[BONUS EPISODE] Daily Drop Pro: Your All-In-One Award Travel Tool with Megan Johnston

Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devon Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset if you know how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started.

Hello everyone and welcome to a bonus episode of the Point Me To First Class podcast. Today I am joined by Megan Johnston, Community Manager at Daily Drop to talk all about Daily Drop Pro, a recently launched all-in-one software that's part award search platform, part cash flight deal finder, and part points community all-in-one spot.

This platform was very recently introduced and I couldn't wait to have someone from the Daily Drop team come and talk all about what it offers to award travel enthusiasts. For those of you looking for a tool to help simplify points travel, I think you'll enjoy learning about Daily Drop Pro and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Devon: Welcome to the podcast, Megan. Thank you so much for joining me here today.

Megan: Of course, I'm so excited to chat with you and your audience.

Devon: Same. So I always start conversations with guests on this podcast by asking, can you tell us just a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how did you get involved in the whole world of points and miles and award travel?

Megan: Yeah, so my name is Megan Johnston, and I am the community manager and also partnerships manager over at Daily Drop, which is a media company all about maximizing miles and points. I got started in this world because I went on my very first international trip after I had graduated college. I never had left the country before then. And I was like, wow, I have to keep doing this. I have to keep traveling.

But I was also a fresh college graduate. So I'm like, How do I do this? How do I keep traveling? And I kind of accidentally stumbled across the miles and points world. I must have seen an ad or something for a card that earns travel points.

That's why I say I accidentally fell into it because I'm like, I don't even know how I landed here, but I landed here. And I was like, wow, this points thing is pretty neat. And I set the bar high because my first point strip was to the Maldives. I covered everything, right? The flights, hotels, even my experiences out of pocket for the entire trip.

I spent less than $400 and the Maldives is obviously a dream destination. I thought I would never get there, and there I was, like, pretty recently out of college in the Maldives, and I was like, okay, I have to figure out how to keep doing this from here.

Devon: That's an incredible story. You know, I'm always fascinated to hear about people's first redemptions because I think there's just this huge spectrum of how people fall into this world, of what they set their sights on when they first get started. I don't think I've ever met anybody else yet whose very first redemption was Maldives. I think that's absolutely fantastic. My very first real redemption, like I had used points before I understood points, but I think my first very intentional redemption was flying first class on Lufthansa.

And that was incredibly memorable for me. So I still have not yet made it to the Maldives. We do have plans for that. But I love that straight out of the gate, You were like, I am going for it. That is such an aspirational redemption for so many people.

So tell me, how did you go from that to then working with Daily Drop? And can you also give us a little background for people listening to the podcast who maybe haven't heard of Daily Drop before. Can you tell us more about what that is and then how did you start working with them?

Megan: Yeah, so Daily Drop, like I said, media company all about maximizing miles and points. We send a five times per week newsletter keeping people up to date on all things miles and points. So you all know how fast the world of miles and points can change. So keeping everyone updated on all the best deals, keeping everyone educated on how to earn, redeem, and maximize miles and points. And then most recently we launched Daily Drop Pro, which is an all-in-one software to help you with points bookings, cash bookings, and so much more, which I'm sure we'll dive into here in a little bit.

And how I found my way to them, also an accidental stumble upon, maybe this is like a through line of my life here, But I had originally followed the founders of Daily Drop who are Kara and Nate over on YouTube, one of the top travel YouTube channels, the founders of our company. And when they put Daily Drop out there in the world, I was like, Oh, I know this is going to be such an amazing resource. And yeah, they put some job listings out there and I was like, community, points and miles, all of my favorite things coming together, I'm on board.

Devon: Yeah, it sounds like a match made in heaven. And I think sometimes those things that are not necessarily planned end up being some of the best experiences. And it sounds like you found a place that really closely aligns with just your love of travel, your love of award travel. So sounds like a great match on both sides. And you mentioned Daily Drop Pro, which is exactly what we're here to talk about today.

