Podcast 203. Travel Hacking and Building Wealth as a W-2 Employee with Shelly Blancq

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, how's it going everybody? Mike Cavaggioni with the Average Joe Finances podcast and today's guest we have Shelly Blancq. I am super excited to talk to Shelly today because, I just came back from the Real Estate Wealth Builders Conference, and this was actually one of the breakout sessions I sat in on, was for this topic with another one of the speakers there. So I'm excited to dive a little bit deeper and now ask the questions that I wanna ask, because, as a podcast, I could selfishly do that to Shelly here. So Shelly, thank you so much for joining me today.

Shelly Blancq:
0:32

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited.

Average Joe Finances:
0:35

Yeah, absolutely. So that was a little bit longer of an intro than I normally do, but I'm just so excited and pumped up to talk to you. Now let's just get right into it. Okay. I wanna start this off the same way I start every podcast episode. And the very first question I'm gonna ask you is, can you share your story, share a little bit about your background. Who is Shelly Blancq?

Shelly Blancq:
0:54

Absolutely. I come from a middle class family in the south. I'm originally from Memphis, Tennessee. And my dad worked in the kind of new builder industry, and that's important because we lived a pretty, like decent middle class life until 2008, which of course we all know what happened in 2008 and it Decimated his business. He's an entrepreneur as well. And so it was his own business that he was working with and it just really sunk us financially. And I was in high school when that happened and I got really into personal finance, like really into it. I asked for a Dave Ramsey books for Christmas. I took my class in high school, which was a personal finance, also Dave Ramsey, kind of style of personal finance. And I just really got into budgeting for our family even like I was the go-to person for money in my household. And then I got into college. I went to the University of Memphis for theater. So not always good at financial decisions here, but I got into theater over at the University of Memphis.

Average Joe Finances:
1:53

But you can act like it, right?

Shelly Blancq:
1:54

Oh yes, of course. Of course. I face for, and I got into the theater over there and actually went to go take my brother to Disney World for his birthday, and realized at the very tail end of all the planning that I was down about $200. I had miscalculated something was down $200. I wasn't gonna be able to make it. In time to go on this trip. So I opened my first credit card with the intention, I'm making this money back, I'm gonna do it quick. And I opened it up and I paid it off right away. I was like, okay, Dave Ramsey, be proud. I just need it for a second. All is good. But it definitely burned a hole in my pocket. And I started using a little more and more. Thankfully, the bank only gave me a $600 limit, so I hit that limit. Couldn't pay it off, freaked out and worked really hard, paid it off and was like, never again. No more credit cards. I am done forever. And it wasn't until I graduated with my degree and I actually moved to Vermont. So I was in Memphis. I moved to Vermont with my then boyfriend, now husband. And I just moved with that pack on my back. Like I didn't move intentionally really. I just stayed there after a contract with my theater company. And so I had to have a credit card because I didn't have a credit score really. I had that like very minor credit score from opening that bank credit card and it wasn't doing me any good, especially cuz I carried a balance on it. So I needed to build my own credit and I was like, sorry Dave Ramsey. It's like a necessary evil here. I gotta have something. And this time I was a lot more diligent with the credit card and I was very good about paying it off and I build up my credit score. And then I was in grad school. I went back to school for education, which is what I do right now. And my husband and I wanted to take this trip. We had a friend on a Fulbright Scholarship in Europe, and so I was like, okay, free place to stay. We just gotta get there. We obviously don't have a lot of money. Cuz I'm in grad school. So my husband's really supporting us and we opened up a credit card because we saw that it would get a certain amount of points. It's Capital One card and it was like 60,000 points. And I was like, that's $600. If we both did that's like our flights. And I was like, there's no way this can be real. There's no way that they're just gonna give us these flights. Like it's gotta be, there's gotta be some sort of catch. And there wasn't, we opened up the credit cards and we got the 600 points, 600,000 points, so that's $600. We erased those flight purchases and we went to Europe for free. And honestly, ever since then I was like, okay, this is what I need to be putting my time and money into time and energy I should say, into figuring out how to do this more.

Average Joe Finances:
4:31

Awesome. Thank you so much for that. And, it's really, eye-opening to see the things that you went through, younger in your childhood that kind of gave you the scarcity mindset, right? When it comes to money and finances, this was something that. 2008 affected a lot of people, right? I had just purchased my first home in 2007, so I was completely underwater when that happened. Very painful time. And, thankfully at that time you were in, in high school, right? So you had a lot of times said, okay, I can figure out a different way of going about this, right? And that's when you started looking to Dave Ramsey and everything else Now, Shift forward a little bit. You've taken that trip to Disney and you were added money and you're like, I'm not gonna be able to make it. So you take out your first credit card, right? Everything was fine. You were able to make it, and then all of a sudden you maxed that sucker out and couldn't pay it. Yeah. So what was that aha moment for you that you were like, okay, I need to figure out how to make sure if I take this credit card out, that I'm gonna be able to. Pay for it and not get stuck the way I did that first time. So you took out that Capital One card, right? And you got those bonus miles, but what did you do to make sure that what happened in the past didn't happen again?

