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The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Unlocking Luxury Travel for Lawyers
In this episode of The Renegade Lawyers Podcast, join me in a fascinating chat with Spencer Howard, a credit card loyalty and travel rewards expert, who shares secrets on maximizing points for luxurious travel. Discover how to turn everyday spending into extraordinary travel experiences, from business-class flights to top-tier hotel stays.
Spencer's unique journey from politics to travel guru offers insights into making travel dreams a reality. Don't miss this episode filled with practical tips to elevate your travel game and make the most of your credit card points.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
To me, cashback is boring, there's no fun in that. But you tell me that I can earn points with Amex, chase, capital One, whatever, and then I can go take a business class flight to Europe. Well, okay, now I'm paying attention. So I think, first understanding, if you're kind of getting into this world, it's like think of credit cards as just another tool and currency for travel. And for me you've got to learn some foundational pieces and then you can kind of build on that. I think anybody, I mean I imagine for lawyers when you first start learning the law in law school, it's like very overwhelming, very stressful. And then you start to understand how law school works and so you're doing something new, but you're building off of what you've learned before, or even the method of learning. You're starting to kind of understand how to learn, and I think that's very similar for the points world.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are. Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation.
Speaker 3:Hey everyone, this is Ben. Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where each episode, I get to interview people inside or outside of legal who are making a ding in the world, and today we've got a first time ever topic. This would be cool Talking to Spencer Howard. Spencer is a credit card loyalty program and travel rewards expert. He's the founder of a newsletter, straight to the Points, the go-to source for individuals looking to demystify credit card points so they can experience traveling in luxury for business or pleasure and both. And as I was warming up with Spencer beforehand, I said look, this could be different, because usually we're talking about how to get your website on the first page of Google, which is interesting, but we've not done this before and you've got an interesting journey. I asked him is this like your real gig? And he goes yeah, it's a real gig. So, spencer, welcome to the call today.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me, Ben. And yes, mom and dad, I still make a living.
Speaker 3:I was saying before, most solo and small firms have one or two credit cards. They're running a lot of business expenses through them. The owners may, by sheer luck, be getting quote, getting point for something, not managing them or scheming how to maximize them, or anything like that. We're going to talk, you're going to tell some good secrets and then hopefully we're going to get people to sign up for your newsletter Because, as I understand, if you pay attention to this stuff you can get rewarded. So I'm curious, yeah, so tell us, give us your background, first, because it is interesting, it's different, and now you've created a space for yourself, or joined, I think, a small space and made a name for yourself.
Speaker 1:It's niche, yeah, so thanks again for having me. I started working in politics in college and did that for 10 years, working on campaigns, nonprofits, worked on the Hill for a member of Congress, did that thing living here in DC, and towards the end of that I got some freelance work, writing about points, which at the time was just a passion project of mine. And within about six months of starting freelance writing, I had enough writing to take over my full-time life, and so I spent several years writing about points and miles, showing people how to earn points, redeem points, take advantage of the benefits that their credit cards come with, and I guess, yeah. Just several years into that, I started a newsletter to share opportunities to book business class and first class with points on international routes. And I guess what? Two and a half years later, three and a half years later, I decided to make that my full-time thing. And here we are still going.
Speaker 3:I'm curious now because, as an entrepreneur, I'm curious who do you listen to, watch, read podcasts? We're always looking for just different voices. Is there anyone that you're a follower of?
Speaker 1:Not in this kind of a space. Oddly enough, I still listen to a lot of political podcasts. I guess you can take me away from it, but I'm still who I am. Yeah, other than that, it's like Formula One podcasts and Premier League like soccer or football podcasts. Yeah, that's my world when I'm not focused on travel.
Speaker 3:Tell us about the epiphany when you figured out this could be a business in and of itself. And I don't know whether you like obviously you must have liked politics because you still follow it. We're recording this, by the way. A week before the presidential elections, every media airwave is filled up with that. So we're not going to fill it up with that stuff today. But I'm curious about what the light turning on where you say you know what stuff today? But I'm curious about what the light turning on where you say you know what? This is cool and I think I could make enough money to replace my office job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it's interesting to think back to 2016 now. I started writing part-time in, I think, june or July of that year. It was just, oh, this seems fun. I was in Facebook groups where people were helping each other use points, and then I was having a lot of fun kind of sharing what I'd learned, and it was somebody had posted a. I guess just, yeah, just, we need a part-time writer, kind of thing. And I was like, oh, I could do that.
