Free Giveaway Friday: Five American Airlines Systemwide Upgrades

A very generous reader who came to the MileValue Happy Hour in New York City this week is donating five (5) American Airlines Systemwide Upgrades that expire Friday February 28, 2014 to MileValue readers.

Follow generous Tom on twitter to show your appreciation.

An American Airlines Systemwide Upgrade entitles you to an upgrade of one class of service on all flights on a one way itinerary that are operated by American Airlines or American Eagle if upgrade space is available.

This giveaway has tremendous value to you if you have a trip booked that meets the following conditions:

paid itinerary

The Miles You Want to Go to Australia

Australia is one of the hardest awards with frequent flyer miles.

Anatomy of an Award: Booking Etihad Business Class Using American Miles

Last month I booked myself an awesome award to the Maldives using AAdvantage miles and flying Etihad Airways Business Class.

Two Stackable Promotions Mean American Airlines Miles for 1.98 Cents

American Airlines is offering two stackable promotions for buying AAdvantage miles that allow miles to be purchased for as little as 1.98 cents:

Get up to a 30% bonus on the miles you purchase until February 28, 2014.
Get a 10% discount on the price of miles until tomorrow February 6, 2014.

How do these promotions stack? How do these promotions compare to previous Buy Miles sales? Is this a price at which you should speculatively buy American Airlines miles?

The miles bonus is tiered.

Why Is Space Disappearing on AA.com? A Common Problem When Attempting to Book Free Oneways

I got an email from a reader that demonstrates a common point of confusion about stopovers on American Airlines awards.

Combining Hawaii and Australia onto One Award is Easy with Great Award Space in 2014

There is:

widely available
underpriced
economy award space
for two passengers
for all of 2014
to Australia
with the opportunity to stop in Hawaii for a few days in either direction.

If you have 75,000 American Airlines miles and about $100, you can fly a roundtrip award from the United States to Australia on almost any day you want this year.

Anatomy of an Award: Nabbing an Extremely Rare First Class Seat from Australia on Qantas

I nabbed a scarce First Class award from Australia to Los Angeles on Qantas during peak travel season and added a first class segment on American's new Airbus A321T from Los Angeles to New York-JFK, both in fully flat beds.

I'm incredibly excited to try out another First Class product on the Airbus A380, especially after my great experience on a Thai flight from Paris to Bangkok.

Relative to other Anatomy of Award posts, this one was simple to construct and even easier to book online. However, Qantas premium cabin award space isn't widely available.

Your Last Chance to Get the US Airways Card Will Be mid-2015

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

What Would the Perfect Marriage of the American Airlines and US Airways Frequent Flyer Programs Look Like?

With US Airways' official oneworld join date still over two months away (March 30), speculation is rampant over the design of their combined frequent flyer program. What will the new award chart look like, especially in light of United's massive devaluation and Delta's unprecedented double devaluation? Which routing rules will the program establish?

Because everyone loves to wonder, this post is meant to highlight the strengths of each program.