Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:01
Hello and welcome to another episode of
0:03
All the Hacks, a show about upgrading your
0:06
life, money and travel. I'm your
0:08
host Chris Hutchins and today I have
0:10
a lot of news to share in
0:12
the points and miles world. Like a
0:14
new transferable points card, new transfer partner
0:16
we've never seen before, some changes to
0:18
award charts, good and bad, some
0:20
of the good Chase and Amex offers I
0:23
just found. But first, I want to talk
0:25
about today's main topic, which is taxes and
0:27
specifically how you might want to use your
0:29
credit card to pay your taxes and earn
0:31
some points. There's a lot of confusion
0:34
around this topic so I'll break it all down in
0:36
a minute right after this. I've
0:39
talked to lots of amazing people on this
0:41
podcast like Dan Pink for example, did you
0:44
check out that episode a few weeks ago
0:46
about persuasion? If not, you absolutely should. But
0:49
if you're like me, sometimes you want to
0:51
go deeper. So where do you go? Well
0:53
for Dan Pink, you should check out his
0:55
sales and persuasion masterclass that is fantastic and
0:57
goes way deeper than we did in our
1:00
episode. But in general, if I want to
1:02
go deep on a topic and learn from
1:04
some truly remarkable people, I go to masterclass
1:06
who I'm excited to partner with for this
1:08
episode. And one of the reasons I
1:10
love masterclass is that it's not just talking about
1:12
improving, they have over 180 world class instructors who
1:17
actually show you how to improve.
1:19
For example, you can master negotiation
1:21
with Chris Voss, win big
1:23
in business with Mark Cuban or even
1:25
learn modern Japanese cooking with Nicky Nakayama
1:27
which was such a great class. Plus,
1:30
every new membership comes with a 30-day
1:32
money-back guarantee so there's no risk for
1:35
you. And right now, our listeners will
1:37
get an additional 15% off
1:39
an annual membership at
1:41
allthehacks.com/masterclass. Get 15% off
1:43
right now at allthehacks.com/masterclass.
1:49
allthehacks.com/masterclass.
2:00
credit card paying taxes which
2:02
is something that I once thought
2:04
seemed absolutely crazy and now
2:06
it's actually become pretty interesting. So
2:09
before we even get started, let me talk a little
2:11
bit about how it works. You
2:13
can pay your taxes on a
2:15
credit card directly at three sites
2:17
that the IRS allows, probably more
2:20
but there are three sanctioned ones.
2:22
One of them is pay USA tax, one
2:25
is pay 1040 and one is ACI payment.
2:28
Now they each have their own fee ranging
2:31
from 1.82% at pay USA tax to 1.87 at pay 1040 to
2:37
1.98 at ACI payment
2:40
and pay USA tax and ACI
2:42
payment actually both also include letting
2:44
you use PayPal. For me,
2:46
I've only ever used pay USA tax because
2:49
I just want the cheapest fee and I'm
2:51
not doing this so often and
2:53
the reason I say so often is because there
2:55
are some limits with how many payments you can
2:57
make but I'll get back to that in a
2:59
little bit. Now why is this something that comes
3:01
up and is even worth making an episode around?
3:03
The primary reason is that usually
3:05
almost anywhere you'd go to make
3:07
a payment via credit card that
3:09
would otherwise be treated like cash is
3:12
going to cost you no less
3:14
than about 2.9% plus 30 cents. Usually
3:19
they don't charge the consumer that fixed fee
3:21
but that percentage is actually what I
3:23
pay to process credit cards if someone were
3:25
to join the All the Hacks membership or
3:27
put a deposit down on a trip and
3:29
I actually pay an extra half a percent
3:32
on top of that for anything that's recurring
3:34
and that's just what Stripe charges. So
3:36
to see a percentage fee under
3:38
2% is very abnormal for
3:41
a credit card. I'm not exactly sure how the economics
3:43
of all this work on the back end so we're
3:45
not going to go there but just
3:47
to be clear, it doesn't make sense to do this unless
3:49
you're able to earn enough points that makes the
3:52
fee worth it because there is a fee and
3:54
we'll get to the deductibility of that fee and everything else.
3:56
So let's talk about some of the reasons this may or
3:59
may not be worth it. not make sense to do.
4:01
The first reason is that you could
4:03
actually profit if you have a card that's going to pay
4:06
you 3%. Now, there's
4:08
a PayPal MasterCard that pays 3%, the
4:11
Discover It Miles card pays 3% the first
4:13
year. There is a deal for the Chase
4:15
Freedom Unlimited where you can get 3x points or 3% back
4:17
for the
4:19
first year. There might be other cards. So
4:21
if you have a 3% card and you're
4:23
paying the IRS $10,000, technically, you'd get back $300
4:28
and you'd have to pay a fee that's $182 and you'd make $118. Is
4:34
it worth it to make $118? Maybe
4:37
not. If you're able to earn some
4:39
points and miles that make a trip that you
4:41
would have otherwise had to pay a lot more
4:43
for possible, is it worth it? If you owe
4:45
the IRS $500,000 and you had
4:47
a limit high enough to do it, is
4:49
profiting at 3% worth it? Maybe.
4:53
It depends how much you owe the IRS,
4:55
how high your credit limit is. But
4:57
I will say a few things to
4:59
kind of keep in mind for all of
5:01
this is that the IRS, despite that
5:04
they will refund any overpayment you owe,
5:06
might take a long time doing that.
5:08
And given interest rates right now, keep
5:10
that in mind if you were thinking,
5:12
ooh, I'll overpay my tax payment by
5:14
$50,000 this year so I could earn
5:16
some points. First, one, make sure that
5:18
those points are going to be worth
5:20
the fee. But two, make
5:22
sure you count the fact that you're not going
5:24
to actually have that $50,000 as
5:27
an overpayment back from the
5:30
IRS very quickly. And so if you
5:32
were otherwise going to be earning interest
5:34
on that cash in a cash account,
5:37
then you might want to factor that in as well.
5:39
However, if you just owe the IRS that money and you're going
5:41
to have to get rid of it no matter what and
5:44
you have a card that would make it profitable
5:46
for you to pay that fee
5:48
and earn points, it could make sense. Now,
5:50
a couple things, card processing fees are not
5:52
tax deductible on your personal taxes, but they
5:55
are a tax deductible business expense. So if
5:57
you owe taxes for a business, then you
5:59
owe a tax. business, you can kind
6:01
of reduce the cost of that fee because
6:03
it is a deductible business expense. All
6:06
these three major payment processors treat tax
6:08
payments as purchases, not cash advances, so
6:10
you are going to earn your points
6:13
on those purchases. Each
6:15
of those processors will let
6:17
you make two payments, meaning
6:19
an extension payment or a
6:21
tax payment, but also technically
6:23
it's two per filer. If
6:26
you have a joint return, you and your
6:28
partner could each make them separately. From
6:31
what I've heard from experience, though technically
6:34
not allowed, it seems very common you
6:36
can make two payments per processor. You
6:39
could conceivably get away with making
6:41
half a dozen payments pretty easily
6:43
because you can do two per
6:45
period, per type, per taxpayer, per
6:48
processor. You could definitely
6:50
split this off across a few different cards.
6:52
Let's go back to the reasons why you might want to do this.
