On last week’s Frequent Miler on the Air, Greg and Nick announced their picks for the 2024 Deal of the Year. The fellas parsed through all of the terrific opportunities in points and miles that showered down on us in 2024 and were able to whittle them away to two excellent choices for the best one of the year (and no, they didn’t agree).
Now it’s your turn. Read through the nominees and decide which you think was the tastiest of 2024. Then, in the poll below, you can give your take on which one was king of the hill.
Did we forget one that should have made the top ten? Let us know in the comments and make your case why we missed the free cruise boat.
2024 Deal of the Year Nominees…
Aeroplan sells points for 1.14 cents each
Air Canada Aeroplan put out a great points sale as part of its 40th anniversary celebration. The best deal was buying points from offered with a 125% bonus, which dropped the price per point to just 1.14 cents. With Aeroplan’s plethora of unique partners, flexible routing rules and reasonable-ish pricing, this was a deal worth jumping on for many.
Capital One Shopping breaks the bank with crazy offers
Capital One Shopping, the public shopping portal that anyone can join, no Capital One card required, has re-won our hearts over and over again this year. The portal only offers gift cards as redemption options. Instead of actual cash, you redeem your “cash back” for gift cards to places like Hotels.com, DoorDash, Safeway, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. This is a bit of a pain and, like most shopping portals, there’s some frustrations involved, but their targeted offers can be pure insanity. Over holidays, many of us were routinely targeted for 40-60% back from good retailers, 10% back on Giftcards.com, 35% back from Dell and more.
Virgin Atlantic lowers surcharges on award flights
To my knowledge, this is the first time that the same deal had appeared in both our year-end Deal of the Year AND Bonvoyed of the Year nominees. I think Virgin may deserve their own lifetime achievement award for such an impressive accomplishment.
In Octobe,r Virgin Atlantic moved to a dynamic pricing model for award flights. After the change, things are actually looking pretty good, with some routes seeing a reduction in not only the number of miles required for an award flight but in the total taxes and fees too. For example, when booking economy award flights from New York to London in the past, it often cost 10,000 miles + ~$150 in taxes and fees. That route is now available from only 6,000 miles + $74 one way. The economy pricing is excellent, but Upper Class (i.e. business class) can be had for a reasonable amount as well, from 29,000 miles + $255 in taxes and fees. What remains to be seen is how long this lasts.
Bilt up to 150% transfer bonus to Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic
In January, Bilt kicked off the new year in style by offering a 75%-150% transfer bonus to not one, not two, but three transfer partners: Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic and IHG. IHG’s points are worth so little that even a 150% transfer bonus couldn’t make them appealing, but Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic were another story. If you had Bilt Platinum status, you could get 250,000 Flying Blue miles or Virgin points for only 100,000 Bilt points…one of the best points transfer returns that we’ve ever seen. Greg jumped in with both feet and was rewarded when he used those miles extensively during our “Flying by the Seat of our Points” Challenge earlier this year.
Bilt up to 100% transfer bonus to Alaska Airlines
January 1st wasn’t the only incredible Rent Day deal from Bilt in 2024. Later in the year, it became the first transferable currency to partner with Alaska Airlines…and it ran a heck of a promo to celebrate. On July 1, Bilt Members got a 25%-100% transfer bonus to Alaska based on their Bilt status, plus Bilt Gold and Platinum members received either MVP and MVP Gold status through the end of 2024. There were a couple of minor gotchas: the bonus only applied to the first 50,000 Bilt points you transfered and the status match required transferring 10,000 Bilt points to Alaska and at a 1:1ratio. Still, this was an incredible deal for a program whose miles were tough to get.
American Express 10x dining referral offers
Most cards that earn Membership Rewards points typically offer the referrer (the person who is referring a new cardholder) a set number of points per referral. That fixed number varies by card and cardholder, but we’ve seen anything from 7,500 points per referral up to 35,000 points per referral, typically with a cap of 100,000 points/year/Amex card.
