🥲 A major devaluation (and sneaky silver lining)

🏨 The brand spankin’ new Park Hyatt Kuala Lumpur is officially opening next year… over 100 floors in the sky. 😱 If you’re not a heights person, maybe avoid this one.

Good morning and happy Monday from Almaty, Kazakhstan! I wasn’t planning on visiting this city on this trip, but… well… I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Here’s what I’ll tell you right now though:

• ✈️ Southwest 25% award sale (today only)
• 🍪 Tasty Travel Tidbits
• 😭 A devaluation with a silver lining

✈️ Southwest 25% award sale (today only)

In writing this newsletter, y’all get to know me pretty well.

Whether it’s my painfully dry sense of humor, my penchant for all things cats, or my exhausting travel habits, you probably have a pretty good feel of my vibe.

There are few things I know about you, though (in fairness, there are over a million of you).

But one thing I know for SURE is that you people LOVE Southwest. And I get it. They are awesome.

So you’ll be pleased to know that right now, you can get a 25% discount on award flights… if you book by today.

Check it out:

• You must book your flights by TODAY
• Use promo code SAVE25NOW when searching for flights
• Travel can take place between September 4th and December 18
• There are some blackout dates (see them on this page)
• There are some weird restrictions regarding destinations, days of the week, etc. (read more here)
• Only valid for award flights booked with points

Overall, GREAT news for Southwest flyers.

Keep in mind that Southwest has very friendly change policies, so you can book something speculatively and not need to worry about possibly having to cancel down the road.

25% off is no joke and makes for some very appealing awards…

For example, you could book this flight from Dallas to New Orleans for under 5,000 points, which is great:

If you want to jet off to Hawaii, this is the perfect time to lock in some longer flights with higher savings.

I ran a lot of searches on all kinds of dates and found very little availability to/from Hawaii, so be warned.

Still, if you have flexibility, there are some good deals left. 👇

Of course, you’ll need some Southwest points to do this.

Luckily, you can instantly transfer UR Points to Southwest.

So, if you recently signed up for this card during the elevated offer, this is a great way to put those points to use.

If you want to build up your stash of Southwest points now so you have them for a future sale, don’t forget that this card is still currently offering 120,000 UR Points and has an annual fee of under $100.

Anyway, here’s the bottom line:

This is a great deal for saving points on one of America’s most beloved airlines.

So go ahead and book some flights and enjoy the magic of travel, folks.

🍪 Tasty Travel Tidbits

🚂 You can now officially book a reservation on Accor’s new Orient Express train starting in the Spring of 2025. If you’re an early planner and a train fan, congratulations - this is the experience for you.

🇰🇵 It’s official - after five years, North Korea has announced it will officially re-open to tourists. Americans are still out of luck due to passport restrictions… but maybe one day!

✈️ Etihad will start flying its Airbus A380 (complete with the famous first-class apartments) to Mumbai next year. This means there will now be a MUCH cheaper way to experience this bucket list product!

😭 A devaluation with a silver lining

We’ve talked about Avianca LifeMiles a LOT this year.

They’ve consistently offered amazing redemption rates for Star Alliance flights, opportunities to buy points on the cheap, and have had some of the best sweet spots.

So, I guess it should come as no surprise that, tragically, they devalued many of their awards overnight. With no notice.

In the past, Avianca was one of the best programs for booking flights from the U.S. to Europe, as they charged just 63,000 miles in business class.

Now, that number has gone up to 69,000 or 70,000.

Similarly, the economy prices for the same routes have gone up by 5,000 miles.

This isn’t CRAZY, but it no longer makes Avianca the no-brainer option and is now even higher than some of the other options.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how Avianca was the best program for booking first-class flights.

Well, that is now VERY wrong.

They’ve increased many of their first-class awards by 49%. FORTY NINE PERCENT. That’s egregious.

I could go on all day about which awards have decreased in value… but instead, I’d like to tell you about the silver lining here.

Avianca threw us a bone and DECREASED some of its awards as well. And I think these will be of interest to many of you. 😏

You can now fly between the East Coast (cities like Boston and New York) to the U.K. and Ireland for just 45,000 LifeMiles in business class, which is actually a pretty exciting new sweet spot.

If you want to stretch your miles further and fly economy, you’ll pay just 22,500 miles, which is also one of the better deals out there.

Avianca still has some other sweet spots with regional awards, so the program isn’t totally dead.

Still, it’s sad to see such a drastic devaluation overnight, and prices increase so drastically in some cases.

But hey… I’ll take the win on this new sweet spot to the U.K., and you should, too. 👍

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That’s all for today, folks!

This devaluation is just another example of why it’s important to use your points whenever you can - you never know when a program will do something like this.

But you can trust that I’ll be here to help you work around them. 🤗

And with that, I bid you adieu. ❤️

Mike DodgeHead Writer, Daily Drop

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