How to Travel More Without Spending More: Intro to Points & Miles

So, I did want to start off with because that was something I know you guys may be uh there may be some international people here. Um, my talk is focused on US credit cards um generally and you'll learn a little bit more about what I'm talking about. I just don't want anybody to be from another country and say, "Hey, well, does any of this apply to me?" Because I don't know and a lot of countries don't have a lot of the options that we do in the US. So, unfortunately, I can't give advice on um stuff outside of the country. I do have a friend that does Canadian focus. I do have a friend that does um is in Germany that does German focus and I have a friend in the UK um that focuses on that. So, if you guys are from any of those countries, I can lead you to other people if you want to DM me directly. Um, but I just kind of wanted to give that as a warning for anybody who I don't want you guys to have to sit through it and say, "Hey, well, none of this applies to me." Um, but uh, thank you for coming to my talk. It's an intro introduction to traveling more with points and miles. Um, I am, uh, the at the point girl on Instagram. That is my main focus on through social media. I do also have Tik Tok and I do YouTube shorts if any of you want to follow me on there. However, Instagram is my main focus and a big reason for that is they make it a lot easier for me to share resources. Um it is this you know can be a bit complicated but I think there are ways to teach it but um having guides and things that I can reference to really helps and I can do that with Instagram and with many chat whereas it's very hard to do with Tik Tok and YouTube shorts. So not all of my content goes on there but all of my content is on Instagram. Uh so if you guys are interested in learning more, you can follow me at the points fly girl um on any one of those channels, but most of it is on Instagram. Uh to introduce myself, I have been traveling on points and miles for about 10 to 11 years now, but I got serious about it six years ago. Since then, I've been using points to travel business class and stay in luxury resorts that I could never afford. Um and my goal is to help everyone travel like I do and take advantage of traveling through points and miles. Um, my day job is an attorney. I am a full-time attorney in Las Vegas, Nevada, but I find a lot of joy in traveling. Um, and I enjoy teaching people the strategies behind traveling on points and miles. Uh, so let's get started with why should I use points and miles? Um, I don't, you know, everybody's at different levels, so I'm going to kind of start from the beginning. Uh, but learning to use points and miles makes it possible to travel much more often and in higher luxury while spending a lot less. And I know it sounds corny, but this really can be life-changing. Um, I have this year I'll be traveling to seven countries, and that is not something that I would be able to do without points and miles. It's not something that I could have even come close to affording, especially because every single international flight that I'm flying on is in business class. Um, last year I visited Norway and Amsterdam for two and a half weeks and that was entirely covered on points. And when I say that, I mean, um, our flights and hotels were covered on points. I did pay for I think two of the flights within Norway um, but that was it. Otherwise, all we had to pay for was food and um whatever tours we wanted to take. I also uh included this photo, me and my mom. I was able to fly her in business class for the first time. This is coming back from uh Amsterdam, so it was really cool to be able to fly her business class. Uh and that's me in Norway. So, um what are points and miles? So points and miles are rewards that you can earn through spending and loyalty with certain credit cards, airlines, and hotel programs. Uh, and points can be used in different ways. You can exchange them for cash, gift cards, in portal, purchase a race or transfer. If any of you already do have points or miles, then you know what I'm talking about. Um, usually you'll get a set of points for signing up and then you will be able to use those points and almost everybody uses it in the portal, right? That's the way they direct you to use them. You can go and book things through the portal. Uh but a lot of what we do, you get a lot more value by transferring out and knowing when to find the good deals. A combination of both will usually get you uh better deals so that you are able to travel more and or in higher luxury by finding those deals which you're not going to find in the portal. I mean every once in a while you can but it's very very rare and there have to be all the stars aligned. Uh, but there are different values depending on the card program and how you use them. Not all points are the same. Um, some people will think, well, you know, um, this Hilton card, for example, is offering 100,000 points, um, versus, you know, a Chase card is offering 100,000 points. Those are worth those two things are very, very different. 