Two big-boy award drops

Good morning from 40,000 feet in the sky. I’m writing to you from my amazing Qatar Qsuite, where I’m spending a very long day flying from New York to Jakarta.

And if you’re feeling the need to book a fancy seat of your own, I’ve got good news for you…

• 🇹🇷 Award Drop: Book Turkish business class for 65k points

• 🌎 Stay hydrated while you travel

• ✈️ 30% award sale with this airline program

🇹🇷 Award Drop: Book Turkish business class for 65k points

Let’s start with the more exciting and important of the two deals…

Just a couple of days ago, I was trying my darnedest to hunt down Turkish Airlines award availability, and I literally couldn’t find ANYTHING.

Then, lo and behold, they drop a bunch of business-class award availability from the U.S. to Istanbul for a wide date range. 🙌

Availability is open from various cities later this year, though most availability seems to be between August and November.

Turkish flies to over a dozen cities in the U.S., so you can definitely play around with dates and routes.

But to highlight the ways to book this, let’s look at an example from New York (JFK) to Istanbul in Turkish Airlines business class.

Here are the ways you can book it right now:

• Turkish Miles: 65,000 miles

• Avianca LifeMiles: 69,000 miles

• Air Canada Aeroplan: 70,000 points

You can also book through United, though it will run you 88,000 miles, so it’s not nearly as good of a deal as with the other programs.

Turkish itself has the lowest rate at 65,000 miles, which makes sense.

The important thing about this is that Turkish will charge taxes and fees to the tune of around $218.

If you want to save on taxes and shell out a few miles, Avianca charges 69,000 miles and just $29 in taxes and fees.

The downside to Avianca is that… well… to be blunt, their customer service is dog poo.

If something happens to your flight and you need to change or cancel, you’ll pay with your time and patience.

So I recommend going with Aeroplan, the “Goldilocks” option.

You’ll pay just 70,000 points and about $56 in taxes, but you have the flexibility to change and cancel awards yourself online… and will generally have an easier time working with Aeroplan.

Personally, I think it’s worth the few thousand extra points and slightly higher taxes.

So… how the hell do you get Aeroplan points?? 👀

Well, you can transfer to any of the programs I’ve mentioned, as follows:

• Aeroplan: MR Points, UR Points, Bilt Rewards, Capital One Miles

• Avianca LifeMiles: MR Points, Capital One Miles, ThankYou Points, Bilt Rewards

• Turkish Miles & Smiles: Capital One Miles, ThankYou Points, Bilt Rewards

As always, you can just check out our Transfer Partners Cheat Sheet (just bookmark the page now 😉) to see which banks transfer to which programs.

If you want the best experience, you’ll want to look for Turkish’s Airbus A350s and 787 Dreamliners, which offer their nicest business-class seats:

In my experience, it doesn’t really matter… you’ll have a fantastic experience on whichever plane you fly.

But don’t wait too long - availability might not be around for long, and people are sweeping up these seats.

✈️ 30% award sale with this airline program

Okay, on to the runner-up deal of the day… But read closely; this one doesn’t necessarily require credit card points. 😮

Avianca, one of the programs we just talked about briefly, has dropped a nice 30% sale on certain flights booked using points.

This sale applies specifically to flights operated by Avianca itself, and only to certain routes…

Thankfully, all of those routes are to/from the U.S., so this is a great chance to book your Latin America getaway.

Here are some examples of discounted routes:

And just to get ahead of things, here is the fine print:

• These rates are valid for travel through May 31st

• You must book your flight by January 25

These award prices are AWESOME.

Being able to fly from North America to South American cities like Lima and Medellin for around 10,000 points is definitely a win.

But this deal can be stacked with another deal that we haven’t talked about yet…

Until the end of the month, Avianca is selling miles with a whopping 160% bonus, which offers a way to buy miles at a solid rate and then book award flights with the 30% discount.

Specifically, let’s look at the route from New York to Medellin, Colombia, for 9,810 miles one-way or 19,620 miles round-trip.

If we look at Google Flights, this round trip on Avianca costs around $600 when paying cash.

Instead, you can leverage this bonus on purchased miles to simply buy enough miles to book this flight.

It will cost you $297 for 21,600 miles… so you’ll even have a couple thousand left over.

As you can see, you’ll save $300+ just by buying miles and booking award flights.

It’s just… too easy…

But of course, the ideal option is to not spend any money at all… Instead, you can simply transfer points to Avianca from the following programs:

• MR Points

• Capital One Miles

• ThankYou Points

• Bilt Rewards

This is another example of a deal that could get you and the whole family round-trip flights abroad with a single solid credit card welcome offer.

Anyway, there are a lot of good deals to be had here… check out this page if you want to see the full list of discounted routes.

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That’s gonna do it for this week, folks! I’m exhausted, so I’m going to lie back down in my freaking QSUITE.

I’m sorry… it just never gets old.

Anyway, have a great weekend. Love you guys. ❤️

52°22'35.4"N 52°15'17.4"W