13. Everything Rewards Travel: Listener Q&A

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.

Hello everybody, and welcome to today's podcast. We are gonna be doing something a little bit different this week. So instead of my telling or teaching you all about a really specific topic within the world of credit cards and points travel, or having a guest on and interviewing them and having a conversation about their experience in points travel. Today's episode is going to be a listener Q&A.

So I had a bunch of people submit all sorts of questions kind of ranging the whole spectrum of questions about credit card points and award travel. So I picked a few of those questions that I'm going to answer on the podcast today. one of the things that I think you will probably notice as you listen to this episode is that a lot of questions that are posed around different areas of points travel, I don't think have one like very certain finite answer that's going to apply to everybody.

There are a lot of times where certainly in the context of the questions for this episode, but just in the world, again, of points travel in general, I think the answers to a lot of questions are truly it depends. it depends on so many different things, right? Everybody listening to this podcast is different. You probably live in different parts of the country, if you are based in North America, or different parts of the world, right?

Like what you tend to spend money on isn't gonna look exactly the same as everybody else. what you want to do with your points isn't going to look exactly the same as what everybody else wants to do. so instead of trying to provide you all with these hard and fast rules or hard and fast answers about credit cards and points travel.

Instead, I think it's really useful to hear not so much just the way that I personally would do things, but the way that sometimes I think about how I answer these questions. Because if you understand kind of some of the reasoning that goes into the way that I think about points not that mine is the best way the right way to think about points. But if you have a framework for understanding the reasoning behind a lot of these answers then that allows you to then apply that reasoning to yourself and your unique situation to help you come up with the best answers for you.

that is really one of my biggest goals and points travel is not to create a bunch of people who all do things the exact same way, but to really show you all the power and flexibility of using points to travel when you get really comfortable applying some of these kind of key concepts to yourself. So that's how I recommend you listen to today's episode.

with that, we are going to dive into our first question. So this question comes from Faryal. I love this question because it sounds like it should have an answer, and it doesn't. So I thought this would just be a really great one to start this episode with just to highlight the point that I just made about so many of these questions have an answer that depends on you.

So Faryal’s question is how many credit cards are enough? I think this is a great question. I think so many people ask this when they do get into rewards credit cards because they may be coming from a background of really predominantly using maybe one or two credit cards for all of their spend. then you get into this world where you start to understand, again, the power and the flexibility of using points to travel.

if you are based in North America or you have access to like the American credit card and banking system, there are a lot of options of rewards credit cards that you can apply for. I mean, there are I think over 100 honestly between all of the different credit card issuers, the hotel specific, airline specific, transferable points currency credit cards. There are so many options.

so this question of how many credit cards are enough really depends. I think it depends on a couple of different factors. so I want to go through, again, kind of how I think about this so that you can apply this thinking to yourself because for some of you, three rewards credit cards is going to be enough. For some of you, five or 10 or 15 credit cards are going to be enough. So it's not that there is one number that is going to be true for everybody.

Instead, I think it's useful to think about what is it that you want to do and get out of with points. For some of you, it's going to be something that is very, very specific and very, very limited. It might be that what you want to get out of credit cards and points is, for example, the ability to fly someone free on Southwest with you for a year or two as you're doing a lot of domestic travel or travel in areas that Southwest services.

So maybe for you, your main priority is getting a Southwest companion pass. So if that's the case, then you're probably not going to want or need to get a ton of different credit cards. You're gonna want to focus on getting specifically the Southwest credit cards that are going to allow you to qualify for a companion pass, and maybe some of the flexible or transferable points credit cards that allow you to transfer points into Southwest to use for booking their flights. So in this case, that would be probably the Chase ecosystem of credit cards, right.

But for somebody else who might have a much broader idea or goal in terms of what they want to get out of travel, which may be something like they want to set themselves up to take one business class trip internationally every single year. So for that person, the number of credit cards is going to be enough might look very different, right?

Because maybe what that person wants to do is really maximize earning the sign on bonus points from new credit cards so that they can accumulate a lot of points over a period of time in different transferable points currencies to give them the flexibility of being able to access different airline transfer partners of different credit cards.

so, as I mentioned before, there is no one right answer to this question of how many credit cards are enough. I think what's more important is for you to first be very clear about what are your specific personal goals with credit cards and with points. Because that is going to help you, number one, identify which credit cards or which points currencies are going to be the most useful for you at that time. it's going to help you create a plan for which specific credit cards are going to be the most useful for you in terms of their ability to earn points and what transfer partners they have access to that are going to be useful for you.

