Points & Miles Meetups - The Upgrade You Didn't Know You Needed

We share why points and miles meetups can unlock the next level of award travel learning when free online info stops being enough. Raya recaps her Phoenix Award Travel 201 meetup, the best nuggets she picked up from real conversations, and a few credit card strategy updates tied to American Airlines status goals. 

• quick family update after Flu B runs through the house 
• what the Award Travel 201 meetup format looks like in real life 
• CardPointers and SaveWise for auto-adding card offers and tracking value 
• American Airlines awards talk that sparks a push toward Executive Platinum 
• the most useful insights coming from casual networking, not the stage 
• unscrewed.ai as a fast way to check likely trip protection coverage 
• why meetups help you find “expert earners” and “expert redeemers” 
• upcoming in-person events to watch including Chicago Seminars 
• new card moves, approval rules, and the realities of credit utilization swings 
• waiting on an Allianz travel insurance claim decision 

If as always, if you have questions or if you’re planning to attend any of the meetups that I talked about, send me a DM on Instagram. 

Transcript

Why In-Person Events Matter

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Points and Miles in-person events can be a fantastic way to broaden your knowledge in this space. And in today's episode, I'm going to share a meetup I just attended a couple weeks ago and what other events I will be attending in person later this year. So listen in. Hi, I'm Raya.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

