From Business Spend to First Class: Credit Card Travel Hacks with Eli The Travel Guy

Ever dreamed of turning your everyday business expenses into luxury travel experiences? In this episode of Selling From The Beach, Rob sits down with Eli The Travel Guy to share the strategies, mindset, and insider hacks that can take you from the office to overwater bungalows — all on points.

Whether you want to plan a family vacation, upgrade your travel lifestyle, or build meaningful experiences without breaking the bank, this episode will show you how to make it happen.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Maximizing Points – Which business credit cards earn the most rewards and how to match them to your spending.
• Experiential Wealth – Why meaningful connections and travel memories often beat financial wealth.
• Honeymoon of the Year Concept – How to build intentional, regular travel into your life.
• Common Mistakes – Why you should never waste points on gift cards or cash redemptions.
• Luxury for Less – Insider tactics for flying business class, staying in 5-star hotels, and enjoying VIP perks for a fraction of the price.
• Family Trip Planning – How flexibility and strategic searching make dream family trips possible.
• Hotel Loyalty Power – The hidden benefits of elite status and loyalty programs.
• The Psychology of Travel – How travel can spark business growth and fresh thinking.
• Travel Concierge Services – Why letting an expert handle planning can save you time and stress.
• The Experiential Millionaire Mindset – How to prioritize experiences over financial accumulation.

Resources & Links Mentioned in This Episode:

✈️ Travel Tools & Search Platforms

• Point.me – Search for award flights across multiple airlines.
• Seats.aero – Find last-minute award availability.
• Roame.travel – Explore airline routes and points options.
• ExpertFlyer – Advanced flight search and seat alerts.

📬 Stay Connected & Learn More

• Sign up for the Selling From The Beach Newsletter https://www.sellingfrom.co/newsletter – Weekly tips on Amazon selling, travel hacking, and lifestyle freedom.
• Eli’s Free CEO Points Playbook https://freedomtravelsystems.com/sellingfromthebeach-201782 
• Learn the exact strategies Eli uses with his clients.
• Join the Travel Community https://freedomtravelsystems.com/community– Use code COSMAN100 for a discount.

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Transcript

Eli Facenda (00:00)
If you get both of these cards, you're gonna hit 125,000 points, which means for the rest of that calendar year that you get it, and the entire next year, you get two people flying for the price of one. And then so what happens is hopefully that relationship is still lasting, and after the two years, you flip it. So like if you got it for your wife, let's say you did it in January, 2026, you'd have 2026 and 2027 where she's your companion, and 2027 comes around.

she adds you and then you do 28 and 29 as the companion. That's four years of one person flying free.

Rob Cosman (00:28)
if I'm looking to go away, I'm gonna do the family of four, how would I just even start? Like, okay, do I decide on the destination? Do I decide on this is the airline we should probably use and the type of points I should accumulate or what should my base strategy be? Like.

Eli Facenda (00:42)
Yeah.

I'll give you a couple, I'll give you one tactical thing to leave people with and then one kind of philosophical thing. So the tactical thing, I'm actually giving you two. Okay, so one is getting some apps that will help make this easy. So one of the great apps out there is Award Wallet. Another alternative would

Rob Cosman (00:59)
tell me straight up, what card should I get if I want to maximize, like the example you just said, Miami and I've got a bunch of ads, what kind of card would I use for that?

Eli Facenda (01:05)
Yeah. Sure.

Rob Cosman (01:07)
Hey everybody, it's Rob Cosman from Selling From The Beach and today I have Eli, The Travel Guy We're gonna talk all things travel. So if you're like me, you've got credit cards, I have Canadian cards, I have US cards. I'm terrible, I'm absolute garbage with managing the points and I know Eli's probably gonna shame me on a bunch of things that I do and what I shouldn't be doing but.

I really wanted to get them on today because I thought this was a good thing. A lot of us have so many points, we really aren't optimizing. I know some of you nerds are all about it and you've done all the math and the calculations. I'm not that guy, I'm terrible at it. But I know there's others like me, so I wanted to get Eli on today and just chat a bit about some of the strategies, what he does, what he does for clients, what free advice he can give us, like common mistakes. And what the potential is, I see these...

scam ads out there like, oh, fly free to around the world and all this. It's like, OK, let's figure out what is really achievable realistically with your spend. So Eli, welcome to the show. If you could just give me a give everybody a little bit of intro kind of who you are. mean, where you're calling me from even right now.

Eli Facenda (02:13)
Yeah,

right. Yeah, thanks for having me on, So, Bonsoir, I'm in Paris right now. I've been traveling Europe and really around the world for the last, since March. So, I was in Austin the last three years, from the DC Air originally, but in Austin the last three years. My fiance and I looked at each other in the fall and we just decided, you know what, Austin's pretty hot in summer. Where do want to go instead? And we were like, we don't have kids yet. Let's just put everything in storage and go travel. So, we made that decision in the fall of last year.

and starting March we went to Japan, Hawaii, we spent about a month in Florida, then Germany, the Dolomites in Italy, Florence, I went to Dubai, to Egypt, to Lisbon, Barcelona, Mykonos, Venice, Sardinia, Italy, now we're here. It's been crazy. but what's cool? Go Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it helps though when it's your job too, I guess. a lot of the stuff that ...

Rob Cosman (02:53)
I didn't even... I don't understand how you can even remember all those places, but okay, amazing.

Eli Facenda (03:04)
that I'm helping clients with is how I'm doing this. We're in a Marriott hotel right now. We got a free upgrade to a suite. We got free breakfast, early check-in, late check out. Hopefully the connection stays really good because of high speed wifi for free. All the things that come from getting business class flights on points to getting hotel upgrades to using points for these kinds of things. I do myself personally, this is how we've been living. And it's really cool to get to just share that stuff with our clients and with people on social media, people like this that we're gonna get into the details with for on the podcast.

It's a really, really awesome system that I tapped into about 10 years ago for the first time. And I started a business in about five years ago after spending about five to six years of just being a total nerd. Who got super passionate about this because of its applicability in my life and realized there's a lot of people that could really get a lot of help out of this. That's how I started the business. And that's a little bit of the background. but the company is called freedom travel systems. So we've helped over a thousand business owners turn their points into their dream trips and get first class, for less than and economy.

all off of maximizing one thing, which is the money that they're already spending in their business and in their household. Just being really efficient with it and making it easy to implement this so that you can get the benefits without the tons of hours of complexity and changing and it can get kind of crazy. So that's pretty much the high level for me.

