United has announced a 15% to 25% discount on economy class awards from the US to Europe:

Roundtrip awards booked between now and December 8, 2015
for flights flown between January 11 and March 10, 2016
on itineraries wholly operated by United and United Express flights
will cost only 45k to 51k miles roundtrip, depending on the days of travel

United has run a nearly identical promotion for the last several years, so maybe this is becoming a yearly occurrence.
United’s Current Promotion

I did a few dummy bookings to test out what’s possible.

Avianca LifeMiles is offering a bonus of up to 125% on purchased miles through December 18, 2015. You can buy up to 150,000 LifeMiles during the sale and get up to 187,500 bonus miles.

LifeMiles cost 3.3 cents each, so with a 125% bonus, you get the miles for 1.47 cents each.

American Airlines has announced a massive devAAluation of its award chart for awards booked on or after March 22, 2016. (It also announced negative changes to status and revenue-based award mile-earning on paid flights.)

The only two things I like about the announcement are that a few prices go down slightly and that we were given solid notice. You have just over four months to book awards on the current American Airlines award chart.

Today American Airlines announced mostly negative changes for earning status in 2016 for 2017. (It also announced negative changes to earning award miles on paid flights and to its award chart.) The five big changes to status earning:
1. No More Elite Qualifying Points
There used to be three ways to earn status: elite qualifying points (EQP), elite qualifying miles (EQM), segments. In 2016, there will be two, with EQP getting the axe.

The number of elite qualifying miles and segments needed to qualify have not changed.
2.

Starting in the "second half of 2016," you will earn award miles on American Airlines tickets according to the cost of the ticket instead of the distance flown.

5 miles/U.S. dollar – AAdvantage member
7 miles/U.S. dollar – Gold
8 miles/U.S. dollar – Platinum
11 miles/U.S. dollar – Executive Platinum

Delta announced a nearly identical move in February 2014, and United copied Delta in June 2014. Both changes are already in effect, so American is just playing catch up (catch down?) here.

Right now 40k Starpoints plus taxes will get you a roundtrip economy class trip to Europe, 65k Starpoints will get you a roundtrip Business Class ticket, and 80k will get you a roundtrip First Class ticket.

Starpoints always transfer to dozens of airlines at a 1:1 rate with a bonus of 5,000 miles for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred.

To compete with AMEX Offers, Citi has launched Citi Smart Savings, which offers discounts at major retailers when you add the offer to your account and then use your Citi card at that retailer.

To see your targeted Smart Savings offers, sign into your Citi account and click Card Benefits.

Halfway down the next page on the right, click Offers For You.

On the next page, you'll see your offers for one card. Use the dropdown menu at the top to see your offers for each card. My Citi Prestige® Card didn't have any offers.

Enjoy one of these 60 free upgrade codes to six months of Award Wallet Plus. Award Wallet is the free way I track my 33 miles and points balances and store my login information for those programs.

Read more about Award Wallet.
Sign up for Award Wallet.

Here are the extra features of Award Wallet Plus:

These Award Wallet code giveaways sometimes get complaints. Unfortunately I don’t think there is any way to improve them. The simple reality is that I have a lot more than 60 readers. No need to leave a comment if you use one.