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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!)

I'm back home and energized!

I spent the past couple of days in San Antonio at a conference focused on brand partnerships.

I got to connect and talk to a bunch of creators from all different platforms.

It was great to see so many people doing really random stuff and nerding out about credit card points with them, surprisingly.

But enough about the conference.

Let’s get to it!

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I wasted hours and overpaid in points, but the right help would've changed that ✈️

I still remember the first time I tried booking a flight with points. I thought I was getting a deal, but between confusing award charts, hidden fees, and bad redemption rates, I spent way too many hours (and way too many points) just to book a single ticket.

Looking back, I could’ve booked it in half the time and saved thousands of points if someone had just shown me how.

That’s where I come in.

Here’s how I can help:

✅ Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll make it happen— in style (business & first class).
✅ Leverage my 10+ years of experience to save time and maximize your miles.
✅ Skip the frustration of award searches and hidden fees— I’ll find the best deals for you.
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✅ Get your trips booked for the year— rates start at $1k for two people roundtrip, and the experiences are priceless.

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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.

Last Saturday I was a speaker at a virtual FTU (Frequent Traveler University) workshop, and I covered all the ways to fly to Hawaii using points and miles.

If you’re an FTU member, you can watch the replay here.

But my newsletter subs are my people, and I can’t just not share the highlights.

So here are some of the main takeaways from that talk.

And if there’s enough interest, I can do a Hawaii workshop version for the newsletter too.

One of the easiest ways to find award space is using Seats.aero, but the key is using the broader multi airport codes.

EST, WST, and MIW for mainland U.S. airports, and HAW for Hawaii airports.

That keeps your search wide and helps you spot more availability without having to search city by city.

United award space is getting tougher.

You can sometimes find the same flights through partners like Air Canada, Singapore, and JetBlue, but it’s usually economy and often around the same pricing you’d see on United anyway.

Alaska is where things get fun.

They’ve got one of the best products to Hawaii, and between their older lie flat business and the newer suite style planes, there are solid options, especially from the West Coast.

I’m seeing business class awards as low as 40,000 miles, but Alaska miles are harder to earn, so it takes a little more planning.

For American, you can book with AA miles, but a lot of the time those same flights price better through Alaska.

I saw some great examples like DFW → Honolulu for 35,000 miles in business.

Delta is always hit or miss.

One of the best ways to find Delta space is using Flying Blue’s calendar trick.

Put in the route, leave the date blank, and let the calendar show you the lowest days.

Southwest can be really strong when there’s a sale, since their points are tied to the cash price.

When fares drop, redemptions can get surprisingly good.

I’ll also drop some sweet current award availability in the flight of the week section.

The whole talk was about 30 minutes.

If I recorded a Hawaii version for the newsletter and walked through it step by step, would y’all want that, or is the written breakdown enough?

If you didn’t know, some airlines will toss you miles if your checked bag takes too long to hit the carousel.

Delta has one of the most generous versions of this.

If your bag isn’t on the belt within 20 minutes of you getting off the plane, you can claim 2,500 SkyMiles.

It’s not a huge number, but if you fly Delta a lot it can add up fast.

You’ve probably heard people joke about moving the gate further away from the carousel, so you have to walk further and there's less time to wait for them.

But the benefit is still real.

The one change: you used to have 3 days after your flight to request the miles.

Now it’s been cut down to 2 hours.

So if you don’t do it right away, you’ll probably forget and miss it.

If you fly Delta often and haven’t been claiming this, start doing it.

Alaska and Hawaiian have similar “bags late” guarantees too, but they’re a little harder to pull off.

Free miles are free miles, and if airlines set a standard and don’t meet it, you might as well take the compensation.

On Tuesday, Robert Isom (AA’s CEO) spoke at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference, and two things stood out in terms of AAdvantage miles.

First, he said that since their expanded relationship with Citi and the new co-branded/transfer setup that kicked in.

They’ve seen about $1.5B in additional income.

For American, that’s great news.

It shows how much money the airline is making from credit cards, and it also shows how many people are still chasing AA miles.

Second, that’s also what makes me a little nervous.

When airlines see credit card revenue explode, they always have the option to “adjust” award pricing and require more miles, which pushes people to spend more and earns the airline even more money.

But Isom was pretty clear that they know their miles are valuable and they want to keep it that way.

His quote was:
“So I’ll start with this. There’s no doubt about it that the value of a mile on American gets you farther than anyone else. And that’s something that we intend to keep an advantage on.”

Nothing is set in stone, and airlines can always change their mind.

But as far as CEO quotes go, that’s a good sign for us, at least for now.

AA miles are still one of the best currencies out there, especially for partner redemptions, and still a great program to transfer into if you want outsized value.

It’s cool to see Chase Travel just rolled out a price match guarantee for hotel bookings made through their portal.

Basically, if you book a hotel through Chase and then find the same room for less somewhere else, you can submit a claim and they’ll refund you the difference.

The difference has to be at least $5, but it’s still nice peace of mind that you’re not getting hosed on pricing.

From what I’m seeing, the window is tight.

You’ve got about 24 hours after booking to file the claim, so you’ll need to do your digging pretty quickly.

The other reason this matters is that Chase Travel lets you book with cash or points.

So if you’re using Points Boost, you’re not only getting the convenience of the portal, you might also be getting outsized value on your points (up to 2 cents per point), and now you’ve got a safety net if the rate drops elsewhere.

A couple things to watch out for:

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