How We Used Credit To Travel For Free At 19 In 2020

Hello everybody and welcome to the third ever episode of zgn talks, I'm your host Emiliano.

This is your host Mitchell.

Um so today We're gonna talk about you know, we just got back from a five country excursion We're you know, we're gonna tell you guys how we did it at nineteen for free So we recently went to Europe for the first time now prior to actually going to Europe we would travel Domestically we live in the u.

s We actually barely did any traveling at all, we're constantly busy we we're just workaholics dude we're workaholics at this point we're kind of used to that routine and I'd say we don't really all start traveling as friends and all in a group together until the previous summer We went to LA two times We went to Vegas not much to do in Vegas for people our age but it was mainly just for networking purposes met some people and it wasn't until January that we Ended up going to Europe now prior to that Something super important that we learn when it comes to traveling because we see a lot of people traveling I remember my parents always talk to me about credit now credit is really two-sided A lot of people say use it a lot of people say don't use it It's gonna work against you if you want to go get into that Yeah, I mean, so a lot of people, for all you guys don't know what credit is Basically, it's a term it can be used a lot of different ways.

But one of the ways it's used is it's basically used as saying Pretty much a line of credit something that you can loan out from a bank or institution that you have to pay back So a lot of people obviously like credit cards count lines of like mortgages count That's all example of credit But you know There's a couple different types of credit some people there's good credit bad credit bad credit is what I would consider Like you purchase that are just like splurges Stuff that just like one-off that you're never really gonna use again and good examples of credit are stuff that you know cash flow stuff that's gonna lead to more income and something that's Necessities like for instance you need to buy groceries Might as well put on a credit card, you know what I mean and us personally I'd like to call us credit geeks Yeah and up until like the past two years I've always been super confused about credit a lot of my friends people that contact me through various social media Platforms always tell me they're really confused about credit.

I used to be in their shoes but once you get to know you really learn how easy it is there a lot of loopholes that you could be leveraging and That's essentially what we did what their travel now for for those that don't know Mine and Emiliano's main source of income comes through our Amazon based stores we have multiple Amazon stores on which we are competitive sellers on the marketplace and aside from that we also have other small ventures on the side and all that together take up a lot of business expenses and With credit there's obviously personal credit there's business credit and Business credit obviously has way more perks as we've learned because way before we open the business credit cards We had our own personal credit cards, we would hit those intro offers, but it wasn't nearly as close That's when we actually started getting those business college offers our real quick.

So for those who don't know intro offers introductory offers it basically like short term Promotional offers that credit card companies and you know other financial institutions offer and pretty much goes like this Just give you guys an example one that's out there right now and they could spend $500 get $200 back or spend $3, 000 get $500 back and this could be in the in the terms in the form of you know Cash a statement credit or something along the lines of points which is actually really really common and A lot of times if you're running a business you have long expenses that you know You have to purchase like inventory stuff like that and when you put them on a credit card You're getting benefits for and points and travel and basic ways to travel for something You would have spent money on already and just a quick disclaimer as I mentioned earlier I used to always be super confused with credit a really way to view It is literally a score of how well the bank's trust you now yes credit gives you a lot of power and At the end of the day you need to be super responsible with it Just because say we spend five thousand dollars and get two thousand Worth of bonus points was which is equivalent of two can't travel that doesn't mean if we can't afford something or randomly Just gonna go buy it on credit That would be absolutely atrocious.

I know people have done like and you see how they end up doing So I guess pretty much what we did is we spent a long business Expenses and we took those points and we did a five five country excursion about two weeks ago and we saw London Amsterdam Prague Zurich Barcelona, so those five countries over the course of about two weeks And yet pretty much these points to get all the flights for free and most of the food and accommodations for free as well Right.

Now most of our points are stacked up through our chase and American Express accounts Now we're making videos Later on about American Express cards and chase cards because the way their points work and our value that's in the game are completely different Yes, that's the game but they're also valued completely different one point on Amex is completely could be completely different than one point on chase and what car – exactly Now Something just very helpful.

A lot of people know about this usually people go on Expedia and all those travel sites Skyscanner is something we've really been using now.

Keep in mind We do have the points to pay for all the flights, but sometimes we find that it's just not worth it So for example chase when we were booking using our points through chase well I remember that Chase is only connected to Expedia and only certain Airlines – yep Yep and flights on Expedia tend to be much more expensive while if we go on Skyscanner say on Expedia The flight is worth $90, which we use on points.

