Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:09.109 --> 00:00:11.032
Welcome to Points for Normal People.
00:00:11.032 --> 00:00:16.182
I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up, especially for a family.
00:00:16.182 --> 00:00:18.969
But I believe that travel isn't just for the rich.
00:00:18.969 --> 00:00:34.365
That's why, on Points for Normal People, I'm here to help you do what our family does Use everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire family vacations every year.
00:00:34.365 --> 00:00:38.720
I'm so excited that you're here with me today for this very first episode.
00:00:38.720 --> 00:00:43.872
Today I'm going to be giving you a short overview of what I will cover in season one.
00:00:43.872 --> 00:00:57.753
I'll introduce myself, I'll talk a little bit more about the title of the podcast, what I mean by points for normal people and why I chose to name it that, and I'll talk about how my travel points methodology is different.
00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:11.009
I'm assuming that you're here because you want to travel more, but, as we all know, travel costs add up, especially when you're a family and you have to multiply the cost times three or four or more.
00:01:11.009 --> 00:01:20.664
Maybe you've had the experience of dreaming up a fun trip, but as you start to research it, you're tallying the costs and you're just feeling discouraged.
00:01:20.664 --> 00:01:22.987
Maybe you have credit card points.
00:01:22.987 --> 00:01:32.182
You've been faithfully saving for years to help with travel costs, but when you go to redeem them, you find they only cover a small part of your vacation.
00:01:32.182 --> 00:01:38.481
Maybe you've been seeing posts pop up on social media about people traveling the world with credit card points.
00:01:38.481 --> 00:01:45.748
They seemingly get in boatloads and while you're skeptical, it intrigues you and you're trying to figure out the catch.
00:01:45.748 --> 00:01:51.700
Maybe you've started dabbling with credit card points but are feeling bogged down with the learning curve.
00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:59.426
Or maybe you're into points but find a lot of the blogs and social media accounts unrelatable to how you and your family travel.
00:01:59.426 --> 00:02:01.930
Maybe you're here for another reason.
00:02:01.930 --> 00:02:08.366
I just want you to know that you are welcome here, whatever your stage of life and whatever your experience with points.
00:02:08.366 --> 00:02:12.170
I'm Katie and I'll be your guide here into the world of points.
00:02:12.961 --> 00:02:15.449
I've been in the travel points hobby for 13 years.
00:02:15.449 --> 00:02:22.266
In that time, our family has used points to stretch our travel budget in ways that we never thought would be possible.
00:02:22.266 --> 00:02:27.143
But I want you to know right now that this podcast isn't about me.
00:02:27.143 --> 00:02:31.731
It's not about where I've been on points or how I use my points.
00:02:31.731 --> 00:02:38.915
It's going to be about teaching concepts that you can take and use to meet your own travel goals.
00:02:38.915 --> 00:02:46.242
I do want to share some of my background here so that you can see where I'm coming from and understand my experience with points.
00:02:46.242 --> 00:02:53.888
So here are some of those highlights and how I got to the point pun intended where I am today recording this podcast.
00:02:54.490 --> 00:02:58.745
We have been to Asia with our kids five times with points Five times.
00:02:58.745 --> 00:03:01.330
That alone is crazy to me.
00:03:01.330 --> 00:03:08.663
Thanks to learning these tricks, we've been loyal holders of one or two Southwest Companion Passes for 10 years.
00:03:08.663 --> 00:03:21.525
I'll devote full episodes later to the Southwest Companion Pass because it is my favorite deal, but for 10 years now we haven't paid for a single domestic flight thanks to points in the Companion Pass.
00:03:21.525 --> 00:03:26.713
We've used points for road trip hotels and fancy all-inclusive resorts.
00:03:26.713 --> 00:03:31.568
We've taken our kids to Hawaii and London and Costa Rica and more.
00:03:31.568 --> 00:03:42.163
We've even used points to go to Disneyland Tokyo and Disneyland Paris, because with points it can actually be cheaper to go to those places than to the US parks.
00:03:42.604 --> 00:03:45.889
Now, I wasn't always all in on this hobby.
00:03:45.889 --> 00:03:56.241
I, for me, the biggest catalyst from going from casual points collector to points millionaire was when we were in the process of adopting our son from the Philippines.
00:03:56.241 --> 00:04:00.534
It was my first really big goal and in order to earn the points.
00:04:00.534 --> 00:04:04.717
In the short time I had to earn them, we really had to kick it into high gear.
