As spring kicks into full gear, it’s time to start boosting your points and miles balances for your 2024 dream trip. In addition to record-breaking introductory bonuses on travel credit cards, several limited-time promotions are happening right now that allow you to get even more points and miles quickly—and often at the simple click of a button. You can earn bonus points for transfers between loyalty programs, fast-track your airline elite status through shopping, and even get discounts on buying points and miles. Find the details on these deals—and others—that you can’t miss this spring.
Valuable transfer bonuses
American Express, Capital One, Chase, and Citi have all created their proprietary loyalty programs, which can then be transferred to various airline and hotel programs. Often—but not always—these transfers are completed at a 1:1 ratio and allow credit cardholders to bank and keep their points in the currency of their chosen credit card, transferring to airline and hotel partners as and when needed.
Through Tuesday, April 30, 2024, Chase is offering a 25 percent bonus when transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Air France-KLM Flying Blue. With business class seats to Paris on Air France starting at 50,000 Air France/KLM Flying Blue points, just 40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points can land you in the front of the plane, champagne in hand.
Moreover, until April 4, 2024, American Express Membership Rewards points can be transferred to Etihad Guest Miles with a 20 percent bonus.
Earn bonus points in hotel loyalty programs
All major hotel loyalty programs—Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, and World of Hyatt—are running spring promotions to sweeten the stay and reward members. All require registration, so we suggest signing up proactively.
With Hilton Honors’ Points Plus Promotion, until May 1, 2024, earn 2,000 bonus points on every stay, plus 500 bonus points per stay when using Digital Key to open your room (instead of a traditional plastic key card). Hilton points are becoming ever more valuable, as the hotel company has announced the acquisition of Graduate Hotels and exclusive partnerships with AutoCamp properties and Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) for earning and burning points.
For stays from April 1 through May 31, 2024, IHG One Rewards will give guests 2,000 IHG bonus points on every two nights booked at its hotels.
World of Hyatt members can earn double tier-qualifying night credits for every eligible night completed at Thompson and Dream Hotels for stays completed between March 22, 2024, and June 10, 2024.
Finally, Marriott Bonvoy members can earn up to 2,500 bonus Bonvoy points by linking their Bonvoy account to their Uber or Uber Eats account and making qualifying purchases. You’ll get 500 points for linking your accounts, then 1,000 with a qualifying ride and another 1,000 with a qualifying Uber Eats delivery order on food or groceries. Additionally, as of March 6, 2024, the MGM Collection is part of Marriott Bonvoy, meaning that stays at MGM’s 16 iconic properties (hello, Bellagio and ARIA Resort & Casino) now earn Bonvoy points and can be booked using Bonvoy points.
Save with Amex Offers
All American Express cards come with Amex Offers, an ever-changing roster of discounts and offers depending on your location and spending patterns. Promotions are often targeted, so you may not see all of these in your account, but here are just a few examples of the better ones we’ve received lately:
- $300 statement credit when spending $2,000 or more with Virgin Atlantic by June 16, 2024
- 17,500 additional Membership Rewards points by spending $1,000 in one or more purchases online with ITA Airways by May 3, 2024
- Onetime $100 statement credit by spending a minimum of $500 in one or more purchases for Alaska Airlines marketed flights booked online at AmexTravel.com by May 26, 2024
Enrollment is required for Amex offers, and the card enrolled must be the one used for purchases (which is important to note for those who have several Amex cards).
Buy points and miles at a discount
While it doesn’t usually make sense to buy points and miles in loyalty programs at retail price, it can be smart and cost-effective to buy points during promotional sales.
Until April 5, 2024, you can buy up to half a million Air Canada Aeroplan points with an 80 percent bonus, equating to the points being on sale for 1.43 cents apiece. Air Canada’s Aeroplan portal has access to award inventory on 53 other airlines serving more than 1,300 destinations. These airlines include Star Alliance’s 26 members—Austrian Airlines, Copa Airlines, Lufthansa, Swiss, Turkish Airlines, and United Airlines, to name a few—plus another 20 carriers, including Etihad Airways and Emirates. Combined, this is the most comprehensive search engine of any airline program in the world.
Until April 9, 2024, purchase up to 55,000 World of Hyatt points with a 20 percent discount. The minimum purchase requirement to get the discount is 5,000 points, which costs $96 with the discount, instead of $120. Though this doesn’t seem like a huge discount, consider that World of Hyatt points carry far more value than those of its competitors, and the program offers some of the industry’s top opportunities for redeeming points.
Inch closer to elite status with American Airlines
Unlike other airline loyalty programs, which require big spending on airline tickets, elite status on American Airlines is based on Loyalty Points, which can be accrued in so many ways beyond flying. With American’s shopping, dining, hotel, and event platforms, it’s easy to rack up Loyalty Points.
At press time, it’s possible to earn 3,700 Loyalty Points (as well as AAdvantage miles) using American’s shopping platform to subscribe to The Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor, a subscription-based stock recommendation service, for just $79 (with promo code “SALE60'’ until March 31, 2024). If you also sign up for its sister real-estate newsletter Millionacres for another $99, you can get another 3,700 Loyalty Points and 3,700 AAdvantage miles. Together, that’s nearly 20 percent toward earning AAdvantage Gold Status, which requires 40,000 Loyalty Points.
