Points & Miles with Matt Clausen | Rove Stacking, Wells Fargo Cards, JetBlue Premier, and Getting Started
Justin Vacula welcomes Matt Clausen to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast for a conversation about getting started with points and miles, smart card strategy, and some of today’s more interesting opportunities in travel rewards.
Recorded on May 11, 2026, this episode covers beginner-friendly advice, recent credit card news, and redemption examples that show how valuable the hobby can be.
Justin and Matt begin by talking about meeting at Justin’s Willow Grove, Pennsylvania meetup before getting into one of the most interesting topics in the episode: Rove stacking. They explain how certain loyalty-eligible hotel stays can still earn hotel points and elite credit while also earning Rove miles, creating an extra layer of value.
They also discuss stacking those bookings with credit card benefits, including Hilton statement credits and other card perks. Matt shares how he got started in points and miles, beginning with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and explains how his card strategy has evolved over time.
The discussion includes Matt’s current setup with Hilton cards, Chase cards, JetBlue cards, and Wells Fargo cards, along with examples of successful redemptions, including a Wyndham stay booked through Wells Fargo’s 1:2 transfer ratio to Wyndham Rewards.
The episode also covers possible Europe travel plans using Lufthansa Miles & More, why Wells Fargo credit cards may be underrated, and a look at the updated JetBlue Premier Card. Justin and Matt also offer thoughts on how to respond to skeptics who think points and miles is too complicated or takes too much effort.
This episode is ideal for viewers who are new to points and miles, curious about travel credit cards, interested in Rove, or looking for practical ways to get more value from everyday spending and travel bookings. Subscribe to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast for more points and miles discussions, credit card strategy, travel rewards news, and low-cost travel tips.
Timestamps:
00:00 Podcast intro theme
00:32 Meet Matt Clausen
01:31 Rove stacking explained
03:05 Matt’s points and miles origin story
06:15 Starting and navigating Chase rules
08:06 Rebuilding a card strategy
09:50 Best redemptions so far
11:11 Europe trip planning
13:16 Card issuer realities
14:19 Amex Graphite discussion
15:41 Support the show
19:48 Why Wells Fargo may be underrated
25:04 JetBlue Premier card discussion
30:07 Convincing the skeptics
35:01 Wrap-up and where to find Matt
35:49 Outro and credits
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
👉 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
👉 Use my Descript referral link to edit your podcast episodes, videos, and more. Descript offers tools, including studio sound, removal of filler words, and the ability to edit from a generated transcript.
https://descript.cello.so/yiM83psckcY
—
👉 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 low cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Today’s guest, Matt Clausen, joins me to discuss getting started with miles and points, recent credit card news, and his travel redemptions.
Find Matt Clausen’s channel as his name, M-A-T-T C-L-A-U-S-E-N on [00:01:00] YouTube, Matt Clausen on YouTube. On with today’s episode, recorded May 11th, 2026. Welcome to the show, Matt. Thanks for having me, Justin, and pleasure meeting you and this coming together so quickly. Long time no see. We’re recording today on a Monday, and we just met on Saturday.
We met at your monthly meetup at Giant in Pennsylvania, and I was traveling woefully late.
My apologies yet again. It was a nice meetup with Rove. Can you talk a little bit about Rove and your experience with that? They have a number of ways of earning their points. That would include their shopping portal. They have a travel portal as well, and they do have something that’s interesting.
They have loyalty eligible stays that will allow you to have the ability to book the stay through Rove, but you’ll get your nights counted, you’ll get your points, you’ll get your status reflected, and you pay at the time of the stay, and you can use benefits associated [00:02:00] with your co-branded credit cards.
If you stay at a Hilton, you’re gonna earn 30 to 34x Hilton points, depending if you use the Hilton Surpass or the Hilton Aspire credit cards from American Express. You’ll also get any benefits that are associated with that card, your gold status if you have the Surpass or your Diamond status if you have the Aspire.
