14. Luxury Travel Strategies, Obstacles, and Mistakes with Julia Menez

Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devon Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset if you know how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started.

Devon: All right, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast today. I am thrilled because we have an absolutely amazing guest who's here with us today. I have been counting down the days until this conversation. I've been so excited to speak with our guests today. With us is Julia Menez. 

Julia is a points strategy coach, speaker, and host of the Geobreeze Travel podcast. After traveling to more than 30 countries before the age of 30 and saving thousands of dollars each year with points and miles, Julia distills the strategies from top award travelers around the world in her Geobreeze Travel podcast, and creates Instagram videos about credit card benefits, such as trip protections and luxury travel opportunities. 

Through her podcast, Julia features a diverse roster of guests with experiences that are traditionally underrepresented in larger points and miles blogs and media. Her episodes often highlight women, first generation travelers, and people of color. In other words, Julia is a pro at points travel and teaching others how to leverage credit card points to travel the world and a fierce advocate for diversifying the world of points travel, which are a couple of our favorite things over here at the Point Me to First Class podcast as well. So Julia, thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to the podcast.

Juliana: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. It's been a while since I've been on the other side of the interview table. So I'm very, very excited for it.

Devon: We are thrilled to have you here. Let us kind of just get started at the very beginning. I would love to hear from you about how you got started in this whole world of points travel and earning credit card points.

Julia: Yeah, so probably around 2017, my husband introduced me to some financial independence blogs. The ones back in the day like Mr. Money Mustache or Afford Anything, Go Curry Cracker!. He did not realize the deep, deep rabbit hole that I was about to dive down. 

Eventually, I came across a lot of different bloggers being like oh, and we save money by using credit card points to travel, and I thought that's a scam. That is definitely a scam. But as I just saw it more and more, I'm like okay, well maybe we could try it with just one or two cards. So we opened a couple of cards, got the signup bonuses, and then the first time we redeemed points was actually not intentional at all. 

We had met our signup bonus by just paying for cash tickets over to Morocco. About 20 hours before we were set to land in Morocco, I got an email from the guy who was handling everything other than our flights. He was handling hotel, transportation, excursions, translation, everything. He was like hey, I have to cancel on you. There's a family emergency. It was 20 hours, and we didn't have a place to stay once we landed. 

So I'm like okay, cool. I gotta find us some hotels. We had just gotten the Starwood Preferred card, which is, rest in peace, no longer a thing. They got bought out by Marriott. But I like Googled how to redeem points, and I couldn't figure it out. So then I just called American Express who the card was through. I'm reading a script from some blog post being like hello. I get free hotel nights, yes? They were like yeah, you have enough for three nights at the Sheraton Casa Blanca. I'm like cool. I'll figure out the rest of it from there. I'll like book an Airbnb once we're there. 

So we get there, and they give me a confirmation number. They use my points. I'm like this isn't gonna work. We're gonna be homeless in Morocco. But they were like oh yeah, thank you for redeeming on points with your award ticket. Here's an upgrade for you because you have status with the card. You have access to free breakfast, free cocktail hour. I was like oh, I'm addicted to this now. 

So then, after getting some more cards and some more points, I was like well, this is gonna run out at some point. So how do people like continuously do this over and over again? I realized the answer is business credit cards and having a business. I didn't realize though that people could just have like an eBay store or Poshmark store or drive for Uber or something like that. I thought it had to be like a legit business. 

So I think a lot of people don't know that Geobreeze Travel back in the day, like 2019 or so pre-pandemic, started out as a travel agency. Like a full on travel agency, which I hated. I had some clients. and I did not like doing it at all. I didn't like booking stuff for people. Of course, anytime somebody calls you, it's like last minute something went wrong. It's always a panic. 

So I'm like oh, here's this pandemic. I'm just gonna use this as an excuse to be like no one needs travel agents anymore. So I just kind of shut that down, but I still wanted the business credit cards. So I just kind of said oh, I'll just use this to talk about points and miles on the internet. Because every time somebody was like hey, can you book this flight for me, I would just tell them you could get it for free using points and miles. So I wasn't a very good travel agent because I just kept telling people that they shouldn't buy the products anyway.

