Anatomy of an Award posts highlight real awards I've booked to show you the techniques needed to book your dream trip.

Recently the MileValue Award Booking Service had a client who was looking to travel to Costa Rica with his family of three in business class.

This. Times Four.

I'm dipping in to my personal stash to give away a pair of United Club passes that expire June 30, 2014.

Here are the United Club locations to check whether you’ll be able to use a pass on your next trip.

If you can use the passes between June 5, 2014 (because they will take a few days to get to you) and June 30, 2014, there are two ways to enter to win them!

Comment on this post.

United left one of the best values on their award chart when they devalued their chart in February.

You can fly between Southern South America--Brazil, Argentina, Chile--and Africa for 30k miles each way in economy and 45k miles each way in business class as long as your itinerary features South African Airways' flights between Sao Paulo and Johannesburg.

This is such a high value award that when reader Ryan pointed it out to me, we both thought it was a mistake.

According to the Wall Street Journal, airlines are opening up more award space this year compared to last year because of pressure from banks, accounting rules, and consultant studies.

In the short term, that's good for us. More award space: woohoo!

But in the long run, these pressures could cause more airlines to move to revenue-based frequent flyer programs. Revenue-based redemptions: boohoo!

Every year IdeaWorks comes out with one of the worst-conceived studies imaginable in an attempt to quantify which frequent flyer programs make redemptions the easiest.

United recently announced a new partner: Azul Brazilian Airlines.

United is offering 25% off Saver economy awards between the mainland United States and Japan for flights completed by April 30, 2014.

You can book flights to Japan for only 26,250 United miles each way this month only, and the price shows up automatically online. The normal price is 35,000 United miles each way.

Any discount is nice, but there are one or two drawbacks to consider.

United flies two flights from Honolulu to the east coast on internationally-configured two-cabin planes. What is sold as First Class on these planes--and BusinessFirst if you fly internationally--is a fully flat bed in a 2-1-2 configuration across the cabin.

Flat bed first class on United flights between Honolulu and Newark and Washington-Dulles

This First Class is far superior to most domestic First Class, which is served by a recliner seat with only seven more inches of legroom than coach.

First Class Seat on a Hawaii to East Coast Flight.

I haven't been home since February 16 when I boarded a plane from Honolulu for Newark.

The 50k mile bonus offer is back on the Lufthansa card mentioned in this post until 6/30/14.

Alaska Airlines flies a direct flight between Anchorage and Honolulu.

I love interesting routes from Hawaii--like the Island Hopper across the Pacific--since moving to Oahu, but I think this route has some cool possibilities for everyone, like one vacation that combines Alaska and Hawaii this summer.

Anchorage and Honolulu are 2,777 miles apart. This is a sweet spot on British Airways' distance-based award chart.