Choose your own (points) adventure

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop – proof that your inbox can, in fact, have a favorite child.

Here’s what I’ve got for you today:

• 🔀 Choose your own (points) adventure

• ✈️ A new way to earn Aeroplan points

• 🏨 Earn $250 toward Preferred Hotels

🔀 Choose your own (points) adventure

If hotel programs were people, IHG would be the one I want to marry. It’s so darn reliable, you know?

There’s never any drama, blunders, or complications. Just good deals and lots of ways to earn and redeem points.

Plus, every year they offer this fun promotion where you can choose your own path.

Here’s the choice:

• Earn 2,000 bonus points for every two nights

• Earn 8,000 bonus points for every four nights

Pretty simple, and pretty sweet. What’s great is that even if you don’t travel much, you can still snag some easy points from a short weekend stay.

Here are the key details:

• Only valid on cash stays

• You must register and choose your option

• Promo runs from May 20 to August 31

• No cap on how many bonus points you can earn

Just a heads up — the promo doesn’t start for another couple of weeks, so don’t expect points if you’re checking in tomorrow. 😉

Which option should you choose?

I went with the “8,000 points for every four nights” option, since I already have three paid nights booked during the promo period — including a stay at this super cheap IHG spot in Jakarta that I’ve stayed at a million times:

The promo lasts for over three months, so I’m confident I’ll book at least one more night to complete the four-night cycle and trigger the full bonus.

But if you’re not sure you’ll hit four nights, go with the two-night option instead. A smaller bonus is still free points, and free points are still sexy.

Either way, don’t forget to maximize your paid stays with credit cards (like this co-branded card for paid IHG stays, which actually has an elevated offer right now) and portals.

Personally, I like to use the Capital One Offers portal (since I have the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card) to earn Capital One miles on my hotel stays (yes, even when using a non-Capital One card).

An extra 1,000 to 2,000 points per night is an easy win, and if you already have stays booked at other chains, it might be worth switching things up to take advantage of IHG’s offer.

✈️ A new way to earn Aeroplan points

Rove Miles is out with another new transfer partner – and this one is a bit of a game changer.

As of yesterday, you can now transfer Rove Miles to Air Canada Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio.

And to celebrate this new partnership, Rove is offering a 25% transfer bonus to Aeroplan through June 6.

And that might sound casual, but that’s a higher transfer bonus than we’ve seen from any of the typical banks – so it’s pretty good.

Why you should care

This means that now, EVERYONE has access to Aeroplan points, even without a credit card.

Rove Miles can be super easy to rack up from paid hotel stays, where Rove offers 30x, 40x, or sometimes even above 50x miles per dollar spent. 👇

I use Aeroplan points ALL the time, and you can pretty easily get 2 cents per point in value when used for expensive cash flights.

For example, I recently booked a business-class flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Perth, Australia, on Air Mauritius using 80,000 Aeroplan points and less than $100 USD in taxes and fees.

In this case, I got around 3.3 cents per point in value, which is awesome (especially considering the niche route).

Speaking of niche routes, that brings up another point.

Aeroplan has like 50 partners

Aeroplan is a Star Alliance airline but also has a number of non-alliance partners like Etihad, Air Mauritius, Air Serbia, and more.

This means that not only are Aeroplan points valuable, they’re also flexible.

• Flying in the U.S.? Redeem them for flights on United

• Going to South America? Use them to fly with Avianca

• Traveling around Europe? Redeem them with Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, and more

• Africa? Ethiopian

• Asia? Singapore, Thai Airways, ANA, EVA Air…

… you get the picture. You can use Aeroplan points anywhere.

The bottom line

This is great news. It’s good to see Rove adding some more mainstream transfer partners to their list.

I’ll definitely be looking to Aeroplan when it comes time to redeem some Rove Miles. 👍

🏨 Earn $250 toward Preferred Hotels

We don’t often talk about Preferred Hotels when it comes to points and miles. Mainly, it’s because their program is… meh. To say the least.

But right now, they have a pretty compelling new offer that could change that.

Here’s the deal:

Between now and August 31, you can earn a $50 certificate to use at any Preferred Hotel property after completing a 2-night paid stay.

You can do this up to 5 times (at 5 different hotels) during the promotion window, for a total cap of $250 in hotel certificates.

Preferred Hotels has more of a footprint than I thought

When I think of PH, I generally dismiss them because of their small footprint (relative to the other major chains).

But I did some searching around and found that they have properties all over the place, including in some areas where the other “big boy” programs don’t.

Take this five-star hotel in Antananarivo, Madagascar (or “Tana” as the locals call it).

It costs $116 per night, which is already good. A 2-night stay would run you $232 and trigger that $50 credit in return.

That’s a 22% return on your spend right off the bat.

The fact that the promotion window lasts all the way through August means that it could be quite easy to max out, too.

Stack with credit card points

If you use a card like this one to pay for your stay, you’ll also earn 4x UR points on your spend.

Combine that with the credit, and this whole situation feels much more compelling.

The bottom line

Preferred Hotels is offering a promo that puts some of the other chains to shame.

Make sure you register for this offer before booking any of your stays (and use any certificates you earn by the end of the year, when they expire).

That’s it for today, my friends. It’s nice to have so much good news in the travel world, especially when it means booking more free flights and getting more rewards on your hotel spend.

Take care and have a great weekend. See you bright and early Monday.

Bye,

23.13° N, 113.26° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony.