Until today (June 3, 2016), Starwood Preferred Guest personal or business credit cardholders can buy up to 30,000 Starpoints with up to a 35% discount on the normal purchase price.

You can earn 10,000 Starpoints per referral to the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card, up to 55,000 Starpoints per calendar year. That's double the normal Starpoints per referral (but the same annual cap.)

I value 10,000 Starpoints at $250 and 55,000 Starpoints at $1,375.
How does the referral bonus work?
Look for an email with the subject "Limited Time: Refer a Friend, Earn Double the Starpoints" and click the Refer Now button.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) has reduced fuel surcharges drastically on awards that travel to or from Japan. Now you can fly to Tokyo from the United States for 75,000 miles in flat bed Business Class roundtrip plus low taxes plus a $4--yes four dollar--fuel surcharge. That's tens of thousands of miles fewer than competitors charge.

The above screenshot is of a roundtrip Business Class award flying ANA between Los Angeles and Tokyo in February 2017.
Routing Rules
ANA has two award charts.

Until today (April 30, 2016), you can buy up to 30,000 Starpoints with up to a 25% discount on the normal purchase price.

Starpoints are normally sold in increments of 500 points for 3.5 cents per point.

Last week I wrote about SPG's newest airline transfer partner. You can now transfer Starpoints 1:1 to Virgin America Elevate points and get 5,000 bonus Virgin America points for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred. That's particularly amazing because Virgin America is a 2:1 transfer partner of American Express and Citi (eg 20k Membership Rewards = 10k Virgin America points.)

One of the best deals with Virgin America points is flying Virgin Australia from Los Angeles to Sydney or Brisbane.

Effective immediately, you can transfer SPG Starpoints to Virgin Elevate points at a 1:1 rate. Like all 1:1 partners of SPG, you get 5,000 bonus miles for every 20,000 points transferred, so 20,000 Starpoints equals 25,000 Virgin America points. This is 2-and-a-half times the Virgin America points that you get from competing transferable points.

The Starwood Preferred Guest personal and business credit cards from American Express now come with 35,000 bonus Starpoints for spending $3,000 and $5,000 respectively in the first three months of cardmembership.

Links:

Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express (personal)
Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express

The normal sign up bonus is 25,000 points, the twice yearly limited time offer is 30,000 points. This is the highest public sign up bonus ever on these cards.

The Chinese insurance company Anbang has topped Marriott's latest bid for Starwood, the company that manages these hotel brands.

This soap opera has been ongoing since November when Marriott offered $72.08 per share for Starwood. Anbang and Marriott have gone back and forth with the latest Anbang offer worth $82.75 per share.

I haven't been covering the twists and turns and won't cover them again until a sale is completed.

Aeroplan has brought back its huge transfer bonuses that it last offered in April, August, and December 2015.

Right now 40k Starpoints plus taxes will get you a roundtrip economy class trip to Europe, 145k Starpoints will get you two roundtrip Business Class ticket to Europe, and 110k will get you two roundtrip First Class tickets to Hawaii.

Starpoints always transfer to dozens of airlines at a 1:1 rate with a bonus of 5,000 miles for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred.

I just spent one night at Le Meridien Chiang Rai, in Thailand for 4,000 Starpoints, and it was incredible. The property sits just 1.5 miles outside of downtown Chiang Rai, overlooking the Kok River.

We arrived at the Chiang Rai airport from Bangkok at about 3:30 PM and took a $2 taxi to the hotel.

The open air lobby is beautiful.