How To Turn Credit Card Points Into Freedom And Unforgettable Trips With Dr. Courtney Downes

🎙️ Welcome back to another impactful episode of The Physicians and Properties Podcast with host, Dr. Alex Schloe.

💡 What if your rental renovations, CME spend, and everyday bills could fund bucket-list travel—business class flights and over-water bungalows—for nearly $0 out of pocket?

In this episode, Dr. Schloe sits down with Dr. Courtney Downes—Las Vegas emergency physician, real estate investor, short-term rental owner, and founder of Prescription to Travel MD. Dr. Downes breaks down how she turned STR and business expenses into millions of points, booking Singapore Airlines business class and 5 nights in a Maldives over-water villa for under $1,000 total, plus free Hyatt stays in Singapore—trips that would’ve been ~$30,000 in cash.

She shares a practical, repeatable system any high-earning professional can use to turn necessary expenses into extraordinary, memory-making travel—without blowing the budget or adding burnout shifts.

💥 What you’ll learn:

✔️ The simple points framework: welcome bonuses, category multipliers, and transfer partners
 ✔️ How real estate & practice expenses (renovations, subscriptions, supplies) can be leveraged—responsibly—for huge points
 ✔️ Smart starter cards for professionals & investors (e.g., Chase Ink Cash/Unlimited, Amex Blue Business, plus when Amex Gold/Plat make sense)
✔️ 0% APR strategy (use only if you can repay)—and why paying in full monthly is non-negotiable
✔️ When buying points actually makes sense (her Maldives example + “5th night free” stack)
✔️ Marketing your first STR, renovation lessons, and using family projects to teach kids entrepreneurship

🔥 Key Takeaways:

✔️ Points ≠ permission to overspend—optimize expenses you already have
 ✔️ Big expenses = new card time (hit a welcome bonus with money you must spend anyway)
 ✔️ Use the right card for the spend (stop putting everything on one shiny card)
✔️ Business cards supercharge earning and don’t report to personal utilization
✔️ Freedom is both financial and time—points help you take restorative trips now, not “someday”

If you are a physician who wants to travel more, spend less, and build lasting memories without derailing your financial goals—this episode is your playbook.

🔗 Connect with Dr. Courtney Downes:

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple

If you want to learn how investing in real estate can give you the freedom to practice medicine and live life how you want then check out the links below:

Facebook Community
Website
Instagram
Youtube
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Transcript

Dr. Courtney Downes:  So we spent, you know, under a thousand dollars to get in cash to get to Singapore and the Maldives and to stay five nights in over the water bungalow. Spent a couple nights in Singapore for $0 'cause we booked with Hyatt points.

So it was just an amazing experience that we probably wouldn't have had if we hadn't, because I don't know that we would've, I think it, the trip would've cost us like $30,000 and I don't think I would've been willing to spend $30,000 to, to take a trip or at least one trip anywhere at this point in my life.

Dr. Alex Schloe:  Welcome to the Physicians and Properties Podcast, the show where we teach you how investing in real estate can give you the freedom to practice medicine and live life how you want. Doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor. Now here's your host, Dr. Alex Schloe.

  Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Physicians and Properties Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Alex Schloe, and today I'm joined by Dr. Courtney Downes. Dr. Downes is an emergency medicine physician  in Las Vegas with some crazy stories. She is a real estate investor and a short-term rental owner who helps high earning professionals turn everyday expenses into extraordinary travel through points and miles.  She's the founder of the Prescription to Travel MD,  where she teaches strategies to leverage big expenses, including real estate investing  to unlock unforgettable travel experiences. Today we're gonna talk about her journey from the ER to entrepreneurship and how she uses real estate  and points to create freedom and some practical ways you can start doing the same.

Dr. Downes. So awesome to have you on the podcast. How are things going?

Dr. Courtney Downes: Great. Great. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. Really looking forward to the discussion today. Let's go ahead and, and take us back. So do you mind taking us back to what first drew you into emergency medicine, and we'll talk a little bit about your origin story in medicine.

So I am emergency medicine trained. I started out not sure exactly what I was going to do as a med student. I got my master's in public health and was initially thinking I wanted to be an infectious disease doctor. And then I realized that I was very much a like, let's get to the point kind of person.

Not necessarily like all the minutiae, but like, give me the big picture. Which. Pointed me in the direction of emergency medicine. I spent a year or not a year, a month doing my year off, doing my master's in Uganda, working with an emergency medicine physician and two peds emergency medicine docs.

And I was trying to figure out if I wanted to do peds emergency at the time and if I was gonna do peds route or the emergency medicine route. 'cause you know, you can enter. Via both channels. And by the time we left there, we all decided that I was definitely an emergency medicine doc and that's all she wrote.

