Aeroplan's 30% bonus for transferring hotel points ends tomorrow night. If you have a stash of SPG or Marriott points, read this post to see if taking advantage of the bonus makes sense for your travel plans.

Through August 21 (11:59 ET), 2017, Aeroplan is offering the biggest bonus on record at the moment for transferring hotel points to Aeroplan miles. It's also not a tiered bonus like the others in the past have been. Transferring any amount will earn the advertised 35% bonus.

Tonight (for me it is almost 11 PM) my goal was to book a flight to get me from Norway to Spain around July 11, because for the rest of the days leading up to the 11th, I'll be camping in rural Norway with little to no internet access.

Cash flights at this point are exorbitantly expensive, but hey, that's what miles are for.

Let's run through the best airline transfer options while the Starwood Preferred Guest personal and business credit cards from American Express come with 35,000 bonus Starpoints for spending $5,000 and $8,000 respectively in the first six months of cardmembership.

Swiss Airlines is releasing two Business Class award seats during Fall 2017 and Winter 2018 on its American routes, including from the West Coast.

Swiss flies the following routes to Zurich with connections throughout Europe.

You can book this rare award space in a top-notch flat bed for 55,000 Aeroplan miles, 63,000 LifeMiles, or 70,000 United miles. None of those programs collect fuel surcharges on Swiss awards, and all allow connecting United flights free of charge.
The Product
Swiss has a few Business Class products that you can check out on Seat Guru.

Aeroplan is Air Canada’s spun-off loyalty program. Aeroplan.com is an awesome search engine that displays award availability on almost all Star Alliance flights.

You should know how to use aeroplan.com whether or not you ever plan to redeem Aeroplan miles because you shouldn’t necessarily search the website of the miles you’re using. You should just search the website that is easiest and best at displaying award availability. Any award availability shown at aeroplan.com will be bookable with Aeroplan, United, Singapore, ANA, Lufthansa, and Avianca miles.

Aeroplan.com is usually my backup search engine.

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.

Updated 1/29/16 to reflect new Aeroplan award prices effective for awards booked 12/15/15 or later.
Updated 10/6/15 to reflect new ANA award prices effective for awards booked 10/15/15 or later.

In the last few weeks, I have published some comparative charts of Star Alliance award charts. I'm putting all of those charts into this post for easier reference.

You can use any type of Star Alliance miles to book almost any Star Alliance flight. (Swiss, Lufthansa, and Singapore hold back some premium cabin award space for their own members.

Right now 40k Starpoints plus taxes will get you a roundtrip economy class trip to Europe, 65k Starpoints will get you a roundtrip Business Class ticket, and 80k will get you a roundtrip First Class ticket.

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.

Turkish Business Class flat bed award space is wide open to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Indian Subcontinent for Summer 2016. You can book award space for 2-8 people in Business Class on routes from America to Turkey and beyond with United miles, LifeMiles, Aeroplan miles, Asiana miles, and many other Star Alliance miles.
Where Turkish Flies
Turkish will soon fly from nine American cities to Istanbul.

From Istanbul, you can connect to over 100 countries.

Aeroplan, the frequent flyer program of Air Canada is devaluing its award chart, effective for awards booked December 15, 2015 and later.

This is one of those devaluations that I consider almost good news because we are getting three months' notice, the changes are minor, and one big improvement was made.

Americans should pay attention to Aeroplan miles because Aeroplan is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards and SPG Starpoints, has a fair award chart with a few gems, and doesn't impose fuel surcharges on many Star Alliance partners' award flights like United, Air China, Turkish, and SAS.