Matthew Yglesias Misses the Point: Optimizing Credit Card Rewards Without the ‘Mental Load’ – Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast
Join host Justin Vacula in this episode of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast as he responds to writer and political commentator Matthew Yglesias’ recent tweet about the ‘mental load’ of optimizing credit card reward point bonus categories.
Justin argues that optimizing credit card rewards is not as challenging as it seems and offers practical solutions and tools to manage bonus categories easily.
He emphasizes the larger value proposition of credit card points and miles, focusing on the big picture rather than getting bogged down in small details.
The episode also features discussions on creative spending, the power of signup bonuses, and strategies for maximizing rewards for both casual users and seasoned travel hackers.
Returning co-host Darren joins the conversation to share insights and experiences in the points and miles game.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel with Points and Miles
03:37 A the ‘Mental Load’ of Optimizing Credit Card Rewards?
06:17 Strategies for Managing Credit Card Bonus Categories
14:13 The Importance of Signup Bonuses
20:37 Choosing the Right Everyday Credit Cards
22:39 Maximizing Credit Card Rewards for Everyday Spending
24:20 Upcoming Events and Announcements
26:13 The Power of Signup Bonuses
27:22 Creative Spending Strategies
39:14 Recent and Upcoming Travels
44:59 Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts
Listen to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast On:
👉 SoundCloud → https://soundcloud.com/hurdygurdytravelpodcast
👉 Apple Podcasts / iTunes → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hurdy-gurdy-travel-podcast/id1489093490
👉 Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/0PRUx83Z4XKHengsgOoLWg
👉 TuneIn → https://tunein.com/podcasts/Podcasts/Hurdy-Gurdy-Travel-Podcast-p1275539/
👉 iHeartRadio → https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-hurdy-gurdy-travel-podcast-51807405/
👉 Podbean → https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/vvdph-a3425/Hurdy-Gurdy-Travel-Podcast
👉 Pocket Casts → https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/1a722d50-2d0a-0138-96d6-0acc26574db2?_prerender=true
👉 Podchaser → https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/hurdy-gurdy-travel-podcast-1153719
👉 Podcast Addict → https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/hurdy-gurdy-travel-podcast/3497422
👉 Castbox → https://castbox.fm/channel/Hurdy-Gurdy-Travel-Podcast-id4351553?country=us
👉 …and many other podcast platforms worldwide! 🌍🎧
📡 Prefer using your favorite app? Simply copy & paste my podcast RSS feed:
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:706382626/sounds.rss
—
💜 Support My Work & Unlock Special Perks:
👉 Visit the Support Tab on my website to contribute via SubscribeStar → https://www.subscribestar.com/hurdygurdytravel
👉 Support me through helpful referral links on my site.
👉 Use my CardPointers affiliate link to save on annual and lifetime memberships → https://www.cardpointers.com/hurdygurdytravel
CardPointers helps you activate card-linked offers and take advantage of other powerful credit card features.
Earn 500 miles when signing up for Rove Miles using my referral link: www.rovemiles.com/?signup&referralCode=8AS1JSG9
—
🎁 Subscriber & Supporter Perks Include:
✨ One-on-one calls with me
✨ Advance notice of upcoming podcast guests (submit your questions!)
✨ A custom podcast episode recorded just for you 🎙️💬
✨ Bonus content 🎁
—
🌐 Stay Connected With Me:
🔔 Subscribe on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@HurdyGurdyTravelPodcast
👍 Like on Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/HurdyGurdyTravelPodcast
🐦 Follow on Twitter / X → https://x.com/HurdyGurdyTravl
📸 Follow on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/justinvacula/
—
✨ Thank You for Listening & Supporting the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast!
Stay tuned for more tips, strategies, and stories to help you optimize your travel, rewards, and lifestyle. 🚀🌍💳
Rough Transcript:
theme song: [00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures tales to be told, make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness. Pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
justin: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you make money, save money, and travel the world at next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode, Matthew Yglesias Misses The Point. We respond to writer and political commentator, Matthew Yglesias, who recently tweeted quote.
Nobody talks about the invisible mental [00:01:00] load of optimizing credit card reward point bonus categories, unquote. We discuss why it’s actually not that difficult to optimize bonus categories and explain the larger, more valuable proposition the points and miles game offers. Visit meetup.com/philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
The next meetups are September 28th and October 19th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes. For more content between episodes, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips, community, and posts on with today’s episode recorded September 2nd
2025. Welcome back to the show, Darren. Not to be confused with my [00:02:00] former AI co-host Lila.
darren: I am not a robot. No. Hey, Lila. Was was really good. Justin, I think you’ve done a great job in pushing the boundaries like you do in a lot of things we talk about on this show. And really incorporating that gen AI next level into your podcast.
I, I always download, I’ll be honest, Justin, I don’t listen to every episode. I know. I know. And I don’t listen to the ones I’m usually on figure I’ve already been there and done that. But I did listen to Lila. I thought it was, it was excellent. I was surprised how good. She sounded or it, I’m happy that I haven’t been entirely replaced, and we get to talk about something that’s maybe a little controversial, maybe a little nuanced, but really gets to the heart of how we approach the miles and points game or hobby, however you’d like to describe it.
justin: Excellent. And it is breaking news. What seems to be criticism of the miles and points game from writer Matthew Igl. He’s a big Twitter account with about half a million followers. [00:03:00] Wikipedia says he was born in 1981. He’s an American blogger and journalist who writes about economics and politics. He’s written columns and articles for publications, including the American Prospect, the Atlantic, and Slate.
