Your Points May be Worth More Than You Think with Tiffany Funk

Do you have points sitting in an account right now that you have no idea what to do with? You signed up for the card, you spent the money, and somehow it still feels like not much of a value for you? Tiffany Funk is here to fix that.

Tiffany Funk is the co-founder of Point Me, a platform built to make travel loyalty programs actually accessible to real people. She is a recognized expert in points, miles, and the financial systems that connect airlines, credit cards, and consumers and she has spent her career cutting through the noise so women can make smarter choices with the money they are already spending.

WHAT WE COVER

06:30 Why there are so few women in the miles and points space

11:30 The mutual fund strategy for picking your everyday card

16:00 The truth about first class upgrades and lounge access

22:00 How many credit cards do you actually need?

26:00 Business credit cards for women-owned businesses

30:30 The one simple shift that doubles or triples your points

Tiffany left us with something worth sitting with: financial freedom is about having good choices available. This episode is your starting point. And if this topic is important to you, join us for next week’s Money Talks; “The Solo Traveler’s Money Guide: How to Budget for Adventure as a Woman”. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!  

This episode is supported by Meredith Schnepp, VTA, CCC, founder of Sunkissed Bliss Travel. Meredith designs deeply personal, seamless travel experiences for busy women, couples, and families who want beautifully executed trips without the time, stress, or guesswork of planning it themselves. Through carefully vetted global partners and high-touch, full-service planning, she makes sure every detail is handled so you can show up and actually enjoy your trip. If you're ready to invest in travel that feels as meaningful as it is memorable, book your complimentary consultation at www.sunkissedblisstravel.com and follow her on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

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Want to take this conversation one step further? Join us for our next Money Talks, a free 30 minute live session where we’ll dig into a question we hear all the time from women business owners: Budgeting for Businesses to Offer Benefits. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions! 

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Transcript

Dr. Barb: [00:00:00] You don't remember this, but there used to be this song, come Fly with me. Come fly, come fly away. And flying, you know, going to the airport. Used to be people used to get dressed up, you know, put on their best digs. Women would wear dresses with nylons. I mean, it was a big, big deal. And. I loved airports in the day when I was a little girl, and we'd go either pick up or drop off one of my sibs, you know, wherever they were going, and you could go to the [00:00:30] gate.

 And I always thought, you know, airports are very emotional for me because someone is either leaving or someone you're welcoming somebody home and, and a,

Maggie: It's like the beginning of love actually.

Dr. Barb: exactly, exactly. So, airports travel. All of that has really changed for many, many, many unfortunate reasons. But nonetheless, people still love to travel and they love to travel for free.

Maggie: Who wouldn't wanna travel for free. And I think that's why [00:01:00] we wanted to have this conversation of digging into points. And like transparently, I'm not using my points enough, I just paid off all my credit card debt. So I've been like, let's not use a credit card, you know? But now I'm like, I'm missing out on points and I wanna get back in the game.

Dr. Barb: There you go. But are they the right points? That's something we really, really learned because I told our speaker, Tiffany our expert, I should call her, how overwhelming it can be. Like, it's almost like overwhelming. I almost do nothing because I can't[00:01:30] 

Maggie: It's like decision fatigue 

Dr. Barb: Yeah, exactly.

Maggie: well, we're changing that. We'll sit down and figure this out 'cause we're gonna get some business points. We're gonna get some personal points and we are gonna go to Tahiti.

Dr. Barb: Yep. That's where Tiffany was calling in from. So let's learn her secrets, her insights, and her tips on how to leverage points on credit cards so that you can travel the world.

Maggie: Let's get started.

[00:02:00] Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.

Maggie: Tiffany, [00:02:30] we are so excited to have you on the show today. So before we get started, can you give us a quick intro, who you are, what you do, and how did you end up in the world of travel points and loyalty? 

Tiffany: I'm Tiffany Funk, and yes, I am an expert in travel and especially more than travel, the points, the loyalty, the financial systems that make it all work together and. It's so interesting to me. I come to travel from a love of aviation and I think that's [00:03:00] maybe less common, but I love planes.

I love airports. Grew up doing a lot of flying. My dad was a private pilot and, you know, it's just, it's a very different experience and gives you a very different perspective, I think on the whole space. We all love to travel. Vacation is fabulous, but the complexity. With loyalty programs and the ways that they interplay between the airlines they support and the financial institutions and the customers has always been really fascinating to me.