Shelly Blancq:
5:52

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not gonna lie, there was a lot of kind of shame around carrying a balance on that credit card the first time around. I was like I mentioned, I was so into personal finance and I was so into this and it felt like I was following it into similar traps that my. Family fell into that, led us to bankruptcy and foreclosures and like, all kinds of things that I wanted no part of, and so when I did carry a balance and I carried it for about a year on that credit card, just paying minimum payments. And it wasn't until I moved to Vermont, like before I left Memphis. I paid everything. I had a couple of other things too. I had a job also that didn't help cuz they were back paid. Like they owed me money for the job that I was doing cuz I was teaching theater. So it was a little different than working at a TGI Fridays, which is my other job. So they were back behind, so they owed me some money. So when I got that cashflow, I paid everything. I put every single cent into paying everything off. So I would have nothing following me to Vermont. And I think that like fresh start really helped. So when I was going into opening up that new Capital One card, I just looked at it as, I've already done this. I already had to do this fresh start. I will only use this credit card essentially as a debit card. I will not charge anything that I don't have in the bank, and I started to keep a lot of spreadsheets, which I still do. And just making sure that everything was accounted for. And I always in my travel budgets and my regular budgets keep a fairly significant buffer at this point just from my bottom line. So if my bottom line is zero, it's. Scaled as my pay is scaled. But I remember when I first moved to Vermont, I was like, okay, my zero is a thousand dollars. Like when I hit, zero, I actually have a thousand dollars. And I did not allow myself to even think of that as zero, if that makes sense. Like I wasn't like, but it's actually a thousand. I didn't think of that at all. Zero was a thousand. Are you like this?

Average Joe Finances:
7:45

This is it. I have no more money.

Shelly Blancq:
7:46

Yeah, exactly. Like I have zero money. So I think that has been a big help. Through travel budgets and then my daily budgets is, or we weekly, monthly, is keeping that buffer. Obviously it's grown as my expenses and my obligations have grown. You don't want just a thousand dollars in your bank account when you own a home, right? And you have all these other things going at businesses. But I think that buffer has been a lifesaver for me and just the mindset change of that.

Average Joe Finances:
8:13

So would you say that's like your emergency account?

Shelly Blancq:
8:16

I have an emergency count as well, so I'm just like a crazy person.

Average Joe Finances:
8:19

Ok. So this is just a separate buffer

Shelly Blancq:
8:21

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
8:21

On top of that. Okay. Okay.

Shelly Blancq:
8:23

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
8:23

Fantastic.

Shelly Blancq:
8:24

Yeah, so I keep, I do, I've moved away from Dave Ramsey in general, and I like the idea of the fire, financial impend retire early. I that methodology a little better than Dave Ramsey. I just think it. It takes into account a lot of newer things with it, but I do still use the whole six month emergency fund in cash, like liquidable savings type thing. So that I have separate, this is like in my, checking account or whatever. I never fall below a certain threshold. Cuz you never really know, you have a business. We have we have a couple businesses actually, and we have our home and dogs and health and like all these other things that you don't I don't wanna be caught off guard.

Average Joe Finances:
9:02

Sure. Absolutely. I, and six months. That's great. Cuz a lot of people just do the 90 day thing, they'll do three months. I always tell people to do at least six and depending on how what your line of work is maybe even a year's worth.

Shelly Blancq:
9:13

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
9:13

So that's great.

Shelly Blancq:
9:14

Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
9:14

So the, that's one of the good takeaways you've got from that side of the Dave Ramsey side, right? But then the other piece of that is using the credit cards and getting the miles and all that other good stuff. So now you've got this side to look at. Let's dig a little bit deeper into that specific side about the actual travel hacking that you do. So you had that first one go through. You got the 60,000 miles on each card. Went to Europe for free, which is awesome. Yeah. That's my favorite price, by the way. Free.

Shelly Blancq:
9:39

Yeah, me too.

Average Joe Finances:
9:41

Yeah. So now you know, what is, what does the rest of this process look like now? What did the next credit card, deal look like, was there a specific thing of miles? Did you have to spend a certain amount? So I know not all of 'em just give you the miles up front anymore now, like there's a lot of minimum spending and all that stuff. So what did the next one look like?

Shelly Blancq:
9:59

Absolutely. So it actually took us a few years. So I went to grad school, we went to Europe. Amazing. I worked as a teacher, my husband as a psychologist, so he worked in the school with me as well. And we worked there for a year in Vermont. Just off of my graduate degree, of course, halfway through that year, he's you know what, I want one of those too. And so he applied and went and got into FSU. So right after I got my master's, we moved to Florida, from Vermont, for him to get his master's in psychology. So we weren't working with a lot of money. I was a teacher, still am a teacher, so that's, historically paid fairly low. And he wasn't making any money in grad school, so we really just kept with that Capital One card for a few years. And we did a couple of small redemptions here and there. We don't have $50,000 in expenses a year, so we weren't making 50,000 points. Actually Capital Ones two times her points. We still weren't making, we weren't making $15,000 in expenses. So we were definitely not doing too much with the credit card world. Fast forward, we moved to Connecticut, which is where we are right now. And we bought a house and we had some more expenses coming up and I actually found through just, I'd like travel in general. And we had been traveling just a lot of road trips, a lot of the United States. We've actually been to 42 states, so we're getting there..

Average Joe Finances:
11:17

Just in the moves alone, those were big moves, yeah. Memphis to Vermont, to Florida to Connecticut.

Shelly Blancq:
11:22

So yeah, just bopping around the east coast over here. But we been to 42 states, so definitely a lot of in the United States travel, but then we moved to Connecticut. We both got settled, got some big kid jobs, so to speak, and we're like, okay, now we can really start to play around with these credit card points. Obviously we've shown that we aren't using them inappropriately we're not max 'em out and doing these things now. It's been about five years, so like I feel pretty confident in myself not, gonna max out a credit card. So we started with looking at what I am gonna call not flexible currency. So fixed currency and credit cards. These are gonna be credit cards like, hotel credit cards or airline. I started looking that cuz I was like, maybe we should just pick an airline or a hotel. And so we picked Marriott Bonvoy, which is a mistake. It was not the way to go. But I'll tell about that in a second. So we picked Marriott and we opened up a credit card. We are gonna go to again, Disneyland. Not all my travels are Disney, I promise, but they're just happen to both these me, so we're going Disneyland.

Average Joe Finances:
12:27

I'm not gonna, you see what shirt I'm wearing, right? I am not.

Shelly Blancq:
12:29

I was gonna comment on it. I was gonna comment.

Average Joe Finances:
12:32

I was Star wars fan and I'm also a big Disney fan, so yeah. We're good here.

