The Art of Travel Hacking

Credit card points are more powerful than most travelers realize, often worth five times more when used strategically rather than cashed out for statement credits.

• Points strategy coach Julia Menez transitioned from actuary to travel hacking expert during the pandemic
• Credit card companies intentionally make it easy to redeem points for low-value options like statement credits
• The most valuable strategy is transferring points to airline partners rather than using credit card travel portals
• Flexible, transferable points (Chase, Amex, Capital One) offer more options than airline-specific cards
• Book travel 10-11 months in advance for best award availability
• Use "positioning flights" to access better deals from major hub airports
• Don't avoid all annual fees – analyze whether the benefits outweigh the cost
• Business class offers the best balance between points required and comfort received
• Alaska and American Airlines programs offer excellent value for booking partner airlines
• Consider underrated options like Choice Hotels for international stays, especially in Scandinavia and Japan

Visit geobreezetravel.com/freecourse to access Julia's free beginner course on travel hacking.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Luxury Travel Hacking
• 6:15 From Actuary to Points Strategy Coach
• 10:55 Understanding Points and Travel Confusion
• 15:25 Common Beginner Mistakes and Strategies
• 21:38 Booking Secrets and Positioning Flights
• 27:47 Business Class vs First Class Experiences
• 31:35 Rapid Fire Travel Recommendations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Elevate Media Podcast with your host, chris Anderson. In this show, chris and his guests will share their knowledge and experience on how to go from zero to successful entrepreneur. They have built their businesses from scratch and are now ready to give back to those who are just starting. Let's get ready to learn, grow and elevate our businesses. And now your host, chris Anderson.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome back to another recording of the Elevate Media Podcast. I'm Chris Anderson, your host, and today we're going to get into luxury travel, all right, and just travel in general. You know, for me personally, I love to travel. I want to travel more, especially now that we have young kids, and so we're going to dive into how we can travel smarter, save a little money even. And so our guest today, she is a points strategy coach, she's a speaker, she's the host of the GeoBreeze Travel Podcast and she helps travelers craft customized strategies to turn credit card points into luxury travel experiences, without the confusion I know I get confused trying to dig into all that, so I'm excited to talk more about that. She's also got her top rated podcast, like I mentioned, and it highlights underrepresented voices in the points and miles space, especially women, first gen travelers and people of color. So, julia Menez, welcome to the Elevate Media podcast today.

Speaker 3: 1:20

Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Yeah, super excited to have you here and chat with you. So we were talking before we got recording of I'm excited for this conversation, just personally, guys listening. So I'm gonna have a lot of questions Because I want to travel more and you know I just got a book on that. You know, take more trips, I think it was it was called. So, yeah, super, super excited, we're going to get into a lot of travel hacking and point strategy and things like that. So, julie, kind of on that note, how did you even get into this travel hacking, point strategy kind of genre?

Speaker 3: 1:56

Back in the day, before I did this, I was an actuary. So deep math, modeling, statistics, stuff. And to become an actuary you take a lot of exams, you just dedicate your life to exams for a long time. And one day I was done with exams and I had so much energy and my husband was like you need a hobby. So he put me on the personal finance blogs and said just read these, you'll be entertained. And he was not aware how entertained I was going to be and how deep I was going to dive in.

Speaker 3: 2:28

So, going through all the personal finance blogs, eventually I came across the concept of points and miles and I was like this can't be right. This has to be like a scam. People are opening credit cards and then they get to take business class or first class flights. But I was curious. So we dipped our toe in a little bit and then after the first couple of redemptions, we were like oh man, there is no going back Like we. This is the new way of life. So it's a quick, quick primer on how I got into this as a hobby.

Speaker 2: 2:58

That's really cool. So that's funny because my wife she uh got a math degree. She was thinking about doing actuary stuff, accounting things, and she ended up getting into just being a math teacher, which she loves doing. But I'm like in my mind she would love these numbers and points and like seeing all that stuff. So that's cool. That's kind of your background as well. So you got into this as a hobby. And how long did it take to kind of take off into more than just kind of a hobby? Because I know you have the podcast now?