In 2014, he co-founded the news website, Vox. So to remind listeners, this is the tweet, and it’s similar to a criticism we’ve heard from many others dismissing the miles and points hobby. He tweeted. Nobody talks about the invisible mental load of optimizing credit card reward point bonus categories. So Darren, what is an invisible mental load?
darren: That’s a great question. Fortunately you’ve looked this up for us, but for me, I think it’s really the stuff you have to remember to do every day, right? So. What do you have to do for lists? It’s your to-do list in my mind. And some people like writing that down. Some people try to keep that as a mental [00:04:00] list.
But it’s all the things that that in my mind at least you have to accomplish in a day. And I think there are some people that when they’re first getting into the game and they’ve signed up maybe a for a few cards, and then they go to the grocery store to check out when they’re grabbing milk and bread and they’re trying to figure out, oh my gosh, which of these three or four or five cards.
Do I need to use Foer alert? It probably doesn’t matter, but we’ll talk about that more later.
justin: Yes. I found a definition, this was on the UCLA health website. It’s defining mental load as what they say is cognitive work to run a household, remembering which groceries to buy, meal planning, offering support to family.
Personally, this sounds like being a responsible adult to me. I wouldn’t be someone who would ever use this phrase. I think it sounds really dramatic, making things complicated or difficult when they really aren’t. It sounds like a lot of whining and I don’t want to whine. I want to win. [00:05:00]
darren: I think that’s the the catch phrase.
And it aligns nicely with your kind of stoic philosophy, right? Yeah, yeah. That whining doesn’t do anybody any good. The situation, Justin, sometimes you just gotta. Accept what it is and find your best path forward. And rare. Rarely does whining make a difference. In fact, I recently saw something about how people say they feel better after venting.
They may not actually be true. So I’m not a psychologist. I am not a psychologist. Don’t, don’t take this back to your, your actual psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist. But yeah, I think it helps to. Focus on the winning and less on the whining.
justin: Yes. Get out of bed and do the work of a human being is what the stoics had to say.
Marcus Aurelius in particular. Having these things in order, being a responsible adult I think is very important. Yeah, you might not want to do it. Maybe you just wanna lie in bed and watch Ted Lasso on Apple tv, as we’ve mentioned, or eat ice cream. There’s a world of opportunity out there and there are a lot of miles and points and [00:06:00] benefits to earn through travel and all the cruises have gone on this year.
The international trips, the invisible mental load, I think has been quite worth it if we’re to accept that kind of terminology. You mentioned being in the grocery store and, oh, I don’t know which card to use. I would hope that people have a plan before they go to the grocery store that while they’re at home.
They could have a list of the bonus categories on cards. I don’t find this very difficult personally. We’ll get into some solutions to that a little bit later in the episode. But first, are you burdened by thinking about credit card categories?
darren: I’m not probably 10 years or so into this points and Miles game, and so I have a pretty good idea of which cards bonus where and what cards I’m going to use where.
The other thing that we were talking about before the show a little bit though, is the day-to-day organic, what we call organic spend. The going to the grocery store for milk and bread, [00:07:00] or the fill up at the gas pump. Certainly there are opportunities there, right? We can get eight x, right? Or you can, I can’t, ’cause Barclays won’t gimme a card, but you could get eight x win the points and that’s worth whatever, half, half a cent each, maybe 4%.
So that’s a pretty good card. We have the Venmo card at 3% at grocery stores. We have the MX Gold four X membership rewards at grocery stores. But E, even if we’re thinking about all those things, even if we’re spending say, a hundred thousand dollars, which would be a lot of spending in a year, and we are gonna say all of it is, all of it is potentially bonused at two x or three x or four x, we’re still not moving the needle very much towards the kind of points and miles acquisitions that you and I.
Focused on it. And so do I feel burdened? No, because the way I think about Points of Miles is almost entirely separate from how I think about spending money for my day-to-day costs. [00:08:00] It’s not how I started. And I think folks that are just getting into the game, I understand that you wanna try to optimize every expense, and I know you have some great strategies.
To talk about that. And so you are much more organized than I am Justin, and I look forward to hearing your suggestions on how is it that, that you and others can, can start to organize your thing. So it’s an easy, if you don’t remember an easy lookup or an easy decision on which car to use and where.
justin: Yes.
And for those just starting with points and miles, it’s not like you have 40 cards or 30 cards to think about when making these decisions. You’re probably going to start having a handful or less than that. And over time, as you add cards, if you add cards, then you’re keeping track of what those categories are.
But many people in the Twitter comments were talking about, oh, I have two cards, three cards. It’s really not that difficult. So there were people in agreement saying that this really isn’t such a difficult thing. The tweet might be a joke, I don’t know. [00:09:00] But even if it is a joke, this is a serious common objection.
I hear something like. Miles and points. Oh, it sounds so complicated. How do I keep track of this? How do I remember all the bonus categories? So I think there are many easy solutions. Right next to my microphone, I have a side table and I have these price label stickers. You might have seen these at yard sales or maybe some general stores.
