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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!)

Howdy!

Have any of y’all been keeping up with the world cup?

With it coming to an end this weekend, I am freaking out because what will I watch now?

I guess I shouldn’t worry two much since I’ll probably have my hands full with the two little ones.

Anyway I had some time late last night to find some juicy flight deals I want to share with you today.

So lets get cookin!

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✈️ This Is Why I’m Glad I Have Thrifty Traveler

Some award space is easy to find.

But routes like New York to Honolulu?
That’s the kind of award availability I am not checking every single day.

And that’s exactly why I like having Thrifty Traveler.

They just sent out an alert for a bunch of Hawaiian Airlines award availability on a route that’s usually tough to come by: JFK to Honolulu.

That matters because this is a long flight, and using points here can make a lot more sense than paying cash.

Here’s why alerts like this are clutch:

✅ Hard-to-find award space sent straight to your inbox
✅ No need to check the same route day after day
✅ Great for long haul routes where points can save you serious money
✅ Lets you act fast when rare availability pops up
✅ You book directly with the airline once you find the deal

This is the kind of email that makes me go, “Yep, this is why I have it.”

If you have points but don’t have time to hunt every day, Thrifty Traveler makes it way easier to catch the good stuff when it shows up.

P.S. They just dropped a crazy 🦄 deal this afternoon too! 25k SkyMiles round trip from the US to Australia and Sydney.

👉 Try Thrifty Traveler free version and let the award alerts come to you.

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.

A question that I get all the time is, how do I know if an award flight is actually a good deal.

Part of it just comes with experience. The more you search, the more you'll recognize what routes usually cost and what a really good redemption looks like.

But if you're just getting started theres’s a simple rule of thumb.

Pay around 10,000 points per hour of flight time for a business class flight.

It's not a perfect rule, but it's a quick way to gauge whether something is worth digging into.

For example, a business class flight from JFK to Honolulu for 95,000 points.

It’s not too bad.

Before the Alaska and Hawaiian merger, those same flights were often available for around 45,000 to 50,000 miles through Hawaiian's program.

But even at 95,000 points, an 11 hour lie flat flight isn't terrible.

But I also wanted to show you how I'd go about finding these awards if you weren't using a service like Thrifty Traveler.

The first thing I do is open FlightConnections.

I use it to visualize which airlines actually fly the route I'm looking for.

Once I know who's operating the flight, it becomes much easier to figure out which loyalty programs I should search.

For a Hawaiian Airlines flight, I'd check Hawaiian's program, now part of Alaska's Atmos program.

If it's an American Airlines flight, I'd still look through Alaska because their award pricing can be better.

If it's United, I'd compare United MileagePlus with Air Canada Aeroplan.

If it's Delta, I'd search Flying Blue, since partner pricing can sometimes be much better than booking directly through Delta.

Those are just a few examples, but that's the general process.

From there, it becomes a little bit of manual searching.

Once you find your specific route, you'd head over to Alaska's website.

One of the good things about Alaska's website is that you can click flexible dates.

That pulls up a calendar view, and most of the time the cheapest dates are also the ones with the lowest business class pricing.

The flight I found was 95,000 points for an 11-hour nonstop on Hawaiian's A330 with lie flat seats.

I've flown that product several times back when Hawaiian operated nonstop between Austin and Honolulu, and while it's not the newest business class out there, it's still a very solid way to spend 11 hours.

Hopefully me walking through the process helps you see how I search for award flights.

Once you understand which airline flies the route and which partners can book it, finding great redemptions gets a whole lot easier.

Also, if things like this look a little too difficult, you can always just sign up for Thrifty Traveler, and they can do all the hard work for you.

You have options to be able to use those points.

I'll add some of those dates for business class flights for this route in the flight of the week section.

If you're not familiar with Starlux, it's a Taiwanese airline that's quickly built a reputation for having one of the best business class products in Asia.

The interesting thing is that, while Starlux isn't part of one of the major airline alliances, you can still book its flights using Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles.

Lately, I've noticed Alaska opening up a lot more award availability, not just on Hawaiian Airlines after the merger, but also on Starlux.

I'm not sure if they're releasing more seats or just making more of them available to partners, but it's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Right now, I'm seeing business class award space from Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco to Taiwan.

The easiest way to search is by selecting flexible dates, which pulls up the award calendar and makes it much easier to spot the lower-priced dates.

Business class pricing is generally coming in between 75,000 and 85,000 Alaska miles, which is a solid redemption for a flight to Asia.

The only downside is that most of the flights I'm seeing only have one business class award seat available.

That's pretty typical for Starlux, as they haven't historically released a lot of premium cabin award space.

The good news is that you can pair these flights with Alaska's free stopover.

So if Taiwan isn't your final destination, you could spend a few days exploring Taipei before continuing on to another city in Asia, all on the same award ticket.

That's one of my favorite features of Alaska's program and a great way to squeeze even more value out of your points.

While Frontier has gotten a pretty bad reputation with everything going on in the airline world, they are starting to look a little more promising.

Now that everyone has resorted to unbundling flights.

With the news that they are planning to add Starlink starting in early 2027, I'm honestly starting to consider them more seriously.

Austin isn't one of their major hubs, but they do have some competitive pricing out of the airport.

When you pair that with their GoWild Pass, which they regularly promote, it could become an interesting option for budget conscious travelers.

I used to fly Frontier about a decade ago when I was traveling on a budget, but with a growing family, I'm starting to look at them differently.

The value proposition changes when you're trying to book multiple tickets, and saving a few hundred dollars per person can add up quickly.

I'm still not ready to fully commit, but they are definitely becoming an airline I'm watching closely.

Now all they need to do is launch a nonstop flight from Austin to Minnesota, and I might officially be on board.

Any time I traveled outside the U.S. and had to exchange money into the local currency, I always wondered if I was getting ripped off.

I came across a great article this week that covers some of the biggest mistakes travelers make when exchanging money, and it reminded me of a few tips that can save you quite a bit over the course of a trip.

The biggest one is to use a credit card with no foreign transaction fees whenever you can.

It's almost always going to give you a better exchange rate than paying with cash.

The second tip is one that catches a lot of people.

Whenever you're paying with a credit card, the payment terminal may ask if you want to pay in U.S. dollars or the local currency.

It might seem more convenient to choose U.S. dollars, but don't do it.

Always choose the local currency.

When you pay in U.S. dollars, the merchant or payment processor is usually converting the currency at a much worse exchange rate than your credit card would.

Let your credit card company handle the conversion instead.

If you need cash, try to use an ATM at a local bank once you arrive.

In my experience, you'll generally get a much better exchange rate than you would at one of the airport or tourist currency exchange kiosks, whose business model is built around making money on the exchange spread.

Personally, I've never ordered foreign currency from my local bank before a trip.

I usually bring a little bit of U.S. cash with me and exchange just enough at a local bank after I arrive to cover things like tips or the occasional place that doesn't accept credit cards.

But the biggest takeaway is simple.

Whenever you have the option, avoid converting the transaction into U.S. dollars.

Whether you're withdrawing cash from an ATM or paying with your credit card, leaving the transaction in the local currency will almost always save you money.

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