Find Flights for Me Recap: Week ending 10/12/25

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This is probably the biggest news of the week. We probably saw a sneak peek that Rakuten will, in the future, let you get paid out in Bilt points. This week, /u/grackychan on Reddit shared they saw Rakuten updating their FAQs around payment options - and that Bilt was a new option. Currently, Rakuten users can have their cashback paid out through a physical check, by Paypal, or as American Express points.

This is a potential huge win (if this comes true) for Rakuten users as Bilt points have a lot more unique options compared to American Express. It’s also generally harder to get Bilt points as their card doesn’t offer a traditional sign up bonus compared to churning Amex biz cards. Some key Bilt transfer partners include Hyatt, JAL, Emirates, United, and Alaska. I’m definitely switching to Bilt if it becomes a payout option for my own points.

Not familiar with Rakuten? It’s a way to earn cashback or Amex points (and likely Bilt points soon) from shopping online at popular retailers or even booking hotels. My write-up explanation can be found here, or check it out directly on Rakuten’s site (they have a potential $100 bonus if you sign up with them!). If you’re signing up for the first time, you may want to skip a referral and join directly and use the browser extension. You can get $100 back after you make 3x $35+ purchases within your first 30 days. If you don’t want to download the browser extension, I do have a spend $50 get $50 referral.

Emirates is making some business decisions that aren’t great for award travelers. This is another blow after Emirates started restricting first-class awards only to elite members earlier this May (The Points Guy).

Last month, American Express transfer rates to Emirates changed from 1:1 to 5:4. In late July, Citi underwent the same change. Chase is not playing ball and has decided to remove Emirates as a transfer partner starting on 10/16 (don’t wait until midnight, it could be earlier). If you are looking to book some last-minute Emirates award flights using Chase points, this is the time to do so.

Some of the usual sweet spots were already drying up as well. Emirates earlier this year raised the fees to book some of their prior sweet spots (JFK/MXP, EWR/ATH) where the taxes/fees from an award used to be around ~$100 a ticket is now $430+!!! (The Points Analyst). Emirates seems to be dead-set on nuking their award program.

Amazon occasionally has targeted offers where, if you redeem some credit card points, you can get a discount on your order. These discounts can be fairly sizable at up to 50% off up to a certain dollar amount. Check directly on Amazon if you have any targeted offers. Your card will need to be linked to your Amazon account already to view potential promos. Otherwise, check other links targeting certain cards such as Amex, Chase, Capital One, and Discover here on MilesTalk. Users on Reddit have gotten some good offers, including using 1 Amex point for 50% off for up to $80 off!

Well, I have definitely been living under a rock for someone who has written about soccer a bunch in the last few weeks. Apparently, the Champions League tournament format changed this year. It used to have traditional group stages like in the World Cup. Now, it has a round-robin tournament-style rule. Anyways, you could potentially snag cheap tickets to a game this year, including catching European heavyweights Bayern München square off against PSG in Paris. I love using points for experiences and Qatar’s program has some unique options that center around soccer and Formula One. Bidding for the Bayern/PSG game on Nov. 4 is with Qatar Avios, and it’s fairly cheap as of the time of sharing (15k points). Here’s a list of other Qatar Airways experiences as well. Ian from Seats.Aero redeemed 600k points earlier this year to attend a Formula 1 race in Barcelona 👀.

On the topic of soccer, American Airlines today at 11am ET is offering the ability to redeem AA miles for tickets to the upcoming World Cup next summer for Concierge Key and Executive Platinum members. Tomorrow it will be available for anyone else with elite status and Wednesday open to anyone with an AA account. Redemptions are for 2 tickets and start at 75k miles for a package. Details can be found directly on AA Vacations’ site here. However, is it worth it to redeem hard-earned AA miles? That’s up for you to decide. The opportunity cost of AA miles is high in my view as you could book JAL business class from North America/Asia for 60k miles if you can find it or even Etihad’s First Class on the A380 for 115k points. It might be better paying cash prices, including buying one of those FIFA right-to-buy packages to lock in the ability to get tickets for a game. Check out my analysis here with estimated CPP redemption rates by match.

United Airlines continues to invest in leisure markets and announced four new routes for Summer 2026 (United), a handful of new routes, and keeping the exciting new routes they added this year (Ulaanbaatar, Faro, Palermo, Nuuk, Dakar, Kaoshiung, etc.) I haven’t seen business class saver awards for any of the new routes yet, although there are some saver economy ones available on United’s site.

Select new routes to highlight

McDonald’s Monopoly is back. You can win an apple pie (1 in 25 odds), a McChicken (1 in 42 odds), a trip to Universal Orlando (1 in 4.4 billion), or even 1 million American Airlines miles (1 in 13.2 billion). Compare this to the chance to win a Powerball jackpot at 1 in 292 million. So, it’s 45x more likely you’ll win the Powerball compared to winning those AA miles from McDonald’s.

No purchase necessary to play, you can get 10x free entries every day. Check out this Reddit thread for detailed steps on how to get free entries, or check out the official game on McDonald’s site here.

The deal is dead now, but if you were an early bird on Saturday, there was an opportunity to snag a round-trip business class on British Airways between JFK-LHR starting at $1,300+ (also some dates from ORD, LAX, and some other cities). Make sure to stay subscribed to avoid missing the next fare sale in your inbox.

However, if you’re still planning to book any British Airways cash fare flight starting from the US, it may make sense to sign up for AARP and take advantage of their discount program. You’ll get a $200 discount for business or first class tickets, or $65 off for standard economy or premium economy ticket. Details on AARP’s site here.