Good morning from beautiful Burlington, Vermont! We’ve got a lot of stuff on the docket today, so let’s dive straight in:

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

• 🏨 How (and why) to play hotel bingo

• 💳 Come learn about transferable points

• ⚡️ Hydration that keeps you going

• 🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

Keep reading for the answer down below! 👇

🏨 How (and why) to play hotel bingo

I love nice hotels. I also love booking nice hotels with points. But you know what I love even more?

Booking hotels for NO points and NO cash. And the way I do that is largely thanks to earning free night awards from promotions like the one I’m about to tell you about.

There's nothing to register for, no deadline, and no emails nagging you about it. It’s Hyatt’s Brand Explorer promotion, and it’s refreshingly simple:

Stay at five different Hyatt brands, and you earn a free night.

Do it five more times, and you earn another one. Keep going, and you can walk away with up to seven free nights.

It's like bingo… for hotels.

The bingo card has 38 squares

Hyatt currently has 38 brands under its umbrella, and each one is a square you can fill in exactly once. Every five squares earns a Category 1-4 Free Night Award, and it caps at seven awards, so the real finish line is 35 brands.

Here’s what mine looks like right now:

I’ve stayed at 17 brands, earned three free nights, and am just three more away from another free night.

A single night counts, and it doesn't have to be a paid one. Points bookings also count, and so do the nights you book with these very free night awards.

Category 1-4 is better than it sounds

Even though Hyatt has 8 standard room categories, you can still find some really nice Category 4 hotels, which these free night awards cover.

This is Hôtel Reisen in Stockholm, where I'm staying in October. By using a free night award there, I’ll save almost $300 on a hotel night.

How to strategize around this

Brand density is the whole game, and certain cities have amazing Hyatt brand range… New York City is an obvious (but expensive) one.

But another good one is Bangkok. For a few hundred bucks, you could knock out a 5-night stay here with each night at a different brand. 👇

In the end, you’d get to try out staying in different neighborhoods at some new hotels and walk away with a free night to use in a much more expensive city like New York or London.

The bottom line

Go look at your Brand Explorer tracker, because there's a decent chance you're a brand or two away from a free night without knowing it. 😉

After that, the only strategy is to stop booking the same brand out of habit and take advantage of this while you can!

💳 Come learn about transferable points

I talk a lot about using points to book luxury hotels and fancy flights for amazing value… and sometimes, I sort of take it for granted that people understand all this stuff.

But I also realize that if you’re new to the points and miles game, it can be a bit intimidating.

So we're running a masterclass this Thursday called Transfer Points 101, and it’s going to cover all the basics about transferable points, including:

• ✈️ The pros and cons of transferable points and booking through a portal

• ✈️ The who, what, when, where, and why of transfer partners

• ✈️ Sample bookings with a step-by-step process to book with transfer points

Plus, we’ll have a live Q&A at the end where you can ask all of your burning questions.

It's happening Thursday, August 20 at 3:00 PM Eastern, so don’t miss it. 👇

🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

A few minutes ago, we asked you which U.S. city was deemed the happiest place to travel…

If you guessed Las Vegas, you’re a winner! 🎰

Researchers from JustCover, a travel insurance company based in Dublin, Ireland, reviewed over one million tourist reviews from 155 destinations worldwide for language that indicated genuine happiness.

After compiling their findings, they found that the one and only Las Vegas — often lovingly referred to as Sin City — took home the prize for happiest destination in the US.

Now, to be fair, Las Vegas is a popular spot for celebrating birthdays, bachelor parties, weddings, and more, so that may heavily skew the results in its favor if visitors are arriving with a reason to be happy.

But with restaurants, casinos, and endless entertainment crammed into every square inch, it’s easy to see how there might be something enjoyable for everyone in Las Vegas.

And if all else fails, reliving the late 90s with the Backstreet Boys at the Sphere sounds like a pretty fun way to boost morale.

It’s important to note that tourist reviews don’t reflect the entire experience of a place, all travelers’ personal preferences, or the quality of life for full-time residents, so there are undoubtedly other destinations that might rival Vegas.

But if you’re looking to celebrate, Las Vegas just might be the place to put a smile on your face. ☺️

That’s all for today, friends. Take care and see you tomorrow,

44°28'33" N, 73°12'43" W

With contributions by Katie Begnoche, Alison Carrico, and April Wilson.