Hilton and Hyatt Credit Card Strategy, Citi AAdvantage Executive Changes & Amex Green Strategy with Matthew Dong
Justin Vacula of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast welcomes Matthew Dong to discuss building a smarter travel rewards strategy with credit cards, hotel programs, airline lounges, and upgrade opportunities.
Justin and Matthew compare Hilton and Hyatt strategy, including why Matthew is expanding beyond Hyatt and focusing more on Hilton for better resort options in places like Hawaii. Matthew explains how he started with cashback before moving deeper into points and miles with cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and shares luxury redemption highlights including Emirates First Class, Qatar Qsuites to the Maldives, and a Park Hyatt Maldives stay.
Matthew also explains his current Hilton Surpass Card strategy, including using referrals, buying groups, and planned spending to reach the $15,000 and $30,000 spending thresholds for Hilton free night certificates. He also discusses a possible future Hilton Surpass to Hilton Aspire upgrade to maximize resort credits, airline credits, and premium Hilton benefits.
The conversation also covers major Citi AAdvantage Executive Card changes, including the annual fee increasing, portal credits, Lyft credits, and loyalty point boosts. Justin and Matthew discuss who may still benefit from the card and who may want to reconsider it after the fee hike.
They also discuss the American Express Green Card as a downgrade and upgrade tool, including how it can help preserve Membership Rewards points, trigger upgrade offers, and potentially become more valuable if Amex refreshes the card.
Timestamps
00:00 Points And Miles Intro
00:32 Meet Matthew Dong
01:28 Where To Find Matthew
02:13 Getting Started In Rewards
05:02 Luxury Redemptions Highlights
06:55 Hyatt and Hilton Strategy
08:50 Hilton Surpass Spend Plan
09:29 Buying Groups
14:20 Hilton and Hyatt Certificates
16:55 Show Support And Announcements
19:03 Citi AAdvantage Executive Changes
26:39 Amex Green Card Case
33:57 Transfer Partners And Bilt
36:24 Advice For Leveling Up
39:04 Wrap Up And Outro
🎙️ 📢 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:
👉 Become a Frequent Traveler University member and sign up for events, including virtual seminars:
https://ftuniversity.com/?aff=24
👉 Earn 500 miles when signing up for Rove Miles using my referral link:
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
👉 Sign up for NextCard Pro features to maximize your credit card benefits:
https://www.nextcard.com/affiliates/hurdygurdytravel
👉 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 🎁
RSVP for monthly in-person meetups in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania:
https://www.meetup.com/phillymilesandpoints/
—
🌐 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. Matthew Dong joins me today to discuss points and miles, Hilton, Hyatt, recent changes or upcoming changes to the Citi Advantage executive credit card, and much more.
On with today’s episode, recorded August 4th, 2026. Welcome to the show, [00:01:00] Matthew. Hey, Justin. Thanks for having me. Really excited to talk about points and miles with a fellow enthusiast, especially on the hotel route, ’cause I also have a lot to learn, being so focused on Hyatt and now moving into the Hilton arena.
We met at the FTU Dallas event, Frequent Traveler University Dallas, and now we’re here to record today. Yeah. I’ve followed you on LinkedIn for a while now, and, you have great content and podcasts. So again, thanks for having me on. All right, thanks. And before we start, where can people find you online?
Because you have some content, and then of course, you have a LinkedIn page as well. Yep. You can find me on LinkedIn and then also on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. I also have a newsletter it’s at @wuhoo-group.
It’s W-U H-O-O. It’s my wife’s last name, maiden last name is Wu, W-U, so that’s where we c- took inspiration from. Ah, there you go. Now we know the name, and listeners should know the Hurdy Gurdy is also a musical instrument. I do get that question sometimes.
Yeah. It’s [00:02:00] fun coming up with creative names and we want people to say woohoo when they go on that flight. That’s the origin story. Yes they finally get the business class flight they wanted. Woohoo, now I’m on board. It actually worked. Exactly. How did you get started with all of this?
Got my first credit card when I was 18, thanks to my dad trying to help me build credit, be responsible with money. As a broke college student, every time I was trying to figure out what are the ways I can scrounge up enough money for a free lunch at the food truck in Philly or something else.
So I would do these behavior tests to earn money. Then I got into credit cards more and realized, oh, I can get cash back from my book purchases, my restaurant purchases and whatnot. And started min-maxing kind of that area, just really just for cash back. It wasn’t until junior, senior year I realized, okay, I can use these points for travel.
