Your current situation: You heard that there are some cards with lucrative limited time welcome offers. Pretty awesome.

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

But you haven't redeemed many hotel rewards before and are a little intimidated about where to begin.

I tweeted this deal first from @MileValueAlerts. Follow @MileValueAlerts on Twitter and follow these directions to get a text message every time I tweet from that account.

Gogo Inflight Wifi can be annoyingly expensive for the short amount of time you want to use it. Those with Boingo accounts used to be able to access Gogo Inflight Wifi for free. That changed in June of 2014. Maybe you just need to hop online to check flight information, or something equally important and brief. If you have an iPhone this hack is for you.

Below I've outlined simple steps for accessing Gogo Inflight Wifi on your next flight without paying.

The Starwood Preferred Guest personal and business credit cards from American Express come with 35,000 bonus Starpoints for spending $5,000 and $8,000 respectively in the first six months of card membership. These offers end tomorrow, April 5, 2017.

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

The normal sign up bonus is 25,000 points per card.

Alliant Credit Union has come out with a new cashback credit card that offers 3% cash back on all purchases for the first year of card membership and 2.5% after that.

The only other cards I'm aware of that earn the same or a better cashback rate longterm are limited to a small market. They are the:

USAA Limitless Cashback Rewards card, which earns 2.5% (w/no annual fee) on all purchases. See who's eligible to become a USAA member
Marukai Premium JCB Card which earns 3% on all purchases (w/low $15 annual fee).

Through April 30, 2017, transfers from hotel partners to Etihad Guest will earn a 20% bonus.

Your best transfer options are probably between Starwood Preferred Guest and Etihad, or purchasing a Marriott Hotel + Air Travel Package that contains Etihad miles.

Normally, 20,000 SPG points = 25,000 Etihad miles (thanks to the everyday 5k bonus you get on transferring in increments of 20k), so with the current transfer bonus, 20,000 SPG points = 30,000 Etihad miles.
As One Mile at a Time pointed out, normally for Marriott Hotel + Air Package 2, you'd pay 270,000

The 35,000 point bonuses on the SPG personal and business cards end Wednesday (April 5, 2017.) This is the highest sign up bonus we’ve ever seen on the cards, tied with the same bonus that was offered last year at this time.

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

Meet the spending requirements on both the personal and business SPG cards, and you'll have 83,000 SPG points, which can be transferred to 249,000 Marriott points

A week ago I wrote about the changes coming to the American Express Platinum card March 30. It's April 2, so those changes have now taken effect.

Thanks to Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott's merger, SPG members can choose to link their account to either Marriott Rewards or Ritz Carlton Rewards.

Last September when this shift occurred, One Mile at a Time wrote a post about which account to link your SPG account to. It depends on your preferences.

I am planning a trip to Europe that begins in Madrid, departing South America when it starts to grow cold down here and warm up in your hemisphere. I recently booked a British Airways Avios award to get myself there from São Paulo, Brazil flying Iberia Business Class on an A330.
Looking at My Options
A flight from South America to Europe is a long one. If I could help it, I decided I wanted a Business Class flight.