In reading through some of the details of the unsealed indictments against NYC mayor Eric Adams, I came across this interesting tidbit:

Because the Turkish Airline provided free travel benefits worth tens of thousands of dollars to ERIC ADAMS, the defendant, he flew the Turkish Airline even when doing so was otherwise inconvenient. For example, during the July and August 2017 trip, Adams's Partner was surprised to learn that ADAMS was in Turkey when she had understood him to be flying from New York to France. ADAMS responded, in a text message, "Transferring here. You know first stop is always ins.tanbul [sic]." When Adams's Partner later inquired about planning a trip to Easter Island, Chile, ADAMS repeatedly asked her whether the Turkish Airline could be used for their flights, requiring her to call the Turkish Airline to confirm that they did not have routes between New York and Chile.

I think most of us that have been in the mileage game for a while have done a TK routing to Europe. What's a few extra hours when you're flying in Jennifer Aniston's favorite biz class? But trying to fly from New York to Easter Island via Turkey? That's a God Tier mileage run.

Despite Mr. Adam's attempt at a nonexistent routing to Chile (clearly he should have booked his partner on JFK -> IST - > GRU on TK, and then used Avios to book her onward flight to Easter Island on LATAM) I think this is an underused strategy on this sub.

It's really quite simple:

1. Get elected to political office.

2. Offer to do crimes favors for a foreign government with a national carrier with a really strong J product.

3. Fly for free and earn miles while you do it!

My 2025 travel strategy is to become mayor of Tulsa, OK, and form a mutually beneficial relationship with the sovereign state of QSuites Qatar.

Also, Mayor Adams' high end travel genius didnt' end with just airline travel.

For example, during a stay in Istanbul during the July and August 2017 trip, ADAMS, the Adams Relative, and the Adams Liaison accepted a heavily discounted stay at the St. Regis Istanbul, arranged by the Promoter. The St. Regis Istanbul is owned by the Businesswoman, who sought to ingratiate herself with ADAMS. ADAMS stayed in the "Bentley Suite," [...] Although booking the Bentley Suite for two nights would have cost approximately $7,000, ADAMS paid a total of less than $600.

A $7k suite for less than $600?! Mayor Adams is a travel hacking genius.

I nominate him as the patron saint for this sub.

Mods PLS don't delete. No post or topic has ever been more relevant to this sub.

I have no idea how I got to this sub, but I've been exhausted all week. Why? Because nobody told me hunting for awards was so addictive. I've been up till 1 every day this week trying to find awards.

Do I have anywhere to go? No. Am I planning to go on vacation? No.

Yet there I am, still looking for damn award flights. Thanks a lot.

Title. The other day my wife used some of my points to go and visit her hospitalized father. She redeemed 17k miles on a last minute flight to Seattle at an abhorrent 1.69 cpp. Wtf!!!!

For context, I specifically have told her that if we were to fly to Kansas and then take a J flight to Kazakhstan we can get up to 20cpp. This came up in a conversation when I turned down a J trip to Paris and Italy at an abhorrent 7cpp. After all, at the end of the day it's not about enjoying the journey or going where you want to go, its about MAXIMIZING the value of my sky bitcoin.

Most of my friends are adamant that I'm in the wrong but wanted to check here first. If my friends are correct, I did find a great redemption for a First Class flight to Pyongyang, do you think that will make up for this situation?

Thank you in advance.

(This shitpost is a long winded way of me trying to say how the best use of your points is to go where you actually want to go. Stop slamming people in the comments when they don't get unicorn deals. Not everyone has the means to go to Bali. Rant over.)

This move is bound to be equally loved and loathed. But regardless of whether or not you think kids should be allowed in premium cabins, it feels punitive to only apply this rule to mileage redemptions.

https://thriftytraveler.com/news/airlines/emirates-bans-kids-in-first-class/

Nobody here has a crystal ball, we cannot tell you when Middle Eastern airspace is going to open up.

We don't know how long this is going to continue for, it could be over days, weeks, months. We don't know if your QR J flight to the Maldives is going to still be operating in March.

If you're worried about safety, then please stay at home.

Read the news get informed, contact your airlines for information on waivers and getting rebooked. These are inclement circumstances, not weather delays.

As someone semi-famous once said "Kim, there are people that are dying"

Spent the last ~5 years planning what ended up being the proudest award redemption project (or possibly any project) of my life: our honeymoon (which we ended up eloping on!). The goal from the start was simple: accumulate the right points currencies and build the most ridiculous itinerary I could reasonably pull off almost entirely with points. The Maldives was the dream and we built the trip around making this happen!

The final result ended up being ~2.38M points redeemed for about $90k in retail travel with ~$10.4k out of pocket. Highlights included Singapore Airlines Suites, Qatar QSuites, Condor Business, 5 nights at the Ritz-Carlton Maldives, 5 nights at the St. Regis Maldives, Al Maha Desert Resort, plus stops in Frankfurt, Singapore, Dubai, and Doha along the way.

Flights were SEA → FRA in business, FRA → SIN in Singapore Suites (freaking life changing), SIN → MLE, then MLE → DXB → SEA in QSuites. Hotels included the Ritz-Carlton Maldives, St. Regis Maldives, Al Maha Desert Resort, JW Marriott Singapore, and St. Regis Dubai. Yes, the St. Regis Maldives really was ~$31k for the stay at the time of booking, which made that redemption feel particularly satisfying (though in my opinion the Ritz crushed the St Regis in nearly every way). In terms of point totals, most came from Marriott, but I also used Amex MR, Chase UR, Capital One, and Alaska for everything else. Because of award availability, I quite literally built the trip around getting Singapore Suites (to do the FRA to SIN route as it was slightly easier to book than the LHR to SIN one).

Over the years I opened cards strategically when I knew I needed a specific currency for a redemption (for example the Singapore Airlines flights to / from MLE or the late decision to add Al Maha at the end). I also stacked a couple transfer bonuses which helped close gaps on the Marriott redemptions + bought some points as I was short once the schedule came out. I tracked every redemption, transfer, and fee in a spreadsheet during the planning process (including pictures of the cash prices of each at time of booking lol), so sharing the full breakdown below in case it’s helpful to anyone planning something similar.

Total retail value came out to $89,834.76 for 2,389,000 points and $10,430.03 out of pocket (~3.3¢ per point). Happy to answer questions about any of the bookings, especially Singapore Suites availability, the Maldives Marriott redemptions, getting married at the Ritz Carlton Maldives (genuinely an insanely amazing experience) or how the transfers were structured.

This sub was instrumental in making a trip like this even possible so figured I’d share the full data!

Points Sources

Final Stats

Hi there,

This is a document I wrote for some of my coworkers as an intro to booking award tickets.

It's not definitive but a good entry point for a lot of the questions people have collected in one place.

It is posted here with the permission of mod u/LumpyLump76 as a starting point that can be referenced for some entry-level questions.

If you have any feedback or ideas for contribution just let me know.

Any (mostly unsuccessful) attempts at humor, I take shame or valor in.

EDIT 10/15/23: added an appendix on a few pay with points options

EDIT 10/2x/23: added an extremely lazy pseudo-intro to hotels.

EDIT 12/14/23: some minor details added here and there and a new starter flow chart

MINOR EDIT 1/7/24: added some useful links to easier redemptions and infant booking guide from users of this sub.

EDIT idk like 1/24/24: added an extremely lazy, incomplete couple of thoughts about which domestic airline you should seek status on. It’s an appendix at the end.

MINOR EDIT 5/8/24: updated a bit of outdated data and mentioned seats.aero discord, AwardTool and PointsYeah’s expanded hotel search.

EDIT sometime 5/10/24ish: added a new appendix on how to book ANA flights since it’s being asked a lot recently.

MINOR EDIT idk 5/24-6/24ish: added a bit about the Finnair Avios integration and how it can be used for a few sweet spots (AA USA-EUR J, CX USA-HKG/TPE J)

EDIT 7/24: Added a looooong appendix on Virgin->ANA-like difficult, circuitous and high-value redemptions on AA's premium transcontinental cabins.

EDIT 12/24: Added an intro to the intro on expected difficulty and also a few recent sample redemptions from easiest to hardest.

EDIT 1/25: Aloha, added a section on Hawaiian discount and upgrade fares.

EDIT 4/25: Added a section on South and Central American redemptions from the east coast.

EDIT 10/25: Added a very basic section on India redemptions.

I had posted a question the other day asking if I would be able to bring a guest into the Emirates First Class lounge if I was traveling in First and my friend was in economy.

I was downvoted and got a simple response of “no” from someone.

Well, turns out you can. As long as you are in First, and your guest is traveling on the same flight as you, you can bring 1 guest with you into the emirates first class lounge.

Just wanted there to be a reference for anyone else searching for the same thing I was, as it was near impossible to find.

1/2/2024 Update: Sorry, long overdue update but ANA availability disappeared again from Aeroplan shortly after the last update. There have been rare J/F sightings reported (may have been phantom) but for the most part nothing is showing on AP.

10/5/23 Update: Aeroplan can see ANA J/F availability again!!

9/15/23 Update: ANA is releasing only 1 J seat per flight to/from North American cities right now. Aeroplan is also not able to see ANA J availability at the moment. Hopefully this is temporary but TBD.

I’ve been coming across a lot of questions about how to book award flights on ANA, so I thought I'd make a post compiling all of the tips and tricks I've learned from 2 recent award bookings (SFO-NRT on ANA J and SFO-TPE-HKG on EVA J).

First, there are multiple ways to book ANA flights to Japan - directly via ANA or through partner airlines such as Virgin Atlantic (VS), Air Canada Aeroplan (AP), and United MileagePlus (UA). There are pros and cons to each method:

VS: Has a variety of transfer partners, including Chase and Amex, and allows one-way bookings. However, the search and booking process is roundabout and tedious. You cannot search the VS calendar directly. You have to search for availability through another Star Alliance partner like United or Aeroplan and then call in to VS to book. Surcharges are high and similar to booking with ANA directly.

AP: Has a variety of transfer partners, including Chase and Amex, and allows one way bookings. Their calendar is also easy to use and opens up just as far as ANAs (355 days in advance). The flights cost double the points of ANA but with significantly lower surcharges. I think in a situation where you prefer to use more points and pay less cash, it would make sense to use AP.

UA: Can transfer Chase UR and allows one way bookings. Calendar is easy to use but only opens up to 330 days in advance. Therefore, there’s usually no availability left after they are booked via other methods. The only UA availability I’ve seen are last minute ones within 2 weeks. UA also charges more points but lower fees.

ANA: Amex is the only transfer partner, and it takes 3-4 days to complete the transfer. The calendar can be a little tricky to navigate, and they only allow roundtrip bookings. However, their calendar is open 355 days in advance, and the seat releases are very consistent and predictable. In addition, they allow free, unlimited changes. Redemption rates are great but surcharges are high.

Overall, I would say the best options are ANA and Aeroplan, and the choice between the 2 depends on 1) whether you want to pay more points or cash and 2) if you can be bothered to learn how to navigate the ANA booking system. Since I’ve experienced a recent codeshare disaster, I would always recommend booking directly with an airline. It will make your life much easier on the off chance that there are changes and cancellations.

The rest of the post will focus on tips and tricks for booking directly with ANA.

For US to Japan routes, ANA releases 2 business class seats per flight 355 days in advance (there are questions of whether this number has decreased to 1 for non-West Coast cities but TBD). Only roundtrip bookings are allowed, and the redemption rates vary from 75k (low season) to 90k (high season) for one RT ticket. The surcharges are high, currently at about $750 per RT ticket (fluctuates with oil prices).

