Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

Our 2026 Points and Miles Plan - With a new focus!

• Raya & Duane

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Our 2026 travel plan blends status goals, certificate plays, and a careful move toward cash back so we can travel better now and fund freedom later. Along the way we test gold reselling, protect 5/24, and hold out for premium flights that fit a family of five.

• shifting from constant new cards to maximizing existing spend
• step-by-step approach to buying and reselling gold with guardrails
• Hilton Aspire to Surpass downgrade path for four free nights
• prioritizing Hyatt Globalist for suites and breakfast value
• trip plans for Thailand, London and Scotland, Switzerland plus Italy
• strategy for holding out for business class returns
• moving to shorter trips to save PTO and add flexibility
• staying under 5/24 and timing future applications
• adding cash back via business cards and bank bonuses
• using Schwab or Morgan Stanley Platinum to cash out MR at 1.1 cpp
• FIRE mindset and key takeaways from Die With Zero

Send us your gold reselling tips and questions on Instagram at travel party five

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In today's episode, I'm sharing our 2026 Points and Miles game plan, and it might be a little different than you think. So listen in. Hi, I'm Raya.

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And I'm Dwayne.

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And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five Podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

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We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

SPEAKER_00:

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family, but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

SPEAKER_01:

So welcome to our podcast where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.

