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

Howdy from the sunny island of Oahu! I’m still out here for another week so if you’re over here hit me up and let’s hang ten. Just kidding I can’t surf but I would be down to eat some yakitori. We have some good news and some heartbreaks this week.

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

3 Headlines

One.

Dept. of Transportation New Airline Rules (Link)

Shout out to my homie Pete! The DOT announced that airlines are required to automatically give cash refunds to passengers for cancelled and significantly delayed flights(3 hours domestically, 6 hours internationally). Gone are the days that we’ll have to beg airlines for our money back. Quick reel running through the changes.

Two.

Hyatt’s new Mr & Mrs Smith Partnership Live (Link)

TLDR Hyatt dropped Small Luxury Hotel program because they acquired the Smith brand a collection of independent hotels. We hoped that rates would be in line with the SLH program, they aren’t. Hotel Awards are dynamically priced and pegged at 1 to 1.4 cents per points per. Given that you can usually get over 2.1 cents per points value on Hyatt points this sucks.

Three. 

[Deal Alert] London Heathrow to the Maldives in November (Link)

Business class availability for flights to the Maldives have popped up from London. Tempting giving that Virgin Atlantic is running another transfer promotion making flights to Europe from the US even better.

2 Hacks

One.

If you ever buy anything online, always make sure you’re checking out through Rakuten. We can get cash back or even better American Express Ultimate Rewards points. If you don’t have an Amex Card use a site like Cash Back Monitor to redeem airline miles for those online purchases.

Two.

Airlines often use widebody passenger planes (the ones with fancy lie flat seats) to carry cargo around the US. Knowing what routes they fly might score you a better seat for not much more money. Here are the schedules for United, American & Delta. If none of that makes sense here’s a reel explaining it.

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

Zach asked me how do I know what airlines fly into specific airports, specially those that aren’t well known or the ones that don’t get tons of flights coming in.

Knowing what airlines and who flies into specific airports can be a huge help. Checking an airport on Wikipedia will show you the destinations and airlines but an easier way is to look them up on Flight Connections since it’s also free.

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Appreciate you,

Luis 🤙🏿

More Better Than Points

• Here’s everything I ate while on the Cook Islands (LINK)

• 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)