Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊

It’s actually travel time again for me, to Korea again for another family wedding (I have 5 weddings this year to go to)! So much love and commitment going on everywhere, its crazy 👰

I’ll be staying at the Grand Hyatt Seoul this time around, and used a Suite Upgrade Award to stay in the Grand Suite King! I’ve stayed at this hotel before, but not in the suite, so hopefully it is nice, and I’ll tell you about my experience.

I’ll be either in Korea or on a plane for the next 2 Thursdays, so it’s possible I take the next 2 weeks off. Thanks in advance for the understanding, and hopefully I can still have the newsletter go out for those weeks!

In today’s edition:

• ✈️ 25% Off to Europe, April Edition 📆

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 🇰🇷 Going to Korea Again 🇰🇷 

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

✈️ 25% Off to Europe, April Edition 📆

With April upon us, yes, Flying Blue’s monthly Promo Rewards are back!

If you haven’t seen the previous newsletters covering this: Flying Blue (mileage program of Air France and KLM) releases Flying Blue Promo Rewards, which are monthly promotions where routes between Europe and select destinations globally are offered for 25% off the original mileage price. Every month!

For this month, the US cities selected for this discount are New York and Houston ✈️

They do have deals across the globe though, with business class deals from Europe to South America and Africa! Lots of exciting flight routes in the offers for March!

So without these promo rewards, economy flights from North America to Europe start at 25k miles each way + taxes & fees. With the 25% off from these deals, that now goes down to 18.75k miles each way (same taxes & fees). I’ve used these deals to travel to Europe and back before too!

Remember, just because these deals come from Air France and KLM does not mean you have to go to France or the Netherlands! Their intra-European network is far and wide, and as long as your origin or destination is a city selected for this month’s discounts, you’ll get 25% off, no matter the European airport involved. 🇪🇺 

I covered this in March too, but the Air France-KLM World Elite Mastercard has an elevated bonus of 70k miles and 100 XP (60 on approval, 40 after hitting minimum spend) after spending $3k in 3 months. The card also gives you 5k points if you spend $50 on it in a year, which definitely helps to offset the $89 annual fee! XP, by the way, are points to get Flying Blue status, and 100 XP immediately gets you Flying Blue Silver status. Worth a look if you have a use for the miles or the XP for Flying Blue status 💳️

Exciting stuff from Flying Blue for April - happy travels if you find and book something that works for you!

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

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

🇰🇷 Going to Korea Again 🇰🇷 

So yeah, Korea is on the books for me again! I’ve discussed here and there the best ways to get to Korea using points, but I do have some updates on this to share.

In the previous newsletters on going to Korea using points and miles, I often discussed that Virgin is likely the best way to get there in economy class from the US. However, there have been some errors on Virgin’s site booking these flights, and so now you will likely need to call Virgin directly to book. ☎️

What is the problem here? Not sure - but Korean Air award availability was showing on other airline partners (Delta, Alaska, etc.) but just not on Virgin for some strange reason. Reports are saying that they’ve now removed online bookings for Korean flights entirely, but at least you can still do it via phone. Pricing also hasn’t changed!

The other options I’ve recommended previously all are still valid - I will note that with Korean’s acquisition of Asiana, it’s possible that at some point, they will become one and that will have ripple effects on award availability. Asiana will likely depart the Star Alliance at some point, and that would mean no more availability on partners like Lifemiles, Aeroplan, and others… 😭 

One thing I also didn’t really discuss last time is hotels using points in Korea! There are a ton of hotels to book using points, and although I am biased towards Hyatt as a Globalist, I did want to highlight some of the redemption opportunities:

• Stay at the Grand Hyatt or Andaz Seoul for 18-23k points per night! Chase transfers directly to Hyatt.

  • This is what I’m doing on this trip!

• Stay at the Hotel28 Myeongdong or the Conrad Seoul! Standard reward pricing looks like 60k Hilton points per night for the Hotel28, and 75k for the Conrad. Amex transfers to Hilton 1:2, although it’d be better to earn Hilton points directly through their credit cards!

• There are like a ton of Marriott properties in Seoul, all with variable pricing, which could be worth a look - if you don’t already have Marriott points on hand though, don’t recommend transferring from the bank programs just for this… (poor value)

There are probably a bunch of other programs I haven’t named (IHG, Wyndham, Accor), but just so you know, there are a lot of hotel redemption opportunities in Korea! And, obviously, Airbnb is fine too, especially through something like Aeroplan’s PYB!

But just wanted to put some options out there! Hope this helps, and if you do have Korea travel plans at any point, let me know! (will send food recs) 🍗

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💰️ The Chase Sapphire Preferred^®  is up to 100k on affiliate links, and will go up to 100k via standard online and referral links soon, hold on!

• 🇫🇯 Fiji Airways joined Oneworld, and adopted American AAdvantage as its loyalty program!

• 🎯 Check your Chase Sapphire cards for a targeted offer to redeem in Chase Travel at a higher value!

💳️ 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

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