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Episode 13: Award Program Changes, An Unhinged Paze Promo & a Mid-Year Check-In
289 Plays8 days ago
Mid-year check-in time on the public feed. Kristoff and Raymond take a step back to assess the state of the game in mid-2026. But first, we have some alliance moves, award travel findings, and a Paze promo that got way out of hand. Our main topic is how we’re feeling, a sort of ‘meta’ discussion in which we come away with the overall takeaway of: the game isn't dead. It's just asking more of you.
We hope you enjoy the show! -TPP
01:52 - Philippine Airlines Is Joining OneWorld
09:01 - Alaska Airlines Removes Status Point Accrual on 'Saver' fares
11:54 - Alaska Infant Tickets For Partner Awards
17:39 - United MileagePlus Points Pooling Discussion
22:20 - Chase Sapphire Preferred UR to Hyatt Transfer Ratio Now 4:3
30:24 - Paze: Spend $10, get $10 back — up to 10x per card
39:23 - Main Topic: Mid-Year Check-in – A 'Meta' Discussion + Trend Lines
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Intro/Outro Music Credits:
"Vibing Over Venus"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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Transcript
Introduction to The Points Project
00:00:00
Speaker
The game within the game in this episode of The Points Project.
Is credit card churning still worth it?
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Points Project with your host Christoph and Raymond. Hey Raymond, how's it going? Summer is about. It's the middle of 2026 and we've been enjoying vacations.
00:00:26
Speaker
What's going on? Yeah, Christoph. Yeah, we're almost, I guess, mid-June and um it's been, i don't know, 2026 really feels like it's already in full swing. And so I think, you know, today's show is really going to be about kind of like an overall analysis of the credit card churning points miles game in general.
Philippine Airlines joins One World Alliance
00:00:45
Speaker
You know, I think like the last year and a half has really been hard. And so, you know, it's just taking the time to reflect and see, you know, is this game still worth playing? I think that's one of the questions that I've had on my mind.
00:00:57
Speaker
Christoph, actually, what what do you think? Just top level. do Do you still think the churning game is on the up and up or have we plateaued? Well, is it still worth playing? Hell yeah, of course it is. Right. Like even even this year, we had some very nice vacations and we're not the only ones. And yeah, so the uplift that you can get on even just miles and points for flights and hotels is still good.
00:01:22
Speaker
But on the other hand, as you mentioned, well, the game is always changing. And I'd say over the last year or so, it's not always been changing to the better. That's for sure, too. And we, well, we'll just ah go and take inventory and see where we are.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's for sure. I feel like the game is really, the upside is still there, but I think the the level of effort to maintain that upside has really increased a lot. So, you know, it's something to pay attention to and definitely we'll be getting into that in this episode.
00:01:51
Speaker
But first, let's get into the news. And actually, Christoph, you know I love Philippine Airlines. Oh, yes. Philippine Airlines, they're joining One World, right? they're They're finally getting to be an official, I guess, airline for us. They're a real option now.
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, points redemptions. I mean, plenty of American airlines and Alaska miles over here. So ah let's see what we can do with this. Yeah, let's see. Yeah, I know that, um you know, there's a certain fintech out there that just partnered with Philippine Airlines. And so, you know, there is one transfer partner now where you can get good amount of Philippine Airlines. But, you know i think this whole One World invitation that they received just last week,
00:02:32
Speaker
yeah this is, I think, actually to be probably a downside. In many ways, it's an upside, right? Like if you think about it, if you've had a need to either fly, you know, from the U.S. to the Philippines and you've been like, I don't know how to book this. And I think in the past, like even... used to be able to use ANA points to book partner awards on Philippine Airlines. And that was kind of like the only thing that I recall. Maybe there was like a Qatar tie in at one point where you can book partner awards. But really, like Philippine Airlines has been hard to book.
00:03:00
Speaker
And so, you know, with the introduction, at least of Philippine Airlines being a transfer partner and now joining One World, I think we're going to see a lot of traction as far as within our community of people like talking about Philippine Airlines, wanting to test the products, wanting to see what outsized value there
Using miles for partner airline awards
00:03:17
Speaker
is. I mean, this kind of reminds me of like maybe when I first started in the game, right? And I heard like, you can use American Airlines miles to book really cheap Cathay Pacific awards to Hong Kong. And, you know, back in those days, it was like, i if I recall correctly, like you can book like 50K Cathay Pacific awards.
00:03:35
Speaker
Through Alaska Airlines, you could use, I think, like 60K for first class on American. Like, this is a long time ago. And so I think, like, you know, as we've seen over the last 10 years or so, you know, we've seen kind of like this gradual increase in prices. So that's Cathay. That's kind of like the Japan Airlines story. But, you know, it it is exciting to see a new airline option, at least to get over to Asia. And with me, Christoph, Philippine Airlines, you know that It's my home carrier, right? Like I got to get some, I got to get some flights here and, you know, let's see.
00:04:07
Speaker
are I know we've talked about in the past, but like, do you see yourself using maybe like American Airlines points or even Cafe Pacific points or even Japan Airlines points, right? Like, or British Airways, right? Like that, that should even be an option.
00:04:20
Speaker
Do you envision yourself going to the Philippines now that, you know, this is another travel option? Yeah, I mean, sure thing. right if If they join and it the moment it's possible to book some of these awards with PartnerMiles, you can be sure I'll go through this by hand and see if I can just pin down like one or maybe even two vacations. but um We've been going to Asia or like even Southeast Asia. like I'd say maybe not once a year, but probably every two years or so. so so like Definitely. right so Whenever new options show up, then of course, let's let's probe and see what we can find. and i I hope that there will be some nice choices here. Usually, when new airlines join an alliance, then the redemption options are decent, in my experience. This might change over time, but yeah, well, you know, just be there and pull the trigger when you can.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's for sure. You know, it's funny how this game kind of plays tricks with your head and how you plan trips, right? Like a lot of the places that we've traveled as a family or even me before, you know, we started a family, they were kind of fueled by like award sweet spots, right? And so, you know, I'm thinking back like, you know, the last few years we've went to Japan and it's always been like, partner awards on ANA or Japan Airlines, you know, partner awards. And those were the sweet spots. And so like, I think like this is also going to influence me because the sweet spots here are pretty darn good. Like, you know, at least if you're, but let's say you're using Philippine Airlines, Mabuhai miles, right? It's like 58K from the West coast to Manila. i think you're looking at 67K from like, I guess like the East coast destinations of Philippine Airlines flies to to Manila Yeah, there's some you know fuel surcharges in there, but you're you're going to get that with a lot of programs anyways.
00:06:06
Speaker
But there's the Philippine Airlines angle. There's like all of these award partner angles. like All of a sudden, and I'm going to start thinking more about trying to get to the Philippines because for whatever reason, this game plays tricks.
00:06:18
Speaker
You see a good sweet spot and you want to take that sweet spot and like plan a trip around it.
Impact of Alaska and Hawaiian merger
00:06:23
Speaker
I don't know. it It just kind of ties back into like, are you letting the game choose where you travel or are you choosing where to travel or are you just like,
00:06:30
Speaker
I'm happy to go anywhere as long as it's a good deal. So that's kind of where I land on this. And so I think like Philippine Airlines joining this alliance is gonna pretty exciting for me at least.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think what do you say there rings so true for me too. I guess when I started the game, there is, of course, a vast variety of destinations that I'd love to go to and I'd love to explore. But then really the order in which I went there or you know we as a family went there was mostly determined and well by award availability or where the sweet spots are or whichever program you know I had just got into in terms of like hotels or airlines.
00:07:07
Speaker
And so I'd say if you have a specific destination and you just want to hit that one specific thing at that one specific date, it can be hard to make it work. But on the other hand, if you know that there is quite a few options out there and you you are somewhat flexible between a multiple of those, then yes, the payoff of miles and points is just amazing. right and the The possibilities that it's opening up, even just trying different products. right As you mentioned, hey, just flying to Japan. Guess what? There's many ways of going to Japan. i Want to fly ENA?
