🤗 Elite status just got easier

Happy (hopefully) lazy weekend morning to you ☺️

Grab a cozy beverage of choice and relax as I take you through the best travel happenings from this past week.

✅ LAST CHANCE to get the best offer we’ve ever seen on the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card.

✅ New! 20% transfer bonus from Capital One miles to Flying Blue.

✅ Did you get targeted for this Hyatt promo to earn up to 90,000 bonus points??

✅ Catch up on our latest YouTube video about how to book the coveted Turkish Airlines business class!

✅ This week’s podcast covers… a secret Marriott card… Should you get it?

🏆 Favorite pick of the week: Fast-track to Southwest elite status

Oh, Southwest… It’s a love, hate, love… hate… love-type relationship, I suppose.

And here’s a fun fact: I’ve never flown Southwest 😳

Their boarding process just gives me anxiety, and I continually choose to run away from my fear rather than face it…

But I know many of you have, and the general consensus is that you love the airline very much. So this fast track to A-List and A-List Preferred elite status could be very valuable for many of you.

These are the three main ways that’ll help boost you toward earning status:

1. Earn double Tier Qualifying Points on paid flights

2. Earn 2,000 bonus Tier Qualifying Points for every $5,000 you spend on the airline’s co-branded cards

3. Reward flights booked with points will also qualify toward status 🎉

Now if we take a look at the requirements to earn status, you can already see how these boosted options make it that much more attainable 👇

Those perks and benefits aren’t too shabby… which is usually the whole reason we chase status to begin with 😏

And oftentimes, award flights don’t count toward earning status with airlines, so the fact that Southwest is also throwing that in as an option is superb.

Just be sure to register for the offer in your Southwest account and know that all aspects of this promo are valid through November 30th, 2024.

🏃🏻‍♀️ Runner-Up

🥇September’s Flying Blue Promo Rewards

Honestly, Flying Blue’s program is one of the best and easiest to use. I’ve booked many award flights in the past that stemmed from one of their monthly promos.

And in case you aren’t familiar, each month, Air France and KLM’s joint loyalty program, Flying Blue, releases discounted award tickets typically from the U.S. and Canada over to Europe (and sometimes beyond).

This month, they’re covering their bases by offering cheap flights to and from New York, Washington, Las Vegas, and Phoenix over to Europe!

It’s great to see cities listed on both the East and West Coast for ease of access no matter where in the country you live (even if you need to take a short positioning flight first).

And for just 15,000 miles?? So, so good.

But you might also notice in the screenshot above that they’re featuring a route from Europe over to Hong Kong for just 18,750 miles… a personal bucket list place destination for me 😍

Here’s the best part—remember that Capital One is also currently offering a 20% transfer bonus to Flying Blue.

That would drop the already insanely low ask of 15,000 miles to get to Europe to just 12,000 🤯

WILD.

So it makes that shiny Venture card with its elevated offer that much more appealing… 75,000 Capital One miles (plus the $250 travel credit!) is a lot, y’all.

If you’d like to view all the routes and destinations featured on this month’s promo rewards, you can do so here.

Just remember, you need to book your flights by the end of this month for travel that takes place before the end of February 2025.

📣 Quick Callouts

• ❌ Expired: Earn an EASY Southwest Companion Pass valid for two months

• 💡Good to know: Have a stack of AA miles? Here are some of the best ways to use them.

• 🤓 Travel trivia: Which state in the U.S. attracted the most visitors last year?

That’s all for this shorter week! I still can’t believe it’s already September, so tell me…

52°22'35.4"N 52°15'17.4"W