Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the carry-on of newsletters: small, efficient, and somehow it still fits everything you need.

Here’s what we managed to fit in today:

• 🏨 Marriott + Emirates = 5,000 points

• 🍜 Points Pursuit Episode 5: Bloomington

• ✖️Multipliers made simple

• 🤔 Hmm…. tell us what you think!

🏨 Marriott + Emirates = 5,000 points

Marriott Bonvoy and Emirates Skywards have had a cozy little partnership going for a while now.

You can link your accounts, earn both currencies on flights and stays, transfer points between the two programs, and unlock a handful of status perks that you'll probably never think about again.

Normally, I'd file this partnership under "neat, I guess" and move on with my day.

But right now, there's a limited-time offer that earns you 5,000 bonus Marriott points for completing one paid stay by September 30, and all you have to do is link your accounts and register.

5,000 points for one stay at any participating Marriott hotel is pretty great. No minimum spend, no five-night requirement, no blood oath to the Bonvoy gods.

Well… there is one catch. 😬

It's targeted, which means Marriott has hand-selected some lucky winners while the rest of us refresh the page and wonder what we did wrong:

"But I don't care about Emirates"

The good news is that you don't have to care about Emirates. This specific deal really only involves the Marriott side of the partnership.

You don't need to fly Emirates, transfer a single point to Skywards, or even know what Skywards is. The Emirates part of this is basically a formality.

That said, if you do care about Emirates, this partnership is probably something that you’ll enjoy for future stays and flights with the two programs.

You can read more about the specific benefits and perks on the partnership page.

Here's my real-life example

My best friend is visiting me in Indonesia right now, and he's got a late-night flight out of Jakarta next week.

Enter the Fairfield by Marriott, my go-to hotel near Jakarta airport that costs a not-so-whopping $53 per night.

Booking that one cheap-ass stay earns:

• Base Marriott points on the stay

• My elite bonus on top of that

• Credit card points on the purchase

• And now, 5,000 bonus points from this promo

That's a points haul worth more than the room itself on a stay he needed anyway. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Bottom line

Even if the Emirates partnership does nothing for you, link your accounts and check if you're one of the chosen ones.

If you've got literally any paid Marriott stay coming up before September 30, this might be the easiest 5,000 points you earn all summer.

🍜 Points Pursuit Episode 5: Bloomington

We're back with the final episode of Points Pursuit. By now, you should know the drill:

Every week, we've been dropping a video and article where one person on the Daily Drop team shows Brendan and Erin around their hometown, all while trying to earn as many points as possible with just $500 of spending.

This week's finale features our resident points wizard Daniel Burnham, showing the team around his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. 🏀

By booking one hotel stay a full month early, timed perfectly with a points-boosting promo and the right credit card, Daniel had already locked in over half his total points before the trip even started.

By the time his guests actually arrived in Bloomington, his in-person spending for the whole visit came out to just $6.39. 😳

Between the pho breakfast, the BBQ gift card, and one very well-timed hotel booking, Daniel racked up 9,841 points on just $499.84 in spend, a 34.4% return.

Daniel's strategy is a great reminder of something we talk about all the time:
Earning a lot of points is about timing and planning as much as it's about spending money.

Watch the full episode and see all the fun they got up to here. 👇

And if you want to see exactly how Daniel had this competition locked up before anyone left for the airport, check out his full breakdown here:

This wraps up our Points Pursuit summer series. Thanks for following along with us all season, and we'll see you on the next one.

✖️Multipliers made simple

The Points Pursuit series was all about how to earn the most points possible with your credit cards.

And the most natural way to do that is to take advantage of points multipliers — 3x on dining, 2x on everything, 4x on dining, etc.

Using the wrong card and only earning 1x the points, when you could’ve doubled or tripled your earnings, can be a real gut punch — especially with bigger purchases.

But it can admittedly be a LOT to keep straight in your head. 😵‍💫

So, we did you a solid and made this handy Points Multiplier Cheat Sheet.

Now, you never have to panic again trying to decide what card to use to earn the most points — you’re welcome. 😎

🤔 Hmm…. tell us what you think!

I don’t know about y’all, but I’m a little sad to see that the Points Pursuit series has already come to an end. 😔

Learning from fellow travelers is the reason we’re all here and it was fun to get a glimpse into a little behind the scenes of the Daily Drop team!

So, with that in mind inquiring minds want to know:

That’s it for today, friends! I hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter and I’ll see you next time.

Peace ✌️

6.9175° S, 107.6191° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony and Katie Begnoche.