9. Earning Points and Miles as a Physician with The Points and Miles Doc

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 to the podcast today. I am incredibly excited because I have with me someone who I have been dying to talk to about points and miles since I first stumbled across them on the interwebs. So this is really one of my first opportunities to have a conversation with this person. I know it’s going to be amazing, and you all are going to love it as well.

So today on the podcast, I have with me Kelly. Kelly is a surgeon and points enthusiast based in Los Angeles, California. At work she serves as a division director for her surgical field and works on projects regarding sustainability in healthcare. On the side, she loves promoting intentional reward travel to prevent burnout amongst medical professionals, which I think is amazing because it is a very, very stressful profession. There's been a lot going on sort of historically, especially with the pandemic. So having an outlet where you can really dive into something that you love that helps prevent burnout I think is amazing.

Now, Kelly also posts points travel tips and strategies over on Instagram, which is where I first found her. She posts under the name PointsandMilesDoc. So I stumbled across her account, and I immediately fell in love with her not only because of just the really great informative and helpful post that you make Kelly, but also because down in the history of what you posted I vividly remember coming across this little screenshot or reel. Honestly, I don’t know what it’s called because I'm a troglodyte when it comes to technology and social media, and I don’t understand all the words.

Essentially you had posted this shot of a spreadsheet. It was not just any ordinary spreadsheet. It was a highly detailed spreadsheet containing all of your points redemptions I think dating back to 2016, including how much cash value you’ve gotten from your points.

That was the moment that I knew that not only were you a kindred spirit in terms of using points for travel, but also for somewhat compulsively documenting your savings using points. That was the moment that I knew that at some point I had to meet you and talk to you because you are a woman after my own spirit. So Kelly, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. I am so excited to have you here with us today.

Kelly: Thanks so much for having me. I absolutely appreciate what you’ve done for women in our field. We’re definitely kindred spirits as surgeon and pathologists very diligent in recording all of our findings. So whether that’s in the points world or the surgical world. So thanks for having me and thanks for what you do.

Devon: Absolutely. It is such a pleasure. So I would love to hear from you in the beginning. So first of all, do you remember the spreadsheet that I am referring to? Is this something that forms like a pivotal part of your points and miles travel life right now?

Kelly: Oh yes. I mean I reference it all the time. Not only because I'm constantly adding to it through points redemptions, but also through just assessing the value that I'm getting out of my points and where those points are coming from. So where they're transferred from, what airline or hotel chain they might be associated with. Constantly assessing their value just gives me peace about making future redemptions and knowing that it’s in line with the value that I expect from this point system.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. Especially because, like I mentioned, your spreadsheet seems to go back in time for a significant number of years, which is fantastic in terms of data collection. I'm really curious. Have you been in points and miles since before 2016, or is that really when your story took off?

Kelly: That’s really when my redemption story took off, but I can tell you a little bit about just my knowledge about points and miles and going back to the very beginning. I grew up in Dallas. Dallas being an American Airlines hub, of course, we lived near a lot if pilots. We lived also near Gary Kelly, who Southwest was pretty new when I was growing up. So there was always this familiarity with airlines.

I actually, if you look at my Advantage account, it goes back to 1991. Because even though we didn’t fly very much, my family signed us up for the new loyalty program because that’s what was available. So I had this awareness of there was something about loyalty. There was something about using credit cards to get airline miles. My family, I think to this day, is still lifetime AA gold simply from credit card spend.

So I knew that there was this concept, again, of using your spend to get airline miles, but I didn’t really know what loyalty looked like, what status looked like, and definitely I didn’t know what transferrable points looked like. So I didn’t understand the redemption side very much.

Fast forward to medical school. I still kick myself going to all those interviews for residency. I think I was in Texas. I knew I wanted to train somewhere else. I think I went to 14 different cities in two months and did away rotation. So we had to fly all over the place on no money.

Devon: I remember that.

Kelly: I didn’t know anything about strategy at the time. So, of course, I just picked the cheapest flights and cheapest hotels and walked away from that entire episode of life with nothing. Maybe a handful of points, no status. That’s too bad because I didn’t have any money to spend on vacations, and I really could have used that.

