Get unlimited flights for less than 200 bucks

Good morning everyone, and welcome back to Daily Drop!

This is Mike again, having mostly recovered after getting sick in Wuhan, China… of all places. 😅

Now that I know I’m not patient zero for the next pandemic, let’s get you all caught up on what’s happened while I was out:

• 🏨 Earn an easy 40,000 Marriott points

• 💻 Save $50 on this award search tool

• ✈️ Get unlimited flights for less than 200 bucks

🏨 Earn an easy 40,000 Marriott points

We haven’t given Marriott a whole lot of love in recent weeks… and as a Marriott boy, this is unacceptable.

Thankfully, there’s a new (very good) way to earn a meaningful stack of bonus Marriott points thanks to Marriott Homes & Villas.

Here’s the deal:

Between April 27 and January 3, 2027, you can earn 40,000 bonus points if you stay at a Marriott Homes & Villas property for at least two nights.

Now the question that is probably on many of your minds is… What the hell are Marriott Homes & Villas?

Marriott H&V is a vacation rental program owned by Marriott. It’s essentially like Airbnb, but bookable using Marriott Bonvoy points.

And, as we’ll discuss, you can also EARN Marriott Bonvoy points.

How to earn points at vacation rentals

Unlike normal Marriott hotels, you don’t earn quite as many points from stays at these vacation rentals.

The earning structure is as follows:

As a Marriott Titanium Elite myself, I normally earn a whopping 17.5 points per dollar at Marriott hotels, so these rates are underwhelming…

With this promotion, however, you can get a nice little chunk of bonus points… though there is a catch:

The stay must cost at least $2,000. 😬

But just because you need to stay two nights and spend $2k doesn’t mean you need to book an insanely expensive property.

For example, you could book a long, extended stay at a home like this one in Bali.

This 14-night stay would cost you $2,400, thus triggering the promotion. Plus, it’s a 2-bedroom villa with a private freaking infinity pool.

That means for $2,400, you could bring the whole family and spend two weeks in paradise.

Oh, and here’s how many points you’d earn:

• 12,000 points for being a member

• 40,000 bonus points

• Elite bonus points (dependent on your status)

That’s already 52,000 Marriott Bonvoy points, which is enough to book another 5-night stay in Bali at a different property like this one (and still have 16,000 points left over). 👇

Stack with credit card rewards

If that phat stack of points wasn’t already enough, you’ll also earn points from your credit card spending.

Personally, I use this card for most travel. It earns 3x UR points per dollar, which can be transferred to valuable programs like Hyatt.

This single $2,400 purchase would earn 7,200 UR points. When transferred to Hyatt, that’s another TWO free hotel nights at a hotel like this one in China where I just stayed earlier this month:

Or… if you want to get really saucy with it, you could pay with a Marriott co-branded card, many of which earn 6x points per dollar – even at Marriott Homes & Villas.

In this case, you’d earn 14,400 points from the credit card spend, taking your total Marriott winnings up to 66,400 points. 🤯

One last stack

I promise we’re almost done…

The last thing to pay attention to is shopping portals, many of which partner with Marriott Homes & Villas.

For example, the Rakuten shopping portal is currently offering 1.5% cash back (or 1.5x MR points or Bilt Rewards back) at Marriott H&V.

If you booked that stay in Bali with Rakuten, you’d earn another 3,600 points (if you choose to earn points instead of cash back).

Now, you’ve racked up a total of EXACTLY 70,000 points from this one. single. purchase.

That’s like a mini welcome offer just for booking a luxurious 2-week vacation in Bali.

One final point:

Right now, this promo is only open to Marriott Bonvoy elite members. But don’t worry, it will be open to all members starting April 27.

But you might not need to wait – if you hold a Marriott co-branded credit card (many of which currently have elevated offers) or this shiny premium card, you already have some level of elite status with Marriott and are thus eligible for this offer immediately.

