I think fewer people who read this post will be looking to
book domestic awards on ANA, which is why I've put this section last.
Booking a domestic award with ANA is more complicated than an international award.
That can be transferred to an airline partner, and it should be enough to
book a domestic award flight.
Many frequent flyer gurus will tell you to never use your hard - earned miles to
book a domestic award ticket.
As I explained yesterday in my post about
booking domestic awards with American Airlines miles, award space is wide open in First Class from New York to Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Not exact matches
These «back door» travel
bookings can stretch your miles further than
booking award flights directly from the
domestic carriers.
FCA Canada has been named the only
Domestic Manufacturer to win two 2015 Canadian Black
Book (CBB) «Best Retained Value
Awards.»
Here, we'll dive into the different economy and
domestic first class
award booking options you have.
You can
book award travel on most major airlines with
domestic fares starting as low as 15,000 points and international fares starting at 25,000 points.
You may even pay fewer points for short - haul
domestic flights than you would
booking an
award ticket.
If you use frequent flyer miles to
book certain round - trip
domestic MileSAAver
award flights, you can get a discount, a 7,500 - mile discount on longer destinations and 2,000 - mile discount on shorter ones.
Often the best use of foreign
award programs is to
book domestic flights.
If availability for this flight were to dry up between now and when Elena
books, looking at flights to JFK, MIA, DFW or ORD instead of all the way to MSP would again be a good option, opting to pay a very small amount for a
domestic one - way as opposed to skipping out on the transatlantic
award altogether.
For example, when I
book award tickets for family with my United miles, change fees are waived and my Premier 1K status carries over to provide priority service, free checked baggage, and complimentary
domestic upgrades.
These «back door» travel
bookings can stretch your miles further than
booking award flights directly from the
domestic carriers.
I've also written about a nice opportunity to get free stopovers on
domestic flights, making the Alaska Airlines award chart particularly valuable: How to Book Awards on Emirates with Alaska Airlines Miles Alaska Airlines Awards: Two Domestic One Ways for the Price of One It does take 90,000 miles each way to fly First Class, however, and the big downside is that Alaska... [Read
domestic flights, making the Alaska Airlines
award chart particularly valuable: How to
Book Awards on Emirates with Alaska Airlines Miles Alaska Airlines
Awards: Two
Domestic One Ways for the Price of One It does take 90,000 miles each way to fly First Class, however, and the big downside is that Alaska... [Read
Domestic One Ways for the Price of One It does take 90,000 miles each way to fly First Class, however, and the big downside is that Alaska... [Read more...]
Unlike many of the
domestic award search engines, British Airways keeps its
award search function squirreled away, far from the easily accessibly cash ticket
booking field on its homepage.
Recently I
booked award flights to Australia, and the absence of Star Alliance flights bookable through MileagePlus in
domestic Australia was quite evident.
There are basically three different ways to
book award flights domestically: 1) revenue - based
awards with Southwest, JetBlue, or Virgin America; 2) distance - based flights with British Airways Avios; or 3) traditional region - based
award redemptions with
domestic airlines, such as United, American, Delta, and Alaskan (or any other alliance partners).
If you're new to the «travel rewards» world,
booking cheap
domestic award flights might be your way of getting your feet wet before you
book an international
award flight or a first class flight that will require more miles.
Here's how you can earn miles, attain elite status, and
book award flights on more than a dozen
domestic and foreign frequent - flier programs — each of which has at least one major U.S. partner.
Though American charges a late
booking fee and relatively hefty change fees, it has pretty reliable availability
booking in advance or close - in (except for big holiday seasons like Christmas) and incredibly low off - peak
award rates internationally, so your American Airlines miles can be more valuable than those of other
domestic carriers.
Avios points generally incur a full surcharge when you
book international
award tickets, but
domestic awards within the U.S. remain surcharge - free and are surprisingly affordable on non-stop routes thanks to the Avios distance - based
award chart.
Though I'm primarily discussing economy redemptions here, I also wanted to mention that
booking through Virgin Atlantic, you can get first - class
award tickets for
domestic travel in the U.S. for an absolute steal: just 45,000 miles.
