I apologize for the lengthy delay between posts but between work and a few personal items going on, it has been quite hectic this past two weeks. Here is a very quick Monday Musings to catch-up on some bigger items I haven’t covered.

1) Today is the last day to book Avios awards within North America for only 4,500 Avios as starting tomorrow the flights will now cost 7,500 Avios. I personally recommend booking any potential flight today as it will only cost you the $5.60 in taxes to cancel the award and I don’t mind paying $5.60 to save 3,000 Avios in the event you need to cancel the award.

2) Remember the huge stink all the big blogs made about the 50,000 point offer on Thank You Premier ending? Their affiliate links might show only 40,000 points but here is the way to get 50,000 point offer still. Or via Dem Flyers, here is a direct link to the offer. Of course, no big blog will mention this.

3) Speaking of other bloggers, last week was an absolute clusterf**k for bad blogging. First we had the The Points Guy telling everyone to get the Chase UR cards (Sapphire, Ink & Freedom) WITHOUT even bringing up the 5/24 rule? How can you possibly write a post on that topic without at least mentioning that for the sake of your readers? That’s a rhetorical question, I know the an$wer$.

Then Twitter and the rest of the Internet exploded when PointChaser literally wrote about her illegal activity in regards to cashing out money orders (bought from using prepaid gift cards) and better yet, recommended it to her readers! I stayed out of the fracas online but you have got to be kidding me with this s**t! My tip: If you don’t fully understand what structuring is, then maybe you shouldn’t advise others on that topic. My 2nd tip: Don’t post about illegal activity in a public forum!

4) IHG devalued their program last week adding two new top tier categories costing 55,000 and 60,000 points a night. It looks the big hits are to popular hotels in major cities (no surprise there). If you want more info on the devaluation, check out this post.

5) I’ll end this post on a positive note – American has been releasing a lot of award space in premium cabins for travel to Europe or Asia. The best available space has been from LA, Dallas, Charlotte and Philly (the last two for European travel only). This is great timing before the big devaluation hits on March 22nd.

I’ll try to get back on a more regular posting schedule shortly – I recommend following me on Twitter @PointsCentric as I’m more likely to tweet out anything interesting or great deals I find there that I won’t get around to posting.