← So Money with Farnoosh Torabi
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- [00:02]
Farnoosh Torabi
Looking for a high yield savings account or car insurance? I've curated my Go to Financial tools all in one place@somoneylinks.com these are the resources I trust, presented in partnership with Money magazine. So Money Links is no overwhelm, no fluff, just solid vetted options to help you save more and stress less. So moneylinks.com check it out.
- [00:28]
Dan Rodriguez
Hey, it's.
- [00:28]
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through August 26th, it's back to Deals time where you can enjoy storewide deals and earn four times points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Lindor, Oreo Lays, Celsius, Cottonelle and Snapple. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pick up or delivery subject to availability restrictions. Apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [00:56]
Joe from Vanta
Hi, this is Joe from Vanta. In today's digital world, compliance regulations are changing constantly and earning customer trust has never mattered more. Vanta helps companies get compliant fast and stay secure with the most advanced AI, automation and continuous monitoring out there. So whether you're a startup going for your first SoC2 or ISO 27001 or a growing enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta makes it quick, easy and scalable. And I'm not just saying that because I work here. Get started@vanta.com.
- [01:27]
Farnoosh Torabi
Lately I've been turning to Quince for just about everything. Clothes for me, pieces for my kids, even stuff for the house. If you don't know Quince yet, they make high quality, timeless wardrobe staples like cashmere sweaters, linen sets, silk tops and denim for a fraction of what you'd pay elsewhere. And with this late summer heat wave, I just picked up some new linen tops and bottoms because I was running out of the good stuff. I Everything from Quince fits beautifully and feels amazing light, breathable and effortlessly polished. I also grabbed a few new bathing suits for my daughter, who's growing faster than I can keep up. The quality is just as good, if not better than more expensive brands. And that's the beauty of Quint. They work directly with top factories, cut out the middlemen and pass the savings to us. Most pieces cost half as much as similar luxury items, and they're made with premium fabrics in safe, ethical factories. Elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with quince. Go to quince.com for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com somoney quince.com so Money so Money episode 1868 the Points Playbook. How to unlock first class travel including free flights and VIP perks.
- [02:44]
So Money Podcast Narrator
You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money.
- [03:10]
Dan Rodriguez
I'm not against these cards. I just want to make sure that people know the right way to use them. I have a couple of them. They give you lounge access but again, are you actually getting the use out of these things? Because there are other options and ways to save money but still earn the same amount of points and still go on the same trips.
- [03:26]
Farnoosh Torabi
Welcome to so Money everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi.
- [03:28]
Well, summer's not over yet and I know that many of us are looking.
- [03:32]
Ahead to the fall and we're getting.
- [03:35]
Our ducks in a row. Maybe we want to plan some travel. I know for our family we're looking at the month of November as a potential travel month, believe it or not.
- [03:43]
And not because of Thanksgiving. I hate to travel during Thanksgiving, but because in New Jersey we have a.
- [03:49]
Number of days off in this one week. Usually it's the election week and and so many families take off the entire week and make a whole trip of it.
- [03:57]
Many go to Disney World.
- [03:59]
One year we went to France. This year I don't know where we're gonna go.
- [04:01]
But I'm excited because I've got some.
- [04:03]
Tricks up my sleeve that I learned from our guest today, Dan Rodriguez. He's a travel expert who has turned his decades of globetrotting into a career helping people earn and maximize points and miles. He's a certified travel advisor with Fora Travel where he there helps clients unlock VIP perks and luxury experiences. He also has a substack called holy trip you guys and an Instagram which I'll link in our show notes. And what we're going to learn today is basically how to travel smarter, how to earn points, leverage them. This conversation was actually originally recorded inside the so Many Members club where Dan joined us for an in depth workshop earlier this summer on mastering travel rewards. So consider this kind of a sneak peek of the kind of learning and access you can get inside the club.
- [04:54]
And stay tuned.
- [04:55]
This fall I'll be rolling out Some exciting new classes that are going to.
- [04:58]
Be open to everybody. All right, if you've been thinking about.
- [05:01]
Travel, now might be a good time to book. The current slowdown in travel could be your ticket to some of the best deals we've seen in years.
- [05:08]
Here we go, back by popular demand is Dan Rodriguez to talk about traveling with points. And not just with points, but let like the precursor to this, which is how do you even get the points? How do we get the miles? We're going to get into the basics of points as well as the strategy behind points, accumulating them. Things to look out for, how to get the most bang for your points buck. And then there are some updates and news that are related to this. We have a slowdown in travel. What does that mean for points? There are some new applications.
- [05:44]
What does that mean for me?
- [05:45]
Getting the most out of your points. So, Dan, maybe just refresh us a little bit on how you got so smart on points. And lately you've been diving deeper into the travel world. You've become a certified travel advisor. You have a substack that educates people on all things travel and points.
- [06:03]
So take the floor and tell us.
- [06:04]
A little bit about yourself.
- [06:06]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah, travel's been. Thank you. It's been a. It's been a passion of mine for a long time now. As a teenager, I toured with bands and I got to see the whole country. And I've spent the last 20 years in advertising and marketing, which has sent me all over the world on shoot locations and things like that. And I hit a certain point in my life where I was like, I need to make all this travel work for me. There's all these loyalty programs and I'd see these road warriors at the breakfast counter, these old dogs, salesmen, traveling salesmen who clearly knew how to work the system. So I knew there was something more. And that's what kind of sent me down the rabbit hole of message boards and bloggers at the time, which has now since evolved into a whole explosion of travel influencers in the once in a while space. That's what got me into it. And I've accumulated a wealth of knowledge over the last 10, 15 years. And most recently, yeah, I have always used travel advisors selectively. And we'll get into what the benefits of that are. And I've been the expert for all my friends, all come to me, ask me to help me plan a trip, which hotel should I stay at, where's the best deal? And I do 80% of the work for my travel Agent I just feed up for him because I want it to be so perfect for my friends. And I've realized like, why don't I just do this? I'm already doing all the work anyway. A little side hustle too, which obviously I know the club talks about the gig economy a lot as well. That's a whole interesting new world. The VIP travel advisor stuff that's really taken off in the last five to 10 years.
