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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. And get this employees hired through LinkedIn are 30% more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. When you make the wrong hire, it's costing you time and money. And LinkedIn jobs AI assistant is stepping things up by filtering through applicants based on based on criteria you've set for your role. That's right.
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Joel and Matt from how to Money. I was just in Seattle, Matt, and honestly, it's one of the greatest cities in the world, particularly in the summer. I went on this run by the water. We hopped a ferry across Puget Sound. Just an unforgettable.
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That's what struck me. What seems normal to a homeowner, it can be the thing that makes a guest trip really special.
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Which is why hosting your home on Airbnb makes sense, right? Travelers are looking for those authentic, memorable spaces. And if you don't have time to manage all that well, Airbnb's co host feature makes it easy. A local co host can help with everything from creating the listing to keeping your place running smooth.
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Find a co host@airbnb.com host.
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Welcome to how to Money. I'm Joel.
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And I am Matt.
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And today we're talking free family travel. Lynn Mettler.
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C
That's right. Yeah. So, Joel, you and I, we both have pretty big families. And our youngest kids, they're.
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They're growing up.
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So we are finally at the stage where traveling with the entire family, it's becoming more of a possibility. So, honestly, like, we've got a vested interest in today's conversation with our guest Lynn Mettler of Families Fly Free. She's got a site and a podcast. She's been featured on the Today show on U.S. news and World Report as a longtime travel journalist. And Lynn, she takes her own medicine as well. She and her family, they travel and they fly for free about six times every single year. Doesn't sound like it's, it's even possible. So we're excited to learn all of her secrets. Lynn, thank you for joining us today on the podcast.
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A
Sure. Thanks for inviting me.
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Oh, yeah. We're going to get a lot of secrets out of you today, Lynn.
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C
Are you okay with that?
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All right, let's go.
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B
All right. Well, the first question we ask anyone who comes on the show is what their craft beer equivalent is. And what we mean by that is, Matt and I, we spend more on craft beer than the average person would think is sane, but we do it joyfully because we really like a good beer now and again. But what is that in your life? Is there something that you spend more on? And most people would say, lynn, that's crazy. Like, how do you, how do you fit that into your budget? What is that for you?
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A
Gosh, I mean, a couple things, definitely. Like, I'm a book lover, so I don't, I don't limit my budget on book buying. That would be one area, I think. But I think when it comes to travel, while we're going to be talking about how to fly for free, stay for free, all that good stuff today, what we found is when you learn how to do that, then you can splurge on other parts of your trip that you might not have otherwise because you say you didn't pay anything to fly there. And maybe you're staying for free so you can do excursions or maybe you eat, like, at a fancy restaurant or you do a VIP tour at Disney, something like that that you would never, ever have done because you have the money to do it because you save so much. So, like, recently, we were just in Paris.
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C
Yeah, give me an example. I want to hear it.
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A
Yeah. And so, like, we did a private tour of the castles of the Loire Valley because I'd always wanted to do that. It's been a bucket list thing for me to see those beautiful French castles. And so that was an example because we, on that trip, we covered our hotel and our flight.
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C
So I love it. No, I would totally do that. I wouldn't just Be looking to cut back and eliminate that cost altogether. But how can I not only do this maybe a little more affordably, but then kind of come out maybe even. But by exposing myself to just a.
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B
Vastly superior, much better trip overall experience? Yeah, absolutely. Still coming out less than the average person spends for not as cool of a trip?
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A
That's exactly it. Yes, you can have a way better trip and still spend less for it than you would on a very average trip.
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C
Like, what is it that pushed you down this path to begin with? Because obviously you teach others now about how to fly for free. You've got a membership, the cohort that folks can join, and we'll certainly point folks towards that at the end of the episode. But was it just a desire to travel more that led you down this path of learning all about flying for free?
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A
Well, I think. I didn't even think travel was a possibility for us. I really never gave that much thought. I was like, well, we just can't afford that, so maybe in our wildest dreams someday we'll be able to travel more. But I was really a couponer. So I think I have this, you know, mindset of how much can I get for how little? And as you said, I was a longtime travel journalist. And so I got pitched a story one day of this couple who was flying all over the world for free on frequent flyer miles. But what got me was they weren't earning those miles by paying for flights. And that was kind of a light bulb moment for me because my dad was a business traveler and I knew he earned frequent flyer miles flying Delta out of Atlanta. Right. But it was because he paid for those flights. And so they were doing. They were earning miles without paying for flights. So that's where I was like, well, that's interesting. Maybe I could. It's kind of like couponing, you know, you're like collecting miles just like you're collecting coupons and you're. But you're using them to pay for flights. And what a much better return than saving 50 cents or whatever, $5 here or there on groceries. But like, maybe I could figure out a way that we could fly on these miles and start to travel. So then I just decided to. To figure that out. And you know, it took me a couple of years to, to kind of narrow down a process that worked for us that wasn't crazy, time consuming or overwhelming. And. And then we started this flying six times a year for free wherever we wanted in the US and the Caribbean and Europe. And so I just decide I need to tell other people how to do this. This process that I figured out, it's pretty simple and it works, you know, well.
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And let's be honest, epic trips. Six awesome trips a year. That's way better than, like, discounted ketchup. That's so much better. Award. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is just so much richer.
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C
The zeros at the end of the number, when it comes to the savings are much more.
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B
Yeah. All right, Lynn, how many kids do you have? And please tell us, like, where. Where have you guys been able to travel thanks to these reward points? And, yeah, I don't know. I'm just curious. How far has this gotten you?
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A
So I have two boys and they are now 15 and 19. So I have one in college. So they're. They're starting to kind of get to the age where they're less interested in traveling. So I always encourage people to. To do it while your kids are at home, make those memories while you, you know, are all there together and they still want to go and they're not, you know, just want to hang out with their friends all the time before there's attitude. Yep. Or they off their devices to when they're driving and looking at something beautiful. Gosh darn it, you know, that kind of stuff. But so I would say, I mean, if we're. We've been doing this for, I guess, eight years now, and I think we've already flown six times this year. I think this might be a record breaking year for us. You know, the one we first kind of figured out how to do this for free around the US and then we branched out and did Grand Cayman. That was our first trip to the Caribbean. And we've done a lot of, like, national parks. We love Disney, so we go there frequently. We love the Rocky Mountains, so we love to go to Colorado, California, love Utah. There's so many great places in the United States to see. But I had always wanted to go to Europe, and I had been once, but my family had never been. And again, I just thought, well, this is not something we'll ever be able to do. Like, I would read under the Tuscan sun and just be like, oh, I'm never gonna get to see Tuscany, you know, but so we did this for a couple years and then I figured out, okay, how we could make this work for Europe. And we took all of us to Europe and we did, you know, Paris and we did Italy, and we got to see, you know, like, show the kids they got to see the Mona Lisa and they got to see the statue of David and they, you know, all these things that they're learning about. And so school I just thought was amazing that they actually got to see them firsthand.
