Travel More, Travel Better, Travel Often
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Dr. Lisha Taylor: [00:00:00] Want to hear about how you can travel first class for free and book swanky hotels at discounted prices? Keep listening to find out how. Hello and welcome to the Wealth Minded MD Podcast with your many best friends. I'm Dr. Lisha Taylor.
Dr. Brittne Halford: And I'm Dr. Brittne Halford.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: And of course, we're here to help you build wealth and make good money decisions so you can create the life you desire with more control over your time. Before we get started today, here's a word from our sponsor.
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Dr. Brittne Halford: Okay. So we're going to things off with our Life is Lifing segment, Lisha, what is going on in your world?
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Yeah, so I actually have some work retreats and some meetings and conferences sort of coming up. By the time this airs, I will have, I believe just come back from our national sports medicine conference, which is always a good time and, getting ready to head to another conference that I have to go to in [00:03:00] DC. But, I'm really excited about this Sports Medicine Conference. Hopefully it lives up to the hype, but each year it is just an awesome time. Basically the best doctors in the world, sports docs, of course, , get together. There's like, thousands upon thousands of us there. It is a great time. You know, the, common sayings, in this sports world is that you go to the conference to have a good time and then you need vacation right after the conference ends. Because nobody sleeps and everyone stays out. And of course there's a sporting event that's included in the conference. And it's just a good time to like meet up with people that you probably don't see or practice nearby very often. And so that is the one that I am most looking forward to.
Dr. Brittne Halford: I love that. , I can't say the same thing for our medicine conferences. I have one coming up too, but there's no like late nights and recovery after the conference. I think everybody is just ready to go and see some more patients.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: No, you guys are boring. So us in the sports world, we know how to have a good time. And, , there are always [00:04:00] these outings at various like sports bars because we're sports stocks. So what else are we going to do?, and there's all these organized events and we get to sort of talk to each other about like what's going on in the sports world.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: We watch a bunch of games. And so if you're not into sports, it could probably sound really boring. But if you're like me and you like live and breathe sports, it's a good, good time. And this year I think it's in Baltimore. I've not been there recently, although I'm a little concerned cause I think there was something on the news about like the bridge collapsing .
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Did you see that
Dr. Brittne Halford: Yes. Yes. I saw that. I saw the videos. I was like, what? How? How did this even happen? I mean, I saw how it happened, but you know, like, why did it happen?
Dr. Lisha Taylor: I was like, Oh my goodness. I hope those people are okay. , but the conference is in Baltimore. , and I'm looking forward to that. And then the other ones , in Washington, DC, I think I'm going to meet up with some friends when I go to the one in DC, I just text some of my girlfriends and I was like, Hey, I'm going to be in DC.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: What are we doing? Are we doing French? Are we doing late night? , that's part of my like, wellness like taking these work trips and work [00:05:00] conferences and meetings. Trying to meet up with some friends that I know in that area. I feel like that's one of the perks of being in medicine, is that a lot of my friends have moved and lived in different cities.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: So usually when I go to like a major city, I probably know at least one person there that I went to college with, or med school with, or trained with, or whatever. And so it's like an opportunity for me to like take this work meeting that could totally be boring, actually be excited about it, because it means
Dr. Lisha Taylor: I get to see some people I haven't seen in a long time.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Okay,
Dr. Brittne Halford: take videos and send them to our share folders so I can live vicariously through all the sports medicine docs.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: I will do that. I will do that. Man, we have a good time that so much fun that sometimes, we do not get the proper footage or the footage we do get is not footage we would want to share, but, uh, I'll have to like sift through it and be like, am I doing something that won't embarrass myself or my family?
Dr. Brittne Halford: All right. Well, Lisha [00:06:00] while you're having a good time, I'll be learning about heart failure so that I can provide the standard of care and meet all of the guidelines. All right. Enough of that life is lifing on the single person childless side of sports medicine. Um, what's our next segment?
Dr. Brittne Halford: What are we going to talk about now?
Dr. Lisha Taylor: We're doing some money mishaps and confessions, Brittne, do you have any you want to share with the people today?
Dr. Brittne Halford: You know, as you gave our teaser about swanky hotels at discounted prices, I'm like, I need to learn about this and reflecting on, I think I shared on one of our previous episodes that I was purchasing some flights to Atlanta for my children and my husband's going with them to Atlanta and I'm going on a trip.
Dr. Brittne Halford: To this conference in San Diego, and I was hoping to utilize points, but Lisha I actually have the same money mishap that you expressed before. I think I waited too late. And when I was utilizing the points, I didn't budget in for the time that it takes for [00:07:00] conversion. So we're going to talk about that.
Dr. Brittne Halford: All about the details of this during this episode, but I didn't budget in that time factor. And unfortunately I had to pay cash for everything because I was a concern that if I don't purchase them now, the prices are going to increase. And how do I utilize the points? especially for my husband. He was purchasing three flights and I couldn't purchase some of the flights with points and then the children's tickets individually because they have to be attached to an adult, because they're three and five.
Dr. Brittne Halford: So we ended up paying a lot of money for the flights because I didn't factor in the time that it takes for some of the conversions to happen.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Okay, well, have got a treat not only for you, but for all of our listeners today, because we are bringing in the travel guru in the physician world. So if you're not a doctor, you are in for a treat. If you are a doctor and you don't know who our guest is on this show, We are going to help you out because she is somebody that you absolutely want to know and her name is dr.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Devon Gimbel She is the travel guru she [00:08:00] has this physician group on facebook with like over 20 000 doctors in it and it's all about how to travel using credit card points Traveling first class or business class premium economy, whatever class you decide But if you decide that first class is the one you want to travel She's the person you want to talk to along with booking swanky hotels and all of this stuff Devon has taught me all I know and I have been able to fly first class and do all these things without paying An arm and a leg and a heart and a muscle and like all of those things.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: and So stay tuned For that later in our episode, but my money mishap is actually really similar You to that and that I, actually didn't read the fine print when I was making a hotel reservation. Usually when I'm booking a hotel for work conference, I don't use points because I know that my job is going to reimburse me.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: So I usually like will pay up front and then get reimbursed later. And so I was doing that for the sports conference that I'm actually excited to go to. And I didn't read the fine print when I registered for the conference. There was like a different because there's like thousands of doctors who go to this conference.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: There's Um, There's six different hotels, I think that you could choose [00:09:00] from that had a discounted rate, if you will, I was trying to do like a Hyatt hotel and that was sold out and I was like, okay, this conference is four months in advance and it's already sold out. So now I'm a bit concerned. So then I was like going down the list of hotels and as you can tell us a hot commodity conference, the thing sells out months in advance anyway. First hotel was sold out. Second hotel was like, okay, I'm going to book it at like a Hilton. And I did I was able to secure like a reservation there, but it didn't read the fine print and I didn't see that at that hotel, you actually had to pay the first night stay is like a deposit. And I didn't realize that because that's usually that's not the norm, at least in my experience when I'm booking hotels. And so it's crazy because I like made this reservation. I didn't realize I was going to have to pay for a night stay. And I'm looking at my credit card statements and I'm like, why is there an extra two or here? And I'm looking and I'm like, is this a fraud? Fraud alert, fraud alert. Somebody use my card. And I see that it's for the Hilton hotel that I booked. I was like, okay, let me just call the hotel before I claim that [00:10:00] somebody is like trying to steal money from me. And I call the hotel and the lady who answers is like, yeah, we had to charge you a one night stay.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: That's like in the fine print. And I'm like, well, no one told me. I mean, it's, it's not a big deal. I just like, didn't realize it. We talked about in the previous episode how I don't like having any sort of debt. And so I pay off my credit card, at the end of each month or, when the statement accrues.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: And so basically I was kind of alarmed at the fact that I was going to have to pay for this months in advance, , when I didn't realize that. And so it ended up not being a big deal. I had money to cover it. It was just unexpected. And I'm sure that I'm not the only person who like didn't read the fine print on one little thing. And ended up being charged something that they were not expecting. But lesson learned, I will not overlook that anymore. Let me tell you, that's one way to learn a lesson. If it costs me money, I'm gonna learn it and I'm probably going to remember it. So anyway, that's my money mishap for today.
