🤫 Sneaky way to fly business on the cheap

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 55 seconds

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop — the travel newsletter that spends more time on award charts than on therapy (and honestly, it’s working).

Here are some deals to help you bury your emotions today:

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

• ✈️ Buy Aeroplan points with a bonus (maybe)

• 🏨 A “meh” transfer bonus that’s secretly… not so meh

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

Keep reading to find out where you’ll be moving to in the new year. The answer will be revealed later in THIS newsletter, and I will NOT forget. 😅

Oh, in case you need one last little hint…

✈️ Buy Aeroplan points with a bonus (maybe)

Aeroplan’s running one of those “buy points, get a bonus” deals again — this time up to 90% more points, depending on what offer you personally get.

Mine’s only 75% (honestly rude, but whatever), and I need to buy at least 40,000 points to trigger it.

Now — this isn’t the kind of deal that makes you throw your laptop across the room in excitement, but if you’ve got a specific flight in mind, it can be tasty.

For example, I could fly from New York to Cairo, Egypt, nonstop in lie-flat business class on EgyptAir for 70,000 Aeroplan points + $58 in taxes.

If I bought those points with my 75% offer, I’d pay about $1,069 USD — so around $1,127 with taxes — for a 10-hour flight that usually runs $2,200 to $5,000 cash.

That’s… honestly kind of a steal.

EgyptAir isn’t exactly Qatar Qsuites, but I’ve always had great experiences flying with them (though the same cannot be said for my experiences in Egypt itself 🙂‍↔️).

And if you’re venturing out to other regions of the world, Aeroplan has some seriously underrated sweet spots.

Like this one:

I can fly between Southeast Asia (including my home airport) and North Asia (Beijing or Seoul) for 45,000 Aeroplan points in business class on Singapore Airlines, EVA Air, ANA, and Thai Airways — all fantastic options.

At my current 75% bonus rate, those 45,000 points would effectively cost me about $675 USD — for 8 hours of lie-flat bliss on a solid airline.

So yeah… not bad at all. 🤷🏼‍♂️

A few things to keep in mind before you get all click-happy:

• The promo runs through October 29th.

• Don’t just buy points for the sake of it — have a flight in mind first.

• You can buy points, then book immediately once you find Aeroplan availability.

• Buying points doesn’t count as “travel” or “airline” spend, so don’t expect those category bonuses. I usually use the [[ capital-one-venture-rewards-credit-card.name ]] for the 2x flat rate when buying points.

If you’re a power user who constantly redeems Aeroplan points for premium flights, this could make sense.

Otherwise? Keep it in your back pocket until the right redemption pops up. 👍

🏨 A “meh” transfer bonus that’s secretly… not so meh

There’s a transfer bonus floating around right now that we haven’t talked about yet — mostly because, well, it’s kinda meh.

But… for the right redemption, it’s actually not terrible. So consider this your heads-up to keep it in your back pocket.

You can currently get a 30% bonus when transferring Membership Rewards points to Marriott Bonvoy, valid through November 30.

Now, Marriott points aren’t exactly the sexiest way to burn your hard-earned MR points, but this one can work if you play it right.

Specifically: combine it with Marriott’s 5th-night-free perk.

When you book a five-night stay with points, you only pay for four nights, which is already about a 20% discount before the bonus even kicks in.

So here’s where things start to look spicy. 🌶️

I was recently looking at hotels in Tbilisi, Georgia (because my favorite Eurotrip activity is booking my next Eurotrip).

There’s a Marriott property called Rooms Tbilisi right downtown, going for 15,000 points per night.

Book five nights, and with that 5th-night-free perk, you’ll only pay 60,000 points total.

But with the 30% transfer bonus, you’d only need to move over 46,000 Membership Rewards points to make it happen — about 9,200 MR points per night.

Not too shabby for a legit hotel with killer interiors and a cocktail bar that looks straight out of a Wes Anderson movie.

Plus, if you recently signed up for the [[ the-platinum-card-from-american-express.name ]] (offering as high as 175k points), this could be a great way to put some of those points to use.

It’s rarely going to be a “slam dunk” deal, but if you mainly collect MR points and lean toward Marriott stays, it’s worth running the math before this ends on November 30.

The correct answer to our trivia from earlier is… Spain 🇪🇸

According to this recent report, Spain took the top spot thanks to its generous one-year visa (which can be extended to three), strong infrastructure, and excellent quality of life.

If you’ve been, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Spain also ranks among the top countries offering paths to citizenship through digital nomad visas, which is a huge draw for anyone thinking of more permanent European living (including yours truly… I’m 100% feeling that draw).

In fact, 9 of the top 10 digital nomad destinations are in Europe, so it has definitely become “the spot” for remote workers.

Between its beautiful cities, coastal access, and a pretty ideal work-from-tapas-bar type-beat… it’s not hard to see why Spain topped the list.

Shopping around for your new home? Find the full report in this article. 

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations — you clearly have great taste (in newsletters and travel ideas).

Now, go treat yourself to something impulsive… like a coffee… or a first-class flight.

Ciao babes,

59.4370° N, 24.7536° E

Edited by Tiffany and McKay between 12 browser tabs of EgyptAir award availability