I think that you know when you have enough rewards credit cards for yourself is when you're able to earn enough points consistently to be able to take the type of trips that you want to take at the frequency that you want to take them. so if you find yourself not being able to earn enough points to travel more than once every two or three years and you want to travel more than that, then maybe that's a good indication that you currently don't have enough rewards credit cards for your personal travel goals or priorities.

conversely, if you find yourself being able to maintain pretty decent points balances that are able to support the type of travel and the frequency of travel that you want to do, then you probably do have enough credit cards for yourself at that time.

All right, the next question comes from Tiffany. Tiffany asks are there certain reasons why someone might want to lean towards earning more membership rewards points so those are American Express points versus ultimate rewards points which are Chase points and vice versa, especially when it comes to everything else spend, i.e. after a signup bonus has been rewarded?

Yes, I think there definitely are some reasons why someone might want to lean towards a specific transferable points currency over a different one. it doesn't even have to be Chase points versus American Express points. So right now there are about five main transferable points currencies. There's American Express, Chase, Citi, Capital One, and Bilt.

when it comes to thinking about why you might want to lean towards earning one type of points currency over another because I think for most people, I would say most of us, and this even includes me. I certainly end up on the far end of the spectrum in terms of the number of credit cards that I feel comfortable managing and my comfort level in terms of finding and booking award travel. Even I don't have and don't want to have credit cards in all five different points currencies.

For many, many, many years, I only had Chase and American Express points earning cards. it's only been recently that I've also branched out into Citi. so first thing is that the vast majority of people will not actually want to have points earning credit cards in all of the different points ecosystems. so for basically all of us, yes, there are going to be reasons why we want to lean towards earning one type of points currency versus another.

I think about this as kind of two main things to think about. The first thing that I would think about is what do you want to do with your points? Because if you look at the five main transferable points currencies, all of them have their own specific menu of airline and or hotel transfer partners. while there is some overlap between the menus of different points currencies, they are not all exactly identical.

so what that means and why I think this is useful to think about is if you have a specific travel goal in mind, I think it makes a lot of sense to first look at which transferable points currency is going to give you access to a specific airline or a specific hotel transfer partner that you anticipate really wanting to leverage. Because that can help you really narrow down, first of all, which points currencies you even want to get into to begin with.

But if you are someone who is managing more than one transferable points currency, and you're trying to think about where do you want to allocate your spend, or where do you want to focus your spend. If, for example, you do have Chase points earning cards and American Express points earning cards, then I think knowing which of the transfer partners you're really focused on being able to access, even for just one upcoming trip, can help you determine where you want to put your spend.

So because this question is specifically about Amex points versus Chase points, I'll give you one example of that. So when you look at the airline and hotel transfer partners of American Express and Chase, like I said, they do have some of those transfer partners in common. Meaning you can transfer either points currency to one specific airline transfer partner, like Air Canada Aeroplan or Air France Flying Blue.

But where using these different menus of transfer partners can be very helpful in looking at what are the unique transfer partners between the points currencies that maybe you have access to. So when it comes to American Express and Chase, only Chase points transfer to United Airlines or to Hyatt Hotels, or to Southwest Airlines compared to American Express points.

Whereas American Express points has some transfer partners that Chase does not have access to. Things like ANA Airlines and Cathay Pacific airlines. so when you're trying to think about how do I want to allocate spend, or which of my credit card points currencies do I really want to focus on, I think it can be very, very helpful to think about is there one of the airline or hotel transfer partners that you are prioritizing saving up points for, for a certain trip. Because if you are then I think that it makes a lot of sense to then lean more heavily on the specific points currency of that transfer partner in terms of earning points for kind of that everything else spend or the non-signup bonus spend that you have.

then the second thing that I think comes into play when you have rewards credit cards from more than one transferable points currency, and you're trying to think about where do you want to allocate your spend, your everything else spend, or even your category bonus spend is if you do not have a really specific trip that you're saving up for that would really make you lean heavily towards one of those points currencies or the other. Then another way that I think about it is, if I have multiple rewards credit cards that could all theoretically earn points for spend, is there a really compelling reason to put spend in one points ecosystem versus another in terms of the ease of earning points?

what I mean by that is that, for example, both American Express and Chase have online shopping portals. So that if you are going to do some online shopping, you can navigate through the online Chase shopping portal, or you can navigate through American Express's shopping portal, which is called Rakuten. that enables you to earn a lot more Chase points or a lot more American Express points for certain shopping that you do online.

