How to save thousands of dollars on Star Alliance flights

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✈️ Longing for a la dolce vita summer? EasyJet is offering flights for under $300 from NYC to the Amalfi Coast’s new Salerno Costa d’Amalfi Airport starting this July! Read more about it here.

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the only travel essential that you never need to worry about packing in your bag.

Here’s what we got for you today:

✈️ How to save thousands of dollars on Star Alliance flights
🌴 Alaska Airlines 50% Award Redemptions with Global Getaways
💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

✈️ How to save thousands of dollars on Star Alliance flights

Before you skip this section or throw your computer/phone/tablet/self against the wall because I'm telling you to buy more points and miles, just give me a chance...

Avianca has just launched yet another crazy promo where you can buy Avianca LifeMiles with up to a 170% bonus (until April 9th).

Yes, you read that correctly...

Here is the structure for bonuses:

Buy 1,000 - 15,000 miles and get a 140% bonus
Buy 16,000 - 30,0000 miles and get a 155% bonus
Buy 31,000 - 200,000 miles and get a 170% bonus

Even a 140% bonus is pretty amazing, but you'll need to buy at least 31,000 miles if you want to unlock the full 170% bonus.

But what are these miles worth, and what can you do with them?

Here's a quick example:

Example of buying 83,000 Avianca miles for about a thousand dollars

Unlocking the lowest 170% bonus would cost you just over $1,000 and yield 83,700 miles.

With that many miles, you could book any of the following flights:

Business class from New York to London on United
Round trip from Los Angeles to Tokyo on Singapore Airlines
Round-trip from Chicago to Rio de Janeiro on United

Sample United flight using Avianca miles

Sample Singapore flight using Avianca miles

Sample flight from Chicago to Rio de Janeiro using Avianca miles

Since Avianca is a member of Star Alliance, you can use Avianca LifeMiles to book flights on dozens of different airlines.

If you wanted to book ALL of the aforementioned flights, it would run you roughly $4,500 (depending on dates, of course) if paying cash.

Buying Avianca miles and booking all of them, however, would only run you about $2,400, plus less than $100 in taxes and fees, cutting the cost of these trips almost in half.

If you want to really maximize this deal, you can use 90,000 Avianca miles to book a flight from San Francisco to Singapore on ANA...

... in BUSINESS class.

That's right; you could book one of the best business-class seats in the sky by paying $1,122 for Avianca miles.

Sample ANA business-class booking using 90,000 Avianca miles

For reference, it’s not uncommon for this flight to price out at over $10,000 when paying cash...

So, if you’re willing to pay a little cash for a flight or set of flights worth FAR more than what you pay, this is a great opportunity to get some serious outsize value.

The sale only lasts until April 9th, so run the numbers and hop on this deal soon if you want to rake in the miles.

🌴 Alaska Airlines up to 50% Award Redemptions with Global Getaways

Alaska has launched what they’re calling a Global Getaways promo which will offer recurring promotions to new destinations on a quarterly basis.

This will allow Alaska’s Mileage Plan members to save up to 50% on select international award redemptions four times a year!

The current promo is offering discounts on partner award travel to tropical destinations that are booked by April 30th, 2024, with travel taking place in both September and November.

The featured destinations are… drum roll… 👇

Screenshot showing tropical destinations that are part of Alaska's promo

Flying to places like the Bahamas, Tahiti, and the Maldives for 15,000 - 30,000 points is incredible 😍

This promotion is primarily for economy and premium economy seats. As you can see, there is a TON of award availability starting at just 20,000 points for this route from Seattle to Tahiti in November.

Screenshot of award redemptions for the month of November

Now how the heck do I get some Alaska miles to book a dreamy tropical vacay like this??

Well, you see… It’s been notoriously difficult to get your mitts on a chunk of Alaska miles.

Mainly because Alaska hasn’t been a transfer partner to any major programs… until recently 😏

You might remember that Bilt added Alaska as a 1:1 transfer partner just last month, so that gives us one option!

Additionally, the airline does offer a credit card, and you’ll also earn Alaska miles when you fly with the airline.

So if you have a stash of Alaska miles, or even Bilt points lying around, this could be an excellent way to use them to get to a balmy destination this fall.

But remember! You need to book your flights by the end of the month. Plus, we should see a new rotation of destinations as part of this Global Getaways promo for Q3.