How to Use Credit Cards to Fund Real Estate Deals | Scotty Tregellas

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Speaker 4 what is up science of flipping family welcome back to another incredible episode of the science of flipping with an incredible guest scotty t is in the house he is someone who i look to for credit advice he has built an incredible business in real estate using leverage understanding credit, understanding credit cards, lines of credit, etc.

Speaker 4 And so I'm super excited to have him here on the episode. What's up, dude? Thanks for having me, Justin.
Yeah, man.

Speaker 4 This is going to be fun because you are new to me, but you're not new to real estate. You're not new to a lot of my friends and colleagues.

Speaker 4 And you are the man when it comes to credit cards, lines of credit, financing your real estate business. You yourself are a real estate investor and have been for a long time.

Speaker 4 So let's dive right in. Are credit cards good or bad? Good.

Speaker 4 All right. Good.
It's so funny. People think they're bad.
They're not scary. Dave Ramsey, Grant Cardone, whatever perspective that you want to have.
Credit cards are good. Credit cards are bad.

Speaker 4 It's all about like, how are you managed debt? Are you using the credit cards to create a profit and leverage that? Then it's great. It's good debt.
So, of course, they're good. So you out of the gate

Speaker 4 got me set up. You said, these are the 9, 12.
How many cards did you say I need to go get? I think the first stack was around nine. Nine.
Yeah, nine cards. What cards did you give me?

Speaker 4 Because I can remember off the top of my head looking at the list.

Speaker 4 The premium Chase Premiere? Yeah, so it wasn't the Premiere because that's just another charge card.

Speaker 4 It's like the twin brother to the MX Platinum. It's valuable, but it's a charge card.
You got to pay it off every month.

Speaker 4 So I think the ones that I recommended you were a couple personal cards because, of course, like me, you like to travel. So working towards that goal, I think it it was chase out fire research

Speaker 4 yeah and then of course a few more business credit cards that focus more of more rewards geared towards the spend that you're using like most marketing right so like Amex Gold the Chase Inc.

Speaker 4 preferred and then okay you want 0% there's the chase ink unlimited right so it's like you kind of

Speaker 4 gave me a direction on what you wanted out of the credit cards and then I just gave you a list of credit cards to go out and apply for and there we are.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so I want to jump directly into how does this affect real estate investors?

Speaker 4 How can real estate investors and I'm telling all of you to go find him on Instagram, YouTube, Scotty T, I think Tragalis is his last name, but I think it's easiest if you do Scotty T.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you can just search S-C-O-T-T-Y-T and I'm usually the first one that pops up in Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, anything. I'm the verified one.
So you can follow me and find me there.

Speaker 4 But yeah, no, with real estate, I used credit to get into real estate. I would have never been able to to even get started with wholesaling if I did not first mastered the credit.

Speaker 4 You know, I feel like I've repeated this story so many times, and I hate saying it because I don't want any sympathy,

Speaker 4 but I was actually very homeless when I closed my very first wholesale deal. And I was in a really bad motorcycle accident in 2015.
I wrecked at like 130 mile an hour.

Speaker 4 I'm blessed to be alive, but I couldn't walk or work for about a year. It completely destroyed my life.
And then I had someone approach me wanting to

Speaker 4 basically get into real estate. And I grew up watching my dad build custom homes all over the country.
And so I had this like passion and love for real estate, but didn't know anything about it.

Speaker 4 And so I was like, yeah, I want to get into real estate. He's like, well, you need to fix your credit.
So I paid a guy and I got ripped off.

Speaker 4 Of course, like we all know, like the credit industry is very sketch. It's very hard to trust people in the credit world.
That's why I hate it.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 of course, I got ripped off.

Speaker 4 I actually sold my very last gun. I'm from Kansas, so we all got guns there.
Sold my very last gun, paid this guy to repair my credit, and nothing.

Speaker 4 But I don't have that like, oh, well, I guess I'll get to invest in real estate. There goes my dreams.
But this guy took advantage of me. No, I don't have that kind of mindset.

Speaker 4 So I started YouTube University

Speaker 4 and figured out how to start like disputing.

Speaker 4 And in two months, I went from a 531 with tens of thousands of medical debt and collections on my credit to a 741 in literally less than two months. I'm like, whoa, okay.
Two months.

Speaker 4 You're able to move your needle that fast in two months. Oh, yeah.
And now I can do that in less than five days. Five days you can move your needle 200 points.
Oh, yeah. And we'll get there.
Okay.

Speaker 4 We'll get there. We're going to stay tuned.
Because even I need to know how he's going to do that. Yeah.
So go ahead. I will give you guys the exact blueprint.

Speaker 4 So if you hang out and watch this full episode, there's going to be a QR code somewhere where you can download this exact blueprint on how to be able to do that in five days. There you go.

Speaker 4 So, anyways, so went to 741. I'm like, okay, cool.
And then I got access to a couple credit cards. And I think this was back in like 2017, back when Cody Sperber was huge on YouTube.

Speaker 4 So I maxed out two personal credit cards. Don't max out personal credit cards, guys.

Speaker 4 paid 10 grand for his mentorship program, invested another $1,000 in direct mail marketing in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Speaker 4 So direct mail, thousand bucks, closed eighty grand next month.

Speaker 4 So, my very first wholesale deal was 60,000. Now, why did you say don't max out your personal credit cards?

Speaker 4 Because if you're maxing out your personal credit card, yes, it benefited me, but if you max out your personal credit cards, utilization is going to skyrocket and your scores are going to drop drastically.

Speaker 4 Because utilization is 30% of your overall score factor. It's 35% is on-time payments.

Speaker 4 So, our utilization just for those those is like what percentage of available credit that you have that you've used. Right.
So make sure. Easy numbers.
You got $10,000 in credit.

Speaker 4 You're using 3,000 of it. That's 30%.

Speaker 4 If you're at that 30% threshold, you're going to see your scores drop drastically. Okay.
So with that being said,

Speaker 4 as someone, literally, I told you when I took you on, I went and paid off all my credit cards. Whether I needed to or not, I just did it because I could.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 in your example, I would make the argument what you did was smart still to this day. Absolutely.
Right? Like, you leveraged credit so you could go find $80,000 of wholesale fees.

Speaker 4 So if you do that for 60 days, get your 80 grand just because closing times, et cetera, pay it off, does it still really hurt you? And if so, how long does it hurt you? What does that look like?

Speaker 4 Absolutely not. So, of course, it was a sacrifice I made back then.
Of course, it turned out in my favor.

Speaker 4 But it will only hurt you temporarily because if you were to pay off those credit cards, just like you did recently, that utilization is going to drop and your scores are going to rise.

Speaker 4 So as long as you're paying those cards down before the statement date, your scores will reflect that.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 giving that into real estate, I'm more, like I support you. This is why we're going to do a lot of cool stuff together.
Like I do want people to use leverage when correct, right?

Speaker 4 Because it's an investment in their business if done correctly. Buying this watch or buying that watch, dumb.

Speaker 4 Paying for coaching, investing in coaching, investing in marketing, investing in the business, smart, right? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 So keep going along your journey because what I want people to understand is real estate investors, there is good credit, there's bad credit, and there's good debt, there's bad debt.

Speaker 4 How would you suggest people to look at this for themselves? Obviously, again, kind of as always, like, I don't want you to have to sell yourself. I know, I work work with them.

Speaker 4 I know what he's already doing and his team's doing for me. So, look them up, get them on Instagram, YouTube, Scotty, T, or Trigalis.
But

Speaker 4 what is your first piece of advice? Like, you're speaking at my mastermind tomorrow. Yeah.
What are the first pieces of advice you're going to go tell that room?

Speaker 4 Stop leveraging personal credit for business. Okay, that's the first thing that I want everyone to stop doing.
Of course, I did it and it was, it worked out in my favor.

Speaker 4 But if you do it too long, you will really restrict your entire livelihood and business. You're going to restrict it because it's going to restrict getting access to more and more capital.

Speaker 4 Then you can have

Speaker 4 amazing credit when it's paid off, 800,

Speaker 4 or you can be in

Speaker 4 the 600s if you have maxed out personal credit. And if you're in that range of 600s, you'll get denied for everything.

Speaker 4 But if you have those credit cards paid off, you'll get approved for everything.

Speaker 4 So that's just the biggest difference from using personal credit and not. So of course, use it if that's your only option, but temporarily.

Speaker 4 You really want to shift your focus over to business credit because the way business credit is scored, it's only based off of one thing, on-time payments.

Speaker 4 So as long as you're never late, you've got a good score.

Speaker 4 So you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card on the personal side. It's going to report the balance to your personal credit.
But if you have a Chase Inc.

Speaker 4 preferred on a business credit card, it's not going to report that balance to your personal credit. You can max that sucker out and it will never punish you as long as you're never late.

Speaker 4 So the

Speaker 4 focus should be stop leveraging personal credit, get access to business credit as quickly as possible.

Speaker 4 Because also, if you can get approved for $10,000 on personal, you can get approved for $100,000 on business, right?

Speaker 4 So having good personal credit and established business credit, you can really see three to five extra credit card limits. limits.
If someone doesn't know,

Speaker 4 first of all, I would tell most people, don't try to do this alone.

Speaker 4 Like anything else, like go get a hold of Scotty because you might just think you're getting a good credit card because he said, go get a business credit card.

