School of Midlife

Luxury Travel in Midlife: Leaving on a Jet Plane for the Price of Groceries and Gas | Megan Lanford

• Laurie Reynoldson | Megan Lanford • Episode 83

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When you think of making midlife your best life, do you also think about traveling? If so, you're not alone!

What if I told you that your next vacation was as close as going to the grocery store, filling your car up with gas, ordering all of those Amazon packages?

Today’s guest Megan Lanford from Points Too Paradise specializes in turning rewards points into luxury travel. That’s right: all those everyday things you’re already buying? Megan will teach you how to turn them into first-class plane seats, luxury hotel stays, tickets to the most sought-after attractions and more.

In this episode, you’ll learn about the difference between flexible point cards and branded cards, why you shouldn’t be concerned about carrying more than ten credit cards at any given time, how to put start planning rewards travel, and more!

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Here's a question for you? What is the one thing at the top of nearly every woman's list in pre-retirement or retirement? Like universally. Across the board. What do most mid-life women look forward to once they retire? Or once the kids have left, the house or life has settled down for them a little bit. If you said travel your absolutely right. Whether it's exploring the museums in Italy or sampling street food in Thailand or cruising the Alaska passage. RV'ing to the national parks in the U S. Whatever flavor of travel you like best travel is the one thing that tops nearly everyone's retirement list. If you love travel and would like more of it in your life, you're going to love today's guest. Megan Lanford specializes in luxury, travel on a dime. And when I say on a dime, I mean for next to nothing out of your pocket, Megan has perfected a travel system using reward points to buy all the things that you're already buying. Groceries gaps, utility bills, clothing, all those Amazon packages. And she takes her system and turns those everyday purchases into luxury travel for next to nothing. And she's going to teach you how to do the exact same. I absolutely love this conversation with Megan. And if you like traveling as much as I do, I know that you will do. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life

Laurie:

Hi Megan, I am so excited to have you here today on the School of Midlife podcast to talk all things travel and in particular how you can do it on a budget. Will you please introduce yourself to the listeners and tell them a little bit about what you do?

Megan:

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here and to talk to you guys today about traveling on an extremely insane budget. Um, like she said, my name is Megan. I am a stay at home mom to a two year old and before she was born, I really wanted to be able to give her so many more experiences than what me or my husband had growing up. We were the typical family that took one trip a year and we would budget all year long, you know, trying to save up for that one trip, staying at a Holiday Inn, finding the cheapest flights, you know, not going out to the nicest restaurants, just budgeting the whole time. And I felt super restrictive and I didn't want that anymore. So I discovered Credit card travel points and it completely changed my life and now I get to take my daughter on six plus trips a year we save anywhere from 20, 000 to 30, 000 a year doing it, and we can literally go wherever we want, whenever we want, and not have to worry about how much money is in our bank account. So, I'm really excited to tell you more about it today because it really has changed our life.

Laurie:

That is amazing. I, because most of the women who listen to the podcast are high performing midlife women, they're trying to figure out what is midlife look like for them. You know, um, most of them don't have two year olds. A lot of them are kind of at the empty nest part of their life. And, and travel is a huge part of what most women want to do either after they retire or they want to start doing it a little bit more. How did you get started? Obviously, you didn't want to do budget travel anymore, but like, how did you get started? Yeah,

Megan:

I randomly just stumbled upon credit card points and we had like one credit card and it was a cashback card and I thought it was like so smart using my cashback. And then I realized. There's like a whole other level of this, of earning travel points. So I took online courses. I Googled everything I possibly could. I, I just dove in for months studying this stuff, basically, and the credit cards, the banks, and now we. We open up three credit cards or we open up a card every three months trying to earn all of these points. So we're kind of like on the extreme end where we're always opening up credit cards because when you open up a new card you get what is called a sign up bonus and you get a large chunk of points because they're incentivizing you, the bank is, to open up these cards and so when you do that you get a large chunk of points that can be spent for sometimes six free nights at a really nice resort.

Laurie:

Okay. There's a lot to unpack there. Pun intended. So without kind of giving away the secret sauce of what you do, you talked about opening a card every three months. I mean, how would we start accumulating and maximizing points and miles? Should, is it one of those things where we pick one airline and one hotel chain and we do everything with them? We stay super loyal to them? Or is it more like. Like, we should sign up for every loyalty program. I, I mean, I think about like George Clooney and Vera, um, Fermiga, I th I think that's how you say her name, in Up In The Air where they're in a bar and they're like comparing every single car that they have and they both have a huge stack. But is there one way to do it which works better than the other or? Yeah.

Megan:

So there's actually a little secret that I'm going to go ahead and give you guys. For when you first start, of course, you're not going to go balls to the wall and be opening up a new card every three months when you get first start. So what you want to do is instead of opening up cards that are going to be either hotel specific or airline specific. You're going to open up what we call a flexible point card, and so that is going to be a card associated with either Chase Bank, American Express, Capital One, something like that. So my favorite card that I recommend you start with is called the Chase Sapphire Preferred, it is a flexible point card. So what that means is when you earn those points with Chase. They are open to be used however you want with their associated travel partners. So just for example, some of them are Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Marriott Hotels, Hyatt Hotels. And so you have the flexibility to decide how you want to use them when you decide maybe where your trip's coming up. And then you can transfer those points to those different partners. So it's a really easy way to start so that you don't have to start with that loyalty program. And only stay at one hotel or one airline. You can be really flexible on where you want to go and how you want to use them.

Laurie:

You talked about transferring points. Is that time intensive? Is it like couponing where you know, you've got to like really dial in and you just kind of keep A stack of, of things that you might buy at some point or what do you mean by transferring points?

Megan:

So when you first get that card to get the big signup bonus, which for this card, for example, 60, 000 points, you're going to want to spend 4, 000 in the first three months. When you do that, that's how you earn that points. Those points are then sitting in your online chase account where you would log in to pay your bills and just check on your account. Your points sit in there until you're ready to use them and you just hit a few buttons that say transfer points. And then drop down, you select all of those different partners, you hit it, and then it automatically will transfer into then what would be like your Hyatt account that you have with Hyatt. And then you book your hotel directly through that, uh, hotel partner. So it's actually a pretty simple process once you learn how this all works. So

Laurie:

you mentioned opening a card every three months. Couple of questions there. Number one, Are you opening new accounts? having him for three or six months, closing those accounts and then reopening with the same provider. So that's question number one. And then question number two is what does that do to your credit report, your credit rating?

Megan:

That is the number one concern and question that I get from everybody. Um, so first of all, you don't want to ever close a credit card within the first year of opening it because that's going to really ping on your credit score. Okay. For the most part, I would say 90 percent of the cards that I open, I keep open all the time. I don't close them. There's only about 10 percent of them that maybe they have a high annual fee or there's just not really any benefits that I'm getting from it after the sign up bonus, so I'll cancel those cards. But for the most part, I'm keeping them open. And when you do this correctly, so spacing your openings every three months is key. Paying off your cards in full every single month. I have no credit card debt. I don't accumulate any interest, any late fees. So when you do this properly, because we don't want to rack up debt to take a free vacation, because then it's not free, essentially.

Laurie:

Right, that, that doesn't make sense.

Megan:

Right. It actually really, really boosts your credit score. So my husband, when we first started with this, he just didn't have any loans or credit. So his credit score was around 700. It was pretty bad. And we couldn't get any credit cards opened for him. So I had to add him as an authorized user and start building up his credit that way. He now has, I think, like seven or eight credit cards in his name. And his credit score went over 100 points in one year.

Laurie:

Wow. Okay. So we shouldn't worry about the ding on the credit score. Um, how many, how many cards do you carry right now? And these are like Visa cards or American express or?

Megan:

Yeah. Yeah. Visa and American express for the most part. Um, I have about 12 credit cards currently, but I'm usually only using one at a time and it's the one that I just opened. because I'm trying to earn that sign up bonus.

Laurie:

My, my mind is just racing here.

Megan:

But again, this is for someone who's wanting to travel like six, seven, eight times a year. Yeah. If you're wanting like one or two vacations, two cards a year is going to do it for you. So like, don't think you have to go to the extreme.

Laurie:

So if we want to do six trips a year and we want them to be pretty nice trips, Actually, probably six is a lot for a nice. Luxury trip. Because People are still working, right? It's hard to get that much time off. So say you want to do a two week trip to Europe and you want a nice beach vacation, which is, I don't know, five or six days, maybe, maybe a week long. With the type of travel that you're doing, I would assume that there is a way to do luxury travel with points and credits. Is that correct?

Megan:

Yeah. So it's, the great thing about it is it's very customized to you and how you want to travel. So if it's just you and your husband, it's going to be a lot easier to take those luxury vacations. If you have a family of five and you're trying to fly everyone and you just want to fly economy, like there's a lot of ways you can do it. Um, but for example, like I just had a client who did go to Europe. Her and her husband went to Italy for a week. They flew first class over there on like lay flat seats, stayed in two really nice resorts that cost them over 1, 000 a night if they were paying cash. Um, and it took them four credit cards, opening sign up bonuses to pay for that week long trip.

Laurie:

So they paid for a week long luxury trip and really didn't pay for it, right? Because they're using the credit cards to buy, I'm assuming, gas and groceries and do other things. Yep, everyday expenses. Yeah. And, um, can you pay utility bills and things like that on those cards or? Yeah,

Megan:

so for the most part you can pay any utility bill. There's even a credit card that's specific for paying rent. If you're renting, you can pay your rent through there. But yeah, it's just your everyday expenses, your bills, your utilities, your gas, your groceries. Christmas time is coming up. That's a really good time to open up a credit card because you're buying Christmas presents. Um, so yeah, you're not. Really spending any money and a lot of these cards are very low annual fees, like 95 is what my client opened up and she was able to get those first class seats that would have cost her 10, 000 for 16. That was the only taxes she had to pay. And then it was,

Laurie:

uh, I've been doing it all wrong. I mean, this is just like, I know. I'm like, why did I figure this out so late in life? You mentioned annual fees and I had actually made a note of that when you were talking about opening up the different cards. The fees are typically charged up front, yeah?

Megan:

It depends. Some of them are charged as soon as you open them and then some of them will waive them for the first year and then it'll get the next year.

Laurie:

I know American Express has a pretty high annual fee. Yes. When we're looking at, uh, flexible point cards. Is there a top end of the annual fee that you're like, yeah, I don't think you should actually pay that. It's not, the perks aren't worth the cost. Yeah.

Megan:

That's why I recommend starting out with Chase just because the points system is really easy to use. All of their cards are really low annual fees. A lot of their business cards are 0 annual fees for like a large signup bonus of like a hundred thousand points. So Chase is a great way to start. Once you become very seasoned and you're like a very experienced traveler or maybe someone who travels a lot, that's where American express is going to come into play. But yeah, like their highest end card is around 700 annual fee, but you're getting like TSA pre check and all of these perks. So if you are traveling a lot, it's probably going to pay off for you. But for someone who's just starting out, I don't recommend going with American Express. Even Capital One, they have a lot of, uh, low annual fee cards, like 95 as well. Um, and those points are also super flexible.

Laurie:

Okay. Um, so what's a business card? Why should we carry a business card?

Megan:

If you have a business, obviously a business card is a great way to earn more points. So like for me, I'm. Alternating usually between opening up a personal card and then a business and then a personal and a business because business cards tend to have higher sign up bonuses. So you're getting a lot more points and a lot of them are really low annual fees. And so it really just kind of helps with your point strategy. I even recommend a lot of people if you're looking to really travel quite a bit and earn points finding some sort of just side hustle whether that's like network marketing or you sell eggs at the farmer's market or you coach on the side any sort of small income even selling I've had clients You Sell a few of their clothes on Facebook Marketplace for like a hundred dollars and get approved for a business credit card because once you're approved you can use that card however you want you can use your regular personal expenses on there like they don't care once you open it. So I always recommend doing that if you're really looking to maximize.

Laurie:

Okay, so you have 12 cards we'll say. ish. We should have a flexible point card. Do you have several flexible point cards? Do you also then sign up for airline credit cards? I mean, walk me through the landscape of, in your wallet, what, what are the 12 cards that you're currently carrying?

Megan:

Yeah. So I'm a really bad planner. I don't like plan my trips out. I feel

Laurie:

like you're, you must be a decent planner. I mean, this is, this is like, Like top end ninja planning skills, if you're asking me, but okay, you tell me why you think you're bad planner.

Megan:

We'll like randomly decide like, Oh, like let's go to Mexico next month. And like, so I

Laurie:

love that. I love that.

Megan:

Which is great to have, to be able to do. And so a lot of the time it's like a last minute, like let's go here type of trip. And so having those flexible points are nice because then you can just decide how to use them right then and there, instead of like pre planning. So I started out with those flexible point cards. I have lots of those flexible points in different banks. So for like example, If I'm wanting to stay at a really nice, all inclusive resort in Mexico, I can take my Chase Points and transfer them and use them. If I want to go to Disney and buy like Disney tickets or stay at an Airbnb or something that's a little bit different than the points world, like those Capital One points can be used for things like that. So it's nice to have different stashes of the flexible points because they all can kind of be used a little bit differently. And then when it comes to the co branded cards for the airlines and the hotels, I open those when they have elevated offers, and so every year. All of them typically will give an elevated offer of, like, more points or a lower minimum spend or free night certificates at resorts or just different things like that. So, for example, right now, Marriott has an elevated offer of when you get their card you get five free nights at one of their resorts, which is a heck of a deal. So, like, then I'll open up one of those cards. So, I kind of strategically open them when there's really good deals.

Laurie:

Do they generally, is there a calendar for when those elevated points, or are they just random?

Megan:

No, they are random. Like, we don't even know when they're coming, um, they'll just randomly decide to do them. Usually they last for about a month or so, so you have time to get them, but we never know when they're gonna do it or how they're gonna do it.

Laurie:

And how do you find out about that? Like you just happen to be scrolling Instagram and there's a sponsored post or you check their websites periodically? Uh,

Megan:

so I have a website, and I'm affiliated with the credit card, like partnership affiliate. So I have every single travel credit card on my website. And so I will get notified like the day of when there's an elevated offer. And then I share that with my audience and through my email list.

