I’ve been talking about my new project for a long time. It’s finally time that I share my project with all the awesome Thousandaire readers. Me and a partner (long time readers know him as The Hoff) have created a site called Reward Boost dedicated to helping people maximize their credit card and loyalty program rewards.
The great news is that the site is finally live. The better news is that this is just the first of many stages.
Rewards Can Change People’s Lives
I am extremely passionate about helping people maximize their rewards because It may seem like a small thing, but I truly believe that rewards can change people’s lives. We will post stories of how real people have used rewards to save a bunch of money and, most importantly, the impact it has on their finances and their lives.
Most of the time people use rewards to do things like take incredible vacations, see family and friends, make improvements to their home, or pay off debt. All of those are really exciting things, and I want to help more people have the ability to do that.
The first example is my story of how rewards are saving me $771 and allowing me and Tag to visit my family over the holidays. I’m saving up for a 20% down payment on a house and the trip just wouldn’t be possible if I had to pay full price.
Another personal example of my own that I’ll be sharing on Reward Boost in the coming months is how I used rewards to be with my mom while she was going into surgery for stage 3 ovarian cancer.
I’ll share the whole story later, but the short version is this: I needed a last minute plane ticket from Dallas to St. Louis for me and Tag which would have cost about $800. Instead of paying $800 and seriously hurting my budget, it cost me just 18,000 points and $10.
My partner used rewards last year to help him pay for a Hawaiian vacation where he proposed to his girlfriend at the time. They recently had a Hawaiian themed rehearsal dinner for their wedding, had a close friend paint a picture of them on the beach in Hawaii, and now they are happily married. And the whole vacation may not have happened without rewards points and programs.
We are building this site because we want more people to have these stories. We want to help people have better lives and we want to share their stories with the world.
We Have the Best Rewards Reviews
Because we are so passionate about helping people boost their rewards and create life changing stories with them, our credit card and reward program reviews as better than anything else that exists on the internet.
Here is an example of the Citi ThankYou Premier review. This can be a really complicated card, but we explain all the details, what the rewards really mean and how much they are really worth. Again, we are doing this because we know what kind of life changes these rewards can mean for people.
We Have an Exciting Forum!!!
I know I’m not an expert on every reward program in the world. I don’t have all the answers. We have created a forum where people can share their expertise on certain rewards programs. They will also have an opportunity to share their own stories about how redeeming rewards has improved their lives.
I really hope you consider joining our community over at Reward Boost, and I hope you are as excited as I am about my next step towards entrepreneurship. Expect a lot more about secondary revenue streams and asset building in the future of Thousandaire!
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Very cool idea! Sorry to hear about your mom. My mom had stage 3D overian cancer about 7 years ago and thankfully she is in remission (sp?)! I will definitely check it out next time I am looking for a new rewards card.
That’s great to hear about your mom. If all goes well in the next few weeks my mom should officially be in remission as well.
Great idea, I just signed up. A couple of the buttons result in a 404 error and format glitches fyi (IE9), but I imagine since this site is brand new there’s bound to be bugs! I haven’t explored any sort of rewards programs. I only recently got a credit card which gave me 6 months interest free (so I bought some suits!) and recently paid it down to $0.00 so I didn’t have to pay any interest. I’m a bit risk averse when it comes to credit cards so hopefully this site will give me some good ideas on how to maximize my savings using credit!
Hey Chris,
Thanks for signing up! Great job on paying off your card before paying interest!
If you don’t mind I’d love for you to email me and let me know which buttons gave you a 404. kevin@rewardboost.com. Thanks Chris!
Congrats kevin – glad that you got this up for everyone to see – I’ll get you a guest post asap.
I can’t wait to see the guest post! Thanks for checking it out!
Congratulations on getting your new site up and running. It looks really nice and I will add it to my rotation of flyertalk and some of the boarding area blogs that give out reward information.
I really like the idea of rewards stories. I like to see how other people who are addicted to the points game spend their points!
Great! I know we’ll give you some great information you can’t get anywhere else. And just wait until the other half of our site is live. It’s going to be awesome!
And I love the idea of reward stories too! I have a few myself, but I’m really excited to hear the stories from other people. If you have one feel free to send it over!
I can’t wait to sign up!
You can actually sign up now on the forums page and use the forums now. Otherwise, you can wait to sign up until later when we launch the other more exciting part of the site, which is a web tool that helps people maximize their rewards.
How is this different from any other travel hacking website? Deals we like covers all this and MORE! Or, if one is serious, flyertalk has all the info you need.
If one’s serious about their rewards, they should be taking in 20k+ points/miles per month w/o sign on bonuses. I avg between 40k and 60k points/miles per month not including sign up bonuses. I keep them for travel, but that’s $400-$600 in GC if I was so inclined.
Once you learn the ropes, what you talk about on your new site is small potatos.
PS, my flights to Hawaii were $350 round trip, in first class….my tickets to israel were similar, but in coach.
Reward Boost obviously isn’t for you. This isn’t a travel hacking website.
This is a website for people who don’t get 20k+ points a month. This is for people who might not be getting any points a month, or might be getting some points but don’t know what to do with them.
Congratulations for getting 40-60k points a month and enjoy your travel hacking sites.
So, is the motto of Reward Boost: “For those who want to Boost their rewards, but only a little”?
My point is, the “space” is extremely crowded already, and you aren’t really bringing anything to the table besides a story of redeeming domestic airline tickets. But, you fail to mention some basic things. For example, you pimp the Amex blue preferred which has an excellent return at grocery stores, but you just mention continuing your grocery store spend there. Why not take advantage of gift card promos and fuel rewards a lot of grocery stores offer. So, if you want to go to Chili’s, you buy a gift card at the grocery store and now you are getting 6%, a discounted gift card and fuel rewards that will save you money at the pump.
That tip is free. And can be found on the other 1000 reward sites.
Here’s how Reward Boost is different:
1. It is focused on the person who wants more rewards but doesn’t want to work any harder to get them. It’s for the person who isn’t willing to change anything about their life except which card they pull out of their wallet at certain stores. Some people just aren’t interested taking the extra time to buy gift cards and then lock themselves into spending $xxx.xx at Chili’s just to get a few fuel points.
2. Reward Stories. As we continue to grow we’re going to focus on what people are getting with their rewards. No one else does this and I think it’s a shame to devote all the content to gathering points and ignore the incredible results people get.
3. Find me a better review of the Citi ThankYou Premier card than the one we posted. We explain the benefits, provide screen shots of redemption, and make it very easy to understand. If there’s a better review out there I haven’t seen it.
4. We aren’t done. I can’t give away the secret but we will soon have something that no one else on the web has. (hopefully within a month, this is just the soft launch).
I hope you enjoy the site. Considering that you are already well versed on rewards, Reward Boost may be too basic for you. I still hope you enjoy the site, but there are probably other sites that are better suited for your needs.