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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!)

Holiday season is upon us.

And I have some things to tell you about it.

So lets get into it.

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I wasted hours and overpaid in points, but the right help would've changed that ✈️

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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Back in May, JetBlue and United announced a partnership.

JetBlue needed a lifeline (bad), United wanted to grow at JFK, and here we are it’s finally rolling out.

You can now use JetBlue miles to book United, and United miles to book JetBlue.

On paper that sounds great. But in practice, just because we have new partnerships it doesn’t mean its an instant improvement.

United’s been stingy with partner award space for a while, and JetBlue isn’t getting special treatment just because they shook hands.

A good example was all the good award availability that you could find with Air Canada disappearing since United cut back the release of award flight for partners.

So I wouldn’t expect magic in United premium cabins via JetBlue but maybe the other way around.

That said, there is a fun angle right now:

United MileagePlus → JetBlue economy to Europe.

There’s already been some talk of BOS → CDG popping up as low as 6,000 miles + taxes/fees, with a bunch in the 15,000 mile range.

Key thing: those are JetBlue operated flights booked with United miles, not United flights booked through JetBlue.

If you’ve wanted to try JetBlue across the pond, give United’s site a quick look.

On the other side, I’m not seeing anything wild for United awards via JetBlue (yet).

Transfer reminders:

You can move Chase UR and Bilt to United 1:1.

If you really want JetBlue: Chase/Citi 1:1, Amex 5:4, CapOne 5:3.

(But if you’re chasing those cheap JetBlue to Europe deals, use United miles.)

If you’re booking cash tickets for the holidays, don’t wait any longer

Unlike award flights (best either 8–11 months out or super last minute), cash fares for peak season, Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually only go one direction the longer you wait, up.

Travel demand might be cooling a bit, but the holidays are always crazy and expensive, and year over year prices aren’t dropping.

For domestic trips in general, the sweet spot is 1–2 months out.

So if you’re eyeing Thanksgiving, it’s time to book now.

After Halloween, prices for both Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to jump fast.

So lock it in before month end.

We’re shopping some flights too and prices look competitive right now, but that won’t last.

If you’re not 100% sure on plans book a refundable fare.

Better to secure a decent price and keep flexibility than wait and watch it double.

For this holiday season it looking like these will be the averages for tickets if you wait.

Thanksgiving ≈ $586
Christmas ≈ $639.

TLDR: book now, or at least book refundable now.

Your future self (and wallet) will thank you.

Delta’s running another flash sale and you might want to check it out.

You can snag dirt cheap flights to Mexico, Costa Rica, a bunch of Caribbean spots, and even within the U.S.

Depart from pretty much anywhere in the States and fly to tons of destinations in those regions.

Some of the best deals I’m seeing:

The sale ends today, and the site can be a little clunky so here’s the direct link.

Pick your origin city and the destination region, and the deals will populate.

Hit “Book” and you’ll get a calendar view with available dates and prices.

Bonus: if you hold a Delta credit card, you’ll get 15% off when booking with SkyMiles, which makes these already cheap fares even cheaper.

Clock’s ticking, if you see something you like, grab it today.

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.

With the holidays coming up and you not knowing exactly where you want to go, or knowing you want to go somewhere but don’t have plans yet or want to stay on a budget, this is a good reminder to bring back Google’s Flight Deals search engine.

It’s a little different from Google Flights since it has AI incorporated into it, and while it’s still in beta, it’s gotten much better than when it first launched.

I’ve been playing around with it, and what I’ve found is it’s really good if you give it super specific prompts.

You actually get back some decent results.

This might be especially helpful if you’re trying to go somewhere for the holidays but don’t know where yet.

Some really good prompts that have come up with solid results include:

Prompt: Find flights where I could leave from [City] in the next [Number] months to go somewhere skiing for [Number] days that cost less than $300.

I did this out of Houston for 7 days, and it came up with a flight to Aspen, Jan 6–13, for $289.

Prompt: Find me the best international flight out of New York in the next three months that are the best deals.

This one brought up nonstop week long flights to Paris for $364 (Dec 5–12) and Barcelona for $288 (Jan 22–28). Oh, and all of these results were roundtrip.

Definitely worth looking into and hopefully, with these prompts, it guides you to ask it for even better results.

The better your prompts, the better your results.

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