When you're traveling, there are a million reasons to stay in a hotel—the most obvious being a guaranteed place to lay that pretty little head of yours. But these days, when Airbnb and other alternative stays offer at the very least that same thing, it's important to take into account the wonderful amenities hotels have to offer on top of the bare necessities. Consider the hotel breakfast, for example. Writing generally, if you're staying in one of the best hotels in the world as our editors often do, you can count on some sort of solid-if-not-outright-sumptuous spread to see you out the door ahead of a day spent doing whatever it is you've traveled to do. While every meal is a privilege, we have some opinions about which breakfasts went above and beyond.
My first-year journey into the world of cards and points: From baby steps to maximizing rewards
23.10.2024 - 17:37 / thepointsguy.com / Nick Ewen
Before I joined TPG in early 2022, my knowledge of credit cards and the world of points and miles was limited, to say the least. Authorized users ... what are those? Free night awards? Don't know. Chase's 5/24 rule — never heard of it.
I come from a family of relatively infrequent travelers. We vacation in the Outer Banks in North Carolina every summer but only go abroad a few times, and we do not have any real sense of how valuable credit cards can be to the average traveler.
That quickly changed when I began to work with the experts on TPG's credit cards and points and miles teams, who've taught me the basics — things like the major card issuers, how to maximize your redemptions and the all-important 10 commandments of credit card rewards. It's made me a more knowledgeable employee but has also helped me in life — allowing me to transition from having no credit history at all to a credit score comfortably above 700 in just over a year.
What follows is a step-by-step guide to how I did it and a simple blueprint for how you can do it, too.
First, some context: My parents aren't exactly what you'd call points and miles enthusiasts. They have exactly one credit card, a cash-back card from their bank of choice. My dad, being the frugal guy he is, also didn't see to it that I got a student credit card in college or got added as an authorized user on their card. (For what it's worth, I wouldn't have trusted me either.)
Upon graduation, therefore, I had essentially no credit history to speak of, save for some rent payments on my college apartment and a few utilities. In one sense, that's not so bad — starting with a clean slate — but I was definitely behind the eight ball a bit in trying to build a trustworthy profile for issuers.
TPG senior editorial director Nick Ewen was amused, but probably not too surprised, when I told him about my "limited" credit history a few weeks into the job. Together, we set about making a game plan to boost my score — and quickly. The first, very generous step on his end was adding me as an authorized user on his longest-standing credit card.
Days after he did that — and chopped up the additional card sent to his address, meaning I was essentially an authorized user in name only — my credit score catapulted into the 700s. With that credit score, I couldn't instantly land a premium credit card — issuers also looked at the length of credit history as part of their inquiries, and I still needed to build a longer record of creditworthiness. However, it was definitely a step in the right direction and a confidence boost for me to see my score was that high, having done, well, pretty much nothing on my end. Thanks, Nick.
The next step, per our plan, is getting a card of my own. For
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