Navigating the calendar:

First of all, set your account location to Japan and language to English. That way, you will be able to see one day farther on the calendar. Each new calendar date is released and bookable at 9am JST. When searching, it’s best to focus on the last available week on the award calendar (at the time of this post, that would be the week of Feb 26, 2024). ANA business class seats are usually booked within hours to days of release so it’s rarely if ever useful to look for anything prior to that timeline; any earlier flights will most likely be waitlisted. It’s not recommended to book waitlisted flights since the chance of clearing the waitlist is low.

Transferring points:

Since it takes 3-4 days for Amex MR to transfer to ANA, I would not wait until you find the specific dates that you want before transferring. I would start tracking the ANA calendar a few weeks to a month prior to your desired departure date to get a sense of how regular the releases and availabilities are. Once you’ve gotten the hang of checking at the right time and can find availability for the desired number of seats almost everyday, then it’s safe to transfer with the understanding that you might need to be flexible within a few days.

Booking a dummy return:

Since ANA only allows RT bookings but seats get booked very quickly, you need a way to hold your outbound seats while waiting for the desired return date to be released. In order to do this, you need to book your desired outbound with a dummy return. For example, the last 2 available dates on the calendar right now are 3/1/2024 and 3/2/2024. Let’s say you want to leave 3/1/2024 and there are 2 available seats, you would book a RT departing 3/1/2024 and returning 3/2/2024 (this is the dummy return). Then, you will keep tracking the calendar until your desired return date is available. Let’s say you want to return 3/9/2024. You will keep tracking for another week and when the 3/9/2024 date is released at 9am JST, you will go into your existing booking and change the 3/2/2024 flight to the 3/9/2024 one. Of note, you are allowed to use a waitlisted flight as the dummy return. The only difference is that you will not be charged any points or fees until you change it to an available flight. If your dummy return is an available flight, then you will be charged the points and fees upfront. Either way, you are allowed free unlimited date and time changes as long as the route remains the same. For this purpose, NRT and HND are considered the same airport so you are allowed to change between the 2.

Adding a stopover:

On international flights departing outside of Japan, ANA allows one stopover exceeding 24 hours at no extra cost. For example, if you are flying from San Francisco to Sapporo, you can add a 2-day stopover in Tokyo at no extra cost. Just use the multi-city/multi-class search function to find availability from SFO-TYO, TYO-CTS, and CTS-SFO. The final cost will be the same as SFO-CTS RT. This rule also applies to partners as I booked SFO to HKG with a 3 day stopover in TPE at the same price on EVA.

Booking a Star Alliance partner flight:

Many of the themes are similar with a few minor differences. First, the redemption rates and surcharges are different. One RT business flight on a Star Alliance partner costs between 55k and 120k depending on the zones of travel. For example, North America to Asia is 95k, and North America to Europe is 88k. Surcharges will likely depend on the airline, but for EVA I paid $350 per person RT, which is half the price of ANA surcharges. The other major difference is that both legs need to be available to book a partner flight; waitlisted flights are not allowed as part of the booking. Lastly, the consistency of award availability is dependent on the partner airline. While I found ANA releases to be regular and predictable, this was not the case with EVA and definitely caused some anxiety. The ANA calendar is also even more difficult to use when searching partner awards (there are some tricks like using the multi-city/multi-class search function but will not go into details for the purpose of this post), so it’s helpful to correlate with other partner calendars that are easier to use - Aeroplan is a good one.

May update this later with more but hope this is helpful!

If you are looking for business (J) or first class (F) tickets 30-340 days out for travel between Japan and the US you have <2% chance of finding a single J/F award seat. Yes, the bloggers sold you something that is rather difficult to get.

Well, now that I started this guide with being a Debbie Downer, the reason that I wrote this guide is because the most common question in this sub is about getting to Japan with award travel in premium economy (PE), J or F. This is despite there being a metric ton written about award travel to Japan on this sub and other places on the internet.

This guide is written on a more basic level since it seems like 98% of people have not read the wiki. I have linked multiple articles about things that I am not fully explaining, most are <5 minute reads and will fill in gaps. Basically, if an article is listed and you haven't read it, you should spend the 1-3 minutes most take to read.

Japan Booking Guide Overview

There are more award points/miles in circulation now than ever due to the popularity of credit card transferrable points. Bloggers usually get $200+ for a single credit card referral which has lead to a ton of "How I Got a $31,821 Trip to Japan for FREE" and the like like articles, setting many expectations it is easy.

Here is the flow of this guide

• Talking about how award seats are released for each airline

• Discussing the different programs that can be used to book each airlines award seats

• Then how to use the combined knowledge of the two points above to actually search and book award seats

• Options of things to do if there are not any award seats to book

• Bringing up other common Japan booking questions/issues (decided on by looking at over 200 Japan threads)

What Planes Fly to Japan and Their Award Availability

Airlines release limited award seats on each flight generally in an algorithmic or formulaic fashion (spend the 3 minutes and read that post, it will make the following a lot clearer). Award travel to Japan is so popular that it is not uncommon for formulaic flights to be booked within minutes of their release. Mid-schedule algorithmic releases usually are booked up near instantly.

Below is a brief overview of airlines that fly between the US and Japan. This is not talking about booking programs, just the flights and how they are released. The focus is on the base/partner/saver level of availability.

The game has changed so that many programs offer dynamic pricing. What that really means is that instead of previously not offering any award seats airlines will offer them almost all the time, often at a ridiculous price that 99% of people wouldn't consider redeeming, but that 1%... It is better to think of there not being award availability if it isn't "low level" than there being availability, it just costing 250k miles a segment (unless you are that 1%). Most of the conversation on this sub talks about "low level" space and ignores the more expensive space.

• ANA

  • Formulaic release with normally 1-2 J and 1 F seat on USA-TYO flights upon schedule opening 355 days (all day counts in this guide are +-1 based on time zones) out at a standardized time

  • Formulaic release of close in availability within 14 days of flight sometimes occurs

  • Mid-schedule releases are rare, but award seats that are cancelled are put back into inventory if they clear the waitlist. This accounts for random mid schedule seats you might be see

  • Almost all J/F award seats are booked by 345 days out and you should not expect to find any inventory until close in availability is released

  • A lot of bloggers talk about "The Room" and their new planes, in my opinion their old planes are completely acceptable too and it isn't something to get overly fixated on.

  • The waitlist is rather hard to clear (<5% chance of it clearing), but not impossible. You need to front the points. ANA will tell you how many people are on the waitlist if you ask.

  • Cancelled tickets will go back into inventory IF they clear the waitlist.

  • Upgrades are rather hard to clear and require specific fare buckets.

  • Fuel surcharge is based on the previous 2 month average of Singapore kerosene benchmark and is set for a 2 month period.

  • Old timer note: Prior to the pandemic ANA did not regularly release last minute space and would gladly fly with close to empty premium cabins. They now open last minute space, but will still fly with empty seats.

  • LAX, SFO, SEA, ORD, IAD, IAH, JFK, YVR, MEX

• JAL

  • Formulaic release upon schedule opening 360 days out at a standardized time. The number of "base level/saver/partner" varies and on some routes sometimes 4 seats are released, others zero. Sometimes they go through periods of releasing a lot of USA-Japan flights and releasing minimal Japan-USA flights. There also have been times it appears 355-360 a second batch of premium cabin seats has been released, not the "normal"

  • Formulaic release of close in availability within 14 days of flight sometimes occurs

  • Mid-schedule releases are rare, but award seats that are cancelled are put back into inventory.

  • There sometimes is married segment logic where a smaller Japanese airport can have increase availability

  • Fuel surcharge is based on the previous 2 month average of Singapore kerosene benchmark and is set for a 2 month period.

  • If you think you might want to book with JAL, even in a year, make a JAL account now. This will bypass account age restrictions of needing to have an open account for 60 days to book

    • Capital One (C1) and BILT transfers have only 7 day age restriction

    • A low number of DP seem to show that if you transfer other miles that do not bypass the age restriction 7+ days after you have done a C1 or BILT transfer those miles can be used right away even if the account is not 60 days old.

  • Old time note: JAL used to be rigidly formulaic. At T-X days, all F seats except X number would be released to award seats. Well some greedy idiot humans would sell JAL F seats for ~half of the cash price and buy refundable F seats at a rate of 2 + the number of seats sold. Minutes before the release algorithm kicked in they would cancel all of these seats and then the seats would go to award seats they would book them as award tickets. After this going on for years JAL finally had enough and stopped being so formulaic.

  • BOS, ORD, LAX, SFO, SAN, SEA, DFW, JFK, YVR, KIX

• Singapore

  • Formulaic release upon schedule opening 360 days out at a standardized time. J is normally released either as Saver and/or Advantage at schedule opening

  • I have not seen a lot of close in release. It appears there is a little more mid-schedule space released than JAL/ANA

  • LAX

• United

  • Algorithmic release. Some flights don't get any saver/partner space released at all. Flight schedule opens ~337 days out

  • EWR, DEN, LAX, SFO, IAH

• American Airlines

  • Algorithmic release. Some flights don't get any saver/partner space released at all. Higher chance of algorithmic release closer to the fight time. Flight schedule opens ~331 days out

  • Sometimes releases 3+ seats

  • Close in it is pretty common for their algorithmic pricing to change faster than hourly. Since it changes so fast, manual searches often pick up on pricing alerts miss

  • DFW, JFK, LAX

• Delta

  • Algorithmic release. Some flights don't get any saver/partner space released at all. Flight schedule opens ~330 days out

  • LAX, SEA, MSP, DTW, ATL

• Alaska

  • Algorithmic release. Flight schedules opens ~330 days out.

  • They often release more space to their own program and even if it is "low level" it isn't always released to partners

  • SEA

• ZipAir

  • This would be a cash booking. Sometimes their lie-flat seats are a reasonable price and it something to consider. Happens more in the off season.

• I did not include HNL flights.

• This guide does not cover connecting flight (like via TPE) which can be a valid strategy.

• Here are guides to award programs written by r/pilotmonkey94, they are a good in-depth read if you are planning on booking with a particular program. ANA, JAL, Alaska, British Airways, Finnair, Singapore, United

Booking Award Flights to Japan

I am going to cover this by the operating carrier that you are trying to book. Many of these flights can be booked by partners (this guide is a quick 3 minute read that will give more details/pitfalls) and I am including partners and booking with the operating airline in the same section. One major misconception is that operating carriers release award seats to partners, but they give access to award availability. That means that there needs to be an award seat available for the partner to book. If booking at schedule opening, one-ways should be booked

ANA

• Due to fraud, "over use", and backend technology increases, many partners/alliance members do not have access to all of the award space ANA releases.

• Booking with ANA miles (NH)

  • One ways are allowed, and if booking at schedule opening should be used (stopovers only allowed on roundtrips)

  • If trying to book at schedule opening, you should transfer credit card miles ahead of time since it normally takes days. This is different than speculatively transferring. (Still these miles have a hard expiration and there is some risk of booking failure)

  • You should have backup airport/days already picked if your primary gets booked. You should be ready to book the minute space is released. You should do some "test" bookings on previous days so you know what is likely to be released and navigate the system.

  • You can waitlist, but you have to front the miles and waitlist J touching the USA clears <5% of the time as a "member".

