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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!)

Is the temperature starting to rise wherever you are?

Because here in Texas, it's getting hot, but also we're getting downpours of rain.

But enough about the weather.

Let’s get into it.

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Quick question for you (hit reply)

I love nerding out about points, miles, and travel, but I want to make sure this newsletter is focused on what actually helps you.

So tell me:

What do you want to see more of in here?

Could be anything like:

Just hit reply and tell me what you’d find most useful, what you’re curious about, or what you want me to cover more often.

I read every response.

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.

Brooke’s story is a super common trap.

People earn points and assume 2 million Delta miles is the same as 2 million Amex points.

Unfortunately, it’s not.

Brooke said it herself.

She’s sitting on 2 million SkyMiles, trying to get to France this summer, and she can’t find anything reasonable without weird routings and multiple legs.

And that’s the part most people don’t realize until it’s time to redeem.

What you really need is optionality, not loyalty.

Because that not ideal flight she found was pricing at over 500k+ SkyMiles with layovers.

If she had 2 million Amex points instead, she could still transfer to Delta if she wanted.

But she’d also have 20+ other partners to choose from.

That means options like Flying Blue, where you can sometimes book Delta flights for less.

Or Air Canada, where you can often find U.S. to Europe business class for around 60,000 miles one way.

I’ll throw some of those in the flight of the week section.

So I’m sharing this as a reminder.

Your loyalty won’t pay you back when it’s time to redeem.

Earn transferable points that can go to your favorite airline, and a bunch of other airlines too.

If you’re a diehard United loyalist, cool.

Earn Chase points.

They transfer to United, but they don’t trap you inside United.

One of the reasons Delta can charge so much is simple supply and demand.

So many people have so many SkyMiles that Delta can jack up the prices and a lot of uninformed people will still pay it.

And when the real good deals happen, I’m talking about 100k Skymiles for Delta One ovesees.

They don’t even publicly promote them.

But you won’t get fooled by their tricks.

You’re reading this newsletter for a reason, and I’m going to keep helping you earn the right points and redeem them the smart way.

If you’re traveling to Europe this summer, heads up: you might be dealing with longer lines than usual.

There’s a new system rolling out where they’re registering your fingerprints and face.

And since a lot of people haven’t done it before, it’s slowing everything down and creating some brutal, hour long lines just to get through.

So if you’ve got a connection, pay close attention.

Build in extra buffer time between flights, because it’s turning into a bit of a madhouse.

Hopefully it smooths out once more people get registered, but since it’s rolling out right before peak summer travel, it’s not looking great right now.

Like a story out of hell, there was a recent flight out of Newark that got stuck on the tarmac for six hours.

Six hours sitting in your seat.
Cramped.
Barely any food.
Just waiting to take off.

And then after all that, they went back to the gate, had people get back on board, and then the flight got canceled anyway.

That’s a complete and utter failure from both the airline and the airport.

It should never happen.

But it’s also one of those edge cases that pops up every few months, and it keeps me on my toes.

Because a short flight can turn into a nightmare inside a metal tube real quick.

So this is your reminder to overprepare.

Bring more snacks than you think you need.

Bring extra diapers if you’re traveling with a kid.

Keep your meds in your personal item, not your checked bag.

Assume the airport won’t save you if things go sideways.

I’ve seen similar chaos before too.

A flight got diverted because of weather, but the plane landed at an airport that didn’t have customs.

Since it was an international arrival, passengers couldn’t get off.

They had to sit there until customs agents showed up in the morning to clear everyone.

That is not a situation you ever want to be in.

But it’s something worth keeping in the back of your mind, because the best time to have what you need is before you need it.

If you didn’t know, Seats.aero is a super powerful tool.

It basically scans airline award pricing and pulls it into a searchable view, which can save you hours of clicking around manually.

It helps surface flights that actually have award availability, and shows you what those awards cost, without you having to search day by day.

But here’s the issue.

Air Canada does not like that.

They’ve been going after Seats.aero and calling it computer fraud.

I wonder if it's because it's making finding award availability and booking it too easy.

Seats.aero’s argument is pretty straightforward.

They’re not hacking anything.

They’re compiling information that’s already publicly available.

And the Supreme Court has basically said there’s nothing wrong with accessing data that’s already accessible to the public.

That’s not hacking.

Still, it’s something to watch.

Because airlines are starting to fight back against tools that make it easier for customers to find good award deals and book them.

And that would be a huge loss.

Especially with Aeroplan being one of the better programs out there.

They’ve got close to 50 airline partners, solid partner award rates (even with the June 1 increase), and one of the best online booking platforms.

Not having tools like Seats.aero would really suck, because it would push everyone back into manual searching.

So if you haven’t played with Seats.aero yet, I’d highly suggest it.

Even just to get familiar with how it works, because it makes finding award flights and pricing way easier.

Check out these crazy award deals!

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

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