Speaker 3: 3:30

Yeah. So during the pandemic we couldn't travel. It was very lonely and I just am very extroverted. So I wanted to have some other people to talk to, Started reaching out to other people on Instagram who had points and miles accounts and said, hey, do you want to jump on a Zoom call and just chat about points and miles? And they said no, I don't know you. Who are you? This is very strange. And so I said oh well, what if I record our conversation and make it available to everybody on the internet? And they said oh, are you starting a podcast about points? Yeah, I would love to be featured. And so I said yeah, I'm doing that. We're starting a podcast. We'd love to feature you. Really, I just wanted free consulting about how to get more out of my points, but podcasts will open a lot of doors. So I obviously have to launch the podcast, Cause I'm like, if I'm going to bamboozle more people into telling me their point secrets, I have to release those point secrets.

Speaker 3: 4:31

During the pandemic. And that's just how it started as a business, it was not really meant to become income yielding. I was happy with my actuarial career, but one day I moved from corporate to a startup. Five months later that startup did not have money, so I didn't have a job. So I was like, well, as I do interviews, I guess I'll just work on GeoBreeze, because I've got 40 hours a week to fill. And it started making money then. So I was like, oh, I guess we're doing this.

Speaker 2: 5:01

That's awesome. I love that too, because for Marvane is video podcast, video production, and that's kind of how how Elevate started was. You know I was. I started a podcast to interview successful business owners because I wanted to learn how to do it myself and then share it and that was the easiest way to open the door because you know, as you've experienced podcasting coming coming up to someone saying, hey, I just want to talk to you and learn from you they're like, no, but hey, I'm doing a podcast where you know we're going to put you on a pedestal and show you out there. It's such an easier ask. I love that.

Speaker 2: 5:29

That's kind of how that got started and how you kind of had taken off with it, just because we love video podcasts so much here at Elevate, and so with that, so you're getting started and I know you mentioned earlier you started having success with opening up these credit cards and getting travel. What was kind of that first? Maybe trip or reward or whatever you got back from doing that. Was it like a first class flight? Was it something at a resort? What was that like? Oh my gosh, like this works my gosh, like this works.

Speaker 3: 6:08

It was also not intentional.

Speaker 3: 6:09

So we had gotten a Chase Sapphire preferred card very common first card to get, and also back in the day there was something called the SPG card, which that hotel brand, rest in peace does not exist anymore, even though it was fantastic.

Speaker 3: 6:19

So I had some points with those cards and we were going to Morocco. We had just booked it as a normal cash flight, earned some points on it, and we had a tour guide who was taking care of everything other than flights. He was going to pick us up from the airport, transit tour all around Morocco. He was taking care of accommodations, and then, about 20 hours before we were going to get on that plane, he sent me an email that said I'm so sorry, we have a family emergency, Like there was a death in the family. I have to just refund your money and I am sorry I can't be your tour guide this week. So that happened and I'm like well, we're about to land in Morocco in a day and we have no transit, no accommodations. I had not been practicing any language skills because I was like it's handled.

Speaker 2: 7:07

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:08

So I pulled up some blog posts about how to redeem your miles with SPG. And then I called Amex and was like reading some script from the internet where I was like I get free hotel nights, yes. And they were like, yeah, you have enough points for three nights at the Sheraton Casa Blanc. I'm like that's great. I'll figure out the rest of the trip when we're there.

Speaker 2: 7:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:33

So they booked it for me probably a terrible redemption using Amex points, but whatever, we land there and I have like my little confirmation email in hand, like we're going to be homeless in Morocco we get there and they're like, oh, you have status because you have the credit card, so we've upgraded you and you have free breakfast and you have free lounge access with the cocktail hour.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Okay.

Speaker 3: 8:00

And I'm like we can never go back to the way that it was before. So that was our first redemption and I'm like we can never go back to the way that it was before. So that was our first redemption, again, completely not intentional, but that's where we were and it's a pretty fun story.

Speaker 2: 8:12

That is cool and, yeah, a lot of stuff just happens by accident, right, that's crazy. So I'm curious because I've looked into this before and I've just gotten way too confused and really haven't started anything. Why is why is it so confusing for the average person like me, uh, who's not big in the numbers and points and things like why is that so confusing A lot of people.

Speaker 3: 8:39

The simple answer is because the world of points and airlines and hotels make it really easy to do the wrong thing with those points. It is so easy to just click the button that says cash out your points. Or, oh, you've got 20,000 points. Do you just want us to wipe $200 off of your credit card statement and you're just like $200 less Heck yeah, that sounds like a great deal. Just like $200 less Heck yeah, that sounds like a great deal. Or if you want to just use their credit card portal, they're like hey, this flight would normally be $500, but we'll give it to you for 50,000 points and you're just like saving $500. Yes, that's what I'm looking for. And they, they make it much, much harder to see that the best way to maximize those points is not to use it through the credit card portal, it's not to cash out your points.

