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Feeling overwhelmed by your family's daily grind and looking for a way out? Welcome to "Dig the Well," the podcast that empowers you to build the life you deserve. Your hosts Vikki and John are top earners at Neora. Vikki is a # 1 best-selling author and John is a retired Los Angeles Police Officer. Together they’ve navigated family challenges, raised successful kids, and achieved financial freedom.
In each episode of "Dig the Well," they dive deep into the strategies and mindsets that can help you break free from the constraints of the traditional 9-5 lifestyle. They understand the unique challenges faced by stay-at-home moms and families who are juggling multiple responsibilities and struggling to find balance. Their mission is to provide you with the tools and inspiration you need to create additional income, gain more family time, and ultimately, transform your life.
Throughout their journey, they’ve had the privilege of working with renowned figures like Jack Canfield and Jeff Olson, whose wisdom and insights have greatly influenced their path to success. They’ve also celebrated significant milestones, such as raising two valedictorian children and supporting their son, an Olympic weightlifter on Team USA. These experiences have equipped them with valuable knowledge and practical tips that they’re eager to share with you.
"Dig the Well" is more than just a podcast; it's a community of like-minded individuals who are committed to personal growth and financial independence. Whether you're worried about your family's financial security, longing for more quality time with your spouse, or simply seeking a way to reignite your passions, this podcast offers actionable insights and real-life stories that can help you achieve your goals.
Our mission is to inspire you with the belief that if we can do it, so can you. We want you to feel empowered, educated, and ready to take control of your future. By tuning in to "Dig the Well," you'll gain the confidence and knowledge needed to break free from the daily grind and create a life full of possibilities.
So, if you're ready to transform your family's future and discover the greatness within you, join us on this journey. Subscribe to "Dig the Well" and start building the life you deserve today!
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
John:Ever wondered how you could turn your side hustle into a full time gig and spend more time together?
Vikki:Hi. I'm Vikki, a number one best selling author.
John:And I'm John, a retired Los Angeles police officer. Welcome to dig the well, where we help couples navigate the world of business.
Vikki:We've been married for thirty five years, and because we built a successful side business, John retired nine years earlier than he originally planned from the Los Angeles Police Department after twenty five years on the job. Now we spend more time together, and we want to help couples like you do the same.
John:Join us as we help you overcome common obstacles, and we show you how to make extra income without sacrificing family time.
Vikki:Ready to dig deep and build your well? Let's get started. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Vikki:Howdy. Welcome back. It is season two of dig the well.
John:Gosh. How are your years going, boy?
Vikki:I know. I can't believe it. This is crazy. But thanks to all of you all. We are back.
Vikki:We decided to come back, because we've gotten so much great feedback. You're loving the community of entrepreneurs. You're learning, and that makes our heart happy.
John:Yeah. For sure. Hope hopefully, those of you who weren't entrepreneurs before, or at least considering it, and if not, already jumped in. Right?
Vikki:I mean, if if we if I think back, John, to when we first became entrepreneurs, you were, what, 16 ish?
John:Yeah. Probably 15, 16, somewhere. Yeah.
Vikki:I I I did odd jobs for my parents. I guess I could consider that an entrepreneur. Like, how much are you gonna pay me, dad, to wash your car kind of thing? Actually, you know, it's really true. Clean the pool, all that good stuff.
Vikki:But I didn't become an entrepreneur till I met you when I was 21, and, started helping with your business, and, we've been off and running ever since.
John:Yeah. It's funny. It just while you're just speaking right now, it just made me think of something, and so, like, kind of a mindset. Like, we've always talked we've talked a lot about mindset through the different episodes, and it's such a big part of it, having an entrepreneur mindset. It's different than everyone else, because most people just work, just trade hours for dollars, and they just work and just get paid, and that's good enough for them.
John:And it brought me back to when I was working for my brother-in-law, who was a general contractor, and he had picked up a contract to cut roofs for a bunch of houses in Laguna Niguel. And he wanted me to help him. He was going to pay me hourly. And I said, well, I'll work for you, but I don't want to be paid hourly. I want to I want to be paid a percentage.
John:Oh. So that incentivized me to work harder. And he agreed to it a 100%. He was really good about it. He was actually really he was really cool to work for.
John:It's too bad things didn't work out with he and my sister so much, but I really like the guy. And he said, yeah, we'll just do that. I'll pay you a percentage. So there were times when we had like a tough week and things didn't work out all that well, and we were we were putting in a ton of hours and and fixing the mistakes, and it probably wasn't entirely profitable. But then there were other weeks when we got the ball rolling and things were working well, and it paid better than if I just said, yeah, I'll work for I'll just trade hours for dollars.
John:Right. And it was one of those things that I would have worked for him either way, but it was just, I just didn't want to. I didn't want to work and just trade hours for dollars. I wanted a percentage of it. I wanted to work, you know, I just wanted to be paid for working harder and and making things happen.
John:So it's just weird Yeah. That I guess from an early from early on since I was so used to being an entrepreneur, it's just it's never left me.
Vikki:Yeah. That's really cool. And I know when we had our business, our brick and mortar store, Prestige Motoring Accessories in the city of Brea, if any of you were ever in Brea and remember us back then, we we didn't we had some employees, but we also preferred to hire independent contractors because of I feel like you taught me then that, you know what? If we then pay them for a job done, then we're not having to, sit on top of them, micromanage. Right?
Vikki:They're gonna wanna get the job done faster because then they're done faster, and they made more money per hour. Like Yeah. Faster. So, yeah, pretty neat. Pretty neat.
Vikki:So so yeah. So we are excited you're here. Most of you know our journey. If you don't, go back and watch episode one, two, three, four, five. We really laid it out, those of you that are new to the podcast, dig the well.
Vikki:And just to tell you even a tiny bit more, we had, kind of a mindset shift after the last season, after the first season. DTW does stand for dig the well, but guess what else DTW stands for? Do you wanna tell them?
John:Do the work.
Vikki:Do the work. How perfect is that? Do the work.
John:Yeah. So many people will think about what they wanna do and and think about being an entrepreneur and starting a business and but they never actually they do a lot of thinking about it, which is great. Right? You gotta start thinking about it, but at some point, you just have to actually do the work.