00:04:04.717 --> 00:04:12.813
After we had kicked it into higher gear, we just stayed there and kept earning points with the streamlined systems I had developed for myself.
00:04:13.295 --> 00:04:18.815
When I was learning about how to earn and redeem points, I didn't see many people like myself that I could learn from.
00:04:18.815 --> 00:04:28.882
The blog space was dominated by mostly dudes who were very focused on certain kinds of points redemptions, like luxury flights and very aspirational hotels.
00:04:28.882 --> 00:04:38.000
I had to weed through information and read lots of forums and try to figure out how this would work for my own travel style and goals as a family.
00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:57.201
Even when I went to a few points conferences, I quickly realized that most people were willing to invest way more time than I was into this hobby, but I still felt like travel points could be helpful to all the families that I knew and could be done in such a way that didn't take tons of time.
00:04:57.201 --> 00:05:06.714
So eventually that led me to start a blog, partly just as a resource for friends and family who kept asking us how we managed to travel so much.
00:05:06.714 --> 00:05:20.180
See, my husband is a nurse and I was a stay-at-home mom, and a nurse makes a comfortable salary, but it's not like as a nurse you make a salary where you can just go and travel anywhere you want, which is the travel lifestyle that we had.
00:05:20.180 --> 00:05:32.120
I started writing long emails to my friends to explain how we were doing this, and eventually decided to put my take on points up on the internet, and my blog, katie's Travel Tricks, was born.
00:05:32.670 --> 00:05:35.536
Eventually, I got on other platforms, like Instagram as well.
00:05:35.536 --> 00:05:41.536
I got on Instagram specifically when our family took off on a year of full-time travel.
00:05:41.536 --> 00:05:52.591
This, again, was largely possible because I had built up a balance of two million points, so we had all these points at our disposal when we went to book our flights for our trip.
00:05:52.591 --> 00:05:55.843
Over time, instagram has become my largest platform.
00:05:55.843 --> 00:06:08.562
I call myself an accidental influencer, because I really did not think that that would be the focus for my business, and while I have met so many lovely people on Instagram, instagram actually drives me crazy.
00:06:08.562 --> 00:06:10.173
There's a few reasons for this.
00:06:10.173 --> 00:06:15.223
One of them, though, is the rules that I have to follow as a credit card affiliate.
00:06:15.223 --> 00:06:32.223
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that credit card affiliates on Instagram, specifically with Chase Bank, are not allowed to say Chase card names, and we're not allowed to say Chase, and it sure makes it hard to just try to give people really good, clear information.
00:06:32.223 --> 00:06:47.696
Now, thankfully, those restrictions don't exist on blogs or podcasts or YouTube, so I'm really excited about having this podcast as a medium just to give clear information and teach these concepts in a very simple and linear way.
00:06:47.696 --> 00:06:51.298
That's another thing that social media isn't great at facilitating.
00:06:51.298 --> 00:06:58.918
That's one reason I'm structuring this podcast into seasons, so that you can start at the beginning of a season and work your way through in order.
00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:06.711
While the episodes will make sense on their own at least I hope they will they'll be planned in a specific order that aims to build your knowledge layer by layer.
00:07:06.711 --> 00:07:11.701
I'm really aiming at keeping each episode short but packed with value.
00:07:11.701 --> 00:07:13.552
You're busy, I'm busy.
00:07:13.552 --> 00:07:16.541
Let's learn this in the least amount of time possible.
00:07:16.541 --> 00:07:19.190
So what exactly will you learn here?
00:07:19.190 --> 00:07:26.898
On points for normal people, I'm going to start off by going over the most common mistakes I see when it comes to travel points and how to avoid them.
00:07:26.898 --> 00:07:42.192
Of course, for every topic I cover, I have additional resources available, either on my YouTube channel, on my blog or in my free course, and I will link you to other resources in the show notes for each episode if you're ready to deep dive into any of the topics that I cover.
00:07:42.632 --> 00:07:52.242
If you're wondering if there's a bait and switch here, I want to assure you that one of my promises is that my resources, including my course, which is a comprehensive course, are free.
00:07:52.242 --> 00:07:57.180
I believe that you shouldn't have to spend money to learn how to save money.
00:07:57.180 --> 00:08:10.083
Now, I do earn a commission when you use my affiliate links to sign up for credit cards, and this is how I'm able to sustain my business, but I am also committed to sharing the best resources and the best offers, even when they don't earn me a commission.