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C
That's pretty cool.
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We bored them a little bit. Like we stayed over there for three weeks and then got tired of looking at churches. But, but anyway, it was, it was certainly an amazing trip. And then we've kind of realized that we can now go back to Europe like once a year, once every other year with our system of collecting miles.
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C
I love it. Well, okay, so before we kind of dive into the logistics of flying for free, Lynn, what do you tell folks just like right out of the gate about using credit cards and how these strategies can impact their credit? Because yes, if you're, if you're only focusing on just the end goal of traveling, it's like, oh, well, if that's the prize, if that's the goal, then I'm going to do whatever it takes. But of course, we are holistic individuals. Like we take a holistic approach. When it comes to your money, you want to make sure that you are handling your personal finance as well. So I'm curious because just a lot of the strategies involve using some of the different cards. How do you approach that balance of taking care of your credit while also trying to reap some of the rewards that you can get from those cards?
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Well, first of all, the way my process of doing this involves just a couple of credit cards. So I'm sort of anti have a wallet full of cards and constantly be opening cards to get the bonus on it that there seems to be a prevailing wisdom out there that that's how you do travel rewards and you don't have to do it that way. It's a lot harder that way and you get confused with what you owe on what card and all these annual fees and then you can get into trouble. Right? So, so we've mapped it out. It really comes down to understanding the right cards to put your day to day spending on. That's the key versus let me constantly be getting a new card and meeting the minimum spend and getting a big bonus. But of course we always encourage people to be responsible with credit cards. I have been in credit card debt myself, so I know what that's like and trying to get out of that. So we don't want you to do this if you know yourself and you can't pay that balance off. What I always recommend to people is, you know, if you're using it for your everyday spending. So you're charging your groceries then I like to just go in and pay that the next day because then there's no difference in me using my debit card and having those groceries come out immediately. Then there is for me using the credit card where I'm going to pay it right off the next day. It still came out of my checking account, so it's covered. I'm not stuck with a bill at the end of the month that I don't have enough money in the bank to cover. And I know you guys aren't 100% fans of Dave Ramsey and his, you know, all of his recommendations and I just, I hate that there's this again prevailing wisdom out there that credit cards are bad.
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B
Yeah.
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And we need to realize credit cards are just neutral. That's how we use them.
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B
Just a tool. Exactly. Yeah.
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That's good or bad. So if we can use them for good and we can understand how to use them for good and how to use them responsibly, man, you can save a lot, you know. So I just wish there wasn't just this blanket statement we should never use a credit card ever. Certainly we don't want to be in debt. And of course you want to get yourself out of credit card debt first before you would engage in anything like this. But yeah, I just think that as a society we need to re examine that statement.
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Yeah. Okay. So Matt and I, we talk about travel cards sometimes. Sometimes we talk about cash back cards, I guess you mentioned, oh, shopping at the grocery store and we like the Amex blue cash preferred shopping at the grocery store, the 6% back. And it's, it's a straight up cashback sort of play. But you are all about the travel. That is the thing you're going for. So I don't know, tell us, are we being short sighted using something like cash back rewards card some of the time. Should we be using travel cards all the time to buy everything?
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A
Well, that's my recommendation. If you're interested in traveling, you know, if you're not interested in traveling, of course, then go for the cash. Best cash back that you can get. But like I was just interviewing one of my members, she's on the pod, my podcast this week and she's a, you know, fi person and she was saying she'd always used her Citi double cash and she thought she was doing really great and you know, maybe she ended up with a thousand, $2,000 at the end of the year cash back. But now she saved $8,000 on trips they would never have taken or even known how to do. And how those two don't even compare. So the really the way I teach it is so you don't have to like again have a wallet of cards and be like, okay, I use this card for gas and I use this card for groceries and I use this card for dining. You know what I mean? It's designed to be simple. And so if you can pick one or two cards that you just use for your everyday spending, I think that just simplifies it for a lot of people. And then you just are constantly accumulating miles. And certainly, you know, if you could get a bonus on a card with a bunch of travel miles, that's going to be better than 2% cash back, of course. But you know, and it's just sort of personal preference. Like if you are going to get more value out of 6% on your Amex Blue cash on groceries and you want to do that, we'll do that, you know. But if you want to just keep it simple and just be like I'm going to pick between these two cards and just use that for everything, that's generally what we're advising nice to do. Because yeah, people are busy, you know.
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C
Sure, yeah.
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That's why I like the simple aspect.
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Doesn't necessarily need to be a part time job. And so you kind of kind of tease to the signup bonuses and definitely want to ask you some more about that here in a bit. But so can you just basically or quickly kind of outline. It sounds like you've kind of, you've got this very simplified three card method. What cards are you using and how are you able to use the cards and specifically those points to allow you to travel for free.
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The beginning of my process focuses on Southwest Airlines because they have the best program loyalty program to allow you to fly as many places as you want and bring your whole family with you. It's the simplest and you get the most value out of it. So we teach people how to first earn the Southwest Companion pass. And you can do that by applying for two Southwest cards. So that's really one and two. And the Southwest Companion Pass allows you to bring one person with you on any Southwest flight you take while you hold this pass for free. Free airfare. You pay the $5.60 security fee that none of us can get around. So $11.20.
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B
So we caught you, Lynn. It's not totally free.
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I know. I can't tell you how many times I hear that. So I have to make sure I say the. There is a security fee. It's the airfare is free, but you have to pay the security feeback. But you know, whatever. I'll pay 11 bucks any day for a flight.
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Sure.
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A
So, so that person can fly as many times as you want to fly while you hold the pass. And the pass is good from the time you earn it until the end of the following year. So we try to get our people on a system so they have it for almost two full years at a time because Southwest, kind of the way they word it, they want to tell you you need to be re earning it every year. It's kind of funny how they word it. Like yeah, I have one this year, but I need to be re earning the points again for next year's. Which is not how you want to do it.
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No, it's. Yeah, technically you can. So I mean it's a two year benefit.
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B
Right.
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So whatever year you earn it, you have it for the remainder of that year, but then the following year as well.
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It's funny, the worst case scenario is you get it in November, December and you don't get that two year mark.
