Unlimited Free Stopovers on British Airways Awards, But No Free Oneways

You get unlimited stopovers on awards booked with British Airways Avios

But you can't get any free oneways on awards booked with British Airways Avios.

Huh? How can that be?

For some people, those concepts are hard to untangle, so let me state the concepts as clearly as possible.

A free stopover is the absence of a flight. It is being in a place. Let's use yesterday's Anatomy of an Award as an example.

Anatomy of an Award: Last Minute United Award from Los Angeles to Phuket with a Later Free Oneway

Yesterday I booked an award with United miles from Los Angeles to Phuket, Thailand with a later free oneway from Los Angeles to Newark.

The award illustrates last-second award searching, problem solving with error messages, free oneways, and free changes to awards within 24 hours.

How and Where

How can you book a similar award?

To convince my friend in Los Angeles to meet me in Phuket next week, I offered to book his ticket with miles.

Trip Report: Frankfurt to Seoul in Asiana First Class

My friend, Ryan from MA, recently took a trip to Italy and Taiwan during which he flew Lufthansa First Class, Asiana First Class, Thai First Class, ANA First Class and entered some of the world’s nicest lounges. I’ve asked him to do a series of trip reports, so we can all be inspired by some of the otherwise out-of-reach experiences miles can afford us. This is the first trip report on Lufthansa First Class.

After 5 days in Rome and 1 day in Bologna, my wife and I took a short Lufthansa business class flight from Rome to Frankfurt.

Angry British Airways Passenger Buys Promoted Tweet to Complain

Have you ever been mad at an airline? You probably called customer service, filled out an online form, or tweeted the customer service team.

Not Hasan Syed.

According to Yahoo!:
[Mr.

Current Offer on SPG Cards: 25k Starpoints

If you apply for both the personal and business card today, you'll have 60k Starpoints after meeting the minimum spending requirement after meeting the minimum spending requirement of $5k per card in the first six months.

Top Ten Credit Card Bonuses That Are About to Disappear

Update: Several--if not all--of these offers have expired.

Are Under-Categorized Hotels the Best Use of Hotel Points : Review of the DoubleTree Kuala Lumpur

I am a lodging cheapskate. My ideal trip length is four weeks, so hotel bills would add up quickly. Right now I haven't been in the US since February, so I've had to come up with creative ways to sleep cheaply.

But just because I'm a cheapskate doesn't mean I don't want to stay at fancy hotels sometimes too. I'm jealous that Rookie Alli has two nights at any Hilton worldwide.

Limited Time: 50k AA Card Offer Plus Expiring SPG Cards’ Offer Means Round-the-World Business Class Award

Update: American Airlines got rid of its RTW awards, so the best way to book RTW awards now is elucidated here.

Key Links:

Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard®
Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express
Explorer Award chart (eliminated April 2014)
Explorer Awards: The Rules (eliminated April 2014)

Combined, the cards offer enough American Airlines miles for a round-the-world business class award with up to 15 stopovers.

You could take this trip in business

Great Deal: 15k American Airlines Miles to Hawaii All Fall if Booked by 9/13/13

American Airlines has a great promotional award price to Hawaii this fall of only 15,000 miles each way in economy if you book by September 13 and fly September 11 to December 17.

Waikiki, December 2012

American has several services to Hawaii.

Honolulu <-> Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago
Kahului <-> Dallas and Los Angeles
Kona <-> Los Angeles
Lihue <-> Los Angeles

How good is this deal? Are there currently better deals to Hawaii?

Was the American Airlines Fuel Surcharge Fiasco the Response to Fuel Dumping?

Fuel dumping, at least among people searching for a deal, is the practice of purchasing a ticket in such a way that fuel surcharges are not added. Paid tickets have three components: base fare, government taxes, and fuel surcharges.

On some tickets, the majority of the price is made up of fuel surcharges, so dumping them from the price makes the ticket far cheaper.

Here's page 712 of the FlyerTalk thread on the topic if you want to know more.

Two days ago, American Airlines added fuel surcharges to Malaysia Airlines awards.