✈️ A shiny new airline transfer tool

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 11 seconds

☀️ Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, cheaper than therapy but just as good at validating your spontaneous trip to Europe.

Today is all good news, so let’s get to it:

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

• ✈️ A shiny new airline transfer tool

• 🇮🇹 Book ITA flights with United miles

• 🍔 The card that pays for dinner

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

The answer will be revealed in tomorrow’s newsletter, so don’t miss it. 😉

✈️ A shiny new airline transfer tool

We’ve been talking about Avios transfers for years. On paper, it’s amazing: you can move Avios freely between British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, and even little LoganAir.

But in practice? The process has always been a mess of clunky websites, buried links, and login errors.

Now, there’s finally a new Avios transfer tool that makes the whole thing painless.

All you do is select the two programs you want to move points between, log in, and hit transfer. That’s it. No secret back doors, no endless error messages.

Why this matters

Even though all these airlines use Avios, they don’t all price flights the same way.

For example, Iberia lets you fly from the U.S. to Madrid for just 40,500 Avios in business class. 👇

To book that, you need Avios in your Iberia account. If you’ve got cards that earn UR points or cards that earn MR points, you can transfer them directly to Iberia.

But if you have cards that earn Capital One miles — like the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card or the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card — you’ll need to first move them to British Airways, then use this new tool to send them to Iberia.

That effectively gives all your points currencies access to all Avios sweet spots, no matter where you start.

And it’s not just about transatlantic business class.

This also opens the door to quirky partners like LoganAir, a regional airline covering Scotland, Ireland, and even Norway and Denmark — starting at just 6,500 Avios each way.

Or what about keeping things domestic? You can book flights within the continental U.S. for 11,000 Avios, or head to Hawaii for just 13,500 Avios — thanks to Finnair’s partner award charts. 👀

A few caveats:

• Qatar Airways and Finnair can only transfer to/from British Airways. If you want to get those Avios into Iberia or Aer Lingus, you’ll still need to route them through BA.

• Personal details must match across all accounts, or you’ll hit errors.

• You’ll also need to have two-factor authentication set up for all accounts to make transfers.

• If you’re in a household account, you can only move your own Avios.

Bottom line

This might sound like a nerdy backend update, but it’s actually huge. Avios were already versatile, and this tool makes them easier to use than ever. For us, that means more sweet spots with fewer headaches.

🇮🇹 Book ITA flights with United miles

Remember Alitalia? The Italian airline that always seemed on the brink of collapse but somehow kept flying?

Well, it relaunched as ITA Airways a few years back, ditched SkyTeam, and is now in the process of joining Star Alliance. ⭐️

While ITA won’t officially be part of the alliance until 2026, it just launched a loyalty partnership with United.

That means ITA flights are starting to show up with United MileagePlus. Read: more ways to get to, from, and around Europe using miles.

Here’s the headline:

• ITA flies nonstop from Rome (FCO) to Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), New York (JFK), San Francisco (SFO), and Washington, D.C. (IAD)

• Booking through United will cost you 44,000 miles one-way in economy on any of these routes.

Now, whether that’s a good deal depends on where you’re flying from… From Boston or New York, it’s… fine. Not terrible, but not exactly a steal.

From the West Coast, though? 44,000 miles from Los Angeles to Rome nonstop on ITA’s new A330-900neo is actually decent, even for an economy flight.

Even better, you don’t have to limit yourself to nonstops.

These ITA flights also expand your connection options around Europe. For example, you could book a mixed-airline itinerary like Singapore Airlines + ITA for the same 44,000 United miles in economy.

So, how can you get United miles?

• You can transfer to United at a 1:1 ratio from UR points and Bilt Rewards.

• Which makes it easy to pad your account, especially if you score this 125,000-UR point welcome offer.

Right now, I’m not seeing any business-class space on ITA through United, but their long-haul business product is really nice, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for. 🤞

Bottom line 

ITA joining Star Alliance is starting to pay off, and United’s integration is giving us new ways to cross the Atlantic. If you’ve got United miles lying around, this is a good way to put them to work.

🍔 The card that pays for dinner

Most travel cards focus on… well… travel.

This one, however, makes itself useful on the days in between — when you’re grabbing coffee, ordering takeout, or meeting friends for dinner.

At its core, the card earns 4x points at restaurants worldwide (up to $50,000 per year, then 1x after), which means every meal is helping build a balance you can later put toward flights or hotels.

On top of that, there’s a monthly Uber Cash credit that chips away at delivery orders or rides without you having to think about it.

But the real strength comes from how all the smaller perks of the card stack together. A monthly credit can quietly cover quick bites or takeout orders, while a separate dining perk helps offset bigger sit-down meals.

Add in the occasional free coffee and other food-focused savings, and suddenly your everyday eating looks a lot less expensive.

By the end of the year, you’re not just saving hundreds on food — you’re also building a steady stream of points in the background.

Check out our full article that breaks down all the dirty details of one of Daily Drop’s favorite cards. 👇

That’s all for today, folks! May your redemptions be sweet and your airplane seatmates quiet. 😉

See you tomorrow,

8.4095° S, 115.1889° E

With contributions by Tiffany Eastham, McKay Moffitt, and Benji Stawski