It’s a 300 pack of circular price label stickers, and I can even use different colors on different cards if I want to. And I can just write on it something like four x dining, four x grocery, and just look at the card itself to figure out what the bonus category is. You can use various apps, maybe Evernote, where you have a list of, okay, here are my cards, that bonus grocery, here are my cards, that bonus gas, and so on.
I don’t think that’s really difficult. You have spreadsheets as well. Maybe you can [00:10:00] have a list of your credit cards and then in another column say which bonus categories are there. There’s also apps, like card pointers, a sponsor of the show that will tell you which card to use where, and it has features like the best card wizard, or it will pull up your cards and tell you, oh look, this has this bonus category.
Card pointers also has browser extensions. When I’m on certain websites, a message will pop up on the bottom that says, your best card to use on this site is X, and I have a PayPal credit card that gives 3% cash back on PayPal purchases. So that’s a pretty easy one to remember. I have Hilton credit cards.
I use those at Hilton Hyatt credit cards, I use those at Hyatt Hotels. I think those are pretty easy. So I think that these different tools, organizational strategies. These easy solutions will remove this alleged mental load.
darren: I think for a lot of points and miles [00:11:00] enthusiasts, the stickers are the way that folks get into it initially, and then as they learn more is if they have a P two that they’re in a house with sharing the game with.
Those stickers can then help the P two A. Again, I don’t wanna say organic spin doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t matter much, at least at the level at which we’re trying to acquire these points and miles. I, I like these suggestions. I, I’m not a, this is a secret confession, Justin, just between you and me. I’m not a card pointers member.
I know I should be. Oh, the Labor Day Sale? During
justin: the
darren: Labor Day sale. I know. Did I miss it? Did I miss the sale already? It is just a one day sale, right?
justin: Oh, no. I think it was the weekend, so maybe Oh,
darren: so close. Yeah, so I did not realize that those browser extensions and card pointers work like that sounds like an excellent opportunity for those folks.
Again, just getting into the game, or maybe that have, maybe it’s a, maybe it’s a quadratic relationship, right? You have four cards or you have 45 cards. I could see in both instances it could be challenging to remember exactly which card is the best one for [00:12:00] each time and what are the offers on each card.
I think that’s probably where I struggle the most is I just had a car insurance bill due and Right, so I was looking through and googling and asking chatt, pt, what’s the, what’s the best card to pay with the car insurance? It doesn’t really matter as it turns out, except. Amex had a 5% back on insurance payments.
Added that to a couple cards, one for myself, one for my wife, and then grabbed a little 2% on the built card as I’m always trying to acquire built points for a variety of transfer partners and off we go,
justin: and many cards will be good for what we would call un bonused spend or everywhere else spend. So your existing cards don’t have a bonus category for insurance payments.
And you would just use something that was maybe a 2% everywhere or in that case, the Amex offer. Gave you priority, but hopefully at the next episode you would be able to see all those features with card pointers and you would see those offers automatically activated. So we’ll have to check [00:13:00] in on you.
That’s your homework plan. Yeah.
darren: I’ll have to check and see if there’s still a sale. If not, wait till Black Friday,
justin: huh? Ooh, yes. Yeah, you won’t. It’ll avoid the archeological dig of having to go through the cards you have and see what all the categories are by Googling so. I think this is a problem that people are thinking of the end result of the super high optimizer with 50 cards.
Oh, I can’t do that. That sounds too difficult. But you’re just starting very small in this game and you’re scaling up over time. I mentioned in a past episode, I’m playing Bald Skate three and my party members are now level nine out of 12, I believe is the max level. And if I were to start the game with all these level nine characters that are very complicated, then that might seem overwhelming and I wouldn’t know what I was doing.
I started the game very small at level one, and over time I learned how things work, builds up a lot of gear, experience and so on.
darren: Yeah, that’s exactly right. We’re not advocating anybody jump into a couple dozen cards right away, so. [00:14:00] If nothing else, that’s gonna be difficult to hit all your signup bonuses, which would be a tragedy.
Ooh, right. That’s the
justin: next section. What? Look at that. It’s like I’m a
darren: professional podcast host or something, or Justin. I don’t know.
justin: We think the categories are nice. It’s nice to get that extra percent or two on certain categories, but as you’ve said, the bigger picture is in the multiple cards, the signup bonuses.
I’ve mentioned the Chase Sapphire preferred card many times. Usually it’s a 60,000 point signup bonus, and now it’s actually increased to 75,000 September 2nd date of recording. So spending a few thousand dollars to get 75,000 bonus points is going to be a huge return. How much spend would you need to do on a card giving you two x three x to get those kind of points?
I know America loves math. But without running the numbers, we know that spending a few thousand to get a really big bonus is better than spending maybe tens [00:15:00] of thousands to get that same kind of points amount. We have our favorite fan, Dave Ramsey. Of course, he often talks about spending a hundred thousand dollars on Discover.
He doesn’t mention which card. To get a thousand dollars is a bad financial strategy, and we agree, but of course, we’re not advocating that financial strategy and almost no one serious is. So by getting multiple cards, we’re able to move the needle, as you said earlier, in miles and points because as you get your first card or two, you learn that the answer to everything is more credit cards for more bonuses, more benefits.