Go on some fun spring break trips. But it really wasn’t until I got my first job out of college, where you have real expenses but also real income and then friends all over the world, [00:03:00] plus some of them are getting married, that I realized, huh, my current salary’s not gonna help me afford all these trips that, that I want to take.
And that’s when I really dived into going from cash back on credit cards to points and miles. So I got the Chase Sapphire Reserve and then it just snowballed from there. Getting more and more cards and really realizing I need more and more points to go on more and more trips.
And then got married, and that’s when I had my player two come along, my wife, so we could go on more of these luxurious kind of vacations. The Maldives is the classic example, but also plenty of other places The answer to everything is indeed more credit cards.
But how did you find that? Some people might just use one credit card or even a debit card or cash, but you figured out, “Oh I’m not just going to get and use one credit card, I’m going to sign up for many to get these big offers.”
It’s funny because my first credit card was a TD Bank secured card with my dad, but then my first, unsecured credit card was just a Cabela’s card.
I was in Boy [00:04:00] Scouts, I love the outdoors. I’m like, “All right I spent a lot at Cabela’s, this is what I should do.” A classic beginner mistake. Going back to the college story, I actually got the Uber card ’cause I, it was a really solid cashback card.
If I remember correctly, it was 4X back on dining. As a college student, yeah, I’m trying to save up money, so I could eat out a lot with friends. Those were just a little bit of research here and there. Again, once I got the Chase Sapphire Reserve and then successive Chase, Capital One, Amex cards, that came more from reading a lot of Reddit posts points and miles blogs, talking with friends that are also recently into this as well after we graduated college.
So it was a mixture of just a lot of research out there.
Good. So you found the space and you’ve been quite active creating content, going to events as well, so you found a certain community about it.
I didn’t realize how big the communities were and a lot of them are holed up at different areas.
There’s the LinkedIn community, the Threads community obviously the conferences. A lot of people like us.
You’ve mentioned going on [00:05:00] several luxurious trips. What are some of your favorites that might be from the luxurious category or outside of that?
The Maldives is the classic example, the kind of the dream that every points and miles person wants to go to.
It was no different for my wife and I to make it our post-COVID honeymoon. We flew Emirates first class from Newark to Athens, that fifth freedom route, meaning it doesn’t actually fly through Dubai through Emirates, which made it a lot cheaper on the taxes ’cause if you fly through Dubai on points through Emirates directly, you still have to pay al- almost $1,000 in taxes and fees.
So I didn’t wanna do that, but I still wanted to experience the first class cabin. Booked business class and for myself, first class for my wife, and I was able to upgrade with points at the desk when we were flying out. Then took another Middle Eastern carrier, Gulf Air business, to finally get to the Maldives and then took Qatar Qsuites, again, the classic points and miles goal, [00:06:00] that double bed in the sky in business class home from the Maldives, stopping by Doha back to my home in Dulles Airport.
In the Maldives we stayed at the Park Hyatt there. Really cool. Still real expensive. Even if the, points and miles helped out a lot, it was still real expensive to be in the Maldives. $700 per night extra for the over water bungalow. Food is really expensive, but definitely a once in a lifetime trip that was worth it.
Any others besides the Maldives?
We’ve done some cool European trips. A quick trip over New Year’s to Brussels. Friday, came back Monday flying on United Polaris. That’s when Turkish Airlines had really good award seats on United, so it was 45,000 points for one person one way in business class versus on United itself, it was like 80,000 points.
And stayed at the Juliana Hotel there in Brussels, which is now no longer a part of Hyatt. I think now it’s under Hilton
And speaking of Hilton, you’ve been considering Hilton. [00:07:00] You’ve gotten your stays with Hyatt. You’re looking at getting more credit cards, and the Hilton American Express cards have piqued your interest.
Since we last talked and from your wonderful presentation at Frequent Travel University, both my wife and I have each gotten a Hilton Surpass card. Oh, nice … yeah, we actually went to Hawaii stayed in Kauai at the Grand Hyatt Kauai.
That was a great Hyatt. Loved it. Can’t wait to go back. But then Honolulu, the main island that most people live in, we stayed at Waikiki Beach, where kinda most tourists have to stay. And there, the Hyatt selection is not as luxurious. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great hotels.
