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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!)

We only have good news this week!

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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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It’s nice to see the U.S. finally catching up on this one. TSA just announced an “Families on the Fly” program that adds a few perks families (and service members) have been begging for.

Europe’s been doing versions of this for ages, so it’s great to see the U.S. step up. Traveling with a little one is chaotic enough and anything that lets us keep our shoes on and our sanity intact is a win.

If you’re flying out of MCO, CLT, SNA, or HNL, these family lanes are live right now. Take advantage while the lines are (hopefully) still short.

Great to see Hyatt finally jumping on board and making award bookings way easier.

They just rolled out a built in points calendar that lets you see real time availability as you scroll through different months with no more need for third party tools, extra tabs, just native, up to date info right on Hyatt’s site.

This is a total time saver. Just look for the points calendar tab when clicking a hotel.

They also added a handy map view that shows nearby hotels with their nightly points cost.

If a property doesn’t have award space, it’ll still pop up with the cash rate, so you can compare at a glance and move on instead of playing “guess and check” all afternoon.

It’s the kind of quality of life upgrade we’ve all been asking for, and it should cut down on the time it takes to find a place to use your points.

Hawaiian just dropped its updated winter schedule, and it’s packed with extra flights (and a few shiny new Dreamliners airplanes) to handle the holiday rush:

More flights = more award space, so if Hawaii, Sydney, or Tokyo are on your radar for the holidays, now’s the time to pounce.

Keep an eye on Hawaiian’s site (or your favorite award tool) and be ready to transfer those points.

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.

Talking about renting cars last week and using the right card I wanted to talk a little more about the right card to use.

Chase Sapphire Reserve still takes the crown with primary rental car coverage up to $75,000 MSRP for a straight 31 days worldwide.

For anything pricier or truly exotic, you’re on your own, those cars are excluded across the board anyway.

Chase Sapphire Preferred lands next. Same 31-day window, but the cap drops to $60,000.

If you keep your rentals under that value, the protection is identical to the Reserve without the crazy annual fee.

The Venture card covers rentals up to $75,000, but the fine print matters. 15 days max inside the U.S., 31 days abroad.

If you’re renting domestically for longer than two weeks, return it on day 14, rewrite the contract, and reset the clock.

Sleeper pick: the no fee BILT card.

It’s primary, good for $50,000 MSRP but make sure the car you rent is nor excluded

Couple last reminders: all these cards give primary CDW, you must be the main renter on the contract, and you still have to decline the agency’s insurance.

High occupancy vans and true exotics are out.

Stick to the coverage caps, mind the Venture 15 day rule, and you’re set.

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