Fly around the U.S. for 5k points

Howdy, friends! Welcome back to Daily Drop, the one travel newsletter to rule them all.

It’s been a busy week, so let’s get right into it:

• 🌎 Flying Blue Promo Rewards (February 2025)

• 💳 Another new airline transfer bonus

• ✈️ Earn 2x Delta SkyMiles on gift cards

🌎 Flying Blue Promo Rewards (February 2025)

Flying Blue Promo Rewards. We love ‘em.

If you aren’t up to speed, let me give you the lowdown:

Every month, Flying Blue (the points program for KLM and Air France) offers discounted rates for booking flights between the U.S. and Europe (and other regions).

This month is quite different from past months for a few reasons that I’ll get to in a sec.

Thankfully, there are still solid deals to fly to Europe from all over North America.

As you can see, this month’s list of cities includes places like Boston, Denver, Raleigh/Durham, Houston, New York, and even Ottawa for my Canadian homies.

Anyway, one big change this month is that award prices are now more expensive…

You may remember that Flying Blue devalued their program again last month. So now, Promo Rewards for economy start at 18,750 miles one-way instead of 15,000, which is kind of disappointing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good deal - but as recently as a year and a half ago, we saw promo rewards for as little as 12,000 miles or even less.

So now, it’s getting closer and closer to being on par with every other program.

Anyway, there are a couple of other unique things about this month’s awards.

For example, they’re offering great award pricing between Europe and South/Central America:

If you are building a longer and more complex trip, these unique sweet spots could come in handy!

Additionally, they’re also throwing in business-class award deals between Europe and West Africa:

This definitely won’t be exciting for most Americans, but again - if you’re planning a unique multi-continent trip, these are definitely good deals to be aware of.

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

Award prices for Flying Blue have gone up… BUT there are still some good deals to be had.

If you want to hop on these current Promo Rewards, you can book your flights by February 28th and fly by July 31st, 2025.

💳 Another new airline transfer bonus

We’ve talked about Avianca LifeMiles quite a bit recently…

In addition to having some of the best award pricing for booking first and business-class flights, they also have pretty frequent transfer bonuses.

Right now, you can transfer MR Points to Avianca with a 15% bonus.

This might not sound like a lot, but don’t forget - Avianca has great deals already. So a further 15% discount makes them excellent in some cases.

For example, you can use Avianca miles to book United business class from New York to London for just 45,000 miles. 👇

Throw in this 15% bonus, and you’d only need to shell out 39,000 MR Points to fly to Europe in business class, which is GREAT.

You can also use Avianca miles to book domestic flights on United.

For example, this flight from Newark to D.C. is just 6,500 Avianca miles, or 5,600 MR Points, with the bonus.

In business class, it only costs 10,000 miles.

So if you transferred a bunch of MR Points over with this bonus, you’d be able to lock in a bunch of domestic United flights at great rates.

It’s worth noting that this transfer bonus is coming from Avianca, NOT from MR Points.

That means that if you log into your bank, you won’t see this advertised.

Rather, Avianca is the one providing the bonus miles, which should reflect in your account within 24 hours of making the transfer (read more here).

This deal is good until February 28th, so you have some time to look at options before pulling the trigger and transferring miles over.

✈️ Earn 2x Delta SkyMiles on gift cards

Delta is feeling the love with their latest promo ❤️

Through February 17, 2025, SkyMiles members can earn 2x bonus miles per dollar when you spend at least $200 on a gift card from Delta… Just in time for Valentine’s Day.

It’s important to know that Delta Gift cards are non-refundable (both e-cards and physical ones), but they never expire 🙌

Aaaand if you don’t have that special person in your life that you’d like to gift this to, you can always select the “For Me” option when it comes to purchasing.

You can simply keep it in your SkyMiles account for when you’re ready to use it for future flights.

So should you go for it?? If you fly Delta regularly or were already planning on purchasing some gift cards, then HELL YEAH.

You might as well earn some additional bonus miles! 😎

And if you do make a purchase, make sure you put it on a card that has a good earning rate on everyday spending since gift cards are not coded and/or processed by Delta.

My recommendations would be either the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card or the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card which both earn a solid 2x miles per dollar.

Stock up on your Delta gift cards HERE!

That’s all for today, friendos! I hope you’re as excited as I am to see all of these new airline deals popping up.

But don’t worry, we’ve still got more good travel content on deck. So have a great day, and I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.

Love,

26.8565° N, 100.2271° E