so if one of those shopping portals is offering a much higher payout for shopping in a store that you're already intending on shopping at anyway, then I think that that can be a really good reason to lean towards earning one point currency versus another, which is just another way of saying do I have an ability to maximize my points earning by favoring one of these points currencies over another either for one particular expense or for a period of time?

this is something that we have really seen, at least I've really seen, this over the last probably year or two, specifically with American Express's online shopping portal Rakuten. There are certain times of year where they have been offering just really, really outsized bonuses compared to some of the other shopping portals, especially Chase’s, where for a given store, the American Express shopping portal may be offering 15 or 20 times points for a purchase where the Chase shopping portal maybe only offering two or three times points.

so I think it is really useful if you are wondering should I lean more towards earning one transferable points currency versus another if you have access to earning both is I think it makes a lot of sense to look at do I have a points earning opportunity that's just so much higher with one of these points currencies than another? Then just being able to leverage that to earn a bunch of those types of points.

Again, this is most useful if you're in a phase of points earning where you don't have a really specific idea of how you want to use those points in mind. instead your priority is just to optimize the number of points that you can earn because you know that once you build up your points balances, you will be able to find a use for those points for a future trip.

So the next question has to do with business credit cards. It is do you have to own a business to get a business credit card? Does running a household count as a business? So this is such a great question because I think there was a lot of misconceptions around qualifying for business credit cards, applying for business credit cards, using business credit cards, specifically to earn points.

first, I will answer the part about does running household count as a business. Unfortunately, it does not. So running your household will not in and of itself qualify you to apply for, to get approved for a business credit card. But the good news is that basically everybody can legitimately qualify for a business credit card because you do not have to have what I think most of us think of as “businesses” to get a business credit card.

what I mean by that is, you do not have to be running a business that has multiple tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue in order to qualify for a business credit card. You do not have to be employing other people in order to qualify as a business to get a business credit card.

So basically, anything can qualify as a business. Certainly, if you are doing revenue generating activities, that will qualify as a business. But you do not have to have a business that is generating revenue in order to qualify for a business credit card.

So some examples of this when you're first just starting up a business, right? So many people start a business, and they're incurring legitimate business expenses before that business has started to generate revenue. So you may need to invest in office furniture. You may need to invest in social media advertising, or you may need to invest in hiring consultants or contractors to do work for you like build a website. It doesn't matter what it is.

So one thing I really want to impress upon you is that you do not have to have established revenue in order to apply for a business credit card. when you do apply for a business credit card, you can do that as a sole proprietor using your own social security number. So you do not have to have a “legitimate business” with a US federal tax ID number in order to apply for business credit card, although if you have one, by all means, do use that.

But even if you are a sole proprietor, you are the entire business. You can still apply for a business credit card using your own social security number. So whether or not you sell some things on Facebook marketplace, or you do some contract services within your community. If it’s for like $20 of revenue, it doesn't matter. If you take surveys as part of your business. I mean, so many different things qualify as a business.

so for those of you out there who are really interested in applying for business credit cards, either because you have a business whose expenses you want to keep completely separate from your personal expenses, or because you want to be able to access business credit cards because they have really great sign on bonuses oftentimes, or because there are business credit cards that offer perks or benefits that you won't have access to with personal credit cards.

I want to encourage you all to really expand your idea of what “counts” as a business, and to not be afraid to go out and apply for a business credit card using your social security number as a sole proprietor, and to be completely honest on your business credit card application. If your business has $0 in revenue its first year, you can be honest about that. If your business has $300 of revenue, you can be honest about that.

So go ahead, apply for a business credit card that you're interested in. don't limit yourself to only personal credit cards thinking that if you are not the owner of a legal practice or if you are not employing 10 people that you are not going to qualify for business credit card because that is just not true.

The next question comes from Ifna who says, “I would love to hear about your thoughts on the scenarios where it makes sense to get an airline or hotel specific card versus a card with a bunch of transfer partners i.e. Delta, Amex, or a Hyatt card?” I love this question because I think this really kind of pokes at some conventional wisdom that I certainly perpetuate.

I think a lot of us in the award travel space perpetuate, which is that there is tremendous value in the transferrable points currencies, right. In those kind of big five points currencies that I mentioned a little bit earlier in this episode. I think that for most people, having at least one of those transferable points currencies in terms of having rewards credit cards that earn a transferable points currency is really, really valuable.

But that doesn't mean that you should completely ignore airline specific or hotel specific credit cards because I think there are certain scenarios and times when having those cards can be very, very useful. so here are just my thoughts about the scenarios where it makes sense to get an airline or a hotel specific credit card.