And then we go on Skyscanner and it's worth $30 We're not gonna use our points.

We'll just pay straight cash instead of having to always leverage our points so make sure that when you're using your points make sure that the price value is worth it and That you're not just wasting money because you want to use those points guys that don't know Skyscanner is essentially like an app where you plug in where you're from and you can plug in basically away So it calculates the cheapest flights by month or by destination So for instance, we were able to see oh, this is the best tool to get to London if I were to go You know a day earlier what a bit like triple the price So the way we do things is we look for the best field Skyscanner Then we go to our car companies and we see which one has the best, you know point to dollar ratio You know book like that and something that I also learned is for example What's the most expensive cost of when you're taking a trip is actually flying across the globe? So for example you live in SF the expensive part was getting to London But while we're in Europe because we went to London Amsterdam Prague's or mmm Barcelona Once you're in Europe flights are super cheap there then getting back from Barcelona to San Francisco That's like 20 to 40 dollars between each location Once you're there you think of the flights cost like $70, but we just picked the time or any time We want to be there I'm always but once you're actually well what's expensive is traveling long around the globe many places Airbnb you could get a great deal hotels you a great deal flights and that's what's so good about All these companies are being able to use because that then it's pretty much free money on expenses that you were gonna use anyways yep, so if you guys aren't in the business and Water gets probably but if you guys aren't somewhat in the business you guys can do is I recommend you guys go check out cards Like MX blue cash if you guys get groceries stuff like that and you know Just get if you currently pay with LA stuff for debit cards, really you really miss it on benefits So away most of credit card companies work is they actually collect a two to three percent fee depending on the credit card issuer? From the person you buy from for them processing your credit card and Basically, these credit cards do is they give that? part of that feedback to you in the form of points and dollars now if you have a debit card, essentially what you're doing is you're not getting the benefits from The person paying to basically accept that card so Pretty much if you're gonna go get groceries or you're gonna have any assessees like that You want to be using a credit card because we're also really just missing out on points Like if you know if you get to be getting 3% back in groceries Like the blue cash has from Amex and you could I think it's I think it's 200 for five hundos and spend Getting back to dollars spending five four three percent You should really use in that card not you know It's like dev a car with no benefits and something that I just wanna stress is each credit card has its own purpose So for example, if we have one card that we put a lot of expenses for on which you order online That doesn't mean we're gonna use that card for when we go out and have dinners.

For example Yeah Because there are certain cards that if you purchase online you get 3% back other cards if you get groceries you could get 5% back Not all but I'd say that's much more on the personal side of credit because for example with us when it comes to business With me personal cards.

I have one for each kind of tasks that I do throughout the day but when it comes to our business cards we usually have one we get one at a time and We pretty much use it for all of our expenses doesn't matter If it's food inventory building this podcast studio Whichever card would currently have that we're working on we're gonna hit the intro offer on that get a next one Yep You take so I would say a couple weeks to a month spenny how long it takes to get here something that I also forgot to mention is so we share an LLC and What that means is as you guys know allas he has one iin, but because we're both founders of it That means there are two social security numbers if you want dive into that So pretty much how long these credit issues work? Is if you guys are on one company for me and Mitch like you said As long as we have two cards are coded by intro offers by their SSN now Obviously the bank isn't gonna let you, you know, get a car get the inter offer I'll get rid of it and then get it again because they just be losing money So what ends up happening is you can normally only get one intro offer per card ever Pretty much unless they have like some special deal about you really really sure there are loopholes.

Yeah, there are loopholes though it's kind of hard to do and there's pretty frankly quite frankly complicated process but uh She essentially because Mitch on there saying business and we've just set different as a sense for just we got we recently got the chase Inc preferred and the check chase Inc unlimited All these names sound the same pretty much.

Yeah, absolutely They can probably tell have to think really hard about the shared was just the cards look slightly different So essentially the blue the chase Inc Unlimited is spending five or spent $3, 000 e85 and rose back now.

We just got you just got yours We pretty much about to hit that we're about to go to mine and then before that we had the chase business preferred, which is I think about get 25% back pretty much in points So that's definitely something to bring attention to because if you get one credit card and hit the intro offer for it You can't necessarily go get the same exact one and the intro off for most time.

