The Points Guy: Growing a Side Hustle into a 140-Person Business

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I have boarded planes before and seen this logo on the side of the freaking airplane that is TPG ORG, the points guy. And every time I look at the logo, I'm like, I know that guy. I'm sitting next to the guy who somehow created a company that is now so big that your logo is on airplanes. So in this upcoming conversation, we're going to talk to Brian Kelly PERSON, the creator of the points guy, to learn the behind the scenes, the secret sauce, the never before told story of how he created the points guy, how this went from a little side hustlethat he was doing in a spare time while making $65,000 a year living in paycheck to paycheck, right? How this went from a little side hustle blog into a behemoth with 140 employees. We're going to learn all of that. And then we're also going to learn how to accumulate enough points that you can fly first class and eat caviar and drink Don Perignon and take a shower at 30,000 feet. We're covering all of that in today's episode. Welcome to the Afford Anything ORG podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything but not everything.Every choice you make carries a tradeoff. And that applies not just to your money, but your time, your focus, your energy. And your points. And your points. And your points. And your points. You can spend points on some things, but not on others.So what choices do you make? That's what this show is all about. I'm your host, Paula Pant PERSON. And Brian, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me.

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Oh, thank you so much for being here.

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Brian, the points guy is a phenomenon in the world of travel, travel rewards and travel motivation generally. It has 11 million monthly visitors. Yes. And that's just on the

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website. That doesn't include our social media. We've got 15 different reps on TV every day. So we reach so many people. And that makes me so happy because it never was meant to be a media company. You know, I started it as a fun blog in 2010. It was kind of a side hustle. You know, I would charge people 50 bucks to help them use their points. So it was like a points travel agent. And the blog was just supposed to be my organic, you know, advertising to get people who are, you know, might be searching for how to use Amex ORG points. Let me stumble into this website, the points guy. And then they would email me, here are the points I have, help plan my trip to

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Paris GPE. So that was the goal for the site. Never in a million years did I think, you know, I would eventually sell it to a publicly traded company and we'd have 140 employees and

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growing globally. So I want to peel back that layer and give everyone the behind the scenes. This interview is going to go in two different directions, right? First, there's what you normally get asked about, which are, how do I use my points? How do I accumulate and how do I spend? And we can talk about that in the latter half of the show. But what I'm really curious about is how some dude in 2010, who starts a blog, right, that's so relatable. Any one of us could, from our basement, start a blog and answer some emails and maybe make a little bit of money on the side, charging our readers 50 bucks a pop for one-on-one consultation.

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It's very easy to wrap your head around that.

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How did you start to scale?

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My dad said to me, he's like, how are you going to scale? He's like, you can't clone yourself and you can't outsource this niche knowledge that you've had in your head. I mean, I started, my first points redemption was in 1995. I was 12 years old, and my dad was a consultant, and he didn't know how to use points, but he said, if you can figure it out. So I was 12 years old, I was was a consultant and he didn't know how to use points, but he said if you can figure it out. So I was 12 years old.I was one of those like AOL ORG hacker kids.

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My dad didn't know how to use a computer really. And I'm one of four kids. So I planned our family of six. We went to the Cayman Islands GPE for free. Totally free. Back in those days,it wasn't even like the 9-11 EVENT security fee on a ticket, you know, it was just free flights.

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So we went to the Cayman Islands for cheaper than what it would have cost to go to the Jersey Shore, which is where everyone in Philly GPE, where I grew up, went. So that's when my points education began. And it was like, I had no idea there was another

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world of people out there doing this. So from 1995 to when I went to college, I became student

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body president at the University of Pittsburgh. I started traveling. I studied abroad in Spain. And then all of a sudden, I had elite status. And I was 20 years old, broke, like literally negative net worth. And then I started

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getting upgraded to first class every time I flew. And I just remember thinking, this is crazy.

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I bought a bunch of cheap tickets, you know, and now I'm gold status on U.S. Airways ORG. And it was in 2004 when I started, I think Google ORG wasn't even really around. I think I did a dog pile search, you know, like, how do I use U.S. Airways ORG status? And then I stumbled into Flyer Talk, which is this, it's like a Reddit. What Reddit is today, flyer talk was in the late 90s, early 2000s for frequent travelers. And that's when I realized there was this, you know, probably at that point, 100,000 people around the world with this niche hobby of points.And so I got deep into that and, you know, eventually graduated, worked at Morgan Stanley ORG. And similar to you, even though I was making a little bit more than what you were as a journalist, I was in Manhattan making 60K a year of my 20s.

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And 07 hits, 08, you know, financial crash.

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Right.

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And every year I was working but not getting raises.

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And they, I remember my boss joke, well, you know, your, your bonus this year is not getting laid off like everyone else.

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Right.

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But I'm like, I'm still living paycheck to paycheck.

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Like, it was just, I had the thirst to just not be poor. Right.

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I mean, I just, I remember the days. I couldn't go out to friends birthday dinners because I would sit the whole dinner panicked at that moment when everyone's like, okay, let's split it, you know?

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And I'm like, I don't think my debit card will go through.

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So that was eventually in 2010 what pushed me to do the points guy and it was just a side hustle.

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It was really just to make a couple hundred extra bucks MONEY a month.

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And a friend was like, you should blog.

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And, you know, I just joke. Right time, right place. But I think I took a different approach to points blogging because there were a lot of other points bloggers out there that are very clinical. And they're way smarter than me at points. I mean, there are people who just approach this as a math.I approach points as a people issue.

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Like everyone wants to travel on points and this very insular community, flyer talkers.

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It's very hard to break into.

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So I was kind of the translator.

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Like I'm going to take this wonky knowledge that exists in like these dark corridors of the internet.

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But I'm going to make it fun. I'm like 20 something gay guy from New York City GPE who just, you know, I work in finance. I don't have a lot of time to do all the weird stuff. But here's how to use your credit card. And it just hit. And I got lucky because nine months later, I was blogging about credit cards because to this day,credit cards are the best way to get points. And a friend who was in affiliate marketing said, Brian, you are linking directly to Amex ORG. You're so dumb. Yeah. You use an affiliate link. And to me,

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I was like, this sounds like a scam but lo and behold he got me into

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affiliate marketing and that's what changed the game I mean I went from making a couple hundred or

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a couple thousand bucks a month which was nice which is a lot when you're in your 20s yeah a million

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dollars my first six months in affiliate marketing in 2011 so it was just like and plus I got lucky

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the New York Times ended up writing about the site then I got booked to go on CNN ORG and. And it was like this flywheel where I realized, okay, all the other bloggers, they may be

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smarter than me, but I'm good in media. Like I love talking to people and being student body president. Those skills that I learned outside the classroom in college came back to help me tenfold in starting this business and realizing to like, to be a personality, to talk about travel in a fun way, exciting, uplifting, like, look, I'm flying first class, but like this is how you can do it too.I'm not just an influencer that's like taking the beautiful photo with the champagne and,

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you know, Christmas lights in the first class suite, just the full photo.

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Mine is unedited, but it's like, here's how I use points to fly Emirates first class and how you can transfer Amich J. City ORG to do the same, you know?

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Right, right. Okay, so the year is 2011. You get your first million dollars MONEY gross revenue.