Speaker 4 So you go to Wells Fargo and get a business credit card. Don't do that because it's probably not the right card.

Speaker 4 But if someone's sitting here saying, I want to start getting business credit cards, I have five personal cards. What do I do? What do they do besides come to you, which is what I want them to do?

Speaker 4 Because otherwise they're going to go to Wells Fargo or Chase and just get the generic card. Yeah.

Speaker 4 What can they do?

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Speaker 4 That's Lamasu, L-A-M-A-S-S-U Leads.com. Man, I see so many people,

Speaker 4 you know, big players in our industry, either not using credit or

Speaker 4 crazy to me. And if they are, they're doing it completely wrong.
Right. And I can circle back to that.
But I mean, the first thing that you want to do is really build relationships with banks. Okay.

Speaker 4 So you've got all the top-tier banks like Chase, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, and then of course Amex, which isn't really a bank, but

Speaker 4 you want to build a relationship with them. And if you have to do so on the personal credit side, great.

Speaker 4 Go after personal credit cards with them or and or go open up a business and a personal checking account with those banks.

Speaker 4 Because if you have a relationship with those banks, they're willing to give you money if they know who you are. If you didn't know me, you wouldn't lend me money.

Speaker 4 But if we had a relationship, you'd be more optim to lend me money. If we had a really good relationship, you might give me a lot of money.

Speaker 4 So that's the goal. The banks work the same way.
They want to know who you are. They want to know that you're credible.
Go establish that relationship.

Speaker 4 Of course, maintain good personal credit. Don't have any derogatories or anything like that.
My goal for everyone that I work with, I want to see you above 740 across the board.

Speaker 4 And then from there, as far as a business credit, at least three to five trade lines. So that's an 80 paydex score okay and once you're done

Speaker 4 a trade line is really just a an account that's reporting to the business credit bureaus like home depot like home depot

Speaker 4 best buy right yep yep yep um office supply anything off so how many trade lines three to five you want three to five trade lines reporting to dun and bradstreet and experion so three will establish you an 80 paydex score with dun and bradstreet and that's considered like a perfect you know business credit score it It scored from zero to 100.

Speaker 4 80 is on time. Anything above that is you pay it early.
So you only need three. And once you have three, you don't ever have to go back.
Those will stay on there forever. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So just get those three, knock them out, and move on. Now, what? By the way, what if you have, like for me, I have four different charge cards, right? You know that.
Yep.

Speaker 4 Effectively the same thing or no? Nope, absolutely not. Good question because

Speaker 4 Very good question because a lot of people think, hey, I have this business credit card. There's my business tradeline.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 Those credit cards do not report to Dunn and Bradstreet, Experian, or Ecofax business credit. They do not report.

Speaker 4 So you have to go and get trade lines that actually report to those bureaus in order to establish a score. Credit cards don't.

Speaker 4 Even charge cards, even Amex, Platinum. So where can people go? So you said Office Depot.
Yeah. I mean, there's Uline,

Speaker 4 Uline, Granger, Office Supplies. I mean, we literally have a list of 100, like hundreds of them.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And, you know, tier one is just simple net 30s where you just go make an account.

Speaker 4 You can get approved as long as you have your business foundation set up correctly, like address, everything's reporting consistently, like Secretary of State, IRS, your banks, everything is consistent.

Speaker 4 Create an account with one of these like Grainger, Uline, Quill,

Speaker 4 Office Depot, right? Create an account and then set up a net 30. So basically you're buying something and then you have 30 days to pay that off.

Speaker 4 Once you get that statement, you pay it off and then then they have like 30, 45 days to report that. And then once it's reported, boom, you've got one.
Okay, you only need three.

Speaker 4 You've got your 80 paid X score. Move on.
So, good personal credit, 740 plus, 80 paid X score, then the bank relationships.

Speaker 4 And once you have that, our data shows that you're getting approved for three to five X the credit card limits. Wow.

Speaker 4 So, how does someone break into the real estate space

Speaker 4 using credit cards to their advantage. Same way I did.

Speaker 4 I would not be here and I've made millions of dollars in real estate all because I maxed out two credit cards.

Speaker 4 But it's not a perfect story. As business owners, we know it's a fucking roller coaster.
Yeah. Right.
I've failed, I've succeeded, and I've failed over and over and over again. COVID killed me.

Speaker 4 I lost $2.4 million in May of, what, 2019? It's a lot of COVID. It killed me.

Speaker 4 But because I had access to credit, I was able to restart, right? The interest rate spikes a couple years ago killed a lot of people, knocked a lot of people out of our industry. But guess what?

Speaker 4 I had hundreds of thousands of dollars that I was able to fund my business and keep going on. Right.

Speaker 4 So the goal is just to have access to that, to be able to either start, scale, or even buy a business. I call it having a runway.
Absolutely. Right.