Speaker 1:So I applied, got the gig, was writing for about a month or two, and then a friend of mine who I'd met in the space had said, hey, somebody else needs a writer. And a friend of mine who I'd met in the space had said, hey, somebody else needs a writer, you want to do some work for them. And I just snowballed from there and I guess, yeah, between June and December I picked up enough writing where it was like you need to decide which one you want to do, and I was just, I don't know, it just seemed like a cool new adventure. I wanted to travel more.
Speaker 1:It was always hard to travel while working in politics, just because I don't know, we had this mentality of this is really important. You can't take time off of this. People depend upon you to get this stuff done, like lawyers, yeah. Yeah, it's a very unhealthy, addictive lifestyle, but yeah, for me it was just like yeah, I just thought this is a great opportunity and to do something interesting that I just seem to really love, and I think I picked right because I still love it and yeah.
Speaker 3:And you actually have done something which is, I think, a high challenge is you have a paid e-newsletter, is that right?
Speaker 1:Paid newsletter. It's all email, yeah.
Speaker 3:Email. Yeah, so the subscription business. That's interesting to me in a world of. So one of the discussions inside the law office recently has been electronic newsletter to clients, because we have for years and still do and swear by the print newsletter, like it is one of our performing marketing sources. And what I said to my youngins on my marketing team is don't underestimate the difficulty of the task of making something which is electronic newsletter so interesting that people will actually spend time reading it in a world where we're all getting, if not a thousand miles a day. So we're going to get to points on newsletters. No worry, I'll talk about this too. Yeah, talk about that, because I assume you've got either a trial or some sort of free version.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a free version, and it was free from August of 2018 until January of 2021. And that's when I decided to give this a shot. I did some surveying of the audience to make sure I wasn't about to make a terrible decision. But one of the things I've always maintained, even when this was just a hobby, it was like I'm never going to send you an email just to say that I sent you an email. I don't, even though you have to market yourself when you're an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:I don't love some of the tactics of hyping things up and doing things just for the appearance of value. I know I get frustrated with it. So my big message to everybody who's ever signed up was like I'm not sending you something that's trash. There's a reason. If I send you something, there's a reason for it. Pay attention, and I think that's why my paid newsletter has a 75, 80% open rate and my free newsletter has like a 55, 60, 65% open rate. So it's and it's always been that way. Like people know, that if I send something, it's worth opening.
Speaker 3:Does the paid newsletter go out on a regular rhythm? Spencer?
Speaker 1:No, and that's actually interesting because when I've worked with brands where they want to sponsor something, they're always like and when does it go out? And I'm like whenever there's a deal, I don't time the deals, I don't make award space available. That's up to the airlines and they don't tell you when that happens. So it's up to me to find those opportunities and the moment it does, that's when we send it. But I can always say generally three to five times a week, that's there will be something Three to five times a week, yeah, yeah, we get more impressed as we go, so I'll say it's three to five times a week.
Speaker 1:Each one has, like a specific airline that you're going to fly, and I explain which credit card points and airline miles you can use and then the exact dates that you can book, and I'll break down the best ways to book based on points you might have.
Speaker 1:So if you have points from American Express and we'll get more into that this would be the best way, but if you have points from Capital One or Chase, this is the best way, and so it's both an alert service but also an educational tool. A lot of my premium members have told me that it's not just for the dates, it's also so that they can have a better understanding of this kind of world of points, so that when maybe they have to book something and it's just like they've got to book something specific, they're looking at it, looking for a board space, trying to figure out the best way to book, and they go oh wait, spencer wrote about this thing that time. Let me go reference that newsletter. So it's both kind of spoon feeding you a specific deal but also preparing you for future travel.