Shelly Blancq:
12:35

Yeah, my husband too.

Average Joe Finances:
12:36

We're good here. I would probably do the same thing, so please keep going.

Shelly Blancq:
12:39

So we are going to Disneyland with my dad. We're gonna take him. We opened actually a business that's a travel agency for mostly Disney. So we needed to check out Disneyland. We saw Marriott had a deal where we could get a couple of hotel nights in Burbank, and so that's really why we opened up that card. And we did get three free nights in Burbank, so it was totally worth it in terms of opening up the card $95. But then I started listening to I'm gonna plug another podcast here if it's okay, but it's a Geo Breeze podcast all about travel hacking. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute. I need to start writing this down. And we got really into it. So in the last year we've opened up, I think 12 credit cards between the two of us. So lots. I know that's everyone's like ears pop up. Whoa, that's a lot of credit cards. And it is, it's a lot of credit cards. But we've done it in a very specific, meaningful way that has not at all hurt our credit scores. We both have 800 credit scores or above. So it's not like all of a sudden I'm sitting here going, yeah, I have all these hotel points and a 650 credit score to bat. So I think that's a big thing that comes up as people are nervous about the credit score, but it bounces back

Average Joe Finances:
13:47

Please pray. Tell about these 12 credit cards you opened and why? 12. That's one a month.

Shelly Blancq:
13:53

It's big. It's big. And we have what's called in the I hope I'm not getting too bogged down in the lingo here, cuz I know it can be overwhelming when you're first hearing about it, but there's a thing in credit card hacking called Player one, player two. So you have your player one, which means me. So I'm the primary here. I'm the one driving the boat, so to speak. And then my player two is my husband. We have the benefit of both having excellent credit scores. So that's helpful that we can both pick and choose our. Credit cards. And so we take turns going back and forth opening cards. We also own two businesses. And my husband is also professional singer, so we have a couple of business card things to play around with as well. And so that has been a big part of it is those business cards cuz those don't usually have an annual fee and they don't take, or they don't show up, officially on your personal credit score.

Average Joe Finances:
14:43

Right? Yeah. So when you Yeah, it shows up to build your business credit.

Shelly Blancq:
14:45

Exactly. So it helps.

Average Joe Finances:
14:47

I don't want your credit, but that's it.

Shelly Blancq:
14:48

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
14:49

Like it won't affect your score.

Shelly Blancq:
14:50

Exactly. So that's helped us a lot. So I'll break this down a little bit. So we've already had the Capital One. We've loved Capital One. We've done a lot of, I would consider smaller purchase erasers. So a hotel stay here. Tickets. We got another round of European tickets that we've canceled out, so that's cool. A couple hotel stays here and there, a car rental, things like that. I opened up the chase, which is a lot of people's kind of bread and butter type credit card hacking card. It's the Chase Sapphire. It's a $95 a year, so it's pretty low in the annual fee and it has.

Average Joe Finances:
15:24

But the Sapphire Ink card, for business.

Shelly Blancq:
15:26

The inks? Yeah, the inks are business. Okay. This is the personal kind of just chat chase Sapphire preferred.

Average Joe Finances:
15:32

Okay. Okay. Cause I have the sapphire ink for my business. Yeah.

Shelly Blancq:
15:34

There you go. Yeah. So you're already halfway on your way here. So you have the but you need the preferred, and I'll tell you why. So you have, we got the personal Chase Sapphire.$95 a year. Only one of us have it, I believe. So we put a minimum spend. You mentioned this earlier. There are minimum spends for every credit card we've opened in the last year. This one is fairly low. Most of them sit at 3000 for three months. Owning a business and a house. Easy peasy. 3003 months. Easy to hit for us, at least in our, in, in our situation. So we hit that and you get maybe 75,000, 80,000 points. The lowest. I guess redemption you can expect from points and miles is 1 cent per point. So again, I don't mean to get like too bogged down here in like the logistics, but I always think of I at minimum have 1 cent per point. So 80,000 points, 800 bucks is like how I frame it in my head when I'm looking at things. But you can actually get much more than that. So we got the chase. And the reason we got Chase is because of those inks, like you mentioned before. Those inks are amazing. There's a few of them. We have two. So actually we have three. We have the cash and the freedom I believe, and then my husband also has a cash, so he has it through his singing. I have both of them under our LLCs. So those are good because they're no annual fee. And they had super high sign on bonuses when we did it. There were 90,000 points a piece. So we got all three of those. That adds up quick, so the only way though, to redeem those well, is to have that personal Chase Sapphire card, which is why I'm selling you. You need to have that one so you can really get into the next piece of all of this.

Average Joe Finances:
17:24

That might be the next part I get then.

Shelly Blancq:
17:26

I think so I think that's your next step, because you can transfer those into your chase Sapphire. Now, why you would do that? Right now, inks that you have are used for cashback, right? That's how you're using them?

Average Joe Finances:
17:39

Yeah.

Shelly Blancq:
17:39

Yeah. So you can get those in. I believe it's probably about 1 cent per point, if not maybe a cent and a half depending on the category or something.

Average Joe Finances:
17:46

That sounds about right. A cent per point.

Shelly Blancq:
17:47

Yep. Yeah. And so what you can do with the Chase Sapphire Preferred though, is if you transferred your points there, chase and Capital One have transfer partners. So you can literally transfer Chase points one to one in many different loyalty programs. So you can transfer, for example, into JetBlue and it looks like you've earned 60,000 points with JetBlue, which in JetBlue's eyes are worth much more than 1 cent per point.

Average Joe Finances:
18:16

Oh, okay.

Shelly Blancq:
18:17

So yeah, so you can start to get into two, three. I've even seen 10 cents per point you can get.

Average Joe Finances:
18:23

Oh, I like that one.

Shelly Blancq:
18:24

Yeah. Yeah, it adds up really quickly. And so those transfer partners are really where you're gonna get the bulk of. The fun of travel hacking. But of course those are the ones that require a little bit of work in the backend. Because not all of them transfer to all the same ones. There's alliances, within the airlines and all of that, which do transfer across. But, learning all of those things does take a bit. In the front end, but it is 100% worth it. And if you wanna know all the cool things we've done this year, we can go in that now or later cuz it really, you could get some really cool stuff.

Average Joe Finances:
19:00

Yeah, no let's get into that. Tell me the cool things you did with that, especially when it comes to like these transfer partner. That's really interesting. When I sat in on that other that with that other speaker and they were sharing what they did, I don't think we really got into that so much. We talked more about like some of the different trifectas that you can get into. Like one for me, like my Amex Platinum and my Amex business Gold, like I actually was able to transfer all my points from my business account to my personal one, which is really cool.

Shelly Blancq:
19:25

Yep. So the same thing would happen with Chase.

Average Joe Finances:
19:27

For signing on with that.

Shelly Blancq:
19:29

Yep. Exactly. Yeah. That same thing would happen with Chase if you got the Chase Sapphire, you could transfer all the ones from your inks.

Average Joe Finances:
19:35

Oh, okay. I like it.

Shelly Blancq:
19:36

Into that Chase Sapphire. Yep. Yeah, let's talk transfer partners.

Average Joe Finances:
19:39

Let's talk about these partners.

Shelly Blancq:
19:40

Yeah. Okay. W we've only been super into this for one year, and the reason I'm mentioning that is because it does not take you 10 years. To get into all of these points and miles. Yes. We've technically had our, capital One for now, probably seven years and been doing a little dabbling in it from that. But we've really like nose the ground, been into this for about a year. So in that year we've accumulated. Probably close to 500,000 points. And we don't have super high spends. I think I mentioned this before, I definitely mentioned this before, but we both work in schools so it's not we are making six figure salaries, both of us, and able to put hundreds of thousands of dollars in these credit card spends. Cuz I think that's another misconception people have. It's you must spend a lot of money. We spend a normal amount of money. We're definitely middle class here.

Average Joe Finances:
20:29

I am putting it all on the credit card and then paying it off right away.

Shelly Blancq:
20:32

Exactly.

Average Joe Finances:
20:33

Yeah.

Shelly Blancq:
20:33

So let's talk these transfer partners. So we have transferred our biggest ones recently. We got all three of us, me, my dad's also the star of the show. Apparently, me and my dad and my husband we took to London. Just this last, a couple weeks ago for Easter. So that's a super busy time. It's spring break. Also Easter is the break in London schools as well. So it's not a cheap time to fly at all. Could not find an economy flight for under $600, any which way I put it. And I was able to transfer points over and I believe I transferred 35,000 or 40,000 points over and paid a hundred dollars in fees for each of us. So really, I paid a hundred bucks. To fly to London for Easter. And when none of the tickets were under 600 and I didn't even just get a plain economy. I got the checked bags and the early priority seating and all of those things. It wasn't business or anything, but it was still like better than I could have gotten at that base price of 600 just by transferring the points as opposed to buying and erasing like I was doing before. And that one is fun.

Average Joe Finances:
21:42

And you actually purchased it with the points not.

Shelly Blancq:
21:44

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
21:44

Not erasing the charge.

Shelly Blancq:
21:46

Exactly. Like I would've done in Capital One.

Average Joe Finances:
21:48

Yeah, sure.

Shelly Blancq:
21:49

Yeah. And Capital one transferred.

Average Joe Finances:
21:50

Now you transferred to from Capital One to this airline, right? Yeah. Now, was there a multiplier there? So you know how with Capital One it's a cent per point. What did it look like when you transferred it to this airline?

Shelly Blancq:
22:02

This one I got, it wasn't my best redemption. I have a better story in a second, but I got about, I think it was one, one and a half cents per point. 1.60 cents per point. So a little better. Not quite double.

Average Joe Finances:
22:15

Yeah. 50%, 60% higher than just doing in, Capital One. Yeah.

Shelly Blancq:
22:19

Exactly.

Average Joe Finances:
22:20

Awesome.

Shelly Blancq:
22:20

But even better. I have a trip this summer. I actually got a a grant to go study in Norway this summer. Norway is obscenely expensive. There's just, it's very expensive place. So we got, I did a little bit of research and. First of all, we are we're also going on a cruise while we're there. Not part of the grant. That's just as we're already in Europe. Why not? So we're going on a cruise and our flights from From Copenhagen, which is where the cruise ends to Frankfurt, which I'll talk about Why Frankfurt in a second. Those were $200 a piece and we bought them, quote unquote transfer points, 6,000 points per person. So at once per point? Yeah. That's only 60 bucks at once per point.

Average Joe Finances:
23:05

I'd say 60 bucks, man. Like what?

Shelly Blancq:
23:07

So that's over 2 cents per point there. So that was pretty good. But then even better, the reason we're going to Frankfurt it's actually a, what's called a positioning flight. So instead of just flying direct, we're close to New York City. So we always use that airport. So instead of just going Copenhagen to New York, we're going Copenhagen to Frankfurt and then to New York. And the reason is because we're flying business class back for 60,000 points per person, and that flight was almost $5,000 per person and we're getting it for 60,000 points.

Average Joe Finances:
23:39

Wow.

Shelly Blancq:
23:40

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
23:41

Very nice.

Shelly Blancq:
23:41

So that's a good one.

Average Joe Finances:
23:43

I'm pretty proud of that. Thousand points, right? Which would be 600 bucks. Yep. And you're doing it. So is it 60,000 points each ticket? So is it 120,000 points? Yeah. Okay, so what, $1,200 for two $5,000 flights. Yep. Or $10,000 worth of flights. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, you can't beat that. That's

Shelly Blancq:
24:03

pretty darn good.

Average Joe Finances:
24:03

That's a win right there, for sure.

