"The Points Guy" CEO Brian Kelly Talks Founding the Site

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**Tom Keene** (0:07)
Joining us now, without question, one, two, maybe three people who seriously changed personal finance. Brian Kelly did it with The Points Guy. How did the website start? What was the first week like, the first month of The Points Guy?

**Brian Kelly** (0:22)
I was working at Morgan Stanley. I was a corporate recruiter going to all the college career fairs, and I was so good with my points I would put all of the career fairs on my corporate amex. And you could call and for $95 a year, you could get all the points. So I became the guy, the expense guy at Morgan Stanley. I put all the career fairs on my credit card. So I was raking in the points. So I started The Points Guy as just like a way to share my tips as a corporate traveler.
And within 11 months, it just blew up.

**Scarlet Fu** (0:50)
So it took off.
Your book, How to Win at Travel came out in 2025, in which you really lay out your thesis that points are real and non-liquid assets. They are a currency. My question to you is, how much devaluation have we seen in this currency after the pandemic ended and the world embarked on revenge travel?

**Brian Kelly** (1:07)
Yeah. So loyalty, the airlines are just planes, their banks masquerading as airlines.
The loyalty business is bigger than ever. It's what's driving all the profit. You see Delta and United are just doing incredibly because of their co-brand portfolio. So yes, there is an increase in inflation how many miles it takes to get a flight in general. But the foreign frequent flyer programs, that's where the value is. So for example, Flying Blue, which is Air France's program, they have 60,000-mile business class awards all throughout the year. The same flight using Delta Sky Miles can be 500,000 points. So the real experts, there's still many deals to be had, but all the value is mostly with the foreign frequent flyer programs.

**Tom Keene** (1:48)
Right, right.

**Brian Kelly** (1:48)
For partners of Amex, Chase, Citi, Capone, so.

**Tom Keene** (1:51)
The racket here is you came up with this. It's your fault and we're all going to be doobies and pay down our charge cards every month. Bloomberg Money, it's on personal finance. What percent of people actually do the Brian Kelly formula and zero out their charge cards every month?

**Brian Kelly** (2:07)
A huge amount and the banks want them because in the United States, we have a large fee, about 2 percent every time you use a card. So even if you're paying your balances off, Amex wants that. They certainly still make money on interest, but that interchange fee is still very lucrative and they get you on other products. This whole rewards ecosystem is very lucrative for banks. All the banks are doing well. The airlines who have leaned into it are doing well. And I argue in my book that consumers can do well too, as long as you know how to play the game, pay the bills off, avoid interest, and then maximize the redemption of those points.

**Scarlet Fu** (2:39)
However, right now in this economy, a lot of consumers are not doing that well. And it's a sign of the times that people are increasingly using the points that they accumulate to pay for food and gas rather than trips to Italy, for instance. Are you seeing more people use their points for daily necessities?

**Brian Kelly** (2:53)
No, I actually think in the airline space, we're seeing airlines all retrofit their planes to have more business class, more premium economy. So while the broader economy, there are sectors struggling, the premium travelers are driving. What did you do?

**Tom Keene** (3:06)
Read our script? Bring it up, Luigi. Come on, Kelly's way out front here.
The Money Must Read with Brian Kelly. This is from his website. He was traveling somewhere for $58 and didn't write this. How many first class seats is too many? Delta, a whopping 44 recliners, 11 rows. Almost half the aircraft, they expect to offer 8% more premium seats. When's economy die?

**Brian Kelly** (3:31)
Yeah, I mean, economy, they keep making economy tighter and tighter because there are still cost-focused travelers. But as we saw with Spirit, the purely economy budget airline model does not work in the US with expensive oil, with expensive airports. Ryanair is the model that works in Europe. But that's because they go to these third-rate airports. We don't have those in New York City. We don't have those across the US. So the airlines, we just saw JetBlue is putting first class. They just announced Frontier.