So I made content on Instagram. Eventually, I wanted other people on the internet to tell me about their secrets and how they were doing points and miles. I was very lonely during the pandemic. So I was like hey, do you want to jump on a Zoom call? We can kind of kick it. You can tell me all of your secrets about how you're doing this and all the other points. People were like no. It’s very weird.

I'm like okay. Well, what if I record our conversation, and then I'll release it to thousands of people on the internet? They were like oh, you're starting a podcast. Like a point of miles podcast. I said yes, I am starting a podcast. So that is how I got into points, how I got this as a business, and how I started the Geobreeze Travel podcast, and it’s just kind of gone on from there.

Devon: So it's really like necessity is the mother of invention is what I'm hearing from you, right. That you didn't start out with this huge grand plan about how all of these things were going to unfold. It was basically just kind of taking it one day at a time, one opportunity to time. 

This is what I love so much about sharing stories about points and miles is because I think that at least one of the things that I really commonly see in the communities that I'm in is that I think a lot of us love to talk about, obviously, the success stories, right? Like the things that go right, and when we use our points, the amazing things that can come of that. 

But I think the downside of that is that people, especially if they're newer to this hobby, newer to these communities, can look at those examples and sort of think oh, that's their starting point, right? If I can't start at the same place that somebody already is then it must mean that I can't figure this out, or it's not available to me. I don't think anything is farther from the truth. 

It's one of the reasons why I love your podcast and the content that you put out so much is because you, I think more than almost anybody else that at least I'm exposed to, I think of you as being not at all this homogenous content creator. I feel like even the trips that you take, certainly the stories that you share on your podcast and your platforms. It's not all just the one note, same kind of trip, as amazing as that trip might be.

As amazing and fun as it is to hear about, I think being able to hear such a broader range of stories from a broader range of people and their experiences traveling, what they can do with points is such an important conversation in this world that we're in. I think that that's something that you do so incredibly well. I'm just curious if that's something that just always made sense to you. To kind of talk about all of these diverse experiences, and to really highlight diverse groups of travelers, or if that's something that kind of evolved for you as you were taking these steps in your business.

Julia: So ever since the beginning of the podcast, we've always interviewed and featured somebody different each week. I had just been waiting for somebody else to do this in the points and miles world. Because almost any other genre of podcasts, whether it's personal finance or fitness or beauty or parenting, any type of podcast, they're always doing like this interview style, but it never really existed in points and miles. I was so confused on why that was because it's just easier to make content that way. If you're just having conversations with people, it's easier than trying to think of a new topic on your own every week. 

I was like why is nobody doing this? The answer, unfortunately, is there's so much scarcity mindset in the world of points creators where they're like if I introduce my audience to another points person, what if my audience uses their affiliate links instead, and I miss out on that revenue? So many people are just like in this siloed box where they're, the analogy I use is like if you're dating someone, and you're like you must not look at any other human beings. I can't let you acknowledge the fact that other humans exist because you might leave me. 

First of all, that's not the vibe whenever you're, like if anybody's ever dated somebody like that, you know. That is not the vibe. That's just the vibe that a lot of points creators have put out for years where they're like don't look at anybody else's links. I have to be the know it all expert. You must come to me for everything. I just didn't want to be that way. Because, first of all two or three years ago, I definitely knew a lot less than I knew now. 

Second, I just knew that I wasn't going to be able to appeal to everybody. Nobody appeals to everybody. But I thought if I featured more and more different people who no one's ever heard of before, that just makes it so much easier for people from all walks of life to be like oh, I can now see myself trying to do this as well. 

Because in the world of points and miles, obviously it's been very male, very Caucasian dominated. It's been a lot of business travelers or like nerds who like to tinker with things. Then there's like a little bit of niche family travel, but that was really it. There wasn't a lot more of that deep diverse conversations of other ways to use points and miles, other ways to earn points and miles. So a lot of people would just kind of look at the field and be like I don’t think that's for me, and they'd miss out. So, yeah. From the beginning, that is something that we wanted to fix. 

Devon: Yeah, I think that's such an important point to make because I agree with you. I think that it is very common and not even just in the points and miles world, right. But I think that sort of it's human nature to sometimes slip into sort of like scarcity mindset, like you were saying, around any certain thing. 