Anyway, that was a doozy. Make sure you register for this offer, and happy villa hunting. 🏹

💻 Save $50 on this award search tool

If you’ve been reading Daily Drop for a while, you can probably tell that points and miles are one of the most important things in my life.

And I’m not alone…

Here at Daily Drop, we all live and die by points. We love them so much that we built an entire tool to help us (and all of you) maximize the way you spend them.

It’s called Daily Drop Pro – and right now, you can get $50 off an annual paid subscription.

To be clear, anyone can sign up for Daily Drop Pro for free. But if you upgrade to the paid tier, you’ll unlock the best things the Pro has to offer:

• ✈️ Unlimited personalized points and cash deals to over 250 destinations

• 🔎 Unlimited points searches for flights AND hotels

• ❗️Customized alerts from up to 10 home airports

• ✅ Access to our exclusive community, the Pro Lounge

• 🌎 A FREE Lonely Planet ebook guide to the destination of your choice

So yeah… It’s a lot of value considering you can get $50 off right now.

And if you’re wondering whether or not it’s worthwhile, let me give you an example of just how helpful Daily Drop Pro can be.

Save 300k points on a United flight

Let’s say you want to book a flight from San Francisco to Zurich later this year.

You’d probably check pricing on Delta, United, and American and see something like this:

And if that’s all you do, you might end up shelling out hundreds of thousands of miles for this flight.

Instead, you can pop open Daily Drop Pro, input your dates and cities, and see that you can book the SAME EXACT flight for just 70,000 Aeroplan points. 👇

If you’ve never used Aeroplan points, that’s fine – Daily Drop Pro will tell you which bank programs transfer to Aeroplan and walk you through the process step by step.

Anyway, this sale only lasts until April 27, so you don’t have much time to mull it over.

But as you can see from the previous example, one solid award deal can make the entire annual cost pay for itself.

✈️ Get unlimited flights for less than 200 bucks

Frontier just brought back its GoWild! Summer Pass, and on paper, it’s one of the wildest deals in travel:

Pay $199, and you can book unlimited Frontier flights through the summer.

Yes, unlimited.

Well… kind of.

The GoWild Pass has always been a bit difficult to explain, but here’s how it generally works:

• Flights are usually only bookable 1 day before departure

• You pay $0.01 + taxes/fees per flight

• Seats are limited, and availability can be… questionable

• Bags, seat assignments, etc., all cost extra (classic Frontier)

So in reality, you are paying something for every flight… but given the low cost of the pass, it could be great for someone who lives in a Frontier hub city or who needs to book a lot of summer travel.

Right now, however, Frontier is changing it up a bit…

You see, if you buy the pass now, Frontier is adding a temporary early-booking window that makes this way more usable:

• Book flights now through May 8

• Travel through September 8

• No blackout dates

• A set number of GoWild seats on every domestic flight

That last part is important. Normally, you’re fighting for scraps the day before departure. This gives you a chance to actually plan ahead like a normal human.

The catch: these “free flights” aren’t really free

Even with the pass, you’ll still pay some fees depending on when you fly:

• For most dates, you’ll pay $0.01 plus taxes

• Midweek flights (Tues/Wed) are the cheapest

• Most summer weekends require a fee of around $49 one-way

• Peak holiday dates can be up to $99 one-way

And to be clear, those fees only apply to early bookings. If you’re doing the normal “book one day in advance” thing, you don’t have to worry about those.

So yeah, you can fly for almost nothing… but not if you’re trying to leave Friday at 5pm with the rest of America.

The bottom line

This is one of those deals that can be insanely valuable if you play it right and make sure you’re abiding by all of the annoying terms and conditions.

If you’re flexible, travel light, and don’t mind flying midweek, you could absolutely rack up flights for next to nothing.

If you aren’t willing to jump through those hoops, maybe forget about this one. 🤷🏼‍♂️

That’s all for today, folks. I hope you have a great weekend. We’ve got plenty more to talk about next week, so be sure to tune in.

Ciao,

30°17′42″N, 109°28′47″E

With contributions by Sam Anthony.