Rewarding Highlights you may have missed in the last week in case you don’t have time to skim through BoardingArea and Flyertalk:

• Free flight to Hawaii?  Barclays is offering a 35k sign up bonus for its Hawaiian Airlines credit card.  Before you apply, check out Rapid Travel Chai’s warnings.
• Thai Airways  announced a massive award chart devaluation – thankfully I don’t have any miles sitting in their program.  In the rare event you do, make your bookings prior to September 1, 2014.
• Amex MR points can no longer be transferred to anyone you want.  It was good while it lasted.  I suspect if you add someone as a secondary cardholder, you can still transfer to hotel/airline accounts, which has the secondary cardholder’s name.  I have yet to try this out, but will let you know when I find out more.
• 1 million miles for $6500: CNN wrote about someone who plans to spend $6,500 to obtain 1 million miles.  Great, but it’s a lot of work and risky.  I know someone who plans to obtain 1 million AA miles for only $810 – lets see if CNN writes about him.  I'm not doing it and don’t recommend it.  He’s getting the Citi Exec AA card, sending $10k online to his friend and paying the $290 (2.9%) fee then canceling the card after the first billing statement, getting the $450 annual fee refunded, and keeping the $200 statement credit for a total of $90 for 110k AA miles.  Repeat the process 9x to get 1 million AA miles for $810. This guy already on his 6th card. See post 6853.  Crazy.

• Expiring Offers:  Reminder that the increased 30k signup bonus for the SPG Amex card is due to expire end of this month.  Likewise, the 100k signup bonus for Citi Exec AA card is rumored to disappear end of this month.
• Free Boingo Wifi Service – Amex is offering complimentary boingo service for select Amex Platinum cardholders.  Click here to see if you are eligible.
• IHG is opening its first EVEN branded hotel in Norwalk, CT.  It appears this is a rebrand from the Four Points Norwalk, which used to be an SPG property.  I used to hotel hop back in my consulting days, and I can tell you the hotel was a dump.  It was in desperate need of renovations to say the least.  Looks like it partnered up with IHG after renovations.
• Le Bernadin RSVP event with Hyatt: Watch out for an upcoming post on the recent Hyatt RSVP event at Le Bernardin.  Mind blown! 
• Screaming Deal: North Korea’s Air Koryo $9 All-In Mistake Fare is Systemwide, and Even Works for Business Class – even works for flights from China/Beijing, China/Shenyang, Russia/Vladivostok

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