Speaker 4 And so I think out of the, I think you said there was nine that you sent my way. I think there was four or so that were like, just get these because the 0% interest rate.
Right.

Speaker 4 And I think a lot of people don't even realize it's still a thing. It's very much a thing.
Yeah. Right.

Speaker 4 I had one of our members of Science Flipping just got $36,000 on a 0% interest rate credit card like last week.

Speaker 4 I know interest rates are up, but they gave it to him for 18 months. Yeah.
Right. I mean, that's free money.
That is the definition of it.

Speaker 4 And if you need marketing runway, if you need just sustainability runway because things are getting a little wobbly, that's why you have some of these things.

Speaker 4 It's not the perfect answer, but that's a way to be able to have runway to get through a tough time or even to get ramped up. Right.
So this is how I like to compare it. So put me or anybody,

Speaker 4 me, for an example, back where I was, I was living in a camper in the middle of the woods in southeast Kansas.

Speaker 4 What the hell? Yeah. When I closed my first deal.
Now.

Speaker 4 Tell me this. And you, you're a mentor to several.
I'm sure you've heard this. Oh, I'm going to wait to get started until I save up money.
Of course. Right?

Speaker 4 If I would have said that in the position I was in in 2016, would I be here today? No chance.

Speaker 4 It's way, way easier to get access to $250,000 in credit than it would be to save $250,000 to start your business. So say that louder for people in the back.
But

Speaker 4 what I would say to that is it is the common rebuttal.

Speaker 4 a coach, a community leader like myself gets is, I'm going to wait because they're short-sighted. I'm going to go get my first deal by watching YouTube University.
From there, I'll invest in coaching.

Speaker 4 Right. Your, your argument, and you have nothing to make this argument for me for, is to take the leap of faith, invest in the coaching so you can fast forward your line to success.
Yep.

Speaker 4 I think the absolutely take the risk. I mean, it's easy for me to say it because I literally had nothing to do with it.
But your proof of it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I borrowed 20,000, not from a credit card because I couldn't, because I was, you know, my, I lost my home to foreclosure, RepaMan took my car, but I borrowed $25,000 from a friend.

Speaker 4 Same idea. I'm about to shoot a private moneylending fund your deal course.

Speaker 4 I'm actually going to ask you to be a part of it because it's really about being able to fund your deal and get access to funding for all things: marketing, deal flow, right?

Speaker 4 You know, you can use some credit cards, we'll give you cash advances. What's your thoughts on that? No need.
No need. So the thing with cash advances, so for example,

Speaker 4 I just got approved for a card the other day. I get so many.

Speaker 4 That's great. But let's just use like I have a Chase Inc.
Unlimited, 0% interest for 12 months. The limit is $80,000,

Speaker 4 and the cash advance is something like $7,000. Okay.

Speaker 4 What is that $7,000 going to do for us when we're spending $40,000 a month in PPC? Nothing. Not much, right?

Speaker 4 But as soon as I take that cash advance out,

Speaker 4 one,

Speaker 4 I lose the 0% interest.

Speaker 4 Okay. So that'd be dumb.
That'd be dumb. And it's seven grand is not much.

Speaker 4 What if they give you, what about those credit cards that give you a check that says, here's 0% interest check from the credit card to 0% interest?

Speaker 4 So there is that route. Like Citizens Bank sends me those,

Speaker 4 right? Yeah. Citizens Bank is awesome.
Awesome. I don't have access to Citizens Bank being in Vegas, but here in Florida, or if you're really in the

Speaker 4 southeast region of the country, Citizens Bank is a great one to be. Citizens Bank.
But anyways, so but those are still 0%. So for that example, it probably makes sense.

Speaker 4 So what I suggest doing is liquidating, right? So let's just go back to my Chase Inc. unlimited 0% 0% interest for 12 months, $80,000.
We're in real estate, so let's talk real estate.

Speaker 4 If I want to buy a house, can I go to the title company with credit card and swipe? Nope. No.

Speaker 4 So if I had $0, but that is one hell of a deal and I want to take it down. Okay.
Yeah, we can go get private money. We got to do the pitch.
We got to do all this.

Speaker 4 But damn it, I have that 0% interest card.

Speaker 4 $80,000. How do I get that? Let's liquidate it.
Turn that $80,000 into cash. Does it stay 0% interest? Stay 0% interest.

Speaker 4 Is there some secret sauce you can't get? Some secret sauce that we may not have to say out loud. Just shoot me a DM.
Yeah, see that? DM me liquidation. DM them now.

Speaker 4 DM me liquidation, and we can get you that cash in a few days. There you go.
Good. So there you go.
So then you actually liquidate it. So that whole 80 grand, though? Yeah.

