Business class to London for 21k points

☀️ Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the perfect well-balanced meal for any die-hard travel fan.

We’ve got a little of everything today:

• 💳 This is still the best card, just sayin’

• ✈️ Don’t forget about this transfer bonus

• 🏨 Stackable hotel award sale

• 🥶 Inside this Antarctica adventure cruise

💳 This is still the best card, just sayin’

It’s been kind of a crazy year in the travel card world.

We saw multiple ultra-premium cards completely revamp, and now Capital One’s ultra-premium card has launched a crazy welcome offer.

For frequent travelers like me, those cards can be incredible.

But there’s a recurring piece of feedback from readers that goes a little something like this:

And honestly? Yeah, I get that.

And that’s why we always come back to this one low-fee card – by far the most popular card among Daily Drop readers.

It has an annual fee of under $100, a hotel credit to offset more than half of that, solid earning rates, and earns UR points – which I think is the most valuable transferrable currency.

Don’t forget about this welcome offer

With all the noise in the card world, it’s easy to forget that this card is still offering 75,000 UR points for signing up and meeting the minimum spend.

Relative to the annual fee, that’s the best bang-for-your-buck offer out there.

Here’s why:

You could transfer points to World of Hyatt and book hotels around the world for as few as 3,500 points per night. 👇

You can do the math in terms of how that adds up…

But you can also transfer points to many of our favorite partners like Southwest, Flying Blue, Avios, Virgin Atlantic, and more – often with transfer bonuses.

Don’t forget about the hotel credit

That’s right – even this low-fee card has a $50 annual hotel credit to use in the bank’s portal.

That means you’re paying a “net” $45 per year to hold this card.

So if you’re looking for the simple path (while still racking up a lot of points), check out this keeper card:

✈️ Don’t forget about this transfer bonus

Here’s another thing you shouldn’t forget about before it ends on December 31.

There is still a whopping 40% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic from MR points until the end of this year.

Don’t get me wrong, transfer bonuses to Virgin are anything but rare, but 40% ones only pop up once or twice per year.

Here’s another reality:

Virgin Atlantic’s best off-peak pricing is in the new year. So if you’re eyeing a trip to Europe, this can be a game-changer.

Let me tell you about how I just used this transfer bonus today.

Virgin Atlantic Upper Class for 21,000 points

I recently told you about a crazy all-suites trip I booked starting in January.

One of the flights was British Airways Club Suites from London to Toronto using 55,000 Atmos Rewards points.

Well, earlier today, I found availability on the same route on the same day in Virgin Upper Class for just 29,000 miles.👇

The taxes and fees are high, but they’re actually lower than what BA was charging.

Plus, this is on Virgin’s A330-900neo – which lets me maintain my “all-suites” business-class trend.

So, I transferred MR points to Virgin Atlantic instantly and cancelled that Atmos booking on British Airways.

And with the 40% bonus, I only had to shell out 21,000 MR points to fly in a lie-flat suite across the ocean on the exact day and route I needed it.

And it’s not just the Northeast that has these deals. This flight from Atlanta to Manchester is also priced at 29,000 miles in Upper Class.

Plus, you could take advantage of the low premium economy rates and transfer just 10,000 MR points (while also saving significantly on taxes and fees).

I’m seeing deals like this even into March, so keep this in your back pocket as you contemplate 2026 travels.

I can’t think of a better way to use MR points for extreme value right now.

Well, maybe one other way… 👇

🏨 Stackable hotel award sale

Keeping the Virgin trend going (kind of a weird start to a sentence), you can also book Virgin hotels with points.

And right now, Virgin Hotels has a sale on its U.S. properties when using Virgin Red points – which you can stack with that same transfer bonus.

To be clear, Virgin only has a handful of hotel properties… but they’re in cities that could otherwise be quite expensive.

Here are the starting prices for different cities:

• New Orleans: 20,000 points per night

• Dallas: 22,500 points per night

• New York and Nashville: 27,500 points per night

The New Orleans deal is only valid until January 31, while the rest are through February 28, and these prices apply to weekday prices (weekends are more expensive).

So, is this a good deal?

Well, let’s look at the New Orleans hotel. You can book a 3-night stay there for just 60,000 Virgin Red points against a cash cost of over $800.

With the MR points transfer bonus, that’s just 43,000 points for three nights at a nice hotel in New Orleans, which is a solid deal.

If we shift our focus to New York City, that’s where the savings get even better.

Virgin’s hotel in the Big Apple can easily run $400 per night, even in January and February. But you could book three nights here for just 82,500 Virgin points:

With the transfer bonus, that’s 59,000 MR points for three nights at a nice hotel in Manhattan.

What are “Virgin Red” points?

It’s basically Virgin’s main points currency.

You can transfer points between Virgin Red and Virgin Atlantic by linking your accounts, and use them to book flights, hotels, cruises, and more.

Anyway, I think this is quite solid – if you’re eyeing flights or hotels for the new year, definitely keep an eye on these stackable Virgin deals.

🥶 Inside this Antarctica adventure cruise

Antarctica. It’s on everyone’s bucket list, but feels… out of reach. Like, how do you even get there? Which companies offer tours there?

And, most importantly, what is the experience like?

In this week’s Daily Drop YouTube video, Brendan and Erin will answer all of those questions as they kick off their journey to southern Argentina and onward to Antarctica.

That’s all for today, amigos!

Credit cards, business-class flights, cheap hotels, and an Antarctica cruise? I feel like we really hit all the bases today.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more end-of-year travel tips and tricks.

Ciao,

6.9175° S, 107.6191° E

With contributions by McKay Moffitt