 Those levers of finance and [00:03:30] industry and, you know, just the different impacts they have, we don't really think about it, right? You just go to the airport and it works. You don't think about how the money moves. And I love thinking about how the money.

 So that's sort of the anger for me.

That's why I co-founded Point Me, which is a company that helps people use their points and think about their points in terms of, you know, travel wealth rather than just coupons. And it, that's just my overall philosophy is there's. These really interesting systems, people are generally not [00:04:00] really informed or financially literate when it comes to this other side of it.

 And I like being able to sort of evangelize around, oh my gosh, you're missing out. Or just, Hey, once you understand this, you'll be able to make so many better choices and feel so much more informed to the consumer.

Dr. Barb: Wow. I'm so glad we're having this conversation because it is so confusing and there's so many competing messages out there from different companies about get this many travel points, but you can only [00:04:30] do this airline or do this travel points, but you have to pay this amount of money. But if you use this much travel, then it kind of is a wash So thank you.

I hope we can walk away with really good strategies on how to leverage all of these benefits.

Tiffany: Yeah, it is really confusing and I think everything is more complicated with social media and I think this space in particular, since I think 2020, I've seen just a flood of misinformation and people who, [00:05:00] they understand the tip of the iceberg, but they. Are great influencers and so they present it as though they know the whole thing.

And it's really, to your point, it's creating a lot more confusion. And I think it's taking something that should be really approachable, really accessible. We are all smart ladies, and turned it into like, Nope, can't do it. Don't have the brain. So cutting away through that I think is like the best thing we can do for people.

Maggie: So before we get into like all the tips and tricks, which I definitely wanted to get into, when did you realize like [00:05:30] this could be a money strategy and not just a perk? Was there like a moment or a trip where this kind of really clicked for you?

Tiffany: Ooh. So there's layers to that. So, I mean, the first thing I knew about airline programs because my parents got divorced when I was a kid and my dad moved to Hawaii, and so I was flying back and 

Maggie: A lot of points right there.

Dr. Barb: yeah, 

Tiffany: yeah, and it was different. It was a different time. United flew seven 40 sevens at the day, which if you're not a big aviation person, those are the ones with like lots of [00:06:00] engines in an upstairs.

And so there would be times where because I was such a frequent flyer of United, I would get upgraded to get to go and sit upstairs as an unaccompanied minor. So it's like, you know, there's a system there and like that's very impressionable. But where I really got into point, was during the last recession, well over the last, how are we tracking these days?

The 2008 one

Maggie: Yep.

Tiffany: where I was leading a corporate team but had to do a lot of travel and we were in such a tight moment [00:06:30] where you were literally tracking pennies and you know, I was having to do this business travel and I was looking at like the perks that a hotel loyalty program would give you, knowing that loyalty programs were a thing.

And one of them was breakfast. And I looked at that and I said, you know what? If they will pay for breakfast, which is like $25, that's actually three hours of labor that I can put back into my P&L. And like right now that matters, right? Like that helps me keep someone employed. So Hilton Marriott, if you'd like to buy me breakfast, [00:07:00] fabulous.

 That was like a direct impact. And that's like still in a big corporate job within an expense account. But in a moment where we were really trying to look at every dollar of spend. And I think a lot of us fall into this trap where we're really good at being stewards of our company's money. Are really good fiduciaries of our P&L, but tend to sometimes neglect our own personal side of it.

And so I think like that's just sort of the approach that I take. Yeah. With the personal side of it too. [00:07:30] You know, you don't necessarily need to be maximizing every single penny. You don't need to be like the people on Reddit love them, but like, if it's your hobby, it's a passion. It's different. There's also just like good financial choices you can make that make it easier.

Maggie: there's like the super couponers, but in like different buckets, you know, it's like the super pointers and they're like getting all the deals and the super hotelers, you know, and getting all the deals. It's funny, there's like subcategories of all of ' em.

Tiffany: Right. You can do that, but like you don't have to get free toothpaste every time you go to Walgreens to still take [00:08:00] advantage of like smart purchasing decision. 

Maggie: yeah, that gets exhausting, especially if you're like juggling kids and have many other things going on as well.

Tiffany: I'm actually so glad you mentioned that, Maggie 'cause this is one of the biggest things, like when I came up through miles and points and in that like frequent flyer community, the flyer talk of the day, there were so few women, in that space. And it wasn't because it was necessarily an exclusionary space.