And winning the larger picture rather than sweating about whether you got 3% or 4% back on small purchases.
darren: Yeah, no one’s advocating. You bet on black, on triple zero roulette. Justin, that’s not the, that’s not the game we’re here to play. Really what we’re trying to do is, again, whether it be in ca, online casinos or anything else, we’re [00:16:00] looking for arbitrage opportunities and sure, you can pick ’em up one at a time in your organic spend or.
If you’re, if you have a business account or a business that has a fair number of expenses, if you start to shift those expenses onto credit cards or new credit cards, but again, that’s not a big mental load. If you already know, Hey, I spend most of my money in my business at a home improvement store, geez, maybe you should sign up for that new Mesa card where bonus is that.
Or maybe I should make sure I have a MX Business Platinum. That’s one and a half, or. Shoot, even just a blue business plus it gets the flat 2% there, or two x on membership rewards there. So there’s lots of different options. I guess my point would be once you identify what your best options are, you don’t have to keep changing, right?
You’re really just evaluating that when and if new cards come out that have a different bonus portfolio or a different reward structure than what you have already and is it better than what you have? And if not, you keep [00:17:00] doing what you’re doing because guess the other thing is. You don’t necessarily wanna optimize your spend without optimizing your points, and you may ask yourself, or if Lila were here, she may ask, what do you mean by that?
Darren, that’s a great, that’s a great question. That’s a
justin: great question, Darren.
darren: If I start optimizing all my spend across multiple different programs, so I started accruing small amounts of membership reward points through Amex, relatively small amounts of Wyn window points through gas stations, small amounts of.
Just straight cash back through other places. So now I start to maximize or optimize my return. But I may end up, like you said, I spend, I use my Hilton cards just at Hilton. I use my Hyatt cards just at Hyatt. But now I have a small amount of points in multiple programs and not enough points in a single program to really take that trip.
And so I either have to buy more miles, which. In [00:18:00] most instances it’s not worthwhile or I real, I get frustrated with the game. Right. Because, oh, I see Justin is flying here and flying there and Darren said he got his whole family in business class to go to Singapore or whatever, right? Yes. And I didn’t do that by accumulating points and miles in multiple different, I did in multiple different programs, but I made sure I had enough critical mass in the right programs.
Programs that were transferable so that I could get them all in the right pot, so to speak. So I think that’s the other thing is a lot of times, maybe think about the optimization. Sure. But really what you wanna start with, and we’ve talked about this, is when you’re first starting out in the game, you pick a goal first and work your way back.
Right. I want to go to Vegas. That sounds great. How can we get you there? How can you make sure that we’re, you’re minimizing your expenses. How can you make sure you have some status when you get there? How can you set up the phone Army, right, to get cheap and discounted food, all of those sorts of things versus, Hey, I’m gonna [00:19:00] do all these things and then where can I use them?
I think if you start with the why or the what do I wanna do and why do I wanna do it, then you can work backwards and set up initially, especially. The right number of rewards programs and cards that earn those reward points to get you to your goal?
justin: Yes. The preparation ahead of time is very important and for people new, sometimes it can be a good idea to stick with one issuer to start.
Like we mentioned Chase so much that if you have multiple cards with Chase, it’s easier to log in and manage these accounts. They’re typically all in the same login, although that could be different with business and personal. But if you get a SAF Chase Sapphire Preferred, maybe. Two months, three months later, you get a Chase Hyatt card.
Three months later you get a Chase United card. They’re all going to be in the same login, and it’s pretty easy to manage these things. And yes, it’s a little bit of effort, but you’re getting a very big return in all the next to no cost travel. So the mental [00:20:00] load is quite a big payoff. It’s worth the effort.
There is really no solution that you’re just going to get all the travel handed to you for free. There has to be some effort, whether it’s managing these accounts, paying your bills, being an adult, or you’re just going to work more and spend money on travel, or maybe you’re just going to sit home and complain.
So there has to be some kind of effort and we think the return on time from Miles and points is a very big one. And we’re still having fun doing it many years into this hobby.
darren: Yeah. We’re, we’re focused on winning Justin, not whining. Sure, yeah. So what happens, Justin? So we talked a little bit about signup bonuses really being a big part of this, right?
That instead of, like you said, instead of really focusing on rewards, and certainly that can be helpful, but I know you’ve instituted an sort of an aama strategy, applying for a few different cards at the same time, and then and spending on those cards to earn signup bonuses, which are usually outsized, which you’re [00:21:00] gonna earn on a regular, ongoing card.
You can get what, seven x 10 x 15 x on some of those cards. Whereas you know your highest, probably your highest card, maybe your earn your Wyndham card is eight x points there. What about, and I know we talked about this a little bit for me, in, in my household, I do a lot of the, or do almost all of the actual MS and that sort of, oh, the, the
justin: creative spending for listeners.
The
darren: creative, the creative spending. Thank you for helping with that. I do all the creative spending. And I, my wife really wants just one card that she wants to use all the time. So far it’s been the US Bank, altitude Reserve three three x. Anywhere mobile pay is accepted and redeemed at four point a half percent, or that is to say you get one point a half cents per point.
