Two months ago, thexfactor emailed me to tell me that he'd booked something online at aa.com that was against one of the rules I laid out in The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards.

His discovery greatly increases where you can take a free oneway when booking American Airlines awards online.

The Miles & More® Premier World MasterCard® comes with 20,000 bonus Lufthansa Miles & More miles after first purchase.

The card comes with an annual companion ticket for paid economy class tickets on Miles & More airlines.

The card earns 2 miles per dollar on ticket purchases made directly from Miles & More integrated airlines and 1 mile per dollar on all other purchases.

Miles &

Or: A Letter to a Friend's Mom

My friend's mom wants to go from Los Angeles to London in early April with her American Airlines miles. This post contains all the information she needs to understand her options.

If you view the specifics of her situation as merely an example, this post should be hugely helpful to you in you want to plan an award to Europe with your American Airlines miles.

The cards mentioned in this post have had their links removed because the offers listed have expired. Click here for the top current credit card sign up bonuses.

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

I recently had a reader ask me about the best miles to collect to get from Salt Lake City to Cozumel, Mexico. The answer illustrates the best ways to get to the Caribbean and Mexico, so I thought I'd share and expand upon it here.

Near international destinations like Cozumel can be an excellent deal on region-based award charts like those used by American, United, US Airways, and Delta.

The current best deal is this offer for the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express

Earn 30K bonus miles after you make $1K in purchases on your new Card within your first 3 months and a $50 statement credit after you make a Delta purchase with your new Card within your first 3 months.
Earn As You Spend: Get 2X miles on Delta purchases and 1X miles for all other eligible dollars spent.
Check your first bag free on every Delta flight - that's a savings of up to $200 per round trip for a family of four.

Edit: Airfare deals come and go quickly. This is dead. But type in your email address on the top left of the page for one, free daily email to your inbox with tips and tricks to travel cheap or free!

The offers for the cards listed in this post have also expired, so the links have been removed.

Next week I am going to Paraguay for eight days. A trip out of Argentina is necessary to renew my 90 day tourist visa, and I wanted to check the sixth South American country off my list, instead of repeating Uruguay, the easy choice. (Only four more CONMEBOL countries to go!)

I've never been to Paraguay. I'm sure tons of you have (even though until American Airlines launched a Miami-Asuncion route in November, there were no direct flights between the US and Paraguay.)

I will arrive in Asuncion and leave from Ciudad del Este. I speak Spanish.

EVA Air--Taiwan's second largest carrier--has announced that it will join the Star Alliance June 18, 2013.

EVA Air--Taiwan's second largest carrier--has announced that it will join the Star Alliance June 18, 2013.