The airline duo no one saw coming

Good morning from Papua New Guinea, a land of lush jungles, remote islands, and more mosquitoes than my liking.

I’ve got some epic travel updates for you today, so let’s get into it:

• 🤯 This new airline partnership is blowing my mind

• 🏨 How to earn six Hyatt Free Night Awards

• ✈️ Book award flights to South America for 3k points

• 💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

🤯 This new airline partnership is blowing my mind

United Airlines and JetBlue just dropped a bombshell: the two airlines have teamed up to form a new alliance called Blue Sky.

This new partnership is bringing blockbuster heat to the airline industry… Like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible levels of heat. 🔥

Here’s what’s in it for you:

• Seamless booking between airlines

• Reciprocal elite benefits

• Earn and redeem points across both airlines

If you can’t tell, I’m really excited about this, so let’s break it all down.

Seamless connections

For starters, you’ll soon be able to book United flights on JetBlue’s site (and vice versa).

This will allow seamless connections when flying both airlines on one itinerary, which is especially useful if delays or cancellations occur. 

Elite perks

What I’m personally more excited about, is that there will be reciprocal elite benefits for United Premier and JetBlue Mosaic members.

Here’s a pretty chart with all the deets. 👇

Notably, all elites in either program, regardless of status level, will get access to extra legroom seats, priority check-in and boarding, same-day changes, and a free first checked bag. Not bad!

No word yet on lounge access or upgrades, but we’ve got our fingers crossed.

More ways to earn and redeem points

This is a fun one — JetBlue TrueBlue members will be able to earn and redeem points across United’s entire global network. 🙌

United MileagePlus members will also have access to “most” JetBlue flights (whatever most means 👀).

This opens up a ton of new redemption options, especially for JetBlue loyalists looking to fly beyond their usual East Coast routes.

Because United has one of the largest global footprints:

As a part of the deal, United will get some of JetBlue’s New York-JFK slots starting in 2027, a long-awaited comeback to an airport it has ghosted for years.

I also love this partnership because United miles aren’t always the most accessible. The airline offers a handful of pretty solid co-branded credit cards, but it definitely lacks transfer partners — only Ultimate Rewards points and Bilt Rewards have the privilege of converting to United miles.

However, you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points, Membership Rewards points, Capital One miles, and ThankYou points to JetBlue at varying ratios.

So if you have any of these cards…

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

• Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

• Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

• Bilt Mastercard

• Any card that earns Membership Rewards points

…you’re all set to maximize your redemptions with either airline.

No official launch date has been announced yet, but word on the street is that the new Blue Sky alliance will take off this fall. 👀

🏨 How to earn six Hyatt Free Night Awards

Hyatt recently added two new brands — The Standard and The StandardX — to its growing portfolio.

These edgy, boutique hotels have locations all over the world, from New York City to Singapore and many in between. Hyatt’s weak spot has always been its international footprint, so it’s always great to see more options on the table.

But here’s why this is really exciting…

Hyatt has a feature called “Brand Explorer,” where it gives you a Category 1-4 Free Night Award for every five brands you stay at.

The addition of these two brands brings Hyatt’s total number of brands to 34, meaning you can earn as many as six Free Night Awards this way.

As you can see, I’m just one brand away from getting another award.

Next month, when I’m in Thailand, I’ll stay at this StandardX hotel for just $86 per night:

After that, I’ll have another Category 1-4 Free Night Award that I could use anywhere in the world.

In fact, last night, I stayed at this extremely expensive Category 3 hotel in Brisbane during my overnight layover.

Since it’s a Category 3, I can use my Free Night Award and get over $600 in value just from playing Hyatt’s Brand Explorer game.

It’s a simple game — and very worth playing!

✈️ Book award flights to South America for 3k points

If you’ve been eyeing a trip to Central or South America, I’ve got VERY good news for you.

Avianca LifeMiles is running a flash award sale through tomorrow night (May 31, 11:59 p.m. CT).

You can get up to 30% off award flights from the U.S. in both economy and business class (yay).

While the booking window is tiny, you can travel anytime through November 1, which is a massive travel window.

There are tons of good deals to explore on the sale page, but here are some of the business-class highlights:

Flying from the Northeast to Central America for as few as 21,000 points in business class is a fantastic deal.

Avianca LifeMiles are surprisingly easy to earn, since you can transfer points from most major U.S. banks.

If you recently signed up for the epic offer on the Venture Card, this is a great way to put a fraction of those points to use for a cool trip this summer or fall.

But I think the economy award deals are even more bananas… 👀

As you can see, none of these deals cost more than 10,000 points, even from cities like Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), or Los Angeles (LAX) to South American cities like Bogota (BOG) or La Paz, Bolivia (LPB).

Good prices, cool destinations, easy points to transfer to, and a big travel window? Sounds pretty great to me!

That’s it for today, my friends! I feel like this week was particularly packed with good deals… do you agree?

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Yours forever,

9.4790° S, 147.1494° E