Certainly, I think if you geographically live in an area where you really only have access to one main airline, I think it could make a lot of sense to get an airline specific credit card for that airline if you are traveling them a lot. So I think there's certain areas of the country where, for instance, you may have access to Delta and not a lot of other domestic airlines. Of course, you may have access to a little bit, but certainly some Delta hubs are predominantly Delta, or some Alaska Airline hubs are predominantly serviced by Alaska Airlines.

so if you live in a geographic location where you do a decent amount of domestic travel, and you find that the vast majority of domestic travel is on one specific airline then I think it could make a ton of sense to get an airline specific credit card. Because oftentimes, these credit cards will allow you to earn multiple bonus points for purchasing tickets on that specific airline, or they can give you access to other perks that may be really useful and valuable to you.

For instance, things like the first checked bag free. So if you are doing a lot of economy flights, and you are purchasing tickets that don't automatically get you checked bags, it can be really useful to have an airline specific credit card that gives you that benefit or that perk. There are airline specific credit cards that give you early boarding access, right. So you might be in group five instead of group eight or nine. if you're someone who travels predominantly with carry on travel, and you want to make sure that you have access to overhead bin space, it can be really valuable to have access to things like priority boarding. Some airlines specific credit cards will give you access to that.

Another example is let's say that you are not particularly loyal to a specific airline, and you still want to have some sort of elite like travel benefits. So I live outside of Chicago. it's an enormous benefit. one of the things I love about having very easy access to O'Hare as my kind of main local airport is I have lots of options of airlines, even though it is a United hub technically, there are tons of American flights that go in and out of O'Hare. There are some Delta flights, not as many. But when I travel domestically, I have zero loyalty.

My loyalty is to convenience. Which airline is going to be operating the flights that were the best times for me. Certainly, which airlines are operating flights that have direct flights if I'm traveling with my young kids, and I really want to minimize having layovers. so I have no loyalty whatsoever when it comes to airlines, but I do like having access to some elite like travel benefits that just make traveling a lot more convenient for me.

So I'm probably never going to earn any status of any worth in a domestic airline. I just don't travel enough with any of them in order to do that. But I do really like having access to some elite like benefits. I leverage airlines specific credit cards in order to have access to those.

one example of that is I have a United specific credit card. So Chase offers a couple of different flavors or versions of United credit cards. I specifically have the United credit card that comes with United Club access. So this credit card is not what I would consider a beginner credit card. It does have a pretty substantial annual fee. But the reason that I personally love this credit card is that when I am flying on United, which I do tend to do about half the time going in and out of O'Hare and certainly other airports depending on where I'm traveling domestically, it gives me access to United club lounges within the airport.

Which can be very convenient for me to have a really quiet space to be outside of kind of the main airport terminal area. If I am traveling with my family, it's really nice to be able to bring all of us into the United Club Lounge when we are traveling on United. the other thing that I love about this card specifically, and some other premium airline branded credit cards have this same type of benefit, is that having the United Club Card gives me access to the United priority check-in line.

I think that this is honestly a very overlooked benefit. I'm surprised I don't hear people talking more about premium airline credit cards that give you access to the priority check-in lines because I don't know how often you'll have been traveling recently and needed to check bags. But depending on what airline and what airport you're flying out of, those check-in lines can be so incredibly long.

I mean even if you check-in online, you print your own bag tags, just waiting in line to be able to drop off a bag or waiting in line to check-in, again depending on where you're traveling, that can take forever. That can be very, very stressful. so having a credit card that even when I am flying economy, which is honestly most often when I'm flying domestic and short haul international flights, like from the States to Mexico or from the States to Caribbean. I usually do fly economy, but I love being able to have access to the priority check-in line and to skip that huge regular economy check-in line. That is such a valuable benefit for me.

I do travel economy often enough where that is really worthwhile. I think if I traveled once a year then I probably wouldn't value that benefit as much. But I do think having access to priority check-in lines can be really, really amazing. So especially if you are located near a hub city, and you don't have status within the airline of that hub.

I'm thinking specifically of Miami. If you are flying in and out of Miami on an American Airlines flight and you don't have American status, you know that those economy check-in lines can just be miles and miles long. So having a credit card that gives you access to a premium check-in line can be wonderful.

then likewise, thinking about reasons why you may want to get a hotel specific or an airline specific credit card over or in addition to a transferable points currency type of credit card is if there is an airline or a hotel that you do have loyalty to and you want to be able to use credit card spend to help you increase your tier of status within the loyalty program of that hotel or airline. Because many airline and hotel specific credit cards have spending tiers or spending thresholds where if you put a certain amount of spend on that card during the year, you in turn get some sort of status benefit from it.

So I'm going to give you example of some of the credit cards that I hold for this specific reason, but certainly these are not the only examples of it. So I mentioned that I am not loyal at all to airlines, but I am very, very loyal when it comes to hotels. I personally love Hyatt Hotels. I think they have a really, really valuable loyalty program, especially at their top tier, which is called globalist status. I get literally thousands of dollars’ worth of benefits from my globalist status with Hyatt every single year.

one of the things about the Hyatt specific credit cards that I think is very valuable is that they allow you to earn within Hyatt’s program what are called qualifying nights, which is essentially just nights that allow you to qualify for higher tiers of status within their program. so for Hyatt, I probably do not stay in Hyatt properties enough nights per year to qualify for top tier status based on stays alone. So I am not staying in Hyatt Hotel properties their required 60 nights per year to qualify for globalist.

So having a Hyatt credit card allows me to deliberately put spend on that credit card and then that spend can make up the difference that I need in order to maintain my globalist status. that is very, very valuable for me. So I have both the personal and the business Hyatt credit card. I love having them both because I actually do have completely distinct and separate personal and business expenses. So having both allows me to be able to put spend on either one of the cards depending on if it's personal or business spend.

But for example, the business Hyatt credit card for every $10,000 of spend that you put on that card, you get five qualifying elite nights toward status. so what this enables me to do is throughout the year, I can strategize based on the number of nights I know I'm planning to spend actually at Hyatt Hotel properties. I can then make up the difference of the number of nights that I need in order to qualify for and maintain my globalist status by putting a specific amount of business spent on my Hyatt business credit card so that I can make sure that I maintain my status. that is really valuable and worthwhile for me.

So for those of you who do have loyalty to an airline or hotel, but you don't actually travel enough with that brand to hit a certain level of status within their loyalty program just on your travel alone. you want to supplement that by having a credit card that allows you to use some of your spend towards earning status. That's when I think having an airline or hotel specific credit card, in addition to transferable points earning credit cards, can make a lot of sense.

All right, the next question is how do you maintain good relationships with the banks? I'm worried that applying for too many credit cards will harm bank relationships or negatively impact getting loans in the future. So this, I think, is a really fantastic question because I really think that kind of one of the foundations of having longevity in terms of earning points and using points is that you do need to have good relationships with the banks, right?

If you are going to be applying for credit cards and using credit cards, you need to be able to get credit cards from the banks. so one of the things that I think is important to think about is there is a difference in terms of thinking about your relationship with the bank between kind of the world of credit cards, of applying for and getting approved for and using credit cards, versus kind of all the other activities that you might want to have a bank relationship for. So specifically things like getting loans, right, whether that's a mortgage, or a line of credit, or a business loan, or whatever the case may be.

so first of all, I just want to separate off that piece. Because if you are really responsible about the way that you handle your rewards credit cards then I actually don't think you need to worry about negatively impacting your relationship with a bank in terms of being able to get loans and to do banking with them in activities just beyond rewards credit cards themselves. A lot of that is going to depend on your maintaining a strong credit score, which of course you can do even if you are applying for and using multiple rewards credit cards.

So that's the first thing I want to say is just baseline, this is true of basically anything that you want to do in terms of a relationship with a bank is to be really, really cognizant of maintaining a healthy credit score. I have an entire episode earlier on the podcast all about rewards credit cards and credit score. So I'm not going to go into details about that today. Other than to say that as long as you are managing your credit score responsibly then just having credit cards, or even applying for multiple rewards credit cards, should not negatively impact the relationship that you have with a given bank.

But when it does come to applying for and having and using rewards credit cards, there are certainly some activities that are going to be frowned upon in terms of the banks or the credit card issuers themselves that you want to be aware of and not do them so that you can maintain a good relationship with the credit card issuers.

So a couple of things that you want to make sure that you don't do in order to maintain a strong relationship with credit card issuers is, especially for rewards credit cards that carry an annual fee, do not sign up for rewards credit card for the sole purpose of earning the sign on bonus and then cancel that rewards credit card before you've held it for at least 12 months. So in order to avoid like trying to pay for an annual fee, you cancel a rewards credit card after six months or 10 months. Don't do this. Okay.

