Amex points are some of the easiest to accumulate a lot of. They can be transferred to a long list of hotel and airline partners. I love using these for international flights! Tthe secret to getting more value from your points is transferring points out of your Amex and to partner programs, then booking directly through that program.

Amex Personal Credit Cards

• The order of the personal card applications is important!
• Amex Green--> Amex Gold --> Amex Platinum
  • Amex Gold earns 4x on groceries and dining
  • Referral Link for Amex Gold: American Express
• Co-branded cards: Hilton, Delta, Marriot

Amex business cards

• Blue business- $0 annual fee! SUB 15,000 for 3,000 in 3 mo, 2x on all purchases up to 50K per year. 0% APR for 12 mo
• Business Gold- Spend $15,000 in 3 months- up to 200,0000
• Business Platinum - Spend $20,000 in 3 months

Rakuten!

· Rakuten Referral link: www.rakuten.com/r/COURTN29066?eeid=28187 Sign up to earn $50 (5,000 points) after spending $50

· Sign up, go to bottom right corner for account à Choose how you get paid à select Amex points. You need your PHYSICAL Amex card to be able to do this (the mobile one you get right when you are approved will not work!).

· If you already have an account you can change the way you are paid from cash to Amex points. This is so powerful because you will get WAY more value from the points than the cash. For example- Shutterfly 20x on Black Friday. Spent $400 on photo albums- 20% cash back is $80. 20x is 8,000 points! You can get a flight from US to Europe for as low as 6,000 points on Virgin Atlantic. Add in a transfer bonus and you are getting WAY more than $80 in value.

Amex points are versatile and can be easy to rack up quickly! They are a great asset to your points profile, and pairing with Rakuten can seriously boost your earnings. Join me next time to hear about how to redeem your Amex points for the greatest value.

One of the most common questions I get when people are interested in travelling for almost free on points and miles is “won’t this ruin my credit score?” While it IS true that you should have decent credit and your finances generally in order to get started, this hobby does NOT have to hurt your credit score! In fact, I have seen my credit score actually improve since I have started this 2 years ago. My credit score was good, but now its over 800! How is this possible? Let’s dive into how your credit score is calculated.

• Payment history – 35% of your score. This means that you want to pay on time and in full each month
• Credit Utilization – 30% of your score. How much of your available credit are you using? It is better to have a lot of available credit and not use very much of it vs. having a small amount of credit and using most of it. Adding more cards helps SIGNIFICANTLY improve this by adding to your available credit.
• Credit age or history – 15% of your score. Keep your oldest accounts open
• Account mix – 10%of your score. How diversified is your credit? Home loans, credit cards, etc.
• Account inquiries – 10% of your score. This is the one part of your score that is negatively impacted by applying for new cards. Your credit score will often dip a few points after an application, but it quickly rebounds and typically higher than before because your credit utilization is going to improve with increasing the total amount of credit you are extended.

How to use this knowledge

• Keep your oldest lines of credit open
• Pace your openings- 30 days min, I recommend 90 days
• Pay off full balance every month

My credit score has only improved since I got into this hobby. I was brought up with the notion that credit cards are bad and using credit cards should be avoided. In reality, as long as you are smart about credit card use and pay off your full balances every month, you will likely boost your credit score rather than hurt it!

One of the biggest hangups when booking award flights or hotel stays is knowing whether or not you are getting a good deal by spending your points, or if booking with cash makes more sense. I don’t book ALL of my travel on points- I save my points bookings for when I am going to get the greatest VALUE for my points. This means that I am able to stretch my points further by choosing to book some things with cash. Let’s dive in to how to take the guesswork out of this. In this episode, I'll demystify figuring this out, so that you can book with confidence!

Award redemption value (Cents per point/ccp)

• Calculating the value of an award redemption requires a simple formula: Redemption value = (cash price – taxes and fees) ÷ points or miles used × 10
  • This gives you the value of each point or mile in cents (Cents per Point or ccp)

Example1: 3 night stay in Hyatt Place in Kansas City- ($585-0)/15,000 points = 3.8 ccp

Example 2: Flight to Portugal($1018-372)/24,000 points= 2.7 ccp KLM flight booked on Virgin Atlantic (Points transferred from Amex)

How to decide if it’s a good deal

• Compare portal booking cost in points
• Think about reasonable redemption value (RRV)- RRVs are intended to be mid-point values that are reasonably easy to achieve for that specific points type.
  • RRV 1.5 ccp for Chase and Amex
• Is the value there for you and your situation personally?
• How many points do you have and how many are you willing to part with? Other upcoming trips?
• You may decide that getting a rental car and “purchase erasing” with Capital One miles makes sense if you want to bring your purchase cost to zero
• Think about a lowest acceptable ccp – for me it’s usually 1.5 ccp for my transferrable points

Example: Flights to Charlotte

• American Airlines- I had miles in that program. American AAdvantage RRV = 1.4 ccp
• 124,000 points or $1674 - ($1674-22)/124,000 points= 1.3 ccp
• 1.3 ccp is less than reasonable redemption value, but I’m ok with that! We booked Air BNB on cash, and I wanted to limit my out of pocket cost. Not an amazing deal, but I got my family there for almost free!

Keep in mind hotel points for many chains are often lower- Hilton 0.4 ccp, IHG 0.6 ccp, Marriot 0.6 ccp, that’s why you don’t want to transfer Chase points to Marriot in general- not going to be a good deal

Calculating ccp is a simple way to assess whether a book is a good deal. Avoid analysis paralysis! If it is below the RRV for the type of transferrable points, think about it. It might be a better points earning opportunity- in that case look into how to earn the most points for that booking. If it’s “good enough” and it gets you a free trip, go for it!

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