✈️ Fast-track your way to elite status with Southwest
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I know we talked about how Southwest airlines is the fun airline in the U.S., but this latest development is VERY serious.
Southwest is offering a promotion that will give flyers multiple ways to earn A-list elite status through the end of 2023.
The promotion is three-pronged, like a trident... or the sad excuse for a fork you get on some airlines with dinner. Let's stick with a trident for now, which sounds way cooler.
Here are the three components:
- All rewards flights between September 21 and November 30th will now count toward 2023 elite status.
- Paid flights (in the same timeframe) will earn double tier qualifying points toward status.
- All rewards flights taken between January 1st and September 19th of this year will be retroactively counted toward elite status.
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The first two components of this promo require you to register for the offer. The third should have theoretically already happened, so check your account to see if you're any closer to earning elite status. |
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Is Southwest status worth getting?
For frequent flyers of Southwest, there are definitely some nice perks for having elite status, including priority boarding, bonus points on paid flights, free changes, free standby, priority security, and even free wifi. If you're someone who flies Southwest often, I'd say earning status is definitely worth pursuing, especially with so many ways to earn it in the coming months.
In case you don't know, here are the normal requirements for reaching status:
- Fly 25 one-way flights or earn 35,000 tier qualifying points (for A-list)
- Fly 50 one-way flights of earn 70,000 qualifying points (A-list preferred)
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🏨 3,000 bonus points at Radisson hotels
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I don't think we've talked about Radisson hotels in this newsletter before.
And for good reason... They rarely offer enticing promos, they don't have the greatest brands in the world, and they're usually beaten out on all fronts by the big players like Hyatt and Hilton. But Radisson has a little surprise for these big hotels...
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Radisson Rewards Americas is shifting the paradigm of the current hotel promo bonanza with an excellent promotion to earn 3,000 bonus points PER NIGHT on stays between now and December 15th.
The reason this is so exciting is that we rarely see hotel promotions offering perks on a nightly basis, but rather on a "per-stay" basis.
3,000 bonus points per night is pretty insane, which is why they have capped the total number of bonus points you can earn at 100,000. Still, that amount of points can earn you quite a few free nights.
How to maximize this promotion
If you have upcoming hotel stays in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, or Latin America (those are the only regions covered by Radisson Rewards Americas, if you couldn't guess from their name), then definitely check to see if you could book one of their properties.
If you were to max out this promo and earn all 100,000 bonus points, you could book as many as ten free nights at many different properties, including these hotels in Chicago, Mexico, and Colombia:
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The bottom line is that this promo is easy to rack up points with and those points are easy to spend both at home and abroad. If this interests you at all, I'd recommend registering for the promotion and getting those fat stacks of points. |
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💾 The dinosaur planes running on dinosaur tech
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Let me tell you kids a story.
*holds up flashlight to face*
This is the story of an ancient technology that took the world by storm long before laptops and cell phones and memes and TikTok. I know, the world I'm describing sounds scary, but don't worry, it's in the distant past.
... Or so we thought.
*dramatic music*
The ancient technology I'm referring to is called the floppy disk. It's basically the equivalent of a modern-day USB flash drive except it's way bigger and has way less memory. It was invented in 1971 and those of you who even know what it is probably haven't seen one in decades.
Well, I have some horrifying news. It turns out that many of the planes we all fly on still rely on floppy disks to load critical flight systems...
Basically, planes have a much longer lifespan than much of the modern technology we use in our day-to-day lives. Unlike our iPhones, they don't upgrade planes every year (although it'd probably be around the same price as what Apple charges us).
In fact, there are planes in the sky that are many decades old and still need this kind of technology to operate correctly. As more and more of these old planes are retired and put to sleep in the airplane graveyard (which, by the way, is a real thing), we're seeing just how many of them have operated with primordial tools like floppy disks.
Anyway, next time you're on one of those 40-year-old Boeing 747s, remember that the entire bird is running on a 1.44-megabyte piece of plastic from the 70s...
*more dramatic music*
Of course, there are many complex systems in these planes, and the entire flight does not rely solely on the floppy disk by any means... But that takes away from the dramatic effect.
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That's going to do it for this week, everyone. Next time you hear from me I'll be in the airport getting ready to fly to the country I just came from last week. Never a dull moment 😁
Are you a loyal Southwest flyer? Do you know what a floppy disk is? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.
Have a lovely weekend,
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Mike Dodge
Head Writer, The Daily Drop
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