PodsGPT.io - Podcasts Summaries and Transcriptions

Hello, and welcome to another episode of All the Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins and I'm excited you're here today. So in the past I've done a ton of mailbag episodes where I've answered questions from you all, and recently I did an episode where I just shared a few of my thoughts on things going on in my mind. Well, I was trying to think about this week whether I wanted to do another mailbag, and I had all these things to share in my mind, and I thought maybe I would just combine it all together. So there's a little bit of a mailbag, a little bit of some reactions and some thoughts, some wins, some hacks, and a whole lot more. I am sure that you are going to find value in this episode because there's really a lot of content. It's mostly focused on travel and credit card points and miles and a little bit on kids and some deals, but before we jump in, I want to talk a little bit about a few wins that I just felt like I needed to share because they were so awesome. The first comes from Austin who wrote this in an Apple Podcast review, which by the way, I so, so much appreciate when you guys leave reviews on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I love reading them. I feature them on the website, and maybe I'll start reading a few more of them on the air. So this one said, episode 104 saved me $15,854 a year. They said that it pointed them in a direction that cut their insurance policies in half and with better coverage, and they used to sell insurance. So I mean, this might take the top position for the most money saved from an episode, at least that I've heard about. If you've saved more than that, please let me know or even anywhere at close, I'd love to collect more stories like this. And I actually think in the new version of the website I'm building, I'm going to highlight some of these reviews and testimonials and stories. So please send a few and you might see yourself on the All the Hacks homepage. Next, I want to share a story from Christopher that was just an amazing example of what can happen at a hotel. So he was excited to take a really special trip to Savannah, Georgia with his family to celebrate and thought they'd stay in a really nice place. So he's looking at the Palmetto Bluff where he said the standard Kingrooms were about $600 a night, but the double Queen rooms were well over a thousand. We had two kids, so the Kingroom wasn't an option, and so he wanted to figure out what to do. He was a little bit annoyed, but he filled out the contact us form on the website and said, it's really hard for a family of four to stay when most of the other luxury resorts in the area only charge a little bit more for a double Queen over a King. And they were charging such a significant premium. Well, a day later, the price for the two Queen room was reset online to 700 a night and he made a reservation. Well, where it really gets exciting is that he found an email address for the GM of the hotel, explained that it was his daughter's eighth birthday and asked if they had any recommendations for activities or dinner to celebrate. And the GM passed him along to a guest relations manager who just asked a few questions and made some suggestions for activities. Well, fast forward to the actual stay. They ended up getting a free upgrade to a suite that would have cost over $1,700 a night. But when they opened the door, they were greeted to the soundtrack of Matilda the Musical, which is his daughter's favorite thing to listen to, a bunch of balloons, gifts for his daughter and a bottle of wine for he and his wife. This might be the best story we've heard yet of an upgrade and an amazing experience just from sending an email to the GM or to the front desk or to the concierge of a hotel. So definitely keep doing that if you have any trips coming up. Just always make sure to book directly with the hotel or through a travel agent when you're doing it. Last I want to share a story from Michael who used the card optimizer spreadsheet I built to evaluate what the best card options were. He said that just 15 minutes with the spreadsheet added more than $500 in additional points per year versus the cards he already had in his wallet. And while the price for the spreadsheet is actually set at pay what you want, he found it so valuable that he offered to make a donation in my name for $175 based on the value provided. He made that to charity water, which is an awesome organization. I'm a big fan of. So first off, I'm so excited that you got a ton of value from this spreadsheet. That makes me so happy. I want to continue building tools like that. Second, thank you so much for the donation you made. It really means a lot to me and to all the people who are going to have clean drinking water because of it. And finally, if you haven't checked out the spreadsheet and want to, you can go to all the hacks.com slash card value and take a look. You're also going to get the update to V2 of the spreadsheet, which I'm working on now, thanks to some awesome feedback from listeners. So those are a few awesome wins from the audience. Please share your wins, share your amazing stories. I'd love to hear them. I'd love to share them with others. And as you hear in the rest of this episode, there's going to be a lot more. So let's jump in right after this. Finding your life away to a big wireless provider is kind of like being trapped on a rollercoaster from hell. Sure, it looked fun at first. They probably threw in the free phone, but now you can't get off. 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To get your new unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to all the hacks.com slash Mint Mobile. That's all the hacks.com slash Mint Mobile, M-I-N-T Mobile, and cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at all the hacks.com slash Mint Mobile. Okay, I want to start talking about travel, mostly because we just got back from an incredible trip to Bora Bora a few weeks ago. I am so fortunate that we've been able to go there a few times. It's crazy that from the West Coast, you can get to French Polynesia in just eight hours. And even if you're not trying to do an aspirational business class trip, you can find flights in coach on French B or United for less than $1,000. So the first two trips we took were planned a bit more in advance, and this one was really last minute. I talked about it a little bit on the last episode I did like this. It came together because I asked my parents if there was any time in 2023, they might be able to help watch our girls. And it turned out that something sooner was actually the best for everyone. And so we started looking at where we're going. So if you want to hear a little bit about how we decided where to go, go check out episode 124. We got an amazing deal on flights. We ended up doing round trip on United, and it was only 55,000 arrow plan points each way in business. I'll come back to that because arrow plan has been such a great option. But the hotels was the one where I really was trying to optimize, and I'll share what ended up happening. So I had hoped that as the dates got closer and closer, that the availability for points would open up. And I actually got an email a few weeks ago from Jeremy who shared his experience with Hilton, which was very positive. So he said they normally stay at the Grand Wileia in Maui. Now before I continue, I just want to say I am so heartbroken about what's going on in Maui. We went last October, and we spent the whole day in Lahaina, and it's so sad to see what's happened and the destruction from all these fires. All of our thoughts