Good morning from lovely Vermont, where I just signed up for my newest travel credit card.

Today, let’s talk about a few things around that very topic:

• 💳 My newest travel card

• 🤯 I opened every card from one bank. Here are the best ones

• 🔥 Why you need to earn and burn points

💳 My newest travel card

As you know, I’m currently in America. 🇺🇸

And whenever I find myself here, there are a few things I have to do:

1. Get a Dunkin coffee the size of my head

2. Buy some Burt’s Bees chapstick (it’s so hard to find abroad)

3. Get a craft beer (I live in a Muslim country, so beer is rare at home)

4. Open a new credit card

We’re gonna talk about that last one today.

I just opened my newest credit card, and it’s one that I’ve been eyeing for years but finally pulled the trigger on.

It took a long time to get – weeks of calls, ID verification, and an in-branch appointment that I just finished yesterday to get the final approval.

Now, I have a card that is going to get me THOUSANDS of dollars of free travel with a program I’m constantly using.

I wrote up a whole article explaining why I chose this as my next card and why I think many of you should, too.

Check it out:

🤯 I opened every card from one bank. Here are the best ones

Speaking of new cards…

Have you ever wondered whether or not it’s possible to get EVERY single credit card from a bank?

If the very thought of that doesn’t give you a heart attack, you should check out our latest YouTube video where Brendan will explain how (and why) he signed up for every card from one bank, and which ones are the most valuable.

Check it out:

🔥 Why you need to earn and burn points

There's a phrase that gets thrown around constantly in this hobby, and I think it might be the single most useful idea in all of points and miles.

Earn and burn.

The concept is about as simple as it sounds. You earn points, you use them, and you don't let them sit in an account for years while you wait for the perfect redemption to reveal itself.

It’s easy to think of points like a bank account or savings… but it’s not. Not at all.

Your points are losing value as you read this

Money in a savings account earns interest while you ignore it. Points in a loyalty program do the opposite, because the company that issued them gets to decide what they're worth, and they can change that whenever they feel like it.

Award charts get "refreshed,” fixed pricing turns into dynamic pricing, and it can all happen anytime with no notice at all.

Here's one that happened this week

Air France and KLM's Flying Blue program just announced changes to how award tickets are going to be priced.

Starting September 8, Flying Blue awards are getting split into three tiers, called Light, Standard, and Flex.

The good news is that much of the lowest pricing stays the same. The difference is what you get for that same price, which is now less.

For example, a business-class award from the U.S. to Europe can cost as few as 60,000 miles in business class.

With the new structure, that flight will still cost 60,000 miles.

The catch is that the 60,000-mile fare is now the Light version, and Light doesn't include a checked bag, can't be changed, and can't be refunded.

To get the old version, you now have to buy the Standard fare, which runs roughly 30% more miles.

It's a gnarly devaluation to the program, and we only got three weeks’ notice about it.

This is why transferable points are the safest

Miles sitting in Flying Blue can only ever be Flying Blue miles. When that program changes the rules, you're along for the ride whether you like it or not.

Transferable credit card points, however, are a completely different situation, because you haven't committed to anything yet.

If one program starts pricing a seat badly, you can go look at what a different program charges for that same flight and send your points over there instead.

You're not totally safe, of course.

Banks can adjust their own transfer ratios sometimes too, and we just watched that happen with Hyatt transfers from this card and this card, and Cathay Pacific transfers from MR points.

Earn and burn does not mean spend it all today

Earn and burn doesn’t mean go all “scorched earth” and spend EVERY point right now.

Saving 200,000 points toward a specific trip you're taking next year is not hoarding. That's a plan, and plans are good.

Sitting on 200,000 points for three years because you’re waiting to get 3 cents per point instead of 2 cents per point is problematic.

The bottom line

Points are a currency where the issuer can devalue your stockpile overnight, and where you usually find out about it from a blog post (or amazing newsletter 😉).

So if you have points now, try to find a good use for them, and don’t be afraid to use them. You can always earn more points in the future.

And if you want to save points toward your next trip without a specific booking in mind, make sure they’re transferable points.

That’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed learning about some new cards and the best strategy for using your points.

See you tomorrow to finish off the week,

44.4759° N, 73.2121° W

With contributions by Katie Begnoche and April Wilson.