Shelly Blancq:
24:04

Yeah, I'm very excited about that. And then we are gonna have a night because we, we don't wanna chance our fancy business class flight on, a late flight from Copenhagen. So we're gonna have a night Near the airport in Frankfurt and I used Hyatt, which is one of Chase's absolute best transfer partners. And that hotel cost me 5,000 points. So 50 bucks. Yeah. For one night. Yeah. For one night. It was usually about 150, 160 for the night.

Average Joe Finances:
24:32

Nice.

Shelly Blancq:
24:32

It was an airport hotel. And so 5,000 points, no big deal. Okay. So yeah, easy peasy. 120,000 points seems like a lot, but when you think about those inks that had that 90,000 points sign up, That it can be real quick that you're gonna get those, especially if you're having business spend. We don't even have a ton of business spend with ours. We don't hold inventory. We don't have a ton of expenditures, but I have two friends that, they do hold inventory one's in food and the other in like they keep inventory to install it. And both those people can put$15,000 spend easy in a month. And one of those people, I just got into the Capital One version, so not even the fancy, transfer partners where you really get your bang for their buck. My friend doesn't have the time for that. They're just like, no, it's too much for me. But even just the Capital One eraser, I got him into it last July, so not even a year ago. And since then with nothing but putting the spend on it that he already would gonna have he has gone and seemed family twice for free. Taken the flights for free in small airport to small airport those flights are expensive. He went and saw a friend that he hadn't seen in 30 years across the country because he had the free flight again, and then he went to Europe for the first time. That's, so all of those things on that one credit card, all for free, just for putting business expense on it.

Average Joe Finances:
25:59

Yeah that's fantastic. Okay, I wanna get into a little bit now about the backend side here, right? So everyone's listening to this right now, saying, oh my goodness, this is so cool. I wanna open up a bunch of credit cards and get these points. Let's get into that a little bit. Cuz you opened up 12 in this past year, right? And six and six, but yes. Six and six, right? You did the the player one and player two. Or player A and player B, right? Yep. So by doing it that way, so six each. Do you feel like there was cuz you said it didn't really affect your credit card your credit score, how did you make it work out that way where you didn't like, have such a huge dip? Because even opening up six credit cards right, you're gonna get a hard inquiry on your credit score.

Shelly Blancq:
26:39

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
26:40

And those stay on for two years.

Shelly Blancq:
26:42

Yeah, they do.

Average Joe Finances:
26:43

So is that not as big of a factor as people might think it is? Or like, how does this work where it doesn't like, Negatively impact your score so badly.

Shelly Blancq:
26:52

Absolutely. Totally they do stay on for two years. So you will have that on your credit score. It'll say you've had this many hard inquiries, however, more what affects your credit score, at least in our research more than hard inquiries, is the amount of available credit. So every time you're opening a credit card, yes it does dip your score a couple points right off the bat, and I'm talking literally a couple, like two or three sometimes. Sometimes it'll go up to 10 depending on did I just open two in a row or something like that. But no more than that. Like just a few points here and there. And then in about a month or so, it jumps up further than it was before. So actually when we started all of this, my credit score. It hung out around 800, but never over. Like it was funny. We were going back and forth. My husband has had over 800 and I was like, oh, I'm so close, I can't like, get over that threshold. So it was like a little bit of a battle we had back and forth, but once I started opening these credit cards, it jumped right up. And that's because I have all this available credit now through these different credit cards. So yes, it does take, that hard inquiry, but then it usually goes even above. And this isn't just my own anecdotal, like this is known through the travel hacking world is yes, it takes that hit, but it comes right back. I will say, because this is a lot of People do real estate on this podcast. I will say I wouldn't do it if I'm trying to buy a property in the next couple of months, because you don't want, a ton of hard inquiries on your credit. If you're like, trying to buy something big, a property or a car, something like that, I might lay off of it while I'm trying to do that.

Average Joe Finances:
28:28

Sure, yeah. Yeah, if you're getting ready to take out a mortgage

Shelly Blancq:
28:30

they may not want the 12 credit cards on your.

Average Joe Finances:
28:33

Probably not.

Shelly Blancq:
28:33

Yeah, on your credit score.

Average Joe Finances:
28:36

All right. That's fair enough. Now you, you gave a couple examples of, you're friends with their business expenses and how that worked out for them. Now, are they, so they're essentially charging, all their expenditures on those credit cards, right? Getting all those points and then just paying it off right away right before, before they wind up having to pay interest. Or do you have to pay a little bit of interest first for you to actually get the points?

Shelly Blancq:
29:01

Great question. You don't have to pay any interest. We've never paid interest on the first credit card I had, we paid interest, but ever since I got the new Capital One, we've not paid any interest on a credit card. And these points follow suit. So, there's no gotcha moment with the credit cards in terms of having to do that pay that you know, interest and that's the reason you get your points. You will have to pay. Sometimes a annual fee. So we haven't talked a lot about annual fee cards except for that Chase Sapphire one. But actually some of those, you have the platinum, the Amex Platinum. Yes. So you clearly find the value out of that one.

Average Joe Finances:
29:37

Yeah.

Shelly Blancq:
29:38

And that one has a hefty fee. But there's a lot of benefits to those, and as long as you can get the benefit out of the fee, I don't actually see it as a fee. I see it as a prepay.

Average Joe Finances:
29:47

Oh I get more of the fee back.

Shelly Blancq:
29:48

Yeah, absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
29:49

I get all of it back with airline credits and everything else.

Shelly Blancq:
29:52

Yeah just an easy one. My maybe favorite card ever is the Capital One Venture X Card. It's a newer card about only about a year old. It's a $395 annual fee. And that scared me. I was like, I don't wanna pay$400 just to have a credit card. You know who wants that? Like your credit cards? They should be free. But the Capital One Venture X it comes with global entry or TSA pre-check. So obviously that's a great both my husband and I have that, so like.

Average Joe Finances:
30:18

I get that. I get that with the Amex Platinum too.

