Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

Who Gets Which Card? How we Manage 2-Player Mode!

• Raya & Duane

Share episode

Doubling your accounts is the most underrated way to earn more points fast, especially for families who want to travel without doubling their spending. 

• Credit card points and miles hobbyists can double their rewards by using a "two-player mode" strategy with a spouse or partner
• Each person has their own credit score and ability to open cards, allowing couples to earn twice the signup bonuses
• When deciding which partner applies for which cards, consider credit scores, 5/24 status, and who can best maximize the benefits
• For beginners, alternating card applications every 45 days gives each person 90 days between applications
• Always refer your partner to cards when possible to earn additional referral bonuses
• Many loyalty programs allow families to pool points – including Air France, British Airways, United, Hilton, and Marriott
• Consider timing applications for cards with free night certificates so they expire around the same time
• Travel Freely is a helpful app for tracking all your credit cards across both players

If you have additional questions, message us on Instagram @travelpartyof5 We'd also love a review of our podcast wherever you listen!


Speaker 1:

Want to travel more without doubling your spending. The trick is double your accounts. Two player mode is the most underrated way to earn more points fast, especially for families. So today I'm breaking down how we think about our two player strategy without ruining our marriage. Listen in. Hi, I'm Raya and I'm Dwayne, and we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world. We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free. So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in. So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip. Hey friends, welcome back to Travel Party 5 podcast. My name is Rhea, I am your host, I am solo. Today we are going to be talking all about building a two-player strategy for your credit card points and miles hobby and breaking down kind of how we think about that, not only from like what cards to open and when to open them, but also even diving deeper into the different loyalty accounts and who should have what loyalty accounts and all that sort of thing. So listen in for that. But before we jump into the main topic, I did want to give a few card updates. So one of the things that I get the most feedback about on Instagram is when I share credit cards that we are applying for or that we got denied for, or cards I'm thinking of getting, and so I want to do a better job of talking about that on the podcast and we definitely do talk about it, you know, every few episodes, but want to try to do that a little bit more. So we let's see.

Speaker 1:

Duane was approved for the Chase Sapphire Reserve with the elevated offer of 100,000 points about a month ago now, I think. Okay, yes, it was June 24. So pretty much a month ago that he was approved for that and since then we have. I have applied him for a Chase Inc card just within the last week and he was denied. I applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve business card and I was also denied. I even called reconsideration and was still declined. I applied for that with our EIN number and my plan is to wait 30 days for that application to expire and then apply again without the EIN under my name specifically. So that was a little bit of a bummer. Duane has not been approved for a Chase business card in almost a full year. It was fall of 2024 when he got his last one and he only currently has two open. One is a United Business card and one is a Chase Ink Preferred. So that is super frustrating.

Speaker 1:

I've also noticed my credit score is a good 50 points higher than his and I'm not 100% sure why. That is Because I have opened in my name, I think let me just confirm and with travel freely, but I think it's like eight or nine credit cards this year just under my name. Hold on, let me check. Yes, I have opened nine credit cards under my name alone this year, so it's funny to me that my score is so much higher than his. It also says my length of credit is significantly longer than his length of credit history, but I mean I have him added as an authorized user on one of my oldest credit cards, so I'm just not sure like where that comes from. It's a little bit of a mystery to me. If you know, message me on Instagram and tell me so. Anyway. So we got those two denials.

Speaker 1:

So after those denials I did go in and close a Chase Inc card under my name, so I closed a Chase Inc Preferred that had been open just over a year. I also have a Chase Inc Cash that has been open well over a year that I could close. But I'm hesitant to close that one because I don't know that we'll be able to get approved for another one, and we absolutely use it for gift cards at office supply stores like almost once a month. So I I had applied Dwayne for the ink cash, thinking if he gets this one then I can close mine. But he didn't get it so we didn't call reconsideration. I think if I apply him again and he gets declined we will call reconsideration for him, because it's silly really why they wouldn't give him a card. He only has two.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, and then the other card that I closed was under Dwayne's name and it was an American Airlines Advantage the Barclays card. So he had that over a year. The annual fee was coming due and I reached out via chat on their website as him, asking if there was any retention offers on the account. They said no, so I said well then, in that case I'd like to go ahead and close the account. And so the account has been closed. So tried to apply for two cards got declined. Tried to apply for two cards got declined. Close two cards and we'll wait the 30 days to apply again.