So four point a net, four point a half percent. Now that’s gonna be changing soon down to 3%. On mobile wallet. It’s up to, what, 5,000 a month? I think?
justin: Yes. It’s very much on the deathbed, but we’ll see about that. But a good example of an [00:22:00] everywhere else card, for sure. At least at the moment, in September of 2025.
darren: So if you’re in a position where maybe you don’t, maybe people talk about having a mortgage coming up. They don’t wanna sign up for new cards. Maybe they’re rebuilding their credit. They, they don’t have, they’re not in a position to get a new card at this point. But they have some cards in their sock drawer.
Proverbial sock drawer here, Justin. ’cause they’re in it for the long game, just like us. And so they have maybe a couple cards that they could pull out and use for everyday cards. What are you thinking there? What are some good everyday cards that that folks can use in addition to the gasps from the US Bank Altitude Reserve card?
justin: Yes. For those that say things like, I don’t want to manage multiple accounts, I don’t want to have 10 credit cards. Of course, our message here is that you stand to gain a great benefit from having lots of cards, but if you’re that adamant about it, there are some good cards for the everywhere else earning or simple cards like the city double cash.
At the time of [00:23:00] recording, you get a $200 signup bonus for spending. $1,500 in six months and it gives you effectively 2% everywhere. So no bonus categories to be concerned about. There’s the Capital One Venture Card, 75,000 points signup bonus, getting two x points on everything. There are also points, transfers, various airline and hotel partners, and you can also just erase travel purchases using the points.
That’s a $95 annual fee. There’s the Synchrony, premier World, MasterCard, 2% cash back everywhere. Super simple like the city double cash. So I think that there are these options for everywhere else spend. If the bonus categories are too complicated for you or you don’t want to manage these cards to criticism, I get, oh, an average person isn’t doing what you do Justin.
Or they won’t do it. I encourage people to be better than [00:24:00] average and not settle for expensive travel, missing out on rewards and generally improving their lives. So I think there are some easy solutions that people can put into play using credit responsibly and intelligently.
darren: Of course, we want the wins to continue.
Justin, the wins continuing, not the whining continuing. That’s the key.
justin: Alright, we’ll move into some of our announcements if you’re enjoying today’s episode. Don’t forget Zork Fest 2025 is coming in Las Vegas, December 5th through the seventh at M Resort, casino Hotel Zork Fest combines miles points and gambling content all in one weekend.
I’ll be there speaking at connecting with podcast listeners. Buy your ticket at zork fest dot travels org.com. I’ll also be speaking at Chicago Seminars Hyatt Regency O’Hare, November 7th through the ninth, 2025. Use promo code her GURDY when buying a ticket to support me. Also, join me [00:25:00] October 24th through the 26th 2025 for Chicago Seminars Holiday Inn, Chicago Oakbrook.
Use Darren’s favorite promo code. I must have a promo code 20 for $20 off tickets.
darren: Still the best promo code.
justin: This episode is also supported by card pointers. If you’re like Darren and you have multiple credit cards like me. Signing up after this episode is a great option because it helps you automatically activate bank offers and it knows which card to use.
For maximum rewards card pointer saves me time and money. Use my link card pointers.com/herty gerdy travel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans. I also host monthly travel and points meetups in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are September 28th and October 19th, 2025. You can meet me and Darren is often at the meetups as well.
If you’re local or wanna make the trip, it’s a fun, casual way to talk point [00:26:00] strategies. Meet like-minded travelers and share ideas. RSVP at meetup.com/philly. Miles and points.
darren: And now back to the show Justin.
justin: So what really does matter? We think that Matthew ILAs is missing the point. So focused on these bonus categories, but you can play a much better game, getting much higher return on your spending rather than an extra one or 2% here or there.
In most cases, over focusing on bonus categories misses the larger point. I see some people new to credit cards and. They maybe only have one card, maybe two cards, and they’re so worried about, I want a card that bonuses, gas. Oh, I want a card, the bonus grocery. But this comes at quite a high opportunity cost.
If they’re going to get a card that maybe gives like a hundred or $200 bonus for signing up, oh, I get three X grocery, so I want that grocery credit card. [00:27:00] We don’t think that’s a great idea because these signup bonuses are the bigger game. And it gives you much a bigger return on spend. Like Darren was saying, that you might get something like 15 to 20% return on spend when you get these big bonuses.
So we might have the best of both worlds with the bonus categories and the signup bonus, and travel benefits in some cases. But in order for the bonus categories to really matter, we talk about creative spending. So this might be something like business expenses, some larger expenses that you have, like taxes, auto insurance.
Maybe some family expenses you can get into reselling as there’s a lot of talk about reselling gold, reselling gift cards, online, arbitrage, going into stores, buying things, and selling them on Facebook Marketplace or eBay is one option. And buying prepaid cards and converting those to cash in many ways, or perhaps even using [00:28:00] those to pay for business expenses or bills that if you have cards giving you say.
Five x points at office supply stores and you’re able to buy prepaid cards when they have no activation fee or there’s a certain promo that’s effectively waiving the activation or even making the cards lower than the usual cost, then you can do that. You can scale up your spending buying these prepaid cards, scale up your spending through reselling in many creative ways.
darren: Yeah, all that. And more in silly miles and points in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Come on out.
justin: Greater Philadelphia travel miles and points.
darren: Come on Justin. I’m trying here. I’m trying. Exactly right. I think it’s America Loves Math Women here. Let’s just dive in for a second. So reup signup bonus. So I recently signed up for and was approved for the new Alaska Atmos or at MUS card.