Anyway, several years later I met my spouse. We were married. My spouse works in footwear. So she was travelling on the corporate dime, and that’s where I really learned about what status was, what loyalty was. She was constantly flying from our home in Boston to Southeast Asia. She would tell me about these business class seats and lounges. Of course, which I had never even seen one before.

As she traveled more and more for work, we started to learn a little bit more about status. So she was flying Oneworld. So we started when we were taking these economy trips, of course still buying the cheapest flights. We would not get lounge access since I started to get a little bit of a glimpse into what that world looked like.

It was really in 2015. She had been travelling quite a bit. At the end of the year, she was offered a buy up to AA executive platinum. I think it was like $1,000 to go from where she was or what she had earned for the year up to executive platinum. I thought how could executive platinum be better than platinum? What we get from platinum, this can't be worth spending the money.

So I started googling and came across The Points Guy. He had an article on exactly that topic. I actually reached out to him on Twitter. He’s always been really, really accessible on social media. I appreciate that about him. I think I spent about eight hours that day reading through his site and learning about points and miles and status and loyalty. So we decided to do the buy up to executive platinum.

It was just a couple months later. I was running the London Marathon. We flew economy tickets over to London. On the way back, we were boarding. We were arguing who would be in the middle seat. We got the magical buzz when we swiped our boarding passes that said oh, here's some different tickets. You’ve been upgraded to Club World, which is their business class. We said why? They said oh, there's been an aircraft swap. Of course since she was Oneworld Emerald because we’d done the buyout, we got upgraded instead of bumped from the flight.

That was in 2016. That’s when our redemption started. With her traveling all over the world and in my reading about it, that’s when we started opening our transferable currency cards. So Chase Sapphire Preferred, of course. One of the first ones which was a common one at the time. Then also the SPG cards. RIP SPG.

Devon: Oh, I remember those. God bless that program.

Kelly: Gosh. It was such a great value. What was magical about that program, she was staying in SPG hotels. So, of course, earning points that way. What was magical about that program was that you could transfer the points one to one to any airline, and you got a 5,000 point bonus for every 20,000 points that you transferred over.

You can still do this Marriott. Of course, now it’s 60,000 to 25,000 points for most airlines. But at that time, I mean it was such a fantastic deal. So that was really the, I think, original points currency that we dove into. Then added things throughout the years and added multiple points currencies going from Chase Ultimate Rewards and then Citi Thank You points to American Express membership rewards. Now Capital One since they have transfer partners.

So I've now dipped my toe into all of the different systems because I find value in all of them and use those to my advantage when I'm trying to book international trips.

Devon: Yeah. So I love hearing this story. You and I have somewhat parallel tracks and paths in terms of our experiences just training wise, timeline wise, and then also finding points and miles. So I love hearing the story of someone else who’s been doing this already for a couple of years.

One of the things that you just mentioned that I would love to hear more about because this is kind of my situation as well. I think it can be a little bit overwhelming for some people is you just mentioned that you have now dipped your toes into all of the major transferrable points currencies. So right now that looks like Chase points, American Express points, Capital One points, Citi points. You mentioned the SPG program, which is now, unfortunately, no longer in existence. Now it’s the Marriott program. Then do you also have the Bilt credit card to get Bilt points as well?

Kelly: I've signed up for an account. So I have the account but not the credit card. But dang.

Devon: But you have all of the other ones.

Kelly: Of all the [inaudible] that I rented, my goodness.

Devon: Oh my gosh. I know. I'm thinking about the same thing because you mentioned Boston. My husband and I, who we met our first year of medical school. Then we did that whole couples match thing. So when you talk about going around the country on all of these interviews, I think we went on something like 17 different residency interviews because we had to find a program or at least a city where we both would be reasonably happy matching.

So it was the same thing for us. I knew nothing about this world at that point. We landed in Boston for our residencies and fellowships as well. So talking about rent, you know renting as a trainee, which so many of us do, is an enormous expense. So for those of you, just sidenote. Those of you out there who are trainees or are renters regardless of what you're doing in your life professionally, there has never been a better opportunity for you to leverage your rent expenses to earn lots and lots of credit card points.