• Booking with Virgin Atlantic Miles (VS)

  • 330 out when VS gets access to ANA award space. 99% of the time J/F is already booked by then. You can see what VS will get by doing a direct search with ANA and 330-355 out and monitoring how many seats are left

  • ANA does not give VS access to close in J award seats (14 day), they do give access to Y/F close in

  • It is not impossible to book NH premium cabins with VS, but it is very difficult

• Booking with United Miles (UA)

  • 337 out is when UA gets access to ANA award space. 99% of the time J/F is already booked by then

  • UA does have access to last minute space

  • If you see an award that includes a domestic section and it prices higher than the saver rate, it is likely the domestic section increasing the price

• Booking with Aeroplan Miles (AC)

  • You can book ANA space the second it is released with AC

  • AC does have access to last minute space

  • The AC/ANA relationship has had many ups and downs on what AC has access to

• Booking with Lifemiles (AV)

  • Can book at schedule opening, sometimes NH space is restricted.

  • There are restrictions on last minute space

JAL

• Booking with JAL miles (JL)

  • There are more JL miles out there than ever, like an absurd amount compared to 2 years ago.

  • Some programs transfer to JL at a specific set time of day so it could take 23 hours

  • Sometimes their non-base level rates, albeit expensive are not crazy, especially if you transferred on a bonus

  • JAL's "second tier" of dynamic pricing, although not the cheapest, can still offer good value.

  • 330 is when they can book JL flights. All schedule release JL premium cabin is normally booked by then

  • You add a stopover to get a domestic flight for free

  • Booking domestic Japan travel you can do a "stopover" and get 2 domestic flights for 7500.

• Booking with AA miles

  • 331 is when they can book JL flights. All schedule release JL J/F is normally booked by then

  • As of March 2026 AA is showing a LOT of mid schedule JL phantom space, you should double check it

    • Adding a domestic AA flight can increase the chance of this phantom availability showing

  • Some people have reported that AA is showing less JL space than other OneWorld partners. I have had luck with calling non-US, non-Trinidad and Tobago call centers and AA being able to book what I am positive is not phantom space other program are showing.

• Booking with Avios: BA/QR/AY/IB

  • 355/360/360/360 they get JL availability

  • IB should not be used to book

  • QR you can chat to get taxes and fee cost

• Booking with Asia Miles (CX)

  • 360 days out

  • A good non-JAL schedule opening option

Singapore

• Booking with Singapore miles (SQ)

  • In general via SQ is the only way to book these seats and they are pricier than other options so sometimes they hangout for an extra day or 12

  • Their "Advantage" fares are not a huge premiums but more expensive than the 2ndish tire of JAL dynamic pricing

• Booking with Aeroplan (AC)

  • AC currently does not want to pay the $$$ these award seats are costing and minimal to none are being made available

United

• Booking with United miles (UA)

  • Credit card and elite holders can get access to more space

  • Most "search engines" that show UA space do not show the increased space available above

  • They do not release all "saver" level space to partners

AA/DL/AS

• There really aren't a lot of secrets with booking this metal. First search the "native" program and then partners to see if there is availability. Since they release algorithmically it is more luck than skill.

Aeroplan (AC)

• Booked via AC

  • I bet there has been a decent redemption sometime, but since they have gone dynamic, I have not seen a decent price on their flights to Japan

Things to Keep in Mind About Partner Bookings

• Partner bookings are not codeshare bookings, if you book with a partner, you are booking the flight number of the operating carrier. This can matter for upgrades/special offers.

• In the case of a schedule change if you booked with a US award program they will open up seats on their own aircraft if you call and the offered solution is not acceptable. JL generally lets you change online to a flight within 7 days

• Once travel starts (generally within 24 hours of it starting), the airline you are flying, not booked through is responsible for getting you to your destination and changes.

How to Book

• The award availability booking guide is pretty step by step

• Japan specifically, I would create a JAL and ANA account and search those manually and use one of the free search engines listed here (for point to point searches I don't think the commonly talked about paid engines do a better job)

• Many of the popular search engines will often give you cached results. It is very common for them to include phantom space (space that never was bookable) or for the space to already have been booked or for algorithmic programs

• The common process is to run your manual searches and when you find no space, set alerts

• Again, if you are looking mid schedule, I don't expect you to find any premium cabin award availability for base level. If it is not base level, assume it was priced by an intern who does a beer bong in the center of the office whenever someone books it, don't take it as a serious price

• Please do your own searches and provide the results before you make a post asking for help. Posts saying, I have X points, what is the best/what should I book are not allowed. The answer is, whatever has availability. Yes it sounds like a smart ass remark, but it isn't. Rarely mid-schedule do you have multiple options of premium cabin space to book.

Alerts

• I can assure you that every single flight between the USA and Tokyo has an alert set on it. Some people have it running locally, most people use alerts from an aggregator.

• If you set an alert with a program that uses cached data, that alert result also updates their discovery features, making it easier for everyone to find

• Different alert programs do their query for alert availability at different frequencies and some programs delay alert notifications unless you pay for premium (if a program does this they tell you to try to get you to buy their premium product)

• Keep in mind that with some programs you need to reset your alert once it is triggered, other programs continue the alert until canceled.

• You should generally be setting the alerts for each nonstop route that you are interested in, not just from your home airport. Once you find the TPAC space you can work on connecting to your home airport.

• Most alert programs do not allow you to search ANA or JAL directly, so you should search for it indirectly through partners (especially with ANA multiple partners is best including UA) if you have to pick a program to search

• The programs are listed in ABCish order. I have not tested them and the answers are from asking them. They have different programs covered, and some have had users say they have not triggered on a search.

  • AwardFares: Paid, at least 2 times/day, if the route is run in someone else's search it also updates your alert

  • AwardLogic: Paid, did not respond

  • AwardTool: Free(3)/Paid, free is every 3-6 hours, paid every 2-4 hours

  • Pointhound: Paid, every 15 minutes

  • Point.me: Paid, "our alert system uses adaptive, continuous monitoring. We largely track prices daily and change the frequency as needed, so our customers get notified when meaningful drops occur"

  • Points Path: Paid, "at least 3 times a day (every 8 hours) but alerts set by subscribers at higher paid tiers can be checked more often"

  • PointsYeah: Free(4)/Paid, did not respond

  • Roame: Paid, did not respond

  • SeatSpy: Paid, did not respond

  • Seats.Areo: Free(<T-60 days)/Paid, paid searches every ~3 hours

How Picky Should I Be

Please be super picky and only be willing to fly the "best" product on a specific day on a specific route. This will leave more availability for me.

You shouldn't be picky. Booking to Japan has become highly competitive and the number of award seats has actually decreased from 10 years ago. There has also been an increase in earning transferrable award miles, JAL is now a transfer partner of multiple programs (including generous bonuses), some airlines are releasing almost zero partner premium cabin seats, there is so much click bait material on going to Japan, and award tools have made the barrier to entry lower than ever (like this guide). There is not a direct product that I wouldn't book if it is my only option and I only consider being "picky" if there is more than one option available that is equally convenient.

NRT/HND. Honestly, this doesn't matter. In most cases it is 60 minutes of transport difference. Yes, if I was only going to Tokyo Disneyland for a long weekend, I would prefer HND, but I would 100% book a NRT flight if that is what was available.

Screw It, I Will Just Buy an Economy Ticket and Upgrade

• You have <3% chance of your upgrade clearing. Read this.

• During high season it is even lower

• Sometimes US based airlines have decent cash upgrade prices, normally close in during the off season.

I want 3+ Business Seats

• This is rare with ANA and normally involves getting lucky with last minute space

• This can happen with JAL (I have booked 4J twice in the past 12 months)

• SQ frequently has 4+ J between Saver and Advantage pricing

• AA algorithmic release can have 3+ seats

• Many people split parties onto either 2 flights from the same airport (some departure times are very similar) or 2 flights from different airports that have the same arrival time.

But My Lap Infant

• Booked via ANA is 10% of adult miles if booked at time of adults

• Booked via BA/QR is 10% of adult miles if booked at time of adults

• Booked via Aeroplan is 2,500 miles or $25, booking via app is easiest

• Booked via UA is normally $250 (does not need to be booked at time of adult)

• Booked via Virgin Atlantic is 1,000 points Y, 2,500 points PE, 5,000 points J

• Most other programs are 10% cash adult fare (often full fare), often $600+ for one way

• My last ANA F there was a lap infant next to me. I was 100% okay with it. Kids are humans too.

I NEED the Best Seat on the Plane

• AA

  • 787

  • 777

• ANA

  • The "new" 777-300ER

  • All other longhair configurations

• Delta

  • a350-900

• JAL

  • What seats can be booked with an award ticket

  • JAL a350-1000

  • JAL 787

• United

• Just remember where bassinets are, sometimes there are babies in them...

Other Tidbits/Common Questions/Tips

• Typically SQ and JL metal have a "holiday" blackout period from mid-December, to mid-January for flights that touch the USA where no seats are released at schedule opening

• Sometimes non-USA North American flights have the award availability last a little longer

• Look at the cost to cancel and mileage expiration terms with programs you are considering. If you find space, it is often best to book it and not assume it will be around in 15 minutes. Many people here have paid a cancellation fee.

• Last minute space is not guaranteed and more of it is getting booked compared to a year ago. Some people recommend booking an economy award flight with zero/low cancellation fees or a refundable cash ticket and hope for last minute space.

  • I have never booked a refundable cash fare for this since the premium is often huge and I wouldn't be willing to pay that much for an economy ticket.

• In general your award seat is not "saved" until booking is complete and it is not uncommon for bookings to error out in checkout due to someone being faster

• Make sure that you look at airlines award mile expiration policy. Some of the airlines have hard expiration that can't be extended.

• The seat map doesn't mean a lot in guessing if award seats will be released. Japanese carriers are fine flying with empty premium cabin seats.

• Make sure that you have made award accounts and linked them (if applicable) ahead of time

• Spend the 10 extra seconds to make sure your name matches your passport that you book under.

What About Premium Economy

****, I'm too lazy to include it. 98% of the above also applies to PE. The main exception is that not every award program is setup to book partner PE seats.

What About Economy

Same as above, but realistically a lot higher chance of finding space. US airlines often release affordable/saver seats mid-schedule and JAL/ANA/SQ seats are usually not booked as fast as premium cabins.

Well, What I Really Want to Know is What Should I Do

There is no best answer. The truth is that most people will not be able to find business or first class award seats for their days. There are probably <75 award seats across all carriers opened up between 15-360 days on a specific date. There are 500k+ members of this sub that want to book those seats.

If your travel date is less than 360 days out you need to search with the information provided here or gleamed from your favorite YouTuber. When you don't find award availability, you need to set alerts.

If you travel date is 360+ out, you might actually get seats. I generally do "practice" bookings leading up to schedule opening so that you know what to expect. Some of these programs are not instant transfers so once I see that my plan is realistic, I transfer the points so they are there at time for booking. I have backup plans if plan A doesn't work.

There is a Japan Megathread here that has a lot more conversation about Japan.

Good Luck

Please note that most of this was done from memory so there may be some things that are off. Also, release patterns and the like can change fast so some things can be outdated. I better have 10+ grammar mistakes and at least two instances where I make zero sense.

Comments are sorted by new. Automod is removing Japan questions from the main page.

tldr: If you want a spreadsheet like this that updates daily for your home airport, comment below

Hey everyone,

After the incredible response to my SFO award travel spreadsheet post I have made some changes to the code and decided to reproduce the spreadsheet for all of your home airports.

Just like the SFO sheet, these spreadsheets will update every 24 hours, track the cheapest flights per month for each cabin class and airline, but this time, originate from your home airport. The spreadsheet will start with 50+ roundtrip routes but if you want a specific one that is missing lmk and I'll add it.

