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We’re finally back from Aitutaki and Rarotonga. I’ll save you the google search, it’s in between New Zealand and Hawaii. Around that Bora Bora Fiji area. While it was fun, nothing beats coming home to lay in your bed and cuddle your dog. Definitely recommend checking it out! Cheap good food and warm waters.

If you’re reading this…thank you. This is the first of many newsletter and you’ll have the honor of saying you were here from day 1.

Here are 3 headlines, 2 hacks, and 1 questioned answered this week…

3 Headlines

One.

Hyatt looses 560 Small Luxury Hotels to Hilton (LINK)

183 of Hyatts hotels are changing categories (LINK)

I decided to give you a two for one given that it’s a lot of firsts. We’ll have to pour one out to my favorite hotel chain Hyatt for taking the L with the SLH loss and then hitting us with those category changes.

So SLH are a chain of hotels that you’ve been able to book using your Hyatt points. They were definitely some of our favorite hotels to stay at, Sowaka being our favorite in Kyoto and most recently Pacific Resort Aitutaki. While it’s good that you’ll still be able to book them with points, I’m sure the number of points needed to book them through Hilton will be a lot more.

To give you a quick overview of the second story. Hyatt sorts their hotels in category from 1 - 8 with 1 only needing 5k points for night and 8 needing 40k per night. They look at occupancy levels among other things and change categories based on these factors. They usually go up but if you’re paying attention you might find a good deal on a couple like the Alila Marea Beach Resort Encinitas going from Category 8 to 7 or more importantly those hotel going down to Category 4.

Why is a Category 4 hotel important? Well every year if you have the Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card ($95 annual fee) you receive a Category 1-4 certificate at renewal. And if you know what you’re doing, which you do because you are reading this newsletter. You’ll get more than $95 worth of value from a one night stay (because the annual fee is $95). For me, since both Chan and I have the card its an easy way for us to get two free night at a Category 1-4 hotel.

Two.

ANA Mileage Club Devaluation (Link)

Just like Hyatt, every so often airlines will update their rewards charts to show a new number of points needed to book specific flights. I don’t know about you but I’ve been seeing a lot more people taking trips to Japan from the US. ANA has increased the number of points needed to book a rewards flights. I personally recommend booking through one of their travel partners like Virgin Atlantic, its exactly What we did for our Japan honeymoon. Its a good reminder to use those points because the next devaluation is just around the corner.

Three.

American Express Credit Card Referrals Earn Extra 10x on Dining (LINK)

From now until May 22,2024 if you have any of the Amex Cards on this list you’re in luck. If you refer someone and they get approved for any personal or business card you get an extra 10x rewards on dining for 3 months.

Why is this dope? Well if you already have the gold card and you get a buddy to sign up through your link you’ll get the normal 4x from the card + 10x from the promo meaning for 3 months thats 14x on dining. Someone I know put their work’s 5k dinner tab on their gold card and ended up getting 70K points from it, now that’s smart thinking.

Shameless Plug: If you don’t have the gold card and have been wanting it here’s my link. (Just click personal or business cards on top). If you do have an gold or platinum card see if anyone one you know wants to apply so you can get that 10x bonus on dining.

Here’s a pro tip. There is a high offer of 90K points for the Amex Gold card but it might take you several attempts to pull it up. Be sure to refresh, open in different browsers and most importantly, open in private mode. Don’t give up! It might take 5 or 6 attempts for it to show up. The offer might show up as 60K or 75K but keep refreshing or copying link until 90K shows up. On my end it’ll still just show up as “refer your friends for 60K.”

2 Hacks

One.

If you’re buying something expensive like an electronic make sure you’re using a credit card with extended warranty like the American Express Platinum Card. When we came back from Japan last year my phone stopped working. I filed a claim with Amex since I used the card to buy the phone. They needed proof that I tried fixing it before they would refund me which I sent them and they credited me $1,400 and I bought a new phone. 🙂 

Two.

Before you go to a foreign country see where you can get a SIM card for your phone. I’ve found that its cheaper to get a local SIM card and just use WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger than it is to pay for the international plan. Some of the new iPhones don’t have SIM cards you can remove so make sure your phone is unlocked so you can do it online or just bring an old phone with a removable SIM card.

1 Question From You

Every week I answer one question from the community. Reply to this email with yours because you’re probably not the only one that has it.

Question

This weeks question is asked by Kevin. He said that he has a lot of Chase points but does not know where to start.

There is a lot of information out there and analysis paralysis is definitely a thing. Given that hotel availability is the hardest thing to book, I’d say look at where you can book a hotel and for how long. Since he has a bunch of Chase points I’d suggest looking at Hyatt since you can transfer over point at a 1:1 ratio. Look at the Hyatt map to see where you’d want to go. Once you have that booked. Booking flights comes easier given that there are usually multiple routes to get anywhere and sites like seats.aero make it easy to find redemption availability.

Hope that helps!

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Appreciate you,

Luis

More Better Than Points

• I stayed at a hotel where influencers and the rich stay and wrote a review about it. (LINK)

• How I used my credit card credits to get a free flight. (LINK)