Speaker 3:Do you then also run a website that has like a paid portal? Or is, if I'm thinking oh, Spencer wrote about such and such airline a month ago, I think I saw it. Now I need it. How do I go find that information?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can either go through your email. I know a lot of people do that, but I do have an archive for premium members on the website. Where they can. I believe you can sort by the destination region, just to make it a little faster. Yeah, yeah, it's not too hard to find anything on the website anything on the website and I also collect everybody's travel preferences in their account online so that I can know what the priority destinations are, airlines they want to fly, stuff like that. Oh, so you?
Speaker 3:have. I was going to ask you next who is your customer? Do you have that profile? And now you're telling me you've got not only that, probably, but you have data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say I could probably do a better job about learning about what job they have and how much money they have. To me, I've just been focused on what points do you earn? What credit cards do you have? Like well, I mean cause that can impact a lot of things, obviously. But what are your top three destinations? That you want to go to Japan is the answer. By the way, it's always Japan. Yeah, it's always ranked at the top. It's one, two or three for so many people. But yeah, I'm just trying to. I want to understand what they're looking for, because part of it's me showing people what I think they should know, but another part of it's meeting people where they are and saying, okay, you want to go to Italy, here's this, yeah, so it's a mix, do you?
Speaker 3:have a book inside of you or not? Have a book inside of you or not A book inside? What do you mean? So you could say, and we could publish a book, but maybe the book would be-. Oh, actual book.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, never really thought about writing a book until a friend recently said that I should write about meeting people and becoming friends with people you meet while traveling, because I have a tendency to make friends in airport lounges or along the way, like four of my best friends I've met either in an airport or, yeah, three of them in an airport, one of them in Romania, just randomly met up with them there.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it's interesting. In our electronic newsletter at the law firm we have stories from strangers and it's because I can find the whole life story of anyone who either drives me in an uber or serves me a meal in the 15 minutes that we are together and now you know a whole ton of stuff and then we just write about that, okay. So now let's just talk like someone's listening to this. They're going.
Speaker 1:I should have been thinking about this.
Speaker 3:They know what it is because because you can the pitches for points, so you see them in print ad. The American Airlines flight attendants are walking up down the aisle pitching them. I assume it goes on in other airlines too, but to most of us it's confusing. It's the problem of too many choices, and you're helping to make this understandable. So where did somebody just start?
Speaker 1:Start my quick start guide on my website. No more. Seriously, I think it takes a bit of a shift in mindset on how you see credit cards. I for one was reluctant to get a credit card. I was not the kid in college who signed up for everything and spent a bunch of money and couldn't pay it back. I was the person who was like I don't need to spend more money than I have. Why do I need a credit card? It was. The only reason I wish I'd gotten a credit card earlier was because the average age of accounts is part of your credit score, and I wish I'd started that earlier. But otherwise I'm just like.
Speaker 1:I've always treated my credit cards like debit cards, and it wasn't until I realized that you could use the points you earned from a credit card to actually travel. Like to me, cashback is boring, there's no fun in that. But you tell me that I can earn points with Amex, chase, capital, one, whatever, and then I can go take a business class flight to Europe. Okay, now I'm paying attention. So I think first understanding if you're getting into this world, think of credit cards as just another tool and currency for travel. And for me, you've got to learn some foundational pieces and then you can build on that. I think anybody I imagine for lawyers when you first start learning the law in law school, it's very overwhelming, very stressful. And then you start to understand how law school works and you're doing something new, but you're building off of what you've learned before, or even the method of learning. You're starting to understand how to learn, and I think that's very similar for the points world.
Speaker 3:Hey guys, this is Ben. If you like what you've been hearing on this podcast not just the marketing and practice building strategies, but the philosophy of the art of living your best life parts. You should know that my son, Brian, and I built a tribe of like-minded lawyers who are living lives of their own design and creating tremendous value for the world within the structure of a law practice. We invite you to join us at the only membership organization for entrepreneurial lawyers that is run by two full-time practicing attorneys. Check us out at GreatLegalMarketingcom. Do you think it's more? Because you've spoken about points for travel? Yeah, and of course, there are points for other things. Like I have a bazillion points with Amazon, Like I never have to buy anything from Amazon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So is it someone who's beginning to think about this? Spencer, do you think about an airline brand or a credit card brand? Like you start in one lane or the other.
