Transfer bonus bonanza (again)

Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, and happy Friday!

Every Friday morning, I like to take a quiet moment for reflection and return to the timeless words of Mahatma Gandhi.

Anyway, enough philosophical ponderings. Let’s get into the good stuff:

• 1️⃣ 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic (x2)

• 2️⃣ 80% transfer bonus to IHG

• 3️⃣ 40% transfer bonus to Turkish Airlines

• 4️⃣ Current transfer bonuses

1️⃣ 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic (x2)

Just like last month, November has been crazy in the world of transfer bonuses.

Sooooooo many new ones have dropped in the last few days, three of which we’ll cover in detail today.

First up is a new 30% transfer bonus from MR points to Virgin Atlantic through November 30, which could be incredibly lucrative.

Funny enough, there’s also a concurrent 30% transfer bonus from Capital One miles to Virgin until November 20.

People usually associate Virgin miles with flying Virgin Atlantic itself… and there are some good deals.

For example, check out this flight from Miami to London in business class for just 35,000 miles:

With this bonus, that’s just 27,000 MR points or Capital One miles.

You could use a single credit card welcome offer to fly round-trip to Europe in business class and still have tens of thousands of points left over:

• This card has a mid-level annual fee with high earnings on food and groceries

• This card for a higher welcome offer, solid earnings, and tons of credits and premium perks

• This low-fee Capital One card which currently has its best-ever welcome offer (which includes a $300 travel credit)

• This premium Capital One card with a higher annual fee but better perks

Of course, that Virgin flight has some intense annual fees…

So instead, you could use the same points to book business class to Europe on an airline like SAS, which charges just $5.60 in taxes and fees:

That flight would only cost you ~46,000 MR points or Capital One miles and almost no cash out of pocket, which is a great deal.

If you’re more of an Asia kind of fella, you can also book airlines like Korean Air with Virgin miles.

This flight from Seoul to Las Vegas only costs 85,000 Virgin miles in business class:

The taxes and fees on that flight also come out to just over $30 USD, which is fantastic.

With the transfer bonuses, you only need to transfer ~65,000 points to Virgin. For 12 hours in lie-flat business class, that might just be the best deal yet.

The bottom line

Virgin is a great program for flying, whether it’s on Virgin itself or its many partners.

If you’ve got MR points or Capital One miles lying around, this is a great use for them.

If you don’t, get some now – then you’ll be ready next time this transfer bonus comes around. 😉

2️⃣ 80% transfer bonus to IHG

It’s not often we see transfer bonuses go as high as 80%…

So when you read this headline, you might’ve wanted to go run to your account and transfer all of your points over to IHG.

But don’t do that. At least not yet, please.

Until December 3, you can transfer UR points to IHG with an 80% bonus.

Don’t forget that, generally speaking, hotel points are worth significantly less than airline miles, so this probably isn’t as crazy a deal as it looks at first glance…

But make no mistake — there are ways to get amazing value from this. And I’ll show you how.

For example, if you want to book a trip to London, you could stay at this voco hotel for just 33,000 IHG points. 👇

With this transfer bonus, that’s just ~18,000 UR points per night, which is a great deal for London.

Combine this with the 4th night free perk

As you know, holding an IHG co-branded card (like my single favorite credit card) also allows you to get every 4th night free when redeeming IHG points.

When you combine this with the transfer bonus, it can be VERY good.

For example, last year, I spent 4 nights at the voco in Auckland, New Zealand.

It cost 20,000 points per night normally, but I only had to spend 14,500 points per night thanks to the 4th night free perk on my credit card.

So my entire 4-night stay in New Zealand would’ve only cost 32,000 UR points with this bonus.

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

IHG points aren’t as valuable as many other points… but if you’re traveling to a place with some cheaper IHG redemptions, I think this is a perfectly reasonable way to spend some UR points.

3️⃣ 40% transfer bonus to Turkish Airlines

The final transfer bonus is an interesting one, but likely the least relevant to yous guys.

Until November 30, you can get a 40% bonus when transferring Citi ThankYou points to Turkish Airlines.

This bonus is offered by Turkish, not Citi. So when you transfer points, you won’t see this advertised on the bank side.

You can read the details on Turkish’s dedicated page.

Turkish Airlines is not what it used to be… they have gutted the program, and there aren’t many sweet spots left.

One sweet spot that has remained is the ability to fly nonstop from the U.S. to Turkey for 65,000 miles in business class.

This could be a great deal with a 40% bonus, which requires just 46,000 ThankYou points.

Plus, if you’re lucky enough to fly one of Turkish’s newer planes (as is the case in the screenshot above), you’ll be very happy with the business class product:

The one thing to be aware of is that there is a cap of 50,000 bonus points with this offer.

Given the high prices of some Turkish award flights, it’s a pretty annoying restriction… but if the right flight works out, I think this is a solid use of ThankYou points.

💳 Current Transfer Bonuses 💳

That’s all for today, friends! Have a wonderful weekend and see you bright and early on Monday.

43.6532° N, 79.3832° W

With contributions by Sam Anthony and Katie Begnoche.