Laurie:

Cool. We'll, put a clickable link in the show notes so that you can join Megan's email list. Is that good with you?

Megan:

Yes. I actually, um, gave you a free travel points 101 guide. And so if you download that, you'll automatically be added to the email list and that is walks you everything through on how to get started.

Laurie:

Super generous. Thank you so much. We will make sure that there is a clickable link for that in the show notes. But, um, I mean, even this to me seems like a no brainer, even if you only take one trip every so often go get the travel points one on one guide you talked about your client who went to Italy, stayed in nice hotels. Flew first class. I mean, is that a typical luxury travel experience that your clients are experiencing? I mean, is that a one off or this is something that anybody can do? Take a nice trip, say once or twice a year.

Megan:

Yeah, this is really, the typical thing that I teach people to do. So I'm more of like a luxury family travel expert. A lot of my clients are like, no, like economy's fine. And then once I show them, like, they have enough points to book first class and they do it. There's no turning back after that. Like, once you do that, and once you stay at these really nice 5 star resorts, like, there's, you can't go back to what you used to do because you're, you know, Your mind has been expanded. And so I really do teach and push people to at least if they're going like to Italy or something, at least go the way their first class and then maybe fly back economy just to get that taste. But yeah, I mean, it's completely doable for every trip. We don't stay at any sort of like Lower end resort whenever we travel. It's all all inclusives, five star resorts, and we even get, like, room upgrades every single time we travel as well. Like, I've never not stayed in a suite when I travel.

Laurie:

Right when COVID was hitting, I was flying back from Italy, and I actually, it was sick, so I was flying back early. Oh. I don't think I had COVID, but I don't know. Um, and it was the first time, if you decide you're going to leave Italy one day and you need a flight, The next day, your options are, I, my options were, I could either sit in row one or I could sit in the very back of the plane. And I had enough points on my airline frequent flyer that I was like, I will take seat 1A. That's where I want to sit. I will never go back to not sitting in the first class lay flat seat. I mean, it is a different experience. I will get to a point in my life where I only fly first class or, or private there. Private's also pretty damn good, but, um, I mean, sure. Maybe if, if I'm on a one hour flight to Seattle or something that it doesn't matter if I'm in the back, but. But once you experience first class, it's really hard to go back. It is.

Megan:

It's really, really hard.

Laurie:

And I know that there are plenty of judgy people out there that are like, I would never spend that much money to fly. And it's like, give it a try And then just tell me what you think. And then to see. And then it's fascinating to know that. That you could do that for, let's say, 16 for the taxes and fees, right? Yeah,

Megan:

yeah. Every tax and fee is a little bit different, but you can get places really, really cheap.

Laurie:

Are there some common, um, mistakes that people have about using points?

Megan:

Yeah, so the biggest mistake I see people is when they have like those flexible point cards. The bank is always encouraging you to use their travel portal inside the bank. So all of them, Chase, American Express, have a travel portal. So when you automatically log into your account, it'll say you have 20, 000 points. And that is worth 200. And here is where you can book your travel and they hide the tab that says transfer points to partners, because they don't want you to do that. So, for example, if you had 220, 000 points, that's 200 roughly. In the travel portal, if you were to transfer those out, you can usually double or triple that amount when you transfer them to partners. So that's the biggest mistake I see is you're basically leaving money on the table. Like, yeah, you can still use your points for free travel, but you can get more free nights. You can get better flights or more flights when you transfer those points out and just kind of stretch your points a little bit farther.

Laurie:

That is so good to know. Um, are there blackouts and restrictions when you are scheduling point usage? Do you have to be worried about that?

Megan:

Nope. So there's really no blackout dates or anything like that. Like if there's like a Southwest sale, they do those blackout dates. There's really nothing like that. The only thing is, is these hotels and these airlines are only releasing a certain amount of rooms. Or seats per day for these on points, because obviously they're wanting people to pay cash. So if you're staying at like a really sought after resort that everybody wants to stay at, you will need to plan your trip a little farther in advance to try and find availability. and being flexible with your dates is always a great way, but for the most part, just a regular hotel in like Phoenix or something like that. There's really no restrictions at all.

Laurie:

So, um, if there are only so many seats, there are only so many rooms that are available on points, if we are able to plan in advance, how far in advance should we be thinking about booking those rooms or those flights?

Megan:

It really depends on it. If it is like a, they're like in Cabo, there's a super fancy luxury resort called Waldorf Astoria. Everybody wants to stay there. That one you're wanting to plan at least like nine months in advance if you have specific dates that you need to travel. If you have flexible dates, then you can almost always find some sort of availability within like a two week frame time. But again, if you're just like, we've gone a week before on a trip and been like, oh, we need to book a room and there's availability. So if it's. Really, really sought after. That's harder. First class flights, those you want to plan out like a year in advance to try and find those lay flat seats, because again, they're only probably releasing like two or three per flight, sometimes four, um, or you can also do like the week of if they still haven't been able to sell those lay flat seats, then they'll open them up to points. But if you're flying economy, if you're just going to any other hotel, you really can book those anytime.

