I have a friend who, after about five months off from applying for any new cards, decided to give it another go recently. He is writing a series for MileValue on his experience. Below is Part 1, where he decides on a new round of credit cards: the Ink Plus and the British Airways Visa Signature by Chase, as well as the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature and Business credit cards by Bank of America.

Through tomorrow (May 26, 2015), British Airways is offering a 40% bonus on the purchase of Avios. The biggest bonus ever offered on the purchase of Avios was 50% in February 2015, so this is a big bonus.

The maximum Avios you can purchase in a year is normally 35,000, but is being raised to 100,000 during this promotion. With a 40% bonus, that means you can add 140,000 Avios to your account.

This is a post I am writing to illuminate how my friend can get from Denver to Tel Aviv with Amex Membership Rewards.

Groupon Spain is having a sale on Iberia Avios, offering them for 1.38 cents each.
Iberia has a portal that allows you to earn 8 Avios per euro on the purchase of Groupons.
Those extra Avios bring the effective purchase price down to 1.26 cents each.
You can freely transfer Iberia Avios to British Airways Avios if both your Iberia and British Airways accounts are 90 days old.
Both types of Avios are worth well more than 1.26 cents each.

Preparation
The only three things you need to make this deal work are a credit card that charges no

You can book yourself a tour around Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia stopping in four places for only 100,000 miles total with nearly half the trip in a flat bed. By stopping in four places, I am referring to actual destinations, not connections that have to be under 24 hours.

Much like the Mega Trip to the Caribbean and South America I wrote about a few days ago, this deal relies on piecing together some sweet spot awards (and this time also a low cost carrier flight within Europe) into one big trip.

BA.com is not showing Royal Jordanian award space.

You can book yourself a tour around the Caribbean and South America stopping in three places for only 64,500 miles total with half the trip in a flat bed. By stopping in three places, I am referring to actual destinations, not connections that have to be under 24 hours.

This incredible deal relies on piecing together four sweet spots awards into one big trip.

This change takes effect for bookings made February 2 at 5 AM ET or later.

British Avios are great for short, direct, economy awards on flights with no fuel surcharges--but they are getting less great.

The price of an award flight booked with British Airways Avios is determined by only two things: the distance of the flight and the cabin you book. The price of an Avios award is the sum of the prices of each flight segment.

One of the main reasons why people who don't know how miles work think that miles are a scam is because they searched award space in the wrong place! For instance, they wanted to use American Airlines miles and searched AA.com. While that sounds logical, that's often the wrong place to search. BA.com is often the better place to search.

Knowing how to use BA.com is crucial for making award bookings with British Airways Avios and American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

I just redeemed 5,650 Avios and $84 for a flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires (AEP), the closer airport to the city. Tickets to that airport were running over $400 one way.

Even tickets to the worse airport were $180+, meaning I was very happy to use an Avios & Money award.
Award Planning
I am planning to return to Buenos Aires in February. I am planning to come from Santiago (though I don't have a ticket to Chile yet).

Buenos Aires has two airports, EZE and AEP.