Speaker 1:

I would really like us to each be able to get one more chase business card before the referral train ends, which is October 7. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, the chase has basically announced that, starting October 7, you cannot refer someone to a chase business card if they already have one, meaning you wouldn't earn any points. And that is a big part of our two player strategy is referring cards back and forth. So, while I understand, it kind of stinks. So we definitely are trying to get each get one more before that ends.

Speaker 1:

The other thing is, I was just approved for a card yesterday, so this is my. This was my ninth card. I was just approved for the American Express Marriott Bonvoy business card, the one that gives you three free nights valued at up to 50k each, and then you can top them off with another 15,000 points. There is or at least there was as of the time I'm recording this an elevated offer on the Marriott personal card that actually gives you five free nights, which is a better offer, except we are both at $424. So we can only apply for business cards at this moment in time. So I did apply for the Marriott business card and was approved. I also applied Dwayne for that card and he got the Amex pop-up. So, again, frustrating. I want to use these nights next year on our fall break trip, which we haven't really talked about yet, but in order to do that, we need to get two rooms at each property, and so I was thinking, if we each get this card, we'll be able to stay three nights with two rooms each, and that's kind of how I'm thinking about it. But he did not get approved for the card, so little disappointing. Um, probably we'll try again, maybe in a couple months on that one for him. Um, okay, so that's the card updates. Um, let's move on to the main topic.

Speaker 1:

So this episode came about. Um, someone on Instagram messaged me and said hey, like I'd really love to understand how you manage your P2. And I'm just going to read this word for word Hi, megan, if you're listening, this episode is for you. Um, so, yes, I'm trying to figure out which cards and loyalty accounts to put in my name versus my P2, which ones can share points between family members and which cannot, and how to manage who gets which card. I travel more than my husband and most credit cards until now are in my name, but he's the one with the business. So trying to figure out the best way to balance everything. Yes, 1000%. So that is kind of the inspiration for today's episode, and I'm going to first back up a little bit, in case you are brand new to points and miles like what are you talking about? Player two, player one, this, like I hate video games. What does that mean? So two player mode is literally just when, like, you're managing credit card points and miles across two people. So usually that's you and your spouse or partner, but it also could be you and a parent, you and a sibling, you know whatever, you and a friend even, and then you use those points that you both earn to travel together.

Speaker 1:

Each person has the ability to open up and use their own cards, which enables you to basically double the signup bonuses and sometimes also get additional referral credits as a little random tangent. One thing that is a big pet peeve of mine is when people say and I don't want to, I don't want to like categorize. But usually it's women who say this. They say, oh yeah, we have an Amex or we have a capital one card and it's like no, no, no, that's not how this works. We don't have anything.

Speaker 1:

Okay, there is you and there's your partner, and one of you has the like the card in your name and, like, I understand, yes, maybe you're married and, yes, like, the law looks at the debt on that card as both of yours. Like, yes, that is all true and I fully understand that. But for the sake of this hobby, you are two individual people, right? Being married doesn't give you a joint credit score, so you each have your own credit score to think about and worry about and manage. But the bright side of that is you also have your own ability to open up credit cards, and you should. Especially if you're a woman, you should absolutely make sure that your credit score is just as good as your spouse. So a couple benefits of doing this I already mentioned a few of them, which is earn more points. It also gives you a little more flexibility, because some cards offer benefits but maybe a higher annual fee. So if one of you has that card, you both actually have access to the benefits of that card, but you only have to pay one annual fee.