Vikki:Just do it. Right. Decide. Decide is another. Decide.
John:Make a decision and just just Do the work. Yeah. Put in some work. Yeah. And and you'll you'll find out that if you just make a decision and then put in the work, it generally works out for you.
Vikki:Yeah. You're a decision maker and an action taker.
John:Right? It just Rarely it rarely doesn't work out. It almost always works out.
Vikki:And you'll figure it out along the way. That's the other thing that I think non entrepreneur mindset people think. They think they have to have the ducks in the row. They have to know how to do it. No.
Vikki:You don't.
John:Make mistakes. Yeah. Make your mistakes. That's how you learn. Yeah.
John:Right. That's how you get better.
Vikki:That was us from the beginning. I remember saying to John early on, that's kinda why I even went back in history the way we did. I remember turning to him and saying, isn't there a mentor, somebody we can ask, in our industry, who they're purchasing their products from, you know, for then reselling in their store. And John was like, no. Because they we're their competition.
Vikki:They're gonna not not gonna tell us, you know, all the goodies. But, essentially, on this podcast, we're teaching you all the goodies. We're teaching you what we didn't know back then, what we didn't have, and so much of it is mindset too.
John:And the only way we learn so that we could help others is we went through it. We made all those mistakes. Right. And we learned from the mistakes, and we and and you know what? We embraced them.
John:There was constant issues. But every one was just an opportunity to learn and get better. Right. And then share that with others.
Vikki:Definitely. Definitely. So, again, we're so glad you're here.
John:So what's this episode about?
Vikki:Yeah. So this episode is about credit card points, but this time, you know, you may have listened to episode 49 or 26 last year, and go back and listen to that if you really wanna dive into credit card points and, miles for airline travel. But this one, we had so many requests for hotel stays regarding credit card points. So we're gonna, like, get to the basics, though. So hang in there if you know nothing about it, because we're gonna really kinda baby step you.
Vikki:And those of you that know a little, hang in there as well or fast forward a little bit, to the second question that I'm gonna ask John because he's the guru. He knows all this stuff for our family and our, our business. He has learned so much over the last gosh. Don't you think it's been since you retired from LAPD? Yeah.
John:It's been about
Vikki:six years.
John:Six years or so. Yeah. And then I wanna preface this by saying that I don't know everything, obviously. I just I've I know what I know just because we've been through it. Right?
John:We've gone through it. And I I've been doing some research on it over the years, but a lot of it is just trial and error. We've screwed up, and we've looked back later and said, gosh, we could have done so much better if we had done it this way instead of the way we did it. So again, going back to that, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, that's kind of how we are where we are. Yeah.
John:And again, I may see, I may misstep and say some things that that may not actually be the way it works. I don't know. I apologize for that in advance if I do. But I think what we're gonna talk about is stuff that we've done. Yeah.
John:And it's worked, and it's worked really well for us. And at the end of this program, if you just like with when we talked about the the airlines, right?
Vikki:Mhmm.
John:When you're working towards flights. If something intrigues you and you you you're really interested in it, just reach out to us, and we can help you kind of strategize and come up with something that works for you because it's different for different people.
Vikki:Yeah. And our our information's in the show notes, so we don't have to spit it all out to you here. Just go to the show notes on wherever you listen, to the podcast, whether it's YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast, or whatever your favorite platform. It'll all our contact information is in the show notes. So alright.
Vikki:Let's get really basic. And, I really want you to talk to me almost like I'm a five year old. So I'm gonna ask the question as if I'm like, little Victoria
John:Little little Wiki.
Vikki:Victoria trying to learn about, about points and credit cards and what's the best. So explain to me, like I'm five, what credit card points really are and why they should why people should care about them. I I should care about them.
John:Yeah. So I look at credit card points as, just another form of currency. Right? And you can earn them. It doesn't cost you anything to earn them because one of the things we we can do we don't condone spending on credit cards for purchases that you wouldn't normally buy.
John:But if there's if it's something you're gonna buy anyhow, why write a check, which I don't know how many people still write checks.
Vikki:Yeah, they don't. But they pay cash still sometimes.
John:Some people pay cash.
Vikki:Right? Venmo or Zelle.
John:Yeah. It's true. But for me, it just makes more sense just to put it on the credit card, and then pay that credit card off every month, so you don't cause credit card interest is ridiculous. Yeah. So you don't want to get stuck in that.
John:Right?
Vikki:Yeah. Don't overspend.
John:So yeah. So just if you're gonna spend anyhow, why not spend it on a credit card that earns you some sort of currency, some sort of credit card points, whether it's their credit, whether it's their particular point system, or if it's a co branded credit card through that issuer, you're going to earn either hotel points, airline miles, whatever it is, but you're earning something for the spend that you're making anyhow. Why not? Right. Right?
John:And what you'll find is like for us, when I look at the balances of our different credit card points, because we have the the credit card companies issue, some of the major ones issue their own point system, which I consider like a universal currency, then I call it a universal currency because simply you can transfer those credit card points into a specific airline program, a specific hotel program, to rental cars, that they have several partners that they deal with that you can transfer those points into those programs, and then use those those points and miles for award award flights, for hotel free hotel stays, free rental cars, and that sort of thing. Right. But and then they also, most of the credit card companies issue what they call a co branded credit card. So like for you, I know you have one that's issued from Citibank. It's an American Airlines co branded credit card that gives you certain perks with American Airlines because you fly a lot of American Airlines.
John:Right. I just opened one recently. It was a new card that was issued from Bank of America for Alaska Airlines, which is now called Atmos. They've changed it when they merged with Hawaiian Airlines, so now it's no longer American Air Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and Hawaiian Airlines, it's now together as Atmos Rewards, and I earned a huge sign up bonus for doing that. But that works for me because I fly Alaska.
John:Vicky's works for her because she flies a lot of American. So it depends on you, but the point is, why not earn them? Because you earn so many freebies from it.
Vikki:Right. But let's talk about, like, Marriott and Hyatt. I know you've also had us get some of those, but only I've noticed, and correct me if I'm wrong, but only when there's a really good sign on bonus have you had me apply for those.
