How to Spend Your Miles & Credit Card Points — Deal Master Chris Hutchins Explains

Award Tool (awardtool.com)

“Award tool, which is the one you talked about, I think is better for the person who's like, I want to go to Japan. I have a few days of availability.”— Chris Hutchins

Points (points.com)

“The other one that I like is called points. You go to the daydream explorer feature and they just give you a map of the world.”— Chris Hutchins

Seats.aero

“seats is another one if you're like a spreadsheet nerd. It's like a little bit more database than user friendly, but it's really powerful.”— Chris Hutchins

Points Path (browser extension)

“there's this great browser extension called Points Path, which just layers on Google Flights ... they're like, This is a good deal with points.”— Chris Hutchins

American Express Business Platinum Card

American Express (inferred)

“because you have an MX Business Platinum, if you're booking it in business class ... They'll give you 35% of the points you spend back as a refund.”— Chris Hutchins

American Express Business Gold Card

American Express (inferred)

“the MX Business Gold card gives you 4x points on advertising spend ... you'd be much better off getting 4x than 1x on ad spend.”— Chris Hutchins

American Express Gold Card

American Express (inferred)

“The AMX gold card is 4x on dining and groceries ... there are cards that are targeting people who spend in categories that are pretty common.”— Chris Hutchins

Capital One Venture X Business Card

Capital One (inferred)

“on the business side they have the venture X business which is just 2x on everything. There's no games to play ... You'd get 2x on everything.”— Chris Hutchins

Bank of America Premium Rewards Card

Bank of America (inferred)

“I would encourage you to maybe just switch to Bank of America premium rewards card, get 2.6% cash back on everything, 3 and a half% cash back on travel and dining.”— Chris Hutchins

Bank of America Preferred Rewards program

Bank of America (inferred)

“The most scalable platform that I'm aware of for earning cash back at scale is the Bank of America ... you effectively can earn 2.625% cash back on everything.”— Chris Hutchins

Fidelity Rewards Visa (2% cash back card)

Fidelity (inferred)

“go open the Fidelity card that gets 2% on everything and you don't have to move money anywhere.”— Chris Hutchins

Die with Zero

Bill Perkins (inferred)

“I did an episode with Bill Perkins who wrote a book called Die with Zero ... It was one of my favorite episodes.”— Tim Ferriss

Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending

Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton (inferred)

“I like Happy Money, which is a really short read. It's the science of smarter spending. And it's just like five ways you can spend money that actually lead to happiness.”— Chris Hutchins

The 5 Types of Wealth

Sahil Bloom (inferred)

“I like Sahel Bloom's book, The Five Types of Wealth, because it just reminds you that wealth isn't just about money.”— Chris Hutchins

From Strength to Strength

Arthur Brooks (inferred)

“a lot of the books that I really like thinking about are like from strength to strength, which is an Arthur Brooks book about happiness.”— Chris Hutchins

The Man Who Quit Money

Mark Sundeen (inferred)

“Have you ever read The Man Who Quit Money by Mark Sundine? ... I highly recommend what is described in the book.”— Tim Ferriss

Rooms (Seats.aero sister site)

Seats.aero (inferred)

“Seats. Arrow has a sister site called rooms. And you can literally be like, find me a small luxury hotel in the world that has five nights available.”— Chris Hutchins

Pepper (gift card app)

“There was an app called Pepper. And they were selling gift cards for a discount in a convoluted way.”— Chris Hutchins

Pure (CollectPure.com gold marketplace)

“the guy who runs the marketplace, Pure, Collectpure.com. It's a gold marketplace for all kinds of stuff. I did an episode interviewing him.”— Chris Hutchins

Costco Executive Membership

Costco (inferred)

“At the executive level, they give you 2% cash back on everything you spend at Costco up to $62,500 a year, which for a normal person is like plenty.”— Chris Hutchins

Chase Sapphire Reserve Card

Chase (inferred)

“the Chase Sapphire Reserve card is 3x on travel and dining.”— Chris Hutchins

Chase Ink Business Preferred Card

Chase (inferred)

“there's a Chase Inc. preferred card which is 3x on ad spend and travel ... also office supplies and shipping or something like that.”— Chris Hutchins

Capital One Venture Card

Capital One (inferred)

“Capital One has a spark cash on the business side and then a venture card which is just 2x points on everything on the personal side.”— Chris Hutchins

Robinhood Credit Card (3% cash back)

Robinhood (inferred)

“Robin Hood has a card that's 3%. But I've heard some, if you start putting too many business transactions on there, they have problems.”— Chris Hutchins

Southwest Rapid Rewards Credit Card (Companion Pass)

Southwest (inferred)

“if you spend $125,000 on a Southwest card, you will get companion pass. You can name any person your companion ... they will fly free with you.”— Chris Hutchins

Delta Reserve American Express Card

American Express (inferred)

“you could get a Delta Reserve MX, throw a million dollars of spend a year, and you'd be Delta Diamond.”— Chris Hutchins

American Express Platinum Card

American Express (inferred)

“the personal platinum, the primary benefit of it is you'll get a priority pass membership or you can go to MX Centurion lounges.”— Chris Hutchins

Chase Freedom Flex Card

Chase (inferred)

“you could downgrade it to the Freedom or the Freedom Flex card. No annual fee, not going to cost you anything.”— Chris Hutchins

Credit Karma

“Credit Karma gives you free credit scores. There is a difference between the FICO score ... and then the Vantage score.”— Chris Hutchins

Hilton Honors (buy points / point sale)

Hilton (inferred)

“on the website the same day, you could just buy 120,000 points for $600 ... get effectively the same elevated value without ever playing the points game.”— Chris Hutchins

Point Me to First Class (podcast)

Devon Gimbel (inferred)

“I had this woman Devon Gimble who has a podcast called Point Me to First Class on and we talked about the points journey.”— Chris Hutchins

The Art of Spending Money

Morgan Housel (inferred)

“Morgan House has got a new book, The Art of Spending Money, which I think is going to be interesting based on his past book.”— Chris Hutchins

The Wealth Ladder

Nick Maggiulli (inferred)

“There's this book that comes out in a couple months called the wealth ladder and it's like these different stages of wealth and what life looks like at each stage.”— Chris Hutchins