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A
Yeah, well, and even like there's a lot of discussion out there about that, like well, I only want to get it if I can have it for almost two full years. And that is the ideal. And we get you on that. But like if, if. Let's just say it's September and if you could get this pass in November, you'd have a free flight in December. Well, get it because that's going to save you the cost of that flight. You're going to have it the following year and then we'll get you on our system to always have it for two years kind of a deal. So we start with that because there's no better deal going than eliminating the cost of one member of your family completely in points. You don't pay any points for them and in dollars. And then we show you Southwest, there's just a lot of tricks you can play with them to pay few points per flight just the, the way that their system is laid out, you know, inevitably like on a Delta or an American or United, you're probably going to end up paying around 20, 25, 000 miles round trip. If it's beyond driving distance. You might be able to find a better deal here and there, but for the most part that's what you're looking at. I mean Southwest now, not always, not during super busy times, but I mean we regularly fly for. We just saw people get 3,000 point round trip flights in October when they. No, not in October. It was just a couple months ago when they had a sale.
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B
I jumped on that one.
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C
Yeah.
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I think I got round trip to New York City from Atlanta for, I want to say, 5,600 points or something like that. Not bad.
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A
Exactly. So like, how many? You could take five of those for 25,000 points that you would likely pay on another airline.
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C
Hmm.
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A
So you get way more trips in. You're eliminating the cost of one person. And like we, you know, Southwest always has. Where if you book them in points. Really, if you book in cash too, but. And the price goes down, you can rebook that flight at no cost and get the difference put back in your account. So with cash you would get a credit, which we don't love. So we always teach people to book Southwest in points. But if you're booking in points. And so like we save tens of thousands of points just checking to see if the price has gone down after we book it.
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B
Wow.
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A
And getting points put back in our account because there's. They charge no change fees. They charge no cancel fees. So you can even like, like your flight from Atlanta to New York, you could have grabbed that. Not sure if you would take it or not. And if you ended up not taking it, you just cancel it and points go right back in your account.
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C
That's one of the. One of the benefits with Southwest because, I mean, and I've seen you talk about this as well, and specifically, I guess, kind of going back to the companion pass. But we're kind of comparing Southwest to Delta and some of the other carriers. Like, yeah, you can get a companion pass with Delta, but it is far inferior to the offerings that Southwest. Can you kind of talk about that and some of the other advantages that Southwest has over the other airlines.
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A
Yes. And I have a whole podcast on just that the difference between Southwest companion pass and Delta and Alaska is because so many people go, oh, but Delta has a companion pass. Yeah. So Delta's is one time only. And you have to pay for your seat in dollars. And then you can add your companion for free. Whereas on Southwest you can pay for your seat in points and add your companion for free. And that's what we teach you how to do.
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C
An unlimited number of times.
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Unlimited number of times.
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C
Yes, until that thing runs that. Which is incredible. I mean, and that's obviously one of the benefits of points as well, is that they never expire. I will mention I'm More of a travel points kind of noob. And I only realized this recently, but for some reason, I thought that you had to, like, quote unquote, spend your points in order to receive the companion Pass. But it's not about how many points you actually have in your account. It's about how many points you've earned over that period of time. And you can still use those points to book your own travel. It's just that they go towards. At this point now, it's 135,000 points in order to score that Companion passes. Is that, Am I understanding it correctly?
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A
Right. Yeah. So. And that is a common thing that a lot of people think when they're first learning about this. So you, you have to collect 135,000 points within one calendar year. So a lot of people mess that up too, between January 1 and December 31. Otherwise, the number of qualifying points you have starts at zero again on January 1st next year. So. But you just, it's just about, you said the collecting. You just got to collect them. It's like not about spending. So as soon as they are collected, they count toward your Companion Pass, and then you can use them to book flights. And that doesn't mean you lose their qualifications toward Companion Pass either. And that it's like a double bonus. So you're collecting 135,000 points. You get a companion pass to bring someone free, and then you use your 135,000 points to book everybody else in your family. And then there's so many ways to stretch those 135,000 points across many, many flights. You could choose to, like, fly to Hawaii over Christmas, and that probably will take the whole 135,000. Or you can, like what we did at the beginning in particular is we just looked for where is it cheap to fly to from Indianapolis that we haven't been. That we'd like to see. And so that's how we started. We were like, well, kids haven't seen New York City, let's go out there. Kids haven't seen the Rocky Mountains, let's go out there. We'd never been to Disneyland, so we did that. And so that's a way to save too, is just by picking places that are cheap.
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B
Yes, I love that too. Letting the deal drive the destination, whether you're paying in dollars or points, is a really good way to think about it instead of being like, oh man, I gotta get here during this date, this, this specific time period. Well, if you can be a little more flexible about where you're going like yeah, I'll take any of these cool 10 destinations, you're gonna in all likelihood be able to pay less whether it's yeah points or dollars. But Lynn, we've got more questions we want to get to with you. We want to go even beyond Southwest because they're great. But what to Europe like you just did? We'll talk about that. We'll talk about sign up bonuses, all that kind of stuff. We'll get some more with Lynn right after this.
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C
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C
That's right. Hire right the first time. Post your job for free@LinkedIn.com howtomoney. Then promote it to use LinkedInjobs new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's LinkedIn.com howtomoney to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Man, this is always the busiest time of the year. Yes, it is my favorite time of year. I love it. But the calendar gets pretty full between travel, trying to think of the best Christmas gifts, hosting friends and family. It can be really easy to lose sight of your financial goals because your spending is a bit out of control. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch, rated Wall Street Journal's Best Budgeting App of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or on your phone. And right now, just for how to money listeners, monarch is offering 50% off your first year.
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C
That's right. It makes me think you mentioned kids. Joel I might be having kids at this point, but my friends, my neighbors, they aren't. I've got family members who have a fresh baby at home as well and it is such an amazing season of life. But those changes should also bring about a reassessment of whether or not you've got your estate planning ducks all in a row. Trust and Will makes it simple and straightforward. Their easy to use website is simple to navigate and plus all your information, all your documents, they are securely stored with bank level encryption.
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C
All right, we are back from the break talking with Lynn Mettler of Families Fly Free. And Lynn, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounded like maybe you have a three pronged approach when it comes to flying for free is do you count multiple Southwest cards as one of those prongs or do multiple Cards count as part of that three card approach. Can you basically explain to us the rest of the rest of your approach for keeping things simple as families are trying to get their families places for free?