So I have been involved in the points and miles world for years now. And I think one of the things that to me seems like it has experienced this explosive growth for it, especially in the last year or two, is the introduction of so many different platforms to make different aspects of earning points or using points easier, especially for folks who don't want to make points travel a full-time job. Some of us love it as a full-time job. And a lot of people don't want that to be the only thing that they ever do. And so I love that there are more and more resources and platforms to help make points earning and using easier for people.

And when I saw the announcement about the platform that you all just released, Daily Drop Pro, come out very recently, I was really excited about this because it seems like this platform is really differentiating itself from some of the other tools that are available. And so I was really excited to have you here today to kind of walk us through the background of Daily Drop Pro, highlight kind of why you all made it, what you think is really special about it, how it can help people in this travel hobby. And one of the things that really struck me is the way that you just described it as an all-in-one software. So can you talk a little bit more about where did this idea for Daily Drop Pro as a platform come from? What made the team decide to branch out into this space?

Megan: Yeah, so for us, there's everything that we do is all about helping people travel more without letting their budget restrict them. And yes, miles and points are like the heartbeat of that. We also still love a cash deal around here. And I feel like those are the two best ways to save on travel is letting the deal decide the destination or using miles and points to book it. And so that's what Daily Drop Pro brought into the software.

We have our miles and points search feature for both flights and hotels, which I feel like is, that's one of the most exciting parts for me because I know there's lots of programs and tools out there and often it's separated flights and hotels. And this is this all-in-one where you can look at, okay, I have my flight, now where am I gonna stay? And it's all-in-one spot, keeping you nice and organized. And then also brought through that cash deal option as well, because it's an important part of your budget to consider too. And so we were excited to bring all of these features together and make the process simple for everyone.

So everything inside of Pro has the budget in mind, but also how can we make award travel simple for people? Because like you said, it can be a full-time job and there's a lot of steps to take. And so all the way down to when you find a points booking that you love, we have a step-by-step walkthrough of what to search, how to transfer your points, what to do before you transfer your points, and it's all broken down step by step for you so that you don't have to go, okay, wait, what are the steps I need to take? What do I need to do to transfer these points over? It's just all-in-one place, just making it super, super simple for you.

And I think that's something we've always been passionate about at Daily Drop is, yes, we have the amazing miles and points experts in our community. And we love serving the beginners as well that are like, I can't remember all of this. Yeah. Yeah,

Devon: I think that's such a great point to make. You know, one of the things that really stood out to me as I was experimenting with this platform that I was playing around on it is specifically when you are talking about the award search feature, the award search aspect of this platform is that, you know, some of us again, really love to nerd out about this. Some of us have memorized, you know, transfer partners and we have memorized, like, I consider them actually like second order transfers. Like, okay, yes, you can transfer, for instance, you know, chase points to Virgin Airlines, book a Virgin flight through Virgin. But then there's the even sort of more advanced second order transfer of knowing, oh, I can transfer my chase points to Virgin and then I can book a partner flight through Virgin.

Right? Not everybody, again, feels that excited about memorizing all of these details and points and miles. And I do think that there can be a little bit of a disconnect, you know, in terms of the average points user who may know enough to hear on a podcast or to follow somebody on social media and hear this concept that you can get sometimes way more value out of your points by transferring them, you know, versus just redeeming them straight through your credit card portal versus taking that leap to then all of a sudden understanding what are all these different permutations of being able to transfer your points, book different partner redemptions. And I think that that is an area where a lot of traditional award search platforms maybe haven't made it quite as accessible, especially for beginners, as they could. Because even when you do find an award flight that you want to book through a platform, Again, if you haven't walked yourself through that process or someone hasn't taught you, okay, what does it actually look like step by step between finding an award flight available and having, let's say, 150,000 chase points or 150,000 Amex points and actually booking that flight, there's a lot that can be confusing in that process.

And maybe because it's the way that I learn, I feel like I can understand things, but they have to be explained to me in a certain way. I really love platforms and approaches that break things down just step by step by step that don't assume you're going to do a lot of independent learning on your own. And so I love that this platform is really user friendly, especially for beginners. But is the beginner points traveler the only person that you guys are really focusing on in terms of the way you built out this platform? Or talk to me a little bit more about features that you think people at different levels of award travel kind of confidence can take advantage of.

