This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is Brian Kelly, better known as the Points Guy. Uh. The firm now gets ten million unique visitors to their website each month. It was launched in sold to bank Rate in bank Rate was bought by Red Ventures in the firm now has over sixty employees. Is that right? Well, the Points Guy itself is over a hundred employees. Over a hundred. Wow. Well, Brian Kelly, welcome to Blue Thanks. So I'm kind of intrigued about the Points Guy site. Um, when I got a Amex Platinum card in the office, I gave up my Amex Gold card at home and ultimately wanted to replace it with something which became the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. And then I went to your site and said, turned out that that was a really good decision. Tell us a little bit about the points Guy site. Who's your audience and who you're targeting? Absolutely? Yeah, So the Points Guy I started this as a fun side thing in I used to work at Morgan Stanley. I was in HR, traveling a ton and I was just I've always been really really good at points like even going back to the nineties. But it started it's just a hobby site where I would, you know, blog about one post a day on how to use am X points or how to fly to Paris. And you know, no one really read it for about six months and months aware because then it just took off somehow, you know, it started to catch and I wrote about one deal, and you know, it really started off with consultants. I mean, you know, the consultans who are on the road four days a week. They started reading my site and sharing it like crazy. Didn't eventually make its way to a big New York Times article fairly early on. So it was April of eleven that Seth Coogel, the Frugal Traveler columnist of the New York Times. He's a very cynical person, he said, freaking flyer miles or pointless for budget travelers unless you can prove me otherwise. And it was actually sitting in my spam inbox for like two months, like cleaning out one day and I'm like, what times this is crazy. I met up with them and I said, are you crazy? I'm like, budget travelers are the number one people who should be maximizing points. I met up with them at a bar in New York for three hours. He booked a trip to Brazil that day and coach, but he saved a thousand bucks. He was blown away, and a couple of weeks later he wrote this crazy article that was like the number one travel site everyone needs to know. And I just remember sitting at my cubicope Morgan Stanley being like, oh my god, my life is going to change, you know, the New York because my site crashed with traffic. Emails were coming in and I knew all along that, you know, everyone has points and no one knows how to use them. But that was when it really got put on the map. Um, when did you come to the conclusion that hey, this is a business? Was it the Times article? Before the Times article helped propel it? It was actually before. So if I started the blogging June of it was February. A friend from college he had kept emailing me saying, Brian, Brian, you're writing about credit cards all day. You're a moron because you're linking directly to American Express dot com. And he had worked for a company called links Share, which is now Racutan. In their affiliate marketing. And he said, if you get into my program, I can get you in. You know, you can get paid two hundred dollars per credit card approval. And I remember at that time, I had like fifty thousand monthly readers, and I was like two hundred bucks. I'm like, I only need like one percent of one percent to make this thesite exactly. So he got me in in February, and uh, and it was amazing. I was just writing the same exact content, but I was just using his links instead of directly to that. And so there's like an Amazon affiliate marketing and and unbeknownst to me, credit cards are like the uh you know, the ace in affiliate marketing because it was actually more than two. Some cards were paying five, but it wasn't per click like most. They had to open account. And my readers, my readers were bankers, lawyers, and consultants who live in New York, l A, and Chicago. Talk about Taylor me. So I was joking about I was blogging on a gold mine. And you know, so I started putting those links in, and you know, because these credit cards are the best way to get points. It was so organic. No one even said a word. I mean, I put my disclosures. Hey guys, I'm gonna fill it. And then the first I got nervous that people would think I'm doing it just for money, because that's never how it started out. But my readers, who are smart people in business, were like sending me high five emails like Buddy, I sent your links to my whole family, like I want you to I want you to be successful. And that was a really cool moment when I was like, wait a minute, I can provide good content for freedom. My readers. They use my link and they're just clicking on its click here, Chase same or better offer them what they're getting anyway. So so I love the story where so now you have the affiliate marketing links running for a couple of weeks or months, and then one week ends something happens, you linked to something and suddenly boom dollars over the weekend. It was crazy. Yeah, well I mean that so it was a perfect storm. That day the New York Times came out was actually the day that Chase had launched a British Airways hundred thousand point offer, and I knew that was gonna be really popular with my readers because most of the time, you know, back in the late two thousand, I mean late what do you call them the odds two um, you know, credit card bonuses were like twenty five thousand free flight, you know. And then you know, once the recession. Out of the recession, I think a lot of the credit card companies were like, you know, we really missed the boat on millennials and getting this new era of consumers, so they started raising the bonuses, and it you know, benefited my sight because I was just writing, you know, here's how you get to get the most out of British Airways miles. And the trick was not flying British Airways because they have crazy high fees on their award tickets. So I was just writing these little posts about, you know, if you want to go to Machu Picchu or Easter Island. Was amazing deals using British Airways miles back then because they were a one World partner. So these things that I had known for years, you know, the average consumer didn't realize that, wait a minute, I've got a boatload of miles and this is how I can go to Hawaii or Miami. So um, and then the new York Times article came out, which not just you know that day traffic. But I had no idea what s c O was. I knew Google like me because my site was growing month over month, But that day that you get that New York Times link, they still swing a lot of weight. Yeah, I mean, so that's why you know, we getting uh making sure using press to help you know, buoy the site. That's what There's been a lot of other bloggers in the space, none have really cracked it like I have. So it's a So let's talk about how this went from a sort of side interest to a website to a business. We were speaking earlier about your first big affiliation, branding thirty dollars over the weekend. You had to look at that and go, hey, this really is a bit. Is this what happened on Monday when you went into your day job. Well, I remember being in the shower just crunching the numbers as as my posts were going viral across the internet about this chase. You know, the clicks would update every hour, and I just you know, on a normal day, I'd have like twenty clicks on a you know, on a credit card link, but then all of a sudden, was like two thousand. I'm like, oh my god, if this is even the tiniest conversion rate, I'm doing well. And every other day, you know, sales would load into the system and so on paper. I remember when I hit the first hundred thousand, it was like roughly within a month of getting into affiliate sales because of that New York Times piece that made it go viral and uh and I remember just thinking, on paper, I'm kind of rich, you know, like that was more than my annual salary at that point. And my parents were like, Brian, you know, I was twenty seven, I was about to get VP, and you know, human resources at Morgan Stanley that you shouldn't be well back, you know, I was. You know, that was you know, when you're in your late twenties about to get VP, it's like, you know, you're it's better to take a risk than when you're young, and you could bounce back. Of course, of course now you know, not knowing what I know now, but you know, being a blog a professional blogger just wasn't really a thing inn But my parents actually loaned me money because even though in the affiliate portal, I said I had all this money coming to me, but it was on like a net ninety pay plus plus plus. It was actually months before I saw any of that money. But so you didn't use venture capital. I never used family money, friends and family. How much did you? I borrowed five thousand or ten thousand from my parents just to pay my rent. But it was already profitable up to that point, so, I mean it was from getting affiliate