Book a cruise, earn... Southwest points?

Konnichiwa, my friends, and welcome back to Daily Drop, the sushi of newsletters.

We’re an elegant mix of high-quality content and occasional jokes and memes, all rolled up every day by me… which makes me the rice in this analogy. 🍚

Anyway, before you get too hungry, let’s talk shop:

• 💳 Top Cards Update: October 2024

• 🛳️ Southwest launches a… cruise portal?

• 🎥 When to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel a card

💳 Top Cards Update: October 2024

It’s that time of month again.

And no, not the time of the month when I call Marriott to sort out all of the mistakes they made with crediting points to my account (although that’s also coming up soon).

No, no. It’s the time of the month when I tell you about the latest and greatest credit card offers that you need to know about.

And this month, there are two heavy hitters that fall into the category of “you need to get it right now.”

So, let’s get right into this month’s update:

First on the docket is a card that typically only has one elevated offer per year.

But, to our surprise, they’ve just launched another one that’s even BETTER than the offer from earlier this year.

I’m talking about this card, the one that everyone on the Daily Drop team has (or has had).

Right now, you can earn 60,000 points AND a $300 travel credit when you sign up for this card with an annual fee under $100.

For anyone who missed out on the similar offer on the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card last month (which is still a fantastic option, by the way), congrats - you now get a better offer.

I say “better” because UR Points can be worth significantly more than other points currencies, especially when you use them with transfer partners like Hyatt.

I just spent four nights at the Hyatt Place in Kyoto, which only cost me 8,000 points per night against a cash cost of about $300 per night after taxes… 😮

In this case, my UR Points were worth about 4 cents each because I transferred them to Hyatt.

If you used your welcome offer this way, it would be worth $2,860, including the $300 travel credit, which is usable in the bank’s travel portal.

By the way, that credit essentially just pays for the entire annual fee three years over, so getting the card is a no-brainer.

I use this bank’s portal to book travel all the time and find some really good deals, even right here in Japan. 👇

Anyway, speaking of Hyatt, that brings us to card number two…

For the first time EVER, we’re seeing this co-branded hotel card offer five free night awards…

And while we’ve seen other cards offer similar deals this year, Hyatt free night awards are worth WAY more than other programs.

To be clear, these awards are each good for a one-night stay at a Category 1-4 hotel anywhere in the world.

In fact, I just used one of these awards last week at the Hyatt Regency in Hong Kong.

Despite having a cash cost of $600 per night and booking the hotel the morning of my stay, there was still award availability, and it saved me a crap load of money.

With this welcome offer, you’re getting FIVE of those awards.

But even if you use these awards to get $200-$300 in value each (which is very easy to do), you’re still getting a ton of value from this card, which, again, has an annual fee of under $100.

So here’s the bottom line:

These two cards (our top card and this all-time high offer on a co-branded hotel card) are both well worth applying for.

If you can get either of them or BOTH of them, you absolutely should - they’re both excellent cards to have and keep, and you won’t see offers like this for a long, long time.

As always, you can always check out our Top Cards Page, which we keep up to date with all of the best cards and offers. 👍

🛳️ Southwest launches a… cruise portal?

Southwest has been going through some stuff.

They announced that they’re overhauling their products, introducing assigned seats, and even adding airline partners.

So it wasn’t exactly surprising when they dropped another new addition: a cruise booking portal with some epic offers to kick it off.

That’s right - you can now book cruises through Southwest!

While this isn’t a groundbreaking idea (American Airlines has had the same thing for a while now), Southwest fans will be happy to earn some extra points when booking cruises.

Here are some deets on how this works:

• You’ll earn 1 Southwest point per dollar spent on cruises

• You can get some extra benefits on certain cruise packages (onboard credit, etc.)

• They (allegedly) offer the lowest prices on cruises and will refund you the price difference if you find a lower offer

To celebrate this launch, they’re also adding in some tasty bonuses, which is where this gets really interesting:

• Double points on cruises through December 31st, 2024

• Up to 10,000 bonus points when you book a cruise by October 31st

Both of these are great deals, and could definitely make it worthwhile to book a cruise through Southwest.

When you search on Southwest’s website, you’ll see which of the above deals apply to any given cruise, like in the example below:

As far as I can see, there are definitely some good deals. And getting a stash of extra Southwest points is a welcome bonus.

Keep in mind that some of the benefits listed are based on the room type you book, so be sure to read the terms for each offer if you find a cruise you like.

After these promos end, I’d recommend you compare prices with other sites - after all, earning one Southwest point per dollar isn’t super exciting if you can find better deals or portal offers elsewhere.

🎥 When to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel a card

If you’ve ever had a credit card, you’ve probably thought about this…

If you don’t want one of your cards anymore, should you just cancel it? There’s probably a better option instead—downgrading.

Or maybe you started out with a tiny, baby, beginners card and want to move up in the miles and points world. You could potentially look at upgrading that card to something more… premium 😏

In this week’s video, Brendan covers all the basics about when you should upgrade, downgrade, or just flat out cancel a credit card.

We guarantee you’ll find this video helpful, so go check it out! 👇

That’s all for today, friends! Despite all of the insane points and miles offers we’ve seen this year, the gravy train seems to continue chugging along. 🚂

It's always good to see new card offers and airlines revamping their programs, so I look forward to diving into even more travel tips tomorrow.

Until then,

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