The New York Times says people like us open lots of credit cards, pocket big bonuses, and somehow still have high credit scores.
They call it ‘taking advantage of loopholes’ and ‘exploiting,’ but I call it using credit intelligently and responsibly within the system the banks established. Play your cards right, and you win the miles and points game.
My co-host Darren and I respond to the article and the comments.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro and goals for the episode
00:32 Meet the hosts and overview
01:05 Responding to the New York Times article
03:04 What churning is and isn’t
06:20 Stacking rewards and benefits the right way
15:01 Responsible use and risk management
23:23 Announcements and upcoming events
27:04 Listener feedback highlights
27:24 Unilateral contracts explained simply
27:57 Credit score myths debunked
29:13 Maximizing rewards without lifestyle creep
33:10 Common critiques and misconceptions
35:35 Why the hobby still delivers value
45:07 Final thoughts and next steps
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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 Vacula: 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 next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. The New York Times says people like us open lots of credit cards, pocket big bonuses, and somehow still have high credit scores.
They call it taking advantage of loopholes and exploiting, but I call it using credit intelligently and [00:01:00] responsibly within the system that banks established. Play your cards right and you win the miles and Points game. My co-host Darren Returns and we’ll respond to the article and the comments below it.
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 October 19th and December 21st, 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 and posts. Find more information including select episode transcripts at HurdyGurdyTravel.com. On with today’s episode recorded, October 13th, 2025. Welcome back to the show, Darren.
Thanks [00:02:00] Justin. Exciting news. It seems we’ve gone mainstream here. All of a sudden we’ve gone mainstream and I think the article mostly fair, but a little bit of criticisms, an article from David Wignall, if I’m pronouncing that correctly in the New York Times, the title is they each own 50 credit cards. Should you, what do you think about that title?
I
Darren: think it’s a weird title. Justin. I don’t know that I would describe it as owning any credit cards. I don’t know. I don’t know how you feel about that, but
Justin Vacula: have dramatic
Darren: have, yeah. 50 credit cards probably would be how I would phrase that. But I’m not a journalist. I would suspect they probably had a number of folks weigh in on that title.
And we don’t want to get bogged down in the,
Justin Vacula: maybe not too bad about the word own, but the byline here. A growing number of Americans are making thousands by. Exploiting credit card reward offer, exploiting seems
Darren: pejorative, doesn’t it? Yeah.
Justin Vacula: Yeah.
Darren: I don’t know. Exploiting is the right term. I think maybe leveraging, signing up for [00:03:00] earning or I like earning quite a bit.
Yeah, that’s, that seems more appropriate. I think if they’re talking about churning specifically, and I know we’ll get into the article here, that certainly signing up for those credit cards and meeting the minimum spending, which I think is the traditional. Definition of churning multiple credit cards, multiple signup bonuses over a period of time that, yeah, I don’t know if that’s exploiting anything.
I think that’s a signing up for a contract, essentially, right? That the bank has put out their right, their offer, their permission their terms. We’re not saying, oh, if only you could give us this. We’re not negotiating with anyone at Chase or at American Express saying, oh, if only you could do a little bit better, perhaps we’d be interested.
These are by and large publicly available offers that were in some instances targeted offers that we sign up for based on what the bank thinks will be a profitable situation or deal. Their rules,
Justin Vacula: their system. Yeah. And churning. Yes. It says the other title, [00:04:00] how churners earn money. So is it really churning?
I guess to some extent some people would define that as opening and closing the card multiple times, but for the most part, I’m trying to keep cards. For the long run. I’m not signing up for the same card again. Really don’t advocate doing that. Some people have said, oh, I’ll just stay under 5 24 with Chase.
For listeners that might not know, chase has a non-written rule, they usually enforce it. If you’ve been approved for five or more cards in the last 24 months, you can’t get Chase cards anymore. So some people will have a Chase card for a year, cancel it, and then later get the same card. But usually I’m not doing that.
So churns, eh. I think maybe to some extent some issues with the title here. I think. I think
Darren: right, the traditional definition of churning and what’s actually the article discusses. It probably shows a little bit of superficial understanding of the hobby that we participate in, the
Justin Vacula: How consumers, how miles and points [00:05:00] enthusiasts, how there, there could be a lot of other words there.
Darren: Yeah. And certainly there are people that do it for travel and then Justin and others, there’s. Like yourself. There’s people that do it as to make extra money to make the primary source of income. There’s lots of different ways to go about this.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, I
Darren: guess I do take issue with the idea that there’s exploitation coming here at all, and that’s probably my biggest issue.
Outside of the dramatical, grammatical, nitpick people I might offer maybe both. Both? Why not both?
Justin Vacula: Yes. Why not both? And it also says making thousands by exploiting credit card reward offers. Thousands. In what timeframe? I think thousands is a pretty low bar. Especially they’re talking about 50 credit cards in the title, so definitely more than thousands I would hope if you,
Darren: Like I would hope if you have 50 credit cards.
But again, if they’re confining, their definition to churning. If you look at the credit cards, if you have 50 credit cards, what are the signup bonuses associated with that? What value can you [00:06:00] redeem those points for? They throw out big numbers, right? Because it’s a shock factor that people that normally would have, certainly less than 10, maybe less than five.
I would be interested to know what the average American, how many credit cards the average American owns. Justin, how many do they own?
Justin Vacula: Just the signup bonuses and later in the article. They talk about people engaging in what we’ve called creative spending techniques, and we’re definitely earning more than thousands doing that.