Speaker 1:

So when I first read this message, I thought that's a fantastic episode idea. But then I thought, you know, I like I am definitely thinking all these things through, but I don't know that I ever thought about my thought process, if that makes sense. So I really had to sit down and think like, okay, why am I making the decisions that I'm making? And like, what things am I factoring in to these decisions? So let's talk about that. So the first couple things I'm thinking about are what is our individual credit scores right? One might be higher than the other. If one is higher than the other, which is the case for me and Dwayne right now, you know, how can I like whoever has the higher one, what can I do to bring up their score right? Because both of you having a high score is going to benefit both of you, and I already mentioned like I've okay.

Speaker 1:

So let me back up some things you can do to help increase your partner's credit score are adding them as authorized users to your credit cards. Again, you have to have a good credit score. And you have to have a good credit score and you have to have a longer length of credit history than they do. So that's something that can help. If they have like a delinquent payment or something that's kind of a one-off, you can write a like a goodwill letter basically to the company basically saying, hey, like I've was on time, you know, for 27 months, but missed one, one payment and it was late, and you could even give them a reason why and just ask if they'll remove it and stop reporting it to your credit report. And that works. We've done that actually. Um, so those are just some things you can do.

Speaker 1:

But essentially, the first thing I'm thinking of is our individual credit scores and for more premium cards, the higher your score, the more likely you are to be approved. So I am going to you know, like when I reapply for the Chase Sapphire business card, I was denied under my EIN, and when I reapply I'm going to do it under my social security number, but I'm still going to be the one that applies for it, because my score is again about 50 points higher right now than Dwayne's score, and so I think that's going to be beneficial. So credit score is the first thing that I'm thinking of. The second piece that I'm factoring in is our 524 status. So, again, if you're new, the 524 status is essentially a unwritten or unspoken rule from Chase that says you are only allowed to have five personal cards opened within the last 24 months in order to be approved for a Chase card. So if you have opened, let's say, six personal cards in the last 24 months, you will not be getting approved for a chase card. Personal or business doesn't matter, they're not going to approve you for the most part. So that's another thing that I'm considering is where are we at with our 524 status? And if one person is over 524, then that makes it pretty simple. If we're applying for chase cards, right, like, okay, well, you can't get approved for that, but I can. That's another benefit of having two players.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that I'm thinking about is in terms of when I think okay, who is going to open this card? I'm thinking about who is going to be able to utilize this to the best of its ability. So, for example, I travel for work on occasion not a ton, but maybe a few times a year and Dwayne never travels for work. So any hotel branded cards, like our Hyatt cards, or the Marriott card that I just opened, or the IHG card. Those are all in my name Because if I am going to travel for work and stay at one of those branded properties, I'm going to utilize that card when I stay there, right. And similarly, the Hyatt cards are in my name. I'm the one that has globalist status, because some of the stays that helped us get to globalist status last year, a few nights, were a work trip, right. And so if, if that if we were doing that under Dwayne's name, it wouldn't have worked, we wouldn't have had enough. So all of our Hyatt nights are booked under my name.

Speaker 1:

And then, kind of on the note of flexible points, so again flexible points are, you know, chase, american Express, capital One and City Chase. You can combine your points if you live in the same household. You just have to call and set it up one time so that they're linked. So all of our Chase points that Dwayne earns get deposited into my account. I mean like he earns them and they're in his account and then I go in and manually transfer them over to my name. So all of our Chase accounts live in my name and then when they need to be transferred again, whether that's to Hyatt or somewhere else again they're going into my Hyatt account. So that's again why I hold the Hyatt account versus him or the Hyatt card I mean versus him. He has a Hyatt account but we only use it when we need to book two rooms or something like that, and then okay.

Speaker 1:

So as far as American Express, you cannot pool your points in American Express. So basically I'm building up two chunks of points Amex points, one under my name and one under his name, and then when we book flights, we pretty much always book one way flights. We're usually not flying into and out of the same airport, just the way that we travel. Sometimes we do, but for the most part we book one way flights. So I might book one way under my name using my points and one way under his name. That kind of goes into the question about how do I know what loyalty accounts to open, and I think we can talk more about that in a little bit. But I kind of do that on the fly. There's a few loyalty appoints. I'm sorry. There's a few loyalty programs where you have to wait a certain amount of time between opening the card and being able to transfer in points, but so far we haven't come across that being an issue.

