October rewards are coming

Howdy, everyone 🙋🏻‍♀️

Now, if this isn’t the most personally relatable travel meme I’ve ever seen……..

No matter if you travel with your fur babies or not, let’s get to work chatting about the best travel happenings from this past week 🙂

✅ Did you receive this targeted, fast-track opportunity to get top-tier IHG elite status?

✅ Or how about THIS targeted opportunity to earn elite status from American Airlines award flights…

✅ Hilton upped their card game again this week with some new, elevated offers.

✅ Holy 💩. Watch this week’s YouTube video to learn how YOU could earn 1 million+ UR points.

✅ Bless your ears with this week’s podcast which is a destination highlight to the UK—airlines, routes, redemptions, you name it!

🏆 Favorite pick of the week: Bilt’s October Rent Day (Hilton Status Match!)

Bilt is back on top with another solid Rent Day!

For starters, they are offering a status match to Hilton which has the potential to be quite valuable… and last through March 31, 2026 😮

I want to also call out that even though the Bilt Mastercard® is actually a decent card to have in your wallet, you don’t need it to participate in this Rent Day.

All Bilt members can activate the status match by going through the app or website on October 1—it is Rent Day after all, so you’ll need to activate this ON THAT DAY ONLY.

If you do, here’s what’ll happen:

• You’ll be granted Hilton Gold status through December 31, 2024

• If you stay at a Hilton property for at least eight nights before then, you’ll keep that status until March 31, 2026

• If you stay at least 14 nights, you’ll earn baller Hilton Diamond status through March 31, 2026

• But if you happen to be a Bilt Platinum member, you’ll only need to stay 10 nights before the end of the year to get that Diamond status 🙌

For reference, the lower Hilton Gold status gives you 80% bonus points on stays, free breakfast or food and bev credit, and space-available upgrades. Pretty sweet.

Another tasty part of this Rent Day is the BOGO Virgin Voyages cruise deal they’ve offered the last few months.

In a nutshell, when you book a Virgin Voyages cruise by October 1st, you’ll be able to bring a second passenger for free. 

If you’d like more details on this and the rest of Bilt’s Rent Day rewards, check out our full newsletter section, or head over to Bilt’s Rent Day page.

🏃🏻‍♀️ Runner-Ups

🥇You could book a flight for ZERO points

And no, I’m not about to dupe you and say something dumb like, “That’s because we’re not using points at all and are paying $800 cash for this flight instead.” 😑

You can actually book a particular flight in a given itinerary using NO points. And this trick is called the United Excursionist Perk.

Basically, if you create an itinerary that includes at least three flights booked using United miles, the middle flight of those three will not cost you ANY points. 

Zero. Zilch.

But there are a few rules to play by in this game, and here’s a summary of them:

• Your itinerary must start and end in the same region (like North America), but it doesn’t have to be the same airport in that region

• The middle flight must be within the same region (like Europe), and that region can’t be the one you start or end in

• The middle flight must be in the same fare class as the first flight (economy, premium economy, business class)

• As mentioned above, the itinerary must be booked using United Miles and not cash

This is a fantastic way to maximize how far you can travel on more flights for fewer miles—we’re talking about thousands of miles saved!

If this interests you and you want a real-world example of what this looks like, head over to our original newsletter to get more details.

🥈 [Targeted] Buy miles with up to a 200% bonus

I didn’t think we’d be getting this wild on the weekend, but here we are.

Right now, you can buy Avianca LifeMiles with up to a 200% bonus (until September 30th) 😱

Be warned, though—this appears to be targeted. Still, even if you receive a 150% or 175% bonus, it’s a reason to celebrate.

And that’s because LifeMiles can be extremely valuable if used to book award flights on United.

For example, one sweet spot that we’ve called out before is flying from the U.S. to the U.K and Ireland in business class… for just 45,000 miles 😏

So if you fancy Star Alliance airlines like United, it’s worth checking your Avianca account to see if you’ve gotten a high bonus that makes buying miles favorable for a trip or route you have in mind.

You’ll likely pay far less to buy some miles than what it could cost in cash to fly many United routes… and we always like to see that 😎

📣 Quick Callouts

• ❌ Expired: 40% off Breeze Airways Fall Sale

• 🤗 Good to know: A favorite hotel trick (buying IHG points with a 100% bonus)

• 🤔 Interesting: 25% transfer bonus from ThankYou Points to Leading Hotels of the World

• 🤓 Travel trivia: What airline has the best rewards program in the world (according to a study by Point.me)?

And just like that, another week has come and gone. But before you leave, tell me this…

Love you. Bye 👋

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