John:Right. So I keep track of some of that too, because one of the I guess one of the big rewards to getting into the credit card points game is sometimes they offer a larger incentive for you to start to open a new card and earn that bonus. Because usually you have to you have to do something, an activity to earn it. You have to spend so much money within so many months. If you do that, then they're gonna give you a huge bonus, and those bonuses are massive.
John:So you want a time when you open your credit card when the bank or the credit card issuer is offering in a large bonus, and that you can you can honestly hit the bonus. Because if the bonus is spending $20,000 in the next three months, if you don't think you're gonna be able to spend $20,000 in the next
Vikki:three months normally spend. Yeah. Don't like we said, don't overspend.
John:Then I would say don't do it. Right. It doesn't make sense. But for some of these, they're easily attainable because it's stuff you're already paying for. You just have to just channel it through the credit card, but you're paying for it anyhow.
John:Why not do it through that credit card and earn the bonus? Like, just recently, I was telling you that Atmos, I earned I they gave me five because I was one of the first to apply for it. They gave me 5,000 Atmos rewards points just for the application. Then once I was approved, I had so many months to spend a certain amount, and if I hit that, which was easy to do because we were I just channeled our spending to that credit card for the first couple of months. When I hit that, they gave me another 100,000 Atmos points reward, plus the points I earned on those purchases that got me there.
John:So I have I don't even know how much that earned me, but it was a lot. Yeah. That's enough for a round trip flight to Europe.
Vikki:That's huge. Easily. So yeah. So let me back up just a tiny bit. What like, because this is just for the newbies.
John:Real quick. I I don't mean to interrupt you, but real quick. The reason why I brought that one up in particular is that sign up bonus is no longer offered. Now the maximum you can earn is 80,000. Where I earned a 105,000 just a few months ago, now it's down to 80.
John:So you wanna time it when they have a really, really, lucrative sign up bonus.
Vikki:And that was really my question. What do you consider really big? Is it 60,000? Is it a 100? 125?
Vikki:Yeah.
John:Yeah. It all depends on the program. Right? So with for me with since I fly Alaska, that that the 100,000 or 105,000, was a lot. Yeah.
John:And it is a lot. So now I've got that banked. So now when we wanna travel again, I can use those miles. And another thing it earned me was a 25,000 companion fare. So if Vicky flies with me, the first 25,000 points is free on her ticket.
John:And then if I spend a certain amount within the calendar year that I have that card, they're gonna issue me a 100,000 companion fare. Wow. So now I book my flight, I can book Vicky's flight, and the first 100,000 points is free. Yeah. So it's it's phenomenal what these credit card issuers have available for all of us, and if you're not if you're not participating in it, you're leaving so much on the on the table, especially if you travel.
John:There are so many travel cards, and of course, these cards come with an annual fee. Right. But the benefits far outweigh the annual fee.
Vikki:Right. Because if the annual fee is $99, for example, yet you bought what you're gonna buy anyway, you didn't overspend, you paid it off, so you're not paying any interest on anything, and you get a round trip ticket for the both of you somewhere to, Europe, for example. Right? That's for $99 if you think about it. That's huge.
John:Yeah. So since we since we wanna focus more on the hotel portion of it, there are so many co branded credit cards that are out there that are under a $100. Generally, they're about 95 to $99, right? So we'll just say a $100. So for a $100, you could open one of those co branded hotel credit cards, and you get usually on most of them, at least the ones we all have, at the anniversary, they give you a free night.
John:So you get to stay at the hotel for free, that's would and if you think about it, that one free night is worth more than a $100. Right. Exactly. But again, if you're not staying at hotels, if you don't travel, then that that benefit is pointless.
Vikki:So Right. So share this podcast with somebody you know that travels if you don't really travel.
John:The other key too is, if you know so if you if you know someone who has currently has the card, oftentimes they can send you a referral link, like, can we send out referral links quite a bit for the different cards that we have, because it not only gives us an incentive for referring people to the card, but oftentimes, the person who's applying, they get a little bit of extra Yeah. Because they were referred by by a current cardholder. So again, reach out to us. If you're if you're thinking about something like that, we can send you referral link. Hopefully, it it gives you a little bit of extra too.
Vikki:Yeah. That's cool. Alright. Cool. I think we're kind of, like, on this question, but, basically, why do you get so fired up about this?
Vikki:Has it become kind of a game for you, or or is it just, you know, is it just fun? You're not gaming the system. This is all ethical. It's all it's what they're they they're offering it. They want people to take advantage of it, and you know most people are not.
Vikki:And I think that's what they bank on. Most people are not. Is it is that what or is it something else that gets you so fired up about using
John:Well, just feel bad because I see people paying cash. Like, we'll go out with friends and whatnot, and we'll charge everything. We go to dinner, we charge it. We go somewhere for a couple of drinks, we charge it. Everything we charge.
John:Right? Because we're we're amassing points.
Vikki:Mhmm.
John:And then I'll see people we know that they'll just reach into their wall and pull out cash, and they put cash down. I'm thinking you're getting nothing for that. Even if you had a no annual fee card, like Discover loves to advertise. We don't charge annual fees for our cards. And that's wonderful.
John:Right? You get a free card, but you don't get much for it. But still, even if you used a no annual fee Discover card or most of the no annual fee cards that are out there, you still earn oftentimes 1% back. Right. And to me, one percent is kind of a joke.
John:Right? Yeah. But it's better than nothing Right. For sure. Right?
John:So if you spend a $100, you say you get a $1 statement.
Vikki:You get a dollar.
John:It's not gonna it's not gonna change your life, but it's better than nothing for sure. True. So why would you spend cash when you can still get for free a 1% cash back? I don't I don't get why people leave so much on the table. Right.
John:For for us, we rarely pay for anything cash.
Vikki:Yeah. And you know why? I'll throw in. I know why. I have a few friends that are part of a program, and I won't say the guy's name.
Vikki:Christian guy, love him. And, it's for people that haven't been good money managers. Like, they probably didn't pay their credit card off, and then they're accruing all these ridiculous interest, rates. Well, he teaches to start paying only in cash, pay your credit cards off, get things under control. So I think there could be a few people like that, but I agree.
