Southwest Rapid Rewards points are currently worth 1.69 cents each. Starting Monday, March 31, 2014, they will be worth about 1.44 cents each.

What is the exact devaluation?

Among the Six Types of Frequent Flyer Miles, Southwest has a fixed-value program. For every dollar of the “Wanna Get Away?” base fare, you have to spend 60 Rapid Rewards for an award ticket.

So a $220 Southwest ticket with a $200 base fare would be 12,000 Rapid Rewards + $5 in taxes as an award.

US Airways leaves the Star Alliance Sunday (3/30/14) and enters the oneworld alliance Monday (3/31/14) as part of its ongoing integration with American Airlines.

Overall, this news is mixed because some awards are more easily booked with Star Alliance partners and other awards are more easily booked with oneworld partners.

Here are the awards that are easier to book in the next two days and the awards that are easier to book next week with US Airways miles.

One partner that US Airways loses on Sunday is Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, which is currently offering incredible summer award space

After a few days in New York last month, I took a 16 hour flight in Cathay Pacific First Class from New York-JFK to Hong Kong. It was the second best flight of my life (behind only Emirate First Class); I can't recommend Cathay Pacific First Class highly enough.

That said, the ground services in New York were abysmal.

On the US Airways award chart today, I noticed a minor change as part of the US Airways / American Airlines integration.

Did you catch it?

On the US Airways chart, the word "Envoy" has been replaced with "Business Class."

US Airways had previously referred to its International Business Class as "Envoy" (and it still does on other pages), but it looks like that name will disappear during the integration.

This is semantics, since the Envoy / Business Class will still be a great product--at least on the A330s where it is completely flat--but a far bigger change is coming

Last Sunday I found myself in Raleigh, North Carolina needing a hotel room for one more night.

The Days Inn where I was staying wanted $103 for that night, and I'd have to move to a smoking room, which didn't interest me at all.

I looked at some nearby chain hotels, and the Sheraton wanted $229 plus tax or 7,000 Starpoints, which I valued at $175.

I checked kayak.com for other options, and I didn't find anything I liked.

The card offer described in this post has expired.

Having just landed at Newark after a First Class flight from Honolulu, I took the AirTrain to New York Penn Station, and walked the few blocks to the Radisson Martinique on Broadway.

I had two free one-night certificates at any Radisson in the United States, and I knew that a New York City hotel would probably be the most expensive place to use them.

Although we arrived at 1 PM, several hours before check in, my friend and I were quickly checked in and given the keys to a room with double beds.

How was the room?

The Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard® comes with 35,000 bonus Hawaiian Miles after spending $1,000 on the card in the first 90 days. That's enough bonus miles for a roundtrip on Hawaiian Airlines from the mainland to anywhere in Hawaii.

The six main reasons I love this offer:

Hawaiian Airlines has amazing award availability from the western United States to all the major Hawaiian islands.
Cardholders receive a discount on Hawaiian Airlines awards, so instead of paying 20k miles each way between the mainland and Hawaii, cardholders pay only 17,500 miles each way.

Here's the goal:

The goal is for a New Yorker to get a one way award to Europe in the height of summer for only 20k miles, which is a 10k mile discount plus a free oneway from Los Angeles to New York, a 12,500 mile value.

We want to pay 20,000 American Airlines miles for two flights that "should" cost 42,500 miles.

(This trick doesn't just work for New Yorkers. It works for people who live in every city that has an American Airlines flight to London.

I really like the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express quite a bit as a rewards card.

The card offers an unbeatable 6% cash back in the form of