$35 Hotel Rooms for October 16 – December 10

Whenever Priority Club announces its new list of PointBreaks hotels, the miles’ world pays attention. The hotels on the list that may ordinarily cost hundreds of dollars a night go for 5,000 Priority Club points for a limited time. The new list is valid for stays from October 16 - December 10.

As loyal readers know, I’m not big on hotel rewards programs; I usually get a better deal pricelining as I explained here.

How to Get to Australia and New Zealand with American Airlines Miles Part 2

This is Part 2 of my two-part post on using AA miles to get to Australia and New Zealand. Read Part 1 first.

Here are a few more ways to get to Australia and New Zealand with American miles.

Air Tahiti Nui and Air Pacific: Connect in the Middle of Nowhere

One horribly annoying rule when redeeming AA miles is that your award cannot transit a region other than the origin region and destination region unless explicitly permitted.

How to Get to Australia and New Zealand with American Airlines Miles Part 1

Australia and New Zealand are a tough place to get to with miles, especially if you want to go from mid-December through March, which encompasses Christmas, New Year's, and the Southern Hemisphere's summer.

Having booked several trips to Australia and New Zealand for myself, family, and others through my Award Booking Service, I'll share some tips on getting there with American Airlines miles.

Basics

American Airlines allows oneway bookings at half the price of roundtrip awards.

Free Domestic Circle Trips on United Awards

Last month, I got an interesting email from reader Ed that started:

Scott,

Please consider if this is viable, albeit challenging to book:

[UA]  DCA-BOS-YYZ-ORD-CLE-EWR // EWR-ZRH-IST, IST-IAD

The answer is yes it is possible, and what it means is that you can add a free circle trip onto roundtrip international United awards.

Hopefully readers of this blog are well acquainted with Free Oneways on United Awards, the most-read post I've written.

The central idea of free oneways is to take your free stopover at your home airport, then start a second trip from there on the same award.

The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards

There are five cardinal rules of American Airlines award tickets that I wanted to put together in one place for reference. All AA awards must comply with these rules and several other minor ones.

You should consult this post when planning an AA award, especially if you are trying to add a stopover or free oneway.

1. Stopovers are not allowed on American Airlines awards.

All connections on purely domestic itineraries must be less than four hours. All connections on international awards must be less than 24 hours.

2.

Free First Class Next Month: 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.

Free First Class Next Month: Using BA.com for oneworld Awards

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

This is the twenty-fifth 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.

Six and a Half Hours on a Flat Bed in a Dreamliner for 25,000 United Miles

United recently acquired several Boeing 787 Dreamliners and announced the first international routes that will be serviced by the plane.

But before those routes start, United will fly the plane between its domestic hubs. The very first flights haven't been announced, but United did release the routes the planes will fly between November 4 and March 31. (H/T Mommy Points.)

To me, this is huge news.

How Americans Can Exploit US Airways’ Cheap Awards from South America

Yesterday I talked about some great sweet spots on the US Airways chart for awards originating in South America. Maybe you thought that post was irrelevant for Americans.

But Americans can still get half the value of these sweet-spot awards by using open jaw itineraries.

US Airways sweet-spot awards can have tremendous value for Americans if they're employed as part of something I'll call a triangle award.

A triangle award is using three or more oneway itineraries to create a journey that includes two or more destinations.

How to Use Wikipedia to Book Awards Like a Pro

Tom writes:

I've seen you mention wikipedia a couple of times when talking about building awards and figuring out where airlines fly - what exactly do you use wikipedia for?  Have you done a post about this?

I did write one post that touched on using wikipedia: Book Awards Like a Pro: Routing Ideas. But I'll answer the question of how I use wikipedia more fully.

For me, the two best places to get routing ideas are kayak.com and wikipedia.