Rob Cosman (04:17)
awesome that that's exactly what I want to get into what I want to talk about what's achievable what's realistic what are the constraints before we get on the podcast I did a little bit of research and I watched some of your other videos and you know some of your YouTube clips and that and we've got a lot of the same philosophies which is good it's you actually called out and you mentioned the book 18 summers and I have that book and I've read it because I've got kids

And you know, I'm a big fan of 18 summers. I'm a big fan with the book called Die with Zero. I don't know if you've read that one. But so we're on the same wavelength. And for anybody here who has kids or don't have kids, read those books. Here's the high level. It's memory dividends, experiences, travel, travel when you can travel when your body is able to do it. Not necessarily planning when I'm 60, 75, because you never know what

Eli Facenda (04:52)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Cosman (05:02)
your mobility's issues are gonna be like, and your ability to actually travel, do it while you can. So I know we're on the same, you've got a really cool, you also have one that I thought was neat, the annual honeymoon philosophy, what do you call it?

Eli Facenda (05:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, well first off, mean, when I speak in live events, I often give out the book Die with Zero because it's so on brand and on point with my overall life philosophy and what I really stand for in life and what the brand stands for. And so we'll get into something potentially that I call experiential wealth. This is kind of a phrase that I've been coining because it really gives people a concrete way to sink their teeth into what it means.

to live a life that's not just about pursuing financial wealth, but also about creating amazing connections and moments through the experiences we get when we travel. But yeah, the honeymoon a year concept, so this is something we came up with a while back because we had a client and her name's Erin, she came to us, she was an online coach, and she was spending probably like 15 to 20K a month inside of her business. So not like a crazy amount of expenses, know, more than the average household, but not like compared to some businesses that are spending hundreds of thousands.

She's like, hey, I don't know, I wanna plan a honeymoon off my points, I don't have that many, maybe 300,000, I spend this much, what can I do? We took a look and we planned, she was proactive, so I give her lot of credit on that. Most people are very reactive with this and they wait, and that's what ends up causing them to kinda miss out on some of these opportunities, is they're waiting too long. But she got way ahead of it. So we were like 11 months out from when she wanted to do this trip. We dialed in her cards, we got things cranked up. She ended up then taking a trip to the Maldives and Dubai. She flew Emirates business class, they had the inflight bar.

They stayed in an overwater villa for 10 days in the Maldives. They had the trip of their life. They got the upgrades, the whole thing. It ended up being a $45,000 trip. She paid a couple thousand dollars out of pocket and used, I think, around 700,000 points for that, more or less right around there. But because she had so many points left over after what we had done to optimize her cards, she came back to us. was like, I know I don't have a honeymoon next year, but can we do another one of those? And I was like, let's go. was like, honeymoon of the year. That's the new motto. So that's how it started.

It really came from the philosophy of like, especially if you have the opportunity right in front of you and like these relationships with the people you love, these moments of sharing extraordinary travel experiences with the people you care about. It's like the juice of life. It's like probably half the reason we got into business in the first place was that more of that. if you can do it, why not? And just creating this idea of a honeymoon a year kind of gives your brain this sense of like, yeah, our relationship is going to keep growing. We're going to keep having these awesome experiences together. And it's not going to be like a honeymoon was something we did once when we were

you know, just got married, we get to do it annually. So that's the idea.

Rob Cosman (07:27)
That's awesome. Okay, so let's take it back. are we maximizing it? So most of our readers, most of our listeners, Amazon sellers, e-commerce sellers, we've got Canadians, we've got Americans. So I know the Canadians are gonna complain that the rewards aren't as juicy as the American cards. And if you can find out how to get the American cards, fantastic. Like I've got both. So I play both sides of the border. But let's, can you just walk us through,

Eli Facenda (07:44)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Cosman (07:48)
How should we be doing this? What are the common mistakes? What should we do?

Eli Facenda (07:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's a great question. And the way I like to, it's the right question to ask first too, because what happens for most people is think of this game like a big puzzle that we're putting together. Okay. Most people find one puzzle piece and they put it down and like, okay, I have this puzzle piece, but then like, what about this? And then that, and there's no frame to build this picture around. then everyone just walking around with all these like random, like I had this one card that has this benefit in this thing, but there's no like broader context to hold it in that makes it simple. So I'm a big fan of chunking things down to make it.

really simple to understand. So really there's three key steps that I like to break this into that the way you can think about it is like how am I doing one to 10 in each of these is really gonna dictate how much you're getting and how much is possible for you. Okay, now all of this stuff, I just wanna bear in mind, all of this stuff is up to the individual in terms of what matters to them because I do a lot of international travel and I love using points for business and first class experiences, flying over cities, staying in really nice hotels. I like doing the luxury stuff because

to me it's the pinnacle of what's possible and I don't really care to save on a $200 domestic economy flight that much when I could be using points to save $15,000 and get a shower in the sky on Emirates first class. It's just like total peak life experience, right? So that's important to me. But other people, that's not how they play the game. They care more about getting just like three times as many trips and flying in economy and that's their preference. So it's always relevant to the individual. So that's some context. Now.

The three buckets, I'll go high level, we can break these out, but the first bucket is to maximize the amount of points that you're getting and earning the most effective points. So maximizing your points. That's really gonna come down to the right cards on the right expenses based on your goals. Okay, so this is why it's a little bit different for everybody. I'm happy to give blanket recommendations on certain cards, but like, if you live in Miami and you travel to South America five times a year and you spend 20 grand a month on ads, let's just say, versus someone who lives in

Chicago and only does domestic travel and they spend 30 grand a month on inventory. Those are like two different plans. So there's not really one best card for that's gonna be the same for both of them because the outcome might be different. But that's the first piece and we can pause there. I'll kind of get into the other two, but that first piece is maximizing your points.

Rob Cosman (09:51)
Okay.

Okay, so just tell me straight up, what card should I get if I want to maximize, like the example you just said, Miami and I've got a bunch of ads, what kind of card would I use for that?

Eli Facenda (10:04)
Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

So, so there's, there's the way that we want to think about it is we want to think about the right currency first. And then we look at which cards based on the currency I want earn the most in that currency. So the best currencies are ones that have this transferable capability because they unlock the ability to use these points on all airlines. And that's really the key is transferring points, not going. This is, you asked the biggest mistake that people make is wasting their points by going through either the Amex travel portal.

or cash them out for gift cards, statement credits on Amazon. Okay, that's the biggest mistake. So, and are you okay, Rob, if I get really nerdy with you and do some math? Okay, so if you go through Amex Travel, they're gonna give the value of the points at one cent. Okay, so you want a $5,000 flight to Europe, business class, that's 500,000 points if you go directly through Amex Travel. If you go to Amazon, they're gonna give you 6 tenths of one cent. Okay, so instead of 500,000 points being now worth 5,000, it's now worth

Rob Cosman (10:36)
Absolutely.

