105. Turn Payroll into Points: A Game-Changing Strategy for Business Owners with DeAndre Coke

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, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Recently, I pulled my audience and asked them, what are your largest expenses that you cannot currently earn points for or don't know if it's possible to earn points for? And those of you who are business owners responded almost unanimously with one word, payroll. For many business owners, payroll can be their largest, if not one of their largest expenses, and it's painful to see this money go out the door in the form of a bank transfer or direct bank account withdrawal earning zero points. But just like there are ways to earn points for other large expenses like tax payments, there is a solution to earning points for payroll and that's what we're diving into today.

I'm thrilled to welcome DeAndre Coke to the podcast to talk about an innovative platform to pay payroll expenses with a points earning credit card. DeAndre is a seasoned financial advisor with a deep expertise in points and miles travel. We cover how business owners can leverage payroll expenses to earn significant rewards points, the types of credit cards that can maximize these earnings and practical tips for managing this strategy efficiently. DeAndre also highlights the financial benefits of combining personal finance strategies with intelligent travel rewards usage. I hope you all enjoy this conversation.

Devon: Welcome to the podcast, DeAndre. I am so glad to have you here. How are you doing today?

DeAndre: I am doing well, doing well. I'm so excited to be here. It's an absolute honor.

Devon: Oh, same. Likewise. And I think we are going to touch on something in this conversation that I've never covered on the podcast before, that you have a lot of experience and knowledge with and that I think is going to help so many people. So I'm really excited to dive in. But before we get to that, can you please just start us off by introducing yourself?

Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how did you find the world of points and miles travel to begin with?

DeAndre: Yeah. So name's DeAndre Coke. I live in the Norfolk, Virginia Beach area. So right here on the East coast and I by trade, I'm a financial advisor. And so I actually own a planning firm here in Bits Basin, Virginia Beach. We serve clients all over the country and almost all 50 states. I've had it for about 14 years now and have all the credentials and all the designations and all the things. We've received some recognition from Forbes in the financial planning space, so we work hard.

So I say all that to say I'm a really analytical person. And so being analytical means that I like to dive deep and figure things out. And I got into the points and miles space years ago. So in the personal world, I love to travel in general, I'm a huge proponent of travel. And I was looking at travel cards myself and got the Chase Sapphire Reserve like two months after it initially came out when they had that, you know, 100,000 point offer that I think maybe only once have they ever gone back up that high. And that's was my start in points and miles, but just like, you know, almost everyone that I know that you interviewed, cause I listened to your podcast and everyone talks about it, right? We all blow our points in the travel portal early on.

But what had happened was, as I was building my practice and growing, I had more and more individuals, more and more clients that were coming to me, asking me what credit cards I'd recommend, typically for things like travel. And one of the reasons I'm super excited being here is the fact that I know like your audience, right? You have a lot of, you know, women, especially physicians that you serve. And that's actually a big niche of my practice and myself specifically.

So if you go on my LinkedIn, you'll see it says I work with women business owners and women executives, etc. So I had a lot of women clients that were coming to me saying, hey, I love to travel, trying to get out more of this, or even maybe a post-divorce, trying to see the world. Like, what do you recommend? So instead of just saying, oh, these are good cards, I started deep diving a little bit myself and researching and seeing what are the best ways to use card points to strategize.

And that's really where I started finding the world of points and miles, learning about transfers and all these different things. And now I have to kind of balance myself because of course you and I, you know, we talk high level, super in depth on points and travels and things. For the most part, I typically keep it pretty simple in my responses, because most of the time they're not looking for the 18 layers of depth of transfer partners and everything like that. But I do let many clients know like, hey, on a high level, use this Chase card, you know, you can build up some points this way. And just so you know, I can help you figure out how to turn these points into something extraordinary.

And the really cool thing is with a lot of our clients, especially our clients that I work with on a fiduciary planning basis or a concierge planning level, they know that I love to travel. They know that I use points to travel. And so many of them, we try to discover or find through our relationship kind of approach with them. Like what are they passionate about? What's their goal in life? What are the objectives they can accomplish? And bigger than just like I'd like to save and invest and retire. You know, and so through those stories, I often find out like, hey, you know what?