So I did my training or did my medical school at UConn in Connecticut did my training in emergency medicine at KU in Kansas City and ultimately returned back to Las Vegas where I was born and raised to practice emergency medicine. And that's where I'm at now.

That is awesome. What a, what a cool journey. What was that experience like in Uganda for you?

Yeah. You know, it was definitely experience. I think I, I actually hadn't left the country until until med school. I think that was like my second trip outside of the country and I was there for a month and it was just a different world. One. I had no idea that, like the beauty that I was going to see when I entered the country.

So that was an experience in itself, but also just seeing the need that existed the need for healthcare. I was actually working at a hospital that was there. That was founded by one of the ER docs here, and they were really just trying to create the sustainable healthcare system, really going there and trying to teach the people who were there how to be able to run things and, you know, be self-sufficient.

So I went there doing a project, learning about triage and how they were able to triage their patients and really just helping them implement a triage system because one really didn't exist.  And just realizing that, you know, we're really blessed here to have resources where you can, you have all this like disposable equipment and you know, they didn't have that.

And then having people come in and needing to be, you know, ventilated and you have someone who's literally there like bagging them 'cause there is no ventilator. So they can figure out how to get them to, you know, their, their next place, which was not close at all. So, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I, I spent six weeks in Zimbabwe working at a mission hospital and had had a lot of similar, you know, experiences and you really take for granted how. Much we have here in the States how grateful we are here in the States. I mean, people were walking for days just to get to the hospital and then they would sleep outside and wait till the clinic opened and the hospital opened the next day and we

could see them.

And it was, it was wild. And you really had to lean on your physical exam skills because you didn't have all the technology that

we have here. We were lucky to be able to, we were able to bring an ultrasound machine, which is really helpful 'cause X-ray was down a lot of the time. That was the only other imaging that we had and so that was really interesting. It was really cool to see, you know, some of that pathology, but it was heartbreaking at the same time. And we saw lots of hiv aids and TB and then crazy things like crocodile bites and puff adder bites and all, all these wild experiences. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was exactly. Yeah, it was, it was amazing.

It was, it was such a incredible experience. And you're right, Africa, it was such a beautiful place. The, the people were so beautiful, the relationships were fantastic. Also eyeopening for me to see how materialistically poor folks were there, but not relationally, how rich they were in that family unit and everything as well.

And so it was, it was amazing experience. I cannot wait to go back to Africa. 

Mission trips going forward. So that's really cool and awesome to hear that that was eyeopening for you as well in ug.

Yeah, no, it was, it was definitely an eye-opening trip for me. And, and again, it kind of solidified where I was going with my medical career. And, you know, and it also like helped spark my love of travel, which is, you know, how we got here, so.

Yeah, that was gonna be my next question. Was that kind of, you know, you said that was your first international trip. Was that kind of the, the spark for prescription to travel MD?

You know, it wasn't it was this definitely the spark for my love of travel. I think. So the first time I left the country, my husband's from Trinidad, so I, I went home with him for Carnival. So that was my first time outside of the us and then like that year I was just kind of all over the place. I got my passport and I was like, whoa.

Like there's this whole world that, you know, it was outside. My, you know, my little home within the US and you know, I traveled a little bit here and there and then, you know, marriage and kids and, you know, training and all those things kind of slowed that down.  So I didn't travel as much.  And then in 2021 I lost my dad unexpectedly the year that he was getting ready to retire and, you know, we had planned all of these things and he, he was actually scheduled to retire the year before, but stayed on because he wanted to make sure my mom, you know, turned 65, she could get her healthcare and then, you know, he was gone.

And I think that just kind of changed the trajectory of my, of my life really. I decided that I wasn't going to wait till. It was time to retire to do the things that you know that you're gonna do once you retire. And so, and he lived a good life. You know, he I remember one of our family trips, we went to Maui  and, you know, that was the first time I'd actually left the Continental us.

But it's such a memorable trip for me and just knowing, seeing how, like this man who worked like two full-time jobs for most of his life was just, you know, so free. And so he was just a different person when he was there, and I wanted to be able to recreate that for my family. And so  I.  Started traveling a little bit more and you know, living my life a little bit more.

But that also meant that I needed to figure out a way to keep pace with that. So it was like, am I gonna go work an extra shift or like, I, I have to figure out a way to do this.  And so instead of picking up more shifts, I tried to figure out like, how can I do this affordably?  And so I started scheduling CME trips for my husband so he could take this time off and be able to use, you know employer funds to reimburse us for our, for our travel.

And I learned a little bit about travel hacking and.  In the process of, you know, realizing that I wasn't going to wait for retirement,  I realized that I needed to be doing more than just, you know, maxing out my retirement accounts. And so started delving into real estate and we bought a short term rental.

