At the beginning of the week I wrote about how I recently redeemed 45,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles, transferred from Ultimate Rewards, to fly Delta One between Atlanta, Georgia and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Virgin Atlantic is not in an airline alliance, but one of its partners is Delta.

That is a competitive price to fly to Southern South America in Business Class, with a type of mile that is also very easy to accrue as four out of the five major transferrable points--Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, ThankYou Points, and Marriott Rewards---transfer to Virgin Atlantic.

Over a month ago I wrote about the impending devaluation of the British Airways Avios program's prices to fly partner airlines. Since then, the speculated award prices have all been confirmed.

Here is the speculative chart I included in that original post:

Flight Distance	Current Economy Price	May 30 Economy Price
Zone 1: 1 - 650*	4,500	6,000
Zone 2: 651 - 1,151	7,500	9,000
Zone 3: 1,152 - 2,000	10,000	11,000
Zone 4: 2,001 - 3,000	12,500	13,000

Note those are just the most commonly booked BA Avios partner awards.

In May I flew from Atlanta to Buenos Aires in Delta One, and only had to spend 45,000 Ultimate Rewards--transferred to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club-- to do so.

The brand new Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Performance Business Credit Card is exciting. Its benefits package is loaded, the 80,000 point bonus is huge, and it makes getting a Companion Pass easy.

If you are eligible to open a business card, keep reading. If you're not sure you're eligible, don't move on so fast. Read the linked post and make sure whether you're eligible or not, because ignoring business credit cards leaves a lot of bonus miles and points on the table.

Update 6/24/19: Congratulations to Shawn McCarthy, winner of the giveaway!

Who wants free money to fly Southwest? This Saturday, June 22, I'll pick a winner. $101 fully transferrable (electontric) gift card up for grabs that doesn't expire.

Here's how to enter:

Comment on this post,Follow us on Facebook,Share this post on Facebook,

And/or follow us and retweet this tweet:

GIVING AWAY A $101 GIFT CARD ON SOUTHWEST AIRLINES. FOLLOW AND RETWEET TO WIN.

The public (standard) sign up bonus offer for the American Express Gold Card, which you will see by clicking that link, is 35,000 bonus Membership Rewards for spending $2,000 on the new card within three months of account opening. That's ok, but since you can only get the sign-up bonus on an Amex card once in a lifetime, you should know that the CardMatch Tool has been offering targeted customers 50,000 bonus Membership Rewards for the same minimum spending requirement of $2,000 in three months.

Last week I wrote about how and why you'd to want transfer Ultimate Rewards between accounts. If you haven't read it yet, stop and read before continuing with this post.

Chase issues seven credit cards that earn a travel reward currency called Ultimate Rewards. Not all Ultimate Rewards, however, are created equal.

This post will teach you:

the logistics behind moving Ultimate Reward points between accounts (your own, or between two people's living at the same address)

how to turn water to wine, doubling the value of more than half of these Chase cards' Ultimate Rewards via strategic point transfers

Step-by-Step

Step 1) Login to your Chase online account.

Step 2) Choose an account.

Give a warm welcome to Mike Hammari, who is writing a series of guest posts about a trip across the US on foot that he is currently in the middle of...very much in the middle of. He just wrote me today thanking me for finishing up a detail for this post that he couldn't because he was caught in a storm and had to store his computer. That's life literally on the road!

Mike is covering some of his hotel stays on this journey with points and wants to share his strategy with you guys.

In the spring of 2017 I opened a Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. At the beginning of this year, that card was product changed to the Marriott Bonvoy Amex Card.

The Mariott Bonvoy Amex Card is not open for applications. Those that have one were all product changed from a Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card.