Very interesting comments. I think there's been an easing and more Lufthansa space is bookable with US Airways miles, but certainly not all as the original article and post title suggest.

US Airways is no longer blocking Lufthansa award space as far as I can tell.

United massively devalued its award chart two weeks ago, especially for premium cabin international awards on partner airlines, which have been the bulk of my United awards.

I caught some flak because it didn't bother me too much.

I've written several posts about Explorer Awards from American Airlines. My favorites are:

American Airlines Explorer Award: The Rules
The Start of My Anatomy of an Award Series on a Real Explorer Award: Planning a RTW Trip
My Post about Getting the AA Miles Needed for a Business Round-the-World Trip

American Airlines Explorer Awards are by far the cheapest option for round-the-world awards and a great option for hopping around one part of the world with many stops.

Explorer Awards are also incredible for combining many trips onto a single award at a huge discount.

Update: See the comments for reports that fuel surcharges are being collected by JAL on Emirates flights.

Yesterday I panned the Emirates frequent flyer program for its exorbitant miles prices and fuel surcharges to enjoy Emirates Business and First Class.

But flying Emirates First Class on an A380 is awesome--there's an onboard shower and bar--so I want to give everyone the cheapest ways to use miles to put a truly luxury experience within reach.

There are two programs that offer Emirates First Class and Business Class

Rocketmiles is back with another excellent promotion. First time customers who book a hotel room by November 30, 2013 and check out by April 1, 2014 will receive 3,000 bonus United miles on top of the normal miles earned on the stay.

For those who don’t know, Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site. Hotel booking sites have huge margins, but they can’t usually undersell the price on the hotel’s site, so most simply offer the same price without differentiation.

Rocketmiles is totally different.

Many of the offers originally published below have expired and been removed.

The newest Membership Rewards airline partner is Emirates Skyward miles.

According to Bloomberg, AA/US have reached a deal with the Department of Justice, so that the latter will stop objecting to the merger.

I've long maintained that I expected the merger to happen.

Some of the card offers below have expired so their links are removed. Click here for the top current credit card sign up bonuses.

Barclaycard is now offering cardmembers their real FICO credit score for free. This is huge news because in the past, it has been difficult to get your real FICO credit score for free.

Getting your credit report for free is easy. Go to annualcreditreport.com and request all three reports for free once a year--or one every four months.

United has announced a 20% discount on economy class awards from the US to Europe:

Roundtrip awards booked between now an November 19, 2013
for flights flown between January 13 and March 11, 2014
on itineraries wholly operated by United and United Express flights
will cost only 48k miles roundtrip, a 20% discount on the normal 60k price.

United ran a nearly identical promotion last year, so maybe this is becoming a yearly occurrence.

I know many of us are trying to burn United miles because of its recent devaluation, so this promotion might be a good way to see