At the time I didn't know anything about credit card points and travel hacking, so I probably put most of my home renovation on a single American Airlines card, which in hindsight was like. Probably not the best thing, but I earned status with the American Airlines that year.  Unintentionally.  I opened up a couple in business cards and earned the welcome bonus or the signup bonus that sometimes people call a sub  unintentionally again, didn't even realize the points were there until, you know, a couple years later I went back and I was like, oh, I have these thing called points and I can actually do something with them.

And that kind of opened the floodgates for,  you know, travel hacking and award travel and realizing that. As real estate, as a real estate investor, you have the opportunity to earn all these points and you can turn your expenses, that things that you're already buying, things that you're already paying for into just these extraordinary travel experiences.

So.

That's awesome. I can't wait to dive a little bit deeper into that. I wanted to say, so sorry to hear of, of the heartbreak of, of losing your father. I, I can't imagine what that was like for you, but I I am encouraged by the fact, and, and for folks listening that you're willing to share that to see like, Hey, we, we can't. We shouldn't wait until we're gonna retire to live our lives to the fullest and to have those incredible experiences. 'cause we don't know when that's gonna be. And I have another friend, same thing. Their, their dad worked and worked and worked and worked and he was saving up to buy an rv. And he bought this, this really nice rv and then a few weeks later he died. And it was just absolutely heartbreaking 'cause we just don't know when that's gonna be. And so I would encourage folks to, to consider that as we're going forward, how can, how can we have these incredible experiences? Even if we're still practicing medicine full time? There's still ways to do that

and, and, and to kind of make sure that we're living life to the fullest.

So thank, thank you for being willing to share that. And again, really sorry that you had to experience that.

Thank you.

Well, let's talk a little bit about travel hacking. What, what is travel hacking in its simplest form?

So travel hacking is basically finding  ways to minimize the costs that are associated with. Travel. If you think of I guess credit cards is one of the most widely used forms of travel hacking. So you can earn points on credit cards for expenses that you already have. So you go and you sign up for credit card.

They say you spend 3000 or $6,000 over three months, and we'll give you 75,000 points and then you can use those 75,000 points. To buy gift cards online, which you shouldn't do, or you can use those 75,000 points and, you know, book flights for yourself and your family to get to somewhere. Really cool.

So,

That's awesome. Yeah. I want to talk more about like best practices and how to use points in a little bit, but it sounds like the first short term rental that you bought kind of unintentionally led to you realizing, Hey, I can use these points to travel. Let's talk a little bit more about that first real estate deal.

What got you started in real estate and why short term rental for you?

yeah, so I actually. I've been thinking about ways to diversify our income streams. You know, we were working full time, we're already maxing out our retirement accounts and, you know, we're investing in like, you know, index funds and, you know, brokerage accounts. But I learned a little bit about real estate.

Did the semi-retired md there real estate course and learned a little bit about how, you know, how do you find a deal, how do you go after you go out and make your first purchase? And then I just kind of went all in after that. So we bought our first short-term rental a few years ago, and it was a property in California.

We went and redid the whole renovation ourselves. And so my dad, again, we had, I just lost my father and he was like the handyman who like did everything for us, like it. Someone needed a ceiling fan hung up. That was, you know, he was the go-to guy. And so, you know, it's like me, my mom, and my sister, and we're there, we're like, we're gonna do this on our own.

We're like painting and I'm like pulling up carpet and, you know, really doing things so that way I can get my get the participation, material participation that you can get for you can meet the requirement and then you get bonus depreciation and you can save on your taxes and all these things.

But it was also just really. Kind of soothing for us to go in there and like be working together and doing things that he would probably be shaking his head at us for. 

So, loving watching you guys work together. And, and work on that. So where was that? Where in California was that property?

In Coachella?

Coachella. Awesome.

Do you still have it today? 

Well we did up until last week, so 

wow. Congratulations. 

So we. we, actually sold it and we're, we're actually looking into some other things, looking into some commercial real estate. And, and then myself, while I'm trying to convince my husband that we should buy a residential assisted living facility, and so we're, so we're gonna have to talk about that because I know, I think that's your, like your area.

Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say, I know a guy. That's, that's awesome. Well the short term rental tool, how did that work out for you? Was, was that beneficial, that experience

for you? 

You know, it was, it was a really good experience, I think. I'm a little bit of a creative, my sister's definitely a creative, so it was, it was fun to actually go in there and, you know. See this thing come together. I wouldn't say it's fun hanging up the wallpaper, all things, it sounded like a great idea.

And then I did it and I'm like, I'm never doing this ever again. But it was fun to go in there and like, just to be able to do all these things and you realize you're making all these purchases and you're, you're making all these decisions about the things that you can do to create the space that people can come into and like really have these experiences with their families and their friends and create these memories.