It reflected the demographics of the majority of business travel then and now is conducted [00:08:30] by men. The jobs that require that kind of travel and then like give you those kinds of perks are not as accessible to care providers and people who are doing that juggling. You know, you can't have the consultant schedule of out Monday morning, back Thursday night.

 And deal with soccer and doctor's appointments and, you know, the dog doesn't have food. And so I think like that's part of it too, and where a lot of the framing with a lot of these miles and points thing, I think it's actually really important, especially in this space, to [00:09:00] acknowledge that content is very male dominated.

 And so a lot of the influencers, like I ran business for one mile at a time for years. And again, that's. It's very male. It's young single men or people who other people are running their home economics. And that really shifts the tone of the conversation. And I think as part of, like, to your point, Barb, what makes it a little like this doesn't apply to me because you are actually not the target audience for a lot of this content.

Dr. Barb: Oh, that's so interesting.

Maggie: [00:09:30] And when I was looking for people to talk about this, there were a lot of men that came up and you were one of the only women. And so I was like, oh, damn, let's get her on, 

Tiffany: Yeah, I mean, to be fair, that is getting better and there are

a ton of women in this space now, especially Instagram has been really good for promoting those voices and like sort of building that community of like women who do points and travel, but the crux of it, the majority of frequent flyers but I do my demographic samples in the lounges and in the first class cabin domestically, and [00:10:00] it is only ever on Alaska where I am sitting next to another woman.

And I think that reflects the business demographics of the Pacific Northwest. You know, where you have just more female executives and people in those roles over in this part of the country. But I've never sat next to a woman in the first class cabin on an American flight or a Delta flight or a United Flight and their frequent flyer programs.

And thus the content around it, it is more male and like that's okay. I think it's just helpful to know, you know, as you're digging into these things.

Dr. Barb: [00:10:30] I think the airlines and the hotels have a great opportunity here though, because so many women are in charge of, you know, making financial decisions in the household. And if they're booking vacations and things like that, and they can leverage these, they can focus on, you know, what women want and need.

And we look at organizations like those who typically, you know, focused on men and they have this huge potential to say, what is it that women wanna need when they're traveling, which is quite [00:11:00] different than what men wanna need.

Tiffany: exactly, and especially because women do make the majority of travel purchasing decisions, whether that's because they're making them for their household or they are the ones who are the office coordinators booking 

travel, these roles shouldn't be gendered, but like they are, or they're even the people who are negotiating corporate contracts.

And to their credit, Hyatt actually took your advice a few years ago maybe about 10 years ago, and they hired a team to come in and say, look, we actually want to draw more business [00:11:30] travelers who are women. We see that this is a demographic that's coming up. Like what do women want in hotels? And so you will see in Hyatt properties that are in, that have been more abated more recently, there's outlets everywhere.

 The ergonomics are better. There is lighting, you know, there are makeup mirrors where you would want them to be. There are steamers in the room already, right? Little things like that, that just saves you having to call and try and track down a steamer, 

Maggie: Are they the ones who also offer, like now like yoga mats when you [00:12:00] go and you know, different things like that where it's like, I would love to do my yoga, but my mat is not the top priority to bring with me when I

Tiffany: Yeah and Weston did that too, where they actually for a while were like, you can just have like workout gear or we'll set those things up for you. And so you are seeing brands try and think about that more and sort of acknowledge that if, you know, for half of the traveling population, our stuff does not actually fit in that 3 1 1 bag and we're going to need more support when we get to the property, which is great. 

Dr. Barb: So [00:12:30] here's my concern. I see all these, you know, get United, get 150,000 points and with American get 90,000 points for their credit card, you know, and then always go to this hotel and that hotel. It's so overwhelming and we travel. And I do nothing because I don't know which one's the best. Am I gonna get locked into a credit card that, oh, I should have done this one over here.

I didn't know, you know? So what are women getting wrong [00:13:00] with some of this travel stuff? 

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Tiffany: This is very interesting. When we talk about like, making financial investments, they often talk about like woman's portfolio will outperform. A [00:14:30] mans over time, right? Because we tend to be a little bit more conservative. We tend to spread our risk. And so if we've already thought about that, we can take that same ethos and apply it to our miles and points in travel.

So you can be opportunistic. If United wants to give you 150,000 points for getting their credit cards, like great take it. But for your everyday card, in your day-to-day spend, you're not buying single stocks in your normal portfolio, right? None of us have time to be doing penetrating or like day trading or like trying to care, which

 you know, time the market, we're very [00:15:00] busy. So looking at what we call flexible points, currencies. So those are like your American Express membership rewards, your chase ultimate rewards your city. Thank you. Wells Fargo has this now with their autograph cards. Capital One has them with their venture cards.

