Anatomy of an Award: The Huffington Post Almost Covers Me

A few months ago I helped David Code make an award booking. David free lances for the Huffington Post, so he tried to turn the experience into an article that was eventually rejected. Not wanting the article to go to waste, I'll publish it here.

Anatomy of an Award: South America, Africa, Europe, and North America in Biz for 100k

Or: Help Me Choose Which Business Class Products to Fly I got trigger happy and booked without asking

Or: How An American Can Exploit the South American Sweet Spot with US Airways Miles

Or: How to Get an Open Jaw AND a Stopover on a US Airways Award

Or: How I saved 20k miles

Necessity is the mother of invention. I wanted to think of a way to get from Buenos Aires to Europe next summer with a stopover in South Africa, then from Europe to Chicago in time for the Chicago seminars.

Anatomy of an Award: First Class to Buenos Aires with American Airlines Miles

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process. If you have a real award you’d like to write up in a similar post, please contact me, and you can write a guest post.

A few months ago I used 62,500 American Airlines miles and $5 to book a oneway award from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires in American Airlines Flagship First Class. This is one of the simplest awards I've ever booked.

Anatomy of an Award: Routing West to India on an American Airlines Award

This is a guest post from Chase Tajima. Chase is a tax attorney in Honolulu--Aloha! He writes about Hawaii tax law at TheTaxTable.wordpress.com. Anyone is welcome to submit a guest Anatomy of an Award post, so we can all learn from interesting award bookings.

I started following MileValue because I wanted to find a cost effective way to get from Honolulu to Delhi, India to attend my college roommate's wedding. Roundtrip flights from from Honolulu to Delhi ranged from about $1,600 to $2,000+ in economy.

Anatomy of an Award: How to Book an Award on Southwest

Update 10/13/14: Southwest awards now cost 70 points per dollar of the cash fare instead of 60. Taxes are now $5.60 per direction within the United States instead of $2.50 per flight. Everything else is the same.

The other day I helped a friend book a roundtrip Southwest award from Los Angeles to Denver for 11,761 Rapid Rewards and $5, taking advantage of a 1,000 Ultimate Rewards transfer to make up a shortfall of points in her account. For some people, this post will be very basic.

Anatomy of an Award: Exploiting a South Asian Sweetspot on the US Airways Award Chart

US Airways miles stink because their routing rules and fees are frustrating.

But US Airways miles are incredible because the award chart is so generous. I've talked about sweet spots here and here.

Overall, the sweet spots on the award chart and US Airways off peak awards more than make up for the routing restrictions, so I value US Airways miles more highly than any other airline mile at 1.95 cents each.

If you use US Airways miles correctly, you can reap incredible value.

Anatomy of an Award: Triangle Award in the US for $10 out of Pocket

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process.

Anatomy of an Award: Hilton AXON Award for Four Nights at the Sydney Hilton

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process. If you have a real award you’d like to write up in a similar post, please contact me, and you can write a guest post.

Yesterday, I talked about transferring 10,000 Hawaiian Miles to 20,000 Hilton points.

Anatomy of an Award: Free Oneways and Etihad Diamond First Class for 40,000 AAdvantage Miles and $37

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process. If you have a real award you’d like to write up in a similar post, please contact me, and you can write a guest post.

Etihad Diamond First Class looks like an aspirational award if I've ever seen one. Here's a YouTube promotional video of the suite .

Award Re-Booking Service

After writing a series of posts on how to add free oneways to your awards on the major legacy carriers, I got a flood of emails from people who had just booked an award and wanted to know whether they should rebook with my award booking service. In some cases, it makes sense, and I'll share one such case.

Brian emailed me saying he had booked a roundtrip award with United miles from San Francisco to Entebbe, Uganda for 160,000 miles in coach because for his preferred dates, there had been no saver award space.