🤠 TRENDING TRAVEL NEWS 🤠
• Howdy: Get a taste of Texas at the new premium lounge opening today in the DFW airport — with a whiskey bar, facials, family areas, and more.
• Mixed Bag: Newly deployed TSA scanners are making security easier — as long as your carry-on fits.
• Flight Plan: Experts weigh in on the best time, day, and month for air travel.
• New Transfer Bonus: Get 100% more points when you transfer UR points to IHG One Rewards until 7/30 — and if you need some UR points, our favorite card still has a limited-time welcome offer where you can earn a lot of them.
Good morning from Indonesia!
I’m having a couple of spa days here in Jakarta before I head home to Bandung, and today is going to be a BANGER of a newsletter.
Let’s talk about three excellent airline deals:
✈️ Yay! Another new transfer partner
Normally, I say things like “it’s not every day we see a program add a new transfer partner.”
But with Rove, it kind of is every day.
Rove is out with yet another new partner. This time, it’s Qantas Airlines.
Even better, they’re offering a whopping 50% transfer bonus to Qantas through August 14, which could be a total game changer for anyone looking to fly down unda’.
Rove now officially has 20 transfer partners… which is absolutely insane. If you aren’t earning Rove Miles yet, you need to be.
You can get your first 1,000 miles instantly by simply signing up for Rove.
How to use Qantas miles
Qantas is an Australian-based airline, so flying to/from Australia and New Zealand is the most straightforward way to use your miles.
For example, you can fly between Los Angeles and Sydney (on Qantas itself or American Airlines) for 48,200 miles in economy:
With this 50% bonus, that’s just 32,000 Rove miles to fly to Oceania… that’s a pretty solid deal.
If you want to use miles to stay in the U.S., Qantas offers some of the best deals out there on American Airlines.
Check out this flight from New York to Charlotte, which costs 9,200 Qantas miles and $6 in taxes:
With this transfer bonus, you could hop around the U.S. on AA for just 6,000 Rove miles…
It doesn’t get much better than that, folks. 🤷🏼♂️
Emirates business class, anyone?
Oh, did I mention that Qantas also partners with Emirates?
Qantas has access to plenty of Emirates availability, even on the coveted flights from the U.S. to Europe.
For example, you can fly Emirates’ fifth freedom route from Newark to Athens for 108,000 Qantas miles in business class.
It’s a lot, and there are definitely cheaper ways to get to Europe in style… but with this transfer bonus, that’s 72,000 Rove miles to fly across the pond on one of the world’s best airlines.
If you want to experience Emirates first class, you can also do that with Qantas miles.
Availability is less plentiful, and you need Qantas Silver status to be eligible, but you can find it on various routes (albeit with very high taxes and fees).
Anyway, here’s the bottom line:
Qantas miles are pretty useful and versatile. They’re decently valuable on their own, but using this 50% transfer bonus makes your Rove miles extremely valuable.
💸 Buy Lufthansa miles for good value
Over the last few months, I’ve told you a few times about how Lufthansa miles are the most valuable airline miles out there.
The catch?
They’re difficult to get… the only way to earn them is by transferring Rove miles to Lufthansa.
Except…
You can also buy them.
And right now, there’s an opportunity to buy a lot of them. The price tag is huge, but if you can put the miles to use, you could end up with WAY more value than what you pay.
Check it out:
There’s a company called ASMALLWORLD that sells a package of travel perks for the hefty price tag of €4,950 (about $5,660)… and that’s on sale (one which ends on July 31st, btw).
It comes with things like hotel status, car rental status, and more…
… but the big ticket item is 300,000 Lufthansa miles.
In this section, I want to strip away the other perks and focus purely on the idea of buying 300,000 Lufthansa miles for $5,600.
How much are Lufthansa miles worth?
Lufthansa has one of the best award charts out there, especially when it comes to partner airlines.
For example, this flight from San Francisco to Warsaw on LOT Polish costs 62,500 Lufthansa miles in business class.
The same flight costs $4,059 cash. So after we subtract the taxes and fees of $128, you’re using 62,500 miles to get $3,931 of value.
Based on the purchase price of the miles with this package, you’re effectively paying $1,179 for the miles needed to book the same flight.
You can also book flights like this one on Austrian Airlines from Vienna to Tokyo for just 71,000 miles in business class.
The cash rate for this flight is $4,657 (on a good day). So again, we can subtract the taxes and fees of $417.
In this case, you’re using miles that you paid $1,339 for to get $4,240 worth of value.
As you can see, these flights aren’t even making a dent in the mileage pile, despite already racking up more than $8,000 worth of flights.
I’ve also used Lufthansa miles many times to book short flights within Europe, where points prices can be very low and cash prices very high.
Earn meaningful credit card points
We’ve confirmed that this purchase codes as “travel.” That means if you use a card with a spending multiplier for travel, the spending alone could rack up even more points.
For example, this card is still offering 100,000 UR points for a limited time after meeting the minimum spending requirements.
If you open the card and buy this package, you’ll earn:
100,000 UR points from the welcome offer
11,300 UR points for the purchase
300,000 Lufthansa miles
So yeah… 400,000 points and miles can get you SIGNIFICANTLY more value than the $5,600 you’re strategically spending.
Anyway, this obviously isn’t for everyone… but if you’re willing to pay big money to get bigger value, it’s a good opportunity. You have a couple of weeks to think about it before the sale ends on July 31st… learn more about the package details and purchase it here.
🍎 Earn airline miles at Apple
Apple products aren’t exactly known for being cheap. But if you’re planning to drop a small fortune on a new iPhone, MacBook, iPad, or another shiny rectangle, you might as well earn some miles in the process.
Flying Blue (the loyalty program of Air France and KLM) recently launched dedicated Apple shopping platforms in the U.S., U.K., France, and the Netherlands.
You can read about this on the press release, or just go straight to the U.S. portal here.
By clicking through this portal before making your purchase, you can earn bonus miles on eligible Apple products without paying anything extra.
The earning rates vary depending on the product, but U.S. customers can currently earn:
1 mile per dollar on most Apple products
2 miles per dollar on select products
4 miles per dollar on select accessories
That won’t turn a new pair of AirPods into a business-class flight to Paris…
But as larger Apple purchases can easily cost thousands of dollars, this could be a simple way to add a few thousand Flying Blue miles to your account on something you were already planning to buy.
Apple is available through several airline shopping portals, so it’s always worth comparing earning rates amongst your favorites before making a purchase.
But one potentially useful advantage here is that many newer Apple products seem to be eligible through this portal – including some things that are frequently excluded from earning rewards through other portals.
As always, make sure you start through the Flying Blue Apple platform, check the eligibility terms for your specific product, and avoid using outside promo codes that could interfere with earning miles.
This isn’t the most groundbreaking deal… but hey – if you can earn a few thousand extra airline miles without spending any extra money… why not? 🤷🏼♂️
That’s all for today, folks! I hope you enjoyed this airline-centric newsletter and feel inspired to rack up tons of miles for yourself.
Sampai jumpa lagi,
With contributions by Sam Anthony and Katie Begnoche.