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Dwayne is um actually not feeling very well today. Our family has been going through the flu. So it started with our two of our kids, and then I think I had it for like a day, and now Dwayne is not feeling well. So there's there's only one kid left standing, and and we'll see. Hopefully, he does not get it. But um today I'm gonna share a bit about our 2026 points and miles game plan. And I know we're already into February, but sometimes the kind of like roadmap doesn't come to me in January. Like I know everyone's big on New Year's resolutions and like January 1st, we're gonna, these are my goals. And I don't know, last year was such a busy and chaotic year, and it's really taken me some time to think through what I want to focus on in 2026. And I think part of that, part of the reason it didn't come to me right away is this year is gonna look a little bit different from a points and miles perspective than the last few years have. So I guess let's just jump right into it. So we are no longer new to points and miles. I would say we are not beginners in this hobby anymore. We've been doing it since 2022. That was when I opened my first points and miles. Well, that was not my first points and miles credit card. I had used points to book a flight um prior, you know, like in 2018. But 2022 was my first points and miles credit card where I was diving in full speed ahead to make this like a hobby and earn a crap ton of points. So um, and then we took our first points and miles trip in March of 2023, and it's just been like full speed ahead ever since. And it has been so fun and such a rewarding hobby for me to get to play this game and then have the outcome be these incredible trips. So none of that is changing. Um, but I realized that this year I'm thinking about the points differently, and I wanted to share that because maybe this happens to everyone in their journey. What is this year for now? I guess. So, so the way that I'm have kind of outlined this episode in my mind is there's a couple of things that I want to try this year that I'm gonna share about. There is a car uh uh a strategy with the existing cards that we have that I'm gonna talk about. Um, I'm gonna talk about what statuses we're gonna focus on earning. And then I'm also gonna talk about cards we're planning to open. And this is where I think the focus is a little bit different from maybe straight points and miles. And then the last piece is um kind of an offshoot of that. So I know that that I know that that sounds kind of vague. It's all gonna make sense, I promise. So the first thing that we'll talk about is a few things I want to dive into in 2026 that I have not done before. And the purpose of this is to earn points. Um, but also, you know, I feel like it's time to take kind of the next step in this game, right? We've opened a ton of cards last year for reference. We opened 18 credit cards between Dwayne and myself. And so in 2026, I am going to experiment with buying gold. And if you have already been buying gold, you're like, okay, well, you're super late to the party. And and we are, we are, because I've never bought a bar of gold in my life. But I want to experiment with this for a couple of reasons. One, I'm just curious. Two, I love the idea of being able to earn a significant chunk of points on spend on cards that we already have. And I'm not saying that we're not gonna be opening up new cards as well because we will be, but I really like the idea of being able to maximize some of the cards that we already have without having to continuously get new ones. So as far as buying gold goes, if you are a gold pro, this is gonna sound so elementary to you. But if you are not, or if you're like me and you're thinking of, you know, diving in, I'm just gonna kind of briefly explain the process of how I'm going to approach it. And keep in mind I haven't done it yet. And I'm purposely recording this before having done it, and then I will report back once I've, you know, maybe bought a few bars. But my plan is to buy from Costco and then to resell to either Pure or BGS. Those are the two that seem to be the most beginner friendly for the most part. So so far I've made accounts with each and I'm setting up my bank payment information so that, you know, once I do sell something to them, I can obviously get paid, you know, pretty quickly for it. Um, my plan is to, if I didn't say this already, to buy at Costco. With Costco, you can either buy gold online or in person. My plan will be to buy in person to start, and I'm just gonna start with buying one bar. Part of the tricky piece here is that finding it in person, I think, can be difficult. Some stores like are always out of stock, or so again, uh we'll have to see how that goes. I haven't really been keeping tabs on local stores and whether or not they have it in stock, but essentially I will be using um one of my existing cards to purchase the gold and then will immediately make a reservation to sell it with the hopes of not losing money. Um, the price of gold has been very volatile lately. And so, I mean, I've even heard stories of you getting the bar of gold from the counter and walking to the register, and by the time it scans at the register, the price is different. So it's it's definitely tricky, and that's why I will be experimenting with just one bar to start. Um, the other kind of important thing to note is that if you're if you've done buying groups or things like that in the past, or maybe uh gift cards, how the process works is you make a reservation to sell said product, right? Like maybe it's uh AirPods or something. So you would make a reservation with the buying. And I think this is the same for like if you're reselling gift cards too. But if I'm if I'm doing a buying group, right, and