- [27:25]
A
Right. So yeah, I count those two cards. Those are first two and then the next part is really just picking the right card for your travel goals, picking a flexible travel card to focus on. And this is where I think a lot of people mess up. So many people come to me and they're putting all their spending on an airline card. Pick your airline, doesn't matter. It could be Southwest too. And the problem with that is you're earning a point only in that currency. So you can only use it with Delta or you can only use it with Southwest. And mostly on those cards you don't earn very many points per dollar in most categories of spending. So you're going to earn more when you buy something with Delta. But the whole idea here is for you to not have to buy anything with Deltas. So that shouldn't help you. So we recommend picking a flexible travel card. So like I really like Chase Sapphire Preferred, I also like Capital One Venture X. Both of those systems, the Chase Ultimate Rewards and the Capital One Venture system work very well. And so you are going to accumulate more points per dollar and different categories of spending. Capital one system gives you two points per dollar on everything, which is nice and simple. It's just a flat 2 points. Whereas Chase Sapphire preferred, you're going to get 2 points per dollar on travel, 3 points per dollar on dining and some other categories. So you're getting more points per dollar and you're getting a flexible point that you can use wherever you need it. So the Chase system is great in working with Southwest. So if you want to, if you need more Southwest points, you just accumulate them over in Chase and then you move them over to Southwest. You know, you can move your points to United, you can move it to get free hotel stays at Hyatt and Marriott and the InterContinental Hotels Group. But better yet, you can use, they have their own travel portal. So just like booking on an Expedia or something like that, you can go in and use your points to book almost any airline and almost any hotel within their system. And so that makes things infinitely simple. So you know, versus like trying to fly to Europe and collect Singapore Airlines miles and then use those miles to book in United because it's cost you less and then you have to look for an award seat and you hope that it pops up on a flight that you want to take. You know, I, that's not my jam. So I am looking for simple. I can go in these systems, I can book if I want to book a first class flight with my points, I can do that. If I want to book the nonstop, I can do it. If I want to find a cheaper one, that's an option too. And Capital One works very similarly and it's even more flexible in that you can book directly with the airline. So I could, that's what we did with our Europe trip is we booked a flight directly with Delta, we paid for it with that card. And then they have a way you can use your points to erase or pay for if you will, that charge.
- [30:25]
C
Nice. Well, I, I think your approach is great because it does keep it simple. And I think that's what keeps a lot of folks from kind of going down the path of trying to find ways to utilize these points and these miles in order to travel for free because it seems so daunting and overwhelming. But you mentioned, I love your approach how your third card is either the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Capital One Venture X to kind of fill in all the little nooks and crannies after you are maybe knocking out the bulk of your spending with the Southwest cards. What specific Southwest cards, by the way, are you liking these days? Is it the plus one or. I forget the names of the cards. But do you have a recommendation there?
- [31:01]
A
Yeah. So they have business cards. There's two business cards and then they have, I just call them personal cards to differentiate them from business cards. But there's three personal cards. So. And here's the thing with travel credit cards is yes, we do this keeps it really simple. But there's still all kind of rules that you have to know about how often you can get cards and you know, how many cards Chase will let you have and how much time you need to leave before applying for another one, that kind of stuff. So for example, Southwest has the three personal cards. You can hold only one of those cards at a time and you can get the bonus on those once every 24 months. So you're limited to one there. So there are three. And we recommend either the one with the cheapest annual fee, which is $69. So if you're looking to not outlet, you know, outlay as little as possible to do this, that would be the best option, but it has really no perks with it, or the most expensive one, which is the priority. And that one's 149 annual fee. But it comes with a lot of great Perks. So on Southwest, the downside of flying them is they don't give you your seating assignment in advance. So we have all kinds of ways we teach you to mitigate that. But so the perks that you get primarily with this priority card give you like earlier boarding orders, which mean you can pick your seat sooner or that it checks you in earlier, which also gives you an early boarding order. So if seating is important to you, you might want to opt for the one with the perks. And if you don't care about that, then we tell people, go with the cheap one, the middle one. There's really no benefit to having it. You pay a higher annual fee and you really don't. You get no international transaction fees.
- [32:48]
B
Okay, all right. Talk about sign up bonuses versus getting rewarded based on just the spending you're doing day in and day out. And there's so much chatter, so much excitement, so much of the time about, oh, the signup bonus, the 60,000 or the 75,000 or even more sometimes points or whatever that I'm getting when I actually get the credit card and meet that initial spending threshold, how important is that versus just the regular spending you're doing every day, day in, day out, and sticking it on those cards.
- [33:20]
A
So it's, you know, it's a combination of the two. So I don't say we aren't ever going for the card bonuses because you do need to do that from time to time, but we really limit it. We don't. The industry term is churning, which we don't recommend at all. So that means constantly opening, closing, opening, closing. So you do want to get as big a bonus as you can. Of course, when you're first opening these cards, you know, that's, you might as well rack up as many points as you can. And that really comes into play when you're earning the Companion Pass. You can get two card bonuses. Then you're close to or all the way to the 135,000 points you need. Companion Pass done. You know, and you got 135,000 points to start you off. And then you want to get a bonus on whatever your everyday spending card ends up being. And you know, some people like the Amex system, that would be another example, or Citi, they have a flexible travel system. But after that you can just focus on continuing to put your everyday spending on this flexible card. Or some people work with two cards, you know, it just depends on what you're up for. And we have found. So, you know, I've been doing this with my membership for. We're on three years now. And so we've had hundreds of members go through this. When you follow this system, I mean, we have people saving 5,000, 8,000, 10,000, $12,000 on travel just by doing this. So it absolutely can be done without continuing to add a bonus. And you know, another thing that's part of my system is you do need, we do recommend you always have a companion pass. So that means two years in the future, you're going to need to get another, and then you're going to get another chunk of 135,000 points. So that helps too, you know, like keeps replenishing your balance on top of your everyday spending.
- [35:11]
C
So, okay, so is that a good reason? So let's say you've got a partner, a spouse. Is this a good argument then for not adding them as an authorized user to that card and instead having them apply for that, say, that Southwest card two years off into the future?
- [35:29]
A
Yeah. So one thing we tell all of our people is not to add spouses as authorized users. Now, that doesn't prevent your partner or traveling companion, spouse, whatever, from getting that card themselves. So even if you didn't know this and they're already an authorized user on your card, that's okay. They can still get their own version of that card. But going forward, we don't recommend doing that because I don't think there's any need these days for that. Like, unless you physically need to have the card and almost everywhere now takes Google Pay or Apple Pay and you can just add it to your partner's Apple Pay and pay for it that way, if you need to use that.
- [36:12]
C
Card to have an actual separate device that allows you to make purchases in person.
