🏨 Earn an easy 1,000 Marriott points
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Last week I told you about how to earn hotel points by taking advantage of partnerships with ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft. I know it feels like it was just yesterday, but there's been a development that makes this partnership even sweeter.
Until October 5th, you can earn a bonus 1,000 Marriott Bonvoy points by making a $25 transaction on Uber. Let me give you the specifics:
- Only Uber Comfort and above will qualify
- UberEats orders DO qualify
- Marriott Bonvoy account must be linked to your Uber account
- The transaction must be completed by the end of the day on October 5th
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Are 1,000 points really worth the trouble?
Let me put it this way: 1,000 points can easily be worth about $10 of value. So if you were already going to spend $25 on lunch, dinner, or a ride across town, then you can get a 40% return on that purchase.
Should you spend $25 JUST for the sake of getting $10 of value? I hope you know the answer to that, so I'm not even going to say it...
Here's why I'm telling you about this:
These kinds of promotions happen all the time. If you just take 30 seconds to link your accounts, you will earn meaningful amounts of points over time. It's a perfect example of how to passively earn free travel from the normal day-to-day things you already do.
Second, there are ways to maximize this promotion. Let's say you have two people in your household. You could each earn these bonus points, and since Marriott lets you transfer points between accounts for free, you could pool them into one account. There are still 10 days left on this deal and spending $50 on food and/or rides over ten days isn't very unreasonable.
As I said, this is just one of many ways to earn passive travel rewards - whether you're someone who uses points on a regular basis or you just want to save up for one trip in the future, there's no reason not to be earning free rewards.
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💳 Delta and Amex team up to give you 6,000 free points
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Today I want to share one of the ways that I personally benefit the most from credit cards: statement credits and partner offers.
Most credit cards allow cardholders to benefit from various brand partnerships in the form of rebates on purchases that you make. Sometimes it's travel, sometimes it's dining, sometimes it's wine. In fact, a lot of the time it's wine. I don't know why, but banks really want you to have free wine, apparently 🍷.
Anyway, one of the most popular versions of these types of offers is Amex Offers. Basically, each of your Amex cards will have a series of partner offers that are available. They vary by card and require you to activate them in order to benefit.
Sometimes it will be earning x dollars after spending y dollars at z brand. Sometimes it will be earning bonus points. If you're strategic about it, you can earn hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars of value every year just from this method alone. I'll be doing a deeper dive on this topic in a future newsletter to give you some large-scale examples, but today I'm going to talk about one specific offer that is worth sharing.
Let me preface this by saying that not everyone will have this offer. Some offers are available to everyone while some are targeted. I won't pretend to understand the black magic algorithm behind Amex offers, but it's worth going to your account and checking to see if you have it.
Here is the specific offer I'm talking about:
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This offer will award you 6,000 Membership Rewards points if you spend $300 or more on Delta Airlines gift cards.
Now let's break down why this offer is so great:
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6,000 Amex points are worth at least $120, which means you're getting a 40% return at the very least.
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You don't need to book flights with Delta, you only need to buy a gift card - you can save it for whenever you need to book flights in the future.
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Amex has a ton of transfer bonuses right now. That means if you transfer your points to airlines or hotels, you'll end up with more than 6,000.
Because you can just bank the Delta credit for future use, you can think of this offer as a "buy now, pay later" situation. Except it's more like a "buy now, travel later" situation. And instead of incurring interest, they're giving you free stuff. It's like the upside-down in Stranger Things, except way scarier (purchase interest is the stuff of nightmares 👻).
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Here are a few examples of how you could use 6,000 Amex points:
- Transfer them to Hilton (with a bonus) and end up with 15,600 Hilton points
- Transfer them to Marriott (with a bonus) for 7,200 Marriott points
- Transfer them to KLM/Air France and end up with 7,500 miles
These are just a handful of examples of the many places you can transfer your points.
Considering the flexibility of the Delta gift card (you can use it whenever you want and Delta flies pretty much everywhere in the U.S.), I think this offer is definitely worth pursuing if it's available to you. If the offer isn't on any of your cards, don't worry - new offers pop up ALL the time, so keep checking your cards on a regular basis and you'll eventually find some good ones.
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✈️ The place where planes go to die
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In one of last week's newsletters, I referred to a plane graveyard, which I specified was in fact a real thing. So today I thought I'd elaborate and tell you a little bit more about plane graveyards. It's not as spooky as it sounds, I promise.
Just like humans, planes have varying lifespans. Depending on the age of the plane, the type of weather it flies in, etc., planes have to be retired at some point. Unlike humans, however, planes don't need to wait until they're 65 years old to retire.
So where do you go when you need to ditch a plane or store it long-term?
Well, the airplane cemetery, of course. And no, it's not a creepy Stephen King novel, it's like an amusement park for aviation nerds. Well, more like an abandoned amusement park. Okay, maybe it is sort of like a Stephen King novel...
There are a number of airplane graveyards scattered around the world, but the biggest ones are all in the southwest United States, typically in desert climates. The desert is the perfect place to store planes because of the warm, dry weather that prevents corrosion. It's also easier to find wide-open spaces.
One of the biggest commercial plane graveyards (I say commercial because there are a few military ones that are MUCH bigger) is in Victorville, California.
Every year, airlines from all over the world fly their planes to Victorville and leave them there. Sometimes they just don't have the need for them and will pick them back up in a few years, sometimes they're sold to other airlines, and sometimes they sit there forever and end up getting scrapped for spare parts.
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The vast majority of planes here are either 747s, DC-10s, or Airbus a380s. Because of new technology, these massive "super-jumbo" jets rarely make economic sense for any airline to fly, with the exception of a few.
If you're thinking of going to visit, think again... The airport is strictly off-limits to the public. I know, it's very sad. As a life-long aviation geek, I feel personally attacked by this policy...
Still, it's pretty cool to know that there's a place where you can see all types of planes from airlines around the world spanning many decades.
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That's all for today. I've got a really fun travel hack for you tomorrow, so don't forget to check your inboxes in the morning 😉
Do you want to learn more about passive ways to earn points and miles? Did you listen to the recording of Pavarotti from the beginning of the email? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.
Have a wonderful Monday and I'll talk to you tomorrow 😊
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