The signup bonuses maybe will get around 800 to a thousand dollars in value, but if 50 cards, then that could be 50,000, which is more than thousands. And then if you’re doing a lot of spend on the cards, you’re certainly earning more than that. And business owners in particular that might put business spending on credit cards and get rewards, they may be earning three to 5% on spend, maybe more.
And then the signup bonuses, the travel benefits, the luxury redemptions, the international flights. There’s certainly a big earn out of this, and some [00:07:00] critics of the hobby, maybe the article writer, maybe not. Certainly people in the comments will get into later. The earning is quite great, especially if you’re booking these more luxury redemptions.
Yeah, I agree. And the article here, forget Dog Walking or Lawn Mowing, Matthew Palm’s Side Hustle is signing up for credit cards. So yes, it could be a side hustle and if you’re making thousands or getting good value from it, then it seems to be a worthwhile side hustle. It’s certainly not full time for most people signing up for credit cards.
I think it’s a very small percentage of people who are doing this. Full-time and the people who are doing it full-time. I think in that subset, a lot of them are combining it with business activities like reselling.
Darren: Yeah. It to your point, Justin, in order to increase your opportunity or increase the value of these credit cards, you have to garner more points oftentimes to offset the annual fee that might be associated with some of these premium cards that offer these signup, high signup bonuses.[00:08:00]
And one way you can do that right is to. Spend a lot of money on these if you have a business. That would make sense. If you don’t have a business and don’t have other ways to naturally, organically, we call it organic spend, right? Then we start looking at creative ways because in that instance, the credit card company is going to garner their interchange fees or using the credit card while we are gonna gain some sort of points or maybe bonus points by using it in that way, and the bank still gets there.
Annual fee every year. That’s part of that deal we talked about up front, and we’re just trying to amortize or dilute out that annual fee over as many points as we can accrue during the year that we have that card. Now, whether that’s one card or five cards or 50 cards, really it depends on how much you wanna play the game, right?
Like how much time do you have for the hobby? I saw a number of comments, and I know we’re not talking about comments yet, but I know certainly people that. Or just getting into the [00:09:00] game, or maybe are really busy or don’t, for whatever reason, wanna dive all the way down the rabbit hole like you and I have Justin, but there’s still people out there that’ll get two or three, or even five cards, right?
They’ll have five credit cards, and they’ll try to maximize those, optimize the spend on those, and that’ll be enough for a family vacation or two family vacations every year. Or maybe it’ll be a little less money spent when they’re taking their kids to travel sports, right? So there’s all sorts of ways that folks can utilize this hobby.
It’s not, it doesn’t have to be 50 cards. It doesn’t have to be hundreds of thousands of dollars, although it certainly could be.
Justin Vacula: And in many cases, the points that you’re making, it’s very low effort to make these points. You’re just signing up for new cards, shifting your spend, utilizing bonus categories.
So this isn’t exploiting, it’s just using the system. And if you’re already going to be traveling anyway, like you, for example, you have daughters who are in gymnastics and. Other sports, you go to different events. So if you can use miles and [00:10:00] points to lower those costs, then you’re clearly winning. So this business of trying to figure out this exact dollar value per month or per year, it’s really, I think, missing the point.
Pun intended.
Darren: You did. No pun intended on that one. Justin
Justin Vacula: Pun. Intended. Intended.
Darren: Oh, okay. Okay, good. Again, I don’t know what the author’s point here is. I think there’s a little bit of shock value right in the number of cards and the dollars they’re talking about. I think what they lay out otherwise is more or less what we do.
We do look for opportunities where there’s arbitrage, right? That the point value that I receive is greater than whatever effort, either in time or whatever cost in fees and whatnot, that we’re gonna pay to the card or we’re gonna pay in order to increase our spend on the card. When we find those opportunities.
Yeah, I think it can be, to your point, low effort. You can just have a couple cards and shift your regular spend. Maybe if you’re a business owner, that’s a very lucrative way to do it. [00:11:00] If you’re personal and don’t have a business and your spend is low, then in order to increase that spend, you’re probably gonna have to put a little more effort into it.
And if you wanna accrue lots of miles, you’re gonna have to look for creative ways to do that.
Justin Vacula: Yes. And we’re having fun doing it for sure. The trips are very rewarding, and the benefits are pretty fun. It’s cool to have those seat upgrades, those hotel room upgrades and take trips that in some cases too, we wouldn’t have paid for.
A lot of cruises that I’ve gone on. Going to places like Poland, Amsterdam, and all these other destinations has been really cool. Returning to the article, it says each signup bonus is small, so to make a decent income, Mr. Palm keeps applying. I, is it really to make a decent income? I’m not sure that’s accurate because we’re using points for travel and this isn’t quite income.
So that’s another gripe I have with the article. It goes on, it says, people regulate open credit cards to harvest lucrative promotional rewards. Yes, [00:12:00] the logic is simple. Hundreds of credit cards come with signup bonuses, so why not apply for as many cards as possible? Yes. And of course we’re gonna play within the rules.
And I had a little issue recently where. I got some adverse action because I opened too many accounts. So I like to spread out my accounts. I like getting business credit cards that keep personal credit cleaner. So it’s gonna be strategic and we’re gonna do this over time. And I think it is a simple proposition that if you could sign up for a new card, shift your spend, hit some welcome bonuses, and get some benefits, then I’m all in.