- [36:17]
A
Right? Yeah. Like, if you need to put it on that card and you don't physically have two of that card because. Because that person's not an authorized user, that's a way around it. But again, like for Southwest, we're not recommending. You're putting your everyday spending on that. You just meet your minimum spend and then you move on from that card occasionally. Like, if you really needed to have your everyday spending card, both of you need to have that. That would be the one to do it on that one everyday spending card, your flexible travel card. If you just. I don't, I don't know. Kroger doesn't have Apple Pay where I live, for example. I don't know why. Get with it Kroger. But, you know, that would be an example where you might both need to have the cart. But the reason for this is we deal a lot in the Chase system, and Chase limits you to five. They won't approve you for any Chase cards if you've opened five cards of any type in the last 24 months. So we see a lot of people, you know, that have opened, you know, Kohl's or Home Depot or Old Navy, that when you get sucked in at the checkout and they're like, open a car today and you get 15% off.
- [37:19]
B
Or whatever, the worst cards you can.
- [37:22]
A
Get, basically, yes, don't do that. But everyone makes that mistake at some point. So now, you know now not to do that. But that counts as one of your five. Basically, it's limiting your ability to get travel cards down the road. And so being an authorized user counts as one of those five. Yeah, so that's why you want to be careful with that. You just don't want to limit yourself in any way if it's not needed.
- [37:43]
B
Kind of like a real estate investor not having, you know, too many loans. If you get husband and wife together, two people living in the same household, it limits your ability to get mortgages. It's. Yeah. Getting complex here.
- [37:56]
C
But.
- [37:56]
B
Okay, tell me this, Lynn. I want to know about business credit cards, because that is. You mentioned Southwest has some business credit cards and individuals can sometimes get business credit cards. Are those something that people should be pursuing instead of just personal cards? Is a little bit of both. Or how do you. How do you recommend people use some of those. Those business cards specifically to help them achieve these travel goals?
- [38:21]
A
Yeah, I absolutely recommend business cards and realize they're small business cards. So I think a lot of people hear business card and they think, well, I don't have a corporation or I don't have an llc, so I don't. I for sure don't qualify for that. And they just don't even think about it ever again. And really, all that means is that you have any kind of side income that's not salaried income. So, you know, that literally can. It could be having real estate, for sure. I see a lot of people miss that. Or, you know, owning vacation rental or, you know, it can be walking dogs, it can be selling things on ebay. And we have families who, before they go to Disney, they have a garage sale and sell their toys that they're not using anymore, and they use that to help fund, you know, maybe buy souvenirs or whatever, fund their Disney trip. That's a legit side income that would qualify for a Small business. So I.
- [39:10]
C
Doesn't seem like a quote unquote Wall street business, but.
- [39:13]
A
Yes, but it doesn't have to be.
- [39:14]
C
Exactly.
- [39:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. That's the whole thing. And so if you don't open your mind to that, you miss out on a lot of potential travel savings because a lot of those cards have the better offers and we do with the companion pass, want to pair two cards and you can only get one personal card. So you do need to be open to getting a small business card. They are sometimes a little bit more strict on their approvals and so they might decline you more often, but not for a reason like something's wrong with your credit. I have just found that they tend. Chase in particular, I think does like a random check and I think they just randomly decline a third of people and then they have you submit this paperwork and there's an easy way around. It's not around it but to satisfy that requirement basically then you're approved and then you move on. And so we. Everyone that we help get the small business card has been able to get it unless there would be some other like a credit issue or something like that or they're outside the 524 or something. Something to that effect.
- [40:17]
C
Yeah, that's sometimes the case. Oftentimes that's the case. And yet another reason why you need to be taking care of. Taking care of your credit score to make sure you can apply for some of these better offerings that are out there. But awesome. I'm glad that we've covered some of these specific cards. We'll make sure to list some of these out for folks. I feel like we've talked through a lot of details regarding some of the different business cards, the different Southwest cards. But. But this is a great approach, Lynn. I want to talk specifically about a destination Disney specifically because there have been a lot of reports of just these record low crowds at Disney lately. Seems like demand is down because of that. Have you seen any deals at either of the Disney resorts? Basically I'm wondering if now is a good time to book because you were talking earlier about. We're talking like the golden rule of travel, right. Letting the deal drive the destination. How closely do you follow different trends like this that you are seeing in particular when it comes to a place like Disney?
- [41:13]
A
Well, I follow Disney very closely because I personally love Disney and it's someplace again, my family likes to go. And I would say probably a third of our members are interested in Disney. And I actually just to my email list but created a product that shows you how to do Disney for free using travel rewards. So I took the the same approach I've done with travel rewards overall. A overwhelming, sometimes complicated lots of information and dialed it into a simple process. I've kind of done the same thing for Disney. So Disney, you know, I have seen these things about crowds are down. I mean, it's the middle of summer there is horrible.
- [41:56]
C
I mean, I would never as Joel knows he was just there. He came back weeks down in Orlando while his house was getting worked on.
- [42:02]
B
So yeah, June, June, July in Orlando.
- [42:06]
C
Is not the best.
- [42:07]
A
No. And I we have never gone during that time period because we lived in South Carolina for a minute and boy, the heat. So, yeah, we avoided it. So I think a lot of people do avoid it at this time of year because of that. And it's become where Disney is more popular like almost every other time of year. Like we've been, I feel like in every other month but summer and there's just always packed. So I don't really, in my personal opinion, think there's going to be a downturn at Disney. But we'll see. They are offering deals right now to book directly at the resorts. You can get like 25 to 35% off. I think it's. There's some like late summer deals and then there's some like October through December deals right now. But you can actually book Disney resorts. You can book off property, you can book, book vacation rentals, you can use travel rewards to do all of that. It literally is possible to do Disney for free now from start to finish. Whether you'd want to do that, you might want to use your travel rewards in other ways. Like, I like to really focus on making sure all of our flights are for free. And then if we can get some free hotel stays on top of that, we'll do some of that. But if your family just wants to plan this amazing Disney vacation, you know, you could literally do it. You can even get your dining free. It's kind of nuts.
- [43:23]
B
Can you get entrance into the park for free, too?
- [43:25]
A
Yes, you can.
- [43:26]
B
Okay, tell me about that.
- [43:28]
A
Yeah, so if you, you can use, you know, a card that like the Capital One system that basically the way it works is it lets you use the miles that you've collected over there to pay for any travel expense. So if you can get the park ticket to. This is a little bit in the details too. So sorry. But to categorize like the merchant category to be travel normally, if you buy direct from Disney, it's Entertainment. That's how it comes up. But if you buy through a travel agent or a site like Undercover Tourist, that will categorize registers as travel.
