Until today (June 3, 2016), Starwood Preferred Guest personal or business credit cardholders can buy up to 30,000 Starpoints with up to a 35% discount on the normal purchase price.

This is about the math behind one of my hotel stays. But the same concept applies to all your hotel stays and flights when deciding between an award and cash.

This week I stayed in the Holiday Inn Express in Belgrade, Serbia. The hotel came to my attention because it was a PointBreaks hotel, which means I could buy points for about $29 and book it "for free" with those points. But I ended up paying $61 for a paid night instead to get a big bonus from the current IHG Rewards promo.

If you act today (June 2, 2016), you can get a 135% bonus on the purchase of Avianca LifeMiles.

You have to register for an extra 10% bonus on top of the automatic 125% bonus by entering your LifeMiles number here.

This week I stayed one night in the Holiday Inn Express Belgrade - City in Serbia.

This hotel was on the current PointBreaks, though it has sold out for PointBreaks.

The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®

I get questions all the time like this:
Hi, I have a million American Express Membership Rewards/Chase Ultimate Rewards/Citi ThankYou Points, what is the best transfer partner to go from [here] to [there.]
There are basically two ways to answer the question:

Look at award charts of all the points' transfer partners and then look for award space using the cheapest miles. I used this method to suggest to my friend that he transfer his Membership Rewards to Flying Blue miles to get from Denver to Tel Aviv.

Through Friday (June 3, 2016), you can buy IHG Rewards Club points with a 100% bonus.

The Alaska Airlines card from Bank of America now offers 30,000 bonus Alaska miles after you spend $1,000 on purchases in your first 90 days from account opening.

The previous public offer had been 25,000 miles for a long time with frequent 30,000 mile offers and an occasional 40,000 mile offer, but Alaska Airlines announced its plan to go to a 30,000 mile bonus this spring in a February stock market filing.
Quick Facts

Sign Up Bonus: 30,000 Alaska miles after $1,000 in spending in the first 90 days
Category Bonuses: 3

I was almost the star of a Quilmes Copa America commercial in Argentina. Quilmes is the biggest beer brand in Argentina.

The American Airlines eShopping portal is offering 50 miles per dollar spent at magazines.com through today (May 27, 2016.)

Portals are a way to earn extra miles. You start your online shopping at a portal, click a link that adds cookies to your browser to prove you started in the portal, and then purchase things on other sites at normal price while getting bonus miles.

Portals generally offer small miles per dollar at stores that have small margins. For instance, you can get 1 bonus mile per dollar at walmart.com through the American Airlines portal.