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.

Frontier Airlines is a Denver-based airline with flights throughout the continental US, Alaska, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic.

Frontier Destinations

Right now The Frontier Airlines World MasterCard® is offering 40,000 bonus miles after spending only $500 in the first 90 days.

That's a huge sign up bonus for such a tiny minimum spending requirement. Making it even better is the fact that Frontier charges only 10k miles each way for a Standard award within the United States including Alaska.

Update 4/14/14: US Airways has increased the price of its awards to North Asia in business class to 110k miles roundtrip.

In December, I compiled Comparison Tables of United, Delta, US Airways, and American Airlines Award Charts to show which program had the cheapest awards in each cabin to every country you want to visit.

With Delta announcing a new award chart that takes effect for awards booked January 1, 2015, I have updated the tables for economy and business class.

There are a few ways to use these charts.

Figure out which miles to earn for your next big

Look how easy it is to get a family of four to Europe this summer!

For only 240k United miles total, there are ample options from the United States to many places in Europe. If 240k United miles sounds like a lot, it really isn't.

Note that this post was almost posted yesterday before news broke that Delta is moving to a revenue-based frequent flyer program--at least on the earning side. This post discusses flying before Delta's June 1 devaluation to its award chart, but can also be read as a general plea to burn Delta miles before January 1, 2015 when more changes are coming.

Delta's upcoming June 1 devaluation is a little different than United's was.

On February 1, United miles became much less valuable for premium cabin flights.

Not only did all first class awards outside of the western hemisphere go way up in price, but partner first class awards went way, way up.

Since people who want to fly first class awards want the swankiest, most aspirational flights, the increase in the partner award price is a big problem.

United Global First is good.

In part 1, I discussed the economy award options to Australia with American Airlines miles.

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

Come to Happy Hour with me today (2/17/14) in New York City!

US Airways has legally combined with American Airlines, but the airlines are still being run as two brands with two frequent flyer programs until some time in 2015.

Next month there are two key dates in the integration of the two airlines and specifically their AAdvantage and Dividend Miles programs.

On March 30, 2014, US Airways will leave the Star Alliance. This is the last day to use US Airways miles to book award space on Star Alliance partners. (Actually see this update.

For flights between the US and Europe, Austrian Airlines releases its economy class award seats to partners 298 days before the flight and its business class award seats to partners 88 days before the flight.

Austrian routes between the US and Europe have economy award space up to 298 days out

Austrian is a Star Alliance member that operates five routes to North America from its hub in Vienna:

New York-JFK
Chicago
Washington-Dulles
Toronto (don't forget about routing to Europe via Canada)
Newark (begins July 2, 2014)

Austrian operates two cabin Boeing 777s and 767s

There are a ton of Canada-to-Europe Star Alliance routes with better availability in economy and business class this summer than USA-to-Europe routes.

Connections from the US to Canada are easy to find, connecting in Canada generally leads to less flying than connecting in the US, and all airlines I can think of allow a connection in Canada between the US and Europe.

Since direct flight paths from the US to Europe cross Canada, connecting in Canada saves distance compared to connecting in the US.

What are the routes with award space?