Recent Points & Programs Updates

Recent points & programs updates

Program rate changes, transfer-partner additions and removals, and valuation shifts — tracked as they happen. Data last verified August 13, 2026.

• August 15, 2026 — Daily data check: removed the Rove-to-Qantas 50% transfer bonus, which ran through August 14 and has now ended. Re-verified every card valuation, other transfer bonus and elite-tier figure on the site against AwardWallet and issuer sources -- everything else held up, and nothing new is live yet (Citi's rumored Japan Airlines transfer partner still isn't, and the Citi AAdvantage Executive refresh stays queued for August 23).
• August 14, 2026 — The Homepage, Wallet, and Points Strategy now show Conservative, Average, and Highest modeled readings from one verified snapshot. The higher-spend sample shows a month, one year, and five years with the assumptions beside the numbers. Wallet keeps existing balances separate from spend projections, and Strategy tests its sample grocery recommendation across all three readings.
• August 14, 2026 — Homepage and header polish. The three homepage demos now show their real totals as soon as the page loads — $9 and $14.40 in the card comparison, a $1,165 wallet Conservative total, 750 Hyatt points after the ratio change — instead of sitting at $0 until the animation runs. The Free plan's button now starts your wallet setup instead of scrolling further down the page. Every public "verified" date now reads the same date as the data itself. On a phone the header account control reads "Sign in" in full instead of cutting off mid-word; the full "Sign in / Create account" wording is still in the menu. Pricing now marks Free as the current plan only for a signed-in Free account. Methodology now describes the AwardWallet data as a verified static snapshot. The program-change card stays inside the phone screen before its animation, and the tablet header has more room around its controls.
• August 14, 2026 — Strategy's Next tab now includes your account's card-earning recommendations alongside points-transfer moves when both are available, and the This Month summary counts an earning recommendation as a real move -- it no longer reports "Nothing to move" and "$0/mo" when the only recommendation is which card to use for a category.
• August 13, 2026 — Daily data check: added a new transfer bonus we were missing — Chase Ultimate Rewards to Air Canada Aeroplan, 20% (1,000:1,200), running August 12 through September 30, 2026. Aeroplan cardholders may see a richer offer up to 30% in their own account. Also re-verified every card valuation, other transfer bonus and elite-tier figure on the site against AwardWallet and issuer sources — everything else held up, and no transfer bonus has expired.
• August 11, 2026 — The compact best-card cheatsheet now includes streaming and online purchases alongside dining, groceries, gas, travel and transit, so every everyday category from the full strategy is available at a glance.
• August 11, 2026 — Daily data check: nudged Brex Cash's Average value from 1.62¢ to 1.63¢ to match AwardWallet's latest booking data. No cards use Brex Cash today, so nothing else on the site changed. Also re-verified every transfer bonus, card valuation and elite-tier figure on the site against AwardWallet and issuer sources — everything else held up.
• August 10, 2026 — On smaller screens, the first-time Ask P&P AI guide now sits above the question area instead of squeezing it into a side-by-side layout.
• August 7, 2026 — Fixed two Avianca LifeMiles sweet spots that had gone stale. We were telling you US–Europe business ran about 63,000 miles one-way on Lufthansa and partners, and that Lufthansa First ran 100,000–120,000. Both figures assumed LifeMiles still has an award chart. It does not — it dropped fixed pricing years ago and now prices every route separately, so in July 2026 the same transatlantic business seat ranged from 54,010 miles (SWISS out of New York) to 92,400 (United out of Newark). We have replaced the single number with the real range and told you to search your own route. We have also removed the Lufthansa First entry: Lufthansa's flights have not been bookable through LifeMiles since May 2026, so we were pointing you at a redemption you could not make.
• August 6, 2026 — Corrected the point values quoted in card notes. The four United cards described MileagePlus miles as worth about 2.01¢ and the four Delta cards said 1.34¢ — both were readings behind what we actually use to calculate those cards’ earn rates (2.04¢ and 1.35¢). The maths on the cards was right; the sentence next to it was not, which is arguably worse. We now check every value quoted in prose against the value we calculate with, on every card, every day.
• August 6, 2026 — Transferring to Cathay Pacific for the 10% bonus? You have to register first — Cathay only counts transfers you make after registering, so points moved beforehand earn nothing extra. The bonus also caps at 10,000 bonus miles across all banks combined, not per bank, and the miles can take up to 12 weeks to show up. The offer closes 11:59pm Pacific on August 28. All five bank listings now say so.
• August 6, 2026 — The elevated Citi transfer ratios we list assume you hold a premium ThankYou card — Strata Elite, Strata Premier or Prestige. Citi says transfer value depends on which card you have, and holders of the no-annual-fee cards get less than the headline number. We have added that caveat to the Citi bonuses; we are not publishing the reduced ratios because Citi does not publish a ratio table and we will not print a number we cannot source to them.
• August 6, 2026 — Refreshed point values against AwardWallet’s booking data. Ten moved: Alaska Atmos 2.25¢ to 2.32¢ and Wyndham 1.32¢ to 1.40¢ are the only ones big enough to notice; Bilt, Chase, Citi, Rove, Iberia, United, Virgin Atlantic and Choice all shifted by a hundredth of a cent. Every effective earn rate built on those values was recalculated in the same pass. One caveat worth stating: AwardWallet’s valuations page and its public data feed currently disagree on these ten, and we followed the page, which is the source we have always used and the one carrying their newest programs. We are watching whether the feed catches up.
• August 5, 2026 — The Demo banner now has a fully solid background, so page content cannot show through it while you scroll.
• August 5, 2026 — The Demo banner now stays at the top for returning visitors, even when their browser cached the earlier Demo stylesheet.
• August 5, 2026 — The sample account now carries a persistent Demo banner above the site header, so it stays clear that the cards, balances, and spending are not yours. Demo also has one name everywhere, a signed-out navigation link, and its own sitemap entry.
• August 5, 2026 — Card rankings now handle exact half-cent values the same way on every device. This fixes rare cases where two browsers could choose different cards for a very small spending amount.
• August 5, 2026 — Alaska's Atmos Rewards points moved from 2.24¢ to 2.25¢ in AwardWallet's member-booking data, so the three Atmos cards now show slightly higher effective earn rates. It is a one-hundredth-of-a-cent move and it will not change any decision you make — we apply it because a stale number quietly becomes a wrong one. The Ascent card's description still said 2.21¢ from an earlier reading; that is fixed too. While checking, we found eight rows on the United and Delta cards where the little "how we got this number" note still quoted a value one hundredth of a cent behind the one we actually used — the rates themselves were right, the explanation had drifted. Those now agree. We also checked all 37 other valuations we take from AwardWallet and nothing else moved.
• August 5, 2026 — The Citi to Turkish 40% transfer bonus ends earlier on its last day than the calendar suggests. Turkish's own terms close it at 23:59 Türkiye time on August 31, which is late afternoon in the US — so if you are planning to transfer on the final day, do it in the morning. Worth knowing alongside the caveat already on this bonus: the extra miles do not post until September 1 at the earliest, so it is no good for a booking you need this month. One tracker lists this bonus as ending August 30; Turkish's terms page says August 31, and we go with the airline.
• August 4, 2026 — The public Wallet page now shows what a built wallet contains, how balances become a conservative value, and what it unlocks before asking you to enter anything. The demo now runs the real signed-in Home, Wallet, Points Strategy, and Ask P&P screens with a labeled sample account. You can change sample wallet details and ask sample questions. Changes stay in this browser session, and the demo skips account storage, bank connections, and live AI.
• August 4, 2026 — Onboarding's Worth Knowing cards now move to a different wallet-backed fact each time one appears. If your wallet cannot support another fact, the extra card is skipped. The cards also take up less space.
• August 4, 2026 — Points Strategy now keeps the card-count tradeoff beside its earning recommendations: another card is useful only when it clears the fee and adds to a points balance you are already building.
• August 4, 2026 — Shared links to the Privacy, Security, Terms, Refunds, and Best Card Privacy pages now carry the same Points & Prompts preview image as the rest of the site.
• August 4, 2026 — Monthly spending now keeps its source. Connected cards retain their own category totals, spending you add can stay with a specific wallet card, and anything you cannot place has a separate untracked bucket. The Wallet shows this source breakdown before the combined category totals, so adding a manual amount does not overwrite or masquerade as a Plaid total.
• August 4, 2026 — After setup, you see a short Wallet guide. Review a card comparison using the cards you entered and fill missing balances or spending. Open Points Strategy when the inputs look right. We wait for connected spending to identify the card that carried a purchase before showing card-specific missed rewards.