Eli Facenda (10:53)
3000. If you transfer those points, like based on our averages and we do this for clients, we're getting around four to five X that. So the same 500,000 points instead of being worth $5,000 or one business class trip to Europe is now worth 20 grand or four business class trips to Europe. That's because the airlines price things different than the banks. And when you transfer them, you're getting, mean, you guys are very familiar with arbitrage, but you're basically getting points arbitrage, right? That's the game. That's the entire game here. And so if you increase the amount of points you get, and then you get the arbitrage,

that sets you up, but that brings me back to which points allow you to do that, because only certain ones do. The main players in this are Chase, Amex, Capital One of the big three. Bilt is a new one. ⁓ Citi is actually, they're revamping some things, then Wells Fargo even has some. But if you had to pick two, Chase and Amex would be the best two. And then within that bank, there are cards that will maximize the most on ad spend. So the Amex Business Gold is the best one with Amex, and then the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business, it's a brand new card as well, is the best one within Chase.

So for people that are spending a lot on ads, those are two cards that are like no brainers because you're gonna get three to four X the amount of points that you would just compared to like the basic cards like an Amex Platinum for example, only earns you one X. So that's a great starting point if you are spending a lot on advertising, one of those two cards is definitely for you. The discrepancy to pick between is gonna be based off of which partners matter to you based on what Chase has versus what Amex has.

Rob Cosman (12:09)
Okay, and partners, mean where they can transfer the points to? Okay.

Eli Facenda (12:13)
Exactly. Yeah, like for

example, like if you lived in DC, right? Dulles is a big hub and United flies out of Dulles. Amex doesn't transfer United, but Chase does. On the other side, you know, it's not a great use of points to transfer points to Delta. It's actually a pretty bad use because their programs are inflated. But like Amex points transfer to Delta and Chase doesn't. So there are certain partners that only some banks have. Chase transfers to Hyatt, Amex doesn't. Amex transfers to Hilton, Chase doesn't. So depending on like which...

programs you're loyal with, where you're flying, where you live. That's why I'm saying it always differentiates. Because like, if you're flying United a lot, for example, and you need those chase points to then convert to United, I would take, if I was in that situation, I would take a card that earns three X on chase over four X with AMX because of that transferability and how relevant it is for me. So that's why it's always a little bit custom.

Rob Cosman (13:00)
Yeah, it's obviously no one size fits all. Okay, where do you live? What are you looking to do? What are you looking to go? And what type of spend are you getting? You know, as an ad spend, what other, what are other good spends that some of these cards offer? Like, obviously, we know the ads, but is there anything else that is really juicy that gives you extra points?

Eli Facenda (13:06)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, most categories, most of the big categories are going to have something. like inventory, for example, you don't get a bonus on, but there are cards that earn two X across the board. And so this would be like the capital and venture X for business. This is really good because most cards are earning one. So if you just did that, let's say you spent 20 grand a month on inventory, right? That's an extra 20,000 points a month. That's 240,000 points a year. That's enough to go round trip to Europe business class twice, which could be.

15 to 20 grand. So that's one card change just on inventory that unlocks an extra 15 to 20 grand for you with like, this is why I actually love the game so much. You think about typically in life, like strategies tend to take a certain amount of effort and time and input to get the result. This is like a 30 second credit card application just unlocked 20 grand for you. That requires really no additional effort. So that's why it's really cool. But that'd be one for inventory.

⁓ Depending again if you do a lot of travel for business and you're not using points, Chase Saphire Reserve for business is good. That's where the Amex Business Platinum also comes in. That's a really good lifestyle perks and benefits card for upgrades, for status, for lounges, for really nice hotels. And it's really good if you spend a lot on travel. It's not actually good for pretty much anything else. So as far as that card goes, like that's a big common misconception as well, is people will get the Amex Business Platinum thinking,

Well, this is like the nicest card. It's the most expensive one from Amex. must be the best, right? Well, in actuality, if you're going out to dinner and you're using the Amex Business Platinum, you're earning a quarter of the amount that you should be earning with a card like the Amex Business Gold, and it's more expensive. So it's like, it's kind of backwards actually. So that's a little bit of the kind of card optimization side and some of the different categories that you can really dial.

Rob Cosman (14:48)
So I used to have the gold and then I got an offer to upgrade to the platinum and I took it so I'm clearly an idiot I should have kept that gold shouldn't I?

Eli Facenda (14:56)
Well, I wouldn't say you're an idiot, but yes, you should have kept the gold You are in the same bucket that most business owners are in, which is you focused on the things that are highest leverage to you, which has been growing your business, and you didn't nerd out on things that probably felt like a distraction. So I'm actually an advocate for that. That's why I started what I started, is because after I started doing this, I realized, okay, if I totaled it up, I probably spent thousands of hours learning this. And granted, I was a nerd, and I needed it, because when I was starting, I had no money.

and I had friends that were really doing well and they wanted to take trips and I was like, well, I can't hang out with my friends. So I need to figure out a better way. That was part of it. There were a couple other reasons. And then it just became fun. The fact that I remember the first big point redemption I had, I was walking down the jet bridge onto the plane and I remember I was going to the lounges, I'm like 23 years old, so I would get in the lounges and just drink as much wine and champagne as I could have. So I'm feeling a little buzzed. But look at the ticket. And at the time I was making $24,000 a year.

and I was just trying to start a business. Things were not great financially. I looked down and I'm like, this ticket is worth $6,000 and I paid $6 for it. And I was looking up and I see all these people walking by in nice suits, business owners, lawyers, doctors, wealthy people and stuff like that. And I was like, how the hell am I here? This doesn't make any sense. That's how I got obsessed with this. And then it became, again, just a total passion of mine. But for most business owners, to get good at what you're good at, you have to focus on your core skill sets.

So when I started what I started, was like, I want to help people put their time where it matters most, but not leave all this on the table. So that was why I created this in the first place.

Rob Cosman (16:21)
Okay, so now we've got a bit of an idea. Take a look at what's important to you, what cards work, try to optimize that. Let's talk about, can we talk about what's possible? For instance, obviously I'm a big fan of the 18 summers, so every summer I want to do something and we're already having that conversation. Next year, my wife and my kids, this year I took them to sleepaway camp for the first time, so dropped them off for a week.

Eli Facenda (16:32)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Cosman (16:45)
And I'm thinking, know, they had a good time, but you know, I said to my wife, I'm like, well, that could be a week that we go do something when we drop them off, then we get a week away, which we don't very often, but then what else do as a family? I guess we probably should start planning that now. give us some context like what is possible? What are some of the, the types of trips that you see? What are the, how much they cost, that kind of thing.

Eli Facenda (17:06)
Yeah, yeah, I love it, man. I really respect that proactivity and like, especially when it's a dad who's like, this is what I want to, you this is the, the, the upwind of opportunity that like I want to create for the family. And I like really want to maximize things. I get very passionate to help that. So I help people in that situation. So I love it. Um, so what's possible. mean, there's different ways that I can kind of cue this up. There's what's possible in terms of what's like the most aspirational luxury kind of crazy stuff you can get. Then there's what's possible in terms, we can start with that. And they show you what's possible in terms of like,

Rob Cosman (17:29)
Yes.

