Points Whales: How to use a HUGE stash of miles

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• 🐳Points Whales: How to use 350,000 JetBlue points

• 🏨A great deal from… Best Western

• 💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

🐳 Points Whales: How to use 350,000 JetBlue points

Okay, this should be a fun one…

I got a message the other day from someone who is sitting on a whopping 350,000 JetBlue points.

In the biz, we call this a “points whale.” Or at least that’s what I’ve decided to call such a creature.

Today, I’m going to break down the best ways to use JetBlue points for someone who is sitting on a huge balance.

JetBlue TrueBlue points, while not the most valuable or flexible, have two amazing uses:

1. JetBlue Mint business class

2. Qatar Qsuites

So, naturally, those are going to be the best ways to use them.

Most people would struggle to rack up enough JetBlue points for these types of flights, but not a points whale.🐳

For example, you can book Qatar Qsuites from the U.S. to the Middle East for 79,000 JetBlue points.

While this isn’t as good as the 70,000-point price of using American Airlines or Avios to book, there is one huge benefit:

JetBlue generally has more award availability than other Qatar partners.

While you’ll pay a few extra points, you’ll have a MUCH easier time finding seats.

Plus, with 350,000 points, you could book a few round-trips in the best business-class seat in the world, which is freaking awesome.

But if you don’t want to travel that far, JetBlue itself ALSO has one of the best business-class seats in the sky, which they call “Mint.”

Mint seats are very private lie-flat beds, all of which have direct aisle access.

Unfortunately, JetBlue charges an arm and a leg to fly this seat with their own points (while you can use Qatar Avios to fly it for much less).

However, on some of their shorter flights that have Mint seats, you can try it out for far fewer points.

For example, you can fly from Boston to Aruba in JetBlue Mint for 91,000 TrueBlue points.

That’s a huge chunk of your stash, but if you’re sitting on 350k points, maybe treat yourself a little. 🤷🏼‍♂️

And that brings me to the last excellent way to use these points:

Flying economy… a LOT.

While JetBlue charges well over 100,000 points to fly in business class to Europe, you can fly economy from Boston to Dublin for a super reasonable 26,000 points.

Alternatively, you can fly economy around the U.S. for as few as 6,000 points one-way.

If JetBlue is offering a sale (which they do fairly often), that number can be even lower.

So here’s the bottom line:

JetBlue points aren’t the best currency to have a huge stash of…

Still, there are a couple of solid uses, including flying in the world’s best business-class seat.

Considering their reasonable rates for economy flights on JetBlue itself, you shouldn’t have a problem stretching your stash pretty far.

Before we go, I want to ask a question:

I’ll pick some of your answers to the above poll to use in a future newsletter!

And if others want to get in on the JetBlue fun, don’t forget that you can transfer points to JetBlue from the following programs:

• MR Points

• UR Points

• ThankYou points

See you all in the next episode of Points Whales. 😉

🏨 A great deal from… Best Western

Best Western is the black sheep of the hotel loyalty world in the sense that… to be frank… we just don’t really like them very much.

But once in a while, they offer some sweet deals that allow us to spend less money, maximize our earnings, and book even more free nights.

That’s exactly what’s happening right now with their current promotion to earn 20,000 bonus points.

Here are the deets:

For every three nights you book with Best Western, you’ll get 10,000 bonus points.

Aaaaaaaaaand the fine print:

• This only applies to hotels in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean

• You must register for the offer

• Valid for paid stays through September 2nd, 2024

• Maximum of 20,000 bonus points (six nights stayed)

Overall, this is a great deal, and I’ll tell you why.

Best Western consists mostly of budget properties. So booking paid stays is a great way to save money.

The fact that you’ll get a solid chunk of points in exchange for spending less money is a no-brainer.

For example, this Best Western in Anaheim, California, only costs $67 per night.

Not bad for a hotel anywhere in the greater L.A. area, to be honest… 😅

But also, just three nights will earn you the following points:

• 2,010 points for being a BW member (10x per dollar)

• 10,000 bonus points

Those 12,000 points can get you further than you might think, too.

For example, I’ve been eyeing a trip to Myanmar, where, surprisingly, Best Western is the only major hotel program that has properties.

Better yet, there’s one that only costs 5,000 points per night. 👇

That means my three cheap paid nights in the U.S. get me another two free nights elsewhere in the world.

Not bad, am I right?

So here’s the bottom line:

Best Western isn’t the sexiest hotel program out there… but when they offer ways to save money on cheap stays and earn a ton of extra points in the process, it can be well worth considering.

Have you stopped by to check out the Daily Drop Lounge yet? It’s our online community space where you can ask any and all travel questions or share your own travel wins! 👇

How cool is that!? It’s true… it never hurts to ask 🙂

That’s all for this week, folks!

Please fill out the poll in the first section of the newsletter so I can give you some tips for stretching the value of your stashes of points.

But for now, have a great weekend, and I’ll see you soon.

Love you ❤️

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