Megan: Yeah, that's such a great question. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, passionate about serving the beginners, but also we love our experts in the community as well. So yeah, there's definitely things that would get experts excited. Like you were mentioning with, you know, alliances, we're searching over 140 programs in the flight search alone, and then we're searching the seven major hotel brands on the hotel search.

And so if you are someone that's excited about finding those Alliance flights, those are in there. We also have really quick, easy view for you to find out the cost per point value. So if you're like, I want to make sure I'm getting the most amount of value out of my points. We have a really quick, easy button where you can click and see what is the cash value of this flight, determine if that's going to be a good use of your points. We also have wallet functions that take into account various things like free night awards, or if you're getting fourth night free.

So if you're someone who has all of the cards in your wallet and you're like, how am I keeping track of all of the perks and benefits, it's going to take that into account as well. And then I haven't even mentioned our community portion of Pro as well. We call it our pro lounge. And this is where everyone can have conversation on all things points and miles. And we even separate our conversations out from, we have our newbie space, and then we have our expert space so that you can have those conversations no matter what level you're at.

You can ask the questions where you feel like, oh, I'm kind of a newbie, like can I get, or you can be like, I am nerding out on this, and here's what I've been implementing, and what have you been doing that's similar to that? So you can have conversations with the experts in the space as well. So yeah, we love everyone across the board, no matter where you're at on the miles and points journey.

Devon: Yeah, and I love that you've made it so accessible for people from all different backgrounds. You know, I think there's one thing to be said for a platform that really is aimed primarily towards people who are very beginning in this hobby. There's also platforms that I think are not very intuitive or user friendly if you don't already have kind of a baseline amount of knowledge or a foundation of knowledge. I think one of the things about Daily Drop Pro and this platform that really kind of stood out to me as someone who's been in this space for a while, are two things. One is just how comprehensive it is.

To call it an award search platform, which I know I'm the one doing, not you, that actually feels very, very limiting to me because I was surprised at how much functionality there is that goes beyond just searching for an award flight or searching for a hotel award, which is fantastic. And I'm really curious to hear from you all. What made you build it the way you did? Because this is a big departure, I think, from a lot of the other products that are out there. And I'm just curious, kind of what was behind that decision making.

Megan: It really was the drive for having the all-in-one like we always talk about in our miles and points education courses, we have like miles and points one on one miles and points to one. And we always talk about like, you might have 1000 tabs open. And so we wanted to bring that into one space where you don't have to have a thousand tabs open anymore. And it truly is just all-in-one space, all-in-one space for your research and also all-in-one space for your organization. Because I mean, you have the tabs open for doing the research, like figuring out what you want to book, where you want to book it.

But then when you have it booked, now you have all of the tabs open of how many points you've used and, you know, keeping all of your trips organized and all of that. So we just wanted to bring it all into one space so that you can stay nice and organized and just keep everything from the earning all the way through to the redeeming easy and simple for you. Yeah.

Devon: Yes. Well I think easy and simple is one of those things that we are all looking for in this hobby because with the massive amount of information that's out there and again, just the plethora of tools that are available, I think the one downside of having all of that is that it can sometimes be overwhelming or confusing. You know, how do I make sense of all of these different things all at once? And so I'm a huge fan of anything that simplifies processes for us, you know, makes it just a little bit easier to kind of wrap our arms around. Now, one of the things that you mentioned is really unique about this software that I also think is really innovative is that it's not just for searching for flights or it's not just searching for hotels.

But I wanted to talk specifically about that hotel search feature a little bit more. Can you walk us through and just describe kind of like what are some of the use case scenarios for the hotel search features? This is something where if someone has a really specific idea of say, they want to go to, I don't know, I'm just going to pick a random city Dubrovnik, you know, for a specific week, what can they do versus if someone is just really open ended and they're just looking for a great hotel deal, what are the types of things they can do using the award search tool on the platform?

Megan: Okay, so I'll break this down. Yeah, separately one if you have that really specific destination in mind. If you have a really specific city in mind, you're looking for a hotel in that city, it's simple. We're keeping the theme of simple. It's simple to search. As far as you input your city, it's going to show you all of your award booking options across all seven major hotel brands.