In 2024 Amex threw down the referral gauntlet, allowing the referrer to earn +10x Membership Rewards points on up to $25K in restaurant spending for three months. That had the potential to be a very lucrative, as it means that you could earn up to 250,000+ bonus points thanks to a single referral…provided you can spend $8,333 per month in the dining category. That said, even if you only spent $2,000 on dining over the first three months, it would still get you 40K total points on many cards (20K bonus + 20K from restaurants)…which is a killer referral offer.
Ink Business Preferred 120k welcome and 40k referral offers (both expired)
In 2024, there was a fantastic offer out for the Chase Ink Business Preferred that was good for 120,000 Ultimate Rewards points after $8K in purchases in the first 3 months. This matched the best offer that we had even seen on the card. However, if you had someone in your household that already had an Ink card, it was even better: you could earn 120K points from the welcome offer while your family member could pick up an additional 40K points for referring you (for a grand total of 160,000 points). Greg took advantage for himself, his wife and his son, earning just shy of half-a-million points off three cards. Wowza.
Hilton adds Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH)
When we first heard that the partnership between Hyatt and Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), many in the points and miles world were incredibly disappointed. SLH added a slew of really high-end properties in locations where Hyatt didn’t previously have a presence (and where they sadly no longer do in many cases!). When we got more information about SLH’s partnership with Hilton earlier this year, we started to get pretty excited. Among the reasons was the fact that a large number of SLH hotels were joining the Hilton program and offering standard free night awards that could be booked with points or free night certificates. In addition, Hilton elite benefits would be honored at almost all properties. That was awesome news…and the rollout has been just as good.
There are now over 400 participating SLH hotels that can be booked through Hilton Honors and many of them are are drool-worthy destinations which would be out of reach for most people when booking with cash. Like Hilton’s own properties, SLH hotels and resorts max out at 150,000 points per night, but many of them have cash rates that go well over $1,000. It’s not hyperbole to say that SLH is the best thing to happen to Hilton Honors in years.
Alaska’s awesome short haul pricing for AA flights
2024 wasn’t a good year for redeeming many partner currencies for domestic flights on American Airlines. First, British Airways rolled out a series of price-hikes specific to the domestic US awards, the latest of which has made the program completely non-competitive for most routes within the lower-48. Qatar Airways Avios then followed suit in August, bringing its pricing for domestic awards for AA and Alaska more or less in line with BA’s. Finnair was the latest, increasing its pricing as much as 50% for domestic American Airlines flights, pretty much putting the final nail in the coffin of using Avios in the US for short or medium-length flights on AA.
That said, the exact opposite has happened with Alaska Mileage Plan. One of the biggest, least sexy, and most useful winners on the new chart that Alaska rolled out this year is for economy flights…especially short economy flights. US redemptions start at just 4,500 miles for flights that are less than 700 miles. 7,500 Alaska miles will get you a saver seat on any available partner flight in the world of less than 1,500 miles. That’s a great deal, both domestically and internationally, as shorter flights can sometimes be unusually high-priced and thus can yield better than 10 cents per point value when booking through Mileage Plan.
SAS Eurobonus Millionaire Promotion
In 2024, SAS Airlines jumped ship from Star Alliance to SkyTeam, a move widely anticipated after Air France purchased a stake in the company. In early October, after the change was finalized, SAS celebrated the new alliance in a unique and pretty intriguing way: by launching the “EuroBonus Millionaire” promotion for flying SkyTeam partners and crediting the flights to SAS. Paid and award flights that booked with SAS EuroBonus points both count towards the promotion and the top level, which requires you to fly 15 different SkyTeam airlines, awards 1 million bonus points.
We were so intrigued by this promo that we made it into our Second Annual Challenge of 2024: Million Mile Madness. Greg emerged victorious and currently is the only one of the three competitors that’s successfully received his million points. In fact, Nick was so worried about all of his flights not crediting that he took a last minute mileage run down to Mexico so that he could get some extra insurance. This promo, more than any other in 2024, showed how thin the line between incredible deal and outright insanity really is.
