In case you missed it, the big news last week was the removal of the Delta SkyMiles award chart. I wrote my angry rant about that on Friday, which I recommend reading but for this post, let’s cover what else went on last week.

1) Free Miles from Alitalia & Etihad – I love free miles, especially when there is little to no work involved. The first offer is from Alitalia for 4,000 miles for joining their frequent flyer program. The link to do so is here.

The second offer is from Etihad which requires just a bit more work. You will receive 1,000 Etihad miles for signing up for their frequent flyer program as well but you need to have some sort of qualifying activity to activate those miles. The easiest way to do this is to do a hotel review on HolidayCheck which should only take a few minutes. You will receive 150 miles per hotel review and that activity will trigger the 1,000 welcome bonus on your Etihad account, so you will end up with a total of 1,150 miles. (HT to Euflyer)

2) 25% Bonus on Redemptions for Airbnb Gift Cards – American Express is currently offering a 25% bonus for redeeming American Express Membership Rewards points for Airbnb Gift Cards. I wrote about this new redemption option from American Express when it became available and suggested it wasn’t a great use of Membership Rewards points since it valued them at only a penny per point. The normal redemptions amounts were 10,000 points for a $100 gift card and 25,000 points for a $250 gift card.

With this sale, you will still use the same amount of Membership Rewards points as before but earn a 25% bonus on the gift card amount, so now the gift cards are worth $125 or $313. This offers a 1.25 cents per point in redemption which is obviously better but still not my preferred way of utilizing Membership Rewards points. I generally prefer to transfer points to airlines or hotels where I will get more value out of my points.

That advice also holds true for the 25% Discount on Membership Rewards Redemptions for Hyatt Gift Cards.

3) American Express Transfer Bonus to AeroMexico – I admit I know next to nothing about the AeroMexico frequent flyer program, Club Premier, but American Express is offering a 20% transfer bonus to AeroMexico which is good until March 6th. Instead of the normal transfer ratio of 1:1, the transfer ratio is now 1:1.2.

I won’t be making a transfer during this bonus period but if you are considering it, Travel Summary has a great writeup on the AeroMexico program. There are some hidden gems such as 67,000 miles roundtrip for a business class ticket to Europe.

4) Amex Business Gold Changes Effective Now – Late last year, I wrote about how the earning structure of the American Express Business Rewards Gold was changing for the better in which you could select the category that earns 3x bonus points. Well, American Express has rolled out this change and cardholders are now eligible to make their selection for the 3x category.

The following categories are eligible to be chosen for 3x points and the ones not chosen will earn 2x points.

• Advertising in Select Media
• Gas Stations
• Airfare (when purchased directly from the airline)
• Shipping
• Hardware, Software and Cloud Computing purchases from select vendors

I’m not a current cardholder of the Business Rewards Gold but if I were, I’d probably choose gas stations since I don’t spend much money in the other categories.