Any American Express card will do, it doesn’t have to be a co-branded Delta Amex.

$50 off 3 nights: 50AFFORB [Exp. 12/31]
$60 off 3 nights: VISAVIP [Exp. 8/15]
$75 off 4 nights: 4ODWR75 [book by 12/31, travel by 2/15/09]
$100 off 5 nights: EQUALITY100 [book by 08/31, travel by 11/15]
20% off:7DAYSALE3 [for travel by 10/31]
$200 off 5 Night stay in Hawaii: ORBHI200 [Exp 8/7]
Tips on combining codes: These codes are not “stackable”. But if you wanted to do a longer trip such as a 7 day trip, do two separate transactions. For days 1-3 use code VISAVIP for $60 off 3 nights. Then for days 4-7 use code 4ODWR75 for $75 off 4 nights.
VISAVIP+4ODWR75 = $135 off 7 nights

Say you wanted to a 10 day trip in Hawaii, again do two separate transactions:
ORBHI200+ORBHI200 = $400 off 10 nights in Hawaii
These are for hotel stay only, not valid on hotel+flight packages.

The change doesn’t apply to 500-mile upgrades (”stickers”). Just the confirmed mileage awards. This makes the electronic “VIP” upgrades given to Executive Platinum 100,000 mile flyers even more relatively valuable, since those don’t incur and cash co-pay. These VIP upgrades are also awarded to non-US AAdvantage members crossing the 1,000,000 miles earned threshold in their account (US members receive 500 mile upgrades confirmable at the standard upgrade window). And they’re given to all members crossing the 2,000,000 mile threshold.

Personally I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop on my program of choice, United, they still don’t have online minimum award booking fees, award fuel surcharges, upgrade cash co-pays, and it’s been a couple of years since they’ve increased mileage redemption levels. Now, in my wonderful dreams they see all this as a competitive advantage and will market themselves as the program of choice. Clearing the fog out of my brain I can only assume changes of some type will be coming there as well.

The founer of La Quinta was an original Southwest board member. Reading Lamar Muse’s autobiography years ago, I seem to recall that the chain got its name because the founder went looking for the cheapest furnishings available. Those had a Southwest motif, thus the need for a Spanish name. Just don’t look it up in the Urban Dictionary.

(Hat tip to Frugal Travel Guy.)

The annual fee is hefty — $90.00 for the Visa Signature or $55 for the Visa Platinum.

But the miles are easy and it’s nearly your last shot before Northwest Worldperks folds into Delta Skymiles. It’s a 25,000 mile opportunity you won’t have again, a bonus opportunity in addition to the Delta co-branded Amex offerings.

Well worth the $79 annual fee in my view. And there are reports that it’s churnable.

This on top of the 25,000 mile offer for the Bank of America Visa and 25,000 mile offer for the Juniper Bank US Airways Business Mastercard. Now, all come with fees, but that’s 75,000 miles for three credit cards none of which have a minimum spend requirement. And since you can churn Bank of America as well, that’s another huge opportunity.

Sure, US Airways may be making lots of stupid moves lately like charging for coffee and ending elite bonus miles. But the program itself is still useful on the redemption side, primarily for Star Alliance premium class awards. The award chart requires a similar number of miles to the United chart in many cases, and unlike with United the Dividend Miles program doesn’t actively filter out awards being made available by its partners. So if you want that first class award seat on Lufthansa or Europe - Asia on Thai, this is an excellent program to obtain it with.

Still, if you need to top off an account for an award this could be just the ticket.

Presumably folks that have purchased miles in the past will be receiving a promo to buy miles again in the near future, since the offer says

Already a Buy Miles customer? Then make sure that you have added an email address in your account profile so you don’t miss out on your upcoming exclusive promotion.

The news? Mr. Schutzbank says that United Mileage Plus members will soon (again) be able to use their miles for upgrades on participating Star Alliance airlines.

We have made some major enhancements and we believe we have fixed the problems we had with UA, and we are currently testing the system. If it works satisfactorily, I expect UA Mileage Plus members to be able to upgrade in the next six to eight weeks.

This was a feature of the Mileage Plus program and then pulled ‘due to technical difficulties’ and sure the technical challenges are great but at least half of Star Alliance airlines managed to make it work… Once re-implemented, it’ll take close to full fare coach tickets in order to use miles to upgrade, but that’s better than no ability to upgrade on partners at all.

It’s 50,000 British Airways Miles round-trip business class or 37,500 BA Miles round-trip in Prem+. If you’re like me, you get your BA miles by transferring Diners Club points during 50% transfer bonus periods, which equates to 25,000 Club Rewards points ultimately scoring a business-like product (Prem+) for transatlantic travel. That’s what happens when you start a new airline and loads are understandably light.

So I’ll be looking at whether a weekend in Paris makes sense (I didn’t manage to arrange my schedule for the inaugural flights, alas).

In order to get the discounted pricing you need to book at ba.com and choose JFK and ORY airports.