You got the Hyatt Centric, I think the Hyatt Place, and the Hyatt Regency. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency. Great resort hotel. Had the club lounge had nice rooms, but it wasn’t, it’s not enough, to be honest. And I know we sound a little spoiled, but my wife and I want a little bit more when we go to Hawaii.
Last time we went for a wedding. We’re going [00:08:00] again for a wedding in 2027 summer, and I know Hilton has a lot of free night awards. Yes, maybe their points are not as lucrative as Hyatt, but in terms of also hotel footprint and resorts, they do have nicer options at Waikiki Beach.
So that’s what got me thinking, maybe I don’t need to convert to a whole Hilton loyalist, but at least for this specific trip, I kinda wanna consider not staying at a Hyatt for once. And I know that’s maybe blasphemous to my Hyatt loyalists here, but Hilton does seem better. And, I will chase where that better stay is, and that’s why I talked with you and made sure I was making the right strategy to make sure I spend the least amount of money to get these luxurious resorts in Hawaii.
It takes a lot of spending to get there, a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll or stay with Hilton. The Hilton Surpass, did you get a free night certificate as part of the signup bonus, or did you have to spend the 15,000, or maybe you did both?
Unfortunately, no [00:09:00] free night award with the signup bonus, but it was an elevated offer of 130,000 Hilton points And then I referred my wife to the Surpass the day I got the physical card, I was able to refer her. After spending $6,000, $3,000 on each card, we’ll have 280,000 Hilton points already.
And then we’re gonna as you said, spend 15k on each card to get that free night award, and that’s just the beginning. I’m excited for all the spendage to come, ’cause it will be a lot.
And you’ve posted on LinkedIn, you do some reselling or you buy and sell merchandise to certain buyers, so this could be a strategy to accumulate spend on your cards without, say, buying, oh, designer watches-
Expensive TVs, expensive clothing, whatever the case might be. Yeah. I am actually a very frugal person. I hate spending money on myself. My friends and I went to Franklin Fountain in Philly this weekend, so I just drove them, but I was not gonna buy myself a milkshake even though it looked really [00:10:00] good, just ’cause I don’t like spending money on myself.
I’ll spend on my wife, spend on my friends, but I’m actually very frugal, which means it’s actually very hard for me to spend 15k, 30k with my own purchases. So that’s why, as you mentioned, I’m doing these things called buying groups where I’m just buying things and reselling things and getting that money back.
Pay on my credit card for these things, get that money back into my bank account so I can reach those high spends. I normally work with Buy From Me Retail, plus a couple other s- buying groups. Essentially, what I do is I’ll see a deal. They want me to buy, actually did this today, an Apple Pencil Pro.
I think it’s $97, and they’re gonna pay me $96 when they receive it at the warehouse. Putting it on my Hilton Surpass card so I can reach those spending thresholds we talked about.
Okay. So you’re going to spend that 15k, but you’re also looking at 30k, and listeners might think wait a second, I only see when I look at the details of the card, you spend 15,000 to get a free night, [00:11:00] but you’re going to spend 30,000 on the card.”
Yeah. This is what you taught me, ’cause I thought when we were talking about upgrading, downgrading Hilton cards, when you upgrade or downgrade a card, it resets the spend threshold, but it doesn’t. I’m gonna spend the first 15k on the Surpass before the end of the year, get that free night.
Then on each card, I’m gonna spend another 15k to spend 30k on the Surpass. Once that happens, or maybe a little bit before, I’m gonna upgrade the Surpass to the Aspire Card. It also gives an additional free night when you spend 30k in a year on that card.
Hilton free night awards, which, are worth over $1,000 for the Hilton I’m looking at in Hawaii, so that’s a lot of money saved.
We could spend on the Surpass early in the year because that’s the lower annual fee card, and you could use the $50 Hilton credits. Maybe the fourth quarter of the year comes, you use the $50 quarterly credit on the [00:12:00] Surpass upgrade the Surpass to the Aspire maybe in November, and then you’re going to get another $50 airline incidental credit on the Aspire.
You’ll get the free night, and then you’ll also get $200 Hilton resort credit that you can use at particular Hilton resorts, even like the Hilton DoubleTree in Lancaster, Pennsylvania qualifies as a resort. That’s gonna be the plan. Yeah, I wanna use all those credits to make sure I recoup that expensive annual fee
A good way to generate the certificates, and if you’re doing spending at grocery stores on the Surpass, you’re also getting 6X points, whereas the Aspire probably not so good for spending.