And I'm Dwayne.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

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_00 0:39

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

SPEAKER_01 0:46

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_00 0:51

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

Phoenix Award Travel Meetup Overview

Sessions Recap And Tools Talk

Best Tips From Random Conversations

Earners Vs Redeemers Takeaway

Upcoming Milwaukee And Chicago Events

Chasing American Airlines Top Status

Citi AA Card In-Flight Offer

Amex Income Verification Delay

Chase 5/24 Plan For Dwayne

Bank Of America Approval Rules

Capital One Denial And Doubts

Next Cards On Raya’s Radar

Credit Score Drop From Gold

Allianz Claim Waiting Game

Final Push To Attend Meetups

SPEAKER_01 1:16

And I uh first and foremost want to apologize for missing an episode last week, but our daughter was very sick, probably the sickest that she's ever been, and um ended up getting uh ended up testing positive for flu B. And then both of our boys got sick. Um, and so it was just quite, quite uh, it's been quite a, I don't know, last seven, eight, nine days or so. So uh my boys are still sick. They actually just came down with this like a day ago. So we're still in it, but so far Dwayne and I are still feeling good. So hopefully that sticks. Hopefully our immune system is um up to the task. My mom made us some elderberry and I've been taking that. So fingers crossed that uh we are we're all good. Um, but appreciate your patience and apologies for missing last week's episode. Um, today's episode is what I was going to talk about last week, which is that I attended the award travel 201 meetup, which was in Phoenix last weekend. And so if you're not familiar with award travel, they have a podcast that I do listen to. Um, and they have like a 101 Facebook group, and that is free to join. And then their 201 meetups are, I think for like their, I think their 201 is like a paid group. I'm not a part of the paid group, but the meetup last weekend was open to 101 members as well. So I did sign up and pay for a ticket to go to that, and it was basically a Friday night, like kind of happy hour uh celebration. Meet uh, I don't want to call it a meet and greet, but like we went to it was held at the Deuce and they had lots of hors d'oeuvres and drinks and all that. And it was really fun to just connect with other points and miles people, and then Saturday was from 10 to 2 or so, a few different like training sessions on points and miles, and then there was a bowling event that night, Saturday night. And there was a good like chunk of time in between there where there were no sessions. And um, this was held at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix, which is in downtown Phoenix. And at first I wasn't really sure like what am I gonna do in those like three or four hours in between the things, but what we ended up doing was staying at the hotel and just chitter chatting to everyone that was there because it is so refreshing to be able to talk to other people who are as deep into points and miles as I am. Because when I talk to people in my regular life, their eyes glaze over and they look at me like I've lost my mind 97% of the time. So this was so refreshing. And I had a couple of realizations during this event, too, that I'm gonna share with you. So, first and foremost, let's talk a little bit about the event. There were three speakers. The first one was Brooke from Card Pointers, and she talked about just kind of basic functionality of card pointers. So if you are more intermediate or advanced in this hobby, you probably didn't learn anything new. But if you were a beginner, I could see that being really beneficial for you. Um, I've talked about card pointers before on the podcast, and um, it is something that I still continue to use. I also use Save Wise, which is like a competitor of card pointers. I have the paid versions of both. I so the re the reason I have both is because either one or the other wasn't working properly for me. And the the biggest benefit to me for these tools is adding offers to all the cards that I have automatically. And that has been very glitchy, specifically with regards to American Express in the last few months. And so that's why I have both still, because I've kind of been waiting and watching to see which one is gonna emerge as the clear winner, right? Which one is gonna do what I'm paying it to do? Um, and I don't have a resolution on that. So for now, I I have both paid options. Um, but again, if you are a beginner, I could see that session being really valuable. Um, the second session was Marty Paz, uh, who was, I think, either like a co-host or sponsor or something of Chicago Seminars, which I'm gonna talk about later on. And he did a uh like a session on American Airlines uh awards and um system-wide upgrades and that sort of thing. That was very interesting to me because I am heading down a path towards the highest American Airlines status this year. I'm gonna do that through spend. I'll talk a little bit more about that at the end because I did just open a card to help with that that I'm gonna share with you. Um it's nothing groundbreaking. I'm just trying to segment this to talk about first the event, then the future events this year, and then some card updates at the end. So um, and then the third speaker was a guy who um owns like a gift card selling um business, I guess. Like if you want to sell gift cards, he buys them. Um and that was fine, I guess. So, overall in all, three sessions, um definitely geared, maybe like beginner to intermediate um points and miles knowledge. Um, but I did really enjoy getting to meet other people in this space, a lot of whom are also in other groups that I am a part of. And um I did learn a ton from Marty's presentation about American Airlines. Uh, but beyond that, all of the like tidbits that I gained were just from talking to other people um who were not presenters or or anything like that, just in in random conversations. So, for example, one one guy made a um a like a website. Uh, he vibe, I think he vibe coded this website, which vibe coding was a new term to me in the last few weeks that I recently learned. Um, but his website will basically tell you um, you you answer a few questions about how you booked your