11. Redeeming $20,000 in Travel with the Points Made Easy Course

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: Hey, everybody, welcome to today's episode. I am so thrilled to be joined today by Cherie. Cherie is an employed pediatrician and a member of my online points course Points Made Easy. She recently sent me a message that kind of knocked me off my seat and made me so excited to read. I had so many questions right after she messaged me that I felt like we had to have her on the podcast so we could have a real conversation about this. So Cherie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. How are you doing?

Cherie: I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.

Devon: It is an absolute pleasure. So this message that you sent me that I could almost barely believe is I opened up my phone, and I see this message from you. It said, “I went from don't even mention opening a new credit card to me, I'm not interested, to I redeemed points for $20,000 worth of travel in a year.” On the one hand, I am not at all surprised by that. On the other hand, I was completely shocked by it. 

That seemed like such an extraordinary jump to me that I knew I wanted to have you on the podcast to walk us all through your story and what exactly happened to go from you're not even wanting to think about opening up a new credit card to now having over $20,000 worth of travel booked in less than a year. So help walk me through that process. Tell me a little bit about where you started and why it is that you didn't even want to consider opening rewards credit cards. Remind me how long ago was that?

Cherie: So I joined your group probably sometime in early 2022 is my guess. I didn't get my first points earning credit card until April of last year. So prior to that I had heard about like Chase Sapphire, for example, from family members. In my mind, I was like oh, that's too much trouble to figure out the whole points thing. I don't want to make my credit score go down. I don't really want to deal with applying for new card. I already froze all my credit. That means I have to unfreeze it. It was too many steps in my mind. It wasn't worth it because I didn't actually realize like what the points were worth. 

So I think being part of your Facebook group, I started to see people posting about trips. I think you actually went in the group and posted some information about some trips you've taken and how many points it took for me to come to realize okay, that one signup bonus for that card is enough to pay for a few days of hotel or for round trip tickets. Well, maybe it's worth it. So that was enough to get me to sign up for like my first card, which was a year ago. 

Devon: What was that first card that you signed up for?

Cherie: The Chase Sapphire Preferred. Oh, yeah, that was my other roadblock. I'm like I'm not paying a fee for a card. So that one had a lower fee. So I was willing to pay that fee. 

Devon: Yeah. Then what happened after that? So you get your very first card, you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred, right? Lots of people get a credit card. That's about it. Like that's where so many people end up stopping, but you didn't. So help me understand kind of what happened next for you.

Cherie: So last year, I took a couple of trips. I hadn't traveled really at all during the pandemic. So, I did a CME trip I think in May of last year. So I used my new card to pay for like the travel for two times points. Okay, great. It wasn't that much, but I got it reimbursed by work because it was CME. 

Later in the year in October, I wanted to do another CME, but I didn't have enough money left in my CME fund. So I had to figure out a way to get myself to Hawaii, but not spend a whole lot was my goal. So that was actually my first points reduction. I just did it through the portal on Chase and got a one way ticket to Kauai, and then I had enough Southwest points from previous travel that I was able to fly back home. So I got my airfare covered.

I did have enough CME funds to actually pay for the conference and like for maybe two nights of hotel. This conference was actually at the Grand Hyatt Kauai which was beautiful. Then the rest of nights, I actually made it a girls trip with my girlfriends. So we rented an Airbnb for like the rest of the days of the trip. Then they left, and I'd spent like two days at the conference hotel. So I was able to generate some points then. 

Then I think around that time, you had posted a video about Rakuten and before Black Friday, and how if you had an Amex card that you could get points back. I'm like oh, I have Rakuten. In fact, I've rocketed since 2005. So when it was Ebates. I used it, but I did Shutterfly here and there and I get two buck checks. It just never was worth it for me to go through the Rakuten link. Obviously, as an app, it's easier, right?

