Quick Hits: Hyatt Drops American Airlines for Delta & More!

0:00This episode is sponsored by Smart Travel, a new podcast from Nerdwallet. If you're anything like us, you don't just book trips, you run the numbers first. Is this flight actually a deal? Is that premium card pulling its weight? Should I use points here or save them for something better? Well that's exactly what Smart Travel dives into. They break down which travel cards actually earn their keep and which ones just look impressive in your wallet. They'll walk you through the quick math for knowing when to pay with points versus cash. And they explain how to get real value from your rewards instead of settling for that tiny reward button at checkout. It's thoughtful research back travel finance delivered in a way that feels approachable and actually useful the next time you're about to hit purchase. Travel smarter and spend less with help from Nerdwallet. Follow Smart Travel wherever you get your podcasts. This is a VoyageScape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyagescape.com.

1:06Before we start the show, I want to let you know that we have the first ever Boldly Goed Live happening February 5th through 7th, 2027 in Miami, Florida. Join us for a welcome reception, a live podcast and panel conversation event, community activities, and a weekend hanging out with fellow travelers and points and miles enthusiasts. Spaces limited. If you'd like to join us, visit BoldlyGo.world slash meetup or click the link in the description. We can't wait to see you there. What is up everybody? Welcome to another weekly edition of our quick hits on the Boldly Go podcast. This is our weekly news in the world of points and miles. For the most part, this was a fairly quiet week in the news or the world of news for points and miles, except for one major shake up. We'll get to that here in a little bit. We'll start off with the Capital One Venture Awards Visa Card as an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 miles in a $300 hotel credit.

2:07That's if you book the hotel through the Capital One travel portal and that's only with $4,000 of spend within three months. This is something that you can actually find through referrals as well. Feel free to connect with your favorite individual or P2 or what have you. This is pretty widely available. If you've been listening to the show for any small amount of time, you know that we've talked about BASC Bank a lot and that is they have the American Airlines savings account where basically instead of high yield interest, you get American Airlines miles. Well, if you've been thinking about doing this but have not done it yet, they're offering 20,000 bonus advantage miles to new mileage savings customers who maintain a $50,000 balance for 90 days. So we keep about 50K in there. Terran has 50K in her savings account. She's had that for probably four years at this point. At one point that was returning about 10,000 American Airlines miles per month.

3:09Now it's down to probably in the realm of seven-ish, I believe. But if you were to have 50K there for 90 days, you would not only get the 20K bonus, but you would have somewhere around another 21 to 24,000 advantage miles on top of that just by having your fun sitting there instead of being in a high yield savings account. Here's a quick travel loyalty tip that might have flown under the radar and that's the AARP members can score an easy status boost with preferred hotels resorts, I prefer loyalty program. Now, I know you're thinking this is for only people that are AARP age. I'm going to get to that in just a second. Just hear me out first. When you book a participating preferred hotel stay through the AARP booking page using the IPARP rate, you're going to receive 2500 bonus I prefer points and an upgrade to I prefer gold status after you complete just one stay.

4:12So this perk is available regardless of what any history with the program and AARP membership is open to anyone 18 and older. It's not just retirees. And gold status comes with benefits like space available room upgrades, a welcome amenity, and early check in and late check out one available. Now, this is just a one-time promotion, but for anyone that's planning a preferred hotel stay, it could be an easy way to unlock elite perks with minimal effort. Now, one thing about that is that gold status usually takes about 25,000 points in a year to obtain or 2500 dollars worth of room spend. So you can get a $15 AARP membership in one stay and that's about it. So again, I think it's a pretty good trade off with not a lot of cost tied to it, especially if you're wanting to have some status at I prefer hotels. Since we're in a new month here as well, there's a ton of new amics offers out. And one of them that's fairly interesting is that you can earn 20,000 additional amics

5:14points one time after using your enrolled card to spend the minimum of $1,000 in one or more qualifying purchases online at AARP France, US, or KLM with a new amics offer. So basically, if you use your card that's enrolled in this offer and you spend $1,000 in either one purchase or multiple purchases at airfranc.us or KLM.com, then you will get 20,000 additional membership rewards points. So the caveat to this is that it expires September 30th and the flight must originate in the US and be charged in US dollars. So again, really interesting here, if you end up booking an airfranc flight that's originates out of the US and you pay cash for it, you can get 20,000 amics points from that on top of whatever you actually would get with the multiplier for that card. Now last piece of news, this is probably the biggest shake up in the travel loyalty world.

