Miles & Points in 2026 with Jason Steele
Justin Vacula hosts the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast with special guest Jason Steele, founder of CardCon and the Financial Affiliate Marketing Forum (FMAF), for a wide-ranging discussion about the state of miles and points in 2026.
In this episode, Jason shares how he first got started with award travel, how he handles credit card annual fees, and why many travelers still get tremendous value from points and miles despite ongoing devaluations.
Justin and Jason also discuss how to answer credit card skeptics, the importance of responsible credit card use, and why paying balances in full is essential for long-term success. They also dive into high-value redemption strategies, including Hyatt Globalist benefits, Wyndham sweet spots during major events, and how redemption choices can dramatically change the value of your points.
The conversation also covers Bilt Palladium, Atmos, debit card rewards for paying taxes, upcoming industry trends, and Jason’s travel plans, book, and consulting work. Whether you are new to points and miles or already deep in the hobby, this episode offers practical insight into earning, redeeming, and staying optimistic in a changing travel rewards landscape.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:45 Meet Jason Steele
01:26 Jason’s miles and points origin story
03:10 How to answer skeptics of points and miles
05:20 Real travel wins and success stories
06:10 Managing annual fees, retention offers, and downgrades
08:44 Dream trips and a month in rural Italy
10:20 Can you travel too much?
12:20 Credit cards, responsible use, and paying in full
13:47 Getting maximum value from points and miles
15:46 What is Card Con?
17:33 FMAF and Toronto plans
17:52 Clarifying the industry event audience
18:19 Show announcements
20:27 Why Jason is still optimistic despite devaluations
23:23 Wyndham sweet spots and outsized redemption value
25:17 New cards and emerging trends
29:25 Bilt Palladium reality check
31:53 Upcoming travel plans
33:12 Jason’s book and consulting work
35:21 Where to find Jason Steele
36:21 Final thanks and sign-off
Listen to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast:
👉 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:
👉 Support me through helpful referral links on my site: https://hurdygurdytravel.com/donate-referral-links/
👉 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.
👉 Use my Savewise affiliate link to activate grocery coupons, maximize shopping portals, and more:
https://getsavewise.com/pro?ref=hurdygurdy – Use Promo Code HurdyGurdy
👉 Become a Frequent Traveler University member and sign up for events.
https://ftuniversity.com/?aff=24
👉 Earn 500 miles when signing up for Rove Miles using my referral link:
http://www.rovemiles.com/?signup&referralCode=8AS1JSG9
👉 Use my AutoPilot affiliate link to save points, miles, and money with this flight rebooking tool
https://www.withautopilot.com/?partner=HurdyGurdy
—
👉 Visit the Support Tab on my website to contribute via SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/hurdygurdytravel
🎁 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:
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.
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. Jason Steele of Card Con and the Financial Affiliate Marketing Forum joins me to talk about miles and points and his projects. On with today’s episode recorded, March 11th, 2026.
Welcome to [00:01:00] the show, Jason Steele. Great to be here. Justin. Thanks for coming on. We have a mutual friend in past podcast guest Brooke Merkle of CardPointers, and she recommended that you come on the show. Yeah, I’m really glad she did. Brooke’s a wonderful person. She lives in Denver, as do I, and we get together periodically to help each other out navigate the world of points and miles and the business of it as well.
And how did you get started with this points and miles space? It goes back even to when I was a young child, a long time ago. My mother would have me book the airline tickets for the family, which is incredible to back then you’d call the airlines, I was 12, 13, 14 years old and she’d say, always use your frequent flyer number.
This was in the eighties and, eventually we got frequent flyer credit cards. I really got serious about it 21 years ago. My wife’s from overseas and we paid cash for a economy class ticket to visit her family. And of course we had a miserable experience.
[00:02:00] Flying for hours and hours in the economy class and paying all this money for the privilege of being treated poorly by airline staff. And I said, there’s gotta be a better way. I was doing business travel. I think at that point I started discovering things like flyer talk and I said, okay, we’re doing a home renovation.
Let’s put everything on the airline credit card. Maybe we’ll sign up for a couple new airline credit cards. We’ll subscribe to every promotion and offer there is. And sure enough, a year later we flew back, but this time for free in a business class and you can’t go back after that. I just dove into reading everything I can about award travel.
