STOP Wasting Your Points: 10 Mistakes to Avoid in 2025

we're gonna do a little bit of reverse psychology today if you want to know the top 10 ways to unoptimize your points this video is for you or if you want to know what to do instead so you don't end up wasting all of your points or having them float away into the ether this video is for you as well so let's jump right in tip number one for unoptimizing your points is to hoard them try to hit some arbitrary goal like let's say you have at least two million points banked up before you use any of them that way you always feel safe with a nice fat points balance okay you shouldn't actually do that what you should do instead is to work backwards and earn and burn so pick a goal for where it is that you want to travel and then price out here's the airline that i want to fly here's how many points it's going to cost multiply that by however many people are flying and then start to accumulate the type of points that you need in order to take that flight and i know it seems like the safe thing to do is to store up a lot of points first because that's what we're taught to do with emergency funds when it comes to money instead of points and i know that the first round of points feels like it is very very difficult to get and if you spend them they're going to be difficult to replenish but i promise you as you get deeper into the game of points the points do eventually start to roll in easier and easier so you don't have to be worried about getting bankrupt with your points so just please do not hoard them how to unoptimize your points tip number two focus on one currency of points and you might as well make it delta okay don't do that obviously once again you're going to want to work backwards and figure out what kind of points you actually need to earn because sometimes people focus so much on the specific currency that they use from their home airport whether that is southwest delta united or american airlines and then they just try to make the redemptions fit with those types of points very difficult to do most of the time it's much easier to try to figure out what kind of trips you want to take with those points work backwards figure out how many points you need and if you can get flexible points like chase amex capital one rove built city that will make your life a lot easier as well and if you must focus on a specific type of airline currency i would recommend american airlines or the alaska at most points because those are going to be the most valuable tip number three for unoptimizing your points is to search in round trip tickets because obviously those are going to have discounts just like the cash tickets no what you should do instead is book everything in one way segments for a couple of reasons one let's say that you're taking a trip over to europe maybe on the day that you want to fly air france has a really good deal there but on the day you need to fly back they don't have a good deal if that is the case air france will just say there's no good round trip deals but if you book your outbound flight on air france on the day you want to fly out maybe your return flight is on a completely different airline like british airways or iberia or lufthansa or something else so that way if it's on two different itineraries those two pieces added together will probably be cheaper than just booking round trip with a particular airline because they don't really do round trip discounts on round trip flights it doesn't work the same as a cash ticket where they do tend to do that kind of discount there are some other reasons for doing this too for me personally i just like experiencing different airlines so i like to diversify a little bit how i fly over the ocean versus how i fly back and then also if everything is booked in one-way segments if something goes wrong with your flight over there and you have to rebook it or something like that it does not have this daisy chain effect where it impacts all of your other flights down the line everything is booked independently so you only have to redo one ticket instead of a whole bunch of other ones that are on later travel dates how to unoptimize your points tip number four cash out your points that way cash is king and you can just book whatever airline you want okay don't do this instead check out this video we made which has the best ways and worst ways to use your amex points and the same logic can really be used for any of the other flexible currencies like capital one chase city rove all of those spoiler alert the worst ways to use these points is to just cash them out for merchandise like lamps or magazines or to use them as statement credits against things that you just bought with your credit card and the best way to get value out of your points is to transfer them to the different transfer partners if you're not sure how to do this and you would like some help with redeeming points you already have you can request a free personalized tutorial at geobreece travel.com request and i'll have somebody on my team reach out to you asap to help you with next steps how to unoptimize your points tip number five only use one card for everything and probably make it a no annual fee one percent cash back card don't do that instead what you should do as you get deeper into the game is to rotate through a few different cards so that you can take advantage of category bonuses for example i use the amex business gold to pay for our ads that way i'm getting at least four points per dollar for putting those expenses onto a card that earns more bonus points for digital ads similarly i have this whole algorithm for what card should i use for restaurants if it's the first of the month it's built day so we're going to use the built card if it is friday or saturday night then it's city night and i would use my city strata elite so that i can get six points per dollar if it's about 25 for the meal and i haven't used