November 15, 2022 | View Online | Sign Up
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I realized this week that my editor, Zach, needs to spend more time studying Smart Points and less time stifling my creative brilliance.
I was appalled to discover over a bottle (or three) of wine that he was considering flying to Asia without using his untouched hoard of almost a million points. I immediately went on the prowl, pointing him in the direction of some stellar award flights. Now, he and his partner will soon head East for around $50 per person.
Zach, I’ll keep my run-on sentences and over-application of alliteration, and you save $2000. Everyone’s happy.
I stil need yoo to fix my speling, thouh.
In today’s edition:
United’s seriously elevated intro bonuses
Bring a buddy free to beat Christmas prices
How I saved $1400 on my World Cup flights
How many cards can you open?
Cheerz,
Stevne
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| AIRLINE CARDS
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Image: United Airlines
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Just in time for the holidays: United’s elevated intro bonus offers
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United has gifted us an early Christmas gift: A slew of elevated intro bonus offers on each of their co-branded Chase credit cards. While airline cards are not as flexible as general travel cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Amex Platinum, United’s points are still super valuable. In fact, the flights I suggested to Zach were all booked via United’s travel portal.
Cards and bonuses available:
United Gateway: 30,000 points after spending $1000 within three months of opening the card
United Explorer: 60,000 points after spending $3000 within three months of opening the card
United Quest: 80,000 points after spending $5000 within three months of opening the card
United Infinite: 100,000 points after spending $5000 within three months of opening the card.
Before diving on the highest offer, ensure you can take full advantage of the benefits offered by the more cards. The Infinite’s 100,000-point bonus could be worth as much as $1300, but its annual fee is $525. If you’re not flying United regularly, the intro could be worth it for a year, but beyond that initial earn, you’ll be losing money.
Which card is right for you?
For non United loyalists, the best option is likely the Explorer card. It’s free for the first year, and the subsequent $95 annual fee is comfortably offset by just one or two flights a year.
Its 60,000 point intro bonus requires $3000 of spending in three months, but the card gifts you solid perks, including two lounge visits a year, a free checked bag for you and a companion, a $100 statement credit for TSA Precheck
or Global Entry, and 25% off in-flight purchases.
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| WEEKLY SWEET SPOT
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Use companion passes to beat holiday prices
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One significant barrier facing point users is the holiday period. Naturally, many airlines drop their award flight availability or send their points costs soaring. If you have enough points and find availability, you can still enjoy a free flight. But you’re almost certainly not getting the best value for your points, which means that it might be worth hanging onto them.
So, what's the best bet for softening the blow if you’re left picking up the full tab on your holiday flights? Aside from the usual research, companion passes could be the way forward, at least if you’re not traveling alone.
2-for-1 plane tickets?
Several airlines offer companion passes which, put simply, allow a companion to travel on your booking for a small fee, often just the taxes and fees. While there are a few companion pass options out there, the Southwest Companion Pass is by far the best. Aside from basically being
a 2-for-1 plane ticket, the Companion Pass is good for two years, which could mean huge savings for couples.
Of course, earning the Southwest Companion Pass is the hard part. Users must accrue 125,000 qualifying points for the Southwest benefit — a tough target to hit without help.
However, if you check last week’s send, you’ll find three Southwest credit cards currently running significant bonuses of 75,000 points, sending you well on your way. Small business owners could also open a card and hit the 125,000-point mark in a matter of months, earning buckets of free flights.
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| MY POINTS MOVES
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Writing this week's send from Rotterdam, the Netherlands
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Paris > Dublin > Doha > Prague for under $150
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Here’s how I’ve been utilizing my points this month to help you see them working in real-life scenarios:
Paris to Qatar for the World Cup, then onto Prague
Researched and found the best deal for our dates, requiring just 52,000 Avios and $100 a person. The cheapest flight I could find without points for our dates was over $800 each.
I had 18,000 points in my British Airways Account, so I needed another 34,000
Capital One had a transfer bonus for BA. My girlfriend has the Venture X, so I had her send 29,000 points to my account. With the bonus, I got 5,800 extra points, taking me just over the required 34,000
I booked one flight from Paris to Dublin for 8,000 points and $100. I chose Dublin instead of London because the UK is notorious for its high airport fees and taxes, which would have cost almost an extra $400. Dublin is not part of the UK, so it has far less.