Speaker 1:Great question For me. I start with what we call transferable points. I think it's the best option for 99% of people. So think of it as like a transferable points program literally allows you to transfer their points into an airline program. So think of it as like a transferable points program literally allows you to transfer their points into an airline program, so you can either earn specifically with an airline or you can earn one that gives you access to a variety of airlines. For flexibility, it's better to have access to multiple airlines and, honestly, few people actually travel enough for work where loyalty to a particular airline is going to be the main priority. It certainly happens and that's great. I still think they should be earning transferable points on their credit cards to give them options for their vacation travel. But yeah, that's where I tend to tell people to focus.
Speaker 1:When you think about it, an airline will sell you a ticket for cash any day of the week, any seat on that airplane. They limit the number of seats they'll let you use points for. We can get into a discussion about how Delta, american and United are a little different on that front, but just what I would say when you want to use points on the rates that they'll actually put out. They're not always available, so If that's the case, let's just use an example to make this easier.
Speaker 1:If United is your kind of go-to flight out of DC to go to Europe, you can use, say, chasepoints. You can transfer them to United or their partner, air Canada, and then book the flight with those points. But if they don't have a ward space, what do you do? If you just had United miles? You're stuck. But ChasePoints can also be transferred to Air France, klm's program, flying Blue. There's an Air France flight to Europe and there's a KLM flight to Europe out of DC, so maybe they have space. So instead of flying United, you fly Air France or KLM. The idea is you just find the path that gets you to where you want to go, rather than locking yourself into one airline program. So it just gives you options.
Speaker 3:This is part of what I'm hearing. You say that you do so. If someone says, for example I think I can't remember now what discussion we had before we went live or not, but you said, number one I wish travel destination is Japan, and so that's a region of the world, and so I take it that you help people. They're like, hey, I'd like to go in summer of 2025 to Japan. You help them organize their thinking first, both travel options and, I guess, on ways to maximize or get points to apply to travel options in an efficient way. Is that?
Speaker 1:fair? Yeah, absolutely, we're going to stick with Europe. Just for a minute, I think. If you were to use chase points to transfer to Aeroplan from DC to London, you're looking at 60,000 points for a one-way business class ticket. If you booked it with United Miles, you're looking at 70,000 points. So if it's the same flight, why use more points than you have to? And so the way I look at it is the fewer points you use today is the fewer points you need to earn for the next trip. So that's the game. In a sense, it's arbitrage.
Speaker 1:Different programs have different award rates for the exact same flight, and when you think about United and Air Canada, they're both part of the Star Alliance, so there's many airlines that they can book all part of the same alliance, so you can book with either program. There's other programs you can book with too, like Avianca Life Miles, which is a partner of Amex, things like that. There's all these different variations of the same thing, and you mentioned choice makes things complicated. I'm trying to reduce the amount that people think about that. There's still lots of choices, but I'll show you which ones you should actually care about. That's where I've been.
Speaker 1:That's my niche really.
Speaker 3:Yes, but you're not acting as a travel concierge at all.
Speaker 1:No, that's a whole nother ball game.
Speaker 1:There are services that will, like you say, hey, I want to go to these places or this place and I have these points. And there's a service that I partner with. For people who come to me and they say I just I need this trip on this date. I often say, like my newsletter will probably hit those dates at some point, but if you just need to make sure you lock it in and you don't want to have to think about it like you can just go pay someone to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, listen, there's things that people like me will sit down and spend hours, or even the hours it takes to read your newsletter diagram and visit the website, and there's things that will go, no, actually, if there's someone that I can pay to do this for me, that we're good. And so when I go to say, hey, I'm going to take the family to Europe, I want to be efficient on points. Can I do this all on the computer or do I need to be speaking to live agents?