00:07:40
Speaker
Want to fly GL? Hey, they have both a business and a first-class product. Let's just hunt for both of them. You can fly United Polaris if you have to. you know it's It's a fine flight. Or maybe you know there's Korean carriers as well. So a plenty of options and just try them out and you don't have to per se pick that one ANA flight. As soon as you have a little bit of an open mind, it's much easier to find the availability and like really get a good deal. And I mean, come on, what's better than going on a trip saying, hey, this was a great vacation and
00:08:14
Speaker
it was also well worth it because it was that one saver award without fuel surcharges. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. I'm very excited for this. I'm pretty interested in seeing what the, I guess the partner pricing is going to be for other One World frequent flyer programs. I think like of all my airline miles that I have right now, a good chunk, like probably more than 50% seems to be tied to the One World Alliance. And so i think we're going to have a lot of things to look at as far as like, okay, well, how to optimize the booking here. If we're going to go to the Philippines, you know what's the best way to do it given you know what your family looks like and what your trip requirements are and like are you looking for a connection? like It's going to be interesting to see how this all presses out at the end.
00:08:59
Speaker
Speaking of One World Alliance, you know, Raymond, Alaska and Hawaiian has also been keeping us busy, right? So when they merged, there was, of course, lots of promises of you keeping the awards available and not developing anything.
00:09:14
Speaker
But apparently those promises are now about to expire. And so here is some changes to One World that are maybe not quite as exciting as a new airline joining. Yeah, for sure. um The Atmos Rewards Program. You know, one of the things I loved about this program was that like they they still kind of kept one of the good old adages of like mileage running past, which is the amount of miles you fly is the amount of miles you'll earn. And I think for the most part, like all of their, I guess...
00:09:44
Speaker
like fare buckets, like even if it was like their quote unquote like basic economy or whatever their saver-ish reward flight was, like they would still earn points. It was kind of, at least for me, was, I think, status qualifying points. And so it's a devaluation here, but, um you know, if you're booking a basic fare through the Atmos Rewards Program, starting August 1st, you won't earn any status qualifying points.
Updates to airline mileage programs
00:10:08
Speaker
So maybe I got that wrong, right? like It's not you're earning miles towards your you know loyalty balance, but the status qualifying part, at least for me, you know like I've booked a few Hawaiian Airlines flights and you know i've I've noticed like, oh, my status meter has gone up after taking that flight and i forgot like, oh yeah, that's how it works with Alaska.
00:10:26
Speaker
But yeah, so if you want to still book a saver flight from, I guess, today through a flight going through July 31st, you'll still actually earn those status qualifying points. But yeah, after August 1st, that, I guess, benefit is going away. ah I don't know like this is kind of just maybe a minor annoyance for me, but it was nice to like being able to book a really cheap saver award through the Atmos program and like actually earn qualifying miles. And you know me, Kristoff, like no no more Alaska cards. So it's going to be hard for me to requalify for, well, we'll see about this. Like, let's talk about this at the end of the year, but like, let's see if I can even requalify for gold next year in the Atmos program. But it's it's just going to be that much harder.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, of course, Alaska is making a few changes here. Let's say the thing with the basic fares, I guess it's it's been a long time coming because virtually all the other carriers do it too.
00:11:20
Speaker
The other thing is, well, fundamentally, you can still book your economy tickets and get qualifying miles just for distance flown, which is great if you like mileage running. Of course, in the meantime, with Alaska cars and other things, you can just spend your way to status too. So that that part is a DEWAL, so no more status points on basic fares.
00:11:41
Speaker
But some of the other nice features still exist. Sure, they might go away eventually, but that's how it goes. It ebbs and flows, doesn't it? But there's actually another thing that you mentioned earlier that was actually very nice about Alaska recently adding, namely that you can now do infants on awards, which is something that Alaska has never supported as far as i remember.
00:12:03
Speaker
And now here we are. Did you try this out? Yeah, Christoph, yeah. um and We have a trip to Bali coming up, and we ended up booking our return flight. Well, it's actually Bali, then to Taipei, so we're actually flying home from Taipei. And so that flight home, back to the Bay Area, is on Starlux.
00:12:21
Speaker
And so Starlux, knowing that this was an Alaska award, I was like, OK, well, i'm going to have to gamble here because I only found two seats. They're expensive, Christoph. They were one hundred seventy five k seats. They weren't the nice. you know Remember when Starlux started partnering with Alaska and they had those 75K awards and they were pretty available? It's really hard to find those now unless you're looking close in. But yeah, we booked two seats. And then it's like, oh, yeah, we need to get P3 on this. right He's still an infant at the time of this travel or at least ah at the time of this trip. Right. so I was like, okay, well, I looked through Reddit and I saw, you know, it, yeah, it's a gamble. Like basically Alaska would not do business with you in the let's get your infant booked on this award ticket as a, as a lap infant. And so a lot of times, like depending on the partner, you'd have to just call the operating carrier. and say, hey, I'll pay whatever you know your price is, and you get me a lap infant ticket. like I definitely need to get my infant on this because we're not traveling without him.
00:13:18
Speaker
And so that's kind of been like the, i guess, state of Alaska for a while. And then so when the Atmos Rewards merger, or guess when you know when that program was created and they mixed up Hawaiian miles with Alaska Mileage Plan,
00:13:32
Speaker
You know, I'll get into why I think this all kind of just came about, at least from my discussion with one of the Atmos reps. But essentially, when when they merged programs, they started allowing infants to be booked.
00:13:45
Speaker
And the nice thing is when you book an infant, there's literally no like 10 percent revenue upcharge. There's no 10 percent mileage upcharge. It's literally just like, hey, you have a you have a lap infant, just pay like whatever the taxes and fees are for an adult. And so in my case, right, Starlux, Taipei, back to the Bay area, it was like per adult 25 bucks, maybe 22. And so i was like, okay. Um, so you're telling me right now on the phone, it's only going 20. I was ready to pay like, you know, upwards of four to like $800 range, right? Like that's what I was thinking it was going to cost. And then they're just telling me like 25 bucks. Like, oh my goodness. Like all of a sudden Alaska becomes a really good program for booking international partner awards, assuming that you can find them
00:14:29
Speaker
and have your lap infant come basically almost for free, right? Like this is an amazing development in the program. And so, you know, yeah, I did see like a few Reddit threads a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago. And I was like, yeah, I thought this was a thing. And then when I actually went to go execute the adding my infant on, it's just like, wow, that was such a painless process. And Alaska will do it. Well, Atmos will do it for you.
00:14:54
Speaker
This is great. Like, Christoph, I know that you've talked about Aeroplan being a darling or like British Airways and Virgin being darlings, right? Because they charge either, well, in the case of Air Canada, it's 2.5K in miles and that's it.
00:15:08
Speaker
Or like 10% of the mileage costs on like some of these like European frequent flyer programs. And so, you know, those were like the best options. And all of a sudden now it's like Alaska kind of or...
00:15:20
Speaker
Atmos all of a sudden is like the best option in my opinion. What do you think, Christoph? Are you still paying for infant tickets on your end? This awesome. This is actually very awesome. I mean, i i remember many instances, like maybe three or four times that I had tickets booked with Alaska.
00:15:38
Speaker
or sometimes American Airlines. um And there was just no way to get an infant on there. And then you're on the phone talking to, you know say, Fiji Airways or something like that to somehow get that infant on there. And you're paying like 10% of revenue. right So you quickly have a ticket that costs like 500 bucks one way.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so having Alaska allow infant tickets, like that alone is already like very nice because now you can book it. right So before, there was no way of doing it. Now you can.
00:16:09
Speaker
But they essentially topped that by saying, well, you just pay the taxes and fees. or Actually, just the taxes, right? Because you don't even pay fuel surcharges or anything like this. This is amazing. right So awesome. ah We have quite a few bookings know still with Alaska. um Great! I mean, I'm i'm very happy. like that this This could not have worked any better.
00:16:30
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, that's for sure. um So with this news, Christoph, are you thinking about having more players added to the family? Just to take advantage. exactly. Immediately add more players to the family. I mean, you know, you can have at least like two of those at the same time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Scale horizontally. I like it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:49
Speaker
So I'm just glad that I got this, you know, all worked out, like as far as getting P3 home, I think there's a couple more things with our Bali trip in August that we still need to button up. Like I still don't have p three on our, what is this?
00:17:02
Speaker
Denpasar to Taipei leg book through Eva. And so i'm going to have to, I mean, I mentioned a couple episodes ago, like we just added P3 to one of those flights. Yeah. I think for next year, actually. And um I still need to figure out the, you know, the the trip that's happening earlier, getting P3 home from ah at least Bali over to Taipei, like that's not done. So there's there's more adventures to be added as far as like figuring out how to book infant awards on EVA, but we'll, you know, we'll keep you guys updated as we go along because it's coming up in like less than two months.
