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🤙🏿 Welcome back to the Better Than Points Newsletter - the premier place for all things Credit Card Points News and Travel

My name’s Luis and I’m the one writing this (hit me up here!)

Is it Christmas already? Because it sure feels like Santa came early and dropped off some epic travel presents for us this week! We’ve got shiny new routes to explore, insane mile-earning challenges, and a sweet tip to get more out of your points.

So, grab your wishlist and your points, and let’s dive into the best travel gifts of the week!

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While I like that Hyatt and AA are making their partnership more official, I’m not happy that they’ve removed the ability to earn points and miles with both programs when staying at a hotel or flying. Double-dipping was nice while it lasted!

You can now rack up 100 nights and get Platinum status, but it’s still 100 nights—and let’s be honest, that’s a lot. It might honestly be easier to get platinum status through the AA shopping portal, so this could be more of a grind. Depending on your spend.

With both the Hyatt and Marriott announcements dropping on the same day, it’s at least good to know that focusing on one loyalty program—whether it’s a hotel or an airline—can still help you reach top status in another. So while double-dipping might be gone, it’s not all bad news. Who will be next to make it “official.” P.S. Make sure to connect your accounts here and here.

There’s no reason to panic just yet, but we really should be paying attention because at the end of the month, Virgin is moving to dynamic pricing. Now, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume they’re going to completely destroy their award rates…but let’s be real, they’ve kind of already done that with the crazy high taxes and fees on their award flights.

For now, this change only applies to their own award flights. But imagine the uproar if they pull the same move with partner flights! Virgin Atlantic is still one of the best ways to book ANA one-way business and first-class flights, so fingers crossed they don’t mess with that.

On the bright side, at least they gave us a heads-up before dropping the changes.

So, I’m not very good at Swedish, so I had to translate the headline. In short, SAS is loving their SkyTeam membership and has offered a pretty wild challenge until the end of the year: Book travel with 15 different SkyTeam airlines before December 31st, and you’ll earn a million EuroBonus miles.

What’s cool about this challenge is that you can use either points or cash for the bookings, and they’ll still count toward the goal. While 17 of the SkyTeam members are included, I’m curious who’s actually going to pull this off.

To help, here’s a list of some cheap flights that can help you check off 11 airlines on your way to that million-mile mark.

I know Christmas is still a couple of months away, but it looks like United couldn’t wait. They just announced eight new international destinations launching in 2025, and it’s refreshing to see United not just adding routes, but adding routes to places that aren’t your usual go-to spots.

One of the coolest new routes? Newark to Nuuk, Greenland, which, fun fact, will be the first route connecting the U.S. to Greenland nonstop. Some other exciting ones are Tokyo/Narita to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and Washington D.C. to Dakar, Senegal. Oh, and I can’t forget Tokyo/Narita to Kaohsiung, Taiwan, you can find the full list here.

Every week I answer one question from the community. Reply to this email with yours because you’re probably not the only one that has it.

Hands down, I’d say Air France-KLM Flying Blue. Their redemption rates can range anywhere from 50K to 95K points, and they consistently release multiple award seats which is great if you need to book a bunch of seats at once.

Plus, if your kids are under 12, you get a 25% discount on award flights! On top of that, Flying Blue regularly runs transfer bonuses, like the current 20% bonus if you transfer points from Amex.

If you want more details, I’ve got a whole section on it in my Points Digest. You can check it out here.

This section includes some of the best links videos and articles of the week around the points and travel community

🏨 Hotel Of The Week