Speaker 1:That's a great question. Most of the time now you can just do it online, which is nice. When I first started looking at award space back in like 20, that was not the case. There were a lot more bookings that you had to do over the phone and there were a lot more, I guess, partnerships that, even though they are partners, you couldn't search online for it. You had to, like, search another website and then call the other airline to book the other. It literally was like a three airline kind of process to get to what you wanted to book. Fortunately, their backend systems are now syncing better and, unless something is going wrong, you can do most of it online. And that's. It really is much easier than most people think A lot of times. It's as simple as clicking book with points instead of not clicking book with points. So it's, yeah, same process after that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So can you tell me some stories or give me some examples of, like big wins in the management of I don't know what you call it, but I call it the scheming with points, the management of points in the international travel industry with points? Tell me some stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think one of the things to keep in mind again with transferable points is that you get access to transfer bonuses. So, like Amex, chase, built, capital, one, citi, they will occasionally run anywhere from a 15% to 40% transfer bonus. Let's say Qatar Airways Q Suites from DC to Doha. It's one of the Q Suites is probably the nicest business class in the world, if not we'll say at least top two. That's 70,000. You can use 70,000 British Airways Avios to book that one way. Taxes and fees are like 300 bucks. If you do that during a transfer bonus like a 30% transfer bonus from Amex to British Airways you only need, I think, something like 58, 59,000 points. So that's an insanely good redemption. You can't even get most business class tickets one way to Europe for that. So I think it's always about looking for those opportunities to really maximize your points. You can do all kinds of crazy things. Like I have a tendency to take simple trips and turn them into like complicated adventures around the world I don't know what Give me an example of that.
Speaker 1:This is where, whenever since you think about creating content for your audience and customers I always hear this stuff about do something that's relatable. Show them that they can relate to you. And every time I share like my first booking I'm like nobody relates to this because I'm a psycho. I like to do the most extreme thing possible. So my first award booking I used I'll give you the details, you guys can decide if you care about them I used Alaska Airlines miles to book Emirates because they were partners at the time to fly from DC to Dubai. I was in business class. I used American miles to fly Etihad Airways from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne, australia, in first class they call it the apartments and then a cheap cash ticket up to Sydney. And then I flew Singapore suites from Sydney to Singapore to Frankfurt, germany, to JFK, with a stopover for several days in Singapore so that I could go up to Kuala Lumpur and visit Singapore. That was my first booking.
Speaker 1:Most people are like I'd like to go to London. There and back five days. I was like let me do a two week trip across the world. But again it was like it was all on points. That was a time when I needed to like call in to get things booked and stopovers. For those who are not familiar, there's a layover and a stopover. A stopover on international tickets is longer than 24 hours. Some programs will let you do that for no cost or for a minimal cost. I like the complicated.
Speaker 3:That's your lead gen book, right there.
Speaker 1:I guess I'm just always looking for like fun opportunities. I love flying, so if I can try a new airline, I once flew to Amsterdam so that I could fly Guru to Indonesia from Amsterdam to Jakarta. There was a 90% off promo for award tickets, so a round trip ticket between Amsterdam and Jakarta would have been 380,000 points in first, but I got it for 38,000. I'm looking for just crazy.
Speaker 3:My marketing brain is and then, are you documenting these trips too? I didn't go to look. Are you on TikTok going? Here I am. I'm an Instagram person.
Speaker 1:A lot of educational content. Yeah, definitely on the nerdier side, but yeah, I don't know. I just like seeing what's possible and going to explore all over the world. Still plenty of countries I haven't been to. I think I've hit about 60 so far. All over the world. Still plenty of countries I haven't been to. I think I've hit about 60 so far. That leaves another 133 or something.
Speaker 3:You have the book. You just need to sit down with an editor. Yeah, and so neat. So tell me a little bit, because we're entrepreneurs and we get shit done. And if I followed you around for a couple of weeks, what are your personal disciplines? You're researching and your writing has to be good, or else people aren't going to open it. You're keeping track of all these different announcements from different vendors about points programs. Hopefully you're doing some fitness as well, and maybe you have some other interest in your life too. Maybe it's politics I'm curious about. We're always curious about how people structure their day.