- [07:22]
Farnoosh Torabi
I love this resurgence of so many things that maybe we relied on in the past that are making a comeback. I think because people do want. We were talking about this before you were live here. Just they want more hyper local, hyper personalized content advice. So a good way to test any viable business is what are the things that people are always asking me about that that usually signals where your expertise, where it lives. So let's just get into the basics of. I don't want to assume that anyone watching this has any understanding of points. We want to talk about how they work. The differences between the flexible travel miles or points that we can accumulate versus the hotel specific rewards. Points or points. There's rewards. There's a whole world of like rewards too, which we didn't, I didn't really plan on getting into. But that's like another category. You like to talk about points as currency, which I think is great because then it covers a lot of. It covers sort of the whole landscape. When you say currency.
- [08:22]
Dan Rodriguez
Absolutely. And it follows a lot of the same kind of traditional financial. I talk about diversification of your portfolio and stuff like that. Yeah. Travel points are rewards, currency. Think of them as a rebate on your spending and everyday shopping. You can earn them in a number of ways. There are rewards programs with banks. There are the different airlines and hotels and cruises that offer their own loyalty programs. But there's also things like cashback and shopping portals which have been around for a long time. Those have moved into the travel space as well. So not everything we're going to talk about today requires a credit card. Credit cards are a great way to earn points, but there's a number of ways that you should really just think about it as a rebate on your shopping and that's how you can maximize it and figure out what's the most I can get back and then how can I leverage that for the most return.
- [09:10]
Farnoosh Torabi
So let's talk about some of the nuances within this world. So you mentioned sometimes you go to on a cruise and that cruise line has its own kind of point system. I guess depending on your Travel habits determines where you should lean in terms of signing up for, whether it is the credit card or a program that promotes frequency of travel with them. And then you get points in exchange, or miles as it may be.
- [09:39]
Dan Rodriguez
Yep. The nice thing about it is none of these things are mutually exclusive. Oftentimes you can stack earnings together. So it's always free to join any loyalty club for a hotel or an airline. So you should just have those regardless, in case you ever wind up staying at one of those hotels. And then so you'll earn with those various saves and flights. But also the spending that you put on the right credit card will get you back additional points. So I think this takes us into what is the difference between flexible currencies with the airlines and the hotel. So a lot of the viewers here, they might have, say a United car, a Delta car, Marriott car, because that's the program that they thought they were loyal to and enjoyed. The banks also offer their own big credit cards. The Chase Sapphire is very popular. Amex has their Platinum, they're gold. There's Capital One, there's Citi, that earn their own branded points. Those points can be redeemed through, through the portals, which is the most common way that they're used. You log into amex.com, you redeem your Amex points for a flight right there. What a lot of people don't know is that they also transfer, and that's why I say that they're flexible. So these banks have partnerships oftentimes with those same airlines and hotel chains. So you can take for example, your Chase points. And rather than being loyal to United and only earning United miles, which will stay United miles forever and are subject to the whims of that program, if they decide tomorrow that they want to change the terms of the program, how you earn, how you redeem what they're worth, they can do it like that. If you have no recourse after building up the stockpile over a number of months or years with your United partners, you could alternatively have a Chase card, which earns Chase ultimate rewards, often at a higher glit, maybe even than some of the United cards, and then transfer them, if you want, on a one to one basis to United, so they always were United points anyway. Or you have the option of using them in various other ways. You could transfer them to different airlines, you could transfer them to Hyatt hotels, you could transfer them to Marriott or Hilton. So it protects you in the event of either there's a devaluation or there's Just a specific redemption or a deal that that comes up that really appeals to you. And you're not saying, oh, I invested everything and put all my eggs into the one basket.
- [11:55]
Farnoosh Torabi
So United let's, because you brought it up, I live in New Jersey, so their hub is here and we fly United almost all the time now. But I'm a member of their rewards program which is free to me. And it's not as I would guess, it's not going to accumulate for me the miles as quickly as say if I had a United branded credit card where immediate, immediately upon signing you get whatever, how many tens of thousands of miles. Maybe it gets you a free domestic one way flight. My understanding is that United is part of an alliance, that there are other partner airlines that just partner with JetBlue. So am I wrong to assume that if I am accumulating United points or rewards or whether it's from their credit card or from their rewards program that can transfer to any of their partner airlines? Because you. It sounds like I can't. But that was my assumption.
- [12:45]
Dan Rodriguez
It depends, and that's what I'm saying are the terms that are always moving and changing. They have all their Star alliance partners and sometimes those partners release award space to United. So you could use your United miles to book a Swiss Airlines flight or Tap Portugal. The rates at which those redemptions are available is subject to United's policy. So today they could be worth something, tomorrow they could be worth something else. That partner may decide they don't want to release them at all. And that goes both ways. Later, when we get into good earning strategies, there are guides that give you the matrix on how to figure this stuff out. For a long time, booking United flights directly with United was not the best value and may not still be. There's Air Canada, Aeroplan, there's a South American airline called Avianca LifeMiles which are transfer partners of Chase and Amex. And you'll often see them rather than, let's say 88,000 United miles for a business class on United. For up until recently Air Canada was releasing that award space for 60,000. So that's an example of where having the flexibility of a Chase point versus being locked into United can work in your favor.
- [13:56]
Farnoosh Torabi
So it sounds if you're just getting started and you're not really particular about how you travel or where you stay, to have a bank card that is most flexible is the best place to start.
- [14:12]
Dan Rodriguez
I think so, yeah. Especially when you're talking about getting started out and it's not like you're going to have a huge stockpile and you want to be able to use those rewards in a relatively soon time frame. Just giving yourself that flexibility of protection is really useful. And then also there's. We'll get into later. The different cards are in different things. So switching to the different example, off the top of my head, the Delta cards, those are super popular with Amex. This is just one specific example of one feature of these two cards. They earn double miles on dining, which sounds really great. Wow. I'm getting two Delta miles for every dollar I spend on dining. The Amex gold card is 4 miles on dining and groceries. So you can use those four points per dollar instead of two. And if you so choose, sure, transfer them into Delta or use them for other things. But even on the earnings side, you're still getting more by using that card. Again, that's one specific example.