I think that's something that I see in general from some people in points and miles thinking that now with greater access with all of the tools that we have, the availability of the internet, and I'm just thinking about the state of what you can find on the internet now compared to five years ago, ten years ago when I first started learning about points and miles. It's exploded. I think that there is sometimes a conversation around that being a bad thing. 

That more people having access to this information, more people having access to how to earn points and use them will ultimately lead to fewer kind of award seats for all of us, right? Fewer flights available to book with points or fewer great hotels. That's just something that I have a hard time wrapping my head around because most of us are not looking to travel with points 340 days of the year, right, where like we need constant access to all of the different plane routes that fly all over the world and in all of the different hotels. 

My experience has been so much of the opposite. That the more we share information, the more that information is accessible, the more people can actually have these amazing experiences. It's just really, really hard for me personally to see a downside in the types of conversations that you're having, the types of conversations that increase the ability for more people to be able to do this amazing hobby of traveling with points. 

I think one of the things that I love so much about the work that you do is I think when I talk about points, I do talk about it a lot in the context of having a first class travel experience. But I don't mean that literally. I don't mean to suggest that everybody should then only want to use their points, right, to fly in the forward cabin, or to stay in a certain category of hotel. To me, first class travel is something that is individually defined, right. That we all get to define for us what a first class travel experience is, and that I think points just opens the door for all of us to have more of that experience. 

So whether that's traveling more frequently in economy because you have points to visit family that you don't have the opportunity to visit otherwise. Or doing one of those kind of bucket list trips. I think all of that falls into first class travel. That's what I love so much about the fact that you're sharing all of these stories because I think representation matters. It's very hard, like you said, to kind of see yourself taking advantage of a hobby or taking advantage of an opportunity when you don’t hear any stories that you can relate to whatsoever. 

So I think that it was so genius and so groundbreaking of you to be able to start your podcast from that perspective to begin with. That this is a place to share these stories. I agree with you that it is kind of bonkers to me that more people aren't doing it because it is not only, again, just genius from sort of like a sharing perspective. But, again, I think that it just is so productive for all of us to be able to learn from one another in these ways. 

I'm really curious to hear from you, because like you said, when you started out, you had some experience using points and miles to travel. But what are some of the things that you've actually learned by being able to share and hear these stories from other people on your podcast? Do you have any favorite secrets or tips or tools that you only learned because someone else shared them with you?

Julia: There are so many of them. I think one of the favorite tips that I learned through the podcast was from Adventure Parks, Kyle and Kenz. They taught me that you can tack on a positioning flight on American Airlines for no extra charge. Like if you wanted to fly from Los Angeles over to Doha and Qsuite, it’s going to be 70,000 points. 

But you can actually go from Los Vegas to Los Angeles to Doha to Maldives or Egypt or India or somewhere else in that region, and it's still gonna cost 70,000 points, even if you tack on the positioning flight at each end. So that's just one example of something really cool that I learned, like in real time on the podcast where I was like wait, what? 

Then another thing was we had an interview with this guy, Ronnie Dunston, and he was talking about how he has a timeshare with Hilton and converts the timeshare points into Hilton points. It's just like this passive thing every year. We can talk a little bit more about different ways that involve a little bit more of a cash infusion at the beginning because people were like well, like timeshares are expensive. Is it really the best use of money? 

Maybe, maybe not. But he has also turned it into a pretty good thriving business on Facebook too. So you learn a lot not just about the point side, but also how you can turn it into more of a business and more of a lifestyle on the podcasts as well.

Devon: Yeah, that's so interesting. Just as a little side note for everybody listening to this. Obviously, you can go over and check out Julie's podcast, Geobreeze Travel, anytime you want and see all of these amazing different stories that she highlights and to get a really better sense of the true diversity of this field and the people who are doing really amazing trips within points and miles. 

But one of the things that I'm curious to hear about now kind of sitting where you are, all of the years of experience and knowledge that you have, from your own research and your own experience and from hearing from all of your guests. Tell us a little bit about the last trip that you booked using points. Where you went, the points you used, and just what did you get to do on that trip?

Julia: So our most recent big international trip was to Italy. We’re based in Los Vegas. So we took a positioning of flight with American Airlines to JFK, booked separately just on cash because I need to renew my American Airlines executive platinum status. So that helped me earn some points. 

