22. When You and Your Partner Disagree About Points with Relationship Coach Maggie Reyes

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  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 Gimbel: Welcome back to the podcast everybody. In today's episode, I want to explore a challenge that many people encounter in the points travel hobby, which is how do I get my partner or spouse on board with joining me in earning and using points for travel. This challenge can show up in a couple of different ways. 

Sometimes it's that your partner spouse has absolutely no interest in participating in signing up for new credit cards or using rewards credit cards to earn points. Sometimes it's that they are happy to support you and your enthusiasm for the hobby, but they just don't care as much about the details of which card to use for which expenses you do. Sometimes it's that your partner may not even want you to be involved at all in getting or using multiple rewards credit cards because of their own personal concerns about whether the world of points travel is financially responsible. 

So whatever your particular scenario is, it is not uncommon for partners to have different perspectives and preferences when it comes to how they want to approach financial decisions and managing money including getting and using credit cards to earn points. This is not an insignificant area of difference. Studies have shown that money is one of the issues that couples are most likely to fight about. 

While financial conversations certainly go far beyond the world of rewards, credit cards and points, having some skills and tools to navigate these conversations, especially when you and your partner disagree can be invaluable. While I know a lot about earning and using credit card points for travel, I am by no means a relationship expert, which is why I've invited one to be our guest today to join me to explore how to approach it when your partner is not as enthusiastic or interested in points as you are. 

So joining me today on the podcast is Maggie Reyes. Maggie is a master certified life coach who specializes in helping driven ambitious women create their best marriages without waiting for their partners to change or adding more work to their lives. Maggie, welcome to the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Maggie Reyes: I love your intro, first of all. Hello, everyone. I'm so excited to dive into this. Thank you for having me. This is so much fun.

Devon: Absolutely. So first Maggie, I just mentioned to everybody that you are a mastered certified life coach, and that you work with people in terms of marriage and relationship coaching. But for those who are not maybe familiar with what marriage or relationship coaching is, can you please explain a little bit more about what exactly it is that you do and that you help people with?

Maggie: Sure. So I actually specialize in helping humans who identify as women who have partners that may not be as interested in working directly on the relationship for whatever reason. Sometimes it's because they don't think anything is wrong. They're like why are we going to do something? Everything is great. So I help individual women who want to have better marriages stop waiting for their partners to change and start making changes on their own. 

Everything that I do, which is kind of a beautiful frame for what we're going to talk about today. Because everything I do is really based on systems theory and psychology, which is when one element in a system changes, the other elements in the system respond to that change. So when we start using points, our partners respond to that in different ways. They can respond to that in positive and negative ways, which we're going to explore now and how to navigate and work through that.

So the way that I like to make a distinction, for example, if you've heard of couples counseling or therapy versus marriage coaching and relationship coaching. It's like if you are not at baseline. If it's a struggle to participate in your day to day life, then you go to therapy. If you're at baseline, you're participating in day to day life, but you want to do something amazing. You want to create some new results in your life, you go to coaching. That’s just in general for whatever type of therapy or coaching you're looking at.

But sometimes they complement each other. Sometimes there's areas of our life where we're not at baseline and areas of our life where we're super high achievers. So very often someone will have a therapist and a coach and all kinds of different support on their team. So the way that I look at it is really that lens of what is it that you want to create? If you want to create something that isn't what you have right now, very often coaching is a great solution for that. Whether it's coaching for points and learning how to maximize your investments or whether it's coaching on your marriage and learning how to have a better relationship.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. Then in the context of the work that you do specifically, you do not identify as purely or solely a coach for people who identify as women in relationships around money or finances, but tell me how to how often you see conversations or issues around money come up within the relationship work that you do.

Maggie: It does come up from time to time. It usually isn't the primary thing that we're coaching on, but for some people it is. So honestly, it comes up from time to time, but it isn't like a daily occurrence. But the times that I have coached on money issues have been so profound for people. 

Some of my favorite examples and like really heightened memories because they were so emotional to experience are around things I've coached people around money, including spending money, including healing their relationship with money, forgiving themselves for what they perceived as money mistakes that were just pieces of our journey that we had to go through. 

So it does, I have coached on it quite a bit. I do think that it is very common spenders marry savers. We were talking before we got started. I said points people marry non-points people. It's okay. It's okay. For everyone listening, if this is something you're struggling with or stressed about, you can still have a thriving, loving, amazing relationship whether they ever get on board with points or not. We're gonna give you some tips on how you might make it more likely that they get somewhat on board, maybe, but even if they never do, you're gonna be okay.

Devon: Yeah, and let's go straight into that because that is one of the things that people come to me about so often. They say well, I've learned about this whole world of points travel, and I can really see how beneficial this can be for me. I'm so excited about the potential to use rewards credit cards to earn points and then to travel using these points. But my partner or my spouse isn't on board with this or isn't interested in this. 

That feels like a very big problem. So I'm curious. What is your perspective on a situation where one partner is really, really interested in getting involved in a hobby or activity, and the other partner is not equally as interested in that same hobby?

Maggie: Okay so first thing I'd love to know from your point of view is why is it a problem? Like tell me about that part because I think that we'll color a little bit about some of the approaches we might take around it.