Vikki:Most of them that are paying cash just honestly aren't in that boat, haven't even thought about it. So, yeah, it is crazy. Yeah. You do have to be diligent of paying the cards off. Yeah.
John:Yeah. For sure. Right? I mean, it's it's kinda like being an adult at some point. Yeah.
John:Right? You just gotta just you you just have to, I guess, be disciplined on on your finances and everything else. Everything in life. Right? Yeah.
John:You don't get to just get in your car and drive however fast you want to drive, whether you want to ignore red lights, if you want to drive on the left side of the road, you can't
Vikki:do that. Right.
John:You're not allowed to do that. And so you use some restraint Yeah. And you drive properly.
Vikki:With your own finances. Do
John:the same with your finances.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:I think the credit card companies, I I they probably bank on that. Right? Literally. Yeah. Where they issue you a credit card, they give you $10.15, $20,000 worth of credit, and you see that as free money, and you just start buying things, and you buy things that you normally wouldn't ordinarily buy.
John:Then when the when the at the end of the month when that when that comes due, you don't have the money to pay it off.
Vikki:So you
John:carry that as a balance, and then they charge you twenty, twenty five, 30% interest. Right. And they make a ton of money charging you that much interest. That's almost that seems illegal to me.
Vikki:Yeah. It's really sad.
John:That they're able to charge that much much in interest.
Vikki:I kind of blame I was talking with a friend about this at recently, though. I do blame our education system. There really should be financial planning at the high school level, not just college. And I don't even know if there is any in college unless
John:No. I don't think so.
Vikki:I mean, that should be a GE course. Yeah. Your general ed. And same with high school because we need to be better money managers of our own money. Yeah.
Vikki:For sure. What's the biggest myth people believe about credit card points, do you think? I
John:wonder if people think that really are they worth that much. And a lot of times they'd see, well, the credit card points because like for instance, even the the what I was calling the universal currency credit card points, whether it's through Chase, whether it's through American Express, those or those those credit card points, if you just redeem them as statement credits, are worth 1%. So again, they look at it think thinking, why am I gonna go through all this hassle?
Vikki:To charge everything on the same card. Right?
John:Yeah. Just to get a 1% return on what I'm spending. Again, it's a dollar on a 100. So like, whoop de doo. They they just don't they may not think that it's worth it.
John:But if you're careful about how you redeem those points, the redemption value is much greater than 1%. Right. Much, much greater.
Vikki:That's cool. So we should get into that, actually. Yeah. Let's let's get into some of the redemption and, and all of that. So talking hotels, the like, we want to on this episode is, for beginners, what is your what hotel program should a person go with?
John:Well, that's a tough one because they all have good programs. Yeah. Right? And, like, one of the best and one of the most valued points, hotel points, is Hyatt. They have a very high valuation to each of their points.
John:The other three, when I say the other three, it's the other big three, right? So it's going to be Marriott Bonvoy, it's going to be IHG, and it'll be Hilton. And they're all basically, they have each each one of those has a a group of hotel properties that are part of that of that particular brand. So if you look at Marriott Bonvoy, it's just not Marriott properties. It includes Courtyard, it includes St.
John:Regis, it includes so many of them.
Vikki:Four Seasons is
John:their Okay. So it would Yeah. So anyways, they include all of those, and so one of the things, the problem that why we don't do a lot of Hyatt activity is because in most of the places we go, where we stay, where we're the destinations we travel to, there aren't that many Hyatt properties available, and in some places, there are none. Yeah. And what we found is Marriott Bonvoy seems to have the greatest number of properties, at least the places we go, so we have a greater choice of where we want to stay.
John:So we have we have focused mostly at Marriott Bonvoy. Right. So one of the strategies we use, it's the same with our airline strategy, is we try and focus on just one. Instead of spreading the wealth and going with all four, little bit here, a little bit there, then you never really attain any any measurable status with any one of them. So since we focus mostly on that one hotel chain, we have attained a really high status level, which gets us a lot of nice perks.
John:Like for instance, we were just in Dallas, what, a week and a half ago or so?
Vikki:Yeah. Not very long ago.
John:Yeah. And so I had gotten an email from them saying that they had upgraded us to a junior suite.
Vikki:Yeah. That was
John:really We paid like the lowest rate that we found for that property. I think
Vikki:it was the hotel block for Newora.
John:Yeah. And so we checked in, and so I mentioned to the the guy we're because we checked in our flight was late, so we got checked in pretty late. And so I said, yeah, I understand that we ended up with the junior suite. Said, no, You have our executive suite. There's only five of them on property.
John:Yeah. And this hotel was huge. It had hundreds and hundreds of rooms. He said, yeah, we have five one bedroom executive suites, and so that's what I've got you in.
Vikki:That was cool. And again, we didn't
John:pay any extra for it. We didn't have to pass him a $20 bill or get a bag of chocolates. It was just simply because of our our status with with the hotel chain. And and again, the first thing he said was he looked looked up our reservation, the first thing he said was thank you for being titanium at least with us, we appreciate your business.
Vikki:And that's not even the highest level.
John:Yeah. There's one higher, but that one's ridiculous. That requires a stay minimum of a hundred nights per year staying at a hotel.
Vikki:That's a third of the year.
John:And you have to spend a minimum of $23,000 just in your room rate. Wow. Just in hotel rate. Yeah. So So if you if you charge room service, if you charge anything extra to the room, that doesn't count towards the 23,000.
John:It has to be just in the room rate alone. So we're never gonna be that ambassador to ambassador lead.
Vikki:You never know. No. But it just shows you don't even have to be the tippy tippy top of these reward programs to get really amazing rewards. Yeah. And if we hadn't done the points game
John:No. We wouldn't
Vikki:have had it.
John:We wouldn't have had
Vikki:it. Yeah. Or we would've paid cash for it. Yeah. It's good.
John:Yeah. Which would be a lot of money. And just like we always and and we had a late checkout, 4PM checkout, no problem.
Vikki:Everybody else, yeah, had to be out by eleven, and they're dragging their bags down there, and we
John:Or we're still at the hotel, we go back up to our room, and we noticed that the lobby is full of people and their luggage. Yeah. Because they had to check out at 11AM or whenever their checkout was. They asked for a late checkout and were denied. Yeah.
John:And with us, not a problem.
