$405+ Roundtrips From Six US Cities to Amsterdam

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. I tweet from @MileValueAlerts only a few times a month because it is designed to be used only for the best and most limited-time deals–like mistake fares–so that you aren’t bombarded by text messages.

American Airlines is offering roundtrip economy flights starting at $400 from numerous cities in the United States to Amsterdam. Available travel dates span from the mid November of this year through April 2018.

Unpublished AAdvantage Re-engagement Challenge

In the midst of research for Monday's post, Buying Back Expired Miles, I stumbled upon some information from milecards.com that mentioned another way to earn back expired American Airlines miles via a Re-engagement Challenge. For frequent American Airlines/oneworld flyers, participating will be cheaper than paying to get larger amounts of expired miles back.

The general gist is that if you have miles that expired within the last five years, you can pay a flat $30 fee to register in a "Re-engagement Challenge".

Aussie AAdvantage Office No Longer Seeing Etihad Award Space

It looks as though the longstanding workaround to booking American Airlines awards flying Etihad--calling the Australia/New Zealand reservations office--is no longer a workaround. I hope this isn't the case, as redeeming AAdvantage miles to book premium Etihad cabins to the Middle East and on to the Indian Sub-continent region is/was one of the best uses of AAdvantage miles.
Background
Booking Etihad premium cabin award space with American Airlines miles has always been a bit tricky.

Arrival+ 50k Bonus Ending Tomorrow Morning

UPDATE 9/18: The 50k Arrival mile bonus is changing tomorrow morning at some point (posting this update Monday evening, September 18). I just applied myself and after speaking to the reconsideration department at Barclays, learned that I have to send in three forms of ID to verify myself--not surprising as I set a fraud alert on my credit report last week thanks to the Equifax data breach.

Buying Back Expired Miles

In general, buying back expired miles is a good deal. Of course it’s better not to let your miles expire and not have to pay a fee, but mistakes happen. I recently received an email from reader John H. He spoke of buying back miles that had once belonged to him but had expired. Here's an excerpt...

"I call AA to see if I have any expired miles. To my surprise I had 5,723 and then paid $40 to get 5000 back.

Buy Flying Blue Miles & Earn 100% Bonus

Through September 25, 2017 you can buy Flying Blue miles with a 100% bonus. That brings the standard price of 3.28 cents a mile down to 1.64 cents a mile.

The minimum amount of miles you have to buy to earn the 100% bonus is 4,000 (for paying roughly $131.50 you'll receive a total of 8,000 miles).

LAST DAY: 40% Avios Transfer Bonus Means 24k Membership Rewards to Madrid in Business Class

Tomorrow is the last day to transfer Membership Rewards to British Airways and Iberia Avios with a 40% transfer bonus. The cutoff is 11:59 p.m. MT on September 17.

At the beginning of July we saw the transfer rate between American Express Membership Rewards and British Airways and Iberia Avios improve from 250:200 to 250:250

In a surprising and awesome turn of events, right after the new transfer rate was announced, a transfer bonus was also announced.

$2k Roundtrip Fares in Singapore Business to Europe

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. I tweet from @MileValueAlerts only a few times a month because it is designed to be used only for the best and most limited-time deals–like mistake fares–so that you aren’t bombarded by text messages.

Singapore, along with a couple other airlines, are are offering cheap roundtrip Business Class flights between New York City and Frankfurt. Roundtrips on Singapore are pricing at $1,999.

Equifax Data Breach: Steps to Protect Yourself

The Equifax data breach is a bit of a nightmare and at times disgusting to read about, but there's no need to spiral into paranoia. I agree with a lot of what this Reddit thread talks about concerning the breach, especially that the chance of having your identity taken advantage of is akin to winning the lottery. Just in this case you'd be losing. That doesn't, however, mean you turning a blind eye is a good idea.

Delta Flash Sale: 20k to Alaska & 35k to Hawaii Roundtrip

Through September 14, 2017 (tomorrow) at 11:59 PM ET, you can book roundtrips between the continental United States and Alaska for 20,000 Delta miles and Hawaii for 35,000 miles. The travel period for the sale is January 8 through March 23, 2018.
Sale Routes
Delta states that the sale applies to roundtrip award flights in economy from the 48 continental United States with the following destinations:

Honolulu, HI (HNL)
Kahului, HI (OGG)
Kona, HI (KOA)
Lihue, HI (LIH)
Anchorage, AK (ANC)
Fairbanks, AK (FAI)

Flights don't have to be direct to be on sale.