• August 4, 2026 — Bank connections now call out cards they just added before asking for a separate rewards-program balance. Onboarding also lets you add another bank or card, and the post-onboarding mapping button no longer sends work into a hidden setup screen. Imported spending is explained before the category list, including that an edit sets the full category total.
• August 4, 2026 — The Methodology and Resources pages now name the source for each data type, define what the verification date covers, and state the current affiliate policy. A build check blocks the filler phrases removed in this pass.
• August 4, 2026 — Fixed the Resources page so it has one page heading before and after the interactive view loads. Its links and body copy have not changed.
• August 4, 2026 — Amex is running a 30% bonus to all three Avios programs — British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus — through September 27. That turns the usual 1:1 into 1,000:1,300. Avios move between the Avios airlines for free, so you can transfer into whichever one has the bonus and shuffle from there; it is a reasonable way into Qatar Avios too. As always, only transfer once you have found the award seat.
• August 4, 2026 — Citi is offering a 40% bonus to Turkish Miles&Smiles through August 31 — 1,000:1,400 from a premium ThankYou card. Turkish is one of the best uses of Citi points, so this is a genuinely strong offer, with two catches worth knowing: the bonus is capped at 50,000 bonus miles (you stop gaining after 125,000 points transferred), and the bonus miles do not land until September 1 at the earliest. If you need the miles for a booking this month, the bonus will not be there in time.
• August 4, 2026 — The Citi AAdvantage Executive card's annual fee goes from $595 to $695 on August 23, and the card gets renamed to the Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Legend Mastercard. New applicants pay the higher fee from that date; if you already hold the card, you get a notice in August or September and pay it at your next renewal after that. Citi is adding $500 in American Airlines Vacations credit and up to $100 a year in in-flight and Admirals Club credit alongside the increase — whether that covers the extra $100 depends entirely on whether you would have bought an AA Vacations package anyway. We have left the fee shown on the card at $595, because that is what it is today, and noted the change on the card itself.
• August 4, 2026 — Checked the reported Marriott devaluation again and we are still not applying it. Frequent Miler has now published its own analysis of roughly 3 million Marriott searches across more than 9,000 properties, and found the median value at 0.73¢ against 0.77¢ in March — a small move, well inside Marriott's normal range, and no sign of the program-wide cut that was reported across several sites last month. Those reports all traced back to a single third-party award tool. We are leaving our Marriott valuation where it is.
• August 4, 2026 — Rewrote the Home, Pricing, Ask, and Points Strategy pages around plan limits, calculations, and source links. Removed the founder pitch from Pricing. The plans and prices have not changed.
• August 4, 2026 — Fixed the first-time guide on Ask P&P AI. It now appears when you open Ask directly, with a quick explanation of how answers use your wallet and the site's verified data.
• August 4, 2026 — Brought the Ask P&P AI welcome message and message box back together on a new chat. They had drifted to opposite ends of the screen, leaving a large empty gap between the greeting and where you type.
• August 3, 2026 — Moved paid Points Strategy results behind the signed-in server boundary. Free guidance stays available, while paid rows now appear only from a current result for your account and lock again if that result expires or cannot be verified.
• August 3, 2026 — Added self-serve billing to your profile. You can update your payment method, view invoices, or cancel your paid plan online; cancellation stops renewal while access continues through the paid period. If billing settings can’t open, the profile now says so and leaves the button ready to try again.
• August 3, 2026 — Fixed the chat-history drawer on phones and tablets. It could open normally but still ignore every tap inside it, including New chat and recent conversations. Those controls now work as soon as the drawer opens.
• August 3, 2026 — Manage wallet now separates balances from cards. You can set a spent balance to 0 and keep tracking it, remove an independent program from the wallet, or remove a card with the full effect shown before anything changes. Removing the last card that earns a bank balance also removes that balance, with Undo available until you close the dialog.
• August 3, 2026 — Made a few small but important controls easier to tap: the sign-in tabs, dialog close button, your points total, and your profile button now all have a full fingertip-sized target without making the surrounding type or layout bigger.

