How to pay the points & miles games in 2-player mode, how to figure out if a credit card is worth the annual fee and best ways to use Qantas & Velocity points
Insider Letter #027
👋 Hey friends,
Welcome to Travelling Lens Insider Letter, where every weekend I send you a carefully curated letter of all things travel, photography and points optimisation.
Quick ask 🙏
I’m working on a Notion template system to organise and track your credit cards, benefits, points, miles and redemptions all in one place.
But before I go all gung-ho working on and making it available to everyone, I wanted to know if there’s any real interest in this.
As a big thank you,
The first 2 people to complete the survey will get free access to Points Hub Pro when it drops.
Everyone else goes into a draw to win 1 free access too!
Now, onto this week’s letter…
✈️ Travel, Points and Photography
🛋️ Curious what the inside of the Qantas Los Angeles International First lounge looks like? Here’s what you can expect if you visit.
🧳 There are dozens of credit cards which offer the same or similar benefits.
If you're struggling to figure out which premium cards are keepers when your annual fee is due, use this handy spreadsheet to figure out whether it's worth keeping. I’ve got my own system going that’s built right into Notion where I do all my travel planning, to-do’s and credit card benefits tracking etc. all in one place, making it super easy to keep track of everything.
✈️ If you have access to Qantas and Velocity points through credit cards, this 25 minute episode breaks down how you can use those points to redeem flights on partner airlines.
Including examples of specific redemptions that are good value and using those points to redeem seats on other partner airlines. For example, you can redeem Qatar flights from Perth or Adelaide to Central Europe using Velocity points for great value at only 119,500 points in business class! That’s a long way to go for just that amount of points!
💳 If you’re like me, who has a significant other in the points & miles game, then you should check out this 2-player credit card strategy to maximise your points earnings for travel. With the right strategies you actually need less points than you think to travel for cheap.
📸 If you edit your travel photos in Adobe Lightroom, editing just got easier with this new feature, adaptive colour profile. Get how it works in under 10 minutes.
📸 Photo Throwback
Your credit cards, points, and miles. All in one place.
If you’re a frequent flyer or are just getting into the points and miles game so you can travel for cheap, keeping track of your points and miles can feel overwhelming.
I’ve been using Notion to easily organise everything related to points and miles. So, if you’re looking a simple and flexible system to do just that, join the waitlist to be the first to know when my Points Hub PRO in Notion becomes available.
👀 Substack Finds
There’s nothing worse than paying extra for a window seat and getting nothing at all! Airlines know which seats are actually next to a blank wall, yet they charge you a premium for those seats! Captain Nick behind Lessons From The Flight Deck 💺 shares his strategies on avoiding this scam.
Photography is a creative practice. That means you get better with more practice (no matter how talented you are). Substack famous photographer Wesley Verhoeve shares his perspective on the art and practice of photography.
Stockholm, Sweden, is a bucketlist destination of mine. I love this piece from Stina Gustafsson on how she spent 24 hours in Stockholm recently.
📚 Travel Reading
I started reading Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt for my bookclub with friends recently.
It’s a heartwarming story about Tova, a widow who works are an aquarium, who forms an unusual friendship with a giant Pacific octopus at the aquarium.
It was a slow and weird start to the book—after all there is a talking octopus as one of the key characters—but 20% into the book I was invested and hooked on the story. I wanted to know whether Tova ever finds out about what happen to her son, who she lost when he was just a teenager.
There is humour, grief, friendship and romance. And a story of second chances.
💬 Final Words
Creating memorable experiences is a smart use of your time and money.
I’m on a mission to help you create memorable travel experiences, capture personal documentary-style travel photos and get the most out of your points & miles so you can see the world more often (and in comfort!)
If you enjoyed this, comment, restack or share it with one person—that’s the best compliment I could receive from you.
Your friend,
Janice
p.s. Want to an easy & organised way to plan your next trip? Get my free Travel Hub trip planning system in Notion.