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✈️ Book American Airlines flights for 2,250 points

Plus, this hotel program is offering top-tier status... to anyone... with no catch.

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 12 seconds

✈️ Delta is introducing its Premium Select cabin on flights between New York (JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX) starting September 10. This will initially be available on four of the airline's 11 peak-day flights, with plans to expand the service later this year. Read more here.

Welcome back to Daily Drop, the disco ball of information in the dull room of daily routines (and other newsletters 🤭).

Let's boogie, y’all:

💳 100% transfer bonus to Alaska Airlines

We’ve seen some pretty solid transfer bonuses so far in 2024… But none of them are as good as this next one…

On July 1st only, Bilt Rewards is offering a transfer bonus to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan ranging from 25% to 100%.

Photo of Alaska Airlines plane

As with previous Bilt Rent Days, this is an amazing deal.

You may remember a few months ago when I told you about Alaska Airlines revamping its program to offer some new tasty sweet spots.

This transfer bonus just sweetens the pot even more… Here is what you can expect based on your level of Bilt elite status:

Bilt Status

Transfer Bonus

Platinum

100%

Gold

75%

Silver

50%

Blue (no status)

25%

As you can see, you’ll get a 25% bonus even if you just have a free Bilt account (Blue membership tier).

But what does this transfer bonus mean in practice?

Well, for starters, you can use Alaska miles to book flights on American Airlines for as few as 4,500 miles one-way.

American Airlines flight for 4,500 Alaska miles

If you get a 100% transfer bonus, that means you can fly around the U.S. for as few as 2,250 Bilt points each way… which is INSANE.

Even if you are only a Blue member, you could still book these flights for 3,600 Bilt points.

But Alaska has a ton of other sweet spots, too.

For example, you can fly in QSUITES on Qatar Airways from Doha to Mumbai for 15,000 Alaska miles, as you can see from Alaska’s new award chart:

Alaska Airlines Asia award chart

With a 100% bonus, you’d be able to try out Qsuites for just 7,500 Bilt points, which is by far the cheapest way to fly one of the world’s best products!

Don’t forget that Alaska also has occasional award sales, too.

A few months ago, they were selling flights from the U.S. to Fiji and Tahiti for 20,000 miles each way. 👇

An example of an Alaska sale from April 2024

The full 100% bonus here could book you a flight like that for 10,000 miles.

Need I say more?

This all just goes to show why Bilt is a program most people should engage with, especially if you rent in the U.S. Having a fat stack of Alaska miles can take you VERY far, whether traveling in the U.S. or beyond.

Oh… and if it wasn’t clear - this deal is only available for ONE day on July 1st. So mark your calendars now and make sure you don’t miss out.

🏨 Get free top-tier hotel status

This is a fun one… There’s currently an amazing offer from a hotel program that we have never really talked about…

Right now, Preferred Hotels is offering 12 months of free Titanium elite status to new members who sign up for their loyalty program.

Preferred Hotels banner image

Before we get into the good stuff, let me give you a bit of background on the hotel chain itself…

Preferred Hotels is a rather small collection of about 700 hotels around the world that all participate in a loyalty program that they call “I Prefer Hotel Rewards”.

I Prefer Hotel Rewards

While the other big programs have things like co-branded credit cards, frequent promotions, milestone rewards, and large footprints, Preferred Hotels doesn’t really offer any of them…

But if you start off with Titanium status (their highest elite tier), it could absolutely make sense to book stays with them.

Here’s how this new deal works:

Screenshot of the signup form with promo code

Use this link to sign up for a new account. On the form, you should see a code already populated in the “Promo Code” field, as in the above image.

I tried this myself and was pleased to see that within minutes, I had a new account with my Titanium elite benefits listed right on my profile.

I Prefer titanium benefits

As you can see, these benefits are actually meaningful, including perks like:

  • Room upgrades

  • Early check-in

  • Late check-out

  • Welcome amenity

  • Bonus points

  • Food and beverage voucher

In other words, you’ll get all of the sweet benefits that we normally need to work REALLY hard for with other programs…

And while their footprint is much smaller than the other big programs, they do have quite a few nice-looking properties in the U.S. and abroad.

Examples of various hotels from the I Prefer rewards program

There’s no telling how long this offer will be around, so here’s my advice:

Sign up for an account, get the free titanium status, and maybe you’ll get some use out of it in the next year.

If not, you haven’t really lost anything except for a couple minutes of your time. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Oh, Marriott… *sigh*

The hotel brand that I perpetually have a love-hate relationship with. But honestly… I’ll always love them. And I think that’s why I also hate them so much 😒

But it’s true. Marriott, in general, is great.

They have some of the best hotel credit cards in the business that give you tons of opportunities to earn valuable Marriott points.

They also have a solid elite system with plenty of perks and benefits, and if you’re dying to know all the ins and outs of Marriott Bonvoy, then check out our latest YouTube video 👇

Brendan walks us through some of the very best, good-to-know deets of their program, so you definitely don’t want to skip over this one!

That’s all for today, my friends!

Free hotel elite status and a 100% transfer bonus to a solid airline program?? Today is a beautiful day.

And tomorrow will be just as good. See you then. ❤️

Mike Dodge
Head Writer, Daily Drop

7.8014° S, 110.3648° E