🎉 Get birthday travel bonuses

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 6 seconds

Haaaappy Monday, Daily Drop fam! 🙋🏻‍♀️ Here, we live by the golden rule: treat others as you want to be treated.

And well, I want travel hacks. Ergo, here are some for you:

• 🎂 Get boosted birthday bonuses

• 💸 Earn an easy $40 for free (or a free Apple AirTag)

• ✈️ Singapore Airlines’ October Spontaneous Escapes are revealed

🎂 Get boosted birthday bonuses

We all want to feel special on our birthday, right?

Even if you won’t admit it out loud… deep down you want all the cake, presents, and public “Happy Birthday” songs on your special day (okay, maybe not the cringe b-day song from a random waiter).

BUT, do you know what’s better than cake? Extra points and discounted flights, just for you, on your birthday 🎉🥳

A handful of airlines and hotel programs offer their members something special on their birthday, and I’ve personally taken advantage of a few of those offers in the past to book cheaper travel.

For example, last year, British Airways offered me some birthday bonus Avios if I happened to be flying during my birthday month and booked the flight directly with BA.

I did just that and earned a few thousand bonus Avios for flying from Seattle to London. Those birthday Avios were enough to then book a short award flight to Edinburgh.

So in an indirect way… BA practically gifted me a free flight to Edinburgh for my birthday 🤗 

In past years, I’ve also been offered 5% discounts on flights from Alaska Airlines that were valid for a booking (including a second traveler on the same ticket!) during my birthday month.

Is 5% much? No… but if it saves me $12.50 on a $250 flight, I feel completely justified in buying that aggressively-sized pumpkin spice latte with what I saved.

I’ve also had special birthday gifts from Marriott, but it’s usually a smaller amount of points or some fancy chocolates waiting in my room 🤤

I say all of this to point out that you should definitely be signing up for hotel rewards and airline frequent flyer programs—even if you don’t stay or fly with them frequently.

Trust me, I have an entire email solely dedicated to receiving promos and other marketing emails from all the travel accounts I have 😅

These memberships are completely free to sign up for, so you have nothing to lose.

But make sure you add your birthday to your account in order to increase your odds of receiving a special birthday promo—because they aren’t guaranteed.

These offers will usually come in the form of an email with a unique code, so as my birthday approaches in October, I’ll be keeping a watchful eye on my inbox over the next couple of weeks to see if any good birthday bonuses come through! 🤞

💸 Earn an easy $40 for free (or a free Apple AirTag)

Okay… I have some super exciting news for you folks.

Many of you know about Rakuten, the online shopping portal that gives you cash back (or points) for making everyday purchases.

Right now, we have a special link that you can use to sign up for Rakuten and get $40 after making a $40 qualifying purchase (keep reading, it gets even better).

Last time this deal rolled around, Mike wrote about how you could get a FREE Apple AirTag to track your luggage by using this Rakuten deal.

But I won’t make you read that, because I have something much better: a video tutorial created by Megan, our Community Manager. 🙌

In this video, she shows you the step-by-step process of using the Rakuten deal to get a free AirTag.

So check it out. And check it out QUICKLY - the offer will not last forever. So I’d sign up now and just get it over with!

✈️ Singapore Airlines’ October Spontaneous Escapes are revealed

Spontaneity is the spice of life, and I like it extra spicy… that is, when I’m not fostering my Type A personality that lives for structure and predictability.

But every now and then, it’s hella fun to be spontaneous 🤙

So what is this spontaneous escape thing??

KrisFlyer Spontaneous Escapes are special promos for discounted flights on Singapore Airlines that offer reduced KrisFlyer redemptions on certain routes.

These promos are usually different each time, but they all have requirements around when they need to be booked and when you need to travel.

Right now, you have until September 30th, 2023 to book 30% discounted flights, but you must travel on said flights between October 1st-31st… it’s spontaneous, remember? 🙃

But there are deals for economy, premium economy, and even the tasty and luxurious Singapore business class for destinations throughout Asia, the South Pacific, and even select North American and European destinations.

Flights must be booked through Singapore Airlines (as opposed to its loyalty partners), they’re on a first-come, first-served basis, and you can’t change or cancel once you’ve booked.

Full terms and conditions are listed here.

Well, let’s look at some fun examples, shall we?

How about spending over 13 hours in Singapore’s business class, headed to Paris, for just 72,000 miles? 👇

Or hop on board the world’s longest commercial flight between Singapore and New York’s JFK in premium economy for 56,000 miles.

Another route that intrigues me takes off from Christchurch for a cool 47,950 miles in business class.

Needless to say, there are some great deals right now if you’re able to be spontaneous this October! You can find the full list of destinations here, btw.

You don’t need to register for anything, just search for flights as you normally would, making sure to select “Redeem miles.”

And how can you get some points in your KrisFlyer account to book these flights? Fortunately, Singapore Airlines is a transfer partner of all major U.S. banks at a 1:1 ratio.

So if you’ve got a card that’s on our Top Card’s page, chances are, you’ll be able to transfer your hard-earned points towards a killer Singapore flight.

Want to help Daily Drop take over the world? Share our newsletter with your friends/family/pets/colleagues/enemies and win some rewards in the process!

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…or you can just buy these prizes from our website if you want to keep us all to yourself. 😉

That’ll do it for today! Oh, and by the way, Singapore Airlines is known for gifting its members birthday bonuses… just sayin 👀

See you guys next time!

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