Darren: Yeah, I think we’re both all in. And that’s why we do the show. We’re here. That’s why we’re here. Come on in. The water is
Justin Vacula: great. Yes, and the article continues here. Some are young adults, others are stay at home parents, others are wealthy professionals. But if you have traits in common, it’s a hobby for people that enjoy reading the fine print, squeezing the last dollar out of every deal, even if it requires several hours of spreadsheet management each week.
I’m not sure that [00:13:00] everyone is spending several hours in spreadsheets, especially playing the game at a smaller level. But yes, there is a tremendous benefit for this, especially. Those that aren’t ultra wealthy there, there is this thing where, oh, if you’re making an hourly of $300 doing something, then maybe this won’t be for you.
But in spare time, it still can be pretty fun anyway. But for most people, and we’ll get into this a little bit later, especially those that aren’t ultra wealthy, I think this has a tremendous benefit when you use credit responsibly and in intelligence. I do
Darren: not appear on the Forbes 500 list of most wealthy people.
I don’t know if that’s a shock to anyone, but like you said, Justin, it, and we’ve talked about this in the past, the thing points and miles allow us to do is travel more often for my family, travel more often, travel further away, right? Take the once in a lifetime trip every year, do it in a class of service.
That would be usually more than we could afford to do and still do the other things that we’re committed to doing, right? So save retirement. Not go into [00:14:00] debt, help finance our college education for the kids, right? So that sort of thing, while also still enjoying and we like to think educating our kids about other things in the world, right?
But there’s also some very candidly, there’s some selfishness there, right? We enjoy doing that. And I do think they talk about a hobby here. Everyone needs a hobby and so for me, this has been one that is fun, is rewarding, and. Unlike a lot of other hobbies, by and large, provides more benefits than it does costs.
Justin Vacula: Yes, we’re making and saving money through this and having fun. So that’s a good benefit. The article continues. The amount you can eke out is ridiculous. She said. Speaking of one person interviewed here, I still have pinched myself moments all the time. In addition to the cash five figures each year, she said her churning supports annual vacations to Japan, Florida, and Hawaii.
Yes, that’s right. So if you can make some money from this in addition to what you’re otherwise doing and taking the trips, saving money, that’s really good. And here comes the next [00:15:00] section of the article. One wrong step can wreck your credit. This isn’t for everyone. The hobby requires cash upfront. Since unlocking a signup bonus usually requires customers to reach a spending threshold.
One wrong step can wreck your credit score and lead to hefty interest charge. Okay. Indeed, yes. You have to be responsible with credit. Saying it requires cash upfront. I’m not sure that’s really accurate, especially if it’s spending that you’re doing anyway. It’s not requiring cash upfront or additional cash upfront.
The only upfront might be an annual fee on a card, but even you have the time to pay that, it’s not immediately due when you sign up for the card. So it’s not like we’re spending extra money. That’s one mischaracterization. Of miles and points. Oh, you have to spend all this extra money to get the signup bonus.
But what if it’s spending that you’re doing anyway, then it’s not requiring extra cash upfront.
Darren: Yeah. That’s a hundred percent right. We don’t advocate and certainly we don’t suggest, or yeah, don’t [00:16:00] advocate that people change the way they spend money, at least that organically. Don’t justify the new clothes or the down payment on the new car or.
Whatever else, whatever splurge type thing that you are gonna, that you weren’t planning to do. But now I have this credit card and I have to meet this minimum spending requirement. That’s not the way to play the game. If you have a big spending expenditure coming up, you suddenly have to pay. Suddenly you’re paying for college, for example, I’ll say personally, you can pay that off with a credit card with for no fee, and you already have some money saved to pay that off.
Now I am, again, I’m leveraging. What the banks are willing to provide to use their card to make those payments into some Alaska air miles that I can book a return trip for my family from Asia next summer. So that’s a great deal. And some Amtrak points to maybe go up to the airport. All sorts of different things that again, it’s knowing how much you are going to spend anyway, not spending [00:17:00] more to meet a specific goal.
Justin Vacula: I’m still embracing the frugal life. I have my Nintendo Switch Mini, I believe it is the. Cheaper, older version, and just because I have plastic and I see the new Nintendo switch too for I believe $600, I’m not spending that extra money and putting money in upfront to reach signup bonuses. I’ll probably ride this one out for quite a while, and almost every time I go out to eat, I’m getting water.
I refuse to spend additional money on drinks. I think it’s a total ripoff. Restaurants charging $7 for ginger ale or Diet Coke. And the specialty alcohol, even worse, some people are paying like 15, $20 or more. I think it’s a massive ripoff. So I’m still embracing the frugal life and winning in the game.
Yeah, I don’t understand the cash upfront. And then sometimes the criticism and we’ll get into the comments of spending more money than we usually do, so we’re not doing that. Yes, one step can wreck your credit score. You have to be responsible with this. So credit can be good or [00:18:00] bad depending on how you use it, like most things.
The article continues. If you’re at all remotely uncertain about your finances and juggling bills, stay away. Okay? Indeed, you have to be responsible. The article writer says that we have surprisingly high credit scores. I’m not sure if that’s really surprising. Now, we might take a small dip when we open a new account, or if a statement balance closes with high amounts.
But we’re having more available credit. We’re paying it off in full, ideally before statement closes. So our scores are gonna be high. I’m still in the high seven hundreds even after opening many cards. So is it surprising that we have high scores? Some critics are also saying that we have to go in debt and you have to pay interest in order to have high scores, but that’s not right.
There’s a lot of misinformation out there. So surprising. Probably not when we’re using credit responsibly and paying everything off.