trip, and it will tell you whether or not the credit card that you use to book or the insurance plan that you have is gonna cover, you know, XYZ. Will it cover a hotel if I have to book a hotel because my flight got canceled? Will it cover like luggage? Will it cover that sort of thing? And that was um, let me think of the URL. That is called um, or the URL is unscrewed.ai. And you just click get started, you answer a few questions, and then it'll it'll tell you um, you know, what like what kind of coverage you can expect. Uh so I thought that was pretty cool. Um, so you know, I can link that in the show notes um if you want to check it out. I went through using the example that we just experienced in Thailand, and currently it's it's only set up to do like canceled flights. Um, so it's so there's flights and then there's baggage and there's health, uh like medical issues. Those are the next two things he was gonna work on to add in. But for now it's like canceled flights only. Um so keep that in mind. But I thought it was a cool tool to check out and something you could easily like do do do do do, you know, in just a couple minutes if you were stuck in a situation where you bought a flight with your Chase Sapphire preferred and your it was canceled, and now, you know, what are your protections? Um, I would take it all with a grain of salt, right? Because it was, you know, partially created by AI. But if it were me, I would probably use it as a decent guideline as to what I could expect. So check that out, I guess, if you want. Um, and there were just so many other things like that. Like I met a very nice woman who's working on like a travel planning organizing app, which I think is very needed in this space because all the ones that I've tried I haven't loved. Um, and so I'm excited to kind of see where that goes and how that can evolve over the next few months and try that out. All in all, here's what I realized. Um, so I was there on Saturday. First of all, I went Friday night, and then I was there also on Saturday from like 10 in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. And we are just jabbing nonstop about points and miles and all the things. And one guy that I met really, I thought summed it up nicely, and I'll share with you what he said. He said, in this room, there are a lot of expert earners and some expert redeemers. And he said, I personally am an expert redeemer, but I'm really not an expert earner. He does have a way that he earns a lot of points that really works well for him and his situation, but it's very niche and really wouldn't work for most people. So I'm not even gonna go into any of that. Um but the way that he put it, I thought that is a great way to sum up what you can learn at events like this. So if so here here is my my takeaway. If you want to get very deep into points and miles, and how can I earn more points and how can I better redeem the points that I have, you know, to to accomplish whatever your goals are. If it's business class flights, fine. If it's just flying economy and getting your family to like Japan, fine. Like whatever, whatever it may be, you know, I the way to learn as much as you possibly can is gonna be to go in person to events like this. There's only so much available online. And and I say that knowing that there is a a wide wealth of information that's available online, but once you get to a certain level, you're gonna be stuck unless you either go in person to events like this or you start um paying for either paid podcasts or paid group memberships or that sort of thing. You're gonna get to a certain point and you're not gonna be able to go any further with the free information that's available online. Even if you've bought somebody's points in miles course, I can assure you that the information that you would learn at an in-person event is gonna be wildly different than what is in their course, even if you paid for it. So I think if if you're at that point, then I would start to look up maybe what events you want to try to attend in person. And I know it can be overwhelming, um, especially if you're more introverted, it can be like scary. But I mean, really, you could go to these events and not talk to anyone if you really wanted to and still probably get a good amount out of it. Um, but I think that you'd be surprised how friendly everyone is, because we all have this thing in common. So um I do know that the award travel meetup that I just went to, they're having another one. I think it's in August and it is in Milwaukee. So if you are kind of in like central, you know, United States, maybe that is a better. I guess it's not super central, right? But if you live near Milwaukee, maybe that's a good option for you. I thought that it was absolutely worth what I paid for it, um, which I think was a couple hundred dollars for my ticket. And I could have bought Dwayne a ticket too. They had an option to buy P2 a ticket, but he was with the kids. So did not do that. Um the other event that I am planning to attend in person that I'm very excited about and have already booked my hotel room is the Chicago seminars. So Marty Paz, who spoke again on American Airlines at this meetup I was just at, he talked about Chicago seminars a lot. And they're, I don't really know the lore here, but I think that it used to be one big group and then it split off into two different seminars. So now there is Chicago Seminars, the original Points and Miles event, and there is also something called the Chicago Points Travel Festival, and that is also later this year. The Chicago Points Travel Festival is the one that the Frequent Miler team is going to be attending. And I tried to get tickets for this last year, like I tried in October for the event that's coming up this fall, and I was too late. Tickets were already sold out. So I am on the wait list and I have been on the wait list for like probably six months now. So I really don't have high hopes that I will get off of the wait list. Um, but if I do, I might try to go to that one too. However, the Chicago seminars is going to be November 6th through the 8th, 2026. It is in Chicago. I've already booked my hotel for that, um, for those dates. I haven't booked Airfare yet because the tickets are actually not available yet. So as long as I'm able to get tickets, which I will be buying them as soon as I'm aware