Tracked program changes

Banks & transferable points

• Chase → World of Hyatt (Oct 1, 2026) — No longer a flat 1:1. Sapphire Reserve keeps 1:1; Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred drop to 4:3. New applicants already get 4:3; existing cardholders keep 1:1 until Oct 1. Bilt still transfers to Hyatt at 1:1.
• Amex → Etihad Guest (Jun 30, 2026) — Partner removed entirely — Membership Rewards no longer transfer to Etihad.
• Amex → Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (Mar 1, 2026) — Transfer ratio cut from 1:1 to 5:4 (1,000 MR now becomes 800 miles).
• Capital One → Emirates Skywards (Jan 13, 2026) — Dropped from 1:1 to 1,000:750 — 25% fewer miles per point transferred.
• Amex → Emirates Skywards (2026) — Now transfers at 5:4, not 1:1.
• Amex transfer bonuses (2026) — Effectively absent so far this year, breaking a long-running pattern of frequent 20–40% bonuses.
• Citi ThankYou → Aeroméxico Rewards (Jan 25, 2026) — Partner removed entirely — Citi points no longer transfer to Aeroméxico.
• Citi ThankYou → American AAdvantage (2026) — New partner added — 1:1 from a premium Citi card, 1,000:700 from a no-fee ThankYou card.
• Bilt Rewards → Accor Live Limitless (2026) — Transfer ratio corrected — was shown as 1:1, actually 3:2.
• Bilt Rewards → American AAdvantage (2024) — Partner removed — that relationship ended in 2024; American is gone from Bilt's transfer list.
• Bilt Rewards → United MileagePlus (2026) — New partner added at 1:1 — Bilt joins Chase as one of only two bank currencies that reach both United and World of Hyatt.
• Chase Ultimate Rewards → Wyndham Rewards (2026) — New hotel partner added — Chase's fourth hotel transfer option.

Airlines

• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (Aug 1, 2026) — Fuel surcharges rise about 41% for tickets issued on or after August 1, 2026, and Asia Miles passes them through to award tickets in full. A Hong Kong to North America or Europe redemption now carries roughly HK$1,362 (about US$174) in surcharges, up from HK$965. Anything ticketed by July 31 keeps the lower rate.
• United MileagePlus (Aug 2025) — The free-stopover perk on award itineraries was discontinued.
• Finnair Avios (2026) — Real sweet spot documented: 30,000 Avios one-way in economy (43,500 in premium economy) from Helsinki to the US, before feeder-segment and surcharge caveats.
• Delta Diamond Medallion (Jun 1, 2026) — Complimentary CLEAR+ ends; it's now $129/yr for new memberships and renewals.
• Alaska + Hawaiian → Atmos Rewards (2026) — Merged into one currency and one distance-based chart. Short-haul economy fell 5,000 → 4,500. Hawaii under 3,500 mi can drop 15,000 → 12,500, but Midwest/East Coast Hawaii flights now cost more (new 3,501+ mi band).
• Southwest Rapid Rewards (2026) — Two free checked bags gone ($45 fee); nonrefundable Basic fares introduced; open seating overhauled.
• American AAdvantage (2026) — Program changes for the year — check earning and status rules before relying on 2025 advice.
• Air Canada Aeroplan (2026) — Still publishes fixed partner award charts.

Hotels

• Marriott Bonvoy (Jul 2026) — Another quiet award-rate increase, ~5–10%, some properties up to 16%. Fully dynamic, no chart, no notice given.
• World of Hyatt award chart (May 20, 2026) — Three tiers (Off-Peak/Standard/Peak) replaced by five (Lowest, Low, Moderate, Upper, Top). 112 hotels moved up a category; 24 moved down.
• Hilton Honors (Mar 2026) — Award rates up 5,000–30,000+ points/night at many properties. Fourth such adjustment in ~18 months.
• IHG One Rewards (2026) — Fully dynamic, but no broad devaluation reported this year.