Dr. Brittne Halford: I love that. Most people probably got charged that fee and it was unexpected, but they probably don't even realize it because they're not going [00:11:00] through their statements as diligently as you are. So kudos for you for reviewing your statements and understanding where every dollar goes.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. For this episode today, we are going to get into our next segment, which is our financial focus. And this segment today is going to be a little bit shorter than it normally is because we are going to leave room for Dr. Devon Gimbel to come on our next segment, which is going to be our wealthy insights.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: She's going to come in and we're going to do an awesome interview with her that I cannot wait for you all to hear. But for our financial focus today. I thought it would be good to sort of set up this interview with Devon and traveling and credit card point stuff because, I think it's really interesting.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: We're talking about Traveling and utilizing credit card points specifically to sort of optimize travel to decrease total travel costs, and I think that that can be a little type taboo. This subject in particular, when it comes to the finance world, a lot of what you hear in the personal finance spaces.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Don't use credit cards. Credit cards are bad. Credit card debt is bad. Um, and I [00:12:00] think that in some instances credit cards can get people into trouble, but there are other instances which we're going to really delve into today where credit cards can be pretty helpful and understanding that balance of when they can get you into trouble and when they might be particularly helpful besides sort of the obvious is really important. As we delve into this travel topic, as we delve into utilizing points and things like that. So I thought for our financial focus, it'd be really good for us to talk about. Why credit cards can maybe get you into trouble and then how they can be particularly helpful because I think Devon's going to help us really understand some of those nuances. So Brittne, I know that you spent a lot of time coaching, a lot of people on helping them eliminate some of their consumer debt and what have you sort of seen? What has been your experience with helping people with this debt?
Dr. Brittne Halford: Yeah. the first experience is, , the points that you mentioned. I've seen women who have problems with credit card debt saying, Oh, I don't want to lose the points. there's no problem with [00:13:00] using credit cards. I use credit cards. Lisha use credit cards. We talk about it, right? The problem is, is when you don't have a plan for that spend.
Dr. Brittne Halford: And so we're not using the credit cards outside of normal planned expenses or paying ourselves first and having the funding to use for other brunches or on our children, et cetera. So when you don't have a structured spending plan, and you're basically using something that you don't have. Which is money.
Dr. Brittne Halford: You're using it for an additional expense just to get the points, then you're going to get in trouble. Even Devon, our guest, will say and emphasize on her podcast that you are not doing this to carry a balance, right? So you're not using points as the incentive for carrying a balance on your credit card.
Dr. Brittne Halford: You want to spend using planned budgeted expenses, but you're just leveraging the credit card to get the perks.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Yeah, so I think, to kind of I need to, uh, clarify this. I think for a lot of people is that, credit cards can cause some trouble when you don't pay [00:14:00] off your balance at the end of each statement or at the end of each month period, if you're someone who's still carrying a credit card balance, then maybe utilizing points and trying to do these travel hacking using credit cards maybe isn't right for you at this moment. If you are somebody who maybe doesn't have as much self control as you desire, , credit cards can also get you into trouble that way, right? Because it makes money more accessible. Okay. And for some people, it makes money too accessible, right? If you don't have the cash to immediately pay down in expense and you use a credit card instead, then that can be a recipe for disaster, right?
Dr. Lisha Taylor: You may think, oh, okay, well, in the next week or two weeks or three weeks, I'm going to get that money. But if you don't already have it, then that can get you into trouble. And so I think for a lot of people, credit cards can sort of, cause a lot of issues when it makes money too accessible, and they don't have that same amount of money in cash that they can use to pay off the balance.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Some studies have shown that credit cards, incentivize you to spend more like you spend more whenever you are swiping than when you are paying in cash. And I know that for some people, they still don't want to pay in cash. Some businesses may not even [00:15:00] accept cash nowadays. The point still remains that whenever you are using a credit card specifically, instead of a debit card or instead of cash, you tend to spend more. We talked about a little bit on the last podcast about how a lot of these credit cards have much higher interest rates nowadays than they had in the past and how if you use too much of the credit cards and you use too much of the credit limit than how it can hurt your credit score.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: And so I think these are things to really be mindful, even if you are somebody who wants to travel hack, even if you are someone who wants to utilize credit card points, even if you are someone who wants to, as we said in the teaser travel first class or book swanky hotels, it's really important to understand these points that you have to have some level of financial discipline in order to be able to take advantage of these perks.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Transcribed
Dr. Brittne Halford: Yeah. They say that credit or money is the only thing that you can use without having any. So we don't want you to, get into that dilemma. We want you to have planned expenses and just leverage the credit cards for the perks. All right. we kind of alluded to the perks. What are some of the reasons why credit cards can be helpful?
Dr. Brittne Halford: Lisha you talked about, using [00:16:00] points for swanky hotels. Tell the people about some of the other benefits.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Yeah, so I think it can solve some temporary cash flow problems and I will use it. I will use credit cards sometimes this way as well. Like when I'm paying for conferences and I know I'm going to get reimbursed sometimes instead of just paying that outright in cash. I will put it on a credit card because I know I'm going to get reimbursed pretty quickly. For some of those things. I went through this period where I didn't use credit cards much at all. Because I was afraid of, And so I was sort of accumulating a ton of credit card debt and then I sort of realized that a lot of these credit cards have a lot more protections like they have fraud alerts they have a lot of insurances on some of the things that you purchase and so sometimes when you use credit cards, you have more protections. they can be more convenient. Let's just be honest. Right. it's more convenient sometimes to just grab a certain card and swipe, swipe, swipe and put all of the spend on one card than to worry about carrying cash or other forms of currency. But I think that the most helpful thing, at least that I've really been using credit cards for is to utilize them for perks, cashback, travel, hotels, that [00:17:00] sort of thing.
Dr. Brittne Halford: Love that. Yeah. I've also used, credit cards for perks and, specifically I can recall that we were able to purchase our Hawaii flights with credit cards and it was because of the strategic use of the credit card.
And we have our next segment, which is our Wealthy Insights segment. And I am so excited about this because on this episode, we have one of my favorite people. Apparently now in this personal finance world, there are very few people that I can say have dramatically enhanced my life within the past year.
And our guest is one of those people. Her name is Dr. Devon Gimbel. And she is well known and the personal finance space as basically being the credit card points guru. If you have a credit card that you are not fully optimizing, or you think you're optimizing it, let me be the first to tell you, there are probably some things that you do not know that you could probably very much benefit from.
And I am so excited about this because we have [00:18:00] the expert here today to give us some wealthy insights on how we can better optimize Our credit card points. Devon, thank you so much for being here. I, as you couldn't tell, am so excited to have you. Well, I am equally excited to be here. Lisha Brittne, thank you so much for this invitation.
This is my absolute favorite topic to talk about, especially to audiences like physicians who are in such an amazing position to really, truly leverage credit card points. And in my experience, just my own personal life from the thousands of people that I've worked with, I find that this is an area of personal finance that people tend to know the least about.
And so there's this potential for enormous value and this really big sort of lack of knowledge and understanding around it. And so I think conversations like this are so much fun because it allows us to start bridging that gap. Thank you so much for having me here today. Now, Devon, I must admit. I don't know you as well as Lisha.
You haven't changed my life like you've changed Lisha's yet. That's the operative word, Devon. So in this podcast, I am [00:19:00] here for all of it. I'm sorry if I go off script a bit because selfishly I have my own set of questions. We'll tackle all of them. Well, Devon, please just take some time to tell us a little bit about you and how you got started in this space.
It's a very conventional track to grow up only ever wanting to be a doctor, do the whole undergrad, med school, residency, fellowship thing, practice medicine for a few years, and then decide to stop doing that and just start teaching people about credit card points, right? Like I was in my postgraduate training, I'm pretty sure any of my attendings or my department chair would have had an absolute heart attack if they knew that I was going to be practicing medicine for what ended up being about seven years after training and then taking a completely different pathway.
Right? into this area. But in terms of this world of travel and using credit card points, my story is really my lifelong story. I am a kid who, I grew up in Southern California and was raised by a single mom. I didn't really have a lot of financial resources as a family [00:20:00] and was always really interested in travel.
