Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊 

Sorry for sending this late by the way - got busy at work yesterday and forgot to hit send 🤷

But anyway, I spent this past weekend in Minnesota for a wedding, which was beautiful by the way - I also had some time to explore a few places, including the Mall of America!

That mall is genuinely massive - The Nickelodeon Universe in the middle of the mall was really cool, and I’m not sure I’ve seen a line around the corner for a Lego Store before. Their collection of DVDs and Blu-rays at the Barnes & Noble was also crazy 🤯

Relative to cash prices, the points rates for lodging and flying didn’t really give too much value (Cent per Point was a bit low), so I booked mainly cash for this trip. That helps save points for the next trip, which is coming up soon! Will share more about it later 👍️

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

In today’s edition:

• 🇸🇬 Singapore Deals: October Edition 🇸🇬

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 📞 Retention Offers 101 📞

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• 💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️ 

🇸🇬 Singapore Deals: October Edition 🇸🇬

Singapore released this month’s Krisflyer Spontaneous Escapes! As per usual, Singapore releases discounted award flights in the form of Spontaneous Escapes on the 15th of every month. All deals released are 30% off 💰️ 

The details to keep note of are that:

• You must complete your booking by October 31st 📆

• Travel booked through this can take place between November 1st and November 30th, 2025 📆

• Awards are non-refundable and non-changeable (so be careful)

This month’s discounted routes from the US are:

• Economy from JFK to FRA (and vice versa) for 17.5k points each way

• Economy from SFO and SEA to SIN (and vice versa) for 29.4k points each way

Included in this month’s deals is also the premium economy offering between JFK to Singapore nonstop! Yes, the longest nonstop flight in the world currently is part of this deal! The recline is solid, and definitely needed for an almost 19 hour flight, and is definitely a good way to get to Singapore. Remember that Amex, Capital One, Chase, and Citi points all transfer to Singapore at a 1:1 ratio! ✈️ 

If you are interested in going to Singapore or flying Singapore Airlines to Germany in September, do take advantage of these discounts, available till October 31st! And if not interested now but interested in the future, then keep an eye for these discounts on the 15th of every month!

Happy travels 😊 

🏦➡️✈️ 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.

📞 Retention Offers 101 📞 

Sometimes, people close their credit cards. Reasons for this vary, from not wanting to pay the annual fee anymore, to no longer needing it, etc. But sometimes, when you call the bank to cancel a card, they give you what’s called a “retention offer”, which is an offer of usually some cash or points to convince you to keep the card for another year. Just thought I’d go into that a bit today! 👍️

FYI, I’m writing this because there were data points indicating that the Venture X is giving out some retention offers (Capital One had not done this to this point, to my knowledge)! So with that good news, it’s time to talk about what this is and how to do that!

So typically, people call in to cancel their cards once the annual fee has posted on the account - typically, if you cancel a card within 30 days of the annual fee posting, then the annual fee will not be charged. So in that timeframe, what you can do is call the bank to say something along the lines of “I’m calling in regarding insert card name here - my annual fee hit and I was wondering if there are any retention offers for keeping my account open for another year.” ☎️ 

With the above approach, I’ve gotten anything from 10k Amex points free of charge, to 20k points for $2k spend in 3 months. Lately, I’ve not had much luck with my retention offers, but they do come around here and there. Amex in particular has historically offered retention offers.

Some notes:

• No annual fee cards typically don’t offer retention bonuses for cancelling.

• If you don’t actually want to cancel, then obviously don’t! You can ask for retention offers, and if none are available, you can just acknowledge that and let the rep know that you’ll take some time to think it over again.

• You can call any time during the year, but it’s just most typical to call once an annual fee hits.

Why do the banks do this? The answer is in the GIF at the top of this story - keeping existing customers is much cheaper than signing a new one!

That’s about it! A quick write up on retention offers, as well as how and why you should ask for them. Try it out the next time an annual fee hits for one of your cards 🤞 

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

• ✈️ Check the latest United Mile Play offers to see what award mile bonuses you can get!

• 🍁 The Canadian version of the Amex Plat will only have 6 visits per year to Priority Pass lounges and 6 visits per year to Plaza Premium lounges…

💳️ 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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