How to Book a Five City European Award for 15,000 United Miles

I just booked myself a five city, four country award for 15,000 United miles + $73. Let's back up a little bit before I explain my current award.
My 2013 Euro Hopper
Two years ago, I flew a Seven City, Seven Flight, Six Country Award in Europe for 12,500 United miles plus taxes.

Anatomy of an Award: Flights to Cuba with Miles

I just booked myself a trip to Cuba with miles. One direction I am flying on a single award from the United States to Cuba. On the return, I am flying two awards: Cuba to Colombia and Colombia to the United States.

I used American Airlines, Asiana, and Lufthansa miles, all of which are easily available to Americans.
Can Americans Travel to Cuba?
Here is the State Department's page on visiting Cuba.

I am going to travel to Cuba on a general license as a journalist.

Easiest Places to Book with American Airlines Miles

Earlier today, I explained why American Airlines miles are not very good to go to Europe in Business Class (and what the best option is.) Every type of miles has strengths and weaknesses, and overall I consider American Airlines miles the most valuable miles.

Easiest Places to Book with American Airlines Miles

Earlier today, I explained why American Airlines miles are not very good to go to Europe in Business Class (and what the best option is.) Every type of miles has strengths and weaknesses, and overall I consider American Airlines miles the most valuable miles.

Best Posts of 2014

Here's a mix of some of my favorite and some of the most popular posts from 2014.

5 Mistakes I See People Making Over and Over

From my vantage point reading comments on this blog, emails to me, and tweets @milevalue, I see a lot of mistakes being made in the collection and redemption of miles.

Five of these mistakes are being repeated over and over and are costing people a lot of dream trips.

The mistakes:

1. Starting at the Beginning
With miles, you want to start at the end. By that, I mean to figure out your dream trip and work backwards from there to figure out which miles are best for said trip.

I see this mistake manifest a lot of ways.

Asiana Sweet Spots: Lufthansa First Class for 50,000 Miles

Asiana has the best award chart in the Star Alliance. That means that you can book any of the 27 Star Alliance airlines, including United, for fewer miles on many routes with Asiana miles than with better known programs like United, Lufthansa, LifeMiles, Singapore, and Air Canada.

Asiana is a 1:1 transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints.

Six Under-Priced Awards on the United Airlines Chart

As promised in yesterday’s post on the Five Under-Priced Awards on the American Airlines Chart, today I'll post six under-priced awards on the United chart.

The basic premise of these posts and my post on the Coolest Thing You Can Do with 60,000 Miles was connecting far-flung regions into a single trip by taking advantage of under-priced awards between the regions.

Why American and United awards?

The Coolest Thing You Can Do with 60k Miles

Last week I urged people to be realistic with their miles and listed The Easiest Places to Get with Miles. Today I'm telling you to dream big and to look to do things with miles that you couldn't easily or cheaply do without miles.

For instance, for 60,000 miles, you can book yourself a "triangle trip" that lets you practice your Spanish in Chile and Spain.