✨ TRENDING TRAVEL NEWS ✨
• Free Resource: Use our cents per points calculator to see if you're getting poor, good, great, or epic value for your points.
• Boosted Earnings: You can now earn more Alaska miles for your everyday Lyft trips.
• Coffee Lovers: Marriott and Starbucks are offering exclusive Alex Warren concert access — here’s what to know.
• It’s Official: Southwest’s assigned seating starts January 27, 2026.
🌅 Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop — the newsletter that can’t legally give life advice, but will absolutely tell you when to book a flight.
Speaking of that:
🇳🇿 How to travel New Zealand with points
I’m currently in New Zealand, and I’ve been having one of the most magical, snow-dusted, redemption-fueled weeks of my life.
But earlier today, I saw something on Daily Drop Pro that made me do a double-take: Round-trip flights from San Diego (SAN) to Auckland (AKL) on Delta for just 48,000 Delta SkyMiles.
Screenshot from Daily Drop Pro
It’s rare to see award flights to New Zealand this cheap…
You can book it using Membership Rewards points by transferring them to Delta, and if you hold a Delta credit card like I do, you'll get 15% off award flights on Delta metal.
Where to stay? Start with the Park Hyatt Auckland.
This luxurious World of Hyatt Category 6 hotel sits right on the waterfront and regularly costs $600+ per night.
Screenshot from hyatt.com
I stayed here in May using a Category 1–7 Hyatt Free Night Award, but even at 25,000 points per night, it’s a stellar deal.
You can also transfer points from a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, which currently has a 75,000-point welcome offer that you can earn after meeting the minimum spend. That’s enough for three luxurious nights free!
💡 New to World of Hyatt? Our complete guide to Hyatt walks you through earning, redeeming, elite status, and more.
For a longer stay in Auckland, IHG One Rewards offers many properties, including the new Hotel Indigo, which costs just 20,000 points per night.
If you’ve got an IHG card, you’ll get every 4th night free, and since IHG often sells its points for just 0.5 cents each, you’re looking at around $100 a night.
Screenshot from ihg.com
But the real magic of New Zealand lives further south. 😏
I’m writing this from Queenstown, and I don’t say this lightly: it might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.
Snow-covered peaks, glacial lakes, people walking around with skis slung over one shoulder and coffee in the other. It’s like Banff and Switzerland had a fling in Middle-earth.
I used two Hilton Free Night Rewards (from the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card) to book Eichardt’s Private Hotel, a luxury boutique property that normally runs $1,800+ per night — or 170,000 Hilton Honors points if you’re going that route. 👇
Screenshots from hilton.com
The staff-to-guest ratio feels like 5:1, and you get free breakfast, free cocktails, and a $50 property credit — all just for holding the right Hilton card (plus tons of other credits to offset the annual fee) and maximizing that annual free night.
Photo by Mike Dodge/Daily Drop
💡 Want to learn Hilton’s secrets? We’ve got a full guide to the Hilton Honors program.
If you start your journey in Auckland, domestic flights to Queenstown (ZQN) are a breeze, with pricing ranging from approximately $50 one way throughout the year — no points required. 😎
Screenshot from Google Flights
This trip has been the ultimate reminder: The right points make remote, pricey places like New Zealand shockingly affordable.
✈️ Crazy award sale to Central America
Avianca LifeMiles just dropped an award sale for flights between the U.S. and Latin America — and some of the prices are so low I had to check twice to make sure they weren’t typos.
The sale is valid for travel between September 1 and November 30, but the clock is ticking because you must book by the end of today to take advantage.
Here are a few of the wildest one-way deals I spotted:
Miami (MIA) → Managua (MGA) – 1,920 miles
Miami → Santa Cruz, Bolivia (VVI) – 2,650 miles
Miami → Montevideo (MVD) – 9,990 miles
Washington, D.C. (IAD) → Santa Cruz – 7,170 miles
Miami → Santiago, Chile (SCL) – 10,990 miles
Screenshot from lifemiles.com
Let me be very clear about this… some of these deals are BONKERS (pardon my language).
While those examples are economy fares, business-class options are also available at a discount. They’re not quite as thrilling, but you can browse the entire sale here.
The best part? You don’t need to collect LifeMiles directly to take advantage — you can transfer points from a bunch of major points programs, including:
That makes this one of the most accessible sweet spots in the world of points.
This sale is the perfect excuse to explore somewhere new (and tropical) this fall — without burning through your stash.
Just don’t wait — this deal disappears after today.
PRESENTED BY MAXREWARDS
📊 The best way to analyze your spending habits
You know that feeling when you think you’re crushing the points and rewards game… only to realize you’re actually earning like 1% back on gas instead of the 3% you could be? 😬
Yeah, same.
That’s why I’m extra excited about the newest feature from MaxRewards — the app I’ve personally used for years to keep track of all my credit cards, perks, credits, and welcome offers.
They just launched a new insights feature that breaks down your actual spending and rewards by category — so you can see if you’re really maximizing your points or just coasting on vibes. 👇
Image from MaxRewards
The best part? This feature works for all users — both paid and free.
So when it comes time to get that new credit card, you know exactly what rewards you’ll earn for spending in various categories.
Pair that with all the usual MaxRewards perks — like automated tracking for credits, rewards, and welcome offers — and it’s basically a one-stop shop for making your credit cards work harder.
And as a Daily Drop reader, you get 25% off MaxRewards Gold with the code dailydrop — plus a free 7-day trial to test it out.👇
🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday
Which European city was recently named the most walkable in the world? |
Only Email Recipients can participate in polls. |
Photo by Expedia
And the correct answer is… Rome!
According to a new study by GuruWalk, Rome is the ultimate place to explore on foot. And if you’ve been, this probably doesn’t surprise you much.
From the Colosseum and Pantheon to beautiful piazzas and trattorias, there’s so much to see within a pretty small radius.
Want to see who else made the list? You can find the full rankings here.
That does it for today, my friends!
Now go enjoy your Tuesday — or book a trip and avoid it altogether. Either way, I’m proud of you. ❤️
With contributions by Tiffany Eastham, McKay Moffitt, and Benji Stawski