Speaker 1:Not enough. No, yeah, I think, coming from the political world, especially on the campaign side of things, when you do voter outreach on campaigns, you have this several month period where you do insane hours and you especially as you get closer to an election you work 20 hours a day, seven days a week. Whatever it is, it's super unhealthy, but it's an adrenaline rush. But it's not the casual work environment where it's like oh, I'll check the news, I'll see what my friends are doing, I'll look at videos on TikTok or Instagram or whatever. It's not like that, it's just go. So I still have some of that. I've tamed it a little bit but and I also think I'm the only full-time person for my business, so it's up to me to do a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:I do have some really good support, but a lot of it comes down to me. I think I've gotten better with just writing out like six things that I want to accomplish in a given day and I try really hard not to overextend and do more than is necessary. In some cases I still do the things. I need to grow, but sometimes there's a tendency to want to keep going and it's so easy to burn out. I feel like I'm constantly teetering on that edge admittedly so for me. I try to wake up, do a little work, go to the gym, come back, do more work, take a little break at some point, do more work.
Speaker 3:What we've been talking about here on the call is like other people go shit, why am I running a law firm? I'd like to. I want to do that. I want to do that. I want to document travel around the world. Talk to me a little bit about some things that people may believe about credit card points that just aren't true.
Speaker 2:What are?
Speaker 3:some of the myths out there that you help people understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when it comes to the point side specifically, for a long time you would hear and I think still somewhat you hear people refer to frequent flyer miles. My dad traveled for work so in my mind you earned airline miles because you flew places on cash tickets and eventually earned miles. So a lot of people are like, oh, I can't do that because I don't travel that much. The game has changed, honestly, in the last seven years. It's completely changed. Credit cards are where most people earn points. Now you can still earn a ton of points if you travel regularly for work, but credit cards is where it is and I often say it's not frequent flyer miles, now it's airline miles and credit card points. It's not about frequency other than how frequently you use your card. The other aspects I think throw people a bit is oh, isn't this going to hurt your credit score? Oh, I don't want to have to overspend and rack up debt. I think you will find anybody who is responsibly playing. We'll call it the points game.
Speaker 1:Does not pay interest ever like pays everything on time. If you ever want to meet meticulous trackers, come meet some points people and their spreadsheets. It's everything gets paid on time, everything is tracked. It's one of those things where if somebody makes a fraudulent purchase on one of your credit cards, you might find it before the bank does because you're just glued to all of your information and then the other one is just getting credit cards hurts your credit score. It's not actually the case. You do take a small three to five point dip when you apply, but that recovers within a few months and eventually that actually helps your credit score because you have access to more credit, so you're seen as more credit worthy when you have access to more credit.
Speaker 1:I don't make the rules. If anybody has questions of why this is the case, please talk to the credit bureaus. I'm just like working within the game. They are the I'm sorry, the framework that they have set up. So a lot of us. I have an over 800 credit score. I always tell people not to even start in this world unless you have over 700, if not 720. And if you're at all tempted to spend money because you have credit, just run away from this. It's not worth it. This is fun extra, not necessary for your life. This is just an addition. This is something to make your life better if you can do it responsibly.
Speaker 3:And it's a real opportunity for our audience, who are small business owners, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, business owners are perfect for this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so is it. I don't know if you can generalize or not, but is it better to run as much of your business expenses through a particular credit card or type of brand or credit card, or are we? Because you're talking about transferable points, so that may be like ubiquitous. I don't know what's the strategy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I would say, broadly speaking, there's three approaches to credit cards in the point space. So you have to kind of keep it simple. Stupid, not necessarily stupid, just keep it simple Like you get one to three credit cards in the point space. So you have to kind of keep it simple, stupid, not necessarily stupid, just keep it simple. Like you get one to three credit cards. If you're getting two or three, you're getting cards that have bonus categories based on where you're spending, and then you want the points that work together so that you can combine them. That's the really simple way. If you have a ton of spend, that might be all you need.
Speaker 1:I have a. He was a client, now a friend. He spent millions of dollars on digital ads. So we lined up his bonus credit cards for bonus categories with digital ads, so he was earning three or four points per dollar instead of one. He didn't really have to get new credit cards, he just always had a lot of points, so super easy for him.
Speaker 1:Other people don't spend that kind of money. They want to be able to fly business in first, maybe a few times a year. So they've got to think about it a bit more. So you get into this kind of I call it the hub and supplement where you have four to six credit cards that have a variety of bonus categories so you can maximize your spend. Sometimes it's like a few cards for business, few cards for personal.
