🇬🇧 The British are coming (to steal your points)

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 21 seconds

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the travel newsletter that, no matter how hard you try, you simply can’t take your eyes off of.

Like this picture of a cute, sleepy baby skunk. 👇

Now that I have your attention, let’s travel hack:

• ✈️ How to get 100k American Airlines miles without breaking a sweat

• 💥 Act fast! JetBlue fall sale ends today

• 🇬🇧 ‘Ello, chaps. this airline is making some changes to Avios

✈️ How to get 100k American Airlines miles without breaking a sweat (and why you should care)

I feel like American Airlines is one of the only programs out there that somehow manages to get better and better over time…

So you can probably imagine my excitement when a premium AA credit card got an extreme makeover and dropped a whopping 100,000-mile welcome offer on us the other day…

For reference, that is a LOT of American Airlines miles. If we value them at around 1.8 cents each, that’s $1,800 worth of flights from a single credit card, which also comes with a ton of other perks like lounge access.

Even if you don’t fly AA often, this card could be a game-changer.

Remember, you can use AA miles to book flights on airlines like Etihad, Qatar Airways, British Airways, Japan Airlines, and tons of others around the world.

The other game-changing perk about this card is that in addition to earning miles by spending on the card, you earn Loyalty Points, which allow you to unlock perks and elite status with AA’s loyalty program.

Even earning as few as 15,000 Loyalty Points can get you perks like priority boarding, free seat selection, and more.

Simply by signing up for this card and spending on it, you’ll VERY quickly unlock even more perks like upgrade certificates, higher earning rates, and much, much more.

By now you probably know that I’m VERY excited about AAdvantage, the loyalty program of American Airlines…

In case you don’t know the ins and outs of the program and why it’s the best one in the world, check out my newsletter where I go in-depth about how anyone (anywhere in the world) can get TONS of value out of this program.

Overall, this is a VERY good opportunity. We see cards all the time with offers of 100,000 points, but rarely on any card that can earn you AA miles specifically.

Because these miles are so hard to come by, this is truly a once-in-a-blue-moon offer, so check it out if you want to rake in the miles.

💥 Act fast! JetBlue fall sale ends today

JetBlue appears to be as excited about the upcoming fall season as I am (I can’t help that I’m a basic boi… I love a good pumpkin spice latte ☕️🍁 ).

The airline has a pretty rad sale going on where you can get $25 off a $50+ one-way flight OR $50 off round-trip flights when you use the code FALLTRAVEL.

TODAY, July 26th, is the last day to book this, though. So act fast!

Terms to know:

• Promo code is valid until today (July 26th) for travel between 9/6/23 - 11/15/23 (excluding Fridays and Sundays, Mint, and Transatlantic travel)

• Discount applies per person for nonstop flights whose base fare is at least $50 one-way (excluding taxes and fees).

  • 💡For instance, you might find a flight for $55, but its base fare is only $42 before the total cost with taxes and fees, and therefore the discount won’t apply.

• Not valid on previous bookings

• See the full list of terms and conditions here

🇬🇧 ‘Ello, chaps. This airline is making some changes to Avios

The airline of our friendly English counterparts (British Airways, if you didn’t get that) just announced that they’ll be swapping their traditional distance-based award system for a revenue-based one starting October 18th.

You should care because Avios is one of the most popular frequent flyer programs, and flying with BA is one of the most popular ways to get between the U.S. and the UK/Europe.

This new way of earning Avios definitely has some advantages, but also some not-so-great advantages… and then some scenarios that don’t change at all… depending on how and what you book 🤔

I know, I also thought, “Bloody ‘ell, mate. What gives?” But that’s why you read Daily Drop, right? To get the occasional dose of a horrible English accent…

Plus, we do all the travel-hacking brain work so you don’t have to 😉

Currently, British Airways Executive Club members earn Avios based on the distance they fly, and not how much they paid for their ticket.

Starting for flights booked on or after October 18th, club members will earn Avios based on their elite status at a fixed rate per British pound (or per ~$1.30 USD):

This is good news for some, but not all.

It’s positive if you regularly pay cash for ancillary things like carrier-imposed surcharges (the UK has some of the highest!), seat selection, seat upgrades, and excess luggage charges.

For example, if you have Silver Club status and you spent an extra $400 on a seat upgrade, you’d earn an additional 3,200 Avios ($400 × 8) starting in October.

Others who will benefit from this revenue-based Avios earning structure include those paying for more expensive (premium) cash seats.

Maybe you don’t have points saved up and it’s your once-a-year splurge, or it’s a bucket list trip that you’ve budgeted a large sum for (or maybe you’re just a corporate traveler whose massive company covers the cost… lucky!).

For instance, if you still have that Silver Club status in this scenario, and you pay full price (around £3,200) to fly business class from JFK to London, you’ll now earn a whopping 25,600 Avios (£3,200 × 8 Avios) compared to 13,574 on the current model for Silver elites (10,374 distance-based Avios + £3,200) 👇

Where this model doesn’t always hold up is for members who purchase inexpensive tickets.

A Silver elite purchasing a flexible economy seat for £496 will earn 3,968 Avios on the new model (496 × 8 Avios per pound) compared to 5,187 Avios on the old model (see above).

There are times when you might come out ahead on the new model despite purchasing a cheap ticket, but the more likely case is that you’ll take a bit of a loss.

However, if you mainly fly on partner airlines or only use award tickets on BA-operated flights… then carry on, because not much is changing for you!

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That’s all for today, friends. I don’t know about you, but American Airlines is REALLY grabbing my attention lately… In a world of devaluations and airlines ripping people off, AA miles seem to keep getting MORE valuable over time…

Take care and have a wonderful day,

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