🌎 Stories from the man who's seen every country... twice

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 23 seconds

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the hottest travel newsletter on the market.

I’m SUPER excited for today’s newsletter. Not only do we have a couple of travel hacks for you (as usual), but also a fun interview with an iconic traveler that I think y’all will enjoy.

So without further ado:

• 🏨 30% transfer bonus to Hilton Honors

• ✈️ Uh oh… Southwest is devaluing their points next year

• 🌎 An interview with the world’s most well-traveled man

🏨 30% transfer bonus to Hilton Honors

Yay! More transfer bonuses!

When I first saw this offer from Hilton, I brushed it off immediately. After all, what kind of sociopath would transfer their valuable bank points to Hilton of all places?

Well, it turns out that maybe I would. And maybe you should too.

You see, while most banks have 1:1 ratios with their travel partners (1,000 points = 1,000 points), Hilton has a different relationship with [[ american-express-gold-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]].

Instead of a 1:1 ratio, the normal ratio for these two programs is 1:2. This means that transferring 1,000 MR points will equal 2,000 Hilton Honors points.

Not too shabby.

Until December 31st, however, you’ll get an additional 30% bonus on top of that, meaning 1,000 [[ american-express-gold-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] will yield 2,600 Hilton points.

Now things are starting to look pretty interesting… 🤔

Here’s why I’d actually consider this…

Hilton has plenty of sweet spots around the world, where the redemption value of points is actually reasonable.

For example, I stayed in a Hilton hotel in Panama City (the cool one, not the depressing one) that only cost 10,000 points per night.

In fact, because of Hilton’s “5th Night Free” perk, I booked seven nights here for only 60,000 points. 👇

Was it the nicest hotel? No. Was it super comfortable? LOLZ no. Would I book it again at that price? HELL yeah.

With this bonus, you’d only need to shell out 3,800 [[ american-express-gold-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] per night to stay at a place like this.

In my book, that’s an excellent value for my hard-earned bank points.

Not a huge fan of Central America? That’s fine. I get it.

Maybe you’re more of a Europe kind of gal, and want to travel to Poland (one of my favorite countries in the world). You could book this hotel smack-dab in downtown Warsaw for just 20,000 Hilton points.

With the bonus, you’re looking at only 7,700 [[ american-express-gold-card.points-program-override.points-currency ]] per night.

7.7k points to stay at a hotel in the center of a major European city? That’s an amazing deal. Having stayed at this exact hotel multiple times myself, I would HAPPILY pay that price to stay here again.

So here’s the bottom line:

Hilton points are worth less than most points out there… However, there are plenty of sweet spots all over the world that could make this particular transfer bonus worth it.

Since the bonus is good until the end of the year, you have plenty of time to research your upcoming trips and decide if it’s worth pulling the trigger.

✈️ Uh oh… Southwest is devaluing their points next year

And now for the bad news…

Many of you may have received an email last week from Southwest with some program updates. You know, just a nice friendly, transparent update.

Except for the tiny little piece of text they decided to try and sneak past us…

That’s right folks. As of January 1st, 2024, Southwest will be increasing award prices by 4% across the board.

Obviously, I’m not super stoked about this… Why would I be?

At the same time, It could’ve been MUCH worse… all you need to do is look at some of the changes that airlines like Delta have dropped recently to see that 4% doesn’t look so bad.

For example, you can regularly book flights from Los Angeles to Honolulu for under 11,000 points one-way.

On January 1st, the price of this flight will go up to 11,391 points. an increase of 400 points for a flight from the mainland U.S. to Hawaii is negligible.

Generally speaking, Southwest has tons of fantastic award prices, so most people won’t really feel the effect of this change.

Having said that, if you travel with a family or travel frequently, you might feel otherwise.

Thankfully, you can make bookings with your points until January 1st before these new prices hit. That means that even if you have summer travel in 2024, you can take advantage of the lower prices as long as you make the booking by January 1st.

So overall, it’s never fun to see points currencies get devalued.

However, I don’t see this as a massive hit, and at least we have time to scoop up some lower-priced awards before the changes take place.

🌎 An interview with Harry Mitsidis, the world’s most well-traveled man

Okay… I have something SUPER unique to share with y’all today. I recently had the pleasure of chatting with the world’s most well-traveled person (that’s my own description of him, not his).

Harry Mitsidis is a writer, founder of NomadMania, and someone who has been to every single country in the world… TWICE. 🤯

Naturally, I had some questions for him. Actually, I had a LOT of questions for him, which he was generous enough to answer all of. He even has some fun travel tips that had never crossed my mind… 😏

So without further ado, here is an article with some epic travel stories and a bit more background on one of the coolest travelers I’ve ever come across.

Did you know that Daily Drop has a YouTube channel? Check out our latest video for some visual travel hacking tips.

This week’s video is going to cover what we think is the best hotel card and offer on the market right now, including some new perks and a HEFTY welcome offer. Check it out. 👇

That’s all for today folks! I had fun with that interview, and I enjoyed mixing up the content a little bit.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts though, so tell me:

Take care and see you tomorrow, my lovely readers ❤️

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