Update at 5:49 PM ET on 12/20/13: Many commenters are saying they've had problems with aa.com showing "phantom award space" on airberlin flights. I have never had that experience, so I was surprised by the reports, but I'm sure they're accurate. My advice changes in light of this info.

Qatar Airways awards are now searchable and bookable at ba.com and bookable by calling American Airlines. This is huge news because Qatar has an excellent route network from the US to the Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, and Maldives.

As announced on the oneworld site, Qatar Airways will join the oneworld alliance on October 30th. This is great news for those with large American Airlines AAdvantage or British Airways Avios balances.

I recently had a chance to relax and refuel in the British Airways Galleries Lounge North at Heathrow Terminal 5 before my Dreamliner flight to Stockholm.

The lounge features incredible food, a wide selection of booze, some cool aircraft views, and a variety of seating areas. It is very crowded, but overall I'd give the lounge very high marks.

Just after passing security, the lounge was on my left.

Upon presenting a business class ticket, I was admitted by an agent who I later saw was surfing the BA FlyerTalk forum from her desk.

Last week, British Airways announced a new, and surprising, route to be served by its Dreamliner 787: Austin, Texas <-> London-Heathrow, starting March 3, 2014.

The Austin route is the third Dreamliner route announced. The plane is already flying to Toronto and starts service to Newark on October 1, 2013.

I had a chance to speak to Simon Brooks, BA's Head of Sales for North America about the new route, for which tickets are already on sale.

Have you ever been mad at an airline? You probably called customer service, filled out an online form, or tweeted the customer service team.

Not Hasan Syed.

According to Yahoo!:
[Mr.

United scared me a lot on Friday when it tweeted that changes were coming to MileagePlus.

United still hasn't told us what those changes are, but insists we'll like them.

It's very unlikely I'll like them much. It could be a minor enhancement, but there are very few things I would change about United MileagePlus that United would also change.

United scared me a lot on Friday when it tweeted that changes were coming to MileagePlus.

United still hasn't told us what those changes are, but insists we'll like them.

It's very unlikely I'll like them much. It could be a minor enhancement, but there are very few things I would change about United MileagePlus that United would also change.

I recently saved a MileValue Award Booking Service client 60,000 miles on a trip to Israel by taking advantage of the best use of American Airlines miles and British Airways Avios on the same trip.

A client contacted me looking for a trip for two from Atlanta to Israel next spring. She had some Delta miles, American miles, and Avios.

A few weeks ago, I shared my thoughts on The Coolest Thing You Can Do with 57.5k United Miles and 10k Avios, which arose from daydreaming about booking myself more award trips.

The last few days I've worked myself into a frenzy planning an incredible-value American Airlines Explorer Award around the world in business class for 130k American Airlines miles and the most opulent Explorer Award possible for 280k miles.

American Airlines Explorer Awards have a distance-based award chart that uses American Airlines miles to fly two or more of American's oneworld partners.

A few months ago you could book Lima to Cuzco on ba.com with Avios.