- [15:06]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah, I have a card that's not a travel card, but it's a platinum. It's Amex Platinum business Platinum. And so they've got their kind of travel concierge there where you can use your points to book there. And it comes with special perks like free breakfast usually and late checkout, early check in upgrades, all that. But the bonus too is that if you do book with Amex, all the say you book like a hotel stay and it was $2,000, now you're getting four. You get five times the amount you purchased in points. So suddenly a $2,000 purchase becomes 10,000 points where normally it's a dollar for every point. So I'm benefiting from this and like I'm a real life example of what you just described. What are some other kind of interesting ways to accumulate points quickly? You talked about like gift card purchases, shopping portals.
- [16:01]
Dan Rodriguez
Yep. So shopping portals are a real great secret sauce. And again, it comes down to what your preference of what works. Like you mentioned, we're hub captives here with United at Newark. Folks in Atlanta might be more loyal to Delta, but all the main airlines, all of the hotel programs, and then all of the banks, including Rakuten, which is a really popular cash back website, they partner with Amex to provide membership rewards. Okay, so the way those portals work are say you're going to do some shopping for me. It's always pet food at Petco. You might be going to Old Navy for back to school shopping. You might need to stock up at Sephora. You go to that shopping portal and you locate that retailer and you click a link and then all it does is a Simple cookie and a redirect and then you're back on that retailer's old navy.com or whatever. You're not shopping or spending any money through anyone else any differently than you've already worked. Your purchase is tracked and then you eventually get a rebate back. So that might be 2, 3, 4, 5 miles sometimes over the holidays. Over the 4th of July, Petco on Rakuten was 12 points back per dollar spent at Petco. So on top of the earnings that I would get from the credit card anyway. So if I use the card for double miles at Petco and I use the shopping portal, I got back 14 points on every dollar that I spent thinking of it as a rebate. If I value those points at 2 cents a pop, I'm getting 28% back, which could be really significant. I get a lot of people say I just don't spend enough money and I'm like, we live in America. We spend a lot of money on every dollar.
- [17:31]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah, you.
- [17:33]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah.
- [17:33]
Farnoosh Torabi
So you mentioned Rakuten. What are some others that do? What are some other shopping portals that reward you for using their portal in the form of points?
- [17:43]
Dan Rodriguez
If you're a Chase customer, they have one. Capital One has one. United, Delta, American Airlines. American Airlines is a really interesting one because if you use their portal, it also counts against your status. So if you're chasing status with American, that might help get you over the humor. Marriott has one. So, yeah, basic, there's probably 10 or so and there's resources and I'll provide links after this. But there's actually a. There's a search engine just for shopping portals where you can type in. I need to go to Sephora. Which one has the best offer right now?
- [18:13]
Farnoosh Torabi
This wasn't on my checklist of questions, but how can we use AI to learn or sort of understand how to best optimize for our rewards? And then I want to get into some of the cool places you've traveled.
- [18:28]
Dan Rodriguez
On points, but yeah, that's a great question. I think those tools are only now starting to emerge and it's going to become an arms race. There's been some news in the last couple weeks about airlines are going to start using AI in the hopes of dynamically charging us based on what each of us are willing to pay based on factors that are behind a curtain. You're going to see tools that are going to counter that also and help you find ways around it. A lot of the stuff isn't AI necessarily, but I'm going to get into some tools like browser plugins and things like that that let you search for Google flights, let's say and we'll actually pull up side by side the cash rate along with all the different points currencies that are available to you and what is and isn't a good value. So I think we'll see more of that emerge. I use ChatGPT for planning my trips, for doing some research, for helping me think through problems. But as with anything AI it makes a lot of false assumptions or yeah, it pulls some spotty data. It's good for inspiration. I don't TR it fully to make decisions for me yet.
- [19:26]
Farnoosh Torabi
All right. Okay. I pulled these from your okay. Substack. I did a little sleuthing and I'm really curious. I think I know where these are. I think the one on the right is Provence.
- [19:39]
Maybe it is.
- [19:40]
Dan Rodriguez
It is. It's a village deep in Provence and the name escapes me at the moment but yeah, this is probably a two hour drive outside of Exim Provence. I went chasing for the best vistas for lavender fields and I like to hang out. Yeah, that was a great. The middle Zamoffy Coast, Positano. That's speaking of the luxury hotels that we'll get into later. That was part of one of the programs where I paid the same rate I would have paid for that hotel. But because I booked through VFA VIP agent I got a room upgrade credit to spend at the spa and breakfast was included every day including the option to have it as room service. So we had breakfast every morning on our little terrace. Wow. Iconic view.
- [20:19]
Farnoosh Torabi
A friend of mine in town is also a luxury travel agent. It's a. It's no cost to her clients meaning the travelers, but she gets paid from on the other end and say it's so I'm curious to learn more about this as like how it works and who gets to work with these sorts of travel agents because I bet they'd be. They have some criteria. Very cool. So like a lot of bank cards we are in a fee hiking environment. I guess this is. This was a little bit of news to me but tell me more about what's happening from the fee world. And then this of course eats into any benefits you might get using that card if you're not getting back the fee at least. Like it's obviously a non starter.
- [21:06]
Dan Rodriguez
That's exactly right. The short story is that the banks are looking to start turning a profit. Yeah they've been in growth mode for the last year decade or so as many industries have been and now shareholders come looking for returns. The way that they're going about it is by. Or they're spending it, I should say to customers, is what those in the industry call coupon booking. Your Platinum, for example, they love to promote the fact that you're paying, I believe a 695 fee a year now. But they. You get this many credits towards Uber, you get this many credits at Dell, and you get this many credits towards hotels. Often those are time gated and they're broken up into quarterly or biannual credits or monthly credits. And they have all sorts of different caveats. Just like a coupon book, the business is built on the idea that there's no way that you are going to be organized and meticulous enough to make sure that you maximize all of those different credits. If those are credits for things that you even want, either. Chase has doordash. I know a lot of people that just don't do food delivery. So for me, I might say, yeah, the 300 bucks a year is as good as cash because I order delivery so much. But not everybody does. Chase just had a major rebrand of their flagship car, the Chase Sapphire Reserve. It used to be a 595 fee, which was already up from 400. Used to be, yeah. Now it's 795. They just launched it at the end of last month. The offering is you get $2,700 a year worth of credits. And again, it's sure, if you want Apple Music, if you want $300 of StubHub credits, if you're going to use the doordash credit, which is broken up into 25amonth at $10 individual, one time.
