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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!)

Airlines are dropping new flights left and right.

Which is good news for us.

And I have some cool tricks that could help with booking them.

So lets get to it,

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I still remember the first time I tried booking a flight with points. I thought I was getting a deal, but between confusing award charts, hidden fees, and bad redemption rates, I spent way too many hours (and way too many points) just to book a single ticket.

Looking back, I could’ve booked it in half the time and saved thousands of points if someone had just shown me how.

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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.

I wanted to talk about a points strategy that I don't think enough people know about, and the cool thing is that it can work even if you currently have zero points.

It revolves around buying points when airlines or hotels offer a big bonus or discount.

Now, I would never recommend buying points speculatively just because they're on sale.

I would only consider doing this if you've already found a specific flight or hotel you want to book, confirmed the award availability, and were otherwise prepared to pay cash for it.

Here's a good example.

American Airlines is currently offering up to a 40% discount on buying miles.

Most of the time, buying American miles isn't going to make sense.

But depending on the flight you're trying to book, the math can get really interesting.

One example I found was a Seattle to Dublin business-class flight on Aer Lingus that you could book using American Airlines miles.

The cash price was around $6,000 per person.

But the award was available for around 55,000 American miles per person.

Let's say you're traveling with someone else.

You'd need around 115,000 American miles for two business-class tickets.

With the current discount, buying those miles would cost somewhere around $3,000.

Yes, $3,000 is still a lot of money.

But compare that with the roughly $12,000 cash price for those same two business-class tickets.

You could essentially buy the miles and then immediately turn around and use them to book the flights, saving thousands of dollars in the process.

Depending on what economy tickets cost for your dates, you could potentially end up paying something closer to an economy cash fare while sitting in business class.

And Aer Lingus isn't the only opportunity.

American has some really good partners, including Qatar Airways, where you could potentially use this same strategy to book something like Qsuites.

That's the bigger lesson here.

Sometimes you don't actually need to have a huge points balance to take advantage of an amazing award redemption.

If you were already going to spend $2,000 or $3,000 on airfare, check whether you could instead spend that money buying points and use those points to book a much more expensive seat.

The same strategy can work with hotels.

Hilton is a good example because they frequently run promotions on buying points.

If you've already found award availability at an expensive luxury property, buying Hilton points during one of those promotions can sometimes cost significantly less than paying the hotel's cash rate.

There are a couple of things to watch out for.

Programs usually limit how many points you can purchase each year, and you'll also want to account for any taxes and fees associated with the award you're booking.

If you're traveling with a spouse or partner, there may also be opportunities for each person to purchase points and, depending on the program's rules, combine or use those balances toward the trip.

But most importantly.

Find the availability first. Do the math. Then buy the points.

Don't buy 100,000 miles because there's a great sale and hope you'll eventually find a use for them.

But if the exact flight you want is sitting there and buying the points costs substantially less than buying the ticket?

That's when buying points can become a really powerful strategy.

United just announced a pretty massive international expansion for 2027, with 10 new international destinations and 14 routes in total.

What makes this particularly interesting is that seven of these destinations currently don't have nonstop service from the U.S.

That's a big plus in my book.

Instead of United just adding more flights to the usual international destinations, they're branching out and giving us nonstop access to places that previously required a connection.

A lot of this expansion is focused on Europe, but there's one route in particular that immediately caught my attention.

Here are some of the new routes and when they're scheduled to launch:

My favorite of the bunch, surprisingly, is San Francisco to Okinawa.

When I went to Okinawa for my honeymoon, getting there required connecting through mainland Japan.

Having the ability to fly nonstop with a US carrier completely changes that.

Okinawa was also one of those places that weirdly reminded me of Hawaii.

Beautiful beaches, a slower island feel, and something completely different from what you experience in places like Tokyo.

There's another reason I'm paying attention to all of these routes, though: award availability.

Something I've mentioned before is that when airlines launch brand new routes, we sometimes see a lot more award seats available when those flights first become bookable.

There's no guarantee that happens here, but if you've been wanting to visit Europe or Okinawa in 2027, I would definitely keep an eye on these routes.

It also makes United miles that much more useful and gives United status a little more value, since elite members can sometimes get access to better award pricing.

And United isn't the only airline joining the party.

Not to be outdone, American Airlines also dropped seven routes for its summer 2027 schedule

Overall, more routes are a win for us

They mean more competition, more nonstop options, and hopefully more opportunities to use our points.

I'll definitely be watching these as they become bookable because the beginning of a new route can sometimes be one of the best opportunities to grab those harder-to-find award seats.

In a now deleted post, a woman shared a picture of a $1,000 Southwest voucher she had received.

She was understandably excited about it.

The problem was that the picture included all the information someone needed to actually redeem the voucher.

And because the internet is the internet, people did exactly that.

By the time she realized what had happened, there was only about $6 left on the $1,000 voucher.

It's a good reminder to be extremely careful about what travel information you post online.

I've seen people share pictures of their boarding passes or tickets without realizing there's enough information visible for someone to potentially access their reservation and change or cancel a flight.

Even those little baggage tags you rip off your suitcase after picking it up at baggage claim can contain information you probably don't want someone else getting their hands on.

I've seen stories of people using that information to open baggage claims under someone else's name.

Luckily, this particular story had a happy ending.

Southwest saw what happened, canceled the tickets that had been purchased using the stolen voucher, and issued her a new one.

So she got her money back, but she also probably learned a pretty valuable lesson about oversharing travel information online.

It's a good lesson for the rest of us too.

Before posting that boarding pass, voucher, baggage tag, confirmation email, or anything else travel-related, take a second and look at everything that's visible.

Blur more than you think you need to.

Unfortunately, there are people out there who will take advantage of that information if you give them the opportunity.

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