- [44:05]
C
And so then you can get your points to count towards those purchases.
- [44:09]
A
Exactly.
- [44:10]
C
Effectively erasing it. Lynn, that's good stuff.
- [44:14]
A
Yeah, there's a lot of little tips and tricks and hacks at Disney even, you know, on how to save. Like, I just did a webinar on. Most people think about, like, how do I cobble together all these little discounts? Well, you can do that. I mean, the big one's like, oh, free water. You can go anywhere and get free water at Disney. Right. You can do that. Or you can learn how to just cover the whole thing in its entirety with travel rewards, which just pales in comparison because, like I, the average cost right now to go to Disney is on the cheap end. 4800 on expensive in this for family for $10,000.
- [44:48]
B
Wow.
- [44:49]
C
Easily.
- [44:49]
A
So that's a huge savings.
- [44:50]
B
It's like couponing for ketchup versus doing travel rewards in general.
- [44:54]
C
Again, there are way more zeros at the end of that Disney trip than Disney cookies, and it does get more and more expensive.
- [45:02]
A
So the need to figure out a way to make it doable is becoming more and more important, you know.
- [45:08]
C
Sure, that's right. Yeah. Well, okay, so we're going to. We've got a few more questions for you specifically regarding, I guess, some of the other ways that folks can vacation, other places that they might want to fly to. And we will get to those questions right after this break. If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. That's why LinkedIn Jobs is stepping things up with their new AI assistant. So you can feel confident that you are finding top talent that you can't find anywhere else. The best part is those great candidates are already on LinkedIn. In fact, employees hired through LinkedIn are 30% more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. That's a big deal. Whenever you hire accounts, it's crucial to.
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C
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B
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C
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B
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- [48:33]
C
That's right, it makes Me think you mentioned kids, Joel. I might be done having kids at this point, but my friends, my neighbors, they aren't. I've got family members who have a fresh baby at home as well. And it is such an amazing season of life. But those changes should also bring about a reassessment of whether or not you've got your estate planning ducks all in a row. Trust and Will makes it simple and straightforward. Their easy to use website is simple to navigate. And plus all your information, all your documents, they are securely stored with bank level encryption.
- [49:03]
B
Add some peace of mind to your future with Trust and will go to trustandwill.com howtomoney for 20% off. That's 20% off@trustandwill.com howtomoney. All right, we're back from the break. We're still talking with Lynn Mettler about family travel for free. And Lynn, Matt and I, we were just remarking the other day about this new cruise ship that just launched. I don't know if you saw it. It's called Icon of the SEAS. It's got 20 decks, something. I mean, it looks like a city floating on the water.
- [49:36]
C
It looks like a Disney theme park like smushed onto a boat, basically.
- [49:40]
B
Basically. It's kind of preposterous. But speaking when we saw that, we were like, well, let's ask Lynn about getting a deal on a cruise or, or cruising for free. I know a lot of people you specialize in flying, hotel stay, stuff like that. But what about cruises? Like, do you have any tips for people who want to get out on the water? And yeah, that's the way they prefer to travel.
- [49:59]
A
So I'm not a cruiser, but a lot of my followers are. And so we do talk about cruising. There aren't a ton of great ways to save on a cruise. You can kind of use my trick there on Disney to pay for a cruise and use a card like that that erases travel purchases. That would be a way that you could go at it, you know. And there's other things about like certain times of year that are better to book cruises than others. But Disney cruises are very expensive as well. But, but popular. So cruising isn't my favorite thing to do. It's nice in that you get to see a lot of places in a short amount of time. But I don't know, we like more of the I don't we like about every other kind of trip except for, except for a cruise. That's our one thing that we don't.
- [50:46]
C
Not Lynn's cup of tea.
- [50:47]
B
I've never. I've never done.
- [50:48]
C
Yeah, I've never either, but it's good, people watching.
- [50:51]
A
I'll say that.
- [50:52]
C
I feel like it would be.
- [50:53]
B
I'm only partial. There's a couple I'd love to do. I want to do an Alaskan cruise someday because I hear you can get views of Alaska that you can't get from them from the mainland, but for the most part, I'm not interested either.
- [51:03]
A
Yeah, a European river cruise, that. That one's also would be of interest to me. Haven't done that yet, but I think that would be good on a small boat.
- [51:09]
C
So. Okay, so we're talking about cruises. Are there some other. From a trends standpoint, have you seen or noticed deals when it comes to different destinations? Like, for instance, seeing some different headlines as well. As far as more folks going to Europe, everyone's done the local US Thing after the pandemic. Everyone's got their road trips in. They've seen all the national parks. Is travel to Europe more expensive? Is it more affordable now to go down to the Caribbean? Have you noticed anything like that?
- [51:34]
A
Well, I mean, Europe prices are through the roof right now, so the average flight to Europe is $1,200. And, you know, it's. We were just in Paris, but it's definitely. It's bursting at the seams in places like Rome and Venice and Paris and all of that. Like, I think everyone this summer went international. So I keep reading stories about Airbnb suffering because they're not having as many bookings because everyone's overseas right now. You know, national parks have been, you know, continually at capacity. We have started to avoid those now because you have to have so many reservations. And even when you go, like, I feel like we're on hikes and we're, like, backing up against rocks to let people through, and that's not what you want. The whole idea is to be out in nature and get away. So I'm kind of ready for that to kind of slow down, you know, people to get over hitting all these major national parks. But, I mean, in terms of deals, I try to look at, where is everybody not going right now? So, like, I always talk about spring break because everyone wants to go to Florida or the Caribbean because I live in Indiana. It gets cold here. We've about had it by January, you know, but we try and we. So we're like, please, we need to get somewhere warm. But what we've done in the past, like, it's just expensive to go anywhere in Florida or anything over spring break is like one year we went, we went to Utah and we did hike, you know, Zion and Bryce Canyon because it was warm enough there that we could do it and then there was nobody there. So if you can kind of take that approach of going where everybody else is not thinking of going, that's a way you can score, you know, some better deals.
- [53:15]
B
Okay. Is it possible to get deals on Airbnbs, like to pay little to nothing for an Airbnb stay? And it seems like it's easier for hotels because you can book them through something like the Capital One or Chase Portal or, you know, they even have hotel specific cards like the, the InterContinental Hotel Group Premier card or something like that, which can be pretty rewarding. But so it seems like it's easier to get free hotel stays. But what about staying free at Airbnb? Is that possible?
- [53:44]
A
So you can use again, that the.
- [53:46]
C
Trick of the travel expense, be very.
