Hi everyone and welcome to a new episode of Women Who Travel, a podcast from Connie Nass Traveler.

I'm Meredith Kiri and with me as always, it's my co-host, Bala Airokoglu.

Hello.

Back in April 2019, we did a Points in Miles 101 episode to help our listeners, and let's

be honest, me and Lolly too, crack the coat on making our purchases work for us and the ways we like to travel. A lot has changed since then, and as we begin to think about traveling again and look at the stockpile of points we've built up on grocery halls and gas station trips and takeout over the past year and a half, we're wondering, how do we spend all those points wisely?

To help answer that question and many others, were joined by Jessica Puckett, Traveler's Senior

Editor for Transportation and Travel News, and Jasmine Barron, an associate editor covering credit cards

at Insider. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Hi, good to be here. So Meredith

already touched on this in her lovely,

lovely intro, but lots of us have been earning quite a few points over the last year and a half

without that many opportunities to spend them and are now staring down at quite a pile of unused

points. What do you think is the best way for

us to start using them now? And how can we kind of get our like bang for our buck with them?

There really isn't a right or wrong way to spend your points and your miles. And you're right.

I think a lot of people have been sitting on the stockpile, you know, waiting for the pandemic

to be over. There's a ton of ways to spend them. stockpile, you know, waiting for the pandemic to be over.

There's a ton of ways to spend them. I would say, you know, whatever really just makes you happy at this point. A lot of travel before the pandemic, you know, lean very aspirational.

If you look at, you know, travel blogs and points and miles blogs, talking about these big sort of

blowout trips where you, you know, you blow all your points and miles and, you know, for luxury, sort of accommodations and business class and what have you.

And that is certainly, you know, still an option.

The world's not totally open yet.

But, you know, if that has been on your bucket list, you know, now is the time to do it.

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