Award travel reservations can usually be made up to eleven months in advance. Often, but not always, eleven months out has the best availability. Eleven Months Out is my new series looking at what you can book today for travel in eleven months.

US Airways off peak awards are some of the best deals in all of award travel. Right now is an excellent time to book a roundtrip award to Europe or Brazil for February 2014 for only 30,000 US Airways miles.

Update 1/17/14: 35k offer is dead, but the 40k offer is alive!

FlyerTalkers are reporting success getting a 35,000 mile bonus and no annual fee for the first year on the Barclay's US Airways MasterCard.

Asiana recently announced that starting on July 22, it would be flying a new 777-200ER daily on its New York-JFK <-> Seoul-Incheon route with the following flight times.

OZ222 departs Seoul-ICN at 10:00 and arrives New York-JFK at 11:00 AM (same day)

OZ 221 departs New York-JFK at 1:00 PM and arrives Seoul-ICN at 4:10 PM (next day)

This is big news because the three-cabin Asiana 777-200ERs have a fantastic first class.

Update at 9:31 AM ET on 3/8/13. Disregard most of this post. Commentor Angel pointed out trouble getting ANA to price this, and I found the problem. ANA rule: "The departure airport and the final destination on the itinerary may differ, but must be in the same country." I'll try to figure out a way to salvage some of this idea.

Yesterday I was effusive about the fact that ANA--a Japanese airlines most of us have never flown--stopped charging fuel surcharges on United and US Airways flights booked with ANA miles.

American Express Membership Rewards are valuable because of their ability to be transferred to dozens of partners. But they have a glaring weakness: they don't have a top-tier Star Alliance transfer partner--US Airways or United.

Membership Rewards can be transferred to Singapore, which is great because this is the only way to get into Singapore business or first class.

Membership Rewards can also be transferred to Aeroplan and ANA.

For many people, the most aggravating travel fees are out-of-pocket fees charged on frequent-flyer-mile award tickets. At least that's my impression from reading the comments on this New York Times article I was quoted in. Huge government taxes and fuel surcharges can make what should be a free ticket cost hundreds of dollars per person. People were furious about paying $600 for a "free" economy ticket.

And why wouldn't they be? Most people think award miles get you a free ticket like they used to.

The offers for the cards listed in this post have expired. Click here for the top current credit card sign up bonuses.

The merger of American Airlines and US Airways, announced today, is no news in the near term, fantastic news in the medium term, and bad news in the long term for me and similarly situated frequent flyer mile hackers.

No News in the Near Term

Your US Airways Dividend Miles are still there.

Part I: The Main Award & Finding a Free Oneway

Part II: US to Asia via Europe for 90k Miles in Business

Part III: Adding a Great Sidetrip

This is the third and final installment breaking down my trip to Asia using US Airways miles. The main award is posted below:

Washington-Dulles -> Istanbul (23 hour layover) [Turkish]
Istanbul -> Seoul-Incheon -> Tokyo-Narita [Asiana]
Tokyo-Narita -> Washington-Dulles [All Nippon Airlines]

US Airways is extremely relaxed with their routing rules as you can see above.

Part I: The Main Award & Finding a Free Oneway

Part II: US to Asia via Europe for 90k Miles in Business

Part III: Adding a Great Sidetrip

This article is a continuation of the post from last week, discussing getting to Tokyo in business class for only 90,000 US Airways miles.

Part I: The Main Award & Finding a Free Oneway

Part II: Breakthrough: Maximizing the Routing in a Major Way

Part III: Adding a Great Sidetrip

As part of my New Year's travel resolutions, I really wanted to visit Tokyo and see a close friend in Europe this year. My vacation time is extremely limited, so I was forced to maximize the award ticket. Luckily, my best times to take off are in October and November.