What’s the best rewards deal out there?

Last week, I took part in the #travelskills Twitter chat, which is normally held every Friday at 12pm Eastern time (it was on Thursday last week due to Good Friday).  The topic of the chat varies from week to week, but this week, the topic was on Loyalty Programs and Miles and Points

Gary from View from the Wing and Ben from One Mile at a Time were “official” participants but I also took part (along with several other familiar faces).

Anyways, question 9 I thought was in interesting one

Q9 What’s the best rewards deal out there right now? #DailyGetaways #TravelSkills pic.twitter.com/lTAAh1ys3f

— TravelSkills (@travelskills) April 2, 2015

These chats move pretty quickly, so I didn’t have a ton of time to think about my own answer, but there were a couple of good answers thrown out there.  I thought it was a great way to think about some of the top deals out there.  Here were a few of my thoughts

British Airways close-haul flights

Because British Airways is a distance-based chart, the amount of British Airways Avios that are charged for an award flight depends on the mileage of the flight

So any flight that is 649 miles or less costs only 4500 Avios to redeem, and flights from 650-1149 miles only cost 7500 Avios!  Even living in a non-hub city there are plenty of deals out there

I’ve used this deal several times, including on my flights to the Family Travel for Real Life conference.

Note that there is a British Airways devaluation coming up at the end of April, but it won’t affect this particular deal.

Southwest Companion Pass

Another great travel deal that was mentioned was the Southwest Companion Pass.

(SEE ALSO: What is the Southwest Companion Pass (and how to get it))

(SEE ALSO: Using your Southwest Companion Pass)

If you earn 110,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points in a calendar year, then you earn the Companion Pass for the rest of that year, AND all of the next calendar year as well.  Most times this is done via 2 50,000 point signup bonuses (and then getting the remaining 10,000 points through other means), but there ARE a few options to get the Southwest Companion Pass WITHOUT credit cards.

Once you have the Southwest Companion Pass, then your designated companion flies free with you, on EVERY flight you take!  It’s essentially doubling your miles

Honorable Mention: Club Carlson Bonus Award night

This chat was held last week, before Club Carlson announced that they were getting rid of the Bonus Award night.  But until the end of May, if you have the Club Carlson credit card, any award night that you book with Club Carlson gives you the last night for free.  If you book your awards in 2 night increments (and you’d be smart to do so!) then again, you’re doubling your points.

Alas, that offer is now going away

In the meantime, you’ll have to be content with getting nearly 500 points per dollar spent at Club Carlson.  Remember to book any Bonus Award night bookings BEFORE May 28th.

So what else?

What else was there?  One answer to the question during the chat was the Daily Getaways travel deals.  I’m…. not so sure I agree with that.  Oh, did I mention that the Daily Getaways sponsored the chat that week?  I’m sure it was unrelated… 😀

Some others that I’d consider might be the SPG Category 1 or 2 hotels on weekends where they are only 2,000 or 3,000 points / night, or a Hyatt House Category 1 hotel that offers free breakfast and free dinner for only 5,000 points (even the Category 2 hotels like the Hyatt House San Juan where we stayed can provide really great value).  But both of those are only good, not great I think.T

What else?  Did I miss something obvious?

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