
Credit-card-rewards guru Brian Kelly says we’re in a “golden age” of travel - shubhamjain
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-to-travel-like-a-millionaire-ask-the-points-guy
======
Sleeep
[Most] credit card bloggers like The Points Guy are shills, don't listen to
them. They make their money from affiliate marketing so they'll pimp the cards
that make them the most (like Chase cards) and ignore deals that are good for
you but bad for them. The Points Guy's website is owned by Bankrate.

Here's him getting called out on Reddit for some practices:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/471yey/im_the_points_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/471yey/im_the_points_guy_aka_brian_kelly_ama/)

The Points Guy and other credit card bloggers are like the people who hold "I
Will Teach You To Get Rich" seminars at the Holiday Inn. He never answered
when asked how much his salary he makes from his blog is but it's reported to
be 7 figures.

This is not the golden age, it's pretty mainstream. Card issues are cracking
down on gamers. AMEX just started putting terms about gaming in their
application. Citi merged limits on sign up bonuses across their cards. Chase
doesn't even approve you if you've opened too many credit cards in the last 24
months (5) and has long called out gaming as against their T&C.

Even if you get a million miles it's a chore to redeem them for something
worthwhile. You also have to worry about keeping them from expiring.

I still collect points and miles but don't kid yourself that it's not a
commitment. Most people who are serious in the miles/points game go out buying
gift cards and then using ever closing loopholes to liquidate the gift cards.
It's just crazy some of the time, money, and effort people put into it. Might
as well get a part time job at that point.

Personally, in two years, between credit cards and bank accounts I've gotten
$6,000 in realized worth (that is redeemed) and at least as much in unrealized
worth. I've got my first rejection a few weeks ago.

This is a credit card blog that is independent, the only blog I look at:
[https://www.doctorofcredit.com](https://www.doctorofcredit.com)

~~~
bonesinger
I don't know if your assessment of that is accurate. I opened 2 cards last
year, the AMEX Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve deal. I got 100k points for
each card. I had some existing points and then some extra spending and I was
able to get 2 business class tickets to Japan ($18k value) and 15 nights in 5
and 6 star Hyatt hotels. That was probably another $8k in value. I spent 170k
AMEX points on the flights and 155k Chase points on the hotels. That trip was
amazing and it was only possible because of the points.

Was it a lot of work? Not really. I just put all my spending on my AMEX for a
few months. Then I switched to the Chase Sapphire for a months. Once I got all
the points I needed, I just transferred the the Amex points to ANA and the
Chase points to Hyatt. I then booked my flights and hotels. Booking flights
was slightly harder as my fiance and I weren't married so we had to transfer
points to separate accounts, but it definitely wasn't a chore at all. A simple
phone call to AMEX took care of that. Booking rooms with Hyatt and using
points was a breeze.

There are other benefits of having high end cards too. I got Global Entry for
my fiance and I ($200 value). We didn't have to go through customs on the way
back to USA. I got $300 travel credit from CSR card per year. $200 airline
credit from AMEX Plat. I was able to get orchestra tickets to Hamilton in NYC
for $399 through AMEX plat.

If I had a million points, I could book 3-4 dream vacations. Not sure what
went wrong with your redemptions.

~~~
BlackJack
Would you have paid $18K to fly to Japan though? The "cents per mile" is high
but it's better to measure your WTP (willingness to pay).

BTW, you can regularly get west coast to Japan in business class for
~$3-4k/pp. ex. [https://goo.gl/flights/BDTu](https://goo.gl/flights/BDTu). If
you wait for deals, there was Vancouver - Japan/Hong Kong/SE Asia for ~$2k in
business class for a while. Business class prices have been consistently
dropping transatlantic (TATL) and we're seeing that transpacific (TPAC) too,
albeit more slowly.

I think what you did was smart, but there's really no way to continue to get
that kind of value from your miles. You could get the other Amex cards (~150k
MR?), and other Chase cards (~150k UR?), but hard to repeatedly get big
bonuses like that :P

Totally agree though that keeping one or both of those cards is great for the
right kind of spend. It's just not like a free trip to Europe every quarter
like it used to be.

~~~
willstrafach
Not sure how much "willingness to pay" makes sense. This is more about taking
advantage of money which would otherwise be left on the table. If you aren't
going out of your way to spend on cards, and all you need to do is shift
spending onto certain cards for certain purchases during the first X months in
order to get a nice point bonus, seems like a nice way to get a free vacation.

