The last year has seen all four of the American legacy carriers make their miles less valuable.

Delta bumped its business class awards up in price.
United put premium cabins on partner airlines out of reach.
US Airways went to the slightly inferior oneworld alliance from the Star Alliance, then bumped up the price of roundtrip business class awards to North Asia.
American eliminated its Explorer Awards and free stopovers on all awards.

But great value awards still exist with all four types of miles.

This is the sixth installment of a round-the-world trip report that started here. We pick up in Singapore.

As the title of this series indicates, my trip was built around flying Cathay Pacific, Singapore, and Lufthansa First Class. I booked those long flights well before I had a plan for my time on the ground.

When I looked into how I wanted to spend my time in Southeast Asia, I decided to spend eight days in Cambodia.

This is your last chance to get repeat bonuses on your favorite American Express personal cards.

Currently you can get the sign up bonus on an American Express personal card every 12 months. So if you got the bonus on, say, the SPG card in February 2013, you can get it again today.

Starting May 1, you will not be able to get a sign up bonus on an American Express personal card if you have ever gotten that bonus in the past.

My friend has big trip aspirations for this summer, but nothing booked.

Approx July 12: Boston to France, Italy, or Spain
July 13/14 to 24/25: work on a vineyard in France, Italy, or Spain
July 25: vineyard location to Croatia
July 26 to August 2: Yacht Week
August 2: Croatia to Greece
August 10/11: Greece to Boston
August 22: Boston to Colombia
August 31: Colombia to Costa Rica
Sept ~7/8: Costa Rica to San Francisco

She emailed me for my suggestions.

In general, you should use airline miles for flights only and hotel points for hotel stays only. There are a few exceptions.

For instance, Starpoints in your Starwood Preferred Guest account are great for hotels, but they also transfer at a favorable rate to 30 major airlines. Read my Starpoints Primer here.

Starpoints also occasionally offer incredible value through Moments by SPG. SPG Moments offer one-of-a-kind musical, sporting, or cultural experiences to Starwood Preferred Guest members.

Some of the packages are available for immediate redemption, and some are in an auction format.

United recently announced a new partner: Azul Brazilian Airlines.

I actually haven't ranked my travel tips, but I love this one because it's super simple and saves me from getting lost all around the world.

But it's not my #1 travel tip, which would probably be "use miles" or "travel more" or "travel solo" or something like that.

It may not even be my #2 travel tip because you can save a lot of money with these two:

How I Pay Zero ATM Fees Worldwide
How to Get Free Texts and Cell Phone Data (Almost) Worldwide

Anyway, here's how I avoid getting lost worldwide when I don't have cell

T-Mobile offers an incredible deal for travelers. All of their monthly plans offer free text messages and mobile data in over 120 countries worldwide.

On previous trips, I've done everything from buy a local SIM card in every country to pay AT&T upfront for way-overpriced international phone, text, and data packages. On this round-the-world trip, I kept my phone and phone number and got free text messaging and mobile data in five of the six countries I visited.

US Airways and American Airlines officially merged in December 2013. They are still independent brands with separate loyalty programs, but they are making major changes in unison, especially in the last few weeks.

Below are 17 changes made, mostly yesterday, in the order of my take on their importance. As I said yesterday, I am much more upset about how these changes were made (most of numbers 3-17 were made with no notice) than the fact that they were made.

1) On March 30, US Airways left the Star Alliance.