6:55
Yes, you could profit at 3%, but chances
6:57
are maybe that's not the best deal. One
7:00
where I think is a really, really
7:02
compelling case is meeting the minimum spend
7:04
of a card that has a really
7:06
big welcome bonus. Let's take the
7:08
Hilton Aspire card as an example here. Right now,
7:10
the Hilton Aspire has a 175,000 point signup bonus
7:12
when you spend $6,000. To
7:16
spend that $6,000 on an IRS tax payment, you're going to
7:18
pay $109.20 in fees, but you're going
7:24
to earn the 175,000 point signup bonus plus all the
7:26
points you earn spending the $6,000,
7:29
which will accrue 193,000 total Hilton points. Plus
7:34
that card gives you a $400 credit,
7:37
a free night, diamond status, $200 flight
7:39
credit, a clear credit. When
7:42
you add all of those things up and you look at
7:44
the $109.20 cost, you could see a world
7:49
where it's pretty, pretty compelling. Not even
7:51
factoring any of those other benefits, you're
7:54
going to get about 32 Hilton points Per
7:56
dollar if you factor in the
7:58
bonus you're earning. Thirteen. Based.
8:01
On the cost of those he's self. Really
8:03
really cool opportunity. that Hilton card by the
8:05
way, don't use the all the hacks link.
8:07
That link is only for one hundred fifty
8:10
thousand points on a bonus. just go to
8:12
Amex's website the bonuses higher there. And like
8:14
I always say, I want you guys to
8:16
get the largest boat as you can even
8:18
if that's not using are links. Now the
8:20
reason why does interceded because some people don't
8:23
have enough a regular spend the throughout the
8:25
year to hit some of these bonuses. That
8:27
so you have to start figuring out. Well
8:29
if I now all the. Sudden could put
8:31
the six seven eight thousand dollars. I
8:34
need to hit a welcome bonus on
8:36
a tax payments, pay a few hundred
8:38
dollars in fees and get points I
8:40
never would have had otherwise. Is that
8:42
a good deal? and I would say
8:45
it most likely would be some other
8:47
great deals on bonuses right now that
8:49
will cost you anywhere from about a
8:51
hundred to may be somewhere around five
8:53
hundred dollars in fees are the Mary
8:56
Boundless card which is currently at five
8:58
Nights at A Merry Odd for five
9:00
thousand dollars. And spend in three months. So.
9:03
That five thousand dollars and spend it costs
9:05
you a little as one hundred dollars and
9:07
you end up getting five free nights at
9:09
Marry. A property's worth up to fifty thousand
9:11
points tonight. So. Great bonus
9:13
right now that one is the same
9:15
no matter where you get it. So
9:17
if I don't mention anything otherwise, the
9:20
links at all acts.com/cards would be a
9:22
place to support the show and look
9:24
into these cards. Another. Car
9:26
that's not on our length is the
9:28
Amex Platinum. Hundred fifty thousand points sign
9:31
up. Bonus is currently a referral offer.
9:33
To. Be going to L The hacks.com/platinum
9:35
I'm in every direct the bat to
9:38
some referrals, but that one is to
9:40
spend eight thousand and six months. He.
9:42
Wanted to go over the Delta Platinum
9:44
which is something I'm actually looking at.
9:46
As I mentioned in the past, hundred
9:48
thousand other points for eight thousand dollars
9:50
of spend in six months. but you
9:52
also get a companion certificate fifteen percent
9:54
off a word flights and free checked
9:56
bags to other ones the vent her
9:58
ex business the. They have three hundred
10:01
thousand point. Welcome Bonus has come down
10:03
to a hundred fifty thousand point. Welcome
10:05
Bonus For spending thirty thousand dollars in
10:07
three months, That's going to be about
10:09
a six hundred dollar cost in terms
10:11
of what is the cost to put
10:13
that thirty thousand dollar spend on your
10:15
card. However, if that card is a
10:17
business card, you probably have a business
10:19
the of a business and that's tax
10:21
deductible depending on your state. Maybe it
10:23
only ends up costing you three hundred
10:25
dollars or something. And then if you
10:27
get one hundred fifty thousand points loss,
10:30
Another. Sixty thousand points From that welcome
10:32
bonus, you're looking at two hundred ten
10:34
thousand points for maybe a cost to
10:36
you about three hundred dollars and that
10:38
brings the cost per point down to way
10:40
under a cent per point to of
10:42
you're looking to accrue capital one points.
10:44
That could be a great option. And
10:46
in visit the have been around for
10:49
a long time but the chasing business
10:51
preferred is that one hundred thousand points
10:53
for a thousand dollars a spend in
10:55
three months till you're a few options
10:58
for cards that right now have welcome
11:00
bonuses that I would be excited to
11:02
earn using spend on taxes and I
11:05
think this fee to get that spend
11:07
is probably worth the benefit you'd get.
11:09
Another option is to just buy cheap
11:11
points. So. There are a ton
11:14
of cards out there that earnest to
11:16
x points. which means technically you could
11:18
say making a profit it depending on
11:20
how you value your points. but the
11:22
City Double Cast card earns two percent
11:24
bath or two x point. If you
11:26
also have the City Premier card, Amex
11:29
has a blue Business Plots that earns
11:31
to x points. Capital One has the
11:33
venture, The Venture acts, The Business Venture
11:35
acts the Spark Miles Spark class plus
11:37
all earning two x points. So any
11:39
of those cards are going to let
11:41
you get to. Apps points for less
11:44
than two cents per dollar in
11:46
terms of the sea and so
11:48
you're affectively getting points for under
11:50
one cent. Now. I've talked
11:52
a lot in the past about the value of
11:54
sense for point and what you been able to
11:56
get. I think I'm pretty consistently able to get
11:59
over two cents and. Many cases we've been
12:01
able to get as high as Three Four
12:03
Five Six. I think summer temperatures have even
12:05
been up to ten cents. So if you're
12:07
short of a redemption or you just don't
12:10
have a way to accumulate points as fast
12:12
as you need them, I could see at
12:14
making sense to use tax time to earn
12:16
points just by buying them. That.
12:18
Said if there's a fine A bonus. Years
12:21
ago, lot more bang for your buck by
12:23
doing that. On the T side, there isn't
12:25
really a great card because the only card
12:27
debt earns points on taxes at a higher
12:30
rate is the Freedom Unlimited which is gonna
12:32
get you one and a half cents per
12:34
point. That. Said some times.
12:36
the Chase Freedom Flex card
12:38
has a rotating category of
12:41
five acts, and sometimes that
12:43
category is pay pal. Yes,
12:45
The stars align throughout the year where
12:47
pay powers the five X category and
12:49
you can use one of these payment
12:51
processors that lousy these paypal. I could
12:54
see that been some pretty good arbitrage
12:56
at the only up to fifteen hundred
12:58
dollars of spend that quarter. The. Really?
13:00
only hundred seventy five hundred points. So
13:02
maybe it's not worth the time, but
13:04
that's something I'll point. Just.