But then the New York to Milan leg is actually a Fifth Freedom route operated by Emirates, which means they can operate a flight between two countries that's not the United Arab Emirates. So between New York and Milan, we flew Emirates business class. I think it was about 78,000 points per person one way in business class, and it's so glittery is the first thing that comes to mind where it just looks really luxurious. You have the welcome champagne. You have this amenity kit that’s Bulgari. 

There's a bar in the back where you can hang out and meet with other people in business class. Take all of the photos there. I've been using the Bulgari products. They smell really nice. They're super nice. They just have really gourmet food for you. So we did that. 

Then when we landed in Milan, our first night we stayed at the Hotel Indigo Corso Monforte, which is an IHG hotel, and you can get it with the IHG free night certificate that comes with a card. It's less than 40,000 points per night. I have diamond status with IHG. So we actually got upgraded to a junior suite. There was a little balcony. There was a bathtub that was like in the living room. It was very, very luxurious. 

Since we landed on Easter, everything was closed. They actually had a welcome gift for us, which was called a colomba cake. It's like this dove shaped fruit cake bread. It tasted kind of like oranges and other fruits that were infused in the bread. So I just kind of ate that the first night because we couldn't actually find any restaurants to go to everything's closed on Easter. Then we had free breakfast the next day. 

We then went over to Bologna, which is food capital of Italy. It was fantastic. There was this tour we went on through bolognatours.eu. It's a self-guided food tour. So instead of going with like a huge group to everywhere, they just give you seven vouchers, and you get to taste different foods around the city of Bologna. It's all within walking distance of each other in the old town. You can spread it out over multiple days if you want. So you don't have to cram everything into one day, which was really nice too. 

We stayed at the AC hotel there, which is a Marriott Hotel. We have this saying the points world where oh my God, #bonvoy, which is like when Marriott kind of screws you over. Because on my app, it said you've been upgraded to a junior suite because you have Titanium status. I was so excited. 

Apparently between the time that I saw that and took a screenshot of it and the time we actually checked into the hotel, somebody else was like I'll pay money for the junior suite. So they sold it. So they rescinded my upgrade. They were like you're still in like the larger deluxe room. It was not large. It was very small. So we did that, but the free breakfast was nice. 

Bologna was great. We were right next to this amazing Georgian restaurant. I had never had Georgian food before, but had these giant dumpling things. You cut them open and just like floods out cheese. It was fantastic. So that was Bologna. 

Then we went back to Milan and then did day trips from there to Verona and Lake Como and some other places. We stayed at the Westin Palace in Milan, which we just paid cash rate for because of the 2x promo with Marriott. So that's another myth in the points world is we never pay for our travel anymore. I still pay plenty of cash for my travel. 

Then I had free night certificate upgrades through Marriott Titanium that I applied, and they gave us this executive suite, which looks like the Hall of Versailles. There were just mirrors everywhere and Acqua di Parma everywhere. So I think I walked out with about 200 Euro worth of bath products. 

There was a steam room, like a private steam room, in this hotel room. It came with its own bath products too. So I got quite a bit of toiletries out of that stay. It was a very, very centrally located hotel in Milan as well, really close to the train station, which is what we wanted because it was really convenient for all of the day trips. But yeah, that was our Italy trip.

Then on the way back, we had booked Emirates business class again. But I had heard through the internet that if you show up early and check in, they will let you upgrade to first class. If you ask hey, is there room to upgrade? Then they'll say yes, it's 30,000 points per person to upgrade from business to first class. You can't go from economy all the way to first class, but you could bump from economy to business or business to first.

So I said, cool. There was space. Here's 60,000 points. So I called Amex to transfer the points over. Then we wait. Then we kept waiting. Then four hours later, we were on the plane, and they still hadn't posted. So it took about 40 hours to post. Usually, it's almost instantaneous. It's almost like 10 minutes most of the time, but it just didn't post until we were back in the United States. 

So now I have 60,000 points stranded in my Emirates account because you can't transfer it back. I'll figure out something to do with it, but that's another myth in points and miles is that everything is perfect all the time. Which, of course, it looked like it because I was in Emirates business class, which looks fantastic. It is fantastic, but I really wanted that first class experience that I will get one day in the future. Not that time. 

