Maria Points The Way

if you want to fly your family to asia without the $8,000 price tag, learn family award travel skills.

if you want to stop dreading the winter-break fare spike, learn family award travel skills.

if you want to travel more as a family, not less, learn family award travel skills.

if you want your kids to grow up understand their cultural root, learn family award travel skills.

if you want to stop telling yourself it’s “not within our budget,” learn family award travel skills.

the points didn’t just save us money.

they changed what we thought was possible for our family.

Follow for more family award travel skills.

i used to think flying business class was just... a rich people thing.

something you were either born into or you weren’t.

i’d see those lie-flat seats and feel that little pang 💢wow‼️
but also, that’s not for people like me.

then i moved to the States in 2017
and couldn’t even get approved for one US credit card.

zero credit history.
completely invisible to the system.
and it was humbling.

i was trying to build a whole life for my family here and i couldn’t get past step one.

so i figured it out：

how credit actually works in the US.
how to become visible in the financial system.
and how to take the exact money we were already spending groceries, gas, all of it and turn it into airline miles and points.

and that one shift changed everything. 🔂

now we fly business class back home to asia every year.
sometimes two or three times.

same spending we were always doing, just finally working for us instead of just paying $8000 for economy class. ( sometimes more than this during winter break)

it was never about being wealthy.
it was about being intentional.
and once i saw that, i couldn’t unsee it. 💛

🚨United States to Korea is about to change . 👀

United’s new Newark → Seoul nonstop starts Sep 4.

Korea can be the destination and your gateway to the rest of Asia.

SAVE this 📍+ SHARE this with more friends and families ✈️

Follow for more family travel to Asia

laid off and doubting myself —> teaching families to fly the world

my message to you is simple...

you don't have to be wealthy to give your family the world.

most people in those business class seats didn't pay their way in, they learned the game.

i learned it in a season when i doubted everything, and now i teach other families to do the same.

your kids keep growing,
your parents keep aging,
someday is a trap.

i need more families in those seats.
I NEED YOU.❤️

I'm 51, a mom of two, and I rebuilt everything after a layoff. Here's what I'm a bit embarrassed to admit:

1. I didn't get into points for luxury. I got in because Target and Costco credit cards both declined me.

2. Truth is what hurt wasn't the decline. It was that back home banks in Hong Kong came to me. Stable job, high limits, no questions. Here I was nobody. I didn't know how much of my confidence had been borrowed from that until it was gone.

3. I asked so many questions in those miles and points groups. The answers still didn't fit, because they were written for solo travelers and couples, not four people locked to a school calendar. For a long time I thought that gap was me not understanding.

4. I spent a year earning the wrong points. Everyone said Chase is gold, so I got every Chase card I could name before I understood All Nippon Airways that could take us back home wasn't in that family. I was picturing us landing in Taipei and Tokyo the whole time.

5. I flew international first and business for years on work travel and I let all of it slip away. Didn't earn properly, didn't care about status, didn't redeem half those flights. I teach people to capture exactly what I threw away.

6. I still wonder why anyone would learn from me. There are people in this space who earn more points than I ever will. What I know how to do is actually get four business class award seats on the dates a family can travel.

7. I teach families to book this with confidence and I'm still building my own audience. I'm not on the other side of this. I'm maybe eight steps ahead, turning around.

8. it took a layoff before I'd call this a business instead of a hobby. I'd been doing it seriously for years. I just wouldn't say it out loud.

I'm not sure I've stopped feeling like the person who got declined. I think I just decided to stop waiting until I did.

If you're planning a trip home to Asia Pacific and quietly wondering whether you're too late to figure this out, you're not. Come sit with me while I keep figuring it out too.

Follow along (:

if you’re staring at $8,000 for four economy seats over winter break… try this instead

for years that was me.

$2,000 a person, four of us, every single time. narrow and tight middle seats and 13 hours, and i thought that was just the cost of taking my kids to asia during school breaks.

i paid it more than once.

now we fly the same trip in business class. lie-flat seats, all four of us, on points.

same $8,000. still in our account.

and i keep more than one kind of miles and points on purpose. different banks, different airlines, different trips.

but here’s what changed for me.

if asia is where your family wants to go, citi thankyou points have quietly become the ones i watch most.

look at where they go. singapore airlines. eva air. cathay pacific. . turkish. avios. lifemiles. american airlines

that’s not a random list. those are the airlines and their “ friends “ flying into asia pacific, and citi thank you points turn into miles on all of them.

so when i decide where this month’s spending goes, citi keeps winning.

not because it’s the only one. because for asia, it’s doing the most work right now.

i didn’t drop the others. i just stopped treating citi like the backup.

and none of it matters until you answer this first.

what matters most on THIS trip?

do all four of you have to sit together? or is that just nice?

is a layover okay? or does it have to be nonstop?

answer those and you’ll know which airlines you need. that tells you which points and cards you need.

if you want the map i made for families flying to asia, comment ASIA and i’ll send it 🌏