~~~
dwaltrip
It isn't accurate to count it as $18k in realized value from cc points if you
would have never spent that much on the thing without the points.

The actual realized value is the amount that one would have been willing spend
on the thing with their _own_ money, if they didn't have the points.

------
roadbeats
How to travel better than a millionaire ? Spend less, do more. It's possible
and better to travel with almost no money, discipline and challenge your body
and your desires. Last year, I spent 3 months in Morocco, 1 month in Indonesia
and 1 month in Jordan. As a married couple, our daily budget in Indonesia and
Morocco was about $2-$3 dollar per day because we camped and hitchhiked,
sometimes ate only bread for one week, sometimes had to walk for hours,
sometimes got sick and spent hole day sleeping under a tree in the middle of
nowhere. I can't express the taste of an egg after weeks of strict diet
though. The wonderful taste of true freedom is not more money; it's actually
not spending money. I had as much as time I wanted, and I could go any route I
wanted. No credit cards, no bills, no worries. I believe travel should be
about developing good habits and learning value of small things rather than
turning the brain off and enjoying luxury and desire... Hope I didn't sound
snobby, just wanna give different perspectives a voice. If it sounded
interesting, you can take a look at this video to see it in action;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC5htqMMFc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC5htqMMFc)

~~~
sokoloff
> sometimes ate only bread for one week, sometimes had to walk for hours,
> sometimes got sick

A lot of people would disagree that that's "traveling better than a
millionaire".

~~~
roadbeats
"Pain is a treasure, for it contains mercies." \- Rumi

The point I'm trying to make is, happiness and joy is not in "more", it's in
"less". And the "less" requires people to discipline their body to not demand
comfort and luxury.

~~~
Sleeep
I don't mean to be disrespectful but I really don't understand this. Why not
just live in your car in the US? What's the point of going all the way to Asia
just to live like a homeless person?

Myself, I've had enough pain in my life already (domestic violence and abuse)
so I'm ready to spend my vacation in pleasure.

~~~
roadbeats
I traveled all around US by car camping, it was quite joyful. But it's not as
social as being in developing world and getting to know unique cultures in
natural ways.

------
empath75
The answer is apparently to get the credit card companies to pay you for ads.

------
AznHisoka
Rule #0. Dont have kids. otherwise everything else is moot.

~~~
shubb
If the general point is that kids are super expensive - I dunno about that.

I'm happily childless in my 30s, and when I look around at my circle of
friends, those who had children early tend to have more stuff and more
savings.

Why? Because children force you to live a stable, boring life. And overall
that reduces your costs more than having children increases them.

For instance, when my friend Bob graduated, he stayed in my home town and
bought the a fairly cheap house that he could afford, and he's still in it. I
moved city to get the best job I could, and did it again, and then again.

While I've been off increasing my earnings, Bob has been accumulating actual
stuff. He lives in a house he owns outright, while I've only ever rented. He
has great furniture and kitchen stuff, while I have cheap things because I
know that when I move, it'll cost more to shift them than to buy them again.

And moving city and breaking up with partners and changing career, and all
these things that childless people do because we can are really expensive.
It's hard to accumulate savings when you end up buying a new washing machine
every 2 years.

And he has kids, which when you think about it is a great addition to your
retirement planning. Even if the stock market crashes and wipes out your
investments, well raised kids will let you move into their living room and
give you a bed bath.

~~~
EA
I know someone who churns credit cards systematically (you know, follows a
regimen like suggested in the article) and has been traveling with his family
around the world for years, taking trips every 4 to 6 weeks.

That doesn't sound too "boring".

In fact, we churned cards a few years ago to pay for our trip to Europe. We
took our toddler.

I would like to know where this "boring" life is that parents have. At times,
I could use some of that.

~~~
Sleeep
But if you bring your toddler on vacation then you'd have to vacation with a
toddler.

------
have_faith
Like most "in clubs". Once everyone is In, the system doesn't work anymore and
the added value dissipates.