If you’re staying at a resort, the $200 semi-annual credit on the Aspire can be triggered, or if you stay quarterly with the Surpass, the $50 quarterly credit can also be triggered booking through Rove, and you’ll get five miles per dollar from Rove and all of your points, benefits, and status reflected at the time of the visit.
America loves stacking. I love stacking. As soon as I realized how valuable Rove can become I jumped on signing up. I’m also a newsletter contributor for them now and also moderate one of their Facebook groups.
Very good. And listeners can take a deeper dive into Rove as I have the monthly Rove Report episodes. Same [00:03:00] podcast here. You can listen to me chat with Carissa Rawson with Rove. But let’s go back in time. Sure. How did you get started with miles and points? I’m relatively new or newer to the points and miles game, but I realized how, after, falling down credit card YouTube, realized just how cheap or cheaper you can make your travel.
I applied for my first credit card. I broke all the rules, and my first credit card was the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I got a mail offer for it. It was for 70,000 points at the time. Now you can get up to about 150,000. More war on happiness for me personally, but that was fun just to- No retroactive points.
No, not at all. I then have gotten the Hilton Honors card when it had a free night certificate offer with, I think it was a 70,000 point offer at the time as well. I like the Hilton ones because those are uncapped. You can use them pretty much anywhere as long as there’s standard room availability. You just have to call and you can get your free night that [00:04:00] way. And it’s great because you can use it at the Waldorf Astoria.
You can use it at the Conrad, LXR, a bunch of other luxury-minded properties. I picked up that card relatively early. Over time, I’ve added, the Chase Freedom Unlimited and the Chase Freedom Flex to get the welcome offers, maybe some extra spend categories. I’ve added JetBlue cards, the JetBlue business card a couple of years ago.
I just added the JetBlue Premier card. I’ve also been fortuitous where Wells Fargo jumped into points and miles as well and I had a setup of Wells Fargo cards previously. Those were the first cards I ever got, using those for cashback back in the day.
Now those are travel cards. I’ve been able to use my points, move them around and, have at least greatly marked down travel, over the last couple of years for myself, my partner and our kid. It can be a huge boon for family travel just to knock down those costs significantly.
You said you went down the credit card rabbit [00:05:00] hole on YouTube, but what even led you to that? What led you to watch or listen to videos regarding credit cards? I remember just starting to watch Dave Hanson. I guess the algorithm picked up on that from him. Not David Ramsey, but Dave Hanson. Hey there, friend. Hey there, Dave here.
He’s pretty much given up on his personal channel, but he does the Dumb Money podcast. Very not at all related to credit cards. I started watching his stuff and then, started getting recommended other credit card YouTubers or credit card content and then finding folks who were talking about, credit cards specifically and, finding out about the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the American Express Gold Card and the endless videos in late 2022 to about mid 2023 comparing those two cards.
Those two cards couldn’t be more different. I started watching some folks who were pretty entertaining to me and they would have, [00:06:00] these lives where they were just, talking at will and randomly about whatever they wanted to interacting with their audience.
That was cool. One of them convinced me to start my channel and I found my own little niche talking about the news and then providing commentary.
You said that when you started, you broke the rules. What exactly did you do that you say you broke the rules? It feels like it’s convention when people talk about the Chase trifecta, and for purposes of this, I’m gonna call the Chase trifecta the a Sapphire card, whether it’s the Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve, the Chase Freedom Flex, and the Chase Freedom Unlimited where the conventional wisdom is you start with one of the Freedom cards, whether you start with the Freedom Flex or the Freedom Unlimited.
You get one of those cards, you get the other one, you get the welcome offers on those cards, you start building your Chase Ultimate Reward points, and then you’ll add the Sapphire card afterwards. I had little to no interest in starting with the Freedom Unlimited or the Freedom Flex. I got a mail [00:07:00] offer for the Sapphire Reserve and just decided to jump in with Chase going with the Sapphire Reserve first.
I didn’t follow what folks would say would be the conventional roadmap, but I don’t always follow convention. I almost never recommend people start with the Freedom or Freedom Unlimited unless they have low credit history, or maybe they’re just super starting in the game and not traveling.