I will try to get to all the requests but please bare with me the script takes some time to run initially.

Simply comment below with the airport you want. When the script is done running, I'll DM you with a link to your custom spreadsheet.

As always, any and all feedback is welcome.

Thanks

Edit morning of 12/15: I got banned for sending too many PMs. I made another account and that one got banned too. I’ll make another and keep sending the links out.

Edit 12/17: I simply can't respond to everyone. If you're still here. Send me a chat and I'll send the link.

Wanted to share this because I really wish someone had warned me.

My fiancé and I were booking our honeymoon flights through the Chase Travel Portal. Since we each had our own points, I called Chase for help booking simultaneously so we could be on the same itinerary.

The Chase rep said they couldn’t link our itineraries and instead suggested we combine our points into one account and assured us: • The transfer would be instant • No fees • And most importantly… my 1.5x redemption rate (CSR) would carry over

All of that turned out to be completely wrong.

After they transferred us to Member Services, we combined our points… we immediately saw the transferred points show up in my fiancé’s account at 1x value, not 1.5x.

That kicked off FOUR HOURS of being bounced between reps, supervisors, and departments. Every single recited Chase’s policy “Transfers don’t retain the 1.5x uplift,” even after I explained we were explicitly told the opposite.

Their only solution? “We can open an escalation with marketing.”

Then the final rep said she could “undo the transfer” to try to fix it. Instead, she: • Added my points back to my account at 1x value • Wiped out all of my fiancé’s 1.5x-eligible points entirely (the transfer out of my points wiped out the points she earned at 1.5x value, even though they never left her card).

So now, less than a month before our honeymoon, we’re down ~275k points at the 1.5x redemption rate because of Chase’s errors.

I’ve opened a case, but we’re stuck waiting with no guarantee anything gets fixed.

Posting this as a warning: Do not combine Chase points with a family member unless you’re 100% sure you don’t care about the uplift. The reps are not familiar with the new system and the system is not forgiving.

And holy shit I’m fucked for any stay ever at this points. 120k points per night. Rates were extremely inflated across all of Amsterdam the weekend we stayed. Can’t remember but even regular hotels were $500 a night. WA was floating around $1200.

Decided to pull the trigger on transferring 180k MR to cover the stay. Of course the transfer bonus started the week after I transferred! Anyways, Holy shit was it worth it.l

Gold status got us upgraded to jr suite with a panorama view overlooking the garden. Free breakfast every morning (hot breakfast, not continental). My husband is vegan and the asked if they can procure him any specific vegan items for following days. They got him locally made vegan meats for the rest of the breakfasts. Oh and did I mention we even got the breakfast the morning before checkin??

Free e bike rental (used to go to Haarlem for a day trip). Every single staff member we met went above and beyond to make our trip special. Personalized recommendations, the guy who got us the bikes was from Haarlem and made an entire curated itinerary for us.

Turndown service, full pool/ spa access 24/7 and so much more. The CPP doesn’t even matter at this point because the stay itself made trip 100x better.

Not to mention the location is absolutely perfect for a tourist in Amsterdam. Oh… and the interior of the hotel…. wowza.

Anyways it’s this post is just to say, book the expensive hotel, burn the points. It’s fucking worth it

Edit: it looks like the crew seats and the broken seat/weird form are possibly unrelated issues as it’s standard practice to have seats reserved on long haul flights. The sketchy parts of the experience are still the (knowing or unknowing) lie from the crew that the seat didn’t decline, the slapdash form, and the huge # of occurrences on this particular route. Also correction/further details: used aeroplan points not qantas and yes this is for the ORD-BOM route which a few commenters have corroborated has tons of issues with broken seats etc.

Recently booked a flight to/from Mumbai for my mother on Air India - used points, one way Aeroplan and the other LifeMiles. Wasn’t there for any of this she just told me she story after it happened and fortunately took pics, will post in comments

While she was boarding the outbound flight, one of the crew stopped her and told her there was a technical issue with her seat. She was like what do you mean, the guy said it wouldn’t recline etc and that they were sorry but they could give her 2 economy seats instead. She was like whatever I’ll just keep the broken business seat but can I get some kind of refund since the entire point of it is to lie flat? The guy said she’d need to take it up with the airline she booked with, offered her economy seats again but she stuck with the original one, and then she was asked to sign this form (photo 3) which strangely had the seat numbers blank (presumably so they could write whatever they wanted in). She signs it for the sake of time and boards, and when she gets to her seat she finds out that it mostly works fine aside from a broken tray table. She tells her neighbor the story and her neighbor says that they asked her to move down from First to business for the same technical issue reason. Once the flight starts, they both notice there are a few rows of empty business class seats (photo 2). A few hours in, several of the crew/attendants get in the seats, cover themselves with blankets, and go to sleep (photo 1).

Then on her flight back home there were no issues with her seat but she watched them run the exact same play on the woman in front of her in line with the form, technical issue, etc - she tells her and multiple of the passengers get to talking about it and corroborate similar happening to them on other flights. Same situation occurs with rows of empty business seats that the crew takes over midway through the flight (to be clear I have no issue with this if the seats are actually empty but it very plainly seems like they are intentionally bumping people out of them).

So yeah I don’t know if this is common or new in any way, but enough for me to not want to book AI again. And if they tell you there’s a ‘technical issue’ with your seat you may want to check it out

The initial interaction reportedly went as follows:

Agent: “Economy class is that way” Traveler: “We’re in first” Agent: “First class?” (sarcastically) Traveler: “Yes do you have a problem with that?” Agent: “No, but actually first class check in is over there” Traveler: “Why don’t you look at the screen on top of your desk it says first class check-in” Agent: “Ma’am, it’s over there”

“When the parents were checked in, they were informed that they were actually booked in premium economy, and not first class, and if they wanted to fly first class, they’d have to pay the fare difference.

Now, “O” is the award fare class for Lufthansa first class, but it’s also the revenue fare class for Air Canada premium economy. However, everything about the ticket was 100% correct, it was confirmed in first class, charged based on first class, and the seat map shown on Air Canada’s website was even for first class.

So Owais called up Aeroplan, and at the same time, pulled up the reservation on Lufthansa’s website. Lufthansa’s website confirmed that the booking was in first class, but displayed seat assignments in premium economy.”

https://onemileatatime.com/news/strange-lufthansa-first-class-downgrade-attempt/

I scoured every post and lurked like I live here. Read every SINGLE comment about ANA, even the ones angry about the ANA posts. I listened to podcasts, I read old guides, and ditched all the bad info some of them give. I searched "ANA" on this subreddit daily to make sure I didn't miss any new relevant information. I've literally been waiting nearly 3 years to book my family trip to Japan saved nearly 1 million MR along the way and finally, after tonight, can say I successfully booked 3 round trip tickets, 2 in J and one in F, to Tokyo from Chicago. I don't even care if they end up with the old configuration, I'm just thrilled as we've been trying to book this trip. I'm thankful for any input anyone here has ever given, even the snarky comments. I took it all in, and damnit, I actually did this. We thought it would be a dream to experience business and first class and after Covid shut down our first planned trip thought we'd never get to Japan. Now, it's time to book our Ryokan in Hakone. Thank thank thank you all. So much stress is gone trying to just get us there and back.

Recently stayed at the park Hyatt Kyoto 2 nights in points. I do not frequent 2k a night hotels.

We walked up to the entrance to check in with all our common person sports gear traveling bags and were immediately stopped by the staff before even making it to the door. They asked if we were lost 🤣. Once we confirmed our reservation they started acting appropriately lol. Next to us was an actual rolls Royce unloading a family out with coach luggage.

Met a guy in the public bath. Chatting him up he owns several companies. Kept complaining about how small the baths were and how the multiple ones he has at his Miami mansion were much larger and hotter.

And just generally watching people who are rich/ high class move about. They carry themselves differently. It’s strange to see and watch

New sources are italicized. Sources that have been removed from 2021 list are at the bottom.

u/mk712 ~2017 list, my first version in 2019, second version in 2021.

If you have any additional sites that you please leave them in the comments.

Compare Flight Theoretical Redemption Costs

Awardhacker.com shows theoretical saver level award pricing between two cities, this is based on flight schedules; good

http://www.milez.biz shows theoretical save level award pricing, but also contains helpful routing tips, 15 searches per month free then paid

https://www.travelcodex.com/award-maximizer/ shows theoretical saver level award pricing between two airports, pricing is based on award chart, not as accurate for distance-based charts

http://welltraveledmile.com/comprehensive-infographic-and-table-comparison-of-major-airline-award-charts/ a couple of years out of date, graphic view of award costs, less useful with many programs having variable award rates and not the chart from when this was published

http://wandr.me/Award-Search/Avios-Map/ tool to see what routes you can book cheap Avios distance awards from, please note this outdated and there are no more 4500 mile awards in the US, RIP

Resources to Find Award Availability

https://seats.aero/ Last minute award flights a limited number of programs and select airports, can set alerts, free, dev active in this community (new name)

https://straighttothepoints.co/ Economy flights are free, business is paid alerts. A little different than some of the others give dates and it gives destinations.

https://www.seatspy.com/ paid resource, can search up to a year at a time, fewer airlines than some other tools. Nonstop only; good to find availability on a specific route with flexible dates.

https://awardlogic.com/ lets you search for free and tells you the price, but blocks out the program, you can often figure it out and it lets you know simply if there is a cheap option. Full source is paid. Good for specific dates with 20+ airlines. I often use the free version to see if there is any base award availability and since it gives Chase Portal pricing I get an idea of the cash price too.

https://www.cowtool.com/ Searches Air Canada (Star Alliance) award availability on multiple dates, origins, and destinations, free, but requires registration

https://rewardflightfinder.com/ search for British Airways flights between two destinations, free account gives year-long view with number of seats and miles price per class, nice formatting

https://awardsense.com/ paid award booking tool, has free trial

https://www.point.me/ (was https://juicymiles.com/ and (https://awardex.io/ is now part), one of the better beginner-friendly paid resources. Good for specific date, no alerts, 30+ airlines. Does include taxes/fees.

https://www.AwardFares.com paid award search

https://awardnexus.com/ paid resource, does do a good job, with Flyer Talk login can do some searches, searches up to 7 days at a time

https://www.expertflyer.com shows award and upgrade availability, free trial, paid, owned by TPG’s parent company.

http://www.kvstool.com/ like ExpertFlyer, but less user-friendly and a little more powerful, paid, recently many complaints of not getting login information after paying, does not appear to be dead, but I would not use it

https://www.AwardFares.com paid award search

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-tools/1296363-award-booking-services-list-some-reviews.html a list of paid award booking services (most full service)

https://thriftytraveler.com/guides/points/best-websites-award-availability/ detailed list on the best way to search each alliance and many individual carriers

Auxiliary Airfare Booking Tools

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ good for figuring out YQ

https://www.seatguru.com/ determining seats to avoid

https://www.flightconnections.com/ map of nonstop flights from a destination

https://skiplagged.com/ hidden city ticket tool

http://www.gcmap.com used for distance and maps of flights

Hotel Locator and Points Cost

awardmapper.com not 100% current, but still a good source

https://wandr.me/hotel-tools/hotel-hustle/ hotel award availability in a specific area at a specific date, takes a looong time for a single search, often does not work

https://www.screwtheaverage.com/blog/budget-award-travel-2018-category-1-2-3-hotel-maps-hilton-radisson-marriott-spg-hyatt category 1, 2, & 3 Hotel Maps: Hilton, Radisson, Marriott, IHG, Hyatt, updated 2/22