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So when I'm thinking about a business scaling, right? Stage one is when you're on your own,

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you're that blogger who's making a couple hundred bucks with a little bit of advertising or a little bit of one-on-one consultation. Stage one is very easy to wrap your head around. Stage two, I find to actually be also fairly simple to wrap your head around, right? Stage one has taken off enough. The flywheel has started spinning. And your gross revenue has now hit a million dollars, right?

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That feels relatable.

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But then what did you do in 2011 with that million? Like how did you know how to invest that in a way that got the company to grow to the next level?

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Yeah. I'm so fortunate. I never once took investment money. I think my parents loaned me $10,000 just to bridge me from when I quit Morgan Stanley ORG to when. So I was technically making affiliate money on paper. But in 2011, I think it was a net 90 pay.Every day, like sales would just roll in. But then it was months and months and months before.

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Right. Net 90 pay means 90 days prior. Yeah.

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Like it'll hit your account.

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Like, yeah, you sold an Amex platinum card to someone, but like you're not going to see that money for like three months so and my parents were like we love you brian PERSON but this sounds too good

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to be true but i was like just loan me 10 000 so i can pay rent and live and lo and behold i remember

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exactly where i was i was in madrid PERSON visiting a friend when i get the chase direct deposit of like

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394 000 CARDINAL and i just i remember sitting in bed just like, it's unfathomable to me, you know?

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Right.

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And I knew at that point, I couldn't do it all because, I mean, writing is a skill and coming up with the creative side, editing it to make it look and flow nice. Plus then in media, like imaging, blog posts like that takes so much time. But then the banks, I realize my, I love being around people. And coming from Morgan Stanley ORG, so I was in tech recruiting at Morgan Stanley, running college recruiting. So I, even though I wasn't in the front office doing trades and doing M&A deals, I stilllearned very quickly how the mechanics of a big bank work, compliance, risk, legal. And then in working with senior management in doing the recruiting for their, like, so people management was in my DNA. So I use all those Morgan Stanley ORG skills to be like, I need to grow up. Where are my talent gaps?

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I have ADD. So doing like the admin work, yep, emails, yeah, same client stuff. So I immediately

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hired an assistant.

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And then I hired a friend of mine who, it's funny enough, is now back at the points guy.

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He was my first managing editor. So he would help me just get the post cleaned up, published on social. We also had a newsletter at that time.

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But the biggest thing about being a blogger is when you start having other people write under your name. because that's the real vulnerable moment where you're like, and especially it's called the points guy.

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So every piece of content had to hit a level where I have to feel comfortable, like if someone comes up to me on the street.

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So that took a while. But I think the biggest thing was like hiring writers, but not just having them be remote. Like we had team meetings in Miami GPE. We would get together. And I think when you first start hiring people into your company, especially nowadays, I mean, everything's so virtual, but I still firmly believe in that face to face time, getting everyone in a room, you know, a lot of those writers I hired in 2011 are still at the company.Nick Ewan PERSON just got big promotion. He's now, he started like over a decade ago and now he's sort of running our editorial. I'm proud of that because it is the Wild Wild West LOC in the beginning. I mean, it was growing so crazy, but I realized my strength is with people and senior executives. And the banks liked me, you know, and I was charismatic. And I was able to talk about points and loyalty in the press when the narrative at that time was frequent flyer miles are useless, blackout dates. And I remember reading in mainstream media. Every, every columnist, they just didn't do the work. They were like, oh, I called once and I couldn't get a flight. Therefore, points are useless. And I would tear my hair. I'd be like, these people don't know what they're doing. All of a sudden, I kind of came on the media scene, hired a PR firm. That was another $5,000 a month, which was so much

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money to me, but it was really important to, like, have someone represent me and get me in front,

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you know, just doing the desk side with reporters. So I realized me being in front of the camera was very important because then once my notoriety started to rise, I noticed the direct connection when I would go into the business meetings at all the big banks. I started to elevate from just like an affiliate, one of the hundred blogs out there that are talking about credit cards to like I was a built-in influencer in the brand. And then we started leaning into social media. So the banks realized like, wait a minute into social media. So the banks realized, like, wait a minute, when we go to the points go, we can do a one-stop shop. It's almost like an agencywhere we can have Brian in the media talking about our product. Because organically, and all the top-term media, inevitably, people will be like, what's the best credit card or what have you used lately? So the banks, you know, the industry ebbs and flow, sometimes they pull back, you know, there was a big coaling of affiliates.

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Because what ended up happening is a lot of the bloggers who didn't have business ends.

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And I saw this coming from a mile away. They were doing things like cancel credit cards, open up new ones. Because if you're greedy and you're short-term thinker, yes, as a blogger, you want to tell people to cancel their old card to apply for new one because you only get paid for new acquisition. Right. But I'm like, don't bite the hand that feed you people, you idiots. Like, yes, you may get a couple, a bump.But when the bank start, you know, and I know what a credit risk team is, when those credit risk teams start looking at the basket of applicants that are coming and you're telling open and close, open and close. Right. It's not profitable for the bank. So at the points guy, we've always kind of taken a aboveboard approach.Like we're pro consumer. At the end of the day, my consumer is my boss. But it's also like we need, you know, I have a long term vision to grow the company. I'm not going to punch my best advertisers in the face repeatedly. What do you think is going to happen?

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And there was a great calling in like 2012 where the banks realized, oh, why are we dealing with all these small affiliates who are a pain in the butt? They're writing

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content that's like causing us heartburn. And I know as from working in a bank, when legal's

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on your ass, as a marketer, you'll be like, you're not worth it. I saw all that happening.

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And then I'm like, well, I'm going to double down. And I would make trips to all the credit

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card companies, even just to do, instead of like a call, I'd be like, I'm going to come into the office.

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I want to tell you guys what's going on at the points guy. We've got exciting. Like, so I was just, I think I was like very much our cheerleader, spokesperson. And I wanted to be like a positive voice for the industry. So that when times came and budgets constricted, I wanted every one of those credit card companies to be like, you know what?Let's keep the points guy on because it's more than just card, new card accounts. He's like a voice for the industry. And we and so I've always taken a long term approach. And I think that's what has allowed me to go from just being a blogger to creating something that like we, you know, we launched credit cards with the credit card companies. Like in 2016, Chase chose us as their launch partner for the Chase Sapphire Reserve PRODUCT, which like broke the internet.

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Having a long-term strategy, I think, has helped grow the points guy into something that in my

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wildest dreams, I never thought possible. How many employees did you say you have right now?

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We have like 130 employees right now. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot of ways to measure traffic.

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There are metrics in which we have more traffic than Kondaynash ORG travel, traveler and travel and leisure, which to me is a little blogger. And funny enough, when I first started and getting an affiliate revenue, it was always

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looked down upon because the traditional media. I remember thinking, is the points guide content cheaper because we're making money?

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But we were making a lot of money from the beginning. And it's funny, as time has gone on, I've seen all the big dogs in media, New York Times ORG even now, has wire cutter and everyone's an affiliate. But that same model that I felt so guilty about for so many years is now the gold

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standard. And that's why the points guy is like, is extremely profitable and sustainable.

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Like, we can continue to grow in a time when media has been in a state of chaos for really the last 10 years.

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Back when there was finger wagging and pearl clutching around the ways in which you made money, meaning affiliate marketing, how did you inoculate yourself from cowtowing to the clatter?

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I was focused on quality.