Usually, the Sapphire Preferred is one early on, or if they’re going to use all the benefits, then the Reserve. But yes, the game has changed a lot, as you mentioned, so now I’m not as confident in recommending the Reserve with all the benefits, the higher annual fee, and so on. But a lot of ways to win in the game.
Some people might get the Chase Hyatt card first, some people might wanna fly with Southwest or United. There are lots of ways to win, not just one path.
Obviously the game has changed, and you can play the game how you see fit because, as you said, if you really like Hyatt, you could just do real [00:08:00] well using the Chase World of Hyatt card.
If you like flying United, the Chase United cards and so on and so forth.
If you were to re-roll, start today with a mostly clean slate, you’re relatively new to miles and points, but you have a good credit history. Maybe you’ve had an Amazon credit card for years, as some people might have, or a Citi Double Cash, but you didn’t do much with travel, you didn’t do much with miles and points.
What are some cards that you would start with if you had a second chance? It’s a great question just because I’m trying to think of the way that I travel now. I primarily fly JetBlue, so any transferable currency with JetBlue which would be like Chase or Citi now Wells Fargo.
All of those are great. American Express less so just because they do the 4:5 transfer rate, and you do have to pay to transfer your points over to domestic carriers with American Express. But I probably would start with Ultimate Rewards again just because my partner and I do like to stay at Hyatts when we can. Obviously, Hyatt’s footprint not being as vast as Hiltons or Marriotts also makes [00:09:00] it a little bit hard.
The Citi ecosystem has gotten pretty good. The Bilt ecosystem is very interesting. If I was re-rolling from start, I would probably start with the Bilt Palladium Card because that’s a really solid two times points earning card, relatively modest annual fee.
You can use Bilt Cash a number of ways. I like the card. I like their transfer partners because they transfer with virtually everyone. And just a Bilt Palladium, throw on Point Accelerator, and do a lot of spend through Rove, that would be a pretty nice card, don’t have to worry about it, and have all the transfer partners in the world option.
And with the Points Accelerator, that’s earning 3x on all transactions. You could do that up to 25,000 in spend per year. Really nice to transfer to Hyatt, Atmos, and many other programs. And speaking of points, we’ve been talking about theory, we’re earning these points, we’re going to use these points.
What have been some of your favorite redemptions for travel? Taking a [00:10:00] family trip up to a Six Flags in New York, and we booked a Wyndham, two rooms, two nights. I needed 60,000 points, and now with Wells Fargo’s new one-to-two transfer ratio with Wyndham, I only needed to send Wyndham 30,000 Wells points.
If I was gonna do the same thing with Chase, it would’ve cost me 60,000 Chase points, and I’d rather use my Chase points at Hyatts or filling up my JetBlue account. Really nice value there because it’s, would’ve cost me about $1,000 out of pocket.
It is beginning of the summer season. Prices can be very seasonal in that part of New York, and that is the high time. My Wells Fargo points ended up getting me about 3.33 cents per point with the value that I got for transferring to Wyndham.
Having a JetBlue card, I can transfer to JetBlue, I can make my points bookings with JetBlue, and I get 10% of my points back. I’ve done flights to Chicago relatively easily with JetBlue points and getting 10% of my points [00:11:00] back, booking for my partner when they have to fly on various airlines.
I’ve gotten pretty good use out of the points that I’ve earned so far. You’re mostly flying out of JFK with JetBlue. Is that right? Mostly JFK, yeah. Any international travel? Not since jumping into the points and miles game. I am trying to set something up with myself and my parents. My mom has recently stopped working, and my dad is going to be not too far behind her, I don’t think.
They are looking to do a European trip later this year. One thing I’m trying to do is find a city for us to go to that I can leverage Lufthansa Miles & More, the 88 mile trips that I can find with their points, and use some Rove miles that way for the international travel.
Potentially flying to Frankfurt and then, onto Berlin either through Deutsche Bahn, their train system, I believe they have a connection from Frankfurt to Berlin, and go from there or potentially Rome Just mobility’s a bit of a [00:12:00] concern, so I do have to keep that in mind for my parents.