Laurie:

What about using points for upgrades? Does that make sense or no?

Megan:

Yeah, so you can do that. A lot of people will, um, like maybe there's no first class seats and they have a specific date. They'll book their economy flight. You show up to the airport, you go up to this points counter and you say, is there any, first class seats available? And they'll go, yeah, for 20, 000 points, you can upgrade. Um, and I think that is a, a good example to use them for, and a lot of people will do that, but again, you don't know if you're going to get that seat or not. You just have to hope that there's something available that day.

Laurie:

What tips do you have for women or families that are trying, they're thinking about planning, we'll call it a once in a lifetime trip. Um, I would assume we need to start early, or maybe it's chicken and egg. Do we start the planning and then we get the credit card? Do we get the credit card first? I mean, if, if we are thinking about, You know, we've got a month long, maybe we want to travel around the world. We want to do something really, really special that has been on our list for a while. How do we go about planning that so that we can use as many points and perks as possible?

Megan:

Yeah, I would say if you're just wanting to start traveling and you're not really sure yet, just open up that Chase Sapphire card and just get started and start earning the points. If you do have like a dream trip that you're desiring. I work with a lot of people that are just like, Oh, I want to go to Bali really bad or Italy and they come to me and we say they want to go within a year time frame. That's a great place to start. And then we'll start building up a credit card strategy based on where you want to stay, how you want to fly, where your home airport is out of. We'll build a credit card strategy based on all of those things to get that trip planned. There's a lot of different factors that go into, like, the card that you're going to want to get. It's also dependent on your family's budget. Like, if you only spend 2, 500 a month on your family, then you're going to be restricted to this certain amount of cards. But if you spend 5, 000 a month, you might be opened up to some other cards. So it's also keeping you on budget and making sure that we're not overspending on those cards just to hit the signup bonuses.

Laurie:

That's such an interesting, reminder that a lot of this is going to depend on what is your monthly household budget, right? And it's not, because you don't want to get overextended to be taking these trips. You want to make sure that These cards are already fitting with the, the purchasing that you're doing, the typical expenses that you have.

Megan:

Yeah. That's what I recommend everybody starts with is just sitting down. If you don't already know your family's monthly budget, get a budget app. I use the buddy app, um, and just figuring out how much you spend on groceries, how much you spend on this so that you know, which cards you can open and make sure that you'll be able to hit those minimum spends.

Laurie:

You mentioned a credit card strategy, Megan. So when, when clients work with you, can you kind of walk us through what your process is? You've told us to get a credit card, so yeah, we can go do that on our own. But talk us through working with you?

Megan:

Yeah. So first thing, like I said, we sit down and figure out your budget. So we know which cards you can open up. Usually when you come to me, you already have a trip in mind. For example, I'll just walk you through this one. I just had a client who was like, I want to take. My family of four to Disney World. We've never been before and we want to go in October. And I was like, okay. So we, in a couple of weeks, this was a month ago, but yeah, she already had opened up a card previously talking with me. So she had opened up the chase card, had a good amount of chase points. She also had a Southwest card and had a lot of Southwest points. She was flying out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. And so. We decided that she could fly on Southwest for all four of her family members with the points she had. And then she said, I would really like to cover my Disney tickets as well. So based on what she wanted and where she wanted to stay, she also wanted to stay at a Hyatt, we opened up a Capital One card so that she could pay for her Disney tickets. Three months later, then we opened up that chase card to pay for her Hyatt hotel stay. And so as we earned those points, we booked those flights and those hotels. And then she just last week got her Disney tickets purchased once she hit that Capital One sign up bonus. I'm looking up flights for her, telling her where she can get her points, best bang for her buck, we're scheduling it out, so it's really developing that credit card strategy and helping her know how she can use her points for each part of that trip, while also basically being a travel agent and looking up her flights for her, looking up for hotel availability. Telling her which resort would be the best one for her family. That gets her to Disney on the tram. And so she doesn't have to get a rental car and just kind of all of those different things based on their needs of what they want on that trip.

Laurie:

How do you get paid?

Megan:

Through the credit card links, I will get a commission off of that. But if it is a very specific trip that you're wanting one on one, then I, you'll pay me a fee to work with me one on one for four, eight, twelve weeks, depending on how large the vacation is.

Laurie:

So, just like you would pay a travel agent? Yes. You're repaying Megan so that she can help you put together the, the trip, use as many points as possible, maximize the perks that are available. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

Megan:

Yeah. But you're saving a lot more than when you would with a travel agent. She saved over 5, 000 on her week long Disney trip.

Laurie:

That's amazing. Um, I want to hear, we heard about the Italy trip. What would you say is your personal Everest? What trip did you take that, you know, you just want to tell us about and, and like, how much it would have cost you, but you, you did it all for mostly free.

Megan:

Yeah. So I actually don't have like some mega trip because I do have a two year old. So we haven't really gone super far yet with her. We have all these like New Zealand and Switzerland trips that we're going to take here around like year three and four. Um, but we are going to Mexico next month, which I'm really excited about. We're flying first class down there. We're staying at two different all inclusive resorts. We're going to Puerto Vallarta. Um, and so we're really looking forward to that. And it's crazy that it's our first time going to Mexico. And it's also my daughter's first time. So like, she's getting to live a childhood. That's so different than ours. My husband didn't fly on a plane until he was 18 years old. She took four flights before she turned one. So like she's been to Florida and South Carolina and Phoenix and San Diego. Like she's been all over the place, but it's been very domestic travel just with her age. But we've stayed in oceanfront president suites and just all the things, but we don't have any like. I have all these dream bucket list items. We just haven't hit them yet.

Laurie:

I want, I want to hear what's on your list. Um, you mentioned New Zealand, where else, when she is ready and able and old enough that she'll be able to appreciate it. Where are you going?

Megan:

So Switzerland is at the top of the list. New Zealand. We want to go to the Maldives and stay in like an overwater bungalow. That is really high on our list. We're big history buffs, so we want to go to, uh, Normandy Beach on D Day and fly into Paris and then go, explore all of that kind of stuff. Uh, God, there's so many of them that I want to do. It's like really hard. Of course, all of like Europe and Italy, we really want to do several weeks over there. The Caribbean, there's so, there's just so many places to explore.

Laurie:

You know, we talked about flights and now that you mentioned the Caribbean, um, I'm do cruises use points and perks like this too? I mean, if cruising is your preferred mode of travel.

Megan:

Yeah, so it is a little harder to use points on cruise ships. I have a membership and we actually last month did um, a talk and a training on cruise ships. It is harder to do, but it is definitely doable. It will just need a lot more planning. So you'll definitely have to like, year out, know you want to do a cruise. and then earn the points strategically just for that because a lot of the banks don't just let you transfer your points to cruise ships but it is definitely doable.

Laurie:

You mentioned your membership just now. Tell us about that.

Megan:

Yeah, so I have a membership. It's called the Travel Tribe. And it's a Facebook group where you can ask any and all questions as you're going along planning. We do monthly trainings on everything you could think of. Disney, cruise ships, Airbnbs. We just did one for DreamTrips. So some people in there were like, I want to go to Bali. I want to go to this. So we just did like a DreamTrip. planning. It's only 27 a month, um, but I do recommend when you join that you have some sort of background in Travel Points, or you take my Travel Points Academy, which will walk you through everything, and with that you get three free months in the Travel Tribe, just because our topics in the Travel Tribe are more in depth, and so you need to have some sort of, uh, grasp on Travel Points.

Laurie:

Makes sense. Couple lightning round questions for you. All right. Okay. Are you a carry on or check bag person? Check. I don't like carrying my stuff.

Megan:

And we've been really lucky. We've never not gotten our luggage. Um, that may change my mind one day, but I don't like carrying stuff. Especially with a toddler running around.

Laurie:

Yeah, you're carrying plenty of stuff already. How is she, um, Uh, on flights and traveling.

Megan:

She's actually pretty good. She's a very, very active toddler, uh, we're ranchers. And so she has like a lot of open space, so it is hard to keep her sitting still. So we have busy books and sticker books and all the things to keep her, um, busy, but we like to fly first class just because it gives her a little more room to run around and be up and stuff like that. But she does really good.

Laurie:

It'll be interesting when she's in college and, and everyone's like, you know what, we're going to go to Mazatlan for spring break. And they're all trying to just make it in the back of the plane. And she says, actually, I, I only fly first class. That'll be good.

Megan:

She's so spoiled. We give her a trip every year on her birthday. And then here when she's old enough, she can ask where she wants to go, but we're really excited to like hear where she wants to go when she's older.

Laurie:

Where have you gone for birthday trips so far?

Megan:

Uh, so we did San Diego for her first birthday. We took her to the zoo and all that. Um, this last second birthday was just here in August and we took her to Phoenix. And then for her third birthday, next summer, we're taking her to Lake Tahoe.

Laurie:

Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Um, next lightning round question. Do you have a favorite travel destination that you've been to that you just go back to over and over again?

Megan:

I know it sounds weird, but we love going back to Phoenix.