and prayers from the whole family are out to the people in Maui and Lahaina and everywhere affected. It's been so sad to see what's happening. There are a lot of organizations you can contribute to if you want to support the relief efforts. But I'll link to a few that we've made donations to from our Daffy account in the show notes. So when Jeremy last looked to book a trip there, the rooms were over 2 million Hilton points at night. He checked a week before the trip and rooms were down to 100,000 points per night. He ended up booking the room with points, used a free night certificate with the Aspire card and got incredible value. He stayed the second half of the trip at the Ritz Carlton, which he said was a great property, had really reasonable bond-boy rates outside of peak time, and one of the best bunch buffets outside of Southeast Asia he's ever had. That was also a bummer to hear because we actually stayed at that same Ritz Carlton and never tried out the brunch buffet, mostly because no amount of bond-boy status gets you free breakfast at the Ritz Carlton, and I think I was just a little annoyed by that rule. But I have some regret. I wish I had lived a little bit more of a die with zero life because the best buffet brunch outside of Southeast Asia sounds like a really incredible meal to have. So hearing a story like that, we thought if we waited until the last minute some availability would open up, and unfortunately that just wasn't the case. So for Bora Bora, we waited, we waited, nothing happened, we ended up just having to book the room with dollars, it was a little over a thousand dollars a night, but we did use the upgrade tactics, we emailed the hotel, and we're able to get upgraded to a Deluxe Overwater Villa, which was absolutely incredible. In fact, if you go back to episode 49 on YouTube, you can see I recorded the entire episode from an overwater villa in Bora Bora. That time was at the St. Regis. Bora Bora is incredible. I've talked about it multiple times, so I won't spend much time here. But on the west coast, getting to French Polynesia is so easy. Bora Bora, it's an amazing place to go. It's so beautiful. In fact, a lot of Tahiti is, I haven't gotten a chance to explore it as much. I think our next trip we might spend some time in Mariah or in Taha or another island to just get more of an experience. Unfortunately, we weren't able to use our points there, but we were fortunate that at the last minute, the Hilton Tahiti, which is a property we've never stayed at, it's really near the airport, it's gorgeous, the pool was amazing, the property was amazing, breakfast was amazing. It was just such a great experience, and that did open up for points, which meant that I could use our Hilton Aspire Free Night certificate and get a free night, which saved us $400 on that hotel room. And similarly, we got a great upgrade there, thanks to Hilton Diamond Status, which we also have from the Aspire card, which I think might be a good time to just briefly talk about the Aspire card, because I'd always thought it was a good deal, and then finally going on this trip made it all come together. So it does have a high annual fee at $450. But what you get, aside from a $150,000 point welcome bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months, you get 14 x points on Hilton Hotels just from the card that's in addition to the $20 points per dollar you get staying at Hilton when you're a diamond member, which Diamond Status is another benefit of the card. You also get a $250 Hilton Resort credit. So we instantly got that after our first night. There's also a $250 airline fee credit. We've been able to get that back with Southwest this year. You also get a priority past select membership. We already have that through the Platinum Card and the Chase Reserve, so that one wasn't a big benefit for us. And then finally, you get a free night certificate. And so if you add up what we've gotten just from this trip from that card, we got $400 off a hotel room. We've been able to get $250 airline credit. We got a $250 resort credit, so we're already at $900. But that complimentary Diamond Status also got us breakfast at the hotel for seven nights for two, which I don't actually remember the price, but I want to say was in the ballpark of $40, $50 a person. So there's another $700. So almost $1,600 of value from this card, not including the welcome bonus and not including the $14 points per dollar. So all in all, incredible deal. And so now I'm actually thinking Amy has one now. Maybe I should get a Hilton Inspire also. And then we'd have twice the perks, twice the credits, twice the free nights. So if you do spend $60,000 here on the card, you earn another free night certificate. I'm not sure that that's the best deal for our circumstances, but definitely something to consider. So if you're interested in the card, Amy's referral link for that card, which obviously we would both appreciate you using is all the hacks.com slash Hilton. I did want to come back to service because I know one of the conversations I have with people who've never really stayed at a five star resort is what's really the difference? Is it really worth that $1,000 a night? And what happens that is different from other properties? Fortunately, we heard a story from a friend of ours at the exact same time as a similar thing happened to us that I think really highlights both a total win for service and a total miss. And so it turns out that both me and my friend Liz got sunburned when we were traveling last month. And for me, I somehow forgot to put sunscreen on my neck. I have no idea how I managed to get my entire body except my neck, but I got a little burnt. And when I went and fortunately at the Hilton Properties in French Polynesia, there's free sunscreen and free allo at the pool. So I noticed the sunburn around 5.36 o'clock went to the pool and it turned out the pool stand was closed and they'd put away the sunscreen and the allo because all the hotels are kind of secluded. There's no store I could have gone to at this time. So I went to the front desk and asked if there was any chance they could have opened up the little pool stand that was, I don't know, maybe a two minute walk so I could get some allo and put it on my neck. And the person at the front desk said sure no problem. I'll send someone over. So I went over to the desk, waited for 15 minutes. No one came. Amy, meanwhile, is sitting at dinner waiting for me to join her. So I give up. I walked to dinner. It turns out that right next to the restaurant we were going to was a concierge. So I tried that desk and said to the front desk and said, hey, I would love it if someone could get some allo. You could bring it to me here at dinner or maybe someone could send it to the room. Anything would be greatly appreciated. Well, an hour later, they came back and said they weren't able to do anything. At the end of the world, I survived, of course. But the story Liz told me where she was staying at the Rosewood in Maya Coba in Mexico was that she also got sunburned and didn't tell anyone about it, didn't say anything. But when she got back to her room in the evening, there was a bottle of allo and a note that said, we noticed you might have gotten some sun and thought you'd appreciate this. And those little touches of service are what sets apart a good luxury hotel and a great luxury hotel. Similarly, I remember when we were in Bali, we were staying at the four seasons and when I was speaking with a waiter at breakfast and mentioned that Jackfruit was my favorite fruit. And I love that they have it in Bali, but I hadn't seen it at this hotel. And he had