That trip you want to take to see an F1 race in Monaco with your kid doesn't have to be 15 years from now. We can figure out how to do that much shorter using a strategy of, you know, proper financial management, but also points and don't worry, like you don't have to figure all that out. Like I can figure out that part with you. And so it gives me also a deeper connection to the client because how many advisors are out there talking to their clients about travel and like encouraging it, encouraging it sooner and also not having it cost as much, but it's also when, because they don't have to have them pulling so much from their investment accounts as well to do it. So it's a nice little balance there. So super long response, but that's kind of how we got into the world of points and miles.

Devon: No, it's perfect. And I think this is one of the reasons that I love having conversations with you so much is because I think there is this really, really intense overlap between points and miles travel and personal finance. And I think that that's a conversation that doesn't happen nearly enough, that they're seen as two completely separate things.

And I love the fact that we can bring these two things into conversation because to me points and miles is just one aspect of what feels to me like an overall wealth building strategy, all the money I'm not spending on travel because I'm offsetting that with points. That is real money that instead I can put in my kids 529 plans, right? I can invest in a taxable investment account. I can do other things with.

And so I think to be able to look at this bigger picture of how do points and miles actually really complement your overall wealth strategy or overall personal finance strategy is a conversation that I would love for every single, especially every single woman to be actively having in her own life. And so I love that you support that.

And I also love that you just like to nerd out on it as well because it makes for having really fun conversations like this one. But one of the reasons I wanted to have you on this show is because as a business owner in your role as a financial planner, even though let's be explicit, you are not offering any of us actual financial planning advice or tax advice or anything on this episode, you do have a lot of background and experience in it.

And we have a lot of business owners who follow this podcast, who are beginning to understand or who really, really embrace the idea that their business expenses are a fantastic tool, right, for affording them travel by allowing them to easily earn a lot of points.

And one of the things that I really like to focus on in my conversations with folks in general is how can we really earn as many points as easily as possible by strategizing how we can take advantage, especially of our largest expenses, and really have those do a lot of the heavy lifting for us, right, in terms of points earning. And for many business owners, one of their largest, if not maybe the single largest expense they have in their business is payroll.

And historically, there have not been really easy, straightforward ways to earn points by paying payroll with a rewards credit card. But that is changing. And I am really excited to have you share your experience with us, share your knowledge with us, and really open the door on these great points earning opportunities for business owners.

So, can you start us off and just kind of give us your thoughts about why you think business owners should consider using credit cards to pay for payroll?

DeAndre: Yeah, so the why is very simple. It's the points, right? It's the value of the points and what that can turn into. Now, I want to be very clear as I explain this though, and it makes sense. Most people when they hear this, they're thinking probably some super convoluted process of like changing up their whole payroll cycle, leaving their paychecks or their ADP or their gusto or whoever does their payroll to put a payroll on credit card. You don't have to do any of that.

And so we actually have a full article on this on our blog. So separately from the financial planning side, I've got of course the travel brand and the points and miles knowledge and such, which that brand, that company is called Boldly Go. We have a whole blog where we kind of go into the details and have all the links and all the screenshots for everyone to see. So that's there on our site.

But essentially the value in this is, if you earn the points, you can turn an expense as critical as payroll into a massive amount of points. And of course, as you know, those points can be used to transfer to partners to turn into travel. Now, my personal experience, I've been doing this for over a year now. I've been trying to find out forever how to do payroll on credit card. It has not been an option.

And I think I randomly researched again back in end of 2023, maybe fall of 2023 and saw that Zil Bank and their platform Zil Money specifically has started allowing people to do this. And I think I started back in August, 2023 and I got on board like maybe September, October of 2023. So I'm going on almost a full year and a half now of doing this and have never had an issue with it.