links. Uh. It was six months. It was that August that I made my first million. It was crazy. It just kept growing and growing and then I started hiring. So I never I owned a hundred percent of the company when I sold it to Great inelve So that worked out. Well. Is that a public figure? Can we just it's not a public figure? Um, I don't think it was ever really disclosed, but it was, you know, life changing amount of money for me at the time. Of course, they gave me a three and a half year earn out because that was twenty eight They're like, we're not going to give you everything, but um, but you stayed with him for almost a decade. Yeah, I mean I even after that three and a half years. I Uh, I renegotiated my deal to get a you know, I was a salaried employee. I didn't I don't own the points guy, but they saw how passionate I was about it um and so you are the points guy, and so I guess it helps. You know, people even when Red Ventures bought Bank great people like you know most founders, you know, when you sell, you get you know, but they take the money and run, take the money and run. But I and I just you know, signed out with Red Ventures. I'm gonna be there for years to come. I mean, I passionately love doing what we do and uh yeah, it's the coolest job in the world. Why would I give it up? So, so you started as a as a blogger, when did you hire your first employee? So my first employee was actually part time. It was my sister in law. She was a stay at home mom. She started doing email got because the emails were coming in, and I actually had a side business where I would charge people fifty bucks and I would book their award tickets for them. So you'd be able to email me and say, hey, I want to take my family to Italy four people in June, and I would say, pay me ch under bucks and I'll tell you exactly how to do it. So I had that business and then I would blog. So my my sister in law was my first part time employee. And then it was actually right after I sold the bank. Right then I was like, I gotta I gotta hire people. And now people would want to work for me, because before people were like, I'm not gonna work for some guy blogging out of his living room. Yeah. So, once I sold, you know, bank rate was a publicly traded company pretty um, you know, they had banquet dot com was a huge site, and the credit cards dot Com. So, you know, once I and that was great because I could just focus on the content and um, you know, their HR and legal and all that stuff took took away all that stuff that I really never enjoyed doing. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense for a site that spends so much time and effort analyzing credit cards to bring in totally the ultimate credit card. And I didn't realize it at the time. I mean when they because I only had like roughly fifteen months of revenue. Granted it was all profit for the most part because I didn't really have that many expenses, but you know, to me, It was astounding that credit cards dot Com, the behemouth site, you know, um would want this little niche travel premium, you know, credit card site. But premium is a good niche. It is and and it it was. It was. It's been a wild ride since. You know, I remember when when I sold the bank rate in May, fifty thousand monthly uniques um, which is really nothing, but it was pretty pretty profitable. Um, but the real you know, but it's a platform that you could build on. It was a good and the platform kept growing year every year. But sixteen was the year we actually launched the Sapphire Reserve card with Chase. So tell us a little bit about that. They reached out to you guys to say, hey, we have an idea for a new credit card to challenge AMEX. Well they didn't even in the beginning, we didn't even know what it was. Um. We had to you know, come up. You know, we had been working with Chase since the beginning, so they knew we were good partners. We had the ability to create content that resonated, especially with millennials. I mean, and to this day, you know, we have a huge audience. We now are in the UK, we we serviced all types of you know readers. We've got a whole military section, We've got our family vertical. Today we're actually launching our TPG Women vertical for women and travel small business. But but really the points guy, we can speak to millennials. We put credit cards and financial products in a way that I think successful people in general, especially millennials, can understand, like I need to get this car because I will live a better life through travel and you know, be able to to get ahead. So so yeah, they approached us in sen We were under strict NDA for months and months. So it was months until I even knew what the Sapphire Reserve was. And when I heard the product, I literally got like faint in the knees. I was like, this is gonna be huge, like monstrous, and it was. It was out of control. They literally sold out and they ran out of the medal used to make the car. So we were their launch partner, and you know, word was getting out and leaking and we uh uh they and you know we basically hell, they wanted to launch it right after Labor Day in sixteen. The words started to get out because you know, they've got all these bank branches, so they because we were partners with them, they actually announced that the Sapphire Reserve is coming. I still remember where I was in Italy on summer vacation and they actually said it's coming and the Points Guy has all the information. And on a tweet they announced the best credit card to ever hit the market in a tweet with the link to the points guy dot com and our inside scoop on so which made all of our competitors had the link to us. I mean, traffic was who needs s e O with that stuff? So that raises a really interesting question. In my wallet, I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card and an Amex Platinum card. You do business with all these other credit card companies, did anyone say, hey, you guys are partnering with Chase. We're a little concerned about that. You know, my mom was so worried about that. She goes, You're going to be known as the Chase guy. And you know, you know, first what, second you think, okay, so are we doing too much with one partner? But I think you know, Chase came to us and said, we believe in you two. Do we We did a ton more than just blog posts, we did events. We did uh Facebook live on the day of the launch with pamcottas body, who was their head of credit cards at the time, and we were answering reader questions live on social media, which your credit card company had never done before. And I think that launch with them well, I know because since then we've launched credit cards for City, their Prestige card. You know. We've worked really a lot with Capital One last year they added all these transfer partners And I think our credibility comes from the fact that a we never recommend products we don't like period full stuff. I've turned down offers all the time. We're not doing you know, crappy little partnerships with brands, just trying to get a buck from our readers, you know. And we're mathematical. We've got a team of really smart experts where people like you you can read through the bs like you. We put it in terms of these points, you know, and and how they will actually do it um you know, how you can actually get value from it. So so yeah, so the Sapphire Reserve, it was very Chase centric. But when that offer ended, it was actually one of our worst business months ever because we had focused so much on that offer nothing else was happening, and in scraping our knees. A month after it ended, we were like, oh my god, we had our worst month in like eight years. But it was a great wake up called hey, wait a minute. And then that's when we really retrenched with Amex and City and those partnerships, so totally I mean, and and everyone wins in the end. Let's talk a little bit about how you use various media to promote the business. We talked about the New York Times, we talked about the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Let's talk a little bit about YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. How does that impact your business, your traffic and who your audiences. So, you know, we leaned heavily into social media. You know, Twitter was actually my first I thought Facebook was going to be a you know, a one lime thing and it wasn't going to really be a big business driver, which actually ended up being the opposite, because you know, in fourteen fifteen, we were investing heavily in Facebook. We wanted to build our likes up. And even though you know, Facebook likes today don't mean anything, you know, we were the first real travel blog to get over a million likes, and that was right before Chase engaged us to help with the launch of the Sapphire Reserve. So are you tracking traffic from from those channels? Yes, so we still get a about of our traffic, uh from social media from all the different channels. It's funny you mentioned TikTok because it's one of our new platforms that were just testing around within the powers wild. You know, we we had one of our edit giants. But it's excuse very