~~~
saryant
I think that was true up to the point where the US-based programs all devalued
and largely put a stop to churners. The game is hard enough if you're only
willing to deal with domestic reward programs that I think the vast majority
give up chasing aspirational awards.

Anecdotally I've found that things have been getting gradually easier. For
example, now that AA has devalued their award program and Citi cards can't be
churned so easily, it's a lot easier to find Cathay Pacific awards if you're
redeeming through another program like Alaska.

------
wink
I really wonder how feasible this is when you live in a country where you
can't pay everything by CC and therefore have a hard time collecting
points/miles in the first place.

I did look into this a few years ago, but basically nothing _expensive_ I ever
buy makes it worth to get full-on credit card hypey. Or maybe I'm indeed just
to lazy to properly research it :)

For real flying miles.. I guess with like one vacation and one business trip
per year, all the time with different airlines.. they usually expire before I
can even get a bag of sweets :P

------
youngprogrammer
How to travel like a millionaire? Ask the millionaire

------
saryant
I've been playing this game for about six years now. In that time I've earned
and burned just over 2.5 million points.

Certainly the game isn't as easy as it used to be but it's still very
lucrative if you're dedicated. Can't churn the Citi AA cards as frequently
anymore, and anyways AA devalued their award chart. No more Cathay Pacific
first class for 67.5k. United's devaluation a few years back was pretty
painful as well.

I still accrue United and American points, there are enough ways to get a
decent amount and wring a redemption out of them once a year or so, but most
of my focus is on foreign or smaller programs.

Lately I've put all my energy towards Singapore Airlines and Alaska Air.
Alaska often sells points cheaply enough that's it's worth it to just _buy_
the points and redeem for partner redemptions. I did that recently and booked
SFO-HKG-AKL on Cathay Pacific in first class for 80k points. Buying the 40k I
needed was <$600. Well worth it.

Singapore Airlines is a transfer partner with all the transferrable currencies
(Chase, Citi, Amex and SPG) which makes earning there easy. The award chart is
a bit steep but there are some good deals. My return from that Cathay flight
is a Singapore award for AKL-SYD-SIN-NRT-SFO-DEN on Air New Zealand, Singapore
Airlines and United with the long-hauls all in first class. I think it was
around 120k miles.

I started this game in college when my only goal was free travel—managed to
earn enough points before graduation to buy myself a "free" round-trip ticket
to Thailand in order to backpack around Southeast Asia for the summer. Now
that I have substantially more money, I generally use points to enable cheap
premium cabin travel, like buying points when they're on sale from Alaska or
LifeMiles and essentially getting deep-discount first or business class
tickets.

I've hit most of the cliche churner experiences at this point: being driven in
a Porsche to your flight from the Lufthansa first class terminal, Etihad's
first class apartment, taste-testing both Dom and Krug in a Singapore Suite.
It's an absurd hobby.

And it's a hobby that takes _monumental_ amounts of time to keep up with. Want
to book Cathay via Alaska? Better know to ask to agent to look at the right
screen on her computer. How do you know that? Because you've been following a
5,000-post thread over on Flyertalk about it. Knowing when and how to
correctly apply for your next Citi card means you're following a similar
thread over in that part of Flyertalk. Keeping up with the details like that
is time consuming. I enjoy the detail work but I don't really know why.

This hobby lets me go on generally two international vacations in first class
each year for very little money. I'll be spending three weeks in New Zealand
later this year, with time in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo along the way.
Last year I spent a week in Tokyo with friends before making my way back via
Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dubai—two of those were new cities to me.

I've somehow become very, _very_ good at one of the world's silliest skills.

That said, I have absolutely gotten off a first class fight only to check in
to a hostel. Luxury travel actually gets pretty damn boring after about 24
hours IMO. Nothing is less interesting than flying to the other side of the
world only to stay in a Hilton marginally nicer than the one in your home
town.

