Earn 14x points on flights

Good morning, beautiful people, and welcome back to Daily Drop!

The last week of newsletters has had some valuable but obscure travel tips. Today, things are simple: three awesome deals with domestic airlines.

Let’s get into it:

• 1️⃣ Earn 14x points (or more) on United flights

• 2️⃣ Fly one, get one with this domestic airline

• 3️⃣ 30% transfer bonus to Southwest

1️⃣ Earn 14x points (or more) on United flights

There’s a pretty cool offer floating around that allows you to earn a LOT of extra points on dozens of different things.

But before I get into it, it only applies to people who hold one of these two credit cards:

• This low-fee card that most of you already have, or

• This premium card (which is currently offering 150,000 UR points)

Anyway, this offer is valid through the end of this year – so even if you don’t have one of the cards, you can still get it and do exactly what I’m about to tell you.

Earn 10x MORE points at tons of retailers

Until December 31st, holders of the cards I mentioned earlier can earn 10x extra UR points when checking out with Paze.

I had never heard of Paze before, but it’s basically a digital wallet offered by banks to make checkout easier with certain retailers.

But here’s the kicker:

A lot of really solid merchants offer Paze as a payment method, including Dunkin, Sephora, and tons of others.

But the MOST exciting one is United Airlines.

If you have the premium card (like I do), you already earn 4x UR points on flights.

With this deal, you can check out with Paze and earn a whopping 14x UR points per dollar. 🤯

Keep in mind, this is on top of the United miles you already earn from flying with United… so it’s actually even better.

How I’m using this deal

Believe it or not, I actually have a bunch of United flights coming up…

Last week, I told you about how I’m booking a trip around Oceania. One way I’m getting around is by using United’s “Island Hopper” service to fly between countries like Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.

It’s basically the only way to really get around this region, and flights are EXPENSIVE. 😬

But… I can check out with Paze and get a massive return on my spend.

For example, the above flight from Palau to Pohnpei costs $595, even in basic economy, but will earn me 8,330 UR points.

That’s enough to transfer to Hyatt and book a night in Taipei during my overnight layover before I fly to Palau.

Or, I could redeem those for as much as 2 cents each in the bank’s portal (because I hold this card), for a return of $167.

That’s a 28% return on my spend – without even accounting for the miles I’ll earn from flying.

The fine print

There really isn’t a ton of fine print here… The main thing to keep in mind is that you can earn the additional 10x points on up to $1,500 in spending per month.

Still, earning 15,000 extra UR points per month through December is solid.

Anyway, this is just another reason to hold a card that earns UR points, and I’m glad to see the bank adding value to these cards. 🙂

2️⃣ Fly one, get one with this domestic airline

Now that Spirit has kicked the bucket, it’s time to start looking toward other budget airlines.

Thankfully, Frontier has launched a pretty enticing, easy-to-use promo they’re calling “Fly One, Get One.”

Here’s how it works:

If you register for the promotion before May 31st, you can get 5,000 Frontier points when you book a round-trip flight.

Here are some other details:

• Only cash flights are eligible

• You must book directly through Frontier

• You can do this four times to earn up to 20,000 points

• Flights must take place before August 31st

So yeah, it’s actually pretty simple.

And because Frontier sells really cheap flights, this could actually be a solid return on your spend.

For example, take this round-trip flight from Denver to Austin.

It costs $56 for both flights, which is a great deal already.

But because it’s a round-trip booked with cash, it’ll also trigger the 5,000 bonus points, which is already enough to book the same flight from Denver to Austin, which costs just 5,000 miles and $6 in taxes and fees.

In this case, it’s truly a “fly one, get one.”

These bonus miles are in addition to the miles you’d already earn from flying Frontier (which admittedly is not much).

So yeah. Is it life-changing? Nope.

Is it worthwhile if you’re looking to get a solid return on very little spending? Hell yeah.

3️⃣ 30% transfer bonus to Southwest

Last up on the docket today is a transfer bonus to Southwest, being offered by UR points (as if we needed another reason to get a UR point-earning card).

The bonus is valid through June 5, so you’ll have to act quickly if you want to leverage it.

So, is it worthwhile?

Well, generally speaking, yes.

Southwest has some really good deals that can easily beat out other programs with this 30% bonus.

For example, flights between Baltimore and Kansas City cost just 8,000 Southwest points:

With the 30% bonus, this comes out to just 6,100 UR points for a nearly 3-hour flight, which is hard to beat.

If you recently racked up a welcome offer on this card or this card, multiplying it by 30% could keep you flying for years if you’re a Southwest Rapid Rewards loyalist.

Of course, you always want to compare your options.

For example, if you need to book a really short flight from Detroit to Chicago, it’ll cost you 11,500 Southwest points on a date like August 7.

With the 30% bonus, that’s still around 8,900 UR points.

Instead, you could fly the same exact route on the same day by transferring points to Flying Blue (with no transfer bonus) and booking a Delta flight for 5,000 miles, which is available at this price point basically every day. 👇

In this case, even the transfer bonus would be a waste of your points. So make sure you always shop around before pulling the trigger.

Whether you use this bonus or not, it’s yet another reason to ALWAYS have a stash of UR points handy.

That’s it for today, folks. In summary, here’s what we covered:

• Earn bonus points on dirt-cheap Frontier flights

• Earn tons of extra credit card points on United flights

• Spend fewer points on Southwest flights

Not bad for a normal Wednesday. 😉

See you tomorrow,

6.9175° S, 107.6191° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony, McKay Moffitt, and April Wilson.