Overall trends: As I mention above, you'll be hard - pressed to find business
class award availability on Air France, though I was able to find a few seats here and there.
I can't emphasize enough how rare this amount of business
class award availability on American is.
Historically business
class award availability on Fiji Airways isn't especially good, though I've seen a good amount of space lately, especially if booking in advance.
Unfortunately, you can't find Korean Air first -
class award availability on Delta.com since you can only redeem Delta miles for economy and business - class awards on partners, and Alaska does not let you redeem its miles for first - class awards on Korean.
Let's be clear, finding business
class award availability on Qantas will be tough.
Business
class award availability on Qantas is very difficult to find, but not quite as difficult as first class award space.
There were two more things to consider at this point — Business
Class award availability on the return flights and the aircraft that British Airways was offering.
In order to upgrade using Avios there simply has to be Business
Class award availability on the flight in question....
Take a look a these screenshots from American Airlines — all show Business
Class award availability on non-stop flights between various US cities and London Heathrow:
Aeroplan was showing First
Class award availability on SWISS but United was not (neither was LifeMiles but that didn't surprise me).
BA.com showed Business
Class award availability on most Cathay Pacific flights between Tokyo and Hong Kong on my chosen date but, rather than just book the flight with the best timings, there was one last thing to take into consideration.
First
class award availability on Qantas is notoriously difficult to find.
Not exact matches
While
award availability in economy
class has generally improved
on American Airlines and its partners over the last few years, you will have more options when you can choose any airline to fly to your destination.
• Korean Air miles can be used
on Delta and offer more
availability for Upper
Class award tickets to Asia than most other programs.
Here we had a stroke of luck, depending
on how you look at it: while the direct service flight from Los Angeles did not show
availability for a Business
Class or First Class Saver Award on most dates, a mixed class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
Class or First
Class Saver Award on most dates, a mixed class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
Class Saver
Award on most dates, a mixed class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
Award on most dates, a mixed
class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
award connecting through San Francisco was available.
After confirming Saver
class availability for each flight segment by searching them as one - way flights, I now stitched them all together in United's multi-destination
award search tool, making certain to choose the specific flight numbers I'd confirmed
availability on during my one - way searches.
When searching, it's best to select Business or First
Class, even if you're primarily focused
on Economy
availability, as BA's
award engine.
I originally started collecting them thinking I'd suck up the fuel surcharges flying Boston to London
on Virgin Atlantic Upper
Class with good
award availability.
Availability in the other direction (Auckland to Doha) is pretty good do and, in this case, there are actually 4 Business
Class awards available
on the very first Qatar Airways non-stop flight between Auckland and Doha:
When I flew to Tokyo in January I had to position from London to Frankfurt to catch a JAL Business
Class award flight
on the 787 Dreamliner and when I had wanted to try out Cathay Pacific First
Class last year I had to position from London to Zurich to catch that
award flight — London isn't exactly awash with
award availability.
British Airways guarantees that it will release at least 2 Business
Class seats
on every flight so, as this route has just be loaded in the past few hours,
award availability should be plentiful right now....
American Airlines appears to be more interested in discounting its Business
Class cabins (often to a great extent) than it is in opening up
award availability on a number of its routes....
The program generally has good
award availability, including premium
classes on transpacific routes between the U.S. and Asia, which are notoriously hard to get with miles.
If you search for economy
class by default
on a carrier that has four cabins, you will not see first
class award availability.
Because it's not that rare to find Business
Class flights between the US and London coming in at under $ 2,000 and,
on top of that, if you're booking an
award you still have the issue of finding
availability... and that hasn't been easy in recent years.
As stated,
award availability for (saver) business
class to New Zealand
on United is not great and you'll need to book far in advance if you want to even have a chance to snag redemptions with business
class seats between the US and Australia / New Zealand.
OneMileAtATime has noticed that
award availability on this new route appears to be wide open with as many as 6 Business
Class seats available
on some flights.
Secondly, this sees a significant decrease in the number of Business
Class seats available
on the route and that's not going to be good for upgrades or the already pathetic
award availability.
Korean Air has very popular First and Business
Class products and finding
award availability on Korean isn't nearly as challenging as it can be
on its transpacific competitors.
American Airlines charges 57,500 miles in each direction for a Business
Class award on airberlin (taxes and fees come to under $ 100) and, unlike not too long ago, you can now search for airberlin
award availability on AA.com.