And that’s the personality I am. Whereas if I see something I really find interesting, I just become obsessed. It’s a healthy obsession. I don’t stop eating or sleeping. I don’t ignore my family, but I do spend a lot of free time researching. And so that was around 2005, 2006.
It was an epiphany. I was like, wow, you could actually travel for free all the time. And then in 2008, I started writing about it. [00:03:00] Part-time. By 2011 I was doing it full-time. In 2012, I became the first contributor to The Points Guy. And things only spiraled upwards from there.
Excellent. 20 years of success and people just hearing about this, they’re often very skeptical. I hear things like, it sounds like a lot of effort. I don’t know if it’s worth it. What do you have to say to some of the skeptics? I hear that a lot, I knew a guy years ago, and I was all excited about this, and I told him
and he just looks at me and says, oh, you’re always pursuing some kind of scam, aren’t you? And I was like, this isn’t a scam. Yeah, this isn’t a scam this is real. If you’re from a frugal background and I like to think I am. People remember clipping coupons from the newspaper.
I suppose some people still do that. And I say you do all this work, you save 50 cents off a peanut butter, a dollar off a loaf of bread. I get on a business class flight with my family of five. Those five tickets could be $30,000 round trip. I say this is the low hanging fruit of frugality, [00:04:00] meaning it’s easier to spend an hour to a month on this and, save thousands of dollars on travel than it is to spend that time clipping coupons.
There’s so many less rewarding ways to be frugal than award travel. Part of it is I enjoy it. Of course, it’s not a chore for me. I love the thrill of finding a great deal, but part of it is knowing that I travel a lot and I can only do that because of my love of frequent flyer miles and award travel.
And that’s both for business. I have a lot of business interests that I travel around the country for. It’s also for personal interest. I go to a lot of family events. I take a lot of family vacations far more than I could if I was paying the actual cost out of pocket as I used to.
And not only saving money, but also traveling better. As you mentioned, the business class flights, many hotels have stayed at getting room upgrades, getting amenities, getting complimentary breakfast, and some [00:05:00] really nice breakfast. I just got back from Hyatt Regency in Brisbane and it was quite a spread.
Otherwise, that would’ve cost about 20, $25 USD and a lot of these room upgrades can be quite nice, especially with Hyatt using the suite upgrade awards as a benefit of having status. Absolutely. I just returned from Panama this week. I spent four days there at this beautiful historic hotel.
I’m a globalist, so I, as you, I got free breakfast. We got a suite upgrade. And it was just a lovely trip me and my best friend. And I flew down there in there and back in business class, which I don’t always do. But it was quite affordable especially when I was just paying for myself.
There’s no way I would’ve spent three, $4,000. $5,000 on a four day trip with my friend but spending 50,000 miles round trip for the flight and 20,000 points a night at the hotel. I split that with my friends. It was [00:06:00] 40,000 each of Hyatt points. I used a category one through seven certificate, so it was really 20,000 points for me.
Yeah, that was worth it. That was a 70,000 point trip and we had a great time. And you mentioned about free travel. There are some costs and we’re paying annual fees. Some people getting started get skeptical about the annual fees, but usually in the first year with a brand new credit card, there’s a high welcome offer and some benefits that offset that.
There’s some organization. There’s some effort in keeping track of your cards, so how do you keep track on the organizational side? Yeah, I do this for a living, so I’m not the typical credit card user. I’ve written thousands of articles in the subject, so it’s much easier for me to keep it in my head.
I do have a list of benefits on some of the more high-end cards, like the Amex Platinum that I go through and make sure I trigger those benefits to pay it off. I have this conversation with people when I say, Hey, you really need, say this business platinum card, for example.
And they say [00:07:00] it’s $800 a year. And I say, yeah I understand that, but the signup bonus. So certainly the $800 is worth it. Then I say, but of course you can extract $800 worth of direct benefits from that. I list all the benefits one by one for them and I follow up with an email showing them those benefits.