again, the point of a buying group, just if you're new, is um it's essentially manufactured spending. So you are spending money on your credit card and then you're immediately reselling that product to a buying group. And the reason buying groups do that is a lot of times there are discounts available to consumers for one, two, or three items that are not available to these larger buying groups. So they're able to leverage the kind of personal discount that you would get on a product for their own reselling business, and you get the points on your credit card and maybe help towards earning uh sorry, help towards meeting a minimum spend that you wouldn't be able to meet with your regular spend. Um, this isn't something that we talk about a lot on this podcast because it is not beginner-friendly, and that's generally my focus is like, you know, families getting into points and miles, but that that is the point of like a buying group or same with buying and reselling gift cards. Those are kind of the two main like uh arms, I guess, of manufactured spending that I'm familiar with. But anyways, I digress. So when you are doing a buying group, for example, you make a reservation, then you order the item, and then you would either sell the item to them or ship it directly to them, depending on the group. But if for some reason your order gets canceled, you can cancel your reservation with no penalty. That is not the case for gold. So when you reserve to sell a bar of gold, you are on the hook to sell that bar of gold. And if you cancel, there are hefty penalties for doing so. So, like we're talking hundreds of dollars for one bar potentially. So you never want to make a reservation until you are confident that you have the gold to sell. If you're buying online, then you have to, you would buy it and then you have to at least wait for it to ship, if not wait for it to arrive at your house before you can even make a reservation. And the price that you are reserving at then could be wildly different from the price that you paid. So that is why gold is so volatile. And if you are a beginner in this hobby, you should just skip right on past this and you should not not even consider this for one second because it is not without risk. So, anyways, um, that is that is my plan. I am going to um attempt to find the gold at Costco. I'm attempt, I'm going to buy one bar and we're gonna see how this process goes, and I will report back. Um, so but one of the things that we're focusing on this year is maybe not getting as many cards and trying to maximize the spend on the cards that we already have. Um, if you have additional questions on that, or if you are a pro at selling gold, you should DM me on Instagram and tell me all the things at travel party at five. Okay, give me all this all the secrets and all the tips. Thank you. Um okay, I the other thing is I also love the idea of being able to scale up, right, with gold. So if you were to buy four or five bars, that's around$20,000,$25,000, which is a huge amount, don't get me wrong. But think of the think of the points. Think of the points. The other thing to note about Costco is if you're buying in person, you can only use a Visa card or a um a Costco shop card or a combination of the two. If you are buying Costco online, you can also use a MasterCard, but this would not be a play for any type of American Express cards. So keep that in mind too. Okay, let's jump into my second little segment here, which is continuing on with making use of the cards that we already have. One of my goals for 2026 is to earn four Hilton Free Night certificates by using the aspire to uh surpass downgrade trick. It's not so much a trick as it is um like a hack, maybe is a better word, but sometimes these these tricks are not talked about a lot. But this one was talked about on the all the hacks podcast with Chris Hutchins, I think his name is. And so his podcast for sure is bigger than mine, and therefore I feel okay talking about this. So this is my plan for our current Hilton cards. Dwayne and I each hold a Hilton Aspire card with the Hilton Aspire card. It comes with one free night on your card member anniversary every year, including the first year that you get the card. But then it also comes with a second free night once you've spent$30,000 on the card. Okay, that is important to know, and we're gonna come back to that. Now the Hilton surpass card, okay, which is the one level down, I guess, from the aspire card. That comes with a Hilton free night certificate when you spend$15,000 in spend on the card. So here is the trick or process. We currently each have two aspires. My plan will be to spend$30,000 on each of them this year, ideally in the first half of the year, but we'll see. Then once I have achieved the$30,000 on each card and gotten the free night certificate on each card, I will reach out to Amex and I will ask to downgrade to the surpass card. And downgrading to the surpass card should then trigger the fact that I've spent$15,000 or more on that card this year, and I should get another two Hilton Free Night certificates, one per card. So on two aspire cards, I should be able to get four Hilton Free Night certificates. And I just need to work out the timing because I think in July, I will get a second, uh, I'm sorry, in July on one of them, that's the anniversary year, and I will get the uh free night certificate for just holding the aspire card. So I can't downgrade until that happens, anyways. But that's how I am thinking that through, and that is my plan. Um, if you're thinking, wow, spending$60,000 on two credit cards seems absolutely insane. Um, it will not be organic spending. I will be doing some sort of buying groups or something to meet that spend. And I just want to be transparent about that because even though we do have a lot of