Good morning to all you savvy travelers out there 🤗
Did you sleep well? Enjoying your morning so far? How’s that fresh cup of coffee?
And if you’ve been looking to make your morning even better, you’ve come to the right place!
✅ Sweet Spot Highlight: Did you know you can use Turkish miles to book domestic U.S. flights on United Airlines for… SUPER CHEAP?
✅ Award Drop: U.S. to Istanbul in business class for just 63,000 miles!
✅ See if you’re eligible for American Airlines and Hyatt’s dual status match!
✅ Catch up on our latest YouTube video that looks at using points for both a budget stay and a luxury stay. Are the extra points worth it??
✅ Bless your ears with this week’s podcast that discusses opportunity cost and the case for cashback.
🏆 Favorite pick(s) of the week: Transfer bonuses galore!
Apparently, this was the week that the banks got together and decided to all drop some new transfer bonuses…
…and I’m not mad about it.
Quite the opposite, actually. I’m ecstatic.
I’ll give you the hard and fast deets here, but if you want a little more context or some examples of how to use said transfer bonuses, I’ll also link to some of our original newsletter sections.
30% bonus from MR points to British Airways (and ALL Avios programs) until September 30th
This, no doubt, is the best one of the bunch. I’ve personally already taken advantage of it for some upcoming award bookings I’d like to make!
Although this transfer bonus is specifically for British Airways, when you have Avios in any program that uses that currency (BA, Qatar, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Finnair), you can freely transfer those bad boys between all of the aforementioned airlines 🎉
This opens up A TON of opportunities across many airlines and many routes, as you might imagine.
Check out this newsletter if you want additional details.
20% bonus from Capital One Miles to Qantas until September 1st
We don’t talk about the Australian airline Qantas super often. Honestly for us here in North America… it’s not that useful.
But again, when you’re able to make some points off of a simple transfer bonus, it becomes a bit more relevant 😉
I’ve personally never been to Australia, but it’s certainly on my bucket list!
If you happen to be planning a trip there, then this transfer bonus could be extremely useful.
Or if you happen to be in Southwest Asia and want to make Australia a stop on your itinerary, there are plenty of great deals around that region of the world (like this flight from Sydney to Singapore) 👇
With this 20% transfer bonus, you’d only need to shell out 21,000 miles which is pretty great for an 8.5-hour flight.
💡 Pro tip: If you’ve recently signed up for the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, this could be an excellent use of your miles! Plus, its elevated welcome offer of 75,000 bonus miles and a $250 travel credit is still going on!
70% bonus from UR points to Marriott Bonvoy until August 14th
Let me get this out of the way: Marriott points are going to be valued less than most airline miles.
However, a 70% transfer bonus is certainly… large…
Really, it’s a lot, and it will significantly decrease the amount of points needed to book a stay at a Marriott property—even some niiiice ones like this 👇
Just do your research beforehand, and make sure you feel that you’re getting good value out of this transfer, because we know how valuable those UR points are, especially when they come from a card like our most popular one!
If you want to see a few hotel examples with this one, check that out here.
20% bonus from MR points to Hawaiian Airlines until August 31st
Last but not least, we have a transfer bonus featuring Hawaiian Airlines.
Who doesn’t want to go to Hawaii, right? But dang, flights are usually quite expensive 🫠
A great way to offset that cash expense is to use points, of course! And with this little bonus, that becomes even more achievable.
For example, here’s a non-stop route from LAX for just 20,000 Hawaiian miles. With this bonus, you’d need to transfer over just 16,700 MR points. Easy peasy!
And how do you get some MR points, you might ask? Well, consider signing up for a card like this one—a personal favorite of mine for everyday spending, and one that I’ve had for several years!
Want a couple more examples? You can find those here.
💡 Pro tip: If you want the low-down on how to transfer your miles and points from various credit cards to airline and hotel partners, check out our guide.
🥈 Runner up: Flying Blue’s August Promo Rewards
Flying Blue is back with their regular monthly promo, and per usual, they’re offering some amazing deals to fly between the US and Europe (and beyond!) for CHEAP.
In fact, I’m catching a flight with Air France over to Europe next week that I booked from one of these past promos 🙌
They’re just so good.
But this month, there’s a new little twist…
I don’t think we’ve ever seen a Flying Blue promo that features a route from the U.S. to… Africa!
Specifically, routes from Atlanta to Nairobi are starting at just 26,250 miles for economy. How cool, eh?
No matter if you’re flying to Europe or Africa, you must:
Book your flights before the end of August
Travel between now and January 31st, 2025
And remember, you can transfer points from all major bank programs to get some Flying Blue miles—it’s really one of the easiest programs!
📣 Quick Callouts
❌ Expired: Buy 15k points for $8.00
🏃♂️ Mike on the move: Booking obscure airlines with points
😍 Inspirational: Where in the World Wednesday: Chicago
🤓 Travel trivia: Which international city had the most Michelin-starred restaurants in 2023?
I hope many of you can take advantage of all these transfer bonuses going on! I know I am.
And with that, I’ll bid you adieu. Have a lovely rest of your weekend ❤️