Speaker 1:Again same concept maximize bonus categories. Maybe there's some benefits like lounge access you want, and then you supplement with a new card to get a signup bonus every so often. You're never going to earn points faster than with a signup bonus. Those opportunities to earn 75, 80, 90, 100,000 points when you spend anywhere from four to $10,000 in three to six months, those are the big wins, those are the exciting moments. And then the last approach, which I don't think most people do, but it's a fun one, like the maximalist approach, which is basically you just get a new card every time you finish a minimum spend for a signup bonus. It's the most to keep track of. If you don't want to keep track of things, don't bother. But if you get into this and want to go down the rabbit hole, you will earn just a metric ton of points. But again, it's just. I think it's a choose your own adventure game and you can decide how far into it you want to go as long as you're doing it responsibly.
Speaker 3:Someone who's responsible and has good credits, and the fact you're getting a new credit card is not going to adversely affect your life, and it may very wellely affect your life and it may very well dramatically improve your life.
Speaker 1:We call it putting your credit to work for you. There you go.
Speaker 3:You mentioned a client, so do you have clients on top of the paid newsletter?
Speaker 1:subscription. Yeah, so I've done larger based stuff with businesses where I set up their entire operating system for spending money. Basically, it's always fun doing those because you just don't expect somebody who's helping you with credit cards to ask you everything about your spend habits and I'm nosy. I want to know everything so that I can make this the best possible result for you. Now I do more individual stuff with one-on-one clients, just at an hourly rate. If somebody wants a strategy for their credit cards and what they can do with it, I'll collect their info and jump on a Zoom call with them and hash it out, and it's a lot of. It's getting a sense of what somebody's comfortable with, what their goals are, but they're just really those are the two things. It's what are your goals and what are you comfortable with?
Speaker 3:Then I figure out how to move forward. This is a real niche industry here. Yeah, you created or are a part of a small, I think tiny, industry. That is not for everybody, but for the person that it's for frigging awesome.
Speaker 1:It's amazing to me and I think there's this in the kind of points and miles world there's this emphasis on free and getting free travel. And it's not free. You're going to pay taxes and fees and you're still going to go travel and spend money. And to me, the point of points is not to say you did something for free. You can go to the library, get a book read that's free. Great Love it. Go for it.
Speaker 2:This is about an experience.
Speaker 1:This may give you more experiences. It may give you a better experience. For me, I like the kind of luxury travel aspect experience for me, I like the kind of luxury travel aspect. So I'm trying to fly business in first class. If you're not into that or it's just not a big priority fly economy, I don't care. Whatever gets you to what you want, go for it. Similarly, like I have clients now who will book their flights on points and then they will pay cash for a luxury hotel because they took care of their flights. That could have cost them $6,000. And they're like cool, yeah, it's not a thing where you can't spend money on travel. If you want to go spend a thousand dollars a night in a hotel because you really want to stay at this hotel, cool, it's just easier. Now, that's the thing.
Speaker 3:That's really cool. All right, so, Spencer. So let's talk about news or next steps. Like someone who listens to this and goes okay, this sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 1:What did all that mean? I'm leaving a lot of something on the table here. Sure, what should they do? Yeah, I think, if you're new to points, the quick start guide on my website straight to the pointsco, that's a really good place to start. It will give you the kind of foundational pieces of knowledge so that when you hear me talk about this next time it won't sound like gibberish. And then, if you already are earning Amex, chase Points, american Airlines miles, united miles, whatever, and you just want to help maximizing them, the newsletter that you can sign up for on my site is, I think, the place for you To be clear. I focus exclusively on business and first class flights. I joke that it's lie flat or bust Like. I want a lie flat seat. I'm six, three. I like space, I want to lie down. That's what.
Speaker 3:I focus on. So these guys and gals that fly some long ass flight, and it's a beautiful bed. I'm like you have this experience. You want to sleep through it. Like how could?
Speaker 1:this be. Yeah, I mean, that is the hard part. I'm not always great at sleeping on planes, and especially if you're going to serve me some really nice champagne and I'm traveling with friends, I'm like, let's have fun, guys. And specifically Emirates on their Airbus A380, they have a bar at the back of the business class cabin where first and business class passengers can go, and you just find people back there hanging out having a glass of champagne, having a cocktail, having a beer, whatever, or just juice. Some people don't drink. That's cool too, whatever, but it's just fun Is the conversation ever.