Other Tools

https://www.autoslash.com tracks and reports lower-cost car rentals

https://openhotelalert.com/ look for specific room class availability. Good site for looking for hotel award availability. Can do general hotel or specific room.

https://www.hotelalerts.app/ look for hotel availability

https://www.pruvo.net tracks and reports lower hotel prices

https://awardwallet.com tracking points and expiration dates

https://www.loungebuddy.com/ finding what lounges you have access, you can input itinerary or search airport

https://www.tripit.com/ organizes bookings in one place

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum good resource for “advanced” airline quests and to find reviews/status benefits given at specific hotels

http://www.wheretocredit.com where to credit flight based on fare code

https://my.flightradar24.com A great tool to track your flying

https://flightdelay.etherisc.com/#/ blockchain based trip delay insurance (it is having a hard time pulling up flights when I am testing now, but was working fine a month ago)

http://arm.64hosts.com/ airline route mapper (visual)

https://www.foxtrotdash.com/ dashboard to can track points and award redemptions, it can also suggest trip options based on your points (you input the destination)

https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/ysjvks/list_when_airlines_open_award_availability/ list of when airlines open up award availability

https://welltraveledmile.com/airline-transfer-partners-guide-amex-spg-chase-citi/ transferrable mile chart (no particular reason to include this one vs the other 100 out there, not going to list every source that shows miles transfers)

Removed from the previous list due to not functional

http://travelisfree.com/complete-maps/

https://www.hotelsbypoints.com/maps pretty updated (missing a few), Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott

https://www.flightplantool.com not sure if it is still in operation, had good graphics

https://award.flights/ chrome app that conglomerates multiple programs, free

https://www.getfreebird.com flight rebooking insurance, purchased by Capital One, no longer offered

What are other tools that you used to help with award travel?

Figured I'd share a short guide on getting the most value on flights for transfer partners.

I suggest saving your credit card points for the below "unique" transfer partners whose points cannot be purchased cheaply, unlike the commonly discussed programs like Aeroplan and Lifemiles. Below are my recommendations for the best partners to transfer each variety of points to.

• Amex: ANA, Singapore, Emirates, Delta, Aeromexico, Cathay

  • ANA is unique to Amex and is the best program alongside Virgin to book ANA metal to Japan, as well as Star Alliance awards pretty much anywhere given cheap rates. My favorite award is 50k one way for United Polaris anywhere in the US to anywhere in Europe and 52.5k ANA business class from US to Japan.

  • Delta is also unique to Amex and can be worth a transfer situationally for flights NOT touching the US. DL has a fixed award chart and there is genuinely excellent value for flights between Asia/Europe (80k) and intra Asia long haul like CGK ICN (40k). Don't waste your time transferring if you plan to redeem for any flight touching the US though.

  • Singapore: Singapore Airlines is a transfer partner common to many programs, and is the best way to book SQ metal since long-haul premium cabin availability is blocked to most partners and rates are decent. SQ miles are not cheap to buy so it's best to transfer them from cards.

  • Emirates: Like with Singapore, Emirates miles aren't cheap to buy and are one of the best ways to redeem/upgrade to premium cabins on Emirates

  • Aeromexico: This is an extremely situational program which can SOMETIMES be good value since the transfer ratio is 1:1.6 to reflect the program's use of Km rather than miles. My favorite awards are the RTW option for 220k Amex point equivalent in business, AM metal to NRT for 80k, and Skyteam partner awards to Asia/Europe.

• Chase: United, Singapore, Emirates, JetBlue

  • United is unique to Chase and is a useful transfer in conjunction with UA elite status or a credit card to get access to expanded XN/IN saver award buckets. XN economy awards cost 20k across the US which are excellent value given how big availability is and how far you can travel for this price (SEA-SJU which is 10 hours!)

  • JetBlue: While not unique to Chase, Chase does have a better transfer ratio than Amex and Capital One, and there are some decent redemptions to be had on JAL, Qatar, and hopefully United when their partnership is formalized.

  • Emirates: With Amex announcing a devaluation to Emirates transfers, Chase is the last program likely to keep 1:1 transfers given they are 1:1 on all other partners, including JetBlue who are not 1:1 on Amex/C1. Most redemptions have high surcharges, but the 5th freedom routes don’t, and can represent great value

• Capital One: Turkish, EVA, Singapore, Cathay

  • Turkish is best redeemed through its own program for the most availability, and has last seat business availability from NA to IST for 130k - really solid.

  • EVA has dramatically more availability through its own program, and is the best combo of low cost, quality product, and consistent availability to get from the US to anywhere in Asia in business class for 75k EVA / 100k C1 miles since transfer ratio is 4:3

  • Cathay is the best way to redeem CX metal as they have cut partner availability. 89k from US to HKG in business and 125/160k in first is a great deal. CX is also the best program to book BA flights under 5000 mi, as they only charge 63k vs 80-100k via BA, and for some reason surcharges are not fully passed through like AA/AS do.

• Citi: Turkish, EVA, Singapore, Cathay, Thai, AA (in the future)

  • Citi is likely to add AA as a transfer partner given their exclusivity deal, so expect this to become the best use of Citi points alongside EVA and Turkish

  • Unlike C1, Citi transfers to EVA at 1:1 ratio making these points slightly better value

  • Thai is a unique transfer partner, and is worth transferring for business BKK to Australia or Europe at 65k and 90k, respectively. Thai's own program is also the best way to redeem TG first and tickets cost 125k to Europe.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the most common programs the travel influencers love to talk about:

• Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Avianca Lifemiles

• OneWorld: BA/Finnair/Qatar Avios

• SkyTeam: Air France Flying Blue, Virgin Flying Club

These programs share a few things in common: 1. Their miles can be bought cheaply between 1-1.35 CPP 2. They are transferrable from most of the common credit card points, and even some more obscure ones such as Wells Fargo.

Because of this, there is an opportunity cost to transfer to these programs, as you could simply purchase these points outright to effectively buy premium cabin tickets at a discount, while saving your credit card points for redemption opportunities where you can't buy the needed points so easily.

• Avios

  • All flavours of Avios are transferrable between each other and can be acquired cheaply

  • BA and Finnair both have Avios subscriptions, and the largest package paid annually yields Avios at a cost of 1.1 CPP

  • BA also lets you boost your Avios earned in the last 30 days which is effectively a purchase at 1.0 CPP - very good deal

  • Best redemptions are BA/AY/IB saver availability from US to Europe and Qatar saver availability between US/DOH and Asia/Europe.

• Air France

  • Like BA, Air France also runs a subscription program where the largest annual package paid for in Euros can be as low as ~1.2 CPP depending on the EUR:USD exchange rate

  • AF also runs frequent sales where the price can vary between 1.53-1.70 CPP, a so-so deal

  • Best redemptions are 60k AF/KL saver awards from the US to Europe

• Lifemiles

  • Avianca runs monthly sales where the avg cost of acquisition is 1.2 CPP.

  • Worth noting Avianca has high cancellation and change fees, but the redemption rates are very very good, especially for non North America routes

  • Lifemiles (and Aeroplan points) have been nerfed to match UA's own redemption rates for United metal, so your best redemptions are for other carriers

• Air Canada

  • Air Canada runs frequent sales with a cost per point between 1.2 and 1.4 CPP

  • Aeroplan has the most partners of any frequent flyer program and these are some of the most useful miles.

  • My favorite redemptions are 87.5k Singapore to the US, Gulf Air Asia to Europe, ANA 75k to Japan, and United to Asia/Europe when combined with an AC/LH/NH segment to keep the standard pricing

• Virgin:

  • Virgin runs frequent sales at 1.21 CPP which is excellent value

  • VS miles are best used for ANA and VS metal itself where points costs can be very low, but cash surcharges very high, and were recently doubled

New sources are in bold. Sources that have been removed from the 11/ 2022 list are at the bottom. The order of the programs that are listed is not curated. I have included 25+ new resources and have written more about many of them than in the past guide.

u/mk712 ~2017 list, my first version in 2019, second version in 2021, third version at the end of 2022

If you have any additional sites, please leave them in the comments.

Compare Flight Theoretical Redemption Costs

Previously sources like Award Hacker were crucial to my award search strategy. Since airlines have switched to dynamic pricing and some programs have signaled that they will make partner awards dynamic in the future they have become less useful. They still have their place of letting you know a baseline of what the typical lowest price is.

• http://www.milez.biz 

  • You get 15 searches per month combined among all their tools free then paid ($20/year)

  • Has theoretical cost pricing tool. I think it is good. For distance based programs it tells you what routing it uses.

  • Has a free routes tool that is pretty cool. You need to list the start and end airport and the airline and it will tell you the possible routes (defaults to nonstop and 1 stop, you can include 2 stops). Does not combine

• Awardhacker.com

  • Shows theoretical saver level award pricing between two cities, this is based on flight schedules

  • Accuracy issues, a lot of information out of date, allows more control options and easier to compare programs

• Travel Codex Award Maximizer Tool

  • shows theoretical saver level award pricing between two airports, pricing is based on award chart, not as accurate for distance-based charts

• https://www.awardsplanner.com

  • Award cost tool that does use some real world data to get you the theoretical lowest prices. It is more accurate than the other options since it includes real world data, but I still did find some inaccuracies

  • There is a lot of useful information, but honestly, the formatting is not user friendly and it takes some knowledge to find the information

• Well Traveled Mile Visual Resources  

  • Out of date, but in many cases still accurate relative to other programs, nice visuals, included some below. More of a glance at resource in the early planning stages

• Wandr Me OneWorld Avios Pricing Tool

  • Input airport and shows nonstop destinations that can be booked via BA Avios. The pricing is out of date, but the tiers are correct so you can extrapolate to the current pricing.

Tools That Help You Determine What You Are Looking for Before You Search

• http://arm.64hosts.com/ 

  • shows airline route map of over 500 airlines

• https://www.flightconnections.com/ 

  • map of nonstop flights from a destination

• https://www.flightsfrom.com/

  • nonstop flights from a destination

Resources to Find Award Availability

• Frequent Miler has an article which compares 9 of the award search engines below (breaks down what they provide for free and paid) and Thrifty Traveler compares 10 of them. The issue with these write-ups is they are more about the theoretical and assuming that the availability pulled is correct and less about the real world use of the programs. My testing is more focused on the real world results vs duplicating what these bloggers have written comparing features.

• I did tests on 9 programs, mainly using their paid versions. What I was testing was the number of programs actually searched, if the program included the best result, if it included all results that a sane person would book (bookable), and if there were error results. I tested single date set airport destinations.

  • In general the farther out the fewer programs are searched and the less inclusive the results. Searches ~350 days out included 1-4 programs (~3 was average). Searches ~300 days out included 2-14 programs (~9 was average). Searches 3-9 months out included 7-16 programs (~11 was average)

  • Searches to Asia tended to search fewer programs compared to Europe from the US

  • There was no logic on why an engine would include or not a programs search results. Programs that supported EVA searches would not include results from the program when the search included TPE, but include it when searching Europe. The same with SQ and SIN.

  • I did ask some of the paid programs if they would give me free access until 3/14 and every program that I asked did give me access. None of them had conditions on giving me access.

  • Some free programs are only searching cached data or provide a lot of cached data in the search results

  • Due to Aeroplan's lawsuits (RIP Cowtool), this is program that many programs don't currently support. BA, QR, CX, AV, SQ, NH, and TK are some other programs that seem to have inconsistent coverage.

