Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is having another great week 😊 

I know that anyone that had a Delta flight in the past week likely did not have a good experience, but hopefully things will get better over there. If you were affected, know your rights!

This week has been a relatively quiet week for the points & miles world, at least in terms of big stories outside of the new Gold Card. So I’m starting a series on online tools to use to better earn, track, manage, and maximize your rewards, with part 1 below. Let’s get into it!

In today’s edition:

• 🥇 The Amex Gold Refresh 💳️

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 🛠️ The Points & Miles Tools I Use, pt.1 🛠️

• 📰 Other Stories and Deals 💰️

 🥇 The Amex Gold Refresh 💳️

I discussed in a previous newsletter about how Amex is planning to refresh (or defresh?) many cards in Amex’s portfolio in 2024, and it seemed like the Amex Gold was up for a refresh this year.

Well, the rumor mill is churning out potential changes and updates to the Amex Gold card, and as of today, the new card is live!

Some notable changes to the card include:

• $325 annual fee ($75 increase from previous $250)

• Sign up bonus of up to 100,000 (!!) points 🤯 + 20% back on restaurants, up to $100 (normal link shows 60,000 points)

• Option of white gold version of card

• $7 monthly Dunkin donuts credit ($84 annually) - Make sure to enroll in this benefit in your Amex account!! 🚨

• $50 semi annual Resy credit ($100 annually) - Make sure to enroll in this benefit in your Amex account!! 🚨

• 4x points on restaurant spend limited to $50,000 per year

• Removing Milk Bar and Shake Shack from the $10 monthly dining credit, but adding 5 Guys ($120 annually) - Make sure to enroll in this benefit in your Amex account!! 🚨

Lots of bullet points there, but to put it simply: The annual fee is going up by $75 in exchange for potentially up to $184 in annual credits. This obviously does depend on how much you think the Resy credit and the Dunkin Donuts credit is worth. 🍝 

The Resy credit, which is already active, seems pretty easy to use, as long as you live in an area where restaurants are on the platform. All you need to do is dine at a restaurant that is on Resy and pay with the card that offers the credits, without or without a reservation! I imagine there will be people that dine out without realizing that the restaurant is on Resy, and then later notice that they used the credit. All that being said, I personally value this credit at face value (full $100).

The Dunkin Donuts credit, on the other hand? It is also already active, but for a luxury dining card, this addition seems weird… It is better than nothing I suppose? Guess it is good for some occasional donuts, and might as well get $7 worth of stuff in July since the benefits launched already 🍩 

Either way, because I’ve already got $100 from the Resy credit in exchange for a fee increase of only $75 before I factor in Dunkin, I’m getting more back than I’m paying. So for me, the card is a keeper even after the changes!

I also think the color is pretty, and remember that even if you already have the Gold card, as I do, you can request they send you the white gold version! I’ve already done this myself 🥇 

Most of the other benefits of the card haven’t changed, except for losing Shake Shack and Milk Bar for the $10 monthly dining credit (in exchange for 5 Guys) 🍔 

I should also note that the 4x points on restaurants did get capped at up to $50k of spend per year, although my dining spend is nowhere near that amount, so won’t affect me.

The real sweetener here is that if your annual fee already posted or will post before October 1st, you can enjoy these new benefits still at $250 for the year. A small but nice win! 🏆️ 

Hope the changes work for you all and if not, hope you all get some good retention offers to keep it for 1 more year!

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

¹ This bonus is stackable with a separate 10% bonus for holders of the Aeroplan® Credit Card, for a total of 30%! Details of the deal here.
² New transfer bonuses that were not present the week before are in bold.

🛠️ The Points & Miles Tools I Use, pt.1 🛠️

So I’ve been playing the points & miles game for a bit over 5 years now, and I definitely did not get to where I am now in this game by myself. Countless conversations with other churners and credit card connoisseurs, videos/blogs from creators, and online tools brought me here! And I still have a long ways to go and I’m discovering new tools myself!

But in the hopes that I can be of help, I’ll share with you all some of the tools I use!

When it comes to maximizing cash back and rewards, I use:

• Rakuten (cash-back platform)

• Dosh (cash-back platform)

• Pepper (cash-back platform)

Dosh and Pepper are two great mobile apps for cash back that supplement the rewards I earn on my cards. For Dosh, you connect a card, and when the card is used at one of their partner merchants (Adidas, Shake Shack & restaurants near you, for example), you’ll automatically get cash back. For Pepper, you can buy gift cards to merchants while earning cash back on the app as well as for card spend. 💸 

As for Rakuten, it works as a Chrome extension when you shop online. It’ll let you activate cash back on certain sites, and then you can activate and earn for your spend. Rakuten also has a partnership with Amex where you can earn Amex points through Rakuten instead of cash back, which has been great for me! 💳️ 

When it comes to finding award availability, I use:

• Seats.aero & rooms.aero (award search tools)

• PointsYeah (award search tool)

These tools all have free versions - I’d personally never pay for an award search tool, but that’s just a personal choice! In my experience, these are the best free tools to help you find that business/first class award ticket you’ve been looking for! 🛫 

There’s many others I use periodically, as well as ones I can recommend, but these are just some of the ones I take advantage of.

Hope you can take advantage as well! 💰️ 

📰 Other Stories 📰

• 🦚 Peacock is raising its prices, sadly… This does affect the $20 monthly entertainment credit on the Amex Plat. If you have an Instacart membership, though, Peacock is complimentary!

• 🇫🇷 Flying Blue now has award availability for El Al - some transatlantic routes price at 77.5k points in business class ✈️

• 🇨🇦 Aeroplan now has award availability for Eurowings, a Lufthansa subsidiary ✈️ 

💰️ Tips & Deals 💰️

• 🇮🇹 ITA Airways has a status match going on, if you’d like Skyteam status (and maybe Star Alliance status once Lufthansa takes over??)

📤️ Spread the Word! 📤️

Thank you so much for subscribing! This newsletter is committed to providing you all with helpful info and tips to maximize your points and rewards, at no direct cost to you! (appreciate you using any of my referral links, though!)

Being that I don’t use social media, it’s been a bit harder to gain subscribers, but I can do it with your help - 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 📩