British Airways collects fuel surcharges on almost all award redemptions. People constantly complain to me that their recent "free ticket" cost $650 or $1,000 or more in "taxes."

In fact, taxes make up a small share of the cash component of most British Airways awards.

Although United offers no stopovers on one way awards, the airline allows one stopover on roundtrip awards in addition to your destination. This can lead to all sorts of outsized value:

You can see 2-3 cities for the price of one on your next trip.
You can book a later Free One Way from your home airport to somewhere else in the United States or Canada after you next roundtrip for no extra miles.
You can book three related or unrelated one way awards together and save miles.

The brand new PointBreaks list allows us to book hotel rooms through October 31, 2016 for $30 per night.

Even if you’ve read other posts on the PointBreaks list, read this.

From now through September 19, 2016 you can earn 2,500 SPG points for adding an authorized user to your Starwood Preferred Guest®Credit Card from American Express.

United is giving away one billion miles to Untited Mileage Plus members in a sweepstakes. 

The only condition is that you are a United Mileage Plus member.
How to Enter the Sweepstakes
Between August 1, 2016 and September 30, 2016, you can enter:

1. automatically via purchases on your United Mileage Plus Explorer Card.

2. by logging in here on the billion mile giveaway homepage (not active yet, will be on August 1, 2016) and follow the instructions (fill out a form, I assume).

Travel from San Francisco, San Jose, and New York City to  Seoul, Hong Kong, and Tokyo for $399 in Air China economy.

Please welcome Sarah Page Maxwell as the newest member of the MileValue team. She will write several articles a week of the type you already enjoy on MileValue. She'll also bring her own voice and travel experiences to MileValue to complement mine.

Sarah Page has been living in Buenos Aires, Argentina for four years, and we met through the expat community there a few years ago.

T-Mobile's basic, contract-free, $50 plan offers free data and text messages in 140+ countries. I have had it for a few years, and I have been happy with it.

Unfortunately the free data abroad is at Edge speeds.

I am re-publishing this post as a reminder that as of October 1, 2016, Delta Skymiles prices for Business Class awards between North American and Australia, Asia, Africa, and South America are becoming more expensive. Economy awards between the United States and South Africa, the Southwest Pacific, and the Middle East are getting cheaper however. 

If you have been saving your Skymiles for a Business Class award to any of those areas, consider booking so your trip is completed before October 1.