Speaker 3: 9:29

Okay, it's to transfer your points to their different airline partners. Because that $500 flight where it's like, hey, in the Amex portal, we'll give it to you for 50,000 points, you could maybe get it for 10 if you just transfer it to.

Speaker 1: 9:43

British.

Speaker 3: 9:43

Airways or Virgin Atlantic. But they make that hard to see and it's also just conceptually. It feels riskier, like well.

Speaker 3: 9:52

Amex says I can have $500 off of my credit card statement right here, but then I have to move it over. And then, should I be doing that with third parties? How do I even link accounts? How do I move accounts? So it involves a lot more hoops and for a beginning person it's very difficult to kind of wrap your head around all of that and it just feels scary because, also, it just feels like you're doing something wrong because so many people use the word hacking in this space, where you're like well, I just spent $4,000 to get these 70,000 points or 80,000 points or whatever. Is that all just going to go away? Like, should I just take the $700? So it feels like, okay, here's like low risk, low reward, and it feels like higher risk, but really it just involves being a little bit more savvy with how to transfer the points around. So it's not at all intuitive and I think that's why it's so tough.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Yeah, I was just saying I mean, think, think about transferring things. That's just a whole nother uh process. So what are? Because I see sometimes on mine so like I'm a Marriott Bonvoy member or whatever that thing is, so I'll see like points X amount for a hotel stay or night or whatever, and if you're short it's like hey, do you want to buy more points? Is that something that you recommend, like ever buying points, or do you just, I guess how's another way to redeem more, the most points possible, without just purchasing them, I guess?

Speaker 3: 11:23

Yeah, there are lots of points deals all the time where you can just purchase points, and I have two rules for this. Number one don't buy points speculatively. Points influencers all the time. We're always posting about like, hey, united miles are on sale, alaska miles are on sale, air France points are on sale. Just because it's a good deal doesn't necessarily mean it's a good deal for you. What you want to do first is make sure you know how you're going to use those points, because oftentimes I think that you do really good point sales right as they're about to devalue their points. And devaluation is like when inflation hits your points, where today a flight from the US over to Europe with United might cost 80,000 points, but then they'll put all the points on sale and then suddenly that same flight costs 90,000 points. So you're not really any better off.

Speaker 2: 12:11

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:12

So rule one don't buy your points speculatively, only by them If you already know like hey, this is how I'm going to use it right away.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Gotcha.

Speaker 3: 12:20

And number two, compare the cost of buying those points and redeeming the points versus the cost of just buying the hotel or the flight that you want.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Sure.

Speaker 3: 12:30

Obviously, don't go through all of these hoops. If it's just cheaper, just be like oh, I'll just buy the flight, it's cheaper than going through all of the hoops.

Speaker 2: 12:36

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:37

But buying points can be a great strategy. I've done this before where in South America there was a business class flight from Argentina to Brazil that I took $500 worth of points and then flip those and redeem the points for about $2,000 worth of flights for me and my husband. So there's a lot of good ways that you can use that strategy, but it actually adds in one extra layer because you not only have to find the good flight redemption, you also have to pair it with when is it a good points price on sale?

Speaker 2: 13:10

Gotcha Okay. So what are, besides the ones that people are just buying points to buy points and, you know, not transferring over, what are some other common traps or mistakes beginners fall into when they're trying to navigate this, this world of points and travel?

Speaker 3: 13:29

We get a lot of emails from beginners who are like but I don't want to pay any credit card annual fees because credit card fees are bad. Some credit card fees are bad. If you are in a place, listeners, where you're not paying off your credit card bills every month, you should just turn off this episode and go watch a different one, because high rewards credit cards have some of the highest interest rates of any of the credit cards on the market. Somebody's got to pay for these and unfortunately it's a lot of people who can't pay their credit cards off, so they get hit with tons of compound interest which negate any value that they get out of their points. So that's a common mistake is people will just start doing this and carry a balance. Don't do that.