it's interesting and it's just like Snapchat. I'm a little wary because Snapchat I used to love doing but then there was no there was no follow up, you know, there's no tracking, there was you know, the campaigns are all very high funnel, like oh awareness amongst a really young group about credit I'm like, meanwhile, I can go on Facebook and target the exact people I want with the right content and serve them different experiences. But yes, we you know Facebook, you know social media marketing, Yes we actually you know, we spent a ton of money every month and getting our content in front of the right people and those people get credit cards. But a large portion of it is also just building out our brand and and we send people around the world. I did a vlog this year on YouTube. Uh I never look at the dates when I look at your videos, so I really enjoy the Air Emirates experience you did. Um. I was lucky enough to fly that some years ago. Air India is another one that I thought was was spectacular. What what vlog did you do this year that really stands out? So we so it's called being the points guy. We I went to Israel for the first time and it was amazing. So we flew United's new seven seven. It's great, great way to fly. Um. They actually fly from New York to San Francisco, which is awesome, and I flew l L back and l AL has a sketchy history as an airline. It's a security so their new plane. They have seven eight sevens as well, which are really nice and get great reviews. But I loved, you know, the seven forty seven, the Queen of the Sky. So I flew one of their last seven forty seven and this thing was like flying in the eighties. I mean they were astrays in the seats and uh so that screens, no, no, no screens. Uh it was and the food for some reason. I think I was in first class, and I think the food. The food was rancid. I mean I I'll eat anything on a plane, I mean even an economy. This food was truly bad. So we my friend who's a comedian, we filmed the vlog episode, you know, flying from from Tel Aviv to JFK on the seven forty seven, and it actually went viral and it actually made the news in Israel. I kept getting all these Google alerts for like weeks later that popular travel blogger flies, you know, Israel's flag carrier, and it's a hot mess. You know, Like, but what what else stands out to you amongst airlines? So the other day you mentioned Norway. Norwegian Airlines, which I've flown business class and it's amazing for the for what you get for the price, but the food is town The food is terrible. Yeah, I mean Norwegians seven. You get a big, big, comfy reclients. This is not quite a flatbed technically premium. It's one of the best premium economies out there. Oh, it's much bigger. Yeah. The pricing is fantastic too, I mean last minute seven bucks more Europe round round trip under a thousand dollars to pass and you know, and especially when you're going to Europe, it's just under six hours these days, you know to spend you know, well from New Year JFK to Paris is just about eight hours if you include coming home time on the ground in London, I've done under six hours. Yeah, but anyway, so so but yes, so Norwegian Premium is a great product. But I'm actually about to uh et the Middle Eastern carriers are still so. Qatar Airlines their q Sweets business classes top notch. Those are like literally private rooms. It's it's crazy. And do they are they the ones with this the shower you can lay down in? Was that Emirates? So there's two airlines with showers commercially, it's Emirates. Uh and then Etti had so Etty Had not only has the showers, they have what's called the residents. And I flew it. It was my first vlog that I was their first passenger to fly JFK to Abu Dhabi. It was thirty three thou dollars of course zero because I expensed it to bankreat at the time. But you didn't you paid actually cash, you didn't use points, no, because with the residents, it would be millions and millions of points. So we paid cash, I earned points, expensed it to the parent company, UM and it must have been thrilled. But you know what the video got millions of people still come up to me today. So back to the whole point about how we use social media. Yes, we do it for conversions, but also the brand awareness that as we speak right now, people are viewing our videos being like, wow, I want to fly Emirates or this airline. They come to this I they get hooked in and so we're now you know, our our parent company, read Ventures is all about analytics and UM using data science to serve different experiences to people. So UM, yes we get a bunch of millions of visitors to the website, but we are now using social media, podcasts, um to reach all different audiences that come back to the site. And the big thing will be the app. The app. You're gonna launch a points guy app. So we have if you could, if you could make people's life easier showing them what their points could do. Well, just you wait that the home screen of the app is going to be your net worth and points really and then you're gonna be able to set trip goals. We're gonna be able to get live award availability to tell you, hey, you've got a mix points and Delta miles, you should actually use these points on these days. You're gonna pushing your target audience. I can have Delta. I have a hundred and twenty five thou Delta points. I have six hundred thousand Chase Reserve points. UM, I have the office am X points, which we then recycle into office travel. But it's always you know, when you travel for work, it's always either economy or comfort. Plus you're try and be responsible, um, when you're traveling for work, when you travel on your own. All right, you could you could indulge a little bit that said, it's all over the place, I don't know how to best this use that this app is gonna track your points. It's gonna we'll be able to instantly. We're building these algorithms and tools that look at what you're spending in the different categories, and then we'll actually slap your wrists and say, Barry, you should have been using this card for that purchase, because you actually would have gotten a ton more value back based on where you want to use your points. So it's gonna be I already have, I have the it's gonna be coming out in early but it's going to change the game because as of today, it's too confused. I mean, it is very confusing. It's challenging, and what ends up happening is you just end up accumulate what you describe as points hoarders. Um you. Now, I will use my Chase points for what for what I call um marriage counseling purchases. Meaning when our Weber grill that was twelve years old caught fire and I decided I want the big four burner grill that was twelve hundred bucks on sale at Amazon, delivered and installed, my wife's had exploded. She's like, just go replace the grill you bought for five hundred dollars twelve years ago. Well, twelve years ago is five hundred dollars. Now it's seven hundred dollars and I want the bigger one, and she's like, I don't want to spend thousand dollars on it. You're giving me a little bit of anxiety here though, because using Chase points for like merchandise, like there are all these different currencies like if you want, if you want to buy grills and merchandise and gift cards, there are cards for that, you know City double Cash that gives you two percent back. But to use those chase points where you're getting less than a center lesson value when you're three exit, can I tell you I'm dying a little bit. And it's a marriage. So whatever it costs, I wanted my damn grill. But but we'll talk more about that in a bit. So you get to travel a lot for work, and not just you know, the red Eye to Houston, but really fun places on on fun airlines. I have a whole bunch of questions. Let's start with what's your favorite place you've been to this year? This year, I um really enjoyed going to Well does it have to be a new place because Cape Town, South Africa. Really I've been seven times South. I saw the boxing Grandma's video. Yeah, that was really cool. We did that a couple of years ago. Those grannies don't fool around. I was blown away. But I love South Africa. We we do a ton of charity work. A lot of my travel is for the organizations we support, and but South Africa is just so beautiful. If you've never been Nevine Country, it's a it's a long fight. But starting in December of twenty nine, Team we Are United Airlines is gonna start finding Newark Cape Town NonStop. You know what I used to hate Newark. I live downtown Newark. I can get to in twenty minutes. JFK took me two hours the other day. And Newark now has clear The terminals are nice. I would I would push you to give it a give it a second thought. I have been giving away my clear you know, you get to five and I've been giving it to people, and you get a note when someone signs up. I am shocked that everybody isn't using that, although I was shocked that everybody wasn't using TSA PreCheck, And you still go to airports in the pre check lane, I mean empty two minutes max most of the time, and I see people waiting hours in line and normally how do people not value their time? Five years