Darren: Yeah, I think it probably shows at least a, either a lack of [00:19:00] understanding or superficial understanding of how credit scores work. Again, this idea that owning multiple credit cards can adversely impact your credit score a bit, but not significantly.
There’s plenty of folks in this game that have seven 50 and up credit scores including. My family, myself, my family. Despite, or indeed perhaps in part because that we’re continuing to do this right, so that we have, like you said, good credit. If you don’t have good credit, then you can’t, you won’t get approved for the next signup bonus.
Your churning game is over. You have to have game over. Yeah, you have to have that. You have to have that good credit score to start with. And because we have multiple credit cards with multiple lines of credit, that increases our total amount of credit and decreases our utilization. There are some benefits as well to multiple lines of credit.
Justin Vacula: We’ll continue with the article. This section is taking advantage of loopholes and I mentioned that. I don’t think that’s accurate, calling it a loophole. It says here, a 2023 [00:20:00] study published by the Federal Reserve Board estimates that sophisticated credit card users, I like that sophisticated. I usually say intelligent and responsible, but that’s good.
They receive 15 billion annually at the expense of people who carry balances and don’t take advantage of rewards. So now I don’t think it’s wholly at the expense of people who carry balances, because previously in the article it says interchange fees, which you mentioned earlier that the merchants are paying usually around 3% to accept credit cards.
So that’s only part of the puzzle.
Darren: Yeah. And the other part of the puzzle is a dramatically increasing annual fees to apply for or as part of the contract to get approved for these credit cards. American Express, I think somewhat painlessly within the, or infamously within the Points of Miles community here, just increased their annual fees on their Platinum cards to $895 per year, almost a thousand dollars.
And Chase is not far behind. Talk about cash [00:21:00] upfront. That, yeah, that’s the cash upfront that you need in order to apply for these cards is a thousand dollars. And then you have to work your way back to make sure you’re getting that value out of it. You have to have a plan. And that’s why we don’t recommend people signing up for the highest value card the first day.
That’s not the, that’s probably not the move. What’s your goal of finding a card that helps meet that goal? And then we can go through how do we do that? And it’s probably not a starting with a $900 fee, that’s for sure.
Justin Vacula: Yes. And the article seems to contradict itself because it goes on here and says that cards will offer a 0% interest rate for the first 12 months as a signup bonus.
So that’s not cash upfront. And then it’s saying that a person had $76,000 credit limit interest free before paying off the balance before it was due. So that’s definitely not cash upfront. And the article continues with the credit card owner saying, in today’s interest rate environment, that’s the cheapest form of business credit you can get.
So that’s correct. If you’re gonna pay it [00:22:00] back, you’re responsible. You’re intelligent, you’re sophisticated. I like that Again. Then yes. Why not take advantage of that? The banks are giving out these offers. Some people are not going to be responsible, but if we can be responsible, play the game and win.
It’s not a loophole, it’s not exploiting, it’s is it really even taking advantage? It’s just being smart, noticing and playing within the rules,
Darren: no more than any other arbitrage opportunity is. I think there are a variety of ways that people can invest, find ways to make money. Reselling, is arbitrage to some extent.
You’re buying at one price and selling at another retail is the same. So is that taking advantage? It just sounds like you’re understanding what the market opportunities are and investing your money it your time where you think you’ll find a good return. And I think it’s the same thing here, just applied to a slightly different market.
And with, it’s not, I guess maybe it’s not [00:23:00] intended to be a business, the banks don’t intend it for us to be, I don’t know. Sometimes I business credit cards. I’m just wondering all those, so business decisions. Business decisions, that’s for sure. That’s for sure. Sometimes I feel like maybe Amex does the, so they want it to be our own personal hobby, but yes.
Bring on
Justin Vacula: more Amex. I’ll take more cards.
Darren: Absolutely. Agreed.
Justin Vacula: All right. We’ll take a break for some announcements and then respond to the critics in the comments. If you’re enjoying today’s episode, don’t forget Zork Fest. 2025 is coming up in Las Vegas, December 5th through the seventh at M Resort Casino Hotel, Zork Fest combines miles points and gambling all in one weekend.
I’ll be there speaking and connecting with podcast listeners. Buy your ticket@zorkbest.travel zork.com. I’ll also be speaking at Chicago Seminars Hyatt Regency O’Hare, November 7th through the ninth, 2025. Use the promo code Herty Gurdy when buying a [00:24:00] ticket to support me. Also, join me October 24th through the 25th 2025 for Chicago Seminars at Holiday Inn Chicago Oakbrook.
Use Darren’s favorite promo code. I must have a promo code 20 for $20 off tickets. The best of the promo codes, people pay attention. This is the
Darren: promo code you should be using.
Justin Vacula: Next time. It would be Darren’s favorite promo code 20. If you could make
Darren: that
Justin Vacula: happen, that would be amazing. All right, next year, Stefan.
This episode is also supported by card pointers. If you have multiple credit cards or 50 credit cards like me, card pointers helps you automatically activate bank offers and knows which card to use for maximum rewards. Card pointers 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. Next meetups are October 19th and December 21st, 2025. Darren, will you be in attendance? [00:25:00]
Darren: Yeah,
Justin Vacula: that’s
Darren: the plan unless something crazy happens. But yeah, I have a couple other things going on that weekend, but nothing going on Sunday.
So look forward. Excellent forward to seeing you and whoever else makes the trip.
