Why We Love Travel Updates

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I don't know about you, but I know that I'm always curious to know what cards other people are opening, how they're meeting a minimum spend, and what types of trips and flights they're booking. So that is what we are sharing in today's episode. So listen in.

Meet Raya And Dwayne

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hi, I'm Raya.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

And I'm Dwayne.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

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.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

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

SPEAKER_00 0:43

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 0:48

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

SPEAKER_00 1:09

My name is Rea. I am your host, and Duane will be joining us momentarily. He is currently, I believe, feeding our chickens. Um, that is not even an exaggeration or a joke. Um,

A Points Podcast Recommendation

SPEAKER_00 1:22

before we jump into the topics of today's episode, um I did want to quickly share one more time a podcast that I have been listening to and loving lately. I know as someone who devours a lot of podcasts, I'm always open and looking for new ones that maybe I haven't found before. And so if you are not currently listening to Wonderland on Points with Mary Ellen and Joanna, I would highly, highly recommend adding them to your weekly playlist. They do two episodes a week. Their podcast, again, is called Wonderland on Points. They are actually now presented by Yahoo Travel, which is super exciting for those of us in the points and miles space. Um, and basically they're just two adventurous moms who show you how to use points and miles to take incredible family vacations without the incredible price tag. Um, again, I mentioned they have episodes twice a week and they share like honest travel stories. They have tons and tons of amazing guests, so you can get a lot of destination inspiration from them. And I genuinely feel like they are more budget focused than um maybe some other points and miles accounts. So highly recommend Mary Ellen and Joanna with Wonderland on Points. Okay, now let's jump into today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Hello, friends. We are both here now. The chickens have been fed.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yes, and I just like to add, they are not my chickens. So can't tell you the last time Rhea fed her chickens.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Rhea fed and watered those chickens for the first four years of their life. Yeah, we moved in here in 2021. And I definitely took care of them until about a year ago, and then I just got exhausted.

Cards We Opened This Year

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Okay, so on the agenda for today is three things. This is mostly like an update episode. So we're gonna talk about cards we've opened so far this year. I have a gold update, and we're gonna talk about like what I've got booked so far or what I've recently booked for upcoming trips. So let's start with the cards, shall we?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yes, we shall.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Okay, so cards that we have opened thus far this year, it's not as many as we did last year because we are really sticking with my my focus of trying to do a little bit more cash back, some bank bonuses, that sort of thing. So, so far this year, I have opened a US bank business triple cash rewards that at the time I opened it, had a $750 signup bonus after you spend $6,000. I actually still have not met the signup bonus on this card because first of all, they only gave me a $3,000 credit limit. Second of all, I've had it decline a bunch of times, which has been very annoying. So I am trucking my way along, but it is really slow going. So I probably only have a few weeks to finish that up. So I really need to prioritize that. I think I have $2,500 to go. Um, let's see. I have opened up a second business gold card that I was targeted for in my American Express app. The two of us have opened, each opened the Hilton Honors business card because of the elevated offer. And Dwayne was targeted for a um blue business platinum card. And so that was the 75k offer, which is the best that it gets on that card. That card is no annual fee and earns 2x on everything on the first 50k in spend. So when I saw the 75K offer, I immediately applied as soon as it popped up when I signed in as him. And that is it for the year so far. And I feel like by this time last year, we had opened up significantly more cards than that. Um, but you know, we're just I I also have been really plugging away at spending on our Hilton Aspire cards because I'm trying to get to 30k on each of those cards to earn some Hilton free night certificates. So that has been where the the rest of our spend has been going since it's not going to any other new subs. So did you have any idea that you had any of those credit cards?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Um, yes, but just because I get the emails that say like congratulations. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yes. We did, I did also try to get the Aeroplan card from Chase when um it had an elevated offer, which was just in the last month or two, and we were declined. So that was disappointing. I actually do really want that card. Um, but I don't know. Also, I will just say people keep saying how they're getting approved for Chase cards even though they're over 524. That has not been our experience. So I don't know. I can't decide if that's real or if people are lying about it.