Vikki:4PM.
John:Actually, was the the morning of checkout. We called down to the desk and said, hey, look, you know, our flight's later this afternoon. Can we get a late checkout? They're like, absolutely. When would you like to check out?
John:And we said, no, we'll take 4PM. They're like, okay, you're good till four.
Vikki:Yeah. It was awesome. Yeah. So just
John:Status does have its privileges, and the way that you can earn and and a fast track to that status was holding the right cards, the right credit cards. We get a head start every year on earning that titanium elite status with Marriott Bonvoy by just having the right combination of cards. It's not one card that gets us there, it's a combination of cards. You have to know which are the right cards to have, and it gets us it gets us all the way to gold. So they start with silver, gold, platinum, titanium, and ambassador.
John:So with the cards we have, we're every year we start out at gold.
Vikki:Mhmm.
John:And so all we have to do is just platinum is is close. We're close to platinum already, and then titanium isn't easy.
Vikki:Now you're getting very advanced, so you'll definitely wanna book a call with John if you wanna, like, learn how to do that. We won't get into all that. Yeah. Wow. I didn't know that part.
John:Yeah. Yeah.
Vikki:I didn't know that you we have several different cards, and that's why.
John:Yeah. Wow. It's a combination of cards that that gets us to that. Okay.
Vikki:That'll be for another episode, I think. Wow. That's cool, though. So back to the main point of this part of the interview is pick a brand hotel brand where you travel. Right?
Vikki:That was the main thing.
John:Yeah. That's a big part of it. And then look at the hotel. If you if you look at the different hotel chains, look at their properties, and is it does it fit your lifestyle? Maybe maybe you like to stay at luxury hotels.
John:Well, you wanna you wanna maybe align yourself with a chain that has a lot of luxury properties.
Vikki:Right.
John:And there may be or maybe you just want to stay somewhere budget. You want to keep it inexpensive and stay at Holiday Inns and those types of there's nothing wrong with that.
Vikki:Right.
John:And so then I think IHG has the Holiday Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express or part of IHG, I believe. Yeah. And so we have status with IHG too.
Vikki:We do.
John:Again, it's through a credit card. And so we have status with them, and we have stayed at some of their properties, and they've been great. Yeah. But it's not like staying at a St. Regis or or something like that.
Vikki:Right.
John:Yeah. Or Ritz Carlton.
Vikki:Ritz. Yeah. We'll we'll talk about that later. Holy cow. Alright.
Vikki:So oh, the actually, we're gonna talk about it right now. What is the best hotel redemption you've ever pulled off for us? Like, the one that made you feel the most special, like you were clothed in golden robes or something. Like, yeah, what was it?
John:I would say the one that that comes to mind that was the was the kind of the really luxury stay was actually the one you picked out.
Vikki:I know. Did. Right.
John:So I think you teed that one up, Casey. Know. I think I did. It was in Tokyo.
Vikki:I didn't know if you
John:ever We stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Tokyo.
Vikki:Wow, you guys.
John:I had a view of the Tokyo Tower. Yeah. It was just an amazing room. I mean, that that hotel property, their lobby is on the 50th Floor.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:So it's this massive building that's obviously pretty tall. The first 49 floors are for residents. So the hotel actually starts at the 50th and goes on up to a 100 and something, I think it is. It goes on from the 50th and up. And the how we were treated was just Oh my gosh.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:Amazing. And then we did that all on points.
Vikki:Yeah. And, you know, it's something that I did. I just felt like, woah. Are we really
John:here? The thing was, though, it was so over the top service that it was a bit creepy.
Vikki:Yeah. You should tell them what happened.
John:Yeah. So one afternoon, we decided to just go on a walk, because we just checked in, and then we wanted to go on a walk because adjacent to the hotel was this little park. So we said, hey, let's walk around the neighborhood, walk around the park, and see what's all what what's out there. So we did. When we returned, we go up to the 50th Floor, and then transfer from that elevator to the main hotel elevator lobby.
John:And there's always employees standing there that hold the door open for they they call the elevator for you, and then hold the door open, and then they they press the room, the floor that that your room's on. Well, I guess they have to memorize all their hotel guests, because when we walked in, they greeted us by name Yeah. And then held the door open for us, had our hotel floor already selected
Vikki:Yeah.
John:And then asked how our how our afternoon was in the park. I know. So I'm thinking, how the hell did you know we were in the park, you creepy guy? But that's just their service. That's what I think that's what a lot of the guests who pay, like, room would have been probably a That gonna
Vikki:ask Yeah.
John:Yeah. And I think people are paying that much money. They they really they they feel entitled to that kind of and maybe they deserve that kind of treatment. I don't. I don't I I just was kind of over the top.
John:And then even when we
Vikki:I down liked it at first, but then as time went on Yeah.
John:Yeah. Really just odd. And then we went downstairs to the lobby to their bar. Their bar was spectacular. It's it's it's just water, and there's little pathways to walk to different seating areas, but it's all in this water kind of a setting.
Vikki:Were there some koi?
John:Yeah. And then and then they had a big grand piano, and they had a penis playing the grand piano, and they had a nice bar. So we thought, well, let's go in there and enjoy that. We knew the drinks were gonna be ridiculous.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:But we thought, hey, we're here, let's go and do it. So we walk in, and we're seated, and I remember some guy comes up in a suit, again, knows us by name, mister and missus Downey, how are you this evening? We're doing great, this and that. Sir, would you like a cigar? And so you all know me, you know, I smoke cigars.
John:Right? And so I'm like, yeah. And I'm thinking, oh, how much is this cigar? It's going be $200 a stick? What's it going to be?
John:So he waves his hand, and out comes this this Japanese woman, and she opens up this humidor, and it's full of Cuban cigars. And so me being the knucklehead that I am, I asked, well, how much is that one?
Vikki:I'm surprised because you don't normally ask the
John:cost I didn't wanna spend $200 for a cigar.
Vikki:I know. But you normally you don't want me to ask what things
John:I know. I feel I feel like a I feel like a
Vikki:Like a cheap
John:escape. Like you've been there before, John. Right? Yeah. So he kinda smiled and he kinda chuckled a little bit because I was, sir, they're complimentary.
