[0:00] This video is gonna be the most valuable YouTube
video you're gonna watch in the entire year.
[0:05] So far it saved me over $20,000.
[0:08] Sound good?
[0:10] Stay tuned!
[0:16] What's going on guys?
[0:17] Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com.
[0:19] I'm out here in New York, in this beautiful
hotel, rocking my all-new medical insider's
[0:23] merch.
[0:24] You can get your own down below this video.
[0:25] Now in this video, we're gonna be talking
about credit card churning.
[0:29] I've opened about 30 credit cards, most of
which are still open.
[0:33] And it is because of this hobby called credit
card churning that I was able to fly to all
[0:37] 20 of my residency interviews all at different
cities for free.
[0:42] That's also allowed me to fly out here to
New York, London, New York again, back home
[0:47] to the West Coast also for free.
[0:50] In fact, I've done hotels for the last four
weeks all for free.
[0:55] If you guys follow me on Instagram, that's
@KevinJubbalMD, then you'll also know I love
[0:59] traveling.
[1:00] I did Asia for six weeks earlier this year
and all those flights were again for free.
[1:04] I flew to Capetown before that for free, I
went to Berlin for free, I went to and from
[1:10] Seattle, to and from Northern and Southern
California, all this for free.
[1:13] So essentially, credit card churning can offer
tremendous value.
[1:17] Now, at this point you're probably thinking
"Dr. Jubbal is gone crazy!", maybe but not
[1:23] because of credit card churning.
[1:24] Credit card churning actually makes a lot
of financial sense.
[1:27] You probably think I have a terrible credit
score, it's actually over 800.
[1:30] I'm gonna be going over all the factors that
go into a credit score in a future video because
[1:34] there's so much misinformation, so many misconceptions out there about it.
[1:38] You may be thinking this is a scam, there
has to be some catch.
[1:41] There is kind of a catch, the catch is it
takes a lot of time to get up to speed to
[1:45] do this.
[1:46] No one's gonna spoon-feed you, I myself have
put in over 100 hours over the last six years
[1:51] of which I've been doing this.
[1:53] And I'm not saying you need to put it over
100 hours of research et cetera, I'm gonna
[1:56] help you, but you should be putting in at
least a couple hours every week for at least
[2:01] a couple of months to be proficient and actually
doing things correctly.
[2:05] You may be thinking that you can lose money
and that this is dangerous.
[2:08] I would actually argue that if you are not
stupid with money, if you have some level
[2:12] of financial discipline and some financial
fundamentals down, it's actually relatively
[2:16] safe.
[2:17] That being said, I am not your doctor, I am
not your financial adviser, this is for informational
[2:22] purposes only, proceed at your own risk!
[2:25] Now, with that said, how I got into this,
I was a third-year medical student and one
[2:29] of my friends told me about this hobby that
could save us thousands of dollars during
[2:33] residency interviews.
[2:34] For residency, you need to fly to multiple
different cities and stay in hotels and they
[2:39] don't pay for that, that's out of your own
pocket.
[2:41] Now, I paid for my own college, my own medical
school, I didn't get help from my parents.
[2:45] So being in debt, I couldn't really afford
to fly to 20 different cities.
[2:50] So that's where credit card churning really
saved me.
[2:52] Now, why would companies do this?
[2:54] Well, here's the thing, credit card companies
make a lot of money off of you and that's
[2:58] in two primary ways; first, anytime you make
a purchase with a credit card, let's say you
[3:02] go to medschoolinsiders.com, you buy some
personal statement editing, Med School Insiders
[3:07] needs to pay the credit card companies a percentage
of that sale, for every single sale.
[3:11] That's one way they make a lot of money.
[3:13] Number two and more importantly, they make
a lot of money off of your debt.
[3:16] For some reason, people rack up credit card
debt, and the average American depending on
[3:21] the state that you reside has anywhere between
4,000 and $ 8,000 of credit card debt and
[3:26] that debt accumulates interest at somewhere
around 20%, which is absurd.
[3:31] But, if you're able to open up the new credit
cards, take advantage of that signup bonus,
[3:36] not rack up like thousands of dollars of credit
card debt and do things properly which I'm
[3:40] gonna explain how, then you have a lot to
gain and not much downside.
[3:44] Now, who should do this?
[3:46] Again, informational purposes only, I am not
saying whether you should or should not do
[3:50] this.
[3:51] I think that most premed and medical students
have a lot to gain especially because they're
[3:54] gonna be doing other medical school or residency
interviews where they to fly to a lot of different
[3:58] cities or if you just like traveling, and
you like hotels, you like free stuff, then
[4:02] you have a lot to gain.