Rewards credit cards issuers hate this. Of course, they know that people may be signing up for the rewards credit cards specifically to earn the signup bonus. That is fine. Okay, a lot of us love getting sign on bonuses. But you don't want to threaten your relationship with a bank by then immediately canceling a rewards credit card because that is something that can be a reason for them to then not want to approve you for rewards credit cards down the line. Okay.

So when you apply for rewards credit card, even if it is one that has a high annual fee, hold that rewards credit card for at least 12 months. Do not cancel that card prior to having it for a year. Once you've held it for a year, if you do not see the benefit of continuing to hold that credit card, you don't have to hold on to it forever and ever out of fear that you might be damaging your relationship with a bank if you cancel it.

But what you want to do instead of canceling it is do what is called a product change. what this allows you to do is actually change the credit card that you originally had to a different credit card from that same issuer that usually has a lower or no annual fee, which maintains that credit account, maintains the account with that bank, but doesn't obligate you to continue holding a credit card with a really high annual fee that you are not getting a ton of value out of. So that's one thing that you want to avoid doing so that you can maintain a good relationship with a credit card issuer.

Another thing that you want to avoid doing in order to maintain a good relationship with your credit card issuer is that you do not want to do what's called credit cycling. What credit cycling is, is let's say you have a credit limit of $5,000 on a given rewards credit card. You do not want to put $5,000 worth of expenses on that card, pay it off, and then put another $5,000 of expenses on that card right away all within one billing cycle. Okay. That is what credit cycling is. Where you max out your credit limit, pay it off, max it out again, pay it off multiple times within one billing cycle.

Credit card issuers see this as a red flag because to them it makes it look like you need access to a lot more credit than they are comfortable giving you. So I wanted to highlight this because it doesn't actually matter if you have $200,000 sitting in a bank account with that bank that you are responsibly paying off that credit card statement multiple times. That doesn't matter.

So you can know that you've got enough liquidity to cover that, and you can know that you're being very responsible in terms of not spending money that you can then not pay off. But just the activity of credit cycling can be seen as a red flag to credit card issuers. Okay.

So if you do that once or twice, especially if it's in that period where you're trying to meet a sign on bonus, is that going to completely threaten your relationship with the bank? No, probably not. What you want to avoid is credit cycling as a pattern. So you don't want to be doing this month after month after month because that can flag your account and potentially get you shut down or prevent you from getting new or future rewards credit card with a certain credit card issuer.

One of the other things that I think you want to be aware of, and a lot of these things are gray areas, again, where there might be anecdotal reports of someone doing a thing and it not impacting them negatively. then you do the same exact thing, and it does impact you negatively.

so when it comes to the way that you use these credit cards, I think a lot of it comes down honestly to common sense, which is are you using these credit cards in good faith? Right? Are you doing something with that rewards credit card to earn points that you would be embarrassed to tell someone else you're doing? Like, if that's the case, that might be an indication that that is the type of activity that might get you in trouble with a bank. so, honestly, if you're using these credit cards in good faith, you really don't have a lot to worry about in terms of your relationship with a given bank.

Okay, the next question has to do with transfer bonuses. It says right now there's a 25% transfer bonus from Citi to Air France Flying Blue. I don't have a specific trip in mind that I'm ready to book flights for, but is it ever a good idea to transfer points to take advantage of a good transfer bonus? I think this is such a fantastic question because transfer bonuses are not rare, but they're also not exceedingly common.

So every once in a while some of the transferable points currencies credit cards programs will offer transfer bonuses between that specific points currency and one or maybe one or more of their specific airline or hotel transfer partners. So at the time of this recording, a couple examples of this is that Citi is having a 25% transfer bonus to Air France Flying Blue, American Express is offering a 15% transfer bonus to Avianca, and Chase is having a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin.

so historically, a lot of the major transferable credit card points currencies have offered these periodic transfer bonuses to certain transfer partners. they can range anywhere between like 10 or 15%, up to 25% or 30%. Especially when it's at that 30%, sometimes we even see 40% transfer bonuses, it can be really, really appealing to take advantage of that transfer bonus and move some of your credit card points into a frequent flyer account in order to capture that transfer bonus. Because a lot of times, these transfer bonuses are offered only for a limited period of time. So it may only be for a 30 day period that you would be able to capture that transfer bonus if you do initiate a points transfer.

so I think this is such a great question that when these transfer bonuses do come up, if you are not actively thinking of booking a flight with that specific frequent flyer program at that moment, does it ever make sense to go ahead and just speculatively or prospectively move credit card points over so that you can take advantage of the transfer bonus? I want to acknowledge that I think kind of conventional wisdom says no. I think that does make sense, but it doesn't always make sense.

so I want to talk about why I think no is a great answer for a lot of people for a lot of times. then I'm going to talk about when and why I think it can actually make sense to speculatively transfer points over in order to capitalize on a transfer bonus. So a lot of people say no, don't ever transfer points from a flexible or transferable points currency into an airline or hotel transfer partner just to capture a transfer bonus.