relayed that message. And the next morning at breakfast, not only was there Jackfruit, but a different waiter came up to me and said, I heard you really like Jackfruit. We got some and we brought it in. I can't necessarily put a price on what those experiences are worth, but they just make the whole experience at a hotel incredible. Similarly, a couple last two anecdotes. Liz also told me that every night they parked bicycles at their room and the next morning someone had gone by and turned the bikes around so the bikes were facing the other direction. And then another one that I thought was so minor, but such an opportunity for a hotel to do a great job was at the Conrad. When we first got there and checked in, they asked us, do you have any food allergies? And we told them we have no food allergies. And it could have been so easy for them to mark that somewhere because every time you go to any restaurant, there's a piece of paper with every guest and it has all these secret codes about the guests. And I was always looking at it, trying to figure them out. And I couldn't, but every time we went to a restaurant, someone said, do you have any food allergies? Do you have any food allergies? And I was almost wondering why they even asked us to check in if they weren't going to do anything with that information. And so if anyone has some fun examples, I'd love to hear them. I always love hearing about ways that hotels can set themselves apart and what makes for an amazing experience. My daughter is only three, but she starts preschool next week. So do you want to quick back to school tip? You can cross everything off your list before the big day with DoorDash, who I'm excited to partner with for this episode because they make it so easy to stock up on school supplies, lunchtime snacks, and a lot more, all in one place. With DoorDash, you'll enjoy next level convenience with delivery within an hour, making it easier than ever to get your back to school needs fast. Double your favorite retail, grocery, and convenience stores are in the app so you can shop for everything your family needs and fill your kids backpacks, their bellies, and your pantry this back to school season. Be prepared before the big day arrives, stock up with on-the-go breakfast, lunchbox staples, and the brands they love. Shop DoorDash to get everything you need for the back to school season delivered right to your door. Order now for stress-free back to school shopping. Use promo code all the hacks to get 50% off up to $10 of value when you spend 15 or more at convenience, grocery, or retail stores on DoorDash. That's 50% off up to $10 of value when you spend 15 or more promo code all the hacks. Don't forget that's code all the hacks for 50% off your next order term supply. There's a time in every business when that problem you've been ignoring needs to be handled. If you're getting frustrated with how you're selling online or in person, I can't recommend Shopify highly enough, and I'm excited to be partnering with them for this episode. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run, and grow your business without the struggle. What I love about Shopify is how no matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. So whether you're selling French pastries from Shopify's in-person POS system or selling your custom travel guides on Shopify's all-in-one e-commerce platform, you are covered. And once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the internet's best converting checkout to help you turn them from browsers to buyers. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at allthehacks.com slash Shopify, go to allthehacks.com slash Shopify to take your business to the next level today. Allthehacks.com slash Shopify. I have a few other things on the topic of travel. One, I was talking to a friend of my name Trevor who was in Europe and had a flight home from Copenhagen to Los Angeles, but wanted to come home a week early because something had come up and he wanted to go visit his family. And so he actually tried to call SAS the airline to ask some questions about changing his flight and couldn't get anyone on the phone. So he thought, I'm just going to go to the airport. So he went to the airport and he asked his first agent at the desk. If there was any way that not only could he leave a week early, but his flight was to LA and he really wanted to get to San Francisco. And it was part of a round trip that he was going to use to come back to Europe. So he couldn't just cancel one leg because it would mess everything up. And the first agent said, there's no way it's impossible. I can't do this. I'm sorry. Nothing can be done. So he sat down. He'd actually brought all his bags. So he wasn't quite sure what to do because he wanted to go home and he didn't have a place to stay. So he's looking on his phone for a few minutes, trying to see if there are any other options that he looked up and noticed that about 15 minutes later, the person he'd spoke to had left. Maybe they'd went on break and someone else was working at the SAS desk. So he went up to this next agent and explained his whole situation again was very kind, very nice and very gracious. And that agent, despite that the other agent said it would be impossible, was able to move him to a flight to San Francisco for no extra cost to come home that day to a different airport. So I think the takeaway for me is there's this phrase that's often used in the points and miles world, which is hang up call again. If you call a credit card company or an airline or a hotel group and you're trying to get something done and you're just not getting the answer you want, sometimes the best answer is to just hang up and try again. And if you see it mentioned online, it's usually abbreviated HUCA hang up call again. And it was just cool to see that work in real life. It was wait till the agent's on break, find another agent and try again. I'm so glad that he was able to get home because it would have been way more expensive to change and rebook his flight. So I'm glad that worked out continuing on the travel front. One was around rental cars. So it turns out for whatever reason we went to rent a car and the cheapest rental cars in Minneapolis were all electric. It was either a model three or it was an electric SUV that was either going to be a Volvo or a Tesla Model Y. What I didn't think about in advance, but I did as we checked out was that unlike a gas car that you have to bring back with a full tank or get penalized or pay a much higher rate for gas. When you return an electric car, there's no requirement to bring it back full. So not a huge savings, but I just thought a really great hack. If you rent an electric car, you don't have to pay for that electricity and you can bring it back empty. On the topic of renting cars, I have two hacks that listeners sent in about renting cars in Europe. One is from Elliott who said, take a look at car to Europe, which is a car leasing company in Europe. He said that it exploits a tax loophole that allows individuals in Europe to sell cars to non-Europeans without tax penalties. It makes it really affordable for a longer term lease of a new car in Europe. He had a great experience. My friend Daniel also reached out to tell me that LIGO, L-I-I-G-U dot me, is a rental car company that he recently used in France. He used it because it was the cheapest option in Bordeaux, but after the experience, he's going to use it as much as possible. He said the whole thing was done on mobile. It was similar to Zipcar if anyone ever used their service. At the airport, he was able to scan all his passport, his driver's license. He got to