of pre check for eighty five dollars, it's the greatest deal in travel. So let's let's talk a bit. So you like Cape Town this year? What what's one of the most memorable trips you've taken well. I love my parents are just retired. They you know, my parents are like my best friends. I took them to Ghana. Um I do a good amount of charity work with phjam there. So we went to Ghana and then I took him to Tanzania on a Serengetti safari and we you know the image people people come back and talk about it for the most Safari if you've I mean, I love animals and mother nature. Safari is just spectacular. You you really only need three days of safari because you go out and you know, if you go in a real African safari, you're out for like five hours in the morning, five hours and they have a lot. By the end of like two to three days, you know you've seen it all. But that's why I like South Africa because you can do Cape Town and the stunning coastlines and the animals and wine country and safari. So that to me is like the ultimate trip. So so you're effectively a professional traveler. Tell us about some of your packing secrets and what gadgets do you like to travel? Yeah, I really so. I do the the stack in full method, which so you're not you don't roll don't roll. Nope, So I will take and I start with the heaviest item first, I'll take like a blaze. I'll do my two blazers, and then I'll do long sleeve shirts and then some T shirts. Fold the arms on and then fold them in half, smooth it out. I tell you what I can't tell you never know. I can't tell you the last time I've used a hotel, and the same thing with the hotel, I stack all the pants folded in half, folded in half again. You know if and the more you have, the less wrinkled it will be. If you've got two pants, they'll wrinkle. So and you have videos about this. Yes, So let's talk about gadgets. What what do you travel with? I see you also have the eleven Yes, I always have the best iPhone with the most storage. Um, I actually have this. They now have the dual sims, so I have a Google five card. Swap it out. So if I'm in some you know, because I've Verizon International, but sometimes they'll limit your data, so I always haven't hit that yet. It depends in certain areas and now they allow you to up it more or whatever. It's very cheap, so now in the United States, all the wireless services suck. Verizon Wireless is the least dirty shirt in the hampers. The way I describe it in general, I think, you know, T Mobile is great with their certain plans, but it's slow. I'm you know, I need some quick I'll pay whatever it takes to fast WiFi, so I'm a junkie I must have. The Google five is also really good too, as as the backup so Google fire works around the world. I forget what's it's not very expensive to have. You know, the iPhone that has dual SIMS so and then you can also click to SIM cards in that so you can flip back and forth. Do you land in a certain cards? You tell me? Yeah? What else you have? You travel with the duel SIM iPhone? I always have, you know, I've got my MacBook Air and always bring my own TV shows and movies on planes because you can. I tell you, I'm I'm so glad you say that I got the biggest, baddest iPad because I how often you stuck on a six hour flight when either you're halfway in the movie and it craps out or the whole for everyone else on the plane thirty minutes and like it's a two hour flight. So basically between between Netflix download and Dish anywhere, always have ours. That's a big thing with travel, control your own destiny. Same thing with noise canceling headphones. Yes, there will always be babies. Babies exist, They're not going anywhere people, And guess what, we all were crying babies once. So get your own bows headphones, you know, get get ones that you know, and of course sometimes you can still hear through the bow's headphone. But even then, I tell you it's really not bad. We had we had a babies behind us to and from Chicago for Thanksgiving, and um you pop in the headphones and everything in life, it's just your mindset. You know, if you walk into the airport aggrieved and mad, guess what your travel experience is gonna suck? Like just at you, I am so aren't you always angry and agreed? That part of our mindset, you know, I think in traveling and just being able to see the world and seeing how most people live, even a bad flight, you know, only one percent of the world will ever be on a plane or some crazy statistics like that, So you got to learn to roll with it. Go roll with it. Even when the in flight wifi's out. I know, I get all mad, but you know, sometimes I'll sit there. I just started doing meditations on plane. Planes are a great place to medic putting your headphones on. I do these guided meditations. That insight timer is the one that I have a friend who likes that one also and another friend who likes clean is a great time to meditate because you're sitting up right usually. Um, there's a lot of outside distractions that you can get. If that ball, if that derails you, it's a little bit of that's that's really interesting. So now let's play. Tell me what's wrong with my UM credit cards? And UM, I don't call this is what we call a wallet audit, that's right. So I I have my iPhone case, which is my new that's right, that's right, instead of a full blown wallet. So I'm showing you will pretend this is my Chase Sapphire Reserve home. Um, because I just the only problem with the iPhone wallets is you have three slots and I have a lot more jumped. So these are my two main credit cards. Memorize that number. UM, so I got the fire reserve of and the Business Gold Card, Business Platinum, this Business platinfum. Oh my god, I'm like that. And I got the Platinum specifically because if you travel domestically not first class, that will get me into most lounges. Yes. Yeah, so the Platinum is the best card and the Business Platinum actually last yeart Our TPG awards one best business credit card. This card is good to any purchase over fifty or five thousand dollars. You get a fifty percent bonus that either UM and the Business Platinum gives you thirty five. So if you want to buy a thousand dollar flight Amex and most cards, it's a hundred thousand points. The Business Platinum gives you thirty five percent back, so it's only sixty five thousand points. Essentially, when you when you book through a flight through AMEX, are you're getting the same prices and a few get directly. Yeah, you mostly get the same prices once in a while. Actually a lot of times AMEX has cheaper prices and more flexible fares. Yeah, we book all of our travel at the points got through Amicx Travel. They have special especially with American Airlines and some others. They've got mostly Delta and a little bit of Jet. Pil is the other airline to Jeff blue Man, and even Jeff, I'm six seven, so even flying jeflue regular flu into coast to recave Jeff blue and I have to tell you Delta used to be twenty years ago. Delta was no fun. Yeah, don't they give my vote for the most improved airline the one they are consistently. I don't normally blow kisses to airlines. So so this is what I like about your strategy. So you've got the Sapphire Reserve, which is great for points that three x on travel and dining. So that's what you put all your travel and dining on the Sapphire Reserve. I mean yeah, because that's three x and that travel also includes tolls, parking, subways. It's a really broad travel plus no currency fee over on either, no foreign transaction fee, So yeah, you're good. The one area where I might recommend is this. This is like an advance. You could get a Chase or Freedom Unlimited card which is no annual fee, and that card gives one and a half points on everything you spend. So both of these cards only give you one point per dollar. So this is this is how you pair up to a power combo. So if you got the free Chase Freedom Unlimited, you would use that for for every day spend, you'd be earning one point five points, you'd be earning more, and then on travel and dining is what you put on your reserve and you can combine those points, so we call it um. So you just cherry picking where to spend. And this is what the tv G app is gonna help people is put you know, every day spend, like if you're gonna go to a store and buy a sweater, go to the supermarket, which which caused Supermarket. There are some cards that give pretty pretty good spend, but in general, I think you've got your AMEX for the perks, you've got the reserve for the points, and then if you've got like a Freedom Unlimited for every day spence, you're earning that one and a half points per dollar. That's a pretty big difference. And it's free, no annual fee card. How do you argue with that? It's a no brainer. So so I also noticed on your site you mentions I don't remember which card it was, but they're really good for hotels. So I normally will used the Sapphire Reserve for a hotel, especially if I'm going to You mentioned the Grand Cayman trip. We're in the Grand cam In a couple of times. Really enjoy enjoy that um anytime every February of March, you have to get to the Caribbean, get out of New York weather. What