Pokémon Go player shares helpful bonus trick to make record XP catches

A Pokémon Go player shared a catch where they piled up all bonuses to get a total of over 70,000 XP, revealing a trick to get an additional bonus.

XP is everything in Pokémon GO, at least until players reach level 40 and start completing specific tasks. You’ll want to get as much as you can through your play sessions, and catch bonuses are often wrongly overlooked.

In a Reddit thread from Sept. 11, a player proved how effective catch bonuses can be to earn large amounts of XP. “I just tied the world record for XP in a single catch!” the title read. The biggest bonus earned was the completion of a seven-day streak (48,000 XP), as well as the first catch of the day (12,000 XP) and Excellent throw (8,000 XP).

Although some players showed amazement in the comments, others speculated the user cheated to get this tremendous bonus. “Just go catch something for yourself in AR mode and you’ll see that isn’t the background that shows up on the exp tally screen, so he couldn’t possibly have gotten expert handler in that,” wrote a comment. “Claiming to tie a world record when you’ve cheated is low.”

In any case, players spotted the Expert Handler bonus because many of them didn’t know about it at all. The bonus rewarded the player 2,400 XP in the screenshot. It can be earned by catching a Pokémon while using AR mode.

When encountering a wild Pokémon with AR mode enabled, a bubble will appear. It’s an awareness meter, which can be lowered by throwing a Nanab berry to the Pokémon. Players who want the Expert Handler bonus should approach the Pokémon carefully until the bubble notifies the bonus has been earned.

If you’re aiming at the highest bonus possible for your catch, this will come in handy, although it’s not comparable to the seven-day streak bonus. Those bonuses will be especially useful if you’re going to use a precious Lucky Egg.

In addition to piling up Pokémon to evolve to make the most out of the double XP bonus, preparing a seven-day streak bonus, piled up to all those other ones, will give you a tremendous amount of XP with minimal effort.