John:I'm like, oh, okay. I'll take that one and two of those and then maybe one of that one.
Vikki:You did not. You just took one.
John:But No. So I grabbed a cigar. They comes over. He cuts it. He brings over a torch lighter, lights it for me.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:Just enjoyed the evening. But I'm I was thinking that was all with points.
Vikki:Yeah. And with the for the ladies in the room that are listening, what I thought was so cool is it was almost like we had a butler, not in our room, which would have been a little weird, but, like, anytime we left the room, it was like they were following us. That was the other Yeah. Creepy thing. Yeah.
Vikki:And I know it's not creepy. It's meant they they're meaning to, like, be of service. But after while, we're like, okay. I'm glad we're not staying here for a week, because it would get really uncomfortable uncomfortable.
John:Every time we stepped out, it was the room was tidied up when we got back.
Vikki:Yeah. I think we not that we don't think we're worthy we do. We know everyone on this planet is worthy of being treated special, But it but there was a little, like, we don't you know, go help someone else. We we don't really need it. But, but but let me go back to the room.
Vikki:What I wanna tell the ladies is it had this full gigantic bathroom, like really nice hotels do, but there were drawers everywhere, almost like a horseshoe shape, you know, and with mirrors all around. In each drawer, there was a comb that I could take home with me. It was meant for us to take home. There was a comb. There was a toothbrush, toothpaste, and it was meant you could tell it was like a travel version, but very eloquent.
Vikki:Like, I'm supposed to take it. Once used, I would I should take it. You know, a hairbrush, a loofah that was meant to take, you know Yeah. It was not call the front desk if you forgot anything. It was like Right.
Vikki:All in those drawer. So I had so much fun opening each drawer. What's in here? What's in here?
John:And what I thought was really interesting was when you open the drawer, there was the drawer had like an organizer where the hairbrush fit perfectly. Yes. It was this wooden organizer where the brush fit like a glove, and there was another spot for a comb, and another spot for like little tweezers and And like the hairbrush, it wasn't some cheap throwaway piece of plastic. It was a wooden hairbrush that was actually a quality hairbrush.
Vikki:Yeah. Exactly.
John:Every everything in there was like really nice quality, but of course, if you're spending that kind of money Yeah. Be expected,
Vikki:Absolutely. It was just insane. So that was our number one.
John:You know, even if you guys didn't
Vikki:if
John:you don't travel much, right, because I know there's some people who are listening to this, and they really like, we travel a lot, so to us, travel credit cards, these travel perks make make a difference to us. But even if you don't, right, wouldn't it be cool to earn enough points to just treat yourself to something like that
Vikki:Yeah.
John:Once a year? Right. It doesn't have to be in Japan. There are lots of nice properties here in The United States that you could stay in and maybe earn enough points or miles to get catch that free flight. Right.
John:And then get that free hotel stay. Right. And be treated that way just as and it's not gonna cost you really anything. You're just having the right credit card strategy, and then just
Vikki:Spoiling yourself. Yeah. Do yourself. Yeah. Really amazing.
Vikki:Alright. Moving on to the next question. What is the one hotel point mistake that people make that that cost them a major value?
John:I think it's, taking like, let's say you amass a a a lot of hotel points, and then you redeem them, but you redeem them one night at a time. Mhmm. So and the reason why you lose the value there is most of the hotel chains, if you're redeeming for free nights, if you redeem a certain amount, you get the next night free. So some of them are for the fourth night, every fourth night is free, some of them every fifth night is free. So like when we went to Hawaii, we redeem on points going to Hawaii, and so we won't stay for less than four or five nights, depending on the hotel chain and what their policy is.
John:So by getting that free extra night, that really kind of supersizes your redemption value.
Vikki:Right. And by redemption value, you guys don't know this, but John has figured it out to the penny pretty much. I'll say to him, well, if we use 20,000 points to say at Marriott for this night or these several 20 you know, and do four of them in a row so we get the fifth night for free. You know, what's the value in that? And John will be able to look it up because he has he's figured it out.
Vikki:It's all written down. Well, what if the other Hyatt has something for 18,000 points? You know, what and he'll and you'll tell me that that, well, Vic, there's a value to those points. And so can you, like, talk about
John:that? That's that's really an important concept to to really embrace. Right? That you earn these points, and the points you're earning is basically free, right? So like if you stay at a hotel and you have their co branded credit card, every dollar you spend at the hotel, which you would be spending anyhow, every dollar that you charge to that co branded card earns you many times more points.
John:So and with the welcome bonus and all the other stuff that goes on, you can amass hundreds of thousands of hotel points. And you think, well, I've earned them for free, so a lot of people kind of spend them almost willy nilly. Like, they look at it say, well, I could either spend $500 to stay for, you know, however many nights that we're going to stay at this at this destination, or I can just use, you know, 200,000 points. Then I said, well, I'm gonna use the 200,000 points because that's free. Right.
John:But if you actually calculate the redemption value of the 200,000 points as opposed to paying the $500, you'd be better off paying the $500 and spending the 200,000 on something that that has a better redemption value. So something that has a more expensive property. Mhmm. So for instance, going back to the example I used of staying in Hawaii, the the the property we stayed at was almost a thousand dollars a night. So we could either spend the thousand dollars per night to stay there, or and I think we stayed five nights
Vikki:Right. We did. That time, yeah,
John:we stayed five nights. There or we redeemed two hundred thousand points to stay the same five nights. So it was a much better valuation rather than spending $5,000, it only cost us 200,000. Now 200,000 points is a lot. I think it was a 190,000 points.
Vikki:How much does that in money to to get those points?
John:It didn't cost us anything. Oh. Because, like, if you think about it, like I said, earning the points was relatively free, because we didn't spend, we didn't buy anything that we normally wouldn't have bought. And when we opened that card, I charged to that card enough to earn the welcome bonus. And the welcome bonus was, I think at the time, a 150,000 points.
John:So that got us almost all the way there just by spending
Vikki:But what did you have
John:to spend. You go to the you go to the supermarket. Right. So hand them hand them that card.
Vikki:But what do you think
John:it was? Groceries.