Devon: Yeah, so I will speak kind of more broadly or globally. I'll speak in a couple of different scenarios or different perspectives when people come to me with this experience. I think for a lot of people, this feels like a problem because there's an idea that well we need to be on the same page. Especially I'm talking about people who are in a relationship with someone where it might be their spouse, it might be the partner that they're living their life with and are making financial decisions around. 

I think there's this sense of we need to be on the same page, or we need to agree completely about this in order for it to be okay or for us to be able to move forward together around decision making.

Maggie: So that's why I wanted to know that part. So we need to be on the same page. Let's just erase that. Just be we need to be in the same book. We can be on different pages with the same book, and that's okay.

Devon: That’s fascinating. I think I know what you mean, but can you explain that more? 

Maggie: Yes. So we think very often that if our partner doesn't think exactly the way that we do, something has gone wrong. It's like it's a verdict on even the future of the relationship. We might be in danger because we totally disagree about this thing. The truth is I love quoting the Gottman Institute. They are researchers who study relationships that thrive. They've done thousands of couples over the years. I think it's 40 years of research that we have. 

67% of couples have unsolvable problems. They call them perpetual problems. These are things that will not go away. So these are things like the spenders marry the savers, the early risers marry the night owls. The Democrats marry the Republicans, which I think is our hope for humanity if like Democrats or Republicans get married. We'll figure it out at home if we can't figure it out like in public. 

But all of these opposites, this is a real thing where what happens is once we identify it, let's say the honey, the spouse, the partner isn't into the points, and they're just not. They're just never going to be for this first scenario. Then instead of trying to change their mind, which is trying to solve something that is inherently unsolvable, what we want to do is manage that issue. When we switch from trying to solve to accepting that this is what it is today and then managing it, we now can make progress around it. 

Because if they're like no, I'm not interested in collecting any points. I'm not interested in keeping track. I'm just not interested. Then you can decide hey, would it be okay, and the thought behind, for everyone listening, is how do I make it easier for me and for them? It's like would it be okay if I apply for a card and I just give it to you, and we just switch out whatever, the gas card or the grocery card. If I just switch it out. You don't have to do anything. I'm just gonna give you this one, and I'll keep track of everything. 

So notice I've stopped trying to convince them that it's a brilliant idea. I've stopped trying to like get them on board or be on the same page. I've allowed them to be the page that they're on in the book. I'm still on my page. I'm not leaving maybe. Then I'm like how could we maybe work through this in a way that meets my goals?

Devon: Yeah. I can see how powerful that would be. Instead of coming at it from a more sort of maybe binary perspective of how can I get this person to see what I see, agree with me, and do what I think would be amazing to do? Or leave them, like you said, where they are, and I'm just gonna go off and do this.

This is gonna be my hobby, and they're not going to be involved at all is wait a minute, what if neither one of those had to be where we land either all the way on “my side” or all the way “on their side”? What might it actually look like for us to figure out are there some steps in between that that might actually still work for both of us?

Maggie: Yes, yes. Okay. So my very, very first coach, shout out to Christine Caine. She was my very first coach. She used to say that everybody has a radio station in their brain called WIIFM. It's what's in it for me. WIIFM. So imagine all of our partners have what's in it for me radio. So when we present them this idea, especially we get excited. Devon makes it fun. So we're like I'm gonna keep track. I'm gonna have this, and I'm gonna do that. But there's a bunch of like work that's involved. Devon makes it amazingly fun, but then your partner doesn't know Devon and is like that doesn't sound like fun to me. 

All they're thinking is what's in it for me. So what we want to do is tell them what's in it for you. It's like do you want to go for a free vacation in Hawaii? If you let me switch out our cards, that's all you need to do. You don't need to do anything else. Right? Now, it doesn't matter whether they agree, disagree, want to do it, don't want to do it. Like I'm getting my free vacation in Hawaii.

Devon: I'm thinking about this from just sort of my own personality, my own perspective. I think I was probably fortunate and that when I got really interested in this hobby, and it started being very appealing to me, my partner, my husband is what I would describe as being not necessarily enthusiastic, but he is very collaborative. His philosophy is kind of like I love that you love this. You let me know what you want me to do, and I'll try to remember to do it. 

So he is not at all, he's never been contrarian. I've never felt like I had to convince him or anything, but I'm imagining the scenario based on my own personal personality where if I had gone to him years ago and said hey, there's this really interesting thing. It's going to involve my, possibly both of us, opening up multiple credit cards. I'm really excited about this. 

I imagine if he had responded to me as something along the lines of this doesn't make sense to me, or I just don't want to do this at all. Don't involve me. I can imagine that I would have started feeling the need to be a little convincy, or sort of the need to be like, no, no, no. You just don't understand. Let me help you understand what I think about this because then you would agree with me. 

Even though we didn't have that interaction on credit cards and points, we have had that type of interaction around other things. It’s a 20 year long relationship. Finally, after 20 years, I think I have enough sort of experience to realize oh, that's not actually useful. Sort of that perspective of approaching my partner with an idea of hey, I have an idea that I think is great. It would be even better if you completely agreed with me. 