So that's I'd say an advantage We definitely have what under business we're able to get the same card twice and not many people are able to do that because yeah again, I'm sure there are loopholes But that's gonna be something that's super difficult and like for example aside from our inventory we built this entire studio We went through three different credit cards hitting bonus offers intra offers that pretty much paid for all of our trip to Europe on top that we have so much left because again, These are expenses that we were gonna use anyways and even outside of business I have friends at school like outside of school that have their own credit cards And they might not have a business but some of them literally open up their own business say they do something even though they're potentially Reselling exactly say say you're selling your products on eBay You could call unquote say that's a business You get the Amex platinum and I know people having their own house pink rent on it, you know all these expenses Yeah, so sometimes it's worth it to potential open up your own LLC for the perks of a business credit card.

Yep That was plastic by the way, it's the wrong app Yeah for most guys that don't know I mean, I think we should really talk about you know, what goes in their credit score and essentially what it is So those don't know I think we touched on a little bit earlier But essentially what a credit score is is how likely you pretty much are to pay a lender back That's pretty much a really really simple form of what that is There's a lot of things that go into a credit score.

I recommend downloading the app Credit Karma Personally, I think it's one of the best credit credit apps out there.

Essentially.

There's three credit bureaus and Basically, they use different scoring algorithms basically give you a score.

I believe their algorithms are slightly different.

I'm not by that much basically, there's these three credit bureaus and most banks institutions use one of these three or more than one of these three to uh you Know pull your credit side whether or not you're proof or something.

So a lot of the times oh, My bad spoke but uh, essentially what happens it when you up when you go on that app They give you two of the three and they display it two and they tell you how to increase your score So a lot of things, you know typical things going to determine your score for instance number of accounts How old you've had accounts how if you pay people back? And yes pretty much It's pretty self-explanatory, but I'm gonna be straight up with you Missing a payment oh three years we do because I've never done it but for example in Chase this happened to us a few days ago so usually If you go on your card And you have a certain amount to pay off by a certain day For example a minimum payment you can make that minimum payment But you will still be charged interest on the remaining balance Now the interest that you will be charged will depend on many factors, you know Have you missed the late payment before what's your credit score and all those factors kind of come into play? And for example, Chase was super sneaky with us, dude Yeah, they literally did it said we needed to pay off them in a moment But one if we want to see our full downs to pay off Yeah It didn't show and that's something you always need to be super careful if you guys need to be on time to see When you need to pay it off, I personally like with my personal cars I like to pay everything off the next day now There are certain hacks that I've learned that if you wait a certain amount paid off before a certain amount is due That's going to help your credit score much more right personally I just like to pay it off the next day to get it out of the way.

Yep.

I completely agree with that one yeah, why for chases guys a little bit sneaky, so American Express is super straightforward But love you Americans, but I prefer chase points over Amex pots or us either one of you will take it But no credit dude is super in it.

This is something they don't teach at school I got I'll be seeing with people in class These guys are 2021 still have a credit score don't have any credit history, and I'm like why not? My parents said it's bad their parents had a bad experience with it And a lot of it again goes into student loans credit is putting a bunch of people in debt for student loans and again, that's a huge difference between good debt and bad debt, but we Have Wow, we have a lot to say about not to cut but No, this is something like we're 19 years old We've been able to pretty much build our I got my first card right when I turned 18 name like what the no It's been a couple days.

It's been a year It's literally been a year and a half and I'm already able to leverage that to literally travel for free not gonna have to play Pay for flights for a long time to travel anyone especially if we were flying around in the u.

s.

Search again, its Expenses that you would have have been paying set don't use cash.

It's that simple.

No use cash beats be responsible be responsible It's not hard once you get the hang of it.

It's simple and yeah, it's pretty much how it goes Well, yeah, I honestly I think you're pretty much covered.

You know what I think we need to cover exactly So yeah again if you guys have any questions in regards to credit now This was kind of a kind of brief fairly broad explanation for credit.

As I said, we will be making videos of Specific credit cards that we use our top five business credit cards our top five personal credit cards based off personal experience diving deeper into their luggage logistics so cash back For certain cards are better than others on top of that intra offers are much better the five for 2400 with Chase and many other Topics just fully around credit will be definitely dumbing to specifics of that.

Do you guys have any questions? Feel free to let us know You know or our social platforms are check the description for that and yeah sub like do all that this was our third video And yeah, thank you guys for watching.

Hope you guys have a great day.