Over the past six or seven months, countless losses have rained on our parade: the US Bank Smartly card departed, the Hilton devalued aspirational properties not once but twice, ANA announced that it would scrub its Round the World Award Chart, the Altitude Reserve card stopped taking applications, and the Pepper app seems to have taken an extended and unexpected hiatus.
On the other hand, those looking from a different angle have seen a full rainbow of opportunities in the same window: we recently saw a shopping portal offer 30,000 points for signing up for a credit card, Amex has continued offering huge bonuses (both referrals and welcome bonuses), 100K has become the standard “good” welcome offer, and we saw an airline offer one million miles for flying its partners.
If you focus on the opportunities that have gone by the wayside, it is easy to get depressed. If you focus on the new opportunities that come around and on striking while the iron is hot, you can find yourself striking a lot of iron (and every now and then some gold!). I’ve been in this game long enough to have scored many deals that I’ll never get again, but I can smile at the memories knowing that I got them while I could — and I’ll go after the next one to come along. Moral of the story: be a blacksmith. Strike that iron and move on to the next one.
This week on the blog, you’ll find a checklist of those opportunities to hit while you can, the latest on the most powerful award search tools, a way to pile on points through your mortgage, and a lot more.
This week on the Frequent Miler blog…
(Reminder re new bag policy) End of an era: Southwest charging for bags, adding Basic Economy, flight credits expiring in 6-12 months
We re-posted this reminder this week as it is top of mind, with the major changes set to take effect in just a couple of days. Book now (before 5/27) for 2 free bags or cancel now (before 5/27) to receive a credit that doesn’t expire. Starting in just a few days, Southwest’s customer-friendly policies will be a thing of the past. Those with a Southwest credit card will feel less sting, but Southwest as we have known it will soon depart.
Big changes are coming: Top miles and points to-do’s.
Lately, I’ve been experiencing some anxiety about what I’m going to forget to do until it’s too late, so I decided to put together a post I can stay on top of limited-time opportunities and remind myself to use those monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual credits while I’m at it.
Citi to cut cash back redemption rate to 0.75c per point for Strata Premier & Prestige
One of those things to keep track of is the date when Citi will reduce the cash redemption rate of Thank You points for those with a Strata Premier. However, you don’t necessarily need to feel much pressure to redeem yet: those who have their Strata Premier points pooled with a cash back card like the Citi Double Cash or the Citi Custom Cash will still be able to redeem for $0.01 per point through those cards.
Citi to release new Strata card, “replacing” Rewards+
Citi is releasing a new Strata card. The news is good for those who want an almost-as-good-as-the-Strata Premier card without an annual fee. Unfortunately for Rewards+ fans, this new Strata card not only replaces the Rewards+ in the lineup, but it even existing cardholders are being force-converted to the new Strata and will eventually lose the Rewards+ card’s round up and 10% redemption rebate features.
The Day United’s Excursionist Perk Died
A long, long time ago,
I can still remember how that UA Perk used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance,
That I could make my miles dance
And maybe I’d be flying free for a while.
But August 21, 2025 made me shiver,
With every email I delivered.
Bad news on the website,
I couldn’t redeem one more time.
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read that UA’s killed free rides,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the Excursionist Perk died.
The end of the points & miles game? | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep307 | 5-23-25 | Podcast
If you read the bad news above and you find yourself starting to think that “this game is dead”, you ought to listen to Greg and I discuss that take on this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air. Anyone who has been around this hobby for a decade has heard folks lament the death of the hobby almost every year — and yet I’ll have traveled more (and with more passengers!) over the last two years than I have over any other two years in my entire life thanks to the fact that opportunities still abound.
Mesa Homeowners Card: Earn transferable points on mortgage payments (Now with 50K welcome offer)
I don’t typically include credit card intro bonuses in week in review (you can always find the best bonuses on our Best Offers page), but this seemed worth a call-out since Mesa recently launched without a welcome offer and now it offers both the opportunity to earn points for your mortgage (no matter how you pay for it)Â and a 50K welcome bonus. The transfer partners aren’t great, but it wouldn’t be hard to make great use of points for paying your mortgage.
Bilt now awards points when paying rent with most credit cards (Rates for many to be cut by 50%)
At the other end of the spectrum on earning points for your residence, Bilt Rewards recently began offering the opportunity to pat your rent with almost any credit card and earn Bilt points doing it. Unfortunately, the earning rate is being reduced for Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cards already. This is still a good opportunity for many to easily meet spending requirements, but it is disappointing to see this get cut so fast.
How to transfer Avios between British Airways, Qatar, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair and Loganair
Avios is a highly unique currency in that this same frequent flyer currency is shared by a number of major airlines, so while in most cases it is not possible to move miles from one airline to another, the Avios programs are a notable exception. This guide to moving your Avios around has been updated to note the re-emergence of Avios.com as an option for moving between several different programs.
Which hotel award search tool is best?
This comparison post has been expanded to now include Gondola, which has been emerging as a strong contender now that they no longer require email access. Gondola has some strong positives going for it, though they really need to expand into alerts next in order to more fully compete with other tools. Still, Gondola has been impressively quick to make changes so far, so I expect to see more coming from them.
Seats.aero: a wonderfully nerdy tool for finding Unicorn flight awards
Seats.aero just keeps getting deeper into the weeds, now adding JetBlue Move to Mint upgrade certificate availability and more and more frequent flyer programs. There’s something I love about how the makers of this tool aren’t wasting time on prettifying the interface but rather are innovating more and more ways that they can deliver value to those who primarily care about finding great awards.
How to fix a schedule change misconnection via Virgin Atlantic / Air France
I am typing this week in review aboard an Air France flight from New York to Paris to kick off a vacation about which I am very much excited (follow along on Instagram as I’ll surely be posting pics and video as well as info about how I booked stuff). That excitement is in part because this trip isn’t just my immediate family but rather we are a party of eight. Kicking the trip off was an Air France flight last night where we originally had all of us in business class on the same flight. Unfortunately, a schedule change broke our itinerary and meant that we would miss our connection. Getting this fixed so that I could be writing this while en route to Europe took far more phone calls and more than a little stress in trying to figure out what we were going to do if this didn’t get resolved in time. The good news is that this post has the information you’ll need to get your broken Air France itinerary fixed with about 10 minutes of effort (hopefully!).
Hashing out Hilton’s Devaluation | Coffee Break Ep56 | 5-20-25 | Podcast
Hilton recently made headlines for massive devaluations to many of the most aspirational properties for which you can redeem Hilton Honors points. Worse yet, in some cases this was the second large increase in award rate in six months. On the other hand, not all properties increased in price and many of these super high end properties still yield better-than-reasonable-redemption value for Hilton points. Listen to this week’s Coffee Break as Greg and I debate how bad this is and what it means for our faith in Hilton Honors.
Marriott’s historic Dearborn Inn: Awesome, but with an elite breakfast problem
I’ve always said to anyone who will listen that Greg is a really good guy. He treats people well, tries to do the right thing, and is a serial optimist / benefit-of-the-doubter. Because of that, I think Greg went too easy on the Dearborn Inn for blatantly refusing to honor elite benefits. Greg’s stay sounded great and this place looks like a good value on points, but I hate that they are lying to guests about what they are due. I know that Greg’s primary goal in how he approached this property’s failure to honor Marriott benefits was to get this fixed for other members and Greg knows very well that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. However, unfortunately, unless this starts hitting the property in the pocketbook in the form of members making them pay up for failing to provide benefits, they’ll continue to benefit from the Marriott marketing machine while ignoring the rules and give responses like the TripAdvisor one quoted by a reader in the comments. Letting them get off with comping breakfast only for the squeakiest of wheels who are willing to follow up with a manager makes it easy for them to continue business as usual. Costing them $200 (and then spending that $200 treating strangers to breakfast for free somewhere else!) and encouraging others to do the same is probably more likely to motivate a change.
World of Hyatt Complete Guide (2025)
Our complete guide to everything you need to know about the Hyatt program and has been fully updated for 2025.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye on our month-ending last chance deals to take advantage of them before they expire.
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