So I think around that time is when I got my second card, which was the Amex Gold, because, again, it had a fee, but I felt that you could still make up for the fee, and it was just lower. I wanted to be able to use Rakuten and then get extra points on my groceries. 

So, again, I actually started racking up more points around that time, and then learning some of the tricks about how do you spend on things that you normally spend on. Like how do you contribute to a 529 and how do you pay your property taxes with using credit card. I had never even considered that before. So that's kind of when I started building up more points.

But then at that same time, I had only redeemed it for that Chase portal redemption. I was so proud of that. I should have been proud because it was my first one, right? But now that I look back I'm like oh okay, it was 1.5 cents. So really, it wasn't the best redemption, but at least it got me somewhere, right. That's the goal. 

But then I started learning more from you about like oh, you can actually like do these things to redeem it for more. That's kind of when it took off. Then when I took your course in January then I really learned how do you really maximize the redemption value. That's kind of what I got into it and was able to redeem for a lot more.

Devon: Tell me a little bit about what those redemptions look for you now. So what exactly have you booked? What kind of points did you use? What travel do you have coming up that you were able to use all of these points for?

Cherie: After that one trip to Kauai, I was able to use some of the Hyatt points that I had earned from just that trip. Because I feel there's some just really great redemptions. We do some travel to visit family, and we stay in a Hyatt that's close to where they live. So that's one of the places where I often will do redemptions. My kids love it. It's a Hyatt House, and they have free breakfast, and the kids love it. They love the free breakfast. So will I ever get to Hyatt Globalist? I don't know. I doubt it. But we still get free breakfast at Hyatt House. 

So yeah, I pretty much spend most of my Chase points there. Then my Amex points, I transferred over to Air France. So we're doing some international travel. So I've got a couple trips planned. These are trips I planned ever since I took the course. So I have one trip to Paris planned. Paris, and we're gonna go to South France, I think. Then another trip to Costa Rica.

Devon: How is that different from maybe what your travel looks a year ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago?

Cherie: So we pretty much only did domestic travel prior to this. In fact, I think we did one trip internationally. It was because we had an event that we had to go to. But other than that, it would be more local. We did a few trips to Hawaii here and there. But my kids were younger, and I think we just didn't have that level of comfort traveling with them long distances at that point. They're finally old enough. So my husband always used to say we're not going to travel anywhere until our kids can carry their own luggage and pack themselves. So we are there now.

Devon: So Cherie, tell me a little bit about what travel looks for you growing up.

Cherie: So my family really liked to travel. I think it was one of the ways that we really connected with each other, my mom especially. She was the main travel planner of our family. Even though we didn't have a large budget to work with, she always made travel happen. 

I recall when we were kids, she used to have these big AAA books, these planning books for where we were going to travel to. They had different hotels in there. I just remember she would show me okay, the ones with four diamonds, we don't stay at those ones. They're too expensive. Look for the ones with two diamonds. So that's kind of how I recall planning travel. She was always really proud whenever we could get a really good deal on something. That was the best thing.

So that's kind of how I grew up. Always looking for a good deal and seeing how we can stretch our dollar the farthest, and I enjoyed it. We didn't stay at any high end hotels. I remember we actually when the first time we went to Maui, walking through the Hyatt, I think it's a Hyatt Regency in Maui. I have pictures next to this really huge vase in the lobby. We would just go and check out the hotel and then leave and not ever plan to stay there. But it was just so we would just experience it. 

I remember distinctly walking into these beautiful hotels but not ever thinking I’d ever stay at one of them. Then I did stay one time for a conference. I was like wow, I can't believe that I'm actually staying at the same hotel that we visited as a kid. But yeah, I mean we did a lot of budget travel, but it was really fun. I remember when we used to eat breakfast, again, just to try to save money, we would bring one of those hot water boilers, the kettles, and bring a Cup O’ Noodles. That was our breakfast every morning before we'd go to Disney World or whatever.

