Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊 

You know, this year has been a bit rough for points & miles so far - transfer bonuses seem to be a bit slow to start the year off, and the devaluations certainly don’t help at all. But still, I know there’s value to be had here and there! I’ve definitely said this stuff before, but it’s a little bit comforting myself as I type this out too 😅

If anything, these things give me new opportunities to travel to and see places closer to home. Maybe it’s because I live in the Northeast, but trips nearby are relatively easy, and I’ve even got one this weekend!

Do know that no matter the state of things points & miles, as long as there’s value to be had, you’ll know. Onto the stories!

In today’s edition:

• 🔵 Chase X DoorDash 🥗

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 💀 Avianca Lifemiles → Dyingmiles 💀

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

🔵 Chase X DoorDash 🥗

Some of you may know that some Amex cards include credits and benefits on GrubHub, Seamless and UberEats. A bit after that was introduced, Chase then felt like they were falling behind, and started offering benefits at DoorDash. Whether you think that helped Chase compete with Amex or not, those benefits have been refreshed as of this month, so I’ll go through what the current benefits are!

Generally speaking, most Chase cards offer some type of DoorDash benefit, whether its DashPass or credits towards a purchase on DoorDash.

If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, you get:

• DashPass through December 31, 2027

  • If you activate this in 2027, you’ll have DashPass for 12 months ending in 2028

• Two $10 off promos per month on non-restaurant orders

• One $5 off promo per month on restaurant orders

If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred®, you get:

• DashPass through December 31, 2027

  • If you activate this in 2027, you’ll have DashPass for 12 months ending in 2028

• One $10 off promo per month on non-restaurant orders

If you have any other Chase-branded card (Freedom cards or Slate), you get:

• 6 months of DashPass for new members when activated by December 31st, 2025

• One $10 off promo per quarter on non-restaurant orders

If you have a co-branded Chase card (United, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, etc.), you get:

• 12 months of DashPass when activated by December 31st, 2027

• One $10 off promo per quarter on non-restaurant orders

There’s a lot going on here, especially if you have multiple Chase cards that get some benefits through DoorDash. To add some clarification and suggestions:

• 😢 Chase business cards are sadly not eligible for these credits.

• 💊 Non-restaurant orders refer to orders at places like pharmacies and convenience stores.

• 🚨 You’ll get auto-enrolled into DashPass if you don’t cancel before the promo period ends.

• 💰️ You can combine these credits with other DoorDash promo codes!

• 🔄 You can only have DashPass from one card active at a time - so the strategy here with multiple cards is to get DashPass from one card, and then once that promo period runs out, activate DashPass on another card.

• 🚨 All of the credits activate only after activating DashPass!

• 🪙 Get pickup orders if you can, to avoid any delivery fees and tips!

If you can take advantage of these benefits, great! I plan on just picking up snacks occasionally at my local 7-11 with these credits, and maybe that’s something you can do as well. The goal here is to not spend more than the credit amount for these types of credits, so take advantage of these credits without overpaying!

Too bad these credits are mostly for non-restaurant orders though… But do enjoy some complimentary DoorDash credits if you can 👍️

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

¹ New transfer bonuses that were not present the week before are in bold.

² Some data points suggest this transfer bonus is no longer active - hold off and double check before transferring! I’ll update on this if I have more information.

💀 Avianca Lifemiles → Dyingmiles 💀

Lots of devaluations happening recently, which is not good news - sadly, there’s another devaluation to talking about from Avianca Lifemiles. I will say that this devaluation happened without any advance notice, which isn’t particularly consumer friendly (not to mention they already devalued in August 2024) 😡

This devaluation is a bit complicated, because there’s some flight routings that almost doubled in price, but some other ones that you’d expect to have gone up mysteriously remain unchanged. Seems like the Lifemiles award pricing software is too labyrinthine for their own engineers to figure out 🤣

Anyways, to summarize the devaluations:

• 🇪🇺 Transatlantic Business Class Awards went from 63k in July 2024 to 80k miles now…

• 🇬🇧 Remember the 45k sweet spot from EWR to LHR? Yeah, that went up to 80k now too 😭

• 🦘 Business Class Awards to the South Pacific went from 80k to 100k each way…

  • Economy Awards went from 40k to 55k…

So yeah, it all sounds generally bad, until you learn that there are some exceptions to these changes, for reasons no one seems to be able to explain. Frequent Miler did a wonderful deep dive into these intricacies, but I have an example of this to show what I mean.

So as I mentioned, transatlantic business class, like EWR-LIS, now prices at 80k miles each way:

But then a random search for JFK-LIS prices at 65k miles. What even?!

These exceptions exist all over the program now, so I’m not even sure what is going on here. Like, I’m disappointed at Lifemiles for a no-notice devaluation, but then I’m also upset that they can’t even devalue their program correctly. At the same time, I’m happy that some exceptions exist that are cheaper or about the same as redemption rates pre-devaluation. What am I supposed to feel here?? 🤷 

Pure confusion. I’d say this definitely lowers the appeal of this transfer partner to me, given that the customer service experience when plans change is already tough…

Anyway, if you can take advantage of a few exceptions in the program now, then go for it! 🧳 

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 🇪🇸 Iberia has followed British Airways and changed their loyalty program - this doesn’t affect mileage redemptions just yet, only status-earning.

• ✈️ Southwest is running a nationwide sale, with flights starting from $59! Book by today!

💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

Again, the usual solid cards:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred^®/Reserve^®

• Chase Freedom Unlimited^®/Flex^®

• Amex Gold & Plat

• Capital One Venture X

• Citi Strata Preferred^℠

Do search for public links for the above cards to compare signup bonuses to make sure you get the highest one (incognito mode, Resy, etc.).

For cards with elevated signup bonuses (targeted bonuses are not included), I’ve got:

📤️ Spread the Word! 📤️

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

Wishing everyone a wonderful rest of your day and week 😊 

- Sean Kim

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