I’m going to try and grab those 88-mile flights, which those would be economy and international economy sounds a little bit eh, but for 88 miles, that’s a great starting place. And then, see what the cost would be to upgrade them to premium economy with cash, because, even if you can’t fly completely for free, flying at a greatly reduced price is still even better
paying out of pocket
I’ve stayed at several Wyndham properties. It was years ago, I got the Wyndham Business Earner credit card when they were allowing you to match Wyndham status to Caesars Diamond status. That has ended, but I still have a lot of Wyndham points from the 8X transactions, earning 8X on fuel coding purchases.
That can be a nice way to rack up the Wyndham points, too. Yeah, and those credit cards also give you a 10% point reduction when you make points bookings. If I had a Wyndham card and had made that booking, it would have been [00:13:00] 30,000 points transferred over, but I would have gotten back
about 6,000 points as well from that. Yes. America loves math once again, and indeed, more stacking, so hopefully the Wyndham Business Earner is in your future, although this JetBlue Premier card we’ll talk about later, we’ve been teasing it. Yep. That’s with Barclays, and so is the Wyndham Business Earner, so it might be difficult to get approved for two cards with them in a short amount of time.
But you never know, especially since one is business and the other one is personal. I had to go through some business stuff with them when I applied for the JetBlue business card, but since I got that out of the way, maybe if I add the Wyndham card in the not-too-distant future, it won’t be as much of a hassle as the first one.
Yes. It’s usually a test of patience, as it’s multiple phone calls. They want you to fax documents. It’s sometimes difficult with that initial Barclays business credit card. Yeah. Hopefully it’s like American Express, when you do your first card with them, you get the one hard pull, and then everything subsequently should be soft pulls. And yes, Amex is usually lenient once you have your first card [00:14:00] approved, whether it’s personal or business.
I’ve had lots of success with American Express, as have others. They have this reputation for being hard to get, but I’ve seen the opposite and so have many other listeners. All you need is a halfway decent credit score and the willingness to give them whatever the annual fee with the card is.
Yes. Just probably don’t apply for the Graphite credit card. You can’t get the Plum card anymore. The Graphite, quite the stinker that recently came out overall. The Graphite, 50,000 in spend for a $1,500 welcome offer, and it’s a 295 annual fee, and it doesn’t give you anything else of travel help. That’s a pass for me as well.
Yes. I was considering it since I’m much deeper in the credit card game. I have a lot of spend, but I got the infamous Amex pop-up. It says, “Based on your history with American Express, other offers,” so on, “that you’re not eligible for this card.” I think some way to salvage it was using someone’s referral link.
[00:15:00] The Business Platinum is usually 20k or 25k membership reward points, so stacking that with the sign-up bonus and just using it as a volume play. But I imagine that most beginners, some intermediate people wouldn’t be going for that. It’s probably more for the advanced with very high spend. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
I have to make the devil’s case for the Graphite card here. It is great if you have a business with a couple of employees and you are looking for a solid, simple 2% cash back return on, mega spend. It may have its use cases. It’s just maybe not for the travel side of things. Definitely not for the travel side of things. And with that, we’ll take a short break for advertisements.
This show is like a job for me and free to listeners with no paywall. I spend a lot of time editing audio, creating transcripts, and prepping for the show. I also pay for software and subscriptions. Support the show through affiliate links, becoming a patron at Hurdy Gurdy Travel [00:16:00] Podcast on subscribestar.com, leaving comments on YouTube, and engaging in social media.
Ads are included here, just like on many other shows. For more content between long-form podcast episodes, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips, and posts.
Find more information, including 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, Pennsylvania. Join us for upcoming events on June 28th, July 19th, and August 16th, 2026.
Meetings are from 1 PM to 4 PM Eastern local time. Find a link in the show notes. And thanks again for coming to the [00:17:00] meetup. It was a double header as we had the Rove presentation, Q&A, and then I did my thing talking about current offers, deals, and a little bit more of a deep dive into things, further explaining things mentioned in the podcast and of course not mentioned here.
