Luxury travel on a budget (and no points)

Good morning from Xi’an, home to the eighth wonder of the world - the famous Terracotta Army, which I was lucky enough to visit yesterday!

I’ve got some good stuff lined up for you, so let’s get to the good stuff:

• 🏃🏼‍♂️ Mike on the Move: Luxury on the cheap

• ✈️ How to book a spontaneous holiday getaway

• 🍪 Tasty Travel Tidbits

🏃🏼‍♂️ Mike on the Move: Luxury on the cheap

As I mentioned in the intro, I’m having a great time bopping around China. Of course, my main focus is on the SAS Million Mile Challenge.

And if you’ve been following our progress, you’ll be happy to see that a new player has entered the arena…

We now have FOUR Daily Drop team members taking on the beast, and we’re making good progress.

But since I finally have a Chinese visa, I’ve been doing some other fun travel stuff in between SkyTeam flights…

My other main focus here is on Hyatt. Since I have a promotion to earn 10,000 bonus points for every ten nights, this is the perfect opportunity to rack up some nights and a TON of Hyatt points.

Since I’m sitting at around 100 nights for the year, I also get another 10,000 bonus points for every 10 nights, thanks to Hyatt’s milestone rewards.

In Hangzhou last week, I stayed at an UrCove property that only cost about $50 per night.

In other cities in China, I’ll be staying at similar hotels and racking up close to the 30 nights I need to max out that promo, which will earn me a total of around 80,000 Hyatt points.

That’s enough to book as many as 22 nights at similar hotels, so the return on my spending is freaking amazing.

Tomorrow, I’ll be flying to Beijing to stay at this hotel just steps from the Great Wall of China.

At around $100 a night, it’s not even worth using points because of how good the cash rate is.

But best of all, It’ll get me very close to getting a Hyatt Category 1-4 Free Night Award, thanks to one of my favorite perks of Hyatt - their Brand Explorer promotion.

If you aren’t aware of this promo, Hyatt will give you one free night award for every five brands you stay at with them.

And since they have 30 brands, you can earn up to SIX free night awards just through this method alone.

But here in Xi’an, I did something a little different…

Remember last week when I told you about buying IHG points and using this card to get every fourth night free?

I decided to do exactly that with this FANTASTIC hotel.

With the 4th-night free perk, my 4-night stay came out to 58,000 IHG points at a cost of $290.

$72 per night is a lot for China… but this is also as high-end as you can get.

It’s located in the absolute best part of the city with numerous walking streets, markets, food, cafes, malls, parks, museums, and a big-ass pagoda.

It also just has an amazing vibe - it feels like being in a traditional village but with all of the modern luxuries you could ask for.

And with a cash rate of around $200 per night, I’m saving a ton of money by using this trick.

But here’s my favorite part of this week…

In China, they use a lot of big planes to fly domestic routes. Oftentimes, this means being able to book lie-flat business-class seats for next to nothing…

And that’s exactly what I did for my next flight from Xi’an to Beijing. I searched for this route on Google and specifically found widebody planes.

More specifically, this Hainan Airlines flight on a 787 Dreamliner:

Three hours in a lie-flat bed for under $200 is an epic deal, in my opinion, and Hainan’s business class doesn’t look half bad!

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

When you travel to certain parts of the world, you can get a lot out of points and miles…

… but you can also get a lot out of your dollars.

For the same price as basic economy and Holiday Inns in the U.S., you can get lie-flat beds, luxury hotels, and more in some Asian countries, all while earning points and seeing some of the coolest places in the world. 🌎

✈️ How to book a spontaneous holiday getaway

Y’all know the drill:

Feeling spontaneous? Then this is the deal for you.

Every month, Singapore Airlines offers “Spontaneous Escapes,” or discounted rates for various award flights, with a big catch:

You have to book and take the flights in a limited time (hence the spontaneity).

Here is the deal for this month:

• You must book your flights by November 30th, 2024

• Valid for flights taken all of next month (December 1st through 31st)

• You must book your flights with Singapore KrisFlyer miles

• Valid for various routes in various classes of service

The list of discounted routes is HUGE, but I think the one that most of you will find exciting is the route between Los Angeles and Tokyo in Premium Economy for 51,100 miles.

This deal is nice because you don’t need to touch Singapore at all, and it can be really hard to find premium awards at good prices for flights between the U.S. and Japan.

Singapore has one of the best (if not the single best) premium economy seats in the world, so I think this is a pretty solid deal.

Of course, if you are venturing off into the world, there are plenty of other great deals.

For example, you can fly between Singapore and Milan for just under 30,000 miles in economy and other European cities for a bit more.

If you really wanted to just try out Singapore business class on a short flight for barely any points, you could also book discounted business-class fares between Singapore and cities like Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, and more, all for only 15,000-20,000 miles.

Anyway, this won’t apply to a ton of you… but if you’re feeling spontaneous and want a solid points deal on one of the world’s best airlines, look no further.

As a reminder, you can transfer points from a number of credit card programs directly to Singapore KrisFlyer, so getting some miles into your account is a piece of cake!

🍪 Tasty Travel Tidbits

🤩 Ooooooooo fancy. Delta has announced that they will be refreshing all of their planes with some sleek new seating… and it looks real nice. Take a look here.

✈️ Finally! You can now apply American Airlines systemwide upgrade awards online, which will definitely be an improvement for AA loyalists. Check out this article for a deeper dive on this along with some tips for using these upgrades.

🏨 Marriott has announced that they will be offering members a “soft landing” in 2025. This means that if you don’t re-qualify for the same status you had this year, you’ll be downgraded to one tier below (rather than starting at the bottom). Yay!

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That’s all for today, folks! I’m having a great time traveling around China, and I hope some of you feel inspired to do the same!

Stay tuned tomorrow for more fun travel content.

Cheers,

34.2658° N, 108.9541° E