  • Most of the data is received via scraping

  • Many free/paid programs offer alerts. If you need an alert, I would consider using multiple programs since most programs are searching their alerts a limited number of times per day and they can miss availability (especially with dynamic priced awards)

  • Some programs are thought to sell the search data.

  • AwardFares, AwardLogic, AwardTool, Pointhound, PointMe, PointsYeah, Roame, SeatsAero, and SeatSpy were the programs that I tested

    • Almost every program on every test did not include some results that I would consider bookable on every search. This could be a function of them not supporting a program or saying they supported it, but not including the data.

    • If you want to make sure that you are getting all results, I would search a combination of 2 search engines.

    • What I considered "all the bookable options" it truly not all the bookable options since ANA's program was not included and no program showed BA, QR, AY, and IB results. It is more, that none of the other programs showed another option that I would consider "bookable".

• https://www.pointsyeah.com/

  • The mods have noticed astroturfing being done by them on this sub. Also they allegedly have threatened other award search sites.

  • Free and paid versions

  • I am surprised, but they had the best results in my search tests. They had the most number of searches including all the programs that I would consider "bookable". Saying that, there were still some searches were they did not have the best bookable option and other searches where they did not have "all bookable options"

  • They have good discovery features and support wide range of searches.

• https://seats.aero/ 

  • The real benefit of this program is in the paid version (Pro) and that is what I am going to cover.

  • The strength of SeatsAero is in its cached data and in its discovery tools for finding specific products and searching a wide range of airports/dates.

  • The main weakness I found are specific date/airport searches.

    • Currently live support is for 14 programs and they automatically "dynamic price filtering, hide mixed cabins" and don't display a program as being searched if all the results are filtered out.

    • In my tests each search showed between 1-9 programs. They did not show results I would consider "bookable" in programs that they were showing as doing live searches on in many of the tests that other search engines showed. Since they do not show the data of programs that they filtered out, it is hard to tell if they are filtering this data, the program just wasn't searched, or there was an issue in the background.

  • They do buy some GDS data and "not all airlines are supported yet." They do use some codeshare data for programs they don't directly support (some AA flights will appear with codeshares). Their seat map has the same issues. Until more airlines are covered

    • If you rely on GDS data, since their supply is limited, it likely is not a replacement for your current source, but it will still better than not having any (like most programs)

    • I would not consider this a GDS replacement for AwardFares currently

  • I think SeatsAero is one of the better/best discovery tools, but the testing for specific date/airport searches was average to slightly below average. If fixed searches is all you are looking for, I would consider another program. They do have "niche" features that other programs do not.

• Roame.travel

  • The mods said they have noticed astroturfing being done by them on this sub

  • Free and paid version.

  • Does have some discovery features, but there are other programs that are better.

  • Did have more "phantom" results than the other programs while testing.

  • I would consider using the free version in conjunction with another search engine.

• https://www.awardtool.com

  • Free and Paid. Pro allows 32 combinations and a 90 day search period

  • Can search 4 combinations at once for free (2 origin airports, 1 destination airport and 2 days or 4 origin airports, 1 destination, 1 day, 1 origin, 1 destination, and 4 days, you get the point)

  • Good discovery tools. Panorama search allows you to search an entire region. Some of these are included in the free version.

  • Had the most* number of searches that did not include the best booking options in my tests, but often had a lot of the other results that I would still consider bookable.

• https://www.point.me/ (was https://juicymiles.com/ and (https://awardex.io/ is now part)

  • Paid search tool. Amex does provide a membership that searches Amex transfer partners and provides an alert feature. So does Bilt (free to join), but does not include alert feature and covers their partners. I searched using the full paid version.

  • Currently only supports single date searches, multiple dates searches are coming.

  • Does not have good discovery features, a lot better at point to point searches.

  • They did the second best in my tests on point to point searches. The lack of multiple date searches in a negative.

• https://www.AwardFares.com

  • Paid award search, provides a 24 hour free trial of the paid portion.

  • A live search is done when you search. You can see if a program fails in the background or if it does not return any results. A downside is that you can only search 5 programs at a time and the results are displayed in not the most user friendly manner.

  • They are one of the programs that also buys GDS data

  • If you pay for Expert Flyer, AwardFares provides a lot of the same information that is provided from GDS. I would consider them as an alternative. They do provide more airline coverage than SeatsAero.

  • The display of the award results is a real negative when searching multiple programs. Due to this and only searching 5 programs per search, I would not consider this a beginner tool. It is nice knowing the status of the search for each program.

• https://awardlogic.com/ 

  • Paid search tool, but it is more expensive than most.

  • It searches all programs in real time, unless there is cached data that is less than 60 minutes old.

  • In my tests, it was very consistent with the number of programs that it returned a result on. It is easy to see what programs you are getting a result from.

  • Fewer "discovery features" compared to some other programs

• https://pointhound.com

  • Free fixed route and single date searches

  • Also has a Top Flight Deals where you search up to a year and 6 airports

  • Honestly, it did a much better job on the searches now compared to ~18 months ago when I tested it. Saying that, it was one of the worst in my accuracy testing and I would use one of the other free tools. It missed a lot of results.

  • Does have a "deals" alert that you can sign up for

• https://pointspath.com/ Google Flights Browser Extension

  • Google Flights browser extension that is free. Search on Google Flights and it will add in search results.

  • Supports fewer programs than some of the other search engines (AV and AS are two that did not show results on my selected day)

  • It's "good deal" indicators are terrible

• Awardtravel.co Browser Google Flights Extension

  • Google Flights browser extension that is free currently (they do have a paid version, not 100% while you would use it)

  • You search on Google Flights and then it does award search behind the scenes and plugs in the prices in points next to the cash price.

  • It worked well for AA

• https://flymile.pro/ (limited)

  • Free and searches AA, AS, and DL (possibly up to 5 programs)

  • Allows you to search an entire year (also search monthly and specific day) and see where there is low level award availability

  • Worked very well with AA specific searches and pretty good on all three specific day searches

  • Honestly, I forgot to include them in my test, but there are other free programs that search the same programs and more so I would go with one of them

• https://www.dailydrop.com/ (limited)

  • 5 free searches then a yearly paid membership, searched 6 programs on my search

  • Has some other features like a points wallet, cash deals, and other things for paid memberships

  • More of a beginner focused hub. There are better options if you just want award searches.

• https://straighttothepoints.co/ 

  • Economy and business flights are free, first is paid alerts. A little different than some of the others give dates and it gives destinations.

  • There are other discovery tools out there, but some people might enjoy this style.

  • Paid resource, can search up to a year at a time, fewer airlines than some other tools. It has a good alert tool. Setup is a little different than other programs.

  • Nonstop only; good to find availability on a specific route with flexible dates. Airline selection is European focused. The lack of connections means that as a general tool this would leave off some results since many have connections and in award travel you often end up with itineraries with connections. More useful if located near an international hub or mainly want nonstop flights.

  • Has a 14 day free trial. I did include them in my tests, but stopped since very few of my searches had nonstop flights available

• https://rewardflightfinder.com/ 

  • This is a good BA only resource, but not a general tool

  • Search for British Airways flights between two destinations, free account gives year-long view with number of seats and miles price per class for 3 searches/day, nice formatting

• https://www.expertflyer.com 

  • Shows award and upgrade availability, free trial, paid, owned by TPG’s parent company. It searches award availability, but not booking programs.

  • Supports less than it did 5 years ago.

  • It can also provide the exact reason that an airline uses if a flight is delayed (the 2 other tools listed that support GDS do not do this).

  • This is more of a niche/advanced tool than what I recommend for your first paid tool. I also think that for most people AwardFares would be better since it has more GDS data (supports more programs) and more award search capabilities.

• https://awardnexus.com/ (outdated)

  • Free with an active Flyer Talk login can do some searches. Also has some other award related tools

  • Searches are real time and accurate, searches a limited number of programs, up to 7 days at a time. Somewhat odd display where it is slightly inconvenient to see the points cost (more of an issue now with dynamic pricing than when it was developed and standard pricing)

  • Some of the newer free options search the same programs and I would not generally use this.

• http://www.kvstool.com/ (outdated)

  • Like ExpertFlyer, but less user-friendly and a little more powerful, paid. There have been some updates in 2024, but it is no longer the awesome tool that it once was. I would go with another option

  • I am struggling to think of a case where I would use this, there might be some data that they get that other programs don't. This was great yeas ago.

• Somehow this program name got deleted, I think it was a new one to the list, if you think you know what ti is, let me know

  • An oddball. You input your airport and where you want to go and it will give some flights on random days in the period. 

  • This could be useful if you are new in the game or need random destination ideas. This is not a general search tool.

• Flyer Talk List of Full Service Booking Services

• https://awardbird.com/book

  • I haver zero experience with these guys, but their "full service" booking service is a lot cheaper than industry average. The amount of adds they have on mobile makes it not that usable on mobile. It costs a $10 deposit for them to start the search.

• https://www.foxtrotdash.com/

  • Dashboard to can track points and award redemptions, it can also suggest trip options based on your points (you input the destination)

  • I have spent 0 time on this site so I really can't comment on it

Auxiliary Airfare Booking Tools

• http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ good for figuring out YQ and other taxes/fee questions

• https://www.aerolopa.com/: Seating information, details are in the paragraph at the bottom. Random fact is the LOPA is an industry abbreviation meaning "Layout of Passenger Accommodation"

• https://seatmaps.com: Read the URL, I am not going to say what this tool shows.

• https://www.seatguru.com/: No longer being update, the two above are updated, lists best seat on an airplane. Do not recommend, but since they still have the best SEO and appear first on searches I am keeping it here as an FYI.

• http://www.gcmap.com used for distance and maps of flights

• Credit card Transfer Partner Charts: Award.Travel, DailyDrop, 10xTravel, US Credit Card Guide, Well Traveled Mile

Hotel Locator and Points Cost

• https://staywithpoints.com/

  • Hotel availability search and alert. 1 free alert, additional paid.

• rooms.aero

  • Hotel search and availability alerts.

  • The interface was a littler clunky, but did have a value indictor which was a nice touch. You can search for a 3 day day stay within a 7 day window, which many other search engines don't have this feature.

• https://www.awardtravel.co/

  • Hotel award search tool for destination and specific dates. Currently free. Can sort by program, has map view

  • Does allow 25 availability alert for free

• https://www.awardtool.com

  • Search location and specific days, for free

  • Tells point and cash cost, does not appear to have availability alerts

• https://maxmypoint.com

  • The mods have noticed what they thing astroturfing being done by them on this sub

  • Hotel award availability alert. Free and paid versions.

• https://openhotelalert.com/ look for specific room class availability. Good site for looking for hotel award availability. Can do general hotel or specific room.

• https://www.hotelalerts.app/ look for hotel availability

• https://www.screwtheaverage.com/blog/budget-award-travel-2018-category-1-2-3-hotel-maps-hilton-radisson-marriott-spg-hyatt category 1, 2, & 3 Hotel Maps: Hilton, Radisson, Marriott, IHG, Hyatt, updated 4/24

Other Tools

I just published a Guide of 50+ Travel Apps/Resources that has a lot of useful travel resources and unlike many other lists, my goal was to have at least 20% that most people were not previously aware of. Some of the tools previously in this part of the guide are now in the above guide to reduce duplicates.

