Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊

The Memorial Day weekend was just great and so needed, and hopefully you all had a good weekend too!

Oh, I forgot to mention that I went to Toronto a few weeks ago, and had a great time! And yes, of course, credit card benefits came in handy when traveling (Global Entry, free food at lounges, etc.)!

Speaking of Canada travel using miles though, when redeeming points for flights departing out of Canada, the taxes and fees are surprisingly higher than I expected… For flights from Canada to the US, having the taxes and fees start at around $70 or so really lowers the cents per point 👎️

Thankfully, I had travel credits to help with that. But yeah, overall, a great trip!

In today’s edition:

• ✈️ Bye: United Excursionist Perk 📉

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 👋 Hi: United X JetBlue Partnership 🤝

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

✈️ Bye: United Excursionist Perk 📉

Well, it would appear Manchester United isn’t the only United to be losing things…

We know United MileagePlus has been slowly on the decline, at least from the consumer’s standpoint - the move to dynamic pricing and devaluations without advance notice have crippled a lot of the value the rewards program used to offer 👎️

There are still bits and pieces of value to be found in the program, but unfortunately, another of those nuggets of value are going away - on August 21st, 2025, the Excursionist Perk will no longer be available on United award tickets…

While the benefit is up for about 3 more months, if you have any roundtrip travel coming up and United miles can be of use, take a look at the Excursionist Perk! It allows you to add a free one-way segment for roundtrip itineraries between two different regions (regions, as defined by United). Basically:

• Your trip (roundtrip) starts and ends in the same region, as defined by United

• If above is true, then you get a free flight segment between the two flights of the roundtrip!

  • The free flight segment must start and end in the same region

  • The free flight segment can’t start in the same region as the first flight of the roundtrip flight

  • The free flight segment has to be in the lower or same tier of cabin as the roundtrip flights

For example, say you are going from Chicago to London roundtrip. Well, with United miles, when you book that roundtrip flight, you can instead fly from Chicago to London, then London to Lisbon (complimentary via the excursionist perk), and then fly from Lisbon back to Chicago! Great benefit that lets you add destinations to your journey! ✈️

But this benefit used to be insane, because the rules I mentioned above could be used to book all sorts of funky itineraries and crazy travel!

So yeah, sad news… But there’s three months left to make use of this, so do, if this fits into any of your travel plans!! 🧳

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

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

¹ Bilt Blue and Silver members get a 50% bonus, while Bilt Gold and Platinum members get a 200% bonus! The usual transfer ratio to Accor is 3:2, for reference.

² New transfer bonuses that were not present the week before are in bold.

👋 Hi: United X JetBlue Partnership 🤝

Well, just as United prepares to say bye to the Excursionist Perk, they then officially introduce us to this new partnership!

JetBlue had a partnership with American Airlines in the past, but that went through quite a bit of legal challenges, so they did not renew that partnership. But now JetBlue has found itself a new domestic airline partner!

So what does this partnership mean for us consumers? Very simply put:

• You can earn and redeem United miles for JetBlue flights, and vice versa

• Those with United status will receive benefits when flying JetBlue, and vice versa

While we don’t exactly know yet what the earning and redemption rates will be as part of this partnership, we do know what the elite benefits will look like:

For the airlines specifically, the benefits for them from this are also pretty clear:

• JetBlue surely gets closer to profitability as part of this move, with United customers potentially flying JetBlue more

• United gets some of JetBlue’s airport slots at JFK, which they’ve wanted for ages!

So its early days for this partnership, but hopefully when the rest of the details come out, particularly around earning and redemption rates, it’ll present some decent value for us. Both airlines use some form of dynamic pricing for its own award flights, though, so idk, maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much?

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• ⏸️ Chase and Amex have done this earlier, but Bilt is also pausing transfers to Emirates, until June 19th.

• 💰️ Avianca is running a flash sale on select routes, until Saturday!

• ✈️ Breeze is offering 44% off base fares, until Friday - use promo code BIRTHDAY!

• 👎️ Delta is apparently charging business and solo travelers more than they charge couples…

💳️ 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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