And you're going to get a nice, clear, easy to read snapshot in your left side panel. And then on your right, you're going to get a map view. So whether you prefer to digest information and list or map, you can do it that way. And then we have several advanced filters that you can bring into play here as well, from filtering out based on the types of transferable points that you have, or filtering out by the types of the hotel chains that you want to stay in. So you can filter it out and you can kind of get your list to where you want it to be based on the types of points that you have or the types of points that you're aspiring to have.

And then again, you're gonna get those clear step-by-step walkthroughs on how to book and those clear snapshots on, OK, here's how many points per night this hotel is going to be. Here's how much it would be to book with cash so that you can make sure that you're getting the amount of value that you want out of your points. The other thing it's going to show you is you're going to get a nice award availability calendar. This is one of my favorite features. If you have a little bit of flexibility in your stay, you're then able to see like, okay, I could stay there this week, but if I stayed the next week, I could probably get more out of my points.

That's one of my all-time favorite features in the hotel section. And then you also have availability alerts. So that could be, say you're searching for, this is probably more on the other side of things. If you're like, I don't really know where I want to go, I just want to like run some searches. And you have some ideas of like aspiration of hotels you want to stay in or something along those lines, you can set availability alerts there.

So it'll notify you of, you know, Hey, there's been an opening this month, the state on the hotel that you've been looking at. And then the other thing, if you are kind of more open-ended, you don't have like the exact city you want to go to is if you have the Daily Drop Pro account, you're going to get unlimited searches. So you can just run wild searching all over the world and using those features that I was just talking about using that award availability calendar to see like, okay, when might they have more award space or less award space? So you can start to get some planning running in your mind or use those availability alerts so you can take that quick spontaneous trip when something opens up.

Devon: Yeah, one of the things that I really, really like about the award search aspect of this platform is that you've built into it that people can also filter to their free night certificates and awards. And I feel like this is something that otherwise can be really, really challenging to try to navigate. You know, a lot of us will have a hotel co-branded card that gives us, you know, one free night in a certain category of that hotel's portfolio per year. Or for those of us who are loyal, you know, to a certain hotel loyalty program, maybe throughout the year we're earning things like free night awards. And to be able to do a search where we can actually use those awards, I think can be very, very cumbersome to impossible if you're trying to work with the hotel's own platform.

I'm thinking you have to call them out. But I'm thinking about Hyatt. As much as I love the Hyatt program, I'm a globalist. I think it's a fantastic program. I don't know who in the world in their loyalty program thinks that the way they've set up, doing searches through their own program is actually useful right now.

And I think that that can really limit, you know, the value that you can get out of something like a free night certificate. Again, if you're strapped for time and you're going to this hotel's website and they haven't made it easy for you to figure out what is available, you know, what hotels are available in my area or a destination area where I can easily make use of this free night award or three of them. And I love that you all have just a little box that you can check that makes it so easy. And I'm just curious to hear from you, were there specific features that when you guys were thinking about, you know, if we could build anything, this is what we want to build, were there certain features that were kind of non-negotiable in terms of you knew you wanted to include them, and also was there anything that you were dying to include that you just weren't able to? Because it was just challenging to program it in or you know you just couldn't get that functionality quite yet.

Megan: Yeah this is such a great question. Well for features we wanted we wanted everything. It's hard to build something like this where you want an all-in-one and not be like I want all of it. But I would say actually you've touched on the free night award, but also where the wallet integrates in with the searches is another one that we really wanted. So another example on the hotel front is if there is a card that offers fourth night free, you can integrate that into your search really easily because you have the card in your wallet.

It's gonna take into account, oh, you get fourth night free with this as well. So that was definitely something. We wanted the wallet to speak to the search functions so that again, you're not opening those separate tabs. You're not opening those separate apps and having to look at, OK, wait, what did I have over here? We wanted it to all seamlessly integrate in.

Same with the amount of points that you have. So when you search, say you're searching a Virgin Atlantic flight, and you want to see quickly how many chase points you have, it's automatically going to show you if you click into that Virgin flight, you have this many chase points so you can quickly go like, oh, okay, I have enough points to book this or do I really want to use my points for this? It gives you that really quick, easy view. So just the wallet talking to the search function was something we really wanted to integrate in. As far as things we want to have and don't have, I will say our roadmap list is very large of things that we're working on getting integrated in, things that we're rolling out.

I would say the big one that we're getting asked for and that we would love to integrate is having the more flexible search option on the flight side of things. So for example, right now you search to from date. And so having the more flexible search option of from this airport to this area, and maybe some more flexible date options in there as well. So that's definitely something we're looking at putting in down the roadmap as well.

Devon: Yeah, I imagine I knowing absolutely nothing about tech or building platforms. I imagine that it's not always as easy as just dreaming up like what would be an amazing thing or set of features to have as a user and then just being able to get all of those in right away. And one of the things that I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit more about, because you mentioned this wallet feature, and this is something that I think is very different in terms of what it is that you offer as part of your platform. Can you just talk a little bit more about what is the wallet feature of Daily Drop Pro? What does it allow users to do?

What can people expect from that?

Megan: So the wallet feature is great for organization, but also great for optimizing your searches, which I've already talked a little bit about optimizing the searches and the things that it kind of takes into account as you're running your searches. On the organization front, you get this really lovely view of all of the cards you have. You manually add the cards that you have in your wallet. And I'm always like, look how pretty, like you never see your cards laid out so nicely on a page. So it is good for organization.

It's really nice to look at. And then it also takes in those cards into account. So taking in those perks and benefits that I've talked about in the past. On the point side of things, so we have where you can manually input the amount of points you have on airlines, banks, and hotels. And this also is taken into account.

You can filter by how many points you have in certain programs so that you're narrowing down your searches a little bit more and also just gives you that quick snapshot of here's how many points I have in various different types of programs. Yeah.

Devon: Yeah. And I think that it's so nice the way that it does integrate fully with the award searches if you've decided to input in the cards you have or your points balances. Now one of my philosophies about points and miles, and I feel like this makes me a little bit of a maybe outsider in the points and miles community, is that I am all for obviously using points and miles, especially when you can get a great deal out of them, a great value from them. But I don't personally ascribe to the belief that you should never book anything using cash. You know, my philosophy is whenever you're spending money, even if it is on travel or whenever you're booking travel, it's either a points earning opportunity like pay for travel in cash, make sure you're earning a ton of points, or it's a great points redemption opportunity.

And I think sometimes making that decision between should I use points for a given trip or should I use cash for a given trip can be a little bit challenging for people. And one of the ways that I think your platform has made it a little bit easier is that in addition to the award search platforms for flights and for hotels, you also have this cash deal section. Can you talk a little bit more about that and kind of what can users expect in terms of finding really great cash deals for travel.

Megan: Yeah, I love this part of the platform because I, yeah, same philosophy as you. Like you can use points and miles, they're amazing. And also cash deals still rock. And there's some use cases where you might need a great cash deal to help you out with your points and miles journey as well. So how it works is as a pro member, you can set 10 home airports.

And if you're like, why would I set 10 home airports? Well, one, you might have multiple airports in your area, but two, this is where it can help you out with your points and miles journeys as well, because you might do positioning flights. So to go from your home airport to another airport to then get you on your points and miles journey. So you set those 10 airports, and what you're going to get is you're going to get cash deal notifications based off of your home airports and also other preferences you set up, like where you wanna go, if you like budget airlines or not. Some of us do, some of us don't.

I feel like it's like a very polarizing opinion there, but you can set various preferences there, and then you're going to get unlimited cash deals sent to you based on your notification preferences as well, but also just on your dashboard. They'll be laid out there nicely for you. And you can also do a full cash deal search. So if you're like, well, I'm just looking for that positioning flight, what is the cheapest way I can do that? You can also just search it through the cash deal section as well.

So there's lots of great use cases for it and ways you can either use it to just land an awesome cheap flight or use it to go with your points and miles.

