šŸØ New 80% transfer bonus

Plus, there's a new way to fly to Iceland with points.

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 42 seconds

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Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop. A lot of stuff has happened in the travel world since the last time I emailed you, so letā€™s get straight to it:

āœˆļø A new way to use JetBlue points

JetBlue has been on the up and up recently. A couple of months ago, I told you about how you can redeem JetBlue points on TAP Air Portugal.

And as of today, you can also now redeem them for flights on Icelandair, which is pretty sweet.

Icelandair has a pretty robust route network in North America and Europe. So whether you want to go to Iceland itself or just connect onward to Europe, itā€™s the perfect airline for either one.

Icelandair route map

Screenshot from flightconnections.com

As far as how good of value it is when redeeming JetBlue points with Icelandair, itā€™s a bit of a mixed bag.

For example, a flight from Boston (BOS) to Reykjavik (KEF) will run you just 17,000 JetBlue points, which isnā€™t bad at all.

Boston to Reykjavik for 17k Jetblue miles

Screenshot from jetblue.com

But if you live on the West Coast, things arenā€™t as pretty.

For example, a flight from Seattle (SEA) to Reykjavik will cost you 32,000 JetBlue points in economy, which is quite steep.

Seattle to Reykjavik for 32k jetblue points

Screenshot from jetblue.com

Alaska Airlines also partners with Icelandair, and they only charge 17,500 miles for the same exact flight:

Seattle to Reykjavik for 17,500 Alaska miles

Screenshot from alaskaair.com

Anyway, I also mentioned that you can connect through Iceland to Europe. And unfortunately, this also isnā€™t a great valueā€¦

Depending on the route and the time of year youā€™re flying, flights could be insanely expensiveā€¦

Boston to Paris on Icelandair for 108k Jetblue points

Screenshot from jetblue.com

Anyway, hereā€™s the bottom line:

If you are a big JetBlue fan and have a stash of points, you now have yet another way to put them to use, sometimes for great value.

However, Alaska is probably the better option for longer Icelandair flights!

šŸØ 80% transfer bonus to IHG

Itā€™s not often we see transfer bonuses go as high as 80%ā€¦

So when you read this headline, you mightā€™ve wanted to go run to your account and transfer all of your points over to IHG.

But donā€™t do that. At least not yet, please.

Until April 30th, you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to IHG with an 80% bonus.

80% transfer bonus to IHG

Donā€™t forget that, generally speaking, hotel points are worth significantly less than airline miles, so this probably isnā€™t as crazy of a deal as it looks at first glanceā€¦

But make no mistake ā€” there are ways to get amazing value from this. And Iā€™ll show you how.

For example, I have a stay coming up in Beirut, Lebanon, in a few weeks, where Iā€™m staying at the Crowne Plaza, an IHG hotel. šŸ‘‡

Crowne Plaza Beirut for 12,500 IHG points per night

Screenshot from ihg.com

It costs just 12,500 IHG points per night. So, with this transfer bonus, thatā€™s under 7,000 Ultimate Rewards points per night, which feels like a good deal to me.

In a couple of months, Iā€™ll also be in Auckland, New Zealand, for a few nights, where Iā€™ll be staying at the Voco, right in the middle of the city center.

Voco Auckland for 14,500 IHG points per night

Screenshot from ihg.com

At less than 15,000 IHG points per night, I could book a four-night stay here by transferring 32,000 Ultimate Rewards points with this bonus.

Iā€™d say thatā€™s pretty solid for an otherwise super expensive city.

Anyway, hereā€™s the bottom line:

IHG points arenā€™t as valuable as many other pointsā€¦ but if youā€™re traveling to a place with some cheaper IHG redemptions, I think this is a perfectly reasonable way to spend some Ultimate Rewards points!

šŸ’³ Earn an easy 10,000 Delta SkyMiles

Merchant offers are one of the best ways to get continued value from your credit cards with hefty annual fees.

I personally use them all the time, mostly for travel-related purchases. And right now, thereā€™s a really solid one offered by American Express to earn up to 10,000 bonus Delta SkyMiles.

Earn 10,000 bonus Delta miles from this merchant offer

Hereā€™s how it works:

If you have one of the airlineā€™s co-branded cards (I personally have the [[ delta-skymiles-platinum-business-american-express-card.name ]]), check your offers in your account.

If you see it, register for itā€¦ now.

Once registered, you can earn 5x bonus miles per dollar spent on Delta gift cards, up to 10,000 bonus miles.

Hereā€™s why this is solid (for Delta flyers):

Delta gift cards never expire. So if you regularly spend money on Delta, you could just pre-pay for your next $2,000 worth of flights and rack up some tasty bonus miles.

Screenshot of a Delta egift card

Screenshot from delta.com

If you recently signed up for a Delta card, this is also a great way to reach the minimum spending requirement and still have $2,000 of Delta flights to use anytime.

Delta miles arenā€™t crazy valuable, but you could still use those 10,000 miles to book some domestic flights or even this flight from Chicago (ORD) to Mexico City (MEX).

ORD-MEX for 10,000 Delta miles

Screenshot from delta.com

Once you get to Mexico, you could even bring me some chicken noodle soup and give me a hug to help me recover from this nasty illness.

Anyway, hereā€™s the bottom line:

This is an easy win for those who have Deltaā€™s credit cards and those who plan to already spend some money on Delta.

Make sure you register for the offer and follow the instructions in your account to be eligible for the bonus miles.

Thatā€™s all for today, friends! I hope you enjoyed this array of new travel deals, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for even more!

Ciao,

Mike Dodge
Head Writer, Daily Drop

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