100,000 points is not worth the same. 100,000 Chase points is going to get you way further than 100,000 Hilton points, for example. uh but they all do have their own varying value. So it's basically it's a virtual currency that you can use for travel related expenses and you can use them for flights, hotels, car rentals and unique experiences depending on the points that you have. Um but again like I said before not all points are created equal. So what I focus on a lot is earning through credit cards. Um and that's because there's really no faster way to earn points especially with what we call welcome offers. So, a lot of times you'll see with a credit card, they will offer something like, you know, 60,000 points, 100,000 points, even higher um by for spending a certain amount of money um within a certain amount of time. Those are what we call welcome offers. And um there is no faster way to earn points in that. Um, a lot of people think I think the old way used to be, well, you fly or you're loyal to these places and you will get points. And that is definitely a way to earn points. And I think that's great way to earn points for people who travel for work or are traveling a ton for other reasons, but a lot of us don't. And you're not really going to get the points that are going to get you serious value without credit cards for the most part. Um, but you don't want to just start applying for credit cards without thought. You need to have a strategy and kind of focus in and make sure that you're applying in the right manner both for your credit and to ensure that you are continuing to get these points and being able to use a large amount of points. Um, so there are two different methods to this. Um, method one is to get multiple credit cards and get multiple welcome offers. So essentially, sign up for a card, get that welcome offer, um, and then a few months later, sign up for another card and get that welcome offer, and then kind of rinse and repeat. Um, before I get too far into this though, if that is something you're going to do when you open a credit card, one thing that you need to remember that a lot of people overlook is they think they can just get the welcome offer and close the card. And definitely you can. You're not going to go to jail if you do that. But if you open a card and then close it right away after you get the welcome offer, you are going to be in the bad books with that bank and you are probably not going to be getting approved for another card uh with that bank again because when you are signing up and getting that welcome offer, you are agreeing that you're going to keep that card open for a year. So um whatever card you get, whether you get one card, whether you get multiple, make sure you are keeping that card open for at least a year once. And a good way to know that you've hit that year is you're going to get a fee generally for that card. Some of them don't charge a fee. Uh but for the ones that do charge a fee, you will get charged that fee. And then once you get charged that fee, if you do want to cancel that card still, then you can call um and cancel. And all of the reputable banks that I know of will give you a refund on that annual fee within 30 days. Um so you usually want to wait that full year, even wait until you actually get charged. so you that you know you paid or that you've kept it open for the full year because if you do want to get another credit card with that being down the road, especially if you want all of its welcome offers, um you don't want to be in their bad books. Um but a lot of people think that the way, you know, people like me are getting all these points is that we're going out and buying a ton of luxury goods and going into debt uh because we're spending all this money. But no, the strategy is is to only get the cards with the welcome offers essentially or with earn rates um that are going to give you extra points on things that you are already going to spend on. So um most people can easily use welcome offers just by paying your gas bill, your light bill, um when you go out to lunch, right? I am one of these people. You will never see me pull out my debit card unless it's an absolute emergency. I don't care if I go to Taco Bell and I buy a $1 taco. I don't even know if they have those anymore, but if I were to spend $2 at Taco Bell, I am paying that on my credit card. Every single thing that I am going to buy anyway goes on a credit card. You are not This is not like, hey, let's spend extra money because then you're going to be able to use those points. That is a horrible way to think and that is not what we do. This is maximizing o off of what you are going to spend on any. So that takes me into my next point of who is this for? Right? If you're going to be doing this, you need to be somebody who can control your spending. If you are somebody who gets a credit card and has a tendency to max it out um and not pay it in full, let's not do this until you are able to pay off your credit card in full every month. And there's a huge reason for that. the credit card companies. That is the this is the catch, right? It seems like, oh, this is too good to be true. I'm getting all of these points and able to travel around the world. Um, but there's a catch. They are trying to get you held up in a place where you are going to need to pay uh interest rates, late dues, all of that. All of that adds up and that makes the credit cards a a ton of money and that's how they are able to afford this. But the this whole thing is about maximizing for you, right? You are never going to get ahead if you are going to be paying interest rates on these cards. The interest rates on these cards vary between usually like 20 and 30%. It is insane. This is not something that you are going to get ahead if you are carrying over a balance. In the end, you might as well just pay out of pocket for all your traveling if you're going to be just giving all of this interest to the credit card companies. Um, you do want to have a credit score, good credit score, because you need a good credit score to be getting approved for credit cards. Um, so if you have, you know, a credit score that is not, I'd say at least 670 or higher, then I would get working on