- [22:44]
Farnoosh Torabi
Use the rationing doordash.
- [22:47]
Dan Rodriguez
Right. You need a spreadsheet to manage this stuff. Right. And Amex also said Platinum's going to get a major refresh, which they never make vague announcements. So it was really odd that months ahead of time they just wanted to steal cases on there and they said something's big, it's going to come from us. The speculation is they want to go up to $1,000 a year and make it a really hyper luxury card. And I'm sure they're going to offer some great benefits.
- [23:08]
Farnoosh Torabi
So much.
- [23:09]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah. Are you going to actually get a thousand dollars? I know people that don't use the personal card has $100 a year broken up into 15 twice a year for Saks, which is cool. But what are you going to get with 50 bucks at Saks?
- [23:21]
Farnoosh Torabi
You're spending money to save that money. And then you're still spending money to have the card. Yeah, it does take a spreadsheet and then at some point it's just a status thing. People like to have cards because of its stat, their status symbol too.
- [23:35]
Dan Rodriguez
I'm not against these cards. I just want to make sure that people know the right way to use them. I have a couple of them. They give you lounge access. But again, are you actually getting the use out of these things? Because there are other options and ways to save money but still earn the same amount of points and still go on the same trips. So the Delta and United cards, by the way also went up significantly. I have the mid range United card which is now 325 a year I believe. So you know, you can very quickly add up a few thousand dollars in annual fees if you're not paying attention to the different parts in your wallet. How do you combat this? Yeah, the first thing is one, knowing what you're, what you have offered and how to maximize those credits. The second is a retention bonus. Chase is a little stingier. Amex is pretty well known for being generous about this. But you have the ability to call the bank just like you do with your cable company and say I got hit with the annual fee. Usually it's good if you do it right around the time that your annual fee hits or just before and say I just, I'm not. Especially with these hikes, I'm not comfortable paying this much and I don't think I'm getting the value. Do you have, you can just straight up ask, do you have a retention offer to entice me to keep the card another year. And you'd be surprised that two years ago for the Amex Platinum, I got a 40,000 point retention bonus, which is pretty significant. There was a nominal spending requirement attached to it that was easy to check off. I've gotten 20,000 for the Amex Gold, 10,000 for the Green. They're pretty good about it. There are scripts available online if it's the kind of thing that makes you nervous. I don't even have to leave the Amex chat in the app. It's about a 10 minute process, if not less. So it's really easy. And that'll float you for another year or two and take this thing out of the fee.
- [25:09]
Farnoosh Torabi
So it's not like they're going to cut the price of the fee, but they can give you something valuable that you can then use to leverage, whether that's like tens of thousands of miles to help bring down the cost of your next hotel or flight is that typically what you get in exchange is that the barter?
- [25:28]
Dan Rodriguez
Sometimes they offer a credit against the fee or they might give you an option. Very rarely is the credit worth it if you intend on using those points. So I think so I'd rather have 40,000 points, which to me is worth $800 or so than a 50 or $100 credit against my annual fee.
- [25:45]
Farnoosh Torabi
And typically the ratio now you just doubled, you did 2x. But 1 to 1 is what I've also heard is like standard. 1 point or 1 mile for is $1.
- [25:55]
Dan Rodriguez
So that's what we were getting at before with the transferable points. Redeem your points directly with the bank. There's all kinds of options. Everything from gift cards that you can get to booking travel directly with them. That might be anywhere from a half a point to one point. One point is a general. Oh, sorry, one cent per point is a generally good rule of thumb. And those are usually a fixed rate. Those portals are powered on the back end generally by Expedia. So if you were to go to Expedia.com and a flight was $100 and you would go to Amex and look up that same flight, it'll still be $100. The amount of points would be 10,000 points to redeem that flight. And it changes dynamically based on that when you transfer. And again, this is a case by case basis. So there's a little bit of learning and research to be done. So it's not a universally true thing. You can get a lot more than that. A Virgin Atlantic economy flight to London is 15,000 points. It certainly isn't worth $150. It's certainly worth a lot more than that. So that's the kind of value you can unlock that gets you beyond that fixed ceiling of a rate that the banks will give you in exchange for those points.
- [26:59]
Farnoosh Torabi
You slipped in that you have all these credit cards and it makes me wonder the days of people opening up multiple credit cards to get a free first class honeymoon, is that still possible? And do we recommend that?
- [27:15]
Dan Rodriguez
Yes, there are. It depends. And it requires you to be responsible and educate yourself.
- [27:19]
Farnoosh Torabi
Thank you for saying that.
- [27:21]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah. I should caveat. I am not a financial advisor or any of those things. There's a lot of myths as far as opening credit cards, but there also are a lot of watch outs. Yeah. Being aware of how quickly you're opening and what that does to your account. If you have a major purchase, a mortgage, closing on a house Coming up, you may want to take a break from it. But generally speaking, opening up credit cards helps your credit in the long run. You take a short term hit a couple of points for the inquiry into the account and for opening a new account. But one of the biggest drivers of of your credit score is your credit utilization. In other words, how much debt you're carrying versus how much is available to you as credit line. So if you open a new card and that card comes with 10, 20, $30,000 of a credit limit and you're not eating into it because you're not carrying a debt, which is the other big thing, don't ever carry a balance on these cards because will wipe away anything you're getting out of those points. You're going to have your credit utilization go down and your credit score is going to go up. But there are certainly some people who aren't interested in managing a large number of cards and they need to figure out on a year by year basis, should I keep this? Should I cut it? Am I using all the benefits on it over many cards? So I always say it's a hobby that you get what you put into it and anything is better than nothing. So most of my friends I recommend a simple one or two part strategy and keeping it simple for them. And at least they're getting and they get something significant out of it. There are plenty of people at my level who open five or six cards a year and have a rotating cast of a dozen or two dozen cards, which is very common. And I manage it responsibly so it doesn't hurt me in any way. But again, there's a lot of caveats to all that.
- [28:58]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yep, all great points.