Speaker 1:

So, and then Capital One you can move points to each other. That's fine. You don't even need to live in the same household each other, that's fine. You don't even need to live in the same household and city. I am actually not sure. In full transparency, I haven't delved much into the city ecosphere, I don't have any city cards, and so that's like pretty low on my priority list, quite honestly. So I genuinely don't know the answer to that. Okay, so the again.

Speaker 1:

Let's quickly recap the first few things I'm thinking about when deciding which one of us is going to open a card is our credit scores and the type of card. Right, more luxury, higher end cards. I'm going to go with whoever has the higher credit score. Number two, our 524 status and, thinking ahead, right, like Dwayne doesn't drop under 520, or Dwayne is at 424. And he doesn't drop under that until October of 2026. I think so it's actually going to be a long time where we can really only get business cards for him. And then the third thing is kind of the where who's going to get the best use out of this card in the near future.

Speaker 1:

So then the next piece of this, I think, is when to open the card. So those are the things I'm thinking about as far as deciding which cards to open for who, but when to open them. I think if you're just starting out, a really solid strategy is every 45 days you alternate. So if I opened one today, in 45 days Dwayne would open one and then 45 days after that I would open another one, and that gives a full 90 days between applications for each person, which is like a pretty solid amount of time, especially if you're alternating banks and if you're starting out kind of slow, like I think that's the way to go, and then you don't have to stress about meeting the minimum spends and you know it's a. It's a really good way to dip your toe in and kind of start in this hobby. Then at the end of the year you've you've each opened four cards, right, and so that's like you've each opened four cards, right, and so that's like like you can easily take a family vacation, like a nice one, when you've opened eight credit cards.

Speaker 1:

So, um, maybe two, depending on where you're going. So, um, if you're a little more advanced than sometimes, we open cards on the same day. Sorry, my brain's going too fast. If you want to do that. You just need to be sure that you can meet the minimum spend on both of those cards in. Whatever the timeframe allotted is, whether that's three months or, you know, sometimes we've been seeing six months now as long as you can meet the minimum spend on both cards within that timeframe, I say go for it. I open cards for each of us on the same day all the time it's. There's really not a big strategy there other than I'm going to sit down at the computer and I'm going to do this and then I'm not going to think about it for, you know, a couple of months because we're going to work on these cards and then it's off my plate. So, again, not really any strategy there, just kind of like easier for my brain, if that makes sense. Okay, so we talked about like kind of the what and the when.

Speaker 1:

A couple of things to note. Make sure that you are referring your partner or your P2 to any card you can. So I did talk about how I think about who's going to open what card. But I think it's also worth noting that my intention is always for us both to get most cards. So, for example, with the Marriott card that I was just approved for with the three free night signup bonus. My intention is for Dwayne to also get that card. He just was declined for it, and that's because I know where I would use our three free nights and I know that we would need two rooms, and so that's kind of how that works. Um, I will, now that I have the card, I will wait some time and then I will try to refer him and then earn some extra points, which will be great if he can get approved. Stay tuned, but make sure that you're referring whenever you can, so like I would. If neither one of you have the card or any card in that family, then I would use a creator's link, referral link right, open your card. Then, once you're ready for your P2 to have the card, you go into your account and find the referral link. Sometimes there are not referral links, especially for, like, airline cards, like AA cards don't often have them. You have to be invited, I think. So that's kind of annoying, but when you can, you always want to make sure that you refer your partner.

