The Alternative Travel Currency- How to Maximize Your Travel Points

The average American is only earning about ½ of the points they should be earning from their everyday expenses, according to Credit Card Guru Max Frankel. His company, Max Points, helps clients to not only find these points that they are missing out on, but shows them how to expertly redeem the points in order to reap the greatest reward.

You’ve done your research and are using the best credit cards out there, and you’ve been collecting points that you’ve been able to put towards a few vacations, maybe booking a nice hotel or getting some cash back. With your credit score you have no problem qualifying for a card, and your Airline Credit Card has been getting you great perks every time you use them. But you might be able to increase the number of points you’re making by up to 75%, and use those points towards even more.

Max Points can do the leg work for you, personalizing a plan based on your goals and current cards (and at no cost to you!). They just revamped the website, launching a new user-friendly system to help clients reach two goals—maximize their earned points, and expertly redeem those points to achieve even more. This can allow clients to increase their travel plans as well as upgrade the quality of their travel.

I personally tested Max and his services out on a family trip to Italy. Normally when booking flights I would book a round trip, maybe using a loyalty program affiliated with that airline. Max however examined every option and came up with a whole new plan that almost cut in half the number of miles we used. Rather than purchase round trip tickets, he found two separate 1 way trips, using points from two different credit card systems and loyalty programs.

One of the biggest mistakes that Max sees is that people don’t look into all of the options available to them. They may assume a major airline such as United or Delta could have the best price for a seat on their flight, when a partner program of that airline could very well be charging fewer miles for the exact same seat.

According to Max, the best cards are going to be the ones that offer the most flexibility. Frequent Flyer cards from various airlines offer a pretty standard point per dollar ratio, with no guarantee that their flights are going to be the best price for that particular trip. His favorite cards are from Chase and American Express, which offer numerous cards to fit your goals, as well as much more flexibility in terms of options to redeem, as well as possible bonuses to earn more points.

Max Frankel, Founder and CEO of Max Points LLC

What should you not use your points on? Hotels. The amounts of points required to book a hotel room for a night has skyrocketed, with a hotel room that may cost $150 out of pocket costing the same amount of points that you could potentially spend on a $1000 flight. You’d be better off getting cash back instead of wasting it on a hotel room.

If you don’t have the time to do the in-depth research to figure out how to best maximize your points earned and use them the right way, Max can help. His consultation and point maximizing service is free, and it takes a matter of minutes to recommend the best cards for your personal goals. He has spent more than a year personally researching the intricacies of this point and reward system, and keeps up to date with the constantly changing options. He just rolled out a brand new website, and after a quick conversation they can quickly determine the best options for you. Give him a call— he’d be happy to help.