I am a lodging cheapskate. My ideal trip length is four weeks, so hotel bills would add up quickly. Right now I haven't been in the US since February, so I've had to come up with creative ways to sleep cheaply.

But just because I'm a cheapskate doesn't mean I don't want to stay at fancy hotels sometimes too. I'm jealous that Rookie Alli has two nights at any Hilton worldwide.

Update: American Airlines got rid of its RTW awards, so the best way to book RTW awards now is elucidated here.

Key Links:

Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard®
Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express
Explorer Award chart (eliminated April 2014)
Explorer Awards: The Rules (eliminated April 2014)

Combined, the cards offer enough American Airlines miles for a round-the-world business class award with up to 15 stopovers.

You could take this trip in business

American Airlines has a great promotional award price to Hawaii this fall of only 15,000 miles each way in economy if you book by September 13 and fly September 11 to December 17.

American has several services to Hawaii.

Honolulu <-> Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago
Kahului <-> Dallas and Los Angeles
Kona <-> Los Angeles
Lihue <-> Los Angeles

How good is this deal? Are there currently better deals to Hawaii?

If you have a stash of Star Alliance frequent flyer miles, United.com is a great place to start planning your award trip, but it's far from perfect.

I've detailed in the past how United's site will display "phantom" availability. Award space displays as bookable, but when you attempt to reserve the space online you will receive an error message. Then if you try to call in to book the trip--whether with United or another Star Alliance partner's miles to book the trip (e.g.

Fuel dumping, at least among people searching for a deal, is the practice of purchasing a ticket in such a way that fuel surcharges are not added. Paid tickets have three components: base fare, government taxes, and fuel surcharges.

On some tickets, the majority of the price is made up of fuel surcharges, so dumping them from the price makes the ticket far cheaper.

Here's page 712 of the FlyerTalk thread on the topic if you want to know more.

Two days ago, American Airlines added fuel surcharges to Malaysia Airlines awards.

Maybe some booze will make your next economy flight more bearable!

Super-generous Jeff wants to give away his Southwest drink coupons. He has eight coupons that expire December 31, 2013, all of which will go to one winner.

Comment for a chance to win.

British Airways' two daily flights between New York-JFK and London-City on all-business-class A318s have incredible award space next June.

It's a route and plane that fascinates me, and one way for 40k Avios + $438 seems like an OK deal for a fantastic product, level of service, and the opportunity to arrive at London-City instead of Heathrow or Gatwick.

What's different about the flight? What is the award space picture? Is it worth the fuel surcharges?

The Flight

British Airways operates two daily flights between New York-JFK and London-City.

The Points Guys says he has an official statement from the American Airlines PR department:

"Last night, in a routine effort to better align American to industry standards with other global carriers, American began collecting carrier-imposed surcharges on tickets for travel on other carrier’s metal.  This change was intended for revenue tickets only, but the surcharge was erroneously added to AAdvantage award redemptions on other airlines as well.  Except in the cases of British Airways and Iberia (where American currently collects these surcharges), no carrier-imposed surcharges will be applied when redeeming AAdvantage miles for award travel on other carriers.  Any

Update at 12:45 PM ET: The Points Guys says he has an official statement from the American Airlines PR department:

"Last night, in a routine effort to better align American to industry standards with other global carriers, American began collecting carrier-imposed surcharges on tickets for travel on other carrier’s metal.  This change was intended for revenue tickets only, but the surcharge was erroneously added to AAdvantage award redemptions on other airlines as well.  Except in the cases of British Airways and Iberia (where American currently collects these surcharges), no carrier-imposed surcharges will be applied when redeeming AAdvantage miles for

The 25,000 Starpoint bonus for opening the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and spending $5k on the card in the first six months is one of my absolute favorite bonus offers.