✈️ An underrated airline elite status

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 53 seconds

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop! We’ve got another epic week of travel fun for you, so let’s jump right in:

• 🏃🏼‍♂️ Mike on the Move

• ✈️ Daily Getaways (Week 2)

• 😴 Tips for sleeping on planes

🏃🏼‍♂️ Mike on the Move

Later today, I’m heading off for a fun week of travel right here in North America, and I’ve got some fun tips to share with you…

And the journey kicks off with (and this is weird to say) Spirit Airlines.

I’m flying from Boston down to San Juan tonight on a nice, cheap, $60 Spirit flight.

The main caveat to booking flights on Spirit is that they charge you an arm and a leg for basically everything else…

Unless, of course, you have Spirit Airlines elite status.

And despite never having flown on Spirit in my life, I happen to have Spirit Airlines Gold status.

You may remember about a year ago when Spirit offered a status match to pay a small fee and get status for one year.

Because I took them up on that deal, I get some sweet perks with my $60 flight:

• Free carry-on

• Free checked bag

• Free in-flight food and beverage

• Free emergency exit row seat selection

• One free flight change

If you add up what all of these things would normally cost, you can see how having elite status, even with a budget carrier like Spirit, can REALLY rack up some savings…

After some adventures in the British Virgin Islands with the Daily Drop team (yay!), I must make my way back to Toronto before my presentation at the Toronto Travel Summit on Saturday (I can’t wait to see some of you there, by the way).

Award availability between San Juan and Toronto was nonexistent… it was actually really depressing to see. I cried a little bit.

Thankfully, I had a trick up my sleeve that allowed me to book a flight without using any points OR cash… 😏

You see, some credit cards (mainly from [[ hilton-honors-american-express-card.issuer.name ]]) offer what are called “Airline Incidental Credits.”

Essentially, they’re rebates that allow you to make certain purchases with airlines and get a credit in return.

Things that trigger these credits include seat selection, checked bag fees, in-flight food purchases, and… United Airlines TravelBank Credit!

Specifically, I used my annual credit from [[ the-platinum-card-from-american-express.name ]] to load $200 worth of credit to my United Travel Bank.

Since the [[ ihg-rewards-premier-credit-card.name ]] also offers $25 of United credit every six months (a nice underrated perk, in my opinion), I had $225 of United credit chilling in my account.

So I booked a $226 cash flight up to Newark for a net cost of $1 out of pocket… which is not too shabby.

From there, it was easy to use my Aeroplan points to book a cheap award flight home to Toronto without shelling out too many points.

Anyway, I think this last example illustrates how you can take an otherwise pretty “meh” credit and turn it into a valuable free flight.

Spirit Airlines Gold status is also an underrated way to save a ton of money and experience truly dirt-cheap flights without the extra ancillary costs, and it’s definitely something I’d be considering if I lived in the U.S.

✈️ Daily Getaways (Week 2)

It’s time for another round of Daily Getaways this week, folks!

And if you thought last week was exciting, then you’ll be… probably underwhelmed by this week’s options…

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out last week’s newsletter for an introduction to what Daily Getaways is.

This week, the “belle of the ball” is certainly Tuesday’s deal, which features Marriott gift cards.

Specifically, there are three different packages that each offer a 20% discount on these gift cards.

In my opinion, this is an easy win for anyone who can snag one of these.

Personally, I think these gift cards are as good as cash, so I’ll be hopping on this deal the second it goes live.

Speaking of which…

These Daily Getaway deals usually sell out in a matter of minutes or sometimes even seconds….

So here’s my advice:

If you are considering this, be prepared to click the purchase button at 1:00 PM (East Coast time) on Tuesday to give yourself a chance.

May the odds be ever in your favor, my friends. 🤘🏼

😴 Tips for sleeping on planes

Here’s a fun fact:

I’ve never slept on a plane. 😬

I just can’t do it… Every time I’m about to doze off, my brain steps in to remind me of the fact that I’m hurdling in a piece of metal 40,000 feet in the sky over thousands of miles of open ocean.

Occasionally, it will toss in some existential dread, deep questions about the origin of the universe, etc.

The point is - sleep is not my strong suit…

And it seems like I’m not alone - because we recently surveyed you Daily Drop readers to ask the same question, and many of you seem to suffer the same way I do:

But I stumbled across this article about tips for sleeping better on planes, and it was actually pretty interesting…

I figured that some of you might have the same affliction that I do and might get some use out of it… So enjoy, and good luck. 🤞

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That’s all for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed today’s dose of travel tips, discounted hotel stays, and creative ways to use undervalued benefits.

For now, however, I’ll leave you alone and come pester you again tomorrow morning.

Cheers,

43.1145° N, 71.0998° W