It’s just 3X everywhere, and then some bonus categories, but I would think most listeners won’t use those bonus categories in the Aspire, and they’ll be more likely to get the 6X points from grocery store spending.
It’s mostly been putting a lot of spend on my World of Hyatt credit cards to kinda do a similar thing, not for free nights, but more for [00:13:00] status.
I think the return with the free night certificates is just worth it for me to not really t- worry too much about the bonus categories Yes, unless you were to do maybe a lot of Amazon spending or spending other retailers and maybe you could purchase gift cards at those grocery stores and get a little bit more for your money there. That could be a possibility, too.
I am sometimes worried about when I buy gift cards with Amex cards, so I always try to keep it reasonable for my spend comparison. But I don’t know if you’ve had other experiences where, you’re fine buying thousands and thousands of gift cards with the Amex cards.
Outside of the signup bonus, it’s usually pretty good with them on the co-brand cards like the Hiltons, the Deltas of the world. Maybe on the membership rewards earning cards or if they’ve had heightened promotions, maybe they’re a bit stricter about that. But recently I haven’t had problems, and usually it’s a slow and steady wins the race- Yeah
in this hobby rather than throwing 20,000 all of a sudden in their face in [00:14:00] one month when your spending pattern wasn’t that in the past. Yeah. Even the cashier’s gonna look at me weird … cashiers make up rules. They start, “Oh, has anyone asked you to purchase these?” Or all these precautions, let’s say.
Yeah. They’re gonna see me coming to that rack every day they’re gonna know something’s up, so yeah. Slow and steady makes a lot more sense. Yeah, so that’s good, a dual strategy with both Hilton and Hyatt rather than just focusing in one program. Yeah. Especially with the Hyatt side, I’ve already done all the spend I needed to do on my personal and business cards to maximize the free nights and the qualifying nights I need for status.
Instead of always applying for a new card every month or so to kinda hit these sign-up bonuses, I think in a way it’s easier for my mind, simplicity sake, just to focus on having these two cards in my wallet for a while and then I can be a little bit more selective about which sign-up bonuses I wanna tackle.
And first world problem is that if we’re just applying for too many [00:15:00] cards in a short amount of time, we’re going to be declined. Yep. So working on these high spend goals will be good for that in between time when you’ve already hit the spend required for sign-up bonuses, hit other spend required for statuses and so on.
I need more cards to get more buying group things, to get more cards, to get more buying group things, to get more points at the end of the day. The circle of life. Otherwise, it’s just gonna be something like earning 1X points, 1.5X or 2% cashback. The appeal of the free night certificates with Hilton and getting different credits with them is more interesting than just a 2% cashback.
Especially when I have a very specific goal in mind, right? It’s not “Oh, I’ll try Hilton out and then maybe redeem it at a local Hilton Garden Inn.” But like with Hawaii, I know it’s expensive. I know I’m going to Hawaii for this wedding it’s nice to have a solid plan for something I know that’s gonna be happening.
I’ve stayed at some luxurious hotels in Amsterdam with the Hilton free night certificates. I went [00:16:00] to Calala Island earlier this year and got paid for doing so as part of their anniversary promotion, the 15th anniversary promotion. I believe it was $2,015 was a very generous thing from them. Lots of power with the Hilton free night certificates.
I can’t wait to start redeeming them. And unfortunately, a weakness of the Hyatt program is that most people are going to get the free night certificates with Hyatt, but they’re going to be capped at category four hotels. Yeah. The category one through four certificates, where the Hilton ones you could use at almost any property as long as there’s what they call standard room availability.
It’s not like Marriott where you can top off even. It’s just category one to four, so when a lot of my favorite category four hotels move up to category five, I’m just out of luck. I need to use straight up points or buy in cash. I can’t just use my free night awards anymore.
Very good. We’ll take a short break for some announcements and come back talking about recent news with [00:17:00] the Citi Advantage Executive World Elite MasterCard changes and much more. Ads are here to support the show and my efforts, just like on many other shows. This is free for listeners with no paywall. I spend time editing audio, creating transcripts, and preparing for the show.
I also pay for software and subscriptions. Please support through affiliate links and by becoming a Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast supporter on subscribestar.com or YouTube. visit meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points meetups I host in person in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Join us for our next meetup August 16th, 2026. Find a link in the show notes.
I’m a Frequent Traveler University affiliate. Grab an FTU annual membership for online courses, monthly virtual seminars, member perks, event [00:18:00] discounts, and more. Use my membership link in the show notes.
