Avianca LifeMiles sell for 3 cents each, but frequent 100% bonuses on purchasing miles have made the effective cost 1.5 cents each for most of us.

LifeMiles have a number of strategic uses like Lufthansa First Class between the United States and Europe for 72,500 miles (instead of 110,000 United miles) or hidden city tickets that get you from the United States to Japan for 12,500 miles.

LifeMiles are valuable enough that I've suggested converting Arrival miles to LifeMiles.

Starting March 1, 2015, you will earn award miles on United tickets according to the cost of the ticket instead of the distance flown.

Delta announced a nearly identical move a few months ago, and at the time my headline included "The Sky is Not Falling."

The sky is still not falling. For everyone except United elites, these changes will have very little impact.

Delta allows one open jaw per roundtrip award that you can use to see more cities on a single award and to unlock free one ways.

A simple, valid open jaw routing on Delta. The open jaw is between Amsterdam and Paris.

Delta allows an open jaw to straddle two regions, so that your outbound can go to Bangkok in Southeast Asia and your return can start from Sydney, Australia.

Update July 1, 2014:

The current offer on the Premier Miles & More® World MasterCard® is 20,000 miles after first purchase and payment of $79 annual fee.

Earn 20,000 award miles after your first purchase or balance transfer
Earn up to 15,000 award miles with balance transfers (1 mile per $1 transferred) within 30 days of account opening
Earn 2 award miles per $1 on ticket purchases directly from Miles &

Today is the first day of the fourth week of five weeks of discounted travel packages sponsored by the US Travel Association and American Express called Daily Getaways. Every weekday at 1 PM ET, a discounted travel package or packages will go on sale and will usually sell out in a few minutes.

Anatomy of an Award posts highlight real awards I’ve booked to show you the techniques needed to book your dream trip.
Recently the MileValue Award Booking Service was contacted by a client who was wondering if he was able to add a "free" one way from Hawaii back to his home in New York City in connection with a dream trip for two to the Maldives using US Airways Dividend Miles.

Most often we are asked to add a "free" or "cheaper" one way to Hawaii or elsewhere in the US at the end of an award but this client

I looked at the upcoming reservations in my United account. There are three trips:

Honolulu to Sao Paulo
Frankfurt to Los Angeles
Honolulu to Chicago

One trip was booked with United miles, one with US Airways miles (before US Airways lost United as a partner), and one with Lufthansa miles.

The award booked with United miles flies Asiana, Lufthansa, and Air Canada. The awards booked with the other types of miles both fly United planes.

These three awards illustrate two simple and counter-intuitive truths about frequent flyer miles that I want everyone to understand.

1.

Reader Milezjunkie has generously donated a pair of United Club passes that expire June 30, 2014.

Here are the United Club locations to check whether you’ll be able to use a pass on your next trip.

If you can use the passes between June 12, 2014 (because they will take a few days to get to you) and June 30, 2014, there are two ways to enter to win them!

Comment on this post with something you're grateful for.

Today is the last day of the third week of five weeks of discounted travel packages sponsored by the US Travel Association and American Express called Daily Getaways. Every weekday at 1 PM ET, a discounted travel package or packages will go on sale and will usually sell out in a few minutes.

I just applied for three cards:

Citi Executive American Airlines card
Alaska Airlines Personal Card
Alaska Airlines Business Card

I'll earn 165,000 very valuable miles after spending $10,000 in three months on these cards. Miles that I value at around $3,000. Miles that can get me back into Cathay Pacific First Class or Emirates First Class.

My Cathay Pacific First Class Bed

It had been about three-and-a-half months since my last applications, and I always like to wait at least 91+ days between applications.