Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊

The extended Labor Day weekend was so needed, wasn’t it? Great to relax, go to the beach, or shop! There seemed to be some great Labor Day sales, so hope people took advantage of that if you shopped 🛍️

I’ve also taken a break from traveling for the past few months, so I’m itching a bit to get back to it! I do have some trips planned soon, both domestic and international, so I’m excited and will of course talk about how I used my points to take the trips 👍️

As school goes back to session, hope people had (or are still having) a good summer, and with that, let’s get into our stories!

In today’s edition:

• ⛄️ Some Alaska Changes ⛄️ 

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• ✈️ 25% Off to Europe, September Edition 📆

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

⛄️ Some Alaska Changes ⛄️

Not too long ago, Alaska made big news with its revamped rewards program, cards, and more! But as is usually the case, its not all rosy. The not so rosy part came in the form of two discontinued partnerships…

Alaska’s award chart is already quite competitive, but where it especially thrived is its partner redemptions. Alaska also has plenty of partners, which makes redeeming that much more attractive. JAL, Cathay, Singapore, Korean, and other airlines are in Alaska’s web of airline partners!

Sadly, two of these partners are ending partner redemptions: Singapore and LATAM… 😢 

I’ll start with the Singapore discontinuation: As of October 1st, 2025, reciprocal redemptions will end, making it no longer possible to book Singapore flights using Alaska miles, and no longer possible to book Alaska flights using Singapore Krisflyer miles. Despite getting rid of redemption opportunities, there is still ways to earn partner miles for flying (you can earn Singapore miles when flying Alaska, and vice versa). But for me, this partnership is as good as dead ☠️

The LATAM discontinuation is similar: reciprocal redemptions end on October 1st, but for any flights booked after October 1st for travel in 2026, you also won’t be able to earn partner miles either. So if I book an Alaska flight for 2026 once these changes come into effect, that flight can no longer earn LATAM miles.

This LATAM change is much bigger than the Singapore change in my opinion - I wasn’t really envisioning using my Alaska miles for Singapore flights, as Singapore tends to be stingy with its award inventory to partners anyway. The LATAM redemption opportunities were amazing though, with great business class redemptions between the US and South America. There’s still a month left to book those though now, I suppose 🤷

Alaska still has a ton of other great airline partners, yes - but this still hurts a bit, especially the LATAM partnership ending. If I’m not mistaken, I believe now the next best place for LATAM redemptions will be Virgin Atlantic, with business class between JFK and LIM at 50k each way (the last time I checked!!).

Good things come and go in the points world all the time, hence the mantra “earn and burn”. Sad to see another great redemption go, but always do take advantage of redemptions while they are here!

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

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

¹ New signup bonuses not present the previous week are in bold.

✈️ 25% Off to Europe, September Edition 📆

It’s the first newsletter of September, so as per usual, Flying Blue’s monthly Promo Rewards are back!

If you are not familiar: Flying Blue (mileage program of Air France and KLM) releases Flying Blue Promo Rewards, which are monthly promotions where routes between Europe and select destinations globally are offered for 25% off the original mileage price. Every month!

For this month, the US cities selected for this discount are Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, Boston, and Washington D.C.! ✈️

They’ve got deals across the globe for this month, with business class deals from Europe to Africa as well as Central and South America! Lots of exciting flight routes in the offers for the month!

So without these promo rewards, economy flights from North America to Europe start at 25k miles each way + taxes & fees. With the 25% off from these deals, that now goes down to 18.75k miles each way (same taxes & fees). I’ve used these deals to travel to Europe and back before too! Business class deals start at 63.75k each way as well!

Remember, just because these deals come from Air France and KLM does not mean you have to go to France or the Netherlands! Their intra-European network is far and wide, and as long as your origin or destination is a city selected for this month’s discounts, you’ll get 25% off, no matter the European airport involved. 🇪🇺 

This also comes at a time when the Air France-KLM World Elite Mastercard has an elevated bonus of 70k miles and 100 XP (60 on approval, 40 after hitting minimum spend) after spending $3k in 3 months. The card also gives you 5k points if you spend $50 on it in a year, which definitely helps to offset the $89 annual fee! XP, by the way, are points to get Flying Blue status, and 100 XP immediately gets you Flying Blue Silver status. Worth a look if you have a use for the miles or the XP for Flying Blue status 💳️

Exciting stuff from Flying Blue for September - happy travels if you find and book something that works for you!

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• ✈️ Breeze is offering 35% off Base Fares, with promo code GOLDEN!

💳️ 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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