I’m also an affiliate with CardPointers. 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. The CardPointers app also has many helpful tools. Use my link in the show notes, cardpointers.com/HurdyGurdyTravel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans.
I’m also an affiliate with SaveWise, which helps you clip grocery coupons with one click at Acme, Giant, Kroger, and about 5,000 other grocery stores. SaveWise also compares shopping portals and offers many other features. Use my link in the show notes, GetSaveWise.com/HurdyGurdy. Finally, I’m an affiliate with AutoPilot, a flight repricing tool that alerts you about price changes.
Simply cancel existing flights and rebook when AutoPilot emails you about lower [00:19:00] fares. Find my link in the show notes.
Returning now with Matthew Dong, chatting all things points, miles, and of course, credit cards. And we have recent changes with the Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard.
That’s a mouthful. Previously a $595 annual fee card, it’s going up to $695. Because America loves math, another $100 in annual fee. But there are many perks which seem to me to be a good deal for those who are keeping the card at $595, probably for lounge access and earning progress towards status with American Airlines.
What do you think about the changes before we get into the specifics? I’m very hesitant about these changes, but one, one positive, it’s now a World Legend MasterCard. Ooh, World Legend. It does sound cooler, and hopefully it has even more benefits. [00:20:00] Legendary. So hopefully it has more benefits on the MasterCard side.
If we’re just looking at the credits and benefits that are increased, I’m not really sure it’s worth $100, right? The $500 back of statement credits per calendar year on eligible American Airlines vacation purchases, it’s broken out into two 250 credits.
And you have to go through their portal and their prices, which if it fits you, that’s great. If not, you may be spending more money or you might just not be using it at all. And then with the Lyft credits it’s … You get $15 credit per month after you take three eligible rides. For some city goers, that’s probably easily done.
For me, especially living in the suburbs, I rarely Lyft or Uber. It could work for some people, doesn’t really work for me. But the American Airlines Lounge network, they’re increasing in price, and that’s where I think the value of the card was and still is a strong point in getting.
[00:21:00] If you’re someone that loves going to the Admirals Club, then it’s a really good deal compared to the price increase there on the lounge membership.
The real value, I think, is from getting lounge access.
We also have earn up to 40,000 bonus loyalty points per year, up from 20,000, and this is coming from the One Mile At A Time website. We also have get $100 in statement credits for in-flight purchases, I would imagine food and drink on board.
And the World Legend benefits, which might give expanded access with Priority Pass, maybe certain purchase protections, maybe cellphone insurance Now the in-flight purchase is probably not too exciting. It’s probably gonna be an expensive snack box for $10. Probably wouldn’t value $100 in-flight purchases worth $100 cash.
Maybe value [00:22:00] that around 20 or $30, especially if you’re just gonna be eating in the lounge before the flight. But maybe for a longer flight you’ll wanna buy some food. The extra LP, maybe that can be helpful. Maybe you won’t have to spend as much on the card.
The Lyft credits, yeah, not too interesting that you have to take three rides to get the credit back, but for frequent Lyft users or people going from casino to casino in Las Vegas, maybe that can be an option too.
It’s really just gonna be for those expensive snack boxes or, yeah, drinks like you said What about the loyalty points, extra 20k loyalty points? Maybe that’ll be a good benefit of the $100 increase.
If you’re flying American a lot, you may not need this bonus.
I guess maybe you’ll get it faster now depending on your purchases. I was just talking with Richard Viner founder of Travel Smarter, where they help people get airline status with other airlines for [00:23:00] cheaper and potentially faster to get the kind of the same perks. So I’m curious whether this is a better pathway for OneWorld status or if there’s other options that would require less spend and not require a credit card and still get the perks that you want from the different American Airlines status levels.
If people do a little bit more research, for example, doing a status match to Air Jordanian when they had it could get you the same perks than getting the 40 or I guess the extra 20,000 LP per year.
Seat upgrades I think is a big one. People really like those.
Yeah. And I can get the lounge access with the Qatar card from Cardless, perhaps a credit card people don’t hear much about. You’ve posted about several underrated or maybe not talked about credit cards, and I think that’s one where you pay the annual fee in year one, I believe 495 or 500 in year one.
Yeah. But you get that OneWorld Sapphire status, I believe it is, and that gives you [00:24:00] access to the flagship lounge and the regular Admirals Club as well for one year without having any Citi cards and without having flown American Airlines to get in those lounges.