Because now there is a very specific credit card called the Bilt credit card that allows you to pay your rent using this credit card and to earn points for doing that. So I think this is a great point to bring up because for so many people, rent is a huge expense. I think it also highlights what you probably now have the perspective and the experience to see, which is that in this type of world of points travel, things change. Nothing is static.

We were just talking about this old program that no longer exists that was phenomenal, the SPG program. Something that I think a lot of us got tons of value out of years ago that just does not even exist anymore. So some things that are amazing go away and we lose access to them. Then new things pop up in this world that open up a whole new world of possibility.

The Bilt credit card is really new in the scheme of the history of points travel and rewards and points earning credit cards. The Bilt credit card is a very, very new player on the scene. This really changed specifically that ability to earn points using your rent expenses.

So one of the things I now feeling like I'm an older person in this field really kind of looking back on is some of these phases and these changes. What are some of the opportunities that kind of sunset but the new ones that come up? I'm really curious to hear from you kind of what is your perspective on this idea that whatever kind of points opportunities that are available now maybe aren’t as great as the ones that were available five years ago or 10 or 15 years ago?

Kelly: I mean, I think a lot of the bloggers and the public facing figures of the award travel world always lament the loss of the point systems, and that’s true. I mean there's certain ones that I miss or that I was able to make these great redemptions with before that no longer exist. But now there's so much more accessibility.

A program like Aeroplan, for example, which was completely useless a couple of years ago. Now you can redeem for Etihad on Aeroplan who is a transfer partner of almost every major credit card system. So I think the accessibility is increased. I love what Bilt has done for renters. I think for most medical students and residents, rent is going to be their biggest expense. I mean most people train in a large city or a high cost of living area because they have to be close to the hospital.

This is real money. I mean this is not just Monopoly money that we are using for fun, which we do, but it’s real money. When you're offsetting the costs of vacation or your travel or even necessary travel, then you are able to use your money for other things like paying back your loans or paying off your mortgage, which is an important thing in our field.

So for me, personal finance and points really go together. What we can do as physicians and what you’ve talked about because we have really, really high expenses. Leveraging those high expenses to be able to travel for free or low cost and then use that money in other ways that benefit us in the long term financially I think is really important in medicine.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think when I was kind of first learning about this world, for me it was about eight or nine years ago. I still had significant student loans having come out of medical school. My background is that I went to a public undergraduate for college, which was a phenomenal opportunity to not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on my undergraduate education. I went to an out of state private medical school and went completely on loans.

So I had four years of private school medical school loans that luckily because of just the timing that it was when I went through school, luckily we still had access to things like subsidized loans. I still had access to a fairly low interest rate compared to then what some people five or 10 years coming out of school after me looked like. So I still had, I think, in some ways a very fortuitous position. I had multiple six figures of student loans coming out of training that, for the most part, you really can't pay down when you're in training because we are working so much.

My residency program actually did not allow us to moonlight. So we had no opportunities during our training to earn any money outside of our residency. As you know or probably a lot of people listening to this podcast know, residency is not exactly known as the most lucrative in a medical trainee’s career. Where I think you're getting paid, if you calculated out the dollars per hour, you get paid like $2.09 an hour for what you're working.

So yeah. I mean I came out of even my higher education having a lot of student loans. So even though, and I think this is analogous for a lot of people where you may end up being in a professional or a financial situation kind of further down the road that’s better than where you were initially.

If you still have high student loans or other financial obligations, you're probably not going to be wanting to use the disposable income that you have only on fun things, right? You're going to want to balance it out, or you're going to really, for me a certain period of time, want to dedicate a lot of your disposable income towards some of those financial priorities.

So I think that that’s an amazing point that certainly for me and I know for a lot of people, getting into this world of using the things you're already spending money on, right? That’s not going to change, no matter what. You're still going to buy your groceries, but using the money you're already spending money on, you're going to pay for anyways. All of a sudden it does unlock all of these doors of accessibility in terms of being able to travel at all or being able to travel in certain ways when you are not having to allocate your actual cash to doing that.

I'm curious what your experience is when you kind of transitioned into this world of using points and miles for travel. Did you find that your out of pocket travel costs actually went down? What was your experience with that?