At mus. I think it is the prevailing thinking atmosphere. [00:29:00] And for that I got a hundred, or I will receive, actually I’ve already gotten a hundred thousand points for $6,000 at spend, so that’s ten five, fifteen x ish, maybe a little more than that. Actually I got 105,000 ’cause of the signup and then I get the 6,000.
But something in that 15 ish range. If we think about, if I wanted to then take that card. And earn another a hundred thousand points just to demonstrate the power of the signup bonus, right? The best category in that card is what? Three x dining we talked about, right? Or three x foreign expenditures or foreign transactions.
But to get that same a hundred thousand points, I need to spend what, $33,000 to get there. So. $33,000 is a lot of dining out, even if you’re, even if you’re wailing out in Vegas, right? Even if you’re eating the filet and lobster tail in Vegas, you’re still, it’s gonna take a lot of fancy dinners to get there.
And candidly, neither [00:30:00] Justin nor I would recommend you do that. So now that, so that’s the power of the signup bonus, right? We can accrue a lot of points for a minimal amount of spend, and then for those, we can only get so many signup bonuses in a year. So the other cards then, how do we chip away? How do we continue to accrue points?
And like you said, it’s where are the opportunities, where are the creative spending opportunities? And then which cards match those creative spends for those bonuses. So for example, Costco codes as 3% or codes as grocery stores on the Venmo card. So that’s 3%. And not only are there creative ways to spend, there are creative ways to pay those cards off.
And so you can add another one or 2% to that. So now I’ve turned a credit card into a 5% cash back card at Costco, and maybe Costco sells something that I could resell, something precious, maybe something that you dig up from the earth and put into a bar [00:31:00] or coin gold, right? So if I can buy and sell gold at close to net, I have a 5% opportunity there every month.
$20,000 that Venmo will MO card and Synchrony Bank will loan me for 30 days or so, right? That I can buy and sell gold at 5% with a 5% window. And if I can buy and sell it less than 5%, then I have the potential to make profit. So I don’t know if that’s too, if that’s deeper than what you were thinking, Justin, but that’s just an example of one, the power of the signup bonus.
And then two, how can we utilize some of these? How can we utilize some of these cards to scale up some of our spend in creative ways?
justin: Yes. That’s when the bonus categories really matter more, because if you’re only spending maybe 2000, $3,000 a month, then that extra percent or two really isn’t going to make that much of a difference.
But if you’re able to do thousands, tens of thousands or [00:32:00] more per month, then that extra few percentage from the bonus categories will be more impactful. And I’ve talked about it in previous episodes and YouTube videos about using credit to buy gaming gift cards and using these for blackjack. So if my cost for the online blackjack is around a half percent, which is the house edge I play according to basic strategy.
I make these bets play through the money one time, and I’m losing about a half percent on that play through over time. But what if I’m getting five X at that office supply store? What if I’m getting four or 5% back at grocery stores? This is going to be much more meaningful rather than a low amount of spend because the volume is much larger
darren: and yeah, that’s exactly right.
It really is. Where are the best opportunities to get you where you want to go, and then what are the best tools to apply to those opportunities? It’s not different than any other business or any other. Strategy that you may [00:33:00] employ in your personal life?
justin: Yes, and business owners with larger expenses can definitely sign up for business credit cards that also have bonus categories.
So they’re getting the signup bonus, they’re getting the bonus categories in many cases. So for a business owner to just be using a 2% everywhere card when they’re running through tens of thousands of spend per month, they could be better optimizing. And with those large numbers, it’s more worth it. It’s a great trade off for this.
Mental load that IGL was talking about.
darren: Exactly. Like you said, if people are spending even $5,000 a month, right? 2% card, we’re really only talking a hundred dollars that we’re gonna gain on that. And not that a hundred dollars is nothing, but in the grand scheme of things, would you rather have that $5,000 applied to a signup bonus and get a hundred thousand points, which are worth at least a thousand dollars?
I hope are gonna be worth a one-way ticket from Bangkok to New York in [00:34:00] business class later this year or next year, I should say.
justin: Yes. And I recently got a signup bonus from the Cardless Qatar, or Cutter card, and now have about 80,000 points in my account. So I can definitely use this for one way business class, and it would’ve been a lot of spend to get that, but with the signup bonus of only needing to spend a few thousand dollars, that’s the bigger point.
I’m not sweating about whether I’m getting two or 3% on a transaction. The focus was to put spend towards the signup bonus,
darren: the mental load here. It’s interesting we’ve come full circle. The mental load here really is not deciding which card to pull out when you’re going to the grocery store or the gas station.
Maybe the true mental load is figuring out which signup bonuses do you want to apply for in your part of your arama. Understanding the different credit card report, credit reporting agencies, and that sort of thing. Again, I don’t view it as a mental load. I don’t think you do either. I think it’s a fun game trying to [00:35:00] maximize and optimize and work through this.
justin: Yes, I think it would be a much bigger mental load if you had to pay full price for all these travels that you go on, which would mean a lot less money in investments, a lot less money in savings that you’d be working and you’d probably be paycheck to paycheck or broke if. You had to spend real world money on this, but instead, you’re able to trade some time for points and miles and go on these really great trips with great accommodations, room upgrades in hotels, flight upgrades, flying business class rather than economy.