Auto Forwarding Two Factor Codes

SPEAKER_01 6:20

So have you ever mentioned anything about what you did to my phone? The code automation.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Oh, I don't know if I ever talked about that, but that's a really good hack. Do you want to talk about it?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Well, yes. I mean, I would be at work every now and again, get a message from who knows what bank, who knows what credit card that asked for a code or that sent they're sending me a code, and then shortly after, Ray is like, hey, what's the code?

unknown 6:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

So then I would have to stop what I'm doing, look at the code, send her the code, wait for another code because I don't just get one code. There's multiple codes every time.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So go ahead and tell them what you do.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

So then someone told me about this trick where you can set up basically like a trigger in so I set up a like a shortcut or a trigger in Dwayne's phone so that every time he gets a text message that has the word code in it, it automatically forwards that message to me. And that has been life-changing.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yes, it has. I mean, I get at least four of those messages a day.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

At least.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah. And it just comes through as if he's texting it to me, but he's not. It's hand, it's done automatically. So I'm sure I don't exactly remember how I did it out. It's been months, but you basically just set it up as like a shortcut. I'm sure you can Google how to figure it out. It's it's easy. Yeah, it wasn't hard. And so it has been really good. So if you have a P2 that prefers to be a little more hands-off and you're tired of asking them for codes, especially because every single website that I log into these days has two-factor authentication and wants to send me a code. And it is so annoying because I could have just signed into that website five minutes ago. And yet here we are again. But oh no, same IP address, same computer, same everything. And yet, oh no, we must send you a code because you must be a hacker. It's really annoying. So this shortcut has been a big time savings for both of us.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, that's a good call out. I don't know if I ever shared that. So good job. Um, okay.

Costco Gold For Points Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 8:29

The second thing that I wanted to talk about is probably the thing that I've been asked, not the thing, but one of the things people have been messaging me about on Instagram the most is they want to follow up on buying gold. And I do have an update. I have bought and sold some gold. And unfortunately, I think the update is not what I wanted it to be, which is that I actually don't think that you should do this. I don't think it makes sense. But let's talk about the details and all that. And Dwayne can also tell you um his first thoughts when he first saw the bar of gold that I first purchased. So here's the process, essentially, is you can buy gold from Costco sometimes. You can buy it online or in person, depending on the availability. Um, I've noticed various locations seem to have differing availability. Some never carry it and some often have it. So you just have to figure out if your local Costco's even carry it to begin with. And you have to try to understand like what is the price. And I went into this purposely and specifically trying to buy gold to earn points, right? Gold is fairly expensive, and it seems like a good way to earn a lot of points quickly without taking a ton of time. However, the way that the math has worked out most of the time, it has been for a loss every single time I have bought it. And that's not to say that I'm not earning other things, and we'll talk about a few of those things that that buying the gold helped me reach. But in general, the way that this works for points is you're essentially buying the points at a discount. And I think you just have to do the math and decide if you're comfortable doing that or not. Personally, I would rather earn my points for free using a signup bonus versus like buying them through gold, if that makes sense. So the way that the process works, and I'm gonna be kind of simple about this, but you would buy the gold either online or in person, and then you would make a reservation to sell the gold. There are various companies that you can sell it to. The one that I've used so far has been pure P-U-R-E. And once you make a reservation to sell, you are committed to selling that gold, which is different from other sorts of things like buying groups or gift cards. Um, and that's this is one of the risks associated with gold that isn't really there for other things. Again, like doing a buying group or buying and selling gift cards. Because when you make a reservation to sell gold, if you cancel it, there are penalties, like monetary penalties associated with that. It varies depending on the company that you're selling it to, but typically it's like a set fee plus maybe a percentage in the price difference from the time you reserved it to the time that you cancel it. Um gold is really volatile. So the price goes up and down every second. And when you are going to make a reservation to sell gold, that price that you're locking in is only good for 60 seconds and then it changes. That's how volatile it is. It can go up and down hundreds of dollars in one day. And so it is this is not a beginner or even an intermediate strategy by any means. This is very advanced. And again, I'm just gonna repeat this a million times. I do not think that it makes sense for a normal regular person who wants this to be an easy hobby to buy and sell gold to earn points quickly. It literally does not math 99% of the time. And I'm gonna give you some numbers examples too. Do you want to talk about how I bought the first bar of gold and you came home and you were like, oh, I want to see it? And then you were like, Well, you tell them.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I just thought it was a bar of gold. Well, because that's how people expecting it to be bigger.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

That's how people talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

I mean that like fit, it fits in the palm of your hand.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

It's it's very small. I even was like, wow, it's way smaller than I anticipated. I was envisioning like a bar of gold, like you see in the movies. It is not like that. Not not at all.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

But I mean, after I saw it, I realized, you know what, an ounce is an ounce, and like it can't be that big.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