That's like buying a mutual fund rather than buying a single stock. So you might not see as high of points offers with those cards, but you're going to get a much better return on your everyday spending. You know, I have an Amex Gold card and it gives me four times points on [00:15:30] groceries. Well, they would want me to say like, at US supermarkets

because banks, but like, that's huge in our house.

I love to cook. That's our, one of our biggest expenses. And so if I were using, you know, an Alaska card or United Card or a Delta card, I'd only be getting one point there. So I'm earning points four times as quickly. And then when it's time for me to use those points, there's a dozen airlines I can transfer them to.

 Or I can use them as just cash back in the Amex portal, which is not the best value, but to your point, at least I'm doing [00:16:00] something if it got overwhelming. And I think like, so that's the first thing is just like with your finances, you don't have to know what is the best airline program out there.

Although, point me does a study every year where we look at it quantitatively and we can say like, Hey, you know, the best airline rewards program is this. It's been Flying Blue the past two years, which is a program that probably most Americans haven't even heard of.

Maggie: Yeah. Flying blue. What's that airline?

Tiffany: Yeah, it's the loyalty program for Air France and KLM and Transavia, but they partner with a lot of us credit cards and like, who doesn't wanna go to [00:16:30] Europe?

And they have, they're partners with Delta. So you can, you know, earn points with these different credit cards, you can transfer them to flying Blue. You know, and they offer a lot of options that we've found when we look at this from a quantitative perspective. Are really compelling. You know, they let you put the flights on hold before you move your points.

They have some discounted points, rates for families, you know, and just like little things that make it a little bit more accessible to people. But again, you don't have to decide ahead of time. You know, you can wait until you're ready to book the trip and then [00:17:00] see when this is what point B shows you, you know, all of the different options available across all of these different programs for the flights you want to take. 

Maggie: So, yeah, let's explain a little bit more about what point me can help with that. 'cause I was poking around on your website and it's very interesting and it's kind of going and utilizing those points through Point me and you've just kind of aggregated and found the best ways to use those points without people having to pull up the 18,000 tabs it seems

Tiffany: You described that so well because that was literally our frustration when we decided to Bill point me, [00:17:30] you know, we've been helping people one-on-one conversations, emails. We actually had a thriving consultancy business, two of them, where we were helping people, you know, more individually booking their trips.

And it was like, no, how does anyone ever get anywhere?

Maggie: We don't. 

Tiffany: Right? And looking at like, you know, American Express has allowed people to transfer points to these various frequent flyer programs for longer than I've been alive. But didn't have a mechanism to tell you like what flights [00:18:00] when, how many points it would be.

And so we'd really built these legacy businesses on referrals and people who would be playing tennis with their neighbors and be like, oh my gosh, I called the number on the back of my American Express card and they said it was gonna be a million points to go to Rome. And they'd say, oh, well you need to call these people and like they will help you do it properly.

And we would, and it'd be a hundred thousand points. It's more new because inflation is a thing for everyone. But yeah, so it was really that, and it was so cool because it allowed us to solve a problem for the industry that they hadn't been able to solve [00:18:30] for themselves. And to be able to say like, Hey, if you have these Amex points, here's all the things you can do.

 And what's so interesting is that to your point, women make so many of these decisions, they're the ones doing a lot of spending and the shift in cardholder behavior as consumers are feeling more empowered and are like, oh, now I get it. I'm using my points. I've never used them before, but now that I'm using them, I feel differently about how I spend on this card.

I'm Transaviacting differently. [00:19:00] And so it's just raising everyone up. Consumers are getting what they want. Banks are getting more money. The loyalty programs are getting, you know, more points transferred in and so they're happy seats are going out full and it's just really interesting the impacts across that whole cycle. 

Dr. Barb: So I have a question. Somewhat personal.

You know, I feel like, you know, I've been just kind of your everyday traveler, but sometimes I get in the airport and I'm like, you know what? What would it take to get bumped up to first class? Or when can I go in and use [00:19:30] this, you know, those comfort lounges or whatever, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't even think of that because I just go in like your everyday traveler and you know, grab a coffee and sit down and wait. But, you know, how can we upscale our, you know, travel luxury by using points?