the car. He unlocked it from his phone, took off, didn't interact with anyone, and it was the most seamless experience he's ever had renting a car. So check out LIGO if you're anywhere in Europe and you can use that. And then a final reminder from Linda, just make sure you video the car inside and out on pickup and return. She rented a car in Slovenia and returned it back in Italy. And while she didn't actually notice that the roof had a lot of dense likely from hail, they were on the video and when she returned the car, she was able to show the video, prove that they were there during pickup and didn't get charged any extra. Also on our Minneapolis trip, a few things. Actually, technically we were staying in St. Paul and we stayed at a hotel called the St. Paul, which has that like really old school luxury feel. But when we checked in, I felt like such a rookie. They had a sign that said, you know, we're part of the I prefer hotel rewards program. And I was like, oh my gosh, I booked a hotel that had a rewards program. And I didn't even know about it sign up for it or use it. It just felt like such a rookie move for me. And so while we were there, I did join the program. Technically the terms say that you needed to be a member before the stay to get credit for it. But I'm hoping that maybe because I joined before checkout, it will work. The stay didn't post automatically. I sent an email to see if there was any way to add the points, but so far, haven't heard back. But I will say, if you're in St. Paul or Minneapolis, a few things we did that were amazing. One, the Minnesota Children's Museum is incredible. We could have spent the whole day there if we had time. The Como Zoo and Conservatory is amazing. It's actually free or donation based, shout out to Eric for the recommendation. All the kids in the family loved it. And then food wise, I'll just share one restaurant that was really awesome called Moscow on the Hill. We had a big family dinner at this amazing Russian restaurant. Good drinks, good food, good staff. It was just such a great experience. So that was that trip. One thing I noticed as I was walking through the airport, I saw one of those airport bookstores and it just reminded me of a hack that Kerry sent in, which I don't know if anyone knew because I didn't. A lot of the airport bookstores sell books and they allow you to buy it, read it, and return it for a 50% refund at any participating airport store. So she sent me a flyer and there's a ton of airports that participate, LAX, Phoenix, Kansas City. She only sent the top half of the thing so I can't read all of them JFK, Kansas City and probably a lot more based on how big I think this flyer is. So definitely a good option if you like reading physical books and you didn't know there's a read and return program, I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to look up a little bit more there. A few last quick travel things. One, Southwest just announced that they're going to start adding free standby for all passengers on all ticket types. It was more of a leak than an announcement so I don't think it's gone into place yet. But even for the cheapest Southwest fairs, you'll be able to get to the airport standby on an earlier flight that day free. Jamie sent in that if you're not already linking your delta and your Starbucks accounts you should so that you can earn delta miles any time you're purchasing at Starbucks easy to find the instructions there, but I'll put them in the show notes. And then last, Uber and Marriott have a promo going on right now that if you link your Marriott and Uber accounts, you get 2,000 Marriott points. But then if you book an Uber reserve, which is a prescheduled ride, you get 4,000 Marriott points for each ride up to four times. And if you do all four, you get another 2,000 points. So if you do all of that, that's 20,000 points in total. I wouldn't book Uber rides for 4,000 points you don't need. But if you already have a ride where you know you're going to need it at a certain time, it might be a good deal. So I think that's everything travel except a couple quick ones related to kids. And then I'll get onto some credit card stuff. So first off, if you book with triple A, you can get a car seat for free when you use their rate with Hertz. Otherwise I know a lot of rental car companies charge $10 to $20 a day for a car seat. We've actually started bringing the ride safe for travel vest for our three year old. It's awesome. It takes up so much less space than a car seat. Think of it as a harness that rerouts the seat belt so that it's safe for children. It doesn't work for a one year old. So we do actually bring a travel car seat there. It's the Costco Senra or Senra next. Basically seems like everywhere you search online, it's the recommended car seat for traveling. So we use that. The other kid travel thing I want to share is really an amazing story. So months ago I shared a story about a listener named Adam who found $4,000 in unclaimed money. Everyone out there should be doing a quick search to see if you can find any unclaimed money because there's so many opportunities. But at $4,000 helped him cover the cost of the initial order for a company called 5050 Gear, which launched backpacks designed specifically for parents to get out with their kids. He spent three years leading the baby registry at Amazon and he was always annoyed that no company made gear, especially like a diaper bag that he was actually excited to use as a dad and he and his good buddy from college decided to get together and build it. So Adam was so grateful that he was able to fund part of this company with unclaimed money that he found from this show that he sent me a bag and on our trip to Minneapolis we got to use it for the first time and it's so great. I'm really a fan of the bag as far as storage and aesthetics it just felt like I was carrying a backpack. I would carry anyways, but it made it so easy to find all the snacks and the diapers and the bottles and the waters and everything we were carrying for the kids. But I actually didn't bring a backpack for myself. So I also used it for my laptop, my AirPods, my wallet, my ID, my credit cards, my sunglasses and everything else. So huge shout out to Adam for making an amazing bag. Thank you so much for sending it to me. And if anyone out there is looking for an awesome bag and you have kids, definitely check out 5050 gear. I'll ask Adam if he has any deals that he wants to offer the audience and if so, I'll put them in the show notes and you can find them. Otherwise I definitely check out this bag. I thought it was great and I will be continuing to use it as our primary bag for our kids. Last few things on kids, one, this sounds so ridiculous to say out loud, but we've been going to the library a lot. Both of our girls love books, but our three-year-old churns through books. We probably read 20, 30, 40, 50 books a day, oftentimes the same book and we just don't feel like we need to have thousands of books in our house that we bought. And so regularly we've been going to the library, which near us has an incredible children section. We'll check out 10, 20 books at a time. Next week we'll go return them and get 10, 20 more. So if you have kids that are young and love to read and you're not using the public library, maybe I've just been late to this and we just started doing it, but it just seemed like something that prior to children I wasn't using the library as much as I should, that said reminder that if you're looking for books on Amazon and you use this cool browser extension library extension, which I'll link to in the show notes, it'll actually tell