Speaker 3: 14:12

But also, some people are so afraid of the extra fees and interest that they'll avoid any good cards that have annual fees. Where it's just a blanket statement, fees are bad. Not necessarily when it comes to annual fees. What you want to do is make sure that you do some kind of cost benefit analysis of can I justify this annual fee? So a lot of the hotel credit cards will cost like $100 a year, but it'll have a free night attached to the credit card If you're going to use the free night certificate with that brand anyway, and your hotel is going to cost more than $100 per night, which almost all hotels do then it's a good deal, and so you paid $95 for this card.

Speaker 3: 14:55

you got some card benefits plus a hotel night that would have cost you more than $100 anyway. So that's a pretty simple example of here's how to justify. Should I get this card that has an annual fee versus not?

Speaker 2: 15:07

Okay, and that makes sense to look at it that way, and I think a big point there you made is if you're not paying your credit cards off each month, hold off on trying to work the point system and get that under control first. I think it's a great, great statement and advice. So if someone is paying their credit cards off each month, you know or they don't have a balance or whatever, what's what's a good place for them to start building kind of their strategy to utilize these points, build these points and be able to travel more.

Speaker 3: 15:39

Yeah, great question.

Speaker 3: 15:45

So we do free credit card consultations at geobreeze travelcom slash consultations, and what we oftentimes find that beginners are getting wrong is they will get specific types of points where they're like I have a United card, I have a Delta credit card, I have a Southwest credit card.

Speaker 3: 16:01

The best credit cards if you want to level up in this game are going to be the ones with flexible, transferable points. So we're talking Chase Ultimate Rewards, american Express Membership Rewards, not the Amex Delta, but like the Amex Gold, amex Platinum, capital, one Venture, venture X, city Premier or City Strata Premier it's called now the Built Card, wells Fargo Autograph Journey, some kind of points where you can transfer it to lots of different hotels and airline partners and that way it's not just stuck with one place, because if you have a whole bunch of Delta miles you have to, because if you have a whole bunch of Delta miles you have to redeem them on deltacom, whereas if you have Amex points, maybe there's a good deal through Air France, maybe Air Canada, maybe British Airways, maybe Hawaiian. There's a lot more options that way.

Speaker 2: 16:53

Awesome. Yeah, I think that's a good point to make, because you know I was saying I was like because, personally, like I was looking okay, marriott has their own credit card. So you would say probably it's not the best one to go for because it's just for Marriott.

Speaker 3: 17:08

Correct.

Speaker 2: 17:09

Okay.

Speaker 3: 17:10

Once you've gotten a lot of flexible points, sometimes you can specialize in okay. I really use Marriott a lot for business travel. I can go for the status. Or if you just want the Marriott Bond by Brilliant because you like having free breakfast in Marriott and it comes with platinum status, that could be a good move. Okay, but a lot of times I would say start with the flexible points. If you're worried about hotels, the chase cards are great because a very popular move is to move chase points over to Hyatt and you can get a lot of really good hotel redemptions that way.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Are there any?

Speaker 3: 18:06

frameworks or even starting points with those that you recommend people do or build out so they're not overextending and getting to the point where they can't make their payments each month. Do you have anything like that systems? The majority of your points, especially in the beginning, is going to come from the sign-up bonus. A lot of these high-reward credit cards are going to have something like earn 80,000 points after you spend $3,000 on the card in the first three months.

Speaker 3: 18:23

That's where a lot of your points come from in the beginning. Before you get a credit card, whatever that minimum spend is, have that in your checking account already. Whatever that minimum spend is, have that in your checking account already and also have a plan for how you're going to meet that minimum spend without just buying nonsense on Amazon. You don't want to be like oh, I need to spend $3,000 on this new card in order to get the signup bonus, which is worth a lot, and I've put $2,000 on it, but I don't really have another $1,000 of expenses right now. I should just buy $1,000 worth of nonsense.

Speaker 3: 18:56

Don't fall into that trap. Also, don't fall into the trap of okay, I've now put $3,000 onto the card, now I got to pay it off. Oh no, I don't have it in my checking account ready to go to pay off this card in full. I guess I'm going to carry over a balance and get hit with interest. So the framework would be make sure you know how you're going to meet that minimum spend with expenses you already have and also make sure you already have it in your checking account to pay off that minimum spend as soon as it hits.

Speaker 2: 19:26

Okay, that's good. So then, what are some? Have you noticed? There are good times to book for travel that help you spend less points and have them go farther with less.