Readers’ Choice for Deal of the Year
Drumroll please. The 2024 People’s Choice for Deal of the Year award goes to…
Loading ...The FM Team’s Picks
Greg’s pick: SAS Eurobonus Millionaire Promo
The SAS Eurobonus Millionaire promotion is my pick. To be clear, I don’t think it was an objectively great deal when considering the amount of time, money, and effort that was required to complete it. Nor was it a particularly well run deal: there were too many unanswered questions about what would or wouldn’t count, and there were far too many technical issues with getting flights credited. But there is no denying that it was a BIG deal. A very BIG deal. For a brief time it brought back the age old art of mileage-running – for the miles – in a very, very big way. It was splashy. It was exciting. It was THE deal of the year.
Nick’s pick: Hilton rolls out Small Luxury Hotels of the World
The “best” deal is always the one that you can actually use, particularly early and often. For some, that will mean referral offers or welcome offers that they were able to multiply across family members. However, the broadest deal that could be utilized early and often is almost unquestionably Hilton’s awesome integration of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. SLH gives Hilton considerable reach in terms of high-end “dream” type properties and exclusive destinations where a “Hilton” brand might not otherwise make sense. And most importantly for readers of this site, it provides ways to get far outsized value for points and free night certificates. Given how relatively easy it is to come by both Hilton points and Hilton free night certificates, a couple playing in two-player mode could each have a Hilton Aspire card and maybe one Hilton Surpass card and end up with a nice luxury getaway every year with minimal effort and a cash outlay that looks pretty attractive in comparison to the sticker price. Obviously this won’t be “deal of the year” for those who prefer budget brands or stretching points as far as one can, but it shines a bright light on my favorite aspect of the game: bringing the “unattainable” within easy reach
Stephen’s pick: SAS Eurobonus Millionaire Promo
For my own personal use, it’s tempting to pick the Virgin Atlantic dynamic pricing seeing as the associated taxes and fees have dropped. I also love the ability to book an increasing number of SLH properties using Hilton points and/or certificates and I’m looking forward to an upcoming stay where we’ll be taking advantage of that ability. However, the opportunity to earn – rather than just being in with a chance to win – 1 million miles via the SAS EuroBonus Millionaire promotion is unrivalled, so that’s my deal of the year.
Tim’s pick: Chase Ink Welcome and Referral Offers
I’m going to cheat a little bit. On the podcast, Greg and Nick talked specifically about being able to combine the (no longer available) 120K offer on the Ink Business Preferred with a 40K referral offer (now 20K). By referring his wife and son, and then having his wife refer him, Greg’s family was able to earn 480,000 Ultimate Rewards on only three cards (360K from the welcome offers and 120K from the referrals). That’s a heckuva deal.
But there were also 90K welcome offers for the no annual fee Ink Cash and Ink Business Unlimited that could be paired with the same 40K referral bonus. Best of all, the Ink cards don’t have the same rules about how often you can earn a welcome offer that we we see on Chase personal cards – nor do they count towards your Chase 5/24 status. Because of all of that, my wife and I were able to refer back and forth on 4 Ink Business Preferred cards and 2 Ink Business Cash cards for a total of 900,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Some folks did even better. That’s an absolutely incredible haul…and we didn’t even change our 5/24 status while we did it. That’s my deal of the year.
2023 Winners
In case you’re wondering, here were the winners in 2023:
- Nick’s pick: Bilt 100% transfer bonus to Flying Blue
- Greg’s pick: Bilt 100% transfer bonus to Flying Blue
- Reader’s Choice: Bilt fast track to Hyatt elite status
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In the podcast Nick referred Neiman Marcus having huge capital one shopping offers and then mentioned it was a way to get a discount on Apple Watches. What store is that? NM doesn’t sell them. I checked a couple other department stores like Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf, where I saw big offers.
I mentioned Neiman Marcus for Tumi bags. Greg mentioned that stores like that (not necessarily that specific store) sometimes sell rarely-discounted items like Apple Watches (a general example, not a specific one). Macy’s used to sell iPads, but I don’t think they do anymore. I don’t know who sells Apple watches specifically, but the point was that sometimes those “fashion” brands carry items that you might want with a big cash back offer.
