Recap Week ending 5/10/26

I have mentioned I’ve been busy planning my wedding. Well, what good am I as a travel influencer if I don’t also plan the honeymoon trip too. My fiancée is a teacher so we always try to go on one trip in the summer and last year I was able to put together a Rome + Lake Como trip that I didn’t think I could top for a honeymoon. Well, it all came together in the last week and we are off to the Seychelles. I really love this points & miles hobby as it’s let me travel places I never thought I would be able to visit, and in style too.

There isn’t much news to share this week so in one section, I wrote about my planning process and how I booked my flights for the upcoming honeymoon trip, which was piecemealed together through multiple searches and finding dates that worked for us.

This newer points program continues to add more transfer partners and added Air Canada Aeroplan this week. To celebrate, Rove has a 25% transfer bonus to Aeroplan through June 6.

Rove is becoming one of the most well-rounded points platforms with a core offering of programs we are familiar with (Air Canada Aeroplan, AF/KLM Flying Blue, Cathay Pacific, Qatar/Finnair Avios, Virgin Atlantic, Turkish) and some really valuable programs that are generally harder to access (Air India, JAL, Lufthansa, SAS).

Kind of interesting how Rove has been able to quickly add all of these different transfer partners, while US Bank said they would add transfer partners last summer and it’s May 2025 with no transfer partners!

If you still don’t know what Rove is, it’s a shopping portal + travel portal that pays out in transferrable points. Kind of like Rakuten + a credit card travel portal. Details on my blog here.

And new members can get 1,500 Rove Miles to start with my affiliate link (vs. public offer of 500 points). Need 2,000 miles to transfer out though.

JAL’s award program is one of the best right now, not only because you get additional access to JAL awards, but due to their distance-based chart for booking Oneworld flights. A lot of fuel surcharges are not passed on as well (an issue with British Airways), so you can fly business class between US/Europe (through LHR on BA) for as low as 80k miles round-trip. Play around on JAL’s partner award site and you can get some inspiration on what’s possible. I just used JAL’s oneworld award, where you can book a business class itinerary that is up to 20k in distance for 120k miles. I used it to book my honeymoon trip.

My goal.
I have been eyeing the Waldorf Astoria Seychelle Platte Island and a honeymoon trip is an excuse to go. You can use Hilton points and free night awards to book and there are a few ways to piece together a way to fly there with points.

How I found my flights? (peek inside my brain)
Getting there is not easy and the best options to fly into the Seychelles is through Air Seychelles, Discover Airlines or Edelweiss (Lufthansa Group), Emirates, Etihad, Ethiopian Airlines, Turkish, or Qatar.

To be clear, there is no direct flight to/from the US so you will need to find a way to connect from the US to one of those cities those airlines fly into (Frankfurt, Zurich, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Istanbul, or Doha). Notably, Air Seychelles also has some long-haul routes, but the only way I could find to book Air Seychelles with points is through Etihad and they have one of the worst award cancellation policies (lose your points) and I prefer flexibility.

Since I knew I was hoping to use JAL’s oneworld partner booking tool, I used American Airline’s handy calendar view to start my search. I worked a bit backwards here where the Seychelles was the key destination. 1) I started searching various European airports to SEZ until I found 2 seats without terrible layovers and was able to find BER-DOH-SEZ and HEL-DOH-SEZ. I wrote down the dates and routings then 2) started to search for availability to get from the US to BER and HEL a few days before those Qatar flights. Now I have half an itinerary and found a way to get to the Seychelles, but I only want can spend 7-8 days in the Seychelles. 3) To get back, I started searching SEZ-DOH-Europe flights (FYI there was married segment logic at play here, OMAAT blog for details on what this is). I could only find 2 seats to Dublin. So I wrote those dates down. 4) DUB-LHR-US pretty wide open on British Airways, so that was the final segment I searched for.

It’s booked. The Waldorf Astoria Seychelles award booking is also booked (FYI pretty wide open availability at saver rates). Still will be 150-200k a night but don’t forget fifth night free perk. Book 6 nights with points and get a free plane transfer to/from the island. I believe it’s €550 per person for the r/t flight!!!

What I booked?
IAD-LHR-BER 3 nights
Europe-DOH-Seychelles 7 nights (Hello Waldorf Astoria Seychelles!!)
Seychelles-DOH-DUB 3 nights
DUB-LHR-IAD to get home

What it cost? (for 2)
240k JAL points + $1,600 for flights for 2 people for all my flights
680k Hilton points for 5 nights at Waldorf Seychelles
1 Hilton FNA for 1 night at Waldorf Seychelles
1 Hilton FNA for 1 night at Mango House Seychelles
$860 for 3 nights in Berlin
$1,400 for 3 nights in Dublin

My brother and I also have 3 Hilton Aspire cards each. I am going to prepay my folio to trigger the $200 semiannual resort credit and get $1,200 in credit in 1H26 and another $1,200 in credit in 2H26 so I can buy 48 personal pizzas ($50 each apparently!!). The food is expensive there.

