Find Flights for Me Recap: Week ending 2/15/26

It’s still worth registering, but Marriott’s 1Q promo is not as good as year’s past. For Marriott stays between February 25 to May 10, earn 2,500 bonus points per stay + 1 bonus elite night credit (for status & lifetime qualification) for every brand you stay at. Direct link to register on Marriott’s site here.

Prior years had a 1,000 bonus points + 1 elite night credit per night.

If you don’t see the promotion in your account, you will have to call Marriott to have them manually register you. This is a global promotion so everyone is eligible to register.

Here is a graphic of all the brands under the Marriott Bonvoy program. There are 38 different brands. Be aware certain property types are not eligible for the promotion including “BVLGARI, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, Marriott Executive Apartments®, and owner-occupied weeks at Marriott Vacation Club®, Grand Residences by Marriott®, Marriott Grand Residence Club, Sheraton Vacation Club, Westin Vacation Club, The Ritz-Carlton Club, The St. Regis Residence Club, and The Luxury Collection Residence Club”

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American Airlines’ status qualifying year is through the end of February vs. other US-based airlines ending in December. You have 13 days left to earn enough Loyalty Points (LPs) to qualify or requalify for status. If you are right on the edge of qualifying, there are a few options that are somewhat cost-effective.

Personally, I am a few thousand LPs away from AA Platinum status (75k LPs to qualify) because it provides Oneworld Sapphire status. This means I can pick seats for free on Qatar Airways business class awards (they started charging for it in November 2025), free seat selection in British Airways business class, and Oneworld lounge access when I am flying internationally in economy.

Options to help earn loyalty points

It’s that time of year where we add and subtract a bunch of numbers, tell the government what number we think is correct, and hope the government doesn’t disagree. Tax season.

Paying taxes is also a potential way to meet minimum spending for sign up bonuses. Depending on your estimated tax bill, you might want to open up cards that provide higher bonuses but require higher spending. Think Amex Biz Plat/Gold, Chase Biz Reserve, Venture X Biz.

However, there is a fee to use a credit card when paying the IRS, and likely your local government as well. The IRS charges a 1.75% or 1.85% fee on personal cards and 2.89% to 2.95% fee on business cards. You can generally get around the business card fee and pay the lower personal fee if you use Paypal as your payment method (which you would link to pull from your business card).

For full details around paying the IRS with credit cards, check out Frequent Miler’s 2026 tax guide.

Additionally, if you are someone who uses self-service software or websites such as Turbo Tax, Tax Act, Tax Slayer, etc., you can potentially get cash back (or points back) by using a shopping portal such as Rakuten. There are also credit card offers for statement credit or additional points earning rates that can be stacked with the credit card portal discounts.

The Chase and AMEX offers stack with a cashback portal offer such as Rakuten. If you haven’t signed up for Rakuten yet, you can get $50 (or 5k Amex/Bilt points) after spending $50 with my referral link here. You can shop across 3,500+ stores and earn cash back for shopping online. Details on Rakuten on my blog post here as well.

There’s currently a 40% bonus for transferring Chase points to Virgin Atlantic. This runs through February 28, 2026.

Here are some sweet spots to book. All costs are one-way and priced before any transfer bonus.

Fly to Lima, Peru for as low as 36k points one-way when taking advantage of the Chase 40% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic. Fly LATAM business class between Atlanta and Lima with dates this summer through the winter season.

Flights are 50k points before any transfer bonus and ~$56-86 in tax/fees each way.

Dates with 2+ seats

ATL-LIM
March: 16, 18, 23-25, 30
April: 13, 14, 18, 19, 21, 27, 28
May: None
June: 1, 11, 15, 16, 22
July: 5, 8, 12-14, 16, 21
August: 9, 24, 30, 31
September: 6, 7, 21, 26, 29
October: 4, 6, 19, 25-27, 29
November: 1, 2, 5-9, 11, 12, 15-18, 23, 24, 26-29
December: None
January 2027: 8-12

LIM-ATL
March: 5, 10, 12, 17, 18, 24, 25
April: 2, 6, 8-10, 15, 16, 21, 23, 24
May: 5, 20, 21
June: 2, 3, 10, 16
July: 9, 10, 15, 17, 18, 22, 23, 27, 29-31
August: 3, 6, 7, 12, 14, 22, 31
September: 10, 15, 24, 29
October: 1, 7, 9, 13, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, 29, 31
November: 2, 4, 5, 9, 11-14, 16, 18-20, 22, 23, 25
December: None
January 2027: 8, 10-12

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