So one thing to be very clear about is you don't change anything to do with your payroll. So for our wealth management firm, our entire payroll process is done through a company called SurePayroll. So that is everything, all of our employees, our salaries, everything is there. Just for sake of easy numbers, I'm going to use a payroll cycle of $10,000. So let's just say every time we run payroll, the gross number, and that's with employer taxes, employee taxes, 401k contributions, all the things is $10,000 just for easy numbers. Of course, for a hospital, it can be a million. It can be a really large number, but we're just gonna use $10,000 for easy numbers.

So, in the most basic sense, all that you're doing effectively is taking a cash advance on your credit card, but it's not actually a cash advance. I wanna be very clear on that because usually when you do a cash advance that's a different interest rate, it's a whole different thing. But just to simplify the explanation of how it works, it's almost like doing that.

So when you go through Zil Money, you go through this website, you have your credit card of choice selected and your business bank account selected. And so if your payroll is $10,000, you go in and say, hey, I want to charge $10,000 to whatever card of your choice. They're going to charge that card with the $10,000 plus a fee, which we'll get to. So $10,000 plus the fee, and they're going to send you to your bank account $10,000. So they charge your car $10,000, they send you $10,000. So that right there is a wash, and almost everyone who's running payroll should already have their money in their account.

And so I think I want to be clear, this could be an issue if someone could fall into a trap where they are trying to float themselves this way. I think maybe in a case of like, I don't know, COVID, kind of crazy situation, you need to float yourself a little bit, this could work. But to be very clear, I'm charging a card using a bank account that's got money in it, where if I had never found this process, my payroll is still happening regardless. Is that making sense so far?

Devon: Yes, completely making sense. And before you go on with the rest of your explanation, I just want to have one clarifying point because people might accidentally confuse this. So the platform that you're talking about that allows you to pay your payroll using a points earning a rewards credit card is Zil Money. Zil spelled Z-I-L. Now, a lot of people probably have not heard of that, but they may have heard of Zell, which is Z-E-L-L, the sort of person-to-person payment platform that you can utilize.

These are two totally separate things, right? I just want to clarify that for people who maybe have not heard yet of Zil Money. Okay, fantastic. So what happens next in this process?

DeAndre: Yes, so essentially you've now charged the card, they've charged you $10,000. So the next question is, well, what's the fee? Right, that's obviously the next question. So then the fee on this is there's three components to the fee.

So A, to do this in general, you have to have a Zil Money business banking portal account. They have different levels to it. I pay the $50 a month for it. So $50 a month, of course, business owner, that's a write off for me, don't even pay attention to it. And I believe in our Facebook group for the podcast, someone had said that they had tried to get them to pay like $150 a month or something like that. I was like, hey, no, you should be completely fine with just a basic whatever that may be fee, or $50 a month. So that's one part of the fee.

The second is your traditional credit card transaction fee. Right, it's 3%. So on a $10,000 charge, it's a $300 fee that you pay. But again, business owner, that $300 fee is a write-off. So we're not even gonna talk about the tax benefits there, but write-off.

And then final is a $10 wire or ACH charge. So in the course of a month, you're gonna pay the monthly $50 fee. And then if you have a $10,000 payroll, you're gonna pay $310. So essentially, in this case, it's a 3.1% fee, but just for that $10.

So I'm sure listeners are thinking, well, why in the world would I run on my card a 3% fee? Why does that make sense? And I know you have talked about taxes many, many times on the show, right? And so the rules apply in similar fashion.

So if you're trying to hit a signup bonus, that's easy. We can hit an Amex Platinum, Business Platinum, or Capital One Business Venture X signup bonus within a couple payroll cycles, easy day. But here's where things get really cool. So when I first started this, I knew that the Amex business Platinum is a charge card, so it's wide open.

So whether your payroll is $5,000, $10,000, or $50,000, you can charge it on there. Especially Business Platinum, anything over $5,000 is an extra half a percent that you get. So it's more like 1.5x. And as we teach on our podcast ourself, and I know you talk about this all the time too, right? You typically wanna get at least 2 cents of value for your points.

So if you're trying to get 2x of value for your points, and you're racking up, or you're charging, I should say, a 3% fee in getting 1.5 cents of value, if you're getting 2 cents of value, right, the math works out 2 times the 1.5 is 3, so if you're getting 2 cents of value minimum for your points, you're getting back to even on the fee that you're paying.