------
BlackJack
I'm well versed with this world, and actually blog sometimes too. Here's some
observations:

1\. Lots of people use credit card points and frequent flyer miles to buy
premier hotel and flight experiences. For example, you can fly from the US to
Europe in business class round-trip for ~120,000 points and ~$200 in
taxes/fees. Buying a business class roundtrip would cost $2000-7000, depending
on which airlines and which times you fly.

2\. You can earn points by flying, but the fastest way is by credit card
bonuses. Recently the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) had a 100K point bonus if
you spent $4,000 in 3 months. You could transfer those Chase points to United
and nearly have enough for round-trip business class tickets. To earn 100K
United miles by flying would require you to spend $9k+ dollars on united
tickets (if you're top tier elite), or fly business class between US-Asia 3
times on their partners or ~6 times in economy. It's _waaay_ faster to use
credit card sign-up bonuses to earn points.

3\. There are lots of bloggers. boardingarea.com is full of them. Many cards
give you referral bonuses for customers, so they just use their affiliate
links. They're generally trying to push the links when they can. If you're a
bigger blogger, you can get a deal with a bank to get cash per referral as
opposed to the "max 5 referrals per year" deal that most people get.

4\. The Points Guy (TPG) gets lambasted for using referral links that have the
best referral bonuses instead of what's best for the end user. For example,
the CSR above (100k/$4k spend), did not give a referral bonus. It's little
brother, the Chase Sapphire Preserve (CSP), gave a 50k point bonus for $4k
spend, but did give the referrer a bonus as well (10k points, or some cash
depending on the deal). TPG regularly linked to the CSP even when every other
blog was linking to the CSR.

5\. The "golden age of travel" has transformed. In the past, frequent flyer
programs were very beneficial, and cards had awesome sign-up bonuses. People
would "churn" cards i.e. apply for a card every 90 days to get the sign up
bonus and then never use it again. After a few years it wouldn't hurt your
credit score, but you can read-up more online. reddit.com/r/churning is
generally a good source.

6\. Nowadays you still have big card bonuses but they tend to be more for the
premium credit cards ($450+ annual fee) instead of no-fee or low-fee cards. In
addition, banks are tighter about how often you can apply for those cards.

7\. Airlines are much stingier with their award space. Even if a business
class flight is supposed to cost 55-60k miles, you need availability from your
origin and destination. The airlines can simply limit availability and render
your points less useful. American is notorious for this - good luck finding
business class awards from the US to anywhere. United is the best because Star
Alliance has a ton of partners and usually sufficient availability. Delta has
variable awards so sometimes a flight will cost 50k miles and other times it
will cost 100k or even 300k miles for the same flight. A real PITA :(

8\. You'll notice that I am consistently talking about business class awards.
That's because economy fares have become very cheap nowadays that it's better
value to just buy them. If you follow Scott's Cheap Flights, you can get
notifications of fare deals. You can regularly get $300-400 flights from US-
Europe or $500 US-Asia flights. These flights would cost 60-70k miles
roundtrip, but with CSR you can "buy them for 1.5 cents per mile," so you can
use 25K chase points to buy a $375 flight, and earn miles on that flight.
Conversely business class tickets usually go for $2-4K, so using 100K miles is
a way better "redemption", if that's what you're interested it. Ultimately it
depends on your willingness to pay - some people stretch miles to economy as
much as they can.

Hope that helps as a quick primer. Happy to answer any questions. Miles &
points is an interesting world but it has gotten less rewarding. Nowadays I
just see them as a nice to have but not something I'd go out of my way for.

~~~
mrisoli
What I dislike about this world is how US-centric it is, I have yet to see
good recommendations for people in Europe.

In fact, I mostly see the opposite, changes to Lufthansa's FFP have been
largely criticized on relevant communities(Flyertalk ).

~~~
saryant
Churning to the degree described in any of the major blogs by and large
doesn't exist outside the US. No other market has as many airlines and banks
competing for the same business, not the mention the relative lack of
regulation.

------
everyone
So the gentry also dont have to endure the TSA shit? Nice

~~~
mbillie1
TSA Precheck, assuming you can pass the background check, is $80 and is
absolutely worth it if you have the extra cash and can fit an appointment into
your schedule.

~~~
HillaryBriss
does TSA recheck require retina scans?