Thanks a lot for clarifying. I haven’t seen them at Macys but I think Apple is always excluded anyway at other stores, except Apple.com. The only real discount I know is to wait for ~4% on a portal and collect discounted gift cards at Citi or elsewhere.
The ability to transfer Amex points to Alaska with a bonus is by far the deal of the year for me. Should probably be on the list.
That’s the deal I most regret missing out on. Too busy with day job duties to act in time! Glad Greg hit it hard.
The link to 2023’s awards at the end is incorrect. It’s leading to the 2023 Bonvoy’ed disloyalty award, not the 2023 Deal of the Year
I voted for what was most useful to me personally, and it was a close one between the Bilt to FB bonus or the Chase Ink train. I went with Bilt–I turned 79K Bilt points into 177,750 FB miles which is just crazy. So far I’ve bought and used a 70K business class flight from PPT to LAX which was excellent and I have purchased (but not yet flown) AMS-ORD in Y for 20K. And I’ve still got lots of points left!
Chase Ink train was awesome as well, but as a single player there was less upside for me than most.
Honorable mentions to the Alaska 4500 miles short-distance AA flights which I used several times and the Bilt 100% transfer bonus to Alaska, which was great but I just didn’t have very many miles after I blew them all on the FB transfer!
The great redemption possibilities with SLH joining Hilton are tops for me – with the uncapped FNCs that now work any day of the week there’s just a ton of potential value there.
The dynamic lower priced flight options on Virgin are a close second. Coupled with the 40% transfer bonuses we are seeing (or 150% if you could snag the big Bilt ones earlier this year!) you are talking sub-$600 equivalent points + fees one way business flights to Europe, or $200 – $300 equivalent for economy. And you had crazy amounts of availability for groups with many flights offering 4+ seats in business at that price.
I took great advantage of the AMEX 10X dining referral offers, but large 10X or 15X referral bonuses seem to be pretty regular for AMEX so it’s hard to argue for them as deal of the year.
I would get more excited about Virgin if they had connections to anywhere else in Europe. London isn’t my ideal spot to connect on separate tickets.
That makes sense. Lots of cheap flights to other destinations from London (or can take the train to France), but if you don’t want to spend at least a day in London then it’s less ideal.
When thinking about the best deal, we should also consider the general sunk cost of getting said deal.
Sure a million miles is pretty awesome. But the sheer effort and overall cost of time, money, and miles spent to get the SAS Eurobonus Millionaire Bonus knocks it off as a contender for the best deal of 2024, IMO.
I vote for the steady stream of gigantic Amex bonus offers we saw this year.
I agree this was the real MVP. Amex just giving out 200K or 250K like candy.
CIBP applies to the most people, IMHO.
Sadly, I was turned down (2x!) for it in 2024 – the first time I’ve ever been rejected for a CC. Called both times but still….
It appears Chase has throttled the frequency at which people can apply for Ink cards. Same with Amex NLL offers. The game is changing.
For us, AmEx is still full-speed ahead. P2 and I each have a biz plat, and then they offered me another. Have a biz gold and then offered another. I find it interesting that Greg was able to round-robin the Chase IBP in his family – that’s awesome.
Fixed the poll — you should now be able to vote
Still not able to vote, only see the results.
Try now. It should be open.
Worked, thank you!
Appears to be closed again unfortunately.
Jeez, this is strange. I think it’s fixed and should be open.
Worked now thanks Tim!
Curious there is no mention of Bilt Platinum 200% to BA Avios. I cashed out of Bilt on that one. Fun while it lasted.
Not sure how we register our votes…?
A fair question is whether a deal could be scaled. For me and my wife, that would be the Bilt 150 percent transfer bonus to Air France and Virgin. Each person could transfer up to 1 million Bilt points to each program with that offer. For practical purposes, that made the deal uncapped. We ended up with 1.5 to 2 million extra airline points/miles in those programs.