I recently booked my friends a roundtrip award to Chile and Argentina, so that they can explore Patagonia next January for only 50,000 American Airlines miles each.

Lake District of Patagonia near Bariloche, Argentina

The award should have cost 60k miles each, but I saved them 20k miles by applying the same trick I used in the post 20k Miles to All of Europe All Summer, and I also added two free oneways onto the award, so that they already have half of their next vacation to Hawaii booked.

Here's a visual representation of

Southwest Rapid Rewards points used to be worth 1.69 cents each. Starting March 31, 2014, they will be worth about 1.44 cents each.

What is the exact devaluation?

Among the Six Types of Frequent Flyer Miles, Southwest has a fixed-value program. For every dollar of the "Wanna Get Away?" base fare, you have to spend 60 Rapid Rewards for an award ticket.

So a $220 Southwest ticket with a $200 base fare would be 12,000 Rapid Rewards + $5 in taxes as an award.

A card offer in this post has expired so its links have been removed. Click here for the top current credit card sign up bonuses.

We're three months away from Christmas. If you know you want to visit family over Christmas, and you haven't yet booked your ticket, it is not too late to get home for Christmas for free.

But you have to start planning now. What's the plan?

First let's talk about how you shouldn't try to get home for free.

I get a lot of emails that start something like:

"We want to take our dream trip in summer 2015 to _______. What type of miles should we be collecting?"

While I admire that level of planning, there is a preliminary question.

Today is the last part of my three part series on my personal awards for travel between mid-2012 and mid-2014.

Which of My Personal Awards Could You Have Booked? Part 1
Which of My Personal Awards Could You Have Booked?

Today is the last part of my three part series on my personal awards for travel between mid-2012 and mid-2014.

Which of My Personal Awards Could You Have Booked? Part 1
Which of My Personal Awards Could You Have Booked?

Yesterday I published the first part of a three-part look at 17 awards I've booked myself for travel between mid-2012 and mid-2014.

Which of My Personal Awards Could You Have Booked? Part 1

Today I'll look at five more of the awards I've booked myself that range from economy flights in Argentina to First Class flights to my favorite award ever.

The awards I'll discuss in this post

How many of these five awards could you have booked? How did I book them?

7.

Update: The offer to email me later in this post resulted in free drinks at the 2013 Chicago Seminars. The offer is now dead.

I book frequent-flyer-mile awards professionally through the MileValue Award Booking Service. I know how to book complex awards and squeeze every inch out of my miles. But do I routinely do it for myself?

I think I've booked myself 17 award for travel from May 2012 through March 2014.

There is currently a 40% transfer bonus on Membership Rewards transfers to Virgin America.

According to Airline Route, United will fly its Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Houston to London from December 20, 2013 to May 5, 2014.

I like to track the routes of Dreamliners that fly to the US because they're a great way for beginners to get a state-of-the-art business class flights that are easy redemptions.

This route from Houston to London has the best business class award availability I've seen on any United Dreamliner route.

When is the award space?