Your bank says a million points is worth $10,000. It isn’t.
A penny a point is what it is worth to them. Run the same balance through four specific steps and those points cover a $14,651 first-class seat to Tokyo — which is exactly what Josh did, on 85,000 of them.
Travel Maxxing is the $27 video training that shows you the four steps.
Josh & Chris Steil
Founders, The Credit Brothers
The mechanic
Four steps. Your bank only tells you about the first two.
Most people stop at step one and never learn there were three more. Here is the whole sequence, in order, with what a point is worth at each stage — measured against the penny your bank hands you for it.
- 11x
Cash back
The default exit, and the button your issuer puts in front of you. It is priced this low because it is the cheapest way for them to clear the liability off their books.
- 2Still 1x
The issuer’s travel portal
The second door your bank offers you, priced exactly like the first. The portals are largely reselling the same inventory as the big booking sites, converted into points at a rate they chose. It feels like an upgrade because it buys travel. It isn’t one.
- 3—
Transfer to an airline or hotel partner
The step almost nobody takes. Your points leave the bank and become miles inside a loyalty program that publishes its own award chart. One-way and final, which is exactly why the ratios matter.
- 42–15x
Book it as an award redemption
Now the award chart prices the seat, not your bank. The booking further down this page was made this way — the same balance that clears a few hundred dollars in cash back covered a seat worth fourteen thousand. This is where the difference lives.
That’s the Travel Maxxing system.
Steps three and four are the entire difference, and they are the two nobody explains. The training is the map for both: which transfers to make, which awards to spend them on, and how to actually get the seat.
What it buys
What Josh actually paid for his last trip to Japan.
The flight
ANA First Class
Chicago → Tokyo Haneda
22 January 2025
Cash price
$14,651
- Josh paid
- 85,000 pointsplus $164.50 in taxes
- Value per point
- 17.04¢17x what your bank pays for the same point
The hotels went the same way — a $1,968 night at the Park Hyatt Kyoto, on the same trip, for 40,000 points.
And it isn’t just us.
Four bookings posted by people in our community, in their own words, using the same four steps.
A ~$7,000 seat for 70,000 miles
Business class, Dallas → New Delhi, over the December peak.
A ~$12,000 flight for 60,000 miles
Boston ⇄ London, plus $1,182 in taxes and fees.
$6,237 of hotel for 180,000 points
Four nights at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme, and nothing in cash.
30,000 points, where the portal wanted 120,000
Business class, Austin ⇄ Cancún, round trip, plus $160.
Posted by members in our community, in their own words. Surnames are redacted. Their results are their own — what any one redemption is worth depends on the route, the cabin, the dates, and what the airline or hotel has released.
Bring your people
Nobody wants to see the world on their own.
The best part of getting points right is not the seat. It is that the trip stops being a once-a-decade expense and starts being something you can invite people into. Same method, more chairs at the table.
Not just vacation
It funds the life, not just the week off.
This is a normal working afternoon. When flights and hotels stop coming out of cash, going somewhere stops being a thing you save up for and starts being a decision about where to open the laptop.
“Everything above came off the same method my brother and I use on every trip. Now it’s your turn to start booking travel like we do.”
Josh & Chris Steil
Founders, The Credit Brothers
What’s in the training
~16 minutes, start to finish. The whole method — everything the bookings above were built on, with nothing held back for a second purchase.
The points pyramid and the transfer matrix
Why a transferable currency beats a co-branded airline card, and the full map of which banks move to which airlines and hotels, at what ratio. Transfers are one-way and final — the most expensive mistake in the whole game is made here.
The penny test
One fifteen-second calculation to run before any redemption, and the threshold that decides whether you book it or pay cash. It is the habit that ends bad redemptions for good.
The booking sequence
The order to search in: cash rate first, then the award price, then the bank’s portal, then the arithmetic. The worked example in the training is a stay the bank’s portal wanted 262,800 points for, and the same room cost 120,000 transferred.
The search toolkit
The award-search tools worth using and what each is actually good at — which one surfaces Southwest, which one searches four-day windows, and which one wins for long-haul international.
Questions
- How long is it?
- ~16 minutes. It is a video training, not a course — watch it once, then use the transfer matrix and the penny test as reference whenever you book.
- Do I need a particular credit card?
- No. It covers the major transferable point currencies and the airline and hotel programs they feed. If you have a balance sitting anywhere, there is something here for you.
- Is this churning?
- No. There is no manufactured spend in here and no plan that starts with opening twelve new cards. It is about getting more out of the points you already earn.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. $27, once. No recurring charge, and nothing in the material requires a second purchase to be usable.
- Is this the same thing as Point Maxxing?
- Yes — same product. Travel Maxxing is the name we use for it here, because that is what it actually does.
- How is it delivered?
- By email, straight after checkout.
- What if it is not for me?
- All sales are final. You get instant access to the whole training the moment you pay, so there are no refunds, returns, or exchanges on any of our digital products. Read this page properly before you buy — and if the four steps above are not what you are after, do not buy it.
$27 to stop taking the one-cent exit.
Less than the checked bag you are trying not to pay for. One payment, no subscription, ~16 minutes of training, delivered by email the moment you check out.
Get Travel Maxxing — $27