Tiffany: I love that and I love that you're specifically going like by using point, because I think a lot of people want to upgrade from you economy to first, and they think if I wear nicer shoes, that will happen for me. It won't. If [00:20:00] I fly the airline more, it'll happen for me. It probably won't anymore. You know how it used to work is that as a consequence of deregulation first class cabins, like domestic first, those cabins have been going out mostly empty

for a couple generations. Historically before 2021 86% of those seats were not getting sold. But it was important to have them because sometimes you need them. It was important for the corporate contracts, the aspirational of it. You're configuring the [00:20:30] planes and it let airlines say like, Hey, for our most frequent flyers, we can entice you

to have your boss pay for you to fly on our airline with the promise of like, we'll upgrade you. Now, business travel has really shifted. We all know how to use Zoom now in a way that we didn't in 2019, and we are seeing more leisure travel and leisure travelers. They don't travel one person with no bag.

We come in a posse, right? It's a whole thing. And so now it's [00:21:00] completely inverted where not even 14% of domestic first class seats are going unsold, like they're getting purchased outright. So I think that's the first, like edit your expectations. You're not getting upgraded. It doesn't really matter who you are.

You're not getting upgraded,

Dr. Barb: I've never gotten upgraded ever.

Tiffany: even if you are like a top tier elite. And I say this affectionately, like, you're not getting upgraded because the seats are full. They've been sold. You know, and airlines have become much more effective at monetizing those seats and saying like, they'll sometimes email [00:21:30] even their elites a couple hour hours or days before departure.

Like, you know, upgrade list is not looking good, but like $45 and we'll put you in the front. And somebody who's on a business expense account, like that's a great deal, right? They can laptop without being a tyrannosaurus. And so that makes sense for them. So the first thing really is like, buy the cabin

you want to sit in. Whether you're using points or money, and I think people are often surprised when you look at the points prices. They're not that much higher for business than economy.

I [00:22:00] was looking at booking a flight just for my mom for this Saturday actually, and she's, you know, it's just Phoenix to Salt Lake.

But economy is 4,500 points and business is 7,000. You know, it's just, it's a short flight. It's not a big deal. It's not a good use of points to sit in first class for a flight that short anyway, but that sort of gives you a sense of the delta. Internationally, the deltas are often even smaller, which is, I think the really the best time to look at using your ticket.

Your points for tickets is for those business class where it's also actually like, actually nice as opposed to [00:22:30] domestic first class, which is not really significantly better in most cases, unless you're on, you know, the fancy planes between New York and LA and San Francisco. So that's, I think that's the biggest thing is like, check the prices.

You can really be surprised plan on getting the cabin you want to sit in because the upgrade mechanisms are just not there anymore. Which is just function of supply and demand.

Maggie: And then how do we get into those like elite rooms at the airport? 

Tiffany: I think the first question you might wanna ask is like, do you want to.

 Because I, [00:23:00] it was flying last week and was in San Francisco and walking past, like lounge after lounge where they've got lines and like, I don't go to the airport to queue.

 I'm not there to queue. I have pre-check and I have global entry and I time it so that I don't have to queue.

 So like that to me is negative value. I would rather go and sit. Buy an empty gate and be able to charge my phone, then queue to get cube cheese. 

Dr. Barb: I 

Tiffany: it's just where I'm at in my life right [00:23:30] now. But I think when you're traveling as a family, you can easily spend $150 in the airport on,

Maggie: no problem 

on anything. 

Tiffany: Right, right. You're just like, oh my gosh, like we got two sandwiches and a soda, and how is it a hundred dollars? So, you know, I think in that case, that's where it's really valuable. And that's also because now we have the shift of leisure travelers who are the ones who are using the airport and using these facilities.

Like that's why it's crowded. Our airports are designed more around business capacity rather than leisure [00:24:00] capacity. So a lot of credit cards these days, I almost think it's table stakes for a lot of these credit cards will give you some kind of lounge access or they'll give you some kinds of credit.

And that's a little bit of a matter of like, where do you fly? What do you need when you travel and sort of using that as your filter. The first filter I think should be getting points that are flexible, buying that mutual fund and then looking at the subcategories of, okay, well if I have this card is going to give me access to, like, capital One has really nice lounges but I don't travel through any of the [00:24:30] airports that Capital One has lounges at.

You might. And like their concept is great. They even have like a grab and go, which is really helpful if you're, you know, sort of constrained. You can just grab those packaged snacks and like then feed your family someplace where they're seating, you know, that can be a really good option. But that's just a little bit like you have to know your travel patterns and what you're going to do.