So  it's, it's nice because again, you're, you're creating memories for yourself. I'm showing my kids like, this is what we're doing. You know, my kids were over there, they were painting and doing all the things with us. So, you know, they're learning along the way. And then they're also seeing that, you know, like my daughter will come to me and she's like, Hey when are we gonna, when are we gonna buy our next house?

And what are we, when are we doing our next Airbnb? And  she's like, well, I, you know, or someday she will say, I wish you didn't have to work so much. And she's like, well, you already make some, you already, you're already making money from the short term rental. You know, so we, so you can probably cut back on your shifts and, you know, she's eight.

And the fact that she's able to like, to grasp this concept that I didn't even have to explain to her is just like mind blowing. So, I mean, there were so many things that came out of just having the property in addition to having the experiences with our family. So we would go there, we installed a pool, so we would go down on the weekends and the kids could swim and, you know, just really enjoy just being outside of our normal environment.

So it was a really good experience for us. So.

That's awesome. And what a cool experience for, you know, your daughter to realize like, Hey, if I put in this hard work and time, I can get that income generated through the property. And it sounds like she caught the bug. Let's get another one. Let's get another one. I was thinking when you were, when you were telling the story of them down there painting, I remember our, our first short term rental we bought was in Ella j Georgia.  And my son Jack was probably six months or so at the time, and I remember he was sitting in like the little bumbo seat  and we were up to like 3:00 AM painting cabinets. He wasn't up till 3:00 AM but he was, he watched us paid cabinets and stuff  and we have a picture of him just like laughing, sitting there and watching us work and I was like, this is, this is so cool.  Be able to share this with him then. And then of course he's been along, obviously each step of the journey and is starting to understand that. And it, he, he's so funny 'cause he'll bring that up to like, when are you gonna buy another house? Or  like, why do you have so many houses? And so it's fun that explain that to him and, and now for him to see like, Hey, if I invest in real estate, if I invest in entrepreneurship, then like I can have freedom to be around more as a dad once he's a dad at that point and stuff.

So it's just been really cool to see that, you know. Monetarily, you can have those awesome wins, investing in real estate, but also like it can change your family tree as well by just including them and exposing them to what you're doing.

Exactly. Yeah. So, and, and even my son, like he's, he's already planning out like the design 'cause he's really into design and Disney and animation and he's like, oh, we should go buy a place like in Disney World and we should do all these things and this is the kind of room we can create. So, you know, the wheels are like constantly turning and your kids are always learning from you, even if you're not.

Necessarily sitting down there teaching them, they see, they see what you're doing, and that's gonna have such a huge impact. So

Oh yeah, absolutely. Jack's had his first lemonade stand and he's hooked. Every day. He is like, I gotta go sell some lemonade. I'm like, all right buddy, let's,  let's back it up a little bit. So yeah,

he's definitely a little entrepreneur, which is, which is really, really fun.

That is,  that is awesome. Well, what other real estate experience do you have?

And then we'll pivot into talking a little bit more about prescription to travel entity.

So aside from that, really just investing in like syndications and more like passive passive income streams at this point. So we're looking to see where we're going to go next.

Awesome. Well, that's exciting. We're excited to hear where you guys go next and what that looks like for you going forward as you continue on that fun journey.

Yes.

Well, let's let's talk a little bit more about prescriptions to Travel md. So how did, how did that come about? It sounds like you almost kind of stumbled into it and realized like, Hey, I'm, I'm onto something really cool.

Is that how it happened for you?

Yeah. Well, you know, I was doing these things, like I said, I, I realized that I could use, see me to be able to take more trips and then I realized I could use points and I was doing it, you know, making all the mistakes that you make when you're just learning about points and using, I had Capital One points.

I was like, oh, I can just erase this trip I just paid for, and. Use the points erase feature.  And then I started being a little more intentional about it. Again, realizing that with the short term rental, I had all of these expenses. So I'm paying for Netflix subscriptions and I've got price labs and I've got, you know, owner and I've got all these subscriptions that I could be generating income from.

If I'm going to a meeting that's. Dealing with real estate, or I can, you know, I have business, I can apply for business cards. So as a business you can apply for business cards, which opens up this whole new avenue of, of points earning opportunities. So you're, you have options for all these really cool business cards that have like 0% a PR, so you can.

Buy a you can buy something that maybe you need a roof that needs to be repaired. I didn't have that experience, thankfully, but maybe that comes up.  You go and get your Amex Blue business card, 0% a PR, there's no annual fee and. I can earn points for, you know, the roof repair that I just did. And now, instead of it being this negative experience where I was like, oh, I just had to spend all this money, I'm like, okay, now I can go and, you know, take a really cool trip.