Speaker 4 You can liquidate all 80 grand at 0% interest still.

Speaker 4 Maybe some fees, maybe a couple. Yeah, processing fees.
Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And any crazy terms, like it's got to be back in 30 days or... No, nothing.
It's the length of the same length of this you ran the credit card at Nordstrom's. Same.
Wow.

Speaker 4 So what you want, I mean, we can get into the secret sauce if you DM me for liquidation.

Speaker 4 But we can even set it up to where the merchant that is taking that card is, you know, card specific. So for example, if there was you doing it on like the Amex Gold, right?

Speaker 4 I wouldn't liquidate an Mex Gold. I don't recommend liquidation with MX,

Speaker 4 but if I was, I would want to be charged something with marketing so I can get 4X

Speaker 4 rewards.

Speaker 4 So it's like, great, I'm getting cash and I'm getting 4X rewards just because of this. So it's like double whammy.

Speaker 4 So one of the things I think there's a lot of people that don't even understand the points game. Let's talk about that.
I live, I did a video a long time on YouTube. Go check that out.

Speaker 4 I don't even know the name is, but like I did a seven-night stay at the Four Seasons in Maui, first class of the family, family,

Speaker 4 $0.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 4 People want to brag about their lifestyle, but you have to understand sometimes when you're looking at that lifestyle, it doesn't actually cost anything because they know how to work the game, right?

Speaker 4 So let's talk about some of the hacks that people should be doing and then DM them to get the real knowledge. Go get my guy.
But what are some of the hacks?

Speaker 4 I mean, I know a lot of them, but let's talk about what people may not know. So the biggest thing that I'm seeing people do when they think they're travel hacking.

Speaker 4 By the way, I didn't want to bring up, didn't mean the cocktails and dinners and lunches and breakfasts were free.

Speaker 4 That's still a boatload of money. Those are pricey.
But getting there and sleeping.

Speaker 4 But flying there first class, staying in the best room for free, you get to ball out a little bit more on those dinners and drinks. Yeah, you can afford $48 eggs.
Exactly.

Speaker 4 Welcome to Mallie. That's right.
Yeah. Well, so the biggest thing that I'm seeing people do,

Speaker 4 because I have some clients who are spending seven figures a month on credit cards. So they have a shit ton of points.

Speaker 4 And they think,

Speaker 4 millions. So they think by just going to Amex portal and booking a flight with their points that they're travel hacking and saving money.
Well, no, you're not.

Speaker 4 You're actually spending probably about three to four X the points that you need to. So you're not saving money at all.
Because how like the point system is scored, it's one point per penny. Okay.

Speaker 4 Okay. And I'm not.
On Amex, if you run the Amex. It's really across the board.
Yeah. Everywhere, right? So if you booked it within the Amex or anywhere, it's typically one point per penny.
And

Speaker 4 we've gotten upwards to 52 cents per point.

Speaker 4 That's a lot better than a penny. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Let's see. So I went to Norway.

Speaker 4 So you know Robert Winsley. Yeah.
Okay. So every year we're somewhere in the world, right? For New Year's and Christmas.
And

Speaker 4 this past, we went to Norway for a month. And so my wife and I went from Vegas to Norway.

Speaker 4 Our flight, just one way, we only booked one way.

Speaker 4 Cash value was $29,800.

Speaker 4 Just two tickets, first class, one way. I spent $101.

Speaker 4 Now, the point guys out there who are using their, they're booking their flights with just points straight in the portal, they're like, oh, you probably spent 800,000 points. Nope.
174,000 points.

Speaker 4 That's the secret there.

Speaker 4 DM you? DM me the secret. I like it.
Travel. DM me travel.
There you go. Yeah.
Yeah. Because I'm one of those guys.

Speaker 4 I mean, the reality is that story I just told you about the four seasons for class, I did it directly line to line through Amex.

Speaker 4 I had 2 million Amex points. I think it cost me $1 million two or something like that to go do all that, the first class of four seasons, but it was direct AMEX.

Speaker 4 So I got, I thought I was like, bro, I got this. So you're saying, Justin,

Speaker 4 oh man, you probably could have went to Maui like three times. Wow.
Taking that same vacation at least three times.

Speaker 4 So you're going to, you're going to, now that I'm already working with you, you're going to let me in on some of these secrets. Oh, absolutely.
Okay. Absolutely.

Speaker 4 So I actually have to book a flight to Kauai like soon. I'll do it for you while I'm here in Miami.
Done. Yeah.
Here. Yeah.
So like that's actually something that

Speaker 4 Robert Winsley and I are partnering up on is a travel concierge service. Yep.

Speaker 4 You know, like for the top investor lift clients, for our friends and colleagues that are traveling, like me, I'm doing a shit ton of traveling now domestically.