Laurie:

I love Phoenix too. Yeah,

Megan:

we go to Scottsdale almost every year. There's again really nice luxury resorts in Scottsdale and we stay at like a different one every year just to try them out. We keep going back to the Phoenician because we really, really like that one. It's just up against the mountain and there's like five pools and a water slide and a splash pad and All the things but we really like going back to Phoenix. We're also in New Mexico so it's like a six hour drive so it's really easy for us but that's kind of one that we keep going to and Florida. We go to Florida almost every year or two just to different spots within Florida.

Laurie:

That's, that's interesting because I was going to ask you, um, so you have a favorite travel destination. Then I was going to ask you if there was a place you would never go back to. And my flip response would be, and I'm sure that's Florida. No, no, no. Um, so there are Florida fans out there, I guess.

Megan:

Yeah. No, we really like Florida. We went to Clearwater, Florida last December. Yeah. And that was really, really, we really liked that beach. We'll probably go back there again.

Laurie:

Yeah. So you like beaches or pools or it sounds like, yeah, yeah, I'm with you there. Um, is there a place that you would never go back to?

Megan:

Honestly, we really didn't like San Diego when we went. We stayed downtown, um, and it was just super crowded and just, it wasn't our vibe. We're not city people. So we'll probably never stay like in a downtown area again like that. But yeah, we probably won't go back to San Diego, which I know everybody like loves

Laurie:

that place. Like God's country, San Diego. I know. I know. Um, that's, that's okay. Uh, it is, it's, it's. And yeah, yeah, yeah. So far I would not go back to new Orleans, but we stayed. On Bourbon street. I need to probably do that trip again. Um, because I, I, my husband said

Megan:

the same thing. He's like, we're not going back to new Orleans.

Laurie:

We went to jazz fest. That's why we were there. We were staying on Bourbon street. I was just like, Oh yeah.

Megan:

Hawaii is probably another one too, that we will go back to. Because there's so many different islands and different vibes on each one, so we'll probably definitely keep going back to Hawaii too.

Laurie:

So do you like Hawaii or Mexico better? Do you have a favorite between those two? I

Megan:

honestly like Mexico

Laurie:

better. Me too! Me too. I

Megan:

know. I had like this whole thing in my head about Hawaii and tropical and I got there and I was just like, It's just not, I think I built it up too big in my head.

Laurie:

It's nice. It's beautiful. Yeah. Um. I love the food in Mexico. I love just the, the people in Mexico. And it's so much easier to get to. Like you can be there at 10 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. You gotta leave in way, way, way early. what about currency? So, um, do you. Try and exchange currency before you leave. Do you wait until you get to another country to use the ATM? Do you just, you know, take 40 bucks in cash and put everything else on credit cards or Yeah. What do you do with that?

Megan:

Yeah, so um, making sure that you have a credit card that has no foreign transaction fees is going to be huge for you. Okay. Um, and I will use that specific credit card the whole time I'm there. Um, I will have some cash on me and I do like to do the currency before just because I like to be prepared and just have it if I need it. But if I can put it on a credit card, it's a hundred percent going on a credit card.

Laurie:

Are there, are there cards that don't have foreign transaction fees or are there just some that have a lot of travel

Megan:

credit cards that don't have. That don't have the foreign transaction fee. So you'll get home and you'll be like, Oh my goodness gracious. You'll have so many fees. Yeah. So there's only like three or so credit cards that have that. So you definitely want to make sure that you have that. And that's part of the credit card strategy that I teach is depending on where you're going, I'll be like, okay, make sure you use this card when you're there. There's also things like insurance. Okay. And things like that. So there's cards that you want to make sure you book your hotel with. Okay. Or your airline with in case something happens because you can be reimbursed to like 500 a day if you lose your luggage. Or rental car insurance. There's a lot of different things that the cards have, but they don't really tell you up front about, and that are in the fine writing. So there's certain cards you want to use when you're purchasing all of these different things.

Laurie:

Okay. So not like buy the extra travel insurance, but use the card is giving you that.

Megan:

So you already have that built in, which is another thing that your credit card is saving you on.

Laurie:

So, it sounds to me like for the amount that you would pay, say, to insure a flight, you should just work with Megan because she's got a whole system and you can, you can pay for that membership. Yeah, that, that, to me, that's a no brainer. I've never

Megan:

booked, even like domestic travel, I've never helped somebody book a trip and not save them at least 2, 000 on their trip.

Laurie:

See? That's why it's so important to work with the people who actually understand what they're doing, right? Like you don't just dabble in it. It's not just something you do for fun. I mean, you've, you've gone through courses, you've studied it. You've got a whole way of doing trial and error. Yeah. But, it's worth so much to people who. Have never really thought about that before. Anything else that you want to throw out there about. travel that we haven't talked about?

