🤓 Some annoying (but useful) points math

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Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop!

I’m gonna level with you – I’m bedridden right now. And most of the Daily Drop team is living it up in Costa Rica, so today’s newsletter is going to be short and sweet.

🚨 NERD ALERT 🚨

The following section contains some annoying analysis and math on point earning and redemptions.

You’ve been warned. 🤓

So last night, I woke up in a violent sweat. Not because I’m sick, but because I realized something:

I made a huge mistake.

And not just any mistake, but the most egregious kind: a points mistake. 💀

Just yesterday, I told you about how I spent an entire month maximizing Marriott’s promo.

I also mentioned that I used my Marriott co-branded card to pay for those cash stays so I could earn 6x Marriott points per dollar.

But that was actually not the right move… and it points to a larger strategy for which card to use for hotel and airline bookings.

I could’ve earned more than 6x points

As you know, plenty of bank programs transfer to Marriott, including UR points.

Generally, there’s no way to earn 6x UR points per dollar on normal spend – so it makes sense to use Marriott cards to pay for Marriott stays.

But right now, the math is a little different, because there’s a 65% transfer bonus from UR points to Marriott Bonvoy (which ends tomorrow, by the way).

What I realized (too late) was that I could’ve used this premium card to earn 4x UR points per dollar on the same stays.

👀 By the way: That same premium card is currently offering 150,000 UR points for signing up and meeting the minimum spend requirements… just sayin.

When transferring those to Marriott, it would’ve resulted in 6.6x points per dollar instead of just 6x.

And given the number of stays I completed, I actually left thousands of points on the table.

Here’s how I think of it

If I really wanted to earn those Marriott points, I could’ve “lent” them to myself using my stash of UR points while the transfer bonus was active, then earned more UR points than I redeemed.

Yes, it’s annoyingly tedious… but it really wouldn’t have taken much effort.

More importantly, it points to another trend with co-branded cards. 👇

The same principle applies to other programs

Let’s say you’re an IHG fan. I am, too. I LOVE the IHG program, and I love racking up IHG points.

But let’s say you ONLY ever want to earn IHG points.

Surely, you should use an IHG co-branded card like this one, right? It earns 3x points on everything, and even 5x points on travel and dining.

WRONG 💀💀💀

Check it out:

IHG often sells its points for 0.5 cents each when there’s a 100% bonus on purchased points (which happens like… every month).

That means instead of earning 3x IHG points per dollar with the co-branded card, you could use the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, which earns 2x miles on everything.

Then, you could cash those miles out for 1 cent each, BUY IHG points, and effectively be earning 4x IHG points on everything. 🤯

The same applies to dining.

Instead of earning 5x IHG points on their co-branded card, you could earn 3x UR points on dining using that premium card I mentioned earlier, cash those out for 1 cent each, and buy IHG points during a sale – thus earning 6x IHG points per dollar instead of 5x points.

Want to earn Delta SkyMiles?

Let’s say you’re a Delta fanperson (which I know many of you are). If so, you probably have a Delta co-branded credit card.

And while that’s great for getting perks with Delta (free bags, lounge access, etc), it’s not the best for earning Delta miles.

Even the highest-tier Delta card only earns 3x miles per dollar on Delta flights, for example.

You’d be better off using this premium credit card (which earns 5x on ALL flights, including Delta) and then transferring those points to Delta.

💡 Pro Tip: Make sure you know which banks and cards transfer to which programs when running these numbers. I recommend bookmarking our Transfer Partners Cheat Sheet.

The bottom line

Look – I’m a victim of this too… I default to using my co-branded cards when spending money with the associated programs.

But if you crunch the numbers and put in just a tiny bit of effort, you can be racking up more points (in some cases) by not using them. 😌

Anyway, now you know what happens in my twisted mind when I’m stuck in bed all day with nothing else to do.

I’m going to go back to sleep now.

Love you all,

Mike DodgeHead Writer, Daily Drop

6.9175° S, 107.6191° E

With contributions by McKay Moffitt