And if it also goes into, if you're only flying a couple, three times a year in economy. Does it make sense to pay that higher annual fee to [00:25:00] get that handful of mile access. I say this with no judgment because it's truly just a math question, and it's math that we can all do, and you will find it very empowering to do, is to look at like, how much did I spend the last three times I was at the airport?

 Okay, this card pays for itself. If I can use these lounges, even if the snacks aren't good, it's still better than like whatever I spent. Or you might look at it and say, you know, I always check a bag. I think especially people who have like kids under five, you're checking bags. Like, let's just admit it, you're checking [00:25:30] bags and you wanna check a lot of bags and you're gonna be more comfortable if you don't try and carry that all on the plane.

And so in that case, like getting that airline co-branded credit card that gives free checked bags for everyone on your itinerary is a no brainer. You're spending like the $95 annual fee and you would pay that in one way of one trip. You know? So definitely get that. Maybe don't use that card for your everyday spending.

But you're basically preparing your bags for the year with that annual fee. So it's sort of that, if that makes sense when you're talking like, how do you think about it and how [00:26:00] do you make this a math problem rather than this big, overwhelming, there's so many perks and all the influencers, and I saw this TikTok and she had pajamas, and I want pajamas on the airplane.

Just strip all that out and just bring it down to the dollars and cents. It makes it honestly, so much easier.

Maggie: it is interesting when you look at those cards that we're like, I can't believe it'd be 500 a year, but you know, like my friend was just saying that she gets $15 a month in uber credits and she lives in a city, so she's like never [00:26:30] not gonna use that. So that's already some cash. So like, you know, it's interesting how it does come to a wash, but you just gotta kind of see how those payments equal out.

Every time we're on the airplane, they offer a credit card. I know you can get, like, then you have your Capital One and you have your Chase or whatever. How many credit cards do you have?

Dr. Barb: Or does one need?

Tiffany: those are two very different questions ladies.

Maggie: It seems like they're adding up. 'cause there's a point where you're like, I don't feel like I should have 10, 12 cards,

Tiffany: Yeah, I mean, okay. Like, we'll just do this. I'll say this is the stack of [00:27:00] cards that just lives on my desk for making internet purchases. And then like, we won't even talk about like, what's in my wallet versus what's in my Apple pay versus I have a binder behind me with cards but like don't be like me.

Don't be like me. Everybody just has to find the things that work for you. And like I'm very good at spreadsheets, I own and run businesses. But I'm very visual when it comes to keeping my life organized. So I have the binder and it's got baseball card holders in it, so I have every card I've ever had in there.

And then I just put a post-it note on it, like wasn't great or like canceled for [00:27:30] this reason so that I can just offload that from my working memory and not have to remember it. And that's, I think part of the other thing you don't have to remember all these things. Right. You can write it down, you can use tools that show you all the options.

You can save your brain for other things like knowing your child's third grade teacher's, shoe size, you know, these other like 

Dr. Barb: Because that's important. 

Tiffany: know,

End up overwhelming us. Thinking about the mental load of it, I think most people, well, most US households are using two or three credit [00:28:00] cards.

Is sort of the average. It doesn't mean you have to, but that might look like, you know, a lot of people like to have like their Costco card or their Amazon card. I don't think either of those are particularly great cards. For somebody who wants to travel, but based off of household spending, like they can still make sense.

You're essentially getting cash back and cash back to your budget is never a bad thing. Especially right now. So, you know, but then you might also need to have that airline card. Maybe you're not gonna spend on it all the time, but if you're getting those free [00:28:30] bags, you know, why not? Where I think you have to be careful is having multiple high fee cards.

And I see a lot of people who I think have sort of been enchanted by the whole thing. People who have both like a Sapphire Reserve and an MX Platinum. And right now, if you have both of those cards with all the changes, you're paying 1700 $800 in annual fees.

And Right. And I feel like those people need to take a beat and actually do the math because yes, you're getting your $15 credit here and you're getting your Lululemon credit and you're getting [00:29:00] this, and you're getting that.

But is that money you are going to spend anyway? Like, is it actually a savings maybe for some people? It really is, and I talk to people who like are in New York and they're like I get so much value outta these cards. It's fantastic. But like I live in Spokane. So, yeah, it just is not the same. And I think a lot of the times if you don't live in one of these primary markets, these cards aren't as tailored for you, and that's okay.

Just like look at it critically.

