About a year ago I excitedly opened a Citi Prestige card, ready for my 50,000 ThankYou point bonus and lounge access, among other things. Since the, the bonus has dropped to 40,000 ThankYou Points, but considering the myriad of other benefits the card maintained, it's still worth getting if you haven't had it yet. Read our full review of the Citi Prestige.

11 months into holding any card that's got an annual fee, I do a cost/benefit analysis to figure out if I'm getting enough value from the card to keep it open.

For about a month, the Delta Gold and Platinum cards have had 50,000 to 70,000 point sign up bonuses.

Through September 30th, 2016, sign up to receive emails from Virgin Hotels and Virgin Sport and earn 500 Virgin America points for each.

Sign up for Virgin Hotels promotional emails here
Sign up for Virgin Sport promotional emails here

These aren’t huge miles, but they are easy to get, since signing up will take no time and is free.

Considering I value Virgin America Elevate miles more than any other mile at 2.3 cents each, signing up for both of these emails is a no brainer.

I was almost the star of a Quilmes Copa America commercial in Argentina. Quilmes is the biggest beer brand in Argentina.

Regarding any information in this post about taxes: this is miles information, not tax advice. Consult a tax professional before paying your taxes with a credit card.

Plastiq is an online bill payment processing system that "empowers you to use your existing debit and credit cards to pay any bill, regardless of acceptance". The charge for that convenience is 2.5% of each payment on a credit card and 1% on a debit card.

You can now redeem American Airlines miles to the Indian Subcontinent via Cathay Pacific or American Airlines flights that connect in Hong Kong.

Until today, you could only connect in Europe or the Middle East. Routing via Asia would break your trip into two awards--USA to East Asia + East Asia to Indian Subcontinent.

Etihad is again releasing First Class award space on its daily A380 flight between New York and Abu Dhabi that you can book for only 90,000 American Airlines miles each way.

Some credit card offers in this post have expired, but they might come back.

American Airlines is releasing a ton of First Class award space from Miami and Dallas to Madrid for July though October, 2016.

This award space is easy to connect to from anywhere in the United States, and you can get anywhere in Europe with an Iberia flight from Madrid. These connecting flights do not add to the First Class mileage price of 62,500 American Airlines miles each way.

The king of cash back cards is the Barclaycard Arrival PlusTM World Elite MasterCard®, which isn't even a cash back card.

The card offers 2.15% back on all purchases in the form of free travel.

Because you can use any type of Star Alliance miles to book any Star Alliance flight, I’ve put the eight best Star Alliance award charts into one spreadsheet. Check out why I chose these eight award charts and how Americans can get these miles here.