you guys. We got to stop.
Starting point is 01:09:05 We're going to. JFK. It's a he would be easy to take down because he had like chronic back issues. He was a dick. Oh, yeah. He had a, I can't remember the name of the disease, but he hit it from everyone. He had a horrible disease.
Starting point is 01:09:20 He wouldn't be able to hide it from you in a fight. I'll tell you that. No, I'm exploiting all your, yeah. You'd say JFK look over there a book depository and eat huh? Grassy no Rock him in the small of his back. Oh, you know, I'd like to Richard Nixon that poxie bitch. Oh, yeah, you could just you could I'd like to yeah, what does that mean? Poy means like, I think it's like cowardly or? Oh yeah.
Starting point is 01:09:47 Oh, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not a, we're not good at this. Man, he's so dead. He is dead, you know who's not dead? Kissinger, that motherfucker will not die. Wow, maybe we should bet some money on him, Diane. There's a website where you can bet on celebrities dying.
Starting point is 01:10:04 That's a fun question. We're gonna have to do this again. Yeah, you know what? You know so many questions and we're sorry. We couldn't get to them all. You know what though? I will say this, which US president could you easily beat in a fight? All of them.
Starting point is 01:10:14 Oh, like every single one. I could beat all of them in a fight. Except for who is the real tough one, the Rough Rider. Oh, Teddy Roosevelt would have mocked the floor. Like for somebody's an LBJ kind of feels like he'd give me some trouble. Yeah, he'd, yeah. He's like a, he's like your, Tim Carter, I wouldn't want to be like,
Starting point is 01:10:32 he'd peanut farmer boy. He just seems like a nice dude, generally. Yeah. Reagan. Oh, he'd whip my ass. No, yeah, maybe, but he's such a piece of shit. That doesn't make him any better or worse a fighter. I'm talking how much I want to fight these guys.
Starting point is 01:10:48 Like I don't want to fight FDR. Yeah. Well, in this case, you have to fight them. I know, it's from running easily. Anyway, that was the question. That this wraps up, I hope everybody's enjoyed this episode. Please share it far and wide so that my, you know who I back at scrap too, both bushes.
Starting point is 01:11:04 Those guys are crazy. Probably. George Bus George, but senior though, when he was on Deaths door, I could whoop his butt. Yeah. You see him at the Astros game throwing out the pitch. He's like, oh, yeah. He's, he's doing a smile frown. He can only frown. That's how bad his, his muscular, his so did you. He rated theated. He can't even smile. Oh, he got what he does. Okay, guys, we'll do a full, we'll get to a full mail bag. We'll let you guys know on such. Oh, that reminds us, follow us on, if you guys want to ask us questions, get on Trillion
Starting point is 01:11:36 AirPod on everything. Comment, like, subscribe. Follow us on everything. Break your computer, quit your job. Don't kill your parents, but maybe. Oh, and rate us on Apple. It helps rate us on everything. Break your computer, quit your job. Don't kill your parents, but maybe. Oh, and rate us on Apple. It helps. Rate us 500 Apple.
Starting point is 01:11:49 It helps people find us. I'm gonna lay into that big. All right, guys, thank you for tuning in once again. Ben's gonna get to his burger. Bye, everyone.

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