🛳️ Book a Virgin cruise for 89k points

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 11 seconds

Good morning from Taipei airport after my three back-to-back United flights lasting two hours, five hours, and 14 hours… Someone please bring me coffee before I die.

Apparently, a LOT happened while I was on my 14-hour flight, so we need to get straight into it:

• 💳 Top Cards Update: May 2022

• 🛳️ Cruise News: Book a cruise for two for 89k points

• 🔄 Current Transfer Bonuses

💳 Top Cards Update: May 2024

As you now know, there’s already been a major update to the credit card world in May… and it’s only the third day of the month.

So today, I’m going to give you a little breakdown of our current Top Cards Page rankings and tell you why these top cards are on… top…

Our long-reigning top card, the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, has officially been dethroned. 

1.) The new number one card is, without a doubt, the [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.name ]] 👀

With an elevated welcome offer worth more than $900, it’s just hard to beat.

It earns valuable [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.points-program-override.points-currency-short ]], has solid earning rates, and even comes with an annual hotel credit that you can use at hotels all over the world, which makes the annual fee feel even lower.

I could rant and rave about the card all day… and I often do. But check out this article if you want my nine reasons to get it.

But one of the things it’s lacking, sadly, is the nice-ass perks that we travel nerds love.

2.) Thankfully, that’s where card number two, the Venture X Rewards Credit Card, comes into the picture.

The Venture X earns transferrable points like the [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.casual-card-name ]], but also offers lounge access, annual travel credits, and thousands of anniversary bonus points.

Thanks to a little thing called math, these things effectively cancel out the annual fee you have to pay every year.

So now you might be asking… “Which one should I choose?”

And my answer would be…

Por qué no los dos? 😏

Holding BOTH cards is not such a bad idea, and here’s why:

• You have access to 25 different transfer partners in total

• You get the ability to offset ANY travel purchases for one cent per point

• You get a combination of high-earning rates and premium perks

It might just be the ultimate credit card combo.

But that’s not what I do.

3.) Actually, I don’t have either of these cards. I used to, but I’ve since upgraded one of them to the [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.casual-card-name ]], which has ascended to slot number three on our list.

Here’s why I love having the [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.casual-card-name ]]:

• Like the number one card, it also has an excellent welcome offer

• It provides a variety of premium perks

• It has an annual travel credit that basically cuts the annual fee down by more than half

To be honest, you really can’t go wrong with any of these cards. There’s a reason they’re consistently ranked as the best (and not just by us).

But once you’ve racked up a bunch of [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] from the aforementioned cards, you might be wondering how to best use them.

Well, here’s a fun one…

🛳️ Cruise News: Book a cruise for two for 89k points

Right now, there are two overlapping opportunities that will allow you to book a Virgin Voyages cruise for two for as few as 89,000 points…

And there are actually multiple ways to do it… so pay attention, eh?

Here’s the first part of the deal:

Right now, Virgin Voyages is offering cruises around the world at highly discounted award rates, including:

• 5-day Caribbean cruises for 115k Virgin points

• 7-day Mediterranean cruise for 120k-160k Virgin points

There are a handful of other cruise options ranging from 280k-300k points each, but I don’t suspect many of you will be shelling out that many points for a cruise.

Recently, I told you about how you can transfer [[ american-express-gold-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] to Virgin Atlantic with a 30% bonus.

Well, as of today, you can now also transfer [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] with a 30% bonus.

So if you needed another reason to sign up for the [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.casual-card-name ]], here you go.

Anyway, this means that in order to book the cheaper Caribbean cruises, you’ll only need to transfer 89,000 points from either bank.

I looked up an example of a 5-night cruise that is bookable with this deal, and the cost comes out to a pretty ridiculous $2,484 after all of the taxes and fees.

That means that you’re getting a value of 2.8 cents per point for your 89,000 points, which is VERY (freaking) GOOD.

But before you go transferring points around, let me save you a few minutes of confusion by explaining how this works…

In order to book these cruises, you need to have Virgin Red points. This is different from Virgin Atlantic miles, to be clear.

Thankfully, as long as your Virgin Red and Virgin Atlantic accounts are linked, you can transfer them between them instantly.

So, here’s the order of operations:

1. Transfer [[ chase-sapphire-preferred-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] or [[ american-express-gold-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] to Virgin Atlantic

2. Link Virgin Red and Virgin Atlantic accounts (both free to create)

3. Transfer Virgin Atlantic miles to Virgin Red points

4. Book dat cruuuuuuise

One final point:

Each individual cruise deal has date restrictions, so be sure to check out the deals on this page to ensure the cruise you want is eligible for the points pricing I’ve mentioned today.

If you’ve ever wanted a bunch of travel nerds to chat with about all things, well, travel… We’ve got a place for that!

And it’s called the Daily Drop Lounge—our Facebook community!

Not only can you chat and ask questions, but you can also share your fantastic travel wins! 👇

I honestly wish we had more days in the week this week… there’s so much more going on that I don’t have time to tell you about…

So make sure you tune in next week, okay?

Until then, I’ll be missing you as always. But I hope you have a wonderful weekend ❤️

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