Preferred Hotels is currently offering members of its iPrefer loyalty program 250 bonus points when signing up for both email and text alerts. While that's not a huge reward, it should help keep your existing points from expiring due to inactivity. The ...
Preferred Hotels is currently offering members of its iPrefer loyalty program 250 bonus points when signing up for both email and text alerts. While that’s not a huge reward, it should help keep your existing points from expiring due to inactivity.
The Deal
Earn 250 bonus iPrefer points when signing up for email and text alerts from Preferred Hotels.
250 points are worth ~$1.25, so you may well not find it worthwhile making the effort to both sign up to get the points and then unsubscribe once they’ve been earned. However, earning these points should extend the expiry date of any existing iPrefer points that you have which might make the juice worth the squeeze.
I’m not 100% certain that it will extend the life of your points though. In the FAQs of the iPrefer program it says the following:
Do points expire?
Yes, points will expire after 24 months of membership inactivity. Activity is defined as an eligible stay or reward points redemption. You will forfeit your current balance when your points expire and you will be downgraded to the appropriate tier based on your new points balance.
That wording makes me a little cautious because it says that eligible activity is defined as an eligible stay or a points redemption. Earning 250 points for signing up for email and text alerts is neither. However, I believe that transferring points to Preferred Hotels (such as from Citi) does extend the life of your points, so it feels safe to assume that the 250 points earned from this promotion will do the same.
Rove Miles will be running several overlapping holiday promotions over the next few days. They include the opportunity to earn a 40% bonus on loyalty-eligible hotel stays, up to 5,000 bonus miles on first-time hotel bookings, and boosted earning rates at several retailers.
Rove Miles is running the following deals through December 19th:
Earn 40% bonus Rove miles on loyalty-eligible hotel bookings
First-time hotel bookings can earn the following bonuses:
Spend $500 & earn 2,500 bonus miles when using promo code HOLIDAY500
Spend $1,000+ & earn 5,000 bonus miles when using promo code HOLIDAY1000
Get increased earnings when buying gift cards from Giftcards.com after clicking through from the Rove shopping portal and buying gift cards for the following brands
8x miles:
Nike
StubHub (stack with Chase Sapphire Reserve® credits)
2,500/5,000 bonus mile promotion valid for first-time bookings only and limited to one code per eligible customer.
Quick Thoughts
40% on loyalty-eligible hotel bookings
The most notable deal is the opportunity to earn 40% bonus Rove miles on loyalty-eligible hotel bookings. As a reminder, hotels listed as being ‘loyalty-eligible’ on Rove’s travel booking portal will earn you points in your hotel’s loyalty program in addition to the Rove miles you earn. You’ll also be eligible to receive elite status benefits, earn elite night credits, etc. Rove typically awards 5x miles on loyalty-eligible bookings, so this promo increases the earn rate to 7x.
Rove recently made a change so that loyalty-eligible stays are billed by the hotel directly as well. That means you can pay with that hotel chain’s credit card to earn bonus points on the paid stay while triggering Amex Offers, Chase Offers, etc.
Rove miles are a transferable currency with more than a dozen travel partners, so earning a 7x rate is for many people more valuable than earning 7% cashback. When booking through Rove, you earn miles on taxes and fees as well as the base room rate, though mandatory hotel fees charged at check-in won’t qualify.
2,500/5,000 bonus miles
In addition to the loyalty-eligible booking promotion, people booking a hotel through Rove for the first time can earn up to 5,000 bonus Rove miles: 2,500 for spending $500, or 5,000 for spending $1,000. The hotel you book for this specific promotion doesn’t have to be loyalty eligible, but if it is, then you’ll earn both the 40% bonus from the other promotion and the bonus miles from this promotion. That means that if you spend at least $1,000 on a loyalty-eligible booking, you’ll earn at least 12,000 bonus Rove miles.
Note that you can use only one code, so if you have several upcoming paid hotel stays, it may be worth booking the one with the highest eligible promo code. As with the 10x promo, taxes and fees do count towards the spending thresholds.
Boosted earning rates
Earning 5x miles on Airbnb, hotel, and airline gift cards is a decent return. However, keep an eye out for other deals as Amazon, grocery stores, and other retailers are also offering good discounts on these types of gift cards during the same time period.
Singapore Airlines is out with its latest “Spontaneous Escapes” award sale, and this month’s deals are available to book until 12/31/25 for travel between 1/1/26 and 1/31/26. Included in this month’s offerings is an appealing option I once flew: Singapore’s fifth-freedom route from NYC to Frankfurt in business class. During the promotion, the flight is on sale for 62,300 miles one-way in business or 19,250 in regular economy.