A few people object to the annual fee once they realized that. A little bit of calling in, I had an annual fee post on a business Gold card. And I called in explaining that I’m considering canceling the card. Would there be any retention offer, any incentive for me keeping the card?
And they offered me 40,000 membership reward points. Wow. Well offsetting the annual fee. I was very happy about that. That was maybe a 10 minute phone call and at the same time I had them on speaker phone and I was multitasking with other activities, I try not to make too many bank calls or to do items in the same day.
I can space it out and I think that makes it a little bit easier on the organizational side. Absolutely the [00:08:00] retention calls can produce amazing results. Other times of course, I decide that the fee is not worth it and I cancel the card. Always waiting a year, of course until the fee comes due.
And, it’s just like anything in life, we all subscribe to some things and not subscribe to other things. We all have to make that decision. Hey, is this streaming service worth it? Is this AI subscription worth it. The credit cards are no different. If you’re getting the value out of it, you keep it.
If you’re not, you make that retention call and see if they can bridge the gap. Otherwise, we either cancel or downgrade the card. It’s a habit I’ve gotten into over the years. I think that was more unusual 10, 15 years ago. Today we are constantly doing that with so many services.
Some effort needed, but a big payoff. What are some of your favorite trips that are results from the Points and Miles game? Our favorite trip ever was a month that we spent in Italy in 22. We flew in and out of Milan. At the time you could [00:09:00] get virtually unlimited number of
business class tickets on the JFK Milan Emirates flight. And they were pretty reasonable and the surcharges were not exorbitant. We flew business class. We flew economy just to New York and then we flew business class to Milan. But that wasn’t the real joy of it, the real joy of it.
That is that we, for less than the cost of sending the kids to summer camp, we spent a month in rural Italy. And we love it so much that we’re doing it again this year. This time we’re not even going in business class. It’s very unusual. But I’m modest enough that I don’t have to fly business class everywhere I go.
And the fact that we have a very good itinerary we’re going there, we’re departing nonstop from Denver to Paris and then continuing on to Florence, which is within an hour of our destination. And then on the return we have the nonstop from Rome to Denver. We did this with a very
frugal amount of miles that, we’re hoping, they say you can never go home again. Don’t go back to your favorite destination ’cause it’ll never be quite as good as it [00:10:00] was last time. But we’re gonna be in Tuscany this time and we’re very optimistic. We’re all looking forward to this incredible trip.
Some say otherwise that you would have to save for a vacation or only take this one vacation a year. Maybe once per lifetime, but points and miles allows us to do that a lot more often. Absolutely. I’m, wow. I just got back from Panama on Monday. I’m leaving for Atlanta later today. Sometimes I travel too much, I think, which is real challenge.
I I wrote a book called Travel for Free that came out last year and in the book I asked the question. How much would you travel if it didn’t cost anything? And it’s not a sales pitch. It’s a practical question of my family that I don’t wanna travel as much as I can, which is to say that when travel is free, I can go anywhere I want, anytime I want.
But I still love where I live. I don’t wanna travel without my family very much. I have to actually temper the amount of travel I take, which is an interesting dilemma to have. It [00:11:00] shifts from travel is expensive to, I have all these opportunities and which ones should I take?
I’m asked to speak at conferences, I produce conferences. I have family all over the country and in other parts of the world. It’s very easy for me to just get excited and book a plane ticket, and then I look at my calendar, I’m like, oh, geez, the weather’s getting better and I’m not home as much as I want.
When I’m in Colorado, I enjoy bicycling and skiing and things like that sometimes we fly family members to Denver. Spend time with them. That way we don’t have to go anywhere. It almost seems selfish until I realize I’m giving someone in some cases an international plane ticket.
Most people wouldn’t consider that selfish but sometimes it feels it’s yeah, why don’t you just come out and visit us? And of course, they’re always thrilled too. I once took a family member up on a glacier in July, and it was the first time she had seen snow in any quantity.
And that was like really special. A close friend of my wife took her to a baseball game and she didn’t know anything about baseball. And the seventh inning stretch comes up and she’s what are we doing? We’re all standing up and singing a [00:12:00] song.
She’s okay, why I’m, and I’m just like, because that’s what we do. It was like, okay. And she just had a great time and we all had a great time experiencing the seventh inning stretch through the eyes of someone who’d never been heard of it before. You get to create memories and have these great experiences and also save money in the process.
