Travel Miles 101 Roundup – Week Ending 12/4/15

We hope you all enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday! We took the week off from our regular roundup post, so this is actually a roundup of interesting articles we found over the last two (fairly quiet) weeks in the world of the travel rewards:

Essential Reading:

• The Points Guy: 5 Sweet Spots in the New American Airlines Award Chart – While there were of course some disappointing devaluations in the new AA award chart, this article highlights 5 new sweet spots including the sub-500 mile flight for 7,500 AA miles one-way.
• The Points Guy: United’s Offering Discounted Awards to Europe for Winter 2016 – If you have United elite status or hold the co-branded United credit card, you have access to discounted Saver award seats to Europe using United miles for as low as 45,000 miles round-trip.  These flights have to be booked by 12/8 for travel 1/11/16 – 3/10/16, so if you’re interested, make sure you jump on this ASAP.
• Travel is Free: 5 Reasons You Have to Use AwardWallet – Drew makes a compelling case to use Award Wallet to track your points and miles.
• MileValue: Earn 5,000+ Bonus Starpoints (worth $125) from Stacking Bonuses on One Stay –  Some nice ways to earn ultra-valuable Starwood Starpoints from two main bonus offers: 1) 2,015 Starpoints for a December stay 2) 2,500 for “using SPG Keyless and paying with an American Express by February 29, 2016.”
• Frugal Travel Guy: Best Features of Each Major U.S. Airline Program – Informative article touching on major pros and cons of the six major airline programs: Alaska, American, Delta, Jetblue, Southwest and United.
• Million Mile Secrets: Save 4,000 British Airways Avios Points for Short Flights with this Trick! – Learn how to save points by transferring BA Avios to Iberia Avios for additional sweet spots.  Especially valuable with the upcoming BA devaluation!
• The Points Guy: How to Search for SkyTeam Award Availability – To our detriment, the SkyTeam Alliance often gets overlooked in the travel rewards world (our bias as well); this article shows you the best ways to search for SkyTeam award availability.
• MileValue: Comparison of United, Delta and American Airlines 2016 Award Charts – Great side-by-side comparisons of the 3 major award charts.
• Frugal Travel Guy: How to Book a One-Way Singapore Airlines Award with a Stopover – Little known info: “Singapore Airlines allows one free stopover on round-trip awards and up to three additional stopovers on round-trip awards for $100 each. Additionally, Singapore is one of the few airlines that allows a stopover on one-way awards.”