In addition, reduced-cost economy seats are available from Singapore to the US, or premium economy between the US and Tokyo.
Singapore Airlines has released this month’s Spontaneous Escapes, offering discounts to/from Europe and Asia. This month’s deals must be booked by 12/31/25 and flown between 1/1/26 and 1/31/26 (some routes feature blackout dates). Sale options include:
New York (JFK) to Frankfurt for 62,300 miles each way in business class or 19,250 in economy
Newark (EWR) to Singapore for 59,150 in premium economy
Singapore to New York (JFK) for 59,150 in premium economy
Los Angeles (LAX) to Singapore for 30,800 in economy
Seattle (SEA) to Singapore to Seattle for 30,800 in economy
Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo (NRT) for 29,750 in economy or to/from Tokyo for 56,350 in premium economy
A fifth-freedom route is when a long-haul carrier operates a flight outside its home network, primarily to utilize airplane downtime between long-haul routes. These provide a terrific opportunity to sample a product that otherwise would be reserved strictly for flights to and from the airline’s home airport. One notable example is Singapore Airlines’ flight between JFK and Frankfurt.
Seats for this route must be booked directly with Singapore Airlines, and the 63,200-mile fare represents 30% off the standard fare. Singapore has multiple transfer partners, making KrisFlyer Miles fairly easy to generate:
It used to be that the primary reason to book through Singapore Krisflyer was that you couldn’t really find Singapore Airlines business or first-class space through any of their partner airlines. Booking through Krisflyer (and oftentimes paying a premium over what other airlines would charge) made sense because it was often the only way to book premium cabin travel on Singapore.
These days, Air Canada Aeroplan usually has access to a lot of Singapore Airlines’ premium cabin space. While the Spontaneous Escapes pricing will allow you to book business class from New York to Frankfurt for a discounted rate of 62,300 miles, that’s actually more than the price that Air Canada Aeroplan would normally charge for the same route (60,000 miles), assuming that you could find availability for the same flight.
By using Aeroplan, you would also have the option to continue on with other partners (paying more miles if you travel into the next distance band, of course). More importantly, you can cancel and get your miles back for $150 CAD (about $111 USD). With a Singapore Spontaneous Escapes award, you can’t cancel or change it, which may be less important given that it’s only for travel in the coming month.
Marriott Homes & Villas is running another promotion, this time awarding double base points on all stays of four or more nights through September 2026.
The Deal
Earn 2x on stays of 4+ consecutive nights with Marriott Homes & Villas.
Registered Marriott Bonvoy Members earn 2X base points per qualifying U.S. dollar for each eligible paid stay at a participating home rental booked between December 13, 2025 (12:01 AM EST) – February 1, 2026 (11:59 PM EST) through the Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy website (“HVMB Platform”) for stays completed between February 1, 2026 and September 30, 2026. Payment for the stay must be made by cash, debit, or credit card.
Stays of four (4) or more consecutive nights must be completed during the promotion earning period, beginning 2/1/2026, up to and including nights stayed on or before 9/30/2026.
Members earn five (5) base Points for each U.S. dollar, or the currency equivalent, spent on all Qualifying Charges incurred and paid for by the Member through the HVMB Platform.
Promotion bonus Points are calculated based on 2X base Points earned per stay within the promotion earning period and do not include Elite bonus points also awarded for the stay.
Charges that do not qualify for Points include, but are not limited to, taxes, booking fees, cleaning fees, security deposits, and extra add-on services purchased and/or applied to home rentals booked through the HVMB Platform.
Quick Thoughts
Homes & Villas rentals typically earn 5x base points, so this promotion means you’ll earn 10x points before accounting for any other additional bonus points you’ll gain if you have status in the Marriott Bonvoy program already.
This offer will stack with this separate promotion offering 20K bonus points through the end of 2025.
Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex, Discover It, US Bank Cash+, and Citi Dividend cards all have rotating quarterly categories that earn 5% back, and the new categories for Q1 2026 have been revealed.
Below are the details of each card’s categories from January 1 to March 31, 2026, along with links to activate the bonuses.
Chase Freedom & Freedom Flex
Bonus Categories
Norwegian Cruise Line
Dining
American Heart Association
Bonus Amount / Limit
5% cashback on up to $1,500 spend in combined purchases of this quarter’s categories