Yeah. But what happened because fan of the show, Dave Ramsey says that credit cards are bad. Nobody should have them. Everybody overspends. You have to go into debt in order to get these rewards and you have to spend a hundred thousand dollars on Discover, he says to get a thousand dollars. He says just pay for your own vacations.
Yeah, he did. He just doesn’t understand. I write about credit cards from subprime secured cards all the way up to, ultra premium cards. And I know the market inside and out, and I know that about half of American credit card users carry a balance.
When I consult with people on how to maximize their rewards, the first question I ask before they even schedule the [00:13:00] consult is, are you avoiding interest by paying your balance in full? I often make the comparison to power tools. There are lots of people who should not be operating power tools.
My wife, my children are among them. That doesn’t mean the power tools are evil. It used to take, I don’t know, 20, 30 people a year to build a house. And now I drive by a construction site with three or four people throwing a house together in just a few months. Obviously using power tools.
They’re not evil, they’re not bad. They’re just powerful tools, and I think credit cards are powerful financial tools. We should all learn how to operate them safely and responsibly before we use them. I’ve been an advocate for using credit cards responsibly.
And for those who do that, who already know how to do that getting the most points and miles from them. And of course using the points and miles for the most valuable uses. We all know somebody who earns a lot of money but spends it even faster. The same is true with points and miles where people earn a million points and then they call up Amex Travel and they said two business class tickets.
And they say, that’s a million points [00:14:00] plus $2,000. They say, okay, wow. What a deal. And a million points are gone. ‘Cause they only got a penny per point. And of course, when I consult with clients I’m telling them, you wanna get at least 2 cents a point, and when you get three, four, 5 cents a point, you’ve hit the jackpot.
And that could be for business class trips. It could be for hotels. It doesn’t even have to be for luxury hotels. A great example I like to use is I go to the Oshkosh Air Venture Air Show. It’s like Woodstock for pilots in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And last year I was thrilled to stay at I think it’s an Econo Lodge just outside the airport.
It was only 13,500 Wyndham points a night, but unbelievably it was selling for $600 a night. People who own their own private jet. We’re staying there because it was feet from the airfield and the show. Every hotel within 60 miles was sold out as a hundred thousand aviation enthusiasts to descend on eastern Wisconsin every year.
Was [00:15:00] I staying in a suite at the Park Hyatt? Absolutely not. Other years I’ve been thrilled to stay at the Hampton Inn or the La Quinta Oshkosh. It’s not always about luxury. Sometimes I get four, 5 cents a point just by staying at a very high demand location during a big event like this big aviation event.
Yes. That’s another big benefit that we have a lot of options that using cash to try to get anywhere doesn’t always work.
I would either have not gone to the event or, and I’ve done this before, I would’ve slept in a tent, which is some nights it’s not so nice when a massive thunderstorm comes through, so yeah, you could use points and miles for just some incredible opportunities that you would not have had otherwise. Both personal and business opportunities. And tell us more about Card Con.
It was back in 2017 I started really coming into my own as a freelancer and I went to events and we’d hold, a dinner or get together for other [00:16:00] people who are credit card and travel rewards experts and I remember one event they closed the restaurant down and we were all still talking. I said, we need a day for us credit card experts. And so I started card con for the media that covers credit cards and, the outlets and the card issuers and consumer credit bureaus and scoring companies and companies like that.
And it quickly grew to, it was an annual event during another event called FinCon. In 20 20, 20 21 we broke off and started having our own independent events. And over the last few years it’s become an event more about financial marketing. It’s growing beyond credit cards. It’s certainly not a consumer event like FTU people don’t go there to learn about how to take a great vacation with their points and miles.
It’s definitely not what it’s about. It’s more about the business side of things. I think most people realize that’s a business and that there’s credit card marketing going on there.
And so for people who are part of that industry, everyone from the writers to the financial institutions the affiliate like marketing companies will be [00:17:00] giving a presentation there. It’s definitely a B2B event and I really enjoy it. The industry is a fun industry to be a part of.