Eli Facenda (17:33)
amounts of travel and trips. so aspirational luxury. there are several, actually only a couple of airlines that have showers on the plane. Emirates first class is the one that everyone here, if they're listening to that and they want to put this on their bucket list, should definitely do. It's amazing. And you can actually fly Emirates from, don't have to go all the way to Dubai. You can actually fly from New York to Milan on this specific aircraft. So when you get nerdy about this, there's even different aircrafts with different configurations that only fly certain routes that have some of these kinds of

special benefits and features. the in-flight bar and showers on the Emirates A380 that only operates from JFK to Milan in terms of the European route. But that's a total bucket list experience. I booked that. So I did a trip where I proposed to my fiance in December, actually in Europe. And we flew that exact flight and it was two of us. It was a hundred thousand points a person plus a hundred bucks out of pocket. So 200,000 points and $200. The retail price for that was 10 grand a person. So the retail price was $20,000. I paid 200.

If I went through Amex travel, would been two million points. I'd pay 200,000. So in terms of what's possible, that's a really epic luxury experience that I would highly recommend. As far as other really cool experiences, if you ever fly Lufthansa first class out of Germany, they drive you onto the tarmac in a private Porsche. There's an entire separate terminal for first class passengers where you have your own security, your own lounge, a cigar room, a bubble bath, like $500 bottles of champagne. Is any of this stuff necessary? No.

Not at all, is it amazing? It's incredible. it's really cool. So there's things like that that exist. There are Singapore suites, I've flown them, where you can have a room, there's two suites with a bed. And when two people are flying together, they'll take the wall down and turn it into a double bed in the sky. So we've sent some clients on this one. This is where the mile high Club jokes typically come in, right around here. So that's that one.

And then I mean, you know, there's unbelievable like hotels and experiences you can have. Sometimes the upgrades can be out of this world. I don't like to make it a normal expectation because it's really rare this happens. But when we were in New York a couple of winters ago for the holidays, we got upgraded to the presidential suite in the Park Hyatt in Midtown Manhattan. Now this is an amazing, it's like a 2,400 square foot apartment. It gets a butler. It's an incredible experience. It retails for 30,000 a night. Dollars, not points.

$30,000 a night. So that was crazy because we used 40,000 points for that. I basically, if you were to equate that, I paid 400 bucks and got a $30,000 per night suite. I haven't seen that happen again for other people, but things like that can happen. Big suite upgrades into some of the premium rooms at different really luxury properties. Normal, this is not crazy. Go for two, three, four, 5,000 a night. That's pretty par for the course. If you get your status dialed in, suite night awards, and you use points, that's not that crazy.

So those are some of the more aspirational things. And there's different ones, different airlines I'm happy to talk about, but that's some of the I would really paint the picture for. Bora Bora, Maldives, African safaris, some of the more aspirational type of trips that people wanna do. You can use points for all the different properties, or some different properties on all those trips.

Rob Cosman (20:19)
It's okay, so if I'm looking to go away, I'm gonna do the family of four, how would I just even start? Like, okay, do I decide on the destination? Do I decide on this is the airline we should probably use and the type of points I should accumulate or what should my base strategy be? Like.

Eli Facenda (20:34)
Yeah.

Totally. There's a couple key things to understand first before you start searching. This is a huge mistake that a lot of people also make, especially those that know points because they're used to just reading the blogs or watching social media accounts and talk about a deal, but they miss the most important piece, which is how you plan and how you search. Okay, so what I mean by that is when are you starting to think about this and what routes are you even looking at? So let's say you guys are in Costa Rica and you want to go to Europe, right?

Well, there might, I don't even know if there is, there's probably some direct flights from San Jose to like Madrid and stuff like that or London, I imagine. So the logical process would be like, okay, well, you know, about six months out, I'll start looking for San Jose to London or Madrid, right? That's like how most people think about it. They're booking a cash fare and with cash fairs, it's not necessarily a terrible idea. That's probably the right way to think about it. But with points, they work differently in terms of the pricing, both on available inventory and how the routing works. So the best deals are in two windows. They're.

like nine to 11 months out, very early on, like right when the airlines release the routes, or last minute, like within three weeks. Now the reason for this is because when they're first out, there's a lot of inventory for points and you can book it up and then it's full and it's gone. But if it's getting to like two, three weeks out, maybe a week in sometimes, and those seats are available, the airline, if they're empty, they don't want to fly with an empty aircraft, so they'll take points instead of cash. They reopen some of these seats. Now, if you're booking three months out, four months out, five months out, it's not like there's no seats available. There's still plenty.

It's just the best deals in the most of them will be in those two windows. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the routing. This is probably even more important because if you want to go to Europe, for example, from Costa Rica, this is called a positioning flight. Most people would just start searching out of San Jose, capital Costa Rica, that's going to have the international flights. When in reality, what you'd want to do with points is start searching out of other major hubs for that route. So you would be looking out of maybe Cancun, definitely Miami, Mexico City.

maybe Bogota, stuff like that, that would be the hubs that you'd be searching out of. And then what you would do is you would take a small hop from, or maybe you guys are near Liberia or whatever airport you're in in Costa Rica, to Miami, Mexico, wherever it is, and then you do the long haul, let's say business class flight. I'm assuming, I always make the assumption, maybe I shouldn't, but people want business class for international flights, sounds like you do, right? You said you got your kids and yeah. It seems like it's a safe assumption. So that's gonna be the most important thing, because if you're like,

Rob Cosman (22:41)
I'd like to.

Eli Facenda (22:47)
just searching from San Jose, you're not gonna find the deals. Even if it's the same route from, let's say it's the same flight from Miami to Madrid, if you start in San Jose, it's gonna be a very different price than if you just search from Miami to Madrid. So that's why you always wanna do that segment from the big international leg. ⁓ Find that first, and then you piece the rest of the itinerary around that. So that's the biggest thing that I could say, and then you could start to look at different deals, transfer partners, which airlines have searched and stuff like that.

But the hub to hub searching is huge and like, I'll give one more example in this. You know, I've lived in Austin the last three years. I've flown internationally, I don't know, 10 to 15 times, probably more actually since then. And almost every time, except for one, there are international flights from Austin, but I flew to New York, I flew to San Francisco, I flew to Miami, I flew to Atlanta, I flew to Chicago to get on the long haul international flights. So every time I was flying out of another major hub on a separate ticket. it'd be like Lufthansa from...

