Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊 

Here in the Northeast, it got a bit chilly again after a week of warm weather - not great for when you lose heating and hot water at home due to some renovations… But I am surviving!

While I’m not traveling, the movies and cinema has been taking me to new places (I think I’ve said this before), so I’m getting my fill of new experiences regardless of where I am! But I’ve got a few trips lined up in the summer, so its exciting nonetheless (I have World Cup tickets in Mexico!!)

I’ll share more about my travel plans in due time - here are your stories!

In today’s edition:

• 💳️ The New Capital One Quicksilver 💳️ 

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• ⛽️ Avoiding Fuel Surcharges ⛽️

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

💳️ The New Capital One Quicksilver 💳️

Capital One refreshed its business cards recently too, and now a refresh for its Quicksilver card is coming!

First off, this card is transitioning to the Discover Network, after Capital One completed its acquisition of Discover. That could potentially mean less merchants accept it (certainly less compared to Visa & MasterCard).

But with that comes a number of new benefits! Now the card offers:

• No annual fee (unchanged)

• No foreign transaction fees (unchanged)

• 1.5x back on everything (unchanged)

• 3x back on gas (NEW!)

• 3x back on groceries (NEW!)

This does look to be early in the rollout phase, as not all current customers have received the email yet about this conversion. But the new multipliers are definitely welcome on a no annual fee card! Hope the change to Discover isn’t catastrophic for anyone.

Capital One cards are great because they all have no foreign transaction fees - I recommend it to people relocating to other countries that still want to earn rewards abroad. But with this switch to Discover, I imagine it’ll be harder to earn rewards on this compared to the current Visa and Mastercard setups (Venture X, Savor, etc.)

Either way, I think these changes are more good than bad. That depends on whether your vendors/merchants accept Discover though!

🏦➡️✈️ 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. Two notes: 1) that any transfers to Avios essentially include British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair, and Qatar, and 2) that if you have the Chase Aeroplan credit card, any Aeroplan transfer bonuses are 10% extra!

⛽️ Avoiding Fuel Surcharges ⛽️

If you have redeemed points/miles for a flight, chances are you probably are aware of fuel surcharges. Some programs pass that onto the customer directly, and some don’t. But for the ones that do, the surcharges can be brutal, like $500+, even $1000+ on airlines like Emirates, British Airways, etc.

This feels timely as because of the current situation in the Middle East, airlines are increasing fuel surcharges - in the last few months, Cathay Pacific, JAL, and ANA announced increases… 📉 

Needless to say that if you had to choose between an award flight with fuel surcharges and one without (at similar points costs), you’d probably choose the one that doesn’t have fuel surcharges added on. So I’ll throw out some pointers to stay away from that:

• ⛽️ Avoid booking with airlines that charge high fuel surcharges (Lufthansa Group airlines, British Airways, Emirates, etc.)

  • You can use these airline programs to fly with partner airlines that don’t charge fuel surcharges, and that’s perfectly okay!

• 🇬🇧 Don’t originate flights in the UK, due to their APD (Air passenger duty, on top of the surcharges)

• ✈️ Fly from countries/places that regulate fuel surcharges whenever possible (I know this isn’t always easy to do)

  • New Zealand and Australia are among a number of countries that regulate fuel surcharges.

This isn’t always going to be possible, for reasons like convenience, logistical necessity, etc. But if you wanted to save a few hundred dollars, picking options that don’t pass on fuel surcharges to you would be nice! Especially since they may be going up at various airlines these days. United Mileageplus and Avianca Lifemiles are some programs that don’t pass fuel surcharges on.

If you exclusively use points for hotels, this obviously doesn’t matter to you either! In that case, booking with Hyatt and Hilton on points would be the best option to avoid any resort fees.

Happy travels, hopefully without fuel surchanges!

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• ✈️ Spirit was rumored to be liquidating very soon, but it looks like the government is readying a rescue package for them instead. Is this a good use of my tax dollars? 🤷

• 🤝 Hawaiian has formally joined Oneworld!

• 🏦 Check your Barclays accounts to see if you were targeted for a 5x on all spend bonus!

💳️ 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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