up my marriott bonvoy brilliant 25 dining credit that month yet that's the card i'm going to use or otherwise i will just use the amex gold card which gets four points per dollar on restaurants and grocery stores it can be a lot to juggle to figure out what card you should use for what so i like to recommend the free app card pointers which you can find in the apple store or the play store and that app will show you which of your cards that you have is going to earn you the most points for the thing that you're trying to buy or if you don't have any good cards for it they can make some recommendations for you there as well the only thing to keep in mind here is as you get more and more cards make sure that you can justify the annual fees and that the benefits you're getting out of the card outweigh the cost of keeping the card in your wallet year after year how to unoptimize your points tip number six when you're searching for flights you should search for flights from your home airport to where you're going because that just makes sense that's where you're going to go actually what you should do is look into positioning flights if you can't find a good deal all the way from airport a to airport b for these i like to just focus on what's the best way to get over the ocean in business class whether it's from my home airport or something close by and then how do i get to the general region that i'm trying to go to for example if i'm trying to get from las vegas over to kuala lumpur there is not really anything that flies that definitely not direct but there might be some really good cafe pacific business class flight deals from los angeles to hong kong maybe i'll be able to ticket that one all the way to kuala lumpur and then i just need to get a cheap flight from las vegas over to los angeles it feels a little bit out of order but if you can book positioning flights like this and instead just prioritize the long flight over the ocean that is how you find much better flight deals also worth noting some airlines will tack on those positioning flights for free we have an entire video with full step-by-step tutorials on this but the high level overview is if you like traveling to asia i would look into singapore airlines if you want to travel to europe i would look into air france for free positioning flights and i also like american airlines and united which will often tack on those positioning flights for no extra points cost as long as you can find the availability all right how to unoptimize your points tip number seven focus on learning from 60 second instagram reels or if you're really trying to save time the five second ones where it's just oh my god i'm a business class and then they have a caption telling you to apply for a card okay so don't do that youtube is a little bit better we like to think that we're providing valuable tutorials with the step-by-step screen shares and everything let us know in the comments if you find those tutorials pretty useful more so than the instagram footage but also if you need additional help you can submit the personalized request tutorial at geobreeze travel.com request we also have live group coaching every month starting at just five dollars per month on patreon.com and that one could be really helpful if you need somebody to walk you through step by step and you want to ask back and forth questions in real time how to unoptimize your points tip number eight you should have very specific dates in mind yeah don't do that that's how most people search for flights is they're like i have to fly out on january 7. if you do have to fly on specific dates i recommend using something like point me where they can search pretty deep with all sorts of different airline programs for a specific date and route but if you can be more flexible and instead search like this on seeds.aero where you say plus or minus a few dates so it gives you a broader date range that is going to help you find so many more flight deals especially if you can be flexible on dates and the cities that you are flying to how to unoptimize your points tip number nine not only should you have specific dates in mind but you should have a specific flight or plane in mind a lot of people who come to us with requests will say hey i found this flight on google flights i want to book the same thing on points usually that's not how it goes if that is how you want to search i would recommend downloading the free chrome extension points path and so with that on google flights you'll just search the same way that you normally would but it includes a little bit of a section and they'll also tell you should you use the points deal or is the cash deal better for that particular flight segment but usually unless it's very specific parameters i'm not searching on google flights for some points deals the way that you search for points flights deals is different than how you're going to search for cash flight deals once again i just recommend focusing on how to get over the ocean in business class and then piece together positioning flights from there and our final tip for today on how to unoptimize your points is to focus on the lowest cost for everything whether it is tools and resources or annual fees on cards or just the cheapest flight that you can get if you're doing that it becomes much more difficult to optimize for the value and the stretch that you're getting out of your points not to mention the convenience factor or the niceness factor of whatever you're flying however i know all of us in the game love free stuff or heavily discounted stuff so if you want to learn more about how to optimize your points and even more tips to optimize earning and redeeming your points and miles we have a free live training coming up you can join at geobreece travel.com webinar it is not recorded it's just exclusive content for anybody who is able to make it live and if you miss it you miss out so i hope we see you there