Devon: Yeah, I agree. And there's one thing that you kind of just referenced that I was hoping that you could talk about a little bit more. So you were saying, you know, as a pro member, there's some of these features that are available to you in terms of being able to pick, you know, up to 10 kind of departure airports you want to get deals from. But can you talk a little bit about for people who want to use this platform, kind of what are the different membership options that people have and how can people decide kind of which membership option is going to be the best fit for them?

Megan: Sure. Yes. So we have a free option. We call it Pro Limited. And then we have our Pro member plan as well.

So our free plan, you're going to get three deal notifications a week on the cash side of things. Also your deals dashboard resets every single day. So you actually get a pretty generous amount of cash deal options there and you can still play with the full cash deal search as well. And then on the award search side of things with the free account, you're limited to five award searches. And then the other features we've been talking about, the wallet, the pro lounge, and then we have some also perks for our pro members.

Those are locked to the pro members plan. I actually just did an onboarding call for our Daily Drop Pro limited users this morning, showing them how they can make the most out of that free account and how to get really strategic with the limited point. And then also some secrets to cash deal bookings as well. So there actually is so much value to be had out of the free account and so many ways you can maximize there. I will say on the cash deal side of things, right now for cash deals, we're only supporting US and Canada departure airports.

On the point side of things, you can search anywhere. So you can search any departure airport in the world, but that might be something to consider if you are living international right now and you're like, I really wanna maximize specifically on the cash deal side of things with what you're talking about, just to note that those departure airports are going to be restricted on the cash deal side. You can go anywhere in the world with the points one though. And then our pro members, so unlimited cash deals, 10 airports that you can set there, unlimited point searches on both flights and hotels. So you can run wild with those.

You get the full wallet feature and then access to the pro lounge where, yes, we have our conversation spaces, but we also do monthly onboarding calls so that you know how to use all of the features and also monthly Q&A sessions where you can ask all things points and miles. You can ask general travel questions. You can also ask for redemption help. So if you're like, SOS, I need support. I'm trying to go here and I can't figure it out.

We've got you. So we're constantly kind of pouring into how can we make sure that you feel so supportive from start to finish in your trip booking. And then I mentioned there's some perks as well. So we kind of released some new perks throughout the year. Right now, there's a discount on our airport tea and then also a free Lonely Planet ebook in there.

So now you know what to do. You have your flight, you have your hotel, and you can figure out what to do when you get there. So those are kind of the two memberships.

Devon: You know, one of the things that you mentioned for the pro members is the sort of the community space, the pro lounge that people have access to. And I've kind of poked around in there, you know, a little bit just to check things out. And one of the things that I love and that I'm really looking forward to, you know, expanding over time as the platform grows, you know, it gets a little bit older, more folks join it, are the redemption travel diaries. I think that reading about trips that other people have booked, one, it's just really fun. And two, oftentimes, it'll give me really, really great ideas for, you know, how do I want to use that as a blueprint for one of my own trips?

Like whether I want to do the same exact thing, or I just want to take one aspect of it. And so I love that there's a place where people can post, You know, what are some real trips they've actually taken? How have they used their points? I'm really nosy when it comes to travel and points and miles and what people are doing with their points. And so I think it really kind of like fulfills my desire to know what other people are doing.

But I also like that for the Pro Lounge space that you all have an area for feature ideas and feedback. I think it's so great that you've opened up this space for people who are actually interacting with this platform to be able to give feedback and say, this is something that works well. This is what I love. And also, hey, can you build something extra? Because I'm sure people have tons of ideas about what they would love to see coming up on this platform. And so before we wrap up today, I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about some of the feedback that you all have been receiving about this platform so far.

Are there any favorite features that people consistently say that they love? Or what is the most requested for feature that you all would love to develop in the future that hasn't been built in quite yet?

Megan: Okay. Great questions. So what people are loving is, I mean, they are just loving the quick in real time search. It's just searching across over 140 programs all at once. And I've seen some great wins, yes, on trips being booked, but also people have been able to save points on trips they've already booked.

