Whether it’s eating a croissant near the Eiffel Tower, skiing in the Alps or riding in a gondola across Venice canals, Europe offers a lot of reasons to visit. In fact, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom were in the top 10 most visited destinations by international travelers in 2019, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

It’s no wonder that many travelers seek award flights to Europe.

With a new year comes new opportunities. There will always be the opportunity to earn new points, but today we want to share some new (and some soon to be gone) updates to the Marriott Bonvoy program.

Most of these changes relate to your ability to earn status. Marriott status can be worthwhile if you find yourself staying in Marriott properties often.

If you’re like me, Marriott elite status doesn’t start to be worth it until you’ve earned Platinum Elite. That’s when you’ll get free breakfast and are eligible for suite upgrades.

I’m not gonna lie, when it comes to airline programs, I think that American Airlines AAdvantage program is one of the best out there. There are a lot of great ways to redeem American Airlines AAdvantage miles, from economy to first class.

The biggest drawback to AAdvantage miles is that currently, no credit card flexible rewards currency directly transfers to American Airlines. This can make it appear to be a bit difficult to accumulate AAdvantage miles compared to other mileage programs out there.

Don’t let that stop you from pursuing AAdvantage miles.

You signed up for a credit card, met the minimum-spending requirements and earned a welcome bonus. You’ve done everything the credit-card issuer told you to do to take your first free flight on points, but you just can’t find any award space.

Don’t worry. This happens all the time.

Before you throw away the credit card that didn’t meet your quite reasonable travel expectations, let me teach you a valuable trick.

Let’s talk about Avios.

Three airlines—Aer Lingus, British Airways and Iberia—use this rewards currency, yet they’re separate award programs. Same, same, but different. And, because the programs are different, they also use their own award charts and follow their own rules.

Although there are three loyalty programs that use Avios, in this article, we’ll focus on two: British Airways Executive Club and Iberia Plus.

Hey MileValue Family,

Many of you take the time to read each and every article we publish. For that, we are truly grateful. Some have even taken advantage of our free credit card consultations. But today I wanted to take the time to highlight one of our lesser known services, our award booking service.

One of the biggest challenges in points and miles is putting your miles to good use.

Let’s face it, 2020 has been a pretty crappy year for travel. If you’re like me, you likely had to cancel at least one trip. I have more than five trips that were planned for this year, and even some for early next year that I had to cancel.

Cancelling trips sucks. You often look forward to it for so long, only to wave goodbye to a trip you may have spent a year or so planning.

However, now is really the time to start planning future travel.

Full disclaimer, we aren’t psychics here at MileValue.

Points and miles are a great tool to reduce the cost of a vacation. They cover the cost of your flights and sometimes hotels and offer an opportunity to travel more and pay less.

Air Canada’s loyalty program, Aeroplan, has been involved in so much drama in the last few years, any telenovela would be jealous of the twists and the turns.

For about 25 years, Aimia Inc. operated Aeroplan independently of Air Canada. The Montreal-based carrier planned to launch a new program but eventually bought Aeroplan back from Aimia for 450 million Canadian dollars in 2018. Now that Aeroplan has returned to Air Canada, the program underwent many changes, and we have the final result.

The program has migrated to a new system, but luckily everyone’s miles are intact.

Have you started your holiday shopping yet? Or are you just gearing up for the busy holiday season? In any case, read this before you buy anything else and you’ll see your points and miles balances grow thanks to the things you were going to buy anyway.

It always surprises me how many people haven’t heard about the shopping portals or don’t maximize all the opportunities available today. So I am on a mission to stop people from leaving money, or points and miles, on the table.