Devon: What do you think you're most looking forward to with these points trips that you have booked that are going to be coming up for you in the next year or so?

Cherie: I'm just looking forward to experiencing these places in a different way. I've actually been to Paris and Costa Rica before. But my Paris trip, it was right after college. We did one of those bus tours with other 20 some year olds. We went to 14 European countries, and we spent a day or two in each. It was very planned. 

I enjoyed it and I got to see all the main things, but it didn't get to really enjoy and feel I was there, if you know what I mean. Pick where I'm gonna go sit to eat for a cafe and walk around. It just was a different feeling. So I'm really excited to be able to experience it that way. 

Then Costa Rica, same thing. I went during residency with a few friends, and they had planned the trip already. I just joined them last minute. So I didn't plan anything. I was just so thankful to have it all planned out. We spent some time learning Spanish in Monteverde, and we got to visit Tabacon. The volcano actually erupted when we were there. Again, it was kind of on more of a shoestring budget. 

So this trip that's coming in Costa Rica, we are actually staying at much nicer places than I typically would even stay. It's made possible because of points. In fact, we're not even paying for the whole trip with points. 

We are staying at a hotel that we're paying for as well, but I actually would never have even considered staying at this hotel because it's so it was just more pricey than I normally would spend. But because I knew half the trip was being covered by points, I felt okay, well divide by two. 50% of my hotel stays covered by points. We could afford this. So. So that's kind of how it can be a little different this time around.

Devon: Yeah, absolutely. For that hotel stay because I know you like to keep track of things, as a lot of us who are in this hobby, we really to see what the numbers are and to see kind of what we're actually getting out of our points, right. So do you happen to know just kind of off the top of your head about how many points did you use for that hotel stay, and how much cash are you saving because you were able to use your points instead of booking it outright using cash?

Cherie: So I spent 89,000 points for four nights. I think each night would have been $800 normally.

Devon: So what kind of redemption value is that?

Cherie: I think it's four or five cents or something.

Devon: So four or five cents is actually I think, at least in my opinion, is an extraordinary value to get from your points. You were saying before when you first started using your points, you're using them in a way that I think so many people who first get into points use them, which is you log onto your credit card account, and you book travel through your credit cards travel portal. 

I think that you're kind of incentivized to do that only from the perspective of when you log on to your account, you were mentioning you have Chase points. Oftentimes, you'll see that number of the ultimate rewards points that you have. 100,000 points, or whatever the case may be. It'll say in little fine print underneath that this is worth X amount of money towards travel. Depending on which of their credit card products you carry, that might be $1,000 towards travel or $1,500 towards travel. 

So initially, you said your first redemptions were using your points through Chase’s travel portal, and you were getting that sort of fixed one or one and a half cents per point for travel. Now, you're using those same exact Chase points, but instead you're getting four or five times the value out of them. Is that something that you even expected to happen when you first joined the course, you first started really learning about this aspect of using your points to be able to book hotels and airfare?

Cherie: I think I had an idea about it because I had seen you post some stuff in the group before I actually joined the course, but I don't think that I had the confidence to know that when I found something that this was good value.

Devon: Why do you think that is?

Cherie: I think, well in the course you show us, we get to watch you do a flight search. So I didn't realize how involved it was. I don't think I would have figured that out on my own. But you have to go into all the different frequent flyer accounts and try to figure out what it's going to cost for this one versus this one versus this one. It's pretty tiring. It's time consuming. 

But I think once you practice it enough, and I think just watching you do it a few times helped me to know okay, I know how to do it at least to where I can prepare them head to head to head to where I can be confident okay, this is a good deal, and pull the trigger and do it. I think that for me that was a mind block, being able to pull the trigger and just book it. 

Devon: I think that so many people experience that. I remember when I was really first learning about this whole world myself a number of years ago. I think all of us kind of start in that place of getting exactly you, one rewards credit card or two rewards credit card, and just getting used to using them to earn points. 