that first. Um, you do always want to have a healthy credit score for many things, right? To be getting approved for stuff. Um, but you also pay your bills on time every month. Like I said, you want to be paying the credit card off completely every month. And that's not, oh, I can pay most of it. I can pay half of it. I'm sure I can pay it off in three months. None of that. Every single credit card needs to be paid in full every single month because these interest rates will really get you. Um, you do need to be organized and detail oriented because you are going to have to track due dates, spending categories, and points balances. So, it does take a little bit of extra work, right? It's not super easy, otherwise everybody would be doing it. That is one of my little pet peeves when a lot of people go on social media and say, "Oh, all of this is so easy." Like, there's a lot of things you need to track. There's things you need to keep up with. Um, you do need to be tracking the credit cards that you have, making sure you're paying things on time. Autopay is will be your best friend. Every single credit card that I have is on autopay to pay off the credit card um when it's due every single month. I do not defer from that. Um, but also, you want to be patient, goal oriented. Um, this isn't necessarily something that just happens overnight. I think a lot of people think that, you know, you can get one credit card and then boom, done. That's it. I mean, you can you can get one credit card and then you can uh, you know, travel off of the points that you you get off of that credit card, but generally, you do have to wait for the points to come in. Um, and then it's a good idea to actually take the time and make sure that you're maximizing the value that you're getting off of those points because they can be very valuable. And I've seen people spend um a 100red 200,000 points on an economy seat where I have spent uh the actually my biggest win was 29,500 points for a business class flight from LA to London. So right that means one credit card offer I know how to maximize that and get me roundtrip business class tickets whereas people who are just using them as quickly as possible are getting um you know maybe one economy flight and you know I they're your points you can use them however you want right but if somebody showed you hey let me show you how you know this $20 can go way further then you know you might want to listen to them um because right you always want your money and or anything of value going as far as it can. So, I'll talk about a welcome offer a little bit. Welcome offers are given when you open a new credit card and meet a minimum spend requirement and it is the fastest way to earn a large amount of points. Typically requires between $1,000 to $6,000 spend in the first 3 to six months. Now, I know that can be difficult depending on, you know, where you are at financially, especially I know when I was a student, um it was a bit hard for me. I did actually sign up for a points earning card when I was a student, but then you know you can pay for a lot of school things, too. So, it just depends on where you're spending because I know there's a lot of people that aren't making money, but they could be spending a lot of money because of the certain circumstances they're in, right? In school, uh, needing to buy books, needing to pay tuition and things like that. People with kids often find themselves in a situation where they're spending a lot of money on daycare and things like that. So, every single welcome offer that you look at, you want to make sure that is a spend that you can responsibly make. You're not going to be spending extra money to make um you know any welcome offer spends. If you're ever short, then you need to come up with a way that you can responsibly make that spend. Can you, for example, if you have kids, uh will your daycare let you pay for two months in advance? or um you know if you're in school maybe buy your books earlier than you intended. I know one of the ways that I did it when I was making less money um is I did have a h I did own a home so I had my electric bill and then I paid I was going to be very short. So I think I paid $1,000 towards my electric bill. Um so I overpaid my electric bill because that's money that was I was going to have to spend anyway and then I just didn't have an electric bill for like eight or nine months. I think it's Vegas, so we use a lot of electricity in the summer, but um you know, just different things like that. Um the goal is to not be in a situation where you have to come up with creative ways to make these spend. You you should have a plan already, but if you do have to make sure what you're spending on is not something that you're like, "Oh, well, I guess I need to go out and buy a new designer purse or something like that." Right? Um, I mean, if that was something you're already going to do anyway, but only spend it on things that you're going to have to anyway. The goal is to not like be spending more to get these points because the value just isn't there to just buy things to get the points. What you're getting back on your spend isn't um it it's not there. It's it's maximizing again, like I said, on what you're already going to spend. But if you get like if you're responsible and you get two good credit cards, one or two credit cards, like those can fund an entire trip. And I'm not joking about that. There's plenty of blogs out there that actually like to do this and show how two credit cards can fund an entire trip and what you can do with that. Um, and there are a lot of that you can get pretty far with some of these points. Um, so sometimes these