- [53:50]
A
Careful over there because I think Airbnb codes as travel and traditionally like VRBO and some of the others did not. Now, just, just I had a, one of my team members, she booked a VRBO in the last couple months and hers did categorize as travel, but you just kind of never know for sure how that's going to categorize. Airbnb seems to be a safe one that you can do. But, and, and also when it comes to hotel stays, like, flying free is the easiest of it all. You can just fly a whole lot more places for free than you will ever be able to stay for free. So when I have people that, like, I don't want people to think they're always going to be able to stay for free, you should be able to get some free hotel stays, but not always. And like in families library, we try to teach people not just how to get flights free and stay free, but how to save on the whole trip. Because even if we can fly free six times a year, there's a lot of other expenses that come with that, like car rentals and eating out and the activities. So we try to show people, here's how to get the best deal on a car rental. Or we talk about renting other people's timeshares as a good option where you're out of pocket, but it's very cheap. So that could be an alternative to booking in points at a hotel and you get the space of a vacation rental.
- [55:11]
B
Can I ask where you would book somebody's timeshare? Would that be through vacation.com or something like that?
- [55:16]
A
Well, you can do that. The better thing to do is if you can find someone to work direct with. So, like, we let our members. We have a lot of timeshare members in there, like with Wyndham and Marriott and Disney Vacation Club, which I'm a member of, too. And so if you can work direct with someone, you cut out the middleman because they're going to take their cut, right?
- [55:34]
C
Sure.
- [55:35]
A
So, like, Koala is a site. I'm trying to think what the other. There's another big one out there that you can do timeshares, but it's more expensive that way because they're taking their middleman cut. So if you can, there's like Facebook groups and some different. Different ways, or if you just know someone that you can work directly with, that's a way you can really score a deal. Again, you can't use points for that one, but it'll be cheap, you know.
- [55:59]
C
No, that's great. Yeah. Again, just another way to kind of think outside the box and avoid doing whatever it is that everybody else is doing, whether that's the destination, like Europe, certainly avoid that right now. But also when it comes to maybe your lodging, wherever it is that you're looking to stay. But, Lyn, one last question here for you. Like, what do you think are some of the. Just honestly the biggest mistakes that folks make when they are trying to travel for free?
- [56:23]
B
Right?
- [56:23]
C
So this isn't just the folks who are out there just saying, okay, I'm gonna go on vacation, I'm gonna book it, but folks who are actually trying to do it on the cheap, folks who are trying to find those different deals, what mistakes are those folks making and how is it they can avoid those pitfalls?
- [56:38]
A
Well, when it comes to travel rewards, I think people learn about this concept and they're like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Like, I did this same thing, right? And so you're like, you see all these card offers out there, and they have a limited time, like, and I got sucked into, like, an American Airlines one. Right. But I had no plan for how I was going to use those miles. Didn't know anything about it. I was like, oh, that's. That's. It's. That's high bonus, and it's going away. And so I think the mistake is not having a plan. Right. You need to figure out where you want to go and. And how. How many points and in what system do you need to get there, and then you can decide, okay, then what cards do I want to add into the system? Because that's how you end up with all these extra cards that you. That get overwhelming and confusing, you know, is when you're just don't have a strategy. Right. You're just randomly taking offers. So I think that's a big one. And the other one that I would tell everyone to make sure you're not doing is, is putting all your spending on an airline card. I just see that one over and over and over and over again. And just that little shift to a flexible card can make a huge difference in your ability to, you know, be a lot more flexible and earn a whole lot more points.
- [57:53]
B
Lynn, that's awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for all the advice and the tips today. We really appreciate it. How can how to bunny listeners find out more about you and what you're up to?
- [58:03]
A
Sure. So you can go to familiesflyfree.com and pretty much everywhere on social media. We are just, just families fly free. So I'm particularly on Instagram and YouTube. Those are probably my top two places if you want to check us out there.
- [58:16]
C
Awesome. We will make sure to link to that and all that you've got to offer. Lynn, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
- [58:22]
A
Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [58:24]
C
And we appreciate Lynn, don't we, Joel?
- [58:26]
B
Yes, we do. My goodness, a lot of good info.
- [58:29]
C
I feel like Lynn was able to put into perspective travel rewards and traveling for free in a way that we, in a way that we quite haven't been able to decipher maybe from previous guests. And so my big takeaway is going to be just kind of how she boiled it all down to a very simple approach. And she kind of, I guess hit on it again there at the end. As far as sort of the biggest pitfall to avoid is that people start chasing some of these rewards without a plan.
- [58:57]
B
Right.
- [58:58]
C
Without a system. And she actually said to kind of.
- [59:00]
B
Choose makes me think of like someone running at the three mile race or something like that. If you go all out in the first two miles. Sorry. It doesn't matter how big of a lead you built up. If you're exhausted, then, then you're loose.
- [59:09]
C
Or in reality if you don't even know that you're running a 5K but it turns out, oh shoot, this is a marathon. Yeah, it's a, it's a completely different approach. And, and she said to kind of figure out where it is that you want to fly, but you don't always know, I guess, where it is that you're gonna fly. And you don't always know where the deals are gonna be. But then she followed that up with find a system, figure out a system that's gonna work for you. And that's, I think, what's so great about how she approaches this. And to specifically get that companion pass with Southwest, how that can essentially knock out 80% of your cost right there, your ability to fly. I mean, Southwest, they don't only fly in the US but also up in, what, Canada, some Mexican destinations to the Caribbean.
- [59:48]
B
Can't get to Paris, you can't get everywhere but that. That'll at least for a lot of domestic stuff. And for the the best deals on domestic airfare, Southwest is going to be.
- [59:57]
C
The best way to go.
- [59:58]
B
And so many less points. You're going to use so many less of the points that you earn.
- [60:01]
C
Yes.
- [60:01]
B
When you fly on Southwest than with some of the other areas.
- [60:03]
C
Kind of did the math. It's like you're talking about maybe five flights for every one Delta flight. And so how much is flying with Delta? And hey, we're here in Atlanta, right. So we're like Delta homers here. We like Delta. They're a great company. But is it worth five times, Is it worth paying five times more effectively in points? Would you rather take four more flights in addition to that one? Maybe that's what it is that you're looking for. Ultimately, it comes down to whatever game it is that you're playing. But I really liked her approach, specifically focusing on Southwest and figuring that out and then figuring out your destinations from there.
