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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 travel deals and tricks keep rolling in, and I’ve got a packed update for you this week.

Award sales, credit card hacks, and a tool to help you maximize your Amex Platinum perks, there’s a little something for everyone.

Plus, both Southwest and Delta are running sales that end tonight, so if you’ve been eyeing a trip, now’s the time to act.

And if you’re looking to stretch your points even further, I’ve got a few workarounds and strategies you’ll want to check out.

So enough talking, lets get going.

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A Message from me

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Here’s what you’ll get:

• ✅ $250 travel credit Use it within a year for flights, hotels, vacation rentals, or rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.

• ✅ 75,000 bonus miles (worth $750 in travel) after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months.

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👉 This offer is a limited-time offer, so lock in up to $1,000 in travel rewards today.

Travel News

Hyatt reveals category changes (LINK)

Every year, Hyatt reviews its hotels and updates their award categories, and this week they announced the 2025 changes.

These updates will take effect on March 25, 2025, and here’s why they matter.

1. Hotels that were bookable with a Category 1-4 Free Night Certificate may now be bumped up to Category 5.

2. If a hotel you want is going up in category, you’ll want to book before March 25th. If it’s going down, wait until after.

The full list of changes is right here, but overall, it’s not great.

Out of 151 hotels changing categories, 118 are increasing, while only 33 are going down.

Some of the biggest hits?

Many hotels in Japan are moving up, which definitely sucks.

But on the bright side, a few hotels dropped from Category 5 to 4, meaning they’re now eligible for Free Night Certificates:

Hotel Figueroa – California
Dream South Beach – Florida
Thompson Atlanta – Buckhead
Park Hyatt Doha - Qatar
Grand Hyatt Sanya Haitang Bay Resort & Spa – China
Grand Hyatt Jeju – South Korea

Another nice surprise was Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa dropping from Category 7 to 6.

While it’s always frustrating to see award rates go up, I do appreciate the heads up and transparency from Hyatt.

At least we get a chance to plan accordingly.

Are there any changes that hit you hard?

Capital One new JetBlue transfer partner (LINK)

It’s always great to see credit cards adding new transfer partners, especially ones that don’t have expiring miles or let you book Hawaiian Airlines flights.

But that’s where the good news stops.

I was excited about Capital One’s new transfer partner until I saw the transfer ratio: 1,000 Capital One miles = 600 TrueBlue miles.

Not exactly a great deal.

While it’s good to have as a backup in case of emergencies, there are better options.

If you want better value, Amex, Chase, and Citi all transfer to JetBlue at a 1:1 ratio, so I’d definitely go with those first.

It seems like Capital One knew the ratio wasn’t great, so they briefly offered a limited-time deal transfer 1,000 Capital One miles and get 5,600 TrueBlue miles.

A huge one-time bonus. Unfortunately, it only lasted about 10 hours once it was reported.

Just another reason to follow me on Instagram, so you don’t miss out on these limited-time deals

Southwest & Delta Sales (LINK)

Southwest is running another sale with up to 30% off base fares when using code 30SPLASH.

The sale ends today (Feb 27, 2025), but keep in mind just because your route is discounted doesn’t mean you’ll get the full 30% off since it’s “up to” that amount.

Delta is also running a sale until tonight (Feb 27, 2025) on international flights, with roundtrip fares to New Zealand, Sydney, Taipei, and Tahiti starting at just 44,000 miles.

If you have a Delta credit card, you get 15% off, bringing it down to 37,400 miles.

🤓 Hacks

• Your Southwest flight credits never expire, which makes them a great option for using your credit card incidental fee credits.

  Here’s how to do it:

  1. Select Southwest as your preferred airline (if you haven’t already).

  2. Wait a day for the system to register your selection.

  3. Book a Wanna Get Away Plus Fare, making sure the total price is below $105.

  4. Cancel the flight, and the amount will be refunded as a Southwest flight credit.

• If you don’t have Global Entry, Mobile Passport Control (MPC) is a free app that can help speed up your entry into the U.S. and at times quicker than Global Entry.

🧑🏿‍💻 Luis Corner

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.

With the start of the year, I like to plan out how I’m going to use all the credits on my cards so I come out ahead.

One tool I had totally forgotten about until the Frequent Miler guys mentioned it is the MaxFHR tool.

It’s a free tool that helps you maximize your Fine Hotels & Resorts (FHR) credits from the Amex Platinum Card.

It makes it way easier to see where you can use your credits, find the lowest prices, and filter for other perks.

Definitely recommend playing around with it if you have FHR credits to use.

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.

• Decent availability through Aeroplan for JFK to WAS and GVA in business class with up to 6 seats

👀 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)

• $5M for a Golden Visa to become a US Citizen (LINK)

• 31 new SLH properties bookable through Hilton! (LINK)

• Check your AA App to see if your targeted for 5k bonus miles (LINK)