How to Get Your Partner Interested in the Points Game

Having a partner that you want to get into the points game can be a tough sell. People have been conditioned to think that having a lot of credit cards is a bad thing (its not) and often don’t like dealing with application forms or tracking progress towards a spending bonus. Your opportunity set from getting your partner involved is significant. As explained below, 1 + 1 = more than 2 in the points and miles world. To get and keep your partner interested in maximizing your annual points, you should focus on communicating the benefits of points and make it easy for them.

Communicate the benefits of points

• Show the value of your existing points and explain how having more than 2x the points will benefit you as a family/couple

It is unlikely your partner fully understands the work that goes into your hobby and the significant benefits you get via money and travel. If you have good records of the income and points you generated last year, tell them the amount you saved. Say something like, “because of my miles and points hobby, we saved $10,000 on travel and had an additional $5,000 in income last year.” Then follow it up by explaining that by adding your sign up bonuses, we can more than double what I did last year.

Money talks, but it means different things to different people. To some people $10,000 doesn’t mean much as its hard for them to conceive of what that means to them. For these people, its better to emphasize the improvement in travel you have had. Say something like, “remember when we were able to fly business class” or “got a beautiful ocean front suite”, that was because of my points game.

• Explain that 1+1 is more than 2

The value of having a second person in your household signing up for credit cards, banks, and brokerages is greater than having two people apply separately.

This is due to three factors  factors:

1. Referral bonuses allow you to make additional money on top of the bonus you get for each account
2. Two people concentrating all their spending on a minimum spending requirement is likely to allow them to reach minimum spending requirements they could not reach individually. For example, a $20k in 3 months spending requirement on a mega bonus such as the American Express Platinum may not be tenable for one person, but could be for two.  
3. You can more easily spread out applications and thereby have less hits to your credit score.

Make it easy for them

• Fill out the forms for them

Always have a conversation with your partner before signing them up for anything. Also technically they need to fill out and hit the submit button on an application. To save them time you can fill out the form, have them verify their information and then have them click submit. Obviously the credit card company, bank, or brokerage won’t know who actually filled it out the form, but I can’t endorse doing this.

• Avoid the phone as much as is possible

Being on the phone with a customer service representative is frustrating and a big time suck. Nothing will make your partner turn away from the points game faster than having to spend 30 minutes on hold. To the extent that it is possible, try to go through the menu of options as far as is possible before speaking with the representative. Then write out a short script of the key points you want them to get across. Some calls like closing an account are simple enough, but for more complicated issues like disputing a charge, asking to waive an annual fee, or converting from one product type to another it can be very helpful to have a list of bullet points.

• Auto-forward two factor authentication messages

When you are maintaining an account for your partner, one of the biggest annoyances is having to ask for the code that is sent to their phone for two factor authentication. Luckily Apple has made it easy to forward messages from your partner’s phone (with their consent of course), simply use my instructions below.

How to Auto-Forward Two Factor Authentication Messages  

1. Download and install the Shortcuts App by apple
2. Click on the Shortcuts app
3. Go to the automation tab on the bottom
4. Hit new automation
5. Scroll down to “message from here”
6. Click on “message contains”. You could also click on sender, but that would auto-forward everything from your partner.
7. The word “code” captures almost all two factor authentication texts. If you want a more limited set of messages use “verification code”, however some companies such as US bank don’t use the word verification.
8. Click “run immediately” then next
9. Select the first option, “new nlank nutomation”
10. In the “Search Actions” box type in “If”
11. Click “if”, then “condition”, “shortcut input”, and swipe up, then tap and hold “send message” and put it under “if”. For “recipients” put in your phone number.
12. Click done in the upper right, then done again.
13. You should now get any two-factor authentication that is sent to your parter’s phone as long as it has the word “code” in it.