Justin Vacula: Nice. If you’re local or wanna make the trip, it’s a fun, casual way to talk point strategies. Meet like-minded travelers and share ideas. RSVP meetup.com/philly miles and points. Finally, I’ll be speaking with Frequent Traveler University in Irving, Texas, just outside Dallas for the Ft U Dallas event.
May 1st through the third 2026, way ahead of schedule at the Nylo Las Colinas Hotel by Hilton. Join me and community members for social events and educational sessions. Ticket sales are live, $200 for FTU Frequent Traveler University members and $249 for non-members. With the Early Bird Sale, grab an annual membership for online courses, seminars, member perks, event discounts, and even more.
The signup link and [00:26:00] membership for FTU Dallas is in the show notes. Sign up using my link to support the show. All right, back here with Darren. We’re talking about the recent New York Times article, they each own 50 credit cards. Should you, now we’ve addressed the main article. Wait,
Darren: I didn’t realize it was a question.
Justin. Yes. The answer is yes. That’s, I should have. I varied the lead. That should have been my response to the title. Should you? Yes,
Justin Vacula: if you’re responsible. If you’re sophisticated. If you’re sophisticated, if
Darren: you’re if, yeah. Get in the game if you’re interested in playing the game. Yes. Not the answer to everything.
More credit cards. Yeah. Maybe not day one. We don’t recommend applying credit cards on day one, but yeah, come out to the meetup, talk to Justin and let’s get you on the path. Justin, maybe we should post something in the comments about this and say
Justin Vacula: It’s definitely the show notes.
Darren: Yes. Yeah, show notes. I was gonna say the comments of the article, although maybe [00:27:00] we can’t do that now.
Maybe the comments are closed on that situation. Yeah,
Justin Vacula: it is closed, too late. Let’s address these comments, but first, if you are a subscribe star member, you have the opportunity to add your feedback or ask guests your questions. And this one’s a feedback listener, Eric and subscriber. Eric says, no additional questions.
I’ll never understand the people in these comments. We don’t make the rules, we play by them. The lack of understanding when it comes to unilateral contracts is baffling. Sure. They set the terms and conditions. If we accept their offer and it’s not profitable for the issuer that’s on them. Further. With all due respect to W2 employees, any of these comments regarding getting a job as a better use of one’s time is myopic regarding one’s ability to seek value and generate value on their own.
Darren: Amen. Eric. Amen.
Justin Vacula: Drop the mic, although preach brother on a mic stand so you won’t hear bad audio. Let’s hope. All right, thanks Eric. That’s an intro to the comments here. One of the commenters, TD [00:28:00] says, yes, you get the bonus for opening the credit card, but how much more do in you pay on your borrowing and insurance as a consequence of your decreased credit score?
So that’s. Obviously a false zero. It’s zero Do $0. Yeah, I can answer that. $0 more. We’re actually saving money on borrowing and insurance and personally, I’m not even borrowing, I’m not taking out personal loans, are you? I’m not mean. I guess mortgage, you’re definitely saving, right?
Darren: Yeah. There’s the discussion about the mortgage, right?
There’s a common idea that you would pause new applications for six months prior to a mortgage. I don’t know if that’s actually, I don’t know if you actually need to do that. I was fairly early on in my. Ex exploration of the hobby when we refinanced our mortgage. But I do remember several pages worth of credit card, a statement that they lifetime achievement award.
So I can only imagine what that would be. Now I got the chat
Justin Vacula: logs
Darren: here, Darren. It looks, yeah, we’re just, they probably more Take a seat. Take a sip. Yeah, we’re gonna, [00:29:00] we’re gonna have to talk. We’re gonna have to talk. I’m not mad. I’m mostly impressed. I just need to, so yes,
Justin Vacula: you’re sophisticated. Yeah, sophisticated.
Sophisticated, so we’re not paying more money. That’s debunked td right there. Another commenter. Mike says, who has time to figure all this out? It’s probably easier to get a minimum wage job. These are extreme coupon clicker clippers. Darren, should we just stop all this, cancel all our cards and work at McDonald’s?
Darren: That’s a hard pass for me. Again, I think. The thing that Mike is maybe missing out here is it depends on how you redeem these points, right? The, a lot of the value is how you redeem them. I mentioned Alaska miles earlier. My, my family and I are flying in business class from Bangkok through Frankfurt to Toronto for 85,000 miles.
So that’s less than one signup bonus. And that’s a, I don’t know, $6,000 ticket, $10,000 ticket. I actually have [00:30:00] no idea because I would never pay that much money.
Justin Vacula: You’re definitely not gonna get that working a minimum wage job or else it would take you a lot of hours to do that, and you probably wouldn’t if you were working a minimum wage job.
And of course, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. You can have a job in the day and then do this at night or on the weekends, which actually you do. And you’re not working a minimum wage job. You’re a salaried individual. Making decent money, but you still find this to be valuable. A hundred percent.
Yep.
Darren: And I think that’s the other thing that I got carried away with my Alaska miles there, but the flexibility, right? I don’t have to go work another job after I work my first job, right? I can do it as it fits into my life on in evenings, on weekends, whatever works for me. That’s what I can do. Again, it’s the flexibility that is really the much more like a hobby than a job.
You find time for it. When you want to find time for it. I enjoy it. I know you enjoy it and there’s a whole host of other people out there that enjoy it.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. And who has the time to figure it all out? It’s interesting to me. I’m [00:31:00] not a person who follows sports, but I know a lot of people put a lot of time in analyzing games, watching games, looking at stats and something, and they find that to be valuable.