- [29:02]
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- [33:35]
The most of your points, we've touched on this. We you've already offered some advice along these lines. The big one I'm thinking is just to see where else you can redeem the points beyond just like what's in front of you. If you have these like transferable points and you are flexible with your travel and you don't care particularly like what the airline is. You might get more on one airline from as far as a where, how stretching those points or those miles.
- [33:59]
What else? How do we get first class and.
- [34:01]
Free breakfast and all the accoutrements? How is Dan Rodriguez doing this?
- [34:07]
Dan Rodriguez
Flexibility is huge for sure, but I would say the first thing is setting a goal, figuring out what do you want to do? Is this a solo trip where you want to be super luxurious? Do you want to take a whole family of six or eight people somewhere? Are you limited to a certain time frame, which I think is probably the biggest challenge for families and then start to base your strategy from there. So if you say you know what we want to go to Spain next summer. There are plenty of articles that you could look up. What are the best points ways to get to Spain. And that's where you can start to learn about. If you have Chase, if you have Amex, then okay, then transfer to this airline. And this is usually the rate that they get and you can start building around that understanding the cents per point calculation that I was just saying where you can make a decision. You can look up the cash rate for a hotel stay or a flight versus what's currently available on points and know, okay, am I getting more or less than $0.01 for that point? It's very helpful. But there are also tools. Points Path is a great one. It is a Google Chrome extension. If you pull up Google Flights, it injects itself right next to that listing on cash and with a meter of good to bad tell you, is this a good or a bad value? If there are in fact any award spaces available for that for like. But the last thing I would say, getting back to flexibility the way that I do it because I have a more flexible lifestyle, I There are alert websites. I prefer Thrifty Traveler. There are several others. You pay them an annual fee for a year and they do all the work. And you get text and email alerts every time they find something really good. Especially when we're talking about award space, which is also fixed. And airline says, okay, these five seats we're going to put out on points, they can go pretty quickly. So it's. So you'll get a notification that says, hey, we've just noticed this award space is available on these dates. If you're a member of these banks, this is how you transfer them and how much you'll need step by step instructions. They provide context for how long they think the seats will be available historically, how it compares to other deals that are available. So that takes a lot of the guesswork out. And if you're somebody who's just willing to jump on something, if you're flexible and something just sounds really good and you have the points, I say go for it. The biggest mistakes that people make with points is that they never use them.
- [36:15]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yes, correct. And they expire. So I wrote down Points Path, Thrifty Travel, there's also Thrifty Traveler. There's also a site called Points Me.
- [36:30]
Dan Rodriguez
Yep.
- [36:31]
Farnoosh Torabi
That got bought by Amex, I think. But it's not exclusive to Amex, is it?
- [36:35]
Dan Rodriguez
That's right, yes. Points Me is great. There's also another one called Seats. They're all, they all function as search engines point me is pretty good for educating you. It's not as great with live results with a lot of these tools. I think I have later in my notes here, the big mistake people make is they transfer their points before they're 100% sure that seat is still available. So it's all because once you transfer out of the bank, they don't go back.
- [37:02]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah.
- [37:02]
Dan Rodriguez
And especially when doing that with 100,000 points, you want to be really careful. So. So these are all tools to help you get a lay of the land. And then it really is important for you to do your own due diligence, actually go to that airline, open up their website or even call in and confirm that space is there. That's a real demystifying thing. I have a friend that I just helped. Similar story where she for 87,000 points booked Emirates business class, which is the most fancy to Milan. Yeah. With the bar on board.
- [37:29]
Farnoosh Torabi
Where did she get those 87,000 points? Where were they parked? Yeah, I have that on any given every six months. I might have something like that.
- [37:38]
Dan Rodriguez
I know. Oh, I believe that. I cringed when I saw that you redeemed through the portal for an expensive business class flight, I think in the last couple years. And I thought, oh no, she could have done like a third of that. Part of that process was just because I just in case something happened and the points got stuck for a day or two. It didn't fully transfer over. You can call Emirates and ask them to hold the space for you for up to 24 hours. So this can be something that's a little intimidating for people, but then once they do it, they go, oh my goodness, it's so simple. Call Emirates. Two minute phone call. They locked in the award to her account. They said, make sure you finish the booking in the next 24 hours. Then she went to Amex, did the transfer over. It took an hour for them to transfer over, locked in the booking and she was like, oh, that was so scary before. To think of this, all those different steps and it actually is like all of a sudden everything's demystified and I feel that's all she's going to do from now on. Yeah. 87,000 points a business class flight. If you redeem 87,000 points through Amex, that's $870. A business class Emirates flight is $2,500. $2,600.
- [38:35]
Farnoosh Torabi
Wow. Wow. Oh my gosh. Moving along, let's. You had mentioned at the top that we are seeing travel dipping a bit. I think that's for a variety of reasons. I think there's people. I don't know if it's just the news cycle. I would talk to the points guy, Brian, about this. When he was on the pod earlier this year, he has a new book out and I was like, what'? Are there more travel disruptions and scares in the air than ever, or is the media just covering it more than ever? And he. I don't know. I don't know whether to believe him because he was like, I think the media is covering it a lot now, which is true. But I also feel like he's right. Look, we are in a golden era of travel where we were. A few people used to like smoke on flights. There was like way more. There were many more accidents like in the 70s and maybe the 80s, but it nevertheless, it's terrifying to fly, especially again. Newark, we had so many complications out of that airport. And still. And then on top of that, people are feeling the crunch, the pinch, financially losing their jobs and travel. I just saw another headline that bookings for summer rentals down in some parts of the East Coast. People thinking that might also have something to do with unemployment, white collar recession, as some of us are talking about.
- [39:55]
So.
- [39:55]
So all this to say, if you want to travel, there might be some new discounts. What are you finding?
- [40:01]
Dan Rodriguez
That's right. Yeah. And Vegas is a really good bellwether for this. And they've been getting hammered month after month. They're just seeing a huge.
- [40:09]
Farnoosh Torabi
Really?