13:07
The other day someone asked me what they
13:09
should start thinking about with a baby on
13:12
the way and boy did they opened pandora's
13:14
box with that question because I have so
13:16
many thoughts. But one of the first things
13:18
I said was that they probably need to
13:21
look into term life insurance and I know
13:23
you might be thinking that's a project they
13:25
can take so much time and work or
13:28
sponsored today. Fabric by Gerber Life actually makes
13:30
it so simple to get the protection that's
13:32
right for your family. Fabric was designed by
13:34
parents for parents to help you get a
13:37
high quality. surprisingly affordable term life insurance
13:39
policy in less than ten minutes and
13:41
when i say surprisingly affordable i went
13:43
online to compare prices and i found
13:46
that fabric was highly competitive with great
13:48
policies like a million dollars and coverage
13:50
for less than a dollar a day
13:53
and you can go from start to
13:55
covered in less than ten minutes with
13:57
no health exam required so join the
14:00
thousands of parents who trust fabric to
14:02
protect their family apply today in just
14:04
minutes at meet fabric calm slash all
14:07
the hacks That's meet fabric
14:09
calm slash all the hacks Meet
14:12
fabric calm slash all the
14:14
hacks Policies issued by
14:16
Western Southern life assurance company not available
14:19
in certain states prices subject to underwriting
14:21
and health questions The
14:25
latest report from the FTC showed that in
14:27
2023 ten billion
14:29
dollars was lost to consumer fraud
14:31
and 2.7
14:33
billion of that was lost to imposter scams
14:35
which had over 850,000
14:38
reports last year. So what do you do about
14:41
it? Well, first off just learning more about the
14:43
tactics these scammers use can help you know what
14:45
to look out for But
14:47
a big way I try to keep our
14:49
family protected is to make sure all our
14:51
personal info is removed from as many data
14:53
broker Websites as possible. So we're
14:56
less of an enticing target You'd be
14:58
shocked at how many sites out there
15:00
are sharing your address phone number birthday
15:02
email and more Fortunately, you
15:04
can get these data brokers to remove
15:06
your info But unfortunately the process takes
15:08
hours and hours to do yourself I
15:11
know because I tried to contact them and only
15:13
after spending 10 hours Did I
15:15
give up and start using delete me our
15:17
sponsor today? And not only do
15:20
I use delete me for our immediate family But
15:22
I also paid for a subscription for my parents
15:24
and in-laws as well Delete me
15:26
is an amazing service that will not just
15:28
find and remove your personal info from hundreds
15:31
of data broker websites But they'll continuously scan
15:33
for new data that shows up and get
15:35
that removed as well on average
15:37
They find and remove over 2,000 pieces
15:39
of data for a customer in their first two
15:42
years So if you want to
15:44
get your personal information removed from the web go
15:46
to all the hacks comm Delete
15:48
me and get 20% off
15:50
a plan for you or your entire
15:52
family again. That's all the hacks comm
15:56
Delete me now another way
15:58
to do this is to earn So
16:01
for example, there are a bunch of
16:03
cards that just by spending on the
16:05
card and earning points in their program
16:07
will let you earn various tiers of
16:10
status on their airlines or even hotels.
16:13
So for example, if you spend $50,000
16:15
on a JetBlue card, you'll earn
16:17
Mosaic status. Now that $50,000 to
16:19
spend is going to cost you $900 but you are going to get
16:21
50,000 JetBlue points
16:26
which JetBlue points are worth anywhere from 1.3 to
16:28
1.6 cents meaning you're probably going
16:32
to get somewhere between $650 to $800 of value. So
16:36
if you factor in the delta there, you're going
16:39
to spend about $260 for Mosaic status assuming
16:43
you can get that value of those
16:45
JetBlue points. I don't fly JetBlue that
16:47
often but I imagine if you otherwise
16:49
wouldn't have status with JetBlue, $260 for
16:52
Mosaic status would probably be a worthwhile
16:54
investment if you're flying regularly enough that
16:56
it makes sense but not regularly enough
16:58
to get that status. Also
17:00
depending on the way the card works, you might
17:03
just be able to use the card to close
17:05
the gap. So for example, with Southwest Companion Pass,
17:07
you need to get 135,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points
17:11
to get Companion Pass but you can earn those
17:14
points on a credit card. So if you were
17:16
short of what you needed in a given year,
17:18
you can put your tax payment on your card
17:20
and earn points. Now is it the best deal
17:22
out there? Probably not. To put $135,000 on a
17:25
Southwest card, you're going to pay almost $2,500 in
17:27
fees to put that
17:33
payment on your card and not to mention unless
17:35
you have a much higher limit than I do,
17:37
you're probably going to have to make 4-5 payments
17:39
just to be able to put $135,000 on
17:42
your Southwest card. I have a pretty low limit
17:45
on my Southwest credit card. However, you're
17:47
probably going to earn one Southwest point
17:49
per dollar on everything else you do
17:52
and so you'll at least earn 135,000 Southwest points
17:54
which are worth about 1.4 cents.
17:58
So that's another $18,000. Maybe
18:02
if you factor this in, you say, put all of these
18:04
expenses on Southwest, yes, it's going to cost you $2,500 but
18:06
you might earn $1,900 of Southwest points, so it costs you
18:12
$600 but for those $600, you can have a
18:14
companion fly with you for the year you earn
18:17
it and the following year. Now
18:19
that I'm saying this out loud, it seems a little
18:21
bit more reasonable. That said, I
18:23
think there are probably opportunities with signup bonuses
18:25
to get this a lot faster. I know
18:27
a few months ago, Southwest was having a
18:30
promo where if you just signed up for
18:32
a card, the signup bonus was companion pass
18:34
for the rest of the year and oftentimes
18:36
they have signup bonuses where the card will
18:38
earn you anywhere from I think as high
18:40
as 100,000 points
18:43
in the past depending on the card. I
18:45
might be wrong here so don't quote me
18:47
but at least right now, the highest
18:49
signup bonus on a Southwest card is about 50,000 points.
18:53
If you did open up a Southwest card, got 50,000
18:56
points free, you'd only be about
18:58
85,000 points
19:00
away from getting to the threshold you need
19:02
which is a little less expensive than putting
19:05
135 on your card. Hyatt,
19:08
IHG, Delta, American all have
19:10
the ability to earn status
19:12
through cards. Some of
19:14
them can get incredibly expensive but if you
19:16
don't have another way to close the gap
19:18
and you really value the status and you
19:20
also really value the points you'll earn on
19:22
the spend, it could make sense. I
19:24
know for me, I'm using rent day on
19:27
my built card to try to make a
19:29
payment for taxes so I can get to
19:31
that next level of built status and
19:34
it's not because the status comes
19:36
with anything particularly great each month,
19:38
it's because historically, built has been
19:41
doing these transfer bonuses where I
19:43
just transferred 100,000 built
19:45
points to Aeroplan, Air Canada's program because
19:47
the transfer bonus was 2 to 1.
19:50
So I only had to transfer 50,000 built points and I got
19:52
100,000 Air Canada points. Had
19:55
I been built platinum when I did that, I would have gotten
19:58
125,000 Air Canada. at
20:00
a point instead of 100,000. So I would
20:02
have much preferred to have built platinum status
20:04
then. So I might use rent day
20:06
where I earned 2x points on the built
20:09
card to make a couple tax payments to
20:11
try to accelerate my path towards built platinum.
20:14
So I hope that's helpful thinking
20:16
through taxes and credit cards. Again,
20:18
I think signup bonuses are probably
20:20
your best opportunity. Closing the
20:23
gap if you need a chance to buy a few
20:25
points to have enough points to make a
20:27
redemption you have in mind could make sense. While
20:30
yes, you could profit with a 2% or 3% card, I wonder if
20:32
you're going to be able to
20:34
make a tax payment big enough that that moves
20:36
the needle for you. But by all means, if
20:39
it does, certainly an opportunity. If there's anything I
20:41
missed in this or you have any follow-up questions,
20:43
definitely email me podcastatallthehacks.com. All the links
20:45
to the cards that I mentioned are
20:47
at allthehacks.com/cards unless I mention another URL.