Miami to Frankfurt and I fly American the day before to go from Austin to Miami, do a quick overnight and then catch the international link. So that is one of the biggest keys that I can give to people that is beyond trying to search on different airline sites or different point searching tools is the positioning flight and when you're looking and also like how consistently you track this stuff because what you see today will be gone tomorrow and then back the next day and then gone the next. So like these things change. So like if you search today, it's not like a cash fare.

where it's relatively consistent and then slowly goes up over time, they like pop open and close all the time.

Rob Cosman (24:13)
Okay, so I should still be accumulating the credit card points, not transferring them to any airlines yet, just start building those up, have a bit of a plan, here's some options where I'm looking at going, so then when I do find something or your team finds me something, when it's available, then you go through and convert the points and book it, correct?

Eli Facenda (24:33)
Bingo, because that's, I'm glad you brought that up. There's two things to know about the actual booking process. Number one is that once you transfer your points from the bank into the airline, they cannot transfer back. So you don't want to do this speculatively unless there's like an airline you fly all the time, then it's probably the same thing you do. But you want to wait until the deal's actually there and then you want to transfer. So you need a loyalty program at the airline and then you're basically going to log into your bank account, go to like transfer points and then sync it and then hit send and it goes. Some airlines,

take a little longer. Usually they're pretty quick, but some, depending on the airline, it'll tell you how long the transfer time can take. But that's the first thing. The second thing is, what's really cool about points is that they're refundable. Meaning, if you decide, okay, we found a great deal for, like now would be a really good time to look for trips to Europe for you guys for like next June. Let's just say you were doing that, right? It's about 10 months out from where we're recording this. So if you started to search for that.

you might find a great deal and you don't know if it's actually gonna work 100 % but you feel 80 % confident. You could transfer the points, book it today and then if six months from now you're like, you know what, that date doesn't work or we need to change it, cool. You go in, you cancel, you get your points back. Depending on the airline, there's either no fee or pretty minimal fees per person to get those points back but it's so much better than think about like a cash fare You'd be sitting there with a $20,000 credit with like Air Austria or Lufthansa or something and you're like, damn, like what am gonna use this?

So the points, it's much, much better. So that's a couple of things that are really helpful to know when it comes to booking that allows you to both know when to transfer the points and also when to actually pull the trigger on a trip. And it gives you more ability to kind of be a little more audacious with those bookings and be like, you know what, may not work, but we're going to book it anyways, because you know, this is a commitment towards the trip and it's better to jump on it than wait and then find out that you missed the opportunity.

Rob Cosman (26:09)
Right, and you're booking that big leg, which is the best deal, optimized, and then later on, chances are that little jump from wherever you're going, you're gonna be kind of full ticket price on that anyways, because you need to be very specific on the dates, correct? Like trying to I need to go on July 13th, is that date ever gonna be on sale? Is it maybe, maybe not? Like versus you've booked.

Eli Facenda (26:32)
Yeah, and usually

that's like the minimal savings. mean, you're talking about maybe a couple hundred bucks saved for those kinds of flights in most cases. And even then, you know, depending on like your lifestyle flexibility, like we've tried to build our lives to be pretty flexible where it's like we both run businesses that are online. So if we want to go to New York three days ahead and spend a couple of days in the city, like that's kind of why I've designed the life I have is so that we could do that. I totally get when you have kids, that isn't always the case. There's some other schedule conflicts, right? But. ⁓

But point being, you need to get there the day before and lock in a specific date, you may pay $100, $200, depending on where you're positioning to, to get there. But maybe it's worth looking for another deal and going a day or two early and then spending a little more time in that city and just get to see more of the world.

Rob Cosman (27:10)
Okay, talked about airlines, can we talk a bit about hotels and status and stuff like that? Like I have the Marriott Bonvoy card, I'd make points there, I'd get some nights, I got platinum, I never seem to get a suite upgrade or, know, hey, can I get a room upgrade? And they're like, oh, you booked the parking lot view, we'll give you the garden view. And you're like, this is whack, that's not an upgrade. That's one class up. And I'm like, how is this a class up? sucks.

Eli Facenda (27:31)
⁓ do tell it.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rob Cosman (27:37)
some of that and what you think are you know, like the good programs, the good hotels, do you stick with one, you know, brand and get your status? What do you

Eli Facenda (27:43)
Right.

Yeah, totally. And it's a good question because the old slip them a 20 at check-in thing, that doesn't really work. So it's kind of like a little, you know, old myth. And certainly not for airlines. Like that's just laughable to an airline to think that you're just gonna ask and get one. Now with the hotel, so let's just lay out the game, right? So there's a few major players. Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton are the three big ones. IHG would be the fourth. Then there's other programs that...

really don't have loyalty programs or cards Four Seasons for the really luxury travelers, things like that. You're not gonna really do any of points game there. You can get some upgrades and things like that through using programs like the Amex Platinum Hotels and Resorts, which comes as a perk from the Amex Platinum or Business Platinum. Chase now has something called the Edit Collection, and these basically give you status and travel agent-like perks without having any of those things. So that's pretty cool because I've used that alone and I mean...

When we did that engagement trip I just mentioned, we were in Switzerland and we booked a standard room and based off of having the Amex five hotels and resorts perk, we got upgraded to a suite with a lake view that was worth $3,000 a night for two nights. So it was a $6,000 value. Again, that's how you make those annual fees totally worth it. Making sure to use those perks. So that's like going to cover the luxury hotel side and that's pretty much only the luxury hotels you're going to get that, that are not a part of the other big brands. Then when it comes to the big brands, what you generally want to do is find one to two programs where you are really loyal.

if you're traveling enough in hotels, and by enough I mean 30 to 40 nights per year in a hotel is enough to really be like, okay, it makes sense to really double down on loyalty. That's the opposite actually of the airline side. really, for 99 % of people, for reasons we may not have time to get into right now, I don't recommend airline status for most people. It's just kind of a waste. But hotels, contrary. Like definitely double down on hotel game. So my two favorite are Hyatt and Marriott.

Hilton, they really inflated their point program, so the points are just insane. The Waldorf Astoria, for example, in Cabo is an incredible property, unbelievable. some nights it's 100,000 points. some nights, I've seen over a million with Hilton. Insane. With Hyatt, you'll never see a redemption over 65,000 points, really. And so it's much, much better value. so that's a big kicker. Now, the best way to get the upgrades,

Yes, getting status is really big, but also really leveraging these sweet night awards that you unlock through either spend milestones or stay milestones, status level milestones. Those are gonna unlock a lot of leverage for you and they work differently for each program. But that can be a huge way to actually make sure you get the sweet upgrade, at least stack the deck in your favor. And then the last thing I'll say on the upgrades is like how you reach out to them and ask for the room is a huge play that people just underestimate.

