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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!)

The government is shutdown.

Can you still fly?

Lets get into 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.

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With the government shutdown in full swing and no clear end in sight, here’s what to know about how it could affect flying.

Air traffic controllers, TSA officers, and other frontline aviation staff are deemed essential.

They’ll keep working but without pay.

They’ll get back pay once the government reopens, but if this drags (a week, a month, who knows), people may start calling out.

We’ve seen this before.

In January 2019, 10 air traffic controllers called in sick, which temporarily halted LaGuardia and delayed several other hubs.

A few absences can ripple fast.

The FAA hired 2,000 new controllers who are in training but since the training is paused, it’ll take time to spin back up.

That slows the pipeline and adds more friction later.

This won’t completely stop air travel, but you should expect delays and cancellations inside the U.S.

Not just now but we will likely some residual effects even after the shutdown ends.

If you’ve got travel in the next month:

Get to the airport early.
Keep checking your flight status.
Have a backup plan if your flight cancels.

Given the uncertainty its safe to assume a little extra chaos and plan around it.

This one’s a little weird and won’t apply to everyone, but worth a look.

Royal Jordanian is status matching a bunch of airlines to their mid tier status right now.

But why should you care? They’re part of the Oneworld airline partnership, so that mid-tier statues equals Oneworld Sapphire, which gets you:

Lounge access (AA Admirals Club + Flagship, etc.)
Priority waitlist + standby
Priority check-in
Extra bags
Across all 15 Oneworld airlines.

Who can match: Delta Gold, United Gold, JetBlue Mosaic 2+, along with a long list of others

All you have to to is submit your info and pay $149 to match.

Just make sure you already signed up for a Royal Jordanian account. Sign up here

You get 12 months of status, and that’s Sapphire across Oneworld.

This matters because getting similar perks “the normal way” (say with AA) can take $13K+ in spend.

So if you fly Oneworld partners a good amount, for me that’s American + Alaska the $149 for a year of Sapphire is pretty compelling.

Not for everyone, but for the right flyer, it’s a neat shortcut.

The U.S. is quietly rolling out a biometric exit program which takes your photo, matches it to your passport and confirm you are who you say you are.

It’s coming to airports, land crossings, and seaports across the country.

They say foreign nationals’ photos can stay in the database for 75 years, and U.S. citizens’ photos are deleted within 12 hours.

But who knows if that’s really true.

As of today, 52% of departing air travel is already confirmed biometrically (this has been creeping in since 2017).

And it looks like it’ll keep expanding.

My bigger concern is false positives/negatives especially for a guy with a fro.

Overall failure is ~3%, but it’s higher for dark skinned people (like me) and for women, which could mean delays at boarding.

Just something to keep in mind.

Not saying I’m doing anything wrong it’s just wild to see how much gets tracked when we travel.

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 stumbled across this on the Miles to Go podcast were Julian mentioned a promo I hadn’t really seen before.

Flying Blue (Air France/KLM) is giving 10,000 bonus miles after you complete a qualifying segment.

Interesting, and very “please fly with us.”

Quick rundown:

Why this is interesting: you can snag a cheap one way to Europe, earn 10,000 miles, then use those miles toward a return or save for a bigger redemption.

If you value Flying Blue miles around ~2.17¢, that’s roughly $217 in value for the bonus alone.

I’ve seen one way economy from Miami → Paris (or Miami → Lisbon with a stop in Paris) around $250.

If you’re already planning a trip to Europe, that’s an easy extra 10K.

Feels like airlines are testing new incentives to fill seats.

First time I’ve seen this style from Flying Blue, so it definitely caught my eye.

I’ll throw some Flying Blue return options from Europe into the Flight of the Week section.

Use the miles to fly back or to upgrade, depending on what makes more sense.

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