August 18, 2022
Estimated read time: 5 minutes and 15 seconds |
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Greetings fellow travelers. I want to start off by thanking Jamie, a Daily Drop reader, for the incredible Fish Taco recommendation in Panama City yesterday. They were delicious, and I might go back again today… 🐟 🌮
Here's what's on the menu today:
- 🏨 New Hyatt promotion
- 💰 Earn 10x Membership Rewards (today only)
- ✈️ Epic (and kinda scary) plane landing
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🏨 Earn double points at Hyatt hotels |
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Hyatt recently announced a promotion that will give you double points earned on hotel stays, and double elite night credits at select all-inclusive properties.
The interesting part of this promo is definitely the double points component. As a World of Hyatt member (which is free to sign up for), you typically earn 5 points per dollar on Hyatt purchases. With this promo, you'll be earning 10 points per dollar.
How much value will you get out of a hotel stay?
Let me begin by saying that if you have elite status with Hyatt or own In this example, let's assume you're just a member earning 10 points per dollar.
Let's say you've booked a 3-night stay for a total cost of $400. If you have any other charges on your bill such as parking, breakfast, or that dank hotel cheesecake, you will also earn points for those purchases. Let's say you love the cheesecake so much that you buy it every night and spend an additional $100 on room service and other hotel expenses. Now you've earned a total of 5,000 Hyatt points.
Thankfully, there are many hotels around the world that you could book for 5,000 Hyatt points. Here are just a few examples:
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As you can see, the exact value that you could get from 5,000 points will vary based on where you use them. Overall, it's pretty easy to get significant value.
Now, for the other part of the promo…
The second half of this promo is earning double elite nights at select hotels. We haven’t talked about elite status in this newsletter yet, but let me give you a quick rundown:
Elite status is earned by staying a certain number of nights at a hotel chain every year. Each program has different requirements for earning status and different sets of benefits. Typically, the higher tiers of elite status (usually requiring 50+ nights per year) will give benefits like free breakfast, hotel lounge access, late check-out, and free puppies. Okay, FINE, you don't get a free puppy, but the rest is true. 🐶
There is a LOT more to be said about elite status, but we'll leave it there for now.
Easy elite status? That sounds pretty good, right?
Well, the catch is that this part of the promo only applies to all-inclusive properties, typically expensive resorts. If you have a stay booked at one of these properties already, then congrats, you lucky duck. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend changing around your hotel stays and paying more money just to earn a few extra elite nights.
A few things to keep in mind:
- Stays must take place between September 15 and December 20, 2022
- You must register for this offer by November 15
- Your stay must be at least 2 nights
This is definitely a promo that I'm considering taking advantage of. If I can replace some of my currently booked hotels with Hyatt properties that cost the same or less, this is an easy way to earn some extra points to put toward a future booking!
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💰 Earn 10x Membership Rewards points at Dell (today only) |
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For a limited time, you can earn 10 Membership Rewards points for every dollar spent on Dell purchases by using the Rakuten shopping portal.
If all of that means absolutely nothing to you, that's okay - allow me to translate for you:
Let's start with some definitions:
- Membership Rewards: the points currency awarded by spending on American Express cards
- Rakuten: a shopping portal that awards cashback OR Membership Rewards for making online purchases at various retailers.
- Dell: a computer company that also sells a range of electronics, gift cards, and more
- Portal: an addictive video game from the early 2000's that I wasted too much of my childhood playing
Now before I dismiss class for the day, let's talk about why I think this is such an amazing offer and how you can turn this deal into free travel. Ready to take notes?
You'd be surprised at how many things you can buy at Dell besides just computers. They sell everything from hard drives to software, laptop bags, speakers, and much more. Of course, if you were already thinking about buying a computer or laptop then even better - they're also offering up to $200 off of certain computers.
Let's take an example:
If you needed to purchase a computer and some accessories for $1,000 from Dell, you would earn 10,000 Membership Rewards points. Depending on which credit card you use to pay for it, you'd also earn points from your card. Let's say you use an American Express card that earns 1 point per dollar. Now you're earning 11,000 points.
I value Membership Rewards at about 2 cents per point because that's how much value I typically get after transferring them to hotel and airlines partners.
So, this $1,000 purchase would give you about $220 worth of value, or a 22% return on your purchase.
Here are a few specific examples of how you could use your Membership Rewards:
1. Transfer them to Delta and book a round-trip domestic flight
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2. Transfer them to Hilton at a 1:2 ratio (for a total of 22,000 points) and book a 5-night stay in Southeast Asia |
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As you can see, 10,000 Membership Rewards points could get you pretty far. If you need to make any electronics purchases, now is definitely a good time to get some amazing value out of it.
There's no concrete end date for this promotion, but similar promos in the past have only lasted a day or two. If you want to take advantage of this, I'd recommend doing so today.
Class dismissed!
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✈️ Video: Extremely low landing from Wizz Air
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Yikes… this Wizz Air flight landed mere feet from people on the ground. While this seems pretty dramatic, it is actually completely intentional.
The runway at Skiathos airport in Greece is quite short compared to most. If a plane like this one has a full passenger and cargo load, it needs to touch down as close to the runway start as possible to have enough time to slow down. Pilots who fly these routes are highly experienced in these types of landings, so don't be afraid when flying to or from an airport like this.
Still, it would be pretty epic to be on that plane or on the ground to experience that!
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Well, I've talked your ear off enough today. I took a break from the gifs and memes to make room for these important deals, but don't worry - they'll be back tomorrow 😉
I'm going to try something new tomorrow and walk you through how I booked my week-long trip to Panama completely on points to give you a real-world example of how you can do the same. If that sounds fun (or at least useful) to you, make sure to look out for tomorrow’s newsletter. 😊
Until next time, |
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Mike Dodge
Head Writer, The Daily Drop |
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