I hardly found any Domestic business
class awards that are reasonably priced, Delta uses dynamic pricing based
on the demand,
availability for sky miles redemption.
While I wouldn't call
award availability on Thai's first international A350 route «wide open» it's definitely reasonably easy to find Business
Class award seats.
American Airlines AAdvantage miles are very hard to use economically thanks to the dearth of premium cabin SAAver
awards, United Miles are ok but 100,000 won't get you a roundtrip Business
Class award to any major long - haul destination (if you're heading east or west) while 100,000 Alaska Miles will get you some nice roundtrip redemptions
on Cathay Pacific and even American (subject to
award availability).
The Virgin Atlantic Dreamliner has fewer Premium Economy and Upper
Class seats than both the A330 and A340 aircraft so I suspect this won't do much for
award availability on this route.
On top of this the A380 offers more Business
Class seating than the 777 (good for
award availability) and the Economy
Class product is more comfortable - its a win all round.
I tracked
award space
on British Airways and seat
availability in business
class (thanks, ExpertFlyer).
For those of us
on the West Coast, you can often find a more efficient routing with another airline, though many people still opt to fly Etihad if they can find
award availability in Etihad's The Residence or First
Class Apartments.
Some of the best include the following: United Airlines, which opens up access to the huge Star Alliance network of carriers; British Airways, offering great value
on short - haul nonstop flights due to their distance - based
award chart; Korean Airlines, with amazing
award availability in their first
class cabins; and Hyatt, which is widely recognized as offering some of the highest value point redemption opportunities of any hotel chain.
If you are rebooked within the same alliance you could be unfortunate enough to be rebooked
on another flight that had
award availability at the last minute, which means that if the agent takes the time to rebook you properly, you may remain in an
award fare
class and not earn miles.
While a route serviced by an A350 should be an aircraft where premium
award seats can be made available, it's likely that
availability for business
class seats will be scarce so I wouldn't rely
on booking these seats with partners like United.
Getting two nonstop business or first
class seats
on a non-stop flight to Paris during warm weather would not normally be an easy proposition, but the born - again Delta Airlines
award chart still shows awesome
availability to Paris and other European cities in the late summer 2015.
Alaska has decent
award availability for premium
class awards on Cathay Pacific, and the airline can take you beyond Southeast Asia.
On the redemption side, the award chart to / from Europe isn't too bad (62,500 miles for a transatlantic one - way in business class) and you get access to much better availability on AF / KL's own flights that when booking with Delt
On the redemption side, the
award chart to / from Europe isn't too bad (62,500 miles for a transatlantic one - way in business
class) and you get access to much better
availability on AF / KL's own flights that when booking with Delt
on AF / KL's own flights that when booking with Delta.
After keeping a diligent eye
on award availability, I found us three business -
class seats
on the same flight, departing just three days after our preferred date.
Finding a Delta premium
class award to Asia is an adventure, but it usually has decent to good
availability on Korean Air and one of the two Chinese SkyTeam members: China Eastern or / and China Southern.
And since I was having a tough time finding Lufthansa first
class availability out of NYC
on my required date, I fortunately found what I needed out of Washington DC Dulles (IAD),
on the A340 - 300, and I was able to book this Lufthansa first
class award 15 days in advance.
It's worth noting that it's tougher than ever before to find first
class Star Alliance award space on Lufthansa and Swiss (see How to Deal with No More Lufthansa Advance First Class Availability), so nowadays this is most practical when planning close to departure, as Lufthansa tends to open up award space no more than three weeks
class Star Alliance
award space
on Lufthansa and Swiss (see How to Deal with No More Lufthansa Advance First
Class Availability), so nowadays this is most practical when planning close to departure, as Lufthansa tends to open up award space no more than three weeks
Class Availability), so nowadays this is most practical when planning close to departure, as Lufthansa tends to open up
award space no more than three weeks out.
Given the high fuel surcharges
on British Airways, the main other competing product for first
class that actually offers
award availability, Lufthansa first
class remains the one to beat in terms of overall value, when it comes to
award bookings to Europe.
Roundtrip coach
awards are 60,000 miles (not a bargain) while Upper
Class awards are 100,000 miles and, unlike flights from Newark to London
on Continental, there's actually really good
availability on Virgin in Upper
Class.
You'll want to book back - up flights, either using United but booking
on United or other Star Alliance partners that do offer advance
availability (or even Lufthansa Business
class awards for the flights you hope to get first
class on) OR use American AAdvantage or other miles to book backup flights.