20:50
I'll put them all in the show
20:52
notes. Want to make sure you always
20:54
get the best deals possible. Okay,
20:56
so it's the night before this episode actually is
20:59
going out to you all. And I just saw
21:01
some news that I thought would be worth splicing
21:03
into this episode before the morning. And
21:06
that is Robin Hood's announcement of their new
21:08
credit card. Now for some history, Robin Hood
21:10
acquired a credit card startup last year called
21:12
X1, which had a
21:14
card I reviewed. And
21:16
while it wasn't very impressive, it
21:18
appears they are now ready to launch their
21:20
own product. And let's just say I actually
21:23
am impressed this time. And that's because they're
21:25
launching a 3% cashback
21:27
on everything card with no
21:29
limit. Now earlier when I was
21:31
talking about 3% cards for taxes, I
21:34
mentioned the PayPal card that earns 3%
21:36
on PayPal, a Discover and Chase card
21:38
that earns 3%, but only in your
21:40
first year. Well, this card is
21:42
3% uncapped forever.
21:45
And the only catch is that you need to
21:47
have Robin Hood gold, which costs $50 a year.
21:50
So you could effectively view it as a $50 annual fee card. Now
21:54
normally I'd have really big pause with anything
21:56
Robin Hood is announcing that hasn't launched yet.
22:00
in 2018 they announced a 3% interest
22:02
checking account only to walk back that
22:04
announcement a few days later. This
22:07
time however it looks like they are a
22:09
lot further in the process and they even
22:11
have all their rates and fees and terms
22:13
and conditions up on the site to review
22:15
already which of course I did and
22:17
so I actually think this is going to happen and
22:20
it will certainly be a big shock to the
22:22
industry. As of today the
22:24
best cashback card that I'm aware of with
22:26
no limits is the Bank of
22:29
America Premium Rewards card and that earns 2.625%
22:31
but only if you have $100,000 in Bank of
22:35
America or Merrill Lynch and that's it.
22:37
Mostly everything after that with no cap
22:39
is on a 2% card. Now
22:43
there are a few small details but I
22:45
don't think they're deal breakers. The card technically
22:47
earns 3 points per dollar but those points
22:50
are worth 1 cent each if you either
22:52
deposit them as cash to your Robinhood account
22:54
which you could just withdraw from, redeem them
22:56
in their travel portal or use them to
22:58
buy gift cards. The card
23:01
also earns 5x points on travel in
23:03
the Robinhood travel portal but other cards
23:05
do something like that as well so
23:07
that's not very exciting. But
23:09
it does have no foreign transaction fees which
23:11
is nice. Now given the $50 fee it's
23:13
a better deal than no annual fee 2% cashback
23:16
cards like the City Double Cash as long as you're
23:18
spending more than $5,000 a year but you actually get
23:20
other things
23:23
for that $50 a year fee with Robinhood
23:25
Gold. First your uninvested
23:27
cash at Robinhood earns 5% instead of 1.5% which
23:29
is a really big bump but
23:33
it also happens to be the same amount I
23:36
already earned in my Wealthfront Cash account. However
23:39
you also get a 1% deposit
23:41
boost on all your deposits paid
23:43
out over 24 months which
23:46
is kind of like they're giving you an
23:48
extra half a percent in interest each year
23:50
though you only get it on deposits so
23:52
it doesn't continue to compound with your balances
23:54
so it's technically a little less. But
23:57
it means if you deposit $100,000 into Robinhood they'll
24:00
give you an extra $1,000 over the next two years. That
24:03
makes the interest rate really competitive. Though again,
24:06
if you refer a friend to Wealthfront every
24:08
three months, right now at least, they're boosting
24:10
your interest rate by a half a percent
24:12
also. But I think a
24:14
little bit more importantly, I'm not that excited to
24:16
start using a new bank that isn't easy to
24:18
use and that I have played around with and
24:20
been able to validate that its features are great.
24:23
And so I don't actually know if this
24:25
Robinhood account could replace your checking account like
24:27
my Wealthfront Cash account has, but I'm actually
24:30
gonna do an entire episode this year comparing
24:32
all the best bank accounts and their features.
24:34
So I'm gonna at least add it to that list. Finally,
24:38
the last feature I'll call out on Robinhood Gold is that
24:40
you also get a 3% match
24:42
on all IRA contributions, IRA
24:44
transfers and old 401k
24:46
rollovers. So for example, if you
24:49
max out your IRA each year at $7,000, you'll get
24:51
a free $210 matched into your account. And
24:55
if you transferred $100,000 from another IRA or
24:59
an old 401k into Robinhood, you'd get $3,000. But
25:03
you need to keep that money in Robinhood
25:05
for five years. Now that might
25:07
not actually be an issue since it's a retirement account,
25:10
but it is worth keeping in mind. And if you
25:12
look at that 3% over five years, roughly
25:16
an extra 0.6%. So
25:18
not crazy, but also if you figure
25:20
the average account might earn, let's call
25:22
it 7%, earning an extra 0.6 is
25:26
like, I don't know, rough math, 8% or 9% extra return.
25:30
So that's not terrible. So
25:33
what's the takeaway about all of this? Well,
25:36
it definitely makes paying your taxes on a
25:38
credit card profitable, but I think the bigger
25:40
takeaway is that if you're on team cashback
25:43
and you don't wanna play the points game,
25:45
this is the new best card in town.
25:48
As long as you don't mind having to rely on
25:50
Robinhood to do everything. And by
25:52
the way, one of the ways Robinhood is keeping more
25:54
of the economics on this card and
25:56
maybe effectively making a 3% card possible is
25:59
that at least- least to my understanding, they
26:01
are taking on all the underwriting
26:03
risk. So for example, when
26:05
the Apple card launched with Goldman Sachs, Goldman
26:08
Sachs was taking on that risk. And
26:10
if a customer defaulted, that was on Goldman Sachs,
26:12
not on Apple. And in this case, my understanding
26:14
is that it's on Robinhood. Now
26:17
I don't know what that means for you,
26:19
but one potential implication is that they might
26:21
be more conservative with the limits you're getting.
26:24
It's possible that given their demographic excuse a bit
26:26
younger, maybe you won't be able to get a
26:28
huge limit on your Robinhood card and it might
26:31
not actually be as great as we think. I
26:34
don't know. Also, there's no signup bonus. So
26:36
that's an important factor here. If you compare
26:39
this to the Capital One Venture card, which
26:41
gets two X points everywhere, makes it pretty
26:43
easy to get one percent back per point
26:45
for a $95 annual fee. Then
26:49
if you take those two cards and over the course of a
26:51
year, you each put $50,000 on
26:53
them, then on the Robinhood card, you'd earn back
26:56
$1,450 after the $50 annual fee. And
27:00
the Capital One card, you'd only earn $905 after the $95 annual fee.
27:05
So yeah, you're earning about $545 more on the Robinhood
27:08
card. However,
27:11
that Venture card is also going to
27:13
come with 75,000 bonus points worth about
27:17
So you're actually going to come out
27:20
about $200 ahead, at least
27:22
for your first year, if you're
27:24
using a card that earns two X points
27:26
or two percent back and has a big
27:28
welcome bonus. Now, the bigger issue
27:30
to all of this, and this doesn't work if
27:32
you only care about cash back, but if you're
27:34
listening to all the hacks, you're probably able to
27:37
get at least one and a half if not
27:39
two cents per point or more in value.
27:42
So a two X points card like the
27:44
Venture or the Venture X is probably already
27:47
effectively a three to four percent cash back
27:49
card for you anyways, which is why I'm
27:51
not actually excited about this card for myself.