So it was just really nice realizing that I could optimize the extents that we had and use that to do things like, you know, take my husband to the Maldives, you know, for a really cool trip. So.

That sounds amazing. Yeah. I was crying a little bit inside as you were mentioning that. 'cause I just spent like $8,000 last week replacing the HVAC on one of our rental properties.  And I don't know why I didn't use a, a business credit card. I just just used  a debit card, which was really dumb. So I, I wish I you on the podcast last week, but that

it is what it is. 

next time you'll be ready. right.

Exactly right. Exactly right.

So let's, let's talk a little bit more about points and point strategy. So I'm sure folks are probably familiar with, with credit card points, but what

have you figured out or what have you learned or what are some good tips and tricks for how to use those points more efficiently or to, to benefit you more so?

Yeah. So the biggest thing is, like you said, if you have a huge expense coming up, that's a great time to sign up for a new card. So the welcome offers that you get when you sign up for a new card are going to be the most. I guess that's gonna be the biggest way to earn points. And so if I know like the h, there was like a hurricane earlier a couple years ago and our fence blew over, so I knew I had to get a whole new fence repaired.

So I was like, well, if I'm gonna have to cover this expense, I might as well sign up for a new credit card and earn a welcome bonus for it. So you sign up for a new credit card. I pay the contractors, I make sure that the contractor actually accepts this particular card. I get the card, I make the payment.

So my, now I've got a new fence, but now I've got a hundred thousand points that I can use. And that's, you know, our, you know, round trip business class fights to, to Europe. So,

um, just realizing that yeah, if you have a big expense coming up, that's a great time to sign up for a new card. You don't have to be I think that those of us in the Points world get a little crazy sometimes with like getting signing up for new cards.

And you don't have to be that way. You can get, just have two or three. Good cards in your wallet that will earn like two times points back on on things. So the Amex Blue business card is a great card. It's a zero annual fee card. It'll give you 0% a PR for the first 12 months most of the time. It doesn't have a huge welcome bonus.

Usually you'll start out at like 15,000 points, but if you sign up for a card, you'll find that they'll send you more offers for more cars and the offers get better. So that's a great card. The Chase Inc. Business cards are usually the cards that I recommend starting with there's a Chase Inc.

Business Cash card and a Chase Inc. Business Unlimited card. Both of those are zero and $0 annual fees per year. They have both come with 12%. 12 years, or sorry. So the Chase Inc. Business Unlimited and Chase Inc. Business cash card come with 0% A PR for 12 months. You can use those cards to again, make major purchases if you're renovating a home or, or anything that comes up and you don't have to worry about paying off the balance right away.

Most of the time, I do recommend that you pay off the balance right away because you don't wanna. Generate any interest, right? You don't want to be paying any fees. So my cards are set so that I pay off the balance every month in full. So I'm basically get getting free money. But the moment you start paying those you know, 25% interest fees you're basically negating all the effects of actually earning the points.

So that's, that's key. Making sure that you're paying. Your expenses right away. And also, again, just making sure that you're getting the right cards. So like I said, those are really the cards that I recommend starting with, especially for investors who may have high expenses. If you're really into big time investing and you've got huge expenses, you'll probably want cards that have a higher availability of credit.

So maybe you'll need like $30,000 that you need to be able to put on a card. You can look at like, there's a Chase Sapphire Reserve business card, which is gonna give you a huge welcome bonus. It has a high annual fee the Chase not the Chase American Express. Business Platinum Card is a great card as well.

It's a charge card, so you're not capped on how much you can spend on the card. So if you've got huge expenses, either in real estate or with your medical practice, for instance, maybe you go out and you buy vaccines and you need to be able to spend a lot on those. You can use the card, and then most of the time, if you're doing real estate or you're running a.

Or running an office practice, those expenses are gonna be reimbursed or covered by, you know, whatever you're making through the practice anyway. So again, these are expenses that you're already expected to expend on and you might as well be making the best of that, right. The goal of credit cards is not to go out and buy things unnecessarily and just.

Spend and buy things that you don't really need just in the sake of points, but it's to leverage the expenses that you already have to really just create these opportunities for amazing experiences with your family and your friends and the people who matter to you most. So

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Just for, just kind of foot stomp. But what you're saying there, Courtney, like we're not, we're not telling you to go in a bunch of debt so that you have these points. We're saying, Hey, if you have the,  the cash and the availability to pay for these big expenses, why not use a credit card to do that and just pay off the credit card so you're also benefiting from the points or the sign on bonus, those

sorts of things as well.

That's awesome. Could you share a favorite travel story that you've had with you know, or a trip that you had that was funded with points?

yeah, so we've taken quite a few but I guess most recently. We went to the Maldives and to Singapore, so just myself and my husband. We were able to book business class flights from LA to Singapore for a hundred thousand points, a piece. So 200,000 points one way.  But $11, so $11 for 16 hours in Singapore era business, which was just an amazing experience.