Devon: I'm sure that you will. I think there's so many great things about this story. First of all, I think it's wonderful just to hear from an actual just strategic tip perspective. One of the amazing opportunities that exists in the points and miles world. Because, in general, I don't know if this is something you teach. 

But one of the things that I teach a lot of the people that I work with is that I oftentimes think that it's better/easier if you know you want to fly business class or first class to book that class of service from the get-go with points certainly, or with cash if that's your decision for any given trip. Because I actually find that it's a lot more challenging to use points to upgrade a single class of service when I'm traveling. CERTAINLY, nothing's ever guaranteed. 

But I think the trip that you're talking about specifically on Emirates, they're one of the airlines that, again, it's never guaranteed, as you unfortunately experienced. But they actually make it possible, like you said, to at the time you're checking in to use your points to upgrade one class of service. So one of the things for people kind of listening to this podcast and taking notes is for those of you who do want to use your points to upgrade Emirates might be one of the best airlines that gives you the opportunity to do that. So keep that in mind. 

But, as you heard Julius say, points transfers that a lot of times are instant, are also never guaranteed to be instant. This is an area that I think we don't spend as much time talking about, which is something that I have certainly experienced in the years that I have been doing this. I see this now a lot as I've started working with other people to help them learn about earning and using points and miles. 

It's this whole kind of experience within points and miles of when things go sideways, which they do sometimes. I think sometimes it's because we just make an honest mistake, as we're learning. I have certainly made honest mistakes. I had over 300,000 miles in More Miles expire because I was not aware they had an expiration date, and the pandemic happened. So there were wonky things in terms of some expiration dates being pushed back or extended and some not until I woke up to an email that I had literally lost 300,000 miles in More Miles, which could have been quite valuable. 

So sometimes, we make really honest mistakes. Sometimes things just don't go our way that are completely out of our control. I think your example is such a good one of that, right? Where there was nothing that you could have done any differently. Yet, here you are, like you said, with unexpectedly having a bunch of miles now kind of being locked up in an airline program that you didn't necessarily intend to have them sitting in for a long time.

I'm sure in the work that you do with all of the people that you work with, you see this as well, right? People either making honest mistakes or things outside of their control going a little bit sideways in this hobby. I think that what's really interesting and really useful to talk about is and then what? Like how do we go about just kind of addressing these things or handling these things? 

Because I think you're very right. That when we only see the success stories or when we are when we're guilty of only sharing our own success stories and not talking about the things that go wrong, I think then when people who are maybe a little bit newer to this hobby experience the same things, it's very common for them to think well they're just the ones who aren't doing it right. Or there's something that they didn't understand that they should have in order to be able to avoid this. 

But I'm curious to hear what your opinion is. My opinion is that if you do this long enough, at some point, you're going to run into some sort of unanticipated problem. So when that happens, Julia, I'm really curious. Kind of how do you handle that for yourself with the experiences that you've had? How do you kind of help counsel the people that you work with when they run into some of these unanticipated obstacles as well? 

Julia: I think a lot of it is the mindset of if you're just getting started with this, and you're like I only had 60,000 miles to spend, and now they're gone and I didn't even get my redemption. It's heartbreaking because those first 60,000 points are very, very difficult to earn. You're like well, I signed up for like three credit cards. I had some fights with my spouse about sign up for three credit cards so we could get this. It just feels so heart wrenching when it doesn't go right that first time. 

I think the whole scarcity mindset comes into this, again. Where, for me, I was like oh, this is really frustrating because I really wanted to do that first class flight. It's going to be a while before something else comes up on the schedule, but I know that I have enough points, and I'll figure it out down the line. It is much harder for someone where they're like that's all I had. That's all I had to work with. 

I think a lot of that is also perpetuated by just a lot of what we see on the internet. Again, everything is perfect online. Everybody's just like oh, just get more and more and more cards. That's really like the two things that you see online. You see people in flashy business class, and those same people being like use my links, get more cards. That's how you can be here. You're just like I don't want to get more cards. 

That's why I do focus a lot on my channel to be like hey, here's how to earn points outside of just more and more credit card spend. I have a webinar launch every once in a while called You Don't Need 20 Cards because you really don't. Then also I focus my YouTube channel a lot on here's how to move your points around to get the same flight for cheaper so you don't always feel so strapped all the time. Where you're like those points were hard to earn, I'm never gonna be able to earn them again. That took me two years.

