Hey there, you're reading an outdated post! The updated series from April 2015 can be found here.

This is the fourteenth post in a monthlong series. Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes to complete. I am writing this for an audience of people who know nothing about frequent flier miles, and my goal is that by the end, you know enough to fly for free anywhere you want to go.

I like to earn miles for things I already do.

Per the LA Times, the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner routes will be:

Houston (IAH) to Amsterdam (AMS) starting December 4

Houston (IAH) to London (LHR) starting February 4

Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo (NRT) starting January 3

Los Angeles (LAX) to Shanghai (PVG) starting March 30

These are in addition to the already announced:

Denver (DEN) to Tokyo (NRT)

Houston (IAH) to Lagos (LOS)

Despite the announcement, united.com has not been updated to show the new aircraft on the routes.

I stumbled upon the news while researching a post about getting an award on the Dreamliner.

Also while researching the

Yesterday I talked about some great sweet spots on the US Airways chart for awards originating in South America. Maybe you thought that post was irrelevant for Americans.

But Americans can still get half the value of these sweet-spot awards by using open jaw itineraries.

US Airways sweet-spot awards can have tremendous value for Americans if they're employed as part of something I'll call a triangle award.

A triangle award is using three or more oneway itineraries to create a journey that includes two or more destinations.

Tom writes:

I've seen you mention wikipedia a couple of times when talking about building awards and figuring out where airlines fly - what exactly do you use wikipedia for?  Have you done a post about this?

I did write one post that touched on using wikipedia: Book Awards Like a Pro: Routing Ideas. But I'll answer the question of how I use wikipedia more fully.

For me, the two best places to get routing ideas are kayak.com and wikipedia.

I always like to scan award charts for sweet spots. I would define a sweet spot as one of three things:

An award that is much cheaper with one airline's miles than another airline's miles.  In this post I'll talk about EZE-BOG, CLO-BOG-EZE in Avianca business class costing 30k US Airways miles vs. 80k United miles.
An award that is much cheaper than a slightly different award on the same airline. And ideally the sweet spot award can be turned into the highly similar award cheaply.

There's an ongoing discussion in the miles-sphere about the value of a mile started when Gary and Ben disagreed about the value of a Hilton Point.

A few months ago I bought a ticket to the Chicago Seminars frequent-flier conference. I immediately booked my flights from LAX to Chicago.

On the way there, I went with a direct flight to Midway, so I could have easy access to the city for a night with friends before the conference.

On the return, I went with a Virgin America flight from O'Hare. Not only is the conference right next to O'Hare, but Virgin America has a better coach product than American or United.

At the time of booking, I snagged a good front aisle seat, 5D.

A few weeks ago I got this letter in the mail:

Always read your junk mail from credit card companies!

My offer is 3x American Airlines miles on purchases at supermarkets, restaurants, pharmacies, and gas stations up to a maximum of 2,500 bonus miles. Since I would normally earn 1x at those places on this card, I take it to mean that I get my first $1,250 at 3x miles.

I went to the website, typed in my "Invitation Number" and received confirmation I was registered.

Hey there, you're reading an outdated post! The updated series from April 2015 can be found here.

This is the twelfth post in a monthlong series. Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes to complete.

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process.