And I don't know where that came from because my family was not one that had a lot of travel experiences. And so my travel came through my imagination. You know, I'm a child of the eighties. We didn't have the internet at that time, but we had National Geographic Magazine and we had a set of encyclopedias.
And that was my world where I learned about different places, different people, different cultures. And I was just, So enamored with this idea of exploring this huge, beautiful world. And took me a very long time to be able to start doing that. But when I did finally start to have a little bit of money, and I mean, a very little bit of money, I would use that to travel and I call it sort of travel by any means necessary, right?
Like I would do the thing where I would find the cheapest, cheapest, cheapest economy flight from the States to Thailand, and then take. 8 overnight buses to travel all over the country. So I didn't have to pay for like a hotel or anything, but I got out and I started seeing the world and it changed my life.
It completely changed my life. [00:21:00] And when I did kind of go back, I took two years off in between undergrad and med school, but when I went back into sort of the medical training and education path. I knew one of the things that would suffer was travel. Most of us did not go to a med school or residency or fellowship that encouraged us to take two months off to slow travel South America.
And so my travel kind of got dampened a little bit during that time. And then when I finally came out on the other end, I finished my fellowship in 2012. One of the things that changed for me was that for the first time in my life with my first grownup job, I actually had a little bit of disposable income.
And one of the things that became very obvious to me very quickly was that. I had no idea what I was doing with money. When I was growing up, I didn't have to make a lot of choices about money because I didn't have any, right? And there's not a lot of things you have to think about when you just don't have access to money.
And I was coming out of training. I had significant student loan debt from all of my education. And I realized I need to learn about this. [00:22:00] I don't have anyone who's taught me how do I steward money? How do I make decisions about where to put money? How do I set myself up so that I might have a little bit of a different experience and my children have a different experience than sort of what my family experience had been growing up.
And so I really just dove head first into learning about personal finance so that. I wouldn't feel so scared and nervous about just managing my financial life as a young adult, as an attending. And I remember I was working in a private practice at that time and I'd work for a couple hours straight, need to take a 15 minute break just to rest my brain.
And so I'd read stuff online about how do I understand retirement accounts? How am I supposed to figure out, like how do I allocate money to student loan debt versus saving for the future versus a down payment on a house and all of these kinds of typical things that a lot of us. Kind of get into sort of at that time of our lives.
And it was in that Google searching and personal finance educating of myself that I started stumbling onto some of these finance adjacent blogs, [00:23:00] people talking about using credit cards and using them very strategically to earn points and then turning those points into travel. And that really flipped a switch in my head because one, like I said, I love to travel.
And the only thing I love as much as traveling is getting a great deal. I think nothing compares to that, like dopamine rush, you know, scoring a great deal of getting something for nothing or something for an amazing deal. And. My medical training is in pathology. I think all of medicine is problem solving, but the thing that I really love about pathology is I feel like it's the ultimate puzzle to be solved.
And so I feel like learning about this world of credit card points and travel, it kind of ticked all those boxes for me. It's like the ultimate puzzle to solve. And if you solve it, the prize is that you get amazing travel for very, very little money. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, if this is actually legit, this is not some weird, dangerous scam thing.
This could really change my life and did. I started learning more about credit [00:24:00] cards. I started learning more about financial responsibility around them, about how to very strategically and intentionally open specific credit cards to earn points and then how to turn those points into travel experiences.
And I do not overemphasize whatsoever when I say that it really changed my life. I went from traveling, like I said, economy, economy, economy, whatever I think the lowest level of economy was in any travel experience, to now when I travel, especially internationally, I almost always fly business or first class and my out of pocket cost is less than the price of an economy ticket.
I take my kids on vacations that if I was paying completely out of pocket cash, I might take one of these vacations once every seven years. And instead I'm able to take two, three trips a year with my family of four. And that has just so fundamentally changed my life and their lives that it's one of the reasons that I'm just so passionate about this, that I had such an amazing experience with it.
And I very quickly started to see I don't think I'm some weird unicorn. I think that there are certain elements that make physicians in [00:25:00] general so perfectly poised to take advantage of credit card points for travel that I became really passionate about sharing kind of that information with other physicians because I feel like so many of them are.
Don't even realize this world exists and I want other people to have those same experiences for themselves and for their families as well. But Gavin, I love this because I think so many of us can identify with your story of wanting to travel, not having the money. When we get a little bit of money trying to find the cheapest And I mean the cheapest way to travel to that place where going on kayak or Google flights and picking the cheapest flight, we are traveling economy, we are finding the most affordable hotel, we're, you know, searching for coupons or discounts or whatever, and we're just getting there and we're happy we're having the experience.
And there's nothing wrong with that, but what you're sort of introducing us to is a whole new world of like, but what if you could travel in luxury? What if you could travel in style? What [00:26:00] if you could travel and enjoy this experience and pay less than what you would have paid if you would have bought that economy flight or if you would have paid outright for that hotel stay?
And so I love this. I think for some people, maybe the next question is, well, Devon, I already have a credit card. Are there certain credit cards that I need to get? And I know one of the things that you tell your clients about, one of the things that you talk about on your own podcast and in your own Facebook group is that there are certain credit cards that may be better suitable for this hobby than others, and I think you use a term that you call transferable points.
Can you kind of explain what that is? Yeah, absolutely. So in the world of credit cards, we're in a really interesting position. If you are someone who is based in the United States or you have access to U. S. issued credit cards, it's a very different kind of landscape than for folks who are based in Europe or Australia or just any other essentially part of the world.
And we have a plethora of credit cards that we have accessible to us for people who are based in the U. S. [00:27:00] and within the world of what are called rewards credit cards. So this is the type of credit card where whenever you use a rewards credit card to make a purchase, The credit card company will reward you with some sort of kind of incentive for using their card.
And this can come in a couple of different flavors. A lot of people are really familiar with airline specific credit cards, for example, especially if you live in an area where your local airport is a huge hub for one of the major domestic airlines. So folks who live in Miami, most of their flights going in and out of Miami airport are going to be American airlines operated.
Folks who live. You know, near Atlanta, that's a huge Delta hub, right? So I think a lot of people are familiar with maybe having an airline specific credit card where you use that Delta card, the American airlines card, when you buy your groceries or when you pay for Netflix or whatever the case may be.
And you get rewarded for the amount of spend you put on that card in the form of for airline credit cards, it's airline miles, right? So you earn an American airline mile [00:28:00] every time you spend a dollar on the card. And. What people don't understand is that within that world of rewards credit cards, that There are the airline specific and hotel specific cards.
And then there is a totally different type of credit card that earns what are called transferable points. And these are sort of the supercharged, really, really valuable points. So people may be familiar with a bank like Chase Bank, right? Or they may be familiar with American Express or Capital One. And each of these banks or credit card issuers, they have their own menu of points earning credit cards.
But instead of earning. Like an American Airline mile or a Delta mile every time you put money on these these transferable points earning cards earn a type of points currency that you can do not just one thing with but lots of things with and so like I said, an example is chase if you have a card like the chase Sapphire preferred and you're earning chase points.
You are not limited to using your chase points to [00:29:00] redeem those or use those for travel on one single airline. Instead, your chase points give you access to like 13 different airlines and three different hotel programs. And so, You're able to turn your points into a much broader range of travel experiences than if you have something that I called the fixed type of points or miles.
The example for that are those airline specific miles. If you have the Delta credit card, I don't care if you put a million dollars of expenses on that credit card, you are earning Delta miles. You can never use those Delta miles to book a United flight. Or a Singapore Airlines flight, you're stuck because your airline miles are fixed to using them through that airline.
And so I think one of the biggest kind of aha moments for a lot of folks is that not all rewards points types are the same. And that if you can collect those transferable points currencies, you're going to have a lot more options for the travel that's available for you to be able to turn those points into travel experiences.
I love it. I love it. And [00:30:00] can you Well, that Both Brittne and I have questions for you, Devon. That's what you're hearing right there. Sure. Can you talk a little bit about what some of those transferable credit cards might be just so people have an awareness of what they are? Yeah, absolutely. So, again, for those people who are based in the U.
S., we currently have five major transferable points currencies, so like five major flavors of transferable points. Chase Bank has what are called ultimate rewards points. American Express has membership rewards points. Citibank has thank you points. Capital one has, I think those are just called capital one miles or capital one points.