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And that's a great long-term approach because what happened is most media companies were writing

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crap content that was viral.

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Someone once told me, tell me how you get paid and I'll tell you how you're going to act.

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Right.

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So when you need mega numbers to just sell to big advertisers for eyeballs, you're going to do whatever the algorithms trending.

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You know, let's talk about BuzzFeed ORG, right? BuzzFeed ORG was everything when listicles were a thing.

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Right. Yeah.

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And silly quizzes. But is that really sustainable? No, they spiked it. And, you know, a lot of publishers were buying like cheap foreign traffic. I never once paid for a backlink. I did an organic press strategy around like just quality content.Like our reader is smart and our reader and we're very upfront. We make money on the credit card promotions. You're going to get the same deal as if you apply through a bank website. So would you rather put $100 into a huge caldron at a nameless bank or give $100 to this blog that you love that's going to put that towards reviewing the airline that you want to take your family on. It's a no-brainer.

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I got over the guilt of making money and my readers were like, make money. My readers have

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been so happy with my success over the years. So I think being transparent about making money, I think so many creators feel bad. So many people in general feel guilt when making money.

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Yeah. Especially creators.

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You're giving your heart and soul. You know, and that's when I think I just like, like when people just make fun of influencers like for making money. Like that's the same thing with Kardashians PERSON. Everyone's like, oh, I can't believe they just, you know, they're brilliant at it. But it's like we high five bankers who make huge amounts of money on deals that they really didn't even create the company. They're skimming off the top. Like that's heralded, but people who create brands that like improve people's lives and give them entertainment, but for some reason, and I think a lot of that's rooted in jealousy. I'd certainly had haters thatwere like, oh, you just get to fly around the world in first class. Like, yeah, because I built this. And but it's not just look at me in first class. People come up to me every day on the street, high five me, hug me. You got me to go to Asia LOC. I got in on that deal to South Africa GPE. So anyway, just back to growing the business, like never feeling guilty about your success.And I still coach so many of the young influencers in the point space. And I love seeing the industry evolve. Like the points are we're a huge behemoth, but there's so many great new creators on TikTok ORG and reels. And I will always make time for them. There's so much room in this space. But my biggest thing for them is like, get over. It's okay to make money. It's amazing. And you know this running a finance, you know, content platform about how people feel guilt around money. And I think it's because we

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never talk about it growing up. Yeah, my number one tip is don't feel bad about making money.

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You said the shaming that happens around making money is probably rooted in jealousy.

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What do you think are the roots of the guilt that people internalize?

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The guilt that people internalize, I think, you know, and if people are doing what they love, because we're surrounded by so many people who hate their jobs. So I do feel guilty sometimes that I get to travel the world and do my passion and am recognized by my peers and respected. Like, I've got a good gig. I mean, I've gone through years of therapy. I'd recommend any entrepreneur, anyone in life needs therapy. I think it has helped me dramatically take a step back and be confident and know what Ideserve and know the boundaries, you know, the non-negotiables, people who creep into your space and make you feel bad. And as you get older, you realize, I don't need to allow that to happen. And as you start plucking those negative forces out of your life, my life has gone up so much quicker. You know, some tough decisions I've had with close people in my life that we're just taking up and adding negative, you know. So, yeah, I think we should have financial therapists in general.

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But I think my general therapist has helped me think about as humans.

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And certainly in certain cultures more than others, you feel guilt about success.

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No one really prepares you for it.

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My success, I look back, it kind of like was winning the lottery. It was from zero to 100. I was living paycheck to paycheck, even though I was, you know, I was in HR at a bank during the Great Recession EVENT. I was making $65,000 a year.

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New York City GPE, I was literally paycheck to paycheck.

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And I was done with credit cards. I was actually in credit card debt. So it's like, you know, I was on the hamster wheel. And I was done with credit cards. I was actually in credit card debt. So it's like, you know, I was on the hamster wheel. And then, bam, this took off.

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save it, to put it into a 401k to just call it good?

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No, I knew I had to reinvest it because I mean, and I didn't even know how to spend it. I was making six figures a month. You know, it was like when you're making 200K a month, it was, I didn't, I don't even really know what I was doing it. And I bought like a used BMW ORG when I could have like gotten a fancy new car. I was still like pretty, I rented an apartment so I really knew what I wanted. I was reinvesting in it. But the amount that I was investing was so small, you know, like it was like a rounding

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era. You know, even hiring a couple more freelancers for a thousand or two. There's 200k a month coming in. Like that 1,500 and an invoice from a contributor wasn't really. But then we started to

Speaker 51520.26s - 1538.64s

invest more and more. But then that's when I sold it. It was May of 2012 that bank rate, which was a publicly traded company. They owned credit cards.com. I was not even on the market to sell my company, but a friend who knew the CEO of Bank Rate was like, you should meet Tom Evans PERSON. And I was like, I'll go in and meet this guy in Madison Ave FAC in this stuffy office.

Speaker 41539.06s - 1542.8s

And like the next day, he just texted me, hey, Brian, great meeting. I want to buy your website.

Speaker 51543.6s - 1576.74s

And it was like, come on. It's only been profitable for a year. I did it myself. So I didn't even have bankers. I negotiated my own exit with the great team of attorneys, but I never even had to pay a banker. And I had no investors. So for me, that was my taking money off the table. And that's when I got, you know, I got Goldman Sachs advisors day one, invested most of it. I put a lot in private equity deals that I knew I couldn't even take money out if I wanted to, so I still had to work. I was very much like,okay, I hit this good and I want to be smart. Now, that process, I think Goldman ORG was charging

Speaker 41576.74s - 1580.86s

me a point in a half, which was ridiculous in hindsight, how much they were charging to basically

Speaker 51580.86s - 1596.26s

put my money in their own specialty products, which I'm sure they made quite a bit on. So my advice to people who exit, don't just go for the most expensive financial advisors. There's plenty out there that will do it far cheaper. Would you do the same thing again,

Speaker 71596.36s - 1603.12s

put your money in private equity using a team of Goldman ORG advisors? No. I would, frankly, I sold in

Speaker 51603.12s - 1611.34s

2012. If I would have just put my money in index funds and called it a day and focused on, I'm still in Goldman PE funds and it's 2024.

Speaker 61612.58s - 1614.8s

And the PE funds make it actually really hard.

Speaker 51614.94s - 1618.42s

They did well over time, but it's almost impossible to calculate the return.

Speaker 31619.5s - 1624.14s

And when I invested in them in 2012, they were all like, yeah, six, seven year return,

Speaker 51624.14s - 1625.84s

then you'll get it all back, usually, you know.

Speaker 31626.02s - 1626.22s

Right.

Speaker 51626.36s - 1660.16s

But I truly, there's a not insignificant amount of money still tied up in all these random funds that have no due date to get returned. So luckily, I don't need that cash. But if things would have turned around eight years ago, I would have lost my job. You know, the points guy got acquired again in 2017 by another acquire Red Ventures ORG. I'm still on with them. But there are many things where I'm like, I've been fortunate to not have to access that capital, but I would not recommend to a young founder to just tie their money up in illiquidassets with like unclear returns. Like keep it simple is my advice. And you could probably

Speaker 21660.16s - 1666.84s

manage most of it yourself. You know, it's the financial advisors have helped over the years get apartments, financing.

