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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!)

Apparently there’s some crazy weather coming through the US.

Austin will get it this weekend.

Luckily, I don’t have any travel plans this week.

But if you do, it looks like you can expect some delays.

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🎉 100 Issues! I'm Celebrating by Dropping My Fee (Just for One Day)

I can’t believe this is the 100th issue of the newsletter.
And I definitely wouldn’t have made it here without you reading, clicking, sharing, and supporting along the way.

So to say thank you, I’m doing something I’ve never done before:

🗓️ I’ve blocked off all day tomorrow (Friday, the 23rd)
💬 To answer your points, travel, and card questions
💸 And I’m dropping my usual session fee, just $100 for this one day celebration

Whether you're trying to:
– Figure out the right card to open
– Plan redemptions for a big trip
– Or stop spinning your wheels with points

This is your chance to get clarity and celebrate with me while you’re at it.

👉 Book your session here (first come, first serve)
Once slots are gone, they’re gone!

Here’s to the next 100 issues 🥂
– Luis

Each week, I’ll share something cool I’ve discovered or tackle a question from the community. It’s my little corner to explore ideas, offer fresh perspectives, and hopefully spark your own curiosity.

I just want to give a genuine thank you to everyone who’s stuck with me for these 100 issues while I’ve figured out the format, tweaked it a million times, and tried to pack in as much value as possible for anyone learning points and miles.

When I started this almost two years ago, I never thought I’d still be doing it.

Funny to think back that around that time, I was getting ready to fly to New Zealand and the Cook Islands all on points, for our babymoon.

I kicked this off to help people actually use their points.

You don’t need to spend countless hours learning this stuff.

A few smart moves can make a huge difference and get you to places you didn’t think were possible.

So thank you for sticking around, reading, replying, and letting me keep this going.

Since then I’ve released a book, the audiobook is coming soon (t minus ~10 days), and there’s more in the works.

So seriously, thank you for the support.

P.S. If you ever need to apply for a card, here’s my affiliate link.

It doesn’t cost you anything, but it helps me a ton and hopefully gets us to 200 issues.

Another handy redemption unlocked!

American Airlines and Aer Lingus finally integrated bookings, so you can now use AAdvantage miles to book Aer Lingus flights and vice versa.

Right now I’m seeing business class at 57,500 AA miles + $5.60 one way.

Not the absolute cheapest way to book Aer Lingus.

Atmos points can price lower, but Atmos points are tougher to earn.

The big win here is that Citi transfers to AA at 1:1, so topping up AAdvantage is straightforward.

But the real unlock is that American’s partner award chart is region based.

That means you can add connections within the same region and still pay 57,500 miles.

If you live near a smaller airport, you can include the hop to a larger airport in the same ticket.

Same thing on the Europe side, which can save you from booking positioning flights or burning extra points to reach Aer Lingus cities.

New partner integrations usually mean better availability before a bunch of people catch on.

If Europe or Dublin is on your list, it’s worth a look now while space is wide open.

Thrifty Traveler even flagged this in an alert this morning.

I’ll drop the info in the Flight of the Week section.

Bilt launched “Bilt 2.0” with three new cards, and it came with a lot of questions.

Some stuff couldn’t be answered on day one, and they’re still trickling out details.

Which feels like they’re building the pane while it’s in the air.

Early read on Bilt Cash is I’m not impressed (yet).

I’m sure it’ll get better, but right now it feels clunky.

Quick summary:

Each month you choose how you want to earn, points with some Bilt Cash or straight points.

If you pick Bilt Cash, you can redeem it for things like parking, fitness, dining, and a bunch of other categories.

The catch (and it’s a big one), most of those categories have annual caps, so if you spend a lot, you’ll need to be strategic.

Because only $100 in Bilt Cash can roll over each year, which makes over earning kind of pointless.

Launching the cards without clear info and slowly filling in the gaps is just adding confusion.

My suggestion for now is to just stick with points.

Once we see all the limits and you’ve got a sense of your spend, you can always switch to Bilt Cash if the math works for you.

But for now, Bilt Cash adds complications and guardrails I’m not loving.

Qantas Frequent Flyer just rolled out three big changes to its Emirates partnership.

Quick backstory: last year Emirates tightened things up on their side.

No first class award seats for kids unless you paid cash, and you needed at least Silver status with Emirates to book first class awards.

Qantas is now falling in line:

Bummer, but not shocking given this was the loophole to Emirates own rules for a bit.

Yet another reminder to earn and burn, points only get less valuable the longer you sit on them.

Check out these crazy award deals!

This section includes some of the best award flights of the week bookable with points and miles.

Chat with TravelBot - my AI clone. It’s trained on every newsletter I’ve published along with my 10+ years of points and credit card knowledge 🧠.

It’s also trained on my voice, so you can call it and have a full blown conversations. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

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