Yeah, absolutely, and I hope to catch another one, and I will be sure to be around for 1 o’clock and not walk in late. We had good attendance too. About 15 people were there, and a lot of our regulars happened to be traveling. Gene was in Japan. David Shields didn’t make it. That’s true. Darren was in Washington, DC, and many others.
A group for travelers is a little bit challenging as people are traveling, but still a good core people and some new faces. Nice to see. Yeah, it was a impressive turnout from what I saw.
I’m also a Frequent Traveler University affiliate. Grab an FTU annual membership for online courses, monthly virtual seminars, member perks, event discounts, and more.
Use my link in the show notes for membership.
I’m also an affiliate with CardPointers. [00:18:00] If you have multiple credit cards like me, because the answer to everything is more credit cards, the CardPointers browser extension activates bank offers and knows which card to use for maximum rewards. Use my link in the show notes, cardpointers.com/hurdygurdytravel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans.
And you’re also a CardPointers member. You signed up with one of the deals, perhaps a Black Friday deal. It’s been fantastic. It automatically adds my Amex offers, my Chase offers, and it supports adding Wells Fargo deals as well. It is the only one of the programs like it that also includes Wells Fargo as just a sign into Wells Fargo and get all your deals automatically added.
That is a big plus for them as well. It’s nice to see the surprise savings when I get an email saying, “Congratulations, you’ve received cash back on your offer, extra points,” that I otherwise wouldn’t have activated.
Yeah, I recently did a SeatGeek purchase and didn’t realize that I also got cashback for SeatGeek from [00:19:00] my Wells Fargo Attune card. It worked out pretty well
I’m also an affiliate with SaveWise. SaveWise helps you clip grocery coupons with one click at Acme, Kroger, and about 5,000 other chains.
SaveWise also compares shopping portals and offers many other features. Use my link in the show notes, GetSaveWise.com/HurdyGurdy.
I’m also an affiliate with AutoPilot, a flight repricing tool that alerts you to price changes. Simply cancel existing flights and rebook when AutoPilot emails you about lower fares.
Find a link in the show notes.
We’re back to the show with today’s guest, Matt Clausen. You can find him on YouTube, M-A-T-T C-L-A-U-S-E-N. Thanks again for joining me today. Absolutely.
You talk about Wells Fargo cards on your YouTube channel. You’ve mentioned a few of them today, and you argue that they’re underrated. I also like the Signify business card. When I last saw it, it was something like a [00:20:00] 12-month 0% APR offer, again, on the business side, not impacting personal credit, and a $500 cash sign-up bonus.
Yeah. I really like Wells Fargo and what they’re starting to do. I’ve banked with Wells Fargo for just about 20 years now. Wells Fargo does have a reputation I won’t deny that, and to that I say most banks have done things that are unsavory. Wells Fargo, not a podcast sponsor today . Yes not a podcast sponsor today.
Probably won’t be one in the near future for me either.
Wells Fargo can give you a really nice, whether it is cash or travel setup, and you have the Signify business cash now. It is a flat unlimited two times earning 2% cashback card, no annual fee.
Does have a foreign transaction fee, is what it is. The Wells Fargo Autograph is a great no annual fee card for travel. Has a number of 3 times points earning categories including gas, travel, transit. Going back to [00:21:00] travel, if you are somebody who has been lamenting the change on the Chase Sapphire Reserve losing its general broad 3 times point earning travel category, which included travel and transit categories and subcategories, the Autograph covers all of those.
Also covers phones, streaming, and dining all at 3% or 3 times points. You also have the Wells Fargo Active Cash flat 2% earning card on the personal side, and also has a foreign transaction fee. War on happiness there.
They also recently relaunched the Wells Fargo Attune card and that is 4% on a number of categories. There is a major online book retailer that is, no longer sells books, or, well- … sells books, but it sells a lot more than books, including streaming, including a number of other verticals that they’re in.
