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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!)

I hate to sound like a broken record.

But it’s not getting better.

It’s getting worse.

But don’t worry.

I have some good news too.

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To be transparent: I may receive compensation through my partnership with advertisers when you click on links to offers in this email. Terms apply & these are my own opinions, not of any bank or credit card issuer. That said, I only promote products I truly believe in, and I have this card myself for a reason. 

If you’ve been thinking about opening a new business card, now’s the time to act.

This limited time offer is ending soon and with the holidays coming up, it’s the perfect time to knock out the minimum spend naturally with your holiday purchases.

But here’s why.

If you can handle the spend, you can get both cards since they’re considered separate products.

That’s a total of 180,000 points, enough for a week in Hawaii.

Bottom line:

If you’ve been on the fence, this is your sign. This is one of the easiest ways to stack your points balance fast, and with no annual fee, it's a no brainer move, especially during the season when you’re already spending.

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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.

Had some great 1:1 calls last week and helped a few folks pick their next cards.

I even helped Billy hunt down award space to Europe and Hawaii (plus showed him some seats.aero tricks).

A similar question that kept coming up was people having the Ink Unlimited/Ink Cash, and having points but not being able to transfer them, or it being a cash back card.

Here’s the deal.

Here’s how to make it work.

One key thing to note.

Earn on Ink for the multipliers, then house the points under a Sapphire to make them real transfer points.

Hope that clears it up.

I hate to sound like chicken little, but this isn’t getting better.

The FAA just said that starting tomorrow (Friday) they’re asking airlines to reduce flight capacity by 10% at 40 major airports because of the government shutdown.

TSA and air traffic controllers still aren’t getting paid.

This is basically the 3rd/4th missed paycheck and the call outs/no shows are piling up as folks try to make ends meet.

They’ll start with about a 4% cut and ramp to 10%, purely to keep the airspace safe with fewer people on shift.

Terrible timing with the busiest travel season about to kick off.

United put out a statement saying their international and hub-to-hub flights won’t be affected.

That’s United only, I don’t know how other airlines will choose what to cut.

It looks like international may be safer, but still, check your flights.

Per the flighty app, on average 20% of flights are delayed everyday.

They expect this to increase by as much as 30%-40%.

Plus thousands of cancellations

A couple of moves to make right now.

If you want the full list of airports facing cuts, here’s the link.

Hyatt’s press release was basically “we’re booming.”

They’re calling World of Hyatt the fastest growing hotel loyalty program in the world, with 40% more loyalty members per hotel.

One thing to note is that they also have one of the smallest footprints vs. the big brands, so… I guess take that as you may.

They also said they’re deepening their agreement with Chase.

Kinda vague.

Here’s what we do know.

Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders will get Hyatt Explorer status starting mid 2026, but only for “top spenders.”

No clue what the spend threshold is yet.

They’re pushing more Park Hyatt and Alila into Chase Travel’s “The Edit” (the luxury hotel program).

Hopefully that means more ways to use UR points in the portal.

Maybe even at better value than transferring to Hyatt, but that part was unclear.

The big theme was that Hyatt expects more profits from credit cards, so they’re expanding the card lineup.

Think stronger earn/burn and perks like 9x at Hyatt, free night certs, spend bonuses, and annual Hyatt statement credits.

The CSR looks like it’ll get more valuable for Hyatt loyalists… but with that price tag, the $95 Hyatt card still looks like the easier win for most people.

I appreciate the added CSR perks, but I’m really hoping this doesn’t stay exclusive to Chase’s top tier.

Ideally it’ll trickle down across the Chase ecosystem and into the portal too.

I’ll keep an eye on the “expanded partnership” details and what it actually means for cards and redemptions.

We’ve been hearing about this for a bit, but it’s finally live.

You can now earn Bilt points through your Rakuten account.

If you’re not familiar, Rakuten is a cashback portal.

Turn it on, shop, and you’ll see anywhere from 1% to (sometimes) 25–30% back.

For years you could swap “cash back” for Amex points but now you can pick Bilt points instead.

A few gotchas:

Conversion details:

Bilt transfers to programs like Hyatt and Alaska, so you’re stacking the points from your credit card plus the Rakuten earnings, which you can now take as Bilt points.

Free points on stuff you were buying anyway.

Here’s my Rakuten referral, get 5,000 Bilt points after spending $50 in the first 90 days.

P.S. You don’t need a Bilt card to take advantage of this offer, you just need to create a Bilt account.

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