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✈️ New points subscription plan
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Buying points is something that makes sense in very specific scenarios. Sometimes you can perform some arbitrage to get hotels at a cheaper price. Sometimes you want to top off your airline miles balance to unlock that flight you've been waiting for.
Well, British Airways is going all-in on selling points with their new Avios subscription service.
As a refresher, Avios is the points currency of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Qatar Airways, and you can transfer points freely between the programs.
Basically, here is how it works: You sign up for an annual membership and you'll receive a certain number of points every month for a year. In general, the cost of these points is cheaper than some of the best points sale bonuses offered by British Airways in recent history.
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Here's the other kicker: The prices of the different subscription levels are based on where you live. So if you live in the U.S., you'll pay in USD. If you live in Europe (outside of the U.K.) you'll be charged in Euro. And of course, if you live in the U.K. you'll pay in Fish & Chips.
Surprisingly, the different currencies offer different levels of value since the prices aren't dynamic, meaning they don't change based on fluctuating currency conversions. So if the value of the U.S. dollar changes in relation to the British Pound, the cost of these Avios will still stay the same. This could work in your favor or against it, but it's worth paying attention to.
Whether or not this is actually a good deal for you depends on your situation: Do you fly on airlines that use Avios? Do you live near a British Airways or OneWorld alliance hub? Are you okay with being judged for spending hundreds of dollars on points? (just kidding... kind of)
To help you decide, let me give you a few examples of flights you can book with Avios.
One example is flying between New York and Dublin on Aer Lingus for only 13,000 Avios. Alternatively, you could use 37,500 Avios to fly between the U.S. and the Middle East, which is also a great value.
Personally, I recently used Avios to book a trip from Warsaw to New Delhi (with a 24-hour stopover in Doha) for only 27,500 Avios (which I transferred from American Express), a flight that otherwise would've cost me almost a thousand dollars.
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Here's the bottom line:
Avios have recently been turning into a strong currency in the points and miles world. Given the number of different airlines you can book and the now cheaper cost per point with this subscription model, buying Avios might be a great way to make sure you always have a stash of points lying around to book some incredible flights.
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🏨 Hilton "doubles down" on their recent promo
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Hilton has been killing it with their promotions so far this year. Honestly, I've felt a little spoiled by all of their generous deals...
They've kept that trend going with their latest promotion, offering double elite nights for every stay until the end of the year.
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Here's what that looks like:
- You must register for the offer with your Hilton Honors number
- For every night you stay at a Hilton property you will receive two elite nights
- Both points and cash bookings count for this promo
Keep in mind that this promo also stacks with their OTHER ongoing promotion that awards 2x points on all stays through the end of the year (and 2,000 bonus points per stay if you check out Monday through Friday).
Now if you're wondering why elite nights matter, let me learn you something.
Elite nights are mainly used to get you to elite status. If you stay enough nights, you'll get those sweet, sweet elite status benefits for the rest of the year (and the next year).
But there's another important use for Hilton nights as well: Milestone Rewards.
Basically, Hilton offers rewards for every ten nights you stay, starting at 30 nights. With the double nights earned from this promo, you'll earn those rewards for every 5 nights you stay, which definitely sweetens the deal. As you can see, I currently have 32 Hilton nights this year. That means I only need to stay four more nights to unlock 10,000 bonus points.
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The combination of these two promotions makes it hard to justify staying at anything other than Hilton properties, as long as you can get a price that's comparable to other options.
Personally, I have a few cheap Hilton stays booked for the rest of my trip, and I might consider changing around some bookings to reap the rewards of this deal.
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👽 Good news from outer space
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Most of the time, this newsletter is focused on travel deals, tips, and stories from our beautiful planet Earth.
But today I have some news from a far more distant place. Unfortunately, it's not a place we can travel to. At least not yet.
Still, I think this is some cool news to share.
Last year, NASA launched a rocket into space with the sole intention of having it slam into an asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour. Last month, that collision finally took place.
Why?
They were playing out a real-life Armageddon scenario. Basically, they wanted to test the ability of human-made rockets to change the course of an asteroid in the event of a species-threatening event.
Before you get scared like I did when I first heard about this, let me put your mind at ease.
First, Earth isn't currently in any danger of large asteroids wiping out humankind.
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Second, the mission was even more successful than scientists had hoped it would be.
Their initial goal was to change the orbit time of this asteroid around its larger asteroid counterpart by about 11 minutes.
Instead, this event ended up altering the orbit time by over 30 minutes, which is very significant.
This means that as long as we detect any asteroids heading our way early enough, we now have data showing that we could potentially avert a major crisis.
I don't know about you, but I feel pretty good knowing that there are very smart people worrying about these things that you and I never really think about.
Anyway, I thought it'd be fun and interesting to bring you some news from very, very far away today.
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That's all for today, priatelia.
Did you know about this NASA armageddon-esque mission? Would you buy airline miles to get outsize value over paying cash for flights directly? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.
Have a great Thursday,
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