00:17:34
Speaker
The adventure continues. Yes. On the subject of frequent flyer programs and you know random benefits that have been just, like I guess, quietly added, did you know that United Airlines Mileage Plus has mileage pooling, Christoph? Did you did you actually know that this was a thing? So now that you mention it, maybe i've vaguely remember it, but it was not very useful. like That's the one thing I remember. But then something changed, right? Yeah, it's just, i so I saw an article on the Points Guide, which I'll include in the show notes, that Mileage Plus had this feature of their program where you could pool miles just like British Airways or a few other programs do this. And, you know, one of the restrictions when they first came out with this feature in 2024 was, okay, you can pool your miles in your, i guess, family
00:18:22
Speaker
And then you cannot book anything other than United Metal for these awards. And so, you know, if your goal was to book partner awards, too bad, right? Like you have to book out of whoever's player account it was. So if you have like 50% of your miles in one program, 50% of your miles in another program, and you're just trying to make that trip work, like maybe it doesn't like...
00:18:41
Speaker
Now all of a sudden, you know, if you if you you couldn't really book what you wanted to book anymore. And so I think that this is probably a really good ah addition here, right? Like it's just, hey, the Miles themselves act like Miles of any player's account, right? Like you can book partner awards, which is like one of the main benefits and one of the main reasons we play this game, right? So I like seeing this. And Christoph, are you going to like make a United mileage pool with you and however many players now? I think i think there might be a cap on this. Yeah, I actually have a quite a few, like, you know...
00:19:17
Speaker
spread out miles lying around. Of course, a United Travel Bank was like long a nice outlet for some of the airline incidentals. And so we actually got quite a bit of, I guess, just the economy flights on United going. Just most recently, like a return flight from Hawaii, for example. And so that way, i have a bunch of players that essentially have like maybe like 10, 20K or so in in your United miles just lying around from accruals, really.
00:19:45
Speaker
And if I can now pull them together, that's nice. I mean, you'll get at least one business award out of that for sure. So yeah, yeah let's go and create that pool and see what we can have. Maybe fly outbound on Alaska and then inbound on United.
00:19:59
Speaker
Seems to be a theme with us in the Bay Area because those are like two major operators out of SFO. Yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking because I have a family member who has, i don't know, like some odd amount of, yeah, like you said, 10K, 20K. They had a small amount of miles in that account. And actually recently, i think last year i used this to go to Minneapolis, but like I booked like whatever I had in there. And so now I have some like orphaned miles in that. And like, so I'm like, should I just add this into our pool? Like I haven't done it yet.
00:20:29
Speaker
But at least, it's just giving me ideas of like how to kind of like just consolidate miles, because yeah it is annoying to have orphaned miles and orphaned accounts. And you know the more options you have to pull, the better. So actually, you know let me just talk about my experience here with like how this all worked. So whoever you want could be like the pool master. I'm just making that term up, but like you know the leader of the pool. You can add your miles to your pool and then you can invite another player into your pool. And then once you add them to the pool, there's this like 72 hour wait that you need to, you know, it's a waiting period. I guess it's like a security feature. So you can't just consolidate a bunch of miles and then like book and then
00:21:09
Speaker
What if it was fraud, right? So I do like that feature, but it's something to be aware of. And then once you are in the pool, then you need to wait another 24 more hours after adding miles to the pool to actually use those miles.
Using credit cards for airline status
00:21:23
Speaker
And so just this morning, you know, I was able to finally, because i was trying to book another ticket to Minneapolis and I was like, okay, it would be nice to use P2's miles for this because I obviously don't have enough United and I want a direct flight. So United has that.
00:21:36
Speaker
and so it all works. I don't know. It's just nice when like frequent flyer programs are not super complex and, you know, things just work as normal. So, yeah, it wasn't a partner award. it was a United Medal award, but, you know, that it'll come. We we got a lot of miles now pooled, Christoph, and we'll make some international travel happen on maybe ANA.
00:21:55
Speaker
Okay, so my first action item here will be to create that pool and add all of my players to it Yes. So that I'm ready to pull the trigger when necessary. Yeah, yeah. Don't forget about your dog, Kristoff.
00:22:07
Speaker
Well, all the dogs. How many do you have? It's a lot of dog food. All right. Should we get into the churning and credit card updates? Do you want to take this next one? Yeah, might as well. i mean, speaking of United, Chase transfers to United. And Chase has, of course, their now really two-tier products, right? The Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which has become like exceedingly expensive. Let's put it like this. Yes, plenty of coupon options if that's your thing. But you can tell that Chase is now...
00:22:45
Speaker
really trying to create a differentiation between these two products, where specifically, and that's probably the most painful thing. They are now saying, hey, if you have a Chase Sapphire preferred card and not the expensive reserve, then you're not the same tier of customer and your transfers to Hyatt shall now be devalued.
00:23:08
Speaker
And that, of course, is very, very sad because it's one of these watershed moments where you know that these transfer ratios are probably not going to get better anytime soon. So now with a Sapphire Preferred card, you are transferring four UR points to three Hyatt points.
00:23:27
Speaker
which is of course worse than what the reserve still offers, which is the one-to-one ratio that we were so used to. And that of course is on top of the deval that came from the Hyatt side earlier this year, right? Where, yes, we still have an award chart, but some of the award prices have really gone up dramatically.
00:23:48
Speaker
So now with that change, if you have a Sapphire Preferred card, well, transfers are even less rewarding. And of course the card itself is also getting a refresh. So, you know, that plays into it too.
00:24:02
Speaker
But yeah, so no more high at one to one with the Chase Sapphire Preferred. The reserve is still there at one to one, but at this point, who knows how long that's going to last. Yeah, for sure.
00:24:16
Speaker
It's a general trend line and we'll get into trend lines later of where we think everything is going, but this is like a, you know, a good example of it, right? Like Chase is definitely trying to push people to the higher, more, I guess, like more expensive card, the higher tier coupon book cards that we're we're seeing just like nonstop these
Emerging trends in fintech rewards
00:24:33
Speaker
days. I mean, yeah, the 1.25 versus 1.5 cent per point redemption value that used to be available. I think it maybe it's still available. pretty sure for another year or so. um But yeah, I mean, like even with like things like points boost, right? Like getting 2.0 cents per point on like premium cabin United or you know certain hotel bookings on Chase Travel, like those are all features of the CSR. And like the CSP has kind of just stayed the same for for the longest time, like very minor incremental upgrades over the years or enhancements. And then like this is a clear...
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, we've we've seen a lot of Ultimate Rewards points going to Hyatt. Like that just seems to be the number one. liquidation method for those points and just for folks to get value. Hyatt has been just so good over the years. And so, yeah, I'm not really surprised at this, but it it just sucks. of It's just something to be it's just something to like expect now, right? like There's going to be constant devaluations, probably an increase in the annual fee on the preferred.
00:25:34
Speaker
But at the same time, like also these signup bonuses are all actually getting much higher at the same time, right? So it's like everything is just bigger, bigger numbers. And now you're going to need bigger, bigger numbers to transfer to Hyatt. So I don't know. I guess our recommendation here, at Christoph, is if you're going to transfer a lot of points to Hyatt other than like a top off, maybe consider upgrading your card, assuming that it's not going to interfere with like a sign-up bonus that you're after.
00:25:58
Speaker
you know Upgrade that to the reserve. Maybe take advantage of some of the benefits while it's in that higher tier. And then maybe when you're no longer having a need to transfer to Hyatt, then you know downgrade back. This is still a freely accessible thing.
00:26:11
Speaker
as long as you're willing to put in a couple calls to Chase. Yeah, actually, this is the same thing that we kind of used to do anyways ah with the reserve over the years where, hey, we would sign up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
Loyalty program devaluation
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah, you use the card, you know, whatever, that's like the travel credit and other perks, and you do your transfers. And then if you're at any point,
00:26:34
Speaker
arriving in a state where, hey, you've transferred most of your points, you've gotten most of the credits. So what? Just product change the card. And we just actually product change it to a Freedom Flex card instead. Oh, even better. So this is essentially a no annual fee card. um It actually ah had the Flex also has nice earnings, right? So in, say, like pharmacies and and other options.
00:26:55
Speaker
And so really the path forward here, in my opinion, is to only selectively upgrade to that card. and So of course Chase bets that, hey, you will get the expensive card and you'll pay the annual fee you know year after year and you'll hopefully only take advantage of part of those credits. But really now that we're here and we're seeing like, hey, coupons everywhere, insanely high fees.
