As time carries on Marriott and Starwood Preferred Guest are slowly altering their loyalty programs to prepare for integration. This morning Marriott announced a few new changes that will affect both Marriott and SPG members.
A Brief Catch-Up
Marriott and Starwood Preferred Guest have been in the process of merging since September 2016 when Marriott announced the purchase of SPG. We were given the ability to link accounts and transfer points between programs (3 Marriott points to 1 SPG Point and vice versa) and elite status match with impressive speed, immediately following the purchase.

Avianca LifeMiles is offering a bonus of up to 145% on purchased miles through November 27, 2017 (this Monday). You'll need to sign into your Avianca account to view the sale. You can buy up to 200,000 LifeMiles during the sale and get up to 290,000 bonus miles (for a max total of 490,000 miles). This is nearly as cheap as it gets. The cheapest I’ve ever seen LifeMiles was 1.32 cents each. But what sets this sale apart and makes it better than past sales is that bonus is not tiered.

Many airlines are having sales today. Here's a roundup:
American Airlines: 1.77 Cent Miles
American Airlines is offering up to 120,000 bonus miles for miles purchases made by Monday November 27, 2017. If you buy the largest amount possible, you can get the miles for as little as 1.77 cents each. We saw them on sale for 1.72 cents in July, so this isn't even the best deal of the year.

Bonus miles are tiered based on how many miles you purchase.

I tweeted this deal first from @MileValueAlerts. Follow @MileValueAlerts on Twitter and follow these directions to get a text message every time I tweet from that account.

Edit November 18, 2017: Three more positive reports in the last two weeks. This trick may never die. :)

In Don’t Pay the $75 Close In Fee on United (Trick!), Scott wrote about an easy way anyone can avoid the fee United charges non-elites for booking an award within 21 days of departure.

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

American Airlines miles are currently one of the most valuable airline miles for economy awards because of off peak awards. During some months of the year, your favorite destination can cost up to a 1/4 fewer miles to travel to.

British Airways Avios are fantastic for short, direct, economy flights on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines because the number of Avios needed for an award is determined only by the distance and cabin of each flight.

One sweet spot with Avios that I've noted over and over is that flights from the west coast to Hawaii are 12,500 Avios + $5.60 in taxes each way.

From where do American Airlines and Alaska Airlines fly to in Hawaii?
How can you book these flights with Avios?
How can you get Avios?

American and Alaska all fly to the four major

Fiji is a year-round tropical destination, known for its beaches, diving, and hiking.

Fiji Airways (formerly Air Pacific) flies from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Honolulu to Fiji.

Citi ThankYou Points have added Avianca LifeMiles as a 1:1 transfer partner.

This is amazing news because Avianca LifeMiles can be used to book Star Alliance award space--the world's most available--without fuel surcharges at fair award prices--often much better than the prices offered by United MileagePlus for the same awards.

To transfer ThankYou Points to LifeMiles, sign into your citi.com account, and choose ThankYou Rewards under Rewards & Benefits.

Then select Points Transfer under More Ways to Redeem.

ThankYou Points can be transferred in increments of 1,000 points.

In addition to United's recent devaluation, United recently made its award searching worse.

If you search on the home page for an award--like say New York to Paris next June--

you'll get one week of award prices in one cabin.

You used to get shown two months of award space in economy and premium cabins. You can still get shown that.