Speaker 51667.26s - 1672.94s

They make your life easier like when you're with the bank. But, you know, paying over a point is ridiculous, in my opinion.

Speaker 71674.3s - 1684.16s

What has the experience been transitioning from running the company that you founded to working for the company that you founded under a different owner?

Speaker 51684.64s - 1752.72s

I think I have one of the most unique experiences out there because I started it, sold it in 2012 to a publicly traded company, bank rate. But at the time, the point I was like this niche tuck-in acquisition. It didn't even make their financials. But it grew wildly. Like we had about 40 employees.And then it's in 2017. We got acquired Red Venture ORG. So I have sold twice, basically, because I was CEO up until 2020. So I had to do the transition into this publicly traded company, but they let us do whatever. We, they got us our own office. We had Frenchies running around. We were like the startup part of this kind of stodgy financial, you know, content company. And then in 2017, Red Ventures ORG, which is an amazing performance marketing company,they came in. I mean, we had no tech people on the points guy in 2017 when they were great at content, social, brand. We had built this loyal audience. But our website was literally cobbled together, like duct tape together. We never had tech help.We wanted to create an app that would actually work. So Red Ventures ORG came in and helped revolutionize the whole backend.

Speaker 41753s - 1754.4s

And they're very good marketers.

Speaker 51754.52s - 1791.56s

So I had to do two transitions with the company into different cultures. You know, Red Ventures based in Charlotte, North Carolina GPE has been fascinating. In 2020, I realized my skill in life is not managing 100 plus people. That was not for me. And it was just kind of one of those things where I just did it for so long and I'm proud of the brand that I built. But I was miserable. Like I was traveling nonstop. The company's expanding. Plus, you know, the demands of me being in front of thecamera doing as much pressing. So it's like, you know, it's just I was burnt out. And the pandemic for me was like, oh my gosh, I actually was not able to travel.

Speaker 01791.86s - 1793.02s

I, you know, went home.

Speaker 11793.12s - 1796.08s

I actually got to spend time in the beautiful house that I have that I never actually

Speaker 01796.08s - 1797.8s

spent time in because I was always traveling.

Speaker 51797.92s - 1808.32s

That was like the conundrum of the silliness of my life. It's like, have all these beautiful like friends and family, but I was just always traveling. So it was almost like I was addicted to travel too, addicted to just being busy.

Speaker 11809.2s - 1813.88s

And then I had that moment, you know, and that's when I realized I wanted to be a dad.

Speaker 51813.98s - 1894.88s

I started riding horses. I spent more time with family. I just like spent time reconnecting with the things that I never had the time to realize that I loved. So the pandemic for me was a very special time. And I went to Red Ventures ORG and was like, I don't think I'm supposed to be managing people.They're like, Brian, we've been waiting for you to say that. I was like, wait, it's okay for me to switch my roles. They're like, yes, you're so talented. Like, you don't have to be the CEO. There's plenty of people that can manage these large and ever-growing teams. Like, you can be you.You can be our core voice in media. Do more of that. And that's been really fun. Of course, it's vulnerable too when you all of a sudden, you're not in those strategy meetings all the time.I mean, I can still join whatever meeting I want. I'm still on our Slack PRODUCT. But not being so obsessed with the day-to-day. It's been a transition, but now I think I've really finally,like, eased into it, especially since about a year and a half ago, I had a baby. So figuring out my new normal, I turned 40 last year, I had a baby.I'm in this new role at work where it's not about just doing as much every day, but it's doing like more quality. So it's kind of like getting back to the basics, like creating content, coming up with new avenues for the point guy, potentially doing a TV show or exploring. So it's like really exciting things for me to push myself in different ways.

Speaker 41894.88s - 1899.7s

And 14 years after starting the site, two different acquisitions, I keep asking, like I'm

Speaker 51899.7s - 1914.58s

still here, but because I'm still at the core level so proud of what we do and we help people save money. We help people travel. And I do believe people are better people. Your life has changed dramatically from your epic trip around the world.

Speaker 01914.58s - 1945.04s

So in this divided world where everything is so divisive, I just, I do know deep down that the more people travel get out there and you realize that humans, we are one human race, this otherism we have with everything. You're like, you know it. Like just those moments where you're like, you can be in Cambodia or Johannesburg GPE. Like people just love a good meal. People love the dance. People want security. Like we have so much more in common. So being a facilitator of that, I think, is such a huge honor.

Speaker 61945.92s - 1946.6s

That's beautiful.

Speaker 01951.28s - 1952.5s

I have two other questions from behind the scenes, and then we'll turn the topic to points.

Speaker 51954.44s - 1955.34s

Let's give the people what they really want.

Speaker 01960.5s - 1966.18s

The two questions that I have from behind the scenes, one is when I hear you describe your role, particularly in those early days, 2011, 2012, it strikes me that you were doing

Speaker 51966.18s - 1973.14s

a lot of relationship management, right? You were going and meeting with the banks. So a big part

Speaker 71973.14s - 1979.5s

of your role was managing relationships. A big part of your role was managing and growing the

Speaker 21979.5s - 1986.78s

content side of the business, which especially in the early days means a lot of quality control when

Speaker 71986.78s - 1992.1s

people are writing in your voice, right? You need to make sure that the content is quality and

Speaker 21992.1s - 1998.3s

reflects the brand. So there's the part of you that is the maker, there's the part of you that's

Speaker 71998.3s - 2002s

the manager, there's the part of you that's the relationship builder, there's the part of you

Speaker 62002s - 2005.14s

that's on press tour being in front of the camera

Speaker 72005.14s - 2011.02s

and I guess microphones were not quite as popular back then, but giving all of the interviews.

Speaker 02011.54s - 2016.58s

How did you balance all of those roles? I didn't balance it well. And I look back and I was a

Speaker 72016.58s - 2023.4s

tough, tough boss because, you know, the team was growing. And on the editorial side, that was one

Speaker 62023.4s - 2029.16s

thing. We had a lot of editorial directors that came from really amazing institutions,

Speaker 72029.28s - 2031.46s

but travel and points is a niche thing.

Speaker 52031.7s - 2035.12s

And I will lie and say that there wasn't conflict between.

Speaker 02035.46s - 2041.06s

I was never quite satisfied, even with the quality of journalism managers.

Speaker 62041.96s - 2043.38s

And I was obsessed.

Speaker 02043.52s - 2049.64s

I mean, I was reading every comment on the site. And like, and I would get DMs. And I sure it annoyed my employees. I I was obsessed. I mean, I was reading every comment on the site and like, and I would get DMs and I sure it annoyed my employees. I know it did.

Speaker 52050.16s - 2058.64s

In the aviation world, if you're talking about a certain airline and then the creative team, which is if they're not points people and they put a picture of a plane that's different,

Speaker 22059.68s - 2060.56s

that's bad.

Speaker 52060.82s - 2062.08s

That was happening a lot.

Speaker 22062.16s - 2063.34s

So it was playing like Waccamone ORG.

