Update: The giveaway is closed. Congrats to the winners of all 7 passes. (Two more were generously donated in the comments.)

Generous reader Sam has donated five lounge passes that expire in the next few months for me to give away to three lucky readers.

Huge Hat Tip to reader Daniel for emailing me about this deal. Email me your tips!

Today the AAdvantage eShopping portal tripled the earning rate on magazines.com to 60 American Airlines miles per dollar through November 30, 2013.

Stacked with the ongoing promotion that is awarding up to 2,500 miles for $250 in purchases through the portal (and fewer bonus miles for smaller purchases), you can buy up to 17,500 American Airlines miles for 1.43 cents each until the magazines.com promotion ends. And you even get some magazines thrown in for free.

Long time reader Les forwarded me his targeted offer for a Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express: 50,000 bonus miles after spending $1k in three months.

The normal offer is only 30k bonus miles after $1k in spending in the first three months, so this is a substantially better offer.

There are two ways to know you are targeted for the higher 50k offer.

The 50k mile bonus offer is back on the Lufthansa card mentioned in this post until 6/30/14.

I just booked two clients of the MileValue Award Booking Service a roundtrip award in business class to Lusaka, Zambia and added on a free oneway to Alaska several months later.

The award cost 120k United miles + $118 in government taxes per person.

Roundtrip Award from Chicago to Lusaka in Red and Later Free Oneway to Anchorage in Blue.

I am writing an Anatomy of an Award on this particular booking to illustrate:

Considerations on bookings to Africa
How to book a free oneway on a United award
Trouble shooting "phantom" award space
Searching

United, Lufthansa, US Airways, Air Canada, ANA, Singapore, and TACA/Avianca are all members of the Star Alliance.

With few exceptions, all of their miles can be used with equal access to any Star Alliance carrier's Saver award space.

You cannot transfer one type of miles to another. For instance, you cannot transfer your Lufthansa miles to your United account.

But you can combine the power of your miles by using miles from several different accounts to book awards on the same flight.

American Airlines is offering 2,500 bonus AAdvantage miles if you spend $250 or more in its online portal between now and December 2, 2013.

Spend $75 to $149 and get 750 miles
Spend $150 to $249 and get 1,500 miles
Spend $250 or more and get 2,500 miles

All spending from all stores in the portal before December 2, 2013 will be added up to determine your bonus amount.

If you can spend just over $75, $150, or $250, you will earn at least 12x miles per dollar on every purchase because you'd get 10x through this

Very interesting comments. I think there's been an easing and more Lufthansa space is bookable with US Airways miles, but certainly not all as the original article and post title suggest.

US Airways is no longer blocking Lufthansa award space as far as I can tell.

United massively devalued its award chart two weeks ago, especially for premium cabin international awards on partner airlines, which have been the bulk of my United awards.

I caught some flak because it didn't bother me too much.

I've written several posts about Explorer Awards from American Airlines. My favorites are:

American Airlines Explorer Award: The Rules
The Start of My Anatomy of an Award Series on a Real Explorer Award: Planning a RTW Trip
My Post about Getting the AA Miles Needed for a Business Round-the-World Trip

American Airlines Explorer Awards are by far the cheapest option for round-the-world awards and a great option for hopping around one part of the world with many stops.

Explorer Awards are also incredible for combining many trips onto a single award at a huge discount.