☀️ Hey y’all!

Sam here, tagging in from April on this week’s Mike-is-out relay race. 🤝

My hand is in every newsletter as the editor, but it’s fun to occasionally be on the front lines to bring my own spin (and memes) to things.

I’ve got kind of a random potpourri for you today, but stay with me… it’s good stuff:

• 💅 Book luxury hotels in the Caribbean

• 📺 Stream for free with these merchant offers

• 🫂 Meet your friends & fam at the gate

• 🙋‍♀️ Poll

💅 Book luxury hotels in the Caribbean

A few weeks ago, Mike shared the deets on his first time transferring to the latest transfer partner of MR points: Leaders Club (the rewards program of Leading Hotels of the World). I was intrigued. You were intrigued. We were all intrigued.

In fact, a dear reader reached out to share a personal win thanks to that newsletter:

We were all so happy to hear that Daily Drop made an impact on an important day. Hope you two have a lovely stay! (Btw, we absolutely love getting feedback, so don’t hesitate to hit reply or email us on the side.)

So I thought it’d be the perfect time to highlight a current 25% transfer bonus from ThankYou points to Leaders Club:

Keep in mind that while the bonus applies to all cards that use ThankYou points, the best ratio is with the more premium Citi cards like the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card and the Citi Strata Premier® Card (which have a higher base ratio):

Up until the addition of MR points as a transfer program, ThankYou points were the only points that transferred to Leaders Club, and at a 5:1 ratio. So with this transfer bonus, that makes it…. the regular transfer ratio from MR points. 🙃

I do think it’s a lil suspicious that this transfer bonus appeared the month after Leaders Club launched its new partnership. It’s like Citi went, “Hey! You gave them a better ratio after all these years together?!” 😅

Meanwhile, I’m over here like:

But hey – this is still a solid transfer ratio, and if you have ThankYou points, it’s worth paying attention to.

So let’s look at where this bonus could take us in the Caribbean.

Because here in the Northeast, we’re at fall’s doorstep — which unfortunately means the grim reaper of winter is lurking right behind it. 😭 And I need to start planning a February getaway to cope.

Luckily, Leading Hotels of the World has plenty of properties to help with that👇

I spent way too long perusing LHW’s luxurious Caribbean properties. There are some niiiiice ones, y’all.

I found some availability in mid-February at the Windjammer Landing Resort & Residences in Saint Lucia for 5,679 Leaders Club points per night:

Let’s see how that breaks down:

·  5,679 Leaders Club points × 3 nights = 17,037 points
· 17,037 × 4 = 68,148 ThankYou points needed (69K rounded up, or 23K points/night)
· The cash value of the same stay was $1,786.59 = 2.62 cents per point

That’s a solid redemption… sooo who’s booking it? 🤔

📺 Stream for free with these merchant offers

Speaking of the change of the seasons… It’s here. Football. Netflix and chill. Movie nights. And this bank is leaning into all the couch-potato-ing that’s about to happen with a host of streaming subscription merchant offers.

Now I’m more of a reader than a TV watcher, but I’ve been using these offers to try streaming services for free or cheap. This offer from Paramount+ is currently helping me watch Twin Peaks for free, only... 35 years late (don’t @ me. Also, no spoilers).

I suspect a lot of you will be more excited by this new offer though:

That $240 subscription stings a lil less when you get $35 back – which you can now spend on snacks. 😋 

Other targeted streaming subscription offers that I got:

• HBO Max

• AMC+

• YouTube TV and YouTube Premium

• HISTORY channel

• Sling TV 

Streaming credits might feel like small peanuts, but I love when my cards save me money in the background. If I save $40 on subscriptions I would've paid for anyway, I've effectively knocked $40 off my annual fee.

So every so often, I check my offers, add anything I might use, and go about my life. They’re not flashy, but these little savings are one more reason I like keeping a card that earns MR points in my wallet.

🫂 Meet your friends & fam at the gate

Something that absolutely was not on my bingo card for 2026: being able to pass through security without a flight. What is this… 1999? 🕺

Gateside by TSA PreCheck launched this weekend with the promise of exactly that. It’s pretty straightforward:

Katie immediately reminisced about meeting her visiting grandma at the airport as a kid, before post-9/11 security ended that tradition. 

Great news: kids can meet grandma at the gate again! Well… if you live near one of the 13 pilot airports. 😅

See the full list of airports and read more about the program here. It’ll be interesting to see if this is successful. Could we be re-entering an age of rom-com reunions and families waiting at the gate? 🤔

But friends don’t let friends pay for TSA PreCheck. Hordes of cards offer a statement credit as a benefit (one of our favs just launched an elevated offer yesterday).

Better yet, if your card’s credit also covers Global Entry (most do), get that instead — it includes PreCheck.

And frequent U.S.-Canada travelers? Consider NEXUS, which includes expedited Canada entry, Global Entry, and PreCheck. Signed, a border-city dweller who learned this immediately after renewing Global Entry. 😮‍💨 Check out the difference between all of the programs here.

🙋‍♀️ Poll

That about does it for today! Hope you enjoyed dreaming about a wintertime escape and how to get money back from streaming. I’ll be popping in your inboxes again later this week, so let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to hear from me. 🤝

42°53′11″N 78°52′41″W

With contributions by Katie Begnoche and Alison Carrico.