Then you kind of hit a point where you have earned points, and you're sitting on them, but then it's that next piece of what do I do with these? How do I know that I'm using these points well? Because it does take some time and effort build them up. It's not you can earn 800,000 points over the course of a week without trying. 

So I think we all have a tremendous sense of sort of pride in the number of points that we've earned and wanting to use them well, wanting to feel we are really getting a lot out of them, the type of travel we want. I think that can be really confusing and intimidating for people in the beginning. I think what happens for so many people is because now there's so much access to hearing people's stories about the trips that they are taking. It's possible to see people posting about flying business class to another country or taking their family of four economy class on a big trip. 

So I think a lot of people have that awareness of how this is possible. They may even have that same number of points in their account, whatever someone says they used to book a trip. But, at least for me in the beginning, it felt the gap between I have points and theoretically I know that it's possible to use them to book a trip, that gap, to me, seemed so big in the beginning in terms of well, what does it actually look like? What does it actually look to go out there and find these flights and book them using points? 

Because it is a very different process than, I think, what all of us are used to in terms of booking a trip in cash. Where there's one centralized place where you can go to type in your trip details, and it'll tell you the cash cost, and you just decide if you want to pay it or not, right. Versus when you have points, knowing wait a minute, some people aren't able to do this thing. You now are an example of getting four or five cents per point in value out of your points. But it's not immediately obvious, at least it wasn't to me, what that process looked like. 

One of the things that was really important to me, honestly, and one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to create a course for people is because I saw so many people kind of getting stuck at that first step of knowing that okay, I have an idea about how to earn points. I may even have a lot of points in my account. But I don't know really easily and clearly how to put these to work for me.

I think so many people either because they get confused or because they get intimidated, they just give up because there aren't a lot of just really useful step by step guides out there. So that was something that was really important to me in putting together this course is that I wanted to help kind of bring down, if not completely eliminate, that sense of overwhelm and confusion and intimidation when it came to using points. 

So I love hearing sort of what your experience was. Being able to come to those workshops and watch what it looks to be able to do these award searches. Because what I have found is that if you're someone who's interested enough and smart enough to figure out just the basics of earning points, which I think all of us are smart enough to do that, you're definitely smart enough to figure out how to use the points as well. But it can make it so much easier if you don't have to figure it out all on your own. 

Because so many of us, I'm sure you can relate to this, are busy, right? You work outside the home. You run a home as well. You have a family. You have a lot of goals and priorities. So even though the idea of using a lot of points to travel well might be interesting, that doesn't mean that you necessarily have the time or the inclination to put all those pieces together for yourself. 

So I just want to make sure I'm not making assumptions about you. How had you tried to figure out on your own before you joined the course? Was it even worth it to you to try to figure out how to really use these points for higher value redemptions?

Cherie: I'm the person who likes looking for good deals. I'll just preface it by saying that. That was how I grew up. I told you the story about my mom. I am actually really good at finding good deals. So I don't mind flipping through all the different clothes at Ross when I was a kid. I actually enjoy that. Even with that background, I would say trying to figure out the points thing, it was just, to me, felt like a big hurdle. 

When you're able to see somebody do something, it just makes it so much easier because you're not having to. I could have done on my own right. I could’ve, there's other resources out there. I could have looked on blogs. I could have done that. But I think really, it's when you actually do it, that's when you really learn how to do it. 

But then it's kind of scary to actually do it because you're like oh I have to transfer my points out of here to this one place. What if it doesn't work out, and I can never charge for it back. That part's scary, right? Sometimes you can't even really find what you're looking for until you actually get in there and login and just do all the things. So it was helpful to see you logged in and doing it. Then I'm oh, okay. So that's actually pretty simple to do. That, I think for me, that was really the biggest hurdle.