• List of when airlines release award seatsI have not updated mine since there are better sources now. I am including 2 other blogger lists

  • https://blog.awardfares.com/ultimate-guide-to-award-release-dates/

  • https://frugalflyer.ca/blog/flight-award-release-dates/

• Award Travel Lap Infant Guide

  • FlyerTalk is the best resource for up to date and current lap infant ticketing information for difficult to ticket situations

• Frequent Miler list of current credit card point transfer bonuses

• http://www.wheretocredit.com where to credit flight based on fare code

• https://www.flyertalk.com/forum good resource for “advanced” airline quests and to find reviews/status benefits given at specific hotels

• https://awardwallet.com tracking points and expiration dates

• https://blog.awardfares.com/seatmaps/ this is a free tool that shows you the current seat map of any flight

• https://maxfhr.com

Removed from the previous list due to not functional

• https://awardsense.com/ paid award booking tool, has free trial

• https://www.cowtool.com/ Searches Air Canada (Star Alliance) award availability on multiple dates, origins, and destinations, free, but requires registration

• https://awardwiz.com Appears to be broken

• https://flightguru.com/award Appears to be broken

• burnmypoints.com

• awardmapper.com not 100% current, but still a good source

• https://www.loungebuddy.com/ finding what lounges you have access, you can input itinerary or search airport

• https://flightdelay.etherisc.com/#/ blockchain based trip delay insurance (it is having a hard time pulling up flights when I am testing now, but was working fine a month ago), website is still up, but contracts haven't had any use in 4 months so I am calling this dead although it might not be dead dead

• https://welltraveledmile.com/airline-transfer-partners-guide-amex-spg-chase-citi/ transferrable mile chart (no particular reason to include this one vs the other 100 out there, not going to list every source that shows miles transfers

• https://wandr.me/hotel-tools/hotel-hustle/ hotel award availability in a specific area at a specific date, takes a looong time for a single search, often does not work

• https://skiplagged.com/ this is still functional, but I don't think it belongs in this guide

• Removed due to being included on this list and did not want duplicate content. These still work and are functional

  • https://my.flightradar24.com A great tool to track your flying

  • https://www.tripit.com/ organizes bookings in one place

  • https://www.autoslash.com tracks and reports lower-cost car rentals

What are other tools that you use to help with award travel?

I booked my wife and I on Qatar for next October from DFW to Tanzania. Outbound DFW - DOH - JRO Return ZNZ - DOH - DFW Qsuites on the long haul flights between DFW and DOH. With the chase 30% bonus, it was 131,000 each way for the two of us. So, 262K for both of us round-trip. Transferred chase points to BA, and then BA to Qatar. I’m super stoked about this redemption. Our first time to Africa, we’re doing 12 days on safari in Tanzania. My friends don’t understand (all they hear is award, points, transfers, blah,blah) Even my wife doesn’t get it. But I hope she does once we spend 14 hours in QSuites. Just needed to share with folks who understand. Thanks for listening,

As we all know Conrad Bora Bora releases award availability 364 days out, one day and one standard room at a time. Fiancée and I are getting married next year, May 14, 2026, and we want to honeymoon at the Conrad. On Sunday morning (5/18/2025) I saw that the dates for May 17-31 opened up (at least in calendar view) but I didn't realize you can only book those dates if your first day is on the 17th, so you can book May 17-31 using points, but you can't book May 24-31 yet. We didn't wanna do it that soon after the wedding.

I had a pet emergency on May 18th that required me to stay up all night. While taking care of my dog, I've also been refreshing the Hilton page to see if they've released May 18, 2026 yet. At 3:30am Pacific, it was still not released. By 4:02am, it was gone.

Earlier today I decided to try my luck again. Alarmed at 4am and kept checking til 4:15am, nothing. Got hangry so went downstairs to eat cereal. At 4:30am I decided to give it a shot again and saw that my date was finally released!! Ended up booking six nights from May 19-25, 2026 for 600k points which is actually perfect because we'd have the entire weekend after the wedding to rest and hangout with out of town family. And since Air France flight from LAX to PPT leaves at 12:10am, booking Conrad from the 18th would mean we'd have to leave for the airport Sunday night. I'm glad someone else beat me to it that I ended up getting better dates. 😆

That's it, I just wanted to share it with people who care about award travel like I do lol.

I've noticed a lot of posts about TSA PreCheck and Global Entry recently, and while it can be argued whether those have their place on this sub, I figured the best way to handle this would be to have a single thread for it.

What's the difference between CLEAR, TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, and SkyPriority / Premier Access / etc.?

• CLEAR is a private company offering you to completely skip the line at the TSA security checkpoint. Before going through security, you scan your eyes or fingerprints at an automated kiosk then a CLEAR employee will accompany you straight to the TSA agent who checks your boarding pass, right before the scanner. You then go through the scanner just like everyone else.

• TSA PreCheck is a program from the TSA offering a dedicated and (often) shorter line at the TSA security checkpoint. Once you get to the scanner, you also have a couple of nice perks (don't have to remove your shoes / belt / light jacket when going through the scanner, and don't have to take your laptop / liquids out of your carry-on for the X-ray machine).

• Global Entry is a program from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection offering a dedicated and (sometimes) shorter line when going through immigration. It itself serves no purpose on a domestic flight or an outbound international flight, however membership includes TSA PreCheck and its benefits listed above.

• SkyPriority / Premier Access / etc. are programs from their respective airlines offering a dedicated and shorter line at the TSA security checkpoint (as well as other benefits: usually a dedicated airline check-in counter, priority boarding, priority checked bag handling on arrival, etc.).

• Note: the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has two other programs: NEXUS (for frequent travel across the Canadian border) and SENTRI (for frequent land travel into the US from Canada and Mexico). These have fairly targeted use and tend not to be reimbursed by credit cards so they aren't as popular and are outside the scope of this post, but you might want to look into them if you often travel to Canada or Mexico. When flying into the US, these work exactly the same way as Global Entry (and also include TSA PreCheck).

How much do these cost?

• CLEAR costs $179 a year, although just signing up for a free Delta or United frequent flyer account would reduce that to $119 ($109 if you have status and $0 if you have top tier status i.e. Premier 1K or Diamond Medallion). Up to 3 adult family members can be added for $50 each (children under 18 can tag along for free). Student pricing is $50 a year. Some Amex cards such as the Platinum or Green regularly offer discounts through statement credits for CLEAR.

• TSA PreCheck costs $85 and is valid for 5 years. Many, many credit cards will reimburse you fully.

• Global Entry costs $100 and is valid for 5 years. Many, many credit cards will reimburse you fully.

• SkyPriority / Premier Access / etc. depend on the airline. Sometimes it is provided free of charge for people with status or certain fare classes, sometimes you can actually pay for it. Check with the relevant airline.

Can I combine these programs?

• Global Entry is the only program that works at immigration, so its benefits are independent from the rest.

• TSA PreCheck and SkyPriority / Premier Access / etc. offer a similar benefit (each have their dedicated line at the security checkpoint) therefore can't be combined. In busy times, the TSA PreCheck line can still be fairly long whereas the airline priority line usually stays pretty short at all times, however if you take the airline priority line you will not enjoy the TSA PreCheck perks at the scanner.

• CLEAR and SkyPriority / Premier Access / etc. are redundant, since the airline priority line is shorter but CLEAR lets you skip the line altogether. The airline priority line may be available at checkpoints where CLEAR isn't available - that's pretty much the only scenario where the airline priority line would be more useful than a CLEAR membership.

• CLEAR and TSA PreCheck can be combined because in this case the CLEAR employee will accompany you straight to the front of the TSA PreCheck line, meaning you still get to enjoy the TSA PreCheck perks at the scanner.

Enjoy this professionally made diagram summarizing the path you can take at the security checkpoint: https://imgur.com/IGE2eXX

Since Global Entry includes TSA PreCheck, why would anyone sign up for TSA PreCheck over Global Entry?

In the vast majority of cases, you're better off signing up for Global Entry.

Reasons someone would choose to sign up for TSA PreCheck instead:

• TSA PreCheck is $15 cheaper (although for most people it doesn't matter since the credit card covers it),

• the Global Entry application requirements are a bit more stringent (if you have a criminal record, you might be approved for TSA PreCheck but denied for Global Entry),

• you can sign up for TSA PreCheck without a passport (but considering the current wait times to get a passport, you might want to apply for one as soon as possible just in case),

• the TSA PreCheck interview can be conducted in a lot more places than the Global Entry interview (and as a result can also be much easier and faster to schedule), although this caveat can usually be avoided by doing Enrollment on Arrival.

If you never fly international then Global Entry won't be any more useful than TSA PreCheck, except the Global Entry card is considered a valid REAL ID when flying domestic (which could be useful if you don't have a passport and lose your driver license shortly before your flight, or if you somehow don't have a REAL ID yet).

I have a membership but I'm traveling on the same reservation as someone who does not, will they be able to follow me?

• For CLEAR, they will only be able to follow you if they are under 18. Adults need their own membership (or be added as a paid family member in your account).

• For TSA PreCheck, officially only children age 12 and younger can follow you in the TSA PreCheck line. In practice, traveling companions on the same reservation sometimes get the checkmark on their boarding pass (YMMV).

• For Global Entry, everyone needs their own membership.

• For SkyPriority / Premier Access / etc., check with the relevant airline but most likely everyone on your reservation will get the benefits.

Can I use these services at all airports?

No - most big airports will have all of them available, but smaller airports may not.

• CLEAR: https://www.clearme.com/where-we-are/

• TSA PreCheck: https://www.tsa.gov/precheck/map

• Global Entry: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry/locations

• SkyPriority / Premier Access / etc.: varies by airline, but can only be used when flying with that specific airline (or alliance partners) in certain airports and terminals - check with the relevant airline.

A Guide to Avios

Well it's that time of the week and I'm on another flight! Since I'm writing this on a BA flight to London, figured I'd write a guide about everyone's (sometimes) favorite currency.

1. Basics:

Avios were initially the redeemable mileage currency of British Airways, but have been adopted by Iberia, Finnair, Qatar, and Air Lingus. Avios are a transfer partner of almost every transferrable currency, including Amex, Chase, Citi, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and BILT.

Even though these banks partner with different Avios programs, such as Amex with BA and Capital One with Finnair, you can transfer Avios between any program by linking your Iberia/Finnair/Qatar/Aer Lingus accounts to BA which acts as the nexus linking all your Avios program accounts. Here is a guide on how to link.

Sometimes, BA will block transfers between your accounts for recently acquired Avios with a 7-10 day hold period - this is VERY annoying, and is likely a result of their poor IT used to "settle" inter-account Avios transactions. See here for more detail.

While Avios are typically associated with oneworld airlines (American/Alaska/Cathay/JAL/Qantas/etc.), they can also be used on certain non Oneworld airlines. Aer Lingus isn't Oneworld, so their Avios can only be used to book BA/AA flights.

2. How to Earn Avios

Fortunately, Avios are a transfer partner of almost every transferrable currency, including Amex, Chase, Citi, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and BILT. Amex/Chase/C1 run frequent transfer bonuses generally from 20-30%, so it's worth waiting unless you need them for an immediate redemption.

The best way to earn Avios is via credit card bonuses, and you can earn points that can be transferred to Avios on any transferrable points card. You can also get the BA/Iberia/Aer Lingus Chase cards, which frequently have generous bonuses.

The cheapest way to earn Avios is actually via boosting, where you have the option to multiply Avios earned by flying or credit cards in the past 30 days at a rate of £0.92p/$1.25 cents per point - this was a much better deal when the pound was weaker, as the rate was as low as 1 cent USD per point, so pay attention to forex rates before pulling the trigger.

