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.

Update 8/30/15: This offer ends Monday August 31, 2015.

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Until August 31, 2015, you can transfer 20,000 SPG Starpoints to 30,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

SPG Starpoints now transfer to 33 airlines with the addition of Korean SkyPass Miles to the list. Korean SkyPass is a 1:1 transfer partner, and, as with all 1:1 transfer partners, for every 20,000 points transferred, you get 5,000 bonus miles.

Examples:

15,000 Starpoints = 15,000 Korean miles
20,000Starpoints = 25,000 Korean miles
25,000 Starpoints = 30,000 Korean miles
60,000 Starpoints = 75,000 Korean miles

You can transfer Starpoints to airline miles here.

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 rate of 20k Starpoints to 25k miles. On top of that standard bonus, until August 24, 2015, Aeroplan is giving a bonus of up to 40k miles on transfers of hotel points to Aeroplan miles.

Transfers in from any of these partners count, and the best deal is to transfer in SPG Starpoints.

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 rate of 20k Starpoints to 25k miles. On top of that standard bonus, until August 24, 2015, Aeroplan is giving a bonus of up to 40k miles on transfers of hotel points to Aeroplan miles.

Transfers in from any of these partners count, and the best deal is to transfer in SPG Starpoints.

I don't spend much time in hotels (here's a breakdown of where I'm sleeping as I travel 365 days this year), but I've been looking at booking some upcoming hotel stays. I carry several co-branded credit cards, but as I've crunched the numbers, my Citi Prestige® Card has come out as a better option for paying the hotel stay in almost all cases.

That's especially true if I'm looking at a four night hotel stay, since the Citi Prestige® Card offers the fourth night free on paid hotel stays, which is an ~25% rebate (more if you're doing it right.