A lot of this game you're kind of seeing the theme, it takes proactivity, right? If you just show up and like, hey, let's see what we got for the status. It's very rare they're gonna like give you an epic suite, some places will, but it's very rare. But if you reach out 48 hours before and you look on their hotel site and you see the type of suite, the exact one that you want, and you see that room's available and you message them and you explain, like think about the person who's receiving this message. They're probably bored at the front desk or whoever it is. And you'd be like, hey,

I'm coming to stay here, I'm celebrating this thing, or we recently just did this thing, and I really want to surprise my wife or my family or whatever, and this would be so meaningful and make our stay absolutely amazing if we could have this one specific room, I saw it's available, maybe throw in some never split the difference negotiating skills from Chris Voss, like, probably no chance he could do this for me, that kind of thing. But if you make it very clear, you tell them the reason it's gonna be meaningful, give them some emotion, maybe even call, that increases your odds like 500 % of getting the actual room you want.

So that's almost just as important as the status piece. I like to use those two in combo, if you have no status, that's not really gonna work. But if you have like titanium status, for example, like I do with Marriott, and you use that, your ability to get those upgrades is really getting a lot better.

Rob Cosman (31:20)
That's it's funny. You said that I literally I actually did that I emailed just as you said I did that probably about three or four months ago got somebody respond front desk. I said hey this producer suites available. I've stated before it's awesome You know bringing the whole kids can we do that and I made I said it was a birthday party or you know a birthday event exactly as you said and then somebody responded it was Kimberly so that I'm like hey Kimberly, you know like

start to bro out a bit, right? And then, you know, like went back and forth and yeah, we ended up doing it. So you do recommend getting the status there, not the status on the airlines, unless it's specific. Now, for instance, like I fly mostly Air Canada when I go through Canada, Canada only has WestJet, Air Canada and a couple other small little regional plays. So for me, like I have a credit card in Canada that gives me, it's the reserve card, the Amex Reserve Aero plan. So it,

Eli Facenda (31:50)
Nice.

Mm.

Rob Cosman (32:11)
gives me access to the air Canada lounges and stuff like that. Any other advice, tips that you see people making, problems, what could we change right now?

Eli Facenda (32:22)
On the hotel side? just in general?

Rob Cosman (32:24)
Any

of it, know, like the hotels, that was a great tip, know, actually contacting them beforehand, you know, I mean, they're humans, right? And sometimes you just kind of got to try to break through and, you know, get a little bit of empathy, right?

Eli Facenda (32:32)
Right.

Yeah, yeah. So, so, ⁓ I do have another tip, but it's a little bit different than a tactical level thing. So I'm happy to go more into tactical things. but just to kind of zoom out for a second and check back in on this, this bucketing to give people clear context, maximizing your points is the first one, but it's again, the right cards and right expenses. Then you want to optimize your upgrades and benefits. So that's where you do all the stuff we're just talking about. You get the lounges. It just makes your travel. This is about making your travel more seamless, more comfortable, more luxurious, more easeful.

It's not really about using points per se. It's about just making your travel better. And then the third is how you unlock your bucket list trips by leveraging your points for all the things we talked about already with points transfers. So those are the things where you can look at one to 10, how am I doing with those? But the last piece I'm talk about, which is more of how to look at vacations and travel from a mindset perspective. And this is something that was really interesting when I first realized it, because I started to see, hold on, the more we take trips and vacations,

the more profitable our business becomes. And that was so counter to everything I'd ever thought in business and really counter to most advice, especially if you listen to someone like Alex Hormozi or something like that. And the reason for this is vacations and trips and time away become a forcing function for you to have to do a few certain things inside of a business that actually make them more valuable. You have to remove yourself. Like if you're gone for two weeks and you actually put your laptop down, you have to delegate things, set up systems, do things to make the business not dependent on you.

which is ironic because that is the thing that makes it sell for more or makes it a better lifestyle business in the first place. So by forcing yourself to take more vacations, you have to kind of rip the bandaid off of the things in the business that you probably shouldn't be doing. And a quick example of this, last year I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina and I was taking 10 days off for the first time in like two years and I was in a really stressed out period of business for this, during this actually, it was tough.

Like I was just all I was so burnt out and exhausted and depleted and I was like there's no way I can take a vacation like teams gonna fall apart even on the travel guy was this weird internal conflict and I remember thinking okay, there's this new project We're kicking off and it needs to get done and I'm gonna be away for ten days and initially I was like, oh, okay So what I'll do is I'll create a draft and we'll set up a meeting and then next week We'll talk about it and we'll review it and we're gonna do this. I was like I'm gonna be gone for ten days I can't do any of that So it forced me because I was forced to think like this

I was like, okay, so I'm going to take this here and record a Loom video. I'm going to delegate it to this person. I'm going tell them to talk to them and then they're going to review that. And then they're going to send me a final thing by this day. But here, here's the North star. I'm going trust the team and go. It ended up, the project went across perfectly fine. I spent like 10 minutes instead of three hours and it got done in like a week instead of like two weeks. And that was like a light bulb moment for me because I was like, I wouldn't have thought of that situation had I not forced myself to take the time off. So.

That is like your permission slip as a business owner to do more of the things you already want to do. But you're probably afraid, you're probably having anxiety or nervous around actually taking the time away. Not just taking the trip, but actually unplugging and being with your family. And this is probably the highest leverage thing I can share with people because if you don't have this right, it doesn't matter how many points you have, it doesn't matter how good of a deal you find. If you're not gonna actually take the trip, then you could just stack points all day or use them and go somewhere but not actually be present there.

That's a little bit of like the kind of psychology piece of this that when you understand it, it's really cool. And the last thing I'll share with that is when you really get this right, the more you grow your business, the more points you earn because your spend goes up. The more points you earn, the more vacations you take. The more vacations you take, the more you love like what your business is providing for you and the more you want to grow it. So it actually becomes a very self-sustaining flywheel where it's like, wow, I get to grow this business and take more trips.

and then in turn I want to grow the business. it's a really good kind of feedback loop.

Rob Cosman (36:10)
You're totally right, because no one wants to sit down and write SOPs and document your process and record Loom videos and type it out until they need to. You're like, OK, now I'm going away for two weeks and I can't. And I'm literally going to be on a plane when I'm supposed to do this. So I need someone else to do it. And I got to write it out now. No one's going to sit down. No one wakes up on Tuesday and you're like, man, I'm going to bang out some SOPs. No, never. Right?

Eli Facenda (36:35)
Not for most of us, no, you have to be forced into it, which sounds very counterintuitive. But that's the way that, I mean, it's the Parkinson's law concept, which is like, things will expand to the maximum amount that we take. So if something's gonna take two weeks, it's two weeks. If we have two days, it's two days. And especially with delegating processes like that, if there's not a forced reason why you have to get it off your plate, then you probably won't. And you're probably doing a lot more things than you need to. And this is like a lesson that I still have to always keep learning myself in the business too. It's like.

We all do, but it's a good reason to, again, give you the permission slip to take the trips.

Rob Cosman (37:06)
Okay, I wanna talk a bit about kind of your business and what your approach, what you can help people with, the programs you offer, because I know some people that have signed up with you and now they're emailing you and you're doing all the trip planning and point hacking. Just walk us through a bit of that, please.

Eli Facenda (37:21)
Sure.

Yeah, I mean everything I just explained, anyone can do on their own. It's just how easy do you want this to be, how little mistakes, and how much complexity do want to deal with on your own. So we're like the easy mode for this. Okay, so basically people come to us, essentially we're like a travel agency on credit card points for business owners. So we help optimize the spend. We basically review the exact expenses inside the household and business. We audit your travel, your goals, the things that matter to you, and then we put together a custom plan.

that just revamps the cards you have. And this is the key here, there's two things. Number one, that there's only a positive impact on your credit. And number two, that it's simple and easy to do. We don't have 25 credit cards flying around. It's too complex for 99 % of people. Some people have tons of cards because they love it. But for our starting clients, like the people that are just getting into this, three to six cards between household and business is a great amount. That's one to two bonus category cards in each and then one to two just like everyday cards. ⁓

on each, and that's enough to really get you juice where you're getting the upside but it's not a lot of complexity and you're not leaving mine on the table. So that's a key piece. And then what we'll do, and some people come to us when they have a trip first, so the card plan comes after, but the second thing we do is we then create bucket list trip opportunities. people come to us and say, hey, I've always wanted to go to Japan and Thailand, Paris and Greece, African Safari, this is my bucket list, and then what our team will do is we'll take the points you already have and the points you're gonna continue to earn.

and show different options and create experience opportunities for you to take first class luxury vacations where you basically just say yes and then show up at the airport. Right, you have to do a little bit of the booking stuff too, but we find the deals, we track everything, we make it super seamless. And these are typically trips that are 30, 40, 50, $70,000 and the client ends up paying two, three, four, $5,000 out of pocket for all the travel. So they save that money, that's money that gets to go back into the business, back into investments or whatever. And you get to have the vacation and you don't have to the planning.

So that's essentially what we are, kind of like a points concierge meets travel agent. And then we also help with like the smaller trips. So you're in Costa Rica, you want to go back to, are you from Toronto or which side of Canada? Okay.

Rob Cosman (39:21)
I moved from Toronto, but my

parents live on the East Coast. So we usually go to Toronto, visit some family, I head out East during school break, and then the summer, well, who knows.

Eli Facenda (39:25)
Okay.

Okay,

okay. So you want to go back from Costa Rica to Toronto, like that's one where you could just message us as well and we help plan those, even the small ones to make it easier. the big, like the juicy value is going to be the big international trip or trips and then the card optimization as well. There's other things we do. We integrate with travel agencies. like if there's certain experiences, like you want to go to, and we have different trips that we partner with. You want to go to Antarctica or you want to go to certain properties on an African safari. We have ways to.

make all those things happen, really bucket list VIP experiences, people that really wanna do the top shelf luxury things, know, go sit in a box at like Formula One races, stuff like that. We have partnerships that integrate with those kinds of things. But the core of the offer is really taking the points and turn them into your wildest dreams and have enough left over where you wanna squeeze in an extra trip or two, you know, to the Caribbean islands this year because you took the big trip and you have so many points left over. Cool, take the wipe on a little getaway and have some fun and enjoy that. That's what the business is about.

Rob Cosman (40:23)
Are you also like kind of proactively letting me know? Because sometimes I don't know what I don't know and I don't know what I want to do. And then all of sudden I see it, I'm like, I want to do that. And for those amount of points and that type of deal, I'll take that. Like, do you do that as well? OK.

Eli Facenda (40:32)
Yeah.

Totally.

Yes, yeah, yeah, we do. So in two levels, we have like a community aspect to what we do where people are just dropping in deals. We call it our dream trip menu, so we'll drop entire trips. So it's not just like, here's a flight. Like we do that as well if there's a really cool experience available, but we also package an entire thing. So it'd like, hey, for anyone, because when people are on board, they fill out where they want to go, when, and what they have points-wise. And so we know based on our community, like the segments of the group that have 500,000 Amex points and would want to go to France.

Paris or something like that next summer. So we might find an entire package trip, round trip business class flights and hotels. Like here's a 10 day experience, full itinerary, $50,000 handed to you and all you have to do is go through and follow the steps and book it. So we offer those and then we'll also proactively look for trips that people are coming in that are in like our higher level kind of more concierge services. We'll proactively monitor trips and deals that they specifically want as well. Flexibility is the key on those dates. So like one of the things that

whether someone's working with us or doing this on their own. I mentioned flexibility of the routing, but also having a couple days on those international legs will open up so many opportunities to get better value. So if someone's like, have to fly direct from Miami to Madrid on June 13th, I mean, you could still find it, but it's way less options. And if you're like, hey, I'm cool doing 11, 12, 13, or 14, then all of a sudden the odds of finding a great deal go up exponentially. So when we have that, it just allows us to provide even more value and more options for people too.

Rob Cosman (41:59)
Sure, can you give me an example of something you guys have found recently, you just posted in your group that was like, hey, this is a sick deal if anybody's into it?

Eli Facenda (42:05)
Sure, yeah, so mean one of them was Cathay Pacific First Class, where there was two seats available. So it's a good couples trip to Asia. A lot of times when we're going to Europe, we're looking for four or five seats, because people a lot of times have families. For the premier, like true first class experiences, oftentimes the max you're to see available on these kinds of things is two. Sometimes you see a little bit more. But that was a really big one. We had a couple clients over on the West Coast that had all been saying they wanted to go to Japan and just do like a couples trip, because we have some clients that don't have families.

was a killer one. It was like a $15,000 piece deal. I think it was around 85,000 points per person. So it was a killer of savings. But it's one that like when Cathay opens up award space, you better jump on that thing quick because it's really hot and will go very quickly. But it's like one of the most luxurious, unbelievable experiences from the food and flight to the Michelin star menu, multiple courses. have basically like a one-on-one private flight attendant that's there to just refill your champagne glass the whole flight.

So it's a really epic experience. That's an example of one. Tons of them to Europe. mean, all over, London's like super easy, but like London, Paris, we've seen a lot of Q suites, which is Qatar Airlines to Doha, which is a great one to connect to for people that want to do the Maldives or even go down to Africa and do a safari trip. So there's been a few of the big ones as of late. There were a couple other big hotel properties, some really awesome overwater villas in Bora Bora.

that recently had some great award availability as well. So that was another one we posted about too.

Rob Cosman (43:22)
Okay, so if I want to use a service like you and do it, what is the minimum that I kind of need to be spending, you know, to make it make sense? Because obviously you guys charge a fee and I have to have points to maximize this. So what's kind of the, what's that look like?