offers are elevated for a limited time making them even more valuable because sometimes like one of the most popular credit cards, the Chase Sapphire Preferred for example, it's generally at 60,000 points. Um, but a couple months ago it was at 100,000 points which is very valuable and now it's back to 75,000 points. So that is valuable as well. So, you can get these um elevated limited time offers. Um but essentially um oh, I think I already I put this in the slide again, but I didn't mean to. But essentially, there are two main ways to start traveling on points, and that is maximizing those welcome offers where you are continuously getting them or just making sure that you are maximizing ways to earn uh points on your with your everyday spend. So, not only are there um ways, you know, just most of the time when you're spending on certain things, you're going to get one point per dollar, but there are other ways to maximize your earn and you can use things like shopping portals. Um, and these are portals that you can go through and you can earn even more points by going through them. And I I did include this on my slide. I forgot I was going to come back in um and link to it, but I do have um on my website, which you can find through my Instagram. And if you can't, just DM me actually if if that's easier, just DM me and ask me for I have a guide for shopping portals and for dining programs. So, there are ways that if you dine at certain restaurants, if you're signed up through this program, when you swipe your card, you can be earning even more points. So, for example, there is, you know, a steakhouse here in Las Vegas called um Echo and Rig, which is a very good restaurant that I like, but I also like going there because they are signed up to earn extra points. So, I am signed up with Alaska's mileage program. So, that whenever I swipe my card, I am earning four times points on this particular card and then I'm earning additional points. I want to say it's maybe four or five times points uh with Alaska Airlines just from signing this card. So I'm basically double dipping by swiping once. Um and then also there are shopping portals that just by clicking through the links you can earn extra points. Um and that gets a little bit more complicated. We just don't have the time to go through that delve in very far. But I do have articles on that that gives you links and explains everything. Um, so all of that is on my website, uh, which is the points.com. But like I said, you can also just DM me and I'll just send you a direct link as well. So um, one of the things though when you're thinking about doing this and you're going to be signing up for multiple credit cards is um, Chase. A lot of people wonder that have looked into this kind of I think why people talk about Chase so much, but that's because Chase is a very good program to start with. Not only are they easy to use their points and miles, they are very flexible in that they can be used with high hotels where you'll get a ton of value and um I think they have something like 18 transfer partners. So there's a ton of airlines that you can use them with and you can also uh use them with some hotels and I think Hyatt is generally known as giving the best value. But they also have this particular rule called 5 of 24. So that means Chase will not approve you for any of their credit cards if you have received more than five personal credit cards in the last 24 months. So that means if you have received more than five personal credit cards in the last two years, Chase will not approve you for a card. And if you are already over that number, then that's fine. You can go for other credit cards. But if you are not, Chase is a good place to start. You get the credit cards with them and then you can look into other programs like AMX for example. So, I think those are the two most popular, Chase and MX. And then you can get cards with one or both of them. But if you are under what we call under five of 24, then you would generally want to look at Chase first. Um, so business cards, if any of you happen to have business cards, um, then you can that doesn't count towards your five of 24 count. It's just personal credit cards. Uh, but you do want to prioritize cards uh like Chase and I'm going to get into the other ones that are what we call flexible currency because I think this is what I'm actually going to come back to the slide because I think uh this is where a lot of people just don't realize um where you can get a lot more value. So, each of the major credit card currencies, MX, Capital 1, Chase, City, um, some of you may be familiar with builds, but I think that's less well-known people outside the points world. Um, and now Wells Fargo is pretty new with transferring all of these points. You can actually, aside from using their tra travel portal, you can transfer these points to outside partners. And this is my transfer guide that is also on my website um where you can that shows you who you can transfer your points to and in what ratio. And what this means for example American Express transfers to Heirlingus at a 1:1 ratio. So one American Express membership rewards point is worth one heirling point and you can actually just move those over um from one to the other. Capital One does not transfer to Heirlingus. Chase does. City does not. So, that's how to read this. Um, there are a couple that are a little bit weird ratios. So, one American Express membership awards point is worth 1.6 Arrow Mexico point. Now, that does seem like you're getting a great deal because it's worth a little bit more, but Arrow Mexico also asks for more points for their flights. So, I'm going to try