Protect Your Travel

Well, it was a bit of a rough week for travelers. Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop led to thousands of cancelled flights and disrupted travel plans for countless fliers.  

When circumstances beyond your control prevent you from flying, credit cards can come to the rescue. Sometimes. Whether they’ll help depends on what caused the delay and how you paid for the trip.

For instance, Amex once picked up a last-minute hotel bill after a big Amtrak service cancellation. But that was caused by an equipment failure—the trains weren’t running after a power outage caused by a lightning strike. Amex’s trip delay guide lists the carrier’s equipment failure as a covered loss. Capital One’s Visa Infinite guide, which applies to the Venture X Visa, just says “equipment failure.” Do either of those include an FAA communications outage? 🤷‍♂️ It is probably worth asking, just don’t expect every possible travel disruption to be covered. 

For a general overview of card benefits, check out The Points Guy’s write-ups of credit card trip cancellation/interruption and trip delay benefits. But before you book, pull up your card’s guide to see exactly which delays it covers and what you need to be eligible, especially if you’re booking with points. And if you get stuck, ask the airline for the reason in writing if they don’t provide one and save your receipts.

I usually book with points and keep my plans flexible, so I am usually comfortable relying on credit card benefits and covering any non-covered expenses out of pocket, although I will sometimes prioritize using cards with stronger protections even if another card might offer more points. But if missing a trip would mean losing a big nonrefundable payment, or getting home late could leave you with a bill you can’t comfortably absorb, it’s worth looking into a separate travel insurance policy that covers that risk. 

This week on the blog 📝

No new post this week—a Veterans Day thank you to everyone who has served. The holiday prompted me to update my post about military credit card fee waivers and the best cards to maximize them.  

Quick Points of the Week ⚡

Major News 🚨

AAdvantage launched a big flash sale this week. Deals included Japan, Europe, and Australia for 50k points or less round-trip. Unfortunately, it’s already over. So why mention it? Because it could signal a big change in the value of AA (and transfer partner Citi) points. AA already offered the best overall everyday availability and pricing out there, in my opinion. But now we’re also seeing big, conspicuously announced sales. This time, AA sent several emails to my inbox to let me know about it and generated coverage on the big points sites. Everyday value plus occasional, accessible bargains is a powerful combination that could keep AAdvantage competitive with Alaska while putting distance between other programs like Delta (big flash sales, but largely unpublicized), United (weak everyday value and extremely rare bargains), and the other programs that typically have high fees and/or tricky availability.   

More value 📈

Transfer Amex points to Fanatics. Amex points are worth just 1¢ each at the sports apparel and gear store, but it looks like a pretty easy redemption option, especially with Amex where the easy road—like statement credits or hotel bookings—can often produce much less value. (TPG)

Enter to Win 🎟️ 

Guess where Phil Rosenthal will eat, win a trip. United is sponsoring the next season of Somebody Feed Phil, and is giving MileagePlus members chances to win a trip to visit one of his filming locations if they can guess which United destinations he’ll visit in Season 9. As a fan, I couldn’t lay off this one (Sapporo? 🤞🤞🤞). (United)

New partnerships 🤝

Bilt teams up with Lowe’s. You can earn an extra Bilt point per dollar when shopping at Lowe’s (no Bilt card needed) or redeem Bilt Cash for HomeCare+, a service that helps with certain home tasks like filter replacements. (Frequent Miler)

Book SpotHero parking with Uber. The rideshare and food delivery giant added the ability to book parking following its acquisition of SpotHero—making the Uber Cash benefit on some Amex cards slightly more flexible and valuable. (Doctor of Credit)

Alaska Airlines partners with GOL. Atmos Rewards members will be able to redeem points for flights with the Brazilian airline in 2027. No word yet on redemption rates, but if they’re decent this could be big for award travel to South America. (Alaska Airlines) 

Sign-up bonuses of the week 🎯

Links marked with an * are affiliate or referral links, meaning we may earn if you apply via our link. 

I did something a little crazy this week: I signed up for a second Atmos Summit. I saw a few reports online that people who signed up for the card when it first came out were being approved for second cards—and bonuses. And I thought, “if one card is great, why not two?” So I gave it a shot. For science. 🧪 The new card is now in the mail. 

The main reason to take the leap, of course, was the 100,000-point sign up bonus. I’m constantly booking trips to Japan for 75,000 Atmos points round-trip, so the bonus alone easily justifies the initial fee. Long term? The card still might make sense. 

I value the annual 25k companion discount at about $300, offsetting the $395 annual fee. With two, I could easily book a 50k Global Getaway round-trip each year and bring my wife along for just the cost of taxes and fees. Add in four Alaska lounge passes each quarter (it helps that there’s a great Alaska lounge at my home airport) and enough “status points” to keep elite status next year even if I do nothing more than renew my cards, and it looks like a worthwhile experiment if I really do get to double dip on all those benefits.

That’s a big if, and I’ll believe it works when I see it. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend anyone pursue the two-Summit strategy. But even one card is pretty great, and the 100k offer is “ending soon,” so if you’re interested, now would be a great time to check it out. 

Honorable Mention

The Amazon Prime Visa is offering a $200 Amazon gift card at approval, no minimum spend required. This is a very useful card, with no annual fee plus 5% back at Amazon, Whole Foods, and Chase Travel and a respectable 2% back on restaurants, gas, and local commuting. 

I’m not a huge fan of this card, simply because you can get bigger bonuses elsewhere and the incremental value of the 5% back on Amazon purchases might not be that high if you have a strong everyday-spending card like the Capital One Venture X or Bilt Palladium—unless you spend a lot on Amazon. And around the holidays, a lot of cards have merchant or spending offers that can offset a lot of the Amazon card’s advantage. But for heavy Amazon users the elevated earning rate could pay off over time, and offers this high are relatively rare, so this could be a good time to pick up the card. 🔥

Other great sign-up bonuses this week

100k points + 25k companion discount on the Atmos Summit (our take: 🔥🔥🔥) ends soon

50,000 points + $300 Bilt Cash + Bilt Gold status on the Bilt Palladium (and a last chance to lock in Flexible Bilt Cash 🔥🔥🔥) 

70k points + a free night certificate on the Hilton Honors (our take: 🔥🔥)

200k points on the Hilton Aspire (our take: 🔥🔥)

75k points + $300 stays credit on the Capital One Venture (our take: 🔥🔥)

180k points on the IHG Premier (our take: 🔥)

70-90k miles on United credit cards (our take: 🔥)

80k points + $99 companion fare on the Atmos Ascent (our take: 🔥) 

200k points on the IHG Premier Select (our take: 🔥) ends soon

70k miles + elite status on the Air France KLM Visa (our take: 🔥)

Up to 100/175k on the Amex Gold/Platinum (our take)

How we rate bonus offers. 

Lazy Pick ✅ (Referral)

Earn $50 when signing up for Rakuten and spending $50. The holiday shopping season is a great time to check out Rakuten, which is still offering its best-ever sign up offer (although it’s been this high for ages now). Rakuten is my default shopping portal—I use the Safari extension to get a heads-up when cashback is available—and I prefer it because it’s pretty easy to use and I can get my rewards in Bilt or Amex points. Plus you can refer friends and you both can earn more cash back. Just remember there are other shopping portal options out there, and for big purchases I always recommend looking for the best deal on an aggregator like Cashback Monitor. (If you sign up for Rakuten via my link, I’ll also earn cash back if you do. Thanks for your support!)

Enjoy the weekend! 🦥

I got 4x on “restaurants” on my quart of Apple cider with my Amex Gold at the apple orchard last week. 🍎 Your mileage may vary, but there’s still a little autumn left if you want to try! 🍁

Sometimes we include referral or affiliate links (we’ll mark them clearly). If you use them, we may earn a commission—never at extra cost to you. We do our best to share great offers, but always double-check for the best deal available. Thanks for supporting LazyPoints 🦥