I'm excited to announce a new writer has joined the MileValue team: Bill Wilkes.

Bill was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. The son of an American Airlines pilot, he grew up with airplanes being his home away from home. He currently works for the baseball team in Baltimore, MD assisting with Major League rules interpretation and administration. Some of his favorite destinations to travel (with miles, of course) are Spain, Argentina, and Hawaii.

Small Business Saturday from American Express is back. Registration opens November 18.

On November 18, we'll register all our AMEX issued and AMEX processed cards (except prepaids). Then on November 24, we'll spend $25+ at small business with each card to get a $25 credit on each statement.

Last Thanksgiving I was in Hawaii, so I bought $25 gift certificates to all my sister's favorite restaurants. We used some, and I gave her the rest when I left.

United has announced a 20% discount on economy class awards to Europe from January 15 to March 13, 2013:

United and United Express operated flights
Booked between now and November 15
Roundtrip economy class awards for 48k miles.

I'll break this promo down and compare it to the discounted awards to Europe being offered by American and US Airways.

United

Roundtrip awards entirely on planes bearing United and United Express paint jobs between the continental US, Alaska, and Canada and Europe in economy class, flown between 1/15/13 and 3/13/13, and booked between now and 11/15/12 cost 48,000 United miles.

I use three steps to get to my European destination with Delta SkyMiles. For each direction:

Find transatlantic space.
Find domestic space within the US on Delta or Alaska from my home airport to the international gateway.
Find intra-European space to my destination.

Those steps are roughly in order of difficulty--though many times finding domestic space on Delta is impossible at the low-miles price.

A few weeks ago, One Mile at a Time was all over the new American Airlines international routes:

Dallas (DFW) <-> Seoul (ICN)
Dallas (DFW) <-> Lima (LIM)
Chicago (ORD) <-> Dusseldorf (DUS)
New York (JFK) <-> Dublin (DUB)

Those flights went on sale yesterday, meaning that they were added to the award calendars. I decided to take a look at the award-space picture, and I found some surprising results.

Follow @milevalue to see Tahsir's live tweets today on the first day of United Dreamliner operation.

I'm sure there are 10+ mentions of this promo in the blogosphere, as there are for credit card changes and announcements. I encourage you to read my analysis in these situations even if you've read someone else's. I only write on a subject when I have something big to add--otherwise I'll just link to someone else's post.

American Airlines had an awful last few months.

Alex writes:

I’m a huge fan of your free one-way series although it left me bitter at the very beginning when I realized how many great opportunities I missed by redeeming my miles incorrectly. But I’m trying to fix it now. [Scott: I get a variation of this frequently.

Today's giveaway is for a pair of lounge passes that expire 12/31/12.

The American Express Platinum Card is one of the best credit cards for frequent travelers. The card comes with Delta, American, US Airways, and Priority Pass Select lounge access. (American/US lounge access ends 3/22/14.) Coupled with no foreign transaction fees and $120 towards Global Entry, this is a great all around travel card.

Many people balk at this card due to the $450 annual fee.