00:08:10.083 --> 00:08:19.476
If you decide you appreciate this podcast and my other content, the best way for you to support my work is to use my affiliate links next time you go to sign up for a credit card.
00:08:19.476 --> 00:08:24.035
It costs you zero dollars to do so, and so I consider it really a win-win.
00:08:24.675 --> 00:08:26.601
What else will I be covering in season one?
00:08:26.601 --> 00:08:33.244
Well, in season one, we are also going to be doing a deep dive into learning the ins and outs of Chase Ultimate Rewards.
00:08:33.244 --> 00:08:41.644
Now, there's a lot that you can do with points, but I think that mastering one rewards program first gives you the strongest foundation.
00:08:41.644 --> 00:08:54.214
By the end of Season 1, you'll have a really good idea of the best ways that you can use Ultimate Rewards to stay at hotels, to fly to different destinations, as well as other uses for these points.
00:08:54.214 --> 00:09:03.346
You'll understand the benefits of cards that earn chase ultimate rewards and you'll understand how to keep earning those chase ultimate rewards indefinitely.
00:09:03.346 --> 00:09:16.086
Chase ultimate rewards is a really powerful ecosystem that you can absolutely hang out in forever or after master it, you can choose to add other reward programs to your knowledge base as well.
00:09:16.086 --> 00:09:19.580
So that will be season one of Points for Normal People.
00:09:20.171 --> 00:09:22.458
So let's talk about now the podcast name.
00:09:22.458 --> 00:09:26.802
I went through a lot of name options when I thought of what to name this podcast.
00:09:26.802 --> 00:09:45.423
The reason that I picked Points for Normal People for this podcast is because I truly believe that anyone can learn how to do this, and I think that a lot of the information that you see on blogs and social media with points is dominated by individuals who don't approach points in what I consider to be a normal way.
00:09:45.423 --> 00:09:49.027
So let me explain what I mean by that and what my aim is.
00:09:49.027 --> 00:09:56.043
Instead, the points creator space has long been dominated by people who tend to be aviation geeks.
00:09:56.043 --> 00:10:06.613
If you're an aviation geek who isn't a multi-millionaire, you actually probably have to get into points in order to afford the flight experiences that you have on your bucket list.
00:10:06.613 --> 00:10:15.802
So aviation geeks get really excited about points because flying Emirates first class and taking a shower on the plane becomes a possibility when you have points.
00:10:15.802 --> 00:10:28.283
But they also spend a lot of time learning about different plane types and seating arrangements and all the distinctions between all the hard and soft products for different airlines, because they care, it's their hobby and they love learning that.
00:10:28.283 --> 00:10:35.034
And they also don't mind jumping through a ton of hoops to earn and redeem points because it's a means to their ends.
00:10:35.716 --> 00:10:46.375
If you haven't guessed it by now, I'm not an aviation geek, and for a long time I felt out of place in the Miles and Points community because my end goals seemed so different than everybody else's.
00:10:46.375 --> 00:10:55.890
But as I started building a community of my own through my blog and my Instagram and my Facebook group, I realized that there was a heck of a lot of people just like me.
00:10:55.890 --> 00:11:02.895
It's just that our normal travel goals often get drowned out because they just aren't as fancy.
00:11:02.895 --> 00:11:09.936
I want to focus in on all the stuff that tends to get neglected because, frankly, luxury sells better.
00:11:09.936 --> 00:11:18.144
This is for normal people, normal people who want to know the easiest ways to get points and the easiest ways to spend them.
00:11:18.144 --> 00:11:29.024
I've been in the points world long enough to understand how to book all the fancy experiences, and I can tell you that pretty much anyone that you're seeing flying business class multiple times a year.
00:11:29.024 --> 00:11:31.913
They are jumping through a lot of hoops to do that.
00:11:31.913 --> 00:11:38.475
It's a hardcore hobby for them and they are spending a heck of a lot of time doing things to accomplish their goals.
00:11:38.475 --> 00:11:41.123
They do that because it's worth it to them and that's great.
00:11:41.610 --> 00:11:46.081
But this podcast is about maximizing your return on time invested.
00:11:46.081 --> 00:11:50.701
What are the easiest ways to get points and what are the easiest ways to spend them?
00:11:50.701 --> 00:11:55.802
How can we spend the least amount of time but still be able to create memories through travel?
00:11:55.802 --> 00:12:00.532
This podcast will also have a different definition of value when it comes to points.
00:12:00.532 --> 00:12:08.940
The thing that I love most about points is the wide range of experiences that it can give you, and it has given our family some really amazing experiences.
