Transfer bonuses are back!

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Good morning from warm and sunny Da Nang, Vietnam! It was an exciting week with a lot of good travel updates, so…

Let’s get you updated! ☺️

✅ Earn an easy 500 Hyatt bonus points per night at new properties.

✅ If you’re flying as a couple and want a 50% discount on award flights, check this out!

✅ Have you ever dreamed of flying Emirates first class? Learn how you can do so with points in our latest YouTube video!

✅ JetBlue and TAP Air Portugal are partnering up to offer 19k points to fly to Europe.

🏆 Favorite pick of the week: New transfer bonuses!

It has been a real dry spell with the transfer bonuses since the start of the year, so seeing a couple pop up this week is a GREAT thing.

First up we’ve got a 30% transfer bonus from our beloved UR points to our (also very beloved) Virgin Atlantic.

Virgin is awesome because they offer excellent award rates between the U.S. and Europe, and ever since they revamped their program last year, you can now find routes for as few as 6,000 points and $73 in taxes and fees 👇

Throw in that 30% bonus, and you’d only need 4,6000 UR points…… Holy freaking heck 🤯

That is so, sooooo good. If you want to learn more, read here.

Next up is a 15% transfer bonus from MR points to Avianca LifeMiles.

Avianca may not be as well-known as KLM or Air France, but they’ve got some of the best award pricing for premium-class seats.

You don’t even have to fly on Avianca if you don’t want to… You could use Avianca miles to book a business class flight on United from Newark to London for 45,000 miles… or just 39,000 MR points with that 15% bonus 👀

It’s also important to know that the bonus is through Avianca, not the bank associated with MR points.

Rather, you’ll see the accurately discounted miles in your Avianca account after making the transfer, so just do the math ahead of time to calculate the correct number of miles you need!

🏃🏻‍♀️ Runner-Ups

🥇February Top Cards Update: I’m digging this card

Each month, we give you the low-down on the best cards of the month. And this time around, a couple of co-branded hotel cards are in the spotlight, but there’s one in particular I want to talk about.

My personal fav is this hotel card which is offering 170,000 IHG points after hitting the spend requirement within the first three months.

I’ve been like a sitting duck for a couple years thinking about applying for this card… And now that it’s at a near all-time-high offer… I might just pull the trigger 👀

I’ve definitely favored Marriott and Hyatt in the past, but IHG has been an up-and-coming strong contender for me.

ESPECIALLY since when you hold this card, you get every fourth night free when booking an award stay… which is baller.

For instance, we recently stayed at the Hotel Indigo in Lijiang, China, and it is a proper ancient city of a hotel… inside of an actual ancient city.

It’s as magical as it looks, and yes, that temple-like entrance is the actual entrance to my room complex.

Anyway, this hotel card is a TRUE contender and can get you access to incredible places like this without breaking the bank, thanks to its super-high welcome offer.

If you’d like to see a breakdown of other top cards on our February list, check that out here.

🥈 Flying Blue has released their February 2025 Promo Rewards

Another month, another Flying Blue Promo Rewards… It’s one of our favs.

Each month, KLM and Air France’s loyalty program, Flying Blue, offers discounted award rates for flights between the U.S. and Europe (and sometimes even beyond—like South and Central America).

Here are a few examples of what’s on offer 👇

These are just some of the options.

There are lots of options to be had starting at 18,750 miles for economy. This is up from the previous going rate of 15,000 miles (thanks to Flying Blue who devalued their program last month 😒).

Still, it’s not a bad rate, and it’s especially helpful that Flying Blue miles are SO easy to come by, thanks to them being a transfer partner of every major bank.

Just be sure to book your flights by February 28th and fly by July 31st, 2025 to lock in these deals.

Want more details and examples? Check out our full-length newsletter.

📣 Quick Callouts

🏃‍♂️ Mike (and team) on the move: How we’ve used points this past week in China
🙌 Sweet: Earn 2x miles per dollar on Delta gift cards
🤓 Travel trivia: Which airport is the most expensive EVER built?
✈️ Easy peasy: Earn Frontier elite status good through the end of 2025
😊 New: Best Western is tempting us with a decent promo