27:54
That said, I'm definitely going to incorporate
27:57
the card into my case for cash
27:59
back. episode that I'm going to make, and
28:01
I'm going to record that soon, and I'm also going
28:04
to put some thoughts into this IRA transfer and some
28:06
of the other things going into all of this. However,
28:09
if this is interesting, go
28:12
ahead and use my referral link. I'm
28:14
going to set it up at allthehacks.com/Robinhood.
28:17
I don't get points or commissions, but
28:19
according to the landing page, if 10 people
28:21
sign up for a Robinhood card, I will
28:23
get a card made of solid gold, which
28:25
weighs 36 grams, and according
28:28
to chat. GPT should be worth well
28:31
over $2,000, which I don't totally
28:33
believe, but at a minimum, if enough people
28:35
sign up and I do get this gold
28:37
card, I'm going to get it appraised. I'm
28:39
going to report back on what the actual
28:41
value is, and honestly, I might try to
28:43
melt it down, and you know what? If
28:46
I do that, I will give the value
28:48
of my melted Robinhood card to charity. Okay,
28:50
so that's it for the Robinhood announcement. Let's
28:52
get back to the rest of this episode.
28:55
On the topic of points and miles, there is a lot
28:57
that's been going on that I want to cover. First,
29:00
BILT has made two announcements that in
29:02
tandem, somewhat cancel each other out. The
29:04
first one was BILT announced that they
29:07
are losing American Airlines as a transfer
29:09
partner, and so for about 24 hours,
29:11
this is a huge bummer. The news
29:14
of this hit, people were very disappointed
29:16
because American Airlines was previously not a
29:18
transfer partner of any other transferable points
29:21
currency. I believe it was for a
29:23
brief window of Citi back in the
29:25
day, but that's been a while. So,
29:28
American has such great redemption, some really
29:31
good sweet spots on the award charts that
29:33
you just didn't have access to any other
29:35
way. So, when BILT offered American as a
29:37
transfer partner, it was really exciting. That
29:40
announcement was a huge bummer, except the next
29:42
day, they followed it up with an announcement
29:44
that they've added Alaska Airlines as a transfer
29:47
partner. Now, is Alaska better or worse than
29:49
American? I think the jury is still out
29:51
and it's probably not even a jury, it's
29:53
probably dependent on you. There
29:56
was a really great short, less than 20-minute
29:58
episode from the Frequent Myler podcast. I'll link
30:00
to in the show notes debating the
30:02
value of American versus Alaska points. I
30:04
actually texted Greg, one of the hosts,
30:06
that question. So it was really cool
30:09
two days later to see an episode
30:11
come out about that question. I think
30:13
there are still some really great opportunities
30:15
in the Alaska award charts. They've
30:17
got some business class from the East Coast where you can
30:20
go to Europe for less than 60,000. From
30:23
the West Coast, things have gone up a bit but still
30:25
75,000 to Korea, 75,000 from the
30:28
West Coast to Europe on Aerolingus, not
30:30
the worst for business class redemptions. So
30:32
a lot of good opportunities there. Only
30:35
big downside in my opinion for Alaska is
30:37
that they don't have mixed partner bookings. So
30:40
if you want to fly to Europe
30:43
on Condor or Aerolingus, which
30:45
are Alaska partners, but those
30:47
airlines don't fly from your home city,
30:49
then you can't book an Alaska flight
30:51
to connect you to the Aerolingus or
30:53
the Condor flight. So if
30:55
you live in a major city with flights
30:57
on a lot of their partners, it's great.
31:00
Otherwise, you might have to wait a bit
31:02
until I hope they will announce that you
31:04
can combine airlines for partner bookings. So
31:06
that was the news from BILT. The BILT
31:08
card is powered by Wells Fargo, which
31:11
actually announced their own news, which was
31:13
really, really exciting, which is that Wells
31:15
Fargo is going to be adopting transferable
31:17
points for their existing autograph
31:20
card. And on top
31:22
of that, they launched the Autograph
31:24
Journey card. Now this is particularly
31:26
exciting. If you own the autograph
31:28
card, it's a huge upgrade. But
31:30
anytime there are more transferable points,
31:32
it just increases the competition into
31:34
space. And I hope we'll just
31:36
keep seeing better card offers, more
31:38
transfer partners, higher bonus multipliers on
31:40
earnings, maybe even lower annual fees.
31:42
I'm just really excited about more
31:44
cards giving you the option to
31:46
transfer your points because you get such
31:48
an outsized value, right? When you previously had a
31:50
Wells Fargo card, you would be just getting one
31:52
cent per value of points. Now
31:55
that you can transfer those points, I think it'd
31:57
be pretty easy for you to get two, three,
31:59
even four. sense of value on some of
32:01
these redemptions. So the
32:03
good news is they've added at
32:05
least one partner in each major
32:07
alliance. So they added Avianca LifeMiles
32:09
in Star Alliance, they added Air
32:11
France KLM in SkyTeam, and they
32:13
added Avios in OneWorld. And I
32:16
think they added British Airways and
32:18
Iberia, but because you can transfer
32:20
between all the Avios currencies, being
32:22
able to send points to Avios
32:24
means you can also put them
32:26
in Aeralingus, Qatar, and soon Finnair.
32:28
They also added choice privileges for hotels and
32:31
add a 1 to 2 rate which
32:33
I've heard has some great sweet spot redemptions
32:36
from the hotel world. So obviously,
32:38
I'd want to see more transfer partners than
32:40
four to get too excited, but I have
32:42
to assume more are coming. And
32:45
the fact that they included Avianca and
32:47
Air France, which I think are really
32:49
great partners, in fact they're among some
32:51
of the most common partners that points
32:53
and miles enthusiasts are using to transfer their points
32:55
to, gets me really excited.
32:57
And if you hear this and you think,
33:00
I never fly Avianca or Air France, that's
33:02
not saying you need to fly those airlines
33:04
because they're part of Star Alliance and SkyTeam,
33:06
you can use them to book awards on
33:08
lots of other carriers. And I'm
33:10
actually doing an episode with Greg, the host
33:13
of the Frequent Mylar podcast on all the
33:15
different search tools out there and how to
33:17
use them to find the best redemptions and
33:19
which tools are best for which kind of
33:21
searching. So stay tuned for that. I'm excited
33:24
to see more transfer partners coming. As
33:26
for the cards, the existing Autograph
33:28
card is a no annual fee
33:30
card that gives you three points
33:32
on dining, travel, gas, transit, streaming
33:35
and phone plans. So already,
33:37
that's a pretty good slate of earning,
33:39
one x points on everything else. The
33:41
new card they've launched is the Autograph
33:43
Journey card. It comes out on 3-20, so
33:46
March 20th. So
33:48
I guess it will have already come out by
33:50
the time this episode comes out, recording-wise, it comes
33:52
out tomorrow. And the bonus is supposed to be
33:54
60,000 points on $4,000 to spend in three months.
