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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!)

We had some major changes drop this week.

Summer is around the corner.

Flights are still expensive but I’ll show you how to get them for less, and people are up to no good.

So let's get into it.

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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.

With the new Hyatt point changes, I just want to talk about what I’m seeing.

At first glance, rates haven’t shot up or changed that much.

They went from the old three tier setup to a five tier system, with pricing getting progressively higher as you move up the categories.

And right now, we’re not really seeing those super high rates showing up everywhere yet, which is good.

But I’m still skeptical.

If you remember when Virgin switched to their new award pricing, it started off with a lot of attractive and reasonable rates.

Then over time they slowly cranked them up.

And I feel like Hyatt might be running the same play.

Given that Hyatt has said that each hotel has autonomy in how they want to change rates.

They already got a ton of backlash just for moving from three tiers to five.

Imagine how much louder it would’ve been if they jacked up rates across the board on day one.

So it feels like they’re easing into it.

They know they’re already in a bad spot with a lot of customers, so they don’t want to rock the boat too hard right away.

My guess is the hotels want more time and data to figure out what people are willing to pay at the higher end.

And once they have that, we’ll probably start seeing more of those higher rates pop up.

Also, if you tried booking before the changes and couldn’t, you’re not alone.

It looks like Hyatt systems were getting hammered that last day, and a lot of people ran into site issues while trying to lock things in.

So you might still have a window to snag some decent deals before the higher pricing really starts creeping in.

But you already know I’ll keep an eye on it and report back.

The best time to book summer travel is basically here.

Google’s data says the sweet spot is around 43 days out.
While Expedia says 15 to 30 days is the sweet spot for economy.

Either way, if you’ve been thinking about flying somewhere, I’d start looking now and locking in prices, especially with fuel prices still climbing.

Two quick tips that can save you money:

First, let the deal tell you where to go.

Go to Google Flights and click the Explore tab.
Then plug in.

Your home airport
How long you want the trip to be
What month you want it

Google will show you the cheapest flights for that window.

It’s an easy way to snag a cheap flight, then use points and miles for the hotel.

Second, lock something in now, then monitor it.

I use a service called Paiback to watch flights after I book them.

If the price drops, they help get a credit back for the difference.
And you only pay them a percentage of what they saved you.

It’s peace of mind.

You lock in a flight now, and if the price drops later, you don’t have to keep checking it every day like a crazy person.

This probably won’t be the first time we see AI used to try and squeeze extra fees out of people.

In this case it was a Lyft ride trying to slap on a damage charge, but you can easily see this same thing happening with rental cars or hotels.

So out of an abundance of caution I always try to take pictures.

When you pick up a rental car, take a quick walkaround video and photos before you drive off.

Do the same when you drop it off.

Because if you don’t have your own proof, it turns into your word vs their “evidence.”

And with AI getting better every month, a bad actor is only a few steps away from generating something believable enough to try and bill you.

This applies to luggage too.

If you’re traveling this summer, take pictures of your car, your hotel room, your luggage, and anything you could get hit with a damage fee for.

Better to have the receipts and not need them, than need them and get stuck paying because someone decided to play games.

Every month Flying Blue drops Promo Rewards on a handful of routes.

If you’re okay flying economy to Europe, there are some pretty compelling options around 19,000 points from a bunch of U.S. cities.

They also have a few Premium Economy deals for 30,000 points.

No business class promos this round (those are always the unicorns), but Flying Blue usually releases a decent amount of seats, which makes this especially worth checking if you’re traveling as a family and want a summer Europe trip.

A few of my favorites I’m seeing:

Europe → Portland for 18,750 miles (Portland is far, so that’s a solid deal)
And the same 18,750 pricing showing from places like Austin, Seattle, San Diego, Dallas, Chicago, and New York.

Europe → Mexico City for 30,000 miles in Premium Economy
Europe → New York for 30,000 miles in Premium Economy

Check out the Flight of the Week section for some of those deals for the summer.

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