It's gonna take two years to get like maybe the first redemption. But after that, it'll compound a lot faster because as you're in it like three years or so, everything becomes five times easier, six times easier, ten times easier to earn the same number of points. 

So those would be my takeaways from that is I hear you. If this is your first time that something's gone wrong, I absolutely hear you. It is a panic moment. But also, it gets easier in the future. Don't give up. There are ways around it. You will earn more points. There are things that can be done. Unfollow everybody on the internet who's only giving you like FOMO, FOMO, FOMO, use my links, FOMO, use my links. If that's all you're seeing on somebody's account, it's not value adding to your life. It's probably making feel worse about yourself. Maybe mute them or unfollow them is what I would say.

Devon: I think those are great pieces of advice. Some of the things that I try to tell people too is because there are going to be things that happen that we can't predict and we can't control. Right. Like I said, some of the things just are out of our hands. I think that one piece of it is really kind of educating yourself as much as you can just about the strategy and how these things work so that when you make decisions, they can be calculated decisions, right? 

When you are equipped with that information, then I think there are ways that you can kind of build in some safety nets. I think about things like there are certain airlines that will allow you to call and put an award flight on hold before you even transfer your points over. 

So I think that's a wonderful safety net so that people don't fall into that experience of finding award space online, thinking that they have every reason to think that that award space exists, transferring their points over, and then finding out that either in the meantime, someone else booked those award flights, and they're completely gone. Or it was a phantom space. So it didn't actually exist to begin with. 

So I think being able to learn some of the key steps of this hobby when you're not in that moment of actually needing to make decisions like needing to make decisions about earning points or using points can be really, really helpful to have some of those key kind of strategic ideas under your belt so that you can avoid some of the mistakes or some of the things that can go sideways.

Then I think also there's that piece, like you said, of knowing that sometimes things are just going to happen. It might be super disappointing, and that doesn't mean that it's time to give up right. That those points didn't just completely evaporate. There are always ways that you can earn more miles, or there are different approaches that you can take to kind of salvage a trip if something kind of went wrong your first time trying to book it. 

I think it's so important to keep those things in mind. Because if we only expect that this is going to be easy all the time, or that we're never going to run into problems, then I think when we do run into problems, it's really easy to then give up or to think that it's just not worth it. I think that for so many of us who kind of have stuck with this hobby, even running into some obstacles here and there. Ultimately, the reason we do is because we feel like the outcome overall, we get so much more out of it then what we put into it or the little setbacks that we may experience here and there.

Julia: Yeah, absolutely. I know that a lot of your audience is more high earners who have high expenses. So if you kind of put it into that light of if a $50 emergency hits you, it's not gonna be that bad because you already have that bank of emergency funds and everything else stored up. Whereas if somebody's living paycheck to paycheck, it hurts a lot more. Just imagine you're there with your points journey where you're just starting out, but pretty soon you'll be able to build up your points bank too. 

So it is much harder if you are just starting. It is emotionally tough when you are just seeing everything go perfectly on Instagram and TikTok. Everybody's branding is just so good. They're like Oh look how I was able to book business class for me and my 15 children, and we're all over the cabin. I just keep telling people that Instagram is fantasyland. Just keep that in mind. That there's so much that people don't I really share about what's going on, especially from the creator space.

People do use money to book their points and miles. People are paying money and then using it as business write-offs because we're all creators, and this is like our business. So that's an advantage that most creators do have and most just people who are in it for the hobby don't have. So that's something that I feel like not nearly enough people talk about is just the mechanics behind like doing this as a business versus doing it as just a hobby. It's not a level playing field.

Devon: Yeah, and I think it's so important to be transparent about that. Because, again, I think when people aren't aware that that actually exists because it doesn't get talked about a lot. Again, I think that we run the risk of falling into that trap of them thinking well. If I don't have access to the same thing, if I can't be booking only business class trips, or I can't book business class trips every three months then I must be doing something wrong. I just don't think that's the case whatsoever. 

