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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 have a good mix of things to cover this week.

From big changes to our go to airline to a look at how I plan trips using points.

There’s something for everyone, so let’s get started.

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Travel News

Travel Demand From US to Canada Disappears (LINK)

We’re starting to get some early data on tickets booked compared to last year and it’s not looking great.

The report only covered routes between the U.S. and Canada, but even that slice of the market shows a clear decline.

Just to put numbers behind it.

Last year, over 1.2 million tickets were booked between the U.S. and Canada this month for April, but this year.

Just under 300,000, a drop of more than 75%.

Now, I’m not sure if travel across the board is down this much, but if this trend holds, it’s going to get concerning.

That kind of drop usually leads to route cuts and possibly some destinations being removed altogether.

It’s a good reminder that if you’ve got a flight booked way out in the future, keep an eye on it.

Schedules can shift, flights can get changed, and in some cases, routes may disappear entirely.

Thrifty Traveler Price Increase (LINK)

While I love hunting for deals, there’s nothing better than having them sent right to your inbox.

I’ve been a paying customer of Thrifty Traveler for a while, and I just saw that they’re raising prices later this week, so I had to give you a heads up.

I personally use the Flights and Hotel combo, and it’s been worth every penny.

This is your last chance to lock in the current rate before it goes up.

The good thing is that once you sign up, your price is locked in for life so no matter how much they increase it down the line, you’ll always pay the same.

If you use my affiliate link, you’ll get $10 off your first year. The discount shows up automatically at checkout.

Aeroplan Award Chart Changes (LINK)

For the most part, Aeroplan uses a distance based award chart, which has been great for redeeming partner flights at solid rates.

Unfortunately, that’s starting to change.

Some of their airline partners have now switched to dynamic pricing, and it’s not looking good.

While Air Canada already uses dynamic pricing in place, some partners have now been added to the list, including:

• United

• Air Canada (still there)

• Emirates

• Etihad

• FlyDubai

• And a few smaller Canadian carriers

In short, some of the most sought after flights have gone up significantly. For example some of the flights.

• Etihad business class jumped from 45K to 117K points

• United business went from 15K to 30K, and economy from 6K to 10K

Some flights are showing over 100% increases, and very few are actually pricing out at the "starting at" rates listed on the chart anymore.

While there are reports of increased award availability, it’s come at the cost of much higher redemption values.

$119 One Way To Hawaii (LINK)

Hawaiian Airlines is currently running a Spring Sale with fares starting as low as $199.

Most of these deals are out of the West Coast, and you’ll need to book by Monday, March 31, 2025.

When these types of sales pop up, they often lead to lower award pricing too, and that seems to be the case here.

I ran a few searches and found some solid availability for 35K in business class through Alaska Airlines.

The sale (and most of the award space) covers flights between April and May 2025.

Like I’ve mentioned before, you can convert Hawaiian miles into Alaska miles, so if you’ve got Amex points, you can transfer them to Hawaiian and then move them over to Alaska to book.

I also found some great flights out of DFW for 35K points that I’ll show in the Flight of the week.

🤓 Hacks

• You don’t necessarily need to have points already in order to book a hotel using points.

  This reel is a great example of how, sometimes, buying points can actually be a smarter move, especially when a hotel is super expensive. It might be cheaper to buy the points and book with them than to pay the full cash rate.

🛋️ Luis’ Lounge

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.

So if you didn’t know, my birthday is in a couple of months and so is my wife’s and the baby’s.

So naturally, I’ve been looking at where we could go to burn some points and make a trip out of it.

Now, this particular trip probably won’t work out for us, but instead of letting all my research go to waste, I figured I’d show you what I did and maybe it’ll help you plan your next one.

I’m a big fan of letting the deals decide where I go.

Since I’m based in Texas, I started with FlightConnections to see where the two major airports (DFW, IAH) fly that’s tropical and under 50K points per person in business class.

Once I had a list of destinations, I headed over to Seats.aero and plugged that info in to see what came up for award availability.

That’s when I found a solid flight to Aruba out of Houston in business class.

Looked okay, so I started checking out hotels.

I haven’t looked at return flights yet, but I could always book economy for now and try to upgrade to business if award space opens up closer to the trip.

I pulled up the Hyatt map and saw a few options. But the problem was a lot of them were adults only not ideal with a baby.

The Hyatt Place had great availability at 9K points a night, but it didn’t really excite me, so I passed.

Then I looked at the Hyatt Regency Aruba Resort.

The only regular rooms available could only be booked partly with points, and when I played around with dates, I did find suite availability at 43K points a night for most of the nights.

But I didn’t love the idea of hotel hopping between the Regency and Hyatt Place just to make it work.

Also, I’m a little points poor with Chase right now, so dropping 120K+ points would be a stretch.

That said, a little birdie told me there’s a 100K intro offer coming soon for a card that lets you transfer points to Hyatt, so keep an eye out for that.

- Pst it’ll be in next weeks newsletter

Sorry this one is a little late had some technical difficulties 🫠

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.

• Good to see business class seats for 35K points along with them being on AA bigger and nicer planes

👀 My Favorite Finds

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

• Travel while your young or older? (LINK)

• These newsletters are changing the game (LINK)

• Iberia new route Orlando to Madrid 43k/63k Avios (LINK)

• Lady has a meltdown, gets naked, and runs through DFW airport (LINK)