Dr. Barb: So I have a question around business credit cards and business travel, [00:29:30] because we've been talking about credit cards kind of in general, but if we were to focus on women who have small, medium, large businesses what's the advantage to some of the credit cards for them? What should they be looking at? 

Tiffany: That's fantastic. And I think the same rules apply, right? So you wanna be looking at like these broader, what are the points that you're earning if you're wanting to travel or you know, what kind of spend do you do for your business? I know somebody and they do a lot of print mailing [00:30:00] for their business, right?

The things that show up in your post office and to the tune of like, millions of dollars a year. Because printing is expensive ultimately and there's gonna be people listening who are like, it really is, you'd be shocked. And so for them having a card I think they mostly use an Amex business Platinum because.

That card gives you like one and a half points on any Transaviactions over $5,000 and doesn't have a preset spending limit. And so for them they're like, I spend nothing. I spend nothing. I spend nothing. I spend nothing. I spend [00:30:30] $800,000 on printing and mailing and then I spend nothing. So like that's a really good example of that works so well for that business.

And I think there's lots of businesses that are like that, an esthetician where like you're not really spending a lot, but now you need to make a huge purchase because you're getting like a new laser machine or something. You know, there's cards that sort of cater to the fluctuations that a business has, so I think that's really helpful.

Other than Capital One, business cards also don't report to your personal credit, and so that can be a really good way of sort of [00:31:00] separating things out. It can also just straight up make your accounting easier, even if you have an Etsy shop and you have a, you know, a very small business. Having all the business expenses on one card does make it a lot easier come tax time to just export the CSV and be like, these were my business expenses.

 So I think like there's so many benefits. And it's funny, I was talking about this with my husband last night because my coworker podcast about money. I also think it's important to remember that like until the late seventies, early eighties, [00:31:30] like women couldn't open a business credit card. And so there is some part of me that's like, you should actually just open them because you can

Maggie: We're taking advantage of whatever we can

Tiffany: Yeah, like, just take advantage because it's how you give more working capital to your business. You know? It's not like you, I wouldn't use it in terms of, as opposed to a loan, but, you know, for cash flow, for organization, for earning the points, for getting some of the perks, you know, and they just, they think about it differently than the personal cards.

So the way you spend gets you things in a little bit different of a [00:32:00] way.

Maggie: This has been so fun because it's the flip of a conversation of it's always, you know, no credit cards, no debt, blah, blah, blah, which I get, I hear it. You know it. If you're using credit cards and racking up the debt, it's going to, the points are not beneficial,

Tiffany: No, and I think especially with these cards, like, I'm so glad you mentioned that. Like if you are in a situation where you need to carry a balance, it happens. That's not a points earning card because these cards have much, much higher interest rate. Than cards that are more [00:32:30] designed for like those other phases in life.

So these are not the cards to carry a balance on. These are the cards to pay off in full every month. They're the ones to use for, 21 day cash flow situations, which can be really huge for families and small businesses. But just to think about that. And if you're starting to get into a period of time where the builder catching up, I would immediately.

Get a low interest card possibly even from your credit union, transfer those balances over because you know, if you're paying 35% interest or whatever, it's just going to totally eat [00:33:00] away at whatever theoretical perks you might have. 

Maggie: Yeah we've heard people say, well, it gets me the points. I'm like, yeah, but you're in debt so it's not working. But it's nice to have this conversation of the cards can work for you if you work the system the right way. And it can be your benefits for the things you purchase. It's just having that nice you know, that nice line of knowing that you could pay it off versus this is actually just some debt that I need to work on paying down.

So if someone listening today wants to start points and things like that, what's one simple shift they can make that would immediately get them more [00:33:30] value from their spending?

Tiffany: Ooh, I love that. I think the first thing is to look at your spending. Probably everybody who comes on your podcast is like, look at your spending. 

Maggie: But yours is gonna get us to travel, so it's a better,

Tiffany: Yeah. But I do think that's the first step. Like where do you spend as a householder, as a business? And start with that as your framework and be like, okay, wow.

I actually spend a lot on, at the pharmacy. Right. Some people you got some expensive medications. So then look like, look at that and find a card that sort of matches [00:34:00] your spending. I think a lot of people are like, oh, I want to travel. I'll get a card That gives me points on travel, but most of us don't actually spend that much on travel compared to like our other spending categories.

So that's always my first step because the wow get three times points on travel or two times points on travel Is. It's like sexy. It's a compelling offer. You know, when you're on the plane and the flight attendants are saying like, you can get three times points on every purchase on this airline, but how many airline tickets do you really buy every year versus like soccer fees.

