Turning the Tables: My Approach to Points, Miles and Travel

Chris Hutchins (0:00)

One of the best points redemptions I've ever made wasn't a flight or even a hotel. It was using my Delta miles to get our wedding video done. And that's just one of the stories I'm going to share today as I swap sides on this episode and become the one getting interviewed about everything from my strategy for booking award flights, why two cards might be the optimal number for many people, the huge card member discounts showing up on flights these days, and why the should I pay cash or points math most people do is missing a few things.

To do all this, I am joined by Meghan Coyle and Sally French who are actually interviewing me for their show, the NerdWallet Smart Travel podcast. And they've graciously let me share it with you here. I really love this conversation, so I hope you will as well. And if so, definitely check out their show, NerdWallet Smart Travel, anywhere you're listening to podcasts. And if you're new here and you want to keep upgrading your money, points and life, click follow or subscribe.

Meghan Coyle (0:54)

As soon as we started planning to record an episode in SF, I knew there was one travel expert we had to have on the show.

Sally French (1:00)

It is my fellow Bay Area travel expert, SFO Frequent Flyer and host of his own podcast, All the Hacks, Chris Hutchins is in studio today with us to record.

Meghan Coyle (1:09)

Thanks for joining us.

Chris Hutchins (1:10)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Sally French (1:11)

But first, before we get to the main segment, I want to share our disclaimer, and that is that we will talk about a few credit card companies that are NerdWallet partners in this episode. That does not influence how Meghan and I discuss them. The benefits, terms and fees mentioned were accurate at the time of posting, but of course, things can change.

Some offers may have expired by the time you're listening.

Meghan Coyle (1:29)

Chris, where are you just back from? I feel like you travel all the time.

Chris Hutchins (1:32)

It's funny. I feel like once we had kids, I didn't travel as much, but the past few weeks have been a little wild. I would just came back from Victoria, Canada.

Sally French (1:40)

Whoa.

Meghan Coyle (1:41)

Okay.

Sally French (1:42)

Did you go just to Victoria, Canada?

Chris Hutchins (1:43)

I just went to Victoria. Wow.

Sally French (1:45)

I went this summer as part of a cruise, and I thought it was very cute.

Chris Hutchins (1:48)

Yeah, it was a little cute. We went for a conference, and we landed in Victoria, went to the conference, conference ended, flew home. Oh, wow. So it was not, I didn't get to explore Victoria. Did you at least walk around the waterfront? Yeah, I got to walk around Victoria and see the lake and go swimming and all that stuff, but it wasn't like a proper trip. We'll have to go back for a proper trip.

Meghan Coyle (2:05)

Okay, sounds good. We'll talk about all the proper trips coming up. But first, talk to us about how you got into Points & Miles.

Chris Hutchins (2:12)

I wish that I knew the moment this happened, and I tried to do some homework before coming back to work. So I know my dad traveled a lot for work, and so I have all these photos of me sitting in a first class seat, sipping apple juice, flying to somewhere somehow. I know that I flew on the Concorde when I was a kid, but I don't remember it.

Meghan Coyle (2:29)

No way.

Chris Hutchins (2:30)

So I was kind of surrounded by it, but when you're five and six, you don't know what's happening behind the scenes. So I was surrounded by the travel stuff, thankfully. My dad was always created a Frequent Flyer account. I started accruing miles and points before I knew what they were, just like my kids do, and there was a point, I think somewhere in my first or second year of college, where I'd probably been earning the points, but I didn't really realize the magic until these friends of mine, they were probably one or two years older, were all planning a spring break trip to Cabo, and they're like, do you want to come? I was like, well, I don't have any money. How am I going to do this? Then I looked and I had enough American Airlines miles from flying on trips with my family or other things, because it's not like I was traveling for work in college, to buy the ticket to go on this trip that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to go on. And I was like, this is awesome. I need more. But then I used all the points. So I'm like, I need more of these points because I don't want to miss out on another trip like this in the future. So I think that was like when I started kind of playing things.