👋 Hi Reader,

Happy Saturday! Big thanks to everyone who sent feedback on the new format for the newsletter. I read (and replied) to every one. Special thanks to Rob, who said he missed hearing more of my commentary on everything, which inspired me to add a lot more of my takes below. Here's a quick highlight of what's below:

• 🇯🇵 Tips from booking our Japan Spring Break trip
• 💳 Best-ever 150K bonus on a personal travel card
• 🎁 10% off Disney and Southwest Gift Cards
• 💵 Rakuten's week of deals offering 15% back
• 📉 Two more airline devaluations coming
• 😔 Amex's disappointing Gold Card "refresh"
• 🔄 Four New Transfer Bonuses and more!

If you've been forwarded this, you can subscribe here. And if you have a friend who'd find this useful, I'd be grateful if you sent it along.

Chris

🇯🇵 Saving $30K+ on the Perfect Japan Trip

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I'll break down how I booked four nonstop business class seats and a week at the Park Hyatt Tokyo entirely on points. I'll also break down the strategy I used, key takeaways from the trip and how I built an AI-powered trip planner, and more.

📚 Give Mom a Gift Worth Keeping Forever

Today's newsletter is brought to you by… Storyworth​

My mom was programming mainframe computers in COBOL before I was born. I found that out almost by accident, and it made me realize how many family stories would be gone if nobody asked.

That's what Storyworth is for. Every week it sends your mom a question about her life, and she can respond by email, phone, or voice (no apps, no passwords). After a year, every story becomes a hardcover book your family keeps forever.

Mother's Day is May 10th, order now and save up to $20 at chrishutchins.com/storyworth.

📋 My Past Week

• Last weekend we went to a local high school track to have a family race. Our kids had to do 2 laps faster than we could do 4, which seemed like an easy win for us, but our oldest actually beat us. As the winner she decided to make us run extra laps as punishment. Given that I’ve been slacking on exercise the past few weeks, it was probably well needed.
• Yesterday morning our whole house started smelling like burnt rubber or fresh asphalt. We assumed it was a road getting repaved until my wife walked by the laundry room and realized it was our washing machine, which had previously been running a normal load. By the time we figured it out, it was dead and wouldn’t turn on. We bought it 5.5 years ago and now have to decide whether it’s worth paying $425 to get it repaired or pay 2-3x to get a new one. I equally hate the idea of spending so much for a new appliance AND spending so much to repair something that could die again next year. What would you do?
• A few years ago, I started setting up recurring calendar events with a few good friends that I wasn’t great at staying in touch with. We put them on the calendar every 6-12 weeks, with the expectation that either one of us can move or cancel them. They often get canceled, but this week I ended up spending an hour catching up with a good friend and getting a tour of his new bookstore in Columbus, Ohio. If you’re ever in town, check it out: ​Clintonville Books​.

⭐ My Top Picks

💳 Best-Ever 150K Bonus On a Top Personal Card

A popular bank's top personal travel card just rolled out a best-ever welcome offer: 150,000 transferrable points after $6K spend in 3 months. I find these points worth at least 1.5¢/point, which means this welcome offer could be worth $2,250 or more! Learn more here.

🎁 Sam's Club: 10% Off Disney + Southwest GCs

Sam's Club is running two 10% gift card promos this weekend (through 5/3). Both gifts cards have no expiration.

• ​Disney $500 eGift for $450 (limit 2)​
• ​Southwest $500 eGift for $450 (limit 5)​

If you've got a Disney trip or any upcoming Southwest travel, these are a fantastic deal. If you're looking for other gift card deals, you can find 5-12% off a handful of brands on my gift card site as well (though even I can't beat the Sam's Club deals above).

🔄 Four New Transfer Bonuses This Week

• Amex → Hilton at 20% (5/30)
• Capital One → Qantas at 20% (5/31)
• Popular Bank → Marriott at 65% (5/15)
• Popular Bank → Flying Blue at 20% (5/27)

For the right booking, every single one of these transfer bonuses could be a great deal. In fact, I regularly book awards with Hilton, Marriott and Flying Blue. However, these bonuses just aren't compelling enough to warrant a speculative transfer with no specific booking in mind. But if you do have a booking in mind, these could be a great opportunity.

😔 Amex Gold Card: Disappointing New Offers/Perks

To celebrate the Gold Card's 60th anniversary, Amex rolled out a handful of promotional offers. My favorites are: 50% back on CLEAR+, $96 off Uber One, $50 off HBO Max, and $30 off $100 at Williams Sonoma. The card also added a few new perks: 5x on prepaid hotels (via Amex Travel), Hertz Five Star status, and Buffalo Wild Wings now eligible on the dining credit. Overall, it was an underwhelming "card refresh".