Dr. Barb: Yeah. Be real about it for [00:34:30] sure.

Tiffany: So I think that's the first thing. And most people, like we find, like once we have that conversation and point me will do like, card consulting as well for people and there's, we have a quiz too that people can do that can help, like find, help them if you're just totally overwhelmed, just like start orienting you.

But when, once we have that conversation, we generally find that most people double or triple how many points they're earning in a year just 

by taking that step back and be like where do I actually spend money? And like, let's get a credit card that matches that. Poof.

Dr. Barb: Yeah, share a bit about what it is that you do [00:35:00] and how you help women or clients, or consumers really make the best selection of points, or is that what you do?

Tiffany: Yeah. I mean, I think there's layers to it, right? And when I look at my career and how it's flowed through, it's really been about opening up these loyalty programs to a broader audience and, you know. Thinking differently about the financial systems and the whole ecosystem of it with point me how that works.

You know, it's designed to be very [00:35:30] friendly for consumers and really to be an educational tool as much as anything else. So again, we believe that like a rising tide lifts all boats and

there's space for everyone to win here. And that's like when consumers are getting what they want. It's also.

Helpful for the airlines, it's helpful for the loyalty programs, it's helpful for financial institutions. So it's like how do we educate everyone and get everyone on the same page? Because at the end of the day, nobody wants an airline seat to go out empty.

 And banks want you using a credit card, not a debit [00:36:00] card.

 Right? So like those are our anchoring points. Points. And I think like that's a lot of what pointy does. So showing that transparency of like, here's all of your options for flights. Here's the credit card that are going to get you these flights. And then like degrees of help, right? There's a lot of stuff that's self-serve.

There's also some concierges, there's some great points, advisors that just sort of, depending on like how much help people need. And really the idea being, you know, when we started point me, there were blogs and subreddits and like deep in flyer talk, talking about [00:36:30] frequent flyer programs, but there wasn't tooling.

There wasn't really the same. National conversation about it. So I love that. Like ultimately what we've done is we have elevated the conversation, right? And we were successful in disrupting this space in a way that's like really bringing more people to it. And like second order consequence is that now it gets almost a little bit more overwhelming because now you know that you're missing out.

So it's but there's lots that can help lots of experts out there. And I think being [00:37:00] able to narrow the focus. Is what's most helpful for most people.

Maggie: Yeah, I'm excited to, to use it for my next trip. And I was poking around, I was like how do I get to France faster? So we'll have to, I'll have to assess my credit cards. I think it's all spending on groceries. So what else is new? 

Dr. Barb: Well, we'll put all that information in the show notes if people are interested to connect with you and learn how to navigate the site.

Maggie: Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. Great conversation. Great learning tips. There is a question we ask all of our guests. [00:37:30] So Tiffany, to wrap us up, what does financial freedom look like for you in this season of your life?

No pressure.

Tiffany: No, that's actually, I think maybe a bigger question you were realizing, but we won't get into that 'cause we're at the end of the podcast. for me, I like having the ability to have choices. Like that's ultimately what it is for me. I you know, my parents got divorced when I was really young.

My grandmother was also like a single mom, you know, in the sixties on effectively no income. And so I think [00:38:00] one of the things that I feel so privileged and lucky about is I have had a lot more ability to make good choices. Like I've had good choices available compared to like previous generations of the women in my family.

And I really like, don't take that for granted. I want to be able to have good choices. I don't wanna be in a situation where it's like, which of these awful choices, like what's the least bad thing I can do here?

So like, that's really how I like to structure it. probably more in my emergency fund than is sensible that I could be investing. But a [00:38:30] little bit of a dragon, like I just like knowing that I have options. So I think it's that for me.

Maggie: I love that. 'cause there are sometimes we have options and all of 'em are great. You're picking the best from the worst, but I like how you really reframed it. As you know, you wanna pick the best option for you that you can do. So that's amazing. 

Dr. Barb: Wonderful. This has been really fun. I'm glad we dove into this topic because you answered a lot of my questions and now when I look at those offers, I can really discern. And assess is this best for me, right? So [00:39:00] everybody has their own way of living and their own way of spending, and once you determine that, then you have an easier way of really selecting the right choice.

Tiffany: Yeah, absolutely. I love that summary.

Maggie: Thank you so much, Tiffany. We appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise and until next time, I hope everyone is financially fearless. Thank you. 

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