And then built is kind of one of the newest transferable points currencies on the scene built is one specific credit card that allows you to earn points for paying your rent. This is a very innovative points credit card. So those are the five main transferable points currencies. And like I said, For Chase American Express City and Capital One, they don't just have one points earning card.
They have a whole menu of points earning [00:31:00] cards. So you can hold one single points earning card or if you want to be a little bit more involved in this hobby, you can have multiple points earning credit cards. But those are right now the five kind of major foundational types of transferable points that we have access to in the U.
S. Awesome. Devon, this is news to me. It's news to a lot of people. And so I did some research, people. I listened to a couple of Devon's episodes of her podcast before hosting her on our podcast. And I attempted to do this, Devon. I attempted to transfer the points so that I could purchase flights. And one of the things that I found now, granted, I'm not a night person.
I was trying to do this at night, so I wasn't running on all cylinders, but I couldn't find where to transfer the points on the website, like Chase, some of these websites, they try to hide it so that you can keep the points with them. And then I did not budget in the time that it takes to transfer the [00:32:00] points.
So I guess my question is when someone is using transferable points, what are some of the best practices that we can implement in order to be successful and not frustrated like I was? Yeah, so number one, I think you just made an excellent point, which is that credit card companies and banks in general do not tell people about the best or the most powerful ways to use those points.
I bet anybody who has one of these transferable points earning cards, for the most part. People who have them either don't know that they are actually earning transferable points cards, like maybe they've been walking around with a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, not even realizing that they are earning these very, very powerful type of points.
And then the second thing is that even for people who have one of these cards, and maybe they signed up for it, understanding that they were going to be earning points What happens is you go and you log on to your account and you kind of navigate to the area where it tells you how many points you have.
And if your credit card account tells you anything, this is what it's going to tell you. You're going to [00:33:00] log on to Chase. You're going to log on to Amex. And let's say that you have 100, 000 points earned on your credit card account. It will probably have a little note that says something like your 100, 000 points are worth 1, 000 in travel.
And you're thinking, great, I would love to save 1, 000. That's not an insignificant amount of money, but nowhere on that credit card site will your credit card company tell you that is only if you keep your credit card points in your credit card account and then book your travel, whether that's a flight or a rental car.
Or a hotel stay directly through your credit card. Brittne, like you're mentioning, you have this alternate option where you can literally move, not physically, this is all done digitally, right? But you can literally move your credit card points out of your credit card account and into the frequent flyer account of an airline transfer partner, or the loyalty account of a hotel transfer partner.
And then book your travel from there. And I know for some people that probably sounds complicated, like, well, why would I take this extra step? If I can just use my a hundred thousand [00:34:00] chase points and knock a thousand dollars off the cost of my trip, why would I try to go through this extra step of navigating to this part of my account and moving my points out and then having to go over to an airline?
And the number one reason is because when you leave your credit card points in your credit card account. They have a very low value. I know 1, 000 sounds like a lot of money, right, 1, 000 for 100, 000 points. But you can actually get two, three, four, five times that amount in value just by doing this one step of moving your points out of your credit card account and into a frequent flyer account.
I'm going to just give you one quick example. Kind of sticking with that 100, 000 Chase points, one of the airline transfer partners of Chase and actually multiple of the transferable points currencies that I love is Air France. So this is a huge international airline. It's based obviously in France and you can book one way business class flights from the States pretty much all over Europe for 55, 000 points.
[00:35:00] So, remember that Chase will tell you that your 100, 000 points are worth 1, 000 in travel. But you can take those same exact 100, 000 Chase points, move them over to Air France, and you almost have enough points for a roundtrip business class flight to Europe. And I don't know how much y'all have been checking the prices of business class flights anywhere recently, but I don't think I've ever seen a roundtrip business class flight to Europe priced at less than 1, 000 or around 1, 000.
Oftentimes, it's 2, 500, 3, 000, 4, 000, 5, 000. So that is just one example of why you don't want to trust your credit card company to tell you what the value of your points are. But back to that original question, Brittne, about how do you actually find where you're supposed to go? Within any of these credit card accounts, There will always be an option to do what I just said, the option to transfer your points.
That is what you are looking for. If you do want to move your points out of your credit card account and to an airline frequent flyer account or to a hotel loyalty account. But you [00:36:00] have to know to look for that because your credit card company is not going to highlight and have like little digital flashing arrows showing you where to go.
They benefit so much more when you don't understand the true value of your points and you just leave them in your credit card account. And use them to book a tiny little bit of travel compared to what you could be doing instead. Devon, I love that. I love that. I, thank you for the example, because I agree that when I first tried to transfer points for the first time, I was freaking out.
I didn't really know where to find that option on the portal. And if you have a Chase card, it's different than if you have an Amex card, it's different. I remember trying to teach my brother how to do this, and he goes, I didn't even know you could do that. Where is that option at? And he made me FaceTime him.
And then he was like, I still don't get it. And then, so I had to go over to his house in person and show him. And he was like, are you sure this is legal? And I was like, Oh my God, it is legal. So thank you, Devon, Brittne. A lot of people have that issue and they may be wondering the same thing. And Devon, I want to highlight what you just said.
Because I just went to South Africa, as you know, [00:37:00] and I'm headed to Europe pretty soon for a colleague's wedding. So I had the experience of looking at what is the cash cost of these different flights, and I had to book a flight from JFK to London, and then we're going taking a flight from London to South Africa.
Spain, but my first major flight is from New York to London. And I looked at the cash cost of that. And I want to say a business class flight, which for those who have not traveled internationally, when you're traveling internationally, oftentimes instead of calling it first class, they call it business class.
And so don't let the word business class fool you. Business class is top of the line. It is, you get a bed on the plane, you get chef inspired meals. They give you pajamas. They give you all the alcohol you want on the wine. You want all the desserts you want. As you can tell, I had a great time. So this is kind of like the way you want to travel.
Segway, Devon and I were joking a few days ago about that movie. Crazy rich Asians. I don't know if you all have seen it. But when the movie starts and she doesn't realize that her partner is rich and then they get on the plane and they like escort them to this [00:38:00] other part of the plane that other people don't get to walk through and she sees that there's a bed on the plane and there's people dressed up offering them champagne as they get on the flight.
That's what we're talking about here. So if you are trying to travel like that, you're like, probably, Lisha, I don't even think I can travel like that. I thought that was only available to millionaires and billionaires. No, it is available to you. Number one. Number two. Devon is saying, and I looked at these prices, the cost of that sort of flight would oftentimes cost you thousands of dollars just for a one way flight.
3, which is why a lot of us never book those things on our own. And what she's saying is that you can choose to pay 3, to travel in first class, paying cash. You can choose to pay 1, 500 to book that same flight in economy. Or you can take your credit card points that you've accumulated. You can transfer them to the airline partner account, and you can book almost two first class flights for the same price for [00:39:00] the cost of those points.
So Chase told you those a hundred thousand points were worth a thousand dollars, which might've been enough for a one way economy flight. But what they didn't tell you, if you transferred those points out, you would have had enough for almost two first class flights. And I think when you think about it like that, one economy flight or two first class flights, you're like, whoa, that's a big.
And when I realized that, Devon, I was like, Oh, teach me more. Tell me more. I 100 percent agree, obviously, because I'm completely obsessed with all of these things. But one of the points that I think is really important to make is that it's not just about choosing to fly business or choosing to fly first class, right?
Because I think there are a lot of people for whom. Really like that's just not important. And I think that that is completely valid and great too, because one of the other things that has changed for me over the journey I've had with credit card points, because I've been learning about these and using these for around 10 years now, but when I first started learning about credit card points and miles, it was me.
And my husband and [00:40:00] my husband actually is not a huge traveler and I'm a huge solo traveler. So a lot of the time I was using our joint expenses and then hoarding all the points and using them all on myself. But, you know, I was doing predominantly solo travel, which looks very, very different than it looks now when I travel with my family of four with two kids.
And one of the things that we did recently is that. And I'm sure again, for folks who are actually looking into travel costs, they've probably had the same experience that even if you are flying economy, that doesn't necessarily mean cheap, especially if you are bound to traveling during very, very high volume, popular times.