- [40:10]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah, they're just every single month, we're talking about down 10, 20% year over year. So some of it is media coverage, some of it is reality and anticipation. All of the airlines cut their forecast after Q1 for the rest of the year. So I think it is a mix of things. There's also the fact that capacity was expanded massively after Covid, when all of us had this huge boom in travel because everybody was locked up and saved up their money. And the airlines expected that to continue. So they opened up a number of new routes, a lot of new capacity, and there's a correction happening now. So we're seeing cuts in routes and we're also seeing airlines cut rates, points and release award space that hasn't been available in years. So even if we're not talking about a cash discount, just the fact that you can book something on points that you've put in the last couple of years is an indicator that there's a softening happening. So it's been a wild year. We've Seen domestic transcontinental from LA to New York for under 200 bucks regularly. That normally is maybe 3, 400 bucks minimum is what you would assume for a flight like that. Constant flights to Europe for $300 cash round trip, nonstop. Up on the point side, economy, 30, 40,000 points round trip, which is a great deal.
- [41:25]
Farnoosh Torabi
Wow.
- [41:26]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah. Business class for 50.
- [41:30]
Farnoosh Torabi
Meanwhile, let me help you. Sorry.
- [41:32]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah, exactly. Japan has historically been very difficult to get to. Not necessarily a deal, but just the fact that you can book a flight on points is a huge deal. Southeast Asia for six or 800 bucks. Again, that's a lot of money. But you're normally looking at something that might be twice that. So. So all kinds of deals. And then Vegas I think is going to have a huge fall in terms of deals that are available. There were a lot over the summer. The Plaza had an all inclusive deal. It's downtown. So you know if you're fancy and not on. If you're okay with not being fancy and on the strip. But for 125 bucks a day, all you can eat, all you can drink and the hotel room included. And it's at a very decent spot in Vegas. When Vegas has become so expensive over the last few years, I think is an indicator that it might be a good time to go see the Backstreet Boys or the wizard of Oz thing.
- [42:15]
Farnoosh Torabi
At the Spear come this fall or a quick wedding. I don't know. A lot of people like to go to Vegas for the wedding stuff.
- [42:21]
Dan Rodriguez
That's true.
- [42:22]
Farnoosh Torabi
Wow. Okay. That I guess because all I do is see what people are doing on Instagram. I assume everyone's traveling all the time and it is as flourishing as ever. But don't believe everything on social media. Travel advisors are making a comeback. But not just any sort of travel advisor. These kind of like luxury travel advisors. Tell us about your new side hustle and how earthlings like me can hook up with people like these experts who can get me all the perks.
- [42:52]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah, absolutely. The thing to remember here is it's travel advisors are just part of the marketing mix for the hotels. Because it is something that seems really dated. Right. We all remember like back in the day, you go to an office and they would try to sell you like a whole package of the flight and the hotel and the activities. That's turned into something much more modern now. And these hotel chains, they spend a lot of money on their own marketing. They pay a very hefty commission to the online travel agencies like Expedia, which is one of the big reasons that outside of this whole travel advisor thing, I never recommend booking a hotel through one of those agencies because you are automatically put at the bottom of the priority with the hotel. You get the worst room. They have no incentive to offer you any customer service or remedy if there's any kind of a problem or you need to make a change. And they will not allow you to earn any points with the hotel. They won't allow you to earn against your status quota for the year.
- [43:46]
Farnoosh Torabi
And that's like punishing. They punish you.
- [43:48]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah. Which is understandable when you see the percentage, the fee that Expedia charges. So Travel advisors are this new stream for leads for the hotels and stronger because it's word of mouth and it's vetted by people like me. I would never send you to a hotel that I didn't personally believe in. Whereas if I'm like a search engine, I don't care. Right. I'm just feeding you the cheapest thing. As you mentioned, with these travel agencies, if you're with like me and similar travel advisors, there's. You don't pay me. I don't want to touch your finances. I don't handle any of it. You pay the hotel directly. You get the same points and loyalty status that you get with that hotel. You pay with your credit card at the checking desk. You get all your credit points. So the only thing that happens is I act as a referral and a concierge for you. And what that does is in a number of properties, there's these consortiums, they're called. There's one for all boutique hotels called Virtuoso. Marriott has their own program, Hilton has their own, Hyatt has their own own. And when you have an agent booked on your behalf, generally speaking, you pay the same rate you would have otherwise paid, but you unlock all these benefits that are similar to if you had top status. So for those of us that don't travel enough to be a Platinum AMEX member, if you book through me at certain properties, you will get the early check in the room upgrade, the late checkout, breakfast included, and often additional incentives like maybe $100 credit to spend at the restaurant or at the spa, and even some special promotional rates. Third or fourth night free is something which is another indicator of the softening. I've been seeing a lot more of those than I have in the last couple years. Yeah, I recommend to use them. I could do a whole trip for you, end to end. I do the planning, I do itineraries, I consult on the point side of things I do, cruises, activities, all that stuff. But you could also use them a la carte, selectively and say, you know what, on this trip I have a certain amount of points that I want to use for my hotel in this city and that city and this one, I'm going to book my own. But you know what? Over here, I want to make it extra special. And it's not necessarily a way to get a deal per se or a discount, but it is a way to get a little bit more VIP treatment and some benefits without spending any more money.
- [45:52]
Farnoosh Torabi
Wow. Yeah. And just to have the ear of customer service because I'll tell you like, again, I am your. Like I have this life experience that you're talking about where I went to.
- [46:04]
Penn State, where I went to college.
- [46:06]
And had a event there and they had room blocks for us at the hotel. I wanted to extend my stay. So I didn't. Couldn't use the room block for all the nights. I used the room block for the first two nights that was like allowed and which was a discounted rate, slightly not crazy. And then I went on hotels.com and booked like subsequent night. Now there was an issue when I got there. I don't remember what it was because it was like a, it was loud and we didn't like our room. And so they're like, we can help you. But only like the front desk was like, whatever you booked on hotels.com, take it up with hotels.com.
- [46:44]
Dan Rodriguez
Exactly.
- [46:45]
Farnoosh Torabi
We're happy. I'm like, I am here. I am now here. I'm a living human in front of you with problems. And I don't. It shouldn't matter how I got here. I'm here and you have my money, so you should help me. And they were like rationing. Whether they're okay the first night we will discuss because that was booked through us. But this second night you're gonna, if you want a refund or a discount, you're gonna take it up with Hotels.com. and I was like, got it. But you're absolutely right. They treat you like a second class citizen because you didn't book directly with them. And that there should be some consumer protection around that, I feel like.