Unfortunately, the only award flight to Doha from Dublin was the next day, so we’ll need to stay in a hotel in the city overnight. Thankfully, our Capital One Venture X has a $300 travel credit that we need to use by the end of the year, so we grabbed a free hotel in the center of Dublin.
I then booked the Dublin to Doha leg, which cost 44,000 points and $90 for both tickets.
The last flight in December is from Doha to Prague. I was a little lazy but still found a flight on United Airlines for just 25,000 points and $45 each. I transferred the points from my Chase Account, as I’d just received my intro bonus for my Chase Sapphire Prefered card. If I’d used Turkish Airlines, I could have gotten them far cheaper, but I just didn’t want to
deal with the call centers they require you to use.
All in all, I grabbed a short trip to Dublin with a free hotel, flights from Europe to the Middle East during the busiest period of travel Qatar has ever seen, and flights back out to Prague for Christmas, all for just under $150 a person. All the flights together would have been around $1600 a person.
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| MAXIMIZE YOUR REWARDS
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Maximize rewards with each dollar spent
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If, like Zach, you’re not reading Smart Points as carefully as you should be, you might feel a little overwhelmed with the amount of plastic clogging up your wallet. Each has its own complex set of rewards buried under a mountain of T+C’s, so you’re never certain which is gifting you the most for your money.
Lever changes all that. The free chrome extension ensures you’re always using the credit card that maximizes your online spending.
Anytime you make an online purchase, Lever will automatically apply the credit card that offers the most rewards, ensuring you get the most cashback, travel miles, or even crypto for your hard spent dollars. It’s earning on autopilot.
Level up your credit card reward game with Lever and start maximizing your rewards today!
P.S. All Smart Points readers who sign up today with code LEVER10 will receive a $10 gift card.
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| CREDIT CARD OF THE WEEK
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My Delta SkyMiles Gold Amex featuring a good boy
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The Delta SkyMiles Gold Amex — Low maintenance, easy savings
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Co-branded airline cards can be hit or miss depending on your situation. In most cases, a general travel card will offer more flexibility and value for your points. Still, a card like the Delta SkyMiles Gold Amex is a worthy addition to your wallet for several reasons, not least the 40,000-point intro bonus.
It’s not a premium card, so you won’t have access to the Sky lounges and shouldn’t be expecting any upgrades. But the free checked bag for everyone on your booking can offset the $95 annual fee (free the first year) with just one domestic round trip for a couple. While it’s never likely to be your day-to-day workhorse, it more than deserves its place as a useful card if you fly Delta even occasionally.
Pros:
40,000 point intro bonus after spending $2000 in six months
Free first checked bag for the cardholder and eight others on the same booking
Priority boarding on Delta flights paid for on the card
20% back on inflight purchases
2x points per dollar on Delta purchases, US supermarkets, and restaurants worldwide
Cons:
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| STEVEN'S TIPS
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How many cards are too many?
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Unless you’re a truly big spender, it’s virtually impossible to earn vast amounts of points, no matter how strategic you are with your spending categories. The easiest way to build quickly is by opening cards for the intro bonus offers. Because of this, it’s tempting to open a lot of cards at once, which goes against traditional thinking. But is it that bad?
Is it bad to have too many credit cards?
The short answer is that it depends. You can keep taking out cards, but you have to be prepared and organized to cope with the fees, payments, and impact on your credit score. Some people take out multiple cards at one time, hoping that credit reporting will be too far behind to drop their score before the next one is approved, while others do steady opens throughout the year.
These strategies are useful, but they can all go wrong if you don’t organize them. To stay on track, keep a spreadsheet. It should highlight each card, when you open it, what its yearly fee is due, how much is on it, and whether or not you’ll close it again before the year is up. It’ll make things much easier and prevent you from paying fees on cards you’ll never touch again.
Remember that each time you apply, your credit will be impacted in the short term, but having more accounts will help your score in the long run. Your credit age also matters, so when considering closing an account, maybe pick one of the most recently opened cards you won’t use again. It’ll also allow you to plan around Chase’s 5/24 rule by seeing exactly when you opened cards and when you can grab a new one.
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