spend, that is not, that is not in our wheelhouse without, you know, foregoing any other new cards for the year. So um, yep. So that was my plan. I want four Hilton Free Night certificates from that play. And ideally, I want to use those at the Conrad Bora Bora, although I'm not opposed to maybe like a one of the aspirational Hilton's in Greece or something like that, too. But my plan is to use those for a getaway for Dwayne and myself for 2027. So that is that is the plan for that. Again, trying to maximize cards that we already have. Maybe after I do that this year, I'll decide it wasn't worth it, right? Because that's a lot of spend for just the four free night certs. But maybe I'll decide it was worth it. I don't know. Again, we're we're experimenting a little bit this year and we're just trying out some new things. So we will see. And again, I will report back as always. Um, next segment would be around status. So we have had globalist status for the last two years, no, year and a half. I think we earned it for the first time in 2024. So we've had it for the end of 2024 and all of 2025, and now we will have it. Um no, wait, I'm back. I'm wrong. We earned it last year for the first time. I apologize. We earned it in 2025, so now we have it. Am I wrong? Oh my god. We earned Globalist for the first time in 2024. We had it for all of 2025, and in which we then earned it again for 2026, and we will absolutely earn it again this year. I have no doubt in my mind between the stays that we already have booked and/or I will book, and the credit card spend on the World of Hyatt Business card, 100% we will be reaching globalist status. Again, it is probably the thing I value the most outside of just earning points and miles is that status because it number one saves us a ton of money, but more importantly than that, it gives us so much more space because almost every time when they have the milestone up, uh, what are they called? Milestone awards, I am choosing sweet upgrade awards every time. And so I think I have four or five to utilize for this year. And that is so valuable as a family of five because the extra space is what makes the trips feel more like a vacation versus being all crammed on top of one another in one tiny hotel room. So that and the free breakfast, I mean, those two things alone save us a significant amount of money when we travel. So absolutely, we will be doing that. Um, to earn it the first year, I did have to do a few mattress runs where I we would check into like a category one Hyatt and then just leave. We wouldn't stay there. Um, we will not have to do that this year. I'm I'm confident I have a plan and it's it's already well on its way. So the only other status that we have is Hilton Diamond, and we have that from holding the aspire cards. We each have an aspire card, so we each have Hilton Diamond. I don't put a ton of value into that, other than I will make sure that we do have Hilt and Diamond when we take our couples trip using the free night certificates. Um, so I just need to work out the timing of all of that. But um, the globalist status 1000% is the most valuable hotel status that you can earn for families. However, if you're just taking one or two trips a year, it it doesn't make sense to pursue, in my opinion. So don't get like shiny status syndrome. Um I think it it's valuable if you're gonna take some huge, big long trips, but otherwise, like just don't don't don't bother. Focus on other points instead. Okay, moving on to my next little segment that is trips for 2026. So we are going to Thailand next month. That trip is fully booked, flights, hotels, the whole nine yards. However, I haven't really booked many activities yet. And part of that has just been a time thing. Like I am fully drowning every day. My to-do list is never ending, and and that hasn't happened yet. Um, I also am not sure like how much I'm gonna book because I do want this to be kind of relaxing and not go, go, go. So we'll see. Um, our other big trips are London and Scotland in the summer. We have everything booked for that except return flights. I've been checking for return flights for that trip for months and I am not finding what I want. Part of the tricky piece is that I want to fly business class. So please understand there are economy flights, but I feel like I have put in a lot of work into earning a significant chunk of points. And I really, really, really want to fly business class on the way back. We're gonna fly economy to and from Thailand, and we're gonna fly economy to London. And I just feel like that's that's about it for the year in terms of economy flights, and I'm really striving for business class or at the very least, premium economy for the rest of the year. So uh stay tuned and TBD on that because it may not happen, and we will just have to see. And then um the other big trip is we are planning a Switzerland and maybe Italy trip in the fall. And again, that trip is not fully booked. So we have flights there into Switzerland, and that is it. Nothing else is booked. I've kind of been waiting to find flights back, which are also I also have not booked, again, because I want business flights or again, premium economy. I will also take that because it's a daytime flight. But I haven't been able to really find anything. And I mean, I have been checking since calendars opened, so I'm not like I don't think I missed it, if that makes sense. You guys know I'm I'm forever like I'm about to book spring break 2027. So I I truly don't think I missed any flights. I just think there are none available um for what I'm looking for. And so, anyways, I haven't booked any of the trip because the flight back is gonna determine how the trip goes. Meaning, if I can fly find flights out of like Italy, then yeah, we're gonna go Switzerland to Italy. But if my