you if you can get the e-book of any book you're looking at free from your local library. So another good option there. Two quick things. One hack from Yelena who in reference to episode 124 where I talked about recording kids stories for our Tony box. She suggested checking out a cool app called novel effect, which basically provides a really cool soundtrack and sound effects to stories you're reading and recording for your kids. So check out novel effect if you're interested. And then last, I think anyone with kids knows that kids get sick all the time. There are two apps that we've recently tried that are kind of pediatrician telehealth on demand. One of them is called summer health, one of them is called blueberry, I'll link to both in the show notes and the premise is you pay about $20 a month and you get unlimited access to pediatricians for all of your children. It doesn't route anything through insurance, summer health is all text based, so you can send lots of messages, pictures, ask questions, get responses, pretty quick response time. And we use summer health for a couple of months. It was only 10, 15 minutes before someone would reply. And then a few days ago, our youngest daughter woke up with 103 degree fever, had thrown up what looked like a little bit of bile in her crib. And we were just wanted to get a second check, but it was Saturday morning. And I knew if we messaged our pediatrician, we probably wouldn't hear back till Monday. So I paid the $20 to sign up for blueberry. While it was a little bit of a slower response time than summer health, it probably took an hour to hear back from someone. They also have the option to do phone calls and maybe even video calls, but I haven't tried that yet. So two great options for getting access to pediatrics and telehealth for a pretty reasonable cost for blueberry. If you actually need to do tests, they can send the orders over to Quest to be able to get results. If you need to do any testing, but then also they can send prescriptions to your pharmacy, where you can use your insurance, of course. And so I don't know. I just thought I'd share those too for anyone out there looking for options. I'll put links in the show notes. If I can find a promo code or referral code, I'll put those there as well. How do you feel about your finances right this second? Research shows that if you're like 90% of Americans, you most likely have money anxiety. In fact, that is one of the reasons I started a financial planning firm back in 2016. And when we shut the company down, we did extensive research on the financial service company we wanted to recommend to our clients. And we landed on FASCIT and I'm excited they're sponsoring today's episode. FASCIT has turned the financial planning industry on its head, making financial planning accessible to everyone not just the most wealthy. And one of the things I hated about this industry is that so many financial advisors charge based on a high percentage of your assets, but not FASCIT. 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Highs, lows, soren spirits, and gut punches, the stock market's volatility has been a good reminder of why we diversify our portfolios. New data from UBS shows private assets like fine art can be especially valuable when looking for low correlation, as they've historically moved independent of stocks. Bloomberg also reports as equities cratered last year, art prices increased, and we saw the highest total sales ever from major auction houses. And now the art market has actually passed its pre-pandemic level. So, what can you do about it? Well, tens of thousands of everyday investors are already using today's spots or masterworks, where you can invest without needing millions or an art degree. I've been investing with masterworks for over a year, and since then, every painting masterworks has sold to date has delivered a positive return to their investors, including net annualized returns of 10, 17, and even 35% all this year. Naturally, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns, and any investing involves risk, including loss of principle. However, masterworks' 15th exit, essentially brown piece, was just a couple weeks ago, and it saw an annualized net return of 77.3%. And now, our listeners get special access to skip the wait list when you go to allthehacks.com slash masterworks, and see important disclosures at masterworks.com slash CD. That's allthehacks.com slash masterworks. I just want to thank you, quick, for listening to and supporting the show. Your support is what keeps this show going. To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com slash deals, so please consider supporting those who support us. All right, let's move on to credit cards. I'm going to start by talking about the credit card competition act, which a few of you emailed asking my take on. So, for a little bit of history, back in 2010, there was something called the Durban Amendment, which was part of the Dodd-Frank Act, and what it did was really drastically restrict the amount of interchange, which I'll get to, that banks could charge on debit card usage. Now, interchange is the fees that merchants and stores pay to accept credit card payments and debit card payments. And as much as the goal was to reduce costs for merchants and lower prices, it didn't have anywhere near the effect that they had originally intended. First off, only 1.2% of all merchants reduced prices, about 70-something percent of them stayed the same, and then close to 30% of them actually raised prices. So, if the end goal was to lower the costs for businesses so they would lower prices, totally failed there. But because banks no longer had any income from debit cards, one, they weren't able to offer any more rewards on debit cards. But the bigger impact was that average checking account fees went up from $4.34 to $7.34, account minimums went up, maintenance fees went up, and there were just a ton less free checking accounts, which had a massive negative impact on lower income Americans. So, from my perspective, that amendment was not helpful at all. But now that we have that context in place, I'll talk a little bit about the Credit Card Competition Act right now, though it does look like Senator Durbin was trying to get it included in the National Defense Authorization Act. It looks like it's not in there now, though Senator Durbin did say he's looking to find another way to get it back in. However, it's a little different from the original Durbin amendment. So, in this new rule, it would only impact issuers with over 100 billion in assets, which is most of the major issuers we all know, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, AMX Capital One, and what it does is limit those issuers to not having credit cards that only have access to one network. Now, by networks, I mean things like Visa, Mastercard, AMX, Discover, and so, cards are no longer allowed to have one network and need at least two networks, and those two networks can't be Visa and Mastercard. Now, technically, it's that they can't be the two largest networks, but Visa and Mastercard are so far ahead that it doesn't look like there's any chance that will change in the near or even distant future. Now, again, the goal was to give more competition to the networks that process transactions so that merchant fees can come down, but after listening to a few experts who have takes on this, it seems like a really easy solution would be for someone like Chase to have a card and issue it with Visa and AMX. So, kind of in the way that AMX has co-brand cards where they're not part of AMX's membership rewards, but they're the network, you