☀️ August's hot updates

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 28 seconds

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop! We’ve got another jam-packed Thursday, so let’s get straight into it:

• 💳 Top Cards Update (August 2024)

• 🏨 Limited-time offer with the new, all-inclusive Marriott Cancun

• 🇫🇷 Daily Drop gets a shoutout from the Olympics

💳 Top Cards Update (August 2024)

It’s been a crazy month, both in life and in the world of credit cards.

The latter, specifically, has included a number of all-time-high welcome offers, many of which we’ve told you about already.

So today, I’m going to summarize what’s changed on our Top Cards List, along with a quick summary of yet another new card I’ve added to my wallet.

First of all… did anybody notice that we have a new number one card? 😏

This is, of course, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card.

It’s a card that I just signed up for myself for a few reasons:

• 75,000 bonus points

• $250 travel credit (part of the current welcome offer)

• Low annual fee

• Ability to transfer points OR offset any travel purchase

That $250 credit is reason enough to give the Venture card a whirl since it pays for the annual fee more than twice over.

Anyway, that’s not the only card that has made some changes recently…

One of the most popular cards ever, the [[ american-express-gold-card.name ]], just dropped some big boy changes (on top of a new welcome offer).

The one and only Tiffany wrote a full article about the changes, which you can check out here 👇

But here’s a quick summary and my take:

The annual fee of the [[ american-express-gold-card.casual-card-name ]] increased by $75, but they also added $184 of credits.

More than half of those new credits are for Resy, a platform for booking dining experiences.

This is super easy to use and pretty darn valuable.

The second new credit is for Dunkin’ Donuts. A little weird? Sure.

But as a New England boi, I love me some dunks. Drinking a coffee there is one of the only things I care about doing when I visit the U.S., so having up to $84 a year to use there is fine by me.

Anyway, thanks to the magic of arithmetic, the [[ american-express-gold-card.casual-card-name ]] now works out to be a better value than before.

And don’t forget that there are already more than $200 of other credits on the card that haven’t changed at all, including for Uber and Uber Eats.

Given the ridiculously high number of points you can earn from purchases like dining, groceries, and airfare, the [[ american-express-gold-card.casual-card-name ]] checks all the boxes:

• Good welcome offer

• High points earnings

• Solid value from credits every year to offset the annual fee

I think the offer and new perks of the [[ american-express-gold-card.casual-card-name ]] are so good that I ALSO just signed up for it myself (although I’ve held the Canadian version for years 🇨🇦).

Now, before I let you go, I HAVE to remind you about what might be the single best offer going on right now, and that’s for the [[ ink-business-preferred-credit-card.name ]].

With a low annual fee and 120,000 UR Points on offer, this is the easiest way to get THOUSANDS of dollars of value from a single card.

So here’s the bottom line:

It’s been a busy month for card updates… there are a crap load of great offers right now, all of which will go away eventually.

So go check out our Top Cards page and find the best one for you before it’s too late! 👇

🏨 Limited-time offer with the new, all-inclusive Marriott Cancun

This one is for all you sun worshippers out there ☀️

First of all, the Marriott Hotels brand is launching a new and beautiful all-inclusive resort in Cancun, Mexico!

There’s just something about a gorgeous, newly renovated resort, am I right?

And many times, these all-inclusive resorts won’t come at budget prices, but as a small treat, Marriott Cancun is offering guests 20% off plus a $50 spa credit as part of its grand opening 🎉

Here’s how you can get that discount:

• You must book your stay between now and August 30, 2024 for travel through January 11, 2025

• Use promo code S6058 to get 20% off cash bookings

It’s pretty simple! As you can see, here’s an example booking showing the discounted price with the promo code applied.

Is $423 a night still a lot? Yes, but is it cheaper than $529 a night? Yep.

If you’ve been saving up for a luxurious trip at an all-inclusive resort, being able to save over $100 a night feels pretty good.

Or if you’d rather use points to book this stay, you’ll need around 50,000 per night (which you can work toward by signing up for one of the [[ the-marriott-bonvoy-boundless-card.points-program-override.name ]]’s co-branded credit cards).

Even though this isn’t the cheapest vacay by any means, I hope some of you might be able to take advantage of a deal you otherwise wouldn’t have known about!

So if you’ve been wanting to stay at an all-inclusive resort, this feels like a great option to take advantage of during Marriott’s grand opening celebrations.

🇫🇷 Daily Drop gets a shoutout from the Olympics

This one is fun…

Daily Drop got called out on TikTok the other day (in a good way) in this video of a reader who is currently volunteering at the Olympics in Paris after learning about the opportunity in our newsletter last year.

It’s great to see that someone was able to take advantage of this, and he also gives some good tips for others who might want to do the same at a future Olympics.

So check it out, and thanks for the shoutout. 😉

@drizzy_onthego

Part 5 | How to Apply for the Winter Olympics in Italy 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan will release volunteer application in this September ... See more

WOAH. The Daily Drop Podcast has made a triumphant return! 🎉

By popular demand, Megan is here to give you another deep dive—this time it’s all about Capital One’s Venture Miles program.

If you feel like listening along, check it out here. Or if you prefer to tune in via YouTube, you can do so here.

That’s all for today, friends!

For those of you who haven’t been playing the points and miles game for very long, I hope you realize how crazy it is to see so many amazing card offers at one time.

There has never been a better time to rack up a ton of points and book some amazing trips.

Anyway, take care and see you tomorrow ❤️

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