Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊 

That Super Bowl was… not too competitive. The set design for the halftime show? That was great!

Every now and then, events like those become accessible to cardholders of certain credit cards, like the Sapphire Reserve, Amex Plat, Venture X, etc. That’s the case for the upcoming World Cup!

I will mention that Chase’s rollout of its allocation of World Cup tickets seemed like a disaster - there are reports suggesting that if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you can call in and complain about the negative experience you had with trying to get tickets, and potentially get 5k Chase points as compensation! So do be wary, as the tickets may be expensive, hard to get because of clunky software, or both. 🤞 

And as it turns out, Capital One’s rollout of its own tickets went fast as well. Seems to be sold out super fast…

We have and use credit cards to eventually reap their rewards, and those rewards include experiences like travel and live events! So do take advantage when you can if things interest you!

In today’s edition:

• 📃 Pay Taxes with Credit Cards 📃

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 🥇 Quicker Ways to Status 🥇

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

📃 Pay Taxes with Credit Cards 📃

Around this time of year, I mention this in passing, but yes, it is possible to pay taxes using a credit card! Depending on how much you owe, this a great opportunity to hit signup bonuses, earn extra rewards, etc.

So I’ll quickly go through how to do this:

1. Go to this IRS site

2. Hit “Make Payment” under the processor you want to make a payment with

3. Follow the instructions for filling out tax and taxpayer information on that processor’s site, and confirm payment

4. Voila! All set.

There are two processors available time time around, with varying fees:

So unless you are paying with a card type that isn’t supported by Pay1040, I would probably select them for the lower fees 👍️ 

Key to this is to use a card that will actually net you rewards for paying taxes with them! If you use a card that earns 1% back for this, you’d be paying at least 1.75% as an additional fee, so you would not be netting any rewards from this. So use a card that will get you at least 2% back, if not more! This could change depending on how you value your rewards points, but you get the point - Don’t lose money if you don’t have to!! 💸 

And an even better way to go about this is to hit a signup bonus with a tax payment - That way, the fee will only be a small hit compared to the signup bonus you’d be getting!

The idea with earning rewards is to always be getting something back for your spend whenever you can - why not do that with taxes too?

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

A chart of transfer partners by bank, along with other information, can be found here! New transfer bonuses not present the week before are in bold.

🥇 Quicker Ways to Status 🥇

Having airline or hotel status is nice! Having ways to get it that is faster than the usual routes is also nice, so I wanted to talk about a few status-related promotions that are live 👍️

Two disclaimer here: The first is that some of these offers require already having status elsewhere. The other is that I personally wouldn’t do these unless I’m absolutely sure I will get out of status what I put into getting it, if not more. Assuming that is the case, why not travel a bit nicer?

I’ll start with a Virgin Atlantic status match offer going on - if you have status with any of the 10 airlines listed on their status match page and have a flight booked with Virgin (in business or premium economy for Gold Status and in any class for Silver status) then they will match you to Virgin Atlantic status! The 10 airlines, for reference are:

• Air Canada Aeroplan

• Air India Flying Returns

• American AAdvantage

• British Airways Club

• Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Club

• Emirates Skywards

• Iberia Club

• Lufthansa Miles & More

• South African Airways Voyager

• United MileagePlus

Then, there’s also some targeted offers from United going around for their cards, but with an extra status component to these offers! You can see if you are targeted here, but basically there’s a signup bonus part to the offer, and then if you take 4 United or United Express flights in 2026, you can get Premier Silver Status.

The spend requirement for this United offer will likely be 3 months, but the 4 flights you need to take can be taken at any point in 2026, and this status will expire in January ‘28! So if you do this early, you can get almost 2 years of status. Not bad, although Silver status may not be worth it for some.

Last but not least, Hyatt has brought back its corporate challenge for 2026! I’ve mentioned this one before, but you can signup with anyone’s corporate email with your Hyatt membership #, and it seems they also aren’t checking too carefully on how often members are doing this challenge 👍️

With this challenge, once you signup, you have 90 days to stay 10 nights at Hyatt properties to maintain Explorist status through February 2028, or to stay 20 nights at Hyatt properties within those 90 days to get Globalist status through February 2028! I personally am a Globalist and have done this challenge before, so I definitely get value out of this!

Of course, plenty of great travel experiences can be had without status, but with status (especially good hotel status), things just level up a bit sometimes 😃

Happy travels 🧳 

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Amex extended its access to Lufthansa lounges for Platinum cardholders - flying with any airline in the Lufthansa Group (Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Air Dolomiti, Edelweiss Air, Eurowings, Discover Airlines, Lufthansa, Lufthansa City Airlines, SWISS) will grant you access to the lounge, and not just Lufthansa, Austrian and SWISS.

💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

Again, the usual solid cards:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred^® / Reserve®

• Chase Freedom Unlimited^®/Flex^®

• Amex Gold & Plat

• Capital One Venture X

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! 📤️

Thanks for subscribing! This newsletter is committed to helping you maximize your points and rewards, at no direct cost to you! (appreciate you using any of my referral links, though!)

If you do find this newsletter informative, helpful, or entertaining, I’d greatly appreciate you spreading the word about it! If not, please do give me feedback on how I can improve your Sense per Point experience.

Also, if my newsletter helps you to book travel using points, let me know! It’ll make me so happy 😄 

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

PS: If you want to make sure Sense per Point doesn’t get caught in your spam, you can move this email to your primary inbox, or Reply “Hello!” directly to this email by clicking the link and hitting send 📩