33:58
So not the biggest bonus out there. out there but
34:00
60,000 points that you can transfer but
34:02
it has only a $95 annual fee and a $50 airfare
34:08
statement credit. So really an effective $45
34:10
fee. So for
34:13
the bonuses you're going to earn on
34:15
spending, this has got to be one
34:17
of the lowest annual fee cards for
34:19
such high earning multipliers. And those multipliers
34:21
are 5X on hotels, 4X on
34:24
airlines and 3X on travel
34:26
dining. So already you're
34:28
seeing better earning than the Chase Sapphire
34:31
Preferred, Reserve, Bill Card, all of these
34:33
things for a very, very modest
34:35
fee especially compared to some of these cards that
34:37
are charging close to $500 or more for similar
34:40
earning rates. It has no
34:43
foreign transaction fees, has some travel
34:46
related protection benefits and
34:48
if you have a few other Wells
34:50
Fargo cards that earn points or miles,
34:52
they let you move those points and miles over
34:55
so that you can transfer them to airlines and
34:57
hotels as well. So the Wells Fargo
34:59
Active Cash Card which earns 2X on everything
35:01
will now be a transferable points card as
35:03
long as you have the autograph or the
35:05
autograph turning. I don't think as of now,
35:07
we don't have links to any Wells Fargo
35:09
cards so I would just go to the
35:12
Wells Fargo site or find a points and
35:14
miles blog that does and support them but
35:16
if these cards are interesting, those transferable points
35:18
and all of the stuff I talked about
35:20
will be live by the time you hear
35:22
this episode. As for how I feel about
35:24
it, I'm a little bit torn. I'm
35:26
excited to see a new card. I am excited
35:29
to see high earnings multiples for
35:31
a low annual fee but
35:33
when I look at all the cards
35:36
I already have, I can already transfer
35:38
all my points to the same set
35:40
of airlines and hotel groups. So I'm
35:43
not unlocking any new transfer partners and
35:46
I already have a card that earns 5X
35:48
on airlines, the Amex Platinum and 3X on
35:50
travel dining with the Chase Reserve and I
35:52
actually get 4X on dining with the Amex
35:55
Gold. So the only change here would be
35:57
I'd get 5X on hotels. But
36:00
when it comes to hotels where I'm using
36:02
the Marriott and Hilton cards and earning more
36:04
than 5X, to get a few extra points
36:07
per dollar on hotels when I'm staying at
36:09
a non-Mariot and a non-Hilton isn't that exciting.
36:11
The 60,000 point bonus isn't that exciting yet,
36:13
maybe if it gets a little higher. So
36:16
I guess I'm both really excited about this
36:18
card as a starter card for lots of
36:20
people. If you don't already have a card
36:22
that transfers to a few of these airlines
36:24
or you don't have a card that earns
36:26
these kind of multiples in these categories, then
36:28
I would be pretty excited about this card.
36:31
It just happens that for me, somehow I'm
36:33
both excited about it and don't see a
36:35
place that it fits in my wallet. Maybe
36:38
things will change, maybe Wells Fargo will
36:40
launch a higher tier card in that
36:42
kind of like 300 to 500 annual
36:44
fee range that has a bunch of
36:46
other features that might be exciting for
36:48
me or maybe they'll add some unique
36:50
transfer partners. I think it's unlikely that
36:52
they're going to add American Airlines now
36:55
that built lost American, especially because built
36:57
cards powered by Wells Fargo, but anything's
36:59
possible. So we'll see what happens. I
37:01
think the only other speculative news I'd
37:03
say on that is it seems more
37:05
likely given the relationship that Citi has
37:08
with American because all of the American cards,
37:10
with the exception of a couple, are run
37:12
on the Citi platform, I think if we
37:14
see anything happen, it's likely that
37:16
Citi would adopt American as a transfer partner,
37:18
which would give a big bump to the
37:20
value of Citi points. So I
37:22
think it's possible you'll see me with one of these
37:24
Wells Fargo cards in the future, but
37:26
for right now, I don't see a way it fits in. Speaking
37:29
of Citi, I'll talk a quick bit
37:31
about transfer bonuses. There's currently
37:33
a 25% transfer bonus from Citi to Avianca,
37:35
25% transfer bonus from
37:38
Chase to Flying Blue, and
37:40
a 20% to 40% transfer bonus from
37:42
Capital One to Etihad. So
37:44
I don't like to speculatively transfer my
37:47
points to other airlines, but if you're
37:49
planning a trip right now And
37:52
you find availability that is a good
37:54
deal on Avianca, Flying, Blue, or Etihad,
37:56
then by all means, transferring points when
37:58
there's a transfer bonus. It just
38:00
makes the entire trip keeper. South.
38:03
Otherwise, I would say it's not worth
38:05
speculating. The only time I really speculate
38:07
on these transfers is when built that
38:10
them and their hundred one hundred fifty
38:12
percent transfer bonuses and it just seems
38:14
worth the speculation. I'm
38:17
not sure what's on tap for your twenty
38:20
twenty four. Maybe you're thinking about buying a
38:22
house plenty? The launch of business are welcoming.
38:24
a new addition to the family. If that
38:26
sounds like you and you want some help
38:29
preparing for these events with confidence, you have
38:31
to check out facets. In fact, when I
38:33
sat down my financial planning from we did
38:35
extensive research on what financial service company to
38:38
recommend our clients and we landed on facets
38:40
so I'm excited to have them as a
38:42
sponsor today as it makes financial planning accessible
38:44
to everyone and addresses. One of my biggest.
38:47
Frustrations with this industry. I've long
38:49
hated how so many advisors charge
38:51
a high percentage of your assets, but
38:53
not pass it. They only charge
38:55
a flat annual membership fee, which
38:57
means you actually keep more of what
38:59
you invest through their tech platform.
39:01
You'll get access to financial experts
39:03
and a team of specialists across investments,
39:06
taxes, and more who don't miss.
39:08
Have had limited time for hundred
39:10
and fifty dollar kickstart offer when you
39:12
go to allthehack.com/pass it that as
39:14
a C E T, you'll get
39:16
two. Hundred dollars in your brokerage account
39:18
if you invest and maintain five thousand
39:20
dollars within your first ninety days. Plus,
39:22
the two hundred fifty dollar enrollment be
39:24
will be waived for new annual members.
39:26
Again, that's all the hacks.com/said path at
39:28
Wealth As and Se Si registered a
39:30
method of either this is not an
39:32
offer to buy or sell securities north
39:34
it investment legal or to Six Advice:
39:36
Past performance is not a guarantee. A
39:38
future performance offer expires March Thirty First
39:40
Twenty Twenty Four Terms and Conditions Of.
39:45
when it comes to building wealth taxes
39:47
are such a big part of the
39:49
strategy and even if you've already filed
39:51
been proactive about this year to lower
39:53
your future liability is so important and
39:55
now that i'm working with guilt i
39:58
finally feel like i have a partner
40:00
i can trust to handle ever everything
40:02
for my business and personal taxes, and
40:04
I'm excited to partner with them for
40:06
this episode. Think of Gelt as the
40:08
ultimate modern CPA. They not only offer
40:10
an amazing tech platform that gives you
40:12
personalized guidance to maximize deductions, tax credits,
40:14
and savings, but also everything is backed
40:16
by an in-house team of expert CPAs
40:18
who can recommend the most effective tax
40:20
strategies to minimize risk and grow your
40:22
wealth. And best of all, you
40:25
can have this transparent, open communication with your
40:27
team in whatever way works best for you,
40:29
whether that's on their platform, over email,
40:31
in Slack, or scheduling a call. Finally,
40:34
my favorite story is that when we first
40:36
onboarded with Gelt, they reviewed our past returns
40:38
and found a huge mistake our prior CPA
40:40
had made, so they refiled and got us
40:43
back all that money. So, if
40:45
you're ready for a more premium, proactive
40:47
tax strategy to optimize and file your
40:49
taxes, you have to check out Gelt.
40:52
And as an All the Hacks listener, you can skip
40:54
the waitlist and get started today. And
40:56
head to allthehacks.com/Gelt, G-E-L-T.