00:12:08.940 --> 00:12:18.581
We can sit down as a family and talk about where we feel like going, and pretty much anywhere with the exception of Antarctica, is possible to do, and I love that.
00:12:18.581 --> 00:12:26.640
But do you know what I think is way more valuable than the trip we took to Japan or the $2,000 a night suite we stayed in in Florence, italy?
00:12:26.640 --> 00:12:32.636
It's that having points helps us build stronger connections with our extended family.
00:12:32.636 --> 00:12:36.719
I'm gonna say that again because I wanna give extra airtime to it.
00:12:37.272 --> 00:12:44.740
So for us, the most valuable use of our points is that it helps us build stronger connections with our extended family.
00:12:44.740 --> 00:12:50.543
Having points to cover our flights has allowed us to say yes to so much more family time.
00:12:50.543 --> 00:12:55.850
We're able to fly to Colorado multiple times a year so that my kids can spend more time with their cousins.
00:12:55.850 --> 00:13:03.711
When my cousin got married last summer, we could cover it and we didn't even think twice because we knew we'd use our Southwest points and companion passes to fly there.
00:13:03.711 --> 00:13:15.994
Last year my husband had an aunt who passed away and he was able to book a flight for him and add his sister as his companion to fly down to Alabama to spend time with his aunts and his uncles and his cousins at the memorial service.
00:13:15.994 --> 00:13:18.758
Again, we didn't even have to think twice about it.
00:13:18.758 --> 00:13:25.254
We don't have to think about these kinds of travel decisions anymore, because we just know we have the points to do it.
00:13:25.875 --> 00:13:28.422
So what does it mean to get a high value for your points?
00:13:28.422 --> 00:13:33.144
To me, it means to use your points for the things that you value.
00:13:33.144 --> 00:13:39.799
Almost every other points creator that I know uses a valuation for points that is cents per point.
00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:52.003
It's a big deal in some circles to have bragging rights on this, so they figure out what a flight would cost in dollars, how many points they paid, and then they use the ratio to determine their cents per point.
00:13:52.003 --> 00:13:55.736
I'm going to tell you right now I do not do that calculation.
00:13:55.736 --> 00:13:59.052
I have rarely, if ever, done that calculation.
00:13:59.052 --> 00:14:01.264
I think that the if ever done that calculation.
00:14:04.129 --> 00:14:07.710
I think that the most valuable thing that you can do with your points is to use them for the things that you personally value and that you want to do.
00:14:07.710 --> 00:14:15.519
If points will allow you to start seeing your grandma twice a year instead of once a year, that's an enormous value that it's adding to your life.
00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:25.041
If you've always wanted to go to Spain or Bali or London and you can do that now, that's a great use of points because it adds value to your life.
00:14:25.041 --> 00:14:31.224
It doesn't matter if your sense per point is low if you're accomplishing your travel goals.
00:14:31.224 --> 00:14:43.034
And if you dwell too much on sense per point, it can skew your perspective and mindset so that you lose touch with the experiences that do truly add value to your life.
00:14:43.034 --> 00:14:46.982
It can also make it easy to start comparing yourself to other people.
00:14:46.982 --> 00:14:53.102
I feel really strongly about wanting to be a voice reminding you to value what you value.
00:14:53.102 --> 00:14:55.514
How do you like to travel?
00:14:55.514 --> 00:14:57.259
Where do you want to go?
00:14:57.259 --> 00:15:08.933
That's again what points for normal people means Using your points for the things that you want, not what everybody else seems like they're doing on social media or blogs or whatever else.
00:15:09.495 --> 00:15:13.230
I hope you're excited to dive in and learn more and be part of this community.
00:15:13.230 --> 00:15:14.894
I'm excited to be here.
00:15:14.894 --> 00:15:20.951
I'm going to end each episode with an action step that helps you move forward with your travel goals.
00:15:20.951 --> 00:15:23.216
Today, the action step is pretty easy.
00:15:23.216 --> 00:15:25.763
Keep listening to more podcast episodes.
00:15:25.763 --> 00:15:31.511
I also have a brand new downloadable guide for beginners, which I encourage you to grab down in the show notes.
00:15:31.511 --> 00:15:36.892
It's a good written reference to have and be able to refer back to, and I encourage you to sign up for it.
00:15:36.892 --> 00:15:39.515
Thank you so much for spending your time with me today.
00:15:39.515 --> 00:15:44.184
I'll see you next time, when we will continue to unlock the secrets of Travel Points together.