I’ve been a huge fan of card combinations that can really sweep you off your feet at the ability to rapidly earn tons of points without chasing a bonus. Combos like the Citi Premier® Card and the Citi® Double Cash Card, or the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and the Chase Freedom Unlimited®.

For the past few years, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® has been my absolute go to combo. However, with some recent updates I think another bank may be wooing me in.

No, it isn’t American Express, Bank of America, or Barclays.

Many travelers have Australia on their bucket list. There really is something for everyone, from the snorkeling and diving at the Great Barrier Reef to wineries, cool cities and spectacular beaches. 

The competition for the very limited number of award seats to get there, however, is fierce. Airlines’ frequent miler programs certainly don’t make it easy and finding award space on the nonstop flights from the U.S. could be quite a challenge.

I tweeted this deal first from @MileValueAlerts. Follow @MileValueAlerts on Twitter and follow these directions to get a text message every time I tweet from that account.

Alaska Airlines has added two new airlines to their lengthy list of partners recently.

Back in March of this year, Alaska added the German airline Condor. You can redeem and earn Alaska miles flying Condor. Even more recently, Alaska announced another new partnership: Finnair. You can't redeem Alaska miles flying Finnair yet but you can earn them when flying Finnair.

I'll focus more on Condor today since we don't know the redemption rates for flying Finnair yet.
Condor
Condor is a leisure airline.

The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® 60,000 mile offer has expired. Check out the current best credit card offers here.

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Let’s talk about how to use American Airlines miles for awards to Europe. This is not the best use of American Airlines miles because award space isn't great, and American collects fuel surcharges on two partners to Europe.

Womp womp! This is phantom award space--award space that shows up on a search engine but cannot be booked.

Check out this calendar instead that I made on Award Nexus. It shows award space from New York to Helsinki in April 2016 in Business Class, while excluding British Airways flights and their nasty fuel surcharges. Note that there is zero direct space on the JFK-HEL or HEL-JFK Finnair flights.