That codes as 4% on the Attune. Amazon, right? Amazon. What’s the secret of why Yeah, it’s Amazon. I don’t know why I tried to keep it [00:22:00] so secret, but no, 4% back on Amazon and in cash back. The other key thing with Wells Fargo, all of the cash back that you earn on the Attune and the Active Cash and the Signify can be pooled into points with the Autograph and the Autograph Journey.
A lot of systems get stuck at one point as a base earning or sometimes two points as a base earning, depending on the cards that you get. A lot of times you may have to settle for one and a half. I’m looking at you, Chase. Wells gives you a base of two, a number of categories at three, and a bunch more categories now at four, all uncapped, all easy, nice.
You don’t have to worry about anything. You don’t have to worry about spend limits. You don’t have to worry about spreadsheets even with them. Their one annual fee card, the Autograph Journey, has great rates on hotels at 5% or 5X, great rates on direct flight purchases at 4X. Doesn’t worry about a travel portal because the Wells Fargo travel portal is a little bit of a travesty.
A lot. And a lot of it. [00:23:00] Not as bad as Bank of America’s payment system on the business side, but it’s up there. Yeah. I don’t know the Bank of America pain. I’ve heard that it’s pain. But the Wells Fargo, it is not great to to navigate their travel portal over at Wells Fargo.
The Autograph Journey also has one credit. It’s really easy to use. Just make any airline purchase. Doesn’t matter if it’s an incidental, doesn’t matter if it’s a ticket, doesn’t matter what it is. As long as it is an airline purchase, you get $50 back on the $95 annual fee, so it’s nice and easy.
I really like the setup that they’re building. They don’t have a premium travel card yet. We all imagine that one is coming. They have one trademarked. I just don’t know what they’re doing over there just yet. But they’ve been building out transfer partners as well. They’ve added JetBlue. They’ve added Cathay Pacific. They have the Avios programs. You can transfer to British Airways. You can move your British Airways Avios to Iberia or to Qatar or to Finnair or Aer Lingus.
They’ve also got Star Alliance covered with Avianca. The list is growing. They’re becoming more of a [00:24:00] player overall, and the whole setup is just really great.
Maybe people will start with issuers like Chase, the business side of American Express, maybe grab a Capital One Venture X, Citi Strata Premier, but maybe later on in the game, maybe like year two or three or later, I think Wells Fargo can be pretty good.
One weakness is that there’s usually a pause in between card approvals with them. What has that been looking like? What are you seeing from Your perspective. It’s my understanding that you can get a welcome offer every six months from them.
I haven’t had an issue. I got the Signify and the Attune relatively close to one another. They both launched about three months apart from each other, and I had no problem getting both cards and their welcome offers. Okay. There doesn’t seem to be an issue on business and personal but I haven’t had to do the lengthy waits.
Wells Fargo’s also fairly relational, so as long as you have a relationship with them, it may be a little bit easier to get their cards. If you are looking to do a bank account bonus with them and get [00:25:00] rewarded for opening that checking account they do look nicely upon having that relationship.
We’ve mentioned several times the JetBlue Premier Card. This is a recent development. They launched the card. Didn’t seem so great when it launched, but now we’re recording May 11th, 2026.
I’m seeing 100,000 bonus point welcome offer. I’m seeing complimentary club access for the Blue House. This is a new thing or a coming thing. Possible companion pass statement credits, and this is specific language, “Receive an annual 25 tile bonus after year-end to fast-track your Mosaic status for the next year.”
There’s also $300 in annual statement credits on purchases toward hotel or car rentals booked through TrueBlue travel, then you get a free checked bag, early boarding, 15% points redemptions on award flights for a 499 annual fee. I think it’s a slam dunk for year one if you’re flying JetBlue, and it might even be a keeper card.
When this [00:26:00] card launched I believe I’ve said things along the lines of Barclays didn’t even bother doing the homework. Barclays just copied their $99 card and hoped that people would pay a higher annual fee for it.
They also hadn’t even launched their lounge network. They only have the one TrueBlue House at JFK at the moment. They are opening one in Boston at Logan in the summer of this year, and then they’re trying to find space to put together a third TrueBlue House at Fort Lauderdale.