could actually see Chase offering the Chase Sapphire Reserve as a Visa, Infinite, and AMX card. Obviously, that doesn't seem normal now, but it seems like a good business for AMX because AMX would charge for that ability, and they're probably in a pretty good negotiating place because they would be a requirement. But at the end of the day, given how unsuccessful the Durban Amendment was at lowering prices, given the impact it had on people's accounts, and given the fact that it seems very few lawmakers want to take a stand on this because they don't want to upset banks, but they also really don't want to upset consumers. Consumers love credit card rewards. They're a part of society, and I just don't think at the end of the day this is going to actually come to fruition. That said, if it does, it doesn't seem like it's nearly as limiting as the Durban Amendment was because it's not restricting the rates people can charge. It's actually just requiring two networks, and so if another network comes in, then the question is just, will that network maybe reduce the amount of revenue that the issuer gets? Yes, but it's probably not going to go from one and a half to three and a half percent, like it is now, down to .05, which is what happened as a result of the Durban Amendment. So if this were to pass, do we start to see some credit cards that were offering two X points, maybe offer 1.5 X points, maybe something like that, but I don't think, like some people have said, this is going to be the end of credit card rewards if it happens, and personally, I actually don't think it's going to happen. Given that it was just taken out of the National Defense Authorization Act, I think it's even less likely, but in case it pops up again, I thought it'd be good to give it a little quick cover. Also on credit cards, you guys have sent in so many great questions that, as I've been planning out the content for this show for the next six to 12 months, I've decided to do an entire series, maybe a set of episodes on a bunch of different topics related to credit card rewards. It'll probably start off with, you know, kind of a basic high level 101, but I'll include one on earning points, redeeming points, meeting minimum spend, tools for booking awards, specifically on flights and hotels, and how to work with Player 2. If there's any other big themes of topics you have on credit cards, let me know as I'm planning all these out. But there were a few pointed questions that I don't think necessarily fit into those episodes. So I'm going to tackle them quickly here. So Nick wrote in because he got an email from Capital One asking if he wanted to switch his venture card from a credit card to a charge card. And the main difference between those two things is that a charge card doesn't let you carry a balance and pay interest, which I hope for anyone listening and trying to optimize the points game. You're not carrying a balance and you're not paying interest. If you are, then that is your priority. Don't worry about credit card rewards, pay off the credit card debt. However, with a charge card, there isn't always a limit, which means the limit isn't reported to credit bureaus. It actually means that there's a potential in the future that Capital One could decide that your limit is lower because it's not a specifically stated limit. For me, I wouldn't accept the change because I want Capital One to report a limit on that card. The venture and venture X cards are actually known for having higher limits. Having a higher limit would only increase the total amount of credit you have available to you. And so I think that would be helpful. The only argument I could make for potentially wanting to make this change is if you are using this card and constantly at a very high utilization rate on the card, let's say you have a $10,000 limit and you're always over eight or nine thousand dollars, that could have a negative impact on your credit score because you have such a high utilization that it might make sense to switch it to a charge card. Otherwise, I'm all in on stain as a credit card. I actually think I might have gotten this email and immediately dismissed it. Another question from Lauren was, I transferred AMX points to United or Delta and I had to be sales tax on the transfer. Is that normal? And I had to think about it for a little bit and even do a little bit of homework because I don't remember this and it turns out that when transferring to U.S. airlines, not international airlines and not hotel programs, this does happen. So the easiest way to do that is to avoid transferring to U.S. airlines, which is pretty easy. I think the best value from AMX comes from Air Canada, Air France, British Airways. So I actually don't think I've run across this issue, but yes, it's called an X-size tax offset fee. It's currently 0.06 cents per point up to a maximum of $99. You can use your points to cover the fee or you can just pay it on your balance. Next, I want to share a handful of deals that I think are worth taking a look at. First off, some of the transfer bonuses that are happening right now, there's three on AMX. If you're transferring to British Airways, you get an extra 30% until the end of August. If you're transferring to Avionca Lifemiles, you get an extra 15%. Both of those are great options. I've used Avionca and British Airways in 2023 for booking two different types of rewards for British Airways. It was domestic flight on American in first to New York, which was amazing. And then I used some Lifemiles just to book a flight from San Francisco down to San Diego because it was only I think 5,000 points and the flight was almost $300. So it was a great point value. And if I could have gotten an extra 15%, it would have been even better. There's also a 25% bonus transferring to Hilton from AMX and a 50% bonus transferring from Chase to Marriott. The Hilton one ends in the end of August. The Marriott one ends at the end of September. For all of these, I think the hotel ones are less exciting to me just because hotel points from AMX and Chase typically don't offer as much value as airlines. But for all of these, I think the same rule applies. None of these transfer bonuses are amazing enough that I would transfer anything speculatively. So I would wait until you have a flight. You're ready to book that you can book with these programs. And if you found them and it's a good deal, then transfer the points. Second deal that I want to highlight, which is really cool is that it seems like built has finally confirmed a promotion that they've been offering new card holders. So for anyone who doesn't remember, built is a credit card that offers you points on rent up to $100,000 of rent a year. That doesn't require you to use a specific portal. They will even mail a check to your landlord. So if you pay rent, I think the built card is an absolute no-brainer. It's incredible. Also, even if you don't pay rent, the built card offers three points on dining, two points on travel. They do have a requirement that you use the card five times each statement period. But I think for a primary card like that, it's pretty easy to do. Built points probably are my favorite points currency out there because you've got a lot of the mainstays, like a lot of the other points programs have Air France, British Airways, Air Canada Aeroplane, Virgin, but you also get United American, Hyatt, and Turkish Airlines. So if I could get more built points, I would. I wish they had 10 cards with amazing welcome bonuses, but they don't. However, you do get 5x points on all purchases in the first five days that does cap out at 50,000 points. But if you have