card do you use to I mean, so I used. So it's it's sad though, because so Capital one Ventures is an awesome all around card because they team up with Hotels dot Com. So Hotels dot Com is a pretty cool program, and that if you're not loyal to want any one chain, like getting low level hotel Elite settus isn't really that verty Hotels dot Com is great, and that it gives you one free night for every ten so they take the price of your the ten nights that you stayed and they give you the average price non consecutive trips, any multiple trips, so that you're basical getting ten percent back through the Hotels dot Com program. It's a solid return. With the Capital one Venture card, they give you a ten points per dollar on all Hotels dot Com, so that's another ten percent, so you're basically getting back on hotels and this is pretty much any hotel in the world. So. Um the sad thing about that that that partnership ends in January. Um, so Capital one Venture and Hotels dot Com has been my go to. The partnership ends in January. Wait, this is this is done. This is pretty much and they may extend it. I haven't heard yet, but that has been to go to. The other card I'll say is if you're actually know what City Prestige used to be the card for. They give you fourth night free and they just fourth night free hotel in the world. Over the years, I've gotten thousands and thousands. Did they still do that? They? You know, City has been pulling back a lot of the perks and so now they limited to two a year and the rates are not as low as they watered it down. That's too. Now that raises another question. People have been saying that people who I normally think of as astute travelers and points people that it's gotten much harder of late Chase Sapphire Reserve change the landscape for everybody, and some people will decided. Some companies decided to compete. Another companies said no, We're gonna make it more difficult. Well, I think all of them. I think so. My contrarian view to that is that things are actually way better than they've ever been because there are more wastearing credit cards today. You know, even the Amex Gold now offers four X on dining. They one up the Sapphire Reserve, so the Amex Gold is four X on dining and in several other categories. There's actually so many categories to earn. You just got to pick and choose, and choose the ones that you know give you the most value. Back now on the flip side, because there's so many miles in the ecosystem, you know, the airlines have been raising the amount of miles needed for flight. But considering you can still get eight hundred thousand points for sign up bonuses, then you're earning two, three, four, five, ten X on spend. The smart points maximizers are still coming out ahead. You just have to put the work in and you stick around a little bit. I have a ton of lush. Absolutely. We have been speaking with Brian Kelly, better known as the Points Guy. If you enjoy this conversation, we'll be shut and come back for the podcast extras. Will you keep the tape rolling and continue discussing all things travel. We love your comments, feedback in suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Check out my weekly column on Bloomberg dot com. Follow me on Twitter at Rid Halts. I'm Barry Hults. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast, Brian. Thank you so much for doing this. I don't I don't know what inspired me to reach out to you guys, but I'm a fan of the site. I really like what you're doing. Um. We were talking earlier about the YouTube stuff. I love the passenger shaming videos. They're so good. It's if you fly regularly. And I don't fly nearly as much as you do, but I fly enough. The behavior of people on airplanes, I mean it used to be bad on the commuter rail lines. People have kinda settled into a routine. But I don't think people fly enough to your stand um or we're reared by actual adult humans to understand that. Don't take off your shoes and socks and start clipping your toenails on the plane and you wegs your foot in between a seat and kind of creep around. How do you not just pull out a machete and chop that guy's foot off. It's it's imagine having a barefoot comprise. There's not more of that on on planes, you know, like all out assaults. I get I get bent out of shape when people don't think and are inefficient. So leaving the leaving the plane, we we got to we got to um LaGuardia early. There was a gate by some miracle ready for us in the new Delta D terminal, so it was all good. There's a couple I don't know why. She's sitting in ten D and she's in twelve B and they're having a conversation like that was crazy. When it's time to get off the plane, he decides he has to organize his Sunday New York Times. This I was like an arterial plaque and the entire plane is blocked up behind him, and I wanted to pull out the phone and videotape him, but I was like, I gotta roll with it. You gotta be Yeah, that's true, you can get upset by it, but I think in general, you just gotta let it, let it go. Some of the behavior is a little over the top. I love this little segment about the um stewardess call button, the things people use that for. Well, I've looked a little bit bad because I've been in first class before, and you know, sometimes the flight attendants go, M I A, and You're right, come on, and a lot of times I do pay for my ticket and I'm like, okay, I kind of want a cocktail. I had no idea. And then and then well, Don Cathleen's like, never used the overhead for cocktails. I'm like, really you can. If you pay full boat, you could use that for cocktails. What you can't do is push the button and ask the stewardess to have the plane fly to lower altitude so you could get a picture of the Grand Canyon. And I'm assuming all the other examples stuff from life. She has stories, she espe she flew on a regional carrier. She has stories for days. But uh, it kind of reminds me. I flew with Madonna once and she we're delayed leaving JFK and the pilot comes out I'm so sorry it's raining, and she just goes step on it. While we're in the air. I need to make up time and the pilot was like okay. I was like, so really yeah, it was like I think she was kind of joking. Okay. I also, here's some one tip you should never do. I took my sleeping but this is my rookie days. This is like, you never take the pill. And I partner to do the same thing in a hilarious series of disasters. I took my I took it my pill, and then of course I'm putting my overhead bag and I'm starting to get woozy and I turned around and it's freaking Madonna boarding the plane. So then I'm trying to stay awake. We're delayed on the tarmac. She's doing all these antics. I'm like, why did I take this pill? And then I woke up the next morning like did that happen? Don't flying private well because of a lot of celebrities. Now most celebrities are now flying commercial because of the you know environment, and you can't be crusader for all right. I see tons of a list celebrities, royals, people, you know, there's people watching on planes. Wow, So I had I had the greatest experience yesterday with the pilot. I can't I don't ever recall seeing this. So there's all this weather going on Thanksgiving weekend, most of it to the west, but there's gonna be some potential issues on the flight back. He comes out and makes an announcement in the waiting area before people board. Hey, just want to let you know we're gonna hit a bunch of weather. The first half hour will be fine, but it will be bumpy and problematic for the second half. We'll do our best to work our way around the weather and get you there smoothly and safely. And and it was just like, wow, that's such a great and throughout the throughout the flight, like they're not great about communicating what really is going on. It always feels like they're reading a script like this guy, like, Wow, what approach. I've had pilots like that. I love that preflight brief, like some of them really. I mean, I think most pilots enjoy their job. I know they're all, you know, overworked and whatever, but yeah, I love Please don't tell me they're overworked overtired. You don't want to hear that, right, Although the planes can land themselves these days theoretically, so so let me get to some of the questions we missed. Um during the broadcast broadcast portion, Um, you you mentioned peace Jam. Let's so let's talk a little bit about inclusivity and giving back. Tell us what peace Jam is. So peace Jam is awesome. I you know, when when the business really took off, I really wanted to you know, there were tons of charities reaching out for right checks, right checks, and you know that's never anything you know, I wanted to get involved with an organization that was going to use travel to help change you know, the world, so to speak, even though that's a pretty wide thing. And a friend of mine said, you know, I love kids. I was almost a teach for America teacher out of college. And I think even being the Points Guy teach education or like a great joy from like watching people learn. And you know, so, um So peace Jam is fifteen of the world's best Nobel Peace Prize winner, So the Dalai