How to stay somewhere with a kitchen

Good morning and happy Tuesday, folks. Let’s get straight into some fun tips for earning and redeeming points.

Here’s what I got today:

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

• 🏨 Earn double IHG points (targeted)

• 🔪 How to stay somewhere with a kitchen

• 🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

The answer is waiting for you a little farther down… 🌎

🏨 Earn double IHG points (targeted)

IHG is out with a new targeted offer to earn unlimited double points on stays between April 1 and May 19.

The promotion is targeted, but you can try to register here. If you aren’t targeted, keep reading anyway – you can still rack up a ton of IHG points. 😉

The details are simple:

Normally, you earn 10x IHG points per dollar just for being a member. With this offer, you’ll earn 20x points.

But before I tell you how you can maximize this, there are a couple of ways to stack even more points.

Use this credit card to pay

If you use this IHG co-branded credit card, you’ll earn another 10x points per dollar on paid IHG stays.

The card also comes with Platinum elite status.

One of the best perks of Platinum status is that you earn yet another 6x points per dollar.

If we stack all of these together, here is what we end up with:

• 10x points for being a member

• 10x from the double points promo

• 10x from spending on the card

• 6x from Platinum status (also from the card)

That’s a total of 36 IHG points per dollar.

Book through a portal

You can book IHG stays through a portal like Rakuten, which offers cash back, MR points, or even Bilt Rewards.

Right now, Rakuten is offering up to 5% back or 5x points at IHG. 👇

Even better, if you’re new to Rakuten, you can also get $50 (or 5,000 points) after spending $50 when you sign up using this link.

What this all looks like in practice

Let’s look at an example of a stay at this hotel in London, which costs $188 per night.

That’s not bad for London. But also, just one night would earn you around 8,000 points using all of the stacks we talked about.

If you get that Rakuten new member bonus, that’s another 5,000 points back, too.

The bottom line

If you’ve been targeted for this IHG offer, you can earn a crap load of points if you stack it with card earnings, elite status, and shopping portals.

But even if you aren’t eligible for the promotion, you can still earn plenty of points.

🔪 How to stay somewhere with a kitchen

Some people love hotels… crisp sheets, daily housekeeping, $9 bottles of water, etc.

And then there are the ones who, after a few days on the road, just want a couch, a kitchen, and the ability to cook some eggs.

So today, let’s talk about how to use your normal points programs to book stays that feel a little more like home.

The easiest win: hotel brands with kitchens

You don’t need to go full Airbnb to get a kitchen. A bunch of hotel brands are designed for longer stays, which means you get actual space and a place to cook. 🧑‍🍳

Various programs and brands offer such properties:

• Marriott: Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites, Element by Westin

• Hilton: Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites

• Hyatt: Hyatt House

• IHG: Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites

• Choice: MainStay Suites, Everhome Suites

• Wyndham: Hawthorn Extended Stay

The nice thing is that, oftentimes, these brands are also the cheapest.

For example, let’s say you want to go hang out in Dallas for five days. You could book this Residence Inn using just 16,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night:

Because of Marriott’s fifth-night free perk, a 5-night stay would cost just 64,000 points total.

That means by signing up for a Marriott credit card or transferring points from our most popular card, you’d already have enough points for one or two of these stays.

These hotels usually aren’t sexy… but they’re insanely practical. And honestly, being able to make breakfast before a long day out can be really nice.

Want more space? Use hotel points for full-on homes

If you want to level up from “hotel with a kitchen” to “actual apartment or house,” a few programs now let you do exactly that:

Marriott Homes & Villas

• Bookable with Marriott points

• Huge selection worldwide

• Great for group trips

The nice thing about Marriott Homes & Villas is that they offer frequent promotions to earn extra points on paid stays, including the current promotion to save 10% on various Spring rentals:

Hyatt Homes & Hideaways

• Smaller footprint, but growing

• Bookable with World of Hyatt points

Accor (ALL) Apartments + Adagio

• Tons of apartment-style stays across Europe

• Accor Live Limitless Points have a fixed value, so pricing is super straightforward

Now… quick reality check:

These can be great options, but they’re not always amazing value. Sometimes the pricing is… let’s just say… very bad.

You also generally earn fewer points when booking cash stays. But I still think that being able to earn and redeem points at all for actual homes is a win.

One more move

If you really want flexibility, you can always just book a vacation rental the normal way (Airbnb, Vrbo, etc) and then use Capital One miles to cover the purchase at one cent each.

For example, this lovely home in the Smoky Mountains costs $133 per night through Airbnb. 👇

You could book this using your Capital One miles-earning credit card, then offset the purchase with 13,300 Capital One miles per night.

That’s not bad at all, even when you compare it to pricing through normal hotel programs.

Is it the highest value redemption ever? No.

But it’s simple. And we love that.

So whether you’re staying somewhere long term, traveling with a larger group, looking to save money on food, or you just enjoy that homey feeling, there are PLENTY of ways to use credit cards, points, and miles to get a stay that fits your needs.

🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

A few minutes ago, we asked which country Americans are most interested in moving to in 2026…

If you chose Canada, congratulations! 🎉

A new study from moveBuddha found that Canada is the #1 country Americans want to move to, with nearly a quarter of respondents choosing it as their top destination.

Why Canada?

Lower cost of living, better access to health care, and overall safety were the biggest drivers behind the move.

England came in second, followed by Japan, Ireland, and Switzerland rounding out the top five. And here’s the wild part… nearly 1 in 10 Americans are actively researching a move abroad, while about 60% have at least considered it.

I mean… “let’s just move to Canada” is starting to sound less like a joke and more like a group project 😅

👉 Read more from the study here.

That’s all for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed today’s content, and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.

Ciao,

59.4370° N, 24.7536° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony.