A low-effort stack worth doing

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the one-stop shop for all things travel, points, and miles.

Today we’ve got cruise discounts, car rental loyalty programs, and portal stacking. Let’s get into it:

• 🥞 Excellent opportunity to stack and double dip

• 🛳️ 40% off adventure cruise expeditions around the world

• 🚗 Sixt finally gets serious about loyalty

🥞 Excellent opportunity to stack and double-dip

Rakuten is basically handing out free money right now — and we’re here for it.

Here’s the deal: if you sign up for Rakuten and spend $50, you’ll get $50 cash back.

To access this deal, you need to be a new user and use a “refer a friend” link (the referrer also gets $50).

You can use our link if you want, or use your friend’s (and make them buy you a beer with that $50 they just earned).

But instead of taking the cash, you can now choose to earn Bilt points, which instantly makes this ten times more interesting.

And because Bilt loves you, they’re throwing in a limited-time bonus of 2,500 extra points when you link your accounts and make a $25 purchase.

So if you spend $50 through Rakuten, you’ll walk away with 7,500 Bilt points, plus whatever you earn on the purchase itself (and whatever points you earn from your credit card).

That’s it. No hoops. No weird exclusions. Just… points. Now, let’s talk about what those points can actually do.

✈️ Fly from Seattle to L.A. for 6.5k points

Because Bilt is the only program that transfers 1:1 to Atmos Rewards, those 7,500 points can already book you a flight like this one from Seattle (PAE) to Los Angeles (LAX) for 6,500 points + $6.

That means you could spend $50, get 7,500 Bilt points, and immediately turn them into a free flight — effectively paying $56 for a flight that could easily cost three times that.

🏨 Or use them for two nights in Europe

If you’d rather save your wings and sleep in style, you can transfer those same points to World of Hyatt instead.

With Hyatt’s award chart starting as low as 3,500 points per night, you could book two nights at a Category 1 hotel like the Hyatt House Frankfurt Eschborn — a solid property with breakfast, a gym, and easy train access into the city.

So yes, you’re literally paying $50 for two nights in Europe. That’s less than what you’d pay for a beer and a pretzel at Oktoberfest.

But to be clear, you could also keep things super simple and stick to cash back. Buying a thing for $50 and getting $50 back makes that thing a free thing. And that’s also cool.

Bottom line: this new Rakuten/Bilt partnership is very good, and double-dipping on these two bonuses makes it even better – but cash back is never a bad thing either.

🛳️ 40% off adventure cruise expeditions around the world

Let’s be honest — expedition cruises aren’t everyone’s vibe.

You’re not exactly sipping Mai Tais in the infinity pool here… you’re dodging icebergs and photographing penguins that smell way worse than they look.

But if Antarctica, the Galápagos, or the Arctic have ever been on your bucket list, this might be the moment.

HX Expeditions (aka the world’s OG adventure cruise line) just launched a Black Friday sale with up to 40% off some of their wildest all-inclusive itineraries.

Yeah… these trips are still expensive. Like “there goes my savings” expensive. But here’s the thing — you can actually make that pain work for you.

If you’re eyeing a once-in-a-lifetime voyage, you could book it with a popular travel card that earns 2x points on all travel (you know, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card 😉).

The welcome offer alone could be hit with a single cruise purchase — meaning you’d walk away with the trip, plus a massive stash of 75,000 points for your next one.

So yeah… it’s not cheap. But at the same time, for people who were already considering an adventure like this, the rates might be more reasonable than some competitors:

But 40% off an Antarctic adventure and a free future trip’s worth of points? That’s about as close as you’ll get to an explorer’s two-for-one.

Discounted bookings are open through December 3rd, so if you’ve ever dreamed of seeing penguins waddle or the northern lights dance, now’s the time to make “maybe someday” happen.

🚗 Sixt finally gets serious about loyalty

Car rental programs have always been kind of… sad. Airlines give you upgrades, hotels give you free breakfasts, and rental car companies give you… stress.

But Sixt just dropped a new program called SIXT One, and it’s surprisingly good — like, “why didn’t they do this ten years ago” good.

Here’s the gist: SIXT One finally brings the airline-style loyalty model to the rental world. You’ll now earn two types of points every time you rent:

• Status points – help you climb elite tiers

• Rental points – can be redeemed for discounts on future rentals

It’s a refreshingly structured system, and your points post within 48 hours of each trip.

The tiers (and why they matter)

There are four elite levels — Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond — each stacking more perks the higher you go.

• Silver (free to join): skip the counter, priority lanes, and member-only offers.

• Gold (2,000 pts): 10% bonus earnings and up to 10% off rentals.

• Platinum (4,000 pts): 20% bonuses, up to 15% off, and free upgrades.

• Diamond (6,000 pts): 30% bonuses, up to 20% off, and access to the new Diamond Lounge.

It’s not revolutionary — but compared to what car rental loyalty used to be (aka: a sticker on your windshield), it’s a major glow-up.

And if you need one more reason, you can also opt to earn points with partner programs like Delta instead of Sixt points.

So if you only rent once in a while and don’t really care about loyalty or status, at least you can rack up a few more SkyMiles!

Anyway, let’s hope we see more rental car programs revamp like Sixt!

That’s all for today, folks! Hope you enjoyed these deals and ways to double-dip on earning points.

Take care and see you tomorrow.

24.7784° N, 110.4966° E

With contributions by McKay Moffitt