🍝 How I booked a last-minute trip in Italy

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 10 seconds

Goooooood morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the best cure for wanderlust. ✨

Let’s talk about how to get you on some trips:

• ✈️ 20% transfer bonus to multiple airlines

• 🍝 How I booked a last-minute trip in Italy

• 🫵 Stop wasting your Hyatt points (please)

✈️ 20% transfer bonus to multiple airlines

Remember, like two days ago, when I mentioned you could book Qantas flights to Australia using Avios? And how it could be a great deal when there’s a transfer bonus?

Well…

There is officially a tasty new 20% transfer bonus from UR points to the Avios family (British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus).

The bonus is valid until March 31, so you’ve got a good long time to mull it over.

I am very pleased about this. I use Avios ALL the time. I’ve spent over 200,000 of them this month alone for various trips.

For example, I flew Rwandair’s lie-flat business class from Lagos, Nigeria, to Kigali last week for just 22,000 Avios. 👇

I also booked my flight home to Indonesia in Qatar Airways business class for 75,000 Avios (though that has now been cancelled). The same flight would cost just 63,000 UR points.

The best part about Avios is that you can transfer them freely between airlines.

For example, if you want to book a flight using Qatar Avios, you can transfer them from UR points to British Airways, then from BA to Qatar using the online Avios tool.

This means that a transfer bonus to one is effectively a transfer bonus to all.

You can even use Avios to book domestic U.S. flights on American Airlines, sometimes for less than AA charges.

Throw in the 20% bonus, and this could make sense for just about any travel style.

Opportunities like this are why I always like to have plenty of UR points on hand. I recently signed up for this card to get more than 100,000 UR points.

I know many readers prefer this card, which is great for beginners and also has a really good welcome offer.

So here’s the bottom line:

Avios are extremely flexible and valuable. Whether you want to travel to Europe, Australia, Africa, or just domestically in the U.S., having 20% more of them is always a good opportunity.

🍝 How I booked a last-minute trip in Italy

So, as I’ve alluded to a couple of times, I am currently stuck in Tanzania… My flight to Asia was cancelled, and all other options that don’t go through the Middle East are booked.

So I decided to head to Europe for a couple of weeks while I wait for things to calm down and more flight options to open up.

Tonight, I’ll fly to Rome (with overnight layovers in Addis Ababa and Cairo 🙃) – and from there, I found myself planning a last-minute microstate tour around Europe.

Today, I want to tell you how I used my Capital One miles (earned with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card) to book some of the less obvious parts of the trip.

For starters, I needed to get from Rome to the tiny country of San Marino. 🇸🇲

There’s no convenient airport in the area, so I booked a train from Rome to Rimini, the closest Italian city to San Marino.

It cost $75, which isn’t bad… but the best part is that because I used my Venture card, I can offset that purchase using 7,500 miles.

Then, from Rimini, I need to book a shuttle to San Marino… it costs $8 each way:

Instead? I can just use 800 Capital One miles. No extra taxes, no fancy booking tricks, just saving money on buses so I have more to spend on cappuccinos. ☕️

Heck, even IN San Marino, I was able to use this same tactic to book hotels.

Since there are no chain hotels, I was able to find a super cheap property on Expedia for around $44 per night, then offset that with 4,400 Capital One miles.

Am I getting extreme outsized value for my points? No. Am I booking hotels in Western Europe for 4,400 points per night? Yessir.

And that’s a win.

Next week, I need to fly from Nice, France, to Belgrade, Serbia. There are two airlines flying this route nonstop: Wizz Air and Air Serbia.

I could book the Air Serbia flight using Aeroplan points. Aeroplan points are easy to earn, as you can transfer them from most banks, including Capital One.

This flight would cost 7,500 Aeroplan points and around $83 USD in taxes and fees.

Instead, I could book the Wizz Air flight for $66 with my Venture Card, then offset it with 6,600 miles and NO taxes or fees.

This is an example of why it’s always good to have Capital One miles on hand.

Sometimes you don’t need outsized value and transfer partners. Sometimes you just want to book the cheaper option and still use your miles.

Right now, the Venture card still has an insane welcome offer of a $250 credit to use in the Capital One Travel portal AND 75,000 Capital One miles after you spend $4,000 in the first three months.

Considering the annual fee is less than $100, this is an insane opportunity to unlock any number of hotels, trains, buses, ferries, flights, and more.👇

🫵 Stop wasting your Hyatt points (please)

As you know from last week, Hyatt is now dead.

But it’s not too late to use your points for good value before the new changes kick in.

In this week’s Daily Drop YouTube video, we break down how the World of Hyatt program works, how to maximize your points, and refresh your memory on the coming changes.

Check it out:

That’s all for today, friends! Sometime soon, I’ll tell you about even more points-and-miles tricks I used to book my last-minute trip around Europe.

Have a great day, and I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.

Cheers,

3.3869° S, 36.6830° E

With contributions by McKay Moffitt, April Wilson, and Alison Carrico