As time carries on Marriott and Starwood Preferred Guest are slowly altering their loyalty programs to prepare for integration. This morning Marriott announced a few new changes that will affect both Marriott and SPG members.
A Brief Catch-Up
Marriott and Starwood Preferred Guest have been in the process of merging since September 2016 when Marriott announced the purchase of SPG. We were given the ability to link accounts and transfer points between programs (3 Marriott points to 1 SPG Point and vice versa) and elite status match with impressive speed, immediately following the purchase.

I'm a big fan of Alaska miles, because of the free stopovers on one way awards and great mix of partners from multiple alliances.
Alaska Mileage Plan Basics
Before we get into potential redemptions and stopover destinations, let's go over some basics about the program.

Partners

Alaska has a varied array of oneworld, SkyTeam, and non-allied airline partners:

Here are the award charts for flying Alaska and its partners.

LATAM and Cathay Pacific award space cannot be found on alaskaair.com. Search with British Airways award search engine instead.

Starwood Preferred Guest and Uber have had an ongoing relationship allowing SPG members to earn SPG points by tying their SPG and Uber accounts together. As of now, you can earn 1 SPG point per $2 spent on Uber for nothing other than linking your accounts. You can also earn SPG points for using Ubers when staying at SPG hotels at an elevated rate of 2 points per dollar spent.

Update 10/26/17: This offer is ending next week, on Wednesday, November 1. Looking back historically, there is a decent chance this is the last elevated offer we will see for the SPG Business card if Chase takes over as the card issuer instead of American Express moving forward with the SPG/Marriott merger.

Update 10/22/17: This transfer bonus was supposed to end October 15 but has been extended through October 31, 2017.

Until October 15, 2017, you can get up to a 62.5% bonus when transferring your SPG points to American Airlines AAdvantage. Previous SPG to AAdvantage transfer bonuses have offered a maximum of a 20% bonus.

Yesterday Marriott Rewards offered 1,000 bonus points for answering an NFL trivia question via replying to their Tweet.

Where is the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Answer with #RewardsPoints before 8pm EDT on 10/15 and score 1,000 points if you get it right.

If you book a participating Starwood Preferred Guest hotel or resort on your MasterCard by October 31, 2017, you can get the third night free on reservations of three nights or more.

Use promo code Z3H for Starwood hotels
Use promo code Z3R for Starwood resorts

Here's the link to the promo or you can call Starwood Preferred Guest Reservations (1-866-716-8147) and feed the rep the appropriate code.

Variations of this same promotion have been offered before, so it seems like it's not a bad idea to try your luck with the promo code any time you're booking a paid

You can earn 1,000 Marriott Rewards for taking a few seconds out of your day to tweet the answer to an NFL trivia question tomorrow--Sunday, September 24. Well, maybe more than a few if you need to google the answer like I will as I know next to nothing about football.
How to Get the Free Points
Step 1: Connect your Twitter account to your Marriott Rewards account here.

American Express is offering a couple lucrative incentives to spend on their cards at the moment.

Yesterday I applied for the Marriott Rewards Premier Business credit card. To my delight, I was automatically approved after submitting the application.

The Marriott Rewards Premier Business credit card is issued by Chase, who is known for denying people for the majority of their cards who have opened almost any five credit cards from any bank in the last 24 months. I have opened far more than five credit cards in the last 24 months, but I decided to go for the Marriott Business card anyways as the rule is known not to apply it.