Devon: You talked a little bit about sort of this concern or some concerns that you had, which I think is so common among people using points of the what if. What if this part of it doesn't work out? What if this part goes wrong? Ultimately, you must have overcome those fears because you did transfer your points out of your credit card account, and you have booked travel. What do you think it was it allowed you to kind of overcome some of those concerns or trepidations about what if something happens to these points? Or it doesn't go exactly perfectly the first time I try to do this?

Cherie: Well, actually, it didn't go perfectly the first time I tried to do it. But I think knowing that I could find some alternative form of travel with the same carrier, that gave me some confidence that okay if it messes up, I'm sure I could take a trip sometime in the future and still use this. So I think that that was helpful. 

What happened with me was when we were planning our trip to Paris. So I'm going with my cousin. I mean it was on me. I totally messed up the dates that we're going. So I was I was tracking the release because you track the release on when these tickets come out. I’d been tracking it every single day for the week after we were supposed to go. 

So by the time I was ready to book it, that was supposed to be when we were supposed to be coming home, not when we're supposed to be leaving. Then the day we’re supposed to leave, the ticket prices were way high. So we actually had to change. So I didn't tell you this before, but we met anywhere in Europe. So we had actually decided on Greece. When we got to that point to try to book to Greece, it was too expensive. We didn't have enough points.

Devon: I think that's such a great point. Because I think one of the things that is key to me when I think about using points to travel is this specific idea of flexibility, right? Because you may have initially planned to go to Greece. Then once you kind of had all of your dates sorted out, just because we have points we're never guaranteed that the place that we want to go is going to have flights available in the class of service that we want, of course, from the airports that we're traveling from and to for the amount of points that we have. 

So I think this idea of at least being willing to be flexible, that you know that your points can get you somewhere. So kind of what is the range of things that you would be equally happy with is such an important mindset to have when you are traveling with points. So did you think that's something that came really easily and naturally to you? Or did you kind of have to develop that sense of flexibility when thinking about using your points for travel?

Cherie: I think I had to develop some sense of flexibility. I mean when you're booking with cash, you can get exactly what you want pretty much for the most part, unless it's something that's really high demand. But with points, there's just less availability. So we have to be a little bit more strategic about how far in advance you plan something. That's one thing.

I mean I was never that way. When I'm planning travel, just a few months out is when I would plan it. So I've never planned this far in advance. But because I knew I wanted to use points and I knew that the availability wouldn't be there if I booked two, three months out, potentially wouldn't be there. We had very specific dates that we wanted to do, that kind of helped with the flexibility piece of it.

Devon: When you had first joined Points Made Easy. I'm curious, did you know at that time that booking these specific trips, going to Costa Rica and going to Paris, were those your goals? What specifically was your goal when you first joined the course?

Cherie: Actually, yeah. Both of those trips were on my mind when I joined the course. I mean I think my goal really was just to learn how to do it and to feel confident doing it, which I definitely achieved by the end of the course. But yeah, I had always wanted to go back to Costa Rica. My kids love animals. That was been one of my favorite trips I've ever taken. I had heard that there were some great places that we could redeem points for there. So that was one goal. Also going to somewhere in Europe was my other goal. 

Let me add on to that, that it was also my goal to be able to fly business class because I have never flown business class. The class is called Point Me to First Class. So I never thought I would ever fly business class. Because in my mind, the cash price of it, I don’t work for a company that would pay for me to fly business class anywhere. It just was never even in my realm of possibility.

I'm a general pediatrician working in a W2 job and don't have the kind of cash to spend on a business classify. I mean I guess I do, but I don't choose to. So that was actually one of my goals is could I use my points to get a business class flight for myself and for my cousin who's going with me? So at least one way. So that's what we did. We actually have just one way that we're gonna go business class. We're flying back economy. But that's okay, right. That trip that we have planned is a combination of both economy, budget travel and kind of some nicer places. That's totally okay.

