Points & Miles in 2026: What's New, What's Dying & What's Next with Brian M

All the Hacks: Money, Points & Life

Chris Hutchins

Business, Society & Culture, Education, Self-improvement, Investing, Places & Travel

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2026

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#262: Learn how to navigate major changes in points and miles while maximizing travel rewards in 2026. Chris and Brian M cover Bilt 2.0, the Mesa card shutdown, how to evaluate annual fees, find award availability, and what’s likely (and unlikely) to change this year. Link to Full Show Notes: https://chrishutchins.com/latest-on-points-miles-january-2026 Partner Deals Trust & Will: Get 20% off personalized, legally binding estate plans MasterClass: Learn from the world's best with 15% off Thrive Market: 30% off your first order of organic groceries + a free $60 gift NetSuite: Free KPI checklist to upgrade your business performance DeleteMe: 20% off removing your personal info from the web For all the deals, discounts and promo codes from our partners, go to: chrishutchins.com/deals Resources Mentioned Bilt World Elite Mastercard® (Rates and fees here) Bilt 2.0 Bilt Blue Card (Rates and fees here) Bilt Obsidian Card (Rates and fees here) Bilt Palladium Card (Rates and fees here) Rove Miles Silo Markets Rakuten ($50 bonus here) Kalshi Prediction Market Alila Ventana Big Sur The Big A## Calendar Award Search Tools Award Wallet Points Path Chrome Extension Google Flights AwardTool ($20 off annual plans with code ALLTHEHACKS) Expert Flyer ATH Podcast Leave a review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify Email for questions, hacks, deals, and feedback: podcast@chrishutchins.com Full Show Notes (00:00) Introduction (01:27) Reactions to Bilt’s New Card Lineup (04:08) Breakdown of the 3 New Bilt Cards (05:14) Should You Convert, Apply Fresh, Or Keep the Wells Fargo Card? (08:16) Questions Around Bilt Cash (09:50) The Bilt Card Chris Is Leaning Towards (15:03) Why Bilt's New Earnings Might Be Better Than It Looks (20:03) Mesa's Overnight Shutdown (24:25) Silo Markets Brokerage Bonus (29:54) What’s Coming Up in 2026 For Points, Loyalty, And Cards (32:25) Thoughts on the Southwest Companion Pass (35:26) Implications of the Proposed 10% Interest Rate Cap on Credit Cards (38:19) Will Points Tools Get Better in 2026? (40:02) Why 2026 Might Be Quiet on Major Credit Card Changes (43:18) How Brian Decides Whether an Annual Fee Card is Worth Keeping (46:50) Chris’ Order of Operations For Analyzing Cards (51:42) Ways to Plan A Trip Using Points (57:49) How Brian Leverages Flexibility for Travel (01:00:04) Strategies for Booking Flights (01:03:23) The Best Award Flight Search Tools (01:04:58) Booking Hotels With Points (01:09:38) Timeshares: When They Make Sense (and When They Don’t) (01:11:51) Using Alerts to Monitor Award Availability (01:13:12) Changing the Connecting City After Booking a Flight (01:15:14) Business Cards for Personal Spend (and Vice Versa) (01:17:09) What to Do When You Stop Getting Approved for Cards Connect with Chris Newsletter | Membership | X | Instagram | LinkedIn Editor’s Note: The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of our partner offers may have expired. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's been some changes in the points of miles space and surely more ahead in 2026. So today,
0:05.3	I'm sitting down with my friend Brian M for a conversation about credit cards, points, and travel.
0:10.6	We'll get into the recent built and major changes and shakeups, how to plan more flexible trips,
0:16.5	ways to decide whether to keep or cancel your cards and how we're thinking about points,
0:21.3	programs, and tools in the year ahead. I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoyed this episode,
0:25.7	please leave a comment or share it with a friend. And if you want to keep upgrading your
0:29.5	money, points in life, click follow or subscribe. Brian, I'm excited to do this. Thanks for being here.
0:35.2	Yeah, thanks for having me, Chris. Me too. I'm excited.
0:38.4	Yeah, so I'm kicking 2026 off with this new concept of a bit more conversational-focused episodes
0:45.3	with people I know or I've gotten to know about various topics. So this is kind of the first experiment
0:50.7	in conversational style, conversation about points, travel, miles, what's going on in
0:57.4	credit cards.
0:58.7	And so I thought we'd start, hit on a couple things that happened recently in the news,
1:03.0	one as recently as a few minutes ago, which is no coincidence.
1:06.2	And then jump into some of how you think about planning trips because I feel like I've learned a lot
1:11.9	from you. And then we might take some listener questions on credit cards that I thought you'd be good to help with. And if anyone listening, if you're not interested in the bill card and the launch, even though it might be relevant to lots of people, feel free to skip ahead in the show notes because we're going to cover a lot of other stuff in this episode. That sounds great. Yeah, Let's get to it.
1:27.4	So the first news that I think is topical and the reason we scheduled this episode right now
1:32.5	is that Built kind of revamped the entirety of their card lineup, how it works, how you earn points
1:38.8	on rent. And as of, I guess, 40 minutes ago, they announced the news. The site didn't actually work at that time, but there was a post from the built team on Reddit.
1:47.6	So we have all the final details.
1:49.8	I think you and I both have a built card.
1:52.6	I am curious how you receive this news, how you're thinking about it as a cardholder, what your reaction was.
	...

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