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

The 25,000 Starpoint bonus for opening the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and spending $5k on the card in the first six months is one of my absolute favorite bonus offers.

This post will explain how a couple can get 10 nights for free at a top-tier hotel in Hawaii plus First Class roundtrip flights all for about $150 per person total.

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

[Update at 1:05 PM ET: I successfully snagged the Harrah's Las Vegas package the second the sale opened at 1:00:00 ET.

As I expected, the packages went fast! All the packages seem to be getting the "Sorry, this inventory is already on hold message." If you really want one, keep refreshing.

Update: 1:08 PM ET. I snagged five $100 gift cards and was deciding whether to purchase them.

I decided not to purchase them, releasing them back to the wild. I didn't want to deal with them being physically mailed "to me" while I'm in Argentina.

As far as I can tell, the gift cards were released at exactly 1:00:00 PM ET and sold out by 1:02 PM ET.

Update 2/24/14: Offer is dead!

Last week, American Express (possibly accidentally) offered its Business Gold Rewards Card with a 75k Membership Rewards sign up bonus after only $5k in spending in the first three months.

That's pretty incredible because:

Usually the card has no sign up bonus.
It had been offering only 50k Membership Rewards after $5k in spending.
Normally when it offers 75k Membership Rewards, it does so for only one or two days and requires $10k in spending to unlock the bonus.

That deal died, but two Business Gold offers have risen in its stead.

I recently booked a family of four an economy award from Miami to Buenos Aires with their Membership Rewards. It was an interesting award that I think demonstrates the complexities and fun of booking with American Express points.

I won't talk about that award specifically, but I'll use it as a jumping off point for discussion since it illustrates a typical Memberhip Rewards situation.

Starwood Preferred Guest's Cash & Points redemptions are some of the best values in travel.

As many of you may know, I am a college student by day and the amusing, yet mystical, Bengali Miles Guru by night. After traveling almost 100,000 miles since January, I knew that my upcoming spring break trip would have to be amazing.