Devon: Yeah, and I think honestly, that is such, to me, one of the powers of using points is that everybody gets to decide kind of what is the best way that you want to use points for yourself. I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as a right way to use points or a wrong way or a good way or a bad way. 

The thing that I really want to do and that's really important to me is that I see so many people using points, or what they know about points is only, again, kind of what the credit card company tells you. That your points are worth one cent or one and a half cents. So that is what most people know about exactly what your experience was before you started learning about different methods of earning points and using points. 

So my perspective is that, again, there's no bad way to use points whatsoever. But it's really, I think, important that people understand what is the possibility of points because when you see wait a minute, it is actually possible to get three points or four points or five cents per point value from your points. Then you can start making those really educated decisions about oh, now that I know all these options are open to me, now what's the best fit for me?

I think the flexibility of points is something that I have really come to value because unlike cash tickets that are priced kind of insanely high if you try to book one way cash flights versus a round trip cash flight, for the most part that's not true with points flights. For the most part, a points flight costs half for a one way ticket as a roundtrip ticket. That allows you to make so many more choices when you're using points. 

Like you said, you can choose to fly one class of service when you're flying somewhere and a different class of service coming back. I love that flexibility because you can very easily build a cash itinerary doing the same exact type of thing. So being able to really customize even more the way that you want to travel and the type of travel that you want to have and mixing, again, these priorities of where do we want to splurge a little bit using points? What's not so important for me in terms of then being able to focus more on value of using cash?

I think these are the ways that points can be so valuable to us. I think once people have the opportunity to really learn about what does that look like and how can I navigate this system a little bit more skillfully. I think that's when you can start having more travel and having just different types of travel available to you. So, I love that point that you made. 

I tell people all the time, I call my business Point Me to First Class not because I think people should only want to fly in business class or first class. It's really because what I think is possible with points, what I want to share with people is that however we individually define first class travel, that is available to us with points. Sometimes that does look flying business class, especially on an overnight flight to Europe so that you can arrive a little bit more well rested, not quite so jetlagged.

But first class travel, to me, also looks being really strategic about how you use your points and saying, hey on the way back, I actually don't want to use my points to fly business class because I want to be able to bring the points price of my flight down. So I'm gonna pick a different class of service to still have the overall experience that I want. I think that that is, you're such a beautiful example of that. Of really individualizing how you want to use points to make them work for you. 

So I think there's just a great story there. Honestly, I'm so excited to hear your experience flying both there and on the way back and what that's for you to be able to go on this trip that you used points to book. 

One of the things that I wanted to ask you about was thinking back kind of on your journey, these different phases of learning about just what points travel is and building up your skills using points, earning your points, just your understanding about kind of all these little nuances of points travel. After you joined Points Made Easy, can you think back and remember what is the first thing that you really remember changing for you either about the way that you understood points travel or just the way that you felt about earning or using points?

Cherie: I will say one thing that I did different, maybe just before I joined the course, was being very mindful about where I was shopping for things. Because I would previously, okay, I need something. Just go on Amazon. That was just the easiest thing. When I kind of learn about the Rakuten trick, I was very mindful about looking on there and seeing what could I maximize this spend? Because, again, I was trying not to spend more than what I normally would spend anyway. 

So I was able to rack up a lot of points on Rakuten for that first three months that I was using it for points as opposed to cashback. I mean it was enough for me to buy one of my tickets for three months’ worth of spending, and that's not even what I got for my credit card. That blew my mind. 

But I think once I joined the course, it was really for me more about, because part of the course is about how do you get the points. I think one thing that I learned that I didn't know before that made me feel more confident about all this was when you went through how does each thing that you're doing affect your credit score? Particularly getting a new credit card, how does that affect your credit score? Because when you get new credit cards, your credit utilization ratio goes down, and that actually helps your credit score. 

