The book
The Points Investor
A finance expert's guide to points and miles. The full operating system: the investment thesis behind points, the VER System™, portfolio builds for different travelers, and the redemption playbook.
December 1, 2026
PAPERBACK ON AMAZON · EBOOK TO FOLLOW
Who it's for
Finance executives, consultants, analysts and anyone who already manages a budget or a portfolio, and suspects their points deserve the same discipline. No jargon to learn first: if you can read a spreadsheet, you can run the method.
What's inside
- Part I, the thesis: why points behave like a currency with a floating exchange rate, and the investment universe of programs.
- Part II, Value: the CVP Formula™, baseline valuations, the Redemption Value Ladder and your personal target portfolio.
- Parts III to V, Earn: the transferable ecosystems, daily spending, welcome bonuses, card portfolio builds, airline and hotel programs, portals, stacking and household strategy.
- Part VI, Redeem: transfer timing, award search, booking, and twenty worked examples of great flight and hotel redemptions.
- Part VII: the whole system on one page, the 10 Golden Rules, and the appendices with valuations, transfer partners and alliances.
The author
Francesco Gaini, former Partner at the Boston Consulting Group and finance executive, Kellogg MBA, 60+ countries travelled. More about the author.
The book and the site
The book teaches the method; this site keeps the numbers current. Every tool the book refers to is on the Toolkit page, free, with dated sources.