187. Mid-Year Check-In: Points and Miles Changes

Points Talk®: Your Travel Dreams, Made Possible by Points - Points Talk Squad

Mid-year 2026 review highlights major shifts in points and miles, including Chase card rule changes, Hyatt award chart updates, United’s fare restructuring, and Build 2.0 rollout challenges. Despite frustrations, adaptab

Key takeaways

• Chase now allows dual Sapphire cards with welcome offers

Transcript preview

We're only about halfway through 2026 and there have already been some major changes in the world of points and miles Keep listening to hear all about them. Hey everyone we recorded today's mid-year check-in episode before all of the refresh changes to the Chase Sapphire Preferred came out So if you want to hear all about those tune into last week's episode where we covered that plus a couple of new offers Welcome to points talk. We are three moms who discovered how to get hundreds of thousands of dollars of travel expenses for nearly free. We've used credit card points of miles to take vacations to places like Hawaii, Harris, Greece, Maldives, Japan, and so much more. And the best part, we each still have 800 plus credit scores. Imagine being able to take the vacation of your dreams for nearly free. It's totally possible and we're here to show you how. And I'm Pam, Alex's mom. And I'm Jess. Let's talk points. All right, 2026 is about halfway over. So it is time for our mid-year check-in. Today we're diving into some of the changes in the points in Miles world that have been announced or have already gone into effect in 2026 so far. We have a lot to cover, unfortunately. Every year I hope, like, okay, we're gonna do our mid-year check-in. I hope there's not much to say and every year I'm disappointed and we're much to say. I want to just give a disclaimer. This is not an exhaustive list of all of the changes in 2026. We chose a handful of the ones that we think have been the most impactful to our audience. And so Alex is going to kick us off with some of the big chase changes that have happened this year. Yeah, I mean chase. Wow, chase was really, 26 was the year they really wanted to shake things up and they did. So they, just a lot of right. rules completely changed and overhauls. So now this is a good change. We'll start with the good news. You can now hold both the Sapphire Preferred and the Sapphire Reserve. You can have earned the welcome offer on both of them. No more 48 month rule, but now there's some lifetime language that we're seeing. That is definitely the downside. I know Jess, you've tried, Sapphire Reserve, right? Yeah. So he hasn't had, we both got the Sapphire Reserve when it first came out. I think it was like 2016, we both got the Sapphire Reserve and I tried, you know, I'm on my third Sapphire Reserve. I got in, I got in before this lifetime language took effect, but Ted didn't, you know, Amex, their lifetime language is more like a seven-year rule. And so I, in my head, I'm thinking, okay, hasn't had this card since 2017. That was nine years ago. But no, I tried for him and he got the pop-up saying that he's had the card before. I'm hoping that eventually this might change. I think the most frustrating thing is they just did a complete refresh of the Sapphire Reserve. It's not even the same card it was when it first came out. You know, so that's what's frustrating to me. It's like. is a completely different card than when it first launched it just seems a little it seems really strict to not allow anyone to earn the welcome I mean he could still get the card he just wouldn't get the welcome offer but y'all yeah you know we're not paying 795 dollars and not getting a welcome offer so for now I'm holding off I'm hoping that maybe they you know adjust their their approval algorithm in the future to allow you to get it again I think the thing that is somewhat promising is when the reserve like the refresh came out they you couldn't have both the sapphire preferred in reserve well you could hold both of them but you couldn't earn a welcome offer on both of them and that rule has changed and so hopefully I'm really hopeful that they're still just working it out and they're still figuring out okay what works best what should we be doing here and it's not like well this is it and we're never gonna change it because I do think that was change for the better to let people earn a welcome offer on both of them. And I've never had the Sapphire Reserve, so I will be getting it. And then other big change, I think this one was kind of hard on all of us. There's new rules with the Inc Cash and Inc Unlimited. You guys know we are obsessed with these cards. So this was a bummer. The new rules state that new card member bonus may not be available to you. If you have ever had this card or any chase, chase for business card without an annual fee. So seemingly it sounds like a once per lifetime type of rule. The key word here though is may not be available. We are seeing them being less strict if you're applying with an EIN LLC or an actual business. So if you're not a sole proprietor, then your odds of getting approved are much higher, like getting approved for a second one or even a third one. I know Jess has you recently got approved for an ink preferred, which has the same right. rule, but theirs is just if you've ever had this card. I know you have got one again by using your EIN and LLC to be approved, right? Yeah, I think what's hardest about the Inc cash and income limited is if you do have a sole proprietorship, it sort of seems like they're making you choose between one or the other, and that is tough. Which is so unfortunate because they have different benefits and I think a lot of business owners, not even for not people who are doing what we're doing that actually want these cards for their business because they're both great cards these are both cards that I've had and I've kept because I like the 1.5 x on everything with the unlimited that's actually the business card we use for our business for the three of us and then the ink cash is great for the five x at office supply stores and so it's just a really unfortunate that people have to choose yeah and so it's just a really unfortunate that people have to choose yeah and so it's had these cards before. You have to kind of choose which one you want to start with. I would personally choose the ink cash because a lot of us have like a freedom unlimited that also earns one and a half X on everything or a capital one venture or capital one venture X that earns 2 X on everything. I think the ink cash's benefits are a little bit more unique. But you know you used to be able to get both. You used to be able to get multiple of both and so to go from that to this was a bond. Yeah. Yeah. That's. That's. That's the thing. That's the thing. That's the thing. That's the thing. That's. That's the thing. I think that's the hardest thing that's happened this year that was just a bummer it's just to go from being able to get both multiple times to be named to