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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!)

It finally happened!

After months of back and fourth it got approved.

My book is on Audible.

Something I told myself I’d make happen if I ever wrote a book, given how much time I spend listening to books while doing other stuff.

But enough about that.

Let’s get into it

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It’s Finally Here: The Audiobook Version of My Book Is Live on Audible

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know I wrote a book. The 5-Step Guide to Booking Luxury Travel with Points, and it just got approved on Audible.

Audiobooks are one of the easiest ways for me to actually digest information, so I’m pumped to finally have this available in audio form for anyone who prefers listening over reading.

Why this matters:
✅ Same decade+ worth of points and miles knowledge, now in a format you can consume anywhere
✅ Built to help beginners and people who already know points but want to level up
✅ Step by step breakdowns on how I think about bookings, redemptions, and getting real value

And the best part? You can now choose how you want it.
📚 Physical book
🎧 Audiobook
(or both)

👉 Check out the audiobook here (Audible account or one-off purchase)

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.

If you want to fly one of the U.S. carriers to Europe in business class, consider JetBlue Mint.

It’s one of the best business class products you can book from the U.S. right now.

Mint cabins are small (think 9 seats), and if you can snag the first row, do it.

That row has a little more room and just feels better.

Mint flies mainly out of Boston and JFK, and you can route it into places like Dublin, London, Amsterdam, or Paris.

The nice part is it’s bookable through a bunch of different partner programs, and depending on which one you use, the pricing can swing a lot.

Here are the ballparks you’re looking at:

JetBlue TrueBlue: usually around 60,000 to 79,000 points for business

Qatar Avios: around 78,000 (can be a little lower sometimes)

Etihad Guest: around 60,000

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank: 80,000 round trip or 42,000 one way

Taxes and fees vary a ton too.

You’ll see anywhere from about $5 up to almost $400, and that $400 number usually shows up when London is involved.

Now here’s the sneaky part.

The best way I’ve found to check Mint award availability is to search on United first, just to confirm the seat exists.

Then you book it through one of the programs above (because United will usually charge you way more for the same flight).

One important note: Qatar won’t show these online.

You have to call to book: 1-800-988-6128.

How to search step by step using United:

Go to United.com and log in

Click “Book with miles”

Search one way (it’s usually easier)

Put in your route (example: Boston to Amsterdam)

Pick a date you want business class and search

This can take some manual work, especially if you don’t know what days Mint is operating to that city.

If you want to speed it up, a tool like FlightConnections can help narrow down the dates.

Once you find the Mint flight on United, don’t book it through United.

Use it as confirmation the seat is there, then transfer your points to the program that makes the most sense for you (JetBlue, Etihad, Qatar, or JAL) and book it there for way fewer points.

Hope this breakdown helped.

I’ll drop some Mint business class dates I’m seeing into the Flight of the Week section.

And let me know if you want more “here’s how to book this cool thing” breakdowns like this, or if you’d rather I keep it more general and just share what I’m finding.

P.S. If you ended up buying a hard copy of my book send me a quick email. I have a couple of promo codes for the audio version if you want one.

While I try to avoid sending offers that expire soon.

I wanted to flag this one because it could actually save you some money if you’re planning to fly Southwest later this year.

If you’re going to be flying Southwest between August 10 through October 7, this promo is worth a quick look.

Southwest is running a limited time Companion Pass offer.

To qualify, you have to book either one round trip or two one way flights by February 5 (tonight), and you have to travel by March 31.

If you do that, you’ll earn a Companion Pass valid from August 10 through October 7.

So if you already have trips in mind for that window, this is a pretty easy way to lock in savings.

With Companion Pass, you book your ticket like normal, and your companion flies with you for pay the taxes and fees.

Not a bad deal at all, especially if you’ll take more than one flight during that August to October stretch.

Along with Venture X killing free guests at Capital One Lounges, they’re also tightening up guest access on the Priority Pass side too.

Starting in February, Venture X cardholders won’t be able to bring guests into Priority Pass lounges for free anymore.

So it’s another way lounge access is getting more restrictive, and it’s annoying because it’s clearly following the same playbook as the Amex Platinum.

For Capital One Lounges, only the main cardholder gets in.

And if you want a free guest, you now have to spend $75,000 in a calendar year to unlock it, which is wild.

At that point, your travel buddy might as well just get their own Venture X since the $395 annual fee can be offset with the $300 travel credit plus the anniversary points.

One thing to watch out for is that Priority Pass can get messy if you have multiple accounts.

A lot of cards give you Priority Pass, and it’s hard to remember which one includes free guests and which one doesn’t.

Half the time you don’t find out until you see a charge for that extra person.

Two quick notes:

The Venture X Business still lets you bring two guests into Priority Pass lounges for free.

And if you’re specifically looking for cards that still allow free guests.

The Amex Platinum lets you bring two free guests, and the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Citi Strata Elite, and Bilt Palladium are also some of the better ones for unlimited visits plus two free guests.

Last tip: if you have multiple Priority Pass accounts tied to different cards, make sure the one saved as your “default” in the Priority Pass app is the one with the guest policy you actually want.

Otherwise you might swipe the wrong one and get hit with a surprise fee.

You gotta love it when there’s a new way to book an airline, and it looks like that’s happening with ITA.

A couple months ago, United announced a partnership with ITA, so you can book ITA flights through United.

But even though ITA isn’t fully integrated into Star Alliance yet, it looks like you can also book ITA flights through another Star Alliance partner, Air Canada Aeroplan.

And booking through Aeroplan is one of my favorite ways to snag award flights.

This looks like it’s just starting to roll out, but economy availability is already pretty solid.

I’ve seen a bunch pop up like JFK → Athens, and even some nonstop LAX → Rome options for 55,000 miles.

So if Europe is on your map, it’s worth looking at ITA routes again, but through Air Canada.

For me personally, I’m keeping an eye on the new Rome → Houston route that’s supposed to start May 1.

A lot of people probably don’t even realize it might be bookable this way yet, and if business class space starts showing up, that’s when it gets really interesting.

Because when something is newly bookable, that early window is usually when you can catch better availability before everyone else figures it out.

So yeah, if Italy is on your radar, start checking Aeroplan now and keep checking.

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