148. Break These Popular Award Travel "Rules"

Points Talk®: Your Travel Dreams, Made Possible by Points

Alex, Pam and Jess

Places & Travel, Education, Society & Culture, How To

4.9 • 734 Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The world of points and miles can feel overwhelming when everyone has an opinion on the "right" way to do things. In this episode, the Travel Mom Squad break down common travel rewards advice and show why it doesn't always apply to every traveler. From what counts as smart redemptions to how to prioritize your points, they give you permission to ignore the rules and focus on what works for your own goals.

Throughout the episode, the Squad shares examples from their own travel experiences. If you've ever felt pressure to follow the "expert" advice, Alex, Jess, and Pam help you cut through the noise. You'll learn when breaking typical points and miles rules makes sense, how to tailor your strategy to your lifestyle, and why there's no single right way to make your points work for you.

You can find links to resources mentioned in this episode plus the transcript here: travelmomsquad.com/148

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Everyone has different goals when it comes to points and miles. Maybe yours is simply being able to
0:05.0	afford to travel at all. Maybe it's taking your family to all seven continents. And maybe it's
0:10.7	somewhere in between. In today's episode, we're covering some popular opinions in the world of travel
0:15.5	and we're giving you permission to let them go. As Pam always says, you do you. Welcome to Points Talk with the Travel Mom Squad.
0:24.2	We are three moms who've discovered how to leverage credit card welcome offers to get hundreds
0:28.9	of thousands of dollars of travel expenses for nearly free. We've used credit card points of miles to
0:34.4	take vacations to places like Hawaii, Paris, Greece, Maldives, Japan,
0:39.4	and so much more. And the best part? We each still have 800 plus credit scores. Imagine being
0:45.5	able to take the vacation of your dreams for nearly free. It's totally possible and we're here to show you how.
0:52.2	Hey, I'm Alex. And I'm Pam, Alex's mom.
0:56.1	And I'm Jess.
0:57.0	Let's talk points.
0:58.4	The world of points in miles can often feel really overwhelming.
1:02.8	First, you have to learn how to earn the points, and then you have to learn how to redeem them.
1:07.0	And along the way, you're hearing all of these opinions about the right and the wrong way of doing things.
1:12.8	So today we are diving into some of the wrong things you may have heard about and why you should
1:19.5	sometimes just ignore that advice and do what works best for you and your situation.
1:24.8	So we are going to run through a few different scenarios of, you know,
1:29.4	popular opinions and points and miles and kind of dispell them. Tell you why you shouldn't worry about
1:35.3	them. All right. So Alex is going to kick it off. Okay. So the first one is you shouldn't redeem your
1:40.2	points and miles in the portal or you shouldn't use Capital One miles to race your travel
1:45.0	purchases. And I think a lot of times people say you shouldn't use the portal because sometimes
	...

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