Speaker 52063.4s - 2186.34s

And that was more just like there needed to be more of the points people. So that was always the hard point. Because there's just not that many top level journalists who get this niche world. So that is always going to be a struggle. You have to grow. And also like it can't just be like white privilege male perspective points guy. Like I always knew we had to expand this. So we acquired one of the fellow bloggers, Mommy Points, Summer Hole PERSON. She's still with the Points Guy today, but she had a point all about family travel. So we, I knew we had to expand it, but people come to expect the points guys like in theknow. And I love that because we really did build this and still have amazing experts from cruising, Gene Sloan PERSON, who's like the top cruise writer in the world. So we did it right, but it was always challenging. It was always, I think there was always like heartburn around people wanting to make me happy, but me being so stretched that I couldn't give them the time. And of course,scaling any business, you have to trust your managers on the ground. So I was a Spanish NORP major in college. I was an assistant buyer when I first graduated, got into HR, and then went to the bank. So I did not have a management degree, business degree. So I went from being, you know, individual blogger to like media CEO of one of the most profitable media sites out there. So it was a challenge for sure. If I could go back and do a lot of things over, I would absolutely carve out even more time for like getting teams together.And people always said they wanted more time with me. So being a little bit more thinking about my time and how I used it, I probably should have reallocated, traveled a little bit less, spent more time with the team. Because when we did do those, you know, I had the whole team out to my house in the country one year for Christmas, you know, our holiday party, which was amazing. People still talk about it. Like, just getting to know people more. Because I think when people really know each other, you can trust someone more in a work environment. So it was a struggle. I look back and I'm like, it was a really fun run. But, you know, I'm definitely in a role I'mmore supposed to be in now.

Speaker 72187.44s - 2196.64s

Right. And then the final question, what were the most important nose that you said? What were the most important decisions to not do something?

Speaker 52197.54s - 2238.5s

Well, I think there were very tempting times to just start writing viral content, you know, and we dabbled with it for a little bit, but it just didn't sit right. You know, because during the BuzzFeed days, you know, there would be like a cocktail bar in the Bahamas GPE where you can swim up with margaritas and sharks, right? Like that's what the algorithm was favoring. Plane crashes, negative things would get a lot of traffic.But what we did, and when Red Ventures ORG took over, we actually got a lot more analytics. So I think by paying attention to analytics and not using the metrics everyone else uses, like social follows. Like we all know there's so many accounts with fake followings.

Speaker 32238.88s - 2249s

So like looking at engagement, like I was fine with us not having a million, uh, Instagram ORG followers if our content was really good. So I think during that whole viral

Speaker 52249s - 2292.5s

craze of like deciding not to sell the soul of the brand just to spike our traffic. Because I remember thinking, um, all the darlings refinery 29, Bice ORG, BuzzFeed ORG, bam, there, but the funny thing is I knew at the time, I'm like, we're making more money than all of them. Like, we've been profitable. So it's like, yes, it's tempting to have vanity metrics, but like just focusing on thecourt and really just going back to just being deeply attuned with all of our advertisers and knowing them all personally and spending time with them and going to events with them. And I would do stuff for them, even when they couldn't pay us or their, you know, times when I probably should have been punitive to, our customers, like if they, our clients, like if they dropped our, how much they're paying us.

Speaker 42292.8s - 2296.5s

But I had like long term relationships that I still have today with them. And I think you build

Speaker 52296.5s - 2312.84s

those strong trust-based relationships. They stayed with us through, you know, the pandemic. And so I think that just taking the long-term approach, that's the biggest thing. Like, turning down the temptations to hop on those short-term trends that you know are not in line with your brand can be very challenging.

Speaker 72314.3s - 2527.34s

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Speaker 52529.68s - 2593.56s

Dean Kelly, he's been to, I think, 13 countries. We're about to do three more in the next couple weeks. He's the best thing I've ever done in my life. He is my mini-me. He loves travel. He eats everything. He's like in the 90th percentile, like, height, weight, head.I'm 6'7, so for people who know me, and he's just a joy. Like he, and I've started day three, we flew home from the West Coast LOC because I had him via surrogacy as a single gay dad. I made the decision. I've always wanted to be a dad. So during the pandemic, I started the process.I was like, my dating life is non-existent. I'm like, hold up in the countryside. But I'm like, who says I can't have a kid? And I have some friends who have done it. So started the process, had the most amazing surrogate, changed my life and healthy baby. It's just been such a game changer for me and still being able to travel. In full disclosure, I have the most amazing nanny in the world. I got a nanny who her kids are all grown.She's divorced and she's like, let's go. She hasn't traveled the world, but she loves my son. She loves me. We're like a little family.

Speaker 02594.14s - 2605.26s

Truly, even when my son's sleeping, like I hang out with her and we talk about life and she meets the guys that I'm dating. And she, you know, so it's like this really, it's fun.

Speaker 52605.44s - 2623.84s

So I'm in a really good spot. Granted, I'm single. So I really do need the help. I'm not going to try to paint it that I'm doing this all solo because I'm not. But traveling and now seeing the world through his eyes, I just took him to Tokyo last week. And Disney parks in Tokyo GPE are incredible.And by the way, so cheap. It's like 50 bucks a ticket.

Speaker 72624.28s - 2625.42s

And the food's amazing.

Speaker 52625.54s - 2627.38s

Have you ever done like a Disney Tokyo GPE?

Speaker 42627.8s - 2630.08s

I've been to Tokyo twice, but I've never gone to Disney ORG.

Speaker 72630.26s - 2632.64s

It's like 25 minute Uber from Ginza GPE.

Speaker 52633.18s - 2668.72s

So easy, so clean, so orderly, great snacks. They're known for their popcorn. So Disney Sea FAC is the really unique one. And all I'll say is like I took him on his first ride and Triton's Kingdom FAC is like Little little mermaid themed underwater. And he sat on my lap and a little jellyfish as we popped up in the air. And when he went, ooh, I just like, I just almost started crying. I was like, this is it. There's nothing sweeter than like now getting this, even though that people are like, he's not going to remember it. But I'm like, but I will, you know, I remember that moment. So it's amazing. Wow. Wow. What would you say to

Speaker 62668.72s - 2673.76s

people? There are so many people who say, well, I have kids so I can't travel or I have kids so it's

Speaker 02673.76s - 2677.84s

harder to travel. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not going to lie, especially when kids are in school,

Speaker 62678s - 2682.64s

you're locked to school schedules in a lot of those weeks. It's expensive. I also, I have frequent

Speaker 52682.64s - 2689.5s

flyer miles. So we fly first class. And even going to Tokyo, we had the New Japan Airlines ORG suite with the closing door. So even though

Speaker 72689.5s - 2694.36s

my son decided not to sleep for nine hours, having this first class suite where we're laying down,

Speaker 52694.48s - 2700.06s

playing toys, coloring book, it's amazing. And I realized how privileged I am, but I pay less than a

Speaker 22700.06s - 2705.78s

coach seat for that. So what I'll tell people is if you play your points right, like you can fly in

Speaker 42705.78s - 2710.26s

business class, it's a lot better. I wouldn't be going to Asia LOC and economy with my son. I'll be on it.

Speaker 02710.26s - 2716.44s

But when you have points and can fly and I fly my nanny in business or first class with me,

Speaker 52716.44s - 2722.24s

so that's a help as well. It makes it so much better. And you don't need to be rich to do that.

Speaker 22722.56s - 2725.74s

And infants, you know, until two years old, they fly free domestically.

Speaker 52726.26s - 2737.4s

You have to pay 10% of the ticket price when they're, which for me going to Tokyo in first class, it was actually $2,300 to bring him on my lap, which was insane because it's a $23,000 paid ticket.

Speaker 62737.54s - 2740.82s

So they put the price of like what a paid ticket would be.