But again, I had a picture of a bar.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Well, yes. Yeah, it is very small. So um, I started out buying one bar. I bought it in person. I knew it was gonna be a little bit of a loss, um, and it was, but I used my Hyatt personal card and that spend got me to a um to $15,000 on the card for the year, which means I I did earn an annual free night certificate. So I that does have some value. But again, the numbers just really they do not math for the most part. So let me give you some ex some like exact numbers. So the price that I paid for that bar was $4,689.99. The price that I sold it for was $4,611.40. And there is a 0.75% fee on that. So after you include the fee, my payout was only $4,576.82. So that is a loss of $113.17. Now, a couple things about Costco. If you have the executive membership, you do earn 2% back up to a maximum of $1,250 cash back per year per membership. And that does like work on gold. So it does, you do get cash back on gold. Um, so when you factor in the 2% cash back, that was a positive of $93.80. So my net loss in this example was was technically only $19.37, which isn't so bad, except that the the 2% cash back from Costco is not gonna arrive until my my um membership anniversary. So it is months down the road. And so that is one of the downsides, is sure you're gonna get the cash back, but you depending on when your membership renews, you're not gonna get it for up to you know nine, 10 months. Typically the check comes about two months before your renewal date. So again, you're floating, you know, if you're if you're maxing it out, you're floating over $1,200 for a year, which is not ideal. And um, yes, I did earn a free night certificate, but I also could have earned that on other spend, you know, I could have done that elsewhere. So again, not ideal in my opinion. I'm gonna give one more example because I we still have some, we have five bars of gold that I have not sold yet. And I bought it last week and I bought it for $4,839.99 per bar, and I bought five bars. Okay. So that comes out to a total cost of $24,199.95. If I were to go and sell those bars right this second, the total payout after the fee would be $23,554.35. So that comes out to a loss of $645.60. Okay. I'm not factoring in the Costco 2% at this point because if you are going to do this a lot, you are going to max that out very quickly. So again, that's a loss of $645. And I I happen to use my Capital One Venture X card for this, so I'm earning two X points. So maybe I've earned 48,000 Capital One points. I do not think that 48,000 Capital One points are worth $645 personally. So again, I just wanted to give a few numbers examples to kind of prove that this really does not make sense for the points. One more thing to keep in mind is that if you are purchasing gold from Costco online, you really want to wait to make your reservation to sell until you have the gold in your hand. Because what if Costco cancels the order? What if it takes a long time to ship? There's a lot of variables that are outside of your control. And remember, when you make a reservation to sell the gold, you are committed to selling that gold. So you better have that gold one way or another, or you're gonna lose money before you've even gotten started.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

I mean, you're gonna lose money regardless. It's just a matter of how much do you want to lose.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah. So I have both bought in person and bought online. I feel like I've given this a college try. I've been watching gold prices more than I ever thought I would for the last three or four weeks. And I just it has been a frustrating experience. The last thing that I'll say is there was exactly one moment in the last three and a half weeks where I could have made a profit without any sort of executive 2% cashback. And I was at gymnastics and I was stuck there because I was the only parent. And I texted Dwayne and I said, Is there any way you could leave work and come be at gymnastics so that I can try to go to Costco and see if they have gold in stock? And so he did. And I went to Costco, and the only Costco that I I thought might have it in stock was 25 minutes away. It was rush hour traffic. It was a whole thing. From the time I knew that the price of gold was going up until I was there in person, it was about two hours. And when I got there, they told me they had just sold their last bars. So I did not make it in time. I did not buy any gold. I did not make any profit. And that is the other thing you're gonna run into, is it's really the kind of thing where you have to drop everything. And I think for most people, especially busy parents like us, like that's just not possible, you know? We're overscheduled, we're overbooked, we can't just be running out to Costco 17 times a day. So that was very disappointing for me because the profit would have been fairly decent, but they didn't have it in stock. And so you're just really limited, I think, when you when you get into this. And so I will not be buying gold anymore for points. So I did want to report back. I apologize that it is not the um the best update. Oh, and there's one other thing that we need to talk about that was also kind of crappy, actually, very crappy. Um, so a lot of the cards that I used to do this are personal cards. And so my credit, the amount of um charges on my personal credit cards went up, which means my credit utilization went up, which means my credit score dropped. And not only did it drop a little bit, it has dropped about 70 points. So we went from over 800 to like 735. And so not only is that pretty terrible because I was about to apply for another credit card and now I have to wait until my score comes back up, which it will come back up in a couple of months. I'm pretty confident. But again, doing this can really affect your broader points in mile strategy because now I have to wait to apply for a card and that loses me time and points, you know. That's a pretty big drop.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah, it is. That's like my score.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

It's even lower than your score, actually. I know. So, anyways, it has been an interesting experiment. Um, but I'm I just I'm gonna say one more time that I think if you are, you know, considering doing this for the points, it does not make sense. Um, if you have any questions beyond that, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram. Happy to chat about it further.