00:27:20
Speaker
You know, sign up for the card. By all means, get the sign-up bonus. You know, but take advantage of the still ah good transfer rates. Use up all the coupons. But then when you're coming up towards the end of the year, make sure you use up all the the credits. Maybe even wait until it takes over into January or July, which is coming up soon.
00:27:40
Speaker
Again, use all of these credits. Make your transfers. And then just downgrade the card and wait for the partial refund on the annual fee. Yeah, that's for sure. The upgrade downgrade game is definitely like something that you if you haven't been looking at this, it should be in your playbook. And especially now, like given the timing, at least when we're recording this episode, like right now is actually a good time to do this. like If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred and let's say you were planning to transfer a bunch to Hyatt, you haven't done it yet, and then you hear news of this and you're like, how is this going to affect me? like
00:28:12
Speaker
Right now is a pretty good time to upgrade, assuming you're eligible for it. Because you could then take advantage of you know the the first half of the year credits on the reserve, right? We're about to flip into July and then you can double dip. And so you can kind of like time where you do all these actions right at the right time, similar to like the Amex triple dip that we talk a lot about. I like to think of this as like the...
00:28:32
Speaker
you know especially you're in the middle of the year, right? Like you have these semi-annual credits where it's like, okay, if you do the upgrade right on time, you take advantage of the first half and second half, then first half of next year, and then take advantage of second half following year. And then you can read downgrade there. So it's almost like a quadruple dip. And I know we've mentioned this a few times, but like, it's just another reminder. Like if this is something where you're like, i don't know what else to do right now. And, signup bonuses are hard to get. Like this is kind of like a, you know, play yourself into, you know, a mini signup bonus. Like soon you can take advantage of all the credits that whatever your upgrade downgrading to has those credits to use up. So yeah, those are my thoughts on that. Like I do love this. I i don't i don't know if I should do this with P2, but there's also the the factor of wife points. Don't like to spend those. Yeah.
00:29:20
Speaker
This is a classic case, right? In a way, the banks are playing the game right now with, uh, increasing the fees and then giving you coupons in hopes that there will be breakage and you will not use those to your advantage.
00:29:32
Speaker
Well, guess what? We'll have to play the game the other way around and just make sure that we use every last one of those new coupons and, well, maybe time it accordingly, right? So that you maybe get another round of coupons in. and The other side of this is, of course, as always in this game, you've got to stay organized. And sometimes it's just an effort and a hassle to call in and then i'm wait in line and then go through disclosures and everything and and keep track of all of this. right So it certainly also takes some, let's say, a mental real estate and effort. So it depends on what you're doing. But yeah, if you enjoy maximizing your rewards, I think this is still possible.
00:30:12
Speaker
But yeah, it's just more coupons to deal with and some more upgrading and downgrading and talking to bank representatives. yeah it's Essentially, the complexity of the whole game definitely goes up. Yeah, your spreadsheets need to be on point.
00:30:26
Speaker
Speaking of something that you probably needed to keep a spreadsheet on, Christoph, did you see this pays $10 off promo? like pays Oh no. if you just it is Certainly, the the entire blogosphere is is up in arms about this. For sure. Yeah. um And so there was the there was the Pace promo we talked about on the Patreon episode last week where it was like 10x on I think it was like per card and you had like 1500 per month and spend through the end of the year. And so you can you know, it's like 1500 or 15000 ultimate rewards points like that was the upshot of that.
00:31:01
Speaker
But now they have this like separate promo that I guess technically stacks, at least for Chase. But really, it's applicable to any bank or credit union that participates in the PAYS program. And so if you have one of these cards, I'm not even sure if you need to like like activate it I don't think you you need to. But there's this offer going through September 10th. And I don't know if it'll even last through that.
00:31:21
Speaker
a time where you can get $10 back as a statement credit up to 10x per card when you check out via Pays. And so, I mean, Dan Steele's had like this really, really funny article where it's like edit, edit, edit. Like they had to do like five or six updates to this article because the the status of this promo kept changing like daily, which is pretty hilarious. But that tells you a lot about like how hot it got as a promo in the blogosphere in general.
00:31:49
Speaker
but ah But yeah, like ten spend $10, get $10 off. like I think a lot of folks in our community were like, where can I buy $10 gift cards? And Christoph, where can you buy $10 gift cards through Pays?
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah, so ah according, and this is of course thanks to the doctor of credit here, but of course others like Dan Steele also have collected these, Newegg was the merchant choice. And wow.
00:32:12
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. Wow. Talk about new, I get pace. I'm not sure if they are friends any longer now. For sure. It's funny. Like I didn't actually personally participate this, but I had a group chat with some, you know, Turner friends. Like I was just watching the group chat and just being like, everybody's sitting there is except for me. Like I got slight FOMO, but I was like, I do not have the mental capacity to like.
00:32:38
Speaker
Take this on right now Yeah, I reached the limit on my end, but it was just funny because like everyone was just buying like whatever third party gift cards that Newegg sold. And it's just it's pretty funny. Like at some point, so many orders were being submitted at Newegg where it's like somebody was like putting in consecutive orders and like every minute there was like 400 more orders. You could tell by the order number that it was just increasing. Like this was getting hammered. And at at one point, the Dan's Deals blog post was like, okay, yeah, like they've put in terms to say, okay, like Newegg.com is no longer eligible for this promotion. I wonder why. Yeah, and that's that's not the last thing, right? So it was not just that Newegg is starting to be excluded here.
00:33:24
Speaker
ah Also from the Chase 10X promo, by the way. But NEWEC removed ah the option to pay for gift cards with Pace. Oh, that's right. And then Pace announced that NEWEC will be removed from the program. and Just to to top it off, now people have their newly minted Pace accounts shut down as well. Isn't that glorious? I did not see these data points, but that, yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
I mean, shut down by Pace. that's a that that I did not put have that on my bingo card for this year. I was just wondering, like especially over the weekend, like I wonder if there was anyone at Pace just thinking, like I can't believe I approved this promo. yet it' The surprising part about it. So maybe to to give some background about Pace, like what is Pace? So Pace is essentially an electronic wallet, kind of like PayPal or like Apple Pay. And it's actually owned by early warning systems, which is, to keep it short, a ah firm that is owned by a conglomerate of like the largest banks in the country.
00:34:27
Speaker
So Zelle, for example, is also owned by Early Warning Systems. So Pace is essentially the big banks answer to all the electronic wallets in order to keep a little bit more interchange, essentially, in in their own pocket, if you want.
00:34:41
Speaker
So clearly, the people that designed Pace and the people that designed this promo should be very well aware of what happens if you give people a promotion like this, $10 off, spent.
00:34:56
Speaker
And yet, here we are, and the whole thing turned into the dumpster fire that it was. So I'm definitely and enjoying watching this as well. There's still, by the way, plenty of merchants that do accept Pace. You can order a lot of Domino's Pizza, for example. um But you know go ahead and try it out, but I'm not sure if this promo will actually survive until September, the way it was slated originally. Yeah, yeah. it is ah It is a funny promo. Yeah, we definitely... It's like there's a hive mind mentality too. Like, I think there's enough of these private chats out there where it's just like, hey, there's a crazy deal and like gets gets advertised. And then, yeah, things like this things like this happen. I saw Paze like a while back and I was like, is that another Zelle?
00:35:44
Speaker
And then, you know, i was like, okay, this is probably like PayPal. Like, never really looked into it. And i was just like, this is a lot of... I don't know, like, there's so many, like, of these weird checkout apps that I just, I just can't keep up. But like, there's probably some random promos that are, that are out there that nobody's really, you know, turned over.
00:36:02
Speaker
and it's kind of funny, like, do you remember 2020 during COVID? Like, the deepest points of COVID, like Amex had that shop small promo. Remember this? o ah was just like, this is the same thing. Well, it's um it's not exactly the same thing, but it's just like, you know, I remember like every Amex card, i think had like spend $10, get $5 back up to 10 times. And I think that was actually a little bit I think like in some ways it might, might've been easier um maybe to just scale up. Cause like you could also get a lot of Amex cards back then. You can also, depending on your merchants and it was kind of like geographically linked, like you, if you could find one of these shop small businesses, like, you know, you're basically getting half off everything and you can specifically tie a purchase down to $10 to kind of like, yeah. So anyways, it's just funny, like how these these funny promos come around every once in a while and they just get like lit up, like they go viral. I'm still going to like try to do this promo just organically, right, Kristoff? But I'm not going to like do the $10 gift card because I guess you can't, it's really hard to find those now, I guess.