Vikki:Like, $6,000 over the
John:course of three months. Don't think it was that much. I think it was probably 3,000 in three or four months. It was
Vikki:because that's how my brain works, think. Well, what did I spend to amass these 200,000 points that you're telling me, you know.
John:But you would have spent that anyhow. Now it'd be a different story if we had to have bought something that we normally wouldn't buy, then that would there would be a cost to it. Right? But if it's spending on paying for our groceries, paying for the gasoline that you buy for your car, paying for the things that you normally are going to pay for anyhow, you're going use some some sort of payment for it, whether it's a check, whether it's another credit card, whether it's Venmo, whether it's Zelle, whatever it is, you're to pay for it anyhow. Why not channel that toward the new credit card you are opened so that you earn the welcome bonus, and the welcome bonus is going be massive.
John:And then the other thing too is once we check-in, I use the same credit card, the co branded credit card of that hotel because they give you bonus points for every dollar you spend in the hotel. So let's say you have dinner at the hotel's restaurant, you charge that to your room, then it's gonna be charged to that credit card, and you can get sometimes ten, fifteen, 20 points per dollar spent, which then inflates your your points balance. And every time you stay at the hotel, you earn we earn thousands of points every time we stay at the hotel. So our balance grows. Right.
John:So when we when we redeem them for those five nights in in Hawaii But it's really four.
Vikki:Right. Because you get one We
John:only charged us for four nights. We get one of the nights free, and it didn't cost us any money for the room. Right. The only thing we had to pay extra for was, like I said, if we go to the bar, we go to the restaurant, those charges, we would charge to the room anyhow, so that was the only extra.
Vikki:But the main point of this question is, it's what I used to do, and I you had to tell me over and over again, Vic, do not use our points for one night. You're blowing it. And I'd be like, but why? But why? Like, I could not get it in my head.
John:And you can. It's not that you can't. You still can. It's just you won't get as you won't get the supersized redemption value out of it. And and I'm I'm after that because, I mean, it may sound weird, but it it kind of charges me up when I've when I when we can redeem our points and get a really good valuation, it's like, yeah, I got you guys on this one.
John:Right? Because normally
Vikki:It is kind of a game.
John:Normally, they've got you. Right?
Vikki:Yeah. It's kind of like craps where it's the only thing that kind of beats the house. So I mean, it's not beating
John:the house. If you think about it, the way credit cards work, if you pay your statement balance at the end of every month so that you're never charged interest on your credit cards, you're actually this is the one time, the one and only time you have it over them because they they give you a grace period up to like twenty five days, where since you're not paying interest, you've charged something. Let let's say we charge something at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of the statement period. Well, we don't actually have to pay that until the till that statement closes. So we basically have a month that we don't have to pay it.
John:So if you think about it, if if you took that money that you would normally spend, like when you spend it, and you put it into an interest earning money market, let's say it earns like 5% yield, over the course of the year, especially if you have a card that has zero like, some cards offer 0% APR for the first year on new purchases. So that's the one time you want to carry a balance on that card. Charge what whatever you want because you're not going to pay interest on it until the twelve months are up. But once they're up, you better have the money to pay that balance, because it could be $1,520,000 dollars, whatever you charge of that card. And if you don't have it, then you're going to start paying 25% interest.
John:But if you think about it, at the end of every month, like say in January, you charge $2,000 to that card. Well, take 2,000 and put that into a money market that's going to earn like a like I said, like a 55% yield. And then in February, you charge another 3,000, put 3,000 away. So every month, you're putting away the money that you would have paid to pay the credit card off. At the end of the year, that money market will have ballooned, because you not only have more than you have more than enough money to pay the credit card balance that's due after at the end of the year, because that money market has been earning you interest for the entire year.
John:Right. That's the one time you have it over the credit card company. I I think if you have 0% APR on a credit card, why wouldn't you do it? Because the credit card companies are sticking it to you every which way they can. If if you step out of line a little bit and you fail to pay, they charge you the late fee immediately.
John:That day, that late fee goes in.
Vikki:And sometimes you can
John:get them to huge interest.
Vikki:Yeah. Sometimes you can get them to waive it, but it's rare. And you're right. Their interest starts Yeah. Unless you get them to
John:They don't play games.
Vikki:Yeah. I it's
John:money to them. It's money to you too. So I'm thinking if they're gonna offer you these huge welcome bonuses to open a credit card, why not do it? Yeah. Get that welcome bonus.
John:If they're gonna offer you free, like a balance trans 00% APR balance transfer for December, why not do it? Yeah. For sure. But just make sure that you can pay it when it comes due. Right.
John:Otherwise, it's gonna be a bad one.
Vikki:Yeah. Then then you'd you shouldn't have done it. Yeah. Exactly. Alright.
Vikki:We're gonna end on this for the for the person sitting there listening going, oh my gosh. That's a lot of information. I wanna I want might wanna try this, this whole getting a credit card and and earning. Even if I could earn one hotel stay, I'd be happy. How what what would be your advice?
Vikki:Which one or you know, where you could realistically pretty quickly earn one hotel night, and then they'd have a win under their belt and could go work on earning some more points. What would that be, or what would that advice be?
John:I would say that if you're not adverse to having a $100 annual fee credit card, $100 a year, like 95, $99 annual fee card, I would look at one of the co branded hotel cards, and again, we're talking hotels, right? Yeah. We're talking hotels. Specifically hotels. Yeah.
John:Would look at a at a co branded hotel credit card that that offers a decent welcome bonus, and then so you open the card up, you're not going get anything for free just by opening the card. What they want you to do is spend on that card, so they may have like a you need to spend $2,000 in the first three months, or it may be $3,000 in the first four months. Whatever it is, if it's doable, before you before you apply for the card, if the welcome bonus, if the activities that that are required for you to earn that welcome bonus, if it's doable for you, and you can and you can make that happen, I would say open that card up. Sure, you're gonna pay you're gonna get hit with a $100 for that for that year of having the card, but you're gonna get this massive welcome bonus. Like in our case, was a 150,000 points, which was almost enough to stay five days in Hawaii.
John:Wow. If you're staying somewhere domestically, that's definitely a week of anywhere staying domestically. Right? Because they're they're not usually that expensive. Hawaii is On the Mainland.
