Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊

I’ve been somewhat following the NBA playoffs these days, and rooting for the Knicks, mainly because I want to see NYC go crazy if they win! Hopefully they can bounce back in game 2 (game 1 was crazy!).

Thinking about that reminded me that Chase cardholders get special benefits at Madison Square Garden (other cardholders get benefits in other arenas too, like access to the Amex lounge before Lakers games!). There’s a Chase lounge in MSG that is open to Chase cardholders with a reservation, as well as $5 off $30 for food and drink purchases (non-bar). So these credit card benefits aren’t just for travel, but sometimes for events too!

If you are into concerts, etc., there’s sometimes a Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Chase presale for various events that helps people get early tickets. People even opened Capital One cards just to get early access to Taylor Swift’s concert tour!

Just reminding everyone that the travel benefits are great, but there’s other stuff here and there!

In today’s edition:

• ✈️ Virgin’s Got Deals 🇬🇧

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 😢 Amex is Losing Hawaiian Soon… 😢 

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

✈️ Virgin’s Got Deals 🇬🇧

I personally rate Virgin Atlantic Flying Club pretty highly, and I’ve listed out the reasons for this in the past! Even after a move to dynamic pricing, the rewards program has managed to stay competitive 👍️

And now, for a short time, there’s another deal on top of the competitive rates they’ve already got: select routes to and from the UK are an additional 20% off!

Some details for this deal:

• ✈️ The selected routes are: LHR–BOS, JFK, IAD, MIA, SEA, SFO and MAN–JFK (both directions). So plenty of US-UK routes!

• 📆 Book by May 27th, for travel by September 30th.

Remember, with dynamic pricing, some routes from the US to the UK start at as low as 6k miles each way + taxes and fees. With another 20% off as part of this deal, that goes down to 4.8k each way!!

On top of that, there’s a 25% Chase transfer bonus to Virgin. So to get the 4.8k miles for this, you only need to transfer 4k Chase points here. Think about that: 4k Chase points can get you from JFK to London. Crazy stuff!!

The catch is that you need to find availability for dates that have that pricing, which could be tough. But considering other airline’s rewards programs start US-Europe pricing at like 20k points each way, I’m sure there are deals to be found here 💰️

So if you’re considering a trip to the UK at all, I mean, this is quite the deal to do that with!

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

A chart of transfer partners by bank, along with other information, can be found here!

😢 Amex is Losing Hawaiian Soon… 😢 

Alaska miles are pretty awesome, for a number of reasons! But for Amex customers, Alaska miles will get a bit more difficult to obtain…

So after Alaska acquired Hawaiian, the opportunity to convert Hawaiian miles to Alaska miles at a 1:1 ratio emerged. This was and is a sweet deal! On top of this, Amex points transfer to Hawaiian, so Amex cardholders had an indirect way to transfer to Alaska!

But unfortunately, the announcement has been made: Amex transfers to Hawaiian will cease on June 30th 😭

This was awesome while it lasted. Now that a date has been set, if you are booking travel that Alaska miles would be useful for, definitely take advantage of this while you can.

Once Amex transfers to Hawaiian end, pretty much the only ways to get Alaska miles are to transfer from Bilt, earn them through flying, or getting an Alaska credit card. I suppose its good, then, that the Alaska business card has an elevated signup bonus right now. Worth a look if you know you have a need for the Alaska miles!

The Hawaiian Airlines credit cards are probably also worth a look when there’s an elevated signup bonus there. Even after June 30th, the ability to transfer between Hawaiian and Alaska at 1:1 will still remain, so getting Hawaiian miles is basically getting Alaska miles!

But this, nevertheless, is not the best news, although we knew it would come to this eventually… I’ll write about this again as we get closer to June 30th, just to remind everyone that this is happening.

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 👎️ Citi devalued its cash back option via the Strata Premier card, from 1 cent per point to .75 cents per point…

  • But if you just redeem cash back through another Citi card, you should be fine?

• Citi is replacing the Rewards+ card with the Citi Strata!

• ❄️ Alaska’s got 25% off deals, ending today! Use code GETAWAY25

💳️ 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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