Eli Facenda (43:37)
Yeah.

Around 15K a month between personal and business is like a good baseline. If you're spending that, there's some serious meat on the bone. That would be good for like, for us, for our community level, where you get access to our team, shortcut the process, screen shares, deal alerts, question, direct Q and A. It's not really the done for you concierge service. It's more guidance, but that's really all you need at that level in terms of getting really good value out of the investment. For people spending over 30, 40, 50,000 a month.

then a concierge options make a lot of sense because it's just going to be, you know, a small mistake in terms of the wrong card could be a $20,000 a year missed opportunity. So that's, and that's the easiest money that you're going to get. So those, those people, uh, the concierge service where we really just do things for you would be a better fit. And that, ranges for us, you know, we have packages as low as 3k all the way up to 25,000. So it really just depends on how much they're spending, how much they're traveling, what they need to determine where they fit on that spectrum.

Rob Cosman (44:27)
Sure, so to join the community, what's the base cost to just hang out with you guys a bit?

Eli Facenda (44:33)
Yeah, so it's normally $200 a month and we have a 50 % off so anyone coming from your community that's listening to this, we can drop a code, I'll get that to you, it'll be in the show notes down below. But that'll be a way to join at 50 % off where it's only $100 a month and that's just a little bonus for being a listener on the show too.

Rob Cosman (44:48)
Sweet man, that's awesome. Because that's the kind of thing I just need to understand and most people will ask like, okay, how much do I need to be spending to make it worth my while? then obviously, yeah, the more you spend, the more points I got, the flywheel starts to go and then we can jump up. All right, before we, this has been super awesome. Any final tips, tricks before we cut you off and I let you go on your next call because you're in Paris and you've got to.

Eli Facenda (44:57)
Yep.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Thank you, thank you. No, I mean, I think that we covered a lot of the really good stuff. I'll give you a couple, I'll give you one tactical thing to leave people with and then one kind of philosophical thing. So the tactical thing, I'm actually giving you two. Okay, so one is getting some apps that will help make this easy. So one of the great apps out there is Award Wallet. Another alternative would be Tripit Pro. And these are apps that will sync all of your points in one place. This keeps it simple. Simple is good, makes it easy.

Basically you can just log in to one place and see all your points in one spot. I really like that. If you're searching for flights on your own and you want to expedite the process, there are some tools out there. Actually there's a lot of tools. But it's kind of like certain tools are good for certain situations and none of them are good for all of them and sometimes they suck and sometimes they're great. But I'll tell you a few of them. Point.me is the main one. It's just hit or miss. It doesn't do any tracking or alerts or anything like that. But it can be good for super simple searches. Seats.aero is a great tool as well.

⁓ You really need to know how to use it to maximize it, but if you get this down, it can be very powerful for you. Then there's Roame Travel and Expert Flyer. So those are gonna be like four of the big point searching tools. Expert Flyer is better to see inventory and what's available. Roame is kind of similar more to like point.me, where you'll see different, just like routes and pricing and stuff. But not all these sites pull in from all the airlines, sometimes they miss things, sometimes there's things called Phantom Award Space. So for like our team when we do it, we use a hybrid of those plus

daily tracking, monitoring actual sites to find legitimate availability. It's just more true, like accurate information. And sometimes that's updated before the other sites and things like that. So those are a couple of the tools there. Last thing I'll share is that if you are someone that's in the US and you're doing a lot of domestic travel, you should consider checking out the Southwest Companion Pass. If you have one person that's traveling with you and you just want frequent volume of travel, all it takes is 125,000 Southwest points in a single year.

which you can get through getting a bonus on one of their personal cards and one of their business cards. If you get both of these cards, you're gonna hit 125,000 points, which means for the rest of that calendar year that you get it, and the entire next year, you get two people flying for the price of one. And then so what happens is hopefully that relationship is still lasting, and after the two years, you flip it. So like if you got it for your wife, let's say you did it in January, 2026, you'd have 2026 and 2027 where she's your companion, and 2027 comes around.

she adds you and then you do 28 and 29 as the companion. That's four years of one person flying free. If you have kids, you and your wife could each do it and add a kid. So that could be four of you guys flying for the price of two. So only on Southwest, but they have a lot more routes to the Caribbean now, to Central America, to Hawaii. So definitely recommend checking that out. So those are some last tactical things. And the last kind of big idea is just what I call becoming an experiential millionaire. And so this is someone who prioritizes

wealth of experiences in their life, not just wealth in their bank account. And I think especially people that are doing the line of work that you guys are in, selling online, that's a big reason is to be able to have these meaningful memories and experiences. And so the recommended dosage that I always have is one, minimum one trip per quarter, that's at least a few days with someone you care about, whether it's your parents, whether it's your kids, your wife, your friends, one trip that's a quarterly getaway, unplug from the business, remove yourself, see how things go, and then

one trip that's like a two to four week big bucket list. So if you do that for 10 years, on average that could save you if you do this while points 100 grand a year, if you really maximize it and you spend enough, that could be 100 grand a year in savings. We have tons of clients that are doing that. And that over a decade is a million dollars saved. Okay. It's also 48 mini vacations and getaways and 10 full on bucket list life experiences. So if you look back over a decade and you're like, saved a million dollars on travel. I had 48.

epic trips in 10 like holy shit bucket list moments. That's a good life. So that's my last thing I'll leave people with is like a big kind of idea or identity to think about is becoming an experiential millionaire.

Rob Cosman (48:56)
Absolutely, memory dividends of those trips and the experiences and you know, like even we went on a cruise last summer, we still talk about it, we joke and we played hide and go seek on the cruise ship with me and my kids, you know, and we still keep talking about that, like the dividends you get from those experiences are top notch. All right, Eli, thank you so much for your time today, man. This is jam packed, appreciate it. We're gonna put everything you talked about in the show notes. I gotta go back through and find all the links, but everything will be down there.

Eli Facenda (49:13)
Totally, 100%.

Rob Cosman (49:24)
Super valuable. Thanks so much

Eli Facenda (49:26)
Yeah, thank you for having me on and for anyone listening to links in the show notes, there will be a free playbook. It's normally 150 bucks. People in listening to this will get it for free. So be sure to write on there. It's called the CEO points playbook. It's everything that I've basically just covered in more depth, more actionable. It's 40 pages written by me, not a GPT. And so this is real tactical stuff that you can implement. I guess you could feed a GPT if you want help with it from that, but that's a great thing I would grab to just get a little more acclimated with the things we covered today. But Rob, thanks for having me on man.

Looking forward to seeing people take some killer trips.

Rob Cosman (49:56)
Absolutely, man Thanks so much.

Eli Facenda (49:57)
Thank you.