Marriott transition in detail, get paid to eat steak, FM improvements and more

Whether you’re wondering about the finer details of the Marriott/SPG/Ritz merger or you are looking for a tip on redeeming your points when agents tell you that you can’t, you’ll find it in this Frequent Miler week in review, where we recap the week’s main stories, Read on for this week today.

Better Best Offers

Our Best Offers page was in need of a bit of a redesign and Greg has put in hours to spruce things up and make the information more accessible. You can always count on this page to display the best publicly available offers — and now you can count on it to display those offers in an even more intuitive format. Check it out.

No availability? Australia to the rescue

After spending 45 minutes on hold with a US-based American Airlines agent the other day — only to be told that there was no award availability on the flights I knew should be available — I HUCA’d (hung up, called again). Not being a total glutton for punishment, my second call was to Australia – and in ten minutes, I had what I wanted. Or so I thought….to be continued…

Enjoying and maximizing Discover cash back

Points and miles are fun. It’s cool to step in the the front end of a plane and be offered champagne or to relax in the large bathtub of your luxurious suite. But you know what else is fun? Getting paid to eat filet mingon. In this post, Greg shows how not so long ago you could do just that — and how you can still get instant gratification without the guilt of buyer’s remorse when you’re redeeming Discover cash.

A miles vs points dilemma: Redeem an award or “pay” with points?

If you’re collecting miles and points, you probably do so because (you think) they can be more valuable to you than cash back. However, with the abundance of cheap paid fares, it can be hard to decide how to best redeem your collection of rewards. I recently hit a bit of a dilemma between booking a more “fun” itinerary using miles or a couple of options that excite me less, but would do the trick and use fewer points. One thing is for sure: cheap fares make miles feel less valuable.

Everything you need to know about the Marriott SPG Ritz transition

As the name suggests, we have a complete guide that gives you the details you’ll need to know about the big merger on the horizon. Whether you’re wondering what you’ll earn on paid stays or potential new award chart mappings, this guide as a table of contents for every area so you can hop right to what interests you most.

That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Check back soon for this week around the web and our weekly last chance deals.

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