It’s both competitive and profitable, which is a rare combination. Competitive industries tend to have minuscule profit margins and highly profitable industries tend to be like TicketMaster where there are monopolies and such like that. The card issuers thankfully get along well with each other in the marketing companies.
We’re all happy to be part of this community where a lot of us get to do the free travel or we get to just be part of a positive industry. I started a similar event in Canada. Last year we did FMAF Financial Affiliate Marketing Forum in Toronto as a single day event.
And of course, Canada’s a wonderful country. People are very friendly and it’s a growing prosperous country. We’re looking forward to doing it again this year. I believe it’s October 6th in Toronto. If you’re listening here from up north.
Or many points and miles, people who will travel. Yeah. No, and again, this is a business to [00:18:00] business event, so it’s not for traveling points and miles enthusiast, it’s for people who do this for a living. I don’t wanna mislead anybody and I certainly wanna encourage people in the industry to attend.
I think things, eventually FTU and Chicago seminars are great for people who wanna learn how best to earn and spend points and miles.
Very good. We’ll take a short break for announcements and return to the conversation. If you like what you’re listening to find more content between shows.
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.
Visit Meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, [00:19:00] Pennsylvania. May 9th is a special meetup featuring Rove and Carissa Rawson. Find a link in the show notes.
I’ll also be speaking and helping organize frequent Traveler University conference in Irving, Texas near the DFW airport. Join me May 1st through the third 2026 at the NYLO Las Colinas Hotel by Hilton for social events and educational sessions. Ticket sales are live. You can also grab an FTU annual membership for online courses, monthly virtual seminars, member perks, event discounts, and more. Please use my affiliate link in the show notes for membership and conference tickets.
I’m also a proud affiliate with CardPointers. If you have multiple credit cards like me, the CardPointers app and browser extensions automatically activate bank offers and tells you which cards to use for maximum rewards. CardPointers saves me time and money.
Use my link in the show notes CardPointers.com/HurdyGurdyTravel [00:20:00] for a discount on annual and lifetime plans. Finally, I’m also an affiliate with SaveWise. SaveWise helps you automatically clip grocery coupons at Acme, Kroger, and about 5,000 other stores. SaveWise also helps you compare shopping portals and offers and has many other features. Use my affiliate link in the show notes: GetSaveWise.com/HurdyGurdy.
Let’s return to the conversation with Jason Steele. Thanks for coming on and talking today, jason. We hear about some devaluations in the miles and points space, the doom and gloom about Hyatt, some other Hilton devaluations, but what about some positives in 2026?
Yeah, I’ve been hearing about doom and gloom since I first started doing Points and Miles 20 years ago. Oh my gosh, you can’t fly the Concord anymore. And so forth. I always counter that we’re always getting new credit card offers that in many ways are more rewarding than the devaluations are [00:21:00] punishing.
Bilt has had its share of trials and difficulties in its launch of the 2.0 product, but I still have faith and I still believe that especially the the Bilt Palladium card, which I hold is going to net me three points per dollar I spend.
Ultimately, and that’s incredible. And the fact that it could even do better than that with transfer bonuses, I think is a very positive outcome. I’m optimistic about that. I’m optimistic about new transfer partners being added to major programs such as Wyndham to Chase.
I’ve talked to previous heads of the Wyndham rewards programs and told them how underappreciated their program is. They believe me, but I don’t know how much progress they’ve made towards making it a mainstream appreciation of what I think is a great program for some of the reasons I already mentioned.
There’s positives there. Yes, I’m sad about Hyatt. And I’m gonna milk it for all it’s worth before the May devaluation, but maybe that’ll cause me to be more of a free agent. I’ll play around with Hilton or [00:22:00] who knows, maybe I’ll even book some Marriott awards. I’m not a big Marriott fan.
Or maybe I’ll look back into IHG or maybe I’ll look at some of the choice. Last year I got to stay at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, which might be the greatest hotel in all of Colorado using choice points. There’s still some opportunities available if you hunt, pack and look around.
I think some of the devaluations offer opportunities for companies to break into the market. I think that’s where Hyatt started as, Hey, we’re smaller than Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood. So let’s offer more value. And now that they’ve grown, maybe they feel like they need to offer less value.
