One Simple Trick To Get Free Flights and Hotels To Pokemon Tournaments!

本站添加: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]You guys might not be doing this one small thing that basically is going to make you free money, pay for a lot of your Pokémon trips, and cover some of your hotels. My name is Rahul, and today we're going to talk about the wonder of credit cards. And I'm going to preface this by saying that whatever you do, whatever you spend, should be within the means of your budget. Should not be uh credit card should not be used in a way to fall into debt or ruin your lifestyle or anything like that. But that should never, never, ever happen. So that being said, let's talk about why I want to talk about that today. Uh Pokémon community has recently found a discourse about uh you know, Pokémon trading cards uh credit cards specifically because Spirit Airlines, one of our premier budget airlines, has shut down, making it more difficult to travel to Pokémon tournaments. Um travel and airfare has gotten relatively more expensive over the course of the past couple of years, especially hotels. Um And right now with the current state of geopolitical affairs, it does not seem like that's going to get cheaper anytime soon. So this is something that I learned back in 2016, 2017, when I first started traveling with Pokémon, that has kind of been my life hack, I think, progressing forward. And it's something that they don't teach you in school.

[00:01:04]It's something that unless your parents kind of know, or you have friends around that you that will like kind of sit you down and teach you, you're just never going to you know, break into this mold of um what I consider infinite value is the best way to put it.

[00:01:16]Um so I'm kind of going to break that down for you guys today. I've talked about it briefly in my other uh video where I talked about my uh expense breakdown last year. And I'm more than happy to go into more questions that you guys have. So let's just jump into it. So today, um Gabriel Smart, uh known player, top player, tweeted out, "Hey, since Spirit shut down and air travel's been a big topic, I want to mention this as someone who travels a lot. Airline credit cards are typically not the best overall cards. There are usually much better options, such as a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, Chase Sapphire Reserve, and all the cards from Capital One or American Express." Now, Hunter Smith followed that up with a question. Hunter basically asked, "Why should I justify spending the money on getting these credit cards versus using credit cards with $0 annual fee?" As someone who does travel for Pokémon, but doesn't really have many large expenses outside of Pokémon, is it worth getting?

[00:02:01]This is where kind of I felt like [clears throat] it would be fun to make the discourse. I did put out a big Twitter post if you guys want to read through it, but today I'm going to explain kind of what I've been talking about in this gigantic post and in the comments also user Scott Zyro TCG also put out a pretty useful little document here. So, I'm going to kind of talk about it as we jump in.

[00:02:20]So, first off, like I said in my Twitter post, I want to preface this by saying do not ever treat credit cards like you are going beyond your means. You should always stay within your means. I was taught growing up and the one thing that I have learned through like all my personal finance and I do have a finance and economics degree. I have two degrees. If you guys didn't know, I'm not just a TCG bum. So, this I am qualified to talk about this.

[00:02:41]Um, use it like it's cash. Use your credit card like it's cash. But, using your debit card, unless your debit card has some sort of cash back percentage or something like that, you are literally leaving money on the table. Credit card companies are going to try to take advantage of you as much as they can.

[00:02:55]And that's kind of what they're built on. They're built on the fundamentals that people are not going to pay back their credit and people are just going to, you know, default on that and lose their money. So, you should take advantage of the benefits that they are giving you and offering you.

[00:03:06]Now, I have a couple of credit cards.

[00:03:09]The Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Chase Freedom Unlimited are the two like pairs. So, like every credit card you want to kind of have a pair.

[00:03:16]Let me talk about the benefit first, I guess. So, credit card points are basically just like points you get for spending whatever you do on your day-to-day. So, when you go to fill up on gas, when you go to fill up on groceries for the day, for the week, whatever you want to eat, you're going out with friends, you're booking a flight for a tournament, like all these things you're going to get points on top of what you're already spending. And the way I view things is like a point is like a cent. So, like yeah, you're maybe buying $100 worth of groceries and you're getting 100 points back. So, you're getting like a dollar back effectively.

[00:03:44]But, that doesn't always hold true. So, that you That's why you want to have like these combos and and limits. Um, Zyro put out a pretty good one for you guys cuz like it doesn't matter which like program or loyalty you want to go with cuz like there are the really really expensive ones, there are the really really cheap ones, and everyone has different offers they want to do, and it comes down to what you want to do with your things.