That's why I think it's so wonderful to be able to see stories about how lots of different people are using their points to travel so that you can find sort of the version that fits you best. That version may change over time. The way that you want to earn points and the way that you want to use points, doesn't have to look the same year after year after year. 

One of the things that you've kind of mentioned that I would love to hear you talk about a little bit more is not only the fact that there are times, or maybe it's for you every single trip, where some component, you pay for using points and some component of your trip you pay for using cash. How do you decide when you're putting together a trip or when you've got a certain budget for a trip. How do you decide where do you want to use your points versus what would you prefer to pay cash for, and why?

Julia: So a lot of, well pretty much 100% of my business class international travel. If I'm hopping over an ocean in a plane, that's covered in points. Those are egregiously expensive. Like $8,000 or $10,000. It's just more than I would ever want to pay. 

If it is something where there's a promo going on, like I need to meet my Marriott Titanium status. They had that 2x promo that was going on, but it only worked for cash stays. So make sure you're reading the fine print on what counts and what doesn't count. So those Marriott stays were going to be covered in cash because those were the only ways that I could get the 1,000 bonus points for the stay and the 2x promo nights. 

For a lot of other ones, if I have a free night certificate that's in my account, I'm trying to burn through those as quick in the year because it is not good when you're down to the wire, and you're like oh I have to go stay in this hotel that I don't really want to stay at just so that I can burn through a free night certificate so that it doesn't expire on me. So I try to plan a lot of those for the beginning of the year just to use them as fast as possible. 

For a lot of the more aspirational stays, that is where I use points. Then if we're staying in a small town somewhere, like my husband's family lives in western South Dakota and mine lives in the suburbs of Kansas City, a lot of times we will just pay for those hotels because they tend to be pretty cheap. It's not like the best use of our redemptions, but it is how I maintain status a lot is just by staying in a lot of cheaper or small hotels. I am physically staying in them. It's not always just like a virtual mattress run. I'm staying in those. 

A lot of conferences I end up staying in a small hotel where I just end up paying money for it. Then if it's for a conference, I ended up writing it off in my business. So that's kind of how I decide between points and money is the more aspirational stuff is what I tend to use my points on. 

Devon: Yeah, as I've done this more and more, I think I've kind of started adopting the same kind of approach. When I first got into points and miles, for me was about nine years ago. At that point, I really focused on using as little out of pocket cash as possible for the trips I was taking. So my focus was very much on how many points can I earn? How can I utilize those points so that what I end up having to pay in cash is as small as humanly possible. 

As I've accrued more points over time, as I've gotten a little bit older, all of the things in life change. Now, I actually still have an actual cash budget for travel every single year. But what I found is that my points have extended that travel budget, essentially, by like five or six times. That I can offset the cost, again, of some of the most expensive things, especially like international flights if I am flying in business class or first class especially.

Being able to use points for that, or when I do travel with my family because I have two little kids, we get tremendous value out of Hyatt points and being able to book your standard suites just outright on the Hyatt website using our points so that we don't have to outlay cash for that. 

So my philosophy now is a little bit different than when I started. That I no longer am kind of hoping to use all of my points to completely cover the cost of all my travel. That I'm always using kind of a mix of cash and a mix of points over the course of my travel for an entire year. My philosophy now is that when it comes to purchasing things or purchasing travel, it's either a points earning opportunity or a points redeeming opportunity. 

So if I find that the value just isn't there to use my points, sometimes if I'm really locked in to travel dates, and I can only travel a certain route, and there's just no good points options, but the economy cash price isn't so bad. I would much rather spend cash to book that type of flight and use it to earn points and then bank those points for what I know down the line will be a much better opportunity to get a ton of value out of those points. 

But I love hearing kind of different perspectives on how people like to use their points. Again, how that changes over time. Because, as I mentioned before, I think it's really important that people understand that if points are doing something for you right now and you love that, that's amazing. The way that you use your points can change over time as your life changes or your preferences change. There's nothing bad about that whatsoever. 

Well, before we wrap up today, Julia, there's just one more thing that I wanted to ask you about, which is another area that I see a lot of people having questions or kind of wondering how to navigate. I'm wondering what your experience with this was. What I hear from a lot of people coming into this hobby is think it's very usual for people to, up until they learn about points travel, to maybe have their one or max two go to credit cards that they use for everything. 

