Good morning and happy Friday. You survived the week, and I’ve got a reward for you.

The reward is tips for getting super-duper easy elite status, and more:

• 🏝️ Sweet Spot: Hawaii edition

• 💎 A fun, underrated status match

• 💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

🏝️ Sweet Spot: Hawaii edition

Time for a sweet spot highlight. This one is for everyone who's ever priced out a Hawaii trip and quietly closed the laptop.

Here's the play: you can fly nonstop from the West Coast to Hawaii for just 16,000 points and $5.60 in taxes.

The key is that you have to book using Qatar Airways Avios.

Why Qatar, of all programs?

Avios is the shared points currency of several airlines, including British Airways, Iberia, and Qatar Airways.

But here's the quirk: even though they all use Avios, each program prices flights differently.

And for flights to Hawaii on Alaska and American, Qatar's menu is the winner at 16,000 Avios one-way.

To show you what I mean, here's LAX to Honolulu, where both the Alaska and American nonstops price at 16,000 Avios. 👇

I searched tons of dates on this route and frequently found NINE nonstops per day bookable at this rate between the two cities.

The same seats cost more elsewhere

Want proof this is a good deal? Let's price out the exact same flights in their own programs.

That exact same American flight, on the same day, was pricing at 22,000 AAdvantage miles. 👇

That’s not to even mention that AA miles are much harder to earn than Avios in the first place since you can only transfer from ThankYou points.

Alaska is a slightly different story. The same Alaska nonstop flight we saw earlier often prices at 12,500 Atmos Rewards points, which is admittedly cheaper. 👇

But Atmos has exactly one transfer partner: Bilt Rewards.

So unless you're sitting on Bilt Points, spending a few thousand extra points isn’t a big deal considering you can transfer to Avios from literally every major bank.

Transfer bonuses make it even cheaper

Banks run frequent transfer bonuses to Avios programs, usually 20% or 30%.

And since Avios move freely between the airlines that use them, a bonus to ANY airline program that uses Avios is a bonus to all of them.

We have a full guide on moving Avios between programs if that sounds intimidating (it's not).

Anyway, with a 30% transfer bonus (which we’ve already seen multiple times this year), that Hawaii flight costs about 12,300 points.

At that rate, a single elevated welcome offer can cover a whole family flying to Hawaii AND back. 🍹

The catch…

Cause there’s always gotta be a catch. 🙄

Qatar Airways changed their Avios redemption policy earlier this summer, restricting Privilege Club members’ ability to book award flights for additional travelers.

You can now only search for and book award flights for yourself and the people on your designated ‘My List.’

But in order to add people to ‘My List,’ you need to have:

a) had a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account for at least 30 days

AND

b) either earned Avios on a paid Qatar or partner flight or hold a Qatar Airways co-branded credit card.

Here’s how I got around this:

Last year, I had a flight on American Airlines where I added my Qatar Airways number to the booking. It was a cheap, $80 flight and I wasn’t going to earn many points from it…

But now, my Qatar account is fully unlocked because of it. I just used the new “My List” feature to book myself and a special someone in Qsuites next month with no issues.

You can do the same by adding your Qatar number to a paid flight on airlines like:

• American Airlines

• Alaska Airlines

• British Airways

• Qatar Airways (obviously)

• Iberia

• Finnair

• Tons more

The bottom line

Hawaii flights with the big domestic programs are dynamically priced and frequently disappointing.

Qatar's fixed 16,000-point rate, stacked with wide-open space and plenty of daily flights, is a reliable sweet spot that will save you a crap load of points. 💰

Being able to redeem Avios for multiple people is annoying… but if these rates look appealing to you, it’s worth the effort.

💎 A fun, underrated status match

A few weeks ago, I wrote an entire newsletter about how Wyndham is quietly becoming one of the more interesting hotel programs out there.

Well, here's the natural next question: if Wyndham is suddenly worth caring about, how do you get Wyndham status without staying 40 nights at a sketchy motel?

The answer is Wyndham's status match, which has been running for a while now. And honestly, it might be the easiest path to top-tier hotel status in the entire points and miles world.

How the match works

The concept is simple: show Wyndham proof of your elite status with another hotel program, and they'll hand you the “equivalent” Wyndham status for free.

You just sign into your Wyndham Rewards account (or create one, which takes about two minutes), fill out this status match form, and upload proof of your current status.

Then, in about 5 to 7 days, your shiny new status shows up in your account.

Depending on what status you bring to the table, you'll get matched to Wyndham Gold, Platinum, or even top-tier Diamond.

And that last one is where things get fun. 👇

The bar for Diamond is ridiculously low

Here's a sampling of what you can match to Wyndham from other hotel programs:

If you've been in this hobby for more than a week, you probably noticed something about that list... many of the statuses that match to Diamond are statuses you can get just by holding a low-fee credit card.

Hilton Gold comes automatically with this $150-per-year card. Marriott Gold comes with a $125-per-year business card from the same bank. And IHG Platinum comes with a card that costs just $99 a year.

Personally, I think all of those cards are worth holding anyway… which is why I already hold them all.

Anyway, in other words, a $99 credit card can be your ticket to top-tier status at one of the world's largest hotel chains.

Pretty cool, eh? 😏

So what does Diamond actually get you?

Wyndham Diamond comes with some pretty sweet benefits:

Now, let's be real for a second. At a roadside Super 8, your suite upgrade dreams may go unfulfilled, and elite recognition can be hit or miss at the budget end of Wyndham's portfolio.

But at the nicer end (yes, Wyndham does have a nicer end), Diamond benefits can look a lot like what you'd get at the big-name chains.

And with Wyndham's friendly award pricing making these hotels bookable with points, that combo is suddenly pretty compelling.

But here's the catch:

Your matched status only lasts 90 days.

To keep it beyond that, you'll need to complete some stays before the clock runs out:

• 1 night for Gold

• 4 nights for Platinum

• 10 nights for Diamond

That Diamond requirement sounds steep, but there’s a silver lining: award nights count as qualifying nights, according to the Terms and Conditions.

With Wyndham's cheapest properties dropping to 5,000 points per night soon, you could theoretically extend that Diamond status without spending much cash at all.

And if you do complete the nights, your status is extended through the end of NEXT year, through December 31, 2027.

The bottom line

Wyndham has been making all the right moves lately, and this status match is the cheapest possible way to buy into that momentum.

If you hold basically any mid-tier hotel credit card, top-tier Wyndham Diamond status is sitting there waiting for you. It takes about five minutes to apply, and the worst-case scenario is 90 days of free status. 🤷🏼‍♂️

And if you want to set yourself up with the kind of hotel status that makes matches like this possible, check out our favorite hotel credit cards to start earning points (and perks) on every stay.

💳 Current Transfer Bonuses 💳

That’s it for this week!

I hope you enjoyed some sweet spots and status shortcuts today, and I’ll see you first thing Monday morning to tell you about an exciting new airline partnership.

Later,

6.9175° S, 107.6191° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony and Katie Begnoche.