6:16I would say maybe of the year, but I don't know how much it's going to really impact people totally. And that is with high it. So American Airlines and high it announced that they will end their enhanced loyalty relationship, which is going to bring a close to a partnership that allowed advantage members and world of high it members to earn rewards across both programs. And while this relationship is winding down, both sides of say that, hey, members are going to be able to continue to receive their existing benefits through these current earning periods. Now for AA members who link their accounts by November 15th, if you haven't already, world of higher awards that you earn through loyalty reward points are going to stay available through February 28th, which is always American Airlines's calendar. Or that's their end of their award year. Meanwhile, world of high it members who link their accounts by the same deadline can continue earning American airline rewards through a high it's milestone rewards program through

7:18the end of 2026. American also noted that advantage members will still be able to choose 500 American miles instead of high it points on eligible high it stays even after the partnership concludes. So at first people were like, well, why is this shake up happening? And then the answer came a few hours later because high it announced a new long term strategic loyalty collaboration with Delta Airlines, creating what could become one of the most significant airline hotel partnerships in the industry, I think. And basically this new relationship will connect Delta Sky miles and world of high it, allowing eligible elite members to earn rewards in both programs on qualifying flights and hotel stays. So high it elite members will be able to earn high it points when they buy Delta air fair and cash and Delta Medallion members can earn Sky miles on qualifying stays at higher properties. So of course there are each company is going to have their spin behind this, but executive from both companies frame this partnership as a way to create a more connected travel

8:21experience spanning everything from booking a flight to checking out of a hotel. Well, I don't really see that being a big difference too much from what was happening with American Airlines, but there is a point that I do think is relevant which one gets in just a second. Now, while specific earning rates and eligibility requirements haven't been announced yet, that's should be coming out in the coming months. But I think this move represents a nice significant reshuffling of the loyalty landscape because American is losing one of its most valuable hotel partners in this relationship with them has been around since I believe 2019 while Delta gains access to high it's global portfolio and it's 69 million member world of high it program members. And with it, they've actually announced a bunch of coupled up flights and hotel packages that you can book. I don't think a lot of that affects us in the points in my space. However, there is one area I can think through that this partnership was crucially beneficial for me a couple years ago and I've talked about it on the show before that I feel if this

9:23were to have happened in the past would completely have rewritten my high it loyalty. What I mean by that is for those who didn't follow the show now, I use this partnership for their 90 day mattress run capability. What this was was if you want to trigger this, you had 90 days to complete 10 to 20 stays. If you completed 10 stays or sorry 10 nights I should say at a higher property, then you were able to be eligible to get high it explorer status. And if you completed 20 nights, you got global status. Now before when I did it, globalist option was only available for platinum pro executive platinum members. If you were gold or platinum, you could only go for the 10 nights for explorers. But I believe this year they opened it up so no matter what your American airline status level was, you could complete this 90 day run and get 20 nights to get globalist. That is actually the first way that I became globalist was that I completed 20 nights

10:28in 90 days got globalist status. And then since then, I've been completing it by getting 60 stays per year between the places we've actually stayed as well as the payroll on credit card strategy to earn credit card spend as well. So this would be huge because I since I don't have Delta status at all, if they're going to do the same thing again, I wouldn't have the opportunity to do this because I don't have Delta status. Now I'm curious what that's going to mean in the future with being a high globalist and maybe having opportunity to do some sort of status matching with high globalist to Delta. I'm curious what doors that opens, but I see that is the most significant change coming from this as well. So that's all and everything everybody for this week. I do hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, a fantastic week. I know today as this podcast airs is a day of remembrance for those of us in the United States for 9.11. And so a moment of reflection for that as well. I wanted to be sure to mention, I know most of us that at least were of any age at that

11:33point. I think I was in seventh green and I think I was in seventh grade when that happened. We all remember how that day went. I always like to keep things positive on this podcast, but of course, could not not mention that as well. So as always, remember to travel well, live boldly. We will catch you on the next episode. Take care. I'm Nick. Discuss all the ways to earn points and miles and use them for outsized value. Join us every Friday for our full episodes and every Tuesday for our quick single topic, Coffee Break episodes. See you there. Hi, I'm Pauline Fromer, host of the Fromer's Travel Podcast. We post new episodes weekly, detailing the kinds of money saving tips and cultural insights

12:37that will make your trips richer without making you significantly poorer. We do so by interviewing real travel experts like TV hosts Samantha Brown, Fromer's authors from around the globe and such public figures as Free Solo's Alex Haunald. It's a fun travel party. I hope you can join us. I'm Max Hortzorn, host of the Gronoma Travel Podcast. Looking for a fast dose of travel inspiration? My episodes run just five to eight minutes, but they're packed with unusual destinations, great characters and the kinds of stories that make you want to grab your passport. From hidden European villages to wild adventures across the globe, we cover a huge range of enjoyable, surprising travel topics. Tune into the Gronoma Travel Podcast and take a quick trip with me. No luggage required.