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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!)

Welcome back!

This newsletter is filled with a little bit more strategy than usual, my thoughts, and changes that are currently happening in the travel world.

So lets get going.

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Prime Day Travel Find: The Small Item That Gives You Big Peace of Mind

Amazon Prime Day means a bunch of travel gear is on sale right now, but this is one of those small buys that can make a huge difference when you’re on the road.

It’s easy to throw in your suitcase, wallet, backpack, or carry on and once it’s connected to your phone, you have one less thing to stress about when traveling.

Here’s why I think it’s a must-have:

✅ Peace of mind when you’re flying, driving, or hopping between hotels
✅ Small enough to hide in your travel setup without being obvious
✅ Great for checked bags, backpacks, wallets, and everyday travel
✅ On sale for Prime Day, which makes it one of those “just grab it” travel upgrades

If you travel even a few times a year, this is one of those things you’ll be glad you bought before you need it.

👉 Check out the Prime Day deal here

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.

In terms of airlines, I might honestly start paying more attention to Southwest.

After all the grief I've given them over the last year, that's probably surprising.

But they've been making a lot of positive changes lately.

Between adding more flights out of Austin and rolling out Starlink across their fleet, they're becoming a lot more appealing.

The biggest reason though, is that my little family is growing.

When you're booking award travel for multiple people, your points balance disappears a lot faster than when you're just booking for yourself.

Southwest doesn't have nonstop flights from Austin to Hawaii somewhere we like to visit often.

But they do have flights from several West Coast cities.

And when they run one of their sales, I've seen one way fares as low as 7,000 Rapid Rewards points.

Then you add in the Companion Pass.

Instead of booking award tickets for a family of four, having two Companion Passes means you're really only paying for two tickets.

That changes the math quite a bit and makes stretching your points a whole lot easier.

The more I think about it, the more Southwest is becoming a serious contender for family travel.

Between the flash sales, the Companion Pass, and the expanding route network, it's starting to offer a lot of value, especially when every point counts.

It's just something I've been thinking through as our family grows and I start planning trips a little differently than I did when it was just my wife and me.

Hopefully, hearing my thought process helps some of the other families reading this figure out how to stretch their own points a little further.

Qatar Airways just dropped some major changes to its Privilege Club program, and if you've been eyeing QSuites or using Avios to book Qatar flights, you'll want to pay attention.

The biggest change is around who you can book flights for.

In the past, you could generally use your Qatar Avios to book tickets for other people without much hassle.

Now, Qatar is putting a lot more restrictions in place.

Going forward, you'll only be able to link your account with up to four other Privilege Club members.

Once you link someone, they have to stay linked for at least six months before you can remove them.

On top of that, the person you're linking must have had their Qatar account open for at least 30 days before you can even add them.

I understand what they're trying to accomplish.

It looks like an effort to reduce fraud and keep stolen miles from being redeemed, which I'm all for.

But they didn't stop there.

Qatar is also adding activity requirements.

If you haven't earned Qatar Avios by flying Qatar or one of its partners, or by earning points through one of their co branded credit cards, you may not be able to redeem miles at all.

In other words, simply transferring points into Qatar and immediately booking an award may not work if your account hasn't met their activity requirements.

It's a lot of rule stacking.

Individually, each rule is understandable.

Together, they make the program significantly more complicated to use.

The silver lining is that this could actually make QSuites easier to book for those who do meet the requirements.

If fewer people can jump through all of these hoops, there may be less competition for award space.

If you don't qualify under these new rules, I'd also keep an eye on Qatar's partner programs.

Sometimes it's easier to book the exact same QSuites seat through another airline program than it is through Qatar itself.

We'll have to see how these changes play out, but it's definitely one of the biggest shifts we've seen from Qatar's loyalty program in quite a while.

Later this year, Asiana Airlines will officially become part of Korean Air as the merger between the two carriers moves forward.

That also means Asiana will leave Star Alliance, while Korean Air remains part of SkyTeam.

Normally, when mergers like this happen, it's pretty straightforward.

If you booked a Star Alliance flight using Asiana Club miles before the merger, that reservation would typically be honored, even after the airline changed alliances.

That's what's making this situation so unusual.

Asiana has announced that some award tickets booked with Asiana Club miles for travel after December 16, 2026, will not be honored.

That's almost unheard of.

Historically, airlines have grandfathered in existing award bookings, even when mergers or alliance changes occurred.

In this case, travelers who thought they had their trips locked in are now having to scramble to find alternative flights.

I'm not sure whether this decision came from Asiana or Korean Air, but either way, it's a pretty bad look.

The good news is there's still some time to make other arrangements if you're affected.

But it's definitely not customer friendly, and it's one of the more unusual developments we've seen in the points and miles world.

I don't think this will impact a huge number of people, but if you have any future travel booked with Asiana Club miles especially on Star Alliance partners it's worth double checking your reservation and making sure you're not caught off guard.

We'll end this week on a high note with a crazy travel win.

A traveler recently booked a hotel through the Chase Travel portal and somehow scored a suite that was pricing $7,000 less than the exact same room on the hotel's own website.

After booking, they reached out to the hotel about the discrepancy.

The hotel tried to move them into a lower room instead, but the traveler pushed back and got Chase involved.

In the end, Chase honored the original reservation.

Now, this is definitely one of those "your mileage may vary" situations.

There's no guarantee an airline, hotel, or travel portal will honor a pricing mistake.

But if you stumble across one, I'd rather book it and see what happens than let it go and wonder what could have been.

The same thing can happen on hotel websites too.

If you ever see a room that's clearly mispriced, say it's showing $200 instead of $1,200 for your dates.

It can be worth locking it in and seeing if the hotel decides to honor it.

The worst they can usually do is cancel the reservation.

One tip if you ever find yourself in this situation: take screenshots of everything.

Save the room description, the price, the confirmation page, and your booking email.

If the price changes later or someone tries to argue that you booked a different room, having that documentation can make a huge difference.

Sometimes a little persistence and a few screenshots is all it takes to turn a pricing mistake into an incredible travel story.

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