The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know!

Do Now (if you haven’t already)

• Free Travel Guys write about the Austin MegaDO 2015 event schedule’s release. If you think you might want to go to this, book a hotel (I recommend fully refundable or award), because the hotel rooms even right now are pricey, north of $250 in downtown.
• The Deal Mommy is putting on a second Family Travel For Real Life in Charlotte, NC on 7 March 2015.  You can find a pretty detailed recap from Points with a Crew. My wife and I are pretty tempted to attend, although the closest we come is an awesome whippet puppy.

On Blog Content and Credit Card Affiliates

• Pfdigest learned a valuable lesson in having credit card affiliates. Even though Joe and I don’t write about our Credit Card links, they are available on the navigation bar. That said, don’t apply for credit cards for points if you have any intention of carrying a balance.

Nonsequitars

• Pointhacks highlights a rather odd half dozen flights by Qantas from Sydney to Vancouver. Its a 3 class 747 (maybe one of the birds QF used to use to Dallas before they upgraded to an A380?), and a quick look at Expert Flyer and yields minimal award space… It does look like there might be an option on 8 Jan from Vancouver to Sydney though.

Qantas Vancouver to Sydney on 8 Jan 2014 availability via ExpertFlyer

Redeeming Miles

• Matt shared kind’ve a beginners guide to booking awards using Hawaii as an example. Maybe Hawaii was just on my mind, but, I thought it was a good read. Pro-tip – Matt also included the various routings you can take to Hawaii, so even if you don’t want to do it with miles, you can search for those routings via ita matrix and potentially find some value fares.
• The Miles Professor highlights how US Airways’ cutting back international flights to Rio has had an unfortunate impact on a (formerly) great value on US Airways’ award chart, off peak awards to South America.