Scrambling To Book Scotland Flights

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Okay, last topic for today is uh what we have booked for upcoming trips, because I have booked some additional flights. I actually just booked some business class flights two nights ago for us to come back from Scotland. And I have talked about this on the podcast before, but I had a whole plan for these flights, and there was a ton of availability last year when I was looking and I was like, this is perfect. We can fly on American Airlines business back home out of Inverness, we can fly to Phoenix, 57,500 AA miles per person. No big deal. Then the availability completely disappeared and really hasn't come back since in the same way that it was. So I have been scrambling and looking multiple times a week for the last six plus months to try to find us flights back from Scotland around the July 4th timeframe. I don't know if it's the holiday that's causing some of this strife, but I've had a really hard time finding tickets. I just booked six business class tickets on Air France, Flying Blue, from Paris to DFW on the day that we needed. So we have to get from Scotland to Paris. And then I already booked us flights on American Airlines from DFW back to Phoenix direct.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah, and I'm assuming we're staying at the Hyatt Place, Charles de Gaulle or whatever it's called.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

We will, yes. We will fly.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Like our third time in l like a a year and a half.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yes, we're gonna do that twice this year actually.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Four times.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah. So again, it's not the most ideal flight. And I am going to keep an eye out for other options. But at this point, I mean it's two months away. I was, I'm in a take what you can get, sort of a thing. And even the economy flights are like 70,000 points, a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

So I and why didn't you book it earlier? Just because we didn't have the points?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

No, no, we had the points, but I couldn't find anything good.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Well, no, I'm talking about the flights you just talked about, the American Airlines flight, the one that you said had availability.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

They don't have availability anymore.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Like when I was saying why didn't you book it when you saw it?

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Oh, because when I was looking, I always practice the bookings before I'm able to book it.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Practice.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah, because I'm I'm I'm doing a you're not understanding what I'm saying. I am doing the searches before the calendar opens so that I know, okay, this is what I'm looking at. Okay, so I was looking in like April of last year for July of this year. The calendar only opens on American 330, 331 days out. So you can't actually book for July until August. And by the time August rolled around, all gone. Nothing available. Not only was there nothing available, it was like we can't find that route for points. It was available for cash, but there was not a single points flight available. Wouldn't even pull up a search. So they did something. I think British Airways had some sort of update on their back end that really nerfed that. So that was disappointing. Um, booked us finally home from Scotland. I do think now I'm gonna have to rework the trip a bit because we need to get a direct flight from Scotland to Paris. I think Edinburgh is gonna be our best option to do that. And normally we were going to end in Inverness. So I think I'm gonna rework the Scotland part and make it so that we start in the Highlands and Isle of Sky and then end in Edinburgh instead so that we can minimize our traipsing around the country. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Excuse me, I agree. Because we would have to drive three hours.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

It's gonna be a lot of driving regardless.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

I mean, but I just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of driving regardless. I'm not a fan of that.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

When you told me that we had to drive three hours to the airport to catch a flight to then have layover in Paris on a way to DFW.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

I mean, you want to you could fly and we could fly an economy back home. That's the other option.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

No.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Okay, then. Okay.

Italy Plans Plus Seabird Stay

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Um, and then I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast yet, but we are planning an Italy and Switzerland trip in the fall, and I do have business class flights booked both ways. Um, Boston to Zurich on the way there, and uh Rome to Houston on the way back again on Air France, flying blue, again with a layover at the Hyatt House, Charles de Gaulle. Every time.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

They're gonna know us when you say every time.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

So again, it's not the most ideal, but I just think it's like either that or we could fly an economy back home. And again, I have alerts set. So if other flight options pop up, I will obviously change it. We have more time for that trip, but knowing that we have business class flights locked in just makes me feel better about the whole situation. And then the other thing I booked that I'm very excited for is a week at the Seabird in June with a sweet upgrade award applied.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Before we go.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Busy June.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