While we all enjoy
booking an extravagant first class
award to Asia and getting a massive amount of value out of our miles, the truth is
award tickets simply aren't available every time we want to
book and some travel needs like
domestic economy tickets don't offer such great value.
$ 25 - 35 telephone reservations fee — If you need to call to
book your
award, you'll pay $ 25 per ticket for
domestic award and $ 35 for
awards that involve international travel.
Delta has been taking flak from frequent flyers for years, for a variety of valid reasons: Their
awards are much harder to come by than those of most major
domestic airlines; you cant
book one - way
awards without...
If I have 25,000 miles I can
book one round - trip
domestic award for myself and save $ 300 - 500.
You can also transfer points between accounts for the purpose of
booking an
award, so it's entirely possible for your spouse or
domestic partner to buy more points if that isn't enough.
Stopovers on
domestic awards required an extra 10,000 miles — not normally worth it, but a slight discount over
booking three
domestic one - way
awards.
However, there are many alternatives available which allow us to
book round - trip
domestic economy
awards for cheaper prices than this when the flights are short enough to fall under certain mileage thresholds.
It's worth noting that Reduced Mileage
Awards can be
booked up to four months in advance, and the list of qualifying
domestic destinations is typically quite long.
This post is the second in a series on how to
book award flights with the major
domestic carriers.
If you're looking to
book international flights in premium cabins, those fares tend to be quite a bit higher than
domestic first, so while you'll still get two cents per points in value, you'll likely need fewer points or miles to
book traditional
award tickets.
Some of the best values for Delta miles are available by
booking short - haul
domestic economy
awards on routes with expensive cash prices.
Though it may not seem logical to transfer your points to an Asian carrier to
book a flight within the U.S., one sweet spot of the Singapore Airlines
award chart is the value for U.S.
domestic flights in the lower 48 states and between the mainland U.S. and Hawaii.
An example is if you
book an international
award from a gateway city, but can not find the same itinerary with a
domestic connection to get to the gateway city.
However at a value of 2 cents a mile, you would still have to
book an
award ticket that normally costs $ 250 one way in Economy to get that value per mile on a
domestic flight.
Even though KLM doesn't offer
domestic flights here, you may still want to use their website to
book an
award on Delta Air Lines, for example, or to
book an
award on another carrier in a different part of the world.
Even though you don't earn elite miles on
award tickets and I value my airline elite status greatly, there's something extremely satisfying about
booking an expensive
domestic flight and only paying $ 2.50 in fees, which is what most carriers charge per segment on
domestic US flights (plus any ticketing fees).
As you saw with the example, it's complicated because while a cash ticket (including those
booked through the Ultimate Rewards portal) has all taxes and fees included in the price, an
award ticket also is charged taxes and fees ($ 5.60 in the case of a
domestic US ticket).
Has there been any update to the way that one would
book a US
domestic award flight using Avios?
Normally, a
domestic business class ticket costs 50,000 miles roundtrip (possibly less if you're
booking a distance - based
award), a roundtrip to Europe is 50,000, while Asia is around 110,000.
High level airline elite status comes with many valuable perks such as free
domestic first class upgrades (when available), elite security lines, waived fees (such as free checked bags, and free changes to
award bookings), improved availability of
award seats, and more.
I just
booked a roundtrip
award from CVG - LAX for 17,500 AA miles,
booking with Avios or Southwest points would have been more that 17.5 k. I think Reduced Mileage
awards can be a great option for longer distance
Domestic flights.
Currently there's a workaround if you
book a
domestic Delta flight at the saver
award level to add on a partner
award at the old rates.
- Miles & More is the mileage program of Lufthansa as well as Austrian and SWISS, and members get more access to premium
award tickets - All three airlines are part of Star Alliance, so you can use these miles on any of the 27 partner airlines including US Airways and United (and Miles & More
awards can be
booked one - way, which US Airways
awards can not)- You can
book a roundtrip
domestic business class
award on United and US Airways for 35,000 miles, or a first class ticket for 50,000 miles.
As far as
award bookings with
domestic carriers go, United is one of the most straightforward.
And while there may be some fuel surcharges on international
awards booked with Miles & More, there are no fuel surcharges to worry about on
domestic United flights.
-LSB-...] American has charged $ 25 per
domestic ticket and $ 35 per international ticket to
book award tickets by phone.