Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is doing well 😊 

I’ve gotten some feedback (and would love more!) that for subscribers that are new to the points & miles, the newsletter may be a bit complicated to understand. If I knew nothing about points and miles but wanted to get started, a monthly discount on reward flights from Singapore Airlines would probably not be my first read. So I totally get it, and want to help!

With that, I’m in the process of writing out a full guide to the points & miles game. The goal is for it to have pretty much all you need to know about earning and redeeming points and miles! Everything that goes into the hobby, I aim to put into the guide 📜 

Speaking of hobbies, some of you know that I’m an avid chess player - I’ve drawn from the chess world to have three parts to this full guide, as a chess match does: The Opening, The Middlegame, and The Endgame. More on what each part of this guide will entail later!

In today’s edition:

• 💸 Get an Easy $40 💸

• 🏦 Transfer Bonuses ✈️

• 📈 A Bunch of Boosted Bonuses 📈 

• 📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️

💸 Get an Easy $40 💸

I’ve discussed Rakuten a few times in this newsletter, but for anyone that does any online shopping at all, it truly is a no-brainer. And now for a limited time, there’s a $40 incentive to start using it!

Just incase you aren’t familiar: Rakuten is an online shopping portal partnered with hundreds of retailers. It offers you cash back or Amex points for purchases made at their partner retailers! 💰️ 

Every cent in cash back earned through Rakuten can be converted to one Amex point, so $1 = 100 points, and so on. If you value an Amex MR point at more than 1 cent each (I definitely do), then I’d recommend earning MR points. Otherwise, or if you don’t earn Amex points, you can earn cash back, and the money is sent to you via check or PayPal every quarter!

The current deal for signing up is that you’ll get $40 back after spending $40. Yes, you read that right: When you spend $40, you will get $40 back! So you can just get $40 off on something you planned on buying anyway, or you can just effectively make a $40 purchase for free 💸 

So to get the $40:

1. Be based in the US and Canada 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 

2. Sign-up for a Rakuten account here (and get the web extension too, as it is quite convenient) 📝 

3. Make a purchase of $40 or greater through one of Rakuten’s partner retailers in within the first 90 days of signing up 🛒

   1.  🚨 Make sure that you either have the web extension and activate the cash back, or you go to the retailer’s site via Rakuten rather than going to the retailer directly if you don’t have the web extension! 🚨

4. That’s it! Just wait for the purchase and the credit to post to your account 👍️ 

Some easy ways to get the $40 would be:

• 💳️ Buy a $40 gift card through giftcards.com

• 🎄 Get $40 off a Christmas gift you were planning to buy anyway!

Do note that these rewards would be on top of any cash back/rewards you’d already receive on the card you used to pay for the purchase, and any additional offers (Chase Offers, BofA Offers, Amex Offers, Citi Offers, etc.) can also be applied!! We call this “triple-dipping” - imagine earning rewards in like 3 or more different places at once for a purchase 🤑 

For example, I have this Amex Offer activated right now:

And as per the image at the top of this section, Rakuten is offering 12% back on Adidas purchases today (or 12x Amex points per dollar spent). As I’d already earn 1x from the card, and an additional 6x with this Amex Offer, I’d be earning a total of 12x from Rakuten + 1x from the card itself + 6x from the Amex Offer = 19 Amex points per dollar on an Adidas purchase!

Even better, I have another cash back app called Dosh that gives 4% back at Adidas too, so a hypothetical purchase at Adidas right now would be 19x points + 4% cash back!! A superb quadruple dip 😋 

So please, take advantage and get $40 back for spending $40 through Rakuten while this deal is live! 💰️ 

🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses

¹ Programs that utilize Avios are Aer Lingus, Iberia, British Airways, Qatar Airways, and Finnair - all of these programs can transfer to and from each other at 1:1 at no charge. So transfer bonuses to one Avios-using partner always indirectly include them all.

📈 A Bunch of Boosted Bonuses 📈 

I know I usually have a “Best Card Signup Bonuses” section, but there’s quite a few elevated bonuses out there right now, so I thought I’d go through them in more detail!

I’ll put the updated chart as usual below, before going into the highlights:

Quite a lot on the list, and I probably haven’t even gotten them all! But the main highlights are the first four on the list.

The Capital One Savor and the Chase Freedom Unlimited® are offering the exact same signup bonus: $250 back (or 25,000 points) for $500 spend. Basically, a 50% return on spend for the first $500, which is quite good!

The Chase Freedom Unlimited® was my first credit card, and it’s a good card, especially early on in the points and miles game! The Capital One Savor is great too, and I can say that I think the Capital One Savor is the single best credit card in the market that has both no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee! Not at all upset that I was denied for it 😂 

Then there’s a slightly elevated signup bonus for the CSR via The Infatuation. If you missed the signup bonuses that came with a $300 travel credit but still want the card, then this could work! The CSR comes with perks like lounge access, status with Avis and National, and more!

Lastly, the Citi Strata Preferred℠ has a nice elevated signup bonus, which is quite tempting. The card is a solid mid-range card (3x on airfare, dining, gas, EV charging, groceries, and hotels), and the 75k Citi points (up from the usual 60k) definitely is tempting 💸

Lots of good signup bonuses! Do make sure the cards make sense for you before applying, and happy earning!!

📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️ 

• 📉 Spirit declared bankruptcy - hopefully it keeps flying as it said it will, as competition is always good for the industry 🤞 

• ☕️ Capital One Cafés are offering a free handcrafted beverage until 12/31!

• 🍔 Delta and Shake Shack are partnering to serve burgers to Delta’s First Class Passengers!

• 🛋️ The Latest Capital One Lounge, called Capital One Landing, has opened in DCA!

• 💳️ Get $100 in gift cards, and save $15/$20 on your next ShopRite shop!

• 🇸🇬 Singapore Airlines’ monthly Spontaneous Escapes has released for November!

📤️ 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 😄 

That was a long one, but 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 see you in two weeks 😊 

- 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 📩