[00:04:02]Like for example, one of the newer ones on the block that is very useful is the Chase Capital One Venture X card, um which has a $395 annual fee, but gives you $300 in travel credit back if you book through the Venture X portal, which is very easy to use.

[00:04:16]Um And you get like TSA Global and Global Entry and all that jazz, which basically covers just the fee for the year. You just that that's your fee right there. The um all the other stuff on top of that is, you know, kosher.

[00:04:32]So, let's go from the top. Every single one of these credit cards, regardless if it's a small credit card like the Freedom Unlimited, it's a free credit card every year. You have no annual fee, but it gives you like 1.5 times the points on almost every purchase. So, that's my card that I use exclusively for like gash gas and groceries. That's my gas and groceries card. Um that becomes or like everyday purchase card where there's like no bonuses or benefits or whatever. Um because that just becomes your one becomes a little bit more, just a little bit more every single time. Um this is very valuable because um they always have welcome bonuses. And so, the welcome bonus is somewhat of a spending bonus. And now, maybe for the Freedom Unlimited, it's not something crazy. It might It might be like spend $1,000 in your first 3 months of having the card, and you will get 40,000 miles. 40,000 miles is a very comfortable one-way flight somewhere.

[00:05:22]Um some of the big credit cards when you start spending that 800 when you hit that $800 credit card or that $700 credit card with the MX Platinum or the Chase Sapphire Reserve, that's where you kind of have better bonuses. Like I think the Chase Sapphire Reserve has like $6,000 spent in your first 3 months, you get 150k points back, which is a phenomenal amount. That's like two round trips to ICs, um a full vacation if you wanted it to be. Um there's a lot you can do with your points. Your points can go a long, long way if you take the time to do the research.

[00:05:51]Example I'll use like for uh I get there. I mean I I I would feel like I'm getting ahead of myself cuz there's a lot of information.

[00:05:57]So, you want to get these things. You want to go for the welcome bonus. You want to do it. And sometimes, obviously, some of us don't have that, you know, we're not sitting there trying to spend $6,000 in 3 months. We're being very conservative with how we want to spend our money. So, I would do it in a time where maybe you're booking a bunch of flights. Maybe you're about to go on a trip. Uh maybe you're about to go to the World Championships and spend $1,000 at the Pokémon Center. Like that's just an expense that you're going to do anyway.

[00:06:18]So, kind of plan it around those things when you are applying for these credit cards. Like when I when I applied for my first credit card, um I did it in a time where I was booking Oceania Internationals. So, I would have that big spend on my card, and then I offered to book the Airbnb as well for everybody. So, I would get that um spend taken care of on my end. Um So, what do you do with these points?

[00:06:38]But, I'm I'll get to the how to earn these points and like what all the other credit cards do. But, how do you use these points? I keep saying credit card points. I keep saying credit card points. You're like, "Bro, old man, like how are these things going to be free?

[00:06:47]This doesn't make any sense. Are you scamming me? Is this a scam?" Um no, it's it's really not. I promise.

[00:06:53]>> [cough] >> So, every credit card has travel partners. Um and these travel partners are kind of partnered with the credit card to kind of boost their um visibility and what you can do with them.

[00:07:04]So, you want to be able to transfer these travel partners. Um and you don't have to exclusively stick to those travel partners cuz there's ways to like go deeper and transfer to one place to transfer to another place, you know.

[00:07:14]If you want to do the research, your miles can go your points can go literally anywhere.

[00:07:18]Having a travel credit card limits you to exactly that airline. So, if you have a Delta card, a United card, a Southwest card, that's where you're getting miles.

[00:07:26]You're getting miles for those airlines, and that's all you're going to be able to do. These points can go pretty much anywhere. There's going to be transfer bonuses every month that are going to be different. And so, you can take advantage of that as well. Let's just say >> [clears throat] >> just for example, Air Canada that a sale.

