Welcome!

If you are reading this, you are likely convinced that your points, miles, or credit cards can work harder for you than they do now. That’s where I come in! My aim is to provide you with deals, information and tips to get every last bit of value from your points. As this is the first edition of many to come, please send me feedback on anything in (or not in) this email!

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

In today’s edition:

• 💳️ Chase Freedom Flex®: Q2 2024’s Workhorse 🐎 

• 🧑‍⚖️ Visa & MasterCard’s $30B Settlement: What About Our Rewards?

• 📰 More Stories and Deals! 💰️

• 🎮️ A Game Section!

💳️ Chase Freedom Flex^® : Q2 2024’s Workhorse 🐎 

The Chase Freedom Flex^® is a solid, no-annual fee card that has a rotating 5%/5x rewards structure with the ability to earn either cash back or Chase Ultimate Rewards^® points! A great card that complements either the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® or Reserve^® , in my opinion.

In addition to having select quarterly categories that earn 5%/5x for that quarter (capped at 7500 points, or $1,500 of spend), the card offers:

• 🔼 5x on Chase Travel & Lyft purchases and 3x on Drugstores & Dining

  • Yes, 3x on dining (7x for Q2 2024), the same rate as both Sapphire cards for dining, except with no annual fee!

• 💰️ A signup bonus of $200 (20,000 Ultimate Rewards® points) after spending $500 in the first three months from account opening

Every quarter, Chase changes the bonus categories for this card. For Q2 2024, the categories (and resulting total rewards rate) are:

• 🍕 Restaurants (total of 7%/7x for Q2 2024!)

• 🥑 Amazon and Whole Foods (total of 5%/5x for Q2 2024)

• 🏨 Hotels booked through Chase Travel ((total of 9%/9x for Q2 2024!)

Previous quarterly categories have included things like groceries and PayPal, which are also great and easy to use! This card will definitely have a spot in my wallet for the next three months, especially while it earns more on dining than my Amex Gold Card (earns 4x on dining) 😲

Happy earning if you do take a look at the card! 😄 

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

¹ This bonus is targeted, so not all users may see this bonus.

🧑‍⚖️ Visa & MasterCard’s $30B Settlement: What About Our Rewards?

Visa and MasterCard reached a $30B antitrust settlement over debit and credit card fees for merchants. In addition to the rumored impact this may have on our rewards, the settlement requires Visa and MasterCard to:

• ⬇️ Decrease interchange (swipe) fees by 0.04% for 3 years

• ⬇️ Ensure an average swipe fee rate that is 0.07% below the current average rate for 5 years

• 🫢 Lift “anti-steering” provisions

“Anti-steering” provisions were designed to prevent merchants from offering discounts or imposing surcharges for cards that had higher swipe fees. For example, Visa Infinite cards that offer higher rewards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve® cost merchants more than Visa traditional cards, but merchants still had to fork up the same fees to Visa and MasterCard.

Now that this provision will be lifted, it means that merchants can impose surcharges for cards with higher swipe fees. All this to say that potentially, it could become more expensive to earn higher rewards 😮 

There are experts who don’t see it this way, though:

Ask Sebby discusses this in his video - check it out here 📺️ 

📰 Other Stories

• 💳️ The Chase Sapphire Reserve® and the Chase Ritz-Carlton cards are losing Priority Pass restaurant access on 7/1/2024. Condolences to PDX flyers 😢 

• 🐴 Wells Fargo’s transfer partners for its new Autograph Journey℠ Card go live on 4/4/2024. New competition in the market is generally good for us consumers! 💸 

• 🪶 Robinhood unveiled a new Cash Back Credit Card that earns 3% cash back on everything. It is available to Robinhood Gold members only, however. This looks nice, but then:

🧩 Points Puzzle

I can fly from New York (JFK) to Madrid (MAD) in business class for 34,000 miles (plus ~$120 in taxes & fees) each way. Through which rewards program and which transfer partner is this possible?

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Also, if you ever book travel using points with help from my newsletter, let me know! It’ll make me so happy 😄 

💰️Deals & Resources

• 🎬️ Getting paid to binge-watch travel movies??

• 💙 Flying Blue released its monthly Promo Rewards, with 25% off award flights to select destinations!

  • 🛫 Economy class from Chicago to Europe starts at 15,000 miles with this promotion, for example 👍️ 

• 💰️ Maximize your rewards with apps like Rakuten, Dosh, Pepper, and more!

  • 🌶️ Use promo code 597390 when joining Pepper for 10% back on all purchases for 15 days!

• 📈 Check out my Transfer Partner Master Sheet, now your one-stop shop for transferring your points to partners!

🧩 Answer

Iberia! Well, technically, Iberia earns the same miles, called Avios, as British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar Airways (Finnair as well soon), so any of these airlines would work for this redemption! Amex, Bilt, Capital One and Chase (as well as Wells Fargo starting April 4th) all transfer to one of these airlines!

Hope that all makes sense! That’s all for today’s edition of Sense per Point.

Have a wonderful day ❤️ 

- Sean Kim

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