a large purchase around $10,000, and you can time it to use it within the first five days of getting your built card, I think this is an awesome option. I'm actually so excited about built points that I'm thinking about potentially getting a built card just so that I can start earning more points. It'll probably be mostly focused on dining, especially whenever AMEX isn't taken. I don't have another card that earns more than three points on dining. The card is also a world elite master card, so it comes with cell phone protection, purchase protection, and a bunch of other travel benefits when it comes to trip cancellation, delay reimbursement, and things like that. So I'm a big fan of the built card. If I paid rent, I would have had it the day it came out. If they ever add points on mortgages, I will get it if I haven't already. One of the other great things about built is that you can sign up for a built rewards account, even if you don't have a built credit card. And you might think, why would I want to do that? But built has partnered with point dot me, which is one of my favorite award search tools for finding good flight deals on points. And you can use the built search to search point dot me for free without having to sign up for a point dot me account with the only caveat that it only searches airlines and builds program, but built has a ton of overlap with AMEX and Chase and capital one. So if you want to do some initial searches for free and see how point dot me works, you can create a free built rewards account. They also have big promos every first of the month, which they call rent day, where you earn double point, six x dining, four x travel, and two x on everything else. And they sometimes have some really, really crazy transfer bonuses. August 1st, they were offering between a 75 and 150% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic, meaning for every one point you transferred, you'd get 1.75 to 2.5 points. I didn't really have a redemption in mind, but transfer bonuses like that are probably among the only that I would say could make sense for a speculative transfer, where you don't know what you need it for, but the deals just so good. So as a built rewards member, even without the card, you also earn some points from referrals. So if you're going to sign up, I would love it. If you want to use my referral link, it's just all the hacks.com slash built B I L T or if you sign up and you want to refer someone else, definitely earn yourself some points to last two cards. I want to mention, I talked earlier how I love the arrow plan program, especially with United D valuing their miles, aeroplanes, a transfer partner of chase, amics, cap one, and built. They also have their own credit card with chase, and it's a 100,000 point welcome bonus. The reason I bring it up is because I think I should probably bring up any welcome bonus, especially for airlines or credit card points that hits the six figure mark. It's 75,000 points after you spend $4,000 in three months, and another 25,000 points if you spend $20,000 in 12 months. Like I mentioned, I was able to get round trip tickets down to French Polynesia from San Francisco and business for 55,000 arrow plan points in business class, where on United, that same flight, I think was about 80,000. So really great points. So that card is something to consider. And then last, the spark cash plus card from capital one, this card is my primary business card for all the hacks. Every expense that I have that isn't in a bonus category goes here. It earns two points per dollar, though technically it earns 2% cash back, but that cash back, if you have a venture, venture X or spark miles card, you can use that cash back as miles and transfer it, and they have a big welcome bonus of 120,000 points. It does require 30,000 dollars of spend in three months. So it's definitely a big spend, but you do get two points per dollar on everything or 2% cash back. So this is one of those rare cases where to hit that welcome bonus, it could make sense to pay your taxes, pay a 1.87% fee knowing that you're getting 2% cash back. So you're not losing money on the fee, but you're also going to get 120,000 points. So not all of us myself included spend 30,000 dollars in three months. I am going to do an episode on meeting minimum spend later. So hopefully that'll be helpful. But spark cash plus, it's my primary capital one card for all business expenses. It does have a 150 dollar annual fee, but 120,000 capital one points, I value it well over $2,000. So this is a really, really big offer if you have a business. And keep in mind business doesn't mean you necessarily have to have a big company with employees, any type of income or even aspirations of income from a side hustle, from driving for a lift or Uber, from selling something online, from a blog. Maybe it's one day you aspire to have sponsored Instagram content. Who knows? But the definition of business is very wide. And if you search around online, there's a lot of information about eligibility for business cards. And you can do it under your own social. So that's everything credit cards right now. Like I said, there is a lot more that I want to cover, which is why I'm going to do a whole series of episodes on credit cards in the near future. And if you want to support me and the show, you can sign up for any of those cards and really any card you're looking at at all the hacks.com slash cards. Notably, there are a few cards not on that list, like the Hilton Aspire and the built card, which is why I sometimes share links like all the hacks.com slash built and all the hacks.com slash Hilton. Those are just referral links because they're not a part of that program. But I really appreciate you guys using those links and helping support the show. Actually, one more credit card adjacent thing. If you log into AMX and Chase and Capital One have this too, but I find that AMX's deals are a lot more compelling. There's a section of offers related to each one of your cards where different merchants will offer deals for using your AMX card to make purchases. And when you log on, you'll usually only see a hundred of them. But if you were using an app like card pointers, you can add all of them. Right now, I have 280 added to my account. Also, remember, one of the other perks of using card pointers is not only that you can add more than a hundred offers. It's that they add the offers at the exact same time. Every now and then, there's some really, really compelling offers that you might want to use multiple times. Or if you are using an merchant that lets you split payment, you could use once, but split payment between two cards. Normally, when you click an offer, it immediately takes it out of all your other cards. But it turns out that if you were to click those buttons at the exact same time, which is how card pointers does it, you get to add them to both cards. And if you haven't used card pointers, you should definitely check it out. There's a trial of the pro version, but you can also get 30% off card pointers pro as an all the hacks listener. You could just go to all the hacks.com slash card pointers. I use it all the time every time I log into chase and AMX to add all these offers. But two other things. One, I just played around with the beta version of card pointers 5.0 for the iPhone. And it's amazing. I'm so excited for this new version of the app. But also, if you're an all the hacks member, you get 50% off card pointers pro. So even better deal. Thanks to a manual, the founder for hooking everyone up. If you're not already a member, you can go to all the hacks.com slash join and get all the other