Maybe another company that doesn’t immediately come to mind right now. Maybe they do something like what Wyndham did a few years ago and revalue and offer greater value. Maybe airlines do that. I see great value in programs like Virgin Atlantic. When I show people transatlantic economy class awards for 6,000 points, and then I say a month ago I could have [00:23:00] gotten a 40% transfer bonus.
If you’re flying from Boston to London, that’s, just six hours a thousand points an hour. I’ll take that all day long. I’m still optimistic. I still feel like we’re gonna earn points at a much, much greater rate every year.
And that’s going to make up for some of these painful devaluations. You gotta look at both sides of the coin. And I’m a fundamentally optimistic person, so I’ll stick to that. You mentioned Wyndham a few times. What’s some other value that you found with Wyndham? Sadly there was the Vacasa but that’s no longer.
Hawaii was pretty good. I stayed at Hawaii a year ago for 13,500 points a night on the big island in a room that had a kitchen and a washer dryer. Those I think, have gone up to something like 27,000 points, but if you think about it, with a 30% chase transfer bonus now we’re talking about something around 20, 21,000 points a night for a condo. I think that’s pretty good value. I like to, do the laundry rather than pack an enormous suitcase. I like to eat breakfast [00:24:00] in and cook rather than go out to expensive meals all the time.
Wyndham does have some higher end properties that are valuable. As an experiment I did with a client yesterday. I looked up Los Angeles during the Super Bowl next year. I found plenty of Wyndham availability. I’m sure some of those properties were not properties I wanted to stay at, but one of ’em, which was 30,000 points a night or 27 if you have the Wyndham Business card or about 20,000 give or take, if you do the 30% transfer bonus you know it’s going for $600 a night during the Super Bowl.
I’m confident the Denver Broncos will be in the Super Bowl next year, so maybe I should book that. I’m not I’m not so confident. I’ll receive super Bowl tickets miraculously. So maybe I won’t but Pro. Probably not the Las Vegas Raiders. No, no one for it. Is that your team? No, but I go to Las Vegas a lot.
Yeah. The Eagles might have a shot, we’ll see. My point is you still get that incredible value during big events. If it’s a concert, if it’s a conference, if it’s an air show or a ball game. I showed my client that and he said, could you scalp that?
[00:25:00] I suppose it’s possible. I’m not gonna be doing it, but, book a hotel during the Super Bowl and then try to sell that reservation to somebody, put that person’s name on it. They would’ve to trust you quite a bit to do that.
That you wouldn’t cancel it. But I suppose it’s possible. Maybe I shouldn’t be giving people ideas. I don’t know.
What about some upcoming cards? You mentioned you recently got the Bilt Palladium card. Do you have other applications in mind for this month or upcoming months? Oh wow.
My wife’s Hyatt card that we got just before that five free night state certificate offers went away, which is really seven if you spend 15,000 on the card. That was my hedge against the devaluation.
My daughter who turned 18 she got the Amex Gold card, which is a fantastic card. Most people predict Hyatt will come out with a high end premium card. When they do that will not surprise anybody. I could consider that card depending on how painful the devaluation is or if that card [00:26:00] mitigates it in some way.
The big trend I’m seeing is cards that offer a discount on awards. United is doing that, offering a 10% discount. Delta’s been doing that for a while, Wyndham been giving a 10% discount for a while. Wouldn’t surprise me if Hyatt does that considering all the negative publicity they’ve received on their impending devaluation.
I can foresee a lot of cards coming out this year that say, Hey, with this card, you receive a significant discount on your awards, be they airline or hotel. I’ll probably be subscribing to that when it comes to cards that are part of programs that I participated a lot in.
Another big thing, and we’ll be talking about this at Card Con, is debit cards. To my surprise I decided to get the Southwest Airlines debit card. And what I found was that if I only use it to pay my taxes, I’m paying $2 instead of two or 3% for each tax payment and being self-employed, I [00:27:00] have to make my estimated quarterly tax payments and even though I only get one mile per $2 or a half mile per dollar I should say rapid rewards points, those points count towards the companion pass.
