Is the government taking our points away? + what I'd do with 1 million points.

Happy Friday ladies & gents. I JUST hit 500 subscribers this morning, so it’s a great day.

I really appreciate the support - please continue to tell me the kind of content you want from this newsletter.

Last week’s newsletter was one of the best and most in-depth I’ve ever done - so if you haven’t read that yet, do it now!

Let’s get into it.

The British Feds are coming! (For our points).

Congress is mulling over this potential knife in my side.

The Credit Card Competition Act poses a risk to all of us points lovers.

There is a chance it could pass & credit card rewards could get drastically reduced or even eliminated!

Here are the SparkNotes of the bill:

• Visa, Mastercard, Amex, & Discover charge “swipe fees” from merchants on every transaction - that’s how they make money.

• Visa & Mastercard basically run the payment network show - some think they have a duopoly.

• The CCC would give credit card issuers/banks more options of which payment network to use (most are just Visa & Mastercard).

• Supporters of the bill think it will bring down swipe fees, save merchants money, and hopefully save all of us money.

• On the other side, points lovers like me are worried because less swipe fees = less money for rewards.

• The legislation is pretty much sitting still right now and no one knows if it will keep moving forward.

Here’s my take:

Swipe fees suck.

People pay me over Stripe for my consulting calls, and I give Stripe almost 3%. That’s painful.

I know that accepting credit cards is a necessary evil for businesses - people want to pay with them, but they make much less money when they take them.

But the majority of people are consumers, not business owners.

I like my rewards more than I dislike making a bit less in my business.

However, if I was running a large business and doing hundreds of transactions a day, I might have a different opinion. I might be thrilled about this bill.

In reality, I’m neutral here.

Honestly, Americans are so obsessed with credit card rewards, I think the banks would just find a way to keep them going - the benefits might look a little different, but could still be good.

So what should we do?

Well, if you’re worried about losing out on rewards and have been waiting to pull the trigger on your first (or 4th) travel rewards card, I’d go for it.

If we do lose points, you have to be able to tell you grandkids how you lived through the golden era of points.

Best cards right now:

• This blue beauty with an elevated bonus.

• This (also blue) king with lounge access. '

• This (wow, blue again) business card.

If you want to get political, The Points Guy is doing a petition right now to send to Congress telling them, “DON’T TAKE OUR POINTS.”

Check it out. 

I’ll make sure to keep you all updated on this as it progresses!

If I was a points millionaire.

I had the privilege of working with a client with 1.8 million points this week.

He’d earned that much from years of high spending with his business.

It was so fun to chat about his options for luxury travel, totally covered by points.

It had me thinking - what would I do if I had 1 million points and had to use them all in a week?

Fun question to ask yourself.

So, keeping in mind I have a toddler, here’s what I’d do, assuming I had 1 million points from my favorite blue card.

Nowhere has really captured my interest more than Hawaii - so that’s where I’d go - but in style.

And since I have to blow 1 million points in a week? I’m not going to be very picky about optimization.

I’d go visit my family in Indiana.

Take a train to Chicago.

Fly ORD to Lihu’e, HI on United’s first class.

I’d transfer points to United and book 3 first-class tickets for 540,000 United Miles.

The cash price of that would be about $10,000.

I’d stay at the Grand Hyatt Kauai for 7 nights.

I’d transfer 210,000 points to Hyatt. The cash price of this would be around $8,000.

You’re gonna cringe at this last part…

I’d use the rest of the 250,000 points on fancy food at the hotel. Since those purchases would code as travel purchases because they’d be at a hotel, I can use points as a statement credit to erase my purchases.

The breakdown:

• First class airfare for 3 ($10,000).

• 7 nights at a 5 start hotel in Hawaii ($9,000).

• Eating whatever I want for 7 days ($2,500).

1 million points gives me almost $22,000 of value - not bad!

What would you do with 1 million points?

Peace to all.

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