[4:03] Now, I'm making this video because as I've
talked about on the Med School Insiders channel,
[4:09] the one thing that bothers me so much is when
people give bad advice.
[4:13] I remember when I was a medical student, there
was all these articles and even upperclassmen
[4:16] would tell me "oh you know, only stick with
the same airline you'll get points and loyalty
[4:20] with them, stick with the same hotel".
[4:23] That is such bad advice, do not do that.
[4:26] Some other YouTubers have also started talking
credit card churning and there is somethings
[4:30] that I don't necessarily agree with.
[4:31] So, that's why making these video, I wanna
provide you guys with what I believe is the
[4:34] most effective, proper and effective way of
doing this hobby right.
[4:38] Now, who should not do this?
[4:39] And this is actually even more important than
who should do this.
[4:42] First of all, if you don't have financial
literacy down, I don't mean that you need
[4:45] to have a positive net worth.
[4:46] I was a medical student with debt, I had a
negative net worth, but if you don't understand
[4:50] like credit cards are not free money, if you
don't understand... if you're stupid with
[4:53] money, you should not do this.
[4:54] If you carry any statement on your credit
cards, do not do this, if you see credit cards
[4:58] as free money that you for some reason forget
that you need to pay back, then do not do
[5:03] this.
[5:04] If you lack discipline, do not do this and
go and watch my video on self-discipline on
[5:08] the Med School Insiders channel.
[5:10] If you are an impulsive shopper, do not do
this.
[5:11] In short, if you are stupid with money, do
not do this, please.
[5:16] For churning, there's a couple rules you need
to know; first of all, never spend money that
[5:20] you wouldn't normally spend.
[5:22] So, anytime you have a credit card bonus,
you will get you know, 50,000, 100,000 points
[5:26] after you meet the minimum spend requirement
or MSR.
[5:29] That's something like $4,000 over three months.
[5:32] Now, as a medical student, I definitely wasn't
spending over $1,000 every single month.
[5:37] So, the answer is not to go buy expensive
watches and things that you don't need, that's
[5:40] idiotic.
[5:41] So, what I did is, my mom who was living hundreds
of miles away, I said "hey, let me pay your
[5:45] utilities, you pay me cash and that way I
can rack up some spend on this credit card".
[5:50] There's also paying your rent with a credit
card, you have to pay a small fee, around
[5:53] 2 to 3% and usually that makes sense if you're
working towards a minimum spend requirement.
[5:59] Anyways, we'll go into more details about
that in a future video.
[6:02] In fact, this is gonna be, again, the most
high yield concise effective advice about
[6:07] credit card churning and rewards.
[6:09] So, if you wanna follow along, make sure you're
subscribed, and make sure you press that 'Like'
[6:12] button because it really helps this Youtube
channel and follow along with our Credit Card
[6:16] Churning playlist which I will be updating
in the future weeks.
[6:19] Now, going back to meeting the MSR, You can
also do manufacturing spending, that's where
[6:23] you essentially buy money orders or gift cards,
pay yourself and then use that to pay the
[6:27] balance.
[6:28] It's a little more advanced, it's a little
more risky, I don't advise it for most people,
[6:32] but anyways, for completeness sake, that's
there.
[6:35] Rule number two; never carry a statement balance.
[6:38] If you do this, you are doing it so wrong,
you should never pay any interest.
[6:41] I don't know why people believe that carrying
a balance is good for your credit score, it's
[6:46] not.
[6:47] Pay off your balance, don't pay interest,
simple!
[6:48] Number three, don't do this before you need
to take out a large loan, whether that's a
[6:51] mortgage, or a car loan or anything like that
because opening up a lot of credit cards will
[6:55] temporarily ding your credit score even though
in the long term it has the potential to increase
[6:59] it.
[7:00] And rule number four, avoid canceling credit
cards.
[7:02] Ideally, you want to downgrade a credit card
that you don't actually want anymore.
[7:06] A lot of the credit cards I've opened, a lot
of them are still open and I pay an annual
[7:10] fee for those cards that are worth it, but
a lot of them aren't.
[7:13] And for those you - I wanna avoid canceling,
sometimes it's inevitable but you wanna downgrade
[7:17] when possible, after one year, don't do it
before one year.
[7:20] Now, the final point is what kind of credit
card enthusiast or "churner" do you want to
[7:26] be?
[7:27] So, first of all, don't be a champ.
[7:28] So again that means paying your full statement
balance every single month.
[7:32] I do automatic payments.
[7:33] What I recommend is actually using both Mint
and Personal Capital and those track my expenses
[7:38] because if you have 25 credit cards, it's
hard to check each one every single month,
[7:42] that's just absurd, right?
