Weekend getaways (with points)

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the newsletter that’s been maximizing points since airlines still served real food in economy. (RIP those tiny airplane steaks.)

Now, let’s talk turkey 🦃

• 🏝️ 3-day getaways you can book with this welcome offer

• 💸 Qatar Airways wants to give you some free money

• 😭 Big (and bad) Southwest news

🏝️ 3-day getaways you can book with this welcome offer

Points and miles are great for booking those crazy, aspirational trips to exotic places.

But they’re also perfect for booking those quick weekend getaways.

And today, I’m going to tell you how you can use one credit card welcome offer to book a bunch of different quick getaways.

To refresh your memory, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is currently offering a sweet welcome offer: Earn 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months, plus receive a one-time $250 Capital One Travel credit in your first cardholder year – that’s equal to $1,000 in travel..

After reaching the minimum spend, you’ll be sitting on at east 83,000 miles (from 2x miles per dollar on your $4,000) and $250 toward travel.

So, how far can that take you?

Well, let’s say you live in New York and want to book a quick weekend getaway in May.

You could fly from Newark (EWR) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) for $61 round-trip.

Don’t forget that Capital One allows you to use your miles to offset travel purchases at a rate of one cent each.

That means that round-trip flights for two will run you just 12,200 miles.

From there, you can transfer 45,000 Capital One miles to Wyndham and book three nights at this property:

But if you’re more of a Miami kinda gal, you could instead use that $250 credit to book a couple of nights at this hotel downtown:

In either scenario, you’ll still have plenty of points or travel credit left over for another weekend adventure, such as…

Flying from Dallas (DFW) to Cancun (CUN) on a weekend in May for 21,100 Capital One miles round-trip.

For two people, you’ll just need to shell out 42,200 miles for all airfare.

Once in Cancun, you can easily book some nice spots using the Capital One Travel portal, which you get access to by holding the Venture Card.

This hotel comes out to $258 for three nights. 👇

You could burn your $250 travel credit and then just use another 800 miles to pay that last $8.

God, I love the flexibility of Capital One Miles…

Anyway, these getaways are great for those of you who enjoy warm weather… but let’s try something a little further north, like… Niagara Falls, perhaps? 😏

If you live in Nashville, you could book these round-trip flights to Rochester and use 8,100 Capital One miles to pay for them:

Of course, from Rochester, you’ll need to take a bus to Niagara…

No problem, just buy these Flixbus tickets and use 1,300 Capital One miles to pay for them!

In Niagara, you have tons of options for booking hotels…

You can transfer 22,500 Capital One miles to Wyndham and book three nights at this hotel:

At the end of this trip, you will have only spent a total of 43,900 Capital One Miles for the following:

• Round-trip airfare for two people: 16,200 miles

• 5,200 Capital One Miles for round-trip bus tickets for two

• 22,500 miles for the hotels

That means you’ll STILL have close to 40k miles leftover… and that $250 credit… So you could easily book another fun weekend somewhere!

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

This offer, the miles, and the travel credit are super valuable and super flexible.

We don’t know how much longer this offer will be around, so I REALLY encourage you to hop on it ASAP.

Here - I’ll make it super easy for you:

💸 Qatar Airways wants to give you some free money

Ever look at a Qatar Airways ticket and think, wow, that looks nice… but I wish I could save some money on it?

Well, what if I told you they’d give you $300 back just for booking? 😏🔥

Right now, there’s a fresh new merchant offer on select Membership Rewar Point-earning cards that gives you $300 back when you spend $2,000 or more on Qatar Airways flights.

That’s a 15% discount off the top—instantly. And in the world of premium cabin airfare, that can go a LONG way.

Here’s How It Works

• You must register your card for the offer (log in to your bank and check your available offers!)

• Valid until April 30th (so if you’re thinking about a trip, now’s the time to book)

• Must book flights departing from the U.S. and pay in USD (sorry to my international degenerates, this one’s not for you)

Once you hit the $2,000 threshold, you’ll see that sweet, sweet $300 credit land in your account.

But the best part is that you can stack this with portal offers, too.

For example, I have an offer in my Capital One account to earn 6x Capital One Miles at Qatar Airways:

This means that if I hit the $2,000 threshold perfectly, I would earn $300 cash back AND 12,000 Capital One Miles. That’s a nice return, people.

You might be surprised to see some of Qatar’s cash rates, too.

For example, this round-trip ticket from Los Angeles (LAX) to Abu Dhabi (AUH) via Qatar only costs just barely over $1,000. Again, that’s for the full round-trip!

If you booked this trip for yourself and a friend or spouse, you’d instantly unlock the credit and get to fly across the world on one of the best airlines with a tasty discount.

Not bad, eh?

😭 Big (and bad) Southwest news

Starting May 28th, Southwest will introduce checked bag fees - officially killing off one of the few things that made them truly different from the competition.

We don’t know the exact pricing yet, but given that just four months ago, they swore this wouldn’t happen, I’d say our trust issues are justified.

But before you rage-booking a bunch of flights (which I fully support), here are some VERY important details:

• This policy will only apply to flights booked after May 28th.

• If you book a Southwest flight right now (or anytime before May 28th), you’ll still get two free checked bags—even if you fly later in the year.

• A-List members and Southwest credit card holders will still get a free checked bag

So if you had plans to book Southwest, you might want to lock those flights in now before they start charging you extra to bring a normal-sized suitcase like everyone else.

What’s next, Southwest? You gonna start charging for seat selection? (Oh wait, they already announced that, too. 😬)

R.I.P. ☠️

Well, sorry to end on such a grim note… But hey - these are the exact reasons that it pays to be involved with points, miles, and loyalty.

When prices go up, we have points to book flights. When policies change, we have ways to get around them.

Anyway, see you tomorrow. Love you all. ❤️

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