Speaker 1:

As far as who kind of handles all the cards and the responsibilities, personally I think it is easiest if one person does all of these things. That is generally the P1. That is me. In our household. I manage not only all the credit cards and everything, but I manage all of our bills, all of our investing retirement budget. Like all of that is me. I just think it's a lot easier when it's one person and obviously you know Dwayne has input, but I'm the one who has like the vision and the plan. So, um, I handle all of our applications, all of our tracking. I use travel freely to input. Every time we get a new card and every time we close the card, I also go in and remove it. Or if we downgrade a card, I change it the way and then. So I do that and Dwayne is like, hey, what card do I use for this? Or like, what card are we working on right now? Like he knows enough to ask. He also knows enough to not apply for store credit cards. Like when they ask you oh, do you want to save like 10% by, you know, signing up for this credit card today? He knows that, no, he absolutely does not want to do that and that is a big help.

Speaker 1:

The other day I was in Old Navy and I was getting some like back to school stuff, I think, for the kids, and they said, oh, do you want to sign up for a total rewards card? Or I forget what they called it, but it was something like that and I was like, oh, is that a credit card? And they're like it's a rewards card. And I'm like, um, okay, like first of all, I'm a little bit full of rage right now because I know that you're telling like that you're asking me to sign up for a credit card, but you're being very misleading about it, which I think is super shady. And if someone is uneducated about what that means, then you've just signed them up for a credit card that they didn't necessarily want. So that's another little tangent for you. That was so annoying. But don't sign up for those because, yes, it counts against your 524. Before we started points and miles, we actually have a tire credit card that sits at the bottom of our travel freely. Um, that mocks me, even though it's. It's been more than two years, so it doesn't count towards 524 anymore, but it's there. So that is how I find the biggest help.

Speaker 1:

Dwayne, essentially, has given me free reign over his social security number and his email address and whatever, and I do all of these things right. I basically manage it as if I'm one person with two different identities who's playing this hobby. But again, it's it's identity theft with full permission. So let's be clear about that. It's identity theft with full permission. So let's be clear about that. I do think that he trusts me a lot, which is absolutely a must. I don't know, and also in full transparency and he and I have talked about this if the roles were reversed, I don't know that I would be as trusting to give over my social security number and all that. I mean. He knows what it is, but you understand what I'm saying. I've also had my identity stolen via someone filed taxes on my behalf a long time ago, and so ever since then, I'm like super paranoid about it. So, anyways, I digress Travel freely is the best app to keep track of all the cards that you are opening.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about, like, loyalty accounts. Now we talked, we briefly touched on it, but I think I'll just share what has worked for us so far. Um, I pretty much have the majority of the loyalty accounts in our family. So, like, our flying blue loyalty account is under my name. What else? British Airways We've pretty much used my accounts only to transfer flexible points into the loyalty account. So and if you're not familiar the name on the credit card account has to match your name on your loyalty account. So, like I cannot transfer my American Express points into Dwayne's flying blue account, for example, if I wanted to, I could not.

Speaker 1:

However, there are some airlines that allow family pooling, so that can be one way to get around the names not matching. So, for example, if Dwayne has 20,000 points stranded in a flying blue loyalty account but all the rest of the chase or Amex points are in my name, I can transfer from Amex to my loyalty account and then set up a family pool with him to get access to those other 20,000 miles. So I'm not going to go through like an exhaustive list of every single airline that does this, but I'm going to name a few of the top, like most popular ones, and then if there's a specific one you're wondering about, I would Google. You know, google that specific one. Okay, so Air Canada is one that allows family pooling. I already mentioned Air France Flying Blue. They also allow family pooling and, as a side note, I actually need to go in and create loyalty accounts for my children and then request miles from the flights that we paid cash for when we went to Europe. And I'm probably running out of time, so I need to do that like pretty soon, because once I do that and they get the miles, then I'm going to set up a family pool and I'm going to take them all in my account.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's see what are some other ones. Oh, british Airways allows you to kind of pool points as well, allows you to kind of pull points as well. You have to set up what's called a household account, and I think you can do this for up to six people that live with you. And I've actually had to do this also and this was a while ago, so the details are a little fuzzy but essentially I needed to buy a last minute ticket because my grandfather was going to pass away in the next few days and I needed to fly from Phoenix to North Carolina and I didn't have enough points in either my Chase account or Dwayne's, but together we did, and so I essentially transferred some from his, some from mine. Had to set up a household account in order to be able to book my flight there, and so that is one where that works as well.