Like if you have kids who are in sort of a traditional school and have a traditional school break like my children do when we're looking to do travel, for example, their winter break or their spring break. Even if you're traveling domestically, even if you're traveling economy, that does not mean that those flights are cheap.
And my family just actually came back from my kids most recent spring break about a week and a half ago, and we took them down to Costa Rica for a week. And this is a [00:41:00] five hour direct flight. I'm based in Chicago, so we can fly from Chicago to Costa Rica direct, five hour flight. Round trip economy tickets on United for the week that we were traveling were pricing at 2, 200 a person.
And again, I'm like, for five hours with one inch of leg room, squish it between my two children. I'm like, this is not a 2, 200 experience. And being able to use points instead to where I can knock that cost down to 80 a person. For me, that is the difference between taking a trip or not taking a trip. And that is one of the ways that I love points.
I think it gives people so many options. It can be the difference between, like I said, taking a trip or not traveling at all. It can be the difference between using what you had already budgeted, but might have paid for an economy flight before and using the same exact amount of money, but using points to expand your travel budget and instead flying.
Business class or first class. You know, one of the things that I love to see when people do with their points is including [00:42:00] their family and travel. I think there are so many of us where again, we may be the people who are changing generational patterns in our families, right? We may have parents who did not experience things that we would love for ourselves and our families to experience.
And so to be able to use points. To fly our parents home and to fly them in comfort where they're actually going to be taken care of and they're not going to be smashed in the back of an economy plane. I think is such an amazing and gratifying way to use points. And so to me, this is all just about expanding options and your travel does not have to look like someone else's for it to be a quote unquote, good use of points.
You know, like you don't only have to fly to one place or one way. I just think about how many more options we have. And that is one of the things that I think it's just exciting for people to learn about for the first time. Devon, you just touched me in so many ways and spoke to my heart, like as a mother and a past episode, I asked [00:43:00] Lisha about what I should buy for my mother for Mother's Day because I'm a horrible gift giver.
So maybe I can use points to like give her this elevated travel experience. And I think oftentimes. When I'm working with clients about paying off debt, and we're all about fun money here, but sometimes money is not fun. Sometimes credit cards are not fun. And there are many people who say, stay away from credit cards or credit card debt is bad.
What would you say to those people? Yeah, you know, I think this is such an important question. And honestly, I feel like we could talk for an hour more just about this question. But I think the first thing I like to do is separate out. Credit cards from carrying balances on credit card or carrying debt on credit cards.
I don't think those things are necessarily conflated, but I think they become conflated in so many of our brains and experiences. So. Let me speak first just to the idea of credit cards are bad. So many of us are taught this, either explicitly or implicitly. And I think this happens because so [00:44:00] many of us are probably taught about money or finances from folks who also didn't have a lot of financial education.
And I know in my experience, like I mentioned, I was raised by a single mom. And when she became a single mom, which was when I was very young, I was less than a year old, she Had to make hard decisions to make ends meet. And she was telling me, not until I was like 16, 15 or 16 years old, that in order to get the things she needed to provide for me, you know, and my older sister and for us to kind of function, she needed to get credit cards when we were very young.
And she went into a significant amount of credit card debt and over years was able to dig herself out. But I remember when I was a teenager, being in the car with her and her saying to me, like kind of telling me her story and her experience with credit cards and her saying to me, credit cards are dangerous.
Like do not get them. They are bad. Exactly like you were saying. They get people into trouble. It is not worth it. Avoid it altogether. And I remember having a visceral fear of credit cards as a young adult. I never [00:45:00] had one. It wasn't until I was 31 years old that I had my very first credit card. I was a fellow at the time.
And I had always avoided credit cards because the message I learned is that they're bad. You don't know how to use them just because no one does. These are built to get you into trouble and it's so hard to get out of that financial trouble if you get into it. And I think a lot of people have probably received similar messages.
And that's why I think financial education and financial literacy is so critically important because at the end of the day, a credit card is a thing. It's a piece of plastic or now we're fancy and we have metal and a credit card cannot do anything to you, but. We do have to have education around how to responsibly use credit cards and how they're set up because they are not set up for folks just for the good of society, right?
I mean, these are businesses, they are set up in a very intentional way. And traditionally there are large segments of our community who have not benefited from the financial services industry, women, people of color, marginalized communities. And I think those are very, very real and important [00:46:00] things that we need to be educated about.
But a credit card itself is not bad when you know how to use it to your advantage. And in the context of this conversation, I think one of the things that's really, really critical to point out is that if you are using a credit card specifically because you are intrigued by this idea of earning rewards, earning points, using them for travel, sort of the number one cardinal rule of this type of credit card only get or only use this type of card if you are in a position to where you can very easily and comfortably pay off your entire credit card statement in full every single month.
And this is not because it's a moral issue, like you're a bad person if you're carrying a balance. No. The reason we say that is because these credit card companies are smart. They don't benefit from you being smart and knowledgeable and savvy with your credit card. They benefit from you putting a lot of expenses on that card and then carrying a balance because the APR, the percentage interest that you're going to be charged for these types of credit cards, it's obscene.
It's 18, [00:47:00] 20, 25%. And so in terms of using these credit cards, you only do that. Again, like I said, if you are in a position to where you can pay them off in full every single month, If you're not in that position yet, right, if you are carrying balances on your credit cards, again, I do not think this is a moral issue.
I don't think there's anything that's shameful about carrying a balance. I don't think it means anything about you as a person. It probably means that one, maybe you're still building your financial education, your financial literacy knowledge. Maybe it means that you're in a position where you are not yet liquid enough to be able to handle something like an emergency.
Right? So I think separating out this idea about credit cards and are they good or bad from, The question of what does it mean if you're carrying a balance are two different things, but they are both really important topics of conversation. Yeah, I love that. Brittne and I were just talking about that in one of our earlier segments about are credit cards good?
Are they bad? And I love how you mentioned it is they aren't good or bad. And if you have a balance on that credit card, you yourself are not good or bad. It's just. The people that are in [00:48:00] the best position to sort of take advantage of this particular hobby, where they are leveraging credit card expenses for travel, hotel stays or whatever, you have to sort of be someone who can consistently and reliably pay off your balance in full each month.
And if you are not yet at that stage, that's not a problem. When you get to that stage, just know, Hey, this other opportunity sort of lies. Waiting for you. That's something that I wanted to make sure was really clear is we're not advocating that you just charge these cards and put a bunch of spend on this card and don't pay it off.
Okay. If you are not yet paying off your balance, this is not yet the hobby for you. If you are paying off your balance, then this is something that may enhance your travel experience. I love the way that you clarify that. Yeah, the other thing I want to say too is I think a lot of us have had the experience where we have been, no one's been in sort of a static financial position their entire life, right?
Like I think about what I felt like when I was, you know, a five year old or 10 year old in my family of origin around money. And then I think about when I was 15 and got my first job and finally started [00:49:00] making a paycheck. And then I think about being in med school. Having my education 100 percent funded by student loans and then coming out on the other end.
I think we all inhabit these different kind of phases of financial education, financial literacy, financial resources in terms of what we have access to. And for those folks who, again, are sort of in that phase of their journey where they are learning how to increase their income or manage the money that they do have access to, and they're not yet in that position to where it's easy for them to pay off their credit card statements in full every month, all that means is this is a brilliant time to learn, right?
This is a brilliant time to learn about. Great. What are the options that are going to become available to you as you continue to build your knowledge and your skill around handling money? It's not that, Oh, you don't get to learn about credit card points. No, I'm like, learn everything you can now so that as you build those skills, you will then be in the position if you want to be in the future to where you can take advantage of some of these different opportunities.
I love that. I love that. And so what would your advice [00:50:00] be to. Maybe someone who says, okay, Devon, you know what? I do pay off my credit cards in full each month. And maybe they're sort of like me when they started, where they've got like one Delta airline card that they're using for everything. Or they've got like an Amazon card or a banana Republic card here and there that they got because it offered them a free coat and they're hearing you for the first time.
Right. And they're like, what? Transferable points, first class flights. Tell me more. What would your advice be to someone like that who is maybe getting started or interested in getting started in this hobby? Yeah, that's such a great question. And first, I want to acknowledge, we have all been that person, right?