Shelly Blancq:
30:20

Yeah. Isn't it great you just walk right through?

Average Joe Finances:
30:22

Except the fee for that's like double.

Shelly Blancq:
30:24

Yeah. Yeah. It is a little hefty. Yeah. But that TSA pre-check global entry is a game changer. Yeah. You walk through, like you're a famous person, you walk right through. So well

Average Joe Finances:
30:35

I always have TSA pre-check because I was in the Navy, and.

Shelly Blancq:
30:37

Oh yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
30:38

Once I actually got out, I used my Amex platinum. To get my my pre-check done. So.

Shelly Blancq:
30:44

Nice. So you never had to do the horrible lines.

Average Joe Finances:
30:47

I have, if they didn't put my traveler number in. And as a matter of fact, when I was flying back from Phoenix two days ago, was it yesterday? No, two days ago. And wait, what's today? Monday? No, it was yesterday. Feedback yesterday. Oh my goodness. I'm my brain's fried. Like I was going to check in and I'm like, I was like, oh, my boarding pass didn't say TSA pre-check. So I went up to the front and said, Hey, it's supposed to be pre-checked. I put my known traveler ID in and they just went and plugged it all in for me right there, and boom, printed me out a new boarding pass. I was like, okay, good.

Shelly Blancq:
31:14

Oh, that's nice. Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
31:15

And I was glad because when I saw the difference in the between the two lines, I was like, oh, the regular one's not that bad and the pre-check line looks a little longer. And then I, once you actually got past the wall, And inside. And you saw, okay, now I pass the wall and I'm going right through the bag check. You get past the wall on the regular side, there's 16 lines. And I'm like, I was like, ok, I could've missed my flight.

Shelly Blancq:
31:36

Yeah, absolutely. So it comes with that amazing feature. Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
31:40

That is a great perk.

Shelly Blancq:
31:41

Oh yeah, it is. And then another thing it comes with is, so that's a hundred dollars every four or five years. That's not quite the annual fee, but it also comes with $300 travel credit when booked through the Capital One app. So that, that those two things pay for it the first year no matter what. And the travel credit is nice. We used it to stay in Spain for Christmas last year. We split a stay between Portugal and Spain. All of our Spanish hotels were covered with that $300 credit. So a good use of that credit. And then it also comes with 10,000 anniversary points. So at 1 cents per point, that's a hundred dollars. Then my very favorite feature, which you also have some of this with the Amex Platinum, is lounges, airport lounge access. That is another game changer.

Average Joe Finances:
32:29

Free Food.

Shelly Blancq:
32:30

My gosh. It makes being in an airport like manageable, like ok, yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
32:35

I don't use it too much cuz I don't. I try not to have like too long of layovers or I don't like to get to the airport too early and hang out. I'm just one of those, let me get in there, get on my flight and go.

Shelly Blancq:
32:45

Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
32:46

But I see people all the time, like coming outta the lounges. I've gone to a couple especially flying overseas. I definitely would use lounges for sure.

Shelly Blancq:
32:53

Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
32:53

Especially after a long flight.

Shelly Blancq:
32:55

It's so nice. We the priority Pass comes with the Capital One, so that has a lounge.

Average Joe Finances:
32:59

That's what I have with the Amex too.

Shelly Blancq:
33:01

Yeah. Yep. And you have the Century on lounges too.

Average Joe Finances:
33:03

Yep.

Shelly Blancq:
33:03

Which are even nice ever. But that, yeah, that Priority Pass has the lounge network and we have found them in almost every airport. We've flown in, we fly out of MCO quite a bit in Orlando and. The club there. Free drinks, like you mentioned, they have a full bar. It's pretty nice after a Disney vacation to get to the airport, have a drink, and then go to your gate. That's quite the way to travel.

Average Joe Finances:
33:25

No, that's great. And one of the things I like to Priority Pass used to be very painful about having your actual Priority Pass card on you. But now if you have like your Amex Platinum card on you, they'll let you in.

Shelly Blancq:
33:36

Oh, that's, they have an app too, but that's nice.

Average Joe Finances:
33:38

Yeah. Oh yeah, I do. I have the app on my phone too. That's pretty cool. Okay. I just wanna ask you one more thing before we go into the final round cause I didn't realize we're sitting here just blasting through this, how much time has passed. But besides the flights, the hotels, and like erasing charges, what are some other things you can actually do with some of these sign-on bonuses and points?

Shelly Blancq:
34:00

Yeah In your very first year. Like I said, you can transfer those points. The transferring is the thing that takes, we could have a month long conversation about transferring points and the different partners. But beyond that, travel credit cards are really great about some of these auxiliary type things we just talked about. So like lounge excess is a big one. TSA pre-check. They also come with usually kind pretty good travel insurance. I wouldn't rely on it. As medical insurance, but a hundred percent good for bad claims missed connections, those types of things. So they come with a pretty nice array of travel protections. They also come with some status. So depending on the credit card like with Capital One, venture X, the one we just went over it comes with like the president's circle for Hertz. So I can literally walk into a Hertz and just take whatever car I want off the lot, essentially. So that's a pretty cool perk and that is a lower end perk. Even some of these really nice credit cards with those really high fees can get you things like. The platinum with Marriott and then you get things like free room upgrades, free breakfast your resort fees get waived. So that starts actually saving you money. It's not just a nice oh I feel nice cause I'm in this lounge and it's doing this and that. This is actual money that you'd be spending that now you don't have to. So some of these benefits are more than just feeling. Like a celebrity, getting the sweet upgrade and things like that, they're actually saving you money. So not only are you booking it and saving money, but then you're saving money on all these auxiliary things like travel insurance, free breakfast, parking fees, a myriad of things.

Average Joe Finances:
35:38

Yeah, absolutely. Are there any other things can you get like certain, I don't know, like gift cards or anything like that with points? Are there things you could purchase with points besides the travel stuff?

