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.

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.

I'm a big fan of Alaska miles, because of the free stopovers on one way awards and great mix of partners from multiple alliances.
Alaska Mileage Plan Basics
Before we get into potential redemptions and stopover destinations, let's go over some basics about the program.

Partners

Alaska has a varied array of oneworld, SkyTeam, and non-allied airline partners:

Here are the award charts for flying Alaska and its partners.

LATAM and Cathay Pacific award space cannot be found on alaskaair.com. Search with British Airways award search engine instead.

As a reminder I'm bumping this post to the top of the blog since today is your last day to redeem United miles before the devaluation kicks in tomorrow!

Back in June I wrote about the changes United MileagePlus announced to go into effect November 1, 2017.

United, American, and Southwest are all offering bonuses for shopping through their portals. The bonuses are in addition to what you’d already be earning by shopping through the portal. Shopping portals allow you to earn miles by making your normal online purchases through your favorite online stores. Just by starting at the loyalty program’s portal and using its link to your favorite online retailer, you can get extra miles for your purchases.

With each holiday shopping promotion, the more you spend, the higher your return is.

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.

The brand new PointBreaks list allows us to book hotel rooms beginning tomorrow morning, Monday, October 30, for stays through January 31st, 2018 for $30 per night.
InterContinental Mendoza (Argentina wine country): on a previous list

This post will tell you how to book any hotel on the list of IHG Reward Club’s PointBreaks hotels for $30 per night, even the ones that ordinarily cost $200 or more per night.

What’s my strategy to make the most of PointBreaks?
What are the top properties on the newest PointBreaks list?

IHG Rewards Club Pointbreaks
IHG Rewards Club is the loyalty program

Barclaycard is teaming up with Uber to issue a credit card called the Uber Visa Card. While technically co-branded with the ride share company, there are almost no Uber related benefits, which is kind of confusing. Nevertheless this card, which will earn rewards in the form of cash back, has impressive cash back rates that (in most ways) beat other cash back cards.

You can't apply for the Uber Visa quite yet.