Speaker 3: 19:44

There are. So we often recommend that people book 10 or 11 months before you're going to fly. So right now it is April 2025. Great time to look for fly deals for March 2026. And a lot of people don't plan that far ahead. A lot of people will plan in what we call the dead zone, where it's very common to plan a vacation three months out to eight months out. That's what a normal person would do, but you have to be very much a weirdo to do points and miles because you're planning a year in advance or you're jumping on last minute flights where some people book a flight deal over to Europe and then they're in Europe saying I don't know how I'm going to get home yet, but I'll find a flight deal at the last minute once it's time to go home. Not something I recommend for beginners but that is something that more advanced people will do is they know which airlines to monitor for last minute flight deals. So if you want to get the most out of your points, booking far ahead of time is really good, but also Something that just helps a lot is being very flexible with maybe you don't need to have specific dates. You're just like let's go during summer vacation sometime. That would help a lot.

Speaker 3: 20:55

Also, being flexible on where you're flying into. Maybe you want to fly into Italy but there's no good flight deals into Italy but there's something over to Switzerland thing. Over to Switzerland it's a three-hour train ride from Zurich to Milan. So maybe if you can open up where you're willing to land and you just prioritize, let's get over the ocean in business class somehow, and then we'll figure out where to go within Europe from there. That would be great For people in small airports like you're in Indiana. Not a lot of flight deals out of Indiana, but if you open up your search and say we're okay going from Chicago, we're okay taking a short flight over to New York, we're okay taking a short flight over down to Texas and then flying from there, opening up where you find your flight deals and then booking a separate flight to connect into that larger airport opens up so many more possibilities and we call that positioning flights.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Okay, so for me I would. I would take a flight from India to Chicago or Dallas or New York. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 3: 21:55

Yes, and you kind of. You kind of have to book them out of order where first you prioritize how do I get over the ocean? So if you're like, all right, we want to fly in June next year for four people and we want to do business class, maybe first you're like, all right, we found this flight from New York or DC over to Europe and then you book that. And then the next question is okay, well, how are we going to get from Indiana to DC? You book that second, and that's very unnerving for a lot of people because they're like well, how am I going to get to New York or Miami or DC or wherever the big flight goes off of? Most people want to book everything chronologically, which is actually not at all how these trips end up getting booked.

Speaker 2: 22:38

And you would still use points for all those flights still and it would be cheaper.

Speaker 3: 22:43

For the domestic positioning flights. I tend to just pay cash for those. The points tend to go a lot further when you're crossing an ocean in business class. There are exceptions to that rule and sometimes you can get some really good deals on short hop flights, but I personally use those as opportunities to earn more points. So I'll just buy the positioning flights with regular money, earn the points and then redeem the points for the next trip later on.

Speaker 2: 23:12

Okay, I like that, and so with that, do you have a strategy, like with that credit card? Do you have specific things you're using that credit card each month so you keep gaining points, or how do you do that with continuing to add more points? Is it just, hey, these things we're paying with the credit card each month and we know we pay those off, so we have a consistent point increase each month, or is there another way?

Speaker 3: 23:40

There are different strategies for these. Sometimes people will just regularly open up a couple new cards, so they're getting two, maybe three signup bonuses every year and then, when they're not using the cards anymore, you can close them down or downgrade them. Once you are a business owner where you have a lot of expenses and you've gotten most of the good cards already, it's a bit of a headache to churn cards continuously and your energy is probably better spent just working on your business and making more money and then having more expenses and just scaling that way. So that's when it comes time to really look at the bonus point multipliers on different credit cards. For example, I run ads on Facebook and Instagram and when you buy meta ads, if you put those on an Amex business gold and when you buy meta ads if you put those on an Amex business gold you get four points per dollar. So that's a pretty big multiplier.

Speaker 2: 24:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:33

We go out to eat a lot, so dining and groceries on the Amex personal gold, four points per dollar.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Okay.

Speaker 3: 24:41

So finding those different cards that have good multipliers, once you've gotten all your bases kind of covered with the five or so cards that you want to use as your main arsenal, just allocating your expenses and getting the most points possible that way, is a great strategy as well. There's tons of free apps that help you do this. My favorite is Card Pointers, where you just type in here's the credit cards I have, here's the things I normally buy, what should I put on each card, and it'll help you to maximize earning points that way.