00:37:05
Speaker
What about you, Christoph? I mean, many merchants that are on there, right? So there might be like maybe Baskin Robbins or something like this. It depends. But so the point is that Pace can typically be used online, right? So it's for online checkout.
00:37:19
Speaker
And any merchant that does accept Pace, even if you don't sell third-party gift cards like, you know, Neweck used to at least, and well, they might still allow you to actually buy their own specific gift cards. So it depends on the option, you're just ah probing the websites, but there is certainly possibilities there. And even though, of course, Newegg got hammered and the whole gift card side is dead, they still sell a bunch of electronics that may also cost around $10 each. So yeah might as well. you know and Let's see how long it goes. Yeah. Even like, if you just wanted to use our organically, like there was another, maybe Dan's deal. I saw it on slick deals. Maybe it it was like somebody highlighting like all of the pays merchants and then like sample items that might be useful to you that cost about 10 bucks, like basically kind of free.
00:38:10
Speaker
So I'm good with that. Like if I could find some useful things that i actually need. But otherwise, like, I don't know. I don't know how many like Dunkin' Donuts gift cards I can organically go through that I, you know, I i even have my Dunkin' Donuts credits.
00:38:23
Speaker
Christoph, like, do you have a gold? i'll i'll I'll pay you for your credit, for your Amex credit. Yes, please. I'll take them. um But yeah, like organically, I don't really think I can do a lot of Dunkin' Donuts. mean, my health is not going to thank me for that. Yeah, I'd say like the the other thing is here, which we can mention too, is the coverage is actually really broad. but So essentially, at least from the way that the promo was written, let's see if they pay out, but it probably will because they're owned by the big banks.
00:38:53
Speaker
um Any personal credit card that goes into pay should be eligible for 10 times 10. And not just that, but technically personal debit cards as well. So now if you have debit cards, which is very likely, especially from those large banks, then each of those debit cards by itself is again worth $100 in cashback, which is potentially interesting. But again, that's there's a lot of $10 transactions here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's enough for Paze. Why don't we get into our main topic for the show today, Christoph, which is our, I guess, mid-year check-in. And i wanted this to be a discussion of the good, the bad, the ugly, and I guess where the future is headed with regards to the game that we play. So yeah, why don't we dive into this, Christoph? like we're We're going to talk about banks. We're going to talk about banking products. We're going to talk about like where trend lines are with credit cards, debit cards, fintechs, even like features that you can get out of like certain checking accounts. Like where do we think these are? are they on the uptrend? Are they on the downtrend?
00:39:58
Speaker
And so I think first up here is the obvious one, credit card products. So Christoph, where do you think credit card product trend line is going? Is going up, down, sideways? What do we think?
00:40:11
Speaker
It's been a very mixed picture, right? So I would say it's probably a sideways trend and it may be a slight upward trend depending on what you're looking at. that's So one of the strongest things that definitely has come out, and that probably is also thanks to Alaska, is that there is quite a few more options to essentially spend towards status. So if you have credit card spend and, hey, you want to get airline status out of this, American Airlines has long been like the go-to option. You take that card, You spend and then, yes, it's a little bit of a grind, but hey, every dollar spent gets you one loyalty point. So if you have a lot of spend or you can generate a lot of spend, then guess what? You end up with American Airlines status. But it's still American Airlines status. So now, the ah you know, we get... yeah we get to
00:41:03
Speaker
We get more options here. Hyatt, of course, with Chase, has been long one of these candidates, right where you spend on the Hyatt card. And now with Alaska, we got a new option. Yes, it's also one world.
00:41:14
Speaker
But as we've seen, Alaska is kind of aspiring to be an a relevant program. And so with their both their personal cards and their their premium tier cards, they now make it possible to spend towards status. yeah And you can see that banks and airlines together want to attract spend like at large scale. And they are very willing to essentially give up status for that.
00:41:38
Speaker
So that's definitely something that's worthwhile. And even if we're not just looking at the main players here, there is even some maybe airlines that you wouldn't even think about. For example, Raymond, your favorite JL card that now allows you to spend towards status. How's that going, by the way? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah, if you if you didn't know, you know there's an FNBO JAL USA card that I opened last September. And um if you do pull this off, which is, it's actually crazy. Like, to a normal person, if you told them what you're doing and you're like, that's what you get out of it, they'd be like, what are you doing this for? But, like, we are crazy people in this game, Christoph, so...
00:42:15
Speaker
To us, it's normal. And so I just wanted to provide a quick update. Like yeah ah today I hit 50% of that spend, ah which is basically 450K spend. You'll get lifetime one world Sapphire status. And so um I'm finally here. Like I got stuck a little bit, but yeah, I mean, lifetime status, right? Like even credit card benefits, like lifetime status are achievable, right? Like, yeah, the city AA, spend was a yearly thing like you know this is a nice little lifetime perk that you can that you can earn so yeah 50 done here christophe like pretty don't know we'll see how the next 50 goes but yeah i do like this like even the summit card really gives you a quick path to getting you know top tier status with atmos rewards what what other cards am i um kind of missing out here on
00:43:02
Speaker
Are there any others, Christoph? Well, of course, i mean, we mentioned American Airlines, but actually the various Citi cards, by the way, you know, Citi also got the cards from Barclays recently. as They now allow you to, of course, expand towards status. And then of course, some of the cards have various benefits like, hey, yeah you know, if you hit this loyalty points threshold, then, you know, we give you additional points. And then, of course, well, the the one airline that has always done this ah big times with Amex, which is, of course, Delta Airlines. So Delta, too, now wants you to have actually multiple cards with them. right So like the more cards you have, the more of a boost you get to your baseline status. In fact, they have, what, like three business cards, right and then technically four different personal cards. So only three of them like really give you a boost there.
00:43:53
Speaker
But yeah, like here too, you can spend your way all the way to diamond status just on credit cards. Like you never have to set a foot on an airplane and you'll get top tier status. yeah So essentially this now works with a lot of airlines. Even United essentially has a way, but you're not going to get all the way to top tier. But anyways, like the the real takeaway is if,
00:44:17
Speaker
you have spent or you can generate spend then clearly airlines and banks are like very happy to give you all kinds of perks in exchange for that Yeah, that's for sure. I think status is a real fish hook for a lot of people, right? Like it really does change your behavior, right? Like, and even with my, I guess, one program that I do have status with for for now, Atmos Rewards, I'm like, okay, well, where can I fly on them? Because I want to get my free bags in and I want to be able to select my seat. Like, these are all pretty good hooks, but it's like, at the same time, like, what are you paying for it?
00:44:47
Speaker
in terms of like either spend costs along the way. Could you have just paid for whatever you needed? So it really is something you need to weigh for yourself if it if it really is worth it. Like if you're if you travel a lot, you're probably already getting closer the way up to status. And so just the credit card spend is just an easier...
00:45:05
Speaker
lever to pull to get there. But I mean, you really got to do some math here. Okay. So that was spending towards status. Credit cards, spending towards status seems to be like a big pro that has been added as a feature of a lot of these benefits on credit cards. But like, I think one of the the biggest cons, I think we've talked about this many times, but like the the coupon books that we have to deal with, right? Like this is where from a bank's perspective, it's increasing engagement because you're like, okay, now I need to figure out how to use all the coupons, right? like And that that becomes kind of like, in one way, an annoyance, but also it kind of gamifies you as a customer because you're like, I need to do this. I need to do this. Oh, I finished everything. Like you feel proud of it. And so I don't know like this coupon book, it's a way to like, yeah, justify the high annual fee.
00:45:50
Speaker
But I feel like it is working for us, Christoph. Like a lot of my discussions with a lot of friends who do this game with me, It's like, did you use your did you use this credit? Did you use this credit? Like even my dinner discussions with family members oftentimes are like, hey, it's the end of the quarter. We need to use these credits. Like, give me your card. we'll We'll go use it. And I feel like it's a negative overall. because you're paying for those credits upfront and you're having to like literally spend more time just to use them.
00:46:17
Speaker
But I think as far as from the bank's perspective, it is working because we are constantly talking about these things. We're becoming more engaged customers just to come out quote unquote even at the end of the day. What do what do you think about that, Christoph?
00:46:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I think... I guess you and I and probably everyone listening here is not the typical customer. but Of course, the play with the higher annual fee is that, well, it's just run rate. right So once per year, they'll now charge you $1,000 to have a premium card. Whether you look at your Amex Plat or essentially your Chase Sapphire Reserve, yes, yes, there's a slight difference in how much the total really is.