Speaker 4 Then the rest of the people can pay you, right? And of course, yeah, hey, if you want to, you know, concierge, we'll literally book everything for you, right?

Speaker 4 There are some qualifications as far as like spending, credit cards, credit. You have to qualify for this service, but we will literally tell you, just like I did with you, hey, you need these cards.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Apply for these this way. Once you have them, you need to spend them

Speaker 4 this way. Oh, you have a trip coming up? Great.
You text this number. We're going to call it Alfred.
Like Batman. Batman.
I love that. Right.

Speaker 4 So you're going to text Alfred, and then we're just going to send you back a whole itinerary of here's your trip. So I give you, like, this is real time.

Speaker 4 I need to book a basically a week-long stay in Kauai in November.

Speaker 4 I would tell you the dates. I would tell you what credit card points I have where.

Speaker 4 or even give you access to them. We'll know all that.
You just go. You don't need to tell me anything except for the trip that you want to take because it's kind of a three-step onboarding process.

Speaker 4 One, an application. Once you're in, you're in.
And then two is basically an onboarding. We'll have all your information.
So, like, you're, we won't have like your bank account information, right?

Speaker 4 But, like, Chase and Amax, they have separate portals. Of course, right? My bookkeeper has all the portals.
She can see everything. It's easy.
So, we have that. We know how many points you have,

Speaker 4 and we'll be able to leverage everything. You just simply put in a travel request form: say, hey, Scotty, we want to go here for a week long.
Here's what

Speaker 4 our preference is. And then we book it, send you back to the itinerary.
This is great. So you will

Speaker 4 be able to help people actually understand the points game. Because I think it's underutilized, not just in real estate investors.
I'm just saying in general, people don't.

Speaker 4 They get credit cards because they just get credit cards, right?

Speaker 4 To some extent, I'm that guy, meaning I fly American a ton.

Speaker 4 So I have three different American airlines credit cards because they kept giving me like 60,000 free points when you spend the first three grand. I'm like, I spend three grand a day.

Speaker 4 So that's done. So I just kept applying because I got free points.

Speaker 4 While there's some goodness to that, you're just saying it's not really the right way to work this system because I can get just a chase card that's not connected American. I get way more points.

Speaker 4 You're able to use those points on different platforms and I can get Forex what I would be doing one for one on American. Exactly.
So I don't have any airline cards. Right.
So I do have hotel.

Speaker 4 You don't want to go after like airline and hotel until you're chasing status.

Speaker 4 Right. So for example, like we've got the platinum.
Everyone really has the platinum. And they think it's super baller having the platinum.
And

Speaker 4 I laugh when people throw that down on the table. It's like, well, you know what? You're getting one point for dollar.
I'm throwing my gold where I'm getting four points.

Speaker 4 So, but with the travel cards, the way to travel hack is being able to

Speaker 4 manipulate the points and send them out to obviously get more value out of them.

Speaker 4 But with like specific airline hotel cards, they're locked in. So you have American.

Speaker 4 You cannot use those American airline points anywhere outside of American Airlines.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 4 So you're kind of glued there. But if you used your gold, your Amex, and you had all those points within your,

Speaker 4 you know, your portal there, you can transfer those out to United

Speaker 4 anywhere. Anywhere.

Speaker 4 And to your point, I wouldn't want to do it through American.

Speaker 4 I would do it in a different, I don't know how you make all your magic work, but essentially you say, Justin, you have a million five Amex points. So I think I'm somewhere around there.

Speaker 4 I don't even know where I'm at.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go book you on United to Kauai. Don't worry about it.
But it's probably not going from AMEX directly to United. Is that correct?

Speaker 4 It might. It might go to a partner.

Speaker 4 So, for example,

Speaker 4 I have most of my status and relationship with United. Sure.

Speaker 4 So my trip overseas was through United, but I flew with KLM, so Air France. Got it, yeah, yeah.
Right. So it's like they do partner in.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And that's another thing is just being aware of transfer bonuses.
So what is today? The first.

Speaker 4 So yesterday was the very last day to be able to transfer Chase points to KLM, so Air France, for a 25% bonus.

Speaker 4 So if you had 100,000 points in Chase and you transferred them over to Air France, you would now have 125,000 points.

Speaker 4 Now remember, mine and my wife's trip flying KLM, $20,000, $30,000 flight was only $144,000, give or take, or $174,000, something like that.

Speaker 4 So there you go. You start to realize the value of the points when they're transferred and manipulated.

Speaker 4 So when you can do that, now you're really doing a second level of hacking, which is like there's transfer bonuses that if you know you're going to Kauai and you would say, Justin, we have till the end of April, right?

Speaker 4 Today's May 1st, transfer this 100 grand over to KLM because we're going to book you on KLM to Kauai. You're going to get, for the 100 grand, you're getting $125,000 or 125,000 points.

Speaker 4 Knowing that kind of stuff is a second level. And you would just tell your client, Justin, you got to do this now because this thing is.
So real world scenario, this is what I would do.

Speaker 4 And this is like what I did with my wife because our next big month-long vacation is going to be Switzerland. Okay.

Speaker 4 Can you go bring us back some watches, please? Yeah, absolutely. It's so hard to get out here.
I know, I know. Get me the damn new Le Mans.
I need it. Okay.
I'm going to go find the meteorite. Done.

Speaker 4 I'll find yours. You can get your meteorite.
I'll get the Le Mans. Say less.
Done. Awesome.
Yeah. Winsley and I have a little Switzerland date going on.
So we're going to go buy watches together.

Speaker 4 I'll pick yours up. I'm actually

Speaker 4 card. Yes.
And then you'll get the points and not the payment in cash. Yep.
Yep.

Speaker 4 Hacking. Got to DM me.
No. But so it's like, I said, Rachel, hey, are we going to Switzerland this year? Because there's this transfer bonus going on right now.

Speaker 4 And this is exactly what I would do with my clients.

Speaker 4 So we had to sit down and talk. This is what I would do with you.

Speaker 4 Hey, because KLM in air friends, it's good for like Europe or Middle East. So I'd say, Justin, do you plan on going to the Middle East or anywhere in Europe at all this year?

Speaker 4 If not,

Speaker 4 then we're going to keep our points in chase. If so, we're going to transfer these out for this bonus.

Speaker 4 You don't have to plan a trip or anything, but we're just going to park them over there for a 25% bonus. That's right.
And with us, I was like,

Speaker 4 I'm traveling literally every other weekend for like events and stuff like that. This year, let's not travel heavily out of the country.
Let's just focus on this this year.

Speaker 4 And so we didn't end up transferring. Another thing, a lot of people are,

Speaker 4 I'm going to like a lot of events and I have a client who are like, hey, Scotty, will you book a trip from

Speaker 4 Houston to Cancun? I'm like, no.

Speaker 4 No. So here's what I do.
When I'm flying domestic, I pay for all my flights.

Speaker 4 Okay. So if you're flying domestic, fly with your preferred airline, right? That way you're stacking point and use the correct credit card.

Speaker 4 So for example, from Vegas to Miami, I flew American. But you paid for it.
And I paid for it. With the right credit card.
With the platform.

Speaker 4 Because I'm probably getting two, three, four X of points anyway.

Speaker 4 So 5X. Okay.
I use the platinum, my business card, platinum, within the portal. Okay.
Not. in American Airlines, but within the American

Speaker 4 portal. Okay.
So I logged in the MX portal. I've got to do that.
Got it. Now you might see a little bit of a dollar difference.

Speaker 4 It might be a little bit more expensive, maybe you know, 40, 50 bucks, maybe 100, whatever. But outside of the portal, you're getting 3x points.

Speaker 4 Inside of the portal, you're getting 5x points for 40 more bucks, whatever. Dude, there are so many hacks.
This is wild.

Speaker 4 I thought I knew the game.

Speaker 4 So there's just so many ways just to continuously rack up. points.

Speaker 4 So kind of getting back to real estate, just because we could go in this deep dive, but if someone's in real estate investing or wants to or is aspiring,

Speaker 4 the first point you'd make is charge it to the game and get a coach to teach you what really to do. Yes.

Speaker 4 So you can get to the front of the line, so you can learn what really actually works to get a deal versus trying to do it on YouTube University.

Speaker 4 Use the right credit cards on something like that. Yep.

Speaker 4 But even then, if they don't have a business credit card, would you make them go do that? Or could they go get a new personal credit card and you get 0%?

Speaker 4 Like, wouldn't you want them to go get more cards no matter what? Absolutely. Absolutely.
Because, I mean, I've got, I think, now over 70.

Speaker 4 10 out of 28. Yeah.
And it's like, you,

Speaker 4 I doubt they have more than me, so I'm always going to encourage them to get more.

Speaker 4 Is there a point of like, it's going to hurt you? No, absolutely not. Absolutely.
Because the more credit lines, the better your credit profile is. Absolutely.
And I was working on the grossness.

Speaker 4 I had a credit coach, right? Because he had to get me back going. He's like, what people underestimate is the credit profile.

Speaker 4 They think the credit score is the best thing.

Speaker 4 But if you have no profile and you have an 800 credit score, people still, banks still won't let you money because you have no history of borrowing it or giving it back. Yep.
Yep.

Speaker 4 We're actually helping someone right now who we

Speaker 4 he was using personal credit. We stopped him from that.
His scores are around 760 now, and he's still getting denied on business credit because he only has one personal credit card.

Speaker 4 Right. So it's like, hey, we have to follow the process and the blueprint that I've laid down and we have to slow down to speed up and go focus on step one as that's your personal profile.

Speaker 4 You, the business owner, are the foundation of everything.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 you cut a check to get a coach, learn how to do it, go out there and do it.

Speaker 4 What are the reasons and what strategy should they be using with even like, Idaho, you told me to go into a certain bank here in Florida, open up a bank account.

Speaker 4 What strategy should aspiring real estate investors or even active real estate investors be doing with all of this?

Speaker 4 So I think the best strategy would be to not just like application dump too many cards.

Speaker 4 Because for instance, like you, we could go out and get 20 cards right now, but we don't need 20 cards. Right.

Speaker 4 The whole point of having credit is to have that like risk tolerance where it's like, okay, if fucking COVID happens again, do I have more available credit over here?

Speaker 4 And if not, can I go get access to that credit and it still be on 0%?

Speaker 4 Right. So for example, if that $80,000 chase card is completely maxed out, now

Speaker 4 the interest rate is over. It's like, what do I do? Oh, shit.
What if I can't pay that off? Well, guess what? I can go out and get access to more 0%

Speaker 4 interest and roll that balance over to that new 0% interest.

Speaker 4 So everything can just continue rolling over to 0%.

Speaker 4 So the strategy for real estate investors would be obviously stop using your personal credit, start leveraging business credit, but in a very strategic way.

Speaker 4 I think this is one of the most important things that people, it's really hard to see on the surface is if you apply out of order, then it can really restrict you on what you can get access one, two years down the road.

Speaker 4 And that's why it's like, I built the perfect credit stacking blueprint, and I'm actually going to be sharing that tomorrow.

Speaker 4 And if you're

Speaker 4 still around on this podcast, you can actually get access to that here. Oh, they're around.
Awesome. Hit up, Scotty.
There you go.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 first thing they need to do is build business credit. First thing there is go get the line, trade lines, which is the Best Buy, Home Depot, Quill, et cetera.

Speaker 4 Then what? What business credit cards or lines of credit should they be? So the first one that I'd recommend going to is always build a relationship with Chase Bank. Chase first.

Speaker 4 To me, they have the best credit cards out there. They may not be the best bank, but the best credit cards.
Remember, we're going after the credit cards. That's right.
All right.

Speaker 4 So it depends, right? So for someone in like our position, 0% may not be the focus, but someone just starting out, 0%.

Speaker 4 So you have to make that decision. Do you want more rewards for what you're already spending money on? Great.
Marketing, cool, go get the Ink preferred card.

Speaker 4 But if you are a 0% interest person right now, go after the Ink Unlimited card.

Speaker 4 But remember,

Speaker 4 there's bank rules that you have to be aware of. For example, there's three Chase credit cards, and of course the Premiere, which is a charge card, just like a platinum.

Speaker 4 But the three cards are the Ink Unlimited, Ink Preferred, and the Ink Cash. You, Justin, can only have two of those three.

Speaker 4 All right. So you have to pick and choose between, do you want more rewards on the marketing spend, the preferred, or do you want the 0% interest? Okay.
So you'll pick one.

Speaker 4 Three months down the road, you can go get that cash, that ink cash. So I get two of the three.
You get two of the three.

Speaker 4 But if you had a wife that was an equity partner or a business partner, let's talk about double stacking. All right.
So which card did you pick, the unlimited or the preferred? Unlimited.

Speaker 4 Okay, so you've got the unlimited and the cash. All right.
Your partner is going to

Speaker 4 been PPC marketing. He's going to go get the preferred.
Same day. Yeah.
Same business. Okay.
So now you both literally just got the preferred and the unlimited. And then three months down.

Speaker 4 Seven year old. I have my wife on my LLC docs.
Boom. I'm thinking about adding mine here.

Speaker 4 I don't believe in it, but I might do that just for this one example. Yeah, yeah.
So, okay. Yeah, I'm a sole owner of all my companies.

Speaker 4 So it's like, I get so excited when people have like their wives or business partners. I'm like, hell yeah, we're literally going to double and triple the amount of funding we can get access to.

Speaker 4 That's insane. Yeah.
This is wild. Dude, here's what I want.
I want to stop here. Why? Because I want them to reach out to you.

Speaker 4 I want you guys to all go get him on Instagram, Scotty Tragalis, YouTube, Scotty Tragalis. He gave you some words to drop in his DMs.
He has my business. I'm his client.

Speaker 4 If it's good enough for me, it's damn sure good enough for you guys. I appreciate you being here, man.
Let's go help people understand credit in a bigger, much bigger way than they do now. Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Let's do it. All right, y'all.
That's it for today. We will see you on the next episode.
Peace.

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