So that was actually one of my biggest mind blocks. What’s gonna affect my credit score be by doing this? Having the confidence to be okay, I feel like my credit score is going to be okay if I apply for these cards, and actually how to monitor it too, right. So I've been able to monitor since I've been doing this, and my credit score has not changed. I think it went down a point one month, and the next month it was up again. So yeah, it didn't affect my credit score at all. 

So that was one thing was getting over that roadblock about applying for new cards. I don't feel I have been the person who's applied for a ton of cards. There hasn't been really that many between when I first started and now. But what I've been able to do is leverage my spend so that each spending category I have, I don’t even need the stickers because I think about this so much. I know this is my card for groceries. This is the card for gas. 

For the things I spend the most money on, I know how to get more than one times points on it and have the cards that I need to be able to do that. So that was the other thing was figuring out which cards do I want to add to my list of cards without adding a ton of cards, which is never really what I wanted to do, and still be able to get the benefit from them. So that's one thing. Then really, the other thing was how do I redeem these points for good value? So that's the part that I think was really the most valuable part for me. 

Devon: I remember back to when I was first learning, and always continuing to learn, about this hobby and kind of the different things that are available to you. I remember thinking very similar to you that I wasn't opposed to opening up a few credit cards, but certainly in the beginning, I didn't want to have five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 credit cards all opened up right away, and to have to juggle those just in terms of remembering which card I was supposed to use for what expense or just keeping track of making sure that I was paying every single one of those statements on time. 

One of the things that I encountered kind of early on as I felt at least at that point, there was really kind of limited conversation about all of these different ways that you can actually earn points. I think, for good reason, a lot of people focus on getting new credit cards to earn the signup bonus. It's certainly a great way to earn a lot of points quickly. But, to me, that's just one chapter of the entire book. 

One of the things that I learned from my own experience personally was that wait a minute, when you do have higher than average expenses, whether it's personal or running a business is that you don't need to rely only on having new credit cards and earning the signup bonuses. Even though over the past 10 years, I definitely have acquired more credit cards over that time. It's actually rare for me to apply for a lot of new credit cards over the course of a year because I think it's so much easier to utilize some of these other points earning methods to be able to really capitalize on our expenses.

So that was something that I was always kind of looking for more was a conversation about how do I personalize this approach to me, and that's something that I really want to share with other people. While yes, you can absolutely get new credit cards for sign on bonuses. I think there are times where that makes a lot of sense. That that's not the only way to earn points, and that the way that works also for some people may not be the exact method that works for you. 

So I think one of the things that's just so important to tell people or one of the things that's important to me is to help people kind of really understand and personalize what is earning and using points look like for me, right? That there's no such thing as there's one way to do this and everybody has to do it the same way or else it's not going to work for you. 

So I love hearing your story that sitting where you are now, you've not been doing this for a really long time. Even by just opening up a few credit cards that are a good fit for you, you've already been able to earn enough points and figure out how you want to use them so that you've got some really amazing travel coming up. That's something that I'm just so thrilled for you. I'm so excited for you to be able to take these trips. I just want to hear from you. Did you think this was going to be possible for you? Is this what you had anticipated, honestly, six months ago?

Cherie: No. I really miss traveling, but, again, I didn't have any specific plans about what to do. I mean honestly, my trip to Paris was totally random. We had not talked about this or planned about this at all. What happened was we were out to lunch around Thanksgiving. My cousin and I were talking about how we both need to start working out.

I'm a lifestyle medicine doctor. One of the big pillars of lifestyle medicine is exercise. That's, admittedly, my hardest one. It’s always been. I'm not an athletic person. I've never liked exercise. But the times that I'm actually good about doing it is when I've paid money to do it. I've been in a class or I've paid a trainer or something. For her, it's the same thing. 

So we were saying well what if we paid ourselves to exercise, and that was our travel budget, and let's go to Paris. We were kind of just joking, joking, not joking. That's what it became. So we pay ourselves money every 30 minutes of exercise. We put in this, I have a designated bank account that I transfer money to. It's my travel budget. I think it's gonna become our food budget since we were able to leverage all, I got her into points after that conversation. So she's actually doing half the travel with the point she's accrued, and I'm doing half the trip. I think the rest of the money that we get from exercising will be our food budget.