41:00
Again, that's allthehacks.com/G-E-L-T.
41:05
Before we get back to the episode, I just want to
41:07
thank you for listening to and supporting the show. Your
41:10
support of our advertisers is what
41:12
keeps this show going. To learn
41:14
more about all our partners and
41:16
get links to all their deals,
41:18
you can go to allthehacks.com/deals, where
41:20
the URLs, codes, and discounts are
41:22
all right there. So, please consider
41:24
supporting those who support us. On
41:27
the negative side, there have been a
41:29
handful of devaluations recently and it's a
41:31
bummer, but it's just part of what
41:33
happens. Hyatt,
41:36
137 properties are getting a bit more
41:38
expensive. It's about 10% of their properties.
41:40
I think about 40% or somewhere around
41:42
like 4% or 5% of
41:45
the portfolio is getting cheaper, but
41:47
for the most part, properties are
41:49
getting more expensive. It's a
41:51
bummer, but it happens. It's points inflation, if
41:53
you will. The Wyndham-Vacasa partnership,
41:55
which I've never actually had a
41:57
good path to earning Wyndham Point.
42:00
points, but if you're in the boat of having
42:02
windom points, it's been a great way to redeem
42:04
windom points. I guess I do
42:06
have Capital One points, so I have had an
42:08
easy way to get windom points and Citi also
42:10
transfers to windom. But what you used to
42:12
be able to do was book a vacation
42:15
rental, which is a vacation rental. It's
42:17
similar to Airbnb. I think
42:19
the properties go through a bit more vetting before
42:21
they're on the platform. You
42:23
used to be able to book up to, I think,
42:25
$350 per bedroom per night of value for 15,000 points
42:32
per bedroom per night. It sounds
42:34
a little bit confusing, but if it's a one
42:36
bedroom for one night, you could basically book it
42:38
for 15,000 windom points, but it had to be
42:41
under $350 on Vakasa. That's
42:44
gone down to $250 and then you've been
42:46
given the option, if it's between $250 and
42:50
$500, then you can book it for 30,000 points. Now
42:53
that's per bedroom per night, so if you're
42:55
booking a four bedroom property and it's $2,000 a
42:59
night, then you could book it for
43:01
120,000 points a night. If
43:04
you really dial this in and are able to
43:06
find a perfect property, you'll find it at about
43:09
1.67 cents per point. I
43:11
think more likely you're going to end up in that 1.3, 1.4 cents
43:14
per point range, which by
43:17
the way, we were going up earlier talking
43:19
about taxes and paying your taxes on a
43:21
card. If you paid your taxes on a
43:23
Capital One card that earns 2x points, you're
43:25
effectively buying Capital One points for 0.91 cents
43:27
per point. If
43:30
you could buy them for 0.91 cents and
43:32
you can redeem them for 1.4 cents,
43:35
that's a deal. You're getting a
43:37
better deal. If you had a Vakasa
43:39
property that you really wanted to book and you
43:41
outlined it and you said, this is what it's
43:43
going to cost, it's how many points? It would
43:45
probably be cheaper for you to figure out how
43:47
many points it took to book and then go
43:50
put that many dollars on a credit card to
43:52
earn those points and pay the fee to the
43:54
IRS to make that transaction. It's not going to
43:56
be the best arbitrage, but you'd probably come out
43:58
ahead as long as that was close
44:00
to the ceiling meaning it's at the let's say
44:02
$200 to $250 per bed per night.
44:06
If you're booking something is like 260 and
44:08
you fell into the camp of needing to
44:10
pay the 30,000 points per bed
44:12
per night then it's probably not a good deal. Etihad
44:14
also added some award cancellation fees. So
44:17
if you cancel your flight within 21
44:19
days, you pay a penalty of 25%
44:21
of your points. Within 7 days, it's
44:23
75% of your points. I think they
44:25
also had some devaluations but some of
44:28
the first class prices things like from
44:30
New York to Abu Dhabi have actually
44:32
gone down in price in first class.
44:34
So there are maybe a couple sweet
44:36
spots but given those award cancellation fees,
44:38
I'd really only be booking something if
44:41
you're almost certain you're gonna take it.
44:43
I'd probably still rely on booking
44:45
Etihad through American Airlines if you
44:48
have access to American points though
44:50
as I mentioned before, there's a 20
44:53
to 40% transfer bonus from Capital One
44:55
to Etihad. So if you are looking
44:57
for just a really, really nice premium
44:59
cabin to the Middle East, A&A which
45:02
has long been a great but
45:04
hard to book transfer partner of
45:06
Amex, great because they have really
45:08
great pricing, hard to book because it takes
45:10
usually two to four days for those points
45:12
to show up and in the points of
45:14
miles world, things are changing fast enough and
45:16
they don't hold space that you might be
45:18
in a place where you transfer the points
45:20
and you don't have a use case for
45:22
them but they've been such a great deal.
45:24
So 75,000 points for business
45:28
class to Japan round trip, that's going
45:30
up to a hundred thousand points, those
45:32
are off-peak, it was 90,000 on
45:35
peak dates, now that's going up to 110,000
45:38
but still a hundred ten thousand points
45:40
to do a peak travel business class
45:42
round trip to Japan is way better
45:44
than you're gonna find other places. West
45:46
Coast to Europe used to be 88,000 points
45:49
round trip and now it's a hundred thousand
45:51
but again still that's a great deal. So
45:53
one of the challenges is you need to do
45:55
round trip, you need to transfer from Amex and
45:57
wait for the transfer to clear to book any.
46:00
thing but if you're able to do that
46:02
I like
46:34
that it's really amazing. Unfortunately,
46:37
they have almost doubled if
46:40
not more those prices. That
46:42
45,000 to go to Europe is bumping up
46:44
to 85,000 points each way. 47,000
46:49
Middle East is bumping up to 93,000 points each way. So
46:53
I think using your Turkish points for
46:55
cheap flights over the ocean in business
46:57
class is just not going to be a
46:59
thing. Fortunately, there is one
47:01
sweet spot that's still stuck around
47:03
and that is for domestic Star
47:06
Alliance Awards. So that's flights on
47:08
Air Canada or on United. Using
47:10
Turkish to book a one-way economy
47:13
flight anywhere in North America, including
47:15
Hawaii and Alaska is still only
47:17
10,000 Turkish points and
47:20
in business class it's only 15,000. So
47:22
if you can find availability from the East
47:25
Coast to Hawaii or the East Coast to Alaska, you're
47:27
going to be able to do that for 15,000 points
47:30
in business class each way. So there
47:32
is still a sweet spot and I
47:34
think that's really the take away from
47:37
all of this which is transferable points
47:39
are so much more valuable than points
47:41
in any one currency. If you were
47:43
accumulating Turkish points right now, you would
47:45
be in tears that your miles won't
47:47
take you nearly as far as they
47:49
would have six months ago. But
47:51
if you've accumulated Chase, built Amex, Capital
47:53
One or City Points or soon Wells
47:55
Fargo points, even when one airline that
47:58
you can transfer to a Blitter. rates
48:00
their charts for one type of flight, you
48:02
still have lots of options. So
48:04
yes, if you had Capital One points,
48:07
your option to get to Europe on
48:09
Turkish is not that great. But your
48:11
option to get to Europe on Avianca
48:13
or on Air Canada or even on
48:15
Avios might still be good options. Avios,
48:18
not so much if you're in business class and
48:20
you have to pay the fees, but there
48:23
are some options on every single transferable
48:25
points currency that's going to give you
48:27
a lot more flexibility. So I guess
48:29
my big takeaway for these devaluations is
48:31
it's always coming, knew it was going
48:33
to happen, but if you keep your
48:35
points based in a place that you
48:37
can transfer to lots of options, you
48:39
buy yourself the insurance that if something
48:41
goes down, if something costs more, you
48:43
don't have to deal with it. Two
48:46
quick news things. One, the award
48:48
tool Point.me, which we've talked about on the
48:51
show a lot, has partnered with Amex. And
48:53
so if you have a US-based Amex card,
48:55
you can now use the Point.me tool for
48:57
free, limited to only the transfer partners of
49:00
Amex. Point.me launched a similar partnership with BILT
49:02
where you can use your BILT rewards login
49:04
to search Point.me. In fact, that BILT rewards
49:06
login doesn't require you to even have the
49:09
BILT card. It's a free login for everyone.
