Looking at my travel plans for 2014, I realized I needed a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu in September.

I ended up booking myself a oneway flight on Allegiant Airlines instead of using traditional miles for the ticket.

I paid for the ticket with my Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®, and I plan to remove part or all of the flight charge from my credit card statement by redeeming Arrival miles for the flight.

Saver Economy award seats are wide open from the United States to Sao Paulo during the World Cup for only 30k miles per direction per person.

This is a marked change from four months ago when I wrote How to Get to the World Cup with Miles and Points.

Lately I've gotten several emails that feature a common mistake.

My friend has big trip aspirations for this summer, but nothing booked.

Approx July 12: Boston to France, Italy, or Spain
July 13/14 to 24/25: work on a vineyard in France, Italy, or Spain
July 25: vineyard location to Croatia
July 26 to August 2: Yacht Week
August 2: Croatia to Greece
August 10/11: Greece to Boston
August 22: Boston to Colombia
August 31: Colombia to Costa Rica
Sept ~7/8: Costa Rica to San Francisco

She emailed me for my suggestions.

Since US Airways joined the oneworld Alliance on March 31, I think they have the most valuable miles of any airline. The three main reasons:

The world's cheapest award chart.

TAM, the largest airline in Brazil, joined oneworld today March 31, 2014.

You can now book a one way flight from the United States to Brazil for 4,000 Avios and $97.50!

TAM flights are bookable with American Airlines miles and British Airways Avios and searchable on ba.com. American Airlines and British Airways do not collect fuel surcharges on TAM flights.

TAM has flights between Brazil and New York-JFK, Miami, and Orlando. All three American cities have flights to Rio de Janeiro–Galeão and São Paulo–Guarulhos.

On the US Airways award chart today, I noticed a minor change as part of the US Airways / American Airlines integration.

Did you catch it?

On the US Airways chart, the word "Envoy" has been replaced with "Business Class."

US Airways had previously referred to its International Business Class as "Envoy" (and it still does on other pages), but it looks like that name will disappear during the integration.

This is semantics, since the Envoy / Business Class will still be a great product--at least on the A330s where it is completely flat--but a far bigger change is coming

American Airlines has a far better award chart than rivals United and Delta, especially in premium cabins.

Unfortunately on many of its own internationally configured planes, American Airlines has angled lie flat seats in business class instead of fully flat beds.

The best value flight between the United States and Europe is American Airlines' daily 777-300ER flight from Los Angeles to London.

The 10hr40min flight east features fully flat beds in Business Class for 50k American Airlines miles each way, and American's newest First Class product for 62,500 miles each way.

Considering that Delta now charges 125k miles for roundtrip business class awards to Europe and United charges 115-140k for a roundtrip business class award and 160k-220k for a roundtrip first class award to Europe, American's prices are a steal!

For a great hard product, and west-coast-to-Europe flights, you can't

I'm using my miles and points very idiosyncratically at the moment to do something I'm sure none of my readers would want to do. But I think the lessons from my trip should be applicable for a lot of trips you would want to take.

Starting last weekend in Greensboro, North Carolina, I'll be following around the University of Virginia's Men's Basketball Team for the rest of the season.