Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 47 seconds

🤠 Well howdy, friends. Welcome back to another edition of Daily Drop.

I hope you’ve had your coffee this morning, because there’s a lot of math in today’s newsletter.

Check it out:

• 💳 Earn instant airline elite status with this card

• 🏨 A new global Hyatt promotion just dropped

• ✈️ Convert hotel points to airline miles (with a bonus)

• 🧳 Never worry about baggage fees again

💳 Earn instant airline elite status with this card

As I told you on Friday, there has been a lot going on in the points and miles world this past week.

But one of the things that may have slipped under your radar is the set of changes made to the Aeroplan co-branded credit card – and a massive new welcome offer on the card.

What changed?

For starters, cardholders will get automatic Aeroplan 25k elite status just for holding the card.

That’s solid, and even gets you some eUpgrade credits (which let you upgrade flights on Air Canada itself).

Additionally, cardholders will now get a 15% award discount on flights operated by Air Canada (or partner flight bookings that include at least one Air Canada flight on the itinerary).

That could be HUGE.

For example, I just booked a flight from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Regina, Saskatchewan, in business class using Aeroplan points:

It was already a decent deal in my opinion, but saving 15% on flights like that would be 6,000+ points back in my pocket.

Over time, that benefit could pay for the card’s fee pretty easily.

This opens up that Hyatt opportunity

Remember last week when I told you about transferring Aeroplan points to Hyatt at a 2:1 ratio?

Well, since elite status is a prerequisite for that specific perk, this card would single-handedly unlock that feature (since it gives you automatic 25k Elite Status).

It’s not all upside

As with any card “enhancement,” there are usually at least as many downsides as upsides.

Check out our full card review for a list of things like annual fee changes, new credits, updated earning rates, and more.

If you fly Air Canada even a few times a year (or want that 25k status), I think this card could be a game changer for some folks out there.

Oh, and the 115,000-point welcome offer after meeting the minimum spend requirement definitely makes it more enticing. 😉

🏨 A new global Hyatt promotion just dropped

Hyatt is out with their next global promotion, and I think it’s actually a pretty good one.

Between now and December 15, you can earn 3,000 bonus points per three nights at any Hyatt properties around the world.

Here are the other details:

• You must register for the offer

• Cash AND points stays both count (yay)

• Your stay must finish by December 15

• Maximum of 36,000 points

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t nearly as generous as some of the earlier promotions this year…

But hey – Hyatt points are still valuable (because Hyatt is NOT dead), and I’ll take 1,000 points per night any day of the week.

If you end up booking a Hyatt category 1 hotel for 3,000 points per night, you can effectively get a 33% rebate and pay a “net” price of 2,000 points, as long as you stay 3 nights over the course of the promo period.

I wouldn’t go too far out of your way to leverage this promotion, however.

Personally, I have a 4-night stay coming up at a Hyatt hotel near the Arctic (more on that later this week 😉).

I booked it before this promotion hit, but hey – 3,000 points I wasn’t expecting is fine by me.

I can use those points to book a night at a hotel like this one in Indonesia when I head back next month.

Anyway, in a world of lukewarm hotel promotions, Hyatt’s seems to be among the slightly warmer ones. 🌤️

✈️ Convert hotel points to airline miles (with a bonus)

Okay, let’s go back to Aeroplan for a sec, because I just found an intriguing new promo in my Aeroplan account…

Until the end of this month, Aeroplan is offering a 15% bonus when you convert Marriott Bonvoy points to Aeroplan points.

Now, if that sentence was confusing to you, let me break it down.

You can always transfer Marriott points to airlines

Marriott transfers to dozens of airlines at a crappy 3:1 ratio.

It’s typically not a good deal, but depending on the airline points and other factors, it could make sense for some.

If you transfer 60,000 Marriott points (to get 20,000 airline miles), Marriott will throw in an extra 5,000 miles with that airline (with the exception of a few of them).

Anyway, Air Canada is throwing in 15% more points AFTER all of that.

How the math breaks down

To optimize this deal, you’ll want to transfer in increments of 60,000 Marriott points, since the 15% bonus will also apply to that 5,000-point bonus Marriott throws in.

If you transfer 60,000 Marriott points, you’ll get:

• 20,000 base Aeroplan points

• 5,000 bonus points from Marriott

• 3,000 bonus points from this promo (15% of 25,000)

That’s a total of 28,000 Aeroplan points from 60,000 Marriott points, or pretty darn close to a 2:1 ratio.

Who is this for?

Almost nobody.

But…

If you have a ton of Marriott points in your account, or you love Aeroplan, it’s certainly not the worst deal in the world.

If you see an Aeroplan award flight for 28,000 points, simply ask yourself, “Is this flight worth 60,000 Marriott points to me?”

If the answer is yes, then hell yeah. Go for it. There’s no right or wrong answer here – only how you personally value these two currencies.

That wraps things up for this Monday newsletter.

I hope you enjoyed this 5-minute morning travel extravaganza, and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.

Byeeeeeeeeee,

43.6532° N, 79.3832° W

With contributions by Katie Begnoche and April Wilson.