Even though now, the credit cards I have look very different than they looked five years ago or ten years ago. I was that person in residency who signed up for the Banana Republic credit card to get 20 percent off my first purchase. I was like, great, I'm gonna buy. Three actual nice pairs of pants to last me my whole four years of training.
You know, I would love to save 17, you know, so all of us have that card, right? [00:51:00] We've all got either the store specific card or like you said, the Amazon card or the Costco card. That is not a problem whatsoever. I think when it comes to learning any new skill, and this includes credit card points. There is no mandate that we learn everything all at once or that we make radical changes.
I'm a huge believer in taking the next small step. And for a lot of people in the very beginning, I think the first step that makes the most sense is get even more knowledgeable about where you're starting from. What are the credit cards that are in your wallet right now? And look at them and start to become more educated about them if you need to be about it.
Oh, do I already have any of the types of credit cards that are earning me this specific type of points, the transferable or the flexible type of points? Because like I said, some people may be walking around with an Amex card or a Chase card and not even realize yet, Oh, I already have access to earning this type of point.
So I think the very first step is get even more familiar with what's in your [00:52:00] wallet right now. Okay. Cool. Figure out, do you even have one of these transferable points earning cards right away or not? And if you don't, and you want to get one, know that you only have to get one to start with. There's no one right card or one wrong card.
You're not going to mess it up. You're not going to like make any decision that you can't undo, or it's going to be so significant it's going to hurt you, but I think for most people. Having in the beginning, at least one really solid transferable points, earning credit card and getting comfortable with that.
You can always add complexity to this system, but you don't have to start out with it being complex. And so for most people, that first step is just going to get comfortable using just one transferable points earning credit card to begin with. And for a lot of people, I will say this is related to it is pay attention to what you tend to spend the most amount of money on.
And the reason why I think this is important is because when you do want to expand, I call it your credit card portfolio, just the number of credit [00:53:00] cards that you carry and you use when you are ready to expand that. The best thing to do is to find the credit cards that are preferentially going to give you the most amount of points for the types of things that you spend money on.
And so this is a really great way if you aren't already really familiar and friendly and intimate with your spending. This is a great way to get really familiar with just where is your money going? Because my philosophy is that All of us have to spend money. I mean, basically all of us have to spend money, right?
Like we're eating food, we have transportation, whatever other expenses come into your life, you're probably going to be paying for those. So if we're going to be spending money, why not maximize what those expenses are going to do for us? in the sense of them being able to earn us a lot of points. So I embrace expenses.
I don't shy away from them. I don't believe in good and bad expenses. I think, how can we be as smart as possible for the money that we are already spending? Well, Devon, as you're talking about what's in your wallet, [00:54:00] first, I was thinking about the commercial. I don't remember which, which brand it is, but I remember Capital One.
Yes. Capital One, like what's in your wallet? Okay. Capital One, if you want to sponsor. Either of our podcasts, then please reach out, call me, call me Capital One. All right. So I know what's in my wallet, right? But I don't know how to use what's in my wallet to optimize it for points. And I find myself feeling a little bit of guilt and just frustration that I'm not actually getting the most from our credit cards.
We have an Amex Platinum. We have a Chase Sapphire Reserve. I have the Citi Thank You card. But I. Still feel like I could get more. So how do we optimize what's in our wallet so that we can have more fun with money and travel to swanky places like you and Lisha? Yes, this is a great question. And I think one of the first things is getting into this hobby.
I think. kind of challenges us to change some of, I think, very commonly held beliefs around credit cards in general. Like [00:55:00] again, I think we touched on one of the big ones is either shame or fear or anxiety just around holding and using credit cards. Once you kind of get over that initial obstacle and you start feeling comfortable having a credit card, I think the next sort of very common pattern is for people to have A credit card, right?
The credit card. Most people have their one main card and they just put all their expenses on it. And I think, again, for many people, that makes sense. If you're in this hobby of credit card points and miles, It actually makes sense to hold more than one credit card because, like you were saying, different credit cards are going to serve different functions.
I think about it just like clothing. Most of us don't have, even if we have a favorite t shirt and a favorite pair of jeans, most of us don't only have that, right? I grew up in Southern California. The weather there looked very different than what it looks now where I live in Chicago. Now, I have things I didn't even know existed when I was young.
I have snow boots. I have rain boots. I've got like the 19 different layers for when we go from 30 degrees to minus 28 degrees [00:56:00] with wind chill. And it's not that my jeans and t shirt are bad clothes. It's that they serve a particular function. And sometimes I need my clothing to serve a different function.
And it's the same thing with credit cards. There are going to be credit cards that give you what are called bonus points. So elevated points earning, but not across the board, not for everything that you spend money on. Most points earning credit cards will have designated what are called bonus categories where they say, okay, if you're going to spend money on this bonus category, we are going to give you a lot more points for every dollar you spend.
And so this is why I think it's so great to become really friendly. What you are spending money on. And I don't even call it a budget. I just call it a, where is your money going? No. Where are you spending money? Are you spending money on rent? Are you spending money predominantly on groceries on travel?
Some folks have really large travel budgets. That's great. Are you spending money on. Daycare, are you spending money on living costs for a parent that you're helping to care for? I don't [00:57:00] care what you're spending money on, but when you know what those categories are, then you can become really deliberate and start looking at, okay, of all of these different points earning credit cards that we do have access to, what are the two or three that are going to give me the biggest bang for my buck based on where I tend to spend my money.
And so, again, I think it's really important to not Think too far ahead to not think, Oh my gosh, how do I optimize every single dollar I spend? Because that can get a little bit overwhelming or intimidating to people in the beginning. I. Look from the opposite perspective. I say, where is my biggest opportunity to gain a lot of points with the smallest action possible?
And so usually what that looks like is what is the single category of expense that I have on a monthly or annual basis? What is the best card for that expense? Let me start there. That's going to give me the biggest bang for my buck. So let me get that credit card that's going to give me a lot of extra points for my grocery spend.
I'll use it for everything in the beginning and that's fine, but that's going to give [00:58:00] me the biggest bang for my buck. And then once I get really comfortable with that, I can work down the line and I can say, okay, after groceries, what's my second biggest expense. Let me find a credit card that's going to give me extra points for that.
And so I really just want to reiterate that there is no right way to do this. And there's a million steps in between. Starting at the very beginning and being what I consider to be maybe optimizing for every single point you could be earning. You can do really, really well without having to carry 23 different cards, without having to track every single dollar you're spending.
It's very easy to just look at what are my top two or three categories of spend and let me make sure that I'm holding a credit card that's going to give me as many points as possible for those types of spend first. Yeah, I love that Devon. I was talking to my cousin about this. And I was talking to my brother about this cause you know, now that I know all about us, I'm telling the world as you very well know, my brother, one of his hesitations was I thought that getting credit cards were bad.
Like not necessarily that using them were bad, but I thought [00:59:00] you weren't supposed to open up new credit cards. I thought opening up credit cards would lower your credit score and Lisha I don't want to lower my credit score. So I'm afraid to get another car. I mean, this is not exactly what he said, but this is sort of the gist.
Yeah. And so. I just want to sort of see if you had anything to say for those people, because I think some people may be hesitant to get into this hobby because they are afraid that it could hurt their credit score. Yeah. And I think number one, this is an incredibly valid concern. Again, I think if you're based in the U.
S., we have to function within a financial system that does that. Assign us a credit score and that gives us access or eliminates access to us for very, very important things. So first of all, I think that, again, this is very valid and legitimate concern. The thing that I think is so fascinating, and I include myself in this because I had to go through this whole educational journey too, like I said, no one taught me anything about money ever until I started reading about it on the internet, is that there is not enough financial education around What actually goes into determining our credit score, [01:00:00] because once we understand those things, those are just like levers that we can pull and we will be able to predict with confidence.
Okay, well, what is actually going to happen to my credit score if I take a certain action and what most people don't know just because no one's ever told them this is that. There are really five main factors that impact your credit score, and they are not all weighted equally. So the number one most important impact on your credit score is your on time payment of your credit card balances.
This accounts for 35 percent of your credit score. So having those on time payments, that is going to be the single most important thing you can do for the health of your credit score. But the second most important thing, this is the thing that I think is so wild because I think it's actually counterintuitive, but this is what really, really answers that question of what if I open two credit cards or five or 10 credit cards, how is that not going to tank my credit score?
Because the second most important factor in your credit score is what is called credit [01:01:00] utilization ratio. All that means is the total amount of credit that's been extended to you. How much of it are you actually using? on any sort of given day or at any certain time point. And I think what most of us assume is, okay, if I have my one credit card, my one trustee credit card, let's say that the credit limit is 10, 000.
Even if I'm putting 8, 000 of expenses on that card every single month and I'm paying it off every single month, we think this is so responsible, right? I'm never carrying a balance. I'm doing great. But this aspect of credit utilization ratio, how much of the overall amount of credit extended to you are you using?
If you have one credit card with a 10, 000 credit limit and you're using 8, 000 of that on sort of an average basis, you're using 80 percent of the credit available to you. Now, no one's telling us these things, right? That when it comes to credit utilization ratio, if you have a quote unquote high credit utilization ratio, that is seen as a risk factor that will lower your credit score.
So it doesn't matter that you're paying off your statement in full every single month. You could [01:02:00] have 500, 000 sitting in a checking or a savings account at that same exact bank. So you clearly have liquidity, doesn't matter. For the credit utilization ratio, all they're looking at is Okay, how much of your credit are you using?
So if you're hovering at that 80 percent mark, that is actually going to be very detrimental to your credit score. And so what most people don't realize is that if you're going to open up multiple credit cards, that means that combined across all of them, you're going to have an increased credit limit available to you.
Let's say that same exact person went out and they opened up a couple of credit cards and instead of now having 10, 000 of credit total available to them, they have 100, 000 of credit. Okay. They're not doing anything differently with their spending, right? They're still putting 8, 000 on any given month of expenses on their card.
But now instead of utilizing 80 percent of their credit, they're utilizing 8 percent of it. That is going to be enormously positive in terms of the impact on the credit score, because that aspect, that 30 percent chunk of their credit score. [01:03:00] Is now very, very positive. And I think this is the thing that again is so counterintuitive.
I think most folks would think, wow, wouldn't a bank be concerned if I went out and I started to get multiple credit cards, wouldn't they see that as a red flag? Now, yes, if you apply for 10 credit cards in a month, I think that is a red flag and that will hurt your credit score. But if you are deliberate about applying for credit cards at a reasonable pace over time, what most people actually find that again, when they're paying off their statements in full every single month.
That just because of this second aspect, just expanding the amount of credit they have available to them. that most people will find that their credit score actually goes up as they get more and more credit cards over time, simply because their credit card utilization ratio goes down, and in some cases it goes down significantly.
That is what I observed. Remember, I had one credit card to my name when I graduated fellowship. So one credit card with one credit line, right? Over the subsequent next couple of years, I got more and more and more credit cards. My [01:04:00] credit score only went up. It was already strong because I was so terrified of credit that I never even used credit cards prior to being in fellowship.
But my credit score has always hovered around the high 700s and then went up into the 800s after I started getting new credit cards and it was because of this. And so that does not mean, again, that everybody should go out and get multiple credit cards. All I'm advocating for here is that people get a better understanding about what actually impacts their credit score so that you can understand when you take a specific action, what can you anticipate is going to happen.
Because I think so many of us have fears or concerns precisely because no one has ever actually explained to us this is what counts towards your credit score. It's all very unpredictable and if we can't predict what's going to happen, I think it's a very natural human response for us to get scared and anxious about it.
Yeah. So that makes a lot of sense. And thank you for just taking us back to the information, the information should inform the behavior. And remember, like [01:05:00] Devon said, credit cards are not inherently bad. Like it's not the devil, it's the utilization of them. And here, what we're trying to teach you is how to utilize them.
So you can have more experiences, have more options and have more freedom. So Devon, I want to get your impression on this because I know that there are people like us who have kids and perhaps. You know, you have a teenager who you want to inform them of the best credit card to use, or maybe you have a new attending who's now wanting to get a credit card.
Which credit card do you think people should start with? Does it depend? I think that it probably depends on what they want to do. You talked about looking at your expenses, the stuff that you already use money on and leveraging that. Is there any other guidance that you would recommend to those? Yeah, that is such a great question.
And like you said, you know, I don't believe in one size fits all kind of guidance or one size fits all recommendations. I don't have the one card that I think, Oh, everybody should go out and get this one specific card. But I do think [01:06:00] that there are some cards that make a lot of sense as sort of that beginner, that first entry level type of card.
And so I'm going to list off just a couple of my favorite ones. As with everything, I feel like this is one of those points that we really keep coming back to in this episode is that personal finance is personal. And so use the information here as entertainment slash beginning education, but always do your own due diligence to take the information that we're talking about here.
And then really say, okay, how do I apply this for me? How is this going to work for me? I think for most people, especially if we're thinking about maybe the younger attending or someone who is a little bit earlier in their financial journey than someone who's maybe in their fifties or sixties is looking at.
Again, just what is your number one biggest expense? And I think for a lot of people, this was true for me up until 10 years ago. My single biggest expense for a long time was rent. I did my, did my residency in Boston, my fellowship in Boston. I went to undergrad in the Bay area. I now live in the Chicago.
These are not what we consider low cost of living areas. And I think that's true for many trainees. We tend to [01:07:00] gravitate towards larger cities where rent is higher. So for folks who are paying rent, I personally think it makes so much sense to get this one specific points earning card. It's called the built card.
It's spelled B I L T. This is the only credit card currently available to us where it is easy for you to pay your rent with a credit card so that you can earn points. So I think that's a pretty no brainer. For someone who is paying rent, it makes a lot of sense to start with that card. Now, if you don't happen to be paying rent and you're interested in a different card, two examples of just very solid, very reliable kind of entry level points earning cards, One of them is from Chase, and it's called the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
Again, I think this is just a solid card. It's not gonna be Chase's ultra premium, super, you know, the highest tier you can get in terms of perks, benefits, or annual fee, but it is a great beginner card. And the other card that I love for people, just because it's so easy to use, It's an American Express card [01:08:00] called the American Express Gold Card.
And the reason I love that, it's a card that is actually in my wallet, I pull out all the time, is because it gives really, really high points earning for groceries and for dining. And for a lot of us, eating, whether it's food you buy at the grocery store or food you buy from a restaurant or DoorDash or Grubhub or whatever, combined, these tend to be significant areas of expense for a lot of us.
And so, I think those are just great cards you can start with. You may end up holding all of those cards at one time. You'd never have to if you don't want to, but I think starting with any of those, again, depending on what your kind of spend situation is, I think those can all be really, really solid starter cards for most people.
Devon, thank you so much. This is so great because I actually have two of those three cards. And Brittne, I know that you mentioned earlier in this episode that you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and you have Access to Amex Platinum. So for those who are getting started in this hobby, those are sort of the premium of the [01:09:00] premium card.
So, okay, Brittne, we see you, but for people who are listening, who don't want to pay 500 or 600 for a credit card on an annual basis, are looking to sort of minimize fees and are just sort of tiptoeing into this hobby to see if it's right for them. Devon, I love your advice. The Chase Sapphire Preferred card, correct me if I'm wrong, Devon.
I think this is a card that gives like three times points on dining, two times on travel. Yeah, that one gives two times on most things, but again, it's just such a solid entry level card. It doesn't have the elevated annual fee that the Chase Sapphire Reserve does, and is a great, great card. Place again, just to get your feet wet.
I think it's such a good card for so many. I love that one. In fact, when I first met you, that was the card you told me to get. And I was like, okay, Devon told me to get that card. I'm going to get that card. And I got that card, got the signup bonus and was able to accumulate a lot of points on that one.
And then you told me step two, Lisha is the American express personal gold card. And so I followed your advice. Cause. Y'all are listening here. I'm good. And I got the Amex [01:10:00] personal gold card. And I love that you mentioned those cards. Cause I think a lot of people have heard of the premium versions of those cards.
They've heard of chase a fire reserve. They've heard of the Amex platinum, right? And I love that you're saying, Hey, you don't have to start with those cards. You don't have to get. A credit card that costs you 600 a year to use. You can get these other cards because actually when it comes to the American express personal gold card, it's actually a better points earning card than the platinum card.
Being able to earn four times points on dining out four times points on grocery, spend three times points when you're buying flights, I think that's a good, good thing. Card for a lot of people. And so I love that you mentioned those two, the built card, if you're paying rent is also a great option. I don't have that one, but I know a lot of people who do, I just want to kind of reiterate for our audience.
There is another way that you can use credit cards to optimize travel and to make your life a little bit easier. Easier. You don't have to redeem these points for flights. You don't have to redeem them for hotels or car rentals or whatever. I just want you to know that this is an option for you. And if you choose to do this, there may be [01:11:00] a better way than what you're used to in the past.
Maybe you're used to getting these points and cashing them out for cash back. Maybe you're used to getting these points and redeeming them through a portal. Those things are fine, but we're just letting you know today that there's a better option. If you were able to get these transferable points, which means you have to get one of these cards that we're talking about.
And then once you get these points, if you're able to then transfer those points out to an airline partner or a hotel partner, you may be able to get much more value for it and be able to have some of these luxury travel experiences that maybe you didn't think were an option for you before. So Devon, we will definitely be having you back very, very, very soon because you are a wealth of knowledge, but that is it for this part of the episode.
Today. Thank you so much for being our guests on our wealthy insights segment. Hopefully. Brittne, you learned something. I know every time I talk to Devon, I'm, I learned stuff. She's just a wealth of knowledge. And so we are so grateful to have her. I don't want to close out this part of the episode though, without letting people know if you identify as a female physician, [01:12:00] Devon has an amazing Facebook group that I am always in.
And the people there are just so lovely. That Facebook group, correct me if I'm wrong, Devon is called point me to first class for women physicians. Is that right? Correct. Yep. Be sure to join everyone in there is lovely. There's over 20, 000 doctors that are already in there. So join the bunch, join us in there.
Devon also has an amazing podcast where I just love it because I think in your earlier episode seven, you really go through like helping people get started in this hobby and clarifying some of these points. And that podcast is also called point me to first class. Is that right, Devon? That is right. It's not very creative.
Everything in my business is called the same thing. So if you want to be pointed to first class, you need to make sure that you Listen to her podcast and join the Facebook group, especially if you identify as a female physician. Thank you again, Devon. We are so grateful to have had you on our podcast this week.
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for all the work that you all are doing. I'm such a huge fan, a huge supporter, and I have just enjoyed this conversation so much. Thank you very, very much for having me.
Dr. Brittne Halford: So in this episode, we want to teach [01:13:00] you about how to leverage credit cards to benefit you.
Dr. Brittne Halford: And we fully. Endorse the philosophy of not carrying a balance on your credit card, but using it to elevate your lifestyle, to have a little bit more fun money. So Lisha speaking of fun money, what are you doing? Fun with your money.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: So I actually just booked a hotel stay in Madrid, Spain, that I booked solely using points. I also booked a, all inclusive resort in Cabo for my birthday. And so I have sort of taken Devon's advice to heart. and I specifically booked these hotels using chase points. And so I have a chase Sapphire preferred card. I also have a couple of Chase Inc. business cards, and oftentimes, as we talked about, when you are getting these credit cards, they come with signup bonuses. usually it's like you spend, I don't know, 4, 000 on the card within a certain length of time, maybe four or six months, and then you get this bolus of points, and Chase business cards actually give pretty big signup [01:14:00] bonuses and have low annual fees. but I remember getting a couple of these business cards along with one of the personal cards. Over the last year and I accumulated a ton of points and one of the awesome things about Chase is that they have the Chase portal, but I don't usually book travel through the portal for a number of reasons.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: One is, if you need to change something, oftentimes it can be difficult. If the flight gets canceled or something happens with the hotel, oftentimes the airline or the hotel is pointing fingers at the third party and the third party is pointing fingers at the airline or the hotel. And so you can be stuck in the middle. And the main reason is because you often get much less value when you book things through the portal or just get the cash back for the points instead of transferring out the points to airline and hotel loyalty programs and one of the most lucrative, hotel programs to transfer points to is, uh, is Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, and Hyatt has a lot of different hotels around the world and in the Caribbean, and so I was able to transfer out some of my chase points to one of the hotels in Madrid, Spain, where I am going, with one of my friends, and then was also able to transfer out [01:15:00] some chase points to one of the all inclusive resorts in Cabo, and so I'm really happy about both of these things, because Hi, it has like this fixed award chart, so they're not going to charge you like it doesn't take hundreds of thousands of points in order to book these hotel stays or these resort stays.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: There's also no taxes and no fees when you book with points. And so it literally did not cost me anything. And now, my friend that I'm going with, she's like very happy. She's like, Oh, I will definitely go with you to Cabo. What? It's free. We're not paying for anything. This sounds lovely. Tell me where to sign up.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: So she's a very happy camper. And of course I'm happy because I think my birthday is going to be just such an amazing time.
Dr. Brittne Halford: Oh, I love that. And just want to leave this by the audience. Remember that episode when Lisha was talking about, I didn't take her out to dinner. I didn't buy her any meals. She didn't invite me on this trip. Like, come on now,
Dr. Lisha Taylor: well, I didn't want to take you away from your kids and your husband, whom I know that you love so dearly.
Dr. Brittne Halford: speaking of kids. That is what I've been thinking about with my fun money. I haven't spent the fun money, but I'm just kind of planning it. So you [01:16:00] all know that we're purchasing a new home and, I'm redesigning the space and thinking about, okay, how can I give my kids a new experience as they're excited to go into this new toddler's bed.
Dr. Brittne Halford: So Brooke has this bed that was. a mattress. I inherited from one of my colleagues and I purchased a bed frame and we've just converted her from a crib to a toddler bed and did the same thing for KJ. So I'm just thinking about now, how can I, conserve space and buy them this cool bed. I'm thinking about one of those loft beds that has a desk that she can pull out because Brooke will be starting kindergarten and I want her to have like a designated space to do her homework.
Dr. Brittne Halford: So that's what I'm thinking about, fun with my money. So as you leave me, Here in Massachusetts and Boston and here in Madrid and Cabo, I'll be thinking about redesigning our home space.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Guess who has a better life? No, I'm just kidding. Um, that's it for our fun money segment this week. As always, do not forget to become an official part of our wealthy minds community by heading to wealth minded md. com. [01:17:00] To sign up. We will give you a free copy of our wealthy mind starter kit.
Dr. Lisha Taylor: Also don't forget to rate and review and share this podcast. Whenever you do those things, it makes it so much easier for other people to find us. so once again, we love doing this podcast and we cannot wait to come back to you again next week.
Dr. Brittne Halford: And if you are a woman that we were talking about who has credit card debt, then we want to invite you to check out our debt payoff. Bootcamp, that you can purchase on wealthmindedmd. com. And if you're interested in purchasing and you're taking action because we want to reward action, then we're actually going to allow for discount for one week if you want to purchase the course.
Dr. Brittne Halford: So don't delay, head over to our website and register for the debt payoff bootcamp today.
Hey, money, best friend, we want to buy you a drink on this show. We are all about spilling the tea on our finances and our personal lives, but we also want to share a [01:18:00] little bit more tea with you. Basically, we're trying to give you a free drink on us. All you have to do in order to put your name in this drawing for a free drink.
Is to leave a review, hopefully you'll give us five stars and share this podcast with others that you know, whenever you wait and review the podcast, it just makes it easier for other people who maybe haven't heard of us before to find us, right? And review, subscribe to the podcast and don't forget to share with your girlfriend.
Cheers.
Hello everybody, it's me Brooke. I'm recording a little disclaimer for my mommy, Dr. Brittne Halford and her friend, Dr. Lisa Taylor. Just so you know, they're not financial advisors, tax professionals, lawyers. financial planners. Everything you hear is for education and entertainment. It's not strict financial advice, you know.
So use your best judgment. [01:19:00] Chat with a top professional. And all those other people that you need to talk to. Thanks for tuning in today. Keep cruising on your journey to wealth and wellness. Buh bye.
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