Speaker 1:

Jetblue, if you're on the East Coast. We don't ever fly JetBlue because they're not really prevalent on the West Coast, but they have a really family like family friendly kind of pooling thing. So that works really well. Let me think of who else? Oh, united, that's the other big one. So United allows you to pool miles for free with up to I think it's four other mileage plus members. Mileage plus is like the name of the United program. I don't even think these people need to live with you. I think they can be whoever. But the trick here is that the pooled miles can only be used on United operated flights. So if you were trying to book like a partner flight through United, you cannot use pooled miles to do that. Now there is, I think, a trick I've heard floating around on Reddit where it's like you make the pooled miles and then if you leave the pool, like whoever leaves the pool, then maybe you can use those miles on partner operated flights. But I don't know. Tbd haven't tried that part. Let's see. I feel like those are kind of the top airline options. Anyways.

Speaker 1:

Let's briefly talk about hotels, because we've also done this a few times.

Speaker 1:

So Hilton makes it super easy to share your points. You can transfer, I think, up to like. Let me see if I get this right. I think you can send 500,000 points a year and you can receive up to 2 million points per year. I'm pretty sure is how it goes and, like I have, my sister has transferred Hilton points to me. I have transferred some points to Dwayne. Essentially, we're transferring because we want the person with the highest status to be able to book the room. So there was a time where Dwayne had Hilton Diamond, which is the highest status, and I did not. But I had Hilton points and so I sent my points to him so he could book this day. So that's another reason why you may want to do that is you know status. You you always want the person with the highest status to book, whatever it is. That goes for hotels and airlines.

Speaker 1:

I think I believe Marriott also allows you to transfer points for free, but I don't think it's a ton of points Like I think maybe hold on, let me look it up. Yep, so you can transfer up to 100,000 points per calendar year to another account. You can receive up to 500,000 points, but in the world of Marriott that's not very much right, 100,000 points might not even be one night, depending on where you're staying. And then Hyatt you can transfer points to another Hyatt member. I do this all the time. You have to fill out a like paper form and email it. It is called the point combining request form. You download it, you fill it out and you literally email it to world of Hyatt at Hyattcom. It can take several weeks, so keep that in mind, like plan for at least four weeks and be excited if it happens sooner. But I've done that plenty of times. And then, as far as IHG goes, so generally this costs money to do. I think it's $5 for every thousand points, which is a lot. But if you have status, I think you can do it for free. So stat, the highest IHG status is diamond elite. Or if you have like a business rewards. So I think if you have like a business card which then gives you a business account, then potentially you can also transfer for free. I don't have an IHG business account, so that's not something I've ever looked into, but just so you know it's an option. Okay, so we've talked about airline and hotel loyalty accounts and kind of when you can pool and when you can't.

Speaker 1:

I want to come back to one more piece of the question that Megan asked, which was um, you know she said I travel more than my husband, but he's the one with the business. So if one of you owns a business, um, I think I would probably do a couple of things. One I would make sure that whatever his business spends money on is getting the highest category spend possible. So, like, if they're spending at office supply, I would make sure he's using like a chasing cash or something that's going to get, you know, 5x at a minimum. If they have, like, a lot of gas expenses, then I would make sure I'm using a card that maximizes spend at gas stations.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and then the last piece I think that I think through when deciding who is going to get what card and when is. Where are we going and like, how many points do we need to get there? So, for example, I already talked about the Marriott card briefly. Right, I like just me having those three free night certificates is not enough. So Dwayne also needs to get that card or some version where we can utilize, you know, similar Marriott certificates. So in that's a scenario excuse me, that is a scenario where we both need to get the card because I have a very specific use in mind for them. Another scenario would be we are going to go to Scotland next summer and I am like super close to being able to book it, but the availability is just not quite open yet. So in like another week or two it should be.

