Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is having a great week 😊 

I have to say, free fares on NJTransit all week has been great! Cutting down on boarding time as no one needs to show tickets, getting to the city and back for free, and everything has been very nice 😄 

On top of that, an extended Labor Day weekend is coming up! I’m going to a national park for the weekend - so excited! On that note, national parks are free to visit on certain days out of the year, which can be found here. A nice way to visit some great parks!

In today’s edition:

• ✈️ Status Match Central 🔄 

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 🏠️ What A Bilt Rent Day 🏢

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

✈️ Status Match Central 🔄

There are a number of airline status matches going on right now, so I thought I would cover them all in one fell swoop!

For those who are unfamiliar, a status match usually involves getting an equivalent or lower status tier with a new loyalty program based on your current status with a competitor’s program. Today’s examples involve matching one airline elite status to another, but this also exists for hotels, car rental companies, and more! 🧳 

In fact, you can actually go here to see which status matches work and don’t work. For example, you’ll find that having status with one car rental company generally allows for a status match to all of them! 🚗 

But back to the challenges currently available:

• 🇻🇳 Vietnam Airlines is offering a status match from certain airlines that can potentially get you up to SkyTeam Elite Plus!

• 🇫🇷 Flying Blue (Air France & KLM) is offering a status match from certain airlines that can potentially get you up to SkyTeam Elite Plus!

• 🔵 JetBlue’s status match is also worth looking at if you have airline status with Alaska, American, Delta or United!

I will note that the Vietnam Airlines and Flying Blue status matches give you their status once matched for a year before needing to re-qualify - JetBlue’s status match only grants their status, Mosaic, for 3 months before needing to requalify. I suppose that’s why JetBlue’s status match is free, but do keep this in mind! 🧠 

And yes, you did see that last sentence correctly - there is unfortunately a fee for the SkyTeam Elite Plus status matches. To be more specific (costs are listed for US residents):

• 🇻🇳 Matching to Vietnam Airlines’ Titanium status (SkyTeam Elite) costs $99, Gold status (SkyTeam Elite) costs $199, and Platinum status (SkyTeam Elite Plus) costs $299

• 🇫🇷 Matching to Flying Blue Silver status (SkyTeam Elite) costs $99, and Gold status (SkyTeam Elite) costs $299 - Flying Blue Platinum is not available through this status match for US residents 👎️

If you have enough travel coming up in the next 12 months on SkyTeam airlines, this definitely can be worth up to $299. SkyTeam Elite Plus gives you lounge access for international SkyTeam itineraries for you and a guest, so that may be enough to recoup that cost for some! 🤑 

If you are considering these status matches, I would not do both Vietnam and Flying Blue, unless you are sure you will fly on those airlines enough to justify that - no need to buy SkyTeam benefits twice! Also personally, I wouldn’t match just for SkyTeam Elite, as only SkyTeam Elite Plus has lounge access. But this is just my opinion!

Anyways, yes, some great opportunities! Having United status, for example, opens the door to have status with other airlines too! So do take advantage of your airline status 👍️ 

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

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

🏠️ What A Bilt Rent Day 🏢 

I’m probably also overdue on a story about Bilt, but September’s Bilt Rent Day is definitely worth discussing, so I’ll talk all things Bilt today!

So Bilt is a program that lets you earn rewards for paying rent. You can signup for the Bilt program without having the Bilt card, although your rewards are significantly less. Spending on the card (which has no annual fee, by the way) gets you:

• 🥞 3x on dining

• 🧳 2x on travel

• 🏘️ 1x on all other purchases, as well as rent spend up to 100,000 points per year (HOA fees also count for this!)

• 2️⃣ Double points on all non-rent spend on the first of every month (Rent Day), up to 1000 points! (6x on dining, 4x travel, etc.)

The one stipulation is that you use the card 5 times per statement period to earn the points, which shouldn’t be too bad.

But if you are a renter, and your landlord either accepts check or uses an online portal, this card can get you a lot of value! Rent payments without the transaction fees, no annual fee, and a solid list of transfer partners are great to have, of course (including Alaska, remember?) ✈️ 

Speaking of value, Bilt releases deals Rent Day (the first of every month), and September’s rent day has some great transfer bonuses:

• 50% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles

• 20-100% (!!) transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic based on your Bilt Status

• BOGO on pool & spa passes through ResortPass

• BOGO (complimentary guest) on cruises through Virgin Voyages

This is in addition to complimentary SoulCycle bikes on the 1st of the month as well! 🚴 

With some of these transfer bonuses, award flight opportunities from the US include:

• 🇪🇺 Business class to Europe one-way through Avianca for 47,000 Bilt points!

• 🏯 Business class to Japan one-way through Virgin for 50,000 Bilt points for Bilt Blue members, and 30,000 Bilt points (!!) for Bilt Platinum members! (from central and east coast USA)

So yes, there’s some serious value here, especially if you are a renter - Rent Day on the 1st of every month makes that value even sweeter! So do consider the Bilt program and card if you’re interested in rewards for your rent 🏡 

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️ 

• 💰️Rakuten is offering 100% cash back (yes, 100% of your money back, so effectively free) on Surfshark!

  • They are also offering you $200 to start a CD with Alliant Credit Union 💵 

• 🏨 Hyatt is offering 1k points per night spent at properties in their Unbound Collection - nice bonus if you already have stays planned!

💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

Again, the usual solid cards:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred^®/Reserve^®

• Chase Freedom Unlimited^®/Flex^®

• Amex Gold & Plat

• Capital One Venture X

• Capital One SavorOne

• Citi Strata Preferred^℠

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! 📤️

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!)

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, and a great Labor Day Weekend ❤️ 

- Sean Kim

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