And we find this to be valuable and we’re making and saving money as a result of it. And you don’t have to do it all yourself because of course there are many websites that we follow and communities that we’re part of where people are figuring this out together. So I, that’s a weird thing. And Extreme Couponers is funny or Extreme Coupon Clippers, they said, because in the past I’ve gone back and forth with these Couponers because I would talk to them and say, Hey, I think you can do more with miles and points, or if you’re still going to do this couponing.
Then why not add credit cards and get four X at grocery five exit grocery and stack? And they were very negative. And I wasn’t impressed by the coupon clippers because a lot of what they were doing is, oh look, if you spend $10 on Jello, then you’re gonna get maybe $5 back in an app and then get some rewards.
And I wasn’t [00:32:00] really interested in spending that money on Jello to begin with. So it didn’t really seem that got us. Yeah, very far. That was at least my experience. Maybe people are doing a much better job, but I was thoroughly unimpressed by coupon clippers when I was in some groups in the past.
Darren: Yeah.
Again, I think it’s, are you able to get the thing that you want, or the thing that you were gonna get in coupon clipping, are you, were you already gonna buy the peanut butter? In which case, great, you’re gonna save some money, or you already gonna pay an insurance bill, and so now we’re just changing from how you pay that insurance bill from.
A check or a debit card or an a CH to a credit card that then you’re gonna pay off with an a CH some number of days later. Nothing has changed in how you’re gonna spend the money. It’s just the way that you do it. That accrues more value.
Justin Vacula: Yes. And I’m going to be going to Brisbane or Brisbane Australia next year.
And certainly clipping coupons is not going to get me to Australia. So we’re getting far value. Not any, not anymore. [00:33:00] Not since the what was the story of the guy, the pudding man? Booting man can, ah, I say in the outro I don’t sing, but in this case I did just this one time. Just this one time. All right, moving on to another comment, commenter’s soul, not to be confused with the WWE wrestler.
So Ruca would not say anything like this. But soul says their success and they put scare quotes around, the success is nothing more than accumulating for themselves at the expense of others. Parentheses, not the companies. These things are inevitably a zero sum game where the losers who pay for this are other little people.
This was mentioned more than once in the article on balance. It’s difficult to see what value this contributes to the world, but this is what people aspire to and the way that this is spreading these days. It’s wrong form of, it’s really a reflection of the twin tenets of self-centered consumerism and the lowest common denominator effect of social media, which itself just represents values that are just [00:34:00] unquestionably accepted today.
That was a very dramatic reading, Justin. Excellent. Oh, thank you. Thank
Darren: you.
Justin Vacula: Yeah.
Darren: Yeah. Do you think Sol just copies and pastes this comment in every article that he or she disagrees with? I feel like it’s not specific. It really doesn’t. It’s like you’re selfish. You’re taken from the little man. And when they, so that’s the second question I have.
When they talk about the little guy here, do they think, are they talking about little in stature, little in knowledge, little in wealth, little in. What’s the little, what’s the little here? I think a soul needs to be more specific. Yeah. Is it
Justin Vacula: really selfish? I’ve been very sharing of travel with others and help them save money on travel.
Yeah. I’d go meet people, they’d be pretty happy. We found community. We’re having a fun time with this. We’re educating others. Yeah, it, they’re just anti credited card here. Anti-social media. They brought social media into it. It’s like their issue that they don’t like and they’re just, that’s what I’m saying.
Yeah. Bringing up.
Darren: They’re just talking about a bunch of stuff that doesn’t [00:35:00] really have anything to do with this. The self-centered consumers, the twin tenants. Yeah. And consumerism. I hear you. And consumer. There are a number of countries that rely almost exclusively on tourism to, as part of their service industry.
So I think Iceland, for example, their number one industry is around tourism. And is that bad? Yeah. You should just
Justin Vacula: feel bad. You should feel bad.
Darren: Should we go back to fermented sharks and like what’s the gardening?
Justin Vacula: Yeah. Yeah. Live in the mountains. All right. We’ll move on to Zach here. This article is remarkably behind the Times churning probably peaked around 10 years ago since the release of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
Darren: Zach’s not entirely wrong about churning specifically if we narrowly defined it about signing up, as you said earlier, signing up for the same card over and over again. There are a few cards that famously you could do that. Alaska actually was [00:36:00] one of them, so he’s not wrong about churning specifically, but I think in this instance, the author of this article is using, probably churning in a more broad term or to encompass more of what we do as part of the hobby.
Yeah. Okay. Sure. I’ll give Zack that one.
Justin Vacula: I’ve been in this for about eight years, 2018, quick math there, and I’ve had tremendous success. So I wouldn’t say it’s peaked. I think that the hobby has still a lot of value and there have been some amazing opportunities in the past few years. So I don’t know about peaked, but that’s, I think, missing the larger point of there being great value.
We’ll move on to the next Chris, for another dramatic reading. What a weird materialistic world we have created. Dashing from one deal, scare quotes to another like pigs tooth trough. To get caught up in this melange of behaviors says a lot about how shallow we have become. [00:37:00] Suggestion, keep things simple and stop, quote unquote, knee needing all the things you buy.
Most of them you don’t need. Spend more time with friends and acquaintances than with stuff. It’s more fun and you could expand your universe immensely for
Darren: free. Why not spend more time with friends and families riding on an airplane up front than in the back or
Justin Vacula: in a, oh, no, Darren, your Melan behavior.