Exactly. There’s so many ways to break down the different perks, ’cause when I say, “Oh, I’m American Airlines Platinum,” what does that actually mean?
Yeah, it means I want seat upgrades or maybe I value the lounge access or free checked bags, but especially in the US a lot of our credit cards give checked bags. There’s just so many different ways to break down the different perks to see if you actually need that and need the, LP per year or if you need it from something else.
And then speaking about the seat upgrades, there’s more research that’s shown like airlines aren’t really granting that as often to status members. They’re letting people purchase them with paid upgrades from premium economy.
Year one with the card, probably a very easy argument because you’re getting the big welcome bonus. Yeah, for sure. But then it’s going to be an America loves math problem going into year two, and these portal [00:25:00] credits, I think there’s a certain fatigue about these, that people really don’t like them.
Yep. But in this case it’s only $100 increase in annual fee, and according to One Mile At A Time, the card will offer up to $500 back in statement credits per calendar year on eligible American Airlines vacations purchases. American Airlines vacations all starting with capital letters, so that’s their portal.
This will be a semi-annual credit of $250 which will apply for a booking of two or more travel components, like a flight, car reservation, or hotel booking. So what if you were to take a very cheap flight with American Airlines, rent a cheap car, might that come under $250? It could. You could take a quick weekend trip to a hub, like Charlotte.
Dulles should be pretty easy. If you had a really cheap car reservation you might not even have to pick it up. You just pay for it and leave. You got the flight [00:26:00] coverage, so maybe this can be, like, two extra flights a year.
Oh. Yeah. I typically use points, but I guess this could be a good option. Yeah, like a $200 flight is feasible still in today’s economy. Okay, so you get your $100 overpriced snack boxes, you get your bonus LP, maybe the Lyft credits, but I imagine most listeners would pass on that.
Yeah. Maybe it’s not too bad for only $100 increased annual fee. Yeah. Yeah. Not too bad, but yeah, I think for most people it’s just this is mostly a lounge access card. The credits help offset the annual fee when you do the math, but yeah it’s not the make or break it, it’s the lounge access.
Very good. Let’s move on to American Express. They always find their way- … into the podcast, America’s Funnest Bank. You have some love for the Amex Green Card. Normally this is uninteresting, as it has a $150 annual fee. You get CLEAR membership, I believe, although most listeners probably have [00:27:00] CLEAR membership from other Amex cards or they just don’t even care about CLEAR.
You get 3x travel, which isn’t that interesting, and not much else coming from the card that’s offering or charging a $150 annual fee. But you’ve made some arguments for having a Green Card, at least temporarily.
I agree that it’s not the most interesting card. I wish American Express had a no annual fee membership reward card option to downgrade to when you’re tired of the high annual fees on the Platinums and the Golds, whether for a long time or temporarily.
But I think there are some hidden perks that people just don’t really know about. I guess one example is the 3x on travel, I do realize it’s very flexible compared to other cards. The Chase Sapphire Reserve used to be 3x on travel on broad spectrums, right? Uber rides or, rideshare in general, your typical flights, car rentals, but even tolls.
But now they’ve restricted what counts [00:28:00] as travel. Versus the Amex Green Card is still 3x on travel, transit and that is still a broad category. Although wouldn’t use it for flights still just because there’s better flight insurance when you purchase with other premium travel cards.
The other thing to know about it is the upgrade downgrade offers, and this isn’t just with the Green Card. Spend X amount of money, get 20, 30,000, 40,000 points. And some people I talk to, they just cancel their Gold and Platinum because they’re tired of it, right?
High annual fees. As you said, they have that portal or redemption fatigue. With the Green Card, not only do you get a potential downgrade option from the Platinum or Gold, later most likely American Express will offer an upgrade option, so it can make the Gold or Platinum more feasible again with those membership reward points.
And the upgrade paths can be good on that green card, maybe going back to a gold. There could even be a situation where you’ve had a gold in early 2026, [00:29:00] you downgrade to green, and then later in 2026 they’ll say, “Hey, come back to gold, upgrade to platinum, and we’ll throw you 50,000 points or so.”
In March, my Amex Gold annual fee hit. I asked about canceling, trying to get a retention offer. They didn’t have any, but they did have 15,000 points after I think it was only $1,000 worth of spend to downgrade to the green. So 15,000 points basically covered the $150 annual fee, ignoring the clear credit.