they've been released, I will be attending that event 100%. Um, because I just thought if I got this much value out of a few hours at, you know, this this much smaller meetup, think of what I can get out of a two and a half day event with over 500 people. Um, and so I'm very excited about that. Again, it is November 6th through the 8th. It is in Chicago. It is actually held at the Hyatt Regency, O'Hare Airport, I think is what it's called. And so that's the hotel that I booked on points. So check it out. Um, and if you are planning to go to that, send me a DM and I will talk to you if you don't know anyone else there. Happy to do it. So again, yes, I'm keeping an eye out for tickets to that and hoping that they get released soon, but I really have no idea when they could be released. So it could still be months. I'm not really sure. But I have every intention of attending that. So very excited. If the Milwaukee thing or the Chicago thing is, you know, maybe doesn't work for you, I would just go to Google and type points and miles events in whatever city that you're in and see what comes up. Um, a lot of different groups have different meetups. I know the 10x travel group has meetups in different cities, you know, usually once or twice a year. Um, and I have to assume that other groups do too. So I would just do a search for that and see what comes up and just go check one out because I was really not sure what to expect and left feeling pleasantly surprised and invigorated that there are other people that I can talk to about all these things without sounding like a crazy person. Oh, and no one bats an eye when you're like, oh yeah, I just took my family of five to, you know, Thailand. And last year we went to Japan and we went to Europe twice, and later this year we're gonna go to Switzerland and Italy and Scotland and London. No one blinks because it's normal. And I really love that it's normal because when I talk about this to other people, I I feel like I have to dim it down, right? I have to like minimize it because otherwise they're making assumptions about us that are not true. Or I mean, I don't know. I I think it makes it makes us seem unrelatable in a way. And I really just want to be like, you could do this too. Like, let me show you. But people don't want to for whatever reason. So okay. If I haven't sold you on events by now, I'm probably not going to, but you just need to trust me that you're only gonna get so far online. Other updates from us. I did just open a new credit card yesterday. So I have made it my mission to get um executive platinum status with American Airlines this year. I currently have platinum status, which I just got in March. And I have been a little iffy on the benefits, quite frankly. I I like that I can choose main cabin extra seats, and I like that there's no bag fees, except for the most part, we're not checking bags, although it did come in handy when we had to bring another suitcase back from Thailand. Um because, you know, we had to pick up Dwayne's bag in the San Francisco airport, and then we had six bags. Um, so I was able to check one of those bags for no fee, um, which was great. And I just booked flights um through my mom's American Airlines account. But as soon as I added my AA number, which obviously has my status, I was able to choose main cabin extra seats for all seven of us, or no, all six of us on that booking, even though it wasn't booked through my account. So that was another pleasant surprise. Um and so I think I just I want to get the highest status and I want to see how that works out for me. Mostly just because I can I know I can do it and I think it sounds fun. And so, you know, life is short. Might as well do the things that sound fun to you, even if I can't justify it with like it's gonna save me X amount, it it brings me joy. So Marie Kondo says that I should do it, and so I'm gonna do it. Um, and so to help me do that, I opened up the um city AA World Elite Master Card, I think it's called. Um, a friend was on an AA flight the other day and they had a pretty decent in-flight offer um of 65,000 miles for$1,000 in spend, which I could meet in a weekend if I wanted to. So, um, and they waive the annual fee for the first year. So my plan is to use that for the next year, um, get some extra AA miles and um use that as part of my strategy to spend to status. Let's see, I don't think we've opened any other cards in the last couple of weeks. Let me just check. Yes, that is it for for new cards for now. That's not true. I did also apply for the American Express graphite card, which actually has a cashback offer, but I have not heard anything and it has been quite some time. So I applied probably two weeks ago, and they requested that I send in a 4506C, which is a um basically a form that gives the IRS permission to release your tax returns to American Express. And so you have to fill out this form. We had to do this last year when Duane got a financial review from American Express. Um, this is not a financial review, this is more of just an income verification, but I sent it in. It has been over a week and I still haven't heard anything. And so I actually don't know if I'm gonna be getting that card or not. And so I guess TBD, but the bonus was$2,000 in cashback when you spend$50,000. So I guess TBD on whether or not that's coming. Hopefully, I'll hear something in the next week. Um, if not, I probably need to come up with another plan and get a different card. Um I basically decided that I am going to let my 524 status go uh because I have six Chase business cards. Like I have a lot. Um, and I'm gonna prioritize keeping or getting Dwayne under 524. Currently, he is 524. And so that means only business cards going forward for the next six months or so. And he should be under 524 like in the fall, I think October, November. And so I'm gonna be working on getting him under and also boosting his credit score so that we can hopefully get him a couple more Chase cards over the next year or so. Uh, because currently he only has two personal cards and one business card with Chase, and that is it. And I feel confident that I can have him recon a couple of cards. Uh, so that is kind of a more long-term strategy for Chase that I'm thinking through. Um, I do think that I am going to apply him for the Bank of America Alaska business card. I just have to