not to overwhelm you guys too much, but that's the gist of it is that you can transfer your points over to uh transfer partners. And this right here is what I call my Bible because I'm always referring to this so that I know who transfers to who. Um, so there are programs that I like more than others um because I can find good deals. Air France, KLM is a good one. Um, Air Canada is a good one. And I think if you guys ever get into this and start searching more, you'll find that they you will have your favorites too based on where you are and based on where you like to travel to. I do a lot of Europe travels and I am based in Las Vegas. So, I find a ton of great deals on KM because KLM actually has a non-stop from Vegas to Amsterdam. So, it makes it very good place for me and they throw out a lot of good deals, too. So, it's a very good place for me to find good deals to Europe when I'm traveling to Europe. But, I have used other ones, too. Um, I recently traveled to the Maldes. Um, but I traveled through Doha. So, I did Doha, Maldivs, and Singapore. So, I was actually able to transfer over my American Express membership reward points because I found a really good deal to fly on Qar airlines, Qatar Gene Suite. So, I just transferred over my MX points to Qatar. Um, my husband and I both flew over to Doha and I decided since I was there, I might as well stay a couple days. Uh, use my points to stay there at a very nice hotel called the St. Reges. And, uh, from there then we were able to I used my points to fly us. then first class from Doha to Maldives um on Qatar Airways as well. But then um I didn't know how we were getting home and I looked where one-way flights were and I found uh Singapore Airlines and then I was able to find flights um on points business class from Maldives to Singapore where we stay in Singapore for a few nights and then I was able to book um and transfer my points um and I think it was Ammex points. I can't remember if it was the MX points or the Chase points that I then transferred over to um Air Canada for example and Air Canada is a partner of Singapore Airlines and I was able to fly from Singapore all the way to LA and that was for anybody who knows how much points were worth that was for 87,500 points which is a pretty good value for that long of a flight because it's uh 16 hours I think. So, um, I want to bust a few points and miles myths. Um, and one of the things that is it's too complicated. I think a lot of people get overwhelmed and I know that it can be overwhelming. Uh, because there is a lot to learn. But if you just um I think just sit and focus and take some time to learn it, you can get the hang of it and you'll realize that it is about following simple steps and just having the right tools. um because there is a lot to know, but it's not too much. I think that anybody who takes the time um can learn this. Um the other thing is I think that a lot of people think I don't travel enough to make it worth it. But even if you only take one or two trips a year, points and miles can significantly cut down your cost. You can fund I mean if you're traveling less there, you can make your points go even so much further, right? you can travel um and have your entire vacation funded. Even if you just travel once a year um or you know, if you're not going to be traveling that much, bring your mom along with you and pay for her too or your best friend or whoever. And you can do that. There are ways to use your points um to bring a travel partner with you as well. If you don't travel at all, which I'd be very surprised if anybody who came to this talk is not interested in travel, um you can al there's ways to cash out your points. Um and you can use the same strategies uh to just get more points to cash out if something that's that you prefer. Uh but that does actually something not on here that takes me into a lot of people wonder, well, why don't you cash out your points? Um, and that's because if you use them on travel, if travel is something you value, you can get a lot more value on travel. So, like I said before, so I my biggest win I think was the booking a flight for me and my husband on point. And this was just kind of a perfect storm. And I can get more into it if anybody wants to DM me. I can tell you a little little bit more about it. But I booked a non-stop from LA to London business class, which is li flat seats, for 29,500 points. So those same amount of points you can use to cash out, but that would be $295 if you were to cash that out with Chase. So the question is, some people would rather have the $295. For me, if I'm deciding between $295 or a life flat seat to London, I am using those points on that. Um, that is an extreme example because you will not often find deals that good, but they are out there. Um, my friend actually just recently booked a flight from Vegas to London non-stop. Um, because I was searching for flights because I knew they were going on a trip and I decided to help them out and found a killer deal where they were actually able to fly flat seats non-stop Vegas to London for 33,000 points. So, they are rare, but they're also out there. It's not something that's totally out of reach. I think um more on average you are probably when you looking for a good deal you can find them for 50,000 to 60,000 points uh for a business class flight. But if you're not interested in business class and you just want to travel more uh you can definitely find flights international flights in economy for 6,000 to 9,000 points from the US. Uh sometimes depending on if there's a bonus and things like that, you can even as low as 4,000. So again, you know, to use the same example, um