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!)

Man, did we have some news drop this week!

It's kinda bad, but not that bad, but still bad.

But also, some actual good news about award availability.

So enough yapping and let's get started.

Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here

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

✈️ A Rare Unicorn Delta Deal Just Dropped, You Probably Won’t See This Again

Delta doesn’t often run deals like this, and when they do, they don’t promote them 🙄so most people never see them unless they’re actively searching or getting alerts from Thrifty Traveler.

Earlier today (I’m talking 4hrs before I send this email), Thrifty Traveler spotted a once in a blue moon deal:

✅ Delta One to Europe for just ~97,000 SkyMiles
✅ Destinations include Italy & Spain, with travel available through August
✅ If you don’t have a Delta CC they go for 115,000–230,000 SkyMiles one-way or round-trip
✅ Flash sale style deal these don’t last long, and Delta doesn’t advertise them

If you have points but don’t have hours to hunt availability, this is exactly the kind of deal you want fed straight to your inbox.

It’s the kind of opportunity where you book first and ask questions later.

Thrifty Traveler also has a free tier, so you can see exactly how the alerts work without paying anything.

👉 Check out Thrifty Traveler’s free tier (or go Premium for the most exclusive award alerts).

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.

And with what could be the biggest news of the week, Chase made some updates to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card…

So lets break it down.

They added some perks, but at the same time, there are some downsides that have me raising an eyebrow.

The biggest hit, in my opinion, is the change to the Hyatt transfer ratio.

The 1:1 transfer we all loved is gone.

Now, you need 4 points to get 3 Hyatt points, which means more points to get the same value.

On top of that, Hyatt also increased a lot of their award rates, so your points just don’t stretch as far anymore. T

hey also removed the 10% anniversary points bonus, which is less impactful but still a minor loss.

On the bright side, there are some upgrades that are nice to see.

You now earn 3x points on EV charging and gas, and also 3x points on vacation rentals and Airbnbs.

They also increased the hotel credit from $50 to $100, and added TSA PreCheck credit.

Insurance coverage also saw some improvements.

And perhaps most importantly, the annual fee hasn’t increased, which keeps this card approachable for new users.

Overall, it feels like the card is more of a “loss leader” now, designed to get people into the Chase ecosystem with hopes they’ll eventually upgrade to one of the premium cards, like the Sapphire Reserve, to access the 1:1 Hyatt transfer.

It’s still a solid entry card for people getting started with Chase points, especially with the $100 hotel credit and TSA PreCheck perks.

But if your primary reason for the card was Hyatt transfers, the value has definitely taken a hit.

The most outsized benefits are now reserved for premium cards, which is worth keeping in mind if you’re planning to maximize your points.

If you didn’t know, United lets you pool miles with up to three other adults.

It’s a nice feature, especially for families and friends who each earn a little bit of miles but not enough on their own to book something meaningful.

The downside was that the pooled miles were pretty limited in how you could use them.

That’s now changing.

United has expanded the program and is opening up pooled miles for more partner award bookings. Full list here.

That means access to some of the better Star Alliance partners and other partner airlines.

Think Air Canada Aeroplan and its 50+ airline partners, ANA, and a bunch of others that can offer better redemption options than booking directly through United.

There are still some restrictions.

For example, some partners only allow specific routes or limited redemptions. Emirates, for instance, appears to be restricted to certain routes like New York to Dubai.

So it’s not a complete free-for-all.

But overall, this is a solid improvement.

More ways to use pooled miles means more flexibility, which is almost always a good thing in the points world.

If you have family members or friends who fly United regularly and rack up miles, it might be worth looking into pooling them together.

It can make it a lot easier to book trips that would have otherwise taken years to earn on your own.

Qatar Airways is restarting its Philadelphia to Doha route, and situations like this are usually a great opportunity to start looking at award space.

Whenever an airline launches or restarts a route, there can be a window where award availability is much better than normal before not many people know about the route yet.

Now, Doha might not be your final destination and honestly, for a lot of people, it won't be.

But it's an excellent gateway to places like:

If Q Suites has been on your bucket list, this is definitely a route I'd keep an eye on.

Right now, I'm seeing business class pricing around 70,000 Avios, which is generally the sweet spot you'd want to target.

I’ll add some of those dates to the flight of the week section.

And even if you're not planning to spend any time in Qatar itself, getting to Doha opens up a ton of options on the other side of the world.

So if you're looking ahead to next year or trying to lock in a premium cabin redemption, the Philadelphia Doha route is one I'd start monitoring now while availability is still relatively wide open.

Something I suspected for a while was recently reaffirmed: Delta is giving out fewer complimentary upgrades and putting a much bigger focus on paid upgrades.

And honestly, from a business perspective, it makes sense.

Delta is focused on profitability. If they can sell an upgrade for a few hundred dollars to an occasional traveler instead of giving it away to a loyal customer, they're going to take the money. Over thousands of flights, those small purchases add up to a meaningful amount of revenue.

It's another reminder that airline loyalty isn't what it used to be.

For years, the idea was that if you flew enough, the airline would take care of you with perks like upgrades. Now it feels like the airlines would rather monetize every seat possible and leave fewer upgrades available for elite members.

That's not to say status has no value. Priority boarding, free bags, better customer service, and waived fees can still be worth something.

But if your main reason for chasing status is hoping for upgrades, the math is getting harder to justify.

It's one more reason why I prefer earning transferable points rather than being overly loyal to a single airline.

I'd rather book the best flight at the best price than spend thousands chasing loyalty that may not deliver the benefits it once did.

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