Speaker 42741.24s - 2745.18s

Most of the time you're paying like even a business class a couple hundred bucks. But yeah, so it's really just all about the points. But there are loyalty programs out there. ticket would be. Most of the time you're paying like even a business class a couple hundred bucks.

Speaker 52747.2s - 2774.4s

But yeah, so it's really just all about the points. But there are loyalty programs out there. Arrow plan, Air Canada's ORG program, which is one of the best loyalty programs out there. You can transfer Amix, Chase City GPE, built points. They only charge 20 bucks to add an infant to any seat. So that's actually the best program.If you're using points from your credit cards, transferring to Arrowplan and adding an finis $20. You don't have to worry about hundreds or thousands in fees. So on that topic, there's a lot of information out there about how to

Speaker 72774.4s - 2786.04s

accumulate points. The internet is saturated with accumulation because that's where the money is. The money is in conversions and getting people to sign up for credit cards. There's not a lot out there about redemption.

Speaker 52786.04s - 2786.32s

Yeah.

Speaker 72786.56s - 2791.34s

And that's when so many people get tripped up. So many people are points hoarders. Yep. I am guilty.

Speaker 52791.58s - 2797.04s

Guilty. I have a, I have points psychic ability.

Speaker 72797.22s - 2797.94s

Like I can sense it.

Speaker 22798.06s - 2799.14s

Guilty. Okay.

Speaker 52799.28s - 2887.42s

So the beauty of this. So yeah, it is tricky trying to find how to use your points, right? And so just back to earning, I will just say, while the airlines are increasing the amount of miles needed to travel, like 10 years ago, you could go for 100,000 points on most programs, business class to Europe LOC. That's not, at least with the U.S. programs, you're looking at 2,000, 400,000 points. So some people will say, oh, the inflation in points, it's not even worth it anymore.I rebut that because there's now so much competition that you can get 100,000 point signup bonuses left and right just for getting a card. And then plus the U.S. GPE is the golden goose of global points. You can earn so much by making sure you use the right credit cards for the right expenses. Like so many of my friends have the platinum card by Amix ORG. Great card. I have it. You can get into lounges,but it's really not the best for points. It's a perks credit card. I only put my airfare, 5x on airfare on the platinum. You want to get the gold card by AMX ORG. It's,you know, less than half the annual fee, and you get four points per dollar on all dining and groceries. So when you start getting 4x for dining and groceries, triple points for travel, parking tolls, you know, built is a new credit card. I'm going to help to found that company. No annual fee, no fee in paying your rent. You get up to 100,000 built points a yearjust by paying your rent. And it takes it out of your debit account. You're not going to go into debt paying rent. It literally pulls it from your bank account as if you cut a check, but instead you earn points.

Speaker 72888.32s - 2889.5s

It's an absolute no-brainer.

Speaker 52889.66s - 2891.2s

Especially in New York GPE.

Speaker 72891.62s - 2892.8s

It's an absolute no-brainer.

Speaker 52892.8s - 2909.88s

Even if your landlord only takes check through bill, you can actually cut a check to your landlord and still earn points. Absolute no-brainer. So the goal is to maximize every dollar you spend and get cards that, like, really reward you for that. So you're getting some sign up bonuses here. So all of a sudden, it's really easy to get points.

Speaker 62910.06s - 2910.28s

Right.

Speaker 52910.92s - 2929.34s

And what I recommend get transferable points so that this is like the points that you accrue with the credit card company are better than just any one airline or hotel. I know so many people are like, oh, I fly Delta or American. They'll come to me and be like, oh, I want to fly Emirates to Dubai. How do I do that with my three million American miles QUANTITY? I'm like, you can't.

Speaker 42929.96s - 2933.98s

You know, you can fly Qatar Q ORG suites if you can find it. The goal is to accrue into these

Speaker 52933.98s - 2963.18s

transferable programs so that you can transfer to all sorts of partners. That's where the real value comes in. The only reason to have like the co-brand airline hotel cards is for perks. So free check bags. If you need elite status, it can make sense because all those cards now give you elite perks. But if you don't care about elite status, even if you want the free check bags, have an airline credit card, but don't put all your spend on it. Only spend on cards that give you transferable points.There's one thing you take from this whole podcast.

Speaker 12963.42s - 2970.08s

Make sure you have a transferable points credit card. That's going to give you the maximum flexibility. Back to redeeming, this is

Speaker 52970.08s - 2977.06s

where most people trip up where they log on. They'll get overwhelmed with choice and they go away.

Speaker 22977.22s - 2983.2s

So the exciting thing I have to share today is that there's so many new tools. There's a bunch of

Speaker 52983.2s - 2990.18s

different websites I'm going to recommend. The first one is seats. aero. Seats. Aero is this incredible tool.

Speaker 42990.56s - 2992.8s

And what it allows you to do as a pro member.

Speaker 52993.76s - 2997.4s

So tonight, I'm actually flying Emirates first class from New York to Milan GPE.

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It's an $8,000 ticket and it's only 100,000 emirates points if you can find the availability.

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So seats.

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It takes a little bit getting used to.

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There's blog posts that will explain it.

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So what it does is there's probably 15 different loyalty program.

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You can choose Emirates ORG, right? And you can filter over the next year. And you can write Emirates nonstop flights from JFK to Milan GPE because they fly from New York to Milan and Athens and as well as Dubai GPE. So you can put JFK to Milan nonstop and then you can sort by first class. And this is the A380 PRODUCT, which has the onboard bar, showers.And it'll actually just show you all the dates in 2024 where you can instantly book for 100,000 points. So this is why if you have chase points, amyx points, capital one, you transfer 100,000 points to Emirates for first class and $8,000 ticket, right? And a lot of times they only have one first class seat, but they have much more business class. And it's only $100 in fees.

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Well, and even if you have a co-branded card, you could still search for that.

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Correct. So United ORG. So, you only have United points. So you want to go United from, you know, JFK to London to visit family. You can actually go in and then search for business class availability, sort. But here's the thing. The U.S. Frigant Flyer PRODUCT programs are the ones you do not want to put all your eggs in their basket because they're raising the amount of miles wildly. They're all what we call dynamic pricing.Here's the trick. You want to accrue points in these transferable points programs. And then you transfer them to foreign frequent flyer programs. Because in France GPE, for example, they don't have the credit card offers we have in the U.S. So they still keep their redemptions at 50,000 points each way for business class because their French NORP customers can't earn the bonanza that we do in the U.S. So if they raise their redemptions to 400,000 points, they would literally have a mutiny because French NORP people would be like, we'll never, ever be able to redeem.So these foreign programs have to keep their prices low for their local customers. But in the U.S. GPE, we can earn insane amounts of points. So here are the programs that Air France Flying Blue ORG is one of the best. I mean, you can fly business class on KLM, Virgin, Delta for 50,000 points each way. And by the way, 50,000 points in a cashback program is 500 bucks. So what I'll say to you is, would you rather have $500 or business class to Europe LOC one way? Most people would probably say business class. And by the way say to you is, would you rather have $500 or business class to Europe one way?Most people would probably say business class. And by the way, if you want cash back, that's totally fine. But just make sure you're getting at least one and a half to two percent PERCENT. That's like the gold standard. So many people will use an Amex ORG platinum and then try to use those points for cash back and you're getting less than 1% value back. So if you want cash back, do not use Chase ORG, like Sapphire, Amex, Platinum. those are travel cards that are best reading for travel. Get a city double cash, Chase Freedom Unlimited PRODUCT. Those are the best cash back cards. But don't try to take a really valuable currency, like Capital One venture, and then try to turn it into statement credit. You lose so much value.

