Buy miles with a 200% bonus

Good morning from the sunny beaches of Sanya, Hainan!

I’m writing to you from my $50 villa, complete with a private pool, beach access, food, drinks, and more… But more on that on Monday. 😉

For now, let’s talk about some BIG updates that dropped overnight:

• 🏨 Bilt Rent Day: Hilton Status Match

• ✈️ Buy miles with a 200% bonus

• 💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

🏨 Bilt Rent Day: Hilton Status Match

Bilt is back with another (sort of overwhelming) Rent Day full of fun surprises.

The headline news, however, is that Bilt will offer a status match to Hilton that could be super valuable for many of you.

As with all Rent Days, you can only activate this status match on October 1st.

However, once activated, you’ll get automatic Hilton Gold status until December 31st, 2024.

To keep your status OR even upgrade to Diamond, you can do the following:

• Stay eight nights before December 31st to keep Gold through March 31st, 2026.

• Stay 14 nights before December 31st to get Diamond status through March 31st, 2026.

• If you have Bilt Platinum status, you only need to stay ten nights to upgrade to Diamond.

Overall, this is great.

Although there are plenty of credit cards that offer Hilton status as a perk, this is an easy way to get status for at least 15 months without a card or much effort.

Don’t forget that you only need Gold status to get some of the most meaningful benefits like free breakfast (or food and beverage credit) when staying with Hilton.

So even if you just want to status match for the next few months to enjoy some benefits during one or two stays, it’s still worth doing.

To make this month’s Rent Day even better, Bilt is also offering the same Virgin Voyages BOGO cruise deal that they’ve offered the last two months. 👇

When you book a Virgin Voyages cruise by October 1st, you can bring a second passenger on the cruise for free.

Here are the deets:

• You must use the access key “VVBILT” when searching for cruises

• Only certain dates and routes are available (see the list on this page)

• You must book your cruise before midnight (PST) on October 1st

• After booking the cruise, go to the Bilt app to activate additional benefits

To clarify that last point, Bilt members will get the following benefits while on the cruise:

• $100 bar tab

• Unlimited premium Wi-Fi

• Two specialty coffees per day

• Priority boarding

• Complimentary laundry service

• Exclusive cocktail experience

• Dedicated Sailor Services support

Not too shabby for what is essentially a BOGO cruise deal. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Of course, Virgin Voyages are generally more premium cruises and come at a premium price.

Still, getting to bring an additional person for free is not a bad deal at all, given how nice these ships are and all of the benefits that are included.

And just to be clear about the booking window, you don’t need to wait until October 1st to book these cruises—you can go do it now.

Bilt has some other Rent Day perks this month that will apply to fewer of you, but I encourage you to go ahead and check your Bilt account if you want to see everything!

✈️ Buy miles with a 200% bonus

Okay, this is just nuts…

Every couple of months, we see Avianca LifeMiles come out with what feels like a truly ridiculous bonus when buying miles.

We’ve seen 150%, 160%, and even 175%.

Now, however, they’ve just launched a whopping 200% bonus on purchased miles... 🤯

That means that you can buy miles for as little as 1.1 cents each, which is by far the best offer we’ve ever seen to buy LifeMiles… or maybe even any miles.

Although LifeMiles tragically devalued its program last month, it still offers some of the best sweet spots in the biz.

One of those sweet spots is flying from the U.S. to the U.K. and Ireland for just 45,000 miles in business class on United.

Normally, buying those 45,000 LifeMiles would cost $1,485 without any sale.

Now, if you spend $1,485, you’ll get 135,000 miles, enough to book this business-class flight THREE times.

In this case, you’re effectively buying three business-class flights from the U.S. to Europe for under $500 each.

This is an EXCELLENT deal, considering United usually sells these flights for at least $2,000 each. 👇

But there are plenty of great LifeMiles deals beyond this U.S.-U.K. route.

For example, you can book a United flight from Chicago all the way to Tokyo, Japan, for just 47,000 LifeMiles in economy.

So, again, spending around $1,500 on miles will get you THREE of those flights, which is excellent value.

So here’s the bottom line:

Avianca is selling their miles with a 200% bonus until September 30th, which isn’t long.

If you fly on Star Alliance airlines like United often and want an effective discount on expensive cash flights, this is a unique and easy way to do so.

Oh… and if the idea of buying points still creeps you out, don’t forget that there’s a 25% transfer bonus to LifeMiles from ThankYou Points right now, which is the next best way to rack up tons of miles!

That’s all for today, friends! I hope you enjoyed another exciting week of new travel deals, tips, and strategies.

I’ve got a fun newsletter for you on Monday, so make sure you tune in first thing next week.

Until then, have a great weekend ❤️

18.2525° N, 109.5121° E