Scott Barronton (00:00)
If you're anything like us, you love a great deal. Especially when it comes to travel. Welcome to Travel Deals Thursday, where each week we dig through hundreds of emails, alerts, and travel sites to bring you a few of the best deals we found on cruises, flights, hotels, and all-inclusives. So let's dig into the deals.
So this first deal is not one in the usual sense
But it can end up being a great deal that can save you a lot of money, which is having airline status. And this particular airline status is one that I can speak to in the value that we get out of it continuously. And that's with Delta.
Yeah, so recently we have tried to do all these flight deals and we have done a few, but it's just really hard when you have status on a certain airline and it just makes it that much better of a deal. And so right now Delta is actually having a SkyMiles medallion status match challenge. And Scott, I think that is pretty rare. And this time they are matching Southwest elite flyers.
to the gold or platinum medallion status for free. And the great thing about Delta is when you have these statuses, you can get things like free check bags and then same day confirmed changes, know, like higher mileage that you get. I there's just, there's tons of perks. And recently we have both gotten upgraded on flights that can give you value of hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
And so our next flight's coming up. We're just like, we're going to book Delta. So that we get a lot of those perks. Yeah. And I think they're really just going after Southwest. Southwest has recently made some changes with their program and charging for bags where the bags used to fly free. They're doing, know, reserve seating where it used to be kind of, you got to
just line up and get on board the plane and choose your seat. So I think a lot of airlines are going after those Southwest customers and Delta is not holding back on this one. So if you have been doing some of the things to get the Southwest status and flying them a lot, I would definitely do this status match challenge and we will put the link in the show notes and then we will also keep our eye out. So listen out here for other status matches because they can be
very, very valuable, not just the airline, but the hotel.
Scott Barronton (02:54)
Okay. And so this next deal, we're going to talk about some, what celebrity cruises is advertising as last minute deals. But the good news is that you do have a little bit of time. So if you're listening to this a day later from when we release it, don't worry. You've got a little bit of extra time to book it, but these deals are all in celebrities concierge class
It has their all included rates, which is the classic drinks package, an unlimited basic wifi package, and the rates are even less if you don't want either of these included. So you can even get a better deal. So Melissa, let's talk about what the deals actually are. And even if you don't want to do that concierge class too, right? You could even get a cheaper deal. So this is like they're next to the highest class.
So like Scott said all in September, so let's start with there's one September 7th. I'm leaving out of Miami, Florida It visits some ports like Grand Cayman Mexico Jamaica and the perfect day at Coco Key and that rate all included is 1771 per person crazy that is crazy cheap price and then there there's actually four sailings so they all leave
I guess that's on a Sunday.
Yeah, those are on some they're on Sundays. So it'd be like Sunday to Saturday sailings. So all of these leave on Sunday. So it's September 7th, the 14th, the 21st and the 28th. And, they're going to different islands in the Caribbean on each of these sailings. But we're talking about the most expensive one is 17.
$171. Melissa, that is easily a $3,000 cruise. Yeah, because it's like above just like the Veranda. And so if you've looked at cruises, like we're about to go on Alaska cruise, that was much more than this for what you're getting there. So this is valid for bookings made until August the 11th. So...
You do go ahead and go and book that. And here's the one thing that we would say, this would be our recommendation, is yes, this is during hurricane season. So get some travel insurance. Whether you buy that with your cruise package, we actually do a year long travel package that covers any kind of travel. And so you can look at all kinds of different options for that kind of thing as well. So that's what we would say is, because the thing is, is there could be...
It could be like, this is a great deal and there's absolutely no storm. Yeah. And remember these boats, they're not going to sail them straight into the storm. if there's a storm down in the Caribbean, they're going to change their itinerary up a little bit and they're going to go around it and stay out of that.
Just remember, this is a great opportunity and these are phenomenal rates on a really good cruise line. This is Celebrity Cruises.
Scott Barronton (06:51)
Well, let's talk about the third deal, Okay. So this one is very exciting. This is probably going to be something that a lot of people don't hear about. so the Bucket List family has bought some very small boutique, unique island resort type places. And they're calling it the Bucket List collection. And so for this particular one, it's a private island in Tonga, Montu Island. And so right now,
they are offering $750 a night off. And it's valid for stays from August the 11th until October 15th, but it's all inclusive. So that includes your meals, whale swims, cause that's the big thing there. And then transfers from the airport. And the other cool thing about this is that they are actually gonna do a call with anybody who books this.
and visits during this time period because they are going to kind of reimagine this resort as well. So just all in all, if you can make those dates work and that's something of interest to you, like if we had time to do that, I think I would figure out how to make that work. We just don't have the time in this timeframe because that would be very exciting to me. So again, we're gonna put the link to that.
But that's just a really, really unique opportunity at a really good price, $750 off a night. so we're going to end it with another cruise, but this one is very different. So this one is on Viking ocean cruises and it's in search of Northern lights. And so if you have ever wanted to go and chase the Northern lights,
Here's a great opportunity to do it on a really amazing cruise line. And so it's a 13 day cruise from Bergen to London, and that's January through March of 2026. It's offering free airfare. All gratuities are included. And it's right in the prime season for viewing the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights.
And those sailings are January 17th through March 18th. that was about the time that we were in Iceland last year. And those Northern lights were off the charts spectacular. absolutely phenomenal. And so that's why we wanted to highlight this one just because it's a unique way to do a cruise.
see the Northern Lights, be in some different places. And I think it's just a fantastic deal as well.
So you can book these deals through the direct link in the show notes or go to
sunxtravel.com for help booking these deals for your next trip. Just go there and fill out the form and then you can specify, hey, I want to book this deal or I need some more information about this deal. Yeah. So once again, sunxtravel, that's sun, letter X, traveldotcom
