We have seen a lot of changes lately to American Airlines' frequent flyer program AAdvantage, like:

these alterations to how we get, maintain, and use the benefits of American Airlines' status
the massive devaluation to American Airlines' award redemption chart

About the same time we were informed of these things (late 2015), American Airlines also announced changes in the structure of how we earn miles that were planned to take affect in the second half of 2016.

For travel in July through Mid November 2016, Delta is discounting Economy awards between Atlanta and Brazil.

As far as I can tell, it only applies to travel specifically between Atlanta and Rio de Janeiro or Atlanta and São Paulo, no other North or South American cities.

The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® 60,000 mile offer has expired.

I'm honestly a little confused by the motives of the participants in tonight's scam, so I turn to the commentariat for insight on who was doing what and how I could have acted differently.
Background
Budapest Honeypot Scam

A well-known scam in Budapest, Hungary is that a girl or girls, ideally pretty, comes up to a guy or guys, flirts with them, convinces them to go to a bar, orders drinks, and then the bill is outrageous.

Until today (June 3, 2016), Starwood Preferred Guest personal or business credit cardholders can buy up to 30,000 Starpoints with up to a 35% discount on the normal purchase price.

This is about the math behind one of my hotel stays. But the same concept applies to all your hotel stays and flights when deciding between an award and cash.

This week I stayed in the Holiday Inn Express in Belgrade, Serbia. The hotel came to my attention because it was a PointBreaks hotel, which means I could buy points for about $29 and book it "for free" with those points. But I ended up paying $61 for a paid night instead to get a big bonus from the current IHG Rewards promo.

If you act today (June 2, 2016), you can get a 135% bonus on the purchase of Avianca LifeMiles.

You have to register for an extra 10% bonus on top of the automatic 125% bonus by entering your LifeMiles number here.

This week I stayed one night in the Holiday Inn Express Belgrade - City in Serbia.

This hotel was on the current PointBreaks, though it has sold out for PointBreaks.

The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®

I get questions all the time like this:
Hi, I have a million American Express Membership Rewards/Chase Ultimate Rewards/Citi ThankYou Points, what is the best transfer partner to go from [here] to [there.]
There are basically two ways to answer the question:

Look at award charts of all the points' transfer partners and then look for award space using the cheapest miles. I used this method to suggest to my friend that he transfer his Membership Rewards to Flying Blue miles to get from Denver to Tel Aviv.