Last week I booked myself an award from Chicago to Buenos Aires in United economy for 30,000 United miles + $5.60. This award was very simple, but it illustrated three interesting concepts:

When will last second award space open up?
United's secret extra award space.
The trick to save $75 on last second United award bookings.

Last Second Award Space
I had been searching award space for months from Chicago to Buenos Aires, and there was never any on the inflexible date I wanted to fly.

On Saturday in Chicago, I gave two presentations–one on the award chart sweet spots and the other a “Live” American Airlines Award Booking.

In this post, I'll recap the “Live” American Airlines Award Booking, including the audio of the award booking phone call.

On Saturday in Chicago, I gave two presentations--the first a "Live" American Airlines Award Booking and the second on the award chart sweet spots.

I will have a post later this week from the "Live" American Airlines Award Booking. Here, I wanted to share the slides from the Award Chart Sweet Spots talk for the people in attendance and those who couldn't make it.

As I mentioned in Chicago, the information for this presentation mainly comes from a post, which I update frequently: How to Book a RTW Trip in 2016.

MileValue was nominated by USA Today as the Best Miles-and-Points Blog. Through November 7, 2016, you can vote for MileValue here.

You can vote once per day, just by clicking vote without having to give any personal information.

Winning this beauty contest would be nice, but I already feel like a winner. I've written a miles-and-points blog for almost five years. My job is to help people achieve lifelong travel dreams.

Through December 31, 2016, you can earn double the rewards on purchases that normally fall into the non-bonused category of spend when you use your Amex card at eligible small businesses. The only stipulation is that you register your card first.

Until October 31, 2016, you can buy between 10,000 and 55,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Points and get a 40% bonus on the number of points you purchase.

Hyatt points normally cost 2.4 cents each.

To sum it up one sentence and rip off the Band-Aid: The results from a basic United award search now define all possible routing options if you want the flights to price as one award. Building your own itinerary if you don't like what the computer gives you has become considerably more expensive.

In the past, if you didn't like what United's award search tool displayed, you could search segment-by-segment and piece them together as one award as long as you followed United's award rules.

250 Membership Rewards will transfer to 300 British Airways Avios from now until 11:59 p.m. CT on October 10, 2016. The normal transfer rate is 250 Membership Rewards = 200 British Airways Avios, so this transfer bonus will get you 50% more Avios.

For only 25,000 Avios and $11, you can fly roundtrip on American Airlines or Alaska Airlines planes in economy from the West Coast to Hawaii.

Delta will operate a nonstop flight between New York (JFK) and Honolulu from December 17, 2016 to March 25, 2017 five day a week (not Tuesday or Wednesday.)

Delta doesn't publish its award chart, but it still has a secret award chart. The cheapest awards from the mainland United States to Hawaii are 22,500 Delta miles one way. But we can do a lot better than that.

Every day that Delta offers award space on this route for 22,500 miles one way, we can book it for 25,000 Korean miles roundtrip.

Until October 21, 2016, you can buy Hilton HHonors points and get a 100% bonus on the points purchased.

Hilton points normally cost 1 cent each. With the 100% bonus, the price drops to 0.5 cents per point. This is the cheapest I've ever seen them.

The bonus only kicks in on purchases of 20,000 (+ 20,000 bonus.) Purchases of 10,000 to 19,000 points have an 80% bonus, bringing the price to 0.555 cents per point.