How to save points on the best trans-Atlantic airline

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the coffee shop barista of newsletters. We’ll talk your ear off, but man, do we have the best brew. 😉

Here’s what’s on the docket today:

• ✈️ 20% discount on Virgin Atlantic award flights

• 🍪 Tasty Travel Tidbits

• 🏨 A Best Western promo that’s… actually… pretty sweet?

20% discount on Virgin Atlantic award flights

Virgin Atlantic has been on fire the last few months between joining SkyTeam, offering credit card transfer bonuses, and introducing some stellar deals on partner awards.

They have decided to keep the party going with yet another good opportunity to save some points with a 20% discount on award flights to/from certain cities.

Here is a quick chart of which cities are part of this promo and which dates each city is available to book with a discount:

Here are some other important details:

• These prices and dates are valid in BOTH directions, not just originating in London.

• The prices you see in the image above are for round-trip fares.

• These discounts will already be reflected in the search, so there is no need for a discount code.

• Discounts are only valid for economy flights (😭).

• Regardless of the flight date, you must book your ticket by April 27th to get this discount.

Overall, this can be a pretty amazing deal, mainly because the travel window covers a decent portion of the summer season, which is proving to be one of the most expensive yet.

Flying from the USA West Coast to Europe for just 24,000 miles round-trip is definitely a deal worth considering, especially given the widespread availability.

If you are based in the UK (or you live in the U.S. and want to combine multiple deals), you could snag some great prices on far-flung destinations like Johannesburg and Tel Aviv for under 20,000 miles round-trip.

So, theoretically, you could travel from San Francisco to London to Johannesburg to London to San Francisco for a grand total of 44,000 miles by combining two of these discounted routes… that’s a steal, my friends.

For you Americans, earning Virgin Atlantic miles is easy as pie.

You can transfer points from Chase, American Express, Bilt, Capital One, and Citi ThankYou… so yeah, y’all got options. Most of the credit cards on our Top Credit Cards page could get you a few of these flights.

So if you’re looking to travel abroad and want to avoid the insane summer travel prices, this is a little nugget from the travel gods.

🍪 Tasty Travel Tidbits

• ✈️ A short but interesting British Airways flight to Italy

• 🤦‍♂️ Oh god… Southwest has another *mini* meltdown

• 🏨 Hyatt announces its newest brand of hotels to launch in 2024

🏨 The new Best Western promo is actually pretty sweet

When we bust out the Best Western material here at Daily Drop, you know it’s for one of two reasons:

1. We’re desperate and running out of content

2. They have an uncharacteristically awesome promotion

I’ll let you decide which one this is…

For the next few months, Best Western is offering 2,000 bonus points for all stays booked with points.

Here are the deets:

• Earn 2,000 bonus points on all award nights through September 4th

• Valid for hotels in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean

• NOT valid for stays booked with cash

The important thing to remember here is that points are awarded per stay rather than per night, so be careful.

Overall, this is an excellent deal for anyone who was planning on using Best Western points for stays this summer.

There are definitely some ways to get strategic with this offer, too.

For example, you could book a 1-night stay at a hotel like this one that only costs 8,000 points per night:

In this case, you’re getting a 25% rebate on the points you spend, though award nights go for as little as 5,000 points, which could save you even more.

If you have a trip to multiple cities or a road trip where you’ll be staying at hotels for just one night at a time, this is a great way to travel on the extreme cheap.

Of course, if your stay is more than one night, you’ll still only get the 2,000 bonus points. So if you want to get maximum value, you’ll need to break up your hotel plans into as many individual stays as possible.

Overall, it’s nice to see Best Western trying to keep up with the big boyz.

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That’s it for today, y’all!

It’s already been such an exciting week of travel hacks, but we’re only just getting started. Let’s just say… we’re gonna finish off the week with a bang. 😉

Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to seeing you all bright and early tomorrow. 💕

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