Leigh Witchel has a new ongoing series on finding the best mileage awards. So far he’s written about credit cards and also mileage programs with awards based on distance.

The latter key takeaway is one of my favorites, the neat benefit of Cathay Pacific Asia Miles — awards in business class under 5000 miles are only 60,000 points. So flights on British Airways from the East Coast of the US to most destinations in Europe qualify. Similar flights would cost 100,000 British Airways miles.

Separately, the new Gratis Air Blog is posting daily airfare deals, some of which are pretty good.