That one may take some time. The changes that you highlighted, the 25 tiles, is fantastic. You get halfway to JetBlue’s Mosaic One status. You need 50 tiles to get it. You’re being credited 25 tiles every year. I’m not gonna get the tiles this year because you do have to have the card open by December 31st of the year in question, so that’s annoying.
But as long as I hold the card through the year I will get- Yeah, weird language. This is not on approval or the current year. It’s, yeah. [00:27:00] Yeah. It- Delayed gratification. That one is delayed gratification, for sure. I will have to wait for the tiles. I got the card for the 100,000 point welcome offer. They’ve made status potentially very easy to get. The other thing, that $300 travel credit that was mentioned that was initially based off of six $250 purchases through JetBlue Travel.
That was terrible. So- That’s quite the slog Yeah … for a portal that you probably wouldn’t otherwise use. Yeah. That is now one $300 credit all at once. One $300 purchase through JetBlue Travel you get back $300 in value from holding the card. I like it … big, huge change there. And the 15% point redemption when booking award flights, that’s huge.
The card has definitely changed. I’m gonna test drive it for at least a year. I didn’t have the JetBlue Plus Card. I only applied for the JetBlue Business Card, and was given a very low limit on that card. I believe you’re able to move personal lines of credit to business lines of credit with Barclays, so at some point I may [00:28:00] experiment moving some of the credit line I was given from the Premier over to the Business.
Otherwise, it’s 6 times points on JetBlue purchases. Rewarding for the airline is what it is. 2 times points on grocery and dining. There are far better earning cards in those categories, but the companion fares, you get a $500 companion pass for spending $15,000 a year, and then you get a $1,500 one that would be triggered if you spend $75,000 through the card.
A lot of cards are adding that $75,000 spend as much as you can with this card, we’ll give you some perks. It’s not a great trend, but they want you to spend on their cards. It makes sense. I don’t think I’m gonna hit the 75k in spend, but I could probably hit the 15k and get that $500 companion fare as well.
Yes, especially if you’re going to work toward the signup bonus, and that’s the main part of the card. You don’t have to go the full 15 really because you’re already going to be spending toward the welcome offer. 2x grocery, I guess that’s okay. If you’re [00:29:00] doing a lot of gift card, prepaid card spend at grocery stores, this can be one of those cards that you would do that on.
If you could spend your way to the signup bonus with the 2x, that would be preferred. Thumbs up from me. I think it’s quite good. Mainly more for the benefits on the card rather than the spending categories, but we can’t always have it all. No, but again, I have multiple paths to add more JetBlue points in from either Wells Fargo or Chase, so that helps significantly and it’s one of the few cards I have that has an elevated grocery category.
It’s not my highest grocery category. That would be my Hilton Surpass, and then my Capital One Savor card also gets 3%. But 2x is still better than a lot of my other cards, for sure. And you do get that 15% points rebate on flight bookings, so maybe that 2x is more like 2.3 in some sense.
It’s still overall I think a good card. If I lived in Boston or near the JFK area, I would be more likely to apply, and [00:30:00] I might even go for it in the future, although I do have some cards with Barclays now, and they could be a little bit stricter on the approval side with lots of activity.
Finally, some are skeptical about the miles and points space. I tell people about this. I’ll say, “I travel a lot.” People say, “How do you travel? Isn’t travel expensive?” I give them a quick breakdown of this, and the most common objections I hear are along the lines of, “It doesn’t seem worth the time.
It sounds like too much effort.” What do you have to say to people who are skeptical?
A lot of this game is you will get out what you put in. If you’re not willing to put in some time you’re not gonna really be able to enjoy the fruits of a free night certificate that gets you to, spend a night at the Waldorf Astoria or a Conrad. But if you are willing to, just do your everyday spend and, build up points and miles and depending on the cards that you may acquire, you get cards that can give you free night certificates, or you get cards that can give you companion pass fares, whether it be with [00:31:00] JetBlue like we’ve talked about, or the Alaska the Alaska credit cards can get you companion fares relatively easily based on the spend there.
