#96: Credit Card Hacking with J.J Todd

In this episode of Escaping the Drift, host John Gafford interviews credit card points expert J.J. Todd.
J.J shares the wild story of how he got into credit card points hacking, from leveraging Southwest companion passes in law school to renting over 600 cars in 3 months from Hertz for their United miles promotion.

Listeners learn about J.J.'s record of earning over 3.4 million United miles and using them to take over $120,000 worth of flights. J.J.'s gives tactical advice on the best credit cards to use for different purchases and how to maximize points by transferring between different loyalty programs.
It's a fascinating inside look at how to turn average 1% returns on credit cards into 20x more value by leveraging points strategically.

Highlights:

"If you do this the right way, if you have sort of those aspirational overseas, lie flat business class goals, it's not uncommon to take that 1% return that a lot of these credit cards are giving you and making it very easy for you to get in turning that into 3, 5, 10, sometimes 20x return."

"I've used all those miles that I earned off, all 3.4 million miles are now gone. Sure. Got over $120,000.03 flights in value out of leveraging those points."

"Depending on how your expenses blend out, you should be getting two and a half to three, maybe, you know, I think that's kind of a fair, if you're optimizing it, then not everybody has the bandwidth or tolerance to carry around seven credit cards like you you have there."

Timestamps:

00:00:Introduction
02:07:Credit Cards
09:20:Renting Cars For Points
14:30:Free Travel
22:53:Perks
31:50:Flight Milage
40:45:Luxury Experiences