Shelly Blancq:
35:49

Yes. And you usually can purchase those through like the they have portals, travel portal, or like the chase portal, capital One portal, things like that. You are usually only getting about 1 cent per point, one and a half cents per point. So for me, I'm thinking. I want more than that with my transfer partners. But you absolutely can do that. And there's a lot of people, like this is going backwards. It's not purchasing, credit cards with points, but instead purchasing gift cards with credit cards to maximize your points. So I'll give you just this one little example cuz again, This could be a month long conversation that we have about how people do this. And I told a friend about this once and they were like, this sounds illegal. And I was like, it is totally not. It is totally a thing that credit card companies know we're doing. But the inks, for example, one of the inks gets five times the points at Staples or all the office supply stores. So it gets five times points. That's great if you're gonna buy pens, and like things like that. But you're not always going to be doing that. However, staples also sells gift cards. So a lot of times people meet these minimum spends by what's called manufactured spending. So it's then by buying gift cards you are gonna use, for X, Y, and Z, to not only hit the minimum spend but also get five times the points. You do have to be a little careful with that. You don't wanna only do that cuz Chase.

Average Joe Finances:
37:13

Yeah, no, I like that.

Shelly Blancq:
37:14

Might see it. Yeah. So going back to my Disney, our love of Disney over here. We're going to Disney in a couple months, and so we bought like$2,000 in Disney gift cards. So we're getting five times the points now on that. And we're using it to pay like, our resort and our Disney tickets. And because you can pay everything with Disney gift cards and we're also using them when we go and actually for food and everything else you buy there. So we are getting five times the points on something we would've already spent. It's not, spending more than we would have, cuz that is a danger too people can get into. But if you already know you're gonna spend it why not get five times the points? Where else am I getting, five times the points on a Disney spend. You're not, so that's another way people start to maximize some of this.

Average Joe Finances:
37:59

Cause if you would've just went to Disney and swiped that credit card, you're only getting, 1 Point or two.

Shelly Blancq:
38:03

Yeah, exactly.

Average Joe Finances:
38:03

Instead of the five potential that you can get.

Shelly Blancq:
38:06

Exactly.

Average Joe Finances:
38:06

Wow. Yeah. That's great.

Shelly Blancq:
38:08

And those are transfer partner points. So that's how I'll get into the business class from Europe, yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
38:13

That's great.

Shelly Blancq:
38:14

It goes a long way.

Average Joe Finances:
38:16

That's probably the biggest takeaway from this episode right there. That's great.

Shelly Blancq:
38:20

In the 11th hour, I give you my real gold.

Average Joe Finances:
38:23

There you go. There's the giant golden nugget right there.

Shelly Blancq:
38:26

Exactly.

Average Joe Finances:
38:27

Right. Okay Shelly, let's go ahead and get this into the final round. It's where I'm gonna ask you the same four questions I ask everybody that comes on the show. And if you're ready to go, we'll get this party started. All right, let's go.

Shelly Blancq:
38:40

All right, let's do this.

Average Joe Finances:
38:40

So Shelly, the very first question I have for you, especially with the topic we were discussing about credit cards and the beginning of how this happened for you. With 2008 leading up until now, what would you say is the biggest financial mistake you, what's the biggest mistake you've ever made in your finances?

Shelly Blancq:
39:00

I think everyone who's listening to this episode could probably tell you the answer to that. But it's definitely it's two things. One is curing that balance, not only on that credit card, but I mentioned it had a couple of other kind of floating balances that really tanked my credit score and it was hard to get it back up. So once you have made that mistake, it is hard to recover. And if you are a person who feels at all iffy about. Credit cards and using them and being nervous, they're gonna ha what is it? Burn a hole in your pocket? I would not get into this. I know we just talked about how amazing it is, but really it can also be dangerous. Yeah. And so I think, really making sure that I felt very confident in only using it, having that buffer and all those things that I didn't have in the first place. Once I put all those in place, I felt a lot more confident. Another one is not paying attention to my student loans, so I know that's also a big thing with people. But that especially rings true for me. Another not great financial decision was my degree in theater, although I'll talk about why that actually has helped me out in a minute. But the student loans, I wish I had been more aggressive in paying them off earlier instead of pushing them as far as I could have away, if that makes sense. So I deferred them for a long time. I paid the minimum, those types of things. And I wish I'd been a little more aggressive early on and been making that more of a priority.

Average Joe Finances:
40:23

Okay. Right on. And the theater.

Shelly Blancq:
40:25

What? Yes. Okay I'm gonna, I'm gonna What is it called? I'm going to pump myself a little bit here if that's okay.

Average Joe Finances:
40:32

That's alright. Go.

Shelly Blancq:
40:33

Gotta talk about my things now. So I've been a performer. I met my husband doing performance, so we're both performers and so right now our big push one of our businesses that I mentioned earlier. Is our podcast. It's given us this creative outlet and has actually been our most successful kind of all of our businesses thus far. And I think it, I really give it to my kind of background and performance and just being comfortable doing my thing, and having this creative outlet for both of us, I think has been pretty amazing.

Average Joe Finances:
41:02

Absolutely. We'll save the other parts of that for the very end. So I'm excited about that

Shelly Blancq:
41:07

Just to stick around for the next couple of minutes.

Average Joe Finances:
41:09

Stick around people, and listen up. Okay. So Shelly the next question in the final round is, what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started?

Shelly Blancq:
41:19

This one is my favorite question which is to just start something. It doesn't have to be perfect. I am a perfectionist. I mentioned all of the financial things I learned and, I really dove headfirst and I still messed up. Like none of it prepared me for what it actually is like to do it in real life. And I think that if you're so nervous that you're gonna mess something up you're never gonna see what, how amazing it could be as well. And that applies to both all this credit card stuff and also starting all these businesses. I really just weighed and I was like, I have to wait for the right time. And then Covid hit. And then I was like, there may never be a right time and when I think it is the right time, something like this may happen. So I think it's really it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be, I think is probably my biggest takeaway.