deals that we have exclusively for members. And you can join a really awesome community. We're actually starting to do a bunch of breakouts within the membership. So we're going to do a session on both topics we've covered in recent episodes, but also other topics that are just generally interesting. Think small group discussions with people that have a common interest or question really getting a little deeper than we get here on the podcast because it's really more focused on discussion. All that said, let's talk about some of these AMX offers because there were some really cool ones. So if you already pay for Google one, which is their cloud storage, there's an AMX offer for 20% off. The most interesting offers I've never seen these offers before are there was an offer for France, Italy and the UK, which was spend $200 in France on any one purchase and get $40 back, spend $300 in Italy and get $50 back or spend $100 in the UK and get $20 back. So 16 to 20% off any single transaction in those three countries. A nice restaurant could easily cover those. Maybe two restaurants if you have both cards, maybe four if you're going to multiple countries. So I thought that was a really cool offer. I'd never seen something like that. Also, if you're ever interested in trying out athletic greens, you've probably heard me talk about them. They're a sponsor of the show. I'm a really big fan. I had one this morning, but AG1, there's an offer for $25 off $125 for AG1. So that's interesting. You can also stack it with the all the hacks offer for five free travel packs and some free immune supporting vitamin D. So that's all the hacks.com slash AG1. If you're a fan of blue bottle coffee, there was an offer for five off $25. And then finally, there are a couple cool hotel ones. If you have trips planned, if you're using Marriott homes and villas, there's a $250 off $1000. If you're staying at a Hilton in Canada, there's $100 off $500. If you're staying at a Wyndham, there's $60 off $300. And if you're staying at a Hyatt-Cintric, there's $75 off $300. Now, these offers actually very based on your individual spending patterns and cards. So you might not have all of these, and you might have some other ones that are even better. So if you ever notice a really awesome offer in there, definitely feel free to share it with me. I might not have it in my account, but I might love to tell everyone listening about it. Finally, I'm going to start trying to get a newsletter out a bit more frequently than these mailbag episodes. Anytime I see some of these offers or deals that are really short term. So if you go to all the hacks.com slash email, you can sign up for the newsletter. It'll put you on the main newsletter and it'll put you on this latest deals newsletter, which I haven't sent yet. If you ever don't want to be on the main newsletter, but you do want to stay on the latest deals newsletter, whenever you go to unsubscribe, you can unchecked free newsletter and leave the latest deals on. And as soon as I start sending that one, you'll get it. And hopefully deals like the ones I just mentioned from Amax and other things will be in your inbox faster than they will be on the podcast. So that's everything cards. There are two big topics I wanted to cover today. One is money and one is life. And within each, I have a bunch of things to cover, but I'm looking at how long we've been going. And I feel like it might be better to take a break and pick this back up in a week or two and continue with money and life. I'll tell you a little preview of what I'm thinking of doing in the episodes. But also, if you have other things you'd like to hear me talk about in the money and life camps, please send them over so I can include them on the money side. I want to talk about when to sell I bonds. I know a lot of us picked them up when the interest rates were so high and now have to decide when we want to close out sell and put that money to work somewhere else. When it comes to putting money to work out somewhere else, I want to talk about the options I'm thinking about for earning interest on non-investments. So that's T-bills, that's high yield savings accounts, that's a new wealthfront bond portfolio, which a few of you have asked me to give feedback on. And it's also how bank bonuses fit into this picture. I've been comparing a few of the options both for earning miles and bonuses. And I'm thinking that there are some cases where they actually might be more compelling than high yield savings or anything else. On the life side, after the episode with David Chang on cooking at home, you guys sent in some really great cooking hacks. If you have more, please share them. I'll talk a little bit about data brokers online and how I'm seeing my personal information pop up and what I'm doing about it. I went really deep in the last few days on cell phone plans and I've actually gotten three or four emails in the last month about them. So I'm going to do a pretty deep dive in this next episode on cell phone plans and all the ones at least in the states that I'm considering how I'm thinking about them. The only change I've made so far is that we've moved Stefania, our pair, off of Verizon and onto Mint Mobile because it's just such a better deal. And so far she's had no concerns with the service. She said it's been just as good if not better. And it's literally like less than 30% of the cost. Big fan of Mint Mobile. She's super happy. I'm happy to be saving money. So that was a good move. And by now, you've probably already heard an ad in this episode for Mint Mobile because, as you know, from the past, when I find a brand I like, I really try to see if there's a way I can work with them, which I did in this case. So you can go to all the hacks.com slash Mint Mobile. If you want to check them out and support the show. But beyond Mint Mobile, I actually went deep on all the other plans with all the other carriers thinking about which plans make sense for me and Amy based on international travel and a few other requirements. So I'll go deep there. And then just a few other hacks that people have shared when it comes to shopping online, storing photos and things like that. So if there's anything else you guys haven't heard that you love need to touch on in the money and life category, send it over quickly because I'm going to start recording that episode at the end of this week. And I want to make sure I can include other things in it. That wraps up this week. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for sending in all these great questions, topics. I hope you like this episode. It was a little bit of a hybrid thoughts, ideas, wins, hacks, questions. I'm probably going to keep doing these. I might even include a little bit of reflection on some takeaways from episodes recently that I've been really thinking about. Think of it as like a stop along the way towards a vest of 2023 episode that'll be coming out at the end of the year. Finally, if you're enjoying this show and you haven't left a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, I greatly appreciate it. It only takes a couple minutes and every one of them is so helpful. And like I said earlier, I'm going to start featuring reviews on the homepage of the newly designed website. I'm really excited to share that with you. So there's a good chance that that review, especially if it has a really punchy, exciting title or first sentence, we'll make it on the website. So things like how much you've saved, how valuable it's been to your life. It would be great. Alright, that's it for this week. See you next week.

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