Kelly: Yeah, I think it changed over time. I mean at first, the goal was really to offset the costs as much as possible. So because, like you said, still paying off loans and had a mortgage. I'm an attending, but it’s years and years of debt leading up to that. So really prioritizing those other financial things.

So at first, it was really doing simple things like portal redemptions to offset the entire cost of a vacation, offset the hotel and the flight. That was fine for us. Overtime as we have now I'm a mid-career attending and as we have paid down loans, paid down debt, and have more disposable income. Nowadays to travel as comfortably as possible, and I do hundreds of hundreds of surgical cases per year. Now my body hurts.

If I'm going to be on a long flight, getting to a flight or being on vacation where I have a business class seat or I know it’s going to be relaxing as opposed to well, I'll just to relax when I get there. That’s not really how our lives work. Usually we’re taking off a short amount of time. We’re cramming in a vacation. I want it to be comfortable from the very second I leave the house all the way to when I return.

So that priority has changed overtime and how I redeem has changed over time. So I mentioned the portal at first. I had the Chase Sapphire Reserve once it came out, and that was you could redeem things in the portal for 1.5 cents per point, which was a pretty good deal. For some airlines and economy tickets, that made a lot of sense for us. Now it’s transitioned to where can I transfer my points to get a business class redemption that gets us, again, to our location in the most comfortable way possible?

I certainly would not be able to afford the experiences that we've had on a physician’s salary. These are above and beyond what high income physician earners make. I think in my spreadsheet I'm now up to something like redeeming four million points for over $250,000 worth of travel. That’s significant money. Again, most of those experiences are something we would do because I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Devon: Yeah. Can you give me a couple of examples? Like maybe your top three highlights. What are your top three highlights that you have considered to just be these phenomenal experiences that if there was no such thing as points or miles, you probably would not choose to outlet the cash to have those experiences. But you actually do have access to them because of your points and miles.

Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. So I always talk about offsetting the cost to get somewhere and then spending money more locally or investing in something locally that benefits the community. So spending your money there. Some of the experiences we’ve been able to have. Probably my proudest redemption was for Emirates First Class. This was an old SPG redemption. So we transferred SPG points to Japan Airlines, which was a partner of Emirates. They had a distance based award chart.

I found out that going from LA to Dubai and back to LA was just over the amount on the award chart that was going to make it prohibitively expensive. But instead going from a place like Singapore to Dubai to LA was within this, I think it was less than 12,000 miles where it met this point cutoff where we had enough points. It was a one way ticket. Nobody had ever posted whether you could do a stopover on a one way ticket, but I read the terms and conditions of JAL. It seemed like you did.

So we flew from Singapore to Dubai. We spent seven days in the Middle East. We spent three in Dubai and then five in Jordan and then flew home. So that was 24 hours total in Emirates first class. We got to take a shower on a plane. Of course I'm never going to do this, but this is the one plane I think that I've ever slept on because it was so comfortable. That was just a lot of fun to put together. It was a lot of planning. It involved calling Japan Airlines and working with them, but it was a fantastic redemption.

In that vein, when we got to Dubai, we also stayed at the Al Maha Resort out in the desert, which I highly recommend. It’s great to get out of the city, which just feels a little bit like Las Vegas, and get into the natural desert in the area. It’s all inclusive. All food, alcohol, activities.

It was something that was maybe $1,500 a night, and at the time we would never have spent something like that. But they had just transitioned from SPG to Marriott, and they were pricing at 50,000 Marriott points per night, which was a fantastic deal. Still, to this day, I think it’s a fantastic deal. So that entire trip is pretty much something we really wouldn’t have done without points and miles.

We then went to Jordan where we spent our money touring with a family company essentially who drove us around and took us to all the different sites in Jordan that we wanted to see. So it was nice to be able to actually spend the money we want to spend with a local family who lives in Jordan and then be able to offset the costs of these incredibly lecture-y experiences, corporate experiences, with points. That was one of my favorite ones for sure.

We’ve since flown A and A first class as well to Japan, which was fantastic, and have flown multiple different business class products, again which we really wouldn’t spend the money one but because of points and miles can get somewhere really comfortably.

Devon: Yeah. I think that that is such a great point. That this has certainly been part of my experience with points and miles is that prior to finding them, travel has always been really important to me. It’s always been a really integral part of my life, and I had very little money to do any travel with, especially when I was younger. So I would stretch my budget as far as I possibly could. I didn’t let it prevent me from traveling, but it definitely influenced the travel options that I had available to me.

So even as I've gotten a little bit older, as I've learned about points and miles, and my income has changed from being a student living completely on student loans to actually having a salary for the first time in my life coming into training. One of the things that I have sort of experienced is that I have always still had a travel budget. I think that points and miles are amazing for people.

For some people if they didn’t have points and miles, they would have no access to travel whatsoever. So I think that using or having the ability to have points and miles so that you actually can get out and do things and travel is amazing. And, I think, if you're someone who still does have a travel budget then, as you mentioned, being able to augment that with points and miles I think just opens up a different sort of layer, different level of opportunities that are available to you.

As you have shown, I think it helps you be so much more intentional and mindful about the dollars that you were already planning on spending on travel anyways. You get to be really deliberate about where those dollars go. That’s something that I think can add to not only what you contribute back to different communities or different places in the world, but also allows you when you want to to really then have certain experiences that matter to you.

Like now that I actually spend very little out of pocket cash on my travel because so much of it does come from my points and my miles, I'm able to do things that, I think, on the surface sound really simple or not that extravagant but that really fundamentally change the way that I experience travel. My local airport is O’Hare Airport in Chicago which is a huge airport.

Kelly: Small, small airport.

Devon: You have like 93 different parking options all at varying lengths away from the terminal. For years and years and years, I picked, like the lots are lettered like A through whatever. I would pick like QQQ, whatever the last lot is as far as you can get from the airport where it’s the cheapest to park and take like a series of busses and trams and walking to get into the terminal. Because the fact was, like I said, if I have a limited travel budget, I'm not going to spend it on parking my car at the airport for a week.

I think one of the biggest things points travel has done for me is that now I can actually allocate some of my travel budget to a closer parking lot. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it really changes your life.

Kelly: It does.

Devon: I remember one time coming into O’Hare. If you’ve ever flown into Chicago, you know we have lots of idiosyncrasies with our airport. One of the sort of less delightful of them is that the airport is now so big and there's so many different terminals and runways that your plane will land, and you can literally taxi for 30 or 35 minutes until it parks at a gate. Like the plane’s just driving as long as your flight is practically.

There was a time when I was coming home. I can't remember from where. The plane landed, taxied forever and ever and ever. By the time I got out to my car, it had literally been almost two hours from the time my plane landed between the taxing and the parking. Then you walk through all the terminals. You get the baggage, you get all the way out to your car, all that stuff.

So for me now when I get to choose to park much closer to the airport, especially if I'm traveling with my kids who are little. So that adds a little layer of complexity than when I'm just traveling by myself. The ability to have some money to pay for a really convenient parking spot has literally changed my travel experience. I would never do that if I was also paying out of pocket for all of the travel itself.

So I think that’s one of my favorite things honestly about points and miles is yes, the flights are incredible. The hotels are incredible. The lounge access is incredible, but I love having this option then to actually save my disposable cash travel budget for things that make, like you said, the journey itself a little bit more enjoyable and comfortable. I definitely remember chose days of the journey somewhere being when you're going as cheap as you possibly can, it usually correlates pretty directly with it also being as uncomfortable as it possibly can.

Kelly: Yes. There's this attitude of when we just get there, but I think time is our most important commodity as physicians and our most limited thing that we have. Whatever we can get back because of points and miles, because we’ve offset the cost of travel, and maybe we have a little bit more disposable income to make our travels more comfortable, more meaningful, and just more convenient for your whole family.

Those things are really important. We don’t get opportunities very often to travel. So we should, I mean we should travel more. We should take all of our PTO. Easier said than done. But when we do it, we should do it in a more meaningful way and do what's important to us.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Well, I'm really curious to hear from you. We’re recording this now, it’s around the beginning of April. So we’re about a quarter into the year. Tell me. Have you already had a chance to do any amazing points travel this year? Or are all of your great points trips still upcoming and still on the calendar to be taken?

Kelly: We actually had a mostly cash trip already this year to Argentina. That one was a lot of fun because we paid class for some really cheap economy tickets to Santiago, Chile, and then used system wide upgrades to get upgraded to business on American. I think it was $287 each way. Something like incredibly ridiculous for a flight.

Then I did use Chase Ultimate Rewards transferred Hyatt to stay at the Park Hyatt Mendoza and the Park Hyatt Buenos Aires, which were both incredible. The point of that trip, again, spending our money in a deliberate way was to go to a new property in Patagonia called Explora. Explora is a South American chain where it’s all inclusive. They're B-Corp so they practice what they preach. So this was an example where we were able to use a combination of points and some really cheap cash fares combined with our loyalty and status to do this incredible trip that we wanted to do.

We have another one coming up this summer to Mongolia. Again, spending the money kind of on the ground with local tour companies, staying out in the Gobi Desert and the Altai Mountains, but using points to get there. So I'm really excited to be trying EVAs business class first time through Taipei to Seoul. Then we’ll be flying Air France business class back from Seoul with a stopover in Paris back to Los Angeles, all on points. So it’s just incredible you can get that far in the world and, again, be able to spend money where you want to but completely offset the cost of getting there.

Devon: Yeah. Talking about offsetting the cost. You mentioned in reference to this amazingly gorgeous spreadsheet that you keep that you have redeemed over four million points over this time that you’ve been tracking it. Remind me, again, about how much cash value have those four million points gotten you? Over $200,000, yeah?

Kelly: Yeah, $250,000 worth of value.

Devon: Which is not something to sneeze at, right? We are not talking about insignificant amounts of value that you can get out of your points.

Kelly: It’s like my entire residency salary.

Devon: I know. That’s a medical school education right there. I mean that’s at least tuition for four years. What do you think has been the key to you getting so much value out of those points?

Kelly: I think there's the earning and the redeeming side. I think on the redeeming side, we really are, as physicians, a little bit less flexible than most people at being able to jump on a last minute fare, a last minute first class seat that’s opened up. I think most of us have to plan our schedules pretty far in advance or we have patients otherwise.

So when you take that off the table, sometimes we are redeeming for great value, but it might not be the most aspirational redemption you’ve ever seen, like 30,000 for a business class seat. Sometimes those things are just going to be really hard to find for us. But there's still a lot of value, I think, to be had on the earning side for us.

So what I try to do is optimize every dollar that I'm spending. So every dollar needs to be earning at least 1.5 Chase points per dollar, two Amex points per dollar, or two Capital One points per dollar. That is the minimum of what I consider reasonable value. Of course for every type of bonus category, I'm making sure that I optimize it too.

When you just stratify all of your basic expenses like that, you can earn significant amounts of points. A lot of the transferable points, of course, they also go to many of the same partners. So you can really combine those. You can look for the places that’s going where you want to go, essentially. You can look for the airline that can get you where you want to go. When you have all of those options, you're not really locked into one system.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. So Kelly, thank you so much for all of this amazing information you shared with us today. Before we wrap up, I wanted to do a little thing I like to call the hot seat, which is where I want to ask you a couple of points and miles related questions. I want you to answer with one word or as short an answer as possible. This is completely unfair. You don’t get to actually explain any of your answers or give any context whatsoever. I'm really curious to see how our answers might compare. Okay so we’re going to go through. I only have about 10 questions for you. This is the hot seat, okay.

Kelly: Okay. I'm excited.

Devon: So what was your very first points redemption?

Kelly: It was AA Flagship First from Boston to Santiago, Chile.

Devon: Nice. All right, what is your very favorite rewards credit card perk other than ability to earn points?

Kelly: The, oh, and it’s supposed to be rapid fire.

Devon: Exactly. You don’t get to give context or explain.

Kelly: The $300 travel credit on the Chase Sapphire Reserve.

Devon: Oh, that’s a good one. I like that one too. It’s actually not my personal favorite, but that one’s up there. All right. This is a completely unfair question. If you could only use one points currency from today for the rest of time, which one would it be?

Kelly: American Express membership rewards.

Devon: Interesting. Now I want to ask you more questions, but I'm going to hold to my hotseat questions. Okay so you love American Express. If that was the only points currency you could use moving forward, that would be your pick. Now, if you could only use one points earning credit card from today for the rest of time, what would it be?

Kelly: Does it have to be American Express?

Devon: No, it can be any.

Kelly: Oh. I would use.

Devon: These are challenging questions.

Kelly: Yeah, oh man. Okay, I would use the Amex Gold.

Devon: Personal or business?

Kelly: I would go with the personal, but you just, yeah. Yeah, personal.

Devon: I love that one. Okay, what is the best airport lounge you’ve ever gotten to experience because of points?

Kelly: I would say my favorite airport lounge is the Qantas First Class Lounge in LAX.

Devon: All right, take notes people. If you're in LAX, put that lounge on your list. what is the rewards credit card that you most want that you do not currently have?

Kelly: I am still waiting for Chase to give me so many more business cards, but probably the Inc Business Cash. I am not below 524 very often.

Devon: You hold out hope for that one. That’s a great card. All right. I'm pretty sure you will know the answer to this given your amazing spreadsheet, but what is the highest cent per point redemption value that you have ever managed to get on an award booking?

Kelly: Yeah, I believe it was 16 cents per point, and that’s probably that A and A First Class booked with Virgin.

Devon: That’s fantastic.

Kelly: Yeah.

Devon: What is the points trip that you most want to take but you haven’t booked yet?

Kelly: I really want to try Etihad Apartments, which I have not tried yet.

Devon: All right, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for you on that one. The final hot seat question, which is better, aisle or window seat?

Kelly: Aisle. I need freedom.

Devon: Disappointed.

Kelly: No, I need freedom.

Devon: I'm sorry to tell you there are no wrong answers except for that one.

Kelly: I know I don’t get to justify anything, but I will justify that all day long. I cannot be constricted into a seat.

Devon: This is the benefit of flying in a premium cabin on points or miles. Even the window seats do not tend to be too constricted. So we can fight about that one another time. I would love to have another conversation with you about points and miles. This has been so much fun. All of those hot seat questions just brought up so many more questions that I would love to ask you, but I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up for today.

So I will just say thank you everybody for joining us on today’s podcast. Thank you Kelly for coming and joining us. I have had so much fun following your journey in points and miles, learning from you, and especially having you on today. So thank you for coming and sharing everything with us. For those of you who loved hearing Kelly talk today, and you want to follow her and find out more, check her out on Instagram. Again, she is PointsandMilesDoc. Kelly, thank you so much, so much for coming and joining us today.

Kelly: Thanks Devon.

Hey, I want to let you in on the secret to getting tons of value from your points so that you can book tens of thousands of dollars’ worth in travel just like you heard from Kelly. The secret is that not all uses of points are great ones. In fact, there's an art and a scient to making sure your hard earned points get you a round trip business class flight to South Africa instead of a bunch of gift cards to Best Buy.

Having an easy to follow guide that walks you through exactly what to do and what not to do in order to book the award flights of your dreams so that your points don’t just get wasted on bad flight deals or sit languishing in your account because you're not sure exactly how to use them hasn’t been available until now. I created my course Points Made Easy to walk you through everything you need to know to leverage your expenses to easily earn tons of credit card points and use them for the travel that matters most to you.

How to use your points is such an important part of the award travel equation that I created an entire section of my online course dedicated to breaking it down for you. Because having a ton of points is meaningless if you don’t know how to strategically and effectively use them to book award flights and hotel stays.

So if you don’t already know how to get two, three, four, five cents per points in value from your points or more, you need to join us inside of Points Made Easy. Enrollment for the next round of Points Made Easy opens Friday May 19^th but will only stay open for new members to stay open to join for seven days. So you're not going to want to miss your chance to get in there.

To learn more about Points Made Easy and get your name on the waitlist so you'll be the first to have access to join the course when doors open, just go to www.PointMetoFirstClass.com/pointsmadeeasy.

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.