Megan:

No, I mean, we talked about quite a bit. I would just reiterate, like, there's really no destination that is not possible to travel on points. So whatever, like, dream trip that you have, it's completely possible to do with your budget, with the travel credit cards out there. Um, there's really no limits. So start dreaming of places that you can go, because it really will open up a whole world to you.

Laurie:

At the time we're recording this, we're scheduled to be in Europe next week. Um, we'll see if we actually make it. Um, my father in law is, is not well, but, um, and I think about how much money that we have paid to, like I said, I like to fly first class. Um, we like to stay in nice hotels and. We also like to, you know, go to the theater and, and do some interesting things when we're there. And I'm just ticking through in my mind how much we could have saved if we would have had this conversation six or eight months ago. Um, so for next year's trip, because one of the things at the School of Midlife, we talk about making midlife your best life. And one of the things that Midlife Laurie does. She's a traveler. So every year, she takes a trip to Europe and a trip to the beach. And I want those to be two separate trips. Because my Europe trip is where I go and I do and I see all the things. And then I like to just sit on my ass when I'm on a tropical beach. So, yeah.

Megan:

Yeah, and the great thing about it too is like, you said you want to go to the theater and all those things. And. My clients time and time again, when they go on these trips, they're like, it gave me so much freedom to be able to do the excursions and the tours because I didn't have to think about my budget and how much I've already spent on this trip. So they can say yes to all of those things and go snorkeling and skydiving or whatever you want to do because you're not restricted.

Laurie:

Go spend a stupid amount of money to dine at a Michelin starred restaurant, which is on our list. For our listeners who are interested in working with you more, where will they find you?

Megan:

Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at Points Too Paradise. I share pretty much everything on Instagram. I also have a podcast called Points Too Paradise as well. You can find me on Apple or Spotify. I gave you the free Travel Points 101 guide. Definitely be sure to download that and get on the email list and go ahead and follow me over on Instagram.

Laurie:

Fantastic. We'll make sure that there are clickable links to all of the places that Megan hangs out in the show notes. We end every episode with the same two questions most of our. Guests are, um, in midlife and I understand you just, you're 33. You just had a birthday. So happy birthday. Thank you. Um, you also have a two year old. So you're, you're a little behind, um, in age you you're learning from plenty of incredible mentors in the midlife space. Um, so question number one is if you could go back, usually we say to your 30 year old self. But if you could go back to your 20 year old self, knowing everything, you know, now having all of the lessons that you've learned, all of the experience, what would you tell your 20 year old self?

Megan:

I would tell my 20 year old self to open up a travel credit card for sure. Not to be afraid of credit cards. Like I was taught, um, and definitely start like saving and putting towards my retirement because I'm literally doing that. Like now. Um, setting up an IRA Roth and all that stuff. And so I really wish I would have started doing that when I was a little bit younger.

Laurie:

You brought up, um, not being afraid of credit cards. And that is so interesting because I do remember this kind of cautionary tale that our parents would be like, be careful with the credit cards. And then of course you go to college and it's like, every time you go to the bookstore, at least when I went to college, there would be a new application for a credit card. And like, you could get credit cards. You could sneeze and there would be a new credit card application. And

Megan:

I always say I'm like the anti Dave Ramsey because he's always like, no credit card debt, pay with everything in cash. And I actually came back from like a background, like my parents are in their mid fifties and they still have credit card debt. Like they were always swiping like the Kohl's credit card and the Costco. And so I was always like, credit cards are bad, like that equals debt. And so it was really a mind reframing shift for me to like do this.

Laurie:

Have you helped your parents like figure this out or are they just like, eh, we're not interested in their

Megan:

ways.

Laurie:

Yeah. Yeah. Parents are like that sometimes. Um, question number two, what do you love most about being a woman?

Ooh,

Laurie:

since you're not a midlife woman, I can't ask you that. So what have you, what have you loved most about being a woman?

Megan:

I'm a very independent woman and so I will say I really love my independence and that like balance that you have with your spouse of needing the man to do some of those things, but being very independent and running my own business and bringing my own income, raising my daughter as a stay at home mom and kind of doing all of those things. Um, I, I really like my womanly independence.

Laurie:

You, you say you're a stay at home mom, but you also own your own business. You mentioned you're a rancher. So, I mean, I feel like you've got plenty going on. Yes, I do. Yeah. So stay at home, mom. I think that that might be a loose term there, but yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here, Megan. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I know that this information, the listeners are just going to love it. And, um, I can't wait to see what they. Do with it where they go. Yeah.

Megan:

Well, thank you for having me. This was great. Um, and I, yeah, I can't wait to see where you guys go with all of this information,

Laurie:

tag us in your Instagram stories. Yes. I love seeing you traveling on points. Please share. Yeah. Thanks so much, Megan.

Thank you so much for listening to the school of mid-life podcasts. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the school of midlife is back in session until then take good care.

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Laurie Reynoldson

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