Now, I know I believe in your recent episode, you said that your average redemption in a year somewhere in the 4, 5, 6 cent range. Last year, mine was 6 cents redemption. So for me, if I'm averaging 6 cents, it's a no-brainer. It's an automatic win if I'm paying 1.5x.

But what was interesting, and this is what blew my mind, this is what I'd love for your listeners to hear. So I was using my Amex Platinum for the first part of last year, and then I got a new Chase business preferred card, Inc. Business preferred card. And I ran the payroll on it just to hit the sub. And that was it. I was gonna hit the sub, thought I was gonna get my 1x, because Chase is like dining and shipping and whatever is 3x, or sorry, travel and shipping and some things are 3x and everything else is basically 1.

I figured this would code as 1, but a super easy way to hit the sub and call it a day. So I ran one payroll on it, hit the sub, and I just happened to be going into Chase looking at my percentages and what I'm getting, and I saw the charge for the payroll coded as office supplies and shipping, which is a 3x on your points. So I was like, this can't be right.

So I did it again. I charged a card again and went back and checked and lo and behold 3x. So picture this now Devon, I charge $10,000, I pay a 3% fee plus the $10 but I get 3x points on this. So now my $10,000 charge is 30,000 points, plus actually more because the $300 fee, I also get 3X points on also. So now I'm getting back what I'm paying in fees and points and literally any redemption over 1 cent of value is a win, and that's what was awesome.

And so the Chase Business Preferred, up to the first $150,000 you charge on office shipping and travel is 3x points. So we put the first $150,000 of payroll on our Chase Business Preferred in a year now. And then anything beyond that, so that's going to be almost a guaranteed 450,000 chase points. And then anything beyond that at this point is either going to go towards hitting a sub on a card.

The Amex Business Platinum is where we'll kind of default to, but I have used it for some other things like my American Airlines Business credit card as well to kind of hit status there. Cause I always go for Platinum Pro every year with American Airlines. So if I need to top off a little bit at the end of this year, I'll do that. So that's kind of our strategy. But that's the ideal win.

Now, again, the one issue with the Chase card versus the Amex Platinum or business platinum is that the Chase actually has a credit limit, right? And so if you have a business that your payroll is $30,000 per cycle and your credit limit on the preferred is only $15,000, you could actually edit and choose the amount you want to charge on there, but I would honestly probably go with whatever card had the limit to hit the whole thing to just take advantage of it. But again, you could use it for a sub, you could actually edit the charge amount, all those different things.

Devon: Yes, and thank you so much for bringing up that point about some of the limitations just in terms of traditional, even business credit cards for small business owners may not have a huge credit line on them. But I want to take a little bit more time and really kind of dive in even deeper to some of these credit card options that can be really, really great specifically for paying payroll to offset that 3% fee.

So you mentioned the Chasing Business Preferred card, and thank you for also reminding everybody that it does have that $150,000 a year cap on earning the 3x points on some of their bonus categories. But I just want to throw in the reminder that Chase will often allow you to hold more than one Chasing Business Preferred card.

So for those of you who are able to get approved for multiple Chasing Business Preferred cards, one strategy if you do anticipate wanting to do this with your payroll and your payroll exceeding $150,000 a year is to see if you can strategize getting more than one chasing business preferred and then using those multiple cards to expand your access to that three-time category.

Now one thing that I haven't actually looked into, I'm curious if you have specific to that bonus category for whatever reason, Zil coding as shipping, which is what allows you to get those bonus points on the chasing business preferred. The Amex business gold card also has shipping as one of its bonus categories and it earns 4 times points.

Have you tried using an Amex business gold to pay payroll or have you heard from anyone in your community who's tried that? Do you know if that card would actually earn 4 times points for payroll charges through Zil?

DeAndre: So, I have not actually tried because I've been so focused honestly on the Chase side. I believe that it would, right, because a merchant code is a merchant code regardless. And for those that might be wondering why is it coded as shipping? Well, the short answer is I don't know. I don't really question it.