Two months later or maybe three, in, in June, I got an upgrade offer for the Amex Gold from the green I just downgraded. It was, I think, 25,000 points after maybe $3,000 worth of spend. A roundabout way to get a pretty decent retention offer on the Gold.
The Gold I had, I used the $50 Resy credits right after my annual fee hit in March, downgraded, so I got the annual fee prorated, returned back to me. When I upgraded it before July, so I was [00:30:00] still in the first half of the year, I got the Gold back, was able to use a new set of Resy credits.
So timing-wise, that worked out very well to take more value from the card without paying more in the annual fees.
I hear of some people, they wanna keep a Blue Business Plus credit card in order to keep membership rewards, as it’s my understanding that if you cancel all your membership rewards earning cards, then they take away all your membership rewards points.
You wouldn’t wanna do that. Nope. You can also transfer to transfer partners, but even with that, people say I’ll just keep a Blue Business Plus. I won’t really use it, or maybe I’ll use it some, but it will keep my membership rewards alive.” I haven’t been a fan of that as it clogs up one of the five credit card slots most people get with American Express.
So in this case, with a green card, at least temporarily, assuming you’ll get an upgrade offer in the future or just manually upgrade, you can use the green card to keep your [00:31:00] membership rewards alive instead of using one of the five credit card slots.
Yeah, pros and cons to both.
I think some people want the Blue Business ’cause there’s no annual fee so there’s no thinking or cost. But you’re right, with opportunity cost, that’s a slot that’s being taken up by potentially a more lucrative card. Right now I do both ’cause I’m not at a need for all those slots, but when that time comes, I’ll have to consider.
Maybe more Hilton credit cards in your future for more free night certificates. Yep, as I get more and more roped in, maybe I sleep- … one night at a Hilton, two nights at a Hilton, … gradually becomes three, four, five, who knows? What could happen? At least with status, it’s very easy to get with the Aspire card versus all the work I have to do to get Hyatt Globalist each and every year.
And there is also talk about the Green Card potentially being refreshed. So maybe they’ll keep it at the 150 annual fee, maybe they’ll add some Resy credits, general travel credits, or something else to the Amex Green Card. Hopefully not [00:32:00] $7 a month Dunkin’ Donuts credits. We could probably do better than that.
If I know American Express, though, it’s gonna be a higher annual fee, right? Maybe it’ll be 199, or with Clear- Ooh … although with Clear going down up to 219 and maybe even more, they’ll, might follow kind of that pathway, right? 250, 250, 250 annual fee. Exactly. Yeah, and then I know the American Express Graphite card, the cashback card that came out, I think it was like 300-something, if I remember correctly.
I think the business Green Card is a big stinker, and maybe the only argument for that is downgrading and hoping to get the upgrade offer in the future.
But that’s not even, as far as I remember, something like 3x bonus categories or benefits. Yeah. You just have the business Green.
The business version is even worse. I guess it doesn’t count for credit reports and whatnot, ’cause it’s a business card. That might be a benefit, but, Refer a friend, [00:33:00] get a referral bonus, that’s probably bigger than the signup bonus on that card.
Yeah. What, what kind of friend are you, though, if you’re referring someone to the Amex Green? You could refer each other and get a total of something like 50,000- Yeah … membership rewards. No, that’s true. American Express cards, you can technically refer anyone to any Amex card, so I can retract that statement a little bit.
Definitely not the first line of attack. There are much snazzier cards, let’s say. But, hey, you’ve had the bigger hitters, and here’s just another option, because you could have up to 10 charge cards or pay over time cards with American Express in most cases.
Yeah. Maybe you just wanna collect the rainbow, with the Amex cards. Especially with all the different designs that they have, the different colored golds, different colored platinum, or I guess different designs on the platinum Yeah, the flowers, the crayon sketches. They- yeah. If you wanna collect them all like a trading card I guess that can also be a reason.
Just no more Plum card. They retired that one. Yeah. That was quite the stinker, too. Yeah.
I have a big stack of [00:34:00] cards that I canceled, like the Altitude Reserve, at least I downgraded that to the Altitude Connect.
But that was one of my favorite cards, and unfortunately, I couldn’t justify keeping it anymore. And they also promised, as far as I remember, to release some airline transfer partners back in November or around November of 2025, and now we’re recording in August 2026, and still no US Bank transfer partners.
Yeah, they actually removed that language, Oh. They- … from a future press release and pages, so it sounds like that’s not working out. But on this topic, one of the Bank of America executives teased the potential for transfer partners in a earnings call or press release, so maybe, m- maybe not US Bank, but maybe Bank of America might start having transferable partners.