Then when they don’t, that feeling then like a point of contention. So I'm curious in that type of scenario where maybe our partner isn't immediately on board with an idea that we think is great, and we experience then this need to convince or this need to make them change their mind. Is there a better approach that we can take that would be slightly more productive?

Maggie: There's a 100% better approach. So the first thing is to do what I did with Devon was just to ask why does this matter? Why do I want them to think this is a good idea? I want everyone to really sort of lean in as you listen to this because when you first start doing something new, there's a part of you that wants assurance that it's a good idea. It's like this may be the first time you listen to the podcast even. It’s like hey, everybody. This is your first time.

You may have just discovered Devon's work, or you just discovered using points. Then you're I think it's a good idea. Then we go to our partners to validate and support that it's a good idea. Then when they don't we're oh, maybe it's not such a good idea. Maybe I shouldn't do. So we want to ask ourselves why are we craving their agreement? 

For some people, it will be that it's a new thing, and I do want them to be on board. For other people it's like how you negotiate in your relationship. Everybody has different money styles and different ways of investing and taking care of their money. So some people have everything in one pot. Some people have his, hers, and ours, or ours and ours and theirs, or however we want to call it. We haven't separated out in different ways. 

So for some people, getting your person on board, you can't do it without their signature, let's say. If you're in a situation where you can't do without their signature, you still have choices. You can just open a new card without their signature. You can decide what matters to you, why it matters, and then you can decide what you want to do about the thing that that's happening. So they can either understand, not understand, be on board, not be on board, or kind of be neutral. In every situation, what I want you to take away from this episode is you have choices.

Devon: Yeah, I think that's so powerful because, and again, I'll just speak for myself, but I think it's so easy to kind of fall into that mindset of feeling well there's only two outcomes in this conversation, or there's only gonna be two outcomes in this interaction. Either I'm successful and I get what I want, or I'm not successful, and I don't get what I want. I think that that can be, again, maybe not so conducive to having what can actually be very productive conversations for partners to have. 

Because when I think about, again, some of these questions around opening up a new credit card or trying to make decisions about how do we want to structure which points we earn or how we're going to use our points. I think that initial layer of feeling like you and your partner may not be on the exact same page as one another, again, can feel like a problem. But what I'm hearing you really say and explore, Maggie, is how can we take what an initial interaction that may feel like we're not on the same page, but actually use that as a point to understand our partner even deeper, even if the ultimate outcome isn't oh, good. Then they agreed with me. 

Maggie: Yeah, exactly. They don't have to agree with you for you to do the thing, but you also don't have to stay at odds about the thing. So if I went to my partner, and I said hey, I'm gonna apply for six different credit cards. I'm following this very specific strategy. I'm gonna do a thing. Then what I really want to do is go to Hawaii for free. Let's pretend that's my scenario, okay. 

I go to him, and he, in my case, my husband is the son of an accountant and a banker. So just situate yourselves in that reality for a second. So he might have some hesitations about this plan. But if they went to him, one of the questions that I would ask if I was doing something like that is what would make you more comfortable with this? 

It's like oh, do we want to not go past a certain credit limit? Do we want to go and not pass a certain expense amount? What are the things that you need to feel comfortable with this new thing that I want to experiment with in how we manage our money? That question will reveal so much because some of your partners will say there's nothing you can do to make me feel comfortable. I hate credit card debt. I never want to have any. I'm out. 

It's like okay, no problem. So I'm just gonna do it on my own. Then I'll treat the whole family to Hawaii. That's the part where we get to decide. It may be a little slower to accrue the points. That's something that then we have to accept. Sometimes we want to recruit our partner because we're like oh, if we're both doing it then we're gonna get the planes double as fast. Hey, that's an amazing thing if your partner is willing to collaborate. If they're not, that doesn't mean you have to give up the whole project.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. I love those suggestions so much because, again, I feel like it just expands sort of our options for how do we want to engage in these conversations and what do we want to take away from them? Again, when it when the outcome is not just did I win or did I lose in this, but how can I actually learn more about my partner, which I think is always a great thing. Not just around credit card issues, but how they see money, what they bring into the relationship and the conversation probably about maybe different messages they received around credit cards or around travel or around finances in general growing up. 

That even if you have had a long relationship with someone, you don't know every single thing about them. So these types of conversations when you are willing and able to approach them from the sense of curiosity, as you're suggesting, they also just give us the opportunity to learn more about this person that we've chosen to spend a lot of time with, and potentially if they are your partner or spouse, build a life with.

Maggie: It's so essential when you approach a conversation like that to not be tied to convincing them one way or another, but just to be tied to I'm gonna do this thing. Let me figure out the best way to honor my partner and honor myself while I do the thing. So doing the thing is not in question. Most people will only feel like they need to convince the person is if the person says no, and then they can't do it. 

So if we remove that from the equation. We're like you're gonna figure out a way to make it work for you in a way that feels good. The only thing that might happen is you might accrue the points a little slower. But if you're committed to doing this, and you go to Hawaii for free, who cares if you go like in six months versus in two months or whatever the thing may be. 

No, I have something I teach in coaching. There's two things I want to tell you that I think will help people so, so, so much. This is a rule I give all my clients. It’s very simple. It's very important. It's no conclusions without context. So y'all are listening to Devon's podcast. You might be in her program already, or you're joining her program. You have spent hours and hours and hours thinking about this. Then you go to your honey, and you say I'm opening six credit cards. I'll see you tomorrow. They freak the freak out. They're like what is happening. That's cheering a conclusion without a context.

Versus coming to your partner and saying I've been listening to this podcast. I'm doing this program. I figured out that my dream vacation is to go to Hawaii. I know it's not in our plans with whatever else we're spending on, the kids or the house or whatever else we have planned, our higher education, whatever else we're doing. But I figured out a way to use points from the things we're already spending money on where if I do it strategically, I can like pay for the whole trip for the whole family with points. 

But in order to do that, I'm gonna have to open six credit cards. It's not gonna change your credit rating. I'm not gonna accrue the debt. This is how I'm going to do it. This is whatever all the steps are. That's a very different conversation, notice that, right, then just saying the end result. 

So this actual rule is for everything. No conclusions without context. It happens a lot in like coaching. We'll talk for an hour. We'll unpack a whole thing. We'll be we're going to Bali. It's like wait, we figured out how to do it for free. So I want to invite you to come with me to Bali. It’s very different than we're just going to Bali. No conclusions without context. Everybody write that down right now.

Devon: Yeah, I absolutely love that. Because I think something that can happen for so many of us is, again, I think this is what happens probably for me in my brain is that when I'm off learning about a new thing that I'm really excited about. Like I'm compiling all this information, and I'm consuming all of these things, and I'm getting really excited. Sometimes I forget oh, wait a minute. My partner is not actually sitting here with me doing that same exact process, right?

So I like come out of this little black hole of an office after however many hours of going down internet rabbit holes, and all they're getting, like you said, is that conclusion. That can be very jarring to have someone just kind of throw a conclusion at you when you weren't there for that whole entire process of wait a minute. What is the background on this? Why are we even talking about this? What about this is interesting to you? Or what about this matters to you? 

So I think this idea of no conclusions without context is such a fantastic way to remind us sometimes to slow down, to bring our partners along with us in a conversation, and not just dump on them where we ended up after our own research or after our own interest in a topic or a subject that may have been going on for hours or days that they had no idea that we were thinking about.

Maggie: Yes, I think it's so important. It just relieves so much tension when we're like oh, that's right. I have spent 14 hours getting educated about this thing over the last few months. Now I'm gonna go to my partner, and I'm going to summarize and I'm going to explain. If we can do it from the point of view of not needing them to agree to just share an experience we're having, it makes it better for them and for us, like for both of us. Which leads me to the second thing, which is sounds very simple. It sounds very obvious. Requests versus demands. You guys, this is audio, but if you can see Devon's face right now.

Devon: I don’t think I'm going to like where this is going, but I think it's going to be incredibly useful and helpful. So I am open to learning about how maybe I shouldn't be requesting more than demanding. 

Maggie: Okay. So what's the difference between a request and a demand? At the end of a request, there's no emotional price to pay if the answer's no. At the end of the demand, there's an emotional price to pay if the answer is no. So everybody has done this. I have done it, and I teach this for a living, right. It's like oh, you said no? I'm going to eye roll. I'm going to turn away from you. I'm going to give you my scrunchie annoyed face, right?

So when we're talking about something like I want to spend money in this way, or I want to apply for these cards. I want to follow this particular strategy, and we're presenting it to our partner, are we presenting it as a request or as a demand? For some of you listening to the podcast, you've already presented it to your partner. Your partner has said no. You might have had an argument or two or three about it already. 

So what I offer to you is – Then you think it's never gonna work. They're never going to be on board. I've already tried. Okay. If anybody listening right now has the thought I've already tried, zoom out just for a sec with love and gentle kindness. Was it a request, or was it a demand? Was it we're doing this and I'm mad at you if we’re not? Or was it genuinely, from an open hearted, vulnerable place of love hey, I think this will be amazing for our family. Here's why. Here's what I think is in it for you. Just check. 

What I want you to know if you have had that conversation, and it was a demand, a lot of people think – This is, obviously we're talking about credit cards, but this is really for any issue in your relationship. So I'm sure you're all like oh yeah. I could do this about this and this and this. So if you think I've already tried. When you try from a new place, from a different intention, from a different thought and feeling, like no conclusions without context. Here's the context. Here's what my request would be if you're open to that. 

Then very often, you open yourself up to have a new result. So even if you've tried before, I want you to really hear this, you can try again, if you switch your intentions, and you really think about what's in it for them. How do you make it easy for them to participate or to help you? 

Or if you acknowledge many of us have different kinds of money histories and money traumas. I grew up the daughter of a single mom. I never really had a lot of resources growing up. So my reactions to certain things are colored by the issues of my childhood and my young adulthood. So if you come to it, and you say oh, why did they say no? Maybe they had a bankruptcy in their 20s because they overspent on all their credit cards, and they cut up all their cards, and that was so healing for them. Having more than one card freaks them they freak out. 

So if we can honor that in them, we're talking at a different level. Even whether they want to participate or not, you just get closer, which for me as the marriage coach, I want you to get closer, no matter which strategy you end up using.

Devon: I love that. I also just want to acknowledge that so far a lot of the ways that we’ve been talking about this is Maggie and I are both married and we both have husbands, but as you mentioned before this is not just about people who identify as women who are married to people who identify as men, right? I mean relationships are just any form of relating to communicating between two different human beings, right?

So whether or not you are partnered with someone of the same sex or the opposite sex or whatever your relationship makeup is, that, I don’t think, really even is what matters, right? We’re talking about how is it that we can approach the people that we are in relationship with and have more productive conversations, like you said using that word honor. Honoring kind of what we want and what's important to us, and also honoring that they are not necessarily going to see everything the same exact way that we are. Maybe they never will, and that's okay. How do we continue to navigate those conversations in a really productive way?

Maggie: I love calling out different kinds of relationships. Number one, I'm all for it. Yes. I think it'd be fascinating if you had a throuple and you had to decide all these things with three people. Just the logistics of that is like that's a juicy thing to figure out.

Devon: Yeah. The amount of points learning you could do if you did you a three person partnership. I mean, there's so many ways that we can explore the advantages.

Maggie: So much of that. Also just for everyone listening. So if you're in any kind of format of relationship, my friends at the Gottman Institute have done their research that the core issues are the same. So they've done research with women married to men. They've done research with gay and lesbian couples. I don't think they've gone to extended numbers of people. Yeah, I bet you they will in the next 30 years. But the core issues are always the same. 

When I read that research, for me, it was very, I found it really useful because I never wanted to coach someone on something I don't have first-hand experience with it. I'm like oh no, but if the issues are the same, I know what it's like to be married to a woman because I am a woman. I know what it's like to be married to me. Anyway, thank you for calling them out.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. So now that we've covered sort of that first scenario and how do we navigate that, I want to bring up another scenario and get your thoughts about okay. Let's say we get past that initial point where the partner is either completely on board with us or is supportive of our wanting to do the points travel thing. 

So the next scenario that usually happens is ,my partner is on board with this. I have suggested certain credit cards that would be useful for them. They're fine with that. They've applied for them. But now, my partner doesn't always remember like which specific credit card to use for the “right” expense. Because some credit cards earn you more points when you use them at the grocery store. Or a different credit card is going to earn you more points when you put travel expenses on it. 

So my partner is involved and they're engaged, but they don't always keep track of things the way I would like them to keep track of them or they don't always use the right card for the right expense. So I'm feeling really frustrated because we're missing out on earning points on those expenses when I've spent so much time organizing the cards and trying to be really helpful in setting it up to be easy for them. So how do I navigate this situation?

Maggie: I would say the number one question to ask is, how do I make it easy for them to do it? I would be the partner that would be I don't remember what to use. You better put a sticker on that card. That's all. That's it. Here's what honestly what I would do just from a very practical point of view, and I'm just thinking human to human, not even from a coaching perspective. Just like I was the partner who was asked to do this.

I would look at where do I get the most bang for my buck? So maybe you're into this. Devon and I are friends. I know. She might have like 12 cards at any time that she's doing different strategies within testing and seeing what she's gonna teach all you, right. But let's pretend Devon and I got married. Devon is like let's do this, Maggie. 

I'm all in. I'm like this is what I can do Devon. You give me the three cards that get you the most points, and let me only remember the three things. This one's for the groceries, this one's for travel, this one's for business expenses. I can commit. I know that I can commit to those three things. You start talking to me about 12 cards, I'm out. 

So this is what I would do is I would like check the resources in Devon's program, or like her guidance of where do I get the most bang for my buck. So if my goal is to travel to Hawaii, and I want to accrue that, let's make it easy for our partners to participate is the lens through which I'm giving this guidance from. I honestly believe there's a part of this where you just have to let it go. You're never gonna get the most points. It's not gonna happen. 

The reason is because if you're into like spreadsheets and numbers and counting and doing all this, it's highly, highly likely that your partner isn't, and that's why you're a couple or throuple or whatever format you are. So I'm just telling you right now, just accept that this is just get the most bang for your buck and be happy.

Devon: Yeah, I agree with you completely. I heard sort of two things in what you just said that I think are so helpful, even as reminders for me. The first thing that I heard you say, or at least the way I processed it was especially when you are talking about a relationship with your significant other is having sort of a shared idea of what are the values and the priorities? 

Okay, even speaking for me in the chair I'm sitting in, I might say oh points are a big value in priority, right. But they're not a bigger value and priority than my relationship with my partner. So sort of staying grounded in what would I love for my partner to do. If that, like you said, is not the extent to which they want to be involved in this, I'm not going to sacrifice then for the sake of trying to get them to not forget one specific credit card when they go to the farmers market, right?

So just kind of checking in with ourselves, like you said about okay, we can value having fun with this. We can value optimizing earning our points. We also, individually and with our partners, need to be very clear about to what extent. At what point then do we let go of that value priority in service of a higher value priority in the relationship. 

The second thing that I was thinking of as you were talking was kind of an idea of how we can be kinder to ourselves and our partners when they are going out of their way. Because oftentimes, for people listening to this podcast, it's gonna be their partner who's maybe not the one who's in charge in terms of points. 

But when our partner is doing their very best that they can with what we've tried to equip them with in terms of knowledge and all of the things we ask them to do is to not judge them against this idealized version of what we wish maybe they would do all the time. But instead, actually look at it almost from the opposite direction of oh wow look at how much my partner is willing to do when this is not their primary interest compared to nothing.

Because I think a lot of us if we do have partners involved in this hobby with us, maybe it's only because they know how interesting and fun it is for us. They're doing this to help us in our area of interest. So instead of judging them against well, if they were the “perfect” version of a partner, but instead oh wait a minute. Let me see all the ways in which you are actually putting in a lot of effort for things that isn't your number one priority and in being able to see them for that amount of effort that they're expending.

Maggie: I love the lens of calling it a hobby. When you just said that, something really landed for me in a very deep way, which is when we. By the way, I like accruing points. I think this is relevant to this part of it, which is when I first got married, my husband didn’t know what points were. One of my former bosses, who was an accountant, taught me about points, and I started accruing points. 

So I was able to upgrade us to first class for our honeymoon on the plane because of points. My husband was like what is this magic? Our points journey is very simple. We have things, right. But we do have a points journey where we  use one card. We value travel. We put all of our points on that. We pay it off every month, and we get like free flights or hotels or different things like all the time. We keep it really simple, and that works for us in this chapter of our life.

But when you call it a hobby, what really landed for me is for some of us, it feels like we're doing this for our family. We're doing this for, it feels like more than a hobby. Then we can feel offended or have our feelings hurt or make other meanings when their partner doesn't want to participate or doesn't have the capacity. Like literally the mental capacity between whatever they're working on at work, whatever is going on with the family, whatever else they have on their plate, whatever else commitments or hobbies that they have, where they just don't have the capacity. 

Then we think oh this is offensive that you're ignoring this thing for our family. But when you call it a hobby, for me, it just grounded. It's like this is just something that I like doing. The side benefit is all these things it does for how it opens up experiences for our family. I think if we can sort of land there then it's well, would I want to play golf for six hours? Would I want to keep the baseball bats in order for the team?

Like when you put it as a hobby, it's oh we can visit each other's hobbies. I can go watch them play soccer or softball or whatever their hobbies, but it doesn't mean I want to go play that game. No one would ever judge me for that. But we judge our partners because they don't want to play this game.

Devon: Yeah, ultimately, I think when that is the perspective or the experience we're having, that is what's going to make it more difficult, again, to just find partnership with the person in our life then if we're able to say okay, wait a minute. What is my deal? Would I love it if you were equally as enthusiastic about this as I was? Yeah. If you're not going to be, again, where can we still find some middle ground where that's not going to create some sort of really ongoing, larger issue within our relationship? 

Maggie: Yes. I really just highly recommend that you don't make it mean anything about your partner if they're just not interested in this. So pretend that points. For everyone listening, pretend that points are named Oprah. They're Oprah points. Imagine your partner is just not into Oprah. Right? That's okay. It doesn't mean they love you any less. It doesn't mean they don't care about the relationship. It doesn't mean you matter to them any less or anything like that. They're just not into Oprah.

Devon: Yes. Even though Oprah is amazing, not everyone has to be into Oprah. It's okay. Okay, I want to go into just the last scenario. This is actually something that came up in my group, my Facebook group just this morning that I was partially laughing about and partially thinking oh this would be so fantastic to bring to this episode to get your professional perspective, again, on how to navigate this issue or this conversation. 

So someone had posted in the Facebook group, they're in a scenario where they have already been earning points. So they've been building up their points balances. They said that their partner just tried to cash out, so use a bunch of their points, on a terrible redemption. So their partner went online, and tried to use 40,000 Chase points to buy a sleeping bag. 

The person who posted was so upset because they said that same amount of points is essentially almost enough to get a one way flight to Europe in business class. So the scenario where you've now put in all of this work to earn a bunch of points, and then the partner, your partner seeing how many points you have, makes a decision about one potential way they could use them that is not your preferred way of using them. So how do we navigate our minds when our partner doesn't do the thing that maybe we would have chosen to do with the points that have been earned?

Maggie: This is for everything everybody. This is not just for the points. If we value agency autonomy and everyone's right to choose, then we have to decide where we land. Are those points, do they belong to our partner or not? Now there's no right or wrong answer. Like we can make an agreement with our partner that, just like we have agreements. Like we owe anything over $10,000, or I mean, for me, it would be a much lower number but whatever. Anything over a certain amount, we discuss it before we buy. 

You can have that same conversation about points. Anything over 1,000 points, we discuss it before we buy it. That's it totally valid thing to have. You can also explain to the partner. It’s kind of funny that you said that example because when I'm going to go buy a flight, I will ask my husband should we do some points, or should I just pay the money? He's the math guy in the relationship. Even though I'm the points person, he's the math guy. 

So he'll say actually, it's better if you buy that flight just for cash because the points, the way the points are for that particular thing, you're not actually saving anything by using the points. So we have conversations like that. 

So for this particular scenario, the first thing I would say is how exciting that your partner is buying something with points. Here one person may be getting angry because they're not using them to their maximum degree. My reaction is you got them so on board that they went and they wanted to buy something that means something to them. A sleeping bag means something to them because that means they want to go camping. They want to have an adventure. They want to live a better life using points. You have completely gotten them on board. This is a moment to celebrate, yay. 