- [60:36]
B
And then, yeah, like you said, filling in the nooks and crannies. What's that? Flexible card English muffin. How when you spread the butter over the top, that butter is going to seep into those nooks and crannies and that's what those other cards are for. The Capital One Venture X and the Chase Sapphire Preferred. So if you just kind of take that three or four card strategy that she's mentioning, you can get a lot of your bases covered and you can travel a lot for free, even if you have a family, which I think rocks.
- [60:59]
C
So, absolutely.
- [61:00]
B
We'll link to some of those, by the way, in the show notes. We'll link to our credit card tool as well, which can help you see what the best signup bonuses are on each of these cards. Although that's right, that's not even the only thing worth considering. But it is worth considering that at the same time. My big takeaway, though, from Lynn was.
- [61:13]
C
Let me hear it.
- [61:13]
B
She it was kind of a mindset thing at the very beginning. She said, my approach is, how much can I get for how little? And to me, that is kind of.
- [61:20]
C
It's got you written all over it.
- [61:22]
B
She's not necessarily looking for the cheapest piece of crap, which I used to be more in that kind of vein, that mentality. But she's a valueist and she's saying, listen, I want to take the same trip or maybe even a better trip than most people get to take, but I don't want to spend my cold hard cash on that trip. And I thought it was amazing too. She doesn't come from this place where she was already traveling, but now she's saving. This process enabled her to travel and do things she never thought were even possible. So I think that's pretty cool and that should be inspiring to a lot of people out there who are like, I too wish I could travel, but it doesn't seem like there's any way for me to make that happen. And I think her simple strategy can help a lot of people get out there and see the country and even see the world while still kind of keeping a pretty good budget and saving and investing a good bit of their money.
- [62:10]
C
Yeah, yeah. You could either drastically cut back on your travel budget and travel just as much as you were before, or you could continue spending how much you have been spending and just see, you know and do and travel a lot more. It kind of, again, depends on what your situation is and how much money you're willing to put towards travel. But, Joel, let's mention the beer that you and I got to share during this episode. This is another halfway crooks beer. And I think the way that you say this is Che said dj. So literally says that on the side. You're supposed to say it as Chase the dj, but. So this is an Italian style pilsner and it's che sedice. If only we were with dj. Like not dj. Yes, like che sedice.
- [62:53]
B
Yeah, like como sedice.
- [62:55]
C
Oh, what does that mean?
- [62:56]
B
I forget.
- [62:58]
C
Seize the day.
- [62:59]
B
My Spanish is rusty. So this is, I guess in Italian, but yeah. Only we were drinking it on the Amalfi coast or something like that.
- [63:05]
C
If only we had a way of figuring out how to get there. Fly there there for free. Well, we do, but this is 100% the kind of beer that I want to be drinking while I'm enjoying a nice pizza. Like a Neapolitanist style. Right. So you got that brick or not brick oven, but a wood burning oven and They've got the pizza in there, they're rotating it around. Maybe a little bit of spice. And because of that you need just a nice cold but very clean drinking beer.
- [63:31]
B
That's what you get with this in ipa. You don't want the like the. No, you massive hot punch to come right after that massive pizza punch. You want something a little more dialed back. This is exactly that. This did have flavor though. Like it wasn't flavorless like a lot of the macro style pilsners. This one, this had a lot going on. Unlike the. The macro pilsners that most people used to taste like water. Yeah.
- [63:51]
C
Tastes like sweat or tastes like your.
- [63:53]
B
Uncle used to smell. Right. And so this is.
- [63:55]
C
Glad you follow that up.
- [63:58]
B
This is much more refined than the traditional pilsner. You're used to the macro produced ones.
- [64:04]
C
It's the Italian style. So it's kind of got that gyro pills flavor. I don't know how to describe it. Like. Well, maybe I do. It reminds me of the fresh garden hose or popping open a fresh can of tennis balls. Sort of like that. Maybe that slight rubberiness that wine drinkers that sometimes you get with a Riesling. I think that's accurate. I don't know if the wine part is accurate, but that sort of rubber element is totally what I taste. But yeah, I totally agree. You don't want to drink a super flavorful beer. Like the last thing you want is a barrel aged spicy stout or something like that when you're eating a pizza or honestly any food.
- [64:39]
B
I rarely drink great beers when I'm eating great beers.
- [64:42]
C
I know if I am, I want.
- [64:43]
B
It after the fact.
- [64:44]
C
It's something really basic. I tend to enjoy my beers either before dinner or after. After I eat. Yeah. Just like you. So it makes a lot of sense.
- [64:51]
B
Otherwise you're losing some of the greatness and the flavor of that beer. It's getting lost in the food.
- [64:55]
C
That's right. Yep. So glad you and I got to enjoy this one. And I'm glad that we got to chat with our friend Lynn Mettler today. We'll make sure to link to not only her site and where you can check out her membership program, the Families Fly Free group. She's got an awesome cohort there. But we'll link to some of the specific cards that we mentioned as well so that you can start along this path of taking advantage of some of the different travel rewards that these cards are offering. Joel, I really do see more travel in our future. I think you, you do as well And I think a large part of that is going to be because of how it is that Lynn approaches travel.
- [65:29]
B
Yeah. I just don't want to pay for it. Right. So.
- [65:30]
C
Yeah. And I don't have to think about it too much. That's the other half of it.
- [65:34]
B
I don't want to complicate it too much. Well, and some of the guys, some of the influencers out there definitely do that. Lynn does not, so. All right, Matt, that's going to do it. For this episode. You can find show notes, links to some of the cards we mentioned, links to Lynn's site. We'll put all that up on the website@howtomoney.com that's right, buddy.
- [65:49]
C
So that's going to be it. Until next time.
- [65:50]
B
Best friends out.
- [66:07]
C
Did you know Microsoft has officially ended Support for Windows 10? Upgrade to Windows 11 with an LG Gram laptop? Voted PCMag's Reader's Choice top laptop brand for 2025. Thin and ultra lightweight, the LG Gram keeps you productive anywhere. And Windows 11 gives you access to free security updates and ongoing feature upgrades. Visit LGUSA.com iheartra for great seasonal savings on LG Gram laptops with Windows 11 PC Mag. Reader's Choice. Used with permission. All rights reserved. What a matchup we got, y'.
- [66:40]
A
All.
- [66:40]
C
This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action. The band is rocking and the crowd lit. Chance echo, drum beat. Everybody showing that school pride game like this. Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there.
- [67:00]
B
Mmm.
- [67:01]
C
Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors everywhere. And in ice cold Coca Cola, that's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca Cola and keep that acid HBCU pride going. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know, one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch.
- [67:45]
A
Upfront payment of $45 per three month plan. Equivalent to $15 per month for required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 GB if network's busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com this is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.