A few different search programs have tried to add the ability to aggregate searches on British Airways and Iberia. It’s been a challenge but seats.aero is now making an attempt and added searching on British Airways (here) and on Iberia (here). Still in Beta but an interesting development. I will be rooting for any program that creates a reliable tool that searches British Airways and Iberia.

A common question in award travel is “should I buy points?” Especially when airlines market the ability to buy points with a “xx% bonus for limited time only!” The general consensus is it’s not worth it to buy points & miles.

But I disagree. My family and I have bought a few million points over the last few years to help book travel - but the math has to math, and you should have a plan on how to use the points.

The math. The CPP you buy points for should be lower than the CPP you redeem points for. I usually hate talking about the metric “cents per point (CPP)” but it is important when it comes to buying points. My internal formula is the “cost to buy CPP” and the “cost to redeem CPP”.

If you can buy points at a CPP rate below what you redeem it for, that is called arbitrage and the math is good. But don’t get caught trying to inflate your “cost to redeem CPP” by pricing out a one-way fare on an obscure routing to make the cash cost look high. Make it reasonable, and maybe even compare that business class redemption vs. the economy or premium economy cash price you would actually pay.

My favorite programs. Because every award program has different redemption rates, different ease of finding “good redemptions”, and different pricing to buy point, here is my short list of programs I can often find value in redeeming points without struggling too hard to find availability.

Fly LATAM business class between New York and Miami to Santiago, Chile for as low as 100k points round-trip.

Review
MIA-SCL (One Mile at a Time)

How to book
Virgin Atlantic: Starting at 95k points + $40-100 in tax/fees one way. $100 change/cancel fee per ticket.
Transfer Partners: Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Rove

JAL: 60k points + minimal tax/fees one way or 100k round-trip. 3,100 JPY cancel fee (~$20 USD).
Transfer Partners: Bilt and Rove are 1:1. Capital One is 1,000 : 750

Qantas: Starting at 90k points + $45-80+ in tax/fees one way. 6,000 Qantas points deducted per passenger to cancel or 5,000 points to change
Transfer Partners: Amex, Capital One, Citi
Tip: Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus through 5/31

Finnair (need to call or chat): Starting at ~76k points + similar fees as other programs one way. $50 change/cancel fee.
Transfer Partners: Capital One and Rove directly or Amex, Bilt, Chase, Capital One, and Citi indirectly through other Avios programs such as British Airways, Aer Lingus, Qatar, Iberia (all Avios programs can generally move freely between each other as long as names match and accounts already opened)

Cathay (need to call): Starting at ~63k points + similar fees as other programs one way. $50 change fee or $120 cancel fee
Transfer Partners: Bilt, Citi (select cards), Rove, and Wells Fargo 1:1. Amex (5:4 rate), Capital One (5:4 rate)
Tip: Citi (1:1 for Strata Elite/Premier/Prestige/AT&T Access More, otherwise 1 : 0.7)

Dates w/2+ seats

JFK-SCL
May: 28
June: 3, 9, 17, 23
August: 11, 12
September: 8

SCL-JFK
May: 23
June: 1-3, 8, 9, 23, 29, 30
July: 6-8, 11, 13, 20, 21, 25-29
August: 1, 2, 4, 18
September: 16

MIA-SCL
May: 19
June: 2, 3, 10, 16, 17, 23
July: 2
August: 5, 11, 12, 18, 25, 26
September: 1, 10, 11, 15
November: 10, 12, 17, 23, 24, 26
January 2027: 17, 18, 20, 24, 26-28
February: 2-4, 6, 23, 25, 27, 28
March: 3-5, 7, 9-19, 22-28

SCL-MIA
May: 19
June: 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 16, 23, 28, 30
July: 5-7, 19, 21, 22, 28, 29
August: 2-5, 9, 11, 12, 17-19, 23-26, 31
September: 1, 6, 8, 15, 20-22, 27, 29
October: 1, 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 22, 26
November: 1-3, 5, 6, 8, 10-13, 15-20, 22-26
January: 17, 19, 21, 26-28, 30, 31
February: 2, 4, 7, 9-12, 16-19, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28
March: 1-5, 7-14, 16-19, 21-26, 28

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.

Help support my free newsletter through my affiliate links.

💸 Earn extra cashback or Amex or Bilt points when you shop online at your favorite stores using the Rakuten shopping portal. It’s free to join, and new members get $50 (or 5k points) after spending $50. To learn more about Rakuten, check out my post here.

✈️ Join Rove Miles, a new travel loyalty program where you earn points shopping online or by booking travel through their portal. Free to join and using my affiliate gets you 1.5k points to start (vs. public offer of 500 points). Rove has some unique transfer partners like Lufthansa, JAL, SAS, and more. Details on my blog post here.

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About Find Flights for Me.

I started the idea of Find Flights for Me back in 2023 to help educate and inspire people to use their credit card points more effectively, with a focus on using points to fly business and first class flights.

When I’m not working on Wall Street or searching for flight deals, you can find me planning for my upcoming wedding, enjoying local restaurants, helping my parents book their next trip, traveling internationally, or visiting friends/family in NYC, Philadelphia, or DC.