Now you can decide moving forward as a collaboration with them. Hey, do we want to pool our points? Do you want to have some, just like with money, do you want to have some points that you just do whatever you want with them? Does it even matter to you? If a first class ticket to Europe doesn't mean anything to them then the sleeping bag was the best thing to use the points on. Your person is gonna be like what?

Devon: I know. I'm trying to collect my thoughts because I am very biased in this scenario, and I'm imagining my own reaction if the same thing happened. I think that it's so useful to hear what you offered, which is not, again, where my brain would automatically go because it helps to remind me. I think this is what I was really hoping would come out in our conversation is to give people who are listening to this podcast an invitation or an opportunity to just think about these scenarios in multiple different ways. 

It doesn't mean you have to agree with every single thing or that you would want to embrace every approach that we've suggested, but I think that, again, sort of that invitation to see this in a different way and then for us to evaluate just that work for me or not. Right. But to still figure out okay, what about the suggestion you just made? 

Even if I'm no, lost my mind. Never going to be on board with using 40,000 points for a sleeping bag, I still think what you offered, there's so many points of conversation that can then be had from there. I think that is what is so useful is then to explore these different ideas of oh maybe this is an opportunity for me to explore even deeper what does matter, like you said, to my partner in terms of the outcome of points. Or hey maybe this is a really good indication that we now have an opportunity to have a conversation, like you said about, hey where can we come together and agree this is what's going to work for us in terms of making decisions on how we want to use these points in the future. 

So to me, it's just a reminder, another really helpful reminder, that it's not just good scenario, bad scenario, good outcome, bad outcome. That there are so many different ways that we can use kind of these little instances in our interactions with our partners around points to expand our conversation around why are we even doing this? What matters to us about this? If one of us did something, that the other one was wow, not what I would have done. I'm having a lot of thoughts and feelings about that. Okay. We can talk about that.

Maggie: Also, I would say this. There's actually two things. The first thing is be careful when you're using the points to not come to the points that you're using from a place of scarcity. Because if you have the thought we will always make more points. We will always have different points that we make. If this is someone, obviously this person is new to using points because once you understand how points work, it's unlikely you would do it use it to make that purchase. 

But it's like oh, where did I not explain how to get the most out of points that this is what happened now? It's an opportunity to take more ownership. So many of you will listen to this scenario and be pissed at the partner. I honor that, but I invite you to take responsibility over that anger. It's like if a partner is using points in such a way that you feel like they're just burning money, where did I not explain how that works? 

That's so annoying because then I have to take responsibility for it. But I'm a coach, and I'm here to help you. So be annoyed, but own it and then move forward from it in a way that's much more constructive for both of you because  getting angry at your partner isn't really going to solve anything. You're the person who got them into the points in the first place. So they don't know all the nuances of using the points right, sometimes.

Or in my case, I'm not good at that analysis part. I still, I've done it for years, and I still don't fully understand how the computational work works to determine is this a good idea for a purchase or is not a good idea for it. So that's the first thing is just to say wait, how can I own? If I'm the points person in the family, how can I own that I haven't really shared what is the value and how this works? That's one thing. 

The other thing I would say is that idea of the scarcity. The only reason we're pissed is because we think oh those points are lost. It’s so easy to get into a scarcity mentality about it as opposed to for as long as I live, I'm gonna buy stuff. Which means for as long as I live, I'm gonna be able to accrue points, which means there's more points where those points came from. I think that could really soften your reaction, if you look at it that way.

Devon: Yeah, I think that's such a great opportunity and a great reminder that that is the benefit. One of the things that I say on this podcast because I really, truly believe it is that our expenses are assets, and most of us are going to continue to have expenses, right. As long as we have expenses, we have opportunities to earn points. 

So I agree. I think sometimes we look at, especially if we're the ones who kind of spearheading the points effort for our family. I think we can sometimes look at the effort that we put into learn this stuff and to set it up to earn a certain amount of points. To then have thoughts or be upset about if our partner uses points in a way that maybe wouldn't have been our first choice, I think it'd be easy for us to think oh that was such a waste. It was a waste of my time, or a waste of my energy or a waste of our leveraging our past expenses to earn these points. 

There's always going to be new opportunities, more opportunities to earn those points back. So I agree with you that even though I certainly don't want to hear you tell me how could I have made this situation not happen? Or where's my responsibility in teaching my partner more about points or about the uses of points? I go straight to the blame part. I'm not a super evolved and mature individual, but I think it's so helpful then to have that reminder of okay yeah, you can go that direction. 

Or you can also take that as an invitation to say hey, wait a minute. First of all, this is not the end of the world. How can I just use this to move us both forward? It reminds me something that I've actually heard you talk about outside of the scope of this conversation that I think would be really useful to touch on before we wrap up today in that I've heard you talk about this concept of when it comes to yourself and your partner as positioning yourselves as a team against a problem. 

Maggie: Yes.

Devon: I'm hoping that you can talk just a little bit more about what that means and what that looks like.