And yes, the winds continue as now my mental load, if you’ll call it that, is I have two more cruises to book. Before January 31st, and these are complimentary cruises, thanks to credit card spending and MGM rewards. Looking at the itineraries, it’s gonna be making a phone call and thinking about the options, but I hear from people outside of the miles and points hobby, oh, that’s really expensive.
Oh, I’m gonna have to put in all these extra hours at work, or I’m gonna have to [00:36:00] cut back from something else, and they’re spending 2000, $3,000 or maybe more. On a cruise when I’ll be going on a comp cruise. So I think that was a great trade off to sign up for a new MGM credit card, put spending on that, especially in creative ways and get these two cruises at the end of the spending.
Rainbow.
darren: Sounds like you’re trying to avoid the travel hacker’s dilemma there, Justin. Making sure that you’re not gonna miss out on some travel or travel meetup in order to take other travel at free or no cost.
justin: That’s right because the end of 2025 is packed with conferences and events, and then the cruises all save for 2026.
So yes, that’s our new problem. It’s not the mental load of bonus categories. It’s, Hey, which travel do I prioritize? And hey, I have so many options, which of those do I take? So it’s quite a good problem to have.
darren: So what are our three take homes, Justin, for today’s main course of this episode? [00:37:00] Almost said Main Event, but I think that’s trademarked by Frequent Mailer, so we can’t steal that.
justin: For us, the answer to everything is more credit cards and uh, we, we have that, but the takeaways are mainly that credit card category management is very simple with tools and being proactive rather than reactive. Thinking about these things when you’re at home, before you make purchases and being organized maybe with stickers on your cards, spreadsheets, apps.
Card pointers and more. The takeaway too is that signup bonuses are a bigger return on spend than small tweaks for one to 2%. So if you’re a low spender, you’re not very heavy in the game, you don’t have tons of big expenses or creative spending that spending towards signup bonuses are gonna be a better return on your spend.
Spending something like 3000, $4,000 to get around 75,000, a hundred thousand points, and potentially more. That your day-to-day spend really isn’t going to move the needle. It’s not [00:38:00] gonna be that much of a difference whether you get 3% or 4% back when it’s only hundreds or even low thousands amount per month.
You can scale up by having multiple cards and being creative with your spending so you can get more meaningful points and take the trips that you want to take with good accommodations and expenses that you otherwise wouldn’t pay for.
darren: I think again, work backwards from that, especially if you’re just starting, where do I want to go?
What do I wanna do? And then you can Google around pretty easily. Now there’s dozens of blogs that will help you figure out which miles and points you want to wanna get from A to B. There’s free, sorry, there’s free word search engines. Like points? Yeah, seats, arrow that have free versions that you can plug in city pairs, or even generalized explorer functions.
If Google flights has a pretty good Explorer function, so you can add points path, I think still free to your Google flight search, and it’ll give you an idea of what points you can wanna use or [00:39:00] can use how many points you might need. So there’s lots of ways to figure out what’s the best currency for you, and then from there, figure out how the best way is to acquire those.
But it’s probably gonna involve some signup bonuses, that’s for sure.
justin: All right, so let’s wrap up and talk about any recent or upcoming travels for you.
darren: My big thing right now is I’m looking or, and booking flights for next summer. We’re gonna take the family, all five of us to Southeast Asia. So we have booked on the way there, five in J, so five in business, Newark to Singapore should be the world’s longest flight, or 19 hours and 15 minutes.
Pretty close to it. I haven’t booked our flights back yet. So that’s one thing that I think points and miles people get more comfortable with than other folks booking one ways and maybe not booking on the way back. So some of the flights I’m looking at haven’t opened up yet. The award calendars aren’t open.
Probably another couple weeks for those. [00:40:00] And then I’ll probably book something that’s refundable either through airplane or Alaska or both, and then sit and wait to find something that. Is maybe a little better than what I’m meant to get. So for right now, Alaska from Bangkok to Frankfurt to New York is a pretty good price on Concord Metal and J.
But there’s only four seats available, which means one person has to sit in premium economy. It’s never a good conversation to have with the fam. I’ve found other routings, partial and airplane, partially through guitar or cutter. Where it would be a much more complicated routing Bangkok to Singapore, to Dubai, and then somehow from Dubai to Doha and then Doha to to New York.
That’s not ideal, but it would provide five in business class throughout that and it would meet our dates. So that’s the kind of stuff I’m looking at and [00:41:00] checking on. I was just looking at seats arrow earlier tonight and looking at some other options. Try to minimize the number of segments coming back, but I think I’ll probably get something booked and then in a way that allows me to change it up later if I want to.
justin: And you got approved for the Atmos or Atmos credit card. How was that? What’s the process looking so far with that new card
darren: I mentioned, I think earlier I have. My oldest daughter is off to college, so I have college tuition payment to make, and that was thankfully no fee for credit card payments. Oh, so yeah.
