PACK YOUR POINTS
The reason Pack Your Points was created is for it to be a resource for my fellow athletes and expats living overseas. Of course, everyone is welcome to learn all the different travel hacks and tips that I'll provide on PYP. I’ve traveled across the world for 13 years (and counting). With the added help of my wife, I’ve learned multiple ways to make travel less expensive and more enjoyable. After giving so much advice to family, friends and teammates, my wife and I knew that we needed to create a website that will help people with wanderlust plan trips like professionals.
I’m a professional basketball player, currently in Italy. For 10 months out of the year, I live wherever I play. While basketball is my job and favorite hobby, my second hobby is traveling. Through my basketball journey I’ve been able to experience different multiple continents, countries, cities and cultures. This has been a true joy of mine, and with that joy I’ve gained more experience than most could imagine.
Within the last three years, I’ve developed a big interest in travel credit cards. I’ve owned two airline credit cards since 2015, the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select and the United MileagePlus card by Chase. ***follow the button at the bottom of the page to see how my credit card journey started*** I had these cards but didn’t realize the true potential of them or that there were even more travel credit cards that could change the way I travel. All of that changed after my wife told me about two of the most known travel cards, The Platinum Card by American Express and the Chase Sapphire Reserve. She mentioned that they are considered the best cards for travelers and I should look into it. And that I did…
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After our conversation, I did some research on YouTube (so much great content), Reddit and googled websites with credit card reviews to see what they’re all about. Long story short, I got both and I’m still going.
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Through my journey of travel credit cards, I’ve gotten a true understanding of the advantages they posses and how loyalty programs play a huge role with them when it comes to your traveling experience.
With all the data I’ve researched and continue to research, Tash and I have been able to travel the world, go on luxury trips, fly first-class around the globe for a fraction of the costs. Not only that, we fly to the US and back multiple times a year in business class paying less than an economy ticket. We’ve stayed in luxury five star hotels and resorts for free. When booking rental cars, we’ve been upgraded and have gotten cars by the week at no cost. We have status with airline, hotel, rental car and even train companies all by simply changing who we choose to spend with, not changing how much we spend.
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These are the advantages I would like to bring you. I have an encyclopedia’s worth of tips and tricks I’ve gained from YouTubers, websites, blogs and most importantly, personal experience. I want to provide this information to everyone in my position as professional athletes, expats and those who are curious about how to save money while traveling without sacrificing the quality of the trip. Eventually, I’ll have a YouTube channel to go along with each blog post on PYP!