The ultimate stack

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop—the only newsletter that gets more excited about stacking deals than actual pancakes. 🥞

Here’s what’s on the menu today:

• 🥞 Extreme stacking: Hotel edition

• 😭 Southwest cuts point earning rates

• 💳 Quick new transfer bonus

• ✈️ JetBlue flash sale (today only)

🥞 Extreme stacking: Hotel edition

Booking a hotel with points is cool. Business-class flights? Also cool.

But STACKING multiple rewards programs together for MAXIMUM VALUE? Now that’s what we live for here at Daily Drop. 😏

If you’re not familiar, stacking is when you combine portals, credit card perks, and loyalty rewards into one big fat pile of savings. 

Sometimes, you double-dip.

Sometimes, you triple-dip…

...and sometimes, you create a god-tier stack that defies logic.

Let me show you.

A few weeks ago, I told you about Capital One Offers, a portal that gives you Capital One Miles back when you book things through the portal.

If you hold a Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, you get access to some 🔥 offers - including 8x Capital One miles back at Marriott.

That’s already great. But here’s the thing: you don’t even have to use a Capital One card to pay.

This means you can stack it with other credit card perks for absurd earnings.

Let’s break it down:

• If I use my Marriott co-branded card, I earn 6x Marriott points per dollar spent

• That card also has merchant offers for an extra rebate at Marriott brands 👇

• As a Marriott Titanium elite, I earn 10x base points per dollar PLUS an extra 7.5x elite bonus

• Marriott is currently running a promo for 1,000 bonus points per night and double elite night credits

Let's run the numbers with an actual booking:

This Aloft hotel (one of the brands I have a merchant offer for) in Philadelphia has some nights available this month for just $140.

Because of math, five nights here would run a cool $700. It’s a lot - but not bad for five nights in downtown Philly.

But now let’s break down the earnings… prepare yourselves:

• $70 cashback from my card’s Marriott merchant offer

• 4,200 Marriott points (6x from my card)

• 7,000 Marriott points (10x for all members)

• 5,250 Marriott points (Titanium elite bonus)

• 5,000 Marriott points (promo bonus)

• 5,600 Capital One Miles (8x from the portal)

• 10 elite night credits (promo bonus)

• Total: 27,050 points, $70, and 10 elite nights

You can take those 21,000 Marriott points and book a 5-night stay in Kuala Lumpur (thanks to Marriott’s 5th-night free rule).

At this point, I’m stacking so much I might start seeing rewards multipliers in my sleep. If you hear me mumbling '10x Marriott points' in public, just mind your business, please. I'm fine, I promise.

Bottom Line:

Even if you don’t have elite status, stacking just 2-3 of these tactics will still get you insane value.

So yeah, extreme couponers, go crazy.

😡 Southwest, what are you doing?!

Bad Southwest. BAD Southwest.

In a classic airline move, Southwest just cut points earning rates overnight with no warning.

Honestly, Southwest slashing earning rates overnight feels like a personal attack.

Was it the time I took one too many free drink coupons?? Just TALK to me, boo. Let's work this out.

Anyway, here’s the breakdown:

• "Wanna Get Away" fares dropped from 6x points per dollar to 2x

• "Wanna Get Away Plus" fares dropped from 8x to 6x

• "Business Select" fares increased slightly (but who’s actually buying those?)

So yeah, don’t be surprised when your next Southwest trip earns way fewer points. 😑

Ideally, you’ll just use points to fly on Southwest anyway. 🤷🏼‍♂️

You can rack up a ton of them from their suite of co-branded cards or by transferring UR Points from a card like this one.

✈️ Another transfer bonus for Avios (because why not?)

First, ThankYou Points and MR Points launched 20% transfer bonuses to Avios programs.

Now, UR Points is in on the fun, offering the same deal. 👇

Not sure if it’s worth it? Consider this: Iberia business class from New York to Madrid costs just 34,000 Avios, as I told you last week.

With this bonus, you only need 28,000 UR Points.

Even though UR Points are super valuable for programs like Hyatt, using 28K of them for a lie-flat seat across the Atlantic? Still a fantastic deal.

Anyway, if you only have UR Points, keep this in mind when it comes time to book a flight. The bonus is good until the end of this month!

⚡️ JetBlue Flash Sale: Act fast!

We’re almost done, folks. I’m proud of you for making it this far.

This one is super simple: JetBlue is having a big boy flash sale for TODAY ONLY, with fares as low as $49.

Here are the deets:

• Flights across JetBlue’s network are on sale

• Book by 11:59 PM EST TONIGHT

• Travel between March 18 - June 11

• Not valid for travel on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays (💩💩💩)

So yeah, the lack of weekend travel is, as we say in the biz, “dogshit.”

Still, there are some tasty fares available if you can lock them in today. For example, there are flights from Boston to tons of cities along the East Coast for just $59:

That’s solid stuff.

From JetBlue’s other hub in New York, you can fly to cities like Detroit or Nashville for just $44 (we won’t talk about how that’s lower than what the sale advertised).

Anyway, if you were planning on booking flights between March and June, I’d take a quick peek at the sale page to see if you can lock in a nice, cheap flight.

That’s a wrap!

We covered a LOT today. If your brain hurts, that means I did my job.

So tell me—what’s the best deal you’ve ever stacked? Drop it in the poll below, and maybe I’ll feature some of your answers in a future newsletter!

Until tomorrow, stay stacking, my friends. ❤️

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