Good morning!
Avios as a points currency continues to look really good. American Express has a 30% transfer bonus to Aer Lingus, British Airways, and Iberia through September 27. That means you can fly Qatar Qsuites from US-Doha for as low as 54k points one way or US-Madrid on Iberia for as low as 32k points one way.
Avios can also be freely transferred across the different airlines that use Avios as their loyalty currency, generally after your accounts have been opened for 30+ days.
If you haven’t already, you should make frequent flyer accounts for the major airlines that use Avios including British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, and Qatar Airways. Despite those airlines using the same currency, they can have different costs to book the same award and different award availability. Some more details if you scroll down!
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Monthly award promos becoming a thing?
More airlines are adding monthly award promotions - where airlines offer discounts on award flights on select routes for a select time. Oftentimes, these are for flights in the next month or two where capacity is likely not that high.
Qatar Airways this week added a monthly award promotion between select destinations. Although no US location was included, it does let you save 25% on points cost for select award flights for select destinations including Cairo, Riyadh, Jakarta, and Berlin. You just need to start or end in those destinations. Book by August 14 for travel by September 30. Details on my blog post here on Qatar’s newest monthly award promos.
Source: Qatar Airways
Other airlines with monthly promos
Qatar isn’t the first airline to come up with this idea. Other airlines that have monthly promos include:
Air France/KLM: Monthly promo awards with up to 25% off awards across economy, premium economy, and business class awards. New promos on the first weekday of every month. You can generally book awards for a few months out.
Alaska Airlines: Has Global Getaways with up to 50% off award travel. They are generally economy awards and include awards on partners. New routes drop the first Wednesday of every month. Make sure to tune in for the next drop. You can generally book awards a few months out.
Singapore Airlines: Monthly promos called Spontaneous Escapes where you can save up to 30% on select routes. New promo routes drop mid-month. Most awards are more last-minute awards in the next 1-2 months.
Avios deals to watch for
With American Express having a 30% transfer bonus to airlines that use Avios, there are a lot of Avios-related deals I wanted to highlight. I think the Avios ecosystem is great, as you can freely move points across multiple airline loyalty programs (Aer Lingus, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Qatar are the big ones). Here are the costs of booking a business class award and which program is best to book.
Aer Lingus: North America-Dublin for 40-50k Avios + ~$200 in tax/fees each way. Book through Aer Lingus or BA.
American Airlines: US-Europe starting at 62k Avios + $200-300 in tax/fees each way. Book through Qatar Airways.
British Airways: North America-London starting at 88k Avios + ~$500 in tax/fees. Book through BA.
Finnair. North America-Helsinki starting at 62.5k Avios + ~$150 in tax/fees each way. Book through Finnair and change website location to Finland to be able to potentially see 2 saver awards (vs. just 1 if non-Finland location).
Iberia: North America-Madrid starting at 40.5k Avios off-peak to 59k peak dates (East Coast + Chicago) + $140-200 in tax/fees. Book through BA or Iberia.
Japan Airlines: North America-Tokyo starting at 85k Avios (West Coast), 102.5k Avios (Chicago), or estimated ~126k points from NYC + around ~$480 tax/fees
Philippine Airlines: North America-Manila starting at 110k or 154k Avios + ~$200 in tax/fees. Book through Qatar Airways.
Qatar Airways: North America-Doha starting at 70k Avios + $200 in tax/fees. Book through BA or Qatar.
Hyatt promos for free nights + points
Hyatt has a new promo where you can earn a Category 1-4 free night award (FNA) for every 3 nights spent at select resorts in Latin America & Caribbean - up to 5 FNAs (15 nights). Register on Hyatt’s site by September 30 and stay between January 1 to March 30, 2027. All FNAs must be redeemed by June 30, 2027.
Eligible nights include free night awards in addition to paid stays. Per terms: “an “Eligible Night” is defined as any night where a member is paying an Eligible Rate or redeems a free night award”.
Other promos
There are other Hyatt promos that you may want to register for as well. Register for them here.
2k bonus points for every 2 eligible stays between July 1-September 7
5k bonus points for qualifying Hyatt House and Hyatt Studio stays of 5+ nights
3k bonus points for qualifying 3+ night stays at Hyatt Place and Hyatt Select stays
Source: Hyatt
Source: Hyatt
Other news to highlight
Delta new route: Seattle to Tokyo Narita starting March 28, 2027. Flights are loaded onto the schedule. Watch for promo pricing soon (One Mile at a Time)
Targeted promo: IHG double nights promotion, up to 5 nights for stays now through 9/29 (IHG)
Use Qatar co-branded card to get 3x Avios per $1 on Bilt portal, effectively buying Avios at 1cpp when paying rent since you still have to pay the 3% fee (Bilt newsroom)
Lufthansa charging seat selection fees on refurbished A380s (One Mile at a Time)
AA raising admiral club membership, pushes people to get the card (View from the Wing)
AA to get rid of coach to business upgrades on 3-cabin domestic routes (View from the Wing)
Bilt Qatar 3x Avios per $1 on Rent with Qatar card
Capital One Venture gets $100 credit for portal hotel bookings, matching Sapphire Preferred (Doctor of Credit)
Hilton/SLH property additions & subtractions. Can use points at fancy SLH hotels (Loyalty Lobby)
Deal of the week
Fly on Lufthansa business class between multiple North American cities to and through Frankfurt, Germany. Lufthansa flies like 917 different configurations because they bought every widebody plane type and within the planes, there are multiple seat configurations…
But all seats are lie-flat! But not all have direct aisle access as many Lufthansa planes have an outdated 2-2-2 layout. Regardless, it’s still a great way to get across the pond in a lie-flat seat and a chance to fly upper deck on the 747.