Learn from my mistakes

Happy Wednesday, fellow Dropsters!

(That’s not really what we call ourselves, but feel free to reply with better suggestions.)

It’s April (the person) again! Mike is under the weather today, and Sam’s just getting back from a day off, so I’m tagging in. Bear with me!

Here’s what’s on deck for today:

• 🙃 Don’t sleep on travel portals (like I did)

• 👀 Wait, Daily Drop Pro has a free version?

• 🫣 How I could have gotten 12x on a recent hotel booking

🙃 Don’t sleep on travel portals (like I did)

Okay. Storytime. And yes, it's embarrassing. 🫣

This past weekend, I booked a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, for a visiting friend. I found a great spot, booked it, paid with my travel card, and briefly felt like a very smart and responsible person.

Then I realized how many points I’d left on the table, simply because I spaced out.

Look, I'm going to blame my age for a second.

When I was younger, my brain held onto everything: phone numbers, song lyrics, the entire plot of every John Hughes movie.

Now? I can forget a booking portal exists in the time it takes me to find my glasses.

Getting older is truly a gift. 👵

Here's the truly humbling part, though.

I recently wrote an entire article on the best ways to use UR points — about the portal. About the math. About exactly this type of situation.

Then… I booked a hotel like someone who has never heard of points. 🫠 

So, what did I actually leave on the table?

Only 3x more points. 😣

I booked directly with the hotel, which got me 2x points.

But I could’ve gotten 5x points if I’d booked the same hotel through my card’s travel portal. 😭 

It’s simple: Before you book any hotel, open your card’s travel portal first. It takes 60 seconds to check if the price is similar.

If it is, book there.

That's the whole tip. It's not complicated. I just personally failed to do it. Repeatedly.

If you want the full breakdown of what to do with your points, including the portal, hotel, and airline transfers, and a genuinely great AARP angle that I also failed to use on a Mediterranean cruise (I'm really on a roll), it's all right here:

👉 3 Best Ways to Use 75,000 UR Points

TL;DR: Many cards offer high multipliers when booking through their travel portal. Checking it takes a minute, but not checking it costs you points, so always check!

👀 Wait, Daily Drop Pro has a free version?

You know how I forgot about the UR portal? I also forgot to check Daily Drop Pro to see if there was a good hotel points redemption near me.

Truth is — I might not have needed to pay cash at all.

Quick refresher: Daily Drop Pro is our travel-planning tool built for people who want to stop guessing and start booking.

It searches over 140 points programs at once for flights and hotels, sends you flight deal alerts from your home airport, and walks you through the booking process step by step.

Think of it as the research assistant you didn't know you needed. 🤓 

While it’s a paid tool, it does have a free version (our gift to you, so you can check it out risk-free!).

Here's how the tiers break down:

• Free (Limited): 5 points searches, deal alerts from one home airport, and enough of a taste to know whether you're ready to go deeper.

• Pro ($149/year): Unlimited points searches for flights and hotels, deal alerts from up to 10 departure airports, a wallet to track all your points balances across programs, access to the Pro Lounge community, and curated deals.

If you're new to points and miles and feeling a little overwhelmed (hi, same!), the free tier is a genuinely low-stakes place to start poking around. No credit card required.

🫣 How I could have gotten 12x on a recent hotel booking

You know how I told you earlier about all the platforms I forgot to use when booking my friend’s hotel?

It gets better.

Turns out there's a whole other platform I also forgot about: Rove.

ICYMI… Rove is a free travel booking portal that earns you its own transferable currency on hotels, flights, and everyday shopping.

When you book through Rove and pay with your travel rewards card, you earn Rove miles on top of your regular card rewards (like my dad always said: measure twice, cut once).

If I'd used Rove for that exact same hotel booking, I would have earned 12x in combined rewards.

Instead, I booked direct and got 2x like someone who has never heard of any of this. 🤦‍♀️

Here's how the math works:

My particular Courtyard Marriott near Easton, Ohio, was showing 10x Rove miles this week. So I could have gotten:

• 2x: by paying with my travel rewards card

• 10x: by booking through Rove

That’s a total of 12x points and miles.

The takeaway: Rove miles are free to earn on a booking you were already making. And they transfer to a growing number of airline and hotel partners at a 1:1 ratio… just like our favorite travel cards.

So be like Mike (not me). Sign up and check Rove before you book any hotel. It’s free to join, takes two minutes to set up, and lets you walk away with two streams of rewards.

That’s it from me!

Hope you enjoyed this lil round-up of all the ways still-learning-April is, erm… still learning.

Learn from your mistakes, move on, and know that even despite leaving a few points on the table, you’re still ahead of the game. 💪 

Til next time,
April Wilson
39.9625° N, 83.0032° W

With contributions by Sam Anthony and McKay Moffitt.