But the Zil Money, again, Z-I-L Money platform is an entire business suite of services. So it's actually a really cool tool for a business owner in general because they have their own banking system. They have a lot of different things. You can pay vendors by credit card that traditionally don't take credit cards. So they have this an entire system where they literally will mail a check to a vendor, but they process it from your credit card and all their things.

So I think maybe a lot of those are the reasons why a bytecode is shipping versus whatever it may be. I have not tried the Amex Gold. I do have a couple Amex Business Golds that I probably will actually try now that you mentioned it. I've just been, I guess because of the fact that I've accrued Amex points so easily through them just constantly offering us business Platinums and business gold through Rakuten and all the things. I just really haven't tried as diligently to rack up the Amex points because they come so much easier, I feel like, than Chase does.

So I keep working to just keep building up the Chase points.

Devon: Yeah, and I think that's an excellent point and something that can always come into consideration when folks have more than one option about what points currency do they preferentially want to earn at a given time. Historically, I've had the same experience that Amex points were so much easier for me for my partner to earn, and I never really had to try that hard. And it was this year that Amex has just been much harder for us. And we haven't been getting any of those no lifetime language offers on the business cards.

And so I'm actually I think moving into 2025. I've noticed for myself personally a shift towards feeling like, wow, I really actually might need to concentrate a lot harder on earning those Amex points this year. And so especially if someone has their eye on a transfer partner that is specific to American Express versus Chase, thinking about what are all the different ways that we could maximize the points earning for this payroll expense.

But in addition to the Chase Ink Business Preferred potentially the Amex Business Gold, I love your point about also thinking about the charge cards because they oftentimes will allow folks to put a much larger expense on them than maybe a traditional business credit card. So the Amex Business Platinum, potentially the Capital One Business Venture X, especially the latter that gives you two times points on all expenses.

There are so many wonderful ways that you could leverage this ability to pay payroll and you can mix and match, right? I could see a scenario where there's a business owner who says, I want to put the first $150,000 of payroll on my Chase Ink Business Preferred just like you do, and then maybe they want to shift to a different points currency earning card for the remainder of their payroll so that they can diversify some of their points currencies that they're earning from their businesses.

But I also think, and it sounds like you might agree with me, but I just want to clarify this, we've talked so far about kind of the math that makes this work, right? Especially when you have a card where you're earning a welcome bonus, a card where you can earn two times points, three times points, the math oftentimes will make sense. But let's talk a little bit more and get your thoughts about what about that scenario where you're using a credit card to pay payroll that is only earning one times points. And I'm thinking specifically, like you mentioned an American Airlines credit card, maybe there's a hotel branded credit card that is a business owner. You really want to put spend on so that you can spend your way towards status in a loyalty program.

Is there kind of a cut even point or a break off point where you think it's worth it to still pay that 3% fee on a card that's only earning one point per dollar spent when you're still doing it in order to help you meet status?

DeAndre: I think that's an excellent question. And something that I often have to toy with the value of. Almost like when we question whether it makes sense to do a mattress run, right? There are times where we do things that probably are less sensical, but the value we extrapolate from them is much higher.

So in the sense of the 1X credit cards, like the co-branded cards, maybe it's a Hyatt card, business card, something like that, where you need those few extra nights to get to Globalist, right? And the charge that you put on it is going to help you get there or that free night certificate or something along those lines. There's going to be value there.

For myself, I was finding myself getting close to what I needed for Platinum Pro, but I was just to me just far enough where it made sense for us for this entire year, we did one charge of payroll, which made sense for this one to push us over the edge to get to Platinum Pro. And the Platinum Pro value itself is the fact that we get one world emerald everywhere we go. So we get into the best business class lounge in the world that is in Doha.

There's a lot of different value that we extrapolate that is, there's plenty of people that they might instead say, well, I'll do for American Airlines as an example, I'll go buy something I don't really need like a blue apron for a week, you know, and get my 5400 American Airlines loyalty points. And that was 100 bucks that they probably didn't need to spend, but they did anyway. Right.

So there is a fee that we probably don't need to pay, but we do for some of the benefits that we can get out of it. So there absolutely is a break even point. And I think it's just finding out what the value is that you're looking for. For the most part, I'd say I would stay away from, you know, the airline or the hotel cards, unless you're really going after something specific. And well, realistically, you shouldn't be getting 1X on any card that you use for this because there's so many other options out there.

But if you were to use a card that gets 1x, essentially you need to make sure that your point redemption's at least 3x to make it worthwhile at the same time. So those are all the things that I kind of look at and keep in mind. And I do actually want to take a step back because I forgot I did actually get a business gold card and use it with Zil Money last year. I put one charge on it and it did code a shipping and I got the forex. I completely forgot that I did that because I just I did it to hit the sub and then I went back to the chase preferred just to get the chase point. So I forgot that we actually did do that. So the business gold card would actually work.

Devon: Oh, that's amazing data point for people to know. Now I'm curious in terms of just logistics for people listening to this episode, where maybe they never heard before that it was possible to earn points on payroll, or this is really peak to their interest and they want to explore this more. I'm curious if you know, are there any limits to how much payroll can be processed in this way or how using Zil Money to pay payroll impacts different business sizes? Do you think that this strategy is much more appropriate to certain businesses versus another.

DeAndre: So of course I can only talk from the lens of what we actually operate in our actual business size. Right, so I definitely think there is probably a limit to that. I've talked to some of my other business owner friends and you know, their payroll, they have 100 employees. It's very different when we have six. So that's gonna be very different as far as how large the payroll can be run.

I truthfully don't know how large of a value they go. But again, even if technically your payroll is, let's call it $100,000, you can still elect to only charge 10K onto a card. You can pick exactly the number.

The other thing I do want to clarify as well is this is not something that you can game the system on. You can't kind of pretend that you have employees and all that. When you go through the process, and it's very easy actually before, as I was telling you offline, before coming on this show today, our CFO did the payroll and then he sends me the report and I did that to do the payroll by credit card. It takes me three minutes to do every pay cycle. So twice a month, three minutes is really not bad at all.

But part of that is you have to upload your payroll report for them to review, to legitimize. Or I think they might be able to sync with like paychecks and ADP, but if you're not those two, then you have to upload your payroll report. And so you get an email saying, basically they're processing, they're reviewing, they're making sure this is all legit.

I've had to, anytime I get a new card, I have to take a upload a full picture of the front and back of the card I think in their instructions it says to cover the like last four of the numbers but then when the very very first time I did that they reached back out to me and said no we actually need the full thing. So again, my security has been compromised at this point. I've been doing it but upload securely to them full front and back of the card. Like they wanna know that everything's above board with this and that's how they're able to process it as is. And the other thing that I personally do and everyone can do things differently.

The moment in this example, the $10K hits my card that they charge, I pay that $10K back off. So really the only charge on my card that I see kind of remaining is the $300 fee, because that does get nasty when you have an extra $10K in your account that you're not used to seeing. That could be a mess and our CFO knows that I know what I'm doing here so he's not too concerned but that could mess the books up a little bit. So that's something you have to also factor in as well.

It kind of can look weird if you've got a $50,000 deposit coming to your account, then immediately going back out every two weeks. Does that screw up your book? So those are the type of things you have to keep in mind, right? You know, if you're a large hospital, I don't know if that's going to play the same role as me as I'm more of a mom and pop business if you want to call it that.

Devon: Yeah, that is so great to know. Along those lines of sort of copyouts or things to keep in mind, are there any other challenges or pitfalls that businesses should be aware of when using Zil Money for payroll payments to earn credit card points?

DeAndre: So the only thing I would say, just like everything else, it just comes down to being financially responsible. Having a system, having a process, is really all that it comes down to. It's very simple and easy to do. Might take you a little bit longer the first couple of times as you get used to it.

But just to very simply recap the process that we take is I get the payroll report, I log in, I say, hey, this is my total gross payroll amount. In this case, again, $10,000. I want to charge this card and deposit money into this account, which is my business account. I have multiple cards on there, but only 1 business account. And then I upload my payroll report and then I confirm I want to charge the full $10,000 gross and it tells me the fee is $300. They charge my card.

