Find Flights for Me Recap: Week ending 1/11/26

If you somehow don’t know, Bilt is a loyalty platform that also has a credit card that is known for letting you earn points when paying rent with no transaction fee. However, there is a major upcoming change called Bilt 2.0 where Bilt’s credit cards will be issued by Cardless instead of Wells Fargo. This is because Wells Fargo couldn’t figure out how to make money with the agreement due to their incompetence (they assumed people who like points will carry a balance to pay interest to the tune of 50-75% of balances would be charged interest!!!).

Bilt 2.0 will include three new credit cards (no fee to premium annual fee) and allow users to earn points on mortgages. Actual details to be released this week on January 14. However, there have been some “leaks”, creating a lot of speculation and uproar (mainly due to uncertainty) around what perks and earn rates the cards will offer and speculation that paying rent will no longer be fee-free. Reddit has been insufferable fun the last few days as people are getting all upset for no reason since we still don’t know the full details!

I personally don’t have a Bilt card but I do have a free account on the Bilt platform. For details on the rumors and leaks, check out the countless posts below from other blogs or Richard Kerr himself.

One Mile at a Time

View from the Wing

The Points Guy

Richard Kerr’s Instagram

Today is the last day to transfer Capital One to Emirates at a 1:1 rate before it drops to 4:3 rate. Emirates has been speed-running devaluing their program in the past year with 1) worse transfer rates from credit cards to Emirates, 2) raising award fees on their fifth freedom routes, and 3) limiting first class awards to Emirates elite members.

There is still potentially good value at 1:1 transfers on these fifth freedom routes (EWR-ATH and JFK-MXP) including booking business and hoping to upgrade to first near check-in or booking economy for 30k points and immediately upgrading to business and saving ~$300 on tax/fees and 18k points. However, you won’t be able to then upgrade to first class later (well you shouldn’t be able to at least.

To book an Emirates economy award and then immediately upgrade to business, you will need to book the Flex Plus economy award and see if there is an “Upgrade available” option. It takes some manual searching but there are dates.

Disclaimer: I have personally never done this but some commentary I have seen on social media has indicated this will work. FlyerTalk also says this should work.

This philosophy and mindset will help you find deals and save money. Always be checking for award flights if you are eyeing a specific day and/or route, always check to see if you should rebook your hotel or flight to save money, always check your credit card offers (like Amex and Chase offers), and always be checking for cash upgrade offers if you are in economy (even if booked with points).

ABC just helped me essentially book a one-way business class flight from Taipei to the US for $1,200 one way last month. It’s also helped me find award space to share for everyone or for myself.

Story time: Yours truly was ready to fly economy for an 11 hour TPAC flight! I had no flexibility with the date I could fly back and there were no saver awards + I didn’t want to reposition. So I booked a one-way regular economy flight from TPE-SFO-DCA on United for $355/person. Can’t beat that price! After booking, I check the upgrade offer immediately, and United wanted $10,000 per person for Polaris. No thanks.

I had been checking the prices at least once a day. Then boom. United was only asking $847 per person to upgrade to Polaris. I pulled the trigger immediately. Importantly, these types of upgrades are generally non-refundable. So make sure you’re committed to flying!

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The Good

1) Pricing for one-way international flights seems to price into lower fare buckets now. It recently allowed me book a one-way from TPE-SFO-DCA for $355 a person. I am seeing this trend on US-Europe routes too. Generally, airlines nudged us to buy round-trip tickets because booking a one-way ticket on an international itinerary usually priced in a higher fare bucket, even if a lower bucket was available. I’m not smart enough to explain the intricacies of this but it comes down to airline revenue management likely assuming someone else is footing the bill on a one-way international ticket (business travel?) and is price-insensitive. Crankly Flier has a unique perspective found here.

Thrifty Traveler recently provided some details on this trend in this article. This is a big win for travelers in my mind (is this a recession indicator though?) as it creates a lot more flexibility with how we can travel, including when using points. Now, I may be inclined to book a business class award (to sleep) from US-Europe, and book a reasonable economy cash fare from Europe-US in economy (daytime flight).

2) American Airlines leaves the 2010s behind and is now offering free wifi on most of its aircraft. Previously, AA would charge some random amount ranging from $8 to $50 even if your flight was an hour long…

3) Charlotte (CLT) fliers have a shiny new lounge on the way with Capital One planning to open their largest lounge yet in Concourse A. Maybe it will open sometime in 2027 or 2028 though (View from the Wing)

4) New planes = new routes. Starlux just got a shiny new A350-1000 and plans to fly to Europe in 2H26. They’re hoping to fly to the US East Coast as well once they get more deliveries (pls be IAD). Alaska Airlines also received its first 787 delivery and held a cool unveiling in Seattle (Live and Let’s Fly) and placed additional orders with Boeing. It will help Alaska further expand flights to Asia and Europe.

The Bad

1) Chase in late 2025 pulls major shenanigans with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Points boost used to allow one to redeem points at 2cpp at The Edit hotels and up to 2cpp for other airline and hotel bookings through the Chase Portal. However, Chase devalued that proposition and is now claiming “up to 2cpp” for The Edit and is pretending like it was always the plan that it could change. Frequent Miler with some details.

2) Capital One will no longer allowing complimentary guests into the lounge starting February 1. You will need to pay $45 or pay an annual fee of $125 for a special authorized user card for P2-PX to enter. This also impacts any authorized user cards when it comes to Priority Pass membership.

3) Recently-expired Hyatt free night certificates can be converted into Hyatt points by calling. You can still do this, but you will receive fewer points. Cat 1-4 certificate goes from 10k→2.5k and Cat 1-7 goes from 20k→5k.

Visit Belgium or connect through Brussels and fly elsewhere on Brussels Airlines. Business class starts at 60k points one-way through Air Canada.

Book through:
Air Canada Aeroplan: Starting at 60k points one way
Avianca LifeMiles: 69k points one way
United MileagePlus: 80-88k points one way

JFK-BRU
January: 15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 26, 31
February: 1, 2, 5, 16, 23
March: 2
July: 26, 28, 29
August: 8, 10, 11

BRU-JFK
January: 15, 17, 18, 22, 24, 29, 31
February: 2, 5, 6, 12, 25-27
March: 4-6, 11, 13, 18, 25, 26, 30, 31
April: 1, 14, 15, 16
May: 2, 5, 7, 8, 12, 19, 21, 27, 28, 29
June: 2, 9, 10, 11, 16-18, 23
August: 28

IAD-BRU
July: 11, 18, 20, 25-27
August: 2, 3, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 19

BRU-IAD
April: 10, 14, 16, 17, 24
May: 1, 5, 19, 22, 26, 29
August: 19, 22, 24, 26, 29, 31
September: 2, 5, 9, 12, 16

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