Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊 

Yesterday marked the end of the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days - hope people got good deals on stuff! Speaking of shopping, that new $75 Lululemon credit on the Amex Platinum has been serving me well 👍️

I’ve been mentioning the increase in consumer spending for Q4 here and there, with holidays and gifts. If you know you’ll need gifts, do consider getting a new card to hit the signup bonus while you are at it! I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot, but I’m saying it for a reason 💳️

With that, let’s get into today’s stories!

In today’s edition:

• 💰️ Rakuten → Bilt 💰️

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• ✈️ Some Current Sweet Spots for October 2025 🍦

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

💰️ Rakuten → Bilt 💰️

I know, I go on and on about Rakuten all the time - but again, there’s a reason for that! It’s money you’d probably be spending anyway, so the opportunity to earn more cash back for it is definitely a plus 👍️

And now, it has been leaked that a new option to redeem that cash back on Rakuten! On top of receiving the cash back via check, PayPal and Amex MR points, you should soon be able to redeem the Rakuten Cash Back as Bilt points also!

I’m a big fan of the Rakuten to Amex partnership here, as Rakuten treats 1 point as 1 cent, but I often get more than 1 cent per point from Amex. All added value that works for me! Bilt points should operate the same way, as they also have some valuable transfer partners.

Some of you may also know that I’m a big Hyatt fan - Bilt points transfer to Hyatt, so this Rakuten partnership would potentially earn me Hyatt points through Rakuten. Rakuten → Bilt → Hyatt is awesome!! 🏨

It’s not yet clear when this will go live, but the developments are very exciting nonetheless! Hoping that this gets rolled out soon, and hoping that you can take advantage of it, especially if you use the Bilt card to pay rent! 💳️

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

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

¹ Transferring up to 9,999 miles is a 20% bonus, transferring 10,000-49,999 miles is a 30% bonus, and transferring 50k and more miles is a 40% bonus.

✈️ Some Current Sweet Spots for October 2025 🍦

I was thinking of stories to wrote, and couldn’t really come up with anything in particular. So I thought I’d just put down all of the ways I would redeem my points right now if I was planning travel. I particularly love to plan travel around transfer bonuses, and other discounts, so there are lots of deals!

I do want to note: the award seats may be limited for these uses, as I’m just putting here what the good deals would be, without having checked for award availability. But feel free to do the search, or have sites like PointsYeah and Seats.aero help you with that! Also all redemptions discussed here are one-way! 🗒️ 

Iberia Business Class

I’ll first talk about flying Iberia business class - off-peak dates on their calendar have redemption rates set at 40.5k miles one-way for business class for cities on the east coast and Chicago. Used to be 34k, but still not too bad!

But Chase has a 30% transfer bonus to Iberia Avios! With that, the 40.5k rates go down to 32k Amex points. Imagine flying in Business Class from the US to Madrid for just 32k Amex Points!! The lowest signup bonus for the Amex Gold is 60k, and that bonus gets you the roundtrip to and from Madrid in business class at current rates (you need to spend around $2-4k, and the points from that spend will help fill that amount too. The transfer bonus ends on 10/31, by the way!

Finnair Business Class

Finnair is also in the Avios family! Even though the Amex transfer bonus is only to British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, you can transfer your points from British Airways to Finnair at a 1:1 ratio, for no additional charge! Same with Qatar actually 😀 

Finnair redemption rates are set by zone. If you fly to Zone 1 though, regardless of a non-stop or an itinerary with layovers, you’ll pay the same amount. That means you can fly Finnair from the US (not LA) to various cities in Northern Europe and Poland for 62.5k in business class!

But the transfer bonus comes in clutch once again!! With this 30% bonus, that price goes down to 49k Amex points to fly Finnair business to Europe! Another sweet deal to maybe go hit the saunas in Finland, perhaps? 🧖 

There are likely many more deals, with or without transfer bonuses. But these are just some of the ones that crossed my mind when thinking about some solid redemptions right now! Hope that helps 👍️ 

JAL Business

This one will be hard to find availability for… There’s actually a bunch of new redemption opportunities from the new JAL partnership, by the way.

But if you can, sometimes JAL has availability from the US to Japan for as low as 55k miles each way! With the Capital One partnership and temporary transfer bonus, that comes to about 57k Capital One miles each way. If you can find that, that’s an absolute score!

JAL also has more availability at 80k - not as good of a deal, but considering the demand to going to Japan in business class, that’s probably a good deal too!

But yeah, those are just some of them, and there are probably lots more. But if you are looking into some good redemption opportunities, do always be on the lookout and do searches often! Happy travels 🧳

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 🏦 Bilt added Etihad Guest as a new 1:1 transfer partner!

• 🚌 Check out MasterCard’s Transit offers, if you live in an eligible transit area (NYC and NJTransit is included!)

💳️ 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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