You know, live flat seats, they're, they're feeding you throughout the whole flight. You get off the flight and you're going like, it's over already. You know? So it's like the one time that you're actually really excited to be like going somewhere. It's part of the experience. We went to the Maldives.  We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, which is, you know, amazing property.

You've got a full sweep over the water bungalow, which we spent $800 for, for five nights.  So we collected Hilton points when the nights came up because it's very hard to book. And I was up at work one night and I was just like, oh my gosh, I have like a full month of availability open. So I'm like, I'm booking these right now and I'll ask questions later.

So.

Love that.

I spent $800 to buy points. I don't usually recommend buying points, but there are times when it makes sense. So  I bought points for $800 because I knew that would give me the fourth night on points. If you book four nights with Hilton, you get the fifth night free. So that was five nights. So I basically spent $160 per night for an over the water bungalow on the Maldives.

So and then we booked our flights back, which was like another 200 plus thousand points. So but $200. So we spent, you know, under a thousand dollars to get. In cash to get to Singapore and the Maldives and to stay five nights in over the water bungalow. Spent a couple nights in Singapore for $0 'cause we booked with Hyatt points.

So it was just an amazing experience that we probably wouldn't have had if we hadn't, because I don't know that we would've, I think it, the trip would've cost us like $30,000 and I don't think I would've been willing to spend $30,000 to, to take a trip or at least one trip anywhere at this point in my life.

So.

Wow, that is so cool. How was the Maldives?

It was amazing. Yeah, I mean, it was, we, we got a chance to go diving with sharks and you know, you could walk right off to the villa and go snorkeling and, you know, just peace and quiet and just really just a time to just rest. Just, yeah.

That's amazing. And what a cool time to be able to do that with your husband.

Without the kids. We love our kids so much, obviously, but it's nice to have that time with

just your spouse and it, it's difficult to get that time sometimes,

so what a cool experience. 

Yeah. So I, and I'm fortunate enough that my mom and my sister are here, so they're like really helpful and they're, they were okay with us being gone for, you know, almost two weeks to just take some time for ourselves.  And, but then we, we reward them too. So having points gives you the ability to be able to travel with your extended family.

So the summer before. We actually took a trip to Amsterdam and I was able to get flights for, you know, my whole family. I think it ended up costing us $384 and 44,000 points for total for six of us to get to Amsterdam, nonstop from Las Vegas. And so, yeah, 

those are experiences. If, if we had to pay cash for it, we probably, we would've been in California.

Yeah,

But you know, the PowerPoint, so.

that's, that is so cool. Yeah. I was gonna ask what cards you recommend, so thanks for, for hitting those. That's, that is a huge tip there. From that perspective, have you noticed physicians, you know, making some common mistakes when it comes to using points or travel hacking or anything like that?

I think, I think as all, all of us, we, we. Tend to not really optimize our points physicians and non-physicians. I think from the physician standpoint, again, we, we tend to have higher expenses than, than normal people. And we don't realize that we could be using that as an advantage and signing up for new cards because I think people get a little leery of signing up for cars.

They worry that it's gonna decrease their or ruin their credit.  They worry that they shouldn't be signing up for so many cards. I already have a card. I have my Amex. Platinum and I'm, I use that for everything and it's like, yeah, that's probably the number one. Don't use your Amex platinum par for everything.

It's shiny. It's, it's, it's great, but it's probably the wrong card to be using for most of your expenses. But if you have it and you love it and you know that you can maximize that $800 annual fee then. By all means, keep using it, but sign up for an Amex gold card so you can earn four times on dining and you can earn four times back on, you know grocery shopping.

So that way you're actually making points in addition to, you know, having your Amex Platinum card. 

I was gonna say, tell me, tell me more, because I am that guy.

Yes, yes. You know, and I love, and I, and I don't have the Amex platinum card myself, but my husband has it. And so like, I love that they give you the $200 annual fine hotel resorts credit. So last week we went to, we went out to a concert and then we went and stayed at the Fountain Blue.

He had the $200 credit, the hotel cost of $270 for a night. So we spent $70 for a night at the Fontine Blue, which is amazing.  It also gave us free breakfast and it gave us an extra a hundred dollars credit for dining. So basically I made $80 by, you know, using the card to, to go out there and, you know, and we had a, a great date night.

So  I don't think it's, it's a bad card and it does earn five times back on like if you're booking flights and, and so I think that's definitely an advantage, but I think if that's the only card in your wallet and you are using it for everything, you're missing out on points. So.

