Good morning, and welcome to 🤠 Daily Drop’s Transfer Bonus Bonanza 🤠 (trademark pending (but not really)).

FIVE new transfer bonuses dropped today, and I’m going to tell you a little about each one of them.

Let’s get started:

• 🇯🇵 50% transfer bonus to JAL

• 🇪🇺 40% transfer bonus to Flying Blue

• 🇶🇦 35% transfer bonus to Avios

• 😅 10 years in bad seats

• 🚂 125% transfer bonus to Amtrak

• 🏨 200% transfer bonus to Hilton

🇯🇵 50% transfer bonus to JAL

These first three bonuses are all being offered by Rove Miles, and are all valid between today (October 1) and October 31.

First up is (in my opinion) the most exciting, which is a 50% transfer bonus to Japan Airlines (JAL).

I don’t know what’s going on, but there are so freaking many transfer bonuses to JAL.

Capital One just finished theirs, Citi ThankYou points currently has a 30% bonus, and now Rove has a 50% bonus.

The nice thing about that is you can combine points from any of those programs into your JAL account if you don’t have enough points in any one program.

How I’ll use this bonus

I recently told you about how JAL miles are great for booking British Airways flights without the insane fuel surcharges that other programs charge.

I’m eyeing a weekend trip to London sometime soon, where I can fly from the U.S. or Canada to London on BA business class for just 42,000 JAL miles and a couple hundred bucks in taxes and fees.

With a 50% bonus, that’s just 28,000 Rove Miles for business class across the pond, which is a VERY GOOD DEAL (sorry for yelling), and one that doesn’t require a massive Rove Miles balance.

JAL miles can also be used to book JAL itself, American Airlines, Emirates, Air France, and tons more.

An economy-class flight from the U.S. to Japan only costs 27,000 JAL miles, or just 18,000 Rove Miles with this bonus:

This is definitely the most exciting transfer bonus of the bunch… but not the only good one.

As a reminder, you can get 1,000 Rove Miles instantly by simply making an account – so that’ll give you a little head start.

🇪🇺 40% transfer bonus to Flying Blue

Next up is a 40% transfer bonus to Flying Blue, also from Rove Miles.

This one also falls into the category of “very good.” Flying Blue has some of the best deals out there, namely their monthly Promo Rewards.

This means flying in economy from various U.S. cities to Europe for the following rates:

• 18,750 miles in economy (13,400 Rove Miles with the bonus)

• 30,000 miles in premium (21,400 Rove Miles with the bonus)

• 45,000 miles in business (32,200 Rove Miles with the bonus)

Those are all good deals, though the eligible routes change from month to month.

Don’t forget that Flying Blue is also a great way to book domestic Delta flights in the U.S., sometimes for as few as 5,000 miles in economy or 15,000 in business:

That means you can book Delta flights for as few as 3,600 Rove Miles each with this bonus.

Longer domestic routes will cost you more miles, but it’s still usually a good deal – and definitely a slam dunk with a 40% bonus.

🇶🇦 35% transfer bonus to Avios

Finally, last up on the Rove Miles list is a new 35% transfer bonus to Qatar Airways Avios, which has some nuance to it.

For starters, this bonus is awarded in tiers as follows:

• Up to 49,999 miles will get a 15% transfer bonus

• 50,000 to 99,999 miles will get a 25% bonus

• 100,000 miles and higher will get the full 35% bonus

Avios are probably my favorite airline currency out there, since you can freely transfer them between airlines like British Airways, Finnair, Aer Lingus, and Iberia.

But also, I don’t think many people have 100,000 Rove miles lying around, making this hard to find valuable.

We see regular transfer bonuses of 20-30% to the various Avios airlines, so a 15% bonus for most people is not great.

At the same time… if you have Rove Miles lying around and want to save your credit card points for more valuable partners, this could be worthwhile.

You can use Qatar Avios to fly domestic American Airlines and Alaska flights for pretty cheap, so even a 15% bonus would make that a good deal.

You can even fly to Hawaii from the West Coast for 16,000 Qatar Avios, making this a great deal whether you’re getting a 15% bonus or the full 35%.

Plus, Qatar recently loosened up their annoying rules for booking flights for multiple passengers, making the program almost as flexible as it was before those changes.

Now let’s take a little break and hear from today’s sponsor before we dive into the last two bonuses. 👇

🚂 125% transfer bonus to Amtrak

The next two transfer bonus are offered by Bilt Rewards as part of their October Rent Day promotion, making them valid for TODAY ONLY.

First up is Amtrak (yes, Amtrak is now a transfer partner of Bilt).

The bonus ranges from 25% to 125%, based on your Bilt status:

All of these are a good deal, honestly. To get the 125% bonus, however, you’ll need to have Bilt Platinum status and shell out $400 of Bilt Cash. (Up to $100 of Bilt Cash earned rolls over to the next year.)

It’s worth noting that the default transfer ratio to Amtrak is 2:1, so you’ll have to do some funky math to crunch the numbers on any redemptions.

Still, there are plenty of cool ways to use Amtrak points for good value. I won’t cover it here, but check out my newsletter from a couple of weeks ago for some inspiration.

🏨 200% transfer bonus to Hilton

Finally, we have the worst transfer bonus of them all, which is a 75-200% bonus from Bilt Rewards to Hilton, also tiered by status level.

If you have Platinum, you can also use just $200 of Bilt Cash to unlock a one-time 200% transfer bonus.

To be clear, none of these are great.

That’s because programs like MR points already transfer at a 1:2 ratio to Hilton…

To get that same Ratio from Bilt, you need Silver status… and you can only do it for one day… And there’s a cap of 100,000 bonus points, which is often not even enough for a single night at many Hilton properties.

There’s one silver lining to this one

The other component of this Rent Day bonus is Hilton Status challenge. You’ll get instant Hilton status for 90 days, and can keep or upgrade that status by completing a certain number of nights within 90 days.

If you do keep or upgrade, your status will be valid through March 31, 2028.

Here’s how it works:

• Bilt Member: Instant Hilton Silver; 6 nights in 90 days to Gold

• Bilt Silver: Instant Hilton Silver; 6 nights in 90 days to Gold

• Bilt Gold: Instant Hilton Gold; 12 nights in 90 days to Diamond

• Bilt Platinum: Instant Hilton Diamond; 12 nights in 90 days to keep Diamond

But this is almost meaningless, for two reasons:

1. Hilton already offers a public status match/challenge for Silver and Gold, and only Bilt Platinum elites can do better than that.

2. You can get any of those levels of Hilton status by simply holding a Hilton cobranded card.

So yeah. Not impressed.

Phew, we did it, folks. Five transfer bonuses in one day. Don’t forget that the Bilt bonuses are ONLY valid today.

Hopefully some (or all) of you are able to take advantage of at least one of these. 🙂

Byebye,

43.6532° N, 79.3832° W

With contributions by April Wilson.