Hot Tip: British Airways can
book partner awards up to 355 days before departure, but American Airlines is only 330.
Not exact matches
Using the example above, where we found that the British Airways
award ended
up costing about the same as the United
partner award when we value Ultimate Rewards points at 2.2 cents each, now when we
book a companion ticket for an additional $ 931 we're saving not 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points, but 140,000.
Non-alliance
partner awards can not be found on the Asia Miles website, so you'll need to look
up award space elsewhere (such as the operating airline's website) and then call Asia Miles to
book the ticket.
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.
As far as
booking an
award ticket on a
partner flight goes, let's clear something
up: If you want to use Flying Blue Miles to fly to Hawaii on Delta Airlines, you would transfer your UR points to the Flying Blue program, NOT Delta's, and then call Air France or use their website to
book the
partner flight on Delta.
You should be able to lower the fees by
booking flights on American Airlines, but keep in mind that the milage requirement will go
up since Iberia charges more miles for certain
partners and you can't
book one - way
awards on American Airlines with Iberia.
Lufthansa generally only releases
award seats to
partners within a week or so of departure, so you can
book business class and change to first - class if availability opens
up.
One thing to keep in mind is that ANA won't always show you the
partners available for
booking, so you sometimes you'll need to search United and Aeroplan for flights to Bangkok and then call
up ANA to locate the
partner award seats.
Therefore, when you go to
book award tickets for flights within the U.S. via British Airways» Executive Club program, you will see AA flights show
up under the
partner flights section.
Explain the process for
booking awards for
partners which do not show
up online, which must be searched for on other sites and
booked over the phone
Up until now finding Singapore Airlines Suite
award availability may not have been been super-easy but, as long as you've been using Singapore's own KrisFlyer program to
book the
awards (the airline makes more
awards available to its own loyalty program than it does to other Star Alliance
partners),
award availability has regularly been there to be
booked....
Another transfer
partner is Singapore Airlines, which opens
up more
award availability to its own members than it does for
partner awards for those
booking via another program.
Right before I
booked these, Delta was doing Delta things and devalued
partner awards to the UK without notice so I had to come
up with 30,000 total extra miles.
Even if you don't know anything about navigating transfer
partner award charts and making
award bookings, the difference in sign -
up bonus alone is more than enough to make
up the difference in annual fees.
It's also possible to transfer points to
partners and receive
up to 3 or 4 cents per point if you can find a great
award booking opportunity.
But here's the very important thing to know: Not all
partners will show
up on an airline's online
award booking — and the Big Three have some of the worst availability of Saver (low) level
awards of any airlines.
When I added
up all of the carriers you could transfer points to, and all of their
partners that you can
book award flights on, I came
up with 118 unique carriers ranging from Adria Airways to Xiamen Air.
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.
HUCA (Hang
Up, Call Again... and again... and again...) You can not
book most international
partner awards at usairways.com, so you need to call Dividend Miles at 1-800-428-4322 and have agents price out the
award.
The least value points currency among the major ones often discussed by US frequent flyers has to be Virgin Atlantic's — fuel surcharges, can not mix and match
partners,
partner awards that can not be
booked one - way, and challenging call center agents all rolled
up into one.
United then increased the mileage required to
book award tickets in J and F cabins with its airline
partners -
up 70 %!
The problem Louise is running into arises because, unlike Thai First Class and Asiana First Class, Lufthansa First Class
awards are only available to United and Star Alliance
partners up to 15 days in advance (see Lufthansa First Class
Award Space:
Booked 15 Days in Advance).
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