Five stars. A five star hotel instead of a hostel like shallow Darren. You’re so shallow. It’s in shallow, keep things simple. Darren. Just sit at home. And chopped vegetables.
Darren: Oh, sorry. I thought you were gonna say, sit at home, apply for credit cards and play blackjack, which is what I do. I thought that’s where going clean.
Justin Vacula: Clean the shower for mold. You gotta watch out for that. Yeah. Yeah. Cleaning supplies. Oh, thanks. You gotta spend that time in the kitchen, Darren, and do everything by hand and you don’t need anything. So look it, I expand your universe.
Darren: For the first few years of my professional career, I worked closely with the Amish good people [00:38:00] by and large, right?
Like everybody else. But there’s some folks in there not so good, but. Like everybody else, right? They work hard, but it’s not something I necessarily aspire to. I’m gonna, I’m gonna let them continue to, I’m gonna, I’m gonna let them continue to reject technology, and I’m gonna find ways to find success here using the tools at hand.
Justin Vacula: All right? I guess Chris could pay full price for travel or just sit at home. That’s an option. We don’t think it’s a good one. All right, comments are, Vic here says The credit card companies exist to entrap you. We keep thing as simple as possible with them. We have two credit cards. One gets used and paid off immediately, and the other is never used.
Most things are paid with a debit card. That’s a lot of peace of mind in living within your means. So that doesn’t make much sense. Why not just put everything on the credit card and pay it off immediately if that’s the thing, or at least pay it once a week, once every other. And if the other card is never used, it’s probably just gonna get canceled by the [00:39:00] issuer.
And why use a debit card to pay for things? If you could just use credit, get some rewards, and then just pay it off.
Darren: I had exactly the same thoughts to everything you said, and I will add and I will add. All right, good. Heaven forbid you ever are scammed. You go to a gas station late at night, you’re traveling, you put your debit card in to pay for gas.
You, or you’re at a, you’re somewhere where you’re paying for something with a debit card and somebody that doesn’t have the same morals. Vic, as you do. Steals that debit card and now can use it to spend a lot of your money. And it takes time for that to be investigated and for you to get that credit back.
And in the short term, you can really struggle with cashflow versus, I don’t know, Justin having or owning, excuse me, a number of credit cards. I’ve had a few that end up with fraud alerts on them, and the credit card companies are thus far, 100% willing. [00:40:00] Oftentimes find the fraudulent charge even before I do, and we will block the card, refund the charges, and don’t hold you liable, and it does not affect your ability to pay your bills, pay your mortgage, pay for your kids’ college, pay for your gas money, any of those things, right?
It would if someone were able to suddenly empty your bank account through your debit card. So
Justin Vacula: right there wouldn’t be much peace of mind there. No. Oh, I see what you meant there, Justin. I see what you did there. And we’re still living within our means. So they’re just assuming that we’re spending more money because we have plastic or metal.
We’re not. So we’ll go on to another commenter. MLS seems akin to compulsive gambling, although the odds of winning are greater. Still, this is the pursuit of free money taking without giving. It’s a morally impoverished approach to life. Sure, [00:41:00] we all need money to live, but an activity such as this one contributes nothing to life, nothing to society, nothing to personal growth.
It is not the pursuit of knowledge or love or the improvement of the lives of others. Ours devoted the what in the end is a meaningless endeavor. Score keeping towards in competition with an anonymous authority, banks and corporations. No different from competing against the anonymous authority of a casino or the stock market for that matter.
Emptiness. Are you feeling emptiness, Darren, when you’re with your family traveling? I’m not. I don’t feel much emptiness there. Are you feeling morally impoverished? No. I’m not, is it the, it’s not the pursuit of love after all. It’s all just empty. I, yeah. Emptiness, stare at emptiness anonymous authorities.
Darren: Sometimes [00:42:00] emptiness is nice, right? When you’ve managed to find yourself a quaint little Airbnb on a away from everybody else, and you. Sitting on the porch and looking up the sky and pondering your place in the world. But that, I’m not sure that’s the emptiness that MLS is talking about. Stuff. No, more like
Justin Vacula: solitude or contentment.
Yeah. Negative. Yeah. All right. How about B bar? B bar says a debit card linked to a spending account works fine for me. One statement a month, which is already paid so easy. I don’t wanna play the games. Credit cards have invented to keep customers. They give rewards, scare quotes, so they can glean more and higher swipe fees from merchants who in turn raise their prices to cover the fees.
So you are essentially paying for your own rewards without realizing it. There is no such thing as a free lunch tins. Stuffle there, and tins stuffle. But I wonder if we’re to use debit cards than we would be paying the interchange fees. So how about use a credit card and get something back?
Darren: Yeah. Banks, I don’t know if [00:43:00] Bbar knows this, but Bbar all banks, I was, I keep wanna say be Basel bub, but that’s not B the
Justin Vacula: bub or the elephant.
Darren: Yeah. Not situation. I don’t think that’s not in that situation, not, I don’t think I’ve gotten it right there. I think maybe they don’t realize that debit card also charge interchange fees and it costs merchants some amount of percentage, again, based on the bank and negotiated fees. To use any credit card there.
So I guess they, they should just use cash if that’s what they wanna do.
Justin Vacula: Still pay the fees anyway
Darren: or barter some sort of bartering. Maybe it would work. Some chickens.
Justin Vacula: Bartering with Babar.
Darren: I feel like that’s a kid’s book. No.
Justin Vacula: Ooh. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Compulsive gambling is what we’re doing. Compulsive gambling.