- [47:19]
Dan Rodriguez
But yeah, the best way is just avoid them. You're bordering on being not even a profitable customer, to be honest with you. That's how rough is. And don't we hear the same.
- [47:27]
Farnoosh Torabi
It's like using. It's like using. Yeah, it's like using like the food delivery apps. If your Food comes cold. They're like, take it up with Seamless or whoever.
- [47:36]
Dan Rodriguez
You're making a great point. That's the other thing, too. With travel advisors, it's not just for luxury. I may not be able to, at a certain budget hotel, get you any of these fancy perks, but it can't hurt to have me making a call on your behalf if something goes wrong. Or I have a buddy that I booked at a really basic $200 a night business hotel in D.C. by the convention center, which doesn't offer any official benefits, but just the fact that I'm a certified Marriott advisor. Whenever I book him, I send a note to the general manager, who I now have a relationship with because of this. And every single time, they put him in the same corner suite that. With no. No additional cards charged, leave him the upgrade. And they always have a lovely food spread out. He had like a charcuterie board last time he was there. So it's. These are little things.
- [48:19]
Farnoosh Torabi
Little things that make the trip a thousand times better. Yeah.
- [48:22]
Dan Rodriguez
And he's not doing anything. He other. He's not spending anymore. He otherwise wouldn't. He just sends me a text and I go, sure, buddy, no problem. You're booked. Takes me two minutes. So everybody went, wow.
- [48:31]
Farnoosh Torabi
Oh, my gosh. The best perk I ever got in a hotel. I went. And it was in la. I think it was the Peninsula. I check in. I don't know how I booked it. I think I can't. This was like, I want to say eight years ago, and they had. So one of my favorite perfume and candle companies is La Labo, and they had La Labo in the bathroom with my name on it. So you can do this. If you go to La Labo, they can personalize your perfume or whatever. They make it right there on the premise. And then they can like, who's this for? But really, what about talking about, like, advanced planning? And also, what if I canceled my trip? It just. There's some random, like the Labo toiletries with my name on it in the bathroom for the next guest. But that was. And I didn't have any kind of status with them. I was just. Yep, a regular.
- [49:18]
Dan Rodriguez
That's a really fun part of the job. That's a really fun part of the job for me. I have a buddy that is going to see Oasis in London this week.
- [49:25]
Farnoosh Torabi
Week.
- [49:25]
Dan Rodriguez
And so I. You. There's an amenity as part of the offering when you book through me. And if I don't say anything, it might be a box of Chocolates or some flowers or a bottle of sparkling wine or something like that. But I took the extra mile to get something that was like oriented towards the concert themed. And they're handwriting a note that like I personally wrote with like different lyrics from the band and stuff like that. So you can get really creative with it. It's fun.
- [49:48]
Farnoosh Torabi
Speaking of Oasis, our friends are going not, maybe not to that one concert, but they're seeing them in Dublin like. Like maybe the next week. I think they're so excited. Okay. What is this?
- [49:57]
Dan Rodriguez
Dublin is amazing. I was just there last week and it is.
- [50:00]
Farnoosh Torabi
Oh really?
- [50:00]
Dan Rodriguez
You don't hear about it. No, it's really fun. It's like you don't think about it because it's so close and it's. They speak English and everything and it's. But they're like amazing deals to Ireland.
- [50:11]
Farnoosh Torabi
This year and you know, that's really good to know because we usually have a week off in November for school. I live in New Jersey. We have a lot of random holidays here, but we try to do something during that week. And Ireland. Okay. I have so much homework after this workshop you wanted to talk about.
- [50:31]
Dan Rodriguez
That's why I'm here.
- [50:32]
Farnoosh Torabi
I know, but good fun homework. The built card.
- [50:36]
Dan Rodriguez
Yep.
- [50:36]
Farnoosh Torabi
No, no endorsement here, but tell us about the built card. I think this. I actually interviewed the dad of the founder. The dad of the founder is a billionaire and then the dad is also a billionaire. Naveen Jain. Fun fact. So anyway, proceed.
- [50:53]
Dan Rodriguez
Yeah, so they're a newcomer the last couple years and they have a whole long story that I won't get into. But their kind of thing that they're known for in the media is that they have a credit card that lets you earn points on your rent payments with no fee. And your landlord does not need to be officially affiliated with BILT if they take their payment via check, if they require an ACH number from your bank, if they get paid via Venmo know BILT has a solution for pretty much anything and they make sure that you avoid any fees. And that means if your landlord tries to charge you a fee or any. They don't have any fees on BILT side normally in the past if you tried to do that, you might see a 3% fee. So they have no annual fee as well. So right off the bat, for me, it's a no brainer if you're a renter and you qualify for card because rent is probably your biggest expense. If not one of them, they. They also have what they call neighborhood a really Robust neighborhood program to earn in different merchants. So they have a deal with Walgreens where you earn bonus points on top of your spending. If you shop at Walgreens, they have a deal with Lyft, they have a dining network which is something I think we skipped over to another way that you can earn. There's various dining networks where you set it and forget it. You put your credit card number in and if you ever go to a restaurant that's a part of that network, you automatically get an additional bonus on top built has a really good one for that. They have a deal with Soul Cycle and other fitness fitness providers that give you additional bonus points. So they're really good for that.
- [52:13]
Farnoosh Torabi
Can they make it a mortgage thing? Because I.
- [52:16]
Dan Rodriguez
It's coming, it's coming. So that's. Yeah, they, they launched with Wells Fargo a couple years ago. They just announced last month that they're switching over to a new provider and they're going to be launching two new premium cards which we don't know anything about but we imagine that they're going to be pretty, pretty good for earning points.
- [52:31]
Farnoosh Torabi
Pay my mortgage on a credit card. Yes.
- [52:33]
Dan Rodriguez
And mortgage is going to be huge.
- [52:35]
Farnoosh Torabi
Which I think, oh my God, I'll be going to Ireland every year. Basically at this point they just the.
