American Airlines business class used to stink.

Earlier this year, Citi introduced a unique benefit to its American Airlines credit cards. (Yes, cards plural; serious mileage earners get two at a time.

Here are some of the day's hot topics being discussed on the FlyerTalk and milepoint message boards.

Christmas Cutbacks from United and How to Deal With Them

The holidays are bringing some unfortunate consequences for people who book award flights on United around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, as seen in this FlyerTalk thread.

In January, I booked an award

A few weeks ago I got this letter in the mail:

Always read your junk mail from credit card companies!

My offer is 3x American Airlines miles on purchases at supermarkets, restaurants, pharmacies, and gas stations up to a maximum of 2,500 bonus miles. Since I would normally earn 1x at those places on this card, I take it to mean that I get my first $1,250 at 3x miles.

I went to the website, typed in my "Invitation Number" and received confirmation I was registered.

This post is part of a series that will detail verbatim my negotiations with credit card companies to squeeze every last point and cent out of my cards.

Last August, I opened both the Citi AAdvantage Visa and Citi AAdvantage Amex at the same time to earn 150,000 American Airlines miles. The Visa had a spending requirement of $1,500 within four months to unlock its 75,000-mile bonus. After hitting that bonus, I moved on to unlocking the Amex's bonus then on to other cards.