It is a busy June. I actually will not be taking any PTO from work that week. I will be working while we're there. But if I can work with an ocean view while Dwayne takes the kids to the pool, I feel pretty good about that. So it's also frustrating for us because our kids go back to school in the middle of July. So our summer is really June and the first two weeks of July, and that's it. And June in California is not the best time to go. They they have what's called June gloom. So the mornings are always pretty gloomy. And then by the afternoon, it the it burns off and it's fine. But it was either go in June or don't go at all. So we're going in June. It's gonna be fun. And we're still gonna have some yummy dinners at night. And I'm looking forward to it. I love the oceanside hotel so much, the seabird.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, I mean, I love that little town. It's like you know, really beachy and chill.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

I know. I just I felt really sad, like being like, we're not gonna be able to go this year because of how I planned the Scotland trip. And so I'm glad that I was able to use points to make it work, especially before this whole Hyatt evaluation. So, um, oh, and I have a plan for our spring break uh 2027 trip. This is a big reason why I'm really pushing hard to earn those Hitland Free Night certificates, but I am not going to share my plan until I already have it booked. So you'll have to wait probably a couple months before I can talk about that because I can't risk anyone snapping it up before I earn my certificates. Um, okay, any other updates or anything else that you think? Oh, you know what? I do want to talk about one more thing.

Paying For Six Tickets With Points

SPEAKER_00 27:38

So the flights that I booked back from Scotland, I booked six tickets because my mom and my sister are going with us on this trip. Um, my sister has to fly back to Florida, so she will fly separately, but my mom lives here with in Phoenix with us, and so she will obviously fly with us back. And so here's how I was able to make that work because I wanted to book all the tickets together. And she doesn't have enough chase points and she hasn't no Amex points to transfer to Flying Blue. So I transferred, oh my God, I didn't even talk about the points cost. Ugh, bad, bad Raya. Okay, here's what those flights cost. I transferred 330,000 American Express membership rewards points to Flying Blue, and that was the cost for six business class tickets: 60,000 for all the adults and my and our oldest, and then 45,000 for our younger two. The taxes and fees on this flight were very, very expensive. Flying Blue, I think, just raised their taxes and fees again. And honestly, it's getting really frustrating because more and more airlines are doing this, and it really makes it feel unattainable, I think, even when you're using points to book business class. Um, but nonetheless, the taxes and fees were $3,590.58 for six people. Okay, so that is around $600 a person. I basically just told myself it's like I'm paying for an economy flight, except we're gonna fly business class. That's how I'm justifying it. The cash price of those flights was $32,066.58. So that is a cents per point value of $8.6, which is great. That's fantastic. And then I my mom will pay me back for her portion of the taxes. So she will pay me around $600 for her ticket. And then we used her American Airlines miles to book the six of us on a flight from Dallas to Phoenix. And that was roughly, I think, 57,000 AA miles. So her ticket was 60,000 American Express Points. We used 57,000 of her miles to book us back from DFW. It's a direct flight. It leaves about three hours after we land in Dallas. And I was able, even though I wasn't the one booking the tickets from my account, I was still able to choose main cabin extra seats because I have AA platinum status. So that was an interesting thing that I noticed as well. And she does not have any status, and I booked these from her AA account. But as soon as I added my AA number, I was able to choose seats for all six of us, which was fantastic. I did not know that would happen. What are your thoughts? Does do those taxes make you want to vomit? Because I do.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, you said it was 300. How many points did we use?

SPEAKER_00 30:42

330,000 points.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

So 330,000 points plus 3,600 bucks. I mean, to fly business class, six people had it is what it is. Yeah, I'm I just really 330,000 minus the 57,000 that we use from Iran.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah. Yeah. So if it had been the five of us, it would have just been uh 270,000 miles and it would have been roughly three thousand dollars in taxes. So yeah, around 600 per person. So, anyways, um that's it. That's all we've

Final Thoughts And Questions

SPEAKER_00 31:18

got for today. Hopefully, this was maybe a little bit helpful. Um the card, yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

We we just appreciate you listening if you if you're still there.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

By the way, I forgot to tell you this. Um, you and I have both been invited to go on a podcast and talk about our Thailand trip together. So we gotta talk about that because I keep forgetting to tell you. If you're listening, Kelsey, this is me, this is the first time I'm asking him.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

That's that's weird.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

I think it's a great dynamic. Well, I mean for me to be on that. I mean, I know, I know, but I think it would be fun. Um, okay. If you guys have any questions about anything we talked about, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram. We appreciate you. Thank you for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Yes, have a good one.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Bye.