Sneaky way to get Delta perks

Good morning! Welcome back to Daily Drop, the newsletter equivalent of getting an entire row to yourself on a six-hour flight — you didn’t pay anything for it, and damn if it isn’t the highlight of your week.

Here are some good travel tips to wake you up on this beautiful Monday:

• ✈️ Award Drop: Starlux Business Class

• 🏨 Buy IHG points with a 100% bonus (again)

• 🥂 Sneaky status match to get Delta perks

• 🌎 New award alert tool (Daily Drop Pro)

✈️ Award Drop: Starlux Business Class

Another day, another excellent way to burn your miles and points on a bucket list flight.

Luxury Taiwanese airline Starlux has just opened up business-class award availability between several cities and Taipei, offering a way to get upwards of five cents per point in value.

Specifically, you can fly from Los Angeles (LAX) or Ontario (ONT) to Taipei (TPE) in Starlux’s sexy business-class suites (pictured above) for just 75,000 Alaska miles and minimal taxes and fees.

Alaska often has Starlux seats available to book, but rarely this cheap. Plus, as a non-alliance airline, this is really the only option for booking Starlux flights.

I’ve found that most of the available awards are to and from Ontario, with much less availability out of LAX.

And while there are scattered awards in the late summer, it’s much easier to find flights for October or November.

These flights sell for a minimum of around $3,300, so you’ll get a minimum of roughly 4.3 cents per point in value here, possibly more.

Anyway, the fall is a wonderful time to visit Taiwan, but you can also use this to position yourself for just about any other major city in Asia.

And remember, for the next few weeks, you can still transfer Membership Rewards points to Alaska via Hawaiian, so the timing here is great.

After that, Bilt Rewards will be the only option for earning Alaska miles through transferrable points.

🏨 Buy IHG points with a 100% bonus (again)

I’m going to say something controversial here…

I think IHG One Rewards is my favorite hotel program. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I’ve always loved it, but this year I’m finding that it’s benefited me and been significantly more rewarding than the other programs.

One of the reasons I feel that way is that you can often buy IHG points for cheap, then spend them for more value than what you paid, especially when there’s a sale like right now:

When you buy points through this Friday, June 13, you can get up to a 100% bonus on purchased points, though you may be targeted for a lower offer.

Buying points with a 100% bonus means a cost of just half a penny each, which is great value.

For example, I just spent four nights in Kyoto at the brand new Holiday Inn, which only costs around 10,000 points per night.

Rather than pay the cash rate of about $100, you could simply buy 10,000 points for $50 and book the same hotel.

Oh, and if you have the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card from IHG, you’ll get every fourth night free when using points.

This combo is particularly handy for otherwise expensive destinations!

So here’s the bottom line:

This sale can save you a ton of money on hotels, but it’s only lasting a few days. So check your travel plans to see if this deal will save you money.

Remember that these purchases do not code as a “travel” or “hotel” expense, so use a card like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card to earn two miles per dollar.

🥂 Sneaky status match to get Delta perks

Status matches are fantastic ways to take your existing hard-earned elite status and multiply it.

We’ve recently talked about several domestic programs poaching Southwest flyers through status matches, but this next one is a little different.

Vietnam Airlines is currently offering a status match to elites from both airline AND hotel programs.

Before I get into the details, here’s why you should care about this.

Having elite status with Vietnam Airlines means having SkyTeam Elite or Elite Plus status, which earns you benefits when flying with many airlines around the world, including Delta Airlines.

For example, SkyTeam Elite Plus gets you access to Delta lounges in the U.S. when you fly internationally, even in economy class.

Other perks include free checked bags, priority check-in and boarding, bonus miles on cash flights, and more.

So, how can you take advantage of this?

Well, you can match status from 47 different airlines, but here are the ones that most likely apply to you, along with the corresponding matched tiers for Vietnam Airlines:

As you can see, even having a Southwest Companion Pass can get you top-tier status here, which is great.

Now, the big caveat to be aware of is that this is a paid status match, and the fee varies based on the tier you match to:

• Titanium (SkyTeam Elite): $99

• Gold (SkyTeam Elite): $159

• Platinum (SkyTeam Elite Plus): $299

Sometimes I recommend doing a status match to get perks even if you have one or two flights booked. But in this case, you’ll really want to weigh the cost against the potential benefits.

It’s also worth noting that you can match your hotel status as well, though the top tier (Platinum) is exempt from this…

Since so many hotel credit cards offer elite status as a perk, this could be an easy way to match to Gold and take advantage of some mid-tier perks on Delta, Korean Air, KLM, Air France, and other SkyTeam airlines.

🌎 New award alert tool (Daily Drop Pro)

Award deals like the Starlux one I just told you about are great… but what if you don’t live in California? Or what if you want a good award deal to Europe instead?

We simply can’t cover every great deal in this newsletter… but thankfully, I’ve got an alternative for you.

Daily Drop Pro has recently started sending out award deal alerts from your preferred airports to your desired destinations.

And in this week’s Daily Drop YouTube video, Brendan breaks down how this tool works. 👇

That’s all for today, folks!

Between the airline deal, hotel deal, status match, and Daily Drop tool to help us all redeem points for good value, I feel like today had a little something for everyone.

Stay tuned tomorrow for some nerdy credit card talk and more fun travel tips.

Until then,

43.0618° N, 141.3545° E

With contributions by Tiffany Eastham, McKay Moffitt, and Benji Stawski