Good to know. I need to do some, some digging and, and get another card. That's, that's awesome.  Yeah, so thanks for opening up my eyes to that. For the, for the folks who are listening. Unless who are, who are concerned about opening up multiple different credit cards, what, what's some things that you've learned in terms of maybe impact to credit or any things to be aware of in terms of closing cards or  anything like that?

What have you learned from that perspective?

Sure. So  opening up cards I've found I just to actually increase my credit score. So my credit score, I've got, I won't even share how many, how many credit cards I actually have,  but my credit score is still in the eight hundreds.  When you open up cards, you're not using all these cards at the same time, so sure, I'll put spend on it, but I meet the signup bonus, and then that card goes in a box and then I move on.

So the amount of credit that's available to me is pretty high. And so they use that in determining what your credit score is. So  your, your score might drop a few points when you open up a new card just because of the inquiry. But that usually will rebound pretty quickly. And so don't be afraid to open up credit cards.

The other thing is that if you're opening up business cards, those count, those, those don't count against you for your personal credit score.  So I have. A few personal credit cards, but most of the cards that I've opened have been business cards. And so you can open up, if you do anything from, you know, walking dog or dogs or DoorDash, like I, I did a DoorDash run a couple weeks ago all in name of points,  but that by itself opened up, you know, a new window.

So I can be a DoorDash driver and now I'm an independent contractor and I have earned income and I can open up a business credit card as a sole proprietor. So, just, I think you shouldn't be afraid to open up cards. You shouldn't be afraid to open up business cards. If you have a side gig or side, any type of side hustle, that will count as a business.

And you can have cards that are separate. So I've got cards for my property, for my LLC, I've got cards for my businesses, prescription to Travel md. I have cars for myself as an independent contractor, as I do do something like 10 99 work. So. All that has created opportunities for me to open up more cards and generate more points, and it just keep, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

So.

It sounds like it. It sounds like you have quite the, quite the strategy too. Do you ever close any of those cards or you just leave them open?

I do. So there's some cards that, that I I'd say they're cards that I like to date. So you'll date them and then decide that, you know, this isn't working out for me. So I used it, it had a great welcome bonus at the time, but it doesn't make sense for me to pay another, you know, $600 annual fee for it.

Thank you for the, thank you for the 175,000 points you gave me, but it's time to move on.  And then there's some cards that are keeper cards. So like, again, my husband, he, he has very few credit cards, but he is got the Amex gold card and you know, that's what we use if we're gonna go, if we're dining, we use that card or I have my Amex business gold card, that's my dining card.

That's my gas card. So you just have to. You have to know what card. You don't have to know everything about the card, but you figure out what your major expenses are and you figure out what's my go-to card for that major expense. So you're not getting one times back on your groceries when you can be earning four times back, you know?

Hmm. Yeah, that's that is a great point. I hope my wife's listening to this episode because we're both guilty of the platinum part.  That's awesome.  Well do you see kind of an overlap between the freedom that's traveling real estate entrepreneurship has given you and how you practice medicine now?

Yeah, I definitely do. I think all these things ultimately led to me wanting to, wanting more freedom. I think it's. It's very hard working in, in medicine and realizing that you don't have any control over your schedule. You don't have time freedom. You're working towards financial freedom so that way you can get time freedom to do the things that you wanna do.

And at the same time, you're, you should know that, I think you're always gonna keep wanting those things and at, what's the word? There's always that. Push to want more. Like whenever you think you've made it, then there's something else that's gonna be driving you to, to want more. So I think you have to find contentment within the space that you're in and know that this is the time right now that you can be traveling, that you can be doing all these things, that you can be spending time with your kids in, in your, in your spouse, and really building those relationships and, and at the same time you can be always striving towards something else.

And so I think points allow me to. Find that happy medium. So it allows me to say, okay, well I've got these points and I don't want them to expire, so I'm gonna use them. So we're gonna take the time now, we're gonna plan a trip and go this year, and then we're gonna find some time that's outside of, you know, our everyday lives so that we, we can actually spend quality time together.

So yeah, sure. We're, we're together doing school drop offs and we're, you know, together when we're,  we come home at dinner and everybody's, you know, on their tablets and doing all these things, but you're not really spending quality time together.  So I know that I've got these points and we're gonna plan this trip 'cause I got these points, right?

So I have to have to spend them and we're gonna go and we're gonna and spend some time together as a family and just really build out this relationship.  At the same time, being in emergency medicine allows me a lot of flexibility, but at the same time, I'm also expected to work Christmas and holidays and all these things, and I don't wanna do that forever.

So I'm doing things to work towards financial freedom. I'm, I'm, again, maxing out my retirement accounts. I'm looking into real estate. I'm trying to diversify my income. I've, I've got this business here and I'm doing all these things so that way I can create more freedom, but I'm also, again, earning points.