They have Alaska Airlines in their portfolio. That was my prediction actually in 2024, so who knows what surprise do we have later this year or in the future? And Citi did that where they’ve [00:35:00] had the AA cards and then they made AA a transfer partner, which is quite nice.
And with Atmos, I recently booked a flight from LA to Philadelphia, only 7,500 points with Atmos. A great deal.
Those deals are so lucrative. I see them and I wish I transferred more when they had the American Express to Hawaiian Airlines to Alaska because they got acquired.
Hard to argue, and a lot of my Alaska’s coming from the Bilt Palladium credit card. I tried for the BOA Atmos Summit card but was declined, so I’ll try again in 2027.
H- how do you like the Bilt card? Are all your points going to Atmos or other places? So far they’ve gone to Atmos. I’ve booked a few flights with them, mostly the American Airlines flights. They’re just a lot cheaper booking through Alaska. I just have to pay that pesky $20 partner booking fee, which I was hoping to disappear with being approved- Yeah
for the Summit credit card, [00:36:00] but that was not in the cards for 2026. Yeah. Good luck next year. Hopefully you get that ’cause that will save a lot of money.
Plus all the other benefits from the card, earning status. The 3X on international transactions or foreign transactions is interesting too. Yeah. I do have a small niche of clients that predominantly live abroad or traveling like most of the year internationally.
Even Canada counts as a foreign country, so that- Nice … 3X is a huge return Listeners have heard a lot about our credit cards, our trips, our plans. Hopefully they want to get started with miles and points or expand their game. What advice would you have for people looking to level up or get started in this space?
Reading a lot of blog posts, watching a lot of different influencers, YouTubers, and taking things with a grain of salt.
Some people really like American Express, hate on [00:37:00] Chase, vice versa. There’s also affiliates, right? Some people get a lot of money back from referring you to certain cards.
My favorite kind of website to get a lot of up-to-date information is Doctor of Credit, who I feel like is the least biased and has a lot of helpful information for kind of beginners to intermediate to even experts like me reading it every day to make sure I can stay on top of the news ’cause the credit card world is always changing.
The card that you talked about maybe a month ago might have refreshed, might have updated, like what we just talked about with the Green, so much so that AI can’t even keep up.
There can be lots of paths as well, lots of cards to apply for, but I usually recommend to start small and not Go too deep too early and lack a plan. Sometimes I would hear people, “Oh I went to Staples. I saw that there was a MasterCard gift card deal. I got 2,000 in MasterCards, but now where do I use them?”
And the question should have been, “Hey, I’m considering doing this, [00:38:00] and how could I use these prepaid cards?” Rather than someone holding the bag for $2,000 and not knowing what to do. Yeah. I see that way too often on Facebook groups where it’s like, “Oh, I just got this insert expensive card. What do I do with it now?”
Bro you should have thought about that, asked the exact questions that Justin said, before you applied for the card, right? We don’t want you dumping six, seven, $800 in annual fees to have a flashy piece of metal you can use to spend on things. Yeah, everyone needs that little bit of thought into that strategy of what they’re gonna get out of this card, how it’s gonna help their goals, whether it’s travel or maybe for someone who doesn’t travel, whether it’s cash back.
There’s hundreds of cards out there that aren’t just from the main banks that may be a better fit for the next few months, better fit for your whole life.
One of my favorite credit cards, the MGM Iconic credit card. Unfortunately, they don’t pay me to say it, but I’ve been recommending it for a while. One of my favorites, often going to casinos, Las Vegas, Atlantic City. But not a [00:39:00] card for everyone, especially if you’re not a casino or cruise enthusiast.
And one more time, how can people find you online?
You can follow me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok at Woohoo Group. That’s W-U-H-O-O underscore G-R-O-U-P. I also have a free weekly newsletter. Lots of ways to just get free information from me, get in contact with me in text, video, picture form Very good.
Thanks for coming on today. Thanks for having me, Justin. It was a fun conversation, and it’s always great to learn from you.
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 [00:40:00] 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 subscriber levels, including private one-on-one conversations about card strategy, creative credit card spending, and asking podcast guests your questions. The website Descript, D-E-S-C-R-I-P-T, helped me edit and improve audio quality. Highly recommended for fellow podcasters. Saves you time and produces much better 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[00:41:00]
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold