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May 15, 2026 | View Online |
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I signed a publishing deal this week!
I’ll be writing a full-blown travel guidebook to Malaysia, so I’ll be spending the next year and a half visiting every corner of the country for research. Assuming Smart Points is still hitting your inbox on publication day (in 2028, how strange), I’ll be expecting every last one of you to purchase a book, regardless of whether or not you’re coming to Malaysia.
You owe me for all the money I’ve saved you.
Let’s get to the points:
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A new business card to ponder
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My premium card checklist
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How I’d use these transfer bonuses
Cheers,
Steven |
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| CARD OF THE WEEK |
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A New Business Card With Banging Potential |
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There’s a new business card on the block. And it’s more than worth your time.
I like it anytime a Capital One card crops up. Mainly because I can talk about it openly, but also because they tend to be damn good. And the new business card, the Capital One Venture Business, meets that expectation.
Similar to the personal version of the same name, it’s a stripped-down alternative to the Capital One Venture X Business Card. It drops the annual fee to a palatable $95, while keeping an impressive intro bonus that scales up depending on your spending habits.
But the real question is, who is it for?
In short, small business owners with low to medium outgoings who value simplicity.
Why?
For all the following reasons.
Its Bonus Is Great
The card is currently running a limited-time offer of up to 150,000 miles. It’s a tiered bonus, where you’ll earn 75,000 miles after spending $7,500 within the first three months, and a further 75,000 miles if you hit $30,000 within the first six months.
That’s an average of $5,000 a month to get the full bonus, which is accessible for a lot of business owners.
Its Earning Rates Are Simple and Generous
The Venture Business doesn’t break with tradition, following Cap One’s tried-and-true formula of 2x miles per dollar on all purchases, with uncapped earnings. The only exception to this is the 5x miles per dollar for travel booked on the Capital One Business Travel Portal.
2x miles per dollar doesn’t sound sexy. But when you do the math, it often adds up to better than cards offering specific spending categories. Obviously, if your business has hyper-specific spending patterns that could earn 5x miles per dollar, that would be more lucrative, but for the average business owner with varied spending, this is perfect. All combined, it means you’d have at least 270,000 miles at the end of your first year if you hit the bonus and kept that spending rate up.
Anything else?
It’s not a premium card, so don’t expect all the bells and whistles. But saying that, it does have travel and business credits that add up to more than the annual fee, making it super easy to validate its presence in your wallet.
This is a solid card and an excellent addition to anyone’s arsenal. I’m surprised it took them this long.
Learn more here.
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| TRAVEL SECRETS |
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The Travel Secret Most People Never Hear About |
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There’s a reason most people never fly private… They don’t know this one thing.
Because once you do… You can fly for as little as $169.
Same goes for:
These aren’t “tips.” They’re industry secrets—rarely shared publicly.
Until now.
A new FREE book reveals 101 of them.
International Living, America’s #1 magazine for a global lifestyle, is letting you in on all the most top-secret tips so you can travel like royalty while on a Motel 6 budget.
Don't settle for boring, mundane vacations. Supercharge your travel experiences to a whole new level.
👉 Get your copy before it’s gone |
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| STEVEN'S TIPS |
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My New Card Checklist (For Premium cards)
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Opening a new premium card feels exciting. They promise a ton, and they usually have a lot of scope, but thousands (if not millions) of people severely underuse their cards, leaving value on the table and often not doing enough to validate the enormous annual fees that are creeping ever closer to the $1,000 mark.
If you’re opening one, here’s a checklist to help you maximize your value.
1. Check the bonus conditions and plan accordingly
You should have done this before applying, but check how much you need to spend to hit your introductory offer. If you know you have some big purchases that will trigger it, make a note to use the card for those. If not, add up your typical outgoings so you know when you hit the threshold. Don’t use other cards until you hit that bonus (unless your big purchases cover it).
Also, check your earning rates. If the card has some solid spending categories, prioritize those.
2. Look at and rank your perks
Premium cards have a long list of perks. They sound great and can help make the annual fee a non-issue, but you need to ensure you’re getting true value. Rank the benefits from most useful to least useful. For example, a $300 travel credit is very useful if you know you spend at least that much on hotels or flights. That takes $300 off the fee immediately. But if there’s a $100 credit for a store you don’t use, that will be at the bottom.
That doesn’t mean they’re useless. Look at the stores, check their sales pages, and find products that you would buy elsewhere, then use the credit for one-off purchases. You might not get the full value back, but it adds up.
This also applies to travel perks like lounge access or baggage fees. Look at your previous year’s expenses and see how much you spent on food in the airport or baggage fees. Making a conscious decision to eat in the lounge or use a specific airline means you’re saving directly.
3. Register for any elite programs or benefits
The volume of people who forget to register with a hotel program or card benefit and never receive them is insane. Register for everything that needs it the day you open the card. It saves any mistakes down the line.
4. Set calendar reminders
If any of the perks are released in stages, set calendar reminders a week or two before so you don’t forget to use them. That could be airline fees (buy a lounge pass or seat selector) or statement credits. Just don’t force it if it means you’re spending money you wouldn’t have already.
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Our Insurance Home Page
Insurance is important. I didn’t realize how important it was until I moved to the States and discovered a doctor’s appointment could run me hundreds of bucks. I didn’t like that, so I just drank Gatorades, popped Tylenol like candy, and hoped for the best.
Cut me some slack. I was 19.
Check out our insurance content, covering everything from auto and life insurance to travel and emergency coverage.
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| TRANSFER BONUS ROUNDUP |
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Transfer Bonuses You Should Consider This Month |
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I give you these transfer bonuses every few weeks, but rarely tell you which ones you should actually focus on and why. So, I’m rectifying that with some quickfire advice on current bonuses, along with a usefulness rating:
Amex Membership Rewards → JetBlue — 10% bonus through 5/11/26
6/10: JetBlue is fine, but its rates fluctuate. If you can bag a partner redemption on a Qsuite, 10% could take a lot of points off.
Citi ThankYou Rewards → Leading Hotels of the World — 25% bonus through 5/16/26
4/10: This is super niche, and especially as there’s only a day left, I can’t see this being too useful. If you have a super-specific hotel in mind, have a look, but don’t pounce on anything without checking the value first.
Chase Ultimate Rewards → Air France-KLM Flying Blue — 20% bonus through 5/27/26
9/10: Anything Flying Blue can be useful. Dive into their monthly deals, and you can find flights to Europe and beyond for around 18,500. With the bonus, that drops further, to around 15,400. Look at it for business class, and you’ll save a ton.
Amex Membership Rewards → Hilton — 20% bonus through 5/30/26
6/10: Hilton has been losing its value in recent years, but if you have a longer stay, you could save a hell of a lot by using this bonus with the fifth-night-free. Amex already transfers at 1:2, so for a five-night stay at 80,000 points a night, you would only need 133,333 Amex points. Which is pretty impressive.
Capital One Miles → Qantas Frequent Flyer — 20% bonus through 5/31/26
6/10: Qantas is a bit of an outlier, but it does have some solid partners and uses a distance-based award chart for them. I’d recommend checking it out for short round-trips with American Airlines, Emirates flights, and even El Al (Israeli airline). The business class deals are pretty good.
Rove Miles → Air Canada Aeroplan — 25% bonus through 6/6/26
8/10: If you use Rove Miles (I don’t), this is always good. Anything for Air Canada is a good shout because of its brilliant award chart.
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