😏 Sneaky award flight trick

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 40 seconds

☀️ Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop — the only thing moving faster than TSA lines this week (18.5 million people, y’all… pray for the agents).

I’ve got a ton of stuff to send you off into the long weekend with, so let’s get started:

• 🌎 Flying Blue Promo Rewards (and a sneaky trick)

• 🏨 Insanely easy hotel status

• 💳 New 50% hotel transfer bonus

• 🤦‍♂️ What is going on with Emirates??

🌎 Flying Blue Promo Rewards (and a sneaky trick)

Flying Blue’s latest batch of Promo Rewards has landed — and once again, it’s offering some of the cheapest ways to cross the Atlantic (or head somewhere a little more tropical) using points.

This month, you’ll get 25% off select Air France and KLM flights between the Americas and Europe, with economy awards starting at just 18,750 miles one-way.

That includes flights to Europe from cities like Atlanta (ATL), Dallas (DFW), Detroit (DTW), Toronto (YYZ), Austin (AUS), and Portland (PDX).

These deals are live now and available for travel through December 31, 2025, but you’ll need to book by July 31 to lock in the discount.

How to find award space (even this summer)

Flying Blue’s search tool can be annoying — unless you know this secret trick. 😏

When you search on the Air France or KLM’s site, choose “Book with Miles,” enter your route, and then select the furthest possible date far in the future (June 26, 2026, at the time of writing). 👇

That will trigger a full monthly calendar view of award availability, which you can then scroll back to 2025.

I used Austin (AUS) to Berlin (BER) as an example and found many days in August (next month) wide open at the discounted rates — proof that you can still use these Promo Rewards even for last-minute summer travel.

This tool is also great for finding the cheap 60,000-mile business-class rates to Europe, which, fun fact, is also available on the same route even next month:

Even cheaper with a transfer bonus

Don’t forget that there’s still a 20% transfer bonus from ThankYou points to Flying Blue through July 19 — which makes these prices even sweeter.

That means the 18,750-mile economy awards drop to just 15,625 ThankYou points or just 50,000 points for business class. 🤘🏼

And if you have points with a different bank, you’re also covered, as you can transfer points from pretty much all of them.

🏨 Insanely easy hotel status

If you hold the premium travel card we’ve been raving about lately, there’s a new perk you’ll want to jump on: a free upgrade to Marriott Gold Elite status — no strings attached (for three months, at least).

How it works

Register between July 1 and September 30, and you’ll receive three months of complimentary Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite status.

And if you stay three paid nights at Marriott hotels within that three-month window, your Gold status will be extended all the way through February 2027.

That means you could technically wait until September to register, then knock out your three qualifying nights later this fall or even in December — and still lock in elite benefits like enhanced room upgrades, late checkout, and bonus points for over a year.

How to access it

Log in to your account and select “card benefits.” You’ll see the Marriott deal on that page, which you’ll need to activate:

There are a few fine-print details to keep in mind:

• Nights must be paid stays to extend your status

• You must book directly through Marriott — third-party sites like Expedia, Hotels.com, or even some credit card portals won’t qualify

• You can’t already have Gold or higher status

There are a number of co-branded cards that already offer this status, but it’s nice to have yet another awesome travel benefit packed into just one card.

It’s just one more reason I’m personally holding onto this card, which recently rolled out a massive refresh full of new travel perks and statement credits.

You could even pair this with the card’s $500 travel credit to cover those paid nights and still get elite status locked in for 18+ months.

Oh, and the cherry on top? That card also has an epic welcome offer that includes earning 100,000 UR points and that $500 travel credit after spending $5,000 in the first three months. 😎

💳 New 50% hotel transfer bonus

Once you have your Marriott status, you’re gonna want to book some stays to take advantage of your new benefits.

Thankfully, the same freaking bank has you covered on that front with a 50% transfer bonus from UR points to Marriott Bonvoy.

Don’t get me wrong, transferring UR points to Marriott isn’t an automatic home run… But for the right redemption? You could get excellent value.

For example, let’s say you book one of those Flying Blue Promo Rewards to Vienna (VIE) next month.

You could then book this Marriott property for just 15,500 points per night:

With Marriott’s fifth-night free perk, a five-night stay here would run you just 62,000 Marriott points — even in July or August.

With this transfer bonus, that’s just 41,000 UR points for five nights… in an expensive European city… in peak summer travel season.

That sounds pretty good to me. 😎

🤦‍♂️ What is going on with Emirates??

Okay, now that we’ve finished our Marriott/Flying Blue European bonanza, let’s change the subject and finish off the week with some good news.

And by good news, I mean bad news. ☠️

Effective September 16, the transfer ratio from MR points to Emirates will be reduced to 5:4 from the current ratio of 1:1.

This is… devastating.

We’ve already seen ThankYou points reduce its transfer ratio to Emirates earlier this year, and I suspect the other banks will follow the same trend in the near future.

So what can you do?

Well, there are still ways to get excellent value from Emirates miles. So, while you can’t book first-class awards with points, you can book business class and upgrade to first — and Emirates offers one of the best premium seats in the sky.

Personally, I just upgraded myself to first class for just 18,750 miles for a special birthday flight, which I transferred from MR points.

If you’re interested in flying Emirates, I recommend hunting down some awards and transferring your miles while you still have time.

You can book Emirates flights from the U.S. to Europe for as few as 87,000 miles in business class — a good deal for a luxury airline like Emirates.

And if you don’t have any opportunity to fly Emirates in the near future, we still have Capital One miles and UR points to transfer at a 1:1 ratio… for now. 😬

Alright, my friends. We’re off tomorrow, but I hope all you Americans have a lovely and safe 4th of July.

See you on Monday. ✌️

6.9175° S, 107.6191° E

With contributions by Tiffany Eastham, McKay Moffitt, and Benji Stawski