✈️ Cool airline gift card trick

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 50 seconds

☀️ Good morning from Billy Bishop Airport in Toronto.

I’m not sure if my flight is going to take off today, given the weather… but that’s okay – more time to talk travel with you lovely folks. 😉

Here’s what we got:

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

• 💳 My favorite Capital One transfer partners

• ✈️ Cool Delta gift card trick

• 🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

The answer is waiting for you a little farther down… ☀️

💳 My favorite Capital One transfer partners

As you know, Capital One just dropped a major (good) bomb on us with the new [[ capital-one-venture-rewards-credit-card.name ]] welcome offer.

To refresh your memory, you’ll earn an instant $250 travel credit AND 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 in the first three months.

It’s very, very good.

Last week, I told you about the value of that travel credit. And today, I want to tell you about some of my favorite Capital One transfer partners.

I’ve told you many times about heavy hitters like Flying Blue and Avios, so today we’ll cover some of the more niche ones.

Singapore Airlines

This one might feel irrelevant to North Americans, but it’s not. In fact, using Singapore miles to fly to Europe can be one of the better deals you’ll find in a given month.

For example, you can fly from New York to Frankfurt for 19,250 Singapore miles thanks to their monthly Spontaneous Escapes deals.

That’s just 750 miles more than what Flying Blue charges for their Promo Rewards… but also, you’ll pay just $5.60 in taxes instead of Flying Blue’s outrageous surcharges and fees.

The welcome offer on the [[ capital-one-venture-rewards-credit-card.casual-card-name ]] is enough to book that flight, round-trip, for TWO people.

Etihad Guest

Etihad is a dangerous program… You see, they suck when it comes to flexibility.

Basically, you’ll have to forfeit a percentage of your miles when making a change or cancellation.

But there are still good reasons to use them for domestic flights in the U.S.

For example, you can book short-haul flights on American Airlines or JetBlue for as few as 6,000 miles one way:

Even if you have to forfeit 15% or 25% of the miles to cancel, you’re only paying 1,000-1,500 miles, which is actually a better deal than paying some of the crazier cash fees with other programs.

However, if you’re booking a really expensive award, you need to be careful.

Accor Live Limitless

Accor is a current obsession of mine… Mostly, I love two things about them:

1. They have hotels EVERYWHERE, including some weird, remote places.

2. Their points have a flat value of 2 Euro cents each (about 2.4 cents USD)

This makes Accor a super dependable program. You’ll almost always find a hotel, and you’ll always get the same value for your points.

Even though Capital One transfers to Accor at a 2:1 ratio, this is still a decent value.

For example, this Ibis hotel in Tokyo costs €67 per night.

A 5-night stay here would run €335 Euro total, or 16,000 Accor points.

That means transferring 32,000 Capital One miles could book you this 5-night stay… in Tokyo. 🤯

This is a good example of how even “bad” transfer ratios can still work out in your favor with the right program.

The bottom line

Anyway, you already knew that Capital One miles were valuable… but hopefully, now you see they’re even more valuable.

✈️ Cool Delta gift card trick

So, I need to book a domestic flight in the U.S. soon, and I found a decent deal on none other than Delta Air Lines.

And I started to think:

And I came up with a cool trick that could actually be insanely rewarding for frequent Delta flyers.

Here’s the deal:

Use this shopping portal

In case you didn’t already know, Rove Miles is a portal that earns you transferable miles for booking travel or shopping online.

They have some great transfer partners, so I’m always looking for ways to earn more miles with them.

It also just so happens that they offer 3.2x miles when buying Delta gift cards.

But here’s the other kicker:

When you sign up for Rove, you’ll get 1,000 miles instantly.

Prepay for Delta flights

So, basically, you can prepay for Delta flights by purchasing gift cards.

When you use those gift cards to pay for airfare, you’ll still earn Delta MQDs and SkyMiles as with any other payment method.

The only difference is that now, you’ve also earned transferable miles from buying those gift cards.

A quick example

Let’s say you spent $1,250 on Delta flights last year.

You could prepay $1,250 by purchasing gift cards, and you’d earn 4,000 Rove Miles when booking through the portal.

Throw in the 1,000-mile bonus for signing up, and you’ve now got 5,000 miles.

That’s enough to transfer to Flying Blue and book another free domestic Delta flight like this one:

In other words, by strategically prepaying for Delta flights, you’re getting… another free Delta flight.

Don’t forget to stack

The nice thing about this deal is that you don’t need a credit card to earn transferable points.

Of course, if you DO have a credit card, you’ll also earn those rewards for buying the gift cards in the first place.

Sometimes, Delta’s co-branded cards even have merchant offers for buying gift cards, like this one that I had recently:

The bottom line

Whether you spend a ton on Delta, have one big trip planned, or just want to book a single quick flight like me, it’s always worth maximizing your rewards.

Given the value of transferable miles, I think this is one to keep in mind.

🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

A few minutes ago, we asked you which city was ranked as the sunniest holiday destination this year…

If you chose Dubai, congratulations!

A new “Holiday Happiness Index” from BookRetreats.com ranked Dubai as the world’s sunniest holiday destination, with 3,577 hours of sunlight per year, which is more than any other city included in the study.

I mean… the phrase “holiday happiness” is already enough to make me book some flights. 🙂

The ranking looked at 50 spots using a mix of factors like sunlight, quality sleep, time spent outdoors, physical activity, and access to nature.

Cairo followed closely behind, with just 100 fewer hours of sunshine annually.

Doha, Los Angeles, Lisbon, and Athens also made the top 10.

If you want to escape winter (same), the study shows that November through March tends to give you the most comfortable weather for exploring Dubai’s beaches and outdoor spaces.

👉 Read more from the results here.

That’s all for today, kiddos. I hope you enjoyed this quick look into both earning extra rewards and putting them to use for solid value.

Take care and see you tomorrow,

43.6289° N, 79.3944° W

With contributions by McKay Moffitt