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The US Travel Association is bringing back Daily Getaways for 2021 starting on 10/7/21. For those unfamiliar, Daily Getaways were long an annual event in April / May where the US Travel Association put various travel items on sale each day — more interesting items have been blocks of Choice Privileges points, Hyatt points, and car rental gift certificates. We don’t yet know what will be sold this week.
The Deal
- The U.S. Travel Association will be bringing back “Daily Getaways” on October 7, 2021. A preview of deals begins on October 4th.
- Direct link to this promotion
Quick Thoughts
There will be a preview starting on October 4th, but in years past they have only put the first week or two on preview from the start (deals have usually lasted about 5 weeks if memory serves me correctly).
These deals didn’t run in 2020 (or during the normal spring time of 2021). Years ago, there used to be a more popular selection of travel deals. However, for the last couple of years that they were offered, most of the deals were junk — vacation packages to Las Vegas that were overpriced with unspecified blackout dates or other hotel free nights in specific locations (also with unspecified blackout dates and restrictions) and stuff like that.
However, there are usually a few popular deals worth watching out for in case they return:
- Choice Privileges points: These packages usually sell out instantly because they are sold well below market value (around 0.4c per point if I remember correctly). If this comes back, I’ll probably buy a package of these points if I can click fast enough.
- Marriott Gift Cards: In years past, they have offered Marriott gift cards at 20% off. That is a deal that Marriott has offered directly a few times now, so I don’t know if these will sell out as quickly as they have sometimes, but this can be a good deal.
- World of Hyatt points: The sale on Hyatt points usually isn’t amazing, but it is usually good enough for the packages to sell out quickly (about 1.72c per point is the number I recall)
- Rental car gift cards or free days: They have offered free days with Alamo and I believe also with Avis and Budget. There have also sometimes been packages of Hertz points. These deals can sometimes be a good way to save — though with rental prices through the roof, I’m not sure whether a $50 Alamo gift card for $25 will feel like a screaming deal you have to get to save any amount possible or a discount that doesn’t even take 25% off of a single day and therefore isn’t super exciting. We’ll see.
There may have been other popular deals I’m forgetting, those are just the deals worth considering from my memory. They also typically offer IHG points, but usually at the same 0.5c each offered by IHG during points sales, so that one doesn’t usually sell out. New deals go live at the same time each day and the best deals sell out in seconds with deals that don’t sell out perpetually available on future days until they sell out.
H/T: Miles Talk
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They just announced the first two weeks.. Let’s just say I don’t expect any of this stuff will sell out..
I got some good deals for Omni hotel stays – like $199 for two nights stay.
First time I’ve been disappointed by an article written by Nick!
“World of Hyatt points: The sale on Hyatt points usually isn’t amazing, but it is usually good enough for the packages to sell out quickly (about 1.72c per point is the number I recall)”
C’mon, man! The price was materially lower than that. Not that I want to encourage my competition…
You’re right – I was going from memory, but it failed me there. They were only just over 1cpp. I’ll keep heading to Office Max or Staples this week and generating them for negative cost rather than paying 1cpp anyway :).
Who doesn’t like free?! But we don’t all have the time to run around to the shops hoping they have cards in stock. .01/Hyatt pt is a very solid deal to buy in bulk.
Thanks for posting about this one Nick! I’ve been excited about this one since I heard from OMAAT. I’m not trying to gang up or anything but I also noticed the #’s. In the last Daily Getaways.
Choice Hotels were sold for as low as .49 cents per point (I bought some) & Hyatt points were sold for as low as 1.04 cents per point (I’m still kicking myself for not attempting to buy them).
A lot of people tried to say it was a bad deal due to devaluations around the time, but I wish the Hertz points sale would come back as well since that was an excellent deal for me. I only made the mistake of not buying some for myself and only buying for my dad (& only the person with the points can use them if they are going to be present at booking and the primary driver etc.).
Can you buy with a credit card?
Yes. I’ll have to go back through old notes before it goes live, but I believe purchases do not code as travel.