Speaker 2: 25:11

That's really cool. Yeah, that's neat. So if someone is there any way to get points and utilize points without having credit cards, like if you have someone who's like totally against credit cards for whatever reason maybe they, you know, can't control their spending or something and they know it's not going to be good for them Is there any other way besides just going to Marriott and having a member and racking up points that way? Is it the only other way outside credit cards?

Speaker 3: 25:36

If you don't want to get credit cards or you're not able to get credit cards because we get a lot of people who are not from the United States writing to me being like hey, I'm in Germany, how do I do this Much harder for anybody outside of the US. That's where the purchasing of the point strategy comes into play, where, instead of tracking here's the best credit card offers you're just tracking. Here are the airlines and hotels where the points are currently on sale, and can I match that up with who has good points availability on their website where you're like oh, air France has a lot of flight deals on points to the US right now and their points are on sale. Let's just purchase the points with a debit card or whatever you want to use and then redeem the points you just purchased for the flight that you want, and oftentimes that can still save you 75 or 80% off of the retail value of the flight, where you're getting a $5,000 flight for $1,000 worth of points.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Okay, that's good to know. So there are still ways to do it without having the credit card position.

Speaker 3: 26:35

For sure.

Speaker 2: 26:37

With travel. You were talking about business class a lot. Do you like flying business? Have you ever flown first class?

Speaker 3: 26:44

I prefer business class because of the. I think business class is kind of the sweet spot with price versus what you get. I have flown first class. A lot of it is more for marketing on Instagram because they do so much better on reels and they just look so much cooler when you're in Emirates first class with the shower on the plane. Or I've done cafe Pacific first class where my husband and I are both in the same pod eating dinner and there's caviar, there's champagne with Singapore sweets first class.

Speaker 3: 27:16

There's the double bed in the sky where you have your own room and then the person next to you has their own room and they can take down the wall so you have a bed and it's just like an apartment thing. Yeah, you have a separate chair and bed in the same room. There's, there's lobster, there's caviar, there's pajamas. With Emirates they give you Bulgari. There's a lot of glitz and glamor to first class. Sure, I probably do that once a year or so. Okay, most of the time I do business class. I physically just don't want to deal with crossing an ocean in economy anymore. Right, I'll just take. If there's no flight deals, I'll fly somewhere else. I'm not too picky about destinations. I'm more picky about. Is it a good flight deal with an airline that I'm going to like and then, wherever we land, like cool, let's explore the city.

Speaker 2: 28:05

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 28:06

So I have flown some first class. But business class, I would say, is a sweet spot because it's also exponentially harder to get first class on points versus business class okay and economy is very easy once you are kind of acclimated to the system sure cool.

Speaker 2: 28:22

Um, where's been your favorite place to travel so far?

Speaker 3: 28:29

my favorite place is singapore, okay, and that's because it's got good logistics, but also good food. I've been to so many places where they have one or the other. Yeah, morocco, great food, terrible logistics. We're trying to just get around or do public transit or cross the street without getting hit by a car. And there's other places, like Denmark, where the public transit infrastructure is great and everything tastes like pickles. So I didn't love that. But with Singapore, you have both. I'm such a huge fan of cities that have good public transit infrastructure and good walkability. Singapore has that, and also the food is so good.

Speaker 2: 29:09

That's awesome. That's really cool. I would love to do some rapid fire kind of in things out. It's been great conversation, Julie, and I appreciate it. So what's your favorite airline rewards program?

Speaker 3: 29:24

My favorite airline rewards program. It's like asking which of your children is your favorite.

Speaker 2: 29:31

Which one do you use most? Do you have one you use most?

Speaker 3: 29:34

I use American Airlines a lot, also Alaska. A lot of people don't know that there's so many cool things you can book on Alaska, like Korean Air between Las Vegas direct over to Korea, or Starlux from Los Angeles to Taiwan. We've used that for flights over to Europe. There's tons of things you can do with Alaska and with American Airlines. That one's a little bit unique in that it doesn't have any credit card points to transfer over. So you need to have American Airlines points but you don't have to use them for American Airlines. You can use it to book Qatar Airways Q Suites. You can use it to book Japan Airlines. You can use it to book Cathay Pacific. You could use it for British Airways. There's lots of versatility in American Airlines. So if you have to pick a US carrier with points, I would say Alaska or American, like Blow United and Delta out of the water.

Speaker 2: 30:28

Really Okay, cool. So do you have a favorite travel card for beginners that you recommend? If it was just one.