John:Expensive Yeah. Yeah. For accommodations. Right? Rental cars are cheap, but hotels are not.
John:So anyways, you'll get that. And then when you renew the card after the year, if you choose to renew the card, you're not going get the welcome bonus again, but for the $95, you're gonna most of those cards have a free night attached So to a free if a free if you're gonna stay anyhow somewhere during the year, why not stay for $95? I don't think you can usually book Anywhere. Decent hotels for $95.
Vikki:Not anymore. I mean, even like the I don't wanna say the brands that I don't think are very good, but the worst of the worst are like a $150 these days.
John:Yeah. So even that alone probably just pays for it. Because there's there are cards we have so many cards. We have We do have a a stack of cards because the other the other if you if you get in the credit card points game, you never want to cancel an account, because there's a lot to lose by canceling the account. So you do want to keep it open, but what we always do, we do a product change to a no annual fee credit card that that particular issuer has.
Vikki:And how do you do that, John?
John:Just make a phone call. Right? Just tell them you wanna
Vikki:do anything.
John:Just tell them. Just say, yeah, I'm I'm calling to product change. And so I've done it before where they've where they basically say, they automatically know, you know what, let me get you to one of our customer retention specialists, or they'll just say, how about this? What if we waive the annual fee for you this year? Would you keep the card?
John:It's like, yeah, I don't mind keeping the card, I just don't feel the value in it. Right. And so I just wanted a product change. Then other times, they'll say, yeah, what would you like to product change to? And they give you a list of different cards you can product change to that's that are no annual fee.
John:So you retain the account, you retain your account history, which is very important for your credit rating, and you retain your credit limit, which again is very important for your credit rating. And if for those of you who aren't concerned about building your credit, you should be. Right. Because that opens so many doors for you, and it gives you so many options. Anytime you want to if you want to buy a house, make a big purchase, you want to buy a car, your the amount you're charged for interest, your credit rating has a direct relationship to that.
John:So the better your credit rating, the lower the interest that you'll be approved for. So you want to have the highest credit rating possible, and part of that, a big part of that, is managing your credit cards, having credit cards. Like a lot of people say, I don't want credit cards because I don't see any good in them. It gives you a a really good credit rating if you can properly manage your credit cards.
Vikki:In other words, you pay them off every month.
John:Yeah. And then make sure you don't lose any of those credit cards. In other words, if you don't if you're inactive on a credit card, generally, if it's a year and you haven't been active, a lot of credit card issuers will cancel that card. And when they cancel it, again, you lose your credit history Yeah. And you lose the credit that that And it's
Vikki:a ding. I feel like
John:it's a ding. Your credit rating goes down. We lost we we got real I mean, we've mismanaged one of them. It was a card that we had for thirty plus years with American Express. They canceled it, and both of our credit scores went down considerably because we lost such a such a deep credit history.
Vikki:And it was only because we didn't charge anything on it.
John:Isn't that funny? We forgot about the card. Yeah. And and it had been charged on for, like, two years.
Vikki:So now you've made a list. John's made a spreadsheet, so that never happens again. So, again Yeah. It's what goes back to what you shared in the beginning. You're gonna fail.
Vikki:You're gonna have some things happen, but that's when you learn.
John:That's when you learn. Right? Because after that happened, I thought, you know, I'm never gonna let that happen again.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:And so we've been a little
Vikki:more great credit.
John:Yeah.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:So we're just a little more diligent. So like I said, if you have that credit card, you're paying $95 a year on it. At the end of the year, if you decide, yeah, I really don't see any value in it, or I don't see that I'm going to stay for that free night, you can always product change to a no annual fee card. It's not going to cost you anything, and it's great. Or if you want, you can cancel it if if you wanted to.
John:Don't. Don't. But, yeah. But but again, getting back to your question is how is that how easy it is? You can you can earn that quickly, you can earn you can amass a number of points, so you can get more than one just free night.
John:You can get many free nights just by meeting that welcome bonus and obtaining the welcome bonus.
Vikki:And that's much less that the spend is much less than, airline. Airlines Yeah. Cards are a lot more. So, you know, you might wanna dip your toe in on the, hotel stay at first.
John:Yeah. It is a lot easier. It's a it's a smaller bite to chew for sure because I think on like, I have a American Express platinum card, and I think to earn the welcome bonus, it was an $8,000 spend in the first couple of months. It was a pretty significant. It was significant.
John:I forget what it was. I I have to look it up because that was years ago that I opened that thing. Yeah. And again, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna keep it. Because American Express just announced they're raising the rate again, the annual feed of that thing, it's almost a thousand dollars a year, it's $8.95, I believe.
John:Yikes. So that's the other thing I do, is I I every year when our cards come up for renewal, I take a pro and con look at it, and look at all the benefits that the card offers, the annual fee, and then I apply a dollar amount to each benefit. And if if that dollar amount exceeds the annual fee, then it's a no brainer, we keep the card. If it doesn't, we product change it to something that doesn't have an annual fee.
Vikki:Awesome. Awesome. This has been so beneficial, I think. Because I we've had so many friends ask us how we get these upgrades in the suites. How are we staying here?
Vikki:How, you know, how are we going there? And it's all a lot of it's to do with with what you've figured out for us.
John:Yeah. And if and if you guys are listening to this and you think, wow, this is just too much. I don't think I can do it. You can't. You can't.
John:Yeah. You know, it's like eating that elephant, right, eat it one bite at a time. Not that I would ever eat an elephant.
Vikki:Know. They're so sweet. Know. Anyways,
John:it's like eating a giant steak. Right? You have to eat it one bite at a time. So on this thing, if it just seems too overwhelming, reach out to us because it really is. And if we get you started, if we start you at the shallow end, right, get you started, you're gonna find, wow, this is pretty cool.
John:I got these cool benefits, and it really didn't cost me anything. How can I how can I do more? And you can. And it's it's, yeah, I think you'll enjoy it. It's fun.
Vikki:It is fun. Alright. Until the next time, we will see you at Dig The Well.
John:Subscribe. Do the work.
Vikki:Do the work. Yeah. Subscribe. Share this with a friend. Comment.
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Vikki:Bye. Thanks for joining us on dig the well.
John:We hope you feel empowered and ready to take on new challenges.
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