flights back are out of Vienna or Greece or something like that, then we're gonna we're gonna pivot. I don't know if we'll pivot to Greece, but you get the point. Um, maybe it's Amsterdam, right? So then we'll we'll uh we'll end our trip there. So that's why the trip hasn't really been planned yet, is because the flight back is gonna determine where we where else we go outside of Switzerland on that trip. And then Dwayne and I have a trip to Cabo planned for August. Um, that is like a low season for Cabo because it's the desert, just just like in Phoenix, it's gonna be hot AF. And so I'm pretty excited though. We've just got four nights, I think. Two nights at the uh Park High at Cabo and two nights at the Waldorf Astoria, Los Pedrogal. And um also speaking of our Hilton status, I do need to keep our Hilton status for that stay as well. So I guess I won't be doing my thing until September, which is fine. So um, those are kind of trips that we've got planned for the year, and you can see that they are in a various uh levels. Of planning. Like at this time last year, I had all of our trips for 2025 fully booked, hotels, flights, the whole shebang. And so I think that's one of the things that's different this year, is I am more confident in my ability to wait for the flights that I want versus being forced to choose a flight that maybe is not ideal for our family or for our needs. So I think that's one thing that's changing. I am very confident I will find flights back from both of those trips, the Scotland and the Italy, Switzerland-Italy trip. But is it happening in the timeframe I would have liked? It's not. So um, and then the other piece is I think I already have a plan for our spring break 2027 or yes, spring break 2027. Um and that will be a more low-key shorter trip. One of the things we're gonna focus on in 2027 is actually shorter trips, so like seven to ten days versus taking a full two weeks, and that's for a variety of reasons. But one, uh, it's PTO, two, it is boarding the dog is expensive. And three, it is that I find that when I book these huge two-week trips, it really limits our availability to be spontaneous and flexible if another trip pops up. So I want to have some flexibility in like if a trip pops up in April or whatever, and we want to go, but we've already got six weeks of PTO on the books, we really can't. And so I wanna that's another thing that's changing over the next year, is I want to do shorter trips so that we can be a little bit more flexible and maybe take, I don't know, maybe add a fourth kind of week trip or whatever. Um, but that's something else that's changing. And then um, okay, so we cover trips for the year. I am, oh, my spring break 2027 trip, I'm kind of thinking like Mexico, which actually our our kids have never been to Mexico, and I'm thinking of maybe doing a combination of like a Cancun resort for a few days combined with a trip to Merida. I I don't even know if I'm saying that right, but like it's like a city kind of in that same area of Cancun where they have like ancient ruins and sea notes and all that, and so I kind of like the idea of combining both of those areas so that the kids can kind of get a better like feel for Mexico overall versus just like a Mexican resort, right? For a few days. So that's my my rough plan for spring break 2027. I am going to be booking that in the next few weeks, probably, at least hotels. So um looking forward to that. Okay, let's jump into cards that we are planning to open in 2026. I mentioned that we opened 18 credit cards last year between the two of us. That is an insane amount of cards, in my opinion. And this year, I I think slash no that it will be less. So for current stats, I am at 424 and Dwayne is at 524, I think. Let me just double check that. Let me open travel freely really quick because he's either at 524 or 624. And I want to be, I want to give you the correct, um, I want to give you the correct stats. So Dwayne is okay, yes, 524. He will be under 524 uh July 1st. So really not anytime soon. We've got like five months to go. And yeah, and I I won't be under 524 until let's see November. Well, I'm sorry, I am under 524, I'm 424, but like my my next card doesn't fall off until November of this year. So I really have I have one card that I could get with Chase this year. And so I am going to stick under 524 for as long as possible. Um, that means only opening business cards for myself. And the reason being is that if Chase does come out with either a premium Hayek card, which is rumored but not confirmed and has been rumored for years now, so who knows if it's going to happen. Um, if they come out with that card or really any other card that I want, I want to be able to have the opportunity to apply for it. And some people are saying 524 doesn't seem that relevant anymore. I'm not sure how much that's true, especially if you need to call recon to get your application approved, which Dwayne almost always does. So maybe if you're able to get auto approved, fine. But I do think that if you call recon and a person is looking, I do think 524 still matters. So I am going to stay under 524 for as much of the year as I can. So again, only business cards for me. Dwayne is 524, and if I were going to open another personal card, it would likely be in his name. Maybe that would be the built card. I'm still not sold on it, but TBD on how the racketin transfers play out. So I would sacrifice him um going over 524 even more versus myself. So far this year, we have only opened up one card so far, and it was actually not a points and miles card. Let me just say that again. It was not a points and miles card. If you've gasped in your car, I feel you. Uh so the card that we opened, I opened it for me. It is a business card. It is the US Bank Triple Cash Card. And it is a Visa business card. It earns, I don't know, anywhere from one to three percent cash back, depending on the category, but it has a$750 signup bonus that comes in cash back, not points. And this is gonna kind of lead me into our next segment, which is that part of my focus for this year is actually not on earning more points and miles, but it is on also earning cash back. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about how I plan to do that and why. Um, but first going back to cards. So I opened this US bank triple cash business card. I am probably going to apply Dwayne for this card as well. It is a business card, so it will not add to his 524. And between the two of us, that would be$1,500 in cash back that we could put towards a vacation fund or whatever. You know, there's a lot of things that there's a lot of costs involved in travel that points and miles don't cover. That's why my whole episode two weeks ago was around ways to earn cash back outside of points and miles. This is me like putting my money where my mouth is, saying, like, I also see the value in earning cash back and not just points, especially if you're at the point where we are, which we have a good amount of points. We have over 300,000 city points, over 300,000 AA points. We've got 1.2 million American Express points. I've got around 400,000 Chase points. So those are not astronomical numbers, but they're absolutely enough to get our next, like the rest of our trips planned for 2026 and and 20 in part of 2027. So I just want to be clear. I'm not saying we're not going to continue to earn points because we are, but I am saying that I have I am noticing that there is still a significant cost to travel, especially as a family of five, um, outside of the flights and hotels. And I am going to be utilizing some cashback options to help to offset some of that. So, anyways, um, this card isn't talked about a lot in the Points and Miles world. I think because there's no affiliate link. And a lot of Points and Miles influencers have credit card affiliate links, and that's how they make money. And that's totally fine. And I wish we had them, but we don't yet. And um so there, you know, there, there's no like, I guess, um, what's the word? There's no uh incentive for them to promote these cashback cards. But I have an incentive in that I think that if you are looking for some cashback, you you spend$6,000 on this card and they'll give you$750. So go crazy. Um other cards that I am planning to open this year, I am hoping for another American Express mailer for either an Amex Business Gold or an Amex Business Platinum. I have been pretty successful so far in utilizing the credits on those cards to help offset the significant annual fee. And so I've been on the Amex gravy train as they call it, and I'm really hoping that that continues because I have almost met the spend on my most recent Amex Business Platinum. And um yeah, so I either Duane or I could use a new one. So that would be great. Um, and then I mentioned the built call card already as a potential option. I'm not making any decisions on that until like after May. And then I will just decide. Do I want to earn my built points? I mean, I'm sorry, do I want to earn built points through Rackettin or do I just switch back to earning American Express? Um that is a TBD. And then I think beyond that, like you'll you'll notice that that's not like a very what's the word? That's not a rigid roadmap for the year, right? I've got a few cards in mind that I'm thinking about opening, but as we learned last year, and I think every year in this hobby, there's always new cards and there's always elevated offers. And so I am of the like of the mentality that you cannot decide at the beginning of the year, okay, I'm gonna open these seven cards because it sh it should always change depending on what's available. And you want to be opportunistic in this hobby and you want to grab what you can while it's good because these offers do not last forever. Um, if they bring back that Chase Freedom offer where it's like an unlimited match on what you spend for the whole year, I mean, a thousand percent I would grab that offer in a heartbeat. Um, but like it's not on my radar, right? Like it's not a one of the cards that I mentioned. And so I just think you don't want to like pigeonhole yourself into like, well, I said I was gonna open this card, but this other one's way better. You have to go with the flow a little bit and let yourself be opportunistic. Like it is it is the best way, I think, to manage this hobby. So, okay, that is cards that we are planning to open. And then I okay, the last piece that I want to talk about is I mentioned cashback and why that's important, I think, for travel, but I think it even goes a little bit beyond the travel piece. And let me give you a little bit of background. So the way that I originally found credit card points and miles was through a financial independence retire early Facebook group. So it's the Choose FI Facebook group. If anyone is in there, I am in there too. And I don't comment a lot, but I love to read it. And, you know, they say that you are the sum of the five people that you spend the most time with. And the cool thing is that we live in a day and age where those people don't have to be people that you see in person on a daily basis. They can be online people that you have decided is a role model or a mentor or someone that you look up to. And so I like to be in that group and just see the post because it reinforces what I slash we are trying to do in our lives, even though it's maybe a little outside of the norm and it's not something that everybody does. So um I I'm in that group because I do have a goal to retire early. Now, am I gonna retire when I'm 48? No, probably not. Although, I mean, I guess anything is possible, but