Maggie: 100%. So a few years ago, there was this phenomenon that that is still happening now, but it had just like been discovered, which is called gray divorce. Gray divorce basically means people in their 60s/70s/80s are getting divorced at a higher rate than anybody ever expected. It's like a whole phenomenon. People are just getting a divorce. I was like what is going on with this gray divorce thing. 

I really sat and thought about it and read a few articles about it. I was oh, now that I really understand what's happening. What I what I came up with and the way that I describe it is the difference between a team and an alliance. Those people who are having the gray divorce happen is they were in alliance. When I think about alliance, I think about like the US and the UK. As long as our interests are aligned, and we get what we want out of the situation, we will be allied partners in all a variety of things all over the world. 

But the minute that it's not convenient and delightful for us to participate in this alliance, we're out. We are very selectively allies, right. That happens in our marriages. When we are allied to like pay the mortgage, raise the kids, pay for school, pay for college, and now all of those things that made us an alliance are over. We don't have a fundamental connection of friendship and respect and love and all these other things. Right? Then the alliance is no longer convenient. We're out, even if it's 30 or 40 years later. 

Whereas we're in we're a team, I think about sports. I think about when we're a team. I think about baseball, which was the only sport I understand. But we adjust our strengths towards the benefit of the team overall, even if sometimes we make individual sacrifices.

So I might hit the ball. I know that you'll get to first base, and I might not get my point. But the team will get a bigger point because I know when you're on first, we always get the home run later or whatever the thing may be, right. So it's like when we're a team, we're both together sometimes sacrificing, sometimes prioritizing one thing versus another towards the overarching goal of the team. Versus when we're in alliance and we're just like kind of each of us is out for our own thing. When that's not convenient, we’re out. So that's one piece.

The other piece is not making the other person the problem. So I call it recruiting your partner to help you, and it’s you, both of you together, with the issue as opposed to being opposed sides of the issue. So if my dream Hawaii vacation is what we’re keeping as the example, it's like both of us do we want a vacation? Does it matter to us? Maybe I'm going with my girlfriends to Hawaii, and my partner really isn't involved at all. I'm just accruing all my points, and I'm going with my girlfriends, and we're done. Right?

But if we decide oh yeah, we both want that. Then we're how do we want to collect points? What is the goal? How do we want to do it? Oh, I'm gonna make it easy for you. I'm just gonna give you three cards. Just use those for those top three things. That's where I get my max. Then I'll deal with the fact that I want to use other things for other things. It's us with the goal or the project or the problem versus me on my side and you on your side.

Devon: Yeah, I think that's so brilliant. One of the things that I'm thinking now as we're coming to the close of this episode is that I feel like you have offered so many tangible, practical tips, pieces of advice for people to really use to navigate just a variety of sort of different potential disagreements with their partner around earning and using points. I can imagine that some people might be thinking oh my gosh, there's so many, so much good, useful information in this episode. I don't even know where to start. 

So before we wrap up, can you just give us your tip for somebody who might be feeling a little bit overwhelmed because they've gotten so much useful information and so many useful things to think about from this episode. How not to just get stalled out in the overwhelm of that.

Maggie: Always start with the simplest, most doable thing first. That is always my guidance. I loved when we talked about what are our values here? I teach values in my marriage coaching program as well. So it's what's important? It's important the point, for what reason? Just start with what matters to me here. 

Like you said, Devon, am I gonna prioritize the points over my relationship? I don't think anybody's gonna do that. Right? So if my relationship is first and the points are second, the points are still important and valuable. We honor that desire and the passion for the hobby of doing. I like the thrill of the chase. The thrill of the booking. I'm in for all those things. But it's not more important than the relationship. 

So once you've decided okay, what are my priorities? Very simple. Then from what my priorities are, what makes sense here? I would start with the easiest thing first. I would ask very simple questions. If you go through the episode, listen to it again and take notes. Everything we talked about is very, some very simple questions. What matters to you? How can I make it easy for you? I want to do this thing. Are you in? Do you have concerns? What are your concerns? These are very simple questions to ask.

Devon: Yeah, and I love that because that's exactly my perspective when I try to teach people about points. Most of us are not going to start trying to learn every single thing about earning points and 27 different cards and 13 different sweet spot redemptions all at once. We start where we are, and then we just take the next step forward. I think that's such a beautiful advice within this scenario about communicating with your partner as well. 

So everybody, take Maggie's advice. Start simple. Start small. Just start with one question. Maggie, thank you so much for joining me today and giving so many useful tips for navigating communicating better with our partners around earning and using points. For people who want to learn more about what you do, where can they find you?

Maggie: The best place to go is my website. It's MaggieReyes.com. I'm also on Instagram. I love hanging out there. If you listen to this podcast, I want to hear your favorite takeaway. You can tag me @TheMaggieReyes. Let me know. You can tag me in your stories. You can message me. I want to hear your favorite takeaway from today. I would invite you to implement one thing, pick one thing to implement, and just do one thing. That's it. So MaggieReyes.com and TheMaggieReyes on Instagram.

Devon: All right, and we're gonna link all of that information up in the show notes was very easy for people to find it and to find you. Maggie, thank you so much for joining us here today. I appreciate you so very much. 

Maggie: My pleasure.

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.