Good morning and welcome back to the Daily Drop, your daily source for all things travel hacking.
We'll be covering a nice wide range of travel hacks today, so strap in, folks:
- 💕 Singapore Airlines and Marriott offer new, 2-way conversion
- 🛳️ Cruise News: Use Amex Offers to get free travel out of your next cruise purchase
- ✈️ TODAY ONLY: Southwest flash sale ($49 flights)
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💕 Singapore Airlines and Marriott enter new partnership
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It's always nice to see a couple of kids fall in love, am I right?
Even better is when two massive travel brands fall in love... or at least have a crush on each other.
Okay, enough romance metaphors.
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Here are the ratios at which you can transfer points:
- 2 Singapore miles = 1 Marriott Bonvoy point
- 3 Marriott Bonvoy points = 1 Singapore mile
So right off the bat, you probably notice how terrible those ratios are... but there are some potentially great use cases for this new feature.
Transferring hotel points to airlines has always been offered by the big hotel chains, but doing transfers the other way around is far less common.
Typically when your points and miles are with an airline program, they are stuck there for life, regardless of whether or not you'll ever have a good use for them.
I have airline miles scattered between all kinds of obscure loyalty programs. In the travel hacking world, we call these "orphaned points," and I'll discuss them in more depth in a future newsletter.
The point is this: If you find yourself flying around Asia on Singapore airlines once or twice a year and don't have enough miles to book a flight, you can turn those miles into something more practical and get yourself a free hotel night or two.
Some airlines have similar options, so if you find yourself with a small stash of miles that you don't think you'll use, make sure to look into your options for transferring them.
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🛳️ Cruise News: An amazing Amex cruise hack
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Today we're going to do something VERY fun.
We're going to stack some cruise offers, earn points off them, then use those points to book a trip to Europe.
Ready?
Right now, Celebrity Cruises is having a sale. It's nothing special, and it isn't worth paying much attention to on its own...
But American Express thinks otherwise... Because they're currently offering a series of targeted Amex Offers on certain credit cards that are surprisingly valuable...
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Here are the two offers:
- Spend $1,000 or more on Celebrity Cruises, earn 35,000 Membership Rewards points
- Spend $500 or more on Celebrity Cruises, earn 17,500 Membership Rewards points
This is pretty incredible.
Membership Rewards can be pretty easily redeemed for around 2 cents per point when used with partner hotels and airlines, meaning those 35,000 points are worth about $700, yielding a 70% return on your $1,000 purchase... Yeah, it's pretty insane.
In terms of who has these offers available, it depends. However, if you own any of the Amex cards that earn Membership Rewards, there's a good chance you have one of them and a slight chance of having both.
From some quick research, there are PLENTY of cruises you could book with Celebrity to trigger these credits.
A Mediterranean cruise will run you just over $1,000 after taxes, while you could book three Caribbean cruises for the same price.
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So let's say you decide to take advantage of this. You book a cruise (or three), get your flip-flops and Tommy Bahama shirts packed, and get your 35,000 bonus points.
What the heck do you do with them?
That's the easy part. American Express has tons of transfer partners where you could use these points.
You could transfer them to Flying Blue and book round-trip flights to Europe for only 23,250 points.
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You could transfer your points to Aeroplan and book this flight on Singapore Airlines' massive Airbus A380 from New York to Frankfurt for exactly 35,000 points.
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The list of transfer partners also includes JetBlue, British Airways, Emirates, ANA, Marriott, Hilton, and many more.
So, you probably won't have any trouble putting those hard-earned points to good use.
Amex Offers like this are one of my favorite things about owning Amex credit cards. Earning bonus points and statement credits is a great way to reap high returns on those high annual fees.
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✈️ Epic Southwest flash sale (today only)
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I didn't think I'd recommend you fly with Southwest anytime soon, but here they are with yet another excellent deal.
Until the end of the day today, you can take advantage of some incredibly cheap Southwest flights for as low as $49 one way.
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Here are the deets:
- Specific prices depend on the route
- Certain blackout dates apply
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You must book your flight by the end of the day today (11:59 PM PT)
- Valid for travel through May 17th
- You must book flights at least 21 days in advance
Overall, this is something worth taking advantage of for sure. Even if you have loose plans to travel, you could lock in these low fares now.
Since Southwest lets you cancel flights for free and refund the value into your travel bank, you'd have the credit to put toward a future flight - so the risk level is pretty low overall.
Right off the bat, I was able to find Some great fares:
- Seattle to Las Vegas for $65
- New York to Miami for $64
- Boston to Baltimore for $49
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Now, I know there's a question on everyone's mind...
Can you rely on Southwest after their epic fail last month?
Here's my opinion:
Yes, Southwest messed up BIG TIME. But their response was honestly better than I was expecting... They went overboard to make passengers whole again between rebookings, refunds, expense reimbursement, and tens of thousands of free points.
To be totally honest, I wouldn't mind getting caught up in a Southwest meltdown if that's how they respond...
I highly doubt we'll see something like that happen to Southwest again anytime soon - they're under an intense microscope right now and would be dead in the water if another fiasco occurs.
So the short answer is yes, you'll likely be fine. And if not, you'll turn a nice profit off of it anyway.
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That's all for today, folks! I'm seeing a few last sights here in Paris before jetting off tomorrow on the more adventurous segment of my trip, which will take me through Iraq, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe... It's going to be "très good."
Would you fly on Southwest so soon after their meltdown? Have you ever taken advantage of an Amex Offer? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.
Cheers,
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