Hey! Welcome to the Better Than Points Newsletter - the premier place for all things Credit Card Points News and Travel

So did you watch the solar eclipse and think the world was going to end this week? No…cool, just me then. I couldn’t imagine that happening 100 years ago and everyone not loosing it. Okay time to take off my foil hat and talk some points news!

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

3 Headlines

One.

Brazil adds E-Visa requirement for Americans (Link)

Some American must have done something really bad to screw it up for the rest of us. In short it’ll start April 2025. It will take up to 5 days to get approved and you’ll have to send in a bund of documents. With the weirdest one being bank statements for the last 30 days showing at least $2,000 available for travel. No more broke Americans in Brazil

Two.

Daily Miami to Bogotá route on Emirates (Link)

Announced back in February 2024 you can finally book Miami to Bogota flights set to start June 3rd 2024 with points on Emirates website. This short 4 hour flight is just part of a longer Bogota to Dubai route on their Boeing 777-300ER. For 60.5k Emirates points one way this is the cheapest way to experience one of the best first class seats.

Three. 

[Award Alert] US to Australia Award Availability (Link)

If you’ve been thinking about taking the whole family down under, now is your chance. Qantas can be stinky with their nonstop routes to Australia but a healthy amount of availability opened up from October 2024 through March 2025 out of California and DFW.

2 Hacks

One.

Here’s an easy way to use your points for Delta flights without having to pay a crazy amount of miles. Plus a super hack on how to find the points availability.

Two.

Summer is quickly approaching and if Hawaii is on your list I have a secret to share. If you have a Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase or Citi points you can transfer those points over to Virgin and fly business class for 40k. You’ll just have to call Virgin (800-365-9500) to make sure they have the availability and to book. The card issuers often have 30% transfer bonuses so if you time it right a one way business ticket could only cost you 31k points.

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

I was talking with Miles and he asked me what American Express card he should get first given the new rules.

If you’re not familiar with the new American Express changes, in short the credit card community is calling it the “Amex Family Rule”. The new term and conditions say that if you get their top tier card (Amex Platinum) you are no longer eligible for the other welcome bonuses (Amex Gold and Amex Green). Given this, if you want to make sure you get all three sign up bonuses you should sign up for the Amex Green Card first, then the Gold and finally the Platinum. Or at the very least get the Gold before you get the Platinum if you don’t want to open up the green and cancel after a year of having it.

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Appreciate you,

Luis 🤙🏿

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