Speaker 1:

And I knew that we were going to stay at a Hilton and I knew that we needed enough points to be able to cover that. And we're going on that trip with my mom and my sister, so there will actually be seven of us total, and there is a Hilton that we're going to stay at that actually sleeps for, so we have seven people total, so that's two rooms. So I'm just going to essentially put one of my kids in my mom and my sister's room and the other two will stay in our room. And. But I then needed my mom to also have Hilton points, right? Because, again, we've already mentioned, we don't really share our points because we are a family of five and we barely earn enough points to sustain our travel habit and by our travel habit I mean mine, really, let's be honest. So I knew my mom needed to get some Hilton points as well. So I referred her to a Hilton card and, you know, went from there.

Speaker 1:

But Dwayne and I also want to stay at a couple of these like aspirational Hilton properties which, if we're taking the kids 1000% we need two rooms, which means we need a ton of points and maybe some free night certificates, and so we both have the Hilton Aspire card now, for that reason and the timing didn't work out super great, because I wasn't able to get the card until a good like three to four months after him so, like, my free night certificate doesn't expire until like July, but his expires in November. So it's, I'm sorry. Let me explain His expires this November and mine doesn't expire until next July. So the timing of that isn't great because it shortens our window in which we have to utilize both of them together, right, because he's not going to get a new one until November. So then we really have roughly eight months to use the two together versus, you know, a full year, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

So another thing to think about in this hobby, as if there isn't enough nuance, that's one more piece to add to the puzzle. So, if you are, in addition to where you're going, right, being a factor of consideration. If you are aiming for cards that offer free night certificates, if you can line them up as close as possible so that the expiration dates are similar, I would also recommend doing that and then going back to kind of where we're going. Sorry for the ADHD today I don't even have ADHD, I don't think, but my brain sometimes sure does. So, going back to kind of where we're going, I know that the advice is always get as many flexible points as you can and worry about it later. I do always want to be working on flexible points, but I also sometimes plan like to get a specific card for a specific trip.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's quickly recap. We talked about what player, what two player mode is and why it can be beneficial. We talked about kind of what we're thinking through as we're opening up cards. Right, credit score, 524 status. Who can maximize the benefits the most, based on work, travel, if any business spend that sort of thing. Then we talked about the timing, like when does it make sense to open the cards? Should we stagger? Should we do it at the same time? Again, I will reiterate that if you're just new and starting out, staggering is for sure the best way to go so you don't get overwhelmed. We talked about making sure you're referring back and forth between cards whenever possible so that you're not leaving those you know, five, 10, 15, 20,000 points on the table. We talked about who is handling the cards and kind of P1 versus P2 responsibilities and how we organize it, which, again, is travel freely. And then we talked about the loyalty programs and kind of who pools and who doesn't and how we kind of want to think about the booking of those and should we book one ways and all that sort of thing. So, okay, I hope that that was helpful.

Speaker 1:

If you have any additional questions, please message me on Instagram at travel party of five. I will respond to. I do respond to every single person who sends me a message and I love it every time. If you are so inclined, we would love a review of our podcast wherever you listen. That helps more people find our show and we don't do any sort of like advertising or anything. So all of our growth has been fully organic, which I'm super proud of.

Speaker 1:

And then, last and but not least, if you signed up on the waitlist for the points consultations, that is still coming, so I apologize, it's taken a little longer.

Speaker 1:

There's been a few logistics, including making sure my calendar is blocked correctly so that it will schedule times appropriately when I'm not working, because, as a reminder, I do work a full time corporate job during the week, and so that has been kind of the biggest hurdle. That and I have to set up a Stripe account which takes payments, which is also new to me. So appreciate your patience, as we've been traveling a bit this summer, and it has definitely taken me longer to get to that than I intended. It is coming, though, and I will email you, likely in the next week, with some additional information and next steps on when you can start booking those. Okay, I think that is it. Thank you so much for listening. As always, we are super appreciative of all of your time, and I hope you had a good walk or drive, or dishes, or whatever it is you're doing while you listen, and we will catch you next week. Bye.