Average Joe Finances:
42:04

I like that. Awesome. Okay. And tying into that, the next question, Shelley, is do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started out today?

Shelly Blancq:
42:14

Yeah, so if we're gonna talk travel hacking, since that's like the big thing for today I would say to pick a flexible card currency. So we talked about a couple of those. That's Capital One, Amex, Chase City. Pick one of those. That looks good, that you like the benefits for and that you can deal with the annual fee for. It doesn't have to be a crazy high annual fee card and just start accumulating points. That's actually probably not what a lot of travel hacking people would say because they can always be devalued, so they're always like, oh, you should be working for a specific trip. But I actually disagree. I think you could put the cart before the horse on this one and you can just start. Accumulating points. So when you do see that amazing trip and you're like, you know what, I actually can take this week off that is when you can jump on it because you have been accumulating these points, whether they get devalued or not. Something is better than nothing and it doesn't really cost you anything minus a couple of annual fees that you're probably getting the benefit out of anyways. It doesn't really cost you anything to start, racking up those points.

Average Joe Finances:
43:17

Yeah. No that's great. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. And the final question, Shelly, of the final round is Yes, and I will preface this with, besides your own, cuz we mentioned it a little bit. Yep. But do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

Shelly Blancq:
43:34

Yes. So I've been reading Burn the Boats by Matt Higgins. Have you heard of it? It's amazing book. And it fits right with that thing I just said, with the kind of just start. It doesn't have to be perfect. His whole idea is that you, if you have a Plan B, you'll always fall back on it which is very hard for me. So I'm reading it and real like I keep reading the same page. I'm like really? I can't have a plan B? But it's an amazing book. Some of the reviews on it are, I feel like I have an MBA now. So it's just a really an incredible book both for inspiration and literal knowledge. And then for podcasting, I really like Friends On Fire. I mentioned that I liked the fire type financial strategy as opposed to Dave Ramsey these days. And I think Friends On Fire does a really great job at breaking it down and making it accessible.

Average Joe Finances:
44:21

Awesome. All right thank you so much for both of those recommendations. Now that is it for the final round, Shelly, however, woo. I do have another question for you. That is probably the most important question of all because people are watching this or listening to this and they're saying, wow. I'm getting so much value outta this. I'm gonna go open up 37 credit cards, and I'm kidding. That's what they're gonna do. But they're, they want to maybe potentially start doing this and maybe they wanna know a little bit more about you and your podcast and all of those things. Where can people find more information about you? Do you have a website you can share with us? Social media. And what's the name of your podcast?

Shelly Blancq:
44:56

Yeah, we're all over the place. We're the Travel More podcast. It's just the two words travel more, you'll find it on all the things that podcasts are on. Our website is travelmorepodcast.com, so it should be pretty easy on there. And then our Instagram is @thetravelmores. As we're, cuz we're a couple so we are all about breaking down the boundaries or, and barriers that stop people from traveling. 70% of Americans say they wish they traveled more and so we just looked at that and said, okay, so what's stopping you? And we talked to friends and family and we scoured the internet and so we. Just feel like we've had a great opportunity to travel. We take three or more international trips a year. Like I said, we've been to 42 states. We travel a lot. Our friends are always like, you're going somewhere else. And this is all on teacher's salary, so it's not we're big earners over here and we can afford to just travel anywhere. Except for these credit card points. So it's just about some of those barriers and how you can break those down and how you can make travel a bigger part of your life.

Average Joe Finances:
45:55

Yeah. I love that because, one of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast, especially on the real estate side, is just being creative in your financing. And this is just another way to be creative using credit cards to travel hack your life. So I love that we talk about Absolutely, house hacking all the time. Now we're talking a little bit about travel hacking and different methods of doing that. So I absolutely love it. To close things out, I want to ask if you have any final thoughts for our listeners, anything that we missed?

Shelly Blancq:
46:21

Oh man. You threw a curve at me. Oh no. I don't know if we we went through a lot. I'm hoping that it was easily digestible, cuz I know it can get overwhelming. I would say, If you're feeling.

Average Joe Finances:
46:34

No, by the way, I'll add that you explain things in a very understandable way.

Shelly Blancq:
46:37

Okay, good. Okay, good. Because I know firsthand because I've been listening to a lot and reading a lot, and it can just get very overwhelming. So I would, I guess my final thought is caution you to think that it's too complicated, that it's too much, that you don't have time for this and that. And just do something simple like there's a million podcasts on it. That really, cuz mine is not a truly just travel hacking podcast. We go through many things. But there are lots that are just straight travel hacking. Just adding one of those to your podcast repertoire I think, and just hearing these words over and over again think can be a great way to start just getting it in your brain and putting travel at the forefront cuz it definitely helps. With all kinds of things, including your literal health. There's all kinds of studies and everything that prove with real numbers. Like 20% of women who travel more than twice a year or travel more than every two years have a lower risk of heart disease. So even things like that, there are actual numbers that show that travel should be a big part of your life. And it doesn't have to be international. It could be. Down the street, but just getting out of your routine is gonna help you not only as a person, but also as a business owner.

Average Joe Finances:
47:47

I love that, those were great closing thoughts. Thank you. And you said it was a curve ball. Come on, get outta here. No, I'm kidding. Hey, that was fantastic. Shelly. Again, I want to thank you so much for joining me today. This was a real treat. I feel like I was able to learn so much and if I was able to learn so much. I know my listeners are getting a lot of value outta this, again, thank you so much for joining me. This was fantastic.

Shelly Blancq:
48:07

Thank you. I had a lot of fun. This is great. Thank you so much.

Average Joe Finances:
48:10

Absolutely. And hey, to my listeners, I also wanna thank all of you so very much for joining me and our special guest, Shelly Blancq, on the average Joe Finances Podcast. Go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Shelly. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.