It’s ridiculous. It’s like we’re just sitting at a slot machine throwing hundreds in there and losing all of our money even though we can’t afford it, and we’re just like chasing losses. We’re certainly not doing that with credit cards that, it’s funny because [00:44:00] we’ve talked about online gambling and it’s a very disciplined approach.
We playing through money once and withdrawing and taking advantage of bonuses. So we’re not just playing and playing and just like being degenerates. We’re certainly not doing that.
Darren: I think there’s a certain amount of self-awareness, self-control that’s required for any of these things, but also for life, right?
You gotta be willing to drive at a reasonable miles per hour down the road. You can drive your card 90, but you probably shouldn’t drive your card 90 in a 35. That’s sounds
Justin Vacula: fun. I don’t know. I like that. Should you, that would be, should you Like that would be irresponsible. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
So what’s the alternative? You’re gonna pay for your travel. We’re gonna sign up for cards and get rewards and use those to offset travel. And we’re also gonna get cash back so they could go to their minimum wage job. The other comments are mentioned if they want to do that, but. We think there’s a better alternative.
Darren: We know there’s a better alternative, Justin, we don’t. We don’t have to think. We, [00:45:00]
Justin Vacula: oh, we think and now we know for the be savvy, sophisticated, responsible, and intelligent. For sure.
Darren: Yeah.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. Alright, so an interesting article from the New York Times. Any other thoughts on that or the comments?
Darren: It’s interesting to me anytime some of our information from the hobby, there’s some article on the, in the mainstream press.
I think there’s two sort of two approaches. One, it’s, yeah, it’s this. People that aren’t in the hobby railing against it and telling us about how awful it is or how it doesn’t make any sense to them, which that’s fine. A lot of people don’t think golf is any much, is any fun, right? Somebody said golf is just a good walk.
Spoiled, right? This quote, people find value in lots of different things. That’s what makes life exciting. Some people like to play golf. Some of ’em like to knit. Some people like to run or exercise. Any one of those things can add value to your life and to value to the life of those around you.
If you do it in a way that’s responsible, [00:46:00] right? But it also, if you get obsessed with it and neglect any of your other things or do it irresponsible it, it can be challenging. So when these things leak out and everyone sort of rails against them, okay, I think the other. Different idea Is that from the inside the community, it’s, oh no, now it’s all over.
Because there’s been some article talking about it and clearly they haven’t read the comments. Because it’s just 315 of these things saying how this is a pointless thing and why would anyone do it?
Justin Vacula: Oh, it’s the other side of the Dave Ramsey coin.
Darren: Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. You don’t have to, no, no one’s coming to your house and making you sign up for the American Express Platinum, but.
FYI. If you got a targeted invite and don’t want to use it, hit me on the kmr. Yeah, hit me up. Hit me up. I got, let’s take a
Justin Vacula: mirror finish too.
Darren: Yeah, I got a spot and we can make, we can work out a deal. Anyway, I don’t have much to say other than that. I think it’s a light of hypo hyperbole on both sides.
Like many things, not every, it’s nothing is for everybody. [00:47:00] And really what we’re trying to do here is a hobby that some folks enjoy and some folks don’t.
Justin Vacula: Good. I thought the article was mostly fair, although I had some issue with some of the language, like exploiting loopholes, some of the numbers thrown out.
But an interesting thing to evaluate, and one more thing about the mainstream media was like five or six years ago, I think, where there was some reports when a lot of people got shut down by American Airlines and City and. Some mainstream. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Justin. Some people in the mainstream, mainstream media made a comment along the lines of, oh, they spend so much time in miles and points.
Why don’t they just spend their time curing cancer?
Darren: Because curing cancer is really hard. I can help with that.
Justin Vacula: Yes, we can contribute value. The commenters are talking about, oh, it’s also selfish. It’s soul destroying your melange of behaviors and so on. But we can still be. Worthwhile to society, and then what metric [00:48:00] is that?
There’s all kinds of shaming language to get you to do all kinds of things that other people want you to do. But it’s the nice thing of having choices in America and finding what you think is creative and productive and hopefully contributing to society in some other way. It’s not always gonna be a traditional nine to five.
It’s not gonna be, oh, be a real man, Justin, and join the military, or go work in the oil fields or. Decades ago it would be, go be a coal miner. That’s what you should do. Oh, your family. They were all dentists. You should be too. So it’s a lot of people shaming and trying to get you to do things that they want you to do, but we can make a choice and decide what we wanna do with our lives.
Darren: Yeah, and think it goes back to some of your early podcast, Justin, about choosing your own path. Not doing what society necessarily expects of you, but finding something that you find value in. Doing that. And when you find value in it, I know for you this article talks, [00:49:00] or at least the comments talk about how there’s no other value, but I know you found tremendous value in community around this hobby and teaching others and shoot a post hosting this podcast with me which I’m very thankful for and I find value in.
So I think you’ve done a lot of good things here and. I think the idea that it’s all feckless and empty and selfish is probably donate.
Justin Vacula: Donate your kidneys to Darren. You could live without those.
Darren: I tried to become a bone marrow donor. Actually, Justin, they said I was quote, too old.
Justin Vacula: Too old. Your birth year started with 19.
You’re too old.
Darren: Yep.
Justin Vacula: Not in that situation.
Darren: Not in that situation. We’re all on happiness for sure.
Justin Vacula: All right. Thanks for listening, everyone, and stay tuned for future episodes. 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 and posts.
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Theme Song: 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.[00:51:00]
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