🛍️ Rakuten Big Give Week: 15% Back 5/4–5/11

This week is Rakuten's Big Give Week, which will come with an elevated 15% back at hundreds of stores, including: Adidas, Bombas, Columbia, DSW, Expedia, Kate Spade Outlet, KitchenAid, LEGO, Lenovo, PetSmart, Puma, Ray-Ban, Sonos, Ulta and more.

I'm a big fan of Rakuten because you can earn your cash back in the form of Amex or Bilt points. And if you haven't joined yet, new members can use a referral link (here's mine) to earn a $50 bonus (or 5,000 points) after spending $50.

📉 Avianca + Aeroplan Both Devalue Awards

Two transfer-partner devaluations landed back-to-back:

• Avianca LifeMiles raised partner award prices unannounced, with many Europe biz seats now 90K+ one-way (up from 63K historically). More info here.
• Air Canada Aeroplan's new chart goes live 6/1, with long-haul biz/first up 20-67%. More info here.

Virgin Atlantic and Hyatt also recently devalued, so consider this your reminder to use your points before they get devalued again.

✈️ Spirit Airlines Has Ceased Operations

Spirit shut down at 3am ET today. If you had a flight booked, don't head to the airport expecting to fly. Credit/debit bookings will be refunded to the original payment method, but Free Spirit points and vouchers will go through bankruptcy court (and are likely gone). You can find capped/discounted "rescue fares" here: United, JetBlue, Southwest and Frontier (American/Delta said they've reduced fares on many Spirit routes too). Unfortunately travel insurance rarely covers airline default.

🍿 My Recommendation

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I wouldn't call myself a "runner" and I certainly never ran track or cross country at school. Yet it still feels crazy to think through what it took for Sabastian Sawe to run a sub-two hour marathon. If you want a breakdown of some of the crazy stats about his pacing in the race, you'll definitely enjoy this video.

📰 The Rest of the Week

💳 Credit Cards & Points

• Citi: AAdvantage Platinum 80K Bonus + No AF Yr 1 - AA miles are hard to come by and there's no annual fee, so I like this.
• Citi: Ending ThankYou Points Sharing 5/17 (last day 5/16) – This is disappointing, but transferred Citi points have always expired after 90 days, so it wasn't an exciting feature to begin with.
• IHG: Two New Best-Ever Bonuses – I don't stay at IHG much, so not interesting to me.
• Royal Caribbean: New Royal ONE & ONE Plus Cards – I've only been on one cruise ever, so not exciting for me.
• Wells Fargo: Adds Cathay Pacific as 1:1 Partner – LOVE this addition, and excited to see Wells becoming an increasingly attractive points program.

✈️ Airline News & Promos

• Delta: No More Free CLEAR+ for Diamond Elites – You can still get free CLEAR+ with Amex Plat, Biz Plat, Green and Aspire.
• Flying Blue: 25% Off Economy from 11 NA Cities (book by 5/31)
• Frontier: Summer GoWild Pass $199 (through 9/30) – I've never flown Frontier, but you do, this could be a good deal.
• JetBlue: Adds China Airlines as Redemption Partner – I love that JetBlue keep adding new partners to redeem points on.
• TSA: Back to Normal after 76-Day Shutdown Ends​
• United: Polaris Biz on Transcon + HNL Routes – Excited to check this out if they have low cost biz awards on these routes.

💎 Award Deals

• 🇧🇶 Bonaire: AA Econ MIA→BON from 7.5K Atmos​
• 🇩🇪 Germany: Lufthansa Biz from 60K Aeroplan (BOS/NYC/PHL)
• 🇪🇸 Madrid: Iberia Biz from 40.5K Atmos/Avios​
• 🇨🇳 Shanghai: Delta Biz from 104K Flying Blue (SEA/LAX/DTW)

🔗 Card-Linked Offers

• Amex: Viator $35 Back on $350, Use 2x (5/31)
• Amex: CVS 10% Back, Up to $10 (5/31)
• Amex: Best Western $50 Back on $250 (7/31)
• Citi: Hertz $75 Back on $325 (targeted, 6/30)
• Citi: 10% Back on Lyft, Max $10 (6/30)
• Popular Bank: 10% on Home Improvement (up to $15, 5/31)

To find and activate offers across all your cards in one place, I love using CardPointers (30% off here)

🏦 Bank / Brokerage / Crypto Bonuses

• Associated Bank: $600 Checking Bonus (9-state, 5/31)
• OKX: 2–3% Crypto Deposit Match, 30-Wk Hold – This is a decent bonus, but all my crypto is still locked up from a Robinhood bonus last year.
• PNC: Business Checking Up to $1,000 (select states, 6/30)
• Popular Bank: Total Checking $900 Bonus (7/15) –

🛋️ New Lounges

• Cathay: The Wing First Class Reopens at HKG​
• HNL: 3 New Lounges Coming from AS, DL, WN​
• SkyTeam: New Flagship Lounge Opens at FRA T3​

💬 Parting Thoughts

Thanks so much for reading! Hit reply and let me know what you think – I read every response. 🙏

Chris