Typically it takes maybe 2 days or so for the funds to show up in the bank account and usually it just shows us pending on the card for a little bit. Once the funds are in the bank account, I pay the card right back off. And the only thing I kind of had to eat was that $300 fee, which that is the one thing.

So actually I want to point out, the only thing in this whole process that I record from a bookkeeping standpoint is the fee that I paid. I do not record the $10,000 charge as a business expense. Again, I can't give you tax or legal or financial advice, but I would strongly recommend people to not write off the charge on the card. I only write off the bank fee essentially. So I'll make that the other piece I really want to make sure to highlight.

Devon: Yeah, thank you so much. That's so helpful. Now, last question before we wrap up today is more of a fun question. Now that you are earning so many extra points for your payroll expenses, I'm curious, what are some of the great things that you've done with those points? Or what plans do you have for all of your payroll points in order for upcoming travel that you want to book?

DeAndre: So I mean, there's so many, right? Just like you, there's always the trip to take the place to go. We've done so many incredible trips. We've been to the Maldives a couple of times. Upcoming this year, we've got – just like yourself, right?

With so many different stays. So we've got – my fiance and I, we have a wedding coming up here in October. And so I think we're going to honeymoon next year is going to be like New Zealand, Fiji type things. So I just stockpile points and use them. I don't intentionally stockpile, but they just build up and then we burn them as fast as we reasonably and responsibly can because I still run a financial planning practice on a day-to-day. And then we've got this whole travel brand and business separately that's building.

I know most financial advisors, as they build some success, they become like business coaches. I tried that. It wasn't really my thing. I love traveling, I love traveling and coaching about travel and coaching about points and miles and integrating that back into the practice. So we're just going to go where the winds take us.

As you know, points and miles, sometimes it's just about finding the deal. So if in the future we see that there's a really great redemption to go to Africa, we're going to use those points for Africa. But my chase points primarily get focused on Hyatt stays like most people and the Amex is typically my airlines. And so we're just going to rack them up and go. I mean, that's the fun part of this game.

Devon: It absolutely is. I can't wait to hear your stories, see photos of all the places that you and your fiance and eventual wife are going to go. DeAndre, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for educating us all about how to turn payroll into mountains and mountains of points for all of our business owners. I appreciate your knowledge and your expertise so much for folks who want to learn more about you or what you do.

Where can they find you?

DeAndre: Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of different ways you can find me. So in the financial planning space, so that is Truicity Wealth. It's stands for trust and authenticity put together. So that's the name of our firm.

I am on LinkedIn, I post on LinkedIn regularly, but not super active, but you know, that's where you, I think again, your community will really connect with the message that we have there in our portal. That's all the financial planning side of me. That's the boring side. We're here to talk about travel. So on the fun side, the travel side, our brand is called Boldly Go.

We do have a podcast as well. It's called Revolutionizing Your Journey. It's called that because as you know, points and miles revolutionizes the way that we all travel. So that's why it's called the Revolutionizing Your Journey podcast. And we have our website, the Boldly Go site, which is just https://boldlygo.world.

And that's also our Instagram handle and on YouTube and TikTok, if that's still here when this goes live and everything else. And so https://boldlygo.world is where you can find us in most places. And for those people that have a question or they just kind of need a little bit more hand-holding on the process, again, we do have a blog post. If you go to our website and just search for payroll, you'll see it and it's got the links for everything. So you can exactly see Zil Money, where it is, a screenshot of what to look for, the process, the step-by-step, the numbers, if you want a refresh on how the numbers make sense.

So that's all there as well. Or just always feel free to reach out, DM me if you have a question. I'm happy to answer any questions that any of your listeners may have.

Devon: Amazing. And we will put all the links to everything you just mentioned in the episode description and the show notes to make it really easy for people to find you in all of these places. DeAndre, thank you so much for joining us here today. It's been such a fun conversation. As always, I love chatting with you.

So thank you for sharing your time with us.

DeAndre: Devon, It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

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.