Lama Desmond to to Lama Bowie. So they are the board members and it's their organization to take their learnings and their life story to kids around the world. So it's so peace Jam itself is in a bunch of different countries. At the Points Guy, we sponsor it in Guatemala, Ghana, Liberia, South Africa and East Team War. Do you sponsor it with points? So we do. So it started out we were we were giving points to the Nobel Laureates to you know, because even the Fly Ghana is our biggest chapter. Now to fly a Nobel Laureate and their assistant, it's expensive. How do you transfer your points to a Nobel Laureate so you can transfer to my loyalty account my Amex. Let's say a Fly Delta. They fly JFK to Acra Ghana, so we would transfer my Amex to my Delta and then I can you know, and once you have points, you can book it when you want. So that's how it started. We called Points for Peace. So basically we bring these Nobel Laureates about talk about perfect branding. So we so we've able to bring these Nobel Peace Prize winners. You know, we've got six hundred kids in in gone to high school kids. They study about the laureate all year long and then we bring the lor like the Nobel Peace Prize winner, they spend all weekend. We have this unbelievable you know, they learned how to fix the problems in their community. Start small, small actions then lead to bigger change. I mean, by the end of a week, I get chilse even thinking about it's spending time with you know, these Nobel Peace Prize winners who have helped end civil wars. Who are you know, we work with Jody Williams who and you know helped in land mines and should we bring her to kids around the world and it really empowers them to make their communities better. So that's been a I get to travel all around the world with you know, these amazing Nobel Peace Prize winners and bringing that message to kids. And let's talk a little bit about you're an out CEO and business founder. You also like to give back to the LGBT community. Tell us a little bit about what you do with that. Yeah, so, I mean, look, I'm so lucky, I'm I'm my parents love me, I've got a great partner. I'm out in business even you know, it's nervous racking when your business gets taken over? Are the are the new owners of the company going to be? You know? Allow me today, even today, I'm a Jewish white guy working in finance, so I know what it's like in New York so I know what it's like to be oppressed. Um, and I say that, you know, only half joking or fully joking. But let me say that again. It's hard to imagine in that that's still an issue in my little New York. Well, red Ventures, my parent company, they you know, all I heard was they're taking their Red Ventures is buying banquet and they're Charlotte based, and you know, in Charlotte, in North Carolina, there were some pretty nasty you know, the we had the whole HB two. Luckily I googled and and Rick Elias, who's our CEO. He's a staunch you know, you know, he's born in Puerto Rico. We do all this crazy social giving back and everything's fine. But there are a lot of friends, and I know, soul businesses they clash personally with you know, you're not a part of that inner click of boys or whatever. So so anyway, so I've been very fortunate. And I remember reading the New York Times two years go and it was about gay concentration camps in Czechnia. And I remember reading going, this is crazy. In twenty seventeen or eighteen, there cannot be concentration And in Chechnya. The leader that it was rounding up gay people and they were taking their phones and it was this they were actually in camps. Many people have been killed. So d Rainbow Railroad we we started donating our miles, so we actually booked flights for people who are in places like Czechnia. Jamaica is actually the one of the worst places in the world for LGBT people. Jamaica. I just went there was sixty minutes this year and we did a whole expose on if you're gay in Jamaica, there's a huge chance you'll get tossed in the street. They trans people are killed almost weekly. There's what that happens in the US. Also what happens everywhere. Luckily in the US, I think we've definitely made steps since the Matthew Shepard days in the nineties, but you know, uh and a lot of countries Egypt even you get kicked out at least is not especially gay friendly. So we so we used fregam flyer myse we donate our money and so we now bring Rainbow Railroad gets people asylum in countries like Canada and Argentina. So it's been really I've gotten a chance to meet last summer in Toronto. They were about thirty uh people from Czechnia that we actually have helped through our campaign. Our readers donated millions of miles and they looked me in the eyes and are like the minute that that plane took off from Moscow and I knew that I was on my way to freedom, they just started bawling. And so it's kind of cool. So my whole thing on a giving back is like the power of travel can change lives, and I know I've changed as a person. I believe the more people travel in general, you know, barriers breakdown. So uh, it's really cool to be able to uh, you know, to help others. Quite interesting. So I have to ask you a couple of more business questions because, um, everything that's going on these days with Google and Facebook, traditional web advertising as a business not so great these days. So how are you balancing that? Um? Are you more driven by advertising? Is it more affiliate? How do you how do you deal with the declining um CPMs? And just essentially the web is infinite, well funny enough, you know, when I started, I thought, oh my god, this affiliate thing seems shady, you know, And It's funny now all the major publications are going affiliate. You know, New York Times has Wirecutter and um so affiliates where it's at because if if you truly have good content that helps your reader get a product they want, you know, it's it's the perfect but balance. So our our revenue has been wildly growing over the last several years. We also want to diversify so uh so we've never sold CPMs. Really we do some small packages, but in general, I mean the bulk of our sales are affiliate and the credit card markets are strong. My biggest concern isn't as much Google and um you know, the privacy is a bigger concern, and especially as we create this app where people are going to share where they want to go and the airlines they want to fly and sharing, you know, so that to me, you know, we're getting ready for the California privacy laws are about to go into effect in January, which changes the game. So that space is really challenging, um even how you target consumers and and look, I believe we should have more privacy on the Internet. Europe is not so far off with what they're doing of all the way I mean, California is arguably more um more strict than GDPR, So it's a it's a challenging landscape, but I think what we focused on is just continuing to build out content for people that they love. Ad Blockers don't work when the advertisement is the content that people want to read. So although ad blocker extensions for Chrome and things like that, they stop working. Now it's easy enough to detect them and blur the content and say, if you want to access the content for free, you have to disable your ad blocker. So so that arms races ended. I think you guys have the right balance, the idea that if you have the right audience and the right demographic and they're consuming the content because they want to, not because you trick them into a click, that's got exactly. And the thing we've doubled down onto is community. So we've got this huge Facebook. You know, so Facebook stopped showing publishers in the news feed. Oh crap, what do you do? So what we've been doing for years we have a community. But people come to our events. Uh So on Facebook, we've got a TPG lounge it as I think over eighty thousand members. We just launched a small business community, a family community. We just launch our women's community, so now, I mean, and that's what Facebook's all about. So you just as a publisher, you've got to just keep evolving with the time. And that's that's I think My job is CEO Now it's I don't write posts as much anymore, although I am very very much uh involved in our total editorial process and pushing the team to be better and how we review flights and you know, creating higher quality content. But now it's shifting the landscape and I do I mean, our app is going to be the uh, the next generation of our company and how we'll be able to target content to people exactly for what they want. Today it's one size fits all. It can be very confusing to go to the points guy and be like, it's a lot, where do I start watch card? I just want to go here, And these tools that we're building are gonna save people time and tons of money. So I'm really excited. I'm I'm I'm looking forward to the app because the thing that you chastise me for before I have to ask about. So I will occasionally spend some money with Mike Chase Reserve card not on travel, spend some points on stuff, and often it's Amazon, because just drop it off on your front door. Um, you're telling me that's not the