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August 21, 2026 | View Online
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I hope this newsletter finds you well. You find your writer sitting in the dining car of an old diesel locomotive, chugging along leisurely through the Malaysian rainforest. As you can imagine, as is the case on an 18-hour sleeper train, there’s no lounge, no upgrade options, and no points of note to earn or redeem. Business class is limited to the same seat with a portion of coconut rice.
In fact, if I’d booked with my usual travel card, it would only have earned 21 points.
Three beers in Singapore earned me 240 points.
Let’s get to the points:
Cheers,
Steven
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| CARD OF THE WEEK
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To Point? Or Not To Point?
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I’m gonna have a look at two different scenarios — tied to each other, you’ll see what I mean — to grasp when, where, and why you’d want to use your points or pay cash. I’ll also track how much we’ve saved by opting for the next decision.
First up, a Christmas flight. December 21st, from Nashville to Los Angeles. I’ve got a bunch of Virgin points to use, and the thought of paying to head home for Christmas is driving me nuts. Virgin is offering 27,500 points plus $5.60 to take a Delta flight with a layover in Salt Lake to LAX. The cash price is $206.
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$206 - $5.60 in fees divided by 27,500 gives us a cent-per-point valuation of 0.7. That’s absolutely terrible. Always pay the cash price in this situation. It’s annoying, but you’ll thank me later.
Current savings = - $206
Now, if you’d used those 27,500 points in a moment of weakness, you might not be able to take your family of four to London as you promised them. Here, the cash price on the day you want them is $459 at best, which means a total of $1,834 for a one-way flight for the four of you. 24,000 Virgin points could grab you the four seats for $164 each. That’s $656 total, including your luggage, saving you $1,178.
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Better yet, you’re getting almost 5 cents per point — that’s a huge win for you, and an excellent use of points, well done.
That means, despite us paying $206 for the first flight, we’ve now saved $972 overall by opting to wait and use them.
BUT, let’s use another option. You’re someone who regularly pays for business class flights, and you’re heading to London from New York in January. Your typical kind of flight is running at $2,389 for Virgin’s excellent business class seat. But it’s also offering the same ticket for 29,000 points plus $706. Those taxes and fees seem brutal, and they are at face value, but if you pay for business class regularly, it’s a huge saving and gets you a whopping 5.8 cents per point.
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It’s super important to note at this point that the value of that business class flight is contingent on the fact that you would normally pay for a business class flight. Regardless, you can see how your decisions with smaller impulse flights that would be nice to save on can have a butterfly effect.
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You can earn Virgin points by opening any of these excellent cards and transferring to the program.
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| AUTO INSURANCE
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When Did You Last Compare Car Insurance?
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Car insurance rates can change more often than you might expect, which means your current policy may no longer be your best deal.
Taking a few minutes to compare quotes could help you find the same coverage at a lower price.
Money.com's free comparison tool lets you review rates from providers in your area—all by answering a few simple questions. See if you could save today.
Compare rates.
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| THE OBLIGATORY WARNING MESSAGE
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A Word From Your Ever-Responsible Writer
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Following on from my introductory message, I’ll use this bit of space to remind you about the futility of forcing spend for the sake of points. A lot of people think it’d never be them, but I know first-hand — yes, my own earlier days included — that many people do this.
Here’s me in Singapore the other day. It’s brutally expensive. That beer I’m holding cost almost $20. Jess and I having three beers each could have brought that tab to $120. Now, Jess and I share the financial burden, so we’re fine, but I know that in my early, obsessively reckless days, if I had been drinking with someone, I may have been tempted to grab that bill — 480 points is better than 240, right? That feeling of hitting an intro bonus or becoming obsessive with points can drive you to do dumb things.
But as a reminder, despite me paying $20 for beer, I also take budget flights when it makes sense. That flight cost me $40 because why the hell would I spend $150 just to earn a few more points? Especially when beers are $20.
Be sensible, guys.
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| WHAT'S GOING ON OUT THERE
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Yes, You Can Redeem Bilt Cash For Helicopter Rides
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Jess would kill me if I got into a helicopter, but it’d be hard to pass up the opportunity to blow Bilt’s new currency, Bilt Cash. You can now use it to book Blade helicopter transfers between Manhattan and JFK or Newark, with up to $350 in Bilt Cash available toward each seat, twice per calendar year. Considering those airport hops often start around $200–250, there’s a decent chance you could cover the whole thing and glide over New York traffic like an insufferably efficient Bond villain. I know my reader, Nathan, has been weighing up a Bilt card, and as he’s a NY lad, this might be right up his street.
This is actually a pretty strong use of Bilt Cash, too. Unlike Bilt points, which only get you 0.7 cents apiece when used toward Blade, Bilt Cash essentially knocks dollars directly off the seat price. You can also mix Bilt Cash with cash or points if the flight costs more than your $350 allowance, although it won’t cover extras like luggage fees.
The timing matters because Bilt Cash isn’t really something you want sitting around gathering dust. Only $100 rolls over at the end of the year, so if you’ve built up a decent balance, this is exactly the sort of slightly extravagant redemption I’d be looking at. Is a helicopter to JFK necessary? Absolutely not. Is avoiding an hour-plus crawl through New York traffic while spending rewards that might otherwise expire objectively quite fun? Very much so.
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