would you rather have, you know, a flight to London or would you rather have $40, right? Because that's what $4,000 is worth. Um so, you know, that's only for you to decide and that's up to you. Um that is over oversimplifying it a little bit because there are taxes and fees that come along with it. With business class flights, the taxes and fees are higher for that flight where I paid 29,500 points. our taxes and fees were around I want to say $270 a person. Um and for economy um they are around I think $103 a person now. So um it depends it depends on the airline depends on the time. It depends where they're flying through. Sometimes I'm not even sure you know why what rhyme or reason they use but uh you know sometimes the taxes and fees are a bit higher but so it's oversimplifying it a little bit because you are paying the taxes and fees on top of that. So that is something that you want to consider as well. Um I think the other one is you need a lot of money to earn points. Um that is a myth because with a solid strategy you and your family with your typical everyday spending you can make a ton of points. Um I was at a conference um I speak at this I spoke at this conference last year. I'm speaking again this year called Travel More where it's a bunch of people like me who talk about strategies and how to use your points and earn more. And one of the talks there was a woman who said who was as a school teacher how I earned a million points in a year. Um there are ways that you can earn a ton of points even if you're not earning a ton of money. And a lot of it is through strategy um and learning to make every purchase count through things like shopping portals and dining programs that I spoke about earlier, but also through the welcome offers and making sure that you maximize those and those and getting uh the right cards with the right strategy at the right time. Um, I think one of the biggest myths and a lot of you are probably thinking it now is that that is going to ruin your credit score when you are applying for multiple credit cards. And it actually does not. It in fact will oftentimes increase your credit score because you are paying your bills on time every single month, paying it off. Um, and that obviously helps for your credit score. And then on top of that, um, you are increasing your credit to debt ratio. What that means is, let's say I get a credit card today that has a $10,000 limit. Um, and then I'm using my everyday spend on that. If that is my only credit card and I spent $3,000 for the month on, you know, groceries, uh, bills, everything else, um, then I'm using a lot of my credit, my available credit, because my available credit is only 10,000. I'm using 3,000 of that. Um, that actually is not great for your credit score. But let's say I now have three cards with the $10,000 limit. Now my total credit is $30,000 and I'm only using 3,000 of that. So I'm spending the same. Now the percentage is much much lower. Right now I'm only spending 3,000 of 30,000. So now that looks good because I'm not using all the credit available to me whereas before I was using a much larger percentage of the credit available to me. Um, but yes, I can I I've posted it before. Um, maybe I should have included it on here, but I my credit score is in the 800s and I apply and get a new credit card approximately every 3 months. So, um, just very quickly, I know you guys might hear the words points and miles. So, to differentiate, points are typically associated with credit cards. Usually, most credit cards are going to give you what they call points. The only exception to that is Capital One. They call theirs miles. Uh, but miles are usually tied to an airline or loyalty program. So you, if for example, I'm getting Chase points, I transfer them over to United. Now they're United miles. It's basically the same thing, but that's why you guys hear it different ways. Um, but we do want to focus on flexible points that I talked about earlier. Chase, MX, Capital One, City, Built, um, and Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo isn't used as much. Um, I think Chase and MX are the most common um with Capital One as a close third, but all of these have um some great earn rates and some great ways to use their points as well. Um, but as I said earlier as well, you get higher value when you transfer them out to loyalty programs. Um, and they all do transfer out to certain loyalty programs and some of them just give you better value than others. Um, one of the underrated ones is City, for example, transfers a a 1:2 ratio to Choice. So, what that means is I when I transfer my city points over to Choice, they double. And that is actually good because Choice has some really good deals. So, I've been able to get some really good value out of taking advantage of that. Um, but you know, just similar to investments, uh, you want to diversify. You could have different points in different programs. You can use them for different things. can use one for hotels, um, one for flights if that's where you are getting the best value. Not the same as investments though because you're not going to be raking in all the money from the points. Um, you know, these are what we call earn and burn. The points are often devaluing. So, you do want to as you're earning your points, learning how to redeem them um, and redeem them smart um, in a smart way. So, I do want to actually show you guys some examples of things that you can book. Can you still see my um screen? Is it showing my search engine site? Yes. Okay. Yes, it's visible. Okay. So, I just want to show you guys like for example um so there are some deals that went out today. I wanted to that's