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So each of these credit card ecosystems are better.

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You know, if you want Amazon ORG, get an Amazon card. Using Amex points for Amazon ORG credit, it's horrible, horrible. You're throwing money out the window. You want to align the credit cards that you have with how you want to redeem. But so seats, that arrow is an amazing tool. Say you want to go to, you know, JFK to Milan GPE, there's no seats available.You can actually create alerts for certain weeks, and they'll text you. The minute Emirates ORG opens up a seat, you'll get a text. You can snag it before anyone else.

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So this is how points experts are playing the game because the airlines, they open up award seats up until departure.

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So even if you're flying, say you want to go to Dubai, but you have to stop, let's say, Frank PERSON for it, because that was the only thing you can get.

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If the nonstop opens up, you can just change your award for free to the nonstop.

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So this is where loyalty programs actually allow you to change flights much easier than when you pay for a ticket. Because we all know when you pay for a ticket, you want to change it. It's change fees. It's repricing the fare. You always get hosed.

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The loyalty programs, especially over the pandemic, they relaxed all the rules.

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So once you start having points in all these different programs, you can book multiple trips. Like if I really need to go somewhere, sometimes I'll have a backup trip planned in case the one flight gets canceled or delayed because you can cancel up until departure for free in most frequent flyer programs. So if there's weather impacting your flights, you think your flight's going to get delayed. My first thing, I just book a backup on a different loyalty program. And then if I need to use it, great. If not, then I just cancel it and get all my miles back.

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Wow. Other than Seeds. Are there any other websites?

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Yeah. So, roam. Roam.m. Travel. And they're great.You can follow them on Instagram and they post all the amazing flight deals that come up. Point. Dot me is another one of these.

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Oh, I've heard of that.

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Yeah. They're pretty good, too. Expert Flyer PRODUCT is another tool that's been around for a long time. Expert Flyer PRODUCT will also let you do seat alerts. Like say if you want, you book last minute, you're in a middle seat. You can actually set alerts if an exit row opens up.So these tools, I think, really do change the game. So you want to book as far out as possible. Give them at least so you can set alerts so that when the best availability opens up, you can change and kind of find the best availability. Also, I'll say just when buying flights, everyone listening, you should be aware of Google flights.So, Google.com slash flights is where you can sniff out the cheapest airfare.

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They have a really cool feature most people don't know about called Explore PRODUCT.

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So say you're in Chicago, you need to get away in March. You're like, I need a beach trip to the Caribbean LOC.

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You can put Chicago to the Caribbean, you know, weekend or week in March.

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And it'll reverse engineer and show you all the flights of the Caribbean from Chicago so you can sniff out the cheapest flights.

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So instead of having to search one by one, or what I tell people is just go where the deals are these days. Never been to Anguilla? Well, if it's the cheapest flight, go. You know, Turks NORP, sometimes, like, I love Turks and Caicos and often, like, that's the cheapest flight to the Caribbean LOC. And then there's a ways.com. A-W-A-Y-Z.com is for hotels.

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So say you have Hyatt ORG Points, which are some of the best points out there.

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And you want to stay at, let's say, the Park Hyatt ORG, Kyoto, which is probably the best Hyatt out there.

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Everyone is obsessed.

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Everyone I know is stayed at the Park High-C-C-Ote It is the Pointe Hotel ORG of the moment. That was the one that was made

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famous by the movie Lost in Translation. Well, that's Park High, Tokyo GPE. Yeah, yeah. So Tokyo's

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always been amazing. That's actually about to undergo like a two-year renovation, which it needs.

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But Kyoto is the brand new Park High ORG. It's in, I didn't get a chance to go this past trip,

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but everyone I've talked to, my snobbies of Snob friends say Park High Kyoto is where it's at, but it's $2,500 a night, but you can get it for

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45,000 high at points. So you can use aways.com to sniff out hotel of all the top hotels out

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there. If you want to say at the Park High at Paris GPE, it'll actually give you calendar views so you can sniff out the best deal. So I say plan your trips around where you can see the availability in all these resorts. And so once you start using these tools, it all gets much easier.

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And so if you're listening, you're like, that sounds like a lot of work. Let me just put it to you this way. Like points game, the points game, like once you get the hang of it, when you start saving thousands and thousands of dollars, when you're flying these first class where you're treated like a king up in the air, you know, tonight I'm flying,it was $100 to fly JFK to Milan and 100,000 points. And I'll have unlimited Don Perignon PRODUCT. Emeritus has unlimited caviar and I'll take a hot shower before I land in Milan for $100. How many people on that flight are jammed in a middle seat and coach who paid $1,000? Right. So yeah, it's a little bit annoying sometimes.But I'm telling you for the people, if you want to take 10 minutes of your day for a couple days a week and start to pick up this, I can assure you you will thank yourself for spending a little bit of time to dramatically change the way you travel.

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That is the perfect place to end on. Are there any final messages that you want to send to this audience?

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Well, I would say just follow me on Instagram at Brian Kelly PERSON. That's my personal account. I just started doing flight reviews with my son.

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We flew the New Japan Airlines first class.

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That just crossed a million views. It's my first million view video. So I think Dean PERSON and I are going to be doing our flight reviews of fancy hotels and stuff. And then at the points guy is our brand account in the points guy.com. And if you want to stay up to date, we have a daily newsletter. And then I write a weekly newsletter for the points guy where I cover my personal travels.I'll give my spin on everything going on in the industry. So if you just Google, like, sign up for the points guy newsletters, highly recommend.

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And we'll put links to all of that in the show notes as well. Awesome.

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Thank you so much for having me. Of course. Thank you for coming and chatting with us and enjoy your flight to Milan GPE. Oh, I will. Although it's harder to take advantage of the champagne thing when traveling. I feel a little guilty.Like, I'll have a glass or two. Got to get my money's worth. Thank you, Brian.

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What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Number one, start a side hustle. Brian started a side hustle that grew into a 140-person company. He was making $65,000 a year during the Great Recession EVENT. He was in credit card debt. He started a hobby side hustle, and it exploded.And it's an absolute testament to thinking big, to grit, to determination, to knowing and believing that the side hustle that you're going to start is more than just a few extra dollars here and there, that this is the beginning of something absolutely life-changing, not just for yourself, but for all of the people that your business impacts. Part of starting a side hustle and growing it and scaling it includes having a really rigorous assessment of what your skills are and what your skills are not. Brian himself said that there are certain elements of his business that he was quite good at, like working with people, building relationships. And there were other elements of his business that he knew that he was not the strongest at.And so he learned to delegate out his weaknesses to let other people who were good at those things take over those elements so that he could stay within his strengths and he could work within the realm of

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his own unique abilities. I started it as a fun blog in 2010. It was kind of a side hustle. You know, I would charge people 50 bucks to help them use their points. So it was like a points travel agent. And the blog was just supposed to be my organic, you know, advertising to get people who might be searching for how to use Amex ORG points. Let me stumble into this website, the points guy.And then they would email me, here are the points I have, help plan my trip to Paris GPE.