I think that again, for a lot of people a lot of times, that is great advice. there's a couple of reasons why. Number one, points transfers are irreversible. So once you move your points from a credit card account into an airline or hotel account, you can't move them back. so if you don't know that you're going to be planning a trip at those points, I think it makes a lot of sense to say well, don't go ahead and park a bunch of points in a specific airline frequent flyer program or hotel loyalty program if you don't know you're ever going to use those points right? Because you can't move them back into your credit card account.

So number one, be aware of that. Points transfers are one way. so if you're not comfortable having your points go into a frequent flyer account or hotel loyalty account and staying there until you use them, then no, don't transfer your points. I don't care how great the transfer bonus is.

The second thing that you want to be aware of is that not all but some miles do expire once you have transferred them. so if you're thinking of transferring points without an actual use for them in mind thinking, well I'm pretty sure I'll use these in a year or two years. Before you do take advantage of that transfer bonus, you want to verify that whatever specific airline or hotel program you're going to transfer your points into that you understand do those points or miles end up expiring? And if, when.

Because obviously you don't want to transfer over a bunch of points thinking you will probably use them in the future, not get around to actually making plans to use them, and having them expire. Because then they just go away, and that really sucks when it happens. So do be aware of that before you speculatively transfer points over.

the other reason that I think conventional wisdom says no, don't take advantage of a transfer bonus unless you have a very specific use of those miles or points in mind is because I think what happens is that for a lot of people, if they were to take advantage of a transfer bonus at a given time, it would leave them points poor. what I mean by that is, let's say you have 200,000 Chase points, and you want to take advantage of this 30% transfer bonus to Virgin, even though you're not really sure how you would use the points, or you don't have a specific points trip in mind.

so you move all of your Chase points, 200,000 of them, over to Virgin. So you get a 30% transfer bonus, which is amazing, but then it leaves you with no more Chase points. so then for that trip that you do have upcoming this year if you know you want to fly somewhere else that Virgin points aren't going to be useful for, you've left yourself in a position where you do have a lot of points, but you can't use them as flexibly as you could if you just left them within Chase to begin with. so if you are currently sitting on points balances that are not huge, and that are basically enough for you to plan one trip then I don't think it makes sense for you to go ahead and try to take advantage of that transfer bonus.

Now I want to talk about though when it could make sense for you to take advantage of a transfer bonus, even if you do not have a specific use of those points in mind. this is something that I have actually done several times where if there's a really great transfer bonus, even if I have no idea at the moment how I'm going to use those points, I do transfer my points, and I feel very comfortable with it. I feel confident that it's not a mistake for me.

So I'm going to tell you kind of the reasoning that I use so that, again, you can understand what is going to help you make a decision that's going to be best for you. So there are times that I have speculatively transferred points in order to take advantage of a transfer bonus. here are the reasons why.

If it is a frequent flyer program that I am very, very comfortable finding and booking award flights with, and I have a high degree of confidence that I will use those points in the future, meaning in the next year or two, then I don't have any problems speculatively transferring points over.

I have done this with Air France before because I find Air France Flying Blue to be an incredibly valuable program, especially for business class flights to Europe, which is something that I know may not happen in the next six months. But I'm pretty confident over the next few years, I will have a reason to look for business class flights to Europe. so I'm willing to speculatively transfer some points into Air France because I am comfortable with their program, and I have a high degree of confidence that I am going to be able to use those points.

The other reason when or why I will speculatively transfer points is because I am sitting on high points balances and multiple points currencies. so I can afford to shift over some points now. It's not going to leave me points poor for other trips that are upcoming that I know I want to have access to my points currencies in order to be able to use.

So I have never transferred like all of a certain type of points into a frequent flyer program in order to take advantage of a transfer bonus. So there are times where I might have 600,000 Chase points, and I will transfer 200,000 of those over to an airline that's having a transfer bonus because it's still going to leave me with a lot of points of that currency. so it's not going to prevent me from being able to take trips now because I've speculatively transferred points for some future travel that I'm not even that sure about yet.

then the third reason why I personally, when I have done this, I have felt comfortable doing it is if I have a high degree of confidence in my ability to replenish that type of points currency. So, for me, this very commonly happens with American Express. American Express has offered some great transfer bonuses, specifically I'm thinking kind of in the last year or two.

it's been very attractive for me to think about speculatively transferring points over to capture those transfer bonuses, but that's because either I already have a healthy balance of American Express points. Or if my Amex points balance is going to go down very low because of the transfer, I have a really high degree of confidence in my ability to earn a lot of American Express points again, kind of relatively quickly over a given period of time.

