SkyTeam gets a new member airline

Good morning and happy Valentine’s Day to all you love birds out there. I’m celebrating with one of my true loves: credit cards. I just opened my first new card in a while…

I won’t tell you which one, but it’s on this list. I’ll let you guess. 😉

But enough blabbering. Let’s get into some good ol’ fashioned travel hacking, shall we?

• 🏨 Best Western joins in the hotel promo fun times

• ✈️ SkyTeam gets a new member airline

• 🖼️ Travel meme of the day

🏨 Best Western joins in the hotel promo fun times

I know I’ve been throwing a lot of hotel promos at you lately. But it’s not my fault, I swear. It’s because there are just so many great opportunities to get cheap hotels and rack up points right now.

And just when we thought things were winding down, Best Western came into the mix to shake things up with their new promo that can earn you up to 16,000 bonus points.

Here are the details:

• Stay two nights, earn 8,000 bonus points

• Stay another two nights, earn another 8,000 bonus points

• Valid for stays until May 7th, 2023

• Only valid for hotels in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean

• You must register for the promotion

This is actually a really good deal, and I’ll tell you why.

Just by being a member of Best Western, you’ll earn ten points per dollar on your stay. So let’s say you book two two-night stays (for a total of four nights) at this hotel right here in Toronto:

You’ll pay a total of $67 USD per night, or $268 for the entire two stays.

Because of this promotion, you’ll earn the 16,000 bonus points plus 2,680 points just for being a member for a total of 18,680 points. If you have a travel credit card that earns points on hotel purchases, you’ll earn even more. But let’s forget about that part for now.

Those 18,000+ points are enough to book as many as three additional nights at a lower-tier property, like this one in Mexico City:

If that’s not your style, 18,000 points can easily get you a night at a nicer property in cities all over the world.

So don’t underestimate the value of this promotion. If you can rack up three free nights just for staying four nights somewhere, that’s a pretty sweet proposition if you ask me.

✈️ Skyteam gets a new member airline

You might not know this, but airlines belong to alliances. They’re like clubs that you can join, but only if you meet the standards set by the cool kids in the club.

It also takes YEARS to be able to join these clubs. And if you’re lucky enough to get in, you get to share some amazing perks of your partner airlines with passengers.

On March 2nd, 2023, Virgin Atlantic will officially join SkyTeam, the airline alliance headed by some heavy hitters like Delta, Air France, KLM, Korean Air, and many, many more.

It’s pretty sweet. Virgin Atlantic has had this move in the works for a long time now, and it’s only just now coming to fruition.

You’re probably thinking one of two things right now:

1. Wow, Mike. This is REALLY cool. Planes are sweet.

2. Why do I care about this?

Okay, most of you are probably thinking number two.

When an airline becomes a member of an alliance like this, it generally comes with the perk of reciprocal earning and redeeming with partner airlines.

For example, if you fly on Virgin Atlantic after March 2nd, you’ll have the option to earn Delta miles instead of Virgin Atlantic miles.

Similarly, you can also redeem your Delta miles for flights on Virgin Atlantic, and vice versa.

Given Virgin’s heavy presence in the U.K. and a decent network of long-haul routes, this opens up a ton of doors for traveling between continents with a single layover in London or Manchester.

As I told you last week, Virgin Atlantic has some amazing sweet spots in its award chart. Now that you can also use Virgin miles on tons of other airlines, it makes their program that much more enticing to engage with.

So next time you’re looking at booking a trip on points, check out Virgin Atlantic to see if any more sweet spots open up with Skyteam airlines.

While I have you here, let me ask you something:

🖼️ Travel meme of the day

I saw this meme today and it’s just too relatable… Do you go out of your way to pay for everything on your card when you go out with friends?

That’s it for today, y’all. After what’s felt like an eternity (it’s been more like a week and a half), I’m very excited to finally hit the road again tomorrow and do some flying, this time right in my old stomping grounds: America.

Do you have any travel plans this week? Do you find value in staying loyal to a specific airline alliance? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.

Cheers,

52°22'35.4"N 52°15'17.4"W