r/pointstravel

I’m new to credit card points. How far in advance should I book international business class flights? My trip is November 2027 so I am trying to prepare as early as possible.

I’ve got a couple hundred thousand in Amex points and I see the transfer rate to Hilton is 1000=2400 which seemed like a lot. I was thinking about utilizing it for 5 day stay at one of their all inclusive properties in Mexico, but I wasn’t sure if that’d be a smart move or good value for the points as I’ve never really used my points before and am rather new to the game. Any insight would be super appreciated. Thanks!

Taking advantage of all points and credit card rewards is intended to be hard and it’s only getting worse

For example: Amex gives $600 in travel credit, but it’s forced to be split semi annual $300 / $300 and within specific hotels. The only way to benefit from this is to stay 1 night under $400 because the rest of the nights have higher prices to make up for their losses of $300. And since it’s semi annual, you’re forced to set reminders and ensure you force in this “vacation” somewhere.

It’s just become this game where you take a bunch of time and energy to practically just break even.

I’m over it

New to the points game. We’ve racked up 200k points which I felt like was a lot until we started planning the trip to Austria from Mid Atlantic this week. The trip is for a family of three and in August. Any pointers on how to max point value?

Feeling like I should buy a lottery ticket!!

I had alerts set, but never found anything, so I kept a browser tab open and refreshed the alert sites randomly throughout the day for weeks.

Got lucky and one morning spotted JFK > HND ANA First Class in early April 2027 for 110k Aeroplan points + $57 USD - transferred Amex points and immediately booked it.

Then kept refreshing for a return flight, and a few days later found HND > JFK for late April for 135k Asia Miles + $427 USD - called Cathay, had them put the flight on hold for 48 hours - Cap1 points transferred within 4 hours, and called back to confirm.

I've never done heroin before, but I'm pretty sure this is what the high feels like 😂

None of my friends appreciate how insane this is, so needed to celebrate with all of you!!

I get email notifications for business seats from SFO to Japan/Thailand/Singapore/Taiwan but within 20 minutes they’re already gone.

So I’m trying to use points for 2 economy tix from Seoul to NYC for next April 2027 (already used points for our outbound business class flights).

I have 2 options:
- book now at 41k points +$58 each via Flying Blue (the exact date I want)
- wait 3-4 weeks to see if the same flight award availability on Virgin Atlantic opens up at 37k points + $35 each.

Kind of torn because I want to get the best deal, but I have the option to pull the trigger on it now by paying a bit more.

What would this sub do?

I made a rookie mistake, and I hope others can learn from this. When you are trying to earn your SUB (sign-up bonus), but only want to just spend the minimum amount, you cannot include the annual fee as it is not a purchase. I just lost out on 75,000 points with Chase because I did not read the fine print carefully enough. I’m embarrassed to tell anybody about this, but hopefully this post will help others.

Looking for some help on the best travel routes, airlines, and such for early 2027. I have no preferences. I currently am earning points with CHASE and Citi. Can add more if you think I should start to build somewhere else. Don’t want to be low effort just need help getting started

Help! Has this happened to anyone? Trying to transfer Avios from my British airways account to Iberia but am unable to do anything. When I try to log in , it says it cannot log in and to try again later. On Iberia, I can’t purchase Avios, and I am unable to transfer any Avios directly to Iberia from my credit card.

When I reached out to customer support, they said I needed at one Avios in my account to do any transferring. Anyone have any idea for a workaround or tips? Trying to book a flight to Spain.

Hi everyone, hoping to get some advice for a situation I’m in, as I’m pretty new to credit cards and points travel. Basically, I’m going on vacation and booked a flight with points on American with my Citi Executive AAdvantage World Elite Mastercard. It was 8,000 points each way for the flight round trip (total 16,000). I am flying in and out of a major international airport. To make things more convenient I booked a new flight home with JetBlue (and paid cash) so I don’t lose the whole last day (original flight was at 10am) of my vacation. My JetBlue flight is in the evening and flys into a local airport that’s closer to my home and smaller/easier to navigate.
\*note: American doesn’t fly out of the local airport unfortunately, or else I would’ve booked that.

I THOUGHT that American flights booked with points (thru the travel portal and with my card status) were cancellable basically until the day before. I tried to cancel my flight home to get back the 8,000 points one way and it is not possible. I even called and they said I need to cancel all legs of the flight and wait 2 days for points to come back to my card and then rebook the one way. Keep in mind this original flight has now gone up to 12,000 points one way. I’m so annoyed at this situation and don’t know what to do.

I can’t cancel the second flight I booked (nor do I want to). I don’t want to lose the 8,000 points for a flight I’m not planning to fly on. Not only is it me, but my kids and partner as well. I would lose out on a total of over 50,000 points (there’s 7 of us traveling).

American basically said there’s nothing they can do and I just need to suck it up. I don’t want to cancel and risk the flight soaring up before my points become available to rebook given it’s so soon that I leave.

Has anyone ever been in a situation like this? I just don’t get why American wouldn’t be able to refund me and cancel the returning flight home!! This is so ridiculous and beyond frustrating. I am actually going to close this credit card because I have never had smooth experiences flying American.