✈️ CLEAR, now an authorized TSA PreCheck provider, offers enrollment at 27 airports across the U.S., including seven new ones: ATL, AUS, DEN, DTW, PVD, SJC, and SJU. Read more about the update here.
Good morning, and happy Friday! Did you all survive the Fourth of July travel rush?
I certainly hope so… because I’ve got some epic travel news to fill you in on today:
✈️ MASSIVE Aeroplan promo next week
Birthdays are always fun. I like to celebrate mine by hanging out with friends, maybe grabbing a beer, or taking a cool flight somewhere.
Aeroplan also likes to celebrate their birthday. But they take it to the next level…
Next week, Aeroplan turns 40 years old. To celebrate, they’re offering a CRAP ton of deals.
Most of these deals are, to put it eloquently, “meh.”
But some of them are so good that you could get THOUSANDS of dollars of value from them…
The big highlight of this week of celebrations is, without a doubt, their upcoming points sale, which begins on Monday, July 8th.
From July 8th through July 11th, you can get up to a 125% bonus when buying points.
As of now, it’s unclear what exactly “up to” means…
My guess is that they will offer tiered bonuses, with the higher bundles of points offering the higher bonuses.
So, let’s take a hypothetical and overanalyze it quickly.
Right now, the highest number of points you can buy is 250,000 points for $8,750 CAD or about $6,400 USD.
Since this is the highest amount that one can purchase, we can assume that the 125% bonus would apply here.
In this case, you’ll be buying 562,500 points for $6,400, or just under 1.14 cents each.
Since Aeroplan points are usually worth closer to 2 cents each, you can REALLY come out ahead on this deal, and I’ll tell you how.
You can fly from New York to Frankfurt on Singapore Airlines in BUSINESS class for just 60,000 Aeroplan points and about $57 USD in taxes and fees.
This is always a fantastic deal and one of Aeroplan’s best sweet spots.
Since Singapore is one of the best airlines in the world, paying cash for the same flight would run you over $2,000.
And this is the MINIMUM price… it can often be much higher.
But for simplicity’s sake, let’s say the cash cost of the flight is $2,042 (like in the example above).
If we subtract the taxes and fees of $57, the value you get for these 60,000 points is $1,985.
Since you could book this flight NINE times with your purchased points, your $6,400 expense would yield $17,865 in value, and that’s already after subtracting the associated cash cost of taxes and fees.
In this example, you’re getting about three times as much value as what you paid.
But you don’t need to fly premium, world-class airlines to get value here (though you definitely should).
You can also book domestic United flights in the U.S. for as few as 6,000 Aeroplan points.
In this case, you’d be able to book… wait for it… NINETY-THREE flights with your purchased points…
Since flying in the U.S. is so cheap these days, this wouldn’t yield quite as much value… but you get the “point.” 😉
The other big highlight of Aeroplan’s b-day celebration is a giveaway of 40 million Aeroplan points.
This is open to any and all Aeroplan members, 40 of whom will win a lump sum of one million Aeroplan points.
This takes one second to enter and could win you a life-changing number of points, so I HIGHLY recommend you all do this immediately by simply registering on this page.
For y’all Canadians, there are also some nice bonuses in the Aeroplan shopping portal, extra earnings for elite status members, and more - so check out the landing page here for all of the details.
Oh… and Happy Birthday, Aeroplan. Love you. 😘
Wow, all of this talk about points and miles is exhausting, eh?
Why don’t we mix things up a bit and talk about the best travel trick in the biz? I’m talking about dirt-cheap flights, the OG way to save money on travel.
And right now, there’s an excellent deal to fly in a premium cabin to Europe, round-trip, for less than $700 total!
Here are the details:
This applies to all cities served by Scandinavian Airlines (though the dates are scattered)
Generally speaking, the low prices are for flights to Oslo, connecting through SAS’s hub in Copenhagen
The dates with low prices vary by route, but there is a ton of availability through mid-2025
This is an amazing deal, even though you’re “only” flying in premium economy as opposed to business class.
If you’ve never flown premium economy before, it’s awesome.
It’s a nice step up from economy and usually includes slightly larger seats, larger entertainment screens, better (and more frequent) meals, and overall better service.
This is what SAS’s Premium Economy cabin looks like:
It’s obviously not as luxurious as a lie-flat bed in business class, but you also won’t have to pay an arm and a leg for it.
Here’s how I look at it…
This Itinerary (which involves about 20 hours of total flying time) costs $400 in economy or $700 in Premium Economy.
Therefore, you’re paying $300 more for 20 hours in a more premium cabin, or about $15 per flight hour.
If you crunch the numbers this way for normal flights, you’ll usually end up with MUCH higher numbers than that…
For example, business class on the same set of flights would cost over $3,000.
In this case, you’d pay $130 per flight hour to go from economy to business, which is just way too much, in my opinion.
Anyway, here’s the bottom line:
This is a GREAT deal. Play around with combinations of cities and dates to find an itinerary that works for you.
I recommend using Google Flights, which allows you to see a matrix like this one:
As you can see, there is no shortage of ways to save a ton of money while flying in style to Europe.
While I think this is a screamin’ deal, I’m curious to know what you all think about this:
Would you pay $700 for a round-trip, premium economy flight to Europe?Tell me a bit more |
Only Email Recipients can participate in polls. |
Current Transfer Bonuses
15% bonus from ThankYou Points to Cathay Pacific (ends July 20th)
20% bonus from UR Points to Aeroplan (ends July 31st)
80% bonus from UR Points to IHG One Rewards (ends July 31st)
PLUS, there are 21 cards with elevated offers right now!
Want to continue the conversation beyond the Daily Drop newsletter? Come hang out with us in our Facebook group, the Daily Drop Lounge!
We ask questions, get answers, and share fun travel wins just like this one 👇
Phew, that was a doozy! I hope you enjoyed today’s dose of points and miles opportunities, great flight deals, and some updates from the travel world!
Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you again on Monday. ❤️