why I didn't put this in because I wanted to show real time. um hold on some some deals that you can book um with your points. This is a search engine um that I have been learning more about and I like very much. Um, but so I'm going to search for flights from LAX to Japan. And then I got a notification today that there are some good deals going into the new year. So that's what I'm going to look at. So Oh, not signed in. Sorry. So um the reason that we do some of us do use search engines is because it is a lot of work right because you see how many partners one um credit card company can have and honestly it is the best way to search to go in and manually search each one but that can be a ton of work. Uh, so oftentimes a lot of us do like to use um search engines like this one. There are a few different ones. This is one I'm getting to know a bit more. Um, and I'm I do really like how it works. So, I'm just searching for flights from LA to Japan between March 2nd, 2026 and April 2026. And as you can see here, um, there are ones that I can book through if I have points that transferred to British Airways, um, which you would if you have Chase points and MX points. Um, then you can book this for as little as 19,000 points. Um, but they also have some really good deals. Um, business class, too. I'll show you guys. Um, so for as little as 51,000 points, you can fly from um, LAX to I don't it's Hana and then it's to another town looks like, but anyway, it's somewhere in Japan that you can go to Japan for 51,500 points, which is um, you could probably get two flights with the right sign up bonus. Um, so it just depends and you can do this for a lot of locations. I saw earlier today for business class flights from LA to Paris, there's actually a ton of dates available for 50,000 points. Now, I know that it it's overwhelming and it's a lot. There are a lot of steps to this. Um, and you know, I think a lot of it is learning. Uh, you follow people like me online and then I'm slowly teaching more strategies. unfortunately is just not something that you can teach fully within an hour. Um, this is just kind of the basics of it. The basics of it is maximizing earning points and then knowing that they do transfer out to transfer partners and there are ways to find deals um with, you know, some search tools or you don't necessarily need search tools. Um, sometimes you can find, you know, deals to um places just by searching on the sites themselves. And I actually do have a lot of tutorials on that showing how to search on the sites themselves and you don't have to pay for any of the programs. Um, and then I just want to do quick search to like London as well just to show you guys because I feel like I can find good deals. And that one was business. You can fly LA to London business class for as little as 50,000 points. But here's multiple days. 9,000 points and $110. Um, so let's say you got that one Chase Sapphire preferred credit card. That means this is only one way. So that means you and two friends on one credit card can fly round trip between LAX and London non-stop. Um, because all you need is 9,000 points and $110. And so that to me is killer deal because normally 9,000 points you can cash out for $90. So, when you're looking all in, right, that's approximately $200 if you were to consider it as cash um for a non-stop flight one way from LAX to London. So, as you can see, I'm, you know, this is things I'm searching in real time just right now. Um, and I, you know, I'll admit maybe you guys won't find them as quick because I know, you know, where the deal, you know, sweet spots are and a lot of these things because I do spend a lot of time on this. Um, but you know, these points really can have value. And I just want to teach you guys because if you go in the portal, that's probably going to cost you 30,000 points or so. And when you know you can be finding, you know, business class flights for that much or you can, you know, find economy flights for as little as 9,000 points, then you just know in your mind um that your points are worth a lot more. So, um, you know, I didn't want to keep you guys over the hour. So that is the basics of all of this. I will tell you guys that um I do me and a partner started a course called Mad Miles Masterass and we go through we are currently in the pilot. So we are still doing live courses. We're in the intermediate phase and we're teaching people um step by step. We have so much information on everything that you need to know about credit card points and miles. Um and right now we are still doing live classes. Um so in the live class um you can actually ask questions. Uh we have a WhatsApp group. We are literally teaching everything. We have an entire beginner course that um has multiple videos uploaded that you can learn more and we are in the middle of intermediate class. Um because we are still in the pilot program and you know because you guys were kind enough to attend today, we are giving a discount and we're opening this up for 48 hours only. So for two days only from today will this be open and available to purchase these prices. We're never going to get back again. Uh but all of that teaching guys everything from the beginning to booking business class flights or your entire family on points. We are showing you that. Um and we are very good at what we do. Um, and there's two of us. I'm I generally do luxury travel. I do business class, um, high-end hotels and my partner Mary has a family, so generally does a lot more of the economy and traveling with family. So, I think we cover so much of everything and show any essentially anyone how to do this. So, if you guys want to do that, you can