Devon: That will be money very, very well spent. I'm sure especially when you're in Paris and walking around all over the place that you're going to be able to get some really, really incredible food experiences when you're there. Cherie, thank you so much for joining me today. I actually have one more question for you before we wrap up. 

One of the things you had said kind of in the beginning of our conversation was one of the initial barriers for you was kind of this idea or this sense that it was just going to be too much trouble for you to figure out points. It's one of the things that kind of kept you from really getting into this world and this hobby to begin with. 

For anyone who's listening to this podcast, I'm sure that there are going to be people who can kind of relate to that idea of this whole thing sounds great, right? I see what other people are doing. That sounds awfully nice. But it seems it's going to be a lot of trouble to figure out how to do this. I'm just curious if you have any words of advice for anyone else out there who might be thinking that same thing about maybe this is too much trouble or too hard for me to figure out?

Cherie: Well, I would say first off, don't do it out of FOMO. Because I think it's easy to see there's all these different ways to get points, and then it gets really overwhelming because you're like oh. There's all these different things. It just feels a lot because you see it right. 

So I think just pick the one thing that you want to do is the first thing I would say. But I would also say well focus on your why. Why would you even want to do this, right? For me, my why is my family. That's how we connect. My kids love traveling, as do I. My husband’s not as big into traveling. But I think once he gets there, he enjoys it.

But yeah. But I think for me, the why is that I want my kids to explore the world. I think that that's when we all relax the most. We really connect. Well, what can I do to achieve my why? If for you, paying cash to do all that is reasonable and desirable then you should do it that way. There's no reason not to. Right? 

I think, for me, I had this why, but I don't think I had either the willingness to use what financial resources I do have to achieve the amount of travel that I think would help me to really fulfill my why. So then it became easier to get over the hurdle of okay well, maybe it's worth figuring this out because now I'm seeing these people redeem points for this amazing travel that I would love to bring my kids to those experiences. I just don't have the money to do that.

So then that gets over that hump of okay well, maybe I will look into it, but I think not looking into it like I'm going to go from couch to marathon. I'm gonna do it from going to couch to walk, right? So what does that look like? I think that you could do it just easy, just get one points card, and just start accruing the points and see what happens. Then when it comes to redeeming it, then you cross that bridge when you get there. 

Or you could do what I did was follow someone who's done it before, and who knows what she's doing, and learn from her because then it happens much faster. Because I 100% think I could have done this on my own, but it would have taken me a lot of hours of research and a lot of time, and I may not have actually done it because it would have been harder for me to pull a trigger feeling I was all alone doing it. 

But when you kind of have a guide Devon, and I just thank you so much for being such a great guide, then you just feel you have the confidence to do it and really achieve, what is your why. So that's what I would say is focus on your why.

Devon: Cherie, I think that is amazing advice honestly for all of us out here listening. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank you for sharing your story. I, again, I'm so thrilled for you, for your family, what points are going to do for you. I cannot wait to catch up with you and hear all about the amazing trips that you already have planned and your experiences on them. Thank you so much for joining us today. Have amazing safe travels.

Cherie: Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed talking to you today.

Hey, if booking $20,000 worth in travel using points Cherie has sounds incredible to you, I want to invite you to join Points Made Easy. It's my online course that shows you exactly how to leverage your expenses not only to earn tons of credit card points, but how to use those points to get the highest value redemptions possible so that you can book the award travel that matters the most to you. 

Doors open for enrollment in Points Made Easy this week, Friday, May 19th, but only stay open for one week. To make sure that you have first dibs on joining when enrollment opens, be sure to jump on the waitlist now at www.pointmetofirstclass.com/pointsmadeeasy. That's 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.