Speaker 3:And how much? How many dollars did you actually?
Speaker 1:spend Usually not Most of the time. I don't think people really care. It's just hey, just enjoy the experience. It is fun to just see the people you'll meet Occasionally. You'll see like a celebrity or something. I'm really bad at following celebrities, so it's usually a friend of mine tells me that's a celebrity and I'm like, oh, who's that Right?
Speaker 3:And the politicians are in the back of this.
Speaker 1:I'm too wrapped up in travel to keep up with celebrity culture, but it's yeah, it's just fun. You'll also find like the flight attendants have more time to interact. It's a very different experience than flying an economy. I've flown to Asia and economy. I've done that Like I've had my knees in the back of the seat in front of me, like I've done that. But flight attendants are swamped when they're back there, and so your impression of a flight attendant may be just somebody who's just trying to get through the day. The farther forward you go, the more chill things become. As long as the passengers are decent humans, they have time to chat with you sometimes and they're just friendly, I think they enjoy it, especially ones that have stuck with it a while to be able to do work at the cabin up front. They enjoy it.
Speaker 3:And it's just fun.
Speaker 1:Premium customers and you get to hear some amazing stories because your flight attendants, especially on international carriers that have flight in the Middle East you have carriers that have flight attendants from everywhere, but even flights on airlines from the US you just if they're on those international flights, they typically do those flights and so they have stories that are just fun. You get to hear about what they've done and their backgrounds and stuff like that. So it's, I don't know. I like the connecting aspect of travel, so it's not just flying up front, but it is like actually going somewhere new, experiencing a new culture, meeting new people.
Speaker 3:Clearly, I like to make friends while traveling, so what do you think your life and your business looks like? In five years You'll cross over. You'll be over 40.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know. Yeah, honestly, I think it'll be similar. I think there's always changes happening. The one thing I always tell not the only thing, but one of the important things I tell people with points is they're not an appreciating asset. Airlines will devalue them at some point. Some of them devalue more frequently than others. So use your points, go do the thing. I'm sure we'll see over the next five years some devaluation from some airlines and you just adapt and start using another program more. So I'll be doing that and I also do luxury hotel bookings for clients and trains and cruises and stuff like that and the cash booking side of things. I'll probably be growing that business as well.
Speaker 3:That's a whole different discussion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my mentor on that side of things basically said hey, I bet all these people who book flights through you, you could help them get a better experience in the hotel side.
Speaker 3:Or the trains, or the trains.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's some really cool trains out there. But yeah, similar to what I was mentioning is, if you've used points to get over there, you may have the budget for a nicer experience, and the reason I like to focus on that when it comes to cash side is that with a flight, if I book your flight for cash, it's the same experience as if you booked points. The vast majority of the time. With hotels, if I book your stay, there's different benefits I can add to it so I can actually personalize it and make it special. It's much more of a hospitality than a transportation kind of thing. I always like this mix of points and cash for travel.
Speaker 3:That's neat. That sounds like a whole nother podcast discussion. Yeah, we'll come back later and talk about it. Good for you, good for you. So, folks, it's straighttothepointsco, not com. You can go there. You can get Spencer's. You can read his get started guide Number one. Number two you can sign up for. Is it a trial or a free version of the newsletter?
Speaker 1:There's a free version and then there's a paid version. So the free version gives you kind of the broad strokes and gives you a sense of what it is.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. When you publish your book, you come back. Yeah, and we'll promote the book. Okay, I'm sure you've got some cool stuff, spencer.
Speaker 1:It's been great spending some time with you, dude. Thanks so much, Ben.
Speaker 3:Congratulations on building a business that's just so different.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:I usually get to talk about it. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Thanks again.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 2:We'll talk later. Have a good one. If you like what you just heard on the Renegade Lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Law firm owners across the country are becoming heroes to their families and icons in their communities. They've gone renegade by rejecting the status quo of the legal profession so they can deliver high quality legal services coupled with top notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at greatlegalmarketingcom. That's greatlegalmarketingcom.