find the QR code here. If you guys do not have another device, um, so you do not have the QR code, then just shoot me a DM and I'll send you the direct link so that you can read more about the course um, if that is something that you're interested in. And if you're not, that's completely fine, too. Um, but I do invite you to follow me at the pointly girl. Um, I do do a lot of tutorials. There's a lot of stuff that you can learn for free uh, from my Instagram and from my website. Um, and this is the QR code for it. If you don't have another device on you, then you can find me at the pointsly girl on Instagram. So, thank you so much for sitting through this with me, guys. I know it's a lot. I know it can be intense. Um, I try to break it down as best as I can. Um, but, uh, hopefully that did help a little bit. So, I don't know if you guys have any questions. Um, if we have a little bit of time to ask questions. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing and also if you have any question and you would like to ask it's the time to ask and yeah there is a question from Karen she said do we do we need a special code for the 20 for the 48 hours discount is there any so now if you use if you use this QR code it's going to take you directly to that um that is good for 48 hours that already have the discount included like I said if you don't have another device on you just DM me and say, "Hey, I was in your talk. I want a link." I'll I'll shoot you over a link immediately. And for the slides, yes, we will have a copy. We we have the record of the video, the of the event and we will add the event on our website. You can check it. We will add it as soon as possible. You can check the the whole event in our website. I can type it for you. Do you have any other questions? Yeah, you can check the event here in our website. We will and also we will post some parts some interesting parts in our social media. Any other questions? Uh I have a question. For example, for the credit card, do you basically gain more points from the credit card or you also you do miles from the airlines? You subscribed to airline miles or points from the card? I do subscribe to airline miles. Uh when you use points to fly, you do not earn points. So, you only earn points uh when you are paying for a flight. And I rarely pay for a flight. I am almost always using points. I do sometimes pay when I feel like the value um is better used somewhere else especially on domestic flights um because with domestic flights the points value isn't always good but it still can be especially depending on you know your values and things like that. Um, but it is by far credit cards because there is no way you I mean unless I was flying every other day, I couldn't even get close to earning as many points um by flying as I am on my credit cards. And you know, sometimes I can earn a ton of points just from buying a washer dryer. For example, there was a special running um because I use, as I talked about earlier, um uh shopping portals. So, there was a special going on where you earn 15 times points on Lowe's, which is a department store that sells a lot of homegoods. So, we need a new washer and dryer. So, I went and spent, you know, it's expensive to buy a new one. So, I don't remember how much we paid. I would say we paid maybe $2,000. So, if I went in and just use the normal credit card and just swipe that card, then that would only be 2,000 points because it's one point for a dollar. Instead, I make sure and earn use a card that is going to give me extra points on home improvement stores. I think that was giving me three times points on home improvement stores. And then there was a special if I clicked through a link that I would get 15 times points. So then I ended up earning something like 33,000 points on one purchase whereas I'd be lucky to get that even with buying a flight. Yeah. So, it's really essential to choose the right credit card that give you more benefits. And also, I like the idea of the of the spending. You you just buy what you need from that credit card, not overspend to get points. Exactly. If you're spending Yeah. Just And you can do it. It's super simple. I think a lot of people think that that's what we're doing is we're overspending to get this amount of points because they think every purchase is one point per dollar. So, the only way to get 100,000 points is to be spending $100,000, whereas you can get a h 100,000 points from signing up for one credit card um and then making the spend. Oh, and then something I wanted to add to is I know I you know it's hard to get into the strategy and what credit card you should be signing up for. So, anybody who has attended this, just let me know you are here um and I will do a free consultation and we'll talk about what your goals are um what credit cards you have and then I will let you know you know what I think is the best card for you and why. Okay. Thank you so so much for the informations. It's really helpful and important for travelers. Thank you so much. And also I just want to remind you about our upcoming events for this year. We have August to climb Kilimanjaro, October luxury safari, November Peru and Guatemala. And for our upcoming trips uh for 2026 we have Peru, Morocco, Costa Rica. And we have a early bird uh pricing code. I will leave it in the comment section here. It's TP26. Here is the the code. And thank you everyone for attending and thank you so much for for the information. Yep. And if every anybody thinks of a question later, feel free to DM me on Instagram. I answer all my DMs. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, guys. Bye. You're welcome. Have a good day all.