US Airways--with absolutely no notice--made some award chart changes today. The big change to Saver award prices is that a roundtrip in business class to North Asia is now 110k miles roundtrip.

US Airways' definition of North Asia includes:

China
Hong Kong
Japan
Macau,
South Korea
Taiwan
and a bunch of 'stans

Business class awards to North Asia had been under-priced at 90k US Airways miles roundtrip, and many people in this hobby had taken advantage with awards that included a stopover in Europe and Asia in business class.

Flying Blue–the loyalty program of Air France/KLM, Air Europa, Kenya Airways, and TAROM–has released its newest Promo Awards that let you fly from select US cities to anywhere in Europe for as little as 12,500 miles each way with only modest fuel surcharges.

Flying Blue is a 1:1 transfer partner of Membership Rewards and Starpoints.

If you book in April 2014, you can travel in June and July, 2014, you can fly from Boston to Europe for only 25k Membership Rewards or 20k Starpoints + $266 out of pocket.

What cities are these Promo Awards good for?

This is the fifth installment of a round-the-world trip report that started here. We pick up in Macau, China.

I like Las Vegas in small doses, so I've always wanted to check out Macau, one of China's two special autonomous regions (the other is Hong Kong).

Until April 13, 2014, US Airways is offering a bonus of 100% on sharing between 30,000 and 50,000 miles between Dividend Miles accounts.

The US Airways Share Miles promo is typically the best mileage purchasing offer of the year.

Sharing miles works out to buying miles for 1.13 cents each.

Get 40,000 bonus miles after first purchase on the US Airways MasterCard! Click here for details.

The notes at the bottom of the US Airways award chart have some bad news: US Airways is losing four partners this year.

On Saturday, I explained Where to Search for Award Space on All 26 of US Airways’ Partners.

Since US Airways joined the oneworld Alliance on March 31, I think they have the most valuable miles of any airline. The three main reasons:

The world's cheapest award chart.

The Frontier Airlines World MasterCard® currently offers one of the best sign up bonuses for a tiny minimum spending requirement: you earn 40,000 bonus miles after spending $500 in the first 90 days.

Now the card is offering 0% Intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for the first 12 months.

United is offering 25% off Saver economy awards between the mainland United States and Japan for flights completed by April 30, 2014.

You can book flights to Japan for only 26,250 United miles each way this month only, and the price shows up automatically online. The normal price is 35,000 United miles each way.

Any discount is nice, but there are one or two drawbacks to consider.

On Monday, I wrote about US Airways and TAM joining the oneworld alliance. That meant that US Airways and TAM flights were now bookable with British Airways Avios, a founding member of oneworld.

In the renewed interest in searching ba.com for award flights, there were some hiccups that people noted in the comments. Often the best way to plan an Avios award is to search aa.com, and then when you find the award space you want, go to ba.com to book it.

AA.com and ba.com didn't seem to be matching up in the availability that you could book.

There are several posts on the new PointBreaks list, which allows us to book hotel rooms through May 31, 2014 for as low as $28.75 per night. Even if you’ve read those, read this. I’ve honed my strategy for getting $35 or less per night rooms quite a bit, and I want to share it, so everyone can have access to the best practices.