There’s also an additional 7,500 points I get towards the companion pass plus another 2,500 points signup bonus. All those are ways for me to do the companion pass without constantly churning Southwest Airlines credit cards. Debit cards are becoming a big part of the market and for those who may a part of the half of the country that, or half the credit card users who do carry a balance that could be a safer, more responsible alternative that still allows them to earn points and miles.
Speaking of credit cards that give some discounts, I was really impressed by the Atmos Rewards Summit card with Bank of America. A lot of benefits on that card, including waiving a partner booking fee. Yeah I, unfortunately, notice that when I booked my last ticket using Atmos points that I do have to pay this fee for domestic [00:28:00] travel even.
But what I also notice is, talking about the opposite of devaluation. The award space through Atmos is fantastic. I’m flying, granted, it’s a short flight from Denver to Phoenix for card con. I’m flying in first class both ways, 9,000 points each way. It’s extremely difficult to find first class award space domestically on United at the low mileage level.
With Delta, it just doesn’t even exist. It’s always, a penny, a dollar off of whatever they’re charging. You’re still talking about tens of thousands of delta miles each way. But it’s a relief to see that. And I even see I was looking up a flight from Buenos Aires to Miami.
And I found it for 50,000 points on American Airlines. So yeah, Atmos is fantastic I look at the three points per dollar that they can earn, which is just insanely good. And so yeah, Atmos might be a good example of a program that is filling the gap where other competing programs are devaluing, they’re offering strong value.
Hoping to [00:29:00] acquire new customers. Yes, the three x on all foreign transactions. I really like that because there are times where I’m international, I’m not sure how certain transactions are going to code, so having a card that will just give the three x on all those foreign transactions is nice.
I also use the Bilt palladium overseas, which is giving the three x everything with the points accelerator feature, so that’s another option too. Yeah, the palladium. I never thought I’d have just a top of wallet card that I use for everything, but I’m giving the palladium a shot. And far be it from being a cheerleader my brother-in-law got furious with it and canceled the card because he couldn’t set up his mortgage payments. I was unable to get my first mortgage payment to work. I’m someone who does this for a living and if I can’t figure it out I think they have some issues but I’m still gonna be in it for the long haul.
Give it a year. If I can put a lot of expenses on there and move up through the ranks of their rewards program, I wanna get the the Air France [00:30:00] status to help my Air France flight to it economy, maybe get slightly better seats maybe even figure out a way to get Air France Platinum status, which would get me low priced overseas business class awards.
I wanna take a blade flight in New York. I want all those advantages of having status. I want those 125%, 150% transfer bonuses. So I’m all in. I’m gonna give it a shot, even though there’s been quite a few bumps on the road for me and others I know I’m not even willing to recommend this to my award travel consulting clients just yet until I see that they’ve ironed it out.
They haven’t gone too far and taken away things, which I think is always a possibility. Unfortunately. Yes, we’re in it for the long game, and I think that patience is often required with miles and points. We may have expectations that things always go as we want, but it’s simply not going to be the case.
There could be some speed bumps on the way with any issuer. I don’t know if you covered [00:31:00] this, I’m sure you probably did a few months ago, the Mesa collapse that was, took me by surprise when someone texted me while I was traveling, said, oh my gosh, did you hear about this? And I didn’t do too bad.
Most of my mesa points, I think I got through referrals. They cashed it out at that pathetic 0.6 and it ruined my saying that. Hey, let’s perform a thought experiment. Have you ever heard of a card issuer that went out of business? And of course up until then, the answer was no.
Maybe this is the exception that proves the rule. I’m not saying that Bilt is going to do a mesa on us, but certainly a lot of cards have come along where they’ve offered unsustainable value only to pull that back very quickly. Do I think Bilt could do that?
I don’t think it’s very likely. Otherwise I wouldn’t be going all in. But you just don’t know. Three x that’s a lot of value that I can be extracting from that palladium card. I’m gonna put a lot of spend on it, both business and personal.
And we’ll see what happens. You mentioned Phoenix and Italy. Any other plans for upcoming travel? I always have something. I [00:32:00] have a cousin who has a home in Bishop California, which is a place I’ve never even heard of. And then one day I read in the paper United has a nonstop from Denver to Bishop California and he tells me that I should fly out there and visit him over spring break and that he’ll pick me up at the airport in his ATV.