wait a few weeks because he has a Bank of America checking account, which if you don't know, Bank of America has a couple of rules similar to the Chase 524 rule where If you have three inquiries in the last 12 months and no relationship with them, otherwise, they will not approve you for any cards. Excuse me. Sorry. But if you do have an existing relationship with them, and that could be, you know, like a stock account or savings or checking account, then they will allow you up to seven inquiries in the last 12 months. And currently Dwayne has eight. And in May, that will drop down to seven. So next month, just a few weeks. And so my plan is once he gets to seven, I'm gonna apply him for the business card specifically. And hopefully he gets approved for that. But again, we'll have to just wait and see. I also did apply him for the Capital One business card that just they just kind of announced the refresh for and he was denied. So that is frustrating to me. And if I see one more influencer post about how they got approved for the card, I'm like I'm just side-eyeing the whole thing. I'm very suspicious about that. I think it's weird. Um, because I personally know a lot of people who are getting declined for that card that do not have affiliate links. And so, and we all know Capital One is is weird on approvals in general. But I mean, Dwayne applied, I froze his Experian, which has the most inquiries. I applied for him, and I think he only had two or three inquiries on his other uh transunion and Equifax, and he was still declined. So I don't know, seems weird to me. Um, and then as far as myself goes, um, I on my radar is the capital one saver card and the built card. So those are both personal cards. The capital one saver earns 3x on grocery, which is very beneficial to me. And I can transfer the cash back to my venture X, which turns it into points. Um, so that's why I want that card and the built card. I just really want the ability to be able to like take advantage of the built rent day transfer bonuses and keep my racketon points transferring at a one to one ratio to built. So since I'm not concerned about 524 for myself anymore, those are the next two cards that are on my radar. But I have to wait because my credit score is in the toilet right now. It is currently 711 and it was over 800 a month ago. So I am really focused on getting my utilization down a lot, and that should happen in the next week or so. And then I'm expecting and hoping that my score rebounds pretty quickly. Um, but if you if you haven't heard about the gold saga, my credit score dropped 100 points or almost 100 points now because I bought gold and my credit utilization went through the roof. And that was something that I had not considered before because my utilization was never very high. But obviously, gold is a big ticket item. So last the two weeks episode ago, I did an update on buying gold. The TLDR is I actually do not recommend it for earning points specifically. I think it is very risky and you could lose a lot of money if you don't know what you're doing. And my credit score dropped almost 100 points at this point. So again, I'm not that stressed about it because I know it's gonna go back up, but it is preventing me from applying for cards right now and getting a good credit line. So, you know, it as much as I'm not stressed about it, it is having an effect on me that I do not enjoy. So I'll report back in, you know, in a week or two and we'll see once um, once the personal cards that reported with the higher balances report again with a zero balance. Um, I'm hopeful that my score will rebound, but again, I will report back. Um, the last update I have for you is really not an update, it's more of just a placeholder. Um, so I was hoping to be able to update you on our Alliance travel insurance claim, but I still have not heard a decision yet. And it's been a couple of weeks. So maybe the next time I record I'll have an update. Um, we've been back from Thailand for a little over a month, but I did not submit the claim to them until about two weeks ago. That is that was mostly my fault. I had almost everything ready to go, but it like wasn't, I didn't save it, I guess, and so it all disappeared. And then I got really frustrated and I couldn't look at it for like two weeks. So when I finally got back to it, it was about two weeks ago. I did submit everything. Um, they make it really simple to where you could submit both a medical claim and a baggage claim all together. So I did that, and they have been sending me kind of automated updates every, I don't know, maybe four or five days or so that say, hey, just like a reminder that we're still working on your claim and we'll get back to you. And so it is nice to have that kind of even though I know it's automated, it is nice to get that because it's like, okay, they're still working on it. And so, you know, I don't really feel that worried about it, but I am curious to see if they're gonna cover the baggage piece. I know they're gonna cover the medical piece. I have no concerns about that at all. This is not our first time utilizing them for a medical claim while traveling. Um, but the baggage claim I'm a little unsure about because the airline didn't lose the bag, right? It was technically stolen, and I'm using air quotes uh because um, you know, someone took it off of the plane without us realizing. And so, anyways, we'll we'll see. I'll report back. Um, hopefully this episode was a little bit helpful for you. Um, I cannot stress enough how important it can be to go to these in-person events. Um like I feel like I've in the last maybe six to eight months met some of my like very closest friends now um in the points and miles space due to like Instagram and going to meetups and um I mean, partially thanks to this podcast, right? Because people have DM'd me and now we're like points and miles besties. Hi, Melissa. I I really, really value that a lot. Um, and I just think like if you are like me and when you talk to people about this kind of stuff, they kind of think you're nuts. Like come to a meetup and hang out with people that understand. Okay, uh, catch you on the next episode, and thank you so much for listening. If as always, if you have questions um or if you're gonna attend any of the meetups that I talked about, send me a DM on Instagram. Talk to you later. Bye.