no, based on current numbers, no. But do I want to retire like in my mid-50s versus waiting till I'm 65 or above? Yes, I do. And that is that is my goal because I just think life is not promised. And the older that you get, the less mobile you get, the harder it is to travel. And travel is the thing that I love most in the world outside of my friends and family. So I do have that goal to retire early. Um, that has been our goal for a long time. We at the risk of like turning this into a financial um podcast, um, this is not financial advice, but we are at a point now where we are able to max out our 401ks every year through work and then also contribute some extra to a like S P 500, you know, kind of fund. And so, and plus our kids have college funds, although they are, I will say they are small college funds, okay? But you have to prioritize your own retirement before your kids' college fund, right? Because otherwise they're gonna have to take care of you when you're old. And you don't want them to have to do that. That being said, we are taking these steps to get to where we need to go, but we started late in life on this, and like I would say that we have a long ways to go still. So maybe we're above like the average person, but we are significantly below like most people in the fire movement. And so one of my goals this year is to earn some additional cash back to contribute to our retirement fund. And I am doing that with a combination of bank account bonuses, which I talked about in my cashback episode, as well as potentially cashing out some American Express points. And my plan for doing that is to get a uh American Express platinum card. This is a personal card. I would likely get this for Dwayne because again, he is the one who's already over 524. And so there's a few different, okay, let me back up. There's a few different versions of the American Express Platinum card. There's the vanilla platinum card, which is just the standard one you would get from American Express. And then there is also a Charles Schwab platinum card, and there is a Morgan Stanley Platinum card. Either of those two, I believe, allow you to cash out your American Express points at 1.1 cents per point versus the standard one cent per point that you would get with the regular um platinum card. So my goal would be to earn enough points so that I can fund our travel and then also cash out some of those points using the 1.1 cent per point value and put that money into our retirement fund to speed up our retirement contributions. And I don't have a goal for how much money that will be. Um again, this is the year of experimentation. And if it's only a few thousand dollars that I'm able to cash out, like I think that's fine. We're we're we're we're learning, we're starting out, we're experimenting, and you know, you don't go from zero to 60 in one year, typically. So um that is my that is my plan for this year, is to continue to travel and create the memories that are priceless, in my opinion, and show our kids the world and all of that fun stuff without sacrificing our future. And so I'm trying to do both. And I've I think I've talked about this on the podcast before, but there is a book called Die With Zero that talks about uh it's a great book. It's a really good audiobook, actually. I think I've talked about it on this podcast before, but essentially it is thinking of your life in decades and planning out all of the things that you want to do in your life in the appropriate decade. So if you want to go, you know, do this like five-day long hike, you know, that probably shouldn't go in your 70 to 80 year old decade. That probably should go in your 40 to 50 or maybe 50 to 60 buckets. Um, versus like if you want to go on a cruise, that probably can go in your 70 to 80-year-old bucket, you know, because that's a little bit less um, less taxing, I guess. So the the premise of the book is um just creating experiences in your life, utilizing the money that you have and like not saving it all because you can't take it with you. And sure, you can pass it down to your kids and general weight, generational wealth and all that fun stuff, but not at, I mean, not at the expense of enjoying your own life and creating those, those memories that are are literal, literally priceless. So I I feel like maybe I'm starting to ramble at this point, but I highly recommend that book. And that book is kind of how I'm trying to live my life. I don't want to die with zero, but I do want to absolutely create a life that is fulfilling and has incredible experiences and memories, especially while my kids are still young and have to travel with us, right? When they get older, I don't know if they would choose to continue to travel with us or not. And so I'm absolutely trying to create these incredible experiences without sacrificing our future retirement. And I do believe that Points and Miles is going to allow us to do both. And so that is my that is my plan. Um, I don't know if this was helpful or not. It's a little bit of a different episode and definitely a different kind of trajectory for 2026, but those are all of my goals and plans. And I will, of course, absolutely report back on the gold experiment and you know, the bank account bonuses and how much I'm able to contribute at the end of the year. Maybe we'll even do like a mid-year check-in. Um, but ultimately, my, you know, my goal is like a future that we feel good about while at the same time like being able to sustain uh these incredible experiences, you know, in the in the here and now, right? So if you have any questions, find me on Instagram, send me a DM at travel party five. Um, if you if you know about gold, find me on there too and tell me all the all the tips and tricks. And I appreciate you listening, and we will catch you on the next episode. Bye.