Speaker 3: 30:35

The most common. I think it's the Chase Sapphire, preferred because it has the versatility to do both flights and hotels. I think there's also a good case to be made for something like the Capital One Venture, where you just get two points per dollar everywhere. So if you don't want to maximize points on different bonus categories here and there, capital One's not as strong on the hotel game. But if you just want this for airline miles, it looks confusing because there's not any domestic transfer partners where you're like okay, capital One doesn't go to United, they don't go to Delta, they don't go to American, they don't go to Alaska. What do I even do with these?

Speaker 3: 31:09

And that gets into a next level of transfer things where, if you want to fly United, you can sometimes find those flights for cheaper through Air Canada, which is a Capital One transfer partner. If you want to book flights on American, you can sometimes find those for cheaper through British Airways, which is a Capital One transfer partner. If you want to do Delta, you could look into Virgin Atlantic, which is a Capital One transfer partner. If you want to do Delta, you could look into Virgin Atlantic, which is a Capital One transfer partner. So I think that would be like if you just want one card for simplicity Capital One but then you're going to make up for that in complexity, with needing to know your transfer partners and alliances.

Speaker 2: 31:43

Okay, that's very interesting. So is there any redemptions? Obviously hotel flights, but are there any like underrated ones that people don't think about? That they can use points on.

Speaker 3: 31:55

For hotels. Choice hotels are really underrated and if you have the Wells Fargo autographed journey card or the city strata premier, you can move points at a one to two rate, which means if a hotel says it's 16,000 points per night, it's only 8,000 points that you have to move over, so you can get some great deals off of that. And people are often like choice hotels. That's like Clarion Inn. No one wants to stay there. I want luxury. That's why I get into the game. But they are way nicer outside of the United States Very, very popular. For if you want to stay in Scandinavia, like Norway, sweden or Japan, they have a lot of pretty good choice hotels where you can use your points. For that. Everyone's always like oh, hyatt's the best program to use this. They don't have Hyatt's in Norway. So choice is a good way to go.

Speaker 2: 32:43

Okay, that's good to know. Do you have a dream destination that's still on your list that you haven't made it to?

Speaker 3: 32:48

yet I've been to most places I want to go, but there's a lot of places I'd like to go back to because we went before the World of Points and Miles, so back in the day when we were just doing like cheap cash tickets. I want to go back to Bali. I'm excited to visit Thailand again, excited to visit Australia again as well. I do want to see more of the Middle East.

Speaker 3: 33:11

I've only been to Dubai which looked a lot like Miami, so I want to see more of like Oman and the other countries around there. At some point I'd like to go through India. Everybody loves the Maldives. I haven't been. I'm very indoorsy, not so much of a resort and island person, but I hear that I should experience it at least once in my life, so that's on the list too.

Speaker 2: 33:31

That's awesome. Last one quick win tip for first time travel hackers. What's something to get under their belt as a win?

Speaker 3: 33:40

Easy win would be just get like one credit card to start with. Just get started with something. We also have a free course for beginners to get started with this at geobreechtravelcom slash free course. In case any of this, or all of this, was just super confusing, we break it all down in a five-step free course of okay, how do you pick a credit card? What do you do before? What do you do after? What do you actually do at these points? So all of that's available in our free course at geobreechtravelcom slash free course Awesome.

Speaker 2: 34:08

Cool. Well, julia, it's been great. Again, thanks so much for being on sharing all this. I know you mentioned your website. What are the other good places people can connect with you, learn more from you and get your help if needed?

Speaker 3: 34:23

Yeah, I hang out a lot on Instagram. My handle is geobreeztravel and we do a lot of free step-by-step tutorials for how to maximize your points on the GeoBreezeTravel YouTube as well.

Speaker 2: 34:33

Awesome, yeah. So everyone, make sure you go connect with Julia there, continue to learn from her so you can start traveling more and do it spending less money, which is always nice. So again, julia, thanks so much for being on the Elevate Media podcast today.

Speaker 3: 34:49

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Absolutely, and if you're listening to this and you haven't yet, make sure you go follow the show. Share this with someone else. It just helps us get this show in front of more people so we can help more people make a bigger impact in the world. But until next time, continue to go out there, elevate your life, elevate your brand, and we'll talk to you again soon time.

Speaker 1: 35:08

continue to go out there elevate your life, elevate brand and we'll talk to you again soon. Thank you for listening to the elevate media podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. See you in the next episode.