right way to do it. I'm much better off transferring those points to Delta. Well point, you can't transfer to Delta, But like Chase, points are super valuable when you transferred to United or high It or if you redeem for travel because you're getting one point five cents a point when when you say redeem for travel. So so Chase gives you two main options when it comes time to book travel. You can transfer United IT or Southwest or you know, Hiatt several other partners, or you can just use those points to buy tickets. Now with the Sapphire Reserve, what they will say is you get one point five cents a point, So a hundred thousand points is in travel. A hundred thousand points when used for gift cards is usually a thousand or less. So that's why I say where I cringe, use your Chase points for travel. And then if you truly want Amazon or merchandise, there are better cards that will give you more bang for your buck. So like a City double cash card, no annual fee, two percent back when you paid off each month. So if you spend a hundred thousand bucks on that, you're gonna get two thousand dollars to buy whatever you want. So you strike me as a guy who's got a dozen cards in as wallet probably double that. Really Yeah, well, I mean, isn't that kind of confusing to say I'm buying this? So let me figure out which? In our new app, it will literally say but you know, pay with this feature, so we'll tell you where you are. What you can say, I'm at Starbucks. We can actually say this this you know, this quarter put your Starbucks not on the sapphire, but you know, on your you know, Freedom card because Starbucks is the quarterly category. It's really really it changes. But that's the technology that we're building. And then we'll also, you know, a lot of credit cards these days will give you bonuses, you know, especially the airline cards. If you're if you're chasing elite status, you know, you spend on an American Airlines card, you'll get a bump, you know, an elite mile. So our app is going to track all of that and to make sure that not only the points, but that you're getting the maximum perks as well. You know there's master cards now that will give you five dollars off every lift ride, which most people don't even realize. That's a big that this new world master card gives you five dollars off every ride. So most it's really confusing to keep track of When will I be able to use your app to just swipe that and never have to think about it. It's coming out, and I would say, March of we're still we're in testing right now, we're breaking it. Um, it's gonna be worth a wait though, So March I'm excited about all right, So let's say we'll kill me for saying that. But early now they know when they have to all of a sudden, you just gave them a deadline, all right, so let's do our speed round. We'll we'll blow through this pretty quickly. Um. The ideas to kind of get to know a little bit more about Brian Kelly than than we know already. So so tell us what you're streaming, listening to, downloading, watching what what which got your attention these I am into the Morning show on Apple Plus the Morning I really you know, going on morning shows quite a bit. It's actually you know, I always see you know, I'm only there from my segment and leave, but you can always sense that there's like these power struggles on set, and so it's it's a fascinating watch and it's also a microcosm of like what's going on in our world today. So I think they've done a good job with that. Anything else you're you're downloading any podcast? What are you listening to podcast? You know my friend Heather McMahon, she's really hysterical comedian, uh McMahon, Heather McMahon. Her her podcast is called Absolutely Not and she just rail is on everything and travel in life. So I like a I like to feel good laughing podcast. And also, you know, I have to plug my podcast talking Points. Not that I listened to my own podcast because I get to experience it, but so I sometimes just as an aside, I find like on a shorter flight, sometimes I'm not going to watch a movie and I could just pop in a freaking omics or a Mark and it's a right, it's a perfect hour, and like, oh I'm here already. That's it really does help pass the time. I don't I live a block away from work, so I don't luckily to walk to work. So yeah, it's on planes. When I do listen to podcasts, now I get sometimes you're too tired to read. You don't even you don't even want to watch something energy to listen, but just to close your eyes, just like take take me away, caln absolutely. Um. So what's the most important thing people don't know about you? So interesting? I don't think many people know that. But I'm actually a development chief in a tribe in Ghana about an hour and a half outside of Akras. My name is nen Quescy matt te Chu the first and about four years ago, through the charity work I do there, the uh, the guy who's my partner in crime there, we've kind of elevated him as our head of peace movement in Africa as a way of saying thank you to everything I've done for him. Um, he made me. He bequeathed his title to me, um as a as a way of saying thank you for helping elevate his life with all these nobel peace Probably you grew up in poverty and now he's on the global stage with these Nobel laureates. So he made me a development chief and I go back at least once or twice a year, and um, it's really amazing. I've got all my robes and they, uh it's a it's a very unique. I took my parents there and they were just like, you know, they're they're like, how did you how did you go from just growing up in the Philly suburbs to now being a chief in in Ghana? You know that's you mentioned your parents. Um, who are some of your early mentors? And I suspect your your parents might be one of them. Yeah. My had I call him the original points guy. He's actually named Brian Kelly. He's the third boy of three boys and a girl. Um, and I always admired him. He was a business traveler and healthcare and um he taught me. And that was in the nineties is uh. He had points and he said, Brian, if you can I was twelve years old. He said, if you can figure out how to use these, will go on vacation. You know, family of six, we didn't have a ton of money to just blow on fancy vacations. And that was when I figured out how to go to the Cayman Islands and uh so, and he also started he gave me my first job. I started booking travel for him. Um because he so. My dad for sure is one of my earliest mentors. Now, did you ever tell him you were cheating and using Travelocity? I did, and and he's been at speaking gigs with me now and he laughed at me because I make it seem like he was. He was computer illiterate. That's why he paid me to do. He's like, you make me sound so stupid not knowing how to use a computer. I'm like, well, you kind of word that was information arbitrox. Um. So who influenced your approach to travel, to points to credit cards? Obviously your father? Who else? I mean Richard Branson in terms of travel and entrepreneurship and uh like he's just taught me a lot and I got got a chance to interview him on my podcast, and and just having fun in business. I think that was something I've lost along the way sometimes is it's not always fun, but too you do as a CEO of a business, you can set the tone, you know, and you can help hire people and motivate people to have fun. And I do believe businesses are more successful when people are really invested. Um. But in terms of traveling, I didn't grow. I didn't go to abroad until I was in college, really well besides the Cayman Islands. So I've learned to kind of be a traveler on my own in a certain way. But that's been kind of fun, um, I can imagine. So so let's talk about everybody's favorite question. Tell us about some of the books you enjoy reading. What What are some of your favorites? What are you reading now? So? I just finished Bob Iger's book The Ride of My Life, which I found really fascinating. And also, you know, I've been running the Points Guy for going on ten years now, and he had a similar thing where he no one wanted him to keep running Disney because he was the old guy, you know, fresh new leadership, and of course that always goes, you know, even though the Points Guy, frankly as a big business is only you know for the last several years. But I do worry about myself and staying and how do I be creative? How do we push and innovate? So I thought his book was really really I didn't know a lot of it behind the scenes stuff. I also read Travis the book Uh Super Pumped, which is the about I mean that have you read. It is insane, it's it's a page turner, and it's also a perfect model of how to not run a business. I mean the stories, I mean, and they're all sourced too. I mean, this is not just like a gossip, even though they want you to think that, like what was going on in the that bro culture. And so those two books I've read recently and I really liked. And then in terms of inspiration, Layma Bowie. She's a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Liberia. She brought hmen together to help end the bloody civil war there, and she wrote this book, Mighty Be Our Powers, and