So they've booked a trip and then they run a quick search and they say, oh my goodness, you know, I could book this for less points and they're able to save some points that way. So just having that quick view of multiple programs all at once has been a game changer for several different reasons. And I hadn't even considered that reason of like, oh, I have something already booked, but am I keeping an eye on if I can do this better, or if that same itinerary rolls out at a lower points cost, am I keeping my eye on this and pro is a great way to quickly take a look at that. And then the feature requests, I'm glad you pointed out that section because I love that section as well and it's been so fun. There's been a few that we hadn't even thought of, like a really highly requested one in the wallet portion is having a player two friendly section in there as well so that you can organize your cards but also your player two cards and kind of have all of those perks, benefits, and miles all-in-one spot.

So that's been a really highly requested one that probably surprised us a little bit. And then the other one I did mention kind of briefly earlier is like some more flexible point search options, whether it is expanding out the date window that you can search all at once or expanding out the area so you're not just searching one city or maybe searching your region or something along those lines. That's been a pretty highly requested feature that I'm poking my tech team all the time. Like, can we look at this one? Can we look at this one?

So I'd say it's one that's coming down the road map, but it will take a little bit longer to build on that side of things.

Devon: Edith Warren Well that's understandable and I think there's so many great features on the platform already that those of us who are enjoying it, we can be patient and wait to see what additional features, you know, get rolled out and added, you know, as you all have a little bit more time. Now, one of the reasons that I had sent you an email and kind of begged someone from your team to come on and hang out with me on the podcast is not only because I thought it would be really fun to just talk about this new feature, you know, this new platform, Daily Drop Pro that you all have introduced, but also because we are in the holiday season, I sort of assumed maybe you'd be running a promotion and this could be a great time for people who've had a chance to try out the free membership if they are really interested, you know, in upgrading to the pro membership now is a great time of year to do that. And so can you let people know, you know, if they do want to go ahead and upgrade to the pro membership, what special offers are going to be available for them?

When should they make sure to make a decision by and how can they take advantage of all of the advanced features that the Daily Pro membership offers?

Megan: Yes. So it's funny because I said I mentioned I did our Daily Drop Pro limited call this morning and I told everyone on the call, do not upgrade yet. We're mid November when we're recording this. I'm like, I know that sounds wild that I'm telling you all that like do not upgrade because I want you to mark your calendars because we have a sale coming up. So if you're listening to this in real time, our Black Friday sale, which is one of our favorite sales in the year, is starting on November 25th.

And with that Black Friday sale, you'll get a discount on your first annual membership fee. So usually Daily Drop Pro is $149 per year. With the Black Friday sale, you'll get it for $99 for your first year. And then you're also going to get, we love our perks and benefits around here. So you're going to get some custom daily drop compression packing cubes.

I'm team packing cube. And I don't know if you've ever used compression packing cubes. Total game changer. So we're very excited about this. Yeah, anyone who signs up during that Black Friday window is going to get those sent out to them as well.

Devon: Amazing. So like you mentioned, if anyone's listening to this real time, we're airing this as a bonus episode on the podcast. I'll make sure to leave links for you all in the episode description and the show notes for where you can get your Black Friday holiday sale promotion on a Daily Drop Pro membership. So I signed up for this with my own money when it first came out because I was like, this looks great, I wanna try this out as a user. And so just to let everybody else know, if you do wanna sign up for the Daily Drop Pro membership, I happened to sign up for it using my Chasing Business Preferred card.

And I am thrilled to announce that I checked my statement right before we got on this call today and it did code as travel. And so if you happen to have a Chasing Business Preferred, especially if you book yourself award travel as part of your business, Use that card for three times points. I would assume that other rewards cards that have a travel category would also get bonus points. I can't speak from personal experience to those because I've only bought one membership for myself so far. That was with the chasing business preferred.

But go ahead, use that card. Make it also a great points earning opportunity. Megan, thank you so much for joining me today, especially on very, very short notice when I reached out to you and said, Hey, I want to hear more about this really incredible platform. Can you please jump on a call with me in like 17 minutes? You were so gracious with your time.

I really appreciate it. Thank you for being here today and teaching us more about this platform. I'm really excited to see how users get so much value out of this and also how this continues to grow in the future. So thank you so much for your time today.

Megan: Thank you. So grateful for our conversation.

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Point Me to First Class. If you want more tips on turning your expenses into travel, visit pointmetofirstclass.com to learn more. See you next week.