👋 Hi Reader,

Happy Saturday! Hope your weekend is off to a great start and an early Happy Father's Day to all the Dads! Here's some quick highlights from today's newsletter:

• 🌍 I Was Wrong About Travel Insurance
• 🛒 Up to $100 Off a Costco Membership
• 🍎 Earn Miles on New iPhones & MacBooks​​
• 🍿 Award Search Tool Built Into Google Flights
• 📦 Amazon Prime Day This Week
• ✈️ Avios Getting Harder to Use for Family & Friends​
• 📱 50% "App of the Day" Promo for CardPointers+

If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, I'd really appreciate it if you would forward this to a friend who might too! And if that's you, make sure to subscribe here. Thank you so much!

Chris

🌍 Do You Actually Need Travel Insurance?

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Learn exactly when you might need travel insurance and when your credit cards already have you covered. I'll go over the components of travel insurance, what coverage you get from your credit cards, and when it makes sense to buy additional protection.

💰 Use Your Taxes to Grow Your Wealth

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by… Gelt​

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📋 My Past Week

• We're still getting a ton of use from the standup paddle boards we got as a gift a few years ago. Thanks to the Dewalt Inflator, it only takes a few minutes to get them inflated and the girls love going out on the water. If you're in the Bay Area, the water is easy in Foster City and you can even rent gear if you don't want to buy your own.
• When we came back from Mexico, we used Global Entry's new walk-through camera tech. You just walk straight through immigration with no stopping at all (though the CBP officer did say "Welcome home Christopher"). I don't think Global Entry has ever been that slow, but this was so fast it was impressive. It's currently being piloted at SFO, BOS, DFW, JFK, PHL, and SEA.
• I've been slacking on fitness the past few weeks, but I've managed to get two runs in the past week and one sauna + cold plunge session. My goal is to get to 2x cardio, 3x strength, and 3x sauna each week, which is becoming a little easier in the summer when the girls don't have to get up so early for school.
• I spent most of this week building out a new mobile app for the credit card app I've been working on the past few months. The main features of the app are tracking all the recurring credits and comparing the benefits/earnings of all the cards in your wallet. There's about a dozen other features already, but I'm still not quite ready to put it in front of too many people. That said, I put up a waitlist you can sign up for here.
• My parents have kindly offered to watch our girls for a week next month (thanks Mom + Dad!), so my wife Amy and I doing a bit of last minute planning for a getaway. I'm surprised at the amount of award availability I'm seeing this summer for international business class, but hotel deals are a bit harder to come by. Hopefully we can find something amazing soon.

⭐ My Top Picks

📦 Amazon Prime Day Runs 6/23-6/26

Prime Day is back 6/23 through 6/26, and a bunch of early deals are already live. Also, if you have a Prime Visa, you should be able to get 7% back when you pick No-Rush Delivery and if you pay just 1 Amex Point, you might be able to get 50% off (usually capped at ~$80).

🍎 Earn Miles on New iPhones & MacBooks

Most airline shopping portals exclude current-year Apple products, but Air France/KLM just launched a dedicated Apple portal for US shoppers that earns 1x to 4x Flying Blue miles per dollar on virtually everything, including the latest iPhones and MacBooks. If you're already planning an Apple purchase, it's an easy way to stack some extra miles.

🛒 Up to $100 Off a Costco Membership

Groupon is offering Costco memberships ($65 Gold Star or $130 Executive) that come with a Costco.com coupon for $50 or $100 off. The offer is good for new members (or anyone lapsed 18+ months ago). You can also stack an Amex Offer or Rakuten/Cash Back to save more.

📱 CardPointers: App of the Day + 50% Off (Till 6/21)

​CardPointers was Apple's App of the Day this week and to celebrate, CardPointers+ is 50% off until tomorrow (6/21). This is an awesome deal because I've easily earned $500+ from the card-linked offers that the app automatically activates for you across all your cards. They also have a great browser extension that reminds you when you have offers to use on different online retailers.

✈️ Qatar Tightens Award Bookings for Family & Friends

I was about to use some of my Avios points to book a flight to Fiji this week through Qatar's program when I noticed that I couldn't book flights for anyone but me. Turns out that morning they stopped letting you book for any other travelers unless you have earned Avios by flying Qatar or have their co-branded credit card. This is a huge negative change, given that they have a handful of sweet spots for international business class and frequent transfer bonuses. Full details here.

🍿 My Recommendation: PointsPath

Points Path is absolutely my highest ROI browser extension, because it shows you flight award prices right on Google Flights. The free version will show you the miles needed for flights on Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue and United. There are also a paid tiers ($35-80/yr) that include price tracking alerts, 7-day calendar searchers, and adjusts for United/Delta cardmember pricing. The Pro tier has more than paid for itself for me, so definitely give it a try (there's a 3mo free trial) and if you like it, you can get 15% off with the code ALLTHEHACKS15.

📰 The Rest of the Week

I hope the rest of summer isn't this light on deals/news...

💳 Credit Cards & Points

• Popular Bank: New Miami Airport Lounge in $94M Outbid — Will probably be very nice, but might take 2 years to open.
• IHG: Last Chance on Two 100K+ Offers (Ends 6/25) — Not interesting to me, but good offers if you want an IHG card.
• Wells Fargo: Attune Card No Longer Accepting Applicants — This was an interesting card, so I'm curious what's next at WF.
• Wyndham: New Earner Premier Card, $395 Fee, 120K Bonus — I'm not interested in Wyndham, so not interested here.

💎 Award Deals

• 🇳🇱 Amsterdam: Biz From 60K Flying Blue via KLM​
• 🇦🇷 Argentina: Biz to Buenos Aires From 50K Alaska​
• 🇪🇺 Europe: Wide-Open Delta One From 115K SkyMiles​
• 🇮🇹 Italy: Biz on Seattle to Rome From 57.5K AA​
• 🇯🇴 Jordan: Royal Jordanian Biz to Amman From 70K AA​
• 🇻🇬 Necker Island: 3 Nights for ~577K points​

💬 Parting Thoughts

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

Chris