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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 weather in Texas is finally warming back up, and funny enough so are the deals.

Some of these you’ll need to jump on tonight, while others might still be a secret for now. 🤫 

But they won’t stay that way for long, so if you see something you like, book now and figure it out later.

I’ve rounded up some of the best deals this week, so enough yappin' let’s get to it.

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A Message from Me

Start the Year with Enough Points for Two Round-Trip Business Class Flights ✈️

If you have a side hustle and are making money, you could be eligible for a business credit card, no EIN required, just your SSN.

With the right card, you can earn enough points for two round trip business class tickets in just a few months:

• Amex Business Platinum: Earn 250,000 Membership Rewards Points after spending $20,000 in the first 3 months.

• Amex Business Gold: Earn 200,000 Membership Rewards Points after spending $15,000 in the first 3 months.

• No EIN needed: A sole proprietorship with your SSN qualifies.

• Turn everyday business expenses into premium travel: Fly better, for less.

• Get a head start on your 2024 travel goals: This is one of the best ways to build a massive points balance fast.

👉 Apply today and set yourself up for incredible travel this year.

 Travel News

Alaska 3 Day Sale Ends Today (LINK)

For the past three days, Alaska has been running a fare sale, and you have until 11:59 PM PT on February 6, 2025, to take advantage of it.

With deals on both domestic and international flights, some of them looked pretty tempting.

They have both cash and mileage deals, with flights starting as low as 4,000 miles each way.

After digging into some of the one-way options, I found some solid availability to and from Maui and Kona from Portland, San Diego, and San Jose for 12.5K and 7.5K miles.

Alaska miles can be tough to come by, but remember you can transfer Amex points to Hawaiian Airlines and then convert those Hawaiian miles to Alaska miles.

So if you have Amex points sitting around, some of these deals might be worth jumping on since they expire today.

JW Marriott Maldives Kaafu Open (LINK)

A new JW Marriott property has opened, not to be confused with the JW Marriott Maldives Resort & Spa.

This one is the JW Marriott Maldives Kaafu Atoll Island Resort, and it’s showing award rates as low as 70,000 points per night, with a lot more availability at lower rates than the Resort & Spa, where the lowest I could find was 79,000 points.

One thing to keep in mind: the lowest rates are during June and July, which falls right in the Maldives’ rainy season (May through November).

That said, it’s still great to see that standard rooms here are overwater villas with pools, so there’s no need to rely on upgrades just to get those amazing views.

So if the Maldives have been on your list, availability is still pretty open, and don’t forget that when booking Marriott with points, the 5th night is free, so hurry up and book.

I’ll show some business class award availability in the flight of the week section

30% Transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic (LINK)

While I’m never an advocate for transferring points speculatively, this 30% transfer bonus when moving Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has me seriously eyeing some flights.

One thing to note is that the transfer bonus expires February 17, so the window isn’t too long.

If you have a good amount of Chase points and are looking to book upcoming travel at a discount, this could be a solid opportunity.

With Virgin switching to dynamic pricing and lowering taxes/fees on flights to Europe, stacking this bonus on top might lead to some sweet redemptions.

Some deals I’d consider:

• One way to Asia on ANA for 71K–85K miles 

• One way business class to Europe for 29K–41K miles

• One way US to Italy on ITA Airways for 75k - 85k miles

• Shot haul <500 miles domestic Delta flights for 7.5K miles

If you want a step-by-step walkthrough on how to find the lowest business class fares, I broke it all down in this post.

🤓 Hacks

• If you have an American Express account, you can use this link to log in and get free access to Point.me even if you’re not a paid user. While it doesn’t unlock all the features, it’s still a great tool for checking award flight availability.

• If you have Uber credits from your American Express cards, don’t forget you can use them for Uber Eats too. Just make sure you’re paying with an American Express card so the monthly credit gets applied.

🧑🏿‍💻 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

No Question today, just your friendly reminder that if you have a tax bill coming up to make sure and apply for a credit card now so that you can put that bill on a card and end up earning an intro bonus out of it.

If you’re not sure what card to get or the benefits, I just launched the cards page. 

Check out these crazy award deals!

🔬 Secret Travel Research

This section includes some of the best award flights of the week bookable with points and miles.

• A lot of availability out of Istanbul

• I did the search out of Europe since getting to MLE can be a little difficult

• You either have to come from Europe or Asia to get to MLE

👀 My Favorite Finds

This section includes some of the best links videos and articles of the week around the points and travel community

• These newsletters are changing the game (LINK)

• Delta is giving away free status for 90 days (LINK)

• Over 900 people earned 1 Million SAS Miles (LINK)

• How to fast track to Hyatt Globalist Status this year (LINK)