By Amy M. Gardner and Keith R. Sbiral

This is Part III of our series on how we used miles and points to make possible a 10 week, round-the-world trip in 2018. 

If you missed Part I, you can check it out here.You can find Part II (on airlines) here. 

In Part III we will discuss hotels and accommodations.  For more information on photography, photographers, and places we traveled, please check out reddotbluedot.com.

Welcome to Part II of a three part series about why and how Amy M. Gardner and Keith R. Sbiral planned a heavily subsidized 10 week round-the-world trip to 15 countries, thanks to the power of miles and points. We hope you take this story as inspiration to travel more! Check out Amy and Keith's content and beautiful photography featured on their blog Red Dot Blue Dot, which you'll learn was of central importance on this journey.

This post focuses on the planning and execution of flights.

Did you know that it only costs 90 to 95k Virgin Atlantic miles to fly All Nippon Airways Business Class between the United States and Japan? And only 110 to 120k to fly in ANA First Class?

Those are roundtrip mileage prices. Not one way.

To give you some perspective, it costs 160k United miles to fly ANA Business roundtrip US to Japan, or 180k United miles roundtrip in ANA First.

At the end of December, I sent out a request for reader contributions. I want to thank everyone who reached out to me in January with their ideas and stories. Your enthusiasm is inspiring! I am happy to say that I got enough of a response that I plan on publishing plenty of reader experiences in the future.

I'm bumping this up to the top of the blog roll as a reminder to make a change by TODAY. You must choose the designated airline for any Platinum card (including the Business Platinum), and the Hilton Aspire card (which comes with up to $250 incidental fee credit) by today as well if you want it to be different than last year's. 

One of the most valuable benefits of the Platinum Card® from American Express is up to $200 in statement credits for incidental fees with your designated qualifying airline every calendar year.

This offer has expired. Instead, the Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business card now comes with 50,000 bonus Spark miles for spending $4,500 on purchases within first 3 months.

The Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business card comes with a gigantic 200,000 Spark Mile sign up bonus that is marketed as ending today, January 28, 2019.

I left off with my family and I driving south from Tuscany towards Pienza. Our route was scenic and not direct on purpose. You can take the highways to get places faster but why do so when half the enjoyment in this part of Italy are the drives?

If you haven't, read Part I of this trip report before continuing below. I thought this would be a two-part series, but I underestimated how much I have to say about Tuscany... so lucky you as there will be three installments instead of two. Today, Pienza and the surrounding area.

Two summers ago I spent a month in Italy, primarily on the Adriatic coast, and told you all about it in a series of trip reports:

Trip Report: Puglia (Apulia) Italy Part I 
Trip Report: Puglia (Apulia) Italy Part II
Trip Report: Puglia (Apulia) Italy Part III

The coast of Puglia's stunning waters. Spiaggia de Porto Verde.

I went back to Italy last summer, this time with my boyfriend and parents.

It's time to take that Citi Prestige Card you forgot about out of your sock drawer and put it back in your wallet. I'm sure there are quite a few of you who kept this card around for it's Fourth Hotel Night Free benefit, as those who pay to stay at hotels can save thousands of dollars from it every year that easily make up for the $450 annual fee. That benefit is being devalued later in the year, at which point you may want to reconsider whether keeping the card longterm is worth it.

UPDATE 12/3, 10:25 AM ET: All upgrade codes for existing users have been exhausted. The upgrade code for new users is still active and can be used nine more times. 

At the bottom of this post are 19 free upgrade codes to six months of Award Wallet Plus. 10 are for new users, and nine will work for anyone.

Award Wallet is the free way to track all your miles and points balances and store login information for those programs in one place.