Now let's discuss a few more advanced features of the American
Airlines search program, this time using the example of an international journey from New York to Helsinki.
Not exact matches
A quick
search into the
airlines and hotels reward
programs can show you the full potential of using credit cards for your everyday purchases.
Our picks for the best rewards credit cards have rewards
programs for varying card needs, including if you're looking for
airline miles, cash rewards, cards with points, or just
searching for a card with no annual fee.
To book, you have to be a member of the
airline's frequent flyer
program and use the site to
search availability.
Thus, with the Barclaycard Arrival Plus ™ World Elite MasterCard ® you are not tied to particular
airline or hotel loyalty
program and can
search for the best travel options available according to your budget.
The freemium tool
searches by
airline alliance and points
program to find the best redemption possibility for you.
This is the
airline frequent flyer
program your miles are in — not the
airline you want to fly on, or the alliance members you'll
search for award space.
With just a few extra clicks to sign up and a little bit of time spent
searching restaurants, you could certainly stack up some bonus miles from the Alaska
Airlines Mileage Plan Dining
program.
Each
airline loyalty
program has its own little quirks to be aware of when
searching for award space.
Of course, some frequent flyer
program members might have simply overlooked available flights given the complaint regarding poor
search tools, number four on the list, and the difficulty (including flights not showing up in a
search) in booking awards on partner
airlines, a peeve that rounded out the top five.
To book, you have to be a member of the
airline's frequent flyer
program and use the site to
search availability.
Back when I was buying my condominium, I specifically
searched for a real estate agent that partnered with a mileage
program (netting me several hundred thousand
airline miles in the process).
If you have a variety of
airline miles and credit card points to use, then this is the time to check each
program individually to see what flights they still have available, preferably using a flexible calendar date
search option.
You just
search for a flight either by city or airport codes, then select one of the desired
programs such as CHASE Ultimate Rewards, Citi Thank You Points, AMEX Membership rewards, SPG Preferred Guest, and / or sixty
airline programs (sadly they don't have AA as a partner yet).
To use it, you just input your route, choose one - way or roundtrip, the cabin you want to fly in (economy, premium economy, business, or first), whether you're willing to make a stop or not, the type of award (peak or off - peak), and which frequent flyer
program (the 20
airlines are listed below) or credit card (Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, and / or Starwood Preferred Guest) you want to use and
search.
I prefer KLM's
search over Air France but keep in mind that both
airlines use the Flying Blue loyalty
program.
The thing I love about this
program is that it's possible to
search and compare fares on all
airlines, then make a decision that suits your needs and preferences.
Their flight
searches don't bring up quite as dependably accurate results as their hotel
searches do, but considering the complexity of evaluating the dozens of
airline reward
programs on a
search like this, nobody's perfect here.
For example, if you
search for New York City (JFK) to Frankfurt (FRA), you will be provided the number of miles required by different
airline programs and on which
airlines you can book.
Note that most
airline websites will ask you to register for their frequent flyer
program before you can
search for an award flight.
WebCease routinely
searches about 60 nonfinancial online accounts, including photography sites such as Flickr, hotel and
airline rewards
programs, social media sites and e-commerce sites including Amazon, PayPal, Netflix and eBay.
Here is a guide to booking award tickets in Singapore
Airlines Suites, including a list of all Singapore Suites routes, how many miles you need for an award ticket, how to
search and find Singapore Suites award flights, and an overview of the KrisFlyer mileage
program.
Our picks for the best rewards credit cards have rewards
programs for varying card needs, including if you're looking for
airline miles, cash rewards, cards with points, or just
searching for a card with no annual fee.
The common mistake that many people make is that if they have a frequent flyer
program with a particular
airline, they will simply go to the
airline website and
search for an award availability.
Every
airline or every hotel has some type of rewards
program and you can
search for rooms or flights based on points or miles.
Assuming you have neither the right card nor the time (or inclination) to take on a new one for this purpose, I would suggest
searching the
airline's frequent flier websites for deals being offered by its loyalty
program.
For instance, a lot of travel reward
programs have
search engines that allow you to use your points or miles to book travel on almost any flight by any
airline, with the number of points dependent on the fare.
I select «move out of a
program,» select Hawaiian
Airlines, enter 4,916 miles, and click the
search now button.