- [52:41]
Dan Rodriguez
Last note on them, they have what's considered by many to be the most valuable points, currency. They have the most amount of travel partners. They have many that are exclusive only to them and they do these crazy promotions every first of the month, what they call rent day, where very frequently they'll partner with an airline or a hotel and they'll offer a bonus. So Instead of a 1 to 1 transfer, they might offer a 50%, 100%, 150% bonus on your transfers on that for that one day, that one 24 hour period. So for me that was really valuable. I hadn't earned a lot of them. But they didn't deal with Virgin Atlantic where for people at my level they were offering a 150% bonus. So for every one bill point I got 2.5 virgin points. So basically that came down to call it a buy one get two free on my flights with Virgin. So for only 40,000 points, I booked the three of us on business class on Virgin Atlanta night to London and those are $2,000 flights each. And that was very easy when to rack up when you consider things like three points on dining you spent.
- [53:46]
Farnoosh Torabi
And I used to do stories on coupon cutting the coupon craze and people will go to CVS and get all this, all these household things and they get, sometimes they get money back. Like I got all this stuff and I got paid $4. Forget that. This is what I'm talking about. This is much more bang for your lifestyle buck. Who cares about free deodorant if you can get class seats for the price of one coach? Essentially is what happened.
- [54:14]
Dan Rodriguez
Exactly. Don't make no mistake. Those same kind of people are in this hobby too. There's a heavy overlap in the personality.
- [54:20]
Farnoosh Torabi
Oh, yeah, no, I'm not even talking about who's doing it. I'm just saying if you want to spend time getting bang for your buck, look, it's to each their own. But this seems like much more of a better time spent. All right, we are going to wrap up really, really quick. But first, what's the best piece of advice to someone who wants to start making the most of their travel rewards today? It's almost August. It's August is like a really popular travel month. I don't know if you're going to find anything last minute.
- [54:50]
Do you ever find.
- [54:51]
You do find last minute deals often with your points too.
- [54:54]
Dan Rodriguez
But the general wisdom is your two best times are either way in advance or way last minute. Yeah, you will see award inventory open up. Makes sense, right? The airlines. Oh man, there's 20 seats on this flight that are just not going to sell. Forget it. Let's just dump them on the award space. That'll happen last minute. And then every airline has their own policy. It's About a year, 11 months in advance is when they release. So that will be when you, if you need to book a big family, that's the optimal time. So planning can work to your advantage. But if you're not somebody who has the ability to plan ahead for whatever reason, being flexible at the last minute can also yield some great deal. So, yeah, my advice is just use them. A lot of people earn them and they're scared to use them. They don't know when the right time is to use them. Like you've mentioned, it's a hobby that you can go as deep and be as neurotic about optimizing as you want. And what I preach is just start somewhere and you're better off than you were yesterday.
- [55:48]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah, I don't regret, although you cringe because I got those business class seats from. Maybe I could have stretched that further. But I'm a little limited in terms of the airlines that I would fly because I'm in Newark's my go to airport jfk. I took JFK to Paris in May because New York was melting down. It was a three hour Uber to get to JFK. So 2. I don't have to tell you how expensive that was, but it took the.
- [56:14]
Dan Rodriguez
Sting out with my Virgin Atlantic flight that I was able to get into the one lounge.
- [56:18]
Farnoosh Torabi
And I love Virgin.
- [56:19]
I'm so sad when they got, when they merged with Alaska and they became mostly Alaska Airlines. If you can find a Virgin flight, take it.
- [56:29]
Dan Rodriguez
I don't care what you say, service is great. They partner with Delta. They have that massive new lounge at jfk. So it was like a full spa day for my mom. We had like, like several meals. It took this thing out of the two hour cab ride. But I hear you, but that's really why there's. I can't give you like universal truths, right? Because everything is dependent on your style of travel, how many people you're trying to travel, what your airport preferences are, where you want to go. Hopefully the things we've talked about today give you a little bit of inspiration to just start digging beneath the surface.
- [56:58]
Farnoosh Torabi
And if we want more from you and I'm sure we'll be sending many people your way, you have a substack and your website, which we will again post in the portal so you don't have to go searching for it. But I love that you started a substack. That's great. People are finding a lot of success with substack.
- [57:16]
Dan Rodriguez
I just kept having friends because this is a topic like we've demonstrated. I. There are so many tangents that we didn't even get into that I would love to get into and it's really overwhelming for people. So my goal with my substack was like, I have friends that kind of regret asking me for advice a little bit because they're like, oh no, this is way more information than I need. And this is a way for me to get like a handful of top level things out like once a week and hopefully like those little nuggets just get everybody a little bit further.
- [57:43]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yes. Safe travels out there, everybody. Dan Rodriguez, thank you so much. And maybe we'll see you in a fancy lounge at some point. Who's that guy?
- [57:54]
Looks so familiar. Oh, that's Dan.
- [57:55]
He's lounging.
- [57:56]
Dan Rodriguez
I hope to see you there.
- [57:58]
Farnoosh Torabi
Thank you.
- [58:01]
Thanks to my guest Dan Rodriguez for.
- [58:03]
Joining us with those excellent tips.
- [58:05]
You can learn more about him following the links in our show notes and be sure to come back here on Friday where we're dedicating AskFarnouche to all things college financial prep. If you're years away from college, is.
- [58:16]
It worth even saving in a 529 at this point?
- [58:20]
What if you are approaching college with your kids and you want to maximize your 529 plan? We have great questions from the audience. We have expert advice from our co pilot for that episode, Patricia Roberts, who's the author of Route 529.
- [58:34]
You don't want to miss that one. I'll see you back here here on Friday.
- [58:36]
And I hope your day is so Money.
- [58:52]
Capital One Bank Guy
Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Term supply See CapitalOne.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC hey, it's Maya and.
- [59:20]
Maya and Sim from Girls That Invest
Sim from the Girls that Invest podcast. If you are an IT or Security pro, you know managing devices, identities and applications can feel overwhelming and honestly risky. That's where Trelica by1Password comes in. It helps conquer SaaS sprawl and shadow it by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not. With pre built app profiles, you can assess, risk, manage access, and even optimize your software spend. Plus, IT simplifies onboarding, offboarding and compliance, all while cutting costs by eliminating unused licenses. Take the first step to better security for your team. Learn more@1Password.com Special offer.