Pre-posting update: Wyndham is trying to renege on the deal. A rep posted on FlyerTalk:
Sorry for the confusion everyone. To clarify there were 2 parts to this promotion.
First part were for members who were targeted through email and the dates for that part were August 6, 2012 to October 6, 2012 and completed by October 9, 2012.
Second part is for member's who were targeted through direct mail. Dates for this part are 9/12/12 to 12/31/12 and completed by 1/3/13.
To qualify you need to have been sent the direct mailer and book through the link provided.

Delta is selling Alaska Airlines direct flights from San Diego to Maui roundtrip for $297. And American, United, and Delta are all getting in on the sub-$370 party from Los Angeles to Hawaii roundtrip.

There have recently been a ton of great deals to Hawaii. I'm not sure the cause of the sales--tourism to Hawaii is way up this year--but I've taken advantage and been trying to get everyone else to take advantage.

The legacy carriers--United, US Airways, Delta, American--all charge a fee if you ticket your award by phone instead of online. Here's your guide to avoiding those phone fees:

United

United charges $25 per passenger if you book by phone. They will not waive this phone fee just because a booking could not be completed online. That's frustrating because many multi-city and free-oneway awards can't be booked online. They generate error messages despite being within the routing rules.

Here's how you avoid the phone fee with United:

First, search for and reserve any United flight.

Delta only allows you to hold an itinerary if you don't have enough miles in the account to ticket at that moment. (If you sweet talk the right agent, you might get a hold even if you have enough miles, but it's not easy.)

Here's a trick to avoid this annoying policy if you have enough miles in your account to ticket the award you want.

Call Delta at 800-323-2323.
Instead of giving the SkyMiles account number you'll be using, give the account number of a friend that has very few miles.

Here are some of the day's hot topics being discussed on the FlyerTalk and milepoint message boards.

Christmas Cutbacks from United and How to Deal With Them

The holidays are bringing some unfortunate consequences for people who book award flights on United around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, as seen in this FlyerTalk thread.

In January, I booked an award

1. Frugal Travel Guy posted an awesome rundown of the major credit-card issuers' rules on how far apart applications must be and how churnable their bonuses are. I have it bookmarked for my future use.

Hey there, you're reading an outdated post! The updated series from April 2015 can be found here.

This is the twenty-sixth post in a monthlong series that started here. Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes to complete. I am writing this for an audience of people who know nothing about frequent flier miles, and my goal is that by the end, you know enough to fly for free anywhere you want to go.

Yesterday, I talked about using delta.com for award searches.

Hey there, you're reading an outdated post! The updated series from April 2015 can be found here.

This is the twenty-sixth post in a monthlong series. Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes to complete.

Hey there, you're reading an outdated post! The updated series from April 2015 can be found here.

This is the twenty-fourth post in a monthlong series. Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes to complete. I am writing this for an audience of people who know nothing about frequent flier miles, and my goal is that by the end, you know enough to fly for free anywhere you want to go.

This post presents the basics of using aa.com for award bookings.

Samir asks:
Hi Scott,
     I discovered your blog recently and am loving it. Your miles-related knowledge is pretty impressive and I most definitely appreciate the tips/advice I have gotten from your site so far. Needless to say, I have started reading your site daily. 
     Anyway, I have an issue that I was hoping you could help me out with. Last summer, I signed up for the AMEX Premier Rewards Gold card when it had a nice signup bonus at the time.