All Blog Posts 🗺️

🤙🏿 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!)

Today we’re getting into it.

I’m talking about a mistake I still can’t get over.

So let’s get into it.

Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here

Get your brands in front of 6,000+ travelers & entrepreneurs.

Spend $50, Get $50 (Rakuten) — Then Turn It Into Travel Points

If you’re going to buy stuff anyway, you might as well get rewarded for it.

Right now with Rakuten it’s simple:

✅ Spend $50, get $50 when you sign up through my link and make a $50 purchase
✅ Works for almost anything you already planned to buy (clothes, tech, gifts, home stuff, travel, you name it)
✅ You can take your rewards as cash back OR points (the real move if you want travel)

Here’s the points hack:
✅ Switch Rakuten from cash back to points
✅ Route those points into your Bilt setup so you can keep everything in one place
✅ Then transfer out to travel partners when you’re ready to book

It doesn’t cost you anything extra it’s just a cleaner way to turn everyday shopping into future trips.

👉 Use my Rakuten link: Spend $50, get $50

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.

While I could rant about United CEO saying they’ve raised prices five times last quarter and twice this quarter to offset fuel, and that they’d probably keep prices high even if jet fuel drops I’m not doing it.

I’m tired of talking about fuel.

Instead, I want to share a travel fail that still hurts in honor of the HA code getting retired and the Hawaiian Airlines app getting shut down.

I was flying out of Honolulu with a layover in Arizona, then Arizona to Austin.

The whole reason I booked it was because the new Leihoku suite on the new plane had just dropped, this was the only plane that had it and I was hyped to finally try it.

Long story short, I stopped at a plant shop to buy a dragon fruit to mail home before I left the island.

By the time I got to the airport, the self service kiosks weren’t working.

I also hadn’t checked in on my phone.

I got in line, let someone cut in front of me because I had so much time and their plane was getting ready to board.

But by the time I got up front, I was inside the 45 minute window before departure, and they couldn’t manually check me in anymore.

So now I’m scrambling.

I ended up rerouting to LAX, in economy.

Then LAX to DFW, then DFW home.

Since that LAX flight was on a different airline, I had to pick up my bag and recheck it.

And of course by the time I went to recheck it, the bag drop window was closed.

So I had to carry it on… which was fine… until I remembered I had a bottle of Hawaiian liqueur for a buddy.

Straight into the trash.

I was going to dump it, but I felt bad, so I handed it to one of the front desk guys instead.

He probably had a great day.

Me? I had a day full of sadness in the back of the plane.

I missed the new business class seat.

I lost the bottle for my buddy.

And I got home way later than I should have… all because I didn’t check in on my phone.

But hey the dragon fruit plant is still alive.

Even if you think everything is lined up, be proactive and check in early.

Don’t wait until the last minute.

Because if the kiosks go down, and the desk is having issues too, the agents might literally not be able to save you.

Rising fuel prices have hurt all airlines, but it looks like Spirit might be feeling it the most.

They’re saying they have less than a week of cash on hand.

And now it sounds like the current administration is preparing a $500M bailout, where the government would take a stake in Spirit.

I don’t love this.

It sets a precedent for other airlines to do the same, even though we basically saw this play out during COVID.

Still, it’s not a great look.

And honestly, this probably wouldn’t even be happening if the JetBlue, Spirit merger had gone through.

But it didn’t, and now Spirit is stuck in this weird spot where bankruptcy is on the table and they’re grabbing any lifeline they can.

I’m torn on it.

On one hand, I don’t want Spirit to fail.

They’re a true low-cost carrier and sometimes the only cheap option at certain airports.

They also force the bigger airlines to stay competitive, because Spirit being in the market helps keep prices from getting completely out of control.

On the other hand, they’re clearly not doing well enough to stay afloat.

It’s hard to justify funding an airline that isn’t profitable, especially if the fix is just kicking the can down the road.

This next week will be really interesting to watch.

First it was Amex killing the United TravelBank workaround.

Now it looks like they’re tightening things up on Delta too.

For a while, you could do a couple sneaky plays.

Use an eCredit or gift card to cover part of a Delta ticket, then pay the rest with your Platinum to trigger the airline fee credit.

Or pay part of the ticket with miles to drop the cash portion under $200, then use your Platinum for the remaining balance and have the credit kick in.

As of now, it looks like those aren’t triggering the credit anymore.

After having easy ways to use the airline fee credit on both United and Delta, it feels like Amex is pushing this back to what they “intended” it for: actual incidentals.

Think bag fees, lounge access, seat upgrades, that kind of stuff.

And yeah, that makes the credit harder to use and the Platinum annual fee harder to stomach.

As always, when things change, we adapt.

I’ll keep you posted if any new workarounds or data points pop up.

Call me a skeptic, but I don’t buy the whole “airlines don’t track you” thing.

They can say they don’t watch cookies or search history all day long, but I’ve got a hard time believing it.

We already know airlines price routes differently based on demand and who’s buying them.

Business-heavy routes get priced like a tax, and that’s why a nonstop to your destination can cost more than a longer itinerary that connects through it.

JetBlue even posted that clearing your cache/cookies or booking in incognito can drop the price.

And to me, that kind of confirms the game that’s being played.

This is only going to get worse with AI.

Airlines are going to keep getting better at pricing, testing, and squeezing the most out of people who have to book last minute or keep checking the same flight over and over.

It’s also why I like points so much more.

There’s still volatility in some programs, but it’s usually way less than cash.

And with distance-based or region-based charts, the price doesn’t swing nearly as much just because demand spikes or you searched the route six times.

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