Via One Mile at a Time, US Airways is offering a 50% bonus on hotel and rental car activities through July 31. Hotel points transfers are included in the offer, too, and registration is required.

This is pretty exciting for Starwood points transfers — for example, 60,000 Starwood points normally transfer to 75,000 US Airways miles (since they give you 5000 bonus miles for each 20,000 points transferred). With this promo the same 60,000 Starwood points yields 112,500 US Airways miles. Make the transfer 65,000 Starwood and you wind up with 120,000 US Airways miles — enough for a first class Star Alliance award from North America to North Asia.

For example, you could fly ANA first class from Chicago to Tokyo, connect on to Shanghai, and then fly Asiana first class Shanghai to Seoul and back to Chicago. And don’t forget a stopover is permitted too. And in my experience, in practice, US Airways permits routings via the Atlantic as well.

They also have some relative values in their award chart, such as Europe to South Asia for 110,000 miles in first class. And even North America to the South Pacific at 140,000 miles in first class is a relative bargain or at least competitive.

Sadly US Airways charges a premium for North America to South Asia in first — 160,000 miles (United charges 145,000 via the Pacific, more via the Atlantic) — but with no blocking of partner award inventory other than the occasional technology program (US Airways’ reservation system is garbage) and this 50% transfer bonus, even that award seems a relative value.

Further, top off your account with a couple of US Airways Mastercard signup bonuses (here and here) and you’re well on your way!

One caveat, though. I really do recommend making the transfer and redeeming awards right away rather than banking the US Airways miles for future use. Dividend Miles isn’t a program that I trust at all, they have a history of making changes to their award chart without notice, and the airline takes a schizophrenic and unfriendly stance to its customers at times. This isn’t a program to view as a long-term store of value.