[00:07:41]That means every like let's say a 50% tra- bonus, every one point you transfer becomes 1.5 from that point onwards. So, you can now make your points go a longer way, for example. Um and the points transfer is super easy, it happens in like literally like a couple of minutes. Uh and I'll use some of the examples of what has been beneficial to me. The Hyatt properties are all typically between 8 and 12,000 points a night, which is really, really cheap if you consider some of the the properties that I booked. For example, for this year in Indianapolis Regionals, I booked the JW um or not the JW, the the Grand Hyatt or whatever, the Park Hyatt or whatever it was right next to the venue, and it was like 16,000 points for two nights. And from my perspective, I can spend my money. I can spend my hard-earned money, and I can book that, but you know, I've been spending money on other things, and these points are just sitting there.

[00:08:25]It's not going to do any good when you're dead. So, I decided to book a nice hotel, and it's completely free.

[00:08:30]That's how I look at it. It's something I'm being rewarded for doing my day-to-day things. I'm being rewarded for paying my bills. I'm being rewarded for paying rent, for buying my groceries, for eating every single day.

[00:08:40]Like you got to get you guys got to get on top of that.

[00:08:43]So, I'll talk about from a um Chase Sapphire Reserve perspective, because that's what the card I have, uh and the trifecta. Every card has like a higher and a lower-tier card. I think getting the lower-tier card is always good, because the higher-tier cards don't typically have benefits for like groceries, rent like miscellaneous shopping, like gas, for example. They don't have those bonuses, but they'll have like a 4x or 5x for restaurants, um or like an 8x points for travel. So, if you buy a flight for $200, you're getting 1,600 back. So, you're getting like 8% back on your purchase, which actually feels really good when you're like thinking about it in the grand scheme of things. Um So, for the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the card that I have, um it went up to $785 or $95. When I first got the card, it was $495, which was pretty still pretty expensive for me as a college kid. I got it right out I got it right after college. It was my first big credit card, my first big boy credit card. Um Now, it's $300 more expensive. I still have not canceled it. Why is that? So, you get the $300 travel credit that automatically applies once a year. So, basically knock that $795 price tag down to $495 back where we started, right?

[00:09:49]Back where we started. Um every 4 years you get uh TSA Global or TSA Pre, which that's when it expires. So, every 4 years, that's another $100 going towards it.

[00:09:58]So, let's say $25 a year or like one $100 value, however you want to put it.

[00:10:02]Um you guys should have TSA Global or Pre. It's very, very useful when you go to the airports, especially if you travel for Pokémon.

[00:10:07]Um for this card specifically, there's $250 dining credits that you have to book at their exclusive Sapphire tables. Now, this does get tougher when you live in like a more rural area, um where these like restaurants might not be available.

[00:10:20]I live near Washington D.C., which makes my options plentiful to go to two $150 dinners, um which that is very easy to accomplish if you're going out on a night in Washington D.C.

[00:10:30]like one drink is like 20 bucks. So, enjoy that beer, you know? Um you know, I took my parents out last time. It was a uh wonderful experience, and I picked up the bill, and I felt good about it.

[00:10:40]Um thank you, credit card. Um [laughter] you get $300 in StubHub or ViaGogo credits. So, if you're going to any concerts, any sports games, whatever like that, it'll cover that as well, which at this point by the price tag, we're already over the number that I've mentioned, that $795. These are just the easier credits to use. Um there's also Apple TV subscription. Uh great shows on there like Ted Lasso and uh Severance. I have not really watched anything else. I should probably go back and check some other stuff out, but I I Ted Lasso was the only one I wanted to watch. Um you get Apple Music as well, so you can cancel out Spotify subscription and go into Apple Music if you want to. You get $10 of Lyft credit every single month.

[00:11:13]Now, it is a different app than Uber, but they basically just all I think all the rideshare apps basically just share the same system. So, $10 in Lyft credit does mean $10 when you're hopping out of that uh airport taking an Uber to the hotel. Those $10 add up over the course of the year. It's $120 you are saving.