it's just the story. She was on the floor of a refugee camp, had no degree, had three kids and alcoholic husband, and it was her whole story and rising up being a community leader. And now she's, you know, on the floor of the u N opening up sessions and she is this world leader and it's like it really gives you that inspiration that you know, even on our worst days, we've got it pretty good, to say the least. By the way, if you liked the Uber book, did you read Bad Blood? I did not, so I haven't read the Uber book, but it's the top of my list, and it sounds very much like John Carrirew's book Bad Blood about Sarah Knows. Oh yeah, so I'm gonna make that I'm gonna do on Netflix, which we're not sane. It's insane. The book goes into so much detail. I I know, I'm going to really like the Uber book. And based on you really like Uber book, this is you should for your next flight. You'll plow through it. It was really a fast read. Um tell us about a time you failed and what you learned from the experience. I would actually say so in college in general, I failed, Like I'm a smart guy, but I just, I mean, I think I do have a certain level of a d D. And going to lecture, I mean, I just I couldn't care less. I mean, I failed astronomy. I went to University of Pittsburgh and it wasn't But what I learned was I think I think I learned. So I was student body president, I was ahead of my fraternity recruitment. I was like, I really put all my energy into people and what I really like doing and I think, you know, and I got rejected from m y U in high school and it's always it crushed me, and now it's kind of cool that you know. I uh So, the lesson kids is don't worry about academics. It's the an extent. I mean, you look at so many successful people in business and now many academics are very successful. But I don't know, just throw yourself into something that you like that's going to get you further. And what I learned being student body president was more than any you know, intro to you know, economics one on one. So I was gonna ask you what you do for fun? But it seems travel right, Well, you know, if I could teleport, I would I true, I mean I have look, I have a good time. I have a good time on playing well, let me let me interrupt you. Are you a star Trek fan? I am not at all right, so you should be aware of the fact. The problem with teleportation is hold the hold the physics issues asside. Essentially, we take you apart molecule by molecule, make a map of exactly what you are, and transport you send energy to another location where the rebuild you molecule by molecule. So effectively, we've killed you and rebuilt a new one of you. Not the greatest thing in the world. What what is it like? Is it like jet lag times at thousand? Whenever you teleport? Well from the strange trek version is you're fine, You're just stopping going so and you are limited in distance, but you can teleport from space to wherever. But when you actually think about the way it works. What was the recent Netflix show or maybe it was the Amazon Prime show? Um, I'm drawing a blank on it where effectively someone goes to get clones and they killed the clone to kill the original and keep the clone. The clone is updated and healthier, and I'm drawing a blank on the name. But so, okay, maybe I won't time travel, but for fun, I do like exploring, not other universes, but the underwater world. I'm a huge scuba dive, So what do you like to go? So you mentioned the Caymans, which is great. I'm actually one of my best size was cams. I do Maldive, so I'm actually going there this holiday seasons. Um. I had a disappointing dive in the Great Barrier Reef. It was bad conditions. But one of my big trips I want to take that I haven't really done is Palau, South Pacific little because all those reefs are going away, right, It's crazy down there, the barrier reef is dying. It's I mean it's visible from face space. Yes, actually, uh you could see the in the in the some of the satellite photos. Huge miles and miles have died also. It's crazy. Um, So what are you most optimistic about relative to travel today? And what do you most pessimists. I think we just start touched on. The most pessimistic is the climate. You know, I live in Miami too, I split split my time there, and just seeing that, you know, reading the article, is that in thirty years Miami could be underwater. And now that they may, they may stop. You know, the whole state may go under soon. Because you know, let's be honest, though, that wouldn't be the worst, right right, No, No, I'm not New Yorker. And you know you look at Florida. It's like, all right, if Florida goes underwater, they're a worse environment. So yeah, so the climate chain stuff and and you know, Fran the guilt from you know, even though we carbon offset all of our employees travel, you know, it's you know, I'm in a business that's encouraging millions of people to travel more so that now I still believe, you know, travels ten percent of global GDP. It lifts people up, it changes people. So but it isn't you know, seeing what's happening on Earth is pretty It isn't Airline travel much more efficient than getting in the car and driving cross country. I mean, I think there's a lot of ways to slice and dice it. I mean, for frequent flyers, your carbon footprint is much more than anyone in a car um But optimistically speaking, I mean, I think this is a golden age of travel in terms of you know, these new planes that are more carbon efficient, safer, you can now travel. I just sent one of my employees on that quantist flight from JFK to Sydney NonStop. N I think it might have even crossed twenty But even you know, New Ork to Singapore's eighteen and a half now, So the fact that you can fly on safe safer than ever, it's still cheap. You can still go to Europe from under five bucks. We had Asia deals this class. You know recently that we're to go to Asia round trip, but you can't. Really, it's crazy and even business class. So I think I'm optimistic. In general, travel is connecting the world more than ever, Um, But we just gotta we gotta treat mother Earth a little bit better. And what sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad just starting their career who was interested in in either travel or points or even website. The biggest thing is, you know, first of all, treat your credit score like an asset. I was dumb in college. I didn't pay I didn't pay a Verizon bill. I moved down to my frat house. Three years later, I'm living in New York and it's two thousand dollars or docking my pay. It was like the biggest pain I've ever dealt with. So never stick your head in your sand with your finances, even if you can't handle it, there's so many ways, and even if you just pay the minimum to and then you know, but never mess up your credit score. It takes years. And then in terms of UH in general, I see. So you know, college grads, um, take the opportunity has given you. At work, I've I've even you know, most of my employees are millennials. Take the take the job that may not seem to you at the time to make a lot of sense. But when people give you an opportunity, jump on it. Um. You know, I think the millennials always so worried about I don't want to get stuck in doing this for the rest of my life. Like, take this project, you're not going to you know, if you're a good employee, if you you bring a lot to the table, and if you're a team player, that's what's going to propel you more so than staying on this. Oh, I like this specific thing that I'm doing now, and I want to, you know, make yourself uncomfortable. That's how you become valuable for the company and they'll find the place to put you totally. And our final question, what do you know about the worlds of Points and travel today that you wish you knew ten or twenty years ago when you first started playing the Points game? You know, I learn every day. You know. Actually, when I launched it, I there were other and there so are other travel blockers who are way smarter than me in terms of the points and miles, and um, I think in general, um, it's not about being the smartest. I still learned stuff every single day from our community and emails. It's it's you know, we always peg ourselves as this going to be am I the best at this? Uh. I think in general points, I mean, and anything you learn, it's going to constantly evolve and change. So UM, I would just say this industry will keep changing. It's not over and it's been changing for time as well. So instead of uh, you know, just be optimistic in general about everything and go with the flow. Quite fascinating. We have been speaking with Brian Kelly, better known as the Points Guy. If you enjoy this conversation, well look up an Inch or Down an Inch on Apple iTunes, where you can see any of the three hundred previous such conversations we've had over the past five years. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net, Go to Apple iTunes, Please give us a review, share your thoughts with us. Check out my weekly column on Bloomberg dot com. Sign up for our daily reads at dalts dot com. I'm Barry Rihalts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio m