Find Flights for Me Recap: Week ending 11/16/25

Earn cash back in the form of American Express or Bilt points every time you shop online at major retailers, including Nike, Saks, Lululemon, Ulta, Sephora, and 3,500+ more stores. Strategically, this is probably the time to open a new credit card to meet the minimum spending to get a nice sign up bonus (SUB) this holiday season too.

Rakuten is a cash back portal where merchants pay Rakuten to send online traffic to a merchant’s online storefront. Customers get a cut of Rakuten’s commission in the form of cash back (or points). You still shop directly with the online retailer, still get the retailer’s own discounts, and can stack credit card offers as well.

Click here to sign up: New members can earn a bonus $50 in cash back (worth 5k in points) after spending $50 in 90 days. Make sure to sign up today! (Affiliate link).

Looks like this targeted deal is back. If you link your Amex account with Amazon and use a certain number of points, you can save big! My offer is 714 Amex points to get 40% off my purchase, up to $60. Your offer might be better, worse, or maybe you didn’t get one at all. It’s certainly worth a look. Check here for Amex offers on Amazon. Or check under your payments overview here for any other offers for linked cards. Capital One, Discover, and Chase sometimes have offers as well.

Make sure to only use the minimum number of points and don’t accidentally use points to pay for the entire balance of the order! If you have a P2, P3, etc. who also uses your Amazon account, you may want to remove your Amex Membership Account after placing the order to ensure no tragedies occur with your points in the future!

I try not to talk about the credit card aspect of the points & miles world… I’m sure you are bombarded by it already and a hundred different blogs and influencers will be happy to send you their links. But I wanted to flag what appears to be a major change with the Chase Ink Business Cash and Ink Business Unlimited (the $0 annual fee Inks) application language. In an American Express-esque playbook, applicants now see the below verbiage in the terms and conditions:

So, is the Ink train over? It’s already becoming more difficult to open a new Chase business card if you already have multiple (r/churning thread), and now Chase won’t let you earn referrals when you refer someone who already has a Chase business card. Maybe this is a good thing and we can stop being beholden to the 5/24 rule. There are a lot of great non-Chase cards out there! And if I see the Chase IHG card listed as a top 5 card in any “top cards” list from a blog again…

Chase now has a 70% transfer bonus to Marriott through November 30. Is it worth it? Potentially, you’ll have to run the numbers and don’t forget your Chase points are at a minimum worth 1 cent per point and potentially 1.25 to 2.0 cents per point depending on if you have a CSP or CSR with PointsBoost (View from the Wing).

For a more advanced strategy, don’t forget Marriott points can often be turned into airline points at a 3:1 rate. There’s also a 5k mile bonus for every 60k Marriott points converted for most airlines (except for AA, Avianca, and Delta). United also gives 10k bonus miles for every 60k converted as well (but you shouldn’t do Chase → Marriott → United because that math becomes 2 Chase points becoming 1 United mile. You can just do Chase → United at 1:1). Here is a handy guide from One Mile at a Time.

Where this could get interesting is looking at airlines that may be hard to earn points on. Think Alaska or JAL…

For JAL, if you don’t have Bilt points or a lot of Capital One points (4:3 ratio 😢), this could be a way to book some coveted JAL flights as they have more availability on their own program, usually at 70-80k points (every 60k Marriott points transferred becomes 25k JAL points, you will need 3× 60k Marriott transfers plus a 15k transfer to get 80k JAL points. This is 195k Marriott points total, or 115k Chase points with 70% bonus). Be aware of needing a JAL account for 60+ days before you can even search for an award flight. You may be able to get around that with a Bilt or Capital One transfer to JAL.

JAL’s program also has some pretty great rates for OneWorld partners as well. See PilotMonkey94’s guide on Reddit here.

Two sweepstakes to call out with Marriott. One is a chance to win one million points after linking your Marriott and Uber accounts and taking a premium ride. The other is a free entry to win a trip to Super Bowl LX.

You should hopefully have already linked your Uber account with either Delta or Marriott, as you can earn some points on your Uber rides or Uber Eats orders. You have to pick one or the other though. Details here on Upgraded Points.

Uber x Marriott partnership with chance to win 1 million Marriott points. Link your accounts and complete a Premium trip between November 10-24 to earn 1k Marriott points. Plus a free entry for a chance to win 1 million bonus points. 3 winners will be announced. Official rules here. Instead of taking a premium Uber ride, you can mail a postmarked 3×5 card with your info on it. For tax purposes, Marriott is valuing their points at 1.25 cents per point. LOL!!!!

Super Bowl Sweepstakes entry. Weird and confusing rules. I put in an entry. Prizes include the below. There is a “password” to enter. I am not sure what it is but I entered “Keysakes” and it worked for me.

Lufthansa Group airlines have really good availability to fly business class between January-March 2026 and July-August 2026. Availability is primarily on Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines, Austrian, and Swiss.

Airports in North America with good availability include Boston, DC (IAD), Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Montreal, NYC (EWR/JFK), Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, St. Louis, and Toronto. You’ll likely be flying to or connecting through Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Geneva, Vienna, or Zurich.

How to search: Use United’s site and choose “Flexible dates” to pull up calendar view. Find dates with 80-88k points availability for business class. Book with your preferred award program.

Best ways to book: Book these through Air Canada Aeroplan starting at 60k points one way for the less refundable option or starting at 74k points for the fully refundable option. These flights can also be booked with Avianca Lifemiles starting at 69k points. Beware the costly $200 cancel fee and the $150 change fee with Avianca though. United is another option with flights bookable for 80-88k points one way but are freely changable and cancellable at no fee. I don’t recommend ANA at 50k points one way as they charge ~$1,000 in tax/fees.

Need help finding deals? (affiliate link)
Check out seats.aero, a search engine for all things award travel. View award availability for flights for the next 60 days for free. Subscribing unlocks a full year of availability and helps you get the edge over others. You can also set alerts, get access to an invite-only Discord community, and find hotel award availability (this one is free for all).