Yeah, I got a pretty good little aara in there and I got a number of credit cards to, to sign up for. I guess that’s the other thing, for those folks that know they have a big expense coming up for and for someone that will take credit cards, even at a small service fee, it may be worthwhile to sign up for a couple.
Get that spend out of the way, or at least a big chunk of it out of the way and [00:42:00] meet some of those spends. Construction, taxes, tuition, any of those things where a credit card would be accepted. Maybe a good idea. But yes, the at most card, at most card, I still haven’t figured out which one, but the joint, Alaska, Hawaiian points and Miles card, fairly easy.
I had signed up for the waiting list, which, and was sent a link, signed up through that link and received. A offer of 105,000. So 5,000 for the being on the waiting list and a thousand, a hundred thousand for the bonus. Met that spend fairly quickly and the statement closed and already have the 111,000 miles in my Alaska account, which is great because I’m gonna need those to book those five seats in business class coming back from Southeast Asia next summer.
Other cards? Yeah, I think we’ve talked about some of these, but the other, that’s probably most recent. Other cards, other recent cards have been the Amtrak card, Alaska [00:43:00] Business card. My wife, or my P two in this case is my wife. She also got the Alaska Personal and Business Cards has been a pretty Alaska focused strategy for us right now.
As I’ve shared previously, I’m not able to accrue American Airline miles. Being in a Philly, being in Philly, which is, which is American hub. Alaska’s great for short flights coming out of Philadelphia on American medal. So that works out really well and it has still has great international redemptions.
justin: Yes, and I was looking at the Qatar app and many flights go from Philadelphia to Vegas using those avios, the points that I got from the Qatar credit card, so I can take American flights using the Avios or the Qatar points. To go from Philly to Vegas and they are American flights as well. So that’s a fun workaround there if you can’t earn American miles or points, but you could use some different partners to book the flights.
darren: I think one of [00:44:00] the biggest sort of realizations in the miles and points game is recognizing it’s likely that the best way to book a flight is with miles that not are not of the actual company you’re going to fly with. We’re using Alaska to fly on American. We’re using Air Canada airplane miles to fly on Singapore Air or Oman.
Air
justin: Heard American Express to, I believe it was Eddie Hod, and they had JetBlue partnership. So I flew JetBlue Mint using the American Express Membership Awards transferred to Eddie Hod.
darren: Great example. Yeah. Thanks for saving me there. So. Especially some of these international miles and points where they’re transfer partners of Chase or American Express or City.
The opportunity to transfer those points and then book international or domestic flights with those points really represents an outsized value. And if you wanna learn more about those. Justin, [00:45:00] where should people find us? Where should people come?
justin: Ooh, meetup.com/philly. Miles and points if you’re in the Philadelphia area.
Or you travel to the meetups? It’s a shout out. I made the previous episodes, some people drove out from Washington, DC and Rochester, New York. So thanks. We have many people throughout Jersey who also traveled to the meetups and passed me up. So we had people who flew in or they said, oh look, I was visiting family or had some college related things going on in Philadelphia, so I figured to come to a meetup.
darren: Yeah, I really enjoy those. I think there’s. All experience and sort of knowledge levels there. And what’s interesting is the classics always be probing idea, right? I think when folks are new, that can be an advantage because they’re looking at things that you and I, Justin maybe have already passed over or haven’t thought about.
They’re approaching it with a very different and wider lens than you and I may to be, to start with. And so having people from all different perspectives, I, I find really enjoyable and [00:46:00] helpful. Yeah, I’ve met some great folks there. I know some folks that come there regularly in addition to you, of course.
And I try to make it, I try to make it every month. The travel hacker’s still almost real.
justin: Yes. You could even get chicken noodle soup downstairs. There’s a sushi bar, salad bar. And made to order Chinese food. So once again, you could order from the menu and they make it super fresh and give you a mountain of food.
So lots of positive things in Giant. It’s a giant grocery store in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. So nice to meet with others there. Share ideas, learn, share travel experiences.
darren: Yeah, and for those folks that are accruing giant points, rewards, what do we call those giants? Giant points. Yeah.
justin: Yeah, giant points.
Choice rewards.
darren: Choice rewards. Thank you. Thank you. Not to be confused
justin: with Choice Hotels,
darren: correct? Correct. I was just gonna say that. Yeah. So yeah, for those that don’t use all of those on your gas, you can stop by giant, reward [00:47:00] those for grocery points and then use those at the Chinese restaurant or sushi or whatever you would like there.
They’re very flexible, very valuable points.
justin: All right, very good. Thanks for joining me today.
darren: Always a pleasure, Justin. Thanks for having me.
justin: Thanks everyone for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between podcast episodes, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on Facebook and x follow Justin Vacula on Instagram.
Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content including travel videos, podcast clips, community and posts. Search Hurdy Gurdy travel on subscribe star.com or become a channel member on YouTube to support my efforts starting at the $5 a month tip jar level. Receive special perks at higher subscriber levels, including private one-on-one conversations about card strategy, creative credit card spending, and asking podcast guests your questions.Find links and [00:48:00] more at HurdyGurdyTravel.com. The website, UDIO udio.com created the podcast intro and outro music. It’s not me singing. AI features of the website Descript, D-E-S-C-R-I-P-T, helped me edit and improve audio quality. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.