[00:11:27]Um DoorDash, you also get $25 in DoorDash credit, $5 just vanilla blinds applied to food, and two $10 credits for groceries. So, you can also DoorDash and do pick up on groceries where you, you know, put something in a cart. I've done this before a couple times for my mom where I'll put in some stuff um that she wants, I get the $10 off, and I'll pick it up on my way home from the gym. And basically, you don't have to pay any delivery fees, none of that stuff, and you just get $10 off the groceries you were already going to buy. So, that is a good and useful tool to use, especially if you are someone um you know, who cooks at home, does these things. So, very simple things. You get all these credit over the course of things. No foreign transaction fees. Uh and you get airport lounge access. Now, Priority Pass is the lounge access you get.

[00:12:05]It has become pretty saturated. There's a lot of people that go to these Priority Pass lounges, especially in busy times. So, it's gotten to the point where it's a little crowded, I guess I'd say. But, if it's not crowded and you get on a good day, it's very comfortable. You can chill in there, have a good time. Um and then you can shoot for bigger lounges and other stuff, too, with your airline status and stuff like that, which is what I do. I have um United Gold status. So, I am part of the uh Star Alliance lounge system. So, whenever I travel internationally, I have to go sit in these wonderful Star Alliance lounges. I try to book them because that uh price point makes sense to me where like if it's a $100, $200 difference, the fact that I can sit in a nice comfortable space for 5 to 6 hours, get to work on my laptop, eat some snacks, get a full dinner in, um get some Coke Zero unlimited is like I don't know. It It goes a long way for a guy like me.

[00:12:49]Um there's a lot more high-end credits with like high-end hotels and high-end sporting events and stuff like that, but I'm not too familiar with those because I don't do that, right? Like I'm just talking from a perspective of like a poor one person. Um I'm not going to try to push these credit cards on you or anything, but you guys should do some research, look into it, see what makes the most sense for you guys. Um because there are some amazing credit cards out there. The even the Marriott Bonvoy Chase card is really good cuz you get uh Marriott points on that, but you also get, you know, status is just immediately gifted to you. So, you could book Marriott's, you start getting these nice perks when you go to these hotels.

[00:13:20]You get lounge access there.

[00:13:22]It starts adding up, and it It starts from frame one. It takes a lot of time.

[00:13:26]You see those guys who like have the older guys who have like this like phenomenal status and stuff that they go to these hotels, airlines, whatever. It has to start somewhere.

[00:13:34]It [clears throat] has to start with you sitting down and making the conscious effort to put that forward. All right, once you start doing that, it will just start compounding much, much quicker than you guys realize. Um and it will benefit you. Like I'm on I'm on a path where like in the next 5 years, I'm going to hit max status on a lot of these things.

[00:13:51]And if I hadn't started uh 10 years or 5, 6 years ago, uh COVID obviously 2 years disappeared, but if I didn't start like 2019 basically doing all this stuff, I wouldn't be where I am now today.

[00:14:03]And for perspective, if you guys are still wondering where well, like what trips did he take for free? This year's World Championships, I'm coming from Japan. Um so it's pretty expensive flight to come to San Francisco. I booked that on points. 85,000 point round trip from Tokyo, Japan to San Francisco, back to Tokyo, Japan. That's equivalently a $800 flight. It's an I booked an $800 flight on United to get my legroom, to get everything I wanted, keep my status perfect. And then when I booked my return flight home to Washington D.C., it's only 40,000 miles from Tokyo, Japan on a one-way flight. Like these are just points and miles I'm getting for just doing my day-to-day things. You go out to the card shop and buy a couple like you go buy your cards, you buy your bling or whatever, just tap your Chase Freedom Unlimited. You're getting 1.5 times the points on every purchase you're making. You're getting a 1.5% cash back. Think about it like that. And I'm obviously there are debit cards that give you actual cash back and stuff like that.

[00:14:52]Also very good, but you got to build credit somewhere. So, that's my spiel.

[00:14:56]If you guys have questions, let me know in the comments below. I'm more than happy to answer them. I know that I went all over the place cuz there's so much to cover, but um yeah. Thank you guys for watching and you know, hopefully I'll I'll have my 2026 financial report as soon as any IC is done. I will come back, sit down, and break down my year's finances for you guys. And I think that will be a fun video to make for me. Uh might be boring for you, but I will break down how much I spent cuz this year I did, as of now, I am currently negative on the season, but we'll see what happens with a couple tournaments left. All right, peace out.