49:11
They have a similar partnership with the Hotel
49:13
Search, Aways, where you can get free access
49:16
to the Aways Hotel Search. So
49:18
that's a great win for Amex card holders.
49:21
Second thing, if you have a Chase
49:23
Freedom Flex card or a Freedom card
49:25
in Q2, you're going to be getting
49:27
5x points on Amazon, hotels, and restaurants.
49:29
It's up to $1,500, but 5x
49:31
on Amazon, if you have the Amazon Prime card,
49:33
maybe it's a wash, but 5x on
49:35
restaurants is pretty great. So I know I'll be
49:37
shifting my restaurant spend in Q2 to the Freedom
49:40
Flex to get those 5x points.
49:43
I don't think I'll spend more than $1,500 on restaurants
49:45
in three months, so I don't think I will worry
49:47
about that limit. Last, I just
49:49
want to share a few card-length offers that
49:51
I just logged in to Chase and Amex
49:53
and saw and thought I'd share with you
49:55
all. So first off on the Chase side,
49:58
and by the way, if you're not familiar with the way
50:00
these offers work is that you log into
50:02
Chase, you log into Amex and depending on
50:04
your card and your spending profile, there might
50:06
be anywhere from 20 or 30 to Amex
50:08
sometimes 3,
50:12
4, 500 offers that you can link
50:14
to your card and when you spend
50:16
money at those merchants, you get either
50:18
cash back, points back, dollars back, really
50:20
depends on the offer. City
50:22
and Capital One have some of these as
50:24
well. I don't have a City card so
50:27
I can't tell you anything about the City
50:29
offers and I did log in to
50:31
the Capital One portal which I'm actually
50:33
doing right now just to make sure
50:35
that I didn't miss anything but historically,
50:37
the offers I've seen in the Capital
50:39
One portal have never really been that
50:41
exciting and they've also been very, very
50:43
consistent. So they've never really changed
50:45
that much. There's nothing that exciting. I'm
50:47
looking right now, yes, I can get
50:49
2% off at Home Depot
50:51
but the Chase portal for example had a 10%
50:54
off Home Depot. So right now,
50:57
I don't see anything that exciting on the
50:59
Capital One portal. On the chase
51:01
site, I see five Percent back on
51:04
Amazon Fresh which is cool. I see
51:06
twenty dollars off at Aura. So
51:08
if you been looking for an Aura ring
51:10
this is a great time that will stack
51:12
with the other deals. So if go to
51:14
all the hacks.com/aura. Chase
51:20
has $10 off TurboTax. I think Capital One actually
51:22
had 7% off TurboTax and
51:24
honestly, I bet Amex has a TurboTax offer
51:27
also seems during taxis that everyone has one.
51:29
So just make sure that if you're buying
51:31
TurboTax this year, you use some credit card
51:33
that's going to get you something back. Chase
51:36
also had 10% off DoorDash, 10% off
51:38
Home Depot like I said and a
51:40
lot of people, not me, but a
51:43
lot of other people are seeing 10%
51:45
off at Southwest. So those are all
51:47
offers that you need to activate on
51:49
your card to get those deals. So
51:51
you can either log in to Chase and
51:53
activate them or if you're using a tool
51:55
like Card Pointers, you will automatically get them
51:57
activated with the Card Pointers Chrome extension. that's
52:00
part of Card Pointers Pro. If you want to
52:02
learn more, all the hacks.com/Card Pointers, Emmanuel, the
52:04
founder of that company is awesome and he's
52:06
been a huge supporter of the show. On
52:09
the Amex side, there were a couple great offers. One
52:12
was with Zeal. For those that
52:14
aren't familiar, Zeal is basically a service
52:17
that connects you with in-home masseuses to
52:19
do massages. And so
52:21
really wanted to test this out, got Amy a massage
52:23
a month or two ago, wish that I had seen
52:25
this offer. Maybe this offer wasn't out yet or I
52:27
probably would have seen it, which is 25 off 75
52:29
and Amy
52:32
said it was an incredible massage. Now I
52:34
don't know how they're going to keep people
52:36
from going off platform. Amy actually exchanged numbers
52:38
with the masseuses she had so we wouldn't
52:41
need to use Zeal the next time. But
52:43
if Zeal keeps having deals like this, maybe it
52:45
makes sense to stay on the platform. And
52:48
that offer stacks with new member offers. So if
52:50
you go to allthehacks.com/Zeal, I'll put Amy's referral link
52:52
in there. At this point, she'll come back because
52:54
you guys will check it out and she'll have
52:56
some referral credit that'll also get you $20 off
52:59
as well as 25 off 75 from Amex which
53:01
will stack
53:04
on top of that. So you'll end
53:06
up getting about $45 off a massage in-home which
53:08
honestly if I remember the pricing, it's probably going
53:11
to bring you down to probably less than the
53:13
price you'd pay if you went to a spa
53:15
or something like that depending on the type of
53:17
spa. There's also an offer of
53:20
$50 off $250 at IHG properties, 3 months free of Paramount+. Basically
53:26
it's $11.99 off when you spend $11.99 or more for
53:28
3 months in a row. And
53:31
then 2 partners or friends of the show that
53:34
I saw Amex offers for. So Trust and Will
53:36
which is the product we use for our estate
53:38
plan has a $55 off $150 offer
53:42
so if you haven't done your estate
53:44
planning, definitely recommend checking out Trust and
53:46
Will. It'll stack with the
53:48
15% off you get at allthehacks.com/Trust
53:51
and Will. It'll also stack with
53:53
the 50% off
53:55
you get from Trust and Will as an All
53:57
the Hacks member which would probably take your $6
53:59
off. $600 estate plan down to $300 minus 55 down to $245. So
54:05
I can tell you that'll pay for the
54:08
$100 All The Hacks membership just there. And
54:10
then last, Viore, if you haven't checked out
54:12
Viore gear, you're missing out. When we did
54:14
our annual survey, it turns out 35% of
54:17
you have tried out Viore and
54:19
had amazing things to say about
54:21
the product. But there's a $25
54:24
off $125 Amex offer that also
54:26
stacks with the discount you get
54:28
at allthehacks.com/Viore. That's V-U-O-R-E. So
54:32
those are the Chase and Amex offers I found. Hopefully it
54:34
saves you guys some money. Would love to
54:37
hear what you think of this episode. I know it's
54:39
a little different than most. I kind of threw together
54:41
a topic and some news. You can
54:43
send any feedback you have to podcast
54:45
at allthehacks.com. I check everything there. Thank
54:48
you so much for listening. I will see you next week.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More