00:46:56
Speaker
But like roughly, we're now looking at $1,000 per year for a premium card. Now, for the, let's say, casual user, they probably don't take advantage of a lot of those credits. There, it really pads the profit margins of the banks, right?
00:47:13
Speaker
And so I guess the other side of this medal is that for an optimizer like us or somebody who likes to like really squeeze every last bit of these cards, yes, it becomes more complicated.
00:47:29
Speaker
But yes, we're also used to playing this game, right? We're used to keeping track of this. We're used to taking advantage of the coupons. So because we then go and say like, hey let's triple or quadruple dip or or whatever like combination of things or upgrade, downgrade, because we like to play these things we probably come out ahead even more than we did before because these coupon books just um yeah really have outsized value if you maximize them i mean just recently we had a patreon episode where we talked about hey a hawaii trip and guess what this was hawaii trip um for you know the family plus the in-laws for several days, and it was all paid essentially with Amex FHR credits. And just because the the timing for making these bookings and everything, yeah, it takes some effort. But guess what? like We really got a lot of value out of those $1,000 that we paid in annual fees.
00:48:28
Speaker
essentially just over $1,000 in hotel bookings and then free breakfast and and free dinner on on top of that. Plus, of course, the sign-on bonus, plus, of course, any status, plus, of course, any launch access. So if you maximize, then the coupon book is actually a benefit to you.
00:48:47
Speaker
The other side of it, of course, it makes it more complicated. So if you like playing this game and if you like the puzzles, I guess the high annual fee is... Well, ah ah a cost ah of entry into this, but the coupons more than make up for it. On the other hand, if you're only doing this casually or ah you know you you're skipping some of these coupons or it's just not worth it, then it's probably a con. So I'm not sure where to really put this on the list. It probably depends on like how deep you're into this matter. You like playing the game, the coupons are probably good for you. You don't, or you're just casually doing it missing out on some of those coupons, well, the higher burn rate is probably going to eat most of the benefits that you get.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah, totally agree there. In addition to this, I think like one way to not spend so much time just trying to like liquidate a coupon book is like really just like network with people who are kind of in the same position as you, right? Like maybe you just signed up for a card.
00:49:44
Speaker
It's very helpful when you have a group of people who are kind of like working on the same thing. Maybe it's a hobby for them, like just being able to share data points. Like that's one of the most valuable things I found in this game is like creating your like inner circle. And so, i mean, like, I don't know if that's a plug for our Patreon group because like we do have a Slack group that um you can share data points as you please. But yeah, it is very helpful to just have somebody to talk to about this. And so, yeah.
00:50:07
Speaker
Another thing you know that also works, like even if you don't want to you know share with essentially strangers or network in a group, is to just ah scale up within your own family. right So oftentimes, the thing that takes the most time is to figure out, hey, ah what is that hotel that I can book for you know exactly those $300 in FHR credits? Or what is the kind of airline ticket I can still buy with airline incidentals?
00:50:34
Speaker
Once you figure it out, suddenly scaling it up becomes very easy. but So the hard part is oftentimes like just discovering the information or see like the the thing that works for you for that specific award booking. But then whether you book you know one ticket or four is essentially the same amount of work. And that same thing applies to credit buyers at large. Right.
00:50:55
Speaker
so Sure, you like your chase Sapphire Reserve, and hey you you have a way of taking advantage of those points and using those coupons. Well, guess what? get Get another one for your P2 as well. I don't know. Maybe you want to bring in your in-laws or your aunts and uncles. It depends on how extreme you want to push it. It is also depends on the family. right so Some people are more open to this than others. But like for us with that recent Hawaii trip, well, yeah, we totally took advantage of multiple platinum cards here. um
00:51:25
Speaker
which of course seems crazy to other people because why would you spend you know close to $4,000 in annual fees instead of $1,000? But my answer to this is, well, we all get access to the launch and we all get to use those credits and we get to go on a big family vacation and then another big international trip. and like the total value received will far outpace the $4,000 that we paid in annual fee. right But it's like prepaying these credits. yeah So yes, like...
00:51:52
Speaker
A Slack community or like ah even the churning racket online can be ah like a great source because you find additional information. But even if you don't want to go too deep into this, sometimes just figuring it out for yourself and then you know getting another cart or two or three with like similar benefits in a family can really add to the benefits of scale here. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, that reminds me of how I kind of started in this game is like figure out one thing. And then all of a sudden, it's like the next 12 months, it was just all about scaling the you know scaling the same thing just like 10 more times.
00:52:26
Speaker
The payoff is there. um Okay, so credit cards. Let's go into banking products because I think this is really, it's it's very wide ranging here. But I mean, we we can get into a lot of different things here, Christoph. Fintechs, I think like, you know, crypto is really like a hot thing nowadays.
00:52:45
Speaker
There's gambling apps, there's debit, where where should we start here? Like, where do we think the general trend line? Because for, okay, I'm just give it to you, Christoph, like my general trend line here is like, yeah, it's it's going up.
00:52:55
Speaker
What do you think? Yeah, for sure. I mean, new fintechs are always great, right? New opportunities to spend money. and sometimes transfer money and sometimes earn points for making money. and So that's very nice. Fintechs have sometimes sign-on bonuses, they open new avenues. Some of them ah really just ah want you to spend money, so they take your credit cards and you know charge them for free. So there's many benefits to fintechs.
00:53:27
Speaker
I guess, where should we start here, really? I mean, that there's, of course, lots of things that are more in the, well, let's say, a crypto space. There have been a lot of like gambling platforms, lots and lots of different apps to explore. doesn't mean that everything really works, but the surface is very, very broad.
00:53:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I think like the general trend line here is is generally going up. Like there's a lot of just new fintechs coming out every day. I mean, theres there's like crypto, there's gambling, there's, I mean, like even the debit reward space, like we've seen like the United debit card, the the Southwest debit card, like, These have, I think a long time ago, there was rewards earning debit cards and they kind of went away for a while and credit cards became the thing. And then now like debit rewards has really been, you know, depending on who you talk to, like either their their best play.
00:54:17
Speaker
um i think like it's definitely something to dive into because for sure, like debit spend is oftentimes much easier to do than credit card spend, right? Like a lot of times if you want to generate a lot of credit card spend, like Places that would take debit don't take credit. And if they do take credit, you know usually the fees are much higher. and And debit spending is literally your own money spending. So you know oftentimes there's less risk involved with the bank. So they're allowed.
00:54:43
Speaker
I think we we have ah an episode from like last year and maybe two years ago on debit cards and how how valuable they can be. And it's like I think the reason that debit cards can be valuable is because they can earn rewards And you can spend at a much higher velocity because it's your own money, right? There's no risk to the bank. And so I think that's the real reason that debit rewards in general has been very lucrative for us here. All right. um Brokerages. Christoph, I think like you had a note here about like, what do you think? Like brokerage bonuses, are they on the uptrend, downtrend? What do you think?
00:55:18
Speaker
I'd say yeah so i'd see the brokerage space is it's shifting around. so There's of course still kind of like the old school brokerage transfer bonuses that essentially you have existed since you know forever. Like yeah creating a new Merrill Lynch account and you're transferring money in and then getting anywhere between $100 and $1,000 typically. depending on the amount of money that you have to transfer. Now the nice thing of course with these brokerage transfers is that you transfer and you can transfer assets in kind, right? Meaning you can just have a bunch of money and say an ETF or you whatever, a mutual fund, and you can simply let that fund ride in the market.
00:56:02
Speaker
But while it rises in the market, you transfer it from, ah say, one brokerage to the other. And because you do this, the brokerages will oftentimes give you money just for transferring funds in.
00:56:15
Speaker
There's brokerage bonuses, they change from time to time, but Hey, yeah, going from E-Trade to Merrill Lynch to, I don't know, Interactive Brokers and then eventually back again is very good. Like, I mean, we've been doing this for years and like essentially, like it it never stops. You can just keep going and you'll always get a little bit of a bonus here and there. It's a nice way to just add to the overall return.
00:56:40
Speaker
The one thing that I'll say here, though, is that I've noticed that while essentially the amounts have gone up in terms of, hey, you know this is what we have in the stock market, and hey, this is even what's required for the bonus, the payout amount has stayed pretty much the same. And sometimes it has gone down slightly, especially for the lower tiers. right so ah For example, Merrill Lynch, because I mentioned this a few times now, typically has offers where they'll give you $1,000 for whatever their highest, at least published tier is.
00:57:13
Speaker
And, well, at some point it was $100,000 gives you $1,000. Then becomes $150,000, then it became $200,000, and now we're at like $250,000. then it became one hundred and fifty then it became two hundred and now we're at like two hundred and fifty k but So obviously transferring 250k to get $1,000 is, well, not quite as rewarding as transferring 100,000 to get $1,000. And so that is definitely something where I'd say it's trending down more by shrinkflation rather than really by, let's say, yeah like changing the looks of the the overall structure.
00:57:50
Speaker
I think the thing that I would not want to see going forward is like where the churning restrictions that you see in the terms and conditions, right? Like I think there all are already churning restrictions. Like you can only do this once every X amount of months or years, right? And I could see that kind of getting worse, right? Where it's like once per lifetime, kind of like lifetime language.
00:58:09
Speaker
So I don't know, that's a con to be aware of, right? like But I still think like it's easy money, right? Like if your money's in the market already, why not just move it around, right? Like, yeah. In this game, we get paid to move money around, which is just an interesting food for thought angle right there.
00:58:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say especially here, me get back to fintechs, right? There's of course, there have been the famous IRA transfer bonuses with Robinhood, which then come with like a five-year hold requirement and so on. And that's definitely something where you say like, well, if I'm now locked into the same place for five years, well, you know, how you really going to play that game?
00:58:45
Speaker
And I'd say the the thing that I mostly look out for right now are these transfer restrictions. right On the one hand, fintechs are great because they will typically offer much better promos than some of the bigger banks. But even say last year, VBOL ran promos that really were worth 1% 2% of the total amount. But yeah, the holding period is now not 90 days, but it's like 12 to 15 months. And then depending on who you're looking at, like say Robinhood, you might go up to something like five years. And if I have to commit my money for five years, then, you know, maybe the payoff is is not that good. Yeah. And I'd say because I really look at these holding periods, one bonus still stands out to me as being ah like a marquee offer in the market that is kind of
00:59:32
Speaker
flying under the radar, maybe because they're not spending a lot on advertising here. But Wells Fargo actually has one of these relationship checking accounts, right? So similar to, say, the Bank of America rewards program right that gives you rewards based on assets on management. So does Wells Fargo. And so Wells Fargo's program is called Premier Checking. But the interesting part here is that if you can muster 250K in like retirement accounts or brokerage account essentially, some amount of money that you can transfer in, then they'll give you typically between two and three thousand dollars depending on what time of the year it is.
01:00:10
Speaker
And the nicest part about that bonus is that you can do it every 12 months and if you time it right you only need to keep your money there for about 60 days. And this has been going like on and off for like years and years and years and I hope it stays that way. So if you happen to have 250K, even in like retirement accounts or other things that you can move around, look it up. It might be very worthwhile because you can hit that bonus.
01:00:35
Speaker
And then after 60 days transfer out and hit that next, you know, 12 month brokerage bonus. And as soon as that one's over, you go right back to Wells Fargo. and So it's a nice little gap filler there.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Wells Fargo, I hope they don't change that. It's a very nice feature that they have in their terms and conditions. All right, so let's get into loyalty programs, Christophe. Loyalty programs, these are the things that hook you in. And I don't know, I'm just going to say it it right up front, Christophe. I think like a lot of the loyalty programs, airlines, hotels, car rentals, I think it's generally trending downwards. Okay, so where do we even start? Let's let's start with airlines.
01:01:14
Speaker
I think in general, I think what I've read in many blogs is saver awards, right? Like you have United Miles, go book Lufthansa. You have American Airlines Miles, go book Cafe.
01:01:25
Speaker
Have you seen any saver awards lately, Christoph? Yeah, it's very, very sad out there right now. Yeah, the award availability is is just not there. Like it depends, like some routes still exist, but you can also tell that there are...
01:01:41
Speaker
Typically, routes that used to have quite a bit of saver inventory, they're just flat out blocked right now. So definitely, the saver availability has gone way down.
01:01:53
Speaker
For sure. Yeah. And I think like, if this is the case where it's like you opened a credit card and you're like, I can't use it to book what I want. Like you really should start rethinking your strategy about like how you were planning to use those miles. Like if you were banking on saver award availability on a partner, just know like there are so many tools out there that basically these are getting sniped as soon as they become available. There's monitoring tools out there that you probably should be aware of because like if you it's just it's just very annoying to like open a credit card and being like, I can't use these miles in the way that I read online. So I think there's a lot of marketing material that you just need to kind of ignore and and rethink about like what is a realistic use case for for the miles I'm earning.
01:02:33
Speaker
I think the like the other thing, and we kind of mentioned this with Atmos Rewards earlier, but you know a lot of times when you're booking with points, I guess even revenue, right? like there's There's the basic economy. like There's a lot of restrictions with booking the cheapest price.
01:02:49
Speaker
type of award, right? like and so Typically, like we rely on airline miles like for flexibility, right? like Maybe you have a big stash and you can just book and cancel, and that's been a nice feature that we've had in the last five years. But even like with with some of these changes, like it it seems to me like it's downtrending where it's like the airlines are penny pinching, ah mainly because there's been just this huge flexibility arbitrage with with miles in general. and so things like saver awards, having you know no cancel terms, um or if you do cancel, you know like first example that comes to mind is like basic fares on Southwest, right like having a travel credit that expires really quickly, no status, no seat selection on some of these cheaper awards.
01:03:34
Speaker
A lot of people are probably going to default to like the cheapest economy ticket with miles, and they're going to be losing out on a lot of these perks. And so I don't know I don't like the general downtrend that we're seeing here, which is like less benefits for something that's already pretty hard to use.
01:03:49
Speaker
What do you think there, Christoph? Yeah, I'd say, I mean, the two things that you can really get with Miles, and that that has always been the case, as is one, if you book an you get a lot of flexibility benefits. right So as you just said, like, hey, just booking basic economy with cash sometimes gives you horrendous conditions, right where you say, like, hey, you can't cancel, you don't have seat selection. If you do cancel, yeah, you only get like half of the credit back, like these kind of things. right so Clearly, um if you value flexibility, miles have an advantage here. Even if it doesn't look like hey the uplift in terms of cents per point or you know whatever vanity metric you use is that high.
01:04:33
Speaker
Even if you book an economy ticket and hey maybe you're getting only those 1.2, 1.5 cents per mile there in value, you get a lot of flexibility right where you can oftentimes go into like short-term cancellations You can do your backup flights. so's There's like various things you can do with miles where the flexibility that you get is worth a lot. And so this doesn't always show up in that metric if you look at the pure points value. The other thing that is true is that the most uplift, right where you get, you owe those like 10 cents per point or something like this, that of course happens on premium redemptions right for like long haul international flights typically, like that first class ticket on Jiao with AA miles something like this. But those tickets have increasingly become hard to find.
01:05:24
Speaker
and Maybe this is, of course, related to the the current fuel surcharges and other things, but it's also just airlines reducing the amount of inventory, really, kind of the um the number of flights that they have right now.
01:05:37
Speaker
And so, yeah, well, it looks like the top end is essentially less available. but There's fewer flights. There's more competition, too, as you mentioned, right where people just... use really various automated tools to just snipe availability. So even if you have alerts set up, sometimes that is no longer fast enough. I noticed this myself.
01:05:56
Speaker
but Yeah, that's the the the the game is changing. And I'd say yeah right now, it's definitely a little bit harder to get high value out of your mouse than it was, say, one or two years ago.
01:06:09
Speaker
I think one of the other kind of trend lines that I've seen is like the tie in with an airline program and their pricing with what credit card or i mean like debit card in the case of United. If you have a co-branded credit card product like that, unlock certain features about the airline program and that makes Things like using like, I don't know, Seats Arrow as an example, like they might show you a price, but really when you log in, it's like, okay, you well, you have this credit card and so you get this benefit and it might slash the prices down a little bit. So I think it just, I think that aspect of like having a co-branded credit card unlocking certain benefits. Yeah. You could look at that as a positive, but to me, I kind of framed this as in my opinion, it's a negative.