So I'll either have a plan to sign up for a new American Express card to earn a sign on bonus, or I will be anticipating being able to earn a lot of American Express points with upcoming spend, things like putting our quarterly estimated taxes on an American Express business platinum card. I know for me, and my family is kind of a good way for me to earn a lot of Amex points quickly. And, again, kind of on a relatively sustainable basis as long as we continue to have taxes.

So I am not afraid of speculatively transferring points in order to capture transfer bonuses, but I do it for very specific reasons under very specific conditions. so if those conditions do not apply to you then I think for the most part is safe to say don't speculatively transfer your points over just because of a great transfer bonus.

All right, this is the last question that I'm going to answer today. this question was actually the genesis, or the inspiration, for my doing this entire episode of all kind of listener and reader submitted questions is because someone had posted online sort of a contest or a challenge to try to guess how many different credit cards I personally hold. A lot of people were weighing in with whether they thought I had four credit cards or 87 credit cards and what counted and what didn't count.

so I wanted to make sure that I specifically answered this question because some of my listeners have a lot of interest in knowing how many credit cards I have. so I am going to preface this answer by saying that these are the credit cards that I'm the primary account holder on. So these are the personal and business credit cards that are personally under my name.

Many of you may know that my husband has also been roped into this game as my P2, my player two. so he has a lot of personal and business credit cards that are under his name, mostly that I have encouraged him to apply for. So I'm not counting our combined credit card portfolios.

So when I answer this, this is truly just the credit cards that I currently hold for myself. these have been accumulated really over the last nine years. the number of credit cards that I personally have right now is 24. that is split up between 13 personal credit cards, and 11 business credit cards. I actually use a decent number of those on what I consider to be a fairly regular basis. I probably use half of those between my personal and business credit cards, about 12 to 14 credit cards, on a fairly regular basis in order to really take advantage of the bonus categories for certain types of spend.

also I have noticed recently, especially with the credit cards that I hold. So I have a decent number of personal and business Chase credit cards, a decent number of personal and business American Express credit cards, and then I also have some airline specific credit cards. A lot of credit card issuers have been coming out with really, really valuable promotions lately. Like over a three month period, you can earn five times points on certain categories of spend that that card doesn't usually earn five times points on.

Or the American Express grocery bonus that we see going around right now where you can effectively earn nine times American Express points for three months on grocery spend. The Chase Freedom Flex card where if you applied for it during a certain period of time, you actually get five times bonus points on grocery spend for the first 12 months that you hold the card up to a certain amount of spend.

So I have seen so many great promotions recently on both my business and my personal credit cards that I have actually been using a lot of my cards on a really, really regular basis and not actually applying for new credit cards because my ability to earn points right now is just really high based on leveraging the just regular bonus categories that my credit cards have as well as promotions.

so I am not going to list out by name every single personal and business credit card I hold because 24 is a lot. It's probably gonna be very boring for you all. But I have a lot of the ones that you would expect within the Chase and the Amex family. holding just those two points currencies is what I did for really about six or seven years, and obviously got a tremendous amount of value out of them. it was only in the last year or two that I actually branched out into a third transferrable points currency, which for me was Citi.

so one of the things that I just want to leave you all with is that number one, you absolutely do not have to have 24 rewards credit cards to get a ton of value out of points. So certainly do not take that as a benchmark. It is not, you can get a tremendous amount of value out of holding three or five rewards credit cards if that is the right number for you.

like I said, in the beginning of the episode, you absolutely do not need to have access to every single transferable points currency or every single airline or hotel credit card in order to get tons and tons of value out of points and miles. So start with the ones that make the most sense for you, are the easiest for you, and know that you can always branch out from there.

All right, everybody. That is it for today. I hope that you enjoyed this episode, and I want to thank everyone who submitted a question to be considered for today's episode. If you have a question that you want to submit to get answered on a future listener Q&A episode, you can email your questions over to me at [email protected]. Can't wait to hear what more of your questions are and to do another episode like this again in the future. Hope you all have an amazing week, and I will see you again here next time.

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.