So that way earning points in the process. So I, I think they all kind of tie together nicely to just. Help me create the life that I want. And I, and I want people to be able to have that opportunity too. So that was the reason I founded a prescription to Travel md. Really just to encourage doctors and other healthcare professionals and really anyone who, anyone who would listen to just take the time for themselves and, you know, find ways to travel and create these meaningful experiences outside of, you know, your day to day life.

So.

Yeah, that, that is beautiful and really well said. I think, you know, a lot of times we as physicians feel guilty taking time off. And I was thinking about the points and everything that you mentioned in your experience in the Maldives and some of the other travel you've done,  and what a cool way to, to encourage yourself to take that time off, that you desperately should and you deserve to take off, but then not be so concerned with. How much money it's gonna cost you out of pocket because you have these points to kind of come in from, from the backend and help you have this incredible experience that you may not have had otherwise. And

so it does really work in, in synergy and work really well together.

That that is really, really cool.

Well, for physicians that are listening today who want to start, what's one step that they can do to get their first big kind of travel reward?

I think you just sign up for a new credit card and if you. Don't know which card to get, then I'm always available. I do free credit card consultation, so just reach out to me  on www prescription to travel d.com. Shameless plug.  But I can help you get started with finding your first credit card and if you already have a card or two cards in your wallet, then reach out anyway because maybe it's time for your next card to go ahead and get started.

I think again, earning points gives you the opportunity to be able to travel and to be able to have these experiences without feeling any guilt about. You know, meeting your other financial goals, maybe you do wanna be able to invest in real estate and maybe you want, you have kids, you know, tuition, and you've got extracurricular activities that needs to be paid for, and you're, maybe you're caring for your older parents or just all these things.

You've got goals, you wanna buy a house. So it allows you to be able to reach your financial goals without sacrificing anything, and it allows you to take the time for yourself to reset without guilt. I know a lot of times I'll, I, before I would feel really bad about taking a trip by myself just because I'm like, okay, I'm spending all this money on flights and hotels, but this is a trip that I could have taken with my family, but now I know I can do it with points and I don't feel so bad.

So this summer we, my sister and I, we went to France and, you know, I booked a last minute business class flight to Paris, you know, for like less than a hundred dollars to, you know, and I didn't feel bad about it because I knew like, you know, I was paying for most of it with points. And I knew that when we got there, we, we stayed.

Seven nights in a hotel, I paid $0 for the hotel because again, I was using points for those expenses. So just to have that experience and know that, I mean, you shouldn't feel guilty anyway, but let's be honest that it always sits there. You're like, okay, well I could be doing something else, or this money could be going towards something else.

Or I could be paying for a trip for my whole family. I allowed myself that time even though it seemed a little frivolous, it wasn't it allowed me to come back a better person and just really be able to keep pouring into everyone else and giving them my best self. So  go out there, get your first card get your second card, whatever, whatever that means for you, and stack those points and then.

Eventually, you don't have to know how know what to do with them, right, right now, but earn them and then you'll figure it out along the way. And just allow yourself those experiences because you, you, time is something you, you can't get back, right? You can't get back and you don't wanna wait until retirement.

Do it now. Just, yeah. So

I love that. Yeah. You're not, you're not gonna regret those trips

that, that is for sure. Well, awesome. Well, you, you, you definitely. Blew my mind. We're gonna talk more about credit cards and not using the platinum but where can listeners connect with you and learn more? Are there any other ways that they connect with you, whether that's Instagram, website, podcasts, et cetera?

Feel free to to give some folks some ways they can reach out.

Yeah, sure. So prescription to Travel md. There's a doctor's lounge on Facebook. There's a community where I'll usually post opportunities for earning points, but also other opportunities for travel hacking, so CME opportunities and just different ways that you can get to your next destination.

There's a group. On Facebook that's available to anyone, so you don't have to be a doctor to join. Also Prescription or Travel md. And then I'm pretty active on Instagram, so you can find me there. Feel free to reach out if you have a question or you just wanna say hi. So

That's awesome. Before we wrap up, what's the next trip for you?

the next trip for me, well, I've got a couple of, cME trips that are coming up in San Diego in the next couple weeks. So I'll be at A-P-I-M-D con. I don't know if you're familiar with it or if you go the Passive Income md.  I'm actually going to be giving up. Presentation at the Wealthy U Conference in California in the next couple weeks as well.

And I'll be talking about points and how to, how to leverage your expenses to earn points and have amazing experiences. And then there's a points conference in October that I'll be going to as well. So this is gonna be a pretty busy couple weeks coming up.

Yeah, it sounds like it. Well, good luck with everything. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Have to really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been really great talking to you.

Absolutely. Well, with that, it's been Dr. Courtney Downs and Dr. Alex Schloe with another episode of the Physicians and Properties Podcast Signing off.

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