01:06:48
Speaker
If you're not interested in more complexity, if you just like simplicity, these things are not helping. But yeah, like in the random chance that you're like booking and you're like, I'm set on booking through this program and you just so happened like, oh yeah, that 10% off Delta business gold, 10%, what is it? 15% off maybe? Like if you run into those, yeah, those are nice little treats, but or or even like the 10% off, um I think like United does this now. if you have I have the debit card and they're giving me 10% off award flight. so like Those are okay, but it just becomes harder to plan. and so it's it's a
01:07:28
Speaker
It's a very like low value benefit to me, is I guess what I'm trying to say here. And I just rather have something that's a little bit more simple. But I feel like I'm constantly contradicting myself, Christoph, because I'm like, I love complexity in some areas, but then I want simplicity in other areas. But then I just have this constant like struggle. I think thats that should really be the the name of the podcast. It's like internal struggles with churning. Anyways, I'm going off the rails here, but like...
01:07:56
Speaker
In general, it is kind of a downtrend, even though there's like little glimpses of positive enhancements to certain benefits or programs. Yeah. Well, that's about the airlines. But how about hotels?
01:08:09
Speaker
Well, I have a few thoughts here, of course, and Hyatt made headlines, even though, of course, we still have an award chart. Definitely hotel prices, right even if you're not looking at points, have gone up dramatically. mean, some locations, because I mentioned Hawaii before, are dramatically more expensive now than they were while ago. So definitely the last five years have seen some dramatic price swings here.
01:08:34
Speaker
Now because these prices went up in cash, of course the award programs themselves, right which are run by some corporate umbrella, they also have to pay more for those. Even though, of course, the actual award program never actually pays the rack rate, but it's oftentimes a function of like, hey, how busy the hotel is and so on.
01:08:54
Speaker
So it's expected that, hey, the number of points that you'll pay will go up as well. On the other hand, well, because you spend more money and higher prices on you know, everyday spend and you get more points for your signup bonuses, so maybe that somehow evens out. But I'd say if there's one trend that was very clear, especially over the last year, then it's that all the hotels are trying to move to a dynamic pricing scheme, which is, by the way, very similar to what the airlines do.
01:09:25
Speaker
and so Whether you call it you know a new award chart or ah you call it hey ah changes at the top end, usually the places that give you the highest value right for your points are high-end redemptions, both for flights as well as for hotels. And we've definitely seen across the board from Merit, okay, sure, but like Hilton was very extreme where you essentially you lost like maybe almost like a 50% in value at the top end. And now you also had higher devaluations where like some of these devaluals were essentially almost like a 50% drop in like the the actual redemption value of your points. And this is very clearly a trend that is not so good for us churners, let's say, in the in that hotel space.
01:10:17
Speaker
And yeah, and the second part, again, is not just that the high-end redemption got... yeah devalued. There's also less predictability, right? Because with dynamic pricing now, you may actually make bookings one day and then the next day realize that, hey, actually the award pricing changed. And sometimes the award pricing and the actual cash pricing kind change out of step with each other. And so it it has like a lot of complexity and lots of monitoring effort. And while usually complexity is good because it lets you like play that game some more, At some point, there's also an an overload factor. And I guess that's where I get back to your philosophical point from before, where we're saying, well, yes, complexity may be good because there's advantages to be had. But at some point, if the complexity just goes too high, where you need to check the same hotel multiple times a day in order to get the best pricing, then you know that there's there's clearly a lack of benefits. Like the time invested is no longer worth the the benefit.
01:11:20
Speaker
In order to deal with all the complexity, how much time and effort are you willing to invest into making that happen? like Do you even have that time available to you in the day? right like Are you obligated to do other things throughout the day? so i think I think that's a good key takeaway there.
01:11:37
Speaker
I think one of the other kind of general negative trend lines I've seen is like a lot of times when you earn status, like you're given these things like sweet upgrade awards, or I think in the case of Marriott nightly upgrade awards, right? where You have to apply one per night. And I think like these in general are just getting harder and harder to use over time. I think like... Maybe a general, and I don't know if this is just a biased opinion, but like maybe there's just a lot more people using points these days and there's just more competition to use the same mechanisms to book like the
Challenges in redeeming rewards
01:12:11
Speaker
the suite. right like the the suite of Basically, what we're saying is like there's more of these instruments out there, more people are trying to use them, and so it becomes harder to use them because there's a static amount of inventory to apply them to. and so I don't know if if I'm looking at this from the right lens, but it just feels like because
01:12:27
Speaker
Maybe more people are playing the game and these benefits that, yeah, they're handing them out, but there's only so much inventory to use them on that remains static. And so it just, it's the same story with like saver awards for airlines, right? Like there's only so many seats that they're willing to sell for that price. And so it is harder to... i don't know It just makes all of those bookings where you do use them up feel like a win, right? Similar to the coupon book where it's like, oh, I got them all done. Like you feel kind of proud and you feel like you just got played by the bank because damn, they made me work for this, right? But it it is a weird condition of the human psyche to be like, I did all of that or I use this thing that was hard to use and I got value out of it. Like it just plays games with you. It
01:13:11
Speaker
In some ways, it feels like it reels you back in to do it again, right? Like it it's a dopamine hit that keeps you coming coming back. So I feel like all of that is to say it's just harder to play this game without understanding the complexity in trying to achieve what you're trying to achieve with your travel goals.
01:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, the complexity has gone up and you look at the, I guess the 80-20 rule, the 20% of effort ah from before from like just booking with points definitely don't get you that much mileage anymore. right So like there's quite a bit more legwork that I feel even I have to do to just get that next trip booked or so to just get, say, those two or three seats even, you know, we're not talking about flying out the entire family. It's just like there's less supply and kind of the supply side, meaning like the airlines and the hotels also seem to have more, let's say, discretion in terms of, hey, what what the offer or whether that suite upgrade applies or whether there's a blackout date here or these kind of things. That's the one side of it. And the other side is that, well, yeah, I mean, if there's more people with more credit cards and more points because you know the banks are really pushing it, then yes, of course, more people are also going to try to use them. So essentially, it's going to get harder to get outsized value.
01:14:31
Speaker
And you just got to spend more time. And sometimes, of course, life happens and there's only so much time you can spend. And then one thing has to give. And that's usually the point redemption value.
01:14:43
Speaker
I feel like
Optimizing point redemption
01:14:44
Speaker
this entire discussion, Christoph, has just been like, there's there's a game within the game we play, right? Like it's optimizing the game. It's playing it a certain way. It's maximizing the redemptions. It's trying to use scarce resources a little bit more optimally, right? Like optimizing again. But um are we going to play this game still long term? I think I know the answer here, but I just want to hear it.
01:15:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I told you that before. I mean, hell yeah, of course. i mean, it's it still pays, right? So there is no question that the the amount of of uplift and benefits you can get, especially when you're flexible, right? In terms of like, hey, picking a location for a vacation or maybe, you know, shift the date, sometimes by a day or two, it still works.
01:15:29
Speaker
and It's just that of course the pickings right now are maybe slimmer than they wear say yeah compared to some of the days when travel just ramped up after the pandemic again, which of course was one of the big heydays of using points. and So right now the pendulum is essentially swinging to the other side here. i'll I'll use my points where I can. And I may not have a lot of FOMO if I miss out on maybe that one amazing redemption because I know, well, I can only spend, you know, like maybe those one or two hours in it and I cannot just monitor it like every day. mean In the end, right it's it's a puzzle.
01:16:07
Speaker
right so And of course, we love playing puzzles. And it should be fun. But if ah it turns into a part-time job, then ah maybe it's okay to you know take the slightly less optimal redemption, but just have that vacation that works for you and your family.
01:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, i'm I'm trying my best, Christoph, to not make this a part-time job. And yeah, that sometimes means like letting a deal just slip by, right? Like if that means more time with the family, okay, fine. Like what do I need more points for sometimes, right? Like i still have orphan miles in like 20 different programs that I still need to figure out how to use. So maybe it's better if I just actually figure out how use the miles i already have.
01:16:46
Speaker
But yeah, there's definitely synergies too. I mean, what's better than sipping Mai Tais in Hawaii with your family for free than you know to create some bonding experiences and social capital for the next call to the bank to product change your Chase Sapphire Reserve card?
01:17:04
Speaker
Yes,
Conclusion and community invitation
01:17:05
Speaker
yes, for sure. All right, well, I think that's a show, Christoph. I think that's a show. All right. Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of the points project with your hosts, Christoph and Raymond.
01:17:15
Speaker
Have a good one, everybody. See you next time. Hey there, points project listeners. If you enjoyed today's episode, we also have a Patreon feed where we expand upon many of the topics we discuss on this show.
01:17:27
Speaker
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