How (and why) to diversify

Good morning from Jakarta, and welcome back to Daily Drop—the newsletter that’s spicier than sambal and just as addictive. 🌶️

While I spend my day sitting in Jakarta traffic, here are some travel tips:

• 📊 Daily Drop Reader Survey Results

• 💳 Why you should diversify your points

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

📊 Daily Drop Reader Survey Results

Every year, we send out a survey to all of our readers. Our goal is to learn about who you are, what you enjoy, your travel habits, and more.

We also like to compile this data and share it with you. So today, I want to share some highlights from the 2024 Annual Survey.

To kick things off, we asked whether or not you all traveled internationally last year and to how many countries.

To my pleasant surprise, a whopping 83% of readers traveled abroad, which is cool.

As you can see, this didn’t mean y’all weren’t traveling domestically…

And although 94% of you took at least one domestic trip last year, nearly 40% of you took more than five domestic trips, which is awesome.

Perhaps most exciting were the stats about the number of times readers flew and how many nights you spent in hotels.

The great thing about points and miles is that you only need to travel once a year to get value out of it.

But for the more than half of you who fly frequently and spend more than ten nights a year in hotels, I hope our content about elite status and benefits is helping you get even more value from all of that travel. 👍

Finally, the question that I am always most curious about… The age-old question:

It really is amazing how close this always is… but window seat barely scraped by as the leader for last year.

And for the 0.8% of you who chose the middle as the preferred seat… can you tell me why? I’m really curious about that one… 🤔

Anyway, there is a LOT more data in the survey, and we compiled it all on our website, so I encourage you to go check it out:

💳 Why you should diversify your points

I feel like every single day, I’m telling you about cool flights and hotels I’m booking with points and miles…

And at first glance, it might seem like I have an unlimited supply of points.

But that could not be further from the truth… the reality is that I am just incredibly strategic about how and when I use points.

One of these strategies is diversification.

Here’s what I mean…

While many of the mainstream programs (British Airways, Flying Blue, etc.) are partnered with basically every program, some of the BEST programs only partner with one or two banks.

For example, let’s say you’re taking a trip to Seattle.

Let’s also say you have a nice big stash of UR Points, MR Points, and Capital One Miles.

You could transfer 20,000 UR Points per night to Hyatt and book this hotel:

Or you could transfer points from a bunch of programs to Marriott or IHG and book one of these hotels for around 40,000 or 50,000 points per night.

But to be honest, these options all suck. That’s WAY too many points for a single night.

If you ALSO had ThankYou Points, however, you could just transfer 7,500 points to Choice Hotels (at a 1:2 ratio) and book this hotel:

Just imagine how many points you save in this scenario by simply having the right type of point on hand.

In another situation, however, it could be the opposite, where a totally different program is optimal.

Let’s say you’re traveling to Asia and have an overnight layover in Los Angeles and need a hotel for the night.

These Hilton hotels seem like good options. After all, you can also transfer MR Points at a 1:2 ratio to Hilton.

25,000 or 30,000 points per night? It’s not great… but I guess it’s not the worst…

ORRRRRRR

You could transfer just 9,000 UR Points to Hyatt and book this cozy airport hotel just minutes from the terminal. 👇

Again, imagine how many points you save over time by simply having diversity between the various bank programs.

By saving 15,000+ MR Points on that one night, you’d have them available to transfer to a program like Flying Blue and book a flight to Europe.

That’s just from being strategic around booking a single hotel night.

Multiply that by multiple nights over multiple trips, and you can see how the points will add up.

But don’t forget that different banks offer transfer bonuses at different times. For example, every bank transfers to Flying Blue.

But if one program has a transfer bonus, you’ll save a lot of points by using that bonus as opposed to transferring from a program without one.

So here’s my recommendation:

Over time, try to build up a card portfolio with at least one solid card from each of the main programs.

Specifically, here are some ideas:

ThankYou Points: This card has a GREAT welcome offer, low annual fee, and can yield as many as 19 nights at Choice Hotels just from the welcome offer (utilizing the 1:2 transfer ratio).

Capital One Miles: This card also has a great welcome offer, low annual fee, and earns 2x miles on EVERYTHING, which lets you rack up points super fast. This card is similar, but offers some amazing premium perks.

MR Points: This card is one of my personal biggest earners. It has a larger annual fee than the previous cards, but it also offers a lot of credits to offset the fee.

Two of those credits are a semi-annual $50 Resy credit (which you can use twice per year at restaurants all over the U.S.) and $84 of annual Dunkin’ credits ($7 per month).

I barely spend time in the U.S., but I still find it super easy to use both of these. Plus, the card earns 4x on dining everywhere in the world and 3x on airfare.

Finally, UR Points.

Everyone should just get this card. UR Points are more valuable than every other currency (you can read more about why in this newsletter), and this entry-level card makes it easy to rack up a lot of them.

Anyway, diversification is key to any points strategy whether you travel once per year or every day of the year.

As always, check out this page for some inspiration on your next card offer:

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday mn

The correct answer is… Air New Zealand!

For the second year in a row, Air New Zealand has locked in the top spot of AirlineRatings.com’s list of the safest full-service airlines in the world. 👏

Known for its newer fleet, top-tier pilot training, and major safety protocols, this Kiwi carrier edged out Qantas by just 1.5 points.

Their ranking process evaluates serious incidents, pilot skills, safety practices, fleet size, and more.

Coming in third? A three-way tie between Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, and Emirates. These airlines were pretty neck-and-neck across all metrics.

Virgin Australia and Etihad Airways rounded out the top five, soooo Oceania and the Middle East are kinda killing it!

U.S. airlines also made a respectable showing, with Alaska Airlines cracking the top 10 at No. 9—the highest-ranked U.S. carrier. Hawaiian Airlines landed at No. 12, followed by American Airlines at No. 13. Delta and United didn’t quite make the top 20, coming in at No. 21 and No. 23.

Whether you’re planning a long-haul trip to New Zealand or a quick trip to Alaska, these airlines have proven they’re at the top of their game.

I’m curious…would you ever choose your flight based on safety rankings?

If you’re a fellow aviation nerd, check out the list of the safest full-service airlines at AirlineRatings.com.

Alright, folks… it’s already been a long newsletter, so I won’t drone on any longer.

Have a great day, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Cheers,

6.1944° S, 106.8229° E