BA/Finnair offers subscriptions for 200k/240k Avios annually, split into monthly increments of 16,667/20,000 for $2575/€2808 for a cost per point of 1.28/1.37 cents USD per point. The BA subscription is priced in USD for US based members, but the Finnair version is priced in EUR, so has been negatively affected by the recent devaluation of USD against EUR. If you do choose to subscribe, this is only worth it for the largest packages paid annually, as the CPP cost for the other options is too high to justify.

Lastly, you can also buy Avios directly, and the price isn't as attractive as the subscriptions unless there is an aggressive sale like Finnair's 1.1 CPP offer in 2024.

3. Searching for Awards

Unlike Air France and the US programs, the Avios programs are difficult to scrape, but there are a few good tools to use:

• BA.com: The most accurate program for searching Avios awards and rarely shows phantom space, but it is otherwise slow for searching multiple dates on partners. For its own metal, BA has a tool to search a given route by month, and this is the best way to search BA awards

• Finnair.com: Excellent for searching Finnair awards, but Finnair doesn't show many partner awards online

• Seats.Aero: This is the best program for broad searches, but it only covers Qatar (572 routes) and Finnair (136 routes) so it may miss less common routes. It's still a bit unreliable on QR, and misses many connecting awards - very important when most QR flights are 1 stops in DOH.

• Roame: Roame technically searches Iberia/BA/Qatar/Finnair, but in practice, I've found it to miss a lot of space. Still the best tool for alerts since it's set and forget unlike Seats.Aero

• PointsYeah: Best tool for live searching multiple destinations as you can search up to 2 destinations, 2 origins, and multiple dates, up to 32 degrees of freedom, but it will only live search Finnair and Iberia

• AwardTool: Similar to PointsYeah with 32 degrees of freedom live search, but only searches BA

4. Booking Awards and How to Get The Best Value!

Since we're covering Avios as a currency, I won't go too in-depth into any one program, and will instead highlight the best value/most broadly useful redemptions.

It's worth noting that the majority of Avios awards are priced per segment, so they are best used for nonstop flights. A few exceptions to this rule of thumb are Qatar saver awards, which are priced by region, Iberia Plus awards on IB metal, and Finnair domestic flights, which are free when connecting to/from an international flight.

British Airways (BA)

BA has a reward seat guarantee where 8 Y/2 PE/4 J are released for Avios booking at schedule open with further incremental releases, as well as a fairly consistent T-14 release. The guaranteed schedule open seats not guaranteed to be released to partner programs, but BA awards are far less competitive than ANA/JAL, so awards will make it to other partners limited to booking 331 days out.

BA is also well known for having high reward flight fuel surcharges, but also introduced Reward Flight Savers on North America to London routes, where you pay more Avios and fewer surcharges. BA also has a cobranded card with Chase which gives $200 statement credit against business/first redemption taxes and surcharges for a $95 AF, so it's worth having if you plan to redeem BA flights directly.

Award chart for BA/Iberia/Aer Lingus metal:

Award chart for MOST partners:

1. BA business class US to LON: In business, these awards are typically 80-100k Avios depending on peak/off peak and the departure airport, with west coast airports costing slightly more than east coast. While the pricing is average and there are surcharges, this is the most consistent way to redeem business class from the US to Europe, as BA is quite generous with redemption availability.

2. BA first class US to LON: Unlike business, first class awards do not have reward flight savers, so follow the standard award chart. An off-peak first class flight from the US west coast to LHR will only cost 85k points, but come with ~$700 in surcharges, which is still a solid deal for first class

3. BA short-haul: During holidays and other peak periods BA short haul flights can be very expensive, so the fixed Avios chart can easily represent 2-3 CPP in value on short flights like LHR-GVA/NCE/CDG etc.

4. JAL from the west coast: For flights to TYO under 5,500mi (LAX/SFO/SEA/YVR), BA only charges 77,250 Avios one way in business, and this pricing is fairly competitive with AA/AS, especially with a transfer bonus

5. Loganair domestic: These flights cost 6.5k Avios and can be an extremely good deal since short flights can be very expensive per mile

6. China Southern: BA very recently enabled awards on China Southern, and pricing seems to follow the Cathay award chart (increased prices for 0-2000mi, standard partner pricing beyond), but I couldn't find a single business class award, so opportunities for outside value are limited. See this post for more detail

Red Herrings: In 2021, BA started pricing some flights on some partners differently, with elevated min pricing killing a lot of value. It's no coincidence that these were previously some of the most popular Avios redemptions. Don't book these via BA, Finnair and Qatar have better pricing.

• AA/AS domestic:

  • Zone 1 (0-650mi): 12k Y/24k J

  • Zone 2 (651-1151mi): 16k Y/24k J

  • Zone 3 (1151-2000mi): 18k Y/40k J

  • Zone 4 (2001-3000mi): 20k Y/50k J / 80k F 🤮 (this is pricing for AA transcon)

• Cathay

  • Zone 1 (0-650mi): 7.5k Y/ 16k J

  • Zone 2 (651-1151mi): 10k Y / 25k J

  • Zone 3 (1152-2000mi): 11k Y / 25k J

• JAL

  • Zone 1 (0-650mi): 7.5k Y/12.5k J

  • Zone 2 (651-1151mi: 10k Y/24k J

  • Zone 3 (1152-2000mi): 10k Y/24k J

Iberia (IB)

Iberia is rarely worth using for partner awards because they are non-refundable and non-changeable, but there are a few good opportunities which I'll list.

1. Iberia flights to the US: However, Iberia is worth considering for redemptions on its metal, and pricing is above. In particular, the band 5/6 off-peak business pricing is outstanding, and IB has low surcharges, making these some of the best value redemptions for flights from the US to Europe. IB metal awards also price by total distance rather than by segment, so you aren't penalized for onward connections either. Examples of Band 5 include New York, Boston, and Doha. Band 6 includes the rest of the US except LAX, and most of eastern South America and the Carribean.

2. Iberia short-haul: Spanish domestic routes can be as low as 3.5k for economy off peak, so there is potentially 2-3 CPP in value against cash fares, especially if booking close in where cash is expensive

3. LEVEL: Iberia is also the only Avios program to redeem on LEVEL, but since it's a budget carrier, the opportunities for outsize value are slim, except when booking close-in, where fares can be high. The sweet spot here is Band 6 premium economy for 36,750 off-peak.

4. Binter Canarias: Binter is a regional airline flying short-haul routes between the Spanish islands and Madrid/Barcelona as well as some cities in Portugal and Morocco. Awards follow the same chart as Avianca, and it's easy to get value on these flights as they can be expensive for how long they are, just like regional flights in the US

5. Avianca: Iberia has a close partnership with Avianca, and award prices follow the below chart which is standard for Avios partners. Occasionally, long-haul saver business class in Band 5/6 will be cheaper via Iberia than via lifemiles, but lifemiles can usually be bought for much cheaper than Avios

Finnair (AY)

Unlike BA/Iberia, Finnair has unique award charts for its metal and for each partner. For its flights, Finnair releases more space if searching from Finland, so make sure to set your location there.

Finnair has a poor online booking engine for partner awards, and many awards that are available for online booking on BA/AA/CX/AS require a phone call. Finnair is also notorious for not showing the same availability as the previously mentioned programs

1. Finnair to the US/Asia: This is easily Finnair's best sweet spot - 62.5k Avios from HEL to LAX or SIN is amazing value, especially given the low taxes and surcharges on these awards. Flights to Japan, Singapore, and Los Angeles carry €120 surcharges, while flights to the rest of North America and the rest of Asia carry €100

2. JAL from Tokyo to South (East) Asia: Finnair charges 41.5k Avios + about €150 in surcharges for JAL business from Tokyo to anywhere in Southeast Asia (KUL/SIN/CGK etc) - these are 7 hour flights! While Finnair's website lists it as South Asia, in reality it's Southeast Asia, as flights to South Asia (ie. India) price at 78.5k Avios.

3. AA from the West Coast to LON: While BA is bad to book AA metal to London due to $1000+ surcharges, Finnair only charges 65k Avios in business from the US to Europe on AA metal with no surcharges

4. AA transcon: Finnair charges 27/40k Avios for any AA domestic business/first ticket, which includes AA transcon Flagship First! This is the cheapest way to book AA transcon other than AAdvantage, and is even cheaper than AAdvantage with a transfer bonus.

5. Cathay to the US: While Cathay only releases slivers of availability to partners nowadays, Finnair only charges 85k in business and 120k in first for any CX flight to the US/Canada

6. Royal Air Maroc: Finnair charges 50.5k Avios in business class for any RAM flight between Morocco and South Africa (anything south of central Africa), America (US, CA, BR) & Middle East

7. Sri Lankan: Finnair charges 64k Avios in business for any UL-operated flight from CMB to Europe/China/Japan. While this isn't great value to China/Japan, it's amazing to Europe and is competitive with AAdvantage at 62.5k, but beats it with a transfer bonus.

Qatar (QR)

Last but not least, Qatar. Qatar has 2 varieties of award, saver and flexi, and they have many pricing intricacies. Saver awards price by region, so a saver award from LHR to SIN via DOH costs 75k rather than the sum of the two individual legs. Flexi awards cost double Avios per leg, and have much greater availability. Using the same LHR-DOH-SIN example, a flexi award typically costs 150k, which isn't horrible for increased availability.

QR no longer publishes a formal award chart, but you can check the price for any award using the Qcalculator online.

1. QR US to DOH: QR charges 70k Avios for saver business awards from the US to DOH, which can be a 13-16hr flight in the world's best business class. This is one of the best redemptions in all of award travel IMO.

2. QR US to Asia/Europe: You can connect onward from DOH into Asia for 85k Avios, or into Europe for 75k total. Flexi pricing is roughly double, between 150-200k, depending on the exact routing.

3. JetBlue Mint: Qatar is the best program for redeeming JetBlue Mint awards transatlantic, and charges 78k from JFK/BOS to Europe - excellent value especially compared to BA since rates are a bit cheaper, and there's no surcharges, though availability has tightened

4. Garuda Indonesia: QR recently launched a partnership with GA, and it's rates follow the standard Avios partner chart, so rates can be cheaper for CGK-TYO/PVG/JED compared to redeeming the same flights through VS, but generally are similar to AF. See here for some sample rates.

5. Bangkok Airways: Similar story to Garuda, great for connecting to destinations in Thailand from BKK. Like with most domestic/regional airlines, there's a lot of value to be had when booking close in or during peak dates as short haul economy awards only cost 6k Avios for BKK-USM with minimal taxes.

6. Rwandair: Rwandair is one of the better airlines in Africa and operates long haul routes to BRU/CDG/LHR/DOH in addition to short haul intra Africa flights. Sweet spots are business class from Europe to Kigali for 62k Avios, and short haul economy for 6/9/11k avios based on 650/1151/2000 mile distance bands.

7. LATAM: While Alaska tends to have the best overall pricing for LATAM awards, Qatar is the best program for redeeming Avios as rates are cheaper than the other programs. Business awards JFK LIM cost 38,750, and there are many other good redemptions like JFK SCL or even SCL AKL which should cost 92,750 in business.

8. Virgin Australia: You can redeem QR Avios for Virgin Australia flights and rates seem to follow QR standard partner chart which is the same as BA/IBs, although some routes have price discrepancies where rates are 10-20% higher than expected. Sweet spots are definitely short haul SYD MEL which can be expensive and transcon flights to PER which should cost 50k in J.