This program un-devalued itself

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Good morning and happy Frequent Flyer Day — yes, that’s a real thing.

I feel like this should be a holiday, right? (Daily Drop team, please take note of this for next year’s holiday schedule.)

Anyway, let’s talk turkey 🦃

• ✈️ Fly across the Atlantic with this card

• 🌎 Speak your way around the world

• 🤔 This program just un-devalued itself

✈️ Fly Across the Atlantic with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Hi everyone, McKay here! Story time — gather ’round.

A few months ago, I used points to book round-trip flights from New York (JFK) to Dublin (DUB) for my husband and me.

Our total out-of-pocket cost? Less than $200 in taxes and fees. 🥹

The secret? Points — and a well-timed transfer bonus.

I originally signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card during a limited-time offer a few years back and earned 80,000 Chase points. Since then, I’ve earned even more through another offer and a few referrals (which is a whole ‘nother strategy I’ll save for another time 😉).

When Chase ran a transfer bonus to Avios, I transferred points to Aer Lingus and booked both round-trip tickets for just 66,000 points total. Proof 👇

I’ll pause for applause.

To put that in perspective, those same flights were going for over $1,200 in cash. After taxes and fees, I got over four cents in value per point.

The best part? Transfer bonuses like this one pop up often, especially to Avios programs like Aer Lingus, British Airways, Qatar Airways, and Iberia.

Because Chase partners with a number of valuable airline programs, you’ve got a lot of flexibility when it comes to flying to Europe on points.

If you want to plan a similar trip for yourself, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is currently offering a whopping 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in the first three months.

That’s easily enough for a round-trip economy flight to Europe — maybe even two, depending on where you’re flying from and if you catch another transfer bonus!

So, if you’ve got Europe on your radar, this is one of the best ways to make it happen without spending thousands of dollars. 💅

🤔 This program un-devalued itself

Here’s a weird one for you (this is Mike now, by the way).

A few months ago, Avianca LifeMiles devalued its award flights from the U.S. to Europe…

It was really sad, especially considering that Avianca used to have some of the best award deals in the biz.

For example, many awards shot up to a whopping 80,000 miles in business class:

Well, it seems like now, Avianca has… un-devalued (I’ve never used that term before) its awards?

For example, many awards on Star Alliance carriers like TAP Air Portugal and Lufthansa now cost only 69,000 miles between the U.S. and Europe, which is about a 14% drop.

Is it the best deal? Nope. Are we happy to see award prices go down instead of up?

Heck yeah!

Plus, Avianca often has crazy deals on buying points.

For example, last year they offered a 200% bonus on purchased miles (which expired a while ago now):

This means that you could buy one of the aforementioned flights in business class for around $750 by simply buying points.

I can imagine a LOT of people being willing to buy miles and fly in Lufthansa’s lie-flat business class for that price.

The major caveat here is that the only airline that didn’t un-devalue is United. So sadly, you’ll still pay at least 80,000 LifeMiles to book United’s business class to Europe.

Anyway, if you have a stash of LifeMiles or are willing to buy miles in the future, this is good news.

As a reminder, you can always transfer points from a credit card to Avianca. Check out our Transfer Partners Cheat Sheet for reference.

That’s all for today, amigos! I hope you enjoyed some fun travel content. And make sure you tune in to tomorrow’s newsletter for even more.

Now I’m going to go sleep off this jetlag. 😴

Cheers,

6.1944° S, 106.8229° E

Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within this post.