[7:44] So, Personal Capital, what I love about them
is every single morning, they send me an e-mail
[7:48] that has all of my credit card transactions
across all my credit card accounts from the
[7:52] previous day.
[7:53] And I can then look at that to make sure there's
no fraudulent activity, no fees, no - no things
[7:57] like that.
[7:58] I also use Mint and that does a very similar
thing.
[8:01] So I use both Personal Capital is my favorite
and you can sign up using the link I have
[8:05] down in the description below.
[8:07] You also have to be very organized to do this
properly, so you need to keep a spreadsheet.
[8:11] Now, I use Google Sheets, I have one that's
for my credit cards, I have one for bank accounts
[8:14] and bank account churning that I do.
[8:16] That's a topic for another video and in there,
I'll actually leave a template down in the
[8:21] description below so you can click it, make
your own.
[8:23] It'll save you some time but you're gonna
put in essentially any credit cards you open,
[8:28] what the minimum spend requirement is, the
date you opened it, the bonus, the bank, all
[8:32] that stuff.
[8:33] And that just helps you long term maximize
the bonuses and essentially maximize your
[8:37] gains from this hobby.
[8:38] Okay, now, there's three levels of doing this;
Number one, basic.
[8:42] So let's say you don't really want to put
in two hours a week for several weeks, then
[8:48] the bare minimum, this is very low-risk, low
reward, is essentially just opening up cards
[8:54] and maximizing their bonus spend.
[8:57] So each credit card has a different bonus,
like the Citi Double Cash has 2% on everything,
[9:01] which is not bad, it's decent.
[9:03] If you do Chase Freedom, there's a 5% rotating
category, same with Discover It.
[9:07] So any time you make a purchase you're getting
5% back.
[9:09] It's not bad, a lot of people get very excited
about 5%.
[9:12] Again, in the grand scheme of things in this
hobby is actually not very good.
[9:15] It's better than nothing, but it's essentially
like the most basic.
[9:18] I wouldn't even call it churning, it's like
being - being decent with credit cards.
[9:23] Now the next level up, let's say you're moderate
or intermediate, now, what you're gonna be
[9:27] doing is opening up multiple credit cards
every single year and you're gonna be focusing
[9:31] on hitting the minimum spend requirement.
[9:32] So, it's less important now, the 1%, the 2%,
the 3% because if you hit the minimum spend
[9:38] requirement, you spend $2,000 you get $60,000+
points, you're getting an order of magnitude
[9:43] more on your spend.
[9:45] So, now you're not getting 5%, now you're
getting like 50% back essentially on the spend
[9:48] that you've done.
[9:49] So this is much higher value and requires
again, a little more work because you gonna
[9:53] be constantly opening up new credit cards,
you need to stay organized, you need to constantly
[9:56] educate yourself about the new offerings,
the new rules, they're always changing, things
[10:00] like that.
[10:01] Now, advanced, so this is the final level,
this is where I currently operate.
[10:04] You are opening up both personal and business
credit cards several every single year, sometimes
[10:09] several every single month.
[10:11] And now you really don't care about the percentage
points on each category because at almost
[10:16] any moment, you're working towards a minimum
spend requirement.
[10:19] So you should always have a new credit card
in your wallet that you're working towards
[10:23] and you just keep rotating, keep rotating.
[10:24] Now, at this level, you may also get into
manufacturing spend, again it's higher risk.
[10:28] I don't advise it for most people, I personally
don't do it.
[10:31] Anyway, that's the fundamentals of credit
card churning.
[10:33] Now, beyond credit card churning, and I've
been talking about you know, free flights,
[10:37] free hotels things like that, there's so much
more value.
[10:40] So, you get extended warranty if you make
a purchase of let's say a laptop or a camera
[10:45] on the right credit card.
[10:47] And that can extend your warranty by sometimes
a couple of years, right?
[10:49] So that's huge.
[10:50] If there's any fraudulent activity on a credit
card, you can reverse that and that's almost
[10:54] never an issue with any of these major credit
card issuers.
[10:57] If you travel a lot, you can get lounge access
and that lounge access can give you free food
[11:01] and like pretty good free food and free alcohol.
[11:03] So there's a lot of things beyond just the
actual hotels and flights but you get so much
[11:08] value from these free flights and hotels.
[11:11] That's why I'm emphasizing that.
[11:12] So again, if you found this video helpful,
again, make sure you're subscribed.
[11:15] Please press that Like button because that
helps us with the algorithm and stay tuned!
[11:19] I'm gonna be updating this playlist in future
parts on which credit cards you should open,
[11:24] more advanced theory, getting into bank account
churning, all those things.
[11:27] So thank you again so much for watching and
I will see you guys in that next one!