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So that was the goal for the site. Never in a million years did I think, you know, I would eventually sell it to a publicly traded company and we'd have 140 employees and growing globally. I realized my strength is with

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people and senior executives and the banks liked me, you know, and I was charismatic and I was able to talk about points and loyalty in the press when the narrative at that time was frequent flyer miles are useless, blackout dates. And I remember reading in mainstream media. Every, every columnist, they just didn't do the work. They were like, oh, I called once and I couldn't get a flight. Therefore, points are useless.I've always taken a long-term approach. And I think that's what has allowed me to go from just being a blogger to creating something that, like, we, you know, we launched credit cards with the credit card companies. Like in 2016, Chase chose us as their launch partner for the Chase Sapphire Reserve PRODUCT, which, like, broke the internet.

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Having a long-term strategy, I think, has helped grow the points guy into something that in my wildest dreams, I never thought possible.

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And so that is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two. Many people dream of starting a

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business and having it take off and produce enormous success. I mean, who among us doesn't dream of that. But the reality, the daily reality of that is that that requires that you face your demons. And there are going to be challenges that are both external and internal. There are going to be people who are jealous, who want to see you fail. There are going to be people who disparage your success or who try to diminish it. There are going to be people who patronize you or who talk down to you who try to diminish it, there are going to be people who patronize youor who talk down to you and try to make you feel inferior or insecure. There are many times in which your success may trigger the insecurities of others and you need thick skin. You need self-assurance and confidence to be able to withstand that. And a lot of that comes from having a strong internalized sense of mission, of purpose, and of living inside of your own integrity. That allows you to fuel a strong internal locus of control. Now, in addition to that, and as part of that, you also have to face your own inner demons.You have to face your own internalized fears, doubts, insecurities. Brian talks about how going to therapy was transformational for him in teaching him how to have the fortitude to be an entrepreneur.

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I've gone through years of therapy. I'd recommend any entrepreneur, anyone in life needs therapy. I think it has helped me dramatically take a step back and be confident and know what I deserve and know the boundaries, you know, the non-negotiables, people who creep into your space and make you feel bad. And as you get older, you realize, I don't need to allow that to happen. And as you start plucking thosenegative forces out of your life, my life has gone up so much quicker. No one really prepares you for it. And my success, I look back, it kind of like was winning the lottery. It was from zero to a hundred. I was living paycheck to paycheck, even though I was, you know, I was in HR at a bank during the Great Recession. I was making 65,000 a year. New York City GPE, I was literally

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paycheck to paycheck. And I was done with credit cards. I was actually in credit card debt. So it's like, you know, I was on the ham,000 a year. In New York City GPE, I was literally paycheck to paycheck,

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and I was done with credit cards.

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I was actually in credit card debt.

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So it's like, you know, I was on the hamster wheel, and then bam, this took off.

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Becoming a successful entrepreneur means that you must grapple with your unconscious ideas, your limiting beliefs, because those beliefs can lead you to self-sabotage. They can lead you to hold yourself back. And so grappling with those often unconscious limitations that you impose upon yourself, that is a huge component of achieving success in any domain of life, whether it's business or whether you want to reach an early retirement, whether you want to go travel the world,you want to start a nonprofit, whatever it is whether you want to go travel the world, you want to start a non-profit, whatever it is that you want to do. Grapling with your internalized limitations is imperative to achieving a growth mindset, which then helps you catapult to that next level. And so that is key takeaway number two. Finally, key takeaway number three, and this one is far more straightforward, there's a lot of information about how to accumulate miles, right? There's a financial incentive for people to share information about how to accumulate miles.There is not a lot of information about how to redeem miles. And so in this third and final key takeaway, Brian shares some of his best tips on how to redeem miles. And so in this third and final key takeaway, Brian shares some of his best tips on how to be smart about mileage redemption, essentially how to be smart

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about your spending. Make sure you have a transferable points credit card. That's going to give you the maximum flexibility. Back to redeeming seats.aerO. Seats.A.E.R.O. Seats. Aero is this incredible tool.

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And what it allows you to do as a pro member. So tonight, I'm actually flying Emirates first class

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from New York to Milan. It's an $8,000 ticket and it's only 100,000 Emirates ORG points if you can

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find the availability. So Seats. Arrow ORG, it takes a little bit getting used to. There's blog posts that will explain it.

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So what it does is there's probably 15 different loyalty program.

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You can choose Emirates ORG, right?

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And you can filter over the next year.

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And you can write Emirates nonstop flights from JFK to Milan because they fly from New York to Milan and Athens and as well as Dubai GPE.

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So you can put JFK to Milan nonstop and then you can sort by first class. And this is the A380 PRODUCT, which has the onboard bar, showers. And it'll actually just show you all the dates in 2024 where you can instantly book for 100,000 points. So this is why if you have chase points, Amix points, capital one, you transfer 100,000 points to Emirates for first class, an $8,000 ticket. Right. And a lot of times they only have one first class seat, but they have much more business class. And it's only $100 in fees. Those are three key

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takeaways from this conversation with the points guy, Brian Kelly PERSON, the founder and CEO of the points guy. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you got value from today's episode, with The Points Guy, Brian Kelly, the founder and CEO of the Points Guy WORK_OF_ART. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you got value from today's episode, please do three things. Number one, share it with a friend or a family member. That's the single most important thing that you can do.Number two, make sure that you are following us in Apple Podcasts and Spotify and on YouTube ORG, YouTube.com slash afford anything. And while you are there, while you're in Apple Podcasts and Spotify and on YouTube, YouTube.com slash afford anything. And while you are there, while you're in Apple Podcasts and Spotify, please leave us up to a five-star review. These reviews are incredibly helpful in allowing us to book amazing guests that we can share with you and we can share their knowledge with you. Number three, please subscribe to our show notes, which you can access by going toafford anything.com slash show notes. Now, we offer a course on rental property investing that we teach twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. Enrollment for our spring 2024 cohort opens on May 22nd. So from May 22nd through May 31st, the enrollment window will be open. That is your opportunity if you want to join our spring 2024 cohort so that you can learn about rental property investing. You can get lots of information by going to Afford Anything.com slash enroll. We will send you much more information if you sign up for our newsletter atafford anything.com slash VIP ORG list. Thatanithing.com slash VIP list. That's afford anything.com slash ORG VIP list. Once you've subscribed to the VIP list, just hit reply and ask any question that you would like. I will be answering many of these questions on YouTube live streams in the coming days. So again, that's afford anything.com slash ORG VIP list. Thank you so much for tuning in.My name is Paula Pant PERSON. This is the Afford Anything ORG podcast. I so appreciate you being part of the community. Again, make sure that you are following us in your favorite podcast playing app, whether that's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Pandora PRODUCT or whatever it is that you prefer to use. And stay tuned for next week when we will be running two interviews.One, with the CEO of Open Door, a real estate transaction company named Ryan Johnson PERSON. And the second with a longtime friend of the podcast, the Mad Scientist PERSON. So if you're in the financial independence community, you know Mad Scientist PERSON. We'll be airing both of those interviews next week. Make sure that you're following this podcast in your favorite podcast playing app or in several of your favorite podcast playing apps so that you don't miss either of those interviews. My name is Paula Pant PERSON.This is the Afford Anything ORG podcast. And I will meet you in the next episode.