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- 💳 25% Off to Europe Again, Bilt is Cooking for 2025 & More News and Deals from Sense per Point ✈️
💳 25% Off to Europe Again, Bilt is Cooking for 2025 & More News and Deals from Sense per Point ✈️
Making Sense of Points & Miles :)
Sean Kim
December 05, 2024
Chase’s Giveaway: Chase is holding a giveaway for 10 million points! 10 winners will get 1 million points. Good luck! 🤞
Welcome Back!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving 🦃
I certainly did, and got some stuff on Black Friday and Cyber Monday as well! The sales were good, and the cash back on Rakuten was good too 💸
It’s also December now, which means Christmas is coming soon, and so is 2025! In the points & miles world, that means it may be time to get some new credit cards for some Christmas shopping (if you’re late on Black Friday and Cyber Monday), as well as using any credit card benefits that expire at the end of the calendar year. If that applies to you, make sure to not leave money on the table!!
I’ve been waiting to write to you all again after a few weeks, so will get right into it!
In today’s edition:
✈️ 25% Off to Europe, December Edition 📆
Its the first newsletter of the month, and some of you will know that Flying Blue’s monthly Promo Rewards are back at it again!
As usual, on the first of the month, 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, there are 6 North American cities selected for this discount, which are Edmonton, Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Portland, and Toronto. You’ll notice that the Edmonton and Ottawa discounts are in Business Class! ✈️
Without these promo rewards, economy flights from North America to Europe start at 20k miles each way + taxes & fees. With the 25% off from these deals, that now goes down to 15k miles each way (same taxes & fees). I’ve used these deals to travel to Europe and back before too!
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 time around, some US to Africa routes are on sale too, with New York to Nairobi and New York to Accra also pricing at 25% off! 🌍️
The sweetener here is that Chase has a 20% transfer bonus to Flying Blue. So a flight costing 15k miles would cost just 13k Chase points while the transfer bonus is live! 🍭
Business class from North America to Europe through Flying Blue starts at a very reasonable 50k each way as well plus taxes and fees - with the 20% bonus in mind, you’d only need to transfer 42k points!
Do take advantage if you are looking to get to Europe! 🧳
🏦➡️✈️ Transfer Bonuses
Bank | Transfer Partner | Bonus | This bonus ends: |
|---|---|---|---|
Amex | Marriott Bonvoy | 35% (1:1.35) | December 31st, 2024 |
Amex2 | Virgin Atlantic | 40% (1:1.40) | December 31st, 2024 |
Chase1,2 | Air Canada Aeroplan | 20% (1:1.20) | January 15th, 2025 |
Chase2 | Flying Blue (Air France & KLM) | 20% (1:1.20) | January 15th, 2025 |
Chase2 | IHG One Rewards | 70% (1:1.70) | January 15th, 2025 |
1 This bonus is stackable with a separate 10% bonus for holders of the Aeroplan® Credit Card, for a total of 30%! Details of the deal here.
2 New transfer bonuses that were not present the week before are in bold.
🏠️ What’s Bilt Built up for 2025? 🏠️
Hopefully Bilt is becoming even better for rewards next year!
Bilt has definitely proven to be a game changer for renters in the points & miles world. Earning points on rent payments is awesome, not to mention their Rent Day promotions, credit card, and more! They have transfer bonuses sometimes at 100% bonus rates, which is just insane!!
Hopefully with more of that to come, Bilt gave us a slight glimpse of what’s to come in 2025, in its letter to Bilt Members.
The main points of what’s to come in 2025 involve two things: The Bilt Mastercard, and rewards opportunities for mortgage payments.
Starting with mortgages: Bilt is working on ways to offer rewards for mortgage payments! More ways to earn rewards is always good news, and especially for people making mortgage payments anyways, this could represent a great opportunity for more rewards! Bilt didn’t share a lot of details, but just confirmed that they are looking into this.
Even if the rewards structure is the same as for rent payments with the Bilt card (1x on mortgage payments), that represents a new and good opportunity to earn points. One would be making their mortgage payments anyways, so why not earn some rewards on top?
The other more pertinent point for this newsletter is that there may be changes coming to the Bilt Mastercard. Neither Bilt or Wells Fargo (the bank that supports the card) seem to hide the fact that their relationship isn’t ideal. So it makes sense that there’s work being done here.
The interesting bits of this portion of the letter are:
😲 Only 15% of members have the Bilt Mastercard!
💳️ Former American Express execs are offering guidance on the future of the Bilt Mastercard.
🏦 Bilt seems to take a slight dig at Wells Fargo, saying that the "issuing bank partner” needs to support on features for users such as higher credit limits, authorized user cards, autopay, and more.
Well, whatever the future holds for the card, I can only hope it is good. But it’s maybe even possible that Bilt leaves Wells Fargo, or that there are multiple Bilt cards for different tiers of users and cardholders. But we don’t know yet!
In any case, as of now, if you are a renter, the Bilt Mastercard is a great opportunity to earn rewards for payments you’d make anyway. And I can maybe start saying the same for mortgage payments too soon! I’m hoping the changes coming up are for the better - let’s hope for that together 🙏
📰 Other Stories & Deals 💰️
😲 So a Swiss flight crew apparently recorded some passengers joining the Mile High Club…
🇨🇦 Air Canada’s Basic Economy fares will no longer include a carry-on or seat changes starting in January…
✈️ American Airlines is dumping Barclays and will only issue credit cards via Citi, starting in 2026!
💳️ Best Card Signup Bonuses 💳️
Again, the usual solid cards:
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:
Card | Bonus | Annual Fee | Why Consider? |
|---|---|---|---|
$250 or 25,000 points after $500 in spend in 3 months | $0 | New elevated signup bonus that works for cash back as well as miles that can be combined with a Venture or Venture X! | |
$250 or 25,000 points after $500 in spend in 3 months | $0 | New elevated signup bonus that works for cash back as well as miles that can be combined with a Chase Sapphire or Ink Preferred! | |
65,000 points after $4000 in spend in 3 months | $550 | Slightly raised from the usual signup bonus, and a popular and solid credit card at that! | |
75,000 points after $4000 in spend in 3 months | $95 | Elevated signup bonus from what might be Citi’s best credit card at the moment! | |
$2,000 or 200,000 points after $30,000 in spend in 3 months | $150 | A big bonus for big business spenders! | |
70,000 American Airlines miles after your first purchase and paying the annual fee | $99 | This elevated signup bonus is ridiculously easy to hit 🎯 | |
100,000 to 175,000 points after $2k-$8k spend in 6 months | $0-$550 | Lots of new and improved Hilton bonuses! |
📤️ 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 😊
- Sean Kim
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