The benefits that these cards can give you, in addition to earning the points and utilizing the points, the benefits can also make your travel better. It doesn’t take a significant amount of time to get started, right?
Hitting a welcome offer is relatively easy. $5,000 in spend in three months. If your typical monthly budget is $2,000 anyway, you’re going to hit that welcome offer. If you are looking at the American Express Platinum card now, that’s $12,000 in six months.
Your $2,000 a month budget is going to hit that welcome offer for potentially a pool of 175,000 membership reward points, which, you can use for business class internationally or, international premium economy, domestic first class just to greatly subsidize your travel.
It’s not always free in the sense of, you paid [00:32:00] absolutely nothing out of pocket, but it takes your everyday spend and converts it into trips that you may not have otherwise been able to afford. And it doesn’t take a lot to make these things happen. If you’re not someone who’s able to do lengthy trips due to work concerns or whatever else may be happening in life, you can pay for a little staycation getaway for yourself over a weekend with points and miles with ease across all of the hotel chains.
I’ve talked about Wyndham a fair bit. You can do the same with Choice. You can do the same with Hyatt. Hyatt’s a very popular hotel chain for that. You can turn your everyday spend into these points and miles and greatly reduce and easily subsidize travel that you’d have to wait, years to build up in some cases.
If an international business class ticket is potentially thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of points that you’ve earned as part of a 175,000 point welcome offer or on the Chase Sapphire Reserve now, a [00:33:00] 150,000 point welcome offer.
It’s not as much effort as you might think. And it doesn’t have to be a full-time commitment to miles and points. Yep. I’m more in than some listeners, and some people out there might be more in than me.
It’s about what time you have, how you wanna allocate your time, but at the end of the day, travel’s not going to come for free if you’re outside of the hobby. You’re going to have to presumably work and pay for travel, and that’s going to take a lot of time. So the question is, how do you wanna use your time?
And if you could do this at a very basic level of getting the cards, getting the welcome bonuses, and using the benefits, that’s a really good return on time, especially if you’re taking those luxury hotel redemptions, those international flights, and much more. Yeah, definitely.
Friend of the show, Dave Ramsey, says just pay for your own doggone travel,” and he’s advertising cruises for 3,000, even $4,000.
For some of his listeners how long are they going to have to work to [00:34:00] go on that cruise versus I can just get comp cruise offers because I spend on credit cards and then match those offers to other cruise companies? I like my way a lot better. It is, On the net, significantly cheaper.
Yes. Just be responsible and intelligent with credit usage, but Dave Ramsey just has no hope for humanity it seems, that everyone is going to overspend, no one’s responsible, and lots of propaganda from his show not giving points and miles a fair shake.
Once you turn left on a plane or once you experience your first free night, whether it is at a Hyatt Place or a Park Hyatt, you will foundationally try to keep that going.
Very good. Anything else to add? The only thing I’d say would be to have folks try to look into things like Rove because your Rove shopping will also stack on top of your regular credit card spend. Always look for ways [00:35:00] you can stack your typical spending.
Very good, and today’s guest once again is Matt Clausen. That’s M-A-T-T C-L-A-U-S-E-N. You can find him on YouTube. You have a lot of different videos, livestreams, and more. Can you tell listeners a little bit more about your channel?
I try to cover as much news as I can using the various sources that we all read, but if you don’t have the time to go through all the websites, I try to break everything down as briefly as I can give some insights where I think they’re appropriate, kinda comment on what the companies may or may not be up to
okay, thanks. I hope people check out your channel. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for coming to Willow Grove for the Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points Meetups. We hope to see you In the future once again I’ll do my best to get there on time next time, and thanks for having me.
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 [00:36:00] 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 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. Receive special perks at higher levels, including private one-on-one conversations about card strategy, creative credit card spending, and asking podcast guests your questions.
The website UDIO, Udio.com, created the podcast intro and outro music. It’s not me singing. AI features of the website Descript, D-E-S-C-R-I-P-T, 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 [00:37:00] 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