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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!)

It's finally starting to cool off here in Texas.

I stumbled across some interesting data from Google that I break down.

And I talk about a big win for someone I ended up helping out, so enough chit-chat.

Let's get to it.

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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.

This week, I wanted to walk you through how I helped Mr. S and his wife book their flights to Bali, along with their hotels, using points.

They already had a decent amount of British Airways Avios to work with, but they also wanted to figure out how to cover their hotels with points.

So the first thing we did was look at what credit cards they already had and what points they could earn.

At the time, the Chase Sapphire Preferred had an elevated 100,000 point welcome bonus, which made it a pretty easy recommendation.

Hyatt's award rates were also lower at the time, so those 100,000 Chase points could cover a decent number of hotel nights in Bali.

That took care of the hotel side of things.

Now for the fun part, getting them to Bali in business class.

Since they already had British Airways Avios, we could transfer those over to Qatar Airways and use them to book Qsuite, one of my favorite business class products.

British Airways and Qatar both use Avios, which means you can transfer Avios between the two programs.

The first thing we did was look at which airports had the best availability.

Instead of limiting ourselves to flights out of the U.S., we started looking at departures from Canada, where we were finding better options.

We also set up alerts for flights out of the U.S. in case something better became available.

One of the biggest advantages Mr. S had was flexibility.

He wasn't locked into specific dates. He had an entire month that he could travel, which made finding award availability significantly easier.

That travel window actually ended up changing, which opened up even more possibilities.

From there, we set up alerts through Seats.aero and waited for the right flights to become available.

Once those seats popped up, we transferred his British Airways Avios over to Qatar and booked the flights.

One thing to know is that we specifically wanted to book through Qatar rather than another partner.

This was before Qatar introduced all those restrictions around booking award tickets for other people, although thankfully some of those rules have since been rolled back.

If you're thinking about doing something similar, make sure your Qatar account is at least 30 days old and check the requirements for anyone you're booking for.

I'd honestly recommend opening a Qatar account now, even if you don't have any immediate plans to fly Qsuite.

That way, when availability opens up, you're ready to book rather than waiting for your account to become eligible.

There's actually some decent Qsuite availability showing right now on flights to and from Doha, so it's worth keeping an eye on.

For their trip, we ended up breaking the itinerary into two parts.

The first was Canada to Doha.

The second was Doha to Bali.

By doing that, we were able to find the award availability we needed and get both of them booked in Qsuite.

Another reason I like booking Qatar flights using Qatar Avios is the flexibility if something changes.

Depending on the fare rules, you can change or cancel award flights and get your Avios back, although fees or restrictions may apply.

That can be a little more straightforward than dealing with another airline's loyalty program when booking a Qatar operated flight.

All in all, they were able to use the points they already had, add a new credit card welcome bonus to help cover their hotels, and book an incredible trip to Bali.

But the biggest thing I want you to take away from this isn't necessarily the destination or even Qsuite.

It's how we found the flights.

We didn't limit ourselves to one departure airport.

We kept the travel dates flexible.

We searched different routes and broke the trip into segments when needed.

And most importantly, we set up alerts so we could book as soon as availability opened up.

I’ll add some current dates to the Flight of the week section.

If you're trying to book a trip like this, those are the things I'd focus on.

Sometimes finding a great redemption isn't about having more points. It's about knowing where to look, being flexible, and being ready to book when the opportunity shows up.

Delta is launching a new policy where flights shorter than 350 miles will no longer receive food or beverage service.

The only exception is for first class passengers, who will still receive regular service.

Otherwise, you're not getting anything.

And that stinks.

Unfortunately, Delta isn't the only airline doing this.

United Airlines doesn't offer snacks on flights shorter than 300 miles, while American Airlines has a cutoff of 250 miles.

So Delta is really just following the pack here.

I don't love this change because, even though it might be a short flight, I still look forward to getting my Biscoff cookies.

At the same time, I get it.

On flights this short, there isn't always enough time for flight attendants to get through the cabin and serve everyone.

Still, I find it interesting that Delta is keeping regular service for first class passengers while eliminating it for everyone else.

Google just released its latest travel trends report, and to no surprise, airfare is more expensive than it was last year.

The useful part is the timing: when should you actually be booking to have the best shot at lower prices?

For domestic flights, the sweet spot is around 39 days before departure. For international flights, it's further out at around 89 days.

Here's what the data shows:

With Thanksgiving coming up, October is a good time to start looking if you haven't booked yet. For Christmas, the lowest prices are showing up around 56 days before departure, which puts the sweet spot around late October.

Europe is different. The lowest prices are generally around 90 days before departure, so I'd start looking at least three months out rather than hoping for a last-minute deal.

Two other things stood out: departing on a Monday and returning on a Tuesday or Wednesday could save around 14% compared with returning on a Sunday, while taking a connecting flight instead of a nonstop could save up to 20%.

These are averages, not guarantees, so I'd still set Google Flights alerts once you know where you want to go and compare the cash price against booking with points.

It looks like TSA is planning some new pre-screening setups, and honestly, I don't know whether they're going to help speed things along or slow them down.

One of the changes is electronic gates that will check your identity instead of having to hand over your information to a TSA agent.

I could see how that would speed things up, but at the same time, I hope they have processes in place to make sure it doesn't cause problems. Otherwise, that would just make things worse.

They're also planning to have body scanners screen passengers instead of having everyone simply walk through a metal detector.

From my perspective, I feel like that would slow things down more than just walking through a metal detector.

Another change is software that will decide which bag images need to be flagged for further attention from a TSA officer, which I guess is okay.

They also mentioned that they could finally end the war on water bottles, which I feel like is crazy that we're still dealing with.

When we traveled all over Japan almost four years ago, we could carry water through security regardless of the size. They just had to scan it.

I feel like we're still lagging behind in that sense.

Some of these changes, I honestly don't really understand other than TSA wanting to spend more money.

We'll have to see if they're actually beneficial, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for when they start rolling them out.

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