Then they learn about this hobby, and they start seeing the value in having more than one credit card either to earn signup bonuses, or to have credit cards that offer great return for certain categories of spend. I very commonly hear people say well, I really want to go out and like get a lot of these cards deliberately and responsibly over time, but my partner thinks I'm crazy, or my partner is not on board with this. I think there's a couple of different variations of this. 

So I'm really curious to hear just from your personal experience because you mentioned kind of going down the rabbit hole of the personal finance blogs and starting to sort of get into this hobby yourself. I'm really curious what was your partner's opinion when you first started saying hey, there's this thing I want to do, and it kind of involves getting more than one credit card. Just what was your experience with that? Then how do you help people navigate this same question when it comes up for you considering that you work with so many people who I'm sure have asked you this question before?

Julia: Yeah, for sure. So my husband's a bit more hesitant than I am with all of this. I was a little hesitant in the beginning. He's just like oh, what's it gonna do to our credit score? How does it impact everything? So start slow. Don't open like five or six cards right away. That's just gonna freak anybody else out. So just get like one card.

Then your first redemption doesn't have to be some grand $30,000 around the world all in first class kind of trip. Even if you're like hey, we signed up for this credit card. Now we save $500 off of our hotel in this small staycation. Even if it's just that. Even if you're still paying for flights, but you just get the hotel for free or vice versa. They can be like wait, we save $500? Then you can be like yeah, but we used those points. So are you cool if we get another credit card, and we're just paying it off? Look, nothing bad has happened to our credit score. Just going on from there. 

So with me and my husband, it turned from I don't know if we should open this many credit cards and then eventually has turned into I only have so much PTO, Julia. We can't just keep traveling all the time. So there's always just kind of that balance too. 

But if your partner is like really, really hesitant, there are two things that help. One is those small steps where you're like hey, we saved $500, then we save $1,000. You don't have to just use all your points to get $20,000 right off the path. The second one is social proof. So being like in your Facebook group. If you invite your partner into Devon's Facebook group, that would be really helpful. Or just listening to our podcast. Next time that you are on a road trip because I know that you interview a lot of different people. I've got more than 100 hours’ worth of content for you guys. A really long road trip. 

If you're just listening to other people who are like oh yeah, we did it too. On my podcast, I interview people who are just normal, everyday people. Not somebody who's a road warrior, or somebody who has been doing this for 10 years. Any reason that your partner can think of well, we're not like that person because dot, dot, dot, there is probably somebody in these 130 episodes that I've launched so far that you could relate to that can make your partner at least say okay, maybe we can do this too. 

Maybe let's just take one step and then see if we can save a couple hundred dollars off of our next trip. Just chipping away at that way is a good way to approach it instead of hey, hon, we're gonna get 20 Credit cards in the next year, and you're just gonna go with it.

Devon: Julia, that is such an amazing advice. Thank you so much for everything that you shared with us today. I so appreciate your being here. What you just heard Julia talk about, all of those amazing stories that are shared on her podcast. I think this is a great time to mention, Julia, where can people find you if they want to learn more about you, about the work you do, or to hear some of the stories that you helped share of how people are using their points to travel?

Julia: Well, I'm trying to grow my YouTube on Geobreeze Travel YouTube channel. You can find all the podcast episodes there, including video and screenshare of the different hotels and stuff that we are talking about. I also have step by step tutorial videos on YouTube if you're like I don't know how to move my points around. I don't know where people are finding these business class and first class flights. I have tutorials there. 

I have a free Points 101 course for anybody who is just completely getting started. They're like I don't know how this is going to affect my credit. I have a module in there about how to get your partner on board. I have how to get started with credit cards, how to get status with different hotels and airlines, and also a free hotel upgrade email template that I use to write to different hotels and get free upgrades and amenities. So all of that is at the free course at geobreezetravel.com/freecourse.

Devon: Amazing, and we will link up all of that information in the show notes. So don't worry if you did not get a chance to write it all down. We'll have it all for you in the show notes. Julia, thank you so much for joining me today. It was such a fun conversation to have with you, and I cannot wait to catch up with you again in the future.

Julia: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. 

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Point Me to First Class. If you want more tips on turning your expenses into travel, visit pointmetofirstclass.com to learn more. See you next week.