The airport’s basically like a general aviation airport that gets a couple flights a day from United. So that’s a fun little thing too. The advantage of living in a very large city or in a city with a very big airport like Denver International Airport.
This is my rule of thumb, if you have flights to places that you’ve never even heard of you’re living in a very big, you have a very successful airport. We’re going to fly back out of Las Vegas.
Our return is actually after the seasonal flight ends, and maybe we’ll drive through Death Valley or something like that on the way to Vegas. That’s a fun trip. Visit some friends in Chicago while my wife is gonna visit some friends in Minneapolis. We just always got something this summer when the kids are otherwise occupied, we’re gonna go to Colorado.
[00:33:00] And of course you’re thinking about, I live in Colorado, we’re just gonna drive around the state. Last summer we went to Canada. It’ll be fun to just to explore a home state or re-explore a home state a little bit.
These points and miles, they don’t spend themselves Very good. Anything else you’d like to add as we come towards the end? I think I briefly mentioned my book, Travel for Free. An obvious title, but I think it’s a good way to get started in points and Miles.
I’ve written it for, the beginner to intermediate points and Miles enthusiast. And then, that was one answer to the question that I got all the time, which is how do I do what you’re doing? Consume tens of thousands of points and miles a year or tens of thousands of dollars worth of points and miles every year.
For people who don’t wanna curl up with a book on points and miles every evening. I do these award travel consultations, which I spend a couple hours. I go through people’s points and miles their credit cards that they have their travel goals. I come up with a customized award travel plan for them, and I’ve had tremendous success with this.
I did three consultations [00:34:00] last yesterday. We usually spend about two hours and I follow up with a written list of recommendations of what to do. I offer email support. Give them the benefit of my 20 years of experience, my written for over a hundred outlets. I’ve written thousands of articles and what I found is that what works for you, Justin, is not gonna work for me.
And what works for me won’t work for my best friend. I love to tell the story of people , family in Long Island who won’t even consider flying out of Newark. They say, I’d rather swim across the ocean than fly out of Newark. Or for people who live in Northern houston who refused to fly Southwest.
We’re just people who, their goal in life is to, I don’t know, go to Japan, their trip of a lifetime. They need a different credit card than those who wanna visit their parents in Florida. You need a customized travel rewards plan to really maximize your earning and spending travel rewards.
What I spend my money on is different than what you spend your money on. You’ll need a different credit card than what I will. They haven’t come up with an AI [00:35:00] that’ll do it yet. And I think even when they do, people still want to talk to a human being and say, I’d rather take two economy class trips overseas than one business class ticket.
Some people want that. Other people wanna stay in luxury hotels and fly business class. I meet my clients where they’re at and try to develop the award travel plan that’s gonna give them the most success. All right. Very good. And how can people find you online? Yeah, they can reach out to me at JasonSteele.com. and that’s J-A-S-O-N-S-T-E-E-L-E, jason steele.com.
And they can schedule a free kind of initial consult with me. They can communicate by email with me js@jasonsteele.com. I’m very responsive over email. Maybe because I’m old, I don’t know. But I love hearing from people who’ve read my book or who’ve read my articles. I’ve made friends that way when people reach out to me and and I love helping people achieve their travel dreams.
It’s a lot of fun. And social media handles any? I’m on LinkedIn. I’m pretty [00:36:00] easy to find there. I don’t really tweet much, I don’t really do a lot of Instagram or Facebook I could give you those, but you’re not gonna find too much content. Maybe that’ll change one of these days, but going to my website, getting my books, getting a travel consult, those are the best ways I’ve found to really teach people how to travel for free, which I think is the goal of a lot of your, if not all of your audience.
Very good. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. Thanks everyone for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between shows, 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, search Hurdy Gurdy Travel on subscribestar.com, or become a channel member on YouTube to support my efforts starting at the $5 a month tip jar level. [00:37:00] 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.
The website, UDIO u dio.com created the podcast intro and outro music. It’s not me singing. AI features of the website Descript help me edit and improve audio quality. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
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 [00:38:00] the mold.